#but frankly that's not so relevant because looking at the text... he doesn't think that!

[lgbtlunaverse]

While rereading mdzs I am once again shocked by how talked about the "you were the only mistake he ever made" line from Lan Xichen to Wei Wuxian is and how heated it gets some people because honestly... I don't think he actually even believes that.

Stay with me. Look at the actual line. (I Included 2 translations for comparison's sake)

Firstly, yes he is mad at Wei Wuxian in this scene. But his biggest moment of anger was actually before this. By this point he's realized that Wei Wuxian forgot what happened after nightless city (and therefore ISN'T stringing along his baby brother on purpose) so he has in fact calmed down a bit.

Secondly, notice that he starts by talking about how his uncle felt. This is not Lan Xichen making a value statement about what he thinks. When he says Lan Wangji was proper and righteous he is talking about him being a model lan, he's talking about their family and clan's perspective of Wangji. Indeed, in their eyes, Wei Wuxian is the only time Lan Wangji was ever not the textbook perfect Lan.

Thirdly, what is Lan Xichen trying to say here? What is he mad at Wei Wuxian for? It's that he doesn't know Lan Wangji is in love with him. His anger is eased by realizing Wei Wuxian doesn't remember the very blatant confessions lwj made in the cave after nightless city, or Lan Wangji fighting his own clan elders for Wei Wuxian, and so had no way of knowing the whipmarks on Lan Wangji's back were related to him. But he is still mad, he still thinks Wei Wuxian should have been able to figure it out. So what does he highlight?

The fact that the only thing Lan Wangji, perfect model-Lan righteous Lan Wangji, ever defies his clan for is Wei Wuxian.

And Wei Wuxian has seen him do this! Even if he doesn't remember this one instance. Because Lan Wangji has been doing that the whole story through. Wei Wuxian has watched Lan Wangji blatantly stand against the entire cultivation world for him, and here Lan Xichen is highlighting just how unusual that is, how much Wei Wuxian must mean to Lan Wangji that he's willing to do that. The important part of the sentence here is not "mistake" it's "only."

Lan Xichen here isn't trying to say that he disapproves of Wei Wuxian, or telling him to stay away from his brother. Remember, the thing that made him mad in the first place was Wei Wuxian saying that he and Lan Wangji slept in seperate rooms. He thought they were together! He's mad because they're not!

At no point does Lan Xichen say he individually considers Lan Wangji's feelings for Wei Wuxian a mistake. If he ever did, it's clear he accepted them regardless long ago. Mistake or not, what he wants is for his little brother to be happy.

[crplpunkklavier]

thoughts on vongole, and kristoph as a dog owner

DISCLAIMER: i am not a professional in dog care nor training. i have had and trained a dog for many years now, but he is not a retriever. i've studied up on other breeds out of curiosity (and due diligence tbh). if anything i say here is factually wrong and you know more, feel free to reach out!

Kristoph: Ah, yes, she's surprisingly delicate, you know. Requires careful tending. But, she is my "best friend", as they say. Phoenix: "Best"...? Come on, now I'm starting to feel bad for you. Kristoph: Oh? Of course, she's known to bite if handled roughly. Phoenix: Y-Your rose bites? Kristoph: ...... I was speaking of the photo next to the rose. My retriever, Vongole. Cute, but feisty.

this is all we ever learn about vongole. am i going crazy about it? maybe. (also, after this line, phoenix thinks to himself, "every dog has its thorn..." as if that means literally anything. i love him so)

vongole is one of my favorite mysteries about kristoph. she is not at all relevant in aa4, and if she was only ever going to be in this tiny bit of flavor text (so easily missable too!) why put her in at all? was she going to play a bigger role in a later game that shu takumi never got to bless us with? i guess it's possible. that would lift vongole on the same level as those pesky black psyche locks. but either way, we have her here, and that means i get to overanalyze her :)

or more accurately, i get to overanalyze kristoph gavin on the basis that he has a dog who

is a retriever

is "surprisingly delicate"

requires careful tending

is his best friend, as they say

bites if handled roughly

hey. what the fuck does any of that mean, kris?

lets start with the breed. i've mentioned in a post before that many of us seem to have collectively decided that vongole is a golden retriever, which seems fitting, since those are famous blondes, just like the other gavins. however, "retriever" doesn't automatically mean golden retriever! there are a few other retriever breeds. you're probably familiar with labrador retrievers, for instance. i have a curly-coated retriever in my neighborhood who, you guessed it, has a charming curly coat, pitch black, and is a trained service dog!

we often see retrievers as service dogs, because they're pretty fit for the job. the name retriever comes from hunting though. while my own dog is more engaged in actually running ahead and killing prey himself (no i don't let him do that.), retrievers have been bred to go and, well, retrieve prey for the hunters. this of course means that you can also teach them to retrieve other stuff for you fairly easily. like meds, socks, blankets -- stuff a service dog would be helpful for.

apart from that, retrievers are also known to be good family dogs, because they're friendly, affectionate, loyal, and quick to trust. they're also very active, and pretty smart! there are minor differences between the various retriever breeds, but this much goes for all of them to some extent.

why in the world does kristoph have a dog?

i... just..... does he seem like a dog person to you?? i just.... i mean, he doesn't seem like a cat person to me either. or a plant person. maybe he doesn't seem like a person to me. i just really stumble over this sometimes, because it seems wild to me to think that kristoph gavin got himself a retriever just because he.... wanted a retriever?

the guy works what's pretty much an office job. his salary shouldn't be very high, as a defense attorney? but, well, he's implied to like high-profile cases, and he had the money to employ an assistant, so i don't think he's poor. he needs time and space for a retriever, though. vongole isn't a little shih tzu who's happy to just hang out on your lap all day. again, REALLY active. this is a dog who wants AT LEAST an hour of outside time a day. kristoph gavin doesn't even look like he's ever seen the sun. but ok.

one frankly hilarious route i've considered is that he wanted a dog for protection. klavier says he's been "living in fear" ever since zak gramarye disappeared on him, and then he panicked enough to straight up beat him to death the minute he saw him again seven years later. he's paranoid, he's spying on everyone involved. i think kristoph really was very scared. so maybe at some point he figured he'd get himself a dog that would protect him from assailants.

i say this is hilarious because..... a retriever is not the dog you want, man. like, yeah, she'll be loyal to you if she likes you. the problem is she is also really quick to like you, or the intruder in your house, or the guy coming to your office to kill you. if kris got a retriever because he wanted a guard dog, that was a fantastic bit of stupidity, and i personally love it for him.

another angle i like, one that makes him a little less stupid and a little more horrifying, is appearances.

But, she is my "best friend", as they say.

this line really does something to my brain. kristoph gavin talks like a law text book at the best of times, so the somewhat awkward wording of it isn't really what's bothering me. it's the fact that he said it at all. it's that very last part. the "as they say." because, yeah, sure, people say that. yeah yeah, man's best friend, we've all seen it.

and it just... seems so very kristoph to latch onto a truism about human beings, to make himself look like one. look at him! he's got a suit, he's got a job. he's totally on speaking terms with his brother. when the bar association voted to disbar phoenix, he was the only one who voted against that (one more thing i'd love to make a big post about one day lol), he has regular dinner with his good friend phoenix wright, he has an assitant, he has a law office. he probably has a car, because it's LA. he has a savings account. that's not, like, canon, but he does. of course he also has a dog. he's just a regular human guy! he likes poetry and the arts. his best friend is a dog, and more than that, a breed which is known for its gentleness, and for how great they are with..... children :)

let's all sit back and let that chill go down our spine for a sec.

kristoph got a retriever to prove something. kristoph got a retriever for the same reason that he made friends with vera misham before he tried to kill her.

remember what his prison cell looks like? with the books, the arm chair, the violin? he keeps up appearances, even after his arrest. of course he'd put up a framed picture of his beloved dog. like any normal human person would.

but did he treat her well?

well...... well.

here's the thing.

i don't think kristoph gavin is an animal abuser. i don't think he treated her badly. but that's a sliding scale, with dogs, and with most pets, isn't it? if i'm never outright mean or violent to my dog, that's great, but if i never give him enrichment, if i never learn to read his body language, if i never give him what he fundamentally needs as a certain animal of a certain breed, i'm still not treating him well. i'm not treating him right, i'm just not overtly torturing him.

back to kristoph. in this vein, i often think about what we hear of his interactions with young vera. one thing that particularly sticks out to me is how drew misham says that kristoph was one of the very few people who ever made her smile.

kristoph clearly has a way with children, to an extent. he knows to get her that stamp -- he actually understands her childish fascination with magic a little too well and gets her a present that she likes so much it thwarts his whole plan. keep in mind that vera was 12 -- when kristoph's younger brother was 12, kristoph was 19 already, old enough to consciously learn things about the 12-year-old in his household. he knows kids, and he gets through to them.

but never fully, does he? klavier figured out something was off about the way his brother came to his office. and even vera, despite smiling at kristoph so earnestly, despite really loving that stamp, despite being only 12, even vera was so horrified by that little twitch of the devil's hand. there was always something uncanny about kristoph.

why am i bringing that up? i'm not saying everyone who's good with children will be good with dogs, or the other way around. but there is common ground. you're dealing with a living thing that's smaller than you, dependent on you, and you're building a relationship that'll take a lot of calmness, understanding, and reassurance. kids often can't express themselves in ways adults would immediately understand, and neither can dogs.

and i think kristoph got about as far with vongole as he did with vera. i think vongole liked him fine. again, retrievers are quick to like people. he was there, he fed her, he probably gave up trying not to let her up on the couch. sure she liked him. but did she listen to him?

before i ever had a dog, my mom used to tell me that she thought the concept of dog training (the german word is Hundeschule, so literally "dog school") was stupid, that she'd had a dog as a kid, and that dog didn't have to know any tricks, it wasn't a circus animal! well, my mom was also bad with every pet we've ever had, and with all three of her kids. so.

look, it's important that your dog listens to you. i'm just saying. no, it doesn't have to know "circus tricks," although depending on the breed, it might have fun learning them! and it definitely just. it needs the basics. your dog needs to understand what "no" means, and your dog should come when called -- i know we're all tired of alpha terminology and it's constantly used wrong, but, genuinely, your dog needs to know that you're the leader of the pack. your dog needs that, it's good for the dog. turns out i was also using it wrong! this reblog explains what i meant to say better than i could. my point was that you have got to give your dog something, some form of structure. for the dog's own cognitive development, for you to work as a union, and last but not least to make sure you don't bring harm to the outside world!

and, yeah, this is absolutely the part where i think kristoph failed. because no, i don't think he was ever violent with her or anything, but i also don't think he would ever have the patience it takes for solid dog training.

why else does he, unprompted, bring up that she is "surprisingly" delicate, and requires "careful" tending? kris, did you not know? why are you surprised by how delicate a literal living thing is? did you accidentally step on her paw and she acted like it's the end of the world? yeah, they do that. did you come home late from the office one night and there was a pile of poop on your overturned laundry basket? hmm. if only something could be done about that.

the "bite if handled roughly" part is the last one i wanna talk about, because that also gave me a lot of trouble.

i mean... dogs bite. they do! mine bites. especially puppies are happy to play-bite, often into hands, and it's important to get that under control while they're young. this also loops us all the way back around to vongole being a retriever. remember, they're bred to carry stuff in their mouths. it is in this dog's dna to use her mouth for stuff.

this means she might be bite-happy in a very specific way. i've actually read multiple times that retriever bites are "soft", because again, they're just supposed to retrieve game when hunting, not kill it themselves. it's already dead, and a dog actually biting into it would make it yucky for humans to eat. retrievers are good at moderating bite strength for that.

but.... it doesn't sound like that's what kristoph is talking about, is it? she's known to bite if handled roughly. that sounds like she really bites. and of course she does. if handled roughly. hey, what the fuck does that mean, handled roughly? who's handling her roughly?

again, this doesn't necessarily scream animal abuse. as @mlmschemes, out of professional experience, has brought up, there are certain things that need to be done during a vet visit that dogs don't always love, especially if they aren't used to it, like nail trims, to state the easiest one. you might have to hold a dog down for that. and if that dog is trained and socialized like ass, yeah, she'll bite if handled roughly.

but, hey, don't worry. she's just feisty. :) cute but feisty, he says.

just like every fucking dog owner i've ever met in the neighborhood who has a half-rabid untrained menace that would probably tear my face from my skull if not for its stupid retractable leash.

anyway.

kristoph wants to be a dog owner because it's a fun normal human thing to do and makes him look non-threatening, well-adjusted, and generally likeable. but he sucks at dog training. nobody has ever fully believed the guy--fucking, even apollo IMMEDIATELY deserts him in court. kristoph lives a superficial life and vongole probably has zero trouble becoming the best friend of whoever gets her next.

just to bring this already embarrassingly long post to a point and an end, here's some quick tips from me for portraying vongole, and by extension kristoph dealing with her:

retrievers are affectionate, so vongole is probably a cuddler

kristoph probably has fur fucking everywhere. he comes into the office with a briefcase thats just filled with lint rollers

vongole knows exactly zero commands. if you have food in your hand, she will sit down, because sometimes that gets her things, and she will try to use it at every possible opportunity

if sitting down doesn't work, she will become more and more annoying. if my dog felt like i wasn't giving him enough attention, he used to walk up to my desk and nudge my forearm with his nose so strongly that my grip on my computer mouse would slip and i would fuck up whatever i was working on.

kristoph loses patience with her. it'd be interesting to write, because he'd want to save face if it happens in public, too. he can't yell at his dog there, that'd look bad. i imagine a lot of insistent leash tugging, a lot of ill-advised grabbing/holding her (here's where he probably gets bitten too), and a lot of smiling and laughing and being like "ohh, haha, she's just so feisty today, what's going on ooo she's so nice normally haha"

i doubt he played much with her? she probably had toys, but for kristoph to interact with them a lot.... you can play fetch with retrievers pretty well, because, once again, they're retrievers. and that's a pretty classic "look at me i'm a normal dog owner" thing to do, so he probably has some like, tennis balls and stuff that he'd throw for her. but that's probably it.

if you write vongole changing owners to klavier and/or apollo, please please please let her do a full 180. if you're going by what i've theorized here vis à vis kristoph, that dog is DESPERATE to learn. dogs want jobs and she would be SOOO happy to be trained.

forget that thing about old dogs and new tricks. my dog is 8 years old and i'm currently teaching him a new command, for funsies. it's working and he loves it. you can write vongole becoming a model citizen at any age. i implore you to.

[hyperpotamianarch]

what does the Tanach say about the concept of love?? Like romantic love, the love that permeates the soil and allows life to grow, love that is everywhere? I was learning the portion for this week and yitzchak is the king of commitment, and this seems to be the basis of love: an ability to commit no matter what. I was just wondering though if you know if there's anything else??

The Tanach doesn't technically say anything about the concept of love. By which I mean, it doesn't have a list of concepts that it explains. So everything you can learn is by looking at context, results, and at how love is being expressed. In addition, the Tanach isn't called the Book of Books (at least in Hebrew) for naught: it's made of twenty four to thirty six books (depends how you cout Trei 'Asar and Ezra&Nehemiah), and has varied authors. We can perhaps extrapolate what the word means when it's used in different contexts, but it may well be tainted by the view of the author.

You actually were right on the money to start talking about it now, though, because this is the first time in the whole Tanach love is mentioned! ...However, when looking at the future of their marriage, it's... A bit marred.

Next week's portion is the only one that focuses of Yitzchak. And you can see his character from that, I suppose. He's certainly committed to one wife, unlike his father or son, but he does not consult with her when he tells Avimelech she's his sister. As a matter of fact, the only direct interaction between Yitzchak and Rivkah is when she tells him she can't have Ya'akov marry anyone from Canaan. But, to be fair, that doesn't actually mean anything. The Torah only tells us what's relevant, and perhaps Yitzchak's daily life with Rivkah isn't that relevant. I still wouldn't take them as model marriage, though - they both pick favourites among their children and by the time they get to the Blessings Rivkah seems to not trust Yitzchak to listen to her if she tells him Ya'akov deserves them more. A lot of that us about how you choose to interpret the text, and I might be biased by a Shi'ur I've heard from one of my Rashei Yeshiva once.

I can keep ruining every good part in this by talking about the next time romantic (or more likely erotic) love appears, but I think we can skip Shechem and Dinah. That story is horrible without talking about what love is there, though it might lean into committment considering Shechem's love leads him to want to marry Dinah instead of having this be a one night stand. This stands as a stark opposition to Amnon, who hates Tamar immediately after raping her and is frankly a disgusting human being, but that's another story.

If we want to look at romantic love in the Tanach, going one by one on every mention of love and weighing whether or not it's romantic is going to be exhausting though. So let's just jump into the most obvious book on the topic: Shir HaShirim, the Song of Songs!

Honestly, considering my opening I should probably just direct you in that direction and leave it at that. I marred everything with the touch of my opinion so far, maybe I should let the Tanach speak for itself. Especially since I don't really know how to talk about love in the Song of Songs.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is one of my favourite books of the Tanach, despite how it's one of the only two to have semi-erotic descriptions in it. It's widely considered a parable for the love between G-d and the people of Israel, but as I've heard from Rav Aviah HaCohen - if the story in the parable has no worth, then the moral would be empty as well. (Paraphrased from memory and translated to English, please cut me some slack if it doesn't carry the exact right meaning.)

Maybe I'm having trouble talking about that because I never actually experienced romantic love (though I'd be hesitant to call myself aromantic). I could (in theory) talk about the dedication to each other the lovers of the Song of Songs show - "I am for my lover and my lover is for me". Maybe. But I'm not convinced I can say what the Tanach says about love from that. The book is certainly full of passion and dedication. Maybe I should just gently direct you to read and study it yourself, I don't really know.

So, a couple of points: first, thank you for asking me about the Tanach, I love it and actually am currently studying to teach it. However, I would like to ask people who might send farther asks on it to not ask about such nebulous concepts. The Tanach doesn't really have a clear line on it. It would be easier to talk about love in Judaism in general, and that is a complex topic unto itself: you have the commandment to love G-d with all your heart, soul and being; you have Rambam's definition of loving G-d - like a man who is lovesick and can think of nothing but his beloved; then you have the Hassidic terms of love like fire and love like water, the idea of always seeking closeness as one type of love, and simply enjoying the presence of one's loved one presence as another. But point is, it's hard to answer such a question straight from the Tanach, and as a person who did not experience romantic love I'm likely the wrong person to ask.

Please, do ask about the Tanach - but be aware that you're asking me, a person with his pwn biases and conceptions. Be aware you're asking about a collection of books that touches many, many things from multiple different angles. Be aware that I can't really touch all of them. And be aware that when all is said and done, I am just a 20-odd years old guy who studies the Tanach, not an outstanding expert. I still hope I helped, though I'm not all too sure about that.

Thank you for asking, Shabbat Shalom! If you've hoped for a nice Wort to say on the Shabbat table... well, I'm really sorry I wasn't more helpful.

[tonydaddingham]

I mean Neil said once that the sequel involved Jesus arriving in America on a plane with secret service agents, and the S2 opening sequence shows a plane, so I'm... fairly confident that he's an adult? Jesus died when he was like 33 right

afternoon anon!!!✨ see i recall this (ask on neil's page?) and remember the response but cannot for the life of me find it anywhere (and im pretty good at Finding Stuff), do you - or anyone else reading for that matter - have a link to this? just so i can save it for future reference.

now, i hope you don't mind if i do this, but i would like to use this opportunity to parse out a more coherent rationale on the second coming, if that's okay? yeah? cool.

(previous incarnation of this theory).

thing is that the premise of the baby swap in s1 is based on the omen, right? takes at least a huge chunk of inspiration from that as the origin of how the antichrist came into the story. but it goes wrong, obviously, and there's a third baby thrown in the mix. makes a cursory wave to the omen, but isn't a carbon copy of it.

now i can't help but feel that narratively it would make sense to bookend this and have the second coming be a bit bollocksed up too. seems to be a theme in GO. and actually, when i thought about it (with extreme bias, granted, because im chomping at the bit on this theory), the second coming was potentially already fucked up anyway.

now, disclaimer time -

i completely get that people will look to the bible in reference to parsing out the second coming (or indeed any other theory). obviously i do too, for references to certain verses etc. in order to draw the relevant parallels. but there are multiple instances in GO where it is based on the bible or other texts, but doesn't follow it exactly; how GO portrayed the book of job, for example. it takes these texts, and distorts or reimagines them slightly or completely.

the way i see it, we are reading/watching GO as if this is in fact the true telling of those texts, as if (and not trying to be diminutive here) the bible is an inaccurate telling of GO, not the other way around - because, of course, we're seeing GO from the angel and demon that were 'actually there', so to speak.

im not saying that this - or any - of my theories are indisputably correct, far from it. but to me, with the information i have from the narrative as first source, and then looking at the referenced texts that inspired it, what i come up with, and write, is what makes sense to me. and it might make sense because it would be poetically apt, is in-keeping with how i interpret the characters, and/or is just plain funny or ironic (GO is after all, a comedy).

so whilst i fully anticipate people to duly correct me on how it all goes down in the bible (as they should, i love being educated!!!), please know that im not trying to deliberately misinterpret anything, but more trying to think outside the box, from the viewpoint of the GO story itself, and what direction would make the most sense in which it will reimagine these texts.

- exit disclaimer.

anyway! theory time!

so we have the imagery from the s2 sequence of the "thy kingdom come" plane, and this is obviously a reference to the resurrection as you've said, anon: that jesus arrives by plane. i truly love this imagery because if we take matthew 24:36 (KJV): "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.", the concept that in the great plan the date and time might finally be revealed in the form of a flight number, airport, and ETA is frankly hilarious to me. furthermore, "cometh with clouds" (revelation, 1:7 KJV) being reimagined as a literal plane landing again sets up the comedic backdrop so well.

now wherever the plane lands, whether from the US or to the US (again, don't have the original neil answer to refer to, but going based on your ask, anon, it's the latter), it regardless involves americans. this is where i feel it would be a perfect narrative symmetry opportunity to refer back to s1/the book, and reintroduce the dowlings.

and you might be wondering, "well no because GO set up the dowlings to be involved only insomuch that they were meant to be custodians of the antichrist - why would they also be involved in the second coming?" well, i wondered this too. the only conclusion i can come to, frankly, is GO!god having a very warped, twisted and ineffable sense of humour. they saw what satan had planned for the dowlings in inadvertently raising the antichrist, possibly did a bit of shifting around in the mystical threads, and decided that actually - just to throw in the wildcard of chaos - they should instead be the bearers of the second coming. this degree of mind-boggling ineffability, to me, would be comedically on-brand.

regardless; whilst just a theory, the whole thing makes sense to me - that in any case, the dowlings are going to make a reappearance. and with them, or on his own (if we follow the biblical telling that jesus was resurrected as he was from the crucifixion, at age 33yo, and therefore would suggest a timeskip from s2, but this isn't necessarily guaranteed - ie: might not be how GO chooses to portray it!), comes warlock. now we know that warlock was meant to be the antichrist, before crowley and the nuns managed to bugger it all up.

but heaven wouldn't necessarily know that its the dowlings arriving, right? presumably they'd just all gather on the tarmac awaiting the arrival, and lmao SIKE, it's bloody warlock. heaven hasn't met warlock, and therefore still think he's in fact jesus resurrected... but aziraphale has met him. he helped bloody raise him. and he knows now that he is essentially a normal kid/adult (albeit a very stuck-up one) and definitely not the second coming.

well then, if jesus was meant to be on that plane, according to the great plan, a plane being used by the dowlings... then why isn't it warlock? well, because the dowlings' actual baby isn't warlock. lets go back to the baby swap in the book/s1:

*apols, editing to correct this somewhat because it isn't quite right and lateral thinking is not my strong suit*

ANTICHRIST was meant to go to: the DOWLINGS. instead, went to: the YOUNGS. this is Adam.

YOUNG BABY was meant to go to: stay with the YOUNGS, but got mixed up. instead, went to: the DOWLINGS. this is Warlock.

DOWLING BABY was meant to go to: adoption/something nefarious instead, and indeed did. this is... Greasy Johnson.

and i love this for all sorts of reasons. now im lifting this next bit, essentially, from another ask of mine, but to keep things all in one place:

"greasy is posed as the antithesis of adam/antichrist, has a gang surrounding him that you could infer are loyal disciples, and is a mirror to adam in that adam on the whole seems to be a well-adjusted and morally-upstanding young boy.

i further think the fact that adam is the antichrist put against greasy being the second coming is a well positioned reflection on the nature vs nurture argument. ultimately adam grew up in a largely loving and supportive environment, and as the literal son of satan, you'd expect his nature, the circumstances of his birth, to rule out every other influence.

ultimately it does for a short time, but adams narrative iirc is that it is reflective of his desire to save the world... he wanted to get rid of things that were Wrong, and naively (he is still an 11-year old boy after all) thought that destroying the world and restarting it would do just that. his friends however reinforce in him that destruction and reparation are not the same thing, and so his upbringing, the nurture, wins.

greasy? we don't know a lot about him, only that he is a bully and represents the opposite of adam and the them... [and there exists] the whole [sic] analogy that greasy and the johnsonites vs adam and the them are meant to represent the hell vs heaven war..."

and then we have this small, relatively innocuous detail from the book:

as i said, possibly something of nothing. but the deliberate wording of 'breeding the fish', which is left out of s1, is - i like to think - a bit of a clue.

and before anyone comes for me on this, i am aware that this is based practically on fuck all of jack shit; im painfully aware of that. im aware that it deliberately misinterprets certain passages (not going to do the soapbox speech again, promise), but i just like to have fun. i honestly do not care if this is wrong; whatever happens in s3 should and will be better than anything i can come up with. yes, it's fun to get a prediction or speculation correct, of course it is, but it's not the endgame here. i get that others will have conflicting schools of thought, see things differently, or just plain think it's crap - that's okay! but, if that's the case, just move on from this post with a shake of your head. im not here to do anything other than have a good time, lads (gn)✨💓

edit 21/08: additional reading because now i feel vindicated: here from amuseoffyre, and my tags on this post too.

[lurkingteapot]

Laws of Attraction กฏแห่งรักดึงดูด Ep.01

sorry to @ginnymoonbeam and anyone else from the discord crew who's seeing this twice, I hope to type up a more coherent something at some point, but I wanted to record this somewhere.

I've put a cut because this is LONG, but the reactions include translations of stuff that apparently didn't get translated on iQiyi. Mind that I'm not fluent, this is without guarantees, etc.

WHOA starting right on a dramatic courtroom scene … and why does that the defendant look familiar?

oh fuck, he uses dirty tricks. I'm not surprised, but WOW.

haha, hi dude who played Jaosua Zhang in Khun Chai

oh god this Chinese is … something.

that shirt is a CHOICE

oh, wait, is this the dude who played … what's his face, the one who was going to sell out Thian in Khun Chai? is he gonna be our antag

ahaha he hit a nerve

ahaha how is it ALWAYS Film's characters getting saved by Jam's

ahaha Chaan hitting on Tinn. He's so sleazy, yikes

and of course he's hitting on Tinn, and Tinn has good instincts and avoids the murder eyes

oh god he looks dangerous, how is this the dude who played sweet Thian?? ACTING!!!!

… I'm not gonna comment on that

of course this show is gonna make it a mission to make me hungry

Khao is so cute

this is gonna hurt so much, eh

ooh so he teaches Taekwondo!! this is so cute

oh goodness, she wants to make merit for her parents ;-; SWEETHEART

HOLY SHIT. That wasn't even a hit-and-run, that was an intentional running-over

oh shit, these dudes look hiso

uurgh Chaan's face here is just like "here's money coming my way"

this kid is so prett I'm sure he'll get an redemption arc, but I hate him anyway, for now

here come Tinn and his auntie crashing this hiso politician's press junket, oops

Sign reads:

The lawsuit is not making progress. The perpetrator has not been punished.

they're really going for maximum

I love how Chaan already owes Tinn his life twice over, this is gonna make for an interesting dynamic

the romantic music, I cannot, this is a SOAP and it's leaning into it, I'm LIVING

oh, the way the mood INSTANTLY changed here, goddd

oh god, Chaan is SO removed from reality

or, well. jaded, I guess. Which we knew! from the trailer! BUT STILL

"you'll regret that" holy SHIT

WAS THAT THE ROSEWOOD AGAIN

oh, so Chaan also has Trauma(tm)?

This show is in the future, the texts read:

29 July 2023, 8:30, acc x-9732 incoming transfer 100 total balance 178,274.59 29 July 2023, 8:30, acc x-9732 incoming transfer 400 total balance 178,574.59 (idk I didn't math this, it's what it says) 29 July 2023, 8:30, acc x-9732 incoming transfer 400 total balance 180,574.59

love the commentary on this type of "journos"

I love Tinn's sister

I'm already excited for the moment Chaan starts to care. it's gonna be EPIC

he's such an ASSHOLE and I'm having a hard time with that because Thian was so sweet ACTING

I'm flashing back to Gram and White's "legal vs ethical" debate in Not Me

he can't apologise? oh Chaan, I think Tinn is going to make you eat your words.

okay I like that Tinn is apparently an asshole to everyone. equal opportunity asshole.

10:33: Ended voice call (22 seconds) 13:45: Message: "From today on, the party lawyers will take over Thaenthai's case. As for your wages, you can send [the bill?] now. I'll take care of it." (EDITED thanks to @recentadultburnout for your correction!)

I'm starting to think Tinn just doesn't know how not to be antagonistic

oh god are they gonna beat him up while he's wearing a ruffled blouse

oh YIKES

the shot of whatever that was? that's gonna be relevant later, I bet

YOU TELL HIM, TINN

acab acab acab ACAB FUCK THEM

oh god this show is gonna hurt even worse than I thought

If Chaan set that beating up I'm gonna … idk. not be surprised. but.

I can't believe the trailer essentially covered most of ep 1 and not that much from later on???

I didn't think we'd see Chaan undress and … from that set-up quite possibly assault him this early. Or frankly at all, despite how it was set up in the trailer. YIKES

THAT PREVIEW, HELP please tell me this is also a two episode a week show

[sneezemonster15]

I'd give you an analysis, but frankly from what I've seen from your own "analysis" you're not very good at reading

also if you'd be so kind to tag this as mha spoilers, or screenshot this ask and put it under a read more so i dont spoil anyone who's interested in reading mha. it'd be greatly appreciated

(also thanks for getting rid of anon, this time i will include pics !)

anyway, this is the "straight dude who is having a typical cutesy high school het romance with a girl in a taken for granted het world." you're talking about;

also i wont lie, calling mha a het world when these are real dialogue is highkey stupid:

and i know the topic at hand is s/n/s and bk/dk but lets pivot to tg/chk bc theyre more relevant to what im saying

theres a lot to say but honestly, the manga speaks for itself :)

oh and also, you're right, bk/dk has no romantic subtext - it has romantic text. no subtlety needed! :) that is, if you have read the manga - my favourite example is this:

and then shgrk then proceeds to kill bkg, who "dies" (sort of) thinking about izuku in his final moments:

and then izk loses control when he sees bkg "dead" on the ground

and these are from recent chapters! imagine the rest of the series, ey

well! that got long. i'd tackle your crappy assessment of deku's character, but then I'd be here all day!

anyways, if i were you, I'd reread mha and really really understand the text you're reading. you might end up seeing something you missed at first!

Aiyyo someone got triggered! Hehehe. Ah it was inevitable that the moment I talked about MHA and rejected shippy head canons from the show, some delusional hardcore shipper would get all up in arms. Sigh.

You think what you wrote is analysis? Hehehe.

So just some random panels and chapter covers from the manga prove Bakugou or Deku is gay? Lol. I have seen fans like you in Naruto fandom as well. But you are right, I am not as invested in MHA, because it just doesn't have the versatility and genius of Naruto and Shippuden, it is actually quite a straightforward story and I don't need to burn a lot of my braincells to 'get it'. Lol. I am not saying it's bad, but as compared to its contemporary mangas, it just isn't at par for my tastes. It's good for entertainment but it doesn't affect me like other mangas that it takes inspiration from. Some silly shipper telling me I can't read, I would tell you my credentials but nah, too much work for disproving silly ass headcanons.

Fans make comparisons between Naruto and BNHA because Horikoshi is inspired by Kishimoto, definitely some similarities are there, but it misses on the most crucial point. Naruto and Shippuden are love stories. BNHA is simply your typical shounen manga. Naruto and Shippuden use the narrative tool of subversion to tell a love story in the restrictive genre of shounen. It has multiple layers and you need presence of mind to see them. Naruto is gay and you see comphet in his character, his interest in Sakura looks superficial from the beginning and then in kage arc, it is concluded as a mere cover to run from confronting his dilemma, and closetedness. His character is consistently shown as having an internal fight, a dilemma. Sasuke is just on your face, he is clearly shown as having no interest in women, but with Naruto he is especially intimate on his own accord. Ya know, using random panels ain't gonna help, you need to establish it in the narrative. Headcanons are all nice to entertain when that's all you watch media for, shipping. But please to be showing more maturity and media comprehension when sending me an ask, I am not very sympathetic to gaslighters whose heads are filled with shippy shit and cheap self gratification. When I talk Naruto, I make comparisons with other clearly gay media, and point out the common tropes, it's a result of expansive research. Not just random panels that prove nothing. Little one, you need more than that to prove your theories. I have watched a wide range of media, including gay media, your ask is just representative of your ignorance and lack of knowledge about how storytelling and character building works. Heh. Or do you think BNHA has its own concept of homosexuality, its own private language that cannot be compared with how other media establishes homosexuality in a given universe? Yeah, solipsistic ideas like that cannot be taken seriously.

Conformity is one of the pillars Japanese society is built upon, so it's not surprising that Japanese media talks upon how anything that doesn't conform to the norms is rejected. Their media is representative of their society. Mha also touches upon that and there's no surprises there, but again, you need more than that to prove it in the course of plot building and narrative. Some random out of context panel about some character saying something about conformity proves your point? You need to SHOW it and not just tell. But where other mangas, great mangas, popular and critically well acclaimed mangas have explored this idea in detail, MHA is just touch and go. It doesn't entertain a balanced proper discourse on it. It is truly shounen in that sense. Again, I am not saying it is bad, it is just more age appropriate. Which is totally fine. Do you know how heteronormativity is established in the narrative? Like this. Show me where this happens in MHA. Lol. Sweetheart, if the writer had made any attempt to write this world as heteronormative, where gay characters face challenges, I would have seen it. But mha is just not that deep. Sorry to burst your bubble. But that's just a fact.

Seriously, you are going to give me the example of Toga? I haven't gone through the recent chapters yet. I have only watched the anime. But it is clear that, that girl is medically insane. Her idea of liking someone is to kill that person and drink their blood, for her own pleasure. She ain't a homosexual, more like hemosexual. Hahaha. Again, you gotta show me the trajectory of her character, start with the base and show me how it escalates, how does she learn better about herself, her own feelings, the world from her perspective. No character is isolated, any writer who is talented enough to write multimillion franchise knows that. Don't project your assumptions on the story and the characters, work with what you have and draw the meaning from what's given, not the other way round.

There is no doubt Izuku and Bakugou have a strong relationship, even if it is mostly rivalry. But one can see that Bakugou cares about Deku and vice versa. Before telling me how to read, perhaps you should have done it yourself. Lol, I see this type of behaviour a lot from typical silly shippy shippers. "What, did you just say my ship makes no sense? 🤬"

Read.

Do you even know what subtext or text is? Hahah. This is text and subtext. So just because Bakugou and Deku talk about their rivalry in their vulnerable moments, that the audience knows as congruent since we have already seen they have a hot and cold relationship but that they are friends nonetheless, that proves they love each other romantically? You obviously don't know how romance tropes work. The dynamic between two men who respect and admire each other is always shown with a lot of empathy in Japanese media. It is one of the founding pillars of shounen, a genre meant for teenaged boys. They are certainly closer to each other than they are with women they are interested in, but a lot of fans such as yourself misinterpret it as romantic, because headcanon goggles. No, you gotta have more than that. Where Naruto and Shippuden have it in truckloads, none of that in BNHA. Deku is heterosexual af. If he is so interested in Bakugou, how come he reacts the way he reacts to Uraraka? Where is his conflict? Where is his dilemma? His affection and romantic interest in Uraraka is genuine and sincere, not a cover to hide his more private feelings. Unlike in Naruto's case. Kishi uses clever narrative tricks and tools to tell his love story in shounen and he does it skillfully. His motives and intentions are clear as water. He uses inventive smokescreens and red herrings to escape from being too controversial and colour inside the borders of shounen, nothing like that in BNHA. To begin with, Horikoshi doesn't even delve into the sexualities of his characters, because his story is not about that. There's no context, no set up, nothing. His worldbuilding is simply conventional, by which I mean heteronormative, there's no talk about sexual orientation of characters. You see the usual shounen perviness by Mineta and Kaminari and typical straight girls going kawaai over good looking boys like Todoroki, what impression does that give? If Horikoshi wanted to establish his characters being gay, he would have set up the context mindfully and carefully, like Kishi did. Gay relationships and characters can't be shown so explicitly in shounen as that would jeopardize its distribution in the west. Reason? Censorship. That's why Kishi had to be so careful, his target audience might not get it, but the adults do. Well, unbiased adults do, at the very least. So the boys in bnha are gay just because? Because you want them to be? Storytelling and character building doesn't work like that.

Seriously everything you think works as 'analysis' isn't even valid. I honestly didn't even want to respond to this ask, given it's so surface level and ridiculously simple minded. Perhaps you are a tween or teen who thinks every time two boys or girls smile at each other or rescue each other, they are gay and in love. Lol, watch gay media. Like actually watch it and see where your arguments stand in the scheme of things. I will tell you, nowhere. Juvenile kiddy stuff. I won't entertain anymore asks like these, they are a waste of my time.

[skrunksthatwunk]

i think it's so so so funny that my main transmasc hc character literally Is The Way He Is bc he's amab. like hiei's one of approx 3 characters ever whose asab is actually relevant and having it otherwise is impossible in the text. ridiculous.

is what i thought, but it's actually wayy way more complicated than i previously gave it credit for!! plus there's a LOT more queercoding than i first thought. lemme explain:

[tw: eugenics, fascism, queerphobia, self harm, suicide mentions]

[yu yu hakusho spoilers/meant for ppl who've seen yyh but probably understandable to ppl who haven't]

[ft too many uses of the word queercoded and my mushy feelings about hiei's arc and the queer experience]

hiei is literally thrown out of his home as a baby for being born male and that's just INCREDIBLY queercoded on its own, but specifically a lot of this is presented with the fact that he's a fire demon. this could just be a trait he got from his father, or it could be tied to the ice maiden species. i think it's a stretch to say gender/sex present the same across all demonkind, much less that it resembles our own. frankly, binary sexual classification doesn't really work for a lot of species (and it really doesn't work for humans anyway, because intersex people exist). his maleness is associated with it, and this creates a potential sexual dichotomy that, in this species, females present with ice powers and males present with fire powers. (i understand this has a very goofy "girls are cats boy are dogs" energy to it but let's roll with it for now). so hiei could have been born with what humans would consider female sex characteristics, but the ice maidens would look at him and go "oh he's on fire get this little man outta here". (this could also be where the idea that he'll destroy them comes from, if all males are, y'know, melty).

some of my initial thought process on this came about because i figured "oh if they reproduce asexually they've probably got all xx chromosomes, and that's how they only have xy kids when the parent has sex with someone outside the village", but even if that's the case (assuming chromosomes work the same for demons), there's still a ~50/50 chance hiei ended up with xx chromosomes anyway. perhaps fire is considered the primary sex characteristic that determines one's asab in the same way genitalia is for humans. so, to a human audience, we'd see his traits and go "oh he's trans", which i think counts for biological coding.

the ice maiden society is also incredibly restrictive in terms of gender and sexuality. they consist entirely of (ambiguously determined, as discussed above) women who reproduce asexually. one is not allowed to leave the bounds of this society, nor perform sexual taboos, such as sleeping with outsiders. hiei was only born because hina acted outside of the strict sexual norms of this society. people's queerness is sometimes chocked up to "poor parenting" (often based in sexual/gender/religious/otherwise traditional nonconformity) of parents. and even though hina loved her son and didn't want to see him, y'know, thrown off a floating island, the society as a whole still deemed him an outsider and a problem to be eliminated and left him for dead for the greater purity/"protection" of the culture. it's serving fascist eugenics tbh. (and hiei doesn't destroy their culture like they and he had expected, subverting their expectations of him and his "kind", though the idea that that subversion matters more than preventing further harm is one I'd disagree with. the choice to cut them out of his life entirely to me is somewhat more justifiable to me given a familial view over a community/cultural one, but i digress). regardless, this is reminiscent of societal marginalization in general, but especially categories that can show up in isolation in families (i.e. queerness, neurodivergency, disability, etc) in a way that other things (i.e. race, religious affiliation, etc) generally don't, and can thus be painted as rooting out abnormalities or defects in individual, bloodless, mundane cases (as opposed to the broader elimination that we associate with genocide)

there's also yukina, who left to find hiei, and who hates the ice maidens (presumably at least partially because she knows what happened to him). think of this as them trying to find each other after familial fallout.

this is all to say that if we view maleness/fire demonness as an equivalent to genderqueerness in the ice maiden society, hiei's story maps onto queer experiences incredibly well. so he's got that cultural/queer experience coding too.

we also see hiei topless all the time (he's actually incapable of keeping his chest covered. when he doesn't take it off it burns off or whatever like he can't fight covered up. can't even make it through the intro with it covered. whore behavior <3). "but he's got male presenting pecs, so he's amab," you might say. but he is (key to his character and returning home) well acquainted with a plastic surgeon. he literally has a body modification done as part of his backstory (specifically one he had to tell this story to to receive treatment!!!). transcoded asf. and frankly him being topless all the time is very reminiscent of lots of transmasc ppl who've just gotten top surgery. like they paid too much not to show it off. (this was actually the first thing that made me go "omg,, he's trans lmao. that surgeon guy totally gave him a 2 for 1 deal" and then it just. kept piling up. he's also quite short (4'10") and has a relatively high voice (definitely masc, but in a very in-the-throat way that a lot of afab ppl use), but neither of those are that compelling).

he also has a somewhat more flexible view of his body than the others, getting drastic invasive surgery, beating his arm when it disobeyed him(????? ok babe), and willingly sacrificing parts of it to learn fighting techniques (specifically a fire technique, so more gender stuff). this could be tied to genderqueer people's greater willingness/need to change their bodies, or potentially harmful practices (such as improper binding) to alleviate dysphoria.

queerness is featured a few times in the series and implied in others. we encounter a canon transfem demon named miyuki during the yukina rescue arc. karasu and itsuki are both distinctly mlm demons. hiei even acknowledges this in the eng dub, calling itsuki "lover boy" when he's doing his whole "omg sensui,, i want him to be evil so bad he's so hot" speech. the derision in this case seems to come more from hiei's dislike of him/the situation than disgust at itsuki's queerness (or else he could have just called him disgusting or perverse or whatever). kurama also makes a joke near the end of the series implying hiei is interested in him, which hiei refutes by clarifying his intentions, rather than saying smth like "ew nasty I don't swing that way", which is more standard in anime. I'm gonna gesture wildly to mukuro but we'll skip her for now. all this is to say that the only characters we see exhibiting signs of queerness are demons (other than the people we see atsuko hang with for a single shot). this is almost certainly a case of villainous queercoding (a detriment to the series that does rustle my feathers a good bit. the treatment of miyuki in particular makes my blood boil), but we could also read this as demonkind having different understandings of gender and sexuality in general. perhaps the reason we see this queerness in demons is more because the way their bodies work, the ways they present, and the ways they're attracted to others, to us, look queer.

hiei, throughout his backstory, is consistently demonized by the people around him (some of which is deserved bc he keeps killing people, but some isn't, like the thrown-as-an-infant-off-a-cliff thing). and while his arc throughout the show is about him becoming more able to let people into his life, there's always a distance there. he almost always pushes them away. he's always been treated like a monster, so that's all he tries to be, and it's part of his justification for further distance (i.e. using his criminal status as a reason not to "burden" yukina with the knowledge that they're related). for a lot of queer people (especially before the internet and in places without queer spaces like gay bars), you have no way of meeting people you can trust won't hate you for being queer (even queer spaces have transphobes or nb-exclusionists, etc), so you harden yourself and let very few people in. his trauma reads like a lot of queer ones, especially older american ones. this arc culminates with his relationship with mukuro, and his decision to stay with her indefinitely.

firstly, mukuro's referred to as a king and with he/him pronouns by the cast for a while, before it's revealed that she was hiding her true identity as a woman, and the characters' references to her switch to feminine ones. already tripping wires there. and the first time we learn this about her is when mukuro sees hiei's (queercoded) past and goes "you're just like me" and sheds her clothes (mukuro's backstory doesn't feel that queer to me, but she did have to run away from abuse and dehumanization, potentially for her body/the way she was born as well, so it's not insignificant). hiei's unconscious in one of those green anime healing tubes, but their shared nudity (and thus vulnerability) has a very intimate vibe to it. these fundamentally tightly guarded characters are letting each other in a bit in this way, and that backstory/vulnerability being connected with their bodies/genders, especially when you consider all the other queercoding surrounding them, feels very much like queer solidarity. meeting strangers who have been disowned for birth circumstances and immediately sharing your deepest secrets with each other because you feel some deep similarity to them and bonding over that experience (especially when it relates to asab/agab roles) in a way outsiders can't breach is very queer. (note that hiei didn't want mukuro to know his backstory, but was effectively outed, and she came out in kind). and eventually hiei helps her work through that trauma, and she gives him purpose and a home. a found family with a better fit, something more suited to him, than the main cast (as much as I want them to mesh perfectly).

i think part of why hiei is suicidal in the beginning of three kings is because of that distance and isolation. he'd fulfilled his mission of meeting yukina, but resolved not to tell her of their relation. he feels he can't tell her this big secret of his that might change how she views him, or views her home. it's just before the fight where he tries to die that his surgeon's condition that he could never tell her is revealed. the only thing allowing them to meet is keeping that secret, and the bodily change is what causes it. and he says he wouldn't want to tell her anyway. so he has nowhere to go. he doesn't want to destroy humanity anymore (as evidenced by his assistance in the previous arc and destruction of the chapter black tape), he can't get closer to his home or his sister, and there's still that distance between him and everyone else. (in case it needs to be said, all of this is crazy bonkers queercoded). but in the end, after he and mukuro grow together and bond, he tells kurama to tell yukina her brother's dead, to give up hope, to cut himself off permanently. kurama says he won't, because he believes that hiei will return and tell her they're related someday. and hiei begrudgingly agrees. someday he will tell her. when he's ready, and when he feels safe enough to. and from that change in the beginning and end of the arc, we know he's found that safety in mukuro, and may finally begin to really pursue his own happiness and authenticity. because he met someone like him, he now has hope. he can be loved and he can be enough, and he can look forward to it.

so, to sum up, hiei:

1. was disowned as a child for being the wrong/unexpected gender/sex in an incredibly homogenous society (in which it is ambiguous how they classify sex/gender)

2. has a medical and unusually personal history with a magical plastic surgeon and is topless all the time

3. reacts neutrally/without notice to other characters' queerness (when he is rude, it's for other reasons)

4. is a demon, the only group shown to exhibit canon queerness

5. forms a very deep bond with someone over their shared isolating (queercoded) experiences (with persistent body imagery and a social transition on mukuro's part)

basically, he's transcoded <3

[runawaymarbles]

7, 15, and 18 for the ask meme?

Weird Writing Ask Meme

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

It's hard to narrow it down, but one of my favorite parts-- that's a genuine pure favorite and never makes me want to bang my head against a wall-- is when I find unexpected ways to bring things I'm interested in together. When I realize that a weirdly niche rabbit hole I went down a few years ago could suddenly be plot relevant, or some analogy lines up to something else I'm doing. (Getting to bring Caravaggio's Artichoke Toss into a GO fic or when I was binging Myths and Legends's Arthuria episodes and realizing it worked perfectly with an x-men fic I was struggling with, etc.)

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

It depends on the book. I don't dog-ear pages, and I don't write in hardbacks, but I've been known to underline paperbacks. I will read hardbacks in the bath if they're not too long. If I saw someone writing in an old book or a fist edition or something I might have a moment of "aaaahhh!" but I don't hold mass market books as inherently precious

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

“Our traditional design ties together the partners’ initials with the blue line of Life and the deer of Death... For where Life goes, Death always follows; and where Death goes, Life continues. Theirs is the most profound of bonds, and one we try to emulate with each marriage.”

(From The Mixtape, Or: Six Things You Learn in Thursday School)

I spent a lot of time revising the bits of "scripture" in this fic, because I was trying to walk the line between what I could imagine someone treating as sacred text-- looking for meanings, lessons, comfort, etc-- and what would be funny for the reader who knows the actual plot of Supernatural. (Especially for those reading it during the pandemic: I still think that the Council of Nicea equivalent being the "Teleconference of Lawrence" is funny. That's also why settlements are called "pods" in this fic.)

Originally, this passage was explaining how Castiel was the Angel of Death-- the joke being that he doesn't cause people to die, but that he is in the more literal sense Dean's angel. But I figured he'd need a job or purpose to be of ritual significance. And since one of his main functions in the canonical narrative was to angel ex machina Sam and Dean out of trouble and/or back to life and be a celestial badaid, the Life/healing connection seemed natural-- but I also didn't want to make it seem like he and Death were at odds, each racing to see who got to someone first. So instead they're following each other around (as they did in canon) in the ciiiiiiircle of life. Of course, something that's overlooked by the characters who came up with the wedding rituals is that if they're constantly following each other they are never actually connecting (as they didn't in canon.) .....I'm now realizing that I could have worked in a joke about Schroedinger's box: the only place Life and Death can successfully stop and rest. Alas. I tried to keep the Angel of Death as one of Life's alternate names but between the conflation of Dean/Death/Hell/Heaven/Purgatory and Cas/Life and merging John-Chuck and Sam-Jack another name was going to make me lose track of what's going on, much less the poor suckers reading this.

Anyway it's all very Deep and Symbolic except that they think Dean's impala is a literal deer, they've forgotten what neckties are, and they used the phrase "profound bond" in conversation. Also the irony that Dean and Cas's frankly deranged, unstable, and occasionally toxic friendship rife with communication issues has been warped in the historical record as something that should be emulated in a stable marriage.

This whole fic was really an exercise in what jokes I could imagine a specific priest I know saying with gravitas and full sincerity.

[mypimpademia]

Worth It.

Shinso x reader

TW: Swearing, reader steals a man, pure bad bitchery

Note: this concept has been in my head for literal MONTHS and now I'm finally writing it bc i had no idea how to before (i still dont know how to write it as I'm writing this, I'm bouta wing it like a mf)

I made Intelli the mean girl for this fic bc she a bitch fr

A college AU but its hardly relevant + a lil smau

Towards the end of writing this, I started hating it. I'm so sorry😭

I recommend this song too bc this is where the idea for this fic came from:

This was getting annoying to watch.

How long was Hitoshi planning to stay miserable with that girl?

Intelli and Hitoshi have been dating for awhile now. You had honestly never liked her, but you just barely tolerated her for Hitoshi. But only a few weeks into their relationship, things went to shit.

Intelli became overly controlling over him, and even tried to force him to stop being friends with you, and some other people. You, being his best friend, told him to break up with her.

Of course, Hitoshi agreed that it'd be best to do that. But not even a few hours after talking to him about it, he came back to say it didn't go as planned.

Intelli was holding blackmail over Hitoshi's head, and posed a huge threat to his dreams of becoming a hero. Most of what she said she'd expose was no where near true, but with her intellect she could easily make people believe it.

But frankly, as their relationship went on, the sight of even a strand of her hair made you want to either puke or fight her.

"Toshi~" Intelli cooed, coming up behind Hitoshi and wrapping her arms around his neck.

Hitoshi visibly cringed, but tried to hide it as best as he could.

"Hey, babe." He boredly muttered, doing a terrible job at faking any enthusiasm.

Unlike your best friend, you made no effort to hide the disgust you held for her sheer presence.

"Y/n..." Intelli muttered, her tone dripping with distaste for you, making you scoff. "Mind if I steal Toshi for a bit? No? Thanks-" She attempted to drag Hitoshi away by the arm, but you placed a firm hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"I do mind actually, we were in the middle of a conversation before you interrupted." You told her. She chuckled, before tugging on Hitoshi's arm more.

"Yes, but he's my boyfriend-" She attempted to give reason for her to take him away, before even Hitoshi stopped her.

"I've got a project I need Y/n to help me on, I can stop by your dorm later though?" Hitoshi suggested, lying through his teeth.

Intelli's eyebrow twitched, but she gave in, letting go of his arm. "Bye, Toshi." She said, kissing Hitoshi's cheek and looking you up and down, before walking off.

"Sometimes, I can't tell if she's just plain a bitch or if she's secretly a dumbass." You sighed. "Maybe she's a little bit of both..." Hitoshi chuckled, making you laugh with him.

"You really need to find someone new." You told him, shaking your head. "I know, but I'd rather not chance losing my dream career." He groaned.

"True... Whats your type anyways? I know its not Intell anymore, she's probably traumatized you." You giggled.

"She did, but I think my type is someone who can really understands me, and someone I can have fun with." Hitoshi said.

"Like a best friend?" You questioned him. "Yeah, exactly like a best friend. That'd be my perfect version of a s/o." He replied, expression growing soft.

Since Intelli and Hitoshi's relationship had gone down hill, you've been there for him more than ever. It eventually lead to this unspoken romance that constantly roamed between the two of you.

But because of Intelli, neither of you pursued it, for the wellbeing of Hitoshi.

"Well, if I were you, I'd find someone and just make sure the bitch doesn't find out." You told him. But if you were being honest, it was more like a suggestion, because he really did need, and deserve someone other than Intelli.

"Like cheating?" He gawked. You were both thinking the same thing— Intelli would likely find out. But it was better than simply being stuck with her, so you nodded.

"Well, I'd at least make sure the other person knows. But it'd be worth it."

'I'm worth it.' You thought.

You sighed, looking down at your phone, the time on your phone displayed.

"Shit, I've gotta get to class, we've got a guest lecturing us and my professor will tear me a new one if I miss it." You told him, stuffing your phone into your pocket.

"See you later?" Hitoshi asked you.

You were about to say something about how he told Intelli they'd hang out later, but decided against it.

"Yeah."

◇◇◇◇◇◇

You sighed, feeling your tired feet throb as you walked down the hall to Hitoshi's dorm. Taking one of your backpack straps off your shoulder, you began rummaging around the pocket where you usually kept the spare key to Hitoshi's dorm.

You blinked, as you weren't able to find the key in the small pocket. You began searching your entire bag in the middle of the hallway, taking nearly everything out.

"Shit." You mumbled, thinking you had lost it.

Then you remembered, 'Thats right, I was in a rush this morning. Its on my desk.' You thought to yourself.

Like hell you were going all the way back there though.

You placed your items back into their bags, then pulled out your phone to text Hitoshi.

You hummed, rocking back and forth on your heels as you waited for the door to be opened.

A moment later, you heard the lock click, and the door swung open.

Hitoshi looked you up and down before smiling. Then looked both ways of the hall, before tugging you into the room and shutting the door.

"Why are you treating me like a side piece or something?" You questioned him.

He hummed in confusion as he locked the door.

"Does it feel like that? Sorry." He apologized. "What did she do this time?" You asked, referring to Intelli, as she wash the only person the put Hitoshi this on edge.

"She said if we were doing anything other than a project we'd break up, and you know what that means." He told you, shaking his head.

You hummed, and pulled out your phone.

"What are you doing?" He asked, peering over your shoulder.

"You'll see." You blunty told him.

You sent your message, and tossed your phone onto his bed.

You grabbed onto Hitoshi's collar, tugging him towards you so he was looking you in the eyes, making his breath hitch as his face tinted red.

"You're crazy if you think I'd get you snitched on." You playfully consoled.

"What did you do?" He questioned again, watching you flop down on his bed as you kicked off your shoes.

"I texted Monoma and Momo to post about a project on private snap that only has Intelli on it so that it'll be more believable." You told him.

Hitoshis eyes went wide, as he mentally questioned how you came up with that so fast.

You patted the space next to you, beckoning him to sit with you.

He sat down, shaking his head and laughing.

You and Hitoshi talked for hours and hours, but it each flew by. When you finally checked the time, you barely had enough time left before dorm visiting hours were over.

"What? Already?" Hitoshi gaped, as he watched you sling your backpack over your shoulder.

"Mhm." You hummed.

He groaned, clearly not wanting you to leave, but sat up anyways so he could come see you out.

Hitoshi unlocked the door for you, but upon opening the door, you were both met with an unwanted sight.

"Hey Toshi!" Intelli greeted, completely passing over you even though she saw you.

"H-hey, Intelli." Hitoshi spurred, trying to keep composure.

"I came to help on the project. Even Momo was complaining, so I thought you could use some help." She offered, clearly not convinced that there was actually a project.

But like you said, you weren't going to let him get caught.

"No, we finished it." You told her bluntly, folding your arms across your chest.

But clearly, Intelli didn't plan on letting up either.

"Well then, I could proof read the written portion." She insisted, taking a step towards you.

"We already did that already."

"Well I'm sure there are some mistakes."

"We triple checked."

Hitoshi looked back and forth between the two of you, silently preparing himself to break up a fight.

"You must not get what I mean—" Intelli straightened her posture more than it already was, and leaned towards you. "There's probably mistakes because it was you helping him." She mocked.

Hitoshi already had a hand reaching for your waist, ready to pull you back in a situation where you lunge at Intelli.

"You wanna talk about mistakes? How about we start with you, bit-" Before you could take a single step towards her, you were being pulled back by your waist.

"Watch your dog, Hitoshi." Intelli retorted.

Damn, was she lucky Hitoshi could hold you back.

"At least I bite, unlike some people." You shot back. She narrowed her eyes, leaning towards you again.

"Y'know Y/n, you're not as good as everyone thinks you are. Everyone thinks you're so great, and nice, but I know how you really are." She said.

"You only think that because everyone's not you. Its no goddamn wonder your blackmail folder is thicker than you." You hissed.

Intelli, clearly flustered that you even knew about her blackmail folder, stood straight again. She crossed her arms and cleared her throat slightly.

"You think youre so much better than me. A better person, a better best friend, you probably think you'd make a better girlfriend too, right?" She asked you.

"Of course I do, who the hell wouldn't?" You chuckled.

You felt Hitoshi's grip on your waist loosen. Either he was getting just as angry and was going to let you fight her, or he thought it the tension was thawing.

"Alright, since you're so much better than me, show me." Intelli insisted.

You smirked. "Alright, you asked for it."

Slipping out of Hitoshi's grip, you turned to face him.

His brows raised in surprise and confusion. And next thing he knew, you had him by the collar for the second time today.

But this time, your lips were pressed against his.

It took him a moment to process, but soon, he melted into it. Moving in sync with you, he placed his hands back on your waist.

As much as you wanted to continue, you still had to tell that bitch off.

Pulling away from Hitoshi, wiping away the string of saliva that connected your mouths, you turned back to Intelli.

You walked straight up to her, and placed a hand on your shoulder.

"Toshi doesn't react like that when you kiss him, does he?" You hummed, hearing Intelli audibly gulp.

"Like you said, I'm a better person, a better best friend, and a better girlfriend." You repeated her words from earlier.

"I wouldn't lie to him, expose him, whether what he did was true or false, and i wouldn't hold him back from doing what he wants." You taunted.

"And the thing is—" You leaned in, next to her ear.

"I dont think it, I know it."

"I'm perfect for him." You whispered to her.

Intelli nearly toppled over in defeat, leaning against the nearest wall to support her body.

"Anyways, see you tomorrow, Toshi." You mused, before walking away.

◇◇◇◇◇◇

The next day, you met up with Hitoshi in your free time like usual.

You were aimlessly walking around campus, talking about random topics, laughing as you watched random people do stupid things, and just having fun.

Except now, you were hand in hand, and the air around the two of you seemed lighter. And the look of adoration you and Hitoshi shared was more evident.

But in the middle of it, of course, something had to happen.

Intelli had stopped you both in your tracks, her brainless groupies behind her.

"Did you know everyone is talking about you, Hitoshi? And with all the things they're saying... you might not be able to recover from it." She said snarkily.

"Not too worried about it actually." Hitoshi admitted, a slightly bored tone to his voice.

"Tch, well you should be. So tell me, was she worth it, Hitoshi?" She inclined.

Hitoshi looked over at you, a grin spreading across his face.

"Hell yeah."

[mysticalwaterdroplet]

WARNING! Looooooooooooong venting ahead about why d/h sucks. So if you ship it and have somehow Goren lost in this tag, turn around, cuz if you continue you might get hurt. You have been warned. Also I guess language warning and mature themes...? Just to be safe. I'd also like to give y'all a little side note: I guess I am what people would call a Hawks stan. I personally really like his character and find him intriguing, however I am completely capable of admitting that Hawks has done sum fucked up shit. I still however "stan" Hawks, so I'm going to show why d/h is shit from a logical Hawks stans point of view. Anyways, without delving too deep into the whole Dabi vs Hawks stuff, since I'm not here for it, I'm here to talk about the shitshow that's dabihawks. So, first of all I'll give y'all a lil back story as to why I'm here. Long story short: I accidentally stumbled upon some d/h art and people who still defend the ship (with already debunked theories mind you), I felt kinda sick to my stomach, so I need to vent. Like they were referring to the fight where Hawks killed Twice and basically said: "DiD yOu SeE hOw HaWkS wAs OnLy LoOkInG dAbI iN tHe EyEs ThE wHoLe TiMe. 🤪 ThAt'S sO gAy!?!?!??!??" Bish, where was Hawks and Dabi supposed to look at? THE WALL??? They were fighting! Of course they have to keep an eye on each other. They were also talking about how "DaBi JuSt GoT jElLy CaUsE HaWkS wAs HaNgInG oUt WiTh TwIcE, aNd Is JuSt ClAiMiNg HaWkS!" And they were saying so much more nasty shit that I'd like to write here, but I don't think I physically can, and I also want to spare everyones brains, cuz I already took the L, like if any of y'all know how to get back my brain cells hit me up. I also noticed a common theme of people making Hawks the bottom to like a point where they thirsted over the idea of Dabi "destroying" Hawks' insides, if you know what I mean. Which seems to be the opposite for many of you guys here with finding stuff where Dabi is the bottom? I mean I know many of you guys probably don't like Hawks, but you gotta admit that it's fucked up to think that these shippers think it's hot that one of the people in their makeshift relationship gets seriously hurt in the act without consent. Whether it is Dabi or Hawks they put in that position is irrelevant, they literally like the ship because it's toxic and someone gets hurt. Like in what world would Hawks let Dabi willingly even get close to him or vice versa. We all know damn well that they despise each other. Horikoshi has literally shown that these two never trusted each other, never even tolerated each others shit, so why oh why did this become a thing?! Also, and I know that this can sound annoying to some people... But as a Hawks stan, I don't understand how people can say: "YeAh, I sTaN HaWkS UwU 👉👈, hIm AnD dAbI dEsErVe eAcH oThEr AnD aRe So GoOd ToGeThEr." "ThEy DeFo FuKiN'! Is CaNoN! 🤪" Like:

So... Are we just gonna forget that Dabi literally burnt Hawks' wings off? (Which was understandable looking at the context.) Or how Dabi sent some goons after his mother? Or the fact that Hawks literally idolised the very man that Dabi hates with a burning passion? The shippers: "Oh, BuT hIs WiNgS wIlL gRoW bA-" Bish! The fact that Hawks didn't die or that his wings are allegedly growing back doesn't mean the ship is relevant again. Hoooooo... it's like I can't catch a breather once in a while. How are people trynna stan someone and then say: "Yeah, let's pair our favourite person with the person that is trying to hurt them." HOW!? My initial reaction when Hawks and Dabi interact is: "Fuck. Someone's gonna get hurt." Like if I could have it my way Dabi wouldn't be anywhere near Hawks, they are a danger to eachother. There is no damn way I'd want to see the character I stan for hurt, so why do so many damn stans ship it! I just can't wrap my mind around the "appeal". I just don't see the sexual tension that these people talk about. Anyway I could probably write a whole ass book as to why I personally don't like this ship

but frankly I don't wanna waste your time since it's toxic.

I would like to however debunk a couple of already debunked theories that people use justify the relevance of d/h.

The "childhood friends" theory: Yup. People still cling to it. However Horikoshi literally trashed, stomped on and lit the theory on fire. We saw that Touya went to a regular school and was trained personally by Endeavor. While Hawks was in the commission. There is no way that they knew each other. The way Dabi got Hawks' real name was through his mother. Dabi ain't dumb, he's actually smart and calculating to a point it's almost a little scary.

The "Dabi freed Hawks and Hawks will turn into a villain": Boi.... Dabi didn't free Hawks off anything. Dabi tried to kill him and exposed Hawks and his wrongdoings to the world. That ain't love. Hawks isn't even Dabi's main focus, Hawks is literally just one insignificant part of Dabi's plan. Also, like Horikoshi has wonderfully brought into light, Hawks would never turn to villainy. He didn't even kill Best Jeanist. And he's still, after everything, saying "Endeavor is in trouble." Clearly insinuating that he's going to still help Endeavor. This man is the last person to just become a villain. And people have the audacity to say he'd become a villain because of Dabi. I have no words.

Besides even if for example the childhood friends theory was true (which it isn't, but let's humour the thought) or even IF they were foils, it wouldn't change shit. We'd still be in this situation where they despise each other. Childhood friends wouldn't automatically mean that they'd get along as adults.

-------------------------------------------

Anyways, if you made it this far, you're a damn trooper. Thanks for letting me vent.

And as a short note to end on: I hope I didn't come off as too aggressive. That's not my intention here. Also the text is way less polished and thought out than I'd like it to be, but I honestly don't have the time or energy to give y'all a publishable version of "Why d/h sucks": the Book. So instead you get this. A hastily put together vent cuz I saw sum shit alright.

TLDR: People with a brain can see that these two aren't in love. There has to be some major mental gymnastics in play to get any whiff of chemistry from these two.