#anyways. there is no fear in love. a little less for a lot more. etc etc

[starscelly]

DID THEY TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TOUCH IT? | pre wcf game 6

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[scribeofmorpheus]

Dragon Age Veilguard: Love, Wisdom and Pride

A very long Dragon Age post!

Warnings for: Veilguard Spoilers, Solavellan spoilers.

Okay, so I will preface this by saying that this ‘analysis’ primarily focuses on Solas’ arc; both romanced and unromanced. It isn’t intended to be a romanticised analysis, though it is very much enamoured with how a romanced Solas and his relationship with Lavellan foils (and informs my reading/reception of) that of Solas and Mythal’s relationship in Veilguard. There is a relationship I will address that I feel does parallel Solas and Mythal! Scroll down to “Reading Between the Lines” if you wanna skip my little intro below. Spoilers follow.

Truth be told, I wasn’t ever expecting much in terms of actually getting a sequel to Inquisition. The game dev market went through a tumultuous reshuffle before the remake madness breathed life back into many studios. Bioware game sequels (Mass Effect Andromeda) were underwhelming and not as fleshed out since the EA acquisition. I absolutely believe Bioware would have been shunted had Mass Effect Legendary Edition not been so successful. EA’s reputation was always lacklustre and underhanded, but laying off or losing several head writers attached to Bioware with almost two decades of work under their belts was the biggest red flag. Trevor Morris not being asked to return in exchange for a ‘bigger name’ was also a grave warning that returning to the atmosphere, ambience and world of Thedas that we knew was getting further and further away from a plausible reality. And on top of that, there’s the fact Solas was never intended as a romance interest during early development of Inquisition.

Solavellan seemed doomed!

Despite this, I still held out hope for a sequel, but I feared we’d always be in permanent Solavellan/developmental hell. Heck, I’m still waiting for a Beyond Good and Evil sequel—the game released in 2003! So, actually witnessing people play Veilguard, seeing reactions to it, seeing memes and gifs and essay pieces (like this one), it’s like my community has awoken again, and I never thought I’d see the day. Yet I am not blind to the fact we were robbed of so much potential. I knew thing’s wouldn’t live up to re-emerging expectations when Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was rebranded to Veilguard—the shift seemed to imply less of a primary focus on Solas (and apparently, according to the artbook, the early concept art proves this implication correct).

Things seemed even more dire when the devs revealed there was no tapestry mechanic. I had only one hope: that with the Inquisitor’s confirmed return, we’d get at least some form of catharsis for our Inquisitors (Lavellans and otherwise), if we couldn’t get the conclusions to so many storylines present in each of our worldstates. My main fear was that they’d go the clich��d Ultimate Sacrifice route (which happens anyway, but in a way that makes thematic sense given the stakes and heavily blighted worldstate).

Suffice it to say, there was a lot of evidence that Veilguard would disappoint me in the end. But it hasn’t. It hasn’t lived up to the many expectations and marks of excellence that the Dragon Age world built itself into with the first three entries, that’s for sure, but I am also just so deprived of conclusions, of endings (whether it be because TV doesn’t exist in a sustainable format anymore or that comicbook movies are made with a sequel in mind, never letting anything just “Exit Stage Left” gracefully; or the fact we live in a regurgitating content cycle with late-stage-capitalism where anything remotely profitable gets turned into a caricature of itself: Squid Game, Star Wars, etc.). The cycle is so exhaustive that I am actually at a point where I can say I am content with the ending we were given (on a Solas/Solavellan front), Veilguard gave me relief, and beautiful, achy pain to boot. Though I would absolutely be disappointed by both the "non-romanced Solas" endings, given that Solas winds up either "dying alone, forever" or turns to Tyranny.

Now onto the actual review of that Solavellan ending, Mythal and themes of Love!

Note: I have only gotten the ‘best’ ending in my first playthrough, but I also thought the consequences of not maxing factions would be more… dire? Another note, pls, if your romanced Inky swore to stop Solas, how does that ending differ, if at all? Let me know, I’m dying here!

Sidenote: I’m working on writing another review about my views on the ‘sanitised’ worldstate, the new companions (and why I think Varric was the wrong choice to have as an advisor in the game, given that the Inquisitor or Morrigan would have been more impactful; and not to mention that Cole or Briala should have been companions), removal of the tapestry and what it means for the future of stories in Thedas (The Story We Lost is such a poignant compilation of the sheer volumes of lost lore and depth that I honestly think I won’t go as in-depth on that review as this one), and why I think Veilguard is my final entry into Dragon Age.

Reading Between the Lines: What Pride Hath Wrought

One thing is for sure, Trick Weekes flourishes when writing within the ambiguities and complexities of meaning. This makes every word uttered by Solas so great to dissect, he's a god of lies not because he 'lies' but because he's so careful with how he phrases things, what he holds back, and what he reveals.

For instance, the famous Trespasser exchange where Solas mocks his own follies with sarcasm by saying:

“What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf Take you.”

Then a softer, more saddened and beaten-down Lavellan replies:

“And so he did.”

This irks him. Because he then realises in that moment that he absolutely did take advantage, but for some reason he frames it around sex rather than power because that’s easier to address than the latter. And he rejects the notion, even though he brought up the expression he knows to mean nothing close to a sexual inuendo for being ‘taken’, and yet he has the gall to try and derail the conversation by pivoting and saying:

“I would not lay with you under false pretences.”

When I first had this dialogue exchange, I was baffled, because did this mean that there was another meaning to ‘Dread Wolf take you’ that Dalish clans lost through the years, or was it more of a self-deprecating joke Solas had with himself because he, the Dread Wolf, romanced (took) a Dalish Inquisitor (away from her people’s beliefs, histories, past), and he found irony in the saying?

On the surface, “wouldn’t lay with you under false pretences” could simply mean “we didn’t sleep together” or “we did sleep together, but I wasn’t taking advantage as the Dread Wolf, I was simply Solas in your presence”. But I have recently thought of a more… ambiguous reading.  Lay could have been used in a milder, more vulnerable way; to mean to be at peace, to be completely vulnerable, as if to sleep. In that sense, the phrasing becomes: “I could not be at peace with you because I was living a half-truth”.

I absolutely think the moment he feels he is truly beyond hope is when we see his expression of abject horror as Lavellan shouts: “I would have had you trust me!”. He realises then that he did fuck up, he did take the choice away from her because he thought he knew better, him and his pride led to a decision that hurt someone close to him, and he could finally see how wrong he was, how alike the entire situation became to Mythal’s treatment of him. Especially if Lavellan asks to go with him. Because he can see that despite the hurt, the lies and the betrayal on his part, Lavellan still wishing to join him draws too close to his first regret: following Mythal.

Whether he likes it or not, Solas’ love which could burn like a bonfire was directed at a powerful woman—a Herald, an Inquisitor—and inspite of her greatness of character, it still shaped her into someone willing to follow him on his dinanshiral out of love, much like he left the Fade and took physical form for Mythal. So now whenever I hear Lavellan shout “Var lath vir suledin”, Solas replying with “I wish it could, Vhenan,” changes drastically with the Mythal reveal, knowing he always walks away from the Inquisitor in Trespasser.

“I wish it could, Vhenan” sounds heavily like: “You would regret me, as I regret Mythal, and I cannot bear for that to happen us.” More poetically, it could read as: “I wish our love could overcome a duty that has lasted an incomprehensible amount of time, I wish I could change my nature, but then I’d be twisted into a demon, like the spirit of Wisdom in the Dales; and yet again, I would become your regret.” These two readings are very, very romantic. Realistically, given what we know of his kinship with Felassan, and how they were comrades and friends for centuries (“A story unfinished. His back turned!��), and given what we know of the complexity of Mythal’s will that presides over the creation of his very being, and yet he was still able to muster the strength to kill a fragment of her to fulfil his mission,  “I wish it could” was most probably a lament: “Do not ask me to hurt one of the two women I’ve loved on this journey, because if it ever came to it…” he would.

Knowing what I know of Solas, of how he was able to convince himself that Varric’s death (avoidable as it was) was just another necessary step, that it was just another sacrifice, another loss that would be worth something only if he completed his ritual, I have no doubt that Solas would also be able to rationalise hurting Lavellan (which is why in his mind, turning away from her, breaking her heart, leaving with no explanation and aiding her in Trespasser so she could live whatever few years remained in “relative peace” is actually an act of preserving that love). I partially think the reason he reveals the truth in Trespasser (especially for a romanced Lavellan) is in the hopes his ‘truths’ will push her away. But on a deeper note, I think he also thinks of it as some twisted form of repaying her for loving him to the point that he could have almost forgotten what it was to be the Dread Wolf, to just be with her as Solas, that night at Crestwood. Maybe his harsh truths would push her to the point where she’d give up her love for Solas, now that she knew he was the Dread Wolf, freeing her from the shackles of their love. He’s very self-flagellating, all about self-sacrifice for the ultimate goal, the ends always justify the means, he will endure any pain and punishment as long as Arlathan returns in the end.

What is his love of a mortal compared to the despair and loss of an entire empire? Solas views himself as selfish for falling for her, and that nearly broke him, if he was selfish enough to leave the dream of Arlathan behind for her, what would that do to his spirit then?

In his way of thinking, perhaps telling the Inquisitor the truth is a way out, a rationale they can use to justify stopping him or to make it easier to hate him as the Dread Wolf rather than love him as Solas (someone he hasn’t been in so long).

‘Masking’ as the Dread Wolf

During Trespasser, the Inquisitor has every right to despise Solas after all they’ve learned, and I think he half reveals the truth as a tactic so the Inquisitor can have an excuse to hate him, to be driven to anger and have less pull over his choices, once they learn the truth. Solas is particularly skilled at making other’s play the role that makes his own choices seem inevitable, he orchestrates a lot of events to play out in a manner where it's easier for him to talk himself into bringing down the veil.

He goads Elgar’nan to anger easily. He inspires the spirits to fight for him to the death as a necessary distraction during the war. He absolutely allows the Inquisitor to speak to him one last time so he can offer insight, yes, but also so he can easily frame his actions as just and inevitable. But, Oh boy does he get in for a shock if the Inquisitor shows empathy towards him, it scares him because he’s become accustomed to being seen only as the Dread Wolf. To be understood? That gives way to remorse. And remorse gives way to doubt. And he cannot doubt his purpose, twisted as it is, it is all he has left of his former self. Without it he would most likely change into something different. Someone he doesn’t recognise.

This fear intensifies more so if a romanced Lavellan asks to go with him, and in that case, he takes command and distances himself away (rejecting the help of someone close to him; the chance for a possible betrayal; the chance at another Felassan or Mythal [x]; the chance to twist Lavellan outside of her purpose, in this case, the purpose would be love/empathy) but not without showing remorse at having sacrificed yet another relationship for his crusade.

“Ir abelas.”

Sorrow for what cannot be is at the heart of why the Solavellan romance is so powerful, especially because even though both Solas and Lavellan love each other passionately, love alone cannot be enough when faced with regrets. Love would ultimately be stifled. Corrupted into something else over time. And so, for Solas, having loved and lost tragically is better than having loved and corrupted.

He will not do to Lavellan what was done to him, even if it is her choice, because she knows so little, her naivete cannot close the distance of a millenia’s old sea, and it would hurt him immensely to take advantage of her kind heart [x].

By leaving, he keeps her heart pure. And the yearning! Knowing the love is there, but on its own it cannot be invulnerable to corruption, so it is better to lose it than twist it. Ugh! Him leaving Lavellan is the ultimate show of love! IT IS A WISE DECISION. A rare glimpse into pure wisdom. Which is why he kneels beside Lavellan in Trespasser, he does not “Stand Tall” in the face of Wisdom’s heart. He kneels beside her. And when he stands tall again, he is Solas once more, filled with regret, and once through the eluvian, he returns to masking as the Dread Wolf.

Sidenote: It’s especially confounding that Veilguard allows Rook to push the Inquisitor to save or stop him after you’ve reached act 2 despite your world state choice (I think this was done in case they feared the Inquisitor wouldn’t stand by Solas after everything he was revealed to be responsible for in Veilguard, however it doesn’t work because the Inquisitor wasn’t an advisor, Rook never told them what they learned from the wolf statues, so having a stranger hold the ability to make Lavellan keep her promise or not rings hollow). Personally, I wish the Inquisitor’s presence had more weight in the non-Solavellan endings, too. I wish the Inquisitor could end up being the last friend/former love that Solas destroys (if you don’t collect the wolf statues) which then prompts Rook to fight him because Solas’ last tie to empathy failed to redeem him, that the Inquisitor falling is the last straw and Solas snaps, choosing to be a villain in the hopes of being stopped because he can’t stop himself, and not the ‘I am a God’ ending they gave us. Same for if your Inquisitor vows to stop him. I also wish the Inquisitor was the one to do the wolf statue missions. Would have been a nice secondary protagonist mission like the switching perspectives between Kratos and Atreus in GOW: Ragnarök (the old guard and the new; Inquisitor and Rook). I would have loved if they dedicated more dialogue to Inquisition days too, which is why I think Cole should have been a companion (if he wasn’t recruited, he could simply be a compassion spirit that ‘follows’ the greatest pain in the Fade that yearns to be healed, giving a compassionate viewpoint to Solas’ folly; recruited Spirit Cole could have a greater connection to Solas than even Varric, seeing as Cole was most likely a literal representation of Solas rewriting his own history by preventing a spirit from becoming too ‘real’; Human Cole would have a deeper connection to the world of Thedas, and could have been a great tool to prove how change was inevitable, not always a bad thing, and inevitably out of even Solas’ control. But alas, we live with what we are given! Even Imshael could have served in this role! Spirit/Demon of choice and it wasn’t incorporated into the game that supposedly asks you to make the greatest world-changing choice ever; redeem the Dread Wolf or end the age of the Evanuris entirely?!

Now onto the next segment: I want to talk about Solas’ regrets and how I read the ‘love story’ between Solas and Mythal, and why Lavellan (and what she represented) wasn’t enough to get through to him (and that’s a very believable thing, that’s what makes their love both tragic and epic!).

The High Price of Redemption

A romanced Lavellan has the most agency to see through his guises, if she resolves to save him, but even she cannot undo the shackles that still bind him to Mythal—the binds that twisted Wisdom so far from its purpose it became Pride, even when he burned (Mythal) from his face. (Likewise, A close friend Inquisitor who promises to save him is most likely a parallel to Felassan, again, they cannot undo the shackles of regret either.) I fully believe the vallaslin had a deeper magic than simply marking one as being committed/devoted to an Evanuris, I think it linked them magically, and since Solas was the first to burn the vallaslin away, he probably wasn’t as good at severing the link on himself as he was for other elvhen, so maybe a part of Mythal’s will still lingers in him, twisting him to Pride still.

In Veilguard’s final confrontation, I love the intention of showing how Lavellan approaches Solas slowly, as she doesn’t know who she’ll be faced with up those steps, Dread Wolf or Solas. But when she speaks to him, trying to get him to change his mind yet again, forgiving him for his wrongs, we are reassured that Wisdom hasn’t been completely consumed by Pride despite everything we’ve witnessed in the game because he bows his head at her in reverence as he apologises.

He shows humility towards her. He elevates her and her enduring love as worthy of his respect, but he does not consider himself worthy of hers. Thus, Lavellan pries open the door to acceptance but his heart is still not enough. Which is why love alone cannot turn the tide. He’s too broken to accept it. He doesn’t think he deserves it, so the only way out is through; to continue the ritual, to prove he was right. The shackles persist. Varric’s death weighs on his conscience now more than ever. Possibly members of Rook’s team too if they died on his crusade. But he is vulnerable enough for Morrigan to approach, and now Rook can use Mythal’s essence to make the final push. The only way he could be with Lavellan, the only way he could atone for the past and shed the weight of his armour (his crushing duty to the Elvhenan) is as Wisdom, fully restored, unbound by mistakes.

“Ar lasa mala revas.” He could only find absolution once Mythal (the angered and more brash essence of Mythal, the one unchanged by Flemeth and all the human women’s lives she’s been shaped by, but the closest iteration to that of Mythal in Arlathan, the version that he perceives as having every right to be angry at him for turning his back on her, for not going that last final stretch with her and subsequently, not being by her side when she died) severed the final connection: facing his regrets, showing humility and apologizing, while not taking away the blame but sharing it.

What is Benevolence without Wisdom if not Hubris?

We know Elgar’nan was twisted to Tyranny during the war, and I saw a post somewhere where someone wondered what led to his corruption, and what he was before (leadership/command). Likewise, Mythal was not above corruption.

So far, I’ve seen a lot of takes on Solas’ ties to Mythal, the power dynamic of being a student/disciple enamoured (could be romantic) with the benevolence of Mythal, but not how Mythal’s purpose was possibly also twisted towards hubris the moment she asked Wisdom to turn physical and build weapons from its knowledge, twisting it to Pride. Without Elgar’nan’s tyranny to rally against after the war with the Titans, Mythal would most likely turn a similar route, seeing her ruling as “necessary” for the people: “If not me then who?”. And that is a very short stop and quick drop to “I am your all-powerful ruler, I liberated you, and only I can guide the way”. Benevolence twisted by hubris can easily turn to Tyranny too, only one more subtle, a kind of cultish indoctrination compared to violent subjugation. If Solas had not turned his back on Mythal when she chose to be Evanuris (a god over her people) then they most likely would have made the worst (best) pair in the Evanuris. Pride is the Seventh Deadliest Sin. But imagine Pride next to Godhood?! That is frightening. So, when Solas burns the vallaslin, walks away and works against the Evanuris, I believe that he also inadvertently stops Mythal from becoming a corrupted version of herself. The sorrow at having lost her closest confidant and “love” grounds her, keeps her saintly in Solas’ mind, and in some ways, perhaps saves the Elvhen empire from a worse fate than him erecting the veil to begin with. But neither of them ever consider this. And I think that sort of self-blindness perfectly encapsulates how flawed both Mythal and Solas are. Now onto love.

Solas and Mythal – a Love too complex to simply classify as mortal ‘Love’.

There’s no doubt Mythal and Solas shared a deep bond, one that definitely had love in it, when we hear Mythal calling him ‘love’, without the possessive ‘my’ in front of it, it’s easy to misconstrue what type of love they share. A small nitpick, but like a thorn, it applies sometimes just enough pressure to change a perspective. Not calling Solas “My love” but instead choosing to simply use “love” works within those wonderful ambiguities/complexities that Weekes thrives in.

If one started out as a spirit, it’s safe to say concepts like familial bonds, romantic bonds, and blood ties mean little to nothing. There is no one type of love and there is every kind of love all at once. It is only once physical bodies are introduced, that physical touch, the ability to stab someone in the back, to kiss out of affection, to hug out of empathy, to strike out of anger, that love now becomes this twisted thing too. There are no spirits of love because spirits always possessed love, but there are demons of Desire (Gluttony) and of Rage (love denied).

I believe, from GDL’s acting skills, his soft whisper, his almost submissive smallness in the breadth of Mythal’s already soft voice, that Solas was in love with Mythal, devoted as a student, beguiled by her benevolence, content even in her shadow, and possibly star-struck. He was in love with someone who doesn’t have the possibility to love him back the same, it is not in her nature to love those beneath her in the same intensity that those who look up to her do. It’s like a priest being in love with God. The priest can devote themselves, sacrifice everything, but a God will always love their flock equally, but they can still play favourites.

Benevolence cannot be enamoured with Wisdom because to be truly benevolent they must possess Wisdom but there is also Pride to be had in walking beside benevolence, but they can never be on equal footing. Likewise, Solas’ love is not reciprocated entirely by Mythal, but she does love him back in her own way. While Mythal is definetly Solas’ first love, layered and complex, it is also strangled by regrets and twisted by uneven scales of power. It would never be a nurturing love, only a consuming kind.

When he speaks of Mythal during the Solavellan ending, he calls her his “oldest friend”, much like what Mythal says, (paraphrasing) “would you have me be angry at my oldest companion whose experienced so much with me”. Because friendship is perhaps the easiest way to describe their companionship. They went through many iterations, one certainly holding romantic tensions (specifically from younger Solas), but ultimately, with that much time shared, kinship/friendship becomes the easiest to surmise. You can love your friends, fall in love with them, fall out of love with them, only to love them again, be disappointed in them, etc.

Media today is flushed with romance as a linchpin for driving a hero to make dire choices, and that has warped our perception of how a platonic/non-romance-based relationship can be all-consuming, and sometimes more impassioned than strict romance. But, to make it easier for people to understand Solas’ motivations, it's easier to see their love in the light Taash sees it (an unreliable, somewhat “still juvenile” narrator, in that they are still growing into themselves and their culture and the world): “They were doing it”.

However, Bellara, a companion whose entire companion story is linked to her strong, deeply character-driving relationship with her brother (platonic love) refutes that reading by saying (paraphrasing here): “We don’t know if their ‘love’ is the same type of love we tend to think of in a masculine and feminine relationship.”

Felassan’s letter after the Mythal Dragon fight alludes to Solas having been in love with Mythal, but nothing about how she felt. This is why I consider the Solas/Mythal relationship to be more of a one-sided romantic love, but a requited ‘love’ relationship for them both.  

A parallel I find so compelling: Solas and Mythal vs Briala and Celene. Solas and Briala both hold deep emotions for people in great power with the ability to end a tyrannical cycle of subjugation, enslavement and classism, yet for both of these ruler’s charisma and well-meaning intent, they often are swayed to side with tyranny. For Mythal, that was Elgarnan, the Evanuris who made all the other’s worse tyrants; as well as her own hubris for believing her presence alone could dampen the ravenous hunger for power that the rest of the Evanuris held at the small prospect of leading the Elvhen in a time of confusion (being a North Star is hard when all the other lights around you aim to blind the flock into submission). For Celene, this is more about the nuances of retaining favour, pull and power over other noble families, their backing (be it financial, political or simply cut-throat), and their support so she can be the ‘lesser of two evils’ compared to Gaspard’s warmongering personality and Florianne simply being a puppet with no backbone. Both Briala and Solas are turned to pawns despite their immense strength and compassion for their respective elven plights; Briala is rendered a fangless lion (for lack of a better metaphor) if she is reunited with Celene, whereas if she is chosen to puppet Gaspard, there’s every likelihood her story could parallel a ‘power-mad’ Solas if he’d been tethered to Rage (at betrayal) and not Regret (at having not rejected Mythal when she asked him to take a physical body) throughout his tenure as the Dread Wolf.

Solas and Lavellan – a Heart that was never intended to be Given/Taken

Now I will compare the lack of possessives in front of Mythal’s “love” to Solas declaring Lavellan as ‘Vhenan’ and then ‘Ar lath, ma Vhenan’ vs ‘Ar lath ma vhenan'; again, the coma is the thorn, the pause that shapes the quiet unsaid things we can deduce. In the Trespasser cutscene DGL puts the pause after “Ar lath”, even though the subtitles construct the sentence with Vhenan as a proper noun since it’s a nickname often used by Solas: “Ar lath ma, Vhenan”. But I believe Solas actually says “Ar lath, ma Vhenan”.

With “Ar lath, ma Vhenan” the stressor is after the pause, so the line reads: “I love [you], my heart.” And with “Ar lath ma, Vhenan” it makes even less structural sense but can be inferred to mean: “I love you, Heart”.  

The possessiveness of “My” is what definitively differentiates the love Solas feels for Lavellan as one more of the romantic side, it is a love of yearning and desire and a wish to have one last good thing that is pure and incorruptible. The one thing he had left to give. His heart. But that does not mean his heart is enough! The rest of him is still bound to the love of Mythal that was twisted through the ages. That changed him. And given how Pride often comes before a fall, I absolutely understand why Solas is actually very brash and ill-considering when he’s romancing Lavellan (“The kiss was ill-considered”/”It would be kinder in the long run”/”I wanted to show you what you mean to me”). He's on a precarious cliff during Inquisition. His first plan failed. He's allowed ancient elvhen magic to fall into a blighted Tevinter magister's hands. Literally everything the Inquisition did could have been for nought if the Mark had fallen to the wrong person. Things could have easily fallen apart for Solas too, so why not indulge in something trifling and fleeting? Execpt it wasn't trifling. Nor was it fleeting. And when he saw that the fall could potentially not happen, that the Inquisitor could do it, save Thedas and retrieve the orb, he was struck by the gravity of his brashness, of letting impulses control him instead of acting according to a plan. But it was too late. They'd both fallen for each other.

Solas didn’t expect to form entanglements within the Inquisition. He was committed. He was angry at the world, “walking through a sea of tranquil”, called flat-ear by the Dalish that later chased him from their village when he proved he was the Dread Wolf. He was despised by people who looked like him. Spirits were constantly being abused and turned into demons. People erected monuments to heroes who slew demons. Mages were caged. Elves were subjugated. The empire fell. Humans razed the lands with their wars and petty squabbles of succession. The darkspawn tainted the land. The dwarves would never dream. Solas awoke to the worst possible fate; in his eyes, it was all his fault.

So when he kisses Lavellan in the Fade, impulsively, he isn’t kissing her there because it is less ‘real’ than if they kissed while she was awake, it makes it so much more real. He’s kissing her in the space where he is most himself. Where he can shed the body he was forced to build and trap himself within, the body of Pride. He is acting on the impulses of an enlivened Wisdom spirit that does not consider tomorrow, for the first time in a long time. It isn’t a long game with Lavellan, like so much of his life has been about always thinking to the future, always considering the outcome, machinating, scheming, the wiles and woes of every trickster god in mythology. It’s being in the moment with her that is all-consuming. It lowers his guard, leaves him vulnerable, and when she enquires about the Fade or spirits or histories, he gets to be useful as pure Wisdom again.

Lavellan challenging him when he first shows animosity or irritation towards the Dalish (a prideful act), and then him being taken aback when she explains that maybe the Dalish could be shown another way (making him consider her words, being given a morsel of wisdom back, reminding him of his old self), these are all small moments where Solas can begin to see springs of hope in the broken world. And that’s terrifying. It means he’s destroying not just himself, but the memory of Mythal and Arlathan too, all for the love of a woman who fell for an apostate.

The best, most genuine unmasking of Solas for me is during Wicked Hearts, when he’s tipsy on wine, has no inhibitions, and revels in the intrigue, the gossip, the dancing, the music (something we now know is important enough to have an entire music room in the Lighthouse), the sex! He is at his most relaxed, and then he asks Lavellan to dance, not caring about how it would look for the “Inquisitor’s serving man, Solas” to be intimate in a fucking Orlesian palace with the Herald of Andraste, right after stopping an assassination attempt! He finds comfort in the world of Thedas at that moment. Something he rarely shows so outright.

When he takes Lavellan to Crestwood to confess, I believe removing her vallaslin wasn’t entirely just for her, it wasn’t just to free her from slave markings or to simply reveal a form of a truth he wanted to tell her, it was to resolve himself of what his first purpose was supposed to be, what she distracted him from. Removing the vallaslin had been something he’d done for the slaves of Arlathan, it was what earned him the mantle of Dread Wolf. When he removes Lavellan’s vallaslin, he resets.

Thedas cannot allow Wisdom to truly exist without fear of corruption to Pride, Thedas the world he was responsible for shaping, literally the Maker of the Veil, and he falls for a woman Heralded as Andraste’s Chosen One, Mythal’s incarnation in the South. The irony. The cruel, cruel irony. The Inquisition is tied to his past, every Andrastian he meets, every Dalish person with vallaslin on their face, every slave or city elf. Tevinter worshiping the dragons that still have the essences of the Old Gods. His heart alone cannot withstand all of the punishing, gruelling, oppressive weight that is Thedas. Even for Lavellan. So he frames their romance as this tragic, short-lived tale that was beautiful but ultimately destined to end. He expects it to pass for her, she’s mortal after all. But he also leaves his heart with her, literally giving her power over the last uncorrupted part of himself. Think Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann at the end of World’s End, but metaphorically. He gives her his heart to safe keep as he goes on a journey that could corrupt a heart, turn it cold and bitter, destroy it.   

Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.

He frees his heart.

Lets it go.

Twice!

So only once he is relinquished of his regrets, once Mythal does the same for him, only then is there “Nothing left except their love”. Because Lavellan still held his heart there was still something left after. Something beyond despair and regret and loss. He had given his heart to her to safekeep. And she did. Lavellan returns his heart to him when he is freed. What Mythal had to break so Solas could heal right again (like a bone), Lavellan casts a splint around so it can be set and heal properly. This is the difference between Mythal’s love and Lavellan’s. Both Mythal’s love and forgiveness broke him, but Lavellan’s love gives him the strength to Stand Tall one last time.

Solas, before Pride alone, as Wisdom (perhaps Solas always meant both Standing Tall and Wisdom, for Wisdom can grant one pride to stand tall for what they believe in), finds contentment with the rare and marvellous spirit that endured (his Vhenan). Wisdom endured because of humanity, something benevolence is beyond.

Bellanaris

When Lavellan offers to go with him, to continue on the dinanshiral that she already considers herself a part of, Solas is legitimately taken aback. His expression is soft yet full of disbelief and awe. He actually stops walking a few frames before Lavellan says this, as if hoping Lavellan would say something to him!

And then she basically proposes to him! “Bellanaris!” I absolutely adore the fact that Lavellan promises them eternity. A vow as sacred as a death right, as protected as an ancient, elvhen, undisturbed burial ground in the face of Orlesian colonialisation. They endured and now they will have an eternity. For once, we have an elvish tale that is not a curse, it is a love story with reunion at its core, where both elves reclaim something precious that was denied them.

Lastly, i am absolutely frothing at the mouth that Solas and Lavellan primarily speak in elvish! And even more feral at the fact Solas does not try to talk her out of joining him (because this sweet talker very well could!). He simply tells her where he is going is terrible. And she shuts that shit down immediately. No repeat of Trespasser. She's standing beside him, the South has all but fallen, whatever ties yet survive are strained, and she has fought the good fight for 8 years. I think the Inquisitor was about ready to leave Thedas behind.

The last decisions Solas makes are of his own volition. Entering the Fade for atonement. Stepping into the Fade with Lavellan (It was confirmed by Weekes that Lavellan’s presence in the Fade prison would fundamentally change it in a way we haven’t seen!). Thanking Rook for giving him one last shot at getting happiness. All his own!

This is the look of a man finally reunited with his wife! So much emotion in ONE frame. God! There’s never been a character like him. A love story like theirs! I’m so happy I got to see this ending. Full circle!

P.S. If you read this far, woah nelly! That’s crayyzeee, so here are some more great pieces: Why it was important for Lavellan to kneel for Solas as he knelt for her in Trespasser in the Solavellan ending [x], and here’s a great deep-dive on Solas as a spirit of Wisdom [x].

[pumpkinmetaphor]

Ouran, Performance, Audience

Okay I said I was going to write this and I can't look at it anymore so posting. Anyway, performance in Ouran is interesting and we’ve all been chatting about it lately. Each character puts on an “act” for the guests, each character puts on another “act” for the people around them. It’s a testament to how well the characters are written that we can unravel these performances throughout the text. I still think there’s several levels of reading the characters and the text as well. 

Ouran is satire- hence why they’re essentially parodying these archetypes. But Ouran is also self-aware, self-referential, and meta. Characters break the fourth wall. They’re, at varying levels, aware of being in a story. We have characters who obviously break the fourth wall (Kyoya looking right into the camera in episode 1, for example. I would say Tamaki’s “homosexual supporting cast” speech, except it’s kind of an anomaly for him) and characters who are resistant to any sort of self-reflection that might lead them to any sort of conclusions like this (Hikaru.) I will at one point go through the entire manga again and count how many times each character narrates– which, to my recollection, is uncommon outside of Haruhi (MC obvs, and framed as talking to her mother) and Kaoru (framed as talking to himself/ the audience/ Hikaru-that-lives-in-his-brain) but I could be misremembering.

This is generally played for comedic effect. Tamaki breaks the fourth wall when it’s funny. Kyoya plays dumb about plot conventions (such as “we have birthdays here?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”) when it’s funny for him to do so. 

Anyway that’s just my setup. I want to discuss the Paris Arc, specifically whatever is going on with Kaoru. 

Read More because this is 2k words.

Kaoru is an interesting character because I think the performance is a little more pronounced. There’s reason to interpret he generally controls the scripts, his host club act is a bigger deviation from his natural personality, and fundamentally, as a person, Kaoru is less solid in his sense of identity. 

Which does kind of beg a question. The version of Kaoru the host club girls get is clearly fake. But the Kaoru most people get is some form of a mask. Kaoru reflects Hikaru– which is what Hikaru needs until Kaoru fears he doesn’t. Kaoru seems to take Haruhi’s assertion that he’s the “less evil one” to heart. I think neither Hikaru or Kaoru know what Haruhi is going to say is the difference between them in Episode/Chapter 5 because they themselves don’t know– aside from this very philosophical “well the one who is you is the one who is not me and the one who is not you is me etc.”

Anyway, we all kind of understand the general baseline– Hikaru is going to grow up, fall in love, and spread his wings– Kaoru is afraid this means Hikaru will leave him behind. This is the plot. 

But I think a lot of this comes down to “the thing they won’t be able to share,” which is presented to us in the form of that cookie. Haruhi notes that Kaoru will just give whatever it is to Hikaru. Hikaru ultimately snaps the cookie in half and forces Kaoru to take half of it anyway. This kind of embodies the fundamental difference between them, in my book. 

(Ch. 45, various spliced together pages) Hikaru: It is literally not on Hikaru’s radar that there might ever be anything that he and Kaoru do not share. He does not conceive this on any level before the Paris Arc. Kaoru will literally always be here, he is a constant that Hikaru cannot conceive losing. Hikaru’s not afraid of Kaoru abandoning him– he may be, afraid something will happen to Kaoru that will take him away, but he’s not afraid of Kaoru choosing to leave. Why would he? Kaoru is the one person who cannot betray him. 

Kaoru: It is a given that Hikaru will one day leave. It is simply the only way. Hikaru will grow up and, for various reasons, Kaoru will not grow with him. And Hikaru will choose to leave– this will not be a betrayal, it’s just how life works when you’re not the main character in your story. Your carriage turns back into a grubby ole pumpkin and you’re left all alone. 

After the cookie scene, Kaoru tells Hani that he has feelings for Haruhi. This is, in my opinion, when Kaoru takes the reins of the narrative. Of the carriage, so to speak. The carriage in the anime exists on the condition that no one acknowledges that they’re in a love story and “breaks” the found family. Kaoru saying he’s in love with Haruhi steers the narrative on the course to the inevitable. 

Which is great!

Except is Kaoru in love with Haruhi? 

My hypothesis: it literally doesn’t matter. Kaoru’s feelings for Haruhi do not drive the narrative. Kaoru talking about it does. He could be lying. He could be mistaken. He could be genuinely in love with her. It could be an idle crush. It doesn’t matter. It’s the performance of this love for the appropriate audience (aka: Hani, Hikaru etc.) that matters.

I think the base reading of this arc is that the cookie is Haruhi. Haruhi is the one thing they can’t share, right? They can’t like, keep eating biscuits out of her mouth and licking her face if Hikaru wants her to be his girlfriend and Kaoru wants her too. While I don’t think it’s incorrect to read this as a concern Kaoru has, I don’t think it gets to the heart of the issue. 

So, performance!

Kaoru puts on his little act for Hikaru throughout the Paris Arc. Generally tormenting him, ostracising him. In a way giving him a taste of what Kaoru goes through in a zillion Hika/Haru fanfictions or Kaoru’s own nightmares. This culminates in the date, where Kaoru basically brings Haruhi on the date he asked her on first (before giving it to Hikaru) and hitting every single mark that Hikaru missed. Not that anyone is enjoying themselves regardless to be honest. 

And of course, at the end, he kisses her and Hikaru sees and runs off upset. 

Except we, the audience, know Kaoru kisses Haruhi on the cheek. It’s a clear enough stage kiss from the art. Just close enough for us to understand that, from Hikaru’s perspective, Kaoru kissed her on the mouth. We’re bystanders, watching this plot unfold. Hikaru is Kaoru’s intended audience– that’s who he’s performing for. 

So what’s the difference then between this scene.

And this scene?

Well, first: what else can be the one thing Hikaru and Kaoru can’t share? If you go one level further, I think you come to the conclusion that Hikaru is the one thing they can’t share. After all, Hikaru cannot keep giving half of himself, half of his time, energy, love, self etc. to Kaoru all the time, and grow up. They suffer a classic case of enmeshment. Kaoru determines that Hikaru needs to be shoved out of the nest– and that the only way to do that is to stab him in the back. 

I don’t think Kaoru is trying to make Hikaru hate him. I do think what he’s trying to do is make Hikaru realise that he’s a person? Who is capable of betraying him, just like any other person. As long as Hikaru believes that Kaoru is “the only person he can trust,” he’s never going to grow up. By knocking himself off that pedestal in Hikaru’s eyes, Hikaru is forced to see him differently and Kaoru is prepared to accept however Hikaru might feel about him in the aftermath (though assuming he’ll drastically distance himself). 

(Side note. I think Hikaru and Kaoru internalise their maid-related-trauma slightly differently. While Kaoru’s fear is abandonment, Hikaru’s fear is betrayal. They just manifest similarly because there’s a lot of crossover. This is sooo long already, I’m not getting into it unless someone asks lmao.)

Loop back to the image again then. What’s the difference here? Well, it’s still a stage kiss! They both are. But, with one fundamental difference. 

Image one, Hikaru is Kaoru’s audience. He is performing to trick Hikaru (and possibly anyone else, like Hani and Mori, watching). But reality is clear to us, the reader.

Image two, you are Kaoru’s audience. He is performing to trick you. (but reality is clear to Hikaru, the participant)

Like, that’s pretty in your face huh? Faces obscured in a way that you don’t infer it as a cheek kiss as easily as you do with Kaoru and Haruhi. It’s also on the left page of the physical edition, meaning you have to skip to the next page to see the aftermath:

Kaoru’s not just tricking the audience. He’s queerbaiting the audience. Typical.

Firstly, I do think one can be led to the conclusion that if the one thing they can’t share is Hikaru, not Haruhi, that means Kaoru is not in love with Haruhi but is in love with Hikaru. In fact, I think that’s kind of the point with these panels. It’s framed as a bait-switch, which only works if the audience misinterprets the kiss. My ultimate conclusion therefore is that there is no textual romantic incest occuring. It is enmeshment at a bare minimum though. But that's another topic, another day, for somebody else.

Secondly, I think this is because the audience is, regardless, on the wrong track. Or at least not the full track. We have access to the narrative when other characters don’t, but we’re still reading the story Kaoru is telling. We’re still the audience to his performance of the story. It’s easier for Kaoru to tell a story that’s all about his brother– he’s been doing it his whole life. He’s not the main character, after all. So he’s telling us a story where the one thing they cannot share is Hikaru, telling all the other characters a story where the one thing they can’t share is Haruhi. 

So the one thing they can’t share is something more nebulous. It’s the identity. 

Which feels like a contradiction in a way, because the identity is Hikaru, isn't it?

They can’t be one double act, split down the middle. They can’t be one seed sprouting two leaves. They can’t be two halves of one cookie, or two halves of one soul. And the problem is, Kaoru views everything as something Hikaru has split down the middle and shared with him– and now he has to give it all back. 

I don’t really think Hikaru views “their room” as being “his room, that I share with Kaoru.” But I think Kaoru does. I think Kaoru views everything as something Hikaru has shared with him, right down to his own personality, his own face. Hikaru cannot leave, cannot grow up, unless Kaoru stops pretending to be him and gives him the half of his identity back to make one whole, true Hikaru. 

Only problem is, Kaoru has to cut that tricky spare leaf off. After all, when he gives Hikaru back the identity, Kaoru won’t have one. Kaoru is defined as being “the one who is not Hikaru.” My brother is Hikaru. The one who is not my brother is me. And how do you define that? When your brother is no longer there, who are you? 

That’s why it’s important that Hikaru dyes his hair. Because I don’t think him dyeing his hair matters if the issue is Haruhi (Haruhi can tell them apart anyway). I don’t think it matters if the issue is Hikaru (this would not, in isolation, fix Kaoru's thought process). 

It is however enough for Hikaru to be able to illustrate to Kaoru that their identity is inherently interwoven, not necessarily shared. It doesn’t matter if Kaoru is the same as Hikaru or not– because Kaoru is who he is. That may have been affected by the fact that they’re twins, but his identity is not negated by it. Kaoru's identity is not inherently a performance just because it reflects Hikaru, and he doesn't lose it when he ceases to reflect Hikaru.

(breathes)

CAVEAT AS ALWAYS: I am reading the English translation. While it is the official Viz Media translation, something is always changed in translation, localisation, and interpretation. With the assumption that everyone here is reading the manga in English (sweeping assumption, sorry) this is therefore a reading of the text inherently coloured by the site of circulation (English translation, volume compiled) and the site of audiencing: aka the fact that I am an English-speaking, European, media studies/animation academic, speaking on an largely American blogging platform to the like, twelve Kaoru stans that follow me. It also means your interpretation may be very different to mine! Anyway If you read this far, congrats! You deserve a cookie– whatever that might or might not signify.

[cheeeryos]

it's been ages since I've made a rec list so I'm going to try to catch some of my more recent faves: here's ur pynch 2024 summer reading list!

completed:

deeper than the sea and longer than the way - @toast-the-unknowing

maybe I'm biased because this was written to my taste but also I'm not biased and it's wonderful. if you like fairy stories, strange magic surrounding adam parrish, and hennessy being a smug shit-stirrer, you'll love this one as much as I did. toast is a master at stories that are fun, witty, original, and then hit you with some serious emotions on the way to a happy ending.

gets late early - @charactershoesfic

if you love baseball, you will love this fic. (if all the comments can be believed, if you hate baseball, or if you know less than nothing about baseball, you will also love this fic.) it's a love letter to the game in a way that's actually about the relationships between people who love the game, as all the best stories about baseball are.

patrimony - @whatimages

greywaren fallout fic! so the excellent thing about this one is while it is not my thing, this fic makes it fully believable that it's pynch's thing. they're freaks (affectionate). and I always appreciate when authors get that they don't need to tiptoe around each other, like the porn version of causing and then picking off each other's moving dolly scabs. mind the tags etc.

if shit goes south, I love you - Lil_Redhead

this is from about a year ago and I think it deserves a lot more love! another post-gw fic, this one exploring what would have happened if adam had lost some of his marbles. a little angsty, a little hopeful, maybe signs for a sequel coming up?

green; desire - @flightspathfic

a fun little morsel featuring ronan getting baby fever in the funniest possible way.

in progress:

18A / 19A - @yiiiiiiiikes25

the first one-shot is complete but the follow-up is ongoing. if you've ever wondered what adam would have grown up to be like if he and gansey hadn't fought out half of his issues in high school, this fic dives in headlong. he's awful 🥰💙 also it's hilarious and wonderfully written, and I'm sooo fuckign jealous of ronan for the version of the barns he's got in this one.

anyway, it's about old friends - pinkhorizon

when harry met sally au! I love every single story pinkhorizon begins and I am waiting patiently for them all to be finished, but this is a particularly excellent time.

same old ground, same old fears - sleeptodream

ok I'll be honest, this one is actually only on my marked for later, because I've been pretty busy lately. but I trust sleeptodream with all things, and I am especially a sucker for breakup/makeup fics so this is right up my alley.

[monstermoviedean]

@angelsdean here: While I do agree with a lot of the bitter deangirl posting abt the Trap I also have always still liked the scene? and offer a slightly less bitter perspective.

I have always viewed the scene less as Dean thinking he NEEDS to apologize but more as Dean understanding Cas feels he needs Dean to forgive him. I read the whole scene (and episode) from the POV of Cas being very rooted in his own insecurities, and thus projecting out a bit and deflecting and being short with Dean. Because purgatory is magnifying Cas's own guilt and well, Cas isn't handling it well. And you Know i am the first to get angry on Dean's behalf and I DO think Cas is being a unfair, but, I think I also need to practice what I preach in the sense that, if it were Dean behaving like this I'd be talking abt his own grief and pain and motivating factors. and i think that applies to cas in this case. he's still in a lot of pain. Cas also bound by his empty deal, possibly purposely keeping Dean at arms length out of fear of triggering the deal if they reconcile too well. We see that "arms length" maneuver at play imo when Dean has more he wants to say and Cas cuts him off. I think, perhaps, part of Cas felt SAFE while they were "divorced" / fighting because at least then he KNEW he'd never be truly happy. Which just breaks my heart for both of them.

Anyways. Dean. We know he's a self aware king. And he's also incredibly emotionally intelligent when it comes to others. Empathy boy, etc. and Cas is his best friend. He knows Cas better than anyone else. And I think he knows Cas is beating himself up. Feeling guilty for everything AND displacing that guilt and anger. Because yea, Dean's been there. And dean's dealt with Sam and John doing similar things too. He understands. And yea it sucks that he's once again putting the feelings of others first, but at the same time, that's his MO. He's the one who cares abt everyone. He's the beating heart of the narrative. And he loves cas. He does. So of course he's going to make sure Cas knows he's forgiven (was always forgiven! implicitly!) and that Cas matters to him. He's his best friend. He never wanted him to leave! (the cut "of course I wanted you to stay" IS canon to me. He said that part quietly, internally, ok).

I view the whole prayer as Dean giving Cas what he needs. Telling Cas what he needs to hear in that moment (and it's not that I think dean doesn't means these things, he does! but I think dean didn't think it needed to be said-- that Dean forgives Cas. that Cas matters to him. but again, Cas is not at his best. In normal circumstances I think Cas wouldn't need to hear it. But just as DEAN is doubting what's real, what matters, I think so is Cas. Yes he told Dean they were what's real, but a lot has happened since then. He let bel's words in hell get to him a bit, for one. He's now feeling out of place in his family, not sure if he ever mattered at all. And so he needs a little reassurance imo. And that's what the prayer scene is to me. It's not about Dean begging to be forgiven. It's dean giving Cas what he needs for Cas to be able to forgive himself.)

As for the stuff abt Dean apologizing for his "anger" -- anger that was justified and part of his grief (he is allowed to be upset that his "son" killed his mom!)-- and "groveling": I don't like it. I don't like that Dean is seemingly positioned as "the bad guy" and the reason for their separation when Cas was the one who CHOSE to leave instead of stay and work things out. And when Cas, in his own pain, stopped giving Dean "the benefit of the doubt."

However. Despite hating it all from a deangirl perspective, I think from DEAN'S own perspective, this IS stuff he believes about himself. Dean has his own fears and insecurities and I think being "angry" and "becoming John" are genuine fears. And I think it's important to remember that what characters say about themselves isn't the Objective Truth. We KNOW Dean is most often "not mad, worried." We KNOW Dean cares so so much and loves so fiercely. We know he's more than his "off" moments. We give him that benefit of the doubt. But Dean? He'll beat himself up for everything. And Cas echos this in the confession when he tells Dean "you see yourself how our enemies see you....You think that hate and anger, that's what drives you. It's not." As much as I think yea Cas should've said all this sooner, I think this part is indeed a response to Dean's prayer. And it's basically Cas saying, "yea all that stuff you said earlier abt always being angry and your anger being the problem, no you're wrong<3 and I do know that you care so so much. About me and jack and sam and the whole world. And everything you do comes from a place of love and good intentions."

Would I have liked to have heard Cas say all this immediately after the prayer and would it have been more effective in relaying the message that Cas doesn't think Dean is ruled by anger or that Dean needs to grovel for his forgiveness over it? yea. yea I think the confession coming 9 episodes later kind of breaks up the flow of this arc. But in this reading, I am willing to give Cas some grace. Right after the prayer they were still under a lot of stress to get back to earth and stop Chuck. Cas is also feeling conflicted abt his deal. Not knowing what he CAN say to Dean. What is even safe to say. And the fact that (imo) a big part of Cas's moment of happiness IS getting to tell Dean how good he is and not Just the declaration of love, just shows that maybe it Wasn't safe for Cas to say all these things to Dean earlier.

Anyways. This has gotten very long but I just wanted to offer a different perspective, that doesn't absolve Cas of his wrong-doings or the part he played in their separation, but is more considerate of Cas's own POV. AND shows Dean being thee heart of the narrative and giving Cas what Cas needs to hear, being emotionally intelligent, but also being just as insecure as anyone else re: his own self-image.

publishing this now because i think you're making a lot of sense and i cannot tell you how much i appreciate your perspective and the time you took to lay it out! i want to respond more thoroughly later but i didn't want to let this languish when it's so dang important and helpful.

[pasta-in-the-pudding]

HIIIIIIIIII I LOVE YOUR WRITING🩷🩷🩷

anyways this is my first time so don’t bully me😭

Can i request hcs with a killer gn reader thats like kobeni from chainsaw man? Like they’re a wimp and a little bit of a crybaby but is good at killing and skilled with weapons specially a knife? You can choose any of the killers!

Have a splendid week and always stay hydrated!!🩷🩷🩷🫶🫶🫶

Don't worry i would never bully any of my dear readers <333

Thank you so much for requesting!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Toby

It honestly shocked Toby when he saw you fight for the first time

He always knew you as sort of a wimp, breaking down into nervous babbles and tears at the slightest hint of conflict

But here you are, almost completely unemotional, and beating these people senseless

It is only once you're done that you begin to panic, which takes Toby aback even more

Toby didn't even have to lift a finger on this mission, because you took care of it all, but now you're....crying??

He rushes to your side and kneels by you on the floor "w-woah hey, are you ok?" He asks

You only manage to get out nervous babbles, which only worries toby more

He ends up calling Tim (because while he may be an adult, he needs a more adultier adult in this situation)

Tim concludes that you're just having an anxiety attack and should be back to normal within a few hours

Tim ends up carrying you back to his car and lays you down in the back seat, while tony watches over you

Toby doesn't leave your side until he is sure that you're ok, and don't need him to comfort you any longer

And from that point on, he doesn't let you do anything that may push your anxious self over the edge

Eyeless Jack

You are one of Jacks most frequent visitors

He is always there, tending to your minor wounds while you panic and shake with fear

He doesn't talk to you much, since you are almost never in a state to talk

But the few experiences he's had with you have always been pleasent

You are always very kind, and he loves the fact that you have basic manners

He is almost never out on the battlefield himself, but he has heard rumor of your skill

Honestly, its one of those things hed have to see to believe

A shy, timid little thing like you?

Killing people?

Emotionlessly, no less?

Yeah, he just doesn't buy it, sorry

However if you were to show him your skill some day (wether that be through a creep videoing you, you training with him, etc) he would be thoroughly impressed

He just didn't expect something like that from you!

Jeff the killer

He's kind of mean to you <//3

Unless youre just really close, he won't go out of his way to be nice to you, even if you are sensitive

If you call him out for it he will say "what are you gonna do? Cry about it?"

And don't think he hasn't seen your meltdowns, because he definetly has

He's not a complete ass, so he won't poke much fun at you for those

Much....

However, if you were to show off your skill one day that would shut him up pretty good

Even if you broke down after the fact, he wouldn't pay much attention to that

He's still in shock from the coolness he just witnessed

From that day on he's a lot easier on you

He won't make fun of you for being sensetive, he will only make an annoyed sigh if you start getting emotional, and he'll help you out more around the manor if you need it

And if you get close to him he might even let you show him some knife techniques

Thats a big maybe though

Don't count on it

[heartkaji]

[ ★ ⸻ @saelvr ]

★ OVERVIEW

HI AELA !! omg another kaji stan welcome to the club 💓 YOUR ASK WAS SO SWEET BBY, i’m so glad my work could inspire you and you should def start writing again, i’d love to read ur works 💘 ANYWAY you and kaji’s dynamic is kinda hard to sum up. maybe clumsy gf x protective bf ? either way, you two are a cute couple that kusumi, enomoto and your friends love to hype up from the sidelines 🤞

Q1 — WHO FELL FIRST AND WHO FELL HARDER ?

shocking, but kaji fell first; gradually though. i think your friendship started because you somehow needed his help like twice a week every week. you became a familiar face and needing to take a detour off patrol to help you out with something became weekly routine. at first, i think kaji lost his temper with you a LOT. you were always losing something, getting into some sort of trouble, honestly he was sick & tired. but after a while (and many scoldings) he gets used to it. hearing you yap more and more as you get more familiar with each other while he accompanies you to help you out with whatever you need becomes less of a punishment and more of a reward. i feel like at some point you stopped calling him to help you out when you saw him on patrol and then he began to miss you. the next time you needed something and called him up, he asked why you’d stopped needing to see him. you explained you’d been deliberately trying to be more careful so you wouldn’t bother him, but he rolls his eyes : “who told you you were bothering me, huh ?”

kaji also falls harder here i fear 🤦‍♀️ this man has become a fool for the very girl he used to call a fool unfortunately. every second of the day where he’s at furin and not with you he’s wondering what you’re doing, where you are etc. he frequently texts you during class, and you happily oblige, sending him silly selfies to ‘brighten up his day’. he rolls his eyes before saving your pictures to the album named ‘her<3’ on his phone 💘

Q2 — AT WHAT MOMENT DID HE FALL IN LOVE ?

like i said, with you it was a gradual thing. i don’t see kaji having a “damn i’m in love moment” with you, unless we count how he felt weird when he realized he missed your presence? or maybe we could take it as that. kaji builds up some sort of affection with you the more you spend time together, and although it’s initially a friendly affection it turns more into love the more he notices little things about you : the way you forget about whatever you’re on about the moment you see a stray kitten on the road, the way you playfully grab onto his arm and call him your “knight in shining armor” (which he claims to hate btw ) whenever he takes down a bunch of guys harassing you, the way you gradually seem to become an entirely different person from who you were when he had first met you. at first you were so shy and quiet, but now you have the nerve to tell him to fuck off when he tells you to shut up mid ramble. kaji’s not sure exactly when he started to look at you differently, but one thing he knows is the girl he’s in love with is the girl you’ve been all along

Q3 — THEIR FAVORITE ACTIVITY TO DO WITH YOU ?

SLEEP ! in the most innocent way possible. you can be pretty lazy, and that’s great for kaji because you two can be lazy together. after a long day chasing stray cats or keeping things in check at furin, kaji likes to come back to you and be welcomed with open arms. a lot of times you straight get to talking but you’re immediately cut off : “hi ren, how was your—“ *kiss* “nuh uh, sleep.” he’ll drag you off to your room, gently push you onto the bed and flopping himself on your chest. it catches you by surprise everytime but it only makes you smile. with flushed cheeks you pat his hair and listen as his breathing slows. before long, you’re fast asleep as well <3

>> 𝐌𝐀𝐈𝐍 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓 <<

© ─ heartkaji ; do not steal, copy, edit, translate or reupload

[tyrantisterror]

What are your top favorite fairy tales? Either classic literarily stories, adaptations of literary fairy tales, wholly modern fairy tales, or even just stories that you think are structured like fairy tales. (Roald Dahl books, Studio Ghibli movies, even Shrek and Puss in Boots movies, etc.)

That is an unfathomably vast genre of fiction to try and condense into a ranked numbered list. I think... I think that may be impossible to actually answer as requested. But I can ramble about some of my favorites I suppose.

Let's do this sorta like the Oscars and divide things into categories.

Category 1: The Heavy Hitters

Some fairy tales are significantly more famous than others, so this category is for them: the heavy hitters, the classic fairy tales that are most well known, as defined by my own nebulous perception of which fairy tales are more popular than others.

Of the heavy hitters, my favorites are Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Little Red Riding Hood is such a spooky story no matter which telling you're looking at, and has contributed a lot to both the fantasy and horror genres thanks to its simple yet evocative premise and visuals. Jack and the Beanstalk, meanwhile, is just a really solid story of a trickster fool, which is one of my favorite archetypes in all of fiction. Love a good trickster fool.

Category 2: The Obscurities

As I said, this ask is covering a HUGE amount of fiction in its topic, especially since the border between a fairy tale and, like, ANY folklore isn't really well-defined (not in a way anyone can agree too, anyway). But there are a lot of obscure folktales I love that are at least sometimes lumped in as fairy tales, and I'm gonna list them here:

The Lambton Worm - a classic tale of dragon-slaying and getting fucked over by prophecies

The Lindworm Prince - queen can't concieve and consults a witch, ignores witch's directions, gives birth to human baby and dragon baby. Dragon baby grows up and demands a wife before human baby can get his, and a clever girl decides this is her chance to get rewarded for monster fucking.

Maud and the Dragon of Mordiford - the story of a girl who adopts a dragon only for it to end tragically, which inspired one of the novels I'm gonna write one of these days

Tam Lin - the story of a woman who wanted that elf dick and wasn't afraid to do some weird shit to get it

Biancabella and Samaritana - a story about a girl and her sister who is a snake because her mother had trouble concieving

King Odd - a story about an odd king who's actually an exiled fairy queen in disguise, and the man who wins her heart after surviving her attempt to execute him. It's like a Nordic medieval Tenchi Muyo.

You've probably noticed some themes about my favorites right now - lots of stories with dragons, people being transformed into monsters, and heroes who are into that monster shit.

Category 3: Archetypal Pieces

Ok, so for this I'm going to focus less on individual folktales and more on recurring plotlines, character types, and story beats, which you begin to notice the more you read up on Fairy Tales in part because many of the more obscure ones take beats from ones you're probably more familiar with and mix them together in new ways. So, my favorite plot beats in fairy tales:

Any sort of monster, obviously

The villain who literally removed their heart out of fear of being vulnerable

The baleful polymorph (i.e. a human who inhabits a beast/monster body against their will)

Monsterfucker protagonists

Trickster Fool protagonists

Disobedient Girls (examples: Little Red, Goldilocks), though I don't like how this archetype is treated

You want to have a baby and seek a witch and she gives you VERY SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS which you ignore because you really want this baby and oops you've got twins and one of them is some sort of monster good job asshole

The hero helps three (or more) people/creatures in need, and when shit hits the fan, they return the favor

Category 4: Modern(ish) Adaptations

Our penultimate category focuses on adaptations of fairy tales from, like, the 1900's on - anything made in a century I've lived in part of, basically. These arguably shouldn't be divided from "normal" fairy tales, but my brain regards them differently than, like, Victorian era fairy tale retellings, because hey, I lived in the age of these, more or less. They're "modern" for whatever nebulous definition of that word my brain's decided on.

And there's a lot for me to put in this category. Sleeping Beauty might be my favorite of Disney's fairy tale retellings, though Beauty and the Beast is a strong competitor for that role (and maybe Mulan, if we count its source material as a fairy tale, but I'm not sure we can). I think overall I like Sleeping Beauty's more stylized animation and character designs as well as its less conventional story-telling structure a bit more than B&B's, but Beauty and the Beast is still gorgeous and kind of perfectly scripted, so it's a tough competition.

My alltime favorite adaptation of fairy tales, though, would be Jim Henson's The Storyteller:

Using the magic of 1980's muppeteering, it adapts several fairy tales, many of which are more on the obscure side, and sometimes mashes a few different ones together to make sure each episode has a good three act structure. It's wonderful and fully captures the weirdness of fairy tales, while also having a lot of heart - The Heartless Giant is my favorite of the whole series.

Category 5: Works Inspired By Fairy Tales

I almost lumped the following stories into the above category, but while the division is, again, purely in my mind, there's something different about modern works that claim to adapt fairy tales 1:1 and ones that take fairy tale characters or concepts and throw them in entirely new tales with different directions, so that's what our final category will be.

I've gushed about Puss In Boots: The Last Wish enough that I don't think it'd surprise anyone that it would end up here - the same goes with the works of Rankin Bass, which is why I doubt anyone is surprised I'd put The Last Unicorn here too (technically based on a book, but it still fits the "has big fairy tale vibes despite not being based on one specific one" that I'm using to justify this category).

Pan's Labyrinth would also go in this category, with a protagonist who's both a trickster fool AND a disobedient girl, as well as a beautifully gothic take on fairy tale motifs. I'd put Company of Wolves here as well, being a very multifaceted riff on the Little Red Riding Hood story and a movie that sets both my analytical and creative parts of my brain on fire each time I want it.

I'd also put The Path, a short video game explicitly inspired by Company of Wolves, on this part of the favorites list. It's a game about, like, a DOZEN or so different takes on Red Riding Hood and her story, all with different flavors and subtext to analyze. It's unsettling but good.

Dimension 20 had a whole season focused on a horror-themed crossover of fairy tale characters called Neverafter that was fantastic, with one of the best riffs on Little Red Riding Hood I've ever seen, Puss in Boots and Pinocchio working together as con artists, and a vampire Snow White, so yeah 10/10 there, no notes.

And while I've only seen scattered bits of it, what I've seen of Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure, a sequel series to Disney's Rapunzel adaptation, is pretty great, though maybe I just think Cass is hot.

If you put an angry woman with a sword in your work of fiction I will at least stay for a few episodes to see what you do with her.

Given how much it consumed my brain in so little time, Revolutionary Girl Utena has to rank among my favorite Fairy Tale things ever - like, this is too chaotic a list to really rank things, but if I were to try, it'd at least be in the top 10. The same is true for Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, which in addition to being a big fun crossover between a bunch of the Heavy Hitter fairy tales, is also one of the best musicals ever written - and indeed, one of the best stage shows of all time.

Shit, where do I put A Midsummer Night's Dream? It feels like it should be here, but it predates the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson, whose works my brain categorizes as "old fairy tales" rather than "modern fairy tale retellings." Well, it'd be somewhere among these categories, being one of the best tales with fairies in it ever told.

The Princess Bride would be up high like Utena no matter what - it's one of the best works of fiction about love that we've got. Same goes with Galavant, which I consider its spiritual successor, although I think one could argue Galavant isn't specifically a fairy tale pastiche and is more just a lampooning of fantasy in general.

Oh, and The Hazards of Love, a concept album by The Decemberists, should be here too. That's the last one I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll think of a few others later that I like enough to regret not putting on here.

[foxtrot91]

Do you think Buddietommy has any habits that drive each other crazy?

In my head, Eddie and Tommy have forbid Buck from baking past 9pm. Because otherwise, he will be running that KitchenAid mixer in the middle of the night and he insists that "it's not even that loud" but it almost always wakes the entire household up.

So it’s so funny you bring that up because as a baker - this is a valid fear.

Back when I had time to bake as regularly as I wish I could now I’d legit be up baking late into the night and back when I lived in a basement apartment where you could hear EVERYTHING the upstairs tenants would get pretty pissed with me (especially when I’d make mini cheesecakes and would tap out the air bubbles) 😬

Anywayyy yes, they definitely have habits the drive each other bonkers and I can absolutely see that being one of Buck’s.

For Eddie, I like to think that since finding his joy he dances a lot more though this isn’t a habit that annoys Buck or Tommy, I think it annoys Christopher. He’s a teenager and is at the age where he’s probably embarrassed by everything Eddie does, it’s practically a rite of passage. I’m imagining Eddie dancing around the kitchen and Christopher walking in with a friend and just being mortified.

Tommy and Buck would love his dancing though and probably join in (however terribly) much to Christopher’s horror.

Habits that annoy Tommy and Buck though 🤔

I think Buck is a clean freak and Eddie doesn’t really strike me as one. I don’t think he’s a slob by any means but I do think he’s more comfortable with a little bit of clutter in a way that Buck isn’t (have you seen his loft??). Eddie probably occasionally leaves some dirty clothes lying on the ground (usually next to the hamper because he likes to ball up his dirty clothes and throw them like a basketball and sometimes he misses). He may even be the kind of person who leaves the cap off the toothpaste when he’s done with it (I think out of all of these this would be the one that drives Tommy nuts).

He’s probably also someone that doesn’t immediately do his dishes - he doesn’t let them pile up, but he’s fine with letting them sit in the sink through the day and then doing them all before he turns in for the night.

Buck is the opposite, he cleans up his messes immediately and often ends up doing Eddie’s breakfast dishes because he hates leaving them until the evening (this probably drives Eddie nuts because he definitely would’ve done them later). I’m not 100% sure where Tommy would fall on this but I don’t think he’d be all that annoyed by it but he is silently amused by a perturbed Buck.

Annoying habits of Tommy’s? I think his most frustrating one for both Buck and Eddie is that he tends to turn inward whenever he feels frustrated or insecure. Buck is a talk it out kind of guy, and Eddie, well, he’s getting there (hello therapy and hot priest) but he also sees both sides of it. He was that guy who kept everything inside so he understand it, but it also means he knows how bad it is for the individual so when he sees Tommy get in that headspace he takes steps to draw him out.

Aside from that, with Tommy’s hobby of tinkering with old cars comes a lot of motor oil stains and I think Eddie and Buck both flip back and forth between finding it sexy and frustrating 😉. Sexy in the moment - Tommy, arms bulging in his white tank top with black smudges down the front etc etc. but frustrating when those stains end up on their walls because Buck and/or Eddie couldn’t wait until after he’s had a shower to jump him and his hands (which are still covered in motor oil) end up braced against a wall.

For Buck, I think another annoying habit of his would also be one that they find super endearing which is his research dives. Adorable as they are, they are less so at 2am when they’re trying to sleep haha.

Anyway, thank you for the ask! Love thinking about them being all annoyingly domestic! Decided to add Christopher in there as a bonus 🥰

[invisiblerambler]

This is Not a Finished Thought

I came across this concept in something else that I was consuming and I couldn't help but apply it to the ways in which the Bearzatto siblings interact with each other and other people but also the way that Sydney interacts mostly with Carmy as well.

It's pretty well accepted that Donna is to some degree a narcissist. This is an accepted trait of a lot of addicts and specifically alcoholics so I don't really feel like I need to rehash that here.

The thing that was new to me was the concept of echosism and the way that narcissism and echoism exist almost as different ends of the same spectrum.

I think the Bearzatto siblings and Sydney to a lesser degree exhibit traits of echoism.

Echoism was first discussed by Craig Malkin in his book "Rethinking Narcissism."

Essentially it comes from someone who has a lack of healthy narcissism and they are in many ways selfless to a fault (sound like anyone we know.) The Bearzatto siblings all had their own ways of sacrificing and self-punishing because of their mother's narcissism.

And when Carmy injected his own need to get away from the family and away from Chicago he was ridiculed for it because he was inserting his own needs.

People with high levels of echoism might:

fear praise

actively reject attention

make every effort to avoid burdening others

focus on meeting the needs of others to avoid considering their own

believe going along with what others want will help safeguard their affection

have difficulty creating boundaries or asserting needs

believe expressing opinions or needs may lead to a loss of love

take on a lot of self-blame and criticize themselves regularly

have trouble recognizing likes and dislikes

avoid coming across as attention-seeking or selfish at all costs

ask very little of others

have high empathy

Since people who tend more toward narcissism have a strong need for admiration and recognition, they can often end up in relationships with people with echoism.

This section from Healthline (the best source I could find without reading an entire book)

mirrors a lot of the traits we see from the Bearzatto family.

Richie even calls Carmy Donna not realizing that none of what Carmy is doing is for him, it's all for Sydney.

This realization of Carmy's behavior to me also unlocks why he would be so willing to go along with and actively participate in his relationship with Claire.

By being in that relationship he fulfills something for both other members of his family and Claire, once again supplanting his own needs.

The examples of Sugar and Mikey doing this feel almost too obvious to point out, but I'll give a few that immediately come to mind anyway.

For Mikey, it was keeping Carm away from the restaurant. He basically says as much in Napkins. He wanted to keep Carmy safe from that environment of The Beef and also give him the confidence to finally assert his own needs, as he does when he leaves Chicago, works at Ever etc.

For Sugar, she spells it out plainly in Ice Chips. She asks everyone if they're okay all the time, if someone feels sick she starts to feel sick. It's big eldest daughter syndrome, but it's also her constantly replacing her needs with the needs of everyone else around her. We see Richie at multiple points in S2 and S3 making sure Nat's needs are met when she tries to bury them.

Now, the Sydney thing might feel less obvious, but to me it's like her and Carmy are both Echoists and it's why they can never talk to each other. They are constantly giving of their own needs for the other person without realizing it isn't even what they want. It's why they talk past each other for the entirety of S3.

Echoists will also have moments where they feel need panic another concept from Dr. Malkin. Where they go from not needing anyone or anything to needing everything immediately. I think the end of S2 and S3 are mirrored moments of need panic for Carmy and Syd.

Carmy in the freezer realizes that he allowed himself to have a need for amusement and enjoyment and reacts when he leaves the freezer by doubling down on suppressing that need. He also suppresses his need for other people within the restaurant. He shouldn't need other people to achieve greatness, despite how collective a good restaurant is (i.e. Ever) Carmy has internalized that the most successful kitchens are driven by one person. There's also a lot of grief stuff tied up in here too, which Carmy acknowledges when he says he didn't grieve Michael.

Sydney has a similar moment of need panic. Her needs are more literal and in some ways more immediate, she needs to tell Carmy about the offer from Shapiro, she needs to tell him that if they can't have true partnership and he continues to emulate the bad behavior he has seen elsewhere she can't stay.

Sydney spent the entire season making sure her needs were kept far away from everyone, until she in a literal moment of panic realizes suppressing those needs is not an option anymore.

I want to end this by saying I am no means an expert on this and I fully plan on reading Dr. Malkin's book mostly for my own benefit, but when I heard about this concept it was an interesting idea to ponder how two people in a partnership who have both clearly in some way been in close relationships with people who display narcissistic tendencies and how that actually plays out, Carmy appearing to be a narcissist while actually suppressing any needs he has with the utmost consideration for others, (Sydney.)

I'd love to get feedback on this and whether or not I'm completely alone in this analysis.

[gunsatthaphan]

✌🏻✨ ~ 2023 wrap-up ~ ✨✌🏻

another year gone, another post no one asked for djkghdf

I normally don't talk about personal stuff on here but like in the previous year I wanted do a little recap and give shoutouts to some lovely people 🧡

It hasn't been an easy year for me, I started a new job which has been stressful and annihilated my work-life balance which resulted in me being sick a lot & just being stressed for most of the year lol. I barely found time to maintain this blog which may not seem like it on the outside since I somehow managed to frequently post but it's been difficult. I know I don't have to be online 24/7 but the fear of slipping into irrelevancy due to lack of content remains. I didn't have much time to watch bls & asian shows in general which I still consider my safe space and escapism so I'm resentful that I didn't get to fully take in and enjoy the things I'm passionate about and make content about them like I did in the previous years. That being said thank god for all the weekend shows that I did manage to watch and fully focus on like Only Friends and now Cooking Crush and Cherry Magic. Those have been life savers lol and also thank god for all the talented creators who gave us tons of content; I will mention some of them below.

But aside from my personal schedule and despite not watching a lot of stuff, I still tried to keep an eye on what's going on in the BL world for my monthly breakdowns, which I still enjoy making and I will likely continue them in 2024. I also came to the conclusion that 2023 ended up being another rendition of quantity > quality in the BL-verse so not much has changed lol - not that I expected it to. We got a wild and extended mix of different genres and subgenres this year which was nice to see. We saw companies & actors experimenting a lot (with varying results), we got new ships, new fandoms and new enemies, as well as a variety of comebacks and retirements. My watchlist this year was limited to Thai BLs and my blog mostly consisted of gmmtv related content and like I said, if I had had more time I probably would have explored more different shows - but I eventually resorted to what's familiar. I guess I needed an anchor in midst of all my personal chaos lol.

But despite my short list, there were a few gems that I enjoyed. The big ones like Only Friends, Moonlight Chicken, Be My Favorite, etc., and the small, less popular ones like Be Mine Superstar, Mission Fan Possible and a few more. I enjoyed talking to friends & making content about them in the limited timeframes I had. My opinions mostly matched those of the general public but unfortunately there were a few disappointments that were bathing in a success that I could not wrap my head around - Dangerous Romance and A Boss and a Babe being at the top of that list, followed by La Pluie and also a few of the lakorns I watched. But anyway.

Anyone who knows me knows my blog has been 83% FirstKhao this year lmao, they're my favorite people in this industry and watching them act, interact & making content about them has been one of my highlights. I'm excited to see what 2024 brings for them and even if it's not a series, I'm looking forward to seeing what else they will be up to 🥺 🐈‍⬛ 🐈

I'm going into 2024 with mixed feelings but above all I hope I will get the chance to expand my watchlist a little. I will post a personal top10 of the shows I watched this year shortly; until then I want to talk a bit about some lovely people this year - I’m not good with words lmao but thank you for being you and making this hellsite a better place 🥹 lol.

@leonpob - bestie!!! 🧡 our BL opinions have drifted apart this year lmao but who's to say friendships are solely based on mutual opinions. You're the best, stay the way you are and here's to another year of sharing thoughts and hopefully finding more shows to watch together (no matter if trash or not lol) 😉😘  @mayalunas - ahhhh I loved talking to you sooo so much this year, we agree on so many things that I'm convinced we share the same BL braincells lmao. You're one of my favorite people on this website, thank you for being such a good listener and a positive & supportive person to talk to 🥺 I hope you have the best 2024!!! ily!!! 🧡 @khunvegas - GURL idk where you went this year or if you still exist sdjkds but just know I haven't forgotten about you and I miss our talks 🥺 come back pls thank. @my-wandering-rabbit - I love our random out-of-context talks once a month lmao, I appreciate you and I hope we will continue our ritual of me watching shows and you asking me questions without watching them kjsdhg @bl-recs-and-reviews - Bestie!!! I love our catch-ups on Discord, you were one of the first people I ever talked to like 4 years ago? crazy. look at us. I still love you, you're the sweetest and I love talking to you 🧡🥺 @dreamedofyou - ahh I absolutely love your blog!!! I noticed you a lot in my notifications this year so I wanted to say thank you so much for interacting with my unhinged content (mostly FK related lmao) - We haven't talked a ton but I think of you as a very nice person and I hope we can talk more next year 🥹🫶🏻

and then of course some more shoutouts go out to all the wonderful and talented creators out there; I will never be able to tag all of you so sorry in advance but here are a few that I appreciate, some of which have also mentioned me in their wrap-up posts so thank you for that!!!

@taeminie @seatawinan @loveisactivated @forcebook @jimmysea @guzhu-furen @daymork @itsallaboutbl @seatawinans @blneobin @blmpfff @wanderlust-in-my-soul @pranpat @milkpansa @raypakorn @ahxu-laowen @forcebookish @forcebookcorner @morkofday @chinzillas @seajimmy @dimpledpran @i-got-the-feels @bengiyo @benkaaoi @25shadesoffebruary @moonkhao @smittenskitten @respectthepetty @earthfluuke @pharawee @khaotunq @khaotunqs @pranink @gabrielokun @piningintrovert @zhaozi @markpakin @firstkanaphans @firstforkhao @khaotungsfirst @wen-kexing-apologist @firstkpp @firstmix @bunnakit @khaothanawat @alienwlw @ffirstkhao (I can't tag the last 4 for some reason..)

have the best 2024!!!

🧡🧡🧡

[magpod-confessions]

(loosely responding to a confession i saw a while back, but just a lot of stuff in general)

i don't like how the fandom is so quick to slap labels like 'sexist, racist, misogynistic, etc' onto anyone who dislikes a certain character. i know these things are very much an issue, especially in fandom culture, but it's really anoying when people will just throw those labels around just because people dislike a character that happens to be a woman of colour. because 1. people are allowed to just dislike characters 2. people can have perfectly good reasons for disliking minority characters that have nothing to do with them being part of a minority group

specifically i want to talk about preferring michael distortion over helen distortion. obviously michael is widely depicted as a white man, while helen is widely depicted as a black woman so it's easy to look at the general favouritism towards michael and shout racism and misogyny. but that doesn't account the numerous reasons people could have to prefer michael over helen that have absolutely nothing to do with helen being black or being a woman. So, I present several such reasons:

(now, to the people that are going to say "why are you comparing them?? they are different characters and you should treat them like it" first of all, why have you read this far. second of all, that does not apply here. these are not two seperate characters. these are two different interations/personas/whatever of the same being. comparison should be expected if not encouraged)

michael is more interesting than helen. becuase michael is the distortion when jon and the viewer know very little about the distortion and the fears, he gets to be more cryptic, he can hint at things and and be all mysterious and vague about the nature of himself and the world. helen on the other hand is the distortion when we have a much better idea of the distortions nature and the fears and how they work. thus, she has less opportunity to be cryptic and vague and mysterious, which , in my opinion, is one of michael's best qualities-and what makes him so loved by the fandom. helen attempts to be weird and cryptic like michael, but it's just very repetitive and boring because we already know how everything works and there is very little she can hide from us

michael is a more 'iconic' character. this basically comes down to, he's more quotable. he has his whole trademark laugh and all his great quotes "i am not a who archivist i am a what" "how would a melody decribe itself when asked" "does your hand in any way own your stomach" "there has never been a door there archivist your mind plays tricks on you" i could go on. i'm sure helen has some great lines as well but i don't know any off the top of my head, which honestly proves my point a little. anyway, helen doesn't have all that. probably becuase the writers didn't want her to feel too similar to michael but yeah. this reason is a bit basic but it's still true

michael is made to seem more important. I just want to clarify, what i mean here when i say a character is more importamt here, is that the podcast makes this character seem more important. they both had their effect on the storyline, but the show definitely makes one of them seem more important and influential (this reason encompasses a lot of things so i'm sorry if it gets a bit ramble-y) this kinda ties in with the michael being more mysterious thing. micheal is treated as this mysterious unknown character, a potential threat, an antagonist at some points. Michael affects the characters quite a lot, and jon specifically seems to dwell on him a lot. So despite having a lot less screentime than helen, he's built up to be quite an important figure. Helen is not treated as important by the show in the same way. by the time she comes along, the whole mystery and drama of the distortion has already happened, so she isn't that important. she becomes a little irrelevant to the plot, occaisionally popping in to bother jon. and that's what she's really framed as —an annoyance, a bit of a nuisance, but not that important or influential. especially in season 5, she becomes almost a comedic relief character. mag 187 is the exception to this, where she is very important for about one episode before being almost immediately forgotten about. her effect on the characters is made to seem important only in retrospect. michael remains relevant even after his 'death' because he plays an important role in jon's struggle with his humanity and his conflict over gertrude's morals. even though michael has very little screentime compared to helen, every bit of it is made to feel relevant and important to the overall plot. I AM NOT SAYING MICHAEL IS ACTUALLY MORE IMPORTANT THAN HELEN. YOU CAN LOOK AT HELEN'S EFFECT ON THE PLOT AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE. I AM SAYING THE PODCAST ITSELF CLEARLY MAKES MICHAEL SEEM MORE IMPORTANT. sorry i just want to be super clear on that

michael has a more tragic/serious backstory. we all know what i mean here. michael shelley being manipulated and decieved and betrayed and kept in the dark, to become a monster that's whole purpose was to do those same things to countless innocents—there's so much that can be drawn from that and it's so poetic and interesting. it's also relevant to the overarching plot of the podcast like i said before. and like i mentioned before, helen is treated as a more funny character, not as serious or tragic as michael. don't get me wrong, there is tragedy in her becoming but it is not explored in the podcast canon. you can definitely talk about the srious stuff of helen's character but it isn't as grounded in canon if you do. also michael's death seems more tragic because michael shelley was framed as super innocent and undeserving of his fate while helen richardson was canonically kind of an asshole (not saying she deserved it either of course)

helen replaced michael. this relates to what i said at the start of this list—helen is going to be compared to michael as she is literally his replacement. for one, that does set michael fans against her slightly already because she's complicit in his 'death' a tiny bit. but the real problem is, she's expected to live up to michael—while also being different enough that it doesn't feel like the same character—which i personally don't feel that she does. i think i'd like her better if she was her own character and hadn't replaced michael, and i think that's a big reason that many people that prefer michael don't like her as much. it's also a valid reason to dislike a character. also, this has absolutely nothing to do with her being a woman of colour in fanon. if she was another white boy i'd still probably dislike her when she didn't live up to michael standards.

that's all i can be bothered to write, i think i had more ideas but i forgot sorry lol. anyway, notice how none of those reasons had anything at all to do with helen being a woman or often being depicted as black? if michael had been a woman of colour and helen had been a white man instead, these reasons would still apply

anyway i spent so long on this i thought of a couple reasons someone might preferhelen because i still love her and i don't want to make it seem like i dislike her. i don't. i just prefer michael but helen is still definitely top5 tma characters for me for sure.

we get to see the distortion adapt to it's new identity as helen which is super cool (i do not understand why no one talks about this.like hello????? it's so interesting?)

sometimes it's nice to have a more funny character, especially the juxtaposition between the more dark stuff of the podcast and lighthearted moments between helen martin and jon in season 5

i like her more subtle manipulations and the whole 'fake friend' thing. i thought that was a really interesting concept and a good way of bringing something new to the distortion

anyway, i know that white-twink-favouritism is an issue within the tma fandom (and dare i say tumblr as a whole) but let's remember than not everyone who likes or dislikes certain characters or prefers one character over another does so because they are sexist or racist. there are so many different reasons for someone to dislike or like characters that have notihing to do with race or gender.

i notice this debate particularly with michael and helen and i agree there could certainly be an element of sexism and a bit of racism too (not racism so much because she is not canonically black it's just a fanon thing so racist people probably just see her as white idk) but i think most people have genuine reasons like these to prefer michael and should not be called sexist or racist for having preferences.

🗣️ if i remember right mod i know you prefer helen so disagree with me if you wish. I'M NOT SAYING MICHAEL IS OBJECTIVELY BETTER THAN HELEN I'M POINTING OUT REASONS THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE PREFER HIM. i'm not really here to debate whether michael or helen is 'better' i just wanted to point out something that annoys me a bit

oh my god you are so right anon. at the end of it all both distortions are just. the distortion. michael was more impactful to the actual story as a whole, being one of gertrude's assistants, but helen is also super important in jons journey into avatarhood. both of them affected how jon sees himself through this ( him seeing himself as a monster definitely is also from the distortion ) in their own ways , and while helen is more of comedic relief , she still is new. she's fresh. she is a blank slate for the distortion after having been michael for so long and that is so interesting , especially with how she feels at the very start after merging. - deceit

Agree agree agree. I love helen sm and I find her incredibly interesting (and well the disortion in general) and I do prefer her over Michael personally (partly bc im gay as hell), but I definitely understand why ppl love Michael sm. And yea I dont think ppl should be called sexism or racist over liking a character. Like theres a big difference between liking a character for genuine reasons and liking them bc you have a bias. Idk yea - Rosette

[bredforloyalty]

alright now that i've watched it again, about fear no mort: how fascinating that most of morty's fear hole journey revolved around rick, so much so that an extended part of it was just a scenario in which rick's dead wife climbs to the top of his list of favorite people/reasons to live for and not only does he abandon morty but endangers the both of them. wild! morty third wheeling grumpily is wild (although i don't at all care about diane so that part of the episode was kind of soiled on first watch by me going "oh ://".. to be entirely honest. and i'm so mortypilled that if i could tweak the episode i would've put less grandpa in it lol and played it a bit more straight with focusing on morty but then again that's me and that would be a very different episode)

so, morty's afraid of rick not choosing him but also not choosing life, he's afraid of not being able to save rick and be someone he can depend on. it's an awful lot to take on, being the companion of someone who historically has not given much of a shit about himself and ended up hurting everyone around him with his callousness. it's a certain kind of selfishness, when you hate yourself and the world enough to turn inward and forget you have a responsibility to the people around you, and you forget there is a way out and forget the world does not abandon you, ever, only you can abandon yourself. and rick's only recently made some changes, it's a lot to look out for and care for someone (regardless if you intend to care or it was never a choice. and it wasn't) when they've been exceptionally cruel to you, when they don't think of you as capable of that or themselves as in need of that. morty's afraid of the very fact that he's committed, that he's got a mixture of affection and resentment and fear and a bunch of other things swirling inside him and it's all related to one man. he's terrified of what will happen if rick ever starts needing him and he's just not enough. fuck i loved that and thought it was delicious. eating the episode like an animal and licking all ten of my fingers after...

morty's also afraid of becoming his dad, who spent the majority of the previous seasons as a kind of doormat, who let his wife and father-in-law walk all over him, who didn't appreciate beth, who abandoned the family. maybeee even.. who didn't stick up for morty when a certain old man was taking advantage of him and breaking him down systematically. he fears humiliation and ostracism (typical teenage things, i was like that too and yet. not everyone is like that so it matters to me that i was very much like that too).. he's got so much shame, and although the settings are the school and the wider public for some of the fears, rick's role isn't exactly incidental in how morty functions outside of their relationship and who he's become. who has made him feel small and weak and stupid and who isolated him and prevented him from having the normal experiences all those other normal kids have? like sure it's not all rick but considering that by the end the fear is all about him, i feel like i can emphasize this. and sure rick's also the one who toughened him up (nothing scares him anymore, the school had to alert homeland security once, etc) but that's part of his fear too: rick's got his handprints all over him, he's everything, while rick's everything is not morty ((according to morty of course. little does he know.......))

anyway, the tragedy is that his worst fear does become reality, is his reality: rick didn't jump in after him. it's tragic because he perceives rick as someone who would never go as far for him as he would for rick, who could replace him, and by the end he accepts that. the fear is gone because being together is inevitable, there's nothing else to do but accept how they are and how vulnerable he is to rick. don't fear what you're destined to suffer!!! he's a loyal little dog! rick will never change and he's okay with that now. that's devotion, it's veiled by sci-fi bullshit and goofy jokes (and that terrible naked rap number that had me cringing uncontrollably hxsgvy) but it's devotion! except, to add to the tragedy while not really making it,, heavier, it's straight up untrue that rick could or would replace him. not jumping in the fear hole wasn't real evidence of how he feels, to morty it was just a representation of what he thinks is the worst of their relationship (the worst for him). we've been watching rick try and try and seeing the evidence of how he's changed all season, i think that makes it sadder that he's still not reassured the kid, that he still can't be honest or open enough to untangle the knot at the center of morty. that he tied

and yet, if i wasn't already reassured that rick's also committed, if not to morty personally then to the family and to making a continuous effort to improve, i would be reasured by how he didn't jump in at the end and instead took a picture of his grandson out of his wallet and pinned it to the 'went in the hole' board (lol). he had a picture in his wallet, god. he finally listened, he listened to morty who said it's not worth it, not even if diane is there, he chose not to immerse himself in his fears, his past and his wounds, and i would even say he chose not to go where morty couldn't follow. he chose his current reality and admitted morty is braver than him by pinning the picture, he wasn't condescending about morty running and jumping by himself. and most importantly, most cuckoo bananas of all, most 'kata is not going to be feeling well for a while' about the episode, when morty hugged him, he, for the first time!!, timidly started hugging back. and then morty immediately let go and pushed him away because he can't imagine a rick that hugs back, that loves him like he loves rick, he's so scared of the part of himself that wants to believe in that level of respect and care and reciprocation, the part that craves that. what the fuuuuck

rick's only recently started loosening his claws and thinking of how he could do right by his grandson and by others in general, it hasn't caught up with him yet that while morty does see him and does assess him accurately, he's not a mind reader and he's got insecurities and rick's at the center of them and well, you could say, you could say he should take responsibility for what he's done ('take responsibility' NOT in a canceling rick sanchez on twitter unless he repents for his grooming crimes way but in a waggling my eyebrows way forever and ever). ngl i wasn't super satisfied by the rest of the season as it was coming out but i'm excited to see where they take this, how these characters will develop further. and i was very happy to see an episode just about morty's side of the equation, i've been fed <3

[anxiescape]

NEW CLOAK REBORN!!!!!

Oooh! A fun one! 🤭 Okay, so New Cloak Reborn is a one-shot spinoff of Stargaze. You know when Wukong really pissed off the Celestial Realm and they eventually sent down Erlang to capture him? Well, there’s this one thing that Erlang says in Stargaze that’s pretty darn creepy:

Erlang: I find your kind to be rather hideous… (eyes Liu’er in a creepy way.) But your pelt will make a fine cloak. (Liu’er feels a shudder of fear/disgust roll down his spine, but he isn’t even able to respond before Wukong lets out an ungodly bellow of rage and throws himself at Erlang. A few blows are exchanged before Wukong locks eyes with Liu’er.) “LIU’ER!!!” Wukong screamed. “GO!!!”

Anyway, the chapter ends with Wukong being captured, and then the gods come back a year later or so and burn the mountain. Liu’er survives and manages to scare them off. Well, in New Cloak Reborn, Liu’er doesn’t survive. He is overpowered by Erlang and his brothers, and well… when Wukong gets out of the furnace, and sees the glittery new fur pelt that Erlang is wearing…

Wukong screamed. He could do nothing to stop the terrible sound tearing its way out of his throat, and all other beings in the room were forgotten as Wukong lunged for Erlang. The god reached for his sword, but Wukong moved so fast that Erlang could barely wrap his fingers around the hilt before the monkey was on top of him. Wukong’s voice was inhuman—ungodly, deafening as he howled like an enraged banshee. He clawed at Erlang, his nails tearing both cloth and flesh. He moved to tear the pelt from Erlang’s shoulders—that bastard had no right to even look at it, let alone touch it—but the moment Wukong’s fingers touched the strands of black fur, he pulled away as if he’d been burned. The fur… was so cold. Lifeless. It felt wrong.

… yeah, he’s not having a great time. Wukong is inconsolable and enraged, and he ends up being slapped right under Five Phases Mountain without the fun pillars lesson from Buddha. And when Guanyin eventually comes along to invite him on the journey, she finds a horribly depressed monkey that wants nothing more than for his suffering to end. But… she has a deal, should he choose to accept it.

“I have spoken with the Diyu. Complete this journey—see that Tang Sanzang is safe throughout his travels—and when you have successfully completed this task, Liu’er Mihou will be returned to you.”

Obviously, Wukong accepts. Originally he just goes along to fulfill his part of the deal, but over time he grows to care for the other members of his little group. By the end, he is still quiet and solemn, and he is resigned to the prospect of a future without Liu’er (he never fully trusted Guanyin’s promise). He hopes that Liu’er would be proud of the changes he’s made in himself: he’s less foolish, thinks a little more before acting, etc. And when he finally comes back to Flower Fruit Mountain… Well, here’s a little more from one of the last chapters, since I do love my happy endings:

There was someone waiting for him on the other side. They were dressed in gleaming white robes, with the faintest of pale pink lotus flowers embroidered along the edges. And their fur… Wukong would recognize that glittering midnight pelt anywhere. He had seen it in his dreams, as well as his nightmares. But unlike the last time he had seen it, the fur was now attached to a living, breathing being. One that he had never thought he’d ever see again. “Welcome home, Shí Hóu,” Liu’er said softly.

Woohoo! A happy ever after, with lots of tears and hugs and long awaited cuddles. Both of these monkeys have a lot of nightmares ahead of them (Wukong’s are of seeing Liu’er’s pelt/dead body, while Liu’er’s are memories of being skinned alive… 😳), but now they have each other again and it’ll all be okay. Liu’er gets to meet the other pilgrims, and modern day Monkie Kid happens a little differently than in the show… but you’ll have to wait until I’m finished writing. 😜

[redphlox]

Do you think it's possible that we may see the new Todoroki house in the end? I really hope so, although I have a small fear that Hori may have tossed that idea out.

That was one of the very few aspects of Endeavor's atonement arc I actually enjoyed. Him building a new home for them to live in without all the horrible memories from the old home. It would have been a place for them to heal and be a family together. It felt like it was foreshadowing the family being together and whole again. I always loved and look forward to seeing the new Todoroki home in the end, especially since it seemed like it heavily foreshadowed a healthy ending for the Todoroki family.

Although, with what we have currently in canon, I am a little afraid Horikoshi may have flip-flopped a little too much and forgot about the new Todoroki home.

As it stands now, Endeavor can't live alone in the old home because he's going to need a caretaker. Chapter 426 it looks like Rei is going to be his caretaker now. Touya will need to stay in the hospital due to his condition.

I do think it's still possible we'll see the new Todoroki family house in the end. After all, Endeavor had it built with the idea that the family could be together and heal apart from him, and he's still of this mindset. The house imagery has been a common motif throughout the story - look at Tenko and Toga's backstories. Tenko's home is destroyed, Toga's home is destroyed, and their families are gone because they either died and can't come back or don't want anything to do with their kid. But here sits this new, shiny, trauma-free house for the Todorokis who haven't abandoned their villain son Touya and WANT him in their lives despite the hell of it all. The new Todoroki house is there for a reason, narratively. As for Rei being a caretaker - there are many cultural elements at play regarding forgiveness, disability, and the duty of caring for a spouse. However, I personally, absolutely loathe the idea of Rei having to care for her abuser on multiple levels - morally, in terms of justice for abuse survivors, gender roles and stereotypes, and through a disability perspective. It's appalling that she lost ten years of being with her children, only to have to care for the person who took her away from them, especially since one of their children doesn't want to be near Endeavor. Also, not to mention the fact that the caretaker doesn't HAVE to be Rei. Expecting her to be his caretaker negates the guilt he feels about pushing her into a psychosis. "Hey, sorry about abusing you to the point that you threw scalding water on our son because he reminded you of me. Now you have to be my 24-hour helper and look at me all the time, though." It falls flat. He could hire someone. But above all else, if we're talking realistically, I disagree that Endeavor can't live alone and that he'd need a caregiver. My career is literally just this - rehabilitating people from injury and illness, etc. If Endeavor were my patient, I'd say he would be a great candidate for prosthetics and could learn different adaptations, techniques, and skills to become independent. He could even still be independent at wheelchair level, and would require less help than what other manga readers are imagining. There's even an example of this through Miruko, who also has two amputations, just like Endeavor, but now has prosthetics. And even if he needed help (which is completely fine - no one is morally obligated to become independent), he could hire someone to help. Lol. I want to type a much longer, more nuanced discussion about how BNHA frames disability, but that's for another post. This discussion is a lot more complex than what I just stated and I want to touch on many aspects, including how disability is portrayed in the general media and specifics in BNHA. Anyway… I went on a little tangent - but yes, I think the Todoroki house could come up again. I'm hopeful. Hori set these things up for a reason and I'm expecting he follows through. Endeavor and Dabi losing their arms also has set up to bring back a certain gag from the Stain arc.

[seriousbrat]

Do you think Lily’s patronus makes sense as a Doe? Because when I think of Does I think docile, timid, fragile, sensitive and fearful and Lily doesn’t quite match that description. I know patronuses aren’t always 1:1 with the wizard’s personality but usually there is some overlap (Sirius is loyal and protective, James encapsulates the positive and negative qualities of a stag with his leadership and strength but also the toxic masculinity, Remus is needing of a pack and is also clever etc.). So do you think there is some part of a doe or what they symbolizes that fits with Lily’s character OR do you think her patronus changed to match James who’s already was a stag?

If you’ll allow me to ramble about my own theories here for a minute than I would like to say that I actually believe that her’s changed. I think this mostly due to JKR saying this in a interview awhile ago when someone asked if it was a coincidence that jily had matching patronuses: “No, the Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus).” Her statement implies (or more outright states) that there was a change of patronus for atleast one of jily, And since James was already a stag animagus at 15 we can assume that his patronus was always one (further evidence is that McGonagall’s patronus and animagus is both a cat).

I personally believe that patronuses are a manifestation of hope, the desire to go on, and the idea of what to continue living/fighting for (“The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the Dementor feeds upon — hope, happiness, the desire to survive” from Lupin, and then Luna says this while helping Harry conjure one in DH “"We're all still here," she whispered, "we're still fighting. Come on, now...”). So I think given this it makes a lot of sense for Lily’s patronus to change to reflect an image of James. She is a targeted individual in her new small society that is at war and there isn’t much hope to be found anywhere, but she finds hope in James because he represents the life she wants to have that’s not connected to the war, a normal happy family. Her “happy thought” in the midst of death and destruction is family and love (also meaning this is what she wants to preserve and fight for, and it is ultimately what she dies for.)

It’s also interesting that her patrounus takes a female form, we know it’s possible for characters to have a patrounus that differ from their gender but that isn’t the case here. And while I know the doylist answer has to do with JKR’s views on femininity and gender in general, from the watsonisan perspective this could mean a couple things:

She is a doe because her hope lies within her being James’ wife and partner (like the family thing I said above. It’s not about the title or status of being a “wife” but about the normalcy, safety, intimacy and love that it represents)

She is a doe because her identity is separate enough from James where she wouldn’t mirror him but instead be her own version (possible, but less symbolically satisfying to me lol).

Or is it just something else entirely?

anyways sorry I didn’t mean for that to be that long lolll, but If you vibe with my “Lily patronus changed theory” what do you think it was before?

Also I consider you a lily expert so if you think this theory is trash or missing something lmk lmao

omg wait this is very interesting and absolutely NOT trash!! to be honest with you, I've thought about this a little myself before and never come up with a wholly conclusive answer. But personally I think it's very possible that Lily's patronus might have changed. I skirted around this issue in my fic by not having Lily produce a corporeal patronus until she was already with James lol.

Re: the doe, obviously in real life many prey animals are skittish, shy, and fearful because that's how they survive. This includes male deer too, because they will also startle easily. But I think that Lily could definitely be said to have qualities that are doe-like in a more symbolic way: grace, beauty, a gentle and caring nature, devotion to her young. I think it is an animal that fits Lily in many ways, and I think the symbolic/mythological meaning associated the animal is maybe more relevant than how the real animal behaves in the wild.

But even though I think Lily has doe-like qualities I don't think this precludes her patronus having become a doe because of James. It's more about the person she grew into, alongside James, than her identity totally changing because of her relationship. I think it still represents her, she IS the doe but she just grew into that person over time.

If Lily's patronus did change to mirror James, I REALLY like your idea that it reflects what she most cares about, that James (and what he represents to her) becomes her happiest thought and what she's fighting to survive for. Not just James, but later also Harry- whose Patronus is also eventually a stag.

As for what it might have been before (or had she never met James) it's a difficult question! I recently assigned patronuses to all the order members for ease of writing and lowkey I feel like I've run out of animals lol. I could see her as some kind of bird perhaps (I always feel like I default to giving people birds though lol) maybe a dove... or a seabird of some sort. I've always really liked the storm petrel, which is thought of as intrepid and brave and is known to fly through terrible weather, it cares for its single young, and has apparently been used as a revolutionary symbol. There's something really beautiful and dignified about them to me, they're lonely but resistant which could fit Lily's position as a Muggleborn amidst the war, if she hadn't fallen for James and joined the Order with him. So that's my first thought-- I'd be open to ideas though!