#i could analyze every single line and relate it to these ships | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

a-shakespearean-in-paris · 4 years ago

Note

I'd love to see your take on Cullen's recovery arc as an alternative analysis! I feel like we're only ever presented with the two options of: "he needs to atone!" Or "he was a victim that needs protection!", neither of which I've ever fully agreed with. I think it's a result of the lack of attention given to his arc in DAI, which leaves a ton of room for interpretation, and results in people swaying towards either camp depending on how sympathetic they are towards him and his history.

I totally agree with this.

The problem with the way Cullen is presented in DAI is that he’s presented in an unambiguously positive light, and as @tokutenshi pointed out in this post (which I do agree with) if your Hawke was hostile to him you don’t get some of his dialogue about questioning Meredith. Additionally if you side with the mages rather than the templars Cullen has some realizations about the Order that you’re not going to hear. It’s too little too late for a lot of people, though I would also argue with what tokutenshi said, he was severely traumatized after the Blight (if you take a female mage Warden in the tower during the Witch Hunt DLC you will get lines that indicate he is suffering from PTSD, notice the lines about him being “twitchy” and “jumpy”) Personally I think we can find a middle ground between Cullen being a victim of manipulation and indoctrination, someone who suffered after experiencing trauma, and someone who works hard in the moment to do some good, whether we can or should call it “atonement” or not. That being said, he does acknowledge in Inquisition that the war against Corypheus is his chance to atone, and he works overtime to the point where it’s commented upon by several characters including the Inquisitor how hard he works.

By the time we meet Cullen in Inquisition a couple of years have passed since the chantry’s explosion. This is where I will be critical of the writing because I do think the game should have better established what exactly Cullen was doing in the time in between, though we get bits and clues from dialogue if you pay attention: He served as Kirkwall’s knight Commander after Meredith died, and he and presumably Aveline’s guard worked to basically repair the city, as Rylen says in Griffon Wing Keep that there was a lot of rubble, a lot of people without homes. Cassandra noticed Cullen’s work and recruited him to the Inquisition. (Also, keep in mind that the Inquisition was originally going to help quell the worst excess of the mage and templar fighting, restore order because the chantry lost control. Then the conclave happened, it went boom, and suddenly the Inquisition’s purpose became far greater than anyone would have expected. So Cullen as Cassandra’s choice of Commander makes total sense to me, considering he was a former templar and bringing him in basically acted as a symbol to any wayward templar, letting them know that there could be another way. But I digress on that part, haha.)

I *think* some people are dissatisfied with Cullen’s “redemption” arc in DAI because we don’t really see him fall on the sword or beat himself up for his past. There’s also no moment where he like, faces a mage he maybe knew in Kirkwall or has to deal with the mages not trusting him. Obviously of course there is nuance there as well as Toku and I mentioned--he wasn’t allowed to heal as much as he should have before being shipped to Meredith. However, here’s an interesting bit of dialogue you can get if you pick the right options after Perseverance if you tell him he doesn’t need lyrium:

Quiz: The man you were. You can’t pretend like he never existed.

Cullen: Not even if I wanted to. But I’m here now. I can make that mean something.

Cullen knows he screwed up. What’s more, he doesn’t want to forget he screwed up. But he lives in the moment to make things right. Blackwall’s arc actually shows him falling on the sword and wanting to atone, versus with Cullen it’s implied he has come to terms with his screw ups off screen. He doesn’t continuously beat himself up, he does what he can for the Inquisition to the point where if the Quiz tells him to go back on lyrium for the better of his soldiers, he does, knowing it just may kill him. There is also limited dialogue that challenges his views which turns some people off, but I know for my Inquisitor she’s very much about the now and what they both can do in the now. I won’t blame anyone who wants to be able to challenge him more, but frankly I find the fact he doesn’t continuously fall on the sword or beat himself up interesting.

All that being said, I do think of his arc as more of one of recovery versus redemption. And to be frank I’m kind of critical of the term “redemption” and what makes good redemption arcs or not. Someone having a “redemption arc” seems to imply that there’s only one road to the top of the mountain when maybe redemption is something you should always strive for? But as for the “recovery” arc: the chantry, IMO, purposely devoids both mages and templars of a personhood or life outside the order and Circle and treats them as objects. Many templar recruits are children and are basically indoctrinated to believe they serve the Maker and they are needed and that they do the Maker’s will. There’s an interesting bit of dialogue you can get if your character is a warrior and talks to Cullen about the templar spec, basically if the Quiz says “templars serve the Maker, I’d do the same.” Cullen basically replies, “uh, yeah, that’s not going to make you righteous, believe me,” implying this was the way he once indoctrinated to think, but he no longer believes it so. Templars are given lyrium for their abilities, but also to placate them, something Alistair says in DAO.

After Kirkwall Cullen sees where the Order is going, gets an offer from Cassandra and decides that if he removes the “part that kept [him] chained,” he would find his own purpose again. (He says this is your Quiz makes him take lyrium.) In Inquisition we learn he always wanted to protect people. (Our local mind reader Cole says “some templars want to only protect, like Cullen” if you ask him about templars.) And as a kid living in rural nowhere Ferelden, he saw the templars as protectors. Why I interpret his arc as more about recovery than redemption all has to do with Perseverance and the way you as the player can handle it: You can either let him know he can start over, he can endure and one day find a life of his own away from duty and battle, or you can make him take it and thus let him remain indoctrinated to what the chantry taught him, that there is nothing outside of duty and battle. It comes down between a choice of “you are leashed to what the chantry made you till you die” to “you are more and you can recover and make your own life,” which he does do by Tresspasser, romance or not. At the end of the game if you keep him off lyrium he basically thanks the Inquisitor for giving him a chance, letting him know he could be more. Additionally, a lyrium free Cullen in Tresspasser speaks of meeting his siblings again, developing a relationship. If you make him take it forever he refuses to see them.

I could also see the arc as one of faith, and finding it again. If you keep him off lyrium the prayer in the chantry he speaks is one of quiet reassurance and finding strength through his faith, but if you make him take it the prayer is “blessed are the peacekeepers” and it’s uttered desperately as if he is trying to believe it. He also mourns how far he fell. All this to say that I find it very interesting his writer focused his personal quest around the lyrium and what lyrium represents rather than say, him meeting a mage who lived in Kirkwall or something and him trying to atone to them.

When I wrote my post about why Cullen gets so much fandom related wank I got a lot of different responses that echoed the same thing about Cullen’s arc not getting a lot of attention. I think there is a lot of good writing there with his personal quest, but his writing doesn’t fill in every single gap---not to mention people are going to have vastly different experiences on how they played the games till Inquisition. And my examples of dialogue are things you may not get if you don’t pick the right options. And heck, some people only have played Inquisition.

So, I think me calling his arc in Inquisition a recovery arc has partially been not me trying to justify why I like him, but analyze a differing way a character who has screwed up in the past is written. Blackwall’s arc is a true redemption arc IMO. Cullen’s isn’t so clear cut as a redemption arc, but at the end of the day it is truly about him finding his own purpose again, which leads me to lean more toward calling it a “recovery arc.”

#cullen rutherford #replies #thanks!#toku I was going to expand your post but I got this ask and thought I'd talk about it here #I once wrote more about this in a longer post that expanded on it being a recovery arc I think #but this is a summary #resjade #long post #I had a screenshot of the quote but the post was already too long lol

201 notes · View notes

btsandvmin · 4 years ago

Text

Ask: Reply - 2021.04.16

Time to answer some more of your questions. I have a lot this time, and still a lot left I’ll have to save to another post. You are all very good at being curious and asking interesting questions. There are also some asks that are replies to old asks, and then I’ll include the link to the referenced post.

This time the topics will be:

Ask 1 - About KTH1 and expectations Ask 2 - KTH1 spoiler with “Oh lady” Ask 3 - Vminies getting superiority complex Ask 4 - Not dismissing the bond between Vmin and the other boys Ask 5 - Other people’s words can influence your thoughts Ask 6 - Vmin not sharing rooms in Bon Voyage Malta Ask 7 - Has being a Vmin shipper always been so overwhelming with all the content? Ask 8 - “Just a friend” interview Ask 9 - The garnet necklace Ask 10 - Vmin in CMs Ask 11 - Taehyung uncomfortable about shipping/tae*kook? Ask 12 - What did Jimin write on his shirt in Run ep. 53? Ask 13 - Gina Maeng ask follow up Ask 14 - Vmin’s love is beautiful (and so much nice praise omg)

Today’s post is a long one... Enjoy!

Ask 1 - About KTH1 and expectations

Ok, so I did write a shit post about this... (I mean… This is literally all Vmin’s songs so far ), but I still think your questions are worth a proper answer.

Honestly I think speculating about KTH1 is kind of hard, and as seen in the shit post I am quite torn with my expectations... In general I am the type who doesn’t like to expect too much in fear of being disappointed. I rather be pleasantly surprised. That being said Vmin does have a track record of getting involved in each other’s songs. I mean a lot is just speculation of course, but we do have confirmed cases as well, enough to not be too surprised if they would keep it up and do something for Tae’s solo album as well. (Tae saying his mixtape would be named Jimin back in 2016 still haunts me.)

On the other hand, they have already given us a lot of collabs. Adding more would feel more like a statement, at least if it would be only Jimin out of the members on that album. The thing is that if Vmin would have something “real” or at least if they are a bit careful with how they come across... I am not sure they would do something too “obvious”. But where such a line would be drawn is impossible to know. I mean clearly they managed to write and sing Friends and it worked fine, even if they did get more attention as a ship.

We also know Tae has been quite loud about Jimin in ways that single him out, so maybe they would really dare push the boundaries as far as actually including Jimin in the album somehow. It’s also very possible there could be other members, and honestly we probably shouldn’t hyper focus too much on it and that it has to mean something no matter if anyone is on it or not.

I think one of the rappers being on it is probably more likely out of the members, but it seems Tae has shown an interest in collabs with people outside of BTS, so that’s kind of what I am expecting the most. No matter who in the group is on it I am sure fans will make a big deal out of it, and maybe Tae would rather have his own thing for his first album. I really don’t know how his thoughts would go.

But again, looking at how Tae and Jimin has talked about working together, and have had moments like Tae promising Jimin a song or Tae saying they will work together again... It’s definitely not impossible to get another Vmin song. I do feel it’s more likely for any connections to be vague and not instantly noticeable though (at least not anything romantic looking because we know what happened to the Christmas song). Especially considering how they have only recently revealed things like 4 clock’s inspiration more openly and had Friends followed by Sweet Night. My main stance for any possible real ship is still that they have reason to be careful, and yet another Vmin collab, on Taehyung’s first personal album would probably raise some eyebrows considering everything else we already have. But it could also be me over analyzing them, and maybe they just really like and want to work together. Tae for sure has after all been vocal about this preference and want to work with Jimin.

So yeah, on one hand they have a track record that is hard to ignore... But on the other I wonder if they might want to add another “point” for ARMY to look at them and their songs. I also don’t want to assume that if there are songs on there that sound romantic that they automatically will be about Jimin. There will have to be legit possible connections for me to acknowledge them.

It’s tricky. I guess we will have to wait and see. I am kind of scared both that there won’t be anything or that there will be SOMETHING. Thank you for the ask, and I hope I shed some light on my thoughts on this subject. Either way I am very excited and looking forward to an album full of Taehyung’s own songs and the stories he wants to tell.

Ask 2 - KTH1 spoiler with “Oh lady”

I am not sure it is “lady”, since it’s a bit unclear in general. He also has a part that just seems to go “do be do” and I don’t know if the lyrics are even finished or if he worked with someone else etc. We basically lack a lot of information. But even so using lady/her/she etc. in a song doesn’t have to mean it is about a specific person or that the person is a she or that it is Taehyung’s own feelings (I know he said he usually sings about things he have felt, but just saying it doesn’t always have to be).

Of course I don’t want to downplay it and say it doesn’t mean anything, but considering their fanbase is majority women, they live in a homophobic country and he has even been denied to sing a romantic song with a man before, it’s not impossible to add that to make it more “relatable” or less “gay”. God, that sounds terrible. I don’t want to start discussions where we don’t take their words for what they are, so I hope you might understand my point of view. That being said of course it could just as easily be to or about a specific woman in his life that we don’t know about. Or as you say, he isn’t actually in love but is simply writing love songs that could be inspired by non-romantic relationships or movies etc. as was the case for his inspiration for Winter Bear.

Tae also used “she” in Winter Bear, and that seems a bit forgotten. Or people try to say it has to be about his grandmother... Which we obviously don’t know, it’s just the woman people jump to since he used “she” and many people don’t like the idea of him dating a woman or writing about a woman we don’t know. Either way I think we need to remember that anything is possible and we don’t know them personally and how they think or why they choose to do what they do.

I think we need to remember that there is always going to be the possibility that ships aren’t real, that the romantic songs aren’t about Jimin and that either one of them could be in a relationship with someone else (all genders included).

Ask 3 - Vminies getting superiority complex

Hello! I want to address something that has been bothering me for a while now. I have been seeing some vminnies have a superiority complex just bcoz they ship vmin. Its very rampant among new vminnies and twt vminnies. I get that we all feel validated and happy when out OTP claim to be soulmates and bff. I feel that way too. But people have to remember that vmin are real people and their relationship is dynamic. Like they did grow from bff who used to tease e/o and fight alot to soulmates who are gentle and caring. Who is to say that one day they wont drift apart (i hope not and dont think thats gonna happen but for argument sake) so there is no reason to feel superior or look down on other shippers.

If people think vminnies are superior bcoz they are not toxic they probably know they are lying. Lbr i have seen my share of toxic vminnies though may be a lesser number but they are there and its not the ship but its that particular person who is at fault. While i agree that some ship theories cultivate hate and toxicity there may be people among those ships who are just as sane and good as we claim to be. I just wanted to address this bcoz seeing some vminnies on twt saying locals thinking vmin were tgt after coway add is a validation kind of triggered me. I m sure there would have been similar responses to any other ship bcoz they all have been tgt for a decade and are very comfortable with e/o. I just wanted to talk to someone about this and i know you have discussed similar topics in the past. So yeah this was very long.

First of all, on request I won’t show your name, but thank you for sending me this and letting me know who you are. It’s always nice to know who is behind the question. But that being said I don’t mind people asking on anon, I totally get it being a lot easier to ask or question things when you don’t have to reveal yourself. Either way I am just glad to get interesting and important topics and I do think the things you bring up are worth talking about.

As you say, there is this thing when people start to feel and act superior for various reasons, and I too have seen some Vminies do this. Getting a lot of moments is sure nice. But honestly, just imagine if another ship came and mocked Vmin or gloated every time they got more moments. It has surely happened too, and I am sure it doesn’t feel very nice when on the negative end. Just be a decent human, ship moments will always vary and it’s great to be happy about getting moments, but there is no need to compare or look down on other ships. I say it again, shipping is not a competition, just enjoy your own ship and let others enjoy theirs.

As for feelings superior based on group behavior I think we really need to stop looking at groups and start looking at individuals, both when it comes to groups we are part of and groups we consider “bad”. I have said it many times, but individuals of other groups we don’t agree with won’t all be bad, or all stupid or young etc. We might want to tell ourselves they are worse, but it really doesn’t change much.

Being “less bad” it not a merit and it shouldn’t be a competition. We all have our own selves to answer to and we should judge other people based on their actions and not based on what group they might belong to.

I think size and the toxicity of a narrative can lead to more people in certain groups behaving in toxic ways... But I think any person could happen to fall into these behaviors if not careful and aware. Often the change is gradual too, or you feel attacked by the other “rival group” and thus feel it’s justified to attack back, and so it escalates.

Vminies are at the moment as a group smaller, and thus have less “bad apples”. We likely also have a narrative for Vmin that doesn’t require as toxic mindsets, for example extreme jealousy or Vmin being forced to hide. But there for sure are still toxic Vminies, and there are also a lot of non-toxic shippers in all groups. Usually the louder ones are also the worst ones while the chill and nice will remain in their own lane and ship more peacefully. But being part of a smaller group doesn’t make you superior, your actions is what is important.

As for small moments getting noticed or other types of “validation” for your ship, of course it’s going to feel nice. However, what people see and think of any relationship in BTS is still just an outsider view and literally has no meaning for their actual relationship beyond it being a cute moment. That’s why size and popularity also doesn’t matter as any kind of “proof”. Interpretation will always just be interpretation, good or bad, if you like it or not.

Sadly I think we will get more and more toxic behavior from more ships as the fandom grows and as some things get more normalized within those ships’ communities. It’s about certain behaviors growing into a community culture... The more toxicity that is allowed the more others will follow. That’s why bringing up the problems is important, but trying to do so without shunning people so that they don’t go and create their own space where everyone else is the enemy. After all, being open and welcoming and understanding is much more likely to make someone listen and even change their mind than by attacking them.

I answer for my own actions. So does every person. I don’t want to be judged for everything every Vminie or ARMY or Multi K-pop fan etc. has done. Generalization is a huge problem in general, not just in fandoms or ship wars. I do try to be a positive influence, to not judge too harshly and to remember that being hostile won’t help any situation. But that’s about it. I am glad you brought up this topic, because talking about it is important, but sadly I don’t think there is a lot that can be done about it. Just try to be nice and open minded.

Thank you for the ask, I hope you all understood what I wanted to say.

Ask 4 - Not dismissing the bond between Vmin and the other boys

Thank you. I really see no need for it. It’s clear as day that they all love each other, and even if one pair would happen to be romantic instead of platonic that won’t change. We don’t have to compare and we definitely don’t have to downplay the moments they share with each other. All shippers should at the very least accept the the things they do and say as mostly genuine. I trust BTS and what they show us, it’s that easy.

I know some also get influenced by toxic fans, but we really need to remember that no narratives by fans matter when it comes to reality and what bonds BTS share with each other. They are all great people and seem to have such love and respect for each other I frankly don’t understand how you can be a fan if you think any of it is played up to the point some claim.

Likely no ship in BTS is real, but if any is, to me I am sure the ones involved would be happy and supported by the rest of the members. That’s why it doesn’t really matter what ship would be real or not real as long as they are happy. We shouldn’t let our own views and sometimes want or hopes affect the way be judge their reality. This applies for things outside shipping as well.

Thank you for your kind words. :)

Ask 5 - Other people’s words can influence your thoughts

Indeed. The brain is a powerful thing. This is very obvious if you are a multi-shipper or a general fan, but BTS truly has a lot of questionable moments between all kinds of pairs. Focus is a interesting thing. If you like something you will notice it more, and you will also remember it more while you forget other moments. Likewise if something is “negative” like a rival ship you are likely to notice them more as well. This happens even if you just watch the general content and get your own bias. Imagine then how it might influence you when others keep repeating either your happy interpretations or things you worry about? You’ll get it stuck in your head and remember it more than other things.

Like isn’t it funny how we might gush about Vmin sharing beds, or worry about ji/kook or tae/kook cuddling while hope/kook literally sleep wrapped around each other in both Bon Voyage 3 and 4? Sometimes it’s all about perspective.

By now we need to realize that fan perspective will influence us a lot. And in particular if a lot of people say it or if it is presented in a way that makes it sound logical and intelligent. Words have power.

I still think using “Vmin is dead” or spreading worry often in itself leads to people thinking it and it being somehow accepted as fact. In similar fashion getting to hear about certain ships or certain narratives will make us notice things in relation to that. My own words and posts too will have influence on some people that read them. That’s why I try to be so careful, and why I try to avoid using strong words or claims that might cement themselves in someone’s mind. (I’ll actually talk more about the power of language in my big analysis as well)

Thank you for your input, it’s definitely an interesting thing to consider and another aspect of why shipping mentality is so complicated.

Ask 6 - Vmin not sharing rooms in Bon Voyage Malta

Hi and yes, I have answered this before HERE, but it’s ok. I know it’s not easy finding old topics amongst my collection posts.

Collection of asks - BTSandVMIN Collection of asks 2 - BTSandVMIN Collection of asks 3 - BTSandVMIN

In short I think Vmin wanted to share rooms but that Taehyung got fooled when Jimin stopped him from checking the upper room. Because it seemed like Jimin stopped him from walking into that room by saying he couldn’t peak Tae probably assumed it wasn’t Jimin’s room and that when Jimin said it was his room he was joking (his face was definitely something). So yeah, I think he just got fooled by Jimin’s statement about not being allowed to look inside the room before picking. There are other interesting things about this whole moment, but the one thing we should take away from it is how it is one out of now many examples that seem to show that Vmin have a preference to share rooms/beds. Thank you for the ask. :)

Ask 7 - Has being a Vmin shipper always been so overwhelming with all the content?

I wouldn’t say it’s something recent. I say it often, but we really do get very intense periods from time to time with many of the ships. For example in February 2017 with ISAC, fan signs and everything else we got a lot of Vmin too. I remember being overwhelmed myself, and that was coming out of BST era Vmin. We got many moments every day and that’s just one specific period I can remember.

Over the years sometimes we do get these very intense days or weeks with a lot of moments at once. Usually I get asks like “do you think something is up with Vmin lately” or “wow I can’t believe how much Vmin we have gotten lately” but really, it’s hard to tell, because it really does happen from time to time. I also still say we always get Vmin moments regularly as long as we get BTS content, but sometimes a bit more and sometimes less. I am sure there will be more times when we also get “Vmin is dead“ and worried people because we get less moments than they expect. It just happens, up and down and around it goes.

As for what ships are big I will definitely say Ji/kook and Tae/kook are the biggest, but that all BTS ships are big by now. Meaning as soon as we do get moments it will be seen online. Especially if you follow people who talk about it of course. I also think what platform you are on can result in some ships being seen more than others. For example I know ji/kook is by far the biggest BTS ship here on Tumblr while Youtube seems to have more tae/kookers.

Thank you for the ask. Let’s hope Vmin keeps overwhelming us. (But let’s not start to worry if they don’t) ;)

Ask 8 - “Just a friend” interview

Ah yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for this interview myself. I am not sure, but I think it might be from 2017 (since Tae wrote a birthday letter to Jimin in 2016), or at least that’s when I found it and saved it down. I haven’t actually tracked the original source. You can find the translation in the link shared HERE, credits to @95z.

Seeing this close after the chaos of Let’s BTS and other letter confessions it really does seem very cringe for them to express sincere thoughts in these more formal ways. I can’t blame them.

I do think this interview is yet another example of how much Vmin has tried to adapt to each other, learn and be more open with expressing how they feel. They literally inspire and learn from each other in how to express themselves. Isn’t it completely endearing?

I also love how they get each other to feel strong emotions and how they are there for each other when in need. On a slightly more analytical note I also can’t help but note the “just a friend” vs “soulmate” descriptions and how they seem to have a hard time putting it into proper words. We already know this of course, but yeah... They really don’t have an easy time describing their relationship.

Thank you so much for sharing this moment. I was going to talk about it in my big analysis anyways, but honestly I can’t save everything for it, and you mentioned it so who am I to keep it to myself.

Ask 9 - The garnet necklace

Oh yeah, I know that JK wore it once and that the talk was that a fan gave it to all of maknae line. Not much was ever confirmed from what I know, but regardless it doesn’t change why I think it’s a Vmin/soulmate necklace and why I see it as special.

Here is the thing, when I use “Vmin thing” it really doesn’t have to be exclusive. To me it’s the context around it and how they have used it and even reacted to it that makes the garnet necklace something special for Vmin. In the case of the soulmate necklace Vmin wore it a lot. Almost constantly during a big part of 2017 and even a bit into 2018. They also wore it at the same time a lot. I find this very cute, and we all know “couple items” is something all fans enjoy even if it would just be a platonic relationship behind it. But if both of them wearing it was all there was, as a lot of Vmin sharing clothes (or BTS in general sharing clothes) I wouldn’t really think too much about it beyond it being cute. It could still be just a cute thing that Vmin did, but I personally see it as something beyond the normal clothes/jewelry sharing.

(At the very least you can remember Vmin did this while people thought their relationship was dead, which doesn’t make much sense to do if you hate or dislike someone.)

The things I find more noteworthy about this necklace is the fact that the fandom picked up on it and because they wore it so much and so often at the same time it was dubbed the “soulmate necklace”. Possibly knowing this Tae also brought specific attention to the necklace at two times, as if wanting to show it off. Interestingly enough, in one of these times Jimin seemed to ignore Taehyung who was bringing attention to it on purpose. For me it came across as another thing Taehyung wanted to show off and that Jimin was a bit more careful about.

Of course I could have read it wrong, maybe Jimin just misunderstood. But even so, Tae did bring attention to it in specific relation to Jimin. You can watch the clip HERE. (BTS Tell Us What They Love About Each Other & An Update On Tony & Nate From America Hustle Life)

The other time was in Run ep. 39, right after Vmin talked about being in school together and showing off their school uniforms. If Tae is the one to try and highlight something, I feel it likely has some meaning to him at least.

Either way the necklace is basically a symbol of Vmin’s relationship and the fact that they liked it so much and wore it together during a long period I think they liked wearing it not only because they both happened to like the design but because they both had it. If JK also had one and didn’t use it of course it could include him, but I will still say it remains significant for Vmin’s bond with each other.

As for buying a necklace together they haven’t talked about this one in particular, but Tae did mention he bought his tiger necklace with Jimin in NY, so maybe you are mixing the two things up?

Ask 10 - Vmin in CMs

Thank you for loving my blog and for the ask! :) I am not sure if you perhaps meant in a lot of BTS own photoshoots/units as well, but I’ll focus on CMs in this post since that was your direct example. I might go a bit beyond here, but I saw it as a good chance to revisit some Vmin ad moments.

I wouldn’t personally say we have gotten “way more” but I do think because of their Friends unit they got to do some more interviews together and some CM stuff too. I also think we have gotten more BTS commercials in general now, likely because it’s an income alternative to touring during the pandemic. So that obviously means more CMs, and more chances for them to be paired up. They also have gotten paired with others of course (like in the Bodyfriend CM or Baskin Robbins), but most commonly they aren’t divided in smaller groups at all.

We also have gotten Vmin paired up before, both in photoshoots and in CMs. Of course we saw some great ones in 2016 with Puma and NUGU, but I don’t think we got that much more in 2016 and before than in 2017-2019. I think what we can see is BTS having more endorsements after Covid.

Like honestly, the Puma adds are iconic. Of course the original one, but also the revisits from 2018. Puma definitely seemed to like to pair Vmin in particular. (There are so many good examples from Puma that I’m not including)

We also got a snippet in the Hyundai one, also from 2018.

Another snippet from the Coconut Chicken ad from 2017.

I mean, I don’t know if I should count the snippets at all, like from BTS x VT cosmetics in 2019, but I feel sometimes just being seen in the same frame seems to get attention as being paired up so. (I decided to not include being together when it’s at least a third member in the frame)

And guys... Have you ever watched BTS and the milk song?

What did we get so far more recently? In 2020 we had the Hyundai interview.

And the hyundai #PositiveEnergyChallenge

Fila provided a nice one, also from 2020.

Samsung gave us a snippet recently.

Coway was basically couple goals and like the best one in my own opinion (besides Puma because it is going to take a lot to beat Puma).

But other than that? I don’t think we have seen it that much, have we? I am not complaining or anything, like I am happy with what we got, but I don’t know if it’s that much. I might forget some obvious ones, but these were the ones I had top of mind. Feel free to add ads if you can think of more recent ones that I left out.

So I think we have gotten more BTS ads in general, also more where they are not all of them or single focus, and that we have seen maybe Vmin getting paired a little more after Friends. But to me there is such a small difference I can’t really say if it is anything particular to Vmin or just BTS doing more CMs.

I mean, I don’t have a sheet of who has been paired with who and how many times over the years. But either way I don’t think we should look too deeply into things like CMs or even photoshoots units. Thanks for the ask though, I hope you enjoyed this mini collection. :)

Ask 11 - Taehyung uncomfortable about shipping/tae*kook?

So this is a thought sent in after THIS ASK though it really brings up a new subject, which is that of Tae possibly being uncomfortable with shipping. As for Tae saying that to a tae/kooker in particular I think we have to remember it could very easily just have been in the moment and we can’t know why he decided to reply to that person in particular.

The Vmin post was not invasive and it wasn’t romantic. I mean, I do think Tae keeps showing again and again that if there is any person in BTS that is special to him it’s Jimin. But the difference in the posts also likely matters, but we can’t know how much. We don’t know if Tae would feel annoyed if a Vminie wrote the same thing as the tae/kooker did, and we don’t know if it was just in that moment that he got fed up with the shipping discourse in general, or if it was because it was tae/kook.

Honestly any shipper, regardless if a ship would eventually prove to be real or not, should not go and invade spaces where the boys get exposed to it. We don’t know if Taehyung would have reacted in a similar way if it happened to be another ship.

Personally I don’t think tae/kook drifted apart as a result of shipping, because honestly they still kept being pretty intimate physically and engaged in fanservice on stage etc. If they truly were uncomfortable with the idea I just don’t think they would “feed it” much at all. I think as they said in ITS they just, kind of changed and it became harder to talk. I’ve talked more about tae/kook and my views on their bond in THIS POST and a little in THIS POST as well as about BTS possible stance on shipping HERE.

I also think all of BTS has a pretty good distance from hate and fandom speculations in general. I think that because they know about shipping and partly also feed into it they probably expect crazy people to some degree as well, even if they probably don’t like it. Hetero shippers as well, or solo stans etc. have very toxic behaviors at times, but I think BTS can recognize that it is kind of “bound to happen” with their popularity, no matter what they do about it. Not saying they would like it, and they could definitely feel awkward or annoyed because of it, but it doesn’t seem to bother them too much as I think they can detach themselves from it pretty well.

I also think “fan opinions” in form of rival shipping wouldn’t really harm a hidden couple as it first would likely be a sort of “shield” and second because they have their relationships and are likely comfortable with them on their own terms. What fans think is probably secondary.

It is possible that they could get annoyed or frustrated at times, but again, if they truly felt bothered by it they probably wouldn’t do a lot of the things they do. Because I am sure they are aware to some degree that fans scrutinize their every move and ship moments. Both Tae and Jimin are some of the most physical out of the members, and also some of the members that seem to like to initiate fanservice moments... So I doubt they would have much problem and can feel secure enough in their relationship no matter what fans think.

Ask 12 - What did Jimin write on his shirt in Run ep. 53?

Hi, I guess you got curious after I talked about this episode recently in my post Ask: Reply - 2021.03.30 (Ask 8 - Going down the rabbit hole, micromoments and shipping vs believing).

I don’t know hangul, but I do know what “Jimin” looks like. On Jimin’s shirt from behind the scenes of Run ep. 53 you can see he’s written his own name “지민” Jimin followed by what looks to be “ 님 “ which is nim. So basically the text on the container in the picture says Sir Jimin.

Jimin seemed very keen on writing his name on both his own shirt and on Tae’s and even tried on JK’s. He failed of course, but he sure did try.

Thank you for the ask, and isn’t Tae cute?

Ask 13 - Gina Maeng ask follow up

Glad you liked my reply. :) (From Ask: Reply - 2021.03.30 Ask 4 - Idols dating members of the same group). Yeah I get what you mean, talking about it openly I suppose isn’t so normal. But since it seems to be more and more fans who assume it happens to some degree maybe it’s not so strange if it starts getting more talked about as well. I’ll take it as a good sign, even if the information is nothing new in itself, being more open is going to make it easier for fans to realize it’s possible for their idols to be LGBT+ or have hidden relationships.

As for K-Population it doesn’t seem to be too well known, but it’s one of few actual examples to be found. So yeah, interesting that we know it has happened, and also that it shows what risks it could mean to get involved with a group member. I think the risk of a falling out is something a lot of shippers tend to forget. Anyways, thank you for your reply. ^_^

Ask 14 - Vmin’s love is beautiful (and so much nice praise omg)

Oh my... I am not sure I have ever been called sweetheart by anyone ever before. Thank you! You are making me blush with all the praise. 💜💜💜

But really, we can all just watch Vmin in awe and be happy they have each other and feel such immense love for each other, no matter what that love is. It’s kind of amazing. Like even if they are platonic their relationship is so wholesome and they put so much love and effort into it that it’s truly inspirational. I love when we get bombed with moments like this with a very intense period of great Vmin interactions. As you, me too never fail to feel all soft watching them together.

95z is love and what a love they share. Truly wonderful. 💜

You take care too, and really, thank you so much for this lovely message. it means a lot and is very heartwarming.

And with that sweet ask I’ll end the post. There was a lot of very different questions and I feel I could have written more about many of them, but alas I need to remember I can’t write full essays on everything or I would never get anything posted. Thank you all for reading and I hope you found my thoughts and speculations interesting. ^-^

#vmin #vmin analysis #btsandvmin #ask: reply #vmin collection #vmin ad #vmin cm #vmin commercial #vmin gif #vmin photo #bts shipping #btsandvmin answer #my post #Ask: Reply - 2021.04.16 #vmin soulmate necklace

66 notes · View notes

nonartisticbooknerd · 4 years ago

Note

i notice you ship Kacchako- and there's nothing wrong with that but why? (note I haven't seen mha) from what I know, bakugou is a huge asshole who bullied deku a lot, while uraraka seems to be a nice person- i just wanna know why you ship them lol

oh BOY here comes the essay.

Please note that this why I ship kacchako. This is not meant to convince anyone to ship kacchako, but simply my reasons as to why I like these two characters together.

To start off I will openly admit that yes, Bakugou is an asshole. He bullied Deku a lot (probably due to that wonderful inferiority/superiority complex he’s got going on) and in general, is pretty loud and rude to everyone. He makes it a point to let everyone know that they are beneath him and goes out of his way to prove that he’s the best and no one could even hope to compare.

Meanwhile, Uraraka is the exact opposite: sweet, bubbly, and very kind to everyone. She actually wants to be a hero for the money to help her parents out bc she comes from a poor family (which I LOVE but that’s a topic for another meta). She never tries to prove herself to anyone as a result, and just focuses on trying to learn to be the best hero possible (because the better you are, the more money you make).

The most notable difference is their relationship with Deku (and actually this is one of my reasons for shipping them but we’ll get to that). Bakugou was Deku’s former friend and he has a strong dislike toward Deku, stemming from an unhealthy need to prove his superiority in every respect over Deku. Uraraka, on the other hand, is one of Deku’s new and close friends, and they get along really well.

So why do I ship kacchako? Mutual respect, understanding, and potential character growth. Explanation of that below, with manga screencaps.

1. Mutual Respect

This is the major point of their ship for me and it stems from their fight in the Sports Festival.

It’s quite obvious that Uraraka acknowledges Bakugou’s strength, after all, he’s seen as a powerhouse by everyone, and she repeatedly comments on his strength. But it takes a lot to get Bakugou to acknowledge someone. And with Uraraka, he does.

Aizawa just outright says it. Bakugou goes into the fight knowing that Uraraka is an opponent he needs to be wary of because she made it to the final round. Bakugou doesn’t see the small and sweet bubbly girl everyone else in the crowd is seeing, what he sees is an opponent, and Uraraka notices that. And just before launching her final attack, she thanks him.

Actually his reaction to her thanking him is one I love because we’ve never seen that kind of caught-off-guard expression on him before until this moment. To me, it seems that he couldn’t even imagine not taking her seriously because as mentioned before, she made it to the final round so in his mind she has to be strong to do that, and her thanking him for it is making him go “huh? what are you even thanking me for?”.

For her final attack, she drops a meteor shower on his head, he blows it away, and then we get this panel.

This is the first time in the manga that Bakugou acknowledges that someone nearly took him out. His hand is pounding from Quirk overuse and it’s the first time we see an adverse effect of his Quirk, the blowback from using too strong of an explosion. But more important is the fact that he says “that was close”, explicitly acknowledging that she nearly took him out. Respect.

So then after that Uraraka gets up and rushes at him again to attack, even though she’s clearly shown to be at her limit, and we get this from Bakugou:

He calls her by name. That’s incredibly important.

Throughout the manga, Bakugou uses nicknames (Deku, Shitty Hair, Flat Face etc.) to keep people at a distance and let them know he doesn’t give a shit about them. Keep in mind that before, he’d used a nickname for Uraraka, calling her Round Face right at the beginning of the fight. But now that she’s driven him to the limit he knows this girl is strong. And here, when he calls her by her name, he’s acknowledging her and her strength. This is the first person in class 1-A that he calls by name (Kirishima also eventually graduates from Shitty Hair to Kirishima, but that’s way later). After this, he doesn’t go back to using Round Face for her either. He keeps using her name when he refers to her, even in his head.

So Uraraka, at her limit, collapses before she even reaches Bakugou and he’s clearly shaken up by that. He was expecting the fight he’d been dreaming of, where he could give his all and fight an opponent that he genuinely respected and saw as strong, and then she collapsed. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a look of concern, I think it was more of mixed disappointment and shock.

When he re-enters the stands, all his classmates comment on the fight as he goes to sit down. A classmate (Kaminari) says something along the lines of “I can’t believe you could bring yourself to go so hard against such a fragile/small girl”. And in response comes the single line that was catalyst for me shipping kacchako. “Where do you see fragile?”

This is the first time he’s defended someone other than himself or All Might in this series. It just goes to show that he really does acknowledge Uraraka and her strength, to the point that he’s willing to speak up and say that to others, albeit in a indirect way.

Wayyy later he continues to respect her!

This is part of a page spread of characters introductions as given by Bakugou and Uraraka’s is the only vaguely positive character introduction Bakugou gives. Everyone else gets something kind of aggressive and along the lines of ‘I’ll beat you’ or ‘you’re weak’ and then Uraraka gets ‘her guts and roundness are acceptable’. Other translations say “her guts and roundness are respectable’ and I’m not sure which is correct, but either way, respect!!

The fact that one of the times he was smiling during a fight was against Uraraka. If he only smiles when fighting people he consider to be “towering walls” aka challenges, he must have seen Uraraka as one. Further proof of respect!

Over and over in that Sports Festival fight and then after, Horikoshi makes it a point to establish that Bakugou respects Uraraka’s strength. And that’s a major reason that I ship them. I like that dynamic of two people knowing that the other can kick major ass and respecting the hell out of them for it, especially if one character doesn’t look like they can kick ass.

2. Understanding

This goes a little bit more from Uraraka to Bakugou than the other way around, to be honest, but it’s a reason I ship them all the same. This is shown most clearly in the post- midterm exams omake (which is only in the manga and not the anime).

I love this omake so much because first of all, it reveals that Uraraka watches Bakugou from across the classroom closely enough to pick up on changes in his mood (as evidenced when she says “I sensed your Bakurage Aura” to him) and second, it reveals that she can pick up on changes in his emotional state easily.

But the most important part of that omake is this panel.

This is huge.

The way she outright says that Bakugou is terrified of Izuku’s potential development shows a deep understanding of Bakugou’s emotions and mental state that’s very unique. We never see anything like this level of understanding from any of their other classmates in direct relation to Bakugou. When she says “you act all menacing”, it shows that she knows that Bakugou’s yelling and bluster is an act put on the distance Izuku because he’s scared of him.

This revelation wasn’t revealed to Deku and All Might until Deku v. Kacchan 2 when Bakugou told the two of them what he was feeling in terms that they could understand. And this was way before this, right after the midterm exams.

She follows this up by asking him to repair his relationship with Deku and be nicer to him. They hadn’t even interacted much, so the fact that she noticed this in the first place and then felt comfortable enough to tell him that to his face says a lot about how she understands him and is comfortable around him.

Bakugou is completely taken aback by this and sit and listens to her and lets her finish before yelling at her, which is big because if he didn’t respect what she had to say, he would have just cut her off and left, but he didn’t. That respect comes back into play.

So Uraraka genuinely gets Bakugou, both emotionally and mentally, and isn’t afraid to tell him about her observations, and that’s another big plus for me. I love how Uraraka can see right through him and catch him off guard every time they interact meaningfully. That deep understanding is an important part of any relationship, and the fact that she can analyze him like this, despite not being a close friend to him was interesting to me because of the potential for character development.

3. Character Development (both canon and potential)

Character development is a big thing for me when it comes to ships. I tend to really like ships that change a character for the better in some way or the other.

The Sports Festival fight changed the both of them. When Bakugou fought Todoroki and told him to give it his all, the speech bubble placement implies he was thinking of his fight with Uraraka when he said that. She’s his standard for a good fight now.

On the other end, Bakugou helped Uraraka realize that she didn’t need to exclusively focus on rescue with her Quirk and she takes an internship under Gunhead as a result, growing her character in a major way. Those Gunhead martial arts get used a lot later on by her, and none of that would have happened if her fight with Bakugou hadn’t happened. Overall, the Sports Festival fight was important to both their character arcs and I love that.

From the understanding part comes more possibility for character development. This is where their differing relationships with Deku come into play. One admires him and the other is scared of his growth. With her understanding of Bakugou and his relationship with Deku, Uraraka could genuinely help repair their relationship.

Also them as training partners! Not only do their Quirks have the potential for incredible compatibility (zero-gravity and explosions = human rockets/missiles??) but they could help the other with new skills. Uraraka could teach Bakugou Gunhead martial arts and help him improve his hand-to-hand Quirkless combat, Bakugou could help Uraraka with comabt awareness and increasing her power. He’s probably also got some ideas for creative applications of her Quirk. Make them training buddies, Horikoshi, I beg of you.

4. Other Things

Uraraka is completely chill with his foul-mouthed nature! She actually finds it even a little funny.

THE WAY SHE’S JUST NOT AT ALL SCARED TO THROW DOWN WITH HIM!! In the post midterms omake she even matches the Bakurage face at the end! She doesn’t take his shit at all and is 100% ready to fight again.

The chocolate manju scene from the war arc is hilarious to me because she’s comfortable enough around him to lightly reprimand him and the way he knows that she’s a foodie and wants to try the chocolate manju is really cute to me.

---

Of course, everything I said can also be platonically interpreted. I would just love for them to be friends in canon, and really, that’s what all of this logically leads to. I just like to dream about it slowly growing into romance during their pro hero years.

#you noticed more like your dash got flooded bc of me rip #kacchako #bakugou katsuki #uraraka ochako #I literally love this ship so much and think about them every day can you tell

45 notes · View notes

seijurosempress · 4 years ago

Text

@shoichee I hope this meets your expectations✨ (Bc I refuse to tolerate any more bullying today. Also- Matchup under the cut)

First, I just want to say- I’m sorry. (but not really). I know our love for Hayama runs deep but the moment you choose violence with him, that’s it for you. RIP. It was nice knowing you 😔 But, remember when we first spoke and I asked you if you shipped yourself with Imayoshi and you refused to answer my question? Well- [Insert ‘Surprise shawty’ tik tok audio]

Best Match: Imayoshi Shoichi

Your subconscious knew what it was doing when you picked out your URL. The moment you said you related to Dazai and then proceeded to talk about socioeconomic issues revolving around globalization while we simultaneously talked about dumb stuff I knew there were only a few guys that could handle your energy and Imayoshi hands down tops that list

Even though Hanamiya out of all people might say Imayoshi doesn’t have the best personality, I actually think you two can balance each other out and understand each other in a way other people may not be able to

Honestly, right off the bat, y’all will probably bond over some form of teasing. Whether it’s making some remark aimed directly at the other, or one of you takes a jab at someone else and the other happens to overhear, it will be the start of a beautiful relationship

Gemini and Leo’s have really good chemistry so it’s no surprise you’ll manage to get along, regardless of your- argumentative natures.

You two are like the two sides of the same coin. While he presents himself as a kind and easy going person, speaking politely to others- until he inevitable shows them his real personality- you, on the other hand, can come off a little cold and critical, scaring people off when you first meet them even though you’re genuinely kind and easy going once you start to talk to them

If you guys meet purely by chance, maybe you’re in the same class, you’re introduced because of a mutual friend, or because one of you overheard the other, the moment you hear how the other carries themselves in a conversation will automatically peek your interest.

Have you ever seen that meme where they’re like “oh you wanna kiss me so bad”? yea, that’s you two. I can see you getting into the most amusing squabble, just trying to throw the other one off, Imayoshi smirking if and when one of his comments goes right over your head

You’re both pretty smart (I spent a solid hour trying to double check this and still failed but I’m like 80% sure his IQ is pretty up there) so I can see you two meeting because of that too

Scenario:

Imayoshi is just minding his business, checking the updated class rankings posted in the hall across your classroom. Why? He doesn’t know, if he’s being honest. It’s not like anyone could ever surpass him, he’s been at the top of his class each time since his firs- What’s this? He got bumped down? Who the hell are you? Wait no, he knows who you are. He’s heard your name before countless times, mostly followed by your voice as it traveled throughout the hallways, your laugh bubbling out of your small frame soon after in reply to whichever friend had just made a funny remark. Funny. You didn’t seem all that smart at first glance, could he have actually... made a mistake? His gaze flickers to the other side of the hall where he immediately found you, eyes wide and a small smile adorning your features as you listened to your classmate speak. A low hum escapes him as he analyzes your appearance once more. He notices the way your makeup highlighted your already attractive features, the small accessories added to your uniform making you look put together and stylish. Maybe he had underestimated you, he though as he saw you take your turn to speak, your answer leaving your classmate open mouthed with a baffled expression. He felt the slight tug on his lips, the beginning of a small smirk forming on his face as you smiled widely at the response you had gotten. However, the amusement only lasted a split second, his features falling in disbelief when you turned around, tripping over your own feet and falling face first into the open classroom door. “What are you staring at?” Someone, probably Sato, asks as he strolls up beside him. “Nothing” he sighs, adjusting his glasses on his face. Is it really nothing though? a small voice inside him asks just as a series of curse words and noises fall from your lips, eliciting his own to quirk up into an amused, lopsided smile. Even if it is “nothing” for now, don’t be surprised when both of you “coincidentally” find yourselves bumping into each other more often from now on as he tries to figure you out.

I can see him realizing he has feelings for you while you two are hanging out. Maybe you two will be studying after you asked him to tutor you in math since it’s his best subject, or well, attempting to study at least as you’re nearing half an hour of your 5 minute snack break. He’ll probably be doodling in his notebook while you scroll through Instagram, and it’s not until he looks up to see you so focused on whatever was on the other side of the screen, your fingers quickly tapping away as a smile pulled at your lips that he asks what you’re doing. Without a second thought, you absentmindedly tell him about whatever argument you’re getting into in the comments section under a random photo you came across before you’re back to focusing on the matter at hand.

His whole trademark is that he’s good at analyzing people, and as a Gemini, he is not an exception to his own skills. He’ll suddenly come to the realization that, while he enjoys pushing people’s buttons, he enjoys the thought of you two being a team even more. While you can be loud and social, making and laughing at jokes, you also know when to get serious and get stuff done, something that that he would appreciate considering he likes respectful and considerate girls.

The problem now is- he may be aware of his feelings...but are you?

He’ll probably try out multiple ways to hint at his feelings towards you but they’ll just go right over your head. In your mind, you can’t see anyone having any romantic feelings towards you and sure he may be acting a little weird, but you’d probably just shrug it off as it being all in your imagination.

Meanwhile the whole time Imayoshi is just standing there like- Is she serious? No one can be this oblivious???? but yet ✨here you are✨

Now it’s his turn to be frustrated by your conversations because you’re just not getting it? So he decides to try something more straight forward. Girls like pickup lines, right?

He could literally see the moment your brain stopped working. Your face flushed red as a nervous giggle bubbled out of you. All common sense left your body as you made finger guns at him, giving him a slight nod before turning around and walking quickly out the room

it would take you a few minutes to collect yourself, strolling back in the room 30 minutes later, leaning against the same spot you left him moments prior and giving him a pickup line of your own. *queue Imayoshi’s mischievous smirk* “Oh? Is that so?” (he’s such a little shit he’ll probably pretend like he didn’t say anything first to get back at you)

I can see this going back and forth for a while until he finally asks you out on a date, but this time he’ll make sure to do it in a way that will prevent you from escaping and leaving him alone and confused again

Your PDA is most likely kept to a minimum, partly because of your Venus in Virgo and partly because he doesn’t like spontaneity. Your outward relationship will consist of hand holding and pecks but that doesn’t mean your private life remains the same, just because you’re dating now doesn’t mean you’re suddenly immune to his habits or him to yours

You say you want to spend some quality time together? “How about a movie night?” he asks, his smile deceiving you long enough to trap you in his arms as a scary movie plays in his blacked out bedroom. “I don’t like scary movies” you whine, your body pressing into his and a pout pulling at your lips as he “innocently” chuckles, “Oh really? I must have forgotten”

You say you’re a bit cynical about relationships but I think it’s because your Neptune, Pluto and Lilith are ruled by air signs. This means you enjoy spontaneity and creativity in what you do and therefore always gravitate to doing things in which your outcome depends on yourself and not other people. Imayoshi is the kind of person that respects other people’s needs as we can see when he allows Aomine to skip practice if that’s what works for him. This will help you maintain a healthy balance in your relationship, allowing you to be able to feel more at ease and not trapped or like you have to be a certain way with one another

You decide to keep pursuing dancing? He’s proud of you, and will not hesitate to show off and boast about your achievements to the rest of the team

You had a rough week and you want to spend the whole day gaming with headphones on? It’s fine he’ll take the opportunity to relax and go fishing

On the other hand, you want to go shopping? Suddenly he’ll find himself walking hand in hand with you as you and his sister stop at every single store only to leave with more bags that you can carry.

At first, you would insist you could both take care of yourselves at the mall, but he soon found out that you two should not be left alone. She might be his sister but she’s younger and impressionable and she looks up to you? And you can be a bit scatterbrained so you lose track of her time so you always end up bringing her back really late, along with an armful of shopping bags that he’ll only have to go back and return within the week because being hasty runs in his family and his sister didn’t pay much attention to how much money she was spending

Overall- I think that what really makes you a good match is your ability to communicate with one another. Both of you are pretty honest and straightforward (although your executions are vastly different) which will help you navigate through any obstacles in your relationship

You keep each other on your toes and bring fun into your relationship while also settling down, talking about serious stuff and getting genuine advice from one another when you need it the most. The balance you maintain allowing a stable foundation for the relationship to grow and blossom. He did something hasty? It’s okay, you know exactly what to do to fix it. Someone keeps hitting on you insistently? He’s already walked over to intimidate him to go away. You want to spend quality time together but he wants to go fishing? There you are by his side, scribbling in your notebook and reciting your poetry to him as he listens carefully with a small smile on his face that you’ll definitely not tease him about later. You need help with your math again? he’ll tutor you in exchange for you making him a bento with his favorite meal. Until he learns that you somehow burned half the rice and left the other half uncooked. Perfect balance of give and take.

Bonus: Takao Kazunari

You are literally the girl version of Takao omg. (I literally JUST got your message about being the new Takao too smh I know I’m slow but let me finish this first)

You two are so alike and you would make the most chaotic duo but as much as I want to ship you two, I can just see you two being really good friends so I feel the need to include him in this

Midorima would be so done with your shit, he’d probably see you two together and immediately turn around and start walking the other way because he just KNOWS you’re bound to gang up and bully him

The first time you saw is lucky item you probably burst out laughing and thought he was joking until you saw his face flush red

After that, every time you ask about it he just grumbles out his answer, still salty about your initial reaction

Takao never fails to remind you either, trying to hold back his laugh whenever you try to make it up to Midorima but he ends up ignoring you, or you somehow just manage to make it worse

When it’s just you and Takao, you could be minding your business when suddenly one of you makes ONE singular little comment and that just sets off the other, adding onto it until both of you are crying with laughter

Honestly, the only time I can see you taking one another seriously is when you’re having discourse

He’s an optimistic person while you’re a realist which can set off some very interesting discussions between the two of you, your argumentative nature leading both of you to talk about anything and everything as you challenge the other’s ideologies

If you decide to try out a relationship, it’ll be filled with excitement and adrenaline, both of you needing very little persuasion to try out new things

You’ll be his partner in crime and he’ll be yours. You want to mess a bit with your younger neighbors? Why not? You want to go check out the new mall a few town’s over because they have a store you’ve been wanting to check out for months? He’s your man.

While the relationship is fun, you both can get a little ahead of yourselves, going with the flow and getting sucked into your own world; you’ll need someone to ground you

Usually, this role can be plaid by Midorima but it proves to be a bit problematic when he’s nowhere in sight

The amount of times you two have lost track of time or gotten caught up in something because you ran into some friends or even met new people and got lost in conversation, by this point Midorima has probably given up trying to keep track of your whereabouts when you’re together

I wouldn’t be surprised if you two ended up making your own language. He’s good with kids and bad at being quiet while you enjoy making new words and trying out sound effects which he would without a doubt find amusing. You’d probably go as far as to make children believe they’re actual words, could you imagine Midorima’s face when he goes over to Takao’s house and his younger sister starts talking to him in the made up words you taught her

Ultimately while your personalities are very alike, you tend to clash at the wrong points and it would take you working together to compromise to make a romantic relationship work

Both of you surround yourself by others, often finding yourself in the middle of everything, your personality constantly making other people gravitate towards you. This can prove conflicting when you’re together as now you’d have to learn how to share the spotlight, so to say

While you love fashion and makeup and shopping, the poor man just wants to enjoy his trading cards

Although you should use it to your advantage and make him drive you around in Princess Mia’s Midorima’s carriage.

Your might also find yourself more often than not at a crossroads, your realist point of view conflicting with his positivity which can lead to arguments between you two

Overall- a relationship with you would be exciting. There would never be a dull moment and you’d constantly encourage the other to have new experiences and make the most of your time. But moving into a more romantic territory would mean that you’d have to learn how to prioritize things in your life, knowing when to buckle down and get things down and how to successfully come to terms with and work out your differences.

Sidenote: I meant to make these a little longer but my brain cell only has so much KNB knowledge stored in her small little filing cabinet that may or may not be a single folder covered in dust and stuffed in some corner

#matchup request #[🏀].asks #i meant to have this ready early today #but i may or may not have fallen asleep #sorry #i'm slow #it really took me a whole ass week to write #but to be fair #i struggled a bit with your mans #bc I went strictly off what I could gather from the anime #which are CRUMBS

14 notes · View notes

rinharu-purple · 4 years ago

Text

Mr. Love MC’s Choice: Gavin

We fellow producers all have our favorite LI in the game for whom we save our gems and dates, replay their chapters over and over again, sucking our bank accounts dry during the process. And that’s what makes this game so fun! However in my opinion MC’s personal choice is Gavin. I will try to explain it as thoroughly as possible in this post. Obviously they are only my personal opinions at the end of the day so please don’t freak out if you beg to differ ^_^

There are spoilers ahead and this post is a long one, you were warned!

A big, warm hug and grandious thanks to @smallersocksx for proof reading so fast and sharing her ideas! <3 </p>

Up until now, I’ve always analyzed ships in subtopics, so this time won’t be any different so I will just dive right into it:

Body Language

The law of attraction between two people in a romantic way has some thumb rules, one of them is that when you like someone then you try to touch them at every opportunity. From all of our LI’s Gavin is by far the one with the most body contact to the MC (The main story only atm, I will come to his dates in a minute ;)). I think the anime speaks for itself, in every single Gavin episode and some of other LI’s episodes (ahem…ep 10 but also ep 11…ahem) Gavin and MC are always in an embrace or a meaningful “hands-on” moment…In the game MC and Gavin are quite often touchy with each other, MC seems to not holding her hands back every time she feels like Gavin’s hurt and reflexively touches him, she is also highly concerned about his hair since every time his hair get messed up by the wind, rain or hormones (swh ;)), MC doesn’t waste any second before correcting his hair. Every reunion they have results in MC reaching out her hands towards Gavin and surprisingly never other way around. Even in a perillious moment in chapter 22 when Gavin goes completely wild and unleashes his “beast-self” the first thing MC wants to do is embrace him. In chapter 24, at the very end among all routes, MC only tells Gavin that she’s missed him and hugs him. Chapter 27...again MC wants to check Gavins body for injuries and tends to them the second they are alone in a closed room. They both yearn for each other’s touch all the way, no matter in which narrative.

If I were to start counting Gavin’s touchy touchy moments on the other hand, then we have to prepare a 4 volumes encyclopedia because that male individual is all about touching MC. Another hint for their closeness is that MC makes notes on Gavin’s scent quite often, mostly related to his jacket or his embrace and while doing it, she always uses adjectives like “clean”, “distinct” or “unique”. Again in ch. 15 she knows its Gavin standing behind her even without looking, because she senses his scent: “A scent that I’d recognize anywhere”. Surely there are many scenes, where MC holds hands with another LI or makes a remark of their scent, but they are not at the intensity or frequency level that of Gavin’s.

2. The Setting

All four LI’s are representing a certain archetypes women are usually attracted to:

Kiro is a pop idol (target audience 13-15)

Victor is the young successful businessman with a high dominant demeanour and Mr. Grey-ish attitude (target audience 25 upwards or any 50 shades of Grey reader)

Lucien is a young attractive professor with a mysterious and enigmatic vibe (target audience 20-24)

Gavin is the misunderstood bad boy (high school) and later a righteous police officer (16-19 for the bad boy Gavin and 20 upwards for the righteous police officer, special agent, military commander... a pilot?! anything including a uniform fetish)

So, in the game, Elex could take any of these paths and develop it in a way that the chosen path becomes a true love story. I gotta admit, Victor’s story comes at times very close to being one. However, his never-ending bickering and belittling in his 90% of the time cold demeanour just make him lose major points. Plus, MC mostly goes along with Victor’s tone, even though she is a kind and friendly person, she bickers with Victor not because that’s her personality but because that’s the way she can cope with him. If only he were a little bit less domineering.. Which is why I never feel like MC and Victor would belong together irl.

Seemingly Elex and Mappa take Gavin’s way imo. Because…

In the main story MC loves all of the LIs in a different way and also has romantic feelings to each one of them to a certain degree, but when we look at it closely and read in between the lines of MC’s thoughts Gavin is a little bit more romantically portrayed than the other guys.

a) First of all Gavin had a crush on MC during high school cannonically: Even though Gavin only says that it was a farewell letter, MC says once that she wishes that she could’ve read that “love letter”. I will stop here with Gavin’s feelings because this post focuses on MC.

b) MC, too, was kinda into Gavin during high school because in Episode 18, when she goes to Loveland Hugh during her farewell tour before going with her ultimate sacrifice , she remembers Gavin in intimate things like “watching his athletic body” or “wearing men’s clothes-meaning his-”. Additionally she remembers taking note of his face shining in the sun in the very back of the line during her recital. Even before it all she was specifically interested in him. Her memories with the other LI s are comprised of rather friendly moments like flying kites together but when it comes to Gavin she once again thinks about more intimate elements. Not to mention that the game gives MC a farewell with Gavin. In her final moments she only thinks that for Gavin her grievance would be the hardest. In the End of the Abyss era (ch. 15-18) MC meets all of the LIs after their changes again and reacts to all of them with joy…surely, but only when she sees Gavin hovering above her in the helicopter it is again…drum roll…drama: “The next second I saw a pair of amber eyes…shining like brilliant skies” this girl is always romanticizing Gavin.

“-Can you hear me?

-Can you see me?

-See my heart pounding again at the sight of you?” (so are you saying that your heart wasn’t pounding before? oh ok ;))

Fast forward to CH34 where MC fights Leto for the final time and remembers our guys and again, while she remembers other LIs for their sacrifices and their protection of her, she remembers Gavin's warm arms...

c)The game takes his time and turns the half of a whole chapter into a date in chapter15 Ep 1-9. There is no other chapter in the game where MC spends time with any of the other LI’s in which there is only the two of them, whereas nothing relevant to the main story happens and they share solely many sweet, romantic and almost hot (when MC tries to dry Gavin’s face in her flat and realizes that she stands way too close to him, she then prepares herself to say something, but gets interrupted by the alarm) and again, MC is getting close to Gavin, not the other way around like Lucien pushing MC against the blackboard, that little sneaky Lucien (actually I could write a post with a masterlist of Lucien’s advances to MC:D).

d) MC’s premonitions revolve mostly around Gavin (when they are not about the whole world or the black queen). Her dream about the rooftop rescue, her Room 404 dream, her daydream in the office in 6-13 in which Gavin’s suffering and from which she wakes up crying out his name leading to Willow, Kiki and Anna remark on playfully how unfair it is to dream about Gavin and disregarding the other guys. She also sees his future in episode 15 twice! If I am not mistaken, she only sees Victor’s future once in her dream and a vague vision of him in ch 18 but other than that she has no premonitions about Lucien or Kiro. Besides in the anime MC uses her power unintentionally yet instinctively twice while having Gavin in mind in episodes 5 and 8. The third time, she uses her powers in this way is in episode 11 with Victor but he is not her driving force for this but she is driven by the imminent danger they both are in and she doesn’t particularly think about Victor at this moment. In the game it additionally happens in chapter 22 when Gavin is cornered by the mechanical arms and is in a tight spot, this sight makes MC have a surge of rage and to unleash her powers in a great magnitude. Gavin is Queen’s soft spot i.e. More importantly Gavin is a constant part of MC’s future frame. She has her visions about other LI’s past but when it comes to Gavin it’s only his future. MC doesn’t have visions about Gavin’s past, like, ever. While Kiro, Lucien and Victor are stuck in their pasts with MC, Gavin has made peace with his past, is living in the present and looking forward the future (one of his best qualities imo, not being stuck in the past). Ironically, it’s MC, who’s stuck in the past in Gavin’s case.

e) I will intentionally not delve much into S2 stuff, but one thing has to be in this post…We know that in S2 MC goes back in time and relives the last 17 years. During these 17 years she makes sure to spend her high school years close to Gavin. So given the chance to rewrite her past, she would choose to make good for the lost years that she regretted dearly in S1 (she gushes out about her regrets in S2 Late Autumn Date in detail). We are yet to find out more about the nature of their relationship during high school, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a “will they, won’t they” situation. Since the game wouldn’t put any of the guys in an ex-boyfriend role, that would be the most romantic frame possible.

3. How other people see Gavin x MC

f) In CH 36, the one before CH 37, where every LI gets the same intimate moment with MC, only Lucien and Gavin are getting close to kissing her to which MC doesn't show any rejection towards... She is the one accidentally kissing Gavin btw and this is the only time before CH37 that MC either accidentally or willingly kiss any LI on his face or near his lips.

g) In S1, MC only posts two pics with the boys in her moments. One of them is a selfie with Lucien and the second one is with Gavin, hugged from behind. No other LIs ever have a moment with MC. Neither on their accounts, nor on MCs.

It is always a good indicator to look at how other characters perceive a particular ship. For Gavin and MC, it is almost obvious that once they are standing side by side, others see them instantly as a couple. Sure, at the orphanage some children ask Lucien if MC is his girlfriend or that one actress threatens MC to stay away from Victor because he’s hers (btw what happened to her?) With Gavin however, it’s practically a running joke.

As mentioned above, her once daydream in the office with Gavin shoutout in CH 6-13 drew the attention of her co-workers, leading them to mock her for thinking about him too much even though her dream was rather a nightmare. Besides, Gavin is the one showing up the most in MC’s office and he also lift her up to his shoulders once in the Visiting Hours date and Homer took a pic of that hilarious moment.

Every time MC is at STF HQ, respectively, Gavin’s co-workers or subordinates too take note of her presence and in chapter 12 they are even caught red-handed by one of the agents as MC is busy “correcting” Gavin’s hair (because see point 1). Eli seems to be aware of the intimacy between the two and even probably assumes that they’ve done the deed, because in ch 12 he is surprised to hear that MC hasn’t seen Gavin’s wound yet. He presumes that she already saw him naked…oh Eli! Season 2 has even more eminent scenes, we just have to wait and see.

In chapter 15 when they deliver Perry to the hospital, they are mistaken to be his parents by the hospital personnel not once but twice! Needless to say, they don’t find it necessary to correct the misunderstanding. I mean Perry is, what, 6…MC 22, Gavin 24 but they automatically think that they must be the parents?! Sure thats common sense- wink wink nudge nudge ¬‿¬ -

In chapter 22 Shaw makes a comment on MC willing to go to where Gavin is with a “Really, all you do is following him, isn’t it?”. He uses MC to trigger Gavin in Airport date as well.

And of course, there is Minor…The ultimate number one wingman and the most original Gavin-stan! Minor uses everything in his power to bring them together both in the main story and in dates. He even calls her Sis-in-Law in public in CH 35 which MC doesn't reject. This doesn’t even need explanation.

Last but not least:

Their couple chemistry went viral lol.

Visually speaking, when they stand side by side, for me Gavin and MC look the most like a couple (Kiro is too childish and fashion icony compared to MC and Victor is too mature and business attire-ish making him look like her uncle rather than boyfriend, Lucien is the only one besides Gavin who actually suits MC visually). I am not saying that looks are the main indicator btw so don’t lynch me please ^_^

Come to think about it, MCs life is intertwined with that of Gavin's the most. Considering how she knows his father, brother and colleagues and spends so much time in "his world" whether it's at STF or NW. In the main story MC and Gavin have their favorite restaurants (ehm it's never souvenir due to obvious reasons 😉), share the same passion for music, have many common memories from high school and most importantly their world views are very similar. Both are prioritizing others safety over themselves and are compassionate for anyone who is in need. They are both ambitious and hardworking but not to the point of being power driven. Both are humble and finding hapinness in the smallest things. Maybe that's why they say the same things simultaneously or say the things the other would say simultaneously. MC and Gavin are highly compatible and have a harmonious, healthy relationship despite the conspiracy around them.

4. Anime

Okay okay, listen…Yes, the anime wasn’t the best adaptation and many of us were disappointed by the ending (including me), still, the anime makes a part of canon MLQC universe and no Gavin-stan should complain about the anime because the anime put canonically Gavin on a pedestal. In a total of 12 episodes, all guys had 2 episodes each BUT Gavin was actually blessed with 3 episodes and so many romantic moments to count…let’s count them anyways :)

Mappa introduces all guys in episode 1 so MC encounters them all in the first 25 minutes but she first meets Gavin in episode 2 and the two spend almost the entire time of the episode together, not to mention the extremely romantic first-fly scene in the sunset. As I mentioned in point 1, MC and Gavin are always in physical contact in any given episode. Anime made sure to portray every single interaction they have romantically.

They even went so far to mix Gavin scenes in other guys episodes (he offers her a ride to work in ep 3, she has an emotional moment with him after the first shooting misunderstanding while Lucien is standing right next to her in ep 4, Gavin is the one to catch MC mid-air in ep 10, this episode ends with them in their life and death embrace falling down in dawn… and then he falls on her in ep 11).

When it’s a Gavin episode MC has no romantic scenes with any of the other guys, let alone having any scenes at all. Its only about Gavin in Gavin episodes. Also, the storyline is edited in a way that between MC and Gavin a romantic story develops. Their meet cute conspiracy, their misunderstanding with Lucien, followed by the “drop the senpai” offer and finally that 5 seconds long gaze deeply in the eyes in ep 8 while holding hands.

It is really sad that the anime ruined this development in the final episode but taking into consideration that there might be a second season, they probably chose to make the change in Gavin’s character after the NW project remarkable.

Another point in the anime is that they kinda exaggerate Gavin’s Evol a little bit. During his stand-off with Lucien Gavin’s bullet cuts through Lucien’s shield and all in ep 8,11 and 12 there is a significant emphasis on the intensity and destructive power of Gavin’s Evol. I mean, whose Evol is the most upfront one in episode 12? We see Lucien using his Evol only twice, both very briefly, Kiro/Helios/Key and Victor even have to use guns to protect themselves and/or MC. Gavin’s shown using a pistole once at the beginning, after that it’s all turbines and tornadoes and just Gavin unleashed.

I think it’s an exaggeration because in my personal opinion, Lucien is actually the one with the strongest Evol, followed by Victor and then comes Gavin. Lucien’s ability to copy an Evol is simply the strongest trait one could have, sure it comes with the downside that he then doesn’t have enough time and focus to excel in any of those Evols, Victor can literally create black holes are you kidding me?! But because his Evol has its limits it puts him in the second place. But in the anime, Gavin’s Evol is extremely powerful and destructive and they also created some really cool scenes in which Gavin uses his Evol in various styles (accelerating his bullets speed, dodging a bullet, lifting MC in any and every situation, flying- obviously- and sometimes just overpowered destruction).

But in the anime in comparison, Lucien looks like a copy-cat of Evols and Victor like someone who travels through time to find out nothing can change the course of events (on a side note I will never understand why did Mappa toned down Victor so heartlessly, he is a powerful character and has countless sweet, emotional moments with MC).

5. Dates

I left dates to the end because they are highly subjective and don’t belong to the main story. NEVERTHELESS, Gavin’s dates include here and there some hints which may indicate that MC tends to like Gavin maybe just a little bit more. I will just add it as bullet points here since I’m pretty sure that the list will be enriched over time.

Slightly drunken date: Shouting out loud in public “Gavin! I’m crazy for you!”

When the Galaxy Falls Date: “...and in that moment, I make an eternal vow in my heart. To give all the blazing love and the most endless warmth to the person in front of me. Standing on my tiptoes, I carry a heart which is filled with courage to move forward, receiving Gavin.”

2 become 1 date “No matter whether the wedding is real or fake I only want to be your bride.” Here comes the Groom event where MC had a prob wedding with each and every LI but she actually only wanted to be Gavin’s bride (obviously Gavin’s heard her loud and clear since he’s bought a gem/ring right after) and that gem is brought up in…

The Returning from Afar Date - Thank you for silently watching over my mood. Thank you for always returning to my side no matter where you go. The white muslin drifts to and fro. My heart stirs, and I gently touch the muslin in front of me. Sunlight streams in. My fingertips brush the soft white muslin, tracing the word “Gavin” on it. I turn my head to the side, blinking at Gavin a little playfully. “This word - apart from it being your name, it also has another meaning. It’s “courage”. MC getting poetic, but who wouldn’t in that date (thank you @smallersocksx for reminding me and without @cheri-translates we poor Eng-server players would be left in the dark so thank you for translating season 2 for us!!!) but than MC verbally and literally makes her feelings clear in…

Late autumn date (2nd season translation by @cheri-translates) “I close my eyes, holding onto his solid arms. I lift my head to welcome his lips, savouring his unique breath. The person in front of me has shed off the roughness of youth, leaving behind only the purity of youth. He often makes me forget that he once used to be unrestrained like the wind. He has a body that is stronger than everyone else’s, a tough soul, a will that is as firm as steel, and a heart full of tenderness – it is soft beyond compare.

I cling to his waist tightly using my calves, wanting to brand every part of him into my heart.

“I want to bear his everything.”

Gavin: “Do you like it?”

“I like it…I like it very much…I like it so much that I don’t know how to prove how much I like it” “The rest of my life is yours, The years that we’ve missed out on are also yours” (whatever I have, I will give it to you. I will give everything to you, leaving nothing behind)

I rest my case

#mlqc #mlqc gavin #mlqc haku #mlqc bai qi #mlqc baek gi #mr love queen's choice #koi to producer #studio mappa #elex #papergames #mldd #analysis #tag your otp #romance #anime couple

88 notes · View notes

vowled · 4 years ago

Text

Unpopular Opinion: Johnlock edition

So, I am, as invariably suggested by my blog and username, a major Sherlock fan. I absolutely love it. The first time I watched it, I immediately related to it, and my peabag brain instantly saw a friend in John Watson. Sherlock’s character, on the other hand, was quite unconventional to me. I couldn’t bring myself to quite like him for the first 2 episodes. He was.....different. I knew I wanted to watch the series just for the dynamic duo and their and sweet friendship. The cases I couldn’t at first care for much, but eventually that changed too. I always was completely amazed by how well they had managed to adapt the series to the 21st century and their subtle winks to the original canon too was quite impressive. Eventually, I fell in love with it, and proceeded to watch the entire series thrice. in a row. I was, and still am, completely obsessed.

Then came the thought, which was also somehow initially suggested subtly by the show itself, ” What if Sherlock and John are in Love?” I must agree, I had read too many conspiracy theories about certain celebs being closeted to not come up with that question.

At first it was just a thought. But then, critical analyses on tumblr came up. I couldn’t stop reading them?! and so many of them were thought-provoking and persuasive and honestly, I was living for it. The phone = heart theory is still one of the best Theories I’ve read among all the fandoms I’ve ever been in. And that is just one among many. JohnLock was everywhere. Other ships were persistent, but none could reach the amount of fervor as JohnLock. And I was living for it too. I still really enjoy all the adorable fanfics and the ever-interesting theories, and honestly, at this point, my motto is “I’ll find homoerotic subtext even if it kills me”.

Shipping is ok, shipping is good. But here’s the deal we need to talk about: we shouldn’t justify our ships to the point of interpreting every action as romantic. This propagates unrealistic expectations and results in harmful stereotypes.

Yes, I’m talking about the unending debate on Johnlock.

From season one itself, Johnlock was phenomenal. It is widely argued that the show-runners themselves inserted subtle hints, and hence, birthed this beast on their own. The Sherlock fandom remains one of the oldest fandoms in the world, with its beginnings rooted in the Nineteenth Century when ASiS was published, and since then many have argued about the latent homosexual subtext embedded into the writing, my point here being people have been shipping Johnlock for well over a hundred years. Hence, It’s not really a surprise that people are still drawn to this ship. But to be shipped by this magnitude of people? This invariably suggests that there’s material provided to us by the creators themselves that is very blatantly obvious about the relationship. And while in most cases shipping two characters is completely okay in itself, according to me, shipping Johnlock has further validation in the fact that there is proof of intent of it becoming canon eventually (at least in the first two seasons).

Like I said before, shipping is OK, shipping is good.

But is shipping okay if we take it to the point of over-analysing every move?

Sherlock is a comfort character for me. God knows half of my maladaptive daydreams are about him being a father figure towards me. My entire twitter tl and Tumblr dashboard is stuffed with cutesy or angsty things about him, and that’s great! But being in the fandom for about eight months, I’ve realised how this sort of feed eventually resulted in me completely forgetting the original storyline, and more importantly, in me forgetting how flawed a character Sherlock is!

Everyone(including me, the first time) freaks out in HLV because of how Sherlock isn’t listed as John’s pressure point. I, however, think we should question ourselves: Why should John still consider Sherlock that tantalizingly close to himself as he was in the beginning? John learnt his best friend had died, and he decided to do the bravest thing he could: make peace with it and move on. BUT NO! The Ghost of the man who loved him returned from the grave to haunt him! Here I talk about the other possible reasons why Sherlock wasn’t a pressure point for John in HLV.

I am tired of this constant sugarcoating of Sherlock’s character. I am tired of seeing constant posts about how Sweet and caring Sherlock is and how much he loves John and how he loved her more than Mary. I am done with over analysis of every single shot where Sherlock looks at John, completely done. This shot below? It’s been overused for so many fanfics and cheesy romantic lines that I forgot that it’s supposed to be a look of GUILT.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sherlock so dearly because he’s a very unlikeable character. That is precisely what sets him so far apart from the other characters. Sherlock started off with a hateful and dismissive character, but through the course of the events he undergoes a lot of emotional development. And that is truly noteworthy. In TFP he said for Mycroft, “ He did the best he could (for Eurus)...” and that is truly sentimental. This sort of development is always heartwarming.

What I want people to understand is that Analysis is, obviously, important. And CRITICAL ANALYSIS more so. And it’s saddening to see so many people glossing over the critical part of the analysis. Why is it so wrong to point out HOW HURTFUL SHERLOCK’S ACTIONS TOWARDS JOHN HAVE BEEN? Why is it wrong to to point out Johnlockers borderline bully other shippers?

Can we finally talk about the problematic aspects of Johnlock, or rather Johnlockers?

Even though I’m relatively new to the fandom, I’ve noticed how dismissive people are of anything negative said about Sherlock. In the beginning, it was endearing, really; but now I see this pattern of constantly singing praises of Sherlock’s character, and it has lead me to realize how detrimental it can be to the relatively younger audiences. Sherlock is Rude, period. There’s no question about it. And this constant glorifying of his rudeness and arrogance and dismissing it as a quirk could very well possibly give the impression that arrogance and vanity are in fact not so bad, and hell, it might make one seem a little cooler even ! Oh, don’t be mad if I act like my comfort character ! I’m quirky like that !

Constant bashing of the creators. And when I say constant, I mean it. This sort of bashing about is never-ending. And when I say this, I don’t mean that the creators were perfect; some of their mistakes were, quite frankly, blatantly ignorant ( like Irene the Canon Lesbian falling for Sherlock), but I don’t see enough people praising it for what it is. Even now there is so much slander against the creators ( and personally I feel bad for Mark Gatiss because he’s actually on twitter and is constantly spammed). Is it really a surprise that the creators hate the fans and especially the Johnlockers? Was it supposed to be so shocking when Martin said that being in the show wasn’t very fun anymore because of the fans?

We just don’t actually analyze anymore! I get that we haven’t got any new content for FOUR muheffing years but please I literally don’t see anything that’s actually interesting or analytical anymore and that kills me because that was the reason I joined this fandom- to read and comprehend the subtext, and the AMAZING META! All I see are cute couple-ish pics of ben and Martin and tbh we can do so much better than that?!

Johnlockers have so much actual stuff to talk about? There is literally so much going on Subtextually, and yet all I see is people losing their mind over any interaction between Sherlock and John. This is so unfair! AND it’s detrimental too! With people painting every interaction as romantic in nature, the younger teenagers in this fandom who might not have experienced Love or Attraction may glean unrealistic ideas about them! It is difficult as it is to navigate oneself through romantic entanglements, let alone being fed such rose-colored ideas! And I say this because although I don’t know much about the audience on Tumblr, but Stan Twitter is like, (at least) 50 percent teenager-fuelled. It actually isn’t healthy for them at all.

Stop with the Benedict-worshipping for God’s sakes. Are you only in here because of him? We all get it, he’s absolutely stunning but come on, we’re here for the stories too right?

Romantic love is important, no doubt. But you know what’s completely overlooked? The platonic sort of love. And it’s tiring. Sherlock and Molly/Janine/Irene/John are all amazing duos and each pair has it’s own uniqueness and tang to it! Let’s not constantly dissect everything in the name of shipping, shall we?

lol looking back at it, I feel like it’s a vent rant for the prevailing circumstances on Stan Twitter. I apologize if anything I said hurt anyone, it wasn’t meant to. I completely understand that shipping people is for...recreation (?) but this was just my opinion. Let me know what you think about it!

#sherlock bbcsherlock im prolly gonna get a lot of hate for it maybe i should delete it but nah it took a long time to type dont hateme

8 notes · View notes

gusu-emilu · 4 years ago

Text

Cantatio: Chapter Four

Ship: Lan Zhan / Wei Ying (POV Lan Zhan)

Summary: Wei Ying and Nie Huaisang cause trouble in Lan Qiren’s class. Lan Zhan isn’t amused.

Cloud Recesses Academy AU, Rated T (technically this is a series but this chapter can stand alone too) - read on AO3

< Ch. 3 | Ch. 5 > | chapter list

Lan Wangji had expected the first day of classes to be long.

But not this long.

The expression ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ had never held much truth for the young cultivator, who believed that a better phrasing would be ‘time proceeds at a pace directly proportional to one’s concentration.’

Being trained in Daoist meditation techniques since his first sign of infantile self-awareness had granted Lan Wangji the ability to bend his perception of time with his focus. When he rose long before dawn and sat in Lotus Position to meditate, the silent depths of stillness enabled him to traverse hours in what felt like the blink of an eye, yet the insights he obtained remained undistorted by the time skip.

Unless he was disrupted by the loud crash of Wei Wuxian falling out of bed on the other side of the room.

But that was beside the point.

The more Lan Wangji focused, the faster the world moved. His studies were one of the pursuits that he paid the most careful attention to. He listened to professors with unwavering interest, picking up on the slightest inflections of their voices, and he ruminated on intriguing sentences for hours after a lesson finished. Therefore it made sense that although the school day would be long, its duration would be reasonable, for his mind would be well-occupied.

Yet Lan Qiren was still lecturing about Ancient Texts, and it was only the first class of the day!

The problem was not a lack of interest. Ancient Texts had always been a special aptitude of Lan Wangji. The problem was that he wasn’t fully focused on the lecture, and therefore it dragged on. As Lan Qiren’s stentorian voice intoned perfectly pronounced phrases of poetry, his mind kept ping-ponging between thoughts of what he would say to Wen Qing about last night, what Wei Wuxian looked like while sleeping—no, that never crossed his mind—and what could be inside the strange closet that sat smugly in his dorm room. He imagined that the closet was fully aware of the mess it had caused and was snickering at the shameful memory of Lan Wangji being thrown around a girls’ dormitory by a giant beetle.

Rule #1034: Learning comes first.

Lan Wangji needed to recenter his focus.

He picked up his brush and pressed the end of its handle into his palm. It was highly improper to mistreat a calligraphy tool like this, but Lan Wangji was getting desperate.

The pressure from the blunt wood roused him back into the moment.

Lan Qiren was pacing alongside the disciples’ desks, his mustache whiskers quivering as he spoke with a stern yet aloof tone.

“The poem I just recited was translated from an ancient predecessor to our language. Of course, translations never capture the full nuance of a passage. Therefore, now that you have heard but a cloudy reflection of this magnus opus, we will begin analyzing the poem in its original language, Trans-Himalayan,” Lan Qiren said.

The entire classroom groaned. Nie Huaisang rested his chin in his palm, looking the most bored out of everyone.

“What’s the point?” Wei Wuxian muttered. “When are we ever going to need to know Trans-Himalayan?”

“Shut up. You’ll need to know Trans-Himalayan if you want to pass the class. That should be enough,” hissed Jiang Cheng.

A few moments later, Nie Huaisang leaned over. “…Who are Tran, Sim, and Leia? They sound like the type to have a threesome.”

“…”

Every disciple in the room sucked in a collective breath of shocked amusement, their twisted smiles on the verge of bursting.

Nie Huaisang opened his silk fan and covered his own smirk in a hurry, looking at the ceiling with light eyes that concealed a calculated satisfaction beneath their innocence. A single wheeze escaped from Wei Wuxian’s mouth before he could stop it, like air escaping from a balloon.

Lan Qiren did not seem to notice. He criticized the Jin Clan disciple who was stumbling over foreign words as she recited the ancient poem for the class.

Of course, once you let go of the mouth of a balloon that’s full of air, it’s inevitable that it will fly around the room in a sputtering chaos.

“Aiya, Huaisang, that’s not how you say it,” Wei Wuxian murmured. “You’ve got the wrong people in the bed. It’s supposed to be pronounced, ‘Tran, Sim, and Lan Qiren.’”

Now at least five disciples were snickering. Nie Huaisang was silently buried in his fan, but his scrunched eyes and heaving shoulders said more than enough. Even Jiang Cheng, who was clearly counting how many hours of detention he’d get if he slammed Wei Wuxian’s face into the desk, could not prevent his lips from curling.

Ridiculous, Lan Wangji thought. He was sorry he had tuned his mind back in to the classroom.

The Jin Clan disciple was still fumbling through her recitation. All eyes were on Lan Qiren, but not for the reason the old professor would have hoped.

“Remember that really poetic line? ‘Balance to both ends of the world,’” Wei Wuxian parroted in sing-song. “Well, that’s the part where Tran and Sim each grab one side of Lan Qiren’s mustache.”

Jiang Cheng was the first to break. His high-pitched giggle—unhinged and childlike—pierced through the air like a siren. However, that surprising turn of events was quickly forgotten as the entire room erupted into feverish laughter.

The balloon had popped.

“What is the meaning of this?! Settle down! Everyone, quiet!” Lan Qiren huffed. He held his arms stiffly out to his sides with the sleeves of his robes draping in two giant hoops, as if he wanted to suck all the laughter into his sleeves to snuff it out.

Lan Wangji glared at Wei Wuxian, but the insolent clown was so overcome with giggling that he did not notice.

Apparently, Lan Qiren had followed his nephew’s line of sight to find the culprit, and soon accosted him.

“Wei Wuxian! What have you done? Confess to your actions!”

This only increased the volume of the laughter that ricocheted off the classroom ceiling into Lan Qiren’s offended ears, which seemed to spew out hot steam in protest. Lan Wangji felt a bit guilty for unintentionally ratting out Wei Wuxian to be the recipient of his uncle’s wrath.

Wei Wuxian finally reigned in his mirth and looked up at Lan Qiren with precariously composed sincerity. “I was only saying that I want to write a poem about mustache whiskers. I call it The Ballad of Catfish.”

Actually, no, Lan Wangji did not feel bad at all.

“Wei Wuxian! What is this disrespect? My classroom is no place for jokes! You should be focusing on the poem in Trans-Himalayan!”

The disciples bit their lips at the mention of the word that had started the whole fiasco, but the balloon of laughter had finally deflated.

“Wei Wuxian!”

“Yes, Shifu?”

“Do you know how to read this poem?”

“Not yet, Shifu.”

“Then why have you been chatting instead?”

“…Because I do not know how to read the poem, Shifu.”

Lan Qiren’s blood was boiling. “Wei Wuxian, since you are so illiterate, you will continue reading the poem to the class!” he barked, apparently not caring about the contradiction he just created.

“Yes, Shifu.”

Wei Wuxian blinked at his textbook.

“Where did we leave off?”

Lan Qiren sighed and shook his head with weary disapproval.

Wei Wuxian was actually able to perfectly read the last line the Jin Clan disciple had said, to Lan Qiren’s obvious displeasure. However, he was already stumped by elementary words in the next line. He must have been reciting from memory and had already reached the end of his mind’s fishing reel.

“Uh…um…” He looked up at the professor like a child asking for a piggyback ride.

“Wangji, please assist Young Master Wei.”

Lan Wangji was used to being called on to help other students. After all, it was rare that he did not know the answer.

“Swan.” Lan Wangji said the word in both languages for clarity.

Wei Wuxian nodded and continued. He was stuck again three syllables later.

“Wangji,” Lan Qiren called.

Lan Wangji looked down at the complex inky scribbles in the poetry book on his desk. He realized that he did not understand the line either.

“Lan Zhan? Some help?” Wei Wuxian said.

Lan Wangji paused, then flattened the page in front of him as he spoke.

“I do not know.”

Wei Wuxian eyes widened in disbelief. He looked at Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng scoffed and turned his head away, but his pupils soon snuck into the corners of his eyes to observe Lan Wangji with chilled interest.

“Well, huh, then…” Lan Qiren frowned. “I suppose this text is rather difficult. But that is no excuse for misbehavior! The line reads, ‘Horrified, the warrior realized that, like a swan crushing her eggs as she shielded them from a snake, it was his hand that plunged the knife into the Emperor’s heart.’ It is a pivotal turning point in the poem’s narrative and is frequently quoted by other authors. It is critical that you grasp every literary metaphor related to this line!”

The rest of Ancient Texts passed peacefully. Lan Wangji enjoyed the challenge of dissecting the poem in its original language. It was a tragic story about a warrior who, upon learning that he had been manipulated by the enemy in an assassination plot to kill the emperor he served, abandoned his beautiful homeland to hide in repentant shame for eternity.

Although the stories were different, it reminded Lan Wangji of his father.

He quickly shoved that thought away.

After class ended, the disciples entered the courtyard outside. Lan Wangji hung back. He had to tell his uncle about last night’s incident. Someone needed to be alerted if a portal really did exist in a Cloud Recesses dormitory, and who better to inform than the overseer of the Cloud Recesses himself, Clan Leader Lan Qiren?

However, his uncle already had a lot of tasks on his plate, especially now that he and the clan leaders had to track down wherever the monster spirit that possessed the beetle had come from. Furthermore, it would be embarrassing for Lan Wangji to convey the full details of his story, and he still did not have an adequate explanation for what had transpired. And he definitely was not secretly worried that if he exposed the truth of the closet door, he and Wei Wuxian would be relocated and would no longer be roommates. That was not a factor.

Yet the rules tugged at his feet and at his tongue.

Shoulder the weight of morality. Be strict with yourself. Be loyal and filial.

If he did not tell his uncle…perhaps his brother would be an acceptable confidante?

But first, Wen Qing. He stepped out into the sunny courtyard.

“Wei-xiong, that was hilarious! I’ve never had such a good time in a class!” Nie Huaisang said as he bounded over to his dark-robed friend.

“Ahaha, why give me all the credit, though? You’re a funny little devil as well.”

Nie Huaisang shook his hands wildly in front of him, as if this suggestion were too much for him to hold.

“No, no, no, I wasn’t trying to be funny! I really didn’t know how to say it!”

“Hahaha! That’s even funnier, then!”

Jiang Cheng elbowed Wei Wuxian in the ribs. “Neither of you are funny.” He grabbed his brother by the arm and started dragging him across the courtyard. “Move your ass. If I’m late to the daozhang’s class because of you, I’m going to punch your head in.”

“What are you fussing about, Jiang Cheng? You were laughing louder than anyone!”

“Was not!”

Lan Wangji swooped in front of their path. “Causing disruptions in class is prohibited.”

Jiang Cheng scowled. Nie Huaisang covered his face with his fan and hid the rest of his body behind Wei Wuxian, who stood smirking with his hands on his hips.

“Aiya, Lan Zhan! You better be careful! If you say those rules so much, you’ll turn into the scroll they’re written on!”

Lan Wangji furrowed his brow. “Boring.”

“Yeah, exactly! Okay, step aside, Lan Zhan, you’re going to make us late for class. Unless you want to be the reason we break another rule? Haha! Come on, let’s go,” he said as he tugged Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang away.

“Get your fat hands off me,” Jiang Cheng said with a shove.

Nie Huaisang turned his head over his shoulder and waved. “Bye, Second Young Master Lan!”

Lan Wangji eyed Nie Huaisang suspiciously as he scurried after the bickering siblings and disappeared around a temple at the far side of the courtyard. In the time Lan Wangji had spent accompanying Lan Xichen on trips to Qinghe, he had learned a few things about the small, skittish young cultivator.

Nie Huaisang was crafty. When he wanted entertainment, all he needed to do is throw a match into the firepit—nothing profound, just a provocative little comment that could provide some kindling—and then he would sit back and watch as everyone burned down the world around him. Most assumed he carried his signature fans for decoration. Lan Wangji theorized that he carried them to exercise his talent for fanning the flames of discord.

Of course, if confronted, Nie Huaisang would insist that he knew three times less about the world than anyone else.

On his own, the boy was manageable. Endearing, even.

But next to Wei Wuxian?

It was a partnership forged in Hell.

After the troublesome trio disappeared, Lan Wangji searched for Wen Qing, hoping to apologize for intruding in her room and discuss the teleportation closet with her, but she had disappeared after Ancient Texts.

He caught sight of her again right as Song Lan’s Beings & Creatures class was beginning. To his disappointment, he would have to wait until its completion to speak to her.

It was a long wait. Song Lan’s class did not pass peacefully.

* * *

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this chapter, you can be a supportive sibling like Jiang Yanli by liking, reblogging, and visiting me on AO3! New chapters posted every Monday on AO3 and Tuesday on Tumblr.

Ch. 5 > | chapter list

#mdzs fanfic #mdzs fanfiction #the untamed fanfiction #the untamed fanfic #wangxian fanfiction #wangxian fanfic #mdzs fic #wangxian #mdzs #cql #the untamed #lan wangji #wei wuxian #lan zhan #wei ying #nie huaisang #lan qiren #cantatio #emilu talks

7 notes · View notes

brynnmck · 5 years ago

Text

So. BIRDS OF PREY. (Non-spoilery outside the cut.) The short-short version is that this is the woman-driven superhero/action movie I've been waiting for and I have been fizzing with excitement and glee ever since I saw it and I really REALLY encourage you all to check it out because a) I truly feel it might very well improve your lives and b) I want it to make a billion dollars so that they make more because I NEED IT.

Also I want to make clear that you do not have to have seen or liked Suicide Squad, or have read the comics, in order to understand and enjoy this movie. (One of the best tributes I can pay to it, though, is that BOP was/is my first and truest comics love, and even though this movie is a pretty drastically different take on them and in fact leaves out my favorite character entirely, I still ADORED it. In large part because it DOES contain one of things I loved most about the comics, namely: a variety of interesting, complex, and multifaceted women interacting with and supporting each other. And ALSO kicking ass using a variety of skill sets!)

Just. THIS MOVIE IS SO FUN. As a warning, there is some pretty brutal violence in it (though mostly not against women, for a pleasant change). But it's also hilarious, and really cleverly set up and executed, and grounded in real and relatable feelings, and bright candy colored and just the right amount of unhinged and the soundtrack is PHENOMENAL and the costumes are incredible and the fights were fantastic and honestly, I don't recall a single line in the whole movie that made me cringe for the person saying it. All the performances are brilliant, especially Margot Robbie (who gets the most to do, since Harley is the central character here, but she crushes it all), and Ewan McGregor cheerfully devouring scenery, and Jurnee Smollet-Bell is just. The PERFECT stunning badass Dinah. (Also I found out that she does her own singing in this and it has ruined my life because ONE PERSON SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DO AND BE ALL OF THOSE THINGS it's TOO MUCH.) Also it is just generally PACKED with extraordinarily hot women who have agency and depth. So. I THOROUGHLY enjoyed the ride and I wanted it to be at least an hour longer and I am absolutely going again as soon as I feasibly can.

Spoilery thoughts and feelings under the cut!

Okay, first of all, I have never had strong feelings about Harley as a character but holy shit, I had no idea Margot Robbie was such a good actress, and I loooooooooved what they did with Harley here. She's definitely unstable, but I adored that they kept reminding us how smart she is, and the fact that she's got all this education and this ability to analyze people that's a vital element of her power. And she's so much FUN, and her drive to be her own person and to figure out what that means is so poignant and so relatable, I really thought they struck the ideal balance with her of making her larger-than-life but still grounded and complex, someone we could care about and sympathize with. And I loved that she ultimately came into her own, and ultimately did it in part because she chose to make connections with people who fundamentally value her.

And then DINAH. MY BELOVED. I love that even though she starts out working for the enemy, she still has that essential kindness and sense of justice that I feel like is so crucial to the character, and I thought using her mother's death as context for how she ended up where she is now was really clever and gave the story space to show her becoming a hero instead of just being born as one. (And she ALSO gets to parallel what Harley is experiencing, i.e. she's not sure who she is without the man who's been exerting control over her for so long, but she's increasingly ready to find out.) I loved seeing the way that slowly built in her over the course of the movie, that "I'm not getting involved I'm not getting involved FUCK IT I'M GETTING EXTREMELY INVOLVED" bursting of the dam that happened a few different times in a few different ways, all leading up to the Canary Cry moment, which was SO MUCH MORE than the plot device it could have been because we know EXACTLY what she's choosing to embrace by using her powers, backed by all the catharsis of "I'm not fucking taking this anymore and I'm going to defend what I love and what is right with every ounce of my strength and RAAAAAAAAAAAAR." SO GOOD. Also I never thought I would ship Harley/Dinah but here I am? That first meeting between them in Roman's club hit me HARD, just that moment of connection, and actually that was one of my favorite things about the way the movie was structured: a lot of times with team-up movies I feel like things don't really get going until the team-up happens, but here I thought they included so many lovely moments with different combinations of the characters that they felt connected even when they weren't actually all together, so the team-up was still enormously satisfying but it also didn't feel to me like the rest of the movie was just waiting for that moment. (Also clearly the shipping potential here is OFF THE CHARTS because any or all of the four adults in this movie would be FASCINATING together so I'm very much here for THAT.)

Cass was also DELIGHTFUL despite bearing almost no resemblance to any canon version of Cass that I've ever seen, but she was still a LOT of fun and resourceful and snarky and secretly sweet and her pragmatic-and-then-actually-affectionate bond with Harley was absolutely adorable. I love that Cass is the only one who doesn't know anything about the Joker, so she just takes Harley for who she is, and that's part of what Harley responds to (eventually).

I also LOVED Renee, how SMART she is (her breaking down that crime scene early on was soooooo fucking cool and also HOT AF), how snarky she is, how OVER IT she is. I also loved that she was a little bit older, and obviously CANON LESBIAN YAY (as was Harley being canonically bi!!! see how easy that was???), and I loved that she was flawed but still doing her best (as are all of them, really). I loved the way they used her to illustrate all the bullshit that women face in so many workplaces, and it was INCREDIBLY satisfying when she quit at the end. (Also her telling Dinah that Dinah wouldn't have been abandoned on her watch gave me CHILLS. The conviction!!! The dedication!!!)

Huntress gets left out a little, and I wouldn't have minded seeing her explored more, though I ADORE BEYOND WORDS what they chose to do with her, up to and including her being kind of disconnected until she shows up at the end and she's like "uhhhh, look, I'm just here to kill this guy, I don't want any of this drama," HEEEEEE. But Helena is so broody (though also extremely snarky!) in the comics and I love her very much but it's not my favorite quality, so choosing to show her deliberately cultivating that broody exterior (and somewhat failing at it) was GENIUS and made me love her SO MUCH. Her moment with Cass during the last battle was such a fantastic one, too--that was a moment that very easily could have been skimmed over, and honestly I don't know that I'd have thought of it, but it was PERFECT and such economical character development for her and just generally evidence of a writer/writers who think of all these characters as three-dimensional people with their own thoughts and feelings and experiences. Also Harley's heart-eyes when Helena rolls up on her motorcycle to save her were BEAUTIFUL.

Also beautiful: the fight scene once they all team up, seeing all their different styles and how they support each other and how they take care of Cass. And that scene in the diner at the end was just. ALL I EVER WANT IS THAT SCENE AND THEY GAVE IT TO ME. The snark! The margaritas and shitty food! The exhausted, semi-awkward bonding (Helena being like, "Um… you also… did cool things…! Is this how humans communicate?" was AMAZING)! And even ending with Harley stealing Canary's car was perfect, because at the end of the day she's not really a long-term team player, so I loved them all kind of sharing this moment and then Harley and Cass go on to do their thing, their way, and Renee/Dinah/Helena do THEIR thing, their way, and everyone gets to live their best lives, fundamentally. And it would also be VERY VERY EASY to slot in Babs (Oracle Babs PLEASE, this movie was so good in a lot of ways about diverse casting and I'd love to see them take that a step further) in a future iteration of this, like, I can perfectly see her just being like, "Uh, you guys are doing okay but you could really use some help" and coming in with all her technology and her strategic bat brain and taking things to the next level. (Also Christina Hodson, who wrote this, is also supposedly writing the Batgirl movie, so… hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.)

Basically it was just… everything I wanted and pretty much nothing that I didn't (though I couldn’t help noticing that there were a lot of POC in this movie who were… not great people, though there were also three central POC who WERE great people, and the two main villains were white, so maybe that helps give a more multi-faceted perspective, but). It has SO MUCH POTENTIAL as a franchise but even if this is all we ever get, I think it's a glorious shiny batshit heartfelt gift and I'm so SO glad we got it, and hats off to all of the amazing women involved who pushed so hard to make this as amazing as it was. YOU ALL DID FANTASTICALLY.

#birds of prey #LIFE: CHANGED #i love everyone in this bar

70 notes · View notes

lokislytherin · 4 years ago

Note

For the writing positivity ask meme: 3, 10, 15, 21, 30!

OOH A RESPONSE! thank you for the ask @khunfounded!

prepare for a lot of rambling

3. What is your favorite line/paragraph that you’ve written?

hmmm i’ve written a lot of things before this is hard lmao i’ll just pick my top two!

from tower of god, ships in the night ch14: this is one of the most poetic things i’ve written, ever (thank taylor swift’s ‘cardigan’ for the inspiration with the line “you drew stars around my scars // and now i’m bleeding” because i love folklore and taylor swift is megabrain)

“The wounds she'd dug into his mind may never truly heal, but they are merely memories of pain now, pale scars painted over with gold ink, tattooed with stars and guitars and whatever the night had to give.”

from bts, burn the stage ch1: circus poetics, of course. after reading the first (and only) chapter i wanna continue this again sdfjkldkls why do i keep starting fics but never finishing them? i should actually Commit

“without a sound, it creeps into cities in their darkest hours, bringing with it shadows of caravans dimly lit by rattling lanterns and flickering light bulbs. if you take a closer look, you can see the silhouette of an elephant in its trailer, illuminated by the faintest shine of moonlight. this time, the circus is in busan.”

10. What’s the best comment on a fic you’ve ever gotten?

time to scroll through my 1000+ comments lmao

okay after a while of scrolling i have no idea what the best comment is but ngl any comment from @resident-normal-person is bound to get me wheezing at some point because her comments are so long and detailed and it’s like watching reaction vids but in words

but ngl this comment from one of the fics i’ve kinda left behind (one chapter is up and i said I’M GONNA CONTINUE THIS IT’S GONNA BE SO LONG I HAVE SO MUCH CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT PLANNED FOR JIN) cracks me up tho:

“Please continue? I'm actually interested”

15. Tell me about a time when you got super inspired.

laughs like i haven’t listened to taylor swift’s ‘willow’ five times today

so i get inspired by songs really easily? especially by taylor swift songs, because each song has a unique narrative and taylor is such an amazing songwriter she’s literally so talented i don’t know if i want to dissect her lyrics or her brain

yesterday her new album evermore came out and i promised my swiftie friend we’d listen and scream about it together, and we did, and before i knew it-

OK FIC PLANNING LET'S GO (this is me trying~) - ILLICIT AFFAIRS / CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS / CLOSURE?: FT KHUN EDUAN, JAHAD AND MAMA AGNIS, SITNVERSE - WILLOW: CRYSTAL SNOW PREQUEL, VLENE - NO BODY NO CRIME: I DON'T KNOW YET BUT PROBABLY KHUNBAM CRIMEBUSTERS AU - EVERMORE: PROBABLY RELATED TO 'EXILE' FIC holy crap the bridge i'm shivering in my seat (it's not the cold) - TOLERATE IT: I DON'T KNOW AS OF RIGHT NOW BUT I WILL, MAYBE JALENE UNREQUITED LOVE FROM JAHAD POV? - ivy: maybe a continuation of willow? but as a plant witch!arlene au, which might tie in to cruel summer? sfdlkasdfjfd - gold rush: part of khunbam celebs au? - marjorie: maybe part of 'the curious courtship ritual of a black turtle' as a tribute to arlene? marjorie was taylor's opera singer grandma - happiness: bam character study with links to rachel? or should i use clean for that - coney island: the lyrics are tragic, so maybe arlene's thoughts in her last moments in sitnverse? i need the angst practise - cowboy like me": city boy eduan gets stranded in a car trip and has to stay the night with country cowboy v? either way it does not end in true love forever or whatever - long story short: bam moving on from rachel and finding love with khun? or khun moving on from maria and finding bam? sfdkljsdfkjlfds i don't knowww so many ideasssss - dorothea: interesting song but i gotta admit i have no idea what to do with this one

kaboom

you can visibly see where i started chilling out lmao but me and my friend spent a little over an hour screaming about evermore, so far my favorite tracks are ‘no body no crime’ (true crime inspired! i want to dissect the narrative and write a fic, maybe start that fugou keiji x khunbam au) and ‘champagne problems’ (eduan-style ‘illicit affairs’ vibes, you’ll get it if you’re caught up to ships in the night)

i did pretty much the same thing for folklore too? like i linked every single song in the album to a oneshot idea and now my swiftie friend is screaming at me to hurry up and actually write the saga because she wants to read my fics

21. Tell me about a time when you impressed yourself.

me in may: *plans out the entire plot of ships in the night*

me in december, actually following the plot: *surprised pikachu* i- i can do that? i did that? just over 100k words? oh my gods this is what dedication actually is

(my inner kim namjoon, waving a razor: NOW STUDY OR I’LL SHAVE YOUR EYEBROWS)

okay but here’s another anecdote: this is me trying to analyze one of my fics, i’m connecting bts’s hyung line (kim seokjin, min yoongi, jung hoseok (hobi), kim namjoon) to space metaphors, i’m screaming at my army friend over whatsapp in the middle of the night because i was kinda high on sleep deprivation

this is like from some time early last year

hC: YOONGI IS THE NIGHT AND HOBI IS THE SUN SO HOBI BRINGS LIGHT TO YOONGI'S WORLD AND LETS HIM SEE THE BETTER PARTS OF HIMSELF AND MAKES HIS LIFE BETTER THEREFORE SOPE IS TECHNICALLY THE BEST SHIP

AND JIN IS THE STARS BECAUSE HE'S TRYING TO MAKE YOONGI SEE THE TRUTH, AND HIS MAGIC IS ALSO THE COLOR OF STARS AND WHEN HE DOES MAGIC HIS EYES GLOW SILVER AND I SHOULD FIND A PIC OF PLATINUM BLOND JIN BUT IDK IF IT WOULD LOOK GOOD

and then me a few days after that

actually no jin is the moon because he brings light to others but also because he helps them but he doesn't help himself so he's lonely that way like the moon

so namjoon could be the stars because they're not on the same level but he's still with jin

and the moon only glows because it reflects the light of the stars around it which suggests that the only reason why jin is still around is because of his love for namjoon and joon's love for him

me more than a year later, after the release of bts’s second most recent album map of the soul:7, which includes kim seokjin’s solo track ‘moon’

HOLY SHÏT DID I PREDICT MOON

LIKE JIN’S MOON MOON

i literally just remembered that just now? like i was looking for the namjinsope space analysis and then i saw jin = moon and was like JIN = MOON? I SAID THAT? ON 4/7/19? i even predicted the song meaning?

also go to 3:22 to see why jin owns my heart he deserves all the love in the world

30. Do you know how proud I am of you?

*tears up* you- you are? thank you so much

3 notes · View notes

bladekindeyewear · 5 years ago

Text

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-03-12

I have been told only a few things about the upd8 that just landed, over Discord by two people:

upd19 feat. 4,901,157 read it. now. note: the featuring note is accurate if in a different base than what you might be expecting

What the fuck does that even mean.

Okay Pretty good chapter.

...from another friend who VERY dislikes HS^2? Oh shit.

I also glimpsed a post that may or may not have been about Homestuck at all at the top of my Tumblr feed for an instant that said “YES YES YES YES YES” in huge bold print. I have no idea whether to be excited or nervous.

Okay, it’s not a Bonus update... let me comb through from an earlier page to be careful not to get a spoilerlook at the pagecount...

...huh. That seems... like a conversation that would be up my alley, but not necessarily unique so far or worth all this crowing about. I thought we were about to get Dirk-aliens with a full Horschestra backing... are we getting something else?

> CHAPTER 6. A Conversation Regarding Relevance

Hmmmmmmmm. With the contrast between their reactions and this ominous buildup, there’s got to be a serious fun-twist coming. Right? --I’ll stop with that talk for the moment though.

space is vast. an unproductive statement, almost a tautology. [...]

Alright, that and the starry background are riffing the fuck off Star Trek. Nice homage to Andrew’s roots.

the lives of the many are far too volatile and instinct-driven

Alt!Callie what the fuck are you doing. This is intentional now. You can’t play this off as “what’s a Star Trek”.

tautologies are, in general, reserved for stories. for narrative device. for finding new and inventive ways to tell an audience that which they already know.

God damnit she’s still doing it

neither of us ever able to convince the other of the righteousness of our stance. we were never meant to agree. it isn’t in our blood.

Blah blah overanalyzing classpect blah

when they scoff at my tautology ‘space is vast’, what do they really know? nothing. as far as any of them have experienced, space does not exist.

It’s still nice to see some real personality leak through on Alt!Callie. We definitely know from her other self that she can develop quite a relatable and colorful one. Have the years helped?

> ==>

dramantic pouse... ........

Also,

-look at that collar. Damn, Callie, that is a collar

very few have stood and looked into the abyss, the true gulf of nothingness that spreads out around the single point of consciousness adrift in a constellation. all the combined weight of sentient endeavour would quail underneath that sheer, irresistible truth. the realization that they are so small, that the universe cares about their puny lives so very little. sitting in the glowing light of the stars this becomes even more apparent

In the official aspect quiz I never took the time to analyze, the aspects were put on a wheel where Space was a neighbor to Void, if I recall correctly. I wonder how much those aspects engender feelings of goddamnit I’m doing it again aren’t I

...

are we out of orange juice?

Yesss let more personality Alt!Callie bleed through, more of it~

Wait, does Alt!Callie even taste through Jade? Isn’t this remote control? Is she vicariously drawing pleasure from Jade’s not-just-meat-or-candy mostly-human taste buds or?

> ==>

JADE: are you talking to me? JADE: because if you are i would like to remind you that i hate!! orange juice!!

OH FUCK YES!!! SHE’S IN THERE AND AWAKE!!! SHE STILL HAS AT LEAST ENOUGH AGENCY TO BE PRESENT AND ARGUE WITH CALLIE! YESSSSSS

no you don’t.

JADE: well i guess i never really had a strong opinion on it before JADE: but now i cant stand it!! JADE: its all you drink!

i like the pulp.

QUIT INADVERTANTLY FORCING SHIT ON JADE WITH NARRATIVESPEAK GIVE HER A BIT OF LEEWAY ALT!CALLIE YOU CONTROLLING--

JADE: its my body and i dont want orange juice! JADE: i hate pulp, and i didnt just make that up to spite you JADE: who wants strings in their juice?

i do.

JADE: ughhhhhhhhh

I have had friends hopefully fantasize about and/or therapeutically roleplay this exact situation with Jade breaking through and arguing with Alt!Callie’s control to make this all a fair bit more palatable but I didn’t dare to hope we’d get even THIS much

Maybe the HS^2 authors DO care about not leaving us wallowing in hopeless witness to the characters’ constant torture and existential turbosuffering!!!! :#D

i realize that jade’s situation is less than ideal from a characterization perspective, but i still politely point out that nobody likes a whiner.

Fuck you, this isn’t CALIBORN you’re trying to repress you asshole! Leave Jade some AGENCY!!!!! She deserves it!!

JADE: fuck you rude calliope inside my head!

YES EXACTLY

JADE: why dont you try being possessed by the spirit of some other version of a good friend of yours, and floated around a spaceship full of people you love JADE: unable to affect anything or say hello to anyone! JADE: then tell me about whiners!

i killed my brother and consumed him.

JADE: sounds like a you problem

Compromise and give her some agency finally come on compromise and give her some agency you red-text twatwaffle

i suggest to the witch that i have spent untold eons in the void between universes, waiting for the moment i would be needed to prevent the dissipation of reality as we know it. her appeals to emotion will not help her. i will remain unmoved.

Oh god damnit.

JADE: well i had to watch my boyfriend and my brother die in front of me on a tiny scaled version of a world that i shrunk for them! JADE: and then spend the next three years talking to myself, wracked with guilt that id killed them!

Oh. God. Damnit. This had better not be where the Suicide trigger warning was coming from. Are there going to be any characters left who DIDN’T emerge from this mess feeling suicidal?!? (I mean if there were any understandable case it would be three years alone on the golden ship Jade but-- I mean COME ON, we have to discuss that in our FIRST GLIMPSE at her since the epilogues?!?)

> ==>

i remind the witch that my time was in the void, which is far darker and lonelier [...]

Oh fuck you don’t compare suffering as an excuse to COMPLETELY body-enslave and squash the agency of someone when you probably don’t have to. You’re just doing what’s COMFORTABLE alt!Callie admit it. There’s a way you could give her some leeway, I’m almost positive.

JADE: even if i had the powers of a first guardian, my brain still worked in modules of human pattern recognition! JADE: three years is a long time for a human teenager, i dont care how many of her molecules are made of a god!

(i love it when jade talks smart, that bit of the epilogues was a treat too, plz reveal more of the big brain on jade)

It seems Jade can’t see or quite understand the full import of there being a “narrative”. Or THINKS she cant, because she still says:

JADE: your voice is impossible to read and i cant see your face

If she’s “reading” alt!Callie’s remarks, that means she’s breaking through to understand the narrative to SOME extent. She might be one of the ones who learns to do that a little more and better in the future, especially with alt!Callie almost unintentionally training her to see it.

> ==>

Oh, good. So A!C’s not above being considerate. That’s a step in the right direction.

> ==>

D’aww, Jade conceding and trying to empathize like her usual self. I appreciate it. :) --but Alt!Callie’s definitely in the wrong here.

JADE: but i think it is a very natural thing to be silly when you are used to being able to control your own body, but now cant

i will allow that, yes.

Thanks. Learn some damned reason.

jade smiles. dave and karkat will always be a source of pain for her, a low ache somewhere in her center of gravity, but she is happy for them. she knows that there is really no other alternative for how to be. they chose each other over her, and they always will. they are the two people who matter to her the most in every universe, and that will not change, no matter how much she wishes it would, no matter how--

JADE: do you actually know that?

pardon me?

Oh, shit.

JADE: do you actually know that im doomed to pine over dave and karkat across every iteration of reality? JADE: like, can you actually see that? JADE: because youre a space player, like i am. JADE: i know that you are more powerful than me, but i dont think you can see other timelines any better than i can JADE: so i think you are just being dramatic JADE: for the “audience”, whatever the heck that means

i experience a moment of unease as jade looks at me. keeping her out of my thoughts is proving to be more difficult than i had first assumed it would be.

That’s a damned interesting question. I was giving the narrative the benefit of the doubt, but given everything the Epilogues warned us about when it came to the narrators and alt!Callie’s occasional slips into her own bias, I really should have known better.

i had begun confident that i could keep her consciousness sleeping peacefully inside the shell of her body, tamed and quiescent, but she has proved to be more irascible than i initially gave her credit for.

JADE: heheh JADE: i have never been particularly tamable, and my consciousness is huge!

This might end up playing out more like my friend’s Jade-breaks-out roleplays than I initially assumed. (What does she mean “huge consciousness” though? Superpowered due to part-First-Guardian, like she alluded earlier in the conversation? That never got much play before, so it’s great to see that potential realized here a bit...)

> ==>

...I’m a fucking idiot. Of COURSE “huge consciousness” and the whole line around it was just an unsubtle double-entendre. A small part of me actually wondered if it was and dismissed it as a clumsy reading in an instant. How stupid am I? Jade is the best.

If only this sort of thing worked on Cherubs.

> ==>

Yeah. It really doesn’t.

...Alt!Callie, you are a fucking war-criminal for bottling all these double-entendres up where none of the others can appreciate them.

> ==>

JADE: you are a pretty tough crowd, evil callie JADE: but yes, i can hear most of what you are thinking to yourself JADE: it took a little while to separate it from my own thoughts, just like it did with dirk JADE: because thats what he was doing the whole time, wasnt it? JADE: controlling our thoughts JADE: making us believe things we never would, things he thought we SHOULD believe

Fucking excellent. She’s definitely training herself on this shit. The more people who have a harder time getting fooled by this nonsense the better.

jade knows all of this, i don’t have to tell her. she is a very bright girl, and even if she didn’t have partial access to my thoughts, she is good at compiling data and using it to fill in gaps. as she herself had rather licentiously mentioned, her brain is quite large.

and all of these reasons are why i know i can count on her to be reasonable and realistic about her situation. i need a body to continue interfacing with this timeline, and her body is the only one that will do.

Dammit. Trying to get her to logic her way back into keeping Alt!Callie in complete control. That’s a tactic that will probably work. :(

what about [kanaya], jade? she is a space player, it is true, but her powers are nothing compared to yours. for one, she isn’t god tier, and for two, she is dead. a living dead, but dead nonetheless.

Hm. Are you saying she maybe has less relevance, less of an effect on her surroundings because she spent some of her “cred” on unconventional partial resurrection? To the extent where she’d make a less influential vessel? Hmm.

For that to even matter, you have to be planning to use Jade’s Space powers too. Taking a far more active role in things than narrative beacon.

and a sylph’s specializations lie on a different end of the spectrum from my own. a witch is a far closer match.

!!!!!

Sounds like details of the classpect system that we don’t know will have relevance in HS^2, and we’re indeed gonna possibly get some actual new, clearer details about the system Andrew invented unlike the dearth of new info the Epilogues brought us. That is... promising.

no, jade understands and sympathizes with my assurance that her body, and her body alone, will do for my purposes.

JADE: um...no i dont!

YES. Jade is now officially immune to absolute command! :D :D :D

she does. after all, she would not wish this sort of state of being on anyone else, and especially not on one of her friends. jade may have undergone a lopsided number of narrative hardships in her life, but at least she is used to them. why spread that suffering to another?

What the fucking shit??? You’re using that on her? You think it’ll WORK?!

jade understands and accepts her place in the story, which has always been to enable events to play out around her, just as it has been mine.

..........yeah Jade’s gonna bust the fuck out on the very next page, isn’t she.

What the fuck is Alt!Callie thinking, here? Wasn’t the other Calliope the one to let us know that the Witch is one of the most active classes there is?? ...what exactly does a Witch officially do anyway, for Alt!Callie to think saying such a thing wasn’t dead wrong? This sounds MUCH more like the sort of statement someone might make after breezing through Homestuck and confusing the old Jade (cough) for the person she grew up into.

And the fact that you’re phrasing this as a narrative command to try and make her forcibly THINK this way deserves you a smack in the non-literal depictive face. Let’s see if you get one:

> ==>

Oh wow, no smack yet?! That’s some restraint!

because what is a story, truly? nothing but a series of misadventures and connections, actions spurring reactions, tumbling into one another, over and over and over. with so many competing interests, clearly the story cannot account for all perspectives, for all threads? it would be laughable, childish, even selfish, to demand that they do.

in other words, not everyone will achieve a happy ending. this is a truth that jade had come to grips with a long time ago.

JADE: wait. JADE: stop. JADE: why are you saying all of this?

Ohh. Because she still had even MORE smackworthy stuff left to say, to make the smack even SMACKIER, didn’t she. Alt!Callie you asshole. If this gets you kicked out of her almost entirely and jeopardizes the crew as Jade struggles to combat Dirk’s narrative influence on her OWN, then I’m fucking blaming YOU! Do you realize how horrible it’ll be if Dirk gets to almost singlehandedly write the whole story around her and the others for the first section of HS^2 with only one or two characters aware and trying to mentally avert it?? We already TRIED that in the Epilogues! It was awful!

jade’s body is my vessel, and it is through this realization that she will understand her true role in the story. her true relevance.

Go fuck yourself, Alt!Callie. Read the audience a bit!

if i released my hold on her consciousness, there would be no guarantee that i would be allowed in again. therefore i cannot permit her the control of herself that she so desperately craves, and she understands that.

THAT’S your reasoning your used-to-surpressing-Caliborn ignorant--!??

JADE: wait. so...you could give me my body back, and then just hop back in when you need to?

in theory, yes.

JADE: then what the hell callie!

because i don’t trust you to cooperate when the time comes.

MotherfuckerTheMusical.mp4

(or real existing equivalent that’s just off the top of my head)

JADE: why not? JADE: i thought you said i was a reasonable girl with a huge brain!

you are, to an extent.

she is. but the truth of the matter remains that humans are capricious and emotional. and even jade herself can admit that she hasn’t been the most...committed example of her species in the last few years.

Oh my fucking god. I know they’re trying to make this more satisfying when she actually DOES take control in a few panels, but, Alt!Callie, seriously, get more on your other self’s level!!!

> ==>

Yes, please >:O some more

moving from lover to lover, job to job, interest to interest. over the last few years jade had found herself listless, unable to settle and unwilling to commit to anything or anyone. she knows there’s nothing wrong with that on a moral level, but on a personal level she’s always believed that she could be more, could do better. be better. and now, because of this, she realizes that sacrifices must be made.

and that she, as a space player, is uniquely built for sacrifice.

JADE: yeah JADE: i guess youre right JADE: i have been such a silly little slut! JADE: hey callie

yes, jade?

JADE: oh my god, whats that!!!!

You are so fucking screwed Alt!Callie.

this space is utterly under my control. jade could control it too, if she had any access to her own powers. but with my grip around her cortex, there is no chance of that.

(Wait, there’s an extent to which this space is “real” and not imaginary? Or does holding her space powers in check also mean keeping her imaginary space powers in check?)

Anyway, here comes the smack. And, though Alt!Callie deserves this, I hope Dirk isn’t let in too often amidst the others as a result.

> ==>

Yup, poising to pounce...

> ==>

I thought there was a weird infinity symbol underneath them but it’s just two spotlights and a shadow cast by her head.

and here i make my first mistake.

No you made your first mistakes WAAAY earlier in this conversation. And what you did to Jade in general. She’s a hero/player for a reason, she doesn’t take stuff lying down forever.

but bringing her into a place where we can both physically manifest has left me, foolishly, vulnerable.

First, physically manifest? This isn’t pure imaginationspace? And second, she’s going to blame her polite concession to Jade for this and hold on even tighter the next time, isn’t she. God damnit, not looking forward to that. Alt!Callie won’t learn her lesson til the end, will she? :(

her fingers tear at my throat, trying to find purchase. she won’t be able to kill me here, but it is certainly unpleasant, and not to mention slightly repetitive. we just saw this in the previous chapter, although this particular fight will not end as amorously as the last one did. so don’t get your hopes up.

JADE: who! JADE: are you talking to!

I really hope Jade ends up with full narrative powerOOOOOHHHH FUCK THEY COULD GO FOR THAT HUH

Dirk was able to become an Ultimate Self in his own body because it was the uniting of an irrepressible “self” that he always unbreakably represented. The others had more trouble.

But Jade

has a BIG PART-GOD BRAIN as reinforced in the narrative repeatedly!!

Meaning that later, SHE could Ultimate Self without ANY PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCE. :D

I was hoping Jade would end up with full narrative-dictating-and-reading power when she wants to use it, at some point, but I might’ve been aiming too low! :D :D :D

Yaaaaaaaaaaaay

Now all the playfully-horny omnipotent Jade fanfics are true, what that totally isn’t part of why I love this go ahead and admit she doesn’t deserve it

> ==>

Yesss flashy gif struggle against control! (Though, not as elegant as one of Andrew’s might’ve been. Gotta say.)

> ==>

Blinky-eyes about to resolve normal-Jade-colored....!

> ==>

Wait, what? I thought Jade was about to snap in and--

during the ship’s trip through space, there have been numerous experiments; modifications to the nutrition output of the various machines designed to create sustenance for the various species on board. i myself have been content with orange juice and synthetic proteins, but dave and roxy have both expressed longing for various ‘earth snacks’, and so the trials and errors began.

What the fuck? I don’t even know where this is going if it’s punways.

Is there like a dog treat somewhere that’s gonna push her over the edge? Where is this headed even.

> ==>

Wh...

WHa??????

the results were mixed. as roxy told us in a previous chapter, alchemized food all sort of tastes the same, although the visuals really help to bring about the flavor. and at the end of the day, isn’t it the journey that is more important than the destination? the stories you tell as you create the strangely flavored nutritional paste?

JADE: ????????????

Um?? What’s even going on.

so far, everyone’s favorite attempt has been a vaguely peanut-butter and chocolate flavored creation called "Rices'". nobody eats them really. they just sit in a bowl on the counter.

i’m not actually sure what the witch is trying to accomplish here.

Is Jade trying to humorously gross Alt!Callie out of her body with a candy she doesn’t like or? But, “suicide threat”? Why joke--

JADE: you dont? JADE: really?

i don’t know what she is trying to accomplish, because surely she would not be doing what it appears she is trying to do. making such a meaningless threat.

JADE: meaningless? JADE: do you even know anything about the body you stole? JADE: shouldnt you have run some sort of psychic physical before you possessed it? JADE: its definitely what i would have done!

Oh SHIT. You mean Jade has the same peanut allergy JOHN does?!?

> ==>

jade must know that i am well-aware of her family-wide peanut allergy. a story thread that has been extremely important and weighed in on in multiple parts of the narrative. how could i have forgotten such a key detail?

...yes, she totally forgot, but more than that.

I’m betting John is the ONLY one with a peanut allergy. That Jade is USING that fact to bluff like hell. :D

(Allergies aren’t usually inherited that way you alien!)

there is nothing remotely just or heroic about dying from self-imposed anaphylactic shock in the throes of a childish tantrum. at the most i’ll get a relaxing few minutes of sleep.

Is Alt!Callie bluffing now? Even a resurrecting death could throw her off.

> ==>

FUCK YES JADE.

JADE: do you really want to risk it?

what are you talking about, jade? i just said--

FUCK YES JADE, BE A HUGE WITCH

(i say in the most witch-connotatively and non-classpect-related way)

JADE: i dont know, callie JADE: ive never really understood the rules that govern the death of a god tier, have you? JADE: it seems pretty arbitrary from where im standing JADE: who makes the decision whether or not something is heroic or just?

...that’s unclear. but it certainly isn’t you.

JADE: right, of course not JADE: but are you so confident that youre a good guy? JADE: are you sure that the alpha timeline WANTS you to be here?

...what.

JADE: youve done some stuff, callie JADE: im only saying you shouldnt be so quick to assume that me killing you wouldnt be just JADE: and that taking my own life to do it wouldnt be heroic

Even with JUST this one fucking situation Alt!Callie put her in, throwing off her control forever by dying would be shortsighted but HELLA JUST. What Alt!Callie is doing to her is a crime.

Oh shit!?!?

> [S] ==>

What is this, HTML5? *clicks play*

...for a second, I thought this was gonna launch into a huge thing with that clock ticking song from the Felt album.

Having Rose and Dirk’s colors competing here really reinforces that... Prospit vs Derse vibe that was feeding the whole this-is-the-basis-for-the-game’s-structure-and-the-birth-of-Paradox-Space theory more earlier.

> ==>

i don’t let the witch manipulate me. i refuse to falter in the face of her whispers. without my careful planning and swift action, the prince would have taken full control over this timeline. none of my friends could even begin to imagine the turmoil.

In the end, you’re ignoring what’s right and brave in this instance to instead do something EXPEDIENT, to the exclusion of trust and compassion when things COULD work out just as well without taking the worst actions -- which is textbook villainous.

> ==>

JADE: they arent your friends!! JADE: you took them from me!

Now isn’t THAT a way to put it. :D :D :D

Alt!Callie is sinning almost as badly as Dirk, here. Viewing everyone else as characters in a story, the only way she’s ever viewed “friends”, and her as the not-so-humble narrator doing what’s best for all of them. If she’s going to win against Dirk -- or if that victory is going to MEAN anything -- she will HAVE to realize that she needs to be different.

JADE: you keep saying that youre doing all of this for my own good, but youre just lonely! JADE: i know you are, because so am i!

Ouch.

Will Alt!Callie force her to swallow it?

JADE: you said that being a space player is all about sacrifice JADE: well

> ==>

JADE: bet

...I guess she really might have an allergy.

> ==>

Aaaand the candy drops. A W A K E ! ! ! !

Yaaaaay Jade is BACK and we’ll get to see even more of her!!!

...please tell me on the next page she grabs the candy, noms it, and mentions she doesn’t have a peanut allergy after all. That would be sweet.

> ==>

...

Nope, you just leave us on a sad. Dammit, why do you gotta be all adult and showin’ us both sides in a moment of triumph, HS^2. Shucks.

Anyway, YAY JADE! C:

I am happy by this, if slightly too emotionally-rollercoastered by the past 24-hours to give this the full-rejoicing it deserves. That, and worried about the openings Dirk will get because of this... joy now for potential frustration later, even if Jade tries her best to let Alt!Callie back in in-time.

See y’all next time! And, uhm. I guess I’ll comment on whatever other asks I promised to comment on another less-eventful day. Keep reminding me and holding me to it though!

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots #(yes the past 24-hours includes witnessing everyone's despair at realizing the president is going to get our family members virus-killed)#Jade Harley

31 notes · View notes