#but what i'd like to convey to them is that i fully understand this level of earnest enthusiasm is extremely uncool

[yuseirra]

Final Analysis: "Oshi no Ko" is indeed a story that reinterprets mythology (the story progresses with both surface-level and deep-level narratives running in parallel).

Just why didn’t they explain this beforehand?

I REALLY hope this is my last time bringing up this subject! I'm doing this for myself mostly, because I want to understand things and form a proper closure! If you disagree, I understand! But I'd like to say I really am fully believing the idea after having given this series a proper close read and examined the work with care. I did my best.

In my opinion, the only way to explain this work and understand why its narrative unfolded the way it did is truly just that—it’s based on mythology.

But the creators didn’t fully elaborate on or explain this, so is it fair that readers are left to figure this out on their own over months, scouring articles or even research papers? And even then, because they didn’t definitively establish this, I’ve now reached the conclusion that there is no other way to explain this work than by interpreting it as mythology. The story doesn’t just reinterpret mythology; it reaches a level where the ending is essentially swallowed by the myth itself. And yet, it feels like no one around me—aside from me—is thinking this way. It’s incredibly frustrating, suffocating, isolating... My head honestly hurt so much because I wasn’t even sure if my interpretation was correct.

Still, since the work itself is so chaotic and spiraled into complete disarray near the end, I felt the need to solidify what kind of story it actually is. After all, we need to at least understand what this story is about to form any kind of judgment. If things remain unresolved like this, the story remains incomprehensible and unbearably unsettling, so I felt I had to tie up the loose ends myself.

I considered myself a relatively diligent reader who followed the story closely, but there were so many events happening in the narrative, and yet the reasons behind them—the explanations for why things unfolded that way—remained utterly unclear and confusing. (This is why I often criticize the story as incomplete or poorly written.) I don’t think I lack reading comprehension or the ability to grasp context. Usually, I can figure out what a story is trying to convey. But with this work, it’s simply impossible to explain unless you bring in mythology. On the other hand, if you do bring mythology into the equation, then it becomes explainable.

That’s why, even if one wouldn’t be able to fully understand the story, there'd be the need to examine those elements to make some sense of it. From the moment the narrative introduced gods, missions, and similar motifs, it became clear that those elements weren’t insignificant. After all, the protagonists themselves reincarnated to fulfill their missions from the gods. But even this concept of “mission” wasn’t clearly defined in the story—it was left ambiguous, merely hinted at. Readers are forced to figure out what it might be on their own, but the story doesn’t even provide proper clues. This lack of clarity and consideration for the audience is why the manga feels so unkind and perplexing.

This manga, in short, simultaneously unfolds with two narratives: a surface-level narrative (表層叙事) and a deep-level narrative (深層叙事). This will get long, so I'll put everything else under the read more.

The surface-level narrative is the storyline we see directly in the manga. It can be summarized as Aqua’s journey for revenge.

The deep-level narrative isn’t intricately crafted or detailed—it’s simply mythology. The deep-level narrative of this manga is a reinterpretation of Japanese mythology. However, it’s only faintly alluded to and isn’t treated as a significant element. But by the time we reach the conclusion, understanding this deep-level narrative becomes necessary to explain and make sense of the events in the surface-level narrative. Despite this, the creators didn’t even acknowledge the existence of such a layer, leaving readers confused and unable to understand.

And yet, even if readers were to figure all of this out, it likely wouldn’t fundamentally change the evaluation of the work. Perhaps that’s why the creators chose to leave it as is.

Unless you're anyone with even a moderate understanding of Japanese mythology, it's impossible to figure out, “What is this? What kind of story was this?” But if that’s the only way to understand it, then it’s the creators who failed, isn’t it? I happened to have a faint understanding, so I thought, “Could it be this?” and started looking into it. As I became more interested, the things I discovered fit together, allowing me to interpret the story. But ultimately, the material that should have been fully shown and explained within the work itself wasn’t properly addressed. That’s the problem here.

Using the interpretation I pieced together, everything can align perfectly. The hints are subtly present in the work, and when you connect them, you can explain what kind of story this is. But the problem is, the balance shifts in a strange way.

Can this balance really be considered “well-handled,” or does it feel more like, “The narratives we thought were important turned out to be irrelevant, and this is what it actually was”? Seeing the resolution, I’m leaning toward the latter.

The parts involving Aqua and the two heroines (Kana and Akane) are the surface narrative. Most readers, while reading this manga, probably thought that this was the important part and rooted for this aspect of the story. Aqua lived as a doctor, was reincarnated as the child of his favorite idol, and entered the entertainment industry seeking revenge after that idol’s death. Along the way, he formed bonds represented by the two heroines, and through these relationships, he experienced change. Most would think, “This is the main plot of Oshi no Ko,” and the story indeed presents it that way.

But when you reach the ending, this narrative doesn’t hold as much weight as expected, and that’s bewildering, isn’t it?

The weight of the story shifts to the deeper narrative rooted in Japanese mythology, that's why.

It's characters like Ruby, Ai, Kamiki, and Tsukuyomi who are deeply intertwined with this deeper narrative.

Ruby was supposed to fulfill the role of a dual protagonist and occasionally received key episodes. But for some reason, it always felt like Aqua was the true protagonist. Looking at it now, I think it’s because Aqua and Ruby had different roles as “protagonists” within the story.

If Aqua was a character involved in the “human side” of the narrative (which made him seem incredibly significant, leading us to follow his journey as if he were the main protagonist, with his story appearing to form the core plot), Ruby was more deeply connected to the “divine side.” (She was loved by the gods, received their help, became entangled with the crow, and even at the end, it was said the gods sent her. She called herself Amaterasu and prayed to the gods. While Aqua had some involvement in this aspect, his role was more about supporting Ruby, making her far more significant in this context.)

But this “divine side” ultimately took all the narrative weight. Ruby survives, and everything Aqua achieved through the story is discarded in the end.

The storylines involving Kana and Akane? If you consider the ending, they were peripheral and not truly necessary. While their parts were enjoyable, and one might have hoped for an ending where Aqua survives and builds a future with those friends, those relationships don’t significantly affect the plot or the conclusion. Whether Aqua met them or not, the crux of Aqua’s story was about confronting the presumed murderer of Ai (his father), seeking revenge, and eventually killing Kamiki, who posed a threat to Ruby’s future. Aqua then sacrifices himself for this cause. That’s how it unfolded. Unfortunately, neither Kana nor Akane played a major role in influencing or changing this outcome. Strictly speaking, their presence wasn’t necessary for the story. Which I feel pretty sad about, but it's true. Aqua could have straightforwardly found his father and killed him, and that would have been the end of it. This is what makes it feel so hollow.

And this is why I concluded that the divine narrative overshadowed everything else. Aqua’s personal growth and relationships in the story were all consumed by this.

It does seem likely that the author decided on the ending first and then built the story to fit that framework.

The story became what it is because they decided to “follow the framework of mythology.” That’s why so much of what Aqua did all along ultimately felt pointless. The mythology’s ending was already predetermined.

This story opens by saying it’s fiction. Isn’t mythology the quintessential example of fiction? If that’s the case, the creators should have at least made it clear that this was their intent. That would have been understandable. But this work doesn’t even do that, nor does it adequately present the knowledge required to grasp the mythology. Instead, it forces readers to put in extraordinary effort outside of the work itself to do it (I’m not even Japanese, so this wasn’t easy for me).

You can still read the story without knowing these things, but fully understanding “What was this story really about?” becomes impossible. That’s a problem. Without resolving that, the story remains incomplete. It feels unfinished.

So, what conclusion have I drawn about the deeper narrative of this manga?

Ruby is Amaterasu. Her mission is to become a radiant being (as shown in the final chapter).

Aqua was born to protect Ruby. That is his mission (as stated by himself).

It was hinted from the very beginning that these two were born with missions. The concept of reincarnation itself is presented as highly unique, and Tsukuyomi, the god appearing in the story, repeatedly suggests pondering the meaning of their souls inhabiting their bodies and their purpose. From all this, it seems correct to say they are beings with predetermined missions.

However, Aqua only realizes his mission is what he's stated at the very end, moments before his death. Up until that point, he clearly lived with a different goal in mind. His stated objectives throughout the story were: avenging Ai by finding and killing the person who caused her death (his biological father) or making him suffer unbearably.

But can that goal naturally shift to protecting Ruby? Can killing Kamiki really lead to that outcome?

If we accept this, it means Aqua’s “mission” as hinted throughout the story was ultimately connected to Kamiki.

The mission to kill or capture Kamiki was always there; it’s just a matter of how it was rationalized.

Aqua’s purpose shifted from avenging Ai to protecting Ruby. The actions required to fulfill these purposes, however, remained the same.

Aqua often says things like, “I’ll go to hell” or “I don’t deserve happiness.” I strongly feel that this sentiment stems from the nature of his mission—to capture or eliminate someone.

Recall how, when Aqua believed his father was already dead, his expression softened, the black star in his eye disappeared, and he seemed at peace. It was because he felt freed from the burden of his mission. But as soon as he discovered that his father was alive, he became ensnared by it again.

Aqua’s mission was likely to take down Kamiki, or to accomplish something related to him. And perhaps, in carrying out this mission, Aqua knew he would have to die.

That’s why Tsukuyomi warned him not to form emotional attachments to others.

Now, let’s ask: why is taking down Kamiki such a monumental task, one deemed significant enough for the gods to assign as a mission? Why must it become the life’s purpose of our protagonist, requiring him to sacrifice everything he has?

The reason is that Kamiki is no ordinary human.

If he were to be just human, they could simply have him arrested. Just file a report and be done with it. So why does Aqua have to die for this?

It feels as though that’s not an option. Somehow, things just can’t work out that way, right? And the events surrounding that character are deeply unsettling. It's unnatural. I'm not even sure if it's controllable.

It’s ambiguous whether Kamiki causes destruction intentionally or whether it spirals out of his control. His seemingly small actions lead to catastrophically disproportionate consequences. Furthermore, there’s no evidence left behind. The incidents surrounding him, in my view, aren’t something that can be carried out or resolved within the realm of human capabilities.

Kamiki’s involvement is so significant that the gods decided it warranted reincarnating two individuals and assigning them a mission.

When you piece together the identities of the gods mentioned in the story, you’ll uncover what Kamiki truly is.

If we analyze it closely, there are two distinct groups of myths woven into the story.

First, there’s the mythology surrounding the death of the creator gods Izanagi and Izanami. Their children, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, are explicitly referenced.

Second, we have myths related to the Sun Goddess and the descent of the Heavenly Grandchild, involving Amaterasu and Ame-no-Uzume. These deities are directly mentioned by name in the plot.

In the myths about the creator gods, Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo are triplets. If Aqua corresponds to Susanoo, the god of storms and the sea, we can identify thematic parallels. In the myth, after Izanami’s death, Izanagi descends to the underworld to retrieve her but fails. When he returns to the surface, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi are born from his eyes, and Susanoo from his nose. While Tsukuyomi is the one that is related to the eyes in the original myth, along with Amaterasu, Aqua seems to have inherited the star-related motif instead.

This influence from mythology is evident. Susanoo is said to have cried for his mother, leading to a conflict with his father, reflecting Aqua’s own struggles with his father and his longing for his mother figure, Ai. The star motif in the twins' eyes could also stem from this myth.

Additionally, the creator god myth includes the father’s failed attempt to resurrect the mother—a narrative that echoes the dynamic between Ai and Kamiki.

The Sun Goddess and Heavenly Descent myth introduces Ame-no-Uzume, the goddess of entertainment and dance. In myth, she uses her bold and honest nature to coax Amaterasu out of the cave where she has hidden, frightened by Susanoo. This parallels Ruby’s transformation from Sarina, who was inspired by Ai’s performance, to becoming a radiant idol herself. If Ai corresponds to a deity in this myth, she would align with Ame-no-Uzume.

Ame-no-Uzume plays another crucial role: she escorts Amaterasu’s grandson to Earth and encounters Sarutahiko, a deity of light and the Earth who guarded the passage to Earth. His body is said to sparkle brightly with light. Sarutahiko initially opposed Amaterasu’s grandson’s descent because it would diminish his authority. However, he fell in love with Ame-no-Uzume, who seduced him. They became a couple, and while there’s no explicit mention of their marriage, they lived together on Earth, had children, and were revered as a couple. Their descendants were known for performing "Kagura," sacred dances.

The shrine the characters visited in Oshi no Ko, the Aratate Shrine in Miyazaki, is dedicated to commemorating their meeting. Aqua references Ame-no-Uzume by name, saying he knows her well. However, the shrine doesn’t honor her alone but enshrines her and her partner Sarutahiko together.

As for Kamiki, the parallels he has with Sarutahiko are undeniable. It's no joke, I keep finding new things that I find they share in common every time I look up the god.

= Kamiki is the deity Sarutahiko Okami, the husband of the goddess of entertainment (Ai). This has to be it. Every time I read this work, I keep coming to this same conclusion. There’s even foreshadowing to back it up.

Sarutahiko is said to have the power to fulfill the wishes of others, a power that only manifests when he is with his wife.

Most importantly, Sarutahiko is a guide, leading people toward a brighter future, into goodness. Under normal circumstances, this is a benevolent role.

However, something has clearly gone awry. This "flaw" is explicitly referenced in the lyrics of the songs featured in the story.

The source of this "flaw" is rooted in Kamiki’s past, which the story has partially revealed. And as stated by the songs, the "lack of Ai"'s what's been intensifying, amplifying, or the major cause of him unable to be helped out of that state.

While much about Kamiki remains ambiguous, if he is that deity who can "twist the future," all attempts to rationalize his character become unnecessary.

Imagine such a deity descending into madness. Aqua’s mission to stop him suddenly makes sense.

It becomes a divinely mandated duty—worth sacrificing one’s life for—because this is a calamity beyond human intervention.

Notably, this deity is said to meet his end by drowning, a detail consistent with the story’s thematic elements.

So ultimately, the narrative of Oshi no Ko can be understood as a fusion of various myths centered on Amaterasu (Ruby).

The myths include:

The story of Amaterasu’s parents and the failed resurrection of the deceased (echoing Ai and Kamiki).

Amaterasu’s emergence from the cave (paralleling Ame-no-Uzume’s connection with Ai and Ruby).

The Heavenly Descent myth, where Ame-no-Uzume meets and seduces Sarutahiko (amalgamated with the creator god myth, having Aqua, the Susanoo, the sea deity who;s in bad terms with his father, playing a role in Sarutahiko-Kamiki’s demise).

Thus, Ruby suddenly emerges as the central figure of this intricate tapestry of myths.

To elaborate a bit further, Sarutahiko was also a native sun god, meaning he likely served the role of the sun deity before Amaterasu.

Therefore, if he wasn’t in good condition, the gods might have sent Amaterasu, the new sun god, to replace him. This is a plausible interpretation.

As for Ai… Kamiki is her divine husband, isn’t he?

Kamiki is originally a guiding god who leads everything in a positive direction. Ai might have unconsciously known that the situation would improve if he were set back on the right path. That’s likely why she entrusted their children with the task of helping her with guiding him back if he's gone lost.

Sarutahiko and Ame-no-Uzume are known to be an incredibly harmonious couple, they are very loving together.

It seems to me that the author of this story really loves mythology. Considering that this is a narrative about the entertainment industry, it feels inevitable that the story of these deities—protectors of the entertainment world—would be incorporated. Their tale is actually rather charming and heartwarming. A goddess descended from the heavens and, upon seeing the radiant god of the land, fell for him. She persuaded him to guide her, and they instantly hit it off. The two eventually became a couple and jointly protected the entertainment industry. After that, Ame-no-Uzume took charge of love and romance, while Sarutahiko became the god who guides everything toward good outcomes.

As for their inherent abilities: Ame-no-Uzume was associated with entertainment (dance and song) and was also the goddess of dawn, while Sarutahiko was a great deity of light, the land, and the sun.

When they became a couple, they gained additional abilities. Ame-no-Uzume, worshipped alongside her husband at shrines, began granting blessings related to love, marriage, and romance. Sarutahiko, after guiding Ame-no-Uzume and Amaterasu, gained the ability to lead others' futures in a positive direction—a power to guide others' fates.

Don’t these characteristics align with the abilities Ai and Kamiki would have if they were deities?

Their abilities also correspond to those granted by the white and black star eyes: eyes that convey love, and eyes that influence and sway others.

Ai and Kamiki correspond to Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto and Sarutahiko-no-Ōkami, respectively. By nature, they would have been a deeply loving couple.

Sarutahiko, in particular, was convinced by his wife’s words, let go of many things, and agreed to marry her. This indicates that he was likely a devoted husband. Furthermore, he is such a powerful deity that he’s referred to with the honorary title Ōkami, placing him among only seven supreme gods, including Amaterasu.

After his wife’s death, he seems to have gone mad and caused disasters. There’s no way this god would have wanted his wife to die. I think he didn’t realize at first that he had the ability to twist others’ futures. Hints of this can be found in the lyrics of the first ending and the second opening of the series—lines like "I’ve forgotten who I am" and "creative fall" are highly suggestive. Also, in the first opening, which focuses on Ai, she’s referred to as the reincarnation of a star. This suggests that Ai is literally a "star"—in other words, a kind of deity.

The white and black star eyes possess power and exert influence over those who have them. Kamiki, who was gathering white stars, was essentially searching for Ai. He was looking for his wife.

Now, let’s summarize the deeper narrative of this story:

Ai and Kamiki are not ordinary humans but are reincarnations of gods—specifically Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto and Sarutahiko-no-Ōkami.

They were somehow born as humans, met, and became a couple, but the darkness of the entertainment industry drove them apart. At this time, Kamiki was in a very poor state.

Kamiki, as the god of light, could not restore his light. The key to recovery, based on clues from the story’s ending, appears to be "love." This is also essential for Ai as a deity. Both characters lived longing for love because it is central to their function as gods.

Kamiki, a guiding god, became fixed in a state where his eyes were black stars instead of white ones, leading him to unintentionally twist others’ futures negatively. This likely wasn’t intentional at first.

The gods gave their children a mission. While the children were originally not supposed to be born, Tsukuyomi (the god of fate) intervened to place suitable souls into their bodies. In other words, the bodies are the children of reincarnated gods, while their souls were specifically chosen by the gods. This is what Tsukuyomi means by "you should realize why your souls are within those body"

Among the children, Ruby is Amaterasu (confirmed), and Aqua is likely Susanoo (suspected). Tsukuyomi watches over them (Izanagi’s triplets).

Ruby’s mission is to shine, while Aqua’s mission is to protect Ruby as she fulfills her role/get his dad.

Amaterasu, as the sun god, overlaps with Sarutahiko’s domain. In one myth, Amaterasu replaces Sarutahiko, after which he drowns. If Ruby is Amaterasu, she may have been sent to replace Kamiki, who was no longer functioning properly.

Ai dies. Aqua becomes convinced that avenging her is his mission. Kamiki is somehow involved in Ai’s death, and he blames himself for it. Whether it was his intention remains unclear as of the story’s conclusion.

Kamiki wanders in search of Ai and her love. Based on the lyrics and narratives in the story, he initially wanted to bring Ai back to life. Realizing this was impossible, he seemed to shift his goal to becoming like Ai or getting closer to her. At the same time, his self-hatred intensified, leaving him indifferent to his own survival. Yet, he couldn’t give up on Ai and continued pursuing related endeavors.

Kamiki, realizing that his children are seeking him, guides Ruby and Aqua to find him through his powers as a guiding god (lyrics of Mephisto). Ruby’s rapid career rise, seemingly aided by divine intervention, is likely due to his influence. He is also the one granting wishes, as seen when he asks Ruby what she wants to become or wishes for.

Tsukuyomi observes the situation and prompts the twins—especially Aqua—to approach Kamiki. From the gods’ perspective, Kamiki is dangerous and must be replaced and removed. Ruby, as Amaterasu, is capable of both replacing him and fulfilling Ai’s role. Aqua is pushed to protect Ruby’s fate and eliminate Kamiki through extreme measures.

Ultimately, Aqua sacrifices everything, including his own future, to achieve this goal. Kamiki, as a guiding god, cannot influence someone with no future, making Aqua’s choice effective. In the process, Aqua realizes that his mission was to help Ruby shine as Amaterasu.

Ruby, as Amaterasu, fulfills her mission and shines brilliantly. She continues to live, carrying out the role assigned to her by the gods.

This is probably how peculiar elements like gods, reincarnation, missions, wishes, stars, etc., have been underlying this story all along.

And if you look closely, these are the decisive elements that have driven the narrative. Without these, there would be no reason for the ending to unfold this way, and interpreting the progression in this light feels more natural.

But why didn’t they properly explain this??? Are there many people who understand this story as such? I think there’s no other way to unify and explain everything in the story except for this interpretation, and yet, even I have never seen the story explicitly touch on this properly, so I’m confused myself. I honestly think the storytelling failed here.

I usually write posts like this all in one sitting, this time too, so I ended up completely drained... LOL. But if I can sit down and write all this at once without any outline, it means I’m not bad at writing, right...? haha..

The writers didn’t do their job properly. I haven’t been able to find any other way to interpret this. Over the past few months, I’ve been wondering what on earth is going on because the most basic elements are presented in such a vague and peculiar way that it’s hard to grasp. It was so frustrating.

This is it. This must be it. Writing it all down like this helps me move forward a bit.

I don’t know if there’s any other way to interpret it, but interpreting it this way makes everything fit perfectly—even down to the characters’ names.

Kamiki, that guy, is the god of light. Ai is "the love of the stars", in this manga, stars = gods, and the light of love (Ai) resides within the white star in the eyes.

That’s why Kamiki, after Ai’s death, went looking for her through gathering them. Even the lyrics of the songs align perfectly when interpreted this way—it all comes together cohesively.

Seeing their father go mad, and act this way - because he’s a god gone mad- the other gods used their children: one to replace the roles of their parents (the god of light + the god of love substituted through Amaterasu) and the other to capture and possibly kill the mad god and prevent him from causing further catastrophes.

That’s the core of this story.

But then, what were Akane and Kana? Why did they include those narratives if they didn’t influence the ending? It’s so frustrating and infuriating because, on the surface, it seemed like Aqua and his friends were the central focus of the story. Looking at the ending, though, they were treated as side plots—parts that could have been left out entirely.

Should we think of them as subplots? But then again, Aqua hurt those girls so much. It’s heartbreaking when you think about it. I wish he just stayed as a pal and hadn’t gotten entangled with them or played with their feelings. Why did he leave things ambiguous with them...

Hey, but Kamiki, at least, was sincere toward Ai. About his concept of love... sigh. He’s got a lot of issues, really, but despite all those issues, he genuinely wanted to give everything and devoted himself entirely to her. To me, it seems like he loved Ai so much that he went mad, and because his powers went awry, Ai ended up dying. So he roamed around, trying to retrieve her and bring her back to life to reverse it.

I don’t think he ever had malicious intent. I know, clearly, at this point, he’s completely insane and needs to face punishment still, but... his life was just total misery and the story doesn't explain anything about him so that he can be took as what he actually is in a fair sense.

This person… It’s not that I can’t analyze characters, and it’s not that I’m unable to read into their psychology, but I think this person really is kind. They act and speak kindly even when there’s absolutely no need to do so in a given situation. It’s not pretense—it’s genuinely their nature. That’s why I’ve been so unsure about how to perceive them. Why would the writers portray someone like this? Without delving into the deeper narrative layers, it’s impossible to grasp this character.

If Kamiki hadn’t ended up in this situation, he would’ve been an incredibly good person. Not just ordinarily good—exceptionally so. There’s not much evidence for this, there isn't much we see about him in the first place, but if they’ve shown him to this extent without directly portraying anything that proves against it, it actually makes sense in terms of narrative causality. It means the events unfolding the way they did are somehow justified even without explicit proof. That he's kind, but there's still something about him that can cause immense malice and destruction at the same time. From what I can see, he would’ve been one of the rarest and most genuinely good people, in the top few percent. That’s why I found it so baffling that he could commit such actions.

He’s likely a god,—a god who couldn’t handle the grief of losing his wife. He really is a god. Rather than a person being evil, he’s a god driven mad by his wife’s death. I wish Ai could come for him somehow... He should go to hell, he's committed so many unforgivable sins yeah? but on his way there, I hope she could at least see him off one last time. That is, if she didn’t lose all affection for him after witnessing his actions. I don't think she would have, but he'd still have to pay for his wrongs though. That's why I kept drawing comics with that kind of note.

It’s unclear whether he intended such extreme outcomes or whether his powers acted on their own. That ambiguity comes from the fact that there were definitely points where it seemed like he couldn’t control himself. He speaks so softly, and he’s kindhearted—but he’s no longer in his right mind, and it seems like everything other than Ai has completely disappeared from his view.

It shouldn’t have come to this. If he remained the kind of person he should’ve been, this wouldn’t have happened. But we’re not just seeing a change in personality; this is a fundamental corruption of his very essence. It’s the kind of transformation that happens to someone who isn’t human, and there were clues all along suggesting this. That’s why interpreting it this way feels right.

When you view it through this lens, the entire story comes together. It explains why things have unfolded the way they have.

I need to go read some books. Honestly, while following this work, I seriously questioned myself: Am I the one who doesn’t get it? Is it my reading comprehension that’s lacking? I agonized over it because the plot was seemingly sailing smooth, but the ending threw me into complete confusion. I started wondering, Can I even read books properly? and felt a bit of existential dread.

But this works. This must be it.

It’s not about couples or pairings; ships, otps, I'm serious!!! It’s about how the story unfolds in a natural flow and leads to this kind of conclusion. From that perspective, this kind of organization was necessary.

Now, I really don't want to keep talking about this anymore. I don’t want to. I just want to organize my thoughts, understand, and conclude, Oh, this is what the story was about, and then move on to something else. I want to shake off this lingering discomfort. This work kept bugging me because it felt so unexplained and I could sense some sense of underlying layer just hanging but never discussed.

I was really anxious, but I’m confident this is it. Even if it isn’t, I don’t think the writers could have wrapped it up in a way that makes more sense than this. That’s how certain I am.

But seriously, how could they make me piece this all together through independent research on my own? This is just too much… it was so exhausting, truly.

[aturinfortheworse]

Had the most incredible thrilling experience at work today, the experience I have been training for my entire life, and it was just as good as I hoped.

at lunch one of the other teacher aides was like "Urgh have you guys had any year 9s today? they all keep asking me 'miss hypothetically if 13% of people were committing 50% of the crimes what would you do?' which is obviously bait so I just keep telling them 'I'm not answering that.'"

and I try to restrain myself but I really do rant about this for a good fifteen minutes on our way to assembly

where a year 9 once again asks her this questions. and she comes and GETS ME and says "Hey did you wanna talk to those boys about the crime thing?"

DO I EVER. I sit down with the boys. They ask me the question. I say "Who established the laws in this scenario? Does one group of people control the laws?" so we quickly establish that we're talking about Australian law (which is weird bc this fact is from the US).

Then I ask "Why are they committing more crimes?" He doesn't know; he insists it's just a hypothetical. I ask him how we can be expected to solve a problem without knowing what causes it: he doesn't know.

"What kind of crimes are we talking about?" he doesn't know. "How do we know that 13% of people are committing the crimes? He doesn't know. I suggest that maybe 13% of people are being charged with 50% of the crimes; he agrees. Apparently this kid's friend said that we should kill the 13% of people; I suggest that maybe that would just leave us with the criminals who are better at not getting caught. Or maybe there's a bigger police presence in their area. Maybe the law affects them differently.

I point out that it's not just hypothetical. In Australia, Aboriginal people are disproportionately represented in prisons. Part of the reason for that (although not a main one i believe) is that Aboriginal communities can literally have different laws. The Northern Territory has bans on alcohol in some Aboriginal communities, which means there are more laws for them to break.

This kid is having the worst day of his life. I am having the best day of my life. My teacher aide friend is having a great time watching. Eventually I let him go free, but not before pointing out that hypotheticals are never just hypotheticals, that I understand he's only asking this because it's funny, but that when he does that he is spouting literal Nazi rhetoric. He is not a white student.

God I hope another student asks me, or even asks someone else within earshot of me, but I have a feeling they'll have lost interest.

[lunahearts]

Soooo I read all of Dungeon Meshi in this past week and I have many thoughts bouncing around in my brain and I think the only thing to do with them is some AGGRESSIVELY CLOSE READING of a scene I wanted to come back to and try to understand better.

So: I want to talk about chapter 28

This entire section of the story is something I feel like I am going to want to come back to a lot, because its such a transitional time and I feel like there are a lot of themes/ideas that I wasn't fully aware of during my first reading, and stuff I missed because of that.

One of the biggest things I have been turning over in my head is... hey, what was UP with the Marcille/Falin bath scene? Maybe it was because I was already primed to pay attention to stuff with them going into the story, or because I had already seen a couple of panels out of context. In any case, it really kind of stuck out to me as being very short but also VERY intense, while also being... hard for me to define? Some part of the nature of the intensity felt like it was going over my head.

I wasn't sure that revisiting it would help with this right away, but to my surprise, it actually WAS a lot easier for me to follow and understand when I went back to it. So I want to just do a close reading of That Scene and some other parts of the chapter & context around it all, because I think it offers insight into Falin & her relationships, and what purpose this chapter serves within the story as a whole.

So first of all, I think it's interesting that the scene starts with Marcille bathing Falin.

It feels very caring in a more platonic, less charged way then what will follow.

Marcille goes from this caretaker mode to joining Falin in the bath, and then of course we get the first of The Panels

(as a small note, I only noticed when revisiting that Marcille is using the rest of her Kelpie soap in the bath. Isn't that just the most heartwrenching little detail. Augh)

Anyway, one of the first things I thought was interesting going back to this is how much it reminded me of the very different sort of intimacy that came just before it - when Laios and Marcille assembled Falin's bones.

This is such a beautiful and intimate sequence, and something about Marcille examining Falin, whole, after the fact... I can't imagine there are not some echoes of those bones in Marcille's mind. The action seems more startling/intense for Falin at first, and maybe part of that is because Marcille has already experienced this level of intimacy with Falin's body in a way Falin herself wasn't a part of.

This panel in particular I think is a summation of the difference in the experience for them. This looks like... near orgasmic for Falin tbh, and Marcille is very focused on the actual like practical part of what she's doing, seemingly completely unaware of the Effect she is having on Falin.

The whole short sequence is focused on this intimacy that Marcille initiated seemingly without fully being aware of what she was actually doing. And once Marcille is satisfied, she is also the one that ends it, sitting back in the bath and moving out of Falin's proximity. All on her own terms, and for her own ends.

HOWEVER... Falin doesn't just let things go.

Instead, she returns Marcille's attention. First, by asking after her wellbeing:

Marcille, of course, deflects (there will be a lot of that in this scene).

But Falin doesn't let it go.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She likes to keep the peace. In this context, and in context of the way that Marcille was the one to come into Falin's space initially, the way that Marcille controlled the initial intimacy... this is striking. I genuinely think that these three panels might convey one of the most assertive actions Falin (as herself) takes in the entire story. One of the only things that outdoes it is the fucking INCITING INCIDENT OF THE WHOLE STORY.

I'd also like to point out here that this action of Falin's also parallels her resurrection by Marcille & Laios. It's is also a forbidden magical action done to save someone(s) she loves, and its something she does TO them, that they are not fully aware/able to react to until its done.

Anyway, back to the bath scene. Falin is taking action here and asserting herself. And how does Marcille react?

She flips out!! She rejects it! She tells Falin that she isn't supposed to be acting like that.

It's a very distancing response from Marcille, and also one that puts her back in that caretaker mode from the start of the scene. She also puts even more distance between herself and Falin by sinking into the water.

Falin doesn't give up though! She continues to assert herself. She's okay, she is allowed to chose to do this.

And Marcille continues to push her away. It looks to me like she only starts to relax a little once she fits Falin into a role she can better define and control. You're a patient, you're recovering, I understand this fact and you don't. Let me take care of you.

But, for a third time, Falin pushes back.

I don't think it’s coincidence that this is where she opens her eyes. She asks directly about the thing that they have both been dancing around:

The resurrection spell. The fact that Falin KNOWS about this, at least in part, recontextualizes the quiet battle for control between the two them. They both know at least some part of the truth. Marcille wants nothing else then to ignore it. Falin wants to be able to talk about it. Marcille's blatant refusal to give her those answers, I think, is what keeps them out of sync - intimate only ever in one direction at a time, never fully together.

And of course, even when directly confronted, Marcille refuses to engage with the truth.

This moment being on the bottom of the page is notable too. There's a beat here. The last panel holds on Falin's face. The reader reaches the bottom of the page, and they are held here for a beat as well, with Falin. It's not quite a rejection yet. What Marcille says isn't directly an answer to Falin's question, but it is a response. A valid one, even! Falin wasn't just asking the question after all, but struggling with guilt that Marcille has every reason to want to reject.

But then you move on the next page, and...

Marcille isn't actually addressing the question at all, not directly. She's deflecting, again. Oh we had a ~difficult time~, there were a lot of "tough situations." Even though she and Falin both know about the resurrection, and Falin has made it clear that she wants to talk about it, Marcille pushes away from the actual topic. She keeps things broad and indirect.

She offers the smallest gesture to Falin - nothing more than a whisper of 'don't worry about it I won't get in trouble' (even though Falin's concern was never just about Marcille getting in trouble).

Marcille then continues to deflect even further, completely changing the subject onto clothes and frog adventures, which seems to distract Falin as well, as she finally gives up on pushing.

And that's where the scene ends! Marcille pushes into Falin's space (without fully realizing), and Falin pushes back. She tries three times to get Marcille to acknowledge her wants, and three times Marcille rejects her, though she does eventually convey some truth. She is honest in her belief that Falin doesn't need to feel guilty, and that things will all work out, even as she continues to deflect the rest of the question. Falin finally accepts that, the topic of conversation changes, and we move on.

But there is a little bit more that happens between them. Towards the end of the chapter, they have this little 'oh no we have to share a bed' situation. Classic stuff.

And Falin seems to realize that the context of this is kinda different now then it was when they were in the magic academy. She's not a kid any more, and they just had those intimate moments in the bath. There's a new tension between them, or one that new at least to the bed sharing of it all.

And in this respect, too Marcille pulls away from what Falin is trying to say. She tries to frame Falin as a kid, tries to insist that nothing is different.

When I first got to this part, it honestly felt... a little uncomfortable? After the bath scene, it is really weird to move into a new intimate situation with Marcille explicitly treating Falin as a kid.

What I have realized in coming back to this scene, though, is how much I think its meant to feel uncomfortable. Throughout the chapter, Marcille's responses to Falin become increasingly patronizing. By letting some of that conflict between them resolve at the end of the first scene, the chapter seems to let things rest, and lets you set it out of your mind.

Then, when the same type of conflict comes back at the end of the chapter, Marcille is even more blatantly treating Falin like a kid, and the unfairness of it hits even stronger. They are both adults, and Falin deserves the truth. After 27 chapters from the perspective of Laios, Marcille, and the others in the group, this progression lets you feel things from Falin's perspective. It's supposed to feel uncomfortable because it IS uncomfortable for Falin, the way no one will quite tell her the truth.

After all, Marcille isn't the only one to do this kind of deflecting when Falin tries to ask about what happened. Laios has a similar response, right down to the 'treating her a bit like a kid' part.

Even more importantly, this final conversation of the chapter reveals one last layer in the knowledge/power imbalance between Falin and the rest of the party: she doesn't actually remember sacrificing herself and teleporting them out.

As I mentioned before, that action was one of the most assertive things we see Falin do in the story, and she doesn't even get to keep that for herself. Instead of being her action, her choice, it becomes yet another thing that the others know more about than her.

I think that's part of why there is such an air of melancholy to this hug they share on the next page

Obviously, obviously, there are so many emotions here for Laios and I don't think its all meant to be viewed as a negative thing, or that he or Marcille are being completely unreasonable. They've been through a lot, and what's more, they think they have time now. So much more time then they actually will have. Time to explain, to open up, to let Falin return to the group in full - as a teammate and not just as someone to be cared for and protected.

But they don't get time. And this relenting by Falin, this "I won't do it again," it's not something that feels triumphant. It's an attempt to comfort them, more a prayer than a promise. As if she is trying to exorcise a spirit. As if she is capable of promising that death won't come, eventually. It's what Laios needs, not what she wants.

That's the real tragedy of the chapter, I think. It's the one time, in the midst of everything, that they have the chance to give Falin what she wants - and they don't do it.

But I do think they realize that, and I think that this failure is a core part of their journey. It's another bittersweet taste to add to the mix - all the missed chances in this chapter to connect, amidst the moments of genuine peace they do get throughout it.

As Laios puts it later...

If Falin hadn't been eaten by the dragon, and perhaps if they hadn't failed her here, they never would have had the adventure that they got to share.

(or, perhaps more tactfully: in life & chapter 28, there are both good times and bad. Thanks, Chilchuk)

[ickybby]

@sugcrbites

continued from here ♡

she shrugs bare shoulders with a laugh, her long inky strands of hair rippling around her. "most of it, yeah." not too long ago fawn would deny the playful scolding; knowing full well there was truth in every word. would've rushed and all but tripped over herself to play it cool. but that silly little fawn is dead and buried. no longer burdened by the paralyzing grip of shame or the pressures of conforming for the sake of maintaining normalcy; there's no need for fawn to pretend there's not this all-consuming, unsated voracity living within her. not in front of jonah, at least. not when he's greenlighted her obsessive nature. encouraged and reciprocated that sick fascination of hers. fawn's ecstatic to let him lead them down a vile, corrupting path. she sticks her tongue out at her brother in reply to the rest of his playful chastising, a more innocuous nod to what their bond had been before its wicked mutation. "trust me, it's not for lack of trying. m'glad i stole the hoodie too, i didn't wanna walk out of there empty-handed, feeling defeated by your stupid laptop."

what else is there to do in their rundown hometown, other than getting drunk or high or sticking their nose in other people's business. fawn can't really blame people for how they lash out when that restless, itchy boredom creeps in. she knows the feeling all too well, and understands this stagnant town breeds risky impulsiveness in folks. “honestly, i don’t know. and i don’t care. doesn't matter what i told 'em when things can go back to normal between us,” fawn snorts with barely concealed laughter. “well, a new typa normal.” not only did she get her beloved brother back after fumbling the closeness they harbored for one another for so long; now, fawn gains something far darker and more delicious than she could’ve ever foreseen. jonah's preaching to a one-woman choir with those decadent little promises, eyes light up bright as he paints the depravity he wishes to inflict on her in her mind’s eye with vivid viciousness. "yeah, to start with." the ambitious virgin admits with a giggle. "i read online you could press on your tongue with your toothbrush to train away your gag flex… but i don't know if it's helping much 'cause my eyes still water when i brush. still, i think i'd look SO cute throating your cock. i think i could get pretty good at it before our mall trip, or practice lots at least."

amongst the giggles, fawn's enjoying the make-believe he still humors her within the moments before her toys bore witness to further unspeakable depravity. she's solemnly nodding in reply to his immoral request as her brother nears, the comforter shifting under his weight as she settles underneath him. jonah's body towers over her own, though she's always been more on the shorter, slender side so that's not necessarily surprising. certainly exhilarating. despite their size differences, he fits between her legs like he's built to be there. of course he is, fawn's convinced that's where he belongs. the precious little heart between her legs might've once been a personal decision. but now that she knows jonah finds it particularly endearing it's something she's fully committed to doing for him. "yes, sir." in actuality, she means for her tone to be more playful than she conveys. instead, fawn sounds genuinely devoted to her brother as her authority figure. but the truth is, he's been one because fawn's put him on a pedestal for as long as she's known him. even through her tumultuous rebellious phase. she trembles with anxious anticipation as he further parts the valley of her legs. fawn's never felt this level of exposure, which is saying something for someone making so much money getting naked for random men online. "okay… i trust you." when she says this, a soft smile tugs the corners of her lips up as the warmth of her doe eyes zeros in on his gaze; eyes lit up with softer docility she reserves just for jonah. brown eyes flicker down between them to gawk in awe. it's a sight to see; the swollen, leaking cockhead prodding at that glistening virginal entrance, their arousal mixing together into an icky mixture. the sight of her brother on the brink of taking her virginity is nothing compared to the electrifying heat of his length teasing her cunt open just enough for fawn to blink down between them in disbelief. "it's okay," she reassures him, her tone shaky under the weight of her own lust. "promise i'm ready." aching for it, really. the walls of her cunt tightening around nothing before he's even pressed himself forward. "i need to know how you feel inside me."

[horizon-verizon]

It’s not even OOC for Aemond to call his mother a fool. I said this a year ago, all these “Aemond afraid to tell Alicent he murdered Lucerys” threads were good for jokes and memes, but TG take memes seriously and now upset. Aemond doesn’t respect Alicent. During the dinner scene in episode 8, he rudely pushes her hand away like “fuck off, I want to fight.” He calls his nephews “Strong” even though she beg him not to. He says to a peaceful envoy that he will give Alicent a gift from his eye (publicly involving her in his psychopathy and war crime). Now he says what is easy to expect: “stupid woman should not interfere with us.”

And I hate that psychopatic cyclop as much as the next person if not more, but I think it’s understandable for Aemond to be irritated that his mother has an inconsistent attitude towards their adversaries. She went from warning them that Rhaenyra would put them to the sword to secure her claim to pleading for them to show restraint. It’s not difficult to see why that would be a little grating.

I noticed that same thing in episode 8, and I'm glad you pointed that out, anon. We could contrast these with him leaning on Alicent in epi 7 after she slices Rhaenyra, when he says the final words of him being "lucky" to draw the tension from that moment from Alicent. And yeah, this plus Aemond embracing Alicent somewhere in 8, I'd say that shows that Aemond does care for his mother. It's a very fraught, dependent one. I can see Aemond feeling he has to perform a level of pleasing his mother but also not getting all of which he wants from her, which is her attentions and care when it's not about Rhaenyra...so he's both hungry for that validation (thus his seeming devotion at times) vs recognizing that she, as a mother under specific gendered constraints (including what he doesn't know, that she had him and his siblings basically under a sort of duress from Otto) cannot fully give him that validation or social advancement. So he also doesn't allow her to pull him back from asserting his dominance when he perceives that he will lose the most (humiliation at dinner; later when he decides that Luke's death is actually good and it seems Alicent is only castigating him for love of Rhaenyra). Alicent, to him, is someone who should know her own limits.

I remember being confused and even being a little miffed I was upset for Aemond in the feast scene. Not bc Luke did anything worth being that upset over but bc Alicent--after years of essentially telling her sons that Aegon is the heir, will be king, and that they should not consider Rhaenyra was the heir or a relative--decides to now try to stop them from fighting or harassing Rhaenyra's sons after one apology from Rhaenyra and their father showing a hole in their face and giving a big peace about he can't put up with their fighting!

I haven't written all that I really wish to convey bc I'm simply not eloquent enough.

[inventors-fair]

Second Spellings: Runners-Up ~

Our runners-up this week are @bergdg, @helloijustreadyourpost, and @hypexion!

@bergdg — The Great Conjuration

I don't really know where blue and green became the shapeshifteryest of shapeshifter colors (or rather, I get the gist because blue = mutability and green = nature). When you have these together, though, you get a card like this which is really damn sweet. This card obviously puts a massive target on your back, but if you go fast enough, you can ensure that the power behind your creatures can swing fully and completely. Or rather, that you have at least one explosive turn. Having all the cards be exiled can be a feel-bad, but there are great ways to exploit this and even better ways that this card is just plain fun.

For example: naming Eldrazi allows you to cast Emrakul off a Blisterpod. Honestly, do I need to name any other examples after that? I think that the only major revision I would make would be for the last ability to say "You may cast any number of cards exiled with ~ this turn without paying their mana costs." I'm not sure where you got the "one or more" wording from, but hey, that's a small issue for such a fun card. It's extremely narrow and more often than not feels like it would be a glass cannon—so yeah, perfectly reasonable for what the conjuration is implying, right? Side note: amazing art skills there. The mood conveys the gist conveys the extremity.

@helloijustreadyourpost — Sky Dancer

I like the Shakespeare reference in the flavor text, and I think it speaks to some kind of faerie perspective that's not quite translatable to human thought—or at least that feels like the intention, the way that the fae see the world. That is to say, I like both the simplicity and the ambiguity. It's actually tied with the effect for the card, which is a potentially quite powerful effect at common! I can't think of any specific effects with which it's broken, at least not at the moment.

So what you have is the ability to swing in with your fliers and then be on the defense, plus if you have any flash synergy you can utilize that to make combat harder for your opponents. All checks out. Cast triggers at common aren't the easiest to grok, but at the same time, this effect doesn't use too much complex space because of no inherent tap ability; I'm thinking of how my students sometimes get juked out with weird Thermo-Alchemist triggers, y'know. By itself, it's a card that does just what Faeries want to do at common, and I think that the only possible change I'd make would be to make it a 1/2, and even that's negligible. Solid common design!

@hypexion — Distortion Skitterer

As an uncommon? You're treading hazardous ground... But, it's a seven-mana 4/4 so that's honestly not so bad. Making additional 4/4s with trample is pretty nasty and you do get one on cast, but holy crap, that's still really fun to play, and fairly limiting all things considered. The amount of times that this would've come up in OGW limited would be pretty little, which is reasonable, but getting two of them or getting just one trigger off would be pretty nasty. Considering that MH3 is going to have even more? Wow. I think that the double-C is quite reasonable for the setup.

Honestly this card speaks for itself—the power level is comparable to the more powerful uncommons of its era, it's an Eldrazi that makes more Eldrazi, and you've got a pretty reasonable wording to show how nuts it can be. FYI, the cast trigger for other spells would actually be its own thing, e.g. "When you cast this spell and whenever you cast a spell with {C} in its mana cost..." I believe you don't have to specify "on the battlefield" because, like Cityscape Leveler, it implies the zone with the wording on the trigger. That said, it's fairly complex, so I understand if things got finicky. Flavor text is a solid B+, too! Just remember to put the period inside the quotation marks. I guess a runner-up flavor would've been Zurdi saying that they missed the scute bugs.

Commentary soon! @abelzumi

[ballsballsbowls]

Slate recently published a relatively short interview with Holly Black and I just...

I cannot stress enough, here where you can see it, that I don't have strong feelings about Holly Black specifically. I've read just enough of one of her books to be pretty confident that it's not for me and I doubt I will read anything else. Holly Black just happens to be the person they interviewed and the person who said these things specifically. I have no quarrel with her.

What really drew my attention was this, which unfortunately I suspect is hardly unique to her.

Q: In The Prisoner’s Throne, there’s a scene early on that I thought was going to go in the way many romantasy books would go these days, but it didn’t. A lot of readers are here for the smut, but some authors, like yourself, will go the “behind closed doors” route, where the sex isn’t explicit or it’s assumed to have happened off the page. Are you at all interested in exploring the smuttier aspect of fantasy? 

A: I think that I certainly could push myself a bit more out of my comfort zone, but I don’t know how much I would want to explore it. Mostly because, as a reader, I find long sex scenes to be paced strangely—you’re moving through everything else at a certain pace, and then the pace just drops off, like, OK, now we’re spending, like, two chapters like this. I know there are people who enjoy it, obviously. I recognize that readers wish I could make the scenes a little longer. I had a reader ask me, with the Folk of the Air series, if my editor had made me cut down the scenes, and I said, “No, actually, my editor told me to expand the scene.” And she said, “Well, why didn’t you?” Friend, I did.

I also had somebody talk to me recently about how, in a certain kind of book, what you have is levels of physical intimacy being symbolic of the characters achieving a greater amount of emotional intimacy. That’s just not something I’ve ever thought of as being equivalent. I’ve been like, Oh, I have to get them closer here, but I never really thought that people often are using physical intimacy as a stand-in or as a way to communicate emotional intimacy. Building up into a greater and greater level of physical intimacy is doing work that I’m just not thinking about doing in that way.

~

Paragraph 1 of her answer is interesting in its own way. I'd always wondered why people feel compelled to write 2-paragraph sex scenes because they are my least favorite way to convey that information. I'd much rather a fully closed door OR a 2-page treatment with no in between, but you can't generalize her answer to authors generally.

But Paragraph 2 was actually kind of illuminating and, I think, is actually a notion that can be spun out and applied to other authors rather than being specific to her. I like category romance a lot (among other genres, the difference is that I never shut up about romance because nobody is spending a lot of energy being dismissive and shitty about fantasy or sci-fi as a genre anymore), but I have struggled with basically every new romance-esque genre out there that should be appealing! It's romance AND something else! But I didn't vibe with any of the rom-coms I read, which I forgave because 'rom-com' isn't a real genre, it's basically just a marketing thing.

But I also didn't like any why chooses/RH; I didn't like any 'romantasy' (despite liking both romance AND fantasy!) —even Paladin's Grace was pretty much a spite finish for me and that's the work of an immensely skilled tradpub author—not to mention, I have no idea whether she considers that series 'romantasy' or not (I doubt it). Hell, I'd dump shifter romance/urban fantasy romance in here too and it's been around longer than any of these upstart new romance-adjacent sub-genres.

But I think Paragraph 2 of Holly's answer maybe gets to some of it. She's either saying that she doesn't understand a correlation between sex and emotional intimacy in general (which is all well and good but maybe romance-adjacent author is not the career for you?)

Or she's saying that she doesn't understand a correlation between sex and emotional intimacy in romance writing, which was a lightbulb moment for me. At the risk of perhaps overgeneralizing:

A lot of these authors are writing romance-adjacent books because they think romance is a cool thing to have in a book but they don't understand why category romance does what it does, and what it signifies, and why it works, so they just...throw everything out because they are Too Cool For Category Romance because it's Grandma Porn or whatever, so they write something that's marketed as a romance that doesn't comprehend how to write or discuss emotional intimacy at all, and typically can't juggle it under the weight of the rest of the plot even if they do.

So you end up with between 2 and 7 leads with the emotional depth and chemistry of smooshing two barbies together to kiss because they don't have a clue what chemistry between leads should look like because they're Too Cool For Category Romance. And a lot of them that I have read have had sex scenes, so they're not afraid of smut, but they can't integrate emotional vulnerability or chemistry into it at all.

I think this is where her complaint about the 'pacing' of sex scenes comes in. This newer, ultra-lean writing style where everything is first person present and paced oddly and every dialogue is sparse and lacking dialogue tags and every two-page spread is mostly white space is here to stay, unfortunately, and in a world where you're trying to reduce word count and have an additional entire plot besides the romance, who has space for intimacy or whimsy or anything but maybe 2 crude indicators that they trust each other?

[rebelren]

Saw this post, which mentions the movie at the end, and I just have to say:

I fucking love the Scarlet Pimpernel.

I loved the book growing up (haven't reread it so I don't know how I'd feel about it now), but I just rewatched what - to me - is The Version, the one from 1982 featuring Jane Seymour, Anthony Andrews, and Ian McKellen.

(I hadn't even realised that Chauvelin was Ian McKellen because I don't think I knew who McKellen was when I first watched the movie! So wild to see him that young!)

The movie doesn't follow the plot of the (first) book, but I don't care because I love it so much. This was the absolute height of romance to me when I first watched it, and I carry a great deal of fondness for it even now. Watching it again was a delight, and the aspects I love still worked for me despite being much more Aware of Things than I used to be.

A quick aside about Paul Chauvelin: He's got an unbudging fanatical sort of patriotism, of course, a dogged determination even when faced with what must be near-certain defeat at the end. But it also feels like there is a kind of genuine disappointment in him, an inability to understand how someone he considers a like mind could look at their reality and arrive at a different conclusion. There's a sort of fading/lost hope as the woman he loved (maybe truly, once upon a time) moves beyond his reach. I don't like him, especially the way he touches Marguerite (there's so much presumption), but I think McKellen does a great job.

But on to the things I love most.

Jane Seymour

She is just... so luminously beautiful in this role. My (deeply unaware) baby queer heart fell for her immediately, and present me can confirm that, like Percy, I too would probably fall in love with her upon our first meeting.

Not only is she stunning, she's passionate and determined and will use every ounce of her considerable acting skill to keep Chauvelin at bay. She loves fiercely and is loyal to those she loves. She will go to the ends of the earth to defend them, will stand in defiance against her country itself if it means protecting them.

Her portrayal of Marguerite is fantastic, warm and furious and bitingly cold and deliriously happy and courageous in turns. The transition from the glowing, joyous woman on her wedding day to the one who says, "I've lost my husband's love, and I don't know why..." is absolutely heartbreaking.

Once she discovers the truth about the husband she loves but has not fully understood until this second, she does not hesitate a moment to fling herself into action, risking everything to bring him home safely.

She's marvelous and lovely and brave, and my baby queer self had good fucking taste.

Anthony Andrews

Truthfully, even without Jane Seymour, Anthony Andrews alone might make this my favourite movie adaptation.

To me, he embodies the character like no other actor has (that I've seen, at any rate).

He is foppish as hell, a beautiful dandy, ever fantastically dressed and perfectly poised, the darling of society.

He is also the bravest and most daring of English noblemen, risking his life near-daily to save people from the guillotine.

Simultaneously.

And he portrays it so well, with all these levels and layers to his performance, especially in his role as popular society man Sir Percy Blakeney, baronet. (Baronet?)

I feel like other depictions I've seen have either been too foppish or too serious, never inhabiting both roles equally well, never managing to shift between them and meld them in a convincing way.

Andrews' Sir Percy can go from vacant eyes to the sharpest of gazes in a flash, can transform in an instant from a social butterfly with gloriously ridiculous affectations to a low-voiced mastermind with nerves of steel. It's like he can become a whole new person before one's eyes just from a change in stance or expression or pitch.

I swear I've not seen anyone else manage to convey so many emotions and variations in the role, and he makes it look effortless. He makes me believe, at least for those 142 minutes, that he is everything his legend says he is and more.

And who knows? Maybe it's not as good as I think. Maybe it's just that I saw it at the right time in my life and was convinced and bewitched so thoroughly that my nostalgic impression persists to this day.

Maybe.

But whatever the cause, whatever the reason I feel this way, I felt it all over again when I watched the movie again recently.

And that? The ability of this movie, which came out before I was even born, to affect me that way years ago and still today?

That's fucking magic.

Just.

THIS FUCKING MOVIE.

The End.

[polyhexian]

Okay. Finished Bambi. The movie really only encompasses a little more than half the book. It ends showing Bambi running off with faline into adulthood, happy. The book however continues and shows Bambi growing older and wiser in the ways of the forest and ultimately becoming the new prince of the forest. He is alone all the time, has no companions, has lost interest in faline and not seen her in some time. The book ends with him encountering some frightened fawns calling for their mothers and chastising them for not being able to take care of themselves. Ultimately this is a book written in 1929 about the life cycle of a wild prey animal that is like, directly pushing the narrative that hunting is bad and hunters are evil.

Which... I don't really agree with. There are no predators in this book, not of deer. The only thing the deer have to worry about is humans. They're not afraid of wolves or lions or any other large carnivores. Which means... Yeah, letting them run unchecked probably isn't actually great for the environment. Especially when we see how devastating winter already is. Now, maybe it's just that the meat industry was not as evil yet in 1929 as it is today? But I am of the distinct opinion that meat from a wild deer is more ethically sourced than meat from a factory farm cow. The conditions those animals are put through are so beyond inhumane it's indescribable. That deer had a life, a natural life, and fell victim to a predator. Its life was better than that cows ever was. Now, sport hunting is different- sort of, plenty of people who sport hunt do still use all the meat and pelts they harvest, and what harm is there in enjoying the work you are already doing?

I don't think anyone will disagree with me that killing animals for fun with no purpose isn't really... Good. If you're shooting deer and just taking antlers and letting them rot and it's not got some other purpose like culling the herd or preventing the spread of disease... Don't do that? Not that animals don't sometimes kill for fun but. We don't need to cause more suffering in the world than we have to.

It's hard for me to really get into the mindset of what the author might have really been trying to convey with this. I don't know what it's like to live in Germany in 1929 so I can't really imagine what kind of world he was living in, the world of humans and his morals or the world of ethical hunting and animal welfare. It is certainly presented that the best way to survive, to be proud and noble and regal, is to have no relations with anyone, to speak to no one, to have no friends or curiosity, to trust nothing and no one and to rely only upon oneself. Also to just get up and leave your wife one day and never go back.

On one hand, on a completely literal level, this is probably a very accurate depiction of a deers life cycle and how a deer survives long enough to become an elder. Only the lonely survive. On a message level I'm really not sure what it's trying to tell me. It does feel a bit like it's making a broader statement than just a brutal accurate depiction of wild animal life. It also hit me with a steel chair out of left field by dropping what I think the thesis statement of the book may be and it's that god is to us as we are to all other animals. Arbiter of life and death. Incomprehensible. Beyond understanding. Something greater than man is out there.

That shit was wild I wasn't expecting this to suddenly reveal Oh Fuck It's About God. So like. It's saying something. It's definitely saying something. I'm really not sure I have the context to fully understand what and I'm not sure I'd agree with it even if I did.

[muselin]

first off i'd like to note that your new ff is absolutely fucking amazing, next i'd like to ask you something!

what do you think each shinee member likes to be called in bed ? daddy, sir, master, baby, etc etc. (bonus points if you'd like to add what they like to call their s/o!)

-🗑

🗑anon hi!!! Omg you have no idea how popular you are behind the scenes in my circle lol. I'm talking conspiracy theories about who you might be, but mostly how hot your asks are haha ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

So, on with what's essentially a headcanon --

SHINee Headcanon - What they like to be called in bed

Onew

What he likes to be called:

Daddy. Yep. I have sat there watching his live as he read out comments calling him daddy and just smiled. No blushing, no "hajimaaaa", no acting shy or nervous. It matches his sweet and caring (and not-so-well-hidden filthy) disposition. This man is fully comfortable being called daddy and I bet my bottom dollar that nothing turns him on quicker than whispering it in his ear when you want him to want you instantly.

What he likes to call his s/o:

I am sticking with English words and not going cringe to explain the Korean equivalents, hope you understand. So Onew would probably like to call his s/o prince or princess, baby, little boy/little girl. All the ones that match "daddy". I would not put age play past him, to be honest.

Minho

What he likes to be called:

His name or "sir". When he's feeling playful or vanilla, his name affectionately called or moaned sensually makes him melt a little bit. And when he's feeling like playing rough or disciplinarian, he likes to be called "sir" and you are in for pain if you don't comply.

What he likes to call his s/o:

Babe or their name, or "whore" if he's feeling spicy and domineering. Obscenities are rare with him but he isn't above using a time-honoured one when the situation calls for it (i.e. when he's making you beg and cry and worship his cock like a perfect little whore).

Key

What he likes to be called:

"Master" or random obscenities, depending on if he's domming or subbing for you. Bastard, fucker, slut, bitch - he doesn't mind, as long as they're appropriate to whatever role he's playing that night. Words don't matter to him as much as the feeling behind them, and obscenities convey so much - you being driven crazy by his teasing, you loving how he begs for you when you're punishing him, you generally being driven crazy by him which is always an ego boost.

What he likes to call his s/o:

Master/Mistress if you're domming (and instructed him to), slut if you're subbing for him. He likes his balance. I mean, he's a Libra, what are we expecting.

Taemin

What he likes to be called:

An affectionate version of his name, kitten, or baby and sugar if he's feeling subby and wanting to be taken care of. He can sometimes ask you to call him "bitch", if he just wants to be fucked hard and proper or wants to be punished. Much of the time he acts like a prince though, so spoiling it is.

What he likes to call his s/o:

Honey, baby, their name or if he's very very subby, he might say sir or ma'am. He's generally not so much "with the words" as he is with just expressing the level of address with his actions, like curling up at your feet waiting for instructions, or if he's feeling more equal, just kissing you all over and never taking his hands off your body.

[popatochisssp]

Are any of the new guys ok with being child free? (I keep having to explain to my fam how I'm NOT EVER going to have kids) And I'd like some solidarity from fictional skeletons.

Broadly speaking, I think all of them would be okay with that! In general, all the boys’ idea of the future is uncertain and something they need to work out with their s/o, so that informs the perspective a lot.

I truly don’t think ‘no kids’ or ‘yes kids’ would be an explicit deal-breaker for any of them, but in terms of where their thoughts naturally fall about the topic:

Pre-discussion/negotiation, it’s probably a no: Sky (Underswap Sans), Paps (Underswap Papyrus), Mal (Swapfell Sans), Rus (Swapfell Papyrus), Ash (Undergloom Sans), Brick (Horrorfell Sans), Merc (Horrorswap Sans), Pitch (Horrorswapfell Sans)

Genuinely neutral or undecided: Sans (Undertale), Pyre (Underfell Papyrus), Papy (Horrortale Papyrus), King (Horrorfell Papyrus), Ell (Horrorswap Papyrus), Sunny (Gastertale Sans), Aster (Gastertale Papyrus)

Pre-discussion/negotiation, it’s probably a yes: Papyrus (Undertale), Jasper (Underfell Sans), Slate (Horrortale Sans), Yrus (Undergloom Papyrus), Nemo (Horrorswapfell Papyrus)

But like I said... they’re flexible, because your relationship and the future they want to have with you doesn’t work without... well, you!

If you’re a ‘definitely no kids’ person and you see your skeleton in the ‘yes’ category, that doesn’t mean you’re doomed-- it just means a couple conversations about it to convey your thoughts...and depending on the level of gungho for having kids he is (most aren’t married to it), maybe agreeing to a compromise where you adopt an animal or two and be dog/cat/iguana/whatever-the-hell parents.

Same goes for a ‘yes i want kids’ person who sees their skeleton of choice in the ‘no’ section, that’s just where they are before talking it all out with you. Some time and a few conversations to understand where everybody’s coming from and how to move forward, they’re willing to negotiate.

Kids or no kids, neither is a deal-breaker, it’s all fine and you can work it out together!

Y’know what, while I’m at it, here’s just the basic thought processes of all of them, just to give a little peek into their skulls on the matter...

Sans (Undertale): Kids are fun, doesn’t have any particularly strong desire to have one of his own, but he raised his kid brother for awhile and he knows it’s something he can do, if it’s what you want.

Papyrus (Undertale): Kids are great and he’d be a great parent, he just knows it! You’d be a great parent, too! ...But if that’s not what you want to do, then that’s okay. There’s plenty of other great things for you to do together in life!

Sky (Underswap Sans): Kids are wonderful, but raising his little brother solo after their dad disappeared... That was hard and he definitely wasn’t ready for the responsibility. It was a humbling experience and he refuses to commit to having kids of his own until he’s sure it’s something he sincerely, passionately wants.

Paps (Underswap Papyrus): Feels awkward around kids, as a rule, and also kind of thinks of himself as a (mostly contained, at least) disaster of a skeleton. Is he ready for the responsibility of being in charge of a brand new being’s growth and development??? Not sure! Not sure at all!

Jasper (Underfell Sans): He likes kids alright... thinks about maybe having some of his own someday, the idea of a family is nice, in his head... but he definitely isn’t sure about the reality. Worries about if he’d be a good enough parent, or if his kids (if he were to have them) would resent him or just not like him. It’s a nice idea, but nothing’s set in stone for him.

Pyre (Underfell Papyrus): Honestly never thought about it. Part of him fully expected to die Underground in some battle or other, or excepting that, he wouldn’t find a partner who’d want to be with him long-term, much less long enough that he could make a family with them. He’s not...explicitly opposed to it, but he also hasn’t given it a lot of thought at all. He’ll need time to sort out his feelings, whatever his partner’s opinions on potential kids are.

Mal (Swapfell Sans): Terrified, petrified to have kids of his own. Being around them is...fine, but... He’s got a lot of issues tied up with his...parent... and having to be a pseudo-parent to his own brother at a very young age, it’s made him worry about repeating patterns and failing, hurting, damaging, or otherwise doing his own children a disservice, if he were to have them-- even as a grown and well-situated adult. If kids are something his partner really wants, they’ve got those insecurities to talk about with him for sure.

Rus (Swapfell Papyrus): He’s actually really good with kids, he relates to them well and always just talks to them like people, so of course they love him. But having his own... That, he’s not sure about. He’s definitely a little bit of a disaster, and still working on a lot of Adult Life Skills, and the thought of being in charge of a whole entire brand new person is more than a little scary. Not sure if he’s ready for that step--or if he’ll ever be!

Slate (Horrortale Sans): Loves kids, and loves the idea of a big family. He’s had more than enough death, life is very appealing to him and a full house honestly sounds wonderful. ...But he does have some memory issues, a dash of narcolepsy, and some hard, dissociative days that make him worry he might not be a very good parent. He’d do his best to do right by his kids if he ends up having them, of course he would, but if that’s just not in the cards for him, that wouldn’t be the end of the world. He’s the one who’d definitely want to bring in some furbabies if two-legged babies aren’t on the table, and he’d still be a very, very happy man!

Papy (Horrortale Papyrus): He likes kids, but doesn’t have many strong feelings on having his own. He’d be alright either way his partner wanted to go-- as long as the two of them are together and safe and happy, he’s got everything he needs.

Ash (Undergloom Sans): Kids are fun, but honestly...oof. He’s got a chronic fatigue thing going on and keeping up with a kid for more than an hour or two at a time... he’s not sure he could hack it. Maybe he could, but that’s really something to think about before just diving in, y’know?

Yrus (Undergloom Papyrus): Very good with children! They’re so curious and bright and he loves that about them! He’s got a lot of nurturing, caretaker tendencies built right into his personality, so he’s a natural at looking after and corralling them. He’s easily flustered and moves slow in his romantic relationships, though, so there’s a long timeline before the ‘should we have kids’ talk is even on the table, plenty of chances to share thoughts and work out a gameplan, whether that’s yea or nay. If yea, wonderful! If nay, he’d probably be just as happy babysitting friends’ kids and being Cool Uncle Papyrus as having any of his own.

Brick (Horrorfell Sans): It’s... a nice thought. But he definitely doesn’t trust himself enough to feel totally comfortable having kids of his own. He barely trusts himself in Polite Society some days, and he’d just be too worried about not being in control and hurting or scaring a little one, especially a little one of his own. He doesn’t think he’d ever be able to forgive himself if he made his own kid afraid of him. Plus memory issues, nightmares, (depending on his fluency at the time) a language barrier... So ‘no kids’ is...probably preferable, but if it’s something you really want... maybe start with an animal or two first? The ol’ practice-baby pet, see how it goes kinda deal, and move forward from there.

King (Horrorfell Papyrus): Like his counterpart, never really thought about it much...but when he does, he decides he could go either way on it. If you’re not interested in kids, fine, that’s more time for just the two of you. If you are, well... he was literally a monarch that ruled over all of monsterkind, for a time--surely, he could manage to be a passingly decent parent, with you as his partner in the endeavor. He’ll take his cues from you as to whether it’s a yes or a no.

Merc (Horrorswap Sans): His feelings haven’t really changed from pre-Famine. In fact, he’s probably more hesitant now, after so viscerally confronting the consequences of his own hasty decisions and having to face his own fallibility the way he did. The thought of being responsible for a whole small life is very nerve-wracking--especially if said proposed life is to be biologically his, because he really doesn’t know what the DT in his system (pre or post-integration) will pass on to theoretical next-of-kin, if anything at all. Maybe not a ‘never,’ but not a vigorous, enthusiastic ‘yes’ either, lots to think about...and maybe tests to run...

Ell (Horrorswap Papyrus): A couple years ago, he’d have been a little more in the ‘no’ camp, but now... He’s been through a lot. He’s struggling sometimes still, at least emotionally, but he made it, so y’know... maybe he’s capable of handling more than he thought he was. Still not a solid ‘yes’--he’s aware of his lack of filter and its tendency to cause hurt feelings, and he does like his peace and quiet, which kids are very much not conducive to, as a rule, so he’d have to put in some work and make some sacrifices-- but he’s no longer wholly a ‘no’ either. Depending on your own thoughts, there’s plenty of room to negotiate.

Pitch (Horrorswapfell Sans): Kids are fine, he can handle them well enough, and even the thought of having his own doesn’t stress him out so much as it once did--he’s changed a lot, and been through a lot, taking a second crack at parenthood from a new perspective wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world--but he’s also not particularly interested in it. He likes his leisure time and his luxuries, and much as he’s sure he could find room in that to accommodate a child...he doesn’t see much of a reason to. He could be convinced, if it’s something that you really want, but he’d also stay childfree without a second thought to the matter.

Nemo (Horrorswapfell Papyrus): Good with kids, like his counterpart, but also a little more capable and confident in himself and his ability to get things done. So... having a kid might be a little intimidating for him, but he generally feels like he could probably figure it out... and a kid might be a nice outlet for some of his caretaking urges, and extra motivation to keep fighting his phobia, to make sure their childhood is good and doesn’t suffer from them having a dad who’s scared to go outside. He definitely likes the idea of someone to look after and to be better for, but if that’s not for you, he wouldn’t force the issue. Would maybe want a furbaby though, instead, probably special needs that not everybody could/would be able to take care of (like Dizzy!) to fill that niche.

Sunny (Gastertale Sans): Kids are really cool and fun to hang out with--crazy little people, no filter, just running around, saying things, living life--they’re awesome, but he’s not totally sold on the idea of having his own. He does a lot of aimless life-living himself, and he feels like maybe that’s not the best thing for a kid. He doesn’t really have a career, he does things without a lot of planning, he goes places spontaneously, and... maybe that’s fun and exciting for a kid to be raised around, or maybe it’s unstable and harmful. He’s not really sure which and he probably doesn’t want to bring a kid into the mix until he knows. With a partner who’s a ‘yes’ on children and can help him co-parent and all that, sure, he’d probably be willing to give it a go. With one who’s a ‘no,’ that’s fine too, it’s a nonissue!

Aster (Gastertale Papyrus): A little weird and stiff around kids, never totally sure how he’s supposed to talk to them or what he’s meant to say (especially when it comes to those things you’re supposed to lie to kids about, he’s very bad at that!!!), but he has nothing against children in general. As far as the idea of having his own... Well, if his partner wants to have kids, it wouldn’t be a no-- he’d just have to do a lot of research on the subject first, to feel more comfortable and to hopefully prepare, mentally, as much as one can ever prepare for this. After that, he’d be open to discuss and negotiate the matter with his partner from there, to sort out the logistics. With a partner who doesn’t want kids, though, he’d almost certainly never even bring it up on his own and honestly probably thinks of ‘childfree’ as the expected default rather than something quirky, nontraditional, or a deal-breaker.

[yamaoni]

The Second Great War of Remnant has begun. Once more, Vale and Mantle are embroiled in a massive conflict, only this time, they are on the same side against Atlas.

I don't think it was a coincidence that so many people drew parallels with the last episode and WWI. We've never seen people fight that way in RWBY. Grimm don't use projectile weapons the way humans do, so the benefits of the trench are diminished; especially if you compare it to the drawbacks.

Now, I understand not everyone in the Atlas military has their aura unlocked and the squishy soldiers need some cover, but if The Long Memory didn't nuke every grimm on Atlas, the lines would have been overrun and then there would have been nowhere for them to retreat to.

You think the very real hand to hand struggles in the trenches of WWI were bad, imagine being trapped in a narrow trench with a bear. Or having this thing explode out of the ground under you.

I refuse to believe no-one in Atlas ever thought, "if we put the dirt from the trench in a box, no only can we give our soldiers cover, we can also give them an elevated position to fire from."

The top of a wall has been the primary defensive position for the people of Remnant for a long time. You can see them in the establishing shots of most settled places the team has visited. So why are we seeing a trench now?

Simple.

Show, don't tell.

RWBY has done a pretty great job, especially in the last few seasons, of showing the audience what it is trying to convey without explicitly telling them. They especially like drawing from well known folk lore to give insight into the future of the show.

Only difference here, instead of drawing the parallel between characters, they're drawing parallels between worlds.

Remnant's first Great War started with Mantle suppressing freedom of expression, the destruction of Art and Color. Ironwood always has little in the way of color, but in his first broadcast since everything started hitting the fan, he has none.

That broadcast also included evacuation ships being blown up by fighter-bombers, Dunkirk. It threatend to level a city if they didn't surrender, Battle of Brittan. All delivered by a dictator trying to scare his opponents into submission through careful use of film.

Theories

If the rest of the season is WWII, I have several theories on plot direction. Considering how well they did keeping up with both ends of the battlefield it wouldn't surprise me if they followed all of them at the same time.

Operation Dunkirk

Or, the evacuation of Mantle.

Players: Penny, Nora, Ren, Happy Huntresses

The Happy Huntresses involvement is a given. Not only has saving Mantle been their goal the whole time, they're also stuck in the middle of it right now.

Penny is the Protector of Mantle. It would be a shining moment for her character to fully throw off the virus Watts implanted and overcome Ironwood's threats to do so. Just crossing my fingers that it doesn't end like the Iron Giant.

Nora is currently Penny's tether to sanity, so she has to go with, and I doubt they would separate Ren from her for the next arc so he's going too.

Surprise twist for this plot I'm betting will be the Starwars "they aren't warships, just people" scene everyone loves to rag on. After all, the broadcast went out that they needed help and, at least at Dunkirk, it was fishing boats and pleasure crafts that retrieved the 338,000 surrounded on all sides.

Why We Fight

Or, countering Ironwoods propaganda.

Players: Robyn and Qrow

For one, these two are unaccounted for and in the heart of Atlas' military machine. If anyone has means to do so, it's them.

The film, Why We Fight, also countered the dramatic cinematography of Goebbels propaganda by painting it as ridiculous and making a folksy call to action much like Robyn has done in the past.

Operation Fortitude

Or, the deception of Ironwood.

Players: Emerald, Jaune, Oscar

This is the mission to make Ironwood think the team is going after the relic. This theory is why I actually thought of and wrote out this whole thing. Thanks @maxiemumdamage, I had things I was supposed to do tonight.

https://maxiemumdamage.tumblr.com/post/644291955872890880/willing-to-bet-my-own-soul-that-emerald-uses-her

Only difference in my theory and their's, is Jaune is going to be playing the part of Penny.

I say this for two reasons. One, Joan of Arc pretended to be a man. While we've gotten both Jaune pretending to be something he's not and him in a dress, this would pose the first time in the story he could do both. Two, it would put him on a direct collision path with Cinder. It needs to happen at some point to bring his arc to a conclusion, but man I hope we're not about to watch him burn.

With Ozpin active again, Oscar has to go along to direct them to the vault. He's also one of two backing the idea of Emerald joining the team and Jaune wouldn't be willing to work with her without him.

Operation Overlord

Or, busting down the doors of Atlas Acadamy.

Players: Ruby, Blake, Weiss, Yang

Where Operation Fortitude was the faint, Operation Overlord was the real deal. For those that aren't history buffs, this is D-Day.

I think this is the reason we've only seen the main team fighting together once since their split from Beacon. And even then, that fight was at most pairs of fighters and not all four of them supporting one another.

RWBY tricked us into thinking season 4 was the post-timeskip level up we come to expect from anime when really we ended up watching the training flashbacks as they happened instead.

We've seen hints of it with the various team ups and combinations, but are we really ready for how much ass kicking they are about to do?

I'm hoping for a One Piece level of badass entrance that can give me shivers whenever I go to watch it again like the walk to Arlong Park still does to this day.

(Aside: if you try telling me RWBY isn't anime, I'm just going to ignore you. Anime is an art movement. If you don't understand what that means, watch this video. https://youtu.be/uFtfDK39ZhI)

Now last and certainly not least

Operation Valkyrie

Or, the death of Ironwood.

Players: Winter and Marrow

The long awaited defection. Plenty of speculation has already floated around about if and when these two where going to cave to their morals and jump ship. I don't know how many of us were expecting the straw to break the camel's back to be a nuke held over Mantle, but I certainly wasn't.

What worries me, is Operation Valkyrie failed and all its conspirators were executed. As if there weren't enough death flags for Winter before.

Even if it's not Winter that kills him. I don't see Ironwood surviving this season. Even if it means he goes out like another hated dictator. It's not like it would be the first time RT had a fallen hero chose to use his own sword.

Wildcards

Or, Murphy will have his due.

Players: Cinder, Watts, Neo, Tyrian, Mercury, Clover

These players can go any which way. Three we know for sure are going to be active in the coming episodes and I wouldn't be surprised if the other three play a part as well.

Oscar made a hell of a light show for Tyrian and Mercury to see behind them. Not to mention, Salem will still need a ride home when she pulls herself back together.

Clover keeps getting mentioned even though he's hospitalized. If he was truly out of commission for the rest of the season, they would have made us think he's dead before bringing him back like they did with Penny.

Up to now, what we've seen is a three way conflict. But one of the hallmarks of Remnant's First Great War, was making temporary alliances to fight off grimm.

The grimm might be gone, but the wild cards can't complete their own objectives if they are dead. The question is who's goals better align with their own.

Two surprise twists I can see here. One, Mercury stabbing Tyrian on his way to defection. He was raised by an assassin and has not going to get a better chance than that. Two, Clover joining Operation Valkyrie. He might have accepted that sacrifice is a necessary evil to ensure Atlas' survival, but might go Schindler's List on us and find horror in what Ironwood plans to do.

TLDR

I spent way too long writing this out. All the WWI imagery means we're getting a WWII movie with RWBY characters. Major death flags for Penny, Jaune, and Winter.

Also I finally figured out how to do a readmore. Apparently it's just been a long time since I updated.

Note: kept seeing things talking about clovers death and I kind of went ???? Isn't he barely alive in medical? Went back and watched that scene and though I am 90% sure he is dead still kind of weird that they have him in his own room instead of a morgue and the initial framing made my mind instantly think he was propped up on a hospital bed. I mean, I guess we needed to have all the ACEOPs there for their reaction to Ironwood... but it definitely made me think he was alive. That and they have a bandage on his chest wound... when he's supposedly dead. Also have a phantom memory of Harriet saying something about him being in critical but I think that's my memory playing tricks on me.

Having his face exposed instead of covered by the sheet and seeing him in the same frame as Winter being treated also didn't help my gut reaction of "Oh Shit! He's alive? How?!" If I'd followed up more on the "how" might not have made the blunder of writing his return as the final twist in my theory. Oops

[shadyb00ts]

A Chromatica Review

So I never really use Tumblr, but when I do go on here, it’s pretty much to review something long-form. As you can tell from my profile picture here, and from my glowing review of ARTPOP from 7 years ago, I am and have always been a Gaga stan. Just read the melodramatic first paragraph of my ARTPOP review and you’ll get the gist of how much I idolize this woman. Well, idolized. Past tense.

That’s not to say I suddenly hate Gaga–I’m still going to follow her career and listen to whatever she puts out. There have just been several factors this past year that have changed my perspective on how I view her, this album being one of those factors. But I’ll get to those later. First I just need to lay out all my issues with this album.

Yes, this is going to be that type of review, so if you’re a fellow Gaga stan that isn’t able to criticize her work, this probably isn’t for you. Otherwise please read to the end if you can, because this is honestly about more than just the album.

Issue #1: The Mismatch Between Music & Aesthetic

When the cover of the album came out, I was so gagged. Like, just look at it! It’s striking, and Gaga has rarely ever disappointed me when it came to visuals. Actually, I can’t even think of any visual choices she made in previous eras that disappointed me. Even in the Joanne era, the pink cowboy hat became iconic and all of her aesthetic choices fit with the overall vibe of that album cycle.

So naturally, when she revealed to us the new visual direction she was taking for Chromatica, I assumed it would give us some insight into how the music would sound. The aesthetic of this era always gave me grungy cyberpunk and heavy machinery tease. When I look at the album cover for example, I can hear a song produced by SOPHIE in my head, the clink-clank queen herself. (There were rumors that Gaga was going to or did work with SOPHIE but that was never confirmed, unfortunately for us.)

For those unfamiliar with SOPHIE, here’s Ponyboy, which was most recently used in the ad campaign for Beyoncé’s Ivy Park clothing line.

That was the kind of production I was more or less expecting when taking the visuals into account; dark, metallic, basically similar to ARTPOP’s production (to be honest ARTPOP sonically fits better with the Chromatica aesthetic; think about it). 

But what did we get? Light, garden variety dance pop, a stark contrast to what the album cover and the promo images teased us with.

In the album, we get these orchestral interludes that are beautiful but don't really mesh that well with the actual tracks. The songs don't have any orchestral elements by themselves, so the interludes felt a bit misplaced to me. I wish they'd incorporated more of that into the individual songs, so that there could be an orchestral through-line to give more cohesion, like what Ariana did in her album positions by using strings. However I will say, the transition from Chromatica II into 911 remains unmatched.

I get that the album is supposed to sound happy, that it was her returning to her “dance pop roots” and singing about serious topics like mental health over happy-sounding beats, because it’s supposed to reflect her current mental state. I get all that. But if that was the case, I think she should’ve gone with a different visual direction to match. Personally I wish she went a different direction musically instead, but even if it was just the other way around and she changed the aesthetic of this era, my opinion of the album would probably improve slightly, cause at least there would be cohesion between the visuals and the sonics.

I look at that album cover, and promo images like the one below, and then I listen to songs like Fun Tonight or Plastic Doll for example, and there’s a noticeable dissonance there. 

You might be thinking “why are you so hard on her for this?” and I guess it’s because I’ve always held Gaga to a high standard when it comes to how she links those two elements. Think of every era she’s had in the past, and you remember how the visuals always just worked with their respective albums.

And that’s before I’ve even talked about the videos. Oh lord, the videos.

Issue #2: The Videos Are Lackluster (Except For 911)

It started with Stupid Love, the lead single. I had mixed feelings about that song in the beginning, but because I was so thirsty for new music from Gaga at the time, I played that song like hell when it leaked and it was on rotation for a good while. But when Gaga premiered the Stupid Love video, I’m not going to lie; I really didn’t like it.

The whole “shot entirely on iPhone” schtick really did the video a disservice. I’m sorry but it had to be said. If I imagined the video with a higher budget and more of a plotline as opposed to just being a dance video, I think it could’ve worked a lot better and been a decent introduction to not only Chromatica the album, but this fictional world/planet that she’s created. Which by the way, she didn’t really deliver in that regard either. 

The concept of Chromatica being a fictional world could have been expanded on further; she could’ve showcased all of the different factions (I know they were called “tribes” at first but that’s appropriative so I’ll call them factions) and perhaps had an overarching storyline about how these factions are at war, and it’s Gaga’s job as one of the “Kindness Punks”, as she calls it, to bring everyone together for a rave.

This is why I will always say it: Chromatica needed to be a visual album. Just imagine the storyline I mentioned just now being turned into a full-length feature, and now imagine the album’s orchestral intro playing as they’re essentially opening the gates to Chromatica and Gaga discovers this world for the first time, and then it goes into the first song Alice where she’s meeting all the factions and getting acclimated to her surroundings.

Honestly I could go on and on cause I have thought about this for SO LONG now and I’ll never shut up about it. It’s just such a missed opportunity cause the concept was just begging for a visual album. Anyway sorry for my tangent: back to the Stupid Love video.

The whole “shot on iPhone” gimmick really was unfortunate. Like she really ruined the quality of a music video because she wanted that Apple check??? Come on, Gaga, there could’ve been some other way to secure that check.

And then there was the Rain On Me video, which definitely have visuals that are a massive improvement from Stupid Love because it was professionally shot and cinematic. But even that was another purely dance video with not much in the way of storyline. Not that storyline is always required for music videos, but I think specifically when it comes to Chromatica, not having storylines in the M/Vs does a disservice to the overall concept.

I guess my issue with these two music videos, but mostly Stupid Love, is that Gaga isn't fully utilizing her COIN. Like she's successful enough to the point where she has budgets for these videos and can go all out, but doesn't. She has the capacity for extremely high production value, but up until 911, the last video she did that had that level of extraness was G.U.Y. I miss the days when her music videos were an event. I still remember where I was and what I was doing the exact moment the Telephone video came out. That's impact.

Taylor Swift I think is somebody who really knows how to blow her budget on a video. Look What You Made Me Do may have been a terrible song, but I always thought the video was sickening.

Anyway, I have no notes on 911. She's a masterpiece. If there was a music video category at the Oscars, I'd be campaigning for it right now.

Issue #3: Any Other Girly Can Do This

The thing I always loved the most about Gaga's music was that nobody was doing it like her. Everything she put out always felt like it was distinctly hers and hers alone, it's unmistakable. Even in Joanne, despite that album being a major departure from what she normally did.

I know Joanne is a very polarizing album, even for Little Monsters, but personally I've always loved it. Joanne was an album that I always knew she would make and I thought was essential to her career and body of work. Despite her straying away from pop for a more earthy, grass roots sound, it still sounded very much like her music. Even from the first track, Diamond Heart, her DNA is all over that.

It's difficult to explain what exactly I mean when I say there's a certain signature "Gaga-ness" or that she has a very specific DNA injected into her songs. If you've been a fan of hers for a long time or followed her career, you probably understand what I'm referring to. It's the way she laughs maniacally in the beginning of ARTPOP on Aura, how she says "I don't speak German but I can if you like, OW!" and proceeds to recite broken German on Scheiße, how she invented the phrase "disco stick", literally the ENTIRETY of The Fame Monster.

These examples probably give you the gist of what I'm trying to convey. Gaga is fucking weird. She has always been fucking weird and I love that so much about her. And her brand of weirdness was so specific that if any of the other pop girls tried to do what she did, it would have been cringey as hell. To me, the most disappointing thing of all with this album was that this weirdness that was so uniquely hers was missing.

It's there in brief moments, in tracks like Sour Candy, 911 and Babylon, but most of the album doesn't really sound like her music. It sounds like songs that she wrote for other people, like her old unreleased stuff. OG Little Monsters probably remember songs like Second Time Around and No Way. These were leaked unreleased songs that Gaga had written for other artists, and even though they were absolute bops, they didn't sound like her. They weren't supposed to.

A similar feeling I had was when her song The Cure came out a few years ago. I genuinely thought that was something she wrote for someone else, cause even though it was a solid pop song, it absolutely had zero Gaga-ness and any current pop girl could sing it. This pretty much encapsulates how I feel about the majority of Chromatica.

I was gonna say it sounded like songs that were written for Ally, her Star is Born character, but I think even those pop songs from the soundtrack sounded more Gaga than Chromatica does. 💀 I can easily imagine Hair Body Face being on The Fame.

Final Thoughts

It's funny that the last review I had posted on here before this was my review of Kingdom Hearts III. The Kingdom Hearts game series is something that's very near and dear to my heart, and I waited a wholeass decade for the third game to come out. And then it did, and I was so disappointed.

So you know what happened after that? What helped me deal with my disappointment of that game was my anticipation for Chromatica, or at the time it was still called LG6. I had no idea I would feel the same exact way about this album the way I do about KH3. Now when I think of both of these things, I'm mostly frustrated by all of the potential and the missed opportunities, but I also look at them with a certain fondness. I had fun playing KH3, and I also had fun listening to Chromatica, despite both of them disappointing me overall.

In the beginning of this review I said that there were certain factors that have stopped me from idealizing Gaga too much. Firstly it's because I'm much older now, and secondly it's due to the sheer state of the world this past year. The pandemic really precipitated the fall of celebrity culture, and all of that made me really examine how putting someone on such a high pedestal can be damaging in the long run.

Gaga is a human being and I haven't agreed with everything she's done, particularly how she handled the whole R. Kelly situation back in 2013. And also the simple fact that she's a white woman, we know how a lot of the time they can't help but show their asses and are bound to disappoint us in some way. I'm forever grateful for her artistry and how she saved my life when I was a suicidal little eighth grader, but I'm also going to hold her accountable for any of her mistakes, and I'd be ready to stop supporting her entirely if anything she does ever goes too far.

Now I stan artists for fun. It's not healthy to idolize them to the point of revering them. I mean, I like to make jokes like that about Beyoncé, like "no way on Beyoncé's green earth", etc. But even she is just a person that we shouldn't deify for real.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Chromatica being a lackluster album and era ended up being a good thing, because it helped me grow out of idolizing celebrities too intensely. Chromatica was pretty much the best disappointment I've ever listened to.

If you've read all the way to the end, thank you! Writing this was very therapeutic but also stressful; this is a second draft cause Tumblr fucked up my first post. 😭

Anyway, SAWAYAMA & Ungodly Hour are albums of the year. Argue with the wall.

[fursasaida]

Do you have any advice for someone who loves learning and reading about all kinds of stuff but isn't academically trained to understand lots of things? Tbh, I'm curious about everything but I feel stupid when I read things I don't understand right away. It's like I lack critical thinking which makes me endlessly sad because that's something I'd like to develop but idk how. It feels like I passively absorb info, and even the things I understand, I tend to forget or don't know how to articulate :(

I think it would help if I had a concrete example or some more details about what exactly you’re struggling with, but I can offer some general thoughts. (I’m procrastinating on some research by answering this, so it got long. If anything needs clarifying, feel free to come back and let me know.)

“I feel stupid when I read things I don’t understand right away.”

I think it’s very important to understand that being smart or being stupid are phrases so broad they barely mean anything. Understanding a text right away means you have certain skills and knowledge that enable you to do that. It says nothing about your potential to develop those skills and that knowledge base.  I am very good at understanding texts, which means people say that I am “smart” because that skill is valued in a particular way. If you asked me to plow a field I would suddenly be “too stupid” to do it, because I do not have the skills and knowledge. But I could learn them!

And for that matter, even if you never become someone who “gets” texts right away, so what? A lot of people could stand to slow down, if you ask me.

This brings me directly to:

“It’s like I lack critical thinking”

That feeling of running into a wall is actually one of the best tools you could have for thinking critically. Many, many, many people who easily understand academic/analytical writing fail to question what they read, precisely because they can just sort of gulp it down. If you are getting snagged on what someone is saying, it’s not because you are incapable of grasping the Expert Truth they are conveying; it’s because on some level you disagree, or don’t share the worldview that underlies their thinking. (Or also, and this option is not always given enough credence, because they’re a bad writer. [Coughs in Donna Haraway’s direction])

This is true even, or especially, if what’s snagging you is that you don’t understand what they’re saying. This is because in their writing they have assumed their readers share a lot of contextual knowledge and assumptions. That’s not bad in itself; if everybody stopped to fully explain every single term, connection, and assertion in everything they wrote, shit would be impossible. But I want to emphasize that if you happen to fall outside the bounds of those assumptions, it not only does not mean you are stupid, it means you are especially well equipped to question and criticize them--so long as you do the work to understand them, in good faith.

(I add that last corollary because there is a problem where people don’t bother to understand where things are coming from before attacking them, and that’s not useful to anyone. But clearly you are not one of these people. I’d like to encourage you to consider these “I don’t get it” moments not as reasons to give up but as a genuinely good starting point for developing the critical skills you so badly want to have.)

An author makes a statement. The statement doesn’t make sense to you. Why not? Are there words you don’t know? Look them up. Look up their etymology, or examples of their being used in sentences, if you need more than the definition is giving you. Is it the content of the statement itself? Then clearly the author and you are coming at whatever the subject is with different background information and assumptions. (This is still true if it’s a subject you know nothing about! That’s a prime example of coming at it with different assumptions. The author assumes a lot of things about the world that you don’t, because you haven’t learned them.) The important question is not What’s wrong with me that I don’t share this author’s assumptions? Rather, the question is Can I figure out what is behind this author’s statement? And once you arrive at some idea about the answer to that, the task is not necessarily to bring yourself into agreement with it, but to decide whether you think it makes sense or not.

This is where an example would be helpful, because “figure out what the underlying assumptions are” is very vague and I’m sure you’re sitting here like, “Oh, sure, just like that.” So, to start with: The things that pull you up short are the things you should ask questions about. What is it in my understanding of the world that makes this statement not make sense? (One way to look at this is: is there a different but related statement that does make sense to me? What’s different between the two, and why does it make such a difference to me?) What would I have to believe, or assume, for the statement to make sense to me? Why did this person mention this example and not those, and can I interpret this choice as something that makes sense to me? Or as a clue that reveals something about where this text is coming from?

And to be clear, when I say “underlying assumptions,” I don’t mean that this only/always means sussing out bias or prejudice in the usual way those words are used. I also mean the things that author learned in their field before writing the text, which you have not. Like, a lot of what I write now depends on the assumption that there is a difference between “absolute space” and “place.” You might have to read up on that a bit to know what I’m saying at a given moment because you aren’t specialized in what I’m specialized in. You might then decide you think this distinction is bollocks! Reading up on it isn’t necessarily just to get you to agree with me. It’s to get you to where you can make an informed decision about agreeing or not.

Often the biggest assumptions lie in the simplest statements. I’m reading about the Cold War a lot right now. If someone says, for example, “The Cold War was the dominant structure of international politics between 1945 and 1989,” this seems very obvious and straightforward. It’s a basic statement of what most people mean when they refer to “the Cold War” at all. It’s “a historical fact,” a piece of information for those interested in history to “absorb.” But there are a lot of questions worth asking about this! Are we sure there was only one, singular (“the”) Cold War? Was it really “the dominant structure” for everyone, everywhere, that whole time? What is a “structure” and what makes one “dominant”? Are we completely sure about those start and end dates, and do they apply everywhere?

Now one can imagine that if I were to ask all these questions of someone who referred to the Cold War this way in a dinner conversation or something, I might appear very ignorant--or “stupid.” But being critical means not accepting things at face value. I may know perfectly well exactly what this person is referring to, but if I want to question the assumptions built into that reference, I have to ask about things that are “obvious” or “well known.”

The good news is that when you’re reading a text, you don’t have to worry about other people at the table judging you. It sounds like right now you are doing that to yourself, and I would very much like to encourage you not to. Having “dumb” questions is being critical. The only difference between “I don’t understand this sentence about the Cold War” and “I have a critique of this sentence about the Cold War” is that in the first case, I have questions about the sentence; in the second case, I have developed answers to my own questions about the sentence. But both of them involve looking at the sentence and saying “this doesn’t add up to me.”

Criticism is a process. Developing expertise does mean getting to a point that you don’t need to do extensive research every time you read or criticize something, but there will always be new things you don’t understand and have to put in the work to be able to critique. The vast majority of ~inspiration~ among academics, if you read/listen to them talking about their research projects, comes out of bumping up against something they don’t understand and just not being satisfied until they could account for it. That could be anything from the way the word “democracy” was used in the Iran-Contra hearings to the everyday social fact that women are routinely expected to have longer hair than men in much of the United States.

So. You are actually in a great place to get better at this, because everybody who is seriously and honestly trying to be critical has to start from making the obvious not-obvious--from not understanding something.

That brings me to the last thing I want to address:

“It feels like I passively absorb info, and even the things I understand, I tend to forget or don't know how to articulate.”

Criticism, or just--learning--isn’t just a process; as what I was saying about academics above already suggests, it’s a project. This is not only true of academics. Plenty of people who aren’t academics do research or study things on their own just because they’re interested. But the kernel of that interest is a desire to understand something, whether it’s for a practical purpose or not. Maybe you’re teaching yourself to sew and having a lot of trouble with a particular stitch, and you want to figure out if that stitch is standard because it’s actually the most functional or if there’s some other reason, which would mean you could use something different. Or maybe you just really want to know what’s up with sea turtles. Either way, there is something you want.

I think if you identify specific questions about or interests in the world and pursue those, you will have an easier time building these skills and retaining information. (This doesn’t mean you have to give up your general curiosity! Just that at any given time, you are focusing on a few specific things.) Information sticks with us because it’s useful somehow. If your goal isn’t just “know things” but “figure out this thing, specifically” then information about that thing has an actual use for you. So think about something that you’ve had a lot of trouble understanding and that you want to understand--not because you feel like you’re supposed to, or because you feel ashamed that you don’t, but because you want answers to your questions. Your project is now satisfying that curiosity.

I find the more I think about a question I have, the more I start to see information that’s applicable to it popping out of the world all around me, everywhere, even when I’m not actively “working on it.” And I remember those things because they are not just “information.” They are of significance to something I am trying to do, which is answer the question. And that question is not assigned to me by anyone else, not even the author of a text I don’t understand. I can only assign it to myself (I have to want to understand that text!).

And you can support this with the way you read! Reading is interactive (yes, even when it’s just you and a page and you’re not making any noise). The more you approach it that way, the more you will retain of what you read--even if you end up disagreeing with it--because you are not trying to be a container for information to fill, which is absolutely bound to leak. Instead you are looking for things that are useful to you, which may or may not be findable in the text you are currently reading. You are not a receiver. You are a spelunker.

So what does it mean to read interactively? It can mean almost anything. For people like me, it often means a lot of making notes, annotations, and so on (the physical act of annotating a text does a lot to help me retain things, for example). I have files upon files of notes and quotes and outlines from different research projects. I write out paragraphs of musings to try to articulate how my questions are shifting as I learn, or what exactly the thing I’m struggling with is. (You mentioned struggling to articulate; writing things out for yourself is one way to practice at this. So is bouncing things off a friend, which I also do a lot.) But it doesn’t have to look like this.

If you are pursuing an interest, then ultimately what you’re doing ought to be pleasurable. (I don’t mean that it should make you jump for joy every second, but the feeling of making progress toward a goal, even if a particular step is unpleasant, is still pleasurable.) If “taking notes” for you looks like drawing, then great. I once outlined a paper by drawing it as a floor plan for a two-story house. I make research playlists that I consider to be functionally identical to syllabi. I have tagged collections on this tumblr that represent some of my thinking through one set of questions or another. What I’m trying to get at is that in working to answer your own questions, you are not just abstractly trying to “understand” something, which miraculously happens or doesn’t depending on whether your mind is ~good enough~ to receive the Content. You are interacting with statements, pieces of information, images, texts, etc., which you are collecting and arranging and rearranging in order to try to reach a place where you’re satisfied. All of that is part of the process of “understanding,” and if you’re genuinely interested in that process, then the work involved shouldn’t feel like homework. So the literal things you do as part of it don’t have to be similar to schoolwork, if those kinds of things are boring or painful or just unhelpful to you. Do whatever! You’re in charge!

So, to summarize all of this: I think the first thing you need to do is think of yourself not as ignorant, stupid, or uneducated, but as someone who is actively wanting and trying to engage and learn about the world. This is admirable! This is exciting! Thus your goal is not to “absorb” information to make up some deficit, or to become some other, “smarter” person who would understand things the first time you look at them. Your goal is simply to answer your own questions about the world. From that point of view, not-understanding is not a problem. It’s necessary. It’s where the questions come from. If you have to answer a lot of sub-questions along the way--if it takes you weeks to really get what a single essay is saying--this does not say anything bad about you. It just means you’re doing the damn thing. But in order to succeed at it, you do need to have some motivation; it needs to mean something to you. (One of the biggest tricks the devil ever pulled was the idea that inquiry could ever possibly be impersonal.) And whatever that personal meaning is is good enough, I promise.

[asynca]

Hi Aunty Asy! After I read UMS and FAB, I had a real moment of realization about my gender identity. But now I'm terrified to come out to my mom. She doesn't really understand the concept of gender and was p dismissive about transppl. My sexuality she could sorta of accept, but she has so much tied up in the fact that I'm her eldest daughter. Her pregnancy with me was extremely rough and a large part of why she stuck with it was that she thought I was a girl. I'm afraid that I'd break her heart.

Some parents need to go through a process of grieving when they find out their child isn’t the gender they expected/thought they wanted. Your mother probably wanted a girl because she’s been a girl herself and wanted to share those experiences with you - she has all these preconceived hopes and dreams for you that she’ll need to revise. While it’s frustrating to not have your gender 100% fully accepted immediately by your parents - please be patient with them. In most cases, when they see this is real and not something they can dismiss, they will usually try to come around. 

Expect this, wait for a good time to tell them, tell them when you feel calm and level-headed, and give them a lot of time to reflect on it.  But remember, complete non-acceptance is usually not the end of the story.

Consequently, I wrote A Thing about a decade ago which I think conveys the shock and impact of coming out to parents. It’s under the cut. 

Darling,I had a dream for you. White Chantel Satin and Lace, the flawless kind, that no one in their right mind would use for anything other than a perfect wedding dress. And lilies, of course. But against that brocade of white, you would be holding a single red budding rose. It would be so beautiful. With your father gone, bless him, I’d be marching you down that long marble aisle in beautiful St Patrick’s, the epic train of your gown sweeping out behind you, between two rows of smiling people with flashing cameras. Even those ladies at the butcher who spite me on the weekend would be teary for the occasion. Proud as punch, I’d escort you forwards, forwards to the man of your dreams. I left that bit up to you. Although, I did always want you to marry a white-collar worker. Better future for your children, less work with more money. And preferably a quiet, intelligent sort, with a loving heart. He’d be in a tuxedo – white, of course – and satin like the panels of your dress. Nervous, his jaw clenched as he received you.And I’d hope to dear God as I handed you to him that he’d be as good to you as you deserve.You’d often ask me for advice, and we’d exchange cooking ideas and gossip and good-naturedly complain about children. I imagined you’d have two or three, close together, which means they’ll fight, but in the long run they’ll love each other so much for it. Hopefully at least one girl. I wished for you, honey. I wished for a beautiful, lovely, sweet girl. I used to rub my belly as I lay next to your father. In our first bed, the one that we bought after three months of sleeping on my parent’s hand-me-down mattress in our new house. Praying for a girl, begging God to give me a beautiful little daughter. I even had your name planned out then. Your father didn’t know, of course. But I knew exactly what I wanted to call you. I would dress you to be so pretty, in clothes all the other parents would be jealous of. Frills, beautiful ruffles. Your soft hair fanning that darling, cherub face. And, one day, you would lie there in your bed - which I’d buy you of course, with the money I’d been saving since you were born - rubbing your belly next to your loving, snoring husband. Wishing for a girl, like I did. And then you told me.

[notyetjaded1]

Feelings and how some of the stuff they were posting was making me feel very uncomfortable and..weird? They were very defensive about it and didn't seem to understand why I'd feel that way. We dropped it for a while and I just didn't follow them on Facebook so I wouldn't see their posts. But after a few weeks I checked back and they were posting more and more things that made me feel very hurt and upset. I even unfriended them but still tried being friends and texting. But I just eventually got

To a point where when they would text me I'd give short answers and I'd feel like I have no energy or will to keep up a conversation. Now we don't text or talk really at all except once in a while they text me and I reply because I feel I have to? ...I don't know how to just not say anything. I would like to have been friends but th eyes seem to have become such a different and angry person...how would you stop without hurting their feelings ? Are you going through a dying friendship? Are you

Trying to also let go or preserve ? How did yours happen if so and what is your advice from dealing with your experience ? ..what would you do if you had my problem ? What caused your friendship to die that you didn't want to preserve it or are trying to move on if it hasn't died just yet, how do you move on? Thank you for your help :( sorry for my story it's long winded

I think something may have not posted in the beginning so if I’m missing something, please let me know

Firstly, there’s truly no need to apologize

I personally applaud you for making the effort to unfriend and disengage and to take care of yourself and your own feelings and mental health. I think it can be hard for someone to make the decision to do so in any capacity for fear of hurting the relationship or the other person. But ultimately, I do think you need to prioritize yourself and your needs, especially when it sounds like the relationship wouldn’t be based on mutual and reciprocal support. 

And I’m not sure it’s possible to disengage without potentially hurting them...but you’re not responsible for how they feel or how they respond; it’s not your responsibility to care-take or take action (e.g., responding to texts) when it hurts you. It sounds like you have already tried to be mature and to open a dialogue to share your feelings as a friend should do and their response was...far less than ideal, it sounds. So...it sounds like you’ve done your due diligence and continue to do so and they’re not returning that same level of caring...So...I think if it’s a relationship and a person that you genuinely and intensely value and you have that level of intimacy with them, bring it and your feelings to their attention again. See if maybe they’ve grown.But if not, it sounds like their presence might be more negatively impacting your life and you need to preserve and take care of yourself and do whatever it is that will help you. 

You don’t need to actively make the effort to hurt them more, but if they’re hurt in the process of you disengaging, please try to remember that that’s not your responsibility to take on.

As for me...at the moment, I’m not really going through a particularly prevalent dying friendship, tbh. There are people that don’t entirely positively impact my life that I occasionally connect with so I might consider them friends but... They’re just people that I met and starting chatting with and it didn’t quite feel right and their words and values and ways of engaging hurt more was worth it to engage fully with. And I’m really bad at burning bridges and sometimes am in a situation where I don’t necessarily want to burn those bridges (like...you might see them often, for example), so I try to be pleasant when I speak to them, but I generally don’t actively seek out connecting with them. I try to move on in my normal life and if they reach out casually, I might be very pulled back and not encourage conversation while still being pleasant, but that’s really it...If it were someone I felt really close to and they were being toxic, I’d try to hold a conversation and convey and open that dialogue to share and hopefully mend the relationships (which is sounds like you did!) and if they ignored my views or rebelled against them and did more that hurt me after I shared, I wouldn’t feel as thought it’s worth continuing. That’s not what a friendship is based on to me. If I really cared and had that bond with them and I knew it was a dramatic shift from how I knew them before, I might try to reach out sometime later. But ultimately, a friendship is a conscious and active decision where both parties need to be into it and wanting and working to foster the best reciprocal relationship possible. And if that’s not the case, I know there are other people and places I can get my needs met...I don’t need to be rude, but I also don’t need to be friends with every single person I meet. And people and circumstances change over time - that’s just human nature...

So...I guess that’s my advice. And it sounds like you’re already pretty much taking it, tbh. I don’t know the relationship you and they had together, but it sounds like you’re putting in a great deal more effort to foster a mature and open relationship than they are willing to put effort into and you’re being hurt by it...so do what’s going to take care of you...I don’t think you need to respond to texts if it hurts or feels wrong. You can continue to give those short answers if that feels most comfortable for you. You can to maintain pleasantness if you’d like. Or just ignore them, pretend you didn’t see them, whatever measure will feel best for you...Just please don’t put yourself or your emotional well being at risk. There is no need to encourage a relationship that hurts you.