#but the WORST and most COMPELLING part is that you can SO clearly see his point a to point b.

[moe-broey]

It's just. The level of sheer premeditation. How he knew Exactly what to say to convince Anna to be on board

How he said THIS.

And then.

GOD.

[justalildumpling]

chapter 26: my soulmate

wc: 0.6k

If Jeno was going to be completely honest, he had no fucking clue what he was doing — partially due to acting upon his fight or flight response when you had mentioned the whole girlfriend ordeal. 

It wasn’t like he had never thought about making the two of you official (who was he kidding, he thought about it almost every day). But as a certified simp and part-time samoyed puppy, he wanted everything to be perfect, and if perfect meant standing on an empty beach digging up a pretty pathway and scattering rose petals for the past three hours, he would do it.

It had been around half an hour since he had texted you to come to this very specific beach — which he spent every minute anxiously fiddling with the bouquet of roses in one hand and fixing his wind-swept locks in the other. However, when he spotted your car pull up next to the boardwalk, he realised that he was not prepared for this moment, especially seeing the way your eyes sparkled as you met his gaze.

There was a little cute skip in your step as you hurriedly down the steps and to his position on the beach, your white cocktail dress dancing in the wind and the corners of your lips gradually rising as you got closer. 

Jeno could almost see the wedding arches and bells in the background, almost dropping the bouquet on the sandy surface as his hands instinctively reached out to hold you in some way.

“Jeno, what’s with all this?” You squealed, receiving the roses from his shaky grasp.

It was tranquil in that moment for the boy, with the girl of his dreams inhabiting the most beautiful smile and sharing the sweetest gaze with his little self, like all anxieties had washed away with his eyes crinkling into crescent moons and the words of “Will you accept to be my soulmate Y/N?” tumbling out of his lips without a second thought.

Your mouth parted for a split second, eyes hammering with a sense of shock and delight before a soft look adorned your face, “You finally accepted the soulmate request huh?” 

Jeno rolled his eyes, “Who says we can’t be both twin flames and soulmates?” 

You smiled, placing the bouquet on the sand before enclosing your arms around his neck, “Maybe we can test that theory,” you leaned closer into his ear, whispering the next few words, “I heard that if you kiss me and the world doesn’t blow up, we were made for each other.” 

Jeno could only chuckle, shaking his head, “You’re always full of surprises aren't you?” 

“Well, clearly you liked the suspense so now we’re here aren't we?” 

You scrunched your nose in glee, your giggles tickling his lips before he closed the gap. It almost felt like a scene out of a movie, with the waves crashing into the sand not too far into the distance and the rose petals once scattered neatly onto the path circling their figures from the wind and most importantly you, the way your laughs sounded so melodic in his ears, your perfect smile glistening in the golden sunlight and how he could finally call you his. 

Jeno didn’t vibe with chaos and unpredictability. But weirdly enough, the suspense and wrecking ball of events you had brought into his boring old life he found himself compelled to. And for the first time, he found himself agreeing with Chenle and his weird beliefs of the universe because a part of him began thinking that he had indeed found his soulmate, his other half, his twin flame.

masterlist || previous | next 

pairing: jeno x fem! reader

synopsis: chenle was convinced that his two introverted friends were destined for each other, so what does he do? bribe them to text each other of course ⎯ or alternatively, when jeno started to fall for an anonymous mutual friend of chenle's

genre: social media au, strangers to lovers, college au, FLUFF, crack

warnings: swearing

note: sorry for the delayed and short updateKAEBFOWWGBW ive been sick for the past week and been stuck in the worst writers block ever😭 but GUYSSSS the finale's next week can u believe it????

taglist: open! feel free to send an ask or comment to be added :))) ~ @babyjenono @btssf9nct @baekksore @411star @jenyoonoh @igotkpoops @calumsmut @hs825 @liliansun @raikea10 @loveleejn @luv4jeno @rosabella1009 @ismileeprnc-responder @jenoists @222brainrot @sexygrass @culterycollector @kikookii @minkyuncutie @mrsyixingunicorn10 @tytrackfebreze @sehunniepot @choi-beomgyulvr @jaeminnanaaa17 @multifandomania06 @aerislovjeno @spilled-coffee-cup @artstaeh @tddyhyck @jeongintwt @aerivrs

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[ganondoodle]

I probably still wouldn’t have been a big fan of the game, but I don’t think I would have been NEARLY as upset about TotK if BotW didn’t seem like it was so obviously setting up plot points for a sequel. Like, you’re very clearly MEANT to wonder what malice is, and how Ganon became the Calamity instead of just the Demon King. Fi is awake again, where are they going either that? What’s the deal with the Triforce-shaped symbol on Zelda’s hand? There were a LOT of other things like that, and many of them had to do with overarching lore for the series.

I get it if they want to reboot the series, but “BotW 2” was the single worst game you could have done that with. It could have been an amazing conclusion to the original continuity.

EXACTLY, you, you get it

botw felt like the introduction to a vast world with secrets and hints to things that were planned to become a bigger thing- a big giant game as a big giant set up, and then ... like totk likes to do alot, it lacks a pay off, and that is something it even does within itself, cosntantly, set up and no pay off, or set up and the most boring and uninspired pay off you can really not even call that, from the bigger things like the whole dragon thing being hammered into your head as irreversible and then it IS reversible.. out of nowhere without you having to do fuck all, the whole thing with the ancient hero beign a big mystery with lots of interesting ideas attached and then its some weird ass dog creature that doesnt resemble any other race with, of course, sonau armor, bc there nothing that isnt sonau in that game, even finding the old treasure maps you can find that then lead to amiibo stuff from botw id call that

botw wasnt that great with rewards either but exploring the world and wondering about those, surely intentionally, placed mysterious and intriguing designs and places did alot for making it so interesting to think about, totk fumbles it all and even the new stuff doesnt even come close to that environmental storytelling botw was so great at, sonau ruins? ha they look entirely different than in botw actually, bc those were built by hylians you see, the actual sonau stuff is in prime condition considering the time thats passed and its all the same blank blocky blocks that serve no purpose but to be a place for you to find a thing or exchange some currency- the most you can think about it is ... that the sonau hollowed out the entire underground of hyrule, every inch of the map, ... which is WEIRD and doesnt exactly make them look that good but ... thats all there is

at least with the shiekah it made somewaht more sense and it felt much less .. invasive? and you didnt have anyone from that time to talk to, other than dead monks whos only purpose is to give you their last piece of their own spirit, but in totk ... raurus ghost and mineru too are both just there to talk to but DONT tell you shit but vague hints that were already clear, the sky islands used to be on the ground? oh you dont say, you see them there in the stupid memories! and dont get to know how they got up there and theres nothing that can clue you in to that, its just sonau magic yet again i guess

dont even get me started on the whole malice/miasma thing, it made so much SENSE that there was a source of it, someone that has keep kept in a horrible place just between life and death for thousands of years trying to break free by their hate and anger manifesting to such a degree its literally spilling out and building creppy eyeballs, mouths and ribcage like structures like they are trying to rebuild themsleves outside of their awful prison no one knows about is so damn compelling, but no, actually, the guy trapped there was the msot evilest evar, was sealed bc him evil and no other motive, and the previously mentioned stuff is pretty much utterly unceonnected, and his magic beign miasma with red instead of pink and no creepy body parts was the true version of it, that pink one was its own thing heehooo SHUT UP argh

it doesnt help that really, i dont feel like the sonau were set up either, they were a tiny part in botw, really only serving to make the world seem more ancient and more full of history, having ruins from a past civilization there you know nothing about and cant find out more is so good, its compelling and sad and makes the world feel more real, just shoving them into everything, being the center of attention all of thes udden and not even the architecure fitting feels so ... forced, i really truly believe the og sonau werent meant to be more than that, but in their fear of the game being too similarly looking like botw they took the sonau to replace the shiekah with them- imo the shiekah were the ones set up to be deeper explored in botw, with their whole misstreatment by the royal family in the past, monk miz kyoshia reacting the same way a yiga commander would was deliberate and brings up even more interesting ideas, the comments about where the mysterious energy the ancient shiekah used to power everything being concentrated in certain regions?? thats a big ass set up, the fact that the center of what is signaling everything to reactivate being below hyrule castle? the fact the whole arena thing was BUILT INTO THE CASTLE or it on top of it is so??? cool??? and sso damn intriguing, we are scratching the surface of their history- but then no, actually, the sonau are the cool new shit those other ones just uh ... disappear, also the sonau did everythign the shiekah did but even better wayy before them haha

its like they didnt want to tackle the more complicated stuff with the shiekah, their relationship to the royal family and how the yiga ... have a point and a good reason- so they replaced them with entirely new purely goodest good guys that did the same stuff before them with none of the history attached :))

this is why im so insistent on it not really being a sequel, thers no follow up on anything that was set up, NOTHING, and no, a couple having a kid now or whatever isnt a follow up on an interesting set up, how hard is it to understand that-

.... listen to me rambling, you probably know all that already nhjdfkbnkd

(i know i always bring up the shiekah but ... they were so central in botw, while also not taking up every single corner- unlike some other ones >_____>, with so much interesting stuff to connect and think about, i cared about them so much i felt kicked down the stairs by their treatment in totk)

[exuberantocean]

I want to talk about responsibility in Our Flag Means Death. And I want to talk about it specifically after watching Stede blame himself for Ed's actions and I want to talk about it after watching a number of people in fandom blaming Izzy for Ed's actions.

Because they were Ed's actions. Ed absolutely did those things. No one forced him to attempt to kill Lucius. No one forced him to strand half the crew or torture Izzy or drive the boat into that storm. These are things Ed did of his own free will.

I hope, I really hope that people understand that ultimately the one responsible for Ed's actions is, well, Ed. Because he was the one to do them. Was his mental health good at the time? Ha, God no. But while that certainly makes it easier to understand his actions, it doesn't excuse them and it doesn't make them right. They are still his actions, his responsibility.

Did Stede's failure to show up at the end of season 1 cause Ed's mental state? Look, it was crushing (for both of them in different ways really). But look, Ed could have assumed something happened to Stede (which really, something did happen to Stede) rather than leap to the conclusion that Stede rejected him. And even given that, most people who break up with or are rejected by a loved one don't do *vague handwave at the first 3 episodes of season 2* ...all that.

There's nothing wrong with Ed feeling rejected and sad. There's a hell of a lot wrong with his actions.

Did Izzy's words and actions cause Ed's mental state? Well, obviously they didn't help. If I recall correctly, Izzy's made some sort of comment to Stede about ruining Blackbeard which surely contibuted to Stede's mental state and his actions at the end of s1 but, you know, Stede's a grown man and his actions are his own. Similarly, Izzy's taunts to Ed at the end of s1 come from a place where Izzy had a specific idea of how Ed was that was, well, perhaps not as wrong as some fans would like to think, but certainly incomplete, lacking, perhaps even misunderstood.

Perhaps misunderstood works best. Izzy knows the confidence that Blackbeard has always seemed to hold, the command, the compacity for violence, but he lacks the understanding of who Ed is. It's understandable that Izzy would want that back (I mean, I hate to break it to you, but they're pirates, the violence thing is part of all that). But, you know, I don't think Izzy's ever been a character motivated by just a desire to fuck things up. He's no Iago. Izzy clearly loves Blackbeard and that's perhaps his greatest flaw. He loves Blackbeard so much, but doesn't understand Ed at all.* ** Regardless of Izzy's motivations, he does play a significant role in escalating the situation. He words contribute to both Stede and Ed's turmoil. I'm not saying he has zero accountability here.

But.

Ed always had a choice one what to do, how to react. His actions remain his own. He could have ignored him, or tried to get over Stede or had Izzy tossed off the ship or any number of things. Instead, Ed chose to do what he did.

More importantly, by denying or ignoring Ed's own capability for his own actions, I feel like it overlooks what I see as the most powerful potential storyline in the show (obviously, I have no clue if they'll actually go this way, but I hope they do).

Ed, the man who feels unlovable has done horrible things. And, just maybe, he can still be loved. (Oh let's face it, we know he will be - he is already by Stede.) I don't even mean just by Stede (I mean, let's face it, Stede's likely to continue blaming himself for this), but by the crew he so badly treated. It will be interesting to see how things move forward. Regardless, I can't wait to see what happens next.

Who hasn't done horrible things? I mean, hopefully not at Ed levels of horrible. But God, what a lesson to be learned, to be loved even after your worst. One of the reason I think we humans are so compelled to create and follow stories is that we learn so well through them. How many of us out there feel unlovable, unloved, as deeply as Ed? How many of us are drowning in our misery, pulled down by weight of our own trauma, or our wrongdoings or perceived wrongdoings?

And how many of us are just as wrong as Ed was? Not because we aren't capable of bad-because new alert-we all are, but because we aren't defined by that and because we aren't destined to be defined by our darkest moments. And because humanity is even more defined by it's compacity to love and forgive than it is for our compacity to hurt and destroy.

Because I want to watch both that boat and it's co-captain rebuilt together.

*This is, perhaps, why Ed could never love Izzy. Because all Izzy saw was Blackbeard and Ed needed someone to love Ed - someone he could be Ed with and that be okay. Perhaps things will shift between Ed and Izzy after this...I mean, things must shift between the two after this, but perhaps Izzy will finally start seeing Ed? Who knows.

I also think Izzy's work at protecting the crew and his attempt to fix the situation (woefully too late) is worth something).

[makieos]

on sand in that fight scene

and ramblings about why ray is such a great character

i genuinely feel like we have to be watching different shows and it’s starting to slightly bother me. these are just some thoughts on what ive seen said about sand (and ray) in light of the recent episode, specifically the fight scene.

let me start with the following: sand hasn’t ever thought his love was gonna heal ray. i honest to god don’t see how you could ever reach that conclusion. one of the main things about episode 10 is that he’s pushing him to get professional help - he’s under no impression that he could ‘fix’ ray by himself.

‘he made everything about himself during the fight scene’ doesn’t sit right with me at all. saying that he cares about ray is not making everything about himself. it’s just the truth. you’d EXPECT a person to say this when someone’s berating them for not caring, especially if it’s someone they love. saying ‘you think i have no dignity’ isn’t making everything about himself, it’s a reply to ray accusing him of only caring about money. you’d EXPECT a person to be hurt at that kind of comment - to voice it - especially a person like sand, who’s made his stance on money when it comes to his personal relationships clear.

i’ve said this before, but during the fight scene, the worst thing sand did is not explain clearly - saying he was hired but not explaining the context. surprisingly, just like you can see the reasoning behind ray’s actions, empathize with them, you actually CAN see the reasoning behind sand’s too! might be shocking but he’s actually not an asshole just for fun!

i understand being annoyed at sand for not talking. i even understand thinking that maybe there’s something he has to apologize for. but claiming that in his self-centeredness he - and the show - are always making out ray to be the asshole who needs to apologize is almost uncomfortable for me. not only because sand is just… not self absorbed, but also because - and i know some people might not want to hear this - ray HAS been an asshole, and he SHOULD apologize. not just for last episode.

ray’s reaction to finding out sand had ‘duped’ him is so honest that it’s almost devastating in its rawness, in its intensity. his feelings are valid and expected, but your feelings of pain being valid and expected doesn’t ABSOLVE you of being hurtful towards someone else. if you’re an asshole while at an emotional high, you’re not excused for it. you’re not blameless. the right thing to do is apologize.

saying ray’s feelings are being dismissed by the narrative is borderline outrageous to me. in the last scene, his feelings ARE acknowledged, they’re spelled out for the viewer - ‘i was so angry because I care for you’. in the last scene, the viewer is MADE to empathize with ray, to understand him in case they hadn’t just yet. they’re also made to understand that he HAS ultimately made mistakes and most importantly - that he’s sorry for them. that he wants to apologize.

this approach to ray of ‘he’s always made out to be the asshole’ ‘his mistakes are a result of someone else’s goading’ is so reductionist and it bothers me because I feel like it’s a genuine disservice to his character. ray is such compelling character BECAUSE he’s not perfect, not DESPITE it. because he messes up, and he feels things that are painful and reacts to them. because he’s human. his faults are a part of his journey - a part of his recovery. we don’t need to erase them to love him.

[ghostradiodylan]

In general Ryan gets so mistreated and overhated by the fandom and it makes me sad because I really like Ryan even in my first playthrough :/ I get that the part where he was arguing with Laura about the existence of werewolves when he watched Nick transform and run out the window was kind of dumb but he’s all around a great character who’s brave and helpful and he helped save everyone’s lives in the best ending….

While I don’t agree with all of their actions I can’t bring myself to hate on any of the counselors. They’re all young adults who are stuck in a horrifying and traumatic situation, of course they’re going to be flawed and not perfect. It just baffles me how Travis, Constance, Jedidiah and Eliza do the most horrible things in the game yet people viciously hate on Ryan : (

Oh, the actual adults in the game are absolutely The Worst. (Even Chris, though I think he wants to help, is incredibly negligent at best).

I think there are a few things happening here that can turn people against Ryan (and I'm not saying anyone has to like him as a character, we all have characters we vibe with and ones we don't, but it's worth examining why we don't vibe with some characters especially when those characters are Black or other POC, LGBTQ, and ND-coded).

Ryan is a victim of some of the less compelling writing choices in the game IMO. They don't have anything to do with his character, really, he's generally well-written, but some of the things that were cut from the game, and the way the relationships unravel in the latter half of the game does Ryan kind of dirty.

First of all, his relationship with Chris Hackett isn't fleshed out enough for a lot of players to understand why he's willing to sacrifice so much on the hope that his mentor isn't actually a werewolf (or a deeply irresponsible asshole of a boss). If they'd left in the scene of Chris following up with Ryan about following his dreams and going to animation school and the initial confrontation with Chris that was patched out, where Ryan questions how he hid this from them all this time when he cared about them and Ryan trusted him (literally heartbreaking to watch tbh 🥺), it might have been a little easier for players to empathize with his loyalty to Chris. This kid has no known father, absentee mother, aging grandparents, a sister he clearly feels a lot of responsibility for, and his father figure who he goes to for advice left him in the worst possible situation. Of course he's going to be in denial about that and about him being a werewolf until he sees it for himself, and then Ryan has to kill him. It's so fucking tragic. And he doesn't even get a second to mourn or even react because the Silas plotline kicks in immediately (and they spent all the animated tears budget on Jacob).

Then there's Ryan's relationship with Dylan, which I could (and will) write about for days. Based on the game we got, plus the cut content, I don't think Ryan was ever supposed to have the option to get with Kaitlyn. I think that's a red herring that allows homophobic players to avoid a gay kiss (kind of a fucked up use of a BAMF character and Brenda Song's star power but, ok). I don't think he was ever supposed to get to romance Laura either. But I do think he was meant to be able to either end up with Dylan, or decisively not end up with him. If they'd kept the relationship system that we still have traces of but no actual structure for, then his ability to say 'maybe neither' to Laura wouldn't be something players held against him because it would have a basis in the choices we've made as Ryan (and Dylan) so far. As it stands, it feels like that is unsupported by what's happened in the game when we've had Dylan and Ryan flirting with each other and taking an obvious interest in each other since they were introduced.

Even if you choose the less favorable dialogue options, Dylan and Ryan are never really shown to be truly at odds (with the possible exception of the gun argument, but even that pretty much smooths over in the end). Even if you have them be hard-headed assholes to each other, they still have their heart-to-heart on the way to the radio hut (which I really think was supposed to have an alternative if they had low relationship stats).

Complicating matters is the fact that a lot of people really love Dylan. Obviously I'm one of them, I mean, look at my url and writing choices. I think Miles gives the best performance of the game, hands down (and I think all the actors did really well tbh). He's a great actor (his line reads are flawless and that sassy boy body language? I die.) but he also gets a lot to work with in terms of the script. Dylan is complex and compelling in a way that tends to be highly relatable for most people. He's probably neurodivergent (ADHD) but it's portrayed in a more palatable way for neurotypical people. Plus, as an audience, we are primed to empathize with the person who wants to be wanted, who is afraid of rejection, who has the cute crush that we want to see reciprocated and is trying not to get their heart stomped on. We've all been there! That's a centuries-old trope in drama and literature for a reason. And while Ryan does not owe Dylan reciprocation, we see some pretty clear signs of it at least being possible. So the game sort of dangles it in front of players like we can make that happen with our choices and then makes a half-baked attempt to snatch it away. That annoys people and, I think at least partially because Ryan's race and stoic demeanor (/autism) have people subconsciously primed to view him negatively, they take that out on him instead of the SMG writers who opted for that rather than fleshing out the relationships any further for the latter half of the game.

Like, yes, it's a horror game not a dating sim (Ryan and Dylan dating sim DLC when tho??), but you spend so much time building relationships that end up not mattering to the outcome of the game, I get why that's frustrating for people. It's frustrating for me! I just think being mad at Ryan over it is the wrong take. I still see people saying "Dylan deserves better than Ryan." Dylan and Ryan both deserve to exist in a finished fucking game where we have the option to get them together or not, but blaming whatever happens, or doesn't, on Ryan as a character is kinda trash.

[witlesswitnesstm]

Thinking about how Trina starts Falsettos saying that Jason is Marvin’s son in Please come to our house, but then she says that Jason is her and Marvin’s son in Year of the child. I think it’s very sweet, but it’s also kind of tragic that she associates all of Jason’s bad traits as being inherited from Marvin.

If I really wanted to be an asshole, I could say that the only reason Trina said that Jason was her child as well is because she was in competition with Marvin during that part. (I don’t believe this but this is if you wanted to interpret it in the worst possible way.)

However, the song ends off with everyone saying that Jason is their child so, I mean, that’s sweet.

Can I go on a tangent? I don’t think Trina is perfect. I mean, none of the characters are. She’s obviously not as terrible as most of the other characters, and her arc is very sympathetic, but sometimes the way she treats/talks about Jason is a little concerning to me. (But that probably comes from my general distrust of all parents.) She very clearly projects onto Jason in Everyone tells Jason to see a psychiatrist, with the line “You and I must trust our emotions, make no commotions” and there’s also “Don’t be disgusting, be yourself!” in Please come to our house. She is so worried about appearances throughout the whole play, and it makes sense for the time, but I don’t think that really, absolves it? I’m sure it probably also comes from her fear of being alone, so she complies to everyone’s wants, but she kind of controls Jason in the process.

I might be looking way too far into this, but it also seems like at least part of the reason she wanted Jason to see a psychiatrist is so that she could talk to Mendel more. She invites Mendel over excessively (according to Marvin), she makes intricate dishes for Mendel, she’s nervous about Jason acting out around Mendel, and so on. It feels a little shitty cause Jason was clearly looking for answers about himself and Trina lets her feelings towards Mendel outweigh trying to consider others that could actually help Jason in the way he needs. And I feel kind of bad for Jason cause he doesn’t have friends, so the only people he can really rely on to get help are his parents.

I’m not denying that Marvin also wanted Jason to see Mendel, but I give him more of the benefit of the doubt cause he had been seeing Mendel for years already, and just assumed that he was a good psychiatrist. (He’s not.)

There’s also the line “Jason calms me” in A day in Falsettoland which is very vague, and most likely just describes how seeing Jason makes her feel calm, but the worst possible interpretation of this line is that she might be spilling all her problems to Jason, leading to him becoming a kind of therapist for her (ironically.)

But again, that’s just the worst possible interpretation, I really have no clue how morally gray these characters are intended to be, so literally any other interpretations are valid.

And this is not to say that I hate Trina, far from it actually. I absolutely adore Trina’s arc and earlier today I started crying over Holding to the ground cause god does she go *through* it in this trilogy. She has so much depth and the misogyny she deals with is written and addressed in such a compelling way. I have a so much empathy for her regarding her reoccurring themes of suicide/self harm considering it’s not something I’m unfamiliar with, and like, god man I love Trina

[insidethekaleidoscope]

Ok, saw a post by @hernameslucy, and it activated alll the Kipps brainworms. Turns out that I have a loooot of thoughts about the idea that Kipps had a relationship with the Lockwoods/Jessica and at least in part blamed Lockwood for Jessica's death. I find it compelling, but also when you draw out all of the implications it is so incredibly, utterly devastating. Anyway here's my very long analysis of how the Lockwood and Kipps rivalry might have come about (in addition to the cannon poke to the bum with a fencing foil...). After Jessica's death, I could see Kipps in the moment as a grieving teenager blaming Lockwood, and that would be painful for Lockwood on multiple levels. He’s losing out on whatever support Kipps might have offered him otherwise, and it reinforces Lockwood’s own shame around his culpability in Jessica's death. That brings this really complicated edge to Lockwood’s feelings towards Kipps because you have both a very real and very deep grievance (he would be very rightfully angry at Kipps for blaming him for something that really wasn't in his control) and also a reminder of his biggest regret (not being present when Jessica broke the vase).

This second point is where you have Lockwood projecting some of his own emotions onto Kipps. At the beginning of the series Lockwood does blame himself, and he's also very much running away from that feeling. When he finally shows Jessica's room to Lucy and George he lies about where exactly he was at the time because he's not ready to confront that shame, and there's likely a small part of him that is convinced that they will blame him as well (since there's a part of him that believes they rightfully should). Before Lockwood tells Lucy his full account of the day and in part acknowledges his own feelings of culpability, he's still very much trying to bury and push away those emotions. If Kipps really did blame him, that would make Kipps a very difficult person to be around because his very presence reminds Lockwood of the shame he's been avoiding.

On top of that, I think at that point in Lockwood's emotional arc there's likely a part of him that sees Kipps as the person that has the most clear-eyed view of him. The fact that Lockwood blames himself for Jessica's death and has acknowledged that fact to no-one would likely leave him with this feeling that he's actually lying to the important people in his life (among other things, this is supported in the show by Lockwood's line to Lucy that "there are things that I haven't told you about myself that are probably for your own good").

With Kipps being the only person who knows what Lockwood believes to be a terrible truth about himself, he could very easily become a place for Lockwood to externalize his own shame. Any attempts to prove Kipps wrong could be read as just as much an attempt to prove wrong his own worst judgments of himself. As for Kipps, I think an initial response of anger towards Lockwood is difficult to take but understandable. What's harder for me to reconcile is that over the years Kipps would continue to hold onto the belief that Lockwood really was at fault for Jessica's death. He's enough older that I think after the initial intensity of the grief passed, he would likely feel a bit ashamed for having blamed a child for something so clearly out of their control. As for why he would continue to antagonize Lockwood years later, I can think of a few possibilities.

The saddest of them is that he simply allowed his shame to curdle. Instead of acknowledging his fault, he doubled down on externalizing his emotions onto Lockwood. Clearly Lockwood had to be at fault because otherwise Kipps would need to fully acknowledge what he had done in placing the weight of blame onto a grieving child. I don't like this explanation as much because 1. I think Kipps is more compassionate than that even from the beginning (we stan one (1) Quill Kipps in this house) and 2. I don't think that this is a kind of hurt that could just be gradually smoothed over without some kind of reckoning between the two of them.

I think what's more likely is that sometime before the events of the series, Kipps did try to repair his wrong and Lockwood lashed out at him. Again, I think that Kipps would still be in the wrong in this situation both as the older of the two and as the party that added insult to injury. However, Kipps is also still a grieving teenager too, and in this instance he's coming to Lockwood with some vulnerability, admitting wrong and also likely seeking out company and commiseration in his grief. He's doing a difficult thing while also nursing his own grief, and he's met with coldness and anger. That would be hard to take.

This kind of hurt I could see slowly fading over time as they develop a relationship, since it places them on something closer to level footing. I still think they would have to acknowledge it at some point, but it also seems possible that that's just something Lucy was never privy to.

[sflow-er]

Regarding your August and justice reply, I don't think you take in consideration what August wants when you say you hope he gets helps and realises he's been damaging others. Especially because he is well aware of the long lasting damages he has caused and other than being scared of being found and facing consequences, he hasn't shown to regret or be sorry for the pain and suffering he's responsible of. He's sorry his wrongdoings could cause him problems if found out.

I don't think he'll get any kind of judicial nor poetic justice. I think he'll be shown to kept in his way for the rest of his life, maybe not protected by the crown, but he won't let go of his habits not because he can't be rehabilitated. But because he doesn't want rehabilitatio. And you cannot help someone who doesn't want to be helped.

That's my favourite thing about August, actually: he is conscious of who he is and I don't believe anything can change his ways. Not even love. Opposite to Wille's journey where love changed it all.

About sullying wilmon's eventual happy ending? I think they deserve to be happy away from August's perceived toxicity but also, being away from him would be the only justice they could get.

TL;DR: I think August represents traditions and the nobility and that cannot be changed. Because they don't want to be changed. Just as August who enjoys his 'bad ways' and which make him such a compelling character to other too good characters like Simon or Wille.

I assume you're the original anon - thank you for getting back to me! EDIT: I stand corrected! Thanks for chiming in, August anon 2!

I understand your position, and I agree with parts of it. I'm going to put a cut here in case someone sees this who doesn't want to read any speculation on S3 - I wouldn't say there are any spoilers below, but I don't want to ruin anything for anyone.

The start of your text actually aligns with what I mean when I say August doesn't fully understand the gravity of his actions or regret the harm he caused to Simon. I just don't believe he understands the long-lasting damage he caused. I think August's demeanour when the damage to Simon comes up and sometimes even when talking to Wille suggests that he doesn't truly get why people are making such a big deal out of the video. He wanted to hurt Wille and Simon, he understands that he succeeded, and he understands that he betrayed Wille. However, I think there are many aspects to it that he, as an incredibly privileged and emotionally immature straight man, simply cannot understand. Such as the fact that the video will come up for the rest of Simon's life when applying to jobs and such, or that outing Wille to the world and subjecting him to homophobic hate etc. was nowhere near proportionate to Wille's humiliation of him in front of their peers. We agree that August hasn't shown much remorse. I do think it's possible he feels some genuine regret for the pain he caused Wille, who is a member of his family and someone he was meant to be loyal to, because that's the kind of damage he's been taught to consider. But he doesn't feel as much regret on a more general human decency level, especially for Simon. You are right that most of his regret is purely based on his fear of punishment, and that isn't the kind of regret that can lead to emotional growth. As to your points about August not wanting to change his ways... It's true that he hasn't wanted to so far, but I reject the idea that he couldn't still realise he needs to. The fact is that August already voiced to Sara in S2 that he felt like there was "something wrong inside his head" and that he felt like "the worst person in the world", and he clearly wasn't doing well in between Lucia and the start of their relationship. If he ends up back in that headspace in S3, after the experience of having been expected to take responsibility for the first time in his life and without the miracle solution of the crown being dangled in front of him... I do think it's still possible for him to reach a point where he finally chooses differently. Whether that's him hitting rock bottom, being forced to talk to a counsellor as part of a legal punishment, realising that the breathing exercise Sara taught him and potentially having to care for Rousseau helps him, or something else. On that note, I would also like to push back just a tiny bit on what you said about love changing everything for Wille and nothing for August. Simon's love acted as the catalyst for Wille's change, but the change only happened when the internal processes sparked by that love and his own betrayal of it had run their course. He also needed counselling to get there.

We don't know yet if Sara's love or August's betrayal of that love ends up catalysing anything in him. Not in terms of winning her back, but in terms of highlighting the contrast between her kindness and desire to hold him accountable for his failings vs. his own and his family's unkindness and lack of accountability. That remains to be seen in S3.

As you said, the alternative is for August to stick to his bad ways for the rest of his life - and as I tried to say without saying it directly, I fear his life may not be very long if he does. We've already seen him physically punishing himself for his failings, both with overexertion and not eating, so we know he is prone to self-harm. He's also addicted to the ADHD meds, just like his father was addicted to whatever it was. We know Carl Johan chose to take his own life in the face of ruin, and that August idolises him and must've been brought up with the same kind of worldview.

So, August is displaying some serious warning signs of going down the same path as his father, and unless we get at least some signs to the contrary before the credits roll on the finale, I don't think I personally can find any joy in his defeat/fall from grace. Again, I don't mean we need to see his growth in the show or that I want to see him forgiven by his victims in S3. They certainly deserve to be rid of his toxicity, and even if he does decide to change his ways, he's got a very long road ahead.

But I understand that you feel differently and place more weight on August not wanting to change! It's a very good point that he represents harmful traditions and the nobility, and any change he undergoes would also represent some kind of change to those institutions. Liking his character as the toxic relic that he's been thus far is extremely valid.

Personally, I think August realising that he needs to break free of the toxicity would be a way of 'breaking the wheel.' Either showing that these institutions can be changed after all, similar to how Wille started enacting change at Hillerska in S2 when he encouraged the first-years to rebel...or simply showing again that these institutions hurt even the people who seemingly benefit from them, and when freed, even they can grow and heal.

Please know I don't mean to invalidate your stance in any way! I think it just comes down to the types of conclusions that the show wants to leave us with.

[As a final sidebar, I have to say that I respectfully disagree about Simon and Wille being "too good characters" as you put it. I think they have some morally grey sides as well, the same as most other characters in the show, which is what makes them so very human. But that's a whole other discussion!]

Phew, this got really long... I'm not even going to attempt to summarise it but I hope it made sense. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

[mdhwrites]

is there a way to write hate sink characters well? Cause the only hatesinks I can think of that work for me are shou tucker and Medusa, most others feel like they're there to make the heroes or love interest in a love triangle look better or to be preachy. Idk I like a lot characters that I know im supposed to hate on virtue of I can feel a writer trying too hard to make them unlikable to the point it feels ridiculous, like a caricature or in the worst case scenario the character wasn't originally a hatesink and went through a character assassination. So how do you do a hatesink right?

So I actually looked up the trope page for this one to make sure when I said this it felt right: I think you have it backwards, at least for the best hate sinks. For me, a hate sink is never something a writer should explicitly go out of their way to write. It's like forcing someone to be comic relief: If you have a character who is only one note, they will end up one note. That doesn't mean the term is invalid though or I can't talk about what makes a hate sink become a hate sink but I wanted to get that out of the way first.

The core to making a character your audience will despise even more than your main villain is to make a genuinely good and compelling character for a detestable role in your narrative. Medusa isn't just a faceless big bad. She is an abusive mother who only uses the facade of love to make sure Crona stays trapped with her. Shou Tucker is by all means a very normal dude except for what lengths he will go to to keep his comfort and status. Funny enough: Neither is as one note or pure evil as The Joker or Darkseid but both are hated more because, well, as the trope page says, their evil is less abstract. This makes them well written villains who grip people's imaginations more than most.

This also causes most Hate Sinks to be smaller in scope. Why is Shinji's dad the worst father in anime when there are people like the evil emperor in Mar who is, you know, the main villain and the MC's father? It's because of his small time villainy. The cruelty towards his own son. We as an audience can relate to that better because it's an affront to the morality we have to deal with day to day. This is what I mean by them being less abstract. As a note because of the fandoms I've been a part of: Bullies fall into this really easily as well. Even if they actually aren't even that cruel as far as bullies go, so many people have dealt with that ONE. ASSHOLE. and so seeing them portrayed can immediately make a fandom turn hard on them, even if they're very clearly not written as someone that is meant to be universally despised.

This also brings up a final note: How close are their actions to the main cast? Maka and Crona's plotline constantly intersects, with Medusa's abuse stopping resolution there as Crona becomes increasingly sympathetic. That pain to Maka in turn sharpens our blade against Medusa. Shou Tucker is in the grand scheme of things not in a lot of Fullmetal Alchemist but it is one of the most personal atrocities that Ed and Al face, along with it killing off a beloved character. Worse yet for Shou is that unlike Envy, who also kills a beloved character, he is never nuked a couple dozen times to give the audience the cathartic beatdown we want for something as awful as what they did. Not giving that payoff is another way to cause a character to fester in people's minds as someone to despise because it can feel like they got away with it, even if they technically didn't.

A lot of this still just comes from what I said at the beginning though: These are genuinely well written characters who are given a reprehensible role. The hate sink page lists Umbridge from Harry Potter but how many people actually have a lasting impact from her? Because she isn't a character. She's just a bitch. Woopdie doo, that's SO NEW. rolls eyes She is genuinely written just to be despised and for that she can make a fun villain but she isn't the sort that sticks with people so that every time she gets mentioned, everyone sneers and goes "THAT BITCH!" Not like they do at quite literally any mention of Shou Tucker.

And Shou is only that effective because the question around him was how to tell the concept of a pathetic man desperate for fame in this setting in a compelling way, not for how to make one of the most detestable human beings in all of anime. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[traumatizedbymay2016]

Ok this might be a little bit tinfoil hat, but I feel like a large part of the reason that Tony Stark ended up being the de facto soul of the MCU was that he was in a different genre to everyone else. It feels so obvious to me.

Every other Avenger stars in some variation on character versus character conflict the majority of the time, and the exceptions I can think of are still (generally) external (character versus society and character versus fate seem to be common secondary conflicts). Tony is the only character who stars predominantly in character versus self conflicts.

For starters, the Iron Man trilogy is way better when you recognize this distinction. Whiplash and Killian are lame villains, yes, but it's because they aren't the antagonist at all. At best they're secondary conflicts, but at worst they're straight up just the inciting incident. The real antagonist of the story is the flaw that Tony is grappling with --- in Iron Man, it's his willful ignorance and isolation from the world; in Iron Man 2, it's his fear of needing help or being a burden (and secondarily his fear of his impending death); and in Iron Man 3 it's his crippling anxiety that nothing he ever does will be enough to protect the ones he loves. It's relatively rare that we see any other character perform this kind of introspection at all, let alone see an entire story built around it (Thor: Ragnarok is the only one that readily comes to mind).

Even weirder to me is that this somehow persists into crossover films. Age of Ultron features Tony grappling with the way the remnants of his Iron Man 3 anxieties are interfacing with his mask of hyper competence; Civil War centers around Tony deconstructing that same mask and attempting to hand the reins over to someone else; the examples are abundant (even if they're handled worse here than in the standalone films).

And I think that's why so much of the Marvel discourse that the interwebs seem hell bent on showing me ends up presenting every Marvel character as "uwu soft precious pure bean" heroes who are nuance-free portrayals of goodness and light in spite of their own laundry lists of mistakes that they move past but never really grow from, only to reach Tony Stark and present even the most understandable of mistakes as though they were pre-meditated and cold blooded decisions for which he is responsible and can never be absolved. If the narrative never forces anyone else to properly reconcile their actions, then those actions were clearly justified; when it does so to Tony, that sends the message that his actions are clearly worse or of greater significance than the others' are.

But that difference is about presentation. It's about the story being told and the conflict being centered, not the culpability or severity of the actions at play. I'm not sure any Avenger has ever screwed up as royally as the time that Thor's coronation got crashed and he decided to get his friends together to attempt frost giant genocide, but the narrative chooses not to focus on that in favor of other elements of Thor's progression. Weighing it as lesser is purely based on bias.

And here's the thing! I understand that 1) protagonists are not necessarily good people and 2) good people can and do make mistakes. I actually prefer characters who can do something terrible --- whether as a result of ignorance, trauma, or panic --- and then, in time, learn from those mistakes and become better people. I would argue that makes a character more compelling, not less so. In fact, the very way that the narrative never even acknowledges the potential for Steve Rogers' actions to have a negative consequence when even bare minimum common sense would dictate that there must be at least a little downside is part of why I don't enjoy the character.

But so much fan meta fails to engage with this in any meaningful way, and so you end up with situations where people are ranting about Tony blasting Sam after Rhodey got knocked out of the sky while entirely ignoring the obvious and understandable distress that would cloud anyone's judgement in that situation in favor of treating it like an intentional act of malice on Tony's part; in spite of the fact that there are dozens of instances in the MCU of heroes attacking each other with greater force in lower stakes situations --- Thor choking Tony in Age of Ultron comes to mind.

Age of Ultron is actually the perfect case study in this phenomenon, as it stands. Tony's arc in the movie is an explicit continuation of his arc in Iron Man 3: He's terrified by the vision of his teammates dead and the world at risk, and is desperately trying to solve that problem on his own in a panic. This leads to the objective mistake of Ultron's birth and near rise to power, which the fandom all-too-happily places the blame for squarely on Tony's shoulders.

Except Tony is just one piece of the puzzle. At a minimum, Bruce Banner was equally involved in the creation of Ultron; a task perfectly in line with his established character trait of pursuing scientific advancement at any cost. Cinematic parallels between the birth of Ultron and the birth of the Hulk are unsubtle, to say the least.

Thor could (and should) have provided some instruction to the two pertaining to the literal magic gemstone they were studying, but went off to go celebrate another victory. Wanda used her mind control powers to influence the situation in the direction of Ultron. Hell, I find it hard to take Steve's "sometimes my team mates don't tell me things" line seriously when the lab is a room made entirely of windows inside his house.

The cherry on top, obviously, being that even if we ignore all available subtext and let Iron Man be the sole creator of Ultron, the Avengers were still effectively functioning as a team and were properly equipped to prevent Ultron from enacting any real damage to the world when they intervened in the vibranium deal with Klaue --- but a certain pair of Avengers were literally fighting on Ultron's team at that point, enabling him to retrieve the needed vibranium and capture Helen Cho.

They're not culpable for that, though, right? How was it said... "She's just a kid"?

With the final irony being that the selfsame Avenger in question would go on to marry the Vision. A character who is literally just "What Tony Stark intended Ultron to be." But when it comes to Vision coming out worthy to wield Mjolnir, that's not Tony's fault, is it? It was a team effort, or a happy accident, or the Mind stone intervening. Never mind that it's personifying J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony's creation. Tony's not the one who does good things, he's the one who makes mistakes.

Meanwhile from the perspective of someone who loves the man versus self narrative, Age of Ultron is about Tony admitting his mistakes and quite literally learning from them and doing better next time. He spends the film taking responsibility for the places he messed up and working to understand how he can do better, and the next time he tries, he does do better. The narrative functions as intended.

But because there isn't a single other character in the room willing to admit wrongdoing --- or, perhaps more accurately, there isn't a single other character in the room that the narrative is willing to force to admit such a thing --- the implication to someone who isn't acclimated to the cycle of Fail, Learn, Succeed that characterizes Tony is just that Tony is The One Who Made Ultron. I mean, Bruce Banner gets more remorseful about being mind controlled to unleash the Hulk than he does about having been an active participant in the creation of a malevolent AI.

I just think it's interesting because so much of the fandom buys into the idea that the characters who never admit that they were wrong actually never were wrong, and that therefore Tony Stark is the worst; but at the same time, the whole heart is gone from the MCU as a franchise. There are still individual fun properties, especially when your particular favorite character is on screen, but you can feel in the places where the fandom is even still a fandom and not a toxic pile of self-consuming sludge that there's something missing.

As frustrated as I am that the fandom is like this, though, I'm more sad that other characters never got to have this kind of introspection. There's just so much missed potential for growth in so many of these characters.

[clowngirlpony]

Stephen King Books I've Read With My Thoughts in the Approximate Order I've Read/Listened to Them

Revival

This is the first Stephen King book I read. It didn't amaze me at the time but being more familiar with King's writing style and looking back on it now I think of it more fondly.

I think the dynamic between the 2 main characters, Jamie Morton, a musician heroin addict, and Reverend Charles Jacob, Jamie's childhood priest turned semi-mad scientist/showman. They disconnect for a while but Jamie and Charles find each other later, both hollowed out. Charles uses his strange science to cure Jamie's addiction, and in return Jamie feels he owes it to the Reverend to help him with his experiments.

The end goal of the Reverend is to find proof of the soul, the afterlife, and that his wife and child are somewhere happy after death. He ends up proving that this is definitely NOT the case lol. Like many Stephen King books, I didn't like the ending until later when I thought on it more.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

The first book of The Dark Tower series and the beginning of my multiyear long spanning hyper fixation on this author. I find Roland to be endlessly compelling as a protagonist, truly a lesser evil, a mindless weapon, a hopeless romantic, and endlessly cold.

In this first book you only get to see the worst parts of his being. He kills anything that can stop him from getting to the tower, no matter who, no matter if there are more peaceful solutions, because he is a weapon with a quest and nothing more right now. In this book he finds a boy who is a fellow victim of Walter, the man he is currently hunting to kill. He slowly grows close to this boy only to realize that the boy was a trap set out by Walter to force Roland into a situation where he either sacrifices his quest for the tower to save the boy, or sacrifice the boy for his quest. He continues his quest, sacrificing the boy, and shattering his soul.

The world is clearly a post-apocalyptic version of our own, 10s of thousands of years in the future. The universe is dying, many worlds are dead already.

The Dark Tower: The Drawing of Three

Roland immediately loses most of the fingers on his right hand to giant lobsters in this book and immediately comforts himself with the thought that he doesn't jerk off with that hand. This book is amazing and truly sets the groundwork for the rest of this book series as a multi-universal epic that spans universes and eras.

The secondary main characters are introduced in this book, Eddie Dean and Susannah. Eddie is one of the best characters King has ever written and is a constant source of light in the series. Susannah is also a really good character but her story starts with a lot of stuff about racism and honestly Stephen King does not have the delicacy to properly handle these subjects so it can be a hard read. Not to mention she has DID which as we all know, is very awkwardly misrepresented in many medias, with this not being an exception. What he does different is that in her arc she is not "cured", she is merely made aware of her state of being and makes peace with her alters. She is also wheelchair bound but still treated as just as strong and capable as anyone else, help is offered to her almost always on a respectful level.

This book's story consists of Roland walking down a beach and dying from infection. He occasionally finds a door to our world at different times of the 20th century. He kidnaps Susannah and Eddie from these worlds against their will by possessing them with these doors.

The evolution of the relationship between the Gunslinger and these 2 is amazing. He sees them as merely pawns for his quest at first, until he slowly respects them more and more, and even learns to love them later on. They see him of course, as their inter-dimensional kidnapper and both try to kill him and each other over the course of the book.

The Dark Tower: Into the Wastelands

The third book in this series. This is where the world building starts to really pop off. You learn about the intersection of magic and technology by a group known as "The Old Ones", which is most likely the human civilization who ended the world and started the slow death of the universes. At this point Stephen starts to lean a lot more into his writings being interconnected, and that this story is the intersection of all his world's and stories.

In this book the boy Roland regrets sacrificing, Jake, is brought back by through ✨shenanigans✨and joins the group, in this same book they also adopt a badger dog like creature called a billybumbler. With these 2 this completes their group which they refer to as a "ka-tet", which is basically a group of people brought together by "ka" which is basically what they call fate but it has further nuance than that.

Main setting of this book is a ruined city called "Lud" which is supposed to be a parallel of New York. In this city is a civil war between 2 groups of dying people who forgot why they're fighting and the Ka-tet gets caught up a lot in this. The relationships of the group deepen a lot in this book and you get to see Roland slowly become a person again to his extreme dismay. He starts to worry that next time he will sacrifice his quest for the tower.

There is a sentient evil super computer that inhabits a train in this book and I want to have sex with it so bad it's insane.

The Dark Tower: Wizard and Glass

"Ka is a wheel, it always turns back to the same place" is a common held belief by people in Roland's world but especially by Roland, because his life is endless tragedy and he's become aware of how Ka repeats itself. He starts to notice similarities between his new and old ka-tet and it starts to really bother him as he can't help but think about things he never wished to think about again.

Most of this book ends up being Roland telling the others an important story from his past, one about his old ka-tet and the events that ended them. The amount of depth this gives to Roland completely changes his character as you start to understand what truly motivates him and why. There's too much to go over in this post but it's amazing.

I forgot to mention this but Susannah fucked a demon last book and is now demon pregnant so a side story about that is starting around this book.

The Dark Tower: The Wolves of Calla

The demon pregnancy sub-story starts to really ramp up. It's slowly revealed that there is a new person in Susannah's mind. At first it's assumed to be another alter but it's eventually revealed it is a demon possessing her body to carry out her pregnancy. This sub-story is still secondary to the current main story in this book.

In this book they find a rice farming town called "Calla". This is one of the first settlements they've found that seems truly intact and still thriving.... somewhat. This town is invaded by a group they call "wolves" every 20 something years to kidnap the oldest children of each family. They are coming again soon so the town asks for the help of Roland's ka-tet. They accept because they think doing so will bring them closer to the tower.

This book is really nice because it shows life in a way we can recognize for the first time in Roland's world that we see. This village is so full of life and culture and community, I just love the side characters we get in this book.

[wakeywakeyjakey]

Hey, another person answering the TF and MK question cause why not?

MK I know only from the TV show and I like them and their story cause it just feels so compelling, it was incredibly entertaining and the characters just have a lot to give, plus (and this was before I really knew anything about DID) I thought that it was very interesting that they were doing the whole “second personality” thing without making one good and one evil, they just were and that felt like interesting storytelling.

As for Harvey I feel like it’s the tragedy and drama of his story, it’s also compelling and entertaining, it’s got a lot to give. The thing with comics is that pretty much every writer is writing a different version of the character, I haven’t really seen one in which he is portrayed as having DID and while part of what I like about him is the different ways in which you can interpret him, I adore the fandom version in which he does have DID because I feel like it opens the door to such interesting takes on the character, specially when TF isn’t just evil Harvey, and makes the whole Harvey wasn’t a perfect man thing have a lot more weight, plus I also think it would be cool to see the Judge used in other stories.

That’s what I’ve got to say.

Hope you have a good day/night :D

Your point about the canon-ness of TF's DID is something I've definitely thought about! I think I see him canonically diagnosed with schizophrenia more often than with DID. Which is SO WEIRD to me (but also not because it's a very frequent misdiagnosis lol) because even though it's not canonically recognized, CLEARLY that's what most of the writers are going for (using "us/we" pronouns, using two different voices even when written in comics, etc.) but the point about fandoms is so right! One of my favorite parts about the characters I love most is what the fandom is able to do with them and it's definitely cool to see the validity and nuance we (both system and non-system fans) can give them! We get to add the canon backstory and the IRL MH struggles to create an angsty character that knows no bounds lol.

It's definitely a big difference from MK because MK not only canonically has DID but also talks about it OFTEN. It's cool that, even though there's a lot in the MK story that can still be interpreted otherwise, that's something that can't be misconstrued! And bless them for doing all that because WOW a DID (anti)hero is SO COOOOL, a whole new layer of identity porn haha

Love to see non-systems who can see beyond the ~DID means x alter is good and y alter is bad~ because truly that's the worst part about this (ie hero/villain) representation!

[goingbuggy]

I think you have best theories in the fandom about shanks. It’s like you see more than most of us. So that’s why to just have simple yes or no answer would be enough. I have this level of trust in you.

Do you believe makinos child is shanks or someone’s else?

I just can’t stop thinking about this, because for me I don’t see it, but it’s so popular I feel stupid or blinded by my other ships.

thank you for your kind words!! you probably shouldn't place this must trust in me though, LOL. i'm just reading and overthinking everything in the source material, like everyone else is.

is it possible that shanks has a child with makino? well.. yeah. to put it bluntly, the simplest answer is usually the right answer with oda. he's already established that makino and shanks are friendly from chapter one, and shanks is even seen dressed up for a wedding on one cover page, which oda sometimes uses to tell canon events that don't fit the flow of the current arc. (think of enel's journey to the moon, for example).

me personally, though? i've got beef with this idea, and not for the reasons you might think. makino and shanks as a couple is fine to me; i don't find their relationship all that compelling, truthfully, but they fit the mold for most of oda's canon pairings.

when it comes to shanks' characterization, though, the idea of him having a child at this point in the story strikes me as both offputting and irrelevant. shanks is an emperor, and given his actions, his current responsibilities are clearly the priority. so the thought of shanks leaving makino alone to take care of their child is... strange? his status has the potential to endanger them. he is surely too preoccupied to be sailing back and forth to see them.

you could argue that this parallels roger and rouge, but i also think that's the worst possible way oda could have shanks mirror his old captain. at least in roger's case, oda had ace become a relevant part of luffy's story. what narrative purpose does this serve? is it to humanize shanks? i'm not quite sure what oda's angle is, here.

we also have to consider shanks' past. shanks left uta behind, so i don't think he is "above" leaving his newborn child, so to speak, but his reasoning in that situation was far more complex. here, though? this would be shanks ACTIVELY choosing to bring a child into this world, knowing full well he cannot take care of it until he sees his goals through. (SHANKS? patient, protective shanks, unable to wait to start a family? the boy who was an abandoned child himself? does he not believe that he will live long enough to wait? if so, why would he leave makino with that responsibility at all? characters can make selfish decisions, but i can't see any reasoning from shanks' perspective. this is a problem to me.)

so, in short, no, i'm not exactly a fan of this theory. i just don't see the merit of adding it to the story, when the implications seem to contradict what we know about his character. and again, what is the narrative benefit that outweighs the faulty logic? what do we gain as readers? what does this do for the story? to me, it feels like nothing at all.

[no-side-us]

Letters From Watson Liveblog - Apr. 16

The Copper Beeches, Part 2 of 3

A fortnight? That's the longest period I think we've had from when they first meet the client to the mystery getting solved. And no updates in all that time, which should be a good thing now that I think about it.

If I hadn't done Dracula Daily, I'd probably assume Bradshaw was referring to a location. But now I know better! I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a story set in London during this time would include reference to a Bradshaw's guide, but it's still fun to notice.

People often remember this line from Holmes, so I won't be the first one to find it ironic how he later retires to the countryside he finds so sinful, and I also won't be the first to imagine that the reason he spends his last years there is to act as a detective where it's needed most.

Also, I've seen the line "founded upon my experience" used to suggest the idea that Holmes grew up in the countryside in a less than favorable home environment, which I find to be one of the more compelling headcanons about Holmes' past.

Has anyone ever thought out what these seven separate explanations could be? Excluding the one that's correct in this story of course.

Alright, well Mr. Rucastle has immediately lost points with me for remarrying someone around the same age as his daughter. That's creepy no matter how you look at it. At least the daughter, I believe Alice is her name, was able to leave.

Mrs. Rucastle crying by herself more than once should tell you that the relationship probably isn't as happy as it appears to be. At best, she's going through some unrelated tragedy. At worst, it could be any number of terrible things.

Is "creature" just a common term for children back then? I thought Watson was just being rude when he used it in The Yellow Face, but here Miss Hunter uses it as well. Although the child she's talking about seems like a real brat of a kid.

If that's not the most suspicious thing so far, I don't know what is. Coupled with the fact that it's clearly been worn before, and I'd have sent Holmes a telegram that day.

I know Mr. Rucastle is the bad guy and all, but I really want to hear these funny stories. Just one at least. It feels rude of Miss Hunter to say these were the "funniest stories" she's ever listened to and not even share one with Holmes and Watson.

Poor Carlo the mastiff. I don't remember what happens to him at the end of this story, but I can only hope he gets a happy ending.

Miss Hunter's situation is getting creepier and creepier. I could easily see everything happening to her in a story that's more gothic horror than detective mystery. I'm also surprised she hadn't telegrammed Holmes sooner, when all this weird stuff is happening.

I spoke too soon. I won't lie, this scene did get a little scare out of me as I read it. The atmosphere was very well written for the moment.

I love this line. It's so short, but you can just imagine a smile too big to be real and words that are too soft to be genuine. It really works the imagination.

And he doesn't stop smiling! I think that's the scariest part honestly, the fact that even as he threatens her life he's still got a smile on his face. No wonder she messaged Holmes after this. Though I still think she should have done it sooner.

I'm curious as to how this story is going to play out. I remember part of the solution to the mystery of what's going on, but not the details. It almost kind of feels like Miss Hunter is a horror story protagonist who somehow called in Sherlock Holmes to save the day, and I kind of like that.

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

[loving-n0t-heyting]

I find your take really interesting because it's actually compelling and nuanced but I do still think I have a somewhat rosier view of Skyler as a person than you do (though still largely negative); in particular, I find it much easier to side with her early in the show, where, while what you say about her is true in a clear way, she still tends to have some decent argument for her position. The show is having some fun at her expense, but it's still putting her in situations where we can readily understand why she's doing what she's doing and she might even broadly be right. Of course Walt's medical decisions are his own (oh God I typed "her own" here originally and only caught it much later in editing; was this a terribly revealing Freudian slip? yikes), but at that point with what she knows Skyler would have to be a terrible spouse to not try to argue him into placing a higher value on his life. And while Skyler does have a comically naive bourgeoisie worldview on law and order, and willful naivete is not morally neutral, it's Marie who's stonewalling in the shoplifting conflict, not Skyler. I'd consider Skyler at the start of the show to be roughly on moral par with Jesse at worst (and even that feels like it's going awfully far), and that Jesse ultimately finds his way out of Walt's psychological web before she does feels more like happenstance than some deep indictment of her relative to him.

I do think it’s hard comparing Skyler to Jesse early on bc they are clearly at that point being treated by the show with different levels of seriousness. Jesse was slated for an early demise, remember, and was intended more as a stepping stone for Walt’s personal journey, whereas they would have had to be insane to do the same after one season with Skyler. (Well, frankly, they would have to have been insane to go through with it for Jesse too. But not as insane.)

And it shows! The early depth and nuance you see in Jesse is pretty much pure Aaron paul; he’s written fairly one-dimensionally as white trash sidekick comic relief, whereas Skyler is already being deliberately built up for big things. So it’s weird to compare the two imo, the way it would be weird to compare her and walt Jr. There’s just more to her early on

And idk, maybe some of the animosity i have for her (which i was exaggerating somewhat, for the sake of the take/bit, though not in essentials) is personal. Family technically-not-coercing you into medical treatment (that could Save Your Life!!) hits a little too close to home, and I uhhhh. Idk if you’ve been reading my blog long enough to hear about my mommy/ex-gf issues lol. (Ofc, plausibly deniable therapeutic venting is most of what most ppl have to say about brba at any length, so i don’t think this is a specially egregious interpretive failing on my part.) But I do think, simply on the merits, the “poor battered housewife” reaction to the misogynistic frenzy she initially provoked among certain segments of the fandom is overgenerous. It’s at least better than the negative reaction against that same crowd regarding walt, though, which consistently drives ppl to commit obvious and basically indefensible errors about central plot points, at which point I think you can barely be described as engaging with the show itself at all