#but basically i need to think more about what would have upset the status quo more - silco's treaty or attacking piltover

[stromblessed]

Even if Marcus having a daughter did turn out to be the red flag in season 1 that showed where season 2 was headed socially and politically, that plot point didn't need to be mutually exclusive with a season 2 plot that was nuanced and interesting re: Piltover vs. Zaun.

Marcus had multiple opportunities in season 1 to stop what he was doing with Silco and actually prioritize his daughter (and his life with her) - or just stop Silco himself, if Marcus had been willing to die or go to prison - but his personal biases and the opportunity for personal gain kept winning out over and over, leading to his death. Which was tragic - even if many of us didn't feel that bad for him - yet inevitable. I never got the sense that Marcus in season 1 was indicating a "both sides are the same" or "we should all just work together" type of plot, but rather, "Here is what the privileged are willing to do - and not do - to maintain the status quo."

In watching season 1, between Marcus having a daughter, Jayce being easily led and reaching too far with his power, and Caitlyn's naivete, I thought that the Piltover plot was taking us to a place where these more privileged characters see opportunities to do better wrt the undercity, but because of ignorance, personal gain, personal biases, or personal injury and trauma, they actively choose to perpetuate the sociopolitical divide and find ways to justify these choices for themselves, regardless of any opportunities they may have to learn, grow, and do better specifically with regards to the undercity. Which helps shed light on why irl power structures seem so rigid and unchanging despite everything. This doesn't mean that the Piltover characters needed to die or anything, but I do think it would've been more interesting if the tragedy element was kept ("fate worse than death" types of tragic endings are more interesting anyway imo), the Piltover/Zaun conflict wasn't "solved" in the end, and the impact of Piltover's apathy and violence wasn't brushed aside. Particularly if there had been a real undercity uprising plotline.

[a-dauntless-daffodil]

it hurts me. the parallel of Charlie at the start of ep 1, so excited about showing her plans for the hotel to heaven she doesn't see how VERY NOT excited about it Vaggie is (cough angel kicked out by heaven for not doing enough murder cough cough), even while getting literally up in Vaggie's face.....

and then Vaggie, when Charlie comes drooping home after that all crashed and burned spectacularly- now it's VAGGIE so excited to show CHARLIE the new and improved hotel commercial she got everyone to make while Charlie was away... now it's Vaggie, up close and basically physically pressing her excitement into her girlfriend, not seeing how utterly crushed Charlie is right then

like, clearly Vaggie expected the heaven meeting to not live up to Charlie's hopes for it. Clearly she REALLY wanted to have something GOOD AND HOPEFUL for Charlie to come home to afterwards

-which would have worked too, if the Extermination schedule update hadn't interrupted the commercial airing

look at how habby Charlie was finding out about the commercial

awww

"heaven isn't homophobic" well then what do you call them interrupting this lesbian's hard won cheer-up-the-girlfriend effort huh? what was that then. not only cruel but also an insult to us queers everywhere. one of the only real sins we ever see in the show, tbh

but gods, they give each other so much CONFIDENCE, chaggie and the mutual "I can do this for her" / "She thinks I can do this and I will" synergy...

and it keeps fucking their relationship up. GODS

how they mirror and act like they're trying to literally meld into each other, while both being So Bad at actually SAYING when and why they're upset about something Serious-

when they're also clearly wanting to share SO MUCH of what they feel specifically with the woman they love!!!!

and how that sometimes blinds them both, over and over again, to the moments when (ironically) their other half needed them to be a little less sure, for a second, that things are or would be okay. Share less of their own conviction, that they got from the other one in the first place

When instead of needing answers to the obvious problem, they both needed to be asked hey IS something wrong? is there ANOTHER problem here actually??

they both put so much of themselves into each other, they both rely on the other one for their sense of self-worth and the strength they need to be The One Who Get Things Done and The One Who Always Has A Plan

that's so DELICIOUSLY fucked up. the flip side to love,

(Vaggie freaking out feeling her existence is pointless while thinking she's failed Charlie, and Charlie losing so much hope just at the thought Vaggie might not really love or believe in her)

when someone else is walking around with your heart beating in their chest because you yourself put it there

heck, their resolution in s1 ISN'T even them hashing things out or communicating better! they don't NEED that- (yet) they JUST need each other! (soooooo fucked up I LOVE it) the thing that brings them back together is Vaggie fully letting go of her angel past to focus on her life with Charlie and tapping back into her whole self for first time since meeting Charlie, it's Charlie the singer and giver of heartfelt motivational speeches having her mind blown by words meaning less than actions as her partner who lied to her is also off right that moment doing everything she can to protect what they've built

the big moment is NOT them actually TALKING about what happened or why it happened. it doesn't matter!!! (to them) Their hurt came from being scared of losing each other, they meet up at the hotel gates and just seeing the other one there is Enough!

they happily return to status quo minus some secrets and plus some more confidence in what they have.... which means the rest of this stuff, the root cause of it all, the unaddressed subtext that they NEED to be fucked up together in an active, intentional, KNOWING way but are so good at inspiring and supporting each other that it just, doesn’t, happen..... that's all still there.

(i see you, Charlie sitting alone with your story of hell book and being shocked at your long time girlfriend coming up to your shared room, being around to see you sad, you putting on a smile and trying to wave it off bc yeah she's right you AREN'T alone anymore. technically)

(i see you, Vaggie asking to be left alone on a rooftop so you can deal with a devastating blow to your whole sense of self as 100% unintentionally dealt by your loving girlfriend who WANTS to be there for you through this but who YOU can't face until you're ready to shoulder the blame and apologize to her)

(i see you both trying so hard to help each other and not letting yourselves be helped)

(because no clearly you don't need it, clearly this is all already so much better that what you used to have and you're doing so much better, and what if you're still not good enough for it actually-)

chaggie is so happily, catastrophically entertwined and i hope they spend the next thousand years suffering through it together

[bonefall]

How do you feel about "character joins bloodclan" aus? Im curious about ur thoughts since youre really in tune with the themes of the series but personally i just hate them bc its ALWAYS aimed at 'unfortunate' characters and always ALWAYS ignores the fact that bloodclan is a horrible place in-canon and that they're just reflavoring the abuse and trauma the characters qent through to be more emo or goth themed.

Ravenpaw is ALWAYS a prime target for this and its like. Great. You took the character being abused by their mentor figure and is being harmed from the violent culture the clan has generated... and giving them an EMO mentor figure who will inevitably abuse them and harm them as a result of the violent culture the emo clan has generated. Sasha is another one I've noticed- you've put the woman who lost her kit and is struggling to survive with the others while being controlled and abused by someone who sees her as an outsider (aka alone and easy to isolate), and are gonna put her in a faction who specifically separates kin from one another to easily control them and who have canonically tried murdering those who stick with their family. What was gained here.

Like i know bloodclan is revamped in ur au (thank god for it) but in canon bloodclan is HORRIBLE. People ignore that in favor of putting their favs into bloodclan bc bloodclan is cool and killed tigerstar that one time bc of revenge. Ravenpaw becomes Scourge AUS are SO SO SO much worse bc of this too- sure you manage to point out how scourge and raven has roughly similar stories in their youth but you could also do something interesting and make an au where raven and scourge are FOILS and do a firestar/scourge thing, while pointing this comparison out!! Instead you just went "Ravenpaw emo now and is sad about beating up Firestar his friend" and basically kept everything the same.

Sorry im basically venting here but i just dont like how people forget that scourge in canon does NOT look out for the 'little guy', he's a murderer and abuser who wants to keep his subjects afraid and separated so that he alone has power over them. Bloodclan is not the cool strong goth group, its the group where two cats slaughter eachother over a piece of twoleg scraps, only for the survivor to die bc the food was poisonous to cats and no one knew bc theres no cohesive group that can pass that knowledge around. its a fucking horrible place to live. Im not saying that you cant do interesting "character in bloodclan" aus (a Rusty who lives in bloodclan who STILL wants to do good but is shaped by the horrid reality of bloodclan would be fun imo) but its so often used with already traumatized characters as a 'solution' or 'fix-it with some emotional issues involved' that i just foam at the mouth and howl like a rabid animal on principle at this point.

Hmm... I think for me, it doesn't tend to read that way for me when the fandom makes AUs for it. I'm coming at BloodClan from a point of really deep critique and frustration.

BloodClan's not a REAL place, and what that means is, every speck of how horrible it was is a choice the writers made to justify its treatment. It was something they actively decided, because, BloodClan was a tool to suddenly invalidate the previous 5 books of TPB so that the series could comfortably conclude there was no need to upset the status quo.

If you haven't read it before, I recommend this post I made on how Darkest Hour Is A Personal Disappointment, but anyway;

We spend a whole series on how Fireheart challenges a broken society, because he is different. Their xenophobia, how isolationism and glory get people killed, the way that Tigerstar's greatest asset is how respected he is... these are bad things. They're things that Fireheart fights for several books.

But then, in the LAST book, in the 11th inning, they introduce BloodClan. They're just evil. They have no nuance. The narrative bends over backwards to stress that this group of evil foreigners LOVES murder, hates friendship, and doesn't believe in our good god.

Suddenly, the Clan cats have to be EXTRA xenophobic and glorious to kill these filthy, murderous foreign hordes. Clan cat belief in their good god makes them stronger than the bloodthirsty barbarians. Firestar kills Scourge and we can feel happy and triumphant about it, when Tigerstar was killed a few chapters ago and given a tragic sendoff.

So, I encourage you to step back from an emotional response to how Filthy and Murderous this group was portrayed, and look at it as a writing choice.

When Tigerstar, known cat-racist and murderer of mixed-race people, is killed by Scourge in self-defense, he is grieved by Firestar and commended for his "good qualities". (and then they retconned in that it was actually secretly revenge all along, not just self defense, so this killing is extra evil)

When Scourge is killed, Firestar just thinks about how it's cool he's not going to heaven, and how all of the previously ferocious BloodClan warriors look so inferior to the forest Clans.

And so, with all that said,

I'm 100% in favor of how the fandom widely looks at this, says, "fuck that" and just makes them the Cool Goth Group. I'd argue pretty strongly that the least nuanced idea of that is still infinitely better than canon.

There was nothing there. It was literally just Xenophobia-Is-JustifiedClan. They literally hated love and friendship and banned families so that Clan cats would look good in comparison. Banned families. You don't get this level of stupid evil from anything else but an 80s cartoon.

Maybe I just don't see the AUs you tend to see (I curate my Tumblr experience very well and generally hang out in more adult-oriented spaces, I can imagine a place like Amino being mostly kids who tend to be immature. Edgelord Angstpiddle is just a normal part of growing up), but every project I see that gives me a glimpse of BloodClan Ravenpaws and Sashas come with such tweaks already assumed.

Like, these are examples I've seen,

They'll have Raven be involved with the formation of BloodClan

Scourge will actually be a character with some pity and mercy, like how he was in Rise of Scourge when his abusive siblings begged him for food, and he fed them before sending them away.

no ban on love and friendship. Lol. Lmao, even.

More of the social structure will be based around acquiring food for people in a 'harsh' environment, leading to that battle, instead of just Evil Foreign Greed (which canon!scourge only had after being almost killed by tigerstar, because he said "actually, in light of new information that you are a murderer, i need to reconsider our deal.")

BloodClan will be overhauled completely. I've seen this a few ways. Connecting them to SkyClan, or the Oakstar raids on Chelford, or even as a positive entity; a surprise ally. (VERY common with BloodClan Ravenpaw AUs I've seen).

Anyways... (Shrug), I dunno dude, it doesn't bother me that much.

[nerves-nebula]

So because I grew up in a house where apologies were mostly ignored in favor of a return to the status quo, or were forced and insincere, and where you could routinely count on a physical fight to break out, I have a kind of high threshold for what I consider to be “acting mean” or what I think deserves an apology. which means I don’t always recognize when to apologize

For example if someone is so frustrated or upset that they snap at me, like, I’m not gonna like it but my first thought isn’t “wow I’m really personally upset by this” it’s more along the lines of “oh shit they’re having a really bad time and or are annoyed. better give them space, bothering them clearly isn’t helping” and then once they’re better they’ll be less on edge so who cares. That’s not them acting mean, that’s them acting stressed. And that’s going to happen sometimes when you live with someone.

I don’t take it super personally because I know that states of heightened emotion aren’t personal. I don’t think someone who hates me would tolerate basically paying for my existence for this long if that were how she truly felt.

But this is not the case with my roommate who had a better family life lol. So when I snap at her she feels like that needs an apology. Which kind of annoys me at first blush because it’s like… what? You’re upset that I was too upset to control myself and want me to apologize an entire day later?? When I would never ask that of you because I know without verbal clarification that being upset makes you snappy?

However I also know that not apologizing is a dick move because it’s not about being right or whose worldview is more valid, it’s about making it clear that you care enough about someone else to say you didn’t mean to hurt their feelings. So obviously i apologized and she seemed to feel instantly better.

But it is still baffles me a bit. She and I are closer to each other than we are to probably anyone else. I don’t even really know what she was feeling bad about, like, what were the bad feeling-thoughts about? And why is a verbal apology is good enough to totally fix things but not my material actions?

But maybe it’s just that I’ve felt so much worse that the minute cloud of bad feelings that comes with being snapped at easily dissipates for me. Idk.

Tho on a funnier note this also means she’ll randomly apologize for things I literally don’t remember or care about. She’ll be like “sorry if that thing I said yesterday made it sound like I thought you were stupid” and I’ll be like what? What thing?? Wait did you think I was stupid ? Like girl you have never been mean in any meaningful way. Relax.

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

A general problem the MCU has is that while they may be good at bringing up potentially interesting and complex takes on real-world issues or things that could shake up the status quo, they're not good at commitment, and usually have the issues get solved in anticlimactic fashion, whether that be by the end of the same project they were introduced in, or have them get solved offscreen.

Like, with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, they raise a legitimate issue through bringing up the topic of how immigrants and refugees are treated. Setting aside Karli falling into the same trap as Killmonger of "villains who suddenly kill a bunch of innocent people at random because they were raising too many legitimate points, and we need the audience to not root for the", the issue is resolved through Sam effectively giving a "Do better" speech to the politicians while the deportation issue is solved offscreen.

Setting aside that they come off more like a HYDRA manifesto, the Sokovia Accords could've been the foundation for a discussion about acceptable forms of oversight for superheroes. But it really just amounted to a plot device to allow the airport battle to happen, they're pretty much forgotten once Zemo enters the picture, they're mentioned a few times in Ant-Man and the Wasp and WandaVision, and then Matt Murdock's scenes in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law reveal that the Accords were repealed offscreen.

Secret Invasion seemed to be on track to deconstruct Fury's habit of using superpowered people to help him, by having it reveal that he basically exploited alien refugees. But he doesn't actually solve that issue by the end (in fact, when it comes to defeating Gravik, he exploits G'iah having superpowers and wanting to avenge her parents to utilize her as an assassin).

I very much agree with you.

The MCU likes to bring up certain points of discussion but they seem to believe that either the audience is too stupid to understand complex storylines or they just want something easy to digest that won't upset anybody (mostly the execs).

It comes to show that while in the past the superhero movies were all about celebrating the heroes and their "otherness", nowadays we get organizations like the TVA justified by the narrative, the governments are protected and the blame is deflected towards the heroes like Bucky, or a series that could have made a fantastic story regarding Fury, Shield and their shady missions turns out to say... absolutely nothing at all.

What they did to the Flagsmashers and Karli was so utterly disgusting that I can't even begin to say how mad it made me. Hell, Secret Invasion was dealing with refugees as well (the alien-kind but, still). So why not try to connect the two somehow? We had Nick speak to Talos about racism, much in the way Sam gets to mention some of it especially when he's with Isaiah, but nothing ever comes out of it. They're short lines that can be quoted in tweets and memes but they're pointless when it comes to the story being told in the series.

And maybe that's the problem, it would seem that's all Marvel wants. It's like their "queer rep". They want something quick, short, and ambiguous that won't bother anyone too much. Probably because they're one of those who think "both sides" are equally right and wrong and so they don't want to alienate anybody.

And one of the reasons I hate this is that when it really comes to it... does the existence of heroes really change anything in the MCU universe? When it comes to external threats they're essential, but with internal affairs? They always stop the immediate threat but everything else that made it happen is left as it is (the worst offender is CW, the Accords and that damn Raft. "Oh let me break my teammates out of here but watch as I do nothing to help the other inmates or anybody else that will be sent here in the future". WTF is that?!!).

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

hi liddy! i saw the post you rbed about blocking liberally, which i’m very much on board with, and it reminded me of something i’ve been thinking about a lot lately and i’m curious about your thoughts.

i’ve noticed that the culture in fandom, maybe specifically the drarry fandom maybe not, is to not engage with things that make you upset, which i think comes from this same root of it feels like crap for everyone and is a self protective choice. that arguing on the internet is pointless and hurtful and it’s better to just look away and move on. but it seems like that turns into folks feeling like they can’t or shouldn’t call out real problems. whether it’s racism or ableism (etc) in fic, issues with modding or beta-ing, interpersonal drama, etc - if the culture is to block and move on, how do we address what does come up in order to keep each other safe? what has been your experience with this, if you’re down to share?

this is such a good question! When I reblogged the post I was thinking mainly about blocking people who post stuff I don’t like so that I don’t have to see it in the tags, essentially because it’s clutter to me. That’s not a particularly serious thing, more just personal preference. This got long so prepare yourself for loosely organized rambling.

I’ve found that fandom’s attitude toward conflict is extremely avoidant. This isn’t specific to drarry or HP, it’s something I have seen in basically every fandom I’ve participated in. Some folks are really uncomfortable with conflict, and it seems to be considered polite not to say anything negative about fanworks and tropes you have a problem with and especially not to publicly take issue with other fans, even ones who are managing the fan experience for lots of people, such as mods.

to some extent, it can be a good thing not to be public about disagreements. The entire fandom doesn’t need to weigh in and take sides on every personal disagreement. That would be a really unpleasant atmosphere and people would leave or be driven out and all that would be left is people who like to fight.

BUT on the other hand, I think there does need to be significantly more tolerance for like. Friction? This anti-conflict attitude favors the status quo, and like. The status quo is kind of steeped in the ableism, transphobia, racism, fat phobia, and even homophobia and misogyny of our larger culture because like. It takes focus and research and constant effort to shed those bigotries, and we are all at different stages in those journeys.

Personally I would feel way more welcome and accepted in fandom if it weren’t seen as like. Impolite to discuss how fandom can do better around things like race in particular. Fandom has turned drarry into an interracial relationship which I love, but sometimes the fannish handling of Harry’s character as a man of color is kind of racist and it would be great to be able to talk about it. once I saw someone say they specifically depict Harry as white because it’s too much trouble to sort out the details of his identity as a person of color and I thought that was SO hurtful and insulting to fans of color. The veneration of Aurors in fandom makes me kind of uncomfortable as a Black fan (acab??) and the treatment of house elves is a fucking mess (your SLAVE character is comic relief?? Really??)

In our particular fandom, canon is SO messy that fanworks seem like a good opportunity to address its messiness. On the other hand, some people don’t care about addressing all the problematic isms in canon and would rather just read and write and draw for sexy reasons or fluffy reasons and aren’t especially interested in taking the source material seriously enough to pull it apart and fix it. Or maybe some people don’t feel like. Informed enough to fix it. Putting yourself out there and sharing your work or even your taste in other people’s work can be really scary. Maybe people feel strongly that more barriers to entry are inherently a bad thing.

Maybe that sense of vulnerability, like we’re all doing something that’s on the edges of socially acceptable that makes everyone so afraid to hear criticism. I don’t see things like callout posts (I recently learned that calling someone out used to mean challenging them to a duel like swords and pistols style!) (Hogwarts era snarry? Pistols at dawn, you villain!) and blocklists anymore but they are not very far in the past. I was going to say we might be overcorrecting but did callout posts and blocklists actually make fandom safer or more moral?

I think a big part of the issue is that fandom is a fucking enormous group of people, united by the fact that we read some book series and we want to make and enjoy fanworks about it, and that is not a lot to have in common. We are going to differ significantly about what constitutes harmonious cohabitation. And of course most people find a little corner of fandom they like the look of and only engage with a few dozen people at a time. That’s much more manageable but like. You still have to be able to talk honestly to people about How We Want To Be (and then sometimes you find out someone doesn’t consider themselves part of your We at all and don’t care how you want to be as long as you leave them out of it).

To me, participating in fandom is about creating relationships and connecting with people, even more than it is about engaging with the source work or enjoying fanworks. It feels very strange to me to be trying to build relationships in an environment where I’m supposed to be unnaturally agreeable. How are they going to know who I even am, if I can only talk about things I like?

But even that is a matter of personal taste! Not everyone enters these spaces wanting to make friends, and there’s nothing wrong with just quietly enjoying the art and keeping to yourself. In which case, maybe conflict in fannish spaces feels more like shouting in the library than healthy relationship maintenance.

All this to say that building relationships and sharing space with other people is always messy and contentious and acting like you can avoid the mess by only saying positive things is self deception. Imposing that standard on the whole group is just. So unhealthy!!! We need a basement for how we treat each other so that people can feel safe that they won’t be damaged by other fans for either making a mistake or drawing attention to an issue.

But how do we establish rules like that so that everyone knows about them and agrees to them? How do we enforce rules? If we successfully establish community standards, how do we share them with new people as they enter? Being a group of humans who want to share things with each other is very fucking messy. These aren’t the kinds of questions you can answer once and be done with it. You have to keep answering them over and over again.

I don’t have a conclusion to this rambling and I have errands to run, so I will leave it here. I appreciate the question!

[thatweirdtranny]

responding to your recent #transandrophobia post: yeah. it’s almost like radfems have been invading the community since the 1970s and before and the only way trans women can feel safe to discuss transmisogyny is to assimilate into the radfem status quo. transmascs do it too when they talk about afab socialization. all trying to paint cis women as the most oppressed gender and trans people’s oppression as just a fraction of what cis women experience. where trans women get the social consequences of womanhood and trans men get the biological consequences. this is wrong. really the narrow definition of womanhood and manhood is equally the problem as sexism is, so radical feminism and its adjacent movements will never completely and respectfully define trans experiences. arguably, transandrophobia is so much less terfy and more accurate of a term than afab socialization but gets more backlash because of radical feminism. trans women see transmascs trying to assimilate into radfeminism and approximate themselves to cis women and that rightfully upsets them, so they try to assimilate into radfeminism even harder too. both artificially constructed “sides” would be better off abandoning radical feminism completely. doesn’t mean people can’t hate men on a personal level, but making that your politics will always have consequence.

my take is basically: we need to root out all forms of radical feminism (whether exclusive or inclusive of different groups of trans people) from our communities and spaces and i definitely think there are plenty of trans people of all genders falling hook line and sinker for radical feminism, but that the creation of terms like transandrophobia and transmisogyny and exorsexism are critical to combating all forms of radical feminism and transphobia

i think hating men is a core part of being a radfem, and it’s the easiest radfem dog whistle to spot. it’s a huge component of transmisogyny AND transandrophobia. therefore, hating men and the bs justification for hating all men needs to be stamped out. make there be social consequences for it. you can’t claim to want gender based liberation if you paint all men as inherently enemies and all women as perpetual victims.

most of all though my take is we need widespread solidarity between all groups of trans people. it frustrates me to no end that a vocal group of trans people (of all genders!) have such a problem with transmascs creating terminology for our oppression and discussing our experiences, instead of leaning into solidarity. we could all be united but instead we have the current climate of discourse that seems to repeat itself every couple years. that’s why i like the term transunity — it reframes the discussion to be around radical solidarity and discourages infighting between different groups of trans people.

[docgold13]

Sorry if this is a bit outside the boundaries of your usual asks and/or expertise: I’ve very recently been broken up with by my S.O after 8 years. I’m pretty broken up, scared for the future and just upset the person I felt safe in the thought I would marry and have children with has left me. I don’t know what my question is exactly, I basically just enjoy your blog quite a lot. Do you have any thoughts or advice? Thanks either way

Oh wow.

What a devastating turn of events! I can only imagine what you’re going through and the intense mix of unpleasant emotions stirring about… feelings ranging from anger and betrayal on one end to loss and abject dread on the other.  

A significant break up is a lot like a death.  It isn’t a person who has died, but rather an ideal, a notion of yourself, your partner and what the present and future holds in store.  

And like any death, there needs to be a period of bereavement.  The unspoken secret in my field is that bereavement therapy simply does not work.  There is no secret trick or cognitive strategy that makes it any better.  The only thing that brings about relief is time.  Time is your friend.  

You just have to wait and rest assured that with each day your hurt will gradually diminish (yet so slowly as to be all but imperceptible).  

You won’t feel this way for some time, but your former significant other has done you a favor.  You do not want to be with someone who doesn’t full-cloth want to be with you, someone who either wants something else, or is weak enough to be taken by the hubris that they can find something better.  Whatever the case, this is ultimately not the person for you and you are better to not be with them… free to be on your own and/or find someone who will make you happy in a more authentic fashion.  

I’ve known a lot of couples who are not happy together and only stay together because breaking up is too upsetting and arduous.  If I found out my wife did not want to be with me I would be crushed… yet I think I would be even more crushed if she did not want to be with me yet stayed simply to spare my feelings and not rock the boat.    

This is going to hurt for a long while.  You need to mourn, sit shiva and not put a set time period wherein you pressure yourself to get over it.  Take as long as you need.

All of us have an internal sense of homeostasis, our own personalized status quo.  When that homeostasis gets disrupted, for better or for worse, it is almost always a tumultuous time of great anxiety.  And again, the only cure is time… time enough for your internal systems to adjust to the new status quo and establish a new, altered homeostasis.  It takes a while to get there but it always eventually happens.

Try to determine what is the best way for you to endure this time.  Is it best for you to hole up under the covers, eating comfort food and watching bad TV?  Or is it better to surround yourself with friends and/or family and find distractions?  No way is better or worse.  It all just a waiting game.  You will feel better; you will get back on your feet.  Yet pressuring yourself to ‘get over it’ will only delay the process.  This is an instance where wallowing in your anguish is a worth while endeavor.  

I’m so sorry to hear this has gone done and o feel free to hit me up with any subsequent questions, thoughts or anything else.  

[alovelyburn]

Saw some of your Berserk meta and really like it - wondered if you had already written about or had any thoughts about this: Do you think Miura regrets the Eclipse, and Femto? Not giving Griffith power, but the lengths he had to bend the story - basically break it - to undo the drastic abuse he put Griffith through after Guts left the Band of the Hawk? The reason I get this vibe is that we don't actually see a whole lot of Femto after a certain time, but we see a HELL of a lot of Griffith - healed, healthy, powerful Griffith. I always kind of got the vibe that he felt like he had written himself into a corner after Guts left and Griffith crashed and burned - and he needed a way to fix that and get the story back on track. While I'm sure that something like the Eclipse was a key event in his plan... it felt to me like Miura took some steps to walk it back during his lifetime, and shifted NeoGriffith's focus on mostly being that 'angel' and half Moonlight Boy and all... because as Femto is, there's no way for human Guts to really effectively counter him, and that kind of punches a big hole in the story's logic.

Hello hello, thanks much for the compliment! So this is a bit of a yes and no.

Yes - There is reason to believe Miura may have regretted at least some of what went on in the Eclipse, but not for the reason you're suggesting.

Basically, he said that when he looks back at it he found it disturbing and was distressed at his own abnormality. He also said he couldn't do it again.

And Mori had mentioned that the reason the Eclipse went so hard and got so extreme was because he (Mori) had told Miura that only something extreme that truly destroyed Guts's life would really work to make the guy from the Golden Age turn into the guy from the Black Swordsman arc. But after he did it, Miura called Mori a bit upset and it kind of depressed them both.

It's also been noted that despite the sheer length and prominence of the rape scene with Femto, that is actually very rarely referenced in the series afterward - a bit at first, like when Guts has his flashback in Godo's cave, but as time goes on it seems like most of the weight of Casca's trauma is relocated to the mass sexual assault by Apostles - that's what she flashes back to when she remembers the Eclipse almost every time.

So yeah, he may have regretted at least some parts of the Eclipse, although I would argue that the Eclipse conceptually was obviously present since near the beginning - thus the brand, but more importantly, thus the Slug Count's backstory in the BSM arc.

But, do I think it's because Miura had written himself into a corner and was trying to get back on track? Not really.

I mean we have to understand that the whole point of the Golden Age, per Miura, is to give the reader insight into why Guts is so upset at Griffith. In that sense, everything in the Golden Age is leading up to the Eclipse and the birth of Femto, which is all we go into the Golden Age knowing for sure is going to happen. Guts's departure, the torture and the breaking of Griffith, none of that is stuff he spontaneously did and then had to figure a way out of, that's stuff that was done specifically in order to create a situation wherein the Eclipse would be narratively justified.

In other words, it's not that he had to break the story to get out of a situation, it's that he broke the status quo of the story in order to trigger that very situation. Griffith was always intended to become Femto - he even shows up as Femto before he shows up as Griffith.

One of the things Miura mentions in the interview at the back of the Berserk guidebook is that originally Femto was meant to be Guts's enemy in his, well, Femto form but he found that Griffith stood out too much as a character during the Golden Age to let go of, and so he decided to bring his original appearance back. He then noted that the other thing is that if he were acting as Femto he would be back in the Astral Plane. So basically, the reason we see Griffith as he is rather than as Femto is a combination of Miura just liking Griffith's human self/design and wanting to bring it back in some form, and the worldbuilding having evolved in such a way that a full-Godhand isn't normally walking around the world in their purest form.

That said, there isn't that much of a difference between NeoGriffith and Femto. You can make an argument (and I do routinely) that NeoGriffith is a different aspect of Griffith's personality/persona than Femto (Hawk of Light vs Hawk of Darkness) but their powers aren't any different as far as we can tell - Griffith dominates apostles on sight. He can still brainwash people with his Od. He can still casually knock the walls off a mobile palace without moving. He's still impossible to hit with a weapon. Being in his presence alone still puts Schierke in danger of losing her astral form due to his overwhelming strength. A lot of what Griffith does in his NeoGriffith form - the army building, the having people fight beside him instead of just going in and curbstomping the monsters on his own, is just pretense of humanity stuff that seems designed to prevent people from feeling like they're being herded by some overwhelming inhuman force. He acts like he needs help because he wants them to feel needed and helpful not because he actually does need help.

Basically, if Guts can't counter Femto he can't counter Neo-Griffith either, which we see when he completely fails to land a single blow even though Griffith is just standing there naked, looking at him. That only hurts the story logic if the assumption is that Guts is meant to be able to counter Griffith effectively and I would argue that he is not.

Guts is, for all his strength and determination, ultimately a human being trying to fight what amounts to a demon god/archangel. While he can hold his own against apostles (and overpower some of them), Griffith brings Apostles to their knees just by showing up.

He even has Skull Knight/Gaiseric still tilting windmills at Void after 1,000 years to make the point that there's no conceivable way that a human can realistically take down a Godhand. There's no reason this battle should seem anything other than completely impossible.

[drew-mga2022mi6021]

Research | Rethinking Things : The Inciting Incident

An inciting incident is defined as an unexpected event in a story that upsets the character's status quo. This begins the story's movement, either in a positive or negative way, that culminates in the climax. Therefore, I must begin thinking about my main character in detail.

This version of Sri Lanka prioritises hard work, therefore that calls for our main character to be a workaholic. Here is where I would like to call back to one of the themes of my previous concepts; the struggle of being a creative. The main character could be working as an animator or a screenwriter; jobs notorious for bad work hours and constant pressure. Our main character would be part of the planning stages of a large project or campaign, and would be breaking their back over it. Essentially they would give their everything for this project, to the point that their interpersonal relationships would suffer.

Their friends eventually stopped checking on them because they kept missing out on dinners and parties, They barely get to spend time with their family because work is too important to them, but the one constant thing in their life was their partner, who supported them through all the work. When things got tough or whenever the protagonist needed a break, their partner would drag them to see the sunrise. This was all well and good, until their partner, who started to feel more neglected with the increasing workload, ended leaving them too, amicably. Still, our main character worked on, until the big day when they had to pitch this baby of theirs to their CEO. They were excited, but presented professionally and concisely. The presentation went well, but alas, the idea was immediately rejected.

Unable to carry on with the grief of having basically what they were working on for the last few years of their life flat out rejected, after working without living their life for the last few years, the main character realises they are not happy with the circumstances of their life, and decides to quit. To celebrate their newfound freedom, they decide to go and see the sunrise, as that is the only thing in their life that they can control at that moment. The sunrise itself, gives them hope for a new tomorrow and a new outlook on life, where they realise that there are just some things more important than work.

[pico-digital-studios]

Into, Across and Beyond! Cast: Underground Sonic

Replaces: 1967 Spider-Man Origin: Sonic Underground

"Now, look. This is NOT in any insulting terms to either my siblings or my mom. Still, what were the guys making this animation thinking with the model work? Looks pretty weird, I must say. And who the heck's this "Hotep" guy?"

The iconic theme song rings well in plenty of Sonic fans' ears, and the Sonic of this universe holds it well. We all know the basic premise by now; Sonic and his two siblings, Manic and Sonia, were separated from their mother, Queen Aleena, into the streets of Robotropolis at youth to fend for themselves, while she bided her time for the moment she could come for them.

As the years went on, the three hedgehogs formed an heroic band of sorts, dubbed the "Sonic Underground", and served as a big thorn in the side of his universe's Robotnik and his lackeys, Sleet and Dingo. And while the siblings might've had times where they squabbled between them, they've still remained a truly strong-knit group for one another, using their instruments as special weapons to help them if needed.

As time went on, they befriended various citizens across the area and outwitted many of Robotnik's twisted plans. Eventually, after enough time, Robotnik met his end at his own roboticizer, courtesy of Sleet and Dingo tailing back on him. However, something had disheartened Manic; their mother hadn't returned to them, and Sleet and Dingo were still on the loose. Sonic and Sonia were both there to comfort their bro, knowing they could still put it right together.

As it happened, Sleet and Dingo had their hooks up for bigger fish; they allied with Prime Eggman to try and kill Prime Sonic, which would've caused a multiversal chain-reaction that erased all Sonics from existence. Thankfully, they were stopped, and the siblings got their happy ending when they were reunited with Queen Aleena. They also sent out a world-healing wave of music in their Super forms that undid ALL of Robotnik's carnage on the land.

Alongside their other accomplishments, the siblings had also assisted Zonic the Zone Cop in apprehending Scourge prior to the Prime Sonic case, and when Sleet and Dingo were fully caught when assisting Dr. Finitevus (at least, until they discovered something was awry), Sonic was recruited as a member of the Quill Society.

While there, UG!Sonic learned about the cartoon he came from, and of course, like several fans, he was a bit mixed on it. He did like how it portrayed his adventures, and was quite impressed with Jaleel White being able to voice all THREE hedgehogs, he did criticise the show's tendency to have animation errors, and some of the other points fans dislike about the show.

That said, he's still a Sonic through and through, fully open to helping those in need and disagreeing with the canon event theory after Manic's upset with the prophecy and how the status quo goes resonated with him. If the theory was put in full force, the situation really would NOT change, no matter what they did.

(And as you can tell from some of what I said, yes, Archie Sonic Online is completely canon to Into, Across and Beyond!, and none of the post-SGW stuff happens. Nope, not even Worlds Collide. That said, a SEGA and Capcom crossover will happen in this AU, even if a little later following Many More Heroes.)

[lets-talk-spirituality]

Would you be willing to receive a message for me regarding my soulmate/life partner? If no, I completely understand 🐢 thank you!

I can see what comes up!

🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢 🐢

I’m seeing a rock, them moving a rock up and down a shore, almost a feeling of laboriously working towards no end, you pick up the heavy rock to move it only to pick it up and move it back, over and over, I think someone is viewing life this way, whether that’s your or them, “all in a days work” sometimes at least you can feel that you did something when your muscles ache, maybe they do some sort of body building or weight lifting and that’s something that makes them feel accomplished because they seem to feel stagnant in other areas of life, blinders on just focused on moving the rock back and forth, like a metronome of movement, tick took, back and forth, hypnotic, lulls them into the status quo, you just get used to it, it may be monotonous but at least it’s comfortable “gotta just keep going” “stay focused” grinding for something better, I think they come from maybe immigrant parents or some childhood where they didn’t have much so this idea of working hard is super ingrained within them but it’s like they use this as a way to not deal with things too, I just need to focus on work, (work, work, work—Rihanna) I just see someone doggedly going about moving this rock back and forth, never complaining or questioning, just focused on the task at hand.

Soulmate Message

I hope that you’re as focused as I am (I think they have a toxic relationship with work and tie their self worth to their productivity). My parents used to always say don’t force, just focus. If you focus hard enough and stick to it, something will come of it. I know how to focus on it, to clear my mind of all distractions, who cares that I’m single and my life hasn’t turned out at all like I planned, I just pay attention to what is going on—work. My work is tedious (maybe something with data key entry like medical or financial) but it’s still something that progresses, that I can do, that I can show for my life. There’s not much I can show. But I hope. The more I work, the better off future me and my future family will be. It’s all I can focus on, work, work.

Card Pull— Oracle of the Fairies

Protection— the Fairies of Protection are shielding you with a magical fairy ring of love and light. Practice psychic protection before embarking on any spiritual work

I feel like you may be called to a spiritual path or less 3D based focus at the moment. Your person seems sort of trapped in the realities of humanity and so you may be mirroring them by being trapped in sort of escapism of reality, spending time in dreams and the 5D. If you are, this card says you’re protected when you go about this work. What I also get is that rejection is divine protection, whatever you feel sad about not working out is not working out for a reason that you will look back on with gratitude. Right now you may feel upset but you are being protected.

I also think this card indicates you are your connection with this person is protected which means that you can let go and focus on your path. Protected connections are basically connections where the two will only come together when they will no longer hurt one another. It’s considered protected because spirit is protecting your love connection from your human personalities and others that would harm it. Even your person, I didn’t get they are aware of this connection because they are too wrapped up in the 3D world and in this state they can’t have access to the connection. There is nothing to do or worry about. All you can do is work on yourself and trust that you and your person will always pick the path of growth.

I hope this brings you the peace of mind and reassurance you need to continue to choose the highest path for your own best outcome! Would love to know how this may connect.

[mazegirl168]

Basically "the vote" for president is really fucking overloaded. Many (rightfully and not so rightfully) push it as the be-all end-all to everything in U.S. politics (and by extension everyone the U.S. fucks over).

And it partially is. The person in the center is the face of the government for those four years (plus or minus impeachment / death). People do feel empowered seeing a like minded person in that office, whether it's an "ideal" candidate or a trash candidate. We definitely saw white supremacists feel more okay expressing themselves 2017-2020.

But of course we're stuck in the fucking political binary. Everything has to come down to red vs blue for many different reasons. The fact you can only vote for one candidate is so fucked up (we need ranked choice voting), and there's of course efforts to try to keep people from changing the status quo. When's the last time you considered a third party vote? Maybe in 2016 you considered Gary Johnson (Libertarian) or Jill Stein (Green Party). Then you heard Kang's voice reminding you voting third party is throwing away your vote.

The other day I had wandered onto Wikipedia's article for Ralph Nader wondering what the hell he was up to these days. A decent chunk of the article is just about how he "spoiled" the 2000 election, taking away votes from Gore, and similar concerns for the 2004 election. For context, Nader received 97,421 votes in 2000 and 463,655 votes in 2004. The latter would likely not have changed things (Bush won by 3 million votes, and it would take electoral college fuckery for Nader votes to help Kerry win), but the 2000 election was a good bit closer (Gore led the popular vote by 543,895). Anyway, the popular legacy of Nader these days is the guy who got us George W. Bush as president twice.

So we are most likely stuck with the fucking binary choice of red vs blue, with alternatives not being viable (and labeled as throwing it away / enabling whoever does win).

It is however still January 31, and the election will be on November 5, 279 days later. There is a chance we could see a good third party candidate become viable. I would fucking love this. Upset the fucking status quo. But I don't know shit about how to make that happen and/or who would work. My best guess is that it would come from a combination of promoting third parties in lower level offices (city, state, etc) and pushing hard for ranked choice voting (so that the Nader votes could still have counted for Gore). Realistically it'll be a long process to get a third party president, happening after we get more left people in Congress putting pressure on the Democrats to compromise with the left.

As for the 2024 presidential election, at the moment I'll probably grit my teeth and vote for that genocidal fucker Biden over that genocidal fucker Trump, because at the current rate we'll still be stuck in the stupid fucking political binary, and Biden, while being a genocidal fuck, at least can resist starting nuclear war when someone says he has a small penis. Even if the value of my vote is smaller than Trump's needle thin dick, it still has an effect on everyone's future.

UNTIL THEN, AND EVEN AFTER, we should absolutely be putting pressure on Biden and the rest of the Democratic party. The other day there was a thing about him getting booed in my hometown and allegedly he looked worried. KEEP IT UP. Do not let any of these fuckers forget what they are enabling. BOIL THEM. Let them never forget what they did.

Also a quick thing I want to bring up was the aftermath of the 2016 election. A whole lotta democrats were quickly ready to blame "identity politics" for losing the 2016 election, saying they shouldn't have focused on including queer people. They won't give a shit if we vote otherwise, they'll just find their own reason for why they lost and blame it on a scapegoat.

That said, if you're still really hellbent on not voting in the binary, then I think we need a consensus on a third party candidate to vote for. If you just don't vote or vote randomly, it'll get labeled in the history books as "voted other" or "didn't vote". If however everyone picked the same someone, it would be a clearer message of dissatisfaction. For this I'd like to initially propose "Weird" Al Yankovic 'cause he's a cool dude. Probably won't be the final choice (assuming such unification happens), but just throwing him out there as an out-of-the-box starting point.

As mentioned before, there are still 279 days. Things can still change. My vote is not definitive, I'm open to seeing how things develop while still doing what I can to push for a better future. Hell, maybe Kang and Kodos will actually show up and we actually do unify around a third party.

TL;DR We're stuck in a 2 party system, but don't vote quietly, vote for positions other than president, and do anything you can outside of election day to make things better.

the other frustrating thing to me about the "we need Biden to lose to make the Democrats move left" argument is that you could make the exact same argument for why Hillary losing was a good thing, a d yet Biden is clearly not any better on Israel or immigration than she was. so why didn't it work that time, and why would it work this time?

to steelman: Hillary didn't lose because of an organized attempt by leftwing voters so there's no signal there. if you had a large number of voters vote for a third party (the ceasefire party or something similar) you could send a much clearer signal about how and why Biden lost the election.

of course, this runs into another issue - you need to be able to convince people that 1. those voters would have actually voted for Biden if he supported a ceasefire (and leftwing youth are not, uh, a reliable voting bloc in the best of times) and 2. that they outnumber the group that voted for Biden that would not have voted for him if he didn't support Israel, or would have supported Trump (which makes them count x2 for this kind of thing). and i think those two things combined doom the initiative

[strangeswift]

This season five scenario is 100% completely inspired by this post by @stargrlism

Jonathan and Will are staying with the Wheelers. Most likely Jonathan is meant to take the guest room or something but he sneaks into Nancy's room at night. We get a scene of Jancy in Nancy's bed together, laying facing each other and looking at each other with so much love. The camera is above them so the shot looks like this one:

(Stole this image from that same post)

(Except this time they're facing each other like I said) So theyre gazing lovingly, but then Nancy averts her eyes, looking suddenly upset. In this moment she is reminded of how deeply she loves Jonathan. And with everything going on and all of them being in danger every day, she is terrified of losing him. She knows that losing him would destroy her, and that scares her. Jonathan obviously picks up on her sudden change of mood and asks her what's wrong.

Then we get a different angle, maybe something like this one:

(Except Jonathan would prop up on his elbow or something and be facing her, so they're both in frame?)

Then Nancy quietly admits that she's scared of losing him. Maybe she just simply says, "I can't lose you." And Jonathan understands what she means.

Jonathan reassures her, "Hey. You're not gonna lose me. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." And they share a soft tender lil kiss. We can tell from Nancy's face that his words put her at ease. Then Jonathan pulls Nancy into him and holds her tight.

Then we cut DIRECTLY to Will and Mike in Mike's bedroom.

(At this point they have not confessed their feelings for each other. But Mike and El have broken up. And Mike and Will have been attached at the hip, there's been plenty of gay pining, and more heart to hearts and flirting, basically just status quo of what we saw in season four.)

The shot is a birds eye view, above them just just like the first shot of the previous Jancy scene. But this shot is wider because it includes both Mike's bed and the floor next to it, where Will is laying in a sleeping bag or maybe on a mattress on the floor. They are both staring up at the ceiling, wide awake.

Then Mike quietly asks if Will is awake. Will responds, "Yeah." And there is a beat of silence that goes on just a little too long to be comfortable, when Mike reluctantly asks, "Can you... can you just come up here?"

We see the surprise on Will's face. He lays still for a second before saying, "Yeah," for a second time, and climbing into Mike's bed.

Now we get the tighter shot that looks more like this one:

Except probably they're both still staring at the ceiling (not into the camera though, only Jonathan gets to do that). They're on edge laying so close to each other, they're both nervous.

After a few moments Will clears his throat and asks, "You okay?"

Mike turns to face Will, and Will mirrors him. Now the angle changes again and we get the shot that parallels the previous Jancy scene of them looking at each other.

Mike now essentially admits to Will that he's scared of losing him, but it's different than Nancy's confession. In part so that the scenes aren't too similar and they don't feel redundant, but also because Nancy didn't need to elaborate much, as she and Jonathan are established and he knew what she was feeling. Will doesn't know what Mike is feeling.

Mike says something like, "I feel like I'm still messing up with you." Mike is concerned about losing Will due to his own actions (or lack of action) in addition to being scared about Vecna.

Will seems a little caught of guard as he asks, "What do you mean?" Will is far too in love with Mike to hold a grudge even if he wanted to.

Mike looks nervous as he says, "I don't know. I just. I feel like... things are better between us, but they're not how they used to be."

We see the guilt on Will’s face. He thinks that their friendship not returning to the way it once was is his fault. His fault for having these feelings and for hiding them.

But then Mike continues, "And I feel like it's my fault because I'm not being honest with you."

Will looks surprised again and asks, "What aren't you being honest about?"

And Mike looks incredibly anxious as he responds, "I can't tell you. I... I don't want to lose you."

Will's face softens as he firmly says, "You won't. Mike, you won't."

Mike nods as the tears start to flow, and he see Will pause for a moment, deciding whether this is a good idea before pulling Mike into him and hugging him tightly.

Mike begins to cry, and Will rubs his back subtlety with his fingers (exactly how he did in Max's hospital room).

"You're stuck with me." Will jokes, but Mike doesn't laugh, just hugs him tighter, his face buried in Will’s chest.

End scene. We don't get our confession quite yet. But obviously Will is now wondering what Mike isn't being honest about. He soon finds out that Mike is hiding the fact that he's in love with him. Confessions happen, kisses happen, the audience cheers, we have world peace.

[shihalyfie]

The paradox of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari

The issue of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari has been a question of interest since the series first aired, and especially after 02, which prominently depicted them constantly hanging out together and clearly having some kind of relation to each other...and yet, strangely, very rarely having a real heart-to-heart or even talking to each other much at all. The constant juxtapositions of them standing next to each other all of the time in both the series and in external media, combined with the fact they’re so associated with each other in terms of being Adventure returnees and with Digimon partners with similar evolutions, makes one almost mentally geared to associate them with each other, and yet we never really get to hear what they think about each other in the entirety of Adventure or 02′s running.

Part of this is because Takeru and Hikari are the two most “difficult to read” characters in the 02 team -- Hikari because she compulsively suppresses any selfish or negative feeling she has, and Takeru because he covers up his problems with a smile and pretends everything is okay, until it’s not. And, as it turns out, that “gap in communication” exists between the two of them as well; in the web of 02′s relationships, it’s a strange mix between being “comfortable around” each other, and yet not truly knowing each other...

Disclaimer before we continue: With some exceptions related to unambiguous canon depictions, I try to write my meta about relationships between characters in such a way that both shipping readings and non-shipping readings are possible in most cases, and my main reason for this is that I very strongly believe that even if you do ship the pair in question, it’s rather reductive (and not very fun) to stop an analysis at “anyway it’s because they’re in love” or something and not go any further. If you don’t care for Takeru/Hikari as a ship, I hope you can take this analysis as-is, and if you do happen to ship it, I hope you can take my analysis of the gaps in their relationship as “things they would have to consider and overcome for such a relationship to be possible” (i.e. a possible fanfic prompt?) and not me trying to dismiss the ship as inherently possible or impossible.

A second disclaimer: A lot of the important key points below are heavily dependent on how they were presented in the Japanese version of 02, especially in regards to the key 02 episode 13. The American English dub took a very large number of liberties with a lot of the below aspects, so if you are reading this with only that version as a reference, please be aware that there may be significant differences for the sake of avoiding confusion.

Hikari didn’t get to spend much of the series with the rest of the Adventure group, having been a “latecomer”, but once she enters, it’s rather interesting how much Takeru doesn’t socialize much with her. Granted, part of this was because of the circumstances -- there was a lot to be done, and Hikari had a cold relapse not long after they’d entered the Digital World -- but you’d really think Takeru would be interested in at least socializing with someone who’s actually his age, and yet we don’t get any real depiction of doing so outside of discussing important matters. It’s not to say that they never had any kind of conversation offscreen, but by the time we get to the end of Adventure, we have zero scope of what they actually think of each other.

By the time we get to 02, it turns out that this is probably by design.

First of all, we very quickly learn that the two of them did not keep up between Adventure and 02 -- they’re meeting each other again for the first time in a long time, and the last time they did meet was when they were much younger (probably their last meeting being the one depicted in the flashback in 02 episode 27). This is understandable considering that, up until the beginning of 02, Takeru lived in Sangenjaya and not Odaiba, meaning that it wasn’t like they’d have opportunities to meet up much in real life either, but the point is that this is how little contact and how little involvement they’d had in each other’s lives up until this point.

So, once the plot of 02 kicks off and the two of them become active as Chosen Children again, the two of them end up hanging out a lot. So much that Daisuke starts accusing them of having something between them. And the two of them never say anything to really firmly deny him, which of course only makes him more confused and upset, until 02 episode 17, when the concrete connection between them is established to the rest of the 02 team, and it’s properly disclosed that they were part of a whole adventure back in 1999 together.

Takeru knew Hikari before, and she’s still the one he knows the best out of this team, and on Hikari’s part, Takeru understands the nature of “being a Chosen Child” in ways the others don’t, and both of them had that formative experience that the others don’t understand. But 02 is a series that’s not only about relationships, but also about the differing nature of relationships -- it’s true that, having known each other well beforehand and also being all-around decent people, the two of them would certainly have an extra level of investment in each other’s welfare, but...

In 02 episode 13, we learn that as much as Takeru knows Hikari, he doesn’t really know her, and on Hikari’s part, she’s still incapable of communicating the extent of her thoughts so that he can.

The conversation between Takeru and Hikari behind the school in this episode is the first time we get to really see an opportunity for the two of them to bare their actual emotions, but nothing that can be called a "conversation" is had between them. Hikari is still plagued by a compulsive desire to not be a burden to others, including the idea of “burdening” her brother, and, when Takeru finally prompts her on what’s going on, she says nothing that properly clarifies what she’s going through, nothing but a cryptic mention of the “sea”, a statement that she "might be going away”, and a reference to her brother having always protected her beforehand. Takeru takes it as a sign that Hikari’s become overly dependent on Taichi, and snaps at her angrily -- a persistent symptom of him being unable to regulate his emotions properly -- and, unable to handle it, runs off awkwardly, leaving her alone to eventually be taken away. Later in the episode, Takeru reflects that he’d basically just doomed Hikari by his own actions, and with his last words to her having been something awful.

Ultimately, some degree of progress is made in that Hikari realizes that Takeru reaching out to her earlier makes him someone she should be reaching out to for help -- in the end, nobody in the 02 group had yet been able to reach out to her emotionally because of how closed-in she was, and the only people she truly trusted with her feelings up until that point were Taichi and Tailmon. So in other words, Takeru is another person she can finally “trust” with her feelings and welfare. But while Takeru is finally able to connect to her in some sense with this, when the two finally close off the episode and return to the real world, everything ends in complete silence. They do not say a single word to each other. They’re getting by with a sense of “inherent trust”, and their disconnect was resolved with that alone this time, but this problem hasn’t been fully solved yet and will be rearing its ugly head again by the time we get around to the Jogress arcs.

And so the two of them return back to their “comfortable with each other” status quo -- but, again, 02 is a series that portrays relationships in a very multi-layered and multifaceted form, and being comfortable around someone still doesn’t necessarily merit emotional closeness (for instance, Ken was pretty clearly indicated as being “comfortable” and straightforward in terms of working with Miyako in 02 episodes 25 and 33, but there’s no doubt that Daisuke’s the one who was more properly addressing the things he emotionally needed most at the time, which could arguably be said to be exactly why Ken was having a hard time adjusting to him at first). We see them “go off together” to do...completely mundane and practical things, like discussing why they’re still able to come to the Digital World in 02 episode 22, or trying to have their Digimon partners evolve on their own in 02 episode 24 -- they’re not having any kind of emotional heart-to-heart, they’re just there.

When you look at the wider picture, you can see that Hikari and Takeru’s relative comfort around each other at this point is largely because they’re still not comfortable being alone with anyone else yet. So far, they kind of had a bonding (not really bonding) session back in 02 episode 13, and they hadn’t had anything of the sort with anyone else, and they’re still the only people who understand certain things relevant to the adventure in 1999 that the others don’t. They’re both still ridiculously closed-in and guarded, and not trusting anyone with their feelings -- they can’t even trust each other with their feelings -- so they’re getting by on hanging out with each other because it’s either that or go off to be completely alone. As the two most “emotionally isolated” people in this group, there’s a wall between them and the others, and that wall is only slightly thinner between each other -- and you can even imagine that they’re willing to hang out with each other because they won’t be bothering that wall and causing intimidation.

And by the time we roll around to 02 episode 31, we learn that, this whole time, nothing has improved. Takeru sees that something is going on with Hikari, but does and says nothing -- perhaps because he’s not sure what to say, perhaps because he’s afraid of lashing out at her again, whatever it is -- but he can’t and won’t speak to her nor address her feelings.

In the end, the person who does establish that ability to “communicate” with Hikari is not Takeru but Miyako -- an aggressive, in-your-face, overly honest person who gets straight to the point and refuses to hold back, whose messy personality causes Hikari to become assertive in handling her and allows Hikari to finally vocalize one of her truly sensitive feelings, and who’s able to use her immense emotional sensitivity to identify what Hikari needs and break through to her.

But just because Miyako ended up being the person Hikari needs to move on past this issue does not mean Takeru’s role wasn’t important, nor that Miyako coming into Hikari’s life means that all of her relationships are inferior or pointless -- rather, a recurring element of 02′s portrayal of relationships is that everything has a ripple effect, and that “opening up” one person’s heart allows them to open up to others as well (see how Daisuke reaching out to Ken eventually helped him reach out to the others in the group, how even in this very same episode Miyako expresses that this experience helped her understand Ken better as well, how Daisuke’s experiences end up giving him a healthier relationship with the rest of the group, how Iori and Takeru’s Jogress ordeal helps them both become better at reaching out to Ken...). Unlike how they’d both closed off 02 episode 13, Hikari and Takeru end this one by talking -- with Hikari’s newfound confidence from her dealings with Miyako allowing her to more openly speak what she’s thinking with Takeru.

One thing you might notice is that after 02 episode 31, Takeru and Hikari are never seen going off on their own together for the rest of the series -- because, again, their “latching” onto hanging out with each other at the exclusion of anyone else was because they were that isolated from everyone else, but not anymore! Hikari starts to hang out more with Miyako as the two of them become more comfortable hanging out after the events of said episode; after all, Miyako had come to understand the real reason why Hikari “keeps so much inside” and that she needs to actively reach out to her, and Hikari is able to properly trust Miyako with her feelings, meaning that now that Hikari is starting to open up, she doesn’t need to fall back on her “truce” with Takeru to get by. Which ends up leaving Takeru rather alone for the following set of episodes. Well, seemingly alone, but...

...he’s not truly alone, because this is also where Iori realizes that there’s a lot more going on with Takeru and that he needs to make a proactive effort to understand him, and it doesn’t take long for Takeru to realize what Iori’s doing (especially when Yamato tips him off that Iori asked about him in 02 episode 35). Once again, very much unlike Hikari, Iori is straightforward and to-the-point, and is much better at cutting through all of the complicated layers Takeru puts up in an attempt to cover up his emotions.

The rest of the series has them in significantly more emotionally tense situations than before, and while the fact they end up spending the rest of the series with their respective Jogress partners instead of each other is partially sheer pragmatics, it’s also how the two of them start taking a more active role in actually checking on the others’ emotions and communicating with them in regards to their feelings. This is a huge deal -- compare this to back in 02 episode 13 when they were practically the only people willing to have this kind of serious, emotional conversation with each other -- and said attempt at a serious conversation exploded in their faces. (The other time one of them had made an attempt at something vaguely resembling a heart-to-heart during that time was 02 episode 11, which also resulted in Takeru blowing up explosively.) But here they’re capable of communicating clearly and openly and making their positions known in a way that gets through to their respective Jogress partners’ issues, without being stifled by anything.

But, again: just because they don’t “go off together” anymore doesn’t mean they stopped being important people to each other or comfortable around each other -- it’s just that now they’ve stopped wandering off together for the sake of blocking themselves away from others, and no longer trapped in this strange, paradoxical relationship of knowing-but-not-truly-knowing each other they had all the way back in 02 episode 13. The relationship they had back then was something built off of coping mechanisms, and not something you could truly say was healthy, not when their communication was stilted and Takeru had snapped at her so badly -- but both of them learning to open up more and be more honest with their feelings means that they may well have an actual healthy dynamic going forward.

And for all it’s worth, we learn that they’re still on very good terms by the time of Kizuna, getting breakfast together in the opening -- but it’s left ambiguous if their reason for doing so like this was because they still have a penchant for particularly hanging out together, or whether it was just circumstance because they were free to get breakfast after the Digimon incident (they act independently for the rest of the movie). Moreover, their relationships with the others in the 02 group are still going strong, because as per the drama CD, Takeru’s happy to hang out with Daisuke like it’s nothing and actively join in to reach out to Iori (it’s said Daisuke was approaching Iori “first” despite Takeru being there, so both of them were hanging out independently and decided to pick up Iori together), and Hikari comes in with Miyako, expressing a very firm intent to hang out with her for their trip, and ultimately it’s established that them not being with the rest of the group at the time of the movie was sheer scheduling circumstance and not necessarily them going out of their way to operate away from them.

So in other words, whatever relation you can say they have at this point, or their ability to get along, is not based on them falling back on each other as an unhealthy coping mechanism of silence, but one carried out in a more genuine manner.

[writterings]

In light of the new Owl House episode, I have some THOUGHTS about its excellent writing.

So, first things first, I wanna state something that everyone knows but we also kinda forget sometimes; TOH is a kid's show. Yeah, yeah, that's obvious. But also, that GREATLY impacts its writing. However, it also balances this type of writing PERFECTLY with the adult perspective on the world which ultimately does make it great for all ages. And "Yesterday's Lie" is the ULTIMATE example of this.

Luz's story fits the typical isekai plotline - but it also is an example of what real-life kids in Luz's positions want. Like think about her life in the first episode - she had no friends, she wanted adventure and fantasy and magic, and her mom and she weren't seeing eye to eye. She then got whisked away to a magical realm full of adventures, magic, friends (and a girlfriend!), and a mother figure who tries hard to understand her and loves the fact that they're both weirdos. The Boiling Isles is heaven for Luz, just because it's fulfilling all her wants and needs that she wasn't getting in the human world.

As someone who is going into the professional writing field and spends a lot of time in and out of class thinking about writing rhetoric, I've taken one or two classes about writing children's stories/media. And, obviously, children's media is written differently than adult media -- but specifically in the idea of values. Kids value different things than adults because of their perspectives on the world. Hell, the whole reason "whisked away to a magical fantasy world" is so popular in kids' media is because so many kids find themselves in that position in wanting that to happen to them. I sure as hell did when I was Luz's age.

Stories like these essentially are wish fulfillment for kids. And since they are wish fulfillment, that typically means that more real-life concepts such as abandoning family, missing the "real world", or any negative consequences are either conveniently written out in a satisfying way or are left out entirely. (Think how in Harry Potter, he's able to escape the "real" world without negative consequences because his family's abusive.)

(Also, fuck JKR btw but just using this example because this is the example we used in my one children's lit class.)

And what I'm about to say next also explains further how TOH is wish fulfillment, but it starts as a bit of tangent first. Just bear with me, it'll make sense.

Anyways, I've seen a few MP100 posts around that praise the show for having an adult "step in" and tell the child protag that they don't have to fight the villains because they're just a kid. And to me, that shows how MP100 is an adult-focused media -- because a piece of children's media would NEVER do something like that. That's not to say that children's media encourages kids to do dangerous stuff that harms themselves, but it's just not appealing to kids. Kids want to be the ones going on adventures and saving the day. They want to be treated with respect and be trusted as capable as the adults around them. And who can blame them? We all want that - it's just that kids hardly get ANY respect or autonomy. That's why kid's media where the kids are allowed to fight, be the chosen one, or go on adventures is so normal and popular: it's what kids want!

And that, again, is how TOH is wish fulfillment. Luz is allowed to go on adventures, do dangerous and stupid things, and she still kicks ass! Sure, Eda might express concern for her or say she doesn't want her doing something dangerous -- but Eda trusts Luz and is never angry when she goes someplace dangerous (think how she acted in "Separate Tides" when she found out Luz was also there in the cave).

So, ultimately, this is all how TOH's writing reflects its status as a children's show. Which is totally fine! And it's brilliantly written!

But as for the more adult-focused parts of its writing -

To state again, adults value different things in media than kids do. We (since I'm an adult) typically do want to see the more nuanced and darker side of things. We want the complexity. We want subversion of genre. We also want things that reflect our experiences. And TOH does this by addressing realistic negative consequences.

Camilla was upset that Luz left her. She cried and got mad, and even asked the questions of "Were you trying to live out some witch fantasy? Did you hate living with me that much?"

This is a genre subversion because we usually don't get this kind of confrontation in a kid's show. Typically, our plucky young protag who chooses to stay in another world faces no negative consequences for this choice (except for Marcy in Amphibia but for different reasons lol). But here Luz is, watching as her mother cries all because of her choices. It's not explicitly adult and tbh isn't mature - but it's still a level of nuance and character complexity we don't typically get in a kid's show/media. Honestly, it's most likely that adults are the ones identifying with Camilla instead of Luz in this situation - even if we don't have kids. Camilla, essentially, feels abandoned and rejected by her daughter. While some kids might be able to sympathize, it's probably mostly adults (and older teens) who have been through similar situations and emotions. And, in that, shows how TOH can also appeal to audiences in a more "adult" way as well.

But, despite that, it's still not a polarizing scene. It may frustrate some kids watching (or even teens/adults who identify strongly with Luz), but ultimately Camilla's words and actions are still understandable. She's not being evil or mean; she's just hurt. And that's clear! Even Luz sees it! But it doesn't harm the narrative appeal of the show being kids' wish fulfillment because Camilla can't do anything to take Luz away from her amazing life in the Boiling Isles. While she did make Luz promise to find a way back and to stay for good, she ultimately has no power to do anything. The status quo of the show is not changed and it is still wish fulfillment -- though, now, it just has some complexity added to the situation, plot, and characters.

In that sense, the scene where Camilla confronts Luz can still appeal to kids and doesn't make the show unenjoyable for them despite it being a more "adult-focused" scene. Sure, it adds complexity, but it's a type that kids can understand.

And that, basically, is just brilliant writing. It's such a perfect balance of adult and kid-focused,m and the writers definitely understand the values that both children and adults have when approaching media. TOH is definitely one of the best-written cartoons of this decade, and I'm so glad it exists.

Anyways, here's my essay. Thanks for reading if you got this far!