#i am sorting out my more coherent thoughts on the show which will probably get a proper post later

[coredrill]

sorry i’m still insane abt gravion. more posts incoming

[agatharkn3ss]

Teen theory - Spoilers

Preface: This post is going to be long, but I do think there is something good here! If you just want just the main plot theory: I THINK THE VICTIM'S BODY IN EP.1 IS TEEN. I explain this in the section "The Cool Bit" ;)

It has taken me the absolute longest to write it because I couldn't quite form a coherent theory and my ideas have been changing back and forth. I even had to build some sort of murder board timeline to focus. No, I am not kidding. My hope is that today's episode is going to show us more of Teen/Billy's backstory so we will finally get at least some answers and my brain can rest.

A lot of this is based on episode 1 - I think it contains so many details that are crucial to the story and I probably haven't even made a dent with my observations.

We have a definitive confirmation that Teen is indeed Billy Maximoff. If we still had any doubts about which "mother" Agatha was referring to, it was confirmed by Jac Schaeffer in her ep.5 interview, by Joe Locke in his interview, followed by lots of Marvel Teen & Wanda promos and the trailer where we hear Agatha sneering "What does Billy Maximoff want at the end of the Road?". But Joe also confirms that "Agatha All Along is not following the blueprint of [Young Avengers] narrative — or any one specific comic, for that matter". So... who is Teen?

WandaVision recap

In WandaVision we see Billy Maximoff was created by Wanda's chaos magic when she created the Hex. She became "pregnant" and pretty much within 24h gave birth to twins - first Tommy, then Billy. Interesting that Tommy was named by Wanda as a "nice, classic, all-American name", while Billy was named by Vision specifically after William Shakespeare - Vision even excitedly quoted "All the world's a stage, All the men and women merely players" - foreshadowing the immense power of Billy, who in the comics becomes Wiccan and is thought to be at least as powerful as Wanda.

We see that Tommy has super speed and Billy telekinetic powers. He can hear the thoughts of Westview citizens who are screaming in their heads because they are trapped by Wanda's Hex. He even tells Agatha that he liked staying at her place because she was "quiet inside" - she was the only person staying at the Hex of her own will.

The boys quickly age themselves up at will, so that by day 3, the last day, they appear to be both 10 years old. One of their last moments is Wanda tucking them to sleep, telling them "Family is forever" and thanking them for choosing Wanda to be their mom. Which is quite an interesting choice of words. In the comics, the twins' souls are thought to have been created from the pieces of essence of Mephisto. Wanda's comment could therefore be speculated that perhaps she knew twins were not only not "biologically" hers but also that perhaps they weren't little boys after all (I choose to ignore the events of MoM entirely).

After the Hex, the boys "bodies" cease to exist, but their souls are believed to survive.

Enter Billy Kaplan.

We have long theorised this, and it seems like we were right, that the car crash near Eastview mentioned in episode 1 was the one that killed Billy Kaplan and allowed Billy Maximoff to reincarnate. Agnes mentions that the front airbags were deployed and there was blood stain on the backseat. This suggested that the front passengers, Kaplan parents, have survived, but Billy died.

In the trailer we see exactly that - Teen observes the Hex coming down, but their car ends up on the other side of the road - his parents are probably also distracted by the events. Right outside of Eastview we see an oncoming car - and it's a S.W.O.R.D. car! Teen shouts out to his mom - likely the driver, but we see the car hitting the tree sideways - right where Teen was sat.

Crazy Ralph theory

I think it's interesting that S.W.O.R.D. is seen here - and they are coming out of Eastview. But why? At this point in time all the forces would've already been waiting outside of Westview.

I think this is probably not important and a red herring. But I would like this to be Agent Jimmy Woo, maybe transporting people from Westview. Wanda opened the Hex for a few minutes and let some of the citizens go away, before she closed the Hex again. After that she battled Agatha, said her goodbyes, all the while the Hex was slowly shrinking before it was gone completely. So I think what Teen is seeing from the car is that shrinking phase. Meaning that perhaps some citizens have escaped by then and were brought to safety - the nearest town was Eastview.

I would also love (but it would probably not work out in terms of chronological events) if this was Jimmy Woo returning from Eastview after placing Ralph Bohner into a new witness protection house, this time in Eastview. Quick catch up: Ralph Bohner was the whole reason Woo found out about Westview because he was assigned to his case as witness protection but suddenly Bohner went missing. We now know this was because the Hex has deactivated his ankle monitor, then Agatha kidnapped him so she could live in his house and pretend that she was Ralph's wife. She then used him as Fake Pietro, before Monica released him from the spell. After that, there was a deleted scene where Bohner cuts his ankle monitor and runs away, while Jimmy releases instructions to find him. Raplh clearly hasn't been returned to Westview because we see that Agatha still lives in the same house. The reason I mention all of this is that the strange silhouette of a man in the trailer has longish hair that could be silver-ish. So maybe this is actually Ralph Bohner, still in hiding?

Anyway, I digress.

Car crash aftermath

So Billy Kaplan dies. I think he's dead long enough for Rio to show up. Maybe even long enough that his body ends up in a morgue - similar to the one we will see in the earth trial? But then Billy Maximoff's soul enters the body and we have a miracle. This is where it gets interesting, because there are so many questions. I think Rio sees Maximoff but can't stop him. Maybe that's why she says she hates ghosts - is this because she has no power over them? She needs to do "her job" but Maximoff will not let her, so she needs to find another way. I wonder if the earth trial is Rio's so she can finally reap Billy's body?

Billy miraculously lives and that's why there is that article "Near death in Westview".

Billy lives but I don't think he knows who he is. I think he has Billy Kaplan's memories, maybe flashes of Maximoff, but I think he's confused. I don't think he remembers Rio either. Maybe she was in her "skeleton skin". He's neither Billy Kaplan, nor Billy Maximoff. He's "Teen". That's why we hear him say in the flashback "I want something else. Something more."

We know there is a bar mitzvah in this episode - and Wiccan in the comics is Jewish. So I think this must be Teen must be 13 and it's his bar mitzvah. Now, I don't know enough about this, but I know that it a significant, sacred coming-of-age ceremony:

"Our sages teach that at the age of 13 young men and women are endowed with a greater capacity for both seeking to do good and seeking selfish pursuits. This age marks the young adult’s arrival at the crossroads of moral and spiritual decision making that is engaged in by mature adults. As a community we celebrate the Bat & Bar Mitzvah in order to help our young adults become aware of and draw meaning from this significant transition in their lives."

This sounds like an ideal moment where Teen finally realises his powers and maybe finally starts getting a glimpse of who he might be. As he grows up, he maybe finally remembers Wanda. (Or not? How interesting would it be, that when Agatha says "You are so much like your mother", he thinks she refers to Rebecca Kaplan?)

But. He still feels like something is missing. Maybe he had many more lives before because of being "essence of Mephisto"? And he's trying to figure out who he is, like a normal teenager? But he goes about it the wrong way - starts studying witchcraft, even tries to summon the Road by himself. We see his hand (with his rings) starting to draw a circle of the pentacle.

Eventually, someone ("JamSamwitch"?) tells him about Agatha and he figures out she is still in Westview. Maybe his "Boyf" is helping him. Or maybe it's Ralph Bohner seeking revenge for what Agatha did to him? I think he remembers Agatha as the friend of the family. She babysat them, let them play with Senor Scratchy (as we see he still recognises him), but then she obviously betrays them.

This is where my theories get really fuzzy.

I can't figure out how long Teen has been at her house. On the face of it, it feels like he truly only first got to her when he broke in for the locket... But there are so many books and diagrams all around Agatha's house. It looks almost as though he has been searching for things in her books for a long time now. Also, there is a second chair in her imaginary car, suggesting having a passenger?

THE COOL BIT

Either way, my theory of how this is all connected goes something like this:

I think that when Teen tries to summon the Road by himself, it doesn't work, but he accidentally distorts Agatha's spell. I think he might have actually used a page from Darkhold to do this. This event affects Agatha. And because it's connected to the Road, she starts humming the ballad, and her imaginary reality not only takes her on a road, but even into the woods - which really resemble the Witches Road the coven is currently on!

Maybe Agatha jumps straight into her Agnes O'Connor persona, maybe there are others. But Billy's emotions and intentions during his spell are so big that they are also projected onto her. Teen doesn't know who he is. He feels disconnected to this body of his. The sudden burst is so profound that Agatha must have accidentally dropped her locket in the puddle in that moment, that's why she loses it.

So when Agnes starts her "case" - the victim she investigates is actually Teen. The body is Teen. His fingers are black from Darkhold ink (that he probably used in the spell) and his feet are bare (because he knew you weren't allowed shoes on the Witches Road). She is clearly emotional looking at the victim and wonders out loud "Who are you?", "What happened to you?". I think these are actually Teen's unconscious questions about himself.

Yes we see links to Wanda throughout the show. But I think they were always actually pointing at Teen. So Agatha realised his identity fairly quickly - we saw her throwing Wanda's references as early as episode 3.

When the spell doesn't work, Teen needs to go back to Agatha's house to find out how to make it work. She is the only one with the knowledge and her Agnes persona isn't useful. But to get her out, he needs something that is close to Agatha, something that keeps her to reality - just like all of the witches talismans in the trials - they are their one constant, even if their wardrobe changes. And we have already seen Nicky's photo appearing in and out of her spell. So it must be the locket. Because I am 99.9999% the locket contains Nicky's hair (EVERY time Agatha pays attention to it, Nicky's theme plays).

So he goes to steal it and that's how she meets him. And that's why she gasps when he gets hit by Mrs Hart's car - because she still has that connection to his emotions from the event.

The question remains, how did he know about the locket and where he would find it? And what really is the deal with the Road?

Rio

So there enters the puzzle of Rio, this bit is really fuzzy.

Wanda's mini-Hex might have kept hiding Agatha from Rio (and from Salem Seven), but the second it's distorted, Rio feels her again. She quickly finds Agatha in her current distorted spell and helps her to get out, because for whatever reason she needs her out. Maybe she knows Salem Seven are coming and Agatha won't stand a chance if she's still under the spell. I think she is there more in mind than body, she seems really connected to Agatha's thoughts.

She could also be hiding like this from Teen, in case he recognises her. Because she still needs to do her job and collect his body? She latches onto their bizarre idea of the Witches Road, and somehow manipulates the spell to her advantage so she can kill two birds in one stone (pun intended)? Get the body and reconnect with Agatha? I really don't know what her end game is yet.

Phew. THOUGHTS ANYONE????

Sidenote: When Billy says that "Power does not interest me", we see him holding out a hand with some stones. Now, I think this is him about to demonstrate how magic comes easy to him - similar to when Agatha was showing off the animal illusions to Wanda. But I also think that this is a little easter egg hinting at the infinity stones.

[coraniaid]

🔥 about tara

OK, so for the record I like Tara a lot. She's definitely in my top ten favorite characters. I am still in the early stages of a (painfully slow) Season 4 rewatch, and one of the things keeping me going is the thought I will get to see Tara again soon.

I think Tara's death is very sad and I can understand why Amber Benson felt poorly treated by the way it was handled (especially with the stupid gimmick of adding Tara to the opening credits just for that episode). On balance -- and especially given the context arround her introduction and her relationship with Willow -- I think that it was probably a fairly significant mistake from a writing perspective for at least a couple of reasons. (It's not really a good look to kill off half of your show's groundbreaking lesbian couple, whatever the context, and the writers didn't really seem to have any sort of coherent plan for what to do with Willow afterwards.)

But it kind of irks me when I see it described as an obvious case of the Bury Your Gays trope because ... it really isn't?

Tara doesn't die because she's gay: she doesn't die shortly after coming out, she isn't targeted because she's a lesbian; she isn't, in fact, targeted directly at all. Her death is basically just a stupid random accident. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Neither is Tara treated as more expendable by the narrative because she's a lesbian. By the time Tara dies, Buffy (and the Angel spin-off) had already killed off (among other recurring and at least occasionally sympathetic characters) Jenny Calendar, Kendra, Larry, Doyle, Forrest, Joyce and Darla. By the time both shows end the writers will have also killed off Jonathan, Anya, Cordelia, Fred and Wesley. Buffy isn't quite a show where Anyone Can Die, but certainly it's one where anyone can die if they're not in the Core Four (and if they're not vampires Buffy has slept with, in which case they can die for a little bit but they'll get over it).

And nor is there some sense that Tara's death affects the rest of the group any less than any of the others on the above list. On the contrary, other than Joyce, who is the protagonist of the show's actual mother and had been a presence in the show for almost twice as long as Tara was, she gets mourned for longer and by more people than anyone else on that previous list. (Xander and Willow's supposed childhood friend Jesse gets mourned so little I couldn't even bring myself to add him to the list.)

Yes, the show is far from perfect. It definitely is, at various times, racist, sexist and homophobic, often in ways that cannot at all be dimissed as the show being a product of its time. I think you could certainly argue that Tara was a victim of the show's persistent narrative misogyny (Willow's first girlfriend, Giles's first girlfriend on the show, and both of Xander's girlfriends die, but neither Oz nor Riley die and neither Angel or Spike die in a way that matters).

But Tara's death isn't automatically an example of the Bury You Gays trope just because she dies and was a lesbian. Even though, as I said, it was a probably the wrong decision for the character and the show and I wish it hadn't happened.

--

Oh, also, a bonus hot take:

In a hypothetical Season 7 where Tara survived, I really don't think I can see her relationship with Willow lasting long. The show sort of forgets about it in favor of advancing the subplot in which Willow becomes a magic addict after her Evil Friend Amy takes her to see a drug dealer and then forces her to relapse, but .... Willow's supposed magic addiction isn't why she and Tara broke up. They broke up because Willow was messing with Tara's memories and consent, well before she'd ever met Rack or de-ratted Amy. Willow hadn't actually done anything to address the things that made her take Tara for granted and consider herself entitled to mess with her mind with magic at all. She'd been sad about the relationship ending, sure, and Tara missed Willow, but ... Willow was absolutely the same person who did this to Tara.

The show doesn't bother to address the actual reason she and Tara broke up, preferring the cheap shock death just when they'd gotten back together again. But after a while I think Tara would have realized this, and without the shock of losing Tara in the first place I think Willow would find it very hard not to fall back into her old habits. Habits which have nothing to do with Amy's supposed malign influence. After all, Willow was trying to use magic to change her best friend's mental state without his consent as early as Lovers Walk, a full year before she ever met Tara. And when she and Oz broke up that same season she very quickly started talking about wishing she had a way to "make [him] trust me". This is much more a part of who Willow is than any addiction to evil magic.

[isnt-it-pretty]

please only read this if you finished cyno’s story quest!

I absolutely loved the story quest and cyno’s dynamic with everyone else but cyrus left me a bit disappointed… not in his character overall but in his actions. he had good intentions but took cyno away from his origins, denied him answers when cyno asked (cyno said he asked many times about hermanubis and the temple and cyrus always avoided answering him) and since cyno suffered under hermanubis it would’ve been his right to know where it stems from since he couldn’t recall… cyrus probably did it to protect him but he cut cyno off from his culture and people. Bamoun and cyrus owe cyno and sethos a lot in my honest opinion and cyrus still kept avoiding answering cyno at the end of his quest (cyno even calls this out) which just shows me he didn’t learn anything at all from the events.

he also had the option to try and reach out to cyno’s biological parents because they might’ve given him away to provide a better life for him (but I have to say as a middle easterner I’m tired of this poor parents give their children away etc etc narrative we had the same with collei)

cyrus also didn’t feel responsible enough for sethos after taking everything away from him or even leaving him behind back then even he knew it’s bad for him.

cyno and sethos both suffered under the actions of cyrus and bamoun and deserve so so much better cyno is a perfect example of ethnic children being taken in by white people and having their cultures and roots taken away from them. not to mention we know that cyno did maybe have a better life in the akademiya but he was still surveilled and treated like a lab rat and discriminated and isolated until he met tighnari

sorry for this little rant. I still appreciate everything cyrus did for cyno but I think this is also an important part of his very flawed character and ideals. in the end of the quest it even felt like he was manipulating cyno by showing him the photos which he “miraculously” found again showing him “look who raised and took you in”

Sorry I just saw this! First, please never apologize for sending me long asks, I love them! Also congratulations anon, I successfully had to log onto tumblr on my PC to type out this response lol. This is... very long, longer than your ask. I'm so sorry, this is the first post I've made with my thoughts on the quest, so it's going to be a bit of a ramble in return and probably not totally coherent.

Okay, so, full disclosure, I am super white. I mean I look like Barbie sort of white. That means that I don't think I can have any constructive input on the trope (arguably cliché) of middle eastern and BIPOC+Asian characters giving away (or selling, in Cyno's case) their children, so I will definitely defer to your discomfort with the concept. It's definitely a pervasive trope (see: Collei, Dehya, Cyno) and not just in Genshin Impact. It's something that is absolutely worth bringing up and thinking about, and I bet most people didn't even consider it, so thank you for voicing it as something you've noticed! Because of this, I don't feel comfortable talking about whether or not Cyrus should have looked for Cyno's parents, because it's very wrapped up in the narrative vs the damage of the trope, which has a lot to dissect and would be better done by somebody more educated.

As for the quest, I think I've gotta split this into two parts to have my thoughts make sense. God this is so long.

-

First, as a basis, the whole thing with Hermanubis is actually so fucked up from the start even before we can get to Cyrus and Cyno. I mean Hermanubis was an advisor to King Deshret, right? (Also that was two-thousand years ago, but he only died five-hundred years ago? Did I misunderstand that? Was he immortal? The timeline in this game could use an entirely different post because between Cyno and the Hearth kids it makes zero sense, but ANYWAYS-). Presumably, having witnessed this, Hermanubis knows the danger of Forbidden Knowledge and fucking with things that should not be fucked with.

After the fall of Tulaytullah, the Temple of Silence moved to the rain forest but left due to corruption, right? So you'd think they would have agreed on the basic Cardinal Sins of the Akademiya. But now, four hundred years later, the Temple of Silence's attempt to ressurect Hermanubis breaks at least one of those sins (tampering with life and death), and arguably two more (interfering with human evolution and/or attempting the forbidden and fearing none.) I really can't imagine Hermanubis would be happy with their actions. This is like the Akademiya trying to ressurect Rukkadevata (and boy do I have a fic I want to write that digs into those parallels of Cyno and Nahida.)

The very basis for the experiment they did on Sethos and Cyno is so unethical and corrupt. This killed adults so they thought, hey! It's not going to kill the children, right? Lets do it on them despite the negative effects (headaches and fevers). Bamoun's children even volunteered Sethos, which, again, is so fucked up.

Narratively, the quest didn't focus on this at all. It was never framed as something negative or messed up like you'd think it would be? I imagine it's because they didn't want to paint Bamoun and Cyrus as bad people or Sethos as indoctrinated. (What's interesting to me is how differently some situation are treated vs others in different quests. Arguably, Wriothesley, Arlecchino, and Cyno have parts in common that are condemned to totally different extents depending on the character, but that could be it's own post too).

We can talk about Cyrus taking Cyno and whether or not that was a good decision (removing children from their culture is never a good thing but we'll get to that) but we also can't really get into it without first talking about how the entire thing was absolutely horrid and wrong from the start. We're starting the conversation about Cyrus from a remarkably low place.

Okay, onto Cyrus and the quest. I actually think it's okay that Cyrus is a flawed character. We already knew he was super strict when he was teaching Lisa and Cyno, and we knew he was into some unethical shit since we already knew he was part of the experiments on Cyno, albeit not to this extent. (Also Naphis knows all about this so what does that say about him? All the Sages are so sus, but, I mean, isn't that just government?)

Here's the thick of it. Was Cyrus taking Cyno to the rain forest a good decision? I don't know. We just don't know enough about why he left and took Cyno. The quest didn't frame the action one way or the other, nor did it give the reasons he left or Bamoun didn't go after him.

There's generally three ways to frame this. 1. Cyrus was a saviour for taking Cyno from an abusive environment. 2. Cyrus was awful and stole Cyno's power for himself. I don't think either of these make sense, since in either case, I think Bamoun would have gone after them. I think most likely is 3. There were conflicting needs.

The one I'm leaning towards right now is that The Temple of Silence was desperate and willing to push harder than they should, even if it was going to harm the children, so as an outsider with a different perspective and more objectivity, Cyrus stopped the experiment. He knew Sethos wasn't at risk of being harmed nearly as much as Cyno because Sethos had a family there already looking out for him. Cyno didn't. People care less about a child who isn't part of their community vs one who is. So he took the child who was far more likely to be harmed, and left. Taking Sethos would have been even worse than just taking Cyno, imo, since it would be taking Sethos away from his family, whereas Cyno was already taken from his family. Bamoun realized the same thing in hindsight, which is why he let Cyrus and Cyno go. But again, that's just a headcanon about what happened.

As for the rest of the problem. While as previously mentioned, I'm very white, I'm also Canadian (I promise this is relevant). A bit of Canadian history here for those who might not know, Canada once had something called Residential Schools. These were boarding school for indigenous children who were forcibly taken from their parents to be "educated." There was a lot of abuses in them and I cannot over represent the amount of damage it has done to the indigenous peoples of Canada and the country as a whole, but the main reason I bring it up here is because of the way the government tried to kill indigenous culture through their children. While I don't think this was Cyrus' intent at all, it is a real world example very close to my heart of the damage it does to children to be cut off from their cultures. We see it in fostering and adopting children as well. Indigenous foster children are best kept with indigenous foster families when at all possible. Foster parents are told to try their best to keep their foster children connected to their cultures in the home but that isn't always achieved, nor is there always even an effort made. Mixed race families often practice both cultures with their children because know how important it is.

The fact that Cyno was completely cut off from the desert is wrong, and it would have been very difficult for him to face the discrimination for being a race that he has no cultural connection to. It's something Cyrus absolutely should have done more about. I mean The Corps of Thirty are eremites even if they aren't from the desert! Cyrus could have reached out to them on Cyno's behalf to introduce him to people who share cultural aspects (young!Dehya and Cyno friendship anyone?). He could have taken Cyno to Aaru Village (young Candace and Cyno friendship?) or at least spent time in Caravan Ribat. The only reasons I can think he didn't is because he was trying to keep Cyno away from the Temple of Silence out of fear they'd come after him (well intentioned but still harmful), he didn't think about it (obliviously harmful), he didn't have the time (willfully neglectful).

Cyrus also absolutely should have told Cyno about The Temple of Silence and Hermanubis, especially when he got a little older (although I'm for raising children with that sort of knowledge. Secrets only hurt later). Assume best intentions, he was pprobably trying to protect Cyno, maybe because he wanted Cyno to find his own path instead of the one the Temple of Silence laid out for him, but I still think that was a mistake to keep it a secret.

Cyrus is a very flawed person, but so are a lot of parents. That doesn't mean that his actions were right or justified, but it does make him an interesting character. It also makes his relationship with Cyno interesting. Canonically, Cyno isn't angry. He's already struggled and come to terms with who he is and what his power means, but I still think he and Cyrus need to sit down and have a long conversation. Cyno deserves answers about Cyrus' motives and decisions and they need to talk about Cyrus trying to protect Cyno vs Cyno not needing that protection, ways Cyrus should have acted differently, etc. I'd love to see somebody explore it; it would be interesting to see since it's definitely overdue, but I don't think I could do it justice.

I don't think it's wrong of Cyno to forgive Cyrus. We as the outside observer can say, "whoa, that's fucked up," but I don't think Cyno is necessarily wrong in how he feels. Like I said, he's already dealt with a lot of this already and is remarkably resilient. I think the hardest part of all this for Cyno would probably be Sethos, because that's definitely going to be a ton of messy emotions, but that doesn't have to reflect on Cyrus. It could, of course, and if somebody wanted to write Cyno as being angry and fracturing their relationship, that would be a valid way to go, but like, idk, I know a lot of people who made really bad decisions when raising their kids, and their kids still forgave them. Not always, and being a parent doesn't mean somebody deserves forgiveness for their mistakes, but I think it shows how resilient Cyno is that he bounces back from this so well. It shows his strength in his how convictions and beliefs, which is really interesting when compared to characters like Sethos and Kaeya (and man are there a lot of similarities between Cyno and Kaeya).

I also don't think finding those photos was intended to be Cyrus manipulating Cyno, but I can see how it feels that way. Since the quest was about Cyno, it felt like a nice narrative way to tie it together by reflecting on Cyno's childhood with Cyrus, but I think it really depends on how you view the entire situation and whether you think Cyrus should have taken Cyno. It's definitely a valid take and something that's okay to feel uncomfortable about.

This is where people might disagree with me, but Cyno grew up loved. He had a lot of challenges and Cyrus made a lot of mistakes, and love doesn't fix how fucked up it all is (lots of adopted kids are loved and still hurt by not having a connection to their culture), but Cyno has already accepted all of this and ultimately, he has forgiven Cyrus for his mistakes. I think that's what the photos were trying to depict.

To me, the entire quest does a very good job of using Cyno and Sethos as foils of each other. They're both paying for the decisions of the people who raised them, and neither are right or wrong, just different. It shows Cyno's growth as a person vs Sethos who hasn't yet found his way. It shows that neither Cyrus or Bamuon made the right decisions, nor were they evil people. They were doing the best they could at the time, and they both fucked up, and now it's up to Sethos and Cyno to figure it out, but they both still love their family despite whatever mistakes were made.

I hope this rambling essay length response is satisfying lol

[electricbathsalt]

HELLO HI YOU MENTIONED CHISAKI HAVING A COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMANITY AND I AM HERE TO HAPPY RANT ABOUT IT

it's like 2:30am and i should have gone to bed a while ago so this is gonna be a lil incoherent probably but anyways. yes. 100% yes i love that. i have so many ideas bouncing around my head about chisaki not being human, or like getting some secondary quirk in a secondary quirk wave that *makes* him (in his eyes) less than/not quite human, and also i sometimes use it/its pronouns for him because Reasons (i am projecting my own use of it/its onto him), and I also headcanon him as a) FtMtX (third gender/maverique), b) aroallo and gay and romance-repulsed, and c) autistic + low emotional empathy, and all of those things would 100% play into having a complicated and not-entirely-positive relationship with humanity in general (and his own humanity!) ESPECIALLY given that he spent formative years in the yakuza, which is bound to be a wildly conservative organization and an environment EXTREMELY hostile to several of those core immutable traits. ykno?

anyways you mentioned him having a complex relationship to other people/humans and humanity in general like he doesn't consider himself one so that's what prompted this. also please rant back i want to hear e v e r y t h i n g

Oh my god oh my god YES!! Okay I actually just woke up (yes my sleep schedule is fucked rn) so this is most definitely not gonna be coherent either buuut bro that is SO SIMILAR TO EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKINGGG

Okay this is by far the most difficult topic for me to try to articulate/explain bc I don’t really know how to, but I will try my damndest!! Yes. I think Chisaki has a very, very complicated relationship with both his own humanity and humanity as whole, in the way that he like. Does not view himself as human, and does not think of humans as the same as him, because they are on, like, separate playing fields. It’s not that he necessarily thinks of everyone else as worthless, or that he’s above them inherently (unequal)—he believes himself to be in a sort of limbo. He is neither worthless nor worthy. He is not human, therefore he cannot adhere to the same principles and standards of humanity. He is not human, and that is why he is never treated like one.

I think he subconsciously detached himself from it. He hated how the one person he (subconsciously) thought would one day view him as human and accept him, called him a monster and outcast him, like everyone else. The one person who showed him kindness with no catch (in his mind, because… yikes). That’s when he fully accepted that he’ll never be seen as human, that he is not human, and will never be treated like something with value/emotion, like something mortal and thinking and multi-dimensional, which is why he finally decided to just take matters into his own hands, with no regard to anything else. Why follow the morals of humans if he is not one? You don’t expect a wild animal not to maul you. Because for an animal, it is necessary. There’s no malice. They hunt and kill you because they need to eat and feed and protect. Is that not him? Is he not doing all this out of necessity? To keep himself and his family alive?

(Although, he doesn’t perceive himself as an animal. Just as not human). He believes he can’t be human. He believes he can no longer allow himself to be human anyway, because being human is too large an obstacle to his goals. He has to be a monster.

And kinda on the side of how he perceives other humans—it’s like, he’s more vital than them to the plan (which is the most important thing in the world), so he is above them in the way they are pawns whereas the plan cannot happen without him and Eri. But it’s dependent on his quirk, bc without his quirk, he is no longer Overhaul, who is the one who is vital to the plan; he is just Chisaki Kai. Chisaki Kai was not vital to anything and was just some not-really-human with a debt to pay off. Chisaki Kai is not worthwhile. Chisaki Kai is below other, real humans. So it’s split—Overhaul is above everyone else (in importance, in the fact he is not human. He is a monster). Chisaki Kai is below everyone else (he is indebted and clinging to the dregs of humanity he wants to have). The common ground is that both Overhaul and Chisaki Kai are inhuman accessories to the Shie Hassaikai. The Shie Hassaikai is more important than them.

He does not yearn to be human, he yearns for the casual acceptance and belonging that comes alongside being human. Humans have never treated him like how they treat other humans. He is not human.

Uggfhhhh I can’t tell if I’m explaining this exactly how I mean it. My vocabulary is just lacking I fear 😭 I have trouble streamlining my thoughts a lot. I feel like I have more to say but no way to properly express it, I guess. Also all your headcanons are extremely real and definitely add onto this/play a part in it!! I cannot imagine that the Yakuza would be all that accepting/an at all safe environment (ah. Well. That’s not true bc I have lol. I don’t like making sad stories 💀 but in canon… definitely not. Especially with Pops’ apparent falling-out with his daughter over her marriage 😒).

I don’t know if this all is what you had in mind or not but I think it has at least some semblance to what I think some of his mindsets are. My brain is a lil fried though. Also please please please elaborate. On everything. I wanna hear all your takes

[ninthprime]

snowpiercer 4x07 - 4x10 thoughts

despite being mixed on this last season, i think i could make a really good 3 hour youtube video essay about this show. or a real good a more civilized age style podcast about this show. tl;dr: i dislike this season less than a lot of people, but man, it was kind of weird, wasn’t it!

the other night while trying to gather my thoughts i reread much of the wikipedia page for this show, just to remind myself of stuff from previous seasons i may have forgotten. while doing so it occurred to me that, if summarized quickly, this season sounds far from bad. in fact, it sounds much more coherent than season 3, which has to rely a lot on layton’s weird visions. this season in concept sounds pretty appropriate as a final season- it answers questions about CW-7 and the warming of the world, gives us a big final villain with lore importance, and ends with everyone together building a new society. i’m pretty sure i guessed the final scene of this show would be an audrey and oz duet before the season even aired. which means all the flaws are in execution, which is an interesting issue to have.

as someone who’s mostly into this show because i’m attached to the characters, a lot of this is in character arcs, which feel very weird for a final season. this is where the big “they weren’t 100% sure this would be the last one” sign is blaring very brightly and loudly. that’s most clear with wilford’s death, which seems like it was made so that he could come back if they needed him to, probably as a fucked up cold zombie- but since the show’s over, it feels like it gets weirdly little emphasis. i actually think the concept of wilford offing himself before any of the people he abused can get to him could work in an “ain’t that a kick in the teeth” sort of way, but it doesn’t feel like it’s his last scene (even if the scene is pretty cool). but now it has to be! and i’m not even a wilford fan (i know, throw your rocks at me).

this extends to a lot of the other characters too. i am not a layton hater, but it is really striking to me that i can’t figure out what layton’s arc is supposed to be this season. and i don’t mean in the standard “he needs to rescue his kid” way- i mean that i don’t feel like he changes much, despite being one of the main characters and going through a huge loss when the season starts. i really enjoyed wilford pointing out how selfish he’s being in 4x06, but it doesn’t lead to anything in a way that’s bizarre. i can name a few characters where i think i know what their arc is this season- i think part of the reason i enjoyed the javi-sykes-oz stuff is that i can see the bones of all of their arcs, with oz’s being the most obvious and fulfilled. same goes for alex and josie. but none of them really feel 100% resolved, or it feels like you have to infer a lot. with josie, for example, you can tell her arc is about her trauma being revived and finally finding a way to truly come to peace with it, but it fell flat for me to have her final confrontation with headwood resolve offscreen. alex is the same way- having her lose both ben and wilford at the same time she meets nima makes her think about her identity, and the resolution is “she’s herself, and she’s going to prioritize the future and her community in the end.” but the show puts weirdly little emphasis on her saving the world, and i felt it kind of odd that it came down to just one screw. i had been guessing that she’d been planting little traps nima’s plans for the previous couple of episodes, which felt like a very alex thing to do, but i guess she wasn’t?

uh, to make a long story short- good season in concept, lacking in practice. it kind of strikes me as a first draft. in the universe where this was made under better circumstances (ie. 100% knowing this is the last one), maybe with some different voices, and we got the second draft? i think this would’ve been pretty solid. i did still like a lot of it, but this is where it’s lacking to me.

with all of that out of the way, here’s some more positive stuff and more stray thoughts:

i think 4x08 is my favorite of this last stretch of episodes, because it’s a lot of the small character moments that i really enjoy from this show. some of my favorite parts of this season and season 3, otherwise both pretty flawed seasons, involved taking advantage of the increasingly long histories the characters have. i loved roche’s ridiculous little speech to perk everyone up! look, i know he’s making stuff up, but i’m having fun! everyone’s getting a kick out of it! he gets to make a joke about yetis!

other smaller moments i liked here: josie’s conversations on revenge with boki and ruth, till walking around town with audrey, every part of the brakemen reunion but i especially got a huge laugh out of oz and till doing rock paper scissors in the middle of a firefight, ruth in the hospitality room one last time, javi getting revenge for ben via the spring doll, and the delightful bit in the finale where ruth finds sykes and z-wreck in the middle of having broken out of lockup offscreen.

despite how rushed everything is, nima really is a lot of fun. i truly feel absolutely nothing for milius (lol), but nima is often a delight to watch. the build-up during his argument with melanie, cross-cutting with wilford explaining who nima really is, is one of the best-executed scenes this season. i think in an “ideal” version of this show, in like the novel retelling or whatever (hire me amc), we would have had him built up before he actually appears- in a flashback in season 2, or being mentioned by melanie and ben a couple times. that might make it more obvious that alex is his kid, but it was barely a reveal by the time it happened anyway. (the scene where he sees her sketches and says “wow, did you draw this?” had me grinning, truly an absent father.) by the way: i think he and melanie should have legit dated. i think their dynamic is more interesting with that idea in mind.

i imagine there was some sort of real life restriction here, but i think my big change i would make this season, rather than a small tweak for character arc/plot arc purposes, is that i would have audrey be slightly less ill and put her into the javi-sykes-oz storyline. i mentioned in my last post that i think new eden letting layton’s crew take the train can be fixed by having someone argue that it’s as much about saving everyone on snowpiercer as it is saving liana, and that person should probably be audrey, who was there and who has always felt strongly about her community. i think she’d bounce off of oz and sykes in particular in interesting ways, and it allows time to set up that she’s nervous about her scars and potential lung damage, which kind of comes out of nowhere. also it is WILD that we never see her find out wilford died. like, bonkers.

it sucks to me that people were so down on the season by the time we got to the end, because for what it’s worth, the finale was clearly written with such love for the show and it makes me sad we got it in the circumstances we did. storming the train one last time, season one style! melanie on the intercom! martin colvin showing up and z-wreck complimenting his fighting skills! josie talking about pike and the other dead tailies in her part of the intro! astrid and miss gillies at the party! none of this really happens without people who really care about the show writing it, which is what i mean when i say that i think this was a first draft, not a completely bad one.

favorite relationships this season…i’ve already posted what i think about javi/sykes (it’s very good and i’m rotating them a lot). layton telling alex about wilford dying reminded me that i really enjoy their dynamic- in a world where alex has endless dad problems, layton’s a different kind of adult figure in her life. till and ben’s friendship was great. and i really did like melanie and alex together again, and layton and melanie being the center of the story at the end.

and that’s snowpiercer! it actually doesn’t feel like it’s over. in fact, i keep getting haunted by a sort of “do the characters know their problems are over? does that feel wrong to them?” style story…which could either be a fic about grief or a full pathologic style piece of wall-breaking metafiction about being in a story that’s ended. uh…i do plan on rewatching the first three seasons after work travel season ends in a couple weeks. watch this space i guess.

[goldpilot22]

it's 2 am and my head hurts so bad I can barely think but I've come to the conclusion that the only way I can get more followers on tumblr(and thus infect more people with my oc brainrot) is if i post more original posts. so here's a wip of my the color out of space rewrite thing. unfinished obv but read it anyway if you like lovecraftian horror and unreliable narrators (yes, that's with an s)

"It wasn't a color."

That's how Raya March begins her recounting of the events of [whatever month and year].

"We were calling it a color, but it wasn't- well, it wasn't just a color. It was something that had a color. Not just a blob of color itself. And the color that it was wasn't anything. It was new."

She insists that it wasn't a color a few more times, before I guide her to a better place to begin. "How did it all start?"

"It started with the alien autopsy."

This statement catches me off guard. I know that numerous things occurred before the autopsy (lights in the sky, the first discovery of spores, and of course the body being discovered) but presumably Raya hadn't heard of those. Hers is not a coherent tale of the incident as it unfolded; it is subjective, limited, and deeply warped. Which is, of course, why her side of it deserves to be heard.

"They broadcasted it live on TV, you know. Primetime. Special broadcast… I think a lot of people's favorite shows got delayed for that. And it wasn't even, like, good. The video quality was completely dogshit. Practically black 'n white, shot through with these diagonal lines like someone was holding some sorta fabric up to the camera, and so badly compressed it was more artifacts than not. Watching it was like trying to get one of those Magic Eye posters to work."

"Were you able to see anything?"

"I mean, sort of. It was really shitty though. But I was able to get the gist of it. A bunch of scientist looking folks standing around the table, weird bug thing the size of a medium dog on the table, and they were cutting it apart. They all had face masks on, and goggles over their eyes, so you couldn't see who anyone was. I think there mighta been people or stuff in the background, maybe other camera crews. And one guy who was probably a reporter and talking about it, but their face was just as covered up."

That at least all lines up. Multiple news crews had attended the event, and everyone there had been required to wear surgical masks as in addition to the necessary viewing goggles. "What happened next?"

"Well, the next weird thing was the color, but before that there was more - there were things I didn't think were weird when it was happening, but looking back I'm pretty sure it was related." "Go on?"

"First thing that happened was Marianne's favorite reporter was like sick or something? I usually only watch TV for the stock market, and he was just a news guy, but he apparently stopped showing up. I didn't really pay much attention because I figured that just happens sometimes, but apparently a lot of reporters and like camera people were calling out sick, and the news stations were getting understaffed so segments got canceled. Including my favorite stock market show." Even now, she's clearly annoyed about that. "I didn't think there was anything weird about that until Marisa mentioned that the weird-ass conspiracy theory show she listens to was saying aliens were killing the reporters. And then I just thought some people were crazy. Up until they had that special announcement on all the stations. Day of mourning for all the newscasters and cameramen and whoever else who'd died recently. They didn't say it was aliens - they never even mentioned the aliens - but it totally was aliens."

I probe further, but Raya seemingly doesn't know any details of the connection. She is right, though. The spores were already known about by the time of the 'alien autopsy', but they hadn't yet been connected to the alien bodies, so the attendees of the autopsy weren't required to wear full hazmat, and as a result every one of them was infected.

"And the next weird thing was?"

"The goop. Me and the besties and Luke were all out at a bar, and there was wrestling or some shit on the TVs, but then it got interrupted by some news segment. Basically like if you see any weird looking goop outside to not touch it because it's a biohazard. We all looked at each other like 'huh, that's weird' and then forgot about it."

Here, Raya recounts the rest of their night out before leaving the bar, which apparently included two incidents of drunken bickering (hastily shut down by the group's designated driver) and one incident of her yelling "EVERYBODY SHOTS YEAH", but that's one part of the story that doesn't need telling.

"Then we headed out, and I promise it wasn't cause we got kicked out for getting too drunk, but while we were on the way to the car we saw this… stuff."

"The color."

"No, dude, I literally said it wasn't just a color. But yeah that stuff. It looked like a pile of goop on the ground. Not like vomit goop, more like kiddy fidget slime. Except that the colors it was… well, it was a new color. Maybe two. It was… weird, seeing it. Like opening an eye you didn't know you had. It was uncomfortable. We sort of all crouched down next to the little puddle of slime and looked at it."

[togglesbloggle]

Just musing out loud-

One of the gifts that time brought for me, ish, was a reduced interest in labels for myself. Reduced-not-gone, because humans love a good sorting hat, but definitely not what it once was.

It's most obvious in media, like with those YA books that routinely have explicit caste systems or divide people up by thematic groups, or with video games that let you pick a faction. But it sneaks in to real life too. Like, take the famed Tumblr* neogenders/neosexualities and proliferation of flags. It is, of course, unironically fun to watch the ever-increasing fractal complexity as people chase the questing beast of a coherent taxonomy of sexual nonconformity, and I think the people that do so often find it very rewarding. But I watch mostly as an outsider, because the whole thing is answering questions to which I already have satisfying answers in my own dialect- at least insofar as it comes to how I think about myself. And what's true in the narrow case of Tumblr's culture has some far-reaching impacts on politics as a whole, as you might guess.

It's not that I find the castes/factions/neogenders themselves uninteresting- almost the opposite really. I like exploring and thinking about them all, but in a way that doesn't trigger any questions about me as an observer; the 'me' in my sense of these things is a fairly high-inertia construct, one which doesn't really deform much in the presence of exciting new taxonomies. They tend to show me much more about their authors than they do about myself, though as always there are exceptions. It's like seeing a new map of a place you know well, where you're not so much discovering the territory as appreciating a new view of things through the eyes of someone else, a pleasure that follows from an appreciation of the cartographer's choice of framing and the cleverness by which they drew the lines.

The reason I say 'gift' is, most of the benefits of that sorting-hat instinct are front-loaded; a map, any map, is worth it's weight in gold when you're new to someplace. It helps you find a community where you can thrive, it helps you communicate with others and build shared expectations. But especially once you get a little bit more used to things and learn how to get around without a reference sheet, labels are a double-edged sword. There's no perfect label that can really capture a human person, leading to all manner of suffering as we try to conform to the labels we find ourselves carrying, and we can fall down a really deep hole if we start trying to treat those labels as the axioms from which a human is derived.

It also becomes clear, with the benefits of distance, that while a lot of my exertions in label-making felt like introspection at the time, they didn't really manage to be introspection. Introspection, I think, would have been a little more about my identity as a thing-in-itself; after all, it revolves around the question "who am I?" But a curious fact about these identity groups is that they're meant to be comprehensive; every single student at Hogwarts is placed within one of the four Houses. That is, playing around with these things isn't a matter of asking "who am I?", but rather, of describing the society in which we find ourselves, and our relationship to that society. Ruminating about the proper label for ourselves is asking a different question than introspection does: "where do I belong?"

A good chunk of what I thought was self-discovery was, in hindsight, something closer to self-consciousness. Trying to figure out how to be seen, how to be known, how to take up space in a social world where all of those things can be very high-stakes. But I seem to have stumbled in to a degree of equanimity with myself regardless, so I suppose no harm done. Probably you need to chase both lines of inquiry in parallel, but I think it would have helped me at the time to realize that they are fundamentally different questions.

[blinkbones]

Five 1-season series I watched recently, and why I recommend them/liked them:

Lessons in Chemistry

About the trials and tribulations of a woman who both fails and refuses to conform to the expectations of 50s-60s USA. The show is primarily character-driven and works on a rather… somewhat simplified and exagerrated mindset? It took me offguard at first, but was fine once I settled into the groove. My favorite part was, as I later found out, an addition for the show (compared to the book, which I haven’t read) → the neighbor being a black woman fighting for civil rights. There’s that one chunk that mixes the psychological/personal aspect of getting involved with the socio-political reality of asymmetrical struggles and I… loved how clever that was… I’ll be honest, in that the show is mostly a sort of drama/character exploration and the political painting part of it is secondary. But I mean, the drama is good, I bawled my eyes out a bunch of times, and it’s visually compelling. The protagonist reads somewhat as a modern woman dropped into the fifties and her relentlessness is actually refreshing. It’s a power fantasy in that sense – watching someone smart, fully confident in her own abilities, and what she’s worth, and owed… It’s nice. Just so that we’re clear – this show is the one I’m least confident pitching, because it’s odd in many ways and questionable in some – but I really enjoyed it and I won’t lie about that. I thought it was very good on the moment hahahaha

So give it a go if it intrigues you!! and come chat with me about the neighborhood subplots.

Cherry Magic (anime version)

About an unremarkable salaryman who starts being able to read others’ thoughts because he’s a 30 y/o virgin – but really, it’s actually about someone finding both love and confidence in himself. This is so, so sweet. Pretty funny, too. For all the silliness of the premise, the more profound core of the story is very nicely-wrought, it’s painted with a delicate touch and subtle hues. There are aspects of it that I think will hit harder if you are not a child anymore. I think I would have enjoyed it when I was sixteen, but probably not as much as I did being a worn-out adult, lol. I binged it while I was insomniac with dread, and it made me laugh like a teenager. It’s sincerely very fucking great and if you enjoy romances at all you’ll love it.

Scavengers’ Reign

About a handful of scattered space castaways on a beautiful, wonderful and terrifying planet. If you enjoy science-fiction for any reason whatsoever, I can only make this a very ardent recommendation. It has it all: the alien planet, the machines, the creatures, the cast of characters; but also the wonder, and the fear, never too far from one another. This show is a real underrated gem and I am very serious. For you, tumblr, my beloved freakopolis, it also has it all. I won’t say it – but it has what you want. […] This show is so beautiful. The planet’s ecosystem feels tangible and coherent and new and it’s beautiful and frightening most of the time. There’s something of the primordial awe of coming into contact with the intriguing unknown. Did I mention that this is an animated show?? It’s very good visually too.

Andor

About the birth of revolution – accross the galaxies, people getting tired of imperial abuse, and in the hero’s heart and mind. What I loved most was how grounded it was. This isn’t the usual star wars with god-elect heroes with a destiny. It’s about the sorry little bitches who look at their increasingly corrupted world and decide to try to do something about it. Or end up in there by accident. SO, so good. For that only I thought it was a banger. But then there’s everything else!! The worldbuilding (that prison!!)! The practical effects! The janky-looking tech everywhere! The gorgeous sets (the senator’s house HELLO <<33)! Heartwrenching details! An essayist! Not joking it changed my brain chemistry and there’s a bit of text I want to write down on paper for myself.

Machine

Mandatory « I’m sorry for all you bitches that don’t speak French » because I doubt it’ll get translated, or even subbed, anytime soon if at all. But god y’all are missing out. Machine is a freakishly fun take on the figure of the white woman being kickass through « kung-fu » (looked like every technique under the sun to me lol), yknow, Kill Bill-like? It’s also a very, very fun series about freaking Karl Marx and class struggle. Not joking, literally some fighting interspersed with karl marx quotes and also cycling. Again with a show that lays it on thick and, at first, it takes me off-guard, but I go with the flow and then it’s fucking fantastic. Suuuch a coup de coeur for me. Can’t think of a translation for it, but it means that it struck a chord and became a favorite of mine. Also made me realize I was less aware of where dreadlocks discourse is currently at than I thought (topic for a research afternoon for when I can catch a fucking break…) (bc the heroine has them). Et je m’en remets pas de l’influenceur gilet jaune lol, quelle pépite. Very mad that no one around me watched it.

Honorary mention: Jujutsu Kaisen s2

Total banger. You don't need me to recommend it to you.

[jvstheworld]

The Buffy Re-watch: S1E7 (part 3)

Angel

Okay, last part of this episode. Hurray.

Buffy is now on the war path after believing that it was Angel who bit her mum. Which means we get to see the crossbow in action.

Darla talks about Buffy not wanting to see Angel's 'true' face, and while Buffy minds in this episode that he is a vampire, In 'What's my Line, part 1' Buffy will eventually not mind kissing him while in vamp mode.

Question for the audience: are vampires naturally kinky? Or do you get vanilla vampires?

Giles and Joyce together is sweet, they make a good pair, either as platonic co-parents to Buffy (and later Dawn) or as a one-off romantic couple.

How much leather did they use for the clothing of this show? Like every other episode has someone in leather. And then Spike comes in and it's every episode, but at least it's the same coat. We do get some iconic outfits from all the leather, but there's just so much.

Romani curse explanation time. I won't use the G-word because I know it is viewed as a slur. Even though it is used in the show, I will be respectful and not use it.

There are many philosophical debates about what a soul is. Despite my D in A-Level Religious Studies, I am not capable of talking about it. Essentially, the soul is supposed to be responsible for the conscience that a person has. It's Jiminy Cricket. When a person is sired they lose that, and have the capability to become a killing machine. Angel's curse restored his soul to him and now feels infinite remorse over all the carnage he caused as punishment for killing a Romani girl. That bit is clear. However, is the soul responsible for other emotions too? One of the big debates is could Spike love Buffy without a soul? And this is a question I will explore when I get there, I just want to pose it now out of interest. Because Darla, without a soul, loves Angel. Or is the love that Darla and Spike have a tainted type of love? But when Spike does get a soul it becomes a purer type of love? And what does that mean for humans who are capable of some truly horrible things and can have a twisted view of love? Or am I just digging too deep with this?

Angel hasn't had his full history written yet, because as we later learn in his own show, he has bitten people while ensouled. In retrospect he is kind of lying to Buffy.

We get the first use of guns in the show, by a duel wielding Darla, who should really learn to count her bullets. And aim better.

Willow coming in with the distraction and telling Buffy the truth.

Angel gets the kill. Sort of poetic. @girl4music reblogged one of my other posts talking about the early world building that happened during this season and how it doesn't match up with later ones and the spin-off. And I have to agree. This is probably due to the show being a mid-season replacement with a short season, so larger world/character building is not going to a major thing until the show gets another season and looks like it might have some longevity to it. Would Angel/Angelus have killed Darla? In retrospect, no. He would cause her harm, sure. He does later set fire to her and Drusilla. But within the context of this season without any meta info, it was done for shock value and to set Darla up as just a disposable villain. I am glad she gets brought back in the spin off and we get more info into her 400 year old life, because a character like her would have really been wasted if she never appeared again.

We are nearing the end. Xander is definitely threatened by Angel.

They acknowledge the age difference, I'm glad they do.

They kiss again, and he gets burned by the cross that Buffy wears, that was a gift from him. Also, the parallel that when Buffy finds out Angel has a soul, he gets burned by a cross at the end of the episode. Then when she finds out that Spike has a soul he burns himself on a cross at the end too.

That's the end of the my possibly coherent thoughts episode 7. This actually took more work that I thought it would. Tomorrow we talk about Willow's dating life. No guesses for how that fairs.

[greatprotector-if]

Just popping in to say that I really like your writing style. I really really like how it not only makes you feel things, but also LETS you feel things — if that makes sense. (it doesn't, but anyway.). I like how the narration is just a tiny bit unhinged and WILL make you laugh. I like how despite that, it doesn't sugarcoat or downplay the very real flaws and fears that follow every character.

Like, yeah, the world is tiring and people are tiring and you kind of just want to lie prone facedown on the ground Forever, but also. The narration (or, well, the MC) WILL snark literally Everything in sight to hell and back. You will have a heart to heart with someone deadset on getting that "MC's #1 Pain in the Ass" t-shirt and they WILL, quite literally, fly away when the conversation gets a little too honest; you are allowed to take your ire out on a pile of twigs. Presumably. You stare into a chicken's Not a Single Thought Is At Home eyes and someone WILL vehemently come to its defense if you slander it. Pillows will fwoomp pathetically to the floor. Everyone's sort of got their own wet cat thing going on. But also everyone is lovely. (And some people just suck, but they can wait their turn this isn't about them). You're allowed to feel angry. You're allowed to feel sad. You're allowed to feel a strange mix of everything and nothing. You're allowed to feel spite. You're allowed to be kind. You're allowed to be complicated and frustrating and flat out vexed with yourself. You are a person; you are a person. Those who surround you are also people — strange or vexing or supernatural they may be. The world is alive. You are alive.

Anyways. Yeah. :D I gotta clarify that this isn't about choices or variables and all that IF stuff. This is about your writing. It's just how it makes me feel. It's how your worlds and characters and everything make me feel. They are very dear to me. Thank you so much for sharing them. I love reading everything you show us, and I'm so glad you're writing.

Sorry for terrorizing your inbox with this Very Long Thing (I'll probably do it again). Once again, thank you, and good luck with everything!! 🤺🤺🤺✨✨✨✨

[P.S. Also, I typed a Very Long Thing in my tags for a certain post of yours but tumblr cut the whole thing in half when I posted it 🗿 I was like, "THE AUDACITY" and took off to your inbox so I could tell you what I meant to say in the tags (most of it is in the first paragraph of this ask) but now I'm kind of glad that tumblr offed my tags like that. It's allowed me to convey Everything to you in a.... somewhat more coherent manner, at least 🐓✨]

THJFN D. FHJFJGKGKVJVNFNVNGMV. dude WHTA THE HELL you are too too kind thank you so much?!?!!???!!??!!!!?! , , ,,, thank you for takingthe time to write this...... and even coming to my inbox when your tags cut off DJFJSKF SERIOUSLY i appreciate this so. immensely i'm ):

i won't lie i am struggling a lot with trying to convey this in a way that's satisfying with the IF format but the characters are what i consider to be among if not The Most Important thing in my writing and that includes the mc, so injecting little quips/opinions/human things into narration is my jam. if they don't feel real then what's the point!!!!!! it's hard with player choice and variables and it's definitely been a steep learning curve for me (which is part of why it's taking so long to write lol oops) but. i just. people are complex. and i want to make room for all sorts of people if i can. & i'm so glad that my writing makes u feel things. wven kust in general because THAT'S ALL WE WANT AS AUTHORS. LIKE. THANK YOU

ok i have no idea what i'm saying at this point this is so stream of consciousness no clue if it makes sense but THANK UOU AGAIN. WAGGJHH. I SEIFOFK. i am going to think about this ask every fuckign day for the rest of my life. this ask is my NEVER BACK DOWN NEVER WHAT?

[struggling-author]

Aang: "I'm all about peace and balance."

Azula: "And I'm all about chaos and fabulousness. We balance each other out, sweetie."

This joke was written by AI. I‘m testing out ChatGPT (and possibly turning it into an Azulaang shipper) and here’s my thoughts so far

read under the cut

I‘ll start with the elephant in the room - do I think it can/will replace actual writers?

the simple answer is no.

ChatGPT (and other AI I‘ve tested) is okay at writing basic storylines that sound pretty decent at first glance but it lacks any understanding of nuance or symbolism. It also has a bad case of „tell don’t show“ and loves narrating. Overall it would probably do much better at writing backstories than actual scenes for any type of media.

to put a slight addendum to my answer, I think given the nature of capitalism people will certainly try to replace writers, and are already trying afaik, I just don’t think it will be very successful in the long run. this mostly comes back to my previous point, which I‘ll try to demonstrate with an example. chatgpt can write a story where the protagonist loses his mind, but it does not actually understand the process of losing your mind, it cannot write coherent reasons for why he does or what kind of actions he committs to support and manifest this process. certainly it cannot give you a meaningful symbolism for his turn to madness.

where a real author may write something like „the prince sits alone in his tower, staring at his hands. his sword lays discarded at the side, but his fingers still drip with blood. as he looks up at the mirror to sees his reflection smirking back at him. ’see, I told you this was your destiny, it always has been‘. the prince shakes his head frantically and covers his eyes with his hands, unable to bear the thought of what he’d done. in desperation, he lashes out smashing the mirror to bits - though as he opens his eyes again, the shards of his shattered mirror still show that same smiling face, with bloody handprints over his eyes now completing the look. despite his better judgment, he finds himself chuckling at the irony.“ (that wasn’t even good but you get the point)

the AI instead will write something like „the prince sits in his tower tormented by his inner demons, he is afraid of what he has become. as the demons creep up on him, he loses himself in his madness and becomes the very thing he feared.“

I am underselling the prose here, because AI is actually decent at that part and I am honestly not, but in terms of nuance this is pretty close to what you actually get. the reason this happens is because ai doesn’t actually think or research „how does a person turn insane“ and then think how to best represent that in writing. instead it just guesses the most likely array of words for how someone might write that process, based on the stories it has already read. if you want to insert any sort of nuance into this, you will habe to tell the ai specifically how to do it, thus you must have thought of it yourself already.

what this means is that in any type of creative process, the fundamental ideas all still have to come from the actual author. so do I think chatgpt and other AI will change the writing process? absolutely! but I think it will do so more as a tool for writers than as a replacement.

it can help with prose and formulations, especially for writing in non-native languages, can help with outlines and structure, (something that judging by this rambling mess I could definitely use) and it could maybe get you started with some basic ideas, but everything that makes writing great and everything that makes writing matter, the creative thought process behind it, all of that still has to come from a human author and I think current AI would inbreed itself to death before it could ever learn to replicate that (ai inbreeding as I call it is already happening with image generation, because the internet is now flooded with ai-art some bots are copying themselves and creating worse and worse results)

little side note at the end, what it has also been pretty good at is writing jokes, so I‘ll be posting those as well as probably some of my other „research results“ here in the next couple days

also if it wasn’t clear, I am still in full support of the writers strike going on, just wanted to share some of my personal thoughts and experiences - and offer what I consider a reasoned optimistic perspective

[77angelnumbers77]

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ How I organize my Drive!

Do you have a hard time finding projects you started? Do you have 1000 documents called "Untitled Document"? When was the last time you closed all those writing tabs?

I'm going to share how I sort my Drive. Alright, so to begin with, I hate sorting by genre, pairing, whatever within my Drive. It just gets too granular! I use 4 folders (well, 5 if you count the umbrella folder).

As follows:

I feel like a genius for devising this system. I'm going to explain each of these folders in more detail below.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Concepts

This is for 1-2 sentence snippets of text that I think of when I'm out and about. I get an idea, I open a doc and write it down. Observe:

What you see is what you get! The docs themselves don't involve much more than what the title has to offer.

These work for all sorts of things! See:

Writing prompts for when you're blocked

Little moments to incorporate in your longer fics

Just getting a half-baked idea out of your head!

Why shouldn't you keep an idea in your head? Mostly because you'll probably forget it. Things happen in life! You could be thinking about nothing but your fic and still forget some detail you thought up when you were out and about.

In my case, this means . . . a plethora of terrible Christmas puns. But I'm still glad I wrote them down, because frankly I have no memory of creating this document.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Abandoned

I'm skipping a step here, but I want to go in order of the screenshot 😭

Do you ever write something and realize it just doesn't resonate with you anymore? Or that it has too many plot holes? If you've ever abandoned a fic for whatever reason, I encourage you to have a folder for abandoned fics. My rule of thumb is to never delete old work. Why? Lots of reasons!

Older work shows your progress! Something that gives me a big self esteem boost is going back and reading older works to see how I've grown as a writer. There is value in preserving the timeline of how you got to where you are now!

There will always be bits worth saving. Maybe most of the fic is garbage, but there's a little snippet in there that could be recycled for a newer piece. Maybe the characterization is particularly good. Maybe you coined a word that you don't want to forget about! Every piece has something to offer, even if it never sees the light of day.

Having a place to store old work can be just as valuable as having a place to store your concepts.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ WIP

Short for work in progress. This is the folder for everything between concept and completed!

Actually, a lot of these follow the same format as the concept folder for me.

The biggest difference is length! Most of these don't even have titles. A good majority of them are <1000 words, which is my minimum publishing length, with no coherent plot. Most of these will never be published, but that's okay! The time I spend on them makes me a better writer, and I have fun.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Complete

This is genuinely just a hall of fame for me.

Not all of these are published, and some of them never will be, but I think it's nice to remind myself that I am able to finish things. Writing takes a while, and it can be thankless, but putting pride in your achievements makes it easier to write long-term.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ Naming Conventions

One more thing! You may notice I don't have any documents with the default title. You may also notice a lot of my placeholder titles are overly descriptive. This is just to make it easier for me to find things! Two or three words to jog your memory is endlessly better than this:

Where is the soul? What's in it? Should I be scared?

Do yourself a favor and write a quick title. It doesn't have to be the final working title! It's a placeholder that can be changed at any time, and it'll save you a lot of time that could be used for writing.

Alright, well, I think that's it! Thanks for reading this far. I hope this helps someone! Happy writing ♥️

[raviosprovidence]

I'm sure this is a struggle many writers can relate to so im just here to get my feelings out

So for background, I want to be a screenwriter. I've always been fascinated by stories blah blah blah you know the drill. When I was about 15/16, I created my own urban fantasy universe that i now dub the MTU (mythic telivised universe). Over the years, many stories within this universe came and went, and as of right now, I have 3 *solid, defined shows that are very fleshed out*. One story has been around for almost 7 years, one has been around for almost 5 years, and one has been around coming up on a year. Two of them have at least one spin offs that are developed as well.

Around the time of last year, I was wanting to do more. I realized i did not want to be beholden to this universe as my only way to tell stories. I needed more. Thus, started my journey to try and make something new.

My first attempt was a rewrite of hades/persephone, but in my own lore and actually making it make sense. I got pretty far into development, actually making a world and developing a fair few of plotlines. In the end, due to a lot of different things going on in my life, i ended up dropping it. After that, i created the last of my MTU main series, and sort of forgot about making something else.

Throughout the next few months, I cycled through many, many different universes outside the MTU. A story re-imagining hyrule. A pirates story. A story about 7 different chosen ones that was about finding yourself and your family. A story about mermaids (which some of y'all know as Current) that was gonna be about working together and rebuilding. A monster collector story critiquing the genre. A story about bird people trying to find peace in their land. There were probably many, many more nuggets that were dropped.

I eventually realized i had a problem. I had so many ideas that *could* be true fleshed out stories. But I couldn't commit no matter how hard I tried. And it was especially infuriating (and I'm sure funny) to my irl friends who i rambled to about these stories. I was so desperate to show I wasn't a one trick pony and that I absolutely could make something different, that I never sat down and actually, well, thought about the idea beyond a few weeks. It's incredibly frustrating to be known as a creative and be "too creative for your own good." Never settling on anything because you're always chasing after the high of starting something new. I was comparing myself to...well, myself. The past me who was in high school/college and had way more patience to actually sit down and develop something. For some reason, I felt like i was running out of time. As of right now, I am about to enter the last year of my educational career. And chances are, I probably won't go back to just Going To School ever again (if i do, i'll probably be working too). And yeah, maybe I do feel like i have something to prove. It's scary, going into the creative world up against so many other talented people. Against a career field that is failing its employees. Against literal robots who are trying to steal my job.

But i realize...I can't do anything about that. one day, I'll get some of my work out there. I'll just keep on creative and writing and excitedly telling my friends about my work. And as of right now, I actually made something outside the MTU that has a coherent storyline! And I'm proud of it!

If you guys want to ask me anything about my projects, past of pressent, or want to vent about creation. Go ahead. My asks are open. I'm here for y'all

[morcai]

[chin in hands] do you have any thoughts about vampire!tsuna that didn't make it into the fic?

SO MANY THOUGHTS

(for reference, this is about my vampire!tsuna fic nightcap, where i thought simply So Much about vampires)

Specifically I had a lot of thoughts about the Trinisette IN a vampire AU. Some of it came through in the fic, but I had to step around a lot of it for fear of silly infodumping.

So let's talk about the Vongola! In this vampire AU, the Vongola isn't the family, it's the specific bloodline of vampire that Tsuna is. More accurately, it's the specific vampire that Tsuna is.

Canonically, there's a directionality associated with each part of the trinisette. Vongola moves vertically, Mare moves horizontally and Arcobaleno moves diagonally. In the vampire AU, this means that those specific vampire bloodlines have some Real Weird inheritance characteristics. I'll put a cut here for people's dashes, and then get Into It underneath.

A bit of this does show up in nightcap! If you're paying attention, Xanxus draws some really specific boundaries between "Tsunayoshi" and "the Vongola", and there's the mention of the Vault and Tsuna's first "deliberate murder". In this universe, the Vongola is a single vampire, carrying every memory back to the beginning of the bloodline. They're turned in the Vault, and then kill and drain their predecessor, which is what makes them the Vongola. So while Tsuna spent years in training to be Timoteo's heir, and was exposed to and integrated into vampire society actually fairly early on, he wasn't a vampire until he and Timoteo were locked into the Vault together, and he killed Timoteo. Tsuna-as-Tsuna has some weird feelings about that murder, but Tsuna-as-Vongola doesn't actually see it as any kind of thing. Which is the sort of thing that happens when you're simultaneously oh, twenty-something and [redacted] years old.

([redacted] because it's actually entirely possible that the Vongola is many many generations deep, and the name Vongola is only the most recent title for a bloodline as old as like. proto-humanity. i am not spending my time thinking about the evolutionary history of vampirism. I'm busy with the population ecology of superheroism.)

So the Mare and the Arcobaleno have similar atypical presentations! I think in terms of lateral spread, Mare weirdness is transmitted vampire-to-vampire more or less randomly (or due to unknown environmental pressures). I think it similarly comes with a huge history, which is why it's got an unfortunate tendency to drive whoever accidentally contracts it stark raving. Whoever it lands on is usually completely unprepared to have [redacted] years of experience and selfhood land on them.

Diagonal spread is a little harder to figure out. I think probably it SHOULD mean that rather than passing directly parent-to-child, Arcobaleno skips generations? This is not at all coherent with canon, but canon is just. it's So. I think this does solve the issue of What Is Up With Aria maybe a little?

So Luce is the Arcobaleno, she turns Aria, who is NOT the Arcobaleno. Aria turns Yuni, at which point Yuni becomes the Arcobaleno. Does this kill Luce? ehhh.....maybe? At the very least, it would have majorly weakened her, because whatever memory and power is associated with the Arcobaleno has left her.

I don't think Luce, Aria and Yuni are necessarily genetically related. the latest generations of Vongola have maybe been playing blood-descent games (made extra fun by the fact you need your member of the bloodline to procreate BEFORE they take up the mantle) but that's ended with Tsuna. Other vampire families count bloodline by who turned who.

[r2b2grady]

We fear our own neighbors and the average person on the street far more than is probably needed.

I won't dispute that cruel, wicked people do exist and that they can masquerade as innocent people. And I know we can all probably point to a story we've heard or even experienced of somebody making a scene or being aggressive/threatening or what-have-you. All of that, and I mean all, is valid and real and the behavior is rightly condemned.

And at the same time, the vast majority of people aren't that.

Lemme share two stories from my own experience here (US Midwest if that's relevant).

First, I was at a grocery store a couple of years ago, getting some things after church. I was accosted by a woman who didn't seem to be in her right mind—I don't know if she was intoxicated, or if there were other things going on, but she was aggressive and shouting at me. I don't even remember what she was yelling at me about, but it was a complete shock and I was a bit shaken afterwards. If the yelling had been more coherent, I'd have described it as a Karen moment, but it was a little too odd for that. An employee came up to me after and asked if I was okay and if I knew what had been going on, and the lady was asked to leave, but it was still a wild experience.

Now, just yesterday, I was leaving to go into the office, when an elderly lady coming up the stairs from the apartment complex's garage asked if I was the one who parked next to her. I replied, "the one in number <redacted>? That's me." Internally I was bracing myself for "oh, no, did I scrape something, or am I doing something wrong?" Turns out, she wanted to say that she was impressed that I back in when it's such a cramped spot. I replied that I cheat a bit, 'cause my spot is right next to a through-way that connects the front and back of the garage, so I just drive down that and pull into my spot from the side.

That encounter yesterday got me thinking about how isolated we are nowadays. I remember when I was younger and growing up in a more suburban (almost rural) area, and we knew most of the families in the area, and my siblings and I would regularly go visit various friends in the neighborhood. That was up to 20 years ago, I'll grant you, but... we seem so atomized now. We're all in our own little bubbles, and we all—myself ABSOLUTELY included—get so scared of any interactions with people we don't know, or situations over which we can't exercise full control. And I think a lot of that is that fear, that uncertainty, and that worry that everyone out there might be out to get us.

As I said before, there are absolutely weirdos and disturbed people and even people in need of help that will attack or berate or otherwise disturb us. Like the poor lady who was yelling at me in that grocery store. But we can't, we mustn't let fear of one of those encounters make us curl up and withdraw from the world. The average person, whether it's your neighbor in their 40s or a kid working the cash register at the McDonald's or the grumpy old man down the street... they're not a demon. Unless they clearly show otherwise with actions and words, I think it's best that we approach them with the sort of grace and lack of judgement that we would hope for out of them.

I absolutely struggle with this, and I don't rightly know how I'm going to make sure I get better at this, because I hate trying to interact with people who don't share my interests. It feels so fake. But we are creatures of community, and no matter how many Discord servers we're in, no matter how many mutuals we have or online friends we chat with... there's no substitute for in-person community.

I hope that no-one feels like I'm shaming them for anything, either, because nothing could be further from my intent. If anything, my hope is that this could encourage someone, or give food for thought. I didn't even realize that I was thinking this way until that interaction yesterday shone a spotlight on it.