#btw me coming out is honestly not a big deal my family truly don't give a fuck about things like that

[thesmokinpossum]

I hope y'all had a great easter! Mine rocked, I cooked a big brunch for my family then we went to the museum to see an exhibit that turned out to be pretty mid tbh (still a good time tho) and then we went to a bar and I lowkey came out as bisexual to my family but I'm not entirely sure if they noticed because we were all a bit drunk, an all around great day.

[luanna801]

I just want to thanks you for your DN Angel posts in particular, the Satodai ones. I don't even like DN Angel but the end of the series still leave me frustrated because I do care about Daisuke and Satoshi and their beautiful but fragile relationship. There's a lot of tragic doom in this pairing, but I am a happy ending person who want to believe in hope. Your posts really helped clear away my frustration and help me see hope in this pairing so really thank you for that.

Oh man, thanks so much! It really makes me happy to hear that. :-)

Personally I love D.N.Angel, even though I also acknowledge its flaws, and I think a big strength of the series is how much it does make you care about the characters. It’s probably pretty obvious that Satoshi and Daisuke are two I have particularly strong feelings about, and their relationship is one of my all-time favorites. (Heck, I even put them on my list of personal Top 10 ships!) So unsurprisingly, I like to ramble about them a whole lot, and it makes me extremely happy to know someone appreciates my rambling. :-P

I think the ending of the series frustrates a lot of us, because�� well, it doesn’t end. It just stops on this dramatic cliffhanger, it’s been on hiatus forever, and we all have to face the reality that we may not ever get a proper ending. That’s a very frustrating thing to deal with, as a fan.

But, I think the silver lining there is… because the series doesn’t have a canon ending, you can imagine the ending as anything you want. I can imagine the characters going in one direction, and someone else might picture something entirely different, and neither of our versions is any more or less valid, because there’s no canon ending to contradict. Your imagination is the limit for where you want to imagine this story going. 

(Of course, even if there was a canon ending, people would be free to ignore it and imagine their own version! But I think there’s something nice about knowing you can make up whatever ending you want, and there’s no canon to say it couldn’t be the real one.)

Which is my lead-in to saying: If you want to imagine this story with a happy ending, it has a happy ending. Simple as that. There’s nothing to say whatever outcome you want to imagine for these characters couldn’t be what happens.

But taking this out of the realm of imagination and back to canon, for a minute… yeah, there’s a lot of tragedy when it comes to these two. But I also think the hope is right there in canon, maybe even more strongly. Because yes, they have huge struggles and huge obstacles to overcome, but they’re overcoming them. Even with the cards so incredibly stacked against them, neither of them is giving up, and I think there’s something incredibly inspiring about that. 

Even with all their struggles, I don’t think their relationship is fragile, honestly - I think it’s incredibly strong. Just look at all the obstacles their friendship has had to get through:

The fact that they exist on opposite sides of the law, and Satoshi’s job is literally to catch the thief who’s Daisuke’s alter-ego

The fact that Daisuke and his alter ego are specifically stealing artwork made by Satoshi’s family

The fact that there’s a centuries-long feud between their families, Satoshi has been raised to see Daisuke as his mortal enemy, and Daisuke’s family repeatedly tells him he should see Satoshi as the same.

The fact that Satoshi has a murderous, sadistic angel in his head who is released by his feelings for Daisuke, meaning he has to constantly worry about what might happen if he gets too close.

The fact that said murder-angel specifically wants to kill Daisuke and has tried doing so multiple times in canon, making Satoshi’s fears all the greater

By all logic, these two shouldn’t even be on speaking terms, let alone be close friends. And yet they are. There were so, so many huge roadblocks lying in the way of their relationship moving forward, and yet somehow they’ve managed to move past all of them and get to where they are. That’s not a fragile relationship - that’s an incredibly strong one, one that’s already shown it can power through incredible difficulties. I think that’s really a big theme of their relationship - “destiny��� might say their story is supposed to go one way, but they write their own story. A story that’s already dramatically different from the story of any Niwa and Hikari before them. I think that’s, canonically, a reason to have a lot of hope. They’ve already started to rewrite the story laid out for them in so many ways, and they have no intention of stopping.

I think it’s such a big deal that Daisuke, who as he says here is someone who’s always felt incredibly powerless to change things and not in control of his own life, is consistently the one saying screw what destiny says, let’s try do do something about it. That he’s consistently the one saying things like “Our friendship will never be destroyed” and “I’ll make it work, no matter what.” That’s some incredible determination to create his own destiny, and getting there shows amazing character growth on Daisuke’s part. And I also think that it shows how incredibly important Satoshi is to him - regardless of what you ship, whether you see that importance as platonic or romantic. (Or both, since they are very much friends first and foremost.) He never stops fighting for their relationship, even when the odds against them seem so incredibly high.

And I’m emphasizing Daisuke’s side of things more here, but… they’ve both done so much to fight against the destinies laid out for them, both in their friendship and in other ways. Dark even comments on it being a similarity between them in the SHoT arc, and Satoshi’s journey in that regard is just as huge as Daisuke’s. He goes from believing he can never let anyone, least of all Daisuke, get close to him - and being terrified he’ll destroy Daisuke if he does - to openly calling Daisuke his friend, to admitting his friendship with Daisuke is “the one thing in this world that ever truly gave me joy.”

Satoshi, unlike Daisuke, was also (apparently) raised knowing about the Niwa/Hikari feud and being told to see any Niwa as his predestined enemy. And yet he’s able to not only move past that and befriend Daisuke, he makes Daisuke the most important relationship in his life, the person he’ll do pretty much anything to protect. Again, that shows some incredible character growth, and incredible relationship growth.

Neither of these two is going to passively sit back and let their story end in doomed tragedy just Because Destiny Says So. They’ve both proven that over and over - they’re fighters. They’re willing to fight for the things they believe in, for the happy ending they hope for, and, consistently, for each other. And yeah, there’s always the possibility that tragedy would still come despite their best efforts - but isn’t it more inspiring to let their story have an ending which shows that they do have the power to change things? That love and friendship and determination and selflessness are stronger than passive destiny?

I’m a happy person who wants to believe in hope too, and I think these characters believe in hope as well. It’s a struggle for both of them, of course - Daisuke has to overcome the feeling that he’s powerless and can’t control his own life, and Satoshi has to overcome the fear that his life can never be anything but cursed and tragic. But Daisuke also has an incredible ability to believe in hope and specifically to believe in their friendship, and you see that attitude rub off on Satoshi more and more as the story goes on. As much as he’s been raised to think his life is a hopeless one and nothing can ever change, Daisuke makes him start believing that there is goodness in the world, and that things can be better. 

So yeah, I think the hope in this pairing is very much there, and I’m glad I could help you see it too! I hope you keep enjoying my posts, and thanks so much for sending along this message. :-)

BTW, if you enjoy my D.N.Angel/SatoDai posts, I definitely recommend checking out my friend @we-wont-be-destroyed‘s blog! She’s someone who has a lot of the same thoughts on this series and these two that I do, and I think you’d definitely enjoy her posts about them. :-)

[roominthecastle]

I find it interesting that even though we are supposed to believe Liz, Tom and Agnes is now a happy family, there has hardly been any true loving scene between them since... I don't even remember. Not even when they reunited after fake death did they seem that happy. Either TPTB didn't think to add that or it's on purpose. Thoughts?

I think the k/2 relationship has been sanitized, anon. One good visual example is what you also mentioned, their “big” reunion scene in 323 where everything is. So. Ridiculously. White. I think this is why their togetherness feels off and muted and - once again - fake. Nothing that went down between them has truly been dealt with yet they are already playing house again. They look like something out of a magazine - an attractively arranged but emotionally shallow image manufactured to sell some cheap crap you don’t even need. *cough*thespinoff*cough*

They def don’t act like two people deeply in love who are finally together as they were always meant to be. Their dynamic is lacking for a tv couple, I completely agree, and I’m not talking about the lack of sex scenes here (if I never see one btw these 2 it will still be too soon). They are more like roommates than soul mates. It’s not passion-affection keeping them together but “format and convenience”, so to speak. They are two people who fell back into a pattern and settled for it bc it is familiar - a lukewarm faux-marriage which remained their only frame of reference and which they can squeeze back into again but only if they can delude themselves and each other to their reality. Tim has to deny his own psychopathic nature and Liz has to pretend he is not the same selfish creep who used the same setup to violate her in every way imaginable. These are interdependent conditions, so if one wobbles, it pulls the other with it.

ok, more behind the cut but fair warning: I will wander off-topic bc k/2 interests me only to the extent it comments on Red & Liz’s relationship. which it does. imo + i am finally all caught up and have a lot of swirling thoughts, so again, beware of the ramblings:

Liz and Tim are back together almost as if nothing we witnessed in S1/S2b actually happened the way we *saw* it happen. Past transgressions are briefly touched upon but never with the intention of exploration. If they are brought up, it is done either to quickly wave them away or to put a revisionist spin on them. And so the authenticity of the dynamic suffers bc it is not an honest portrayal of a real reconciliation (which could never have been this fast and so complete) but a “quick-fix” for both, and if one of them strays from the script, the other is instantly doubtful. It’s just another fantasy. The only difference is that now Liz is complicit in maintaining it too bc poor woman thinks this is her only shot at having a Normal Life™. It doesn’t make the dynamic any healthier and it also warps her relationship with Red into something mostly ugly and irrational because he refuses to play along. His reluctance is perceived as a threat. But just like the fantasy, their distorted bond is also pierced by bouts of clarity (those are my favorite moments) and maybe someday this clarity will prevail.

But for now it just boggles the mind how much Liz is willing to either overlook, “reinterpret”, or “understand“ when it comes to her honey, while she holds Red to a completely different and extreme standard he will never be able to measure up to. It seems that all her frustrations are taken out on him lately. Red must be the root of all evil and the scapegoat at the same time, so Tim’s good guy status - and Liz’s fucked up choice to be with him bc he is “changed” - can be automatically validated no matter what Tim does. Again, it’s like we are back in S1. Red is not a Good Guy, don’t get me wrong. And I would welcome a healthy resistance, worry, and commentary on this from Liz if she didn’t choose to forgive everything and shack up with another criminal who has done precisely nothing remotely significant to make up for his 100% selfish and vile crimes. His grand gesture of “goodness” is that he is considering another way of living but since he changes his mind 10 times/hour, that’s hardly a solid sign + w/ the spinoff launching we know he is back to his old ways already, inviting the kind of danger Liz keeps complaining about but only with regards to Red’s presence. But according to her, it is only natural for Tim to behave this way and his lies are now an expression of “hope”. Oh lorde. I still remember when she claimed Tim was a changed man who had already reformed himself and thus became suitable marriage/father material, but it seems she just has to keep lowering the bar on that one since Tim apparently isn’t even ready to give up his fake identities yet.

The fake passports symbolize every covert and overtly aggressive, remorseless violation honey committed against Liz for years by repeatedly choosing to safeguard his own life and his mission at the expense of her mental/physical/emotional well-being, yet when she sees him still hoarding them, she just… acts like it’s no big deal. Their entire current relationship is built on strategically selective denial that only makes it look like they are dealing with things when in fact they are just brushing them off. Tim is now framed as a sexy spy boy struggling to settle down and his actual past with her is being scrubbed to support this fake (but much more marketable) image. Red is the only one left who refuses to accept/digest this obvious yet invisible lie, and Liz knows it too. And she is hostile to him, she keeps him away, she doesn’t allow him to enter the “dream home”, and this is where things get interesting.

The episode (410) where they move to their apartment is the same one where Red becomes obsessed with another apartment where everything is so white, it makes your eyes bleed. It is unnatural, sterile, sanitized (just like the big k/2 reunion scene in 323 we mentioned at the beginning). And he is down on his hands and knees with a little blacklight, looking for traces of a very personal atrocity that he knows has happened there even though there aren’t any overt signs of it now. And he keeps wondering how that is even possible. How can something so atrocious happen and leave everything looking normal and the same as it was before? How can even the memory of it disappear? He wants to avenge the murder of his friend and hire the murderer’s done-did-do cleaning crew, I know. That’s the surface agenda that acts as a conduit to much deeper issues he has been struggling with, including the k/3 fantasy unit. This gets confirmed when Dembe shows up on Liz’s doorstep saying that Red is spiraling again (he also acted out like this right after Liz told him the baby was Tim’s) and his only remaining anchors are her and her baby. If this ep with the two apartments is not a symbolic commentary on k/2′s unnatural sanitization of past transgressions and Red’s refusal to accept it, I don’t know what is, but I honestly cannot tell if it is done on purpose or not. TPTB probably thought it was ~quirky~ to have an all white apartment and that’s it. Fortunately, that’s not at all how it comes across in context of the entire show.

Red does to k/2 what he does to the “sanitized apartment”. He keeps crawling and poking around, he keeps trying to look behind loose parts to expose just one trace of the atrocity he knows happened there and what Liz is so busy suppressing, i.e. reality in favor of appearances (another topic Red dedicates a short speech to). This is why he later hires Tim for a mission that could have been given to any low level associate - he wanted to show Liz how unchanged and unfit her non-husband was (bc apparently it is still not obvious), and it did send the fantasy wobbling. Liz immediately flip-flopped on just how understanding she really was and Tim immediately questioned her love for him. Apply some pressure and this happens bc this is still a dishonest relationship. Also look at the way Red arranges this “reality check”. He enters the “dream home” uninvited when its current primary maintainer - Liz - is away, then sits opposite of Tim and close to Agnes, framing Tim as the intruder/outsider. He hates him and while I don’t think he will kill him, I also don’t think he will stop trying to pry him out of Liz’s life because Tim is a) a useless sack of shit and b) the rival. Every scene they share, they either stand/sit across from each other or Tim is forced to stand to the side or even leave the room entirely. He does not belong as far as Red is concerned and hopefully he continues to demonstrate it.

[wlw-lovestruck-fiction]

Hey...

I feel very lonely currently. I'm struggling with my mental health (for like 6 years) And now I'm getting therapy for the first time and I've stopped going to school. I'm the anon with the car crash btw. I drove a bit today and had a panic attack.

My friend asked me if I want to go shopping with her, which would require me to drive and well I said no, because I'm also still slightly in pain... She asked me if I'll come back to school and I said no. I feel very stupid now. She asked what I'm doing instead and I said therapy. She stopped answering until now. I guess I should've added trying to survive, because of my suicidal thoughts.

I have to go to the physiotherapy for a week because of my neck and stuff and I'm already not feeling good about it. First, because of my social anxiety, second because of my depression making it hard to even brush my teeth sometimes and third I'm scared of having to do it with a male. I probably have some trauma, according to my therapist, and I'm scared. I don't really consider everything that happend a big deal and I feel bad for being so afraid of males but I don't know what to do.

I told my friend that I don't want to go, not only because of the exercises, but because lf the reasons above (worded different of course). I guess she got me wrong and she said "Physiotherapy isn't that hard". I feel like none of my friends really understand me anymore since my mental health struggles are out and the only friend that really would understand barely answers my texts anymore. They're the only friends I have.

I feel like I'm becoming this toxic negative friend, who's just being lazy and talked her way out of a stressful time, just for some therapy she doesn't need.

Sometimes everything is feeling normal between us if we meet up, even if I get inmy head and start feeling lonely even when I'm with them. And then there are times like this, when I feel like they'll turn around and betrayal me, that they don't need me anymore and that I have to come to terms with that they'll probably leave me.

I've already taken a few steps back from them automatically since I also needed time for myself the past weeks. I constantly find myself thinking it's better to leave now, remember a truly beautiful friendship, than a painful break. I feel lonely, like I'm completely alone on the world. I failed. So hard.

And I can't even be there for my friends the way they need me anymore. Sometimes I wish they would just use me so I can make them happy and finally be useful before I end myself. It feels like I'm such a drama queen. Probably I am.

No one truly needs me in the end and I'm just a pain for everyone.

I just feel like giving up completely. I know I should try harder, maybe talk to them about how I feel, try staying in the present and not get lost in my maladaptive daydreams and everything else, do what has to be done still..

But I don't really see a point anymore I guess.

I've ruined my life already. I can't get back all the time I've lost, all the moments I ruined because of my depression, my anxiety, my possible trauma, my daydreams, my whatever...

And the future looks even worse.

I wish I wasn't so alone right now. I wish I didn't mess up all the time.

But I guess It's the only thing I'm good at.

I feel selfish and sometimes my own thoughts scare me. When I get annoyed at my friend for example I'm like "You shouldn't do that, that's not you. She did nothing wrong. Why are you getting annoyed?" ..

It's probably weird how that scares me more than my suicidal thoughts..

I don't know who exactly I am anymore and I don't know if I like what I'm becoming.

Probably I'm gonna text one of my friends now and tell her that I've changed my mind and will go shopping with her, because I feel really guilty right now for saying no...

I don't want to lose my friends. They're my family. For years we only had each other, because of bullying from our classmates... Maybe that was the only thing holding us together? But it held on without them...maybe it was just school and now that I'm out of school currently I'm just npt needed anymore, can't talk with them anymore...

Maybe my life is just fucked. Maybe that's all it'll ever be.

I mean how could it be something else? I'm scared of being happy or feeling okay, since I feel like the price you have to pay for it is too high... And even happiness doesn't really make up for all the abuse, pain, ect. that is going on in this world.

I hope I haven't ruined your day/night.

Thanks for letting me vent again. And thanks for the response last time.

Take care ^^

(Reaches over to hug you)

Don’t worry, anon, everyone needs to vent once in a while – and we are here for you. It’s always good to get these sorts of things out of your chest.

I totally understand why you would have a panic attack, what with all those emotions weighing you down, and why you don’t want to drive for now. And I also understand how hard dealing with depression must be, especially when you said it’s hard for you to get up sometimes, but hey, I’m sure you’ll make progress. Even if these therapy sessions are the first ones you’ve gotten, they are already helping you realize some things. It’s a long, hard, exhausting process – but I’m sure you’ll make it. I’m sure the sessions will help you. Please give yourself a chance to overcome all of these dark feelings.

Regarding your friends… It’s hard to know how to support other people in these kinds of situations. You said you’re scared of losing them, but I think that goes both ways. I’m sure they want to help you, but they aren’t exactly sure how. You don’t need to explain everything to them if you don’t feel safe doing so, but what I’m trying to get at here is that if you explain, then maybe they’ll adapt the plans they want to make with you, in a way that doesn’t require you to drive or at least don’t make you feel physical pain. I get that you’re scared of bothering them, or being a burden, or a toxic negative friend, but I can assure you that is not true. I have friends that also go through depressing times, and even though it’s sometimes hard to support them, I would never consider them a burden. My only goal is to help them. I’m sure that’s true for your friends, too.

Yes, I understand that you’d rather remember a beautiful friendship than a painful break, but I’d wager letting you feel this lonely is worse. You aren’t being a drama queen, anon. You are voicing what you feel and your struggle. Honestly, from where I stand (because I prefer to bottle everything up), sharing it like this takes guts. You acknowledge it. That’s an important step. And I’m sure you can share it with your therapist and your loved ones, too. You won’t be burdening them. You’ll be giving them the key to help you.

I really, really hope you can get out of this dark void, anon. We are here for you. I’m sorry I can’t be more help, though I really want to. Take care as well, anon. ❤️- Mod Jessa