#don't mind me just. still dissecting these characters to figure out what is even going on in there

[mayasaura]

Was thinking about this line because Harrow what the actual fuck are you talking about, and I realised something.

Not only does Harrow really for real not know that Gideon loves her—in the bullshit context of their lives, this is a reasonable misunderstanding for her to have.

What has Harrow known Gideon's life goals to be since they were children? Hint: There are at least two Harrow is fully aware of.

The first is to be wanted. As much as Gideon hates and wants to escape the Ninth, she also paradoxically craves their acceptance. They're the only community she's ever known. Harrow plays on that desire from the very beginning, mostly by kind of .... well, okay, by negging her about it. Ironically appealing to her sense of loyalty and duty to her house when they both know Gideon never even had that bridge to burn. That kind of thing.

Whether or not she's right, Harrow sincerely believes that acceptance to still be important to Gideon. First flower of my house, the greatest cavalier we have ever produced. You are our triumph. The best of all of us. When Harrow has only seconds left to make amends, she not only banks hard into praising Gideon, she frames it to unambiguously offer Gideon the acceptance she's always been conspicuously denied. Assuring her of her value not just as a person or as a cavalier, but as one of their house, one of their people.

The second thing Harrow knows is that Gideon wants to join the Cohort. Easy, everybody knows that. She's only been telling everyone with ears (and then some) since she was eight years old. It's the bait Harrow dangled to entice her into this mess. She wants to be a hero, to do great deeds like in the comic books. She wants to be a soldier.

Against the backdrop of all that context, Gideon's dying declaration "for the Ninth" starts to sound a hell of a lot more like "for Queen and country." Especially when you remember that Harrow is still the sovereign ruler of the Ninth. From Harrow's vantage point, Gideon could easily be playing the heroic underdog in a war movie. The soldier no one believed in until she threw herself on a grenade to save her squad. The knight errant who proved her chivalry by giving her life in service to her king.

From that perspective, Harrow's line to Ortus makes sense. She's following through on her promise of acceptance, defending Gideon's loyalty to the first Ninth face she sees. She's playing out Gideon's war hero fantasy, where Gideon's act of heroism proved them all wrong about her. In which case Ortus's response, "You are the most worthy heroes the Ninth House could muster. I truly believe that," flows very naturally as a reply. He understands what Harrow is trying to say, and affirms it.

It's not a hero's burial in the Anastasian, but it's the closest thing Harrow has the power to give her. And it's a fucking reasonable interpretation of Gideon's actions that doesn't touch on her feelings for Harrow at all. Fuck me.

[staticofthetv]

Take two!

Favourite frames from the new B-Side chapter, featuring some analysis because I have coherent thoughts this time 'round :D

Beware, spoilers below for the B-Side as well as the manga

@veiled-bird that goes for you too, you're nowhere near meeting this guy yet

First up, I love this chapters art. It reminds me of when I was little and asking my dad to help my brother and I beat the last level of episode 3 in lego star wars tcs

Also the chapter title? I have so many thoughts, they'll be discussed more in depth further down but they will be discussed /pos

Numbers weapon 1 mention!! I'm very excited to (hopefully) get more lore about it. Although I am curious if it's like a contact lens or something, I thought it was closer to a surgical implant or maybe some weird side effect from using numbers weapon 1. Mostly because I don't think he's been drawn with normal eyes yet in the manga (at least from what I remember)

Either way very much hoping we get some more numbers weapon 1 lore in this :)

This whole scene but specifically "what good does a test proving I'm abnormal do" hits so hard, especially as someone diagnosed with ADHD in my late teens. Having that feeling of there's something wrong with me for so long and being brushed off every time because I didn't act like the stereotypical 10 year old boy with severe ADHD (a psychiatrist literally told me and my mum i probably had adhd but she wouldnt diagnose me,) I did start to kind of give up on ever figuring it out.

Narumi was incredibly relatable to me in the main manga (not because I'm a badass, I'm very lame lmao) because of the behaviours he exhibits, hyperfocusing on games, constant dopamine seeking (through videogames and online shopping,) needing to be fiddling with something to better process the information being given out, etc.

Narumi is also incredibly smart, its stated explicitly that he got top scores in the entrance exam and I can't imagine those tests are anywhere near easy. It gives neurodivergent kid being told they just need to apply themselves to do better in school/make friends/just function in a neurotypical way in general.

This also comes from his being kicked out of several orphanages, and then even after joining the defence force (especially after being told by Isao that they take anyone that can show skills and results) getting kicked out by the second division and every platoon in the first until he ends up under hasegawa. Considering the title too this is 100% supposed to read as the classic "troubled kid" (many of which are neurodivergent) that not many are willing to put effort into helping. Isao is giving him a way out of the life of having no home to go back to, only to be struck with the threat of getting kicked out once again a year later. Narumi is a very skilled and capable fighter and no one in their right mind would argue with that and it once again all comes down to being labelled as too difficult, hard to work with, never paying attention

This chapter just hits so close to home with me

Baby Mina!! I know there's a decent amount if it in the manga but it's still weird to see her with short hair. I love her so much

There are many more words of appreciation I have but all thought went into dissecting Narumi's character lol

And so being kicked around by hasegawa begins

I love his face here, top tier expression

And here we see Isao solidifying the thought of skill and results being all that matters, there's no way Isao was going to let Narumi get kicked out, especially not after showing aptitude for handling numbers weapon 1. I like to think at this point he does also care for Narumi, I think he sees a lot of Kikoru (or what she could be) in him and especially he sees himself in Narumi. And even though he's only ranked captain Isao would clearly fight to keep Narumi on the force (he probably already had to for Narumi to get transferred to the first division instead of just being dropped when he didn't mesh with the second)

This is also the beginning of Isao and Narumi's mentor/mentee relationship, Isao knows exactly how to handle Narumi and his child prodigy-ness and help him reach his potential as a defence force officer. I think that's part of why Isao shows little care for how Narumi handles himself when off duty, it may be that he knows he can't change Narumi in that way, it may be that he himself just doesn't care for all the professional decorum, either way Isao plays the very important role of being Narumi's main support while he's in the defence force (until Isao dies anyway, whoops.) Narumi needed a space where he could not only be himself but be accepted for it and have the trust of his peers and superiors that he would get the job done when he needs to, and whether it was on purpose or not Isao provided exactly that for him.

This also ties back into the earlier ramble about Narumi being the typical undiagnosed neurodivergent "troubled kid"

(Also the origin of what Narumi says to Kikoru ~9 years in the future :D)

Omg jaeger is canon? Kaiju no. 8 and pacific rim crossover when? /j

Another interesting tidbit about Narumi is his self confidence, he knows he's capable and isn't afraid to tell people that. He says playing support is annoying but what I see is someone that knows he can do better placed somewhere else and has decided to take that into his own hands. He won't get kicked out of the defense force but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets into a shit ton of trouble for taking Isao's words to heart and disregarding his orders, even though I do think he'll be an asset to the battle and perform better being closer to the front lines.

Poor hasegawa has his work cut out for him keeping Narumi in check (a captain and vice-captain match made in hell)

[raconteur-wanpi]

ONE PIECE 1124

I'm probably gonna start writing these thoughts / reactions with each new chapter at this point. At least as long as I have something to say!

Sentomaru is alive waaaahhhh!!! Mr. Golden Boy! I'm so glad! He skyrocketed his way up my favorite character list in this arc, but then again I'm weak towards any characters based on folklore / fairy tales and mythical heroes to begin with. It's nice to see him escape Egghead, but it's devastating to see him mourning like this. He lost so much, he really is a tragic character. Seeing him cry is genuinely a bullet through my heart. He lost his adoptive father, he lost the island he has spent much of his life on, he failed to protect the civilians who he risked his life to save, he's now a fugitive running from the government, and the man he considered an uncle and mentor figure was the one to pull the trigger. Poor guy, his experience with the Buster Call and loss of mentors almost makes him feel like a parallel to Robin. I hope he gets to heal, there are some revealed surprise good news he might want to hear eventually.

And speaking of tragedy within this little family unit, here it is. Borsalino's regret. This really reminded me of Garp and Ace, but unlike Garp being just passive and complacent in Ace's death, here Borsalino was the man who actually did it. You can see the sorrow and devastation but also the complacency. He was always going to do it, no matter how he feels about it. What in interesting character, I want to dissect his brain. His lack of a sense of actual justice and code was something introduced as a joke, but here we see what that actually looks like. A man passive enough to follow any order, even if it's something he isn't going to be able to bear.

And of course, the aftermath of such a conflict. This is the first time we've ever seen him sad and / or furious. He's sobbing and screaming to Sakazuki, someone who he's always tried to appease in the past. I wonder where will this lead him as a character. I adooore seeing the Marines betrayed, broken and fed up by their own system one by one. Maybe they will eventually realize they're on the wrong side of history. Or maybe Borsalino over here will stay complacent and passive as he always has been, who knows. Either way, I love the way Oda has approached all this interpersonal tragedy within all the grander politics of it.

Yep, there is it! The big twist! ...That most people myself included completely expected. Punk Records is still intact! The Gorosei need Vegapunks mind, so they explicitly tried to protect that part of Egghead. And that means, of course, all the Vegapunks' consciousness is still up there in the Cloud. There's a chance any of them could talk through Lilith, Stella included. Hell, she could probably build new android bodies for them if she gets the resources. Or at least, that's what I'm assuming she means by "everyone's alive", since she doesn't elaborate further.

Aaaand Robin getting excited to meet Saul again. 🥹 God I hope it goes well, I'll be devastated if it doesn't. PLEASE let this reunion happen properly.

And to close things off, somebody is waiting for them on Elbaf. People have pointed out the silhouette looks similar to the mysterious kasa-hat-wearing man we see chatting it up with Crocus in one of the cover stories. The most common guess I've seen is that it's Scopper Gaban, the man from Roger's crew, and potentially that he is the "man marked by flames". Others have suggested things like Shiki or even a 90-year-old Yorki who survived. I don't know if I personally have any predictions, but Gaban feels like a good guess. It could potentially also just be a character we haven't met yet. Really looking forward to the future!

[littlenightmares2]

What do you think is the meaning behind Mono turning into the Thin man at the end? Do you think that’s an example of his character repeating the cycle of abuse which was imposed onto him?

thank you for asking! i love dissecting the story of little nightmares and the characters so much, so i foresee myself rambling a lot in this answer. here we go.

the long and short of it is, i think that the pale city was always awaiting mono's arrival.

we can see in the scene where mono and six are first travelling to the pale city that upon their approach, the buildings immediately begin to bend and warp towards them. the city already seemed to recognise mono's latent powers in this moment as it responded to his presence- that, or his fate had already been decided by the nowhere. the city demanded a broadcaster.

my (current, and constantly subject to change!) interpretation of events is that six accompanying mono impeded what the nowhere had already predestined him to.

he's described throughout promotional materials as "an uncommonly single-minded child." this phrase has always fascinated me. we get so few solid details about the children's mindsets and motivations in this world so it's difficult not to fixate on that simple string of information. yet despite him having this singular, unshakeable motivation to move towards the pale city and find the source of the transmission, the signal tower, he still allowed himself to be waylaid. he stopped to free six.

the pale city exists because the need for escapism exists. therefore, the broadcaster that would oversee the signal tower and send out the transmission across the city would have to be a figure that was sunken deeply into escapism, too. somebody who needed a distraction. somebody who had been through such immense pain, such betrayal, that they would do anything to put it to the back of their mind. somebody who needed the false comfort that escapism and denial of reality provides.

when asked if mono ever thought about lashing out against the tower, using his powers to level the city, or generally defying what had happened to him, the little nightmares twitter responded: "of course not. like all sensible children, he eventually came around to our way of thinking." they also stipulated that mono's idea of escapism would be, "revenge, maybe? a second chance?"

i believe that the looping events of little nightmares ii are caused by mono's own desire for either revenge or a second chance. he conceded to the tower's will because escapism was offered to him when he so desperately wanted it.

he is the thin man, cast into the depths of the flesh walls, but in his mind, he's mono again, back at the start of everything in the forest. the loop that persistently plays out is a recreation of events that allows mono to engage in the escapism of being at six's side again after everything that happened forever. he can't change what happened. but he can enjoy second chance after second chance, being her friend again before everything went wrong- the thing he so desperately craves.

the thin man takes his revenge in chasing her and stealing her away. keeping her prisoner in the signal tower, in pain just as he is and will continue to be forevermore. even if he goes on to free her after the fact. i don't think mono exactly 'remembers' how everything happens when he lapses into these bouts of escapism with the loops playing out over and over. it wouldn't be true escapism if he was aware of how painfully everything was going to end. everything feels new for mono, but as the thin man, he remembers and guides others into the false lull of security that turning away from reality offers.

six was a perfect instrument to use against mono. even though she was initially detrimental to the tower's goal of drawing mono in, she later became an essential part of it.. she was a catalyst of trauma and the tower maliciously aligned events when it warped her into a monster, setting everything up to transpire in such a way that she would abandon him. when mono shattered six's music box, he denied her the escapism it provided. the comfort and denial of her painful reality was snatched away. this goes to show exactly how intoxicating the tower and it's transmission are, and how manipulated events between the two children were. the end goal was always for mono to think he was saving six, while she wholeheartedly believed he was hurting her and ruining her happiness. that he was unsafe to be around.

[a-couple-of-notes]

Too Many Words on Mean Girls the Musical

The discovery of Mean Girls (2024) has sent me into a genuine tailspin, y'all. The adaptation nerd in me is intrigued and screaming. The younger version of myself for whom Mean Girls on Broadway acted as a gateway to musical theater is just screaming. The film school graduate is confused???

I think I'd much rather gush over why the original stage show, despite its flaws, does work--it's generally more fun for me to dissect a thing that I love rather than something I dislike--but the fact is, I am STILL trying to figure out what the hell I actually think about the 2024 movie. I guess this is my flailing, word-vomit style attempt to do so.

Okay, some context: I have watched all three versions in their entirety. I think the 2004 movie is very well-done and absolutely deserves its status as a cultural icon, but I've always connected more with the original Mean Girls musical, which ran on Broadway from 2018-2020. It was one of the first musicals I ever got into, one of the first cast albums I ever bought with my own money, and though over time I came to recognize many of its flaws (the lyrics can be hokey, I wish they'd threaded in Cady's stars motifs better, there's an argument a bajillion people have already made about the girls not being mean enough, etc.), Broadway!MG was always going to hold the peak Mean Girls place in my heart.

But I'm also an adaptation nerd, and I was fully aware of my bias going into the 2024 musical movie. I tried to keep an open a mind as possible, even looking forward to changes and what they might do with new character interpretations or space from cut songs. Maybe I didn't do a good enough job keeping that open mind, because I'm seeing a lot of people who liked the musical saying that this was an okay adaptation. I just. I don't know what they watched. I don't know what I watched.

In roughly chronological (read: increasingly ????) order, a list of bullet points:

I understand the motive behind replacing "It Roars"--not because I think "It Roars" is a weak song, though. I think "It Roars" is actually quite good, despite some debatably rough lyrics; it neatly sets up Cady's excitable energy ("I've got new things to try / like high school, and skateboards, and rapping / and Starbucks venti chai"), her roots in Africa (the drumbeat musical sound, which will recur through Cady's songs), and her naiveté ("Hi teens!"). The transition from African drumbeats/Disney princess to pop/rock as the percussion and guitar kick in really effectively communicates the transition from Cady's world to the world of Western high school. Most importantly, though, "It Roars" introduces us to Cady's fundamental want and a big theme of the show: friendship and belonging. ("They all want to be included like me / so eventually, I'll win!")

But 2024!Cady is a different character, and the movie seems to want to explore different themes (maybe??). So it makes sense that they would need a different opening number, because they're establishing different things. 2024!Cady is quieter, but much more unhappy in Africa; her main want is to live life freely and without regret. Fair enough! That works well with how she'll be challenged in the story, wanting to try living like the Plastics but being forced to hold back in the process. I can get behind that.

HOWEVER. Cady's signature sound is gone, as are pretty much all the signature styles, leaving the musical language of the film much weaker. By replacing "It Roars" but leaving other songs the same ("Apex Predator" and "I See Stars," mostly), they muddy the themes and metaphors threaded throughout. And crucially, they frame "What Ifs" and "Stupid with Love" as dream sequences that get cut off by the Real World of high school.

This is...certainly a decision. It sets up expectations about how the music works in this world that they can't follow through on--there are scenes Cady doesn't see, and therefore cannot dream-musicalize. So when normal people start singing outside Cady's perspective, it's so jarring, because this high school has not been established as a Musical World. (Compounded by the ensemble and the instrumentation sounding thin, and Cady's performance being like it is.)

The establishing of the music as Cady's dream sequences also does a disservice to the real feeling of high school. High school is big and dramatic and the emotions you feel are larger than life. To delineate it so firmly, to have it only be so big and campy in Cady's head, like a sort of "oh, look at that weirdo, thinking that high school is like a musical" feels, to me, so much less genuine.

It sort of felt like if they could have gotten away with playing all the musical numbers as insert songs over the actual action, they would have. They tried so hard.

I think the orchestrations in general are bad and afraid to be a musical. And I don't get people who say that "they had to tone it down for the screen, because you don't have to go as big on screen." I mean, I do, but there is precedent for doing big, loud, ensemble-heavy numbers on screen and it working. Look at The Prom movie, or Hairspray. Look at freaking High School Musical. They could have done it, and it wouldn't have broken the cinema screen or anything.

I love Renee Rapp, I do. But Cady is the protagonist of the story for a reason (just like Emma was the protagonist of The Prom for a reason, and look, the same thing happened there.) Broadway!MG worked because, under all of Regina and Damian's show-stopping numbers, Cady was there as the emotional backbone of the show. You can have your "Stop"s and your "World Burn"s because you have "More is Better" or the reprise of "Fearless" that is tragically missing from the OBC. I always had the sense in the show that everything would eventually feed into Cady's arc; she would learn something from the number (or refuse to), and/or whatever happened through the song would affect her behavior going forward. The sense I get from 2024!Cady is that she exists to be swallowed up by Renee Rapp, which, good for her, but it can't support the narrative.

In general, they've just gutted a lot of Cady's internality by cutting her songs (and her musical asides! Justice for the musical asides!), leading to this lack of agency/accountability/character. Which I find dishearteningly funny, given that the Broadway cast have talked about how this was an issue the creative team was aware of in the original stage show, and how hard they worked to fix it.

I disagree with the notion that the dialogue scenes could replace the impact of these songs. I just don't see it. Once you add musical numbers, you're adding emphasis--here's the big emotional moments I want you to pay attention to. And the emotion dips back down, so we talk--and here's another big emotion, so music, pay attention. The 2024 movie has told us what it considers important: the fun numbers and the Plastics, mostly Regina. And that completely kneecaps the core narrative arc (as well as the pacing, because we're speeding through in weird places before stopping down for a full Regina song).

I just. I really don't know why (narratively--I understand the meta-reasons and they're bad) they cut "More is Better." I'm not joking when I say the movie would have been significantly better with it in. It would have improved the pacing, at least in a musical sense, because going straight from "Revenge Party" to "Someone Gets Hurt (Reprise)" left a surprisingly noticeable gap that made me wonder if they'd forgotten what they were adapting. It would have given Cady a little more voice, and it would have fit really well thematically with what should have been the arc of 2024!Cady--living without holding back, living sincerely. (Also, since Aaron is literally the only person this Cady cares about, that reality check would have packed an even greater wallop.)

I will give credit to the scene with Cady crying as her mom comforts her. That was a good scene.

I was glad they reprised "What Ifs" briefly in the Mathletes competition, although I do miss "Do This Thing," especially because I think it would have worked with 2024!Cady's character arc.

Also, I do sort of get putting "Stupid with Love" over the Mathletes/getting ready for prom, but why the "calcu-lust" portion of the song? And why is it the only song to depart from the musical style this movie is determined to stick to (I'm not counting Damian's iCarly rendition, great as it is--that's meant to be a joke.)

"I See Stars." Okay. Unironically, I love this song as the ending of the Broadway show. I do. You can fight me on it. In Broadway!MG, Cady's driving want is the need to belong, the need for friends; "I See Stars" is her reaching out to the other students (and the audience) and "including" everyone, finally achieving that sense of belonging and friendship by being kind to everyone. The ensemble all coming in and saying "We're all stars," when at the beginning they are so opposed to her ("Just ignore her!") or focused on Regina warms my heart every time. It so earnestly resolves the thematic through line (and also I love Erika's voice).

HOWEVER, it does not work in the 2024 movie. 2024!Cady's desire has never been about friends or belonging. Again, she wants to be herself and live without regrets. I could buy that she would sing an inspirational finale a la "I'd Rather Be Me" or a rousing reprise of "What Ifs" to say something like "we can all do what we want AND be kind to each other." But the thematic throughline to "I See Stars" is much thinner--and the ensemble doesn't even sing together! It defeats the original power of the songs and makes it one more insert song.

I guess what confuses me about this movie the most is that the two takes I've seen are "they changed everything about the arrangements, now it sucks" and "must a movie be good? I enjoy the 2024 movie for what is is." I generally dislike the arrangements, yes, but I think changes to a source material can be interesting and worthwhile, and honestly, the musical arrangements/production is only one of many problems I had with the movie.

And on the other hand, I think I'm frustrated because I wish I could enjoy the 2024 movie for what it is. After all, I enjoy Broadway!MG for what it is, calcu-lust and all.

But maybe that's why--Broadway!MG knows what it is, and genuinely, goofily revels in it. Mean Girls (2024) is a wild mishmash of pop music and TikToks playing over Renee Rapp and the amalgamation of three different scripts of Mean Girls, filmed by a camera that won't stop spinning. That is to say, I don't think Mean Girls (2024) has any more of an idea what it is than I do.

[armoricaroyalty]

dev diaries #4 - on the language of 'deserving'

This isn't what I said I'd write next but whatever.

The next few story posts are all about romantic and sexual relationships, and I've been thinking a lot about the tropes and language that are used to describe those things, within fiction and without.

Very often, I see discussions about whether or not a male character "deserves" a particular woman as a love interest, and it's always bothered me on a level I couldn't quite articulate. To me, "deserve" implies that there is some kind of point-based metric by which the worth of individuals can be measured out so we can figure out who is owed what, romantically. I've seen dissections and take downs of this notion that a hero deserves a love interest from the perspective of male entitlement, especially as it comes to the culture of the 1980's and 1990's, wherein the hero completes a journey and is awarded a passive, biddable love interest as a prize for his trials. People correctly describe that kind of messaging as sexist and objectifying, reducing the role of women in a story to mere trophies and prizes for the male protagonists.

I am in 100% agreement with those arguments, but I don't think I've seen much discussion about this language of "deserving" from the perspective of romances and other media where women are more often protagonists. I think it's really easy to pinpoint the ways in which "deserving" a love interest can be toxic in action films and comedies, but I think it's a lot harder to describe the ways in which that perspective is limiting in romances and dramas.

To my thinking, focusing on whether or not a man "deserves" the cool female protagonist of a romance still strips her of depth and agency, even if she's at the center of the narrative. It reinforces this idea that men are incompetent, fumbling, clumsy, and women are innately above it all. It establishes unequal footing and paints the woman into a corner -- if the dynamic of the relationship is about the man having to do something in order to deserve the woman, it limits the narrative's capacity for her to be flawed and dynamic, to have agency of her own. I find it infantilizing because it turns the woman into a perpetual mommy, someone who is constantly going to be monitoring the man's behavior to make sure that he maintains his state of grace and continues to deserve her affection.

I don't think it's bad, in fiction or in real life, to have a relationship where one person strives to be the best version of themselves for their partner. I don't think it's bad, in fiction or in real life, for people to think about how they deserve to be treated. But I think that it's bad to frame relationships or love interests as something that can be earned, owed, deserved--those kind of acquisitive models and ways of thinking are, to my mind, flattening and reductive.

I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of Freddy and his romantic relationships. He's a character who's flawed and those flaws have gotten in the way of his romantic relationships. He has hurt people by being selfish, immature, uncommunicative--these are things he needs to develop before he can be a good partner to anyone. But I still find myself so resistant to the framing that he is currently undeserving.

I think a large part of my :/ reaction is just a general distaste for the concept of what is deserved and by whom. A city near me is instituting a policy wherein some low-income families earning less than half the living wage are being $500 monthly subsidies, no strings attached. And the comments sections are full of people who think that these families don't deserve the money, full of people obsessed with the idea that some people are worthy of it and others aren't, full of people who think that we need to find ways to ensure that no one undeserving benefits by accident.

For me at least, I have a hard time uncoupling these different meanings of what it means to 'deserve' something from one another. You cannot bring objectivity to this because the idea of worth and merit are inherently subjective. Perhaps we are all deserving of grace, comfort, love, an extra $500 a month -- I think we'd all be a lot better off if we let go of the acquisitive little goblins in our brains who want to make sure that nobody else has anything we think we're owed.

This is a joke, but also not: I've been thinking about this tweet since I saw it, and that's a large part of what inspired this post.

[seelestia]

hahaha i’m glad i’m bad at being an anon BUT YOU GIVE ME SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT SO !!!

yeah school sucks i agree, chemistry is making me tear up. what's your favorite subject? and tbh I haven't written in a while i have no ideas what to write :( any suggestions?

uh oh i love chocolate milk but three glasses feels like it'll shoot my stomach. i am pretty good at self control, or at least id like to think so. and HAHAHA this is really funny bc i am in fact an intp and OBSESSED w mbti. what's yours?

you did do it justice!! i love the idea that sometimes no matter how much you love someone there's always going to be a small part of them that loves someone more than you and living with it can be difficult. you did it GREAT. and ZHONGLI AHHH. hes wonderful to write as i love his personality. i love how u analyzed him and i completely agree shxij. i love writing characters I can chew up n analyze (tehe) bc i like challenges, so scara, childe, kazuha, and diluc are some of my favs. wbu?

-quill!

dw about it, quill! i love giving people things to talk abt because my brain is a jumbled mess of topics and listening to other people's opinions / how uniquely they view the world compared to me are absolutely >>>

CHEMISTRY IS A DEMON CHILD FR. i still need to shove chemical equations because figuring out how to balance them sucks the life out of me 😭 but my fav subject is deffo biology! i like how i always go "ooh, so that's what happened" because my child self used to have sm questions abt how the heck our body works. what's your fav subject?? >:)

i'm not good with suggestions, but let's see! is there any particular trope you'd like to try writing?? or like a trope that just screams a chara's name to you?? this sort of thing makes me feel inspired, but i'm sorry if this doesn't help much, quill <//3 i hope you'll be able to find inspo soon tho! it sucks not knowing what to do :(

see, you're a better person than me when it comes to this. (/lh) now that i look back on it, what was i thinking downing three glasses of choco milk 😭 ANYWHO, ME TOO?? a fellow mbti-obsessed brethren?? i'm an infj and i'm glad i guessed you right, ehe. let me tell you, i love typology sm like i have a habit of assigning an mbti or enneagram type to someone i've talked to for a bit or even the mc's i write in my fics (like the mc in 'do you love me?' for example! i can say that they'd be an xNFx / intuitive feeler).

THANK YOU SM <3 me too like the idea of that is so painful but also somewhat realistic at the same time?? like emotions are unique in the way that they don't have reins for us to maneuver the way we want to and following that idea, it somewhat explains how we can be prone to leaning towards one side more than the other (consciously or not). it may be an easy fact to acknowledge; it may not be an easy one to confront, however. — i think that was like the baseline i was trying to portray in the story?? i'm glad you loved it tho! writing that fic makes me adore dylm!zhongli and dylm!mc sm ☹️ (they're my skrunklies that are subjected to angst torture /lh)

CHEW AND DISSECT THEIR BRAIN! (in a safe and non-dottore way /j) i like how scara and diluc are the ones that put a lid over their feelings whilst kazuha and childe are the honest, open with what's on their mind type 🤭 for me, some of my favs to write are: ayato (are we surprised /j), scara, alhaitham, and dainsleif (so underrated, i need to write for this depressed beautiful man asap)! as you can see, i have a thing for writing logical people and i fear it's an obsession. (/lh)

[iraprince]

how do you feel about drawing unconventional or speculative biology? mostly i mean mild stuff, like extra space in the torso for more arms or, like, wings? do you ever aim for am9derate degree of realism or do you prefer to focus on visual appeal? this is just an idle question, i've been thinking about Weird Fake Biology and have been curious how some artists might go about depicting it. thank you for your time have a good day!

don't worry about it at all!! i think some of my philosophy on drawing stuff like this is visible in that specific design, but i can put it more directly in words in case that would be interesting for you.

basically, i think less about "realism" than "believability." a lot of artists do really sick, gorgeous work in which they get really, really granular and detailed about this stuff, going as far as building from the skeleton up, laying muscle with a lot of intention, and putting shitloads of thought into every step of the way (b.w. usagi comes to mind immediately -- heavy cw for body horror and gore on all their work), and the results are incredible. that's what i guess i would call a super Realistic approach to speculative biology, even if the results are obviously extremely exaggerated + very much based in fantasy.

on my end, though, drawing like that isn't fun for me, and i'm less interested in whether fantasy biology actually WORKS and more interested in if it can effectively communicate gesture and emotion in the same ways non-fantasy characters can, and whether it has appeal -- this is what i would call Believability, instead. i'm interested in "realism" or hypothetical anatomical accuracy only up until the point that things don't look WRONG, and then beyond that all i care about is what looks sexy/cute/cool. in the arms example, i wasn't figuring out extra pecs because "otherwise the second set of arms wouldn't realistically work;" i was figuring out extra pecs because "being able to draw these extra muscle interactions will look cool, and will sell this character being physically intimidating" and also "yay, double the boobs!!!!!!"

you can also see this in the work i've done with winged characters -- i frequently place wings in places that don't theoretically "work" (i'm a lover of hip wings, a good example is my dnd aasimar saribell). at the same time, though, i do my best to stick to a realistic wingspan when possible (which means 'when i can fit it on the fucking page,' bc a 'realistic' wingspan for a human-sized character is SO much bigger than u think it is) and i still do wing studies and try to hit a certain level of realism re: the anatomy of the wing itself; i don't do any of this because i'm internally fussing about "would this character ACTUALLY be able to fly?" but rather because i think the LOOK of hitting those points of realism and anatomical attention to detail is better. i'm chasing beauty and immersion! my intention is never really to create fantasy characters that you look at and go "whoa, this all looks like it Works!"; it's to create fantasy characters who have enough immediate visual appeal that it doesn't even really occur to anyone to dissect that stuff. it just Looks good, it has a kind of weight and expressiveness that evokes realism (believability!), and for what i'm usually trying to do with my work, that's enough!

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married) 

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse. 

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS 

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

[mevekagvain]

Chapter 121 - I hope none of the birds affected by the sleeping gas died from falling from a height, especially if they fell on concrete. I don't think the gas itself would affect the birds but it also very well might since they can't handle as much due to being much smaller animals or from not being able to handle the chemicals used.

Chapter 122 - Shark's expressions are so hideous 🤢

- At least Raizel knows how to be nice by sharing food lmao. Frankenstein beaming like a proud father of a 2-year-old who's doing that is definitely not praxis though.

Chapter 124 - Shark being astounded that nobles care about innocents is amusing. I suppose that aside from the Elders, the Union members think nobles consider other species to be inferior or like cockroaches or toys.

- Although I do find Frankenstein plotting to teach Seira cooking so she can cook for Raizel when he can't extremely funny, I do also find it somewhat disturbing. He's essentially making a teen girl do child labour. Yes she and Regis are imposing on him and I do think they should be doing some manner of chores, but making her cook lavish meals? I also know she's doing it willingly but it still makes me cringe since something being one's choice doesn't negate it being bad. And yes technically she's 'of age' since she's 217, whatever that means since she's still obviously a teen compared to Raizel who actually is an adult going to school with children (which is a whole other can of worms), but aside from her position as clan leader she's very obviously not viewed as an adult by most.

Chapter 125 - On one hand I'd love to get a front row seat to the internal drama within the DA-5 lile M-21 but otoh I don't want to die a painful death or get beaten up.

- So like obviously Seira knows that Raizel and Frankenstein aren't ordinary humans unlike Regis but it is hilarious to think she just told the truth to two men she thinks are frail innocent humans.

Chapter 127 - You'd really think that the Union would be investing more into memory altering drugs but nah. The only ones they have will also fuck your brain up. Really not a good idea when most of your agents/experiments obviously have been administered aforementioned drugs. If it was only used sparingly on civilians I'd get it but it's quite widespread so...

Chapter 128 - As much as Frankenstein complains about the mess the kids make, he enjoys having them over as much as Raizel does. Soft hearted bastard.

Chapter 130 - The girls bandaging M-21 up even as Regis fights has them being smarter than like 90% of other characters in media. They're the real reason he didn't hit the dust immediately smh.

Chapter 132 - I still think the coming of age ceremony has a 50% chance of actually being them ingesting drugs that are the equivalent of stat boosting items in games but also ya know, real world drugs that fuck you up. The other 50% is just them getting much stronger after they turn 200 because their bodies are just like that and it truly is purely ceremonial and a fun tradition like children's day or girl's day or birthdays rather than something that actually affects them.

- Lol Kranz, Regis won't be leaving a corpse if he dies. Purebloods are just special like that. Can you imagine if they did see a pureblood dying? They'd regret killing them so bad.

Chapter 133 - Raizel commanding Frankenstein to stop his experiments is definitely something, like bro maybe he was figuring out electrolysis, not like you know what he was doing. Plus it's not like Frankenstein listened completely. Man has a lab under his house and it wasn't built after Raizel woke. I guess he only stopped modification experiements on others and only did checkups on himself but didn't stop experimenting for other stuff like idk, better fertiliser.

- Kinda amazing Takeo didn't get stabbed in the heart.

Chapter 137 - I know it's just because Gejutel likely explained the lord's powers to him but the idea that Regis knows what a blood field is because Raskreia does demonstrations to entertain little kids is making me giggle.

Chapter 140 - So the Union only came upon Frankenstein's research 540 years ago... that's only 40 years before Raskreia became lord. Interesting.

- Ah yes... the classic joke of Tao not teaching Takeo korean properly. It's also very amusing envisioning Tao teaching the DA-5 members korean.

- ARIS ARIS ARIS. God she looks adorbs. Also I love her referring to DA-5 as 'my children' and 'my babies'. Aris >>> all other scientists. Amd hi Yuri :)

Chapter 141 - Yuri listening to Aris insulting Crombel repeatedly,,, he probably enjoys every aspect of it from knowing she's not aware he's his underling to being able to hear someone insult Crombel.

- Once again union members don't know jack shit. They think werewolves are extinct while Maduke and Lunark are literally Elders 😭🤡😭

- Werewolves having a small population never made sense to me even with the whole thing about them not having mind control and thus keeping away from humans secretly since even civilians are stronger than humans on average but like why tf would wolves have such a low reproduction rate? And that's why I hc that 90% of them are just homosexual.

Chapter 142 - D doesn't consume your lifeforce bro. That's just the drugs causing heavy strain on the body, etc etc. The rest of your explanation was fine but talking about lifeforce or vitality makes no sense.

- We all know Yuri's smart but the fact that he tries to get Frankenstein as a subject by scouting him first is very clever. It's believable too since Frankenstein is supposed to be quite handsome.

Chapter 144 - Well we don't know of Crombel microchips his Assassination Squad but Aris canonically microchips her experiments 🤣

Chapter 147 - Okay but this panel... she's hot. I'd let her dissect me <3

- If this was some other media I'd talk about the symbolism of the attack looking like a rapier and go on for a paragraph but this is Noblesse so it's obviously just a coincidence lmao.

- "A living robot" so like... a cyborg.

Chapter 148 - Yuri getting pissed at being attacked and retaliating but pretending it was him being loyal to Aris... Love it. Also he must be really confused as to who tf Frankenstein is since as one of Crombel's most important lackeys he'd definitely know about such a powerful experiment under him if they existed and thus unlike Aris knows that he's not been sent by Crombel.

Chapter 149 - Yup def confused, especially when he realises Frankenstein's power is like Crombel's.

Chapter 150 - Girlboss,,, also it's been years and I'm still wondering... why is her outfit like that? Neon genesis evangelion girlboss does have a ring to it though.

- Ah yes, Taivra time.

Chapter 151 - Okay yeah I feel so bad for Takeo but also Aris is so good at manipulating him and and and iwi. The fact that she can cry on command though... impressive.

- "From the beginning you were an only child. That's why I got you to experiment on." Okay cool time to ignore that again for my own amusement of having all of noblesse's named modified human women be related to Takeo.

- Okay I'm obsessed with strawberry milk myself but strawberries do not taste anywhere near that good. Not even the sweet ones.

Chapter 153 - Yeah no I don't agree that Takeo losing his will to live is an insult to your comrades M-21. You could have said all that in a gentler way. Just because Takeo was luckier than you experiment wise doesn't mean you get to be so rude.

Chapter 154 - M-21 misleading Tao and Takeo to thinking he's being experimented on and then turning around to laugh at them when they find out it's just ramyeon... mood.

- I really do wonder what 12th Elder's military medals are for.

Sidenotes - Hammer being smart <3 I honestly didn't remember that part of him and I'm glad he's not given purely negative traits. He's the only reason Shark lived past 2 chapters tbh.

- Truly, D is one of the worst letters of the alphabet to have named the drugs DA-5 uses. The other bad choice would be P. On the opposite end of the spectrum, T would have been a great choice for the irony. Not that it matters since the inspiration for the drug from name to physical transformation is obviously 🍆

- Nobles being so nonchalant about murder is kinda fucked up like yeah they suck but you can't just kill them??? Lukedonia my beloved your justice system sucks. I do hc they can't just do this in Lukedonia though or to other nobles even if outside of Lukedonia, it's just that the jurisdiction of nobles doesn't apply outside of Lukedonia and they do on some level think of themselves as a superior species so they're fine with just... killing people.

- Aris obsessing over handsome men as experiments and treating them like toys but ignoring women altogether? Not experimenting on women? Gaslight gatekeep girlboss,,, a feministe of our own,,, perhaps even a... lesbienne. But yeah I just love how she acts and I love her and how she interacts with Yuri. And yeah he's cool too.

- Tbh aside from how short the skirts are and the white blazers, the Ye Ran uniform really reminds me of my own school's uniform. The colours are exactly the same. We just didn't have blazers since it was a forever summer tropical country, only jumpers for if it got too cold in the air conditioned rooms. And for some people who grow up in tropical countries... 25°C can be too cold.

[air-in-words]

The Phantom of the Opera: Sorting Hat Chats System

I have returned! This time, I'm talking about one of my longest running obsessions: The Phantom of the Opera musical. Keep in mind, this will only be in reference to the way the characters are presented in the musical, so the housing may be different in different media.

Also, if you have any questions about the system, I'd direct you to my last post about Scooby-Doo, or to @sortinghatchats (the originators of the system) and @wisteria-lodge (my personal favorite fan sorter.)

First off, as discussed elsewhere, stories themselves can have houses as well! Since this musical is my absolute favorite and I have dissected it on more than one occasion, I feel I can speak on the houses this story comments on. At it's core, Phantom is a story that sets the Gryffindor Primary way of life against the Slytherin way, and forces the heroine to acknowledge what kind of person she is. Is she a fighter or a lover?

In this story, Gryffindor Primary says that your ideals are most important. What is right and what is good should win out in the end. Those who are wrong should be punished and evil and good truly exist in this world. There are angels and there are demons, and only the angels have earned their right to love.

Meanwhile, the Slytherin Primary says love is the final word. It argues that you love who you love, and all is fair in love and war. And that doesn't just mean romantic love. Creative love, familial love, friendly love, love of one's career.... all of these are beyond "good" and "evil," "right" and "wrong." Love is not created by seeing the goodness of a person, and can exist despite the existence of evil there, and that is okay.

The moral of this story, in my opinion, falls in the Slytherin camp. And that is because two of three main characters are Slytherin Primaries, and it is through their love, of art, of creation, and of each other (romantically or not) that the main conflict is resolved.

I'll only be sorting the three main characters, as they're really all I need to illustrate this point. Here we go!

The Phantom: Slytherclaw (Exploded Slytherin Primary, Ravenclaw Secondary)

The Phantom is an ultimate example of the "Jack of All Trades" Ravenclaw Secondary. He is a scholar, musician, composer, singer, architect, inventor... the list goes on. He is a collector of tools, and these tools he uses to compensate for his deformity. He has made himself overly competent to feel better and as though he might deserve a place at humanity's table. He uses careful planning and control over an environment he claims is his to give the impression of being a ghost. That brings us to his Exploded Slytherin Primary, or rather, his initially Petrified Slytherin Primary. Being a ghost is the dream of any Petrified Slytherin. To become a literal non-entity, unable to be hurt, unable to love, unable to care for anyone other than themselves. He was very unfortunate to be born with a Slytherin Primary housing, as the rejection of those he loved lead him to his petrifying. He wanted no one in his circle but himself and sought to other himself purposefully, removing himself from society. Until, he met Christine. Her love of music and creation, a love he had used to replace his need for chosen people, helped him to connect, and he slowly began to un-petrify. This could have been a healthy thing for him, a way for him to return to life, but no. He was so certain he'd never need anyone else, never want anyone else, never find anyone else that he clung desperately to her, became obsessed, and we watch his explosion throughout the musical. In one fell swoop, he went from entirely petrified to an explosion of pent-up love and devotion aimed only at her, all his love for the chosen people before him aimed only at her. And, with his newly ignited love, he tries to convince Christine to be only with him, care only for him, which as an Exploded Slytherin Primary, feels like the only way to properly love someone, the only right way to live, and murder and extortion are perfectly respectable ways to attempt to hang onto that love. So, he asks her to give in to the "music of the night." Her love of music, creation, and her devotion to him as her Angel of Music. But, there is another man in her life, telling her there's a higher calling, a higher judge of character than love.

Raoul de Chagny: True Gryffindor (Gryffindor Primary, Gryffindor Secondary)

I know Raoul has a reputation of being a soft-hearted guy, but this guy is most definitely a Gryffindor Secondary. After not seeing Christine for years, he has no problem coming into her dressing room uninvited and inviting her to dinner, and expects no pushback from her. He is quick to judgement, confronting the managers about sending him a note that he has little proof they sent. He makes himself as a barrier against evil, as he swears with confidence that he will protect Christine from a man who has already killed once. He is filled with fiery passion for doing what is right above all else and will barrel over any evil-doer who stands in his way, an old school Knight in Shining Armor. But, his Gryffindor Primary ultimately leads him into conflict with the woman he loves. After having seen this monster attack innocent people, he is sure that Christine would want to run away with him and condemn the Phantom for all time, but he is utterly confused by her reaction. Not only is she not running away, she's actively refusing to help capture him and pushing against him! Why?? Raoul's extreme Gryffindor-ness leads him down into the lair to save her when she is taken, to be immediately rendered useless by both the punjab lasso and the plot. His righteous nature is not wrong, and in many other stories, he would be the hero of the day. But, this is a Slytherin story, and so love is the only solution.

Christine Daaé: Slytherpuff (Slytherin Primary, Hufflepuff Secondary)

We spend a lot of the musical inside Christine's head, more than we spend watching her physically act in reality, but we can still figure out her secondary. Her Hufflepuff Secondary comes out in her devotion to her craft. She is a hard worker and takes her art very seriously. But, Christine can also be a doormat, allowing people like Carlotta to walk all over her for far too long out of fear of rocking the boat. She is regarded as a quiet and kind woman who works diligently at her craft, so Puff Secondary felt right. Now, for her most defining trait in the musical, her (almost unhealthy) Slytherin Primary. Christine has never quite petrified, but she has come very close. Her father was, and, for a while into the musical, still is, her entire world. He was her only companion in life for a very long time, and all of her creative energy came from her love for him. Then, she met Raoul as a child. The young and charming True Gryffindor was easily able to slip past her shyness with his Gryff Secondary panache, and she had found another chosen person to bring into her life. Even after they were separated, she never forgot him and continued to love and appreciate him. Then, her father died. She nearly petrified, wanted to push most people away, especially with Raoul nowhere to be found, but the Angel of Music her father promised her came to her. The Angel replaced her father in her circle of chosen people and became the most important person in her life. She would sing for him out of devotion and love, just like her father was a muse to her. But, Raoul's sudden return into her life creates the conflict. Things have changed, Raoul. She has someone she feels a loyalty to that she cannot break. Even as her Angel is proven to be a deformed man, even after he has murdered, even then, she cannot bring herself to despise him and shun him. When you're in with a Slytherin, you're in hard. It is only when the Phantom tries to take advantage of her grief at her father's grave, only after she fully confronts that her father is never coming back, that she can bring herself to fully side against him with Raoul. The Phantom should know how much her father means to her. He should understand. A Slytherin using another Slytherin's person against them is the ultimate betrayal. The next betrayal came when he threatened to take away Raoul, her last chosen person beyond the Phatom himself, trying to force her to become like him and live in the darkness alone. Instead, it is through Christine's Slytherin-like act of love towards Phantom, even beyond his horrible acts, that ends his tirade.

Let me know what you think of my analysis! [And, if anyone in the Phandom sees this: yes, I love Raoul. No, I don't like LND. I'm technically a fan of both E/C and R/C, but I believe R/C is ultimately canon and better aligns with the moral of the original story. Meghan Picerno is my current favorite Christine (love me an operatice Christine,) Jordan Donica is the best Raoul to ever grace the stage and deserves a spin at the Phantom, and Earl Carpenter has my favorite acting interpretation of the Phantom even if his singing was only okay.]

[snarkwrites]

12 | gangsta; sweetpea

NOTES:

It's been a while. I've had these two chapters written for a while now but I haven't had time to sit down, edit them a little better and post them. Since I have time now, I thought I'd go ahead and do that, whether you guys asked for these next two chapters or not.

Sorry this took forever! Sorry I'm so slow, I've been settling into a new house and taking care of some IRL stuff / taking a little break. I swear, I'm going to update everything sooner or later. >.>

I love you guys.

WARNINGS:

NON/ LOOSE CANON COMPLIANCE - this is the biggest warning, so if you’re into things that follow exact canon plot you are… definitely not going to like this. ANGST & SLOW BURN, HEAVY SEXUAL TENSIONSTARTING NOW, ACTUALLY - this is just so everyone who started reading this thinking the smut would transpire in a hurry knows that apparently, it is not. VIOLENCE / SWEARING & FIGHTING, POSSIBLE UNDERAGE DRINKING AND OTHER SHENANIGANS- look.. it’s high school. shit happens. also apparently, my ofc Alyssa uses the word fuck like all the time?…EVENTUAL SEXUAL CONTENT / A VIRGIN ORIGINAL CHARACTER- this one is self explanatory. yes, i plan to write a smutty chapter in this at some point. when? i don’t rightly know. it’s got a while before we get there. STALKER TW - this chapter marks the true appearance of Alyssa's ex, Dave Novak. It's hinted heavily that he's a gross asshole who likes to play mind games.

If you're under 18+, probably not a good or wise idea to continue reading this series. Because there are going to be a few dark and adult themes within. I'll warn here, of course, but you need to understand that I don't control you. If you continue to read after having read the warnings and you're upset or don't like something... Totally on you, friend.

PAIRING:

Andrews!Sibling OFC x Sweet Pea.

TAGGING:

@brithedemonspawn is the only person on my Riverdale tag list. If you want to be added, the link to do so is below.

OTHER PARTS:

ONE - TWO - THREE - FOUR - FIVE - SIX - SEVEN - EIGHT - NINE - TEN- ELEVEN - soundtrack

OTHER STUFF:

[ about my writing - tag list doc ]

T W E L V E.

[773 - 589 - 7956] attachment

[773 - 589 - 7956] I think I decided how you can repay me, scarlet…

[773 - 589 - 7956] Better enjoy your quiet and happy little life while you still have it, scarlet. Because soon it’s all going to be ripped right out of your pretty little hands.

[773 - 589 - 7956] That boyfriend of yours isn’t even gonna be able to save you this time, scarlet. You’re mine.

[773 - 589 - 7956] See you soon, scarlet.

Each new text that came in had me tensing up. Careful to keep my phone out of sight of anyone who was nearby. My heart was about to beat right out of my chest and my stomach felt like it sank to the floor. I was barely listening to anything being said around me and I guess it was more obvious than I thought because Toni cleared her throat, nodding to the phone in my hand.

Gazing at me in concern.

“Everything okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Yeah,yeah. Everything is fine.” I lied. I think at that particular point in time, I was just trying to convince myself that this was all some kind of bad dream. Or worst case scenario, Dave was making empty threats.

Toni eyed me suspiciously. I tried to give her a convincing smile, but I’d have had to be an idiot to even think for a second that she believed me. She eyed my phone and reached for it. I managed to shove it in my pocket.

“Trust me.” I pleaded. She gave me a wary look and sighed, grumbling “Fine, okay. Alright.” under her breath.

And I did my best to push the texts out of my head. Jumping in the conversation she had going on with Cheryl and Veronica. Laughing and talking as if nothing were wrong.

Lying through the skin of my teeth.

XXX

“What’s got you so jumpy?”

The question caught me off guard. I wanted to tell someone what was going on, I really did, but… I didn’t want to worry anyone, either. I was at least 99.9 percent sure that there was absolutely no way that Dave would show up in Riverdale, at least that’s what I was hoping.

I did my best to play it off. Shoveling french fries into my mouth just so I didn’t have to answer right away. My cell phone lit up and I flinched before I could stop myself.

Toni reached for it and I quickly grabbed it and shoved it in my pocket. She gave me a concerned look and I muttered quietly, “Probably just Reggie...again.”

“Reggie’s with that new girl though?” Cheryl spoke up. Gazing at me thoughtfully. My breath caught in my throat because if anyone would catch on to there being something truly wrong with me or something off in the way I was acting, it’d be her or Polly.

So far, I’d managed to fool everyone else into thinking I was alright, even my dad and my brother.

,, Dave won’t come here, it’s not worth the hassle. He’s just playing mind games. That’s all this is. Pull yourself together.” the thought came and I managed a smile, shrugging.

“You’ve been acting weird all week, now that I’m thinking about it.” Cheryl was the one who said it and she gave me an expectant look. Waiting.

“I have not.”

,, I do have one secret I can spill. Maybe if I tell them about my crush on Sweetpea…” and so that’s what I did. Sighing as I reached for the shared plate of fries between the three of us. Raking my fries through my vanilla milkshake and taking a few deep breaths to kind of collect myself, both from Dave’s harassing texts and what I was finally about to get off my chest about having feelings for Sweetpea.

“You have. Start talking.” Toni spoke up, watching me. Sizing me up. If I had to guess, I’d pin money on her sitting across the booth, trying to figure out what was up with my jumpy attitude all week.

“Okay, alright. Fine. But what I’m about to tell you two does not leave this table, okay? It.. It can’t. If Sweetpea ever found out, pretty sure he’d start avoiding me and things would get weird.”

Toni and Cheryl exchanged a look and then Toni nodded. Chewing a mouthful of fries as she muttered calmly, “Go on.”

“ I may or may not have a crush on Sweetpea.”

“Oh, you definitely have a crush on him. It’s kind of obvious.” Cheryl gave a soft teasing grin and I sighed. Dragging my hand through my hair and taking a few seconds to let her words sink in. I almost dreaded asking, but I felt like I had to given that she said it was obvious. “Oh god.. He doesn’t suspect anything.. Right?”

“Oh, he’s the only one whose oblivious. But the rest of us, we’ve known a while.” Toni teased me. Then asked calmly, “Is that all? Why’s that have you so jumpy?”

“Because I know how bad I am at hiding things, okay? I was kind of… I dunno, freaking out I guess.” I eyed her, waiting. Searching her face in the hopes that she accepted what I said and didn’t keep pushing. A few seconds passed and she laughed softly. Took a sip of her strawberry milkshake and asked with a smirk, “Are you gonna do anything about it?”

“Probably not. Every time I even think about it, I manage to talk myself right out of it. He’d laugh his ass off, okay? Besides, remember all the flirting he was doing with Josie when they had to work together during the play?” I pouted as I pointed it out.

Cheryl and Toni exchanged looks and Toni laughed. “He was doing that to make you jealous. Or that’s what I think he was doing. Either way… I think you should do something. He’s not going to and trust me… I’ve known the guy my whole life. I know him well enough to say that I know he has a thing for you. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been so cranky when you two first met?”

“I thought he was just naturally grumpy?”

“Oh, he is, but the way he was towards you was totally different. He’s only that grumpy when he’s trying to keep his defenses up.” Toni informed me before finishing off her shake.

The door to the diner opened and Sweetpea walked in, Fangs in tow. The two of them were laughing about something. I gave both Cheryl and Toni a pleading look and Cheryl seemed to pick up on my unspoken plea to change the subject thankfully, because she asked, “Are you going to F.P’s retirement party at the Wyrm?”

“Yeah.” I answered, finishing off my milkshake. Sweetpea flopped into the booth beside me, carelessly slinging an arm over the back of the seat. His hand brushed against my shoulder and I swear just the small brush against me felt like someone had taken a livewire and dragged it over my body real slow.

Toni smirked at me, nodding at Sweetpea while he was too busy wolfing down french fries to notice and I shook my head.

“I dare you. No… I triple dare you.. Flirt with him.” Toni gave a teasing grin as she mouthed the words to me and I swallowed hard.

She’s not playing fair. She knows I can’t turn down a dare.

I happened to glance out the window of the diner and when I thought I saw Dave standing there, leaning against a streetlamp, one hand in his pocket and a cigarette dangling between his lips, I nearly choked. This prompted Sweetpea to start hitting me on the back lightly as he laughed and looked at me in concern. “Damn cherry, are you trying to kill yourself?”

Toni’s brow raised and Sweetpea explained what happened earlier in the day, how I’d nicked myself with the scalpel in our first period class while doing a dissection. What Sweetpea didn’t know was that when it happened, it was because I thought I’d seen Dave standing outside in the parking lot, only to blink and the parking lot be empty.

I have got to stop letting his stupid mind games get to me. It’s just because he’s texting me again. It’s just because he knows how to work me up and get me all scared, he used to be good at it when we dated.

He’d never come to Riverdale. He’s just doing this to me for his own sick amusement and every single time I let him get to me, especially when I’m to a point where I’m so paranoid I’m imagining that I see him everywhere lately, it’s letting him win and that pisses me off more than anything.

I’m supposed to be stronger than that, damn it.

Toni eyed me suspiciously and I braced myself. When she didn’t bring up my skittish behavior, I relaxed a little.

I wanted to tell someone what was going on, but at the same time, why? I’m pretty sure this is just Dave, being an absolute bag of dicks.

It has to be that. It has to be.

XXX

He stood outside some podunk little diner right in the heart of town. The hazy red neon gave off a comforting and inviting warmth and he lit his cigarette, fuming in anger as he watched her sitting inside.

“I know you’re not ignoring me, scarlet. I know you’re not.” he muttered, mostly to himself as he turned the collar of his leather jacket up against the wind and started to walk towards the South Side.

Maybe it was time he paid his old buddy Eric a visit. Eric was out of prison. Eric was the one who’d told him where Alyssa was to begin with, though he didn’t realize it.

Dave chuckled and shook his head as he walked towards the shitty apartments on the opposite end of town where Eric lived. Eric owed him a few favors. He was coming to collect.

“Did you really think I was jokin when I told ya I have friends all over? That you weren’t ever gonna get away from me?” he mused to himself as he knocked on the door of a first floor slum apartment.

Eric opened the door, leaning in it lazily. Blinking at him in a daze and smirking. High fiving him as he asked him why he was in town.

Dave whipped out his phone, showing Eric a picture of Alyssa. At first he gave him some story about her running off while he was in the pen. Eric wasn’t buying it, he could see it written in the expression on his face. And that only made him angry. Eric owed him. He was here to collect the favor owed. All he wanted was for Eric to help him out on this one little thing.

Eric shook his head, chuckling in disgust. Gazing at him with a brow raised. “I think you need to leave, man. Now. You don’t want the heat this is gonna bring down on you. And I’m not about to get on a Serpent’s bad side, even if the Serpent in question is just a damn kid.”

“See, I’d like to just put this all behind me, man... but she’s the whole reason I even went to prison to begin with. Then I get out and find out not only is my girl not loyal, she’s also the one who snitched on me?” Dave eyed Eric. Getting irritated because this was not how he saw the conversation going.

“I’m telling you, you need to leave. Forget about Alyssa. I see her around all the time with some kid… Sweet Pea or Green Bean, some shit. The Serpents are not people you fuck with, man. Not around these parts.”

“You know the Serpents aren’t shit to me… Right?” Dave quipped, smirking. “I’ve got this under control. I just need you to help me out a little… C’mon, man. You owe me.”

“I don’t fucking care. I’m not helping you do whatever it is you’re here to do. What I oughta do is put a bullet in your fucking head for even thinking I’d be down for this shit. She’s a kid, man. A fucking kid... Favor or not, man… I’m on the Serpents side with this. Not yours. You need to leave.” Eric warned, giving Dave a firm glare as he folded heavily tattooed arms over his chest.

“Oh, so that’s how you’re playin, huh? Okay. Alright. All I wanna do is see her again. I’m not going to do anything. I just want to straighten things out. Get a little closure on the situation...”

Eric scoffed. “This coming from the king of overreaction. I don’t trust you.I’m breakin code of my gang by even talking to your ass. Nope. The answer is no. I’m not helping. Do whatever you have to do to me, but I’m not about to help you scare some kid. I’ve got better things to do with my time, buddy...”

Dave’s arm shot out and he pinned Eric against the door of his apartment. Smirking at him calmly. “I know you haven’t forgotten just how much your sorry ass owes me. Because that’s what this sounds like.”

“I guess that’s what it is then. Because I’ve seen what the Serpents can do. I’m not about to bring all that down on my head.” Eric stepped back inside his apartment, slamming the door in Dave’s face, leaving him to glare at the closed door and take a swing.

“Guess I’m doing this all by myself.” Dave mused as he turned and wandered down to a shitty dive bar nearby. He needed to have a few rounds. Come up with a plan.

And a little after midnight, after finding himself a few new talkative friends in some local Ghoulies, things were starting to look up for him. And he was slowly forming a plan.

Now he just had to wait. Pick his moment. Toy with her a little more.

“I’m so close I can almost touch you, scarlet. Soon… Soon you’re going to pay for running your mouth to mommy about me...” he smirked to himself as he unlocked his hotel room and stepped inside.

[professionalfixator]

There is one scene.

One moment in Season 3, that no matter how hard I think about it, I can never figure it out.

It is so confusing that it has left me stumped for a week. So, I'll try to dissect it here. Buckle in, it will be long.

THIS SCENE. THIS F'ING SCENE.

Season 3 Episode 3.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I can't figure it out. You know that user that has their 8 part series for Gilbert's feelings? I tried to do it for this one and got NOTHING.

So, a little context. Ruby and Moody have known each other for years.

They've gone to school together for YEARS.

Ruby has liked Gilbert for YEARS.

In 1x03, Josie says that Ruby has liked Gilbert for 3 years, so by the time we see her in 3x01, she has liked Clownbert for 6 years! 6 YEARS. LIKING THE SAME GUY.

But as we know, Gilbert likes Anne and never showed Ruby any attention whatsoever. Not even romantic attention, just...attention in general. FROM WHAT WE SAW IN THE SHOW, the only thing Gilbert ever did for Ruby was help her off the ground in 1x04 and that was just because he wanted to get Anne's attention. You can imagine how hurtful it must be for Ruby by Season 3, to have the guy you like pay you zero (0) attention for 6 years.

Now, let's look at Moody. He has a love interest of his own. In 2x05, when these poor children are forced to play Spin the Bottle, Moody got to kiss Diana. We don't know if Moody liked Diana during that scene or around that time, but judging by the look on his face when the bottle lands on him, we can assume he did. However, things are fairly normal between them in 2x10, when he says his iconic "my whole life is an accident" line. Diana is sitting with him and everything seems fine, no awkwardness.

But fast forward to 3x01, Moody obviously has a crush on Diana.

He compliments her, but everytime he does so, he is met with this face:

I mean, really. What is this face, Diana? This is the MOODSTER. but I digress.

So, he is met with a painful level of non-reciprocity. Sound familiar? Because this is basically what Ruby has been going through with Gilbert! Not EXACTLY, but quite similar. A crush that has been met continually with a blank stare and lots of awkwardness.

Now we're here. Season 3 Episode 3. Mary is dying, the world is burning, but right in the middle of it all... Moody and Ruby have a little moment.

And it doesn't make much sense. I think it boils down to each episode having so many characters and storylines, that you often have to bounce between them a lot and it gets confusing.

But! Be that as it may, the last time we saw Ruby and Moody was two episodes ago when they were flirting with their own people of interest. Ruby with Gilbert and Moody with Diana. (Keep in mind this is before she saw that he was a banjo strumming king!)

In this scene, Mary is ill and Gilbert yeets off to get the doctor. In the meantime, the newspaper kids are working on their latest issue. They hang up a fresh page and upon rewatching, I noticed, when Moody says "just like magic" he is gazing at Diana, and Charlie pats him on the back. So his feelings for Diana are still very much there, despite her non-reciprocity and overall coldness. (You can even hear Josie say a scolding, "Moody" in the background.) Diana pretends not to notice and reads the newspaper. "Farmers celebrate a new Gilbert" and everyone laughs. Ruby yells that she is preoccupied and wonders why Gilbert isn't there, then starts to cry when Anne tells him that he went to get the doctor. Moody looks sad and sympathetic, observing this scene. Anne claps back at Josie, at Ruby interrupts what could be a squabble by saying that Gilbert was so heroic.

Then we get the moment that confuses me. Moody gives Ruby his handkerchief and says, "Here, Ruby, for your poor eyes."

Apparently, after some Googling, handkerchiefs were the main mode of flirting during the 1800s when overt modes of expressing attraction were restricted. We see this in 3x06, when Diana gives Jerry one. But handkerchief love was usually reserved for women expressing love to men, not vice versa. So here, when Moody gives Ruby one, it is a little odd. His face is soft and sympathetic, albeit a little teasing, so it could just be brushed off as a friendly gesture, especially since we just saw signs of him still liking Diana. And as for the poor eyes line, there is probably no other meaning to this other than it being a teasing remark about Ruby crying all the time. (We could say it was a remark about her constantly crying over Gilby when he doesn't care about her, but I don't think so.)

Josie then whistles and asks Diana if she is taking notice of this. Moody glances at her and Diana looks uncomfortable. He looks surprised that Josie is pointing it out to Diana and when she does, he turns back to Ruby smiling like an idiot. He's pleased that his little gentlemanly act got noticed by Diana, or so he thinks.

Then Ruby says, after blowing her nose, "it's true, I am beautiful when I cry". I...am confused. Why would she say that? Is it...I just. No matter how hard a try, for all my analysis, I get stuck on that. Did Ruby interpreted the kerchief moment as a romantic gesture? Did Moody intend for it to be a romantic gesture? He looked surprised when Josie treated it as one, so I guess he didn't. Ruby must have interpreted it as romantic, though, so she chalked it up to it being her beautiful crying face. I don't think she even considers Moody an option by this point, even though he glowed up. We see Moody give her a second glance, though, so maybe he just noticed what she was talking about? He's looking at Ruby tenderly, which makes no sense since up until this point he's been making heart eyes at Diana. Did he realize in that moment that since Diana doesn't like him, Ruby could be an option???

Ruby then bundles up the tissue and goes to give it back to him??? Which is a weird thing to do because what would Moody do with a gross, snotty tissue? But ok. He rightfully tells her that she should keep it (because gross) but then adds, "if you like".

Ruby is confused and Moody continues to gaze at her!

So, in summary, WHAT THE HECK?! HOW DID WE GET HERE? How did we go from "wow diana is like magic" to "keep my kerchief, Ruby". Because apparently in that time period giving someone a kerchief was romantic af?

I don't know. I'm still confused. This didn't help. Congrats if you read this whole thing lol

[bakugouscentedcaramel]

So there's something that's been praying on my mind for a while now. We've seen Bakugo grow, he's shown us he's not just some arrogant asshole, and we've seen a deeper part of him. But he obviously still hates Deku he's said it time and time again, and although I think their little battle after the licensing exam gave Bakugo new respect for Deku I still don't get it. In the training camp arc, if Bakugo hates Deku, and Deku actually "makes him sick" then why did he say "stay back?" as if he cares

Kfkejdjdjjd my time to ramble about my BakuBoomBoomExplodeInMyAssNapalmLookinChihuahaMan has come

Be warned, I wrote this at 4am so I'm sorry if this seems scatterbrained

So imma be honest, at first I didn't really like him, like at all (but look at me now collecting bakumerch and having a Bakubitch body pillow whoops)

I felt like he was a dick and honestly he reminded me of my countless of bullies over had in school. But as I kept watching I would notice tiny little details.

Val's hot take: He's a borderline Tsundere type/ (Val's term) Pit Bull

In this (hopefully) short essay I will explain my thought process and dissection of our Grenade Boi

(Spoilers, it's long)

---

So obviously at first glance he's a loud, obnoxious, vulgar prick. Who bullies sweet boy Izuku (yes he does, I ain't going to sugar coat anything).

To me this is just someone who has been given a rare opportunity and has let this pseudo superiority go to their heads.

(Small derailment but i promise it'll make sense)

I don't know if I ever said this before but my father was in the Marine Corp for 16 years, making yours truly, a military brat. Because of this I had to move around every 3 years like clockwork, making me a prime target for bullies and other foul tempered peers. I personally have been in Izuku's shoes around 4 times. One of those times I actually befriended a Bakugou type by just teasing back. Obviously it was a slow process but we eventually got along really well. So I'm using these past experiences for my analysis.

Back onto the topic at hand, BakuBitchMan.

Let's be honest here, Bakugou has been blessed with an amazingly powerful quirk, one with countless of uses and one that opens nearly all the roads to any path in his life. (I mean just look at M****a)

His quirk is in a way like Todorokis where it's a hybrid between both parents, as taken from this fandomwiki page on the gremlin himself

"...allows him to secrete nitroglycerin-like sweat from his palms and detonate it at will to create explosions. The more Katsuki sweats, the stronger his explosions become."

Here are his parents Quirks:

Mitsuki: Glycerin

"Mitsuki can secrete Glycerin from her skin. Because of its moisturizing effect, she has great skin quality, which she maintains despite her age"

Masaru: Oxidising Sweat

"His palms can secrete acidic sweat with combustive and explosive properties. If he rubs his hands together he can create explosions, but unlike his son, he cannot forcibly secrete it, and it comes out like normal sweat"

His powerful quirk paired with his ideology of what it takes to be a hero can completely explain why and how he is the way he is. Katuski sees heroes like we would see an honorable knight/warrior. Always fighting at their maximum to protect and serve the people, only ever falling when they are defeated. Honorable, powerful, and fighting villains with a sort of bridled passion. Katsuki hones in on All Lights strength and prowess in battle where as Izuku focuses in on the character of All Might.

To put it simply, Bakugou sees Heroes as Warriors and Midoriya sees them as The Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman

So whenever Midoriya would ramble about being helpful and outspoken about kindess it peeves Bakugou because he sees heroes as something Prideful, and being helped isn't very good for that knight image. So he rejects any form of that behavior and in turn treats Izuku like a pawn to bully. To me a childish tactic to something they don't like.

As for him continuing to treat him like shit later on in highschool both pre and post One for All. I feel like it's just one of those "I've been doing it for so long now, I have no idea how to change it" kind of things. Mainly because he doesn't treat anyone else with as much severity as he does Midoriya (albeit name calling but I'd consider that banter like me calling my friends bitches)

As for him not caring for Izuku but still telling him not to come find him I just don't see it that way.

Bakugou has a lot of respect for Izuku and there's a friendly bond between the two of you dig deep enough.

For example:

Let's take this whole scene into account. He knew he was being targeted and pretty much thought "Ah finally a time to show how much of a good fuckin hero I'll be, I'll fite every single one of these villains like they're everyday thugs"

Until he really saw the gravity of the situation at hand. Seeing Deku completely destroyed and having to be carried by Shoji because he can't even move because of a fight made him take Midoriya as serious as a heart attack. To me if he really hated Izuku he would've just been like "nah fuck yo bones, fuck yo orders, fuck yo chicken strips, I'mma fite anyway"

Like he knows Izuku is smart and can acess situations and find the most logical and successful approach, he in a way respects that part about him.

As for him telling Izuku not to come when he was being taken hostage I feel like that was so laced with love and concern for Midoriya bc he knows for a fact Izuku will try to save his ass no matter the cost bc that's just how Izuku sees heroism

He didn't want Midoriya to get even more hurt than he already was bc he is still figuring out just how powerful he is with One for All.

Then this brings us to the infamous scene.

After not only being saved, but actually seeing All Might, his childhood hero and whole reason for even training to be a hero, brutally get weaker and weaker to the point of near death, effectively ending his hero career, his world was shattering.

He was already conflicted about Midoriya all of a sudden having a quirk and climbing the ranks nearly instantly whereas he felt like he earned his place with his quirk and his sheer skill. But now his idol is falling, all because he got held hostage but some everyday looking villains. (To him)

Not to mention Katsuki only ever shows these raw unfiltered emotions around Izuku, so I reeeeaaaally don't see him downright hating Izuku. Because why would you spill personal tea with someone you hate?

I coin this type of personality a Pit Bull

They're tough, they're loud, they're mean, but they have a softer side only few people get to see. They seem brash and rude but their intentions have a deeper hidden meaning.

For example my father is a prime example of that, he'll bitch and coddle me about things in a way that sounds aggressive and kinda hard to listen to but he means well.

To me Katsuki is competitive through and through, and had no one to put him in his place. Now Midoriya has a quirk that can challenge his and he wants to see who is really better. He sees Midoriya not as a threat but as an opponent for the #1 hero slot and he wants him to be at the top of his game so it's obvious who will turn out on top.

I honestly can't wait to see where his character development will go later on with Izuku's. It's such an interestingly complex relationship and I love rambling about my head Bitchmanboomfist

[blancheludis]

@ironhusbandsweek @rhfenovemberbash Day 4: “I’ll always protect you.”

Fandom: Marvel, Iron Man Characters: Tony Stark/James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Howard Stark Tags: Grief, Howard’s A+ Parenting, Love, Emotional H/C, Funeral Words: 4.315

Summary: "Boy," Howard calls over the cemetary, "did you really bring your college fling home?" Rhodey builds himself up, never letting go of Tony's hand. “No, sir,” he says, putting a slight emphasis on sir that could mean anything from a gentle warning that they are in public to an outright threat. “He brought his best friend to the funeral of his other best friend.”

- Jarvis dies and leaves Tony devastated. Rhodey is there to remind him that he is not alone.

---

When Tony does not turn up to the party they promised to meet up at, Rhodey’s first reaction is annoyed fondness. The past weeks were crazy, stuffed to the brim with tests and experiments and some extracurricular projects that Tony was quiet about enough to tell Rhodey they were for Stark Industries.

Things are supposed to calm down now, and the party was a good starting point for that. Rhodey has not seen Tony drink anything alcoholic for over a week, which must be some kind of record.

Dodging dozens of other students, Rhodey makes his way through the house for one last search for Tony. It is not like he needs Tony there to have fun. They do things separately often enough. But if Tony is not here, he is in the lab, where he often forgets all about the time. If Rhodey just leaves him there, he will never hear the end of it.

He could call, although Tony never hears the phone ringing and would not pick up even if he did. He is like that when he is working. It is amusing, at least when Rhodey does not have to walk all over campus to get Tony because of it.

The truth is, he does not have as much fun without Tony. His friends call them sickeningly co-dependant, which he does not mind. He loves spending time with Tony, and they did not have too many chances for that over the past weeks, at least not if it did not involve their classwork. Rhodey wants Tony here, so he goes to find him.

He walks leisurely over to the labs. It does not matter, he thinks, if they do not go back to the party together afterwards. A quiet night together is just as enjoyable, if not more so.

The labs, when he gets there, are dark. No music is turned up loud enough to turn people deaf two floors up.

“Tony?” Rhodey calls nonetheless.

He walks further in and finds no sign of Tony anywhere. Nothing has even changed from the last time they were here together. That is when Rhodey knows something is wrong.

Without further ado, he hurries towards their dorm, wondering where Tony could have gone. It is possible that they missed each other somewhere on the way, that Tony arrived at the party after Rhodey has left. Somehow, Rhodey has a feeling that is not it.

Early into their acquaintance, before they were even friends, Rhodey learned to worry about Tony. No matter how well things seem to be going, there is always another layer, another issue.

Rhodey takes two steps at a time as he hurries up to their floor and then down the hall. The entire house appears deserted. Everybody is glad to have some time to breathe again.

Rushing into their room, Rhodey stops short in the doorway. He was right. Tony is here and something is wrong.

Tony sits on the ground in front of his bed, legs pulled up to his chest, staring at something only he can see. He does not look up when Rhodey comes in, does not even appear to notice. His face is slack, far from the ready mask he hides behind at any time. He looks ready to shatter at one wrong word.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, managing to sound much calmer than he feels. Everything that goes wrong with Tony automatically pushes him into a panic. It is a trained instinct because Tony does not do half-measures.

Slowly, Rhodey walks into the room and crouches down in front of Tony, far enough to not crowd him but close enough to reach out if Tony will allow it.

“What happened?” Rhodey asks and saves all the platitudes laying on his tongue for when he knows what is going on.

Tony winces but it happens slowly. Not like Rhodey’s sudden presence has startled him but like he is fighting to return to the presence. When he finally looks up, his eyes are red-rimmed, with an unhealthy sheen to them.  

He stares at Rhodey like he does not fully register his presence.

“Jarvis,” he then says, slowly, toneless. “He’s –” Tony’s eyes drop as he finishes with a mere whisper, “dead.”

Rhodey stiffens. Of all the problems that ran through his mind on his way over here, death was not one of them. He thought of something they could tackle, something he could make better.

“What?” he asks before he can stop himself. And then, even worse, “How?”  

He wants to reach out, to help keep Tony upright, but he stays carefully back, not sure how Tony would react to a sudden touch.

Staring at the ground in front of him, Tony says, “Cancer. It was in his lungs.” He tries a shrug but is too tense for it. “He told me over Christmas but he said it was under control. And now he’s – he –”

A sob tears itself from Tony’s throat and it might just be the most terrible sound Rhodey has ever heard. Worse, it causes Tony’s composure to crack completely. A well of tears is spilling from his eyes, and he does not reach up to wipe them away as if he does not even notice them.

Not saying anything, Rhodey sidles close and pulls Tony into his arms. The way Tony buries his face against Rhodey’s chest breaks his heart. When he feels the tremors running through Tony’s body, he holds on tighter.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because there is nothing else, nothing to take away the pain of losing someone one loves.

Rhodey knows that Jarvis means a lot to Tony, but he cannot possibly know how much. That would have required them to talk about life at the mansion, about Howard, about how skittish Tony is around people when he is not putting on the full Stark heir act. For all that Rhodey is sure he is Tony’s best and possibly only friend, there is so much that he does not know. He has never insisted on finding out either, because he figured Tony would talk when he is ready, but now he wishes he would know more, if just to make Tony’s burden a little easier to bear.

“I don’t know what to do,” Tony mutters into the by now damp fabric of Rhodey’s shirt, several minutes later.

Helplessly, Rhodey says, “I’m here. Whatever you do, I’m here.”

It is not enough. He knows that before Tony shoots upright again, not quite letting go of Rhodey but bringing some distance between them. He knows it before he sees the expression on Tony’s face close off. He knows that before Tony says a single word.

Loving Tony has always been riddled with trials and errors. Rhodey has always seen that as a good thing because it meant they were one step up from the approachable, eager—to-please mask Tony likes to wear for other people. It also meant hurting each other occasionally. Rhodey likes to believe that is worth it since it allows him to see the real Tony underneath. The soft smiles and tireless genius, but also the nightmares and the flinching away. And now the grief.

“You don’t understand,” Tony says and looks like his tone is supposed to be sharp. It is still full of tears, however, sounding choked. “Jarvis is everything. Without him I wouldn’t be here.” He does not specify whether he means here as in MIT or here as in alive. From how little Rhodey thinks of Howard, it might be both. “He stood up to Howard, he made me laugh, he told me it doesn’t matter if my designs don’t work on the first try or if they’re even useless. He was always there.”

It looks like Tony has more to say, but his voice gives out. His lips keep moving for a moment, giving way to more heartbreak.

“I’m always going to protect you, Tones,” Rhodey says. He does not know where the words are coming from, but he means them with every fibre of his being.

Tony looks at him, glassy-eyed and uncomprehending. “What?”

There is no going back now, even if Rhodey wanted to.

“I can’t replace Jarvis. I can’t make it stop hurting,” he says and hates it, hates that he cannot lessen Tony’s pain. “But I can take over his job of protecting you.”

They do not talk after that. Tony sinks back into Rhodey’s arms, allowing himself to be had. That, he supposes, is answer enough, and Rhodey is glad for it. He is not sure how to keep his promise for Tony is a wildcard, tripping over everyday things while remaining unmoved by the greater despairs of life. Sometimes it seems like Tony thinks everything is fixable except for himself.

It does not matter what is coming for them. Rhodey might have said the words only now, but he has been determined to keep Tony safe for much longer.  

 ---

The funeral is a small affair. Howard Stark came but managed to leave the media circus always following him behind. So it is just a few friends, and no family but Tony. Howard holds a speech, but Tony does not. He explained that his friendship with Jarvis is not something that should be dissected by the nameless onlookers, and he did not want his experiences to be compared to Howard’s. He could not have been entirely truthful either because any of the guests could have blabbed to the press about the not so harmonious life in the Stark mansion.

Rhodey and Tony are at the very front but opposite from Howard. That leaves them plenty of opportunity to glare at each other, but at least it makes conversation impossible. It is grating on Tony nonetheless. When Rhodey notices Tony’s hands tensed up into fists, he reaches out and takes one of them into his, coaxing the fingers loose. It might be his imagination, but Tony relaxes a bit after that.

That is, of course, only until Howard stalks towards them the moment the ceremony is over.

Rhodey loosens his hold on Tony’s hand a bit without letting go. It is a silent offer in case Tony thinks it will do more damage if they are openly holding hands in front of his father. He is glad, however, when Tony keeps clinging to him, giving no sign of wanting to withdraw.

“Boy,” Howard calls when he is still several feet away. The derision in his tone has Rhodey’s dislike rising immensely. “Did you really bring your college fling home?”

This is it, Rhodey thinks, the time to stand tall and deliver on his promise to protect Tony. He wishes his first adversary would have been some jerk on campus and not Howard Stark himself, but he is glad to step up nonetheless. Tony has had to deal with this for far too long.  

“No, sir,” Rhodey says, putting a slight emphasis on sir that could mean anything from a gentle warning that they are in public to an outright threat. “He brought his best friend to the funeral of his other best friend.”

Howard builds himself up. He is not tall, not compared to Rhodey. Next to him, Tony shrinks automatically, clearly wishing to hide.

“You should take care with how you speak to me,” Howard barks, with no amount of subtlety.

“Oh, I am,” Rhodey answers with a smile that does not show teeth but is sharp nonetheless. “Someone’s always listening, right?”

Red creeps up Howard’s neck as his face pinches with anger. Inwardly, Rhodey curses himself for causing a scene when all he wanted to do was give Tony a break.

That is, thankfully, when they are called to go outside to lower the coffin into the grave. They stare at each other a moment longer, both promising that this is not over.

If possible, Tony gets even tenser when they stand around Jarvis’ last resting place, even more ready to disappear somewhere his pain cannot touch him. Rhodey stands strong at his side and never lets go of his hand, not even when it is Tony’s turn to cover the coffin with soil. Tony’s grip is even painful at times, but Rhodey is just glad he can offer some comfort at all.

Afterwards, people linger, talking to each other, while Tony stands over the grave, looking down with so much sorrow on his face that it makes Rhodey’s chest constrict.

Howard’s booming voice cuts through the serenity of the cemetery as he makes conversation with the other funeral guests. That is enough to rouse Tony from his stupor.

He looks up balefully, appearing ready to throw himself into a fight.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Rhodey speaks up, deceptively light, “but it’s a good thing this is not an event for smiling. I’m not sure I could do that around him.”

It is meant as a distraction, and it works somewhat at least. Tony does not stop glaring at his father, but he appears more present again, as if he remembers where he is and that Rhodey is at his side.

“What is he even doing here?” Tony growls.

He does not seem to be looking for an answer, but Rhodey is glad enough to hear Tony’s voice to accept even this less than ideal topic.

“You told me they were friends,” he offers, aiming for nonchalance.

Tony aims a glance at him that appears to question Rhodey’s sanity. “Ages ago,” he replies, turning his attention back on Howard. “He certainly did not act like a friend over the past years. Or ever, since I was born.”

Tugging slightly at Tony’s hand, Rhodey shifts them so that Howard is not in Tony’s direct line of sight anymore. He is relieved when Tony follows without putting up a fight. This day is supposed to be about Jarvis, not about nursing grudges.

“If Jarvis stood up to Howard, he might have only been able to because they were friends,” Rhodey argues. He cannot imagine the older Stark would have kept someone in his employ who went up against him on a regular basis just to protect the son Howard does not seem to like very much either. “Your old man certainly looks like he would love to gut me right now and I didn’t even say what I really wanted to.”

The ghost of a smile lifts Tony’s lips for a mere second. “You interrupted his favourite sport of yelling at me.”

“It’s not right.” Rhodey should have let it go. He should have accepted Tony’s willingness to talk and pushed the conversation to safer topics. He cannot help the automatic distrust. They might have never talked much about Howard, but he has always hung like a shadow over Tony’s shoulder.

Right in front of him, Tony withdraws further into himself. “It’s what it is.”

Scrambling to return to a lighter tone, Rhodey says, “Never thought I’d hear you say that, Mr. it’s-only-impossible-because-I-haven’t-done-it-yet.”

It hurts to hear Tony like that, because for all of his issues and insecurities, he is mostly convinced that there is a way for everything. Just not where he, personally, is involved.

“That’s Jarvis’ doing too,” Tony answers quietly, eyes resting on the fresh grave. “He always told me that if something didn’t work, it just wasn’t yet time for it.”

Rhodey moves a little closer to Tony so that their shoulders touch. Ever since they left Boston, Tony has looked cold, washed out, like all the life is draining out of him.

“I wish I could have met him,” Rhodey says, and he really does.

As far as family goes, Jarvis was Tony’s more than his parents were, responsible for shaping him into the person he is now. The Stark act might be Howard’s doing, but the sweet, kind-hearted Tony underneath could only survive because Jarvis cared for him.

Looking up, Tony’s expression is so fragile, Rhodey almost expects him to burst into tears again. “He would have liked you.”

Rhodey nods, squeezing Tony’s hand. “I hope so. We both love you, after all.”

He is rewarded with another small smile that lightens up this drab day immensely. Rhodey knows it for the fleeting thing it is, so he savours it while it lasts.

“You make that sound like a defect,” Tony jokes, although there is no hiding the serious edge underneath, always doubting everything good that is happening to him.

That just makes Rhodey want to intercept Howard Stark before he leaves for a little chat, despite having promised to be civil.

“It’s a bit of work,” Rhodey admits lightly. Before Tony can get the wrong ideas, he adds, “But it’s the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”

Tony sighs but seems to stand a little straighter again, not as ready to collapse. “You’re a sap.”

Very much aware of that, Rhodey shrugs. “Well, you make it easy.”

The peace sadly does not last forever. While Tony remains in front of the grave, trying to say goodbye to his oldest friend and almost-father, the rest of the funeral guests trickle out of the cemetery. Everyone but Howard Stark. After having made small talk with everyone, he lingers. He might want to have some minutes alone with his deceased friend too, but once he turns, his eyes fall immediately on Tony, narrowed and still somewhat angry.

“Your father is coming towards us,” Rhodey warns even before Howard has taken the first step to give Tony ample time to collect himself. They have both expected another confrontation, but they had hoped that Howard would show enough common courtesy to not do so over Jarvis’ grave.

Tony straightens abruptly, the dismay on his face quickly replaced by something resigned. “Let’s go then,” he says, turning his back on the new headstone as if he had not just looked like he would never be able to leave it behind.

This strength is something to be admired. People usually think that the Starks, with all their money and their genius, have the whole world bowing to them with nary a problem slowing them down. That is a lie. For all that Tony is practiced in keeping up his smirk and doing what he set out to do, there is nothing that he cannot turn into an obstacle, nothing that cannot raise a mountain of self-doubt. And yet, nobody who does not look beneath the surface would ever know.

To himself, Rhodey can admit that he thinks it is also immensely sad. All these scars hidden beneath that glamour and shiny confidence. All these steps Tony takes despite expecting the ground to crumble away beneath him.

“Are you ready?” Rhodey asks, because he has once sworn himself he would show Tony every kindness. “I can stall him if you need some more time.”

He does not yet know how to do that without making a scene, without making even more of an enemy of one of the most powerful men in the country. Yet, it does not matter. He would do anything to make life a little bit easier for Tony.

“You shouldn’t make him angry,” Tony cautions but looks grateful for Rhodey’s offer.

With a smile for how brazen he has become, Rhodey shrugs. “I’m not afraid of him.”

That is not the complete truth. Of course he is afraid of Howard Stark. Not of his money or his company or how he could ruin Rhodey’s career in the Air Force with just a few words into the right ears. He is afraid of how much more damage that man can deal his own son. With his negligence, his derision, this shaking anger at everything and everyone in the world.  

“Perhaps you should be,” Tony says, glancing in his father’s direction with a blank face.

He is about to turn away when Rhodey steps in front of him, causing him to look up.

“Tones, I don’t care,” Rhodey intones firmly, trying to convey how much he means these words. “I’m here for you and only for you. If you need more time to say goodbye to your friend, I’ll get you that time.”

Tony leans close, not quite like he wants to be hugged, but like he is drawn in by Rhodey’s warmth. “Thank you, Rhodey,” he says, and now his smile is brighter.

“Any time,” Rhodey promises, smiling back.

With a nod, Tony takes a step back and throws a last longing glance at the Jarvis’ name on the headstone.

“I think I’m done here. That’s not –” Tony shrugs with a sheepish expression. “Jarvis is not here. He was always so alive, he wouldn’t want me to think of him dead in that grave.”

They turn towards the exit, which will lead them right past Howard who is still coming towards them. Rhodey does not offer to take another way when he sees the determination in Tony’s shoulder. They cannot run from all their battles.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Howard questions when they do not slow down, intent on just passing him by.

Rhodey bites his tongue to not snap anything back. He will step in if he feels he is needed, but this is still Tony’s father, and Tony knows how to handle him, knows how to not make everything worse.

“Home,” Tony answers simply and steps a bit closer to Rhodey as if declaring his allegiance.

In response, Howard’s eyes narrow and Rhodey has to suppress a victorious grin.

“Your mother is waiting for you at the mansion,” Howard says, causing Tony to stiffen further.

He takes a deep breath, and Rhodey wonders how he manages to keep his expression so blank.

“If she wanted to see me,” Tony says with definite accusation in his tone, “she should have come here.”

Tony’s mother has featured more often in the few stories he has told of home, but even in those she was mostly absent, withdrawn, less a mother than just another inhabitant of a house too big to allow anyone growing up in it to not be lonely.

“Watch your tone, boy.” Eyes narrowed and red creeping up into his face, Howard Stark looks like he is suited for nothing but fury. It is hard to believe he sired someone so kind-hearted. “She’s not well.”

“Come to think of it, I’m not either,” Tony replies sharply in that tone he usually reserves for professors too stubborn to admit Tony’s way of solving a problem might be better than theirs. “And we’ve got classes in the morning.”

They do not, but Rhodey nods nonetheless. If home is what Tony needs, they will go there, and hide away from everything until Tony feels better.  

“You don’t care about your classes,” Howard snaps, making Rhodey wonder whether he knows his son at all.

Straightening, Tony says, “You’re wrong.”

With that, he starts walking again, clinging to Rhodey’s hand as if he is afraid he will not follow.

“Anthony,” Howard barks and Tony winces slightly but does not stop.

“Goodbye, Dad,” he throws over his shoulder.

Rhodey takes care to walk a bit behind Tony, guarding his back. It might be a ridiculous thought that Howard would attack them, but he nonetheless makes a show of it, making a statement.

They are silent until they reach their car and close the doors behind them. Sadly, Howard does not stand on the cemetery anymore, looking after them, seething, but has already gone over to his own car too, barking at his driver.

They wait until he is gone, leaving the engine off. Tony looks a little lost but not as fragile anymore.  

“Are you all right?” Rhodey asks, even though he knows it is a stupid question. He needs to say something, though, needs to pull Tony out of his thoughts before they have him spiralling down a road he cannot get out of alone anymore.

“No,” Tony replies with a sad smile. “But I think I will be.”

Rhodey will give his best to make it so, no matter what obstacles are thrown in their way. When they first met, he never would have thought that Tony would quickly become one of the most important people in his life. Looking at him now, he would not have it any other way. Life without Tony would not only be boring but much less bright

“You really want to go back to Boston today?” Rhodey asks.

It might be good for Tony to be somewhere else, somewhere new where nothing can remind him of Jarvis, so he can get some sleep tonight.

Tony’s features darken immediately. “Well, I’m not going to the mansion.”

Shaking his head immediately, Rhodey amends his question. “I thought we could find a motel for the night.”

At any other time, the way Tony’s face scrunches up would be amusing. He might not be as much of a snob as Rhodey had initially feared, but there are still things that show exactly how differently they grew up.

“A motel?”

Grinning, Rhodey nods with more enthusiasm than the situation warrants. “Yes, something small and dingy with a too narrow bed, so I can hold you all night and you won’t have an excuse to withdraw into yourself.”

It is a good plan. Tony is good at getting lost in his own head. At the same time, he is still so touch-starved, so hungry for any kind of positive attention, that Rhodey’s arms might just be the safest place for him tonight.

Tony must have come to the same realization because his face becomes incredibly soft.

“Thank you, Rhodey,” he says and leans over to rest against Rhodey.

“Always, Tones,” Rhodey promises and shifts to put his arm around Tony. “I mean it.”

It is not very comfortable, but they stay like this for a long while nonetheless. They are together and nothing else matters for the moment.

[raisingsupergirl]

You Don't Know What You Don't Know

In today's information age, everyone's an expert. Broken dishwasher? Just YouTube it. Wondering who that actor is? IMDB it. Want a DIY chicken coop? Google it. Trying to find an unending stream of #fakenews and fear mongering? Log into Facebook. The problem is, well… we don't always know what the actual problem is. We see the symptoms. We know what we want—the end result—but we're not always sure how to get there. And a quick Google search is all we have the patience for before we jump to conclusions and then blame someone or something else for our failure. Take my recent plunge into fishkeeping, for example.

I've always been an animal lover. I think it's innate in all of us, but not everyone has the right disposition or upbringing to appreciate animal/plant husbandry. As for me, I grew up in the Missouri wilderness surrounded by ponds, cliffs, streams, fields, and forests. Sure, I spent my fair share of time on the Super Nintendo System, but being in the great outdoors was engrained in me from a young age. And more than that, I learned to appreciate the other things out there. I kept just about every animal you could imagine at one time or another (dogs, cats, birds, fish, lizards, frogs, newts, rodents of all varieties, snakes, chickens, geese, goats, a squirrel, a ferret, a raccoon, and even a short-tailed opossum, off the top of my head), and though I was pretty irresponsible with most of them (ignoring for a second that I should have just left them where I found them in nature), I loved nurturing them, and I kept most of them alive. So when my city-girl daughter said she wanted a fish for her fourth birthday, a little piece of my past reignited, and I… may have gone a little overboard.

First, my mom still had the 35-gallon aquarium she bought me for my birthday a couple of decades ago. Back then I just winged it. I didn't have Google. I didn't come from a long line of aquarists. I just filled the thing up with well water, a cheap bag of gravel, a log I found floating in my pond, and the cheapest fish I could find at my local Walmart (yes, Walmart sold fish back then). Of course the tank was full of algae and dead fish in no time, but I kept at it, and eventually I had a few fish that didn't eat each other, but ultimately it wasn't what I knew it could be, so I set the fish "free" in my pond and put a snake in the tank instead.

I used the tank again in college with similar results, only this time I had a filter, did occasional water changes, and had just a few friendly fish, so it was much more successful, though still very "low tech," as they say in the hobby. Since then, I've matured (please hold all sarcasm until the end), and I've learned the value of researching something before attempting it. The change started in physical therapy school when I spent countless hours dissecting and writing scientific papers. It was the literal worst, but it taught me so much about the world. Rather, it taught me how to learn about any particular aspect of the world. You see, in these classes, we weren't allowed to just read the abstract and regurgitate the experimenters' assumptions. We had to read every line, go back and read every line of the sources they cited, and then, once we understood every word, we could start forming our own opinions on the subject. And believe it or not, I rarely found a paper that wasn't skewed toward the writer's desired result in some small way.

So now we get to the heart of things—you don't know what you don't know until you know it. And you won't know it unless you put in the time. We're living in an age of instant gratification. Because there's so much information out there, we only have time to skim. Otherwise we wouldn't have any time to actually live. I recently ran across an inspiration quote by science fiction author Robert Heinlein's character, Lazarus Long:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Sure. Easy for Lazarus to say. As his name suggests, he was over 200 years old and counting at the time of his above quotation (and that's to say nothing of Heinlein's, uh, colorful political and philosophical views). But even still, his words are a nice sentiment, and they resonate with our current zeitgeist. We all want to be experts at everything, but we just don't have the time to do it. So we become Jacks-of-all-trades, and masters of none. And thus, with the dehumanizing help of social media, we get into a lot of stupid fights.

But I digress. Back to my aquarium example. Giving in to my excitement and desire for my daughter to experience thy "joys" of fishkeeping, I reverted to the impulsiveness of my youth. And of the twelve fish I bought those first few months, I killed half of them. Why? Because I didn't take the time to learn about taking a new tank through the nitrogen cycle. I knew nothing of ammonium, nitrite, or nitrate. I didn't know how to promote bacterial colonies in the filter media. And when I decided to add a few live plants to the mix, I didn't know the difference between submersed and submerged, or that PetCo didn't care about selling you "aquatic" plants that would die 100% of the time if completely under water. And that's saying nothing about water pH, alkalinity, fertilizers (NPK, micronutrients, root tabs versus liquid fertilizers, etc), carbon (CO2) availability, substrate differences, etc., etc. I just thought, "these are pretty" with dozens of plants and fish from completely different, delicately balanced ecosystems around the world, and then expected them to flourish when crammed together in the petri dish that was my, er, my daughter's aquarium.

I'll be the first to say that I suck at chemistry. It was the only "C" I received in college. Too many dry facts and things I couldn't visualize. Too much like math. But over the past few months, I've forced myself to dig into the periodic table and the chemical processes of dozens of elements and compounds in order to BEGIN understanding the aquatic world. I'm still so far away from having a solid grasp on the process, but at least I now know what I don't know. And that's a start. And it's a valuable reminder of the ignorance of mankind.

As a physical therapist, it often baffles me when my highly intelligent friends and family don't understand their own bodies. These people are experts in their fields. They're fluent in areas that I'll never even begin to understand. And yet, they can't figure out the simplest causes of their own various aches and pains. And thus, they become easy prey for fad diets, snake oils, and cure-alls. In health and fitness, especially, our connected, opinion-fueled society is playing the willing victim. Like politics and philosophy, we all know there are problems, and we see "experts" offering their solutions constantly, and social media algorithms are feeding into this problem by inundating our news feeds with like-minded (no matter how wrong) individuals. We think, "Hey, everything I see reinforces my ideas, so the must be right!" But really, we're still living in the same high-walled isolation we've always lived in. We just have weapons that can shoot farther now.

So remember, if you haven't spent hundreds of hours researching and forming your opinion, you're probably not right. Maybe you have an idea. It may even be a good idea. But life is complex. It spans millennia of philosophers, scientists, and soldiers. Even if WebMD says you have terminal cancer, you should still probably see an actual MD before you throw in the towel. Because, contrary to Lazarus Long's inspiring sentiment, humanity can still find value in specialization. Life is rich and deep, so take the time to dig.