#because fuck everyone else this is very important for me 2 articulate

[lunar-years]

Okay. Let's talk Jamie and Roy getting beers and being idiots.

I know we are all still processing that whirlwind of a finale. I'm understanding that a lot of people hate the Roy & Jamie scene because it is 1) backslide-y (true) 2) they treat Keeley like a prize to be won (true) and 3) it's OOC (I actually disagree with this one, but I can understand why it's complicated). I want to start off by saying I completely see where this opinion is coming from and I respect everyone who just hates the scene because it shows normally kind characters being very unkind to each other etc. This is less me arguing against that as it is me trying to articulate (at great length, sorry) why it not only worked for me, but I genuinely liked it.

I like to think I strike a balance between loving everything the show has done and hating overwhelmingly on a show I claim to enjoy, but sure, you could definitely argue that I'm just giving my favorite characters the benefit of the doubt, or making excuses for them, because they're my favorite characters. I'll admit I'm historically very forgiving of all the main characters' many fuck-ups on Ted Lasso, but that's because I think the show works best when it emphasizes how kindness, forgiveness, friendship and love can still operate between imperfect, flawed people. I like seeing them make realistic mistakes much more than I like everyone handling everything perfectly, I'll bite.

So, back to Jamie and Roy. I enjoyed their finale plot because despite them making a world of mistakes, the regression felt very, very human. I don't agree at all with the take that this somehow erased all the progress they've made this season or the friendship the show has lovingly crafted between them. In fact, I think this actively reiterated it! (Note: I am operating with my ot3 goggles on at all times, so I'm going to write this with that at least partially in mind, but I think the gist of it works even if you ignore the bits that get a little shippy.)

For both Jamie and Roy, Keeley and their love for her is a major beacon guiding them. I think that is the crisp, clear thing in both of their heads this episode: Keeley is the love of my life. And they both believe that wholeheartedly, and they both want to be with her. (and it's goofy to pretend this came out of nowhere for Jamie/since when is Jamie still in love with her/etc. because he literally told her and us this last season and nothing that has happened since has indicated otherwise, btw.) But there's also something else now, which is their relationship with each other, battling with their Keeley thoughts. It's like, in Roy's head, for instance, I imagine there are two wolves: on the one hand he loves Keeley, and wants to be with her, and plans to win back her heart. On the other hand, there's his love and care for Jamie Tartt, which is much less defined and inarticulate and maybe still a little repressed, but just as overpowering. His love for Keeley feels so simple and clear in comparison, while his love for Jamie is something complicated and unsure, and in this episode, he's leaning hard into the first to avoid unpacking the second.

So Roy starts off strong. He sees Jamie with Keeley in the hallway and he doesn't flip out!! Instead, he approaches Jamie calmly, and invites him out for beers. Think about how different this is from his reaction to Jamie's love confession to Keeley in season 2. This is Roy's growth in action, and it's a resounding sign of just how important Jamie is to Roy now. Even when he is feeling jealous of the woman he loves potentially leaving him behind for a man he loves (a completely natural reaction, let's be so real, if not a "good" one), he also knows that for as much as he wants to be with Keeley, he doesn't want to lose his friendship with Jamie.

As for Jamie, I know some people took his reaction and subsequent response to Nate's question as like, shock at the realization that he and Roy are actually friends now, which I agree is something that had to have come earlier in the timeline (what was Mom City if not that) and would seem very out of place at this point. What I saw it as instead was Jamie's brain more just. sort of short-circuiting? Because: holy shit isn't this the best day ever? First Keeley agreed to go to Brazil with me and now Roy is asking me on a date for beers? this is so sound. This invite is out of place behavior from Roy even within the parameters of their friendship, because they still have a match to win and Roy has banned Jamie from beers as part of his training and despite them being close now I find it hard to believe that Roy often comes up to him right there in dressing room to ask him to grab a beer with no pretense.

Therefore, they're already walking into that bar in completely different head-spaces. Jamie isn't planning to discuss Keeley, and for Roy that is his major intention behind the evening. Jamie is nervous and downing his beer, and Roy is internally panicking, I'm imagining, over when and how to bring Keeley up. I think Roy is thinking: Well, I don't intend to stop pursuing Keeley, I genuinely don't want Jamie's feelings to be hurt when I get back together with her (and yes, it is a huge presumption for him to assume Keeley's going to eventually take him back. But I think it's also an understandable one), so I've got to tell Jamie I care about him, and that I'm going to keep going after Keeley, and he needs to be okay with that so that this won't get in the way of our friendship, which I also desperately need and am unwilling to give up. In his mind, Jamie is of course going to accept all of this, because Roy and Keeley are soulmates, which Jamie will clearly recognize deep down because it is so obvious and right and anyway, Jamie always does what Roy tells him to do (again, this is all misguided thinking. But we can see how Roy's anxious little brain that's bad at processing feelings and holding space for emotions could get himself here, can't we?).

So again, we start off strong with Roy saying he's proud of Jamie and them both thanking one another. But then Roy's blurting out nonsense about how Jamie just needs to pull himself out of the running and just let Roy be with Keeley. Which is obviously not on. And Jamie responds, simply, with No. I'd argue this is also a huge step for Jamie. Jamie really doesn't tell Roy no anymore, he doesn't tell anyone no. Jamie has spent so much of his time since coming back to Richmond working to be the person everyone around him wants and expects him to be. This is him fighting for something he wants for once, doing what is best for him. It was a fabulous progression to see. In the moment, boy does it work Roy up, because why is Jamie not agreeing with me, Jamie always agrees with me? but obviously at this point, Jamie is in the right. His relationship with Keeley was no less meaningful than Roy's just because Roy says it was, Roy doesn't have any claim on her, and there's no real reason Jamie should not try and shoot his shot with Keeley if Roy is going to do the same.

Here's where things start to spiral. Established flaws we know about Roy: he's competitive. He's bad at voicing his feelings productively. And he is territorial about the people he loves, a category that safely includes both Jamie and Keeley at this point in time, for better and sometimes worse. Yes, his next actions are grossly possessive over Keeley, yes Roy has made a lot of effort over the past year to do and be better than that, to break free of that cycle. But look, it's not a linear process. He's going to still mess up, and he does here. In fact he's downright mean, weaponizing Keeley against Jamie and throwing having sex with Keeley a month ago into Jamie's face, bragging about it, boasting. Same old cycle, same old patterns of ego-driven, prideful mistakes.

Which promptly prompts Jamie to also fuck up by bringing up the leak. It's a concentrated response intended to get a suitable rise out of Roy, because Roy has really, genuinely hurt him here, and Jamie knows bringing up that video is the one thing that will hurt Roy just as much in turn. It's not the right thing to do, obviously, but again, it's such a human thing to do. Hurt the person who's hurt you right back, even if you're hurting someone else (Keeley) by extension. Mind you, Jamie came here expecting a hangout (/date) with Roy over a rare beer, and instead he got Roy being a complete asshole and lecturing nonsense at him out of seemingly nowhere. He reacts to this change-up, well, not greatly. There is something so messy and emotionally complicated happening here and it hinges on how very much Jamie and Roy care about each other, not negates it.

Keeley, queen that she is, rejects them both out of hand and kicks them out not the curb immediately because they're both being complete idiots, acting like they're so gracious in giving her the honor and privilege of choosing between them. Not to mention they've clearly got something going on between them they haven't worked through and that sure as shit isn't her problem, is it? Keeley (presumably, and I wish we had seen this) calls them out their shit and tosses them right back out the door.

Which leaves Jamie and Roy to lament how they've let their egos get away from them, they've been idiots (which they acknowledge immediately) and decide that now they should go for kebabs, presumably to actually hangout this time, not to interrupt themselves with inflated talk about who "deserves" Keeley more. They both screwed up, they acknowledge it, and all they can do is try again tomorrow, and in the meantime, go on that kebab date.

I guess....I can just see where both of them are coming from? it's not mature behavior, obviously, it's maybe not what we would have liked to have seen from them in the finale episode of the show. But it was regression that I didn't feel impeded their overall progress. Roy in particular was being a complete dick about it, but that's why the very next morning he's finally knocking on the Diamond Dogs' door. And honestly, that conversation was heartbreaking. When Roy admitted he'd expected, after a year of putting in the work, to be a whole new person...god. This is a man who still completely hates himself, to the point where he can't quite grasp that he can be better where he's at now, that he doesn't have to transform magically into someone new in order to do right by himself and others. And so he has to consciously determine, once again, to do better, be better.

The message is: change isn't linear, you're going to fuck-up, and fall back into old patterns. What matters is trying every day to do better together, and be better for one another, than you were the day before. That is the meeting point all three sides of the royjamiekeeley triangle were heading towards by the end of the episode.

So yes, it was rushed, because no one gets much screen time in a finale (and the overarching issue with this season anyway is god awful pacing. The last three episodes could've easily been the second half of the season, while the first half of the season was stretched out and largely extraneous). And yes, I would've liked a more thoughtful follow-up conversation between Roy and Keeley or all three of them. My biggest issue was that we didn't get to hear Keeley's voice hardly at all. I would at the very least have liked to have seen her setting them straight at her kitchen table, because turning both of them down signifies very important growth in her, too, and I would've liked exploring that more explicitly. So it wasn't perfect. But I still liked it, I really did.

[electricbathsalt]

HELLO HI YOU MENTIONED CHISAKI HAVING A COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANITY AND I AM HERE TO HAPPY RANT ABOUT IT

it's like 2:30am and i should have gone to bed a while ago so this is gonna be a lil incoherent probably but anyways. yes. 100% yes i love that. i have so many ideas bouncing around my head about chisaki not being human, or like getting some secondary quirk in a secondary quirk wave that *makes* him (in his eyes) less than/not quite human, and also i sometimes use it/its pronouns for him because Reasons (i am projecting my own use of it/its onto him), and I also headcanon him as a) FtMtX (third gender/maverique), b) aroallo and gay and romance-repulsed, and c) autistic + low emotional empathy, and all of those things would 100% play into having a complicated and not-entirely-positive relationship with humanity in general (and his own humanity!) ESPECIALLY given that he spent formative years in the yakuza, which is bound to be a wildly conservative organization and an environment EXTREMELY hostile to several of those core immutable traits. ykno?

anyways you mentioned him having a complex relationship to other people/humans and humanity in general like he doesn't consider himself one so that's what prompted this. also please rant back i want to hear e v e r y t h i n g

Oh my god oh my god YES!! Okay I actually just woke up (yes my sleep schedule is fucked rn) so this is most definitely not gonna be coherent either buuut bro that is SO SIMILAR TO EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKINGGG

Okay this is by far the most difficult topic for me to try to articulate/explain bc I don’t really know how to, but I will try my damndest!! Yes. I think Chisaki has a very, very complicated relationship with both his own humanity and humanity as whole, in the way that he like. Does not view himself as human, and does not think of humans as the same as him, because they are on, like, separate playing fields. It’s not that he necessarily thinks of everyone else as worthless, or that he’s above them inherently (unequal)—he believes himself to be in a sort of limbo. He is neither worthless nor worthy. He is not human, therefore he cannot adhere to the same principles and standards of humanity. He is not human, and that is why he is never treated like one.

I think he subconsciously detached himself from it. He hated how the one person he (subconsciously) thought would one day view him as human and accept him, called him a monster and outcast him, like everyone else. The one person who showed him kindness with no catch (in his mind, because… yikes). That’s when he fully accepted that he’ll never be seen as human, that he is not human, and will never be treated like something with value/emotion, like something mortal and thinking and multi-dimensional, which is why he finally decided to just take matters into his own hands, with no regard to anything else. Why follow the morals of humans if he is not one? You don’t expect a wild animal not to maul you. Because for an animal, it is necessary. There’s no malice. They hunt and kill you because they need to eat and feed and protect. Is that not him? Is he not doing all this out of necessity? To keep himself and his family alive?

(Although, he doesn’t perceive himself as an animal. Just as not human). He believes he can’t be human. He believes he can no longer allow himself to be human anyway, because being human is too large an obstacle to his goals. He has to be a monster.

And kinda on the side of how he perceives other humans—it’s like, he’s more vital than them to the plan (which is the most important thing in the world), so he is above them in the way they are pawns whereas the plan cannot happen without him and Eri. But it’s dependent on his quirk, bc without his quirk, he is no longer Overhaul, who is the one who is vital to the plan; he is just Chisaki Kai. Chisaki Kai was not vital to anything and was just some not-really-human with a debt to pay off. Chisaki Kai is not worthwhile. Chisaki Kai is below other, real humans. So it’s split—Overhaul is above everyone else (in importance, in the fact he is not human. He is a monster). Chisaki Kai is below everyone else (he is indebted and clinging to the dregs of humanity he wants to have). The common ground is that both Overhaul and Chisaki Kai are inhuman accessories to the Shie Hassaikai. The Shie Hassaikai is more important than them.

He does not yearn to be human, he yearns for the casual acceptance and belonging that comes alongside being human. Humans have never treated him like how they treat other humans. He is not human.

Uggfhhhh I can’t tell if I’m explaining this exactly how I mean it. My vocabulary is just lacking I fear 😭 I have trouble streamlining my thoughts a lot. I feel like I have more to say but no way to properly express it, I guess. Also all your headcanons are extremely real and definitely add onto this/play a part in it!! I cannot imagine that the Yakuza would be all that accepting/an at all safe environment (ah. Well. That’s not true bc I have lol. I don’t like making sad stories 💀 but in canon… definitely not. Especially with Pops’ apparent falling-out with his daughter over her marriage 😒).

I don’t know if this all is what you had in mind or not but I think it has at least some semblance to what I think some of his mindsets are. My brain is a lil fried though. Also please please please elaborate. On everything. I wanna hear all your takes

[coquelicoq]

hmmm for the shipping meme! matonato and hankim or yoohankim?

[ID: A graph with the x-axis labeled "makes sense" on the left and "doesn't make sense" on the right and the y-axis labeled "compels me" at the top and "doesn't compel me" at the bottom. points labeled MN for matonato, HK for hankim, and YHK for yoohankim have been situated on the grid: MN in the top left (makes sense, compels me), HK at the top and to the right of MN (makes some sense, compels me), and two points labeled YHK, one slightly above and to the left of the center (makes some sense, compels me some) and one in the bottom right (doesn't make sense, doesn't compel me). /end ID]

wow this threw me off because for some reason i assumed that makes sense would be on the right instead of the left! so hopefully i made all the necessary corrections to what i originally wrote lol.

matonato: makes sense, compels me. probably obnoxiously obvious to everyone at this point. do they get a happy ending? i mean it's very fun to think about and i love me a good actually-together-matonato concept, but probably the most compelling thing about them is the star-crossed aspect. it's not will they won't they, it's why they why not they. why do they want this and why can they never have it? it's, how can i make this about natori's self-hatred? it's, who is matoba if he quits the exorcist business? (EXTREMELY JUICY AND COMPELLING QUESTION 2 B ASKING.) it's, what changes in their individual priorities and self-conception would be necessary before they could get together? asking myself these questions and understanding why they in their current forms can't be in a relationship helps me to better articulate who exactly they are and what motivates them and gives me avenues for thinking about possible character development. but like i said i do really love thinking about matonato endgame, and even though i know it's never going to be canon (which it doesn't need to be, obviously! we are in our sandbox making our own dreams come true), i'm reading the homura arc like girl why did you do that. where are you going with this??? fellas is it gay to stalk your homoerotic rival's enemies and the answer is a resounding YES. they are a good ship because thinking about each of them in the context of the other expands my understanding and appreciation of their individual characters, but also because it would be sexy for them to mash their mouths together. both are very important elements of shipping 2 me.

hankim: i want to say this is one of the most compelling relationships in orv but they are all compelling, it's actually insane. however hankim is definitely tied for first (with twenty other relationships). her love for him is the beating heart of the story. like the entire plot hinges around her loving him so much she would [redacted], but also the central themes are exemplified by how she feels about him and what she does about it. and he trusts her in a way he can't really trust anyone else, because she knows enough about the world that he can be open with her about things he can't tell others, and because he trusts her to be competent and able to achieve his objectives. mostly to me though their relationship Is About her love for him because of how badly he needs it and how little he can understand it, and how central it is to his entire character that he needs but cannot understand receiving that kind of love. i have not yet succeeded in imagining any kind of compelling sexual relationship for them, except the somewhat indirect one where he gives her permission to make a kim-dokja-looking avatar with which to fuck yoo joonghyuk while kim dokja is elsewhere minding his own business, but that's fine, they don't need to be having sex to have a compelling relationship, obviously. so yeah it's compelling af and it does make sense, but i'm taking some sense points off because the kdj-to-hsy direction is pretty standard shipping material while the opposite direction is like the entire point of the book. it's a lil unbalanced.

yoohankim: this ship fascinates me because i definitely never would have come up with it myself. hankim? see above. yookim? see below. but yoohan - DESPITE THE WHOLE DEAL AROUND WHO YOO JOONGHYUK IS AND HOW HE GOT THAT WAY - are just like. Only Here For Kim Dokja. any relationship they have with each other is a proxy for a relationship with kim dokja, mediated by their feelings for kim dokja, and put through the sieve of who the other person is to kim dokja. i think they have a very psychosexual thing going on where they're having a lot of sex with each other but mostly in order to feel close to kim dokja, who is not involved lol. which is its own kind of compelling, certainly. i guess you could say yoohankim is the ONLY way that yoohan makes any sort of sense to me whatsoever, so in that regard yoohankim is squarely in the northwest quadrant. but at the same time i feel like if kim dokja is actually present, their relationship with each other is more like in-laws than anything else. it's indirect. they don't have divorced energy…they don't even have metamour energy. i don't know. they're like this is my sister's mailman and i have no idea what he's doing at my nephew's piano recital, which is insane to me because they should have (nonsexual) parent-child energy if nothing else. so i also have to put yoohankim in the southeast quadrant. so far this is where most yoohankim fic i have read falls, but probably i just haven't yet found the one that would unlock it for me.

to close the loop i gotta talk about yookim (joongdok). the most enjoyable thing about it to me personally is that yoo joonghyuk so clearly wants kim dokja to hold him down and it's very fun to see kim dokja have to shift his entire paradigm to make that make sense. i mean, i think all of kimcom wants to hold kim dokja down (most of them nonsexually imo), but yoo joonghyuk is the one guy who's like "if you would just stop trying to kill yourself for two seconds then i could let you out of these handcuffs so you could have your way with me. you bastard." they make me crazy because they work together SO well and trust each other SO implicitly while also being like, wow this idiot has terrible priorities and so i have to manipulate him into furthering my agenda (keeping him safe) instead of his agenda (keeping me safe). they're also that evergreen combo of guy with low self-worth who's oblivious to other people's love for him/guy who loves so hard but never uses his words about it that makes me wanna read about them getting together 100 different times. in a slightly different sense than with matonato, thinking about them as a twosome better elucidates aspects of their own individual personalities and worldviews, which makes for a compelling shipping experience.

[texasbama]

Hiya I know you're a safe space and I need to get this out, so sorry in advance 🙃.

I see how amazing canon bi buck is for the queer community and I don't mind how it happened in canon. But while I should be happy, I actually kind of feel like I'm mourning? I'm so attached to eddie, maybe unhealthily so, and the ensemble found family dynamic is what first brought me to the show. For a while it's been a struggle having the fandom basically shove buck into every spec or storyline and act like he is a perfect angel and the centre of the universe. But there was always the eddiezers and it was more balanced. But now literally EVERYBODY is all about buck and tommy. It feels like the rest of the show doesn't even exist. I know its only been a couple of days but going on social media now just makes me anxious and idk why really. I'm worried about future eddie storylines, I'm desperate for marisol to disappear, but the vibe is that now buck is bi nothing else matters, we've won apparently, who even cares about eddie or the other characters because buck kissed a man.

Also I'm sex-repulsed ace and people saying how if you don't like it you're a purist and an evangelical and homophobic and biphobic actually makes me feel like shit. I never really understood wanting two characters to have sex 'because why not', because I don't understand why anyone wants to ever lol. I can only read buddie smut in very specific scenarios and most of the time i skip even that. And the rhetoric in a lot of tumblr space recently makes me feel like a bad person for not being all for it 100%. I don't think I've explained myself well here but I tried. You don't have to reply or post this either, I just wanted to reach out to someone in fandom who won't jump down my throat for it 😅. 911 is kind of a hyperfixation of mine so even though I'm trying to stay away as much as possible so as to not make myself more upset but I have no idea what to do with myself otherwise 🫠. Thanks for reading and sorry for unloading on you

Please don’t apologize, im happy you felt like I was a safe space. Im gonna break this into two parts and I hope I can articulate myself correctly lol

1) the first few days after an episode, any episode but especially one like this, isn’t indicative of fandom as a whole. Emotions are heightened due to what happened in the episode. Everyone is screaming about something and it’s in your face ya know? This week something HUGE happened, so yes people are talking about it. It was to be expected. We must make space for people to be happy about it. It’s a beautiful thing and queer joy MUST be celebrated.

This show (for the most part) has done a beautiful job of giving each character their time to shine(some more so than others but thats a conversation for a different day). Coming off 7x04, yes the headline is Bi Buck. And it will continue to be for a while, but it’s important to remember that YOU curate your fandom experience. I don’t blame you at all for what you’re feeling, ESPECIALLY as an Eddie girlie(gn), like I get it! Trust me! I’ve had to carefully maneuver through some emotions this week myself. I’m human! But filtering and being able to step away is everything.

Being excited about the storyline and also hoping and wanting more from other storylines are two things that can be true at the same time. It’s not one or the other. Remember that.

2) im going to say this and just know the caps is because I am just passionate. I promise you, its yelling at you with love okay?

I know it is easier said than done, but don’t you EVER allow ANYONE on this fucking hellsite make you feel less than or that your asexuality is anything but 100% valid. YOU are valid, you hear me?

Okay. I had to make sure to say that first. Whew. Now. As for the fandom piece of it all, we have to remember that there levels to it. You are allowed to feel the way you feel about sex, BUT it’s also important to remember that sex positivity (and those who express it) is also a good and valid. If you feel like there are blogs that talk down to you, imply that YOU are homophobic or biphobic simply because YOU are not doing cartwheels about different sex acts, then block. Unfollow. Do whatever you need to. Those people are scum.

Listen to me *pulls you close*, this is always a safe space. You are a valid, your existence and experiences are valid. And anyone who makes you question that can fuck right off. And lastly, HAPPY ASEXUALITY DAY TO YOU SPECIFICALLY! MUAH! 💜🤍🩶🖤

[twenty-words-or-less]

Top 5 Worst Films of 2019

It's been a while since I gave you something from the vault, so you can have something, as a little treat. Best of 2019 and Best & Worst of 2021 to be interspersed throughout the next few posts.

IMPORTANT: There will more than likely be spoilers, because I do not respect these films enough to calmly articulate my feelings for them. Also there is way more swearing in this post.

5. Glass

It is a second sequel that shat on the second wind Shyamalan had after Split. David Dunn suffered an undignified death in a puddle and Dr. Staple is a member of an evil organisation that suppresses the existence of superheroes. The latter comes out of fucking NOWHERE and does NOTHING for the film, let alone the trilogy as a whole. Also, the last act is lifeless and I haven't felt this patronised by a film since 2017's Ingrid Goes West.

4. Hellboy

The 2004 movie is in my all-time top 10. This 2019 disaster of a multi-genre whiplash didn't have a chance from the off. Everyone was wasted in this, actors AND the musicians who contributed to the soundtrack. It was lazy, it was unnecessary, and the post credits scene - namely, them finding Abe Sapien - was so optimistic about having a sequel, it was cute. I'm glad it bombed. Hard.

3. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Yep, the one I saw just yesterday. Whilst I wanted Kylo Ren to fucking die, the film also fucking made Reylo canon immediately before, which is the one thing I didn't want them to do. It's soulless, it relies too much on the original trilogy, it's too long for its own good, and oh my fuck is it a elevator plummet in general from TFA. And yeah, I know 'elevator' is American. In this case, it's more effective than 'lift'.

2. The Goldfinch

Proof that a film being based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel does not make it good. Every scene felt disconnected from the previous one, the plot likes to pop in for a cuppa every now and then, and it has more endings than a clitoris, none of which are anywhere near as pleasurable. Also, dear Hollywood: please stop giving Ansel Elgort work. Thanks.

Dishonourable mentions:

The Intruder: not as rage-inducing as the top five entries here, but still pretty crap. The character motivation is weak as hell and is never explained in a reasonable way.

Ma: Tries to be a hybrid of Carrie and Misery, fails at being both, can just wastes Octavia Spencer (and Diana Silvers, coincidentally in Booksmart).

Annabelle Comes Home: Straight up fucking boring. The best characters are only in it for about 9 seconds (proportionally speaking). Not much else I can say on that front.

And finally, the worst film I have seen this year...

1. Burning

Oh fuck me, where do I begin?This film is based on a short story, and at 2.5hrs is about 45mins-1hr too long for its origins. The protagonist is a gormless moron (GM), the love interest is a wet blanket (WB) and the third party is basically a Korean Gatsby (KG). WB disappears, and the film makes it out to be like KG didn't murder her (which he did, movie). The film treats us like we're stupid, some shots go on for far too long, there is no plot AT FUCKING ALL, and worst of all, I didn't care about the protagonists. GM wanks in WB's empty flat and then pretends to be sad when WB goes missing. GM also stabs the shit out of KG to death at the end of the film, and honestly, I wanted to jump into the film and stab the shit out of GM himself. [REDACTED] put this as their 2nd worst film of the year, and as much as I love them, 2nd place is far too generous. Foreign language films do not get a theatrical release in the UK very often, so this was an insult on multiple levels. I wanted to like this film, I did, and I want to know more about Korean cinema beyond I Saw The Devil, but this burned me in that respect and I do not understand the praise it got from critics. Fuck this film. Fuck it to the depths of hell and back. And fuck you, whoever decided to give this a theatrical release in the UK, for that decision. I hope that you will be forever tormented by mice living in your walls that eat your food and cannot be removed, no matter what. Fuck. You.

Thanks again for reading, and happy New Year, everyone! See you soon! Hopefully for a year that is better for films than this one! ❤

~Mikey

[superaznchick]

life update #13

it's 12:14am im actually genuinely Very Tired right now but my body is still just shaking from all of the frustration that i have had to hold onto today so im gonna dump until i pass out

I'm shaking because. I just finished having an offsite with my team for the last few days and it is mindblowing how numbingly painful our meetings are. We met Tuesday through Thursday, had 1 team-bonding event for like 2 hours, and the rest of the days were just back to back meetings about basically nothing.

By "nothing" it's like, very vague roadmap discussions, which fine okay I'll bite. Maybe 2ish hours of this, okay fine I'll do it. But

UGH it's so fucking hard to put into words but I really think I need to start learning how to articulate better so I'm gonna try REALLY hard to explain this and explain exactly why I'm frustrated

I have 5 people on my team including me, so 2 guy engineers and 3 girl engineers. And you guessed it, the conversation is usually dominated by the 2 guy engineers. There's 1 girl that also dominates the conversation a bit. I'm frustrated because these are engineers that LOVE to talk, that love to hear themselves talk, that revel in discussing big complex vague ideas, that love getting more words in and sucking more air out. It almost feels as though the more words they spew, the more they feel like they are winning, they are influencing, they are saying something of substance, something important, something so consequential that everyone else in the room just needs and has to listen to everything coming out of their mouth and I am SICK. SICK OF IT.

They are saying NOTHING of substance. You know how I can tell? Because 1 of the engineers literally joined what, like 5 months ago? And he hasn't worked on any major project, and yet he is the one talking the most about "ideally" this and this should work like this, how he has "so many ideas and thoughts" about how things are gonna go and should work out.

The other guy engineer is old and just has a rambling way of talking, one thought or idea that should take 2 sentences he makes it into a whole song and dance. He says the most basic shit but because it takes him fucking 5 minutes to say it, trying to decipher what the fuck he's saying takes so much fucking brain power I can't stand it.

The girl is fine. She's responsive, not pushy. She gives her opinion when prompted and doesn't over extend herself, but some of the stuff she says I can just fucking tell she's trying to imitate the way the guys in the room are talking. Half the time it's still not that important the stuff she's saying

Why am I so frustrated at this? Because these people don't understand the power of shutting the fuck up and listening and absorbing. If you don't know shit about the codebase, you need to shut the fuck up and listen to people that do. If you have a simple thought to say, you need to shut the fuck up and THINK, really USE YOUR BRAIN and CONDENSE that shit!!!! It takes a ton of effort to pick the right words and orchestrate the right things to say, you can't just vomit words at us and waste our fucking time.

But listen. I GET IT. I understand that people, especially engineers, are like this and that's just the way it is. Believe it or not, even though I just spent a bunch of time wailing on them I actually don't blame them!! Like YES, I get it, that's fine, it annoys me but what am I gonna do right.

So the real kicker here, and second layer to my frustration, is this: what the fuck is my manager doing?

For some context, my manager is one of those people that really wants his subordinates to like him. He has no vision, no plan for the team, no thought of how things *should* be. He is not a strong leader. He is concerned with knowing things about the team, knowing how things work, and trying really hard for all of us to like him. He is introverted, he is relateable, he is nice, but he is not a good manager. This is so fucking frustrating because he really should NOT be letting a bunch of engineers pow around and going around asking everyone "oh, what do YOU think we should have on the roadmap? what do YOU think we should prioritize?" bro. This is literally your job. Your job is to put us on the map and get us on the most exciting projects and set us up for success. It is your fucking job to have a vision for the team and edit us the way that we need to be to succeed. It is your job to set expectations and correct us when we do not meet them. I should NOT have to sit in a stuffy room for 9 hours with a bunch of engineers yapping about literally NOTHING IMPORTANT and wasting my fucking time.

I'm not done yet. My THIRD layer of frustration: and UGGGHHH I really think this is what sent me over the edge today I'm literally shaking even more as I write this but. Today, Thursday, the last day of the offsite, I asked to go home early. We were supposed to have a half day of *more* meetings today from 9:30am to 1pm to do even more talking about nothing and everything, but I wanted to go home early BECAUSE I WAS TRYING TO MAKE MY MANAGER LOOK GOOD. I'm representing our team as part of a big high-visibility cross-functional engineer effort to do work and I committed to being code complete by Friday. Of course he didn't know about this commitment because he doesn't go to these separate standups and I guess I could have told him so my bad, but I was under the impression that I could handle it. After Wednesday, which was an ENTIRE day of dealing with these people, listening to them talk about nothing and jostle for control over the conversation and talking over each other and debating on pure theoreticals and literally nothing concrete, I was at my wits' end. I couldn't get any fucking work done and I was only halfway done and I really wanted to pull through for Friday. But this morning I asked to go home early and he told me that "it'd be really nice if you could come to these conversations!" and I was like "okay fine but that means I'll have to push back delivery to monday for my code" and he was like "oh I don't remember that we had committed anything but monday should be okay right?"

And now my fourth layer of frustration: He. doesn't. fucking. get it. NOBODY on my team fucking gets it. Nobody GETS. IT. "Gets it" as in like, just understands what it takes, what it's like, what needs to happen for us to achieve excellence. We need VISION. We need guidance, we need priority, we need a fucking leader to just stand up and just DO IT!!!! We don't have the fucking time to sit around, talking and talking and talking about nothing. How can they not see what a big fucking waste of time this is??? How can they not hear themselves when they're talking and they sound like literal idiots. "hurr durr let's try and do this and that with this team, we should grab someone and have them do a code walkthrough" BRO we were literally trying to "anticipate" our future plans with merging with a different team but we know nothing about what their code looks like, WHATS THE POINT of doing all this talking when WE. DONT. KNOW??? Why not make a solid plan, like just send someone from our team over to their team and work on their stuff, explore their codebase, get a solid understanding, and then bring that knowledge back? Or it doesn't have to be like that, but do ANYTHING, ANYTHING at all instead of sitting around, talking for hours, when we DON'T FUCKING KNOW???? How do they not see this?? How does this not drive them crazy?

Maybe now a fifth layer of frustration: I'm just fucking tired. I'm done. I'm so exhausted. I'm exhausted from being surrounded by people like this all the time. These people on my team, they talk so much, they have no vision, they are not self aware, and perhaps worst of all, they are all sensitive to criticism and are not open minded to learn and listen. In fact, most of them don't even see the value of listening. All they want to do is talk and dominate the conversation, as if that will give them some sort of higher influence, like rubbing elbows with success when success isn't even in the room. I feel like I'm the only seeing-eye person in a room full of blind idiots. It's tiring, I feel like I'm insane. The only way I'm staying sane is by being deliberately delusional, by believing that it's not me, it's them.

And you know what? I'm no genius. I'm not that smart. I'm no exceptional leader or holder of power. I believe I have substance and I am deserving of respect, but I do not believe that I am so above anyone else. I don't think I'm all that. But today, this week, made me feel like I was in the bottom of some sort of crucible. I feel evaporated, like the life has just been sucked out of me and all I am now is just a trembling pile of ash. I feel like crying. I feel like screaming.

I harbor no ill will, no hatred, no violence against these people. Because again: I get it. But GOD. DAMN. I'm just blown away. I can't believe that these people can sit there, go through the same experience I did, and not see anything wrong. I'm scared shitless. I feel like I can't talk to anyone about this because the social blowback would be insane. Like what, I'm just supposed to tell my manager that he's useless? That he needs to get his shit together?

I've given people constructive feedback before and the social consequences are so fucking real. There's no way I can say anything and not get punished IMMEDIATELY. I'm just so tired. I just want to say the truth. I just want them to see what I see. But now I have to be a loser and just sit in this soiled diaper and not say anything. I fucking hate it. I fucking hate having to deal with people like this - not just my team, but nearly everyone I know. Almost nobody I know around me in my direct line of vision is a "safe" person. I have to tip toe and eggshell and whisper and kiss and be sweet. I have to be so nice all the time. I'm sick of it.

When is it gonna be some else's turn to edit themselves for me?

Fucking hell man. I'm still just trying to digest the fact that my fucking manager forced me to push back a timeline because he genuinely thought that having long meetings about nothing was more important than company optics. It makes me nervous. What the hell else is going on in his brain? If he can pull something like this, I feel like I can't trust him with the direction of the team in his hands. All I wanna do is zone the fuck out and collect my paycheck with the trust that everything we do will mount to something. I can't have any peace like this.

I have to sleep now but I'm still fuming. may or may not come back to this topic later. hope i can actually sleep in peace. good night.

[krustybob]

[nightswithkookmin]

chile i'm so glad i came across your blog, the amount of "i'm not going to assume they're dating" or "we can only draw certain conclusions but i can't say for sure" "we don't know their sexuality, BUT" type blogs i follow is getting kinda wack lmao. while i appreciate their perspective and nuanced takes i need to strike a balance. like let's get a lil delulu every once in a while. 💀

lol the im-not-a-shipper-but-call-jikook-boyfriends-every-other-post blogs are the funniest to me. the shipping hierarchy, so to speak is so weird. maybe just because im not a "shipping real people is bad" person i don't see the big deal. gonna get called delulu anyway, might as well go full out. they is gay/queer and they're fucking. i'm so sorry.

*also can we touch on the fact that shipping in this type of fandom (kpop) is kind of inevitable and unavoidable??! these boys are the other people we see them with day in and day out, interacting with each other and no one else. i feel like it's natural to ship when there's no other people around to break up everything, idk maybe someone can articulate this better than me. and people who are made to feel stupid for thinking that 2 members could actually be dating is so dumb. like is it really out of the realm of possibility that two people (jikook, cause all them other ships are....😬) who spent almost every waking minute together for like 8 years could fall in love. really?

/rant

It's the delulu hat for me

Lmho.

I guess for me being queer, I feel it's gaslighting for these people to be saying things like that. As silly as it is, it inadvertently deny and invalidate the existence and queerness of gay individuals and so I struggle with it.

This is the consequences of straight people in gay people business. They like defining gay parameters for us and it's like who asked you?? I feel people who say things like that are just plain ignorant or tone deaf or willfully homophobic.

I don't think everyone in BTS is gay but it makes me feel safe to see half the community assume them to be and celebrate them in that way. They are not cussing at them and threatening to leave the fandom or cancel them for this assumption and that is huge inspiration to me.

Those parts of the fandom are a safe space to be in as a queer army.

When people assume a person's queer sexuality they are simply admitting to themselves at the very least that LGBTQ EXISTS. This is important to me because I grew up in a community where LGBTQ didn't even exist in the collective consciousness of the people and EVERYONE IS AUTOMATICALLY ASSUMED TO BE STRAIGHT AND EXPECTED TO BE.

People read people's sexuality all the time and have done so since time immemorial and a lot of the time when they have had a sexuality read it's in the lines of straight, cis, rich, poor, superior or inferior. And that is a problem for some of us too because that discrepancy in the assumptions is as a result of homophobia and heteronormativity.

That whole don't assume a person's queer sexuality debacle sounds to me like a boujee way of denormalizing and preventing the normalization of queerness disguised under care, disguised under intelligence and disguised under wokeness. Especially when straightness is the default setting in this giant blue bulb.

We need to radicalize that. We need to change the cis straight default setting and if you are perpetuating this narrative you really aren't helping the situation. SIT DOWN.

I'm rarely assumed to be queer in certain circles and while that makes me feel comfortable within those circles it often times make it hard for me to admit my queerness openly in those circles too because I fear I will lose that comfort and respect and love and privileges that comes with being percieved straight in those spaces.

When I started my blog, I noticed some people assumed I was white and would use certain black descriptors as slurs when describing other people to me. I quickly had to switch the formal way in which I wrote to a much casual tone so my blackness would show through. Don't get it twisted. She black. She blackidy black black.

Then on the other hand, I was hesitant to let my queerness be known too because being black, I was marginalized as it is- you is black, or sound black💀 you know how it is- it's that intersectionality of oppression at play. Double double homicide.

When certain people realized I was black POC minority, their attitude towards me changed. I had those who didn't so much understand what black language is or perhaps wasn't used to being in black spaces and were uncomfortable with my blackness- these would take offense at me saying certain things in certain ways. Like chilee relax Karen, all I said was these motherfukkers gay as shit and they gay. Why you acting like I called them twinks or sommin. Right there, I'm cancelled for calling Jikook motherfuckers. They get sirens and everything😭😭😭😭😭😭

Same vein, I struggle destraightening myself or correcting people who assume I'm straight because I fear they will treat me differently if they knew I wasn't.

Straight privilege exists in the same way as white or even pretty privilege may exist and because these exist there's that automatic conception of queer, poc, ugly, fat disemfranschismet to run along side it.

People treat you differently based on how they perceive you. That's a fact. And for queer people, perceiving us as straight is the only way we get to be treated as human by the masses. And a lot of us embrace that- straight until proven gay am I right 🤣🤣🤣🤣

It's the duper's delight for me. Untill you catch me with a 5'8 melanin skinned silk pressed auntie on my left nipple good luck proving I'm gay.

It can be fun, I akekeke when some people around me are totally oblivious to the fact and even sometimes defend my straightness with their dying breath when nasty friends throw them shades or try to out me unprovoked.

A lot of us don't want to admit we are gay because we don't want to be disenfranchised.

I speak for myself when I say this.

But 'Don't assume someone's sexuality' is a double edged censorship used for and against queer people. It seemly offers protection on the surface of it for queer people but underneath it promotes heteronormativity and standardizes straightness and it is also used to promote closet culture, under the disguise of care and concern for the autonomy of queer people but that is a fallacy because our autonomy has never mattered to anyone since the dawn of homophobia.

And I don't know where this interpretation comes from. Why do people not want to assume queer people's sexuality but it's ok to assume straight people's???

It feels like a hijacked movement to me.

THIS IS THE ACCURATE MOVEMENT AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED.

Don't assume all people are straight. It's ok to assume some people are queer because queer people exists too.

It is wrong however to assume queerness based on how a person talks, walks, dresses or even on their body type. That is stereotyping. And stereotyping is wrong.

When it comes to Jikook, Jimin is often stereotyped as gay more so than Jungkook because they have different body structures. Jungkook is stereotyped too solely because of the way his wrists hang, or based on moments he's femininity shines through.

But I don't think shippers stereotype Jikook in that way at all. I dont think shippers believe Jikook are dating eachother simply because Jungkook applied setting powder to his face that one time. They assume they are gay only because they believe those two to be dating eachother. That is not stereotyping. If those two were heterosexuals I don't think people will accuse their shippers of stereotyping.

It's one thing to assume Kai is gay because he looks skinny and dances well. It's another to assume he is gay because in a relationship with Gdragon. And if people can't tell the difference between the two, they should get some education and stop talking about things they know nothing about or only know because they stumbled across user69 on Twitter. They are not helping.

Untill people get offended when people assume others are straight, that rhetoric doesn't matter in its inequality. If you ask me, everyone is gay until proven straight.

Yet how many people will take offense at that?

Assuming people can be gay is not delulu.

It's ok to assume people can be gay. It's wrong to stereotype them as gay. If you can't assume they are gay, don't assume they are straight and don't assume at all. Run with this sis.

Wait, they don't ship Jikook but they call Jikook boyfriends???????👀👀👀👀👀

The fake woke syndrome will kill people in this fandom with these mentally confused thought crisis bunch💀💀💀💀

Jikook themselves are shippers💀

Smh

GOLDY

[bestworstcase]

I like your thoughts on how Rapunzel was handling things wrong in “Rapunzel: Day One.” The episode tries to imply that Cassandra is wrong for not sharing her feelings with Rapunzel, but is a Rapunzel really the person Cassandra should be opening up to? Rapunzel never respects Cassandra’s boundaries. Cassandra’s a private person. Rapunzel doesn’t respect that. And just because Cassandra doesn’t want to open up to everyone doesn’t mean that she’s bottling things up.

ok so this is gonna be a long one bc tbh i like. fundamentally disagree that RDO, the narrative of RDO, in any way positions cassandra as the one at fault for the emotional conflict between her and raps.

to digress a bit - while tts is not immune to Aesop Episodes (e.g. rapunzel's enemy or you're kidding me) wherein the characters close out the story by talking about What They've Learned, ultimately i don't think tts can or should be read as a morality play. it's a story where sometimes characters just... fuck up and the narrative doesn't waste its time on hand-holding or spoon-feeding us the moral.

anyway, i submit that RDO is what i'll call a False Aesop Episode. it follows the basic structure of an Aesop Episode (protagonist acts badly -> protagonist learns a lesson) but the lesson rapunzel learns is a bad one. it's like if you took... say, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" as an aesop, the False Aesop here is rapunzel confidently eating a rotten apple and then being blindsided a few months later when the doctor who kept begging her not to eat food with maggots in it steals the moonstone from under her nose and runs off into the night with her new demon pal--

and that metaphor got away from me a little bit but you get the idea.

#1: constructing the conflict

the episode opens with cassandra. she's training; we see the sword fly out of her injured hand; lance suggests she take a break, and she answers, "thanks to rapunzel's little trick at the great tree, i have to relearn everything using this hand, so breaks aren't really an option."

she isn't harsh about it. her demeanor isn't all that different from her normal self—she even segues into a very typical concern (that the woods are dangerous and they should all be on their guard) and banters with lance a bit.

what this communicates, immediately and succinctly, is that:

1. cassandra's injury is severe. it's disabling. she's either in immense pain or she's lost all the strength in that hand or both.

2. cass is really upset about this, and not happy with rapunzel.

3. nevertheless cass is keeping her feelings more or less in check; the worst anyone could say about her is she's being a bit more curt than normal.

which is to say, she's acting quite reasonable. she's not taking out her hurt feelings on anyone else or being mean or lashing out, and she's not hiding her injury either. the most concerning thing about her behavior here is actually that she's focused on training so she can do her job instead of on healing or resting or taking care of herself.

then there's a pan over to rapunzel, who is angrily watching this play out while venting to pascal. "i get why cass is mad at me," she says. "she told me—" huge disdainful rolling of eyes here "—not to use the decay spell back and the tree, and i did, and she hurt her hand. but if she had just listened to me and stayed out of it, this all could have been avoided! and i feel like we could work things out, but she refuses to talk about it!!"

line this up against cassandra's behavior and spot the differences.

cass is focused on her injured hand. cass is upset because rapunzel accidentally mutilated her in the great tree. that's what this conflict is about for cass; her injury, and how she feels about being injured.

by contrast, rapunzel thinks the conflict is about them not listening to each other. she does acknowledge that cass was injured, but 1. she puts the blame on cass, and 2. has shoved the fact of the injury to the periphery of the conflict. it's not important, it's just a natural consequence of the real conflict, which is cass being mad and petty and refusing to talk to her about how she's unfairly blaming rapunzel for something that wasn't rapunzel's fault.

[i will add here that this behavior from rapunzel is 100% not knowing how to handle guilt and externalizing it as anger, and this thread of rapunzel burying her guilt gets picked up again in rapunzeltopia; it isn't that rapunzel doesn't care that cass is hurt, so much as she's just not emotionally equipped to process these feelings in a healthy way so it mutates into...this.]

and where cass handles her feelings in a pretty reasonable way, rapunzel rants and raves and draws cass as a literal monster with fangs and claws—she's stewing in her out of control emotions and concludes that she just has to find a way to force cass talk to her, which she does shortly thereafter by ordering—not asking—cass to come with her to search for parts to fix the caravan.

#2: the breakdown of communication

i've said it before but it bears repeating: cassandra might not be perfect, but she's a good communicator. in s1 and the front half of s2, she shares her feelings with rapunzel readily and frequently. when she tries to set boundaries with rapunzel, she's able to be clear and specific about what she needs. when she expresses frustration with eugene or her dad or rapunzel, she's very articulate about exactly what she's frustrated about. she can recognize when politer, softer refusals are being ignored and become blunter and more specific to ensure the message is getting across.

the moments when cass struggles to communicate are noteworthy because they're not normal. they signal that she's in acute crisis. think of how her unhinged rant about adira in RATGT heralded a complete emotional breakdown. she clams up in RDO because it's the only thing she can do to protect herself. because rapunzel is an inexperienced nineteen year old who learned all her social "skills" from a manipulative, egotistical abuser and nowhere in the series does that show more than in RDO.

rapunzel knows cass doesn't want to talk about the great tree, so she isolates cass from the rest of the group with the intention of forcing her to talk about it anyway. she's passive aggressive at first: chattering about inanities and trying to bait cass into 'opening up,' and acting vexed and guilt-trippy when she finds out cass brought owl along. she broaches the subject by going "too bad there's not an open-up-to-your-best-friend-about-the-thing-you-guys-are-fighting-about wand, huh?"

then she leads with "i know you're mad at me, but i did the right thing. i didn't have a choice," which... what can cass even say to that? she acknowledged cassandra's anger in one breath and followed up with "but you're wrong tho" in the next. that statement makes cassandra's feelings about her debilitating injury into an argument about Who Was Right.

this is a game that cass tries very hard not to play. "look, if you feel that way, then it's fine. we're good," she says, which is a statement that is not true at all on its face but - what it means is that if rapunzel wants to turn this into a debate about Who Was Right, cass will concede because that's not an argument she's invested in. cass does not want to put her feelings on trial so rapunzel can pick them apart and decide whether she deserves to have them or not.

so she disengages. the sun sets. they camp. rapunzel pokes her again, this time with a more direct approach: "cass, i need to talk about what we both know is going on between us."

and that's when cass throws up a WALL. prior to RDO, when cass is pressed on her feelings, she either: 1. opens up and explains to the extent that she's able (e.g. under raps or RATGT), or 2. flatly shuts the conversation down (e.g. cassandra vs eugene). but in RDO?

"there's nothing to talk about."

"i never said i was upset."

"what makes you so sure that you know how i'm feeling?"

this is cass falling off the end of her rope. this is a cass who spent the last year and a half with rapunzel running roughshod over every boundary cass exhausted herself trying to set. this is cass maybe a few weeks out from rapunzel screaming at her in front of all their mutual friends and then telling her "i am going to make decisions you don't agree with and i need you to be okay with that" when cass tried to open up about her deepest insecurities. this is cass spiraling into despair because she's seen that her best friend cares more about assuaging her own guilt and exerting her authority as a princess than she does about cassandra's feelings.

this is the moment when the friendship dies.

#3: the memory wipe, cassandra's apology, and the false aesop

the details of the tangled-but-cass shenanigans are not super important for the purposes of this discussion. suffice it to say that cassandra lashes out in the heat of the moment, seriously harms rapunzel by mistake, and spends the rest of the episode trying to repair the damage, then apologizes to rapunzel for hurting her. this is, obviously, the correct thing to do when you hurt someone, even if it was an accident.

you see the parallel here, yeah?

rapunzel hurt cass with magic by accident, and then made cass's hurt feelings all about her, blamed cass for the injury, twisted the facts to justify her own indignation, picked a fight about Who Was Right and invalidated cassandra's feelings, and pushed and pushed and pushed until cass blew up and lashed out at her.

cassandra also hurt rapunzel with magic by accident, and then she set aside her own hurt feelings from the argument they were having before to focus one hundred percent of her energy on brewing a cure and keeping amnesiac rapunzel safe, readily admitted her fault, and offered an earnest apology for losing her temper as soon as she could reasonably do so.

if RDO were a true Aesop Episode, this would be the lesson, and rapunzel would of course learn from cassandra's good example and reciprocate by apologizing for the accident in the great tree and her abysmal behavior afterwards—and in a reflection of how cass shared how bottling up her anger allowed it to erupt in a catastrophic way, rapunzel would probably confess that her demanding, selfish behavior came from a place of feeling awful about what happened and terrified that it would ruin their friendship.

but RDO is a False Aesop Episode. rapunzel isn't emotionally equipped to handle the intensity of her guilt, and she lacks the social insight and empathy to draw comparisons between what she did to cass and what cass did to her, so she can't connect the two situations in her head to understand what she's doing wrong. the true aesop flies right over her head, and instead what she learns is this:

1. she was right about cass being upset

2. backing cass into a corner fixed the problem

3. friends really do "just know"

4. being pushy and forceful was the right thing to do.

because the thing is, when cass apologizes for the accidental memory wipe, she truthfully explains why she acted the way she did—she's furious and she didn't want to talk about it, so she held it in as long as she could and then exploded when the pressure became too much—and for rapunzel, i think the explanation and the actual apology get conflated. meaning, cass says "i'm sorry for what i did out of anger" and what rapunzel hears is "i'm sorry for being angry."

and because of that misunderstanding, from rapunzel's perspective her own indignation has been validated and her behavior justified, because she was right all along and cass shouldn't have been angry with her in the first place and now everything is fine--

but it's not fine.

we're not supposed to share rapunzel's perspective here, because she's flat out wrong. nothing is really better and nothing has really changed, except that rapunzel got the talk she wanted and stops putting this intense pressure on cass. so as we enter the house of yesterday's tomorrow, rapunzel is taking it for granted that things are fine with cass, and meanwhile cass is still injured, still angry, still as aloof as she can be without getting rapunzel breathing down her neck again... and then she meets zhan tiri, who gives her everything she needed and couldn't get from rapunzel.

like, to my mind, this is the entire point of RDO, that rapunzel makes this catastrophic mess of trying to patch things up after RATGT and comes out of that mess wrongly thinking she succeeded. the episode is presented through the lens of rapunzel's perspective, but the lines are very wide and i absolutely think the intention is for the audience to read between them and understand the reality that rapunzel has sort of blinded herself to.

[lesbiansforboromir]

once again you made me deeply emotional over boromir. i don't have the fellowship (much less the english edition) at hand, so i can't even re-read my fav parts with him. any particular boromir-related stuff you may share?

FUCK ok I’ve got a migraine and a passion and I do not know how to use either of them but I’m gonna use this ask to talk about something I’ve been thinking about for months, not kidding on that one. 

Galadriel... was the direct cause of Boromir trying to take the ring- HEAR ME OUT. 

There are some very important things to remember about Boromir when you’re considering his actions and motives.

- He explicitly came on the quest assuming it would lead them all to Minas Tirith, because that’s where he needed to get back too. It’s very clear, he and Aragorn are literally going because Minas Tirith is on the way to Mordor. And every detour and every delay of the Company amps up his frustration and worry. 

- He left Gondor with the certainty that his city would be besieged VERY soon and that they would not be able to break it. His trip to Rivendell is desperation based in it’s entirety, he’s looking for anything that might help. 

- He knows absolutely none of these people from adam and whilst he very much wants to trust them, they have yet to win his loyalty or faith in ANY capacity. I’m sorry! I know everyone wants the Fellowship to be that good good found family foundation but it simply isn’t that for Boromir and never has been.

Okay so when they finally leave Moria and Gandalf’s dead, everyone’s grieving and miserable. They are also worried, Gandalf was their guide and as much as Aragorn’s a tracker he doesn’t have Gandalf’s expertise. Then again, Moria had been entirely Gandalf’s decision in the first place, claiming there wouldn’t be many orcs in there at all in an argument he has with Boromir about how dangerous the mines would be in comparison to the Gap of Rohan. Indeed, if Bilbo hadn’t given Frodo the mithril shirt then Frodo would be straight up dead and it would have been Gandalf’s decisions that caused it. 

So at this point Boromir’s faith in Aragorn’s ability is pretty low. And no one else in the Fellowship has any interest in leading. Boromir deferred to Aragorn’s judgement because Aragorn’s more knowledgeable of Eriador and also just... a dude who needs to be in control, it’s easy to tell. But now Boromir’s not so sure Aragorn’s up to it, since he seemed to rely on Gandalf so much. 

And then Aragorn tells them all they’re going to go through the Golden Wood. Now Boromir knows from the Rohirrim and Gondorian legend that the Golden Wood is Strange And Scary And Dangerous And Men Who Walk in Never Walk Out Again. And he says this, politely. Aragorn tells him he’s foolish for fearing it and essentially that if people got hurt in the Golden Wood then they deserved it. Again, despite the general discourtesy of these comments, Boromir chooses to believe Aragorn’s judgement. 

The next thing that happens is they are accosted by Haldir, treated like possible enemies or spies (despite Haldir admitting that Elrond had already told them they were coming) and a day and a lot of dwarfphobia later Haldir is threatening Gimli with death. No I’m not joking, Haldir says there’s a law dwarves can’t come into Lothlorien without a blindfold. And when Gimli gets justifiably angry about this and wants to go back if he’s being treated this way, Haldir says he WILL be killed if he tries to leave. Weapons are drawn! The only reason this de-escalates is because Aragorn suggests they all go blindfold because ‘it is hard on the dwarf to be so singled out’. I cannot express to you how soon this happens after Aragorn assures everyone that Lothlorien is safe. I also cannot emphasise enough how Gimli does absolutely nothing to deserve this, he’s polite and kind as ever until Haldir instigates it. 

So again!! Another mark against Aragorn’s reliability! And then we come to the CRUX of the matter, the meeting with Galadriel and Celeborn. 

A lot happens here, some of it very funny in terms of Galadriel’s treatment of Celeborn, but the important part is at the end where Galadriel mind-interrogates all the fellowship but Aragorn and Legolas. Again, this isn’t subtext, in-text it says interrogate. And the fellowship discusses it afterwards. Gimli, Sam, Merry and Frodo all agree that ‘Galadriel offered them a choice, to go back home where they would be safe, or to continue on with the quest though there may be far greater perils ahead’. 

But that couldn’t have been the choice she gave Boromir. Because he can’t go home to be safe and sound away from the evil!! He lives there!! This has been Boromir’s fight his whole life, it has never BEEN a choice for him. And from this moment on Boromir’s manner changes dramatically. He questions Frodo about what Galadriel asked him, he expresses concern about Galadriel’s motives, he says he believes she was TEMPTING HIM (remember that for later), concerns which are, once again, sharply and cruelly dismissed by Aragorn. 

There is then a MONTH of a time skip, we get descriptions of the how the other fellowship spend their time in Lothlorien. Gimli and Legolas become friends. Everyone else grieves Gandalf and has a lovely time in Lothlorien... apparently. 

But Boromir has never had any real positive feelings toward Gandalf and did not show any real grief at his loss initially. And whereas the rest of the fellowship seems respectful and awed by Galadriel and Celeborn, Boromir replies to their questions at the end of the fellowship’s stay in Lothlorien with what I would call veiled anger. `As for me,' said Boromir, `my way home lies onward and not back.' Which is a callback to the interrogation, the stark difference between the motivations and priorities of the rest of the Fellowship in comparison to Boromir. Which became VERY obvious to him in that moment. So I would posit that! Boromir did not have a good time at all! Boromir was stuck somewhere he felt unsafe and unwelcome and every extra second they spent in Lothlorien was yet another moment he was away from his currently-at-war home!!! 

Anyway just before they leave the fellowship is privately discussing what road they should take when Boromir makes a slip of the tongue, where he’d always been articulate and clear before. 

‘But if you wish to destroy the armed might of the Dark Lord, then it is folly to go without force into his domain; and folly to throw away-’ He paused suddenly, as if he had become aware that he was speaking his thoughts aloud. `It would be folly to throw lives away, I mean.'

It is very obvious to Frodo what he actually meant here, and this is where essentially Frodo’s inner monologue lays it all out!

Frodo caught something new and strange in Boromir's glance, and he looked hard at him. Plainly Boromir's thought was different from his final words. It would be folly to throw away: what? The Ring of Power? He had said something like this at the Council, but then he had accepted the correction of Elrond.

The important points in this section are that 1: Boromir has started thinking about the Ring of Power as something usable. 2: He did not think this before now, he had accepted Elrond’s words. This is ‘new and strange’. Something changed here. 

And of course it did! Boromir doesn’t trust any of these clowns anymore. 

Boromir’s advice, priorities and concerns have been almost entirely ignored and derided throughout the fellowship, even from the very moment he arrived in Rivendell! And after nearly freezing on a mountain, being chased by wargs, dragged through a mine of Orcs, a Balrog, threatened by supposed allies and then mind invaded by some elf he’s told to be in awe of, whatever will he had to trust and stay faithful to Aragorn’s decisions is barely hanging on. 

And Galadriel didn’t just invade Boromir’s mind, she was tempting him! He says so himself! And considering the circumstances and how he speaks about it, the only logical conclusion is that she is tempting him with the ring, because Boromir’s shown no sign of conflict or interest in the ring before now. So Galadriel was the one who put that concept into his mind in the first place. It’s Galadriel who initiates Boromir thinking again on whether this was in Gondor’s best interests. And Boromir recognises she’s trying to manipulate him!! Which is fucking heartbreaking!! 

'To me it seemed exceedingly strange,' said Boromir. `Maybe it was only a test, and she thought to read our thoughts for her own good purpose; but almost I should have said that she was tempting us, and offering what she pretended to have the power to give.’ (--)  `Well, have a care! ' said Boromir. `I do not feel too sure of this Elvish Lady and her purposes.'  `Speak no evil of the Lady Galadriel! ' said Aragorn sternly. 'You know not what you say. There is in her and in this land no evil, unless a man bring it hither himself. Then let him beware!’

Do you see?? Do you all see?? Am I making any sense at all?? Well I make sense to ME so lets continue- Here, you see how Aragorn puts all the blame on Boromir again? The twisted knot Boromir is in at this point is unfathomable and EVEN STILL! Boromir resists! For a very long time! This is what I mean when I say any characterisations of Boromir being overemotional or somehow out of control get at me so much, NEVER has a man had so much self discipline in his wholeass life. Boromir’s entire civilisation could be being bulldozed by Minas Morgul at this very moment and yet he takes everything that’s thrown at him without malice and internally continues to desperately hold onto his integrity. 

But that’s what’s at stake! His integrity! Because now he’s grappling with what seems like a choice to either keep faith with the fellowship, stay with them and go where they go despite how much his country needs him, or potentially do something drastic in order to bring a the powerful weapon Gondor seems to have ALWAYS been looking for home to finally actually save his people. Because that’s what Galadriel offered him! And whilst he doesn’t trust her, it’s also in his head now as a logical thing to want! He doesn’t trust Elrond either at this point, so why should he believe what he said about the ring! It’s obvious everyone has boundless ulterior motives!!

Oh! Here’s a good place to try and explain my theory of how the ring’s temptation actually works. The Ring can control people one of two ways. The first we see with Frodo and with Boromir, it takes FULL control of their actions for a split second when they are vulnerable. For Frodo it made him put it on on Weathertop. For Boromir it made him attack Frodo. However this effect is exceedingly temporary and the person effected immediately comes back into themselves and recognises that what they did was outside of their control. 

The other way is often thought of as this like pervasive constant pull to the ring that effects you even just by being around it, wearing you down etc. But I don’t think that’s what happens. I think, in order for the ring to start exerting real dangerous persistant power over you, you have to know it’s power and logically want it. You have to come to that conception yourself, you have to think about it. 

And I have a lot of reasons for this but where it pertains here-!! Boromir is a fine, reliable and solid member of the fellowship RIGHT up until Galadriel’s mind meld. It’s not gradual, he goes from making jokes, carrying Hobbits and fighting Balrogs to BARELY being able to control his speech and biting his nails and staring at Frodo creepily. There is barely any easing into it and it starts with Galadriel!!

And you know what! There’s an even more sinister layer to this because like... WHY was Galadriel doing this mind stuff in the first place? An immediate obvious answer would be to test the fellowship, to make sure everyone was solid enough to carry on, to ensure the folk who continued were focused. But... If that’s the case... and Boromir’s test was the Ring... like... he obviously failed that test right? She was reading his mind! And she does it again before they leave! If we’re to assume that Galadriel’s mind powers are greater than Boromir’s ability to deflect them then... surely she would have known! That this turmoil was in him! And if she KNEW then why didn’t she say anything to anyone? To Aragorn?? But I don’t think yall are ready for that discussion yet tbh and I have to stop typing or I’ll go blind.

TL;DR Boromir didn’t want the Ring until Galadriel tempted him with it and made the idea of it saving Gondor a possibility to him. 

[woeismyhoe]

Rachel Amber, The Broken Angel Who Demonized Herself

Fair warning, please bear with this probably incredibly **longass** (I’m not kidding it’s rlly long) analysis of one of the fandom’s most controversial disliked characters, Rachel Amber. This is just my attempt to analyze her character based on observation from BtS to LiS so by no means do you have to accept them. Productive discussions are obviously very welcomed :D

In LiS, when we asked about Rachel around campus, most of them had nothing but compliments and praises for the missing girl. She was essentially an honorary Vortex Club member who socialised with the snobs, yet she also hung out with the skater stoners and was friendly with those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Then we see those graffiti around where it hints at Rachel’s promiscuity, debts and conflicts with other people. That’s the first sign we see that Rachel Amber isn’t as perfect as everyone was making her out to be. Afterwards we discover that Rachel was a stoner herself and into whatever drugs there were, partied harder than anyone else, promiscuous, entered a relationship with local drug dealer Frank Bowers while having a secret relationship with Psycho teacher Mark Jefferson— all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA in her studies and being considered perfect and adored by practically everyone in her school. The girl’s incredible, obviously, or maybe scary for someone to be so spread out in everything.

Rachel was a straight A student with a 4.0 GPA, an administrative assistant to the Principal, beloved by students and faculty alike, literal goddess beauty, had ambitions to be a model and study international law, daughter of the DA and was the closest to perfection anyone would ever be— so what went wrong? What made her romanticise the idea of running away from a town where everyone loves and adores her?

Because of the above.

Yes, it may sound whiny and dramatic to feel tired of being loved and being the center of attention all the time, but there’s no point to it if it’s not you who they adore, but the person you’re pretending to be— (“I was feeling angsty and reckless. Tired of living up to the perfect image everybody expects out of me.”) —especially when you have to do so much just to maintain the lie.

Throughout LiS and BtS, Rachel’s ability to get along with everyone was always mentioned. At face value she was akin to a social butterfly. She hung out with stoners regardless of their social status (skaters or the vortex club), was friendly with anyone regardless of their place in the social hierarchy (eg; Daniel/Evan/Steph/Drew/Nathan) or even to strangers others usually ignored (Samuel/Homeless lady). Like Evan said, Her friends were her friends. She wasn’t one to let peer pressure affect her relationships so she wasn’t afraid to make all those acquaintances.

However, for those who knew her closely (Chloe and Jefferson), she was referred to as a chameleon, someone who blended in with everyone and everywhere seamlessly. This was an important detail regarding who Rachel was and her intimacy with others. To be able to make that comparison, they would’ve needed to know who the person Rachel actually was underneath the masks she’d created over the years. Chloe was the first to truly see and accept her for who she was. Jefferson was the one who exploited her for it.

For most, being a social chameleon would count as a beneficial social skill if they’re subtle. So long as the person doesn’t lose themselves in the process and is able to separate their personas from their true self, it remains a skill and will be used as such.

The problem with Rachel was that it transcended beyond a skill. A social chameleon was *what* she became, and that led to losing her own sense of identity, to becoming a stranger in her own body.

We see her confiding to Chloe about this feeling in Brave New World: (“Do you think there’s a point when you’ve been acting so much that you don’t even have your own personality anymore? You’re just whatever you think other people want you to be?”) —to which Chloe tells her she does have a personality because she assumed Rachel was talking about herself. But Rachel apparently wasn’t and clarifies she was talking about her father. She then elaborates on how her father doesn’t really exist, that how he was in the principal’s office was a mere performance and then the actual truth— that she’s afraid she’ll end up like him.

No matter how you interpret that scene, the conclusion is that one of Rachel’s fears was becoming like James— someone who’s been so wrapped up in all the lies and manipulation that he no longer seemed recognisable to even his own daughter.

At that point her defence mechanism of deflection and avoidance came into play after Chloe got a little too close to home. We first see this on the train scene when they play Two Truths and a Lie. Rachel gave factual statements as opposed to Chloe who gave facts that elaborated into her personal life. At one point Chloe can ask how Rachel knew about having a distal radius fracture and It’s a very minor detail, but when she explains that it’s because she broke her wrist when she was 10, she says it extremely fast. When Chloe is about to press for more info about something personal no matter what option you choose, Rachel dismissively turns around the conversation from herself back to Chloe again.

The next time we see her deflecting is right after witnessing her father cheating. When Chloe asks about her, Rachel deflects and guilt trips her into somehow thinking she’s at fault for failing to get them wasted and then proceeds to drown her sorrows into alcohol instead of opening up. Afterwards when they find the junkyard, Rachel chooses to isolate herself from Chloe and withdraws to the corner, getting irritated if Chloe chooses to invade her space. When Chloe confronts her about her sudden moodiness, Rachel yet again deflects and shifts the attention to Chloe by essentially telling her she’s self-centred. This scene was classic Deflection 101 brought by Rachel’s defence mechanism to cope with her father’s betrayal.

Rachel uses deflection and avoidance as a defence mechanism, a habit which stems from the dynamics of the Amber family. When you have a Politician as a father whose life work is to manipulate and lie, and a Stepford Wife as a mother who wilfully acts like a servant to her husband out of sacrifice and duty— an environment of deceit and suppression of one’s feelings will be fostered. This is what shapes Rachel to be distrusting and unhealthily altruistic as we see in BtS.

And so Rachel’s deflection is driven by 2 things: mistrust (James) and her unhealthy altruism (Rose).

As a district attorney, James unfortunately carried his work persona into his personal life and can be presumed to lie to even his own family on a daily basis to the point that Rachel can tell when he’s lying: (“When your Dad is the District Attorney, I guess lying is...something you're used to.”) (Why can't you just tell me the fucking truth?! Stop lying! Stop being a politician for one fucking minute! Can’t you just be my Dad?”) What that tells us is that Rachel’s actually used to being lied at and treated with cynicism, so naturally that would make her guarded around others. Not to mention since James often exercised his professional prerogative (just recall how he spoke to Chloe and her comment about his micro-aggressions towards his own family), it’s most likely that he was also cynical towards people in general and carried that mindset forward at Rachel as well.

As for Rose, you have to really observe how she carried herself and her choice of words. A lot of people pointed out how robotic she sounded and blamed it on bad voice acting, but I think that was actually intentional. She was too mannered, too submissive and too robotic as a person. It’s not exactly a bad thing, but a lot of her personality seemed to be too... *political* for the sake of her husband’s political career. It was altruistic in the way that she sacrificed her own needs for her husband’s and was unfailingly supportive (eg; preparing dinner all by herself, *respectfully* asking James for his drink, even going so far as to excuse James for kissing Sera like wtf). Point is, Rose was the stereotypical political wife whose job was to shut up, look good and smile for her husband while he does the talking. At one point in the dinner scene when they start fighting, James even dared to say ‘Rose, let me handle this’ as if Rose’s voice was irrelevant and unimportant to the table (when he literally just got exposed for cheating lmao).

So what happens when your family environment consists of a father who actively lies and uses manipulation to twist facts, expects you to be compliant in exchange for rewards (birthday money), has the ability to read people, and a mother who does too much for someone who does the barest minimum for the family and represses herself for the sake of others? An environment of deceit and suppression will be fostered, and you develop all of their qualities, for better or worse. That’s difficult to change when your own family dynamics molded you to be that way and then reward you for it. If you recall, Rachel’s mannerisms changed completely when in front of her family and if Chloe complained about having to play the goody two shoes formal well-behaved humorless girl, Rachel would say: ‘try doing it your whole life’. So not only was she playing different roles in school but evidently at home as well.

But It’s not as if the Amber family was aware of the toxic environment they’d created. That’s just what their normal was: to be well-mannered, formal, professional, mature and well-articulated.

This is where Rachel’s social chameleon tendencies develops. Social chameleons usually have reasons for blending in when it comes to personal relationships:

1. Being liked is important for them (they value what people think of them).

2. They want to blend in so as to not stand out (they don’t like attention).

3. They’re doing it to make the other person comfortable (the needs of others come first before theirs).

Considering how Rachel was extremely popular, active in all sorts of school activities and enjoyed the attention of being the star, no. 2 is out. She confessed to wanting to stop being a social chameleon and didn’t seem to care much about Victoria’s dislike of her + she also did it to her family so no. 1 is out as well, which leaves us to no. 3— doing it for the comfort of others. In other words, because she *gave too much shit about other people all the time*.

What further supports the point of Rachel’s unhealthy altruism is what she says to Chloe at the junkyard— (“Maybe you should try giving a shit about other people for once.”) —which essentially tells us that she’s been doing exactly that to be able to lecture Chloe into following her own perspective. Another example would be what she tells Chloe during their therapy session: “—Because she was tired of having to give so many fucks all the time.”

One thing however that all *extreme* social chameleons share is the fact that they **loathe** themselves, or at the very least— dislike who they are. Why else would they go all the trouble of creating different personas for everyone to the point of forgetting their own, if they actually liked themselves?

One of the many things that Chloe and Rachel shared in common was their self-awareness in how undeniably shitty they can be, and that they hated who they were. Whereas Chloe embraced that whole part of her down her self destructive road, Rachel tried to cover hers up by playing other roles for people. Both girls played their sides to the ends of the spectrum; Chloe being selfish (causing problems for everyone in general unnecessarily) and Rachel being selfless (posing no problem for anyone in general even if there was a problem). They had no healthy balance and their unhealthy mindset ultimately drove them down a self destructive path.

Rachel knew she was selfish by nature, and that she’d take it out on Chloe in Ep 1. That’s why instead of talking about what was wrong, she chose to drown herself to alcohol and distance herself from Chloe. When Chloe confronts her about it, she either tells her that not everything revolves around her or that she should try giving a shit about people for once. In other words, ‘Other people have bigger problems than you so shut up and don’t make it worse for them.’ That was Rachel’s mentality and in that moment of poor lapse in judgment, she applied that logic to Chloe expecting her to think the way she does— to put others before yourself.

With Rachel, she always had her walls up and couldn’t help it even if she wanted to because it's practically second nature to have her guard up (“I never said how dearly I hold thee; my habit's been to keep my soul well-draped.“). It’s only in her lowest vulnerable moments is when she finally let her walls down because that’s when she’s too tired to keep them up.

Luckily (or unluckily) for Rachel, she recognized her problem. The only thing is that she didn’t know how to solve them. She confided to Chloe about feeling like she doesn’t exist, but then backtracked and clarified she was talking about her dad instead when Chloe got too close to home. Even IF she was genuinely talking about her father, it doesn’t erase the fact that she believed there was a possibility she was going to become like him— because she already saw the signs and made the comparison between them.

Remember her infamous outbursts in Awake? Unlike Chloe, she’s the type who keeps everything bottled in until it’s too much. Seeing her father kissing another woman was the breaking point and that’s why she reacted badly. And then when she kicked that bin, that was equivalent to Chloe smashing up the junkyard. And then that scream. That scream was the result of years bottling her pent up frustration, stress, anger at everyone including herself. Because she did everything to make her family proud, to please everyone to the point that she felt so empty and hollow, only to realize that it was all for nothing because her father was destroying her family. It wasn’t just a betrayal from her father but a betrayal to herself.

And then there’s Chloe Price. The girl who is the total opposite of her, yet who she can somehow still connect with at the same time. While she cared too much about what others thought, Chloe gave absolutely no fucks. That was her most attractive and admirable quality for Rachel. So what does she do? She latches onto Chloe to do exactly what she knows best. Become the ideal version of whoever wants her to be. In other words, the Rachel Amber who would finally give no fucks.

Rachel was the closest to her truest self when she was around Chloe. Just as she brought life and hope back into the girl’s life, so did Chloe for her. Chloe broke the walls she put up, and she’d seen her vulnerable enough times to let her mask slip. Chloe saw her at her lowest, ugliest self even when she wasn’t doing her usual thing of keeping everyone around her happy, yet she didn’t mock or leave her for it. For the first time, she was selfish, and *still* Chloe came back. That was a BIG reason to trust each other for the both of them. And that’s ultimately what bonded them for so long— the fact that they could be the shittiest people on earth, yet still see the best in each other even if they only see the worst in themselves.

Chloe was the first one to see through her social chameleon act because she slipped, and she continued to let her unmask who she was because that night Rachel just didn’t care enough to hold up the act any longer. This detail of Rachel’s chameleon act slipping *only* when something was wrong is a vital part in understanding the context around her. The first time was when she witnessed her whole world crash, the second was when she realized she was becoming like James, and the third was when she discovered what a monster James was. The fourth— when she asked that trucker for a drive out and didn’t bother to be her usual social chameleon self. We may never know what happened, but something wrong was going on in Rachel’s life that she didn’t want Chloe to be a part of— because why would she put the girl who stuck by her during her darkest hours through her bullshit again?

But at the end of the day, that wasn’t enough. Chloe wasn’t enough. And that’s understandable because a teenager truly can’t and shouldn’t have to be responsible for someone else’s happiness. No matter what choice Chloe makes at the end of BtS, the truth inevitably gets out and leads to Rachel having a fall out with her parents. When that happened, she lost a big pillar of her support system which only leaves her with Chloe who’s another emotionally damaged teen that’s on the road to self-destruction. Chloe can’t help others without helping herself first. But still, who else is there to make them feel a little less shitty except each other?

After her fall out with her parents and her father in particular, she seemed to have developed a taste for men twice her age: Frank Bowers (32) and Mark Jefferson (38). Whatever the reason her relationship with Frank was, she still wrote him those letters and seemed to have cared for him to some extent. Not only was he the source for drugs for her very much needed escape, but he was also the man who helped save her life in one of her most vulnerable moments, and a possible lead to find Sera. It’s not that surprising she’d seek comfort and safety in his arms when he already proved himself once. But clearly it wasn’t serious because she was fooling around with Jefferson at the same time (and Frank knew they wouldn’t have lasted anyway).

Now, Jefferson. The devs confirmed that Rachel was in love with Jefferson and honestly, that’s the least surprising thing ever considering how he basically had the female population of Blackwell head over heels for him. Even Rachel wasn’t immune to that psychopath’s charm. He was a well reputable photographer, had the connections to propel her modeling career, was attractive and mysterious and apparently a damaged soul. He was the perfect one way ticket out of Arcadia Bay. He was her photographer and she was his muse. He was basically the perfect solution to her problems.

The girl clearly had deep rooted daddy issues and was ashamed of it herself since she couldn’t even share her secret relationship to the one person she trusted the most despite sharing her other relationships with her (except Frank).

This is where the drugs and partying come in. They’re a way for her to escape the bullshit in her life for a few hours. Chloe was what made her feel real, but the drugs and partying was what made her forget— forget that her biological mother chose drugs and money over her (twice), forget that her own father was so despicable that he was planning to overdose Sera (this is what Chloe said in the silent dialogue), forget that her biological mother may just be dead somewhere because of James, forget that her own family was a lie, forget all the expectations placed upon her, forget that she herself was a lie, forget that she was so insecure that she had to seek warmth and safety in the arms of men twice her age, forget the guilt of knowing the girl who would die for her was still not enough, forget that at the end of the day all her problems is caused by her own mind and that her own fears had come to reality. And she hated herself for that.

But still, Rachel wasn’t a total junkie or outwardly self destructive to the point that she abandoned her studies like Chloe did. She didn’t let the drugs and partying dictate her life, hence the 4.0 GPA. After all, she still had a reputation to maintain. She was still the DA’s daughter, and getting into college was still a way to get out of Arcadia Bay.

BUT SEE, that was exactly Rachel’s problem. She could never choose which to be; The Problematic Junkie of a Disappointment (Sera), or the Golden Child (James & Rose) everyone expected her to be. She wanted to be as free as Chloe, but she also didn’t want to be a disappointment. She was tired of everything but couldn’t allow herself to fall because it was her nature to demand the best of herself for others as long as she could do it. But what happens when it’s your very own nature you’re going against? It gets really complicated. So instead of choosing, she doesn’t and becomes both. That was ultimately the worst decision she ever made.

Make no mistake, Rachel was an absolute idiot for being so indecisive. She could have easily solved her problems if she just finally gave no shit and did whatever she wanted to. But that’s the problem with people who’re labeled as perfect growing up. They eventually believe it and demand perfection of themselves. They care too much about everything because if they have the ability to be perfect, then why would you choose not to be? When someone is seen to be perfect, disappointment is 10x worse. Even Chloe was guilty of idealizing Rachel to be this perfect girl and was disappointed when she realized Rachel was just like everyone else who puts in hard work—(“Rachel's always made being an A student seem so easy. Almost sad to see all this... effort."), but it’s Chloe accepting Rachel for who she was despite no longer being the perfect girl she believed her to be that mattered.

With being seen as perfect usually comes with the assumption that your whole life is. Just as everyone invalidated her problems because she’s Little Miss Perfect with the perfect grades and the seemingly perfect family, so did she.

‘Cause hey, what does she have to be mad about when she’s a rich white girl who’s been given everything she’s ever wanted, right? (James basically said that). At that point the only problem Rachel had was that she was acting as the perfect daughter and perfect friend and perfect student at the expense of her own happiness, and then throw in the sudden slap in the face that it was all for nothing because her father was destroying the family she’d tried so hard to do proud.

But then again even if that wasn’t enough reason to spiral, it really would mess you up if your own father told you that your biological mother chose money and drugs over you, that everything you’ve done so far was all for a lie and worst of all, that your own father was going to kill your biological mother and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I mean really, I’m not a therapist or anything but I wouldn’t be surprised if Rachel’s mental health was suffering by that point.

I mean get this: she abused drugs and partied harder than anyone else and got wasted even though she knew they were wrong (Sera would’ve been a painful reminder), slept around with older men who undoubtedly took advantage and controlled her, continued to act like the perfect student and pretended to be someone she’s not just to keep everyone happy even though it was causing her to question her own existence— it’s almost as if she was punishing herself for continuing down that path.

Ultimately what Rachel was running away from was who she had become in Arcadia Bay. Once she’d be out, she wouldn’t be Little Miss Perfect anymore. She wouldn’t be the DA’s daughter. She wouldn’t have to keep lying. She would be able to start over. She would just be Rachel Amber, the nobody.

She cared too much in contrast to Chloe’s ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude, and that’s why she still managed to maintain her perfect image even when she was already so broken. Whereas Chloe’s first instinct was to blame others, Rachel’s was to blame herself. Both never had a healthy balance when it came to accepting responsibility and that’s what connected them so well together.

Call it selflessness or selfishness or stupidity or melodrama, but at the end of the day Rachel tried to keep everyone around her happy, just like Max tried to do with her powers except Rachel used lies to do it. She was greedy and selfish, no disagreement to that, but she also tried to be selfless for most of her life. She was her own enemy and she demonized herself for it. And that got her murdered, thrown and buried away like the used rag doll she treated herself to be.

She was Chloe’s angel and Chloe was hers, but she was also her own demon. And there’s only so much two broken angels can do against a demon.

**TL;DR:** Idealizing her to be the Perfect Girl was what made her want to run away. Her family was what broke her. Desperation for escape was what killed her. Her family just *really* suck.

Now, I’m not trying to justify Rachel’s actions but merely rationalizing her character. I acknowledge that she was capable of being a shitty person at times, but just as Chloe had her issues, so did she, and so I choose to see them both for what they tried to be. Good hearted people just trying to make their shitty life a little easier. At the end of the day, Rachel Amber was a deeply flawed, insecure and emotionally damaged girl that pretended like nothing was wrong to forget about her troubles for a little, and was just dealt a bad hand in life. Literally.

After writing all of this, I realize that holy shit this girl was fucking complicated and a single post doesn’t do her justice nor explains her character properly enough. I thought it’d be simple enough to word it out, but then again, someone who was basically a junkie yet still managed to maintain her perfect reputation amongst her peers and the faculty is bound to be this complexed. Also as you can see I got very lazy at the middle of the elaborations and repetition has probably made this unnecessarily long but thank you for reading and finishing this overall confusing and messy essay.

[curiosity-killed]

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

Aw of course I don’t mind! Though I feel like my answer is going to be a disaster bc I love these casts so so much aha let’s see:

✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨

MDZS/CQL

1. Wei Wuxian

Ah so I feel like this is obvious based on the sheer quantity of things I produce and the effort I put into hurting him 😅 but yeah! I love how much of a classical tragic hero he is and I love how much love he has and how that gets twisted around and shaped into a collar of spikes around his own neck. I saw gif sets of wwx before I ever knew about CQL and my reaction was “fuck. I’m going to love him” and I do! And I love that he does learn from his past and I love most of all that he learns to accept the love he is given and is able to make a happy ending in a place of being loved and held in respect and appreciation

2. Wen Qing

On the other hand, I did not expect to be like “mine now” with Wen Qing. Don’t get me wrong, the sexy immortal look got me but it wasn’t really till I started writing fic that I was like ohhhhh Oh Boy. Wen Qing is brilliant and ruthless, fiercely loving and aloof and cold. I love that she gets the lose-lose challenge of balancing what is right for her family vs what is right in the world, what she owes to her sect and what she owes to individuals. The golden core transfer is my favorite dubious science experiment in p much all media I’ve consumed. She gets to be so human—prickly and tough and also achingly gentle and afraid and putting on a tough face and sometimes still crying. “I’m sorry and thank you” ! Im!!

3. Jiang Yanli

The first fic I wrote for this fandom was literally “Jiang Yanli died no she didn’t” lmao I do feel like I underserve Jiang Yanli in that I often fall prey to using her to further the complexity that the male characters are permitted while denying her the chance to be given the same space for development and breath — something to work on! But in that, I really genuinely love how tightly she binds herself to her family and how she tries so hard to be what others need her to be—and then she does make a choice for herself and for a single moment at least, she gets to be loved and to be happy and to have this, a husband and a son and a place, for herself. And terribly I love how much she permeates the story still after death. She is the unspoken voice, the face turned from the camera but always still present, carried in the hearts and names and memories of the ones left behind

She deserved better but—I am weak for the tragedy of it all

4. Jiang Cheng

Another surprise (tho hardly surprising in hindsight): Jiang Cheng is just...horribly understandable. He makes terrible choices and his greatest heroism is undone by a choice made for him or, in the case of “killing the Yiling Laozu” is a lie. He is such a youngest sibling who doesn’t want to be the youngest until all at once, he’s the one in charge and he doesn’t want it at all. He is full of anger and hurt and so much love he doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t want it anymore, has no place to put all of its terrible, overwhelming flood.

5. Lan Wangji

I almost didn’t put Lan Wangji or Jiang Cheng on here and then I realized that this is sort of a list of characters I’m pickiest about in fic and...yeah. I think what I love best about Lan Wangji is his journey of grief and healing and through that, his decision to step into world. Where Wei Wuxian’s decision to travel and be removed from the cultivation world (in varying degrees depending on your headcanon preference lol) is really, really important to me, Lan Wangji’s decision to go from being an isolated lone agent working apart from the systems of the world to being involved and invested in changing those systems and working to make them better is also really important to me. I’ve talked before about how relatable Lan Wangji is to me (esp with regards to our interaction with the outer world) and there is something deeply hopeful and comforting about post-timeskip Lan Wangji being in his like mid-/late-30s and still making decisions and growing and changing and choosing to invest himself in the world and the future

yeah. i have thoughts here that I don’t really have the maturity, life experience, or articulation to put into words but Lan Zhan Good basically

TGCF

1. Xie Lian

suuuurpriiiiise!! Yeah honestly mxtx’s mains in TGCF and MDZS really just hit all my buttons basically. What appeals to me most of all about Xie Lian is, fittingly, how he is humanity taken to extremes. His capacity for incredible kindness and compassion is equaled with his capacity for cruelness and ruthlessness. His heaven-shaking highs are matched with calamitous lows. He is the hyperbolic of what it is to be human—and he is also the small moments, the wildflowers and the maple leaves and the mundane chores and the comfort of whispered conversations late into the night. I could quite literally go on for pages about what I love about Xie Lian but I am not Hua Cheng and can restrain myself LMAO

2. Hua Cheng

of all the characters on these lists, Hua Cheng is the one I’m pickiest about tbh! When I say I love him for similar reasons as Xie Lian I don’t actually mean this as being similarities between the two but the fact that both of them so richly convey mxtx’s points about the nature of humanity and what it is to be human. Hua Cheng is both the boldest and most arrogant of all and also the most vulnerable, the one who shies away from the truth because he’s braced for it to hurt and isn’t sure he can take it. He is gory blood rain and an umbrella to shelter a fragile bloom; he is a blade whose wounds only heal if he permits it and he is a sacrifice that he brushes aside as a fit of madness. *pats his head* this boy can fit SO MUCH inside him that he refuses to acknowledge

3. Jun Wu

Definitely my favorite antagonist in recent reading. I was doubtful of him from the start (something something issues with authority something something probably should talk to my theoretical future therapist shhh) but the unfolding of his reveal was so delightfully painful and exquisite that I was like “YES!!!” reading all of it. About the epitome of a satisfying plot twist imo. But about the character himself, I love how he parallels so many — Xie Lian in his rise and fall, his glory and disgrace; Hua Cheng in his fixation and ruthlessness; He Xuan in losing himself to the plot and not knowing how to move forward. I love that he feels beyond human in a way the others don’t—he’s so old and has gone through so much and he doesn’t feel things the way humans do anymore, doesn’t remember right how love squeezes the heart or how hate can exist without acting on it. I love that he thinks he knows how to control everyone and that it’s such mundane things that fool him: Xie Lian’s absurd stubbornness, Hua Cheng’s foolish faith, Yin Yu’s...emotional maturity??? Not Sure how to verbalize that one. But in the end, he is defeated by both the humanity of others and by his own—he’s so tired. He’s exhausted in a way that gods and ghosts aren’t meant to be. He is, under the armor and the masks, the curses and the power, human—benevolent and cruel, evil and good.

4. He Xuan

I love my fish man! No but really I love how He Xuan is so fixed on his one goal that he refuses to acknowledge anything else in his (after)life—which doesn’t make it go away. I love that he is left unmoored, purposeless through the very act of completing that which gives him purpose. I love his long con and the ways he clings to himself but loses himself not in the act but in the telling himself it’s an act. I love that he tries to be a moral man and then becomes a ghost king, a calamity. His reveal is also terribly badass and I do love his bone fish wholly unironically. Like I’m not going to get a He Xuan tattoo (for one thing I’ve been meaning to get a tattoo for 5 years and still haven’t gotten around to it) but also. B o n e f i s h

5. Mu Qing

Of course! The Jiang Cheng of tgcf lol Mu Qing (which my phone desperately wants to autocorrect to my Qing) is so...gah he’s such a mess! And he so fully commits to the belief that no one will ever see and understand him as he is but will always view them through their own convictions about him and his actions — which is simultaneously heartbreakingly lonely and also. Sir You Are a Clown. I genuinely think he’s owed apologies from both Feng Xin and Xie Lian for their treatment and assumptions of him and think that he would be HORRIBLY offended at the thought (while secretly touched? But like secretly even to himself). He will never explain himself and will just clam up tighter the more people accuse him and it’s such a self-sabotaging behavior and also so horribly relatable. I love u sir, you’re a disaster

SVSS I have not read but I do really like the moshang art 😂

[zosonils]

top six fandoms/hyperfixations c:

i thought this was gonna be really fucking hard but it turns out i actually don’t shift hyperfixations as fast as i thought i did so it was only the specific ordering that was tricky hjdnkvjg let’s a go

6. homestuck - a fucking disaster in retrospect [both the fandom and the comic itself], but my experience honestly could have been a lot worse. i think getting into homestuck is where i started learning to really deconstruct media as i consume it, and nowadays i pretty much can’t read/watch/play anything without tearing the writing to pieces in my head, so i guess that’s something good i got out of it. i absolutely would not recommend homestuck fandom to anyone, it’s very high-risk mediocre-reward lmao, but between aus and rampant headcanoning and actually learning to fucking read it’s shaped how i enjoy media whether i like it or not so it gets a cursory last-place mention. also classpecting is still fun as hell

5. professor layton - another fandom i’ve sorta fallen out of, albeit in more of a ‘politely packs my bags and leaves’ way than a ‘fuck this shit i’m out’ way, but it was really nice overall. it’s a small enough fandom that everyone kinda knows everyone else [at least in the queer/neurodivergent corner that i frantically search for and sprint to every time i get into something new lmao] so i really felt like a Part of it while i was there. it’s just such a nice welcoming community and it felt good to be there and i wish all fellow luke stans and/or kinnies a very pleasant evening

4. undertale - i’ve blocked out all memory of my initial hyperfixation on it when i was like 13 because thinking about being 13 makes me violently retract into a perfect icosahedron but i’ve managed to find a nice little pocket this time that i can only assume is a sharp improvement over whatever the hell i was doing back then. i’m only in the baby stages of this hyperfixation, but i think now that the initial hype has died down and [presumably] a larger percentage of the fandom knows how to fucking read i’m going to enjoy myself a lot since the game has basically everything i like in media - it’s funny as fuck, it’s got hidden depths on an unimaginable scale, it tricks you into thinking it’ll be a fun little wacky brightly-coloured adventure and then it is that but it also punches you in each rib individually with emotions you weren’t prepared to have, papyrus is in it

3. sonic - sonic’s gotta be on here because i’ve been into it for literally a decade and it would not be an exaggeration to say that getting sonic colours on the nintendo ds for christmas when i was 7 changed the course of my entire life. like if not for sonic i very possibly would not be an artist and/or know that i am queer as hell and fuck. while i mostly observe these days rather than participating [one day i’ll pick up sa2 again or that sonic colours hd rerelease will be real and the hyperfixation will kick the fuck back in i’m sure] it really does seem like a lovely place to be now that i’ve slotted into the usual nd/queer section rather than blindly stumbling through the aggressively heteronormative masses on fanfiction.net

2. mother - mother 3 is my absolute favourite video game of all time, this coming from someone who doesn’t even like rpgs a whole lot. on the more serious side of things it’s helped me process a lot of things i otherwise wouldn’t have had a good reference point for, and on a more lighthearted note it’s led me to make so many great friends, including my now-girlfriend [cypress if you read this i love you]. it’s kinda hard to articulate but mother 3 is something that’s genuinely been so important to me for all sorts of reasons. this blog is and always will be a claus mother 3 stanning zone

1. phineas and ferb/dwampyverse - i’ve made like a million posts already about how pnf is really good comfort media for me so i’ll spare the details lmao but i think getting into pnf fandom was really good for my mental health for a bunch of reasons. not only is the show itself just a nice positive thing with no complicated emotions or heavy themes but the fandom is full of such nice people?? like i mentioned earlier with pl since it’s a relatively small fandom it feels really close-knit and friendly, which in conjunction with me posting about it A Lot makes me feel like i’m a really tangible part of things rather than just an outside observer who occasionally offers something up. i feel seen and heard and it’s just nice to be around people who care about my thoughts as much as i care about theirs y’know? it’s good. really good. i love it here. thank y’all

[neuxue]

The Untamed Liveblog, Episode 25 (Part 2) - Relationship Status: 20 seconds and counting of unbroken eye contact

Part 1, featuring archery, arguments, and anguish is here. But that left out most of the long, lingering, loving looks (okay I’ll stop with the alliteration) and some Rather Important Conversations, so here goes Part 2.

Or, how to establish a relationship when you’re censored (Lan Wangji), too self-sacrificing to realise people might care about you (Wei Wuxian), willing to stand up for your family but not yourself (Jiang Yanli) or competing with Jiang Cheng for the award of Worst At Expressing Your Feelings (Jin Zixuan). With special guest Lan Xichen to provide insightful commentary through background expressions.

First, we get Jin Zixuan’s visit to Lotus Pier, where he makes a great start by issuing an invitation to Jiang Yanli but making it clear it’s only because his mother told him to, and it’s pretty much downhill from there. With no help from Wei Wuxian, who seems to feel like the least he deserves after everything he’s been through is to test to the best of his ability whether it really is possible to annoy someone to death. I mean, as coping mechanisms go, it’s better than hiding in the windowsill of a tavern and drinking to forget? Maybe? Uncertain.

(I mean yes you are quite beautiful, but Jin Zixuan is having a hard enough time articulating his feelings for one (1) woman without a crisis of sexuality thrown into the mix)

Poor Jiang Yanli. She just wants this one nice thing for herself, but Wei Wuxian is not the only one in that family to put the happiness of everyone else before his own, to facilitate and mediate and give and give and give until they forget how to ask, or take, or want.

But at least it gets everyone to Baifeng Mountain, and also establishes from the outset the way this episode uses the relationship it can openly acknowledge to sort of… underscore or frame or hint at the one it has to be a little more coy about.

I mean, if this can be considered coy.

Like, if you really wanted to, you could just about construe that as a proposal. Wei Wuxian you are incorrigible.

Meanwhile Lan Wangji, expecting an actual serious request when Wei Wuxian asked for a favour (because he is trying, so desperately, to do anything he can to pull Wei Wuxian back from the cliff he sees him running towards, because “let me help you,” he promised, and he’s looking for any way to keep it, and now Wei Ying is looking at him, asking…) and then it’s that and his reaction is just.

An entire study in ‘…..I have dignity, I have respect, I have self-control—’

And then after Wei Wuxian pulls his ‘I will end this contest through sheer competence and overkill if that’s what it takes to ensure humane treatment of prisoners of war’ stunt he comes back and just fucking preens for Lan Wangji, who does a very admirable job of pretending he wasn’t staring at Wei Wuxian the entire time.

I mean, mostly it’s just amusing (and it’s nice, to have a moment of something like the playfulness of before, in the midst of everything else). But it also plays well against the opening context of Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan looking at each other Like That but not quite managing to say what they want to say and instead talking across it. It’s not a direct parallel, and not something I’d have noticed if not for the way it then plays out in the scenes that follow, but with the hindsight from those scenes it does serve as something of a… priming effect.

So let’s do the forest scene, or: ‘How many words can local liveblogger write about six lines of dialogue? The answer may surprise you!’

You can see the exact moment the levity from before dies when Wei Wuxian catches sight of Lan Wangji.

It’s better this way, you can see him telling himself, his heart breaking a little but what else is new? Better if he stays away from Lan Wangji, better if Hanguang-jun has nothing to do with a demonic cultivator, better if Wei Wuxian cuts himself out of his life completely, because then he can’t hurt him, right? (And maybe he can convince himself that it hurts less this way for him, too).

It’s not unlike what he does with Jiang Cheng at the end of this episode: withdraws, walks away, gently steps back and removes himself because I think he honestly believes that’s the best thing he can do for the people he cares about. Either draw a target on himself to protect them, or else stay out of their way so he can’t cause them more problems.

(Which… he’s been doing all his life. Since he was first brought to Lotus Pier as a child and ran away without hesitating when he thought his presence had hurt Jiang Cheng. Now, all these years later, he still thinks in terms of what he owes this family that took him in. And beyond just his family, he was so bright and bold and loud, mischievous, and I think there’s an element of… if you feel like your very existence is too much, playing that up into exaggerated obnoxiousness acts as a sort of… armour. People will look in exasperation and think ‘too much’ but you’re the one controlling it, directing it. Now it’s not you they’re annoyed by, it’s the performance. I think Wei Wuxian has spent most of his life thinking, on some level, that he’s a burden to the people he cares about, that he is too much, and that’s okay when he can stand in front of them and protect them. But if he can’t, then… well, then they’re better off without him).

Again, it all makes perfect sense from a mindset of… thinking only of what he owes or can do for the people he loves, and not quite realising that maybe they just care about him. That to watch him draw away isn’t a relief.

But Lan Wangji does care, and Wei Wuxian’s efforts to turn aside, to walk away, to isolate, are matched by Lan Wangji’s determination to stand by him, to reach out, to help, to be there.

The double-take! The almost astonishment that Lan Wangji has seen him (and that’s it, isn’t it? That has always been it between them, they see each other), and is not turning away. The hesitant half-smile, the slight nod as Lan Wangji approaches. Almost tentative, but there’s a strange kind of openness in that. It’s… an offering, almost, and a kind of careful hope. He walked away, pulled away, pushed Lan Wangji away, and yet here he is. And so, okay, that little nod seems to say, we can try again.

So he stands to meet him, putting them on level ground (as opposed to the last time Lan Wangji came to him, outside the banquet, when he remained seated, twirling Chenqing, as if to emphasise the light mocking cruelty of his words and tone with a posture of dismissal, disdain).

“Lan Zhan, I heard you have recentlyl been exhausting yourself restoring your family’s rules in Cloud Recesses.”

It’s teasing, but in a kind of… familiar, almost gentle way. He doesn’t shatter the moment with obnoxiousness that would preclude any kind of real communication, nor does he draw cruel mockery like a blade to wall himself off. Instead he leads with this like a… peace offering, or a neutral opening. As if signalling you decide where to take this, with perhaps the hint of a question: why are you here, why didn’t you walk away, why haven’t you given up on me, have you given up on me?

Wei Wuxian is so good at taking a conversation by force and turning it to exactly what he wants, but this time he just… lets this sit there, an offering and an opening. Lets Lan Wangji decide where to go from there.

And Lan Wangji—oh, Lan Wangji.

“I made some progress in a musical composition, and I wanted to share it with you to see its effect.”

I WROTE A SONG FOR YOU. (You know, just guys being bros…)

But there is so much he doesn’t say, here. He does not speak of the hours spent making that progress. Does not say I broke the rules for this, or I questioned the tenets of Gusu Lan, questioned the bedrock of my own foundations. He does not say how Lan Qiren looked at him when he assigned him to repair the books (to remember the disciplines).

Because… it’s not important, as he sees it: the important thing is to make this offering, to plead without begging, let me help you, let me do what I can, let me try, take my hand, don’t fall.

But also, I think, because as he sees it, that is his own conflict, his own struggle. Something he must deal with alone, not something to burden Wei Wuxian with. It is, in a way, not unlike Wei Wuxian keeping his sacrifices secret, or downplaying their cost. The cost to Lan Wangji of making this offering, he keeps to himself. Because he is used to being alone (he has his brother, but beyond that? How many people have ever seen him as anything but Hanguang-jun, perfection incarnate, untouchable, untouched? How many, besides the one standing before him now?). Because he is used to letting nothing show; to presenting, outwardly, the perfection all expect to see, and none of its price.

The sort of irony is that it’s these things they hide, because they don’t want to burden or hurt the other, that would mean everything, if they knew.

It’s a retreat, the beginning of a withdrawal back behind those walls… but not quite as harshly as before. As if trying to leave this one last opening: can’t we just leave this be? (Even the part rendered as ‘can’t you leave me alone’ is more in the sense of like… ‘can’t you let me deal with my own business’ rather than ‘go away and don’t talk to me’).

It’s almost a gentler echo of that first conversation after the Burial Mounds. There, he took everything they were to one another and denied it in every way he could (“no, I should call you Hanguang-jun“ and “who do you think you are?”). Now… there’s this tone to it of something like a sigh, and instead of flinging in his face who do you think you are, he flips it around into something more like who am I to you?

(Netflix renders 我是你什么人？as ‘who do you take me for’ but I feel like it’s closer to ‘who am I to you’)

Now, he lets it be a question, rather than an accusation or a true denial. One last chance to navigate this back to lighter ground.

And then.

Lan Wangji, at last, finds the right thing to say. Perhaps the only thing he could possibly say that would keep Wei Wuxian from retreating completely.

(“Who am I, to you”)

It is, interestingly, something Wei Wuxian himself often does so deftly: turning a question back on its asker. But when Wei Wuxian does it, it’s an evasion. Here… it’s almost the opposite. Wei Wuxian asks it first as an evasion, and Lan Wangji turns it into a true question, an offering. One that, this time, cannot be misread as a demand (“come back to Gusu with me”) or a judgement (“do you want to learn ‘Cleansing’?”).

He asks it in absolute seriousness and sincerity, makes it a true question rather than the more rhetorical one it was in Wei Wuxian’s mouth, but there’s also a sense of… making it absolutely clear that this is Wei Wuxian’s choice. That he’s asking for a genuine answer, whatever that answer may be.

It turns this single question into something like… what do you want from me sounds more aggressive and demanding than what I’m looking for, but a kind of I am here, in any way you will accept me; what is it that you want? What am I, to you? What will you allow me to be?

He asks it in such a way that demands an answer, but not any specific answer, and there is this sense of almost frightening vulnerability as he asks it; this is the one time, in this entire scene, that Lan Wangji does not look directly at or into Wei Wuxian’s eyes. The one time. Throughout the rest of the scene, it’s as if he’s saying I am right here, I am not looking away. But here he looks down in something like deference, to give Wei Wuxian the space to answer truly.

To say I will accept your choice, whatever it may be. And to brace himself for that answer, that choice (that judgement).

It feels, in its way, like Wei Wuxian dropping his guard and baring his throat to Lan Wangji’s blade in the Nie courtyard. As if it’s Lan Wangji’s turn to ask-without-asking, have I lost you? His turn to drop his guard and ask the question and face the reply, knowing it has the power to destroy him and accepting that nonetheless, because this is the person whose answer matters.

He looks down the way Wei Wuxian closed his eyes in that courtyard. Taking a deep breath and ceding all power to the other.

And you can see in Wei Wuxian’s face that he expected… perhaps anything but this. A lecture on how this could damage his body and temperament, or even Lan Wangji to simply walk away; something he could respond to with anger or evasiveness or mockery, or a return to brash obnoxiousness. Something he could parry, deflect, or turn away from.

But not that question, asked so honestly, eyes downcast as if awaiting a blow. Not that feeling that suddenly their positions are reversed and he is the one holding the blade, a breath away from Lan Wangji’s throat.

And so you get this, as the first tentative notes of their song start to play, quietly, hesitantly:

Wei Wuxian, for once at a loss for words. Because in that instant, as Lan Wangji asks his own question back at him in utter sincerity, as Lan Wangji, Lan Zhan, Hanguang-jun looks down in something like vulnerability, he knows he can’t give the flippant answer, can’t laugh this off, nor can he wall himself off in cruelty because here, now, it would be a truth, a finality.

In that courtyard, Wei Wuxian would have let Lan Wangji kill him, and Lan Wangji saw. And of course he stayed his hand, but it was almost more about the realisation that Wei Wuxian would have let him. This… is the reverse. This is Wei Wuxian, who read Lan Wangji’s efforts to help him after Sunshot as judgement of his path (rather than, say, concern for his life and wellbeing), realising that Lan Wangji would let Wei Wuxian… not literally kill him here, but wound him, reject him, end this.

And to see that in Lan Wangji, who wears pure white on a battlefield, in whom perhaps no one but Lan Xichen has seen anything close to vulnerability…

Of course it is Wei Wuxian’s turn to pull his blow, to stay his hand, to realise. As Lan Wangji sheathed his blade with a kind of implicit no, you are not lost, Wei Wuxian offers truth without deflection, without evasion, without any kind of performance to give it plausible deniability. He disarms himself.

HELP, I’M DOWN, I’M HURT, I’M NOT OKAY.

The way he says it, like something he has lost, something he must give up. He offers it as truth because he cannot bring himself to do anything else, cannot bring himself to strike that final blow, but oh, the look on his face, as he thinks this is a farewell nonetheless.

But instead, Lan Wangji looks at him in something almost like amazement, like a goddamn revelation. He was braced for… anything, for something that would hurt, and instead it’s this. Just as Wei Wuxian, in saying it, was resigning himself to it remaining forever in the past, and instead Lan Wangji looks at him with something almost like the beginning of a smile and says “I still am.”

Such a small statement but it means everything. It’s I’m not leaving you and I’m not judging you and something almost like I see you, because—

Okay, indulge me for a moment while I play with translation again, because I feel like ‘lifelong confidant’ kind of conveys what it needs to, but also like the… angle is slightly off.

Usual caveats around Mandarin very much not being my first language, but: 知己, is 知 (to know) +  己 (self, oneself), the one who truly knows you, knows your self, so it feels like ‘confidant’, one-you-confide-in, is almost a... subject-object reversal? As if the weight should be more on ‘you understand me’ (知己), rather than ‘I trust you’ (confidant), if that makes sense. Which fits the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji: they see each other, beneath the persona or reputation or walls that most others do not look beyond.

Also fun fact: this is not the first time he has called Lan Wangji 知己 – he says it much more lightheartedly (and without ‘lifelong’) when they’re talking to Lan Xichen and Lan Qiren about the Yin Iron, way back in episode…7 or 8. (I am not sure why I remember this, but I do).

Anyway, I just sort of want this to be a kind of… do you still see me? I thought you did, once, but now I fear that I am lost to you. And Lan Wangji’s response as I see you, not the path you have taken; I see you, I know you, and I am still here.

Really my point is just that this exchange came for my entire soul.

And Wei Wuxian looks up in something again like startlement but also, perhaps, the beginnings of another realisation. That Lan Wangji is, perhaps, not lost to him. That he is not lost, that he doesn’t have to lose this yet.

Then he slowly raises Chenqing as if to almost say ‘Are you sure? Even with this, and everything it means?’ or maybe just to ask that of himself, to look at these two things that feel like they belong, respectively, to who he was and who he is, and wonder…if he can have both. Or, perhaps, for how long he can have both. There’s still a sense of something like borrowed time, as if he knows or believes that eventually it will come to that. But not now, not yet; now, Lan Wangji is still here and Lan Wangji still sees him, and is not turning away.

Look. I’m asexual, aromantic, and often indifferent to romance plots/subplots (though I’m far more invested in this one than I expected to be which is a topic for another time), and this had to get through censorship and despite all of that, I immediately assumed this would be a kiss.

I mean, look at that gif, and tell me that’s not what comes next. A confirmation of what they mean to each other, and this moment of… realisation and understanding as they stare into each other’s eyes and then we zoom out to see them standing there, the moment drawing out as if waiting for one of them to move—

And then oh no! An interruption! How…convenient. But also literally the only remotely convincing way I can think of to have broken this scene without turning it into a kiss.

Also, I want to just look at the moment of the interruption, when Wei Wuxian instinctively grabs Lan Wangji’s hand.

Let me say that again. He grabs Lan Wangji’s hand.

This in contrast to the multiple times in ep23 where he kept pulling himself away, either sharply or gently, from Lan Wangji’s grip.

This, in contrast to how he flinches from almost all contact after the Burial Mounds, especially if it’s unexpected. How many times has he actually initiated physical contact since then? (Not Very Many. And even then, it’s usually… careful). But here? Without even thinking. He reaches out, rather than drawing back.

It may not be a kiss, but it’s a lovely gesture to finish off a scene that’s so much about… seeing each other, knowing each other, reaching out, saying I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. And so Wei Wuxian does reach out, almost like he used to, knowing Lan Wangji will be there when he does (I still am).

And the next scene is one of my favourite examples so far of this show playing coy with censorship. Because there is no way it’s an accident that a scene of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian pretty much discussing their relationships status but not quite saying it in those words is followed by Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan also getting very very close to that kind of conversation but not quite managing it.

Like, it’s not even particularly subtle. It’s just ‘here, have back-to-back scenes of characters who love each other but can’t quite figure out how to express it’.

And boy oh boy can Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli not figure out how to express it. It’s like ‘unstoppable force meets immovable object’ but opposite: ‘emotionally repressed’ meets ‘compulsive need to make sure no one is uncomfortable’.

Jin Zixuan is trying to vaguely hint in that direction, maybe thinking that if he talks around it enough she’ll take over without him having to go through the mortifying ordeal of saying it. And Jiang Yanli… won’t say anything until he does, because what if she’s wrong. Because she’ll take on the world for her brothers, but when it comes to herself she actually has a great deal of insecurity around, I suppose, the idea that someone would love her. She works so hard to make the people around her happy, to mediate, to provide for, to care for. But she doesn’t know how to… take up space for herself, and it’s. Really fucking sad, actually.

And so neither of them says anything, and Wei Wuxian… makes it worse. Because he sees his shijie hurting and Jin Zixuan is a… blind spot for him, in a lot of ways (I honestly think there’s an element of… jealousy there? Not like that, nor in the sense of being envious of Jin Zixuan’s abilities or wealth or anything, but… perhaps a kind of ‘he is going to take her away from me’. And he could make his peace with that, maybe, if it were someone else, but Jin Zixuan has made her cry and he can’t look past that).

It kind of hurts to watch this play out because Jiang Yanli is the absolute last person in the world Wei Wuxian would ever want to hurt, but he… does. Without realising it, and with the intention of keeping her from being hurt. It is, perhaps, a perfect example of how self-sacrifice, and his tendency to throw himself in front of those he cares about (or, dare I say, make their decisions for them without exactly seeing it that way), can… backfire.

So then of course we get the whole argument, which I’ve already spent a frankly ridiculous number of words on.

But then! Then we get this.

First, he was dragged to this point by his mother basically saying ‘you promised me you’d tell her’ which for whatever reason cracks me the fuck up.

Second, he looks like he is in actual physical pain; come on buddy, you can do it.

Third, Lan Xichen’s expression! Watching this with amused incredulity like wow, and here I thought Wangji was bad at this. The little eyebrow raise of ‘go on, you got this’!

But Jin Zixuan absolutely does not got this.

He literally. runs. away. THIS BOY. THESE TWO.

And once again Lan Xichen’s reaction absolutely kills me. I mean, I love him in general, and his quiet commentary-via-slight-expressions here is really just. On another level. I want the whole series with just his executive commentary on it.

Bonus:

That look over at his brother! Like ‘Hey, Wangji, it’s your turn; go on, tell him how you feel. Jin Zixuan’s set the bar as low as it could possibly be; there’s literally no pressure!’ and Lan Wangji is like ‘I need this day to end.’

And then everything was fine and nothing sad ever happened again.

Except nope that’s a lie.

Because the thing with Lan Xichen is that while he can certainly appreciate the humour in a moment like that… he also knows his brother perhaps better than anyone, and is one of the very, very few (read: maybe two) people in the world who know Lan Wangji is not, in fact, carved of jade or ice. That Lan Wangji can be hurt, that he can feel, that he can doubt.

(And sometimes I think about how Lan Xichen knows that. How the other one of the Twin Jades, the young clan leader with the impeccable reputation and impossibly gentle smile, knows what it’s like to stand always on a pedestal. To be lonely and uncertain and unable to let it show, because who will look? Who will see past the perfection?).

Anyway. My point is, Lan Xichen knows there is something wrong, knows and asks and is the one person Lan Wangji can say this to, and so.

Lan Wangji’s expression here is just heartbreaking. The determination, but it’s a determination bordering on despair.

Because he just… doesn’t know what else to do. He’s watching someone he loves destroy himself, and he is trying in any way he can to help him, to reach out, to look for a way, any way at all to keep him safe. He’s questioning all his rules for this, questioning everything he thought he knew. Are there set rules for everything in this world? And his brother said no, said we can only judge by people and intent and heart, and so Lan Wangji looked at his own, and at this person who made him begin to question in the first place, and decided.

But it’s still not enough, because he can offer and he can reach out and he can say let me help you and I still am and he can research all the music in the world, but… what do you do when all you want is to save someone, and all they want is to throw themselves on the sword?

Even here, even as he says it, I think he knows it’s impossible. You can see it in the anguish on his face when Lan Xichen says (gently, oh so gently) “he may be unwilling to go, right?” Because it’s true, and Lan Wangji knows it, knows it’s impossible, and that’s why this hurts so much.

Because for all his power and ability and reputation, all these things that are so important in this damn world, there’s… nothing he can do but watch, and hope, and reach out, and hold on as long as he can (as long as Wei Wuxian will let him).

And we know where that ends.  

Next (ep26) Previous (ep25 Part 1)

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Hey, it’s me again! ^_^ I hope I don’t bother you too much with my requests, but your posts are so cool I just can’t help it. Upon completing Yakuza 4 I’ve had a lot of thoughts and feels about Daigo and how his character was handled across the series. To be honest, at first I didn’t like him much, because he seemed pretty bland (and his screen time leaves much to be desired), but soon enough he’s really grown on me. What is your opinion on him if you don’t mind me asking?

I definitely do not mind requests! Meta is my bread and butter c: I’ve just been busy for a few days, sorry ^^; And... my opinions on Daigo are not going to be as mindblowing or exciting as my opinions on Kiryu, I’ll be real ^^; And there’s a big advantage in Kiryu being the protag, All of the content is about him ^^; I do love Daigo, I think he’s a super interesting character, but his tragedy is just what you pointed out, he’s underutilized. And he isn’t set up very well to have the position he holds. 

But, so saying, let’s get into my essay on Daigo ^^; 

So, we meet Daigo properly in game 2. There’s little side stories with baby Daigo in Zero which helps build Daigo’s and Kiryu’s relationship and set up for what would later happen, but we don’t really know him until game 2. And game 2 is a LOT about Daigo and his arc and what he’s meant to be! There’s a tumblr text post meme somewhere with a pic of Daigo depressed in his little puffy white coat that says “And I’ll probably become the next chairman of the Tojo Clan. Things like that just happens to guys like me.” and that is totally accurate! Like, it’s a funny thing to complain about, but that’s obviously the struggle Daigo’s having, understanding from a young age that it was obviously his destiny to succeed Sohei, the only problem is uh... well... Kiryu. 

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Dojima Sohei never became chairman of the Tojo Clan. And that’s really wild thinking back to Zero and how powerful he was, he was all but a shoo in for chairman. But then, uh... Kiryu. Kiryu happened. Kiryu, and Majima I should say, are the reason Sera becomes chairman, not Sohei. Forever upsetting the wheels of fate. Given where we see Sohei next, I can’t imagine that he ever really recovered from that upset ^^; And I’m SURE it made him bitter towards Kiryu the rest of his life. And considering, again, where we see him next, I think the canon supports this ^^; 

So what becomes of Daigo’s destiny then? His father had victory snatched away, destiny denied, and everything he had slowly crumbles over time, leaving his son with less and less to inherit, but still with the ideology that he should take this over. That’s an awkward position to be in. 

And then Sera dies. Ooh, golly, I wonder who the next chairman’s gonna- it’s Kiryu. Of course it’s fucking Kiryu, how could it not be? It OBVIOUSLY should be Kiryu. He’s the strongest, the bravest, and who inspires the most loyalty. It doesn’t matter that Kiryu’s never been in leadership before, he TURNS people. Kiryu could get anyone on his side through sheer force of personality, which is hilarious to say about a guy with maybe 3 facial expressions. But tell me I’m wrong. I cannot count the number of part-time antagonists who turned on a dime because Kiryu beat their ass. And anyone who can do that can rule the world. Kiryu was absolutely the best pick for chairman and I will fight the world on this.

(Abbreviated for length, this is a LONG post)

But... then Kiryu makes the stupidest decision of his entire fucking life and renounces the chairmanship. And he has his reasons, feeling unworthy, traumatized from the events of Kiwami 1, unsure if he even wants to stay in the yakuza or if there’s maybe something else he wants to do with his life... he’s going through a lot of intense self-reflection and self-doubt and, I hate to harp on it, but fucking trauma. His brother blew himself up in front of him in a bid for redemption after all but telling Kiryu that all of his mistakes are Kiryu’s fault. Yeah, no, I’m sure Kiryu’s doing FINE with that. So, like, I can see why Kiryu said no, but it was still... fucking nuts. And it irrevocably changed the trajectory of everyone in this universe. Which Kiwami 2 goes out of its way to explore. Kiryu’s leaving? Majima fucking retires, Terada’s suspect, there aren’t any old, loyal hands left to lead the families, and we see how vulnerable the Tojo clan is on every side because Kiryu just up and fucked off. 

(I have A LOT of feelings about Kiryu being chairman and someday I will have the strength to write the AU we all deserve where Kiryu stays as chairman)

So... the wheel of fate turns and oh yeah remember Daigo? Dojima Sohei’s son Daigo? The kid who’s been raised his whole life to take over the clan only to be denied at every turn? How’s he doing? Not great! It turns out, not great! Kiryu, his father figure, killed his ACTUAL father, but didn’t really, took the blame for some other weird guy, leaving Daigo with one badass mother and very little direction in life. Daigo’s been brought up thinking he’ll take over a great kingdom but all that’s left now is a broken wreck about to be demolished and picked apart by scavengers. Great, yeah, just what any kid wants to inherit. And he wasn’t trained to fix this, it’s kinda shitty to saddle him with destiny and then not train him for the thing that actually has to be done and then do it anyway. It’s real shitty actually. And not many people help Daigo. 

Daigo couldn’t have taken the chairmanship directly from Sera, he was still just a teenager then. But it probably would have been nice if Kiryu checked in with him even fucking once since getting out of jail. But no, we never explain on screen to Daigo what happened as far as I can remember. Which, I feel, is a pretty fucking big oversight. How the fuck is Daigo supposed to trust you Kiryu? Or we’re supposed to believe he just figured it out off screen and holds no grudges? Like, I’m sure knowing Kiryu didn’t kill Sohei helps, but he couldn’t fucking tell you that himself? He couldn’t trust you with that information or that conversation? Fuck this. Very understandably, Daigo has his own crisis of faith about the yakuza, very much in parallel to Kiryu’s. Why the fuck SHOULD he go to bat for a crumbling organization that has only proven itself to be a dog chasing its own tail, willing to devour itself at the slightest provocation? It took his father, both his fathers, and he didn’t really get either of them back. Why the fuck should he try to fix that? 

And to its credit, Kiwami 2 does a decent job of articulating Daigo’s motivations there. I could have done with even more, but I think they do him credit in showing him as disenfranchised and lost. And I think it’s refreshing to see someone have to confront the consequences of what’s happened since Kiryu left. Because the games don’t do a good job of showing that this is Kiryu’s direct fault. They never like to make Kiryu’s decisions have consequence, which is poor use of a protag. Rightly or wrongly, their decisions ALWAYS have consequence, or they’re not the protag. You can’t have it both ways. If this person is going to matter then, guess what, their consequences matter. Kiryu turned away. Rightly or wrongly, he did that. Daigo will never get that opportunity. Child of destiny. Not only was he bred and raised for this, he doesn’t know how to do anything else either. He doesn’t have other options the way Kiryu does. And we’re in a terrible vacuum of power. Terada’s namely in charge, but no one’s loyal to him. Even if he wasn’t deliberately fostering this, the Tojo Clan can’t survive without faith in their leader. Daigo, by fact of being his fathers’ son, can bind what’s left. And he has to because Kiryu won’t. Which is... really shitty. So either Daigo does this, or we all hang. And we never quite articulate that this is on Kiryu’s say so. Kiryu could still take over now and fix it he just... won’t.

And on top of this already comfortably stressful situation... we set Daigo up to come into a stable situation of power, where his transition would be smooth. We didn’t give him the tools to know how to salvage. He’s not practiced negotiating with hostile entities or even just people who will resent him because he’s young. And he’s lost a lot of faith, without even charisma and willpower on his side, this is a massively uphill battle. If he doesn’t believe, who else will believe him? Daigo knows this. And we watch that struggle go on, all while Kiryu just cheerleads. He hasn’t decided yet if he’s gonna stay in the yakuza either and he’s lowkey depressed after Kiwami 1. Lowkey he’s just suffering depression and can’t do as much as he normally would. Not an excuse, but I think an important way to read how tired and reluctant he is. Some therapy would really fucking help. 

Anyway, we manage to get through Kiwami 2 and install Daigo as chairman, at which point Kiryu fucks off for good. Now, he kinda/sorta leaves some supports for Daigo, in Majima specifically, but also in Kashiwagi and I wanna believe in Daigo’s mom too. She was so cool and then we just... never talked about her again ^^; Laaaame *sigh* So, I guess, Kiryu did try to fulfill his remaining responsibilities as Daigo’s living father, but mostly it was just an excuse for him to leave and not feel guilty. Mostly it was him foisting off his duties onto someone else. He didn’t stay to teach Daigo everything he knew about the people Daigo would have to control. He didn’t teach Daigo and Majima how to talk to each other, a thing which REPEATEDLY comes back to bite us in the ass. He’s not there for Daigo to ask advice and help. Kiryu is full of confidence for Daigo, he’s not TRYING to make him fail, but Kiryu’s so caught up in his own need to leave, he neglects to people who need him. 

And Daigo, to his everlasting credit, does his best to get by without Kiryu’s help. As much as possible, he never calls to ask Kiryu for help. And he does grow into a quite competent chairman! He does successfully rehabilitate the Tojo Clan, he makes them profitable again, he insists on respect and people don’t run amok under him. He does it, he salvages a dying organization. And he may not even really believe in it, but he has such a sense of responsibility, he does it anyway. He knows there’s no one else. He knows if he goes to Kiryu and says I don’t want this, Kiryu won’t help him. Kiryu didn’t mean for it to happen this way, he didn’t mean to be selfish and put others in a bad position. But he wasn’t there to listen. And I think Kiryu eventually comes to rue that. 

The very unfortunate thing about Kiryu is... he is a dragon. Even though he is kind and generous and not greedy in a conventional sense, he is greedy. As much as Kiryu is a powerhouse because come hell or high water, he does what he thinks is right... this also makes him extremely selfish. He can be blind to other people’s needs and refused to be tied down. Again, for the best of reasons, because he’s trying to raise a family, because this environment is triggering for him, but he just hauls off and does things instead of talking to anyone which... makes him impossible to have a working relationship with. He has to learn to talk and to listen and that he can’t make all of the decisions by himself. The great irony being, Kiryu never wants to, but he doesn’t know how to ask for help. He’s so used to have everything put on him, he doesn’t realize it doesn’t have to be that way... but anyway, I’m getting caught up ^^; The point is, he thinks because he ditched the Tojo Clan they no longer care about him. Which is... naive at best. Of course people still care about you dumbass. Which makes Kiryu a massive vulnerability to the Tojo. In 3 and 4, Daigo makes stupid calls trying to protect Kiryu and trying to protect his interests. And because Kiryu hasn’t left open an avenue for them to talk, Daigo has to make these decisions on his own with bad information and he does his fucking best. But... he doesn’t know how to make the best of what he has, not like Kiryu would, and he fucks up sometimes. 

I really, really love game 4 for that reason. Daigo’s fuck up is SO understandable, SO reasonable. It sounded like a good idea, it sounded like peace and harmony. And he was left without a leg to stand on before he knew it. In many ways, it wasn’t his fault. Kiryu himself says as much. And I may never forgive the end of 4 for letting Kiryu REALIZE he defaulted on his responsibilities but then, instead of changing his behavior in any way, he fucks off back to Okinawa. God... *siiiigh* ANYWAY. 

And this struggle, this lack of communication, but unstated loyalty, comes full circle in game 5. When Daigo is literally drowning, literally knows he’s going to fail this time and there’s nothing he can do, and even when he’s with Kiryu, he can’t bring himself to ask for help. He knows Kiryu won’t or can’t. Instead he asks for absolution. He tries to tell his dad he’s just been doing his best and... he’s sorry for the terrible things that are about to happen. How gutting that Daigo can only see himself as a failure because... he’s not Kiryu. No one’s Kiryu. Even Kiryu refuses to be Kiryu. But Daigo knows if he was just Kiryu, things would be better. He’s not a legend. He’s not a god. He’s not all-powerful or crazy or impossible. He’s just a guy, doing his best because he had to. Because there was no one else. And some days Daigo does great, but a lot of days, he doesn’t measure up. And that eats at Daigo like mold. Kiryu would NEVER look at Daigo this way. Heck, most people at that point would never compare them. It’s in Daigo’s head, but it still hurts. He’s still, even now, looking up to Kiryu and he’ll just... never quite get there. 

This is the only good thing I will ever say about game 6, and it was still 2 or 3 games too late, but Kiryu finally acknowledging Daigo as his son was good. Kiryu saying he was proud and saying he was grateful was good. Again, several games late, but... it still mattered. It still mattered that, in the end, Kiryu recognized his legacy in Daigo. That he understood so much of what Daigo did and does and is and was is for him. That mattered. 

Daigo is a great chairman who takes care of his clan. But he was robbed of his relationship with his father. The games never work on the relationships that exist, strong relationships, for reasons I will never understand. Games 3, 4, and 5 would have been SO much more interesting if we had just like Kiryu talk to his fucking friends. Two would have been SO much easier if Kiryu had just been fucking chairman like he was fucking supposed to be and the transition of power to Daigo came later and smoother, with Kiryu helping to make it. Daigo tries his hardest every day and he’s an incredible negotiator and savior after all the shit he’s had to pull the Tojo Clan through, kicking and screaming and fighting to tear itself apart every damn day. The generation above him is all legends, Majima and Saejima and Kiryu. Daigo isn’t one of them. But he’s better because he was here and because he tries and because he succeeds. We need Daigo. We deserve him. 

[antagonistchan]

really long post sorry lol but i have so many thoughts about this that i so desperately need to get out

Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately: Cheating in Transformers.

For some backstory; I’ve vaguely known about Transformers as long as I can remember (I had a bunch of Armada minicons as a little kid, and my Dad liked G1 when he was a kid and told me about it a couple times (and eventually I inherited his old toys)). And then I really got into Transformers myself in 2006 when I was 8 years old, when I started watching Transformers: Cybertron (which was already over halfway done at that point, oops, but still). And then I got REALLY into Transformers myself in 2008, when I truly discovered the Transformers fandom (I discovered tfwiki, and I discovered a couple Transformers youtubers who I actually still follow today, and I realized that I wanted to start collecting Transformers...); ever since then, I’ve been a hardcore Transformers fan. Transformers has consistently been at least one of my biggest fandoms this whole time. And most of the time it’s my absolute biggest, I’ve just had a couple phases here and there of thinking “maybe I care about this other thing just as much as if not more than Transformers” (most notably during my Vocaloid phase from 2015-2018). My favorite video game of all time is the Mass Effect trilogy, and a couple weeks ago I was thinking “there’s probably nothing that could ever top Mass Effect as my all-time favorite game” and then a week later I realized “Actually, no, there’s one thing that could potentially push Mass Effect aside, and that would be my dream Transformers game”.

So, I'm currently 23, I got into Transformers when I was 8, and I’ve been a hardcore fan since I was ten. More than half of my life. Way more than half of my conscious life since the first few years don’t really count.

So, with that context in mind, returning to the point of this post: Cheating.

I don’t like it when Transformers cheat. The robot mode and the altmode are extremely important to me, but ultimately, the most important part of a Transformer is the transformation between the two itself. And when it’s cheating, I feel a little... well, cheated.

Point 1: Bayverse. When I first saw the Bayverse designs, I was immediately put off because I knew that those designs couldn’t translate into toys without cheating. The only toys that even remotely approach movie-accurate transformations are Masterpieces and old Leader-class toys, and even then it’s not fully there. So like, the Bayverse designs feel like they’re missing the point of Transformers. And remember, I was a kid back then. I’m not saying I was a super mature kid or anything; rather, I was put off because of my childlike priorities. I wanted a toy that didn’t lie to me.

The Bumblebee-style designs are a step in the right direction; the characters are all actually recognizable as themselves now. But the whole design philosophy is still wildly out of scale with what’s actually possible in a toy. And god, as I get older, the more and more I do actually understand the appeal of the Bayverse design philosophy. It is a really cool and creative and interesting design philosophy. But it’s a good design philosophy for a movie, NOT for a toy. So even though I actually appreciate the Bayverse style now, it still stings that it doesn’t really understand toys, and the only Bayverse-style toys I’d ever be willing to buy are the insanely expensive ones.

(Also, it’ll always sting at least re: non-Bumblebee designs that the most high-profile part of the brand for so long was one of the least representative, and was so radically different from everything else. To a lot of people, Bayverse is Transformers. If those people are hardcore fans... I don’t mind too much that Bayverse defined Transformers for them. I can’t fully relate, but I do relate a little (these movies have been around and huge for more than half of my life, I definitely have some nostalgia for them), and they clearly have a lot of love for it and that largely placates me. But the fact that Bayverse also defined Transformers to a lot of casual consumers- THAT makes me wildly uncomfortable)

I had a similar initial reaction to Animated’s designs, but then Animated’s designs actually won me over because the designers used some sort of blood magic to make the toys actually work. The toys actually transform the way they do in the show! Incredible! And even at reasonable prices, and looking good in both modes (at worst, there’s some minor kibble and visible robot bits)! They actually did understand the point of Transformers, and I feel ashamed for having ever doubted them! Animated is actually one of the highest points of Transformers, both in media and in the toys! God, I love Animated!

Point 2: Speaking of Animated, we gotta talk about Wreck-Gar.

And by “We gotta talk about Wreck-Gar”, I mean “Wreck-Gar is actually perfectly fine and everyone’s way too harsh on him”. Animated Wreck-Gar is one of the most infamous backpack-formers, and backpack-forming is one of the most infamous methods of cheating.... but honestly, with Wreck-Gar, it doesn’t feel like cheating at all.

Yeah, he’s got most of a dump truck hanging off his back... but it feels like that’s the point. A dump truck is already just a cargo delivery system, so with Wreck-Gar, it just feels like the robot is still just a cargo delivery system. He doesn’t have a backpack because he’s poorly-designed, he has a backpack because he has a backpack.

That’s not to say the backpack-forming doesn’t have any issues. It does still create two problems- that is, it restricts his waist articulation and gives him balance issues. Those are both unfortunate. But it’s not cheating.

Kibble doesn’t feel like cheating if it feels like it’s supposed to be there.

Point 3: Fake kibble.

CHUG toys like to cheat a lot, especially lately.

For instance, PotP Punch/Counterpunch. Counterpunch’s chest is not the actual windows; the real windows are in his feet and slot over Counterpunch’s chest.

This is... kinda clever. It’s still cheating, but the fake thing is just hidden inside the real one, so everything’s kinda in the same place.

But again, it is still cheating, and I feel like cheating misses the point for me.

In this case, they’re clearly cheating because it makes the two modes look better. And they’re right. If the altmode used Counterpunch’s real chest, it’d be too small; and if Counterpunch used the altmode’s real windows, it’d be too big. I get it. But I just don’t think that’s worth the cheating.

But much like actual kibble, sometimes fake kibble doesn’t feel like cheating.

Optimus Prime has had many many toys with fake cheating over the years, because they’ve experimented with so many ways for him to transform but like to keep his design mostly intact (hell, that’s part of why they’ve experimented so much- Floro Dery’s take on his design is really hard to replicate in a toy). And they have varying levels of “does this feel like cheating”.

Classics Voyager Optimus Prime is cool, but his fake kibble is absolutely cheating.

Powermaster Prime doesn’t feel like cheating at all to me. Part of that is because in the Masterforce anime (which I saw before I’d even seen the toy), they don’t hide how he actually transforms in the slightest. They show him transforming, and he transforms like the toy. There, it feels like they just wanted him to transform different, but wanted to keep the iconic details, rather than making him transform different for the sake of the iconic details.

Earthrise Optimus Prime’s fake kibble is mostly cheating, but the way it cheats is actually so interesting that, if I force myself to think of it the way I think of Powermaster Prime- pretend that it admits it transforms funny- I can actually accept it as somewhat not cheating.

But there’s one Optimus Prime that doesn’t use fake kibble at all and still ends up with a Floro Dery-accurate robot mode. I really love the way this Optimus Prime transforms.

It just fucking sucks that this Optimus Prime’s vehicle mode is so bad that even I- who prioritizes the transformation above the vehicle mode- am willing to say “Wow, this toy is garbage”.

I’m speaking of Classics Deluxe Optimus Prime. The robot mode isn’t as good as Earthrise’s, but it was good at the time, and god, that transformation is absolutely beautiful. But jesus, that vehicle mode is ugly as shit. I really wish they’d give Classics Deluxe’s general design another go, have an Optimus that transforms just about the same way but doesn’t have the worst fucking vehicle mode of all time.

Point 4: Partsforming.

I don’t usually like partsforming. I have a hard time accepting Earthrise Cliffjumper even though it’s mostly very good because the partsforming is so much.

But sometimes- and I think you might be noticing a pattern after the kibble and fake kibble bits- partsforming doesn’t feel like cheating for me.

Partsforming typically feels right when it actually gets so egregious that it loops back around to being Really Good, Actually.

For instance, RiD01 Ultra Magnus. His entire vehicle mode basically splits in half, and one half becomes his legs while the other half becomes everything else. The fact that he has to split in half so dramatically and then recombine equally dramatically makes it feel like an inventive and unique transformation instead of a cheat.