#because his lack of parental care and love impacts his growth as a person

[imgoingtosetmyselfonfire]

and if i told you my new interest is the new fairly oddparents.

be warned the tags are a psychoanalysis of his character

[zhianyou]

brief of Jianyu.

Zhou Jianyu, a man of considerable affluence, possessed the good fortune of being born into a family of esteemed lineage. His father, a distinguished politician who served as the Chinese Ambassador in Indonesia, and his mother, a renowned scientist specialising in medical biotechnology, bestowed upon him a privileged upbringing. China was captivated by the grandeur of their wedding, which unfolded like a tempest, leaving an indelible mark on the collective consciousness. Adorned with opulence, this momentous occasion drew the gaze of a distinguished multitude, comprising luminaries from various spheres of influence. Nevertheless, he never relied on the material possessions bestowed upon him by his parents. Jianyu, with a steadfast determination, finds solace in the pursuit of an independent existence.

Having a sister in 2001 brought a sense of joy and blessing to Jian’s life after he had been feeling lonely. Zhou Jiayi brought a lot of vibrancy into Jianyu's life, who was lonely but powerless to do anything about it due to his parents' hectic schedules. To him, Jiayi is a little angel, and seeing her grow up fills him with an enormous love for his little sister, a protectiveness he didn't know he had, and a joy he didn't know he could feel.

In 2012, Jianyu followed his parents to Indonesia because of their jobs. He came in Indonesia without a word of the language, but his kind, humorous, and outgoing character helped him quickly make friends. When he asks a question or shares an opinion, his peers immediately pay attention because of his keen intellect. Jianyu uses his gifts, including his meticulous eye, to take care of assignments both in and out of the classroom. This experience has impacted his character because he now feels at home in Indonesia.

Because of his ‘crazy rich’ status, everyone assumed that everything in Jianyu’s life was running smoothly. Indeed, Jianyu was so skilled at masking his problems that no one would have suspected anything was wrong with him. But his parents’ lack of involvement in his life, especially between 2013 and 2016, left him feeling isolated and confused. Jianyu had a wide range of abilities, but he had trouble determining his true passions. Because of his uncertainty, he gave control of his future to a pen with free will. He made the choice to hold onto his Chinese citizenship in 2013. And in 2016, Jianyu decided to pursue a degree in Biotechnology like his mother.

Although he had some initial doubts about his major, he soon realised that he was truly passionate about this profession and was determined to excel. Jianyu, who claims that his desire to succeed stems from witnessing his mother’s dedication to her career, has been open to the idea of doing an internship since his freshman year of college. Jianyu and a few of his pals applied to intern at Horsche Ventures, Indonesia’s largest medical biotechnology company, in 2017. Erica Santoso, a woman from Kalimantan who has worked at Horsche for many years, served as their mentor.

At first, the bond between Jianyu and Erica existed solely within the confines of their professional lives as fellow workers. Erica, a firm believer in the extraordinary potential of Jianyu, found herself perpetually captivated by his intellect and unwavering commitment to personal growth and intellectual pursuits. As Jianyu’s internship drew to a close and the time for farewells approached, a momentous revelation hung in the air. Erica, with a tremor of vulnerability, confessed that her sentiments towards Jianyu transcended the boundaries of mere colleagues or even that of an older sibling. Jianyu, a rather awkward oneself, graciously expressed his gratitude to her. However, unbeknownst to him at the time, fate had a different plan in store. Several months later, against all odds, Jianyu and Erica found themselves embarking on a romantic journey, defying societal norms with their significant four-year age gap.

In the year 2018, a beautiful love story began to unfold. Like a delicate flower, their love blossomed, filling their hearts with warmth and joy. Both individuals possess an unwavering dedication to disregarding the opinions of others regarding their significant age difference, as well as the fact that Erica beats Jianyu in years lived. Jianyu, ever mindful of Erica’s demanding schedule, made it a point to lavish her with attention during his moments of respite. In turn, Erica, fully aware of Jianyu's unwavering devotion, endeavoured to carve out precious moments whenever he found himself unburdened by obligations. As the hands of time ticked away, their once bustling schedules gradually expanded, causing their efforts to be stretched thin. Amidst this tumultuous period, a plethora of speculations continued to circulate, igniting a flurry of absurd accusations. And so it has been since the dawn of 2021, a year fraught with pent-up emotions that have silently driven them apart, without a word spoken.

facts.

If he needs a pick-me-up, tea must be his drink of choice.

An obsessive user of scented products. He can combine 2-3 perfumes so people won’t know what perfume he uses.

He won’t hesitate to show his affection to his sister. Zhou Jiayi will always come first, even before he considers his own needs.

Some think he takes after his father more than his mother, yet she's clearly his inspiration.

Medical biotechnology is where his interests lie.

He once dreamed of being a doctor just to be an oncologist.

[jiminrings]

heartburn (3)

pairing: jimin x reader

wordcount: 13k

glimpse: jimin's been yearning for the day he'd get to see you again, even if it's fleeting and from afar — who would've known that the two of you would reunite under unfortunate circumstances?

alternatively, three years have already passed since jimin emotionally cheated on you six months before your wedding.

[ the finale; part one + intermission 01 + part two + intermission 02 ]

[ whole load of angst, more fluff + heartwarming moments compared to the previous parts, mentions and descriptions of car accident (neither jimin's nor oc's), blood n thoughts of death, redemption arc uh-huh, emotional growth and closure (?), major longing and yearning, the type of love no one can put into words ]

notes: at the end bc i wILL get sappy :O

as i said before, this does come from somewhere and even if this is fiction, pls read with care bc this is on the heavier side <3 fair warning that i had a lot of people come into my asks and mentions saying that they've cried so if u think that this is tOO much and you’re bawling with no breaks, pls take a breather!!

as always, lmk what you think <3 thank you to every single person who's spent their time on heartburn with me; it means the most. send in feedback n love to my askbox anytime!! | series masterlist

You have no one but yourself.

You have no one but yourself and it’s what you’ve always believed.

There is no safety net installed for you on the ground, waiting for you in the event that you fall because as much as it can’t reverse the drop you take, it’d atleast soften the blow. Would atleast erode the startling pain to have edges for it to hurt less rather than to dig into you mercilessly. Would atleast comfort you into the depths of the night that the debris from your impact, the remnants of it even, wouldn’t be carried by you alone.

You used to have no one but yourself until Jimin came.

Then came Soomin. Then came his parents. Then came the safety net of the love you’ve been deprived of yet unconsciously seeking.

Your heart clenches at the thought that just maybe by the events of this week alone, you aren’t completely alone. Separated, sure, but not alone. You’re still wanted in a sense that it makes the contentment within your ribs full. You’ve gotten numerous heartbreaking pleas and apologies and it reminds you that despite the pain of it all, you’re still needed. If you close your eyes tight enough to the point you feel pressure in your ears, if you think just hard enough, you’re required.

You’re needed.

It’s been mere days since Dr. Kim relayed your annoyingly ironic condition to you and it should only be normal that your first instinct is to put your hand on your chest at the dull phantom ache. The heartburn in your chest has always been there and it’s not fatal. It’s not meant to kill you but it merely exists within you. It’s meant there to taunt you that it’s only a measure of when it would hurt the least to the point that you feel normal. Normal enough to live with it; mundane to the point that you don’t hurt any more than you should.

The lack of warmth on your sides and the grasp of what it feels like to be at home; they remind you that even underneath high ceilings, against expensive cushions, and amongst structured flowers that should radiate familiarity — at the end of today and all the tomorrows you could bring yourself to think of, you have no one but yourself.

“Where does it hurt?”

You haven’t noticed at all that your dad’s been staring at the side of your face the entirety of the time you’ve been here because all that you’ve done is to stay still. You’ve detached yourself to the point you’ve forgotten you’re even in his house, one that you’ve only stepped foot in for the first time in your life. You don’t notice the way that despite being a man who carries so much gravitas with him everywhere he goes, with you, he looks scared. He looks delicate and is even more delicate with how he handles you (if he’s even doing that or he just thinks so), reminding him at every second how he barely knows his own daughter.

It’s only been a week after everything.

The first day was when you were discharged from the hospital and Jungkook personally flew you back home, keeping his eye on you ever so often that he’s startled some of the passengers at the sight of their uniformed first officer repeatedly exiting out of the cockpit with wide and wandering eyes. Taehyung was only a little bit worried when you had to turn down the opportunity of having a private plane all to yourselves for the sake of appeasing Jungkook, but he understands wholeheartedly how startling it must’ve been for the guy at first.

The second day was when you filed for temporary medical leave from the company to your father himself, having to barely skim your letter and attached results before signing his name on it. In fact, the both of you knew that you had no idea if you wanted to continue working in the first place and the whole situation is as good as handling in your resignation letter. Everything that’s happened is abrupt and out of all the people you wouldn’t gauge why and how — your dad understands and doesn’t push you further.

The third through the sixth was when you kept yourself at your new apartment, the one that’s slightly too big for only one of you. It’s lived in judging by the somehow comfortable clutter you have going all over the place, and it reminds you that you did live a life before Jimin. You’ve indulged yourself in nothing besides rest you haven’t had in so long, barely even opening your phone throughout, going so far as to put it in one of your kitchen cabinets.

You have time and it’s all for yourself with no one to wait for or wonder what time they’re coming home. There is time and you’re the only one privy to it, not having to worry if it would still be you the next day.

The twenty-five years you’ve lived don’t feel like they belong to you at all. The time feels like it’s been borrowed and doesn’t stop, not even once, for you. It keeps ticking away and you’ve only spent most of it thinking about what you could do for the next time you hear it click in your mind, no pause in-between.

You feel like they don’t belong to you at all because it feels as if you’ve lived for everyone but yourself. You used to live for the younger version of you, resembling a hollow glass sculpture of who’s supposed to be your inner child; your inner child that doesn’t remember what it’s like to be tucked to bed or kissed goodnight.

You used to live for the future phantom of you, what could’ve been you if only you are exactly the child that your father wanted. You’ve lived through thousand of hours being exactly what he wanted you to be, remembering the short-lived gratificiation you’ve felt when he was the one that pinned your wings and your shoulderboards despite loathing them.

You used to live for Jimin, the one you love or atleast loved the most. It’s beyond futile to deny that he’s the one who occupies your mind the most despite weeks having passed. For all the people you’ve lived for, your time with him is the on you’ve felt yourself the most. It feels as if living for him is the extension of living for your own, not having felt once through the better part of it all that being with him is an obligation you just needed to fulfill.

It’s been seven days since you got discharged.

Today’s the seventh day and it’s when your father called you asking if he could see you, picked you up, and drove the two of you to his house that’s too big to be occupied alone.

You know him for his wealth. One of the distinct things you know your own father for is his material, tangible, and unmistakable wealth. You don’t know him for his love. Don’t know him for his cooking or his quirky hobbies. Don’t know him that much for anything besides his wealth because it’s only one of few things he’s reminded you of with the presence.

For the rare and handful family portraits that you have, it’s evident just how much money he has. He’s clad in unmistakably expensive suits that Taehyung’s very own clothes do not stand a chance against them. For the choreographed poses by the photographer, his hand would either be on your mother’s shoulder or on your own but the most noticeable part of it would be the watch on his wrist, standing out even in black and white photos. He’s a tall man — a tall man with an even taller stack of money for his own disposal anytime, the type to have a problem with wallets because he has too much.

“Where does it hurt?” your father asks and you blank at it, not a stray glance to his side of the couch.

He doesn’t know you. You don’t know if he knows you’re hurting or if it’s an extremely lucky guess. Does he know your habits? Does he know when you’ll cry and how should he hold you if you actually do? Does he know your hurt and how it extends further than he could think of?

You don’t know him. He doesn’t know if you know that he’s been making conscious efforts. Don’t know him enough to know that the wrinkles he has aren’t from age but from these past few years alone when he’s rediscovered you after graduation. Don’t know him enough to tell that he wakes up in cold sweats out of guilt more oftenly with the thoughts that he could’ve raised you better. Do you know how he’s worried sick, yet you can’t tell if he’s lying because you can’t discern the look on his face?

It’s been too long. Far too long that you don’t even recognize your own blood and flesh.

“I’m not hurting.”

His mouth dries, his face softening as he grasps his hands.

“You don’t need to lie to me.”

He makes you clench your jaw and it’s the most emotion you’ve felt the whole week. You think you wouldn’t be bitter anymore given the years that have passed. That you’ve long accepted your fate and yet when he says it like this, in a way that makes you think for a single second that he knows you enough to know that you’re lying, you think that you’ve never moved on in the first place.

“You didn’t need to make me grow up alone so quickly by myself.”

You realize that you were young — you were too young to go through such hurt you shouldn’t have felt in the first place. Your father cheated multiple times, that one was never under wraps. Your mother was emotionally unavailable, obviously evident how she smiles harder at a newly-bought bag rather than your nanny telling her that you’ve memorized the multiplication table.

It was either one parent at a time or none at all. They were together and yet they’re absent. Neither of them are martyrs, that much you know. Your mother’s had enough and you don’t blame her for it. You’re not mad that she prioritized herself, isolating you in the process. You’re not mad that she kept staying the night away until she eventually left completely.

“And I regret everything I’ve ever done and didn’t do,” your father’s been hoping for an interaction with you, no matter how explosive it could be. He’s been waiting patiently to prepare himself for the hurt and yet he didn’t anticipate that it would hurt this much. That even his own words feel so far-fetched if he takes everything into consideration. “I-I want to fix my relationship with you, dear.”

The endearment reminds you of Mr. and Mrs. Park but the words feel different coming from him compared to them.

The way they say it is fluid. It’s natural. It’s warm and sounds like endearment in its rawest form.

The way your father says it is foreign. It’s unnatural and unsettling. It’s stale and feels like contaminated and bitter honey on your fingertips.

“And part of it is becoming honest.”

“What’re you gonna tell me now?” you quietly fumble with your fingers, soft tone reflecting his. “That you can’t come home for dinner? That your layover’s taking longer than usual?”

It’s quiet. It’s unnerving. It’s completely silent and it should be, given how there are years of unresolved tension from his side alone before it’s combined with yours.

Your father’s uneasy and he doesn’t know if he even deserves to be uncomfortable of the truth that’s caught on the base of his throat.

A mere fact he’s known all this time and yet it’s only know that he has trouble digesting it, hurt to know that if this pains him this much, he can’t even begin to imagine yours.

He should be honest to you. He should bare everything that he’s never said to you simply because he owes you transparency in a way he can’t even fathom.

Thinks once, twice.

He knows you’re hurting but he doesn’t know the entirety of why. Doesn’t know what you’ve been going through but he wishes he did. He knows it’s selfish of him but if only you could let him in as much as he’s doing now, even if laying down the truth on you is far too belated.

“You have a brother, Y/N.”

For a moment, he regrets it.

Would you have been better off not knowing? If he does you good by letting you know, he regrets that he’s said this now.

Should’ve been more thoughtful. Should’ve been considerate. You’re hurting and yet he lays down what he assumes is as explosive as a bomb to you only a week after your discharge. He should’ve been a responsible father; he should’ve been a lot of things.

“What do you mean?” you swallow to remind yourself that your voice is caught on your throat but it doesn’t feel like your own. You don’t recognize your own. “I’m an only child.”

This shouldn’t be far-fetched. Your father sleeps around and it shouldn’t be a surprise that someone’s a product of it. Someone you’re unfamiliar with but shares the same blood as you do when you grew up thinking that you were alone.

You should’ve expected something or atleast someone from your father but you don’t know why it hurts this much. Why it hurts this much even if you’ve been long bracing yourself for the impact you think would hit you anytime — just not this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers out, unable to look you in the eyes for all the reasons available. “Y-you have a half-brother.”

“Who came first?” the question plays out in your mind, something you want to know further because you know for a fact that you have nothing else to lose. “Me or him?”

Whatever the answer may be, it shouldn’t hurt significantly more than you’re hurting now. His silence is your confirmation. The weight of the world feels like it’s perched on your shoulders and you don’t know how you’ve managed to stay still all this time, the sudden realization making you conscious of the weight tenfold.

“Were you already married to her at the time?”

“Yeah.”

You’ve never been alone. Your brother came before you and yet you’re the one who’s supposed to be the first and only of your parents. They were already broken even before you came along. You’ve grown up alone and you had the opportunity not to.

You’re mad at your dad. For being an adulterer and having a kid. Did he ever take care of him? Did he ever take the responsibility? Or is it only you that grew up by yourself in this way?

You’re mad at your half-brother. It wasn’t his fault to be born and not once had tried to wiggle his way into your family. You would’ve hated him if he did but you would’ve loved the companionship. His presence alone would remind you, or the younger version of you if only you knew earlier, that you’re not alone.

You’re mad at your mother for never stepping up to be one. The more forgiving part of you thinks it’s irrational because maybe she never wanted to be one in the first place but it shakes you to your core. Maybe, just maybe, it was better to have lived in a lifetime other than this even if it forsakes anything and anyone you’ve ever lived for.

You were born into walls that were already loveless, and if there was love in the first place, it’s long been tainted and out of your reach.

“I’m sorry for everything.”

It’s pathetic for him to apologize and the both of you know it. It’s said out of formality and yet it seems impossible to practice it in actuality.

“You don’t need to apologize.”

He’s crying and he hiccups to see you still. Just as still as how you came here and as still as you remain to be.

“I should be used to hurting.”

You need a change of scenery, that much you know.

You need a change of everything; you’re no longer in the place you want to be.

You want to protect yourself; build your own safety net by the own reservations you make.

For today and all the tomorrows you could think of as far, you have no one but yourself.

THREE YEARS LATER

Soomin is twenty-one.

She’s grown-up well as what a lot of people have told her and praised her, either to her face or to her family or even in the occasional DM she’d get from people she barely knows now.

She’s beautiful, that’s what people tell her a lot. Often does she get complimented in the same breath as her older brother but she isn’t affected by it now, seeing how it makes sense that she’s pretty but she looks so much like him that she can’t deny her resemblance to Jimin. They practically have the same features but how they differ is their own charm, Jimin being the one who’s more outgoing and charismatic type while Soomin’s the more reserved yet loving type.

She’s smart too, that’s what her grades and professors tell her. She’s a dean lister and a full scholar. People come to her if they need help, almost rarely the other way around. She’s studious and yet she doesn’t let the knowledge of her being better get to her head; consistent enough to know what she’s capable enough, but never boastful of what she possesses.

Soomin feels like she should have it all with the way people praise her. It should elate her infinitely but she doesn’t know why it makes her uncomfortable to receive so much of it, genuinely confused if she even deserves it all.

She’s too poised to be as graceful, a have-it-all, that she feels pressured. Unworthy, even.

She’s stuck to the same routine she feels like she’s always had. Always been in a hurry to go home to be in the comfort of her house’s warmth as soon as the bell rings, making up excuses to turn down any extra responsibilities and commitments that keep her away from home. In fact, her parents encourage her to go out with her friends and of the like, but she finds no need for it. She has her home, that much is enough.

It was enough during those times.

She feels like she’s been wearing the same clothes for years. Some are hand-me-downs from Jimin that she exchanges using as her going-out clothes and as her pajamas. The colors in her closet don’t adhere to the people she knows that has an exact outfit for every occasion. Even opening her cabinets don’t feel as joyous as what she feels when she opens her friends’, being so used to seeing the same old garments.

It didn’t bother her when she was younger.

She feels like she’s had the same hair for years. The same haircut in the same natural color. The occasional long curtain bangs and side pieces she does herself that grows out before she even notices. She feels unlike herself yet she wears the same skin everyday but she doesn’t know which one of the two should she alter.

Soomin feels like she’s changed.

She’s smart and pretty and she doesn’t feel like she’s any of those things. She’s sensible and calculating but she no longer wants to.

She’s been the same person her whole life and it makes her want to grip her hair because nothing seems to ground her anymore — not even the same praises from people who preach her for being exactly who she is and has always been, making her loathe herself altogether.

Soomin is twenty-one when she lets go and no longer wants to think of the consequences, even if it’s just this one night.

She didn’t have to sneak out of the house because she tells her parents that she’s going out and according to her knowledge, they were the one who’s been encouraging her to do so all this time. She didn’t sneak out and yet it feels like at it with the way they gawk at her, soon picking up their jaws from the floor as they bid her goodbye with kisses on her cheek.

She didn’t feel guilty when she loaned a dress from her new blockmate, the one that has more skin, the one that’s more unlike her.

She didn’t feel apologetic when she comes into the already-noisy club as a part of her own crowd, most of them her newfound friends from this semester and a couple of their own plus-ones.

Soomin lets herself become reckless as she downs shot after shot and has enough to realize that she’s not a lightweight, much like how Jimin brags to be, but she definitely feels the kick and burn within her body.

She lets herself become curious when she’s offered a joint and politely takes one puff of it before passing it around in to the next one in the circle she doesn’t even realize she’s included in, happy enough to know that she doesn’t stick out that much.

She lets people bump into her without scowling at them. Lets guys put their hands on the small of her back as the most she’s done is roll her eyes at them playfully and giggling, not going any further than that.

She realizes that perhaps, it’s more fun and liberating to be this way. To not be as smart or as rational like how she strives to be at all times. She looks out for herself, of course, but not so much to the point that fending for her safety and wellbeing in a club as packed and busy as this become her main priority because if it was, she would already be coming home sober.

She’s not entirely comfortable, but she feels happy.

She’s not entirely okay with the scene of it all, but her stomach feels full and her cheeks are hurting from smiling.

Soomin lets the night be.

She lets whatever’s supposed to happen, happen. She hops on flow after flow until it comes to a stop, letting that halt become her limitation for the night.

And it does halt.

It does halt when the car she’s riding in screeches and skids, the sudden ringing in her ears and the pounding in her chest coming to her senses first before she realizes what’s happened.

Soomin is twenty-one when she feels like she’s dying.

Her mind goes out to her parents, on how they’d cope if she dies and who’d look out for them since it’s been years since Jimin moved out.

Her mind goes out to Jimin, on how he’d ever smile if she passes away at the very second.

To you, on how you’d take the news of her possible death as she’s your little sister figure, if you still think of her as such, and how you’d react.

To Miso, who’s settled into their home two years ago. Who will feed her? Who will she cuddle up to? Will she notice her absence?

To all the momentary figures she’s ever met that she serves as a passing recollection to. The childhood friends she invited a couple times to the first few birthdays of her life. The seatmates she’s had and the people she’s lent pencils to. The people she’s smiled to and thanked — will they light a candle for her?

Soomin is twenty-one when she cries while she bleeds because she doesn’t want to suffer alone.

( ♡ )

Jimin is twenty-nine.

He is twenty-nine when he realizes that he has no grand plans for his future, not even the faintest idea of it at bay.

He no longer thinks about his next big purchase or anything that’s bigger than the last thing he’s achieved. He doesn’t keep track of his aspirations because he learns that he barely has any for the far future. There’s no lists nor planners because one of the only things that reminds Jimin he’s still living for tomorrow are the emails that he sends himself that would act as his schedule for the next day.

Jimin stopped having grand plans since three years ago.

He has had no grand plans ever since you, three years ago.

He has no grandiose outline for his future and it’s the truth yet he feels empty when someone asks him about it, just either dismissing with a laugh or answering directly. Either way, he’d get looks of worry and pity and he hates being on the receiving end of them, which is why the phrase he uses now when asked is that he has no plans for the future yet since he’s present-oriented.

He’s present-oriented because the only thing in his mind is what he could order that can be considered as dinner from this newly-opened cafe that Yoongi wanted to check out and invite him to in the process.

It was weird enough that they’re eating dinner at a cafe and even more-so being in one at night when they’re actually looking for a meal, but it would suffice. Yoongi and him haven’t hung out outside of a work for quite some time, even if they spend almost everyday with each other at work.

Yoongi and him are alright. Not the best, but clearly better than how they used to be.

Yoongi was mad at him for the better part of three years and Jimin doesn’t blame him for it and in fact, his friend’s loathing for him afterwards was what grounded him. Humbled him, even. Months after the two of you were over, he could have a vaguely good day in which his lips turned into the faintest hint of a smile and all it takes is one look at Yoongi’s scowl for him to remember that he has little to no reason at all.

They were rocky, even more of a miracle that Yoongi didn’t break off his friendship with Jimin completely. He was one of the top people in his list that he apologized sincerely to, knowing that he had hurt him by his extension over what he did to you.

When Yoongi had caught news of your incident, he practically cried himself to sleep because out of all the people he knew, you should be the last person to even go through immeasurable pain after immeasurable pain. He recalls learning the news through Soomin, then seeing Jimin the same afternoon of, decking him hard enough to make him stumble back, before he turned in early and cried himself to sleep.

Especially during the first few months, they wouldn’t exactly fight — how it would go is that Yoongi would raise his voice to Jimin and the latter accepts it all, not even defending himself because he knows that he wasn’t in the right in the first place.

He would be antagonizing him further and Yoongi only felt minimal guilt in doing so. He would mumble snide comments under his breath whenever he’s near him, barely having to look at the younger guy’s down-set eyes to know that he’s heard him loud and clear.

Would be petty at times too. There were more than a couple times that he snatched Jimin’s phone whenever he wasn’t looking and would hide it, although it conflicted him when Jimin doesn’t even bother looking for it and goes home without it; he probably doesn’t even realize with the way he’s detached even from even his own self.

The two of them are still friends. There’s been a shift between them for sure but they’re still brothers to a degree, no doubt stemming from their synergy in and out of their studios.

Their cafe dinner is Yoongi’s idea and Jimin could now clearly see why when he puts down the menu and his friend’s still looking at it when normally, it would only take him a second to skim before choosing.

“We should open another business venture.”

The abruptness of words that come out of Yoongi’s mouth makes Jimin chuckle, putting his arms across his chest as he tilts his head.

“What are you talking about?” he squints, pouting while he counts with his fingers. “We signed five deals in this week alone.”

Yoongi’s had this idea in his mind for the longest time. Technically he could do it all by his own but he finds it hard to do it himself, now that he knows how much success he’s gotten just by pitching the idea of a small run-down studio to Jimin back when they were college students.

They’re friends. They’re practically brothers. If Yoongi had to pitch the most ridiculous business deal to a person to save him from a life-and-death situation in less than two minutes and get approval and support, it would be Jimin.

“Believe me, I know that,” he murmurs as he turns his face to the side, blocking the girl who’s been taking pictures of them for the entire fifteen minutes that they’ve been here. “But we can’t do this gig forever, y’know?”

Jimin solemnly nods, looking at his shoes as he becomes honest, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the table.

“I do. I just can’t think that far ahead to see the future where we aren’t producers anymore.”

Yoongi completely disregards Jimin’s reply to him, nodding and squinting as he knows he’d get him to budge sometime these days.

“I’m thinking of a cafe. It’d look so cozy and shit, it’d be sick.”

“Nice,” he snorts, leaning back to his chair lazily. “We only have a million other cafes to compete with in this block alone.”

“Oh yeah? Let’s hear what your idea is then.”

Yoongi challenges, internally excited because he’s gonna get Jimin to talk and open up eventually into agreeing. He’d be open to suggestions, sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’d be accepting them.

“I do want to start something eventually,” Jimin relents much to his dismay, leaning forward to get his phone that’s vibrating from his back pocket. “I just don’t know what it is yet.”

Yoongi deadpans and is told to hold his thoughts as Jimin’s eyes skim to his phone to see an unknown number ringing him up, accepting it but not talking first in case it would just be a crazed fan of his work.

The impatience plastered on Yoongi’s face disappears soon enough the moment he sees Jimin’s features shift into something that’s heartbreakingly similar.

Something so heart-dropping.

Jimin is twenty-nine when he feels the paralyzing heartburn in his chest again that spreads all the way to the tips of his fingers.

Soomin.

Car accident.

Hospital.

Unconscious.

( ♡ )

Mr. and Mrs. Park aren’t holding up well at all.

Jimin’s dad quit smoking two and a half years ago but he feels like his lungs are caving, his eyes automatically tearing up to see his daughter in a hospital bed that looks far too foreign underneath her.

He’s tried his best to make her feel okay, ringing up the front desk politely even if he’s heaving with tears to get her what she likes. Mr. Park took utmost care in putting pillows on either side of Soomin because even when she was a kid, she wanted to be surrounded when she slept. Wanted to have a barrier so that ghosts and monsters wouldn’t reach her while she slept, the fluffy casings enough to ward them away.

Soomin’s just sleeping. She’s just asleep and tired, only this time it’s not on her bed. He wants to protect her so bad from anything that could harm her and yet he didn’t manage to protect her last night, blaming it on himself even it what happened to her isn’t within in his control.

She hasn’t been sickly nor took even a single trip to the hospital even when she was young. She was eager as a baby to take all her vitamins and didn’t loathe them just like how her older brother did. When she was learning to ride the bike, she didn’t get fussy when her dad put on every piece of protective gear he could look for, and in fact, she encouraged it even.

She has an umbrella in her bag even if the weather report didn’t say it would rain because she hates getting sick; hates feeling helpless even if it’s just a cold that makes her sinuses blocked and her head heavy. She lays to rest when her eyes strain during studying because she’d hate to pour in all the effort, only to feel the starting effects of a fatigue-induced fever the next day.

Soomin has a couple of bruises and a cast. There’s a stitch on the side of her forehead. There’s darkness underneath her eyes and she doesn’t look at peace now that she sleeps. Without those, she looks perfectly fine.

Jimin’s mom has yearly check-ups with excellent results but now she feels sick from her bones within. Her knees want to give out as if they’ve never been alright before, bearing the weight that her heart carries. This is the time that she truly feels gravity — heavy as it sinks her down to her knees and she can’t get up because the pull is simply too powerful.

Soomin doesn’t like seeing her cry. The two of them would fight the most and yet even if their arguments would get out of hand sometimes and doors would be slammed, Soomin makes sure to peek at her mom before she goes to sleep, draping a handkerchief on the doorknob for her to wipe her tears with.

She’s the closest to Soomin, not even denying when Jimin teases her about it.

Mrs. Park hurts when she sees Soomin hurt. Her heart clenches whenever she sees her daughter staring off into space with the emptiest look on her eyes, shaking it off away when she asks her if she’s okay. Her chest tightens when she knows that she can’t relieve Soomin from her pain that she doesn’t even know because she won’t tell.

Soomin doesn’t like being a burden to her family. She doesn’t want to be deadweight because she already feels guilty when her dad urges her to just get Jimin’s share of dinner if she wants more; even if it’s her brother, her family, and what family does.

Mrs. Park practically collapses on his son’s arms with how weighed-down she feels, crying to his shoulder.

“What do we do, Jimin?”

Jimin drove himself as fast as he could and yet nothing could ever prepare him for the sight of Soomin sleeping, seemingly unharmed without her few injuries but it pains him twice as much.

His sister means the world to him.

Seeing her sleeping in pain is what shakes him to the center of his gravity, holding his mother out of muscle reflex and yet he feels vacant, the words leaving him in genuine disarray.

“I-I don’t know.”

Jimin carries the weight of his parents on his arms and Soomin’s on his heart as he watches, standing in the middle of the room as he looks at them, at her.

He thought he’d never get to feel this pain again in his life and yet he doesn’t know that his hurt lasts and extends for more than a lifetime, his own tears streaming as he shakes his head repeatedly.

“I don’t know.”

Soomin’s the first person that made Jimin become a better person growing up. He hated the concept of her when he was eight years old because he thought his parents’ attention would only be on him. He’s fared for 8 years more than okay and now his parents tell him that he’s gonna have a baby sister? His mind was of a literal child’s at the time and was selfish, yet the moment his uncle drove him over to the hospital where his mom gave birth and his dad stood watch, he understood.

The moment his mom beckons him to sit beside her on the bed to hold Park Soomin, his baby sister, in what his arms could scoop up — he understood loyalty.

Jimin understood loyalty when he promised to himself that he’d never let anyone nor anything harm Soomin the moment she came into the world.

He served as great help to their parents as he practically had to shoo them just so he could give Soomin her bottle, making sure to elevate her head and support her neck. He was the one who adjusted the hot water to make sure it wouldn’t make her shriek, even if it meant undergoing through a series of trial and error just to give her a bath.

He would gather his allowance every week and eat from his friend’s lunchboxes to buy Soomin a red toy because he’s heard once that it was good for a baby’s sensory and cognitive skills. Jimin would boast about her to everyone in his homeroom class, barely even cleaning up the floors as he rushes home because he yells that his sister needs him, definitely classifying her baby babble as her signal for looking for her older brother.

Just like when she was a baby, through her toddler and teenage years, Jimin watches over her like a hawk. He’s urged his parents to atleast get something to eat downstairs to distract themselves even for a little while, making sure to call them even if his instincts feel that his little sister’s bound to wake up soon.

He’s hurt but he prioritizes her hurt first, doing everything at once while she sleeps to get to the bottom of things.

Soomin wakes up exactly at the moment her entire family is there, looking down on her with teary yet awaiting eyes.

“Hi.”

She croaks, immediately being replaced with a broken giggle when she hears the collective sigh of relief from her family.

She’s groggy. Maybe it’s the grogginess. Maybe it’s the pain.

It’s only normal that she feels disoriented because she was in a car accident merely hours ago and it’s the crack of dawn at the moment.

She does a mental headcount, clocking everyone in.

Her mom’s standing next to her dad on her left side. Her brother’s standing on her right.

They watch her intensely as they’re about to ask what’s going on in her mind, choosing to know her thoughts before asking her what had happened as they wait for the doctor and the official report.

“Where’s my sister?”

Soomin asks definitively as her head whips arounds, peering into the corners of her hospital room, oblivious to how her family reacts.

“I saw Y/N awhile ago,” she says it to herself more than she says it to them, tilting her head in confusion in a pout. “I swear.”

She asks again as the doctor comes in. She’s confused as to why her family looks like they’re seeing ghosts — how Jimin hasn’t left his spot once in confusion unlike their parents, how not a single hair on him is out of place but he’s dematerializing from the inside out.

“Where’s my sister?”

( ♡ )

Yoongi’s mind is running on nothing but concern and secondhand panic.

The moment Jimin left the cafe abruptly without even a mumbled excuse as to why, he could feel it in his bones that it was serious. An emergency that Jimin can never pass up on with the way his movements are similar, in the same way that he moved when your incident had happened.

The food’s long-forgotten because it only takes Yoongi a total of three seconds before he dashes out of the door to chase after Jimin, worried at the way he’s panicked and how he knows his friend would absolutely stop at nothing, fearing for his safety even if he doesn’t the context of why he’s in this state at all.

He tailed him all the way as he tries to catch up with Jimin’s speed, his hazard lights on as he switches from lane to lane, honking excessively to clear the path all the way to the front for Jimin, his instincts settling faster than his reason.

Yoongi has a bad feeling in his gut in the same way that he’d experience when he’s watched Jimin waste himself away due to his own faults. His friend’s long changed and this situation just felt different, different in the sense that he’s entirely frazzled with the way he’s erratic.

Yoongi just follows Jimin inside the hospital, stopping when he walks through the room with no hesitance and Yoongi realizes that Jimin must not have even noticed that he tailed him in the first place, staying rooted on the ground as he waits outside the door.

All he needed was a faint glimpse inside at the flash of the door swinging open and shutting closed, two figures that he knows so well and the sound of heartbreak, one figure lying on the hospital bed.

Soomin.

He could only piece what he had seen but it’s enough to get his mind running and his heart hurting at the thought, his ears unable to block out the sounds of Jimin’s parents cries even if the door has long been closed.

What Yoongi does is wait.

What he does is be there for Jimin.

It’s been an hour since he’s been waiting from outside the room; he doesn’t know for what or for whom. He saw Mr. and Mrs. Park leave once but they don’t recognize him as they’re clearly preoccupied in hurting as what it seems like. He keeps steady watch of the door as he watches the two of them rushingly come back to it again not a full hour later, taking a glimpse once more.

He could only hope Jimin’s okay.

This time it’s different and yet Yoongi isn’t too sure that he wouldn’t throw himself away just like the last time something as grave as this happened.

Jimin walks out of the room and straight to where he sat with no questions asked, breaking down beside Yoongi as he cries for no end.

His sobs are stuck on his throat and his fingers are trembling, shaking even more when they do nothing on stopping the barrage of tears from his eyes. He explains as he heaves, a gentle hand on his back for him to take his own pace on telling him what happened.

He stays like that for the longest time until Yoongi could hear his throat cracking but he wouldn’t stop sniffling, eyes already burning out of pressure.

“Atleast drink some water.”

He nudges him as Jimin’s head is too heavy that he rested it on his shoulder, shaking a bottle of water right in front of his face that’s meant with no interaction.

The water isn’t the problem; it doesn’t even amount to anything against the elephant of the room that he dances around, skipping by it as his only intention was to tell Yoongi what happened to relieve the pain on his chest and for nothing else.

“You should call her, Jimin.”

Yoongi addresses it while Jimin’s the least hysterical he’s been for the past hour, suddenly feeling the weight from his shoulder being relieved as he shot straight up.

His eyes are bloodshoot and every bit of him hurts but he shakes his head no, closing his eyes as he swallows the lump on his throat.

“No.”

The doctor said it was only temporary. All the necessary and precautionary tests have been done, not one result pointing to the possibility that yielded to amnesia or severe trauma.

Soomin knows all the important dates in history. She knows when her parents were married, when Jimin was born, and her own birthday. She knows all the schools she’s been to and even their chants. She knows what’s the color of their family car and breezed through the question what color was the wainscoting in their house because it didn’t have any. Soomin knows what happened, albeit blurry in a sense.

“It’s just a false memory. Soomin’s still hazy,” the doctor explains kindly at the revelation that Soomin, in fact, does not have a sister. He’s been made aware in a short explanation that the name Y/N she kept looking for is her brother’s ex, nodding in understanding. “The fog in her mind will clear up eventually.”

It’s brain fog, something completely normal after an accident like hers. Her mind’s jumbled and clouded and bears difficulty in differentiating reality, but it’s only for now.

It went as far as the doctor suggesting his professional assumption, unaware that he hit home unknowingly.

“This sister of hers probably has been a coping mechanism for Soomin when she was waiting for help, detailing to how she even saw her, not unless she was physically there awhile ago. Maybe the sister she speaks of was the last person in her mind before she passed out, and she’s looking for her now that she’s awake.”

Jimin didn’t know what to do when he had heard the doctor.

Jimin doesn’t know now what to do when Yoongi, out of all the people he’d least expect to push him into contacting you, is practically begging him.

“We’re talking about Soomin, Jimin.”

“I know.”

He knows how you love her entirely, separately from him.

Knows how you would’ve loved her as a little sister even if you hadn’t even met him.

“I don’t want her to be tied up to me,” he shakes his head somberly, fiddling with his fingers as he lays his head back on Yoongi’s shoulder. “I don’t want her to feel obligated.”

Jimin knows it’s for the best. This would be the best. His guilt can’t bear stringing you along once again even if it’s indirect, refusing to come to you and barge in as if he had the right to do so; as if you’re indebted to him and he had the right to demand you to do one more thing for him.

“She doesn’t owe anything to me.”

“Even if Soomin needs her?”

Yoongi’s frustrated because out of all the times that he knew Jimin would want to see you, be with you, and now that he has a chance to do so even if the intention is not for his own appeasement — Jimin refuses.

“Because I’m Soomin’s brother at the end of the day,” he taps on his knee in succession, inhaling once after every rotation. “And it feels beyond wrong to invite my ex that I cheated on, because my sister needs her.”

He doesn’t want to do you any more wrongs.

“It would be too selfish of me — of us.”

You’re a casualty of fate, a victim of coincidence — he doesn’t want you to be any of those.

Jimin doesn’t want to hurt you any longer, even if it’s at the expense of his sister who’d benefit from seeing you. Even if it’s at the benefit of Soomin who means the world to him, as long as he won’t get to hurt the one who encompasses his own universe.

He says it with conviction even if it feels heavy and uneasy, trying to convince himself more than he’s convincing Yoongi.

“Soomin will be okay.”

( ♡ )

You’re twenty-nine.

You are twenty-nine when you realize that you no longer want to draw the bigger picture; that you find no interest in stepping back from your canvas to see the wall that it’s hung on simply because you expect nothing to wait for you to change it.

You’re twenty-nine when you wholeheartedly admit that you refrain from having commitments and avoid them until you no longer feel the guilt when you avoid groupchats and take different seats to avoid conversation.

The three years that passed have treated you well someway somehow.

You left almost everything you’ve ever had but not everyone, not finding the heart within you to abandon them entirely.

Taehyung’s still in your life, a vital part at that. He knows your dad offered you a whole wad of money you can use to live your lifetime and still have some extra left when you handed in your official letter of resignation. At the same vein, he knows that you declined the offer.

He’s offered you the job that mixes in both of the only two you’ve ever had, only having to do it a few times but still with the gusto he thinks would suffice and it did, it does.

You’re his company’s pilot, tasked to be on-call to fly his family’s private jet when the need arises. Could be for Taehyung himself for business purposes, or if his parents simply just want to have a vacation. Could be for some of their executives that need to fly in and secure deals, could be for holiday destinations that Taehyung plans in-detail for months on end.

It’s only a few times a month, the added hours not even the same length of a week’s hours when you were a commercial pilot. The pay is good, the boss is good, and even the end of the day is good.

Jungkook remains in your life too, the whole reason why you have somewhere you can call home after you abruptly left yours. He was due to move out anyway and after knowing your entire situation, he was more than eager to rent out his apartment to you. It was purely luck that he even accepted your payment for your first month of renting because you feel like his family and he shouldn’t charge family, but you insisted nonetheless.

He was willing to drop almost everything to join you at Taehyung’s company in order to be your co-pilot, willing to leave everything he’s made progress because having you as his captain is better than any hours he’d get.

Of course you denied, making him stay at the company where he is and has been in longer than you were — you did resign, but not without handing in your letter of recommendation to promote Jungkook as captain to your father, calling it in as a favor that he immediately granted.

Yoongi, most importantly, is still with you.

You both know that he wouldn’t drop neither friendships with you or Jimin and it doesn’t bother you, knowing that his loyalty for either one of you doesn’t change his moral compass towards what happened in the first place.

You’ve seen him a couple times for the past three years and although it’s significantly less than how the two of you used to hang out before all this, what matters to you is that he’s still here with you.

You meet up with Yoongi tonight, insisting to treat him to dinner as your advance birthday present to him. You’ve talked about it weeks prior, reckoning how he’s been looking forward to it the whole time.

The two of you have never stopped being friends — you know him.

You know him when something’s plaguing his mind, a look of unease on his features that he would always have difficulty in trying to hide.

The two of you have been here for the past half hour and yet it’s only been you who’s touched the food, finally breaking into asking him rather than waiting for him to speak.

Yoongi’s pupils tremble, tilting his head as he gauges the fact that you’ve been easy this whole time because you’re clueless.

“He hasn’t told you?”

You know who he is and it settles a bitter taste in your mouth, the iron washing away when you find it in Yoongi’s eyes that he’s not just saying anything to fuck with your mind or anything of the sort.

His eyes are strangely familiar with the same heartburn you’ve felt three years ago, only this time it’s much different.

“I’m honest, Y/N,” he whispers under his breath, looking down on the floor to avoid your curious gaze. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know if he’s at the right place to do this but he knows it would be wrong if god forbid anything happens to either of the people he cares about, right with the knowledge that he could’ve atleast done something.

“I-I don’t know if or how I should tell you either but it’s just,” he shakily exhales, making eye contact with you to which all he gets is the hurt in your eyes, all too familiar to him. “I’m honest.”

You listen even if the hurt persists in your chest, unknowing of the ache that’ll settle when Yoongi opens his mouth next.

“Soomin got into an accident.”

( ♡ )

The hurt you feel in your chest is unlike any pain you’ve ever experienced before.

The pain of it sticks to your skin before it penetrates your heart, leaving a trail of discomfort in its wake. It feels as if the pain is materialized into something heavy that sits on your chest proudly, making you claw at it and look down only to see nothing.

Soomin was once your family, the mildly irrational part of the back of your head confirming that she still is. She’s your personification of a sibling even before you knew you had one; even before you knew the true concept of family and how it’s harsh and unforgiving as much as it’s portrayed to be gentle and loving.

She’s the only Park Soomin you’ll ever know.

Eating dinner with Yoongi is the least of your priorities now that he’s dropped the truth on you out of nowhere, a fresh truth that merely happened just two days ago that it hasn’t even begun scabbing at the edges.

You wonder if she’s hurt.

Wondering if Soomin is hurt puts a knot on your stomach because you remember her cries when she was thirteen, recalling that it was only your third time coming over at Jimin’s family home when you hear her shriek. The two of you barely knew each other by then and yet it was only the third meeting that you saw her genuinely hurt, her tears and her whines of pain enough to remind you how you froze when you look at her.

She slipped from the fifth to the last step of the stairs and toppled all the way down from there, badly twisting her ankle that she sobs that she heard something twist and snap so badly that it instantaneously brought tears to her eyes.

It was only you and Jimin downstairs, preparing for what was supposed to be lunch, before Soomin hurt herself on the stairs.

It was too quick. It was too quick for everyone to react accordingly and realize that the moment Soomin fell in pain, the first person to reach her was not Jimin, but you.

You can’t remember the event in detail with how frazzled you were but Jimin clearly can.

He can remember it from the way your eyes snapped away from him and how they went wide, dropping the spoon on the counter carelessly.

He recalls it down to how you eyebrows furrowed in concern as you dash to his little sister, a sob of concern stuck in your throat as you lift her up slightly and assess her with trembling eyes.

Jimin saw the way you stroked her hair and wiped her sweat of panic from her forehead with the back of your hand, looking at him desperately as you ask for help to relieve Soomin’s pain.

What happened to Soomin, one that involves her being in pain, matters to you more than your own standing with her brother at the moment.

The thought of her being in pain overrules you entirely as you work in muscle memory to drive yourself to Jimin’s studio late at night when you got past the traffic from what was supposed to be your dinner with Yoongi, not stopping for anything or anyone.

You look for his studio, his shoes, just anything that would tell you he’s here, head frantically whipping around to search for him or atleast a semblance of his presence.

Until you find him.

Until your eyes finally land on him who’s just as breathless and frozen as you are.

Three years have passed and Jimin’s in front of you.

Jimin looks the same at surface-level, the only key differences from the last time you saw him is how his hair’s longer and is back to its natural color, no longer the faded blonde in your last meeting.

You look at him and you stop entirely, only a second of recognition being shared between the two of you before your anxiety over Soomin overpowers your shock for Jimin, the words tumbling out of your lips immediately.

“What happened to Soomin?”

Jimin feels like he’s underwater.

He’s underwater in the sense that he knows how to swim but he refuses to rise up to the surface, rooted down at the ground for god knows what reason. He can hear you, but he can’t talk to you. He can hear you, but your voice is muffled and having to hear it clearly means pulling himself up — and pulling himself up is what Jimin hasn’t been good at the past three years.

He’s underwater in the sense that he’s an experienced swimmer and is in a well-maintained and balanced pool that he can stay in without the need for goggles. He’s looking up at you from below the water and his eyes can see, but they sting.

He can stay down for as long as he can but at some point he needs to resurface to regain his breathing, finding himself answering you before he gets lost in the ocean of you again before he forces himself to be grounded under.

“She went to a club,” he explains as if the two of you have been seeing each other everyday to feel as casual, barely a barrier between. “She just wanted to have fun.”

Jimin adds at the end as if he doesn’t know you at all. He inputs it for good measure to be defensive as if he thinks you’re judgemental, even if he knew you wouldn’t and would be the last person to, most especially when it comes to Soomin.

You nod attentively, looking him by the eyes as if you haven’t spent the last three years not seeing his within the crowd.

You’re floating on the water in the sense that you’re not versed with swimming and it’s the only thing you can do, staying relaxed under pressure as if one wrong breath and you would be suffocating.

You’re floating on the water in the sense that you do it out of survival rather than enjoyment, the fatigue of just keeping yourself afloat about to catch up on you sooner or later that you stabilize yourself as much as you could .

“Got a couple of drinks, hopped into the back seat with her friends,” Jimin narrates from what he’s heard of the police officer in charge of the cameras, that conversation being wrapped up not even a full day ago. “The girl that was driving ran a red light through an intersection and,” his throat constricts, lodged around nothingness as he exhales sharply.

“That.”

He can’t spell it out nor can he bring himself to. Even trying to recount the events hurt enough for him that he feels as if he’s been gutted at the stomach, the pain manifesting into something much bigger than he is.

“Her side of the car was the only one that’s badly hit,” he mumbles in detail, the footage replaying clearly in his mind. “But even if, they all left her alone.”

It hurts.

It hurts the most being the witness to someone else’s pain after it had already transpired. Jimin knows he can’t do anything about it and yet he hasn’t slept even a wink for the entire time that Soomin’s been home.

He stands watch outside of her room. She lets him sleep on the spare mattress on her floor because even if she offers just sleeping beside her, Jimin says no because she’s injured and wouldn’t want to risk rolling to her side when asleep and risking hurting her. In reality, Jimin didn’t even nap the entire time that he stayed over at Soomin’s room, eyes focusing so often on her figure to see if it was rising and falling — to see if she’s still there.

Your throat is constricted and if you were once floating above the water, you’re now dunked underneath it.

“The car,” your voice croaks, “was it blue?”

Jimin’s lost for a second over what you’re talking about but he connects is soon enough, nodding at the realization that Soomin’s friend’s car was indeed blue.

It’s all the confirmation you need when you feel the bile rise to your throat, eyes widening in panic and fluttering so slowly that he panics at the sight.

He’s just about to catch you because he thinks you’re gonna faint but you whisper, your hand coming up to your mouth as your voice trembles.

“Soomin was the one in the car?”

The realization hits you before the confusion creeps to Jimin, his chest tightening at your words.

“What do you mean?”

It’s pain that you’ve never felt that surrounds you as a whole, engulfing you piece by piece that you don’t know how to ask for salvation.

He’s concerned with the way your eyes well up with tears, an emotion he can’t gauge that he’s never seen out of the five years he’s known and been with you because it’s unlike no other.

“Jimin,” your voice trembles, his name leaving you in cracks. “I was the one who called the ambulance for her.”

“I-I didn’t know,” your head’s fuzzy with the way your mind goes to your tangent of guilt, the blood circulating to your fingertips coldly. “I had a flight and I was in a rush. I-I was in a taxi so we only passed by the car.”

The accident had been so hard to notice at all.

You were called in and you remember even putting the taxi’s windows down to clearly memorize the scene as you fumble with your phone to call for an emergency, trying to relay all the details.

A blue car with people walking away from the scene, confusing enough to see everyone of the barely harmed or none at all compared to the obvious crash on the side of the vehicle.

Your guilt of not helping out is relieved when you see some people get out of their own vehicles to rush to the intersection, joined by an enforcer soon enough.

It’s misplaced guilt that you may feel but you feel so bad nonetheless. Your heart’s burning at the thought that you saw Soomin get hurt and yet unlike the time she fell down the stairs, you didn’t rush to her.

You didn’t know and you didn’t rush to her to help. What you’ve did was look on her pain, one that you didn’t even know belong to her, as witness and call someone else who could relieve it for her.

Jimin remains still, eyes blinking slowly with no anger behind them.

“You were really there?” he all but whispers. “When she woke up, she said she saw you.”

“S-she saw me?”

“She was looking for you too,” he confirms, nodding his head as the ghost of a sad smile settles on his face. “She kept asking for her sister.”

Your heart hurts more than you’ve allowed it to.

“Sister?”

“Doc said that she was disoriented at the time she woke up,” he adds to ease you but he doesn’t know if you need the reassurance in the first place because for all he knows, this upsets you more than he thinks it does. “It’s a case of brain fog, it’s normal. What she asked was somehow a false memory. Somehow a truth she believes. W-we were all just shocked.”

Shocked wouldn’t even be able to cover it.

Their mom cried even harder.

Their dad smiled, keeping his tears to himself.

Jimin remained underwater, breaking down even if he couldn’t resurface.

“I don’t know if you wanted to hear this,” he admits whole-heartedly, pursing his lips before looking at you. “I just wanted to let you know.”

Jimin feels the same sentiments he did when Yoongi got frustrated at him for not calling you, remembering his distance.

He discreetly takes a step back and yet you notice, his eyes settling on the floor as if you’ve burned him by your presence alone.

“You weren’t supposed to know in the first place.”

“You could’ve reached me.”

You’re honest when you say it. You’re sincere when you tell Jimin that he could’ve reached you and you would’ve allowed it given everything.

“I didn’t know how. I-I didn’t know where you were.”

And he didn’t — he truly didn’t know where you were or what you were doing.

He knew nothing about you and he knows he doesn’t have the right to wish for otherwise, knowing that being kept in the dark is a pain that doesn’t hold a candle to what he put you through.

“You could’ve asked Yoongi. He told me that he was offering my number to you too.”

Jimin shakes his head politely, looking down.

“I don’t want you to feel obligated to me. I-I can’t do that to you.”

“I’m not obligated to you anymore, Jimin,” you mumble but you know that he heard it loud and clear, running your thumb across your knuckles; honest with every word. “But I would’ve come if I known.”

He raises his gaze to meet yours but this time it’s you who avoids his, the truth that you know within your heart weighing much lighter than it should be that you feel unused to it.

“I would’ve come if you asked me to.”

Jimin cries.

He cries as he tearfully nods, sobbing into his hands restlessly.

“Is Soomin okay?”

You ask to get him out of it but he barely even responds, crying in front of you so hard that his hiccups rack throughout his whole body.

Your hand raises on its own before it barely grazes his arm, your head tilting in sincerity.

“Are you okay?”

It’s an accumulation of everything Jimin’s ever felt.

It is every pain combined to engulf him as a whole that it feels unreal and detached from his own heart, clueless to how he had even survived last night alone with his own thoughts.

Soomin’s the Sun that Jimin’s family revolves around to, the light of their days and nights that they don’t ever want to dull.

“Soomin’s okay. She’ll be okay,” he says throughout his sobs, trying to convince the both of you. “She’ll be okay.”

“Can I see her?”

You ask because you want to.

You ask because you genuinely want to see Soomin out of your own matters of the heart and not by obligation; not by former relations nor attachments.

“You can,” Jimin says the most surely he’s ever spoken for the past three days. “Of course you can.”

( ♡ )

“Are you sure you’d be okay?”

Hoseok, your half-brother, asks for the umpteenth time for the day.

It’s been three years since you’ve met him and not one meeting with him passed without him asking if you would be okay.

It wasn’t a question if you’re okay today — it’s a question to whether you’d be okay tomorrow.

You treasure him more than you’ve ever expected that you would come to love him as family, as someone of your own blood even if it isn’t full; even if you’ve sworn at first that you only have yourself.

You can’t even begin to describe the fulfillment that you feel when someone asks what’s your relation to him whenever the two of you would spend time together outside.

You never thought you’d be able to call someone your brother and for each time that you do, your inner child gets to sleep better at night.

“It’s been three years, Hobi.”

You were the one who reached out to him the week after your father let you know about his existence. His number was left to you out of a long-shot and yet you woke up one evening with the urge to call it, not expecting the immediate answer you would receive.

Hoseok knew about you.

He was waiting for your call.

“Time isn’t always enough,” Hoseok half-heartedly smiles because he would know; the two of you would know.

Your parents were married at one point in time (it’s a memory so distant that you can’t believe it) and had you five years later.

Despite that, Hoseok’s two years older than you, his mother being your dad’s former secretary.

He knows.

He would know.

He had drove out the next morning after you called him at night, only to blank immediately when he picked up and only managed to introduce yourself in a mumble.

The two of you have already established a relationship early on, making up for the lost time.

He’s honest just as you are. Knew how the other could be just as sensitive and vulnerable.

You know about Hoseok’s pains just like he knows yours.

“I wish I could’ve protected you earlier.”

Hoseok figures that the most logical thing he could ever describe what you mean to him, despite having only known each other properly for three years, is that you’re family.

You are his family and it’s an irrevocable truth he stands by.

“It’s none of our faults we’ve met this late into our lives,” you shake your head at him, telling him a truth you no longer blame yourself for. “If I hadn’t ended up in the hospital, who knows if I would’ve ever gotten to know about you?”

Hoseok brings out his resemblance with you with the way he deadpans, scoffing to the full effect.

“2/10. Not funny at all,” he playfully roll his eyes with no real harm to it, pushing you by your arm as he knocks down your racks of tissue paper on the bar to annoy you.

Hoseok is your family.

You have a brother, and you have a family of your own blood, regardless of its entirety or even the half of it.

“You could still protect me now.”

He smiles sweetly, ruffling your hair. “I know.”

Hoseok knows about your pains and he stand from afar to be your safety net, letting you figure it out alone as you’ve always done, but this time with a cushion to soften your fall.

“Guard your heart, Y/N,” he hugs you in your kitchen counter, the warmth of familial love being something you still need practice on to receive without bawling the next minute. “Let it be yours before you share it again.”

Hoseok, as your brother, sets himself up to be your safety net in the event that what you’ve decided on now — to see your ex-fiancé’s family and specifically his sister.

He won’t tell you what to do.

What he can do is try to protect you, even if it means letting you fall a few times.

“No one should be a saint.”

( ♡ )

Soomin is recovering.

She’s in recovery as she lays in her room, her head propped up as she watches from the new TV that Jimin’s gotten her because the last one got outdated so quickly, having to wack it by the receiver in order to lower the volume.

She’s gotten most of her strength for the most part. The only noticeable injuries she has is her cast that’s soon to be removed and the faint stitch that she has on the side of her forehead, choosing to just look at her reflection from the side whenever she looks at the mirror.

She knows everyone by their footsteps. She has them committed to memory infinitely since they’ve only entered her room for about a hundred times each within the past week, even memorizing Miso’s silent steps.

But Soomin thinks, she just thinks that her mind’s playing games with her when she hears a familiar set of steps, one that’s beyond familiar yet one that she hadn’t heard in years.

She’s about to bolt out of her bed as quickly as she could, effectively stopped when her door creaks open to reveal exactly who she thought it was.

“Surprise.”

You didn’t know what to expect when you show up at Jimin’s family’s house to visit Soomin and lift her spirits even for the tiniest bit, but you know that it was somehow this.

It was somehow this, along the same vein of warmth you’ve expected because Soomin practically jumped on you and embraces you so dearly, so warm to the point you swear you could feel damp droplets the crook of your neck.

“I missed you.”

She admits even if it’s never been a lie in the first place.

For three years, the two of you exchanged messages occasionally. The birthday ones and the holiday ones, the checking-up ones at the middle of the morning, the silent confessions of how she misses you to the point that it’s not even funny anymore.

“I missed you too, Minnie.”

His parents welcomed you long ago as soon as you arrived on their property, welcomed by hugs as their son stood the respectful distance away.

You don’t know where they are now but they excused themselves, if only you knew that they’re in their room uncontrollably happy to have seen you again and for you to be there for Soomin, no hidden agenda elsewhere with their son.

You had talked about this with Jimin. Talked to him about the prospect of visiting atleast one and staying only until dinner.

That’s your only plan.

Jimin thought he would’ve been content with that plan alone but when he peeks at Soomin’s door and sees the two of you hugging; the two of you happy and beaming, he realizes that Jimin only wants one plan for his future.

He feels happy in the sense that he’s never expected to see a sight like this again or for this day to ever come, regardless the context that it’s in. He feels empty however, in the sense that he finds himself wanting more, even if this single visit alone means the world to him.

It’s nearing dinnertime when you come downstairs to the sight of Jimin sniffling, the furthest thing away from even getting started on cooking family dinner in which you sit on your chair.

“I haven’t properly apologized to you in person for everything I’ve done to you,” he says sincerely, knowing that his letters to you in your voicemail wouldn’t count as much as this does. “I’m sorry.”

He apologizes the whole night, even through his gaze at the dining table.

Even through his waves goodbye to you as you pull your car out of the driveway.

Even through his curious glances when Soomin pulls you to her and pleads that you visit again.

( ♡ )

You think you will.

You think you’ll visit Soomin again.

The drive back to your apartment to freshen up just before your planned flight schedule does more than wake you up.

You haven’t drank anything and yet you feel like it sobered you completely. It’s opened your eyes in a way you can’t even fathom to be so aware of what you were doing.

It’s in the early morning as you stand by the entrance of the plane, customer service smile on display even if it isn’t Taehyung nor his family that you’re flying out.

You bow your head as the Head of Public Relations and what seems to be his plus one pass by you, only lifting your head once they go their ways to their own private cabin that’s separated.

It’s only after you flew the short distance and the sun rises that you’re thinking clearer than you used to, saying your customary greetings upon arrival.

It’s when the passengers’ cabin opens that you see her.

Eunji, all along, was the arm candy of the Head of Public Relations on your flight.

He’s married.

And it’s not to Eunji.

She recognizes you the moment her eyes lay on you, eyes widening in realization.

She’s intimidated. Much more intimidated than she could be.

“You must be Y/N.”

Her voice snaps you out of your thought process, unnerved to look at her which confuses her even more.

Shouldn’t you know who she is?

And yet you smile, shaking your head, rattling Eunji by barely pouring in the same effort that she does.

“And you are?” your brows raise, tilting your head as the both of you wait for the executive to gather his things, a faint smile on your lips.

“Sorry, I don’t know you by your name.”

People like Eunji never change, that much you could think of. She’s a flat personality with no development because it’s who she is, regardless of the guy she’s with.

It’s in her system, something she hasn’t managed to shake off.

It’s sobering to meet Eunji for the first and last time.

“I only know you by who you are.”

( ♡ )

Loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean loving every bit that comes with them, but in your case nothing about you was unworthy of the same love that he gives you.

It’s all too domestic, all too warm.

Having someone to take care of is something he’s already tried before. Loving you and taking care of you intimidated at him first because he didn’t know if he was loving you in the way you deserved to be loved. Your heart has far too much space to carry love for others and yet only the small bit of it was allotted to receive it, already filling to the brim with how he knows that his family fills it up.

He’s spent five years with you and three years without, yet there was not one moment that Jimin didn’t stop loving you — even in his sins, even through his despair.

“I’ve already made my peace. Forgive yourself, Jimin.”

You had only told him minutes ago downstairs when you walk down on him crying again. He tells you that he’s crying out of happiness; out of selfishness at the flip side.

He’s crying because he feels so warm having all the people he loves and loves most underneath the same roof, so much so that he wants to forget everything forwards besides now.

It’s when he peeks at Soomin’s room and asks if he could sleep over but she looks over to you before she answers him, a gentle smile on your face.

“You call the shots, Minnie. This is your room anyway.”

It feels all too familiar — all too warm again.

He feels sure, he feels infinite within your roots regardless if it would forever be drought for him.

Jimin’s only one plan in the future is to have you in his hold, just once more, even if it would be the last thing he’s ever feel. He would be yours, and yours alone.

Maybe not now. Maybe it’s in the future.

Jimin doesn’t know tomorrow but he knows now.

Now when he pulls up the spare mattress to sleep on the floor, adjacent to your side where you lay next to Soomin on her bed.

Now when he turns off the nightlight and tucks the comforter neatly to both your sides.

Now when he says good night and gets one right back.

You are Jimin’s favorite pain; his favorite ache and his favorite grief.

You are his favorite roof and his favorite warmth.

You are the only grasshopper.

You are his favorite lifetime if there are four — a lifetime with you is a lifetime he’d pick four times over; one that sows, one that waters, one that reaps, and one that consumes.

He can love you from afar.

You are Jimin’s religion.

There is a home within you.

.

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that is it for heartburn :)) i can't even put into words nor begin to thank everyone who's spent their time on heartburn and let me know their own hearts in the process. thank you for being here! my askbox is open for you <3

[tarobytez]

disability in the Six Of Crows Duology; an analysis of Kaz Brekker, Wylan Van Eck, and the fandom’s treatment of them.

****Note: I originally wrote this for a tiktok series, which im still going to do, but i wanted to post here as well bc tumblr is major contributor to what im going to talk about

CW: ableism, filicide, abuse

In the Six of Crows duology, Leigh Bardugo delicately subverts and melds harmful disability tropes into her narrative, unpacking them in a way that I, as a disabled person, found immensely refreshing and…. just brilliant. 

But what did you all do with that? Well, you fucked it up. Instead of critically looking at the characters, y’all just chose to be ableist. 

For the next few videos paragraphs im going to unpack disability theory (largely the stuff surrounding media, for obvious reasons) and how it relates to Six Of Crows and the characterization of Kaz Brekker and Wylan Van Eck, then how, despite their brilliant writing, y’all completely overlooked the actual text and continuously revert them to ableist cariactures.

Disclaimer: 1. Shocker - i am disabled. I have also extensively researched disability theory and am very active in the disabled community. Basically, I know my shit. 2. im going to be mad in these videos this analysis. Because the way y’all have been acting has been going on for a long ass time and im fuckin sick of it. I don’t give a shit about non-disabled feelings, die mad

Firstly, I’m going to discuss Kaz, his play on the stereotypical “mean cripple” trope and how Bardugo subverts it, his cane, and disabled rage. Then, I am going to discuss Wylan, the “inspiration porn” stereotype, caregivers / parents, and the social model of disability. Finally, I will then explain the problems in the fandom from my perspective as a disabled person, largely when it comes to wylan, bc yall cant leave that boy tf alone.

Kaz Brekker

Think of a character who uses a cane (obviously not Kaz). Now, are they evil, dubiously moral, or just an asshole in general? Because nearly example I can think of is: whether it be Lots’O from Toy Story, Lucius Malfoy, or even Scrooge and Mr.Gold from Once Upon A Time all have canes (the last two even having their canes appear less and less as they become better people)

The mean/evil cripple trope is far more common than you would think. Villains with different bodies are confined to the role of “evil”. To quote TV Tropes, who I think did a brilliant job on explaining it “The first is rooted in eugenics-based ideas linking disability or other physical deformities with a "natural" predisposition towards madness, criminality, vice, etc. The Rule of Symbolism is often at work here, since a "crippled" body can be used to represent a "crippled" soul — and indeed, a disabled villain is usually put in contrast to a morally upright and physically "perfect" hero. Whether consciously on the part of the writer or not, this can reinforce cultural ideas of disability making a person inherently inferior or negative, much in the same way the Sissy Villain or Depraved Homosexual trope associate sexual and gender nonconformity with evil. ”

Our introduction to Kaz affirms this notion of him being bad or morally bankrupt, with “Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason”, etc. This mythologized version of himself, the “bastard of the barrel” actively fed into this misconception. But, as we the audience are privy to his inner thoughts, know that he is just a teenager like every other Crow. He is complex, his disability isn’t this tragic backstory, he just fell off a roof. It’s not his main motivation, nor does he curse revenge for making him a cripple - it is just another part of who he is. 

His cane (though the shows version fills me with rage but-) is an extension of Kaz - he fights with it, but it has a purpose. Another common thing in media is for canes to be simply accessories, but while Kaz’ cane is fashionable, it has purpose.

The quote “There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.” is so fucking powerful. Kaz does not want nor need a cure - its said in Crooked Kingdom that his leg could most likely be healed, but he chooses not to. Abled-bodied people tend to dismiss this thought as Kaz being stubborn but it shows a reality of acceptance of his disability that is just, so refreshing.

In chapter 22 of SOC, we see disabled rage done right - when he is called a cripple by the Fjerdan inmate, Kaz is pissed - the important detail being that he is pissed at the Fjerdan, at society for ableism, not blaming it on being disabled or wishing he could be normal. He takes action, dislocating the asshole’s shoulder and proving to him, and to a lesser extent, himself, that he is just as capable as anyone else, not in spite of, but because he is disabled. And that is the point of Kaz, harking back to the line that “there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken”. 

I cried on numerous occasions while reading the SOC duology, but the parts I highlighted in this section especially so. I, as many other disabled people do, have had a long and tumultuous relationship with our disability/es, and for many still struggle. But Kaz Brekker gave me an empowered disabled character who accepts themselves, and that means the world to me. 

Keeping that in mind, I hope you can understand why it hurts so much to disabled people when you either erase Kaz’s disability (whether through cosplay or fanfiction), or portray him as a “broken boy uwu”, especially implying that he would want a cure. That flies in the face of canon and is inherently fucking ableist. (if u think im mad wait until the next section)

Next, we have Wylan.  

Oh fucking boy. 

I love Wylan so fucking much, and y’all just do not seem to understand his character? Like at all? Since this is disability-centric, I’m not going to discuss how the intersection of his queerness also contributes to these issues, but trust me when I say it’s a contributing factor to what i'm going to say.

Wylan, motherfucking Van Eck. If you ableist pricks don’t take ur fucking hands off him right now im going to fight you. I see Wylan as a subversion another, and in my opinion more insidious stereotype pf disabled people - inspiration porn.

Cara Liebowitz in a 2015 article on the blog The Body Is Not An Apology explains in greater detail how inspiration porn is impactful in real life, but media is a major contributing factor to this reality. The technical definition is “the portrayal of people with disabilities as inspirational solely or in part on the basis of their disability” - but that does not cover it fully. 

Inspiration porn does lasting damage on the disabled community as it implies that disability is a negative that you need to “overcome” or “triumph” instead of something one can feel proud of. It exploits disabled people for the development of non-disabled people, and in media often the white male protagonist. Framing disability as inherently negative perpetuates ideals of eugenics and cures - see Autism $peaks’ “I Am Autism” ad. Inspiration porn is also incredibly patronizing as it implies that we cannot take care of ourselves, or do things like non-disabled people do. Because i stg some of you tend to think that we just sit around all day wishing we weren’t disabled. 

Another important theory ideal that is necessary when thinking about Wylan is the experience of feeling like a burden simply for needing help or accommodations. This is especially true when it comes to familial relationships, and internalized ableism.

The rhetoric that Wylan’s father drilled into his head, that he is “defective”, “a mistake”, and “needs to be corrected”, that he (Jan) was “cursed with a moron for a child” is a long held belief that disabled people hear relentlessly. And while many see Van Eck’s attempted murder of Wylan as “preposturous” and overall something that you would never think happens today - filicide (a parent murdering their child) is more common than you would like to believe. Without even mentioning the countless and often unreported deaths of disabled people due to lack of / insufficient / neglectful medical care, in a study on children who died from the result of household abuse, 40 of 42 of them (95%) were diagnosed with disabilities. Van Eck is not some caricature of ableist ideals - he is a real reflection on how many people and family members view disability. 

Circling back to how Wylan unpacks the inspiration porn trope - he is 3 dimensional, he is not only used to develop the other characters, he is just *chefs kiss* Leigh, imo, put so much love and care into the creation of Wylan and his story and character growth that is representative of a larger feeling in the disabled community. 

That being said, what you non-disabled motherfuckers have done to him.

The “haha Wylan can’t read” jokes aren’t and were not funny. Y’all literally boiled down everything Wylan is to him being dyslexic. And it’s like,,,, the only thing you can say about him. You ignore every other part of him other than his disability, and then mock him for it. There’s so much you can say about Wylan - simping for Jesper, being band kid and playing the fuckin flute, literally anything else. But no, you just chose to mock his disability, excellent fucking job!

Next up on “ableds stfu” - infantilization! y’all are so fucking condescending to Wylan, and treat him like a fucking toddler. And while partly it is due to his sexuality i think a larger portion is him being disabled. Its in the same vein of people who think that Wylan and Jesper are romantically one sided, and that Jesper only kind of liked Wylan, despite the canon evidence of him loving Wylan just as much. You all view him as a “smol bean”, who needs protecting, and care, when Wylan is the opposite of that. He is a fucking demolitions expert who suggested waking up sleeping men to kill them - what about that says “uwu”. You are treating Wylan as a burden to Jesper and the other Crows when he is an immensely valuable, fully autonomous disabled person - you all just view him as damaged. 

And before I get a comment saying that “uhhh Wylan isn’t real why do you care” while Wylan may not be real, how you all view him and treat him has real fucking impacts and informs how you treat people like me. If someone called me an “uwu baby boy” they’d get a fist square in the fucking jaw. Fiction informs how we perceive the world and y’all are making it super fucking clear how you see disabled people. 

Finally, I wanted to talk about how the social model of disability is portrayed through Wylan. For those who are unaware, the social model of disability contrasts the medical model, that views the disability itself as the problem, that needs to be cured, whereas the social model essentially boils down to creating an accommodating society, where disability acceptance and pride is the goal. And we see this with Wylan - he is able to manage his father’s estate, with Jesper’s assistance to help him read documents. And this is not out of pity or charity, but an act of love. It is not portrayed as this almighty act for Jesper to play saviour, just a given, which is incredibly important to show, especially for someone who has been abused by family for his disability like Wylan, that he is accepted. 

Yet, I still see people hold up Jesper on a pedestal for “putting up with” Wylan, as if loving a disabled person deserves a fucking pat on the back. It’s genuinely exhausting trying to engage with a work I love so much with a fandom that thinks so little of me and my community. It fucking shows. 

Overall, Leigh Bardugo as a disabled person wrote two incredibly meticulous and empowered disabled characters, and due to either lack of reading comprehension, ableism, or a quirky mix of both, the fandom has ignored canon and the experiences of disabled people for…. shits and giggles i guess. And yes, there are issues with the Grishaverse and disability representation - while I haven’t finished them yet so I do not have an opinion on it, people have been discussing issues in the KOS duology with ableist ideals. This mini series was no way indicative of the entire disabled experience, nor does it represent my entire view on the representation as a whole. These things need to be met critically in our community, and talked about with disabled voices at the forefront. For example, the limited perspective we get of Wylan and Kaz being both white men, does not account for a large portion of the disabled community and the intersection of multiple identities.

All-in-all, Critique media, but do not forget to also critique fandom spaces. Alternatively, just shut the fuck up :)

happy fucking disability pride month, ig

[greensaplinggrace]

honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...

not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..

like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.

alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???

honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.

Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.

HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.

👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!

Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".

Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.

Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.

I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.

And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.

And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?

The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.

His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).

And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.

She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.

Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.

And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.

Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.

Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.

The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.

In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.

The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.

Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.

Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.

This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.

So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.

[sunmoontruth-stiles]

Ok this is gonna be long. I’ve literally been slowly working on this for… too long. I’m just in a mood to have a long discussion about ships. I’ll be looking at canon and not, so bare with me. I don’t ship all of these personally. I’m mostly just picking the most popular ones. I chose to leave out a few that I just don’t want to talk about. I tried to keep this loosely chronological, but that quickly went to hell. None of this is meant to be hate towards anyone’s ship, just my personal opinions on each of them.

Canon:

Scott x Allison: True Classic

Scallison is so sweet as it is truly the epitome of young love. Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo is even more of an idiot and Juliet is a badass who dies for a cause. They’re moral and ethical codes are both highly valued by themselves, even if they don’t align with others very often. They loved with everything they had. They were beautiful. We’re they soulmates in the end, or just the first love who will always hold a special place in your heart? Who knows, but I’ll always love these immature kids who thought their love could change everything.

Stiles x Lydia: The Long Awaited

Stydia is as slow burn as you can get. Unfortunately their actual getting together was slightly rushed in my opinion. They didn’t have time to find their own as a couple because Stiles just wasn’t in the show enough at that point. I know the reasons behind it, but it did leave this couple at an awkward stage of official-but-not-shown. The idea that Stiles loved her as a kid, immature and infatuated, and he saw her for who she really was, will always be cute. Then they grew, changed, became friends, and found other people. Them finding each other later on, having real love that’s developed slowly, is a wonderful arc. Though, a part of me will always believe they should have pursued other story lines in the wake of Stiles’ absence from the plot. They’re finally together! …but we don’t get to see it.

Jackson x Lydia: The Image

Oh Jackson and Lydia. Honestly, I love them. Their connection at a time in their lives when they couldn’t open up to anyone else, just hits me right in the feels. I mean, god that HUG. You know the one. Always brings me to tears. I’m so sad their relationship was almost entirely depicted during Jackson’s kanima time when he couldn’t think nor truly act for himself. Those small moments of scared vulnerability when he wanted to protect her from himself… I’ll miss these two. They deserved to find other people and remain life-long friends. I loved their moment in the last episode. I wish they’d gotten to see each other grow. Also they had such bixbi solidarity vibes, and I’ll die on that hill.

Scott x Lydia: Leaders

Ok, I’m gonna be honest here. I ship it. The power couple they would have been?? Also them coming together after they lost Allison would have actually made sense. A part of me kinda wishes the writers had moved on from Stydia as a romantic relationship and leaned into them growing as friends and Stiles moving on from his childhood crush. Scott and Lydia actually would have had good chemistry. They were both very headstrong heroic types, but Lydia would have balanced Scott out well intellectually. They had the history, and I think it could had worked if they wrote it right. Plus, Scott and Lydia would have been a better endgame that Scalia.

Scott x Kira: New Beginnings

These two were adorable. Kira was a badass, don’t get me wrong, but she let herself be soft in a way Allison was always afraid to. This couple was truly Baby. Absolute dorks. I can definitely see the lasting quality between the two of them. They saw things very similarly, and had a ton in common. I do think Kira deserves more characterization outside of their relationship, like more of her friendship with Malia. Overall, her departure from the show will always be sad to me. It was bad writing. Scott was over her far too quickly.

Aiden x Lydia: Pretty People Herd

I honestly didn’t see much between these two other than mutual attraction. The best thing to come out of this relationship was Lydia’s line, “You’re not just a bad boy, Aiden. You’re a bad guy. And I don’t want to be with the bad guys.” Good character development moment.

Ethan x Danny: Step to Redemption

Danny really was the thing that made Ethan look outside of the pack for what he really wanted out of life. They had a few cute scenes. Gotta love Danny’s final remarks, “Dude, it’s Beacon Hills.”

Allison x Isaac: Unexpected Rebound

Ok, I like these two. Isaac could match Allison’s snark in a way Scott couldn’t. They both fought the progression of the relationship slightly. They didn’t expect to fall for each other. They were less willing to let someone in close. I’d love to have seen more… but unfortunately their time was limited. On a side note, sometimes their relationship did feel like ‘we both are in love with the same guy, let’s cope with each other’, but I find that completely valid. I’ll talk about Scallisaac later though.

Stiles x Malia: Anchors

Ok but, them <3 I love what they did for each other. Stiles was able to help Malia connect to her humanity and other people. He never tried to isolate her in their relationship and encouraged her growth. Malia offered Stiles the emotional support he never asked for. She defended him, fought for him, and loved him fiercely. Stiles needed that so much after season 3. I think they were a love that wasn’t meant to last, but the impact of it was forever. I wish we’d gotten to see a real end for them where they agreed that they needed to grow as individuals but would always still care.

Liam x Hayden: Three’s a Pattern

These two’s characterization stopped whenever they had storylines together. Their relationship was built on Scallison references. Hayden’s character could have been interesting, but they never really gave her a moment to shine. Liam has the worst plots when they revolved around her. Cute couple, poor writing.

Derek x Braeden: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl Boss

Derek deserves to be happy so much. Kate and Jennifer were just... jeez. Him and Braeden were cute and deserved more screen time. I think her intensity allowed for Derek to let go of control a bit more comfortably. Let Derek Be Soft. Anyway, love them.

Corey x Mason: Gotta Have That Rep TM

These two could have been cute if they were shown for more than two seconds at a time. I highkey forget Corey even existed all the time. Kinda just felt like a relationship to fill TW’s gay quota.

Jackson x Ethan: The Callback

Honestly? Loved them. Loved the chemistry. Loved the dynamic. Best twist. I know it was probably written in like that because Colton came out during his time away from the show, but it absolutely fit his character. Jethan is top tier.

Melissa x Chris: BAMF Parent Duo

Ok, so like, Melissa deserved this plot. She deserved someone to care about her. However... what the hell? Chris? In canon, his wife died like 2-ish years prior? His daughter died 1 year prior?? Is Chris really in a position to pursue a new relationship?? Also, like, Scott and Allison dated and loved each other up to her death. Kinda weird to have their parents hook up. I don’t hate it, but I don’t ship it…?

Scott x Malia: Lead up? What’s lead up?

These two came out of nowhere I stg. Like, 6B really tried to tell us this was something that had been slowly developing in the background? Also, I understand that they are their own people, adults, and completely in charge of their own romantic pursuits: but did Scott seriously never call Stiles? Like, Malia wasn’t just his first girlfriend. She was his first. Like, dude that’s your best friend?? Not even a head’s up? No, ‘hey would this bother you?’ Oof. Plus Malia was way too chaotic for Scott. She existed in gray morality that always prioritized her immediate circle, and Scott was a very black/white type of heroism. I just didn’t feel like they fit.

Non-Canon:

Scott x Stiles: Childhood Best Friends

Ya, sorry, I don’t ship Sciles at all. I get it. Like, I totally understand the ship, and I mean no judgment at all. I just see them as friends. I really value good male friendships in media because I feel like we don’t get enough, and I always liked these two.

Stiles x Derek: Enemies to Lovers. 100k. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.

God these two really are what fanfiction was made for. I could write a much longer discussion about Sterek, and I probably will eventually. I’ll try to keep this brief. These two weren’t always on the same side, but their approach was the same. They were very similar at their core. Plus, wow the chemistry. This should have been canon. Jeff’s a coward.

Allison x Lydia: Powerful.

This ship is so great. They really had a great dynamic, and a romantic plot would have easily fit the established narrative. Lydia’s confidence in herself and Allison’s confidence in her own abilities crossing over to each other because that’s what the other lacked? Iconic.

Danny x Jackson: He Gets Him

Danny really saw Jackson for everything he was and still cared. I wished we’d gotten to see more of them. I  want more background with Jackson’s eventual coming out and his friendship with Danny. Like, they ended up dating the same guy. What did Ethan have to say about that??

Stiles x Jackson: Bastards

Ok these two had a super fun dynamic. The asshole-energy between them was, great. The snark was always so entertaining.

Melissa x Noah: Family

How were these two not endgame? Their sons were practically brothers already. They had amazing chemistry. The flirting? Not to mention, their timeline would have made way more sense. Missed opportunity.

Chris x Peter: The Opposite of Love is Indifference, Not Hate

Ok so like, this was definitely one of those ships that I had absolutely no knowledge of before I was pretty into the fandom. Like, this was not something I would have guessed just after watching the show. That being said; my god the chaos alone…

Scott x Isaac: The Disaster Duo

Okay ya I love these two. Two dumb asses who act like idiot puppies. Such a fun dynamic. Plus?? Chemistry??? Hellooo

Scott x Allison x Isaac: Three Heads Are Better Than One

This ship is definitely one of my personal favorites. I very rarely poly-ship. I just feel like most of them are just love triangles with an ‘easy solution’, when two of them have no real connection. That is so not the case here. I feel like all of them have such great chemistry with each other. They also have a great dynamic as a group. Season 3A was really just Scallisaac rights.

Stiles x Isaac: I Hate You, jk…Not Really

Ok I loved their banter, but I really just don’t see this ship. Idk, I don’t personally ship it. Would have loved to see their friendship develop more tho.

Erica x Allison: Duo that would stab you with a stiletto

I don’t ship it, but I do wish we’d seen them become friends. I feel like they had a very artificial ‘girls fighting over a boy’ dynamic? They could have been such a badass duo.

Stiles x Erica: Batman x Catwoman

Ok I’m not sure exactly how to express my feelings for these two so bare with me. OMG I love their dynamic so much, and they are sooo cute. Their energy? Amazing. Chemistry? Great. History? It’s there and has so much potential. 10/10. Love them. But, no, I don’t ship it lol. Just really love their friendship, but with the underlying history of crushes.

Boyd x Erica: Was This Not Canon?

How can anyone not love Berica? Ugh they are adorable. These two deserved so much better.

Boyd x Cora: Survivors

Honestly I don’t really see it? Like they definitely had a connection, but it never felt romantic. I really feel like they just had to lean on each other and bond to make it through captivity, and it just lasted.

Boyd x Erica x Cora: The Pack

I literally learned this was a ship a couple days ago. Similar feelings towards this as Bora, but with the added hesitancy of we never actually saw Erica and Cora interact.

Cora x Stiles: Slow Build Up

These two were clearing being lined up to be a thing before Cora ended up leaving. I can’t say I’m disappointed they never happened. Kinda felt like they just wanted to straight-code Sterek.

Cora x Lydia: Mean Lesbians

Not much interaction to actually go off of, but yes I 100% support. They have very different approaches to problems, which is fun. Very ‘opposites attract’.

Malia x Kira: “Maybe you could date the coyote?”

Another one of my favorites!! They really complimented each other. Also, how full circle would they have been? They were introduced in back-to-back episodes. Malia stalking her as a coyote? The line from Kira’s dad about dating it? It would have been so funny if that ended up happening.

Malia x Lydia: Beauty and the Beast, but make it wlw

These two were fun. I liked their friendship, but I don’t really ship it. Though, rip Stiles that would have been hilarious.

Parrish x Lydia: The Cop and The Minor

Must I say more? Like, Parrish’s character, so sweet and big rule follower, did not make sense for what went down with Lydia. I love Parrish, but the dynamic just felt off. It didn’t feel consistent with the rest of his characterization.

Parrish x Stiles: The Cop and The Minor, but gay?

Ok, same reasoning as above, but also they had absolutely no connection romantically.

Scott x Theo / Stiles x Theo: Sometimes The Villain is Hot

Ok I’ve put these together because I have the same opinion for both. I don’t ship it. Neither had any rebuilding of trust, and Theo really hurt both of them. I just don’t really think they work.

Mason x Liam: Sciles Puppy Pack Edition

Similar to my feeling about Sciles, I just don’t ship these two. They had a good friendship, from the little we saw of it.

Theo x Liam: Anchors 2: Electric Boogaloo

Another personal favorite! I really don’t even understand why this didn’t go canon?? The elevator scene was just, so intense. They helped each other grow in 6B, and I really loved their dynamic. They should have hooked up.

Honorable Mention?: 

Parrish x Laura: What’s canon?

I’ve seen this in fanfic a lot, and I actually really like it lol. I thought I’d add it in here because I do love the creativity of fandoms.

[nat-the-cat-123]

(this will be a VERY long post)

✨Time to criticize Yashahime ✨

First of all:

I will only criticize the writing aspects, so don't expect me to say anything about the animation since I barely know about that stuff

Because of this I also won't address anything of Sessrin or the discontent because of Moroha's and Inukag's separation because that's more of a fandom thing

And this is only the opinion of someone who isn't any kind of expert in writing or something like that

Uff, Yashahime finally ended and it was... Interesting.

So let's criticize it :)

So first of all let's tell the ✨the good things✨ because even if there are more bad things, infact there are very little good things, we have to give credit where credit is due.

Good things :D

The girls' originality

Something that I saw other fandoms have complained in their own "next generation sequel" (like in boruto) is that the kids were just a "copy paste" of their parents, and when Yashahime was just announced I saw the same concerns (specially with Setsuna and Moroha)

But in the end I think any of them ended up being just female Inuyasha/Sesshomaru, and all were able to be their very own character.

Half of their relationship

Ok, I'm specifying that only half because sometimes the twins would be a little unfair with Moroha, but then be her "new family"(?), But then they proceed to leave her behind, and then AGAIN being like bff's so there is no consistency.

But in the first episodes Sunrise got it right and we could see a pretty good and functional dynamic between the 3 that was consistent and made sense.

Each one had a defined role that worked, Towa was the "moral" one, Setsuna the "cold" one who took more drastic decisions, and Moroha intervenes mediating both and brings information that may help please both sides. (At the beginning)

Moroha

I'M SORRY, I'm sorry, I can't help it, it's just that she has so much charm and is so lovely and innocent. And you can totally ignore the fact that she's InuKag's daughter and still love her just because her personality brings so much to the story.

It's such a shame that they didn't really use all her potential but I'll get to that later.

Aaaand that's all ;-;

Now let's go to the interesting part...

The bad things D:<

Towa

This point I actually want to explore it further in another post, because there's a lot I want to talk about her to specify what exactly went wrong and how I would have managed her but here I will leave it simple.

Towa in any way possible wasn't properly used, and even if almost every character suffered of bad writing, she was the most affected one.

She honestly isn't interesting, everything that could have been done with her according to her backstory was completely wasted, because even if she was the one with the least tragic story, there was a lot to work with (I mean, just look at Kagome's case and still most of the fandom loved her)

She kept changing her personality and ideology according to what the story needed, and at some point her only trait was "Setsuna's protective older sister"

And don't even get me started with how overpowered she is without any kind of training (I get she knows how to fight with bullies, but clearly that isn't the same as fighting demons with demonic energy)

Phasing

When people argue if the phasing is too fast or too slow, I think it's both, but in the worst way possible.

They waste so much time in scenes that aren't really that necessary or could be much shorter, and rush at incredible speed things that should actually be worked slowly and carefully.

The fights

I only can remember two or three that I actually liked because most of them were just exchanging hits with the sword, sometimes an special movement and that's all.

Half of the battles didn't affect the story in the least, and the worst of all was how the villains were defeated wether because they were lame as fuck or because Towa's random power up appeared out of nowhere.

Meanwhile in Inuyasha even if we didn't always had the best fights of all anime, we did get some pretty interesting choreographies and some villains really had an impact on the characters in a natural way.

Talking about villains...

Naraku is laughing from his grave

You know? I'm not a Naraku fan, but he was a bastard that you loved to hate, he maybe wasn't the most powerful character when we talk purely about his strength, but he was intelligent as fuck, he was always one step ahead, he had some pretty interesting abilities and plans, with him he brought other AMAZING villains (or anti heroes) like Kagura, Kanna, Hakudoshi, the weird baby, or even Sesshomaru back at the beginning, and the best part was how he was written being a complex character (like when he struggled with his human feelings for Kikyo)

But on the other hand we have Kirinmaru, Zero, the four losers (I mean, perils), probably my boy Riku, and who knows what other random villains.

First of all, ONLY RIKU would be a good villain (maybe I should have put him in the good things ;-;)

But then we have the four perils who, out of them the only one who seemed to know what he was doing was the green guy that did weird witchcraft, but the rest? They are just randomly bothering people because they have nothing else to do and honestly they didn't seem to be that powerful.

I'm not sure about Kirinmaru because I don't see anything clear with him, I mean, I'm not even sure if he's a villain.

And Zero... *Sighs*

I don't get what the hell she's trying to do. Anything that she does makes sense. She's just alive because of Riku, without him she can't do anything.

Like seriously, half of the world was after Naraku's ass, even his allies, and still he could get away with it. Zero can't even get her army in order to take care of 3 fourteen years old girls.

(Sorry for letting myself go with this one ;-;)

Not using half of your characters

I guess the best example is Moroha because even with an interesting backstory, mysterious abilities, and most of the fandom's love, they just used her as comedic relief for most of the series instead of developing her character or explaining better her spiritual abilities or Beniyasha.

And not only her, Hisui and the rest of the demon slayers were more of a background character. For example, in Hisui's episode we should have gotten to meet him, Gyokuto, and Kin'u better, but they preferred to focus in the twins AGAIN and not work the MirSan family. (Guys, first season and I still can't tell Hisui's definitive personality)

Same Takechiyo, Kyubi, Yawaragi, Kohaku, the villains, some past characters, sometimes even Riku. Basically every character who isn't Towa and Setsuna are walking tools for them to use whenever the plot needs it.

And no, I'm not saying "The twins shouldn't be the protagonists", a I'm saying "SIDE CHARACTERS AREN'T JUST PLOT DEVICES, THEY ALSO DESERVE DEFINED PERSONALITIES AND CHARACTER ARCS TO MAKE THE WORLD RICHER, OTHERWISE IT FEELS LIKE THE WORLD REVOLVES AROUND THE PROTAGONISTS"

Inuyasha knew when and how to dedicate an episode to a character, Yashahime doesn't.

Lack of character development

No one, except for Setsuna who is learning to rely and trust more on the girls, has any kind of development (sorry Moroha (･ัω･ั)).

I see Towa exactly the same as in the first episode, and because of how they've barely put attention to Moroha, she has barely shown any growth as well.

And I guess Hisui learnt how to trust his dad, but again, I can barely tell which is his personality, and the rest are background characters.

Powers / Abilities / Weapons

Here they neither explained ANY of the characters abilities properly or made them more powerful making sense.

Towa, just randomly learnt how to concentrate her demon energy in a sword and just keeps getting new abilities without training, and any of them seem to have any effect on Towa like (idk) having the risk of running out of energy. And at the beginning I liked how she struggled with her other demon abilities like smelling things but then they just forgot ;-;.

Setsuna's stick just produces wind and lasers without explanation, and her sealed power doesn't really work naturally.

And Moroha... EXPLAIN BENIYASHA BETTER. SAME FOR THE SPIRITUAL POWERS, that was supposed to be impossible!!! And again they recognized that at the very beginning, why did they forgot about it later???

There barely has been any "world" expansion

Something that Inuyasha never really got into was the "demon society", because with the exception of some tribes they never mentioned anything related to that BUT...

With that thing of Inu no Taisho and Kirinmaru apparently being "royalty" I thought they would talk more about that "Demon hierarchy" or if "Setsuna's courage trial" was something like a demon tradition (damn, that was honestly pretty interesting) but NO.

The topic has been barely mentioned and let's keep saying over and over again what the audience already knows for 24 episodes.

Weird Exposition

The way they threw information at us was pretty weird, like it didn't feel "organic" because instead of the girls getting into whatever situation where "x" character tells them certain things because it is related to what is happening, again, they chose pretty weird ways.

There were like 1,000 different options to tell us what happened to InuKag and Sesshomaru and all of them, like the girls talking with Myoga or Kaede...

BUT THEY CHOSE TO BREAK THE FOURTH WALL.

Comedy

I'm not saying Moroha is a bad comedy relief, she actually came with many good jokes, but you can't leave only ONE character to take care of the comedy. Towa and Setsuna also came with some good funny moments, so why would they only reduce the comedy to Moroha????

(In Inuyasha EVERYONE gave amazing comedy moments, even Sesshomaru)

And the worst part is that they only use the same joke with her most of the time! Losing her bounty and being poor.

"Atmosphere" (?)

I Promise I don't want to sound pretentious with this one ;-;

Those scenes where we were supposed to feel sad because of someone's death, intimidated because Kirinmaru appeared or excited because of a fight didn't work out.

I don't know exactly why but I think that it is because of a combination of lazy animation, bad selection of soundtrack, weird dialogue and the characters' lack of reaction.

So now that I think I've said all the points that they got wrong, let's get to the conclusion.

They stablished side plots or mysteries everywhere and didn't really do anything with them.

The girls never advanced with the story, they just kept running in circles around the same point during 24 episodes. (And no matter how long or short a story is, you can NEVER do that or you'll lose the audience's attention).

And with or without a second season, they made terrible mistakes that won't be able to be fixed. If it is only one season, TERRIBLE, they left way to much things uncovered, and if they plan another season, ALSO TERRIBLE, they rushed essential things and if they work them again they'll repeat one of their biggest mistakes.

And honestly I really tried to love this sequel, almost up to episode 12 I really tried to appreciate the small good things but they just kept slapping me with disappointment every single episode, and if they release a second season, I'll watch it but this time only expecting the worst of it.

In resume, yo can only truly enjoy Yashahime if you completely turn off your critical sense, and expecting nothing from it, otherwise you'll only keep asking yourself "why?"

[langernameohnebedeutung]

ok so i'm mid-episode-7 right now and I'll just try to take a little break and wrap my head around all of this a little and collect my thoughts before I move on (spoilers!)

So far, episode 6 and Amenadiel's storyline is my favourite because it had actual emotional impact for me. I actually wish they had started this plot in the very first episode of the season so that we could spend more time on the problem.

Overall, I feel like the show really lacks the established structure it had since the beginning. Which were the murders and solve them. Most episodes were contained by one case with two sides: The actual police work which is where Chloe had her time to shine and then Lucifer dealing with whatever issues he is tackling in that episode, doing his projecting thing and maybe undergoing some personal growth. So we get a fully story per episode while the stakes of the season arc become higher and higher in the background. With Chloe and Lucifer no longer solving cases, this structure is gone. It feels like we're just spending time with some characters going this way or that at random, moving from plot-point to plot-point with very little pay-off. Everything just...blurs.

The stakes aren't really getting higher at all so far, there is no rising action as far as I can tell?

Like, in season 5 everything hit the fan constantly - Lucifer is actually Michael! Chloe gets abducted! Big battle at the precinct and God is there! Mojo switch! God is retiring! Vulnerability is gone! Lucifer is goign to become God! Dan dies! -- it was actually too much for me, towards the end, to the point where everything felt meaningless because the stakes were high beyond the frame of comprehension the show gives us, but this time...it's just seemingly not moving towards a climax.

In fact, they seem to be going down.

Rory is introduced as this big, bad mysterious figure who really, really wants Lucifer dead - and now it feels like she's just been an emo teen hanging out with him and Chloe for weeks? months? doing random stuff - until she remembers that she's pissed at Lucifer again and stomps off and it kinda f eels like it's been going on for ages. Which is okay, I actually like her but it kind of falls flat from her original introduction.

I could live with that if they gave me something to actually worry about. Show me Rory actually getting used to the world around her, finding out things about the people she thinks she knows - or thinks she knows. Going back in time, that's a gigantic premise! I actually really loved seeing her talk about Trixie and knowing immediately where she would hide her chocolate - I would love more stuff like this. I would love to see more stuff about what it was like for her to grow up knowing her father is/was the devil! About growing up as a half-angel. About Charlie who is also a half-angel but actually has a father. Stuff like that.

Then we have the "becoming God"/"becoming Queen of Hell" thing that the entire last season build up to, the biggest fattest finale they ever had- that was a really huge deal. But now both Maze and Lucifer just kinda decided they'd rather not do that and found reasons to hang around. And when a frog started coming from heaven and Ella says she can't feel god anymore and Lucifer runs to Linda so that she can teach him how to care- I thought things are building up now and we're going to have some WandaVision style reality collapse at our hands, I was hyped for that - buuuut nah, they're just all kind of hanging around.

Actually, pay-off in general seems to be kind of a problem. For example, Rory not calling Maze 'aunt' and not knowing Amenadiel appeare to set off an exciting little mystery - and considering that we're now no longer solving crimes, I would love if they really delved into the celestial side of mysterious. I would have loved to figure out some time-travel sheningans - buuuuut it was a joke.

See, I love Dan but honestly I'm kind of at odds with how to deal with his characterisation rn? Because he's been in hell for a thousand years, hanging out with demons and stuff and it's been a thousand years down there, that is torture even without the torture and I would have expected a bit more anything. The same thing with Chloe and the blade, tbh, I feel like this could have been so much bigger?

Overall, I feel like there are missing so many opportunities that I think the show would not only not have missed in seasons 1 or 2, but would have actively used:

The whole thing was always Lucifer projecting his problems on the cases and (maybe) learning something about himself on a good day. Now, let's take the Jimmy Barnes episode. I loved when Chloe looked at the throne and was like: "It looks so lonely" and Lucifer says "it was" - that was such a great moment. - because so far, Chloe doesn't know hell. She doesn't know the reality of hell or what it meant for Lucifer to rule over this place and it seemed like a great set-up for her to finally see his world and to understand what it meant for him to leave this place - but also to be sent back down there again and again. And also for Lucifer to actually see one of his most painful experiences acknowledged by the woman he loves and to actually...talk to her about that. After all, this is the big reversal: So far, Lucifer was the consultant on Chloe's cases, and now Chloe became the consultant and helping Lucifer tackle his celestial issues. So to see her go to hell and actually learn about the place seemed like a really cool start - and then we learn that Jimmy Barnes' backstory is about a son left behind by a parent! And Chloe even talks about how horrible and alone he must have felt! And let's not forget Chloe's own backstory - her father didn't leave, she lost him because he was killed, but she also once sat at home and realised her Dad wouldn't come home and then she got a phone call and realised he would never come home - but for entirely different reasons than Lucifer who was cast out or Jimmy Barnes who got left behind. It seemed like exactly the kind of threads that this show would bring together and have the character discuss and reflect on at the end of the episode. But they didn't. They...rarely do that, this season and it just feels like something is missing from the format - and its emotional impact.

Sometimes I actually used to feel like the show had a tendency of spelling out too much, being too direct - but this season around it's not like they're less subtle. It's just not really acknowledged and it doesn't feel organic.

Another example is in the episode where Lucifer seeks out his old lovers to find out whether they're Rory's mothers.

This obviously gave me vibes right from Stewardess Interruptus which is one of my all-time favourite episodes.

Stewardess Interruptus is one of my favourite episodes because it told us so much about our characters. Also, our characters learn about each other and themselves here: Along with Chloe, we learn Lucifer isn't just a person who really likes having a lot of sex, but that he actually has a pretty dysfunctional relationship with sexuality. We also learn how much Chloe, while actually trying to date Lucifer, struggles with the sex-life he has because for her its symptomatic of their very different lifestyles and it makes her wonder how compatible they are. We go from Chloe asking Lucifer's ex-partners whether he "basically used you for sex and then moved on" to realising that actually...it's kinda the other way around. Lucifer is the one who's letting himself be used because he doesn't know how else to connect with people. That was a good episode - - - now that we went on a similar journey in the season 6 episode, I was actually very interested! Especially now that Lucifer is in a proper relationship and I would have loved to see that brought up - for example if Chloe had been presented with the "meaningless"-thing again and we actually had a moment where Lucifer and her talk about what it means to have a "meaningful" relationship. Like, Chloe tells him that it's okay if he had a relationship before her or loved one of these women - which yes! of course it is! - actually, it would have been interesting to see them discuss what it means that he didn't have that kind of connection before despite being almost old as time.

I was especially interested in Esther as a character - who says she became a Rabbi because of Lucifer which is...something really, really interesting. For one, because this show has such a long history of acting like Christianity is the only religion in the world or at least as if the Christian take on the devil is universal (Amenadiel even says in the first season that "every religion has its version of the devil" and that he's always a "rebellious son" which...no. That's not true. At all.) when really, it's not. (I actually remember reading a really good fic once about Lucifer meeting a Rabbi and discussing the different ideas of evil but that's a whole different matter.)

In this episode, Lucifer is now confronted with someone who didn't find the encounter she had with him meaningless at all - she literally changed her life because of it. Also, when she says she became a Rabbi because of him and he's like "oh yeah guess I got that from your desires..." - much like in the Jimmy Barnes episode, I prepared myself for the classic twist at the end of the episode that the show would usually have had. The moment where Lucifer's immediate assumptions would be challenged. I was expecting that by the end of the episode, she would say something: "Hey, it was not actually your mojo, but ---" and we would learn something about her and have Lucifer reconsider his assumptions - For example her saying he seemed lost and that it inspired her to take on a role where she could offer people guidance. Or it would have been interesting if, like Father Frank, she actually realised at some point that he's really the devil and that made her think more deeply about her faith. That could have been really interesting. Like...I feel like in the first seasons of the show, this would definitely have lead to some emotional twist and impact, even in one of the weaker episodes. Some revelation or insight. Something memorable. But here...it's not.

In a similar vein, that kind of emotional twist is something I would have loved to see in Lucifer's interactions with Rory.

One of my favourite moments in the show was when Maze gave Linda that blanket for Charlie - and says that she got him something that she wished she had as a child.

That was so simple! So effective! Strong story-telling! We understood and learnt so much about what made Maze into Maze in just a few lines of dialogue! It's heart-wrenching! It was amazing. - and honestly, it would be so simple to give Lucifer and Rory a similar moment. Again and again we hear Lucifer insist that it cannot be true, he would never abandon his child but it's very "tell" and not much "show" - when Lucifer tries so desperately to find something that he can give Rory it would have been a really strong moment between Christmas-es and driving lessons and parties, if we had a scene where Lucifer tries to do something similar to what Maze did for Charlie:

Have him actually talk to Rory about what he felt like being abandoned by his father and try to give her something that he would have wanted or say something the would have wanted to hear. We would have learnt more about Lucifer, we would have more of an emotional impact beyond him just saying over and over again that he wouldn't abandon his child, we would actually see some development in the relationship between Lucifer and Rory, Rory might actually get a similar opportunity to shine when she reacts to that - giving her more depth and illustrating her pain in a new way rather than just the same thing over and over again. Their relationship has been seemingly stagnant for ages now. It would have been good.

Another example: Adam kidnaps Linda, Maze and Eve work together to get their hands on Adam because they have no idea what he did to her - and then get a really, really long scene discussion their wedding and relationship and stuff. And then, right at the end of the scene they're like: "oh uh btw we have to find Linda"- that one was...almost funny, because it was so bad and weirdly paced. This is Maze we're talking about! Maze who throws hands with everyone who even looks at her friends funny! And who just recently learnt what it felt like to lose a friend!

I feel like there is a similar tell vs. show problem with Eve and Maze and her family. I really, really liked the dinner-scene in the first episode of the season where Linda keeps asking Eve about what she was going to do in hell, about what her role would be, how she sees hell - and Eve keeps being really light-hearted and seemingly naive about it.

Because Eve's entire character flaw (by which I don't mean that it's "bad" or "evil" - but that it's actually something that causes Eve a lot of pain and holds her back) is that she always 100% adjusts herself to her current partner. That she wants to back them completely and be perfect for them. That is what made her so great in season 4: She was neither "the mean new woman ruining things between Chloe and Lucifer >:( " nor was she someone dangled over Chloe as "here is how you are a really good girlfriend to Lucifer" - no, the reason why she was seemingly perfect for Lucifer was was because she was making herself be perfect for him - to the point of self-negation where he cannot get her to break up with him, because she keeps and keeps and keeps adjusting to him. That is why their relationship was dysfunctional and eventually toxic. When she says in season 4 that Lucifer and her will simply go to hell and keep the party going there - that was the pinnacle of her self-deceit, that was the shining moment where we could tell just how desperate she is for love and acknowledgement and companionship that she's literally willing to go to HELL if that's what it takes.

When the dinner scene in 6.1 started, I was very excited to see this issue build up and then be resolved between Maze and her. I was looking forward to see Maze realise what Eve's actual issue is and to come to some clever solution over the course of the season, but so far...that's not really happening.

And yes, Eve wants to get to know Maze's siblings while Maze keeps saying that no, demons are evil - which would also be a super interesting conflict but it's again lacking the emotional impact because we know so little about the demons on the show and what the world-building is. It's much like with God and the fam in the last season: Up to that point, they were really, really wrapped in huge mystery but that's really why it falls kind of flat. But whereas God and especially the angels fell flat for me because I had them build up in this big, uncanny celestial mystery and they couldn't live up to that once they appeared in the flesh, here it's the opposite. I know so little about the actual horrors of hell that I struggle to sympathise with Maze's fears. If I knew literally any demons' thoughts on Maze being the new queen or having a human royal consort or anything, there would be real stakes. But this way, they can just shake anything out of their sleeves and that's it.

[corgidreamsworld]

Love, Victor Season 2 *spoilers*

Love, Victor came out on Friday with 10 episodes of pure growth and development. Something we have all been hoping for. Season one was an excellent start to a story that everyone craved more for and made you think. Now that the show is no longer under the watchful eye of Disney, it really shines and makes you want more and yell at the very end.

This season we see character growth and in-depth conversations that the first season was lacking. Victor is finishing up the summer after being coming out to his parents, who decided to separate. This is quite a lot going on in his life that we see him struggle with throughout the season. But the good news is that Benji is his boyfriend, and their first summer as a couple is fantastic. Seeing Victor and Benji being happy is something that everyone can sign to heaven about. Personally, I like Benji. However, I feel that his character is not indeed developed until this season. In addition, Victor's Mom, Isabel, is not as accepting as his father Armando of his sexuality which builds up throughout the season and causes conflict in almost every episode.

Now just looking at Victor and Benji's after the summer on cloud 9, you can slowly see the issues build up until they boil over. In every episode, we see the couple struggle with Isabel not accepting Benji and barely acknowledging that Victor is gay. This is a weight that the couple tries to pick up; however it becomes too heavy towards the end. In the beginning, Benji was accepting and understanding. Still, then as time goes by, you can see him grow more frustrated and lose his sparkle around Victor. Even though the couple has excellent profound, vulnerable moments through the season, they really lack communication skills to work through their problems. They are 16-year-olds, so that makes sense, but it is frustrating to watch them talk back and forth without expressing how they feel genuinely. This is mainly on Benji's side because he says he understands when he feels terrible that his boyfriend's Mom doesn't acknowledge him. Then on his birthday, which everyone in their lifetime is gonna have a shit birthday and Benji's day was that day, secrets begin to come out.

Benji is a whole alcoholic, apparently. Did not see that coming at all. I was very caught off guard when this came out and was like, wow, why didn't he ever say anything. I think this is the downfall of the writers, not because they make Benji an alcoholic but because his character is underdeveloped. We really don't actually know Benji. We know bits and pieces but not his story. When his Mom, who tries her best, you can tell, spills his secret at dinner in front of Victor, we see the shame overcome Benji, and he does not handle it well. Victor doesn't understand why he didn't tell him, and Benji somewhat lets him know how he feels, and Victor feels some type of way. And this is when shit hits the fan. They have an argument, and you can see that all the build-up from the issues with Victor's mother comes has impacted Benji, and he is over it! Now on some levels, you can see where he is coming from. However, Benji never really expressed these things to Victor and was not transparent about how he was feeling. This is why Victor is hurt by what he said. They later make up, which is it really making up if you don't talk through the issues and just have makeup sex? I digress. His Mom walks in, and then once again, shit hits the fan, and Benji is pissed. He gets outed as an addict, and then his boyfriend and Mom just disregard him, and he just explodes.

In the next episode, neither of the two acknowledge that they were both somewhat wrong, and they do not speak for a good minute. Victor loses contact with Benji and begins to freak out. It seems to be from a genuine place of concern, but to Benji, it says, "my boyfriend is an addict, and he is gonna relapse." Victor also tells Rahim, a whole new character who is a delight on the screen, that Benji drinks, which is not the best move because this breaks trust in their relationship. Benji decides that they need a break, which hurts not only Victor's heart but ours.

I would like to note, personally, I think Benji has issues with admitting his actual faults. I think we have seen him be this guy be sweet and understanding. Now we see him in an unflattering light, which is refreshing because he is a human who has feelings, and he has been sweeping them under the rug. He's not perfect, and he actually is not that accepting as we, and he likes to think he is. When confronted that he should apologize because he is not perfect, he is like no way. Victor and Rahim point out that Benji is white and is privileged, which seems out of pocket, but it's valid because this is something I knew would happen when season one came out. They come from very different backgrounds. Their situations are vastly different, and Benji acts like Victor has more control without understanding where Victor or his family is coming from. Benji had a completely different experience of coming out. It was not tremendous nor perfect; his parents accepted him and are proud of his progress. Victor does not have that, and Benji knows this, but I guess he wants more from him at the same time. However, that being said, Benji is in his right to his feelings about the situation, and Victor should have been checking in on his partner's feelings to make sure that he was okay. When you are in a relationship, the feelings of both matter; both partners have to work to understand the other and support them. Both characters try, but they fall flat. It is easy to shit on Benji, and while he was not at his greatest towards the end, a lot of this was hard on him, and he was trying his best.

Victor stood up for himself this season and tried to make everyone happy however this is his first relationship. Then it was hard for him to be out at times. He truly cares about Benji, but he got lost in many things surrounding him, and he neglected his boyfriend at times. Or his feelings, if anything. He made excuses for his Mom without acknowledging that she was causing significant issues to his relationship and himself as her son. I hope that this season was a lesson learned and that he works harder to show up for Benji as a mutual partner.

Rahim is a new character, and when I say he is a breath of fresh air, he really is. He just brings a particular light to show, and I enjoyed it when he was on the screen. He and Victor have similar backgrounds, which brings them to a certain level of connection. They just seem to flow so well together, and I wasn't surprised that they felt connected. They go to Mia's dad's wedding together and dance and kiss. Now Victor has to pick between the two boys, and I do not know who he should choose. He loves Benji, but they would have to do a lot of work to heal the relationship. He and Rahim just have a spark together, but it's new, and he does not love Rahim. We see on TV that the first person a gay guy gets with is his first love, and they stay together for an unreasonable amount of time. They maybe get with one other person, but usually, they end up with their first love, which is not always realistic. Versus straight characters who go through love interests like they do underwear. It can be jarring to see a couple you are routing for end up breaking up, and then they date other people, but that's real life. That brings us to cliff hanger of the last episode, which was utter bullshit. Doing cliffhangers is dangerous nowadays because networks cancel show no matter how good they are. It is pretty risky and just frustrating for the fans.

After all of that, the season was terrific. It had a certain level of growth that was needed, and it really showed up. I only touched on Victor and Benji, but all the characters really grew, and their stories improved and make you pay attention to them as well. Was it perfect? No. Is it supposed to be? No. If you enjoyed the first season, you would enjoy the second season even more. You will want the intimacy the show carries with the characters and the conversations.

[kitkatopinions]

Dunno if I'm late but Yang for the character ask?

Alrighty, my (kind of former) girl Yang!

My top three ships for the character

Yang/Weiss is my favorite Yang ship. They look freaking awesome together, they fit well together, they could be healthy as heck, but they could also challenge each other, and the Weiss/Yang moments in volume five were everything. Yang/Mercury, @why-i-hate-rwby-now and I wrote a fic where Mercury was on the road to redemption and these two just had a lot of chemistry and we rolled with it and now I ship these two pretty hard core. Yang/Pyrrha is my third favorite ship for her. This ship doesn’t have very much juice, I just think that if Pyrrha had lived and Yang had gone through her maturing V4 and V5 arc, they could compliment each other pretty well, and they would look just super great together.

My three least favorite ships for the character

Yang/Adam is one big ‘no thanks’ from me. Yang/Ren is also pretty bad to me, because they had no real dynamic for eight seasons, and then Yang pushed him to talk about his feelings and then yelled at him for those feelings and accused him of just trying to push everyone away. And they have so few interactions that it really felt like Yang was yelling at and judging someone she didn’t really know when she had no business pushing him to begin with. And then, Yang/Neon. I thought their fight was annoying, I thought their interactions were annoying, I think if they were together, they’d do nothing but fight. (Honorable mention to Blake/Yang, which I don’t like for a number of reasons and put on my ‘three least favorite ships for Blake,’ but honestly, the relationship isn’t as bad for Yang as it is for Blake, I feel like. I don’t know.)

My biggest criticism for the character

Sometimes the writers literally write her like she isn’t a part of her family. This doesn’t really come into play until season six (mostly,) but honestly, it was so annoying. Referring to Raven continuously as ‘Mom,’ pointing her weapon at Qrow for saying ‘hey,’ running out of a room with a bunch of Apathy ready to pour through a cellar while ignoring the fact that Ruby was still in the room and Qrow was depressed and drinking at the bar, not being involved in Qrow and Ruby talking about Summer, spending most of her screen time with Blake to the point where it feels like she doesn’t really know her other teammates well, her ‘yeah, Ruby,’ line, her apparent lack of care towards Qrow... At least she’s had a bit more with Ruby and has acknowledged Summer as her mom in V8, and even though Neo one hitting her into the void was such a bad moment, at least it proves that she cares a lot about her sister and knows who her mom is. They use Yang’s family connections sparingly, it feels like. Like they want us to forget she’s related to Ruby and Qrow until they want to tug at our heartstrings.

My favorite thing about the character

Not surprising, maybe, but her family connections in the first five seasons is my favorite thing about Yang. I always saw a lot of myself in Yang through her sisterly dynamic with Ruby, how much Yang clearly loved her and how she pushed her to grow and saw her as strong, but was still always trying to help her and protect her when the need arose. Her dynamic with Qrow and with Tai was also great, with one of the best moments in V3 being Qrow assuring her and Ruby they’d go far - if they never stopped growing. I loved watching Yang prioritize Ruby over Raven, I loved watching her tell Raven ‘I’m not here for you’ and ‘don’t talk about my family like that.’ She’s a lot like Qrow and a lot like Tai, while being her own person too. When she meets back up with Ruby, and Ruby starts apologizing for having left her, and Yang just pulls her into a hug and tells her little sister she loves her, that was the best Yang’s been. It was impactful, because Ruby and Yang’s family were always the most important thing to her. As someone who’s family is the most important thing to her, who has struggled with being in a relationship with a partner who didn’t like that fact, as someone with a beloved little sister two years younger than me who I always felt protective of despite knowing she’s capable and strong just like Yang knew that about Ruby... I really missed that. I’m glad we’re seeing more of it in Yang’s relationship with Ruby again, now I just hope they keep that energy and extend it to Qrow.

A headcanon I have about them

I honestly don’t really like the implication that Yang ‘raised Ruby’ by herself while Tai was shut down. That implies that Yang (aged anywhere from four to six) was given all the parental responsibilities for a few years after Summer died at least, which is pretty blatant neglect. I personally headcanon that Tai’s shut down was more temporary, and that Summer had only been dead for at most a month before Yang (six, in my headcanon) went to find Raven with Ruby and almost died, and that when Qrow saved them and brough them home he moved in for a bit and took over as the primary care giver while Tai recovered. Then after Tai had been recovering for a year and a half to two years and he didn’t need Qrow as much anymore, Qrow started doing his ‘flitting in and out of the picture on the regular’ thing. And Yang was given more responsibilities than she arguably should’ve and did take a bit more of a maternal role with Ruby, but didn’t raise her and didn’t grow up neglected herself. Idk, I just like that so much better.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

Hmm... I think I’d have Yang’s PTSD and growth get a bit more focus in V4, and then keep it around longer after V6. I’d also have Summer more clearly important to her, being an inspiration for Yang joining the Huntsman academy and being at the forefront of her mind when she learns about all the magic stuff - asking Qrow if she was involved, what she thought of it all, etc. Past that, I’d just put more focus on her relationships with her family in V6 - V8. That’s not to say that Yang starting a romantic relationship is wrong in any way and I’d still keep that (though I’d have her and Weiss start a confirmed romance rather than her and Blake hinting at having a romance,) I’d just make sure it doesn’t take over Yang’s other relationships and make it clear that the most important person to Yang is and always will be her beloved little sister.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Yang’s references to Goldilocks are pretty ‘in name only,’ with the gimmicks being her having blonde hair, her fighting some guy in a bear suit in her first yellow trailer, and her ‘just right’ line in V5 when that creep was hitting on her. There’s not usually a lot of character to give to the ‘Goldilocks’ character (who originally was a silver haired old woman,) so I’m not sure exactly how to fix Yang’s allusion. Maybe extending her stay in Raven’s camp, having Raven present it as a home, but Yang doesn’t want it and knows it’s not where she belongs. Kind of like a swapped three bears story where the bears are trying to pressure Goldilocks to stay in their house and she knows none of it is ‘just right.’ Idk, maybe that’s stupid.

[toemuncher666]

Sanguine (Akuma Kan):

Personality - He’s extremely shy and timid yet heroic at heart. He finds it hard to talk to people and be the center of attention but if the situation calls for it…he’ll attempt to save people no matter what.

Looks - He shares his father’s height so he’s naturally tall. He also shares his father’s hair and muscular build but he is much slimmer than his father and doesn’t quite have his father’s bulk.

Quirk - Bloodletting

Properties - The quirk allows Akuma to manipulate his own blood. The blood can shoot from his skin like a bullet and can even explode when shot with enough velocity. He can also create blood tendrils that act like tentacles and can be used to fight but also rescue people. His blood allows for a quick healing cycle since it has to rip through his skin. His blood can also harden to create powerful shields and body armor. He can also create clones through his blood…and can travel via liquefying into blood and sprouting up where he intends.

Drawbacks - Too much exertion of blood means his body isn’t getting enough circulation…so he can easily succumb to limbs falling asleep, massive migraines, queasiness, potential black outs, and blood rushes temporarily giving him vision impairment…and blood cannot be withdrawn from his body for over 10 minutes without risking cardiac arrest. His quirk also requires for a lot of liquid ingestion to regenerate lost blood.

Venus: (Sakura Nishiya):

Personality - Sakura is incredibly sweet often to her own detriment. She often puts other people’s feelings before hers, forgetting about her own problems. Sakura is also scarily intelligent when it comes to strategy in fighting.

Looks - Sakura boasts long green hair with flower growths seemingly sprouting from her scalp. She’s also pretty tall and has a muscular build.

Quirk - Mother Nature

Properties - Mother Nature allows for Sakura to manipulate plants. She can cause the plants to grow to extreme sizes and bend to her will. Her quirk allows for her to forcefully evolve the plants allowing for them to release pheromones or grow tangible vines for her to control

Drawbacks - Her quirk is only powerful during the day while the plants get sunlight…at night, her powers are severely limited beyond being able to just move the plants. Her quirk also requires her to stay hydrated…because the quality of the plants is directly tied to her health. The quirk also only works within viable soil that can properly host a plant.

Hex: (Uno Tatsuma):

Personality - Uno is very boisterous and confident in his abilities to the point where he can become pretty cocky and lose sight of his goal. Despite his cockiness, he is a good person and is very loving towards his friends and family.

Looks - Uno is considered very handsome and boasts deep purple hair and doughy purple eyes. He’s considerably tall and muscular and has sharp features.

Quirk - Bad Luck

Properties - Bad Luck allows for Uno to create black energy orbs from his hand. These orbs can be shot out and cause a variety of effects. The orbs are slightly explosive when they make physical impact with something…but that’s not the star of the show with this quirk. The main feature of this quirk is that on impact, it can cause a foe to suffer serious bad luck. When the orbs hit…they can cause a foe to trip and fall, suffer rapid onset narcolepsy, set off a chain of events that somehow leads an anvil falling on the foes’ head etc. etc.

Drawbacks - The level of bad luck isn’t consistent and is sometimes unreliable so it requires multiple orbs to be thrown…but the orbs directly rely on UNO’s molecular makeup of his hands. So when orbs are thrown in excess…they begin to make his hands and arms very brittle

Skinwalker (Amaya Gima):

Personality - Amaya is very gentle and kind. She often puts on the front of someone who doesn’t care…but once you get to know her, she’s truly a sweet person.

Looks - Amaya has long black hair. She’s average height and has pretty dark brown eyes.

Quirk - Beast Body

Properties - This quirk allows Amaya to change the anatomy of her physical body. All she has to do is think of an animal…and her body begins to shift into the creature.

Drawbacks - The quirk hurts every time Amaya performs it. The quirk also takes awhile for her to shift to an animal and shift back.

Psi (Kaneki Usagiyama):

Personality - Kaneki is incredibly reserved and cold. He doesn’t talk very much but when he does…it’s often demeaning. Kaneki views himself as more important than his peers…he’s also very intelligent and skilled in battle.

Looks - Kaneki sports dark blue hair. He’s average height but with a fit build. His eyes are also blue but when using his quirk…his hair and eyes begin to glow neon pink.

Quirk - Psychokinesis

Properties - Psychokinesis allows Kaneki to extort his brain beyond its limits…allowing him to use a strong form of telekinesis that can crush anything in its path. Psychokinesis allows telepathy as well. But one of the biggest boasts for this powerful skill…is that it can create deadly psionic blasts that can disintegrate anything they touch.

Drawbacks - when Psychokinesis is exerted for long periods of time…it starts to over exert his brain and cause massive headaches that severely slow down his abilities

Wormhole (Aimi Fujioka):

Personality - Aimi is incredibly shy, often resulting in her being unable to talk to anyone but her close friends. Despite her shyness…she is incredibly determined…and nothing will get in the way of her becoming a pro hero.

Looks - Aimi has short pink hair. She is also considerably short and has big doughy pink eyes.

Quirk - Teleportation

Properties - When Aimi envisions a specific place and touches her fingers together…she can cause a dimensional rip that she can teleport through. When the rip is paired with another rip…she can simply walk through it like an open door…but when the rip is alone, it sucks things in like a black hole.

Drawbacks - The quirk cannot work if Aimi hasn’t seen the area she wants the rip to appear. The rip can also only stay open for a maximum of 10 seconds.

Vortex (Arakan Ahane):

Personality - Arakan is incredibly nice but very ditzy and naive. Arakan has no problem complimenting people but often finds himself forgetting everything…sometimes even forgetting how to spell his own name.

Looks - Arakan has fluffy green hair and big green eyes. He’s pretty fit and has an average height.

Quirk - Time Jump

Properties - Time Jump allows Arakan to jump a few seconds into the future. When Arakan snaps his fingers…his quirk shoots him through a few seconds in his future. This allows Arakan to be very agile, dodging attacks and “jumping” well into high places most people wouldn’t be able to reach. When Arakan first jumps and right after, it causes electricity to shoot through the air…so getting close to him before a jump could result in a small electrical shock.

Drawbacks - The quirk has a 5 second cool down and when not aimed precisely…Arakan could end up getting stuck in walls or floors leaving him open to attack.

Aquarias (Chinami Aikawa):

Personality - Chinami is incredibly intelligent and nice. She often scores 100% on all of her written tests and you can leave it to her to develop a battle plan. However, due to her parents’ strictness on grades…it left Chinami very uncertain and personally insecure with her own skills.

Looks - Chinami has very long pale blue hair. She also has a slim fit figure with an above average height.

Quirk - Flood

Properties - Flood allows Chinami to telekinetically control any surrounding moisture or liquid. This can allow Chinami to cause giant destructive tsunamis or her favorite move from a cartoon she watches…giant water hands to crush her opponents and water wings to fly. Chinami’s ability also allows for more subtle moves…such as creating bubbles.

Drawbacks - Chinami’s quirk solely relies on the accessibility of nearby liquids or the amount of moisture in the air…without a good amount of either, her quirk is rendered semi-useless.

Whirlwind (Daichi Bushida):

Personality - Daichi is incredibly cocky often to his own detriment. He lacks the ability to recognize his own weaknesses and is often regarded as kind of an asshole. But his lack of outward recognition of his weaknesses often results in him pushing himself past his limits to prove his worth.

Looks - Daichi sports groomed black hair. He has sharp dark eyes and is quite tall and muscular.

Quirk - Cyclone

Properties - Cyclone allows Daichi to create whirlwinds from his hands. These whirlwinds can be anywhere from small controlled gusts that he can shoot at you…all the way to a giant tornado capable of mass destruction.

Drawbacks - too much wind power from his quirk takes a toll on his hand…he often ends up spraining his hand from the sheer wind power he can create.

Atomic (Hoshi Bushida):

Personality - Hoshi is similar to her brother in that she’s competitive and pushes herself past her limits. But unlike her brother, she knows her flaws and she has a strong sense of humility. This allows her to be emotionally mature unlike her brother…and it keeps her down to earth and quite intelligent.

Looks - Hoshi has long black hair often seen tied in a ponytail. She’s viewed as being incredibly pretty and she’s tall with a fit build.

Quirk - Disassemble

Properties - When Hoshi touches something…she can disassemble it on an atomic level…even living things. This allows Hoshi to completely remove an entire wall…or if need be…an entire foe.

Drawbacks - the disassembled object or person will reassemble unharmed anywhere between 10-20 minutes later and the quirk also requires her to touch the object to disassemble it.

Puppet Master (Joben Takao):

Personality - Joben is incredibly self-centered to where he might actually literally be in love with himself. Joben is also a strict neat freak.

Looks - Joben is considered incredibly handsome and he has crimson red hair with sharp facial features. He’s considerably tall and muscular.

Quirk - Possessor

Properties - Possessor allows Joben to temporarily possess someone’s body after he’s touched or been touched by someone. While possessing someone, he can use their quirks and has complete control over their body

Drawbacks - the possession only lasts a maximum of 5 minutes. The quirk also leave’s Joben’s real body out of commission and open for attacks

Static Shock (Kana Ryujin):

Personality - Kana is a total bimbo who completely forgets everything. Despite her absent mindedness…she’s very kind and outgoing.

Looks - Kana is pretty short with long pink hair tied in a ponytail. She has round dark eyes full of spirit and vigor.

Quirk - Lightning Rod

Properties - Lightning Rod allows Kana to shoot high voltage electricity out of her arms. Her quirk allows her to either shoot little shocks or full on thunder storms out of her arms.

Drawbacks - Kana’s not safe from the electricity itself…every time she activates her quirk, she shocks herself too.

Lion (Kazuhiko Yamaguchi):

Personality - Kazuhiko is incredibly intelligent and reserved. He often finds himself acing his tests…and he loves to fulfill his duty of class President.

Looks - Kazuhiko is incredibly tall and muscular. He blonde slicked back hair and glasses. Kazuhiko is well groomed and handsome and he also has a lion’s tail

Quirk - Cat Man

Properties - Kazuhiko can use the energy from food…to gain extreme muscle mass, grow claws, gain night vision, have enhanced senses, enhanced agility, and a mighty roar

Drawbacks - the quirk only lasts for as long as there’s food in his stomach…but the quirk absorbs the energy from the food…allowing for his powers to only be useful for mere moments. The enhanced senses can also be negated with bright lights in his eyes, foul smells, and extremely loud noises.

Octo (Kichi Calamari):

Personality - Kichi is awkward, adorable, and incredibly shy. Despite her shyness, she’s also scarily intelligent.

Looks - Kichi has a mutant type quirk. She has long orange-ish red-ish hair. She’s pretty short and has beady eyes.

Quirk - Octopus

Properties - Octopus is a mutant type quirk…meaning it’s always on her. Her quirk means she has eight slimy tentacles attached to her back, each with a hooked suction cup. Her quirk also explains why she’s incredibly intelligent. She can also secrete a slippery mucus from her skin. Her quirk also allows her to shoot ink from her mouth to blind foes.

Drawbacks - like an octopus…she needs to constantly stay hydrated…less she face drying out

Tremor (Kitaro Ryujin):

Personality - Kitaro is just like his sister in that he has no idea what’s going on ever…but he’s happy doing it.

Looks - Kitaro is described as being pretty handsome with an average height, muscular build, and spiky brown hair.

Quirk - Bulldoze

Properties - When Kitaro touches the ground…he can cause an immense seismic wave that causes a massive earthquake

Drawbacks - The quirk only works on solid ground…so sand, air, and water are unaffected by his quirk…grass also reduces the strength of the earthquake

Magnet (Leiko Fukumoto):

Personality - Leiko is pretty arrogant, but her arrogance is backed up with her high intelligence and great combat skills. Despite her arrogance, she’s pretty funny and somewhat laid back

Looks - She boasts long beautiful silver hair. She’s also pretty tall and muscular with solid steel colored eyes.

Quirk - Magnetic Pull

Properties - Her quirk allows her to telekinetically control metals. Her powers can let her lift semi trucks and even most buildings and launch them at you. She’s also known to quickly make protective shields out of surrounding metals.

Drawbacks - the strength of her magnetic pull solely revolves around the amount of iron in her body…when she has an iron deficiency…her quirk is rendered useless.

Forgemaster (Osamu Saito):

Personality - Osamu has a very protective and commanding personality. He often finds himself taking charge and protecting those he cares for. He also idolizes his pro hero cousin Momo Yaoyorozu and wishes to be just like her.

Looks - Osamu boasts light purple hair and soft facial features. He’s of an average height…but considerably fit.

Quirk - Weapon Hands

Properties - Osamu can turn his hand into any weapon as long as he knows exactly what the weapon is made of. His range can be from an entire cannon…to a simple knife.

Drawbacks - He must know the exact materials of the weapon…and the quirk draws upon energy from his body…so too much shifting to different weapons easily wears him out

Dopplëganger (Shina Saito):

Personality - Shina is incredibly nice and funny…but deep down, she’s insecure. She feels that she won’t live up to her cousin or her brother and she suffers from a severe identity crisis cause she feels she can’t even live up to herself.

Looks - Shina is viewed as being really pretty with long black hair. She’s kinda short and has a slim body type.

Quirk - Cloner

Properties - when she touches someone she can turn herself into them for around 6.5 minutes. Her quirk allows her to use their quirk as well.

Drawbacks - she’s only limited to 6.5 minutes per person and only one person at a time

Anti-Matter (Taishiro Tachi):

Personality - Taishiro is extremely confident but never arrogant. He’s also incredibly nice and out spoken about his ambitions and ideas

Looks - Taishiro is average height with a slim build. He has light blue hair and purple eyes filled with determination

Quirk - Light Constructs

Properties - his quirk allows him to create quite literally anything out of light…from a protective shield all the way to a functioning tank

Drawbacks - he must know exactly how his creation works or it’ll turn out faulty…his quirk also requires light so it cannot work in the dark

Gamma Ray (Yasuko Sugimoto):

Personality - she acts kinda like a big sister…she’s there for everyone when they need a shoulder to cry on. This comes from her feeling like other people’s problems are her fault…so she tries to fix them.

Looks - Yasuko has blonde hair in a side ponytail. She’s pretty tall and slim and has soft facial features.

Quirk - Gamma

Properties - when Yasuko claps her hands together…a giant destructive laser shoots from them with incredible force

Drawbacks - the laser is so bright it can temporarily blind her

[readingsbylibramc]

birth chart reading for @eternalbarnacle

hello! welcome to your reading. I’m gonna give you a quick overview of what I’m going to analyze about your natal chart. feel free to ask me anything if something isn’t clear, of course. you’ll find out your dominants’ influence on your persona, your physical appearance, impression on others and the way you approach the world; your ego, identity, the real you; your reactions, your desires, inner emotions; your way of expressing your feelings, your mind and ideas; your desires and approach to love; your energy tank, instincts and temperament; in-depth analysis of each house with their rulers and analysis of heavy aspects; love life + soulmates/karmic partners interpretation; your relationship with your friends; your family life; your approach to career and work in general + possible jobs suggestion; your style, fashion sense analysis; life purpose and past life description; basic transits’ analysis to describe your current mood and, last but not least, your secret skills, how to make the most out of your soul and manifest what you desire based on your birth chart.

🦋 chart shape, dominants

your chart is a splay shape, meaning that your planets are located randomly in different groups in your chart. people with this type of chart are usually very talented at different things. they can focus their attention on different matters, from family, to work, to love. everything is important for you, and you try to live your life to the fullest. you may be particularly talented at things that require action, it doesn’t matter whether it’s physical or mental. you may be very good at sports, dancing… or maybe you’re good at leading, you could easily be the boss on your work place. since you’re interested in so many things, you could easily be skilled at all of them to be honest. my advice would be to pick the hobby that is most important for you and care about it more than the others. that’s because people with this chart usually tend to do so many things that they may lack precision. it’s better to give all of yourself to what’s important for you.

your dominant planets are pluto, the sun and the moon. you are a very complex person for sure; you are a very lively person, you have a strong presence to you and you may even seem a bit cold at first. deep down, you're actually very emotional. you don't fall easily, but when you do you love truly, your feelings are extremely intense.

your dominant sign is scorpio. you may have trust issues and be quite of a loner, yet once you commit to someone, you'll be in for a long ride. you are very deep, both mentally and emotionally. you may struggle with power control, as you may have the perception that people are trying to take advantage of you due to your insecurities. because of that, you may also get quite possessive and bossy.

your dominant element is water. you're very intuitive and empathetic, you care a lot about others, and you may seem like a healer to people you know. in fact, you always try to help them if you can, almost in a therapeutic way. you're also very spiritual, and you're attracted to anything related to discovering your higher self and soul purpose.

🌎 ascendant in scorpio, 17° / 2nd decan ruled by pluto and the moon

your scorpio rising makes you quite pessimistic; you see the world as a place full of dangers and malice, hence it’s hard for you to trust people. this may be translated through fear; you’re either scared of other people, and hence you look more vulnerable, or maybe you’re the one who prefers to look intimidating to avoid problems. I don’t think you look unapproachable, though. there are other placements in your chart that say the opposite, so I imagine you project an image of yourself that makes you look quite naive. you can sense others’ emotions very well, so they have no secrets for you. you can perceive any single emotion in people just by looking in their eyes. while this is good, as you understand who’s best for you and you’re aware of the dangers you may face, scorpio risings tend to take advantage of this and be a little manipulative. this awareness of the world makes you look mysterious and secretive, as if you always know something more than others (and you probably do). pluto is also the planet of transformation, and you might experience a lot of rebirths throughout your life, both physically and emotionally. you might lose/have lost a big amount of weight, for example, which makes you look like a different person. or maybe, you like dying your hair of a different colour, giving you a different vibe. you wish you could be softer and show your inner emotions more easily, as scorpio is a water sign. the thing is, since it’s a fixed sign, it’s hard for you to be flexible and adapt to changes. when they happen, they’re usually out of your control as they’re literally life-changing. physically, I see you having a square face with high cheekbones. overall, your bones are very prominent and you’re naturally skinny. your eyes are extremely magnetic, and they could also be quite big and/or round. you might have either very pale skin, or just an olive skintone. sometimes, even a mix of both. your hair, eyebrows and lashes are very thick and dark too. since you also have cancer placements in your chart, you may also have round features to you, such as a round chin/face, big round eyes, plump lips and a button nose.

scorpio ascendant conjunct scorpio pluto: this aspect enhances your scorpio rising even more. scorpio, combined with your cancer sun, makes you look a little bit naive. people may try to take advantage of you, and to defend yourself you tend to become bossy. you’re really competitive, and feel the constant need to prove others’ wrong, even though it’s not the best way to do it. in your life, you could encounter lots of enemies that may try to stop you from transforming yourself. or maybe, your grandfather is an authoritative figure in your life and in your family’s in general, and his influence has a big impact on your life. also, something I’ve noticed about pluto conjunct ascendant individuals is that they may feel unhappy when they’re young. as time goes by, they transform and become as they want, which makes them feel more satisfied with themselves.

🌞 sun in cancer, 23° / 3rd decan ruled by the moon and neptune

this is the most romantic and dreamy cancer decan. even though you may not show it due to your heavy scorpio influence, you’re actually very vulnerable and sensitive. you may be a crybaby, as crying is a way to vent your emotions. you may even overreact, and be considered too dramatic. you’re extremely moody; you could be all happy and relaxed with your friends, then suddenly you get sad, or even angry. it’s hard to deal with this, especially because your emotions are quite intense. this could make you argue a lot with your peers. even though it takes you a while to find someone willing to stay, when that moment finally comes you’ll embody cancer’s best trait: that is, you’ll become a ‘mother’ to your friends, lover etc. you have a very nurturing soul, you have a knack for affection and care, and you could even get kind of clingy, even though you may feel limitated to give your love to someone else. cancer is a cardinal sign, hence you may be the one to take initiative, yet you do it undirectly. you’re probably the passive-aggressive type, even though this may be mitigated by your dramatic and impulsive leo rising. you’re most likely also quite patient, even though you don’t forgive easily. once someone tries to take advantage of you, it’s over for them.

cancer sun square libra moon: you're the type to start lots of projects, always feeling like you need to transform yourself or your routine. you're very self-aware of your identity, as you're constantly in contact with your feelings. you may even appear as too emotional, as the sun brings all your emotions out to see. this placement most likely makes it hard for you to make choices, you are very indecisive; on one side, your cancer sun wants to be alone, you crave alone time for yourself. your libra moon, on the other hand, wants to be in others' company. that doesn't mean that you are extremely sociable, but you value relationships in your life, and hence you tend to struggle with balance. as a result, you may change your mind often, and people could possibly picture you as shallow or unpredictable. you're interested in knowing more about your roots, your childhood, and also about having a family in general. when you were young, you probably were even more energetic than now. you could be the type to look nostalgically at your old pictures, and you care about your mother a lot. you're also very interested in your own culture; you're not afraid to show the world your interests, reactions and opinions. the problem with this square is that the individual may become so self-sufficient at the point that doesn't let anyone interfer in their life. it's obviously a good thing to do when someone tries to hurt you, but there's the risk it may happen even with people that are trying to help you if not well-developed. last but not least, your parents' relationships might have had impact on your growth. maybe they're divorced, and one of them had to compensate for the missing parent; perhaps, one of them was highly influenced by the other.

🌙 moon in libra, 20° / 3rd decan ruled by venus and mercury

the most romantic and affectionate libra decan. in life, you strive for equality and fairness. for example, you don’t want to give less than someone else, you would feel guilty about it. at the same time, you don’t want to be the one that gives more either; you’re afraid that people could take advantage of you. therefore, balance is what you find the most pleasant. ironically, you struggle to keep the same balance in yourself, though. you may appear a bit emotionally cold, as you don’t feel comfortable showing your true self due to your secrecy. you come off as kind of analytical, but you’re actually very romantic. you wish the world was just filled with love and peace, and you that you didn’t have to worry about malice or anything of that type. you hate vulgarity, and you try to be as kind as possible with your words, even though you may be too straight-forward and fail at that. even if you’re an introvert, you may know a lot of people. yet, you have troubles actually creating close bonds with others. you basically have more acquaintances than friends. you’re a nice mediator, you know how to get along with others and make others get along.

🗣 mercury in cancer, 2° / 1st decan ruled by the moon

you don't really rely on logic. you're very emotionally intelligent, and you take in consideration others' feelings when you speak. even though you may be impulsive and blunt sometimes, you don't do it with malice at all. you may actually feel guilty after you realize that you've hurt someone. you may be sort of manipulative, as you're very observant of others' behaviours. because of that, you may be extremely good at interacting with others, since you know how to speak to people when you don't let your impulsiveness get over you. you know how to persuade others, even though you may not even realize it. if you manage to balance your moon and your mercury, I think it would give you great social skills. you'd be able to stand up for yourself, while also being mindful and conscious of the effect of your words on others. you may get defensive quite easily, and because of that you may become a bit secretive. that's because, deep down, you feel the need to be understood to fully convey and express your emotions. you want to feel at home with your interlocutor, otherwise you'll just be awkward. on the other hand, you have a nice sense of humor, you're able to light up the room with your jokes. your voice may be nasal, but pretty much very gentle as well.

❤️ venus in virgo, 5° / 1st decan ruled by mercury

in your group of friends, you’re most probably the late bloomer. in fact, it probably took you a while to experience romance. that’s because love isn’t your priority, even though you crave emotional affection and security. you’re not the type to fall for someone at first sight, you’re only into people that are willing to commit to you. you seek a partner that is hard-working and takes care of themselves, both physically and mentally but, at the same time, that would only look at you. it could take you some time to feel totally comfortable around your partner, but once you trust them, you’ll stay with them for a long time. it’s hard for you to show your love with words, hence you do it with little gestures. you probably remember stuff like their birthday, their favorite food etc., and you wouldn’t mind receiving the same kind of affection back. when it comes to love, you’re not a risk-taker; you probably prefer being courted rather than court others, and if you do it, you make sure that the other person likes you back. you enjoy helping others, you’re the type of friend or lover that wouldn’t hesitate to do favors. yet, you want to be appreciated, otherwise you may just feel used. you may be quite hard to satisfy, but you’re surely very loyal.

virgo venus square gemini mars: you are very serious when it comes to love. you seek intense, long-lasting relationships, filled with both romance and passion. ironically, you tend to attract people that are the opposite, who are only looking for fun and casual romance. that could afflict your self-worth significantly, as you feel unlucky in love. this is also another placement that indicates that one of your parents, probably your father, or still anyone of the opposite sex probably influenced your approach to romance and sex. there are different scenarios I have in mind, but I'll talk about it later in the family life section.

virgo venus opposite pisces saturn: you feel unable to love someone. this placement usually brings fear of committing, causing the individual to be flaky. there are two possibilities; I assume you directly avoid to get into relationships. your mind may unconsciously repress any thought about an eventual crush or love interest. it is caused by your insecurity, especially regarding your looks. or perhaps, it’s the other way around: you literally jump into relationships, resulting in you getting hurt from time to time. you could feel pressured to be in a relationship, even though it’s not your priority. in my readings I don’t generally talk about easy aspects, but I wanted to point this out as it may help you dealing with your low self-esteem; you have very strong libra/venusian influence in your chart. if you’re struggling with image issues, you shouldn’t; you’re definitely beautiful. even if not conventionally, you still have charm and charisma that make others stare. don’t be afraid of not being enough, because you are. but if you don’t realize it first, others won’t. you have to be your own healer, you’re totally capable of doing that.

☄️ mars in gemini, 8° / 1st decan ruled by mercury

you’re driven by the sense of intelligence. your intellect is your greatest strenght, it’s your energy tank. you’re interested in a bunch of things, and hence you may have troubles staying focused on one thing at the time. you probably have tons of hobbies, and you may end up not being much precise since you have tons of things that you have and want to do. you can’t stand boredom, you need your day-to-day life to be exciting and, above all, offer you something new to learn and / or experience. you probably fancy being very active: you go out often, you workout, you may also be the type to love partying and things like that. you’re extremely witty and curious, and you want to live your life to the fullest. you may often change your style, your opinions, maybe even your personality, and that could make you seem confusing and / or unreliable.

gemini mars square pisces saturn: this is another placement that indicates that something or someone is trying to restrict you, they're trying to prevent you from following your dreams and taking your own choices for your life. that someone is most likely an individual that has a lot on impact on you, it's someone very authoritative. or perhaps, it may even be a bully or abuser of any sort. as a result, you either rebel and get extremely angry, or you hide all of your disappointment inside of you. but soon or after, all of your intense feelings are going to eat you alive if you keep going like this, it's a very unhealthy behaviour. you could find it extra hard to achieve your goals, as when you try you always come across some hardships. what matters the most, is that you try to be more positive, you could even try manifesting more patience or serenity. you can't hold onto anger so much, or it will just fill you with negativity that could damage you. let it all go, focus on your goals and try to understand how to be more patient. in fact, you may often feel like you need to do everything as soon as possible, when it's not like that. you can allow yourself to be more calm and live life as it comes, it will make you feel much better with yourself and you'll also get more mature, which is crucial to learn your saturnian lessons and increase your self-confidence.

🏡 houses

your 1st house is in scorpio. you fulfill your ego when you deal with intense situations that satify your needs. that is, you find strenght in getting out of your comfort-zone. even though you may be afraid of it. as a result, you may often have to overcome challenges and traumas throughout this lifetime. you’re an enigma: you know everything about others, but others know nothing about you. it’s your way to protect yourself from eventual enemies, as you’re prone to have a few of them throughout your life. you are probably also very charismatic, you have a strong aura to you that almost makes you look intimidating. you certainly don't go overlooked, and because of that you may often attract jealousy and malice from other people, as they want what you naturally have.

your 2nd house is in sagittarius. you tend to overindulge in 2nd house matters, hence you may spend too much money, you could overeat, or even overestimate your own skills. you have an exaggerated vision of yourself. maybe, you’re too confident, which may make you come off as arrogant. it could be that you spend so much money so easily that you could take things for granted; perhaps, you could have even been spoiled as a child. this placement may also indicate that you may have lots of money, perhaps you were born in a rich family or you'll be able to accumulate lots of wealth anyways. in fact, many celebrities and millionaires have sagittarius in their second house's cusp. in general, this placement indicates luck with money, and since your jupiter isn't badly aspected either I don't see you experiencing loss and other negative effects. yet, keep in mind that you need to be less impulsive while spending, or it could cause you troubles. the ruler of the 2nd house is placed in the 12th house: you could possibly gain money through sprituality, and hence you may become very wealthy thanks to things such as the law of attraction, yoga, astrology, psychology, etc . you could definitely manifest material wealth and confidence with this placement!

your 3rd house is in capricorn. you enjoy listing and talking about your duties and goals. you’re the type to write down your tasks in your agenda, e.g. tidying up your room, feeding your plants etc. the problem with this placement is that you may struggle to take action, and procrastinate. or maybe, you could do the opposite and overwork yourself. no inbetween. also, when you were a child you probably started speaking later than other kids, or you speak so fast that you end up stuttering. as a result, you may often be mocked for your thoughts or for the way you speak. neptune and uranus are also sitting in this house; these two planets in this house make you extremely creative! you have original and innovative ideas that could make you an excellent writer. you have very strong beliefs that could actually be helpful for the world. you're quite 'ahead' of others from this point of view, you're able to find beauty in things without being influenced by others. for example, you may follow a fashion trend before it gets viral. you are able to come up with very innovative ways of solving problems, you're extremely creative. you may even be the type to invent your own words, or perhaps you love learning and reading new words, you have a wide vocabulary. you're also probably interested in science and any darker or logical topic, you want to use your words and theories to change something in the world. you have a very witty sense of humor, you most likely speak fluent sarcasm and you're also very astute. I would say that the only problem with this placement is that you may come off as a know-it-all. for your voice, I assume you have a very particular tone, maybe even a nasal voice. the ruler of the 3rd house is in the 4th house: you may often talk about your childhood. you may have lots of memories that you're able to remember, and hence you may tell them frequently to your loved ones.

your 4th house is in aquarius, with also saturn placed here. when you were young, you probably didn’t feel at ease with yourself. you might have been the outcast, that one kid that stood out in the daycare. you probably didn’t have many friends either, but you weren’t that sad about it. you enjoyed playing, drawing and watching your favorite cartoons alone. you find emotional comfort and security in your home, in your parents and in just family in general. you used to be very attracted to arts and/or science when you were a kid, and you kept this love with you while growing up. I can tell that your childhood was quite complex. not necessarily bad, but there were a few things that you still remember to this day. your parents could have been very hard-working and focused on work, possibly wealthy too. they were very responsible and cared a lot about you, they always made sure you had everything you needed, even though they could have been slightly absent from time to time due to their jobs. people with a 4th house saturn usually find something missing in their childhood, they had to deal with responsibilities from a young age. it could even be that you started working when you were still a teen.

your 5th house is in pisces. you have a variety of talents and creativity, but that may possibly be covered from you at first. you’d do very well at stuff that involves art and drawing. in love, you’re attracted to artsy people; if they’re into art, singing, dancing etc. they’re your ideal of soulmate. you may be very fond of children, and you probably wish to have at least one in the future, even though you may have some troubles with your future children or with giving birth. the ruler of the 5th house is in the 3rd house: this is another placement that indicates huge creativity! you are able to come up with great ideas, you are a very charismatic speaker and you probably take lots of pride in your ideas and opinions. you hardly ever give up when standing up for your ideas.

your 6th house is in aries. you work hard to be the number #1 in what you care about, especially if your goals involve school, work, health etc. your days are usually quite busy, and you tend to overwork yourself. your health may not be the best, you may often experience headaches or you may have problems in any part of your face, such as eyesight problems or maybe something involving teeth. with the ruler of the 6th house being in the 7th house, you may meet your future spouse in a health-related place. it could be at the doctor’s, at the dentist’s, in a hospital, etc. the 6th house is also about routine, so you may meet your future spouse in a typical day of yours. it could be at the supermarket, at work, while you’re walking your dog, at the gym, and so on. basically, it could be that your future spouse is going to casually approach you in the streets. you may also find yourself working in a field where you need to socialize and interact with other people.

your 7th house is in taurus. in a marriage you seek security, both emotional and financial. you want a loyal partner that would never do anything to hurt you, and that has a wealthy job as well. intimacy and trust also matter a lot for you in a long-term relationship. taurus is also ruled by venus and hence it’s an extremely positive placement! it most likely means that your relationships are very pleasant, you may have very loving partner throughout your life and you won’t have a bad memory of them when you break up. in particular, this placement usually indicates that you’re going to have a very satisfying and peaceful marriage, even though mars is also sitting in this house. you may often attract people with good looks, as venus rules beauty, but also wealthy people, and you could possibly make money thanks to other people. you may marry someone rich, or maybe your future job will involve other people, and hence you’re going to earn money by helping someone else. mars here could make things a little bit more complicated, perhaps you may find it hard to settle for someone as you may often feel too tied up in a relationship. or perhaps, you often want to dominate over people, and hence you may experience power struggles with others, there could be lots of discussions and arguing.

your 8th house is in gemini, with also mercury placed there. you may frequently find yourself thinking and studying occult/taboo topics, such as paranormal events, thrillers, tarots, astrology etc. you’re interested in finding out the truth, not only among your peers but in the whole world. you have a desire that all the malice that is hiding behind the government etc. gets exposed, even though you may be so interested in them that you could get used to it and end up overlooking them. you're extremely blunt and straight-forward, you may actually hurt people with your words. you probably lack diplomacy, and you're very realistic. the thing is, you speak the truth, but not everyone can accept it. that's why your behaviour is so controversial. you speak fluent sarcasm, and that could annoy people who don't understand your sense of humor. you're probably good at lying, and even manipulating people. you may often make others change their mind just with your own words, but be careful not to use this skill to hurt others, or you'll only experience a sense of guilt and overall the bad sides of it. on the other hand, you're an extremely captivating speaker, you'd be successful at anything that involves the use of words and voice. you're truly intuitive, and it's easy for you to understand when someone is being honest or is lying to you. last but not least, you're very secretive as well. you're probably the type to know everything and anything about others, while you remain a mystery.

your 9th house is in cancer, with also the sun sitting there. someone close, important and intimate with you may teach you the biggest lessons in your life. you could also live abroad with your family, or become a teacher in a daycare/primary school. you have a knack for philosophy, and you may be interested in foreign culture, music, fashion etc. the sun here makes you extremely open-minded! you probably hardly ever have prejudices, you don’t judge a book from its cover, as you are very supportive of others. you probably despise racism, homophobia and any kind of discrimination that doesn’t bring justice. you may also be particularly interested in studying, especially philosophy, literature, but also foreign cultures. you could be skilled or at least interested in foreign languages as well.

your 10th house is in leo. you want to be recognized and stand out. you may want to be a celebrity, or at least you want to be the one people look up to in your work place. you may be known for your successful career, maybe you may actually get popular easily. your identity revolves around finding a stable job and having a great income. also, this is a beneficial placement for people that want to be recognized/famous, as you naturally have the celebrity vibe and charisma to you. venus is also placed in this house as your most elevated planet; you may be attracted to artistic careers, such as designing for example, or even stuff like cooking. you could be a singer, a rapper, a writer… even a therapist or a counsealor, as well as an actor or comedian. writing and / or fashion could also be suitable for you, or maybe drawing. you would do well at a variety of things to be honest! my advice would be to exploit yohr creativity in some way, it could make you very successful. the ruler of the 10th house is in the 9th house: you may find work abroad, perhaps you’ll have to travel a lot for your job. maybe you’ll have to speak or learn a foreign language for your job, or perhaps you’ll have to interact with many people with a different cultural background from yours. you may possibly even work as a teacher or as a professor.

your 11th house is in virgo, with also your moon sitting there. this placement, together with your heavy scorpio influence, makes you very picky with friends. you may frequently feel happy with different people, but you only call friends a few of them. you also have friends with similiar ideals and approach to yours, hence it’s easy for you to get along as you see eye to eye. yet, once you get close to someone, your friends may literally be like family to you. you may actually have met them during your childhood or teenage years, and you've been friends ever since. your goals may be very practical, you most likely have a detailed idea of what you want to be in the future. you want everything to be organized, as it makes you feel more secure. you may also end up pursuing the career you've always dreamed about during your childhood. the ruler of the 11th house is in the 8th house: your friends could be a part of your soul family, and hence you most likely used to know them in a past life. possibly, your friends could also be wealthy.

your 12th house is in libra. you find beauty in neptunian topics, such as astrology, spirituality, dreams, art etc. you may actually be quite skilled at things that involve beauty and aesthetics. you may also be afraid of being judged, especially for your interests and/or physical appearance. you also have your scorpio jupiter placed in this house. you may have some escape tendencies to detach from reality; maybe, you use retail therapy as a coping mechanism. you could also oversleep, pray or maybe meditate to stop thinking about your worries for a while. you usually have very peaceful, romantic dreams, and your past life was quite pacific too. this placement also indicates that you may have prophetic dreams, you could predict the future through them or they may have a special meaning to you.

❤️ love life, soulmates

in love, you attract taurus, libra, pisces, aries, aquarius and scorpio. your future spouse is probably going to have prominent libra and / or aquarius placements, as well as some 7th, 2nd or 11th house dominance too. they’ll be very intelligent and talkative, they are most likely a social person but they also value alone time. you may meet them at work, and they’ll be a big boost for your self-esteem and reputation. you could also meet them in a place where you can eat, hence at a restaurant, at a bar, etc. your children are probably going to have prominent pisces placements, or at least they’ll have pisces/water traits: they’ll be spiritual, calm, artistic and sleepy, yet they may also develop a rebel/emo attitude during their teenage years.

👶🏻 family life

your mother is probably a very caring person that knows how to stand up for herself when she has to, but she may struggle to do that. in fact, she looks very emotionally detached. she also has very strong beliefs that you inherited from her. she could have capricorn, placements in her chart, as well as 11th and 10th house planets. your father is a bit softer and more romantic, he knows how to have fun and used to play a lot with you when you were a child. he probably has leo or 5th house placements in his birth chart, or perhaps he has fire placements. he may also have libra or taurus placements, as well as 7th and 2nd house planets. if you have siblings, they probably have prominent capricorn placements in their chart. you may fight a lot with them, but your relationship with your siblings will slowly get better with time. in the worst case, your mother might have had a miscarriage, or maybe they were stillborn.

📊 career

with your leo midheaven, any career that revolves around creativity and self-expression would be ideal for you!! in fact, you may have some sort of creative talent, such as writing, acting, dancing, singing, etc. in general, this placement also indicates that you may earn an income from a hobby of yours, and so it doesn’t necessarily have to be something creative. for instance, let’s suppose you’re into psychology. you’d definitely be successful as a psychologist, and there are actually lots of placements in your chart that make it a suitable job for you. possibly, you could even work with food, or perhaps you may work in a field related to money, so you may find a job in a bank. you’ll also get to travel a lot, and you’ll probably interact with other people as well. because of that, you would also make a good teacher, or maybe a translator for instance.

👕 fashion sense, style analysis

I imagine you put a lot of effort into your outifts, yet you don’t show it. you want to look effortlessly good, you don’t want to give the impression that you tried. your style may be quite minimalistic and simple, with lots of jeans, sweatshirts, plain t-shirts… I see you being more into natural shades, like white, grey, beige etc. you’re also not very fond of using too many accessories, you’re stylish but still very simple. you have this natural charm to you, hence you still look good even though your outfits may not be too complex. you could as well be fond of high quality, possibly designer clothes.

👁 past life, life purpose

in your past life, the focus was on your relationships with others. maybe, you had troubles with self-esteem and identity in general and you used to depend on others. you had to work hard and finally understand how to build healthy relationships with others to fulfill your past life purpose. hence, this lifetime your focus will be yourself. even though at first you might feel quite insecure, especially due to pluto being tightly conjunct your ascendant, this lifetime you're here to develop this matter. after all, pluto will give you may opportunities to transform yourself and grow into a better person.

🤔 major transits analysis / march 7th

you could be feeling a bit confused. with transit saturn being in your 3rd house, the house of thoughts and communication, you may be feeling constantly sleepy or perhaps sleep-deprived. you may have trouble resting or feeling at ease, especially in your home environment. your mind could be filled with worries, and hence you find it hard to relax. you may also find yourself arguing a lot with your partner or maybe with your friends or family members, especially since transit mars is about to be conjunct your natal gemini mars in a few days.

🧿 manifest what you want, secret skills

with your water dominance, you probably have a 6th sense. you’re able to manifest what you want if you subconsciously predict it, even though it may be hard. you’d have to get in touch with your higher self to do so, and hence I would suggest you to light up some candles and meditate for a bit before manifesting, in this way it will be way more effective. you may manifest something while daydreaming, for example. or perhaps, you can also try listening to your own affirmations while you sleep, as you won’t be consciously aware of that. it’s probably the most effective way.

this is the end! thank you again for booking a reading, let me know if you have any questions :) - libramc xx

[koyurim]

hospital playlist 12 (season 1 finale)

as the 99 crew make their next steps, life chugs along and with that comes the ups and downs that the patients are going through

the season finale provides enough momentum to wrap up some plot lines while still presenting new (or persistent) challenges for season 2 to dive deeper into. for me, all the ups and downs with the patients were the highlight of the episode and had me in an emotional mess. we see how much the patients impact the doctors, but also how much the doctors impacted their patients: 

yun-bok was able to thank song-hwa and cry in her arms when she found out that song-hwa was the doctor who treated her mom. and we got to see song-hwa tell yun-bok that she grew up into a lovely lady. 

right when chi-hong’s dealing with the coma patient who’s not going to make it, the cop patient came back to thank chi-hong for giving him the motivation and understanding that he can return to his job. his life is not over because of what he went through. 

jeong-wan stayed up day and night for the 7-year old girl and all his care was recognized when her family thanked him. also when she came back on christmas eve to thank him personally. jeong-wan always gets a lot of fulfillment from his work and i feel like this is the case that convinced him to remain as a doctor and not a priest. 

seok-hyeong. is just. a Fantastic doctor. he’s so gentle and always provides space for the emotions that come with the medical problems that the patients. when the woman finds out her baby has passed?! and then you see all the moms sitting quietly in the hallway listening to her crying. and the woman who had multiple miscarriages finding out that her baby’s in the clear... the JOY. ugh my emotions are ALL OVER THE PLACE.

jun-wan poured in so much care for the patient with the infected stent and watching him deliver the bad news to the parents was so hard. i was so proud of jae-hak for figuring out a solution! gah! growth.... 

ik-jun learning sign language--IM!!!!!!!! 

now, onto the more personal lives of our doctors. much has been building up all season and our main five must face their problems. sometimes facing your feelings is all it takes to find a fix, but unfortunately more often than not life requires a deeper dive to untangle all the webs and mess (and means we have to WAIT). 

jeong-wan’s plot line feels the most neatly wrapped up in this season finale. he’s made the decision to stay and not becoming a priest. it’s so obvious to those around him that he finds a lot of fulfillment in his work as a doctor helping kids, but it seems like it took him a lot longer to realize that himself. i really appreciated the moments with song-hwa. she can read him so easily, but sometimes you have to wait for your friend to arrive to the conclusion themselves. as for the love line with gyeol-ul, i was really hoping to see WHY he liked her. the show + all of jeong-wan’s friends and family have spent the season saying ‘HE LIKES HER’ but i dont really see why? i wanted some flashbacks about where his love originated from, because the kiss feel too out of the blue. however, i Am glad and proud of jeong-wan for properly facing his feelings and not denying them! you don’t do yourself or anyone around you any good when you don’t face yourself!! anyway, i look forward to rosa doting on gyeol-ul in season 2 even though it makes no sense. 

seok-hyeong’s father may have passed, but his problems are still there. seok-hyeong’s family situation has clearly created many problems in the past. it seems like his divorce with his ex-wife was primarily due to his family and not from a lack of love. as a consequence from his family mess, he’s forced himself to choose a lonely path so as to not hurt anyone else. obviously, that’s no way to live and seok-hyeong has to make peace with the understanding that while his dad is a piece of shit, he himself can still seek out happiness. it’s interesting to me that min-ha is able to approach him in a way that seems to slowly nudge him out of his shell. i hope that she can continue to do so in a respectful way! i feel like in season two we may see a seok-hyeong/min-ha/ex-wife love triangle. overall, im glad that he’s choosing himself in not running his dad’s company. his dad is an asshole, and seok-hyeong doesn’t owe him anything. even tho i think the mistress is shameless, im shocked that he didn’t leave anything to her. anyway, i wanna see a scene where ik-jun’s like hello dad pls redistribute your wealth to me, your son. 

oh, i fear our poor prickly jun-wan has been dumped. i was so pleased with how the finale was developing his and ik-sun’s relationship until he got the returned package! i loved when jae-hak was like ‘dude, just ask her’ because you can’t assume and guess your partner’s intentions. you’ll just be stuck in an endless loop! although i am on pins and needles to find out the reason for the package’s return, i’m not surprised. ik-sun has a lot that she hasn’t unpacked from her previous relationship. she’s worried about being hurt again and keeps anticipating their relationship’s demise. wanting only happy moments in a relationship isn’t realistic and i think she may have gotten cold feet and jumped ship to proactively avoid the ‘bad’ parts to a relationship. im rooting for jun-wan, he’s trying his best to communicate and be a good partner in the relationship; i really hope ik-sun will also do the work and not ghost him. i hope in season 2, the crew finally meets bidulgi!!!! 

even though ik-jun’s basically all but said how he feels towards song-hwa, we finally see him properly face her and be upfront with his feelings. i’d love to have heard him say ‘i like you’ explicitly, but i know that this is a big step for him. despite being the most expressive of the group, ik-jun’s so elusive. he flits around to different departments and loves to give advice, but he struggles much more when it comes to forging a kind of relationship where he needs to be vulnerable. we don’t get song-hwa’s response yet, but the ending with all five of them hanging out before christmas is a reassuring sign to me. regardless of how song-hwa responds, their friendship and the maintenance of the group is something they’ll prioritize and work to maintain. this means regardless, they’ll stay in each other’s life.  

UNFORTUNATELY, we still get very little of song-hwa. im so frustrated! she’s such a great mentor and confidant, but WHO IS SHE! song-hwa! who do you turn to when you want advice? what’s going on in your brain? what are your fears and worries? from the little clues that we’ve gotten, i think song-hwa’s drawn a firm line with chi-hong. she’s no longer wearing the shoes he got her, and she was firm about him not following her/congratulated him for moving up to chief resident in a kind yet professional manner. i really hope season 2 stops making us guess about her inner thoughts and just GIVES it to us. i need All of song-hwa’s thoughts! as an aside it was cute how song-hwa made space for seokmin to confess to sunbin! 

in the end, i rest easy knowing that our OT5 persists. they’ll always have each other to go back to and have a meal with. i love them, but not as much as they love each other. they argue and fight but the way they make space and accommodate each other speaks volumes to how much they mean to one another. the show’s so beautiful in capturing life’s little moments. while there is a (very slow burning) plot, that’s not what captures me about the show. the beautiful moments are small and mundane. the five bickering about song-hwa and jun-wan eating all the food is such a human touch that doesn’t necessarily add to the plot. u-ju eating egg sandwiches and winking isn’t necessarily ~ReLeVaNt~ but it’s so important and damned if i won’t watch u-ju and his dad have fun! 

season 2 will air in 2021 (GAH) and i wonder if we’ll come back to song-hwa returning after 1 year. things will have changed: our interns will be residents, ik-sun will have been abroad for a while. either way, im looking forward to it!!!!!!!!!!! 

[summerspn]

Felicity

Tv series (1998-2002)

Spoilers...

I’ve gradually been watching Felicity for the past few months & have completed watching the series. I gotta say it’s charming & oddly addictive.

At the beginning of the series Felicity (Keri Russell) is an extremely shy & introverted character. She’s adorable. We see her proudly graduating high school but also feeling some trepidation about it. Naturally.

She sees her high school crush, Ben Covington, (Scott Speedman) at their high school graduation & decides to just go & talk to him. She regretted not getting to know him before. So she fixes that. Her yearbook had some sort of printing issue so they gave it to her on graduation day. So she asks Ben to sign her yearbook.

Surprisingly he sits down & writes a very thoughtful message to her. It’s sweet & inspiring. She decides to follow him to New York & she gets into NYU.

In tv land one can get into school in just a couple months - ya know completely ignoring the hundreds of people waitlisted lol That made me chuckle when watching. No big deal though.

Felicity gets to school & realizes Ben was just a nice guy & wasn’t in love with her of course. So she gets a bit of a reality check.

She makes a few friends & lives in the biggest dorm room on the history of planet Earth!

My room in my old dorm was ‘big’ and it had 3 feet of space between the beds...much bigger than my sister’s dorm lol

Felicity is likeable because she’s sweet, smart, shy & confused & just trying to figure her life out. All she knew is she didn’t want med school as her parents kept trying to shove it down her throat.

Ben is a nice guy who struggles with feeling stupid sometimes (though is actually really smart). He struggled with some of his classes & lacks a clear path for his major.

Occasionally Ben has these lines & that message in the yearbook which made me stop & go ‘you’re a writer’. I kept thinking he was going to become a writer...then in season four he decides to be a doctor. Okay...it was an alright decision & I like his academic plot lines in season 4 so no real complaints there.

We meet Noel Crane (Scott Foley)who is super dreamy. He’s smart, nice, outspoken but sensitive. A straight laced student & Resident Advisor (RA) who becomes Felicity’s friend & has a crush on her.

Throughout the series that’s the love triangle. It was interesting but there was far too much emphasis on it. Often it overshadowed the more interesting storylines on the show, IMO.

Noel pines for Felicity & loses sight of his life then soon graduates without a plan then later develops depression. I thought that was a great storyline. Noel’s family history of depression was compelling & how the character described it was very well done.

Back then tv shows didn’t talk about mental illness but this was handled delicately.

Noel gets help & gets better. He gets his life back on track, pursuing his dream of graphic design. There’s a line where he gets teased for liking computers...ya know as only ‘nerds’ like that stuff 😂

Felicity’s roommate Meghan Rotundi (Amanda Foreman) is a bit of a goth/Wicca practitioner. Every other character wear clothes I assume that are from The Gap so Meghan looks very different in her black mesh clothes & dark makeup. Nice contrast but I feel like Meghan’s development was overlooked for the most part of the series. She’s very blunt, unapologetic, sometimes mean...but she also cares for others even though she’ll deny it.

In her romantic life there’s growth but not academically. It’s only in the end of the last season does she realize she wants to pursue psychiatry. I think there were some missed opportunities there.

Though I will say I like that her uptight parents accept her for her quirks & clothing choices.

Sean Blumberg (Greg Grunberg) ...I have mixed feelings about his character. He’s an ambitious inventor & sort-of businessman. He owns a loft where Ben sublets /shares with him. Sean’s nice, caring & excitable. He’s also several years older. Around 5 or 6yrs difference I think.

His age difference was brought up several times, as if it were supposed to be important. In my last year of school I lived with a woman who was 15 years older than me. So what? Not a big deal. I’m not sure why the show kept pointing it out.

The only issue with his age is that at one point he’s 27 and STILL has no steady job. None! He’s all-in with his inventions that make no money & his family isn’t rich so how does that work now? He has a loft in New York with zero income? One episode talked of him owing money but come on, get rid of the loft, downsize then get a job, even if part time. *sigh*.

At the start of the series I liked Sean but then they turned him into a pathetic leech who gets mad & throws tantrums easily. He became incredibly annoying.

When I was near the end of the series I started to think that Sean would actually make a good salesman. Imagine him trying to sell cars, just the right amount of pushy. Though they put an episode in that made him look like a buffoon when making a sales pitch. So I feel like the writers were confused or trying to sabotage his character because he still ends up leeching off his buddy Noel & they end up business partners. 🤷‍♀️

Sean & Meghan date & eventually marry. I thought they were cute together at first but not as long term. I feel like Meghan would murder him due to being sick of his shit.

Elena Tyler (Tangi Miller) becomes a good friend to Felicity. All the ladies care for each other a great deal. Elena is very intelligent & a hard worker. She had a few romances & nearly got married. But I’ll be honest I found her boring. Not sure why. I think the most interesting part of her character was that she chose not to marry her fiancé Tracy. I thought it was a very smart move. And I found her background with her mom interesting but they didn’t do much with that.

Richard Coad starts out as an annoying member of the dorm. He & Noel become friends then later gets befriended by the group. Richard is a neurotic, blunt talking mess. He’s somehow still kinda adorable though does have some rough spots. I really liked him up through season 3. Season 4 he was in much less and then the writers turned him into a racist moron. Even if he had those thoughts I feel like his character would be more subtle & not as rude due to his overly developed sense of self preservation. Plus he’s not stupid, just blunt & a bit disconnected.

He did apologize but still it felt just so...wrong. Out of character even.

In any case I think the writers should have made him a little more like Rob Benedict, the actor who played him. Rob’s loveable.

Javier Quintata (Ian Gomez) is the owner at the coffee shop Dean & Deluca. He’s the boss but becomes very close with everyone, especially Felicity. I really liked him at first. Eventually his personal favours become outlandish & his stories started to make my eyes roll.

He & his devoted husband break up over non-issues. Why? It added nothing to the plot. Javier also wants to pursue acting at NYU. He’s really not good so it came off as a dumb idea & all scenes in acting class become annoying. I feel like the writers didn’t know what to do with him. I’d have preferred if he pursued a different dream- one that made sense. Like maybe all the years working with coffee & pastries inspires him to want to be a chef? 🤷‍♀️

Felicity. Throughout the series she’s shy, gradually getting more of a backbone. She admits to loving art & wants to pursue it. Her parents constantly pull her down , try to talk her out if it, even bully & manipulate her. She is for the most part uncompromising. I loved that! She held her ground & from a person like her, who always kept the peace at the expense of her own happiness, that’s amazing.

We see her grow though she spends far too much time angst-ing over Ben & Noel. Often she seems tortured with very few moments of being free & having fun.

I loved how in season 4 she befriends fellow artist Owen. I feel like that was huge. I loved how they went to galleries together & talked about their art & life. It was refreshing. I love that Felicity’s honours art class was so important to her & everything around that plot.

I hated however, how she always put others first.

So...I have to mention Felicity’s haircut from Season 2. I didn’t find it that bad...but apparently Keri Russell got death threats from it. Complete insanity!

Though I do think as it was 1999 back then, people were more uptight with personal style. If she had dyed her hair pink instead people would have flipped out too.

I do think there were better hair styles to choose from though. I think if she had a cut her hair to chin length & straightened it it could look pretty & still have a big impact. Something like that.

But honestly it’s just hair. I had a horrible haircut one year in university but it grew out on a few months & was fine. No big deal....but I wasn’t on tv so no one cared I guess 🤷‍♀️

In the ‘series finale’ , Felicity abruptly chooses medicine. Why??? That uncompromising love for painting just gone....And back to medicine? I wanted her to be an artist!

Every artist has a day job to support them. Felicity was acting like she was going to starve because she couldn’t sell her paintings.

I wish they found her a day job she really liked to support herself. I wanted her to be all-in.

Or they could find her a middle ground. That internship at the architectural firm, she could have realized she wanted to be an architect or something. Something other than medicine.

I really like though that she chose herself finally. Then Ben follows her to school. That was perfect. I just wished she didn’t want to be a doctor. I feel like that goes against everything she wanted.

Overall a great series. I love how they approach mental health - Felicity’s too. She was getting therapy regularly. It was nice to see. Very healthy.

I like JJ Abrams’ work but I (like everyone else) question the last several episodes. Nonsensical & out of place.

Personally I think the show should have put less emphasis on the romantic relationships & drama & more on self discovery by all characters. That’s more interesting...then sprinkle in a few moments here and there. A few episodes on love etc each season. We didn’t need the constant longing looks & drama of Will they won’t they.

I know I’m in a minority when it comes to such things but I feel the media - tv & movies especially focus WAY too much on the romance.

Then of course people like me who are borderline Asexual (except when it comes to fictional characters lol), I find it exhausting to always be bombarded with romance from all angles. However, if Felicity (and other shows) just used it occasionally & not every single episode I wouldn’t mind.

It’s just hard to care about a show if it just feels like it’s only about relationships and not much about life. But that’s just me.

The storylines that had me intensely interested in this show were:

- Ben’s relationship with his dad

- Ben gaining self confidence & realizing he’s actually smart

- Noel’s graphic designs & career

- Noel’s mental health

- Meghan’s rebellious nature & wanting to see what happens when she gets over the need to rebel (though we didn’t see much of it).

- Felicity’s parents’ attitude - I wanted them to see that they were wrong & admit it to her (though they don’t) 😞

- Wanting to see Richard find something he was really interested in & good at (which never happened)

- Wanting Felicity to have fun! Random silliness or parties...they rarely partied or did weird outings to things like paintball or bowling. College is for doing a million things. I wish tv land would do more if this

- Wanting Felicity to stop making decisions because of her love interests

- Wanting Felicity to go on a summer trip or internship to Europe on her own (never happened)

- Wanting Felicity to choose art (also didn’t happen) & support herself with either a job she simply likes (dog waking, tutoring, retail etc) or something in the art field (art therapy, illustrator etc)

To me these should have been the priorities & add romance occasionally...

But overall the series was good. The acting was really good from everyone. Even minor characters had pretty good actors. So well done!

The actors are great in other projects too. Keri Russell was in The Americans, even the Rise of Skywalker. Never saw them but I heard great things. Personally I really liked her in Austenland, August Rush, Mission Impossible 3 (small but great role), and I LOVED her in the movie Waitress.

Definitely give the actors a watch in other projects, even if you have mixed feelings about them in Felicity. They’re all good.

[chrisodonline]

In which I unwrap a little from “Mother” and also tie in past seasons’ of G Callen character development AND character insight shown and implied...

This episode was all about parallels -- and they were well done. Parallels in TV episodes are nothing new, and you see them as handy ways to tie storylines and characters together, either from within the show itself or with references and homages to past literature and media.  They are a great tool for new writers, and for good reason. People expect themes to episodic and serial presentations, and they help keep formulae from being just straight formulae. ECO and Babar definitely leaned into them, but with a lot of thought. 

I do think the parallels between Akhos and G were supposed to make us think as well as make G think.  Akhos definitely thought they were two sides to the same coin. Hetty had concerns they were, in a way, as well. It was setup to put Hetty in continued crisis thought and self-reflection that has started recently -- but you saw seeds in past seasons.  It’s still very in character.  The beauty of the ep was that it didn’t actually lean all the way into the parallel. It was more explicit in noting the parallel of Akhos and G, but mainly because the dialogue was coming through to display the aforementioned mentalities of our Baddie of the Week and Mother Hetty. (Mother was also the very specific nickname/codename given to the CIA during the Cold War, and I just kept thinking about that. I’m sure that was no coincidence.)  Sam also had a little dialogue that floated this -- in this ep and in recent ones.  

Anyway, what the episode demonstrated was a reinforcement that G and Akhos? Actually two very different people. And it’s not that they ended up on two different sides of a forked path after Hetty’s modus operandi of intervening with lost souls. It wasn’t even anything about what Hetty planted. G was never going to be Akhos, Hetty or no Hetty.

Before I get into the ending parts with G and his fantastic dialogue, we’ll look at the speakers of lines that contributed to the “Akhos = what G could have ended up as.” Akhos himself belabors the point. Akhos is extremely misguided, and approaches things from an embittered POV. He has also lied to someone who is loyal enough to him to go to the HQ of a government agency.  There’s an entitlement aspect to him, and also someone who refuses to accept any of his actions or mistakes as completely of his own doing. It was all “nurture” to him. He wasn’t a full-grown adult or anything at some point capable of making his own decisions.  If anything, saying he was ruined and fallen shows that he has a pretty darn clear understanding of morality.  You can’t fault a person for not being mentally healthy or having emotional issues. But he knows right from wrong. He did wrong. He’s not the voice of reason in all this. He has a skewed view of things, and we’re not supposed to walk away thinking, “Man, Akhos was a deep guy. He’s super smart. He had it all figured out.” He tried to kill Hetty, then G, and tried to blow up Deeks and Kensi. He’s not...a good guy. He’s not on the side of right nor is he right about things. He ends up killed by Hetty.  If this were a novel, well, a traditional novel -- let’s say -- Akhos’ ending up killed in a very bloody fashion and coming out the loser -- big time -- with his men taken out and plots being foiled all over the place pretty much enforces his worldview and ways of life are not ones the author subscribes to nor are they trying to get the audience/reader to subscribe to them. 

Hetty is another person who muses this, and she does it not from her usual confident stance.  She isn’t Hetty the Purveyor of Wisdom.  She is Hetty the Mother, specifically Hetty the Mother, who is going through common paternal guilt mode. She’s questioning her decisions, how it’s affected her children, etc. She isn’t Hetty the Orator. She is Hetty the Doubter. Sage!Hetty is a voice we’re supposed to listen to.  Confused, guilt-ridden, confidence-bruised is not the Hetty we’re supposed to listen to. It’s her at her most human, not her most all-knowing. 

Sam? Sam is your favorite aunt. He meddles at times, but he always cares. He might get a little personal, but you know you can go to him with whatever horrible thing you think you did, and he’d give you a look before helping you out and guiding you back and giving you the best hug you’ve ever gotten. He’s also a worrier. Sam’s just worried about his friend, and this is probably his gateway into deeper discussions because he knows G isn’t up for the really, really deep ones.

So, we’ve established that these aren’t necessarily the voices we need to put full faith in -- for the ep that is.  (Hetty and Sam know what’s what very often.)

The episode is smart enough to let G speak for himself. He doesn’t do it often, and that’s been a big point in some of his plots. He gets deep here, and he drops his guard. It’s Hetty, and he’s often done it with her. However, he also knows she needs to hear what he has to say. It’s all true, so he’s not lying out of kindness. He’s being honest. He doesn’t do this because Hetty showed him a magic, fun path. He may have ended up on this super specific path because of Hetty, but he was always going to help people. He doesn’t do this because he feels like he has no choice. He does it because he sees the good it does. It allows people to live their lives. That’s all he wants. He wants people to live outside of violence. He has every reason to doubt the good in people. He’s seen the worst in this job, and he saw it before the job. He had abandonment issues not knowing who he was and if he was ever wanted. He had to live with that on top of not only encountering horrible, cruel people, but being left in their charge. Time and time again. His childhood was full of horrible things and horrible people. But he also saw good, innocent people -- his fellow foster kids. 

Sam, Kensi, and Deeks usually mention at least one personal relationship when talking about doing the job, though they also love helping others and explicitly note. In the 11th season, with G’s acknowledging he is no longer a lone wolf, that he does have people close to him, and seeming to be okay with, he still talks with distance about the people he saves. He’s tried the “normal” things beyond the found family: girlfriends, a niece and nephews, steady dwelling places, staying in a job for a while, etc.  He still sees himself as separate from the “normal life.” From the world he saves. The world is full of other people living their lives, not him. He’s not bitter about that. In fact, he kind of misses the aspects to being fully solo. (See? Already very different Akhos. Not bitter. Not feeling entitled to something better or throwing blame around.)

G Callen has had emotional growth in being able to trust more people and let them in. He’s allowed himself to make connections.  Morally, though? He’s still the same person. Because he was never evil. And he never would be. Don’t get me wrong. He’s no saint, and he’d be the first to tell you that. He lives in the gray, though. Always has, and always will. He might have ended up in a different system if he stayed in juvie or kept going back. Even if he never went and ended up in organized crime or on the “wrong” side of the law because that was sort of his only options, or seemed like it, he’d be a total Arkady. (Maybe more...understated, shall we say?) He has the natural skill set and aptitude for organized crime, but you know he’d be helping people one way or another. Probably even be a CI.  He’s clever, and always has been. But he’s never been evil. He might go dark at times, but all these characters have. 

Again, Akhos feels like so many things forged him.  He takes no responsibility for the forging he did of himself. Trauma and horrible experiences do not forge us. That’s a misconception. It permanently affects you, in ways you sometimes don’t understand. It can affect your physical health. It can dig into your DNA. It’s not what makes you you, though. Survival is not a creator of bravery, it is a product of it. (I do want to note here, that the lack of survival does not mean there is an absence of bravery. There is no victim-blaming here.) 

G Callen was impacted by cruelty and tragedy. He got scars from them in various ways. He may have not wanted to get close to people or let them get close to him as a result. However, that doesn’t mean he didn’t care about them. G Callen didn’t go into this life because Hetty told him to or offered it to him, and made it sound like a trip to Disney World every day or like constant 80s training montages. The G Callen who went from agency to agency because, even though he hated the structure, he wanted to do the job. (He also says he left the CIA because the thought they were too shady.) He could have been a private investigator. Or just left and did something less kickass-y.  Something without any rules or bosses.  But he stayed. He didn’t stay because of Hetty. He’s super loyal to Hetty, but he’s also super stubborn.

G Callen sat there tonight and told Hetty that she didn’t fail him, that she didn’t fail any of them, that he does this because he wants people to be able to live their lives and that the world is worth saving. That’s why G Callen has always done this. That’s why when he sees kids in trouble, he doesn’t do what Akhos does and go “Oh, woe is me! You think you have it bad! Look at what life and the people in it have done to me! Aren’t you lucky to still have a parent who might be upset you die in a bomb blast!” G Callen has the opposite of the crab mentality.  He wants to make sure everyone else makes it out of the bucket, usually feeling like he has to stay in it himself -- no matter how often Sam tells him he can come out of the bucket. 

G Callen will always live in the gray, but never the dark.  He knows he’s not meant for a life in the “light.” He’s okay with that. He doesn’t double-down and go and live in the dark, taking down everyone with him. He wants to save people from the dark, no matter what it means for him. 

G Callen is still very often that hurt, little lonely boy who just wanted a family and to be loved and know who he was. To be safe. He was well into adulthood before he knew any of that, really.  He even says as much to Nadir back in “The Seventh Child.”  You find people who make you feel safe. He has talked about the team being family, and he said it tonight. He’s gotten all of that. That stuff is newer; however, he has always wanted other people to be safe, too. His hands are far from clean, and he can be extremely lethal and detached due to his training -- as seen tonight, as well.  But he’ll always help people. It’s who he is. It’s why he does what he does. In the “Matroyshka” episode (another nice maternal name, there), he reacts very strongly to his father calling him a good man. He doesn’t feel like he is, but he wants to be. 

G Callen lived through horror after horror, and he was still never going to approach Akhos-level evil. That’s not how it works. I realize the episode itself seemed to be pushing that more than it didn’t, but it was just having a discourse and exploring things through dialogue and plot -- as good TV does. G Callen would’ve said in his moment of deep honesty with Hetty if she did anything that might have led him to be Akhos.  I know there’s an argument to be made about whether or not Callen is self-aware, but what this ep and the ones before it have shown us is that he so very much is self-aware.  He’s more self-aware than he gets credit for because people mistake behavior changes as a guaranteed result of self-awareness.  (Behavior changes are soooo ingrained. They are nearly impossible to change permanently. It is very serious work and doesn’t signal a lack of attempts to make those changes.)

Anyway, that went even longer than I intended. I could go on and on. Clearly. I just wanted to put it out there that G Callen was never at real risk for becoming an Akhos, and the episode didn’t end with that notion, either. At least not to me.  

[lelouche]

Orphans of the Storm: Attachment, Trauma and the Developmental Trajectories of Lelouch and Nunnally in Code Geass

Alternatively titled, Matt Has a Lot of Thoughts About the Lamperouges. 7000+ words of thoughts, to be exact. Some of them might even be semi-intelligent. Admittedly, much of this was written from a hospital office while procrastinating writing patient journals for actual patients who are real humans and not fictional characters. Thank you to my supervisor for not supervising me very much.

I. Introduction

First, let us first briefly set the stage. The story of Code Geass is set in an alternate universe where the social-darwinist, imperialist superpower The Holy Britannian Empire is ruling large parts of the world. Lelouch and Nunnally vi Britannia are born into the royal family as children of 98th Emperor Charles zi Britannia and one of his consorts, Marianne. After their mother is assassinated in a terrorist attack at the Imperial Palace, an incident which leaves Nunnally blind and paralysed from the waist down, the two are sent to Japan as political hostages. The Britannian Empire then invades Japan shortly after they arrive, and they must seek refuge with the Ashfords, a wealthy family with ties to their mother Marianne. Presumed dead by the rest of the royal family, they take on the surname Lamperouge and begin to live in hiding in the now-colonised Japan, renamed Area 11.

These events constitute what is to become Lelouch’s raison d’être through the entire series - finding out who assassinated his mother, and creating a safer, kinder environment for his sister to grow up in. Nunnally is an extremely, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely important figure for Lelouch through the entire series (to the point where it’s kind of a joke in most spin-off material). He’s her main caregiver along with their maid Sayako, and protecting her is his primary goal - often at the expense of his own safety, his friends’ safety, and/or massive collateral damage. In this essay, I will analyse their relationship with their parents and each other through the lens of attachment theory, and discuss how these dynamics shape their developmental trajectories as they grow up. I will focus on two domains of development in particular: (1) emotional regulation and (2) identity. Based on this analysis, I’ll make the argument that Nunnally, despite being the one experiencing the most trauma, ended up more well-adjusted than Lelouch. Furthermore, although the series places much emphasis on how Lelouch is the one protecting Nunnally, he is actually more dependent on his sister than she is on him. I will also discuss how these central themes tie into Lelouch’s goals and political ideology.

II. Ode to My Family: The Fundamentals of Attachment Theory

Attachment theory is a psychological theory originating from the work of John Bowlby, concerning the bond between caregivers and their children. Put simply, Bowlby proposed that children are biologically predisposed to form deep, lasting bonds with their caregivers, and this bond has an important influence on subsequent development. In the attachment relationship, the caregiver functions as both a secure base from which to explore (for example, a child feeling safe when playing knowing a parent is nearby), and safe haven to turn to for emotional support (if they get scared or hurt when playing). Caregivers, on their end, facilitate secure attachment through moderate and appropriate stimulation of the child, warmth, mutually responsive interactions, and other behaviours that promote ‘connectedness’. Especially interesting is a trait called mind-mindedness, which can be described as a caregivers ability to conceptualise their child as an independent person, understand their mental/emotional state and respond appropriately. Important to note about attachment bonds is that they’re not “horizontal” - the caregiver and child aren’t on the same “level” as mutual attachment figures to each other, but the caregiver (as the older, wiser, and more experienced person who is able to provide care) will be a figure that the child can rely on.

A healthy attachment bond has a variety of important functions. It promotes the growth of self-reliance (which promotes independency), increases capacity for emotion regulation, promotes later social competence (such as empathy and mutual relationships), and is important for later identity development. This happens through the acquisition of so-called internal working models, that the child employs through their life. To simplify a bit, think of attachment as the mechanism by which caregivers, through their behaviour, teach children what to expect from the world around them, and what strategies to employ to best cope with it. At its core, it is about seeking security and safety - a form of healthy and adaptive dependence that provides a solid foundation and sense of security from which independence can grow

There are three main classifications of attachment bonds - secure, insecure and disorganised. Securely attached children will develop positive internal working models, where world is a fundamentally safe place, they are loved and worthy of that love. Interactions with the caregivers are frequent, mutual and predictable. For insecure attachment, there are two subcategories: avoidant and ambivalent. Insecure-ambivalent attachment is associated with unpredictable interaction styles, where some interactions between caregiver and child may be warm and mutually responsive, while others are more detached or unpredictable. This leads to frustration and confusion, and an ambivalent relationship. Insecure-avoidant attachment, on the other hand, is typically associated with a non-responsive and uninvolved form of care, or an absent caregiver. In this case, the child may feel rejected and like they cannot rely on anyone. Disorganised attachment simply means there is a lack of any organised form of attachment, but that’s not going to be relevant here so let’s ignore that one.

In summary:

Did you really think you were getting through this one without at least ONE chart? (Note: ambivalent and resistant attachment is the same thing)

Also, important note before moving on from this bit: (1) Attachment is not the be-all end-all for positive/negative developmental outcomes, and (2) I’ll obviously be a bit quicker to assume correlation and draw conclusions than I would in real life, because in my mind applying this stuff to literary analysis vs. applying it to real people are two completely different things. Fiction consists of a series of deliberate choices of storytelling and elements you can easily pick apart and draw lines between (preferably with red string on a corkboard wall, while looking slightly manic), whereas people are, like, more complicated and stuff - nature and nurture and all that.

Now, with attachment theory in mind, let’s have a look at the evil Britannian disaster parents.

III. The Mother We Share: (In)Secure Attachment in the Imperial Palace

Before taking a deep dive into Lelouch and Nunnally’s relationship with one another, it’s essential to discuss their relationships with their parents. Unfortunately for me, there really isn’t much canon material regarding their lives prior to Marianne’s death and the subsequent exile in Japan. However, even with the limited information available, I think it’s fairly safe to say neither Charles nor Marianne deserve a parent-of-the-year award - a point cleverly foreshadowed by me when I referred to them as evil disasters just a few sentences ago.

As for Charles, I hardly need to even make a case that he probably wasn’t a great father. It’s never outright stated in the series, but I’m going to assume they had minimal or no contact with Charles. The main reason behind this is: why would they? He had 108 (!) consorts with whom he had many children, and was busy ruling the largest empire in the world. And as if that wasn’t enough, Lelouch and Nunnally weren’t even particularly high up in in the line of succession and would have been unlikely to ever rule in their lifetime (if it hadn’t been for, er, circumstances). Furthermore, because of his grand plan to fuse humanity into one collective unconscious through the Ragnarök Connection, none of this would matter to him anyway. Additionally, I think his lack of contact with his children is very apparent through the way Lelouch interacts with his father when confronting him about Marianne’s death, which I’ll get back to.

So, we can reasonably conclude Charles was an uninvolved/absent caregiver. However, things get a little more interesting with Marianne.

This isn’t relevant to the topic or anything, I just think it’s neat how they made Lelouch so visually similar to his mother. In addition to physical traits, Marianne’s dress here has a really similar structure to what would later become her sons rebellion outfit of choice. She even has a chess-piece-esque hat to go with. Then again, I suppose the alternative was making him visually similar to Charles, and that wouldn’t make for a lot of good fanservice now would it. Anyway, this image description is too long.

As mentioned, avenging his mother’s death is one of the most significant driving forces for Lelouch throughout the series. Her assassination impacted him greatly, both in and of itself and through the harm it caused Nunnally. Whenever she’s brought up, they both seem to get visibly downhearted, and there’s never any indication they remember her anything but fondly. In picture drama 22.25 (from their time as children in the Imperial Palace), the Britannian siblings find a commemorative plate that belongs to her in Euphie’s room. They start to bicker over it, because Nunnally wants to have it herself, while Lelouch thinks Euphie should keep it because it belongs to her. This all indicates that the royal children admired Marianne, and she was obviously an important figure to them both. Through this idolisation, as well as Lelouch’s obsession with what happened at the Imperial Palace, the narrative seems to want us to assume she was a good parent.

However, there are a few things that call into question how reliable of a narrator Lelouch actually is concerning Marianne. Towards the end of the series, it’s revealed that she is actually very much alive, and completely on board with Charles’ Ragnarök plan - making her one of the series’ main antagonists. During Lelouch’s final confrontation with his parents in C’s World in S2 E21, she is unable (or unwilling) to see how faking her death, traumatising her children, shipping them off to a country the Empire promptly invaded without ever making sure they’re still alive, and then trying to convince them to get on board with her human instrumentality plan is wrong. As her wiki bluntly states: “She only superficially loves her children and will not hesitate to kill them if they get in her way.” Taking this information about her character into account, I consider it more likely that the reason Lelouch and Nunnally idolised Marianne was either (1) because they based their impression largely on her reputation, rather than because she genuinely was a loving mother, or (2) she was a very good actor.

At least she provided some strategies to prepare her children for having to cope with the emotional trauma she was about to inflict on them.

How to make sense of their relationship with Marianne from an attachment perspective? I think this is largely up to interpretation due to lack of pre-series material. Lelouch and Nunnally both seem to like and look up to her, but that does not necessarily indicate secure attachment. I would argue they had an insecure relationship with Marianne, and that argument is based on two things. First, her personality traits and actions (rather than Lelouch and Nunnally’s accounts of her): she blatantly uses her children as pawns for her plan, and doesn’t care all that much that they were suffering as a result. Even though she does argue all her planning was well-intentioned, this act quickly fall apart when Lelouch challenges her. As C.C. tells her, “the only people you love are yourselves”. Calling this sort of behaviour “poor mind-mindedness” or “lack of parental warmth” is an understatement - I simply don’t see a scenario where Marianne would genuinely care.

Secondly, I’d argue you can infer it from Lelouch’s patterns of behaviour as he grows older. Many of his actions, and the themes surrounding him as a character, could be seen as a manifestation of insecure attachment - his attitude towards Nunnally, attitude towards his friends in the student council, his emotionality, and the general theme of a  fragmented identity, to mention some. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Point is, there is good reason to believe Lelouch or Nunnally had any form of secure attachment bond to either of their parents, and this has some implications for their development as the series goes on.

IV. Abandoned by the Empire: Trauma and Parentification

In addition to not having the best relationships with their parents to begin with, Lelouch and Nunnally were then burdened with more baggage after their mother’s death. In Nunnally’s case, her trauma from the incident was primarily physical (blindness and paralysation of her legs), due to her being literally in Marianne’s arms as she was shot. Lelouch was a witness, and escaped without physical injury. Afterwards, while his sister is still in hospital, he takes it upon himself to confront his father about what happened, and accuses him of having allowed, even facilitated, the assassination through purposefully neglecting security measures that day.

While Nunnally was by all means most harmed by the attack, it is here in the aftermath I’d argue Lelouch takes his “main blow” in the parental trauma department. When confronted, Charles gets angry and tells Lelouch that everything in his life has been handed to him by virtue of being a child of the royal family, and thus he’s never truly accomplished anything - he might as well be dead, and therefore has no right to doubt or disobey him. This is an especially cruel statement in the context of the social-darwinist Britannia, where the strength to survive by your own measures is seen as highly important, maybe even the only thing that truly is important. Lelouch then visibly flinches and falls back when Charles stands up, in a manner that seems outright terrified. Keep in mind, all this is happening in front of the Royal Court.

This scene in particular is the main reason I cannot imagine Lelouch or Nunnally having any kind of relationship with Charles prior to the incident, much less a secure and healthy one. You’d think the threshold for a young child to turn and publicly accuse his father of premeditated murder in front of the Britannian Royal Court would be astronomically high, especially if he actually liked and trusted him. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, one of the most important functions of the caregiver is being a secure base in difficult and unsafe situations, which means that children typically tend to turn towards their parents during situations where they feel scared. Flinching away (so severely he even falls back, with a horrified expression on his face), rather than seeking closure, is highly indicative of insecure attachment/parental neglect.

As if all this wasn’t enough, Lelouch and Nunnally are then separated from all their siblings to be relocated to Japan as political hostages. Again, the pre-series material is pretty thin, but throughout the series there are indications that they had good relationships with some of their siblings. For example, Lelouch recalls playing chess with Schneizel, and possibly had some kind of relationship with Clovis judging by their conversation before Lelouch kills him. Both Lelouch and Nunnally also seem to have been very close with Euphie - in Stage 22.25, they’re playing in her room and don’t want to go to sleep because they’re having so much fun. Lelouch even refers to Euphie as the first girl he ever loved (let’s just... not unpack this one). Point is, not only do they get traumatised by and separated from their parents (whom they already had an insecure relationship with), but they’re also ripped away from their entire network of social support, except for each other. 

This image is so fucking sad. Fuck.

So, when Lelouch and Nunnally arrive in Japan, they’re on their own. And because he is older, and because of Nunnally’s disability, Lelouch ends up taking on most of the responsibility. He carries her up the stairs when they arrive at the shrine, washes their clothing, buys their food, and so on. In addition to these practical tasks, he also tries to comfort his sister emotionally and seems to also feel responsible for her well-being - for example, when discovering their lodgings were small and quite sad-looking, he tries to shield Nunnally from it by lying and telling her it looks like Euphie’s room. When Suzaku first meets Nunnally, Lelouch instantly runs into the room because he heard a noise, and freaks out at Suzaku because he thinks he’s going to harm her. For all intents and purposes, he steps into a caregiver role for his sister - an attachment figure, one might even say. This shift in their dynamic becomes very apparent when comparing their relationship in Japan and onwards, to the aforementioned bickering-over-a-plate incident in Euphie’s room, where they were fighting and playing like siblings.

This phenomenon is sometimes called parentification, in which the absence of adult figures providing sufficient care causes one child to bear more responsibility than is normal for the age, and step into the role of “parent”. Parentification can be adaptive and healthy with concrete/practical tasks, in small periods of time and with plenty support, for example pre-teens babysitting their younger cousins. Suffice to say, Lelouch had none of those things. He is Nunnally’s sole contact, made worse by himself by being stubborn and not wanting to let anyone else in to help. Additionally, plenty of other risk factors for destructive parentification is present - the tasks are diffuse, all-consuming and way above the level appropriate for his age, he gets no sort of recognition, reward, or help, it lasts a long period of time (permanently), generational lines become somewhat blurred, and his own needs end up taking second priority to him. And, as you’ll remember from the attachment theory section, this kind of relationship is not horizontal in nature - Lelouch and Nunnally don’t provide each other mutual support of this nature, but rather Lelouch is the one providing a function for Nunnally.

In the beginning of this section, I mentioned that Nunnally’s trauma as a result of Marianne’s death was primarily physical. However, she evidently went through a great deal of psychological trauma as well. A novel detailing their childhoods in Japan states that Nunnally privately had a terrible time coping with the changes in her life and would throw tantrums when left to her own at Kururugi residence, destroying nearly anything she could get her hands on. However, unless she secretly throws tantrums whenever her brother is off screen, this doesn’t seem to be an issue during the span of the series. I’d argue this could be attributed to Lelouch functioning as a caregiver for her - she had someone there to help her, calm her down and provide external emotional regulation, which in turn helped her learn to better regulate her emotional states on her own. Lelouch provides safety and warmth, and, in doing so, becomes a buffer for his sister.

Lelouch, however, has no such buffers. Because of this, it’s easy to draw a line between his parental problems and trauma, and his subsequent maladjusted pattern behaviour when the siblings arrive in Japan. At the Kururugi residence, both him and Nunnally are offered both food and clothing, but he is insistent on providing everything himself - he washes all their clothes, and buys their food with coupons in town, despite being beat up by the other boys there for being Britannian. He’s distrustful towards everyone there (before later warming up to Suzaku) and hypersensitive for any possible threat to Nunnally’s safety. In my opinion, it’s evident Charles’ words had an impact on him. When Suzaku asks why he is so hellbent on refusing help, he responds with: “I’ll live by my own strength, and I won’t be dead any longer!” Through caregivers, children learn what to expect from the world and their own place in it - in Lelouch’s case, he clearly sees the world as an unsafe place with few people to truly trust, and considers himself only worth something if he is entirely independent. Although independence is often seen as a “mature” trait in children and therefore indicative of “good” development, healthy dependence and attachment in childhood is crucial for the facilitation of later healthy independence. And unlike Nunnally (who has him), he doesn’t have anyone to rely on and turn to for his security.

Diverting slightly from the topic at hand, I think this highlights the interesting narrative role of C.C. as the closest thing Lelouch has to a caregiver proxy. I am in no way trying to imply she is outright maternal towards him, but she’s of help and offers practical and sometimes emotional support - a role no other person in Lelouch’s life really fills. I already explained why Nunnally isn’t a possible candidate, and Suzaku, while an important figure in Lelouch’s life, has his own essay-worthy plate of parental problems to deal with. Additionally, their whole enemy situation doesn’t make him someone Lelouch can reliably turn to for comfort and support. C.C however, is older, wiser, more “stable”, and seems to know how to offer emotional support in a way that somewhat calms Lelouch down. In turn, he occasionally tries to reach out to her in difficult situations (or at least he gives into having breakdowns in front of her), which he doesn’t seem to do with anyone else. If only she’d intervened when he was a child instead of just standing there dramatically in the background. But alas.

V. Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind: Differential Susceptibility

Earlier, I briefly mentioned Nunnally being the one most harmed by Marianne’s death. She was younger when it happened, more directly involved, and experienced a greater loss of function as a result which altered her lifestyle significantly. Based on this, I could easily argue that the incident would have far more damaging implications for her long-term psychological well-being compared to her older brother. I could, but I won’t, because it didn’t. Despite all these risk factors present in Nunnally’s case, their mother’s death seems to have made far more of a long-term impact on Lelouch. We’ve already discussed the most important reason why: Lelouch providing Nunnally with protective care associated with a secure parent, thus functioning as a buffer for her trauma. In this section, I’d like to discuss another important factor, interacting with attachment security: namely, differential susceptibility (also sometimes called responsiveness for care).

When we meet Lelouch in the beginning of Code Geass, he feels stuck and utterly powerless in his situation. He gambles on chess to pass time, but feels otherwise bored, restless and detached from his environment. When he receives the power of Geass from C.C., it gives him what he claims he wanted all along - a tool to take control of his life, get revenge on those who wronged him and actually do something. Thus, a plan to overthrow the Britannian Empire is formed and set into motion. The main targets seem to be the royal family as he struggles to systematically take down the empire and search for information - once he meets his brother Clovis, he shoots him (seemingly) without much hesitation. As time goes on, he sacrifices more and more time and energy to his obsessive goal, while his web of lies and various interpersonal becomes increasingly difficult to manage. There is a reason his character is often compared to the likes of Light Yagami (despite them having completely opposing ideologies, but that’s an essay topic for another day) - his arc follows the same downward spiral pattern, where one thing leads to another and suddenly you’re up to your ears in civilian casualties. It’s obvious Lelouch hasn’t accepted, gotten over, or forgiven his family in the slightest, and takes this anger out on those he perceives wronged him in search of an answer.

Meanwhile, Nunnally doesn’t exhibit anything close to this kind of grudge. She seems upset whenever it is brought up, but otherwise seems to have made peace with what happened and ready to forgive her family. One might argue this comes down to a difference of opportunity - Nunnally doesn’t exactly have the power of Geass, or even functioning eyes of the non-mind control variety, so it might be a bit more difficult to get certain things done. Such as killing off most of the Britannian royal family. However, even before Lelouch got the power of Geass, he expressed a wish to destroy Britannia for what they did to him and his sister. So, unless Nunnally has some secret desire to kill that was just never mentioned (in which case this whole essay is null and void, I suppose), Lelouch seems to be coping with his trauma in a much more maladaptive way than his sister, turning his sadness and feelings of rejection into anger and resentment, which ended up staying with him pretty much until the day he died.

Reach your arm out and grab the stars or whatever that quote from LoGH is.

Based on this, I’d argue Lelouch is what one might call a flexible strategist. This doesn’t refer to his military tactics (although he seems pretty flexible with those as well) but simply means that, for better and for worse, he’s relatively sensitive to factors and people in his external environment. On one hand, he seems to flourish in environments where he gets support. During his childhood in the Imperial Palace, he seemed to mostly get along with and care about his siblings (as mentioned earlier). He was also by all accounts a very bright child - he did say he never managed to beat Schneizel at chess, but to give Lelouch some credit here, Schneizel at the time would have been an adult man in his early 20s, while Lelouch was, like, 7. The fact he even stood a chance is fairly impressive. I do not want to argue chess ability is the ultimate measurement of childhood functioning, but my point here is this: he seemed to be on a decent developmental path, both cognitively and socially, all things considered. On the other hand, he tends to react poorly whenever something goes wrong. I’ll talk about this in more depth in the emotional development section, but tl;dr: Lelouch is a very volatile character, who tends to have very high highs and low lows.

While Lelouch seems to be more “formable” by both positive and negative environmental influences, Nunnally is more of a so-called fixed strategist. She, like Lelouch, seemed to be in a decent place before the incident, had a period of acting out after her trauma (throwing tantrums etc.), but got “back on track” through Lelouch fairly quickly. She seems more forgiving of her family, for example when she is instantly supportive of Euphie’s special administrative zone (which Lelouch has a very ambivalent relationship with). Towards the endgame in S2, she even aligns herself with Schneizel. As her arc goes on, she shows herself more and more capable of functioning without Lelouch’s help, and make decisions of her own, based on her own opinions. Her outlook on the world seems to be much more down-to-earth and less black and white. Even when her own brother (the only person she’s been able to rely on for most of her life) geasses her and literally leaves her lying on the floor, she tries to reason with him. This is obviously just speculation, but I think had something similar happened to Lelouch he would have, psychologically speaking, completely lost it (in fact, he does lose it multiple times, which I’ll also get back to). Additionally, from the glimpse we see of Nunnally with Suzaku after Zero Requiem, it seems like she’s been able to cope relatively well with her brother’s death. In general, she seems to find her feet much easier than Lelouch and is more stable across situations.

To summarise everything so far: I’d argue neither Charles nor Marianne were secure caregivers for Lelouch and Nunnally. This is implied not only by their traits and actions, but can be inferred from Lelouch’s maladaptive developmental path. The reason we see this pattern develop in Lelouch but not Nunnally is that he, through parentification, functioned as a buffer for her. Furthermore, this difference in trajectories is amplified by their different underlying susceptibilities - Lelouch more sensitive/formable by negative events and loss in general, while Nunnally is more resilient. From this point on I’ll focus mainly on Lelouch, and discuss how this magnificent cocktail of risk factors explain his developmental outcomes as an older teenager - in particular, how it shines through when it comes to his emotionality, identity, and goals/motivations.

VI. Thunder in Our Hearts: Emotional Development and Interpersonal Relationships

Lelouch frequently throughout the series, for lack of a better term, loses his absolute shit. For example, in the scene where he plays chess with Mao in S1 E16, he screams and dramatically falls backwards when the last piece is thrown onto the scale. He’s completely devoid of expression, and is well and truly out of it until Suzaku arrives. He ends up in a similar state of mind when he thinks Nunnally is killed in S2, where it seems like he’s completely detached from his surroundings - just repeating that he wants to speak with her. In addition to these dissociative-esque states in response to extreme stress, he has lesser breakdown and outbursts as well, such as: after Shirley’s father dies, after the incident with Euphie, when he’s flipping out at Rolo upon seeing his phone locket, etc. Additionally, he’s been shown to take stress and anger out on other people in the (kinda hilarious) scene where he goes to an abandoned street to use his Geass on random people, making them dance as he stands there being angsty. These bursts of emotion don’t exclusively concern negative situations either, as evidenced by his multiple periods of manic laughter and monologues during battle.

I once read this Geass analysis claiming Lelouch is an unemotional character. As evidenced by these screenshots, that was a correct take and not inaccurate at all. Emotions? Where?

In addition to being fairly emotional, Lelouch’s character is also very centered around the people in his life. His mother and sister are the primary motivation through the series. He uses Nunnally’s well-being to justify his actions. He let’s C.C. comfort him. He cares greatly about Shirley, and is devastated at her father’s death (though one can only assume he feels a bit better after punching a wall in the shower), to the point where he erases her memory to spare her the suffering he’s bringing by getting her involved. He obviously deeply cares about Suzaku (again - essay for another day), and orders him to keep on living no matter what, despite him being the number one obstacle for Zero’s plans. If he expresses this affection in a reasonable way is another question entirely - his main way of expressing his love for Nunnally seems to be killing thousands of people for her sake, Shirley by erasing her memory, and Suzaku by forcing him to live on at any cost, which is the exact opposite of what he wanted.

He also has a recurring pattern of requiring a lot of external emotional regulation through other people. Nunnally is the most obvious example of this (obviously) -  whenever something goes slightly wrong, he usually defaults to screaming about her, and becomes absolutely devastated whenever she’s unsafe. If Lelouch functions as her buffer, I’d say she’s her crutch. He heavily leans on her for justification and a purpose in life. But, these maladaptive ways of leaning on people also occurs with other characters, such as in the scene with Kallen in the warehouse where he’s about to inject himself with refrain. Kallen takes the needle from him and throws it on the ground, and he reacts by walking towards her asking her to console him - saying “there are things a woman can do for that, right?”. Kallen promptly (rightfully) slaps him, and he seems to regain his senses.

The most frequently repressed scene by all Lelouch fans.

In summary, I’d argue Lelouch is the complete opposite of an unemotional or uncaring character. He often seems to struggle with controlling his (plethora of) emotions in healthy ways, and copes with them either through completely shutting things out, having frequent breakdowns, lashing out on others, or using people as emotional crutches. He’s also very centered around other people, but tends to express it in less-than-appropriate ways, and goes on about things in an almost childish way, at times. This, I think, is indicative of his insecure attachment and lack of sensitive caregivers. In contrast to Nunnally, who had him, he didn’t have anyone to provide safety and externally regulate his emotions, meaning he was never able to internalise such strategies. Thus, there is a pattern of unhealthy (lack of) regulation of emotional states, leading to these stark contrasts between high and low points, and the quite bad ways he deals with them. Years of stress, repressed restlessness and unhealthy coping mechanisms for trauma certainly didn’t help either. Put simply - he’s a bit emotionally immature, and this is a significant aspect of his character.

VII. Reflektor: Identity and Projection

One of the most prevalent motifs in  Lelouch’s arc, save for the chess symbolism, is the theme of masks and a fragmented identity. Throughout the series, he uses different identities to fill different roles in his life: Lelouch vi Britannia the prince, Lelouch Lamperouge the student, Zero the terrorist/freedom fighter and eventually Lelouch vi Britannia again, the tyrannical 99th Emperor of the Holy Britannian Empire. This switch is the most obvious display of the fragmented identity theme, as he is quite literally changing his name and masquerading as different people. With his Zero persona he even puts on a literal mask to conceal his face, but he also uses subtler, figurative masks for his other personas in order to achieve various goals. Additionally, there are also subtler role shifts at play within these identities: Lelouch Lamperouge exists  as Nunnally’s caregiver, a student council member, Suzaku’s childhood friend, etc. (as with all people, fictional or not).

It is here his main ideological conflict with his parents arises. Charles and Marianne wants, through their Ragnarök plan, to abolish all “masks” and fuse mankind into one collective unconscious. Their reasoning is that if everyone were honest and there were no separation between people, the world would be a better place. Lelouch, however, finds the concept of identity masks useful and even defines himself by them. This is clearly shaped by his own experience - in order to survive in Area 11 and protect his sister, he had to change his name and lie. In order to gain real power and influence to overthrow Britannia, he had to change his name and lie. This modus operandi goes straight to the heart of his identity, because it is the reason he is able to exert his will over the world in any meaningful way - which, as we discussed earlier, is the reason he is “not dead any longer”. His core idea is that those who are privileged enough to be able to tell the truth about themselves, have no right to deny others the right to lie for their own survival or to achieve their goals.

Carl Jung arguably had a much more significant impact on anime than he did psychology. Actually, this isn’t even arguable.

Another, subtler way the series conveys the theme of fractured identity is Lelouch’s projection of desires and wishes onto others. This is shown quite literally through how the Geass gives him the power to command anyone to do anything. But not only does he impose his will onto others through verbal command, he also projects his more abstract goals and desires into the people in his life. Again, Nunnally is the most obvious example of this: Everything he does, he claims is for the sake of Nunnally. It’s interesting he never outright says that he wanted to do any of this for any personal reason - it’s all about a kinder world for Nunnally, Nunnally’s smile, and how their parents abandoned them. In the final confrontation with Charles and Marianne, Suzaku asks him if he used Nunnally as an excuse to justify his actions. Lelouch confirms this, and then says he fought to protect everything he wanted to protect. Still, he never mentions he feels rejected, or that he would want to grow older in a kinder world, even though it’s obviously more his own wish than hers (as Nunnally mentions during Zero Requiem, she would have been happy just being with her brother). In a way, he considers himself two steps removed from his desires - only working against Britannia on the basis of what he imagines the people in his life would want him to do.

Lelouch also has a tendency to view his own identity(-ies) through abstract symbols, rather than as a concrete human being with a backstory, grudges and motivations. In exile he expresses frustration at being a pawn of Britannia, as Zero he functions as a faceless symbol of Japanese liberation and a rebellion against the establishment, and as Emperor he aims to become a symbol of people’s hatred towards their oppressors. Even the orchestration of his life’s ending is primarily a symbolic act to him; with the world’s hatred focused on a tyrannical Emperor, the world can be peaceful when that symbol disappears. Lelouch seems very aware of this himself: that he is past the point of no return, and destined to become someone who will bear the burden of sacrificing his own identity, morals and character to play a part. He, in a way, seems more comfortable in this realm of abstraction - in being more of a symbol. However, if we try to strip away his rather grand narrative for a second, we’re left with a person committing suicide at 19 because he thinks the world will be a better place for it.

Black king captures e1, checkmate.

VIII. Pity the Child: Politics and Spite

Lastly, I want to make the argument that the parental abandonment Lelouch and Nunnally experienced, and the subsequent cascade of issues is the most important aspect of the series. Even more so than the central ideological conflict of working against versus within systems of oppression. As I’ve already touched on a fair bit, I think Lelouch’s circumstances growing up and the experiences arising from that was the very foundation for his later ideology and hatred for Britannia, rather than his ideology in and of itself being the reason he hates his parents and the system they represent. This is best represented by the climax of the scene with Charles and Marianne in C’s world, where Lelouch speaks not of systems of power, racism, oppression, politics, etc. - he speaks of abandonment and hurt.

In my opinion, there’s reason to question whether he would have gone to the same lengths to destroy Britannia if he’d not been exiled from the system himself. In one of the picture dramas from his summer in Japan as a child, he lectures Suzaku on Britannian and Japanese foreign trade policy, making the argument they’re both unethical. This indicates he already knew of and disagreed with the actions of Britannia, but it’s only after he’s exiled and war is declared on Japan he begins talking about enacting revenge. Additionally, he has some truly magnificent displays of hypocrisy throughout the series that (in my unpopular (?) opinion) puts Suzaku to shame. Even the very act of him using Geass is contradictory to his fundamental belief: that opposing a well-intentioned act upon others is no different from an evil act. During their confrontation, he is very concerned with expressing this ideology to his parents, before promptly turning around and making his brother a geassed slave forever, two episodes later.

Not to completely undermine his ideological streak; I do genuinely believe he is anti-Britannia, and I do genuinely believe he values personal freedom highly. However, based on everything discussed so far, I’d argue he would perhaps not have cared as much, or at least been more open to a more Suzaku-esque approach, had he not had deep personal trauma connected to the whole situation as well. So, his main motivation isn’t to “bash the fash”, as it were, but rather bash these few specific fash who traumatised him and his sister before shipping them off to a foreign country they then immediately declared war on. Revenge, spite, and pure, childish anger towards a family that wronged him is a much more useful lens through which to view the series, rather than an ideological conflict per se.

IX. The Conclusion Bit, Finally

To summarise this entirely too long essay, Lelouch and Nunnally both suffered from insecure attachment and later trauma and parental abandonment. Nunnally’s main protective factor/buffer for this trauma was Lelouch, which gets her “back on track” towards becoming an emotionally stable and independent girl. Her brother, however, doesn’t have anyone to fill this role, and this cascades into dysfunctional behaviour and strategies across different domains: his trust issues as a child, obsession with revenge, immature emotionality, poor handling of stress, projecting onto others, and a fragmented concept of his own identity. Lastly, I think these personal issues constitute the crux of his motivation throughout the series - Lelouch’s arc is about trauma, parental neglect and spite more than it ever was about politics.