#hopefully it gets addressed

[nin-deer]

Ch 143

i mean i think we all knew deep down the kiss was gonna happen based on the flow of the story but i think this chap reveals a lot about gorou and sarina

(uh warning this got a little out of hand so its pretty long lmao)

so.

i dont think anyone's completely in the wrong, but i definitely don't think they're in the right either. (not that i condone incest; its just that their motivations led them to this specific point. would the story have been fine without it? hell yeah. please i actually prefer it that way. but this is the direction the author decided to take it, so we have to take it as it is as a point of learning more about the character's motivations)

Let's first analyze sarina and gorou's relationship pre-reincarnation. I think I covered this in my last post where I rambled about onk, but gorou is doing a doctor thing where he "accepts" sarina's proposal just to make her happy. We learn in this new chapter that he basically catered to her every request, and that's what started that infatuation. we know from previous chapters that her bio family's shitty, so the only place she would get this love is from gorou. we also learn in this chapter that it's not actually a romantic love but a fanatic love, for lack of better terms. she sees him as her idol. does sarina even know what it feels to be romantically in love with someone? she spent her whole first life in a hospital, isolated from others her age. she spent her second life very curated and protected because of her mom and her future career; she couldn't really live a normal life. (we'll get back to this point later) all she knows about love is through her idols, so she's channeling it into (what she thinks is) romantic love for gorou.

gorou, on the other side of this, is an actual adult who had an actual life before all this, so he knows what a normal life is like. assuming sarina is one of his first patients, its obvious to see that he got attached, which is a very risky situation for scenarios like this. we see this attachment made her death worse, as he threw himself into following Ai to cope for her death. not gonna go too in depth about this here because, again, i made another post for this that i'll probably link at the end bc im referencing it more than i thought... continuing! he knows sarina doesnt have long left so he wants to do what he can for her, thus creating that "idol" persona sarina has for him.

we see in his regret in this new chap that he actually knows what he's doing and is aware of the consequences of his actions. ruby doesn't. she doesn't regret anything. as someone who reads a lot of isekai/reincarnation stories, its easy to joke that ruby and aqua are their old age + their new age, but that isn't necessarily true for ruby. sure, aqua is old and this could apply to him. but ruby? she didn't make it past 18 before she died. she's like,,, 13 times 2. double 13. she never fully developed in her first life, and she's developing in this current life. it's like a continue from where she left off. aqua actually was an adult, so he has all the knowledge and wisdom of an adult. why does this matter? shift your attention back to the concept of love for a bit. aqua knows what she's doing is bad and is trying to stop her, but the knowledge that she's sarina is making him automatically succumb to her wishes. a part of his brain, because of the trauma, still sees ruby as the sickly sarina he was caring for.

ruby is naïve. she doesnt know what love is. all the love she's ever been exposed to is whatever she saw online: idols. i dont even think she fully knows what the concept of family is. aqua is her brother? nope. aqua is the doctor she proposed to and now she has a chance to follow through like all the shows she's seen. she's closer than ever to him, so why give up the chance? even as ruby, she wasn't exposed to a lot of normalcy because of idol culture. she isn't able to learn about the difference between platonic love and fanatic love. we even see this with ai, who she sees more as an idol than her mom. the joy is in her idol being her mom, someone who's supposed to care for her. it's like shes living a fantasy made just for her. because aqua was so obsessed w revenge, he didn't have the chance to teach her anything, and it's not like he needed to learn bc he already knows. ruby doesn't.

aqua, as the one who understands these nuances, should have sat her down and explained things, but he didn't because of the trauma of sarina. ruby is ignorant and is treating things like a tv drama, now that her dreams as sarina can finally become true. aqua doesn't realize how serious ruby is about this because in his mind this is just a child playing house. ruby is like,,,, imagine you die and you wake up actually being sold to one direction. or whatever happens to you in your fav self-insert scenario/fanfic. idk a better analogy lmao but its like finally being able to play out your fantasies irl. she doesn't realize the real world impacts of her actions because, frankly, she doesn't care. she gets to live out her life as she wants. aqua was shocked after the first kiss with ruby because he realized then she was being serious, but he didn't speak out about it because, again, the trauma™. (we see him again uncomfy with the whole situation in the next page, but his lack of objection could be bc it's a scene in the documentary and he finds it more important to get revenge rn) ruby kissed him then because she purposefully created the mood like that so it would fit in the story she was writing in her mind.

so what does this mean? because of their shared pasts, aqua and ruby are put in this situation where ruby can do what she wants and aqua goes along with it. even if he knows its morally wrong, he can't bring himself to break ruby's immersion in all of this. BUT. big but. aqua shouldn't act like this. they're both capable of living out their lives as normal (barring the revenge and the whole idol stuff). he doesn't need to act like this anymore; ruby's not terminally ill. he's not a doctor. what he should have done was firmly deny her stuff he knows is wrong because then he can educate her about the reason why. as much as their personalities are inspired by their past lives, sarina and gorou are dead. they need to move on and live a aqua and ruby. (Harsh, I know, but because of this scenes like *gestures vaguely to the newest two chapters* happens. if aqua stood his ground and taught ruby about familial love and that what she's feeling is probably not romantic, i think this could have been avoided. but alas, we need it for the ~drama~)

-

sorry that went on way longer than i thought lmao. i think i covered everything i wanted to say but im too lazy to read back so fingers crossed

if you made it this far and are curious about the other post i mentioned in the beginning, its here. i just think its some context to my thought process but not necessary to understand this post

[potato-lord-but-not]

what is the funniest misconception john has about how a human body works (bc i'm curious, given that his experience with being human is arthur, who is resistant to every type of damage, and his own body, which also is not all the way normal)

John needs to surround himself with more women I think it would be good for him

[remma-demma]

I’m actually scared of alienating some of my followers and moots with all the trans discourse I’ve been steeping quietly in and contemplating, but… I’m trying to not let being scared shut me up about this. That, in and of itself, is erasure and silencing.

Fuck staying quiet. Trans men and mascs deserve a voice, and we, as a group, are not oppressing or invalidating anyone else by using that voice. (Obviously there are shithead exceptions!! Anyone can be an asshole.)

I really hope that if I ever speak about any of this in the future, that people recognize that it’s not ever, ever trans femininity as a concept I have an issue with. It’s people who

- try to divide the community

- are reinventing gender essentialism from the ground up but make it trans

-police other people’s identities and decide for them what oppression they must face because of a tiny set of superficial traits

- simply. Don’t understand what intersectionality means.

- disregard and invalidate anyone who doesn’t fit a very specific (binary, rich, white, abled, flawlessly passing) idea of what it means to be trans.

None of those things are specific or exclusive to one identity. There just happens to be a community of transfems who are currently espousing many of these ideas as gospel. They are understandably defensive because of real actual transmisogyny they face. But other trans people are not your enemy. Accusing anyone and everyone who tries to point these flaws out as radical transmisogynists is simply not true. Pointing out bigotry is not bigotry in itself.

I don’t want the trans community to constantly be at each other’s throats. We each have to sit down and think if we ever catch ourselves blaming an entire other marginalized group for our issues. That’s just fascism babes.

[starii-void]

something about mei and mk being ‘the hero and the warrior’ except they’re more based

theres been a few instances of mei being upset about not being able to spend as much time with MK (the one i remember more vividly was her in s5 wanting to go on a ‘classic MK and Mei adventure!’ but im p sure there was an instance in s4 too that i cant recall) which lead to some thoughts

ive seen a lot of stuff about them and how mei might end up like macaque, bitter and abandoned by MK, like wukong did. but i just feel like it isnt true. so this is my future theory:

there’d be a build up of more instances like this. mei wants to do stuff with MK, but he prioritizes his hero training/duties. each time, she’s shown subtly being more and more upset until one day she snaps. she confronts him and is visibly upset, yelling at him.

but then, instead of snapping back (like Wukong did) he apologizes. maybe it can parallel the first fight they had in season 1 during the race somehow?

in the end, the two do what Wukong and Macaque couldnt, and make up. MK owns up to his mistake and they both get better. they have their own little adventures together, or something like that

and like that, it shows how they’re different from the Hero and the Warrior. it shows how Wukong and Macaque couldve turned out if theyd just put down their pride and communicated. it shows what they couldve been.

basically i just think they wouldnt turn out like macaque and wukong. ive seen a lot of people theorize that but they arent emotionally constipated enough for that to happen, plus we’ve seen them argue and make up on screen already.

also i think itd just make for some cool opportunities for art and visual parallels

[rickybaby]

Racing Bulls is reportedly introducing a new floor at Suzuka (via Formu1a.uno)

[sunflowerwemadeit]

God, to Buck Eddie is leaving him as well and isn't that the most devastating thing you've ever heard? First Chris and now Eddie, he's gonna be so broken. He'll probably say something like "I'm trying not to make this about me" or "this isn't about me I know" but it is. It is. Oh my god someone wrap him up in bubble wraps and give him a hot chocolate and Eddie plushie I cannot.

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

Have YOU been following my inconsistent and largely incoherent ramblings about my Curse of Strahd game? Ever wondered who exactly I'm talking about when I refer to "the fighter" or "the rogue" in our party? No? TOO BAD. This is my blog and I do what I want, up to and including writing up a little who's who on the party in question.

Under a cut, of course, because I'm not a monster.

The Barovia Tour Group

Elowyn "Wyn" Bannon

Played by yours truly. From a noble family out of Neverwinter, whose recently acquired nobility stems not from blood, but from the fact that they helped open a bunch of mines on a minor lord's land and made him a ton of money. Wyn abdicated this responsibility thanks to some unpleasantness with her brother (of the "died and came back wrong thanks to her" variety) and ended up in Barovia as a nice little nightcap to her terrible awful no-good very bad luck. A tiefling cleric of the grave domain, she is currently functioning as the team's plan-maker and guiding hand, which she absolutely should not be. Well-spoken, practical, and extremely grim even in comparison to Barovian sensibilities, except when her very ridiculous sense of humor is tickled by the party wizard. Which is often. Has a soft spot for him, and for the party fighter.

Francis "Frank" Nigel Fourter

If you catch the very stupid joke of his name, you win a prize. A farmhand gone wannabe swordsman, Frankie began his losing streak to the hands of fate when he joined up with what he thought was an adventuring party and what ended up being a roving group of bandits. This revelation came to him as they were actively robbing Wyn, and while he helped her escape and swore an oath to protect her for the rest of the trip to Waterdeep, they were left with nothing but a waterskin and a handful of gold between them. They joined up with the fateful caravan that dragged the entire party into Barovia shortly after, and I'm sorry to say that poor Frankie's luck hasn't improved much since. Earnest, good-hearted, and loyal maybe to a fault, Frankie's obsession with stories of wandering do-gooders and with his battered copy of "Van Richten's Picture Guide to Monster Hunting" has figured largely into his protective nature. The party fighter, with lofty aspirations of paladinship. Might be the only one with a positive integer as their strength modifier. Himbo extraordinaire, as described by his player. Got traumatized in the Vallakovich house and all he got was this lousy t-shirt.

Orxim Brynhildr

Another Neverwinter native, Orxim is an artisan goldsmith whose proficiency with tinkering has earned him a space as the party artificer. He fumbled his way into Barovia with the rest of us because he was traveling to Waterdeep with his old guildmaster's mark, having recently inherited it upon said guildmaster's death. Which doesn't sound QUITE like how a master's title should work, but no one in the party knows enough about artisans guilds to question it. (Except maybe Wyn, but she has somehow managed to never be in the room when this comes up.) Courtly, studious, and maybe a little too keen on that book we got from Strahd's library. Very afraid of spiders. Acts like he learned noble etiquette out of a book, or from a bad TV show. Helped his master make the distinctive golden leg of a certain NPC before said master's untimely end. The second of our three human party members.

Tobias the Magnificent/Wizard of the Stars/Whatever other silly bullshit he's come up with recently

A wandering conman and self-made divination wizard, Tobias spent most of his time pre-Barovia swindling people out of their cash by plying them with his "fortune-telling" prowess. Flippant, self-confident, and particularly keen on uncovering hidden knowledge, Tobias has all of the makings of a bastard except that he can't seem to stop being so goddamn nice all the time. His penchant for absurd, straight-faced humor in the face of despair makes him one of the few fonts of levity in Barovia, and a central star around which the party often operates. Clever and incredibly book-smart, but with absolutely no charisma score to speak of. Obsessed with all things magic. Uses spellcasting to show off almost constantly, in a way that would be annoying if he wasn't so ridiculously theater kid about it. Got so freaked out by an encounter with an entity that wanted to make a deal with him for knowledge that he's been asking Wyn about finding god for a cleric multiclass. Gives startlingly good hugs.

Conner Silverblade

The party rogue. Hasn't deigned to share much about himself save that he lived for no small amount of time in a sewer. Keen on nothing so much as stealing anything he can get his hands on, even against advisement. Maybe especially against advisement. Had a run-in recently with some delicate cargo that made all of our lives difficult. The only other non-human in the party besides Wyn. He's HERE, I guess???

[emieclat]

ok so canadian postage stamp prices inflated by an exorbitant amount so quickly that the stamps i bought mere months ago are already out of date and i now have to pay extra on those stamps if i want them to mail out at all. which is such bullshit if i'm being so honest. i've already paid for those stamps. it was from ONLY A FEW MONTHS AGO.

[cent-scratchnsniff]

progressing through the myth of sisyphus again

[yooniesim]

idk, maybe I'm old school, but I thought our white allies were supposed to listen when someone told them they were being bigoted & attempt to improve that behavior. I don't see acknowledging accusations of bigoted behavior as "rolling over and taking it". And I don't see what's wrong with saying something like, "hey, maybe i shouldn't have thrown my limited blm activism & voting for kamala up into a black person's face while saying they do nothing compared to me". Or, "yeah I probably shouldn't be okay with my acquaintance that thinks calling black ppl slurs is acceptable". Or, "yeah, I shouldn't have told them to kill themselves, that was out of line". Or "yeah, it's an asshole move to repeatedly call people crazy and unstable as insults". Or even, "oof, yeah, publishing a novel length ask misgendering someone while knowing full well what their pronouns are isn't a good thing to do".

I mean, how hard is it to simply say that you were wrong for something and that you're sorry? Why are you so incredibly offended that these issues were pointed out, when you claim to be such an ally, activist, and good person? Shouldn't an ally find it easy to listen to these issues and grow from them? What were you learning at these protests and all the times you spent arguing with "bigots on fb"? That your voice matters and no one else's does? That you don't need to listen to black people if you or your non-black friends don't like them? Was all the work you supposedly put into your activism just for brownie points and to look good to others, or do you really care about the issues you're putting yourself behind? I think the answers to these questions determine whether someone really is an active force in combating bigotry or simply someone that is present. Or, even worse, contributing to bigotry themselves through their ignorance and bruised ego.

[jaggedjot]

"THERE CAN BE a huge range of reasons why a show in 2024—this one or any other—doesn’t have the reach it deserves; endless pixels have been spilled on streamer fatigue and fractured audiences in the past few years. AMC, a darling of the prestige-TV-on-cable era, is in an especially strange position: Even when Interview’s first season was a hit on its streaming service, AMC+, it was still held up as an example of a troubled industry in transition. Two years and two Hollywood strikes later, the situation is even more complicated. As the industry restructures and changes who can watch what where, a disconnect has emerged between what viewers like and what critics do. At the same time, social media platforms—the loci of 21st-century word of mouth—continue to implode, fracturing the conversation of an already dispersed audience. Amidst this, IWTV faces specific hurdles due to the nature of the show. An adaptation of Anne Rice’s 1976 novel that pulls heavily from the many Vampire Chronicles books that followed, the show racebends many of its leads—its titular vampire, Louis de Pointe du Lac, is now Black—and goes all in on the queerness of the books. And it is, of course, about vampires—specifically, vampires who do terrible things. “IWTV has so much that a modern audience could want from a series but, unfortunately, some people won’t receive it solely because it’s a queer horror show with majority BIPOC leads,” says Bobbi Miller, a culture critic who recaps the show on her YouTube channel. “Genre TV is always going to have to jump through more hoops for success than a standard drama.” For the converted, the idea that more people aren’t watching Interview is maddening. One could certainly argue that the show, with its dark, twisted Gothicness and emotional maximalism, isn’t for everyone. But in an era of unceremonious cancellations—even of shows that execs touted as hits—and with an absence of information about the show’s future, it’s understandable that its most dedicated fans would be pushing for more viewers. Interview isn’t the only show whose fans question its marketing efforts; it’s a common accusation leveled at streamers of all sorts, especially when a show is canceled. But in this conversation, Interview fans pointed at specific decisions made by the network that many feel have made this season’s rollout feel so much more muted than the last. ��It’s been a conversation that fans have been talking about for a while now, but I think what really set them off was the comment made by Film Updates,” says Rei Gorrei, a fan who dubs herself the “Unofficial Vampire Chronicles Spokesperson.” A pop-culture aggregation account with nearly a million followers, Film Updates revealed they had been denied interview requests with the show’s talent—and since fans were worried no one was hearing about IWTV, they couldn’t understand why that reach wasn’t being capitalized on. “I think the combination of these things along with little marketing leaves fans in a word-of-mouth scenario where we now feel like it’s up to us to campaign for the season three renewal,” Gorrei says. Many questioned the promotion the network had been implementing, too, like the decision to never have Anderson and Assad Zaman, whose characters’ romance is one of the main focuses of the season, interviewed together. Episode five in particular, with its explosive fight scene between the two, would have been a prime opportunity. (AMC did not respond to emails seeking comment for this story.) Other fans raised concerns about the unceremonious cancelation of the widely admired official podcast, whose Black female host, Naomi Ekperigin, felt like the perfect interviewer for a show with Black leads and nuanced racial storylines. Then there was the fact that too few episodes would air in time for Emmy consideration—not the fault of marketing, but yet one more source of fan worry."

Interview With the Vampire Fans Say the Stakes Have Never Been Higher by Elizabeth Minkel

[trans-axolotl]

Is there a reason why work might not be published if it was submitted to the psych archive? No pressure to answer just curious, thanks for the resources and education you do!

Thank you so much for sending a message because I just went and checked and the way the form was set up, it had sent like a third of responses to spam 😭😭 this had happened earlier this year and I thought I had solved the problem with the filtering but I guess not, I’m just going to start checking the spam folder regularly as well. Tomorrow night or Saturday I’ll go through and get everything that I can find updated onto the website.

Thank you for letting me know bc I really don’t want to have peoples responses and work going missing 💜💜

[parf-fan]

And that's a wrap for the 2024 season! For my part, I enjoyed the hell out of the season and did not end it with closure (through no fault of my own, for once). The only reason I'm not in a rotten headspace about the lack of closure is reflected in my choice of phrasing for the opening of this post: the sheer amount of footage I captured this year and the anticipation of finally getting to sink my teeth into it, putting together that cinematic edit I've been dreaming about since 2017.

Final count: One-hundred and nineteen (119) shows. Three-hundred and twenty-three (323) gigabytes. Seventy-one hours, twenty-five minutes, and thirty-nine seconds (71:25:39) of footage.

As part of reviewing all this footage to begin work on those cinematic edits, I'll get started right away on posting the raw footage to the PARF-fan Facebook. This will not, I fear, be a swift process. It took me twenty-one days to get through the twenty-six videos from 2022, which I cared about significantly less than these.

As a compromise, I've begun posting individual one-off numbers from Finales in Song to the PARF-fan Highlights youtube channel. If there are any particular moments you would like access to sooner, message me and I'll toss 'em up there. I recorded every single Finale from the Saturday of Viking Weekend through the end of the season, with the exception of both days of Wizarding Weekend (as I was ill at the time, no I will not stop being salty about that). I also have the Saturday Finale of Pyrates' Invasion; as well as Off The Cuff on 9/21, 9/29, 10/6, 10/12, 10/19, 10/20, and 10/27; and Whose Jest from 9/21 and 10/13. (For that matter, I have the 2023 Finales from 9/30, 10/1, 10/14, and 10/22; and 2023 Off The Cuff from 10/1 and 10/22; and 2023 Boarshead Brawl with its multiple endings from 9/16, 9/24, 10/1, 10/8, 10/14, 10/15, 10/21, 10/22, 10/28, and 10/29; and I'd have more if I'd realized sooner that the ending changed daily rather than weekly, and also if it hadn't rained so blessed much.)

[rickybaby]

“I don’t think it’s fully sunk in …”

[mha-quotes-and-such]

TW: MENTIONS OF ABUSE

What do you personally think of Endeavor x Hawks? I think it's an interesting ship because it explores further the idea of Endeavor improving as a person, and it can help explore the idea of Hawks finally letting down his barriers and being truly honest with someone. A lot of people call it unhealthy because it's an abuser and an abuse victim but I think considering Endeavors current atonement arc it could instead lead to a past abuser learning how to be gentle with a survivor and a abuse victim learning to let go of the pain by seeing first hand that A) They can be loved, and B) That an abuser won't always be an abuser if that makes sense. The age gap is really dependent on your views, in fiction I don't care as long as they're both adults but in reality that's a hard no. I also think it could explore the topic of Idol x Fan and how that can impact a relationship. Sorry for rambling I just like odd ships and I think there's more to this ship than people will allow. Ships like this allow discussions about abuse and idol worship to be had in a way that doesn't make it gossip about real people while also having a respectful discussion.

Before I get into this, I’m just gonna make a few things clear. 1. As long as a relationship is between consenting adults, whatever I dont care. Age/age gaps wouldn’t typically effect my opinion on a relationship as long as theyre adults and have been for the duration of the relationship. 2. Its important for people, regardless of their previous actions, to attempt to grow and change, and its important for there to be encouragement of this growth

That being said, I’m really not a fan of the ship. I think idol worship, age gaps, and the power dynamics that come with them are something super important to talk about, and can be done well in regards to Endeavor and Hawks. You definitely can do this in a shipping way, but personally I don’t like the approach. I think sometimes we (collective, internet wide) feel the need to explore all one-on-one relationships in the context of shipping, as thats the popular culture at the moment. Sometimes though, that can skew or downplay some of the important (and frankly, often more interesting) aspects of a relationship. If you’ve ever seen that popular post that says (paraphrasing here) ““Shipping and blorbofication are not inherently at odds with understanding a story” and “a lot of people can’t understand a story because they only know how to engage with it in terms of shipping and blorbofication” are two statements that can and do coexist”, thats kinda what I’m trying to get at. Unfortunately a lot of nuance is often lost when its put in the context of shipping

I also think that a lot of their personal growth (overcoming trauma and rectifying past abuse) is kind of… trivialized? if they’re shipped. It’s definitely possible to do it in a respectful, meaningful way, but I think for me personally its just not a satisfying conclusion. Especially in the case of Endeavor, he shouldn’t be attempting to make up for past behavior in order to get something. If he’s apologizing to his children in order to get a relationship with Hawks, its not actually “redemption” so much as it is just continuing to behave in a particular way for his own gain

Tldr: Its cool if you ship it, I just think that the most important parts of their dynamic, which really need to be addressed, are often downplayed for the purpose of shipping. I also feel its just not a satisfying end goal for their character arcs

[1am-s0-veryt1red]

with the leaks to the 2nd to last chapter out can I just ask that we hold off on criticism of whoever until the last chapter is officially out? I know it's asking a lot