#definitely had some tonal problems

[mylordshesacactus]

Okay, I didn't want to clog up the notes of someone else's post with something tonally different because that's rude, but. I Need to elaborate some more about no-kill vs open-intake shelters because I feel like some people still don't get it.

I'm gonna use an example here: My cat, Nepenthe, came from a small municipal open-intake shelter (I don't use the term "kill shelter" because I think it's obscene and cedes ground to ARA fuckwits for no reason) in an area with a NOTORIOUSLY awful stray cat problem.

She was on the euthanasia list. She was next in line on the euthanasia list.

They would never have been cruel or manipulative enough to say it that baldly, of course, but...I can read. Status was "at rsk", with two days' grace before ticking over into "extreme risk", the red zone. The ones who have had the most time, the most chance, if the shelter ever runs out of cage space.

I have gone the fuck off on people who hear that and immediately assume I will tolerate them bashing or insulting that shelter.

Because here's the thing about Penny. She is my baby, my darling, light of my life, and if I hadn't come along, euthanizing her would have been not only necessary but an ethical obligation.

She was neurotic, traumatized, and unpredictably aggressive--not "I'm bad at feline body language and ignoring her subtle back-off signals" unpredictable, I mean "we showed footage to a professional feline behaviorist and their immediate reaction was 'oh that is NOT normal'" unpredictable. "Actual legitimate psychological problems" unpredictable. The previous three times she had met with potential adopters, she attacked them unprovoked and had to be recaptured by a vet tech wearing a bite sleeve designed for aggressive dogs. She was the textbook definition of unadoptable.

She could not be fostered. There was absolutely no way she could live in a home with small children, or older children, or an elderly person with thin skin, or anyone who would get upset if they were clawed in the face without warning every few days.

Now, here's some math for you, keyboard warrior writing up a condescending screed about how there's Never Any Excuse for euthanizing a healthy animal:

The average length of stay in that shelter, for a healthy cat, was roughly two weeks. Which means, on average, assuming fast turnover, a single cage space in that shelter can save the lives of 24 cats every year.

Penny, when I met her, had been there for 43 days. A month and a half. Three times the average length of stay.

I love her. She has improved my life immeasurably and there is nothing I wouldn't do for her. Her life is not more valuable than the lives of the other 23 cats who might have been saved by the slot she was taking up. Euthanasia, if space had run out, would have been the only ethical option.

(Yes, obviously I DID show up and I DID choose her. But frankly? I was a grad student with a psychology degree, studying to be a therapist, living alone, no plans to have kids, a private room where she wouldn't have to interact with other people or animals, de-facto engaged to a professional animal behaviorist; I was ACTIVELY LOOKING for an edge-case project cat, and could calmly and intelligently articulate my understanding of the seriousness of her behavior and my plan for helping her. You can't count on that happening. I was a fucking unicorn.)

No-kill shelters have the INCREDIBLE luxury of deciding who to save. They have the luxury of having all the time in the world to wait. And in the meantime, what exactly do you think is happening to the other animals? The ones they DON'T pick? The ones there's no room for? Do you think they magically don't need to be surrendered anymore? Does Santa Claus find them a home, perhaps?

You can't reduce the life of an animal to math. Good, ethical no-kill shelters can be wonderful resources--either taking highly-adoptable animals from open-intake shelters to free up space as efficiently as possible, or else taking in behaviorally or medically complicated dogs who need more time to find their perfect match than open-intake shelters can give.

But if you're going to shit on open-intake shelters, you don't get to be a fucking coward about it. So here. Prove how much smarter you are.

You've run out of space. Every cage is full. The cat cannot be fostered. You've filled all your available foster slots with other cats, to buy her time. The "no-kill" shelters are full--they pulled the cats they thought they could save, and the scruffy, psychologically-unsound, adult black domestic shorthair with chronic herpes? Nobody wants her. In this world her unicorn's not coming.

She's had three times as long as every other cat here. You have given her every chance, wrote her a lovely bio, moved other cats to other shelters to keep space open so you didn't have to make this choice; but she mauled someone else today and there's a sweet, cuddly, highly-adoptable tabby with no problem behaviors being checked in right now. If you can't put that new cat somewhere it's going to be euthanized without even being given a chance, even though it is extremely adoptable and would likely find a new home within a week.

You don't have a magic wand. You can't wish a conveniently empty second shelter into existence. Every option has been exhausted.

Look me in the eye, and tell me which one dies.

[evilmafuyu666]

does anyone else feel like regretevator has a problem with tonal mismatch, or am i just getting upset over nothing ?

i feel like the best example of this is the way they handle mark and wallter's divorce. they keep jumping between "haha funny i miss my wife tails mark is sad and cringe" and "this was a deeply traumatic event for both of them and was the culmination of unaddressed problems in both of their lives". obviously i enjoy a good Divorce Joek here and there but it gets to a point where i genuinely can't tell if the writers want us to take it seriously or not. it feels like they're pointing at mark, somebody who is suffering immensely not just because of his divorce, but because of his own trauma related to trying to free himself from a hivemind and form his own identity, and going "lmao get a load of this fucking bozo", when he has plenty of potential for funny interactions that don't revolve around that topic. remember when mark had interactions that weren't about his divorce? i remember. that was nice.

infected and melanie are also good examples. pre-release, melanie was a source of constant jokes along the lines of "MELANIE IS DEAD LOL" and "MELANIE IS NEVER GETTING ADDED TO THE GAME LOL", and it got to a point where it started to. not be funny? and felt more like they were intentionally taunting people who liked her and wanted her to be a real npc. obviously now we know that they'd been working on her the whole time and the jokes were only meant to lead people astray, but her release caused a whole new problem by depicting her as somebody with crippling ptsd and anxiety as a result of what folly did to her, while still adding tons of stickers that make jokes about her being decapitated. like i said, a few japes here and there would be fine, but we've just ended up in another situation where the event that they're joking about is depicted as something very bleak and horrific in-universe, which makes all of the jokes about it feel in poor taste.

aside from wallmark, infected is probably the next worst offender here. they can NOT decide if they want his illness to be treated like a gag or as something genuinely horrifying. it's funny at first when you see the interactions involving people going "ew you're yucky" and him going "n4h m4n 1m n0t yucky -_- l0l mudk1p5", but then you delve deeper into what's really happening with him and. JESUS CHRIST? he's not just some ucky yucky guy, he is somebody whose psyche is rotting away as the result of a parasitic infection that caused him to lose his sense of identity, and if we take the floppies into consideration, is leaving him at risk of eviction and is causing him to scream in agony in his sleep. when you consider all of that, it makes the fact that he seems to be one of the designated comedic relief characters really uncomfortable. he's also a victim of the same jokes they made about melanie pre-release, yeucc and makos both saying things like "KASPER IS DEAD LOL" as a joke like it doesn't have horrific implications in-universe. not to mention everything with poptart, any pet owner can tell you that the idea of their pet being eaten alive and killed is a HORRIFYING THOUGHT, and yet there are dozens of stickers depicting unpleasant either eating poptart, or about to eat poptart. this complaint definitely leans more into the "i am a sensitive weenie baby when it comes to animal death", but i can't imagine i'm the only one who feels this way.

i'm not even gonna get into everything between him and lampert. "skaterlight queerbaiting is dangerously close to no longer being a joke and becoming a valid complaint" could be its own post at this point.

this could all just be the result of autistic empathy cringe, but as regretevator leans more into serious storytelling, i feel like this is becoming more and more of an issue. i have no idea what's supposed to be taken at face value and what's supposed to be taken as a joke, and what are supposed disturbing and upsetting events in the characters' lives are having their narrative weight taken away by the writers treating them like a funny gag, which only serves to annoy the fans of those characters who are invested in their stories without the sense of ironic detachment that the devs seem to have. i think it's possible for regretevator to have a balance of haha funnies and serious writing, but what it's got going on right now? this ain't it chief.

this probably reads like those rants 2010s cartoon reviewers would go on about how modern spongebob is too mean to squidward, but who give a fuck.

[welovetesvkaidan]

OPINIONS ON KAIDAN EE/IF???

My honest reaction:

in all seriousness, if you wanna hear me yap about it, more under the cut

warning like, genuinely a ginormous yap, like a HUMUNGOUS, sleep-deprived yap,,, im cursed to be obsessed with skyrim + modded followers instead of touching grass

I think a lot of this is probably gonna be the same thing other people have said, so im sorry

if you feel i'm gonna be bringing up redundant points and get mad at me😓dont read

I haven't experienced and thus won't talk about the versions of EE and IF that are now separate mods from each other. I don't know anything about that.

if they're better now yayyy but this is about pre-separation

I should preface this with the fact that I've played through Skyrim 3 times with different stages of Kaidan EE/IF:

The initial Dawnguard + fixes/miscs mod

Kaidan EE/IF versions before extensive faction/NPC dialogue for Kaidan

EE/IF w/ NPC Dialogue (AKA Fratpack)

I was also part of the two different discords that were purged and created during these intervals. i don't even know if there is a discord currently?

anyway, that is to say that I have experienced the mod and it's behind-the-scenes progress, extensively so I have a pretty good idea of what I liked and didn't like

That being said, I will introduce probably my biggest problems with it: Tonal whiplash

Okay, well the most common complaint is ofc that a lot of the writing is out of character - and I agree. But it's not just ooc on paper, it's his voice too. I swear, it is very jarring hearing hushed, mild og Kaidan 2 voicelines, and then being deafened by EE Kaidan SCREAMING in my ear ALL.THE.TIME. (like... why are you yelling at me rn jeez)

Seriously. I'm not sure why they didn't just re-record everything from the original mod instead of adding more and more contradicting lines on top of the originals. It definitely could have been a standalone mod, and sometimes it almost feels like it is - because he is just so different.

My most infamous moment in my last playthrough with him happened after we defeated the dragon at Kynesgrove. His og Kaidan 2 dialogue played first, in it he shows interest and is cordial about Delphine ("I wouldn't mind prodding her mind" or whatver dialogue), THEN immediately after his Kaidan EE/IF dialogue will play, in which he walks up to Delphine and STARTS YELLING AT HER AND INSULTING HER - like they argue for quite a bit wtf. And it's like, listen, I have my thoughts about Delphine, but whether or not it was okay to yell at her isn't the problem. It would be fine - IF he hadn't just calmly told me he thought she was okay.

It is sooo confusing how he contradicts himself :(

I mean, yeah, fragments of who he is are still there, I can tell it's Kaidan, but he's warped to fit a different character. Like a con-artist Kaidan.

Anyway, besides the contradictions, it also feels out of character because of his established backstory.

Let's go over it: He's an orphan, lost his only connection to his family(his guardian) to drugs, fell into substances himself, joined a violent cult, had to escape said cult, came clean from his addictions, has been traveling Tamriel bounty-hunting, got brutally attacked by the Thalmor, rescued by mere chance. Do you honestly mean to tell me this man would be yelling, pissing, drinking, lewding, and joking his ass off?? After all that???? NO - or maybe not these levels of extreme. (maybe some other dude might, but Kaidan's characterization insists he is a brooding, keeps-to-himself man, even though he never acts like it anymore)

That man should be tired, and he did feel like he was tired in the original. He was more brooding then than he is now, usually silent, but could still have an edge of comedy/wittiness, he was smart, he had been through a lot!

In that regard, EE/IF Kaidan felt like... we are experiencing Kaidan 10 years in the past - like a Kaidan in his early 20s when he was still a drunkard low-key terrible person. He is just so energetic, always yapping - GOD he talks a lot now. ugh but most of the time it wasn't about anything, it was either inside-jokes, meta jokes, and only occasionally did we get things that added to the experience.

For example, I think most of us who have played Kaidan 2 remember at least one specific line he has said while exploring. What comes to mind for me is either "Can you smell the magicka in the air too? Smells like a rainless thunderstorm." or "Watch for the mammoth with the carvings on their tusks, that's how the giants mark their herd." Alright, both pretty nice small talk for characterization (he IS smart) and worldbuilding.

Tbh i can't really remember any iconic lines from the additions of EE/IF Kaidan... the only two lines that stood out for me were: the "elevenses" line from the clip above (started bumping into him every time he was about to say this so he would stfu... total tonal dissonance), and one he said while I looted Lucky Lorenz ("poor sod wasn't as lucky as his namesake would have you believe!") kai HOW do you know this man, and his nickname, who told you that??? (idc about it that much but its like the only other added line i remember)

I thought that maybe his ooc-iness might have been caused due to the collaborative approach of the mod, I think the mod authors created their own perfect Kaidan - and that's good for them! It takes a shit ton of work (Ik cuz i was there!!) But I think the original essence was lost with each addition. It might have been lack of direction for the voice acting too, a lot of the lines might have hit better if they weren't borderline screamed.

Okay, at some point while playing I got so tired of his constant himbo chit-chatter that I tried tuning him out and bringing other npcs from vanilla skyrim as followers. Problem: even without kaidan on your party, everything starts being about kaidan. Because the extension made it so that Kaidan either has history with/character interactions and development with different NPCs from the base game.

The main poor sods that traveled with me:

Erik the Slayer: Apparently was Kaidan's childhood friend, got inspired by Kaidan to become an adventurer. Least egregious in my opinion, they say sweet things to each other. I swear, Kaidan yells more at me than he ever did at Erik.

The Companions: dumb, dumber, and dumbest basically.. This part of EE/IF was also known as "The Fratpack" and y e a h they pretty much had Vilkas, Kaidan, and Farkas acting like immature frat boys all the time. Just,, absulutely taking away all the maturity out of these GROWN ASS MEN. im sorry, i guess i dont get the appeal. I liked it when they didn't behave like teens (Aela im so sorry, you deserved better than being part of this)

Lydia: All she does is simp for him, ALL.THE.TIME. You think she's about to have a meaningful thing to say? nope, she's checking out Kaidan's ass. Think she'll have a deep convo with another npc about one another? nope! she wants them to tell her all about Kaidan. Both the Companions and Erik will either talk down to her or have to deal with her thirst for Kaidan. i had to start leaving her home.

They also suffered from the same tonal whiplash as Kaidan, unfortunately

additionally, the mod added an "early flirt switch" - you could basically toggle Kaidan to start showing romantic affection for the Dragonborn before the amulet of mara., the interactions were good on paper, but everytime he stammered and stumbled over his words it was written in such an unnatural way... pls people don't talk like fanfics lol !!!

I did like that he gave me flowers, my inventory got full of them - but then he noticed how many flowers I had in my inventory and judged me for "picking everything i see" ugh dude you gave them to me, but also even if you hadnt... mind your business lol

Another addition was a feature that basically made it so NPCs could potentially throw flirtatious comments at Kaidan and the Dragonborn (Bishop flashbacks😨)

You can't do anything to defend Kaidan from those comments, but he WILL take it upon himself to defend your honor infront of any men, women, jarls, or criminals that even so much as find you attractive (THIS INCLUDES FARKAS AND VILKAS BTW :( ) by being rude, forthcoming, AND violent. so yea, you can guess the target audience

speaking of which, he definitely comes on too strong on you once you start the romance, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. I specifically picked the "go slow" option for the romance, and the next day or two it was him constantly complaining about having to go slow under his breath, how he wanted to do anything but slow rn... and like just, wow. :/ yikeees lmao

Maybe this is the result of "i can fix him" romance ideals? im sorry but I liked him when he was down to earth

Bonus? He comes with a campsite now, which has to be magic because its ginormous and he somehow lugs it around despite it also coming with a whole ass furnace (fine fine i'll hold my disbelief)

anyway I do like it, its basically a player house you can take anywhere (so long as kai is with you ig) also you can have a cat in there

I like that there is an MCM, I like that the MCM lets you get through the quest stages in case you get stuck

I like that he can guide you places, usually he gets stuck in a tree or rock but its the thought that counts

I think if the mod had continued in the vein as its original iteration when it was just audio/bug fixes and included these qol features it would have been better than it is now.

But it seems maybe i'm just not the target audience, and as a young woman I'm really confused as who the target audience is 😓

okay im srry rant over

if anyone else wants me to yap about other kaidan skyrim things also ask or join in cuz i like yapping about skyrim and kaidan to people!!!

[pastamansta]

While I have had my issues with "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" (2010-2019) since we restarted the series, and while I have already begun to realize that the show will never be as good as the peak that was achieved in Seasons 2 and 3, as Ginger and I have reached the end of Season 6, I realize that, from this point forward, finishing this show is now something of a chore, or at least a "quest."

There have been issues in the past, no doubt; (1) "bothsidesism" and indigenous peoples stereotyping in a fantasy setting, via the conduit of buffaloes, (2) a portrayal of toxic masculinity as inherent to men, via the conduit of dragons, (3) using autism-coded characters irresponsibly, to make points about "friends who annoy you," via the conduit of both Pinkie Pie and Maud Pie, (4) doing BOTH, via the conduit of Discord, (5) anti-Semitic stereotyping in a fantasy setting, via the conduit of griffins, (6) xenophobic stereotyping in a fantasy setting, via the conduit of yaks, (7) irresponsibly vague and tonally un-sound depictions of self-harm, via the conduit of S05E13 "Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?", (8) inserting support of the military-industrial complex into a show for children, via the conduit of The Wonderbolts, and (9) portraying a character with a severe level of anxiety as someone who is not in need of change, via the conduit of Fluttershy. These issues, however, are, by and large, excusable. Many of these issues are contained to individual episodes, and the show's primary demographic, those from ages FOUR to SEVEN, would have to really be paying attention to notice any of these, though some stick out more than others.

Season 6 is where not only do these issues still manage to present themselves, but they also manage to get worse.

The Wonderbolts have gone from a minor annoyance as part of Rainbow Dash's character, to one of the few reasons she appears on-screen, while further and further pushing a pro-military agenda down the throats of children, with one stand-out episode this season going so far as to apologize, if not encourage, military hazing?

The "toxic masculinity as inherent to men" issue evolves into a larger, more racial issue, ironically done by no longer portraying the dragons as all-male. A new fantasy race, originally introduced as little more than hissing bugs in Season 2, is now just as bad as the dragons, though perhaps not as offensive as the buffaloes, yaks, or griffins. This new fantasy race, the "Changlings," bear a striking resemblance to the real-life conspiracies on "draconian shapeshifters," which has been historically used to demonize Jewish peoples, as well as other marginalized communities.

And as if all of that wasn't bad enough, suddenly the show feels the need to comment on real-world xenophobic attitudes toward Indian cuisine? And their idea on how to do this is to make Rarity biased? By making her worship the words of a critic? Offensive stereotyping, with no "fantasy race" excuse to fall back on, and character assassination in the same fell swoop? "Spice Up Your Life" has to be one of the most embarrassing episodes of the series.

All of this in exchange for... what, exactly? A thinly-veiled, if not entertaining for a FAR older demographic, advertisement for parent-company-owned "Dungeons & Dragons?" A cutesy musical rendition of "A Christmas Carol?" A "what if" episode about a griffin who finally answers, definitively, if non-pony characters can receive a cutie mark? Enjoyable? Sure. Worth the problematic elements and ever-decreasing enjoyability of stock plots and subpar characters writing? Not at all.

As Ginger mentioned in one of her prior posts on the subject, we rank the episodes, every season, from best to worst, and then cut that list into three categories; "Good," "Mid," and "Bad." We have an extra column for "Problem" that, as of this season, was more full than ever. This season, we added a fifth section; "Ironic," as the show has gotten so generally terrible that it is becoming hard to decide between which episodes we had a good time with on their terms... or on ours.

"Flutter Brutter," "Stranger Than Fan Fiction," and "The Cart Before the Ponies" are some of the most fun I've had all season, due to how downright, laughably bad they all are. "Hey, seven-year-old! Did you know that Fluttershy's brother is a massive fuck-up who looks and talks like Matthew McConaughey?" "Yo, pre-teen! Do you have a hot take on the Star Wars Prequels?" "What's up, little dude?! Wanna just... watch your favorite characters ignore their siblings for twenty minutes?!" I was truly in stitches, almost as much as I was during Season 5's "Hearthbreakers," where Pinkie Pie's family eats rocks for Christmas, and the Apple family is told that they HAVE to enjoy it! If you've got a craving for watching twenty-minute chunks of horse cartoons that feel far too much like "Freddy Got Fingered" (2001), this is DEFINITELY the season for you.

If you only like, you know, the show that this used to be? Stop earlier than I'm going to, because Ginger and I are in this for the long haul.

[bloopitynoot]

3 Shadowgast fics that made me ugly cry

Okay so I read a LOT of shadowgast fanfics and I wanted to share some of the ones that made me absolutely weep. (I was going to wait until tomorrow but I got too excited to share).

All of these have some intense emotional distress, but I promise you all they may be angsty but they absolutely have happy endings.

They are all set in very different AU's, are hefty completed fics, and have similar feels!

1. the breathe before the phrase

(171513 words) by @kmackatie Chapters: 20/20 Rating: Explicit Summary: The ringing note of a concert A is played by the oboe, echoing on its own in the space. It’s picked up by the wind section, followed rapidly by the brass, and the familiar feeling of an orchestra calibrating takes over Caleb. The tonal adjustments as each person brings their instrument into alignment sinks into him and something inside Caleb shifts in recognition as Essek leads the strings into their own tuning. It’s like something is waking up, like something unfurling and firing across long-unused paths of memory. His hands shake slightly, as he raises his bow and joins them, fingers fumbling against the pegs and fine tuners that give him control over his instrument. ---- Essek Thelyss is a leading violinist, his spot as Shadowhand of the Rosohna Philharmonic Orchestra has been uncontested for over a decade. Caleb Widogast is a recent arrival to the city, convinced by his friends to audition for one of the vacant violinist positions. After starting off on the wrong foot, Caleb and Essek get to slowly know each other, discover what brings them joy, create while defying expectations, and find out that what they can produce together may just be better than anything they can do separately.

Why I cried: The amount of pressure put on Essek made my heart absolutely shatter. That plus the pinning between Caleb and Essek had me weeping. The hurt/comfort energy. The bad parent Dierta and of course past Caleb Ickythong trauma healing. Other than the story itself Katie has put so much energy into explaining the music, the playlist is stunning, and the inspiration for the played pieces in the fic are grounded in actual compositions. No spoilers, but the ending is gorgeous <3

2.Till Human Voices Wake us

(66080 words) by @ariadne-mouse Chapters: 23/23 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Additional Tags: Merman!Caleb, no Mighty Nein but otherwise canon setting/events, Neutral evil Essek, Essek-typical anxiety and fatalism, Loneliness, Hurt/Comfort, spooky gothic vibes, some horror and disturbing imagery, the ocean as a threat/love language, Illustrations, drowning themes Summary: Essek Thelyss, lonely and ambitious prodigy, comes to Nicodranas to make a risky gamble with the Assembly. At the water’s edge, he finds himself swept up in another dangerous entanglement he can't seem to escape — and as time goes on, he's less and less sure he wants to. Will his treasonous alliance or the sea itself devour him first? (Or, the one where Caleb is a merman.)

Why I cried: okay so look, this story was so fucking sad I can't even begin to describe it. The love and longing between the two, the tragic backstory for Caleb. Treason = death for Essek (it's a happy ending though so do not worry, but I definitely worried so you don't have to LOL). It also has some stunning art in it!!!

3. what luminous worlds await

what luminous worlds await (178674 words) by @essektheylyss Rating: Mature Additional Tags: Champion of the Luxon AU, Alternate Universe - Future, Space Opera, Religious Conflict, religious trauma, Violence, Minor Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Dreams vs. Reality, Demisexual Essek Thelyss, Past Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Angst, Fictional Religion & Theology, Implied/Referenced Sex, Mention of Using Sex as Self-Harm, several immortals grapple with loss while trying to save the world, so so many liberties taken with consecution, this wouldn't be a problem if you'd EXPLAIN matthew mercer, and/or if a certain drow would give literally any straight answers, (I mean he can't give straight answers when he's not straight), Background Fjorester (Past), Post-Canon, …very post-canon Summary: “You seek my nature. It is a lonely endeavor. Would you like to join me on this path?” “Yes.” — After a thousand years, a divine champion awakes in a lightless cave above Port Damali with little memory to speak of and a beacon in his hands. Even as he struggles to piece the past together and process what he has lost while he slept, the future demands he answer for the crimes of his elders. It offers little in return, but perhaps there are fragments of possibility awaiting him.

Why I cried: Omg oh boy, this one made me BIG cry- honestly one of my favourite fics I have read so far. A true space opera, a story of love, in many forms, over time, space, and multiple lives. I sobbed from chapter one literally until the end. Though I think you will need an A03 account to read this one, but it is worth the wait to set one up. My partner watched me cry so much while I read this. I totally did download and save this fic to send to pals so they can cry with me. It is worth the agony for this happy ending. I might still be crying LOL

[morimakesfanart]

Sindria's Prophet #41

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[AO3] [wattpad]

Sinbad x OC

*Mori goes to horny mecha *More sex ed things *Emotional/tonal whiplash ~POV Sinbad~ Mori couldn't keep their eyes off of him for days, but they turned away every time Sinbad returned their gaze. He was definitely getting under their skin. It was only a matter of time before they fully became his, but he wasn't certain he could make it happen before he left for the Kou Empire. It was only after he sat at his desk and couldn't seem to finish a single document that he couldn't deny Mori was under his skin too. Even the waves were pointing him away from his desk.

However, the King couldn't exactly leave when he had just started working -that was what Zepar was for. The bird circled the Black Libra Tower, and when it entered through an open window of Mori's office it wasn't his Beautiful Prophet inside. That was definitely Ja'far leaving the room holding a bunch of scrolls. And when he entered the court yard, the General was headed towards the White Capricorn Tower. Something told Sinbad that Ja'far was heading his way without the waves. He dropped control of the bird.

Sure enough, Ja'far entered his office with the scrolls and put them on his desk. "Sin, is what Mori wrote in these true?" Just glancing at the labels he knew, "I haven't read those ones yet, but I'm sure they are." "Read them now." Ja'far had not looked this upset with him in years. "I'll wait."

--- ~POV Sharrkan~ Mori was ranting and it was far worse than anything Yam had ever said. "Yeah, no! I don't care how pretty these are or how much of a tourist attraction they are! You have to stop selling and supplying quartz and wooden dildos!" The Prophet pointed one such facile at the group before her. "These materials are porous. They can't be properly sterilized, so they will eventually lead to infections no matter what orifice they're shoved into!" Sindria's best swordsman was stuck between covering his face or ears while Mori 'educated' him and the staff of the Red Light District. This was a mistake. 'Can the King just show up and kill me right now????' She sighed. "You can make a similar-ish affect to quartz with glass right? That's actually safe to use, easy to sterilize, and they can handle a wide range of temperatures so you can even use them for temperature play." The Prophet twirled the crystalline dick while talking. "I was surprised when I saw how advanced this country's glass is so there shouldn't be a problem making dildos out of safe materials with the glass work here." Sharrkan had thought she would just take notes or something and leave, not try to fix everything right then and there!!! What materials were safe, what practices were dangerous; 'didn't matter that she was also teaching them things they could do/use instead that would work better. Wasn't Mori supposed to be a huge virgin nerd like Yam??? Why did she know so much about all of this? There's no way this was just from her visions. The staff were the ones taking notes instead of the Prophet. 'At least they seem to be enjoying themselves.'

--- ~POV Sinbad~ Ja'far brought the remaining Fate scrolls Sinbad had yet to read, but only really wanted him to read parts of 2 of them for the conversation. The contents were telling, both in his mistakes of the past, and Ja'far's current glare. When his Beautiful Prophet first told him that he ran away from responsibility using 'Fate,' he thought he had found the true answer in the waves. But that was a contradiction. The waves were caused by people's decisions, so even if they guide people to opportunities it doesn't remove their agency. Without realizing it, Sinbad had fallen into another phantasm to protect himself from guilt. Some of the comments Mori made since they met had hinted at the real reason but it was clear she had no intention of telling him directly. All of the scrolls had signs of being edited here and there, but not these two. They were still in process. And so there was the truth written directly in the paragraphs after his release from slavery.

...He had long forgotten how to ask for emotional support ... Those feelings would fester every time he made another mistake until he was able to fully replace his guilt with the acceptance of 'Fate' as inevitable. He wouldn't be able to acknowledge his own potential for evil for another 15~ years...

That last line held the answer. 'His own potential for evil.' That was the point Mori was really talking around all this time. In her visions he hadn't been able to accept that side of himself until it was too late. He knew he was capable of such things on a factual level considering how he viewed some of his Kingly actions as 'necessary evils,' but that wasn't the same as acknowledging that truth in his Heart. The reason he had longed for the ways of his youth was because back then he hadn't done anything that would haunt the rest his life; he had yet to gamble in desperation only to hurt those around him. But even that wasn't really the truth. When Sinbad had read about when he left home after capturing the Dungeon all he could think of was how that action damned everyone in his village just as was revealed in the scrolls in front of him. He had been making this mistake since the start. 'Just what have I been doing all this time?'

Ja'far's darkened stare waited until he got through the 2nd scroll. "This is so much worse than how you made it sound. This is more than some kid thinking he's the chosen one." A hand went to his head as he tried to wrap his mind around everything. "Sin, why do you think we all swore our lives to help you achieve your dream?"

Sinbad couldn't look away from the scrolls. Doing so would only mean seeing the disappointment in his friend's eyes. He had spent so long keeping what happened in Parthevia a secret. There was nothing he could do about it now.

"I know you don't like sharing your plans, but I thought... Did you ever trust us to help you?! What was the point of gathering all of us then??"

The King opened his mouth, and the realization that he couldn't say the 'right' answer and believe his own words hit him much harder than Ja'far's accusations. His heart started racing to match the flow of the waves. The General may have only read those 2 scrolls but Sinbad had read everything leading up to them, so more of his past was fresh in his mind. Sure, he reached out to people to teach him things periodically, but any time he ran into a real problem he always took on that burden alone. Sinbad had expected 'support' from his Household Members and citizens, but never 'help.'

Sinbad lost control over his expression. "That's part of why I decided to change this path I'm on. Mori made it clear that I will repeat the mistakes of my past if I don't start relying on you all even when I..." He was unable to find the right words to finish his sentence.

"Sin." Ja'far practically hissed his name. "If you don't fix this bad habit of yours then I'll kill you myself, just like I promised all those years ago, before you can cause the 2nd Calamity."

"I'll count on that." He would rather that than be the one that almost destroyed the world. Taking a deep breath didn't help nearly as much as he hoped. "I think we've humored Mori long enough. I need to know for sure how I'm connected to the 2nd Calamity." ---

~POV Mori~ To be honest, I wasn't expecting the management of the Red Light District to believe me right away. But apparently, being officially announced as the Prophet was really good PR because they were very excited to receive some of my 'prophecies for the betterment of Sindria.' The waves had grown dangerously high during my info dumping. If I didn't know how much of a change a sexual revolution could cause from reading history I might have been concerned. Instead, it made my heart swell with pride.

Returning to my room empty handed was a bit disappointing, but it did make it easier to sneak back without being noticed. It also gave me time to make a space the bunch of the new glass dildos I preordered. I was definitely looking forward to the future.

"Finally!" Sharrkan groaned as we exited the district. "If I knew you were going to take so long figuring out-" Both of us froze in the gold gilded doorway.

'Why is Sinbad entering the Red Light District in the middle of the day???' That thought was immediately counter when I noticed Ja'far standing next to him. That meant he was here for official business, not pleasure. 'Why am I only now realizing I could have waited for him to leave the country before attempting this????' At least I wasn't carrying a bag of dicks. That would have been the most damning evidence. --- ~POV Sinbad~ When the guards had revealed that Mori was escorted to the Red Light District by Sharrkan, Sinbad was unwilling to wait for their return. However, something wasn't quite adding up to his expectations. Mori was happily walking out of the Red Light District, and Sharrkan was drained and depressed besides her.

Before the King could say anything, Mori greeted them. "Hello, you're Majesty, Ja'far! I was originally going to tell you after writing up a report first, but since you're here I'll let you know now: I realized I could share medical information for reproductive health here." She gestured behind her, "I just finished my first trip to see what is the current common knowledge, so I could better understand how I can help."

'Does that means Sharrkan didn't drag Mori here?' Even so she was talking a bit too quickly. She was definitely nervous about something.

Ja'far responded before the King could gather his thoughts. "Mori. You do remember that you promised not to invent anything, don't you?" His smile was not the nice one.

"Yes," she admitted without skipping a beat. "However I don't need to invent anything that we aren't already working on to help here." Mori's smile was unwavering.

Sinbad sought direct confirmation. "You really came here to figure out ways to improve this place?" ---

~POV Mori~ "Of course! Who do you think I am?" I said, you know, like a liar. I placed one hand on my hip, and the other over my heart for added flare. "The whole reason I came here was because the rubber experiments are coming along, and the same material can be used to make comfortable condoms you can actually feel through. That way no one has an excuse to not use them." The King and estranged prince coughed at my words. Ja'far's eyes widened. I took his lack of comment as a sign to continue. "We are already working towards rubber gloves. And what are the fingers on gloves other than tubes? We can make condoms by just making bigger tubes." I gave a perfect customer service smile to the man in charge of finances. "From my visions, I know how much trouble 'people' get into when they can't deny their desires, so I thought I could at least help with this part of the problem." "Mx. Prophet," Ja'far took a few steps forward and grabbed my hands. "You should have told me sooner! Something like is invaluable with a King like Sinbad." 'Fish, meet hook.' I softened my expression to lean into this pity angle. "I understand. I know how many complaints you've had to deal with because of him."

((Blatant Rose of Versailles reference ;3)) --- ~POV Sinbad~ This was a dilemma. Even though Sinbad had stopped taking partners, his Beautiful Prophet was none the wiser. This was a good opportunity to enlightened her, but there was something else he had to take care of first. Ja'far might have disliked Mori when they first met, but ever since the rebellion in Balbadd was stopped things started to change. They had started having periodic moments like this when their thoughts aligned. Sin didn't like it. He gently separated their hands and received their attention at the same time. "Hey now, I stopped asking for call girls weeks ago." On one hand, if Mori wanted something, Sinbad wanted to make sure she got it -if that was the assistance of one of his Generals so be it. But on the other hand, he didn't want anyone else catching Mori's eye. When he had heard that Sharrkan brought her to the Red Light District he had thought that one of his Household Members had betrayed him. From the look of things it was starting to seem like, instead of Sharrkan, it was Ja'far he should have been worried about. Ja'far took a few steps back. His eyes and brow scrunched in great disappointment and complete lack of fucks for the topic. "I think we will all feel better with this added protection considering your track record." "Yes, well..." There was no denying that. Sinbad cleared his throat into a fist to buy time as he listed the facts in his head: '-Mori has already admitted to her feelings for me before so clearly she wants to be with me. '-Mori is also aware of my own feelings even though she hasn't fully accept it yet. '-Mori has started working on condoms that are comfortable. 'She is clearly working towards our future, so we can have a long honeymoon before growing our family!!' Mori's expression was only marginally better than Ja'far's. "Are.... you sick?" The Prophet still trusted her visions far more than anything he could say. "I'm fine. I promise." This was a failure of a conversation. Sharrkan's snickering rubbed salt in the wound. There was nothing the Womanizer of the Seven Seas could say to clear his name. "...Okay." She clearly didn't believe him. Mori lightly clapped their hands together with a smile. "Well, on that bombshell, we'll let you go do whatever you were gonna do in the Red Light District." Regret. Humiliation. Was how he spent his life really such a bad thing for a future spouse? Wouldn't his experience and expertise mean that he would be guaranteed to satisfy them? Ja'far brought the topic around to their true purpose. "Actually Mori, we came to get you. We have some questions about the future you saw in your visions."

--- ~POV Mori~ The room they brought me to was the same one that lead to the balcony where I had dinner with Sinbad more than a month ago. As soon as we entered, the King started taking off his rings. Confusion spiked my anxiety. Sinbad gave me a reassuring smile. "I noticed during our meetings about Fate that you keep looking at my rings. When I remembered you know my Djinn's abilities it was obvious what you were worried about." He took off his remaining metal vessels and placed them on a coffee table. "I know I'll never use any of these on you, but actions speak louder than words at times like these." Ja'far followed his King's example and placed his metal vessels on the the table as well. I knew I looked at Zepar's ring a few times when talking about Fate, but I thought I made it seem like my eyes were wandering. I couldn't respond. My brain was still catching up and accepting what was happening. 'This isn't going to be about his trip to the Kou Empire...' I had already explained what visions I had of that trip during a meeting about preparing for it, but it was still the most likely topic I could think of. It wasn't until they settled in amongst the plush seating that I realized I should sit down too. Sinbad's expression went serious but he didn't feel angry. After a moment's hesitation he looked me in the eye. "The person who causes the 2nd Calamity is me, isn't it?" . . . . . . 'How????' The thought was immediately followed by the realization that since I hadn't responded right away there was no way they would believe anything other than admittance. I couldn't even consider the option. ((So that emotional whiplash of a cliffhanger, amiright? The chapter took so long to come out because- Surprised! That eye infection I had came back and being on the medication this time really messed me up. It's a stronger antibiotic since the last apparently didn't fully knock it out of me. I couldn't go outside without catching on fire and passing out, and I had to hyper monitor my diet. The doctor said I'm past the next stage so the dosage was cut in half. I feel more like a person again :D I'll be on it for at least another month. Wish me luck!! This chapter was also delayed because I ended up deciding to do Artober daily this year. It was my first year making a piece every day since Jake Parker ruined Inktober by trademarking it and doing a plagiarism. Anyway, I really enjoyed the challenge :D Inspired me to work on more of my original work and things. On that note, the next chapter is going to be delayed because I want to get a lucid dream one shot out by December 7th. I definitely chose that date for no reason in particular. It absolutely has nothing to do with it being a Jujutsu Kaisen dream. Promise UwU I also have an original piece I'm nearly done writing, but I'll wait to finalize it until I have the next chapter of Sindria's Prophet posted :3 The world and this country is on fire but that doesn't mean it's the end. We have survived every day up to this one, we can survive another. We will preserve.))

[angelshizuka]

Okay maybe it’s because I’ve been getting more and more YT videos in my recommended feed about how much people dislike this show, but I’ve been trying to figure out why people hate Helluva Boss to such a vitriolic degree?

At first I thought it was homophobia, but a large majority of people who have either turned against the show or never liked it in the first place ARE queer themselves, some even saying the show’s values are very conservative citing how the show condemns hypersexuality and pushes monogamy and family life as the ideal life (I don’t personally think it does but I’m not queer so I don’t think I should speak definitively on that).

And then I thought maybe it is an issue with the writing. And if I can extend an olive branch: the writing in Helluva Boss is a very mixed bag. It’s very rough in the beginning mainly with how it struggles with tonal consistency, plot structure, and it having trouble prioritizing its characters.

Okay those are all very valid criticisms of the show. Here’s the thing. I have watched other shows that ALSO had these problems mainly in the beginning. Some shows outgrew these flaws (The Owl House), some didn’t (Amphibia), and some doubled down on their problems and created even more problems (Miraculous Ladybug).

But unless a show actually gets outrageously bad, I have NEVER seen a show get lambasted the way I have seen with Helluva Boss for either normal writing flaws that are a result of a creator’s first show ever AND the nature of indie projects lacking a certain degree of structure, or because people have jumped to the absolute WORST faith conclusions about the story, its characters, and its themes.

The writing of Helluva Boss isn’t perfect, but it is very heartfelt which is something I feel has been lacking in a lot of shows lately, and that’s why I’m still invested in its story and characters.

So I gotta wonder…is it JUST because of Vivienne Medrano? Is it JUST because she has had a controversial and albeit problematic presence online?

Is it also because it’s an indie project and you’re a lot less likely to get blacklisted from the industry for going after an indie project than you are for a project backed by a major corporation?

Because I can’t help but feel like this show would not be getting this degree of hatred if Vivienne Medrano were someone who didn’t have a significant or any online presence.

At least from what I've seen a lot of the hate comes down to purity culture that has been a problem in fandoms in general the past decade, so HB and HH aren't "clean" to these people.

Honestly, I'm just gonna say it. Even if these "critics" are queer themselves, a lot of their arguments are still rooted in (internalized) queerphobia, because THEY act like queer people, including queer rep in media, needs to be "pure" in order to be valid. Instead of seeing queer people like the imperfect and flawed humans we are (not to mention queer people can also be bad people).

I've talked before about how HB and HH feel like the (pre-purity culture) fandom of a show being the actual show itself, so it makes sense so much of the hate is similiar to how "the wrong kind" of fandoms are hated by people who can't even tell the difference between fiction and reality, because they genuinely believe the "morality" of a fictional character perfectly alligns with the writers and fans' real life morality.

I definitely agree HB and HH aren't perfect and it would be interesting to discuss their flaws if the "critical" crowd hadn't ruined it. Though, I do go a bit easier on them because they're Viv's first indie shows (HH technically isn't indie anymore, but you get what I mean), but even if I were to hold them up to corperate show standards, even then I'd still consider them better than most corperate shows I've suffered through in recent years.

And the hatred for Viv as a person in general definitely plays a big part in it, too, because I've seen so many "critics" bend over backwards in any way possible to find ways to try and blame her for literally everything, even though she's far from the only person working on these shows and it's literally impossible for her to keep track of everything that's going on.

[hamliet]

@isammy7936 asked: 

Hello! Since you caught up to One Piece (a truly insane feat but oh am I not surprised, once you get in you don't get out!) I was hoping to hear what you think of what Gear 5 represents for Luffy's character! It's a pretty cool and surprisingly unique way to tackle the final form-sque transformation in Shonen (being all about joy, more cartoony, a light color palette, etc) and ever since it was introduced I had wondered if it would be used to show Luffy's desire for freedom in its most positive and negative aspects (I was picturing Eren's panel in the sky and being so relieved this wasn't a seinen bc dang Luffy's arc could've been wayyy darker lol).

HAHAHA I did laugh at the Eren comparison because--well, yeah. You ain’t wrong.

I do think the series is tackling freedom, but I also think One Piece, all along, has this intrinsic joy and wonder about the world to it. AoT was always about exploring monsters, so tonally the serieses are completely opposite (even if they’re both shonen, which still baffles me how AoT is shonen but ok). However, even with these vastly different tones (polar opposite, even) I think both stories did/are doing a thorough job of exploring the themes. 

Also, can I just say as an aside that I deeply appreciate that the final “power up” isn’t actually something stupid for cool points that allows the MC to escape the rules of reality and consequences but actually has thematic impact? This is a Deku drag. 

For Luffy, freedom and knowledge go hand in hand. Which is funny because a lot of stories frame it the opposite: the more you know, the more burdened you are. Yet Luffy doesn’t see it that way--the more he knows about the world, about the various kingdoms, about injustices, about his friends--the freer he is. 

Luffy’s always been about people being able to choose who they want to be, to choose the life they want to live, even if that goes against what he would do (see, Koby). That means that conflict is inevitable, because the world can’t ever follow what someone wants for it 100% (and is thematically why One Piece focuses on fights--they are not a problem to be erased, but instead an opportunity for Luffy and his opponent to grow). Ie, Luffy’s ideal world isn’t one sans conflict, but one where conflict is used to help grow and to help free those engaging in it, rather than to stifle and contain. 

But now Luffy definitely has some, um, god-like powers. So, we’ll have to see how he uses them going forward. The limits are his imagination, but also potentially some self-imposed limits on how to use them--we’ll have to see which situations the final saga places Luffy in, and the results of his power and his own impact and understandings. But even if Luffy places limits on himself because of a mistake or whatnot, that may paradoxically be freedom for Luffy himself--he knows he doesn’t want to cross a line, and he’s free not to. 

[chrysanthemumgames]

Hi, Jess! A little bit of maybe a bug a report or maybe just a question for you:

I followed Fields of Asphodel during its production. During those early demos and BIPs, the game had tonal markers for choices—like a star for a joking remark, an X for a rejection remark, or hearts for romance-coded choices.

I bought your game once it was officially published, and I noticed that the stars and Xes still exist throughout the work but not the hearts. Was there a reason you removed those and not the others, assuming it was done intentionally? Some of the statements that seem to flag some kind of romantic interest in some of the characters are not explicitly romantic statements to me, so those tonal markers were helpful and I admit I miss them.

And, assuming it was intentional to remove them and not a problem with the Android version showing special characters—I noticed there was at least one place where a heart was still present, and this was one of the options during the holiday outing with Hermes. (Sorry, I neglected to take a screenshot when I came across it.) Figured you'd like to know just in case you wanted to edit it later.

Fields of Asphodel has long been one of my favorite IFs. Congratulations on its release! I'm very much looking forward to the second book. Have a nice day!

These still exist! I just updated the game in a way that should fix most of the errors related to those appearing (or not appearing) in the wrong/right places. If you notice anything specific, please do feel free to screenshot and send, but I believe things should now look more like you're accustomed to (if you update the game, of course).

It was definitely not intentional to remove them, I promise. :)

[valkyrie-sdv]

another bundle done... but MORE IMPORTANTLY... finally got sam's three-heart event.

thinking a lot about sam's emotional intelligence and how he's had to navigate this complex situation with his dad and the threat of his being killed. having to be a stand-in for his father while being only just an adult himself. (i'd imagine late teens or early 20s? given jodi's comment on how sam's "basically a man" now) i feel like i see sam get a lot of flack for being irresponsible, and he definitely is in other areas of life, but emotionally... he's been dealing with a lot since he was pretty young. and helping his family keep things together while his dad is away... in some ways i wonder if his acting the way he does is a direct reaction to what he's had to deal with? being forced to grow up too young, but not wanting to relinquish that childishness and lack of responsibility...

plus also the way that he shirks authority? his comment about not caring about the governor during the luau, getting in trouble with mayor lewis... it's a dynamic that's really interesting especially when thinking about how his dad is a soldier, too. we don't know what kent's like before, but we at least know now that kent seems to be all about Structure and is struggling without it, and believes too much freedom to be a problem. (from his sunday heart level 4 line.)

(as an aside, i really wonder what kent thinks of sam when he gets back, and how sam seems so much his opposite.)

i love how again the choice you get to make here is picking up on that division we see with sam? where with his brother it's ultimately about helping vincent hang on to his childhood for a little longer, or telling him the truth, like sam's aware of...

sunday choosing the "worse" option. sam's reaction is still interesting, though. it reminds me of how he also has this one line when he's married where he says: "I hope Vincent's not too lonely now that I'm gone… I kinda felt responsible for the little guy. But, life's all about change… right? Kids need to learn that, eventually… Or else adulthood will destroy them." digging through dialogue line code, you can see when some dialogue is a direct response to dialogue options you've picked before. this isn't one of them. so that this is something he thinks by default is interesting... sam feels like a happy-go-lucky guy in a lot of ways, but then when it comes to stuff like this, he feels really... almost pessimistic? it really feels like the result of having to deal with everything with his dad from a young age.

hey sam!! dude!!! the tonal whiplash here!!!!!! 😭 PLEASE

[obsidianpen]

Hi, NG fan here! Ramble ahead.

I just wanted to say you do a really good job both explaining and transitioning Voldemort from being a pretty pure evil, 2-D villain coming straight out of book 7 into a more complex 3-D character as he literally gets soul!supplements from Harry. Obviously a lot of the stuff in the very beginning is reflective of the fact that Rowling likes her heroes and villains very cut-and-dry, which means that you can't build compelling character interactions with them without breaking at least *some* of her tonal choices, but that's not a bad thing and you do it in a way that feels very natural.

I think part of what makes the way you write your Voldemorts (counting Hauntingly) so compelling is the internal growth and desire for change. In both NG and Hauntingly, Harry is obviously the catalyst for a lot of this, but I think we do demonstrably see V improving over time (obviously by the end of Hauntingly, but I think in NG too). A lot of what he does is deeply evil, but we as the audience can be sympathetic because it comes partially from a place of ignorance (both regarding his own emotions/desires and his effect on those around him) and we see the evil waver as the ignorance fades.

Harry would sacrifice himself for a soggy corn chip, but beyond that I think that the acknowledgement of how ignorance feeds into remorse definitely contributes to his willingness to engage in intimacy -- emptional, spiritual, and sexual -- with Voldemort after the torture and rape. Voldemort seems to genuinely not have known that he was the kind of person who could rape someone to death, and now that he knows that he is he hates that about himself. It's a low bar to have, but it's a bar that V has never had before because it never occurred to him that he could do something so evil he regretted it. Obviously control is another huge theme in NG, and if the rampage of the most recent chapter is any evidence, it's clear that Voldemort has very little self-control and that will probably feed his remorse even more deeply.

I think that eventually they'll plateau in terms of improvement, because the problem with Harry sacrificing himself all the time is that it's -- shock and awe! -- not actually good for him, and if V keeps improving then eventually his desire to "do right" by Harry is going to outweigh his own selfishness as he becomes aware of just how much harm he's done and how much his presence continues to do. Harry is really good at drawing V back in, but he doesn't actually respect most of V's attempts at boundaries and it still isn't good for him even when he succeeds.

Anyway, thank you for all your work on this! Can't wait to see where it goes next.

’It's a low bar to have, but it's a bar that V has never had before because it never occurred to him that he could do something so evil he regretted it.’ - pretty much hit the nail on the head with this line. Lowest bar in the world but he’s literally never thought about it, and only something that horrible - being the near cause of the death of his last horcrux and tie to a full, pure soul - would make him do so.

[cartoonrival]

Keeping Up With The Uzumakis!!! I read that years ago! I can’t believe it’s back! I just went through the entire With Cheese tag and it has some gold in it, the gender sexuality headcanons especially are golden! Idk if they’re still canon but I love them.

Trans Nauto and Hinata is both inspired and accidentally canon (wisker marks coming from being in the womb on jinchuuriki and all) because of how careful you are with canon I’m sure it’s intentional

Sasuke being gay, we been knowing this since he was 12

I need Sakura to start sleeping with everybody at the hospital the second she find out about the affair. She must have so so much repressed sexual energy that can only really come out by sleeping with Ino, but Ino’s married and actually happy about that so the blonde nurse assigned to ward 4 will have to make due.

Kakashi being ambiguously bisexual is great, you never know what exactly he is feeling except that he’s feeling something about Guy (And also Obito and Rin during the war, but that’s in his PAST and therefore NOT his PROBLEM anymore)

Guy being gay, perfect no notes

Rock Lee’s gender and Sexuality being Rock Lee, perfect. Nobody is doing it like Rock Lee.

More inspired trans headcanons with Boruto and Sarada, once again hitting male characters with the Tranfem-ification beam and also Sasuke leaving Konoha with a son and coming back to a daughter. Sakura totally wrote to him about her transition with all of the medical and personal details but Sasuke never read them because he was too busy reading Naruto’s Horny Letters tm.

Ps, will the next chapter/episode/installment thing take over a year again? It’s fine if it does there’s so much gold in it it’s completely worth the wait.

IM GLAD YOU LIKE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!! <33 having read kuwtu "years ago" seriously scared me but yeah ig ep 0 was a year and a half ago .... SCARY ........

most of the gender/sexuality stuff is either the same or adjacent to my actual headcanons outside of kuwtu which are mostly either canon supported or compliant (my usual hc for naruto is trans and bi aroace, sasuke is arospec gay, etc. i initially made naruto trans because i'm trans and i thought it would be awesome, i did realize a little after that the whiskers thing implied that he was lol. i like trans sakura in canon but she can't be trans for kuwtu because that wouldve required sasuke to be also trans and be the one to carry sarada which he could never do. the complexity of naruto's canon sexuality wrt romantic vs platonic love is unnecessary for kuwtu and complicates things in a way that takes away from the reality tv humor. aroaces aren't known for relationship drama).

i don't currently have any plans for sakura or hinata to find out about the affair because i can't really figure how to make that funny since it would be such a massive and terrible betrayal. sakura and naruto have sort of drifted apart atp, but at one point they were best friends, and learning that her best friend was sleeping with her husband would be so fucking insane that i just don't really have the heart to write it unless i get blessed with some really hilarious idea for it, lol. hinata's pov in kuwtu is already depressing as is-- you all haven't seen much of her and idk how to integrate her pov in rn, but the humor from her end comes largely from the tonal dissonance rather than from her actually having funny reactions to her shitty marriage like sakura does.

that said, if sakura DID find out about the affair, i don't think that she is the type to sleep around because she is waaaay too tied down by responsibility. the whole reason why she hasn't divorced sasuke is in order to maintain the status quo for sarada, so while she would definitely go more than a little crazy at this info i don't think she would be sleeping with any employees. you are 100% right though that she has repressed sexual energy because she hasn't had sex in 12 years.

my usual hc for kakashi is aroace with bisexual tendencies specifically because he has a weird gay thing going on with gai. in kuwtu the kakagai joke is that they have a weird gay thing going on and they're always attached at the hip but never explicitly romantic, which tbh is basically true about boruto canon as well. again i haven't found a good opportunity to work kakashi and gai into kuwtu ... but i think about it because they're really important to me. im a kakaobi anti but that is neither here nor there.

transfem boruto is important to me, i have a comic that vaguely touches on it scripted but idk if im ever gonna actually make it. if i get to a point where i know im never gonna draw it then ill post the script. i'm not entirely sure what the circumstances for his and sasuke's training vacay is since kuwtu has, as far as ive considered, literally none of the conflict elements that boruto canon has, so they might just go off cuz boruto wanted to be taught by sasuke (he admires sasuke as a ninja even if he thinks sasuke as a person is lame as fuck and cringe).

i don't currently have any plans for the next installment. since ep 0 and The Truth were both rewrites of actual events in boruto canon, atp i have to be like fully original which is harder, lol. so i don't know..... i really love the kuwtu cast but i don't have any full comic ideas for them rn.

anyways THANK YOU! IM GLAD YOU LIKE KUWTU BECAUSE I DO ALSO ... <3

[suzu-kun22]

no offence but it's pretty obvious that they had plans for a different plot from the start. the changes begin from episode 1 and a lot of elements are re arranged long before they deviate fully from the og fma. the issues were more to do with a full season being cut from the show and budget running out than the plot for the show being "made up as they went along".

You're right, it is very clear that they had plans to go with a different plot from the start. However, tbh, 2003 doesn't really feel like it suffers from an entire season being cut from the budget. It feels like it suffers from the second half having a different writer than the first half.

Like, yeah. Considering that the second half of the show is written by someone else, it is surprisingly coherent. However, the tone of the story is completely different in 03. Most of the goofy comedy stuff from the first half of the show disappears after episode 25 (which, even when stuff starts to get more serious, the manga and Brotherhood maintain the comedy throughout.) And the way certain characters' stories end feels completely different and almost unsatisfying to me. Sometimes.

I definitely believe that another season of the show (or at least some more episodes/movies) were cut because like, anime production budgets are often non-existent and despite how good I think it still looks, it's clear that 03 didn't have a very high one. But I don't think that's the reason for 03's problems. At the core, I think most of the tonal/coherency issues just come from the fact that two different people wrote the two halves of the show lmao.

The first half of the show is still absolutely stellar, though. Some (emphasis on SOME) of the anime original episodes are so fantastic. Specifically the Barry the Chopper episode. Fantastic.

Plus I do think the ending of 03 has some really interesting implications. Again, if only the sequel movie(s) had been allowed to actually explore that.

[ballinandcantgetup452]

I Genuinely Do Not Know if Gege Akutami is a Good Action Writer

Don't get me wrong, when Gege works, he REALLY works. The cursed energy power system by ITSELF is proof that Gege is bare minimum a genius when it comes to worldbuilding. But, I don't think that Gege Akutami knows how to write a story with a big cast using that system.

I'm specifically referring to how Gege has a really bad habit of benching people that are too powerful. Now, this isn't entirely a bad thing that Gege does. When he benched Gojo, it made narrative and thematic sense. I'm considering Gojo to be the exception to this problem that Gege has. But, let's look at every character that Gege has benched for what I could see to be no other reason than they were too strong in order of most to least justified.

Fumihiko Takaba: This one is definitely the least offensive benching on this list. I can imagine that Comedian is a very tough CT to choreograph in a group setting while keeping your overall serious tone. The Shinjuku Showdown for just about its entire runtime feels tense. Comedian is not only an overpowered CT, but it's also a tonally overpowering CT. You can write Comedian to be scary if you have no idea how it works; but, that's still making the Shinjuku Showdown all about Takaba and not Sukuna like Gege intended. So, having Takaba being on the Sukuna Squad would be a lot of work on Gege to properly balance. You were going to have to bench him in some way. I'm fine with him being in charge of taking down Kenjaku. That fight was probably my favorite fight in all of JJK, and, it makes complete sense as to how and why he got benched.

Nobara Kugisaki: While I'm ecstatic that Nobara's alive, it does kind of hurt the story in retrospect, even if her return was properly built up. If Gege had simply killed Nobara, then I wouldn't be putting her on this list. Because sure, Nobara had a technique that would've allowed her to damage the soul from a distance-something that proved to be INTEGRAL during Shinjuku-so killing her could make the Shinjuku Showdown a whole lot harder, but her death meant a lot to the cast. It deeply affected Yuji and caused him to grow even more as a character. So, I was willing to let it slide. But, the fact that Gege kept her alive is proof that he knew that he had made her too powerful and he wanted to use her for later. If he had built this up more instead of one passive "well she might be alive" comment, I wouldn't be complaining. However, here we are.

Hiromi Higuruma: This one is definitely the most egregious in my opinion. The fact that he is alive significantly hurts this story in retrospect. I wouldn't even be making this list in general if he was alive. Something to keep in mind is that I'm trying to look at this story from both a powerscaling and a narrative perspective. So I get why Gege killed him. Anybody with an insta-kill weapon has to be dealt with in some shape way or form. And, once again, killing him gave Yuji more motivation. I honestly don't even get why Gege did it this time with the knowledge that there isn't going to be a JJK2. Keeping Higuruma alive exclusively hurts the story. Especially because he had already mainly served his narrative purpose in the Culling Games.

I know that this is a pretty small list. However, keep in mind, this all happened in one arc. At the very end. So, it overall hurts the package. In making this list, I have gotten to thinking about it, and, I don't think that Gege is a bad writer. I think that he does phenomenal with smaller casts. I genuinely believe that Hidden Inventory is one of the best arcs in the series. I just think that Gege got a little too ambitious and he couldn't wrap things up in time because of mangaka fatigue so he got sloppy at the very end.

[joelletwo]

wrestling with the 4devas bitchslap again to convince myself its fine if graveyard wins the best ep tourney: it's not the other bloggers who are wrong, it's me

not a complete response to but definitely in conversation with and asking some of the same questions again as @reductionisms's 4devas essay, which tries to square gintoki's "life doesn't need to be fun, i just need you to live" being a series-sanctioned message he's given to villains as an arc-concluding moral continuously up until 4devas with it here being an incorrect worldview that needs to be (physically) corrected by shinpachi, the straightman tonal signpost of gintama

a conflict i have been perplexed by ever since i got to this line on my first watch a year or two ago, since i've seen this line before! all over fandom! as part of the general "dont [bottom text] kill yourself" motivational messaging of gintama that i love!

and, briefly, when i hit 4devas i was also in the middle of being really frustrated by the new arc pattern i was seeing crop up: i loved the villains-turned sympathetic-turned someone worth saving by gintoki tune of the first half of gintama, but it fell massively flat for me in Yoshiwara in Flames, where i was never convinced to be on housen's side but had to watch him get a heartwarming redemptive death at the side of the woman he abused anyways.

then shortly after i had the same exact experience in Red Spider with jiraia, and i thought, if this is what gintama is gonna do with its shitty dudes from now on im gonna quit the fucking show. and then shortly after that i met jirochou and saw him cut down otose the woman he loved (under a raining sky!!! the fucking sky motifs!!! the signpost im about to watch a dude be shittily violent to women and be expected to feel sorry for him about it) and saw too much red to really take in the rest of the arc level-headedly or care about anything in it lol.

so it was written off in my mind as the 'otose almost gets fridged' arc until i rewatched it this week. then i had to remember, oh yeah, there's a ton of political maneuvering fakeouts in this arc that i never actually squared back with how the plot presented itself prior to the reveals, so i'd still been thinking about the "fakeout" plot. then i read the manga version with all the "truths" in mind from the start, and finally i felt like i could understand what this arc is doing a little better.

(way) tldr (4.4k words. sorry): do i love this arc? eh. do i still hate it? eh. but it's doing stuff!

first, i was able to see an echo in all the "actually i was planning to betray you the whole time" "actually i was working to help you the whole time" plot beats of what sorachi does with the larger edo/universe story further into the back half of the manga. if i ever sound like i didnt enjoy or wasnt convinced by the execution of these "reveals," it's because i didnt and wasnt, lol. but it's fun that he had fun with them i guess.

the arc starts with pirako ingratiating herself into yorozuya, then having a classic "bump into you and pretend to be injured to extort you" encounter w her dad's gang. to resolve this without escalating into violence, gintoki... does it back to them, which is really funny. but thus the tone is set for the arc of: DISHONEST APPROACHES TO CONFLICT.

pirako isnt honest about her overall intentions the, like, seven different times that she "admits her real ones." kada plays at peacekeeper in the devas while being the ultimate person scheming to get the upper hand over everyone else in the end. (she's also secretly harusame, evil amanto outsider who acts as a unifying force for the kabukicho fighting itself to band together against and expel: sorachi's favorite move! the problem was never internal, it's the shadowy REAL antagonists who infiltrated us)

jirochou and otose are ultimately doing a pantomime of conflict to try to keep temperatures down and escalations from breaking out, so no one they care about has to get hurt. gintoki doesn't know this until the end, but he follows in their footsteps after his encounter with them in the graveyard: he plays at having given up to the rest of yorozuya so they'll leave and escape the coming kabukicho war, the same thing otose was trying with him. it fails both times. i'm really not sure why gintoki and otose thought it would work, honestly. they should know their kids are stubborn as hell.

but gintoki is in a bind because of the things he needs to protect, and all of his actions are primarily in service of that, to the detriment of how he'd prefer to act if he were less restricted. he is unsurprised and unoffended to hear saigou is only willing to warn them, not help them, because her son is in danger if she acts directly. all four devas are, seemingly, being mutually restrained this way, holding back even when blatantly manipulated to do so. the other constant of this arc: everyone is dishonest, and no one wants to risk losing what they have.

gintoki understands that! of course! he's had to make that calculus before, after all :)

and this arc is just one big cliff scene echo: the entire graveyard scene pushing gintoki to emotional regression because he thinks he's losing another parent figure, one he's just seen the Gintoki Figure of the arc cut down, no less (takasugi stolen valor when he goes berserk against him and only ends up uselessly bleeding out on the ground about it, honestly). otose goes into this willingly so gintoki can live. he accepts this decision because he values protecting her values (her kids living on) and is briefly broken by it (the story says, before giving him shinpachi to "put him back on track"). prior to the bitchslap, after saying he just wants them to live, even if it has to be without him, he says:

i dont have a good understanding of when we start getting reveals of gintoki's backstory versus foreshadowing because i went into gintama already knowing most of it, but definitely by the recent red spider where we get our first real look at (or really, first listen to) shouyou. but here we actually get some of what gintoki felt about it, which he keeps closely guarded even when the whole truth comes out: he's done his best to survive having lost, but it was so unbearable he can't face losing again.

(also, honorable mention backstory echo, the person calling him a brother sets his home on fire to drive him and his parent figure out of town. as i liveblogged: this one would really hurt gintoki if gintoki cared about anything oboro ever did!)

but with the shinpachi story-rerouting, they get the good end, keep everyone (otose, yorozuya, all of kabukicho, even pirako and her dad - everyone but kada) safe without having to sacrifice a single thing, even keep gintoki hopeful for this outcome. so, as goose points out, we are left to understand that there could have been a good end on the cliff, that something is different here than there, and, skipping a lot of math, that that is the people around gintoki.

which i do find really funny to imagine as a slam on takasugi and katsura. sorry you kids suck too much, your teacher dies bc u were cringefail. but lets look at it.

everyone is dishonest, no one wants to risk what they have: gintoki rallies himself to keep fighting but is determined to do it alone. kagura and shinpachi fight him on this; they can't leave because they don't want to lose their home, they can't let him fight alone because they don't want to lose him. they're just as restricted by what they have to keep safe, but their only option is to act where everyone else's is inaction. shinpachi says:

if i may skip over the bitchslap itself for now, gintoki does consent to let his allies fight with him after it. yorozuya stands alone against saigou, who's heavily demoralized but resigned, strongarmed into fighting them by the threat to her son. but on seeing their resolve to keep protecting their own precious home and family she says:

and, to skip straight to my thought, i think this is what turns the tides back in their favor. there are more twists and turns to the fight. pirako equates what binds saigou, which she herself equates to what binds the yorozuya, to what binds her:

(with an intentional distinction that she's willing to actively destroy the others', as opposed to their purely self defensive fighting, which is echoed at some point in her distinguishing gintoki from jirochou in the same way, that jirochou not only lives to protect like gintoki but is willing to destroy in the process. i don't find that part as interesting, but it's more fuel to the power of having something to protect as a driving force as an arc theme.)

so now all three stand on the same ground, absolutely unwilling to give up what they hold dear, but all their cards are on the table. they aren't dealing in 12 dimensions of tricksy defensive pre-emptive moves anymore. they know it wouldnt work, anyways, since they all know their drives to protect are the same and no one will be talked into backing down. now they can directly duke it out and let the winner be determined that way, on strength of will. even before the actual circumstances change, the fight somehow feels freer seeing how inevitable it is. and with everything out in the open, yorozuya can now protect each other and saigou's son, taking out one side of the conflict.

(and with everything out in the open, the ultimate 4devas villain can become the single person who continues to betray the others, kada, whose further machinations - with everything out in the open! - saigou (and later yorozuya) can choose to protect pirako from. everyone wins! because everything was out in the open! do you see where i'm going)

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the arc is rerailed to the better outcome. so is the correction justified?

what does the correction accomplish outside of its moment? most convincingly to me of goose's presented options, i also think it's done as a thematic shift, a, okay, just live was a strategy that worked before but now doesn't suffice, so we need something more.

as to why this is needed now and not earlier or later...tldr bad planning <3 but like.

we have, prior to this, a consistent thrust of arcs where gintoki teaches people to lose. as well, while we meet the harusame and we visit space and we get the barest glimpses of takasugi's weird shadowy background moves there, largely we're dealing with kabukicho characters and kabukicho stories. we see or only hear about the shogun for short comedic moments only. we've largely dropped the series intro focus on things like the shinsengumi or hasegawa acting as foreign diplomats. it's a local series, a hometown series, a kabukicho and not even an edo at large series, a personal story about gintoki making personal connections with his personal experience as a flawed person with a flawed approach to life that has let him, chronic slacker, get by on the bare minimum.

at this moment, chapter 300, we have a slow trickle of gintoki backstory starting to come out to us. we've recently expanded the story focus to include yoshiwara, which gets a callout in this arc by kada to keep it relevant. we have an arc of sorachi testing out plot beats that he'll use again for the endgame, in all the political maneuvering and alliancing and betraying and shadowy outsider space governmenting, where he's also doing a lot of echoing of that backstory that only becomes clear later. so it's possible he's thinking about shifting gears and setting up for the eventual endgame, which means getting out of the episodic cycle so things can stick.

and after this arc, to my opinion and memory, we stop getting the classic gintama flavor sympathizable'd antagonists. a lot of the bigger arcs don't even have clear Big Shot antagonists anymore, being more about the shouyoucore theme of characters fighting against themselves, or if there is one they're always explicitly part of the Shadow Government now, a unified and more daunting force than someone they can win over with an inspiring gintoki interaction.

so 4devas does act as a turning point at least in some way. and it's not possible to say this definitively, since all gintama arcs are ultimately never going to be about gintoki or his friends Actually losing something instead of beating the odds, but it does feel like theres a different flavor to, say, dekobokko with its direct look at how chars lives could be different and better and they will still choose to keep struggling as themselves. and Kintama arc definitely doesn't feel like an early days arc, like it can only resolve the way it does with a gintoki who is now able to face his past and the possibility of losing again and again and again (now with, natch, his faith that yorozuya will by his side when he does).

why now, after 300 chapters of letting it sit ignored in the back of his brain working out perfectly fine except when it doesn't (the very reminder of shouyou in a fight making him go Demon Mode, which is like regular gintoki but worse at fighting, bc he is so unprepared to think about shouyou)? well i personally am in big favor of the "take a decade off" strategy for facing problems. it worked for me too. realistically watsonianly its nice to let things percolate in the brain and do some of the processing behind the scenes until its less immediately painful. and he's made many bonds over these 300 chapters, shown in this arc when the whole town rallies behind him, that are there to support him when he needs it now and weren't there before.

realistically doylistly eh. bad planning.

and so we come back to the question: gintoki is corrected, the series as a result is rerailed to a writing space where things can start changing (leave the episodic, as you guys say, sazae-san format). it's useful in the future. so is the correction justified in terms of what comes before it? was the correction needed?

thinking about the bitchslap leads to thinking about the cliff scene leads to (sorry kagura and katsura, you guys arent really relevant here) pitting shinpachi and takasugi against each other in how they act with something on the line they can't bear to give up.

i don’t need the lesson of 4devas to apply logistically to the cliff scene. once they were set up on that chessboard, frozen in their assigned places as a backstory, it’s not like takasugi could’ve power of friendship’d his way out of being physically retrained if he decided he wanted to. it’s set up as a forced choice, it has to play out as a forced choice.

but we see that even before it’s asked of him, takasugi is willing, prepared, unbothered to give up his own life for shouyou’s. this is, goose lays out in the sequel, the cardinal sin in gintama - a teacher shouldn’t outlive their student. it would have been especially egregious to shouyou, whose whole desired life’s purpose is to raise students who can outlive him and outgrow him, take his lessons and go out into the world and do their own thing with them. takasugi doesn’t expect to do this and doesn’t seem to see a point in the possibility if shouyou isn’t back with them.

though we can also think of shouyou as a little too quickly willing to give up on the cliff - sorry, gintoki, the suicidal guy has thought about it for .02 seconds and decided the best outcome is for you to kill him even though he could get out of this no problem. maybe its no wonder gintoki gave up too. can we ask katsura what he would’ve done?

and is takasugi different from shinpachi there? he rejects the mentor’s attempt to exchange his own life for his. he’s not willing to consider a life without him.

but shinpachi is convinced no one is going to die. because they’ll be there together. incredibly naive - shinpachi and kagura, restricted to one option by what they need to protect like everyone is in 4devas, have acting as that one option because they are still free in a way gintoki and the other adults aren't. they’ve never actually experienced the impossible choice that forces you to give up, so they can act as if there isn’t one - what else would they do? why would they think to give up?

but gintoki is defined by having lived the impossible choice. its built into the foundation of him as a character and leaks out everywhere. he couldn’t have relied on his friends on the cliff because they were quite forcibly removed from the picture as an option, not by his or their choice. its written as an inevitability, logistics we find out later be damned.

if we refocus to 4devas, we can look at the Gintoki Figure for a different angle. jirochou, after he and gintoki resolve the arc conflict by being able to team up because they - say it with me - put everything out in the open, tells gintoki about his impetus for abandoning his family and coming back to his wayward life in kabukicho, the death of otose's husband.

it's, um, another now really obvious parallel to gintoki, lol. characters talk about how jirochou does everything he does in this arc to try to atone for his failure to both otose and tatsugorou, and i guess thats true bc he was written that way but he has an odd way of showing it, but anyways he resolves that, despite his guilt over this, all he can do now is keep living and keep protecting what they loved together. he's come to the usual gintama message all on his own, reinforcing that this is the correct way to live in this series. he had his own unavoidably shitty situation, and he came to terms with it.

so then where did jirochou go wrong, in the narrative's eyes (other than abandoning one woman and their child to deal drugs in the town of his other woman while ignoring her)? was there a point he could've changed how their trio's story played out? but he loved and trusted tatsugorou, and he was happy to step aside and let him be the one by their otose's side. i doubt he would have been happy stealing her away even if it were possible.

but if we look at the resolution tool of 4devas... he never put everything out in the open!!! everyone knows he loved otose, but in more of an open secret way. in classic romance plot, he never confessed for second male lead rejection closure. indeed, in the closest we ever get to a main character having a romantic plot in gintama, the very ending of the arc flirts with him doing just that now that he's made a little progress with the arc message, with the entire cast of the arc expecting him to (and interrupting before he can).

but if he had when they were young. if he had been honest with his friends. could it have opened up other options that weren't available on his own, that they didnt know to offer? i have a preferred one lol. but u can get creative with all sorts of life paths that avoid tatsugorou dying that way or, at the least, jirochou feeling chained to a shameful life (living in a town he doesn't go out in to protect a woman he doesnt talk to and feeling like he doesnt deserve the family he abandoned for this) because of it.

and then if we take this and rewind back to the cliff... we get to grind my favorite ax, "shouyou shouldve told literally anyone literally anything about his deal." if gintoki knew more about shouyou, they could've faced his horrors together, the whole time. he couldve known that shouyou was being literal calling himself a demon and not internalized his own identity as one for life just because shouyou bonded with him over it. i truly genuinely think the logical conclusion of all of gintama's big messages are that shouyou and gintoki should have been more open with each other.

but i don't think sorachi thinks that. and, you know, by 4devas rules, the unriskable precious things he was protecting by staying silent were his students' humanity, and secondarily his own fragilely newly hopeful heart that literally couldnt stand another 10 millionth round of rejection (killed himself and then went on a 12 year rampage over it. girl i would too).

and takasugi really isn't dishonest about what's going on in his head when he tells us he expects to die for shouyou. that's as cards on the table as i could ask. gintoki is, a little bit, by omission. he does what i'd want him to here - tells takasugi try just not dying - but doesn't give him a reason to, and doesn't tell him he has no plans of letting anyone die for shouyou.

so what goes wrong on the cliff - shouyou is happy, gintoki is happy, oboro's even kind of happy, katsura is irrelevant - is that takasugi is blindsided (whoops) by their silent agreement that betrays the one he thought he and gintoki had. and then ruins everyone's party about it and spends the next ten years doing so for good measure.

which is also, basically, what shinpachi is going through that prompts the bitchslap, too. he thought they were a team, that they had each others backs, not that gintoki is a one-way protector of them. he is blindsided by gintoki lying to and tricking them and hiding things from them. he is hurt by gintoki feeling hopeless all by himself when he could share that with them and be encouraged by their endless child optimism.

and would it need to have changed anything on the cliff? in the moment after the bitchslap, what contributes to gintoki changing his mindset is tama telling him, we trust that you're capable bc youve always shown us that, can you trust us this time? when, later in the arc, gintoki seems to regress by sending kagura and shinpachi away, he asks them to trust that he's still trusting them, relying on them to help shoulder his burden, and in return they know he's staying alive, not self sacrificing. maybe it would've helped just to feel on the same team and not shut out, to be able to trust gintoki like gintoki was trusting shouyou?

so. two paralleled instances of gintoki making a bad situation worse by keeping to himself and being too self sufficient. that feels clear cut that feels fine im okay with that as a takeaway. do i think its exactly what sorachi had in mind while writing this, as opposed to just a good series 'hey lean on your friends' moment to read cool and tug at the heartstrings? eh lol. i think theres definitely room to read takasugi into this arc (i still need to refind the takagin 4devas post...) but its not so baked in that i think he was a PRIORITY in the plotting.

but is the shinpachi SCOLDING necessary is the scolding justified... and yes its in response to life doesnt need to be fun i just want you to live. still a confusing framing i can't immediately square. but/and more immediately its directly responding. to gintoki opening up to them about his insecurities!!

which, as said, he doesnt do!! he doesnt talk about his failures! its basically like, here and to hijikata that one time and otherwise even when we know all the facts about what happened we still never hear gintoki himself talk about it. (so he really DOESNT learn the lesson here either. he stays dissociated and triggered every time utsuro comes up. he tries to solve the altana baby problem on his own. he doesnt talk to his new friends OR his old friends. bwah. gintoki. silver soul.)

so this is like. its just in the wrong order!! its just in a baffling order lol. if you want gintoki to share his burden do you need to punch him when he shares it. does it also need to sound like you're blaming him for not being capable of upholding his promise to protect anyone when thats the insecurity thats got him all discombobulated this arc in the first place (a whole set of notes i took on this that i didnt find a place for in this post)?? its so weeeeiiiiiirddd lol i dont liiikeee itttttt. theres plenty of things shinpachi can validly punch gintoki for but this is such a weird one.

so i guess. having a clearer understanding of this arc do i hate it less? YES honestly. i hate fakeout plots generally they irritate me but everything... more or less makes sense by gintama standards now that i have the whole plot in mind.

do i hate jirochou less SORT OF? i enjoy him. in his individual relationships. i like his shitty dad deal i love shitty dads. i like him pining for otose who genuinely likes him but also brings up her husband every sentence she says to him just to keep him down. i like his parallels with gintoki that they both explicitly acknowledge and find macho comfort in. hes still not theeeeeeeee most well-developed gintama antagonist but you know? i at least think otose and pirako would want to be around him after this.

do i feel like i have a clearer understanding of the bitchslap moment. NOT CONVINCED I DO. i feel like its going to be one of those things that slips in and out of my understanding like sand in cupped hands. i have a tentative understanding of it that i dont think sorachi actually had in mind. so i dont think ive solved it lol.

will i be cursed to think about 4devas forever? god i hope not. am i okay with it beating farewell shins in the polls. god i fucking hope it does. in the horrible timeline where i have to see 305 make it all the way and then lose i guess id rather it be to this one than to hijigin. consider this poll propaganda?

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

a list of things from my season 2 rewatch, in no particular order:

there's a mundane practicality to Nate that's kind of embarrassingly relatable. "I was going to buy a suit but it was really expensive so I borrowed one from my dad" in season 1; "he's going to use a lot of water" about Dani's breakdown in the showers in 2x01. This is... basically exactly how I would respond to both these situations

Very funny that the man Roy describes as "settling for fine" is almost exclusively shown telling stories about almost beating up elderly celebrities

"Do you believe the return of Jamie Tartt will impact that so called 'vibe'" I don't have a point I just love this line.

love everyone supporting Sam in the Dubai Air protest but I feel like researching the sponsorships is probably supposed to be someone's job? That being said they were already the sponsor in season 1 and Rupert probably wouldn't care that their parent company was polluting Nigeria, and I can see how re-doing all the due diligence on the established sponsorships wouldn't be high up in the line of priorities

start of some tonal problems — trying to reintegrate Jamie into the team by shouting and flipping tables comes off a bit weird as a comedy beat when the previous episode has Jamie openly discussing his abusive father

kind of hilarious that the kebab guy thinks Ted is Roy's dad when he's like. maybe 8 years older

the end of 2x05 is very clearly a reference to something (presumably a romcom) and I believe the fact that I don't know what it is makes it much funnier. I do feel kind of bad that Roy has to spend the entire match in a suit when it appears to be quite cold outside, though

"maybe there's a good reason she hasn't replied. maybe she got hit by a bus." (Isaac) "or a train?" (Dani) they are so good at comforting

I tend to need a fair bit of personal space myself so I absolutely understand where Keeley is coming from in 2x07, and the way Roy responds to learning that she feels smothered ("I feel like a fucking idiot," "you've been making out like I'm following you around like some creepy shadow" (paraphrased)) is obviously a product of his own insecurities and he doesn't initially seem to understand that alone time is a legitimate need that doesn't inherently reflect poorly on him,  but ultimately I think the problem itself is more a result of Keeley's difficulty expressing her own needs than of Roy failing to intuit them

The first time I heard Jamie say his thing about giving Richard space I thought he was trying to subliminal message Roy. He definitely wasn't but I was very impressed for a second there

The hug. The HUUUUUG. I am having a feeling

my controversial favourite episode is Beard After Hours — it feels like an episode of a different show, but TL is a bit of an outlier in terms of my tastes and 2x09 is closer to the norm. That being said I didn't start watching until after all of season 2 had come out and might feel differently if I'd been watching the episodes as they came out

the bit where they're singing at the funeral makes me want to crawl out of my skin with vicarious embarrassment. I have never managed to listen to this entire bit with the sound up.

Is sparkling water actually much more common in the UK than in the US? I'm Canadian and it's generally not the default kind of water to offer people, but it's also not as much of a novel concept as it seems to be to Ted.