#how am I supposed to foreshadow anything if I don’t know what’s going to happen 500 chapters later???

[floral-hex]

no see I WILL write something eventually, I haven’t been putting it off, I’ve just been uhhhhh cultivating the story for a couple of years yeah yeah

[torahoes]

(IDOLiSH7) Minami Natsume - La'Stiara Rabbit Chat

Please note that I am not a professional translator. If you come across any mistakes, feel free to let me know and I will make the necessary corrections.

Haruka Isumi:

Minami Natsume:

Haruka Isumi: That was fast

Minami Natsume: I just had a feeling you’d message me, Isumi-san.

Haruka Isumi: Seriously? How’d you know?! By fortune-telling or something?

Minami Natsume: No, it was the look on your face as we were wrapping up the recording.

Haruka Isumi: My face?!

Minami Natsume: You looked like you kept thinking, “Should I say it? No, maybe I shouldn't…” over and over, so it piqued my curiosity.

Haruka Isumi: Whaaaat? Oh come onnn, what kinda face is that supposed to beeeee

Minami Natsume: 😖 😒

Minami Natsume: ↑ Something like this perhaps?

Haruka Isumi: I gotta be more careful…

Minami Natsume: Did something happen?

Haruka Isumi: Um, well

Haruka Isumi: You know that movie you said you wanted to see? The trailer for it is out now, right?

Minami Natsume: Yes, it is. Even just from the trailer, it looks interesting, doesn’t it?

Minami Natsume: It’s a story where a murder that takes place in a locked room of a mansion triggers the unraveling of mysteries, and I hear there's a shocking twist at the end.

Haruka Isumi: Yeah, it looked like it had tons of hints and foreshadowing

Haruka Isumi: And you know how it’s opening this weekend?

Minami Natsume: Yes. Since I have the day off, I was thinking of going to see it on opening day

Haruka Isumi: I was just wondering if you're planning to go with someone

Minami Natsume: No, I’m planning to go alone for now

Minami Natsume: Though if anyone were to invite me, I’d love to go together…

Haruka Isumi: Um, in that case

Haruka Isumi: How about we go together? I have the afternoon off too!

Minami Natsume: I would love to. Are you sure?

Minami Natsume: I was actually hoping I could go with you, Isumi-san.

Haruka Isumi: Really?!

Minami Natsume: Yes. Let’s get some popcorn and share it together 🍿

Haruka Isumi: We totally should! I want caramel popcorn 😆

Minami Natsume: In that case, I’ll go for salted. Alternating between sweet and salty is the best, wouldn't you agree? 🍿

Haruka Isumi: I’m super excited!! Thanks, Minami

Haruka Isumi:

Haruka Isumi: Oh, by the way, wanna stop by the agency after the movie? I heard from Utsugi-san that they’ve gathered all the fan letters from our last concert there

Minami Natsume: Sounds great; let's do that. It makes me happy that we’re receiving so many now.

Haruka Isumi: Me too; I love reading the fan letters. The way they use such beautiful words to express their feelings so honestly just moves me

Minami Natsume: I get what you mean. I try to express myself through my lyrics, but a letter is something that is written with such care, each word chosen just for that one person

Minami Natsume: They pick out cute stationery and pour their hearts into it. Just thinking about that makes it all the more precious, doesn’t it?

Haruka Isumi: Yeah

Haruka Isumi: I want to live up to all the fans’ expectations even more. For all the love they give us, I want to make sure they know we treasure them just as much in return

Minami Natsume: I’m sure your feelings will reach them. Especially with how we are now, I believe they will.

Haruka Isumi: Yup!

Haruka Isumi: You wrote that in the “La’Stiara” questionnaire too, didn’t you? The part where they asked, "When do you feel you shine like a jewel the most?" and you answered with “Now.”

Minami Natsume: Yes. Right now — the present — where I have my members by my side is when I can truly be myself and feel most human.

Minami Natsume: That’s why I feel like we can accomplish anything, including fulfilling your wish, Isumi-san.

Haruka Isumi: Hehe, we all really love ŹOOĻ, don’t we?

Minami Natsume: That’s right. You wrote, “When I’m with ŹOOĻ” in response to that question as well, didn't you?

Haruka Isumi: Well... yeah, I did! But Touma and Torao basically said the same thing too

Haruka Isumi: Touma wrote, “When I’m doing ŹOOĻ stuff,” and Torao wrote, “When I’m with my members” 😏

Minami Natsume: “Doing ŹOOĻ stuff” — that's an interesting way to put it

Haruka Isumi: It's such a Touma-like answer lol

Minami Natsume: And Mido-san has become more honest with himself, too.

Haruka Isumi: Riiighhtt? The old Torao would’ve probably written something like “I've been shining since the day I was born" 😑😑

Minami Natsume: I can picture that so vividly.

Haruka Isumi: Lmao

Haruka Isumi: Hey, wanna invite the other two and read the fan letters together? Don’t know if our schedules will line up, but...

Minami Natsume: That sounds wonderful.

Minami Natsume: Let’s make time so all four of us can take in the fans’ heartfelt words together.

Haruka Isumi: Yeah! I feel like it’ll make us even more determined to do more as a team of four!

Minami Natsume: Inumaru-san may have a knack for leading us forward, but you’re really good at it, too, Isumi-san.

Haruka Isumi: Am I…? I've never really thought about it

Minami Natsume: Thank you for always inspiring us. I’m looking forward to the movie 🍿

Haruka Isumi: Yeah!! I’ll text you again later 🍿🍿

The End.

[mysteriouspersonrambles]

Live listening to the new Malevolent episode so long post:

Dude fucking medieval Britain being Kayne’s bind spot is so funny - like what a loser

Alexander!!!! My Boy I love you so much

This peace is not going to last

Oh a weaved basket let me guess the village is going to be totally destroyed and that’s what causes the foul taste in the river or the bad river taste came from the witches nest dumping into the river supple

You walk a path with devils- bestie you guys run had fist into the devils on a regular basis don’t act like all those run-ins aren’t your fault

Nooo Yorick - get bagged idiot I suppose

Arthur continues to be the most conspicuous guy of all time. Congrats buddy nobody does it worse than you

Do you still have your lighter remember the magic lighter

Arthur you trespass on the Daily you where a fucking PI dude

Oh never mind Arthur got his spooky sense and being touched by ghosts apparently he truly is beloved

Arthur was a Boy Scout oh man I forgot about that. What a mental image

Oh yeah Arthur’s super dead parents

Oh man friendship let’s go. Wait Arthur what happened with your friend did die or something. Oh who am I kidding it’s malevolent of course he’s dead

Ohh what else is in the pen. Is it bones I hope it’s bones.

Aw boo it’s just a weird figure dudes you guys encounter those things all the time

Bewildered Englishman I love that

Yeah dude he’s different it’s the trauma. Remember he had to eat a man

But your Kayne’s favorite boytoy that should mean something

Dude I hope they run into their other self’s that would be so fucking funny please 🙏 or like a Catbox situation (does anybody get that reference)

Yeah dude fuck the narrative

You might fail but also like you’re the MC’s so plot armor

Huh difficult to see anything else but the fire- this better not be foreshadowing

The Guy is back hell yeah ohhh what a voice

Arthur does not know how the deal with the fay

Arthur this village is fucking dead there is nobody here

Yeah guys this guy has been through some shit

I think he’s warning you dude you know there are monsters about

Yeah dude the Fay the one you don’t know how to handle

I like this guy he speaks in riddles

I this guy talking about the prince or another Arthur or just regular Arthur

Welcoming is a dangerous thing Arthur

Dude not his biggest trauma

This man is not up to date with modern law procedures man

Ohhh spooky ghost man is a story teller

Dude the foul taste in the water

Self hate for the win 🏆

He is the boy’s vengeance

Oh shit was I right or half right but I knew this guy was ghost guy. I think that’s actually so cool

The witches child?? Or Faroe

Arthur these noises are not the ones I would want to hear when talking about children. Like I know you’re morning but the noises man

Good choice Arthur I would want the truth too but it could be something you know but still

That’s so cool that the ghost kids are so powerful good for you ghost kids

Scratch!!!! Or the goat lady the one who was mentioned in the 1st season I can’t spell her name but I was talking about her the other day

Or maybe just another spooky ghost lady either way in hyped

Fuck indeed you just murder one of her kids and she got a good look at you and who you’re traveling with

You can’t destroy the darkness idiot

Oh fuck is Alexander evil please I will cry if he is

You don’t get a weapon you chose a truth

Yeah man you can’t escape the darkness idiot

Is she why Kayne can’t be here. Is Kayne scared of her please that would be so funny

“He is not what he seems” I can’t tell if this is about Yorick or Alexander the owl it could be both but I love them so much.

Also where was Yorick this episode I missed him he’s not evil just kinda dumb and a plotter and he wants a hand of glory but he’s just a little guy

Arthur are you going to sleep on the ground the forest is going to eat you

William aw what happened to him how did he die horribly

I’m sad this episode was a feeler though I’m glad Arthur got a little peace of mind when it came to Faroe. I can’t wait to see the absolute shit show that must be next episode this one was much too fluffy something terrible must be coming.

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 195 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: The gang’s all here and it’s the final roundup before the attack on the Death Star. There’s this kinda funny scene where the Space UN tests trying to fight outside the Wifi Net Quiet Zero has and their shield is impervious to energy and takes control of any guided missiles they throw, like I know bullets are illegal in space because it’s basically zero gravity pollution and that gets messy real fast but you might wanna try it just this once. Anyway Miorine’s in full blanket burrito mode and Guel challenges Suletta to an Utena duel and I’m not entirely sure why he’s doing this. Like I don’t wanna say he throws the duel because that would be kind of an insult to Suletta and all she’s done but the reason he gives is kind of that silly pride shit he’s supposed to have outgrown. So like I think he is trying but knows she’ll win regardless and free Miorine from the idea of being married to the strongest person chosen for her so she can meet with the person she already chose dressed in the champion’s regalia she deserves. The two finally meet and have a very nice conversation that kinda converges their character arcs, Suletta has to act even if it’s hopeless because she can’t live with doing nothing, and Miorine has to overcome her fear of making mistakes that get people killed by letting Suletta risk her life and taking decisive action on her own. The part I really like about the next bit is they plan to send Chuchu’s suit in without wifi enabled so Quiet Zero can’t do shit to it like sending an old landline computer in to infilitrate a wifi network and they compare it to driving while blindfolded which is EXACTLY what Chuchu did in her intro, like that’s some beautiful foreshadowing, I kinda love how on the nose it is. Suletta clears the test of not fucking dying when they strap her into the Monster Energy Drink Gundam and Miorine closes a deal with Shadiq so they can have all their character arc cameos ready for the Hopes & Dreams Save the World final battle. Lauda picked the absolute worst time to fight it out with Guel about killing their dead in giant unpainted mobile suits and Suletta charges in determined to communicate with Eri and Prospera, good shit.

Ranma ½: A lot of this first episode really plays around with the dramatic irony of the premise which is kind of a double-edged sword since if most people know anything about Ranma as a series it’s the premise. Trans Icon Ranma Saotome was cursed to turn into a girl whenever he’s dipped in water and turns back into a boy when dipped in hot water, with his dad doing the same but he becomes some sort of Kung Fu Panda, what a ridiculous idea. I like how tongue in cheek the cursed springs are like they’re literally just a hundred different premises for various anime about cursed people and Ranma just happened to get the only one that gives him massive tits. Anyway now the main story kicks in where Ranma and Genma are returning from China, having for some reason picked NOW for the time his genderfluid son has to engage in an arranged power marriage instead of figuring out the whole ‘am I okay with sometimes having tits or do I wanna get the curse broken’ deal. There’s three choices but realistically the only one Ranma has any chemistry with and the only one with any interest in running a dojo is comedically overpowered Akane. They go through a whole thing of showing how Ranma’s ridiculously faster than her but they don’t touch on if he’s actually stronger since she seems to just kinda have the kind of sociopathic superstrength that makes beating the shit out of someone with a random background object funny, like she’s Shizuo Heiwajima without the invulnerability. Problem being Akane has some massive misandry issues and sees Ranma as a man first and feels lied to about him introducing himself as a woman (I feel like there’s some trans subtext there, I don’t generally like pushing that on things where people almost certainly weren’t thinking like that at the time but it is worth noting that it does kinda line up nicely) meanwhile Ranma has some complicated feelings about it given he really did want to be friends with Akane and bonded with her over fighting but feels his gender got in the way in the end. Some complex emotional stuff right off the bat and I am kinda here for it even if these people seem to take a crazy amount of baths since we have to do the ‘they walk in on each other naked’ bit like three times in the same night. But yeah, interesting start, I know a lot of this is gonna be slapstick and fanservice but I am kinda interested in how the gender issues and the psychological stuff is handled given their relationship has hit such a roadblock right away and both feel betrayed by the other. I remember a lot of the Inuyasha filler kinda defaulted to “Kagome’s right because she’s mad and the mad person is always right” but if I recall the canon stuff was a bit more nuanced and of course the ‘women are always right’ tropes is kind of challenged when Ranma is also sometimes a woman so we’ll see how that goes.  

Castlevania: We’re like three episodes from the end so it seems to be a weird time to be building up a new villain in Varney and especially in Ratko but a good chunk of the episode is just them shouting their philosophies at each other. Now that Hector and Isaac’s plots are wrapped up there’s an odd tacked-on feeling to the more episodic plot of resurrecting Dracula. Still, Alucard’s starting to regrow some of his humanity now that survivors have started staying at the castle and it’s clear he’s not willing to even begin processing all the fucked up shit his dad did and what he had to do to stop him but needing to actually store people in the castle is kind of forcing his hand a bit. Meanwhile Germain’s setting up Hector’s portal magic in weirdly conspicuous spots around paintings and eventually plants the end point on the spot where Dracula died so yeah that’s gonna be a mess. Last but not least Trevor and Sypha finally make it down to the court of miracles and find the royalty is fucking dead and this girl that’s been taxing everyone is just crazy and… yeah that was kind of obvious from the start, they kinda play with how insane she is but honestly she’s just kinda the worst, it’s just kind of a ‘Cool story, still despotism’ situation but before anybody can worry about getting the citizens any actual help Ratko barges in with his demon dogs to presumably look for the incredibly powerful broken magical thing Trevor’s been muttering in the corner about for the past ten minutes.

Dandadan: Momo is a very un-average girl that no one understands and gets into a fierce dork-off with local nerd Ken after her boyfriend dumped her and the two resolve to call the other one’s supernatural beliefs stupid, with Ken believing in aliens and Momo believing in ghosts, welp turns out they’re both right and we have a Gintama style anachronism soup right here. Momo reveals her adoptive grandmother is a Monogatari-style ghost asskicker whose general weirdness alienated her from Momo even though she loves her. Meanwhile Ken’s just a fucking lonely-ass dude who wanted alien friends since he was also literally alienated and the two aren’t so different. Ken ends up getting cursed by an old lady ghost that steals his dick and gives him superpowers while Momo gets captured by Pixie Aliens that want to sexually assault her because this is still an anime and we gotta have someone in their underwear in the first episode. Points for subversion though as it turns out Ken’s ghost powers are kinda berserker and useless while Momo gets esper powers from the alien drugs unlocking her latent chi and is able to basically turn into Tatsumaki from One Punch Man and blow up the whole fucking spaceship. So yeah, good opening, aliens are defeated but they still have to deal with Ken’s curse and stop him from going crazy while they sort out his whole deal. Really neat start, reminds me of when I watched the first episode of Jujutsu Kaisen and they’re laying the emotional groundwork while not cleaning up the initial encounter right away, it’s always a vibe to see those initial few grounded episodes before things start getting really crazy.

Delicious in Dungeon: The group has finally become level 4 friends and unlocked Senshi’s tragic backstory. Turns out when Senshi was a kid his group got trapped in the dungeon looking for gold and ended up running out of food and getting picked off by a Griffin. All of that would be enough to traumatize Senshi but what’s worse is his leader fet him some of the supposed griffin meat right after getting into a heated argument with their last surviving member so Senshi’s not sure if he really ate a Griffin or he ended up being a cannibal and really enjoying it. Once he was left alone he made friends with the orcs and grew up in the dungeon, finding that even though he could physically leave it, too much had happened for him to ever be able to mentally leave it. So now the group make a fun cooking adventure out of the question “Is Senshi a cannibal?” and there’s some shenanigans but short answer is no he’s not, the dwarves were just bad at monster classification and they ate a Hippogriff instead and as convenience has it, the griffin they killed was actually a transformed hippogriff (good because having another pinned sidequest would kinda wreck the pacing). Now that all that’s wrapped up, the party’s also transformed by the mushrooms that got the Hippogriffin and all swap races, shenanignas ensue. It’s pretty funny watching everyone weigh the pros and cons of their new race but given it’s not what they’ve trained to specialize in all their lives, it’s a major disadvantage for most of them. Now they’ve reached the Skyrim Steampunk Dwarven ruins and before they end up having to fight any steampunk golems they camp out and have some dumplings and try to figure out a way to change back.

Gleipnir: Shuuichi is an average kid that no one understands (Hey, had to play that straight once this week) and he’s actively burying his talents in some Yoshikage Kira-esque attempt to be seen as normal, except instead of cutting off hands and summoning punching ghosts he turns into a dog mascot that’s basically a shitty clumsy version of Inuyasha without the sword. He gets an enhanced sense of smell and is seemingly very sensitive to the scent of death when he stops a young girl from killing herself via arson and the Shinji Ikari factor kicks in and he wants to take her panties off because this is still an anime and we WILL have someone in their underwear in the first episode. So I expected Clair to be the key to the inevitable impending death game that involves transforming mascot characters but no, turns out she’s just a suicidal girl and a jerk that blackmails Shuuichi (I mean to be fair he did sexually assault her so they’re both kinda jerks, idk who I’m supposed to be rooting for but Clair’s the more outwardly scummy out the gate) but they do end up getting attacked by another transforming assassin and will surely unravel said inevitable death game soon enough. Side note but my GOD this anime is horny, like obviously that’s not something I particularly mind given I just finished Konosuba and Ranma and Dandadan are on the block but this one’s different there’s a lot of underwear and panties and bras and shit for no real reason and it just feels like it’s just there to be voyeuristic and wish-fulfillment as opposed to adding flavor or character or even comedy, like ngl Clair’s hot don’t get me wrong but the fanservice here is so wild and blatant something kinda rubs me the wrong way since we’ve essentially got more panties than plot in the first episode.

Revolutionary Girl Utena: We pick up right where we left off last time with Saiyonji being exepelled and going presumably on his own Chazz Princeton rich boy humbling arc like Guel. This whole episode we see how two-faced Touga can be as he promises to care for Saiyonji’s safe passage and immediately burns his diary and how he pretends to not know what’s going on despite having an Aizen-like plan for this whole thing. Turns out he’s the next up to fight Utena but he still hasn’t healed, luckily there’s another Skywalker to come fight the pink-haired anime girl. Nanami’s pissed at Utena for getting Touga injured and Utena just kinda takes it since she’s feeling a little guilty too. Her whole demeanor towards Touga is softer and more awkward for a lot of the episode and she feels like if she can just thank him she can get it off her chest. At Touga’s birthday party they try to talk but Nanami steps in to shove them away and we get intermittent flashbacks of her giving Touga a kitten for his birthday when they were little which thanks to the cosmic parallel factor of the Utena world is what Anthy got him this year. They really do some work to make Nanami seem like a genuine threat again and that’s a hard sell given we’ve had several straight episodes of her failing Team Rocket style and getting trampled by elephants. Still the flashbacks reveal she fucking killed the original cat since he liked it too much despite her earnest hardwork in giving it to him being the reason he liked it in the first place, like that crosses the line between comedically crazy girl to genuine nutcase. Either way this all proceeds according to Touga’s plan and he crowns Nanami as the next duelist and she and Utena will fight. The actual duel’s kind hilariously quick but Nanami’s not here to marry Anthy she just wants to straight up kill Utena and comes out for blood. Eventually they get her restrained and Touga gets the info he needs to fight Utena next, also Nanami kinda looks better with her hair down, damn.

[countessofravenclaw]

Breaking down some foreshadowing

So did you all read the new chapter of A Homeland This North, country dear fathers! ? Did you like it? Told you that nothing was gonna go wrong, am I right?

Honestly, if you follow me here, you probably knew what was coming since I have talked about it. Anyway, it's still interesting to see who was expecting it, since much of my writing is happy-go-lucky adventures with no actual stakes and I don't put a lot of thought into motifs and recurring themes. If my writing was looked at as real literature, it would probably be horrid. But, for this one as we have been building up to this since part one, I actually included some intentional foreshadowing. I mean the first alarm bell that rung in no one's head was the fact that they were not supposed to go to Finland originally and that it was due to Gastón that they eventually did. So, I decided to break down some of the foreshadowing I did that alluded that something bad was going to happen and it was going to happen to Gastón

Chapter 1

“Then let's let him,” Gastón just laughed, “Hey look, I turn 27 next week and be in my late twenties, so I gotta have the fun now.” 

“Well, I also have never skied—” Nina answered the question directed at her, “—nor will I. It seems dangerous. Anyway, I like the plan, there are other things to do for me.”

“I can live with never knowing if can I ski or not,” Nina stated, “I’m not athletic, nor do I enjoy it. I would just get myself hurt.”

Chapter 2

“It’s always good to have doctors as your acquaintances,” Isla nodded, “I actually recently was talking to Serena…”

“You were a natural in it, but you’re not 16 anymore,” Marco pointed out, “So be careful. The emergency number is different there.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t get in trouble,” Nina glanced at Gastón, “Thankfully, they can’t spend the whole day there as there is so little light. We did look up the emergency number. 112 is the most common one in Europe, but they didn’t use it at England. But I doubt, we’re gonna need to use it.”

“Do we really wanna go through that emotional turmoil again?”

Nina really wished that he could have come with them to see the capital, but his job obviously came first right now. Once they were in Lapland, they would have plenty of time. Even with Simon and Ambar and Luna and Matteo, there would be more than enough time to have just to themselves.

“Not really,” Gastón shook his head. “Just some things in the future that I might wanna do. But that’s the future, I have time to think about it.”

Chapter 3

“Tell her to talk to my Mom if she wants to fuss,” Gastón kissed Nina on top of her head as he sat down, “They can form a support group. They’re just scared that they’ll never get grandchildren if we die here middle of nowhere.”

“I still wish Mom and Dad would have actually picked if they wanted to be protective or not,” Gastón laughed, “More often than not, they just let me do what I wanted, but then suddenly they were convinced I was deliberately putting my life at risk. I’m still surprised they ever let me back to Roller after the fire.”

“Have fun,” Nina kissed Gastón on the cheek as he got up from the table, “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Us?” Gastón and Matteo glanced at each other. They had opted not to take any lessons, given that they had done quite frequent skiing while younger. It was to be seen how good an idea that was going to be. “Never.”

“Of course you are. Don’t worry.” Gastón ran his finger through a lock of her hair, “We’re not going on a black slope at the start. We’ll start off easy and be careful.” He leaned down swiftly to kiss her.

"I will never leave her side."

“Of course I have,” Gastón responded, “and so does Nina. We have talked about it a lot. It’s just not happening at this second. We have all the time in the world. You don’t think we’re actually gonna tell you when we’re trying? That would be crossing some lines. When there is actually something to tell, you will know.”

“And I’m not gonna question you any further,” Gastón finished his point before looking at the view down the mountain again, “You know, life’s really good right now.”

“Well, hopefully you won’t fall,” Gastón grinned and started sliding ahead, “See you at a lower altitude!”

“We took couple of green ones at the start,” Gastón started, “They’re beginner friendly. Wide and away from the forest so there is no danger if you fall or derail.”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Matteo shook his head, before looking at Luna sternly, “Luna, I’m being serious. Don’t try it. I don’t want to head to the ER during this trip.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure April won’t want any part of this,” Gastón laughed while he had been absenmindedly playing with Nina’s hair, “and she’s not a doctor, yet. She will be a neurosurgeon, not a radiology tech or ObGYN. She won’t be able to tell a thing, but we’re very well situated if someone has a brain injury…or well, you are. She won’t be allowed to operate on me.” 

I just wanted to show this off because I'm proud of it

[ashleysalcove]

Title: The Outsiders

Author: S.E. Hinton

Publication: April 24, 1967

Synopsis:

No one ever said life was easy. But Ponyboy is pretty sure that he's got things figured out. He knows that he can count on his brothers, Darry and Sodapop. And he knows that he can count on his friends—true friends who would do anything for him, like Johnny and Two-Bit. But not on much else besides trouble with the Socs, a vicious gang of rich kids whose idea of a good time is beating up on “greasers” like Ponyboy. At least he knows what to expect—until the night someone takes things too far.

First Line:

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.

Favorite Character: Dallas Winston

OTP: Dallas and Cherry ☺️💕✨💖

Favorite Quote: “I could fall in love with Dallas Winston,” she said. “I hope I never see him again, or I will.”

Rating: ★★★★★

My Thoughts:

*SPOILERS*

Life is funny isn’t it? Funny in the way the things we like sometimes change as we age and mature. I think Taylor Swift is the only musician from my early teens that I still love, probably even more now than I did back then, at twenty-eight. I can’t tell you a single book I’d read back then that I would still enjoy today that isn’t for nostalgic reasons.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton is a book that I was supposed to read at fifteen years old for my advanced English class, but at the time I had so much going on at home that I wasn’t interested in anything and by my last class, which was Science, I was fighting to keep my eyes open. Years later I bought it again to read on my old iPad, but I only got through 1 and a half chapters. I wasn’t paying attention to what I read and I guess I just wasn’t interested in those types of stories at that time. I loved the Twilight Saga and Fallen and etc.

Today, at twenty-eight, I was able to read and finish it thanks to my kindle. I think that’s one of the drawbacks of being a ‘mood reader’ and one of many reasons I love my kindle. Being able to read the books I’m in the mood for the second I’m in the mood for them has helped me become a more voracious reader. Before, I’d always be in the mood to read something else by the time the book I ordered arrived.

I am of the belief that everything happens the way it’s supposed to. Everything happens for a reason. I don’t think that the meaning and the themes of The Outsiders would have resonated with me at fourteen or even twenty-two for that matter the way they have today. There’s something about being in your late twenties and reading a book like The Outsiders and thinking back on your childhood and the people you’ve interacted with or grown up around that makes this book more meaningful. Of course, those who read it back in high school and reread it today as adults might have differing opinions.

S.E. Hinton’s writing is so simple and beautiful and lyrical even which is surprising since she wrote The Outsiders in High School. That is amazing and quite an impressive accomplishment for a teenager to have especially since it’s considered an important piece of literature today. How many 16 or 17 year olds can say that they wrote a book that would be read over and over for years and in some cases even banned for, in my opinion, showing the hard truth of realities? Probably not many.

I love the characters so much. I love Dallas Winston. I can fix him (no really I can). I think Johnny Cade had a better understanding of the insides of people than Ponyboy does. Maybe it’s because Johnny had a more difficult home life than Ponyboy or maybe it’s because Johnny has seen a lot more than he has. I don’t know, but what I do know is that Johnny Cade deserved better than the ending he gets.

I love the foreshadowing S.E. Hinton does throughout the book. I think it’s very impressive she was able to do so on her first book and at such a young age too. I feel like there were times she could’ve gone into a little more detail like the fatal fight between Ponyboy and Johnny and the socs in the park. I feel like there could’ve been more emotion than there already was.

I think S.E. Hinton is incredibly skilled at dialogue. The dialogue and relationships between the characters just flow so beautifully throughout the book. My favorite scene is when Two-Bit, Johnny, and Ponyboy are walking Cherry and Marcia to Two-Bit’s so he could give them a ride home. I love the dialogue between Cherry and Johnny and I love how real it felt and how you could feel the pain Ponyboy feels when he shouts that it’s not fair that the greasers have all the rough breaks and how you could feel the figurative slap Johnny feels when Pony tells him that Johnny’s parents don’t care about him.

I love Ponyboy’s thinking that Darry hates him and I have to wonder if I would have thought that too had I read it when I was younger and if I had thought that how would I see things if I reread it as an adult? I guess I’ll never know. When Darry slaps Pony, as a reader, you can feel the hurt on both ends. As an adult I knew that Darry behaved the way he did and treated Pony the way he does partly because Darry loves him and is afraid to lose him but also because Darry wants Pony to be able to have the opportunities he had but was unable to explore.

I love the scene after everything goes down and the boys look for Dallas and find him at the one guy’s place, I forget his name, and the way Dallas came out to talk to them even though he was tired and sore from having his ribs cracked. I loved the way Dallas smiled when he realized Pony thought he had been with a girl. That way he smiled, I could see him so so clearly, and I think that’s when I started to love him. I love how Dally helped them out and the way he keeps his mouth shut and takes the blame for something Two-Bit did when he could have easily ratted him out. The hair on his chest. The way Dallas opens up to Johnny after Johnny says he and Pony are going to turn themselves in. The way he talks about Cherry and how she hates him and when I read that all I could think to myself was: if only you knew!

God, I fucking love Dallas Winston.

In the beginning of the book Pony only sees people on a surface level. He doesn’t see past their roughness and thinks of them in almost the way socs do. Pony grows up so much throughout the book. I love his relationship with his brothers and how soft all of the guys in their little gang are for each other. You can feel the love between all of them.

To Dallas those guys are the only family he has. They mean the world to him and it shows. I mean, how many people would you go to the door to see with freshly cracked ribs? How many people would you help run from the police to protect them from the hardness that jail can bring you?

Johnny didn’t deserve to die the way he does. Johnny Cade didn’t deserve to die at all. The final moment with Dallas and Johnny in the hospital is heartbreaking. The way Dally hoped that telling Johnny that the greasers beat the socs would make everything better. He thought for sure that if anything could have saved Johnny it would’ve been learning that. Reading it reminded me of Jennette McCurdy talking about how she naively thought that telling her mother she finally reached their goal weight would bring her back. And when telling Johnny that doesn’t work, Dallas tries again and harder this time because now it’s urgent. It was urgent before but now it really is because the thing Dallas thought for sure would save him wasn’t saving him. He tells Johnny that he’s still being called a hero and that he and the boys are proud of him.

Dallas has the biggest heart out of all of them and I think that’s why he prefers to be so hardened or to make people think he was. It was his way of protecting himself from more heartbreak but he’d let his guard down when it came to that lost little puppy that was Johnny Cade who idolized him and admired him so much. He didn’t even see it coming. I think the line that sums up Dally is one he speaks himself: “… you get tough like me and you don’t get hurt. You look out for yourself and nothin’ can touch you.”

I want to say that Dallas didn’t deserve to die the way he does, because he didn’t, but it’s hard because it was his choice. He wanted to die. He lost the one person he let himself love and I have to believe that it was also guilt that led him to dying the way he did. Guilt for being the one who told the boys about the church and how to get there.

God, I fucking love Dallas Winston.

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

So I decided to actually go through and point out the flaws of the logic of the post I saw regarding Hero and how it foreshadows James’s fall because I just have a mighty need to discuss it. 

I still am not positive how we’re supposed to perceive any part of the song as a threat to the person it is being sung to. The post never elaborates on this point so I just really have no clue what exactly they think makes the song a “threat”. Their is a  section of the song I though maybe it was referring to:

Portrayed as cruel and heartless, 

I am might I am power, I'm due process, I will smite

Our enemies destroy Mettle I'll deploy

But to me the lyrics are more of a threat to anyone who would cause harm not to the person being sung to. Again it’s hard to really argue with their argument as we don’t get much more then “Trust me I said so” so I am just kind of having to guess here for that particular part. But that section is what I would call the most “threatening” portion that feels very obviously directed towards Salem in his mind and the unseen threat to the listener. 

Their is also an oh so convenient skipping over of what I find to be the most powerful part of the song: I would die Without regret, I'd offer up my life With zero reservations I would fly Into the sun, if that would keep our dream alive

Deliver you from harm Shelter in my arms The fear will surely fade Know right now the plan I made will guide us home We'll survive this storm

It is also important to note that this section is where the song start off in Gravity. The very first words of Hero most people heard where “I would die” we see James fighting Watts and a song that is James’s song declaring his willingness to die if it meant keeping people safe. Those are the first words we see from the song meant to be a gateway into James’s mind, a willingness to die for the dream, and an assurance that he will keep you safe and that somehow they will make it through the darkness and find the light again. Somehow you have convinced yourself that that is somehow a threat and mimicking the villains? 

I- I have no words. You literally acknowledge this section is the damn chorus, the section of the song that is supposed to repeat and are now trying to insist it is an obsessive mantra. Trying to argue the chorus is an obsessive mantra makes no damn sense at all. It’s taking something that is in most songs and trying to make it into something it is not. Here is how the chorus is defined: Chorus. The chorus is the big payoff and climax of the song. It's also where the verse and pre-chorus have been reduced to a simple repeated sentiment.

So in this case, the climax, the payoff and sentiment the song wants you to walk away with can be broken down to Ironwoods strong desire to protect people, a willingness to put himself in extreme danger and suffer extreme harm to do so, and an assurance to hang in their a little longer. Which reads as they initially correctly pointed out, a comforting gesture meant to reassure the listener that no matter how bad or scary things seem, they will survive, they will make it through and be okay. That’s not an obsessive mantra, it’s an assurance, a promise. 

This is truly a gross misreading of the text in volume 7 it’s actually infuriating. It wasn’t about just “Keeping Atlas afloat” Salem, the person hellbent on ending the world whom he just discovered is immortal was heading straight for Atlas and they had no plan to deal with her. He was traumatized and triggered and terrified what happened to Beacon would happen to Atlas and knew she wanted to end the world. Yes, he was going to leave behind those trapped on Mantel but them dying? Is still Salem’s fault. She is the one killing people. She is the one who is willing to do anything to get what she wants and what she wants is to end the world and Atlas is currently housing literally half if the items she needs to do that. Trying to make sure she doesn’t get those items isn’t him focusing on just trying to keep Atlas afloat its about trying to keep the whole damn world from dying. 

Yes,, James does some horrific things in volume 8, I won’t pretend that is not the case, the issue is it happens far to quickly and in a way that is not only extremely out of character but also is extremely ableist and harmful. But reassuring someone who reasonably would be terrified and unsure if they can survive the storm that they will make it is not an obsessive craze to “protect”. No one accuses the mains of being obsessed with being Heroes, people just say they are trying to protect people. So trying to twist James into some man obsessed with Atlas just really doesn’t work especially given the lyrics of the song. 

This section is an odd one because that line is literally a callback to a comment James  made back in volume 2 towards Ozpin asking him if he thinks his children can win a war and Ozpin sadly saying he hopes they won’t. It was an ideological conflict wherein James has faith in his Atlesian Knights taking over the battlefield, Ozpin seems to be more content with the status quo. James recognizes how dangerous being a hunter is and sees a lot of people dying from it and thinks they need a new way of dealing with the Grimm that minimized people on the battlefield. We also did see in volume 2 James is willing to listen to other people and follow their plans instead. James wanted to send his army to investigate Mount Glenn, Ozpin wanted to send team RWBY and James follows his lead and lets him send team RWBY which leads to a complete disaster. The WF just moves their plan forward and invades Vale and sends everyone into a panic and leads to a lot of destruction of the city. But also, this section is kind of trying to be miseading, “I’ve made my plan” is the ending of the verse that goes:

What if it's true as they say That I don't have a heart That I'm more a machine than a man? What would that change Would it matter at all? I've made my plan

The I’ve made my plan section is referencing back to the section where James is wondering, am I a monster? Am I just being heartless and cruel? Before disregarding the fear and reminding himself more then anything that he has a plan, he knows what he’s doing and regardless of what people say that won’t change his course of action because he believes it can keep people safe. 

I actually sat down and listened to Sacrifice for this post and I just am not seeing what they are implying here in Sacrifice. With how many people I’ve seen say it I imagine their is something that is just not clicking lolz and I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on this. The only thing that maybe would work is this little section here:

What if all the plans you made

Where not worth the price they paid

That section I can kind of see, in Hero it mentions having a plan and Sacrifice questions if the plan is worth the price which again, I do think Volume 7 introduced a trolley problem which both sides had a high price, one that should not have to be paid but one Salem was going to take no matter what any party did and the decision came down to more what was the least awful price to pay which is not an easy question to answer nor a rabbit hole I intend on exploring in this post.

Back to the point I really really do not understand how they could walk away from Hero thinking James is mimicking Salem, the person responsible for his severe trauma. The song has brief mentions about how emotions can get in the way of doing what needs to be done which in some ways is true. Emotions can cloud peoples judgement and keep them from seeing clearly. You can’t completely ignore your emotions like James toys with in volume 7 but that scene always read to me as a traumatized person trying to emotionally work through everything that happened and kind of wishing he didn’t have to feel all of those complicated feelings he’s dealing with which....I honestly get. I imagine most of us have things in our lives that cause us pain, things we wish we didn’t have to feel and wish we could make go away. That doesn’t make us, or James, like the villains for feeling those things.

The whole “Casting doubt on RWBY + JNRO thing is a continuing problem within the FNDM. They simultaneously insist we can’t be too critical of them because “they’re just kids” while also trying to insist they are the only ones who can save the world and we shouldn’t doubt them because they aren’t kids. The narrative can’t seem to make up its mind on what it’s trying to say about them in regards to whether they are adults who can be trusted to handle these things or if they’re just uwu sad kids and its oh so sad they have to fight. We cannot have it both ways, either they are kids who shouldn’t have to fight a war, or they are adults who can make their own choices. The arc we see James go on is one wherein he does see the students as kids who shouldn’t have to be fighting this war but also recognizes they have to and seeing how RWBY has grown and all that they have endured and recognizes they can handle the heavy responsibility of being huntress’s when he gives them their licenses. The line is just a callback to volume 2 and you my dude are reading way to much into it lolz. (also I hate to break it to you but the rabbit hole is not that deep. CRWBY just is constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall and praying something sticks and the FNDM is falling for it.)

The point being, it is so frustrating seeing people not taking Hero, a song which James declares he is willing to die to save people, is willing to suffer extreme pain and harm to stop Salem followed by him willingly searing the flesh off of his own arm to stop Watts, and say it shows he is a villain.

We can see here how much pain he is in as he is doing this. He has to stop and he grabs his arm in pain because it hurts so much and understandably so. It’s agonizing but he tries. 

Some people think here he’s even starting to go into shock from the shear agony of what he is trying to do, but he does it anyways. He pushes through the unbearable pain because he knows what will happen if he doesn’t. His song is called Hero because in this moment, he was being a true hero in a scene that none of the mains have come even close to matching. Hero is about a man fighting to try and keep the world from ending and reassuring the people looking up to him that they can do it, they just have to hold on. 

[constantvariations]

V9C8

I cannot believe I’m awake when the episode drops holy shit. I’m also drunk af bc it’s my weekend off so I might not be as sharp as I’m usually am (not) but guess we’ll see lol. Also the devil works hard but pirates work harder. Bless them yardee hars yo ho

Post Ep: uhh I genuintely dunno what to say here :/ MKEK fucked over literally the only aspect of v9 i liked so i guess imma rot or smth idk

Genuinely funny (by which I mean what the absolute fuck) that the warning does not, in fact, warn the viewer of fucking anything. Reminds me of the conversation in Criminal Minds where the unit receives a bomb threat and have to wait for it to explode because sending out a general bomb alert would halt the entirety of the country in a panic. Wasn’t there a tiktok about this exact thing? One that went liek “TRIGGER WARNIGN! TRIGGER WARNING!“ but never told you wh at the warning was? Feels like this shit

Back at it again with this pov shit? With the hentai panting? Why is it always with the hentai panting???

“Why did you shout at everyone like that?” Sometimes it’s hard to remember that Little is supposed to be like... a child? I guess? in the Wonderland spectrum of things, so them not knowing what a mental breakdown looks like is both in character and entirely unhelpful in the narrative, considering how easily Ruby brushes off the inquiry

This is probably the most tolerant Ruby’s voice acting has been in the last many seasons. It’s not high and nasally enough to scrape my skull!

Not gonna lie, having Ruby finally break down against the shittiest of tree textures is so fucking funny I can’t take this seriously. It looks like she’s wailing into a painted wall

“If you’re going to stay with me, you’re going to end up dead, too.” Ruby, the only dead people that you supposedly gave a shit about are Penny and Pyrrha. You don’t know about Clover or Ironwood, you definitely didn’t give a shit about that Forrest guy from V7, and it’s still up in the air if you know about Penny 2.0. You haven’t even mentioned Qrow, your father, or the rest of ORNJ, so what the fuck are you referencing here? Your mother, whom you only started being compromised about 2 seasons ago? Big fuckety whoop, no one cares

Ohhhh noooo not the shithead mouse character being saddddd and left behinddddd whateverr shall we doooooo

Aight what’s with the butterfly thing. If it’s supposed to symbolize Summer Rose in some way, it was never foreshadowed and only the barest of threads (butterflies being pollinators of flowers) would connect this shit. There’s a difference between subtlety and bullshit

Uhhhh did Ruby stumble into a casino house of Neo? Is this Neo backstory we’re getting into? Honestly, that’s way more intriguing than anything our heroes have going on

OH SO NOW RUBY CAN USE HER FUCKING SCYTHE WITHOUT GETTIN TRIGGERED

Why did they have to drag Roman into Maya? Didn’t they do him dirty enough by having him be eaten by a stupid grimm? Is this even the same voice actor? It’s not as... sultry

WHY YOU GOTTA DO PYRRHA DIRTY LIKE THIS WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH HER MOUTH THERE’S NO TEXTURE ON HER CLOTHES WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK

Holy shit the animation of Roman jumpin on the table is sending me into the fuckign statosphere fucking hlep

Can’t even have a normal transformation animation between scythe to snipe it’s gotta be a spinny bullshit thing ugh. Take me back to episode 1 I miss that shit

Who is voicing Roman there’s no way this is the original VA Imma strnagle this bithc

“But we all remember how that ended.” Is this based on actual events or what Neo has interpreted? This entire scene has been nothing but bullshit so far, and not even the fun kind that Roman used to produce

“You still blame me for what happened to Torchwick?” Bitch what the absolute fuck makes you think that? What clues could you possibly have that Neo blames you specifically when there are so many random people at this table? It’s not like you’ve ever claimed to be responsible for any of these peoples’ deaths, so why is this the fucking conclusion you make? Other than having writer’s clairvoyance of course

Okay, despite not knowing at the moment what it means, I do like the detail of Roman not stepping on the teacup before but once shit gets real he demolishes it. Still don’t like how ugly he is though. Leave my dead gay son alone

I don’t know if I’ve said it before but I fucking HATE the eyeshadow on the character in Maya. Why is Neo’s fucking mint green? She’s NEO-FUCKING-POLITIAN WHY IS THERE FUCKING GREEN IN HER GODDAMN COLOR PALLETE WHEN IT’S FUCKIN WHITE BROWN AND PINK

“I’m going to enjoy watching you break.” Does Neo not have any sort of contact via her clones or whatever? Did she not see how helpless Ruby was last episode to her Jabber? Because it was very heavily implied she knew when that one turned into her before shattering. Neo didn’t have to do shit to make Ruby break, her so called friends were doing that better than Neo ever could Also, the smiles on everyone’s faces as they say this is 100% me when I write my characters going through some fucked up shit. Neo should’ve gone into theater and literally none of this would have happened lmao

It’s uhhhhhh kinda telling that Yang is the first to stop and bitch about Ruby’s behavior. “How could she jsut run off like that?” damn it’s like your sister knew you ddidn’t give hafl a flying fuck about her and dipped Yang OHMYGOD YANG BEING PISSED THAT RUBY DIDN’T TALK TO THEM I’M FUCKING WHEEZING Girl you were so busy being buried in the pussy you didn’t notice your own sister having a full ass breakdown. I do not feel sorry for you “She could’ve just talked to us” like you talked to her after you lost your arm? Oh, wait, YOU DIDN’T FUCKING DO THAT YANG. You literally told her to LEAVE YOU ALONE. Ain’t that a bitch, huh

“We say things like ‘we believe and you’ and ‘we can count on you’” holy shit this is smth I would expect from the yt exercise gurus I watch after work shifts not from my close personal friends this is so fuckign funny

“It’s not like we’re asking her to be perfect” well mf did you ever, idk, COMMUNICATE THAT. Because, lmee tell you as someone who WAS expected to be perfect at all times, that shit be damaging as fuck. I can’t even let typos happen in funny instances without a voice in my head screaming to fix them

Oh great we get the generic meandering vocals during a pvp platform fight. Do they write these lines knowing they’ll be translated into a game soon? There’s no way “I was the best and brightest Beacon had to offer” comes off naturally otherwise

Ruby literally clambered onto the only structure in the room for defense? Girl at this point you are asking to die lmao

AND HER AURA SHATTERS AT THAT MEASLY DROP I AM FUCKING SOBBING JUST KILL THE BITCH AND BE DONE WITH IT

“Just like you were too late to save me at the Vytal festival.” Bitch that literally didn’t matter shit since you came back in V7. You’re literally wearing your V7/8 outfit. Shut the absolute fuck up you fucking waste of potential and hair space goddamn

“Can you imagine what it’s like to be failed time and time again by someone who meant the world to you” oh like Oz? The guy you demonized for the last few seasons? The guy who was roasted alive by his wife after she butchered their FOUR FUCKIGN CHILDREN?

Also Ruby does not use her FUCKIGN SEMBLANCE BITHC ARE YOU WANTING TO FUDCKIGN DIE THEN DIE ALREADY GODDAMMIT

Okay I can’t put my finger on it, but the animation of Pyrrha going around her staff to kick Ruby is really fucking weird. Maybe because it seems like her spear is merely resting on the ground instead of impaling it? (My current MC had a similar move so this is important to me lmao)

While I do appreciate the line of “have you stopped to consider if you’re doing more harm than good” coming from Ironwood, it’s not really Ironwood saying it, is it? How the absolute FUCK would Neo know this? Was she witness to what was happening, did she figure it out with context clues, or is this another case of writer clairvoyance?

While I guess it is within canon rights to have Neo know that Oscar is Oz’s new host, I’m very much confused about this particular course of action [turning Ozpin into Oscar] from Neo. When it was her vs Cinder,  Neo just tried to annihilate her, but with Ruby she wants to be Jigsaw??? MKEK learn character consistency I am BEGGING

Listen... I know Ruby is in an emotionally compromised state, and that in any other scenario this would be intensely heart-breaking, but with how contrived this entire scene is, I cannot give half a flying fuck about Ruby’s mental state because it’s too damn funny how easily she falls into Neo’s lap. You walked into this giant ass casino, can’t you just walk out? We ain’t seen you try yet, so either you (and the writers) are too stupid to think of it, or it was shuffled off screen, neither of which are a good look babe. Especially when that damned mouse is in the wings for SOME goddamn reason. Probably the next fucking deus ex mouse

RUBY’S HICCUPS SOUND EXACTLY LIKE MY PRINTER IM FUCKIGN WHEEZING

Okay, so Neo offering the tea makes it seem like that’s a path to the Ascension that everyone’s so gung-ho about, which makes me question why the paper pleasers needed to have a whole ass suicide dam-break to ascend if all they needed was some leaf-tea. I also think I’m putting more thought into this than the fucking writers, which, honestly, is par for the course

WAIT WHOA HOLD UP that was some geometric shit hitting Neo into the fucking next generation. Everything in Wonderland is ~whimsy and frolic~ not Square (tm) so wtf is going on

Goddammit again with this pov shit? Whoever suggested it in the group orgy should be drug out to the street and shot

CURIOUS!!! THE ONLY BITCH THAT MATTERS TO ME even if he is ugly as sin

“(Ruby) I don’t want to be me anymore” well aint that just more gasoline to my theory that Ruby’s gonna try to sacrifice herself to the tree No joke, if RT (and for any dumbass who needs clarification, CRWBY is 100% RT property) tries to imply in any goddamn way that sacrifice is the only way to achieve happiness (especially when it comes to other people’s happiness) I will come to each of their houses and shred their shoes, their paintings, and dismantle their ovens

Altho, no joke, I would much rather prefer Curious as our MC instead simply because they are curious and would potentially be able to ask questions about the world that our actual mains would take for granted, like idk wtf is dust and where does it come from? (Mainly stemming from my hc that dust is the remains of human souls that grimm devour but can’t actually process. Like... how else are you gonna reconcile the dust that made Adam ((the original biblical man)) with the dust of Remnant?)

Oh wow so we’re actually going for the take that the cat was evil the whole time? Is that what we’re doing? No nuance about a creature merely curious about a world outside its own? We’re going full fucking body snatcher?

I absolutely HATE this take on the Curious Cat. MKEK. Give me your addresses so I can beat your asses in the nearest Dennys parking lot. I think you sorely need some lessons in humility. Suck my entire asshole

Is Little really fucking hurt by being slung .2 feet from a tail whip? Fucking really?

And now Neo and Curious are fighting over Ruby’s fate. Someone bring back the forced love triangle of Hunger Games (which was forced by the publishers NOT the writer btw) instead of this shit before I throw myself into a lava pit because honesty it this is far shittier than HG

Wtf are Ruby’s fingers bloodied from? Wielding Crescent Rose for .2 seconds? Girl you have been handling this weapon for fucking years, but spinning it around a couple of times makes her bleed? Bitch play Paganini’s 24 Caprices then say how your fingers feel (For clarification purposes, I only know this because I’m writing characters who know how to play the violin, not because I know violin myself despite how much I fucking want to. V from DMC5 has me in a fucking chokehold lemme tell you-*dies*)

“I have been trying to wear you down for so long” BITCH FUCKING WHERE. WHERE THE ABSOLUTE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN WEARING RUBY DOWN MORE THAN HER TEAMMATES OR GENERAL FUCKING LIFE HAS ALREADY BEEN. BITHC FUCKING WEHRE

“I need to know why my makers left me here.” This makes me think that the Wonderland was structured by the shitheel gods of light and dark. Perhaps the cat was one of their compromises, which is why they’re such a wildcard? But that would make so many questions about the purpose of Wonderland itself and we all know that MKEK can’t be bothered with things like worldbuilding or nuance or anything remotely resembling intelligence (also I read once that black scelera ((the white part of the eye)) is a sign of pure truth/desire so honestly this is incredibly intriguing even though I know it won’t end in anything satisfactory)

NEO STEPS ON LITTLE BEST CHARACTER EVER 10/10

The cup sliding into frame after Ruby’s frantic eyes is literally so fucking funny how do they expect to take me seriously when the framing has the subtlety of a drunk elephant?

Ohmygod the way JWBY ran into the room like PS2 characters I’m fucking wheeazing

Ohmygod this is literally the most flaccid way to force a person into your perspective. Like... Ruby got kicked around a little bit after venturing into an OBVIOUSLY NOT GOOD PLACE and then decides to drink the airport jungle juice right as she’s about to be rescued and not ONE FUCKING CHARACTER WITH RANGED ARSENAL SHOOTS THE MUG OUT OF HER HAND

Honestly there are times where it really hits me how RWBY is a show about plot that isn’t plot instead of characters, and it’s moments like these where I’m like “damn, these people are acting to the script instead of their character huh” Like... it would’ve been something profound if the tea drinking had happened moments prior to their arrival instead of “hey watch me drink this fuckin tea while I reflect in your stupid eyeball instead of you doing literally anything about it despite that the supposed fact that you fucking raised me YANG, so watch me drop into this fuckkin hole I guess”

At the very least I guess the writers realized that Neo’s sole purpose was offing Ruby because... Roman was in her vicinity when he died???

OHMYGOD THE FACT THAT THE PERSON WHO REACTS TEH MOST TO RUBY DRINKGING THE FUCKIGN JUICCE IS CURIOUS IS FINEING SENDING ME

SHES A FUCKING CORN COB BSBE IM FUCNG CRYIGN

Okay, Curious fixating on Neo is one BILLION percent more interesting than anything jrwby has going on. Once again, fuck this main storyline bullshit and give Curious their own damn show

Also, nlg, the facct that Curious is Geometric rather than Organic in terms of design (squares vs spirals for the at home group) is super fucking cool and I desperately need an entire goddamn story abt them pronto. I would absolutely love to see how they interact with Remnant and if they’d be able to have their weird ass powers in the dimension of mortals. That is so much more interesting than literally anything our main crew has proposed in literally years, especially since these dumb mfs aint ever talked about whether or not its okay to kill a whole ass human being for their cause (and faunus are human beings. Fuck off if you think that some shtity tail or ears makes you not a whole ass person)

These mfs cannot let the bee train go for a single second can they? These bitches gotta be hit inot the sam efukcin wall while Weiss gets left all alone. Yknow. Like her family let her be for th emost part. Glad to see that RT’s priority is rainbow capitialism instead of genuine storytelling

Well that is a hentai trope I did not expert to see today. Though the fact that it’s Neo does not surprises me at fuckign all. Mmmm love me some fcking body possession. Great job Rt on making on your female characters be absolutely consumed by a foreign entity that surely isn’t a fucking metaphor for antyhign yknow the fucking facehuggers were’nt a metaphor for shit didnt yha know????

May I say to MKEK, absolutely fuck you for makign the cat an undeniable villain. Can you guys not handle even an iota of moral greyness? Can you not conceive of the idea of a situation that is not merely good vs evil? I ask you to look at the world today, and tell me that evil arises merely because it can rather than as a symptom of a society that refuses to care for all its citizens. Can you not idealize a person who, when pressed to their absolute brink, will take upon violence to ensure that the seeds they sow will bring sustenance to those who come later? For fuck’s sake I’ll take a person who idealizes themselves for morally grey reasons other than what the fuck ever these dipshits are trying to sell to me

Wow aint it so spectaculaar that Curious invaded the one person who wasn’t important to the writers plot adn now our heroes can now kill her without any iota of guilt? Aint that fucking nifty? Aint that fuckign grand? And not even a fucking thought extended to teh idea tha Crurius wanted to see the outside world. THat was their main reason for helping the siblings right? Because Alyx promised them that she would bring him to Remnant? But taht whole plotline is gone because it’s jsut TOO SPICY FOLKS. Can’t have anything interesting in our show about FAIRTYTALES whene we’re in a FAIRTYTALE LAND

Honestly, fuck you MKEK, fuck you RT, fuck you any god that ever alloweed existence to happen. THis is fucking bullshit

It was only through looking up the info on the internet that I learned that Roman Torchwick’s og VA died of colon cancer prior to this volume (2022). Mr Kametz, I hope you rest well and know that your expertise was greatly appreciated. May you know peace in the beyond

[unoisveimved-un-proffesional]

I recently saw a post by @punchie-pierrot talking about how sad the Darkners lives must be, created for a direct and simple purpose, and if it is not fulfilled, you are functionally useless and you can never simply exist for yourself as a Darkner, and you’re essentially trapped in your dark world just like the monsters were in the underground, no sun, very little life, no real sky, just a setting, a background, and you the props. I wanted to reblog it, but went on a bit of a tangent and also a lot of theory crafting, and as to not take over their post, I am creating my own with direct inspiration from theirs, at least at first.

What I first really thought about was, well what else do they really know? They’re born into that life, and have absolutely no choice, no freedom, no say in anything, and what makes them go insane isn’t just knowing that, it’s realizing it, realizing what they don’t have and forever never being able to see the world the same, but until that happens, they have no reference, and are stuck in blissful ignorance of their place in the universe. I think it’s a metaphor for a deterioration of the NPC dynamic, especially the self aware one. It’s like if you were playing a tennis video game and there was a minigame in it where you could play pong inside the tennis game, the lightners in relation to you, the plater, are the tennis game’s NPC’s (even Kris is technically an NPC when you think about it) and the Darkners are the Pong minigame’s NPC’s, even more simplified and with even clearer and less personal roles, and an even bleaker existence. Going from 64 to 32 bits in a turn of phrase, as the lightners have a theoretical higher level existence as opposed to the darkness, but we exist on an even higher level of existence, but may as well may just be NPC’s to another higher being.

Honestly, the dark worlds as a whole is just a giant mystery, and there’s to me something undoubtedly sad and disturbing about them, and about what they represent to the Darkners who live there, and what they mean to the Lightners, and to us, the players.

Alternatively but in relation, the Darkners theology based around the Lightners they worship can be representative of the twisted relationship between a god and their followers. I don’t know if it was supposed to be ominous foreshadowing, but the moment Ralsei talked to Lancer about their purpose helping Lightners it made my skin crawl, like I felt he was repeating rhetoric he had read or learned, almost cultish, and I get that feel from Ralsei a lot. I love him dearly, but I can’t help but think he’s doing this under the influence of a much more sinister ideology, one that he genuinely believes in and thinks is for the betterment of all living things, again, like a cult member. And I thought that was just me, and that the moment talking about their purpose was intended to be endearing, but I can’t shake that feeling no matter how hard I try. It’s ominous, scary even, and makes me feel impending dread, especially with the suspiciousness of Ralsei’s actions in chapter 2. He’s dismissive of Darkner’s as a whole actually. He dismisses Spamton and Jevil, and doesn’t really care about them, and is willing to go along with whatever you want. It’s not malice towards darkners, but it’s obvious he doesn’t value them the same as he values Lightners. In that way, Ralsei is a traitor to his people, and he has a cultish devotion to the Lightners.

He isn’t tricking you, he genuinely believes in Kris and Susie and wants to be their friends, but that is also what’s truly scary about him, he just latched onto you and acted like he knew you, acted like he was your friend, like he was Kris’ friend, and he is friendly, he is caring, he is fluffy, and he is cute, but there’s something else there, something not quite right. He’s obviously very book smart and believes in the importance of education, so maybe his idea of the world was influenced by the books in his castle? Were there other Darkners, some just like Him, who had possibly been given this religion from Lightners a thousand years ago? And there’s so many more questions and answers he’ll keep from us. Like we never asked, WHY the Roaring will happen when three fountains are opened, we just accepted what he said, and again, I think he was repeating some kind of rhetoric, a legend he heard elsewhere. Those weren’t HIS specific words, he read them, or heard them, and is repeating them, again just like a cult in a way. Ralsei is again, repeating things he heard with the legend too. I think the legend we hear at the beginning of the game isn’t the one Ralsei told to us, it’s the one he’s repeating verbatim to us, and it’s the legend he was told or he read.

Again, he’s the kind to become a teacher’s pet. But he’s not malicious, he’s not evil, he’s just a firm believer in a religion that says he and all people like him are inferior and exist solely for the benefit of another superior class of person, and if you decided to let hundreds of Darkners die, or killed them yourself, even if it goes against his Christ like idea of you and non-violence as the answer, he’ll go along with it and will believe you’re doing it for a good reason, and maybe he just can’t understand, but he has faith in you, and that faith can be very misguided and misplaced. He believes he and all Darkners, while he wouldn’t phrase it like this, are naturally inferior to the Lightners, but what he won’t say is that it’s their curse, or that they’re trapped in a monotonous and bleak existence by this way of living, which is what Jevil and Spamton realized, but he’s not willing to even think anything he ever believed or read should be questioned, and will ignore anyone like Spamton or Jevil who pose the questions of why, and will encourage you to ignore them too, and not think too hard about it. Maybe paralleling Toriel like how Queen is theorized to parallel Noelle’s mom, and how Susie pointed out the connection? Just a dumb side theory there, not even really a theory, just a stupid idea that may be more or less stupid later.

Deltarune is a fundamentally religious story, and there is no doubting its religious motifs will not continue to grow, especially its combination of animist and Christian ideas. However, this doesn’t really account for the possibility he knows about You, which he very likely may, and if there’s something controlling Kris, a Lightner, than that should go against this belief system I’ve proposed, and so he should ignore it like he did Jevil and Spamton, unless that’s not exactly what he believes.

Who knows how much he Really knows, but we can tell he’s genuine. It’s just not in Toby’s writing style to have a character drag us along with everything and suddenly turn a full 180 and everything they ever said to us was lies. Ralsei genuinely believes everything he says, everything, and it’s easy to pick apart which words are and aren’t directly his, he’s so honest and genuine, depending on who you are, you’ll believe anything he says, or immediately know when something’s amiss. Especially with that Spamton bit where he dismisses everything that had just happened, because he is so earnest and genuine about it not being important, which is creepy how he can show so little curiosity, intrigue, or even confusion.

He doesn’t say “Well I don’t know what that was about, I think that was pretty weird to, maybe we’ll figure it out later.” no he says “I… don’t think it meant anything Susie. It seems like it was just a corrupted program. He turned into our ally, so let’s just accept it.” He pulls himself away from wondering, his facial expression getting less and less perturbed, it’s a tactic he’s using to dismiss it entirely, he’s tricking himself. I know people who do this, and also people who start off lying and start believe in their own lies, I’ve seen plenty of tactics like this, both by manipulators and manipulated people, tricks, half-truths, untruths, lies, fabrications, theories, myths, legends, ideas, Rhetoric, and that is a prime example of someone keeping themselves from questioning their beliefs. First, he dismisses it having any weight, half heartedly so if you look at his expression, almost but not quite beginning to question himself, then presents an alternative theory that explains everything without having to call anything into question, and then attempts to shut down the conversation, and no longer feels the need to think about it! He’s not doing this to keep Kris and Susie from thinking, what I think is happening, is he’s using this to shut himself from thinking too hard about it! It would be far more of a Toby Style Twist for Ralsei to be a victim of some kind, and genuinely meaning well for you, but having a distorted view of what any of that means, like another dark prince we know, but in a less comical, and more disturbingly real fashion. He’s withholding information because he thinks it’s what’s best, he’s not evil, he’s very blatantly misguided and encouraged to be dishonest and a suck up at the same time, and he doesn’t even know who he really is supposed to be, as evidenced by his dialogue at the acid lake, not even really sure of what being Ralsei like even means.

I theorize Ralsei’s Good Ending Arc is going to culminate in him figuring out who he is without you and without the Lightners, without his belief system and without his title, and he’s going to develop his personality more and be more open and honest, which already started with Susie’s influence in chapter 1, Susie is the key to so many characters arc’s she’s basically the main character, it’s genuinely crazy. But Ralsei’s going to have to let go of his only real friends for that to happen, not forever but long enough for him to properly internalize everything and readjust his perspective of the world.

Maybe he’ll be presented with a choice in the Weird Route, and either gain some spine and stick up for himself and all of Darkner kind against You, or go even deeper into his Lightner Superiority beliefs, maybe he’ll have to make a choice between Kris or Susie. But I think it’s guaranteed that in the Normal/Good? ending he’ll be encouraged to figure out who he his without bending his existence and sense of self around the Lightners, but because until he makes that choice he’ll be a little teachers pet simp for you, you or Susie or both of you have to get him to think, either through subtle relationship building, direct confrontation, or subtle relationship building that will culminate into Him having a direct confrontation against a narrative manifestation of his issues like Noelle did against Queen. He has to realize you’re not God, and Kris and Susie aren’t Jesus, (and I hope Noelle isn’t The Angel) and they’re just people, and more importantly his friends, and for them to really be his friends, he’s going to have to be honest with them, honest and open about things, spill the beans, and let them in on everything, and this more equal Lightner-Darkner relationship could set a precedent and change the world, save the Darkners from their existential nightmare or something, I dunno.

Or he’s just really fucking awkward and I’ve read way too deep into what could just be him being a silly boy, and forgetting to tell anyone the reason they’re going through all the trouble of sealing fountains in the first place. Or both, I don’t know! I’m just a kook cooking crackpot theories and trying to predict the narratives of a mystery dog’s story that literally came to him in a dream and has been building up to this for over a decade now!

[fenrhi]

I did it. I finally reached the point where I feel like the Dan Heng Plot Twist that’s gonna happen in 1.2 has been properly set up. It took this long because MHY decided to prank the players by making the first half of 1.1 filler fluff (that’s not an insult, I genuinely liked the museum event and the Silver Wolf mini-quest, but they were not relevant to the Xianzhou plotline)

1) Dan Heng’s crimes and his relationship with Blade

Meet Dan Heng. He’s really cute but rather mysterious. He doesn’t want to talk about his life before joining the Astral Express. You do know he ran away from his homeland because he committed some “crimes”. You’re left wondering “what did he do, exactly?”

Enter Blade, a dangerous man haunting Dan Heng’s dreams and really determined to kill him, to the point he destroyed every single ship Dan Heng stepped foot on. You’re left wondering “what did Dan Heng do to this guy, exactly?”

Look at the Wandering Doctor relics set. These clothes look like the ones Blade is wearing right now. The “nameless man” must be Blade. He was friends with a man wielding a spear. The spear wielder was very close to Blade, but at some point he “committed a grave sin, turned the beloved into a monstrosity and plunged everyone into an abyss of despair”. Is it Jing Yuan? No, because Blade said “Three people must pay a price, but you are not one them”. So it’s gotta be Dan Heng. You’re left wondering “that’s really cool and all, but what am supposed to do with this information?”

Go to the Luofu of Xianzhou. You learn that the pursuit of immortality is one of the ten gravest sins in the Alliance (and to be honest, it’s the only “grave sin” you hear about at all, so you’re supposed to pay attention to that).

On a splash art posted on Tweethell, Blade is revealed to be an immortal warrior seeking the sweet embrace of death

If you try to put together the pieces of this puzzle, you would get something like this: DH and Blade are friends > Blade gets mortally wounded in unknown circumstances > DH curses him with immortality, even though he knows it’s a crime, because he loves him too much to let him die > Blade reacts to this really badly and loses his mind > he wants revenge on DH > ????? > DH joins the Astral Express Crew

2) The elephant in the room: Dan Heng’s memories

After connecting these dots, you’re left wondering “hey, the math ain’t mathing. How could DH forget what he did to Blade?”. This situation doesn’t sense... if you consider DH to be a normal human being.

Meet Bailu. She’s part of a race of dragons (the Vidyadhara) that can be reborn when they reach their end of their life. But they don’t remember what they did in their past lives.

That could explain why Dan Heng has amnesia...but why doesn’t he look like a dragon then? You currently have no answer for this question.

3) How the 3 newest Companion Quests foreshadow 1.2 (based on leaks I saw)

Luocha’s Quest is here. You finished it rather quickly and were surprised by its humorous/unserious tone. You feel like you didn’t accomplish anything important. It might seem like a waste of time.... but only if you look at it in isolation. It’s meant to be a small piece of a set. What did we learn from this quest? Don’t judge people on their appearances. Don’t let the past constrain you. Don’t force your expectations on others. This is going to be relevant to the Jingheng Situation (”the one I wanted to chase after....exists only in my memory”)

Bailu’s Quest is the second piece of the set. It focuses on the tragic love story of a woman from a long-lived species and a man from a short-lived species. Banxia wanted to give her lover an elixir of immortality, so they could live together forever. But she got mara-stuck before she could do this. Worse, the man she loved revealed himself to be a total scum, manipulating her to get what he wanted. This parallels the Renheng situation.

Yanqing’s Quest is the last piece of the set. While looking for Blade, he meets Jingliu, who defies him in a fighting competition. She kicks his ass and tells him that he would absolutely not survive an encounter with Blade the way he is. But Yanqing is not the one who’s going to get stabbed by Blade... Dan Heng is...

[waheelawhisperer]

Once more unto the breach, with my impressions of Volume 9 Episode 3 of RWBY below the cut. I liked this episode more than the last 2, but I'm frankly not sure how I could've liked them less, so I'm praying that the only way we can go is up.

Welcome, everyone, to the continuing adventures of Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Yang Xiao Long, and the shambling corpse of what was once Blake Belladonna, hereafter referred to as Blek. Last time, Team RWBY set out to find a way to return home, Blake's characterization was brutally massacred by the writers, and the gang got Yang's arm back from a raccoon whose name sounds like a slur. Next up, we're off to visit the Red King in the hopes that following the path of a story that we know very little about and wasn't properly set up or foreshadowed will allow our protagonists to make it back to Remnant (please go back to Remnant, the sooner the better).

The episode actually starts out by raising an interesting question: what happened to the Red King? Was it something to do with humans? Is this something Alyx did somehow?

That said, the Red Prince is annoying. I think someone should punt him like the football. I do like the way they've conveyed so much of his personality through his movements and gestures and body language though.

"Did I used to be this unbearably pompous?" No, Weiss, you didn’t. At least I enjoyed it while you were on screen.

Honestly, Weiss, I feel your pain. Best character of the Volume so far.

On the one hand, I feel like our heroes should’ve done more than stare in horror as two guards were beheaded on a whim. On the other hand, I don’t care about the guards either, so I can’t blame them.

Ruby is kinder and more diplomatic than I am. I someone had thrown away my only memento of someone I was incredibly close to like that I would’ve thrown hands and to hell with the consequences. I would’ve done anything to get that sword back. I wasn't expecting her to let go of the last piece of Penny she had. She just seems so... defeated.

Honestly this token protest isn't doing a lot to sell me on her grief for Penny or their supposed closeness/importance to each other, like I'm buying into it because of what we got from earlier Volumes and all but it's not really coming through in this scene. I think the writers are trying to show how powerful Ruby's depression is, but it's not really landing for me.

I wish Ruby had cared more about Penny’s sword in this scene but I do like that she’s being a bit of a guile hero. It’s a reminder that she’s supposed to be clever, even if sometimes it doesn’t really feel like the story remembers that.

I’ll say this for the Ever After: it’s visually impressive. The people in charge of the art part of the show really went all out.

Ruby’s reaction when the Red Prince mentions her friends being available to play is interesting. She very much does not want to lead, it seems.

Great. WBY are small now. I hope this is a temporary thing. I'm steadily getting more and more fed up with this Volume's gimmicks.

Of course everyone gets to look good but Yang here, who punches herself in the face and then faceplants. Was this really necessary? Stop trying to be funny. Please. Not only is this not the time for it, but your jokes aren't even good. I've given up all hope of these writers treating Yang with any kind of respect at this point, not gonna lie.

“No one’s going to get hurt, right?” I like this line. It’s very clear now that Ruby’s struggling with the burdens of leadership and the consequences of making decisions. We’re finally starting to see her insecurities come to light.

Between the way the Red King’s pawns look bigger and tougher and the little nod he gives the white pawn, he’s obviously not playing fair. Time for Ruby to cheat? I sure hope so, she is supposed to be a leader and a tactician. Show us some clever stratagems.

Looks like WBY are going to carry here, something I predicted the moment it became clear they'd be competing.

When I saw Yang get cocky I fell in love all over again holy shit she’s exactly my type

Like not to be a heterosexual but oh my God Jesus Christ

Watching the Bees cheer for each other was cute, honestly. Unfortunately, I’m not as delighted by Bumbleby moments as I normally would be after the shitshow that was Episode 2.

As I watch the Red Prince throw yet another temper tantrum, I really want to know what happened to his predecessor, inasmuch as I want to know anything related to this setting. Please give us the Red King back and not this obnoxious little prick.

Oh shit. Eyes in the shadows.

Okay that got a reaction. Humans are not welcome here, it seems. Is this related to something Alyx did?

Love the reminder of just how damn good Team RWBY are in a fight after a Volume or so of them not really getting to show that. Love the decision to have Blek job a lot less. Of course she's the first one to take a hit in this fight.

I feel like there’s no tension here, Ruby can flatten all the pawns with one foot lmao and her friends have Aura, what is she even getting worried for

I guess this is following up on her fears from earlier and her struggle with the consequences of leadership but it just feels silly as things stand and I don't have enough faith in the writers to be confident that they'll do anything with this later

Blek why do you look terrified you've faced (lost to) better foes in your sleep

Was hoping Ruby’s heroic resolve would be accompanied by a display of tactics on her end where she maneuvers individually superior forces to defeat a large group of lesser opponents but instead WBY just kinda do it on their own. Maybe this will feed into Ruby’s insecurity about leadership somehow?

It was pretty badass seeing Weiss pull out (part of) the Nevermore and amplify Yang's combat capabilities. Good reminder of how valuable she is as a team support.

Give a pansexual a sword and she'll want some bloodshed to go with it.

This is how Bee’s Schnees can still win.

That’s it, Ruby. Get mad. Nice to see you invested in something.

I still don’t feel worried for WBY, they all have Aura and can double-jump.

Well, this certainly feels like Alice in Wonderland. Glad they’re finally doing something visually interesting with the setting.

Ruby’s gonna feel even more like a failure after this. RIP girlie.

Kitty's feeling just a biiiiiit sinister to me.

Little is sleeping again. What is the point of this character?

Go off, Weiss, tell them all how much this sucks.

WBY are still small. I hope we don’t have a whole fucking sidequest that involves getting WBY back to normal size but I’m 100% certain we will. I hate this Volume.

I agree with you, Weiss. No one here can be normal. Please let us go to Vacuo. I’m begging you.

Did they really have to make “Rubes” canon? I have genuinely never liked that bit of fanon. Including it here is too late to make it feel organic. It just feels like something thrown in for the fans.

I like how, again, Blek and Yang are the ones who know the story. I am not overly fond of Blek being so upbeat when Ruby’s clearly hurting and the gang just lost a major battle (Atlas), but I feel like if anyone’s going to be this peppy, it does make sense for it to be Little Miss Bookworm.

Shut up, Little. All you do is nap. You’re about to go back to Emergency Rations status.

Oh shit Neo in the house

And her Semblance evolved. Either we get to see how dangerous the Jabberwalker really is, or Neo’s being set up for a big fight later in the Volume.

Or we get literally nothing. What the fuck?

RIP Jabby I guess

Overall rating: Mediocre/10

Overall, this episode was better than the two colossal turds that preceded it. Hopefully this trend continues. If I didn’t hate the setting so much, this would probably be decidedly average, a stunning endorsement by Volume 9 standards.

[greywoe]

part THREE

idk if i’ll do this for all the episodes but i think it’s fun to look back at my first impressions lol

- i like how this show tends to focus on internal and interpersonal conflict and i thought it was a good choice to have the battle of the burning mill happen off screen (i mean they’ve got bigger battles to focus on in the future, don’t they). it was quite effective cutting directly to the aftermath showcasing the toll of it all

- slightly unrelated but the blackwood fits were 🤌🤌🤌 (that cape!)

- they’re making mysaria a much more prominent character than i expected and i am curious to see where they’re taking her relationship to rhaenyra and the blacks (<- modern au band name…..)

- i like short haired criston cole. i like when he’s more proactive. maybe it took introducing gwayne hightower’s sufficiently annoying ass for this to happen, but i’ll take it. at first i thought “oh nooo is this going to some buddy cop b-plot” but then baela showed up and things got interesting. i ended up liking that scene with them in the field with criston taking charge and setting things right

- sometimes they go a bit heavy with the foreshadowing but that scene with corlys and rhaenys was genuinely sad

- actually, sometimes they go more than a bit heavy with the foreshadowing. daemon’s spooky harrenhal vision was pretty cool until it faded away and alys (presumably) appeared. and. well. literally *spooky graveyard ambient sounds* *witchy lady appears* “you will die in this place” *walks away*. is that what you’re giving me? is this what counts for foreshadowing nowadays? just a plain statement of what’s literally to come in the tritest way possible?

- i’m in two minds about the closing rhaenyra+alicent scene. i like how the show is sort of framed around them and it makes sense to add scenes where their relationship is in focus. i was certainly excited to see them interact again after so long. at the same time i was confused - what exactly is the plan here, as in, concretely what does rhaenyra expect alicent to do? i like how she (rightfully) has some amount of faith in her wanting a humane solution, but at the same time how are they supposed to reach a compromise when rhaenyra’s dead set on taking the throne and alicent’s never going to let her son be defeated? and with everything else underway at this point? at first i thought it a pointless endeavour, but i suppose the point of the scene was not the negotiations but rather the fact that they both end up realising the Big Misunderstanding… i don’t know how big of an impact that will have since it’s far too late to do anything about it, but at least the two of them now have the knowledge of what really happened that night (my mum - who i watch these with, which is why i always end up seeing them pretty late since we need to make time to watch them together - pointed out that now alicent has to live with the fact that she misinterpreted viserys’s words… which i reckon might end up being significant, for her as a character if nothing else)(though in the end i don’t know how much it would have changed either way, with otto’s plans already in action)

- also i think it’s funny that the big dramatic moments of each episode so far have all been about someone from one side sneaking into the other. as i said earlier i like how they focus more on internal conflict and i guess that means they opt for this kind of solution (at least this early in the season), but it’s almost getting a bit repetitive. at some point security has to be called into question

some thoughts on that first episode bc i might as well

- that first scene in the north did not make me very happy… maybe it’s just me who likes negotiations but i was looking forward to Jace’s World Tour of North/Eastern Westeros and his talks and bargains with the different houses (especially lady jeyne! i guess i can understand why they cut it out but i think when it comes to her there’s material to build an interesting character from, but whatever. another arryn L i guess :(), but what did we get but one (1) scene at the wall for some reason. i mean i like the night’s watch as much as the next person but this just felt like straight up GoT fanservice… like what does the threat beyond the wall have to do with this conflict? they could at least have given us some parley but there was barely anything of that either. cregan stark’s going to be important later so i thought they’d do more to establish him as a character now. but literally the next scene we see jace in he’s back at dragonstone….. ok (tho i guess they could return to the north later? idk we’ll see) (also, i care less for the sara snow subplot but i was sure they would do something with it since they love to go with the juicy stuff like forbidden love and whatnot)

- on that note i expect they’re going the singers’ route with erryk and arryk which i don’t really care for (they need to make me care more for those characters first) but it makes sense

- i’m ashamed of the fact that the alyn reveal made me go “ahh” aloud and my mum (who hasn’t read f&b) went “what???” and i just vaguely waved it off because it’s so annoying when people do that and i try not to but… i was surprised they introduced him so early

- aegon ii keeps being the most entertaining character on the show and he was the highlight to me. thank you for bringing a tinge of comedy. i’d say keep it up, but… well

- this is old discourse but i don’t have much of a problem with them showing alicent being groomed and manipulated in the show which probably makes her seem more sympathetic to viewers (and i can’t help but fall for every instance the lingering and complex feelings between her and rhaenyra that still clearly affect her come up) but now i’d like to see her being more active. i liked her confronting otto but (so far) for the most part she seemed a bit uninvolved and inactive (except for the sex scenes with criston… -_- which i guess are intended to bite them in the ass later which is why it’s continuously brought up, but so far i do not care for it). i just want to see her contributing more of her own i guess. but there’s plenty of time for that in the upcoming episodes, especially now after the death of another child 😔

- i sure hope we get to see more of baela and rhaena. this was only the first episode, i will have hope in my heart

- helaena’s line about being scared of the rats felt like clever foreshadowing when i heard it, except that the blood & cheese thing happened just a few scenes later……. suddenly it didn’t feel so clever anymore, nobody will have forgotten it at that point (the best foreshadowing imo is stuff that you maybe don’t notice at first and only catch on your rewatch)

- and about that, as relieved as i am about the violence being toned down, reading the book the whole “damning one child to die but the other one is slain, so now you and your child have to live with the fact that you named him to be killed” business was very impactful so i’m a bit disappointed nonetheless. for a show that so clearly opts for emotional impact, i mean… though i suppose cutting a kid or two out is understandable. but the way they made a whole deal about not knowing the sex of the twins (and the assassins being surprisingly gentlemanly about it lol) made me wonder if they mean to do a big plot twist where helaena was lying about it and actually rescued jaehaerys, but also that (unnecessarily) changes some things and what would be the point of that. 🤔 i did really like helaena’s acting during the scene though, opting for pure shock and dissociation rather than making it a dramatic tearfest. i like helaena as a character too, from what little we have seen of her anyway, and i wish she’d had more moments previously in the show so that we as viewers would be even more emotionally connected to her, but she gets pretty sidelined in comparison to her brothers. we don’t get to know much about her in the book so i feel like that’s what the show is for! expanding upon the book!

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

why do you ship chell and glados if glados is basically her mom

Okay this is actually a pretty common misconception in the fandom that unfortunately a lot of people have taken as canon, but I’m feeling nice so I’ll answer your question.

Basically, anon is referencing a theory from around 2012 that Caroline is Chell’s mom. The evidence for the theory is as follows:

- The turret opera calls Chell “bambina”, which means “little girl” in Italian

- Chell’s name can be found on a Bring Your Daughter To Work Day science project

- GLaDOS references the possibility of Chell being adopted multiple times

- GLaDOS is significantly nicer to Chell after discovering she’s Caroline 

And, anon, you’re right, it does sound like a pretty good argument at first glance. The problem is that a lot of these points don’t actually hold up to scrutiny.

For example, although “bambina” literally translates to “little girl,” it’s often used in the same way “baby girl” is used in English - it can mean child, but contextually it’s usually a flirtatious term. (Source: Cambridge Dictionary)

For Chell’s science project, it doesn’t work as evidence for the theory because GLaDOS killed the scientists around 1998-ish, when Caroline had presumably been uploaded several years earlier and Cave was already dead. Also, Chell’s in her 20′s, and since we know from Lab Rat/Portal 2 that people don’t age in stasis, and that Doug put Chell at the top of the test subject list only weeks after the takeover, Chell was 28 at the time of the takeover. The science project is really only an Easter egg and doesn’t actually fit into the canon timeline let alone prove anything about Caroline and Cave. 

GLaDOS talking about Chell being adopted is a pretty strong point, I’ll admit, but also it’s important to remember that maybe half of what GLaDOS says is true. And even if we take what she says at face value, she also says there’s a man and a woman in stasis with Chell’s last name, which could not have been Cave and Caroline because they were already dead at that point. And the official book Final Hours Of Portal 2 confirms Cave and Caroline were not married and could not have shared the same name anyway. It was also the 50′s, an an unmarried couple of two likely famous people having a child would’ve been scandalous, and yet we see no hint of something like this affecting their company. 

Also, although GLaDOS is nicer to Chell after the Caroline reveal, that’s not necessarily indicative of a mother-daughter relationship, and neither is any of their interactions. It’s just. GLaDOS being friendlier. 

Finally, when this theory was made (and let’s be honest - it still is happening) Chell was constantly whitewashed to hell and back. 

Chell is Japanese-Brazilian, and Cave and Caroline are white, so it would be a near impossibility for her to be their biological child (and insisting otherwise is kinda. just. whitewashing). And although people will cry “adoption!”, based on what I’ve previously proven, that’s pretty much impossible. This theory that somehow she’s Cave and Caroline’s daughter erases an important part of her identity. [Disclaimer, I am white, but this is what I’ve heard from around the fandom]

With all that said, the idea that she’s the daughter of Cave and Caroline really doesn’t hold weight when you really analyze the canon. It’s surface level analysis that doesn’t hold up. And honestly? The idea kinda cheapens the story. It’s much more powerful that GLaDOS learns to care about Chell and becomes kinder than just. Oh, she remembered she’s related to Chell. 

But to actually answer your ask. 

Why do I ship them?

Well, they aren’t mother and daughter, I think that’s pretty obvious now. But if you actually look at a lot of subtext in Portal 2, without the lens of the mother theory, it’s actually pretty romantic! 

I know that sounds ridiculous, but bear with me!

Now - it’s totally okay if you don’t ship them. I get it. Their interactions in Portal 1 and the first half of Portal 2 are toxic if not outright well. Y’know. Murderous. I completely understand why that turns people off from shipping them, and ultimately, shipping is a personal thing. To each his own. 

But before you judge me, let me present my case.

Exhibit A: Portal 

Portal is kinda gay. No, really. Chell and GLaDOS are enemies in this game, but the entire focus is on their relationship (good or not) and the power struggle between them. They are opposites, two sides of the same coin, different representations of opposite ideologies. People have analyzed Portal as a relationship metaphor, or as a metaphor about women’s role in society - either way, the heart of Portal is the complicated dynamic between Chell and GLaDOS. 

That’s not necessarily enough to code a romance, but a lot of popular (and especially popular queer ones) ships begin with opposite ideologies, symbolic powers colliding. Portal cements their relationship as a toxic one, something on the verge of falling apart and hurting both parties in the end. The ending image, of Chell and GLaDOS side by side after the battle, reinforces the symbolic parallels between the two. 

The companion cube is also pretty symbolically important to this interpretation. It’s literally a representation of someone’s heart, and you are told to protect it and preserve it under GLaDOS’ orders, and then you have to destroy it regardless of how you actually feel about doing that. You are destroying GLaDOS’ heart, so to speak. 

There’s also the ending song, Still Alive. The lyrics speak for themselves.

They hint that GLaDOS’ feelings about Chell are more complicated than they may appear (if she’s not being sarcastic...) and she literally talks about Chell breaking her heart (also, think back to the companion cube. Yeah.). The entire song is structurally similar to many a breakup number, with the laments of “I’m glad it happened, but also leave.” 

At the end, we also see that the long promised cake GLaDOS was supposedly lying about was real the whole time. Before Portal 2 came out, it was mostly interpreted as a stinger ending (along with the nicer lyrics of Still Alive) to make you question GLaDOS’ true motives and intentions.

She actually did have a real cake waiting for you. (Side note - not really evidence, but in Argentina, “torta” means cake in Spanish. It’s also a slang term for lesbians. So. Do with that what you will). The cake is what GLaDOS offers you to lull you into the sense that she cares about you, so discovering that “the cake is a lie” wakes you up to the realization that she doesn’t. Except then the idea is subverted one last time, at the very end, showing that the cake is real and at least some of what she said she meant. 

You also see the companion cube. You know, GLaDOS’ symbolic heart?

Now, okay, you might be thinking I’m extrapolating a bit too much. And you might be right. But Portal is not the only game in the series, and if you’re asking me about Cave and Caroline you obviously know about Portal 2.

Exhibit B: Portal 2

If you thought Portal was gay, Portal 2 turns that up to 11.

Even before GLaDOS wakes up, you’re treated to some visual subtext. A few of Rattmann’s drawings representing the events of Portal 2 focus a lot on the relationship between GLaDOS and Chell, with more of the cake symbolism.

In this, you can see a face layered on top of GLaDOS. This could be foreshadowing about Caroline, and likely is, but also resembles his other drawing of Chell. It insists that Chell is a part of GLaDOS, or reinforces parallels between Chell and Caroline, hinting at something either way. 

In this picture, we also see Chell standing on top of GLaDOS, in the same position where the overlay of the feminine face was, again referencing the parallel. It also presents them as opposites, fundamental parts of the same thing and both connected to the same basis, but on opposing sides. 

When GLaDOS wakes up, she returns to her antagonistic role, but there are more hints to something deeper just like in Portal. 

Here, in her awakening lines, she references Chell not unlike an estranged ex. Also worth noting that GLaDOS is pretty much the personification of testing (in a sense, she is testing since she can control all of Aperture like an extension of her body), and insinuates that Chell loves to test. And that she reciprocates that feeling.

In test chamber 10, she says this:

It’s supposed to be threatening, but it does read as almost... sentimental. 

There’s also another chamber with companion cubes in Portal 2. I already talked about their symbolism in Portal, and the same pretty much applies to them here. However, GLaDOS says something interesting about them during this level:

Once again, meant to be intimidating, ends up coming off as “well, GLaDOS, why were you going to give Chell a heart shaped representation of yourself that says ‘I love you?’” And you might think I’m stretching the GLaDOS’ heart metaphor thing a little far here, and I might agree, if the companion cubes didn’t literally sing Cara Mia for you. 

Cara Mia is the turret opera from the end of the game, which is all about how much GLaDOS cares about Chell. More on that later. But the companion cubes play a song called Love as A Construct, and when you get close to them, they sing a specific part of the song that has the tune of Cara Mia. These things literally exist to sing about GLaDOS’ feelings. 

Which makes this line a lot more. For lack of a better term. Tsundere-ish.

Then, right before the escape, she starts talking about the confetti from her fake surprise. 

I really don’t have to explain this one. What else does GLaDOS consider an inconvenience but might miss anyway? Or, more aptly, who else?

Then, during the escape, she teases a (fake) final test chamber in front of you, and forms the panels in the shape of a heart. No, really. 

Up to this point, a lot of the points I’ve presented are interspersed with a fair amount of antagonization on GLaDOS’ behalf, more Foe Yay than anything actually hinting at something deeper than GLaDOS being conflicted about whether she loves or hates Chell. But things really ramp up after Wheatley’s betrayal, when the two of them are forced to team up. (I should also note here that “enemies to lovers” is a pretty classic queer romance trope.)

Here, GLaDOS is put on an equal level with Chell and they have to rely on each other if they want to survive. For the rest of the singleplayer campaign, GLaDOS becomes a lot nicer and even friendly to Chell. There comes a point where she starts referring to Chell as a teammate, calling them “we.” She begins to consider them one unit, two opposites unified. Here’s what she says after the lemon rant:

You can not only see her using we, but actively talking about how her and Chell are going to fight Wheatley together. There’s also that last line - “let’s explode with some dignity.” GLaDOS has fully accepted the very likely possibility that she and Chell might die together. That she might die on the same level, and the same team as Chell. And she seems... surprisingly okay with that, as long as she and Chell go together. 

It’s during the Old Aperture levels that Chell and GLaDOS also discover that they have a lot in common. This is the part of the game where GLaDOS figures out she’s Caroline, that she’s human. Or, that she’s like Chell. And Chell discovers (from what we can tell anyway) that Caroline is kind, that she’s funny and smart and so many of these things she never noticed about GLaDOS before. Now also with the knowledge she is fighting alongside another human being. 

You can also draw parallels between Chell and Caroline, both intelligent women ultimately betrayed by their seemingly innocuous male friends before being trapped in Aperture and forced to team up with one another in a way that will free both of them. We see that really, GLaDOS isn’t that different from Chell - she too has been imprisoned in this place against her will, but in a completely different way. Once again, the idea of two sides of the same coin applies here. 

I’ve written another meta about this before, but I also think the whole idea of repressing a part of your identity and hating it, before bonding with another woman and then realizing that it’s okay to be like her and to be on her side. It’s okay to be yourself and meeting her is what helps you discover this new part of yourself. Is kinda inherently gay. GLaDOS’ discovery of her own humanity just fits so well into a queer realization narrative, to me at least.

Then, Chell and GLaDOS escape Old Aperture and have to get through Wheatley’s tests. 

Here, GLaDOS isn’t just begrudgingly on Chell’s team. She’s actively helpful. She wants to help Chell solve tests, defends her from Wheatley’s insults, and makes jokes to lighten the mood. Things that can really only be explained by her caring about Chell, especially the part about the insults. See below.

After the two escape Wheatley’s testing track, right before the boss fight GLaDOS has a few other things to say.

GLaDOS is not going to betray Chell, because of some kind of conscience. But she could easily ignore that back in her body, and yet? Here she’s deciding not to, and for no good reason. She didn’t have to say that to Chell, but she did, because she cares and she wants Chell to live.

And then, moments before the fight:

The final lines imply that GLaDOS does not think of Chell as an enemy anymore, and that it doesn’t matter what Chell thinks because they are in this together and they are getting revenge together. It’s pretty heartwarming to be honest, to know that even in a fight that will almost certainly kill you, she is there rooting for you and caring about you, even if you don’t feel the same way about her. It no longer matters to GLaDOS whether you even reciprocate - you staying alive, you making it through is enough for her.

So Chell fights Wheatley and sends him into space, all well and good, and at this point, GLaDOS has the option to kill Chell. But not only does she not, she actively saves Chell, and holds her hand in the process. If you don’t believe me:

And not only that, but when Chell goes unconscious from her injuries, GLaDOS sits and waits for her to wake up. It’s also implied that GLaDOS carries her to the elevator, since it’s where she wakes up but not where she passed out. In the scene where Chell blacks out, you can also hear the part of Love As A Construct that sounds like Cara Mia. Yeah. Yeah.

If you think that this cannot possibly get any gayer, you are wrong again, because then GLaDOS makes her final speech. Which is really just a love confession, let’s be honest.

The “surge of emotion?” Do you mean love, GLaDOS? And the idea of GLaDOS considering Chell her best friend, despite everything these two have done to each other? The idea that GLaDOS, out of all people, forgives someone?

Except this isn’t even Chell’s final send-off. GLaDOS writes her an entire opera of turrets, that sing a literal love song. (Note what I said earlier about the use of the word “bambina”).

It really can’t get any more obvious than that. “My (affectionate romantic term here), my dear, I adore you.” How. Is. That. Heterosexual. In. Any. Way.

So Chell goes to the surface, set free by GLaDOS (think of the saying “if you love something, set it free), and you think that’s the end. Until GLaDOS gives you a companion cube so you aren’t alone on the journey, and from the burn marks, you know it’s your first companion cube. Her original heart, her first gift to you, a piece of her that she wants you to carry with you to remind you that she does care about you after everything. It also gives the lyrics to Still Alive a much more genuine meaning. 

Portal 2 ends, and then the ending song, another GLaDOS number plays. Just like Still Alive, Want You Gone is structurally a break up song and very obviously about GLaDOS missing Chell and “counting on” (read: caring about/loving) Chell’s tendencies and quirks. 

She’s accepted Chell completely, and yet also given Chell the one thing she wants most. Only wanting Chell gone can mean GLaDOS not wanting Chell in her life anymore, but can also mean she wants to give Chell the freedom she’s wanted for so, so long. It’s the best thing she can give.

In the co-op campaign, GLaDOS also references still caring about Chell.

And that’s the end of the Portal series. Except. Brace yourself. Despite the games being over, there is STILL more subtext somehow. It gets. Even gayer.

Exhibit C: Supplemental Evidence

Valve has made a lot of extra/cut content for the Portal series, and I’ll be looking at some of it below.

This official valentine from Valve shows GLaDOS offering a romantic partner cake, which as we’ve established before, is very symbolic of GLaDOS’ feelings about and/or relationship with Chell. 

There’s a lot of other concept art and official art that emphasizes their relationship too. See below.

There’s also some cut GLaDOS lines that are even gayer than the source material and again, sound like confessions or references to a breakup:

The idea of “discovering things about someone”... how much more obvious can it get?

The developers have even confirmed a lot of my commentary on Chell and GLaDOS’ relationship in The Final Hours Of Portal 2. See these quotes from the book/this post:

The devs literally describe it as a romance. They use terms like “cheating,” they wanted to write a romantic duet, JoCo purposefully wrote the endings like love songs. It is literally, blatantly said by the creators of the game that their relationship is interpreted romantically. By the creators of the game. 

And if Word of God confirmation isn’t enough for you, have a song written for a cut alternate ending by GLaDOS’ voice actress, Ellen McClain. The song is literally nothing but GLaDOS talking about caring about Chell, about not wanting her to die/leave GLaDOS alone, about wanting to bake a cake with Chell, about waiting for Chell to wake her up. It’s so genuinely sweet and sad, and really, really romantic in the most heartwrenching way possible. 

JoCo also came back for the Portal levels in Lego Dimensions, writing one final breakup song for GLaDOS to sing about Chell. It comes off as GLaDOS not wanting to admit she misses Chell even though she obviously does, trying to replace their relationship but failing, and even explicitly forgiving Chell/wanting her to come back.

Also, the “finally I understand,” as if only now GLaDOS understands just how deep her feelings for Chell are... What else can I say?

In Lego Dimensions, GLaDOS also outright rejects anyone who isn’t Chell.

In Conclusion:

Why do I ship Chell and GLaDOS? 

Well, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether I ship them. 

Because I think it’s glaringly obvious Portal does.

[moiraineswife]

Autistic Allegories in Renarin’s Arc - Meta

s’up y’all, your favourite local rambler is back at it again. Diving straight in to this one. The motivation for this post is something that might be controversial, and I’m going to try and  explain it as clearly as I can and make my intentions clear, but I get this is the internet and things get misinterpreted to fuck. 

So, since Renarin was confirmed to be a queer character, I’ve seen a lot of posts and takes on pretty much every platform I frequent that equates all of Renarin’s traits/struggles in canon as being foreshadowing/parallels to his queer identity and experience. 

I get this. I’m also queer. I understand the instinct to take, say, Renarin’s corrupted spren bond and his desire to keep his nature as a Radiant hidden/his lack of understanding initially and assume it to be queer foreshadowing/parallel. I big get that. And that’s not a bad interpretation. 

The problem is, this is the ONLY interpretation people put forth. They ignore things explicitly said/connections made in canon to Renarin being autistic and say ‘this is it. this is what this means. it’s about him being gay’. When, actually, a good chunk of it is about his experience as an autistic man in an allistic society. Which I think is what Brandon wants to explore/has set up in the text. 

So I decided to look at this in more depth from an autistic perspective - some of the moments that most clearly parallel Renarin’s autistic experience and explain how and why this is a thing, and hopefully just highlight this aspect of his character and explain things to folks. 

Renarin’s Blade Screaming 

Jumping right into it then: Renarin’s bond with Glys is very clearly paralleled with his autism. The text outlines this connection multiple times throughout the series, and explores it in interesting ways. 

First up, Renarin first revealing himself as a Truthwatcher makes this pretty clear: 

“And the Shardblade,” Dalinar said, stepping over and taking his son by the shoulder. “You hear screams. That’s what happened to you in the arena. You couldn’t fight because of those shouts in your head from summoning the Blade. Why? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought it was me,” Renarin whispered. “My mind. But Glys, he says . . .” Renarin blinked. “Truthwatcher.” (WoR)

“Adolin,” he said softly. “I … um … I have to give you back the Shardblade you won for me.”

“Why?” Adolin said.

“It hurts to hold,” Renarin said. “It always has, to be honest. I thought it was just me, being strange. But it’s all of us.”

“Radiants, you mean.”

He nodded. (Oathbringer)

Renarin didn’t explain to his father or the others what was happening to him because he thought it was part of his autistic experience. 

Being autistic you get used to experiencing a lot of in-brain things and not realising that other people don’t experience them, too. I have hypersensitivity to sound. I can hear things other people don’t, because their brains naturally filter them out - like electronics whining. 

The experience of having a Shardblade scream inside your head is actually a pretty great parallel for sensory overload. It’s something intense, something frightening, and overwhelming, and even painful. But Renarin just endures it without comment because that’s what we’re conditioned to do. 

“A group of shellheads tried to seize one of the bridges, Brightlord,” the bridgeman said softly. “Brightlord Renarin insisted on going to help. Sir, we tried hard to dissuade him. Then, when he got near and summoned his Blade, he just kind of . . . stood there. We got him away, sir, but he’s been sitting on that rock ever since.”

[...]

“I just stood there,” Renarin said. “I wasn’t frozen because of my . . . ailment. I’m just a coward.”

When Adolin hears about Renarin freezing up he assumes that he had a fit. Renarin corrects him on this, once he’s verbal again, but says that he was just a coward. 

He froze up once he summoned his Blade. Because it would have started screaming in his head and this was overwhelming. When other Radiants have experienced this on-screen the screaming has been so intense they immediately dropped or dismissed the Blade, unable to hold it. 

From this, I infer that Renarin believes everyone experiences this when they fight with a Shardblade. He doesn’t realise that it’s strange for him because he’s a Radiant. He thinks everyone experiences it, but they push through and overcome it. He can’t, and instead of thinking something strange is going on, he assumes that it’s a weakness of his and that he’s a coward. 

This is a fairly common autistic experience. Why can’t you just get over this? Why is that overwhelming you? Just ignore the sound. Just ignore the lights. Stop being so weak/oversensitive. 

That’s what Renarin thinks is happening. That’s why he doesn’t examine his experiences more closely, and realise he’s a Radiant. He thinks it’s part of him being autistic, and that he’s just being overly sensitive, until Glys is able to communicate with him and explain he’s a Truthwatcher.

The Rhyshadium Don’t Fit

“They don’t fit, you know.”

“Don’t fit?”

“Ryshadium have stone hooves,” Renarin said, “stronger than ordinary horses’. Never need to be shod.”

“And that makes them not fit? I’d say that makes them fit better.…” Adolin eyed Renarin. “You mean ordinary horses, don’t you?”

Renarin blushed, then nodded. (Oathbringer)

This, for me, is one of the most direct and obvious parallel between Renarin’s experience as an autistic man, and his experience as a Radiant. 

Firstly, he comments on the Rhyshadium ‘not fitting’ with ordinary horses. They’re different. They have different hooves, which means they never need to be shod, like regular horses. In this case, being shod is something all horses do. It’s something natural for them, and the Rhyshadium not having it makes them stand out. This is similar to Renarin’s experience in society and in life. 

The Rhyshadium are sometimes called ‘the third shard’ - they’re tied to the Radiants and to Stormlight. Renarin aligning himself with them, and his not fittng with them not fitting, mirrors his being Radiant stopping him from fitting in as he wants to.

A big part of his arc is his desire to fit in somewhere. His integration with Bridge Four is a huge boost to his confidence. He asks to join them to try and find somewhere to belong. The bridgemen are outcasts. They’re people who don’t fit in society, either, for various different reasons. Renarin fits with them, therefore, because he doesn’t fit elsewhere. 

When he starts becoming a Radiant, and a different type of Radiant to the others, he starts to worry again. He worries that, yet again, he’s different for reasons he cannot control, and he’s worried the bridgemen will abandon or reject him as has happened frequently in noble society. 

“So why are you embarrassed?”

“I’m … not?”

Adolin gave him a flat stare.

Renarin dismissed the Blade. “I simply … Adolin, I was starting to fit in. With Bridge Four, with being a Shardbearer. Now, I’m in the darkness again. Father expects me to be a Radiant, so I can help him unite the world. But how am I supposed to learn?”

Adolin scratched his chin with his good hand. “Huh. I assumed that it just kind of came to you. It hasn’t?”

“Some has. But it … frightens me, Adolin.” He held up his hand, and it started to glow, wisps of Stormlight trailing off it, like smoke from a fire. “What if I hurt someone, or ruin things?”

The conversation continues, and further solidifies the connection between the Rhyshadium not fitting with other horses, and Renarin not fitting in with other people. 

He had become a Shardbearer, and was starting to fight and do what an Alethi man is expected to do in society. Go to war with Shards, with glory, etc etc etc. That didn’t quite work out. 

For Renarin, whenever he gets closer to assimilating with the standard society and expectations, something happens to stop him. Initially it’s his epilepsy. He has fits, and his chronic illness makes him generally weaker and more frail, meaning that he can’t fight. 

Once he’s given Shards to help mitigate those factors, he can’t use the Shards because his Radiant bond makes them scream inside his head. Again stopping him from fighting and becoming a soldier. 

He then goes on to tell Adolin that he doesn’t really know how to Radiant. And Adolin says that he thought it would just come to him/he would instinctively know, but he doesn’t. 

This is, again, a very classic autism thing. We struggle with doing things that allistic people find instinctive, and don’t need to be actively taught - such as reading and projecting the correct body language.

Adolin, who takes very naturally to all this stuff, just assumes that Renarin’s Radianting would just come to him, and Renarin has to explain that actually no, it hasn’t. This literally cannot get any clearer in forging an obvious link between his autism and his Radiant abilities. 

Renarin’s ‘Corrupted’ Bond: 

“What’s wrong with me?” Renarin asked. “Why do I see these things? I thought I was doing something right, with Glys, but somehow it’s all wrong.…” (Oathbringer)

[...]

“Does it strike you as cruel of fate, Father? My blood sickness gets healed, so I can finally be a soldier like I always wanted. But that same healing has given me another kind of fit. More dangerous than the other by far.” (Rhythm of War)

[...]

Lopen called out, asking Renarin to “look into the future and find out if I beat Huio at cards tomorrow.” It seemed a little crass to Dalinar, bringing up his son’s strange disorder, but Renarin took it with a chuckle.

[...]

It would be so much easier if he were like other Radiants. (RoW)

[...]

“And a blackness interfering, marring the beauty of the window. Like a sickness infecting both of you, at the edges.”

“Curious,” Dalinar said, looking where Renarin had pointed, though he’d see only empty air. “I wonder if we’ll ever know what that represents.”

“Oh, that one’s easy, Father,” Renarin said. “That’s me.”

“Renarin, I don’t think you should see yourself as—”

“You needn’t try to protect my ego, Father. When Glys and I bonded, we became … something new. We see the future. At first I was confused at my place—but I’ve come to understand. What I see interferes with Odium’s ability. Because I can see possibilities of the future, my knowledge changes what I will do. Therefore, his ability to see my future is obscured. Anyone close to me is difficult for him to read.”

“I find that comforting,” Dalinar said, putting his arm around Renarin’s shoulders. “Whatever you are, son, it’s a blessing. You might be a different kind of Radiant, but you’re Radiant all the same. You shouldn’t feel you need to hide this or your spren.”

Renarin ducked his head, embarrassed. His father knew not to touch him too quickly, too unexpectedly, so it wasn’t the arm around his shoulders. It was just that … well, Dalinar was so accustomed to being able to do whatever he wanted. He had written a storming book.

Renarin held no illusions that he would be similarly accepted. He and his father might be of similar rank, from the same family, but Renarin had never been able to navigate society like Dalinar did. True, his father at times “navigated” society like a chull marching through a crowd, but people got out of the way all the same.

Not for Renarin. The people of both Alethkar and Azir had thousands of years training them to fear and condemn anyone who claimed to be able to see the future. They weren’t going to put that aside easily, and particularly not for Renarin. (RoW)

Sorry for the quote barrage, but there was really  no other way to do this, and I think it makes a nice little arc in how Renarin sees himself and his bond to Glys and, by extension, his autism. 

In the temple, with Jasnah, he considers it to be something wrong. He’d thought he was finally fitting in, being like everyone else, doing something “right” but it turns out his bond is of Odium, and while he thought he fit with the others, he doesn’t. Again.

 The RoW segments are what’s most interesting to me, because what we see here, I think, is Dalinar experiencing Renarin’s ‘disorder’ as he calls it and processing it/coming to terms with it in a way a lot of parents approach their kids’ autism. But this is a bit more approachable/less painful to look at because he’s considering him being a weird glowing power ranger, and not an autistic kid. Easier to examine more honestly. 

So first of all Renarin, again, calls a direct link between his bond and his autism. The ‘healing’ that came with his bond gave him another kind of otherness. Another way he can’t be a soldier - which, for Renarin, in Alethi society, means him being like everyone else. I was going to go into this more here but this thing is already long as fuck, but in a nutshell being a soldier is Renarin’s dream because that’s him being “normal” and being like everyone else, which fate always conspires to stop him from being. 

In Alethi society the peak of masculinity and of fitting in to the social order, which revolves around war and glory and battle courage blah blah blah - is being a soldier and fighting. Which Renarin has never been able to do. Which his father has always wanted him to do - wihich Renarin knows. 

A lot of allistic people, especially allistic parents, think their autistic kids won’t pick up on their blatant ‘oh my god I wish my kid was normal’ vibes. They do. BELIEVE ME they do. This is a good little nod to that. Dalinar has never outright looked at Renarin and said ‘I want you to be a soldier to be worthy of my love and respect’ but it’s what Renarin grew up knowing and seeing from him. 

The evolution of that through exploring Dalinar’s attitude to Renarin being bonded with an Odium-aligned spren is...Utterly fascinating, to say the least.

Here, for example, Dalinar sees it as a “strange disorder”. When Renarin calls a spade a spade and just goes ‘yeah no that weird thing right there that makes you comfortable? That’s me, buddy, get used to it’. Which is just. Absolutely effervescent. There’s a big instinct allistic people have to dance around autistic people. So many innuendos. So many fluffy phrase that I hate. “On the spectrum.” “On the autism spectrum”. “Differently abled” “Sees the world differently.” Just call me autistic and let me move on with life I do not have time to deal with your internalised issues. 

He kind of comes around on it and gives him the whole “you might be a different Radiant but you’re still a Radiant to me, son”. Replace the word Radiant here with person and you’ll have a conversation I’ve experienced so many times. “Just because you’re a weird person doesn’t mean you’re not still a person!” Why thank you for pointing that out. I hadn’t noticed....Thank you for validating my humanity to my face?? As though I needed you to do that?

Contrast this with Renarin’s cheerful acceptance (ABSOLUTELY STUNNING DEVELOPMENT, HELL YES) - ‘yeah no that weird thing right there is me’. I cheered, dear reader, I CHEERED. It’s a little thing but it’s also a very very big thing. 

So is Lopen making light of things - in a way that laughs with Renarin and not at him - wanting him to predict the outcome of his card game. Renarin laughs at this, and is obviously comfortable with the jokes and the camaraderie. Dalinar winces at this and thinks that it shouldn’t be made fun of this way, that it’s crass or wrong, Renarin has a disorder, it makes him weird and delicate, people shouldn’t joke around him with that, it’s not right. But Renarin is comfortable with it, and the Bridgemen are comfortable with him, which Dalinar obviously isn’t - though I get that he’s trying to go there. 

Then, again, we draw a very direct parallel between Renarin’s Radiant experience othering him socially and autism othering a person socially. Absolutely exquisitely done mister sando, very nice indeed. 

Renarin notes that there are ways to go through society. It’s nice to be like Dalinar and have the clout to buck the expectations, and not do what you’re supposed to, and still get away with it. Isn’t that nice? Bitch wrote and published a book and he’s still seen as masculine and worthy of respect and being yielded too. 

Remember that Renarin can read and write as well - he learned so he could interpret his visions. But he hasn’t shared that with people. Because he knows that it won’t be accepted the way Dalinar was. 

Sanderson sets up this idea rather nicely in Oathbringer, actually, with the scribes meeting. 

Renarin glanced at his father. Dalinar responded with a raised fist.

He came so Renarin wouldn’t feel awkward, Shallan realized. It can’t be improper or feminine for the prince to be here if the storming Blackthorn decides to attend.

 This part has always made my heart happy. Because it’s not just about Dalinar validating Renarin’s societally ‘feminine’ tendencies - which he gets subtly bullied/mocked for during that meeting by one of the other women in attendance. It’s about all of his differences, it’s about Dalinar validating his autistic experience as well, and helping to fit him in to a society that continually rejects and ousts him. 

This idea evolves through RoW, however, with Renarin understanding that Dalinar can do things that he won’t be allowed to get away with. Dalinar isn’t so much breaking down barriers with Oathbringer as he is stomping through them because he has enough social privilege to do so, for the most part, unscathed. 

Renarin keeps his reading a secret because, even after what Dalinar has done, it’s not going to change things for most men, and certainly not him. 

Renarin has learned, throughout his life, that him being different is not going to break down any barriers. People are not going to change their world, or their worldview, for him and his differences. He knows that he has to adapt, and he knows that he won’t be afforded the same luxuries as others. 

He’s more comfortable with this now. He’s learning to be himself, and learning that the world won’t fit itself to him, he just has to do what he’s going to do anyway, and find the places where he fits, rather than trying to change the ones where he doesn’t. It’s actually a really beautiful little arc, and I’m strongly tempted to look at it in more depth at some point. Renarin and Dalinar’s dynamic is actually incredibly deep, layerd, and complex, and it’s something I’ve been meaning to look at for a while. HOWEVER. NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THAT. 

TL;DR: Renarin’s Radiant experience is a direct allegory and parallel to his autistic experience. This is explored and made blatant by canon repeatedly, throughout the series, and Renarin’s experience as a Radiant is clearly a vessel by which Sanderson intends to explore his autism. Stop erasing and ignoring this when you talk about Renarin and analyse his arc. His autism is as intrinsic to this as it is to identity. It’s part of him. Stop erasing it.

I’m not saying you can’t find parallels or comfort in Renarin’s arc as a queer person. I’m just saying you cannot look at it in isolation. As though the text is ONLY making a parallel between his queer identity and his bond. Because it’s very fucking blatantly not. His autism is obviously and canonically tied to his Radiant bond and this is something that MUST be noted whenever you talk about this aspect of Renarin’s character.

Note: if anyone has any questions or comments on this, I am happy to engage and to clarify what I meant/add further detail and supporting evidence for various different aspects. There’s only so much I can cover in one post! For my sanity as well as yours...But there’s absolutely more, and I’m happy to look at that as well.

[brushstrokesapocalyptic]

it’s time for the “overanalyzing one-off lines” show!

so the very first thing magnus says when he sees pit in chapter 2 of kid icarus: uprising is as follows:

“Well, I didn’t expect to see an angel here. Hope this doesn’t mean I’ve kicked the bucket.”

now, i’m not sure if you’re aware, but that’s a really weird thing for someone to say, and it’s even more weird that no one comments on it. pit and palutena go on talking about unrelated things, as if that’s a totally normal and expected thing for magnus to say.

now, if you’re like me, you probably also didn’t really react to this line the first few times you saw it. it’s the second chapter, kiu has a lot of slightly-odd lines which turn out to be foreshadowing. me, personally? my first thought was “oh, i guess angels are probably associated with escorting the dead to the afterlife,“ and then i moved on.

they’re not, though. that’s what reapers do. and there’s no way humans have these two races mixed up. just fucking look at them.

do they look anything alike to you??? no. they don’t. which raises the question of why, exactly, magnus said that.

now, we don’t know a lot about angels as a whole. pit (and by extension dark pit) is emphatically not the gold standard of angeldom. we can assume he looks fairly ordinary for an angel, seeing as no one has trouble identifying him as such. beyond that, though, a lot of what we know about angels comes from what pit isn’t. for starters, he can’t fly. and there’s something else, too, but i’ll get to that later.

before that, though, i’m gonna go through the various unsubstantiated comments made by people with a dubious level of authority on the subject. (incidentally, i sourced these screenshots from the wiki— much more convenient than trying to dig through youtube for every single random conversation.)

without any further ado! let’s get into it!

Angels as Messengers

Gaol: Aw, Palutena’s little messenger boy. And Magnus, it’s always a pleasure. (src)

in the specific context of overanalyzing magnus’s first line, this is an important sentence to pick out. magnus and gaol are both humans, both with presumably a fairly similar history as mercenaries up until gaol got stuffed in a suit of armor. but while magnus makes a weird comment about death, gaol calls pit a messenger.

and pit agrees with her!

Viridi: I wish I had an angel to do my bidding. It’s like having an intern.

Pit: I’m not an intern. I’m a messenger of the gods!

Viridi: Poor Pit. Don't you know that the definition of angel is "errand spirit"? (src)

this particular conversation is the most insight we get into angels as a whole, i think. viridi thinks of angels as like divine interns, there to do little tasks for gods, and palutena doesn’t exactly disagree with her. pit says they’re specifically messengers, which lines up with biblical mythology. i could see the traditional role of angels in the world of KI being exactly that, showing up to tell the humans what the gods have to say because the gods themselves are too busy being petty jerks to do it themselves.

The Angel’s Code of Conduct

Magnus: You go in fully dressed? Don't you at least want to change into a...swimming tunic or something?

Pit: Oh, no no no! The angel's code of conduct says that we must always be ready for duty.

Magnus: I guess you wouldn't be an angel if you didn't do things by the book. (src)

Pit: Hey! You know the angel's code of conduct! I need to be prepared at all times! (src)

another random little thing is the angel’s code of conduct. without a larger sample size, we can’t know if it’s a real thing or just an excuse to save on laundry, but apparently it’s against the rules to not be on call at all times. in pit’s case, the duty he has to be ready for is doing palutena’s dirty work, but it can easily mean just about anything— including, of course, being a messenger.

No Warrior

Chariot Master: But you are no warrior, angel. Tell me, why do you fight?

Pit: I fight for Lady Palutena. And I fight for the people under her protection!

Chariot Master: That's not reason enough for an angel. (src)

remember how i said there was something else weird about pit? the chariot master seems to think angels aren’t very prone to battle— or perhaps even that they’re actively opposed to it. this lines up well with the idea that they’re supposed to be messengers, peaceful go-betweens for gods and mortals. this does not line up well with pit, the adorable weapon of mass destruction.

and it also does absolutely nothing to explain the question driving the whole existence of this post.

you know what does kinda lean towards an explanation?

No Other Angels

Pit: Do all gods have their own angels, like you have me?

Palutena: No, I don't think that's necessarily the case. (src)

i said before that the Intern Pit conversation had the most illuminating information on angels. this is what i was actually referring to. on its own, it’s pretty innocuous, but it’s just as weird as the magnus line. shouldn’t pit know about other angels, seeing as he is one himself? but he doesn’t know if there are other angels.

the only angels we ever see are him and his clone. no one ever directly references the existence of other angels, they only make general statements about what angels as a whole are like— statements which clearly don’t apply to pit, meaning they’re not just extrapolating based on the one angel that definitely does exist.

the one time someone does comment on the hypothetical existence of other angels, palutena gives a vague answer to the tune of “no,” the topic is changed, and no one brings it up again.

let’s go over everything i’ve established about angels up to this point. they can fly, they’re peaceful messengers of the gods, and pit is the only one that seems to exist as of the start of KIU.

it should be pretty obvious at this point what answer i’m dancing around, if it wasn’t obvious from the start. pit is the only angel around because all the other ones are dead. the reason why magnus said what he did is that his thought process went something like this:

See an angel.

Think “Aren’t angels extinct? Is that a ghost? Am I a ghost? I sure hope not.“

Make a quip about that.

Move on with his life, because he isn’t dead and evidently neither is this guy.

i’m not gonna pretend i went into this post with the intent of any other conclusion to that mystery. anyone who’s bothered glancing over a plot summary for the original kid icarus can draw that conclusion. it’s certainly what i did, reinforced by fics by people who had the same thought!

the truth, however, is that this was all a trick to get you to read my analysis of the theoretical nature of angels as a race. now that you’re invested, i’m going to dramatically throw aside my cape and reveal my TRUE FORM: telling people that fandom consensus is wrong, and my ideas are cooler and better than everyone else’s and you should all throw roses at my feet and bow before your king.

(or just, y’know, take it as the subjective analysis that it is. whatever floats your boat.)

Hot Takes

the original kid icarus does not actually tell you about angels going extinct. here’s the wiki article with the full text of the backstory, just for convenience, so you know what i’m on about for the rest of this post.

so, the part of the story that i think gets misinterpreted is this part about palutena’s army.

Medusa led a surprise attack on Palutena's army which could barely fend off the attack. Palutena's army suffered major losses and was heavily defeated in the final battle.

specifically, i think a lot of people interpret said army as having been made up at least partly of angels. sure, in the actual game it consists entirely of centurions, but you have to take old NES games with a grain of salt. i know i don’t buy for a second that pit was part of palutena’s guard before the original game (he was just too goddamn young), there’s nothing wrong with reinterpreting things.

recall everything i established about angels already, though. this is the hot official lore, from the game everyone knows and loves. angels are messengers, and if the chariot master is to be believed, never warriors. pit is an outlier. palutena’s army consists of centurions, not angels. if medusa wiped them out, it wasn’t because they were fighting for palutena.

(and honestly, i don’t think angels are necessarily associated with palutena exclusively. sure, she’s got the wing imagery, and she’s got the one known surviving angel working for her, at least up until pittoo is born. but angels are messengers of the gods, not messengers of palutena. again, pit is an outlier.)

which all brings us to the real question of this post.

what the FUCK happened to all the other angels? why is there only pit? why does magnus act surprised to see a messenger of the gods, and make a quip about being dead, if not because angels are otherwise extinct?! WHO KILLED THEM, AND WHY?!

thus concludes the “over analyzing one-off lines“ show. see you next, uh, maybe at some point if i feel like it!

(also another thought i had but couldn’t find room to fit it in properly: the gods don’t really act like angels are all extinct, but i feel like that can be explained through the sheer scale of a god’s lifespan. if we assume they were wiped out sometime around the original kid icarus (even if not as palutena’s army) then that’s a whole twenty-five years. that’s a long time for us humans, but for a god, that might as well be last tuesday. “yeah, i know what angels are like. sure wish i could have one. too bad palutena’s got a monopoly on the one single angel that medusa didn’t manage to wreck.”)

[misnomera]

On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...

Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.

To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has...Dutch origins??).

Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).

What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like...it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general. 

And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?

(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)

On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”? 

This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese? 

At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.

And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that. 

Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here. 

You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it. 

EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post