#anyway i am not writing this because i have the actual thesis to write and that is eating my brain

[charcubed]

I watched Sinners in IMAX a few days ago.

I saw it after a long work day and basically had a religious experience.

My friend and I talked about it in the parking lot for an hour, and then I got home at 11:30pm and fell asleep with my phone in my hand at 1AM while writing down my thoughts about it in a doc (at the request of another friend). I took a half day off of work the next day to sleep in and wrote for 4 more hours, then finished cleaning up the doc a couple days later.

So here's about 4,000 words (?!?!) of my thoughts on this incredible fucking masterpiece of a movie.

Certainly not expecting anyone to read this but I do want to put it here for myself :) Because this is how I have fun for some reason!

Disclaimers:

I’m not Black so I’m obviously discussing topics outside the realm of my experience / culture and could be completely off the mark on anything. Apologies in advance if I am. I also assume I’m not the first to say any of this analysis.

These are my initial thoughts and interpretations before deep-diving or Googling or reading interviews about this movie! (That's my rule.) Just from my brain’s first watch and my limited knowledge of history and sociology.

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

-I cannot fucking wait to rewatch this movie with subtitles someday because I know for a FACT I missed some things.

-I liked how Stack drove the red car and Smoke drove the blue truck :) so cute. I was like yaaayyy, hammer home this visual separation so I can get a sense of them as individual people before we keep going, thank you <3 so many good framing and color and lighting choices throughout this movie that foreshadowed things too!

-Lowkey I totally get why people probably want sequels and spinoffs of this universe to learn more lore, but I felt very content with where it left us. The themes/subtext are so strong and so well-executed that the story feels fairly complete in that regard to me because it had things to say and said them well. Not to say the metaphors couldn’t be continued in more storytelling and worldbuilding, obviously, and I’d eat it up if they did decide to do it… But I also think what we got feels fairly satisfying to me.

-However: WHERE IS MY CHOCTAW NATION VAMPIRE HUNTERS SPINOFF. GODDAMN!!! Also love how we get them for literally 3 minutes and they embody every aspect of this movie’s messaging perfectly. Insanely cool shit

Okay anyway

-The opening intro makes such a bold claim about how the music we’re about to hear that’s so incredibly beautiful. It talks of music that transcends time and holds so much power it attracts outside dark forces. And then… when Sammie first plays and opens his mouth to sing… Stack’s reaction is our reaction in the audience, because that claim is immediately upheld as believable. You immediately believe the folklore’s validity because of his skills. Astonishing feat. Holy fucking shit. God I love blues music

-The opening sets up the unsubtle thesis, but then Slim’s story in the car (and its beautiful sound design!!!) after they see the slaves take encouragement / heart through music underscores it all. It felt like a powerful tool to further set up a grounding for the supernatural we were about to see play out, and a reminder of its intended metaphors. Slim’s brother was a blues player who was lynched for the crime of simply existing in his Black joy and trying to get to make a bigger life for himself, and (as Annie later tells Smoke) money was no true power that could save him. In fantasy and reality, when people of color are just living with authentic joy by enjoying their own unique culture and music and lives, it attracts white supremacists who want to gleefully, hatefully leech from or destroy all of it.

-And then Ryan Coogler really was like, “Just in case you missed this movie’s unsubtle messages, we are going to be loud.” The way the vampire fight isn’t the final violence or the point… God. Instead, we end on the justified KKK slaughter. The real klan, the actual reason all of this happened because they set it up, the start of it all and the white supremacy that fuels the darkness. It says, These are the true monsters, and don’t you fucking forget it.

-But, our plot’s main monster is REMMICK. He’s no Southern white man. He’s specifically Irish! I fucking love that they did this. So much nuance here. Remmick has been isolated from his own people, heritage, and language through colonialism and the rise of the Baptist Christian church. Cornbread tells him (and the 2 Klan members…) that there are plenty of other spaces for them and their banjo music, and while of course he’s right – Black people (and POC in general) deserve their own safe spaces of expression, and too often white people are trying to encroach on those – for Remmick, there’s sadness here too. Those other white spaces are not his spaces either. He’s Irish and Celtic; they’re not his culture. He’s adrift and has no place, disconnected from his home, Othered by being an Irishman and a vampire, and the loss of his own culture and family has him desperately seeking attachment to others’ – but in the worst way. His fate is what he now violently forces onto others. While he ostensibly hates the KKK, he aligns with them indiscriminately in search of connection and his own survival, and he essentially helps them achieve their goal of destroying Black people – a mirror to how, in history, Irish people benefitted from white supremacy for their survival at the expense of Black people. (And a mirror, of course, to how white people broadly try to steal from Black culture daily.) Remmick’s message is basically “just assimilate and be free,” simultaneously asking them (especially Sammie) to assimilate into his culture for his sake because it’s what he needs, yet assimilation is clearly its own form of entrapment and death. It’s a tragedy that it was what Remmick was faced with as an Irishman, but it’s a larger inexcusable tragedy that he turned around and decided to perpetuate the same cycle of violence onto others in alliance with white supremacy.

-Of course, we see this most in the contrast between the music ensembles (and holy shit, SHOUT OUT TO THE ASPECT RATIO CHANGES IN THESE!!! Religious experience!!!). Sammie’s “I Lied to You” blues music is transformative and joyful, inspiring multicultural connection and appreciation that honors history and genres. It’s filled with warmth and life, and is perhaps even a hopeful depiction of the true melting pot of America. But Remmick’s “Rocky Road to Dublin” song with the vampires he’s turned has everyone washed out, looking and sounding homogeneous in a sinister way, blending together in the perfect terrifying depiction of what assimilation does. Individuality and different cultures are gone; there is now only this, powered by the violence of whiteness. Remmick’s supposed position being “We believe in equality” is of course a farce, and though he’s not motivated by racism (like the KKK), he has no qualms with aligning with its results. More importantly, his enforced assimilation in the name of supposed equality brings to mind the harmful modern adages of “I don’t see color” and other similar positionings which erase differences in culture rather than honor them. Add to that the moments where Remmick showcases having the memories and skills of people he’s turned, who are now all “connected” to each other but in a way where they’ve lost all individuality. When he speaks Chinese, it’s a moment of horror because it’s a language he didn’t learn for genuine connection but rather stole for cultural appropriation, and then he specifically uses it as a tool of violence (and threats of sexual assault!) against Grace.

-ANNIE. I find it fascinating how she kind of embodies the movie’s critique of the Christian church and evangelism as a tool of white supremacy to placate Black Americans and encourage or enforce assimilation. Annie practices (to my knowledge) hoodoo, occult magic from African culture and a form of spirituality that Christians would obviously deem evil and sinful. But here, her mojo bags and ancestral knowledge are the only things that keep anyone safe. (Notably, Christian crosses did nothing for protection.) She’s another layer to the concepts of being in touch with your culture and ancestors… and she chooses death rather than turning/assimilation or losing her sense of identity. I couldn’t help but think about the history of African slaves jumping overboard from ships because they chose to die on their own terms rather than live in enslavement.

-SLIM. He’s the Black elder who’s seen and experienced and survived horrendous, evil things. Yet despite it all, he’s the comedic relief of the movie. While Slim drinks to repress the trauma (which is objectively not the most healthy decision and it’s constantly pointed out), it doesn’t compromise his connection to his music or to his people. Despite everything, he’s still filled with joy and good humor and wisdom – something that feels very true to life in regards to the fortitude of so many Black elders. And when push comes to shove, he puts his life and body on the line to be ripped to shreds (not assimilated!) by the destructive forces coming for his culture and his people in an attempt to protect them. I fucking loved him.

-MARY. She’d be considered Black by the One-Drop Rule / Jim Crow laws, and she’s grown up in this community, but… she’s not really Black. She feels Othered by that, yes, and it was a natural continuation (to me) to know that was going to result in her becoming a vampire in the plot. Of course there’s a level of sympathy to be given to her and her situation, in the sense that she’s also a victim of segregation, as anyone in an interracial relationship was. She just wanted to live with the man she loves but society wasn’t structured to allow that. But at the end of the day, she still had safety in the ways she was able to move through the world as a white woman — and power. (Stack tells Sammie not to look at her at the train station; if white people claim a Black man looked at a white woman the wrong way, it can turn into a lynching.) It’s notable that Mary is able to go speak to the white people/vampires with less perceived risk to her in ways none of the Black people could… and then she’s also able to be metaphorically turned to their way of seeing things. It’s not an accident that she’s the first turned, then them letting her in and Smoke fucking her is what kickstarts their collective downfall. Mary was a “safe” white person for her Black family all their lives, until abruptly she wasn’t. A too true-to-life tragic possibility.

-PEARLINE. She’s a bold, unapologetic Black woman connected to her culture who chooses her own freedom and authenticity vs Christian traditionalism. A sinner through “infidelity” – a word which can mean being unfaithful to a partner, or unfaithful to religious/Christian belief. And she dies because of it.

-[Side note: super interesting to see the scene of Pearline’s musical beats being timed with the violence of Smoke and the other men killing a guy who was threatening the haven of solidarity and community they’d built. A commentary on being distracted by in-fighting while the real enemy and evil of white supremacy is on the move]

-GRACE. The embodiment of how, when shit is going down, POC solidarity can crumble. At the start, we see her and her family being on “both sides” with the white and Black stores, and able to cross between those 2 stark worlds/realities with ease. “We didn’t sign up for this,” Grace says, when the evil white people come for the Black people; the fun and the culture, but not the fight. Then she makes the selfish and individualized decision to let the evil in at the expense of everyone else. And yet… Her name. Grace. Does the story want us to grant her a little bit of it? I’d argue Smoke gives her grace, because he includes her and her husband in his fond and motivating memories of the earlier parts of the day. Is what Grace does defendable? No, but perhaps it’s meant to be understandable. In the moment, she’s not thinking of saving her own skin or uselessly trying to save her husband; she’s thinking of wanting to protect her daughter and the rest of the town, so instead of choosing passivity, she opts to protect them by addressing and destroying the monsters head-on so they can’t continue their evil mission. But unfortunately, in another example of lack of solidarity, she goes straight to destroy her husband and her fight stops there regardless of everyone else’s fight. Her vindictive revenge turns into mutual destruction because she burns up with him. And she’s perhaps also an example of how when someone is so focused on being combative with a person who broke their tradition they forget to focus on what they still have to protect.

-Speaking of names… lol. CORNBREAD. Obviously there was intentional comedic relief happening in the scene where he’s pissing in the woods and monsters are hidden around him whispering “Is that cornbread?” lmaaaooo but also… Not just silliness! Cornbread is historical food for survival and resilience that has roots in several different cultures. It stems from making something from very little under the forces of oppression and enforced famine, and it’s what the Indigenous people, Black Southern Americans, and the Irish all made. Something that should be or could be a source of connection and a way to let each other in (as he was the doorman!), but instead becomes another tool of violence and of a right vs wrong way to be.

-SMOKE. Violence as protection, and a burden to be shouldered for tenderness and love. He killed his father to protect Stack. He killed Annie because she asked him to. He sent Sammie away to face and kill the KKK men by himself, knowing he might be killing himself in the process. I think of the scene where he’s dying and Annie in the afterlife is watching him while holding their child. As Smoke unloads bullets into the dying klan member, she doesn’t flinch at his violence, and neither do we as the audience. It’s righteous and justified, and in the very next moment, he holds his daughter softly. The violence stands in contrast to his connection to his brother and lover and daughter, but it’s not antithetical to it or a threat to it. Defense of Black culture – and Black masculinity itself – is not inherently violent. Smoke is not his violent father; he broke that cycle too. He is tender and loving, and it’s the reason for his protectiveness and informs his violence that’s directed outward in defense of his family, and especially at the vampires and white supremacists. There’s also something to be said for how Smoke has these violent skills and weapons because he was a soldier in WWI. He served a country that treats him and his people as less than human. And Grace even tells him, “Aren’t you a soldier?” Yes, he was. He shouldn’t have to be at home. And yet, this too is a war, with him and his people being constantly besieged when all they want is peace. Along those lines: At first, Smoke thought that money could be a form of power, to the point of nearly slipping into valuing it more than community when it came down to payment for drinks at the juke joint. But he internalizes and learns especially from Annie that money can’t save you; money didn’t save Slim’s brother who was lynched, and the twins throwing money at a Klan member for the juke joint didn’t stop them from pulling up to their door. Smoke comes to fully learn that All we have is family, community, and our traditions, and we can’t let them take that. Perhaps that’s also part of the reason why he couldn’t kill Stack in the end, instead killing Remmick (as he killed their father) to give Stack his best chance at freedom.

-SMOKE & STACK. The older brother looking at his now-wayward younger brother who suddenly feels like a different person. The twin who looks at his mirrored self and doesn’t recognize who he sees anymore. Who is Stack now? Did Smoke fail him? But there’s something in Stack that is still him, even though he’s forever changed, and ultimately Smoke can’t destroy that. From one sibling to another, it’s the thought of “I can’t abide by or agree with what you’ve become but I can’t destroy you either.” There’s no me without you in the sense that we’re forever tied, but also in the sense that we were instrumental in making each other who we are, for better and worse.

-“ELIJAH MOORE” VS “STACK.” Names are powerful. Smoke’s real name is used in the end as a nod to the connections to his history and roots, and also to his truest self, which he reunites with just as he reunites with Annie, their child, and spirituality in death. Contrast this with Stack, who is going by his nickname in perpetuity – a half name that’s forever cut off from Smoke as the other half, and a disconnect from his old self he’s buried. In the end credit scene, STACK is seen on his ring and visually tied to stacks of money under his hand, aka empty power at high cost. It’s a sad reversal of Stack’s prior thoughts on community and people being more important than profit, when he and Annie were united at the juke joint in pushing back against Smoke’s pursuit of “American dollars.”

-SAMMIE and “This Little Light of Mine.” My goodness. At the start of the movie, Sammie’s preacher father wanted him to sing gospel as a way to lead others in the church, but he never gets to in the context/timeline of the movie. We only hear the choir singing it in the opening instead without Sammie’s involvement. But then, the final credits scene: Sammie has his guitar, which we know doesn’t exist anymore because it’s the guitar he used to fight off demons (literal and metaphorical), and now he’s singing it as a blues song. Did he sing it in church at an earlier point before the events of the movie? Who knows. Doesn’t matter. What matters is this: Sammie’s preacher father tried to give him an ultimatum. Put down the guitar; put down the blues music and the dancing and the sex; put down the sinning. It all attracts darkness, so come back to church and return to the Lord. Be pure. The Christian church, explicitly used as a tool of oppression that benefits white supremacy. But even after the horrors and trauma Sammie experiences – some of which he even draws in through his music (and metaphorically his “sinning”), which is not his fault – Sammie won’t let it go. He can’t. It’s who he is, and it’s his culture and connection to his ancestors, and there’s nothing sinful about any of it. The music, the dancing, the fucking, or anything else. It’s all beautiful, and the embracing of it all then necessitates (because of his father’s ultimatum) a level of rejection of the church in order to continue to live. But despite all of that… The church (and perhaps some redefined aspect of faith) is still a part of him and his culture too. He carries it with him, which is a relatable notion for many people who were raised religious and either chose to walk away or were forced to because of the inherit ultimatums in its restrictions. And so: Sammie had been told to lead and use his music to shine his little light all around the world. It may not be for the church or in the way his father wanted, but by God, he still went out and did just that. In his way, on his terms, without forgetting where he came from.

-Sammie stands in church at the start of the movie. His pastor father has been pushing, Give me the blues guitar. Rejoin our congregation. Sing gospel. Sammie stands in church and it’s intercut with flashbacks of Remmick attacking him. Give me your music. Join our clan. Sing Irish folk songs for me. And yeah, Sammie’s grip on that blues guitar stays real tight.

-[Side note, mostly kidding: all vampire stories could do with a bit of queerness. As merely a fun exercise, if I was choosing to make one aspect of this movie queer in a way that naturally further services the themes… I’d make Pearline a man. Have Sammie be a “sinner” in another dramatic sense by making him queer. What if on the best day of his life in the juke joint, he connects with another man through music and then fucks a man? Much to think about. But there’s a lot going on in this movie already of course, in a specific historical context. And people would’ve gotten too distracted from the various core messages about race and culture (because no one can be normal about seeing queer stuff and understanding intersectionality). But hey, that would’ve hit! And would’ve fit. Just an interesting and extremely unnecessary what if in the privacy of my own mind.]

-STACK (& MARY). Still alive, but dead inside. How good is the life they lead? Stack, when trying to convince Smoke to join the vampire clan, referred to the assimilation they were experiencing as a form of freedom because of the (tangential-to-whiteness) power. But not only is that freedom untrue and filled with conditions, it also comes at a high cost. Eternally separated from their family, divorced from culture, their old selves and lives dead and gone, with no one but Sammie left to remember who they really were. Frozen, adrift, unable to move on or grow. But here’s the thing: was it their fault? Both Mary and Stack’s turnings were nonconsensual. Their disconnection from and erasure of their culture was nonconsensual, and they became Different before they realized what was happening. Remmick is killed and they’re free of his influence and control now, but where does that leave them anyway? They’re still ostracized and left out in the cold, and can’t be let back in unless someone lets them in, which no one is inclined to do – except for Sammie. In Stack and Mary, we see the cost of leaving your cultural roots behind, or (more accurately) having them taken from you violently, forcefully, or through the inescapable encroaching influences of colonialism and white supremacy. As foreshadowed by Sammie’s question to Mary in the juke joint: what are they now? They’re something Other, trying to make their space in the world, and dressed not dissimilarly to the genres of music seen when Sammie’s blues transcended time. So maybe they’re trying to make their own spaces work. But in particular… Stack can’t fit with the white humans, and he can also never go home. Yet he and Mary long for home and for culture, and make an attempt to reconnect with it – which, incredibly, Sammie allows. Sammie is now (visually) the elder who lets the wayward young people back in. He literally embraces Stack – and I think it’s key that he doesn’t embrace Mary. Stack and Mary may be together, but the ways in which they’ve been changed and the disconnect they’re experiencing is undeniably different, because Stack is Black and Mary is not. Its relevance can’t be ignored. This moment and this culture is not hers in the same way. Sammie takes a last parting shot at that point and hammers the themes home by changing the lyrics of his “Travelin’”: I don't know why in the hell I'm here, because the woman I'm lovin', you know she really don’t care. Fully justified? Slightly unfair to her trauma? Maybe mostly the former and a tiny bit of the latter, and heartbreakingly understandable regardless.

[bioluminescent-fungus]

every time I switch between writing fic (gazing longingly at a bullet-point outline) and writing my thesis (actually putting words on the page) I think a little bit about the crossover AU that lives in my head. the problem is that this crossover AU, the footnotes AU if you will, would be less "let's put these characters into anglo-saxon england" and more "let's translate the plot of this story into something that the beowulf poet would understand" which is different and probably entirely indigestible to a modern readership. but in my head it exists fully formed and I am very fond of it.

[sumquiasum]

In honour of Tanz Hamburg closing, list of lines that enable my trans Sarah reading.

Sarah @ Alfred: "Du hast was ich gern hätt'"

Krolok @ Sarah: "Ich geb' dir, was dir fehlt"

Krolok @ Sarah: "Du wirst dich in mir erkennen"

[delta-piscium]

asking whoever came up with quotes in academic papers for their hand in marriage, i love filling up my word count with quotes that explain my point so i don’t have to and they make me look so well read too, we shall have a spring wedding my love

[crossbackpoke-check]

56 and any Yamo pairing! 🫶

i just wheezed so hard when i saw what the song was i almost snorted coffee out of my nose i am so sorry for this one

#56 - kyoto phoebe bridgers + yamo

the story of how this song ended up on my wrapped is too long so it’s going in the tags but. let me set the scene for you.

2026 NHL GLOBAL SERIES™️ JAPAN - Presented by YPPI

November 13 & 14, 2026: Dallas Stars, Montreal Canadiens, Seattle Kraken, Vancouver Canucks

Saitama Super Arena, Saitama, Japan

It’s a pitiful excuse of a consolation prize for not being able to go to the Olympics, but Kailer’s not going to look a vacation horse in the mouth. The arena’s cool. It’s huge. The people are cool. There’s so many more of them than he thought there’d be with jerseys that have his name on the back, and a lot more that have the familiar orange and blue. He takes a picture of the fifth Oilers Yamamoto jersey he signs—this one’s the good Reverse Retro—and texts it to Connor, says,

no one here has even heard of mcjesus

and gets a moon face emoji in response. Leon’s influence. Kailer’s still never really deciphered what that one means, and he doesn’t think Connor knows either.

They don’t have a lot of time off between games, but Kailer’s trying to be a good tourist. His dad had been so happy when Kailer had told him about the series that Kailer’d had to stop him from trying to book a flight a year in advance, and his mom’s been just as bad, sending him every article she sees about Best New Spot in Tokyo! Cool Restaurant! Have You Seen This Japanese Cat Café? that she scrolls across on Facebook since June. Suzy’s in the same boat, so they’ve been crossing off their compiled travel-guide list together, looping in as many guys as they can. Everyone’s been pretty game. All the teams are crammed into close quarters at the same hotel, which means everyone wants to spend as much time as possible outside of it, and it helps that Kailer’s gotten pretty close with all the other guys that the NHL picked up as Global Series figureheads. Robo’s memes? Absolutely fire. The groupchat loves them.

For every item he crosses off the list, Kailer takes a picture and keeps it tucked in his phone notes. It’s like speed-running a scavenger hunt—they’re only here for four days—but he’s doing a pretty good job. His favorite so far has been all the gardens. They’re stunning, trees shining bright red and yellow, and every vendor has been selling maple candies, maple cakes, and even fried maple, though the official maple festival doesn’t start until next week. The second garden he visits, he does it on his own after practice, buying two cakes from a cart near the gate and walking until he loses the bustle outside. It’s easy to get lost in the winding pathways, heading deeper into the quiet, and there’s dozens of benches underneath the burnished leaves where young couples are tucked away on dates, or old friends are laughing and catching up. In some of the little clearings, there’s small shrines where people leave offerings, a prayer for good luck or good fortune.

Kailer stops at one without any people and sets the second maple cake on top of it, then sits and scrolls through all the texts that he’s missed. His mom gets replied to with a picture of him outside the garden gate, grinning and surrounded by other travelers. He sends his brother a picture of a trashy graphic I Love Japan t-shirt with the threat that he’ll buy one for him, and Kailer’s dad gets a picture of the meticulously arranged and cut bonsai that are across from the bench where he’s sitting. The Seattle groupchat gets a recycled meme from Robo, and he gets two thumbs up and an “LMAO” before he can even exit the thread. Finally, Kailer takes a picture of the half-eaten maple cake in his hand, holding it next to a fallen maple leaf on the bench, and gets halfway through typing another message before he thinks better of it.

(On the plane over, Drieds was reading them a story about how when they first introduced the high-speed railway, people were afraid to use it because they thought it would be too fast for their souls to keep up.

“Bro, if that were true, you just left your soul in the middle of the Pacific,” Ebs had laughed. “Planes are faster than trains.”

“Are they?” Matty asked. “Isn’t the train in Japan the fastest in the world?”

Drieds couldn’t make it through the rest of the story over the sound of everyone ripping Matty to shreds, so Kailer didn’t get to ask whether or not they found out anything about planes. Kailer’s not worried about his soul, but the logic makes a strange kind of sense; after all, he traveled 429 miles in five and a half hours once, and that was a little too fast for his heart to keep up.)

Fuck it. Kailer’s been trying to write a response for the past ten days, and he’s sick of swiping in and out of the message, staring at the keyboard so long he starts to see swirls in his vision.

Kailer drafts the text again and sends it, no context, no caption. A text travels faster than a high-speed train or a jet. Maybe it’ll pick his heart back up on the way.

[dameronology]

matt murdock headcanons

i have about 4000 words to write for my thesis so instead i am writing these. enjoy xx

matt takes his coffee black. nothing else added, literally just black. anything else overwhelms his senses. for the first six months of your relationship, you kept accidentally leaving little coffee grounds floating in the bottom that made him want to die, but he loves you so he did not say anything.

actually, matt is the king of "i love you so i won't say anything." if you burn dinner or wear that one scratchy jumper that overwhelms him or flood the bathroom so it's a gosh darn slip and slide, he won't say anything. why would he? he loves you as you are.

matt doesn't need you to guide him in public but he will hold your arm or hand just because he wants too. he especially likes when your hands are loosely intertwined and he can feel your pulse against his skin. it's calming for him.

sometimes he forgets that you weren't always in his life. he'll tell a story from college as though you were because it just doesn't feel right to have lived a life where you weren't in it.

matt rarely calls you by your name. it's always sweetheart, and sometimes baby.

although one time foggy heard him call you the latter and then called matt baby girl and babycakes for a week until karen threatened to beat them both up

on the subject of foggy & karen -- they both love you!! they'd always been protective of their little trio but you fit in perfectly.

those two quickly become your best friends.

josie's for drinks after work on a friday is standard. matt will always have an arm looped around your waist, or a hand on your thigh, or just any form of physical contact really. mostly because he's over protective.

matt doesn't get hungover and it's really fucking annoying. you've seen him pound back pint after pint, just to wake up feeling fresh as a daisy the next day.

the good news?? he's vision impaired so he won't open the curtains when you're hanging out your absolute arse !!

he's the best at looking after you when you're hanging, though. he'll make you a smoothy and a greasy breakfast.

actually, matt is just the best in the mornings anyways. you'll always have a cup of coffee made before you're awake, with breakfast on the counter.

living with matt is domestic bliss tbh

that's not to say you don't argue -- you're both human and in his line of work, both day job and night job, it comes with its bad days and times when he keeps shit bottled up

so you prod and you poke until he explodes and finally, you argue and it's cathartic as hell

matty is very overprotective too, which has lead to tension

it was a little over the top at first, but you settle for having life 360 on both your phones and letting him know when you arrive places safely

even when you have really bad arguments, you always find your back to each other

one time you joked "i'll send you a text if wilson fisk murders me" and he didn't find it funny

actually he almost cried

the be all and end all though is that against the back drop of new york city, and even though you're in the arse, you are everything that's pure in matt's world.

[anonfandombandit]

hi. I wanted to reach out privately to ask whether you are using AI to write any of your fics. me and a few others are concerned you may be using AI to aid you in writing. some of the proof we have gathered:

excessive use of dashes and semi colons in a way that a human would not use them

repetitive use of certain words and phrases like 'smirks' 'thunderous' 'says softly' 'her eyes were piercing'

chapters being 20-30000+ words written in a short time frame

not using a beta reader who would pick up use of AI in your writing

using AI evasion tools to avoid AI checkers

please clarify if you are using generative AI when writing because its damaging to the writing community and you should be declaring if you are using it

I’ve been debating how to respond to this for a while now. I’ll be honest, when I first read it, I laughed. My first immediate thought was “wow, guess this makes me a real agathario writer now” because is it not a right of passage to get accused of using AI in this community?

Really, though, I’m kind of insulted. Bitterly so. So much so that I’m too offended to even feel really angry or upset. The fact you have sent this anonymously and “privately” is proof enough to me that you are not actually concerned, and have malicious intent. Who exactly are these “few other people” you are talking about? Why not post this publicly with your name behind it, if you’re so confident in your accusations? Doing so anonymously is, frankly, cowardly.

To make it incredibly clear - No. I don’t use AI in any of my fics. I literally work in academia where we are allergic to AI use. It’s false authorship. Using it in my career would end it. I’ve been writing fics for half of my life, I’d like to think I don’t need to rely on shitty AI prose and dialogue to tell a story. And I’m fully aware of how damaging AI use is to fic writers which is why I am vehemently against it. I’ve spoken to several other writers in the coven about how much I hate it.

Your proof is hilarious. Yes, I like semi colons and dashes. That’s my writing style. Is my use of the Oxford comma also suspicious to you? I also have favourite phrases and words I like to use, like every other writer. The 20k/30k chapters you are talking about were written in, on average, a month, so that’s ~1k words written a day which any other writer could tell you is possible. Also need I remind you that the 30k chapter was written while I was off work and bed-bound with pneumonia? So yeah, I might have had a little more free time to write in February and March.

I do my own editing rather than having a beta reader because throwing a novella at them to give feedback on would be insane. And I can only assume you are saying I’m using “AI evasion tools” (which…. What. What are you talking about) because you tried to use an AI detector on my fics and they came back with nothing. Because guess what. I don’t use AI. Because I love my fics.

Anyway. Guess I’m just going to feel bitter for a while over this. I was planning on scaling back my writing anyway in the summer since my PhD thesis writing period is approaching, but I might just start now. I’ll be focusing on safeword, hopeless and fragile things for the moment. I might write some short fics for AAA week but probably won’t find the time.

Thanks to everybody who has been so supportive and patient with me and my fic posting. I know it sucks that you have to wait so long between chapters, especially for safeword. But part of why they take so long is because I don’t want to rush writing them. I really appreciate everyone who has reached out to tell me how much my fics mean to them and how you have enjoyed them.

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

okay . while i was writing the essay , i was going on a big spiel about how fandoms often reduce characters to familiar archetypes . then when i finished writing i realized i actually don't know what the Fuck i was yapping about because it all doesn't really apply to the tadc fandom post-ep 2 ? like Cool !! ragatha's an absolute loser of a woman , i think everyone has known that at this point .

basically ragatha's not the Best model for when i want to talk about nice characters being mischaracterized in fandom because i stopped seeing people making her put-together anyway . i can think of other characters that'll fit the thesis better .

i'm only deciding to post what i had down because i think i did say some stuff of note and because people were interested for . some reason ! . just keep in mind that it kind of became a nothingburger .

i'm in the middle of rewriting it to be less about the fandom though and my god it's already around 1118 words what am i doing with my life

also apologies in advance for the walls of text

——— this is not an essay to get you to like ragatha if you’re feeling meh towards her , or even dislike her . opinions are opinions , you have characters that appeal to you and i have mine ! this is just a ramblefest on why i love her , how people characterized her , and commentary on fandom culture as a whole

this is also not meant to bash any headcanons ! like good for you if you see her as the mother figure in the circus found family . the term ‘ mom friend ‘ here is used to describe how people often reduced her and similar characters down to a caretaker role for other characters while ignoring the Depth they have

as i think is clear in this blog by now , my favorite character in a piece of fiction has always been a mentally ill woman . the more complicated the brain , the better . i don’t have a type , but i know more often than not i would gravitate towards characters that are either misunderstood or disliked by most of the fandom

can you guess which category ragatha falls under —

don’t get me wrong , i am NOT generalizing tadc fans here ! the idea of her being a well-put together person lessened around episode 2 which is GREAT because i got to read very cool fics — and i’m not saying you have to know every part of ragatha’s thought processes to talk about her ( though at this point i think i’ve heard enough takes that makes me want to say that — )

‘ nice characters ‘ ( especially female ones ! ) in fandom never have the most pleasant development in my experience . either they will be pushed aside because they’re seen as boring compared to the more brasher characters or they’ll be disliked for the few times they did something seen as ‘ not so nice ‘ . and in the few times where they Are being paid attention , they’ll be put in an arbitrary box that waters down their traits .

in other words , fandoms put characters in boxes . terms like ‘ mom friend ‘ and ‘ cinnamon roll ‘ are those boxes . they're common tropes in media that fandoms typically like . it’s why people were so disappointed to find out that jax is actually an unlikable asshole instead of a ' jerk with a heart of gold ' — these boxes make the characters easy to consume and understand .

as you can tell , i don’t agree with putting characters in boxes ! first of all , how are they supposed to breathe in there ?

secondly , it’s just restricting yourself from genuinely engaging with a piece of media , especially for a character-driven story like tadc . i would be More forgiving of this problem if tadc was a plot-heavy show where the lore’s the main focus , but The Characters Are The Focus , Johnathan . trying to understand the characters personally to extract any potential moral lessons from them Is The Point of those types of stories

thirdly , i call those boxes arbitrary for a reason ; they often don't describe the characters at all , and in some cases , even goes against their characterization . my biggest problem with mom friend ragatha is that it Takes away the things that makes her interesting as a character .

do you know what's so compelling about ragatha ? it's that , believe it or not , she is Not the most reliable . one of the most fascinating things with ragatha in episode two is how it shows her approaching emotions Vs. Pomni approaching emotions .

even though it's unintentional , ragatha can be seen as Dismissive and Overbearing . the way she tried to reassure pomni of not feeling hurt by being left behind can seem Passive-Aggressive . her conversation with kinger shows that she Assumes what the other person thinks without hearing them out . this contrasts against pomni who lets gummigoo speak out his feelings and actually had viable things to say than ' don't worry about it haha '

this contrast is interesting to note because it shows the world of difference between ragatha and pomni's emotional maturity .

you can tell that ragatha can be simple-minded . not in a ' she's a dumbass ' way , but in that she's Reluctant to approach uncomfortable emotions without beaming it with a ray of positivity . like you can tell she thinks that Repressing her emotions to the point she can't feel them is the same as ' processing ' them . all of these are stuff that don't fit the Mature Mom Friend archetype .

and that's Fine !! because she was never meant to be in the role anyway !! there's a common theme of Community and Support in tadc , and that Everyone Has Each Other . ragatha was never meant to be the Glue holding everyone together , she's meant to be a part of the Unit that is the circus .

there's also a conversation to be had about how older female characters — or at least characters that are seen as having stereotypically ' feminine ' traits of being kind and caring — are often being pushed to a reductive , supportive familial role that reinforces gender roles , but you didn't hear it from me !

anyways uh in conclusion ragatha's awesomesauce ok i'm going back to drawing

[guardevoir]

Why is it that I, haver of no patience, endurance, object permanence, or general good sense, am also so terminally attracted to gigantic mammoth projects that nobody with two braincells to rub together would want to attempt?

(also, why is that project I'm rotating in my mind like a well-done blorbo never the stuff I'm supposed to be working on? I literally have a whole fucking masters thesis to write, about a topic I actually like (and which I will talk about at length if anyone asks, hint hint))

Anyway.

I can spin, crochet, knit (badly) and weave (in three, soon to be four, different flavors). I've sewn things before. I've been severely eyeing nålbinding for a while and actually do have a needle for it.

I am mightily tempted, positively entranced, by the idea of making a whole outfit by hand. Spinning, potentially dyeing, making it into clothes, the whole deal. Bottoms, top, layering for warmth, accessories, all handmade completely from scratch. It would be the project of a lifetime. It would take a lifetime.

The only thing keeping me safe right now is that wool directly on the skin doesn't sound like a great time because even if it ain't itchy, it would be kind of a pain to wash, I don't trust myself to spin a cotton or linen yarn that's both fine and sturdy enough to weave with, and I think a crocheted base layer would be too bulky.

(Also I'd probably have to deal with the Vague Dysphoria of skirt, because I am *not* sewing pants, but I'd do it for the aesthetic. Also, Secret Pants might be a fun third option)

But dear fucking lord, the lure of the "Strange Temporally Displaced Pasture Gremlin"-Core outfit is strong.

[hazzabeeforlou]

i had a question and i hope that it doesn’t sound rude. do you feel ashamed being in the fandom and being a shipper at 32? i ask because i am 27, and have been in the fandom since 2012, off and on. i haven’t rly been in it actively for the last two years or so, but when i want to come back, i feel embarrassed. i also don’t think i could handle the stress of it tbh! lol. i hope you are well <3

I was going to answer this yesterday but then remembered I had a 7 hour drive today and didn’t want to stay up later than I already was. Because I’m an adult, with (now one) previous multiple jobs, a pet, rent, vehicle, three post high school diplomas, and student loans, and there are many things in my life I get ashamed of, like when I answer “you too” when a cashier tells me thanks for shopping or when I let a whole bag of celery go bad in my fridge without ever cleaning or eating it. Shame? At my tax dollars funding death weapons and family members voting for strong men? Sure. Latent homophobic internalized shame from my upbringing? Yeah, sometimes.

But life is too fucking short to be embarrassed or hold shame about a FANDOM. Listen, I “ship” Johnlock, or Merthur, but Larry wasn’t a ship for me it was a discovery of queer joy. Like I’m so sorry but baby Larry was real. 100%, actually, seriously legit, like how else do you fucking explain any or all of that. We watched two boys fall in love with each other and okay we don’t know the devil or the details but we have how many albums and interviews, jokes made by media personalities etc, plus the fact that now, this many years later, their solo stuff is still haunted by a nauseating back and forth, these odd lyrical choices that are echoed in the other?

Yeah it’s not a ship. It’s a thing that happened, that we witnessed, and by virtue of it happening and us witnessing it something about gay love became dreamable, reachable, attainable, soft and puppy and exciting and wild. Their secret sign language and mimed blow jobs and jealous looks and touches when they thought there were no cameras, all those things made queerness not just something you saw on Glee. Not just something your parents talked about while wrinkling their nose up about ‘those people.’ It’s a generational thing, the world has moved on, we don’t NEED Larry anymore. And that’s okay. But we don’t need it because it happened. Not to be a brat but you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

And yeah, we wrote fics about highly characterized and publicized versions of Larry, often inserting our own traumas or fantasies, creating a kind of gay mythos around this witnessed event from the periphery, from the lens of the consumer, the only lens we have. But I’m not ashamed of that. You think stories are only ever written about people that don’t exist? At some point you have to acknowledge that in our world, celebrities are the deities of our popular imagination. I could write a thesis, but before I get into the weeds, suffice to say Harry and Louis have created a world of what can be, unburdened by what has been.

Yk? Anyways. Hope this made you feel better. And hope you come back to visit from time to time. I’ll be here.

[roryknightwrites]

Aventurine Is BPD Coded- Some Thoughts

Ahhh welcome back everybody to another installment of 'Rory writes a ridiculously long essay nobody asked for to shine light on characters who exhibit symptoms of borderline personality disorder so that we can learn to recognize symptoms portrayed in media that aren't just 'crazy manipulative abusive ex' and start to treat the disorder with a shred of compassion' !!

A good chunk of you follow me because of my essay I wrote on Reo Mikage from Blue Lock, my beautiful borderline princess, and I am PLEASED to announce that my essay is now the first result when you search 'Reo Mikage BPD' on Google, AND he has since been added to the BPD character database !! Saving the world one baddie at a time, no need to thank me B)

Today, I want to write something out that I've been dying to share. I think Aventurine can be read as a BPD coded character, and I think he would be able to cop a diagnosis should he go see a therapist (which we all know he CLEARLY has not done). I've been puttering around posting this because I've been spending so long on a full, all encompassing analysis of this sick blonde man, but I want to take a quick break and kick my feet over BPD Aventurine, so I invite you to come kick your feet with me!

Some context before I start:

1.) Borderline representation is extremely important to me. I've got the BPD / CPTSD combo meal, so I'm having TWICE the fun !! But seriously though, it's not easy being viewed as crazy and 'bad' all the time. Trauma disorders are rough enough as it is just to live with / overcome, but it's worse when there are books, forums, blogs, shows, ect. dedicated to hating you and talking about how evil you are. So, I get really excited when I spy BPD-coded characters (especially if they're likable people and not just ghoulish irredeemable villains or manic pixie dream girl characters). Fans, characters, and even Aventurine himself refer to him as 'crazy' 'insane' 'unstable' which only further rang my BPD bells because he's not crazy; he's just traumatized!

2.) I’m not a psych, so I obviously can’t diagnose real people, and don’t use any of this to diagnose yourself (I don't need the scandal!) I do, however, have a masters degree in English and structured the basis of my education and published my thesis on mental health, cluster B personality disorders specifically, so I read and research a LOT. I’m confident enough in my knowledge to diagnose anime characters (lol).

3.) If you're somebody who has a weird hangup about borderlines, feel free to either not read this, or do read it and soak up some useful information! Regardless, I know Aventurine fans can have some really wild takes (/neg) , so believe what you want at the end of the day! This is just my interpretation of what's festering in that sad brain of his. You can disagree all you want to, but what we're not going to do is spread hateful stereotypes or perpetuate negative stigmas about BPD! That's cornball behavior and I will call you out for it ^-^

CW for discussion of death, suicide, self injury, and identity disturbances

Anyways, if you ask me, Aventurine has a case of Beautiful Princess Disorder, and I'd like to explain why <3 So, buckle up! This will be another long one.

First, let me define BPD: it's a personality disorder characterized by a long-standing pattern of instability in mood, interpersonal relationships, and self-image. Though it's coined as a 'personality disorder', I urge you to look at it as a trauma disorder. People most often develop it when they are repeatedly traumatized during their formative years. It actually overlaps a TON with complex post traumatic stress disorder, which is why a lot of us baddies end up with both! (On that note, you could definitely view Aventurine as CPTSD-coded as well! I'm a stinky kinnie so I'll just say he's both <3) I won't preach too much on why it's so necessary to treat borderline as a traumatic stress disorder (since hopefully I'll be focusing my own personal academic research on that and I could yap for HOURS about it lol).

But when we look at BPD properly, it's evident that the basis of this disorder is that these people didn't have the opportunity to learn and foster proper emotional reactions. Because of the recurring traumatic events, sections of borderline's brains are underdeveloped as a result. They have a smaller amygdala and they have reduced volume in the prefrontal cortex, as well as other differences in brain development. I've heard it described as 'you were forced to learn some behaviors that helped you survive at one point in your life (for example, maybe fervent efforts to avoid abandonment, unstable emotional reactions, self harming tendencies, lying, mirroring, etc.,) but now you need to unlearn them, because they’re no longer helping you.'  They're trauma responses.

Aventurine shows us a perfect example of the kind of shit that would make someone develop BPD: dude grew up in extreme poverty, was constantly told he was special and he was supposed to bring good luck, watched his entire family and race die in front of him when he was literally still just a kid, was kidnapped and sold into slavery, was forced to murder roughly 34 people while everybody watched him like it was a game, probably went through several other fucked up things while he was enslaved, and then killed his slave owner and was promptly sentenced to death for it. That's...a whole lot of ridiculous trauma that would severely impact somebody's ability to mentally grow and develop correctly. The bulk of his childhood/adolescence was spent with no safety, no security, overwhelming guilt, constant fight or flight reactions, learning how to take on other personas to avoid violence or mistreatment – you get the point. He did not have a normal life and it is absolutely probable that he would develop a trauma disorder from the shit he's been through.

So then, what behaviors/signs does somebody need to exhibit to receive a Borderline diagnosis? The 9 diagnostic criteria for BPD are as follows:

1. Fear of abandonment

2. Unstable or changing relationships

3. Unstable self-image; struggles with identity or sense of self

4. Impulsive or self-damaging behaviors

5. Suicidal behavior or self-injury

6. Varied or random mood swings

7. Constant feelings of worthlessness or sadness

8. Problems with anger, including frequent loss of temper or physical fights

9. Stress-related paranoia or loss of contact with reality

As with my last post, I'm going to organize this based on the 5 immediate traits I think Aventurine exhibits most (you only need 5 out of 9 to receive a diagnosis, so let me cut to the chase and stop wasting your time w my yapping).

Fear of Abandonment:

Aventurine has a habit of wanting relationships and then pushing them away once they get too close. He also clearly has trauma associated with losing people prematurely.

First of all, let's look at Aventurine's tendency to view relationships as transactional. With the expectation that a friendship, partnership – whatever –  is mutually beneficial, that generally implies both parties will leave satisfied once the 'transaction' is complete. That’s his parting line in the game, actually! “Satisfied with our transaction, I trust?” 

That being said, he's already prepared for people to leave when they're done getting what they want from him. In one trailer (and the game) he refers to himself as "another cog in the machine known as the strategic investment department" and then says, "Your humble servant aventurine at your disposal [...] I can also play the role of ‘friend’ – if needed; Go ahead, use me as you wish, even stab me in the back if you see fit."

This is a very strange thing to say upon first meeting someone LMAO. He's speaking of himself like he's an object, rather than a person. Before the other party even says anything, he's basically saying 'hey btw if you end up disappointing me in some way, i'm already prepared for it!' Establishing relationships with the assumption that the other person will betray you/abandon you/hurt you in some way? Borderline behavior. God forbid somebody does try to break down one of these walls, we'll see Aventurine's second habit to avoid abandonment: pushing people away.

Something people don't necessarily consider is that ‘efforts to avoid abandonment’ doesn't always mean the person is on their knees begging you to not to leave them. It can manifest as someone being very flighty and purposefully cutting ties randomly/pushing people away from them so that nobody is able to abandon them. If you leave first, they can’t leave you, right? This is a very common behavior for borderlines to avoid the pain that comes with being abandoned.

The most notable moment of this, in my opinion, is when Aventurine tries to gaslight himself into thinking that Ratio really did stab him in the back during their ploy against Sunday. As we know, their fighting, bickering, and Ratio's 'betrayal' were all part of Aventurine's plan. When they leave Sunday's office, Ratio immediately asks if he's okay and if he needs help, and Aventurine is very dismissive/a little rude in his response. Ratio is confused because Aventurine is talking as if he wasn't the one who MADE this plan and TOLD Ratio what to do:

Aventurine is basically saying, "Hey babe this is not in the script we talked about! Let's stay on track, remember? You hate me, you betrayed me, and now you're leaving me!" And Ratio is like "Yeah okay but are you good? Because you don't seem good,” but Aventurine's heels are so far in the dirt at this point that he is NOT budging at all. When he's in the Trauma Maze, Future Aventurine grills him on this moment:

I get why this part confused some people; why would Aventurine think this when the plan was his idea in the first place? Because, he subconsciously doesn't want to get too attached to the idea that Ratio might ACTUALLY care about him or want to help him. He's forcing himself to think "no, that's not what he was doing, he was planning on actually ratting me out all along, he was only asking about my wellbeing to get in my head."

However, I think it's evident that Aventurine wants relationships/attention just as much as everybody else does, he just won't let himself have it. To further this idea, I think the lyrics to White Night (the Penacony trailer theme song) are worth looking at (these specifically):

I don't wanna be alone tonightOh, lead me with your altered signThere's no one else left for me to loseHeadin' to the other side, other side

I don't wanna be alone tonightI'll bring you to my best disguise'Cause you don't need, don't need to know the truthLet me rave forever in your life

The song is obviously about Aventurine when you look at the lyrics, but these lines in particular just further my point that this man does NOT like the fact that he's alone. He wants relationships, he wants closeness, but he rejects it at the same time out of fear that he might lose somebody prematurely again and doesn't want to experience being abandoned or being rejected for his personality (his real one or his fake one), which leads me to...

Unstable Self-Image; Struggles With Identity or Sense of Self:

The shift from Kakavasha to Aventurine screwed this guy up REAL bad. A MASSIVE part of Aventurine's character, in my opinion, is his struggle with his identity/sense of self. I mean, he literally had to kill off who he used to be in order to live how he's living now, and he didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Jade sums it up pretty well when Aventurine is sat before her on trial: 

Aventurine joining the IPC comes with the price of...well, becoming 'Aventurine'. Since I'm clocking him with a BPD diagnosis, the identity disturbance would have probably happened before this moment, and I think it did. I'll bet it started festering after that first massive traumatic event where he watched his family die and tried to rationalize how that was possible with his 'good luck' (since that was really the only consistent idea he had about himself), and it probably only got worse when he became fixated on the fact that whoever tf he is, he's only worth 60 copper coins (did the math – that's about $3). That's gotta cause some massive identity issues. He's coined as this ‘good luck charm’, this ‘blessed child’, a ‘beacon of hope for the Avgins’, and somehow, he ended up in the absolute worst situation possible while simultaneously dooming all of the Avgins (obviously not his fault, but he thinks it's his fault).

When Jade tells him to pick a new identity, ironically he picks one that is everything he probably grew to hate after his childhood/adolescence.

Associating with the wealthy? The rich were the people who paid to brand him and enslave him. The IPC? Promised to help the Avgins but disappeared when the Katicans invaded, then came back and kidnapped him to sell him as a slave. Now he's both wealthy and a part of the IPC, and you have to wonder how he truly feels about it. We'll look into that more later. Regardless, he's not really 'free' now, even if he isn't technically owned by a master anymore. He's chained to the IPC because this is life now; this is his identity. Where else would he even go? What else would he do? (Die, perhaps?) It's not like he can go home, or go live a peaceful life out on the countryside somewhere. He made 'Aventurine' his entire life and his entire personality. On that note, I really like this quote from his third character story:

“The aventurine, that symbol of power and of the future, is about to be officially handed to him — Yet it would have no more allure or value in his eyes as soon he obtains it, even though he had sought it by putting his life on the line.

He returns to his office in a daze. The aventurine stone emits a peculiar glow on his desk, seemingly congratulating and mocking him at the same time."Was luck truly on your side when you wrestled with fate?"”

Did he really luck out with this one? Comparatively, of course, this is better than his life as a slave, but he essentially just traded his rusted chains for golden ones. Becoming Aventurine might wind up bringing him a lot more pain than it was worth. 

Also, the outfit he chose? Covered in gold, fur, and jewels, all materials that somebody who knows nothing about being rich would assume rich people wear in excess. It's evident in his tacky taste (sorry honey I love you so much but the hat is just crazy work you look like a pimp) that he doesn't know anything about how to dress himself. And I bully him for being tacky but it makes sense! He dresses exactly how you'd think an out-of-touch billionaire would dress. Back to his sense of identity: it's very important to establish that Aventurine feels guilty about taking on this persona! That's all 'Aventurine' is: a persona. If he were to die tomorrow, the IPC would dust off that stone and give it to another bozo who would end up being the next 'Aventurine'.

While he didn't initially develop this personality subconsciously and it was a 'choice' to start playing this role (not that he had a plethora of alternative options), the perpetuation is damaging him mentally. He does a good job of keeping up the act, obviously. This theme that his entire personality is just one big act is overarching through the entire Penacony quest, but there's one moment in particular I really liked: when Sparkle is being a jerk and he has this offhand comment about how he's so frivolous, vain, and flashy, and how he'd hate to live anywhere where it rained since his outfit is too expensive to get wet.

Then, we have this interaction in the maze: Future Aventurine brings up the memory of him and his big sister playing dead, floating in bloody water to avoid being killed by the Katicans when they attacked. He mentions that it was his father's shirt, the last one his father left behind before dying, and that it was ruined. Aventurine says it wasn't ruined, and he's always kept it. (I wonder if that's the shirt he wore during his time enslaved?) Future Aventurine grills him and asks ‘why keep it? This new person that you are would never wear something so dirty and old. 'Aventurine' wouldn't want that old rag, it's not worth any money. 'Aventurine' would never splash around in murky water like that; he wouldn't need to.’ Nobody is hunting him, now he's the hunter. Future Aventurine makes the snide comment that he bets Aventurine wouldn't even dare to go outside in the rain, let alone do any of the things Kakavasha had to do, since he's so much more elite now. Aventurine, clearly hurt by the implication, says that even after all this time, he's never changed.

Of course, he hasn't. Deep down, no matter how much he tries to trick himself and everybody around him, he's still the same scared, traumatized boy he always has been. His future self chastises him for having an inferiority complex and mentions that with every gamble he makes, he has his left hand shaking in fear behind his back.

But the constant pull to push Kakavasha down and keep up this act that 'Aventurine' is the real him obviously perpetuated the identity disturbance in him and made it a hundred times worse, to the point where (as Future Aventurine points out) the hole he's dug is basically impossible to climb out of.

Because of this, I interpret Aventurine to constantly be struggling with his identity, not knowing who really exists under all the masks he wears, not knowing if he or anybody around him will ever figure it out. I imagine he feels very empty and unfulfilled, since as I mentioned in the abandonment section, he doesn't want to be alone. But the higher he climbs on the social ladder, the further he can separate himself from other people. This is a classic issue borderlines face. We masquerade as something we think the people around us will like, someone WE might like, but it always ends up leaving us feeling more empty than before.

(This is just an added bonus to chew on, but I got stuck on this line when I played through Penacony:)

Do you think once he became Aventurine and got the money and the resources, he researched toys that normal kids play with? Fancy ones like building blocks, stuff that he would have never been exposed to as a kid? Obviously baby Kakavasha would not know wtf building toys looked like, and I'm sure teenage Kakavasha didn't have the opportunity to browse toy catalogs. But, he recognizes the toy even though he says he's never played with them before. Maybe he considered buying it but decided against it, since it doesn't fit his new persona. Kakavasha doesn't exist anymore, so there's no reason to nurture that part of him. Anyways, just wanted to hurt y'all a bit more. Speaking of hurting ourselves:

Impulsive or Self-Damaging Behaviors + Suicidal Behavior or Self Injury:

I'm combining these two because my points kept blending together, so bear with me lol.

Aventurine is known for being incredibly reckless and putting himself in the path of danger over and over again. When discussing how he tricked Sunday with the Cornerstones, Future Aventurine asks:

I want to exaggerate how crazy it is (i can say that i'm also a bpd baddie) that he smashed his Cornerstone. I don't think a Stoneheart has ever done that before. Their stone is what makes them a Stoneheart. Ratio mentions that without it, Aventurine would be back to being nobody. Remember: that's what makes him Aventurine. You know, the persona that required him to kill off his former identity? Their Cornerstones are more important than the Stonehearts’ lives, as stated multiple times. But that's just it: Aventurine doesn't GAF about his life. He doesn't mind putting his life on the line to pull off his plan because he has that deep-rooted desire to punish himself for everything he thinks was his fault. He gets called out for gambling with his life multiple times during Penacony, and while most of the time it's reduced to him just being crazy (cough, bpd) or just having a severe gambling problem. Extremely hot take, but I think he gambles literally as another way to hurt himself. I mean, look at what he says when you ask about his hobbies:

"There's no denying it, my fascination is with the game of chance... be it the exhilarating rush of triumph or the extensive emptiness that follows, both are worth savoring, time and time again."

Being impulsive and risky, betting his life over and over –  it makes him feel alive. He knows the end result will hurt, that he'll have to face that 'extensive emptiness' and the extreme guilt he feels regarding his continued good luck, but he does it anyway.

Speaking of betting, his bets are always 'all or nothing', seemingly every time. Future Aventurine calls him out on always risking everything with every gamble, asking:

"Do you truly believe the greater the risk, the greater the reward?"

Or...do you just not care what happens to you? He doesn't need to risk a lot; he's never lost. He could bet the lowest amount and still win every time, and make a lot of money depending on what everybody else bet. In fact, that would actually be a better strategy in gambling (poker/black jack specifically), because it would insinuate that he's not very confident with his hand and prompt the other players to bet higher, assuming that they'll beat him.

I imagine he gets a shred of dopamine betting everything he has knowing that he'll probably win, but hey, who knows? Then after winning and multiplying everything he has, I imagine that 'extensive emptiness' that he refers to is the feeling of 'oh good, more money. More status. More success. A reminder that no matter what I do, I'm stuck here in this role forever.'

For some reason, he also thinks that taking risks makes him appear more confident and secure. He makes a show of always keeping up the big bets and he boasts about how successful he is, while clutching his hand behind his back thinking 'oh god, is this it? will I finally lose this time?' He brings this up when he's speaking with himself and he says, 'How could a weak person take such daring risks?"

Oh, the delicious irony.

That raises the question, though: if he wants to die so badly, why hasn't he yet? It's not like he had an easy life. He fought very hard to stay alive, so why does he act so recklessly now?

I think at his core, he's scared. Dying is scary. His family is there in the afterlife; would they be disappointed in the person he’s become? At the same time, being alive is exhausting. The constant emotional pain this guy probably deals with every day? It's gotta be heavy.

His behaviors around suicide remind of a classic passively suicidal person with BPD: maybe they don't necessarily want to die, but they're tired. They don't have an active plan, but If something is going to kill them, they're not going to move out of the way.

So, carrying out his Penacony plan makes sense. Of course he’s not completely sure what will happen when Acheron kills him, but because he doesn’t have anything to live for, he’s fine gambling with his life. He makes a show of finally throwing out every last chip, too, no longer clutching them under the table in fear. He was fine with smashing the Aventurine stone because it's not like he was planning on using it after his final show; the little bit of power it had left in it was more than enough. (I also think it's worth mentioning how he did fight very hard to be alive, and after fighting SO hard, living through poverty and slavery and literally murdering people just to keep his own life, now he's finally at a point where he can 'relax' and carry out his life in peaceful luxury...but ironically, now he doesnt want to be alive)

That being said, we do have to address this little number:

Aventurine attempted several times in Penacony, he admits it flat out. The writers even went sofar as to bold this line specifically! I think this does also go hand-in-hand with him being passively suicidal, since he's pretty sure he'll live when he attempts in the dream, but he's gonna try it SEVERAL times just to be sure. Mentally healthy people wouldn't try it... once, Aventurine!

As if we needed more evidence that Aventurine constantly puts himself in danger, you know I HAVE to mention...the light cone:

n case you haven't read the description for this light cone, let me share it with you:

"You don't believe me?"He (Aventurine) provocatively looks at the man (Ratio) before him, then draws out a revolver, empties its cylinder, and leaves a single shot in the chamber.

"Seems like I'll need to get you up to speed on how I do things if our cooperation were to remain amicable."He pushes the gun into his opponent's hand, spins the cylinder, and points the barrel to his own chest.

He pulls the trigger repeatedly, and the smile on his face remains the same after three empty clicks."Life is a grand gamble, and I'll always be the final victor."

Now what the HELL is this? Mind you, this is the first time Ratio has met this man!!! Imagine you meet your new mission partner for the first time and he puts a revolver in your hand and fires it thrice, then leaves. WHO does that? (...a baddie, perhaps!)

I don't think it's a secret to anybody who has spent a reasonable amount of time around Aventurine that there's something off about him, and that there's a really deep sadness running through him. There's some instances where other characters mention his passive desire to die – A few quick examples I can think of:

The instance in Story IV with Opal:

"Maybe luck won't be on your side this time, and the bill for all your past good fortune will come due [...] But isn't that what you've been longing for?"

Opal implies Aventurine wants to fail on Penacony, which, as we've discussed, is an accurate assumption. Jade says something similar after Aventurine's stunt: when Topaz says the light in his stone went out, Jade replies by saying "he got what he wanted."

Also, I’d like to point out that Ratio must have been anticipating that Aventurine would do something rash, since he wrote that note (doctor's advice) long before he started grilling him after the meeting with Sunday.

It's also worth noting the nod to T.S Eliot's "The Waste Land" (a very long poem about life and death). You get the achievement Sibyl, What Do You Want? after playing through the past of Kakavasha's life, and once you defeat boss Aventurine, you get the achievement She Replied, I Want to Die. I don't think that one needs an explanation, but boy does it hurt! (There's other, smaller nods to him being suicidal, like the Waiting for Godot achievement – Google the story if you're unfamiliar. Not as relevant, but I must mention it bc it makes my english major brain go brrrrr)

Also, overspending/gambling/being loose with money is a very common vice for borderlines to indulge in and harm themselves with. It's also implied that he drinks a decent amount. I counted 6 bottles of SoulGlad in his hotel room just from the angles I could see, and he's shown to be passed out at the bar when Ratio goes to get him before they go on their little date-I mean, mission. Aventurine says 'he must have drank too much', and whether or not that was true is irrelevant since it was a believable enough claim that Ratio bought it.

Borderlines are (usually) self-destructive in some capacity, and while some very annoying people assume it's for attention, it's so much more common for it to be because our inner emotions are just so out of whack. Sometimes, matching the inner pain with outer pain is a way to cope. They might also do it to try and combat-

Constant Feelings of Worthlessness or Sadness:

Probably the most nagging, prevalent feeling Aventurine deals with is the constant feeling of worthlessness. One thing about this man? He hates himself. Like, really hates himself. Take a look at the missions during his maze in Penacony. This one is one of my favorites:

It doesn't get much more on-the-nose than him calling himself a selfish, useless loser. He gets stuck on that word, in particular. Loser.

Aventurine, at his core, views himself as a massive loser. Is that ironic because of how much he wins? Not really. Money and materials are just part of the Aventurine persona. He's 'rich' in stuff, but he's not rich in what he actually wants. I think it's obvious that if he had the option to quadruple his wealth or see his sister again just one more time, we all know what he'd be picking.

The only thing he wants is connection – connection with his mother, his father, his sister, anybody at this point – but he can't have it. His family has been dead for a long while, and as I discussed before, his fear of abandonment and his luck scare him away from forming any other relationships. 

This luck, this destiny to be blessed, leads him to reflect on his life a lot and wonder what the hell the point is. He treats himself like some sort of walking curse, because he's convinced that his luck is bound to hurt other people. Every time he wins, somebody else loses. The luck that keeps him safe destroys everybody else around him. As Future Aventurine puts it:

His luck is "built on the pain of someone" else. This perpetuates the constant feeling of guilt, which in turn, makes him feel worthless. Why is it him that's spared every time?

Then, right before you start his boss fight, Aventurine says,

"The architect's flawed stone, of no value at all."

Some people speculate he's talking to the MC when he says this, but I can't help but assume that he's referring to himself. Even if it was directed at the MC, so much of what Aventurine says in his bluffs and boasts are just digs at himself. He's sort of an expert at hating himself, and what do people who hate themselves do if not project? Especially when you consider the fact that aventurine is actually a really cheap, undesired stone. It's like $3 a caret and mostly only used to rip people off and pose as jade. I really don't think it's a coincidence that his character is based around a stone that is, essentially, worthless.

The way that Aventurine is also prone to giving people ridiculous amounts of money/gifts can be read as a frantic effort to keep relationships going and prevent people from leaving him (relating to my points on both his feelings of worthless and his fear of abandonment). He has a skewed view on relationships, since the only value that's ever been associated with him is monetary value and that of his 'luck', which in every context is spoken of as an asset to benefit people he cares about. His sister told him that his luck was 'the most precious wealth' of the Avgins and Jade sees him as an investment that can bring her more wealth because of his luck, but he views it as a massive burden that ends up wrecking everybody around him. So how does he prove to other people that someone as worthless as him should be allowed a seat at the table? Deep down, he thinks that he's still worth 60 red copper pieces, and he's desperate to show other people that he's worth more than that now – even though he doesn't believe it at his core. With all the money he wins now, he can throw it at people and say 'look, look how much money I'm worth now, you want me around because I can buy you anything you want, that's a useful quality in a friend!'

(I did use the 'seat at the table line' as a nod to what his slave master said to him when they were discussing his worth: "Don't forget your place, slave. You're not qualified to be at the table." Which is, painfully, what Aventurine says when you open up chests! He scoffs and says that "it's hardly enough for a seat at the table." :’) )

There is also, of course, Aventurine's overarching struggle with finding purpose in his life. We see a lot of his existentialism during his trauma maze, but at the end of his trauma maze, Future Aventurine finally stops ripping Aventurine a new one and is vulnerable for a second, saying he doesn't understand what he's ever done wrong to have suffered as much as he has.

Then, when he's in the Nihility and he's speaking to Acheron, making the decision on whether or not he even wants to keep going, he asks her:

As I said, he has this conversation with himself in the maze as well, but here he's actually being vulnerable and speaking to somebody else about it: what's the point in being alive if we're just born to suffer? If nothing else, this solidifies the emotional struggle that Aventurine is constantly having. I also think it furthers the idea that he has this nagging sort of emptiness inside of him which is another BPD trait: the feeling that you're empty at your core, and you're constantly trying to fill it with things (friends, money, substances, whatever) but nothing ever works. You worry if anything will ever make you feel 'whole' again, and pair with the the identity disturbance? You're left with a constant feeling of despair.

Other Points:

These are a few other random thoughts I have, inspired by in-game moments but I'm taking them for my own evil fiendish BPD narrative. Take them with a grain of salt.

I think the stigma he gets around 'being crazy' is really BPD-coded. Separate from the ridiculous discrimination he gets for being an Avgin where people assume he's a liar and wolf in sheep's clothing (which can this man catch a SINGLE break jfc), he also has this reputation of being crazy, insane, manipulative, cunning, and someone you want to avoid, which is more rooted in his reckless gambling habit and status with the IPC. Living with this reputation of being insane and unstable for...lowkey no reason at all? Very BPD coded. I think Aventurine leans into that stigma to keep people a certain distance away, but it also just ends up making him hate himself even more.

Also, his entire mantra is "all or nothing", which always rang my BPD bells as well. There's not a lot of gray area with him, which is a key trait in borderlines as we often display very black-and-white thought patterns.

In Conclusion:

I think Aventurine is a borderline princess <3

No but actually though, Aventurine is extremely smart, witty, funny, generous, and very kind-hearted, and he also happens to have a lot of BPD symptoms :^) I don't think it does any harm to view him as BPD-coded; in fact, I think it's great to associate positive, fan-favorite characters like this with BPD because it helps to humanize us. Borderlines are not violent, crazy maniacs, they're people who have been severely traumatized and developed some unhealthy habits because of it. They deserve love, respect, understanding, and communication, just as everybody else does.

If you actually made it this far, thank you for reading! I hope I was able to shed some light on Aventurine and his Symptoms. And, as I do in all of my BPD posts, here’s your reminder to kiss the borderline baddies in your life and tell them they’re important to you :^) Living with BPD is exhausting and I know I speak for all of us when I say that. We try so hard every day to stay positive and regulated, and though rewarding, it's exhausting and very hard work. Nothing makes us smile more than some recognition that we're trying our best !!

Till next time xoxo (and shout out to @roxirinart for helping me edit this monstrosity mwahhh mwah)

[sneezypeasy]

Why I Deliberately Avoided the "Colonizer" Argument in my Zutara Thesis - and Why I'll Continue to Avoid it Forever

This is a question that occasionally comes up under my Zutara video essay, because somehow in 2 hours worth of content I still didn't manage to address everything (lol.) But this argument specifically is one I made a point of avoiding entirely, and there are some slightly complicated reasons behind that. I figure I'll write them all out here.

From a surface-level perspective, Zuko's whole arc, his raison d'etre, is to be a de-colonizer. Zuko's redemption arc is kinda all about being a de-colonizer, and his redemption arc is probably like the most talked about plot point of ATLA, so from a basic media literacy standpoint, the whole argument is unsound in the first place, and on that basis alone I find it childish to even entertain as an argument worth engaging with, to be honest.

(At least one person in my comments pointed out that if any ship's "political implications" are problematic in some way, it really ought to be Maiko, as Mai herself is never shown or suggested to be a strong candidate for being a de-colonizing co-ruler alongside Zuko. If anything her attitudes towards lording over servants/underlings would make her… a less than suitable choice for this role, but I digress.)

But the reason I avoided rebutting this particular argument in my video goes deeper than that. From what I've observed of fandom discourse, I find that the colonizer argument is usually an attempt to smear the ship as "problematic" - i.e., this ship is an immoral dynamic, which would make it problematic to depict as canon (and by extension, if you ship it regardless, you're probably problematic yourself.)

And here is where I end up taking a stand that differentiates me from the more authoritarian sectors of fandom.

I'm not here to be the fandom morality police. When it comes to lit crit, I'm really just here to talk about good vs. bad writing. (And when I say "good", I mean structurally sound, thematically cohesive, etc; works that are well-written - I don't mean works that are morally virtuous. More on this in a minute.) So the whole colonizer angle isn't something I'm interested in discussing, for the same reason that I actually avoided discussing Katara "mothering" Aang or the "problematic" aspects of the Kataang ship (such as how he kissed her twice without her consent). My whole entire sections on "Kataang bad" or "Maiko bad" in my 2 hour video was specifically, "how are they written in a way that did a disservice to the story", and "how making them false leads would have created valuable meaning". I deliberately avoided making an argument that consisted purely of, "here's how Kataang/Maiko toxic and Zutara wholesome, hence Zutara superiority, the end".

Why am I not willing to be the fandom morality police? Two reasons:

I don't really have a refined take on these subjects anyway. Unless a piece of literature or art happens to touch on a particular issue that resonates with me personally, the moral value of art is something that doesn't usually spark my interest, so I rarely have much to say on it to begin with. On the whole "colonizer ship" subject specifically, other people who have more passion and knowledge than me on the topic can (and have) put their arguments into words far better than I ever could. I'm more than happy to defer to their take(s), because honestly, they can do these subjects justice in a way I can't. Passing the mic over to someone else is the most responsible thing I can do here, lol. But more importantly:

I reject the conflation of literary merit with moral virtue. It is my opinion that a good story well-told is not always, and does not have to be, a story free from moral vices/questionable themes. In my opinion, there are good problematic stories and bad "pure" stories and literally everything in between. To go one step further, I believe that there are ways that a romance can come off "icky", and then there are ways that it might actually be bad for the story, and meming/shitposting aside, the fact that these two things don't always neatly align is not only a truth I recognise about art but also one of those truths that makes art incredibly interesting to me! So on the one hand, I don't think it is either fair or accurate to conflate literary "goodness" with moral "goodness". On a more serious note, I not only find this type of conflation unfair/inaccurate, I also find it potentially dangerous - and this is why I am really critical of this mindset beyond just disagreeing with it factually. What I see is that people who espouse this rhetoric tend to encourage (or even personally engage in) wilful blindness one way or the other, because ultimately, viewing art through these lens ends up boxing all art into either "morally permissible" or "morally impermissible" categories, and shames anyone enjoying art in the "morally impermissible" box. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people responding to this by A) making excuses for art that they guiltily love despite its problematic elements and/or B) denying the value of any art that they are unable to defend as free from moral wickedness.

Now, I'm not saying that media shouldn't be critiqued on its moral virtue. I actually think morally critiquing art has its place, and assuming it's being done in good faith, it absolutely should be done, and probably even more often than it is now.

Because here's the truth: Sometimes, a story can be really good. Sometimes, you can have a genuinely amazing story with well developed characters and powerful themes that resonate deeply with anyone who reads it. Sometimes, a story can be all of these things - and still be problematic.*

(Or, sometimes a story can be all of those things, and still be written by a problematic author.)

That's why I say, when people conflate moral art with good art, they become blind to the possibility that the art they like being potentially immoral (or vice versa). If only "bad art" is immoral, how can the art that tells the story hitting all the right beats and with perfect rhythm and emotional depth, be ever problematic?

(And how can the art I love, be ever problematic?)

This is why I reject the idea that literary merit = moral virtue (or vice versa) - because I do care about holding art accountable. Even the art that is "good art". Actually, especially the art that is "good art". Especially the art that is well loved and respected and appreciated. The failure to distinguish literary critique from moral critique bothers me on a personal level because I think that conflating the two results in the detriment of both - the latter being the most concerning to me, actually.

So while I respect the inherent value of moral criticism, I'm really not a fan of any argument that presents moral criticism as equivalent to literary criticism, and I will call that out when I see it. And from what I've observed, a lot of the "but Zutara is a colonizer ship" tries to do exactly that, which is why I find it a dishonest and frankly harmful media analysis framework to begin with.

But even when it is done in good faith, moral criticism of art is also just something I personally am neither interested nor good at talking about, and I prefer to talk about the things that I am interested and good at talking about.

(And some people are genuinely good at tackling the moral side of things! I mean, I for one really enjoyed Lindsay Ellis's take on Rent contextualising it within the broader political landscape at the time to show how it's not the progressive queer story it might otherwise appear to be. Moral critique has value, and has its place, and there are definitely circumstances where it can lead to societal progress. Just because I'm not personally interested in addressing it doesn't mean nobody else can do it let alone that nobody else should do it, but also, just because it can and should be done, doesn't mean that it's the only "one true way" to approach lit crit by anyone ever. You know, sometimes... two things… can be true… at once?)

Anyway, if anyone reading this far has recognised that this is basically a variant of the proship vs. antiship debate, you're right, it is. And on that note, I'm just going to leave some links here. I've said about as much as I'm willing/able to say on this subject, but in case anyone is interested in delving deeper into the philosophy behind my convictions, including why I believe leftist authoritarian rhetoric is harmful, and why the whole "but it would be problematic in real life" is an anti-ship argument that doesn't always hold up to scrutiny, I highly recommend these posts/threads:

In general this blog is pretty solid; I agree with almost all of their takes - though they focus more specifically on fanfic/fanart than mainstream media, and I think quite a lot of their arguments are at least somewhat appropriate to extrapolate to mainstream media as well.

I also strongly recommend Bob Altemeyer's book "The Authoritarians" which the author, a verified giga chad, actually made free to download as a pdf, here. His work focuses primarily on right-wing authoritarians, but a lot of his research and conclusions are, you guessed it, applicable to left-wing authoritarians also.

And if you're an anti yourself, welp, you won't find support from me here. This is not an anti-ship safe space, sorrynotsorry 👆

In conclusion, honestly any "but Zutara is problematic" argument is one I'm likely to consider unsound to begin with, let alone the "Zutara is a colonizer ship" argument - but even if it wasn't, it's not something I'm interested in discussing, even if I recognise there are contexts where these discussions have value. I resent the idea that just because I have refined opinions on one aspect of a discussion means I must have (and be willing to preach) refined opinions on all aspects of said discussion. (I don't mean to sound reproachful here - actually the vast majority of the comments I get on my video/tumblr are really sweet and respectful, but I do get a handful of silly comments here and there and I'm at the point where I do feel like this is something worth saying.) Anyway, I'm quite happy to defer to other analysts who have the passion and knowledge to give complicated topics the justice they deserve. All I request is that care is taken not to conflate literary criticism with moral criticism to the detriment of both - and I think it's important to acknowledge when that is indeed happening. And respectfully, don't expect me to give my own take on the matter when other people are already willing and able to put their thoughts into words so much better than me. Peace ✌

*P.S. This works for real life too, by the way. There are people out there who are genuinely not only charming and likeable, but also generous, charitable and warm to the vast majority of the people they know. They may also be amazing at their work, and if they have a job that involves saving lives like firefighting or surgery or w.e, they may even be the reason dozens of people are still alive today. They may honestly do a lot of things you'd have to concede are "good" deeds.

They may be all of these things, and still be someone's abuser. 🙃

Two things can be true at once. It's important never to forget that.

[choccy-milky]

Okay so I read your entire fic in three days and I LOVE IT!? ITS SO GOOD!?! I am supposed to be studying for finals and instead have spent 72 hours definitely not doing that. I originally got into your fic because I saw your drawings from different scenes and OH MY GOD THEYRE AMAZING. The way you draw Seb makes me want to bang my head on the table (in the best way ever)…that boy does things to me. The whole thing is just uGHHH chefs kiss amazing work love it love you amazing

AWW TYY IM GLAD YOU LIKED IT SM (ENOUGH TO BINGE IT AND IGNORE SCHOOL) AND THAT YOU LIKE HOW I DRAW SEB TOO💖💖😍😍😍

LMAOO but fr as a procrastinator and horrible student myself, im pleased with this theme of interfering with ppls schoolwork/thesis/whatever else to read my fic...im dragging yall down with me...just stop using your brain and enjoy sexy seb aha😜 (ILY TOO GOOD LUCK ON UR FINALS)

@jstfndmthngs omg thank you for such a long and in depth ask i hope u dont mind i just screenshotted it and cut it into 2 BAHAHA but THANK YOUU im glad youre enjoying it so far!! 🥹💖AND YESSS BAHAHA IVE ALSO BRAINWASHED YOU TO SEE SEB AND CLORA WHEN YOU SEE A BLONDE + BROWN HAIR COUPLE mission accomplished😈😈 and I LOVE THAT YOU DAYDREAM ABOUT SEB AND CLORA TOO!!! people thinking about your fic/art when theyre not actively reading it is the highest honour fr...😭🙏 AND BAHAHA I REMEMBER THAT COMMENT THREAD ABOUT LEANDER AND HIS LITTLE GARDEN PATCH LMAO and him and seb competing as neighbors/dads over who has the better yard...LMAO im putting in my oneshot that leander lives close by, i might try and find a way to allude to that if i can LMAOO speaking of IM GLAD YOURE LOOKING FORWARD TO THE ONESHOT 💖💖 ive been working on the outline every day the past few days and its 24k words AND THATS JUST THE OUTLINE😭😭LIKE DAWG i was planning on this oneshot to just be short and sweet BAHAHA but i forgot im fluent in yappanese...then i just kept thinking of cute pregnancy moments i wanted to add so it spiralled....BUT ANYWAY I HOPE I CAN FINISH IT SOON!!🙏 also im so impressed you only read 1 chap of my fic a day BAHAHA i admire the self restraint bc i could never...but i feel you with wanting to make things last. LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU CATCH UP!!🥳AND TY AGAIN!!💖💖

omg anon this is diabolical...at first i was imagining it as seb being the one caught in the time loop and going crazy, but i actually think its better if its clora... because the idea of seb watching her slowly spiral into semi-insanity while knowing its bc of some weird time shenanigans and he doesnt know how to help would also make SEB go crazy BAHAHAH. i dont think ill ever write this but i just wanted to tell u i love this idea LOL

aw TYYYYY!!! i’m honoured u think so omg😭🥹💖 you sent this a while ago (before all of the recent family posting ive been doing) BAHAHA so i hope youre enjoying the kid content bc u manifested it girl🥰 and trust me i aint doing work for the fandom, the fandom is doing work for ME!!! by continuing to humour my brainrotted ass😔🙏

"they're my legal parents now" followed by "so anyway can you draw them going down on each other" LMFAOOOOO💀💀💀thank you i love you anon. and i HAVE been wanting to draw this for a while so YES!! i just cant guarantee when...but the day SHALL come rest assured🫡😇

[mable-stitchpunk]

Hello hello!! I come back once more with offerings (fan art) because the thesis is making me want to take my eyes and wash them by hand to see if the dryness passes. ANYWAYS! We are still reading with some friends GHIAB and almost at chapter 89? I kinda got ahead (because my friend who is the one reading kinda nudged me to) and I am waiting so bad to see the other's reactions to chapters 88 and 89, I'm yet to read the last five, but that's because I know the moment I do I won't be focusing on work (which sucks.) I might eventually get to draw things from those chapters (and probably cry and shake like a leaf due to contained excitement)

Anyways-- fanart!! (some of these are scenes from the fic, some are not, some are just silly)

(Those two are actually from the references I was trying to do!)

I hope you have a nice day!

ASTYFSTYJSVS Okay, no. THIS time I'm going to be a lot more detailed with my praise, because you've outdone yourself again! You've downright SPOILED me- and at a good time too, since I need that sweet, sweet writing fuel. ^_^

First off, The Michael and Ennard comfort picture is absolutely one of my favorites. 🥺 It's hard to make something as rough as Springtrap look vulnerable, but you absolutely nailed it and it's just so sweet- I also really, REALLY love how expressive your Ennard's turn out! There's something so soft here and I think it says so much without having to explain itself about them.

I think this is one of the first, if only pieces I've seen of Moon and Gregory together and it's so perfectly sweet that it's downright mushy! 😊 In a GREAT way!

Speaking of daycare attendants GAHH I was hoping you'd adapt this scene! The Michael and Jake scene! 8D I knew it'd be a hard sell though so I didn't know if you would, BUT YOU HAVE, and it warm the cockles of my heart. ^_^ Need more of these two, I swear-

And THIS scene too! Oooh, you absolutely nailed it! I just don't even- don't even know how to express how much I love this picture. This was one of my favorite scenes to right and you 100% brought it to life 8D I love the detail on how cautious Freddy is to touch the back of his head, as though frozen in place, LOVE IT.

I also love Ennard just yoinking Scott up preparing to run way too much, it gave me the smiles, y'know those kind. XD Your Clownwell pics are always FANTASTIC! And I mean that, like, your Clownwell pieces always immediately make me regret not doing like a spinoff of them- they make me want to write them. I don't know how that works, but I just love how you set them up and draw them- the snapshot poster is absolutely BADASS. And Bonnet is precious 🥺

Also, Millie becoming partial Clownwell member confirmed XD

But speaking of precious, then come the babs- Including Jeremy! I love how soft and approachable he looks. He gives such good 'dad' vibes. ^_^ All of his little dolls look so precious, my God! And this is a small detail, but I love, LOVE Lilium's lily petal skirt! That's such a neat detail!

And then Foxy and Rose are just the cherry on top. 🥺Almost literally if we're going off color! XD You know she loves him and he loves her but he's been a playground for five hours now and he can't sleep or they WILL climb into his suit- spot on!

Mari looks absolutely brilliant! (Because I didn't want to say fantastic again) I love the design and this is an absolutely excellent reference for the coat! Also though, the little smile is so good. 😊

And last but not least, Charlie and Baby skating around together- and not flying down an escalator at rocket speeds this time! Jokes aside though, they look so good- I like how Baby looks so soft here in contrast to the poster where she looked so ominous behind her claw-you nailed the different feel of the situation dead-on! And Charlie looks so cute too, so happy! I love it, you made them look positively adorable together!

I hope this somewhat portrays how much I not only appreciate these, but ravenously ate them up and will now use them to fuel future chapters! ^_^ Whether it be five, fifteen, or one hundred more! I really, truly, absolutely am in debt to you for what you do, because what you make is just brimming GOLD! 💛

I think this picture sums it up better than words can. XD

[keyboardsmashess]

The Siren, or The Heart of the Matter

Chapter Thirty : The Note, or The Thesis Defense from Hell

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC

Warnings: language, fluff, angst, canon-typical violence, smut MINORS DNI. A/N: My bbs! We're nearing the end of this story - I'd say maybe five chapters to go, give or take 😭 Until then, though, enjoy the insanity of my fully unleashed Bucky obsession now that Cleo's feelings are out there 😘

Summary: The morning after our heroes' big moment takes a very unexpected turn.

Chapter Directory

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Bucky squeezes his eyes closed against the sound, wondering for a moment if he’s got a leak somewhere in his apartment. If he does, then Stark’s really getting sloppy. He’ll have to give the guy some shit for that. These Tower apartments are supposed to be state-of-the-art everything, or at least that’s what he thinks Stark said - he wasn’t really listening when he got the grand tour.

But wait, Bucky thinks, shifting in bed. Since when do I have silk sheets? He listens to the sound again, realizing that it sounds an awful lot like the tapping of a shoe.

Before he even really registers what he’s doing, Bucky’s standing in his boxers with a gun pulled on the stranger.

“What the hell, Barnes? Also, when did you stash a handgun in my nightstand?” 

Bucky releases a lungful of air he didn’t realize he’d been holding and lowers the weapon.

“Also part two, what the shit did you guys do to my bedroom? If I have to hire cleaners, I’m billing you,” Meg says, arms crossed and tapping her foot.

Bucky sets the gun down on Meg’s nightstand, finding his pants on the ground and pulling them on self-consciously. His shirt is nowhere to be found, and he suddenly remembers Cleo putting it on after… 

After the best damn night of my life.

Speaking of. “Where’s Cleo?”

Meg rolls her eyes. “Sure, just ignore all of the very valid questions I’ve just asked you, no big deal.” She hands him a piece of notebook paper. “Your lovely lady has written you a note. Don’t worry, I’ll pretend I didn’t read it.” She winks.

Bucky accepts the paper with a small smile. “Sorry about this,” he says, gesturing to the mess of a bedroom around him.

Meg waves a hand. “It’s fine, really. I mean, I am for sure billing you for the cleaning, but it’s not like I didn’t expect something like this when I graciously removed myself from the premises for the evening.” She kicks off her shoes into a pile in the corner of the room. “I’m gonna go make some coffee and leave you to collect yourself.”

Bucky nods gratefully, unfolding the piece of paper the second Meg closes the bedroom door behind her.

James,

I can’t possibly wake you up, considering how handsome you look sleeping so peacefully (and how rarely you sleep at all), so I’m heading to my defense alone. Don’t panic when you read this - my advisor already told me I wasn’t allowed to have guests in the room, so you’re not missing anything but a boring hallway.

Bucky chuckles and shakes his head at how well she knows him, realizing his heart had already started racing at the thought of missing her big moment. 

I’ll come back to Meg’s the second I’m done and tell you all about it, promise. And then I’m pretty sure someone said something about taking me back to the Tower to celebrate? I have some new ideas for what that celebration might look like, just saying.

Bucky bites his lip as he reads, already reacting to Cleo’s words.

Speaking of that, last night was… everything. I’m shit at mushy stuff, Buck, but it was probably the best night of my life thus far. And I don’t know if you know this, but Meg and I went to a Kassie Cantor concert once and I actually got to meet her, so you’ve passed a pretty high bar. (Since I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about, she’s a pop singer who I’m going to force you to listen to on the way back home.)

Anyway, I don’t know why I’m writing all of this in a letter like I’m going off to war or some shit, because I’ll be back soon and could tell you all this in person, but what can I say? It’s easier to write some things than speak them out loud. To that end, I’m sorry for not being able to reciprocate the thing you said last night. I want to, and I should have, but I’m a fucking coward and emotionally stunted and just sort of a general mess, so… yeah. I should probably save the rest of this conversation for when I get back, because you deserve that.

He blows out a huff of air. When he’d told her he loved her, he knew it was something he wanted to tell her - needed to tell her - regardless of whether or not she said it back, but he can’t say he isn’t relieved to read that she apparently feels more than she let on at the time. 

Fuck, I really am bad at this, aren’t I? Whatever. You’re great, last night was great, and I can finally tell you that I think your ass is great, too. Like really super great. Okay, I’m going to go stand in front of a bunch of grumpy white men in suits and ask them to give me a degree. Bye!

xoxo, Cleo

P.S. Like spectacularly, phenomenally great.

Bucky folds the letter back up and carefully tucks it into the pocket of his jeans, resolving to save it forever. 

He stands suddenly and checks the time, an idea popping into his head. He pokes his head into the kitchen long enough to tell Meg he’s going to take a quick shower, grabs the overnight bag he’d left in her living room, and runs to the bathroom where he takes one of the fastest showers of his life.

Clean and dressed, Bucky darts into the bedroom to grab and holster his gun, then rushes toward the front door. Meg is waiting for him, a disposable travel mug of coffee in her hand and a smirk on her face.

“Cleo told me you couldn’t go into her defense, but I figured after reading that note - the note I absolutely didn’t read myself, by the way - you’d want to do something romantic like wait for her in the hallway. I already texted you the building and room number.”

Bucky grins and accepts the drink. “Meg, you’re the best.”

She waves a hand. “I know, I know. By the way, you’re going to pass a market on your way to campus, just around the corner from here. They sell flowers and Cleo’s favorite is forget-me-nots. Hey, what a fun little irony!”

He eyes her, speaking before he can think better of it. “Come visit us at the Tower sometime, there’s someone you should really meet.” And with a grateful smile, he’s out the door.

******

If Bucky’s calculations are correct, he’s arrived in the hall outside of Cleo’s defense with about ten minutes to spare. He paces the hallway for a few moments to calm himself down after the sprint to campus, then leans against the wall directly across from the door Cleo will be walking out of soon. He’s got a slightly windblown bouquet of blue forget-me-nots, a sweaty right palm, and a nervous but eager grin. He’s ready. 

When ten minutes passes with no sign of Cleo, he tells himself that it’s probably normal for these things to go a little long sometimes. After fifteen, he’s doing his best not to worry. At twenty five minutes past the stated end of the defense, Bucky decides that he’s willing to risk embarrassing Cleo and himself by opening the damn door. Taking a deep breath and preparing his excuse (they’ll buy him as a student in the wrong room, right?), Bucky hides the flowers behind his back and tries the handle.

It’s locked.

Fair enough, he thinks. They probably have security protocols in place, you know, to avoid the exact thing Bucky had been planning to use as his excuse for intruding. He knocks instead, deciding he doesn’t actually care about embarrassing Cleo at this point. When nobody comes to the door, he knocks again and presses his ear to the wood, listening closely with his serum-enhanced senses. Not only is nobody coming to the door, but he’s fairly certain nobody is in the room at all.

Fully aware he’s probably overreacting, Bucky lets out a huff of air, looks up and down the hallway to make sure nobody’s coming, and grabs the handle with his metal hand. With a little grunt, he breaks the handle and forces the door open. 

No Cleo. No committee. No one at all. 

Bucky frowns and pulls out his phone, double-checking the building and room number in the message from Meg. When he confirms he’s at what should be the right place, he paces into the room, hoping to find a note or schedule or something to clue him in to what’s going on. The room is frustratingly empty, though - empty chairs arranged behind a long conference table, an empty lectern facing them…

Bucky sighs and calls Cleo, potential interruptions be damned. Immediately, he hears a buzzing sound coming from the lectern. A sick feeling brewing in his stomach, he crosses the room and peers behind the lectern, seeing Cleo’s phone on one of the shelves lit up with the selfie she’d taken of the two of them in the home goods store. Next to it are several wrinkled notecards and a half-empty bottle of water. He ends the call, dread coiling in his gut.

Stuffing her phone in his pocket, he picks up the notecards and starts flipping through them. They’re clearly reminders she’s made for herself of the main talking points of her thesis, but when he flips to the last one, a small piece of cardstock falls out. Bucky bends down to pick it up, noting the unfamiliar scrawl in red ink.

Soldat - 

Only the dead have seen the end of war. As long as you are living, your war is not over. 

Hail HYDRA.

Bucky’s vision narrows to a singular point, blood draining from his face. He stumbles backward into the table and grabs it with his metal arm for support. He doesn’t even register the crack of the wood as he grips it too hard.

Ears ringing, he pulls out his own phone and dials the first number that comes to mind.

“Hey, Buck, how’s everything go-”

“They have her, Steve,” he chokes out, voice barely more than a whisper.

“Wait a second, what are you talking about, Buck? Who has who?” Steve asks, voice growing serious.

“HYDRA,” he bites out, the word feeling like poison on his tongue. “HYDRA has Cleo. The Philosopher must be working with them and I don’t know how, Steve, but they found her and they took her.”

He hears rustling and then rapid footsteps from the other end of the phone. “Hang on, Buck, I’m going to get Stark. We’ll find her, okay? Bucky, I promise we’ll find her.” Steve’s voice is calmer than it has any right to be, in Bucky’s opinion, but he trusts the man more than almost anyone else, so he stays on the line.

While he waits, he frantically searches the room for any clues to Cleo’s whereabouts, tossing chairs to the side and upending the table, but he comes up empty. Stark’s voice brings him back to the present moment.

“Barnes, what was she wearing today?”

Bucky gives a disgusted scoff. “Christ, Stark, what the hell is wrong with you? I don’t think now -”

“Barnes,” Tony cuts him off, voice cold and serious. “Just trust me for one second and answer the fucking question.”

Bucky wants to kick himself when he realizes that he can’t - that he didn’t wake up in time to see her off. “I don’t know,” he says, voice small. “I - I was sleeping when she left.”

Stark sighs. “It’s fine, we’ll just track it anyway and hope for the best.” Bucky makes a sound of confusion, speech nearly impossible in his sheer panic. “I retooled her suit a bit,” Stark explains. “Used nanotech to fit the entire thing in two little shell pins she can wear on her shoulders. All she has to do is tap them and the suit comes out. Plus a pretty slick helmet that comes out of her glasses. Ruins whatever she’s wearing at the moment, but you win some, you lose some.”

“Focus, Tony,” Banner shouts in the background.

“Right,” Stark says. “The pins have a tracker embedded in them, just in case, and the HUD in the helmet does, too. If she was wearing them this morning, we can figure out where she is.”

“Got it!” Banner calls out. “Er, I think I got it. This doesn’t really make any sense.”

Before Bucky can ask what they’re talking about, he hears Steve’s voice cut in, sounding weary with resignation. “It does if you know HYDRA.”

******

When I force my eyes open, I’m nearly blinded by the pounding in my head from just the dim, exposed lightbulb hanging overhead. I try to moan at the pain and move to wipe at something wet just above my eye, but I can’t do either.

No. Fuck. NO.

My hands are bound behind the back of the hard, metal chair I’m sitting in, and my legs are as well - one duct-taped to each of the front legs of the chair. And, worst of all, my mouth is taped shut. 

I flick my eyes wildly around the room, moving as much as my restraints allow, but there isn’t a lot to see. I’m in a small space, no windows, with that single exposed lightbulb dangling above my head. Curiously, it’s all metal - the walls, ceiling, floors - everything. That’s the only remarkable thing about the room, though, and it doesn’t give me much of a clue to my whereabouts.

I try to think back over the events of the last few hours, mind still fuzzy.

I woke up next to Bucky after the most incredible - nope, no time to focus on that, Blake.

I got ready for my thesis defense, passed Meg on the way to campus and apologized for the state of her bedroom. 

I got to the English building, went to room 12C, and…

Oh, that fucker.

It all comes back to me in a crushing wave - the empty room, save for Dr. Sapros. His laughter at my confused look. Anxiously chugging half a bottle of water. Him thumbing through my notecards. And the look in his eyes when he reached out with that current of red electricity and fucking knocked me unconscious.

Just as I’m squeezing my eyes shut in frustration, the metal door to the tiny room creaks open.

Speak of the devil.

Sapros is wearing his usual professorial attire, except with the new addition of that red cape I’m all too familiar with from my fights with The Philosopher. He’s abandoned the Greek tragedy mask, though - I suppose he no longer needs it now that I know his identity.

“Cleo,” he croons, voice disgustingly smug. “Finally awake, I see. Did you have a nice nap?”

All I can do is narrow my eyes at him in a glare, with my mouth taped shut and hands restrained. Nat had been pushing me to practice more, to learn how to manipulate the strings of frequencies without using my hands or voice, but I hadn’t made the time with my defense coming up. The defense that never fucking happened.

“It seems you’re finally speechless. In all my time as your advisor, I never thought I’d see the day where Cleo Blake had nothing to say. Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything.” Sapros grins widely, and I mentally kick myself for not putting it all together sooner - that cadence in speech, that ridiculous smugness - of course The Philosopher sounded familiar to me - he’d been my teacher for three fucking years.

“I’m terribly sorry your defense couldn’t proceed as planned, but there were more important things to be dealt with - you understand, right? After all, patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.”

I roll my eyes, hoping he sees. That was Aristotle, you stupid dick.

“Some of my… colleagues, I suppose you could call them, are hard at work trying to determine how we might extract that little beauty,” he says, pointing to my crystal. “However, until then, you’re serving another purpose here. Of course, you’d see for yourself soon enough, but I know how you despise surprises so I’ll just let the cat out of the bag, as it were. My colleagues and I lost a very important weapon some time ago, and we believe you are just the thing to draw him back.”

Him. Sapros said ‘him,’ not ‘it.’ That means…

My eyes go wide with realization and I fight against my restraints, crying out futilely from behind the tape across my mouth.

“Oh hush now, Cleo, no need for such dramatics. Though you always were a feisty one, weren’t you? It took everything I had to convince you to drop your Atlantis research in favor of something more ‘mainstream.’ Lucky for me, you were more desperate for belonging than you were to follow in your father’s footsteps. Once I threatened to remove you from the meager little community you’d scraped together at Culver, I could have demanded anything and you’d have given it.”

I freeze, eyebrows knitting together at the mention of my father. I never once told Sapros where my passion for Atlantis came from.

He smirks at me. “Are you just realizing that I mentioned your father? Nothing if not sharp, you are. Yes, I am well aware of your father’s little pet project. And, as it turns out,” Sapros says, tapping the crystal in a gesture that has me flinching away from him, “he was far closer to the truth than we gave him credit for.”

I blink at him, mind reeling as I try to piece everything together - every past-tense word, every mention of my father’s work - hoping none of it means what I’m starting to dread it might.

“It’s tragic, really, that he’ll never know just how close he was. He’ll never know that the crystal chose precisely who he suspected it would, despite my best efforts to find it myself and keep you as far from it as possible. How ironic that I was in the middle of the Mediterranean, following your father’s final theory, while you were stumbling upon the object of my desire in a dusty, second-rate library at little old Culver.”

I make a squeak of indignation when he calls the library ‘second-rate,’ but it goes ignored.

“By the time I returned,” Sapros growls, growing angrier as he monologues, “you had already been snapped up by the gods-damned Avengers. Tell me, Cleo, is Rogers still as self-righteous as he used to be, or has he lost some steam in his old age? And how is my favorite weapon enjoying the droll mediocrity of the fight for justice?” He pauses, sneering at me, before releasing a dark chuckle and bringing his palm to his forehead dramatically. “Of course. I’m terribly sorry, how could I forget I’ve finally managed to render you speechless? And thank the gods for that - your incessant prattling is nearly as irritating as your father’s was.”

I close my eyes, squeezing them tight. Sapros must be toying with me, attempting to rattle me or wind me up. Maybe he’s trying to make me emotional to see if the crystal will react in some way. Whatever he’s doing, he can’t possibly be telling the truth - he can’t possibly mean that my father had been working with HYDRA, or that my father is now gone. 

Sapros looses another chuckle. “Of course, you must be simply exhausted after preparing for your little thesis defense. I’ll just leave you to rest for a bit. You’ll need your strength, after all, if you’re going to give me that crystal.”

I hear the click of his footsteps on the metal floor followed by the slam of the door, and only then do I allow the tears to roll freely down my cheeks.

******

“I’ve just sent the coordinates to your phone so you can meet us. But Buck, we’re an hour out at best. I know you’re closer, but I’m begging you - wait for the rest of us to get there,” Steve says, voice pleading.

“Sure,” Bucky responds flatly.

“Bucky.” Steve’s voice is stern, warning. “I’m serious - we don’t know what we’re going to find, but it’s HYDRA, so it can’t be good. Don’t do anything stupid.” Bucky hears footsteps, and when Steve speaks again, his voice is a whisper. “We haven’t figured out how to break your trigger words, Buck. You can’t just go running in there.”

“Got it,” Bucky says, voice void of emotion. “Of course.”

Steve sighs. “We’ll get there as soon as we can, okay? Just hold tight.”

“Absolutely,” Bucky says, setting the flowers next to Cleo’s note cards on the lectern. Forehead creased with anger, he hangs up his phone and memorizes the coordinates before tossing it in the trash on the way out the door. He stalks out of the building and into the parking garage, doing a quick sweep of the vehicles before his eyes land on a motorcycle.

Perfect, he thinks. It takes him all of a minute to hotwire the bike, and then he’s speeding out of the garage, headed for the nearby coast. He has a submarine to catch.

[shorthaltsjester]

the cast knows that bells hells suck so bad they came out the gates swinging in defense and it just makes them look worse. imagine saying to fans "as we filmed our show, especially the finale, we were actively aware it was bad but we chose to do it anyway". instantly i was like why should i watch another campaign knowing that the people making it are happy to hit send on a bad product?

while I definitely sympathize with this response, I actually don’t have a real problem with the cast deciding to favour their feelings/desires around the game they play in principle, I just also don’t think the way they favoured those is conducive to a strongly told story. (in general, I have extreme criticisms of the escapist/avoidant nature of many people’s claims about ‘comfort media’, especially when it comes to wanting a cozy and distant place in a game in the face of a distressing political climate, given that every game is inextricably linked to their placement in the real world but that’s a whole other can of worms that’s tangentially related and which I am quite literally writing a thesis on rn but Anyway). obviously it’s anyone’s prerogative whether they continue with cr, so i completely respect and support the choice not to continue with their stories if c3 was a blow to your trust in the storytellers, that makes extreme sense to me.

that said, my position on it is that c3 is disappointing but it’s the outlier not the exemplar, and given the recent news that the next exandria dm will be sam (not because I think Matt is bad by any measure, but he’s explicitly state show exhausted he is and tragically passion is not enough to tell a strong story when you’re chronically running on low fuel), and other production choices they’ve been making that seem better suited for stronger storytelling than some of the ones they made during c3, I’m pretty sold on seeing where they take the next story. especially since the disappointment i felt at the abandonment of very typical storytelling conventions that cr has previously been good at maintaining (e.g., consequences for the central agents of the story — pcs in this case — and not just the World At Large) was immediately eclipsed by the enjoyment and narrative satisfaction of a story like divergence.

also, obviously feel your feelings and express them as needed anon, but since you’re in my inbox, I will just point out that “as we filmed our show, especially the finale, we were actively aware it was bad but we chose to do it anyway” is not something anyone said or even really implied. that’s honestly one of my main issues, if the cast said “we were aware it was bad storytelling but it was fulfilling gameplay/conclusions for us” i’d honestly respect that! i’d find it frustrating but it’s in line with their frequent emphasis that this is for them before anyone else. what they’re saying instead is “this is for us, so sometimes enjoyment at the table overrides conveying a coherent and consistent story” while also trying to maintain “we’ve actually told a story that’s as strong as previous campaigns and the complains from fans are just repeating the same complaints as always.” which. is patently false (while there are some ‘critiques’ that are the same in terms of ‘but my blorbo didn’t get to xyz’, most of the Actual criticism of c3 is based on the things c1 and/or c2 succeeded at and demonstrated the the players ability to convey a strong narrative through dnd mechanics and gameplay) and also very much a have your cake and eat it too situation. anyway, again: very fair to be disappointed and i’d be lying if I said i wasn’t myself in some ways, but you can express disappointment without using a strawman