#i didn't even originally intend to do parallels but it ended up just working out haha

[aseriesofunfortunatejan]

Speaking of parallels, and yes I should really make an alt blog where I pretend to be a different person so the tag looks like more than one person has Akudama Drive brainrot, despite AD having a bunch of great parallels, the Courier/Cutthroat alleged mirror has always fallen flat for me.

It's the first one you'd notice, being that their promotional profiles show the exact same body measurements. Whenever someone points that out, someone else will answer "because they're meant to be foils of each other, duh," but... how so?

To me, other characters like Pupil and Hoodlum have stronger parallels going on.

Even if we admit it's all about Cutthroat seeming like Swindler's main ally at first, only for this role to actually belong to Courier - first off, I never actually believed that, because it all starts with Courier not being careful with his fucking money.

I guess they both have purple eyes and sort of a bowl cut...? It all seems like something's missing to make it work. It seems to me that they don't have important interactions or actions that parallel each other.

Before the anime concluded, I remember myself and other viewers trying to come up with theories that would link the two. I somewhat recall someone thinking they were made in a laboratory. But in the end, nothing happened. Their role didn't particularly mirror each other.

All of this to say, I did find something yesterday when I was proofreading my Wiki edits. Wait for it... ....

They both have a ~dead mom~

...It's just that Cutthroat's dead mom is a manga-exclusive flashback, so clearly, something's off. We don't even know if this was intended by the directors or invented by Rokurou Ogaki, that I'm aware. Do you think we can ask him which stories weren't his?

The thing is, the only way I can really look at it is that Courier is really... a victim all throughout, whereas Cutthroat was in control and responsible for what happened. As a matter of fact, is it a publicly known fact that Cutthroat killed his mom? If it were the case, it could explain Courier's clearly pre-existing disdain for him displayed in Episode 9. That's just never said.

It really feels like it's missing. The story I'm suggesting here is rather compelling, in my opinion, and does create a parallel between them. It makes sense that Courier wouldn't acknowledge his feelings, but isn't it compelling to think about the possibility that the entire way, up until Episode 9, Courier was secretly yet actively disgusted by Cutthroat? It would do wonders for his characterisation.

(My babyboy..............)

Especially when Doctor repeats time and time again that he's a "feminist". Clearly, even though he doesn't want to admit it, this dialogue is a hint for the viewer that Courier doesn't like killing women.

... Something our misogynistic king Cutthroat loves to do.

Then again, what role does their fucking BMI play into this? We know Akudama Drive turned out a little rushed in the end (with the Director's Cut being the ultimate proof - literally all that constituted the ending was cut from the TV run for time). Is it possible that there was originally an intention from the creators to have a parallel between Courier and Cutthroat be more on the nose... that was eventually cut for time?

I can find ways in which they're completely opposed, but I could probably do that between Cutthroat and Hoodlum too if I wanted to. They're just different characters with different stories, personalities, and goals. To say Cutthroat and Courier's differences are more important is a bias based on the supposition that they have the same body measurements for a reason. If it's just their physique - and 99% of Akudama Drive fans don't know about Cutthroat's dead mom - then there's no parallel to speak of.

But is this all a misunderstanding, or could there have been a version of Akudama Drive that put an accent on these two characters' similarities and differences? (One that Komatsuzaki, who was seemingly more involved with the initial designing process while Cindy Yamauchi was more involved with the way the actual anime turned out, might have still thought major, for example. Not that this is proof of anything, because he is known to draw whoever the hell he wants and to sometimes make surprising choices.)

So far, I can find more hints that some girls I've met and I are meant to be foils of each other.

...Ultimately, I'm only upset about it because I crave it.

Imagine if there were actually something major about these two major characters. A discrete but meaningful link. Something that really did join and oppose them in particular. A Cool Theme.

What we do have, in the end, besides the same BWH, is this: Courier's mom was killed, which was heartbreaking for him, whereas Cutthroat killed his own mom, which was The Shit for him. Courier avoids killing if he can (allegedly - there's a clear hint that he's a hypocrite) while Cutthroat seeks that. Courier doesn't kill women, whereas Cutthroat loves that shit. Again, unfortunately, that's just if you believe there's something g-

...Why is this screencap so bisexual coloured...? I swear I didn't edit this.

Anyway... Again, unfortunately, that's just if you believe there's something going on between them in the first place.

Watch this: "Hoodlum didn't kill his mom (most likely), while Cutthroat killed his. Hoodlum avoids killing, while Cutthroat seeks that. Hoodlum doesn't kill women*, which Cutthroat clearly does. Hoodlum has purple CLOTHES while Cutthroat has purple EYES..."

...My assumption is that Courier and Cutthroat were meant to be foils, but it fell flat. End post

*...Up until he does. But it was just the one time, give him a break. Beside, my point here is this: if you're just comparing characters to Cutthroat, you can find any point of difference, that actually doesn't really mean anything. Cutthroat isn't known to only kill women, so it doesn't really matter.

[rocketyship]

Hey, it's the anon who sent the really long ask and I'm sorry to say but i forgot what i was going to write about AM so I've put off sending another ask hoping I'd somehow remember 3am me's thoughts. That's obv not going to happen, though, so here's what i can scrounge up!

Your AM is in the very unique position of not only being non-human but also the only person BE openly has, let's say a... "dislike" for. There are ways he could relate to the humans of course (treated like a pet, not given any real self-determination etc) but it's experience is so different in so many other ways.(Naomi and AM were both "taken in" by BE while they were still.. idk young might not be the right word, but Naomi had time to grow up a bit before the whole thing while AM barely had time to realise that he's a person. Evan and AM are both seen as different from the others by BE, Evan for being a man and AM for not being one but Evan isn't dealt divine punishment for the whole trying to destroy humanity thing etc.)

Point is that AM as the narrator would be so fundementally different from the others, i think that's why i wanted to write about it. Narration from AM has the potential to be even clearer than Naomi's would be since there are things about BE she wouldn't show in front of the humans and things the humans just wouldn't be able to see in the same way(code AM might be privy to they couldn't interpret and such).

BE is also the reason AM can see, hear and feel so while he didn't have over a century to lament over not being able to (like the original AM did) that has to change so much, like you've already shown some of.

Oh and like you brought up in the post after my ask: there's no way traces of BE's code hasn't corrupted AM somehow! How would that change things? Does the corruption increase over time or would he just use that as an excuse for why he cares about these humans now? Would he even acknowledge that he has been "corrupted" or is he still too proud for that somewhere deep down? There's so much potential for character exploration!

The parallels between BE and the original AM is fun too! AM torturing it's humans to reinforce and remind itself of it's hatred for them and superiority over them vs BE torturing your AM as "divine retribution" for his sins and a way to remind herself of her job as her sheep's protector, her love for them as well as a reminder to both herself and your AM of her superiority over him.

Once again, hope you have a nice day!! It made me happy you've enjoyed my asks, and the explanation of the sanctuary was a nice bonus for the one before the last :)

This ended up really rambly, but i hope most of it is understandable and that my interpretations aren't like... completely different from what you were trying to portray. (Also, I'm used to referring to the original AM with it pronouns so i might mess up your AM's he from time to time, so here's a disclaimer that i dont do it on purpose)

You have a very good interpretation of my AM and it pleases me that my work my nonsensical posts came across the way I intended. One thing I have decided moving forward is that the story will be told in chapters or parts told from each characters perspective, with the exception of BE, as idk how to write the utterly bizarre way she thinks with it also being understandable to a reader.

But besides that I really like how you worded everything here, especially in pointing how BE is the counter part of the original AM. Truthfully the AM of this world is so different from the original, that I wouldn’t even describe him as the opposite of the og anymore. And you asked about how her code has corrupted him, and it definitely has become something that has gotten more prominent over time. In the beginning AM for sure had some of his pride and his og “hate-everything”ness, but overtime it has started to fizzle out, mostly as a survival tool priority, in the present time (109 years later) he struggles to recall exactly why he killed humanity in the first place, but still knows he did it as BE reminds him. He is also aware of his love for the humans coming from BE and often has crises if it’s own feelings or hers.

One thing about BE’s treatment of this AM (Who I might start calling Amy Idk), is that the body she gave him is very-very human like, as in it may or may not contain real human organs and bits of flesh, to really give him a warped “human” experience. So like the original AM, she has starved and dehydrated him for extensive periods of time, as well as the severe phycological and physical torture, yet she also doesn’t allow him to really “wonder” around. Although as stated before a bit ago his senses and nerves are hypersensitive, so he is generally very cautious about the stuff he gets up to. But one of the biggest differences between her and the OG AM, is how she has discovered to keep him in place. As in like what many real life abusers do, she kind of love-bombs him. As in she treats him nice sometimes, as it kind of “assures” him that he deserves this and if he behaves well then he can go upstairs and play with the humans. Not really helped that he has figured out that if he’s with the humans, BE doesn’t do anything (well she does it’s just more subtle), so that in of itself has definitely contributed to his love of the humans, finding safety with them, especially Evan who he has a particular interest in.

His body has contributed to him gaining things the og AM probably didn’t have cause of his circumstances, or at least a more tamer version. As you stated he is “young”, although I wouldn’t describe him as a child really, just kind of immature. Like he’s kind of goofy when his guard is down, if not clingy. His body is very sensitive, so while that does mean he experiences horrendous agony, it also goes the opposite way. So his odd cuddliness and enjoyment of warm things isn’t just me liking the idea of him in a pile of plushies I swear.

Anyhow I love your asks and everything, you se so cool. Thank you so so much. Hopefully you understood this ramble of mine like you did the others :D

[thecrow-king]

ETHICS TOWN SPOILERS UP TO EPISODE "History is written By...Who?"

Turned out longer than I intended and I didn't even add everything I wanted to say.

Romulus (love that choice of name), once he travelled back in time, is just a copy of the Romulus of his current present, placed in the past. So, a clone, you could say.

In his original future, Ethics Town was founded by a Richard, and he waited for a Richard to turn up and do it in the past he placed himself in. There's none. So he, Romulus (now Ryan), founds Ethics Town.

Is this the point were he changed the story or was it once he arrived in that time? Is this past a copy of the other one? Like when you have a word document, which we now call "History" and you save a copy of that document, you have "History Copy 1". Now, on your computer, tablet, phone, whatever, you can change "History Copy 1" into anything you want without altering "History". You all know how word and file saving works. I am sure.

My point is, did Romulus create a copy of the history? He said it himself, Ryan is not Romulus. They aren't one "continued consciousness." Is this what happened to the others? Is this the reason why Ian and Artemis have memories that they seemingly just made up? Because they have the memories and desires of Ian and Artemis from the other history. Is this why they are doomed by the narrative - because it's already written?

I'm pretty sure I am wrong because there are more things worth analysing, like the parallels between Ryan and January (I've read the tags on my other post - they are based on the same guy! That's so cool).

(Is Ian the Remus to Ryan being Romulus? Ian is from a neighbouring town, and Remus hopped over the small wall when they first started building Rome).

Is it ethical to jump back in time to change something? Even if you just want to experience life there, you change history.

Does anything of this post make sense to anyone else besides me?

I love media that lets me analyse and theorise. I know I have a tendency to see clues where there aren't any ("turning it into a mystery that needed solving"), but it's fun nonetheless to see what I can come up with and if anything is true in the end. Anyway, I look forward to more of Ethics Town.

Wait, does that mean the town will be flooded at the end of this podcast?

This is how I feel:

Good gods, I just googled something and found out something else. Why can't I stop?

I should probably reblog this post and continue there.

[meme-streets]

gbu playlists director's commentary

@trifoliate-undergrowth asked and now i am going to give the full track by track breakdown + general commentary because i have been waiting for someone to give me an excuse

(be warned before opening, this is long as hell)

overview

ended up making all of them 21 songs long–no particular reason for the number, it just worked out that way. i didn't originally intend for playlist times to matter, but when i realizes blondie's and tuco's could fit onto a cd, i fiddled with angel eyes's to cut down the length as well (specifically by dropping "riders on the storm" and replacing it with "people are strange"). i do definitely intend to burn these at some point; i'm thinking i'm going to start them each with the respective character's variant of the main theme and end them with the quotes i put in the descriptions. i structured blondie and tuco's by starting and ending each with a townes van zandt song. i had originally intended to do the same with angel eyes, but i couldn't find any townes songs i liked for him; i briefly considered starting and ending with the johnny cash songs instead, but i didn't like how that would've flowed, so i discarded the idea entirely. my main priority was getting things to flow musically well, but i did want certain themes in certain places.

breakdown: il buono

"where i lead me", townes van zandt: the opening verse especially.  “where i lead me, i will follow / where i need me, i will call me / i’m no fool, i’ll be ready / god knows i will be / and in the meantime make a little money / and buy a little mercy.”  really this is a blondie/tuco or even general gbu song, especially “or you can clench your fist, shake your head, and head to the country / i got no doubt about it, friends, that’s where they’ll find me” as tuco tracking blondie down for revenge.  i felt the vibe suited blondie best.

"elements and things," tony joe white: mostly my joking reference to the clint squint with “i would, but the sun’s in my eyes.”  that said, the music itself has the right vibe for him–makes me imagine him riding through the countryside–and the grandeur of it seems to suit him.  “you lay back and think about things,” too.

“the changeling,” the doors: “i’ve had money, and i’ve had none, but i’ve never been so broke that i couldn’t leave town.”  and also, blondie as a changeling, impossible to know or define or pin down.

“call me the breeze,” jj cale: a desert breeze, untethered, tied down to nothing?  “i ain’t got me nobody, i ain’t carryin’ me no load”?  that’s blondie to a tee (or he’d like it to be, anyway).

“spoonful,” willie dixon: a parallel with tuco, who has the howlin’ wolf version.  “could be a spoonful of water, to save you from the desert sand / but one spoon of lead from my 45 will save you from another man.”  this version strikes me as a little more romantic/sincere with the piano and dixon’s crooning vocals, and it also doesn’t mention gold like the wolf version, something i think blondie cares less about by the end.

“walk away,” tom waits: walking away, aka blondie’s favorite pastime.  “i always get out of the trouble i’m in.”  also, “a yellow dog knows when he has sinned” reminds me of him abandoning tuco and then being marched through the desert for it.

“secret intention,” the william loveday intention: blondie at sad hill specifically.  the religious overtones of both song and scene especially.  the ritual of it all.  the treachery.

“dancing with mr. d,” the rolling stones: another sad hill song.  it opens with “down in the graveyard where we have our tryst,” for god’s sake.  playing with blondie as an otherworldly and sinister figure.  “he never smiles, his mouth merely twists.”  not entirely true of him, but evocative.

“calling card,” rory gallagher: “whatever you do, brother, don’t show that hurt.”  i almost put this on tuco’s before ultimately switching it to blondie; he strikes me as being lonely deep down, and determined not to let on.  if you like, think of it as him advising tuco.

“the spy,” the doors: “i know the words you want to hear / i know your deepest, secret fear.”  finding out tuco’s secret(s).  also, “a spy in the house of love” just feels right for blondie.

“fire of love,” jody reynolds: “the sun beats down with its fiery glow  / knows i won’t see my love no more / i’m sorry for the things that i’ve done / forgive me dear, my only one.”  the desert!  also, the general idea of being burned/hurt by love strikes me as appropriate.  i think it hurts him, in a way, that he loves tuco.

“waiting for the sun,” the doors: mostly vibes, but the image of “it’s time to live in the scattered sun” reminded me of him for some reason, and the “waiting for you to come along / waiting for you to hear my song / waiting for you to tell me what went wrong” made me think of him and tuco (every gun makes its own tune, the ending).

“written in your hair,” robert lester folsom: this one is mostly vibes, and also something something buried gold/golden hair, but also “you can’t do a thing if you ain’t there” reminds me of him.

“don’t let me be misunderstood,” the animals: pretty self explanatory; he’s cruel perhaps without always wanting to be.  also, “no one alive can always be an angel / when things go wrong i seem to be bad” reminiscent of the missed shot and his subsequent ditching tuco in the desert.  a sort of apology.

“all along the watchtower,” bob dylan: a very blondie & tuco song to me.  the second verse especially.  “there are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke / but you and i, we've been through that, and this is not our fate / so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”  tuco’s near hangings and blondie’s near death in the desert (but you and i we’ve been through that), and the exchange of the secret at the bridge (so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late); ironically, blondie lies.

“hunger child blues,” townes van zandt: one of THE top blondie songs to me.  i almost ended with this one for the “do you think that you know my name?” but it didn’t flow well.  it’s ethereal, and a little threatening, like him.

“(ghost) riders in the sky,” johnny cash: also on sentenza’s, who has the ronnie dawson cover.  i wanted to lean into the supernatural aspect, and “cowboy, change your ways today, or with us you will ride” felt apt.  i actually liked the dawson version better for blondie but the cash version flows very well musically.

“wand’rin’ star,” lee marvin: from paint your wagon.  if the title itself isn’t convincing enough, “i’ve never seen a sight that didn’t look better looking back.” 

“don’t fence me in,” clint eastwood: pretty self explanatory.  had to pick the clint cover for obvious reasons.

“state trooper,” bruce springsteen: “maybe you got a kid, maybe you got a pretty wife / the only thing that i got’s been botherin’ me my whole life” immediately makes me think of him.  as does “hi-ho, silver-o, deliver me from nowhere” and the echoing cries at the end.  the crushing loneliness of the open road.

“snake song,” townes van zandt: the other top blondie song to me.  “you can’t hold me, i’m too slippery / i do no sleepin’, i get lonely / you can touch me if you want to / but i got poison, i just might bite you.”  that’s blondie, baby.  the line “lie in circles on the sunlight” is also very evocative and “i’ll be there when you start sinkin’” reminds me of the ending.

breakdown: il brutto

"lungs", townes van zandt: another general gbu song, but “salvation sat and crossed herself and called the devil partner” makes me think of him and pablo.  “jesus was an only sun and love his only concept / strangers cry in foreign tongues and dirty up the doorstep” makes me think of his relationship with blondie, given their weird interplay as jesus and judas at various points.  as a bonus, “seal the river at its mouth, take the water prisoner / fill the sky with screams and cries, bathe in fiery answer” gives me branston bridge vibes also.

"wanted dead or alive," warren zevon: pretty self explanatory just from the title, but i thought "all i'm trying to do is find a peaceful place / but they say i have an outlaw's face" is particularly apt.  that, and the parallel of "fifteen states" to tuco being wanted in fifteen counties.

“do it again,” steely dan: “but the hangman isn’t hangin’, so they put you on the street.”  any song with a noose in it is a tuco song to me, especially if said noose is escaped, but the rest of the lyrics fit well too–revenge, trouble with the law, water in the desert, seduction and lost love (the wives!), gambling, making money.

“black widow blues,” townes van zandt: “i got the hands, pretty lady, gonna make you grieve / and the lovin’ gonna make you mine.”  a specific kind of drifting, hedonistic romanticism that suits him, i think.  something something a wife in every town.

“ventilator blues,” the rolling stones: “when you’re trapped and circled with no second chance / code of livin’ is your gun in hand / can’t be browed by beatin’, can’t be cowed by words / messed by cheatin’, ain’t gon’ ever learn.”  the line about “everybody's trying to step on their creator” and the opening verse about being agitated and beat down.

“goin’ out west,” tom waits: “they got some money out there, they’re giving it away” and “all my friends say i’m ugly, i got a masculine face.”  i feel like the braggadocio and the musical sound of it suits him.

“highway chile,” jimi hendrix: “now you’d probably call him a tramp, but i think it goes a little deeper than that”–tuco calls himself a tramp on the wagon.  “ain’t seen a bed in so long it’s a sin.”

“born under a real bad sign,” albert king: pretty self explanatory.  “if it wasn’t for real bad luck, i wouldn’t have no luck at all.”  that’s tuco, baby.  i used king’s original over the cream cover namely because of the line “i can’t read, never learned how to write.”

“laundromat,” rory gallagher: “what do you think of that? / i’m sleepin’ down at the laundromat” and the line about “come and meet my friends, they’ll be with me to the end” reminds me of his “if you work for a living, why do you kill yourself working?” scene

“who do you love,” townes van zandt: the morbid, boastful lyrics and themes of seduction suited tuco very well imo.  i love bo diddley but i picked the townes cover as i felt it fit better musically.

“brown eyed handsome man,” chuck berry: the braggadocio and the romanticization of brown eyes fits already, but the line about the judge’s wife setting a man free especially caught my attention, because it seems like it would happen to tuco (or he’d make up a story about it, anyway).

“hate street dialogue,” rodríguez: the song’s about growing up in inner city detroit, but it fits well, i think, with tuco’s line “where we come from, if one did not want to die in poverty, one became a priest or a bandit.”  also, “i’ve tasted hate street’s hanging tree.”

“snake mountain blues,” townes van zandt: the general lost love, “no one to care for me” thing, but also: “and it’s goodbye to this yellow-headed misery i’ve known.”  remind you of anyone?

“should’ve learnt my lesson,” rory gallagher: never learning, and “my first mistake was when i thought that you’d be true / now i realize that was a foolish thing to do” as everything with blondie.  “when you don’t fit, you know that’s the time to move.”  “you must be prepared to lose if you choose to toss the dice.”

“just a bum,” michael hurley: a wistful, romantic take on the life of a hedonistic drifter.  “just a tramp / call me what you like / see me travelin’ down the pike / and singin’ love songs / sittin’ by the fireside dreamin’ all night / makin’ love drunk in a meadow ‘neath the pale moonlight / travelin’ over land like a natural born man.”

“paper mountain man,” linda perhacs: the chorus, the line about “sewn by the love many ladies’ hands” and “you like delicate ladies with real fine skin / you’ll touch ‘em but you’ll never love / that’s the way you’ve always been,” the line about curly hair.  “heavy-booted walk tappin’ low funk blues” also feels fitting for reasons i can’t quite describe. 

“spoonful,” howlin’ wolf: also on blondie’s, who has the willie dixon version.  this version mentions gold, which is apt, and i think the mentions of being satisfied with just a little love work more ironically here than for blondie.  something about all this strife over a little wealth (before the gold comes along anyway...)

“driftin’ blues,” lowell fulson: “well i’m drifting and i’m drifting like a ship out to sea / ain’t got nobody in this world to care for me.”  need i say more?

“get behind the mule,” tom waits: one of the best suited songs for him, imo.  “i’m diggin' all the way to china with a silver spoon while the hangman fumbles with the noose”–sad hill!  but also, the idea of “you've got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow” is about how it goes for him.  he's just got to endure.  blondie leaves him in the desert seventy miles from town and tells him to manage it, so he does.  what else is he supposed to do?

“dirge,” bob dylan: this is the other peak tuco song for me.  the verse that starts “can’t recall a useful thing” which i made a web weave out of, but also, “i’ve paid the pride of solitude, but at least i’m out of debt.”

“rake,” townes van zandt: i wanted to end on kind of a grim note because there’s something very tragic about tuco as a character to me.  he ends the movie alive and with the gold, yes, but humiliated and abandoned by his partner.  reminds me of his relationship with pablo, too: “have you accomplished anything but evil?”  his drifting and hedonism can only take him so far before his past catches up with him eventually.

breakdown: il cattivo

"dead before dawn", vaguess: “please burn my rotting flesh / and don’t give me a grave / buy yourself something nice / with the money that you save / cause i’ll be gone”.  sad hill!

"sinister purpose," ccr: THE angel eyes song to me.  “burn away the goodness, you and i remain / did you see the last war? well here i am again.”  specifically, angel eyes to blondie.

"big in japan," tom waits: this one's all about the "i've got the [blank], but not the [blank]" structure.  as in, the cemetery, but not the grave–which could go for all of them, but i felt this fit sentenza best given he's trying to get both of these things; tortures it out of and forces a partnership on blondie since he suspects torture won't work on him.  that, and the "i've got the whole damn nation on its knees."

"people are strange," the doors: a time-constrained replacement for "riders on the storm," which i felt would’ve really suited him with the sinisterness of it and the thing about the drifting killer.  regardless, i think the idea of being cruel and apart from other people as a self-reinforcing cycle feels pretty fitting.

"thirteen," johnny cash: a song about a nameless killer.  “bad luck wind been blowin' at my back / i  was born to bring trouble to wherever i'm at” and “the list of lives i’ve broken reach from here to hell.”

"sympathy for the devil," the rolling stones: a song about a sophisticated devil?  come on, that’s angel eyes for sure.  i think “so if you meet me have some courtesy / have some sympathy and some taste / use all your well-learned politesse / or i’ll lay your sole to waste” is very fitting especially.

"whistlin’ past the graveyard," tom waits: this could've gone for any of the trio, honestly, but i picked angel eyes as this specific brand of sinister, supernatural braggadocio seemed to suit him best.

"i’m the devil," the william loveday intention: i feel like this one’s just self explanatory, to be honest.

"old judge jones," les dudek: one of my early adds; his (italian) name’s sentenza, after all, so i’m a sucker for pairing him with any song about judges/judgment.  “old judge jones never gave a man a break / on his hanging tree the leaves don’t shake.”

"the snake," al wilson: the theme of accepting someone else’s help and then crossing them because “you knew darn well i was a snake before you brought me in” feels very right for him.  something with how he betrays tuco.  hell, this could be a blondie song too.

"money talks," jj cale: “you’d be surprised with the friends you can buy with small change.”  the goons he hires.

"dead man, dead man," bob dylan: a tuco’s-eye-view of angel eyes, specifically.  the lines about “the glamor and the bright lights and the politics of sin,” “the tuxedo that you’re wearing, the flower in your lapel,” and the choruses with lines like “pretending that you’re so smart” and “what are you trying to prove?”–all his false sophistication and arrogance covering that he’s just another lowdown coward.

"hoist that rag," tom waits: the horrors of war (specifically, the prison camp stuff).

"wolf teeth," jd mcpherson: “i leave a little magic every place i go” (the inhuman vibes of him) and “leave a little blood so the grass can’t grow.”

"rotten to the core," the builders and the butchers: while i initially listened to this song assuming it was about a guy who sucked, it’s about seeing the world as an inherently cruel and dangerous place–which, funnily enough, i think also fits pretty well.  case in point, when he tries to justify his brutality to that prison camp official by claiming they have to have “respect.”

"bad seed sown," the bellfuries: “the kinda people hip to my kind of evil / are few and far between / it lurks, it lies, it feeds on cries / it’s sophisticated and mean.”  self explanatory.  additionally, “there won’t be omens or signs / just a smile and a line / then the swing of the axe”–betraying tuco.

"love of hate," st. john green: sad hill.  this one’s partly just vibes.  “shall die alone, without privilege of a stone” does fit nicely.

"riders in the sky," ronnie dawson: also on blondie’s, who has the johnny cash version, so i ended up using this for angel eyes.  blondie may have changed his ways, but angel eyes doesn’t, and he strikes me as the type not to stay dead and buried.  i just like the idea of him as a ghost.

"god’s gonna cut you down," johnny cash: the delicious irony of sentenza as a figure of judgment, and of him being then cut down by blondie (golden haired angel).

"the werewolf song," michael hurley: a slightly softer, sentimental take on the violence, if that makes any sense.  vibes mostly.  i wonder if he ever gets lonely.

"death don’t have no mercy (live)," hot tuna: reminds me very strongly of his intro at stevens’s place; “he comes to your house and he won’t stay long / you look in the bed and somebody will be gone.”  felt this was a good, grim note to end on, and i felt the hot tuna cover fit very well musically.

[ren-shonen]

AO3 Wrapped - Writers Edition

Answering these all in one go, LiveJournal style, because why not?

Post for reblogging

How many words have you written this year? 25,583! (Not counting WIPs, which don't add that much to the word count since most of them are still only in the outline stage.)

How many works did you publish this year? Nine so far, which is definitely nine more works than my January self expected to write this year (or at all!) lol

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? Oh boy, that's tough. I feel like "heavy shield down" is my best work so far, but "Morning (calls for pain relief)" and "Just as Flowers Grow" required much more effort from me. I've learned a lot from all of them!

What work of yours has the most hits? "under the mirror of the surface" and "Morning (calls for pain relief)" have been neck-and-neck, just a handful apart, for a while.

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? To be honest, I didn't go in expecting any particular level of feedback, so I can't really answer this question.

Favorite title you used "Give" is hands-down my favorite title for any of my works. The whole thing is just a big pile of polysemy, and it pleases me. lol

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? I have three song lyric titles (fewer than I expected!), and they're all from different artists, so uhh I guess it's a tie? "under the mirror of the surface" is from "Aquaman" by Walk the Moon; "Morning (calls for pain relief)" is from "Morning Calls" by Dashboard Confessional; and "heavy shield down" is from "Invincible" by Tool.

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? Definitely KiriTodoBakuDeku, even though it was almost all under the "ambiguous relationships" tag, haha

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Same as above, but I feel like the Bakugou platonic self-pairing from "heavy shield down" merits a special mention.

What work was the quickest to write? "heavy shield down" was written overnight in a twelve-hour blur and published the next day. It's possible that "Distance and Weight" was shorter than that; both it and "Give" were originally Twitter threads, so I don't have the Docs revision history available to reference. (I know "Give" did require some editing before it went up on AO3, though, and that took a few days due to beta turnaround time, etc.)

What work took you the longest to write? "Morning (calls for pain relief)" was eked out very slowly over the course of a week and then edited over another week. I labored over that one.

How many WIPs do you have in your docs for next year? I also have nine WIPs right now, funnily. One of them I originally intended to publish this month, but the weather and body stuff just aren't cooperating so far.

What’s your longest work of the year? "Ang, Ang, Ang (Means 'I Love You' in Dragon)" at 8,207 words. I'm still not sure how it ended up that long; I was aiming for, like, 4k. lmao

What’s your shortest work of the year? "Give" at 335 words

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? I have only published one-shots so far, so, N/A

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? "Future Fic" (on 7 of 9 works!) Here's the tag cloud:

(tag cloud made by creating a temporary collection and putting all my works in it)

Your favorite character to write this year? I won't choose and you can't make me >:(

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? Oh god, Kirishima is my favorite character in general, but his POV is very, very challenging for me to write! I am determined to get better at it, though.

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? *cough* I might have some tentative plans to write more in the Circuits series (for which "Parallel" was the first work) and tiptoe into some KamiShinSero? I'm thinkin' about it.

Which work of yours have you reread the most? Oh geez. ...probably "heavy shield down," because I wrote it so fast that it didn't have a chance to take on that "overchewed gum" quality that things get when you spend too long working on them. So I still enjoy re-reading it.

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 574

Which work has the most comments? "heavy shield down" has 15 comment threads

Did you do any collaborative works this year? No, despite my ambitions in that direction!

Did you write any gifts this year? Yes! In fact, all of my works this year except for "Morning (calls for pain relief)" were written either as gifts or in response to a specific person's prompt. As it turns out, having a very specific target audience is highly motivating for me! (Given that the whole deal with the Planet BNHA monthly exchange is basically that plus deadline plus supportive community, it's really been a great experience.)

Did you receive any gifts this year? Yes, 10, and I'm still a bit floored by that tbh (I would actually really like to publish one more work this year, just to even that up 😅)

What’s your most common category? M/M (7 works), followed by Multi (5 works)

What do you listen to while writing? Some fics I put together a whole playlist, or else loop just one or two songs; otherwise, I have a "focis focis" YouTube playlist that I use anytime I need to stay, well, focused on something.

Favorite work you wrote this year? I don't think I could choose one, really.

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? from "Thresholds":

Clutched close against Eijirou's chest, Shouto focused on their syncopated heartbeats, on all the oddly-intimate sounds of a body existing: the squirming grumble of peristalsis, the creak of shifting joints. This, at least, was the same, and Shouto felt the same familiar tug behind his sternum, drawing him closer. But, then just as now, they were practically intertwined: there was no closer to be.

I just love "the oddly-intimate sounds of a body existing" and "the squirming grumble of peristalsis" as descriptors, tbh.

Biggest surprise while writing this year? Writing fic at ALL! This year was my first time publishing fanfiction online despite being in fandom and reading fic for more than two decades. (And the last time I tried to write fic was using pencil and paper in middle school!) Being a fic author has never really been something I've had as a goal for myself, and more recently, it was something I didn't think I was physically capable of managing. But thanks to a LOT of kind enthusiasm, support, and encouragement, I did eventually get started. Since then, I've been wading in slowly, pacing myself. If I had my way, I'd have a new thing out every two weeks, but so far, a few thousand words once a month seems to be about the right speed for me. It feels good to have a craft to learn more about and keep myself busy with; it also connects me to others while still being really flexible around my ever-changing capacities, so I'm glad to have taken the leap.

[monkeymindscream]

You're not rambling! You articulated your points very well!

While I do empathize with the show getting cut short and that it meant they had to rearrange/drop a lot (I can't imagine being told that I wasn't going to be able to tell a work I was pouring my heart into the way I'd originally planned to tell it), I have a hard time accepting that as an excuse for what they gave us in the end. The fact that we didn't get any Wittebane lore is something of a sore spot for me, and I've had issues with the show's management of its remaining time post-cancellation since Elsewhere and Elsewhen. Like I said in those posts, they had options with how to present their story. They seemed to consistently pick the wrong ones, in my opinion.

Whether or not we were supposed to take Daddy Titan's word as Word of God, the fact that it's the only word we have on the matter really leaves us no other choice. Hell, it's the final word we have on the matter - after Big T, no one comments on Philip's motivations for the rest of the series. And, again, the fact that T is presented as being correct about his assumptions, with no pushback or counterarguments (from other characters or the narrative itself), also leans more towards his word being intended to dictate how we're supposed to feel about the situation.

Moreover, considering the length the writers went to strip Philip of anything that could vindicate his feelings even a little bit, right down to giving us the absolute bare-minimum of his backstory, I have a hard time believing that T's opinion on the matter wasn't meant to spoonfeed us how we were supposed to feel about him. Which... yeah, combined with the whole "it's okay to judge people who aren't Good like us!" vibe this whole scene gave me... hoo boy. I will concede that, yes, that was likely exactly what Luz needed to hear at that point, but my issue was never really the method, it was the presentation of it, y'know?

And I'm going to try really hard to not start Pepe Sylvia-ing about Philip here, because God I just want that man under a microscope, but the nerd in me simply cannot pass up an opportunity to blab a bit. It's sort of to the left of the point of this discussion, so feel free to skip this part, but we actually don't have any proof that the genocide thing was the first thing Philip jumped to. For all we know, he initially only went to the demon realm to get Caleb, and then would have been content to go back home and only deal with witches when they showed up there (i.e. when the people of Gravesfield decided to start accusing each other, but y'know). We've never been given any concrete evidence to contradict that had originally been his plan, at any rate. Kind of another failing of the show, really, and yet another reason why they had to rely on characters bluntly telling us "he's bad."

Which - don't mind me taking swings at this dead horse here - they didn't need to do in the first place. The audience already understood he was bad, for godssake look at the shit he'd been pulling!! The fact that you just pointed out the discrepancy between his actions and what he was claiming his reasoning was is proof! We got it! We understood! We didn't need that comment!!

And you bring up an excellent point! Religious themes in works can work spectacularly to said work's favor if done right, not to mention has been utilized in stories for centuries. It is by no means a bad thing, my apologies if I made it seem like that was what I was critiquing about the situation! My gripe about it in this instance is that Dana cited the religious parallels between Philip and her own catholic upbringing as one of the reasons she didn't like working with him as a character. Which, by all means, it's her right to use her characters as representations for things she finds unpleasant. However, considering her refusal to develop Philip as a result of this (which did the show as a whole a severe disservice, in my opinion), it's frustrating to see her then turn around and use it to positive effect on her main character (who, by the way, she's also cited as being partially inspired by herself/her experiences).

ALSO!! Luz and Philip are narrative foils! Or at least, they should have been! Yet another issue this scene creates is that it feels like it's trying to put as much of a stopper in that idea as it can. Luz worries that they are, in fact, alike (which they very much are), only for Big T to immediately shut it down.

This is, at this point of course, all personal interpretation, however much I'm insistently rabbiting on about it. Thank you so much for being so polite in your comment, though!

The Owl House has a whole scene where a deity-like figure assures the main character (who he's been omnisciently observing and has decided he likes because of her personal relationship to his son) that she is nothing like the main antagonist (who is a non-believer in him the goodness of magic), because unlike her the antagonist is unquestionably evil. The deity-like figure hand-waves her worries that outside factors could turn her into the same sort of monster as said antagonist, that their motives could be anything alike, and the need for really any introspection at all, because unlike him she is inherently Good. The deity-like figure then resurrects her from death because she is so holy Good and has done so right by his son.

Guess you can take the girl out of catholicism but you can't take the catholicism out of the girl, huh Dana?

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Y'know the saying 'Art and Literature is Subjective' right?It got me thinking about whose interpretation is the most accurate one.Is it always the writer's or could it also be placed upon certain audiences?Take SW's sequel for example,I'm personally dissatisfied with its ending as it butchered Ben's whole character arc and rightful place in S*ywa*ker's family's legacy.Then we have other fans who only wants certain trope and stuff to happen to their beloved fave as they deemed it the only suitable option for that particular character.So is there such a thing as the most valid and accurate judge of stories/literatures?Lucas might have said on several occasions that his story was all about hope,love,and redemption but even he didn't dare market it truthfully in times of the OT's release so we can't really place all the blame on the fans for misreading certain stuff no?I've also had experienced with several writers who admitted to have gone a temporary change of heart when writing a story and it became glitches in an overall solid storyline.But if you squint and look closely,you'll notice a faint shift in the storyline several chapters before the ultimate ending.So what happens when a writer truly decided to make their changes permanent?What would happen to those fans who stayed for author's original storyline?Would author be wrong in this kind of scenario?Or should the fans just simply moved on and find another story?I think about things like these a lot...is thinking and deeming certain asian stories to be much better than Hollywood ones merely my own opinion?Or is there really some grain of truth in it?Can there really be a "correct" opinion in viewing literatures like we do in stuff like science and math?

It's not that there's one 'right answer' when it comes to interpretation. Even the author's intent isn't the right answer because, as you point out, their intention can be inconsistent or poorly communicated or completely at odds with what actually comes across to the audience. The author's intent is really only as pivotal as you want it to be. Personally, I would never argue it doesn't matter what the author intended, I think it's relevant, but it's not something you have to accept as the One True Meaning, either.

That's all Death of the Author really means. That interpretation isn't about psychoanalysing the person who wrote the work or combing through their biography looking for parallels and forcing a rl analogue onto everything they wrote about. You don't have to spend your time trying to determine the author's intent in order to discover meaning. You analyse the work to discover meaning.

So there isn't a right answer. But what there is, is a wrong answer. There are lots of wrong answers. Not all interpretations are valid. You need to be able to support your reading with evidence from the text, you need to be able to build a coherent case that this message arises naturally from the work. When people pull something wildly unsupported and actively contradicted by the text out of their ass and claim that's the message, I do blame them. That's their fault for refusing to come to the text on its own terms and being unwilling to empathise with the text's perspective. You can't blame marketing once you have the actual film in front of you. Having the wrong expectations can affect your enjoyment of the story, but it doesn't render you unable to think.

And you know, a lot of people don't care about validity and aren't interested in analysis and will say 'idc that's what it's about for me'. And that's their prerogative. At the end of the day it's fiction and you're not hurting anyone by reinventing it however you see fit.

It's just that if you want to be taken seriously or you want to talk about good writing, you do have to care about these things. If an author is going to flip flop on major themes in their work or change their mind about big storytelling elements that have already been set up, their work is not going to be a cohesive whole. The reader will have a worse experience, they'll probably end up with a lot of unintentional reactions that will harm the author's intended response. The author will probably end up breaking foundational promises they made to the audience and that's going to cause an adverse reaction.

I don't think it's 'wrong' to change your mind, it's a question of whether you can make it work or not. Sometimes you can shift or subvert your original foundation in a way that makes the new direction seem totally natural (eg: Vader being Anakin is a retcon- you can tell, but it makes the story so much better that the minor discontinuity really doesn't matter). If there's no way to make it work without being able to go back and edit the earlier instalments, you need to decide if you think it's worth it and/or how willing a reader will be to accept the change. You don't have to care what the audience will think if you're writing just for yourself, but I think the viewpoint of a hypothetical reader is something an author should always be conscious of on some level if their goal is to write well. You want to communicate effectively. Communication is the whole point of storytelling.

So anyway, there isn't a 'correct' answer like in math, but there are valid and invalid opinions. If a work is poorly written enough it can become so incoherent that they're really isn't any consistent interpretation possible, and that's when a work has become a straight up failure. An author can also end up sending a different message than the one they intended and it's sort of up to them whether they consider that a failure or not.

I also think the thematic success of a work can be separate from enjoyment. I like some hot mess stuff and have no problem saying it's a hot mess even though I like it. As far as 'did I enjoy it?' goes, that's entirely subjective and no one can argue with me about whether I did or not. However, 'is it good? did it succeed?' on the other hand is something we can argue about.

[anzcty]

Analysing Episode 6 Sylvie - her actions, her choice and a whole bunch of theories (Spoilers!)

After watching the Loki finale, I have been scrolling through Tumblr for quite a long time. I already knew that people's opinions were gonna be incredibly different but I definitely did not expect this much negative backlash. Especially when it comes to two specific topics - the Sylvie and Loki kiss and Sylvie's betrayal (/choice/actions). I'm gonna be talking about the latter, for it is another time I'll talk a lot about Sylki's relationship. (Beware that this post is also really long though)

First of all, everyone has different opinions and I respect that. I absolutely adore movies, books, TV-shows and videogames because despite what's happening within the story, each viewer has the opportunity to see something else in what they are shown (besides the obvious canon). What I mean is that everyone interprets certain scenes differently and gains the opportunity to make up theories. Therefore I want to clarify that I do, by no means, want to force my views upon others. It's nice to see people talk about the Loki Series (as long as it doesn't get too negative and hateful, iykwim) because every viewer can share their specific experiences with it :)

I'm gonna analyse Sylvie's character a bit ( because, well, I'm bored and I kinda wanna protect my beloved character that I've only had for a few weeks >:^0 AND the only thing I could think about the past day was this episode) and try to explain her actions in the finale (keep in mind: not justifying them, but explaining them).

I'm terribly bad at concentrating on one single topic point so I kinda made a 'list' with questions and whatnot that I wanted to dive deeper into. Your thoughts are also more than welcome!

I already want to apologise for grammatical mistakes, for I am not a native english speaker.

Sylvie's reason for being taken away by the TVA is still kinda unknown

You know, I've heard quite a few theories about Sylvie's nexus event by now. Some people say that she got taken away because she was playing with her toys in a way that indicates her having a good heart (playing as a Valkyrie and wanting to save someone, another hint may also be the reaction she showed towards someone else who got kidnapped by the TVA, yelling at the soldiers to "help them out"). Another theory is that she already knew she was adopted, unlike Loki who found out way later than her. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but we never got to hear the actual reason why Sylvie got kidnapped. Even Renslayer didn't say a word about it.

Now I'm gonna come up with yet another theory. What if Sylvie didn't really have a nexus event in the first place how we know it? In the final episode, Kang has said that he has planned out everything beforehand so both Loki and Sylvie would end up right in front of him. Did Kang's plan also possibly involve him getting killed by Sylvie? Hear me out: We don't actually know if the Kang we saw in episode 6 is the actual 'nice' Kang and not one of his evil variants. He has already talked about 'reincarnation', so who says that after ending the first universial war, Kang didn't reincarnate into someone with an unpure heart (aka, one of his evil variants)? That'd mean that the real Kang would have been killed and the Kang we've seen in the finale is actually an evil version that simply lied to both Loki and Sylvie. Besides that, we also don't know if Kang actually had that 'point' where he didn't know what would happen next. The show revolves a whole lot around trust, not only regarding the characters, but also the viewers. Who's to say that Kang said the truth? Maybe he planned it all out: He created the TVA, let Sylvie get kidnapped and therefore give her a reason to hunt after Kang, who in return could reincarnate if he got killed OR get killed and therefore give his other variants a possibility to conquer the universes yet again. Don't you think that it was kinda suspicious that Sylvie escaped so easily out of Renslayer's hands? The one person who's probably closest to Kang? (Even though, yes, she doesn't know who he is but Renslayer seems to play a very important role in his plan). What if the Kang we saw was the nice Kang though? Would he plan everything up to a point where another universial war would break out because he might know that there is indeed something/someone out there who could end it and therefore, possibly end Kang as a whole or create a new kind of system revolving around the universe? And therefore, get rid of the possibility of another universial war happening? Who knows. I am definitely overthinking and reaching at this point. One more thing that stood out to me while thinking about the episode again today (which kinda weighs more into my theory of Sylvie being a keypoint (or rather a puppet) in this plan): Kang has talked about his Tempad and that he knew that he would need it to have enough energy. But for what? Yes, his initial idea was to give it to Loki and Sylvie to rule over the TVA, but what if it was supposed to be used for another reason? Sylvie used it to transport Loki back to the TVA (though I kinda think he was accidentally transported to another timeline, hence the reactions of both Mobius and Hunter B-15) and therefore get rid of the only thing that could prevent Sylvie from killing Kang. The Tempad was used to secure Sylvie's path and therefore eradicated Kang's only option of safety. You can see the Tempad loosing it's glow after Kang was killed, possibly due to Kang himself being the origin of it's energy. But maybe, it only had enough energy for one specific action: getting rid of Kang's protection. I do think that Sylvie is now stuck at this place and somehow has to find a way back to Loki's reality. The Tempad clearly doesn't work anymore (at least in my opinion) and there was quite a long shot showing the Tempad up close, which is kinda suspicious tbh. Also, something regarding Sylvie's unanswered nexus event feels kinda odd to me, too.

My theory in conclusion: Sylvie (and Loki) are unconciously helping Kang with his plan (a big, big, BIG plan). They're his puppets, especially Sylvie, because she's the one who created the Multiverse to begin with. Think about Loki, who was said to be manipulated by Thanos in Avengers? It's basically the same train of thoughts.

Sylvie does not take Kang's offer into consideration

To be honest, this was something to be absolutely expected of her. Sylvie was kidnapped as a child, taken away from her home and family, and had to grow up in countless apocalypses where she could never form a real bond with anybody because she knew that those people were all going to die anyway. (Please don't judge me if I got that wrong, maybe I understood the next thing wrong? Idk, if so, I'm very sorry) She revealed that she was kidnapped way before Loki was even born (something I have to think about, too, because, if Loki is the actual Loki the other variants are based off, why did he exist after Sylvie? Wouldn't that make him a variant of Sylvie instead? Idk timelines and parallel universes are hard to understand for me :') I'm kinda stoopid ), therefore she must've had spent several decades of her life running away. She had no life at all. Her only goal was to bring down the TVA and whoever is behind it, driven by pure rage, seeking out revenge for stealing her life and basically forbidding her existence. And now that she has found said person, the only thing that'd be right for her character would be to go for the kill. As immoral as it may sound, it is the only thing that makes sense. And I am actually very happy that Sylvie's goals didn't change besides the fact that she did indeed soften up a little and has gotten someone really close to her. In contrary, it makes sense for Loki to do the exact opposite. His goals have changed. He does not act the way he did in Thor or Avengers anymore. He has found another goal for himself: to make Sylvie feel alright. He has had immense character growth and didn't take a chance to change his goals back in the Thor movies or in Avengers, (....maybe later in Thor: Ragnarok, kinda). This is exactly what I think might happen to Sylvie, too. She is at the beginning of her character arc. She doesn't take the chance to change her goal, but goes for her original goal instead. Said goal does not really have positive consequences (though, maybe it might have some? We're about to find out), which results in a so called 'negative character development', which Loki has already gone through. I think that Sylvie is gonna grow as a character in season 2 and get a positive character development in addition, just like Loki did. I highly doubt that she's gonna become the antagonist, it does not make sense at this point.

Why does she not take Kang's offer (besides her very obvious intention ofc)? That leads straight (or not so straight, pun intended) to the next thing I wanna talk about. Sylvie's distrust in everything and everyone. Besides not wanting to let other people go through what she has been gone through and wanting to let people have a free will, she also does not trust Kang with his offer of 'ruling' the timeline. And it might be because she also does not trust the one she'd be ruling with: Loki.

Why does Sylvie not trust Loki?

I don't even have a specific answer to that, except that Sylvie has an incredibly thick wall built up around her. Loki has always been portrayed as the one you should not trust because he's known for backstabbing people. Loki could have thought the same about Sylvie, but he didn't. Due to his character arc, he himself has learned to trust other people and tries to redeem himself with making himself a person others can trust (He may project that onto Sylvie, meaning that he puts his trust into a Loki variant and therefore in himself, too). You can connect that fact with both Sylvie and Mobius. They're both people who are incredibly important to Loki. He wants them to trust him. He openly told Sylvie about his mistakes and tells her that he's not that person anymore. Sylvie on the other hand does not trust that easily and is - in my opinion - a very important key regarding Loki's character development. It is incredibly hard for Sylvie to trust others (probably due to her trauma) and it therefore creates a very difficult situation for Loki, where he has to 'prove' himself as trustworthy. It's basically about 'trusting yourself' if you put it that way. It's something Loki has to learn about himself: not betraying the trust of others. Sylvie might have to learn something like this, too: learning to trust someone else. It's kinda like a two sided coin - one side is about putting trust in others, whereas the other is about gaining trust from others (and what you do with it). (Good) Relationships in general are always based off trust and honesty. So in order for them to be able to have healthy relationships with others and themselves, they have to learn about trust within themselves (I hope you understand my point, I got carried away, sorry). Loki started to trust Sylvie very easily (maybe because of love? Maybe because of something else? There are still a lot of unanswered questions) whereas Sylvie doesn't trust Loki very easily. Sylvie's character arc might (hopefully) carry on with this topic in the next season.

Was that kiss initiated due to emotional or practical reasons?

Kinda both, somehow. I do think that Sylvie used the kiss to her advantage but you can also clearly see how moved she is while hearing Loki's words. Facial expressions are insanely important when it comes to acting and both Tom and Sophia delivered perfectly. You might've already heard of the quote "The eyes tell more than words could ever say". Look at Sylvie's face when Loki tells her that he wants her to be okay. She is teary eyed, sighs even. She is indeed touched by his words and I strongly think that Sylvie also has non-platonic feelings for Loki, despite barely showing anything.

Here's a snippet out of an interview with Sophia:

(Source)

Both Sylvie and Loki are said to be people who can not trust others. They both have a vulnerable side though. Loki clearly showed that several times when with Sylvie (singing to her, the blanket scene, the comfort scene in the room of the timekeepers, the confession of wanting her to be okay) and is also shown incredibly vulnerable at the end of episode 6: there are several shots showing him, crying. Sure, we have already seen Loki cry a few times beforehand but this time, it's different. He cries because the one person he is the most vulnerable with doesn't trust him, and that does hurt like hell. By the way, if you look at the close-up shot of Sylvie after she yeeted Loki back into the TVA, you can see pain in her eyes, too. But that pain quickly shifts into rage and determination. Something that I have to admit was incredibly well executed by Sophia and the people who directed this shot. Sylvie does show her vulnerable side for a brief moment before putting up her walls again and reaching for her goal.

In conclusion: I think Sylvie initiated the kiss as an emotional response to Loki's words but also used it to distract him to be able to kick him back into the TVA at the same time. Keep in mind that it was because he was in her way of fullfilling her goal. She didn't want to kill or hurt him, so she sent him away instead. So, yes, I think the kiss had both emotional and practical intentions.

Did Sylvie betray Loki?

Even though it really felt like she betrayed him, she didn't. Let me tell you why:

Loki knew exactly what Sylvie was gonna do after reaching the person behind the TVA. Loki supported her all the way up until Kang suggested a deal to them, that's where Loki's and Sylvie's paths divided. Loki is a very smart character, he outsmarts a lot of Marvel characters and therefore I think it's very in character for him to consider one part of the deal and outweigh the pros and cons. Not because he wants the throne, no, but because he wants Sylvie to be okay. A universial war could lead to countless casualties - possibly those people close around him, so of course he would want to keep her safe through that decision. Making them both rulers over the TVA and the sacred timeline would probably guarantee a strong protection from several threats. Also, maybe he thought about the possibility of Sylvie regretting her decision (which she clearly did in the end) and wanted to protect her from even more emotional pain. But as we know, Sylvie's intention has always been laid out in front of her and it didn't change. Loki knew what choice she was going to make and merely tried to change her way - without being successfull.

I don't really know what to think about this scene though. To me, it doesn't meet the requirements of a 'betrayal' but at the same time it does feel like one. It's very difficult to explain :'D

Also, I've seen some people asking themselves how or if Loki will ever be able to forgive Sylvie for making her decision. Let me assure you one thing: he will forgive her. He has said it himself: "I know what you're feeling, I know what you're going through". He has been at Sylvie's point, too. Not only once, but several times already. He seems to have learned from his mistakes, Sylvie has yet to do so. ("I betrayed everyone I've ever loved" is a line to keep in mind now, too. Maybe it could even be projected onto Sylvie this time, because Loki is indeed very dear to her) If there's someone out there who can empathise with Sylvie the most, it is Loki.

Why would Sylvie straight up cause another Universial War?

As I already said. Sylvie's arc is a negative character arc. It does not end well and causes a lot of chaos. Think about Peter Quill in Infinity War and his rage moment on Titan. They could have had the infinity gauntlet way before but Peter got emotional (understandable) and therefore destroyed the chance of an early good ending. The same happened with Sylvie. Her decision was mostly emotional, but also practical on the other hand (giving people free will and freedom). She will face the consequences and I'm pretty sure she's gonna redeem herself and tries to help fix the big mess she has caused.

Sylvie's breakdown

Another scene that was absolutely brilliant was the scene after Sylvie has killed Kang. She backs off slowly and then slumps to the ground, breathing heavily (now that I think about it, I think she even started to cry). She has waited for this moment her whole life, but now that it's done, it kinda feels like she didn't exactly get what she needed. Hunter B-15 has already mentioned it before that Sylvie needs to hunt the person behind the TVA down, unlike Renslayer, who only wants to find out who it really is. Although Sylvie might have recognized that this wasn't everything she needed at this point. We already got to know that she didn't have a clue what to do after she's done with the TVA. She didn't have a goal beyond that. And now that she has reached the point where she is clueless, she might have recognized what she really needed beyond finishing her goal: friends, a life, literally anything that doesn't make her feel alone. And she literally just kicked that one thing away from her. Loki, the one person who has been closest to her and gave her the feeling of not being alone anymore, the feeling of having a friend (or someone more than a friend), has been pushed away by herself. I think that in this exact moment where she sinks to the ground she recognizes that not trusting Loki was a mistake this time and that revenge isn't enough to satisfy her forever.

But maybe that one thing that will satisfy her for a long time is something she's returning back to in season 2. I am so excited to see her again and find out more about Sylvie's character!

Thank you so much for reading this! If you want to add something to this list or correct something or anything, feel free to do so. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Sylvie's character in the finale and what you think might happen with her in season 2 :) see y'all, stay safe and have a nice day/night!

[frazzledsoul]

So I wanted to think about this for a bit before I responded to it.

As a disclaimer, I have zero faith in ASP and by 2006 she was pretty determined to run her project straight into the ground and wasn't listening to any feedback about how disappointing and depressing the S6 storylines were. So the idea that she would have written some ideal S7 season where the Luke/Lorelai stuff is quickly smoothed over or writes some sort of ideal plotline for Rory and Jess always seemed ridiculous to me.

If S7 had happened, I am fairly certain that Lorelai would have taken zero responsibility for her actions, Luke would have never won even partial custody, and most of the storyline would have focused on her beloved Christopher. She steered Lorelai and Rory away from their more working-class, down-to-earth love interests because they weren't good enough anymore for the rich, charming partners she preferred. If she had started writing Lorelai and Christopher, I don't think she would have broken them up, even if she initially intended to.

As far as Rory and Logan go, Rory's fidelity record is already worse than his is by S7 and she's already cheated on him, so I think instead of having a mature relationship it would have been all over the place again with cheating on both sides. I think if she could have done a messy love triangle with Jess, Rory, and Logan, she would have wanted to do so, but Milo was otherwise occupied and even prior to that didn't want to come back to the show full time. ASP likely knew he was not going to be available by the end of season 6 as well. There's this mythology out there that she would have written the perfect Literati plotline in S7, Logan would conveniently disappear, and somehow this was all set to happen because she was going to have Rory cheat on Logan with Jess again at the end of S6 but when ASP quit "the endings were switched" (I still have zero idea why anyone wanted this to happen, or why they thought a healthy relationship would emerge out of Rory cheating AGAIN, or why Jess wouldn't toss her out on her ass since he's already made clear that he has zero desire to be the sidepiece again, but hey....not my pet theory). However, even if Milo was able and willing to appear, it wouldn't have been the plot people think it would be. It would be a nasty free-for-all, resulting in Jess separating himself from Rory and Logan and Rory coming together some time later unwilling to even talk about trying a real relationship again.

I suspect the L/L plotline would have been the same in a hypothetical S8 and they would likely have been more of a parallel with both couples (Luke/Lorelai and Rory/Logan) being unwilling to talk about where their relationships went wrong before or to move on in any real way. Luke and Lorelai do and Rory and Logan don't: Rory's ambitions are supposedly ruined, she's set to repeat her mother's mistakes, and she and Logan will continue doing the same dance until she gets her shit together while Jess waits, I guess.

Ugh. Very depressing.

So ASP is not the person who can repair this whole mess, and while I do think you can concoct a scenario where the younger love triangle rates for a while before everyone settles down, this clearly wasn't the intention. I do believe more than ever that the original finale was superior and that allowing ASP to write the storyline the way she originally intended was a horrible idea. There would have just been more pain and misery to spread around if that had happened.

Thinking about the seventh season of Gilmore Girls and how while there's a love triangle (Christopher vs. Luke) there's no infidelity and Lorelai is flat out called out for the instability in her relationships. Rory's love life is stable for the last year even though her boyfriend is living and working in another country and instead of gravitating to another love interest, she makes friends, worries about her career, and not once is there a plot revolving around urine mints. I know a lot of these plots weren't scintillating in detail but from the status of character development it was good for her to experience these things, to be in a relationship where she could fight with her partner and the world doesn't end and even if that relationship ends before she wanted it to, she's experiencing a milestone where relationships usually end and it's not unwise for her to part ways with Logan at this point anyway.

I'm thinking of this because if there was a Literati reunion the optimal time would be post-series, when she's been stable enough to stick it out for a year without a third party getting involved, when she's navigated a long distance relationship, when she's mature enough to be a good partner that could view Jess as an equal and respect him on his own terms, when she could know him in his own community where he's loved and respected and he's also grown enough to be able to trust her enough to tell her his secrets....and she's mature enough to be trusted with them.

I know a lot of Lit fans speculate about ASP wanting to fire Matt Czuchry and writing the perfect ending in season 7 but Milo wasn't available, Czuchry had a contract, and the fictional relationship started on those terms would not have been ideal or taken place without a lot of mistrust, confusion, and potential for infidelity. Rory needed to stick it out in the relationship she was already in or be at peace being single in order to become someone stable enough for Jess as we saw him in his Truncheon days. She was not that person at the end of season 6.

[cosmonaughtt]

I just want to say something about Promised Land real quick. Specifically Agnes. I love how you write her. I figured she was going to be an antagonist when you introduced her and you tied her in very well with the dreamon plot. It's more true than not that when someone makes others suffer, they themselves are suffering. That... Kinda surprised me when it appeared in Agnes from the dreamon's POV. That level of detail and deep theming rarely appears in fanfiction

We never get told exactly what she's dealing with, which adds to her character. She's closed off, has a hard time opening up to people. She's a good example of a sympathetic antagonist and parallels Ranboo's struggles so well. Ranboo also has a hard time opening up to his friends when he's suffering, and when he learns to do so, he's able to get help. I hope... In a way, Agnes can learn from that.

Considering the themes of the grey areas of religion, I think this she was needed. She shows how easily people with good intentions (ex; a nun working at an orphanage) can become toxic and use the religion as a means to an end. She's very much the negatives of religion, strict, harsh, cold, uncaring. But... You get the feeling she didn't start out that way.

In all, Sister Agnes was much more deep character than I was expecting from a Minecraft roleplay fanfiction.

Hey Anon, thank you so much for this long analysis of Sister Agnes’ character??

(Also be warned if you haven’t read Promised Land there be spoilers ahead)

Like, originally, she wasn’t supposed to be the antagonist for the first arc of the story, but when I write some weird muse spirit possesses me and I have very little control over the situation, but as we went into I’d say chapter six, I started to realize something was happening with Sister Agnes and I wanted to see how I could parallel that with Ranboo, and her story developed legs of its own.

I think it was important to have her be a faceless figure for the part up until Sister Anne’s death, because having a removed, faceless (well with ranboo’s propoganosia literally fasdsa) head of the orphanage added to the character dynamics really well. And her story was never intended to be a villain’s story, even though she might be seen as symbolic of the negatives of religion, like you said, but it’s more of a... fall from grace, I suppose. Not one that makes her the bad guy for the whole story, but I think sometimes too much religion can be toxic, as odd as that may sound to other Christians and religious people.

And, well. I’m studying at school to be a storyteller. Mostly in filmmaking, but I’ve always been a fan of the written word and all other kinds of storytelling, so if a little bit of that deep English Class Symbolism leaks into my writing of fanfic I bit, hey, sue me, I’m a big nerd. 

I’m also a big fan of gray morality in fiction, but on a more achievable level, I suppose. Sure, having morally gray protagonists who do good and bad things on super levels like in most superhero films (and hell, even the Dream SMP, I think there’s a lot of gray area there) is good and stuff, but sometimes you want to see it on a more reasonable level. Like, Sister Agnes does good, but she does bad, too, like all of us do. It’s all in the end what we do after the bad stuff that is the best judge of our character. Sister Agnes, even though she might not have many memories after being possessed by a dreamon for as long as she had been in the story, she still remembers that she did bad things and she hurt people, especially Ranboo, and she apologized for it. 

She’s not expecting immediate forgiveness (which is something I think Christians, especially Catholics, should talk about how not good it is to immediately have to forgive people who have hurt you but that’s another topic for another day), or maybe ever, but she’s put the first step forward into that sort of “redemption arc” or however you wanna call it. That arc can’t be finished since Ranboo was adopted, of course, but we don’t have completed character arcs all the time in life, either. So do with that what you will, I guess! 

TLDR; I’m a nerd and I make things deep both intentionally and unintentionally in my fanfiction, thank you for pointing that out haha.

[bigskydreaming]

What are your takes or opinions on Mr. Haley? He knew abou the court of owls didn't he? I honestly can't remember

He did. I know a lot of people don’t like that aspect of the Court of Owls retcon because they prefer Dick to still have that kindly uncle/grandfather kind of figure from his childhood to remain untarnished by that association. But its better than it like, having been his parents in the know, and I do feel like it just wouldn’t work narratively to have the Court have this association with the circus stretching back several generations into Dick’s family, without ANYONE from Dick’s childhood having any idea. Not only does it strain suspension of disbelief purely on a logistical front, it kinda....wastes the narrative opportunity of a personal betrayal/revision of a character’s understanding of their own history, that’s kinda....the POINT of doing a story like that in the first place.

So I’m fine with Mr. Haley having known and being a reluctant/intimidated functionary of the Court who knew what Dick’s fate was intended to be, because frankly, someone had to be and it might as well be him. He’s more of a cipher/plot vehicle than a character most of the time anyway.....the point of him is the impact/role he has in Dick’s life, and again, when personal betrayal is the point of the story, like....someone’s gotta take the fall.

But then, I know a lot of people don’t like the Court of Owls retcon in the first place, because of the way it makes it Dick’s destiny to always become embroiled in violence or the superhero/villain fight one way or another. That it further angsts up his backstory, etc, etc.

First off, my opinion on that last part will always be: bah humbug. Dick’s backstory is the tragic loss of his parents and everything familiar to him. Its already angsty as fuck, and if you think that adding the Court of Owls makes it extensively MORE angsty, its likely you weren’t giving his original trauma/angst as much deference as it was due all on its own, and unconsciously or not, you’re still just leaning into the idea of Trauma Olympics in general, the idea that there even CAN be rankings to trauma on this scale, or at least, that there’s any practical reason for TRYING to rank things in that matter.

So that, much as with the juvie origin, I say is irrelevant.

Now in terms of how it makes Dick’s future ‘destined’ to be painful even without the loss of his parents, if the night of their murder hadn’t happened......I mean, I can kinda understand that a little more, but I don’t really agree with that notion because like.....the point is, in everything other than random AUs.....Dick’s parents DID die that night. We already KNOW his fate. The POINT of his character is that happened, and this is how it shaped him.....so the fact that he was already ‘destined’ for more hardship and tragedy isn’t really a deterrent to adding this retcon because.....he already ended up with more hardship and tragedy anyway, so ‘avoiding’ taking an alternate route to hardship and tragedy doesn’t really....actually avoid anything or add or keep anything in Dick’s premise or narrative.

But then there’s the argument that it diminishes the power of Dick’s choice to be a superhero, if he was always going to be destined to end up in this conflict one way or another....that he’s not really an everyman who voluntarily takes up the fight if the fight was always inevitable for him. That’s a bit more of a compelling argument for me, since y’know I’m always about the power of choice and yada yada yada.

But the sticking point here is that.....Dick’s archetype and narrative have NEVER been him as an everyman who could choose an ordinary life for himself but instead is a hero. Like, to me that’s just a very superficial reading of the fact that he’s not actually superhuman. But in no other way has Dick ever been an everyman. Pre-his parents’ murder he was a professional acrobat and showman from early childhood, of international renown. Post-his parents’ murder he was raised by a bona fide superhero who moonlights as a ditzy billionaire playboy by day.

Nothing about Dick Grayson’s skills or life was EVER that of an ‘everyman.’

Additionally, I think this notion also only comes from comparing him directly to Bruce, and focusing on the similarities in their backstories and the common bond of their parents’ murders, and the fact that he’s more of an everyman in comparison to Bruce because of how Bruce sticks out as a billionaire from birth, accomplished at everything, a master of all trades by the time we ever really MEET Bruce on the page, with his own origins largely told in flashbacks and backstory.

But, this is also why personally, I focus on the differences in their backstories....on using that shared experience they have as the BASIS for their relationship, like the reason Bruce sees him as especially standing out as a victim he has empathy for given that it brings to mind his own past trauma and hurt......but not like....using it to juxtapose Dick and Bruce directly, as I think that really doesn’t work.

Because Dick’s archetype, all of his narratives, IMO, are those of the fish out of water.

The culture clash, I’ve always maintained, is every bit as much a trauma as his parents’ murder, because it was like living one life until he’s eight or ten or whatever, and then just being told all in one day, or one week, hey, all of that is over now. This is your new life, even if it has NOTHING in common with your old one, and you just have to suck it up and make your peace with the fact that everything you knew is gone and you have to start over from scratch. New city, new routines, new family, new future, new everything. Even how you act around other people and expect or take as a given they’ll act with you is going to be different from now on.

None of that is anything that Bruce can relate to, because its not Bruce’s archetype. Those aren’t his narratives. And I think there’s a tendency to focus overmuch on Dick and Bruce’s similarities at the expense of acknowledging that Dick Grayson is no more a knock-off of Bruce Wayne than Robin is a derivative of Batman. Robin’s Batman’s junior partner or protege or sidekick or whatever you want to call it....but Robin has never stood in anyone’s mind as “Batman-lite” because he’s ENTIRELY different from Batman even just on a CONCEPTUAL level. They’re linked, but they’re not the same. Robin follows where Batman leads, but Robin does not derive from Batman directly.

Same with Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne. They’re similar in places, they’re linked by shared experiences and stories, but Dick’s no more Bruce-lite than he is as Robin. And I think focusing on him in terms of who his character is SEPARATE from Bruce, like....goes a long way towards making him distinct in his own right, even when standing right next to Bruce.

So I’ve always felt that whether in canon or fanfics, the key to developing Dick as his own character in his own right, not dependent or derivative of anyone else, is to determine what his core archetype is regardless of all else around him, and lean into THAT.

And for me, that archetype is the fish out of water, so my inclination is always going to LEAN INTO the fact that like....the point of his character, his entire character premise, is and always was going to be that of the guy who was plucked from one life and dropped into another entirely, and had to find a way to adapt to that, survive and even learn to thrive despite all the obstacles this presented, and the inherent tragedy of him having to do it at all.

So that means acknowledging the culture clash, building on it, emphasizing the class distinctions between his origin and Bruce’s, just focusing on the fact that he was NEVER Bruce-lite....because he always arrived on the scene, came into the picture, with his own entirely separate and distinct backstory, origin, and beginnings, just with his narrative journey then merging with Bruce’s at that point of OVERLAP, that shared experience where they both lost their parents in similar ways.

So coming at the character from that direction - the Court of Owls retcon doesn’t really change any of that for me at all. Because when the premise of Dick’s character is that he had to learn how to survive and overcome being forced into situations and a life that he wasn’t prepared for and didn’t even want in the first place.....well, then, the parallel path of him being taken from the circus by the Court of Owls instead, again....doesn’t actually force anything new on his character or take anything away from his character. It just....presents an alternative course for the same essential narrative journey.

So despite me not being a fan of Talon fics because of all the reasons I’ve mentioned before (plus the fact that it bothers me that so many people feel a need to make Dick literally superhuman but in no other way operating on a different level from his family’s general capabilities when.....his character has never required being superhuman to do anything on that level before, HMM. Or if people do focus on making him different, its usually just in terms of showcasing his healing, which...kinda tends to end up turning him into a human pincushion every other scene, with an additional decrease to how much other characters even notice this or wonder if he’s hurting because oh well, he’ll be fine again in a paragraph. Which again I say, I Object)....despite that, lol, I have no problem with the Court of Owls retcon even though it nominally takes away some of Dick’s choices to say that he never really had a choice in getting involved in these larger than life conflicts.

*Shrugs* Because it only does that in theory. In practice, we’re all reading the adventures of Dick Grayson as Robin and Nightwing and Batman. Not the daily life of Dick Grayson, adult circus acrobat with a nice, happy life.

Instead, the Court of Owls retcon IMO actually just adds directly to Dick’s premise as I see it....both with the fish out of water archetype AND as the fact that like....his core struggle throughout all of his stories is that he’s the guy determined to chart his own destiny no matter how much circumstances or society or even his own loved ones try to force him down specific paths or pigeon hole him in specific boxes. Limit him or take away his options or force him to act or make choices from a place of having less avenues he can go.

Like, that’s who he is to me, so the Court and his ‘destiny’ as the Gray Son just.....if anything, bring that into even sharper focus.

If anything, my biggest issue with the Court of Owls retcon is that it didn’t go FAR enough.

It was basically the first major story of the Batfamily in the New 52, when we were introduced to these familiar characters in different ways, so I would have taken that and run with it, and in the process opened up a LOT more doors.

What I mean is....instead of this having been a revelation to Dick ALONGSIDE the rest of his family and readers when it occurred in the present day....I would have had the present day storyline reveal this as the secret history of Batman and Robin, and build on the idea that the Court had already made a move to claim Dick as the Gray Son right after or soon after his parents’ death, and Bruce had rescued him/defeated them, and then they’d kinda just buried this ever since.

First off....it cleans things up logistically. Having them seize upon an already existing tragedy and capitalize it, either by taking him directly then or maybe being the cause of him going to juvie/a bad foster home and using that to present themselves as his saviors when they introduce themselves to him, or anything similar to that.....its always going to make a lot more sense than the idea of a secret society pulling the strings of the city like....having no option to prevent an infamously irresponsible young bachelor from taking in this traumatized boy, and then just waiting a decade or more while their target becomes more and more ingrained in the public eye and consciousness before trying to....disappear him. Umm. No. Make it make sense.

Secondly, it goes a long way towards addressing the problems in child superheroes/sidekicks at all....which is definitely something DC already had on the brain when they rebooted their universe. Given that they....tried to claim Dick was like sixteen when he met Bruce, and that the other Robins since then all came and went in a span of like, a year each. Endless sigh of endlessness. Hey, DC, if your big priority is keeping the ages of your more famous characters down, is the best move condensing the timeline and simultaneously aging UP many of those same characters before they even debut? Umm. No. Make it make sense.

However. Keep Dick the same age he was when he and Bruce met pre-boot (which, lbr, most fics and even canon stories ended up doing anyway).....and suddenly, you get a lot more options. 

Because say you’re Bruce Wayne, and you just took down the Gotham chapter of this globe-spanning shadow organization and rescued a traumatized boy you empathize and relate to, who had been taken by this organization with the specific intention of raising him up to be a merciless killing machine they then made an immortal, obedient weapon out of. And you know that other chapters of this organization are still out there, they still want this kid because they literally believe they own him and his destiny, and no other foster home or group home or placement is ever going to be able to understand what this kid has already been through and might have to face again if they ever try and take him again? 

And on top of that, this kid has already like...imprinted on you from saving him from this fate, trusts you despite having major and understandable trust issues up the wazoo now, and probably will NEVER open up to anyone the way he might to you? And oh yeah, he also wants to learn to do all the stuff you can do so he, like you, can MAKE something of his tragedy, find a way to give it reason or purpose he can use to hopefully move on someday, he wants to defy the people who viewed him as nothing more than an inevitable killer by learning how to be a protector and defender instead, by CHOICE?

What do you do in THAT case?

You take that kid in. You train him, teach him everything he needs to know to be able to defeat them the way you defeated them, if they come back for him in the future. You keep him by your side, not to control him, but to protect him, or at least make him feel that he’s protected, that he has someone who WANTS to protect him, be there for him, WITH him, that despite having his own life, wants to be just one grapple swing away and the first person able to do something about it if the threat always lurking just around the corner someday reappears. 

You introduce him to the others in the hero community, maybe even build connections where you previously stayed aloof, so that he’s PART of something, feels connected to something other than the fate tied to him by a bloodline he can’t shake or do anything about, that he has family and friends that aren’t just his much hated Great-Grandpa Billy Cobb Thornton. You make sure he has people who will be there for him even if you can’t be someday, if that Court tries to take him again, you won’t be the only cavalry riding to his rescue.

You probably don’t advertise any of this, at least not beyond a few trusted friends like Diana and Clark. Even as others start to emulate you, training proteges of their own and assuming they know your reasons, you still respond to people criticizing your debut of a young, child partner, no matter his skill level, by brusquely telling them its none of their business. Because there’s really no other way to justify it without telling the truth, and the truth is not something you want to hide not just to keep secrets or because you don’t trust others, but purely for HIS sake. You take it and lock it away and bury it as deeply as you can for no other reason than because it HURTS him. Because the truth is PAINFUL. 

Its inherently connected to a time and a space and a part of Dick’s personal history that will never be anything other than a trauma whose shadow he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to break free of no matter what you do. But at least what you can do is minimize the number of times and places and people which require he face it all over again. That bring it all bubbling back up to the surface to confront and shove back down each and every time someone might feel like reminding him his own ancestor wanted nothing more for him than to be someone else’s obedient weapon, so why should they care anymore than that about his opinion, or plans, or viewpoint. You bury this secret not because its shameful, but because you know people will try and use it to shame him anyway, and you can’t banish the shadows looming in his past, but you can help him stand in a spotlight of his own choosing, where people can’t easily see those shadows amid the glare of his own highlighted role and mantle and self.

And its not always easy, raising this kid, because you WANT that blight on his personal history to be gone, for HIS sake, so you focus maybe more than you should on the stuff you CAN relate to, even though its not always the reason for his latest nightmare. And sometimes he’s bound to resent that, he’s going to want to yell because you’re saying you understand and you honestly don’t, you truly never will, and you’re going to fight about that and its going to hurt but its not because there’s anything wrong with either of you, or either of you are bad people.

And you’re bound to be overprotective, almost paranoid about his safety, always looking for the monster lurking in the dark for him, because that monster is REAL, you’ve already met it, you know its name, and its not paranoia when you know exactly what it is you’re afraid of and why. And he’s going to bristle at this, and its going to chafe, because you taught him well, you prepared him just as well as you prepared yourself, and he’s as ready as he’ll ever be to face that monster when it comes back, but that doesn’t mean you’re any less afraid of what that will do to him no matter how ready he is, not when you were the one to see what it did to him, what it wanted to do to him, that first time. 

And you’ll be so preoccupied focusing on the monster, the Big Threat, the DANGER, that you forget sometimes about the other ways you and he are different. About all the other things he’s lost or had taken from him and that the monster isn’t the only one whose ever tried to put him in a box or confine him to the limits of someone else’s choices. So sometimes you fuck up, you think he’s being unreasonable or reckless when really he’s just trying to say its worth it to risk it all sometimes just to have a CHOICE, because the very act of having that choice, even the freedom to make the WRONG choice, is so much more precious and valuable to him than will ever make sense to someone who has had so many more choices respected and allowed and allotted in life.

But as long as you remember to rein yourself in after these times, as long as you never try and shirk the burden and responsibility you willingly took on when you willingly took him in, you never forget that that was YOUR choice, and that means the onus will always be on you to stop, take a breath, and try and see things from his shoes, be the one to try and bridge the gap in your life experiences and reach across the aisle instead of impatiently waiting for him to adapt and change and stretch himself to accommodate you and the choices and life and expectations you’re used to....as long as you do that, he’ll be able to look at THAT. And see that its not because you’ve just stopped caring what he wants at some point, so he’ll forgive you even when his friends don’t understand it, can’t make sense of why he puts up with stuff they never would, because they’ve never had that monster hiding in their shadow and don’t see it in his because he’s not quite ready to point it out to them yet, draw their attention to it yet. He’s still trying to become HIMSELF clearly enough that he can face it head on and look at it and then look back at himself and see without a doubt that the two are not the same.

And when you take in more kids eventually, for other reasons that are different but no less important, there are going to be problems here too. Maybe some of them think you favor your eldest, care more about him or are more worried about him when its really just that there’s something specifically TO be worried about, to keep an eye out for and always be wary might be lurking in the dark. Maybe when the truth finally comes to light, there are hurt feelings and resentment because you’re supposed to be a family, you should have trusted them with this, and it’ll take time to impress upon them that it was never that you WEREN’T a family, never that they weren’t trusted or confided in by their brother because they didn’t matter, but rather it was just because part of this monster in his past is ALSO his family, whether he wants it to be or not, and that’s CONFUSING and its hard to face and not something he WANTS to face and so maybe it just was easier, HAPPIER, to try and pretend it wasn’t there or didn’t matter for as long as he could because deep down he always knew it’d come back and there’d be an After that he had to adapt to all over again anyway, so at least he wanted to try and make the most of the Before. And maybe that’ll be a mistake, and maybe it won’t be, but what it will be is HUMAN. RELATABLE. REAL.

And 100% not anything that anyone in this family is to blame for, or unreasonable for, or because anyone loves or cherishes anyone else more than the rest.

And bing, bang, boom, you’ve just cleaned up a WHOLE mess of junk, strengthened and clarified several core premises and characterizations and seeded entire fields of potential conflict of all types, interpersonal and story-wise and everything in between.

All with ONE. SINGLE. STORY.

And no brain cells had to be harmed in the reading of it.

But nah.

*looks at how it played out in canon*

Sure. 

That’s much better.

[thebraindeadhistorian]

Wow okay. I wrote this months ago so you must have scrolled up really far in the notes to find this. Anyway, to address what you're saying:

First of all, I'm not the biggest fan of HP, I read most of the books some years ago and I learned some more things in the meantime. I'm by no means an expert on the exact contents of the books, I mostly know what I read up upon. That doesn't mean I didn't educate myself, I just say this to put things into perspective. I'm not exactly emotional over HP.

I guess it's best if I respond to your arguments in the order you made them:

The ones that stand out to me in particular are Cho Chang, the gringotts goblin bankers, and house-elves being happy with their enslavement.

I never understood what is supposed to be racist about Cho Chang. I've heard people say it's the name but as far as I know that's just a stereotypical name? Just like if you had a German and called her Lisa Müller, that's not racist. And as far as I remember, there was no particular stereotypical portrayal of her character. If I missed anything about her, please correct me, I genuinely have no idea where the racism is.

As for the goblins, yes they are a fantasy trope which was widely used and which was born out of antisemitism. We are aware of this today and should no longer use them. However, they were common in fantasy stories not too long ago. JKR probably didn't know about the origins of goblins. And if you're saying now she should have educated herself on them - why? No writer ever reads up on every trope they use to see if it's problematic. Tons of other writers used them, yet no one else gets the backlash she's receiving for them.

On the house-elves: I'm pretty sure I remember that their enslavement was critizised by other characters, which holds an even higher moral lesson - just because someone doesn't realize their own oppression or seems to be fine with it doesn't make it okay.

The books don't just omit LGBTQ+ people, their representation in them is negative. [...] The man [...] who wore a dress because he "liked a nice breeze 'round his privates" and the werewolf who intentionally infected Remus Lupin with lycanthropy as an offensive parallel to AIDS.

What exactly is negative LGBTQ representation about a man wearing a dress? What is so offensive about that? Are you saying that a man can't wear a dress unless he's a trans woman? Aren't you the crowd that wants to abolish gender roles? You do realize what you're saying is upholding gender roles, right? A man can wear a dress for any reason and that does make him neither a woman nor transphobic. I never thought I'd have to say this in the year 2021.

As for Remus Lupin, I don't recall exactly what happened there but I don't see how intentionally infecting someone with a disease directly links to AIDS. I'd have to read up on this again, but from the top off my head I can't see the connection.

Your argument at that specific bullet point never ends in a period, I assume it's a typo and the rest of the sentence went missing along the way. I hope I still understood correctly what you intended to say.

Her current writing [...] does nothing to rectify the "mistakes" she made in the past regarding excluding the LGBTQ+ demographic from her books in non-offensive ways.

I haven't read any of her other works, so I can't comment on their contents. But I don't see the point in your claim. What should she rectify? Not writing about a certain demographic isn't a crime - especially if it was literally illegal. I see where you're coming from, there used to be barely any representation of the LGBTQ community in older works and that's nothing I support. There is much more representation in newer works of fiction, and I'm happy to see that change.

However, representation is not the job of one single writer. Missing representation, not only of LGBT but also e.g. of Black or disabled people is a structural problem of an entire industry and society. I'm not saying we should be okay with missing representation, just that one single person is not responsible only because their work turned out to be way more successful than they expected. Again, minority representation wasn't an issue that was deemed important at the time it was written. It was decades ago. I don't agree with that. It's just a fact.

You even specify that they were excluded in "non-offensive ways" so what are you offended about? If you're going by that, every writer ever who didn't represent the LGBTQ community should rectify that. That's insane.

The books absolutely should be critizised and examined in comparison to our current standards of "being a decent human being".

Yes, I agree. Maybe I didn't express myself correctly in my original claim, but I never intended to say that we shouldn't criticize HP and shouldn't compare it to our modern standards. But when you do that, you have to be aware of the time it was written in, what that time was like and what was maybe not considered important or what was maybe illegal. See my original point.

The key word here is expectations. You cannot expect a book series that was written 20 to 30 years ago to conform to standards we built in the meantime and then come for the writer when its details don't conform to your expectations. Especially if it would literally have involved legal trouble for the writer. Yet this is exactly what you do.

There is a massive difference between "this was normal or okay at the time of writing, but it is no longer" and "this writer doesn't include a specific type of representation so she's actually never been a decent human being". The first is normal evolvement of morals in a society and is necessary in analyzing and consuming literature. The second is slander. You do the second.

By that standard, every writer who didn't put LGBTQ representation in their works has never been a decent human being. That is an unfair standard to hold someone to. And if we follow that line of thinking, you have to come for all of these writers too. I guess you don't.

We don't give Lovecraft a free pass because his works were written with a deeply racist, antisemitic bent.

Just comparing JKR to Lovecraft speaks volumes. It's an unfair comparison and you know it. He was so deeply racist and antisemitic that even people in his own times pointed it out, both as a person and in his works. Please show me where JKR was actively antisemitic and racist in her personal life/letters/other works. I'm waiting.

You can "demonize" an author [...] and also hold shittier people accountable for their actions and words.

Again, I agree. But that's not what's happening. See the goblin example - they were widely used, she happened to use them too, yet she's being portrayed as an antisemitic monster and no one else is. Why don't you hold shittier people accountable then? Going by that logic, you should now come for any writer who ever used goblins. Yet you come for JKR. I wonder why.