#how tf am i supposed to cope with existence again?

[jade-of-mourning]

this crying to living ratio isn't looking too good for me

[safyresky]

🆕 Crystal Springs Chapter 28: Not My Style now up on ao3!

and ff dot net I suppose, but I am beginning to very vibe with ao3 tbh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANYWAY.

Chapter 28: Not My Style (ao3 | ff.net)

As the dust settles after Pyros's defeat, a decision must be made on what to do with the wannabe King.

Other stuff happens, too! the Frosts are all at the Pole now, yes ALL of them. Um. There's Blangst. Cold Front angst. The Twins being amazing, stunning, showstopping. and yes there is Blinter just being absolutely gross and unable to not kiss for 5 seconds. Idk man. They were really overly affectionate this chapter. Probably almost being killed would do that to you???? OH AND we got the "1 (one) fuck word allowed" bit this chapter! Wait until you see who gets it ;)

We also get to meet a whole new bunch of magibeans! enough names were dropped that I made a little (long) lore post you can find right here! Now then.

HAVE AN EXCERPT:

Mother Nature waited a moment, studying everyone in the room closely before continuing. “Thank you all for coming together so fast on such short notice. Seeing as how those of us who were responsible for the imprisonment of one Pyros Frost last time are all gathered, let’s began, shall we?” “Yes, let’s,” Gwen said, smoothing out her skirts and clasping her hands respectfully. “PLEASE, I am DYING to know what the goddamn hell happened here! The suspense may actually kill me.” Cheri gasped overdramatically, clutching at pearls that did not exist around her bare neck. Gwen snorted. “Oh, please. Like something that simple would kill you—" “Wait,” Blaise interrupted, brow furrowed. “This is everyone?” “I’m afraid so, dear,” Mother Nature confirmed. “We’re all that’s left?” “Survival of the fittest, hot stuff.” “Godrick?” “Rosehaven’d,” Cheri said, admiring her nails. “Novus?” “Rosehaven’d.” “Indigo?!” “Caught up in a tinker! Said they were in the middle of a breakthrough, it was crucial, and if you needed any chains like that again to just commission them,” Gwen said, chipper. “Bartholomule?” “Shifted into mule form in 1783 and hasn’t been seen since. Probably also Rosehaven’d.” “OR living a happy little life as a happy little mule.” “He’s probably living a dead, dead life as a dead, dead mule.” “CHERI!” “GLENDA!” “What about Peggy? Pepper? Birch?” “Rosehaven’d, stuck in the curse ward, enlightened.” Gwen ticked each one off on her fingers, tilting her head in thought. “Birch really lives up to her name now! She hit omnipotent a couple of centuries back.” “The tree look really works for her.” “It does!” “What about Kharl?” Cheri cackled. “Got Toad’ed!” “Cheri.” “Ah-ah-ah Tara! Don’t Cheri me. T’was GLENDA who dunnit!” “He KNOWS what he DID!” Gwen insisted. Blaise’s frown deepened, his hair dimming. “Really feeling your age now I’ll bet, eh, Dad?” Blaise side eyed Jack, unamused. “Sorry, sorry. I’m coping.” Blaise sighed. “At least one of us is.”

Ready to see what tf happens to Pyros? Check out Chapter 28: Not My Style HERE on ao3 and HERE on fanfiction dot net!

Want to take this delightful fic from the top? Check out the Prologue: An Encounter HERE on ao3 and HERE on ff dot net! Summary below the cut, along with the usual author ramblies :3

It's been almost a year since Jack Frost thawed and things are looking...well, not so great. Jack's powers are seemingly gone. Without them, the Dome that keeps the North Pole safe from the cold and its magic controlled is melting, putting everything and everyone magical at risk. Unable to hide his power shortage any longer, Jack is forced to admit the truth. Thankfully, there is a solution: enacting the Legate Law, bringing Jack and the sister that he hurt so many centuries ago back together again. But when Jacqueline starts experiencing destructive blackouts, the pair are forced to head back home to Crystal Springs, bringing Jack face to face with the rest of the family. Needless to say, between getting his powers back, helping his sister figure out what in the FROST those blackouts even were, reconciling with his parents, meeting the two even younger siblings he didn't even KNOW he had, NOT TO MENTION the ancient threat that's had it out for the ENTIRE Frost family finally making a move? Saving Christmas (regrettably) is looking to be a little bit...complicated.

First off, APOLOGIES FOR PUSHING IT BACK A WEEK! I needed some more time for Chapter 29 and my husbando got sicko with covido so I was pulling double duty instead of the usual 50/50 split and THEN some bc this man has no concept of relaxing I s2g.

BUT! HE IS BETTER NOW, AND I AM ON THE LAST SCENE OF CHAPTER 29! SO THAT'LL BE READY FOR NEXT WEEK (CRIBMAS CHAPPIE!) AND THEN CHAPTER 30. UH. AT SOME POINT. Given that I've yet to start it 😔

BUT IT IS DRAFTED VIA NOTES!

Anyway, your regularly scheduled AN:

🆕 This Chapter:

Changed Pyros's sentence to something way worse than it was before

Named every Governor AND the people who imprisoned Pyros the first time->you can check out a rundown of their names and positions and some fun facts about them HERE

WORD COUNT: OG CS 2014 Chapter->4,519k words (what) CS 202X Chapter-> 15,172k words (CACKLING)

what a fucking DIFFERENCE

mostly I shored up a LOT of CS Lore this chapter! Hell yeah!

but YEAH. ENJOY! Hopefully I see you all next week with Chapter 29--fingers crossed!!! :3

[lesser-mook]

Saw this back when it dropped, never finished an Anime movie so pissed; that 2 hours were spend on what should’ve  been 30min. 

The movie overall could've been a cute short film, without the time skip and unnecessary side characters. Just self indulgence on full display.

And funny how I (a detractor) am talking about the film, thus bringing it back into minor 5sec of relevance, when people who liked the film, (so far as I’ve seen) forgot it even existed. 

When pure raw emotion/ hype is your reason for liking something- when the emotions & hype fade, that’s the hill what you liked dies on.

Hype & emotions do not last forever. Same goes for relationships.

Anyways, 

 The bullying aspect was executed “OK”, very mean stuff.

Though the entire thing was just a huge play on your emotions. Rarely have any female designs that stray from the “stock cute girl design”, no pronounced nose, heavy set, burns that don’t look like tattoos, overbite, sloped eyes, nope just 24/7 the cutest possible iteration. Because how could you feel empathy for someone that isn’t appealing to your Darwinian biases.

Typical presentation, the "insert your tears here" moments were cringeworthy (because you can tell they really, REALLY want you to feel something), didn’t work for me. Worst parts of the movie because it’s so extra and over the top.

Neon Genesis Evangelion had hard to watch scenes because in context they were supposed to be actual larger than life problems. But they were not this pedantic. (and thats coming from me)

Same with that stair climax scene in Garden of Words, with the crying, and leaping on him & shit, the music swell, all over a misunderstanding. Just melodrama stupidity.

You’d think a fool legit died or something.

This is what most Anime (slice of nothing happens) movies are, just unintentional Rom-coms taking themselves too goddamn seriously.

Cause the easiest road to 5 stars for Otaku’s is make a mf cry, that’s all it takes. and what does that even matter when recent generations are so overly emotional these days anyway. WHO ISN’T crying nowadays.

The voice acting was good, from all the cast. (SUB)

 The titular couple had little in common as people, let alone a would be couple,  she was a blank slate of nauseating innocence, but she was cute. (Per japanese obsession = cute cute cute, thats her existence. No attitude, no allergy, no weird hobbies. Nope just Angel in incarnate. Too good for this world.)

He remembered her & kept hounding her out of curiosity, guilt, intrigue and because he’s tall & endearing and she’s short & cute- we’re supposed to want him to succeed in re-entering her life.

Pure superficial aesthetic.

If she had a temper or something, an ugly laugh, sore loser, something/ anything resembling a flawed human being, that would be better. Hell if she went through a transformation and became like a UFC or underground deaf streetfighter badass, that shit would be fucking wild, the movie just throws you the biggest curveball of the anime industry  and funny given she was bullied so that's how she'd cope. 

And it wouldn’t just be a contrived plot point, because it’d make narrative sense as to why she’d feel driven to be a fighter, to never be preyed on again.

The joke would be you'd expect exactly what you got in the movie, someone whose ripe for romantic crap, but she ends up being the exact opposite, still feminine, but not available & has better things to do. Because why not.

Leagues more entertaining, because now the intrigue is: HOW TF is he going to end up with her, HOW?!

But you see, this only works if she’s frail, “cute cute cute” and vulnerable 24/7- ya know the Japanese’ peak standard for a domestic infantile pet, Errr i mean a “WAIFU” guys, my bad. Got the two mixed up...

Otherwise how could the movie possibly end without some kind of contrived romance thread that realistically shouldn’t exist.

And all that time & she has no partner?

If they had any balls they’d made her like girls, instead of some side characters being subtly lesbian, so bold guys, very brave. 

So him getting with her is an impossibility and him making amends can be genuine in isolation outside romantic motivations, thus removed from the fact that he’s obviously guaranteed her hand after the bullshit drama is done. Because that’s the agenda of the events, not actual redemption.

Predictable.

 Him grown up, he was more vulnerable & apologetic due to him being bullied to balance out her innocent nature and that alone was enough to get them to develop feelings. Zero chemistry, just well drawn/animated/colored scenes of being in the same vicinity and being wholesome.

Wholesome isn’t chemistry (*Cough Clark-Kun and Lois-Chan *cough cough), that’s the problem with Deku and Ochako, & it took me a while to figure that out cause it’s easy to think just being cute means that’s a recipe for success. 

 And because he became a victim of bullying like she was, another indicator that we’re supposed to  want them together. More manipulation, so he didn’t have to earn shit. Despite the fact that he deserved that shit, she didn’t. 

You don’t get rewarded for suffering consequences of your own actions. 

  Stock syndrome is cute because the girl is cute, the movie.

Could've been better but could've been worse. never watched it again, but unfortunately the good animation burned it’s existence into my mind.

It was a nice/ “sweet” film for what it was. 

Overly drawn out, melodramatic; The entire story could've been wrapped up as a more concise short film. Under an hour.

Just watch Spirited Away, Mirai, “Flavors of Youth”

or the underrated Dareka no Manazashi (A good short film people forgot existed because it’s not highschool Tween melodrama bait)

And for a simpler take on Man+Woman = Feels 

(though the premise itself is weird)

Gets the point across without holding you hostage for 2 hours, the pacing in this movie is pretty good.

[aroarolibrary]

Oh man so, first off: congrats to angel/dean shippers on getting your canon thing in spanish but secondly:

Man this whole thing that’s been happening with this show over the last few weeks has 100% reminded me that this show and Sherlock were the two fandoms that made be super romance repulsed because of all the internalized self-hate and trauma they caused me. Like. I was romance repulsed before but those fandoms?? Jacked it up to 100% for years in which I couldn’t interact with any romantic stories or fandoms at all.

Story time!!!

Tw for: self harm, self hatred, hypersexuality, mental health issues, child neglect.

So imagine you are me: a young person who has just graduated high school and, very suddently, went from being “single mother of your little sister” who you had essentially raised on your own for the last four years when she was 5 to 9 yo to “every day college kid that sees their sibling that they raised for the last four years maybe once a month.

Also imagine that, out of all of your high school friends, none of them are attending the same university as you and so. Well.

You’re feeling pretty lonely and depressed.

Now also imagine: you didn’t really have a chance to consume media I HS because: parent. In fact 90% of what you watched was kids cartoons for your sibling +bonus Inuyasha at 3am as a...Uh....treat.....(that’s the kind way of saying ‘setting an alarm at 3am to check to make sure the parents actually got home from wherever TF they vanished to nearly every night).

But hey! You are free now and can watch/read what you want between classes! Only, well, where to start? You go to a book store and find a Sherlock Holmes book and think “okay ya I’ve always wanted to read these!” And proceed to consume them in one week flat.

They are amazing. The relationship between Sherlock and John reminds you of your and one of your best friends/honorary cousins that you haven’t seen in a while and it brings you comfort to read, but now you are out of stories so, you do what any person this day in ages does: you find fanfiction. Now, Sherlock wasn’t a thing at this point and so nearly all the fanfics were based on the books and, of those, 80-85% you gen. No romance at all. Just relaxing stories about friends and solving mysteries.

Then Sherlock happens and, don’t get me wrong, I was definitely a fan when the show started, but suddenly fanfiction was no longer mostly gen, it was shifting, becoming more and more shipping and romance related and it became harder and harder to find non-romantic stories.

Then a person I was living with suggested supernatural. “It’s a story about brothers and it focuses on them.” They said “very little romance. You would probably like it.”

And so I watched it and, they were right, I did. And ya, that one wasn’t exactly like the early Sherlock Holmes fandom, it had a lot of shipping from the get go, but I could also really easily find gen fics that focused on siblings and familial relationships and ignore the rest since there was a pretty even 50/50 split with a slight favor on the gen side.

(Keep in mind there is a LOT of other irl trauma going on in the BG of this story which I know I’ve talked about before. A lot of which is also feeding into the romance repulsion and my avoidance of romance in fandom spaces along with my “blossoming” hypersexuality)

Anyway, the familial relationship in spn was a comfort. At the point I moved from Sherlock to SPN I was in my second year on university and was doing a bit better mentally (in the “sadness” front at least) but I was still missing seeing my sister a lot and so SPN was a comfort in that sense. It was something to relax with that didn’t have romance or anything of the sort that, at that point, was only driving me further and further into hypersexuality (I was dating my first ‘official’ partner at that point and, while I can recognize it now looking back, romance in shows and movies made me feel inadequate as a partner. Like I was failing and not doing enough. Was not romantic enough. Was not showing affection enough. But physically I also couldn’t bring myself to do those things either. What I could do was sex. And, well, when that’s all you have to offer...)

ANYWAY: spn was the one show I knew of on TV that was low to no romance and that the fandom was also decently low on romance, instead focusing mostly on family and the brothers.

Cut forward a few years, I’m back into a depression, I’ve failed at a relationship again because all I can offer is sex and that’s really not enough for people that are looking for actual romance and:

And supernatural introduces an angel character to the show. It’s interesting but I’m pretty depressed and not really all that interested in the show anyway at this point-

But then the fandom happens and it’s like a flood. The romance pours in from all corners along with the absolute hate for anyone that doesn’t see anything romantic happening. It’s like watching a wild fire go through a fandom, what was once a fandom that mostly was just about siblings all of a sudden became all about this angel character and Dean. So much so that it over shadowed everything and any attempt to just enjoy the show as a gen thing or as a family-centric show became impossible.

It was also around this point that a lot of...idk what to call it really because it wasn’t exactly hate, it was like a “this is the only way to read/be in this fandom and if you aren’t we are going to harass you non-stop until you see things our way”. If you couldn’t see the romance between these two characters it was because you were homophobic. If you preferred gen it was because you were homophobic. If you focused on just the brothers and their relationship it was because you were homophobic. If you couldn’t see that Dean was better off in a romantic relationship then with his brother who he had an ‘unhealthy’ relationship with then you were homophobic.

(Keep in mind at this point I was out as bisexual and had attempted to date a woman at this point. I say attempted because, well, again: aromantic even if I didn’t know it then)

It was intense and, from the POV of an aromantic person struggling with being unable to understand even basic romance: it was traumatizing.

I tried to see it, to understand what these shippers were seeing that I couldn’t. Yes, I could see how Sam and Dean’s relationship could be viewed as unhealthy, but as someone who had lived a similar life to theirs as a kid, and to suddenly be bombarded with this idea that the “healthy” way to cope with that is a “romantic relationship” it was a lot. And by a lot I mean a death spiral.

There was...a lot of one night stands and sex and half-attempted relationships after that, in that desperate attempt to understand. There was also panic, nausea, fear that my own relationship with my sister was unhealthy. Was causing both of us harm. That the only way I could keep from hurting her further was to find a “healthy” romantic relationship instead because siblings aren’t meant to be close, not even those where one raised the other alone for years on end.

I had no context outside of fandom about what a healthy sibling relationship looked like and, hell, most TV shows at the time painted sibling relationships as antagonist 90% of the time and with them only interacting when necessary. My parents both had siblings but my dad talked to his maybe once a month and my mom faught with Hers a lot. I had never faught with my sister. We got along perfectly, mostly because from the ages on 13 - 18 I lived for her alone and so I was used to putting her first no matter what.

But this fandom, that had been a comfort for me for a while, suddenly said that was wrong. That instead romance was the way to go and I...

Well. I am conscious of myself enough now to know that I was purposely hurting myself. A lot. Punishing myself over and over and over again, not just because I couldn’t figure out how to “feel” romance like I was supposed to do but also because I was a terrible sibling. Because I had failed my sister some how and had ended up in an “unhealthy codependent” relationship with her since, if Sam and Dean’s relationship was like that according to fans, then obviously so was ours.

(God and don’t get me started on the spiral that the new Inuyasha Sequel put me into a few months ago. I’m STILL not out of that spiral yet. These last few months have not been good for the “romance isn’t important/is unnecessary” front)

I would like to say that I soon realized how terrible the fandom was for my mental health and that it was causing me to harm myself but that isn’t how this story ends. How it ends is that I Eventually I ended up not being able to watch SPN any more. Every episode was just another dagger in my side. Another failure to press my face into. Another series of interactions where I couldn’t see. Couldn’t understand. Another episode that would let to another desperate one night stand/attempt at understanding how this was better. Healthier. How this was how things were supposed to be. Another night of not talking to my family or friend and another few days of not talking to my sister because talking to her too much was wrong.

So ya. This story doesn’t end nicely. It just slowly fades to black. To a point where I hate myself so much that I can’t bring myself to interact with the fandom or internet at all. Where everything just kind of...goes away and vanished but where the trauma still exists. Where stories that start out about family and, suddenly, introduce love interests leave me nauseous and choked. Where my romance repulsion gets so strong that I can’t sleep because I just keep remembering my failures. The fact that it’s not healthy to focus or care about your family. That there must be romance. There must There must there must. Because with out it all other relationships are bad/wrong/unhealthy and you are bad/wrong/unhealthy for only having those.

Just the endless mantra. All night long.

Bad.

Wrong.

Unhealthy.

Bad.

Wrong.

Unhealthy.

Bad

Wrong.

Unhealthy.

Over and over and over again.

[itsthenovelteafactor]

Do you think Leonard and Vanya can be seen as a modern subverted version of the Greek myth Pygmalion?

“Thank you so much for the ask, @jeyfeather1234 (and also general shout-out for always asking the most interesting and thought-provoking questions - I appreciate you so much!! 💛💛💛)

This got kind of long, so I put it under the cut 😊

Not gonna lie, I had to brush up a bit on my Greek Mythology for this one because I didn’t remember too much about Pygmalion outside of the general synopsis. (For those like me, the myth is about a sculptor who disapproves of all the women in his city, and decides to carve a statue of his idea of the *ideal woman*. He becomes a bit obsessed and prays to Aphrodite to help him find a woman like her in real life. Aphrodite realizes, though, that he is actually in love with the statue, and is moved by his devotion to her to bring her to life.)

I am, however, pretty familiar with Pygmalion, the 1913 play by George Bernard Shaw, which was a Victorian-era deconstruction of the myth (and later adapted into the broadway musical My Fair Lady; the play follows Henry Higgins, a linguist who believes that any person could pass themselves off as nobility if they used *proper* English. To prove it, he takes a flower seller, Eliza Doolittle, off the street, and tries to teach her how to speak like a member of one of the upper classes. It gets its name from the myth because one of the central ideas is that we have this man trying to carve his ideal woman out of one who already has her own identity.) I mention it because it brings up a lot of questions about the myth itself that I think might be relevant here. I hope that is okay!

Let’s look at Vanya and Leonard. Right off the bat, we have that Leonard is a woodcarver, who literally carves a statue of Vanya (like. within days of meeting her. which would have freaked me tf out, but she thinks it’s sweet so…moving on). He loathes the other Hargreeves children and has isolated himself from everything else by the time he happens upon Reginald’s notes and makes his plans regarding Vanya. He also has this very elevated idea of what, and who, Vanya is supposed to be. This can be most clearly seen when they’re in the cabin. He clearly wants her to develop her powers and is physically struggling not to just force her to do it. He’s genuinely baffled when she talks about wanting to practice her violin, even though she’s made it very clear that music is one of the most important things for her.

Additionally, there is the manipulation. Leonard wants Vanya to hate her siblings as much as he does, and he plays onto her insecurities and feeds that resentment while situating himself as her ally, her friend, her confidant, the only person who’s ever really understood her. Basically, he has created this version of Vanya in his head that is ideal for his purposes and tries to shape the existing-Vanya to better fit that ideal.

This is where Pygmalion (the play) comes in, because one of the main takeaways from that story (beyond the fact that classism is terrible) is that you can’t just turn a person that exists into an ideal. Eliza has her own ambitions and desires, and because Higgins fails to acknowledge them (or treat her with basic human decency), she eventually walks out on him. And something similar (albeit more violent) happens with Vanya and Leonard. She refuses to become his weapon, he lashes out, and she stabs him with a million knives. (*Diego voice* Just like he deserved.)

(Side note: Leonard is not the only character that this happens to – the walking out, not the stabbing, unfortunately. Reginald Hargreeves took seven children and attempted to mold them into perfect little child soldiers, and each one of them eventually give up on pleasing him because they realize that he doesn’t actually view them as people. Like with Eliza and Higgins, they are just experiments to him; he conducts his study and does not think to be concerned about their welfare of what might happen to them after.)

Summarized: Yes, I can definitely see the parallels! The idea that you can’t actually make a person into an ideal, or make an ideal out of a person, runs counter to the central storyline of Pygmalion (the myth), and the parallels it evokes make for an interesting deconstruction when thinking about Leonard and Vanya. 

But also…

I think it’s worth mentioning that if you’d asked me to come up with a Pygmalion (the myth) reference in The Umbrella Academy, Leonard and Vanya would not be the first characters that came to mind.

They would:

Because Pygmalion (of the myth) isn’t taking a real person and trying to make her into the ideal. It’s a valid criticism of the story – the creation of the “perfect” woman by giving life to what is essentially one man’s fantasy – and it deconstructs the way that idea might be applied in a non-fantastical setting, but that isn’t part of the actual myth. 

In the myth, Pygmalion created Galatea because he was lonely. He felt isolated from the other people in his city (for dumb reasons, sure, but isolated nonetheless) and carved a likeness of a person to fill a void. He thought that his artistic pursuits would be enough to sustain him but really craved human connection. He projected onto her an identity that complemented his and earnestly fell in love with her (so much so that Aphrodite, who does have a bit of authority on that sort of thing, recognized it and was moved enough to give her life.)

In a similar fashion, a very isolated Five finds one of the few remaining things in the post-apocalyptic wasteland that at least resembles another person and projects an identity onto her because the alternative is having to cope with the fact that he’s literally the only person left. And, like Pygmalion (and unlike Leonard and Reginald), Five genuinely cares about Dolores. In his mind, their relationship is intimate and meaningful, and he finds comfort in it and imagines Dolores does as well. 

A couple quotes from Ovid’s Pygmalion:

“His art, he told himself, was enough for him. Nevertheless, the statue he made and devoted all his genius to was that of a woman.“

“He would dress her in rich robes, trying the effect of one delicate or glowing color after another, and imagine she was pleased.”

“He loved a lifeless thing and he was utterly and hopelessly wretched.”

But of course, unlike Pygmalion, The Umbrella Academy is... low-key a tragedy(?). Dolores isn’t going to become real just because Five loves her, and, like some other more modern retellings of the myth, he eventually has to move on to connecting with the real people in his life (flawed as they are). 

Sorry that this second half was a bit of a diversion from your original question, but once I started thinking about it, I thought it might be interesting to add on.

Once again, thank you so much for this ask!! This was really fun to do. 😊

[ryouverua]

Trial 6 -  Oh, I am one yet many (5)

The above inspirational picture was taken seconds before disaster.

Trial: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Tsumugi is not the one-trick pony we thought she was ABORT MISSION, ABORT MISSION!!!!

NO YOU AIN’T! NO YOU AIN’T I DID NOT SIGN UP TO BE HAJIMEMED, NO SIR I DID NOT!

i mentioned it during the text hellstorm I unleashed when I was mid-playthrough but the way Shuichi says ‘cosplaying’ here is ADORABLE. I love his VA she is so good -

also

oh no

oh no

o h      n o

I can’t just... express how deeply that feeling of ‘oh no’ pervaded my being. My soul.

“THIS IS JUST COSPLAY“ SHE SAYS - AND GOD, THE MUSIC, THE MUSIC IS SO WACKY LIKE THESE ARE JUST SOME NORMAL FTE ANTICS -

wait no this is the ‘let’s start the killing game music’ -

ah that’s why I’m lowkey terrified right now

W-What in the world are those white smears across Hagakure’s eyes??? And oh god the first game too???

WHAT THE HELL TSUMUGI YOU’VE REALLY BEEN HOLDING OUT ON US TELL ME HOW YOU’RE DOING THIS I-I mean oh no, how dare you, this is so awful...

SHE’S TAKEN FULL OWNERSHIP OF JUNKO!PERSONA

AJSLKDF

TSUMUGI

HOLY SHIT

TSUMUGI

IS THIS YOUR FINAL FORM

ironically this got me thinking ‘this would be a really cool cosplay + prop’ once I got over the sheer terror of the situation and I starting thinking, oh, wouldn’t it be cool if you even had a sort of pinwheel mechanism (with the main body of it being hidden by her long hair) that rotated all of these pieces, and have you ever realized that there is a small piece of you that is the monster

also I just realized... she kept putting her glasses on as Junko. But I’m assuming she won’t ever wear them as Hajime. So it’s true - the moment she actually took off her glasses, we really did get to see her final form..

IS THAT KOMAEDA’S HAIR

ALL OF THESE THINGS, I RECOGNIZE ALL OF THEM OMG

This............ this is terrible, terrifying, and also really, really good

don’t say you’re jealous don’t say you’re jealous don’t say you’re jealous okay I’m a bit jealous FFU --

SHUICHI I THINK THIS IS ONE OF THE TIMES WHERE YOU DON’T WANT TO PURSUE THE TRUTH I HAVE A TERRIBLE, AWFUL FEELING -

oh no oh no

here I was doing mental gymnastics to justify why she’d be able to cosplay as Junko, a real person

but I was over-complicating things as usual

even the egg has been compromised for her nefarious scheme this truly is the worst timeline

What is with me and stumbling into series that just bloody smash their fourth wall until there’s nothing but broken pieces left

thank you for having twogami right after togami it’s not something I realized I needed and among all this heartbreak is a blessing

THIS IS NOT YOUR CUE TO START PLAYING THE CREDITS MONOKUMA

I am only making it through this trial by sheer force of will and the power of Sweetcheeks’ adorable voice.

Dangan.... ronpa....?

oh god she said ‘we’ she said ‘WE’ THIS IS REALLY NOT GOOD

‘Don’t get too whacky with your theories,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to sound like a total crackpot,’ I said. DAMN YOU SELF I SHOULD HAVE LET MYSELF GO ABSOLUTELY WILD AFTER ALL

So this was invented completely from nothing??? My initial theory had them seeing themselves in someone else’s actual memories as themselves, and having their own brains play tricks on them that way - but all those scenes with them being interviewed by Makoto, of applying to Hope’s Peak, and possibly everything else about them - oh god - how powerful are these lights? How much detail was crammed into them? Can this all be done with a mere flash of a light???

‘We.’ Her use of ‘we’ is interesting, here. It really does feel like Tsumugi sees all of her cosplay personas as actual people that she can channel to ‘help her’ as opposed to just mere characters. Like entities fighting along side of her, not just through her...

also hello ibuki I forgot how much I enjoyed your VA they make me hear seagulls in the distance

aaaaaaw look at how much the art style has improved from the first game!!!

Y.......... YES.......?????? wait actually as someone who is lowkey interested in props and set design - BUT NO WAIT STILL THIS IS WAY BEYOND THAT -

How... the hell... do you cosplay the world?! The entire world?!?!

Is that possible?? If the entire world isn’t real - if it’s all being propped up by you - then -

Who - who are we playing this game for then??? Why make us play it??? Who is watching the game???

I KNEW IT

I AND PROBABLY HALF OF THE PEOPLE PLAYING WERE JUST WAITING FOR YOU TO SHOW UP

......

Did. Did you just say it takes place in the real world.

Oh no -

It... It’s real fiction... because they’ve kidnapped actual people... and brainwashed them... and then trapped them in a situation where they were forced to kill each other to get out?? For things that didn’t exist??? For reasons that weren’t ever real???

Wait - so that means they can get out and it’ll be fine?! That’s..... t-that’s not as bad as I thought, but...

‘STAFF’ OH THAT WORD IS SO OUT OF PLACE -

...............................

There are. There are people backstage. It’s not just Tsumugi. This. This is super not good.

insert inappropriately-timed comment about how I love this VA

Okay. This actually took me by surprise. And I’m kinda terrified to ask.

W.... Why not? Is - Is this actually a space separated from reality? Can they physically.... not go back....???

no wait -

what are you doing

PUT THAT KEY BACK RIGHT NOW

oH

OH UNCANNY VALLEY-LEVELS OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

NO DON’T THROW REAL FACES UP THERE -

IS THIS A BLOODY COMMENT BOARD

I mean I know in my head that this is a niconico parody but the fact is they have to translate the comments to suit an english audience so -

omfg no I cannot believe what is coming out of the screen right now

wait wait

Kyoko is my waifu

My husbando Shuichi

first

Sakura is my muscle waifu good taste anon

Bring on the spoilers

LOL are you watching?

I feel like I’m participating too!

she’s shaking

Aaaw, Himiko is still alive.

Wow it’s on? LOL!

this is what the creepy kid at the beginning of the chapter was about

this was who that Makoto kid was

WHERE IS HIS CREEPY-ASS FACE I KNOW YOU’RE THERE MAKOTO

Is this the everyone... the real everyone Tsumugi says she represents, then??? That she’s fighting for? Omg was Kirumi’s motive/trial foreshadowing all along -

Anyway, damn Tsumugi is proud of her viewership.

#humblebrag #musclewaifu

EVERYONE???? LITERALLY EVERYONE?!?!?!

SURELY... SURELY THAT IS THE CONCEITED TALK  OF A MANAGER TRYING TO TALK UP THEIR ‘BABY’.... SURELY...

I appreciate the use of Celes here. This is.... damn dark. They’ve achieved such a peaceful world that the have to manufacture darkness and blood-sport for people to get their kicks???

STIMULATION?!

first of all where’s miu when you need her

SECOND OF ALL ARE YOU SURE HUMANITY WAS BEAUTIFUL, KOREKIYO??? ARE YOU SURE?

“It’s simple economics.”

THERE YOU ARE MAKOTO YOU CREEP

oh no he was... literally... using this game to cope with his problems.... and he said that one day he wanted to be a part of it... oh no.....

..... D... Did one of the comments say that it had been years? That they had been waiting for a few years for the sequel?

Does - does that mean something, or is it just a throwaway audience comment? Why years? If Rantaro was in the last one, why would it have been years for this one to happen??? How old is Rantaro? How old is Tsumugi?!?!

FML I had been wondering how ‘Monokuma’ could exist without Junko existing since they’re inextricably linked. FML.

MONOKUMA CAN YOU STOP ROLLING THE CREDITS, THE MUSIC AND THE TITLE CARDS FOR A MINUTE PLEASE I AM BEGGING YOU

Because I don’t enjoy having Saioinji’s terrifying eyes trained on me while she questions my intelligence, so I’ll sum up the next question - what season of this gameshow from hell are we apparently on?

I mean, considering Junko’s title... well...

..... yeah it looks better with a V.

the real answer to why they used V3 even though it’s technically not the correct way to say ‘53′ - it’s the aesthetic.

FFFF

I actually screenshot all the parody!title cards and they’re amazing. I’ll post them just once a bit later when it shows up again because this post is entirely too long, but needless to say, whoever designed them had fun. And the titles of the games, too - Birth of Despair? Dream Danganronpa? Sign me tf up! oh no does this make me part of the problem I’M SORRY SWEETCHEEKS

I can’t believe I was bitching about Junko being the mastermind for the third game when apparently audience members have had to sit through 53 Junkos

You couldn’t have changed it up??? Not even once??? Like, one led by Mukuro as a prologue idea or??? quietly denies the existence of the anime

Oh, speaking of which, I do like the excuse they came up with as to why the drv3 creators didn’t create new characters from the supposed other games why Tsumugi didn’t cosplay anyone outside the first two games - it’s for the class’s benefit, since they only knew those two casts, and y’know. She cares. about shock value

DON’T YOU PASS THE BUCK, GIRL

Ah, so that ‘staff’ you mentioned earlier...

why is this so funny to me

T-Tsumugi, do you have a tumultuous relationship with your managers or something

why are you airing out your dirty laundry on live television

is it all the incest plotlines

I feel like at this point it’s less ‘Tsumugi is trying to rub into the students how completely and absolutely they are boned’ and more ‘okay, it’s time to give a shout-out to everyone who put this production together! Perfect time to slap on that logo, guys!‘

oh my god that was supposed to be a trailer in-meta too alsd;kfj i’m losing it

AND AGAIN, THOSE TITLE CARDS - THEY ARE AMAZING.

SHE IS SHE’S TOTALLY ADVERTISING MID-SHOW

TSUMUGI STOP BEING A CORPORATE SELL-OUT

"NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR CRAPPY SHOEHORNED ADVERTISING!!!”

oh god oh no

who’s going to tell him -

MONOKUMA DON’T YOU DARE

i’m having an existential crisis alongside sweetcheeks ngl

there are so many layers

....

we need to go deeper

So, just to clarify, there are three layers right now:

There’s us, the players. In a sense, we could be considered ‘equal but different than the tier’, but we do still operate on a plane separate from the metafiction of Tsumugi’s ‘everyone in the world’.

There’s the ‘audience’, the outside world. This is the space that’s been breached at this point. And this... this is the level where the students are from, too - aka the reason I think we and the audience should exist as separate entities.

And there’s the domain of the Killing Game, a space created to play out this story, using real people - a place separated from reality... how? If Tsumugi is talking about a set, it could easily be the real world, which means they’ve been isolated somewhere. At the same time though, when they managed to reach the end of the escape tunnel and saw the outside world, they all started to choke and suffocate. So... could this be VR still? Or no? Can these existences known as Shuichi Saihara, the Ultimate Detective, Maki Harukawa, the Ultimate Assassin, Himiko Yumeno, the Ultimate Robot, K1-b0, the Ultimate Robot, and even Tsumugi Shirogane, the Ultimate Cosplayer, leave this space in any way, shape or form... or not at all? Is them suffocating ^ like that a sign that they literally cannot exist outside of this space?

She is literally throwing the same question back in Shuichi’s face ghdfkgh

NO I’M ON SHUICHI’S SIDE I COULDN’T HELP IT I HAD TO CHOOSE REAL PEOPLE

no!!! no!!!! NO!!!!

no seriously I still chose real people because I am stubborn

sweetcheeks et al. do not deserve any of this

Of course they brought out despair!Mikan for this. Of course.

I have to say, I do like these little character touches - the decisions that have been made as to which ‘cosplay’ says what. I mean, it’s supposed to also act as a way to throw our known and loved favourites in our face too, but having Celes comment on how boring ‘peace’ is? Having Ibuki smashing through the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience, Gundham remarking on their abnormal existence and Leon commenting on how cool the ‘aesthetic’ of the title card is? It’s such a nice touch. also horrifying. butalsonice

Oh we really are addressing the prologue now??? And - I’m assuming Tsumugi is referring to Hajime when she says ‘me’, but is there a chance she isn’t?

Just as I initially suspected, though - they really were normal when they got in. So how did they decide who got what personality/talent, or was that random? I mean, that might be the case - it was potentially hinted by the motive video switch of Chapter 2..

............. Huh.

But..... in what sense? Like the 16 talents were stored in those lights and they were ‘picked up’ by the most suited participant? How could you make sure there were no doubles? Or - and this is possible because of the vague language - did the talents build on what the student knew already? In which case, how would they know what the talents would end up being and plan the labs around them?

No, it would... have to be... the first one. Talents had its own selection in the flashback creating machine, though without verifying what the subcategories are it’s hard to confirm or deny anything... but I also can’t shake what Maki said at the beginning of the game? How it felt like their talents were given at random?

So... so they’re not only back where they started - completely isolated with everyone they’ve ever known and the world they knew completely out of reach (in this sense, dead/not actually existing are functionally the same), but they get a helping of a totally warranted existential crisis on top of that.

And... their bodies are real, so everyone else really is dead. No happy sdr2 ending. Well, unless I mental-gymnastics that to read ‘they have physical bodies to return to, but as manufactured personas it’s pointless.’

Me too, Sweetcheeks.

We can’t go 5 minutes without a WHAM line.

B-But they were kidnapped weren’t they -?!

fujisaki does not deserve this slander

Return of the hat!!!

..... is it bad that I miss his hat. I. I really liked his hat. I know that it was representative of the way he held back and used it to hide himself, but - but I liked his original portrait. And I liked the way it was incorporated into his sprites and all the movements he makes with it and without it, like it‘s a phantom limb. okayI’llstop

Why... are we not getting a name here? Was Shuichi Saihara a made-up name too?

oh -

oh no

D: A... Anything...

H-He’s.... a complete fanboy too.................... holy shit. cute but terrifying he looks like much more of a schoolboy super!fan than real Shuichi

S-So wait, it’s not even autosuggestion then - he asked for it? How - how does this work with the flashback lights? It can be targeted like that??? god I’m going to have so many questions after this is all over

I think this may be the death knell for his psyche oTL I certainly wouldn’t be able to take this if I was in his position.

LOOK I KNOW I GET EXCITED ABOUT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TOO

but this is a bit much c-can you please keep that drool in -

asdfkjlsdf w h a t

was

was this omitted or something

I - I swear they were kidnapped they seemed a lot more freaked out?!

Even Rantaro, who seemed to know more than he let on at the time - ?!

I... I think I really need to go back and replay the prologue.

ME NEITHER K1-B0 I FEEL LIKE I’M BEING GASLIT

d-did

did you use it on me too

That... that I can believe. No matter who they were before - if they were consenting or not - it might not even matter, if they can’t return to how they were. In a sense, the Gopher Project story was practically preparing them for it - the idea that everything they knew and loved were gone, and would never come back. Oh... oh that’s bad....

TSUMUGI IS ACTUALLY TERRIFYING

SHUT UP NAEGI

wait why is seeing him say that worse than seeing Junko say her normal despair stuff

it’s the insincerity, probably...

YOU NERFED KAITO?!?!?!

YOU NERFED KAITO!!!!!!!

okay I take back what I said Maki you have my enthusiastic blessing to recklessly murder as necessary

RIP Tsumugi and all of her new depth

“I’m also the one that kept sneaking all of the death flags into his room while you were out training every night!”

Y O O O

YOU NERFED HER CHARACTER TOO?!?!?! YOU GOTTA LET THAT HAPPEN ORGANICALLY!!!

LMAO

Souda will never show this much awareness in his actual every day fictional life and that makes this 100% funnier

Everything has a writing credit.... every single thing? Every bit of development?

Even Kokichi’s coup and Kaito’s cooperation? And Kokichi manipulating Gonta? You just seemed so - so angry about that after the trial. Surely those, if nothing else...

At this point they’re just kicking a sad, beaten-down puppy. What more could you possibly do at this point - ?!

oH GOD I DON’T WANT TO SEE THIS

WHAT THE HELL WHO EVEN SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THAT

nNOOO

NO LET ME REMEMBER HIM THE WAY HE WAS

DON’T YOU CROSS THIS BRIGHT RED LINE SHIROGANE

NO

NO THIS IS ILLEGAL I’M CALLING THE POLICE HE LOOKS ABSOLUTELY MAD -

GHGHGGHGHGHGH

GHGHghghghghhh

ghghgh

sdkflj

n o  o o o oooo o o o o o o o

gggkghk

I-It’s not a lie! Even if it was manufactured, even if it was coded into them - their feelings were real to them! It might be by design, but - oh this sounds so hollow. It’s one thing to talk about ‘fate’ and ‘this was the work of a higher power’, but having it brought down on you in such a trivial way must be absolutely soul-crushing.

this is the saddest iteration of hangover!Shuichi that I have laid my eyes on in the entire game

nihilism.

tbh I never found Izuru that intimidating as a final villain in the last game - but here? Terrifying. Maybe it’s in contrast to Junko here, who has the overbearing destructive personality of a tornado, but the quiet emptiness and lack of a higher purpose, of absolute futility that he stands for here - that scares me a lot.   Maybe it’s just because it seems to bring the concept of DR’s despair to a place that I can personally understand?

I keep saying ‘this is terrifying!’ but I mean, to be fair... it... kind of is. as always, fantastic use of text DRV3!

also can someone please shut up the peanut gallery for five minutes

well damn Monokuma that one felt aimed right at me

It reminds me of what Komaeda would say about his own motivation: it was watching everyone struggle with adversity, or the ‘despair of the killing game’, with the end goal of them ‘reaching hope’ - of seeing them overcome and grow stronger for it, that drove him forward. From the outside that makes sense; seeing other people overcome struggles, even ones so terrible, give us the mental strength to overcome our own problems. But for someone on the inside looking out... how perverse would that feel, to think that your suffering is basically being used as inspiration!p0rn? Knowing that there were voyeurs getting a kick out of your struggle?

What happens to game pieces after the game board is closed and put away?

Do they go into stasis? Do they just... exist, outside of time? Frozen forever, until they’re taken out to be ‘played with’ again; left to rot?

If they ‘win’.... they have no future. There’s nothing for them to move forward to reach. A piece learning that they’re a piece, and knowing their dreams after their trials will always stay just out of reach... how can anyone move foward like that?

“love that reaction” OH SHUT UP LUDENBERGxLUVER37

Fight for yourself! They fought to get you this far - Kaito and Kokichi died to give you this chance, even if they are a ‘lie”!

But Shuichi has never been able to fight for himself, only for the others...

Tsumugi, after spending the last hour verbally beating them down and shredding his and everyone’s sense of self to shreds: wow lol what a weakling

Everything is terrible and yet her saying this still got a laugh out of me, damn it.

S-SHUICHI? SHUICHI?

I-IS HE EMOTIONALLY SHUTTING DOWN -

OH GOD

HIS

H-HIS POV - IS GONE -

And nothing but despair left...

Did - did we just lose Shuichi...?

SWEETCHEEKS!!! SWEETCHEEKS, NO!!!

SWEETCHEEKS I’M SO SORRY!!!!

[atrcompilelogs]

Sep 28

Not sure how ..

It's 6:08PM. And I somehow screwed up. Again.

Started the day with a lot of motive, but spotify ruined it. One wrong song in my queue and .. things went floopy.

I've been struggling since 1pm to stop. But I couldn't. I kept blasting songs into my ears for 5 straight hours. All I did was stare at the screen. Sometimes at the time and panic, but paralysed brain. When I realising that I'm supposed to be working, I change the song. And again, and again. And again. Rejulettan kept asking me about updates. Ignored that too. Actually, I just kept looking at the texts in notification bar and just cried while changing songs. I couldn't stop. I fucking couldn't.

My life started flashing before me. The times in college when me and Anand would work on projects together, and I always finish my work real late.. bc.. I didn't know why. I didn't know why I was slow at the time. I just thought I was stupid or lazy or sth. The terms Anand used. I believed them. Stupid. Idiot. lazy. I would believe em all.. I know deep down, that I want to work, but I simply couldn't focus. But when I finally could focus I was able to do em.

Had the same thing when I was in school. But I somehow coped. Idk. Maybe bc it was more organised. Spoonfeeding and stuff.

Ok.

Today was a mess.

I'm supposed to start working in 2 hrs. I had very light breakfast at around noon. Dehydrated. Hungry. Can't stop crying, head aches like crazy. And Rejul just called me a liar. I have no idea why. sth related to sth I said earlier. I don't have the braincells left to recall why. All they're trying to do is recall how Anand used to call me a liar. Lazy. Stupid. "All you need is a smack. You're being too lazy. Too negetive. You won't even meditate and whine about things. Won't exercise. Won't ,,,".... Shit, can't stop crying. My head might explode. It will stop once I stop crying. Just stop. What are your even cryin for? Can't focus on work, so just cry all day.??? WTFF? Why am I so weak? Wtf even happened to me? I used to able to struggle and find my way through stuff. I was atleast capable of unfucking things. STOP CRYING ..What is it a broken dam? Stop. Stop!! FUCKING STOPPP!!!! Fuck, it's getting dark and this laptop doesn't have nightlight!! Just have to wake up and go turn on the lights. But no.. just soak up in my own tears, reeking and feeding the mosquitoes in the darkness. Aaaaa.. Let's just pretend I'm in space.

tbfh, I'm fucking exhausted from trying really hard everyday. It's not fair. It's not fair that others can put more energy on their work, and most of my energy goes to just getting organised enough to gain focus on my work and just being productive in general. What if I had normal brain? The things I could've done. All those days and nights.. trying to make something of myself. I fear I'm gonna lose it all bc I would feel slightly sad one day, make all the bad decisions and ruin my life.

I will start working at 9:11PM and I have to stop crying now, eat sth, take a power nap, forget all this shit and reset my brain before I can work again. 2 hrs is enough? I hope so.

Idk how I'll manage when I'm in bangalore. I can't even cry out all this. How the fuck am I going to manage? Should I get a one per bedroom? Yes I should. Otherwise, will lose this job. FUCK!! HOW TF WILL I MANAGE IN OFFICE???

Okay, I really need to forget his existence. And all the bad things that happened. And get back to the game. It's bad enough I screwed up gsoc. Have to fix things.

I could only manage for 1 month. Shit. Is that all I can do?

Ok, should follow the workout regimen back from april. I must have the notes here somewhere. If my beloved sis didn't throw em out as trash. ;_;

That's it. That's my only hope. And see if things get better. If I don't screw up atleast for 2 months. I can continue , otherwise, I'm going for therapy. At all cost. I can't let my life go in ruins. I'll just go with medications or whatever. Just wish I could focus on my work like a normal person. And learn like a normal person.

[sl-walker]

I tend to take a really holistic view of character understanding.  I think that’s why I jump between storylines the way I do; there’s something I’m supposed to be learning over here that I can’t learn over there.  Like, I’m writing three different main timelines, and all three of them are different, even starring the same characters largely.  And even though these are all different iterations of these characters, what I learn in one timeline gives me a depth of understanding and a platform in another.

Plus, there’s something really fascinating about changing a variable and seeing how differently it plays out.  Like-- GoT:A Maul never slaughtered the Orsis cadets, so his kill-count is exceptionally low.  In most of my timelines, I don’t acknowledge that bit in Darth Plagueis that had him in gladiatorial matches because I don’t know why Sidious would ever risk him being caught, though I have no trouble seeing Sidious risking him being killed.  But in GoT:A, that’s the catalyst for getting Maul out of Sidious’s control; still, I am reasonably sure he can count the number of people he’s ended the lives of on two hands and not use up all his fingers to do it.  And all of those situations, unlike Orsis, were kill or be killed, as well. (So was that, but they weren’t the threat to him.)  So, he’s ultimately-- softer.  A lot softer in some ways.  He’s not the same level of ruthlessly pragmatic.  He’s more capable of altruism, though he’s still not universally altruistic.  But of the three, he’s the only one who would be willing to sacrifice his life for an ideal instead of something more concrete, though even he is much more grounded in loyalty to people and places than in a philosophy.

But he would intrinsically be willing to lay down his life for Alderaan by his middle twenties, for example, and never think himself poorer for that, whereas WM!Maul, who got the full suite of canonical brainwashing, is only selectively willing to sacrifice for a very small number of people -- Obi-Wan, Vokara Che and Bail Organa, as of the end of SIOF, though as time goes on and he bonds with others, he adds to that list; Breha, his Blackbirds, likely eventually Ahsoka, and eventually Savage.  But even then, WM!Maul is incredibly selective about what he’s willing to die for and that never actually changes.

TF Maul exists somewhere between the two.  He did go through the massacre at Orsis, did kill a whole lot of people, but it was before Sidious got those final hooks into him -- his trials -- and so when he gets his wings, he’s not so blindly brainwashed that the terror of them being cut off fails to override his loyalty and sense of no way out, and so he bolts.  And honestly, he bolts like a teenager does; he doesn’t plan it, he just panics and runs and once he’s run, he realizes right quick that going back will probably mean the end of his life in some gruesome manner and so he kind of almost traps himself into leaving.  Out of options, he runs to the Jedi because they’re the only ones strong enough to protect him.

Out of the three, though, he was the only one who chose his own rescue.  And that changes a lot about how he interacts; yeah, he might have trapped himself into said rescue, but he did run to the Jedi on the ridiculously convoluted thinking that if they were weak because of compassion, then that weakness would save him, which is paradoxical, but he was a very hurt and terrorized sixteen year old, so there you go.  Any which way, he’s too messed up to even start to function outside of a structured environment, so between his own choice to be there and the detangling of his brainwashed thought patterns, he gets a lot of remedial socialization in a fairly short period of time and responds to it because he chose that.  And honestly, he’s still young enough there that even if he thinks he’s a monster, he hasn’t had his ability to feel lonely and isolated broken from him, so he’s a lot more receptive to gestures of friendship.  He’s a lot quicker to figure out that his prior isolation was by design and to then go forth and defy that design.  And, too, he’s a kid who’s never in his life had a genuine caretaker, and now he has a couple adults -- Qui-Gon and Vokara -- who are old enough and stable enough and with enough authority to keep him in line and show him the right way to deal with things.  Like, you’d think punishing the kid by making him babysit little kids is mean, but it was exactly what he needed; not only to ‘pay’ for body-dropping Quin and underage drinking, just to satisfy his own fucked up mental wiring, but to learn that he does have boundaries that he’s supposed to stay inside of, healthy sensible boundaries, and also Qui-Gon’s reasoning for sending him to the creche to work was perfect.

Like legit, @shadowmaat hit a gold mine of brilliance with Archix Clan and then Vos Encounter.  That punishment was brilliance.  It was designed to impart a lesson or several, in a gentle manner, and oddly I think that did more good for Maul than almost anything else could have.  The rules were clearly defined, the punishment was in line with them, he got to show just how naturally good -- if unrefined -- he is at being a teacher himself, and the sheer level of patience he’s capable of. He gets trusted with the safety of a whole bunch of children and even when he makes mistakes, their trust and innocence means so much to him that he has a fairly infinite fuse with them.  That’s how, not terribly long later, he can forgive Vos, even if not forget.  And really, it’s this that settles a lot of things in his head: He answers to Master Jinn, and if he gets in trouble, he’s supposed to think things through and ask for help if he needs it, because like, that’s exactly what role he was filling in here or there for the crechelings.  LOL!  So, by Gambit, he defers to his elders and calls for Obi-Wan and even though it’s all initially hard on him, emotionally, he copes and leans on his support network and does pretty amazingly well for what he started like.  And these are all the foundations that, in three or four years, will lead to him poking his big brother and rough housing and being the genuinely delightful young adult he often turns into when you put him in the right circumstances.

Whereas, in three or four years, WM!Maul was a hardened assassin and a mental disaster.  Everything he was came down to his blade and his skill and his ability to kill.  He managed to hang onto some things which were sign of how lonely he actually was -- I’ve gone over them before -- but his entire concept of self-worth was so tied to being Sidious’s apprentice, because this was the only way any of the abuse and manipulation and awfulness made sense.

I’ve always maintained that Maul was an understandable crazy before Lotho Minor.  He reacted to life exactly how you would expect a thinking, feeling, reasoning person to if you stuck them in those same circumstances.  He tried to make sense of his own abuse through any lens that kept an identity intact for him, including internalizing it as something he required.  He tried to find ways to avoid more of it, all while telling himself it was making him stronger.  He was slavishly, painfully loyal to Sidious.  He was insecure and desperate for any approval, because that was his only compensation in life; he also regularly, narratively, beat himself up pretty badly for wanting even that.  Sidious had that boy so twisted up that Maul could and did abuse himself when his Master wasn’t around to do it for him for the audacity to want approval.

That’s something I -- and I have a feeling a bunch of you -- get, too.  That internalized self-hatred, where the voice in your head tells you that wanting even basic acknowledgment of your accomplishments and even existence is wanting too much.  It being somehow a burden.  That you should be above needing such things and that if you’re not, that makes you bad, that makes you a failure.

GoT:A Maul has some of that; even after years of having a wonderful family and a beautiful world, when something hurts him enough, he has to refight that war all over again, between the part of him that’s prone to self-abuse and the part of him that knows better.  And he’s the one who got out earliest, though one can make a solid argument that his time in prison shattered him further.  Taking Flight Maul has internalized the hell out of it, enough that when Qui-Gon is holding up a mirror and asking him if he would judge Issa the same as he does himself, in the same circumstances, everything in him is fighting that because she’s good and he’s not and has never been.

Both of them, though, struggle so hard because they’re still capable of fighting their conditioning in a more overt way; they’re more capable of realizing it’s even there and then fighting it.  It’s hard, and there are a lot of psychological meltdowns involved; there’s a lot of time and work that goes into it.

WM!Maul, though, actually doesn’t.  He’s the one who survived Theed and was canon right up to immediately after that battle, and even ten years later, he’s only starting to grasp boundaries.  He’s only starting to figure out who he is and what his purpose is.  And man, he’s exhausted.  The other two both had periods where you could feel how achingly tired they were while writing them, where they were shaking off the brutality they’d survived.  WM!Maul is the same way, in terms of being just-- worn out, but you can’t call ten years of stagnation rest.  Because it wasn’t.  The closest he comes is in And in between the moon and you, and that’s mostly because he has a support network and quiet and he doesn’t have to hide his relationship.  Even then, he doesn’t get enough time there.  Of the three, he’s the one still due a reckoning in that regard and eventually it does come; of the three, too, he’s the one with the deepest scars and the least number of strategies to cope with them.  The one who still suffers serious PTSD blackouts and occasionally panic-attacks, the one who struggles so hard with words and expressing himself.  He’s tough, make no doubts about that, but he’s been walking wounded for a long time and unfortunately, it takes more than a loving Jedi and a best friend (and eventually eleven -- then twelve -- brothers) to do something about that.

I suppose all this rambling has a point.  LOL!  I’m not sure why I’m all up in GoT:A right now, except that it helps me learn something about the other two that I need to know.  Some of it, in GoT:A, is figuring out who Breha is; she isn’t a main in WM, so learning about her means understanding her in a context where she is.  Some of it, though, is also figuring out more of Maul and Bail, too; what it is in them that responds to one another the way they do, because even if they’re lovers in one timeline and best friends in the other, they’re still dear to each other regardless of how it manifests, and how important that is can’t be stated enough.  That friendship is life-changing for both of them.

Anyway.  My rambling.  I unabashedly love questions and deep thoughts on anything I do, so feel free.  Please.  (I might beg, even.)

[transformationstuck]

might be a little odd, but how about like. "imaginary transformation" as in someone slowly starts seeming less real, being easier to forget, their actions have less and less consequence till eventually they cease to exist as a person, reduced to somebodies imaginary friend. I reckon tav becoming an imaginary friend for gamzee seems fun. oh and ofc since theyre imaginary, the "imaginer" can just change them, so feel free to throw in any other TFs youve been fancying recently

Unrealised

It started off very trivial. In conversations people would get around to talking about Tavros, but instead of saying his name they speaker would give a look of confusion before saying ‘you know who i’m talking about’ or ‘that guy’, something that would be reserved for someone they didn’t know. Only Tavros and his friends have known each other for years.

Tavros would always laugh it off but as it happened more and more, it started getting to him. How could his friends forget his name? Along with this, actions they had participated in together started to have less detail for the others, it seemed.

‘What class were you in fiduspawn again?’

‘What was that story you’re obsessed with’?

It was like he was becoming a stranger to them all.

.

Tavros’s friends seemingly started to notice him less and less now. He would walk into a room and nobody would acknowledge him or they would walk into a room he was in and not even notice him. At the start, Tavros could clear his throat or say ‘hey’ to the others in the room and it would startle them as they turned to acknowledge him. More and more now they were ignoring his voice and now he would have to walk up and tap them on the shoulder in order to get a reaction, which was a dangerous thing to do considering troll reflexes and culture along with the high-stress situation they were all in. This was doing horrible things to his self esteem and Tavros would talk about the others seeming to ignore him to Gamzee, who seemed to be the only person who would talk to him.

This was something else, though. Tavros, once more, was being ignored by one of his friends. He walked up to Terezi who turned their nose up before pouncing on Tavros.

“Who are you and how did you get here?” Terezi questioned, cane pushed against his neck as he started to run out of oxygen.

“Gah, Terezi, it’s me, Tavros!” Terezi looked like she was concentrating on something but the hold didn’t budge. “Really? We played the game, fought the queen, how do you not remember this?” Something on Terezi’s face clicked and the cane let up.

“Oh, I’m really sorry Tavros, I don’t know how I forgot about you. Where have you been though, I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks…”

“I’ve been here, you guys just don’t notice me! Even when i’m in the same room as you guys its like you can’t see me!” Tavros took Terezi’s hand as she helped him up.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know whats wrong with me, I’ve got a wicked headache though, i’ll be back,” Terezi said and held her head as she walked out of the room. Tavros stood alone in the smaller room and turned from the door to just look at the couch he was just sitting there and Terezi didn’t notice him, or even remember him. He stood like that for awhile.

.

It had been a few days and Tavros had given up trying to communicate with the others. Terezi hadn’t seen him when he walked by her in the hallway a few hours after their encounter and he was afraid to get the others’ attention, not knowing if they, too, had forgotten him and would do something awful to him out of suspicion. He could move from room to room and nobody would see him at all.

This new thing was something else though. Tavros found himself staring at the mug on the table. His insides felt cold as he continued to look at it and then at his still open hand. Once more, Tavros reached for the mug but let his arm fall limp as his hand simply passed through it. He tried to hit it with a fist but that, too, brought no reaction.

He backed away before running into the hall and through the corridors, trying to find the only friend he really had left. He found Gamzee in the kitchen talking with Karkat. Tavros slowed and noticed that he hadn’t felt tired and he wasn’t out of breath. Considering the shape he was in, that was pretty weird.

“Oh, hey Tavros,” Gamzee said and put his fist out for a fist-bump which Tavros reciprocated automatically.

“Gamzee, it’s gotten worse. I just tried to pick up a cup and my hand went through it! It’s not enough nobody else can see me, but now inanimate objects do the same thing! What am I going to do, its like im a ghost,” Tavros said and leaned into Gamzee, feeling a bit weak.

“Hey, I can hold your cup for you if it’s got a problem with you,” Gamzee said and put his arm around Tavros.

“Thanks but that’s not really the point, look,” Tavros said and demonstrated him trying to pick up a pen that was just on the counter. Once more, his fingers went through it like the pen wasn’t even there.

“I really wish there was a highblood head doctor on board, because you’re acting a lot more delusional than you usually do. Normally pies don’t give you straight up hallucinations,” Karkat said as he watched Gamzee’s eyes follow an invisible person and conversing with them.

“I’m not hallucinating, i’m totally chill, bro. I’m just talking to Tavros here and-” Gamzee began.

“Gamzee, he can’t see-” Tavros said before Karkat talked over him, not hearing anything that Tavros said.

“Gamzee, there’s nobody there, and what the fuck am i supposed to think when you start talking to imaginary friends while we’re all isolated in this fucking rock?”

“Tavros isn’t imaginary,” Gamzee said. He looked to Tavros and back at Karkat, a little nervous.

“Yes he is, Gamzee. Nobody else can see this Tavros except you. Look,” Karkat said and stuck his arm into where Gamzee’s eyes had been looking. His fist went right through Tavros’s chest as if it wasn’t even there.

“But, he was with us when we defeated the king,” Gamzee said, now more confused.

“I remember everything during our session, and there was no asshole named Tavros. He isn’t real.”

Tavros had slumped to the floor, back against the counter. He had his head in his hands. He felt like crying. ‘If nobody remembers me, and nothing reacts to my body, maybe I really am a fake person. What if Gamzee just made me to cope with something and he brought me into existence somehow with consciousness…’

A hand appeared in front of his face. Tavros looked up to see Gamzee offering a hand to help him up. Tavros allowed himself to be lifted and noticed Karkat was no longer in the room. He probably missed the end of the conversation while going through another existential crisis. Gamzee was looking at him, but looked away when Tavros turned to him.

“You are real, right? I remember talking to you for years…:” Gamzee said.

“I thought i was, but nobody notices me. I pretty much am a ghost, or something your mind made up. Man, this fucking sucks. I just really want some milk right now.”

Tavros’s attention was alerted to the fact that he was now holding something. He looked down to see a replica of his mug with milk in his grasp. He brought it up and took a sip, then stopped thinking about it and watched as it disintegrated into nothingness. Maybe this wasn’t all bad.

.

Days went by as Tavros and Gamzee continued to talk to each other. Their bond grew as time went on. Often times when others were in the room they’d just glance to see if they were the one Gamzee was talking too and would roll their eyes if they weren’t.