#beautiful but poorly structured

[alectrona6400]

Just as I was impatient for Vista SP1 to finish installing (it didn't.)

[kissandtellus]

Sacrificed

Synopsis: Plus!Sized reader is sacrificed to the Sea God she grew up hearing horror stories about. So why does death feel so good?

Warnings: Description of thicker body, breeding, sacrifice, loss of virginity, short-Drabble for the new myth (I’m foaming), talk of eggs, iridescent coom.

Authors Note: This doesn’t really spoil the new myth at all it’s just pure filth. It’s pretty short but I had to get my feelings out there LOL.

This gorgeous creature rivaled even his own beauty in some ways. Her fluttering eyelashes, her desperate pleas of ‘no, don’t stop’, ‘It will not fit’, ‘have mercy’, spilling from her lips.

He was the God of the Sea.

Humans were beneath him. But oh, having this specific human beneath him was holy. She was set to be a sacrifice by the village on the coast of his territory.

Her life would ensure their poorly built structures would not be engulfed by the sea.

But the only sea who could ever care to protect, was right between her quivering…what did humans call them? Ah yes, thighs.

“M-My Lord I cannot-“

He growls, dipping his head into the crook of her neck. His tail lashes under the waves sending water spouting in all directions. “Quiet. I’m hunting.”

The slick tendril like flesh tested the waters. Her slick gushed as if she were made for him. If not for his strong arms holding her above the waters edge she would surely drown.

Then what kind of plaything would she be to him?

“Your elders chose you for a reason. Is it because your cunt could tempt a beast like me?” His voice was like honey in her ears. But whatever manhood this creature possessed was bringing her to an earth-shattering end.

He lifted her as if she were weightless, claws grabbing at her curved hips, the other holding open plush thighs. “If you do not survive this, I will have a statue made in your honor. So I can always remember how it felt to breed you.”

A human carrying his godly eggs was laughable. He absolutely could not imagine her round with his eggs, waddling around on land to show off just how potent the seed of a God was.

No. Never.

She couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around the not one, but two lengths diving into her once virgin entrance. Her mother had taught her the bare minimum about her own body. Only that her virginity should be taken by a worthy or wealthy man.

Perhaps both.

But this creature possessed something she wasn’t familiar with.

The way he praised how good she felt around him, how beautiful she was despite the fear coursing through her veins.

Her virgin barrier lay broken in the waves of the sea, the salt burning just barely as his lengths delved deeper. Over and over again.

His iridescent seed coated her thighs and the waters surface. She lay quivering in his arms, full to the brim of his cum. Her head rested on his shoulder, prepared to meet her cruel end.

But he only started to hum, a tone that would surely send her into sleep.

“Sleep now, child. We still have plenty to accomplish. Perhaps I will pay a visit to your elders in their own slumber.”

[kangals]

have definitely harped on this before but it really does just drive me absoluely insane when you see a dog breeder talking the big talk of "well i dont breed my dogs FOR DOG SHOWS because i dont BELIEVE in showing, dog shows are just BEAUTY PAGEANTS and mean NOTHING, i breed my dogs for WHAT MATTERS which means HEALTH and TEMPERAMENT and GREAT FAMILY PETS!!" and then you go to look at their dog for more info and it's the most poorly-structured off-type albino lilac double merle dog you've ever seen with zero titles and a single Embark panel as proof of health testing.

[bakugoushotwife]

in my opinion, gojo’s storyline has been handled so so poorly i can’t help but think it’s intentional. it is not bad writing to kill a character—even a beloved character. i know most people will dismiss my criticisms because gojo is so beloved to me and so many others. i’ve said before that i don’t mind if he died. does it hurt? of course, and i would still cry and be sad about it. but there is a beautiful way to do it. with respect and honor for his legacy—for what he has done for your manga, the characters in it, and audiences worldwide. but no…gege chose the path of horror and disrespect. at certain points i’d say to myself, well. this is a dark manga. but essentially gojo is the only character that receives this treatment. since the beginning—since suguru left him, he’s been wondering if he mattered because he was a person, or if he only mattered because he was powerful and useable. we certainly fucking answered that question. he is a weapon and nobody ever cared about him at all!!!

and we knew he was being used—he knew he was being used, but he is selfless. so he did it for his kids. for megumi and yuuji and yuuta—he wanted them to be safe. in these flashbacks it’s exceedingly clear that he knew he would die. again—that’s not my issue. gojo dying to sukuna makes plenty of sense and it would hurt to leave it there. but to give us an afterlife scene where he’s presented a choice—north and south—that concept lead nowhere, that’s truly fucked up. to leave all the subtle clues and hints for no reason but to keep people reading and theorizing his return is fucked up. to continue to use his imagery to promote your manga when you know he’s not even honored in your manga is fucked up. we don’t get a funeral or a grave for him. no one’s spoken about him in chapters despite him fighting for hours against sukuna and damaging him so much that yuuji could win, nothing. yuuta wearing him like a costume and no one is horrified about it. i thought his students WERE different. they weren’t jujutsu society yet. that’s why gojo was their teacher—shaping them into better human beings. how am i supposed to trust in their future when it seems they’re just as cold and heartless as everyone before them? no one has honored gojo in any way since the moment he died. and they’ve forgotten about him. he spent his entire life fighting and no one can even say thank you. gege intentionally used gojo to promote the end of his manga because he knows that gojo fans make up at least half of his fanbase so had we stopped reading when he died, he would have lost a lot of traction. he baited us intentionally, cruelly, and something that transcends storytelling. i’ve truly never seen a mangaka have this sort of vitriol for one of their characters and the people that love him.

we spent the entire last chapter talking about some random fucking mission when we have several unanswered questions and concerns. i thought gege said he wanted this ending to be shocking and something you didn’t see in shonen? tying everything up neatly where no one has any trauma or grief for what they’ve experienced, everyone comes back to life except the one character you hate specifically and choso, defying your own power structures and having everyone laughing into the sunset is exactly how shonen ends so what in the fuck is he talking about??

let me disclaim, this is not megumi hate at all. i love him very much and i am so happy he’s back with the group but like. he shouldn’t be able to even walk. he tanked unlimited void for over 6 minutes whenever that length caused irreversible damage to sukuna himself. not to mention the countless black flashes. so what the fuck? he doesn’t mention gojo at all?? the first time he laughs in this manga is after he reads a note written by his dead fucking caretaker about his dead fucking father? like i don’t believe. random open ended kenjaku/suguru mention just to piss me off, an absolutely no mention of gojos sacrifice or how they’ll miss him. i’m sick to my stomach. gege defiled his memory both in the story and outside of it. wow.

P.S. SUKUNA CARED MORE ABOUT GOJO THAN ANYONE ELSE (SUGURU IS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS I MEAN HIS STUDENTS AND SOCIETY)

[linkspooky]

JASON TODD VS. DABI: WHY NOT ME?

"You haven't been here long but you've seen him, right? The batman. The batman. He lives in darkness, to find the helpless and bring them into the light. So I have to wonder...why couldn't he do it for me?" The Boy Wonder: Issue #2

This is the story of the boy who didn't get saved. The story of a boy who really ought to have been saved. Of course, every victim deserves to be saved, but this boy was the son of a superhero. Can a hero who saves everyone, but fails to save his own son really be called a hero? As for the son, how does it feel to watch his father save complete strangers but let him fall to the wayside?

Jason Todd and Dabi are two characters with similar backstories and motives (so similar it's possible Dabi is outright based on Jason Todd) which are worthy of comparison. These are two tragic arcs which explore the conflict between a hero's responsibility to act as a father, and their responsibility to save people. As I said they are tragic because in both cases the hero fails, as a father, and a hero. However, I'm comparing the two because Jason Todd's story is a well written tragedy, and Toya's story is not.

If you were to write a story of my life, it would surely be a tragedy.

Aristotle's Poetics is the first attempt to define what Tragedy is, not as a story where sad things happen but a specific story structure. He outlines not only what makes tragedy, tragedy, but also what makes a good tragedy.

The Plot, then, is the first principle, and, as it were, the soul of a tragedy: Character holds the second place. A similar fact is seen in painting. The most beautiful colours, laid on confusedly, will not give as much pleasure as the chalk outline of a portrait. Thus Tragedy is the imitation of an action, and of the agents mainly with a view to the action.

I use this quote because the painting metaphor is a great way of explaining what I'm getting at, you can have a painting with the most wonderful colors, you can have a story with really good ideas like the Todoroki family plotline but if you don't use those colors correctly all you're going to end up with is a bad painting.

In poetics Aristotle clearly defines a tight well-structured plot as the first priority for effective tragedy, character as second.

Again, a beautiful object, whether it be a living organism or any whole composed of parts, must not only have an orderly arrangement of parts, but must also be of a certain magnitude; for beauty depends on magnitude and order. Hence a very small animal organism cannot be beautiful; for the view of it is confused, the object being seen in an almost imperceptible moment of time. Nor, again, can one of vast size be beautiful; for as the eye cannot take it all in at once, the unity and sense of the whole is lost for the spectator; as for instance if there were one a thousand miles long

To make sure you understand, it's vital in tragedy for all the pieces to fit together. Tragedy is a specific story format. Good tragedy uses the parts of a story well, but bad tragedy is sloppy and poorly put together. In tragedy, the whole has to be greater than the sum of its parts. The Todoroki Family are all good characters out of context, but the story could have enhanced their characters but detracted from them due to how poorly it is told. The fact that a lot of MHA fans are in love with the Todoroki family out of the context of the story, but also have constant complaints for how Horikoshi handles their plotlines is, in my opinion, very telling.

What Aristotle goes on to posit is the best tragedies do not come about by accident, but rather by the direct actions of the characters.

But again, Tragedy is an imitation not only of a complete action, but of events inspiring fear or pity. Such an effect is best produced when the events come on us by surprise; and the effect is heightened when, at the same time, they follow as cause and effect. The tragic wonder will thee be greater than if they happened of themselves or by accident; for even coincidences are most striking when they have an air of design. 

Therefore Tragedies require consequentialism, like Newton's Third Law, every action will have an equal and opposite reaction. To simplify a good tragedy arises from the consequences of the character's actions (or inaction). The most basic form is that the hero of the story will have a tragic flaw that they fail to improve upon in time and then leads to their destruction. In essence, tragedy is where the hero fails. Not only does the hero fail, but the hero loses, and that irreversible loss is what defines tragedy. Medea slays her own children, Oedipus rips his own eyes off and deserts his kingdom, Creon Antigone is buried alive and Creon's son, her fiancee, commits suicide.

These events share two things in common, they are irreversible (hence why they feel like good endings), and two they evoke catharsis. Aristotle defines the goal of tragedy to evoke terror and pity. We feel alongside these heroes, Medea was abandoned by the husband Jason who she left her home and slaughtered her own brother for, Oedipus did all of his crimes unwittingly and is a victim of fate, Antigone was doing the right thing by burying her brother so his soul could pass on to the afterlife.

There's all different sorts of tragedies, Hamliet explores more here. I'd say UTRH and Hellish Todoroki Family are tragedies centered around grief.

Tragedy works on extreme emotions, and extreme hard-hitting consequences to the hero's failures. The worst thing a tragedy can be is boring.

The Tragic Hero

Now that I'm done lecturing you let's actually talk about both My Hero Academia and Batman like I promised. Both of these stories don't actually feature the central victim as their protagonist, and that is a feature not a flaw.

Rather, the story we are being told is that of a tragic hero, failing to save a tragic victim because of their own personal flaws.

These flaws are called (hamartia) or "error in judgement". A hero, being called a hero of a story is often unaware of his flaws which is central to what makes them unable to fix those flaws in time. That flaw can later lead to a moral failing, such as Othello's jealousy, initially jealousy is an understandable emotion, but then it leads to him trusting Iago over his own wife and killing his wife in a rage.

Most importantly, the hero’s suffering and its far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw.

Let's begin with talking of the heroes and their flaws, Batman and Endeavor. My main reason for comparing these two is in these specific stories they have the same flaw, inability to move past their personal guilt towards their son, and the same conflict the duty of a father versus the duty of a hero.

However, Batman functions as a tragic hero, and Enji does not. The summary of their conflict is right here in these two panels.

A parent is required to place their children above everything else, because they are the ones responsible for bringing that child into the world. Bruce Wayne made the decision to adopt Jason. Enji made the decision to have children, however with Enji you have the added insidious motivation of he only wanted to make designer babies and just didn't care for the ones who didn't turn out right.

Bruce attempts to do both, to act as a father for Jason and also a crime fighter as batman but he can't do both. This comes to a head in Death of the Family when Jason is having serious trouble because of his lack of a strong parental figure, and Bruce knowing that Jason is in trouble chooses still to go off and fight crime instead of staying with him. The choice to place crimefighting over the child they chose to take responsibility for has the unintended consequence of getting that child killed.

Whereas Enji makes the same choice over and over again, ignoring Toya's clear troubles at the fact his father no longer spends time with him and choosing to run away to the world of heroes because he doesn't want to face the fact that his actions are severely hurting his son. Bruce's motivations are more sympathetic admittedly he wasn't actively practicing eugenics, but the choice is the same and the consequences are the same.

Both Bruce and Enji are forced to bear witness to the deaths of their children when they are not there, specifically because they made a choice to be a hero instead of staying by their child's side. A situation directly caused by their choice to be a hero over a father, and a situation that would have been avoided if they had stayed with their child in their time of need. Jason runs off when Batman tells him to stay and gets kidnapped by the Joker, if Enji had been on Sekoto peak that day Toya would never have accidentally lost control of his fire.

This is just the backstory however, the main event that kickstart this plot is the unexpected return from the dead of both Jason and Dabi. Each story follows the same plot beats. A new villain appears to challenge Endeavor / Batman. The villain reveals themselves as their dead son. Both Endeavor / Batman are given a chance to try reaching out to their sons, but they choose not to.

Then even though they are given a second chance with a miracle of a dead son coming back to them, they choose the exact same thing they chose before, being a hero and because of that the tragedy repeats itself. For both of them they are unable to save their son again, and the son goes through a second death. History repeats itself, the lesson isn't learned.

Their fatal flaw is their guilt. This is a story about grief and mourning after all, a son who is died, buried, but never grieved properly, never mourned, an open wound on the father suddenly coming back. The inability of each to process their grief blinds them from seeing the fact the son has come back, and they have a second chance.

Toya has internalized he is a failure, because Enji literally called him that. Jason believes that Batman thinks he is a failure. In both cases the father is the one who failed, Bruce at least acknowledges this but cannot communicate it in any way shape or form.

This guilt and responsibility both Enji and Bruce feel causes them to self-sabotage. They no longer have the confidence they are in the right (they no longer feel like heroes because they have failed to be heroes to their own son).

You can also add the layer of complication that since both men chose to be heroes in the past, they do not know how to handle the situation as a father now that they're being challenged to step up as one. Unfortunately, they are not the fathers that stepped up.

The reason their grief becomes a flaw is because they put their grief over their victims. . Each man is aware too much of their own failure, and while they should feel guilty they make the classic mistake of placing their own guilt over the feelings of the victim. The guilt they feel for causing the death and the genuine grief of losing a son is given priority over Jason and Dabi who you know... actually died.

An overwhelming grief and guilt is understandable because grief is a messy and human emotion, losing a child is an unimaginable tragedy that should never be inflicted on anyone.

Yet at the same time both Dabi and Jason are grieving to. This paradox that Batman only thinks of his own grief at losing a son and never stops to think about how Jason must feel leads to one of the best lines in Under the Red Hood.

"The father had lost a son, and now the son had lost a father."

Batman's guilt is so strong over being the cause of Jason's suffering, that the suffering of the victim himself is ignored. To be fair to My Hero Academia, the Todorokis say a similar line to Enji.

However, this is where I begin to get into the difference between ideas and execution. Tragedies are stories of actions and logical consequences, every action has an equal and opposite reaction in Under the Red Hood. Batman is punished for the choices he makes, the choices he doesn't make, and the choices he fails to make in time.

The Todoroki plotline features almost none of its character making any choices of substance, and because of that the plotline says the right things over and over again, but it all comes off as tell don't show.

I'm going to quote @codenamesazanka's post right here a couple of times because they describe the complete failure of the Todoroki plotline to show us a reason why we should be feeling things for the characters artfully.

We've heard Enji say this before - I'm sorry, I intend to atone. It's indeed the right thing to say, it's exactly what he should be saying and acting. Natsuo is declaring no contact - That's fine, I'm sorry, I accept this as part of my atonement and will continue. Touya calls him a coward - That's fine, I'm sorry, I accept this as part of my atonement and will continue. The public hates him - That's fine, I'm sorry, I accept this as part of my atonement and will continue. But you can only hear this so many times before you want to snap and beat the character, the story, the writing over the head with Enji's wheelchair. Why is that? He's behaving exactly as he should, and yet...

The reason why it fails to evoke strong feelings is because of what we'd called "narrative dissonance." The actions of Bruce and Enji are the same, they both neglect to do anything, make any real attempts to reach out to their victims because they're paralyzed by guilt.

However, we are told that they have entirely different arcs. Bruce's arc is a tragic fall. He's failing as a hero. While we are being told that Enji is experiencing an arc of atonement. Enji is supposed to be improving himself, and Bruce is supposed to be experiencing negative character development but they both do the exact same thing in story. Bruce neglects Jason, we are told by the story, by the characters in the story that Bruce is failing Jason. Enji does nothing in time to actually atone for Toya or try to help him, yet, we are told again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again that Enji is atoning with nothing substantive to show us this is the case.

To show what I meant instead of telling this scene is in chapter 252.

This scene is the ending point in chapter in chapter #426.

It's just him repeating the exact same sentiment and yet in a more than 150+ chapter gap, Enji never made any action to show he was now placing his family first. Enji didn't say anything to Dabi when he revealed himself as Toya. Enji didn't look for Toya in the months before the final war arc. Enji literally appeared on live TV in a broadcast that Toya was watching and said the very selfish "Watch Me" atone for the crime of creating Toya instead of literally talking about Toya or too Toya. Well, that would have rocked the boat too much... THAT IS LITERALLY THE POINT. Enji had to somehow break from tradition or make some significant sacrifice onscreen to his social standing to show that he's willing to put his family first. Enji decides to go along with Hawks decision to not face Toya head on, making the decision to be the hero for the final time which directly causes Toya to get up after Shoto brings him down non-lethally and make one last attempt to suicide bomb for his father's inaction.

Bruce does nothing for a long time in Under the Red Hood. He ignores his initial instinct that Jason came back and instead makes a long investigation on whether or not someone can come back from the dead in order to distract himself. When Jason takes the mask off, Batman already knew but was pretending otherwise because he didn't want to face the reality.

Even when Jason takes his mask off, Bruce still takes on the "I need to investigate this" angle even though Jason calls him out that deep down he already knows it's the truth. This of course foreshadows Bruce's underlying flaw, he doesn't want to face Jason head on because he feels too much grief about what happened to Jason and his guilt is more important than Jason's own grief. Just as the father has lost the son, the son has lost the father.

What follows is several chapters of Batman fighting crime as usual and making no attempts to directly search for Jason. They cross paths a few times but when they do Bruce doesn't follow. In fact, Bruce only shows up when Jason sends Bruce a sample of the joker's hair and Bruce knows that the Joker has kidnapped him out of Arkham. Bruce almost lets Jason get killed by Black Mask because he doesn't know whether to stop Jason or save him yet again, and then they have their final showdown where Jason has kidnapped the joker to demand Bruce kill him, and Bruce finally attempts to talk him down.

Out of context it sounds like I'm describing the same plotline, to the point where if you haven't read either, it looks like I'm complaining baselessly. Why is one hero doing nothing until it's too late good, and the other bad? The difference is of course context, or rather framing. Bruce's actions are called out by the people around him (Dick, Jason, Alfred) as him handling the situation wrong. Whereas both Enji's internal monologue and other characters say that he is doing his best to atone for his actions and deserves a chance, but the events we are shown in story are the exact opposite.

Here's another example to SHOW my point. Here's Dabi with my special, hardcover edition of under the Red Hood.

I reread the entirety of the fourteen chapter plotline and the majority of internal narrations come from characters outside of Bruce observing his behavior and commenting on how differently he's acting. Jason's backstory for instance is told by Alfred, not Bruce. Dick Grayson the first Robin comments on Batman's odd behavior. The rest are the third person narrator. Bruce has four instances of internal monologues spanning a few pages each in a 378 page story. (Alfred has the most internal monologues and he's presented as a more trustworthy unbiased narrator than Bruce, to get us to question Bruce's actions).

"Information travels on many routes, sometimes it comes predictably like the tides. You just need to know where to stand and meet it. Other times it's elusive and you have to root through the garbage to find it. In the last few years I've come to rely on Barbara Gordon, Oracle, we all did. Utilizing every form of surveillance equipment she has been the eyes and ear [...] but those days are over. I can't rely on anyone anymore. [...] and tonight it's also about the company I keep. It's different with him [night wing] out here. I think about when he was younger, when I was younger, it was different, simpler and I miss it. I miss those days, for that it's hard to be around him.

This first internal monologue is a case of unreliable narrator, because as soon as finishing it Dick Grayson / Nightwing shows up, offers Batman his help and while Bruce at first refuses it the two of them are forced to work together to fight Amazo. What does this show us? Bruce is not alone, but Bruce actively acts like he's alone ignoring the feelings of the other people around him. It exhibits a flaw of Bruce and the bad headspace he is in mentally (if I remember correctly Stephanie Brown recently died in the comics while this storyline was being published. It establishes Bruce's improper coping mechanism with grief, and how he is going about it the incorrect way.

Bruce says I work alone, and then Bruce says it's easier working with Dick, I miss it, but I can't go back to those days. It's bruce's contradictory thinking patterns in the same chapter that stop him. it's bruce's fault he cannot connect to Dick, and he is actively mourning the past because his relationship with Dick has changed.

Now the final part of the monologue in that chapter.

He's quick. Not just fast, agile. He's not thinking about his next move, he's just making it. He's been trained well. And there's something about him. Something familiar. There was something interesting about before he cut the line, before it had been taught. That had to have been practiced. Either that or just plain dumb luck. No it's not luck.

This is the first hint that Bruce already suspects it's Jason from early on but is in denial about it. This unreliable narrator trope also gives an agency to Bruce's decision, he is actively choosing to ignore the possibility that it's Jason because it doesn't want it to be.

Whereas, a lot of Endeavor's plot takes away any agency from him. For example, he doesn't even know that Dabi is Toya, because if he had the sneaking suspicion and ignored it like Batman did that might have made him look bad. We can't have the main character in a tragedy looking bad now can we?

The second monologue is more denial.

That device is from Kord industries. I should know. Ordered it special from them. How can he have it? No more dead ends. No more questions. No more guessing. Tonight I find out what is passing for the truth.

Reading between the lines this is outright confirmation Batman already knows.

The third is a brief reflection in his feelings for Jason.

The armor has to be light enough to fit but strong enough to protect. But sometimes a great many times, it's not strong enough. It wans't strong enough for Barbara who has to fight from her chair. It wasn't strong enough for Stephanie, other dear soldier enough dear grave. And it wasn't enough for Jason. Willful Jason. Who ignored the danger. Who spat at risk. Who was never frightened enough. I've always wondered... always... was he scared at the end? Was he praying I'd come save him? And in those last moments when he knew that I wouldn't. Did he hate me for it?

This monologue directly shows without stating it outright, Bruce is prioritizing his feelings of grief and failure mixing them in with his genuine grief over the loss of a son. it's selfish of him, but grief is a selfish emotion.

Here's the thing Bruce is allowed to be selfish and to not have the correct reaction to his grief, because the whole story is centered on Bruce being unable to get his shit together in time, and this picture into his emotions is an explanation as to why. Bruce is afraid of being hated by Jason. Jason of course has every right to hate him for failing as a father, but still I think not wanting to be hated to a person you loved so much and feel genuinely sorry over what you let happen to them is an understandable reaction.

Meanwhile we have Enji saying repeatedly all the right things in his monologue, the selfless, I don't need to be forgiven, it's okay if they hate me, I just need to atone but he never actually does anything. There's no explanation for why he isn't doing anything either, so that narrative dissonance. We're shown why Bruce doesn't act in time, he's internally a mess to be frank. We are not shown why Enji doesn't act in time because his internal monologue tells us again and again he's committed to atoning and he understands what the right thing to do is.

As Codenamesanzanka says:

Enji is still saying all the right things, but the story isn't giving him the opportunity to actually do the right things. To have his new actions matter. I have no doubt about his sincerity in his mantra, but without the 'show', it's hollow. Similarly, "Let's talk" is actually kinda bullshit too, because it's so vague. This is less about Enji, and more about the writing, how it set up this scene. "Let's talk" or "I want to talk" or any of that variation is repeated 6 times, without anything more or specific added.

There's an excess of repetition of Enji saying he wants to atone, he's ready to atone, without any of that materializing in the story.

As @class1akids says in this reaction post:

It also feels also super-hollow to say he's sheltering the family from the fallout, after they've just talked about how Fuyumi lost her job (and got a new one through the connections she herself built). How is he going to do that?

The fourth because I don't want to write it down, it's just Batman monologueing on how his partnership with Jason is still good and explaining the technical details of his fight with count Vertigo. It's in chapter 10 if you must look it up.

So four monologues total. Two monologues establish indirectly that Batman knows that Red Hood is Jason and doesn't want to face him. The third monologue establishes why he doesn't want to face him, he's afraid of being hated. The monologue is in line with Bruce's actions in the story, Bruce investigates several ways of reviving from the dead instead of looking for Jason.

The character's reactions around Bruce are also talking about how he's not acting like himself. Especially Alfred's who speaks of Bruce's indecision, on whether to put a stop to or save Jason.

"It is curious. He is lost in thought. It is not like him to spend vast stretches of time immobile, where his mind is gripped in the solitary process of deduction. This is quite different. He is hesitating. At a loss for what to do. I believe it is about Jason. And whether or not to stop him or save him."

This is illustrated in two scenes later where Jason spends a long time simply watching when Jason is fighting enemies, first in a fight against Captain Nazi, and second Black Mask. Jason even gives a direct callout of that behavior.

Jason: What the hell took you so long? Couldn't decide if you wanted to let me live. Batman: Shut up and fight.

Observed by Alfred Bruce is completely stalling and can't choose, observed by Jason Bruce can't decide whether to let Jason live or not. Bruce hesitates twice. We know why. We see it in action. It's called out as flawed behavior.

Now let's cover all the tell that don't show that is Endeavor's many monologues.

Pro Hero Arc:

I have to safeguard the future for them. That's the job for whoever's on top. What about the lives I cut short? Just demanding forgiveness isn't enough, it's too late for that. At this point I need to atone there's no other route.

Hellish Todoroki Family 1:

I'm trying to make ammends going forward. It might be too late. but I fall asleep every night thinking about it. Lately it's been the same dream. The wife and the kids looking happy at the dinner table. But I'm never there with them. It might be too late but I fall asleep every night thinking about what I can do for my family. I wish you could be here too, Toya. It's always the same dream. My whole family's there but not me. If I really care how they feel [I'll remain here].

I'm not going to read 200 chapters so I'm just going to ballpark it based on memory. Here we go.

Dabi's Dance:

My eldest, Toya didn't harbor frost within him. He didn't have a way to overcome the inescapable downside of overheating but I nevertheless sought to raise the boy as a hero. [...] Because Toya had more potential than me I placed my ambitions on his shoulders. I thought it could be you. You could have been the one to reach my eternal goal. My frustration... My envy... The ugliness in my heart... you could have been the one to smash it all to dust.

Plot twist this is the only monologue I like. It's different from all the others, and it's the only one where Enji is being emotionally honest. He put the emotional burden of his own emotional insecurities on an eight year old child, and expected to live vicariously through him and when Toya failed to live up to those expectations he just abandoned him. It alligns what we have been shown so far, Enji is not acting like a reptentant man here who realizes the harm he's done to Toya and only thinks of Toya as an extension of himself and his own regrets.

The Fight Against AFO:

My mistakes took the form as Toya leading to many stolen futures. The past never dies. Rage, resentment and even penace wound together toward the future. And the future is a path for the young. A path with so many branching choices. That's why I must win this. [I'll keep paying my penance. I'll win today and keep my eyes on Toya.]

When Enji decides to double Suicide with Toya:

I take full responsibility. I swore to bear the burden and live my life atoning for it all. However, you've been watching me all this time. While I couldn't be there to watch you. You were someone I especially needed to do right by. No I can't let you meet your end alone, but I won't let anyone else get caught up in our tragedy.

Hellish Todoroki Family Final:

I came to talk about what's to come. I'm retiring as a hero. That was my initial plan even before the war started, but now I can't even walk on my own. The hero endeavor burned to death. Your flames were really stronger than mine. [...] You're right. You know everything about me, Toya. After all you were always watching me. And you wanted me to do the same for you, but I didn't. Not matter what anyone says your heat does come from my hellflame. From now on I'll come everyday, so let's talk. It's too late now, so let's talk. [...] You're free to hate me. Anything is fine really, so throw it all at me.

This one is spoken dialogue but it's still a four-page long monologue. Every one of Enji's monologues with one exceptionsays the same thing: I'm sorry, I'll spend the rest of my life atoning for my actions.

We're repeatedly told Enji is atoning but he acts like Batman. Then, his actions should be framed as Batman, not atoning but avoiding any responsibility.

As observed by Class1akids when we were discussing the update:

Everyone else faces an uphill struggle with their lives, but we should all feel sorry for Enji atoning and being in hell. I hate Hori's compulsion to over-write his abusers and over-explain their atonement. He does this with Bakugou too but with Enji it's more irritating. It was so much more enjoyable when he just wrote the thing but didn't point at them and say -> look, they are atoning. Aren't they soooo cool??

Enji's internal monologues and the other characters frame him as some sort of martyr, while on the other hand it's clear by both Batman's actions and Alfred's observations he's not acting like his usual self. In fact, this is an interpretation of Under the Red Hood that I love from the writers of the video game Arkham Knight that does a less tragic retelling of Under the Red Hood:

Batman doesn't fight victims. He saves them.

Therefore if Batman is fighting Jason, a victim, he's not acting like Batman. I'm also fine with Arkham Knight being an Under the Red Hood retelling because it's a different story. Comics do this all the time, different universe versions, popular storylines adapted into different mediums. It also works as a commentary on the original story, by showing what Batman could have done to lead to a more positive outcome it makes Batman's choices in Under the Red Hood worse and more tragic because he could have saved Jason, there was still a chance.

So here we have two flawed tragic heroes who are meant to be both pitied and condemned for their actions. One of them is all pity with no condemnation. The other is both pity and condemnation, Batman is grieving, but also he's failing his responsibility towards Jason. Therefore one protagonist works, the other fails utterly.

I'm not saying abusers don't deserve redemption. I'm not saying Enji should have died in order to atone. I'm not saying that the underlying problem with the arc is that they decided to make Enji sympathetic and a focus of the arc. The most important problem is the breaking of one of the fundamental rules of storytelling: Show, Don't Tell.

The Tragic Villain

Not only does The Hellish Todoroki Family plotline fail to make Enji a compelling protagonist, it also fails it's biggest victim. Now, these are both stories that end with the hero failing to save their victim. So if both of these stories have the same ending, why am I saying it failed Dabi, but not Jason?

Well, let me explain.

Dabi and Jason are both villains turned victims. The stories themselves are about this ambiguity. How much should the be held responsible for their own choices? If they are actively harming innocent people, then shouldn't they be stopped? Should they be automatically be forgiven just because of the pain and grief they've suffered, even if they've been causing it to others?

Both characters are also reflective of their fathers because they are too being selfish in their grief, they want their grief acknowledged and so are violently lashing out.

Jason and Dabi both make plays at being vigilantes at first, Dabi wants to inherit Stains will, and Jason Todd wants to be a better bat-man by taking control of the drug trade in Gotham and cutting crime down by executing gang heads. However, neither of them are being honest with this and it's shown through their actions, both of them abandon their original plans.

In the final showdown all Toya cares about is facing Enji on the battlefield, and when he's on the brink of death his mind erodes to the point where all he can do is scream for Enji's attention while his flames get hotter and hotter.

Let's take about Jason first and how his narrative treats him a whole lot better and more sympathetically, with more humanity than Batman. Jason is still held responsible for his choices, he is criticized by Bruce for murdering gang leaders and passing it off as justice. He's also blatantly shown to be a hypocrite. My favorite scene from Red Hood: Lost Days, the official UTRH prequel.

"I want to kill the joker in a cool way. Just sniping the Joker from a rooftop isn't dramatic enough for me."

This scene, and the final scene of UTRH underlines Jason isn't executing criminals because he believes it's the right thing to do, or because of his stated motivation that killing the joker would prevent more future victims.

Instead his every action is to set up a scenario where he makes a selfish demand of Bruce. He wants Bruce to prove to him that he would choose him over being a hero, by setting up his final scenario. Him, the Joker, and Batman. Jason will shoot the Joker. Bruce has a gun. He can either choose to let Jason kill the Joker, or kill Jason to stop him, either way it makes it clear what Bruce's priorities are.

The underlying reason for this is similiar to Bruce. Just like Bruce, Jason is deeply afraid that Batman doesn't love him. That he thinks of him as a failure. (This is Toya's main reason too).

He also interprets Bruce's failure to avenge him to mean that Bruce didn't even care enough to mourn him. If Bruce loved him enough, he'd choose him over the joker, but he's so afraid that Bruce doesn't love him enough that he's going to force Bruce to choose.

Along the way he's also going to behead several crimelords in order to put an exclamation point on that point.

The way Jason completely unravels in the confrontation shows this insecurity, he begins with monologueing about how batman should totally kill people, until his fear that he wasn't important enough, and his grief at losing his father is revealed.

Batman: I know I failed you, but I tried to save you. I'm trying to save you now. Jason: Is that what what you think this is about? Your letting me die. I don't know what clouds your judgement worse, your guilt or your antiquated sense of morality. Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me. Jason: But why on god's green earth is he still alive? Ignoring what he's done in the past. Blindly, stupidly disregarding the whole graveyards he's filled with people. The friend's he's killed. I thought killing me - that I'd be the last person you ever let him hurt. Jason: If it had been you that he beat to a bloody mess. If it had been you he left in agony. If he had taken you from this world. I would have done nothing but search the planet for this pathetic pile of evil, this death worshipping garbage, and sent him off to hell.

Direct statement, it's irresponsible of Bruce to let Joker live after killing Jason and should have put him down to prevent future victims. Reading between the lines, Batman not taking revenge for Jason is a sign that he didn't love him enough, Jason loves Batman more because he would have taken revenge.

As the confrontation continues and Jason's mental spiral worsens, to the point where he can't keep up his pretense of self-righteousness.

Jason: I'm not talking about killing cobblepot, or scarecrow, or riddled, or dent. Jason: I'm talking about him. Just him. And doing it because...he took me away from you.

The father had lost the son, and now the son had lost the father.

Jason's revenge is just a cover, for his grief at losing Bruce. I think this also shows a really positive aspect of Jason's character to humanize him instead of condemning him for his actions to ignore or even justify the suffering he endured: Jason really loves Bruce.

I mean how meaningful is the statement: "Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me."

Bruce has been afraid to hear the whole time that Jason hates him, that he won't forgive him, but Jason loves him deeply. In fact his love is almost equal to his rage because Jason is a deeply emotional person, and these little details make him human and not just like a plot obstacle that Bruce has to face. A metaphor for his past failures.

Dabi is drawn as a crying boy who wants comfort, Jason is shown to be a crying boy who wants comfort through both dialogue and action without us directly needing to be told. It's a heartbreaking line and doing it because he took me away from you and it lands perfectly because the narrative wants us to just look at Jason's grief. It doesn't add an asterisk* even though he was in pain, he's done unforgivable things that can't be justified to undercut Jason's suffering.

In fact that might be another underlying problem with The Hellish Todoroki Family, the narrative tries too hard to make you feel a certain way instead of just presenting things as they are to make you come to your own conclusion. UTRH doesn't support Jason's revenge based serial killing of villains. It doesn't say he's justified to cut off the heads of mobsters. However, it doesn't excessively state "Well, I'm really sorry what happened to you but what you've done can't be forgiven" so we don't have to challenge ourselves to feel too much empathy for Jason's suffering.

Meanwhile even when Toya tries to express his rightful anger and grief, we're always met with someone shutting him down and saying well yeah, but you're wrong, involving innocent people is unforgivable.

As said by @stillness-in-green in the replies to this post:

I think so much harm (in-universe, but the state of the Twitter fandom makes me think the messages are pretty toxic irl, too) comes out of portraying the Heroes as needing to weigh in on the *morality* of the Villains' actions before they gauge "saving" them, when that is not a thing that glorified cops have any business thinking they have the right to do. Demanding repentance before the rehab is so bizarre.

You can say someone's actions are wrong without using it as a factor to consider whether or not their suffering as a human being should be acknowledged, and like I said there's multiple instances of people just yelling at Toya how immoral he is instead of addressing the elephant in the room.

You're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong.

(Okay, I understand that some people have interpreted this as a show of Honnae and Tatamae, the Todoroki's who are a very repressed household are finally talking about their feelings even if those feelings are selfish and ugly).

(I'm not criticizing Shoto for saying that the people he killed were his own choice necessarily, Shoto is a character who's actions need to be read more deeply than his words he was dedicated to bringing Dabi down without him burning himself any further start to finished. My criticism lies in the fact that Hori uses Shoto as a mouth piece because he thinks we need to be reminded that murder is bad).

However, even acknowledging that time and place man, time and place. They couldn't have done that in the aftermath, when Toya isn't burning to death?

Hey buddy, you're being selfish.

Toya: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I'M MELTING, I'M MELTING.

This is I feel the underlying problem with the way the arc is written, not because the Todorokis are a very traditional Japanese family and there are cultural reasons they express their emotions differently, I'll give a caveat to that it's a nuance I might not understand.

However, I am arguing the actual problem is tell don't show. Horikoshi thinks that we as an audience need to be told multiple times that murder is bad, and we cannot be trusted to interpret that on our own.

Under the Red Hood shows both sides of Batman and Jason's debate, and let's us just come to the conclusion that Jason is in the wrong because revenge isn't justice. Horikoshi reaches no shit sherlock levels of telling us that we're not supposed to approve of Dabi's murders.

it's also a matter of giving Dabi narrative space to express his feelings, like every time Dabi tries to talk he is continually shut down (Shoto does engage Dabi talk to him and listen to why he didn't come back though I'll give him that) and it seems to be to push forward this weird idea that you shouldn't sympathize with the pain Dabi has endured or the ways he's dehumanized unless he does something to prove he deserves to be treated like a human being first.

Jason gets to monologue and make an entire argument, and his argument also shows the depths of his love for Bruce and what a deeply feeling person he is, and how those feelings being hurt and twisted could logically lead to his lashing out.

Compare this to Dabi who doesn't get a final monologue, but is instead reduced to a completely mindless state where he just cries out for his dad's attention. He doesn't get to make his argument.

Jason and Dabi both choose to blow themselves up, but Jason gets enough character agency to show this is a deliberate choice he's making even if it's the wrong one. He retains his character agency and ability to make decisions until the end of the narrative.

Jason's also you know physically crying. The end result of the narrative is about wrong choices that both Bruce and Jason make together, and then suffer the consequences together. Bruce watches the same failure play out again and he isn't able to save Jason, Jason doesn't get what he wants, he doesn't get revenge and he doesn't get to reunite with his father. It's tragic for both of them, and brought about by decisions both of them made.

Whereas yes Dabi makes a lot of bad decisions leading up to the last war arc, but in the end his final fate is up to a choice Enji made to not face Toya in the final battle.

However, while the final consequence of the battle is brought about more by Enji's decisions than Toya's, it's Toya who endures all the suffering and punishment. It's Toya who is in an iron coffin, and doomed to slowly and agonizingly die with all of his skin burnt off unable to move. Toya doesn't even get agency after the arc is over. Enji still has a wheelchair, Enji can still move around, Enji's still fucking rich, he's not in prison for his actions, he as Rei wheeling him around.

Toya's agency and choices are all taken from him, presumably to serve the plot purpose of making Enji save him to finish off his arc, and then ENJI DOESN'T EVEN SAVE HIM.

Also I think it's important to mention, Bruce's tragic ending is brought about by him attempting to save both, trying to save the joker and Jason with the same action. Whereas Enji's tragic ending is brought about by Enji NOT LIFTING A FUCKING FINGER TO HELP. Yet, it's Dabi who has the lion's share of suffering, and is sentenced to this horrific state of being skinless in an iron coffin and only being able to be awake a few minutes a day with no choice but to waste away.

Bruce is also immediately called out for his actions, by the Joker of all people, you handled this all wrong, it's your fault. Bruce is right to not kill the joker, killing the Joker would not have solved any of Jason's problems, but the fact that he put off facing Jason for so long, and his inability to communicate that he loves Jason is what leads to Jason thinking that the only way to prove Bruce loves him is to force him to choose. It's because Bruce has utterly failed to show him in any other way that he is loved.

Joker: Oh my god, I love it! You manage to find a way to win, and everyone still loses. I'm going to be the one who gets what he wants tonight, badda bing, badda boom."

I'd also like to add that a lot of agency in Enji's actions are taken away too, to make him look more blameless. It's not Enji's fault that he didn't say anything to Dabi during Dabi's dance, he passed out because he had a punctured lung. It's not Enji's fault that he spent a month protecting Deku instead of searching for Toya, he had to protect innocent people. It's not Enji's fault that he didn't go immediately to face Toya in the final war arc Hawks told him not to.

It's not Enji's fault that he made Shoto and Toya fight like Pokemon instead of cleaning up his own mess, and also he feels really sorry for it and as soon as he's done punching the bad guy he'll look after Toya he promises.

Enji does get called out for this behavior but it falls flat because it only comes from the villain AFO, and Toya himself. As I stated above too, the ending is more influenced by Enji's actions not Toya's (because Toya's agency is stripped away until he's mindless) but Toya is the one who has to die while Enji gets to live and atone.

That is the real sticking point for The Hellish Todoroki Family, the way it ends.

Themes Are For Eight Graders

The underlying problem with the whole arc and why The Hellish Todoroki Family fails as a tragedy, is because it wasn't written to be a tragedy.

The above quote is from an interview with the writers of the widely hated Game of Thrones Season 8, which took a sudden tragic turn for Dany's character, gave her an incredibly dehumanizing ending of being put down like a rabid dog by her own lover, an ending that was neither foreshadowed nor did it match with anything written before.

In this meta here by @hamliet it goes far more into depth that Game of Thrones isn't a tragedy, but a piece of Romantic fiction (not a love story, Romanticism is a genre of big emotions, the beauty of life, larger than life ideas hence why it fits well with fantasy genre, it can be sad but it doesn't follow tragic structure).

Dany is a romantic heroine, a deconstruction of the idea of the classic warrior princess trope, and you know a colonizer, but she's not meant to be written as an inherently bad person. There are people who say that Dany was going to die in the original books. I'm one of those people. Me. However, context and framing matters, Dany for all her colonizing ways does genuinely want to do the right thing, so it's likely she'd die a heroic death as a reflection of her selfless intentions (and intentions do matter for fictional characters) whereas in the show she's put down as a villain.

Now watch me I'm going to coin a term for future literary critics to use: Narrative Gaslighting.

Narrative gaslighting is different then Show Don't Tell, where an author has just failed to properly show what they're trying to tell you in the story. Narrative Gaslighting is when a narrative deliberately tries to mislead you, straight up lies to you, or just insists things that did not happen totally happened guys. Much like real gaslighting, Narrative Gaslighting makes you feel stupid for interpreting things a certain way and insists you were wrong all along.

Narrative gaslighting is when Tyrian gives a speech that everyone should have suspected Dany when she burned slavers alive that she was secretly evil and would one day turn on them.

Like, no.

Dany is flawed because she is a foreigner, interfering with the politics of a different country that she does not understand in order to gain enough resources and men to return to her home country and invade that country to exercise her right as a Targeryn to uphold the divine right of kings.

Game of Thrones doesn't mention any of that shit that's in alignment with the previous actions in the story, it's just insisting the very ableist notion that Dany was insane all along and her violence towards other people is the result of her mental illness.

(Also before anyone says, so if she's a colonizer than how can she have good intentions, everyone is Bad in Game of Thrones, they're all waging war to vie for a throne, monarchy is bad guys. IDK how to tell you that Game of Thrones has gray on gray on gray on gray morality).

(Also this aside ties into the hangup of MHA and most popular fandom culture on Twitter, that Dany's moral failings somehow disqualify her from her humanity. In spite of the fact that on top of all of that she's a rape victim, and like, Dany's only on that continent in the first place because she was sold as a bride.)

But here's the same weird subtext that Horikoshi's writing of Dabi. The fact that Dabi was continually victimized and denied human dignity does not need to be addressed, because he did the bad things and didn't atone properly enough for it first.

In essence this random post on the gunnerkrigg court forums I found on the same day the chapter came out, displaying apollo's gift of prophecy.

"When someone is persecuted, it's important to inform everyone about their flaws. That way you don't have to feel anything about all the times that they were denied human dignity."

So, Dany is not written as a tragic hero but a romantic one, we as an audience are both meant to acknowledge her flaws and sympathize with her, not demonize her in an ableist way for being insane, and even if Dany is meant to die the tragic way she dies does not match up with all of the narrative foreshadowing that was built before that.

Like, for instance a lot of POC after the show ended kept telling everyone that Dany's actions in a foreign country were seriously problematic, and not only did the audience not listen but the showwiters didn't acknowledge it with the same subtlety as the books. So those people especially were able to pick up Dany's character flaws, and when the show finally acknowledged them it's not even in the way that critiques of the show were pointing out Dany's flaws it was just "she was insane all along." Not like taking time to go "no matter what the intention, interfering with the politics of a foreign country is wrong."

The problem with the Todoroki arc is essentially the same, down to the ableism (because outsiders continually call Dabi either a maniac or insane Demon without even giving credence to his grievances about hero society he's just reduced to an insane fringe element of society, and Dabi himself is reduced to a completely mindless, childish, insane screaming state where he can't make active decisions).

The Todoroki Arc is not set up to us as a tragic one. The ending is pretty clearly telegraphed to the whole audience. People are not wrong for thinking that Toya's ending would be either rehabilitation like Rei with the eventual hope of being welcomed home, or some kind of house arrest where he still gets to be with his family.

Everyone happy at the Dinner table and Enji not sitting with them.

"I wish you could be here, Toya."

"We all have to go stop, Toya."

"In that case, I'll make him sit down for a bowl with me."

Even Shoto's efforts to take down Toya non-lethally are rendered completely pointless, because Toya gets back up again and then burns himself alive (completely by his own choice so no one has to feel bad that they failed).

The story sets up the expectation that Toya is going to be brought home and sit down for a meal with his family. Then it makes you feel stupid for going in an entirely different direction. It was always going to end this way didn't you know The Todorokis are a tragedy?

Well, I just spent a very long section of this thesis statement illustrating that if it's supposed to be a tragedy, then it's still not written well.

It's a written as a romantic story of a family healing, and the villain getting saved, only for the villain not to be saved and the story to just keep on going like not getting saved isn't a huge failure. This is something that should permanently destroy the main characters, that they got the chance to repeat Sekoto peak and be there this time and they all utterly failed. I feel bad for Shoto most of all because he did everything right, and he still loses his brother, but does the story show that?

The problem is the story is blatantly lying to you about the fact that Toya was somehow saved, even though he LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE HELLRAISER. To quote Codenamesanzanka again:

But I feel the story couldn't give us that because it will remind the reader and everyone just how much Touya will be missing. In-story, talking any more will overburden Touya's heart - and how apt is that metaphor? So let's talk about how we'll talk, but that's all that's allowed here for this scene. Else we'll see how unfair it is that Touya has to be confined to this room, he isn't with his family and they have to come to this prison just to tell him about their day, and soon he will be gone. Details make it real, and it would've exposed the lie that Touya was saved in an actual way. The story knows it too - "this extra time Shouto gave us." This is all 'extra', and not the core. [...] If the story was sincere that this is a case of "it's simply too late" - as it should be!!! imo, to really drive in the clear point that they failed, they did not get the save they wanted, because that's the truth - the tone of the chapter isn't tragic enough for that. The tone is going for 'Making Peace With This'. We've skipped the stages of grief and all we have is acceptance. The characters have accepted this, and so must the readers as well.

Therefore it's narrative gaslighting, the story is making us doubt our perceptions and trying instead to manipulate us to feel a certain way. We don't have to question the unfairness of Toya's fate, because look at all the people he's hurt, and look how Enji is atoning and taking responsibility.

The story builds up the idea that Enji will choose Toya. That he will choose being a father over being a hero. Enji doesn't do that, and it's Toya who suffers the horrific, painful consequences while Enji gets off mostly scott free. Mind you it's also ableist to suggest that being in a wheelchair is some sort of life-ending consequence like he's fine. The story even goes out of its way to say how avoidable this ending could have been if Enji or Rei or someone lifted a single finger to give Toya the acknowledgement he wanted, and then gives it a "Too little, Too Late" conclusion but doesn't acknowledge that this is where it's ending and instead tells us that Enji has successfully atoned.

"Everyone's watching me. So this is what it's like. If it was such a simple thing, then why not sooner?"

If it was going to turn out this way Toya should have just died here, not because death would somehow be a mercy compared to life in prison, but because the Todoroki Family doesn't deserve to get to pat themselves on the back. If they let Sekoto Peak happen a second time, then they should have to deal with the consequences of that.

It would be consistent is my point. This is written as a "Too Little, Too Late" kind of ending, but we don't get the emotional response from the Todorokis that they've let Toya die a second time.

On the other hand, UTRH has the exact same tragic ending but it doesn't make me angry because it's honest about it. The Todorokis let Sekoto peak happen a second time. Batman let Death in the Family happen a second time, but look at how even the narration and comic panels of the story acknowledge it.

"Fate is a funny thing. It swells up like a raging current and we are forced to travel. It provides us no exit. No deviation. It drops us in a bottomless ocean and compels us. We either swim, or drown, and sometimes as we struggle against the tide, a great truth arises."

One ends with Enji meaninglessly stating that he'll spend the rest of his life atoning for Toya and watching over him (which I guess will be like two months tops) for the fifth time. The other ends with Batman being lectured by the Joker of all people of how he chose wrong and being forced to watch once again as a warehouse blows up, and he's completely helpless to save Jason.

UTRH ends with the message that Batman sucks, Enji's atonement arc ends with Natsuo calling him cool for atoning and UTRH makes me like Batman way more as a character. Whereas at this point I feel nothing from the Todoroki Family, except for a disgust for the way that Toya not only has to die, but has to die a slow, gruesome death while the rest of his family walks away with the small comfort of "oh at least we'll get to say what we need to say before Toya passes."

Especially with the fact that Toya's greatest fear was that when he died, he died meaninglessly because his family never grieved him and all moved on with their life. I guess we don't have to analyze how gross the underlying message that criminals don't deserve to be sympathized with because themes are for eighth graders.

EPILOGUE

The post is finished but apparently everyone expects me to cover every single possible angle even in posts this long.

You didn't address the cultural aspect. Under the Red Hood is a western story, and Todoroki Family is based on eastern concepts.

The post isn't about that. The post is long enough I can't cover every single topic. Here's someone who covered that topic thoroughly. This one discusses more about the nuances of collectivism.

Also, since the Todoroki Family obviously copied Under the Red Hood's homework, it warrants a comparison. Especially since it seems to critically misunderstand what made the original work.

Which is a valid form of Literary Criticism, as Ursula K Le Guinn once said:

 It doesn’t occur to the novice that a genre is a genre because it has a field and focus of its own; its appropriate and particular tools, rules, and techniques for handling the material; its traditions; and its experienced, appreciative readers—that it is, in fact, a literature. Ignoring all this, our novice is just about to reinvent the wheel, the space ship, the space alien, and the mad scientist, with cries of innocent wonder. The cries will not be echoed by the readers. Readers familiar with that genre have met the space ship, the alien, and the mad scientist before. They know more about them than the writer does.

The Todorkis aren't all to blame for Toya. Natsu, Fuyumi and Shoto are innocent:

You're right. It's just easier to refer them as the Todorokis then specifying "Enji and Rei" each time.

You didn't mention Shoto once in this post:

I have no cricism for Shoto's role in all this. In fact I think he's the best written part. I praise it here.

Shoto is a good boy, and he deserved to spend more time with his brother. The fact he won't be able to sit down and have dinner of him, is the greatest tragedy of them all.

[brujaluas]

What is your love karma?

"Tell me all the ways to stay away"

"I'm hearing voices all the time and they're not mine"

"A thousand voices howling in my head"

(each sentence also represents a pile.)

Ok, I had mentioned some things here on the blog and this week I saw a reading that fits perfectly with everything about my love life and I thought I NEED to do something similar for my dear ones, so here is your love karma from a past life (I'm thinking about doing what karma you carry in this life, let me know if you want)

pile 1

hm I see you being from the same worlds but at the same time distant, it's as if the female figure had a vocation and it wasn't love, maybe the female energy needed to dedicate itself to studies or focus completely on its career, a profession. And it communicated in a furtive and silent way with another person (the person you loved), who could be a soulmate. But the male energy needed to live around other people, be in the spotlight, with many people looking at it, it's as if you couldn't stay in the same place, one would always have to live far from the other or have little time together. Wow, I did a reading about karma, but your story came up here. I think you may have a difficult love, cultural and social differences, having to live far away, many people disapproving of your relationship…

pile 2

Look, you may have been promised to someone. I see a heterosexual couple here. A man and a woman. You were promised to marry an older, richer man, not an old man with a cane, one of those disgusting types of a girl married to an old man. He wasn't that old, he was even charming, but had a considerable age difference. You played the typical role of a housewife, but you didn't like it, and you may have gotten involved with someone else (cheated), someone just like you, in appearance, age (hello Cersei Lannister, lol just joking people), and you knew that this love would be your end, your ruin, one of you in this poorly planned love triangle would die or fall very hard. Maybe for a portion of people, you ran away with your lovers, because they also had a lot to offer, not that you were self-interested, but those were different times, I see a very time, and unfortunately the only way for a woman to prosper in that era was to marry a man, I see you in a successful escape, but it's as if you had to go to a super distant place, like another country, or for some, your current husband took you far away but you never cut ties with your lover, you sent letters and communicated and so did he, even from a distance.

Wow, this reading was even more intense. In this life you can have unequal relationships, difficult relationships and often love triangles, lack of trust in the relationship.

pile 3

Widower. That was the first word I thought of when I saw it. You were in a relationship with a widow or divorced person. were a person with masculine energy. had children and a structure. were very loyal to their family. I see you as a kind of perdition. Some people won't like that, but in another life you were like a homewrecker. Someone who could work in a brothel, too. But that's something very specific to some people. You had a beautiful relationship, but you had many suitors. You attracted attention, perhaps because of your sensuality. "I don't belong to anyone." You had a very bohemian life and he tried to control it, taking you to his house, asking you to marry him or have a stable relationship, giving you gifts and turning you into a perfect housewife.

In this life you can bring people who want to control you all the time, especially because of your way of being. You still have that personality that you had in your past life, more that others piles, you are still very connected to that past life. It's as if you have this rebellious streak, this lack of shame in being beautiful and sexy, and people go crazy, especially men. There's a song by Cyndi Lauper that talks about this: "Men take pretty girls and hide them from the world." BE CAREFUL WITH CONTROLLING RELATIONSHIPS AND LUST. REMEMBER THAT IT'S OK TO BE LIKE THIS. MEN COULD BE WITH WHOEVER THEY WANT BEFORE MARRIAGE, WHILE WOMEN HAD TO STAY VERY PURE. THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. DON'T BE ASHAMED. I needed to put it in caps because I feel that many who chose this pile have many problematic issues with themselves, they may have been pruned their entire lives, so listen carefully to each word in this pile. I always see a feeling of guilt in you, i see your soul, really.

[zafirosreverie]

Call the exorcist (Agatha x F!Reader)

For @roseclear

a/n: I haven't watch the show, I just know the basics, so sorry for any plot mistakes.

Spoilers for the ending

______________

Your life was chaotic. From the moment you met that damn charming, chaotic and slightly evil (well, very evil) witch, your whole world did a 180.

From one day to the next, magic was not only something possible, but little by little, it became something common in your life. Something you got so used to that you thought nothing could surprise you anymore.

Rule number one of being married to a witch: Agatha Harkness can always surprise you.

You weren't stupid, you knew she didn't tell you absolutely everything, that there were parts of her past she would never tell you, that they were completely buried and she planned to keep them that way. Not that it bothered you, if you were honest. 300 years of life had to have hard moments, and you decided that you wouldn't push her any further than she felt comfortable sharing you.

Still, that damn woman always managed to give you gray hairs, and you were sure that one of these days she would put you in an early grave. But you still loved her, more than life itself.

______________

The first scare was when she disappeared to go to Westview. You had a hard time getting in touch with her, and she only gave you a hasty and poorly structured explanation about chaos magic before sending you back home.

A week later, Maximoff's escape and what she had done to the town was reported on the news. You came back as quickly as you could, but you couldn't do anything. You were forced to watch your wife live as Agnes for 3 years, powerless and weak to bring her back.

Then the boy showed up. Billy Maximoff, or at least a variant of him? A reincarnation? The truth was that you didn't quite understand, nor did you care. The only important thing was that Agatha was back. And with her, chaos. Of course.

God forbid you have a second of peace with your wife.

The coven, Rio, Billy, everything was too confusing, too much for your mortal mind to understand in all the details how quickly the situation was changing, and Agatha, in the middle of it all, the central pillar, was not much help.

You knew she didn't tell you everything, but that she had gotten involved with death or that she had a child should have been some of the things she could have tell you, right? At least you thought that something like that should be important enough to tell her new wife.

You hadn't even finished assimilating all that when your witch, always chaotic and without explanations, kissed Rio, lady death, to save Billy. You didn't even have time to say goodbye to her, or to assimilate that, just like that, from one moment to the next, you had become a widow.

You didn't think you had known greater pain in your life. Knowing that your wife, the woman you loved, as imperfect, chaotic and evil as she was, was no longer there, broke your heart. You couldn't even stay there for long, you went back home as soon as you could, desperate that everything was a damn nightmare, that when you opened your eyes, Agatha would be there, with that infuriating but beautiful smile that you loved so much, ready for a new chaos.

But no matter how many times you woke up, reality was still there. Agatha was dead, you were alone. And your wife wasn't coming back.

_______________

…until she did.

________________

You calmly stepped into the shower, allowing the hot water to wash away the stress of the day, the worries and sorrows. You allowed yourself to close your eyes and focus for a moment on the feeling of the water against your skin, the warmth of the steam and-

"AGATHA!!!" you screamed as you jumped up, and your wife still had the nerve to laugh.

It had been less than a week since Agatha Harkness had come back into your life, ready to turn it upside down again. At first, you thought you had finally lost your mind (sometimes you still thought that it was the case, to be honest), when the ghost of your dead wife appeared in the middle of the living room.

However, in true Agatha fashion, she began to cause all kinds of mischief around the house, moving things around, disarranging things, and giving you those damn kisses that you still couldn't decide if you loved or not. And that was all you needed to know that yes, your wife was back. In the form of a pile of ectoplasm with too much time on her hands and too eager to take you to the grave too, but she was back.

"Come on sweetie, you can't blame me" she laughed, floating closer to you "you know I've never been able to resist your…charms"

You shivered as her fingers, cold and not quite physical, ran down your lower back. Before you could protest, Agatha kissed you deeply. Kisses with her were very strange now, to say the least.

Not that they bothered you, you just still had to get used to the feeling of kissing an ice cube that you couldn't really touch but was at the same time as real as yourself. You never imagined kissing a ghost, but here you were, proving once again how much you loved this woman even in death.

"You're a menace" you said as she pulled away

"But I'm your menace" she smirked

"…we said 'till death do us part', why are you still here?" you crossed your arms, covering your naked body a little

"Oh darling" she laughed and caressed your cheek with those icy fingers "it's cute how you really thought death would rid you of me. No, my love, you're mine, in this and every life after"

Something in her tone and the way her ghostly fingers gripped your chin, told you that she really planned to keep that promise. And you couldn't help but smile.

"That's cute, my love" you said "…but get out of my shower right now"

"Oh come on" she laughed "I've seen you how tou came into the world many times"

"Agatha!" you shivered as you felt her icy fingers on your lower back again

"Yes?" She smiled like the Cheshire Cat

"I love you" you said "but if you don't let me take A FUCKING SHOWER IN PEACE, I'M GOING TO CALL A PRIEST AND EXORCISE THE DAMN HOUSE!!"

And of course, that damn beautiful, charming, chaotic and slightly evil (well, very evil) witch that you loved more than life itself, had the nerve to laugh.

[lemotmo]

I do get this. It was an incredibly frustrating episode for sure but I can see this.

Q. I guess I don't know what I was expecting because I have no idea what I just watched. It didn't feel like an actual episode, if that makes sense. Everyone felt slightly off and I just don't know what the reason for doing it that way was.

A. No this makes sense, anon. I said to a couple of people last night that the episode felt like the coma dream episode in terms of the way the scenes were shot and staged. It did feel slightly not reality based, which I do think was intentional. Before I go further I am going to say that for the most part I think I get what they were trying to do. I just think, as usual with Tim, he's not the virtuoso genius filmmaker he fancies himself as being, and so the execution of his grand ideas get lost in translation. Which is insanely frustrating as a viewer. The other thing I will say is making Tim and Kristen the writers for this episode specifically was the wrong choice. They each do certain things well, and other things incredibly poorly. I hoped writing together would benefit the script because what each of them struggle with the other one usually does pretty well. That was not the case here. The show is trying to pull off a long con for lack of a better way to say it. Lab Rats was the setup to the con, Bobby's death. The Last Alarm was the hidden in plain sight reveal of what the con is, Bobby's casket being empty and him being held somewhere else without the family's knowledge. Using the arson case of the dead child was a clever way to reveal the con but the success of pulling something like that off requires nuance and structure within the writing, and unfortunately that is the writing struggle Tim and Kristen have in common. Neither one of them can write nuance or stick to a proper writing structure. They can slam you over the head with foreshadowing, and they very much did in this episode, but foreshadowing cannot be the only writing tool and in this case they used it for everything. That doesn't work with an episode like this. Spending more than half the episode on a case, that on face value ended up serving as only a distraction for Athena, was an insane decision. Yes they had to establish the con in a way that wasn't obvious but a stronger writer could have done that in half the screen time, and this show has those writers on staff, but Tim and Kristen are not those writers.

Moving on, I did not hate this episode, I can see and appreciate what he's trying to do even if the execution is beyond frustrating. First I will say this is the Athena I love. She was amazing in this episode. This is how she's supposed to be written as a character. The RoboCop vigilante bullshit they usually saddle her with is not the way to go for her. The Athena of this episode is the sweet spot and Angela was unsurprisingly spectacular. Kenny was equally brilliant. I absolutely understand Chimney being the 118 character focus for this episode given what we saw in Lab Rats. Kenny is a wildly underappreciated actor and when he's given the room to shine he absolutely kills it. He's so good to watch. Letting Athena and Chimney take center stage was understandable, just not for the episode that was supposedly Bobby's farewell, again though I think that was intentional.

I also really liked the brief bits of Hen and Karen and Hen and Athena that we got in this episode. Hen and Karen's relationship is always nice to see because they're beautiful together and Hen and Athena's friendship should have more focus than it gets because their friendship is really layered and lovely. I enjoyed those moments. The brief May and Harry moments were nice to see as well. Hopefully we get more of them next season.

Which brings me to Buck and Eddie. First of all I love that Buck, even in the context of this episode, was so excited to reveal Eddie's return to Ravi, and the audience, as a surprise kind of thing. I like that they let that moment exist even though it didn't really fit the episode, but it absolutely would be something Buck would feel like was a good ta da surprise kind of thing. I'm glad they let that moment be. And Eddie looked amazing, dear god I knew it was him from the stills but I still squealed when I saw him. I missed him tremendously. The show using Ravi as a kind of barrier to prevent the audience from seeing Buck and Eddie alone was a really interesting choice as well given what Ravi has always represented on this show. I know we all live Ravi but since his introduction Ravi has always been and used as the physical manifestation of Buck's trauma. He pops up in episodes where Buck is feeling abandoned or left behind so Ravi being present in that scene as well as being the hug the audience saw Eddie give someone was a really interesting choice. The Buck and Eddie of it all was small but there was a lot within that one scene. The colors they were wearing. Buck's one line of dialogue to Eddie being 'but you're here now', Eddie eating one of Buck baked goods even though had no idea what it actually was, but it was Buck's so he ate it. Buck's entire game right now is avoidance. He's trying to do the one thing his captain asked of him, be there for his family, so Buck is purposely pushing his own feelings about everything to the side for now. Those feelings include everything that has come up about what he might really feel for Eddie. Placing Ravi in the middle of the scene was a good way to show that neither Buck nor Eddie are ready for that conversation yet. But it is inevitably coming. And when you try to avoid something the universe has a way of screaming at you until you obey. A long standing theme for Buck and Eddie. I do think episode 17 will see Eddie and Hen focus and I expect to see something from Eddie in that episode because I do think the Buck and Eddie moment of reckoning is coming in the season finale.

I think the episode felt not real for a reason. I don't think Bobby is really dead but I think Tim is trying to push most of this to the season finale given the criticism of last season's finale. I think we will have the Bobby reveal, Maddie going into labor, and the Buddie moment in that one episode. Hence the episode title being Sesmic Shifts.

Thank you Nonny! I really needed this post in my inbox today. 🤗

I'm going to let this speak for itself. I already talked about these topics in my other posts and I've got nothing new to add here.

Just this:

I'm already looking forward to the next episode. I can't help it. 🤷‍♀️ I love this show too much. I just NEED some more Eddie, preferably in some more speaking scenes this time. 🙄😋

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[randobsdanalyst]

Dazai's View on Love and Intimacy: An Analysis

Thread on Twitter: https://x.com/RandoBSDAnalyst/status/1772760308244676950

It is quite true that BSD is not a series about romance, instead focusing on philosophical thought, humanity, trauma, and the idea of connections and trust. However, Dazai is, somewhat unsurprisingly due to his unique perspective of humanity, quite the notable exception to this. We hear, albeit just for a little bit, about his perspective of love, and there are plenty of references to his life under the sheets. I'll tie this into his overall philosophy and perspective of humanity in much longer analysis later, but this will do for now.

First, we can talk about their perspective on life and love, as for him they are closely linked together. Before he met Chuuya, he wasn’t interested at all in living or in the Mafia. He hadn’t officially joined as of yet, and he didn't plan to since he wasn’t too fond of Mori.

However, we can begin to see a shift occur after Dazai met Chuuya, and the difference is rather striking when we consider the discussion he had about the Sheep with Rimbaud while he had been setting up the “party“ for Chuuya.

It does show how much Mori's philosophy had already been ingrained in him, but more importantly, it shows a shift in his thoughts regarding life and humans. Seeing Chuuya fight, struggle, and interact with the Sheep is when Dazai began to change their perspective on living. Dazai observed Chuuya’s raw emotionality as well as his loyalty to the Sheep despite how poorly the Sheep was structured and how much they used Chuuya for his ability, and decided that maybe life could be worth living.

Dazai’s new idea was this: perhaps he could find humanity in the death and destruction that surrounds the mafia, and the struggle of the people who work within it. He, interestingly enough, considered loving an integral part of the human experience, and he wondered if he would come closer to finding what he was searching for and understand humanity better if he survived and studied how people breathe, love, and die. It is by interacting with Chuuya and watching Chuuya fight that he realized for the first time that he was maybe even eager to explore those facets of humanity in detail and that he wanted to survive and join the mafia, if only to understand humanity more closely now that Chuuya had opened his mind to the possibility. Even if he did and still does consciously and subconsciously distance himself from truly living and loving anyway, he felt he could at least give understanding these things a try. Obviously this philosophy changes and expands as he grows older over the years, but this base is what Dazai still seems to work off of.

Okay, now his sex life, which is related. He is obviously extremely flirtatious and charming towards others, and throughout the series, there are many jokes about his reputation as a heartbreaker and womanizer. He claims to find all women beautiful, and in the anime, he flirts often with the waitress in the café, much to her dismay as she watches his tab grow (he does not flirt with her in the manga since she is not a character there, but Dazai does mention a waitress he finds pretty). However, it is clear from what we are aware of in canon that Dazai does not view and use sex the same way people typically do. Instead, it is shown over and over again that it is in their nature to instead use sex as a means.

While he may take someone to bed to escape his feelings or to get something he wants (we can be fairly sure of the latter), he never canonically uses it because he genuinely finds the other attractive or desirable. Or at least that’s not the biggest factor in their equation based on what we can tell, no matter what they like to claim. He also does use the habit to annoy others, like when he pretended to have something going on with Saesaki during his entrance exam and flirted with Higuchi in order to both incur Kunikida’s wrath and have her off guard as he miked her. Even him flirting with the waitress is to mainly bother Kunikida, so that’s not entirely genuine, either.

He finds it so easy to appear shallow when it comes to relationships, keeping up his many masks and his womanizer persona, if it means keeping his image of the charming but shameless and vapid idiot. As a result, Dazai’s good at being the type of person who never stays the night and never calls back again or intends to remember names, even though he’s decidedly good at what he does to the point where some of the heartbroken women even go so far as to send him bombs in return for their spurned emotions.

He gives pleasure with the expectation of getting something he wants out of it, whether it be something he can feel or something he needs for a mission, and not because he himself desires it. All of this makes it hard to say definitively that he actually enjoys having sex and is attracted to women since he never canonically expresses honest interest in a woman. Now, this is leaning more into interpreted territory, but I would like to say that he has a general attraction to women, but never really felt completely attracted to one specific woman.

All this makes sense. Dazai is not comfortable with emotions, vulnerability, or intimacy despite the very loud but extremely charming persona he so often utilizes, while genuine, loving sex very heavily depends on all three. Emotions don’t process properly in his mind, and his thoughts hardly shut up enough for him to stop being distant from reality. To him, it is easier to act like he has a shallow taste in relationships than to let himself fully process the way he internally longs for genuine connection. It gives him physical closeness without intimacy, allowing him to feel the "love" and emotions that Dazai relates to humanity. Dazai isn’t even in the habit of desiring things at all, or at least he doesn’t like feeling like he desires things, as it has been in his experience that such desire can be easily twisted or end up ruined in some other way.

In fact, he is far more comfortable handing over autonomy of his own self and his emotions to others, looking at how he historically never had much agency over these things and never seemed to understand the need for them despite being someone who appears to need a ton of control over their surroundings. His intelligence and finely-honed ability to manipulate and deceive have always been used as tools for other people’s causes, never for his own, and his masks and personas are similarly very reflective of the desires and motivations people impart onto him. After everything, Dazai no longer feels that he has a real identity with fully real emotions and wants, and moreover, he actually finds it painful to have any such desires due to the knowledge they wouldn’t last.

In a sense, he finds more control in signing off his emotions than in having his own sense of self, and he therefore drifts from place to place based on what he feels is expected of him and will allow him to feel anything other than the numbness he often feels. It is less painful that way and allows him to not be so confused by the emotions he never understood. This desire to give up control of his wants to others in order to feel more stable and put together is also compounded by the disconnect he has from his emotions and his body, and so he ends up without having much regard for himself or his personal belongings whatsoever. They don’t process the way things affect them the way others do and they don’t feel the need to care about something that they find so undesirable (despite knowing intellectually that they are very good-looking and using that fact to their advantage). If anything, I think he believes his looks and body to be shallow and more than a little undesirable — instead seeing these as something that only serves to complete his strange self-caricature of humanity and hides the darkness and emptiness underneath.

So sex and desire in general just doesn’t fit in with his view of himself and his humanity (or the lack thereof), so of course he’d just mostly use it as a means to an end and cares little of the consequences on either end. I’d say they’re most likely somewhere on the aroace spectrum as a result of their subdued desires towards most people, since love and intimacy aren’t things he finds himself naturally comfortable with and feeling despite their habit of sleeping around all the time, even though it's clear that they do subconsciously want something more real based on their views. I guess he's a slightly sex-repulsed hypersexual? He just has a problem with understanding what he wants and what it means to be a human with natural boundaries, likes, and dislikes.

And this inability to process boundaries and desires gets even worse when he does manage to care for someone, when he does experience the emotions he can process as something close to love, whether platonic or romantic. The feelings are all-consuming and painful all at once, as they fill in the hole inside him like a drug if only temporarily. It's the reason why Chuuya and Oda became all that guided Dazai, why he can't stop thinking about Chuuya and why he careens between obsessing over him, self-destructing, and pushing him away.

Dazai has always romanticized destruction of any form, after all, so of course this would be the kind of thing he would find beautiful enough to process as love. This level of intensity when it comes to Chuuya, especially, allows him to experience much more of humanity than the empty destruction he experiences with others by giving up his body in return for whatever he needs. In addition, his lack of identity and inability to process his own wants means that the few desires he is able to have make him who he is in his mind.

He has no healthy concept of what love is, and all he knows is that Chuuya and Oda give him feelings he can't experience otherwise, and despite all of his fears regarding ruining the things he cares about, he can't help but want to cling on desperately to the bit of humanity he is able to be a part of when he is with them. It's ironically so human how they do so, how much they are willing to give themselves away if it means getting rid of the emptiness inside of them. He may not process himself as human and allow himself to be a part of the life and love he feels make a up what a human being is, and he may not truly understand emotions, vulnerability, or intimacy, but that very struggle is what makes him so complicated and human in the first place.

Related songs: "Maniac" by Phoebe Green, "Killed Someone for You" by Alec Benjamin, "Feel Something" by Jaymes Young, "Sippy Cup" by Melanie Martinez, "Mirrorball" and “The Prophecy” by Taylor Swift, "Teen Idle" by Marina, "Feel Something“ by Bea Miller, and "Vices" by Mothica

[keepingsecretstokeepyoutk]

This is going to be very long and sound a little crazy at first, and maybe a little mean but please hear me out…

I’m convinced that Taylor sometimes purposefully includes one line or multiple lines of poorly written or clunky lyrics in specific songs to make a point.

We all have seen some version of this with bearding songs like London Boy, a simple bop whose lyrics were immediately detected as sounding disingenuous, even with the general population (the locations she was signing about were the most touristy and too far away from each other to visit on the same day, etc, basically implying that she doesn’t actually have a long term local bf there that she spends a bunch of time with exploring the city with, etc).

But just like everything else on the album, I think she’s doing maybe a more in your face version of that. No holds barred.

So High School is an obvious example of this, with all of the early 2000’s hs imagery, she seems pretty blatantly to be mocking the idea the public has of her “living out every American girl’s high school fantasy” of dating the tall popular football player. With lyrics like “touch me while your friends play grand theft auto” (barf), etc, shes being clear enough that this is not a serious song.

This is the possibly controversial part, but I’m so curious to see what others think about this - I think another iteration of this on this album is the title track, The Tortured Poets Department. Hear me out.

(First, I want to reassure you that there are lines in this song that I really like and think are well written, like: “you’re in self-sabotage mode/throwing spikes down on the road” and “but you awaken with dread/pounding nails in your head/but I’ve read this one/where you come undone/I chose this cyclone with you”. And I fully agree with the idea that these sentiments are from Karlie’s perspective. Basically, when you take out the chunks I’m about to talk about this song makes way more sense and has a beautiful sentiment of undying love behind it - which makes the following parts stick out that much more!)

The first time I listened through the album, and this was the second song, I got terrified because I didn’t understand its place in the whole narrative and when I heard the first clunky line “scratch your head like a tattooed golden retriever” I got the ick. Then the bridge with no structure and no wit and no clever turns of phrase, no metaphor, just “you put my ring on the finger people put wedding rings on” and “that was the closest I’ve ever been to my heart exploding”. So over simplified and cheesy, and doesn’t sound anything like her writing, especially the caliber of her recent lyrics

I know art is largely subjective, but I insist there is no way that the same person who wrote Cowboy Like Me wrote these lines into her title track if she didn’t have a reason and a point to make. To make it clear that this isn’t a matter of genre personal taste, because I know CLM is a very specific sound and a style that music snobs often take more seriously - I love SO many of her candy pop bangers, they are infinitely more clever, articulate, and overall works of art by a true wordsmith than this. Karma, The Very First Night, etc are all a master classes in clever words and tight writing being tucked into an “unserious” pop song.

The lyrics I cited above to me sound like what haters believe her writing sounds like, even fans who make little jokey TikTok’s about her and make up a spoofy something to sing while in character - that’s what these lyrics sound like.

Im worried im being too harsh, but please stay with me because the more I think about the more genius I think it actually is.

In the context of the themes of rest of the album, (her being trapped, miserable, manipulated, ready to burn it all down, screaming to be seen) this theory became clear to me. I think she’s leaning into her public persona (in more ways than one, we’ve already seen it with the stunting), in a way setting a “trap” for her fans and the public, that will essentially call them all out on how they ignored the real her in favor of her pr narrative, making the album about paternity tests, etc, all of which I’m guessing will become very clear in retrospect, possibly after she comes out? (Of course it’s already clear to us now, which is another purpose of the beard songs including clunky writing - to signal to us that these are not serious and that she knows that we know that she knows (like Phoebe on friends lol))

Ultimately, this is (along with So Highschool) a classic beard song. When she writes in this voice, she embodies the most extreme versions of her public persona, not just the one she has cultivated on purpose, but also the one that people have of her that don’t know her (as she did in Blank Space), including those that don’t take her seriously - because her identity as a boy crazy psycho ex girlfriend is directly tied to people dismissing her art as vapid because, they’ve only ever heard her singles, they don’t know the full her.

That voice is the straightest, the most boy crazy, the most one note, and sometimes the most unsophisticated writer version of her that people have in their minds, including her fans - the fans that refuse to see her as a whole person, the real, that believe she is head over heals for big football boy, that believe “he knows how to ball, I know Aristotle” is a romantic line about how opposites attract, the fans that say they don’t “get” some of her most beautiful and well-written songs, the fans that don’t see her and haven’t been seeing her.

They didn’t see giant Taylor on the eras tour, they refuse to see all of her queer signaling, etc, and I think she’s making the bearding songs obvious to underscore the difference between her Taylor(TM) and Taylor(person) personas.

She knows that despite the fact that the lyrics don’t even come close to measuring up to the rest of the album, the public, and many of her fans, will make this song one of the most listened to simply because they are looking for evidence of her relationships from the past year. We’ve all commented on how insane it is that this layered, complex, devastating album is being reduced to the usual paternity tests. This is currently one of the top songs precisely because it is “about Matty”. And of course, So High School is one of the tops songs along with it because it’s “about Travis”.

The juxtaposition of the bearding songs alongside her beautifully written poetry of Prophecy, Peter, Whose Afraid of Little Old Me, Cassandra, How did it end, The Albatross, etc mirrors the juxtaposition of her two selves during the Midnights era.

She has proven the point that if they think she wrote every line of this song completely in earnest, then they see her largely no differently than her haters do, as a subpar writer who writes absurdly cheesy love songs praising trashy to mediocre, problematic men. By eating it up they tell her that’s what she’s good for, for being the subject of tabloids and warring fans who make this entire album about two (purposefully) mediocre songs and the men who “inspired” them.

She has proven her point - that a subset of her fans will be distracted by a lesser song simply because they think it’s about one of the greasy men that’s she been seen holding hands with. That they will ignore once again all of her pleas to be seen, that she’s in pain and caged, and has been driven insane by their willful ignorance. That they don’t appreciate her full potential and talent, that they don’t even see it, and just want to be confirmed in their ideation of her.

This song is essentially the “forget him(her)” pill at the beginning of the fortnight mv, but it’s a sedative for the fans, who are addicted to her straight narrative. Similar to Willow’s 13 chants of “that’s my man” that started off evermore, casting a spell of heteronormativity over everyone who wanted it, so that they could choose to just completely ignore the following 14 gayest songs ever written. Don’t pay no mind to her singing directly about women with zero male perspective - she said “that’s my man!” We’re good! She’s still straight!

Taylor in the fortnight mv had to a take a sedative to be able to go into the next room and write her bearding songs - ie she self medicates to deal with keeping up the straight persona and to get through having to release dumbed down songs to feed the masses. (I also see the pill as something forced on her, I think it represents both layers)

From the first time I watched the music video I thought the writing Taylor looked so miserable and the bearding songs are why.

In this room she’s trapped, churning out the songs that her fans expect of her, the songs that make her team money, the songs that make her money, but that she has to compromise her truth to create.

But when she frees herself she’ll burn the stories that weren’t true, the filler that doesn’t represent her.

I’m curious to hear other’s thoughts on this - have you ever felt like Taylor purposefully inserts off-sounding lyrics that are written in a different voice to make a point?

I want to reiterate that it’s not the entirety of either song that I think is terrible, I genuinely love bopping along to both So High School and TTPD (track). Like I said above, when you remove the clunky lines from ttpd (track), the song has another layer and likely gives voice to some Karlie insight that is beautiful and tragically profound. It’s the red herrings, the pieces specifically meant to tie this song to a bearding narrative, that I’m dissing, and the only reason they are suspicious in the first place is because I know how gifted Taylor is with the written word.

Taylor is such a skilled writer that she can embody the voice of the bad writer that dismissive ignorant idiots believe her to be, just to make a point!

I even wonder if maybe there is a second version of this song locked away in one of those drawers in the fortnight writing room that leaves out the red herrings and is a thousand times better than the bearding version we got.

I hope one day we get to hear it.

[quasi-normalcy]

So there's this thread on the Star Trek subreddit asking everyone what exactly they don't like about Discovery, and, inevitably, most of the answers are pretty bland, surface-level whining about "people crying" or whatever (something that famously has never happened before on Star Trek)

(He's just rubbing his eyes, don't mind him)

But I actually wanted to get into the weeds of it a fair amount, and so I wrote a post that became way longer than I anticipated. So below (specifying first that I don't actually hate it by any means), here's my in-depth critique of Discovery as a science fiction writer and fan:

Basically issue is this: much has been written about how Star Trek is a utopian future, a positive vision for humanity and yada yada yada…and all of these things are true. And in fact, I believe that Discovery—after its first season, at least—fits into this tradition. And I’m glad that this is true of Star Trek; I wouldn’t like it half as much if it were like, say, Babylon 5, or Battlestar Galactica.

But.

Star Trek is also fundamentally a science fiction story. And more to the point, it’s a specific kind of science fiction story: it’s science fiction in the vein of Isaac Asimov. When it works, a good Star Trek story—like a good Asimov story—works as a sort of a mystery or riddle or logic puzzle. Our heroes are faced with some problem, and we, the audience, are given clues to the solution. And if we, and the heroes, are clever, our perspective on the problem shifts and there’s this beautiful Aha! moment when suddenly everything falls into place.

Why is the Horta killing those miners?  It’s a mother protecting her young.

Why does everyone keep disappearing on Beverly? The don’t; she’s the one who disappeared, all of this is a false reality, and her friends are trying desperately to save her.

How are they going to bring the Romulans into the war? By making it look like the Dominion murdered their senator.

Now, not all Star Treks (nor all Asimov stories, honestly) fit into this mould. Sometimes the problem is poorly set up; sometimes the solution doesn’t really make sense. Too often, they’re just technobabble problems with technobabble solutions and you’re just left wondering why anyone should care. And indeed, some of the very best Star Trek episodes have an entirely different structure. Like I think that “Living Witness” is honestly the best Star Trek story ever told, and it doesn’t even try to fit into the mould. Nor does “Family”. Nor does “Bar Association” or any number of my other favourite episodes. But I still think that this is the baseline Star Trek plot: clever people in space encountering problems—whether scientific, diplomatic, political, engineering, or moral—and solving them by being clever.

This applies, by the way, even when it’s not really the main thrust of the episode. Like in the latest season of Prodigy, there’s this episode where the gang are taken prisoner by the Vau N’Akat, and Jankom has his prosthetic hand confiscated by them. How do they get out? Jankom reprograms a tricorder and hacks his own prosthetic hand! It’s a minor plot point but it’s clever and it’s fun to watch, because it plays fair with what we’ve established about the universe and the characters and how technology works here.

So then. Getting back to Discovery, my issue, straightforwardly, is that I doesn’t really have this plot structure. I mean, it does sometimes—I think that the solution to “Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad” is very Asimovian, and I can see how the outline of it in the resolution to the Klingon War, though I don’t think they really sold the solution. But it seems more or less absent after season one. I can’t think of a single moment in the last four seasons (and maybe this would change if I watched them again, but that won’t be for another few years at least) where I could point at the screen and say: “Aha! That was clever!”

It��s not that it’s dumb writing, by the way! Often times, particularly in season 4, the scriptwriters go out of their way to show their work (or, well…Dr. Erin Macdonald’s work, let’s be honest) to render their scripts scientifically plausible. But they feel somehow…paint by numbers.

Like, I liked season 4! It was my favourite! I think that the 10C were a cool concept and that the episode where they communicate with them was the best in the series. But did anyone ever seriously doubt how it would play out? The 10C didn’t know they were hurting people; we talk to them; we work out a mutually beneficial compromise. For Star Trek, that’s pretty much a stock plot; except here, it last 13 episodes. Or “Whistlespeak”; Michael and Tilly beam down to this jungle planet, participate in a ritual race…is there any chance that this won’t end in human sacrifice? Again, it’s competently executed, but it’s nothing new; nothing clever; nothing that makes me point at the screen and say “Aha!” The entire final season was a scavenger hunt literally based on solving riddles, and none of these riddles really rose above an escape room level. And what’s worse, none of these riddles really required elements that had been introduced beforehand. It never really felt like they were playing fair with us.

And ultimately, I think that all of this is a manifestation of the big, overwhelming problem with Discovery: everything—plot, character, worldbuilding—is driven entirely by theme. “We want to do a season on xenophobia / authoritarianism / COVID anxiety / etc.” Okay, well then this, this, and this need to happen, this character needs to act this way because they represent this, and then this needs to happen to convey this message. There’s no roomfor the story or characters to evolve organically; there’s no room for play. And that’s what this kind of cleverness is: it’s play. It’s the writers picking up the pieces that they’ve laid out and finding clever ways to use them. It’s the writers having fun. And if the writers are having fun, then the show is fun, and the audience is having fun! But if you just pick a theme and subordinate the logic of character, plot, and world to advancing this theme, it just becomes a sort of dour ritualistic pantomime, even when fun is had on screen.

Anyways, that’s my take.

[aedislumen]

Lazare Carnot ou le glaive de la Révolution (1978),

A documentary film directed by Jean-François Delassus.

Last Monday with @mathildeaquisexta, I had the great opportunity to finally watch this movie, which was believed to be a lost media for a long time. Indeed, it is not: if you are in France and live close to an archive or library that provides access to INA's stored material, you can see it too on the spot.

The film structure is rather straightforward and nothing new when it comes to this kind of media: there's a narrator, Michel Debré in this case, who describes Carnot's political and military career from his election to the Committee of Public Safety until the coup of 18 Fructidor. His vicissitudes through the Consulate and the Empire are only quickly listed in a couple of minutes at the end - as they are not the focus of the movie - to leave eventually space for M. Debré to draw some conclusions on Carnot's deeds and views on how a democratic state should work.

Considering that it hasn't been uploaded anywhere online yet and that the series, which the movie is part of, Les samedis de l'histoire, was broadcast only once - it didn't have much success apparently - my friend and I didn't have very high expectations, but with our surprise, the film revealed itself to be rather decent and entertaining, with very few serious historical inaccuracies.

I'm no historian and even less a film critic, so, instead of attempting to make - and consequently fail since I'm not trained for such things - a real review, I'll simply write down my personal opinions and impressions, starting with what I didn't appreciate, to proceed with its strong points. At the end of this post, if Tumblr allows it, I uploads some pictures I took with my phone and some others I found online. They aren't of very high quality; nonetheless, I did my best to edit them so that they look decent. Unfortunately, in some instances, removing the glare and other unwanted effects was impossible with the means available. Better than nothing though, since INA hasn't agreed on giving copies of the movie upon request yet.

With that being said, let's begin!

The Bad (historical inaccuracies/bizarre filming choices/general things I didn't like)

The film opens with Barère updating his colleagues at the Committe of Public Safety on the disastrous situation France is in as far as the conflict against the First Coalition is concerned. Someone who's specialised in warfare is thus needed and Carnot's name gets mentioned. Robespierre shakes his head, asking Prieur de la Cote-d'Or why he can't do that instead, given his experience as officier du génie. Here comes the first inaccuracy: in real history, Prieur and Carnot joined the Committee together on the same day and, in particular, it was thanks to the former that Carnot was taken into consideration, because in the beginning Barère turned to Prieur only (I wrote a brief post about that here). So, it wouldn't make sense for the latter to already be a CSP member; not to mention the fact that he's played by an old, overweight, non-disabled actor, so somebody who couldn't be more different that the real Prieur. Usually I'm not picky when it comes to actors' physical appearance, but this one in particular left me quite perplexed, especially if one looks at the rest of the cast, which is on point for the most part, sole exception being Carnot's younger brother who in '93-'94 was 38-39 years old and in the film he looks like he's 20.

The final assault in the battle of Wattignies - that one with Carnot leading the troops - is extremely poorly made. I understand that the budget was low, but come on... A bunch of soldiers running chaotically, like high schoolers trying to get the bus to go home, isn't the most flattering way to depict one of the most beautiful battles of the Revolution - to quote Napoléon.

There's no mention of Carnot's involvement in the arrest and consequential execution of Robespierre and associates. The events of 8, 9 and 10 Thermidor just include a clip of Hoche being sad in prison, while the narrator limits himself to mention that Robespierre, Saint-Just etc have been proclaimed outlaws; after their death is announced, the spectator witnesses the release of the young general. All in all, such a missed opportunity to show all the possible reasons - and there are! - why Carnot turned against his former colleagues, something that could have enriched the depiction of his character even more.

The interactions between Carnot and Barras. There's quite a number of testimonies, stating that the two often fought and didn't like each other at all; yet in the movie, not only they walk arm in arm, but they converse in a very friendly way. This is kind of inaccurate; for example: the real Carnot would have never revealed the whole delicate matter concerning his former girlfriend to somebody like Barras, but here in the movie he does.

The good (what I appreciated and thought brilliant)

Apart from the two unfortunate cases presented above, I appreciated each of the casing choices, particularly the actors playing Carnot, Robespierre, Saint-Just and Hoche. Alain Mottet simply is Carnot. Not only his appearance matches fairly well that of the mathematician during the Revolution, but also his way of acting is rather accurate, considering all we know about him from historical accounts, which portrays him as a polite, good-mannered, hard-working person, who acts as a sort of patron for young promising military men. If my still limited knowledge on his life can serve anything, I'd say Mottet's performance comes the closest to the real Lazare Carnot. Something similar can be said for Robespierre and Saint-Just, played by actors who represent them well both in looks and attitude. They aren't depicted as bloodthirsty dictators, not even as Carnot's sworn enemies, but as people of great talent and intellect with whom the former can interact without much issue. As for Hoche... You're going to understand very soon what I liked about his actor.

I found the choice of adding Feulint - Carnot's younger brother - showing his influence and support in the life of Lazare's life brilliant. He gets often - almost all the time, to be fair - forgotten or treated as a marginal character with little importance.

The relationship between Carnot and Saint-Just. Oh, this is gonna be long. Since both @saintjustitude and I have started studying Carnot's life we wondered what exactly the two thought of each other and if their interactions were truly tumultuous as it's always portrayed in French Revolution related media and described in Hippolyte Carnot's memoirs on his father. By checking some CSP decrees and letters, it seems like it wasn't the case at all, at least in the beginning, and that their relationship only started to deteriorate a couple of months prior to the events of Thermidor. Nothing confirms said theory better than this movie: Carnot and Saint-Just interact a lot; the former, in particular, gives the idea of genuinely caring about the latter: he takes time to salutes Saint-Just exclusively before leaving for Northern Austrian border; once Saint-Just and Hoche come back from Alsace, Carnot says enthusiastically how much he's proud of them for what they have achieved military-wise at such a young age. There's also a scene hinting to a certain intimacy between the two, in which Carnot goes to whisper something in his younger colleague's ear, who feels relieved afterwards. Last, but in no way least, when Carnot gets interrogated by Courtois after Thermidor and talks about Saint-Just, he does that smiling in a melancholic way, as if he regretted the death of Louis-Antoine.

There are various CSP-related scenes, but fundamentally they are of two kinds: those told by the narrator happening prior to Thermidor and those by Carnot himself after Thermidor. What's the difference between them? The former show a rather calm interactions among all the CSP members: despite their diverging opinions on certain matters, they always manage to come to an agreement in a civil way; this applies to the Carnot-Robespierre-Saint-Just trio too, of course. When the main character is interrogated by Courtois though, a complete different version of the events get revealed: here Saint-Just and Robespierre are constantly at odds with him, they are suspicious of him to the point of wanting to get rid of him; in return Carnot calls them ridiculous dictator. To sum up, what he says to Courtois is nothing different from what's reported in Hippolyte's memoirs on the various altercations occurring in the CSP in the last months right before Thermidor. The way it's all presented makes the spectator wonder whether Carnot is actually telling the truth or a skewed, exaggerated version of the events in order to save himself from the reaction that after hitting his former colleagues - Collot, Billaud, Barère - is coming for him too, something that the movie puts a lot of emphasis on. I want also to point out that none of the scenes narrated by Carnot during the interrogatory is shown in the first part of the movie, so one never knows whether they truly happened, or whether they are fabricated by the latter. I found it brilliant, because it shows in a clever way how memories and written mémoires can be biased and unreliable.

It's given importance to Carnot's role in the Napoléon's climb through military ranks, something which Barras usually gets an unfair amount of credit for.

I appreciated the final comments by Debré on the fact that, according to Carnot, a real democracy in which citizens are truly free can only be achieved through a strong central government and not a weak one as it's commonly believed at the time the historian is talking.

Despite the movie being favourable to Carnot, it doesn't exaggeratedly praise him; in fact, it shows that he too committed mistakes as anybody else at the time and that also whatever he said about his former colleagues who got executed in Thermidor - notably Robespierre and Saint-Just - might not be the whole story.

Some pictures (those for which there's no external link are mine)

Carnot (Alain Mottet)

Sources for the first two pictures: 1, 2 (from this one I removed the watermark)

Robespierre (Michel Favory)

Saint-Just (Maxence Mailfort)

These two above are from antoine-saint-just.fr

Bonaparte (Daniel Mesguich)

Saint-Just, Robspierre and Couthon (Michel Modo)

Prieur (Igor Tyczka), Lindet (Roland Monod) and Carnot

Hoche (Manuel Bonnet)

Bonus: Hoche with a merveilleuse (Christine Locquin), who later in the movie will present herself to him dressed as hussar for some reasons:

Yes, I took an embarrassing amount of pictures featuring him.

Collot (Christian Bouillette) and Billaud (Bernard Salvage)

I'll add some more in a reblog since Tumblr doesn't allow more than 30 pictures per post.

[somarysueme]

Gaaaawdddd. I am so overwhelmed with happiness over the finale, over Do The Work, over seeing and being there for each other, over EvSam CANON. REAL. LOVE.

But there are already so many beautiful posts about the nature of love and care. (About Evan’s unwavering respect and advocacy for Sam!!!!)

Instead of retreading that, here is detailed headcanon about every permutation of the Pilot Program fucking it out:

Sam/Evan: It doesn’t happen that often because neither one actually has a very high sex drive. Mostly they just like to snuggle and kiss a bit. But when they do actually get into it, it so tender and gentle oh my God. Lots of Evan checking in with Sam, helping her figure out what she actually likes, unwavering dedication to Making It Good For Her.

Yes, they do eventually dabble in pet play but it’s 100% not sexual. (In fact any kind of sexual power exchange is a pretty big turn-off for Sam.) That said, sometimes it’s OK to let your boy be nekkie and in a collar while you watch The Sarah Connor Chronicles. He will bark every time they violate established lore, and that’s also love.

Sam/K: have you ever read Maka Maka? Sometimes two besties just want to sit on the same hitachi and talk about boys. Nothing weird about that!

Sam/Jammer: I feel like it would take some Circumstances to happen, but it certainly could. He would be a little less Constant Explicit Checkins than Evan, because he trusts his read of his beloved friend Sam’s signals. But he’s still such a gentleman as he encourages her to bounce on it in a self-respecting life-affirming way until she is getting Magic Funnel Sweaty.

Jammer/Evan: this would also take some Working Up To It (I think this is true for all Jammer/Any Team Mate because he worries about blurring those lines) but when the feelings and circumstances align it is the most athletic bro4bro nonsense in the world. They just hype each other up mid-coitus and there is a 100% chance of causing structural damage to whatever bedroom was unlucky enough to contain them.

Evan/K: pre-breakup they were just wild horny teen poorly negotiated kink exploration 24/7. They both enjoyed it but also both needed A WHILE to digest it before the possibility of being intimate together could even be on the table. K dredged all kinds of weird shit out of Evan’s id that he has a hard time reckoning with once they break up. Is he ACTUALLY into that or was he just indulging K’s weird fetishes? He compartmentalizes it for a long time, until they are older and he’s once again comfortable with dipping his toes back into Weird Shit. Someday he will be, and the elaborate forcefem roleplays will be waiting for them both.

Some other day, when they are even older than that, and only once in a while, he’s willing to go Dark Lord on them in bed again.

K/Jammer: again, never really occurs to him, but K is like “Jammer I need to figure out how to have normal sex”. And he’s like “wow. Uhm. OK? Well that’s a wild proposition even setting aside the implication that sex with Whitney Jammer is “”””normal”””” but OK!”

They both have to have a couple beers or possibly vodka cranberries for less carb load, and also he does have to frequently refocus K on their intention to Not Get Weird With It. But when a team mate comes to you recognizing a need to improve their game, you respect that. You honor that. You help them figure out what sounds they can make that don’t come from hentai. That’s what a good point guard does.

[goodlucksnez]

Shipwrecked

I have no explanation other then the fact I have had the hots for Poseidon for a few days now and i had to write something.

so yeah! CW mess, contagion, mess stuff (really leaning into the messfucker in me)

sorry the ending is rushed i ran out of energy to write

The waves, he was always proud of them. The way they crested before they fell. The absolute beauty of the sea to most mortals is a thing of passing beauty, but to Poseidon, it’s his whole life. He spent his entire life devoted to the sea, so why in this moment was it trying to kill him?

As he neared the ragged granite cliffs formed many years ago by volcanic eruptions, rough and jagged to the touch, the more he dreaded the world above. Many of his brothers and sisters made fun of him for this fact for years, but there’s something so surreal and comforting about the sea. So when he paused, just a few inches below the surface, he took a deep breath and plunged forward, knowing the misery which would befall him.

The gravity is what hit him first, the agonizing pull down to the watery depths to which he had arrived. Next is the feeling of water running, but I wasn’t water. He realized after a moment that his nose was dripping and his muscles ached. He gripped onto the rough edge of the volcanic structure in front of him, dragging and scraping himself as he slowly pushed himself onto it. He felt utterly weak in the state, and while he would vow to never speak those words out loud, the fact did cross his mind, ‘He may be sick.’

The rock was warm due to the sun heating it for many hours. After a while, he reached his resting position. One arm prompted up, holding his aching head. His hair slung down behind his back, the ends floating on the sea’s surface, slowly getting movement with the tide. A few strings clung to his forehead and cascaded down over his eyes.

He felt a small tickle beginning in his head. He leans his head against the rock, his eyes beginning to reflexively close. His relentless drippy nose causes him to sniffle, a wet and very liquid sound. His nose is red, and from the looks of it, twitching, the increasing need to sneeze is becoming very immediate. His breathing starts becoming shaky and the waves begin to lap against him in a quickening fashion.

He coughs lightly, but that just causes him to draw more breath. His nostrils flare, and mess begins to drip out onto the rocks below him. At the last second, he attempts to poorly cover with his hand.

““hrrRR’USSCHHIUE!!!-USSHIEWW!! hiH-! huUDZ’EEISSCHHIUHh!!! …. snnnrgk~ … snrgk

The tail end of the release is a wet, gurgly drop of mucus bursting and spraying into the air and landing upon the rocks in a thick mist. Mess decorates his face and is dripping freely onto his chest, causing a shine.

The waves have picked up around him, and the nearby docked boats sway with the surge of water. He sniffles wetly, thanking no one saw that before he hears a small voice.

“Ummm, bless you?”

The force he whips around causes another surge of water and almost capsizes the small raft, only a few feet away from his mess of hair.

The design is very simple. Logs arranged side by side and secured with crossbeams for stability. A mast is in the middle. A few baskets and nets are arranged and scattered about, and a mortal is staring up at him.

It takes everything in his power not the smash the raft right then and there, he sniffs wetly, the sound deafening to him.

“Mortal, I have killed for less. You should be careful when addressing a god.” As powerful as he tries to sound, the effect seems to be lost as his voice cracks. 

The mortal who has been clenching the mast for stability as the waves are lapping replies. 

“I do not think you are in any place to say, oh mighty Poseidon.” 

He retorts. “Funny, you seem to know my name, but I do not recall yours?”

She laughs at him, “I wasn't born yesterday, I know you never give a god your name, but I guess if I survive the next few minutes, I will spend my life trying to convince others this was real, so what is the harm. My name is Lysandra and this is my fishing boat.”

He feels his ears redden and he sniffs back as mess threatens to run, another tickle quickly forming in his swollen nose.

“Well Lysandra.” He pauses to sniff. “As I am not a fish, I suggest you move on”. He goes to continue, but his breath catches in his throat. He turns his head, sniffling more urgently as the tickle becomes stronger with every inhale. The tides begin to pull back, and the raft she is on gets dragged closer to his torso. To add insult to injury, the mortal jumps into the water and paddles a bit to reach a rock formation and hoists herself onto it.

“I think I might be safer out of the water, didn’t know every storm was caused when you sneeze.”

He glares at her but only for a second before more wet sneezes burst through him.

“HAAEyY’ESSCHIEWWw….hiyY’ESSCHHIUE-!!....hhzZZSCHHIOOO!...snnrgk! Snnrff! snrffh! snrk! 

Spray is shot from his nose, leaving tendrils of snot on the rocks in front of him. The spray from the string of sneezes coats the rock and glints in the morning light. He feels the shift of congestion in his head as he sniffs back. His head is full of cold, and if he doesn’t blow his nose soon, this could get bad.

The waves as a result of the fit are chaotic. They rise with a swelling force, curling at their peaks before plunging downward in a thunderous collision with the rocks. The impact sends plumes of white foam and mist into the air, the sound deep and resonant. The raft the mortal has so wisely abandoned was now nothing but a few stray log as it had been thrown onto the jagged rocks. The mast half sticking out of the water, the sail flapping in the wind. 

He sighed and attempted to wipe at the mess hanging from his nose when a noise startled him and caused him to jump.

“My raft you dick!!” 

The mortal Lysandra cried out, looking upon the damage with shocked eyes! “That is my whole life and you just destroyed it to pieces with a fucking sneeze. Are you kidding me?!”

Poseidon was shocked, most mortals, especially ones whose livelihood he controlled, were typically nice and devoted, but this one spoke in such a disrespectful tone, it was borderline mean. He raised his hand to silence her, but she continued

“And I know what you are going to say, ‘I am a god, I can do what I like’. That doesn't mean you can destroy someone else's property. I don't care that you have a cold.”

He felt rage building in his chest and the sky grew dark as storm clouds began to fill the area. He rose slightly out of the water. Even half out of the water, he was 10 feet taller than this mortal.

His voice boomed out, “Enough!!” he continued when the young woman shook and clutched onto the rock. “You do not speak to me that way. I will do what I like, and I do not have a cold.” The threat was lessened when he sniffled a wet, gurgle sound.

The woman replied, a little shaken but still with an air of cockiness. “Oh yeah? I can see your nose twitching from here, and I am sure that rock didn't have a shine to it a moment ago, at least cover your mouth when you sneeze.”

“Mortal..choose-”

“My name is Lysandra.” She huffed. 

“Mortal, I do not have a–” his nose chose that moment to betray him. His breathing began to hitch, and mess began to leak out. Coating is upper lip and dripping down his chin.

“Fucks sake, cover you nose. You have a cold, and from the looks of it, a bad one. I would like to make it home alive.”

His breath came in short, harsh puffs of air. His nose was leaking onto his chin, and yet he still denied it. “Hhhuhh… hhhuhh… No, no, I’bm fibe.” he said, hitching.

"Uh-huh. That’s exactly what someone who isn’t fine would say."

His voice wobbles as he fights the inevitable. "I swear—huhhh… I don’t —hiyY’ESSCHHIUE-!!....hhzZZSCHHIOOO!!! Snnrgk! I’b fide. I do not deed a tisshu.”

She throws up her hands in exasperation. “Oh, good lord, you are useless.” She climbs down off her rock and carefully makes her way over to the broken raft she once called home. And began untieing the hemp ropes. Once the knots were untied, she took a few steps back and yelled out to the god. “Just use the sail as a tissue, not like I'm going to get much use out of it now.”

Poseidon felt his whole life end. How could a mortal expect a god to do something so undignified as use a sail of a boat to blow his nose? She was insane, she must be!!

He replied his voice thick with congestion. “Ib nod as bad as id soubds. I do nod need to sddee—hhuhh…Hhuhh…hhuhh… see? Nod hapbening."

But she was resilient, “I swear if you don't, I will climb up there and kick you in your nose!”

Poseidon was scared of very, very few things, but this sent a wave of fear crashing through him like the waves that lapped at his side. He felt weak, but in this moment, he had no choice. He reached down, picking up the fabric as the sneeze built. At the last second, he buried his nose in the waiting fabric.

“hrrRR’USSCHHIUE!!!-USSHIEWW!! hiH-! huUDZ’EEISSCHHIUHh!!!

The sneeze ripped through him. The congestion spilled out of him into the awaiting fabric. He rubbed at his aching, wet nostrils vigorously and blew a huge, squelching blow into the knit fibers, soaking the sail in thick sticky snot. He sniffed wetly and began lowering himself to be eye level with the mortal.

His face was an absolute mess. His nose was all red and dripping, leaving wet marks on the rocks. His face was flushed from embarrassment, he let a mortal see him in such a state. His voice when he spoke was thick with congestion and rough-sounding.

“You will tell no one what you saw today.” 

She had to laugh. “First of bless you, and second, I am sure no one will believe me if I tell them, and third, I think you might want to go lie down, that cold does not sound done with you yet.”

Before he sank completely away from view, he muttered a quiet thank you and disappeared between the waves. 

[eclipse-has-come]

— John Price Imagine

Thinking about John Price being a victorian era gentleman that died young and owning an antique shop in a building that used to belong to him (he's haunting it).

Warnings: Kinda stalking? "He's a ghost living with you and you don't believe that he exists so he watches you go about your day" kind of stalking so if you're uncomfortable with that, you're welcome to sit this one out.

A/N: Hello everyone! It's my first post on here and i still don't really get tumblr so some things might look a bit weird. I have not written in so long I might as well have forgotton how to do so but I had this dream the other day and i had to write it down because omg it made me feral. Disclaimer, I am not a native english speaker and i have no beta reader so if there are any mistakes, I do apologize!

Anyway, enough about stuff you don't care about, enjoy this short imagine based on my dream!

You finished up your degree not too long ago and your neverending search for a job keeps going nowhere. Everyday you would submit your cv to at least 5 different employers and most of the time, you only received an answer from one. Every interview you managed to snag was a miracle in and of itself. Too bad those didn't go anywhere either.

Everyday while going to your bus stop, you'd see an old victorian building. While once upon a time It would have been a beautiful structure, now it's only a shadow of it's former self. When you first passed the vintage store-front while walking back from yet another failed interview, you payed little to no attention to the dilapitated bricks. That was until you got back to your flat one day and realized it reminded you of an old antique shop you used to visit back home.

Back then it was run by a kind elderly lady, who would always give you old toys that didn't sell well, you recall fondly. Back then younger you was fully convinced that your future was to one day run an antique store just like that.

It should've been just an ordinary morning but the day after you reminisced about the antique shop, something strange happened. While walking your usual route, you noticed with the corner of your eye a man standing on the stairs leading up to the entrance of the victorian building. You ignored him at first (no use in getting involved), until you saw him walk inside- no, phase inside the building.

You honestly didn't even register what had happened until you were walking back home, passing the cursed building yet again. You stopped in front of the entrance, resignation filling you, whatever demon wanted you to check out this poor lump of bricks and giving you weird visions in the process, it had won. Walking up the stairs, you spotted a lone flyer posted on the door:

"FOR SALE"

Underneath the large words was a poorly scratched on number that you could barely make out. That evening you sat on your couch, debating whether to call or not. If you were being honest with yourself, you were running out of options fast and growing more and more desperate by the hour. You sighed heavily and entered the number into your phone.

The cheap price should have been the first red flag, the previous owner claimed it was haunted and "wanted to be rid of the headache as soon as possible" or so they said. When you first entered the inside, you were in absolute awe, It was beautifully adorned with carved patterns, seemingly transporting you back in time.

An apartment was located on the second floor of the building, adding to the convenience of this inexpensive investment. The large display windows were eye catching and even though the building could use a lot bit of work, you could already see just how incredible it would look. Well, you always were a fan of fixer-uppers.

During your diy renovations however, some strange occurrences started to catch your attention. At first it was nothing out of the ordinary, a floorboard creaking (it is a very old building after all) or maybe a box falling over (shouldn’t have packed so much!) but then it starts getting harder and harder to ignore.

Paint splashes on the wall with the bucket it belonged to on the other side of the room, cracks in the window appearing overnight etc. You truly didn’t believe in the paranormal and when the previous owner warned you, you ignored it, waving it off as some guy's crazy talk but this was becoming a little too hard to scientifically explain.

Even still, you powered through, pointedly ignoring any and all warning signs. However annoying these inconveniences were, they weren't truly malicious. No harm ever came to you nor the antiques you got and by the time the store was ready to open, you could only sigh in relief. All of the blood, sweat and tears you poured into this project finally paid off, your younger self would have gone ballistic if they saw you now.

Walking through the aisles filled with old trinkets, admiring their unique charm and the way they looked on the hand-built shelves. You sincerely hoped the next owners would appreciate them just as much as you.

Opening day was incredibly exciting, you were certainly not expecting the amount of people coming to see the new store. Turns out the previous owner was well known in the community, ("The building was passed down through generations!" One lady told you while admiring the ornamental chandelier you installed.) which made many residents eager to meet the next unlucky owner.

What pleased you most of all, is that all unusual situations ceased or at the very least, you stopped noticing them. Which would be understandable, a week into opening and the store was full of hustle and bustle. It truly warmed your heart to see that others treated these unusual objects with as much reverence as you held for them. If there really was a ghost here, then they must agree that what you'd done for the place was for the better, you giggled to yourself.

You turned the ‘closed’ sign around just as the clock struck six on Saturday evening. Even though you're beyond happy the whole store thing worked out, you can't deny that you're incredibly tired. Who knew constant social interaction and standing all day would cause you to want to curl up in your bed all sunday. Walking towards the stairs leading to your apartment, you observed the half-empty shelves, a satisfied huff leaving your lungs. Walking up the creaking stairs, you noted down in your brain to put some paintings on the plain staircase.

Entering the old flat you tiredly trudged through the still unorganised rooms (almost all of your time was spent on the downstairs of the building, your living space was just an afterthought during the renovations), you entered the bathroom to take a long scalding shower. Due to your tiredness however, you failed to notice the near silent footsteps following you.

After several minutes of nearly boiling yourself to relax, you step out of the shower. Careful not to slip, you reach for your softest towel. ‘You worked really hard and now you could finally pamper yourself’ you decided. With your mind set, you turn over to the mirror ready to start your skincare routine when you suddenly freeze in your tracks.

On the steamed up mirror, a short sentence managed to make you reconsider your opinion on the paranormal up until this point. Written in neat letters and gorgeous handwriting, there it was:

"Hello Darling"

[maxiemumdamage]

Hmmm…this may be too much of a reach, but…did Steven Universe mean to imply that the flawed or decayed structures on Earth were put there by Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz deliberately?

I think the Beta Kindergarten is the biggest potential example. Peridot mentions that while the Prime Kindergarten was super well-planned and organized, the Beta Kindergarten was a messy rush job. Something that had the potential to work, but was too small and poorly run to ever generate worthwhile soldiers. Peridot says that’s because the Beta Kindergarten was built in a hurry to generate extra forces for Homeworld during the rebellion, but…

…what if instead it was meant to generate extra forces for the Rebellion? What if it was flawed and messy and churned out countless off-colors and just one perfect Jasper not by accident, but by design?

If Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz was strong-armed by the other Diamonds into creating another Kindergarten to crush the Rebellion, then it being defective and poorly planned could’ve been a choice made by Pink deliberately.

If Pink planned Beta and planned it poorly on purpose, then the location makes sense. Small, situated in the middle of a desert, poor growth conditions, and terrible organization all make sense from the perspective of a rebel leader trying not to make her cause have to fight any harder.

Plus, where the Prime Kindergarten tore up a beautiful pasture, the Beta one kinda blends into the desert. Obviously deserts are still full of life, but…if Pink/Rose didn’t yet appreciate all of Earth’s biomes, she might not have realized that. She might not have been as worried about destroying an ecosystem by building a Kindergarten there.

Plus...if the gems from Beta came out off-color, they’d have an incentive to join the Rebellion. They’d never fit in or be accepted on Homeworld, so instead of Pink they might swear loyalty to Rose right out the gate.

Maybe I’m attributing too much intent and deliberation and ruthlessness to Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz. Maybe she wouldn’t deliberately create a situation where Gems would be born already hated and endangered on Homeworld. But I do wonder.