#anyway i know the series has no such intentions and sum is supposed to be a good/supportive sister but

[warningsine]

GIRLS5EVA • Summer Dutkowsky

[deadendtracks]

More overly detailed asks where I cannot phrase a question but just scratching at conversation starters…  XD

In your Not series, there’s a scene where Alfie is at Tommy’s house, and Curly is tending Tommy’s injured knee. Alfie realises suddenly that Curly is an alpha and, while the thought doesn’t get explicit in the prose, the impression is a sexual undercurrent in Alfie’s intense shock because alpha!Curly is touching omega!Tommy in such an intimate/close way -> so this sense of how could *they* possibly have…!

So, I was interested in the thinking behind the scene, and also wondered if maybe it was an opportunity to do a bit of compare/contrast on that other aspect of alpha biological-drivers -> some omegaverses also have that driving alpha need to ‘care-take’ for an omega, and was wondering if your verse leans into this, and maybe this was an example of showing that non-sexualised caretaking?

One thing that comes across with Tommy and Alfie’s relationship is that it’s so sexually driven, but then, Alfie also grapples with all these non-sexual motivations that he never *really* seems to want to think about very hard – like the one that made him drive out to Arrow in this particular fic – to caretake, while Tommy *does* seem conscious of those drivers in Alfie and constantly pushes back on them. That particular scene with Curly struck me a little tiny bit of Alfie being jealous/annoyed/frustrated/bemused that actually, Tommy has people (the herd) who care for him (including alphas) and his relationships with those people don't have all these *other* heavy sexualised drivers laid over the top of that. Alfie trying to cross a boundary into something more than sexual, and while Tommy does verbally push Alfie back later, Curly's position in the scene as an *alpha* just felt very particular.

So that Curly scene -- yes and no?

Taking care of an injured Tommy and worrying over him is something canon Curly would do anyway, so his being an alpha isn't the primary driver of his behavior. The scene is more about Alfie's perception of the dynamic (and of what it means to be alpha) than it is about anything naturally inherent to being an alpha. Something Alfie probably doesn't understand is how Curly completely lacks an impulse to *control* as part of his caretaking. He has no desire to dominate as part of taking care of someone, because Curly doesn't have that perception that being alpha requires it. Curly is a nurturing guy; he'd be that way whether he was alpha or omega or beta but Alfie still slots people into these categories and tries to make sense of them that way.

I think of Alfie as someone who still has unconscious ideas about what alphas and omegas are supposed to behave. My personal omegaverse isn't hinged on the concept that alphas and omegas are *inherently* or naturally any one thing at all gender role wise -- but there are still stereotypes in that world along the lines of some of the typical omegaverse tropes, with some spins on it, I guess. I like to try to undercut them a bit here and there or find my own expression.

Alfie is someone who thinks he hasn't bought into those societal stereotypes, thinks he's risen above them or is enlightened, but has a lot he hasn't unlearned. Kind of a "male feminist" idea lol (nothing wrong with male feminists; just that even the well-intentioned cishet male feminist tends to have at least a few areas where his behavior doesn't match the theory).

Your last paragraph sums up how I was trying to write the dynamic really well!! That was my underlying idea -- that when it comes down to it, Alfie doesn't know much about Tommy's life, has no real understanding of how it's embedded in a community, even if that community is fractured between s3-4. He doesn't fully understand the impact of Grace's death on Tommy except abstractly. That's why I needed to bring Curly and Uncle Charlie into the story. And I've always been curious about Frances in canon; I haven't done alot with her in this series but whether Tommy wants her to be or not she's part of that community for sure. But Alfie is *surprised* by it and doesn't know how to process it; his mental version of Tommy is isolated from all context. In a lot of ways this series is about Alfie's assumptions being peeled back one by one.

I also think of Tommy as a bit more self-aware of some of these things than Alfie is. Like of course he has his own hangups and blindspots but he ... understands Alfie a lot better than Alfie understands him, and knows it. He can see through Alfie more than Alfie is able to see through him. At least when it comes to their dynamic. Of course there's a ton about Alfie's life he doesn't know about either, but I think he's more aware of that fact than Alfie is of the reverse. Alfie has this idea of who Tommy is and thinks he's right about it; Tommy only really exists in relation to Alfie for Alfie. Where I think Tommy just assumes Alfie has his own life in Camden Town that Tommy frankly doesn't give a shit about beyond his compulsive need to research the people he deals with. But he knows it's there!

Part of that is how they met -- Tommy first comes to Alfie on Alfie's territory surrounded by Alfie's people, alone. And a big part of Alfie has never revised his mental picture from that first meeting.

So what finally comes to a head here is that Alfie has this unconscious suspicion of Tommy-as-omega-seducer, combined with the fact that before he met Tommy he basically never let himself be in a situation where that caretaking instinct has an object. Eternal bachelor sort. So these two undercurrents are at war in him.

At the same time he's struggling with wanting more from Tommy. Much of his frustration is due to a fundamental misunderstanding or ignorance -- he just completely misses the fact that Tommy loved his wife and his wife just fucking died and Tommy still basically wants to be dead because of it. Alfie is (unconsciously) a bit dismissive of this, even when he considers the idea of Tommy having been 'bonded' to her. It's like... Tommy existed for him, then Tommy went off and got married and ceased to exist as anything but a distant business contact, and now that Tommy's wife is dead he exists again, and for Alfie there's this kind of continuity that doesn't exist for Tommy. For Tommy there's been an extremely violent rupture.

IDK if I'm expressing this well! But Alfie's looking for a man that doesn't exist, to quote Uncle Charlie.

Alot of this is driven by my wanting the relationship issues between them to not be 100% Tommy's fault/responsibility, which is how alot of Tommy/Alfie fic tends to go. When in canon Alfie is just... not the well adjusted guy who wouldn't be fucking up his relationship with Tommy if it existed! Like the issues between them aren't because Tommy's sexually repressed or internalized homophobia or because Tommy can't commit or idk. Even Tommy's trauma. Whatever. It's messier and more complicated and Alfie has a big responsibility there.

Beyond Grace's death, Alfie's actions (the ones from canon I've kept in this universe, which is all of them) have had a direct negative impact on Tommy, and that, you know. Affects Tommy's willingness to trust him, etc. At the same time there is something there for Tommy too, and he keeps coming back.

I'll stop here, though I'm aware I have only covered Alfie's half of this whole dynamic in any depth.

[dreamwritesimagines]

Twisted 15 - Playing with Fire [Spencer Reid x Reader]

A.N.: Thank you so much for your wonderful support my loves! Here’s the next chapter, I hope you will like it as well, and please let me know what you think of it! ❤❤ Ily, kisses! ❤❤❤

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Murder, serial killers, violence, manipulation, mentions of sex, drinking, smoking.

Word Count: 3800

Summary: Good intentions can lead to bad consequences.

Your first night with Spencer was different than any other time with anyone else you had ever been with, and you were one hundred percent sure that he would have some scientific explanation for it, but for you, the reason behind that was very simple.

Even if you couldn’t even admit it to yourself yet.

But for the first time in a very long time, your nightmares left you alone. Your sleep wasn’t disturbed, not by anything unpleasant anyway and you were almost sure that the small movement beside you in bed followed by a soft kiss into your neck was a part of your dreams.

The fuzzy feeling spread through you as the haze of the sleep slowly withdrew from your body and you snuggled closer into the covers, not ready to leave the warmth yet but as soon as you turned and felt the empty spot next to you, you opened your eyes, frowning. You sat up in bed, rubbing at your eyes and grabbed the folded paper lying on the pillow beside yours.

Beatrice;

She is the sum of nature’s universe,

To her perfection all of beauty tends.

Dante.

You smiled and your eyes skimmed the next lines under the quote.

New case in Ohio, they called in the whole team.

You heaved a sigh, falling back to bed again, pulling the silk sheets over your head and letting out a groan. The sunshine that seemed to fill your veins had disappeared already, leaving its place to coldness and you kicked off the sheets to walk to the bathroom.

After taking a long hot shower, you got dressed and blow dried your hair, humming a song to yourself, the memory of last night flashing in your mind, sending a spark through your whole system. You turned off the blow drier, stealing a look at your phone to see whether Spencer had texted you yet but there was nothing, so you grabbed it and left the bathroom.

As soon as you stepped into the kitchen, a shriek left your lips, making your mother turn around.

“Y/N!”

“Jesus Christ mom!” you pressed a hand over your chest, “How many times do I have to tell you not to break into my apartment?”

“It’s not breaking in if I have a key.”

“That key is for emergencies,” you let out a breath, “There’s a copycat killer sending me flowers, remember? Now is not the time for surprises.”

She tilted her head, “Speaking of, I heard you let the security I fixed you go.”

“I’m not going to walk around with bodyguards,” you said as you approached the coffee maker, “There’s security at my office already, I can’t have it in my building too.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“As long as you don’t give me a heart attack, I think we will be fine,” you checked your wristwatch, “Damn it, I need to leave in five.”

“Well, I won’t take much of your time,” she said and put a file on the kitchen island, making you look up from the cup you were pouring your coffee into.

“What’s that?”

“I took the liberty of contacting Philip.”

“Your P.I?” you asked, “Why?”

“To look into your boyfriend of course.”

You blinked a couple of times and put the coffee cup down, “Mom, no.”

“Relax, I didn’t read it.”

“No,” you insisted, “No way. Throw that away.”

“Y/N, don’t you want to know if there’s anything in his past that might be—”

“I’m not going to dig into his past!” you interrupted her, your heartbeat getting faster, “Anything he wants to tell me, he can tell me himself, I’m not going to learn it from a freaking P.I file.”

She heaved a sigh, “You don’t know what he might be hiding from you.”

“He’s not hiding anything from me,” you said, “Also, I know his father isn’t a serial killer, which is more than I can say for myself. I’m the last person to judge someone for their past.”

“What your father has done has nothing to do with you,” she said, “I didn’t tell Philip to look into his parents sweetheart, just him.”

“Throw that away.”

She rolled her eyes, “Y/N.”

“I’m not going to read it,” you told her as you put your coffee down and grabbed your purse from the counter, “I gotta go, but lock the door behind you when you leave okay?”

“Y/N, we need to talk about this!”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” you turned around to look at her, “Mom, for the first time in my life I actually feel—“ you paused for a moment, “He makes me happier than you could imagine, okay? I’m not going to betray his trust, not like that. Ever.”

She shot you a look and you walked out of the apartment, your phone already buzzing in your hand.

“Erica?” you greeted your assistant as you answered the phone, “I’m on my way.”

                                                           ***

You definitely had not imagined the next two days going like this.

For starters, you had thought you would get to wake up next to Spencer. That didn’t happen.

You had thought you would have a peaceful morning. That didn’t happen.

You had assumed Spencer would call you, at least text you sometime in these two days, but that didn’t happen either. Between meetings and clients and running from venues to pastry shops to flower shops, you kept checking your phone but there was nothing. Even after you had texted him good morning, it was radio silent.

You tried to convince yourself that it was because of his job. You were busy during the day yes, but he was dealing with actual serial killers and their victims, so it was more than normal that he couldn’t find….five seconds to text you.

Maybe.

On second day though, you were getting way too restless.

“Nothing?” Mina asked as she came back from the bathroom and you put your phone down, taking a sip of your rosé and averting your glances to the other people in the restaurant.

“No,” you murmured, “It’s—it’s fine.”

“Is it though?”

You clicked your tongue and pushed at your salad with your fork, “No,” you admitted, “It’s not fine.”

“Thought so.”

“It’s just that…” you heaved a sigh, “Maybe— I don’t know, maybe I misunderstood what this was?”

“Or maybe he’s an idiot.”

“He has an IQ of 187, Mina.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s not an idiot,” she pointed at you with her fork, “Listen, you know what kind of a job he has. Every second counts when you’re hunting down killers.”

“A text takes like five seconds to type,” you reminded her and bit inside your cheek, “What if—“

“No,” Mina said, “Whatever you’re thinking right now, that’s not what’s happening here. You just decided to date a guy who has the worst work hours, that’s it,” she tilted her head, “Speaking of, did mom seriously get Philip to look into him?”

“Oh my God yes!” you looked up at her, finally able to focus on something else, “Can you believe that?”

“Yes I can. I one hundred percent saw that coming,” she sipped her drink, “I didn’t think she would tell you though, not after what happened the last time.”

You frowned, but then a look of realization dawned on your face, “Right,” you said, “She did the same when you and Kenzie started dating. I almost forgot.”

“Kenzie broke up with me when she found out,” she reminded you, shaking her head, “It was the worst week of my life. I had to beg her to at least listen to me.”

“I mean I get that she was angry, but breaking up?”

“I don’t know how I would react if she did the same thing to me,” Mina stated, “I can’t blame her, not really. It was way out of line.”

You shrugged your shoulders, “I didn’t read it.”

“You shouldn’t read it,” Mina said, “Did you get rid of it?”

“I told mom to throw it away as I was leaving,” you said, “I didn’t see it on the counter when I came back, so I guess she did throw it away. Or took it with her, I don’t know.”

“You do realize none of this would be happening if you didn’t walk around announcing you’re in love—”

Your eyes widened, “Mina!”

“What? Just because you didn’t tell him doesn’t mean it’s not crystal clear to the rest of us.”

“I didn’t announce anything!”

“You might as well have,” she said, “Now that you got laid, there’s no excuse to that behavior.”

“At least I’m not calling him my love,” you pointed out and Mina scrunched up her nose.

“Don’t remind me,” she murmured, “I don’t know what mom is thinking. Also, apparently, there’s this auction for charity and all of us are supposed to be there. You, me, Kenzie…. Do you want to guess who the sponsor is?”

“Mom’s boyfriend.”

“Mom’s boyfriend,” she repeated, clinking her glass with yours, “Trust me, that’s gonna be a disaster.”

For the rest of the day, Spencer made no contact with you, and it was becoming more nerve-wrecking than you had thought it would be. Every hour your mind came up with some theory that was even more ridiculous than the other.

You had started with the theory of that night before not being as good for him as it was for you and somehow reached the theory of him lying dead in a ditch because a serial killer had gotten to him. Your fingers were practically itching for you to call him but you managed to control yourself, pouring yourself a glass of whiskey and trying to focus on the emails your assistant had sent you.

But the buzz of your phone was more than enough to make you sit up straight and snatch your phone off the coffee table. You touched the screen, your eyes skimming the text.

Sorry I couldn’t call, the case was chaotic and we just landed. Can I drop by? I missed you.

You stared at the screen, trying to repress the fury bubbling inside of you but managed to reply with just one word.

Sure.

Two days of complete silence, and then I missed you.

Lovely.

You let out a breath, forcing yourself to focus on the screen of your laptop instead of the anger filling you, because if you didn’t calm yourself down you were pretty damn sure that tonight would end in a huge argument.

And you didn’t want that. You didn’t want to let yourself play that messed up pushing and pulling game with him, because you knew where that would end.

It took more than an hour and a couple of glasses of whiskey, but when you heard the knock on your door, you pushed the cashmere throw off of you and walked to the door to open it.

Damn it, even the sight of him at your door was more than enough to make you want to rush into his arms, but you managed to hold your ground, leaning sideways to the door to take a look at him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in these two days and he was clearly exhausted, if not physically then mentally. The thought tugged at your heartstrings and you pressed your lips together.

“Welcome back,” you managed to say, not moving an inch to kiss or hug him and of course that didn’t escape his notice. Even when he was tired, he knew exactly how to read you.

You opened the door wider and walked back into the living room, listening to him close the door behind him and follow you.

“Tough case?”

“Yeah- is everything okay?”

His question made you turn around to look at him and you crossed your arms, frowning slightly.

“Yeah.”

“Y/N.”

You shrugged your shoulders, “Hm?”

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” you said, “I guess I’m surprised to hear from you, that’s all.”

A look of realization flashed over his handsome face, “I wanted to call you,” he said quickly, “I really did, but as soon as we landed in Ohio they took us into the crime scene, and the whole night I tried to crack the case but it turned out the killer had already committed—“

“A text would’ve been fine,” you pointed out, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet, “You didn’t get five seconds to yourself, professor?”

“Will you believe me if I say no?”

“No,” you stated, “Not really. It’s fine, I just misunderstood what this was,” you motioned at him,”It’s—like I said, it’s fine. I just didn’t know it before so I got confused, that’s all.”

“What did you misunderstand?” he asked you and you shrugged your shoulders again like a petulant child, keeping silent. He watched you, his brows furrowed as he tried to understand what was happening before he pulled back slightly.

“You thought—“ he started, his voice soft, “You thought I’d leave you like that?”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

Don’t fucking say—

“What do I care if you left?”

Anthony, -your ex you had broken up with months and months ago- had once told you that during the arguments, especially if you were mad at the person in front of you, it was like you were possessed by the devil himself.

“I have no idea what the fuck you want,” he had yelled at you, “I don’t think you know either.”

Now to think of it, you were beginning to agree with him about you being possessed because you knew it was illogical, you knew you were being petty and nonsense, and yet, you couldn’t stop yourself.

“You don’t care.” Spencer repeated, his aura changing completely, his tone calm and collected.

You supposed that was normal. You had already trespassed into his area of expertise voluntarily, and yes you could push and pull someone until they broke, but Spencer could play these mind games and come out on top no matter how much you tried to beat him at that.

The thought of him taking a peek into all these defenses you had spent years building was so intimidating that for a moment you felt almost naked and blinked a couple of times, your nose in the air.

Walking away when you were at your own goddamn apartment was a challenge but your pettiness knew no limits.

“You know what, I’m gonna take a shower, it’s really late.”

“Y/N.”

“Yeah listen, like I said, it’s fine. You missed me, you saw me and we’re clearly both very happy right now, so do you mind closing the door behind you when you leave?” you said, your voice cold as ice and took a step to walk past him but he grabbed your arm before you could do that, his grip firm but not painful.

“You know I can see through that, right?” his voice was low as your heart started pacing in your chest, the fire shooting through you despite anger, “Try to run away from it, lie to me all you want, but I’m not one of those clueless idiots around you. We both know you do care.”

It was as if there was an invisible electric wire crackling between your bodies, getting stronger and stronger with each second passing. Your eyes narrowed as you stood still for a moment, like a snake ready to strike, your mind going overdrive with where to attack him first.

“Then it’s a good thing one of us does,” you managed to say, your voice like a hiss, “Because we both know that you don’t.”

Something behind his eyes shifted but before you could even question what it was he had already pulled you into a kiss, his fingers buried into your hair while he walked you back until your back collided with the wall. You pushed his jacket off of him, not caring where it ended up and your fingers nimbly tried to get rid of his tie, a whine escaping from your lips when you had to break the kiss so that he could pull the oversized shirt you were wearing over your head. He pulled back for a moment, his fiery gaze focused on you and that was when you understood why he had stopped.

He was making sure he would remember this.

You pushed yourself off the wall, flinging yourself into his arms once again. It was nearly impossible to fight the urge of being closer to him, so you gave in as his hand tugged at the roots of your hair while both of you blindly tried to find the nearest flat surface, knocking over a vase and the floor lamp in process before he finally pushed you back to the couch. A squeal escaped from your lips when you landed on the soft cushions, but it soon turned into a moan when his body covered yours, his teeth grazing your neck.

“Well,” he murmured, his low voice in your ear giving you shivers, “Let’s test that theory then.”

                                                        ***

Of course he woke up before you. If you didn’t know any better, you would’ve thought he hadn’t slept at all but he looked better rested than when he first had got there, so you figured he at least got a couple of hours. He had put his pants and white button up on, but his tie and jacket were still scattered along the room. He was sitting by the edge of couch, his files all over the coffee table as his eyes darted between them and he dragged his fingertips over the papers, but when he felt you watching him, he turned his head to look at you, a smile pulling at his lips, mirroring yours.

“Good morning,” he said and your smile widened before he leaned in to kiss you.

“Hi,” you murmured as you reached out to touch his curls, “Why does your hair look prettier than mine in the morning?”

He chuckled against your lips, “You’re seeing things,” he said, stealing another kiss from you before pulling back, his thumb caressing over your cheekbone.

“What time is it?” you rasped out and he checked his wristwatch.

“7,” he said and you scrunched up your nose,

“How much time do you have?”

“Less than half an hour,” he sighed, “How much time do you have?”

“Perks of being the boss,” you wiggled your brows, “I don’t have any meetings before ten o’clock today.”

“Lucky.”

“Incredibly lucky,” you winked at him as you pecked him on the lips and grabbed your bra and underwear off the floor, painfully aware of his gaze on you sending fire underneath your cheeks. You got into your shirt, then narrowed your eyes at him.

“It’s rude to stare professor, where are your manners?” you asked, making him chuckle before he snapped his fingers as if he just thought of something.

“I almost forgot,” he said, pulling away to grab his satchel and he dug into it to pull out a small magnet, making you gasp and snatch it out of his hand.

“You remembered!” you said with a smile, “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll put it on the fridge. Coffee?”

He raised his brows and nodded his head, “Yes please.”

“I’m beginning to think I’m becoming a profiler,” you grinned at him and fixed your hair before jumping over the back of the couch. You had every intention to walk to the kitchen but you couldn’t help yourself as you leaned over to rest your chin on his shoulder and kissed his cheek, making him smile. He entwined his fingers with you, pressing his lips on the back of your hand, the warmth spreading from that spot through your whole body.

“Thank you,” you said softly and he turned his head to look at you,

“Of course, it’s nothing.”

“No, it’s… it’s not nothing.” You shook your head, “It makes me happy.”

The light in his eyes was so warm that you thought you would melt.

“Good, because I want—“ he swallowed thickly, “I need you to be happy.”

You nibbled on your lip before you stole a kiss from him,

“I am,” you murmured, not lying for the first time in your life. You rushed to the kitchen, putting the magnet on the fridge carefully before you turned the coffee machine on.

“So I was thinking,” you said, “About this 7 hour long conference.”

“You lost that bet, you have to attend it with me.”

“Ah no, I’m not trying to skip it,” you leaned on the kitchen island, “I just have a question.”

He looked over his shoulder, “Yeah?”

“There are bathrooms there right?”

“Of course.”

“And everyone will be pretty busy during and after the sessions?”

“Yeah because the Q and A sometimes goes longer than planned.”

“Great, so we can hook up in the bathroom?”

He blinked a couple of times, as if he couldn’t tell if you were joking.

“Come again?”

You shrugged your shoulders, “What? No one ever does anything fun in these conferences?”

“I don’t—“ he stammered, “They’re highly academic, so I don’t think… I don’t think anyone—um—”

“You okay there, professor?” you grinned, aware of your effect of your words “You’re telling me you keep attending these conferences and then you end up not hooking up with anyone?”

He shook his head, still confused and you winked at him.

“Well, there’s a first time for everything,” you said, “You’re going to be late if you just keep sitting there and gawking at me by the way, IQ of 187.”  

He tried to pull himself together, gathering his files as you turned around to get the cups out of the cabinet.

“For the record, I think people are having fun in a non-academic way in these things, you just don’t know it yet,” you said, pouring the coffee into the cups “In one of the conferences we had to attend during college, me and my friend got these flasks of whiskey, then we—“ you stopped talking when you turned around and saw him standing there, completely frozen as he skimmed the papers in one of his files.

“What?” you asked when his eyes snapped up to yours, but there was something behind his gaze, completely void of the affection you were used to seeing. He swallowed thickly, his jaw clenched and he threw the file onto the kitchen island, making you frown.

Then a shudder ran down your spine.

Your mom’s file on Spencer. The one she had told her P.I to prepare when she paid him to look into Spencer’s past. You had just assumed your mother threw it away when you couldn’t see it after you came home that day, but apparently you should’ve looked harder.

“Y/N,” his voice sounded way too distant, way too cold, “What the hell is this?”

Chapter 16

[onebizarrekai]

v3′s art is comically terrible for a professionally distributed game in a series: a compilation

in this not-essay I will list all of the mistakes and problems I have spotted in v3′s art. don’t worry, it’s entirely for fun and I’m doing this on a whim, so please feel free to not take this seriously but also it’s hilarious and embarrassing how ridiculous this is like what happened did they speedrun the whole production or what

see, there are some things you can take as meta like “they made it bad on purpose to allude to the downfall of tv shows that have been on air for much too long” but I have a very strong feeling this is not the case due to the nature of some of these errors

disclaimer, the more I study this art, the more I fear that the artists were underpaid and underslept, so if this is in fact the case, I am so sorry to all of them but also I’m going to make fun of the art anyway

anyway let’s get started!

if you study this image for longer than 5 seconds, you will see that kaede is the only one fully shaded and keebo is literally just his normal sprite pasted into the image. every other character is just an ordinary ref, hence most of them facing the exact same direction with neutral expressions on their faces. it looks like a bad edit, and is probably one of the worst pieces of art in the game. it kind of gets better from here on, but my roasting will not.

with that out of the way, here’s the problem that officially bothers me the most and clarifies my viewpoint of “this is not meta and an actual lack of company communication”

this freaking cg, which seems normal at a glance, but some wiseass was like “oh, kaede is a girl, so obviously she’s going to be shorter than the Male Protagonist™” ah, that’s funny. because if you look at the character bios, kaede is, in fact, one inch taller than shuichi and not like 6 inches shorter as she is shown here.

also shuichi’s shoulder is disproportionate and horrendous and he looks vaguely like a jojo character, but I wasn’t even thinking about that until right now.

thanks guys, 50% of the fandom who has never bothered to check these bios thinks that kaede is like 5′3 (did the developers really put so little thought into her to the point where drawing her correctly in the game didn’t even matter??)

also I would like to point out that, even though this isn’t related to the art itself, yes, a character kaede’s size being only 117 lbs is unfeasible, but this applies to literally every character in danganronpa ever and it’s not new news that it’s unrealistic

update: someone in the tags informed me that in versions of the game that use centimeters, like the japanese version, kaede is actually shorter than shuichi, which just adds another thing to the list of weird decisions the localization team made for no reason. that said, after confirming this, kaede is 167 cm in the original, while shuichi is 171 cm, which are approximately 5′6 and 5′7 respectively, but one inch is still nowhere near as drastic as it is depicted above. (in spite of this, I would rather depict kaede as slightly taller, so I’m probably going to keep doing that.)

the journey continues!

bro if you want kaede to have shoulder length hair then stick to it to begin with

you can pretend this is at an angle all you want but they definitely committed the shorter kaede sin a second time

wait a goddamn second.

DO YOU SEE THIS

no………… it wasn’t kaede who shrank. it was shuichi who got taller

speaking of which, can we talk about how shady the perspective is in this elevator pic? look at shuichi and kokichi in comparison to kaede. kokichi, who is canonically 7 inches (edit: or 5, if you’re loyal to the original) shorter than kaede, looks taller than kaede. he’s growing too. what steroids are these gays taking

running into the room, electric boogaloo: I don’t think tsumugi is supposed to be the same height as kokichi

gonta… gonta you’re lookin a bit like a jojo character there

I love how kaito’s head looks kind of like it was pasted onto his body. why is he the same size as shuichi? shouldn’t he be high school bully size or something? his torso is teensy

ah yes, white angie.

I love this cg but why is shuichi’s right hand so much bigger than his left hand

I also love how this cg looks like they literally took pictures of trees and pasted them into the background, especially on the left. the shadows are so weird, especially closer to the ceiling, it’s difficult for me to believe they didn’t do exactly that.

return of Enlarged shuichi

puberty update: kokichi is now taller than shuichi in spite of shuichi never missing leg day. what crimes will he commit

I have to mention it, guys. this has to be one of the worst danganronpa cgs. kokichi’s facial proportions look atrocious. look at the way his face sticks out like his jaw is in the wrong place. his scarf is a pasted texture. that’s it. this moment was so iconic but the cg just looks so… so… off. like something is terribly wrong, but you can’t put your finger on it.

you know what? let’s get into that ‘pasted texture’ thing.

let’s imagine you’re an artist working on a professional game. you’re assigned to draw cgs of kokichi ouma, who has a checkered scarf from hell. sure, it will be terrible to draw, but you only have to draw it once at a time! plus, perspective is pretty important, right? can you be bothered? nah, actually. let’s just copy paste a checkered pattern into the cg, because I’m sure nobody will notice. it’ll blend right in with the other cgs that someone actually put effort into drawing his scarf in, right?

no. the answer is no and I very much noticed. this genuinely looks terrible and I would understand taking a shortcut like that in fanart or even an indie game but this is a full price pc and console distributed game

(an addition: look at kokichi’s TINY HANDS in that last one)

meanwhile, they straight up forgot to color in kokichi’s scarf in this cg.

dude. I forgot about whatever the hell this cg was. anyway look at keebo please just look at him

lovin kaito’s baby arms

real talk, maybe you could argue that he’s missing muscle because he’s deathly sick, but most of his cgs don’t line up with this, and his arms just look disproportionate to his torso size (granted this is a consistent problem across all danganronpa games and a lot of characters have this weird problem, like hajime, but also kaito is bigger than hajime so I kind of have higher expectations of him) maybe it’s his stupid goatee and the way he reminds me of yasuhiro?? it creates this illusion that he’s older than he is and so I keep expecting him to look more like an adult

oh, also rantaro is missing some of his accessories in that video he made–you know the one–but I don’t wanna go back and screenshot it

also you may have noticed that I’m skipping all of the monokub cgs because I literally do not care about them and I’m not even bothering to check and see if they have artistic mistakes in them

JIMMY NEUTRON???

hey um uh kaito you seem to be missing your neck

hey guys do you like my pregame fanart

so, that done, the sprites are also pretty terrible at times. they’re not as interesting to go through, however, and downloading the full sprite sets for every character and studying every single one of them will drive me insane, so I’ll just sum some of the ones I noticed up. I made things for kaede and shuichi before deciding I wasn’t going to get into it, so here are these.

that said, other mistakes include kokichi missing his purple highlights in all of the sprites encompassing a specific pose, stray pixels all over the place on everyone, and everyone also has heavily inconsistent shading, but literally all I think about is how pregame shuichi is unshaded and two of kaede’s pregame sprites have glaring outfit change mistakes in them

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read my ridiculous ramble. in all seriousness, there’s this looming presence of some lack of communication in the development team, like with all the art and design inconsistencies, pieces and sprites that look rushed, stray pixels, and missing basic proportional stuff. these are the kinds of things that you supposedly have to pretty much have in the bag in order to get jobs in professional businesses, so it’s really weird to me that this game suffers from so many of these problems. it’s like they tried to make the art so much more crisp than the other games, but it fell on its face as they realized it was going to take longer to draw everything and they started to rush. it’s weird, because the coloring itself looks normal–it’s just sloppily drawn, and the proportions are a mess once put into the context of perspective. many of the cgs look like they were drawn by different people, and I’m still not over the fact that half of kokichi’s cgs have his scarf pasted in as a texture.

the moral of the story is that if you’re selling a game at full price that also happens to be in a series that has had 3 very good games in it already the stakes should probably be higher than this. v3 has been out for more than 3 years and it’s still $40 (did it cost more than that before? I sure hope not), and the overarching quality of the game is just not as high as the other games. I’m not saying that the other games don’t have any problems with their art at all, they’re just not as glaringly obvious and every artistic choice in those games feels intentional.

regardless, I had a blast roasting the art at 2am, so maybe you got a kick out of all this chaos.

[ofmythsandmadness]

touch-starved | d.h.

or...the seven times it takes diego hargreeves to realises he’s touch-starved, and the one time he actually acts on it.

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SUMMARY: diego x gn!reader. an idiot in love, told entirely from his pov as he walks back on a series of monumental moments in his life. WARNINGS: a tad bit of foul language (bc i can never contain myself, jeez). allusion to sexual acts (nothing explicit, but if you know, you know). flowery garbage writing. probably poor characterization. a weird ending. WORD COUNT: 5.7k NOTES: it’s way too late (early?) for me to be putting this out. but after literally driving myself to tears over this stupid thing, i’m forcing myself to publish it and leave it to the world, for better or for worse. it’s...yeah. i hope it’s alright. x

BUY ME A COFFEE HERE. | CHECK OUT MY OTHER WRITINGS HERE.

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THE FIRST TIME HE REALISED WAS IN THE SUMMER.

“Can I say something weird?”

There is a nervous half-giggle that came after the question, like you aren't quite sure how he’s going to take whatever slipped from your gentle, just parted lips. It hangs much longer than the five words you passed to him and he almost forgets what you asked entirely, so hung up on the breathless fashion your chuckle had come.

But when you blink at him and let your beseeching eyes hover over his, he has to let go of the sound and return to the present.

“Sure,” he says dumbly. “What?”

He loses your eyes then and he finds himself following, eager to see what could have lost your attention so fast. His frown digs heavier as you stare at the table he’s leaned over. There isn’t anything there but his harness scattered across the worn wood and a knife in one hand. He’s been idly fiddling with as some show titters in the background, but his weapon (mal??)practices have never been much interest to you before. So...

Slowly a warm smile comes to cradle your cheeks. It rests as delicate as a crashing wave colliding with the great cliffs you had painted once -- like with everything you did, your smile’s a charging force that transforms you entirely and leaves him in awe that anyone could feel something so strongly. He watches with total enthrallment and for once, he’s not ashamed to feel so.

“You have like, really nice hands.”

You drawl the statement out like it’s some kind of joke. Though, the intense look you so briefly shoot him tells him it's anything but. And suddenly he cannot do anything; the knife falls from his hands and clatters to the table and his fingers tremble under your careful stare, paralysed. 

“I-I-”

“-I know, weird compliment, but,” you chuckle again, low and soft. You shrug. “I was staring at them and realised how nice your hands are.”

“Uh…” he doesn’t know what to do with that information. What does one say to that? Is thank you enough, or is he supposed to just force a laugh and pretend like he is not completely ruined by the way you look at his hands? Compliments are not a usual weapon of choice, but when they come from your lips -- Diego can die right there and go overjoyed.

“Thanks,” he mutters, folding and unfolding his hands on the table. “I...never thought about my hands like that.”

You brighten. In a flash of pastel movement you were pressing close, close, close to him and reaching for a fist. He’s again powerless, forced to just watch you pull his fingers in between your own, softly running gentle pads against his bruised knuckles. The touch is cool but he feels his body combust at the mere swish of skin-to-skin contact and he realises,

maybe he could crave someone’s touch.

“You should,” you grin, exquisite under your apartment’s shitty lighting and the flashes of whatever’s happening on the T.V across the room. “You could like, seriously be a hand model or something. Go-orgeous fingers.”

And maybe, he starts to crave yours.

━

THE SECOND TIME HAPPENS WEEKS LATER. 

He’d fantasized about your touch most of the days between it, but the thoughts had been forced to be fleeting and he had avoided considering the way you looked at him like he could actually hang the moon and stars -- and it only ever caught up to him in the ebbs of night, when he couldn’t sleep and just stared at the ceiling, considering what it would be like to really feel you against his hands and not let you slip away.

He so rarely let the sun touch his skin anymore. It wasn’t intentional to adapt a vampire lifestyle -- but between the shifts that let him keep his dingy ‘home’ and the nights he spends racing around the cursed city, trying to do the right thing (or stick it to his dad, depending on the night and how bleary his head felt), Diego rarely catches himself leaving the gym early than eleven anymore.

A fact that seems to exasperate you, and fuels what you dubbed an intervention. Aka, forcing him to wander around the city just barely kissed by autumn’s chilly embrace. And though he did argue against it (profusely, because he’s still that stubborn sonofabitch), he’s grateful for you still.

“I think we need to make this a regular occurrence,” you sing, tossing a smile over your shoulder. You skip several paces ahead of him as you soak in every bit of sunshine the crisp fall air could offer you. And he flounders and watches as he wonders what it would feel like to have that much energy from merely existing.

“I think I’m gonna have to mandate this. I’ll force you to schedule this into your life, and I’ll take shifts off from work so we can appreciate the afternoon sun while we can. It won’t be long ‘til winter you know.”

He chuckles hesitantly, “the sun’ll still be there in the winter.”

“Sure, but barely. And it’ll be cold then! The sun ain’t nice when it’s cold.”

He laughs again, and you join him. And it’s easy -- because it’s you.

“Diego!”

“Huh?”

You stop then, dropping your hands to your hips and glaring at him. Even from several feet away he can make out the infuriatingly adorable pout that puckers your pretty lips and the way he wishes he could go back in time and learn to paint, so he could capture the curve of your --

“--why are you so slow?!”

“I -- I’m not slow.”

“You are too! You’re dragging your feet like I’m forcing you to go to the dentist or somethin’.” You squint at him as the sun heightens his reach in the great blue sky. “Man, are you that allergic to a good time?”

“Shut up, I’m not that bad.”

The pout gives as easily as honey dripped -- that is to say, he adores the treacly sweet and slow slip from puckered lips to the easy smile you give him. Your entire heart’s behind the look just as it always is. You trot back up the path to him and held your hand out to him, wriggling it in the air.

“What?” he asks, frowning through a slow smile. 

“Take my hand.”

“I…” he hesitates again. “Why?”

“Because you’re slow, and I want to make it to the coffee place before next year. Duh,” you drawl, still shaking your hand like one would to a little kid. “Now, come on!”

You pull and he comes without a fuss, dazed as you bumble on about whatever miraculous happenings go on inside your mind. He hardly hears a thing. Every part of his body is fixated on the soft brush of your thumb against his hand, rubbing soothingly -- he isn’t even sure if you knew you’re aware you’re doing it, but he is. Hell, he can’t feel anything else but that.

Maybe your touch could be a tether.

━

HE HADN’T MEANT FOR THE THIRD TIME. Hadn’t planned to make an event out of it, anyways.

“You’re a fool, Diego. You know that?”

Obviously, he responds silently, grimacing as the cloth presses harder into his cuts. That’s why he did it. Because he is a fool. Honestly, that sums up the majority of the things he does in his life. Or doesn’t do, in the case of you.

Is it bad, if as you scold him, he’s creating a list of even more reasons to love you?

“I mean, one of these days you’re going to come here impaled on like, a pole or something and then -- what am I supposed to do with that?” Your tongue clicks like a disapproving mother’s, but your eyes still dance with childlike mischief as you work. “I am not a nurse.”

“Could’a fooled me, with those hands.”

You glare up at him over your lashes, a sight that made his breath hitch. “Quiet, you.”

Diego does as you said -- but not for any bits or for the joke, only because the way you look at him suddenly made his body tremble with the force of a thousand men and all he wants is to grab your neck and drag you up to meet his lips, finally be rid of the burning sensation in his gut that makes him want to ask the most obscene of--

“--does it hurt?”

He blinks, forcing away the images flashing in his mind so he can focus on the real you again. “Uh -- does what, hurt?”

You take that as a joke, laughing low like his horny idiocy deserved such praise. “This, asshat. Does this,” you press harder with the swab, making him cringe, “hurt?”

“Shit -- yes, it hurts! What’s that for?!”

“Had to make sure you were with me still! Sorry,” you hum, sounding everything but. But your grip softens. “You’re lucky. This could have needed stitches.”

Diego snorts. “It’s not that bad.”

“You look like the fookin’ dino from Jurassic Park felt you up.”

“Not that fookin’ bad,” he mocks back. 

“Your accent is appalling.”

“So’s yours.”

You press harder; when he scowls, you giggle, pleased to have won the battle again. 

The rest comes in silence. You stand between his legs, mopping at his cuts as you are often wont to do when he stumbles into your window. And he tries not to think about the way your weight so casually presses up against his torso as you reach to his temple, parted lips just out of reach. He could do it; he could just reach out and grab your chin, pull you in and kiss you with all the fucking passion that made his stomach roil.

But he doesn’t budge. There is no way you want that and he would never push past that fragile boundary without asking, no matter what the primal part of his mind fantasizes. His eyes fall instead down to his lap, staring at the folds on his pants as your fingers graze across his skin.

“There,” finally comes, along with you stepping away. Your distance leaves a cold chill running down Diego’s spine; he wonders if he asked you to come back, if you would. “Almost done.”

“Almost? What’s left?”

The next few moments move like a movie. The ones he only ever watches with you or with Klaus; the cheesy slow-mo romances, where the two main characters constantly dance around in a will-they-won’t-they that usually drives him nuts. Everything is always so slow in them and he usually hates them -- he did hate them. But when it’s his hands cradled in yours and you are smiling sweet and gentle as a honeybee, hell he’d take every single second of those crap rom-coms, if it leads to that moment more.

You lean in and, holding his hands in your own like an anchor held a boat to shore, press your lips against his temple. The slightest sting from the pressure builds but it falls with the blink of an eye. Your lips are cold, delicate, brushing twice against the cut before pulling away.

“There. Now I’m done.”

Maybe, you’re just some kind of angel.

But then, why are you bothering with him?

━

THE FOURTH HAPPENED SO FAST, he nearly misses it.

You pull him in close, examining his clothes and face for any glaring wounds. When you find nothing but dirt and a couple surface scratches, your worried expression melt into something akin with relief; a shiny-eyed, trembling lip smile that deserves its place in the greatest museums.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” you whisper, seemingly untrusting of your vocal cords. You sniffle. “I was - I was so--”

“--I’m okay.” It sounds more like a revelation than a reassurance and he repeats himself twice, just to make sure you understand. His hands still grip tight to your forearms, holding you to him in case you would disappear, too. “I’m okay. Everything’s fine.”

You nod and even as you pull away from his hold, you launch. Your arms lace around his neck and your face instantly finds a place to bury itself, right into his shoulder. Your body shakes; he realises that you’re crying into him, so relieved with him being there.

The embrace is short. Too short. He doesn’t do enough to hold your clinging form, only standing there slightly swaying and just barely grazing your back, He considers it too long and doesn’t act enough even when he wants to beg you to never let go again. And when you pull away, you refuse your tears again, sniffling through a smile and asking if he wants some food. But the embrace remained ingrained in his thoughts like a disease; it polluted everything else until everything was you, just you, holding him and wanting him.

Maybe, he was deserving. Maybe he deserved to be wanted. Was that justification enough?

━

THE FIFTH HE ALMOST DIES.

Not literally that time -- no, he’s done enough of that to you. It’s more of a metaphorical sort, making his heart stop as your fingers just graze against his stubble strewn chin, his breath catching on the lump in his throat as he realises yet again that nothing could be more beautiful than your smile.

Diego is not a formal man, nor had he ever really been. Even at the Academy his uniform was almost always somehow out of place or wrinkled or missing a detail. He hates shirts that buttoned all the way up to his throat and pants that have to be pleated that one specific way for no reason at all. If it isn’t important, he wears whatever is closest to him, or his domino-mask-and-leather getup if he’s ‘working’. Hell, the man isn’t even sure he had ever worn a suit outside of his childhood years and Allison’s wedding.

“You look...different.”

He swings fast around to see you leaning against his doorway. You’re all pink cheeks and cheeky grins. Something about the way you look him up and down makes him suddenly want to hide, slip away so you could not see how stupid he looked in this stupid monkey suit clinging to his arms and thighs like stupid plastic wrap. You probably see him as a circus animal, stuck in some stupid performance outfit and told to juggle fire. 

(Honestly, juggling fire would be worlds easier than doing whatever this was, though.)

Slowly, you step into the room, eyes never leaving him. He gulps.

“You look good, Diego.”

He blinks. That is...unexpected. “Y-yeah?” Damn his voice for giving out on him; it comes out squeaky and prepubescent, sounding every bit of uncertainty he feels. “I-I mean, I--”

“--relax, hot stuff,” you wink and his face fills with heat. “You look great. But, your collar…”

Diego glances down only to scowl at the mess of buttons he left around his neck. “Shit, yeah.”

“Let me?”

But you’re already coming to him, though, hands outstretching and delicately folding themselves across his chest. He wonders if you could feel the way his heart beat like there were a thousand drums locked into his chest, or that you knew you smelled like the gods’ ambrosia, honey -sweet smoke dripping from your velvet form. Are you aware how intoxicating your mere presence is?

“Can I?”

He nods dumbly, not trusting his words.

With careful fingers, you weave the buttons together that have been left undone. You then reach up higher, pressing down his collar. 

You hesitate against him, hands still folded into the sharp white fabric. Slowly, one set of fingers unfurl and lift to barely brush against his jaw. It’s a mere allusion to what it would be to have you cradle his face in your caring palms and it only leaves him craving more. 

Your lips curl up too, coloured as deep as the fabric that clings to your exquisite form. Just the tip of hot pink snakes out of your mouth, pressing slyly to the top lip, riling the hotblood boiling inside him right up to the brim.

“What…” the single syllable comes out strangled and hoarse. You’re strangling the life out of him without even moving a finger. Do you know your power?  “What are...what are you doing?”

In hindsight, that’s probably the stupidest question he could have asked.

You baulk and immediately pushed away from him. The fingers glide from his chest and chin and leave him cold. Gone was the confidence you had offered so easily before; he watches, stunned as your eyes fall to the floor, no longer eager to meet his.

“You look good, Diego.” You smile but that time it doesn’t look real at all. “Have fun tonight.”

“Wait, I--”

--you offer a wave and nothing more. Your figure crosses the room and leaves him alone in between the four walls that seemed to press into him without your comforting presence.

Maybe, you could care for him, too. As he wants you too. Is it selfish to think so?

━

THE SIXTH TIME, HE’S ALMOST ASLEEP.

Honestly, Diego isn’t sure how his head had ended up in your lap, or when his body had melted so effortlessly into your own. It wasn’t the alcohol; two beers isn’t enough to kill all of his conditioned issues or turn him into a total sop. It hadn’t even been intentional, nothing about making room or trying to do anything.

But there you are. Your thighs are his pillows and your hands kiss across his scalp, weaving through his hair like it’s yarn to be woven into something beautiful. Once in a while you pause and he thinks that that’s it, you would force him up -- but then you continue like nothing had happened and he continues to lay like a fish out of water across your legs.

Neither of you had talked about the incident before. It was simply avoidance until you both decide to brush it off and move on, forgetting all about the awkwardness. Or, at least, that’s what you silently promised.

But it’s late. Neither of you are thinking. Or, he isn’t at least, when his head slips from the couch to your thinly clad shoulder. And you hardly react when he relaxes even more, silently gesturing for him to use your thighs as a headrest as the movie neither of you are watching drones on. You make some sort of joke, something stupid and it usually wouldn’t be enough to convince him to act so foolishly. But he is tired, and you are you, and it’s all too easy to give in to you.

So he lays. Your hands in his hair. On your lap. Like a baby incapable of even sitting on his own. He should feel unbelievably stupid, right?

“You’ve got beautiful hair,” you mumble, eyes dragging off the television screen to your lap. He barely catches your soft, smiling gaze before it slips back up, but the memory sticks with him long minutes after. “Wish you’d let me play with it more.”

But he can’t bring himself to hate this moment.

He half-snorts, half-laughs because what a funny statement that is. In his state of lovesick, exhausted delirium, Diego hardly recognises himself telling you that ‘you can play with his hair any time you want’.

“Really?”

“Uh…” he had not meant to say that out loud. “I-I--”

“--thanks, honey.” Your hands linger against his temple before stroking down his wavy locks. Honey. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He pulls off of you after a short while -- not because he wants to, because he’s guilty to take your loving hands for his selfish needs. He claims the bathroom excuse and leaves with his head floating in the clouds. The domestic bliss you offer him wasn’t something he thought he wanted, before -- but every time he leaves your bubble, he finds himself more and more starved for your touch.

He leaves your place high on your smile and still stuck on the way you combed through his hair. Even after pulling away yet again, he’s still happy and actually hopeful.

Maybe, he could actually have this, more than just one random rainy night. Maybe he should try.

━

THE SEVENTH TIME, HE ALMOST KISSES YOU.

Almost, because he, Diego ‘number one himbo’ Hargreeves is a self-labelled idiot who loses all cognitive abilities and brain cells when he lays eyes on you, and fails to be able to use them for all the time you’re around him.

And it’s the moment when he finally fully comes to realise the extent of his overwhelming, absolute adoration for you.

He’s never been so bad with that sort of thing. Before he could throw an easy smile and wink his way into a heart he’d no doubt break the following morning and pull a quick-run attraction like it wasn’t anything. But with you? The idea of even your touch turned him bashful and running for the hills, you know...like an idiot.

It takes you pulling him along every single time for him to react and even then, it’s never enough. You’re always left with a pouting lip and that strange, far-off look in your eyes that tells him he’s screwed it up all over again. Every time you get close he’s too blind to react the right way.

Your head on his shoulder, the world’s at peace. He wants you to stay by his side forever. He’ll hold you as long as you want -- hell to his arms, you’re worth the ache or the crick in his neck from bending the wrong way. He’ll let his body waste away and his mind turn to cobwebs if it means an eternity on your balcony, wind in both of your hair and your hands interlacing between his own.

“This is nice,” you murmur. “Yeah?”

He nods. His chin bumps awkwardly against the crown of your head, but you don’t seem to mind.

“I don’t normally like the quiet. But it’s nice like this. With...with you…” you hesitate on the last syllables and the ‘you’ comes out thick and garbled. But he gets it anyways, and somehow he has the emotional strength to pull you even close to his hulking frame. You’re very close to sliding onto his lap and he’d be lying if the idea to just go all the way doesn’t spring to mind. But he doesn’t move.

“It’s nice, knowing you’re here. Safe, alive...with me.”

Diego smiles into your hair. “It is nice.”

Aaand the ‘most obvious statement of the year’ award goes to him. Yet again. Why do you put up with his thick-headed responses? And why can’t he explain the fuzzy feeling in his throat that he gets from being near you, and the desire to give up everything else just to exist by your side? A simple ‘yeah’ doesn’t cover that and he knows that, he knows he has to tell you the entire adoring truth but --

“I like being around you, Diego. You know that, right?”

If he’s being honest...he can’t really believe that. The idea that someone like you enjoys his company is a farfetched concept. But his head bobs up and down again anyways. 

“I, uh...I like our friendship.”

Did you -- did you just friendzone him?!

Did he really just --

“--but sometimes…” you snort out a derisive laugh, “sometimes I wish we were a bit more. Y’know?”

He shifts his weight on the chair and stares down at you, unsure what to make out of any of it. “I - uh - whatdoyoumean?”

“I just, I think we’re good together.” You move too, so he can finally see the pretty way the moonlight bounces off your irises. You’re smiling, and he can’t help but smile too, hopeful and eager as a puppy would be. “And I want to, just...man, I wasn’t expecting this to be so hard to say.”

Vaguely, Diego hears himself respond with a grunt (it’s meant to be an ‘it’s okay’, but apparently English isn’t his strong suit).

“I just like having you around. A lot, if that’s not obvious. I know I’m, heh, kind of a lot sometimes. And I’m trying not to be so uh, affectionate because I know that’s a lot for some people and I never want to overstep, or--”

“--you’re not,” he says quickly, finally finding his voice after oceans of gaping. “I like you being affectionate. It’s nice.”

Your smile grows. “Okay, that’s good.” You hold his fingers a little closer and he’s on cloud nine, staring at you like you’re the eighth wonder of the modern world. “Because if I’m being completely honest here, I don’t want to stop. I...I like you. Generally, in the sense of, more than just friendship. D’you get what I’m saying here?”

“Uh…”

“I don’t want to read into things too much, but I can’t stop myself from feeling really strongly about you. And I don’t want to go on like this, without telling you I’m like, head over heels for you at this point.” You blink up at him, pleading for him to not let you down as you finish with, “is there any way you feel the same?”

What Diego should have done, and wanted to do, was to tell her exactly how he felt, and pull her to him and pull the most cheesy, most cliche Hollywood moment in all the world. He’d finally get the girl in the moonlight as the stars sing above him and the world sleeps below and it would be perfect.

What Diego actually does, is leave.

Cold, and alone, with no hand to hold and no head resting on his shoulder. He leaves you bewildered and probably pissed off and he leaves with no explanation at all -- just a garbled sentence or two that adds up to nothing. He drops his shattered heart at the door and wanders  home shivering and hopeless, knowing he has just fucked it all up.

As he stares at the sidewalk and plods down the street like a lonely, hard down soul, Diego wonders if he’s deserving of your touch. If he was allowed to open up and feel your affection so strongly as you give it. He wants to like you would probably never believe. He wants to hold you and he doesn’t want to let go again. He’s starved for your touch and he’d trade the sun and stars to keep you by his side, no matter the costs.

But you’re worth more than him. Shouldn’t you offer your heart to a better, kinder man? To someone who knows how to hold you properly, and offer his touch right back? Not someone who shivers away or rejects your kindness like a parasite. But someone brave enough to feed you with all the adoration you’re worthy of. Shouldn’t he be who you seek?

Maybe, Diego muses, the universe is wrong, and the mistress is nothing but a cruel meddler too eager to break his heart.

But maybe, it’s his own fault, and she’s not cruel at all.

His pace quickens a beat, and he suddenly knows what he has to do.

━ 

DIEGO’S LIKE NINETY-NINE PERCENT CERTAIN THAT NO ONE, no one living soul, had ever said that the eighth time was the charm.

But if he had to be the first, hell he’d ring that bell a thousand times if it got him where he had to be.

He’s running like a madman. And he’s not drunk, even if at least five people have grumbled that about him -- no he’s as sober as the day he was forced into the world. He’s made a thirty-minute walk of hell into somehow a twelve-minute dash through the cold streets of their shitty city and he feels like a god, if gods were desperate sonofabitches who never knew how to acknowledge their feelings until it’s too late.

He takes the stairs, too high on adrenaline to wait for the elevator. He gasps and huffs and pants his way up but he makes it and keels down the hall to your door, falling against it with all his weight. It’s a foolish move but in his defense...his legs are about to give out, and all the energy he’s devoted to this half-baked, foolish, love-drunk plan is very quickly running out.

He pounds against the door weakly. “Hello? Hello? I--” 

and then he literally crashes into your apartment.

You both tumble to the floor with a loud thud-thump and he’s so glad you have thick carpeting because he could have probably split your skull right open with the fall. He’s smart enough to roll, so he cushions your upper body with his, but you still groan as you make contact with the floor. His entire bone structure quakes at the feeling of ground hitting him and even with nary a breath in his throat, immediate guilt floods his system.

He falls back and silently screams, wishing he had more tact than this.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“I’m...I’m so sorry,” he offers with a smile. He quickly props himself up over your body and tries to look as sorry as he truly feels, though it’s hard as his breath still won’t come and he’s still absolutely exhausted from running all this way.

Why did he do all this again?

Oh, yeah.

“I-I love you,” he spurts, followed by him rolling off and promptly falling into a coughing/choking/hacking fit.

You lay beside him, silent and stunned. He can’t see you as he coughs but his mind tries to put the pieces together, and none of it looks good. You’re probably annoyed, and mad that he’s even there so late and after what happened before, and you’re probably tired, and maybe sad, or hurt, or uncomfortable because you just jumped from friends to him admitting he loves you and --

“-did you seriously run all this way and body me, just to tell me that?!” 

He pulls himself together long enough to breathe and then turn so he can stare at you. You’re still beside him, body still pressed against the floor (possibly broken after having a much larger man knock you over, who knows) and you’re…

“You’re smiling,” he responds, like it’s the most shocking thing in the world. “You’re - why-”

“Last time I saw you, you were running out of my place like your ass was on fire. And now you come here, knock me on my ass, and tell me you love me?! Diego...uh...wow.”

Diego just stares back at her. He’s still struggling to breathe and if he’s being honest, he’s not sure if he can function after any of this. He just wasted so much of his courage (something he’s never been good at keeping stock of) on just getting here, how is he supposed to collect himself and head out the door with any sense of dignity? Or answer you in any way, shape or form? How is he supposed to even move when you’re looking at him like that?

Wait, you’re...you’re looking at him like that. Smiling, doe-eyed, honey-sweet and beautiful even after being violently collided with and forced to your shitty carpet…

“I love you,” he breaths, soft but still sure. He grins back at you and he feels like an idiot but he holds strong. “And I’m really sorry about before. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m just, all this stuff is stuff I’ve never done before, and I--”

And without another word or even the chance to think, your lips are on his.

Well, they probably were meant to be. What really happens is with a grunt and a swift push, you shift over to him and move to kiss him, only you’re both still smiling and absolute idiots who then just bang teeth against teeth. And you’re left groaning and keeling back, both gripping your mouths while still smiling and,

Ohmygodthisisamessbutohmygodishesohappyandinlovewithyou.

“I’m so sorry,” you groan, muffled behind your hand.

“Me too -- for knocking you over, too!”

“Yeah, that’s gonna leave a bruise.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” you chuckle, and lift up again. You hover above him. His nose just barely brushes against yours and he’s straight back into heaven again, even as the embarrassment floods and his teeth ache. “I mean, I would have preferred a bit more warning, but...at least you don’t hate me.”

Diego grins and lifts his hand to push a tendril of hair behind your ear. “I could never hate you.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Mm-hmm. I’m glad you don’t hate me.”

“Please,” you roll your eyes and shove at his chest. His heart beats even faster. “Like I could ever hate you.”

He lifts his head, trying to pull himself up to meet your lips, but you dart away just enough so he can’t. “Can - can we try this again?”

“Mm…” you pretend to consider his request like one would a business proposal. Your thighs tighten their grip around his stomach and a part of him just wants to pull you in and act as his heart pleads. But, given the last time he did that...and the last time you did...he’ll take this slow.

Instead of answering, you lean down and press your lips to his. It’s gentle and leisurely, but he takes every motion in stride. You’re everything he expected and more. Soft petals of reddened flesh against his, your hips just barely grazing against his own, making him want to pull you into his body and never let you leave his side. He’s jubilant and exhilarated and he almost laughs like a baby as your tongue swipes against his bottom lip.

“If it isn’t obvious,” you breathe as you pull away, “from the way I let you tackle me to my floor,”

“I’m really sorry about that,”

You pull his hand up and intertwine your fingers, shaking your ‘head’ no. “I love your touch-starved ass too, Diego.”

“Good, cause this would have been--”

“--no more talking, chatterbox. Just kiss me and shut up.”

And he lets go of the maybes, and just loves you.

SECOND A/N...this ending is just ackwa!?!hiwogh. very annoyed with how it went, but if you know me, you know i suck at conclusions in every sense of the world and i also always leave them to the very last minute, meaning i’m typing this note as i read over the ending and hate it even more. and i’m sorry for the vague messiness of this! I had an idea, failed to deliver it the way i wanted, and a cool thought turned into a half-baked fic. thank you to those who read this, sorry’s also extended your ways because i know this isn’t fantastic. lmao.

- xx 

[chibimyumi]

Hey! I really liked your analysis and they got me back into the manga. Thank you so much! By the way, I was wondering what are your thoughts on Yana Taboso's writing? I think she's really good at foreshadowing and making strong characters but I could do with less fanservice. Anyway I'm curious and thank you for the blog recomendations. Also please take care of yourself and take the time you need. Self care is important!

Dear Anon,

Thank you for your considerateness and sweetness! (*ÓAÒ*) You take care of yourself too! After having indulged in your thoughtfulness, I now finally come to your ask (^3^)

The great things!!

I entirely agree with you that Yana is very good at foreshadowing and making strong characters. I personally find it amazing that Yana managed to take the super stale “secret twin” trope.......but made it INTERESTING AND ACTUALLY NICE!! I didn’t know this trope could be nice until Yana happened!

Another thing I find stunning about Yana is how incredibly skilled she is at language. Kuro is still really nice translated, but I cannot stress enough how goosebumps-inducing it is when read in the original Japanese. Hence my “Lost in Translation” series...

Obviously there are countless things I find amazing about Yana, otherwise I wouldn’t have this blog to begin with... but what truly blows my mind most is her ability to fix things. She clearly wrote herself into a corner at the beginning with characters like Lizzie, Meyrin, Grell - and to some extent also Lau - and yet managed to get herself out of those corners by just PUNCHING A HOLE through the wall.

Before and After

I am eternally impressed that Yana wrote Lizzie to be nothing but a foil for O!Ciel to show off his virtues, and yet managed to turn that around for most people.

Yana never pretended she did not write Lizzie to be the main source of annoyance for O!Ciel, but she did give Lizzie's past behaviour some substance at least. If anyone is interested, in this post I have gone into a bit more detail about how Yana has changed her writing of Lizzie over time.

The first time I met Meyrin I thought it was just English “Maylene” or something, and I had no idea why her language was so weird. When I first read in the Character Guide that she is supposed to be Chinese, I gasped. “Wait, is THAT supposed to be the indicator of her Chineseness......!? OMG.... YANA!?”

In Japan because Chinese people are phenotypically almost identical to Japanese people, the way Chinese people are stereotyped in Japanese media is usually bad Japanese. This choice of Yana’s betrayed her susceptibility to this degrading stereotype..... like she had against women... *points at Lizzie*, LGBT people... *points at Nina and Grell*.........

Even though Yana had written herself into this corner which unfortunately established Meyrin as character, she still managed to SORTA save Meyrin. In this post “Lost in Translation IV” I explained how she did so. TL;DR: The flashbacks of Meyrin proves that Meyrin’s English is perfectly fine, and that her “Engrish” is in fact the result of her understandable failure at mimicking Sebastianese.

Though even at the beginning it was quite clear that Lau is more intelligent than he lets on, Yana did not do a great job at showing that Lau’s clown act was intentional. It seemed more like Lau was a clown most of the time, but had his bright moments every now and then... and then there is also the stereotype of THE Chinese man who is hellbent on making references to Chinese culture at every given chance.

Ever since the Mansion Murder Arc however, it became very apparent that Lau truly was using his clown facade to lower other people’s guards against him. That was very cool! But in the Weston Arc, it became explicit that Lau actively used Chinese stereotypes to use other people’s bigotry against themselves, and I applauded it! In this post I wrote a bit about me cackling at the relatableness of that action by Lau’s.

I have already written a lot about how Yana has been making amends for how dirty she had done Grell and who she is supposed to represent, so I shall not add anything anymore. Basically, this post sums it all up.

So.... these characters are more or less fixed.... Yana...redeem Nina or just yeet her please.... she is funny, but insufferable.

The not so great things......

Yeah... I really could do with less fan-service..... Yana, your writing and art is good enough to maintain a good fanbase... you don’t need to pander to creepos to hold down your job. PLEASE. This even actively goes against the message you seem like trying to convey. You portrayed an entire pedophilic cult, one narcissistic pedophile (Druitt), and another crippled pedophile (Kelvin) as revolting for preying on children, but then you do this yourself??? WHICH IS IT, YANA? STAHP. The minors who like this stuff are vulnerable to you sexualising them, and the adults who like and support this don’t deserve any more feeding........ STAHHHPPP!!!

Another thing I think Yana could do better is consistency.... ESPECIALLY with Sebastian ≽▽≼ At times his demon powers are just plot convenience... Click here for the most blatant inconsistencies in Kuro in my opinion.

The final thing I wish to mention is probably a very widely shared one... namely pacing. If you read Kuro in one go the pacing is in fact pretty good in my opinion, but the chapters are really short and there’s a month between every one of them. Whether a chapter is the old 40-50 pages per chapter, or the current 9 pages at worst nowadays... we still pay for the same price... Yana.... please take a break. We love you, and we will also after a break.

Well, that’s been it for me ^^ What do you all love the most and hate the most about Yana’s work?

Related posts:

Lost in Translation I

Lost in Translation II

Lost in Translation III

Lost in Translation IV

Inconsistencies in Kuroshitsuji

Nina......the predatory queer.... omg

Druitt.... the predatory queer-coded pedophile...omg

[hellsbellschime]

Could you make a meta about jonerys storyline in s7?

LOL okay so fun story! I thought this would be a fun idea for a video and figured I’d do a scene by scene analysis except by the time I was done with 7x03 I already had FIFTEEN MINUTES of material, so I stopped there. It was interesting so I might dive more into it at another point, but I do feel like at the very least the subtext and narrative material from 7x03 is the most rich anyway.

Most fans of Game of Thrones were looking forward to the shows main leads, Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen, meeting each other for years. But unfortunately once "ice and fire" finally came face to face, their chemistry and relationship was tragically lacking. However, given that the show was trying to sell an epic love story between them in half a dozen episodes, what was it about Jon and Dany that went so wrong? And in retrospect, did it even go wrong at all? One of the most interesting bricks in the foundation of Jon and Daenerys's relationship actually gets set in stone before Jon and Dany even meet, and it's set in stone by Tyrion. There is an significant miscommunication caused by him in the second episode of the season, because Daenerys commands him to invite Jon to Dragonstone specifically to bend the knee, but the message he actually sends to Jon doesn't include that vital tidbit. But the question is, why is that?

It's possible to chalk it up to just an error in writing or editing, however it's something that would have to be overlooked by everyone, and given the way the season progresses it seems unlikely that that's the case. It could have easily been edited out of the episode itself, so the fact that it wasn't means that it had to have been left in for a reason. And the fact that this miscommunication is never clarified or brought up by Tyrion afterwards seemingly indicates that it's an intentional moment too. But what matters more about this intentional confusion is not the confusion itself, but what it's supposed to tell the audience. 

This disconnect between perspectives and understanding between Jon and Dany seems to repeat itself from the literal moment that they're introduced to each other as well. Obviously Missandei listing off all of Dany's many titles while Jon Snow is introduced with such little fanfare is a moment that plays very well comedically, but despite the fact that up until this point Jon and Dany have been portrayed as two of the most heroic characters in the series, the audience is immediately meant to see them as total opposites of each other. Obviously the disparity between them will become clearer later, but given the way they've both been presented as individuals thus far, it's quite odd that the literal second they meet they're portrayed in direct contrast to one another.

Jon and Daenerys's interactions are really weird right off the bat. Not only is Jon completely thrown for a loop when he arrives on Dragonstone and is immediately commanded to bend the knee and taken prisoner, but Daenerys is her worst, least appealing self as soon as she meets him. It's not entirely out of her wheel house to play hardball with another person in power that she's just met, but from what Tyrion has said about Jon she has no reason to negotiate so aggressively with him, and yet she does anyway. 

What really sticks out in this initial conversation more than anything though, is that immediately after Daenerys meets Jon, she does quite a few things that are going to be incredibly unappealing to Jon as a character. Firstly, she disregards Robb's quest for independence, something he literally died in service of, in order to defer to the supposed last King in the North, Torrhen Stark. That might make sense from Dany's perspective given that she has very little love lost for Viserys, but to Jon, overlooking his deceased brother who was legitimately chosen to be King in the North is not something that is going to win any points with him. 

Then Dany points out that Torrhen Stark swore fealty to House Targaryen in perpetuity in exchange for his life and the life of the Northmen. Now, given what Dany has done up until this point, no one would have expected her to kill all of the Northmen if Jon hadn't bent the knee, but Jon doesn't have the benefit of narrative omniscience, so this statement after his frosty welcome to Dragonstone seems like a pretty clear threat that if Jon doesn't submit to her, he and the Northmen will die. 

She also makes it clear that she sees Torrhen's vow (if a vow can even be considered legitimate when it's given under threat of death) as still valid despite the fact that this is centuries old history that she nor Jon had any choice in. When he refuses, she levies the accusation that he is somehow breaking faith with House Targaryen, despite the fact that according to feudal law, the Mad King very clearly broke faith with House Stark by nearly executing all of the men in the family. 

This is the first moment where Jon actually pushes back against Dany's claims and points out that it was clearly House Targaryen that broke faith, and Daenerys admits some guilt on her father's behalf but asks that he forgive this crime and not judge a daughter by the sins of her father. That would be a halfway decent concession for her to make, were it not for the fact that it's buffered by two implications that Jon is responsible for an oath that his ancestor swore as well as responsible for the fact that his father was best friends with someone who attempted to kill her. 

Her next attempt at winning Jon's allegiance is even stranger. She claims that House Targaryen and House Stark were allies for centuries, when the obvious reality is that they were unwillingly subjugated by House Targaryen and the Iron Throne for the entire time. She also calls them centuries of peace and prosperity, which they very clearly and objectively were not. Westeros has never been particularly peaceful, but it's also never been as chaotic as it was during the reign of the Targaryens. She also somewhat hilariously presents him with the offer of Warden of the North, as if that were a prize to be won for him and not an obvious downgrade in terms of his status among his people and in Westeros in general. 

Jon refuses in a pretty fair retort, explaining that he isn't beholden to his ancestors vows and Daenerys isn't guilty of her father's crimes. It's interesting though, because Daenerys is frustrated by this. It's somewhat understandable that she'd be frustrated by the fact that Jon isn't bending the knee, but it's also intersting that she is frustrated by something that is an objectively fair propisition that puts both she and Jon on equal footing with one another. Throughout their conversation it's been clear that she does not see things that way, she expects Jon to bend the knee because someone who isn't him made a vow, but she doesn't expect to be held guilty for her father's crimes because it wasn't her doing. 

When Jon says that he needs Dany's help and she needs his, her response here is very telling as well. Clearly she's flexing because she wants to be perceived as intimidating by everyone she meets, but what's curious is that she automatically disbelieves that she could need Jon's help when he hasn't even explained what she needs his help for. It's extremely telling because she is already in a mental position where she believes that nothing and no one could possibly pose any kind of threat to her. 

Jon's engagement with the conversation takes an interesting turn here, because even after everything that has been said and done so far, he tells Daenerys that she is at least better than Cersei because she hasn't attacked King's Landing yet. While that is technically true and feels slightly more on par with the heroic Dany that everyone has seen so far, what the audience does already know is that she hasn't just decided not to attack King's Landing, she's been convinced not to attack King's Landing. Thus far, this is the only positive thing that Jon has said about her, and the viewers already know that it's false. 

Jon, ever the wordsmith, tries to immediately apprise Daenerys of the gravity of the situation in the worst way possible by likening the game of thrones to children playing a game screaming that the rules aren't fair. But again, it's interesting that, even though Tyrion corrects her afterwards, Daenerys is offended that Jon is calling HER a child. And it seems that honestly, Dany has no interest in what Jon is saying to her so long as it's not about her and her right to rule Westeros. 

What's also really bizarre here about Daenerys and Tyrion's behavior is that when he starts explaining what's going on with the army of the dead, they are both apathetic and disbelieving, despite the fact that Melisandre told them to summon Jon Snow because something big was coming and Jon knew more about it than almost anyone. It's possible that they were suspicious that it was some kind of trap or ruse, but it's strange that they both act so clueless and uncaring when they've both already been told that Jon was going to show up and tell them some wild shit. 

The dialog exchange gets really bizarre at this point, because instead of actually responding to anything that Jon said, Dany goes off on a tangent that essentially sums up to the idea that she believes in nothing but herself and it's her destiny to rule Westeros. It seems so off topic that it's hard to even understand what the writers were trying to convey here, but the only thing that I can possibly comprehend is that they're essentially trying to make it clear that after everything Jon has said and done, Daenerys is still thinking of nothing more than her destined birthright. 

And once again, we're all meant to see a contrast here because Davos intercedes and counters with the idea that if it's Dany's destiny to be queen, then all of Jon's accomplishments were his destiny too. This is interesting for two reasons though. The first is obvious, that Jon isn't the type to talk himself up or behave in a remotely entitled way, and that he doesn't command respect but earns it.

However, this points out something else interesting that is easy to overlook throughout this exchange. Daenerys is extremely forthcoming about herself, her accomplishments, and what she believes is her right, but Jon hasn't offered up any information about himself willingly. It's an understandable strategic tactic, there is no reason to offer up information to a potential enemy, but the fact is that this conversation clearly has confirmed in his mind that Daenerys is still a very possible enemy. 

And unfortunately for both of them, as Jon and Dany's first ever conversation concludes, Daenerys actually confirms that Jon is her enemy, claims that he is in open rebellion against her, and takes him prisoner while refusing to admit that she's actually taking him prisoner. 

Jon's conversation with Tyrion later is even more interesting. Because Jon directly calls out the fact that he's a prisoner, and Tyrion tries to claim the exact same thing that Dany did, that he's not a prisoner based on the incredibly frail technicality that Dany did not directly tell him that he was a prisoner. But even more importantly, this is an obvious instance where Tyrion could have told Jon that his message to him was intentionally misleading and Daenerys's aggression towards him may have been partially his fault, but he doesn't, nor does he explain this at any point later. 

Another interesting element to their conversation is that Tyrion tells Jon that he actually does believe him about the army of the dead. It's interesting because, if that were the case, why did he so clearly tag-team Jon in his first meeting with Daenerys? Perhaps it took him a moment of thought to actually understand what Jon was saying and come around to believing him, but it's interesting that the writers had a character who was familiar with Daenerys and Jon who could easily have mediated between them and didn't have him mediate. 

Tyrion also makes mention of the fact that children are not their fathers, luckily for all of us. While this is just a one off line and potentially means nothing, it's also a potentially very telling one because, honestly, Jon and Tyrion are very much like their fathers. Jon has idolized Ned for his entire life and desperately wants to be his father, and despite all of his attempts to distance himself from Tywin, Tyrion is clearly the Lannister child who is the most similar to his own father. So the subtext there about none of them being their fathers when even at this point two out of three of them are incredibly similar to their fathers specifically, seems like it could be very obvious foreshadowing.

But probably the most intriguing and noticeably strange aspect of Jon's conversation with Tyrion is that Tyrion explains to him that asking for Daenerys's help against an enemy she doesn't even believe is real is not a reasonable thing to ask. However, literally everything that Tyrion and Daenerys have asked of Jon so far has been wildly unreasonable to ask. Daenerys has asked a complete stranger to bend the knee to someone he's never met or even seen before, and she has essentially taken him hostage when he refused instead of just trying to convince him to do so. Jon even offers her an incredibly easy way in, he asks for her help, and if she provides it it's obvious that he and the rest of the Northmen would be much more open to the idea of her as their queen, but rather than even hearing Jon out she takes a seemingly desperate person as her prisoner with the clear intent of holding him there until he bends the knee. 

When Tyrion convinces Daenerys to give Jon the dragonglass he requires, Daenerys makes her first attempt to actually relate to Jon on a personal level. It's once again interesting that Daenerys brings up the loss of her two brothers and relates it to Jon's loss of his brothers, because Jon offers literally nothing in return. 

But what seems to be more relevant is Dany's position that everyone enjoys what they're good at and Jon saying that he doesn't. Once again, because the audience has the luxury of seeing Jon's entire journey thus far, it's easy to see why he feels this way. However, this seems to be another opportunity to point out the way in which Jon and Dany contrast each other, not to point out the ways in which they're similar to one another. 

It's interesting that Melisandre claims that she has brought ice and fire together at the beginning of the episode. Aside from being a nice nod to the original text, it also positions Jon and Daenerys as opposing forces instead of united ones. And these constant contrasts that are being brought up from the instant that they meet seem extremely relevant to their relationship to one another, but the fact that Dany enjoys what she's good at while Jon doesn't seems to be the most vital bit of information that the show conveys about Jon and Dany right off the bat. Because there really are so many parallels between what they're good at. Much of Jon and Dany's journeys thus far have been about fighting from the bottom to get to the top, winning people over, and trying to kill their enemies before their enemies can kill them. However, many of the things that Jon seems to dislike about leadership the most seem to be things that Daenerys actually does genuinely enjoy. 

It's safe to say that their very first meeting wasn't all that many fans were hoping for, however it seems like in the brutally short timeline of the final two seasons of Game of Thrones, the writers felt that the most important thing to establish between Jon and Daenerys right off the bat was not some sort of chemistry or romantic interest, but was the idea that these two people are diametrically opposed to one another in every way that matters. Despite the fact that their character arcs have had so many parallels thus far, the first episode where Jon and Daenerys actually meet seems to be designed to establish that everything about their personalities, dispositions, and overall ideals are on opposite ends of the spectrum, which was truly just the first gigantic step in establishing a romantic relationship that seems muddled, disjointed, and generally hard to follow and comprehend.

[midzelink]

What’s Going On with the Ears in Hyrule?

(Or: A Needlessly Comprehensive Deep-Dive into the Myst-EAR-ious Duality of Round-Eared Humans and Long-Eared Hylians, a Very S-EAR-ious Write-Up)

As some of you may remember from a few months back, I made an off-hand comment about my ideas surrounding the disparities between the different types of ears we see in Hyrule’s human citizens, and my desire to further expand on that at a later date.  No, that was not a joke, and yes, I am finally Doing the Dang Thing.  So!  Let’s get started.

Long-time fans of the series will know that Hylians are a race of humans in the world of The Legend of Zelda with long, elf-like ears.  Hylians most always dominate the land of Hyrule in nearly every installment in the series, with round-eared humans only making their first appearance in Link’s Awakening, a game that - spoiler alert - was all a dream in the first place.  And though plain old humans again appear in the lands of Holodrum and Labrynna in the follow-up Oracle games, it is very in keeping with the theme of this blog that their most notable appearance happens to be in Twilight Princess.

Though it is never remarked upon in-game, Link is the only Hylian in a village filled with humans, such as Ilia and Rusl, leading the player to assume that he was not Ordon-born.  Other notable examples include Ashei, who hails from the mountains, and even the inhabitants of (New) Kakariko (though only three in number) are all mere humans.  The Hylians of this game seem to be centralized around Castle Town, with notable members including Telma, Shad, and Auru of the Resistance, and naturally, Zelda herself.  Yet as I’ve already stated, the fact that there are two different sets of ears among the humans is never even a topic of conversation; it makes you wonder why the developers bothered to make the distinction at all, and indeed, plenty of fans have never even noticed that such a disparity exists. I certainly didn’t notice when I was ten years old, playing through Twilight Princess for the very first time - but we’ve come a long way since then, and I am delighted to finally be able to tell everyone why I think this disparity exists, and how it has bled into other aspects of the series.  Let’s back away from Twilight Princess for a moment; all good theories have a beginning, and this one is no different.  To understand where this all began, we must look thousands of years into the past, to Skyward Sword.  More specifically, this all started...

...with this guy.

Yes, Beedle.  That Beedle.  But before we can even jump into how he relates to any of this, we must travel further back still, to the very opening cutscene of Skyward Sword.  

In this cutscene, we hear a very dumbed-down tale of how Demise invaded the surface world that was ruled over by the Goddess Hylia; to protect the sacred relic placed into her care by the Golden Goddesses, Hylia rends a piece of land from the earth and sends it skyward, leaving the Goddess Sword and the Triforce with it.  Together with the remaining peoples of the Surface, she seals Demise away, and millennia later the events of Skyward Sword transpire.  The entirety of this cutscene is not in and of itself very important, but I would like to draw everyone’s attention to one particular line uttered by the narrator during this sequence:

“To prevent this great power from falling into the hands of the evil swarming the lands… The goddess gathered the surviving humans on an outcropping of earth.”

It is worth noting here that - though the word “Hylian” itself only appears in reference to the shield which bears its name - Skyloft is comprised entirely of people with long ears.  Keeping these things in mind, let’s go back to Beedle.

Beedle is, by all intents and purposes, a fairly unremarkable character in Skyward Sword.  That is to say, outside of providing Link with goods throughout his adventure, he bears no significance on the plot in any capacity, having only a single sidequest that involves retrieving a pet beetle (snickers) of his, for which the player’s reward is a small sum of Gratitude Crystals.  But there is one, throwaway line of completely optional dialogue you can trigger towards the beginning of this sidequest, and it is upon this line that the entire basis for this theory has been built.  When meeting Beedle on his home island apart from Skyloft for the very first time, the player is given the option...

...to comment on his accent.

[after selecting “Your accent!”] “Hmmm? The mellifluous timbre of my voice sounds different to you?

...Perhaps a touch, I suppose... But pray, what does it matter, hmm?”

What’s important to understand about accents is how they come about to begin with: namely, slight differences in pronunciation and rhythm of speech evolve over time as the language (in this case, some form of ancient Hylian) spreads to different locations.  And of course, everyone who uses spoken language has an accent, but Link’s remarking upon Beedle’s is an indication that his pattern of speech is different from his own.  In most other games, this would be unextraordinary - but in the context of Skyward Sword, where humanity has been isolated to a (relatively speaking) small outcropping of earth in the sky, it becomes extremely noteworthy.  No one in Skyloft should have “an accent,” because theirs is a society and culture so small in scale that they should all have the same accent.  Beedle having an accent makes sense if, and only if...

...he’s not from Skyloft.

And if he’s not from Skyloft, the logical conclusion would be that he must be from the Surface.  In almost any other circumstance, this assertion would be smashed to smithereens by the sheer fact that getting to Skyloft without a Loftwing - companions blessed only to those who live in the sky - should be an unattainable feat. And yet, of all the people in Skyloft, Beedle is the only one who could have achieved such a thing... 

...because his shop - which conveniently doubles as his house - is an electricity-powered flying machine.  Within the context of the game, such a contraption seems almost nonsensical; if he were from Skyloft, why would he not just set up shop in a permanent location?  Even if he wanted to live on a smaller island by himself, the people of Skyloft could simply use their Loftwings to reach him (which they still need to do, anyway!).  Indeed, the existence of Beedle’s Shop makes far more sense...if it already existed by the time he arrived there.

Which brings us back to that introductory cutscene.  The narrator states that Hylia gathered up all of the surviving humans (notice the use of the word humans here) onto an outcropping of earth and sent them skyward, and on a surface level, this seems straight-forward enough - but with the revelation that Beedle is very likely from the Surface himself, it’s very obvious that this is nothing more than a bold-faced lie.  Some humans were left behind - they couldn’t all possibly have fit on such a small piece of land - and those humans were the ancestors of Beedle, in some way, shape, or form.  What became of those humans is another matter altogether (one I will address briefly), as the Surface we explore in Skyward Sword is perfectly devoid of human life, barring Impa.

Now, let’s bring it back home: remember how I said that all Skyloftians have long ears?  That was a bit of a white lie, though only if you count Beedle among that number.  In truth, Beedle’s ears are obscured by the bowl cut of his hair - but this is true for every game he appears in, and the general consensus is that they’re round.  This would make Beedle the only round-eared human in the entire game...and he, coincidentally, happens to be from the Surface.

Before I go any further, I’d like to establish a very base reasoning for the existence of long-eared qualities in the human races of Hyrule.  Hylians are far from the only ones to bear long ears, what with the trait also presenting themselves in the likes of the Sheikah and, by the era of Breath of the Wild, even the Gerudo - though it is exceptionally notable that in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo have round ears, and Ganondorf is no exception...at least, at first.

Y’see, what’s especially notable about Ganondorf is that he is the same exact character is each title he appears in, and in The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, his ears are long.  This was actually something I only noticed quite recently, upon which I then fervently began scouring for information about his appearance in Ocarina of Time to try and make sense of it all, and the results are...very intriguing, to say the least.  Below is a comparison of Ganondorf pre-timeskip vs. post-timeskip from the original Nintendo 64 version of the game:

As you can see, his model has changed in a number of ways, but... Well, I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

Amazingly, his ears got longer, which is...an interesting choice from a design perspective.  Of course, it leads one to wonder why - and far and above the most significant thing to happen to him in the seven years between these two appearances is his procuring of the Triforce of Power from the Sacred Realm, a relic of the old gods.  Evil or no, Ganondorf had forged a bond with a god unlike any had before him, and for some reason, this elongated his ears - so much so that by the time of Twilight Princess and The Wind Waker, they are indistinguishable from your typical Hylian’s.  It is notable, too, that the Sheikah (who have always had long ears) also bear a special connection to the gods, living to serve Hylia and, later, her reincarnation as the princess in the Royal Family of Hyrule.  

“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods.”

So now, keeping everything I’ve talked about here in mind, I think it appropriate to go over the series of events that likely transpired, beginning from Demise’s invasion of the surface world:

In a bid to keep the Triforce out of evil’s grasp, Hylia formulates a plan to send both it and the Goddess Sword out of harm’s way.  She selects - perhaps by chance, perhaps by choice - a not insignificant number of humans to live on this skyward isle, but naturally not all of them can make the cut.  These chosen humans would go on to found Skyloft, a land whose culture revolves heavily around the reverence of the very goddess who saved them and enabled them to live in prosperity (the existence of the Wing Ceremony, the Statue of the Goddess, etc.), while the humans who remained on the surface, left in a world scarred by war and ravaged by monsters, sought new lands, becoming the ancestors of people who would found Holodrum and Labrynna, to name a couple.  In their reverence of Hylia, the people of Skyloft would develop long ears, as even the Sheikah had - but the humans left on the surface world...would not.

That is to say, the Hylians we see in almost every major installment of the series are the direct descendants of the people of Skyloft, and round-eared humans are the descendants of the people Hylia left behind.

Of course, not all humans fled from their homeland - though we see none in-game, it’s important to remember that we also see no Sheikah aside from Impa, though we know they are great in number.  Beedle was, undoubtedly, one of these very few stragglers, and with stories of a land beyond the clouds on his mind - legends that have been passed down over countless generations - he sought to find this paradise by any means, through sheer blood, sweat, and tears (but mostly sweat, if that cycling is any indication) if necessary. In the end, he was successful, and he lives among the people of Skyloft fairly unassumingly - yet he also lives apart from them, on his own island because, at his core, he is not one of them, and never will be.  He doesn’t get all of this Hylia stuff, and frankly, he doesn’t care - so long as he can chill on his own little crop of land with a full belly, a full wallet, and his pet beetle, that’s really all that matters.

And speaking of Hylia - the reason they are called Hylians is because they are the descendants of those chosen by Hylia, even if the knowledge of Hylia’s existence has largely been lost to history by the events of Ocarina of Time and beyond.  (In a very similar vein, it is my belief that Lake Hylia also gets its name from her because the crater that would later become that very lake was formed...when she lifted a gargantuan outcropping of earth into the sky.)   Hylians largely dominate Hyrule for so much of its history because the people of Skyloft were the ones who founded it - yet by the era of Twilight Princess, we see that a great many of the humans who had moved onto different lands have slowly but surely made their way back towards the place they once called home.  

But I would be remiss to neglect to go back to Breath of the Wild; this game is a much more peculiar case, taking place in an era many millennia after any game that came before it, where reverence for Hylia is once again commonplace - so much so that statues bearing her resemblance have been erected in every town, village, and city across the country.  Humans are once again practically nowhere to be seen (except, again, perhaps for Beedle), and even the Gerudo, who have now long intermingled with Hylians for the sake of having children, have inherited the trait (perhaps in part due to the fact that some of their own may worship Hylia, if the statue in Gerudo Town is any indication).  In every single instance, no matter where you turn, these long ears seem to be a direct correlation to the people’s connection to the gods of Hyrule - but rather than their ears being a predetermined factor in how strong this connection may be, it seems that their faith is what influences this trait to rise to the surface, over how ever many generations or centuries that just might take.  (Ganondorf Dragmire, who lives in a castle and inherited a relic of pure godly power, is an outlier and should not be counted.)  As Shad so eloquently states in Twilight Princess:

“Hyrule was made by the Hylians, who, as we all know, are the closest race to the gods.”

And as long as we’re talking about Shad, I’d love to begin wrapping up this post by bringing things round to Twilight Princess once more - specifically the context in which Shad says the above quote, which is far and away one of the most peculiar instances of casual lore-dumping in the entire series.  The quote in its entirety from the North American version of the game reads thusly:

“At the moment I'm absolutely entranced by the sky beings known as the Oocca. Yes, according to legend, Hyrule was made by the Hylians [...] But also according to legend, long ago there was a race even closer to the gods, and some say these creatures made the Hylians. When they created the people of Hylia, they simultaneously created a new capital, a city that floated in the heavens.”

What Shad is saying here is extremely farfetched, particularly for those of us who are familiar with the Oocca.  But in truth, this was a minor mistranslation on Nintendo of America’s part; the original text from the Japanese version of the game clears actually reads much more like this, when translated correctly:

“The common opinion is that Hyrule was created by the Hylia people, the race closest to the gods, but...truth be told, there's also a theory saying that in ancient times, there was a race even closer to the gods than the Hylia people, and THEY created it [Hyrule]. And they, simultaneously with the birth of the Hylia people, created a new capital, a capital that floated in the heavens.”

So the Oocca - the bizarre, Cucco-like creatures who inhabit the City in the Sky - did not create the Hylians, but rather established the kingdom of Hyrule itself in the world that the goddesses created.  But even with this mistranslation squared away, that still sounds incredibly odd, especially taking the events of Skyward Sword into account; we know that the people of Skyloft are the ones who inevitably found Hyrule, because we see the beginnings of this happening at the end of the game.�� Funnily enough, it seems that the very line that was mistranslated in the North American version of the game...was the result of mistranslation itself.

In-universe mistranslation, that is.  Millennia of history being told, written, lost, and found, translated again and again and again, until it barely resembles its original state.  What likely happened was that the Oocca, who live in the sky, were wrongly credited with the creation of Hyrule because the Hylian people who would go on the found Hyrule also came from the sky, as they were the people of Skyloft.  Shad’s claim that the Oocca were “a race even closer to the gods" than the Hylians may not be entirely unfounded, however, as it is incredibly likely like the City in the Sky we see in Twilight Princess is what remained of Skyloft after its human inhabitants abandoned it; the Loftwings that the people of Skyloft had for so long relied on would go on to evolve into more sentient beings, suspending the city above the clouds long after Hylia’s magic had worn off - and Loftwings were, as the people of Skyloft believed, beings bestowed upon them as a symbol of the goddess’s divine blessing.  In this sense, it is somewhat true that the City in the Sky and the Hylians were created at the same time; when the Skyloftians abandoned their home to live in a new land where they were not long after christened the Hylians, the skyward isle that they had left behind found a new purpose, and a new “city” was born.

Of course, maybe Shad was off his marbles (even if the Oocca are evolved Loftwings, there is still much about them and their connection to the Sheikah that remains shrouded in mystery), but the crux of this entire narrative is that the people of Hylia, the Hylians - at least, up until Breath of the Wild is concerned - were the descendants of the people of Skyloft, and Beedle’s eccentricities in the context of Skyward Sword are rather convincing pieces of evidence that this did not comprise all people of the formerly-known-as “Land of Hylia.”  It is therefore only natural that a conclusion could be drawn about where the distinction between the two peoples comes from.

But in the end, even if this can answer the question of why there are round-eared humans alongside long-eared ones, it does not answer the ultimate question of what this distinction means.  Why does a connection with and a faith in the gods elongate the ears of the people it touches?  The Zelda Encyclopedia states that “in the past, Hylians were able to wield magic of considerable might,” a trait that could possibly distinguish them from your typical human being - but the canon nature of the Encyclopedia is...shaky*, at best, and downright disrespectful at worst.  Link and Zelda are two Hylians we see wielding abnormal abilities, but their power can be explained with their respective pieces of the Triforce, not to mention the countless magic users in Hyrule and beyond who aren’t Hylian.  Even if there was a time when the Hylians had special abilities, those abilities have long since faded. They are no no taller, no smaller, live no longer than their round-eared counterparts; they are, in every aspect aside from the length of their ears, in every way identical.  To finish the quote by the unnamed Hylian man who speaks to a young Link in the Castle Town Market in Ocarina of Time:

“They say we Hylians have big ears in order to hear the voices of the gods...but I've never heard them!”

So...there you have it.  I must admit that it is entirely possible that the people of Skyloft had developed long ears before their ancestors had been sent to the heavens - after all, the Sealed Temple was, in millennia past, a temple erected in her honor.  Yet this would also make the story of Hylia gathering the “surviving humans” in order to save them all the more grim; could the gods be so callous as to save only those who respect their divine might? One cannot help but think of the Great Sea in The Wind Waker - for in a world populated by the descendants of those who were chosen by the gods to survive the coming floods, it is difficult not to notice that ears of the round variety are once again nowhere to be found.

And yet, when you get right down to it - though some Hylians seem to rely on their lineage as “the closest race to the gods” to maintain an image of self-importance - the difference between a long-eared Hylian and a round-eared human appears to be, ultimately...only that.  And unless we see our round-eared friends return in a potentially future title, and the difference remarked upon, that will likely be how things remain.

Until that time, I will continue to do my best to fill the gaps with which we have been left - even if, at the end of the day, I’ve written nothing more than a meaningless, nine-page word jumble...about ears.

EDIT (5/9/2020): It has been brought to my attention (courtesy of @heartenvy​​) that there is a mild inconsistency with the narrative that Beedle could be from the Surface: namely, the “unbreachable” Cloud Barrier, something Hylia herself created to divide Skyloft from the Surface and keep its inhabitants and the Triforce safe.  However, I would argue that the Cloud Barrier is not a physical barrier so much as it is a mystical one, meant to both keep its location secret (the barrier itself is completely invisible from the Surface) and to ensure the people of Skyloft remain complacent in their isolation (believing Skyloft is all there is, they remain there, and in so doing their long-forgotten secrets are kept safe). Zelda is pulled through it long before any proper portals are actually opened, and I would argue that the portals (that is, the pillars of light that appear when we place the corresponding tablets) are largely a gameplay mechanic meant to keep the story linear, as in a real setting Link would have simply ridden his Loftwing to and from the Surface and would have been able to fly anywhere he chose.  It’s possible the barrier acts to keep out evildoers, specifically (which would explain why Ghirahim had to summon a vortex to pull Zelda through it, where he could reach her), or, not unlike the Isla de Muerta in Pirates of the Caribbean, Skyloft could very well be “an island that cannot be found except by those who already know where it is” - which, to me, makes the narrative of Beedle finding his way there all the more entertaining (the dude must have been, like, super determined).  In any case, I stand by what I’ve stated before: that Beedle is from the Surface, as his accent and the peculiarities of his shop make too strong a case to ignore.

*              *              *              *              *

*The Zelda Encyclopedia states that Termina is a Dream World, despite Link’s Awakening having already done this and in a much more satisfying way.  I can’t take anything it says seriously.

(Special thanks to @ghiirahiims​​ for the high-res screenshot of Beedle, and shoutout to @gaybellatrix​​ for in no small part convincing me to finally sit down and write this all up.)

[lokislittlesigyn]

// loki spoilers

This is basically a huge infodump on my thoughts about the first episode, because I doubt y’all want to sift through my trauma-ridden ramblings. I’ll make another post for the rest. This is just everything not related to the IW stuff/my reaction to that. It’s general thoughts, theories, musings.

1. When Loki gets first taken into the TVA. Is that Peggy Carter in the background? Others have suggested it might be. What would that mean??? Will we see the TVA fix the mess the Russos made with Steve/Peggy (not likely) or is it just a lookalike? Who knows..

2. A skrull at the main intake desk! Idk not super relevant just interesting!

3. I’m kind of glad they changed the... uncomfortable scene... with the robot burning his clothes off. He gets more time to react to seeing the machine itself, and he seems more shocked (”Now.. H-hang on just a minute.”) than angry (”Now hang on just a minute!”) i still feel.. horrible for him, i’m glad nobody Saw him and that the machine didn’t grab the clothes off, but still. Ehhh.. uncomfortable.

He is beautiful though, don’t get me wrong - I’d just prefer a shirtless Loki scene where he wants to be shirtless? let him do what he wants with his body?? he’s probably felt so out of control of his body, from being jotun to falling through space that any invasion of privacy like that hits extra deep...

That being said, I recognize the utility of the scene for the narrative - his lack of control, his literally being stripped of what he was before.

4. WHO IS THE MAN WITH THE CAT. What is his name. I love that he has a mug with his cat on it. But I want to know more. Who is he?

4.1 WHY DIDNT YOU LET LOKI PET THE CAT Please,,, I am begging you,,, let loki pet the cat and have something react kindly to him and purr all happily at his scratching behind their ears plea s e

5. The info sheet. Now this is just a little nitpicky tidbit, but in a previous promo they listed Loki’s height as 6′4 ft and weight as 525 lbs. This is taken directly from the comics if I’m not mistaken. However, in the actual show he’s listed as  6′2 (Tom’s height and Loki’s presumed height) but I don’t remember if his weight is the same. Is Loki 6′2? 6′4? please let me know i want to know how smol i am in comparison

6. His little aggressive shaking of the ticket at the guard makes me giggle each time.

7. The fact the turnstile hits so low on him reminds me,, I am short compared to him. Those things hit my stomach/waist. That one hit his legs. I am once again asking Loki to pick me up.

8. The cartoon with Miss Minutes introducing the TVA is wonderful, I love the art style especially. But it raises questions about Variants... I guess Variants can just, pop out of nowhere? Any action could be the wrong one? And then once you commit the wrong action you either get returned or pruned? Yikes??? And THIS ties into another thing later!

9. The trial scene. I have a hunch - a feeling, a suspicion. That one of three things may be true.

A. The Time-Keepers never actually existed. They’re fabricated, and now whoever runs the TVA is actually using the excuse of “The Time-Keepers decree it so!!!” to carry out whatever They think is right. The fact we haven’t seen the Time-Keepers makes me.. suspicious...

B. The Time-Keepers existed, but they have since passed on, however that may have happened. Now someone is doing the same as above, using the excuse of the Time-Keepers apparent dictations to run things.

C. The Time-Keepers do exist, and do run the timeline/TVA, but maybe they’re not infallible? Maybe the TVA info video is lying or incomplete in some way? Idk I just feel like, something about the TVA and how they run things has to be wrong. It has to? Something is off. Again, this will tie into another thought later...

I have no idea if any of these are actually true! But Loki’s questions of “Who’s in charge here? What do they do? What do you do?” punctuated by laughter leads me to believe he’s suspecting something too, or perhaps just trying to figure this mess out.

10. Seiðr/Magic. We see in this scene, Loki’s magic (”powers”) don’t work in the TVA. (and a quick side note, did he have to Flex like that? do you have to make me see Loki’s bare arms Flex like that? be still my heart. anyway please get that collar off of him and let him rest for five minutes) This makes me wonder.. Why isn’t Loki in his Jotun form? His pale skin and blue eyes are decided by magic, are they not? I suppose this is 2012, so perhaps Odin’s magic is keeping Loki looking like that. But if magic doesn’t work in the TVA, why would his spell reach so far? Clearly Loki’s magic isn’t what’s doing it. How is Loki not appearing as a Jotun? Is his Jotun form repressed - is pale skin his default now, rather than something hidden by magic? I need answers!

11. he sounds so scared about being “reset” please dont hurt him,,

12. cALLING LOKI A PUSSYCAT? (lokitty confirmed) I think Mobius was goading him (Mobius strikes me.. As extremely clever. He’s trying to push Loki’s buttons to see who he’s dealing with. At least, I hope so. Because if he really meant that “You were born to cause pain and suffering and death... All so that others can achieve the best versions of themselves.” and that line about killing Frigga??? No no no he is not guilty. He had no way of knowing what would happen. It wasn’t right to send Algrim up to Asgard (i think algrim wouldve found the way up anyway) but there was no intent to hurt Frigga. I really hope you’re trying to goad him, Mobius, because if you believe that I trust you much less. anyway i digress) but wow is he pushing Loki’s buttons a lot. I can’t... Blame him entirely, I understand he’s trying to make sure Loki’s on his side, maybe I’m just too soft for Loki idk. But some of that was very cruel to say. /:

12.1 AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT MOBIUS. That scene with the girl in the church?? Did that little girl kill the men? Is that young Sylvie? Or is she using an illusion to make herself look young and innocent? What’s going on!!!!

13. LOKI SNATCHING THE LITTLE TIME-TWISTER DEVICE AND STOWING IT IN HIS POCKET.... POCKET....... sorry sometimes i get so caught up about loki that i just say random words in between little noises and squeals,,, i am a silly thing

14. CASEY. CASEY??? That whole exchange is funny. Poor Loki, just trying to intimidate this guy so he can escape but - Casey doesn’t know what a fish is. to be fair.... thor doesn’t seem to know what a raccoon is... right?

15. That bit with the infinity stones is kind of funny until you realize

A. Natasha died for a paperweight

B. Tony died from paperweights

C. Loki was tortured for paperweights

D. Oh, and Gamora died for a paperweight too. And Vision. Need I go on?

Then it becomes less of exclusively “haha funny” and now it’s a mix of funny and pain and gosh, is that a good way to sum up being a Marvel/Loki fan sometimes...

16. Loki gazing at the timeline all “Is this the most powerful thing in the universe?” or something, i’m sorry i don’t remember exactly... made me think of a meme and i shall make it presently.

17. I love that Loki got to see examples of how his family loves him but the fact he’s all “I can’t go back.” really just breaks me. It’s like he can finally see they love him after all of this mess, and now he doesn’t have the chance. Please, please let him be happy. Give him some relief. This is the Loki that just came off finding out about being Jotun, falling from the Bifrost, encountering Thanos, attacking Earth, facing defeat, and now he’s being thrashed around in this wild place and has just found out he inadvertently caused Frigga’s death (he did not kill her: his actions, by mistake, lead to her murder, let me be very clear) AND Odin will die AND all the rest... And he wants to be with them.

18. Loki’s reaction to Thor suggesting the hug makes me soft. Please I want to hug this little mischief man so so so bad-

19. Skipping over the iw parts! That’s for another post because this one will be grossly long anyway.

20. “I don’t enjoy hurting people.” and “It's part of the illusion. It's the cruel, elaborate trick conjured by the weak to inspire fear. A desperate play for control.” was all so, so validating. I’ve been trying to argue on Loki’s behalf for almost a solid decade. Seeing the show recognize that Loki’s not all just violence and hurting for “fun”, that he’s not unhinged and bloodthirsty.. Is so nice. It’s just so, so comforting. and it gives me hope for future episodes that they won’t go the route of “oh haha loki bullied and mistreated and stabbed thor for years!!! :)” loki cries during basically every fight with Thor and you want me to believe he stabs Thor for fun? absolutely not.

21. Theory.. Just another hunch.. So we know a fugitive variant, aka Loki, is running amok. Refer back to 8 and 9.C. What if the Time-Keepers never actually fixed the timeline into a single timeline? What if there are other timelines, and these different Loki variants have hopped over to the current one? Or, maybe the Time-Keepers did fix the timeline into a single one, and these Lokis are remnants from that huge time-war at the beginning? Time runs differently in relative spaces, they may have Just Left that war from their perspective!

I say Lokis and not Loki because we’re pretty sure there’s Female/Lady Loki, Old Man/King Loki, and possibly Young/Kid Loki. That’s at least three. From the peeks of Asgard and NYC we’ve seen from the trailers, I think we’re also getting an Asgardian King!Loki and Midgardian King/Vote!Loki. (unless our dearest variant is hopping into timelines and situating into them, but I doubt Mobius would let that happen..?) That’s five.

To further support this, keep in mind, I believe recently six (i think 6 regular and 6 rare...) different funko pops were announced for the series? I’m not sure if they’re in addition to the Loki and Mobius already released. If they are, there’s enough room for each Loki and maybe a TVA agent. One of the pops is supposed to have a buddy/companion I think? Maybe they’re making the cat guy into one, or maybe there’s something else (Throg, anyone?).

22. That is totally Lady Loki/Sylvie at the end by the way. Has to be. But why does she want the reset devices? Why did she snatch that TVA Hunter? Again, WHAT’S GOING ON

ANYWAY this was a very long post if you made it this far, I commend you.

[graegrape]

//rwby crit

I... really hated this episode. I feel like, in terms of writing, this was worse than even "Rest and Resolutions" from Volume 5, which is my least favorite episode in the entire series. Yes, I'd really go that far.

Let's list this episode's accomplishments:

• The main characters beat Ironwood to (not-) death for 2 entire minutes, just to hammer home that he's definitely a villain! You're supposed to hate him! (Pushing that aside, too, it's just really strange to have the fight at the start of the episode and then explaining in detail how it happened for 4 minutes.)

• Additionally, why didn't you just have an Ace Ops vs RWBY rematch and an Ironwood vs Qrow fight? Weren't they building up to an Iron//qrow fight? Or was that.. nothing? (Me and my friend have been hyped for the fight the entire volume, so, this is kinda...)

• Now, with Ironwood dead in jail, Volume 8 leaves the viewer with no sense of tension and no proper threat. Why is there the need to evacuate the citizens of Atlas and Mantle, anymore? We've been shown 3 Grimm since Salem's whale went down, but is that it? Huh? (Also, god, I wish Ironwood was just dead instead.)

• Team RWBY enters the vault (which is conveniently not guarded by anyone!) and summon the spirit of the relic, Ambrosius. To give some credit, I really like Ambrosius! He was fun, and had a refreshing personality. Problem is, this episode is actively made worse by his presence and abilities.

• So, we're here to save Penny. To rid her of the virus. So, what does RWBY do?

• They fucking make her human.

• Now, Grae, why does this bother you so much, you may ask? Well, let me tell you:

• Penny has always been "human". That was her entire development in Volume 2, her arc in Volume 7. She's proven that she is already a "real girl", despite her body not being quite like everyone else's. (Side note; I personally read this as Penny being autistic-coded. And with this... thing... there's some actively awful shit here. Though, I'm aware this probably wasn't CRWBY's intention.)

• Also, this line from Yang:

• I get it, it's supposed to be a cute lil' "I've got a prosthetic/I'm disabled too, I'm not any less human than anyone else!", but... ew. Ew. So, Yang's mechanical parts make her 'no less human'. Penny's body makes her 'no less human'. But they go on to "cure" Penny of this body - and still go on to state that Ironwood's prosthetics actively make him less human? I just. Yuck.

• Next up, possibly my biggest problem with this episode:

• Those. Stupid. Fucking. Doors.

• Now, the idea of the doors doesn't bother me on its own. In fact, I kinda like the inbetween dimension concept! The aesthetic looks really neat, and the 'don't fall down' line from Ambrosius makes it seem mysterious and dangerous. But, here's the thing.

• If the heroes had this plan, couldn't they have used it in Volume 7? Couldn't they have called Ironwood in Volume 8 and told him about this plan? Was nobody on Ironwood's team smart enough to figure this stupid-ass plan out? These shite-arse doors make the heroes and Ironwood both seem like morons for not working together and makes Ironwood's interesting sacrifice at the end of Volume 7 completely pointless.

• Additionally; the doors rescue everyone. Every. Single. Person. You know how the writers told us this was gonna be a Volume 3 in terms of stakes? Well, suprise! No one dies! Not a single fucking person! Not even NPCs! All because of these,

• Shitty

• Fucking

• Doors!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Now, ain't that a Subversion of your Expectations (TM) ! You love those! We do too! Let us give you fucking 50 of those in one Volume!

• To sum up the episode; it all felt very.. "And conveniently!"

• And conveniently, Winter's on our side! And conveniently, Marrow's semblance works! And conveniently, Penny's a human now! And conveniently, Ironwood is in jail! And conveniently, there are STUPID FUCKING DOORS leading every single person to safety!

Also, they nerfed Ironwood's ass. Unforgiveable.

Anyways. Adios. Let me know if u agree with me on any of this, would love to hear what other people have to say on this dumpsterfire of an episode. Thanks Eddy.

[love-little-lotte]

Ranking the Bridgerton Books

I know I should write this in my book blog, but frankly, I have no idea how to make another section for it, and I'm too lazy to research. So, I'm writing here. Please bear with me.

Recently, I read the Bridgerton books by Julia Quinn. You might be familiar with the first book since it was adapted into a popular Netflix series by Shonda Rhimes. I binge-watched it back in December, and I have to say... not a fan. I guess I just find it too cheesy and annoying. Plus, the actors who portrayed Daphne and Simon had no romantic chemistry whatsoever.

But I'm not here to talk about the TV show. I'm here to talk about the novels! This is actually not my first time reading the books. Well, not exactly. I've read six out of the eight novels when I was in high school, I believe. I found the books when I was in high school as it was in the library (please don't ask me why my high school library has smutty novels in it, I have no idea who's in charge - they had Fifty Shades of Grey for a week but they eventually removed it from the catalog when they learned what's it about, but I digress). As a fifteen-year-old girl, the series hooked me.

If you're not familiar with the books or the Netflix series, here's a short synopsis: Set in the Regency era, the Bridgertons are one of the most influential families of the ton. The books follow the love stories of the eight Bridgerton siblings, alphabetically named Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory, and Hyacinth.

I didn't read it in chronological order back then, though. I just borrowed any available Bridgerton book in the library if there's one. You might think I was too young to read a romantic novel like that, but I guess I was mature enough to understand it.

Rereading it now that I'm twenty-two (cue Taylor Swift!), my heart's not in the same place. I was more skeptical with the writing, the story, and, most especially, the characters. But, really, I'm not that heartless, so I will cut the author some slack. Quinn wrote this at a different time for a different audience. It's not that long ago, but you'd be surprised how fast things change.

However, even though I have major criticisms, I cannot stop reading them. There's something about the novels that put me in a chokehold. Despite everything, I was able to enjoy it overall. This series is the definition of "guilty pleasure."

Anyway, here's my ranking of the Bridgerton books! I only read the eight main ones, which means I didn't include novellas of any kind. Also, as a fair warning, I might discuss spoilers and whatnot, so please beware. And do keep in mind that I'm writing my opinion, so if you don't agree, well... tough. I'd like to hear your comments, though, if you have any.

#8 - An Offer From A Gentleman (Book 3)

Honestly, this was probably one of my favorite Bridgerton books when I was younger. A Cinderella retelling? Come on! As someone who loves fairytales and forbidden romances, this was supposed to be heaven. However... it was not.

Benedict may be my least favorite Bridgerton brother. No, scratch that - he is my least favorite Bridgerton out of all of them. He's whiny and creepy and I was plainly annoyed with how he keeps asking Sophie to be his mistress in the novel. This was not the gentleman I imagined when I was younger. I might have liked him more in the first few parts, but as the story progressed, he became too childish and obsessive. Sophie, on the other hand, was all right. She's definitely one of my favorite Bridgerton heroines. She was tough but kind in her own way. I wish she had a better partner than Benedict, but I guess they suit each other in the end.

I just detest the climax and the ending of this book. It was too comical - and not in a hilarious way. I guess the same could be said for the entire novel. This was so, so different from the rest, to be honest.

Overall Rating: 3/10

#7 - On The Way To The Wedding (Book 8)

Fun fact: this is the first Bridgerton novel I read. And even then, I wasn't a huge fan of it. Just like An Offer From A Gentleman, the climax was a bit silly but more in a soap opera level than comical.

The biggest factor why I didn't like this was the characters. They were all so bland. Especially our hero and heroine. Gregory is the least featured Bridgerton in the novel, so I don't really know what to make of him at the beginning of the novel. In his book, I learned that he was a good guy - and that's all. Maybe he's too young and naive when it comes to romance (which is endearing, I have to admit), but he has no interesting personality whatsoever. Lucy, the heroine in this novel, was the same. She was described as pragmatic and sensible, which perfectly sums her up. Also, she's a great friend to Hermione (whose last name is Watson, by the way, and you can't tell me otherwise that this isn't a Harry Potter reference - Hermione Granger and Emma Watson? If that's not a reference, well, that's a very crazy coincidence, but I digress again). Gregory and Lucy's story was average - not bad, not good, just so incredibly dull.

The fun parts started way too early. It was difficult to find intrigue in the middle and end bits. The second main conflict, which happened near the end of the book, was truthfully not that good and was just obviously a ploy to keep things longer. You'd think that the Bridgerton novels would end the series with a bang. Alas, it did not.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#6 - To Sir Phillip, With Love (Book 5)

Eloise finally gets her turn in her own love story. She used to be one of my favorite Bridgertons, but when she got her own story, she was reduced into a plain girl. Gone was the feisty and outspoken Eloise we knew from the previous books.

Maybe it's because she's paired up with one of the most insufferable Bridgerton heroes, Sir Phillip. Just an inch away from Benedict, Sir Phillip maybe my next least favorite character. And it annoys me so much that Eloise gets to fall in love with someone like him.

It actually started pretty well. Before the events in the book started, Eloise and Phillip had already been corresponding for a year through letters. Phillip was on the lookout for - not a wife - but a mother for his two unruly children, and he thought Eloise was perfect for the role. He's a terrible father, but the book tries to convince us that it's not his fault because he had a bad upbringing by his own father (a recurring theme in the Bridgerton books - four heroes are plagued with different daddy issues). Eloise tried her best to turn things around, and of course, she eventually did, but I just really hate Phillip's initial intentions for seeking out a wife. He gets better in the end, sure, but I still really don't like him. At least the book wasn't short of excitement, else it would've been rated a bit lower.

Obviously, my favorite part in this book was when the Bridgerton brothers stormed into Phillip's house. He got what he deserved, truly.

Overall Rating: 4/10

#5 - The Duke and I (Book 1)

Now, this is the most well-known story in the Bridgerton literary universe, thanks to the Netflix series. I know I've said that I wasn't a fan of the series, but really, the Netflix writers and producers deserve all the gold in the world because they managed to transform this novel into something exciting.

Daphne and Simon had their moments, that's for sure, but as a couple, they were just so... meh. I liked their relationship at the start when they were still pretending to be courting. But as soon as they got married, everything interesting about the two of them sizzled out. And please don't get me started with how Daphne "took advantage" of drunk Simon. Thank God the show fixed that.

Despite my mixed feelings, this was a decent start to the Bridgerton books. There's really nothing majorly wrong about this novel (except for the aforementioned "taking advantage.") It laid out the future characters well. Lady Whistledown was also great. Thinking about her made me miss her because she wasn't featured in the later novels (you'll soon find out why).

Overall Rating: 5/10

#4 - It's In His Kiss (Book 7)

Since Eloise was stripped away from her feistiness when she got her own love story, I was obviously worried for Hyacinth. Thankfully, she didn't change! She was still the same tactless girl in the previous books. And for that, she gets to be my champion as my favorite Bridgerton.

This is the first time I've read this book, and oh, I'm surprised with how exciting it was. Hyacinth's hero, Gareth, perfectly suited her. Gareth was able to tame her impulsiveness, while also proving to be a good romantic partner for her. I loved that he could match her intellectually, too. It was never a bore whenever they have one of their silly banters. Lady Danbury was also featured more in this novel. She's one of my favorite side characters. As Gareth's grandmother, she was determined to bring him and Hyacinth together.

Maybe the only criticism I have in this novel is Gareth's issues with his father. I find it really weird that most of the heroes' problems are with their fathers. It just seemed lazy writing, in my opinion. But oh well, Gareth was interesting in his own way and that's perfectly fine.

Overall Rating: 6/10

#3 - Romancing Mister Bridgerton (Book 4)

I have a feeling that this is Quinn's favorite Bridgerton book. In this book, it's Colin's turn to find love. Colin is featured in several of his siblings' stories - in fact, in almost all of the books, he had an important role to play.

I love Colin and Penelope's story. Long before this book, they already knew each other. Penelope was Eloise's best friend, and she's almost always in the Bridgerton household. Colin has been forced by his mother for God knows how long to dance with Penelope every time there's a party. But it was only now that they became closer. Unbeknownst to Colin, Penelope had been in love with him for half her life, even though he didn't particularly care for her. Penelope speaks for all of us who know about unrequited love all too well.

Furthermore, this is the novel where they finally reveal who was behind the Lady Whistledown column. Yes, viewers of the Netflix series who are not familiar with the books. This is the part - and not in the first book! I'm so mad that they revealed Penelope as Lady Whistledown in the first season of the series, when in fact it's much later than that.

However, that's also one of the lowest points of this novel for me. Lady Whistledown's identity reveal was a bit anti-climactic. A little bit laughable, even. Also, also, also: I hated Colin's reaction to Penelope's secret. He didn't have to be angry and jealous of her, but ah well, whatever makes for conflict. Nevertheless, I love both Colin and Penelope because they had so much character and depth. Quinn was certainly biased when she wrote this.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#2 - The Viscount Who Loved Me (Book 2)

Remember earlier when I said that I cannot stop reading the books because even though I knew it wasn't that good, it was still highly enjoyable? Well, I'm really talking more about this book, to be specific. I think I've read it in less than 24 hours because of how much I love it. And yes, Anthony and Kate had their obvious flaws, but oh God, they were so perfect together. I can't help but imagine Jonathan Bailey from the Netflix series as Anthony when I was reading it. I swoon, all the time.

This used to be my favorite Bridgerton novel, but that's only because I haven't read my new favorite until recently. Anthony and Kate's story was just oh-so good and intimate and romantic. Kate's also my favorite heroine in the entire Bridgerton literary universe. She was headstrong and loving. She's unafraid to put the happiness of her family first.

In so many ways, Anthony was the same. He assumed the role of Viscount Bridgerton when he was only eighteen when his father unexpectedly died. Since then, he overlooks the family's estates and well-being. Yes, this is one of those "daddy issues" stories I mentioned earlier, but this one was kind of done tastefully. He didn't wish to fall in love but everything changed when he encountered Kate. He didn't mean to be attracted to her, but here we are.

Anthony and Kate had so much understanding between them. I agree Anthony was a bit of a dick when Kate asked if they could have one week to get to know each other before consummating the marriage (worse things have been said by Benedict and Phillip, though), but in the end, I can't deny that I truly love them together.

Overall Rating: 8/10

#1 - When He Was Wicked (Book 6)

*blushing furiously* So what if I put the smuttiest and steamiest novel as my top choice?! What about it? Oh, but really, though, I can't stop reading this. Francesca is one of the least known Bridgertons in the books, just like Gregory. I didn't know anything about her, except that she's quieter than most of her siblings. It was also first mentioned in Romancing Mister Bridgerton that she had already married but was sadly widowed after two years.

Michael was Francesca's late husband's cousin and best friend, which makes him her best friend, too. He has been secretly in love with Francesca since the first moment he laid eyes on her but was unable to pursue her because she's with his cousin John. In addition, I'd like to say that Michael is my favorite hero in the Bridgerton books. He's very charming and wicked, and really, my knees buckle at the thought of him.

Long after John passed away, Francesca and Michael reunited. Francesca was looking for a new husband because she desperately wants a family, while Michael... well, Michael was still in love with her. There was undeniable passion and intimacy between them, and it was hard to stay away from each other. I seriously have a thing for men secretly pining over women they love. That's got to be one of my favorite tropes.

However, the book itself was a bit longer than necessary. While I understand Francesca's hesitations in marrying Michael, it could've been shortened because it felt draggy by the end. Her constant changing of minds was a bit annoying, and yeah, it was probably a ploy to lengthen the novel.

Additionally, I was a bit skeptical at first of how they're going to treat their relationship, especially since Francesca was truly in love with her first husband. But it was done so nicely. Francesca and Michael never forget about John, even in the end. I loved what John's mother said to Michael in a letter at the end, "Thank you, Michael, for letting my son love her first."

I guess I love their story more than the other couples because both were already mature and experienced. Just like everyone else in this romantic series, Francesca and Michael belonged together. The entirety of Chapter 19 is proof of that.

Overall Rating: 9/10

***

Overall, the Bridgerton books are quite entertaining, despite being a cheesy and sappy series. I admit that I feel quite lonely and bored now that I've finished all eight of them. Ah well, there's always the possibility of rereading them!

[elionwriter]

May the 4th be with you all! Ok, so I am late for that. Let's make this a return of the 5th post then. Anyway, I decided to make my personal

TOP 10 CHARACTERS AND RELATIONSHIPS (Part 1)

Fair Warning I'm only considering Canon Characters no legends included ( sorry Starkiller)

1) DARTH VADER

You know a character is powerful when the sound of a metallic, heavy breath approaching is all it takes to start shaking in your boots. Darth Vader with his complex history, his powerful aura and controversial morals is probably one of the main reasons Star Wars became as popular as it is in the first place. What's not to love? His look is amazingly sinister, powerful and iconic; his 'I can't be bothered' tone and attitude while giving displays of ruthless power is chilling and the fact that there is a scared and subdued part of him that's screaming, desperately clinging to light and hope as Luke sudgests is heartbreaking! This is a character that by every intent and purpose was supposed to be the hero, was groomed from childhood to be it and instead found himself turned into the villain and trapped into his worst case scenario. From the moment he discovers that Luke is his son an internal battle starts raging between his loyalty to the emperor, his desire to pull Luke to his side and a selfless paternal instinct to save his son. The fact that he ultimately does indeed prove to be the "chosen one" by killing Palpatine is too good. The fact that Darth Vader has some of the best lines in the series and that in videogames he is a Boss you're glad to be handed your ass by and is LITERALLY unbeatable even with mods are just a few of the reasons why I believe Anakin Skywalker's Sith persona is far more appealing than his Jedi one.

2) DIN DJARIN & GROGU

I know I'm not original but there truly is no better way to sum up these two than "Clint Eastwood in space with a baby and the baby is an irresistibly cute bean with a bastard personality". This sentence alone should explain why they deserve this spot on the list. Add a wicked theme song, a tired 'sigh' and a sweet cooing sound in lieu of catchphrases and one of the coolest Mandalorian armours ever and you have some instant fan- favourites! If Jedi are mystical and fascinating, Mandalorians truly are the ultimate badasses of the galaxy far far away. Nobody proves that better than Din Djarin himself. Also, his interactions with Grogu, Ashoka Tano and Luke skywalker are testament that putting these two powerhouses together is one of the best team-ups you can possibly make. Din is the "reluctant hero" trope personified and the fact that he is surrounded by heroes with a mission and a destiny to fullfil makes him all the more endearing. Get you a man who is perceived as a merciless walking, killing machine and turns out to be a shy, introvert, pure hearted mess with the driest sense of humour possible. Din is a private and secretive man of very few words, to the point that the viewer learns his name at the end of season 1. His absolute adherence to the Mandalorian code make him appear very standoffish and unapproachable. It's the child that slowly, figuratively and physically, makes him come out of his shell and sets him on the path for his own, true purpose. One cannot help but feel and want to know more about Grogu as it's revealed how much suffering and tragedy had to endure. Din's need to protect him becomes the viewer's. While the faith of these two is unsure I can only hope they'll be reunited soon. I'm really curious to know where their stories are going so to quote from Palpatine: "We will watch your career with great interest".

3) LUKE SKYWALKER:

The hero of heroes, the true main protagonist of the story, which amazingly turns out NOT to be the prophecy's "chosen one". While Mark Hamill himself mockingly said in an interview that "even the droids have better lines than me" I think it's safe to say there are plenty of reasons to love Luke Skywalker. His kind and sweet personality, his initial excitable and boyish attitude and his steady evolution in Jedi Master are just a few of those. Luke is the embodiment of hope. When everyone else is ready to sell someone short, Luke sees the best in them and holds onto the hope they'll come around and make the right decision until the end (He tries to kill his nephew and becomes an old shrew? Never heard of it!). His kindness however comes with a wellspring of untapped power and unbreakable will power. He is respectful of his teachers without ever letting their opinions dictate his actions if they feel wrong. The fact that he ultimately strays from the main action to face a more personal quest confronting Vader and the Emperor and doesn't actually save the day only add up to his charm rather than detract from it. While his relationship with Han Solo and Chewbacca is always amusing and heartwarming, it's the growth of his connection to Leia, from teenage crush to deep sibling love, that really sticks. What's for sure is that few things are as satisfying as seeing him brandishing his lightsaber and laying waste of everything around him. Summing up, I believe Luke's charm lays in his inheritance of his father's looks and talents but his mother's heart and strength!

[annerly-san]

Progression - [Chapter 1: Differential]

Primary Character Pairing: Choso x Reader/Female OC Story Summary: Life is never stagnant. It progresses and changes as does the people who live through it. Like a complex differential equation, it twists and curves with its ups and downs with each person having their own unique curve. But for her, the rate at which she progressed in life was zero as she moved linearly despairingly with no end in sight. That was until she met a cursed spirit who set her life back in progression. Chapter Navigation: Next Chapter

The concept of family leaves a foul taste in the mouth.

Obligations to owe and expectations to fulfill are but a few of the countless other burdens that come in conjunction with what a family entails.

And within this world of magic and curses, family is but a burden.

She continued to uphold her well-rehearsed, demure smile despite being worn and absolutely exhausted. Her opponent in front of her casually stood there with a hand on the hip and his head tilted to the side— unfazed and unbothered by her persistent barrage of attacks earlier. The fluff of white hair pulled up and back by the blindfold stood as a testament to remind her that she wasn’t even an opponent to be considered seriously.

He didn’t need to pretend to be tired at all.

“How much longer do you think you can keep pretending to smile like that, Gojo-chan?”

The words were spoken in snide mockery as her opponent bore the same familial name.

“You jest, Gojo-sensei.” The retort was short and spoken without the intent to play along with any insinuations.

Satoru Gojo had not changed one bit since she had first met him.

“She doesn’t look like me at all, does she, Suguru?”

He towered over her at the time. She remembered seeing those strikingly clear, blue eyes— sharp and piercing as they bore into her with a scrutiny unwarranted for a child at the time.

Two hands had reached out and grabbed her at the sides as she was hoisted several feet in the air to be turned back and forth, handled and examined like she was just some doll.

“You should put her down, she’s clearly uncomfortable.” Suguru, as he was referred to, placed a hand on Satoru’s shoulder whilst giving a firm glance of disapproval. He shot her a sympathetic smile as she was put down by the pouting teenager.

“How can she be uncomfortable when she’s smiling like that?” He begrudgingly asked his companion before putting two hands up in the air as to showcase his resignation. “But still to think that this little distant cousin of mine is supposed to bring in a new line of techniques for the clan is making me feel already less special~,” Satoru whined in jest as Suguru gave him a playful whack on the back. The white-haired sorcerer had wandered off, leaving her with an upset feeling of unsettled unpleasantness broiling in the pit of her stomach.

Those feelings were temporarily put on the side when his companion crouched down to meet her at eye level.

“Don’t worry about any of that, ok? If you’re ever sick of this guy, you can always come to find me.” Suguru reached down to pet her head in a strangely reassuring way. Comfort and ease had taken over her and her smile had unknowingly slipped off as the soft timbre of his voice lulled her in a sense of warm solace that she had never felt before. “My name is Geto Suguru. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Her head felt warm from where he had placed it before, and she had watched him catch up to her cousin’s side with a lopsided smile on her face.

The rate of those thrown punches coming at her were slow; she made them as such. Her innate ability, “Differential”, functioned on the rate of change principles from calculus and mechanics. Mathematicians, engineers, and scientists have long seen and quantified the inner workings of the world through equations. “Differential” allowed her to perceive the differential equation which models the behavior or qualities of an object and apply a “derivative” to it in order to adjust its rate of change. Simple equations such as the rate at which light refracts from the cornea of the eye to see are constant; taking the derivative of it amounts it to zero and thereby allows for someone’s vision to stop working. In this case, her perception of the logarithmic speed (ln(x)) of those punches have been derived to the equation of 1/x and will increasingly become slower and slower as more time passes.

It was a mutated trait from the original Gojo family’s “Limitless” technique. While the original skill operated under the fundamental principle of a limit with techniques operating under the mathematical principles of convergence and divergence in summations and series, hers was more focused upon the rate of change at a “fixed point” existing on a specific plane. From its proofing from calculus her technique took the limit as it approaches zero between two points allowed for the rate of change to be solved for and adjusted.

And so for things that move through time and space, she can easily avoid and counter them.

She dodged the first three punches with ease before countering with a sweep kick to the knees; however, the activation of Infinity didn’t allow for the attack to land as intended.

An upwards kick was evaded as she jumped backwards several steps to place sufficient distance between herself and Satoru.

“Hmmm~. We’re at around twenty minutes now. How are you holding up? Still smiling as always, I see.” She watched intently as Satoru leaned back and stretched out an arm lazily. “Should we call it quits now? You’re lasting longer than our last spar by around five minutes. That’s impressive growth, but you haven’t reached your fullest potential yet.”

She wondered if things would have been less tense or awkward between herself and Satoru had they not hailed from the same lineage. Resigning now to rest would only prove as a setback and insult to what was expected of her in addition to her own self-worth. There would be no resignation. No matter needed to be put forth on her end.

“I-I can continue, Gojo-sensei.” Her smile did not fall from her face despite how tired she was.

She stood up straighter and calmed her breaths.

Her still outer demeanor did not match the thoughts that were racing within her mind.

His Infinity was an issue. She would not be able to do anything about that nor about his convergence and divergence techniques of red and blue simply due to the nature of it resulting in something either undefined or unusable when taking the derivative of an abstract such as infinity, sums, and series.

But perhaps this would work.

The distance between the two of them was approximately fifteen. She needed five to try out her new method.

A breath in.

A breath out.

She dashed in to close the distance.

~~~

“Wow, I can’t believe that you were actually able to do that, Gojo-chan!”

She awakened and opened her eyes to see up to the ceiling of the infirmary. Gojo-sensei was sitting at her bedside with a tilted head, quirky smile, and a book that he must have been reading in the meantime while she was asleep. “Was that a new application of your “Differential”? I can’t believe that you actually rendered my Six Eyes blind for a good minute there.���

Her head hurt as she tried to recall the events of the sparring session before she had blacked out.

Upon closing the gap between them, at the five meter mark, she had Gojo-sensei in range.

Activating Differential, she was able to see the six constants that were governing the rate of perception for Gojo-sensei’s Six Eyes. She drew a shaky breath as she applied “Derivative” six times for each ‘eye’ and watched with elation as her teacher’s face became overcome with a sense of shock and surprise.

She quickly threw a punch aimed at his face in the hopes that the deactivation of his Six Eyes would affect the automatic response of Infinity somewhat.

That hope was dashed as her fist was stuck hovering in front of his nose, unable to proceed further to tangible result.

Leaping back, she stumbled as an sickening nausea overcame her and imbalance struck at her legs. Her vision was blurring and a strange ringing sound overcame her ears as she heard what was vaguely her name.

For some reason, she was kneeling on the ground with both hands in front propping her up. She bent her head up to see a white blur of what may have been Gojo-sensei running towards her, but her head was heavy and her vision was strangely red. Letting her head drop back down, she blinked and saw what seemed to be drops of blood dripping to the ground.

It was the last thing she saw.

“-Anyways, I was SO shocked that you started crying blood or something. You almost looked like a curse, ahahaha!”

Her thoughts were drawn back to reality as she tuned back into listening to what Gojo-sensei was saying.

“Man, if I didn’t manually activate Infinity, you might actually have hit me and gave me a bloody nose!”

She smiled and let out a breathy laugh. “Is that so?”

Gojo-sensei leaned in closer to the bed railing and placed a hand on her head.

“Yes. You did good.”

There was a warm elation in her chest from being praised. It didn’t happen often, though it left a strange feeling in her from being praised by Gojo of all people. It filled the cavity in her chest, but those words didn’t seem to be the ones that she was waiting for. Whatever it was she was feeling, it disappeared as quickly as it came for her teacher said his next words.

“Ah, but it seems that taking the differential six times is your current limit. Man, I don’t know how I’m going to deal with you and your younger siblings when they enroll next. I heard a lot of stuff about them~.”

Ah.

Her younger siblings.

The mention brought a bitter taste to her mouth and the lurking of a foul emotion within her heart. But she smiled as though it wasn’t the case.

“Hm, yes, my younger siblings. My sister definitely has more talent with the technique than I do, and my brother is well on his way. They might be the ones that’ll give you the most trouble, Gojo-sensei.”

She watched her teacher laugh.

Behind that coy smile and blindfold, she wondered if he could see through her facade and see her true feelings beneath.

But even if he could, he didn’t make a comment on it.

“I told Hakari, and he’s worried about you, you know!” Gojo-sensei continued. “We both keep telling you that you’re being too hard on yourself! Shouko keeps complaining to me about caring for my students more, you know!” He pouted. “I care about my students.” He rubbed her head as to prove a point.

There was a simmering frustration that was building in her abdomen.

“I know that, sensei. I’ll be more aware about that. Is Hakari alright?”

Her fellow classmate in the college, Kinji Hakari, was a third-year student like her. Due to the incident last year, he was on suspension.

“Oh he’s alright. He keeps saying that he’s bored to death being suspended and all and that he’s worried about you killing yourself when he’s not there with you.”

Perhaps it was said with good intentions. But it seemed patronizing. Maybe it was because it was spoken by those who were born with naturally strong talents compared to her who had worked to the point of injury in order to be a contender as their equal. That emotion in her stomach grew and started to burn and corrode away at her insides.

She laughed softly. “Please tell him that I appreciate the concern. I’m waiting for him to get back as well.”

Gojo-sensei had stood up muttering something about being a messenger boy and was readying himself to leave. As though he forgot something, he suddenly exclaimed aloud.

“Aha! I almost forgot to tell you too.” He whirled back around to face her. “There’s a whole queue of missions for you. All grade 2 or lower. It shouldn’t be much trouble for you, but be careful since you know-“ he gestured to the infirmary bed that she laid in as to drive home the point. “You get the idea.”

He left the room.

And she let out a sigh before slumping back down in the bed and closing her eyes.

It felt as though there was a crushing weight against her chest.

Taking care of the assigned curses was a simple task.

Despite her teacher’s reluctance at sending her out to the initial mission when she had gotten so adversely injured during a simple sparring match, everything turned out alright.

It had been a good while since that had passed on the order of months, but with the shortage of jujitsu sorcerers and Hakari still on suspension, it was only natural for her to handle things like this.

She stared down at her hands, which have unconsciously and naturally formed firm fists sitting in her lap.

With being tasked with an onslaught of more and more missions, she quickly rose to the rank of semi-grade 1. She was grateful for the opportunity as she needed this as a chance to raise her rank and further her worth.

She wasn’t talented, after all.

From the moment she was born, she remembered the crushing weight of anxiety bearing down on her at each step and misstep she took. The looks of disappointment, the yelling and screaming, the endless lectures, and the unbearable weight of it all.

Maybe it would have been better to have been born a disappointment to begin with. So that no one would make her carry these expectations on her weary back.

Her grandmother was actually the one to first develop the “Differential” ability. But the woman was originally an outcast of the Gojo clan and took her technique personally as a means to spite the ones that had looked down on her before. It carried the unbelievably petty burden of one day being able to surpass the main line of Limitless techniques.

So when her father, uncles, and aunts failed to inherit any of the “Differential” traits, they were marked as failures and the family was laughed at for daring to think that they could surpass the main line of inherited techniques.

That was until she awakened.

Up until the age of five, she was treated as a worthless and filthy object. Her mother was someone able to see cursed spirits, but had no innate techniques to deal with them, and despite having spite for the main Gojo family, her grandmother viewed her mother-- and by extension, her-- as a taint on the family line of sorcerers. Her first-cousins, unable to see curses much less use techniques though borne to two sorcerer parents, were treated with delicate care and spoiled by her grandparents beyond belief. And she was treated and called as the vermin of the bunch. Her father did nothing to refute that claim while her mother took out the insults of inferiority and stain on her as the byproduct and embodiment of that she hated. A living burden that tied her down to a family clan that did nothing else but mock her.

But that changed.

Suddenly one day, while her mother was hysterically screaming and cursing the old hag within the confines of their home, a stray curse wandered in.

She remembered what it looked like.

At the time she was patting her sister’s back, trying to turn invisible in the midst of her mother’s rage as she did her utmost to not earn her ire. Her younger sister, a toddler barely learning how to walk, cried incessantly at the loud banging and clashing of pots and pans as they were flung about the house.

The clanging stopped briefly as the air chilled and silenced; a grotesque hand of oozing purple goop clutched at the hallway corner.

A cry broke out. Her sister.

Loud gurgling sounds rang out as her mother desperately avoided looking at the monster as to not warrant its attention as one that can perceive it.

But she didn’t know better.

The curse had several green eyes embedded in the goop of mess that constituted its body and it let out a warbling bellow as all those eyes narrowed in to meet hers in a chilling stare.

It took a step forth.

She held her breath as she continued to stare at it with an intense fear.

It began to approach her rapidly.

And she remembered begging in her mind for it to stop. She didn’t want it to approach her anymore.

It stopped.

Not much was remembered after that as adults came and well-qualified sorcerers took care of the curse that was just frozen in place.

She had passed out by then and woke up to a new world that was unbelievably scary and confusing. A new world of just so many expectations.

This sudden twisting change from being viewed as less than trash to invaluable gold crushed and suffocated her.

From cultivating this new skill, surpassing some “Gojo Satoru”, shoving it in her grandmother’s face, and so, so, much more. It was dizzying. Nauseating.

One misstep signaled Armageddon. One pause meant weakness. One tear was failure.

As she sat on the bus bench in the lonely countryside, her breaths felt labored like she had to push a stone brick weighing several tons off her chest a few millimeters so that she didn’t suffocate under its weight.

Her promotion isn’t too far away. She was a semi-grade 1 at the moment and was handling missions smoothly and effectively. It’s only a matter of time before it will all be over.

The road was dull and illuminated with the yellowed lights of the street lamp.

Her thoughts traversed back to the events of present day back at the school.

There was buzz on things happening back at the school, but she had not had the chance to listen in on the details of the news. The Sister Exchange event would have happened around now. She’s missed it now unfortunately, but she thought that she had heard something about the first years being roped in to fill in the third year’s vacancy and they did well enough. What was interesting that she had regrettably missed out on hearing more about was the first year student, Itadori Yuuji, who was apparently the vessel for Sukuna, the King of Curses.

She wondered if he was feeling as burdened as she was. He probably had heavy expectations too.

Footsteps were heard and a strange presence of cursed energy lurked nearby on the road.

Senses were heightened as she pulled away from her mind’s musing to hone in on the present at hand.

There was one curse. No. Three.

Her eyes followed the curved line of the road to where it bent behind some trees, and she saw three shadows walking along it without much caution or care.

A chill went down her spine. The combined auras was overwhelming. They were at least a grade higher than hers— at least Grade 1, but it would seem that all three could very well be Special Grade curses.

There shouldn’t be a cluster of special grade curses like this.

While there shouldn’t be, she did recall hearing about the strange events and appearances of strong, special grade curses with a sentience recently.

She hoped that this wouldn’t be the case.

The first one out of the shadows was a man. He looked extremely tired with prominent purple rings around his eyes and an odd rectangular stripe across his nose. He wore baggy pants and a loose, long sleeved shirt paired with a series of black sashes wrapping around his waist, shoulders, and neck. As he walked, his wild, messy, black hair tied into two prominent bunches on his head flounced around.

He took up physical space and appeared human if it were not for the immensely crushing amount of cursed energy that shrouded around him like a dense fog.

His other two companions slowly came into view. The other two were definitively curses. One was turquoise with a hunched back. It had a prominent mouth on its middle that dripped blood and a humanoid husk of a face where its head would have been.

The other held similar form but significantly more humanoid. In the center of the abdomen was a pair of red eyes and a smaller mouth. This curse was flesh colored with a more defined human form and a similar deformed humanoid head on the top.

“Nii-san, is she the one we were supposed to be looking for?” The turquoise one spoke seemingly to the most human of the group.

“That’s right.” His voice was low in timbre with a strange sense of calm and echo to it. “That amount of cursed energy and presence... It’s most definitely the relative of Satoru Gojo that we were supposed to find.”

Her breath was caught in her chest.

They were most definitely Special-grade curses. Beyond their appearances in taking physical form through some sort of manifestation, they were sentient and individually held a tremendous amount of cursed energy.

What was worse was that their target was her.

If it was simply one, then she may have handled alright against a special grade with some collateral damage, but against three her odds of victory were slim.

There wasn’t a chance to escape with the three of them having locked onto her like this, and even if she did manage to, she would most definitely return as a failure sorcerer who flaked when faced with what her purpose in life should be.

There wasn’t a choice.

She breathed out.

The wind blowing calmly around her as the three curses continued their approach lulled her into an odd sense of tranquility to brace her for what was to come.

The fight was here.

[ash-rabbit]

An Autopsy: Mag200 Last Words

I will preface this by saying that, one (1) this is my opinion, and that I am at best ambivalent towards Martin and Jmart. And that this influenced the emotional impact of the episode for me, and likely many other viewers.

Additionally, I don't have a transcript open so we're going off memory. And spoilers below, obviously.

I. Everything that I wanted to see

1. Jonah

I'm very glad he showed back up and was coherent. That was definitely a highlight since bastard he may be, but he's my favourite.

I would have liked to hear him monologue or give a statement, but I don't mind Jon cutting things short. It's deserved, and I'm sure Jon was sick to death of Magnus' voice anyway.

I really liked how his last words were so very scared and vulnerable. "I don't want to die." and then Jon's retort of "Neither did they" before going through with it was excellent.

Being the vessel for the eye being like a wonderful dream was also very good, because I can only imagine that it would be similar to Jon's nightmare walking for someone who actually enjoys the suffering of others.

Something that was odd was that I could swear that it contradicts 193, where Jonah was referred to as nothing but a husk when serving as the eyes conduit. I had thought that meant his sense of self had been eradicated and he was nothing but his eyes for all intents and purposes. Clearly not. So I suppose all those fics where Elias survives and is aware of everything after Jonah gets gouged out of his skull are still plausible, seeing as Jonah still remained, even after being crushed beneath the weight of his eldritch patron.

2. Jon doing his own thing

I said this after 198 and 199, but I though the Web's plan was dumb, and everyone completely misunderstood the Trolley Problem, because just like the average Tumblr user, the Archival assistants are illiterate. But I suppose that happens when you have two influencers, a cop, and a high school drop out debate ethics. I'm just saying Tim with his anthropology degree would have called bullshit on their moralizing, he might not have disagreed with that plan of action, but he wouldn't have tried to justify it.

3. Jon going through with the 193 plan

Technically a merger of point 1 and 2, but it had Jon having a completely decent plan for once. It worked for the most part, it was cathartic and wholly satisfying to watch for him as a character.

As stated in 193 the conduit position is meant for him, so he doesn't suffer any ill effects outside of becoming a bird in a gilded cage, but he already spent the series as that. And it wasn't as if Jon hadn't been acting as a conduit with the constant statement taking anyway.

3.b a late addition to this but why does Jon need to keep taking statements?? It feels entirely superfluous in a fear saturated landscape, unless it was the Eye really wanting that Archivist pupil.

II. What Didn't Hit, or the Deflated Souffle

1. Jon and Martin

Hinging the emotional weight of a finale on a couple doesn't work if you don't have any feelings invested in the couple. I didn't care for Martin from the moment we were introduced to him in Season 1, and my interest to become invested in Martin was ignited and subsequently extinguished within Season 4. I find Martin hypocritical and self righteous and it's a bad mix for me personally. I didn't like his character trajectory over Season 5, so Jmart did nothing for me across the Season.

The misquote of LotR also just doesn't do it for me. It's sort of romanticizing the whole Romeo + Juliet thing, which is always not good. I think being unable to live for Jon undercuts any growth Martin could have gone through since in season 4 he was running a suicide gambit, and I think if he had been able to live as a person at the end of it, he would have come out a stronger character.

2. The Knife in the Gut

So Jon went through with his actually good plan, and Martin acts like its the worst possible thing. Jon is mostly himself, more himself then across Season 5 for the most part actually. But it's treated like the worst betrayal, and then Martin has the gall to go "we expected this so we're burning the Archives at this very second"

Like okay?? You're mad he went behind his back, even though everything previously stated had your plan set up to fail from the get go. It just made me irritated at Martin for being short sighted.

Worse then that was how quickly Jon caved to Martin and saying fine kill me and go through with your plan. And then Martin did it. They condemned countless dimensions because when Martin show sup and say anything contrary to Jon, Jon's spine disappears. It defeated the purpose of Jon going behind their backs in the first place. Though I'm glad Martin wasn't there when Jon spoke to Jonah.

I think the damnation of countless realities should have been framed as a tragedy, and not as the heroic thing. So I guess it's just fridge horror now. The framing just, it really doesn't work for me here, I was horrified by the moral ramifications and how it's the one thing Jon didn't want to do, to have more people face the same horrors he had.

3. The Archives are Burning: One of the Best Paying Academic Institute's is in flames.

So Jon was called the Archive by Jonah, and it never felt like that meant anything. We don't know if the burning Archive affecting Jon was because he's the Archive or if it's because burning knowledge hurts him as burning Gerry's page did.

Also I'm just against the burning of centuries of knowledge in general, that was probably the part of the episode that hurt. Cursed or not, the Magnus Institute seems to have incredibly pay for a research institute of all things, I mean a flat in London and it can pay for a care home? I know biology researchers who make around minimum wage at best. I'm just saying, I would work there despite everything the series has laid out.

4. The Girls Started a Fire

I don't mind that they survived, but they blew up a gasline?? And survived, no Helen to save them, but they survived.

It's weird.

5. Back to Business as Usual

So they ejected all the fears into other universes and everything is back to normal. But I have questions!! How are people's state of mind?? Are some people catatonic from constantly experiencing constant fear? The Admiral is fine which is great but, there's so much mental scarring that even with a fix it band aid slapped on, the whole population is mentally fractured at best. I don't have the words to elucidate, but it bothers me.

In Sum

The finale didn't hurt me. Which in and of itself hurts. I signed up for a tragedy/horror, and it felt like the romance shift undercut a lot of character growth and impact. But that's because I don't like who Jon and Martin are when they're together, and that's a normal thing to fell around new/codependent couples.

I was hoping for something that was soul crushing for the characters, but death isn't really the worst fate, and I suppose it's grim if only because they made the selfish choice. Which is weird, for Jon at least, he stopped making selfish choices after Season 2 for the most part and was punished every time he did something that was necessary for his continued survival in Season 4. I have thoughts on the statement dependency being a food thing more then an addiction thing but I'm ending it here.

The series is good, but I'll probably just relisten to S1-4 only, I don't care for romance or apocalypse settings, and 160 is a good stopping point if you want a soft tragedy of sorts.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate “Mini Review” 1: About Male Abuse

Alex ze Pirate is in my opinion the WORST “comic” series Dobson has ever written up until this point (date for archives: June 2020). Sure, I agree with people that his “hot take” comics on Star Wars Fans, political issues and virtue signaling for the sake of making brownie points are worse overall cause they are uneducated propaganda that give insight in how much of a loathsome human being driven by spite he genuinely is, but Alex “offends” me as someone who enjoys fiction. It may not be the worst thing ever written, but it just does so many things wrong in terms of storywriting, storytelling, presentation and creating fictional characters, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong that Dobson even remotely thought this thing would be a “successful” comic series to establish him as a creator. Cause I can tell you, having read the likes of Don Rosa’s work on Disney, Hilda, Cleopatra in Space, Spirou, Asterix, One Piece (of which I will talk a lot in my next few posts) and many more, I can confirm by comparison that Dobson’s pirates as a published comic would have only one use on the public shelves: alternative for toilet paper during the COVID-19 epidemic

 Believe me, I would love to write an in depth analysis of everything wrong with Alex ze Pirate, from the lazy artwork up to even the publication history of this trainwrack. But doing so would take a lot of time and there is one individual part of this I think deserve at least extra attention. Something that in my opinion embodies quite well a lot of things I consider wrong with this comic. So before I am going over Alex in its entirety (and believe me, the day will come) let me just talk within the next few posts about one certain aspect and story of the comic, that genuinely got me to loath this comic to the core: Sam the Cabin Boy and “his” own individual story Dobson drew in three parts around 2010.  

For starters, lets talk who Sam is: Sam is one of the main characters in the comic and actually the first person who joined Alex and Peggy in the initial pages of Legends, the “original” form of Alex ze Pirate.

See, back in 2004, Dobson released Alex ze Pirate in form of a single comic volume called “Legends” which features Alex trying to recruit a crew. The thing is around 78 pages thick and based on what I saw pretty terribly paced. For comparison: When Luffy in One Piece got his crew together, he spend multiple volumes and at least three minor story arcs to get Zoro, Nami, Sanji and Usopp to join him. All while also giving us good insight into the kind of people his new crewmates were (especially Sanji’s and Nami’s backstory got to me), defeating the likes of Buggy and Captain Black, meeting Dracula Mihawk and defeating one of the biggest bastards Eichiro Oda ever created in form of Arlong. What is the story how Sam joins the crew? An orphanage organizes an auction and sells kids off. Which I assume was even illegal in pirate times, so kudos for already showing us how despicable the world of Alex ze Pirate is to begin with and how much it deserves to be nuked in some sort of alien invasion.

 Sam also doesn’t really get anything to do when he is introduced, just helping Alex escape on a small boat. Which is weird because he does not know her at all, she is just some stranger who bought him off and has no means to keep him in check, so why even bother following her and not let the mob get rid of Alex? 

Anyway, I wish I could tell more about Sam’s involvement in Legends, but I don’t have really more than some scans of it in the beginning and near the end. So I don’t know his involvement in the rest of the volume. I also can’t say how he plays out in volume two, because that does not exist at all. Cause for reasons I will never understand, Dobson just abandoned the idea of telling a “coherent” and ongoing story with Alex ze Pirate and instead went to his colored one page comics/strips with it, turning it into what some people called “Garfield with Pirates” (which I consider a genuine insult towards any newspaper comic out there, even something as Boondocks). And the first thing we see of Sam in “classic” Alex ze Pirate?

 The perverted dwarf of the crew showing of his shota underwear so that Alex and Sam stop bickering who is the cutest, leaving him embarrassed and humiliated.

 Which kinda sums up his role in the comic to a t. Cause this is what Sam is: He is the buttmonkey of the crew. And honestly, I would not have a total problem with Sam being a buttmonkey, if a) he wasn’t it all the time, b) he would actually do something to deserve any form of humiliation and c) if the other characters in this comic itself would not be some of the biggest assholes I have ever seen, who get away with abusing the poor lad.

 See, here is the problem: In a crew featuring a choleric homophobic soulless ginger

 A black rat person who wants to fuck the ginger even without her consent

 A furry abomination that has the same brain wavelengths as Chris Chan 

And a perverted dwarf who tries to impersonate Happosai from Ranma 1/2

 Sam is the only decent person in the entire crew. He works hard, he even questions the morality of his friends at times, he is honest, he is not perverted, almost good to the point of childish innocence and he has a very humble “goal” which is he wants to own his own piece of gold. Not even a big pile of treasure, just one single coin would be enough for him.

 So he is likeable and relatable. In fact, if anything goes by, he may have been one of the most popular ones in the comic. And yet he is the one who gets constantly abused by “fate” and his friends, because as Dobson would say it, he is supposed to be the buttmonkey. There is just one problem: People do not necessarily like buttmonkeys.

I can primarily speak only for myself here, but I hope what I have to say resonates with others too. See, I get it: A character who is the butt of a joke can be fun. Like Daffy in Duck Amuck. But there is a fine line where a character being humiliated for the sake of a joke is fun (and perhaps even deserved because of his own shortcomings or deeds/actions that make the humiliation sort of kharmic, like lets say Johnny Bravo) and a character being humiliated to the point it feels disproportional, unfunny and mean spirited if not outright sadistic, can be crossed. Take Meg Griffin from Family Guy for example whose only “purpose” for existing within the last 12+ years is to get shat on by her family and the writers. People have no idea for a plot with her, so what do they do? Have her father physically and emotionally abuse her, fart in her face for what is supposed to count as a joke and then add additional insult to it by acknowledging that they are only doing this, because they have no other idea for her and think abuse is fun. Let me just tell you from experience, it is not.

And that is essentially what Sam is: He is the Meg Griffin of Alex ze Pirate, used by his creator as the butt of very unfunny jokes, even if he does not deserve any of the things said or done to him. Want to see some examples?

 How about the description Dobson gives Sam within the introduction of one of his volumes, showing how little Dobson as the creator even cares for him.

Why is he called an unworthy “slob” if he is the only one who actually works? Shouldn’t a slob be someone like Dobson, who can’t even take care of himself anymore? Also the confirmation that he was kidnapped at the age of 16. And as we have no clarification how much time passed between Legends Vol. 1 and anything afterwards, that means that in a way Alex is a child abuser.

And now, here some examples by the rest of the cast. Like Uncle Peggy framing him for all sorts of his perverted actions and even trying to kill him for no apparent reason?

Alex trying to kill him with chicken pox…

…Destroying all his worldly posessions which is hilarious because he is a poor orphan…

…Essentially describing him as worthless because he was born with an Y-chromosome…

… doing the kind of thing Dobson claims women would never do to man, using their sex appeal to hurt them…

…forcing him to do some unnecessary and rather petty work for her in a physics defying manner (seriously, the way he holds the axe does not compute with how he swings it. Try it out yourself)

… stealing his food and just being a cruel sadistic cunt to him just because it is fun.

Which is “funny” in so far as that there are a few comics indicating she would jump his dick and ride it like a little pony if she could.

 By the way, Talus and Atea are not better. None of them calls Alex out on her bullshit on average, Atea uses Sam to trigger traps in one story arc…

And Talus, the closest to a “friend” he is supposed to have, once for no apparent reason made him dig through his litterbox

And don’t get me even started when the characters decide to gang up on Sam, to the point he gets sexually harassedor is called to be less worth as a human being than the dirt you find in your belly button

Fuck’s sake, even in fanart everyone gangs up on him, even the freaking big bad of the story everyone is supposed to hate or be afraid of

 Bottom line, Sam is an abuse victim played for laughs in this comics. And just to clarify, I do not think this was Dobson’s intention. But if the character is undeservingly the butt of jokes for the majority of over 120 strips, it turns nasty. The way Sam is treated, I just find disgusting and indictive of just how unlikable any other character in this comic is to the point I do not want to see this being turned into a proper “franchise”. And I assume others were disgusted by it too, cause Dobson eventually decided to make a story more or less addressing the treatment Sam receives, while also attempting to prove that deep down the assholes with starring roles in this trainwrack care for him. How did this play out? Well, I am going to talk about it, so likely not well. If you want to see the details, grab yourself some popcorn and take a toilet break before we tackle part 2 of this thing.

[philosophicusabicus]

Diaries in the Loony Bin

The Loony Bin is a group of individuals who could be called “friends”, but maybe that’s too suggestive. At any rate, this group has a diverse set of opinions on politics and sports, with voices across the political spectrum and through many sports. The intersection of politics and sports, in contemporary society, is met with disdain; however, the members of the Loony Bin seek to make it an acceptable space of discourse. Every week, when the asylum isn’t particularly chaotic (there can be no promises as to consistency of date), an entry will be posted, documenting the developments of thought and culture within these walls. Where many see lunacy as a vice, it is seen as a virtue here. The diary herein is will capture all of the voices of this group, but it will use only one narrator, striking many different chords and tones. Topics will change with rapidity, so be always on edge. Though, nothing will get too toxic, as most topics will be treated rather lightly, aiming at parody. We’re in the Loony Bin after all.

Entry #1:

Where saner minds prevail in the Loony Bin, there is the same old chatter about Brady; about how the Bucs will repeat; about the prospects of Tampa’s young roster. But, in the deeper corners of the Loony establishment, there are whispers of a new team in town — a team in the same conference which has been biding its time of late. The St. Louis R… Los Angeles Rams. This team has the defense of a Trump supporter pressed about another investigation; and they have Stafford now, who can be a completely average version of himself and still be better than Goff. They made the playoffs last year with the latter under the gun: by trusted and tried Loony bin logic, there is no world where they don’t fare better this year.

Alas, as we approach the eve of the NBA Finals, we would be remiss not to reflect on the curious outcomes of the playoffs we have just witnessed. The Suns are on the cusp of their first finals in 28 years, walking over a series of teams who were hobbled to their bones. 1st round against LAL, practically no AD. 2nd round against Denver, no Murray. 3rd round against LAC, no Kawhi.

Is anyone else seeing a curious trend here?

This is like the string of upsets that led to the election of Biden in 2020 — think Georgia, Michigan, and Arizona, among others. Speaking of Biden, nobody can say they’re overly happy with what he’s accomplished in his term so far, but then again many are still aboard the “anything is better than Trump” bandwagon. So that mass is just easy to please.

I have a story to relate. A guard patrolling the halls on a foggy evening last month overheard in a ward unit a patient on a delirious soliloquy. Ranting and raving was usual for this patient deep into the night, but this rave, this was different. “Trump’s rhetoric.. his mannerisms.. his behavior.. it is unfit for the Presidency. Nothing need be pinned on him from a legal standpoint for it to follow that he does not meet the standards of the Chief Representative of the United States. If you were to quantify the number of immoral exhibits he has demonstrated, however insignificant, they would add up to a hefty sum: a demeaning and vicious personality. A personality unfit for such a high position. If we have to pick political poison, let’s pick the lesser of the poisons.” The guard began to hear an uncorking of caps, a sloshing of potions, and a loud thump of a corpse, crashing to the floor.

There was a rampant disease going around the property, from hall to hall, greensward to greensward. Its many and various symptoms included: involuntary association with Big Tech, amnesia about mortgage loans and student debt; anxiety related to pressures of the labor and financial markets; headache and fever regarding quality of romantic life; and a strong preoccupation with taking selfies.

The Bin was in lockdown and every non-faculty member had to isolate in their respective wards. Hence, if the patients were to communicate to each other, a new way medium had to be contrived: they call it “Loonygram”.

As I understand it, though admittedly I understand it very little, one performs some kind of slippery action to facilitate the correspondence between users. From what I have gathered though, it has little chance of success without being a certified maniac. Many prefer the pleasure they derive from their own babbling monologues.

While a doctor was trying to rationalize his patient one day he got carried away on a sermon of his own: “Why the fuss over kneeling anyway? Just because some action affronts a symbol you respect, doesn’t mean the intention was to disrespect that symbol. Differentiating actions and their outcomes from intentions goes a long way out there. There was no intent to disrespect what that American symbolism; that was just a byproduct of an effort trying to gain respect for another symbol: social equality”

The patient, strapped to their chair looks helplessly up at the doctor and asks “So… that helps me in here how?”.

“Well, I suppose it doesn’t. Look, it aint all rational out there either, if you catch my drift”.

The patient scrunched his eyes circumspectly at the doctor before his attention was drawn to a fly buzzing on the adjacent wall.

These are curious times within these walls. An episode occurred on the Loony grounds one morning in which one patient wandered over to another, unprovoked, and yelled “my team is winning it all this year!”. The other patient, startled, replied “w..who is your team?” “w..what sport is this even?”

“I am at liberty to express myself; I have the first amendment behind me after all!” cried the provocative patient.

“Indeed, you do. But only where it doesn’t infringe on the freedoms of others” observed the second patient.

“And at what point is that?” jeered the first patient.

“Frankly, I’m not altogether sure. But let’s come to this decision mutually before you spam me with your raptures about the Yankees. Your favorite team is the Yankees, ya?

“How could you possibly.. know?”

“I saw you in the cafeteria last October, forking your pork chops like a feral animal; not long after Gleyber struck out for the 5th time that night either; I saw it in your eyes.”

How that altercation ended remains to be seen, since I merely borrowed it from the journal of another author, who has been missing ever since.

In other rumors, it is with great pain and sympathy that I report an exorcism which took place some time ago in the health dormitory on the fifth floor, all dust and eerie. The patient was being consumed by the demons of his loyalty to the Cowboys.

The pastor on hand, tending to his duties as exorcist, was on the verge of performing his most solemn task, when the possessed man said, as he foamed at the mouth “Elliot… Elliot”

“Excuse me? Elliot? What… Elliot’s going to be the most overrated running back in the league? I’m with you there” laughed the pastor, stuffing a hankerchief in the man’s mouth to muffle his screams.

“Dak. Dak. Dak. Back”

“Dak or not, there is a constant with the Cowboys. At the end of every regular season, they’re barely scratching playoffs.” applying the shock therapy he was taught in his vocational school.

“D..depth a..and.. youth.. a..at receiver” coughs the patient as he loses consciousness for the final time.

“Death and youth make a believer? That’s some sound philosophy my man. You’re impressionable when you’re young so that makes sense, and you live with more respect and appreciation for life as you get old and nearer to death. Truly well spoken”

“This one is one of the better cases, Mary” the doctor says as his assistant walks through the doors.

Tensions are up to a fever pitch these days. Just yesterday, two psychiatrists were shoving each other over whether the condition of the patients is binary or not.

“Their conditions are binary!? That is a very limiting way to view things. If the patient does not want to identify their condition as “sick”, and feels like they want to be labeled ‘sort of sick I suppose’, then the more power to them.”

“No, that is infeasible. If we do not have a clear threshold for their condition, then how can we administer their treatments? At what point? It would be arbitrary.”

“There is no essence of “sickness”; you can’t just define it in any terms you want, just so that it aids your goals; besides, they’re not really sick, sort of.” The insane man, lying on the bed for the entire course of the conversation, just looked blankly and confusedly at his doctors, thinking “so the stories you hear on the outside are true, these people really are Loony huh?”

Some disturbance is happening on the floor below me now, so I must close this entry and I will write another day…