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james-spooky · 2 months ago

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Eddie Diaz and the Phenomenon of Queer Representation

A post to organise my thoughts ahead of the rest of the season and to really get this off my chest! (Spoilers for 9-1-1) (It’s long and I will inevitably have more thoughts about things I failed to mention)

Within queer representation in media, there’s a certain expectation that audiences have been conditioned to accept, including the omission of any representation at all. This has led to many non-canon ships being popularised in fandoms in an attempt to obtain agency surrounding queer media. One of these such head canons is Eddie Diaz from 9-1-1 who is largely speculated to be gay. This is sort of an essay and sort of me rambling on.

Picking up in Season 8, Episode 1, Eddie’s been trying for three months so keep his shit together and try to stay in contact with his son in the wake of the whole emotionally-cheating-with-the-doppelgänger-of-your-deceased-wife situation. I think the birthday zoom was really the beginning of his breakdown. To keep all of this inside him it way too much for someone to handle. He is going to break at some point with the stress. Not only that but as others have pointed out, Helena and Ramon are not actively participating in the reconnection of their son and their grandchild. This ties into their long-term goal which has been present across multiple seasons to be Christopher’s sole caregivers, without any acknowledgment of Eddie. To me it looks like he’s been trying to put on a brave face for his kid and sort of suppress everything (as he always does) to try and be a better father. But you can’t be that person if you’re not taking care of yourself; not necessarily “putting yourself first”, not in a selfish way but genuinely having self-love and a certain assuredness, something which Eddie doesn’t appear to have pinned down. I can definitely see him being introspective this season and forced to deal with quite literally everything that’s ever happened to him and to actually process that and who he really is. Ergo, realising his sexuality.

Tim said that the episode six thing was one of his favourite moments in the show, is actively excited for us to see it, is the episode where the “reason for the moustache” is “explicitly stated”; genuinely what else could this be other than gay Eddie. I cannot think of a reason personally. Other than “religion” which I don’t is a path they’d go down; I cannot come up with another reason for why they’re being so vague about it.

This is exactly the same thought process I went through pre-s7. I wrote down all my thoughts and analysis on those articles and Buck’s arc, coming to the conclusion that there could be no other outcome other than Buck being bisexual. Before s7 there were lots of articles about Buck and they all had that same sort of strange wording surrounding his storylines that season. E.G: “a season of self-discovery for Buck”, describing him getting off that “hamster wheel” of failed relationships. Whether or not you believe that he has achieved that is beside the point; the point is that, the vague quality to them which alluded his storyline going in a particular direction is happening yet again. Ryan has the exact same thing happening now, if not more with the majority of the season’s promo being his moustache. This is pattern recognition if I’ve ever seen it. Truly, due to the sheer amount of promo and interviews there have been, in my mind I don’t see another reason for why this would be, other than Eddie having a large and pivotal storyline this season.

It’s not just “about buddie”. When people pin down a character’s sexuality to purely the ship they’re in, it annoys me because it’s genuinely about the storyline and Eddies character arc. Yes, these headcanons have stemmed from the ship and obviously if they were to go down this route, the ship would most likely be a by-product of this discovery, but it’s not the priority. It may be an end goal, but what about the journey? It’s more than ship wars or trying to one up each other. For me personally, it would be so beneficial to his character to go in this direction. Not even just for his character but for the show and representation in general. What other show on a major network would have a character who’s been on the show for multiple seasons, had relationships with women, a wife, a child, religious traumas, PTSD, grief, catholic guilt and then having a gay awakening in their eighth season? None. How many have had strong platonic male relationships? A lot. Honestly, I don’t interact with those people who whittle down Eddie having a queer realisation or the possibility of Buddie being canon as “erasing platonic male friendships”. I simply don’t buy into that and my reaction towards those people who use that argument is just “Point me towards a show where (the written above happens)” and you can’t. Because it hasn’t happened. Not only that but queer ships in mainstream shows are notorious for “queer-baiting” and not “going canon”. I could name numerous shows where this has happened all to the dismay of a large percentage of the audience. In my experience in fandoms with popular queer ships, (majority mainstream shows with non-explicitly queer characters) I cannot think of a single time where they have been confirmed in canon. To me, this would be a huge step in the right direction for queer media as a whole. Of course, we cannot deny the massive impact that Buck being canonically bisexual last season has had and I commend ABC, the writers and Tim for bringing that to our screens. It was so heartfelt and truly amazing to watch. However, in terms of fandom and popular ships, it’s a little different. I’m in no way disregarding bi Buck, but rather exploring the impact that having a popular queer ship becoming canon would have on other media and the audience in general.

As queer audiences, we are so often let down with the directions that tv shows and film take in regard to their queer-coded characters. It’s become normalised to expect disappointment over seeing a popular pairing actually become “canon” within the text itself.

I’m aware that queer-baiting is definitely different than simply having queer-coded characters, however the two often come hand in hand. There is a misconception, in my opinion that “going woke is going broke”. I think that yes, having queer elements or characters in media definitely effect the reception and reaction, especially online from the general audience. This has happened time and time again and because the negative reaction is so loud, it drowns out any of the positive ones, forcing media companies to pull back in fear of losing money or audience. They want to be seen as “impartial” as a large percentage of audiences are bigoted but by removing any conversation surrounding queer representation in media, it immediately becomes biased and panders towards the people who shout the loudest. Queer people know all too well that on social media, it can be hard to avoid the rampant bigoted views that are shared so violently towards marginalised communities. Companies are so fearful of the backlash towards queer characters, that they won’t even have them at all, regardless of whether it would be classified as “good” or “positive” representation.

In my experience with fandoms with popular queer ships, when the show is still airing there’s this sense of hope that we cling to that it might “turn out different this time” and the character or characters might actually end up canonically queer or together. And every time, it ends the same. And even if they are confirmed queer, the “bury your gays” trope swoops in before it can truly be explored. As a collective, we tend to self-deprecate in order to deal with it but it’s actually quite a damaging thing. It reinforces the idea that queer characters and storylines are not of merit or valued in mainstream media. This turns into a vicious cycle of queer-coded characters staying queer-coded and never becoming canon as that’s how far the media company producing the show is willing to go. They are not willing to take it a step further and explicitly show queer characters having agency and a place in media as this will result in backlash. Additionally, even when we are given queer characters, a lot of the time there is a lack of depth or exploration of their queerness, almost as if it doesn’t exist. For example, Loki’s genderfluidity and bisexuality is canon and confirmed but a large amount of people who were invested in this, were disappointed to see it not having any effect on his storylines at all due to Marvel as a distribution company whose audience, or rather, targeted audience is largely cisgender, straight men. Therefore, queer audiences typically already have an expectation going into a show with a queer ship; it will most likely never happen. I’ve seen first-hand people who actively don’t partake in these shows in order to avoid being disappointed and it hurts me to think that queer people have obtained this way of thinking in regard to media. That we know it’s not going to happen so we either avoid it or watch it with the miniscule hope that something will happen. And even if it does, the show will most likely get cancelled after the first season in the name of “watch hours”, (despite how dedicated or prevalent the fandom may be, dead boy detectives, IANOWT, first kill etc.) once again solidifying the belief that queer characters or stories are not worth the time, money or value that heterosexual ones are. This causes queer media to have a lack of funding and marketing, essentially dooming them to crash and burn. It’s like building a house made of paper and then blaming the weather on its destruction.

So no, I don’t believe that “going woke is going broke” as I have personally indulged in many shows and films due to the sheer prospect that there might be a queer character or couple. Too many times, I’ve binged several seasons of a show (in an alarmingly short amount of time I may add) purely because there is a popular ship/one of the characters might be queer – emphasis on might. It is due to the fear of these media companies that queer shows and film are immediately disadvantaged straight out the gate. However, I do see there has been a change. Obviously, there are many popular queer shows that have been given chances such as Heartstopper and Interview With The Vampire. To me, this clearly shows that queer storylines and characters, showing diversity and marginalised communities does bring audiences and value (as we ourselves know) and it’s purely the skewed bigotry which overtakes the reception and influences the production of media.

Additionally, when bi Buck went canon, the sheer disbelief of queer audiences that it happened at all, to me showed the standards that we’re used to. We’re so used to not having that, that when it does happen, we’re actively surprised by it. Obviously, 9-1-1 in particular has showcased many queer characters before and continues to do so, however this was different as Buck was a previously established character for six seasons and so to have a sexuality arc for someone later in life was definitely a huge moment for bisexual representation in television.

For Eddie, if Tim is doing this storyline, he is right in the approach he’s taken. I’ve talked before about how they weren’t sure whether it was going to be Buck or Eddie having this queer storyline in Season 7… To me that’s basically confirmation of queer Eddie, right? Well, not necessarily “confirmation” but the fact that he was even considered at all for this storyline solidifies his queer-coding to me and that we aren’t all “delusional” for recognising it. I’ve said before but it makes so much sense for Buck to essentially “go first” by having him realise he’s bi and come out in S7 because it was a very different way of doing it, as you would have with Eddie. Buck is very sure of himself as a person and for him it’s something that was always there, but he never realised it and he’s quick to accept it! There’s no tortured Buck struggling with his sexuality (unless of course you count the basketball scene) it’s relatively smooth in the sense that he’s not having a breakdown over it; it’s just his relationship that’s rocky and provides those hurdles. This was refreshing to see as it can often be an expectation that the queer character in the show is negatively affected by their queerness. However, with Eddie, it wouldn’t make sense for him to have that arc in season 7 itself. Partly because it had 10 episodes which would not do it enough justice, and because Eddie already had a lot to unpack. For instance, his whole season 7 storyline was surrounding his deceased wife which was just the start of his journey. Even many seasons later, he is still grappling with the effects of his grief on him and Christopher. Everything is much deeply rooted in him, as is everything in his backstory.

His whole begins episode and all of the backstory we see of him, is him trying to be someone he’s not/who he thinks he should be. He was trying to be a big brother turned parent for his sisters when his parents wouldn’t. He’s trying to be a good father at nineteen, he’s trying to conform to the hegemonic standard of masculinity by marrying Shannon (pressured by the church as she got pregnant young) he enlists because he’s trying to provide for his family even though he doesn’t realise that it’s actually hurting them instead, he’s trying to keep custody of Chris from his parents who only see Chris as a “do-over” for Eddie. Eddie trying his best and get a job to provide for his son. Him doing anything his can for Chris. Shannon coming back, dating her again for Chris - despite the fact that Shannon wanted a divorce (and then died). Eddie dating Chris’ teacher who he loves but Eddie doesn’t. Again, for Chris. He’s always doing things for other people. His parents, Chris, his partners, but never for himself. We’ve seen him spiral before into his fighting arc; that was something he did for himself in a sense, but it was only because he didn’t know how to properly regulate all the pain and grief he was feeling! He’s a single father trying so hard to be the very best he can for everyone around him, to live up to “what it means to be a man” pushing down any emotionally vulnerability until he inevitably snaps. The church, his catholic guilt! This affects him in numerous ways - religious wiring quite literally effects the ways you think about everything and internalise the things that happen to you. Kim was something he did for himself, but it still tied to everything else and his grief. Because of all this, no wonder you wouldn’t be able to fit his gay awakening into a 10-episode season… Eddie requires more time and thought behind what he’s going to have to face and process by himself. For the first time, he is truly alone with his thoughts and is faced with who he is. Outside of his parents, outside of Chris, Shannon, the army, the church, the 118, he is discovering who he truly is, not what anyone else or any institution expects him to be. And this is why, it’s gonna take a lot out of him and is a much different storyline to the one that Buck went through.

Everyone’s sexuality realisation/coming out is different and I really can’t imagine Eddie going through the arc that Buck went through so I think it was a good decision to go with Buck for Season 7. Eddie has so much more to deconstruct and process in order to accept or even just realise his attraction to men, however that plays into his relationship with Buck. And even more so, his lack of attraction to women.

Honourable mention of “I’m broken. I’m broken and I can’t fix it,” being said in his conversation with Kim which is a heavily queer coded statement, as this is a concept that is frequent in the queer community of thinking you’re broken due to your identity. I’d genuinely be surprised if this is not the direction they’re going as there’s so many moments like this with Eddie across the seasons (cough dating feeling like a performance cough) especially this one, which just stand out and heavily resonate with queer audiences. I’d say if they don’t, it’s a huge missed opportunity and character assassination to be honest. I care so deeply about Eddie and he’s such a complex character, it annoyingly makes me mad when people undermine him or pin him down to one thing as if multiple things can’t be true at the same time. I know he’s a fictional character and in reality, it’s not that deep but when people undermine his queer-coding or deny it, it feels like denying a whole group of people’s experiences akin to his.

So, the “emotional reason” behind the moustache in my mind, would definitely link to the idea that Eddie has clung possibly extra hard to his perceived idea of what masculinity is to him/what it’s expected to be. Yes, the style of moustache is engrained in queer culture, but I think that it’s more so an accessory which he’s using to overcompensate for his queerness, (consciously or not). I’m relating this to one of my favourite queer films, Maurice, as in that movie facial hair, specifically moustaches play a significant role in displaying the characters attitudes towards their queerness without explicitly saying them. Maurice and Clive both go through phases of having a moustache, with Maurice first when he is in a period of reluctance towards his sexuality. He’s the more accepting of the two, so it doesn’t last long. However, as Maurice moves out of this phase and begs Clive to stay with him and be together, Clive transitions into that position and denies Maurice’s claims that they could be happy somewhere together. He clings to the traditional ideals of marriage and heterosexuality, as is the norm in 1910’s England, trying to bring an end to the whole affair. Later, when Clive announces he’s engaged to be wed to a woman, he has a moustache and continues to have this moustache for the rest of the film, showing how he’s never going to accept himself for who he is, and is using this to conceal his emotions. The moustache here, represents hiding your true self and repressing your desires, acting as a “mask”. This to me, is very reminiscent of how Eddie appears with his moustache, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up with the same metaphorical reasoning.

In the first episode (the only episode that’s currently out), we saw that Gerrard approves of his moustache, himself being the typical masculine archetype that Eddie may believe himself to be or believes that he should be. Not that Eddie wants to be like Gerrard; of course not, he’s a bigot. It’s that portrayal of masculinity which ties into how he was brought up, and the ideals of the catholic church surrounding gender roles and sexuality. I thought this direct comparison was interesting between them as Eddie is definitely doing this for approval if not from others, but from himself that “this is who he is” when in reality it’s not. In my interpretation, the fact that they’ve specifically mentioned episode six as when he shaves off the moustache and has this physical manifestation of his inner demons, screams to me a queer arc for Eddie. I think there is so much potential for his character and storyline, not just for the ship he’s involved in but for himself and everyone who sees themselves in Eddie.

In conclusion, I really hope they go down this route and if they don’t, once again, it will be a huge, missed opportunity and I wouldn’t be certain where they’d go with his character if not there. This was just a chance for me to get my thoughts out, ahead of the upcoming episodes and I really hope we get to see a positive outcome for his character, whatever route they take.

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plutoslvr · 2 years ago

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Okay so in my last Kevin post, I mentioned I have analysis' on how Kevin isn't a coward and how his trauma still affects him and you guys wanted to read it so here!

Why Kevin Day Isn’t a Coward:

Essentially this comes down to 3 specific points in the fandom and even in the books since people are very adamant about the whole coward thing. The two things that people (in book and fandom-wise) use to argue that Kevin is a coward are:

Kevin is still afraid/ doesn’t stand up to Riko

That he left Jean behind in the nest.

Starting off with the first point. Kevin is still afraid and doesn’t stand up to Riko for the majority of the books. Firstly, we need to understand that Kevin has been abused from an extremely young age in the Nest and was conditioned into thinking that kind of behaviour was normal. And by that I mean specifically Riko’s abuse but before that, it was Coach Moriyama that abused both of them.

He was stuck in the Nest for over a decade where his only role was “property” the entire time. That was all he would ever be to them and additionally to that, he wasn’t even allowed to be better than Riko. His entire life from the very start has been about exy but it was only after his mothers death where it became life or death.

During tfc when Neil finds out how Kevin’s hand really broke Wymack says “But the day Kevin stops playing forever is the day he dies. He has nothing else. He wasn't raised to have anything else. Do you understand? We cannot lose to the Ravens this year. Kevin won't survive it."

He wasn’t raised to have anything else, exy is quite literally his everything, and without it, he has nothing and nobody. In this same scene, Wymack says, “Kevin doesn't talk about his time at Evermore, but I could tell it wasn't the first time Riko or Moriyama laid a hand on him. It was just the first time Kevin was smart enough to pack his bags and walk away.”

We never find out in detail what exactly happened to Kevin in the Nest but in TRK when Neil goes there we can see how deluded and obsessed Riko is with Kevin.

Neil moved up alongside him and regretted it almost immediately. Postcards of faraway cities both foreign and domestic were taped to the walls. Beneath each one were scraps of paper. Kevin's now-familiar scrawl listed dates and explanations for the travels. Most of them were games. Some indicated photo shoots and interviews. Books lined the shelves built into the headboard and Neil knew from skimming the spines they were Kevin's. Kevin was majoring in history for reasons Neil couldn't understand; these dry titles were the sorts of things he would find fascinating. It gave Neil chills to see his space preserved like this. It was like Kevin had gone out on an errand, not that he'd transferred to another team entirely.

Riko is so sure that Kevin is going to come back to him because he’s instituted such fear into him, he doesn’t think Kevin has the strength to stand up to him. Which he does, but people don’t seem to realise you can’t undo over a decade's worth of trauma overnight.

Anyway, during Neil’s time in the Nest, he’s treated very similarly to how Kevin would be considering he was in his place but also not as harsh because they had to send Neil back to the Foxes inevitably.

"I am going to love hurting you," Riko said, "like I loved hurting Kevin."

What follows this is Riko tying Neil down and torturing him with a switchblade. By the time Neil leaves the Nest he doesn’t remember anything from the experience- he was so traumatised by it that he doesn’t remember it at all. (It also kinda sucks how Neil gets more sympathy for being in the nest for 2 weeks than Kev did for being there for over a decade.)

Putting this into perspective, Kevin went through that for so much longer and doesn’t get nearly enough of the same sympathy Neil did. Neil returned and Kevin got punched for letting him go even though he tried persuading Neil not to. Kevin has always had Neil’s best interest at heart.

Kevin shook his head and bulled on when Neil started to argue. "The master wants to salvage you. He's going to sign you to the Raven lineup in spring. So long as you keep quiet and keep your head down he won't tell the main family he's found you." "I'm not a Raven," Neil said. "I never will be." "Then run," Kevin insisted, low and frantic. "It's the only way you'll survive."

Kevin was willing to sacrifice the only chance he had to prove his autonomy to the Moriyamas if it meant Neil would be safe. Without Neil, they wouldn’t have enough players to qualify and they wouldn’t be able to play at all. (Again: “But the day Kevin stops playing forever is the day he dies. He has nothing else. He wasn't raised to have anything else. Do you understand? We cannot lose to the Ravens this year. Kevin won't survive it.")

Not to mention the whole “Kevin was silent for an endless minute, then said, "You should be Court." It was barely a whisper, but it cut Neil to the bone. It was a resentful goodbye to the bright future Kevin had wanted for Neil. Kevin recruited Neil because he believed in Neil's potential. He brought him to the Foxes intending to make a star athlete out of him. Despite his condescending attitude and his dismissals of Neil's best efforts Kevin honestly expected Neil to make the national team after graduation.

And even after that, he promised to teach Neil, because at the end of the day, Neil was still Neil and he never gave up on him once.

And Neil understood that being on the run for 8 years was more preferable to the Nest.

“But all Neil had to do was look at Kevin to know he would have hated that life

too.”

Sorry I kinda went off track there anyway we can also see how much Riko’s presence still affects Kevin especially in scenes like the Kathy Ferdinand show.

“Any animosity Neil felt toward Kevin for forcing him onto this show evaporated. He couldn't be angry when Riko was here, not when Riko was to Kevin what Neil's father was to him. Petty anger had nothing on this full-fledged terror.”

Obviously, we all know what a dickhead Neil’s dad was to him so Neil comparing the fear of his father being similar to Kevin’s fear of Riko is so important because it just puts into perspective how afraid Kevin is here face-to-face with his abuser the first time since said abuser permanently disabled him.

But what I don’t think is that Kevin has been standing upto Riko since the start because right after this when they were backstage, Kevin physically stopped Riko from hurting Neil even if it meant getting hurt by Riko again.

A black look twisted Riko's expression into something ugly and unrecognizable. He reached for Neil, but Kevin caught his arm to stop him. Riko slammed his elbow back into Kevin's face without missing a beat.

This scene is probably the best to describe how downright afraid Kevin is of Riko but there are others when Kevin has multiple panic attacks at just the thought of Riko or being in the same vicinity as him and rightfully so! Riko abused him, manipulated him and then took away the only thing he had. And Kevin was just forced to think this was okay.

And a lot of characters and fans see his fear as cowardice instead of a normal trauma response. This is also because Neil tends to speak out more against Riko than Kevin (You know I get it…) but unlike Neil, Kevin has had direct repercussions towards him for the “mistake” of talking back to Riko which of course makes him hesitant.

He knows the Moriyamas could drag him back at any moment and he's terrified of that happening.

Which leads to the second bit of “Kevin doesn’t stand up to Riko.” when many times, he has.

The most prominent example is in TRK, just after the foxes lost their first match to the ravens.

“You have fallen so far, Kevin. You should have stayed down and saved us the trouble of forcing you back to your knees." "I'm satisfied," Kevin said. It was the last response any of the Foxes expected from him. They forgot about Riko in favor of gaping at Kevin. "Not with their score or performance, but with their spirit. I was right. There's more than enough here for me to work with."

Kevin chose the foxes over the ravens- over Riko. He doesn’t allow their loss to become something Riko can use against him but instead something to affirm his current standing with them. This is also the first game Andrew played without his meds meaning he’s crashed by the end of it.

Kevin distracted the Ravens from Andrew's unsteadiness by facing them.

Kevin willingly turned to talk to his ex-abuser and his team if it meant Andrew wouldn’t be under fire. Most people only see Kevin and Andrew as Andrew protecting Kevin but Kevin protected Andrew just as much.

And of course we have the whole tattoo removal and the last exy match against the foxes but I need everyone to understand that those are so so so important. Kevin spent the entire series save the last quarter of the last book viewing himself as Riko’s property. Riko refers to him as such and even without Riko near him, his control is still strong over Kevin.

So Kevin removing his tattoo and replacing it with something with a higher hierarchical structure than Riko’s status as king is so detrimental, it’s a turning point for him because he’s viewing himself as his own person now. And Kevin scoring the winning goal brings us full circle because the last time he did that with Riko, he ended up disabled and shunned.

This brings me to my second point about Kevin running away from the nest. Alot of people see Kevin escpaing from the nest and leaving behind Jean as an act of cowardice. This bit gets a bit complicated because in no way shape or form am I trying to compare trauma’s or anything like that.

But to continue on. The ravens had a very strict policy that we got to see during Neil's experience one of which being that no matter how injured they were, they were still expected to show up to practice. The more mistakes they made the more punishment they'd find themselves in. Not showing was practically a death wish.

Now Kevin having his hand fucking broken would mean thay either he doesn't practise and get punished or practise with his fucked up hand and further damage it. If he stayed I wholeheartedly believe he would've died.

He ran away to save his life and that will never be cowardice not once. He didn't go to Wymack immediately when he found out because he knew what kind of target he'd paint on Wymacks back.

"He was trying to protect him," Neil said. "If Coach knew Kevin was his son, he'd have tried to take him from Edgar Allan." Nicky grimaced. "They'd have never let Kevin go."

He only left when he had no other option. He had nothing left, the one thing he did have was taken away from him, he had no purpose and for once Riko didn't care enough about him to pay attention. And he used that to run.

Leaving Jean behind was something he always regretted, but it was a game of survival. Jean was a gift to the Moriyamas, he was also property to them and couldn't leave. And if the roles were reversed I strongly believe Jean would've done the same thing.

Also Kevin finds a place for him layer with the trojans because he knew that being a fox wouldn't be good for him.

"He isn't safe with us," Kevin said. "I won't give him false hope."

Staying in the nest would've been suicide for Kevin. He's one of the biggest victims in the series but nobody talks about it enough I fear and there's so much to learn about him via context clues etc.

And the saddest thing in my opinion is that Kevin knew was it was like to be loved, he was raised by his mother for a few years before going to the Moriyamas.

ANYWAY to conclude, I suck at essays and I hope I've worded everything well and what I'm trying to say gets across. Kevin is not a coward, never has been a coward and never will be. He's survived through such a damaging and abusive environment only to get moved to a separate environment where everyone just ridicules his defense tactics and he has no real sense of support.

His reasons for what he does always stems from the fact the he doesn't want to go back to being under Riko and Coach Moriyamas "care" and that he's afraid. And most of the time it's things he can't shake from the nest.

Like when he pushes the foxes its so they're always at their best and so none of them get hurt or punished for mistakes. He pushed himself the hardest because he doesn't want to directly affect his teammates.

Or the celebrity persona he was forced to develop.

Or how he makes sure everyone is staying healthy and that they don't force themselves to play when sick or injured because he knows what it's like to be forced to play like that day after day.

AND IVE GONE OFF COURSE AGAIN yeah I kinda mashed together both analysis' of how Kevin's trauma from the nest affects him and how he's not a coward into one thing AND THIS IS SUPER LONG so if ur still here thank you very much for reading I really hope this makes sense

#kevin days defense lawyer right here #this is the longest thing ive ever posted on tumblr #aftg #kevin day #aftg kevin #neil josten #aftg neil #andrew minyard #matt boyd #aftg series #aftg andrew #andriel #kandreil #kevneil #kandrew #david wymack #riko moriyama #FUCK HIM #jean moreau

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tossball-stick · 2 months ago

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heyy i saw your latest post about john's aromantic trutherism and i didn't exactly understand what you mean by that... could you explain? i too don't think he is actually in love with abigail if that's what you were saying...?

hiii!!! 1: thank you for asking about this im excited to write and analyze him in this way

2: plsplspls get the idea outta ur head that aromantic people cant love. noooo i couldnt have been misunderstood more. i wanna clarify that i do think john loves abigail. i just dont think that love is all that romantically motivated and ive got a few reasons to believe so.

3: uhhhh uhhh this ended up being like 2.5k words of analysis on john im sorry. no one on tumblr has asked me my thoughts about him before so this is the first time im talking about a lot of the stuff here and theres so much ive thought about johns character and its all messy and intertwined. itll be a little all over the place. i am deeply sorry.

okay. first reason? hes otherwise not much of a romantic. whether he wants to be or not, he falls flat on his face every attempt there is at being romantic with abigail (rarely do we see him be romantic with other women) is usually met with disdain, if there even are many to begin with. its rare to hear john say something pleasant about having a woman, and its rare to ever witness them having a good time together while in the gang.

...up until the epilogue and john gets his shit together. but by that point i could argue further analysis as to how john isnt wholly himself by that point. hear me out.

john and arthur are two halves of one whole to me. its clear theres some sort of void in john after arthur dies, and he still holds the memory of arthur very very dear. he does his best to keep the memories alive, in fact, in a way to keep arthur alive.

this starts extending to some kinda interesting parallels, though. writing and drawing in arthurs journal like he did, the hat being placed on johns head, john proposing with marys ring, the phrasing and tone of johns proposal is also shockingly familiar to arthur telling john that itd make him happy if john went to his family... after arthurs death, i find john taking on many of his traits even. he becomes more quiet and closed off, we see it even in rdr2 with arthur telking him to "knock it off with the whole being mysterious thing" or whatever. arthur claims its to act like dutch, but ill do you one better, its clearly just john idolizing his older brother and trying to be like him to be a proper man. this brings me to my next point...

the time period of rdr2!!! yayyy cowboys, the victorian era, Did u know. being a man was something you had to do in previous american and european cultures? this slowly started fading as we roll over into the 20th century, but there was a lot of emphasis placed on performing your role as a man. to be a good man, you must do xyz. otherwise, you are seen as immature, as a boy, as a child.

throughout the entire series of red dead redemption, both 1 and 2, theres a lot of stuff pointing towards jogns struggle to Be A Man. arthur and dutch frequently refuse to let him grow up, still calling him "little john" and still treating him like hes a rowdy unruly boy that needs to learn better, not a man who should know better. hosea is the only man treating john like hes a man, and even then id say hes fairly lax with the guy. only as the story of rdr2 progresses do we see arthur start to shift his view towards john. not as a boy to stay a boy, because the gang isnt gonna be around forever. john cant keep being a boy. he needs to become a man, take care of his family.

working off a distinctly gentleman influenced view of masculinity, johns inability to be a man is almost directly tied to his inability to be a proper romantic for his wife. compared to arthur, who is seen taken women on dates and flirting with them just to make them laugh at times. hes dancing with the ladies and helping them up and down the coaches, wagons, and horses. john like. just barely remembers to do that for abi in the epilogue. again, his failings to be a true romantic are tied with his failings as a man.

in rdr1, this even extends to bill having the bit of dialogue, "you always were a scared little boy!" continuing to imply that john is not a man, hes never been a man. the only reason we can read him as a man Now is because we are going by arthurs definition of manhood. we can extend this further and say bill still views john as a boy because john does not live up to bills expectations of manhood- while arthur may view being a man as something chivalrous, more gentlemanly, bill clearly views masculinity as power and violence, without much to do with women. john does not live up to that, to bill, until the end.

if you read "masculinity" as "being romantic and chivalrous towards women", then, as john fails at being a romantic, he too fails at being a man. there are a lot of other ways john is immature and childish but this is a really easy one to point out if you know the time period and just how much emphasis was placed on both romanticism and manliness, and how they intertwined.

third reasoning for aro john: his family wasnt his for so much of his life. this one is another one that needs a bit of elaboration i fear.

the story of john and abigail getting together is simple enough. she joined the gang at 17 as a sex worker, slept around with some of the gang, then for one reason or another, very clearly believed that the pregnancy was johns. john runs away for a year.

in this time, we dont know a whole lot about what gang life was like without john. however, with arthurs comments about marrying abigail himself and loving her, and his close relationship with jack, i think its pretty clear arthur was the one being a man in johns place. when john left, there was a john shaped hole arthur had to fill. (i also like to think this because the potential misery of arthur having to lose his family a second time once john returns is fun to me.)

even in the story of rdr2, we see john Love and Care For his family, but its never in the same, romantic way arthur seems to involve himself in abi and jacks lives. john will defend them with his life, but when it actually comes to pulling himself up by his bootstraps and being a father or a husband, he kinda just drags his feet and gets lost. he has to be told to reunite with his family at jacks party, despite, in my eyes, his love for jack being very clearly displayed while they were looking for him.

this is only bolstered by the conclusion of rdr2, with john and arthur on the mountain. arthur, in all his holy parallels, like jesus passing the virgin mary off to john the beloved, arthur tells john it would make him very happy if [john] went to be with his family and left. arthur is passing his family off onto john, the same as jesus passed his family onto saint john. (this one hits harder if you know the rest of the "arthur is jesus" parallels and symbolism but i feel like those would be more impactful as a web weave, and i cant make one right now haha. most obvious one i can think of to support this though is arthur being a scapegoat, dying for the gangs sins.) remember these points they are the most important and will come back later.

reason number four: "but javier-!" shhhhshshsh lemme talk. yes. john is infinitely more intimate with javier than abigail. however, again, we must take the time period into account.

not that far off from many disgusting redpill communities today, back in the 1800s it was typically expected for men to socialize with men and women with women. there was a certain level of bonding you only had with your wife, as well as a certain level of bonding you only had with the men who were close to you.

i have got to grab this fandom by the shoulders and say rockstar did not make these men as affectionate as they should have been with each other, and thats completely platonically. this is taking romance out of the equation, these men considered each other brothers and family. they were all in a cult together. they would have been very close, and also very affectionate! they would confide in each other and hold each other and cry to each other. they would make gifts for each other and sing and dance together. you can at least see them all pass around beer bottles between each other.

do i think john and javier are closer than most? yes absolutely. do i think javier is in love with john in some way? yes absolutely. do i think its romantic? ehhh maybe. do i think john loves javier? yes absolutely. do i think its romantic? ....noo not really. their whole dynamic reads as one sided through and through to me. even if they ever got together im sure they were quickly apart again, and i doubt the relationship would have been fulfilling in the ways javier would want, leaving him longing still.

the "ive always loved you, even now" immediately funneling into a crate being shoved onto john to knock him over can also be metaphorical- javiers love is disarming to john Because he does not know how to react to it. hes never known how to react to it. hes never known how to react to love from anyone, because "love" seems to feel so much different for everyone but him.

reason ff. fiiiiive. dear god. im sorry for this being this long: john loves. he clearly loves very hard. he was clearly wrecked by arthurs death, he would clearly crawl through hell for his family, he was clearly hurt because his love for javier eventually stabbed him in the back. however, to me, a lot of this love feels similar to the love john has for dutch, or arthur, really. its familial, its platonic, it sure as hell isnt romantic. (even if the games themselves like to joke about it being so lol.)

its just clear to me that he loves. he cant not love jack and abi after everything hes done for them. he cant not love javier after being so close for so long. but in the same vein, he cant not love dutch for the same reasons. ysee what i mean? his devotion to his wife and child feels identical to the devotion to dutch, compared to arthur, whos devotion to eliza and isaac directly went against his devotion to dutch.

much like with dutch, where john was still seen as a boy, he will ferociously do the big things for his family (saving jack, defending the ranch, tackling gangsters and robbers). he will almost always fail to do the little things that would make him a true man, though. yknow. winding down, relaxing, just working, not getting involved in fights. spending some time with his family maybe.

he can shape up and be good, he just never does.

and i think thats why hes so torn between leaving on his own, leaving with his family, or staying with the gang. theres no difference between romantic, platonic, or familial love for him. when arthur tells him to go be with his family and john replies "youre my brother" its not only announcing arthur as family, but i think it only reinforces that blurred line of what love is for john. "i love you the same as them, why must i leave you behind? if they are family and i love them, then you too must be family, for i love you."

point six: i hope you remembered the first few points like i told you to. you did remember right

this brings us back around to john not being a man by not being a romantic, arthurs family being passed off to him, and also john not wholly being himself later on. in the epilogue, between 1899 and 1908, we hear about how john has been unable to avoid trouble and has them on the run still. whenever abigail asks something of him, he instead goes and does what he wants. its only after she leaves him (ultimate failure of being a man) do we see him start to shape himself up again, and i would argue this shaping up increases substantially after he reunites with charles. charles sets him on the right path and reawakens that memory of arthur. i imagine being close to blackwater also helps here. id argue due to charles' apparent closeness with arthur, and then sudden closeness to john due to john being all thats left of arthur... it makes john also feel like hes all thats left of arthur. i believe after speaking with charles and thinking to himself, he decides to fulfill the one dream arthur had, seemingly, at the end: take care of the family he had lost. well, eliza and isaac are six feet in the dirt so next best option: abi and jack.

john starts to become quieter and more in his own shell- by rdr1 hes struggling to even really ask people for help with the most basic things. he becomes a lot more of a romantic speaker. he had always used fancy words with the gang, but never with charismatic purpose in the way i feel he does in rdr1. he starts making the decisions he thinks arthur would make. as a result, the hole that arthur left behind when he died, does not get filled by john. instead it simply gets filled with whatever arthur john can muster from within himself.

id also like to bring up john being the favorite, but not the golden boy. he was the youngest and most spoiled, but he was not the one dutch turned to for just about everything. he was still living in arthurs shadow, so i imagine all of that also plays a role in johns choice to live like arthur to get his family back, to be a man. he failed at being a man by his own merits. arthur was a real man by his own merits, lets just do what we've always done and look up to our older brother about it. copy what he does. clearly hes got it all figured out, even though you know he didnt, after reading the journal.

this all is finally bolstered by john making the choice to kill micah and repeat the VDL cycle of violence, which ruins the perfect life he made for himself. he makes another decision HE, not arthur, HE would make, and thus has to deal with the consequences.

in conclusion: i think john loves a lot and very hard. hes passionate about these people. but in his own words towards javier that start to become readable as projection, "hes a cynic that wants to be a romantic" and "hes all passion, no love ('no love' being how he perceives it, due to the views of those around him. he loves abigail and jack, he loved arthur, though because his version of love was different than theirs, its not read as love. therefore, he has none in his own eyes)."

all of this coupled with a detached attachment style that leaves him cold and distant leaves him being tugged along in romances he truthfully does not feel the same about. he says he does, because he loves, but he doesnt know why the love isnt the same. so, clearly, since he loves, he must want the romance. he has to perform it for love regardless of if he truly does want romance or not. if he loves, he must be a romantic, and hes failing at being a romantic, so he cant be himself. he must be someone else in order to convey his love to his family.

i hope i got everything across alright ^-^ feel free to ask questions or send more asks ive got plenty more where that came from

#john marston #red dead redemption #red dead redemption 2 #rdr #rdr2 #rdr1 #red dead redemption analysis #rdr2 analysis #red string on the corkboard #if anything ive written is insensitive towards arospec people lmk and ill fix it ^-^

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starbeltconstellation · 5 months ago

Note

So I gotta ask, do you have any headcannons(or cannons I guess since you're the author) about Melanie and Anakin that you can share without spoilers to much.

I'm going through Rewrite the stars withdrawal lol

Awww, thank you so very much for the ask, dear! (And so sorry again about your Rewrite the Stars withdrawal. 😭 Things have been crazyyy in my life. My bro was in the hospital for a while, but he’s okay now though. Also just me fighting my never ending depression spells 🙃). 😅😂

I would be happy to offer some “head” canons! Or canons, technically, as you said. 😂 Lol.

Essentially, this has become like one big, long SW meta analysis and meta analysis on my SW fic, Rewrite the Stars, and Anakin and Melanie’s characters. Sorry for the long response. 😭 I got really into explaining my thoughts. Haha.

I’ll put this under a read more, as it’s VERYYY long:

I’ll just say that the entire reason I started this story is because well, I wanted a fix it fic of course. 😂 But also just because I wanted to write this kind of grand, epic tale in general, just like Star Wars is supposed to be.

A lot of fics I’ve seen like this completely demonize the Jedi most of the time and blame them for their own genocide. And the ones that don’t, also flip it the complete opposite way around and demonize Anakin to where he’s nothing but a cackling demon who kicks puppies for fun (and well… would he do that AFTER the prequel trilogy when he’s in his emo Darth Vader era? Probably. 😂 But he wouldn’t be CACKLING while doing it. He’d be very bitter and callous about it, because Anakin likes to take out his anger on the world when he’s in pain, so by GOD the entire galaxy is gonna be in pain along with him).

But anyways, I’m kinda getting off track.

My point is: the whole reason I started my SW fic is because I wanted to write the type of epic, grand tale of a fic that I’ve been looking for that treats all of its characters with love and respect while ALSO still calling out their flaws and allowing them to grow. That includes everyone: Anakin, Padmé, Ahsoka, Barriss, Mace, Obi-Wan, Dooku, Satine, etc—EVERYONE.

I feel like fandom has become this toxic environment where if you’re criticizing a character, then… (le gasp 😱)… you don’t really LIKE themmm. (Untrue. 😂).

I love, love, LOVE Anakin. He is my hot, insane, child killing bastard of a mans.

… But I also hate him too. 😭😂

I HATE what he’s done and what he believes in after the war and how he just wallows like a child in his pain. I HATE how selfish he is (while at the same time heavily relate to his fear of death and losing those he loves to them dying/growing older). And I also HATE how damn close he was to making a better choice, but he DIDN’T, because in the end, it didn’t MATTER if Anakin technically knew the ‘right’ way to act. He purposely went against it, because he was just too selfish to let go of Padmé (he kinda did a self fulfilling prophecy with her death, but we’re not gonna talk about that part right now), and so he decided his happiness meant more than the entire galaxy, and burned down his childhood home like a school shooter and helped genocide his friends just for the CHANCE to save his wife.

And all of this, in the usual fics I’ve seen, can somehow be undone, just by changing a few little moments in Anakin’s life where he doesn’t get his feelings hurt: ie; Obi-Wan faking his death, Ahsoka leaving the Order/being framed by Barriss, or Mace/Qui-Gon/whoever-the-fuck-you-want-to-say being assigned as his Master instead of Obi-Wan.

And just… no. 😂

As shown through this wonderful SW blog here:

Anakin doesn’t do what he did because, oh, “This, this, and THIS happened to him”, and if you take that away and help him avoid it, he’ll suddenly change and be all warm and fuzzy inside and won’t burn the whole fucking galaxy just because HE cannot handle Padmé (MAYBE) dying and leaving him alone (when he wouldn’t even really BE alone, but Anakin also clearly puts Padmé/romantic love above all else. He might care for his friends and family, but he’d throw them all under the bus if it came down to the wire between them and Padmé). This is something I will go into in the fic as Anakin slowly starts to take a look at himself as he realizes: “wait… wtf? Do I even KNOW what Rex does outside of work? 🤔😨” for him to realize that he’s so obsessive over one person… that everyone else is slowly becoming put to the wayside.

Stopping one or two little things in Anakin’s life during the Clone Wars isn’t going to magically make him see the light and not be a currently ticking time bomb.

That is not how change WORKS. Not REAL change anyway. All of the fics I’ve seen written, usually hand wave a lot of Anakin’s misdeeds and flaws away, and pretend like if you hold Anakin’s hand through certain parts of the war and help him avoid THESE certain moments, that he’ll suddenly just magically become a better person who understands what being selfless and less greedy actually means.

That… is not true change. TRUE change is Anakin HIMSELF realizing slowly but surely as the war goes on that he’s slowly becoming someone he doesn’t recognize in the mirror anymore (*cough* Mel line drop from upcoming chapter? 👀✨ *cough*). TRUE change is Anakin HIMSELF working through his flaws and inner demons, before he gradually begins to realize with a sense of sickening horror that he has been WRONG: ie; massacring an entire Tusken village down to the last child while never telling another soul except Padmé about it and whistling happily to himself without a care in the world as the war rages on.

TRUE change (as you might’ve started to guess from the most recent chapter of my fic) is Anakin HIMSELF slowly but surely starting to question his actions, by comparing them to other people he respects and cares for.

Which brings us to your question on “headcanons”.

The entire purpose of the relationship between Melanie and Anakin (besides me living vicariously through her 😂) is that they are a MIRROR for each other.

Melanie and Anakin, while very different, aren’t COMPLETE and total opposites. There are purposeful parallels between them: their moms, their care of droids, their fear of losing those they love to death, and the PURPOSEFUL CHOICE GIVEN TO MELANIE BY THE SHOPKEEPER 👀 that parallels the choice Anakin is given at the end of ROTS by Palpatine himself in their choice to help the galaxy or be selfish and choose themselves/their own wants instead.

There is a quote I have based their relationship off of. I will share it here (if you are still with me, because I know I ramble a lot 😅😂):

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.

A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake.

—Elizabeth Gilbert

Melanie and Anakin are meant to have parallel journeys, even though their personalities are very different. But it’s more than that: their fatal flaws are in direct conflict with each other.

Anakin’s fatal flaw is: greed/selfishness.

Melanie’s fatal flaw is: fear/judgement.

BUT as they are forced into working together… the more they interact with each other… the more their fatal flaws are FORCED to be challenged by the other.

Anakin’s more selfish nature is challenged more and more by just being in Melanie’s presence and watching how she acts with complete compassion and selflessness in certain situations, which makes him slowly start to look at himself internally and take a look at his own actions and thoughts, gradually beginning to realize how selfish he’s slowly become without even realizing it.

Melanie, in turn, has the purposeful flaw of judgment, which can make her self righteous at times (even if she IS correct most of the time 😂), and also the flaw of fear, which as readers have seen, makes her a bit more cautious than she should be in her actions on trying to outsmart Palpatine to save the galaxy.

It’s kind of ironic: just being AROUND Anakin slowly begins to challenge Melanie’s fatal flaws (since she was completely fucking terrified of him the very first moment she realized she was in the SW universe and realized Anakin/Darth Vader was real now 😂). She sees things in such a black and white way at first, but as time goes on, Anakin’s need to be gentle with her and prove himself to Mel, makes her question her judgment with him, which allows her the ability to give him a chance. In turn, just being in his PRESENCE challenges her other fatal flaw on fear, since he’s a walking nightmare PTSD trigger for her pounding heart (and not always in the fun way 👀💓❤️‍🔥☠️😂).

Anyway, my point is that they aren’t just meant to be together romantically to be TOGETHER. It’s because I have purposefully tried to develop a romantic slow burn relationship that comes with my story to weave itself against the original theme of Rewrite the Stars, which is this: TRUE change and atonement/redemption.

Anakin physically CANNOT get closer to Mel, until he forced himself to take a step back and give her some space. If he wants to get anywhere with her, he HAS to start looking internally at himself to try and change and be more gentle with her.

Melanie, in turn, CANNOT outsmart Palpatine and win the war without Anakin’s help and working together with him over the next three years of The Clone Wars. She HAS to get past her judgment and allow herself to swallow her terror enough to give him a chance, because she NEEDS him to win.

This is a chess match between her and Palpatine, remember? And if you lose the king, you lose the game.

ANAKIN is the king. 👀

I bet you can’t guess what chess piece Melanie is. 😂 Lol.

Anyway, I feel like I’ve done a whole lot of taking in circles (sorry about that 😅), because I wanted to go ahead and explain my whole process for this fic while I had the time, so I can also refer this post if I ever need to again.

Now! Getting into some more FUN Stuff:

Idk if you’ve looked up my fic on Wattpad, but I have a lot of cool graphics posted there from my mind and from other artists/authors that have gifted me such wonderful cover art ( @shoniwake ! 👀✨❤️), and in a certain subsection, I have a whole playlist page dedicated as a type of ‘outline’ for the entire story of my fic (fair warning, it’s a lot 😅), just because I think it helps me with planning stuff out.

I won’t tell you all of them, of course. But I’ll share a few of my favorite songs that I always think are the PERFECT songs for Melanie and Anakin’s relationship and their slow burn romantic development. 😭🥺💔❤️💕✨

Innocence by Nathan Wagner

Stronger Together by Lou & SQVARE

Now I See by Lou & SQVARE

I love these three songs so much, because of their theme of two people coming together as a team and/or learning to open up their hearts to the other and to help the other person the see world in a different way. 🥹❤️💕

This is basically what I want for Melanie and Anakin. Their relationship isn’t just about having a romance in the story (although that’s part of it. Haha 😂💕). It’s about how their relationship meshes in with the rest of the themes of the story: TRUE change and growth into something better.

Melakin is purposely written to be in direct contrast to Anidala (which is still written with care and not erasing their genuine affection, by the way! I think it’s extremely lazy writing to write a canon relationship OOC just to prop up your OC’s own), which shows the difference between a more healthy developing relationship that is based on genuine care and respect (Melakin) and in contrast with one that is more based around idealizing the other person/ignoring their faults and putting them up on a pedestal that is sure to lead to disappointment (Anidala).

This is, as you know from reading the fic, slowly starting to be shown in how Anidala acts with each other in their trash fire (in my opinion! Don’t kill meeee! 🙌😂) of a marriage, which has them basically talking past each other/not really caring about anything that isn’t SPECIFICALLY RELEVANT to the other person (ie; them. Not anything with their family or job. Just THEM. Because while the love is genuine, it’s also eerily obsessive, which was GL’s whole point of them being star crossed lovers that burn out from their own flawed choices in regards to being together and trying to have it all).

This is also shown in my fic with Melakin vs Anidala contrasting each other in Anakin’s choices and how he interacts with them. Anakin REMEMBERS stuff about Mel’s life and choices that really he has no need to care about, but he does anyway. In contrast, there is a scene in the latest chapter of my SW fic where Anakin forgets a very… important member… of Padmé’s family 😭 (If you know, you know 👀🫣😬). 😂

I guess what I’m saying is is that I’m trying to not PREACH to the readers of my fic. I’m trying to write scenes that SHOW them what I believe to be true in regards to Anidala’s toxic relationship/the Jedi being scapegoats that everyone cruelly blames for their own genocide/how the Jedi culture might not be how THE READERS want to live, but it doesn’t change the fact that it IS a valid culture/way to live, and it doesn’t deserve to be eradicated just because you don’t understand/like/agree with it.

I’m trying to lead up into the themes and lessons of my fic as I go along, is what I’m saying. 😂 Which is a really heavy feat, considering how long it’ll end up being as a grand, epic tale. 😩

And a big part of the theme of my SW Fic: genuine change and growth into something better than you were before (ie; TRUE redemption) cannot happen to Anakin as easily as some of the time travel fix-it fics/other fix-it fics I’ve seen written on A03 before. Changing a few little things so Anakin doesn’t have to deal with a few moments in his life is not GENUINE and TRUE change. What that is is essentially placation. It’s PLACATING and CODDLING someone dangerous, which allows them (for the MOMENT) to calm down, because they are generally happy and have the things they want and aren’t under stress like Anakin was in the ending of ROTS when there was nobody there to hold his hand for him to ‘guide’ him in the right direction.

For TRUE change and redemption to happen for Anakin, he has to admit to himself that he was WRONG.

He has to ADMIT and ACKNOWLEDGE that actions he has taken are horrific (the Tusken Massacre), and accept people’s/the Jedi’s judgment on it without becoming defensive and acting like he’s being unfairly attacked and punished for something not that big of a deal. He has to ADMIT and ACKNOWLEDGE that his thought process has slowly but surely become corrupted over the years without him even realizing it, whether that’s from the war or Palpatine stroking his ego or from the trauma of his childhood making him cling to things too hard—it doesn’t really matter. He has to RECOGNIZE that he has become someone over the years that he can’t even recognize in the mirror in relation to that little nine year old boy on Tatooine (about how selfish he has become), and what he can do to change that.

I know some fans will think I am attacking Anakin and that I hate him or something (and well… I DO hate him… but I also love him 🫣☠️❤️😂), but that is not the case. I LOVE Anakin’s character and truly relate to him on such a deep level in terms of how terrified he is of losing the people he loves to death. I can recognize myself and some of my worst fears deeply in him.

However, at the same time, I can also acknowledge that Anakin’s trauma from his childhood (from slavery/his mother dying in front of him), has essentially made his entire personality completely self serving. Because yes, Anakin can care about other people. He cares about and loves his friends. He’d do anything he could to keep them from harm (at least in TCW era 🥶☠️), but the hard truth is… he doesn’t think of his relationships and saving them from death in terms of what his LOVED ONES deserve or what THEY will lose if they die. He thinks about it in terms of what HE will lose if they die.

He straight up says it in the scene with Mace and then the scene with Palpatine: He NEEDS to keep Palpatine (who he KNOWS is an evil Sith Lord) alive, because it’s the only way he can keep Padmé alive. HE can’t live without HER.

There’s genuine love there. I am not denying that. Anakin isn’t a cackling villain like Palpatine (it’s the whole reason Anakin CAN be talked into coming back to the Light Side by Luke, whereas Palpatine would melt Luke’s fucking face off without hesitation if he tried). He cares and loves his family and friends and wife and kids… in a TOXIC way. In an OBSESSIVE way. In a way that is essentially all about HIM: ie; selfish.

Example 1:

Out of context, this sounds very romantic and simply just a reasonable amount of worry. But in relation to all the other things Anakin will end up saying while referring to Padmé as essentially a possession, I’m placing it here anyway as perhaps a sign of his darkening thoughts.

Example 2:

Yes, yes, I knowwww… some of you ladies will be like: 🥺💔 at the sad murder puppy moment. And I suppose it’s still very evil wet cat bastard level/blorbo of him in a intoxicating way for people who want to feel loved—at the same time, he’s essentially saying: look, man, I don’t care if I gotta murder some kids and betray my friends and descend the galaxy and Republic into darkness (which I know my wife will be fucking horrified at). It’s very important that I DO NOT have to deal with this pain, okay?? 😭 Everyone else can be in pain, but not meeee. I’ll crush and stab my friends in the back just so I won’t be left alone from my wife dying.

Very sad. Very wet cat villain blorbo of him.

And yet—VERY selfish and evil. 😭🤷‍♀️👀😂

He’s essentially saying—fuck the galaxy. Let me get mine, and I’ll go home. ☠️

Example 3:

This one’s pretty obvious. By this point, he’s lost his shit. His mind’s already cracking at the seams as he tries to keep justifying the actions he’s taken, which will eventually lead into his 20 year long dissociation where he essentially goes, “Nahhh, that wasn’t meee. That was DARTH VADER. Anakin didn’t do that, because ANAKIN is still a good person (he mutters to himself over and over like a maniac at night in his emo villain lair), whereas I AM THE DARK INCARNATE. 😌🖤” so he doesn’t have to admit to himself that HE—yes, THAT he, Anakin fucking Skywalker—has become an actual terrible fucking person with no heart. 🤷‍♀️😭😬

I don’t see why this is so hard for SW fandom to get. It’s a METAPHOR George Lucas uses to say Darth Vader killed Anakin (and also just a way to plug up the plot hole of what Obi-Wan originally told Luke in the first movie). It doesn’t mean that Anakin’s consciousness is sleeping inside Vader’s head like a fucking cat. Lmao. 😭

Not only would that not make SENSE in terms of how GL wrote it, but it also just essentially makes Anakin’s ‘redemption’ (I don’t really view it as a true redemption. More like just the Christian version of salvation for his soul by the skin of his teeth. Although GL did say Anakin was redeemed in the eyes of LUKE only, because he said some crap about being redeemed in the eyes of our children) all but useless. 😭 You can’t say on one hand that Darth Vader’s ‘redemption’ is the most iconic one of all time, while at the same time saying on the other hand that “Anakin never did any of those things. It was DaRtH VaDeR! 🤪🤪🤪” because then you’re essentially absolving Anakin of all of his crimes while on the Dark Side, and if Anakin is absolved of all of his crimes… then wtf is there TO make him the most iconic ‘redemption’ of all time??? 😭🤷‍♀️ I mean, like—what IS there to ‘redeem’ at that point??? Ya can’t have both, kids. Lol. 😂

This is also essentially what Anakin wanted in terms of his relationship with Padmé and the Jedi Order. He wanted it ALL. He wanted BOTH. Sureee, he TALKED about quitting the Jedi Order eventually after the war to be with Padmé in a little space cottage. But could he WALK THE WALK? Could he really give up the thrill of chasing an enemy, or the twitch of his fingers in reaching for his lightsaber? 😑🤔 Me myself has some doubtssss.

He wanted it ALL. He wanted to be married while ALSO having the strength and power that came from being a Jedi Knight. He didn’t WANT to choose. He even SAYS it.

Example 4: Essentially this SW meme

He doesn’t want to CHOOSE. And it’s why it’s BS when it’s argued he was put in this position by the Council’s rules on marriage, because it’s LITERALLY just like a vow of a priest at a Catholic Church. They can’t marry either, just like the Jedi Order. BUT (unlike what fandom likes to believe), the Order isn’t some cult, and you are free to leave at any time (and hell, they’ll even build a statue after you leave, apparently, if the one they built of Dooku that’s in the Archives (I think) is anything to go by), just as a priest is free to leave the Catholic Church at any time. Because it’s a COMMITMENT to that place. And people might think it’s dumb/stupid/not like it—or even understand it! And you don’t HAVE to like something from a religion/culture/belief, or understand something, to still respect it (another theme drop for the next chapter of my SW fic? 👀😂).

So, what some people will probably wonder is—“But, Starbelt! (Le gasp 😱) Then how is the Jedi culture going to be respected in my fic, if Melakin is still endgame at the end of their slow, slow burn?”

And to that question, I say, “I am not a by-the-book-to-the-very-LETTER interpreter of the Jedi Code (although I’m not saying the code of an entire culture is gonna be ‘changed’ for legit one person/couple. Lmao. 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️😂), but I AM a Jedi lover who is of the belief that—even if you don’t completely AGREE or even UNDERSTAND the Jedi Order and their code—it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t be difficult to respect it. It shouldn’t be difficult to not scold a culture on their beliefs, while essentially saying that belief is the reason it is ‘good’ for The Force/galaxy that they were genocided as a ‘clean slate’. 😬🤦‍♀️☠️”

What I WILL say, is that I am going to explore the Jedi Order and the different interpretations of the Code and The Force in general in this fic, and what that means in terms of coexistence, instead of the frankly childish notion of just painting an entire culture as emotionless and wrong in their beliefs, like they are some kind of stuck up, snooty and rich culture that ‘deserved what they got’. 🙄🤦‍♀️😬☠️

ANYWAY, back to my point with Anakin, and how my fic is trying to complete the most massive and epic of all writing tasks: making Anakin slowly change and grow out of his greed and selfishness into a better person in such an organic way, that perhaps may one day be compared with the likes of Zuko’s redemption from ATLA (I know, I knowww. Pretty high hopes for myself. Lol. 😂).

So, essentially, in the original “timeline” of ROTS, Anakin is freaking losing it, and since nobody is there to hold his hand, he descends right into the core selfishness that is buried inside of him, where he basically just decides, “Fuck it,” and throws all of his morals out the window so he can keep himself from the pain of losing Padmé (ie; it’s really about HIM and his fear, and not about Padmé deserving to live and see more beauty in the world) by cutting off Mace’s hand to stop him from killing Palpatine, because—in Anakin’s OWN words:

Example 5:

Like… 🤷‍♀️😭.

People like to sing “Lalalala,” and plug their ears by pretending Anakin is just so shocked in this scene (le gasp 😱) that Mace is being so UN-JEDI-LIKE, and that it just convinced him that the Jedi Order truly has been ‘corrupted’. 🤦‍♀️🙄

Now see… that might hold some water if Anakin literally didn’t scream “I NeEd HiM! 😡” at Mace like an unhinged five year old, which literally PROVES that the only reason Anakin wants Mace to keep Palpatine alive and not to kill the guy yet is because he needs to learn the super-secret-Dark-Side-magicy way of how to save himself from the pain of losing Padmé to dying in childbirth.

… Because like some may recall, Anakin LITERALLY beheaded Dooku himself all but like… what? 12 hours ago? 😭🤦‍♀️

Essentially, this meme:

So, essentially, what I’m getting at here is: Anakin is a goddamn hypocrite. 😂

Now, in relation to my SW fic? What I essentially am TRYING to accomplish, is to have Anakin slowly CHANGE HIMSELF as the war goes on and he interacts more with Melanie and witnesses her compassion, while in turn comparing her actions to his own.

Melanie isn’t supposed to ‘fix’ or ‘change’ Anakin. Anakin is supposed to be INSPIRED to change from how he grows to care and admire Mel’s choices and who she is inside her heart as the Clone Wars rages on.

I do all of this, so in the HOPES that when he is presented with this scene again, it makes perfect sense to all readers of my fic that his choice may become different—essentially choosing for ONCE, a more selfless route, out of no expectation that he will gain anything in return (that only happens with Luke like—20 years later—and it’s not like he had many other options at that point. 😭🤷‍♀️ Lol.).

(And as I said—MAY become different… 👀 After all, Melanie still has a long way to go before the end of the war… 👀)

But yeah—that’s my plans with my SW Anakin x OC Fic, Rewrite the Stars, and how I’m planning it and Melakin’s relationship to go. I placed a big feat on myself. 😂❤️💕

If you wanna see some of my like… ideas/notes on what I have planned to eventually place in there somewhere, I will show you a few things, because it’s not really SPOILERS, since I already talk about the Jedi genocide a lot anyway (it drives me up the wall when SW fandom refers to it as ThE FaLl Of ThE jEdi 🤪🤪🤪). Guess it makes it easier to blame them all for their own deaths that way if you refer to their genocide and slaughter as a “fall”. 😭🙄 Idk. 🤷‍♀️

I also have some stuff with the history of Churches splitting into different factions (ie: The Great Schism of 1054), which I will be weaving in as a parallel at some point. 👀👀 I will not explain why, as that would be too spoilery, but I’m sure some of my more in depth analysis readers on my work could guess if they thought about it hard enough… 👀

There are also some comparisons on the Jedi genocide in the SW universe, and how it parallels the Air Nomad genocide in the ATLA universe pretty much to a T in terms of how fast it all happens in one day, and also how any survivors were hunted down and lured out with relics of their own culture, not to MENTION just the fact that both of these cultures are just non-western inspired in general (seriously, what is with people and killing monks in Temples? Lol. 🤷‍♀️😂). It’s also just an interesting comparison in general, because where the ATLA fandom usually is quite sympathetic to the Air Nomad genocide, on the other hand, the SW fandom is so nauseatingly nonchalant and cruel about the Jedi Order’s genocide that it’s almost downright weird. It’s almost like the SW fandom has this THING about never calling the Jedi’s “Fall 🙄” what it actually was—a horrific genocide. I swear to Godddd, SW fandom must be allergic to the word. 😂🤦‍♀️

I also threw in the ‘Hero’s journey’ thing I’ve been using for Melanie to try and make her a relatable protagonist, while also still having her own character arc along with Anakin’s. It was really important to me that she had her OWN arc away from Anakin, and that she had more connections and relationships in the SW universe than just him. Not only does it weaken her character if she had been made to be all about HIM, but it also just makes a certain… choice… 👀… with The Shopkeeper (her antagonist who parallels Palpatine, Anakin’s antagonist) hit all the more harder, because saving the ENTIRE GALAXY isn’t even about saving ANAKIN at all for her. Not at first, anyway.

Instead, from the very beginning, it’s all about how Melanie grows to care and feel compassion for the people she meets in the SW universe and becomes friends with, and how she cannot turn away from them and leave them behind to die, when she has knowledge that can help change their fates. It was SO important to me that Anakin is not even on Mel’s RADAR at first. She doesn’t hate him or anything. She doesn’t want him dead, but it’s not really about SAVING him either (if that happens along the way, it’s a happy bonus for her). Because—as you know—she’s TERRIFIED of him in the beginning, and just plans to avoid him like the plague.

And in doing so, she grows closer to others in the SW universe: Ahsoka, Rex, Yoda, Fives, Obi-Wan, all of the other clones, etc. ALL of that is so important for a certain choice she makes with The Shopkeeper (which I won’t spoil for any new readers who may stumble across this post and want to read my work 👀😂).

So, essentially, my fic is a grand, epic tale, that our main protagonist, Melanie Bains, is going on to save millions of lives in a galaxy far, far away from death and suffering.

No pressure, huh? 😂😬

That’s definitely going to crack and fracture at Mel’s psyche as time goes on… 🥶 The weight of such a feat on one’s shoulders essentially all alone becomes overwhelming. 😓💔 (*Cough* Hint for next chapter? 👀 *cough*).

So I’m really trying to follow that ‘Hero’s journey’ format. I already have her character arc outlined with a clear beginning and end. I just have to find the will to write the thousands and thousands of words to get there to that point. 😩😭😂

It still makes me so happy how many people relate and enjoy Mel. 😌🥹❤️💓🥰

Some planned themes I am going to weave in as the story goes along:

Example 1: Genocide

Air Nomad genocide propaganda from ATLA:

Jedi Order genocide propaganda (Not sure if it’s from before or after Order 66. Either way, it’s meant to rile the populace up against them and demonize the Jedi as ‘other’, like emotionless wizards that are barely human and aren’t capable of true compassion since they’re a ‘cult’ and not from ‘true’ familial structures, unlike the ‘good ol’ regular populace with their attachments 🤪’) from SW:

Example 2: Church factions splitting up/The Great Schism of 1054

Example 3: Hero’s Journey (Mel’s character arc)

… Now, moving past that long meta ramble, here’s some more songs from my playlist on Wattpad for Melakin’s developing romantic relationship and it’s slow, slow burnnnn. 👀💓❤️‍🔥😂

Borderline by Florrie

Let Me In by Michael Corcoran

The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson

Minefields by Faouzia & John Legend

Unlike the previous songs in the earlier part of this meta post, THESE songs are more about Melakin struggling to open up to each other. I’ll admit, a lot of it is more focused on Anakin trying to get Melanie to open up to him, because he doesn’t understand why she’s acting so terrified of him at first.

The one song that’s more about both of them trying to find common ground is “Borderline”, which is meant to be them both reaching out and trying to meet each other halfway. 😊🥰🥺❤️💕

And if you’re wondering what my favorite song is out of all of them?

It’s the “Innocence by Nathan Wagner” song. WITHOUT a doubt. It’s the PERFECT Melakin song that is basically what the whole arc of their relationship is supposed to be. 😭🥹❤️💔💕

Whew, that was a long post! So sorry about that. 😅😂🤷‍♀️ I just got really into talking about my fic and my writing process. I think this has even helped me with motivation! Losing hyperfixations is a bitchhhh. 😖😖

The only other thing I will add is this to hopefully ease your and everyone else’s minds: I may have to go on hiatuses every now and then because of writer’s block or a family/life problem like the recent one with my brother being in the hospital for a while. BUT! No matter WHAT, I will NEVER abandon this fic. It is literally gonna be my damn life’s work—I swearrrrr. 😖✊😂

To end this long SW meta off, I’m going to link another two great Pro Jedi SW meta posts from the wonderful Pro Jedi blog I mentioned earlier. Feel free to check it out if you want, because it’s a lot of Mel’s thoughts on the Jedi, and part of the problems she has to find a way to solve as the war goes on by trying to keep the Jedi in favor of the public’s eyes:

To any new readers that stumble across this and are curious enough to check out my fic:

Tags:

@ensomniaa

@heartfairy

@fangirlteallie

@xreadersunite

@shoniwake

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petarabbit2 · 10 months ago

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Realistic Ace Trappola + Headcanons

Ace headcanons + realistic artwork done with Art Breeder and edited in Clip Art Studio:

Okay so getting straight into it, this is my first post about my headcanons and realistic versions of twisted wonderland characters and the first one being introduced is *drumroll* Ace Trappola! Ace fans, you eating good tonight my chickies (that sounds so weird if u dont think of chickens right away LMFAO).

Sidenote: When headcanoning Ace and all my other characters, I take both factual and some of my personal thoughts/beliefs of the character to construct my headcanons.

So for Ace, its evident that I gave him acne due to reasoning such as his diet (fav food being cherry pie and mentioning his liking towards burgers) plus he is literally a teen boy that also has no women in his life and stereotypically the mother is the one to bring up looks as an issue, so without this Ace probably would have never gotten the right treatment for his acne.

He’s already a red head so I added on that by giving him freckles. Also, it's known that redheads are more prone to acne, so another note as to why I gave him acne.

For his features for a realistic rendition, I went with a heart shaped face (because Ace’s card suit is hearts) but his widow's peak is hidden beneath his bangs. He has a snub nose shape which is quite round and slightly upturned. He has thicker eyebrows cause we all know bro don’t give a shit about his appearance.

For his hair I went wild, it's extremely fluffy, a bit curly and like shoulder length when wet. Bro has had like two haircuts his whole life and probably smells foul. I also tried to keep to the original style pretty closely without it looking really weird like bro came straight out of an anime.

I didn't draw the bodies for any of them but Ace is more lanky with long legs and a rectangular body shape, but he has pretty big feet and hands.

Yeah and he's got a light British accent gang I’m sorry 😭 – he uses slang often as well.

Without & With Face Makeup:

Personality and backstory headcanons + a bit of character analysis:

Okay so Ace is one of the very first characters we meet in the game and a good one at that, a lot of people just put him in the category of “dumb friend with one brain cell”, and yes that's kinda true but every person had a reason to be the way they are due to personal experiences. We know in canon that Ace has always lived with his father and older brother but due to the literally no backstory on his mum, I’m saying his parents are divorced which he has much more time with his dad, also by his mannerism being so straight to the point and not sugar coated, this could be due to him being raised in an only male household. Which could also hint to why he “didn't feel committed” to his former relationship in middle school, he was so new to this type of love and got scared. After all he is just a teen, cut my boy some slack. (#1 Ace defender)

Due to this relationship with his mother and seeing how his parents fell out of love, fought or similar, he’s very bad with women which is why he has only male friends. The only way he would have a girlfriend (or woman friend) is if they were not sensitive to his zero-filter way of speaking and even tell him off for it. (not me doing this since my yuusona is a girl 💀)

It's still mentioned that the whole family gets together around holidays (although this could possibly just mean his grandma and such and not the mothers side) so maybe the divorce wasn't messy and they just didn't love each other anymore, which happens all the time with quick relationships.

Ace is also pretty immature and not into deep and emotional conversations which is common with teen boys (especially around his age group). So not trying to hate, but all those scenarios made up with him comforting the reader and helping them feel better, in reality, he probably wouldn’t have gotten why you're so sad and not really know how to comfort you. Which is completely fine! He's not fully grown in body or mind and people need to accept this.

He definitely makes your mum jokes and sex jokes, bro cannot stop himself laughing when a teacher says anything sex related. He's highly competitive and will sulk if he loses a basketball game or bet with a friend.

Also despite being not very empathetic (not on purpose though), he appreciates the little things. For example, he’d appreciate you remembering his birthday or always having a spare pencil for him in class as you know he always loses his. He really appreciates those friends and even though he lacks in some areas, he will always protect them and stay by their side no matter what.

In conclusion, he's just some teen boy who's still learning about life and people. I had a lot of fun making the realistic design and giving him more depth as a character and I'll be doing this for the rest of the cast and after that maybe side characters?? Only if you guys want it though, I’ll also one day release my yuusona 😞. (she’s my queen get ready yall (hi i’m the 10/10 editor and assistant 😋)) (together, we are big brain)

My editor/assistant cause I can’t grammar or spell to save my life: @cyb3rpnnk

SIDENOTE: DO NOT REPOST MY REALISTIC RENDITION OF ACE OR ANY OTHER CHARCTER I DO AS YOUR OWN. EVEN THOUGH THE BASE WAS MADE WITH AI IT IS STILL MY CREATION!

However you are permitied to use my headcanoing as your own for art or stories or whatever, just not my realistic rendition.

Hope you enjoyed my take on realistic Ace and my headcanoning!

#twisted wonderland #ace trappola #twisted wonderland headcannons #twst headcanons #twst hcs #twisted wonderland imagines #twst imagines #realistic twisted wonderland #twst art #twst fanart #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland fanart #twst wonderland #twst grim #yuusona #twst yuu #twst ace headcanons #twst ace trappola headcanons

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punkzines · 6 months ago

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TFP SOUNDWAVE X READER SHORT

reader just loves aliens.kinda.

a/n: let me just say this has been sitting in my drafts for like months…i might make this into mult. chapters…

In a moment of fear you had tried to escape, free yourself from the tight grasp of a tentacle-like cord that made itself oddly comfortable around your waist. It was mad, the whole situation seemed unreal.

But it was real.

How much you wish it wasn’t.

You couldn’t believe you were planning on doing something so reckless, so foolish. But it had to be done. There were too many rumors, too many sightings— consequences and conspiracies. You needed to do something, find out the truth.

You were a simple being, driven by curiosity and the thirst of knowledge. Knowledge wasn’t something you obtained easily though, as you were a low income student going to a local community college: Jasper, Nervada College. You had limited resources, oftentimes your power or internet ran out. But that was the reason why you went out. And why you are doing what you’re doing.

As of recent years, many people have reported sightings of UFO’s lurking around Jasper, Nevada. At first, you couldn’t consider the possibility. It was absurd, what would aliens want to do with Earth out of all the other planets that are so much better? But then— power outages, numerous reports— videos and photos that couldn’t be explained, and seemed too real to be edited, brought you a certain type of thrill you just simply couldn’t ignore.

So, you did what anyone would do, you’ve spent the last two years researching, and investigating. Looking around sites strangely suddenly closed by the government, staying up late because what alien wouldn’t wander around the night where they couldn’t be spotted? You collected newspapers, anything that would help. You admit, you never really found any evidence. There were times you thought you saw something strange at a car garage, some tall dark figure far away from a cliff, everything was so close yet you never actually got anywhere. Dead ends were becoming so common.

The drought of information made you consider giving up— what was the point? If there really were aliens, what could you hope to ever do with that information? Would you expose them? Profit off of them? You were in debt. But like always, the thoughts holding you back were the ones that brought you a step forward. You don’t know how they did it but they did. You were just magical like that.

For the past 6 months you’ve been contemplating on sneaking into an old, unused military base(you don't recall why it was abandoned, but maybe it was something you could now find out!) It was the dumbest yet smartest thing you’ve thought about doing. You planned on using your skills and gathering any information you could. Anything, who knows, maybe your tech skills would’ve been useful. You were at risk of being found out, jailed, but you were certain the place wasn’t used anymore— you’ve been watching it for some time already after getting off from college and work. You also had nothing to lose.

But of course, life ends up biting you in the ass. The fucking alien had to come to the same place as you did AND at the same time.

The tall metallic soulless creature brings you up rather quickly (giving you a scary view of its entire body) to its head— or what you assume is its head— and simply stares at you. Your head is spinning, things are happening too quick, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Compared to your heavy breathing, you’re not even sure you can sense it breathing.

“Let me go!” The demand practically goes unheard, as the robot creature does not stop its actions, but instead a purple light passes up and down your body, much like a scanner. You can’t let that stop your struggles.

You trashed around the grasp, elbowing, punching, anything to set you free. It was futile- escaping from the grasp, you knew it, yet you still tried. Briefly, you see some type of statistical analysis, if that’s what you could even call it— written in some type of strange code you’ve never seen before until you spot something familiar— your face.

You paused your attempts, body going still stricken with a deep feeling of dread. “What are you doing?” You asked, voice breaking down in fear. Was it information about you? Was it going to send it to someone? What if all this time you’ve been wrong and you’ve just stepped into some military government trap? This couldn’t be…

The screen goes blank. Your heart sinks as you see your reflection on the screen. You two were the only ones in this dark room, but the silence was so strong, it felt as if there was a third presence.

You couldn’t breathe— you were going to die. You really didn’t want to jump into conclusions so quickly, but if this robot was what you’ve been trying to prove was here on Earth… you were certain your death would be coming any second now.

Just as you thought of your goodbyes to the world and anyone who had been remotely kind to you, the cord around your waist starts to make its grasp harder on your waist, knocking out any air. It hurt.

In instinct you suck in your stomach but it does not alleviate the pain. Crying out in pain you try to escape the grasp, however the pain makes it hard to do so. You wanted this to be over— “If you’re going to kill me, at least make it painless-” You choke out, but are cut short when another cord hrabs your face harshly— gripping it tightly.

Your vision is gone, and your senses heightened. Why is this happening to me?You move your hands from the cord on your waist to the one on your face, trying to remove it.

It was getting harder to breathe, you figure from the lack of oxygen you're getting. Punching the cord wasn’t working, it hasn’t been. You were trapped.

Your body betrays you as your heartbeat begins to slow down, your eyes start growing heavy. Your hands fall from the cord connected to your face as you go limp.

#transformers #soundwave #tfp #tfp soundwave #x reader

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fraternum-momentum · 25 days ago

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killing stalking ramble belowww

!! tws for mentions of sa/rape, murder, abuse, etc. !!

(REALLY REALLY long, around 2k~ words. just be warned. also tmi in some parts.)

THIS IS NOT AN ANALYSIS !!!!! it def gets analytical in some parts, but i feel like i would need to reread ks a couple of times for me to feel confident enough to do a full blown analysis for it. these are just my thoughts that i want to get out of my head. really rambly for the most part, and separated into sections mostly for my convenience buy also to get my thoughts a little more organized.

what do i think about it?

it's great ! i really love the more thriller-ey aspects of it, esp when seungbae was investigating the whole thing. how he's trying to piece together everything and switching in between pov's was so so cool. love love love how extremely tense everything is, like ooo is he gonna get caught? is he gonna get killed?

ACAB but seungbae is the only police officer i'll salute to 🫡 (bc he's not real LMFAO)(and also he hates the police despite being one so)

season 1 is a great intro and it rlly gets u hooked, rlly went in super hard with the whole torture stuff. came in guns blazing n stuff. rlly rlly intense. the whole thing with jieun is just so sad man,,,,,,, like she was rude and all and she was an kind of an asshole to bum but i don't think she deserves to die over that 😭,,,,

there's also already a lot of foreshadowing and future callbacks planted into it. it makes me wonder how much planning went into the story :0 !! even early on it's pretty clear that sangwoo sees his mum in yoonbum, that's why he kept taking care of him after abusing him. he said ‘i love you’ out of the blue and bum thought he was talking to him and sangwoo replied ‘i was talking to my mom’. i mean, it's literally spelled out by the author in one of the qna's. i will be amazed if u didn't catch that somehow.

anyw season 2 is my fav because of reasons stated above. the tension is rlly great. when seungbae finally trespassed which led to the confrontation at the basement scene to when they were doing the interrogation was rlly rlly good. it shows how competent of a manipulator and a quick thinker sangwoo is. throughout it my heart was beating so fast i was so nervous JQHSHQ

seungbae rlly tried to pull through but unfortunately the people didn't believe him so woo and bum got away SCOT FREE,,,,,,, which caused seungbae to lash out on woo, then got laid off. DUDEEE i was so saddddddd, i mean i saw there were like 40 eps left so i knew he wasnt going to succeed but STILLLL i was cheering for him ykkk?

ep 34.

kinda tmi and i hope to fucking god it's not weird or anything but i can see myself in yoonbum.

LISTEN ok. not like the perverted stalker aspects. more of the whole jwhhr fuckk idk how to describe it without sounding pathetic or whatever but a while ago my brother and i had a talk about being careful with people bc of how bad my whole self esteem is and how easily i would be to manipulate and just how depressing my whole demeanor was or whatever and this scene in ep 34 where yoonbum was being interrogated by seungbae kind of left me a deep impression on me

i've def have asked myself something similar to this, idk maybe had talked to someone abt it when i was drunk as shit. but it i kind of started wondering if i would do that in his position. if i don't get any better, could i end up like him? eeeeeqjdb idkk its something i don't want to dwell on much but it's been at the back of my head ever since. i don't know. it's scary.

season 3 is more focused on characterization and developing the "relationship" between bum and woo. vv sangwoo centric. it deals with his past trauma and how it affected him. seeing how his childhood was initially and then the eventual reveal as to what really was happening in those scenes was so good. kind of shows how you never truly know what's happening behind closed doors. and it shows the extent of the abuse, how unstable his mother was, and how emotionally manipulative she was to sangwoo when he was a kid. then her eventual death in which she managed to gaslight him into thinking he killed her. at least, i think its implied that she drove the knife into her neck. and now, even when she's gone, her presence lingers and haunts him. quite literally too because its eventually revealed that her corpse was INSIDE THE FUCKING HOUSE.

i love how the dynamic turned from a dependency to a codependency. it's like watching a fire slowly spiral out and it becoming an huge shitstorm. it's interesting seeing that sangwoo needs bum too. right after he accidentally called bum 'mom' while they were having sex, that's probably the lowest he's been in, even begging yoonbum to not go and stay with him at home bc he's been so paranoid lately. even now i'm still not sure if bum was actually fucking the girl or if it was all a figment of woo's hallucinations.

there's a lot of particular scenes that i want to dedicate a small paragraph to but i don't want to make this longer that it alr is qkdh they're not anything life changing plus the implications are p clear anyway so,,

ending is insane. at first, i was kind of glad that bum seemed to be healing. like he was getting therapy, there was a person who was taking care of him, seungbae seems to be monitoring him regularly. i mean, he was still paranoid and stuff about being caught as an acomplice but he was fine for the most part. well, at least that was i thought until he started asking where sangwoo was and i kinda went oh no,,,

idkkkkk is it bad that i kind of felt bad for bum when he didn't get to see sangwoo for the last time? i mean, i want him to just move on with everything and heal but it was pretty clear he was still vv attached to woo so idkkkkk?? maybe its just me needing to have some closure or something? i was so sad that yoonbum didn't even get the chance to be truly happy in his life. even in his happiest moments with sangwoo, it was all just a skewed perception of love.

yk even if seungbae didn't go to woo's house one last time for that final confrontation, i feel like their codependent relationship would go to shit either way. but ahh,,,,,, bum deserved so much better,,,

seungbae my goat 🫡

small part abt him bc he's my fav

seungbae is interesting,,,, bc he def has violent tendencies much like sangwoo. i.e. lashing out at woo, wacking a guy out with a scanner (who, luckily, turned out to be a wanted criminal), hitting the guy who killed his father with a the golf club, dreaming and fantasizing about violently killing that said murderer multiple times, and probably more that i can't remember.. maybe a ‘two sides of the same coin’ kind of situation??? idkk

there's literally a part where seungbae said so himself that he and sangwoo were similar, immediately following it by saying that it was a dangerous thought. i think having a stable figure in his life (chief officer) helped him a lot. if he didn't have him, i feel like he could've easily ended up like sangwoo. all around green flag tho :3

my complicated feelings abt it:

idkkkkkkkkkkkkk like this is a thriller and it depicts a clearly abusive relationship but the fact that it feels so fanservicey to me feels so wrong to me ???????? like shit. i only started reading it bc i thought 'oh wasn't this bl or something? i don't remember lol. but sangwoo was hot, i should go read it' and proceeded to get my ass blasted with this is absolutely insane.

ok i'm gonna be completely honest i've always hated fanservice, so it's a completely biased take from me. like idkk it ruins the vibe of a scene. can't a good show just be a good show without all the panty shots and the weird ass angles?????? like okay, yeah, i literally draw porn but that doesnt mean i want porn/sexual in everything all the time.

like i get it. the sexual aspect of this is a necessary and integral thing. it's clearly there to depict that there's an imbalance of power. how sangwoo being on top feels more in control whereas when he's in a position of submission he gets angry or scared (a trauma response) and it's another aspect of abuse that a lot of characters experienced and it's all shown. but i think my issue is, when its with woo and bum there's like certain part to it where i'm just kinda like,,,,, you know that feeling when you feel like a sex scene in a movie is kind of going on for way too long? and ur just sitting there mildly uncomfortable by it and aughggyvh idkkk its weird,,,,,,, like should i keep watching or is this integral to the story???? am i going to miss any details or something anyone would say ?? and idk???????? like when bum or woo was sa'ed by adults they didn't depict it in such a,,,,,,, romantic?? light???? i'm not sure what to say but i feel like there's a difference in ambience and pacing and shit in a bunch of the scenes esp in season 3 but i guess it's bc they're in a 'relationship' ?????? idkk

in a way i can understand why they would present it like that ??? i'm probably reaching, but maybe it's to directly put the viewer in yoonbum's shoes and kind of see how sangwoo manipulates bum? like we as the viewer become victims ourselves of sangwoo's charms ????? maybe that's why it was psrticularly uncomfortable for me ??????????? dude idk,,,,

but like,, i've played btd/tpof before but i don't seem to have any problems with it, and that's literally torture porn or whatever but for some reason i draw the line at this apparently ????????

and i’ve thought about this really hard bc it was driving me nuts as to what the difference was. but maybe its bc it's kind of romanticizing it ??????????????? tbh i'm still not entirely sure. eh whatever i don't want to make it a big problem.

oh but fray, you draw noncon, dubcon, and gore ! arent you fetishizing it as well ? how is that any different ?

(this part is kind of tmi too) i think there's a fundamental difference between what i'm doing and having a cnc kink and depicting actual sa in a story.

no one is saying sa is not bad. for some people it's how they deal with the trauma they endured and for others its simply just a fantasy. cnc, in a real life setting, both parties are consenting and recognize that it's all just roleplay, if anything is out of the line you can opt out of it with a safeword and it's CRUCIAL that this safe word is respected. in a game like for example, dol, you can manipulate it into however you like. there's also cheats where you can just remove encounters altogether irrc. you're the one in control of the narrative.

i've had rape fantasies before (i play dol, don't be so surprised) but that doesn't mean i want to be fucking assaulted when i go out at night. and idk maybe like in ks it depicts all the gruesome and tragic parts of being abused, whether it be emotionally, sexually, physically, etc. and that's why it feels wrong framing it in that manner ????

idk my views about it aren't completely black and white. dude idfk i'm not an expert in anything. at the end of the day i'm just some random person who read killing stalking and just has some thoughts about it. anyw that's all 👍

#jfcccc this took so long #man ill probably forget abt this in a week or smthn #that was super fun though #frambling...?#tw sa mention #tw abuse mention

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oddvanilla · 4 months ago

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Not really venting because it isn't my type of thing but like YK some stuff should be let off my chest☹️

Idk why but I feel like I'm a side character in my own life 😭 not just that I feel like a robot (closest thing to that feeling) like everyone else has emotions and can be sad or angry and I just. Exist. Like that's all I have going on...

Sometimes it's a good thing!!! Like hey at least I have no mental illnesses or anything. I'm just always content with my life, and so far this whole year I only felt INTENSE sadness like 4 times and it just went away in the matter of like 3 hours. Even then, that wasn't sadness,, it was just anger at myself. I don't really associate crying with sadness, because I cry here and there for dumb reasons... last time I cried was when I heard my best friends say I love you because I REALLY needed that. And the time before that was me winning a football match on FC 24 against my dad, then I started crying because I started thinking about maybe it would be the last football game he'll ever play with me ☹️ but yeah, last time I cried was like a month ago. It's really rare that I feel like I need to sob or anything. As I said, it's good because people always associate me with happiness and ooo energy.

This isn't the problem tho. I feel like I know so much about everyone but nobody knows crap about me. Like trust me I'm an open book, ask me about anything and I'll give you an extended answer with a life experience + analysis. I get so excited when anyone asks me anything personal like my favourite colour or my favourite hobbies. It's not my friend's faults', trust me. They're amazing people and I will love them forever. But I feel like they're the main characters in MY life. I just happen to be the one who is always taking every picture and recording every moment. But I'll never be in any of those pictures because I'm the one holding the camera.

It makes me sick, I need to know every little detail about my friends, my family, even just a Tumblr mutual, but the closest people to me don't even know my middle name. I love my mom but she doesn't know what I like to do as a hobby. She has no idea that I like writing, or history. But I know everything about her. That's the case for everyone. This feeling makes me sick because I always feel overwhelmed. By the time I wanna go to sleep I'm stuck in bed for 3 hours without sleeping yet because my head is thinking at a thousand miles an hour. I always feel like I have to cut off people here and there so my life can weigh a little less😭

Everyone knows this one, I'm a heavy extrovert, and I talk all the time but it's never about me. When I'm yapping I'm either explaining how something works or talking about that one memory with my friends. I'm not used to venting because I'm scared of someone saying "not everything is about you". I've never been friends with a listener, everyone else talks and even I TALK, but I wish there was just someone out there who knew what's my biggest fear or smth.

Moral of the story, I feel like I bottle my feelings all the time. I think twice before I hit that post button and decide that it should stay in my drafts because oddvanilla is this person who's always happy, if you see me venting it'll be awkward. I don't want anyone to solve my problems, I just don't HAVE any problems to begin with. I just wish someone would listen this time. Hi just notice me pls I have feelings other than energetic!!!! Please keep it in mind at least that I wanna be heard :( I'm sick of speaking up for everyone who can't but I never get a chapter in the book for myself. Even if you just say something like "same omg" at least it would feel better that I'm not alone in this messed up feeling.

#vents vents vents i dont like this word but whatever #the sigmas will rise 🥶🥶

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galacticplayer · 2 years ago

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THE FUNNY OTHERSIDE PICNIC REVIEW/MINI-ANALYSIS

ok since no one follows me on here im gonna write my thoughts for Otherside Picnic so. spoilers yk. (this isn't meant to be serious or in-depth just my personal thoughts and experiences!)

TL;DR 9.5/10 One of the best things I’ve ever read. It has its issues but they're so small that it doesn't detract from the story. When the main issue is “It’s so specific in what it wants to do you’ll either really love it or not like it at all” you know it’ll be good. Please at least try it!!

I went into Otherside Picnic thinking “oh this is gonna be Roadside Picnic but with yuri” and to an extent that is what i got. but I think Otherside Picnic is. so much more than that. It's a deconstruction and rebuilding of a lot of themes and ideas Roadside Picnic suggested into one whole and uses being a yuri and its notable influence from Slavic literature as a backing to the main ideas of liberation, freedom, grief, and what it means to love despite our insignificance. which, reading that yeah no shit that’s how media works, but the specific way Otherside Picnic does it is so intense and so specific that I can't really tell you another series like it. I can state its inspirations and works in the genres it's in but I can't give you anything that is “like” Otherside Picnic because I don't believe that exists.

Otherside Picnic and Iori Miyazawa’s use of psychological and cosmic horror and sci-fi to portray the raw emotions love can induce on a person, especially someone who is very much traumatized and not used to the feeling of being loved or loving works so well you’d think all psychological horror is yuri (which... you could make that argument but I won't be getting into that.) I believe the main point Otherside Picnic is trying to make is that queer love is scary. The Otherside is supposed to be an escape for Sorawo, a place where she can run away and hide, but it ends up becoming the reason she opens up and finds her place in the world. Despite its use of cosmic horror, Otherside Picnic’s narrative feels exceedingly personal, and this is for its narrative as a whole, not just the interpersonal relationship between Sorawo and Toriko. It feels like it’s saying “No matter how big you think your problems are in the grand scheme of things they don’t matter and neither do you.” and even though that seems scary and depressing it uses that to portray so many positive emotions. The characters don't matter, the plot doesn't matter but despite that it keeps going. Love is the driving factor of the plot, not just queer love but the concept of love in general. Most of the characters in some way love each other, or they simply want to be loved. In my opinion nobody exemplifies this better than Toriko.

Toriko is an extremely interesting character. She’s seemingly an open and quite silly girl who's in over her head with trouble she can’t quite grasp and while yes, as a baseline that is true you very quickly realize that there's much more to her than just that.Toriko is a timid girl who is scared who just wants to love and have her love acknowledged but is so scared to commit to her love that she can end up seeming pushy and overbearing. She ends up not committing to her feelings for Satsuki which leads her to be the way she is with Sorawo. She just really doesn't want to lose her and at first ends up not really displaying much care for Sorawo’s feelings even though she very quickly starts to love her. She wants to do the things she couldn’t with Satsuki through Sorawo because throughout most of the story Toriko is grieving. She couldn’t handle the thought of Satsuki being dead and once she finally accepts that she is, she's able to start being able to genuinely love Sorawo. All she wanted was love and it took her a while to realize.

Other aspects of the story are less about love and more about how love affects us.It takes elements from Roadside Picnic, mainly, the insignificance of man and says “Yeah, you’re right about that, but I don’t care.” With this it builds up a narrative separate from Roadside Picnic that is about queer women finding a place where they are free from society’s and the universe’s indifference and cruelty. It’s a story about finding your place in the universe and loving who you are and the people around you, no matter how cruel life is. Otherside Picnic says that all it takes to be free is committing to yourself and who you love and not caring what the universe thinks.

In conclusion Otherside Picnic is a deconstruction and rebuilding on a lot of the things Roadside Picnic was about. It's about finding your place in a universe and society that is indifferent or outright hates you and learning how to love. Although love is a scary thing, especially as a queer person. Committing yourself to someone in whatever way, whether that is romantic or otherwise can feel like a task of cosmic proportion. Being free to do such a thing can feel just as hard as confronting an entity from another world. All Otherside Picnic suggests is to try fighting, for the people you love and for yourself because finding yourself and being free is all that matters. As it stands currently I believe Otherside Picnic is one of my favorite pieces of media ever created. It stands beside Revue Starlight and Undertale for me which are two pieces of media that legitimately changed my life. I can’t give it anything but my highest praise.

If you read all of this and haven’t read it yet. Please do yourself a favor and READ OTHERSIDE PICNIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#otherside picnic #i know no one will give a shit abt my thoughts on it but i must post this or ill explode #actually one of the best things ive ever read

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squarebracketsmileyface · 1 year ago

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A Pearl by Mitski is kinda post Jaylex into Jam territory if you think about it.

Hello? Mind reader?? You are so correct???

This is even better mind reading because of what I was writing like right before I remembered i had this ask and wanted to answer it and shit. Like???? This is very much post Jaylex and into Jam, BUT it is also post Jaylex the first time they "broke up" oh my god.

Hang on, I'll explain it with the lyrics lol

Lyric analysis time because for some reason this is like my favourite thing to do when I wanna think about sorry its locked but can't actually write it for whatever reason.

You're growing tired of me You love me so hard and I still can't sleep You're growing tired of me And all the things I don't talk about

SO ABOUT THAT POST JAYLEX'S FIRST 'BREAK UP' ehehhehehehehehheheh. Right, so, after Alex started dating Amy in college, Jay did (eventually) start trying to, like, date and have sex with other people. He never really managed to date anyone, it was always just not-quite-actually-casual casual sex. And they always ended up getting tired of Jay, because they were trying their best and he was hung up on Alex still (and would be for the next rest-of-his-life) And Jay never actually talked to them about why he was the way he way, just learned to warn them ahead of time to try and scare them away so that he wouldn't end up getting hurt when they inevitably got too upset with him over something and broke it off with him.

And, obviously. Yeah, Jam. Jay's so worried that the same thing that happened with Alex and all the other people is gonna happen with Tim, and if it did it'd probably break him even worse than Alex did, honestly. Purely because the stuff with Tim would stack on top of the stuff with Alex and they'd become one thing and Jay would just not know how to deal with that literally at all.

Sorry, I don't want your touch It's not that I don't want you Sorry, I can't take your touch

Pre first Jaylex break up. Yeah. One of the reasons Jay got broken up with by at least one person was that they were meant to behaving casual sex, and Jay went through a period of time where he just, really really couldn't. Which like, fair, and fair i guess for the person being like, yeah i'll go find someone else to have sex with. but also they did it in a nasty way so never mind, fuck them lmao. (I just love putting Jay through shit lmao, I'm so sorry to that poor guy, I need to write a lil fluffy oneshot of him and Tim just being okay)

It's just that I fell in love with a war Nobody told me it ended And it left a pearl in my head And I roll it around every night Just to watch it glow Every night, baby, that's where I go

Ow. Just. Ow.

Cos, yeah, Jay did. He really, really did fall in love with a war didn't he? That whole relationship with Alex was just this constant series of battles with himself and his feelings for Alex, and battles with Alex himself because of how he treated Jay and how Jay wanted to be treated. And his brain can't fully comprehend that Tim's not going to just be the exact same as everyone else, the exact same as Alex. And the thing is that Tim IS going to be different, but they're not going to have enough time for Jay's head to actually wrap itself around that so that he can believe it.

And obviously, they never could get enough time, because of all the shit with the operator, but Tim at least is holding out hope that they'll both survive is and they'll get the time afterwards.

Sorry, I don't want your touch It's not that I don't want you Sorry, I can't take your touch

Jay's so scared that having issues with intimacy is gonna fuck up his chances with Tim, but it wont. Logically he knows it wont (and I refuse to make them angsty enough that Jay wouldn't bother to say no if he didn't wanna do something) but there is still this little part of his head that says that if he goes too long not wanting to have sex, it'll somehow fuck something up.

There's a hole that you fill You fill, you fill

Also I fully intend for Jay to be very unhealthy about Tim :] Just like he was very unhealthy about Alex (especially back in college)

Poor guy's gonna fucking idolize Tim once he realizes Tim really really actually likes him. Which, y'know. Not good. Thankfully Jay's lil eventual obsession or whatever it is (idk, a hyperfixation on a person? that's what I called it. Basically, pretty much every waking thought Jay has is somehow about Tim/reminds him of Tim, if Tim is even slightly in a bad mood Jay assumes it's because of him and gets viciously terrified that Tim's going to leave him and hate him forever, he'd accept any kind of 'penance' or punishment from Tim for whatever he did wrong, if anything bad happens to Tim Jay get's violently enraged and wants to 'fix it' the quickest way possible, etc. He basically feels like Tim is perfect and he can't live without him. idk if that makes sense? I'm tired and never figured out what the fuck this thingy is, but i'm giving it to Jay)

Tim is Jay's missing piece, and Jay's going to hack at his own edges to make sure that Tim fits him, just like he did back in college to try and make Alex fit him.

He's just made up of pieces of himself and other people that he sawed off and cobbled together to make sure that the person he was in love with would perfectly 'complete' and 'fix' him.

But it's just that I fell in love with a war And nobody told me it ended And it left a pearl in my head And I roll it around every night Just to watch it glow Every night, baby, that's where I go Just to watch it glow

goddamnit now i wanna plan a fic to dive into Tim and Jay's relationship after sorry its locked and before Jay dies, just so I can make Jay not okay and Tim not okay, but their brand of not okay works well enough for the short amount of time they have together. If Jay lived they'd have the worlds messiest break up oh my god lmao.

why do i torture them like this?

#Also like oh my god i've been looking for this song for so fucking long because meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee lmao #honestly tho. this is such a perfect song for Jaylex as a whole. and the start of Jam #Mostly it's about Jay just being very unhealthy about all the people he falls in love with #he can't be fixed in the amount of time he has left. but if he lived and didn't end up running the fuck away from Tim i think he could heal #and still stay in a relationship with Tim. but itd be really hard and a LOT of work #they could do it. but also sorry its locked has everyone who dies in canon die in it. because i love the angst of:#“Jay dies in Alex's arms because he can't deny himself the chance to be held by Alex one last time” and:#Alex goes to Tim for help dying because he literally can't kill himself and he's so broken over having to kill Jay that he doesn't care #anymore. And he knows Tim has managed to live with the Operator sickness. so if anyone is left alive. yeah it should be Tim #That's too much words in the tags woops #marble hornets #marble hornets fanfic #alex kralie #tim wright #marble hornets fanfiction #jay merrick #jaylex #mh jam #MH sorry its locked

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bumblebeehug · 2 years ago

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whoops here comes an analysis on the pheonix priestess movie - heads up before you read!! this is all lighthearted and my personal opinion, you could probably tell me the opposite opinions and i’d agree in some way so if i sound mad or upset just know that it’s all written with love :)

i rewatched the pheonix priestess movie and wanted to commit crime at how badly they portrayed lucy lmao. at first they made her cute and excited for the job, but then they fail it which obviously is fine except lucy thinks it's all her fault (like yes she was the one who couldn't catch the thief but NEITHER COULD THE OTHER IN TEAM NATSU). then there's some scenes where lucy blames herself despite team natsu delibirately telling her that they don't blame her, and i get this whole fanfic vibe. like I can write a depressed lucy for those reasons because the stuff i write isn't canon, but unless she's depressed for genuinely good reasons (natsu leaving, losing aquarius key, not being able to say goodbye to her dad before he died) it just doesn't make sense for her character to get so genuinely sad over how things went. then, as if everything isn't bad enough, eclair acts like a total bitch just cause lucy wants to make friends with her - which leads me to the way she's acting when she's trying to make friends!! like why is she being so consistent on following eclair around and giving her ice cream and stuff when eclair is telling her she doesn't like it!!! LUCY WOULDN'T DO THAT, like sure, she'd walk quietly with her in that new town because she wants to protect her, but there's no way she'd act so obnoxious. then eclair decides to be kind to her, finally, because "oh, it turns out i'm not the only person in the world who has experienced sadness?? even mages can be sad?? but mages are bad because i hate magic!!" which was just a weird concept to me, like girl be for real.

nothing in that movie sat right with me (that’s a lie, i like the movie, but you get it) - i would like the nalu moments better if they didn't feel so out of place. there was no reason for eclair to tell natsu to take care of sad lucy - eclair and natsu barely had any interractions throughout the movie at all! how would she know shit about their relationship!! i'm sorry but it's just so weird. i do like how much natsu notices lucy though - when she's upset because of the mission he cheers her up, and when eclair bullies her (ignores her attempt to introduce herself) he jumps in to save the situation. those moments i like, because it shows development in how natsu pays attention to lucy, which does in fact prove that their relationship is evolving (nowadays it's all gone backwards though, but let's not talk about that here).

the portrayal i do like is when they show Lucy's more considerate side - she has moments where she pays attention to eclair's needs (asking her if she'd like to switch roommate since she obviously doesn't like lucy very much - good thing she declines that offer, because i would bite her head off if she took it), and is overall more silently caring. i like that more because that's the character i recgonise. don't get me wrong, i LOVE lucy's outbursts and outgoing personality, but she isn't known for being intrusive. she knows when not to step over boundaries, and this movie shows the complete opposite.

I also like when the thief (geese or whatever his name was lmao i love him) thanks her for being her - he admits that even if they were "enemies" (not that severe but u get it lol) he still found her intriguing enough to like her - which made him want to save her in a bad situation later on. he compliments her on her way of bonding even with her rivals (which i LOVE that they brought up - girlie befirends every single person she meets!! not even zeref could hate her lol) (no comment on that everlue guy though lmao).

I think that translates nicely later into how well eclair and lucy bonds later - they were truly only able to become friends thanks to lucy, because let's be so real: eclair's a bitch and i'll say it again. i still like the bond they formed later (they were such lesbians for a while i'd love them together if eclair had a better personality lol) because lucy could really shine in her way of loving her friends - she's the one who gets closest to the people around her, and she cries the hardest when they have to leave.

overall i have a love hate relationship with this movie, cause the characters are lowkey so ooc that they're in character which is ironic lol.

also i can't stand the animation. dragon cry stepped up!! love that animation, the pheonix priestess was just weird - their faces were weird, their propotions all whacky and they didn't look like themselves. some scenes were really pretty though, esp lucy's sad/melanchony faces.

#is it a crime to have these opinions #i'm aware of how critical this is #but i feel like it needed to be said #(it didn't need to be said actually but i just wanted to say it)#fairy tail #lucy heartfilia #natsu dragneel #the pheonix priestess #fairy tail the movie: the pheonix priestess #eclair fairy tail

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kattahj · 1 year ago

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A personal musing on La Pluie, soulmates, and predestination

My reaction to La Pluie really made me examine how I feel about soulmates.

Now, this is more of me untangling my own feelings than it is any type of analysis of the show, so be aware of that before you hit read more (if you do).

I've always had a distaste of soulmates, but this show had me thinking more about why, and how, I get that reaction.

I did like the show, for the most part. While I put it on the backburner sometimes, I had no problem watching the whole thing (and I'm not someone who has to finish watching everything I start). In a way, how the show examined and subverted the tropes worked for me, at least up to a point, because every time I hear the word "soulmate" it's like Psycho shower scene music in my head, and that's not so dissimilar to what Saengtai feels.

But whether or not the soulmate thing is "real" in the La Pluie universe, and whether that makes it easier or harder for couples to find happiness, this is still a BL, and so the main characters HAVE to end up together! Which, poor Patts! It's not his fault I hear shower scene music every time I see his face, just because he unfortunately happens to believe in soulmates.

Would I have preferred Lomfon as a partner for Tai? No, not really. I don't think there was ever much basis for it. Tai didn't seem particularly interested, and Lomfon only interested in the way you're interested in that hot person you've talked to a couple of times.

I think I would have liked everyone to just go, "Okay, this has been interesting, but let's go our separate ways and forget this rain-fueled soulmate situation ever happened." And that wasn't ever going to be the end of a BL.

So, why the shower scene music?

What I realized was, it's the exact same feeling I get from "chosen one", or "prophecy" or "destiny". I hate them all. I hate the notion that there's some cosmic force that steers our lives in a specific direction that we cannot deviate from in a meaningful way, and we don't even get to know who that force is or what their reasoning is. I mean, if it were Cupid shooting his arrows at people, and I had a quibble with his decision, I could at least go, "Cupid clearly has shit aim" and be done with it. :-) It's hard to do that in the face of ineffability.

Most of my favourite characters have been people who do something completely different from what was expected of them. They were supposed to be meaningless, and became meaningful. They were supposed to be villains, and became heroes. My unchosen ones.

I guess it also ties into religion, and ideas of predestination. Now, I'm agnostic these days, but even the brand of Christianity I was raised in didn't believe in predestination, for which I'm grateful. There might be better and worse choices, but never just one correct path. Life as "choose your own adventure", rather than a straightforward story. (Or, to use the discussion of Cain and Abel from East of Eden, "thou mayest" rather than "thou shalt" or "do thou".)

And of course La Pluie is Thai, with entirely different religious customs and expectations, and I can't really speak of that. Nor can I make any deep analysis of how it uses soulmate tropes compared to how it's usually done, since I stay the fuck away from every love story that so much as breathes of soulmate, if I can help it, and only watched this one specifically because of the subversions.

The only other BL show I've watched that went there was Never Let Me Go, in its Our Skyy 2 epilogue. I wasn't happy about that, and wished they hadn't, but it was a bit easier to handle, in part because it came so late (after I was already invested in the ship), and in part because it seemed more based on personality, and less on the random whims of the universe. We were told that Palm and Nueng, since they are who they are, will always be attracted to each other, but since they are who they are they will never be happy long-term until they learn to communicate better. Which, that's okay, I guess.

I still much prefer characters who get together just because they want to. And my absolute favourite kind are the ones whose time together is so valuable that they could break up tomorrow and it'd still be worth it.

Thinking of Moonlight Chicken as an example. If Jim and Wen break up, Jim has still learned to process his feelings after Beam's death, and not close himself off so much. Wen has still learned to live on his own and not stay in a bad situation because he can't stand being alone. If Li Ming and Heart break up, both of them have still won their freedom and started exploring the world, away from, yet reconciled with, their families.

A path doesn't have to end up a specific place to be worth taking.

And of course, it's rather ironic, feeling like this, that I sit here watching dozens of QLs, with their guaranteed HEAs (whether I want them or not). The cosmic powers dictating the outcome do exist, and they're called the audience.

But I guess that's where decades of Bury Your Gays has taken me. If the alternative is death, I can take a little predestination. Just coat it in the chocolate of supposed free choice. :-)

#la pluie #moonlight chicken #never let me go #east of eden

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orangesat10am · 1 year ago

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The one job that changed my point of view

It was a real mess and I need to get this off my chest, so I can warn people about this kind of experiences.

Mental health should be a priority and everyone sees the administrative staff as aliens, and no job is worth it.

Back in 2020 I was a 23 years old accountant out of college with a year of experience in the field (At my country, I have a Certified Public Accountant license, I studied a 5 years career to obtain it).

I felt I was capable of being way more than an accountancy assistant, and so did my fellow assistants and my supervisor (a really sweet 55 years old man, father of two kids who loved to teach). I had leadership skills, a great analysis capacity and was always looking out for ways to get the job done as quickly and easy as possible. So, I decided I learned what had to be learned at that place (a supermarket), I got tired of being unappreciated by the head of department and underpaid (there was also the promise from my uncle to get me a place at my dream job that didn't happen) and redacted my two weeks notice and headed downstairs to HR. Back in 2020 and being in Venezuela, I was earning 40 USD and the standard back then was 100 USD. My schedule was 7 to 4, Monday to Friday.

You see, my mom had been working there for 16 years and her cousin was actually one of the owners, so when the HR head of department saw me delivering my resignation letter asked what was wrong if she always witnessed how much in love I was with my job. I mentioned being underpaid and my head of department's attitude towards the whole office as the main reasons. I got back to the office and HR called the head of department. I actually don't know what did they tell her, but the lady called me to the little kitchenette we had, closed the door and started yelling at me for quitting. After that, she went straight to my mom's cousin office to wash her hands, thinking I was going to badmouth her. I don't blame her because that same thing happened with acquaintances of my mom's cousin before, but I didn't even talk to her on a regular basis, much less to badmouth my boss who let me work there. I attended my last two weeks and got out.

I spent three weeks unemployed, handing out my CV everywhere I saw they were looking for an accountant. I realized having less than two years of experience is worth nothing here, and as I got no answers I started to get desperate. My mom pulled some strings and landed me a job as an administrator at a bakery (not even my field, but it was a job). Same payment as my last job, with promises of getting better. My new schedule was 8 to 4 Monday to Friday, and Saturday 8 to 12. Which according to Venezuelan legislation is wrong, because we're supposed to get two days off a week.

I learned not having a predecessor at the job you're getting into who trains you and hands you everything over should be considered as a red flag.

The owner's wife did a half assed job of teaching me the ropes. They yelled at me in front of clients and employees to show how powerful they were, humiliated me when I asked for money they owed me and my last paycheck was waaaaaay behind what they should have paid me. I just chuckled and thought how miserable they were. The day I did quit, the owner told me he already knew I was going to quit and was an absolute asshole.

A day before quitting I landed an interview with a friend of my best friend's aunt. The guy, who I will call Mike, currently 43 years old, was the owner of four businesses (the main one being co-owned with his brother Josh, 45 years old). I had to be in charge of accountancy, finances, human resources and help with sales. The only thing I was not allowed to take a part in was cleaning, because I was told my skills were too valuable to have me cleaning. I accepted the job, because it was an out of the bakery, I was offered a daily payment of 4,3$ so it was way more than double what I was earning, but I had to work on a Monday to Friday 8-6 and Saturday 9-6 schedule.

As the previous one, no one handed me anything and this time Mike taught me a few things and I had to figure out the rest. At the beginning I watched how the employees were afraid of getting on his nerves and that should've been a huge red flag I ignored.

As time passed by, he manipulated me into believing he was like a fatherly figure to me, and lots of sacrifices had to be made because he made lots of sacrifices too. Crystal Generation was an usual term he used to define his employees (because we were all under 30 years old) and didn't want to make all those sacrifices as he did (turning down vacation trips, working our off days, unpaid overtime because we earned commissions and feeling unappreciated). I went on mandatory vacations once, took only two of three weeks I was supposed to and he mocked me and told me he didn't take vacations when he was my age and told me they didn't need me to be there all the time because nothing was burning down during my vacations (which means I actually trained my personnel really well so they could be self sufficient during my absence, but he didn't see it that way).

Mike actually got to the point he was comfortable enough to threaten me, bullying me and making my life a living hell. The first time he threatened me because I was late for work I had a panic attack while driving back home (I lived 30 minutes out of the town and was riding a motorcycle) and from that point I had to visit my psychologist regularly. I got diagnosed with anxiety, obsessive compulsive personality disorder and abandonment issues, which I had to notify him of and ask him to please be nicer to me because it was taking a toll on my mental health. Instead, I got to be a running joke for him because going to the psychologist is stigmatized and you have to be insane. Also, Josh joined in making fun of me and had the stupidest ability ever: to annoy the employees, badmouth people behind their backs and overall making the work environment a very toxic one. I had to be a support for the rest of the employees so they didn't quit and be wary of making them feel better whenever they treated them like garbage.

I missed a lot of family gatherings, moved out of my mother's home and started paying a rent and gave my 110% to keep them happy. It did not work and it was never enough. The businesses skyrocketed and so did the workload which was never up to date because I had to be in charge of 20 people, sometimes more, sometimes less. At that point, I was earning 280$, while colleagues doing way less than I did earned 350$+. I told Mike about it and he gaslighted me into believing I didn't deserve it and the businesses weren't well enough to pay me 300$.

After a year and 10 months, Mike tells me he wants to expand the administrative department to cut me some workload and still having me in charge. I looked out for the people and helped hiring them, a 27 years old accountant with human resources experience (Mary) and a 48 years old administrator (also a friend of my best friend's aunt, so I knew her beforehand. May).

A month goes by and Mike decides to have a lot of meetings with them both without including me. I had the feeling something was off and told some coworkers I had the feeling they were going to fire me.

Some time later Mike calls me to tell me I was being downgraded, cut down a huge part of my benefits and gave my position to May. I was even under Mary's position, who I hired to be my assistant. My payment dropped to 180$ a month and was unsustainable, and I was told I had to keep looking out for everything as I did before. I did request a meeting with Mike and it turned into a full scolding session where I felt I was useless and a waste of space.

I appealed to May's human side and told her as I was told by her she was my direct supervisor now I would report to her to avoid speaking to Mike at all costs. Well, May after telling me it was okay, complained about it with Mike and I got an even worse scolding session with May present this time where I was told I had to report to Mike and not her. I kept my mouth shut and wasn't capable of speaking. That earned a scolding too, because he couldn't yell at me without me ending up crying. I asked May to please change my schedule, since we were 3 people at office we could take turns and get two free days a week, and since I didn't have to handle banks anymore I should've be allowed to arrive at 9am instead of 8 and was willing to compromise to have just one hour of lunch. Mike got mad at this petition and chewed me out in front of May again. I voiced out ideas I knew would work thinking out loud, and May called Josh and Mike and presented them as hers in front of me, and Mike congratulated her and scolded me for not thinking about it after being there almost two years.

The last straw came a month later, two days before my two year anniversary working there. The office was emptied to be cleaned, and as I mentioned before I had zero business getting involved in cleaning, so I kept working outside, while May and Mary helped out cleaning. A week later while Mary was in a meeting with Mike, May started going off at me for not helping them cleaning and not cleaning my desk (I handled a HUGE amount of papers daily and the desk was too small), so I thought that's it. This lady just came here, got my job and now wants to chew me out and I won't allow it.

I waited half an hour until Mike got done with Mary and requested for a meeting. He looked bored. I started with "well I've been thinking, I'm not comfortable with these conditions and you want me out of here, so I will do both of us a favor and I'll give up my position in six weeks." The look on his face was priceless, he panicked, asked if I was sure and asked me to meet with him in the afternoon and to keep quiet about it and not to tell anyone.

The afternoon passes by, my shift ends, I'm leaving 40 minutes later and then he comes, believing I'll stay god knows how long waiting for him. He asks where I'm going and I say "home."

A week passed by and he didn't even acknowledge my existence, I texted him because I needed to train someone else to take my position and we can't find a person if I can't tell Mary I did quit and to start looking out. So, I approached Mary and told her. She told me to text Mike one last time because he went on a business trip and ask him if I should wait one last time. He left me on read so I wrote my resignation letter and handed it to Josh, who told Mary to start looking for someone else right away. I fixed up my CV and told a close friend (who got into the place I dreamed of working at) I was going to quit and he got really excited and told me to send him my CV because his boss was looking for an assistant. My friend's boss immediately texted me, telling me she was delighted with my CV and offered me the position right away. I told her I had to complete my 6 weeks notice and she told me it was perfect because she would have enough time to prepare my functions.

When May got to know I was quitting she started being the nicest person ever, trying to get me to stay because she didn't want my workload additional to what she was already having. They interviewed three different persons: the first one lasted three days until we decided she wasn't fit for the position (not at all interested and making us lose time, when Mary informed her she didn't get the position she started blowing up Mike's phone with hateful messages towards Mary and May), the second one lasted two days (she was present when Josh entered the office yelling and cursing at Mary about a misunderstanding) and the last one lasted until noon because I told him he didn't have to use spreadsheets for everything if we had a working system we were paying for.

My birthday arrived and Mike got there with a cake with my name on it. I appreciated the gesture because it was something they did only for me on the time I worked there, but had no second thoughts about it. The following day I met my future boss, discussed my salary (250$ a month) and introduced me to the office, discussed my schedule (9-6 Monday to Friday, finally a whole free weekend and more flexible schedule).

Mike called the lady who held up my position and quitted a few months before I started working with him to be an external accountant. The lady arrived the last week to "check out" my stuff and started yelling at my for following Mike's instructions, questioning why was I qualified to be a colleague of hers and threatening me of badmouthing me with other colleagues.

Two days before the last day, May asked me to go with her and invited me a coffee. There, she told me Mike has been asking her if I already had another job secured, if I had attended interviews and how much were they offering me. She told me she was begging him to keep me because no one wanted to take my position and he was going to ask for a meeting with me, and told me Mary did quit too and we were leaving the same day. I told her under no circumstances I was going to stay, I gave Mike a week to negotiate and he just ignored me. She asked me to please just listen to him.

We arrived back to work and Mike was waiting for me and asked me to go with him. He took me to a café, ordered coffee and cake for me and started talking nicely, offering a more flexible schedule, discussing a nice raise and asking me how would I make things better if I were to stay. I cut him out and said no. All the traces of the nice person vanished and he went back to being cold to me and dropped me at work again.

The last day, he just told me to "learn when to say no" and left in the morning.

After I quit, almost all the employees did too. No one wanted to work with May and didn't agree on how she handled the business. An employee even called me after quitting, telling me Josh was telling everyone he was glad I left because they were already looking for a way to make me quit.

I visited them a few months later because I was interested on some stuff they sold, Mike got excited when he saw me and when I entered he couldn't face me and was really ashamed of talking to me. I decided being still bitter was going to get me nowhere, so I made some jokes and tried to lighten the mood, making him feel better.

At my current job no one has ever yelled at me, I have like 1/5 of the workload I did, no one is harassing me or demeaning me, I have way more time for myself and I even got a promotion to head of accountancy with a salary raise (360$ which is enough to live here). I arrive at the hour I'm supposed to, I leave at the hour I'm supposed to, I decide if I can help on weekends for extra money and they care about the personnel.

I went back to my therapist and told him about the whole deal and he asked me if I wanted to sue Mike for harassment, because he had a huge expedient of my case and assured me we could win the case with that evidence. I told him no.

No job is worth your mental health and not everything has to be sacrificed in order to be successful.

#personal #toxic work culture #quitting #administration hell #mental health

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wonderlandmind4 · 1 year ago

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I smelt Daredevil so i've returned again (aka i finally had time to scroll on tumblr PFFT), see idk maybe its just how i viewed karen, but i truly never actually understood the hate around her like at all, like there were only a few moments where I'm like girl what in the god damn hell is you doing, which was taking ben to fisks moms retirement home and her going to fisks place in season 3 (but like Deborah ate that scene up so i win still PFFT). and sure maybe that scene with elektra being in the bed i see both sides of how maybe she went to conclusion a little fast but like Karen with knowing absolutely nothing beforehand honestly reacted way better then my ass would've.

Im probably forgetting some more (im struggling to try to write more than two sentences that aren't just me spamming the keyboard) but everything she's done whether it's the whole Matt thing season 2, how she handles her investigations, her logic and reactions between frank vs matt, etc have actual reasonings in my head and have been done on so many other situations with other characters in the show and people always be cheering them on EXCEPT karen. And with Matt she was quick to go back to being friends with him compared to foggy, I felt as though there was more tension with foggy up until the last episode in defenders because they writers are still tryna push the whole relationship with Karen (it triggers me and it hurts me every time they push the romantic relationship of mattkaren AHHA), so I wasn't too worried about how she reacted She didn't know shit for so long especially season 2, all she was seeing (kinda like what you said) oh I'm in a thing with this dude that i really like, lets add this stressful ass trial to it as well, oh matt is barely even coming to the damn trial that he helped push to do as well, wtf would this dude be doing but rn im too busy tryna figure out this whole trial and getting frank to stop being a dumb bitch. She's stressed enough as it is, now let's add Foggy as well not telling her shit but running off everytime he's in a conversation with matt, now the trial is utter shit, she sees a girl in his house like she got too much going on to be focused on the one week "relationship" she is dealing with matt so in her mind shes like no... im not dealing with this bs right now to hear an explanation, then immediately follows to the whole blacksmith thing. Karen in my head is the investigator for the show, she in many times is the only way we have the context of anything and people still be in her bootyhole yelling up a storm. I honestly probably need to rewatch it for like the millionth time just to make sure I'm not writing nonsense here im probably the last person to do an analysis rn AHAH but like she's my girl.

(This is the same dd anon right? I feel like the script was just flipped lol)

Speaking in what you mention of some things that Karen did kinda recklessly, just goes to her having those flaws but she’s so so passionate about wanting to help and stop things, and she shares that with Matt whether they realize it or not. And because of that passion they sometimes let logic and levelheadedness take a back seat.

I think Foggy said it once, but he needs Matt to think as a lawyer and not a vigilante as times and same with Karen. She needs to think as an investigator/reporter and not as a passionate civilian who wants justice and revenge in a way.

But yes, I still see people hating on Karen to this day. And I’m strictly speaking of Netflix Daredevil Karen and not comic Karen (that’s a whole different thing and glad they went a different route with her character in the show)

So yeah, again. I think having Karen in the news how would be important as well

#dd anon

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dlquisquis · 3 years ago

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I find your blog very interesting! Could you do an analysis on which Sakamaki brother killed more sacrificial brides and what they did with their bodies?

I have the headcanon that they are buried in the forest and that at some point Yui is going to find them.

Hello, Anon!

Thanks a lot for your feedback!

This topic is pretty dark.

Let's see, the brothers in the mansion had a lot of girls die in the first game for sure.

Like some other blogs, I separate the canon of the first and the second games. In the first there is not a word about Eve and Adam, the whole main story begins with the second game. The characters, I think, are changing.

The boys in the first one were tougher \although still hot\

In the MB game boys are a little softer.

What they did do with bodies?

In the first game Laito End 02, Yui is tormented by his familiars. Familiars are turned girls, they lost feelings and do not remember their lives. Only Laito can make them feel something. He returns their feelings of grief at death and, as a result, anger towards Yui, who was able to survive.

Also, who are the brides and what happened to them is briefly told in Diabolik Lovers Anime Official Fan Book: World Guide

The theme of sacrifice is given a lot of attention in Laito's route, the first game. So according to in the first game, some brides are not funeral.

Although maybe it's just energy... Not their body, but more in the direction of ghosts (as head)

However, the location of the cemetery is still flashing. So maybe some were buried. Maybe one that behaved more or less well? (as head too) Not necessarily all the brides were tortured to death, they could simply not calculate how much blood they drank. (and it didn't matter) A funeral is a time, money for a tombstone. But digging in the forest they instruct familiars because troublesome. But why keep the bodies? What if someone finds it? M-m-m~ problems~, memory erase, murder of detectives.

I think they were burned. (personally, I prefer this option)

Reiji in the first game of Laito Ecstasy No. 07 mentions that some are crazy. I wonder if there was a chance that they would erase the memory like that and leave it somewhere near the hospital? No chance, probably, it's food after all.

Ecstasy No. 07 Reiji also says that there were a lot of sacrificial brides. ｢何人もの花嫁が差し出され、そしてその度に失敗してきたということです。｣

The first game is very dark. Therefore, your headcanon in this game works especially well. Fact, the bones will remain after flame. I read about Buddhist funerals. So yes, they were buried. Away from the mansion, or maybe even in the Demon World, where there is a passage in Sakamaki's house and can still get through the forest. (HDB Shu End 01) By the way, Yui will then be able to find the bones by accidentally entering this portal in the forest.

I'm sure it was all entrusted to the servants. Maybe Reiji was controlling sometimes.

I am also convinced if necessary, Sakamaki would make sure that not a speck of dust remained. Of course, it takes time, and everything needs to be done correctly.

Second game. More, Blood and beyond.

More Blood is less dark.

There could be, for example, an agreement between the church and the vampires that sacrificial brides are properly buried. (attack on my headcanons)

Very little is said about sacrificial brides in MB.

Even in the general prologue, I did not find a single word. As an example, "I was sent here as a sacrificial", no, but Yui mentions "death if I run away".

likely the concept with familiar-brides was left. I personally prefer without it. Horror, it is better to truly die and have peace.

So, little about "sacrificial brides" but just humans?

Hunting *reasoning* Ayato went out hunting when he tried to substitute Yui's blood. Hunting was probably one of Sakamaki's ways to get food. In MB Dark 10, he attacked a girl, drank blood (but it is not directly stated that he killed). [襲われる] Ruki then says that Yui will definitely not be killed. So did that girl get killed or just attacked and did she survive? Is this exactly a hint that that girl is dead? It is simply not said that the attack led to death, maybe just to wounds, loss of consciousness, etc. Words of "Kill" only MB Manservant End. [殺された] 50\50 Either Ayato attacked, drank blood and killed or he just attacked and drank blood. I'm putting a question mark here because the wording "attacked" is chosen in Dark 10. Ayto tried to quench his abnormal thirst. He didn't control himself and didn't care about it. I think.... Hm, if they hadn't died, Ayato would have said, "Okay".

People are food for them. They don't value lives. A person can also become a toy-food. With which they can have fun like demons do. I'm sure Sakamaki didn't usually kill their prey. Reiji is a good student, trying to be more or less friendly at the academy (HDB Reiji Afterstory). But kill - okay? I do not think so. If an incident happens, they would not be concerned about a person's life, only about the problems that could arise. No bodies. Drink carefully. Also, information about just people as food appears in: HDB Ayato Maniac No. 07, MB Laito Ecstasy No. 07 (Kou)

Humans can give vampires blood at will. The attitude towards people is quite variatively.

***

So who killed more?

Immediately tell, in the first game, all the boys are willing to kill.

Important detail. In the prologue HDB. Shu tells everyone to restrain themselves so as not to kill Yui, father's order. And everyone didn't like it. Previously, there were no such instructions.

Well, I think Shu least of all because it's a hassle. Loud screams, dirtying something, chasing... "Mendokusa"

If a girl obeys Reiji, then he is unlikely to do anything. The strategy is to behave very, very well. And don't read his research, ever. If he doesn't want to try the poisons and the antidote won't work well. And I don't think that Reiji even from the first game is strongly committed to the murder. Father agreed with the church, they send us food, we need to show respect, I think, as an option.

It works for them in MB too.

Shu and Reiji are my favorites so I know them better than the rest.

Kanato causes more anxiety. He is short-tempered, so if you behave well, you can make tea incorrectly and goodbye. In HDB sure.

Laito. HDB Yes, he may well come to a second or third place. Laito in the prologue says "he won't kill right away". But in MB Laito is not so dangerous.

The creators describe Ayato as friendly (?) ｢はいちばん親しみやすい (?) ドSキャラです! ｣ Diabolik Lovers Official Visual Fanbook DIABOLIK LOVERS 公式ビジュアルファンブック This is clearly a hint. So it is quite possible to cooperate with him and survive. He has a stormy temperament, but it is possible to calm him down. Is good to be A Titan of calmness, a master of being submissive.

Subaru from the first game is quite sweet. You need to be alert, of course. Although in the prologue he instantly scares Yui with death. But then he doesn't behave as dangerously as could.

In HDB We can definitely say "thank you, Shu" that he did not forget to inform everyone about his father's words. It's funny if Karl had to rewind time, because for the first time Shu really forgot to say, "Guys, we're keep ourselfs".

I think in the main story, with MB, the number of deaths before Yui became less than in the first game. This is my theory based on fact that boys have become softer in MB, like the idea of games. As I said above, they could have drunk too much blood. Not necessarily wanting to murder someone. This option is suitable for a canon that starts with MB. It is very important to notice how boys from MB and beyond speak about humans, whether they talked about "sacrificial brides" or just "sacrifice". Even CDs can help. Important that the chosen Adam really changes, he already treats people differently. That is, the boy chosen by Yui is no longer suitable for analyzing the truly "demonic consciousness" that all vampires\demons have by nature. A small analysis is definitely not enough to, well, a full-fledged opinion. Suddenly may something flashed in the route of LE, need to collect all the moments, quotes from games.

***

Sure, the concept of sacrifice remained.

I was thinking who might know about this - Seiji, Yui's father. Lost Eden Ayato Ecstasy 08, Ecstasy 10 Seiji mentions "sacrificial". But not the bride.

"I didn't know that the church bunch of people were trying to sacrifice you... ..."

｢教会の連中がお前を生け贄にしようとしていただなんて知らなかったんだ... ...｣

"...If that happens, I'm sure someone will have to sacrifice again.... Like you".

｢... ...そうなれば、きっとまた誰かが生け贄とならねばならない。... ...お前のようにね｣

Well, it end of the analysis. Thank you very much for your attention!

#diabolik lovers #Dark #analysis #little analysis #Sacrificial Bride #diabolik lovers analysis

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