#anyway tldr: anon you are 100% correct

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

saw ur vents abt dungeon meishi and while I haven’t read the series yet or watched the anime I have seen bits and pieces and already saw the blowup scene where Toshiro attacks Laois and like. even I with zero context didn’t totally hate him. It sucks majorly that it had to happen but like. Toshiro is going through his own shit and plenty of other characters ALSO don’t like Laois! I think people just see that scene and project the amount of times that’s happened to them with someone in real life, which like. I get it. I’m autistic and reading that scene hit like a gut punch bc it was something I had experienced directly in real life: trying to be friends with someone, thinking you are friends, only for them to reveal one day that they couldn’t stand you and hated your guts from day one. You wonder why the fuck they pretended and let you hurt even worse than outright initial rejection. You wonder why they’d put themselves through enduring you. It makes you feel like you can’t trust anyone, makes you feel like utter shit. I 100% get why it bothers people. But you can’t project real life people you experienced onto this character that does not align at all except for this one moment. Also knowing about the author, she probably put that in on purpose as commentary for how autistics in Japan generally have to go through shit like this bc of the way their social culture is. She’s made plenty of autistic commentaries before, I doubt she stuck that scene in there for no good reason. The fact that Toshiro kept quiet and didn’t say anything until he couldn’t take it anymore is VERY indicative to me of the ways Japan’s typical social system is a struggle on all sides. Not to say these are problems unique to Japan, but the nuance needs to be understood. Toshiro isn’t being a dick just for the sake of it. I want to read it sometime so I can better understand the guy, but I don’t want to hate him based on one scene where he was an asshole. Laois is an asshole plenty of times himself, being very overtly written as autistic doesn’t absolve him from the responsibilities of being an adult.

TLDR: People tend to infantilize Laois and demonize Toshiro, which comes down to the prejudices preconceived for both of them: people see Laois, as an autistic man, as an innocent sweet guy who needs to be protected. They see Toshiro, as an Asian man, as someone who should be “polite and honorable” or whatever and are appalled when he acts like a fallible human being and not some appropriation of a fictional romanticized samurai. I understand feeling betrayed and angry seeing a character be a genuine asshole about something (social expectation does not completely absolve Toshiro of his own antagonizations however much of a reason he had) but when it’s so damn one sided, and especially in a series where almost NO one is without complete asshole qualities that round them out, I find it kind of gross that people hate on him for that. Anyway. Just wanted to send a message of support and understanding. Hopefully after I read more I can offer more analysis to corroborate with you on.

100% CORRECT thank you anon

i also understand the people who are sympathizing with laios bc that scene is very easy to relate to for many autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people (i also got a cold sweat when i was watching it bc. like. having someone you thought was a friend straight up tell you there are parts of your behavior that they can't stand is one of the worst things to experience of all time, ESPECIALLY if you were only showing that behavior around them bc you thought they were your friend and you trusted them) but it's so frustrating seeing so many people have such shallow opinions about toshiro bc of it. im on hands and knees begging people to consider the characters in three dimensions and/or develop better reading comprehension because like!! toshiro's official meeting with laios's new group literally leads with 'oh his name is actually toshiro and we never knew bc our leader had a misunderstanding and microaggressed him and he was too polite to correct him' laios is not an innocent party here!! he is not an innocent uwu autistic baby he's a grown adult man with responsibilities, in that whole time he was partied with toshiro he never learned his real name!! plus using toshiro's crush on falin as a reason to hate him, falin's adolescence was spent in a school and a social setting where she was expected to mask + her being a girl also means she is expected to mask by default -> she is better at masking than laios so why are people saying that toshiro hates laios for the same traits in falin bc clearly not?? also saw one person saying 'he only likes falin because she's hot' NO HE DOES NOT HE WOULD NOT RISK HIS LIFE HEALTH AND RETAINERS IN A DUNGEON ON A FOREIGN CONTINENT FOR THE SAKE OF A WOMAN HE ONLY THOUGHT WAS SEXY!!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DUNMESHI FANS THINK WITH YOUR BRAAIN

the whole fight he had with laios where laios points out that their party is more serious about finding falin and resolving everything also drives me nuts because i've seen at least one take saying that toshiro doesn't care about falin as much as team laios because of this. which yes the fact that team laios understands the importance of health in pursuit of a goal is very very important but for many cases in east asian culture (and actually any culture with emphasis on capitalism and economic growth) productivity will get valued above all else which leads to neglect of personal health, i.e: what toshiro was doing. so this is just a clown take to begin with

also interesting to me that almost every character in dunmeshi thus far has demonstrated some kind of racial bias/misconceptions (i.e: chilchuck about elves, senshi about half-foots, etcetera etcetera) and laios and falin are no exception. race and racial differences and conflict and coexistence is also one of the underlying themes in dungeon meshi, with the elves of the west being considered a major issue to many dungeon-goers and the mayor hating dwarves and having to contend with those elves, and then marcille's motive for studying black magic and even thistle's motive for being the dungeon keeper. so it's real fucking ironic that the fans are really quick and happy to demote toshiro to 'asshole side character who is bullying our autistic rep' instead of, you know, using nuance and thinking about it

tldr; dungeon meshi has great commentary on what it's like as an autistic person in society. but dungeon meshi fans are too quick to write off toshiro as an asshole japanese guy who is ableist and getting in the way of their white woman yuri, therefore helping to promote this website's enduring legacy as the piss-poor reading comprehension website

[sleepanonymous]

I can't remember exactly where I saw it or even if it's true, but I've read somewhere that the Espera girls said they do not like being called "The Vesselettes" because it's demeaning, or something along those lines, yet you continue to refer to them as such. Why? Isn't that disrespectful? Please do not take this question as an attack on you by the way, I'm simply curious as to your reasons for it.

Hello Anon 🖤 Ty for the question, I'm happy to answer it, actually.

TLDR Answer #1: I'm too lazy to go back and change 100+ tags. TLDR Answer #2: I keep the #the vesselettes tag for visibility, especially for new or casual fans.

For a longwinded answer, Espera technically have three names: Espera, the official name for the background trio; The Choir, which encompasses their identities/part in Sleep Token; and The Vesselettes, which is a fandom created name given to the trio before they revealed their identities. I have actually called them Espera in the non-utility tags, and I've also thought about adding/editing the tags as well to include #espsera and/or omit #the vesselettes. It's just... a lot at this point 😅 Also in my mind Espera does not equal Sleep Token, but The Vesselettes and The Choir does equal Sleep Token.

As far as I know, and with a tiny bit of research, the girls in Espera didn't say they disliked being called The Vesslettes, only that they preferred to be called Espera. Granted this was in an Espera Q&A that was on the Espera Instagram page (hence why Espera does not equal Sleep Token in my mind). I wasn't present, and I haven't found a screen recording of the Q&A, but the consensus is that they didn't specifically state they disliked the term "Vesselettes" or found it offensive. The reasoning behind their preference is because they're a for-hire group and work with different artists outside of Sleep Token.

The its disrespectful point of view most likely came from fandom doing it's thing and expanding on what was said with their own feelings. There's been a lot of discourse I've seen on Reddit and in the band's Discord about the fan name. Its one of the things brand new fans or casual fans get jumped on for doing when there's actually nothing inherently wrong with what they've said. Case and point:

In addition to my extremely unnescessarily long-winded answer: the lady who claims to have coined the name "The Vesselettes" is actually a very lovely, fellow nerodivergent, woman. She's been using the name for over two years now, and (from what I can tell) it has picked up in popularity between fans. She never intended for this sort of discourse to happen; it was never disrespectful, demeaning, or sexist in any way.

Also if you want to get super ultra technical Vessel's name is not Vessel and he's literally the First Vessel of Sleep, or I, but fans kept referring to him as "Vessel" instead of "I" and it stuck and he rolled with it because early band lore was kind of a mess for reasons i probably cannot safely get into

ANYWAY if I have actually missed something, and Espera have publicly stated "Do not Call us the Vesselettes" or "We do not like the name Vesselettes," then please tell me and give me sources and I will force myself to correct all of the tags on my blog.

[venusdebotticelli]

hi! I’m sure you mean well, but (referring to the recent ed post) could you not tag art of trans interpretations of characters as rule 63? It’s not a “genderbend,” there’s not actually any design changes to the character and they’re very much the same as their canon gender.

Hi, I know exactly what you mean, anon, and I just wanna start by saying that you are absolutely right and Rule 63 is really not an adequate tag for trans fan creations of characters because yes, indeed, canon!ed is a boy and a trans ed is still a boy too, exactly the same gender. 

That being said, there is a reason why I still use that tag for trans fanworks, however inaccurate, and it’s mostly for archival reasons, but not only because of it. 

As someone who isn’t cis myself, and who has only been properly thinking about and exploring my own gender for the past few years, any fanwork that deals explicitly with the gender of a character in a way that canon doesn’t has always been fascinating to me, and I’ve always wanted to keep a collection of that on my blog in an easily searchable tag. 

I started using the tag “Rule 63″ mostly because of its ambiguity. Both the terms “genderbend” and “genderswap” sound horrifying to me, and I absolutely did not want those to be my tags for it. For “Rule 63″, I know the original source of it has terrible wording along the lines of “opposite sex” or whatever bullshit, but I’ve seen the explanation of it reworded enough times that, in my personal experience, it’s actually more uncommon to see the original wording connected to it. In the fannish circles I’ve seen it most used in (which admittedly are probably schewed towards my own preferences anyway), it’s usually used as shorthand for any kind of play with a character’s given gender presentation or sex characteristics or anything else along those lines. But anyway, not to derail from the point, I adopted it as my tag because unlike terms like “genderswap”, it doesn’t straight up tell you the meaning you should abscribe to it, but instead your understanding of it depends on other context cues--which is very much how I relate to my own gender, in a “fuck concrete labels and make of it what you will” sort of way. 

When I started using it, it was 100% for fanworks that took amab characters and portrayed them as afab instead, or the other way around, for the simple reason that I’d simply never seen anything other than that. But then one day I came accross trans and nonbinary and genderqueer fanworks and I lost my fucking mind because it was??? the most amazing thing?????? I’d ever seen in my life???????? 😍😍😍 And I wanted to keep them in the same tag as the other fanworks, because they please me and fulfill me in the exact same way, so the ambiguity of “rule 63″ served me just fine, even if I am aware it’s not really always the most accurate.

Now, that said, if I am aware of its shortcomings, why don’t I just stop making excuses and change it to something like “Fandom Gender Exploration” or “Fandom Gender Play” or anything more accurate? Apart from my general allergy to well-defined labels, I also happen to have thousands of posts in that tag, and xkit’s tag replacer function has literally never worked properly for me, which would mean doing it by hand, and I’m just never gonna do 😬

Anyway, I know this answer is verbose as fuck, but I do realise that this entire thought process is not exactly something that can be implied within my casual use of the tag, and it has probably been years since I actually discussed this on my blog, so I hope you don’t mind I take this ask as a chance to talk about this at length again 😅

Because you are right, trans men ARE men, no caveats about it, it’s not a different gender as in canon. But within my own adhd-fueled convoluted mess of a tagging system, that’s the tag it falls under, and I will keep this post pinned at the top of my blog for a while as a disclaimer, because I really do not want to be disrespectful towards trans people, and as I am gonna keep making use of the tag for my own personal reasons, it does deserve an explanation. 

[bonesbuckleup]

Lord, this answer got long. I’m a little embarrassed about it, but I wrote it, so it’s getting posted. It’s a literal essay. Sorry but also not?

TLDR: Yes, the show is arguably unfair to Sokka about Kya, but it also follows a pattern where Sokka stays quiet about Bad Feelings and plays by the rules established for his character. Katara, meanwhile, grieves loudly and often, and appears to be under the impression that because Sokka’s grief is silent it doesn’t exist, which also fits her character/interactions completely. Neither of them are right or wrong, but it sets them up on inevitable collisions.

Now. If you want to join me on a cactus-juice fueled descent into madness, proceed below the cut.

Number one. We’re referring to this exchange in “The Southern Raiders,” where the Gaang is talking about Zuko and Katara going after the man who killed Kya, which is vicious and brutal and never reflected on:

Aang: You sound like Jet. Katara: It's not the same! Jet attacked the innocent. This man, he's a monster. Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right. Katara (angry, yelling): Then you didn't love her the way I did! Sokka (visibly hurt, softly): Katara.

And that’s it. Upon returning, Katara apologizes to Aang and not, as Anon is absolutely correct in pointing out, to Sokka, who is 100% the more injured party. Now. Is it possible this is one of the rare missteps from the atla writers? Yes. Absolutely. Is that the answer I’m about to write a literal fucking essay about? No. Because it’s more painful fun to take it as face value and talk subtext.

First, a reminder that this show is fucking good at what it does. It teaches you how each character grieves as we go: Aang explodes, often triggering the Avatar state, usually crying or angry, and when he does try to repress his Bad Feelings it rarely lasts longer than a day; Toph either shuts down or gets mad, but either way she doesn’t like people seeing her having Bad Feelings and often storms away, knowing that she can’t control it no matter how much she might want to; Zuko yells at the sky in a rainstorm or yells at his dad in an underground tunnel or challenges Zhao to an Agni Kai or yells at his uncle in a jail cell and generally is an emotive nuclear bomb because the boy has feelings and if he keeps them inside for more than three seconds he might explode okay.

Then we have Katara and Sokka.

Let’s start with Katara, since she has the most textual and straightforward displays of grief. She’s really the only one to talk about Kya’s death in Book 1. If Sokka mentions it, it’s barely in passing. I don’t think we hear Hakoda address her death at all (which I’ll return to in a moment.) Katara’s grief is loud. It’s angry. It’s still very much a living thing for her. She thinks she sees Kya in the swamp and breaks down crying, and tells Aang and Sokka about it with no hesitation. When she’s angry and sad at Hakoda for leaving, she acts out and is visibly upset with him, yells at him, cries at him. She out-loud hates Zuko when she comes to the conclusion that he told her about Ursa and got her to talk about Kya to manipulate her. It isn’t that her grief is performative, because it’s a very real and terrible thing, but it’s a grief that’s to be witnessed.

Then, Sokka. Sokka’s grief is more complicated because it exists almost entirely in subtext, especially in regard to Kya. We really only hear him talk about Kya twice, both in Book 3. First, to Toph, when he tells her that he can’t remember what Kya looks like. Worth noting, however, that even though it is Sokka talking, this is still centered on Katara and Katara’s grief. The next time is when Zuko asks what happened to Kya, and Sokka tells the story that leads into the initial flashback. Sokka doesn’t talk about his mom. This is a fact of the show. It’s such a fact of the show that, in “Southern Raiders,” after the exchange at the start of this post, while Katara and Zuko are on the hunt, Sokka doesn’t bring up Kya again and is messing around with Aang. Like nothing has happened or is currently happening--which I’ll come back to in a moment.

So while we can use Kya as a perfect example of how Katara grieves, we can’t really use her for Sokka. So let’s use Yue instead. Moments we see (or don’t see) Sokka grieving Yue:

In the opening to Book 2, we briefly have a shot of Sokka with the moon imposed behind him.

“The Swamp,” where Sokka’s vision is of Yue accusing him of not protecting her. This one is one of the more textual moments of grief--”I think about Yue all the time”--but what’s awful great about it is how Sokka tells Aang and Katara. Aang, obviously, has no qualms about sharing his vision. Katara openly talks about seeing Kya. Sokka only tells them about Yue when explicitly asked. Even then, he doesn’t mention what she said to him. From this, we can assume that Sokka is still holding onto a lot of guilt over her death--guilt that he won’t let Aang and Katara see. Anyway. Moving on.

“The Serpent’s Pass.” After spending all day panic protecting Suki, he tells her that he lost someone, but doesn’t go much further into detail, just saying that he can’t when she tries to kiss him. Of course, this is all happening in front of the moon. Again, though, Sokka stays vague. He doesn’t tell her any details.

“The Puppetmaster,” Toph posits that maybe the moon spirit has gone mean and is kidnapping people. Sokka snaps at her, in a moment definitely meant for laughs, saying, “The Moon Spirit is a gentle, loving lady. She rules the sky with compassion and ... lunar goodness!” It is a funny moment, but here’s what we can take from it: Toph doesn’t know about Yue. Toph is a Feral Bastard a lot of the time, but she also knows where the line is, and I don’t think she’d’ve said that if she’d known.

“Boiling Rock,” in arguably the most quoted (and well deservedly so!) line in the entire show. “My first girlfriend turned into the moon.” “...that’s rough, buddy.” COMEDIC GOLD. Also, weirdly, the literal only time that Sokka explicitly tells someone about Yue in the course of the show.

“Ember Island Players” which I haven’t hit in my rewatch yet, but I definitely remember a moment where Suki asks Sokka when he was gonna tell her he made out with the moon, and he tearfully shushes her. Again, played for laughs, but the implication is that he still hasn’t told Suki about what happened.

This plays perfectly into the same way that Sokka (doesn’t) talks about his mom. When the Bad Feelings come, Sokka either avoids them and finds a distraction (Goofs with Aang--see, told ya we’d come back to that) or stays silent. When someone explicitly asks him about the Bad Feelings--what he saw in the swamp, what’s eating at him in “Sokka’s Master,” why he’s panic-protecting Suki--he’ll answer, but often talks around the actual issue. (Interestingly, it’s in regard to Suki we see the most explicit manifestation of Sokka grieving as Azula taunts him during the invasion: he cries, he attacks Azula, he yells and questions her despite the fact he knows she’s wasting their time. I think this one hits him because, as this beautiful post points out, Suki’s the protector in the relationship, and Sokka can actually chill out for 2 seconds. But he let his guard down, and Azula got Suki. Anyway. That’s probably a different essay: back to the matter at hand.) We even see this in “Boiling Rock.” There’s a moment where they think Hakoda is not with the other political prisoners. Sokka’s tense, drawn tight, but the only thing he says is, “No.”

Basically, we’ve got Katara, who grieves loudly and rages and is kinda like white-water rapids that churn and churn and churn. And we’ve got Sokka, who, to quote John Mulaney, looks at his grief and says, “I’ll just keep all my emotions right here and then one day I’ll die.” Iceberg grief, to keep the water metaphor going.

And where did these come from? Yup! Water Tribe gender roles! What we know from the show is that, while the South is typically more progressive (women can train as benders and marry who they want, at least) than the North, it’s still very rigid: the men are warriors/hunters/protectors, the women stay home to cook/clean/child-rear.

Now: subtext! And why I think they are this way!

We’ll start with Katara. The last waterbender in the South Pole. She no doubt grew up doted on. If I say she’s most likely a little spoiled, I don’t mean it in a bad way--I mean it in a she’s the last living remnant of this aspect of their culture kind of way. When raiders come, she’s probably the first priority to protect. Kya dies to keep her safe. Her needs are generally put before the community as a whole. (This isn’t to say that Katara doesn’t contribute or care about her community, because she 100% does). But! Especially in Book 1, we see Katara often considering her opinions as facts (trusting Jet, the waterbending scroll) and doesn’t always pause to consider the larger impact that her actions will have (scroll and Jet again, challenging Pakku, dressing up as the Painted Lady despite the fact the factory will hold the village responsible). And many of these actions are good! But we see a lot of Katara being pretty self-centered--what can I do, how does this impact me, how do I feel about this? And this isn’t a bad thing! This aspect of her character makes her complicated and complex! Katara loves her family and protecting people and caring for them! She’s extremely empathetic! But she also struggles to meet people where they’re at when they emote in a different way than she does (see: her clashes with Toph, her initial problems with Zuko joining the group, the above interaction with Sokka). It’s also worth talking about how Katara witnessed her mother’s death, which no doubt makes her grief about it a sharper thing.

Then, again, Sokka. Also loved in his community! But a normal kind of love, I’d assume. He probably was raised on stories of the Fire Nation dragging waterbenders away. No one exemplifies the Water Tribe ride-or-die mentality quite as well as Sokka, or the gender roles of the man as the warrior/protector, so you gotta believe Hakoda raised that kid to look after his sister at all costs, which we see throughout the show (already preparing to go after Aang in the South Pole because he know Katara’s going anyway, “You burned my sister!”) And he isn’t there when his mom dies. He finds out later. He goes from feeling like a victor who helped chased the raiders away to the worst realization of his life. I have to imagine he’s ashamed by the fact that he thought everything was going to be okay, which leads into his worldview of assuming that nothing is okay ever in any circumstance.

Finally, Hakoda. Who never, unless I’ve forgotten something, talks about Kya. All we know is that their family fell apart after her death (per Sokka in “The Runaway,” learning how Katara stepped up to hold everything together) and sometime after he took the warriors and straight up left. He apologizes for leaving but doesn’t address the fact that he left Katara and Sokka with no parents at all, only the war. This is, uh, not exactly echoing a healthy coping mechanism?

My theory: Kya dies. Since the Water Tribe is so embedded in gender roles, Hakoda probably shut down and/or checked out emotionally for a while. This leaves his kids on their own to deal with their shit, and we learn Katara does everything she can to keep her family going. As the most protected individual in the South, Katara’s probably been taught that emotions equal attention, and uses her temper/caring/sadness to help bring her community closer. Meanwhile, Sokka, who hero worships his dad, watches Hakoda go stoic and learns that “real men” shove their shit down. Additionally, Katara’s grief is deafeningly loud, and Sokka’s number 1 role is to keep Katara safe. He’s taught that the Bad Feelings only get in the way and make things worse, and so he learns to be fine no matter what kind of terrible is going down around him.  Basically, Katara learns to use grief as a needle and thread, and Sokka learns to bury it as deep as he can and avoid it at all costs. Opposite reactions to the same trauma. Katara gets mad and demands to be heard and listened to and seen, and Sokka gets sarcastic and prepares himself for the day the Fire Nation ships come back for his sister.

So. Back to those above lines from “Southern Raiders.”

From a writing standpoint, I do wish the final moment was between Katara and Sokka versus Katara and Aang. They could’ve had an almost identical interaction, but it would’ve been more nuanced. I don’t think that Katara needed to apologize, but I think we needed some acknowledgement from both of them: Katara continuing the lesson she’s learned about how her pain doesn’t entitle her to hurt other people (including Sokka, who is there no matter what she says or does), and Sokka that Katara’s process of grieving had to involve this catharsis.

Or. Maybe not. Because again--subtext. Their grief works in such different ways that I have to imagine this isn’t a new fight. It was probably brutal and vicious for a very long time. Maybe that’s part of what made Sokka try and go with the warriors. Maybe that’s part of why Katara gets mad so quickly in the first episode of the show. But eventually, unable to find an answer, they just...stop talking about it. Because the two of them don’t talk about it. Katara only talks about her mom with people who aren’t Sokka, and Sokka does exclusively to Toph and Zuko.

The only time I can think of Katara and Sokka talking about it together is the exchange at the top of this post, and it gets ugly fast, and it isn’t brought up again. It’s a fight that will never be resolved, because they fundamentally can’t react to one another in a way that can be universally understood.

“You didn’t love her the way I did!” Katara yells, loudly, because if Sokka loved her then why isn’t he raging? Why isn’t he getting his sword and coming to help her? Why doesn’t Sokka want to burn this firebender to the ground and make him see and hear and look at what he’s done to the world? To their family? He must not understand. He must not care as much or he’d be screaming with her.

“Katara,” Sokka says, much quieter, and adds nothing else. Not because there isn’t anything else to say, but because Sokka can’t talk about this kind of thing. Not doesn’t want to, but can’t, because it’s his job to protect people, protect Katara, and if he lets all those old hurts come boiling up he can’t do that, because that ends with losing focus and losing control and people getting hurt or going away. Why can’t she understand that?

And then they do what they always do. They don’t bring it up again.

[lovelyelbowleech]

wait. hair anon here again. that part is unrelated to the rest of this ask I just wanted to identify myself akdksk. anyways what i wanted to ask is, if you’re willing to share, what’s your outlining process like? thank you so much again and i hope you’re having a good day 🥺🫡💖

Haha, oy vey, my outlining process. 

It's quite chaotic I know certain events and things I want to happen that are spread over the three fics, I know the important things that need to happen, and roughly when and how. War games is divided into sections in my head and I have it planned out via my best guess of the ATLA  timeline, so its almost being planned week by week. But a lot of those points are kind of nebulous, and subject to adjustment.  I have Major Events stuck on my wall of sticky notes, but unless its within the section I am working on, I'm not always sure how I'm getting there. When I get close to a new section I plan all the chapters for that, and all the pov's - but it's not so ridged I can't change it. I currently have the next 10 chapters planned pretty well.  (currently we are in pre Ba Sing Se section - they do not have inventive names, guess what the next ones called)

The same chaotic but sometimes organised process goes with the characters. For example, I have the main points of Azala's arc firm in my mind. But the bits in between are more free flow - I'm not sure 100% how I'm going to get her to each of those points, I just let the story go where it wants, and see how it comes out (which is why i keep ending up with too many chapters and characters taking over POV's) 

When I write each chapter, it is a many layers process. First I write  out a plan on my page.  'He does this, she does that' and include any bits of dialogue that come to mind  as I am writing that out. Next I go over it again, but putting in lots more detail. I leave spelling mistakes, and don't really bother with punctuation. Then I go over it again, and this time add punctuation and correct the spelling and try to make it make sense. Then I edit,  and edit again another two times. I'm very dyslexic, and I have a tendency to correct to the wrong word by accident. It's time consuming and a pain! 

Then I send to my beta reader to make her suffer. 

I am one of those writes who's brain knows what it's doing before I do consciously. Stuff just slides into place, and it's the best feeling. Although it's a bit like someone else is steering the ship sometimes 

In my RL i hate dealing with more than one thing at once, and having to organise multiple things fries my brain - but in fic writing I am some sort of dungeon master moving my many many pieces around the board and cackling to myself. 

So yeah, TLDR my outlining process is half order and half complete chaos. There are sticky  notes, and  mixed amounts of planning. 

Sorry I wrote you an essay there 😂

[kiranatrix]

I always had believed that there is a part of Light deep down that knows that what he is doing as Kira might be wrong because we never saw him hating on Soichiro for firmly condemning Kira's actions. If Light truly 100% was sure he is in the right, then he would have seen him thinking "Oh, my father is evil", but we never saw that. Well, at least, that's mine interpretation.

Hi anon. Light’s thinking here is contradictory, but it’s typical for him to hold two conflicting ideas in his mind, such as his views on martyrdom as well as all these:

Light does indeed know that Kira is considered a murderer by many (and that murder, on its face, is wrong), but he is willing to sacrifice himself and commit murder to create a world where murder won’t exist.

Light sees himself as righteous but also believes Kira is capable of evil acts. However, in his mind, these are all in the service of the greater good and therefore necessary.

Soichiro is Light’s hero but Light also considers Soichiro foolish and naive about what real justice looks like and what it takes

Light does not hate the people who are against Kira, he pities them for being unable to see his vision. Unless they are actively trying to hurt/stop/kill him (and he can’t manage them in other ways like the Task Force), Kira does not de facto kill those who don’t support him. Primarily because Light is a convincer, he wants the chance to explain what Kira is by actions (or words, if safe to or he has nothing to lose).

We do see Light have strong reactions to his father criticizing Kira, but hate is not a part of it for Light. Obata illustrates these instances differently than how Light is usually presented— face obscured by shadows or hair, hiding the emotions he’s feeling until he can ‘recover’ and act appropriately again. 👇

Always found this so interesting that Light channeled the hurt and disappointment he felt from the criticism into equal passion for the ‘correct response’ his father expected to hear. When he is recovered and lying, he shows his face to Soichiro. And when he was alone with Ryuk who knows the truth, he had nothing to say, face obscured once more. We see another instance with Sayu, face hidden and a non-comittal response:

It was painful to have his own family misunderstand him but that was a cost of being Kira, and he’d pay it until he could convince them. I think he believed that as the world came to accept Kira (as much of it did over the years) his father would come around too. Light pays close attention throughout the manga about the overall opinion of Kira— it matters. Of course, Soichiro died before Light ever got the chance to convince him, which makes a scene with Matsuda shortly after more tragic through his eyes:

This conversation sounds somewhat rehearsed from Light’s end (and once more we see his face/emotions hidden). It is nearly out of character for Light to offer up such pro-Kira opinions around the Task Force, but I believe he does so due the the timing— his father just died and this is what he would have like to have said to Soichiro. He can understand the conflict Matsuda has, of being a cop meant to catch Kira vs. having doubts that Kira is only doing evil. Those panels also illustrate Light’s paradoxical opinions about his own righteousness and capacity for evil acts, how much the acceptance matters to him, how he thinks of himself as a martyr, and how the end result/greater good justifies short-term evil.

But anyway, this is the conflict he wanted to see in Soichiro, that thread he could have gently pulled at until his father became convinced or at least understood him. Instead, Soichiro dies believing the same thing he stated to Light here:

And we know this because despite taking the Shinigami eye deal and saying he could and would use the Death Note to kill, when it came down to it, he couldn’t do it.

Which makes Light thinks ‘you fool’.....Soichiro would rather die than take a life, even that of a criminal. Soichiro made a mistake Light couldn’t understand, and to him, ended up dying ‘for nothing.’ It’s all about results.

Tldr; Light was deeply affected by Soichiro’s rebuke of Kira and while he knew that Kira did commit some acts of evil, he always saw them in service to the greater good

[itsclydebitches]

Hello again! Im the tinfoil hat anon with the long ass asks and I finally had the time to read your response. Thank you, it makes my day reading your answers. I honestly just enjoyed them over a cup of coffee like a good book.

Now, the gun pointing scene I mentioned was in fact the one from the droid fight facility like the other anon suggested. But I really liked that you covered the boat scene too, I haven’t thought of it much myself and now I definitely have!

I also would like to mention I love your “candy bar” choice analogy and I 100% agree Hunter’s “invitation” to join back wasn’t welcoming in the slightest. It is very likely just an obligation as you said. Sort of “you gave us a chance, we owe you a chance too”.

And the problem with it is now I am struggling to figure out how the batch members might change their attitude toward Crosshair going forward, especially Hunter. As of right now Crosshair’s best relationship is not with his brothers but with Omega(as surprising as this is). And I think he does realize now she cared about him the most out of all of them during the short time they interacted(both 1st and last episodes). Even between themselves(not counting Omega) I find most of the bad batch members to be cold and distant to each other. They feel less like a family than Rebels for example. And they aren’t even a “found family”(a trope everyone loves) but an actual one! And I get that they’re soldiers and supposed to be tough, I don’t expect them to share all “the feels”. I just can’t put my finger on it but something feels off. I agree with your previous post, the show doesn’t do a very good job showing or even telling they love each other.

Will Hunter and co only start caring about their brother again only after he leaves the empire?(assuming he does at some point). What about Disney’s prevailing theme and message that “family always love and care for each other no matter what”? I guess it’s “family always love and care for each other but only if you’re good guys making right choices”. There is no room for mistakes or wrong decisions. In the last episode everyone form the batch seemed to have given up on Crosshair(besides Omega). For now their attitude seems to be just “you’re not our enemy” and that’s that.

I realize Crosshair is a “bad guy” and consciously made his choice(and we know it’s the wrong one) but to me it felt like he thought he didn’t even had a choice or rather became so lost and confused he actually thought he chose the empire as “the lesser evil”(as in the less shitty choice out of all the other bad ones). We as audience have the benefit to know exactly how atrocious the empire really is but maybe Crosshair still doesn’t realize that.

So what exactly must Crosshair do to get back “in their good graces” as you say? Start saving “the good guys”? Save the bad batch multiple times? There is a popular opinion on how Crosshair can redeem himself. That he eventually heroically sacrifices himself to save them. I personally REALLY hope it’s NOT what’s going to happen but I heard so many people speculating his story is set up to be redemption=death. I know you mentioned you don’t want “Vader style redemption” either. Personally I think it would be a waste of a character who has a lot of potential. And I just think that the batch kind of don’t really deserve his sacrifice(maybe save for Omega) after how they never tried to save him themselves and how they treated him overall. Maybe he will risk his life to save Omega at some point and that will “prove” to Hunter he cares? Although he has already shown he cares by saving her(even if in Crosshair’s own words it’s just so they’re “even”). And the thing is, he doesn’t need to prove that he loves them, he already did that in episode 15 and made it clear he does care. He actually went to extreme by shooting his squad to prove his loyalty. What were the moments the batch demonstrated they care about him? Hunter saying “you never were our enemy” and taking his unconscious body to safety? To me Hunter “not leaving him behind” during bombardment felt more like guilt about the last time it happened and an obligation to Crosshair for helping them with droids, rather than them showing care. And I kinda of think if that was any random civilian(or anyone other than an enemy or a threat) they would carry them out too just because that’s what good guys do and not because it’s their brother. You also mentioned that minutes later Hunter snaps at him with “if you want to stay here and die, that’s your choice” which I agree can be interpreted in different ways. And I think it’s one more point to it being an obligation that in Hunter’s eyes is fulfilled now. He corrected his mistake of leaving a brother behind and saved him this time, now his guilt won’t burden him any longer.

Anyway, I can’t wait for season 2 and I appreciate you and all the anons sharing the tinfoil hat, interacting and speculating together. Those discussions have been a lot of fun!

TLDR: How do your think the relationship between the brothers will mend or evolve in the next season? Do you think S2 will improve in portraying the batch more as a family rather than a group of mercs doing missions together? What are your thoughts on the popular idea of Crosshair’s redemption by ultimate sacrifice? As in, how likely do you think this scenario is?

Anon, that is just wonderfully hilarious to me. Ah yes, the sunrise, a good cup o' joe, and the overly long character analysis of a snarky, fictional sniper. Exactly what everyone needs in the morning! 😆

You know, TBB is far from the first show I've watched where there's an obvious, emotional conclusion the creator wants the audience to come to—the squad all love each other Very Much—yet that conclusion isn't always well supported by the text. It creates this horribly awkward situation where you're going, "Yes, I'm fully aware of what the show wanted to do, but this reading, arguably, did not end up in the story itself. So what are we talking about here? The intention, or the execution?" It's like Schrödinger's Bad Batch where the group is simultaneously Very Loving and Very Distant depending on how much meta-aspects are influencing your reading: those authorial intentions, understanding of how found family tropes should work, fluff focused fics/fan art that color our understanding of the characters, etc. And, of course, whether someone saw TCW before they watched TBB. I personally wouldn't go quite so far as to say they're "cold" towards one another—with Crosshair as an exception now—but there wasn't the level of bonding among the squad that I expected of a show called The Bad Batch. Especially compared to their arc in TCW. The other night I re-watched the season seven premiere and was struck not just by how much more the squad interacted with each other back then, but how those interactions added depth to their characters too. For example, Crosshair is the mean one, right? He's the one picking fights with the Regs? Well yeah... but it's also Wrecker. While they're trying to decide what to do with Cody injured, Jesse calls out Crosshair on his attitude—"You can't talk to Captain Rex like that!"—and Wrecker's immediate response is, "Says who?" and he hefts Jesse into the air. And then he just holds him there, clearly using his superior strength to do as he pleases, until Hunter (sounding pretty angry) tells him to put Jesse down. If Wrecker had put him into a more classically understood bullying position, like pinning him to the ground, it would probably read as less funny—less "Haha strong clone lifts Jesse up in the air!" and more "Oh shit, strong clone can do whatever the hell he wants to the Regs and few are able to stop him." It's such a quick moment, but it tells us a ton about Wrecker. That he's going to stick up for his brothers, no matter the context (Crosshair deserves to be called out). That he will gleefully assist Crosshair in bothering the Regs (something that is reinforced when he later throws the trays in the mess hall, after Hunter has already deescalated the situation). That he's likely been hurt by awful treatment from the Regs too. That he'll only listen to Hunter when it comes to backing off. Little of this work—that interplay among the squad that shows us new sides to them other than basic things like "Wrecker is the nice, happy brother"—exists in TBB.

Or, at least, little exists after Omega becomes an official member of the squad.

Because, as said previously, she becomes the focus. I don't mean that as a total criticism. As established, I love Omega. But if we're talking about why the squad can feel so distant from each other, I think she's the root cause, simply because the story became all about her relationships with the Batch, rather than the Batch's relationships with each other. Having dived headfirst into reading and writing fic, it occurred to me just how many of the bonding moments we love, the sort of stuff we'll see repeated in fics because we understand that this is where the story's emotional center is, are given to Omega in canon:

Someone is hurt and in need of comfort. Omega's emotional state is the focus + moments like her being worried over Hunter getting shot.

Someone needs to learn a new skill. Echo teaches Omega how to use her bow.

Someone reveals a skill they never knew they had before. Omega is a strategic genius and plays her last game with Hunter.

Someone is in serious danger and in need of rescue. Omega rescues the group from the slavers + is the most vocal about rescuing Hunter. (Which, again, is a pretty sharp contrast to the whole Crosshair situation.) Omega, in turn, needs rescuing from things like the decommission conveyor belt.

Similarly, someone is kidnapped and in need of rescue. Omega is kidnapped twice by bounty hunters and the Batch goes after her.

Someone saves another's life. Omega saves Crosshair from drowning.

Someone does something super sweet for another. Wrecker gives Omega her room. Omega gives Wrecker Lula.

A cute tradition is established between characters. Wrecker has his popcorn-esque candy sharing with Omega.

Someone hurts someone else and has to ask forgiveness. Wrecker is upset about nearly shooting Omega and they have that sweet moment together.

Note that most of these examples could have occurred between other Batch members, but didn't. Someone could have created a space for Echo on the ship too. Wrecker also could have apologized to Tech for choking him, etc. It's not that those moments shouldn't happen with Omega, just that there should be more of a balance across the whole season, especially for a show supposedly focused on the original squad. Additionally, it's not that cute bonding moments between the rest of the Batch don't exist. I love Hunter selling Echo off as a droid. I love Wrecker and Tech bickering while fixing the ship. I love the tug-of-war to save Wrecker from the sea monster. Yes, we do have moments... it's just that comparatively it feels pretty skewed in Omega's direction.

So, as a VERY long-winded way of answering your question, I think we need to fix the above in order to tackle Crosshair's redemption in season two. Now that we've had a full season focused on Omega, we need to strike a better balance among the rest of the squad moving forward. We need to re-established the "obvious" conclusion that the rest of the Batch loves Crosshair and that's done (in part) by establishing their love for one another too. To my mind, both goals go hand-in-hand, especially since you can develop their relationship with Crosshair and their relationships with each other simultaneously. Imagine if instead of just having Wrecker somewhat comically admit that he misses Crosshair (like he's dead and they can't go get him??), he and Tech had a serious conversation about why they can't get him back yet, despite very much wanting to. Imagine if Echo, the one who was rescued against all odds, got to scream at Hunter to go get Crosshair like Omega screamed at them to go back for Hunter. Imagine if we'd gotten more than a tiny arc in TCW to establish the Batch's dynamic with each other, providing a foundation for how they would each react to Crosshair's absence. Instead, what little we've got in TBB about Crosshair's relationship with his brothers is filtered through Omega: Omega's embarrassment that she knocked over Crosshair's case, Omega treating Crosshair's comm link like a toy, Omega's quest to save Hunter that just happened to involve Crosshair along the way.

Obviously, at this point we can't fix how the first season did things, but I think we can start patching over these issues in season two. It would be jarring—we'd still be 100% correct to ask where this "Brothers love you, support you, and will endlessly fight for you" theme was for Crosshair's entire time under the Empire's thumb... but I'd take an about-face into something better than not getting any improvement at all. It is frustrating though, especially for a show that I otherwise really, really enjoyed. For me, the issue isn't so much that the show made a mistake (since no show is perfect), but that the mistake is attached to such a foundational part of the franchise. Not just in terms of "SW is about hope and forgiveness" but the specific relationship most clones have with each other: a willingness to go above and beyond for their brothers. The focus on Omega aside, it's hard to believe in the family dynamic when one member of the family was so quickly and easily dismissed. I couldn't get invested in Hunter's rescue as much as I should have because rather than going, "Yes!! Save your brother!!!" my brain just kept going, "Lol where was this energy for Crosshair?" It messes with your reading of the whole story, so in order to fix that mistake going forward, we need to start seeing the bonds that only sometimes exist in season one. Show the guys expressing love for one another more consistently (in whatever way that might be—as you say, soldiers don't have to be all touchy-feely. Give us more moments like Wrecker supporting his brothers' bad habits) and then extend that to Crosshair. Which brother is going to demand that they fight for him? Which brother is going to acknowledge that they never tried to save him? Which brother is going to question this iffy statement about the chip? In order to buy into the family theme, Omega can't be the only one doing that emotional work.

Ideally, I wouldn't want Crosshair to go out of his way to prove that he's a good guy now. I mean, I obviously want him to stop helping the Empire and such, duh lol, but I'm personally not looking for a bunch of Extra Good Things directed at the Batch as a requirement for forgiveness. Simply because that would reinforce the idea that they're 100% Crosshair's victims, Crosshair is 100% the bad guy, and he's the only one who needs to do any work to fix this situation. Crosshair needs to stop doing bad things (working for Empire). But the Batch needs to start doing good things too (reaching out to him). Especially since Crosshair made a good play already, only to be met with glares and distrust. He saved Omega! And AZI! And none of them cared. So am I (is Crosshair) supposed to believe that saving one of their lives again will result in a different reaction? That doesn't make much sense. And no, his own life wasn't at risk when he did that, but does every antagonist need to die/nearly die to prove they're worth fighting for? As you say, he's already shown that he loves them, far more than they've shown the reverse. Every time Crosshair hurt them (attacking) it was while he was under the chip's influence. In contrast, the group has no "I was being controlled" excuse for when they hurt him (abandonment). Season two needs to acknowledge the Batch's responsibility in all this—and acknowledge that they're all victims of the Empire—in order to figure out an appropriate arc for Crosshair's redemption.

Right now, the issue is not Crosshair loving his brothers, the issue is how Crosshair chooses to express that love: trying to keep them safe and giving them a purpose in life by joining the organization that's clearly going to dominate the galaxy. The only way to fix that, now that his offer has been rejected, is for him to realize that a life on the run from the Empire, together, is a better option for everyone. And the only way for that to happen is for the Batch to seriously offer him a place with them again. They need to make the first move here. They need to fight for him. And yeah, I totally get that a lot of people don't like that because it's not "fair." He's the bad guy. He's with the fascist allegory. He's killed people and has therefore lost any right to compassion and effort from the good guys... but if that's the case, then we just have to accept that (within the story-world, not from a writing perspective) Crosshair is unlikely to ever come back from this. When people reach that kind of low, they rarely pull themselves out on their own. They need other people to help them do that. Help them a lot. But with the exception of Omega's reminder—which Crosshair can't believe due to how everyone else has treated him—they leave him alone and seem to expect him to fix himself first, then he gets their support. It needs to be the other way around. Support is what would allow him to become a good guy again, not "Well, you'll get our love when you're good again, not before." That's unlikely to occur and, as discussed, it doesn't take into account things like this bad guy life being forced on Crosshair at the start. If the story really wanted this to be a matter of ideological differences... then make it about ideological differences. Let Crosshair leave of his own free will, right at the start. Don't enslave him for half the season, have him realize he was abandoned, imply all that brainwashing, give him no realistic way out, and then punish him for not doing the right thing. This isn't a situation where someone went bad for the hell of it—the story isn't asking us to feel compassion for, say, the Admiral—it's a situation where Crosshair was controlled and now can't see a way out. That context allows for the Batch, the good guys, to fight for him without the audience thinking the show is just excusing that behavior. They should have been fighting from the start, but since they didn't, I hope we at least start seeing that in season two.

Ultimately though... I don't really expect all of the above. The more balanced dynamics and having the Batch fight for Crosshair rather than Crosshair going it alone... I wouldn't want to bet any money on us getting it, just because these are things that should have been established in season one and would have been more easy to pull off in season one. (If the Batch wouldn't fight for Crosshair while he was literally under the Empire's control, why would they fight now when he's supposedly acting of his own free will? It's backwards in terms of the emotional effort involved.) But again, it could happen! I'd be very pleased if it did happen, despite the jarring change. I don't want to make it sound like I think they're going to write off Crosshair entirely. Far from it, I think there are too many details like his sad looks for that, to say nothing of Omega's compassion. But the execution of getting him on Team Good Guys again might be preeeetty bumpy. I expect it to revolve around Crosshair's sins and Crosshair's redemption, even if what I would like is balancing that with Crosshair's loss of agency, the Batch's mistakes, and their own redemption towards him.

Honestly though, I just hope that whatever happens happens soon. It's a personal preference, absolutely, but after a season of Crosshair as the antagonist, I'm ready for him to be back with the group, making the Empire (and bounty hunters) the primary enemy. Whether his return happens through a mutual acknowledgement of mistakes, or through Crosshair being depicted as the only one in the wrong who has to do something big to be forgiven... just get him back with the squad lol. Because if the writing isn't going to delve into that nuance, then the longer he remains unforgiven, the longer some of us have to watch a series while going, "Wait, wait, wait, I really don't agree with how you're painting this picture."

[euphoricsunflowers]

heyy it's me again

so I loved your analysis on the Korean version of lose and the English version and you said you love musical analyses (correct me if I'm wrong)?

so would you like to analyse devil and yk tell me your thoughts (only if you want of course) cuz I'd love to read it ❤️

~ wonho in a skirt anon

fucking absolutely my guy i l o v e analyzing songs and comparing them like u g h i am a music nerd for a reason!!! and i finished my stuff for one of my classes super early so!!! let’s do this now!!

here’s the english translation of the lyrics!! i know english translations aren’t always reliable but ya know we gotta work with what we got!!

i’ll do this analysis like the lose english v. korean version one!!! so it’ll start out with analyzing the lyrics and then move to the musical components!! also a reminder that wonho didn’t actually write devil so uhh yeah!! keep that in mind!! let’s begin!

so! idk if you’ve taken a look at the lyrics yet but uhm... they do indeed make my soft dom heart skip a beat ajshdshdf like musically this is my favorite wonho song by like a little but like lyrically this is definitely my favorite wonho song 👉👈 like by a lot :,)

because there’s no comparison like there was in the other analysis, i’ll just go section by section of the song!!

bro ngl ‘the voice that rings in my ear like a spell, blinds my eyes’ made me think of him being blindfolded ajshdhs sorry. anyway i really like how the stong starts lyrically. his voice is incredibly soft throughout the whole song, but especially during this first verse and it really adds to the melancholic vibe. the beginning immediately sets the defeated tone this song has, so peaceful yet sad.

i really really like this part. it’s a good intermediary part in between the softness of the first verse and the rush of the first chorus. i dont 100% get what the lyrics themselves mean but it might be like he’s in a dream where he’s lying to himself that you (or the object of the song) that you don’t have control over him. idk i get that vibe from that last line in the verse “the truth disperses”. there are a lot of different ideas played with in this song (good vs evil, control vs freedom), but the idea of truth vs lie comes up somewhat frequently.

i L O V E this chorus, oh my g o d. when i say the lyrics have this submissiveness to them, i’m not even talking from like only a sexual perspective (even tho uhhh ‘turn me on, i’m soaked in breathtaking ecstasy’ 👀👀) . they’re very resigned lyrics (this song reminds me a lot of the english version of lose!! they’re both incredibly soft and sad and have this toothless hostility to them!!) i’m also not exactly sure what the storyline of this song would be, maybe like this person left him and he’s still so attached and wrapped around their finger?

(uhm so i just hope you know because english translation lyrics are so unreliable, i was watching a lyric video of this song and that third line was translated as ‘i can’t resist your absolute dominance’ and i just- i think i stopped functioning for the day lmao-)

i love this verse so so much, more than the first one. there’s a silence right in between that first chorus and this verse and it’s bEAUTIFUL MY GUY.

‘lie after lie, you’re killing my soul’ is such a somber lyric. it’s not exactly angry or accusatory, but it makes the song seem just desperate. whether it’s like a desperate to surrender to this person or desperate for the pain of love to stop is made intentionally unclear. this is demonstrated by the lyrics not exactly contradicting each other but having different meanings i.e. ‘you’re killing my soul’ vs ‘i offer my everything, even give my breath away’.

in short, i just love how multifaceted this song is. like it mentioned earlier, it’s submissive in a sexual context but also in an emotional context and i just love it!!!

the bridge is really interesting to me. like the whole song is incredibly beautiful lyrically but this section has so much depth to it.

‘i’m trapped in a prison i can’t escape from nor go back to, this curse must live on’ hits kind of hard. he’s trapped and can’t escape, but he also can’t go back to. i have a slight idea of what that might be referring to but idk i don’t think it’s right. like m a y b e it’s like even if he does escape, he can’t go back to it, and even though you cause so much pain, he still wants the ‘ecstasy’ that comes with it.

‘i now punish myself with you and jump inside hell’ sounds incredibly toxic?? like obviously if we set aside the idea of punishment in a sexual manner, this seems to refer to the pain this person is indirectly causing him. it’s indirect because they’re not punishing him, he’s punishing himself with them as the weapon.

also uhm the genius lyrics don’t change for the final chorus but obviously he’s singing different lyrics so i tried to find a replacement!! it’s from a lyric video so i just wrote them down!! (also also the genuis lyrics never mentioned the ‘ex is a devil’ part but i’ll get into that in the other section of this analysis!!)

anyway there’s not much to talk about here besides the fact these lyrics make me incredibly horny lmao i can’t wait for his concert i really want him to sing devil live!!!! so so excited!!!

now on the the ‘ex is a devil’ bit!! honestly there’s not much to say about the lyric itself but i genuinely didn’t think it was in english at first until i read the lyrics lmao i just love the part with the distorted voice!!! (also here is where we’ll transition into the musicality of the song) the whole song has a peaceful and somber atmosphere, even with the emotional rush that seems to come with the chorus, and then this part completely changes the vibe. like okay from the album preview i wasn’t a big fan of devil for the pure fact that the chorus seemed really bright from what we heart but the song is anything but bright!!!

i also really like the instrumental of this song (i couldn’t find an instrumental on youtube so there’s no way to listen to it without his vocals :,( but we’ll make do)!! the very ethereal sounding effects mixed in with the repetition of the kick and then how the distorted ‘ex is a devil’ part is completely different with the percussion oh my god i love it!!

it’s actually a bit harder to go over the instrumentals because there are a lot of pretty sounds that aren’t instruments that i can pick out easily lol but i can tell you that i really like the overall feeling that comes with the chorus. because the prechorus is so light and different from the verses, it adds to the huge ‘rush’ as i keep calling it that comes with the chorus. the percussion and the bass parts keep the pace of the song but the brightness of the beautiful sounds in the chorus (my soul is telling me that’s some kind of pitched percussion instruments or m a y b e a piano or keyboard with a specific sound effect but god i just don’t know) is just so pretty!!

it is so hard to tell because his voice is in the way but i think there’s some orchestral parts in at least the verses??? but probably all throughout??

and not to ignore his vocals??? i think one really interesting thing is the fact that wonho doesn’t sing like intensely or loudly in this song. maybe it’s because i’m used to kihyun popping the fuck off bit wonho in general has a rather softer voice and i actually really thing that helped the atmosphere of the song. i think some of the lower notes could have been more emphasized especially in the second verse and the prechorus because he has such a beautiful low voice but!! the softness in his voice helped the song keep that very resigned and somber vibe to it.

also in the last chorus, i’m not sure if it’s easy to consciously catch but there’s another vocal line and it doesn’t sound like wonho lmao but it also doesn’t sound like any voice i can recognize (maybe it was someone who produced or mixed the song??? i have no idea) it also could have been wonho with just a little distortion in his voice but idk again wonho doesn’t usually go for intense high notes so i’m not sure.

also i tried to listen to whatever i could find on youtube and i came across an 8d audio of it (these things are so weird but i love it) there’s some descending notes from what feels like a clarinet almost lmao also i again have no way to describe them but i really like the distorted sound effects that make this song seem so pretty but so off if you know what i mean.

anyway tldr: idk what’s going on musically but the song is very subby lyrically so i like it 👉👈

[iwasrunningwiththew0lves]

what's so bad about sleepy hollow?

HOOO BOY (I had a long good answer written out and then accidentally closed the tab because I’m an idiot apparently and this is just crap compared to that but anyway)

Okay, so I really loved s1. Loved the premise and the story and the characters and all that, and I do recommend that people watch that season. And the cast in that season was FANTASTIC. You got Nicole Beharie, Tom Mison, John Cho, Orlando Jones, Clancy Brown, John Noble, Amandla Stenberg, Nick Gonzalez, etc. They were absolutely amazing! But stop after s1, ‘cause shit went downhill fast. And like I said, s1 was great and I did stop watching s2 quite early on, but still kept up with the fandom and the fandom dialogue so while I don’t know everything that went down, I know some parts.

SO, for starters for some reason in like 2.02 the premise and basis of the show was kinda just made less significant. And there was A LOT of things that kinda happened simultaneously that made the show suck and terrible to watch. First off the black female lead’s storyline was sidelined and put on the backburner in favor of the white male lead’s Family Drama storyline (which sucked and was boring as hell), the white male lead’s boring ass constantly whispering (the whispering still annoys me to this day) complete flop of a witch and wife got all the screentime while the black female lead got pushed to the b-plot, unless Ichabod’s Family Drama needed Abbie then she was just there to help and aid them like her only purpose was to help the white people (YIKES), there was problematic and shitty and overused tropes used constantly, the POC characters (and white characters to some extent except for Ichabod and his family of course) were either sidelined or made to help the white people or killed off or simply forgotten about, Nicole/Abbie were rarely in the promos, the plot became stagnant and boring, Ichabod got several LI’s while Abbie got none, they completely ignored the VERY obvious chemistry between Abbie and Ichabod, etc, etc. And while they did try and course correct (after MONTHS of  the fans, the media and even the actors calling them out and voicing concerns and complaining. And I’m not sure but I’ve heard that because Orlando complained he was written off the show which yikes) at the end of s2, it was too little too late. The damage was done.

Not to mention Nicole got treated like shit by the writers, the showrunners, even by Fox execs, who all favored Tom over her. They were all shading and talking shit about her (for reasons still unknown ??) and were punishing her by intentionally shitting on her character with the writing. Like, she was the female lead, the star of the show (who btw went to fucking Juilliard so her acting ability was not the problem here), and she wasn’t even invited to do the DVD commentary. She had to ask the official SH twitter to follow her, even tho they already followed everyone else in the cast.

And because of the treatment Nicole and by extension Abbie got, she wanted to leave the show. (Which is 100% understandable ‘cause working in that sort of hostile and awful environment had to be draining af on her.) Anyway, she ASKED to be killed off. Take a moment to absorb that. The lead was treated so badly she WANTED to be killed off, like how fucked up is that? And so they did in the s3 finale. And her death wasn’t even about her! It was her sacrificing herself for the white male to benefit his story, it was to service him and his manpain. Once again they were shitting on her character and didn’t even care how that worked within the story. ‘Cause the premise of Ichabod and Abbie as witnesses was that they either both live, or both die. Their lives, their destiny, their journey was ALWAYS intertwined, it was as two. Always as two. But no, gotta keep the white male even tho that made no fucking sense within the story and the show’s universe and what they told us REPEATEDLY over the seasons.

So yeah, that was a rant, sorry about that anon.

But TLDR: First season great, s2 started to decline in quality and s3 even more so, a lot of stuff went down both off and on screen esp with Nicole and it turned into a damn shit show.

But despite all that fuckery, and poor ratings, it ~somehow~ got renewed for a 4th season and the only good thing about that are the steadily declining ratings which I cackle about every week :)

If you want more info, there’s more in my ‘sleepy hollow‘ tag and in my ‘shady hollow‘ tag AND in my ‘shitty hollow‘ tag

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Just wondering, what got you so into Persona, and what keeps you uninterested in Fire Emblem? I'm not trying to be judgmental, I'm just curious as to what worked since both franchises are complex RPGs that require a lot of play time to get into. (Persona especially; I haven't met anybody who didn't complain or even just comment on how slow the start of any Persona game can be)

It’s ok! XD Under the cut cause length, I’ll answer FE part first and then the Persona one next:

Ngl, I have good intuition on what I like and don’t like. I know people say “don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” but I do kinda judge it by the synopsis. Of course it’s not a 100% fool proof, but it’s usually right most of the time. Now same can be said for Persona and FE, I looked at the make up of each game and came up with the conclusion that I liked or didn’t like them. I also played a little of one (just to make sure my intuition was correct, and also cause I do like to try to expand my genres).

Now for my opinion on FE…. Hmmmm….I think it’s the gameplay. I tried Awakening, played like……20 min of it and never picked it up again. It was a little to overwhelming maybe? I can’t remember why other than it just wasn’t doing it for me (I only got it cause SMT4 was having a deal with that game) 1) the battle layout (I really am not a fan of grid style, I know what you’re thinking “What about Devil Survivor?” yeah….that’s kind of a thorn in my side tbh ;w; it’s gameplay I mean. Then there’s the class thing which I didn’t get far enough to wrap my head around, and tbh I’d play enough of Persona and other SMT games to understand how DeSu worked in terms of the actual battles). 2) Not really a fan of the medieval fantasy genre (dragons and knights and armor and etc. I dunno just….sadly isn’t something I really like. Like I’ll make exceptions, like I liked SMT4, then again that went modern after awhile. And I’ll still try it out other games, the new Atlus Re Fantasy or whatever is probably going to be similar but I’m still going to give it a shot). And if FE is nothing like I described above, welp…..I dunno….I didn’t really get that far then (or Awakening was the wrong game to start off as). ;w; So tldr; I got it cause there was a deal and not cause I really wanted to play it, on top of it-it was a genre and type of gameplay I don’t really like. So mixing that all together….yeah…. ;w;

As for Persona? Well back in 2008, I was in 9th grade and I saw an ad for P4 for the PS2, the gameplay looked like turn based style game (I’ve played Pokemon I can handle this 8U), and the art style looked right up my alley, and it was a murder mystery (ohhhh love this genre) on top of it psychology was gonna play a part (I love psychology). So like, it was appealing to a lot of things that I like. And then when I got the game it turns out it was completely up my alley. And because of that I wanted to try the other Persona games (even if it wasn’t murder mysteries) 

tldr; Nothing about FE:A appealed to me, everything about P4 appealed to me and made me wanna check out the rest of the series. 

Now I’m not done yet, get ready to have your mind blown anon. As for the slow start, esp P4, I didn’t actually mind it. *GASP* 8U Yeah, the way I play games is with the attention span of a gnat, I also can’t sit still for too long at times so I’ll literally will stop a game mid-sentence and go for a walk to get all my energy out, and then I’ll begin the game again. And then some times I’ll be hyper focused on it, and then I’m just too immersed so I’m not bothered by anything really. So like, I never go at the game’s pace, the game goes at my pace. XD Only time I complained about P4′s beginning pace was when I was playing with my college bros, and it was only cause we’re trying to finish the game quickly and also cause I know how some people are about the beginning. 8U Tho I will say P3 ticked me off when I first played it, I don’t think it was the pacing just…..the story bored me for the first month or so and I dropped it (I did pick it back up again a few months later tho and liked it). Anyway, P3′s pacing is mostly during the game (like summer), and again, I’m not too bothered by it (it’s something I’d like fixed in an updated remake but again not too bothered), only time I complained about it is….again….when I’m playing with my college bros. 8U 

[janiedean]

oh hey you have a submit page!

yeah regarding Firth/RDJ’s “yellowface” plotline, it was more like “is the yellowface really necessary for the plot? is it still okay if we changed the character to a kenyan illusionist so you have to use blackface?”

Oh and I’m not the anon who asked about why can’t asian actors play other asian nationalities, but want to give my 2cents:

while i think the perfect situation is to have an actor of the same nationality of the character, as an asian american, i feel like im asking too much. let’s take GitS for example.

i know that there’s a few big name east asian american actresses in hollywood, let alone japanese (american) actresses. in hollywood, afaik lucy liu is /that/ asian actress, you know, the most popular; the only one that might have a chance of getting that role if we’re talking about star power, and she can’t even compete with the popularity of other a list white actress. that’s why i/we settle on her.

we settle with “as long as you look (east) asian, so at least i can relate & be proud”, because there arent any big asian american actresses in hollywood (aside of her, and constance wu, and she’s big just recently). its not like we dont care about the “correctness” of the nationality, but its because we feel we’d be demanding too much (asking for an east asian lead is already too much, now we want proper nationality? smh hollywood doesnt care haha)

you might argue “if your point is SCARJO IS NOT JAPANESE then your possible alternative should be rinko kukuchi, not lucy liu.” while this is true, but represented by lucy liu is a lot better than scarjo. represented by scarjo meant another lost chance for east asian to main a hollywood movie slash another movie out of thousands of movie that has a white actress as the main character. represented by lucy liu is a big win for the east asian community slash one of the few hollywood movies that has east asian character as the lead. 

in the end having lucy liu is a lot better than any white actress. if it’s up to us, then we want 3 steps forward in the direction of proper representation; but we’re not the one who’s making the shots; 1 step (as long as she’s east asian) is a lot better than 1 step backwards (scarjo), that’s why we “settle down”. but still, in the end we “lost”, right?

tldr; represented by the wrong nationality >>>> represented by white actress, because at least it’s still somehow a representation for us east asians.

by the way, in your tags, if tw is trigger warning, what is cw? thank you for answering!

in the end im sorry, when i write a long post, i tend to go in circles, and repeating things i may have said before. sorry for the troubles & confusion!

———-

I have a submit I just don’t publicize it for obvious reasons ;)

that said: I think that with RDJ it was necessary because otherwise the satire doesn’t drive the point while CF seems wholly unnecessary but then again with RDJ.. I mean satirizing blackface means doing the exact same contrary of what blackface is supposed to be doing so I don’t think it’s the same thing at all and like… if you wanna have a satirical movie where you show that blackface sucks getting a black actor wouldn’t cut it I think because black actors don’t blackface you know X°D

that said I 100% get your point but the thing is that a) people shouldn’t have to settle and should actually ask for the whole cake imo, b) the point with GITS was that it was put as a thing going against asian actors’s interests and like…. if it’s a japanese franchise and you’re aiming to have a correct recast then you should want the japanese actress, if your issue is rep in american movies fine but then say you want it as asian-american, because to a japanese it changes nothing if it’s scarjo or lucy liu, she’s still not japanese. like, my issue is people saying that scarjo’s casting hurts the japanese but then propose not-japanese actresses, at that point say that the issue is asian-american rep, not japanese rep. which is what 99% of the people on here do, that was my problem X°D if they were straight up about it being an issue with their market without bringing in the japanese who cares, but if you market it as ‘I WANT JAPANESE REP’ and then don’t push for a japanese actress then it doesn’t look too coherent if you get my meaning X°D  

that said idk if you lost because that movie wasn’t a total box office bomb but it underperformed and they got more criticism for it at least in the us/anglophone spheres than else so I don’t think they’re gonna do it again if they get that kinda backslash, but like the thing is that when it happens people actually criticize it so it’s not a bad thing, it means people have more sensitivity to the subject. at least that’s my two cents.

(that said sorry if I’m butting in on a thing I might not have a leg to stand on, I think that it’d be great if people actually tried to publicize what media is there with good/appropriate casting, I mean for one I know tumblr has a hateboner for clint eastwood but gran torino’s plot point was the protagonist getting to know his hmong neighbors and bonding with one of the kids and the hmong actors were actually hmong or sons of hmong parents emigrated in the US and if you look at reviews online while not faultless most hmong people who auditioned for it were ecstatic they actually went looking for them instead of casting from other backgrounds, and his letters from iwo jima was about the iwo jima battle from the japanese pov and all the actors were japanese acting in japanese and he prevented the distribution from dubbing it even if it meant losing money, and no one on here ever mentions those movie exist even if GT was a box office success. when marco polo was airing not many ppl were watching and on tumblr people complained that ‘the lead was too white’ […] and then it got canceled, and those are like… THREE things I can think of, but I mean, some people try to do accurate castings and then get shot down so I think that other than protesting like in scarjo’s case, more supporting/promoting what is there would be more eventually proactive but like…. idk I think I saw four people in the last years promoting fresh off the boat which I’m told is good asian-american rep but I saw all of my dash going hard on scarjo and people saying that since ‘not many asians went to see black panther then we should boycott crazy rich asians’ [out of whacked statistics anyway], you get what I mean? XD like I get protesting scarjo but giving money to products with asian actors would also be a better idea and would push producers to go in that direction, but I don’t see a lot of that happening on tumblr at least D:)

also, cw = content warning, I use it when I’m discussing a thing but it’s not… VERY MUCH IN YOUR FACE, I mean like we’re discussing racism, I’m not showing you a racist person doing racist things, in that case I’d have used tw XD I usually use both if I’m extra cautious XD