#conflict resolution stuff I guess

[cogito-ergo-amo]

The housemate stuff this week is...it's still not technically resolved, but it's also proven that my fears about factors that would prevent a mature, amicable resolution were correct. Ugh.

And like it's monopolised my thoughts and energy, even moreso as I've currently got mystery lurgy. I resent how much it is draining me and has been draining me - intensely, for weeks, but it's also been a gradual drip-drip-drip for years, past attempts to address it have been met with stonewalling and deliberate, sometimes damn near malicious, misinterpretation and refusal to engage.

I'm sorry to keep harping on moments of "oh holy shit, I've actually made more progress than I thought via therapy" but this is very much a huge example of the slow, frustrating, painstaking incremental work coalescing into significant, major change.

Actually this is probably gonna get pretty long and navel-gazing about therapy and mental health and interpersonal conflict stuff. I don't expect it to go anywhere triggering, but I'll stick it behind a read more to break up the wall o'text

Part of why this has been so hard and so significant is seeing so much of how my mind used to work (and is still primed to work! If I don't pay rigorous attention!) reflected back at me. How this might have been me before any kind of serious diagnosis or therapy. Taking accountability even now is still hard for anybody regardless of brain shape, but the squirrelly, defensive, abrasive, desperate and sometimes downright cruel attempts to deflect, to flip the situation because if you're the aggrieved party SURELY nobody would be so callous as to expect an apology and acknowledgement of how you hurt them.

Sorry to RuPaulpost on main, but there's an argument in S10 of Drag Race where the person who was objectively the hurt party, drag performer The Vixen, is being tone policed and told to calm down. She says "everybody is telling me how to react, nobody is telling her how to act" about the person who hurt her. Unintentionally hurt her, but still, hurt was done.

I felt this in my soul when Housemate who hurt me (let's call her H1 for the purposes of this post, literally only one person on this webbed site will know who is who if they read this) insisted another housemate be present when she and I talked about it. Bless this beleaguered Housemate 2, he has had his own challenges with her, he also has extensive conflict resolution/mediation experience professionally. He also has a shitload of his own trauma that this conflict is niggling at, which is part of why I didn't want him to be dragged into it. But during the conversation this week she was constantly appealing to him, emotionally escalating, talking over me, silencing me - I got to occupy maybe 25% of the conversational space which in fairness is more than expected. Had H2 not been there I doubt I would've been able to get even half of that meagre airtime. I think it also helped me to keep my own composure. I got shit on for it "look at your face, you don't even care!" when inside I was spinning out but knew I couldn't let myself get dragged into an external emotional spiral. Also, autistic, so at any given point I'm not sure what my face is doing or if it's the "correct" expression.

So I'm here thinking "it never had to be like this" whilst also knowing somewhere deep and instinctive in my own wounded soul and trauma-healing process that actually it was always going to be like this and it had to happen this way. I still feel a bit mercenary framing another person's distress as part of my own "growth", but boundaries are new to me and we knew going in that enforcing one for the first time with someone who benefits greatly from trampling on them is going to make them feel personally attacked and deeply offended. And here we are. This is now a story of how I really badly hurt somebody by...asking them gently to stop hurting me.

Had a text exchange with therapist on Monday after The Conversation. He offered an extra session then but even though I was exhausted and shook up, I didn't actually need that. In our usual session today this was of course the meat of the discussion. We got a little playful with it, I mentioned that her response was pretty much exactly what I expected and asked him to take some guesses about things that were said. He got pretty much all of it correct. I mentioned I could've scripted it, and he gassed me up some with "if you'd scripted it, it would've had better jokes". This was probably just riffing but fuckit, my ego needed that.

We're trying to work through my internal conflict of "if she doesn't get some kind of intervention she's going to keep doing this to everybody in her life and be miserable forever" vs knowing that if she were to get assessed, she would most likely get diagnosed with Cluster B brain problems. I have fifteen years of experience of exactly how a diagnosis like that can negatively impact every facet of a person's life. They aren't diagnoses that should still be used, imo, because they're an excuse to ignore severe trauma in women by calling them bad people who can never be fixed. I can't wish that on another person. But she's also not going to seek help on her own, she definitely won't pursue private therapy that might avoid such labelling. And I know how fucking hard, slow and gruelling it is for therapy to work and make a difference with such heavy shit. I want her to live a happier, smoother life. I want her to get better. That hasn't changed, it breaks my heart I'm unlikely to ever see it happen, but right now I'd settle for her not treating everybody else like we're NPCs she can command, control and punish at will.

I'm not accustomed to being in conflicts where I don't just automatically assume I am the bad, wrong party. But I know where I stand here. I know what is reasonable and what is not. I know which behaviours and statements from her are completely unacceptable. I know which parts of her narrative about me are completely fictitious. I know I have been misread, misunderstood and willfully misinterpreted. This is fucking HUGE for me. This certainty feels deeply uncomfortable. Of course there are still parts of me trying to turn it around and make me believe I'm evil and all of this is my fault but there is so much more of me pushing back against that because it just isn't true.

I'm rambling now. Will probably ramble more on this in the coming days.

For the record, this is what the conversation could have looked like. This is what the conversation has previously looked like with other housemates when we have unintentionally triggered or overstepped with each other: person 1: hey, I know you didn't mean to do this, and I never told your this was A Thing for me so that's on me, I'm not mad or upset with you, but This Thing was very triggering of something intense for me in a way that made me feel unsafe for a prolonged period of time. I don't need to go into detail unless that would be helpful.

person 2: oh shit, I'm really sorry, thank you for letting me know. I will make sure I do not do/say The Thing in that way again.

person 1: If it comes up again in future, we could perhaps handle the situation in X or Y way to avoid the trigger specifically.

person 2: I understand

person 1: Thank you, I appreciate you listening and understanding. I am going to put the kettle on. Would you like some tea?

[existentiol]

something that pisses me off in RA is that Flanagan will occasionally hype up Pauline as this super important and prominent figure in Will’s life, even treat her as a proxy for the mother he never knew, and yet will just refuse to show it beyond the like. two or three (personal) conversations that they have in canon. I get that he was attempting to make her an important person in Will’s life but why not do that by actually making her an important person in Will’s life

[sleepnoises]

i read legends and lattes today because some people at the crafting meetup i go to were reading and liking it and i didn't want to say "i haven't read it but i really liked a mean review of it!"

i am not going to say "i read it and really liked a mean review of it!" either. but now i could

(here is the mean review found by wonderful yarrow)

where is the haterly review of legends and lattes i need to bask in its light

[celestie0]

hi my friends! hope you're all doing well. just wanted to come on here and share a little updates w you guys (if you're still here lol)

i guess it's been like a month n a half since i formally went on hiatus, and it's been nice! i got kinda sick for a little bit lmfaooo which was tough to manage w school, but i'm better now

although i took time away from my blog, i still delved in writing here n there. i haven't written anything for kickoff since tbh i'm in such a slump w it. but i still have big plans for stuff that happens after ch13, so hopefully i can just push through this next chapter and get to a better place. thanks so much to anyone that is still interested in the story, it means a lot to me. i know i'm so slow w updates and the story has been going on for almost a year now, but the continued support is so sweet! even though i didn't work on writing it these past one n a half months, i still really love it and plan to finish it.

i'm not sure if many people remember that i had this sort of "apocalypse" gojo x reader au about an asteroid being set to hit the earth in three days, and reader n gojo are ex lovers n the impending end of the world makes them break no-contact...yeah i finished writing the first chapter for it and i really love it so far! it's like set in new york which is really fun haha i love stories where new york is kind of its own "character" if that makes sense...it will definitely be a limited series w only 4 chapters or so, but i kinda wanna finish all 4 chapters before i start posting it bc i don't want it to be a drawn out series in terms of posting since i think it'd be best enjoyed in frequent succession if that makes sense

as for ihm, i think i wrote the most for ihm during my hiatus. i finished three chapters for it, but they are shorter chapters (around 3-4k words). i kinda realized one of my biggest reasons for burnout w my fics were the reaaaaallly long chapters...like didn't i have a 22k chapter for kickoff or sumn lol. idk i can't remember. but anyways, yeah the mindset behind the longer chapters was bc i liked each chapter to kinda have its own conflict, build up, tension then resolution in a sense. but it was exhausting to write that way tbh lol. so i think moving forward, for ihm, i will have shorter chapters. i just don't wanna think to much about things anymore, and write from my heart, bc i have a lot of things planned for ihm, and among the criticism i've received for my writing choices vs my own vision for the story, i've realized during my hiatus that the only way i can finish ihm, or any of my storeis for that matter, is if i just.........stop giving a fuck about it. lol idk if that sounds strange to say, but like, i don't want to over-edit anything. i don't want to think too much about redundancy. i don't want to flower things up or cut stuff out. i'm at the point where imma just write a first draft, check for grammarly errors, and then post it. i guess the reason i'm sharing this is because idk if this means that people may enjoy my writing less since i will admittedly be spending much less time on it than i did before, but tbh i realized i find the most joy while i'm writing, and not while i'm editing. so i want to spend as little time on the latter as possible, and if that changes the quality of my work, then so be it.

anyways, hmm as for hiatus. i guess i'm off hiatus now? i really enjoyed being off of tumblr tbh this app has a lot of questionable content at times (esp in jjk community) and it also did wonders for my studying bc i wasn't spending time doomscrolling or shit posting anymore lmfaooo. but as for writing in particular, i think i will start to post ihm again exclusively. i can't say anything about kickoff or my other projects, but i feel comfortable to start posting ihm again.

sorry, i know that i have kept my replies and ask box off for a long time. but i will open them again once i start posting chapters because i really miss interacting with you guys.

anywho, these are my updates lol i'm like not sure how many of my readers are still here or which ones have moved on but that's ok, i'm grateful to anyone n everyone. hope to see you all soon again!

[fandom-geek]

act 3 thoughts

well, i guess it looked pretty.

i didn't actually think it was possible to rush vi/caitlyn after s1 but uh... they managed it. i actually feel pretty bad for fans of that ship? like wow, they basically had zero build-up after the reconciliation (especially for the weirdly placed sex scene) and now vi has no one but cait (assuming she doesn't know that jinx is alive) and they're "happily ever after". and i'm saying this as someone who has had zero investment in caitlyn since s1, lol, so i can't imagine how ppl invested in her story feel.

and sevika just literally might as well have not existed after episode 4. like i guess i'm happy she's zaun's only council member against six pilties, but like. s2 basically refused to engage with the zaun/piltover conflict besides attributing it to individuals like caitlyn, ambressa, and jinx. the closest we got to acknowledging there were institutional reasons was the alternative universe in s2, but even then... vi dies (and possibly jayce and viktor too???), there's no hextech or seemingly shimmer, and suddenly zaun is thriving? and having silco show up, having forgiven vander, just felt like the same shallow fanservice from the flashback earlier in the season.

which ties into how everything got subsumed by the arcane subplot. i get that they needed to join the plots up at some point, but war between zaun and piltover seemed like a pretty solid bet, narratively.

having seriously looked forward to how they were going to deal with mel being a mage and viktor being the machine herald. i am impressively disappointed. no machine herald here, only the arcane herald. i guess his final design was cool, but i wanted to see fortiche's take on the machine herald. having him reinvent himself as the machine herald in response to the arcane taking his bodily autonomy would've been cool, but i guess he's cool with using his inventions as weapons now if it means he gets to evolve more people. after hearing and reading so much about the nuance of the conflict btwn him and jayce in league, i am painfully disappointed that we didn't get any of that. and the lack of resolution as to whatever was going on with skye, so instead she was just a plot device for viktor's character development for the entire show? god, in hindsight her narrative treatment was the first red flag over where the writing was going.

also a bit disappointed that jayce's mysterious mage didn't turn out to be ryze despite the various hinting at it (didn't even netflix themselves imply it at one point?).

and poor fucking mel, she kills her last surviving relative and her boyfriend just disappears without a trace and she's forced to renounce her compassion and adopted home to embrace her noxian heritage. i don't know if massively depressing stories are on par for mages in runeterra, but her ending was just utterly tragic. she has no one left, just a faceless army of soldiers.

jinx's fake-out death is like. urgh. i get why because it means piltover leaves her alone, but there's just a ton of emotion in a moment that you immediately undercut at the very end.

for all they said that s2 was written alongside s1, it felt like they needed another season (you know, if this wasn't so expensive to produce) to properly pace stuff out so it can be developed properly. like, spending an entire episode on alternate universes when you have three total left is utter madness. it should've been 1/3-1/2 an episode at most if they kept the same episode count.

but given their apparent willingness to throw fanservice in (felicia & silco flashback) when it doesn't exactly make narrative cohesion with s1, i'm not sure if that was possible or meddling by someone else or whatever.

oh, and rip blitzcrank. too innocent to exist in arcane, i guess?

[codenamesazanka]

rant. this was a vent in response to the final chapter, but the anime reaching the heteromorph riot arc got me all whiny again. embarrassingly personal.

On "Peaceful Resolutions" + general heteromorph riot arc stuff

When I was in elementary school - I forget what age - there was a snow day. Children love snow days. Me, my younger sibling, and my grandmother went outside to play. We wanted to use the neighborhood hill to sled. Unfortunately, it was already being used by some older kids. Middle schoolers only a few years older than me?

They didn't want to share the hill. So they pushed and shoved us. They threw snowballs at us. When I cried for them to stop, they laughed. When my grandmother, who didn't know English, who spoke only Chinese, yelled at them to stop, they laughed, and mocked her. "Ching chong ching chong." After that, no matter what me or my sibling said in English, they pretended not to understand and just kept chanting slurs. There is nothing more frustrating than screaming out your pain that you know people can hear and understand, and having it fall on deaf ears; more than that, your pain is enjoyment for them.

Was this discriminatory incident resolved peacefully? Well, me, my sibling, and my grandmother cut our snow day short and went home. Our retreat was 'peaceful', but I guess the incident wasn't exactly resolved.

Would attacking them back helped? No, of course not. (And not that we could. We were two elementary kids and an elderly woman. Understand that bullies nearly always purposefully target those weaker than them, ones who can't fight back without negative consequences.) Indeed, things would've just escalated. But we didn't want to retaliate. We didn't want revenge. We just wanted them to stop.

Did we do anything about it? No, it was just some kids being mean. A very minor thing (even as the incident, only one among others, continues to destroy our perception that this neighborhood was ever safe for us, truly our home. But my town had an active neo-nazi gang that liked to vandalize houses and slip posters into newspapers, so it was never going to be safe.) We didn't know our neighbors well because of language barriers, because we stood out as a Chinese family in a largely white neighborhood and people didn't talk to us much either. We wouldn't know how to alert the parents of these kids. And we thought, even if we did complain - a non-violent method of action - they might just find us annoying. They might hate us more. What if the language barrier leads to more confusion and conflict? We didn't want to risk it. We kept our heads down and let the incident go. My family became more reluctant to go out, to let me and my sibling outside to play. We maintained the peace.

Understand that it doesn't really matter what an discriminated minority does to resist discrimination - the perpetrator can find any act of resistance inappropriate. That is their prerogative by being in the position of power.

Shoji saved a girl, gave the community peace by preventing them from having to grieve her death. His village then bashed his face with a hoe for daring to resist and break the norms of the village, for daring to touch the girl to save her life.

A third party, of course, can come and resolve the incident by de-escalating everything. But for my incident, it was not me that this third party needed to stop. We did not engage in violence. It was the older kids. And had I retaliated - idk how, as a child; tackle them? - to protect my grandmother, my younger sibling - that would be self defense, likely because I wanted the bullying to stop and had to resort to violence when nothing else worked; because I feared the violence they were about to do to us more than my fear and reluctance to engage in violence in the first place. Maybe self-defense is too strong a word here for schoolyard bullying, but the principle is the same.

(It wasn't just schoolyard bullying, obviously. There were other incidents, from when I was younger, when I'm much older. This incident is one that I feel is less revealing/personal/vulnerable to tell.)

There was no peace in that incident that wasn't broken by the perpetrator to begin with. Not that the peace was peaceful for us in the first place. Bringing about true peace is solely on stopping the perpetrator, and ultimately on dealing with the root cause.

“Discriminatory incident” is so vague. An incident can be anything. “Peaceful Resolution” implies responsibility on all parties. What we're told isn't 'Shoji stops the bigots nonviolently'. (Also: The bigots are afforded this. Villains must be put down with violence, but not the people throwing rocks and spraying pesticides on children. I'm of course of the opinion that violence shouldn't be used to stop bigots or Villains except as a last resort, but the manga has demonstrated that no Hero ever stopped a bigot using the same methods they use on Villains. Why is that?) It isn't 'Shoji saves victims of hate crimes'. Judging by Shoji's own statements and how the heteromorph arc plays out, a peaceful resolution is stopping both the heteromorph victim (who may or may not be lashing out - in response to the hate crime) and perpetrator - If anything, more stopping the heteromorphs.

I’m going to suggest that rarely, heteromorphs ever actually retaliate with violence. True, the heteromorphs we see (Shoji, ordinary lady, Koda's mom) aren't part of the rioters but are we to believe all these rioters are people who react with violence every time, and it's their first solution? When they stopped the damn riot themselves because they didn't want to hurt the healthcare workers? (and even the riot wasn’t purposeless, indiscriminate violence - they were solely there to retrieve Kurogiri). Pig Nose guy says he's been beaten up for no reason, so he's already at the receiving end of violence that justifies self-defense, but we can assume he didn't actually lash out any of those times because he's the one who stops everyone, feeling so bad about just the idea of hurting someone.

I can’t say that’s 100% canon that none of the heteromorphs ever lashed out (and of course ‘statistically’ some of them must have), but overall, for most of them, it’s a legitimate assumption to be made. The heteromorphs from the Jeda or 6/6 incidents were fully massacred. Shoji and Spinner were children - Shoji was on the ground, getting bashed in the face with a farming hoe wielded by an adult. Spinner got sprayed with pesticides for walking outside and became a hikikomori, saying that he accepted being a ‘lizard freak’, he was ready to give up. (And he only took action when the extraordinary moment of Stain getting on TV made him realized he hated this suffocating world where Heroes failed him, never protected him.) Ordinary Lady never lashed back out at her attackers. Koda’s mom had to be protected by Koda’s dad.

Even the PLF agitator - his wound is a long deep scar on his head - a head injury that would’ve thoroughly incapacitated him, if not kill him. It is likely not the wound of someone hitting back with self-defense as if the PLF agitator was the one attacking someone and they were fighting back for their life.

These are the ‘Discriminatory Incidents’. What does a peaceful resolution look like, here?

The heteromorphs at the hospital aren’t there to get revenge. They’re there because they’ve been pushed into a corner and probably have become afraid for their lives, their future. During a national crisis where Heroes order civilians to go into hero-guarded shelters, these shelters had the audacity to refuse heteromorphs, leaving them out on the streets, vulnerable to the dangers of jailbreakers and lack of resources.

The peace was broken first by discrimination. The heteromorphs probably took Spinner’s call to action as a life preserver. Heroes had refused to protect them during the collapse of the state; and so they likely found truth in Spinner’s word that if Heroes win the day, nothing will change. They weren’t there to hurt anyone at the hospital - they were there to take back Kurogiri.

But Shoji framed the whole thing as revenge, as being avengers. He accused the heteromorphs of being violent and non-peaceful, without ever naming the first act of violence on the part of the non-heteromorphs. He didn’t want to risk the heteromorphs’ hard-won reputation and status (“You’ll set us back 30 years.* They’ll target your children.”) He wanted the heteromorphs to do what my family did - kept our heads down and let the incident go. Maintained the peace.

Shoji said that those who hurt the heteromorphs weren’t justified, but he then says “there has to be a better way”. We never find out what this was, beyond the vague ‘Shine bright’.

(I shined bright, too. I was a straight-A student. I did extracurriculars - piano, viola, art, softball. As did my sibling. My family were hard-working citizens. My mom worked two jobs. I hate telling these details, because they don't matter. My worth as someone who doesn’t deserve to face discrimination does not and should not depend on my grades or trained skills, how pleasant or cool I seem to someone. None of that matters to the people who wanted to hurt us because they simply saw being visibly Asian American as the offense.)

We don’t find out how Shoji’s better way works in the final chapter either. Just that he resolved the incidents ‘peacefully’. Because he wanted to solve discrimination peacefully. As do everyone, oppressors and the oppressed. But ‘peace’ often means something different to oppressors, and something different to the oppressed.

(Did Shoji resolve the heteromorph riot peacefully? Not really. He shouted a lot to the crowd, but he also fought Spinner (ah, you might say - well, Spinner was using violence! Shoji has to react to that with punching as well! Yeah. That's what I mean.) Koda had birds shoved someone off a building.)

Shoji’s better ways - I will assume it’s stopping the blood cleansings. That is a noble goal. It is a necessary and vital goal. And so, how? How does he cover the large areas of rural land, so that he’s there to stop these hate crimes? How does he know when something will happen? Is it a campaign and community-level action? Uraraka’s tackling of Quirk Counseling is a ‘project’, widespread and implemented on a macro level. Shoji’s efforts are on what’s implied to be individual incidents. But putting that aside for now, I will assume “resolving” is talking down the perpetrator. I will assume it’s protecting the victim while negotiating with the person holding the weapon.

Peaceful implies that he does so without violence (as he should! As a Hero Law Enforcement of the State!); but a blanket label of ‘peaceful’ also implies stopping the other party (the victim) asking them to stand down as well.

I just think - during my Discriminatory Incidents, how can anyone have me stand down, have stopped me, when I haven't done anything in the first place? And if I did have to be stopped from engaging in self-defense, that's not a resolution. That's a save. That's someone saving me from the violence, saving me from having to resort to violence.

Heroes save people. There's no question of 'peacefully' when they fight villains to save people. There’s no framing of ‘peacefully’ when they do so. But it seems heteromorphs are not allowed the same language of ‘peacefully’ and 'save'.

-

tl;dr. idk. the heteromorph mini-arc’s writing and message is awful.

-

*re: “set us back 30 years.” I know we don’t know exactly what happened 30 years ago, but we can guess - and so I don’t think guessing one of the named massacres is too wild. From my own experiences, the murder of Vincent Chin was about 40 years ago. I grew up with Vincent Chin as a horror story.

Being told that, due to whatever actions I was doing, would set back all that progress Asian Americans made since then is just cruel and wrong and illogical in all ways. Vincent Chin didn’t deserve to be murdered whatever he did 40 years ago, and he deserved to have his murderers be brought to real justice. The sheer injustice of that case is objective. There is no way someone can tell me that I’m setting time back to when the murder of Vincent Chin happened, that I would be causing injustice like that again, I’m responsible for any more murders that happen, and have that be in any way true.

Related— On Bnha's apparent ideal of "a hero is someone who is willing to suffer in silence" and "we'll get it right next generation!"

From Asian American Dreams, by Helen Zia:

The reaction within the Detroit area’s small, scattered Asian American population was immediate and visceral. Suddenly people who had endured a lifetime of degrading treatment were wondering if their capacity to suffer in silence might no longer be a virtue, when even in death, after such a brutal, uncontested killing, they could be so disrespected.

[...]

Vincent was part of an entire generation for whom the immigrant parents had suffered and sacrificed. Other Asian Americans also found a strong connection to the lives of Vincent, Lily, and David Chin. Theirs was the classic immigrant story of survival: work hard and sacrifice for the family, keep a low profile, don’t complain, and, perhaps in the next generation, attain the American dream. For Asian Americans, along with the dream came the hope of one day gaining acceptance in America. The injustice surrounding Vincent’s slaying shattered the dream.

[flower-boi16]

Why Stolitz is Helluva Boss's Worst Plotline

I don't know how to start this post so I'll just get to the point; Stolitz sucks complete ass and is the worst part of the show. It used to be interesting in season 1 but no longer in season 2, here's why.

1. Stolitz in season 1 (and why it worked)

Let's establish the reason why Stolitz worked in season 1. As we all know, Stolitz is a toxic relationship, it always has been. Stolas only wanted to sleep with Blitz and nothing else, to get all sexual with him and stuff....

And that's why it worked, Stolitz was in an intentionally toxic relationship, and the show treated it as such as seen in Ozzie's, where Blitz tells Stolas he doesn't want to sleep with him anymore. This was an interesting conflict and a lot of people were excited to see where season 2 would take Stolitz going forward after this. How was it going to resolve this conflict? There was a lot of potential...that season 2 has completely destroyed.

2. The Circus Ruins Everything (and here's why)

Now we move onto the season 2 premiere, The Circus, and hooo boy this is where the problems with this relationship begin to show themselves, as we encounter the first problem with Stolitz; Viv trying to retcon her way out of making Stolitz not toxic. The Circus makes the bizarre writing choice of making Blitz and Stolas childhood friends...

This writing decision sucks ass, here's why. Ok, first of all, let's get this out of the way first; this is a retcon. Stolas and Blitz being childhood friends and Stolas loving Blitz all along does not at all line up with any of their interactions throughout season 1, the point of their relationship in season 1 was that Stolas was the only part of Blitzo that Stolas was interested in was his dick and nothing else, this ignores that in favor of painting Blitz and Stolas as UwU childhood friends while forgetting all of their interactions in season 1.

Second of all, it's entirely unnecessary. Nothing about Blitz and Stolas's dynamic changes if you remove this and just have them fall in love as adults. Third, as a previous anon had already pointed out, making Blitz and Stolas childhood friends actually makes Stolas look worse because he's treating his childhood friend like a sex toy rather than a person. We'll get to this later but a major problem with Stolitz is the fact that the show tries to portray Stolas as the UwU sad soft boy victim and ignore how he treats Blitz in favor of making him and UwU soft boy.

The Circus is merely the beginning of that; the show is now starting to try and retcon its way out of making Stolitz not toxic by portraying as a UwU sweet childhood friendship all the while forgetting the actual point of the relationship to begin with. Don't worry, because hoooo boy let's talk about the next problem with Stolitz in season 2 that being...

3. The Feud in Ozzies (and its resolution)

So y'all would know that Stolas and Blitz had a fight at the end of Ozzies, right? Well this is where we enter the second problem with Stolitz; the events of Ozzie's go completely ignored. The next time Blitz and Stolas have an onscreen interaction is the second episode of season 2, Seeing Stars (Aka the only decent episode in this whole season). The two interact and...they just go along like nothing happened. As if they didn't have an argument at the end of season 1. People clearly noticed this and were confused as to why these two were just playing along as if the events of Ozzie's never happened...

Well guess what, episode 4, Western Energy, actually resolves the conflict the two had... off-screen...with a blink and you'll miss it text message. This was the moment I had officially lost my patience with this stupid season. It's just SO damn insulting. So you wanted to see where they could take this plotline after Ozzie's? How could Blitz and Stolas develop and resolve their conflict? Hehe well too fucking bad how about we just pretend that didn't happen and then resolve it with a fucking text message.

This is such a lazy and underwhelming way to resolve a conflict, it feels like Viv didn't know where to take Stolitz after season 1 so she just decided to give their feud an underwhelming resolution that unless you directly pause you would miss. So, the feud Blitz and Stolas had at the end of Ozzie's is completely forgotten about and then resolved off-screen, so fuck you to anybody who was excited to see where they went with this plot line I guess. Now that we have that out of the way...let's talk about the next problem with Stolitz;

4. Blitz's demonization

So season 1 ended with Blitz making it crystal clear to Stolas that he is deeply upset about their relationship only being about having sex with each other, so it's very clear that given how Stolas has been acting towards Blitz, he is the victim and Stolas is the abuser, so, therefore, Blitz is in the right for not loving Stolas given their interactions with each other throughout the whole season...

Ya well watch as season 2 just completely ignores that and tries to paint Blitz as the one in the wrong for not loving Stolas. This is where we enter the next problem with Stolas; treating Blitz as if he is in the wrong for not loving Stolas (or not believing that Stolas does genuinely love him). Stolas has been treating Blitz as nothing but a sex toy throughout all of season 1 and yet the show wants us to believe that BLITZ is in the wrong here??

Episode 6 Oops is where this problem really shows itself. I already ranted about this episode before, however the cage scene where Blitz and Fizz talk about their sex life is indicative of Viv trying to make Blitz look like the bad guy because Stolas did some nice things for him... off-screen. Talk about telling instead of showing. Like I said in that post, it feels like a retcon; we never saw Stolas do any of these nice things for Blitz and that doesn't even line up with his behavior in season 1.

It's also just...lazy. Viv couldn't be bothered to actually SHOW Stolas doing these nice things for Blitz so she just TELLS us that Stolas did all of these things for him so Blitz could look bad. However, it falls flat because once again, it's told to us, not shown. AND EVEN IF we accept that Stolas did do all of these nice things for Blitz, THAT STILL DOESN'T EXCUSE HIS TREATMENT OF HIM!!!

So the show wants us to see Blitz as the bad guy for the crime of not loving Stolas because he treated him like a toy rather than a person, but Blitz is NOT in the wrong for acting this way at all yet the show paints him as the bad guy anyway. The show is basically saying that a victim is in the wrong for getting mad at their abuser for abusing them.

"But Blitz took advantage of his childhood friend!" Yes, Blitz was an asshole, but so was Stolas, yet the show acts as if Blitz is 100% the bad guy and Stolas is 100% an innocent soft boy. Speaking of Stolas...

5. Stolas is terrible

So Stolas is terrible, plain and simple. He is very toxic and abusive to Blitz as I've already gone over. However, for some reason, rather than framing Stolas as the abuser he is, Season 2 opts to instead frame him as an UwU soft boy who supposedly did nothing wrong. This is less of a problem with Stolitz and more with Stolas's character as a whole; the show portrays Stolas as an UwU sad Owl boy and we're supposed to sympathize with him despite him not being a great person.

And Stolitz is where this issue shows itself the most. Season 2 never portrays Stolas as in the wrong for how he treated Blitz in Season 1, instead trying woobify him and simply turning around and saying "oh Stolas just wants a friend! He genuinely does love Blitz! Why doesn't Blitz love him back?!". We clearly are not supposed to see Stolas as the abuser here, however, no matter how you slice it Stolas IS the abuser in this relationship.

And so far the show has never made him apologize to Blitz for how he treated him nor has it tried to make him better himself for Blitz. And it seems like Viv has tried to make Stolas look better in episode 6 with the scene where Blitz says that Stolas did all these nice things for him, but once again it's ineffective because it was off-screen. And once again the decision to make him and Blitz childhood friends ties directly back into this because as I've already said, it makes Stolas look far worse because he's treating his own childhood friend like a sex toy, despite how much the show wants to convince us that Stolas is just an UwU soft boy who did nothing wrong and just wants a friend, and no matter how much the show will demonize Blitz, I can not feel bad for Stolas because he's the abuser, not Blitz.

Stolas is just incredibly unlikeable and hard to sympathize with, especially when it comes to this relationship. "But Stolas genuinely loves Blitz!"- putting aside the fact that was also a retcon, even if Stolas genuinely loves Blitz, that doesn't somehow mean that how Stolas treats Blitz is ok. Despite how much the show wants us to convince us that Blitz is the bad guy here and Stolas is just a victim, Stolas is an abuser, there is absolutely NO denying it.

But what if I told you there is a piece of HB content that exemplifies this issue the most? Well...I promised y'all I'd analyze this video so...without further ado...

6. Let's Tear Apart the "Just Look My Way" music video

The second I finished watching this music video, I KNEW that I had to talk about it in this post. Why exactly? Well aside from it being the worst piece of HB content I have ever seen, it's also...a stolitz song. It shows off the issue of Stolas being woobified in season 2 greatly. In this section, I'm going to analyze the lyrics in the song while explaining why this song is the culmination of my biggest issues with this stupid ship. This entire song is about Stolas singing about how sad he is that Blitzy doesn't love him 🥺, and it is SO telling that this is the message the song is going for given the lyrics like this:

"Let me hold you, keep you close to me I long to hear your voice"

"I don't care that you're of lower station Or primed to sate my dark temptations Why can't you understand? Let me explain!"

These lyrics scream "Blitzy why don't you love me!!!". But that's contrasted by lyrics like...this;

"But dearest, I know better now I must give you this choice"

"I will try to make amends For making you means to an end So, look my way, please, look my way"

This actually sounds like Stolas apologizing to Blitz for how he treated him, which is exactly what I wanted...but the rest of the lyrics are just Stolas saying "Blitzy why don't you love me!!!". It's once again choosing to victimize Stolas rather than actually framing him as the abuser he is. This entire song is the most melodramatic emotionally manipulative shit I've ever seen, it once again portrays Stolas as an UwU soft boy who did nothing wrong and just wants someone to love him.

"But Viv didn't write the lyrics!" For those who don't know, Just Look My Way was a fan song that Viv and her team decided to animate as well as make Stolas's voice actor sing. And yes, Viv did not write this song, a fan did, however my issue is that within the context of the rest of the show up until this point, these lyrics do not do any favors for this ship. And I feel like Viv chose this specific song just so she could make Stolas look like a UwU soft boy again. There's also the fact that Viv changed some of the lyrics as well, removing the little impish plaything line and the one talking about Octavia.

This could be done to make the song closer to canon...but there's also a possibility that Viv did this so she could NOT acknowledge Stolas's actual faults and make the song entirely about Stolitz. This post summed it up pretty well.

So conclusion; Just Look My Way is an awful music video that is horrifically bad when It comes to the context of this relationship and once again tries to make Stolas look sympathetic when he really isn't. This is not how you make a sympathetic character guys. Now let's talk about the final issue with Stolitz...

7. It's Just Plain Toxic

This is the biggest reason why I (and many other critics) dislike Stolitz; it's just plain toxic. It's a toxic ass ship where the abuser is portrayed as the victim while the victim is framed as the abuser, and where the abuser has never gone to better himself for the victim, yet the show wants us to root for this couple to get together for some reason despite that. The show constantly paints this an UwU cute childhood friendship when it's anything BUT that in reality. It's toxic, plain and simple.

8. Conclusion

Look, if you like or ship Stolitz, that's fine, I didn't make this post because I wanted people to stop shipping it. I made this post because I believe Stolitz is easily the worst part of the show, it's a horribly written toxic and abusive romance that we are supposed to root for and the fact that people DEFEND this ship despite it being OBJECTIVELY toxic and unhealthy is baffling to me.

So ya, that's why I hate Stolitz...bye.

[poetrysmackdown]

hi hiii i wanted to say that your account is so refreshing to see, esp with the passion you have for the arts. as someone who's been meaning to read (and write) more poetry, do you have any recommendations? some classics that everyone and their mothers know? perhaps some underrated pieces that changed you? or even just authors you like, I'm very open to suggestions :]]

Hi! Thank you so much for this kind ask :) So exciting that you’re looking to delve deeper into reading and writing! I had to take a little time to answer this because my thoughts were all over the place lol.

For a review of notable/classic poems/poets, I honestly just recommend looking at lists online or, hell, just binging Wikipedia pages for different countries’ poetry if that’s something you’re into, just to get a sense of the chronology. I read one of those little Oxford Very Short Introductions on American Poetry and thought it was pretty good, but online is quicker if you’re just searching for poets or movements to hone in on. Poetry Foundation also has lots of resources, in addition to all the poems in their database. I guess my one big classic recommendation would have to be Emily Dickinson (<3), but really the best move is just to find a poet you already enjoy and then look around to see who their peers were/are, who they were inspired by, who they’ve maybe translated here and there, etc. and follow it down the line as far as you can.

For some personal recs, here are some collections I’ve really enjoyed over the past two years or so. Bolded favorites, and linking where select poems from the book have been published online. But also, if you want a preview of a couple poems from another of the books to see if they interest you, DM me and I can send them over! You can also feel free to pilfer through my poetry tag for more stuff lol

Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon trans. Don Mee Choi

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo

DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi

Hardly War by Don Mee Choi

Whereas by Layli Long Soldier

Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop

Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine

Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-Translations, & Originals by Sawako Nakayasu

The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam trans. W.S. Merwin and Clarence Brown

The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright

This Journey by James Wright

God’s Silence by Franz Wright

Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (the translation I read was by Alfred Corn—I thought it was great, but idk if there are better ones out there!)

DMZ Colony, Hardly War, Dictee, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and partially Whereas are all book-length poems with some prose poetry and varying levels of weirdness/denseness/multilingualism—if you were to pick one to start with, I’d say do Don’t Let Me Be Lonely or Whereas. Mouth: Eats Color is some experimental translations of Japanese modernist poet Chika Sagawa, with other translations and some of Nakayasu’s original stuff mixed in—it's definitely a bit disorienting but ultimately I remember having such fun with it, as much fun as Nakayasu probably had making it. It’s a book that emphasizes co-creation and a spirit of play, and completely changed my attitude towards translation.

If you’re less interested in that kind of formal fuckery stuff though (I get it), can’t go wrong with the other books! Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings is the one I read most recently, and it’s great—Harjo also featured in Round 1! Franz Wright also featured, and God's Silence is the collection which "Night Walk" comes from. James Wright (father of Franz) is one of my favorite poets of all time, though his poetry isn’t perfect. Even so, I’m honestly surprised he’s not doing numbers on Tumblr—Mary Oliver was a big fan of his, even wrote her "Three Poems for James Wright" after his death.

I mentioned in another post that one of my favorite poets is Paul Celan, so I’ll also recommend him here. I read Memory Rose into Threshold Speech which is a translated collection of his earlier poems, but it’s quite long if you’re just getting to know him as a poet—fortunately, both Poetry Foundation and Poets.org have a ton of his poems in their collections. There’s also an article by Ilya Kaminsky about him titled “Of Strangeness That Wakes Us” (!!!!!) that’s a great place to start, and is honestly kind of my whole mission statement when I’m reading and writing poetry. Looking at the books I’ve recommended above, a lot of them share feelings of separateness or alienation—from others, from oneself, from one’s country, from language—that breed strange, private modes of expression. That tends to be what I’m drawn to personally, and that’s some of what Kaminsky talks about.

Sorry of the length of this—I hope it's useful as a jumping-off point! And if you or anyone ends up exploring any of these poets, let me know what you think! If folks wanna reply with recommendations themselves too that'd be great :)

[mahou-furbies]

Closing thoughts on Magia Record Scene 0

Scene 0 has finally ended! Or the translation I've been following has been completed. To those who don't know, it tells the Madoka Magica story, but the point of view of a new character Mabayu, who for some reason keeps her memory through Homura's time loops and can move while time is stopped. And since we all know how the Madoka plot goes (right?), the main story here is the mystery of Mabayu having lost her memory of why she is already a magical girl.

(spoilers)

First things first, the whole premise conflicts with what I think is one of the core points of the Madoka Magica drama, that is, how Homura had to do her thankless time looping job all alone and became increasingly isolated because of it. But here it's "revealed" that she had a buddy all along, with whom she became very close friends and who is eventually cast as the reason why Homura is able to keep going on in the first place. The whole thing considerably waters down her devotion to Madoka, when most of the story is about how she bonds with Mabayu. And then there's also the inherent awkwardness of inserting a brand new nobody to the story you already know, to whom the characters you've known for a decade become the side cast.

Then again, that is the premise, so you just have to make peace with it if you want to enjoy the story at all. And in fact I like Mabayu a lot, so I'll take it, though I'll have to consider everything a non-canon super AU (even within the canon's actual AUs). There was also the other problem though that some of the stuff was kind of fanservicey, and not in the horny way but in the superficial "let's put the whole cast in maid outfits for no particular reason" way. But I was a fan of some of it, like Nagisa being un-witched in one time loop, so fine.

I don't know how much this is about what the story actually is and how much should be blamed on me not paying enough attention, but in the end I think there's still plenty of holes in the story. Like we learned how Mabayu became a magical girl and what how her personal magic power works, but I didn't understand how her memory doesn't reset through the time loops and why she can move when Homura stops the time. Also the way she erased other characters' memories was inconsistent, she had to cut Sayaka's memory all over again in each loop, but when she cut Mami's, the effect was carried to the next loop. And I guess it was explained how the final resolution worked (duh) but I don't think I quite understood.

That's a lot of complaints but I did have a decent time with this actually, and that is because I really like Mabayu. She's the kind of character I'd really like to see more in magical girl stories: low energy, kind of lazy and self serving, passive and loner but not in an edgy way, and it was interesting to see her grow to be more heroic. She also has a lovely voice, and it turns out the same actor also did Ha-chan whose voice is also great. She also had really good dynamics with the main cast, and I especially like growing friendship between her and Homura, they had good banter with Homura being super serious all the time, and their growing friendship was touching. And she had some interesting stuff going on with Sayaka and Mami too.

And while I complained about the whole premise being about rewriting canon, I also think there were some worthwhile additions. For example in this version Mami used to recruit other girls to become magical girls with Mabayu, and the guilt from that is a major reason for her breakdown when she learns the truth about witches. On one hand I prefer the version of a seemingly strong character actually being weak and emotionally unstable, like she's been through a lot and doesn't need a more noble reason for her breakdown, but I think the Scene 0 version is also interesting.

Ultimately the ending left me somewhat sour with how inconclusive it was. Mabayu cut herself from everyone's memories (including her own), but it feels like there's a ton of stuff about her that's not resolved. Like she's still able to move during Homura's stopped time and doesn't understand why, she's still a magical girl even if she doesn't remember it, becoming friends with Mami again doesn't lead much anywhere if she's going to die to Charlotte in a few days… If the idea is the bittersweet knowledge that Mabayu made a difference in the Homura-Madoka story but nobody can remember it, it doesn't work for me since I didn't really get what her contribution was. Or I guess it was pretty clear how important Mabayu's presence was for keeping Homura sane through all the failed time loops but that was like my number one issue with the premise, so maybe I'm just incompatible with the whole story to begin with.

Still I had a good time following this as the translations came out, I was eager to see where the plot would go and watching a short video every few days didn't require that much from me. Though I do think the story was too long for its own good and especially the early loops could have been condensed.

[ladyelizabethraven]

I guess after seeing the first trailer, we should've known that this will be Dragon Age: MCU edition.

Look, I can forgive the art style or the janky combat or the other stuff. But Bioware fumbling on the things that they do best — story and characters —... It's just... Why?

I really had feeling that this is meant to be some fantasy Fortnite, kid friendly mobile game. But somewhere down the line this reverted to a single player game. And it shows in the level design.

To think that this is what BW cooked after 10 years....

And those conflict resolutions just gave me a migraine. Even Inside Out 2 has a better conflict than this one. And that movie is marketed as kid friendly. But here in Veilguard, we're like watching a bootleg version of Dora the Explorer.

Oh dear... At least there's Metaphor that's keeping me occupied right now...

[bettydice]

I have finished Veilguard. A bunch of thoughts under the cut!

The Companions: Loved all of them and all the banter and their interactions. I thought the companion quests were fantastic and there was a lot of content there and I enjoyed it all. Voice acting was fantastic and some line deliveries made me tear up. And while it was honestly nice to have everyone get along well and be respectful with each other, I did miss some... bite and conflict. Like you get all those delicious conversations with Solas and questioning of motives and I wanted more of that sort of thing. Also I'd die for Assan and Manfred. The Environments: This is definitely one of the strongest parts of the game for me. Everything is gorgeous and I loved just walking around, exploring. I thought they found a great balance of streamlined and exploration! Puzzles were at a difficulty that I can still enjoy (thus very simple, I'm sure other people are annoyed by that) and it made exploring satisfying and relaxing instead of a chore. And I loved seeing changes in the environments after certain events or NPCs moving into places that I'd cleared. I rarely fast travelled because I loved walking through the Crossroads so much.

Rook: Overall, I enjoyed Rook. I chose Erika Ishii's voice for my first playthrough and thought it was fantastic. Also loved every Mourn Watch dialogue option. However... Rook has a loooot of auto dialogue and the dialogue options feel quite limited, so I'm worried about replays and being able to make different Rooks actually feel different. Also hate to say this, but Rook could smile a little less in cutscenes... I also don't think you can play a Rook that antagonizes any companions or is just plain shit at conflict resolution.

Combat: Even though I never felt like I fully mastered it, I enjoyed it. And especially after recently replaying all the other games - the dragon fights were so much cooler (though as a mage, they were also 80% running around screaming). I didn't miss being able to control my companions, except for taking screenshots. Romance: I romanced Bellara and I love her, she is my beautiful wife. I do wish there'd been more romance specific content, especially because you get to see soo much of your companions getting together and being together and you're just there like... what about me? Spare romance banter for Rook pls? I didn't even get a romance specific greeting! Though ultimately, I'm really happy with the romance and the ending added some welcome drama, because Bellara was the one that got abducted by the blight/Elgarnan and yesss! The drama! The fade statues guilt trip! She's so smart and fierce when she returns! And the last scene was super sweet. <3

Story: Overall I'd say... Yay? Loved all the Lore drops and actual answers. Thought the side quests were well done and interesting. Another shout out to the companion quests! All in all, I'm satisfied with the ending, I think. HOWEVER! You can feel the Things We Didn't Import all over the game. There were so many moments where I was like, okay they COULD have mentioned xyz here easily, but no, they have to go out of their way to be vague or not let you talk to this character much. I don't need actual cameos (Isabela you deserve better) but there's so many missed opportunities for simple mentions or codex entries and it's such a shame. Because this IS the culmination of the story and why can't we see that reflected in little moments, so that we can truly feel the depth of the story once more? But I do love the Codex! There's so much good stuff in there! I might even go back and read all the Codex entries I haven't yet. Oh, why do we see no Elves working for Solas? Did he manage to get his entire spy network killed before the game? Classic Solas. Music: Soundtrack was fine, better than I expected tbh though a few scenes had some really awkward whimsical music that made me go ?????????? The Varric thing is dumb. The 'twist' only works because I guess nobody ever mentioned his death ever again. I hate sacrificing character development or People Behaving Normally for twists.

Why is the Inquisitor still wearing FUCKING PYJAMAS. Really wish there was an option to dye armour. The decision between Minrathous and Treviso is a cool concept and loved (though hated) seeing the fallout but what.... Rook and their two buddies are the only thing standing between a city and complete ruin???? I do not think so.

That's all for now.

[pigglepiephi]

Wow, that sure was A LOT of family conflict introduced and resolved in one episode.

It would have been much better to have had some of these threads seeded earlier in the series, giving them more weight and room to breathe.

The abandonment by the dad of Yei and Yak after his wife’s death being revealed and then just instantly resolved few scenes later was sooooo unsatisfying.

I guess this was also supposed to explain Dee’s reluctance to believe or accept that Yak might truly love him and become boyfriends. Again seeding mistrust of love earlier would have made the last few episodes less frustrating to watch with Dee’s motivations seemingly all over the place.

The quick intro of this fear and resolution by way of the video tape - why would Dee never have seen this video of him as a baby before though?? - was also not that satisfying and a strange quick fix to what could have been an interesting storyline if fleshed out better.

I feel like we spent waaaay too long with Dr Ter stuff in last few episodes so the potentially interesting family stuff just feels quite rushed.

[aihoshiino]

Atp i would like to see how ruby and aqua's relarionship will go. Not in "Yasss incest!" way but more of how they (mostly ruby) realize that they need to go their past lives and accept their relation as siblings. Or at least how wrong it is even if ruby wants it so much. There is no way incest would happen because Aka hates it. I am more interested in their psychological state and their conflict and resolving that conflict.

I don't think we can definitely say Akasaka Loves or Hates XYZ just because none of us know him, but there is a weird sense of like... discomfort or maybe avoidance on the topic of incest in OnK that I find kind of interesting to just poke at in my head sometimes. Because like, one of my main issues with the way OnK has handled the incest since 123 is that it just... well, hasn't.

I know that sounds insane in a post 143 world but going through the way the AquRuby stuff (or lbr just Ruby) has been written since 123, it feels like there's a very clear distinction between the ideas of "Ruby having feelings for Aqua, her brother" and "Ruby (& Sarina through her) having feelings for Goro, her doctor". When the story wants to play AquRuby for laughs, it leans into Ruby being attracted to her brother. When it actually takes things seriously, the framing is almost always Ruby addressing Gorou and the concept of incest is so loudly, conspicuously absent. You can even sort of see this line being drawn all the way back in 123, just at the end where Ruby very pointedly first addresses Aqua and then, separately, addresses "Sensei". It's almost as if she's purposely trying to create a divide so she can have one without dealing with the reality of what it would mean to be with the other.

It's hard to tell whether or not this is intentional in the sense of being part of Ruby's arc but it nevertheless creates a sense of the series wanting to have its cake and eat it too, indulging in the shock value and spicy intrigue of incest as a taboo without meaningfully engaging with it as subject matter. I've described it elsewhere recently as the series exclusively toying with the *aesthetics* of incest, its surface level referential language and set dressing, while resolutely avoiding going any deeper and I still stand by that. The 143 kiss is actually a really good example of this - the imagery is that of two siblings kissing but on that very same page, Ruby reminds us that in her eyes, she is talking to and in love with her "Sensei". The series has conducted this deeply convoluted narrative trick where it can depict what is very clearly incest without it technically being incest. Even when roadblocks to the GRSR relationship are addressed, it's only ever in reference to their age gap and Ruby always frames it as something that *used* to stand in their way but is no longer an issue now she's 18.

On days I am feeling charitable towards the series, I'm inclined to think this is an intentional part of Ruby's arc and that she is, in universe, being a bit delulu about the whole thing as an unhealthy coping mechanism - her being avoidant of emotionally inconvenient truths is something we see popping up more than once, so this being an extension of that tendency would make sense. When I am feeling more cynical, however, I tend towards thinking this is just an excuse to indulge in shocking imagery that generates clicks without ever having to actually commit to upsetting readers by sinking *or* canonizing incest ship. My best guess is that the truth is somewhere in the middle but it must be stressed that this is just my thoughts and I have no idea what goes on in Akasaka's brain.

Anyway this is just a long and rambly way of saying "word". Regardless of what direction the story takes AquRuby, I just want the story to finally fucking commit to something instead of chickening out every time it gears up to do so.

[inthethickofbleeding]

Thoughts on Bridgerton S3

I'M JUST RANTING OKAY I've only seen part 2 once and these are just my thoughts and feelings I am gonna throw here and delete later when I probably change my mind after rewatching?? I just gotta rant😭

Penelope was so gracious and understanding and forgiving and I felt she deserved, in many moments, to be rightfully more upset, more vindictive, more fiercely witty and proud. Though I do LOVE all the things getting resolved and solved and brought to light and happy endings (I actually do love it), the journey there for me was missing a healthy and (imo) realistic dose of female rage. Just for the dramaaa come on. All the other drama going on here and Penelope is 'grateful for your counsel?' bfr. I'll show you grateful for your counsel by hating on it! She can show everyone her heart AND her teeth. She is more than capable and I thought that her character was reduced too much in the last four episodes. Penelope I want you to have everything, including your full range of emotion and humor and wit. Drink more w/ Madame Delacroix okay?? And with Lady Danbury.

I feel like my husbandColin was weirdly sidelined? I'm actually quite grateful for Part1 Colin, because I haven't landed anywhere yet with Part2 Colin. I knew he was jealous, I knew he was always going to forgive her...and we all knew he loved her....so the conflict/tension between them was not as interesting- for me! Just for meee. And stupidly drawn out. FOR MEEEEE. He had taken so many 'gallant' steps in his relationship with Penelope so when their wedding day and night and subsequent honeymoon days arrived and he was stuck in that attitude I was so unmoved. Don't play with me, Colin. Go worship your wife.

I JUST WANTED ANOTHER PURE VIOLET MOMENT! OF ANY KIND! Like before/about her dance with Marcus come oonnn! This is Violet! Please for the love. Also give me a convo with her and Penelope! Just one real one?? Damn. Her resolution with Francesca was alright? I guess. I do love that she isn't perfect with all of her kids, esp her daughters. But I feel they planted a lot of stuff for her as a mother and as a woman wanting to 'tend to her garden' you know? And it fell awkwardly for me. My favorite Bridgerton forever though.

HATE HATE HATE that Colin went to Cressida's house to make things worse trope. Seen it before. Didn't like it then and I don't like it now. AND he was forgiven so quickly. Absolutely not. DO NOT GO INTO ROOMS ALONE WITH ANYONE ANYMORE COLIN BRIDGERTON UNLESS IT IS UR WIFE PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME SLASH MY SCREEN. Go home to your wife and fix it there before you try to be all heroic outside of it okay. I will shave your head. I think I need Daphne.

Dear Eloise, you don't know what it is to be a friend, to have a friend, or even to lose a friend. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong, maybe I don't care idk. But we start the show humanizing Cressida, bully since season 1 episode 1, THROUGH Eloise. BUT WHEN IT CAME TIME FOR THE FRIENDSHIP TO MEAN SOMETHING TO EITHER OF THEM Eloise willfully gave up, walked away, ran to the comfort of her privilege with her family and way-too-understanding friend. HOW DID WE CHAMPION SO MANY WOMEN ONLY TO ABANDON THIS THING W/ Cressida at the end as she was literally sent away alone.

Lady Danbury complaints similar to Violet. She is usually a more prominent player, so when she wasn't this season, well, I missed her and wanted anything more about her. But! Love her all the same.

HOW DARE THEY throw Kanthony back and forth all weirdy like that. Kate is here, just let us have Kate. And her lil loving husband. Come oooonnn. Three babies at the end and none of them Kate's😭 And Violet was overwhelmed and they didn't get to have another moment?? A lot of off-screen moments are told to us and we just get to believe whoever says whatever. Every actor here has shown they have skills for show-don't-tell productions! All those beautiful eyes! I just am feeling upset about the random use of this gorgeous couple. EVEN ANTHONY, Viscount and eldest brother of them all just walks away at one point when Colin is obviously needing more of him. Whatever.

Why why why did we have an original song PLUS an orchestral cover of it for both to be so unused??? Tori Kelly's song is so wedding-coded and so romantic and earnest. But it didn't make an appearance for Polin at all. Not at their wedding, not in their home, not in the carriage, not anywhere...

Maybe unpopular opinion but I hated "Yellow" being the wedding song. First see the point above and then please please just remember how much Penelope did to distance herself from that fucking color and the horrible memories of it. NOW! IF COLIN HAD MENTIONED IT SOME WAY OR WHATEVER THEN SUUUURRREEE keep the song. HOWEVER. EVEN THE WEDDING WAS NOT YELLOW, HER FAMILY WASN'T IN YELLOW, WE DIDN'T TALK ABOUT IT AT ALL WHY IS IT THE FUCKING WEDDING SONG WHEN THERE ARE MANY OTHER OPTIONNNNSSSSS WHYYYYY (idc why, I just hated it, even if I did cry).

Benedict has been cute and boring for far too long and that did not change for me in this season. TWO BRIDGERTONS with queer representation in an already huge season with so many storylines going on, I wish we could've celebrated it better. Amongst the thousands of other things that were being celebrated, Benedict has still been separated from them in weird ways.

Not a big point, just an interesting one. But where did Debling go? He just effed off to the wilderness? We spent a lot of time with him (and Cressida) in the first four eps.....and then he was gone.....okay.

Charlotte, I love you. You should know that first. But man you love to crash a party, and a wedding, and I just feel like you should've at least killed someone by now with all these theatrics. Even for Charlotte, I felt she was strangely incorporated into this last half of the season. She and Penelope are technically equals in many many ways- BUT WE NEVER GOT TO SEE THAT WIT AND BANTER PLAY OUT MORE WHYYYY

All in all. It's just my rantings. I was absolutely in love with the first four episodes. There was something so fairytale about it and it was so romantic. So, yes, I was disappointed in part 2 on the initial watch, despite the many things I loved about it. There was a lot going on and, sadly, most did not land for me. Yet.

It's a good show, I still love the show. I will be watching the show. Give me more of the show lol.

[reyesstrand]

My main question now is how the hell are they going to fit all of that into 40 minutes?! Especially with Carlos getting shot and him and TK resolving their conflict over Jonah

sooooo my guess right now is that the judd stuff is going to be them hinting more heavily at his “demons” (especially for the casual viewer) with the episode being a launching point for his bigger plot in episode ten. i think it could run parallel tommy and owen’s stories as he’s close with them both and them going through Big Things could allow for the writers to shine a little more light on what’s going on with judd through his friendships with them.

and i’d guess the carlos plot will continue on as the sort of a-plot along with owen’s, as things will get wrapped up. we’ll either see him completely solve the murder or get confirmation bridges and/or campbell are dirty (still thinking campbell’s a red herring) and i’m guessing he and tk will have a heart-to-heart that will heavily suggest toward the resolution for the jonah conflict. they can fit more than expected into these episodes ajdnsjd and i think by connecting some of the stories (especially the judd stuff) they’ll be able to tie all the loose ends!!!! also given this is a fall finale i wouldn’t be surprised if we get a semi-cliffhanger that has to do with judd’s storyline.

[bettsfic]

Adventures in plotting….

To have some structure and not get bogged down by decision fatigue, I decided to outline and do some pre planning before starting on a writing project. However, I noticed that I start thinking about the logistics of everything to the point where I break the story or at least what excited me in the first place and spend months plotting one idea to the next not finishing anything.

I saw in a previous ask that you recommended to just outline until you find a story that you can’t help but write <—paraphrasing. But I fear that I will never finish a project this way because of this patterns and how much time it takes me.

I guess my question is, how to not break your story when planning or plotting?

i don't think you can actually break a story. you can only take it in a direction beyond your skill or interest in completing it. if you plot beyond your skill level, the only fix is time. it may take a few months or a year or five years but eventually you'll pick it up and go "oh shit, i know how to do this now" and your future self will thank you for doing all this planning for them so they can just hit the ground running.

if you plot beyond your interest, it means the outline has breached its scope. a detailed outline can only get you so far, because when you start writing, the process of discovery drafting will veer you away from it, and the work is then reeling it back toward the outline, or changing the outline.

because i have terms for everything, the terms i use for this are "big mind" and "small mind." you cannot have big mind and small mind at the same time. decision fatigue in writing without an outline comes from putting too much work on small mind. breaking your plot from outlining is putting too much work on big mind. the fix is to give them shifts. big mind clocks in and does as much as it can thinking of big picture things like conflict and rising action and working toward a resolution. but as soon as big mind gets tired, it has to clock out so small mind can clock in. small mind focuses on getting words on the page. and sometimes small mind, being second shift, fucks up the morning shift for big mind by deviating from the outline, and big mind has to clean everything up because it is the far more responsible one of the two. big mind and small mind are forever in a battle of passive-aggressive shift changes.

sometimes one of them takes PTO and you go through a long period planning stuff you don't end up writing, or writing stuff you don't end up finishing. there's nothing really to be done about this except for waiting for the other one to come back from vacation.

so tl;dr when you feel yourself getting close to breaking a project by over-planning it, let yourself clock out from thinking big picture, reset, and clock back in to get some sentences on the page, even if they're headed in the completely wrong direction.