#fighting for my life not to put him on a pedestal bc i Know he’s just some guy. he’s just a human like everyone else

[seventh-district]

takes a 5 minute break in the middle of writing a scene to sob over Swan Upon Leda by Hozier

[misqnon]

Thoughts on Sanji enjoying feminine things?

short thoughts: i love it and think he should do it more often esp because i feel like he definitely does in canon and just won't actually let himself do so. i don't draw him in drag all the time for no reason

long thoughts: [breathes in]

i could write an entire essay on sanji's character in terms of femininity, queerness, and misogny BUT we don't have time for all that so let's just focus on the fact i feel like there's actual evidence he enjoys traditionally non-masculine things and oda actually puts him in situations to highlight this pretty frequently

-i am guilty of calling sanji a metrosexual . it's a stupid word but it fits him. he's the only guy on the ship that showers every day and the only other ppl on the ship who do this are the two girls. man also wears suits like mad and has a fairly...daring fashion sense outside of that (granted, most ppl in one piece do.) but he just cares about these things more than most guys! and that doesn't even seem like something that came from his upbringing at baratie bc...no one else dressed like that. he just does that himself. i also can't stop thinking about the sbs where someone suggested sanji would be a stylist in real life and oda went "yes agreed"

-the kamabakka moment...okay terribly offensive and transmisogynistic (won't get into it bc i have several times before) BUT if we can take one thing from that it's that sanji *did* dress up in makeup and a dress and like. frolic with the okama. it's framed as "against his will" but he definitely could have torn that shit off quickly and easily enough, yet oda decided to imply sanji enjoyed it for at least a time before he chickened back out and called the place hell for 2 years. yea, it was probably for oda's idea of 'comedic effect' but this is, once again, one piece. sometimes the humor is part of the plot. sometimes very real information is given through the guise of humor. going off of this u could mention that (also offensive but meant to be funny) joke with the blood donation scene from fishman island

-idk just something about the way oda writes him fighting lots of queer or non-conventionally masculine characters. i feel like it says something about sanji having his own internal struggle about his masculinity- which we know must be true bc of his whole list of virtues he never breaks a la women because of his upbringing with good ol' fashioned zeff and uh. "men should be war machines" germa over here. he fights bon clay and queen for christ sake.

-the scene where he's like happy as a clam to be in nami's body in punk hazard is another comedy gag that's also a little . interesting. I could say oda just keeps accidentally coding him but I feel like oda's very intentionally with his characterization and the subtlety of it

-overall he's just clearly so interested in masculinity since zeff raised him to be that way and he holds zeff in such high regards in combination with his background with germa, his mother and his sister, leading to a I Have To Be A Perfect Gentlemen And Also Respect Women by Putting Them On the Highest of Pedestals. and this in turn has made him reluctant to engage with femininity in any way that could be perceived as Not fitting this manly persona he's made for himself, yet he keeps getting put up against it in various small moments in the series whether comedic or not. I don't think oda frames sanji's relationship with masculinity entirely as a character flaw or weakness to be fixed, bc oda seems to respect sanji's views/they align with oda's own views. BUT I do think he knows it's partially susceptible to change and....he makes Sanji encounter these things so often for a reason. does that make sense?

in my ideal world sanji 20 years in the future is a bit more feminine even if he's still a casanova ladies man. like he accepted the okama influence in his life, he's just more quiet about it, lmao. I mean did u see his hair for oda's 40 yr old design

so yeah. he does, I think. quietly and deep down.

[dr-tonytonychopper]

BATFAMILY AS FOLKLORE SONGS

i’m honestly shocked i’ve haven’t done this one. this one is a little different tbh, usually i just do characters and maybe lyrics but this time i did actually did explanations and i was watching the long pond sessions so i could get accurate notes on each song. DISCLAIMER there’s a lot of run on sentences and i hope it all makes sense, peace and love-ssb✌️🫶

the 1: steph and tim, i see this as being from both of their povs. i think a relationship between them wouldn’t work long term it would’ve been fun if you would’ve been the one

cardigan: dick/babs, i know that all writers have their own opinions on who is the “other woman” but timeline wise it’s kori so i see this as being from babs pov bc she goes back to him no matter what

the last great american dynasty: The Wayne’s, i feel that after Bruce adopts his kids and starts collecting others he starts kinda shifting what the wayne’s are where as when he grew up it was about image, poise and galas he starts to change and all he cares abt is if his kids are comfortable i had a marvelous time ruining everything

exile: jason and bruce, even though this song is like two lovers fighting i think it can be interpreted as jason being upset after tim becomes robin and it took you five whole minutes to pack us up and leave me with it and i can see bruce’s pov of being fed up with giving jason the chance to do the right thing but him not doing it like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me second, third and hundredth chances balancing on breaking bridges, i couldn’t turn things around you never turned things around

my tears ricochet: damian and talia, “it’s a song about greed. it’s a song about how somebody could be your best friend and your companion and your most trusted person in your life and then they could go and become your worst enemy who knows how to hurt you because they were once your most trusted person.” Taylor Swift long pond sessions you had to kill me but it killed you just the same this whole song and specifically this part and the quote reminds me of when talia made and had a clone of damian kill him i didn’t have it in me to go with grace and you’re the hero flying around saving face you hear my stolen lullabies

mirrorball: Stephanie, i’ve never been a natural all i do is try i know everyone is like this is dicks songs it’s not he’s the natural however i feel stephanie is put on this pedestal for being independent but she’s not and i feel like she morphs herself into a different version of herself depending on who she’s with “we have mirror balls in the middle of a dance floor because they reflect light they are broken a million times and that’s what makes them so shiny. we have people like that in society. they hang there and everytime they break it entertains us” Taylor Swift long pond sessions

seven: damian and jon, it’s a song abt besties idk 🤷🏻‍♀️ past down like folk songs the love lasts so long

august: kori/dick, IM SORRY DICKORI/ KORI STANS! to me when writers write this love triangle they write babs as the one, she’s smart and sensible and someone to settle down with while kori is written as a fling and something that is just someone who’s there in the moment and that’s what august is about it’s about this girl who was seen by this guy as a fling while she is truly falling for him and from everybody’s pov she’s this bad girl and temptress while all she wants is to love and to be loved

this is me trying: tim, they told me all my cages were mental so i got wasted like all my potential, tim is often now written as this happy go lucky character and i think that in red robin he’s fighting some real demons but in the newer runs he’s fighting to make it through the day or insecurities about his position in the family or as a superhero or even as bernard’s boyfriend and i feel like it’s just so real like no other character is going to compare to me when it comes to that and when it comes to his position in everyday life he is the definition as wasted potential he is crazy smart and charismatic but he just hates school and hates studying i was so ahead the curve that the curve became a sphere

illicit affairs: bruce/ talia, bruce and talias relationship is not healthy but i do believe that they both or at least bruce loved the other person and i feel like it shouldn’t even be described as an relationship because it seems like a means to an end

invisible string: the entire batfamily, definition of right place at the right time

mad woman: cass, in the comics and fics cass is often written to be a crazy, feral woman and i think that it’s a narrative constantly written about women and i feel like men are written as traumatized while women are not written or perceived with that tone they are written as vindictive or crazy

epiphany: babs and jim gordon, epiphany is written paralleling WWII to the pandemic and i think the perfect parallel in comic book history is babs and commissioner gordon fighting the same fight but taking different paths or routes and aaron dessner describes the song as comparing taylor’s family history and hero’s of today and i feel like that’s the perfect way to describe it

betty: babs/dick/kori, i already described my thoughts twice but i feel like dick would maybe take more accountability

peace: bruce/selina, imma be honest i don’t know if it’s canon that bruce doesn’t do relationships bc of batman but it’s fitting and i feel like it’s probably that even in relationships with other heroes is a conversation to be had bruce truly can’t give selina peace, he cannot promise stability or a promise of staying alive or not being over tabloids as he’s the richest man alive all these people think loves for show but i would die for you in secret

hoax: duke, duke is the one character that i can’t really get a read on but as the newest member of the batfamily i feel like there’s still this feeling in him that’s like i have this new family and i love them but at the end of the day i want my parents my parents that raised me at the end of the day he’s a boy who wants his parents. i also feel like he’s still trusting of people and he reaps what he sowed everytime

the lakes: tim/bernard: tim always has an exit plan and it’s always escaping by himself to be by himself and i feel like it’s the same no matter who he’s with but when he met and started dating bernard he finally found someone to escape with and exit the hero world for im setting off, but not without my muse

batfam (taylor’s version) is coming so lmk what albums you guys want next🤭🤭

[cryptidsnackpack]

okay this discussion is going to be SO LATE but i’m playing dream daddy (again) and i have ~thoughts~ about our friendly neighborhood youth pastor and his family.

so i’m going on dates with all the dad’s i haven’t in previous playthroughs. (i saw mat and damien and was like good day i do not need to peruse ANY other fathers today).

i’d never done joseph’s route before, bc he’s married duh and i have religious trauma. and he looks like every white man that is a problem. but this time around i wanted to watch the world burn and break that man. ANYWAY. he is- actually… delightful? and i love his dates?? i though that with (potential spoilers ahead i guess but this game is old af) his affair with Robert he would immediately start laying it on thick. but he just invites you to very fucking domestic events, and gets frazzled with basic intimacy.

so i GET that joseph cheated. i understand that a large part of mary’s drinking may be due to that. and i know the “good” ending is not really good at all, and pulls a weird moral gotcha on you. i am all for making players face the consequences of their actions in games but this one falls flat for a few reasons.

1. Joseph objectively isn’t a bad person. Yes he’s had an affair, yes he’s a youth pastor (okay only a little joking). BUT Joseph has his shit together for his 4 kids and i admire the FUCK out of him for it. As someone who was raised by alcoholic parents, seeing Mary’s attitude at her kids’ well being REALLY struck a chord with me. the game wants me to believe Joseph is the bad guy, but i’m watching his wife chug five bottles of wine while her toddler is missing AND SUPPOSED TO BE IN HER CARE. and then i see this dad who is trying, who is involved in community outreach, and keeps a stable home. also i see a lot of “well Joseph puts on an act to make Mary look bad in front of the neighbors”. I’m sorry??? he does not have to make Mary look bad, she does bad all on her own. the “wine mom” and “type a dad” schtick is so fucking heteronormative and played out, even for 2017 when the game was released. and hey maybe that was the point! but if it was, it wasn’t done well.

2. The worst parts of Mary’s character get glossed over in lieu of her being a “wine mom” stereotype. Maybe it’s because i’m an ex alcoholic myself, but i don’t have a lot of patience for the character and i know that. objectively i like Mary, i think she’s funny and tough. but she is a deadbeat fucking mom, and the game WHICH IS CENTERED LARGELY AROUND BEING A GOOD PARENT puts Mary on a pedestal that she doesn’t deserve to be on. would i get dinner with mary? hang out? go shopping?? fuck yeah. would i think, “this person who goes out every single night and flirts outrageously with everyone, ignoring their children and household responsibility for their husband” is a “good” person?? fucking hell no. i would not let that woman look after a hamster. let alone four children.

3. DIVORCE IS A VALID AND HEALTHY OPTION THAT SHOULD BE SHOWN MORE IN MEDIA. i cannot tell you how many nights i lay awake listening to my parents drunk and fighting and prayed (when i believed in prayer) that they would divorce. i WANTED my parents to divorce, because i, at the ripe age of 12 could see what apparently the adults could not. that these two people did not, and should not, be together. now that’s not saying that your “good” ending in joseph’s route should end in a typical romance. i don’t. what i mean is that two people should have come to the conclusion that they are doing irreparable damage to their family by staying together. and your character could have helped and supported in that decision. it is obvious that Mary is living a life she doesn’t want, and i do feel for her. BUT GET A DIVORCE THEN. I know the characters are married and staying together largely in part because of religion… but…. Joseph’s not “that” kind of christian? because i grew up in the church, i know the type. this guy ain’t it. So the “well divorce is a sin” for the character doesn’t work for me.

i love the game grumps and i LOVE this game, but this was an area where i feel like the characterization and “message” was a like clunky and more than hard to follow. i really felt like they missed the mark with this one, i mean hell just make the non-canon ending canon at this point. at least that would make more sense.

also this is not me saying that Mary should be responsible for all household duty bc she’s a woman or blah blah blah. but whether you wanted those kids or not, whether you want to be in that marriage or not, YOU made decisions. your kids didn’t choose to be born YOU did, so you need to step up and idk?? maybe not spend every night out at a bar with the local loner who boned your husband? also maybe your husband sought comfort in the arms of a relative stranger… for… a reason? not a morally sound or correct reason but we can maybe follow the dots.

[bestworstcase]

I feel like (different anon) half of the fandom doesn’t even care about Salem in the sense that regardless of what Her goal is? To be fair in my corner I’ve seen more individual character hatred rather than “this plot doesn’t make sense” hatred. Or ppl just saying the plot sucks without offering why they think so which is the majority of rwby “criticism”. But Salem being the key to the end of the show has been very well telegraphed since the end of volume 3. She started as this faceless monster, a creature to hate, the one who killed their headmaster and plunged the world into war. Then we learned that Oz was also keeping secrets and outright lying, so that knocked him off of the Trusted Adult pedestal (tho he has always been kinda shady but in terms of story formula that’s what I mean). Volume 6??? The Lost Fable?? Still so amazing. Salem very literally gets humanized in the eyes of our characters. She still did all of those awful things but she’s a Person now rather than an Entity. Those moments of confrontation (Ironwood’s office with Ruby, Yang while in the whale, Oscar.” We get to see her talking to her Evil Guy Crew. We see her have emotions.

AND THEN THE BROTHER GODS once thought of as entities much like how Salem was seen by the cast in the beginning. Yes they are still gods but not in the sense that at least I was thinking. They came From somewhere. And yes Salem was the first to discover they were fallible but knowing what V9 told us helped me put it into perspective

So the last arch being about fully learning what Salem wants and then, probably possibly, deciding how to help alongside with it. I think ppl get upset bc they view that as “oh yeah all the ppl she killed and lives she ruined don’t matter she’s our bestie mow” kind of Joining with Salem. When im seeing it as a more Neo agreeing to work with Cinder type deal. If Salem wants to stop the gods, get revenge, make them humble, and the gods return and want to wipe out remnant For Good, I’d say that’s a common goal our kids can get behind.

rwby is a cool show with cool villains and I enjoy it a lot and also your thoughts about it sorry this is so long

the thing with salem and the, like, common fandom interpretation of her and where her arc is headed is that. at least since v9 it’s less about resistance to the idea that the final confrontation being team rwby vs the gods as it is the way folks assume salem fits into that, namely that most of the fandom still takes completely at face value the idea that she’s selfish, arrogant, and needs to learn her lesson about the value of life and death. so you get these wild takes that the gods were assholes who punished her out of proportion for what she did, paired with this implicit idea that salem does actually deserve this punishment because she Still RefusesTo Learn Her Lesson, and thus she needs to be redeemed by team rwby proving her wrong somehow.

but like

salem did nothing wrong. praying to the gods was not wrong, reacting emotionally when they were cruel to her was not wrong, recognizing their fallibility and unworthiness was not wrong, rallying people against them was not wrong, vowing to keep fighting after they massacred everybody was not wrong, cursing them after they left and blaming them for ending the world was not wrong, jumping into the pool of grimm was not wrong, BEING grimm is not wrong, rejecting the divine mandate after ozma hid it from her for years was not wrong. frankly continuing to be a thorn in his side since then is, i would argue, also not wrong, because she’s made herself the immovable obstacle preventing him from summoning his genocidal god back to remnant to kill everyone again; it is laughably obvious that the ultimatum is not a game humanity can win. and then factoring in the part where ozma is obsessed with finding a way to destroy her, what else is she supposed to do besides live in exile. and of course if you close off every other door except violent rebellion you are eventually going to invite violent rebellion. 

so like. Salem Is Right, and seems to be taking what she considers the path of minimal destruction (the grimm held beacon but pull out of vale within a few days; her plan for haven was nearly bloodless and left mistral untouched; she made no move to attack mantle and began her siege with a grace period for her to leave in peace if the relics were surrendered), which means that she’s likely willing to negotiate methods if other less destructive paths are opened to her. her villain -> hero arc can’t turn on team rwby persuading her that she’s wrong, because fundamentally her position is “the genocidal divine tyrants do not deserve our obedience and we can and must defy them” which is, um, correct. but if they adopt that position themselves and then negotiate How i think they’ll find she’s a lot more reasonable than they’ve been led to believe, and i do not think the wider fandom is prepared for that whatsoever

[bylertruther]

what do you think about "my life started that day we found you in the woods"

lets start with my knee-jerk reaction, which is

but then when i finally let the all-consuming mama bear spartan rage flow through and out of me, i remember that they had no idea what was wrong with el or how to help her as she seemingly choked to death right in front of them.

they'd dealt with something similar once when will was possessed, though, and will remembers that it was mike and his family professing their love for him that gave him the strength to fight back. so, naturally, he urges mike to do the same now, because he thinks it would mean more if it came from him. he's the heart after all.

we know based off of mike's own dialogue in scenes from other seasons that he doesn't believe in love at first sight. he even repeats as much in the van scene before they pick her up. he says that lie, along with everything else, because he thinks it's what she wants and needs to hear. he's not thinking about anyone or anything else in that moment, he's just locked in on saving her life right now by any means necessary. if will, the person he trusts most in the world and who told him it was him that saved him, tells him this is a time for monologues just like last time, then that's what he's going to do. mike doesn't actually think their love is like that of fairy tales or comic books, but he knows that she wishes it could be and that she'd been previously begging him to say i love you and according to will apparently needs him, so he just does what he can to help her now. because he doesn't want her to die! and he doesn't know what else he could possibly do! (the true love confession worked in s2 but did not work in s4 bc it wasn't true and it wasn't true love <3)

mike's confession is a knock-off of the one he gave will in the shed and will's van confession. "my life started that day we met you in the woods" / "do you remember the first day that we met? [..] it was the best thing i've ever done." like... c'mon, mike, lmao. he highlights her differences and puts her on a pedestal for them, because will's confession ("you make her feel like she's better for being different") led him to believe that that's what she wants and what gives her strength, but it isn't. it's literally the complete opposite and this season spent 39480938094830 years showing us in 9834309840930 ways just how much she hates that shit. instead, the person that gave her strength was the one person that looked at her, saw a girl, and treated her like one. aka, max. it's only when mike she looks over at her and mike stops lying that she wills the vines away.

so yeah. i could go on but the tl;dr is that will's heart-shattering, kicked puppy dog face makes me want to kill myself fifty times over and bite michael like a squeaky toy, BUT. then i remember the context and i'm like oh yeah no. that tracks. makes sense that he'd say that. he's breaking his code to save her life, which is like.. really fucking serious lol. he repeatedly and firmly did not want to lie to her about this and refused to even when pressed, but he'll do it if it means saving her life and the alternative is her dying and the world dying too. he's also working off of a big lie told to him by the one person that he trusts more than anyone in the entire world, including himself, that's the complete opposite of how eleven actually feels. so, like. literally what else is he supposed to do. he got in trouble for plagiarizing an essay in s2 and here he is doing it again smh old habits die hard i guess regurgitating and trying to imitate intimate moments of his and will's for eleven just like he did in s3 when he tried and failed to tell her he was acting like that bc he was going crazy in "love" lmao 🙄

[lottiepumpkinofficial]

MASSIVE LIVEBLOG (which will probably actually be very short)

chap’s 12-28 (bc i had a bad week and did not read)

this will only be really big things i wanna scream about

okay chap 12 is maybe my favourite in tlp- binah is objectively the best character (don’t fight me on this)

lola being so candid is very refreshing

thank you saskia for finally saying it to her bc she wasn’t gonna get it any other way

ferris wheels are gay

finally some honesty and communication!!

i wish we got to see more of miko and lottie being friends, especially in pah and pea

GOATMAN

OUR home

tbf yeah he did have his whole life ripped away from him but that’s mostly your fault goatman

i’m still so mad someone spoiled the haru leviathan reveal for me when i first read it (it wasn’t their fault, it was insta showing me the second slide of a carousel post where the first slide was a spoiler warning)

ollie :((((

petty and has a god complex is a great description

okay i took a long break from writing there- i’m on chapter 27 now

aha a cat lesbian

fucking hell ellie that’s a bit much

okay, so this is just my opinion and i don’t mean to start arguments here- but i think jottie could never be a thing because he puts her on a pedestal. it’s kinda cute in up and pip, but in tlp i think he crosses the line between having a crush/being in love, and idolising someone. he says he doesn’t think anyone’s worthy of her, she’s the sun, and a million other things about her glowing and being magical and better than everyone else. because she’s the first time he’s ever thought about someone other than ellie, of course he doesn’t know what to do with those feelings, it becomes bigger and stranger and he thinks it’s just unrequited love. i have mixed feelings about the mummy issues reveal about his “true” feelings towards, but i don’t think it’s a coincidence that he realises that about himself when he’s finally taking the time to think about himself and his family and future. if i had a friend calling their crush “like the sun itself… an unstoppable force casting light on everything she touched” i would probably ask them if they like that person, or the idea of them. sure, lottie can be that- she’s unstoppable etc, but she’s also just a girl. and jamie’s just a boy. and ellie’s just a person. they all need to strip back ideas and titles and then it all becomes clear

[memento-morri-writes]

Happy STS! On a bit of a kick, so does your WIP have any fun mentor and student relationships? What are they like?

Oh god, you have just stumbled into the biggest trap known to man. I'm so sorry for you. (/hj /lh)

So, none of my current novel/story WIPs have any fun mentor and student relationships, but my current d&d game has the MOST insane mentor/student relationship ever and it will haunt me for the rest of my life so I'm gonna talk about it.

[putting this under the cut because dear god I wrote an essay. sorry, but it's long and complicated and it deserves it.]

My boy Rook, is a swashbuckler rogue and former pirate. He has a... interesting past, and outside of other player characters there are only two (2) people who have ever truly shown him kindness. The first was his former captain, who was his first mentor for ~6 years, and the second was a guy named Sigmar who is Rook's mirror image in many ways.

Rook's relationship with Zara was very very lovely. She took him under his wing when he was 17 and joined her crew. She taught him how to sail, how to fight, really everything he knows. And he, being the kind of person who has very little sense of self, molded himself after her. (Which, while not great he's so malleable, she was objectively a very good influence on him.) He sailed with her for 6 years, and she's the person who's had the biggest positive influence on his life.

The only problem is that he was kidnapped and hasn't seen her in about 3 years, and while he already looked up to her, 2+ years of maladaptive daydreaming and trauma have caused his admiration to turn into idolization. He's placed Zara on a pedestal, and in his mind she can do no wrong. Despite not seeing her or being a part of her crew for 3 years, he still sees himself as being a member of her crew, and would do anything she asked without hesitation. (That totally won't be an issue when we meet her again, which will hopefully be soon.)

Oh, and she's the reason he was kidnapped and tortured in the first place, as the captain who kidnapped him did so in order to get back at Zara. And it turns out she knew what happened to him and didn't come after him... We'll see why that is eventually. (I don't know why, even out of character, but I do have a sworn promise from my DM that she is actually the good person I wrote her to be, thank god. I can't take another Sigmar situation.)

That brings us to Sigmar. He and Rook met under... interesting circumstances, to say the least (Rook was outside furiously practicing with his rapier bc he was mad at a party member, Sigmar was there bc he wanted to burn down said party member's house), but they ended up getting along quite well.

Sigmar agreed to help train Rook, and also help him with his goal of killing Captain Wolf, the captain who had kidnapped and tortured him. Sigmar also became the first person ever (and is still the only person who knows, not even Zara knows this) to find out about Rook's status as a bastard child and the identity of his father. (A nobleman from another country.) Interestingly enough, Sigmar mentioned that he knew Rook's father... (very important later).

Rook got really close with Sigmar, often preferring to spend time with him than with his own party. Sigmar actively encouraged Rook hiding things from the party. The two of them are very very very similar in many many ways, from backstory elements to personality elements. (Sigmar has told Rook more than once "You and I are the same: we're both liars. So don't lie to me." He's also the only person other than Zara who is reliably capable of telling when Rook is lying.) Rook is very devoted to him, seeing as he's only the 2nd person (outside of other PCs) to have a genuine kindness towards him.

Rook convinced the party to commit treason and attempt to pursue a peaceful alliance rather than start the war the government wants to. In visiting the other country, Rook ended up dying twice, with Sigmar not being present for either. During this trip, Sigmar also became the first person to find out about Rook's demonic curse, and reluctantly agreed to help him hide it.

Near the end of this trip, Sigmar ended up getting seriously hurt, and afterwards he and Rook had a conversation where Sigmar revealed that he is technically dead, a walking corpse. (Which fucked me over a lot because at the end of Rook and Sigmar's first conversation, Rook told Sigmar that if he ever tried to fuck with the party he would be "a dead man walking", exact quote. I did not know about the whole walking corpse thing.) He also claimed to be in some way responsible for a Bad Event that happened in the past. Rook's response was "And?" and he claimed that Sigmar wasn't the person he was back then, because if he really wanted to hurt the party/cause harm, he'd had dozens of opportunities to do so, and taken none of them. Rook said "You're not that stupid." A short time later, Sigmar said "You're just as much of a fool as I am."

A while later we went to some creepy, abandoned, monster-infested labs. Sigmar was visibly stressed about being there and asked Rook for help locating a specific object, and refused to tell Rook what it was. Rook reluctantly agreed, saying he would help, but asked Sigmar to tell him what it was once they found it. (Sigmar technically never said yes.)

We found the object in possession of a monster, which called Sigmar an "insatiable liar" and claimed he had been responsible for experimenting on the monster before the labs were abandoned. After the fight, two other party members got their hands on the item Sigmar wanted before he did.

It turned out to be a recording device, which projected a video showing a scientist talking about creating these serums that have caused the world a lot of trouble. Someone showed up carrying a corpse and the Mask of Dominance. The corpse was Sigmar's corpse. The doctor used the Mask to pupper Sigmar's corpse.

Other stuff happened, revealing that Sigmar is an avatar of the BBEG (big bad evil guy, final boss) of the campaign, a genocidal scientist by the name of Dr. Purity.

Afterwards the rest of the party immediately turned on Sigmar, and ended up very brutally destroying his body. (However, the real Dr. Purity and his physical body were far away.) As they were doing so, Sigmar begged Rook for help saying, "you said I've changed" and "you would be dead without me". (both of which are true statements) Rook, however was in shock, and because you just can't go from loving someone (in a platonic way) to hating them in 5 minutes, no matter what you just learned, he was very upset that his party members "killed" Sigmar.

So um, yeah. My boy is very fucked up by this, to say the least. And do you want to know the most tragic, fucked-up part of this? Sigmar genuinely did/does care about Rook. He literally went against his entire organization/cult of mad scientists just for Rook's sake. That's what he meant by "you're just as much of a fool as I am". Because they're both idiotic, lying bastards.

Oh, and Dr. Purity's actual fucking daughter was traveling with the party and he basically ignored her in favor of Rook.

And both Rook and Sigmar/Purity are going to have a very hard time hurting each other when they see each other again, but they're going to have to, because Purity wants to destroy the world, and Rook and the party won't let that happen. And at the end of the campaign, when all is said and done, and Purity is dead, the whole damn world will be celebrating, or at the very least breathing a sigh of relief. But Rook won't be able to help but grieve. For the person he thought Sigmar was. For the person Purity could have been, had things worked out a little differently.

Good god, it makes me sick just thinking about it. (/pos) It haunts me every second of every day, there's not an hour that goes by where I don't think of this mess. Of Rook and his two mentors, who could not be more different. Of Sigmar, who encouraged him to lie, and of Zara who is the only one who can always get Rook to tell the truth.

If you want to read more about the whole Rook and Sigmar mess, you can look through their tag, which is "*Liars". (+ their tag on my personal blog (same tag), which has more content.) Rook's tag here and on my personal blog also has a lot of stuff.

[meteortrails]

elle I love you but reading jason/jesus in my notes made me choke hdjdjdk ill take ur essays anytime tho

it’s actually the hottest new thing since Goncharov everyone’s been talking about Jason Todd and Jesus Christ getting down and dirty.

but on the topic of the essay: the whole point of Batman is that he’s untouchable, right? he’s larger than life, he’s in every shadow and he sees your every move like a fucked up Santa Claus. and part of the point of Robin is to make that untouchable idol more accessible, more real to the people he protects, but Robin himself is still his own kind of lofty ideal. and then there’s Jason, who has gotham in his blood and his bones so deep down he can’t even pretend to hide it. like recognizes like, and the people of gotham recognize this Robin (the son of god made tangible!!!!). and it’s a lot to be a kid, to be vulnerable and know exactly how many people would take advantage of that, and see someone not much older than you who can and does fight back, who isn’t up on some unreachable pedestal but instead is just like you in a lot of ways. he’s just a kid too. he gets angry and he cracks jokes and he’s in this for YOU, for people just as vulnerable as you are. that’s not a kind of admiration or worship you grow out of; that’s the kind of love that shapes you as a person.

and I think Jason has a lot of incredibly complicated feelings about that period of his life; it’s when he was happiest in a lot of ways, and he hates that any part of him was ever that vulnerable or that open bc it makes it that much harder to close in and protect himself now. so I also think it would spark a lot of complicated emotions and surprise to realize how much love and connection he fostered as Robin, and the way it would’ve shaped Duke and Steph and Tim. they all feel it every time they get to actually work together and have a positive relationship, the fact that he was real and they looked up to him and now he’s here and they really can be on the same level as him. on a funnier note, they all Definitely think he’s cool as hell deep down and Jason for sure has no fucking clue. I think knowing would make Jason unspeakably proud in some ways and absolutely unmoor him in others, bc it means that he’s part of the reason these kids keep putting on the same costume that got him killed, that they’ve gotten involved in shit no kid should’ve ever gotten involved with. but it also means he succeeded in his actual goal in all of this; to make the people that gotham has hurt feel safe again, and to make them feel empowered within their own lives. and that would hit him right in his big bleeding heart, I think.

[tonyglowheart]

okay finished my reread including the extras and I have some more thoughts percolating on this topic.

I think, in addition to like the "YWS makes him angry, and SQ likes that, actually" / "YWS is enrichment for SQ" and even the "YWS did teach him a lot as stated in the book itself, a lot of SQ's life experiences were - and continue to be - thanks to YWS, YWS in many ways does push him out of his comfort zone and, like, keeps him on his toes" --

I think in addition to that... if you think about it... YWS teases him and pushes his buttons, yes, but also kinda YWS is the only person who treats him as a person, and not as an ideal, goal/obstacle, etc.?

Like, the people who admire him or want him either treat him as aspirational or desirable, but that puts him on a pedestal and turns him into a concept of a person and completely misses his actual personhood. The ones who are dazzled by him and express their ostensibly earnest admiration or love see him as this like untouchable 仙 xian immortal and are blinded by awe or infatuation.

The converse side is the arrogant ones who see him as a goal to be conquered, a challenge to their ranking within jianghu, and want to fight him to assert their dominance over his ranking / position or just on a personal level to show they're better than him.

But even those who may be less arrogant and treat him as aspirational, clearly create this power differential between them that puts SQ above them, and while SQ is generous and kind-hearted, it does make it hard to really have a close intimate relationship with someone who positions themselves as "socially" subordinate to you.

It kind of creates the same problem YWS has with there not being people on his level - and so knowing that, he has no desire to cultivate "friend" relationships with people where that power differential remains ever-present, whether it be explicitly stated or if it just remains as an awkward undertone. (I see an analogy for this as, like,. It'd be awkward for the principal of a school to try to become friends with students, whether they be from their school or other schools. They can become friendly, and develop certain mentor-mentee relationships, but the fact remains that their personal stages are different and there remain power differentials between them.)

YWS on the other hand, for all that his past self had declared with his full chest that he had no need for friends, only a rival (note, I believe the term he uses is 对手 duishou, which notably means opponent or adversary sure, but ALSO means match, equal. So I think "rival" is a good term, but perhaps too.... adversarial in English? imo the way YWS declared he only needed a duishou *to me* sounded more like he only needed a *peer* within jianghu - someone who is on his level and can match his wugong), has also done a lot to *bring up* SQ's wugong *to* his level.

At first maybe it was him experimenting on/with SQ sure, and also just for his own amusement lol, but I think just as YWS grew on SQ, SQ grew on YWS. And definitely by the time that YWS accepted that having had his head cracked open and ~feelings~ have gotten to escape the Pandora's box that is his heart and past, I think YWS - with him suggesting SQ get the Zhou volume of the 《ZhuyangCe》 and then negotiating to get the Tiantai volume for him - that very much is like. as much of an apology for his past words to SQ as he can do given that any apology he says to SQ would be patently false. (to expand- bc of his thing about not regretting his past - I think to him regret would indicate a fixation on the past or an ideal of what things should or shouldn't be, and like he doesn't do that. Which SQ I think also gets & practices cuz it's a very Daoist kind of concept, even if YWS's style of being is very different from SQ's own.)

But yeah, basically.... Like think about it. Who else treats SQ so casually? The people he encounters on his travels tend to want something from him even if they don't know his true identity, and once they do their behavior inevitably ends up changing up one way or another, even if it's just an expected amount of respect due to his various titles/statuses.

I think bystanders or even ppl who are familiar with SQ and hold him in high respect are like "how dare you treat Shen-daozhang/daozun/zhangjiao so casually and with such casual disrespect" -- but like def by the end, YWS who has always kind of had a peerless position but never was really bothered by it, who could even possibly claim to be near his equal? And kinda, same for SQ? Even other sect leaders who may be considered to be on a same or similar level- they all have their entanglements and and positions as public figures/leaders of their factions to consider, so that they may not necessarily be able to develop personal relationships without it having sociopolitical implications.

But yeah, tl;dr- I think yes YWS makes him agry and gets his blood going and he likes it, and yws provides him with a different view on the world than his previously limited experiences and detachment from the world couldn't provide him with (and also provides him with that like worldly connection that brings him back to earth- after all, man can't survive on untried ideals alone). BUT ALSO the provocations stem from and demonstrate how Yan Wushi really does see Shen Qiao the man, not Shen-zhangjiao or Shen-daozun, and that for all that he is this high level daozun... he still is after all a man with thoughts and feelings, and is so easy and fun for YWS to provoke and poke fun at :3 and, like, draw out the human emotions out of him/give him an outlet to let those human emotions come out to play 😗

(in other words, YWS gives him a space to "be himself" and "let his hair down," as it were, and not have to always be Shen-daozun, Shen-zhangjiao, Shizun, etc)

my current goal: pin down what Shen Qiao gets out of yanshen

[veggieboxes]

ok that adult teru post and in the tags you have some thoughts about him and his relationship w adulthood PLEASR PLEASE PLEASE TELL Us those THOUGHTS PLEASE. sorry i just i want to know i love teru hahaa

my god. you are unleashing my analysis brain. ok.

i have a lot of thoughts in general on the "main cast" around mob (reigen, dimple, teru, and ritsu) in general LOL + how they all intertwine with e/o but i do really like teru bc of how nebulous his backstory is.. ONE pretty much just gives us this:

(this dude is fucking 14. did he start living alone at 10????)

+ the fact that he started living alone bc of the claw attacks. everybody else has pretty straightforward backstories (except for dimple i guess, but he doesn't really follow the traditional rules of all the human characters), but teru's situation is so fucking strange. and it's never elaborated upon.

but i do think that it's very obvious that he turned out the way he Did pre mob meeting just bc he was forced to take care of himself and survive from an insanely young age. skipping childhood to become an "adult" is really the only option for him, which ultimately leads him to creating a social hierarchy at his school because gaining a position of power is "just something adults do." that plus the fact that he needs some way to prove himself to others that he's worthy of attention and praise because he can't get that validation from his parents. so the next best thing is his classmates!

from my viewpoint, a lottt of teru's behaviors boil down to doing what an adult "should" be doing / the ideal successful adult figure. which is also why he fits himself in those traditional heteronormative and masculine roles via. dating women and fighting men. this stuff helps reinforce the social hierarchy, but also creates the illusion that he's capable of being in functioning hetero relationships as people are expected be in as they grow older. teru wants to stand out, but in a "socially acceptable" way -- the way that will guarantee him praise from others.

the whole facade obviously crumbles after his encounter with mob. he's knocked off of his pedestal, being stripped of his dignity (and other things...) in front of the carefully constructed ecosystem he created with himself at the top. bigger pond, bigger fish! so once that's gone, teru really has nobody else to prove himself to or get worship from. at the end of the day, all he really has is himself to gain acceptance from. and with that, he can become an actual functioning human being and not a weird, disfigured, carefully chiseled mimic of what he thinks is the ideal adult.

obviously, remnants of this system pre-yassified teru put up is still present and we see that with teru still getting lots of gifts from girls who are kinda scared by him. but we don't really see how teru interacts with his classmates or vice versa in everyday life past that. i do really enjoy the idea of black vinegar's shadow leader coming back with a complete 180 personality. and a wig to match that change.

but all that aside, teru coming to the realization that he doesn't have much if you take away his psychic powers lets him become a kid again. not hardened by life or jaded, not held up to these wild expectations, not expected to take care of himself emotionally (which isn't kid-exclusive, but teru just never allowed himself to share that burden to begin with). i mean, he's always been a kid -- just in the way he tries to appear mature -- but he can let himself grow in his own, much healthier, way.

i think that's why teru's character in particular inherently has so much gay subtext, because the audience sees his character go from "traditional masculine figure" to... basically the opposite of that. and if the traditional masculine figure is defined by the role in heterosexual relationships, then the opposite would be homosexuality.

well, that and his general attitude towards mob. and teru's fruity ass fits. i'm not sure how he had those in his closet and thought, "yeah! i'm straight!"

and that's my two cents! my concluding statement: god, i hope we get the series of animated spinoffs ONE mentioned as a hypothetical.

i love mob's story to death, but i'd love to see more explorations into the other characters because they're usually pushed to the sideline development-wise after their respective arcs are over. i do love the omakes for this reason though lol

anyways, thanks for reading my intro to mob psycho 101 essay :-) sorry this is stupidly long. but also? i could write an analysis like this for every secondary character because i care about them so much.

[septembersghost]

sorry if someone mentioned this before but the "You make me happy" line reminds me of when they both got married, and saul was like "are you sure? i know this isnt what you imagined when you were 12" and. i think when it comes to love he is incapsulated in that innocence, bc no doubt when he said that he was referring to himself as well. this isnt what he imagined, if he ever had the pleasure, marrying kim would be like (man was probably imagining songbirds with ribbons over an arbor tbh) the whole lets get married, lets have a house and host movie nights and work together. its a similar innocence between him and chuck, that big-eyed admiration for his big brother. Him crying the hardest at his parents funeral. I feel like he is just so full of love that is,,, untainted and its his most redeeming quality and yet it is so out of his grasp

anon...i am clutching my heart at this message. this is such good analysis and you're so right, and i am SAD.

i didn't even think of that line of jimmy's when they got married, but there is definitely a parallel there, and jimmy has this sappy romantic (affectionate) aspect to him - those previous two dissolutions, i imagine, were not from relationships that were particularly long lasting or meaningful for him, and we certainly know the second one, uh, did not end well. i don't think he ever loved anyone the way he felt about kim, and that he wished they could've had the fancy wedding with the flowers and the cake and the dance floor. "man was probably imagining songbirds with ribbons over an arbor tbh" CRYING this is accurate. in jimmy's perfect world, i think he would've gotten down on one knee and given her a ring and then swept her off to their ranch house. this man doodled their initials together like a girl with a crush and a glitter pen. he wanted to work in the same office with her because he valued her and never tired of spending time with her. he dreamed of them having a house together, sharing a warm space and a life. seeing her was the highlight of his day, every day. it's why he can't fathom the concept of her being bad for him - i wouldn't even say he unfairly put her on a pedestal per se, because it's not like other women who've gotten that treatment in stories, who maybe aren't seen as whole people, he never undermined her agency. he admired her and felt such happiness with her that it could only be his fault if it went wrong. the one fight where he gets unfairly angry and accuses her of rolling around in the mud with him when she gets bored is total self-loathing projection and grief/guilt-laden chuck issues much less than it is a reflection of how he feels about her. (the saddest part is, that argument, in jimmy's fractured perspective, probably just became true.) the way he looks at her when they get married says everything. it doesn't matter where they are, it doesn't matter that maybe it isn't the fantasy, having her at all is the dream. there is an innocence and earnestness in that. there's a hopefulness in his desire for an office and a home. he yearns for that, for that one safe place.

and he was like that with chuck too! he respected chuck, he craved his acceptance. he wanted to work with him. "big-eyed admiration" totally. :( it showed in how he took care of chuck too, making sure he had everything he needed, defending him to doctors and colleagues alike. (howard making himself the heavy at chuck's behest and getting involved in the middle is part of why this all played out as horrifically as it did.) jimmy has a certain caregiving instinct. chuck rejecting jimmy is damaging in such an acute way that jimmy never even fully processes it. anything from, "you're not a real lawyer!" ... "i thought you were proud of me," to those horrible last words, they scar him indelibly.

wanting to snap his fingers and fix things with his mom in the hospital, crying the hardest at his dad's funeral, all of that is genuine, despite his many faults and mistakes. he may have that inclination to scam and to slip, but his emotions are very real, and the love in him is maybe the realest thing about him. the purest thing. and when there was nowhere else for it to go, he gave it all to kim.

"I feel like he is just so full of love that is,,, untainted and its his most redeeming quality and yet it is so out of his grasp" 100% agree and you phrased this beautifully and it makes for such captivating, empathetic tragedy. what's more human than wanting to be seen for all you are and accepted anyway, to love and be loved? what's more aching than constantly losing it, and losing more of yourself each time it slips away?

[uno-writing]

Hcs on what dating pre arc! Arlo would be like pls

Oooo! You got it anon!

Warning: Pre-Arc! Arlo is kinda toxic/has a handful of toxic traits

*Okay so the biggest difference between Current! Arlo and Pre-Arc! Arlo is that Pre-Arc! Arlo is emotionally unavailable

*Don’t get me wrong, he still cares about you

*A lot

*He doesn’t strike me as the type of guy to waste his time with someone he doesn’t actually like

*He just…doesn’t show it

*Arlo would be less available after Rei died

*He’d get more snippy with you and he’d get upset over things that didn’t used to upset him

*Especially if you try and take care of him

*Or if you worry about him

*He’d probably prefer a secret relationship

*People gossip about him enough

*He doesn’t need them sticking their noses in his love life too

*So that means no PDA

*But I mean, he’s kind of against touch in private also

*He’d be fine with occasional brushes or touches

*But anything longer he’d probably move away and maybe call you clingy

*He’s still very protective over you

*HOWEVER

*Where Current! Arlo would give a warning before activating his ability

*Pre-Arc! Arlo would have a barrier around whoever’s messing with you and they’d be on the ground in 5 seconds flat

*He’d also make them apologize and wouldn’t let them go until you told him it was fine

*Arlo’d get so confused if you got upset at him for this

*Because he’s just trying to protect you

*As I mentioned in my Angst HC, he’d kind of use you as a stress reliever

*He doesn’t like making you upset, but it’s kind of all he knows so he doesn’t know how to stop

*That’s why he tries to make it up to you afterwards

*If you have differing opinions on the hierarchy, he’ll try and get you to understand that you’re ‘wrong’

*He’s very self assured and so is his family

*So if you have a different opinion, he’ll just assume you’re wrong about it

*He argues that there’s a reason things are this way… isn’t there?

*He doesn’t apologize

*The words “im sorry” aren���t apart of his vocabulary

*Which is why it’s so jarring when he comes home to you chilling at his place

*And he’s covered in dirt and bruises (the first john fight)

*And he just ignores you when you ask what happened, if he’s okay

*He just plops himself in your lap and says he’s sorry for taking you for granted

*You genuinely thought he was dying

*This only happened because he had a bit of a bruised ego

*And bc his ass getting kicked for once in his life made him kinda realize that he was a bit of an ass

*Especially to you

*Though if you bring it up afterwards

*He’ll act like it didn’t happen

*Or he just won’t want to talk about it

*He kinda starts to go back to his old ways of using you as a stress relief

*But he’s a lot better than he was before

*He starts being more touchy and starts offering you more

*Arlo kind of gives you whiplash when he’s going through his arc

*Because one minute he’s acting like how he used to

*And the next minute he’s acting so lovey and relaxed

*He’d understand if you couldn’t deal with him through this

*But if you stay with him through his entire character development

*He’d be so grateful

*Like

*You’re put on a higher pedestal than Valerie and Rei

[tigirl-and-co]

Fave eps of the 63 astroboy anime?

Okay, so I'm only at episode 55 out of i think 109 in the english dub, but I can tell you my faves so far!

this got real long real fast, so I'm putting it under a readmore :3c

-episode 11, 'Strange Voyage' I've talked a lil' bit about this one before, but I'll elaborate. I think this episode is tastefully dark, but has some really great sweeter moments as well. Like when Louie(?) agrees to watch Marble, and then... proceeds to do so. He's never mean to her, and while he's not kind, he's willing to talk with her. Also Astro decides that keeping the little girl away from the notorious criminal is unnecessary, and decides that she and the criminal should play chess instead. As for darker moments, the ending and this particular line come to mind

and then Marble, who is like 5, claims that there must be a heaven for robots, because Astro deserves to go to heaven. Also they try to kill a man by shoving him out the airlock. But yeah, if you're looking to decide whether or not this show is worth it, check out this episode

-episode 7, 'Zero, the Invisible Robot' So this is the Denkou episode, and for some reason they made him a gorgeous man that I'm in love with. But he's named Zero here. I don't know what else to say that hasn't been said, other than I maybe teared up a lil'. Don't judge me. I'm a sucker for 'I just want to be good/do a good job' type characters (which is why I'm also a fan of bobo and abra cadabra) and I think it's really funny that they were like 'we have to make him BEAUTIFUL' and he's only visible for like 5 seconds total.

-episode 53, 'Dogma Palace' This episode is absolutely dumb as dogshit and I'm completely obsessed with it. It seems like it's gonna be cool and dark and in the last like 7 minutes you find out that everything's all fucked cuz the king was like 'o ye i used 2 keep bees! My favourite bee was this fucked-up evil one from outer space that liked to mind control people!' and he did not see how this could have ever gone wrong. May I recite to you the greatest lines of dialogue in tv history?

*while panning over freed child slaves* "You can be a king who believes in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!" "Yes. I'll start a new country, a country without slaves, or monsters, or super-bees!"

also the king is named 'El Doopy' and his elite task force are the Super Troupers

-episodes 44 and 45, 'The Heart of Cleopatra' It's another 'I want to be Good but I am forced to be Bad episode, with the added bonus of being Cleopatra-themed. Also it was bizarre but heartwarming to see Muslims and Islam being treated (somewhat) respectfully in a cartoon from 1963. Like they were literally just praying. It might not have been *tactful* bc this show has never heard of tact in its life, but I don't think it was *offensive* and it certainly wasn't mean-spirited

-Episode 10, 'The Spirit Machine'

-Episode 52, 'The Snow Lion' I had been looking forward to this episode after hearing that the 80's version was batshit, and I was NOT disappointed. The main villain is this little space wizard man with a flying lion made of snow, except the snow is alive and eats energy, and also apparently the wizard called in the girl scouts to help him invade earth. Sadly, the girl scouts were never seen.

like right in the middle there's this fucking somber as hell scene where Elefun hold's Astro's lifeless body, and he says 'I'll put you in the robot hall of fame if it's the last thing I do.' and so we get a 30 second long sequence of Elefun somberly walking down the halls of the robot hall of fame with Astro in his arms, until he reaches a pedestal. He then sets Astro up, and goes 'at least we can face the end together' and kneels down and rests himself on the pedestal, and fucking. just sits and waits to die.

And then some stuff happens and we get back to astro fighting a flying space lion made of snow.

~

Thank you for the ask! This was really fun~ I know I tend to ramble a lot lol, but I hope this gave you some insight into what sort of stuff I like!

[superfluouskeys]

second half thg reread thoughts in case anyone is following my latest descent into madness lol

--

So one thing that stood out to me rereading the books and also my 2 fics was that it obviously very much resonated with me that Katniss felt guilty and incredibly pressured from all sides about not liking Peeta or Gale (and esp her feeling upset and betrayed when they would ruin a nice moment by talking about love), and so the shift to screaming nonstop about Peeta in book 3 was especially jarring for me.  From that perspective it still very much reads as her forcing herself to try, and the increasingly dire circumstances actually reinforcing her delusional attempt with Peeta.

With a bit more distance from that perspective I still think the overall story suffers significantly from the Peeta worship.  He’s just simply better than the rest of us?  Really?  That’s a direct quote btw!!!  I was trying to make a case for unreliable narrator in my head, but everyone simply loves Peeta and resents Katniss for any negative feelings she has towards him!  (Especially Gale “it would be easier if he weren’t so likable”, the team on Katniss’s Capitol secret mission shooting her dirty looks after Peeta literally tried to kill her and has been sent there to kill her, and Coin who apparently wanted to rescue Peeta and hates Katniss).  And despite what she sometimes claims, Katniss is someone who deeply cares about community cohesion and how people see her/those close to her--she doesn’t care about being liked so much as about being respected.

But yeah anyway I couldn’t stop gagging and flipping away whenever there was some Peeta bullshit lol I can’t even put all the things I hate about it into words.  I was thinking in book 2 that maybe I’d been too harsh on him bc of my personal bias, but god it’s just insufferable in book 3.  There’s also this part I almost screenshotted because Katniss is like ‘under these very traumatic circumstances I start to feel that thing I once felt when kissing Peeta but the last time I had to lay down bc I was bleeding to death from a knife wound in my head’ like girl that is not desire that is a head injury!!!!!!

I always felt that the whole Peeta being programmed to hate Katniss thing was a horrific way of evening the playing field between them romantically since Peeta had put Katniss on a pedestal before then, but honestly I think the one that needs to take Peeta off the pedestal and realize he is just some guy is Katniss and also the narrative at large LOL.  Despite like 99% of people perceiving Katniss as full of herself and not good enough for Peeta, she actually has pretty low self esteem in most areas and could do with an arc of realizing her power unmarred by this weird shit.

So yeah the epilogue is maybe even more horrific than I remember it LOL.  Like Katniss literally doesn’t know who she is or what she likes outside of starving and taking care of people and fighting for her life and she only made it to her early 30s before Peeta browbeat her into having children??????  BARK BARK BARK  There’s also something to be said about Katniss spending the first 2 books being so against doing what the Capitol wants her to do and then just.........doing exactly what the Capitol wanted her to do lol.

Oh also on this note there’s a line (about Peeta) that’s like “Besides my mother, Prim, and Gale, who else really loves me unconditionally?” like girl that’s already a lot of people to love you unconditionally!!!!!!

There’s also something to be said for the way other women are treated by the narrative lol like it bothered me a little with Johanna (esp that weird exchange about how Katniss is bad at girl talk relating to her dresses lol god), but I reasoned that she’s a lot and there are other grown women with their own lives and opinions that Katniss doesn’t hate, but it really starts to feel like a pattern in book 3--the line that really bothered me was like in one of Katniss’s nightmares “Delly Cartwright is prattling on about the goodness of people.”  Like girl you wanna talk about people who are unnecessarily kind and get the short end of the stick where is the Delly worship in this book!!!!!!

I just can’t think of a female character who is allowed to be particularly opinionated, especially if she disagrees with Katniss.  Johanna is painted as like really unstable and also shallow--like Katniss notes that Johanna seems to like it and grow to respect her when she is irreverent like that’s Johanna’s only criteria for liking someone.  Madge who is bland and unobjectionable and surely must not know what the Mockingjay pin represents.  Effie whose only mention in the third book is that she looks exactly the same except for the vacant look in her eyes and now has a very subdued manner (bc of who knows what horrors she’s faced.)  Delly who is simple and ‘prattles on’ even though she is one of very few people who repeatedly comes to Katniss’s defense against Peeta.  Coin who is just as bad as Snow apparently idek where to start with that whole thing.  There are other side characters who Katniss finds unobjectionable, but they don’t overly challenge her and are more or less the embodiment of what she values, eg. Paylor(sp?) who gets to be president after her little Incident LOL.

It’s just a shame that so many of the men, even very minor characters, are allowed to be a lot more complex and morally grey without incurring the ire of the narrative.  Eg. there’s this deeply disturbing anecdote about one of the former Peacekeepers from 12 going on and on saying he’ll trade Katniss (who would have been 15-16 at the time) one of his kisses for a rabbit, and no one thinks this is disgusting except Gale because he is jealous (KJDANDSJKNAKJDNASD) and there is genuinely nothing but sympathy in the narrative for what happens to that character.  On that note, the other named Peacekeeper from 12 was painted entirely sympathetically until after he died when there was suddenly a bit about ppl not liking him because he paid starving women to sleep with him, but that was never mentioned or alluded to while he was actually in the story????

Oh also this isn’t entirely related but bruh in the epilogue it’s just passingly mentioned that Finnick and Annie have a newborn son and how that’s good and happy but????? Finnick got torn apart by genetically engineered lizard creatures and Annie wasn’t super stable esp without him you’re telling me she CARRIED HIS CHILD AFTER HE DIED AND WAS FINE ABOUT IT i’m so sick of baby propaganda man i’m so fucking sick of it.

Anyway this is why I never reread Mockingjay the first two books are golden and the last one is just ????  I might try to force myself through the last movie finally just to see how things are handled differently if at all in the movie?  And idk how quickly or if I’ll get through the Songbirds and Snakes book, like it seems interesting it’s just an awful lotta men so far (even Snow gets to be complex and morally grey!) and I have other things to do after spending 4 days consumed by this nonsense LOL.  catch me writing thg genfic bc what I really want is a book about the last quarter quell adjksnajkdnakjd I am now a confirmed haymitch stan while katniss is whining about peeta i’m like WHERE IS THE MEAN DRUNK MAN so yeah it’s been a time

[blackidyll]

TWEWY anon is accurate BC "brain empty only twewy" is basically my MO nowadays lmao. I'm glad you like my rambling about twewy though XD

DHDHHDHD SAME I was so hyper I totally missed the ending introducing the new twink the first time and only caught it when I watched a (calmer) repeat. I saw someone guessing it was older Joshua and I was like DID YOU EVEN SEE THE JOSHUA POSE EARLIER OFC NEW TWINK ISN'T JOSH. Also my brain SOMEHOW completely skipped over the demo announcement LIKE! I HAVE A SWITCH! I CAN PLAY NEOTWEWY IN TWO DAYS!! DOES NOT COMPUTE (it's out today and I'm boutta play it as I'm typing this lol, apparently there's a demo for play too) the hype carries over straight from the last ep of the anime which also came out today (did you watch it? I still can't believe Josh actually ADMITTED, OUT LOUD on HIS OWN WILL that he changed his mind BC of Neku) which is a smart strategy to keep the attention on TWEWY until the release date.

Tbh I'm more partial to Conductor Neku but Ur right in that Producer!Neku would be more likely to be able do stuff unnoticed...as much as the "Legendary Neku" can go unnoticed lmao, I can't believe he's basically a Reaper's Game legend nowadays XD I guess surviving the game three weeks in a row builds you a reputation of being metal as hell WHICH IS UNDERSTANDABLE NEKU /IS/ METAL AS HELL FOR SURVIVING THAT. Also I'm starting to believe that hoodie!Neku is not actually Neku and a different person BC although Rindo calls out to him as though he's Neku when DEFINITELY NEKU appears he's like "who are you" and I'm like AREN'T YOU TEAM WITH MINAMIMOTO?? HE KNOWS NEKU, GO GET HIM SO HE CAN CLEAR THIS UP FOR US!!! There's too many mysteries this month of wait is gonna END ME I swear

twewy anon it is <3 and i absolutely love twewy rambling and so your asks are such a joy!

[Obligatory THERE ARE LOTS OF SPOILERS AFTER THIS warning because the last episode only came out a while ago]

see that threw me off because THERE IS THE JOSHUA POSE but then they show that person (NEW TWINK is hilarious omg) and I'm like NO WAY IT IS HIM, but then the silver hair and the violet eyes and the dressing style and the way he speaks and also the fact that canonically the Composer always look younger when he's downtuned and not in his glowy form and Neku dresses differently so maybe Josh changed his hairstyle?????? It's not out of character for him to just casually break the rules and drop by and cryptically speak to Players? (my other thought after ten million bouncing between IT'S HIM/IT'S NOT HIM is that maybe that's the personification of Shibuya??? CUZ TWINK BOY LOOKS LIKE SOME MIX OF JOSHUA AND NEKU but that would be a weird direction to go...)

I'M SURE THERE ARE RED HERRINGS EVERYWHERE IN THE TRAILER but they could still both be Neku, if super glowy Neku saving Rindo is the first time they met, and only later in the game does the scene with Tsugumi and Neku's confrontation take place (so Rindo recognizes him from there). It kind of explains the clothing change too, like Neku (dressed in nice Gatto Nero) reveals his presence/identity to save Rindo, then has to change to these hoodies to go undercover until he goes to confront Tsugumi?????? (ALSO I JUST HAD A THOUGHT WHICH IS what if Tsugumi was Shinjuku's Composer??? who is now demoted to Player status, it would explain why she's so weird after her ward's been destroyed and maybe why Neku's going after her ANYWAY THIS IS FARFETCHED BUT WHY NOT SPECULATION IS ALL WE HAVEEEEEEEEEEE).

Also Minamimoto is just UNIVERSALLY UNHELPFUL TO OTHER PEOPLE like I bet if Rindo asked about Neku he'd just sprout a million math analogies that Rindo can't understand LOL

Conductor!Neku does absolutely make sense since he defeated Kitaniji; I'm mainly partial to Producer!Neku because I can't see Neku taking orders from Joshua XDDDDDD And I think it's great that Neku has legend status in the UG, because truly he's the main reason why the ward still exists LOL

and to answer your question YES I DID A CRAZY MARATHON TO FINISH OFF THE ANIME please indulge me I have a lot of thoughts about that last episode? I like a lot of things about it and usually I understand the changes that they made to the anime. But I really really really wish they included Neku's speech/soliloquy to Joshua after he is brought back to life and before going to Hachiko. It's such a huge and impactful scene in the game. Like, Neku's one "I trust you" line DOES NOT COMPARE TO THE ENTIRE SPEECH WHERE HE TALKS ABOUT HOW HE'S BEEN CHANGED AND HE CAN'T FORGIVE JOSHUA BUT HE TRUSTS HIM AND MAINLY!!!!!! MAINLY!!!!!!!! INVITES JOSHUA TO MEET UP WITH THE REST OF THE CREW. THAT'S ALL MISSING WHYYYYYYYYYYYY

Like during the Kitaniji fight I'm yelling "YOU ARE MISSING ONE OF YOUR PARTNERS NEKU" but fine I get why Joshua didn't show up (although I very much miss "Megumi, I'm back," and Joshua's final conversation with Kitaniji because there's a lot of mutual respect there but :( Kitaniji just gets Erased in the anime). The confrontation in the anime feels so much less personal on Neku's front - the game sets up that despite all of Neku's mistrust, he finds himself relating to Joshua and befriending him, and at the very end he couldn't kill his friend; in the anime it just feels like Neku's just being a typical hero and doing the "right" thing that he can't kill someone and chooses to trust them instead (that someone could be anyone), and that's matched by the fact that he does not consider Joshua AT ALL after getting reincarnated, whereas in the game it is super personal to Neku, and he is so emotional when he wakes up on the Scramble Crossing, and the fact that he ACTUALLY INVITES JOSHUA TO JOIN THEM shows he sees and treats Joshua as an individual and a person and a friend, as opposed to the Composer position/pedestal that everyone puts him on..........

I have a lot of feelings about Joshua, and Joshua and Neku's partnership in the game, and I very much hope that NEO is 100% based on the game and not the anime because the dynamics are so different :( Like I feel the anime HAD to spell out the whole "Yes I changed my mind because of Neku" for Joshua whereas in the game we didn't really need it explicitly said, it was ALL in Neku's actions and Joshua's reaction to those actions and...

BUT ANYWAY NEO:TWEWY IS A NEW GAME and i'm so excited for you getting to play the demo!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you are super enjoying it, it's been SO LONG since we've been waiting for a sequel and it's kind of blowing my mind that you can play!! it!!! and revisit new Shibuya!!! One month to gooooooooooooo!!