#i feel weird talking about them on here because they aren’t DIRECTLY related to canon

[buff-electra-truther]

deeply entertained by the enduring reach chubby electra has

fortunately I HAVE made a spinoff OC to sorta satisfy that niche

[psihawaii]

i know nothing about mashup week but i do wanna hear ur thoughts on trans scott

first of all: thank you for indulging me!!

second of all: obligatory LISTEN/READ MASHUP WEEK: MEGAMIX!! ill probably make a separate propaganda post anyway but plsss. mashup tournament that scott won three years ago that he now has to host and interview every1 and i like how he’s written better than most collabs (where hes not just. himself obviously.) write him. host says the tournament is a lot more like wii sports resort now and doesnt elaborate.

third of all: ooooooooookay so. This really got away from me im gonna put the rest under a readmore.

i’m gonna refer to them w/ they/them just for simplicity, but let the record show i don’t think they care that much either way/i switch up pronouns whenever i talk abt stw AHDHDJ (my main hc for a while was no pronouns scott just bc of how the descriptions are written hahahahahaha get itttttttttt)

i’ve Alwaysssss thought scott (the character obvi. do i have to keep clarifying that here too, im always gonna be referring to the character in this postSHDJDJ) was trans ever. since i joined the fandom in late 2021. Partly because borderline forever reminds me a lot of how i realized i was nonbinary (realizing somethings wrong and then course correcting by just… doing the opposite and wondering why that couldnt possibly be the solution.) but mostly because borderline forever is just Like That. . But more on that later

OUTSIDE OF THAT so much of how they act is sosososo deeply trans to me, or at the very least very egg-like and in denial deeply. THE THING that got me deep into stw initially was gifts of gaming because what the fuck man. scott’s very public breakdown because they feel extremely alienated from their peers and that this isn’t an isolated incident!!!!!! (finding other people unrelatable that is (and that’s probably also an autism and/or aroace thing but it can be all of those at once. Smile.) like so often is scott self deprecating abt how nobody cares abt them or their interests or how desperate they are for attention. dude.)

and like. okay so i made an entire nonbinary dysphoria comp already but there are so many. weird throwaway jokes. that aren’t… you know directly about them being trans/dysphoric but about how they hate facial hair or their voice or hated that they couldn’t have ‘girl toys’ growing up or that they shower fully clothed or that they’ll just. roleplay as a girl.

(and i was gonna have a whole bit about… i think you could make some kind of point about how scott ‘roleplays’ as a girl in specifically romantic/flirting contexts (tinder + speed dating) and how that could play jnto their dysphoria, but i also do just think they’re aroace. but there’s something there)

and no matter the intention of the jokes they’re still like. canon. (and i was gonna do a whole thing abt how scott the woz (the show) treats continuity basically being that. jokes + ‘throwaway lines’ establish canon things because they keep being brought back, and that lore is (with few exceptions) consistent. it’s fun. and meaning that these things are (assumedly) things scott thinks/does/how they act even off screen.)

and also i guess if im gonna talk abt trans scott i could At Least dedicate an entire paragraph to borderline forever because holy shit man. Before i rewatched a bunch of episodes this year, i of course had it in my head that borderline forever was totally trans coded but i sorta reasoned that that was my own headcanon clouding my perception and that it wouldnt be that blatant (<in quotes because im sure The Man Himself didnt intend for it to be read this way, but its fun to interpret it as such) but no it really is.

what do u mean theres been an unseen force in your life that’s always been there but you hadn’t noticed until you experienced internalized transphobia talked about something tangentially related, that’s now preventing you from living your life and doing the things you want to do. That isn’t directly harming you, and that other people can’t notice so they dismiss you. What do u mean.

Closing in is literally a song about how they can’t believe they’ve been living their life like this and how they feel like they’re suffocating from the idea of continuing to live like this. They saw the border glow. If you will (sorry.)

The ending of borderline forever is pretty… its… well i guess for me to really have definitive thoughts on it i would have to decide on what i think the allegory is because scott taking the border back serves different purposes for different ones, good and bad. In terms of the trans allegory, I initially considered that it was like him. Accepting transness as part of themselves and learning to live with it and move on from that (effectively transitioning just not. Outwardly (?)). Until my boyfriend (forced to watch every scott the woz lore episode for (for the most part) the first time with me) pointed out n. No it kinda just seems like they can’t imagine themselves as any different/better and thinks This Is As Good As It Gets so they retreat back to their status quo. And like. Huh. Yeah. 100% it’s still affecting them negatively and they hate it but they’re ignoring it now they saved the world and they never have to succumb to the horror of being understood and perceived i mean no one else has to worry abt this ever again.

like… two years ago i wrote a fic about nonbinary scott called Abiura Di Me (it’s never getting finished, i was originally gonna do a little comic to end things off but it felt kind of ehh. the only way i’m finishing it is if i completely start over. which who knows.) and, despite not rlly having this interpretation at the time, i did want to kind of explore scott like that, thinking they’re ‘content’ with their life now and wondering why they still feel unhappy/unfulfilled.

In general scott feels like a character that’s so… rigid and strict with their identity/attributes of themselves in a way that, often, makes them miserable, or at the very least in a way that they’re self deprecating abt like i said b4. (i.e. their virginity, and how it oscillates something they take pride in vs. something that they’re ashamed of (b4 accepting it in barrel blast)(youtuber slash tumblr user prim m, in description of their barrel blast mashup did a rlly interesting lil. few sentences of analysis abt this in particular!!), but is, to them at least, a key part of who they are that they have to keep asserting + how they talk abt themselves liking video games and how, similarly it oscillates between smthn that brings them a lot of joy and again, smthn that they’re ashamed of thats another reason they feel isolated, but is nonetheless. Probably THE defining thing about scott.)

And while this^ feels like a general internalized transphobia thing, it’s probably THE reason i think they’re nonbinary specifically, although i fuck with transfem scott severely. I really like the idea of scott unburdening themselves from any kind of labels and kinda just being happy Existing, it’s essentially what they already want/think they already have just with less expectation put upon them to perform. You could say. Preventing themselves from being put into a box or. Or yknow… some kind of blue borde-[i am killed.]

But anyway to answer your question trans scott is my lifeblood i love them a lot. I like… half joke their egg has been fully cracked now bc of the bits they’re pulling now (mainly. Changing their name in same name, different game and. all of gamer products.) (and side note even though i can glean Transness from any1 of these jokes and that… in a lot of cases scott Is the butt of the joke in them they don’t rlly feel meanspirited most of the time. whether thats bc im in denial ro theres smthn to it thats any1s guess. Tee hee.) i think they’re figuring stuff out and how they want to be perceived and if this is really something they want for themselves (is, but going abt it weirdly/making a joke of it and not taking it seriously (again, goes w the whole self deprecating rigid identity thing!!)

I don’t think scott changes much upon transitioning. Even though i think in the stw universe hrt/gender affirming surgery does… pretty much whatever you want it to and none of what you don’t want (i’m going off the… one ama where he said smthn along the lines of the stw universe is a perfect bubble where nothing bad happens + being able to get treated for murder + how i think scott the real person would think that kinda stuff works AHDNDIJDDJ and also cus i think its funny) i dont think scott would Want to change much physically. But i really like the idea of them keeping dyed blue bits framing their face (get it.) + slightly longer hair. and boobs cause i think thats awesome. personality wise they’re exactly the same and still suck though. But w/o shame and i love them

[servicetopkaradanvers]

I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to say this, but I don't know if there is. And you're a smart person and critical thinker who has talked about this before. If this is totally weird, you can just delete it ofc. I've never properly watched Supergirl but I started reading fanfic around the time my mental health got real bad so it was a comfort thing I didn't bring too much thought to. I really identify with Lena and in the past, part of me has understood her actions-

and I know that they're wrong. The anti-alien rhetoric is obviously an allegory for racism or homophobia. She's violated people's basic human rights. And I'm scared that I'm a bad person because sometimes, I kind of get it. Which is insane because i'm a lesbian enby of color, i mean i get targeted by most of the -ist/ism actions. And I'm also too tired to think about things critically all the time. Supercorp was my comfort fic, content thing-

I knew it was problematic (the whole James thing makes me sick to my stomach, scared and sad) but I didn't know that Lena as a character was written that way. The metaphors never really clicked in my head because I never thought about it, but now I feel absolutely horrible about myself because I like and identify with Lena. I'm not really sure how to move on from here- I'm just tired. I wish there could be just one thing, one piece of media that wasn't prejudiced (granted sg is not the place to go if you want decent rep and the like) and all of those things I said earlier. Its just me somehow trying to justify how I felt and empathized with something I shouldn't have. So yeah, sorry that was really long. I hope you have a lovely day- sorry for the spam

FIRST of all, you’re fine, babe! Both in sending me this and in enjoying The Bad Media. That’s my thesis here: You’re fine. With this in mind, let’s unpack this big ol suitcase:

We’re living in a fandom moment where more than ever before, we’re thinking about the ideas we consume in fiction and how they may or may not affect us. This is a net positive! Fiction is not reality, but it undeniably impacts it, so for this and many other reasons, we should always think critically about what resonates with us and why. Does this mean dissecting every facet of something to find all the ways it might fall in line with oppressive power structures? Absolutely not.

You, as an individual, do not owe anyone an explanation for why you enjoy anything. Period. How you relate to a given character or why you like them is nobody's business but your own.

Supergirl, as a piece of media, is singularly awful in its lackluster lipservice to progressivism while simultaneously refusing to deliver any progressive themes. Socially and politically, it is a useless liberal wet dream. Kara is an immigrant from a dead culture working as the muscle for a secret FBI offshoot with zero accountability for all of the other aliens in diaspora she has rounded up and dumped into a cell without trial. Alex is allegedly a lesbian, but the key points of her endgame relationship are constantly deemed not important enough to get screen time, which is made even more absurd when examined from the angle that this series is marketed directly toward LGBT people. An embarrassing percentage of villains on this show are women of color, which is particularly loud when there are only 2 women in the main cast who aren't white. And "main" is extremely generous, given that Kelly is just there to Give Advice Good and everything M'gann says and does is as dry as toast.

My point here is that the whole show is rotted to its roots, and whatever quietly libertarian or even fascism-enabling bullshit they push onto Lena in a given week is par for the crusty, shitty course. Kara deciding that she's ok with the alien detection device because "there are bad aliens" is a lovely (read: awful) microcosm of why this show sucks so fucking hard. "People are entitled to their opinions" is for debates on whether pineapple goes on pizza, not for whether we should casually out, endanger, and disenfranchise our [insert minority metaphor here] because some of them are mean.

But what I would love for this fandom to wrap its head around, and what I hope you understand, anon, is that just because it happens on the show, doesn't mean we have to give a rat's ass about it. What the hell is The Canon, anyway? Especially in the case for Supergirl, which can't even get its own continuity right. Especially for an IP that has been rebooted dozens of times before and will be rebooted again in the future. We can just decide that Lena realized the horrible injustices she enabled through her position of power. We can even decide that they just didn't happen at all! This is all fake. It's not set in stone. Who came up with it, anyway? A network with a list of buzzwords they want included and a couple of D-tier showrunners cranking down caffeine to meet an absurdly tight deadline. It's not special. I can guarantee that you care about it infinitely more than they do, and you haven't even watched the damn show.

On a more personal level, people who are hurt, depressed, or traumatized have always and will always look for themselves in fiction. Myself included! And despite what lofty platitudes there may be on the matter, suffering does not make us kind. It does not make us better. Sometimes it's just suffering. Often it pulls us further from who we are meant to be. Often it just makes us "worse."

Trauma has made Lena emotionally brittle. A lifetime of manipulation and abuse has taught her to compartmentalize herself and lock her feelings behind a maze of doors. When she does let love in, she accepts it so wild and vulnerable that she can't see the red flags behind the rosy lenses. She latches so hard onto people she deems virtuous that she holds them to a standard none could fulfill. Her pain has to go somewhere, so it oozes out of her, into Non Nocere, into the post-reveal rift. She's a powder keg, and Kara spent 4 years shoveling more gunpowder onto the pile while holding the match between her teeth.

And despite these fatal flaws that make perfect sense through the eyes of Lena's trauma, she is so full of love. Like Kara, her suffering did not make her kind. She is kind in spite of her suffering. These are the characters we are drawn to when we're hurting. Lena’s trauma is an inextricable part of her, but it is not all of her, and neither are her mistakes.

There truly is not and never will be a piece of media that is absolutely innocent of the harmful structures thrust upon us by society, because we ourselves also participate in that society whether we are critical of it or not, whether we strive to change it or not. I'm flawed. You're flawed. Bettering ourselves is not a journey toward an ultimate destination of perfection. It is a garden we nurture in an endless labor of love because the joy that comes from seeing it flourish and change vastly outweighs the work we put into it and the weeds popping up around its unkempt edges. This is a lesson Lena herself could probably stand to internalize. Probably with lots and lots of therapy. Lots. And lots.

So, to circle back to the start of this? You're fine. You recognized the logic in a traumatized character's mistakes because our own gravest errors more often than not stem from the ways we have been harmed in the past. It's what makes Lena (or, at the very least, the many adaptations of Lena that exist in this fandom) a good character. She is, to her core, characterized proof that a crumbling foundation and poisonous soil do not define us. Which is why watching her heal and grow and learn a healthier kind of love is so, so wonderful.

In closing, I think it's worth mentioning that being critical of media does not mean that we stop enjoying the parts of it we like. There is a lot of gold to be pulled from the steaming pile of shit that is CW Supergirl, and that's why we're all here in the first place. So I really hope you can continue to enjoy it in whatever way makes you smile <3

[cardentist]

I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships. 

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext. 

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole. 

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...)  When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

[paperpennies]

Please tell me about your AU idea where Sasha and Milla meet in Brazil as teenagers and basically end up long-distance dating before either of them become Psychonauts ^_^

Oh hey look at that, totally out of nowhere, not prompted by me at all! (@2somethingelseyoumightknow2 and @strawberry-et also asked me about it but it seems redundant to answer three separate asks. I didn’t think three people would actually do it lol. Also sorry for taking 8 years to answer.) This idea came out of just smushing two thoughts together. Then I got weirdly attached. Buckle in; it’s gonna be pretty long.  Under a cut to avoid annoying feed scrolling.

So, AU is: Sasha mom lives, meaning he turns out a lot better emotionally adjusted since he grows up with at least one attentive parent. His dad is better too- still pretty emotionally constipated but not, like, broken the way he is in canon. The family also has 4-5 more kids after Sasha. This does mean they’re pretty poor but they do okay. 

His mother is a schoolteacher, who is somewhat unusual in the time period for working and being a mom of a big family at the same time. She and Sasha are quite close; he gets a lot of his intellectual and curious side from her. In his eyes, he’s much more like her than like his dad (although people who know them both would say he’s a lot more like his father than he thinks). His mother also knows about his psychic powers, having noticed them as soon as they started showing up, but his dad and siblings (probably) don’t. 

The story starts when Sasha is 14-15 years old. He’s getting increasingly bored living in a small rural town with few opportunities related to his interests, and his developing psychic powers (and probable undiagnosed autism) make things even more complicated and difficult for him. His mother gets an opportunity, probably with some kind of charity organization, to go teach German/English and maybe other stuff in Brazil for a while. She decides to take it, and take Sasha with her so he can have some different life experiences. She also takes his youngest sister along, since she’s still very little and dad’s already going to be left alone with three other kids. 

(Also, my assumed age for Sasha and Milla in the games is like mid-30s, which, if the games take place in mid/late 80s, would mean they were born in the mid-50s. That means they would be 14-15 in the late 60s. So that’s the timeline I’m going with here.) 

So they go to Brazil. The school Sasha’s mom is working at is either at or associated with an orphanage- maybe a church that has a school and an orphanage. Of course, Milla is there. I don’t have a lot of the details locked in here. It’s hard because we know nothing about Milla’s family or life before she was working at the orphanage, so I’m really just pulling this out of nowhere to fit in with this AU. For the purposes of this, she has no family and is living at the orphanage and going to the school there (even though that’s sad and I kinda don’t like it. May change it. Hm.)

Anyway, Sasha’s mom is teaching at the school; Sasha is doing basically independent study. I also haven’t decided if Milla is in his mom’s classes, because I haven’t decided what age group(s) she’s teaching. Either Milla’s in her classes or gets employed (or volunteers) to babysit Sasha’s little sister and that’s how she comes to be around. Oh, and also for the purposes of this, Sasha’s mom already spoke Portuguese before this, and Sasha’s been learning it prior to arriving there, so he’s like conversational at least. 

Either way, Sasha and Milla meet. Despite having some initial personality conflict, they find they have a weird connection to each other. Milla is curious about this feeling and interprets it as maybe being a crush, although it feels a little bit different. She decides to try and befriend him to understand it better, and also because that’s just what Milla does. She’s the sort of person who makes people her friends half-against-their-will just by being friendly and caring consistently until they can’t deny that they’re friends.

Sasha, meanwhile, is wary of her and her enthusiasm because he’s not great with the social stuff, especially with the culture and language gaps at play. He’s also wary of the feeling because it seems psychic-related, but he doesn’t know what that means. Plus Milla is like super pretty and nice and he gets tongue-tied and red-faced whenever she talks to him, but he definitely doesn’t like her shut up Mom.

Over time, Milla’s determination prevails, and they become genuine friends. He hides the fact that he’s psychic at first, but eventually does tell her. He asks her if she’s sure she’s not psychic, because she really seems psychic somehow. She doesn’t think she is, but he theorizes she’s probably not quite normal, at least, and that’s where the connection they’ve felt from the beginning comes from.

Since they’re actually perfect for each other, their friendship grows deeper over the months they spend hanging out. By the time Sasha has to leave, they’ve developed real romantic (in a 14-15 year old way) feelings for each other. They don’t ever really talk about it, but promise to write.

And they do. Sasha’s siblings start referring to the girl he writes to as his girlfriend to tease/annoy him, but eventually it sticks. He stops protesting, although he never confirms whether or not it’s true, and it starts being matter-of-fact to them instead of a joke. On Milla’s side, she still talks about him to her friends like he’s still there, and she gets the penpal-boyfriend teasing, too. It doesn’t really bug her, though. They save up money over a few years to go and visit each other, and talk about their relationship enough to be sort of “official”. It’s rough since they rarely get to see each other in person or even talk on the phone, but they keep going. 

Years pass, and some things change and others don’t. Sasha mother dies when he’s in his late teens, and he and his dad start having bigger and bigger issues between them in the wake of greiving. He leaves home as soon as he’s sure his younger siblings will be fine without him around. Out and about in the world, he gets recruited into the Psychonauts within the next few years (the specifics of this don’t matter too much for this AU). Milla goes on to work in her orphanage, the thing she’s most passionate about. They still keep close in touch, and get to see each other a more often now that they’re grown up and Sasha has better access to international travel. They finally decide “okay yes, we really are actually dating” even though it’s still long distance. Sasha’s colleagues 100% do not believe his story about having a beautiful long-distance girlfriend in Brazil, because that would sound fake af even if wasn’t coming from the very serious, not-romantic-at-all Sasha. Even his picture of them together does not convince them.

Then, the thing happens. Milla’s orphanage burns down, and her psychic powers finally fully awaken. Because of her knowledge of psychics, she realizes what’s happening, but it’s still a horrifically traumatic event. Sasha takes a leave period to come and help her, finds that it’s even more serious than he’d expected, and puts her in touch with the Psychonauts directly for some better assistance. He’s too close to her to do more than an initial check-up himself. 

They find Milla has a lot of potential and extend an offer to join the intern program (which at that time spans a larger age range than later on). She rejects the offer at first, tries to go back to her life, but later decides she needs to make a complete change and accepts. Sasha’s colleagues are shocked to find out she is indeed real. She graduates first out of her class, as one of the best levitators the organization has ever seen. Technically, she and Sasha aren’t supposed to be romantically involved as agents, but the Psychonauts have always been pretty loosey-goosey about that rule (given the history of its founders). 

So that was a novel in length. It’s not necessarily that interesting in this form, but there’s the AU. I think the interest would be the specifics of how their relationship would play out as a story, if they met young enough and under the right circumstances to not to get stuck in the hang-ups their relationship has in canon. If you read this far, tell me what you think! Thoughts, feelings, emotional outbursts?

[michibikionmain]

This isn’t THE tommyinnit villain essay but it sure is one of them

Ok ok so 4 those of u who aren't on discord with me: i have two main essays that have been in the works for MONTHS, these being my Complete Dream character analysis essay going in-depth for nearly all of his canon interactions and finding his character traits and motivations through the story, and my Tommyinnit (and Wilbur Soot) were Always The Villains on the server essay talking about how the only reason so many people view them as the good guys or heroes is because we see the story from their perspective mainly. This essay? Is not either of those. BUT, it does go through a lot of my thoughts on Tommy and Dream’s characters so I figured I’d post it. maybe itll help me organize my thoughts 4 my Mega Projects lol

@ranboocore bc u helped me pop off on this so hard LMAO

Warning, it’s VERY Tommy Critical, what a suprise. I do not like Tommy as a character lol. idk what triggers yall might need me to tag but if u need one in particular pls lmn!

My biggest issue with tommy's character is that he SAYS hes learned but he never does he is exactly the same person he was at the start of the server just More Sad and with Trauma, when out of all the characters he's had the most push to change. c!Tommy is a very tell-don't-show character which can make it hard for some people to connect to him, especially those who don’t directly share his trauma or see themselves in his character. Of course, there is still a MASSIVE amount of people who relate to his struggles and thus love him regardless of his writing, but those who can't relate to him will always feel some kind of barrier until the things they've talked about are actually shown to the viewer instead of being spoon-fed to them.

It is a very beginner writing thing, and I'm hoping that Tommy is figuring out how to fix this, maybe with support from the many other writers on the server. There's the 3 you mentioned, plus fundy, niki, and maybe tubbo who also play dnd, plus Dream who said he would've been an English major and does a lot of personal writing for fun.  I think the biggest issue in the writing lies in the individual ccs being inexperienced in the medium, particularly with planning out their own character growth. 

Another glaring issue I have with c!Tommy is how he's framed to be sympathetic and he goes through all these horrible things without acknowledging his role in any of them. The things that have happened to him are a direct result of his actions, but the thing is HE won't acknowledge and so it falls flat. This isn’t to say that being abused is his fault, because it’s NEVER the vicitm’s fault, but being exiled? His multiple fights with c!Dream? His friendships falling apart? Losing the disks in the first place? They’re the direct consequences of HIS OWN actions, but he never acknowledges this and constantly just... brushes off any accountability by either saying that it’s Dream fault or simply SAYING he feels bad without properly showing it through redemption and GROWTH.

Denial is useful in storytelling sometimes, but Tommy's character has been in denial since the very beginning of the server and at this point it's just exhausting. He only ever switches between denial and depression, not really going through all 5 stages of grief properly. His violent/upset reactions would be more powerful if they were any different from how tommy usually acts, but this is always how he is. When he “lashes out” because he’s reached the end of his patience, it doesn’t SEEM like the snap it is because that’s just... it’s seriously just his standard reaction to everything. It hold no WEIGHT to see c!Tommy yell at someone violently or threaten to fight them because he does that anyways!

Static characters can be a good thing, and can be interesting if done correctly, but not every character SHOULD or CAN be static in a story.

Static characters need to have their position or behavior challenged and question, where they look into if the way they see and interact with the world is really the 'correct' one or just evaluated to see if they truly believe in them. This questioning period is CRUCIAL! and NEEDS to be well done in a way that ACTIVELY SHOWS the conflict between the two ideals. If they decide to hold onto their beliefs/continue their behavior then, it feels deserved, because rather than just being a flat "they do thing its who they are" they have defined WHY. WHY is a very important question to think of when telling the difference between dynamic and static characters. The why of a character is ESSENTIAL to developing them as a relatable, sympathetic person rather than a flat story telling device. It makes them a human rather than a puppet. When a character's motives aren't well defined or discussed, they're doomed to fall flat in everything else, because the WHY is the foundation of what makes them who they are.

c!Tommy has an underdeveloped "why", his motivations are weak, rarely properly discussed and when they are it doesn't particularly stick with him. His motivations change without showing us the internal struggle that should come from literally shifting your driving principles. There are some good MOMENTS of him reevaluating the importance of certain things, but they're so spread out and contradictory and immediately spat one that they're hard to piece together. He TELLS us what his motivations are as well, which is another big flaw when it comes to all that but we don't have time to unpack all THAT Anyways, the key to static story telling is reaffirmation. The character goes through a complete journey and ends with the same beliefs because they've looked into why they have them and determined that they still matter to them. A great example of static writing in my eyes is c!Techno, who since the beginning has believed that governments are bad. c!Techno enters the server to destroy a government, and still ends up doing that because he sees and we see him experience that the reasons he didn't like government before still hold true and he has no reason to support them any more than before, and so his anarchist beliefs are REAFFIRMED, proving to him that they way he handles things is the right one for him.

c!Tommy’s attachments are all just... they're all so weird.  like he LITERALLY SACRIFICES HIS LIFE MULTIPLE TIMES for L'manburg. By action of sacrifice it seems like it should be the most important thing to him, but then he throws it away for some disks that mattered less to him just a minute ago.  But then it's all about how c!Tubbo is worth more than Anything and maybe he's found something more important! but then he shoves THAT out the window for the discs again ig!!! but then it's about l’manburg again? Make it make sense.... pls....

Here's smth that really irks me about Tommy's character, and is kind of weird but give me a second to explain: Tommy has never actually permanently lost much of anything on the server. Every punishment he's ever received he's tried to find some way around. And like... I'm not expecting him to be HAPPY to face the consequences of his actions but seeing him constantly have his cake and eat it too is very irritating, especially when there are characters who DO have to deal with actual permanent sacrifices. The whole thing with the disks. where he WILLINGLY OFFERED THEM UP AND GAVE THEM AWAY THEN SPENT FOREVER TRYING TO STEAL THEM BACK WHILE CLAIMING DREAM STOLE THEM FROM HIM, is the biggest example of this, but it's generally his characters way of dealing with things. He's very backhanded and conniving, constantly calling himself "big man" except for when he wants things from people and he plays up the "iM a MiNoR" card to try and get them to give him things or feel bad. He's not just some sweet innocent kid like people paint him, he knows damn well he's messed up and while he SAYS he feels bad about it, he has never once really shown, with his ACTIONS, regret for what he's done except for the stuff with c!Sapnap, which could it could be argued he did because he thought it would help get c!Sapnap on his side to fight Dream and he knew c!Sapnap was a skilled warrior and could possibly be persuaded to fight with dream.

c!Tommy is in NO way some sweet innocent child, he knows what he's doing. He KNEW l'manburg was a drug empire, and wanted to turn his hotel into the same He was FULLY prepared to just murder c!Schlatt for legally winning an election that he KNEW was rigged AND INTENDED TO HELP RIG HE LITERALLY TEAMED UP WITH c!TECHNOBLADE KNOWING THAT HE INTENDED TO BLOW UP L'MANBURG AND ONLY LEFT WHEN HE REALIZED IT WASN'T GOING TO ACTUALLY HELP HIM--

The line of c!Wilbur saying "Tommy, are we the bad guys?" wasn't him mentally going batshit it was him realizing that the entire time they've been doing terrible things. c!Wilbur was literally ALWAYS Vilbur but the time people CALL Vilbur is when c!Will himself realized he was a villain.

[itsthenovelteafactor]

Superhero Gothic

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post (special shoutout to @jeyfeather1234 💛 ) about superheroes and gothic media! I know it’s been, like, a month, but here we go.

Here’s a bit of a look into some common gothic themes, and how they apply to Doom Patrol, The Boys, Watchmen (2019), and The Umbrella Academy. This one’s a bit long, not gonna lie, but I hope you enjoy! 

Part I: Let’s Talk About Gothic Media

There is not actually an all-encompassing definition for gothic media, or even a universally agreed-upon one. You’re probably familiar with some well-known gothic works (think Dracula, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King) but there is a lot of debate on what exactly makes them gothic. 

There are some common themes in gothic works, though: families/characters under the control of a tyrannical paterfamilias, the crumbling of the established order/estate, long-buried secrets that have consequences in the present, and supernatural events that are stand-ins for/reflective of the emotional state/past actions of the characters. 

(Note: these aren’t all the themes of gothic works or even most of them, but for purposes here, I’d like to limit this analysis to them. I’d love to talk about other themes/ideas, though, if anyone has them. 😊)

So… superheroes (quick overview in case you haven’t watched any of them… spoiler warnings for the rest of this discussion)

Doom Patrol:

Five misfit superhumans attempt to rescue their mentor figure when he is kidnapped by an old enemy.

They are very, very bad at it.

Also features a singing horse head, a sentient nonbinary teleporting street (who is by far the best character) and the narrator is the fourth-wall breaking series villain. 

Beautifully weird but will also emotionally devastate you. Criminally underrated, tbh.

Watchmen (2019):

Story takes place after the canon of the graphic novel which is too much to summarize.

Alternate history (that should really feel more fictitious than it does) where white supremacist organization the Seventh Cavalry, masked police officers, and former superheroes in hiding all collide in Tulsa Oklahoma

Swept the Emmys this year and ABSOLUTELY DESERVED TO

The Umbrella Academy:

Washed up former child superheroes are forced to reunite when their father dies under mysterious circumstances 

Time travel, dysfunctional siblings, and a killer soundtrack

Basically a family drama with the superhero story as secondary (complimentary)

Probably the most obviously gothic of all of these it is aesthetic AF 

The Boys: 

Superheroes exist but they are corporate sellouts under the control of evil company Not-Amazon (AKA Vought)

Regular human protagonists try to hold them accountable for their actions with varying (read: usually minimal) success

Yes, it’s the one from those weird ads earlier this year

Billy Joel!! 

Part II: Niles Caulder, Ozymandias, and Other Terrible Father Figures

The Tyrannical Paterfamilias: 

Does not always mean a father figure explicitly, often relating to the notion of a patriarchal tradition, or family inheritance that plays a role in controlling the main characters. 

Sometimes, it is a father figure. 

Sometimes, it is a representative of patriarchal tradition/male head of pseudo-family unit.

So, uh, role call: 

Reginald Hargreeves (even in death) holds power over his children, and has shaped all of them into the adults they have become, and that drives the majority of the conflict. Each of the major character individually grapples with the after-effects of his abuse. Luther feels the need to be the leader and protect everyone and alienates his allies as a consequence. Diego constantly asserts himself as a hero (often to dangerous extremes) because it is the only way he was ever valued. Allison has to teach herself boundaries and responsible use of her powers after he encouraged her to abuse them for years. Klaus turns to drugs to cope with his childhood trauma. Five disobeyed his father with disastrous consequences and is constantly fighting to not become him. Vanya spent her entire childhood in the background, and never learned to assert herself in a healthy way. Thanks, Reggie.

Homelander says that The Seven are like a family. While whether or not this is accurate (it isn’t) is up for debate, he does occupy the tyrannical paterfamilias roles incredibly well. Homelander controls every member of the Seven, threatening them and their loved ones whenever they step out of line (read: do not do exactly what he wants in the exact way he wants them to do it.) He is also very closely tied with conservative/patriarchal rhetoric in-universe and at one point dates a literal Nazi. 

William Butcher less evil than most of the other characters on this list but the bar is also like, on the ground. Butcher tries to control the Boys in a similar way (Butcher and Homelander are character foils, okay? it’s actually pretty neat). He’s perfectly willing to sacrifice them in pursuit of his own goals, disregards their points of view and the well-being of their loved ones, and tries to cut loose anyone who disagrees with his methods (recall when Hughie tried to rescue his friends at the end of s1 and Butcher… punched him in the face? Yeah, that.) The difference is that the Boys can push back against his without being, you know, brutally murdered. (And also the Butcher isn’t a literal monster; I’m not anti-Butcher, okay? He’s an interesting character and the fact that he seems constantly on the verge of becoming that which he hates most is part of what makes him interesting.)

Guess what, folks? It’s hating Niles Caulder hours. He engineered accidents to turn the main characters into his test subjects, and then kept them conveniently hidden away in his large manor. Stole their autonomy and independence but paints himself as a benevolent father figure. And that’s not even including what he does to his actual daughter, Dorothy. He’s terrified of her growing up (read: becoming a young woman) and so he locks her away for almost 100 years and, when she is freed, yells at her constantly and makes her terrified of showing any signs of maturation (even though she’s 111 and clearly tired of being written off as a child).

The relationship between Ozymandias and his daughter, Lady Trieu, is integral to the final act of Watchmen. Heralded as the “smartest man in the world,” Ozymandias refused to acknowledge his daughter as his until he needed something from her. While Lady Trieu is more self-sufficient and independent than some of the applications of this trope, she goes to great lengths to prove herself, first to him, and then to herself when he rejects her.

Part III: Been a Long Time Gone (Constantinople) 

Gothic fiction is often associated with change, and particularly, the collapse of established systems of power. For example, many works like The House of the Seven Gables and The Fall of the House of Usher take place in old, crumbling manor houses. There is a reason for this! These kinds of estates are remnants of a past that is irreversibly gone, and their continued presence in decrypt forms serves as a reminder. 

Each of the four series takes place at a moment, either on a wide scale or on a personal scale (or both!), in which an established order is being questioned, and the constant reminders of that failed order are used to gothic effect.

The Umbrella Academy plays this most directly (In fact, there are TONS of parallels between the end of s1 of TUA and House of Usher that I don’t have the time to get into right now... lmk if you want that meta). We can see the Hargreeves mansion as a very literal example of this. While not worn down, the house is notably both very large and very empty. Shelves are filled with merchandise for a superhero team that disbanded over a decade prior, and portraits of a family that no longer speaks to each other. None of the family members ever seem truly comfortable or at ease in the house, and for good reason - every back corner is a reminder of their incredibly traumatic childhood. 

In The Boys, the story begins with the fridging death of the main character’s girlfriend, Robin, at the hands of a member of the Seven, a group of heroes so ingrained in the public consciousness that when they later hide out in a costume shop, literally every single costume is for one of Vought’s heroes. The Seven represent the system in power, which, at the disposal of Not-Amazon means corporate greed, shallow altruism, and the cultivation of public personas at the expense of actual humanity. 

From that moment on, the sheer presence of The Seven on everything from public billboards to breakfast cereal is a remainder for Hughie (and the audience) that this established system doesn’t work and is based on lies, which serves this effect on a personal level. In the broader scale, however, we also see that the Seven themselves are fracturing under an unsustainable business model. Even their name, “The Seven” starts to seem a bit dated when halfway through season one through the end of season two there are notably... less than seven of them. 

The main characters in Doom Patrol are all in recovery after the accidents that irreversibly changed their lives. We see through flashbacks the people that they used to be, and the difference is striking. They were each established in their own elements: Cliff a famous race-car driver, Rita a world renowned actress, Larry a hero pilot, Jane was involved in counter-cultural movements, Vic was a student and athlete. The foundations upon which their worlds were established are completely decimated by the accidents, and now they (save Vic and sometimes Jane) live mostly in isolation in Niles’ manor house, an estate that is far larger than would be necessary to comfortably house a group of their size.

And you feel the emptiness, both in the manor, and in the lives of the characters. They have barely created a shadow version of their own existence when the series starts, so fragile that a simple trip into town devolves into utter chaos. 

Angela Abar of Watchmen has also constructed a life following the terrifying act of terrorism on the White Night. It’s a bit of a double life, and we see that the balancing act is challenging for her, even before the story truly begins. The death of Judd Crawford, and the revelation about him that follows is not only traumatizing on a personal level (but it definitely is that), but also upsets her understanding of the world. People she’s come to trust are not just dishonest but truly monstrous. And the more Angela learns about what has been happening, the more her understanding of the world begins to unravel. Her memories, and the memories of those around her are cast in a much more sinister light, and the effect is genuinely chilling. 

Part IV: “I’m the Little Girl Who Threw the Brick in the Air”

In episode 3 of Watchmen, Laurie contacts Dr. Manhattan on the cosmic phone booth to tell him a joke. It’s a version of what TVTropes calls the “brick joke,” and it relies on set up taking place early on, other stuff happening, and then the response coming at an unexpected moment. 

So, yeah. Events of the past/buried secrets resurfacing with consequences in the present.

Continuing with the theme from Watchmen, the entire series is punctuated with the way the past and the present intertwine, with elements from both the original Watchmen graphic novel, and actual American history. One of the things we talked a lot about in my gothic lit class was the manner in which the overhanging specter of past atrocities casts a shadow over the present, and how many works cannot help but have gothic themes because there are so many horrifying things in the past that cannot be ignored, and provide both context and nuance for the discussions we have in the present. No series tackles these topics quite so directly (and with as much care) as Watchmen. (note: it does not always make for easy viewing, but if you’re in a place where you feel like you can engage with that kind of material, I highly recommend the show.)

In Doom Patrol, the past actions of the characters very much control the storyline (see: previous discussion of Niles Caulder), but the character whose storyline I want to talk about here is Rita (partially for plot reasons and partially because I just love Rita, okay?). We learn when we first meet Rita that in the past she was... not a great person. We know that the trauma of the accident that gave her her powers has changed her, we also know that she still holds on to the guilt and that her guilt has limited the scope of her world for years, but we don’t know what exactly it is that she’s done. 

Enter Mr. Nobody, all-powerful narrator who is not just aware of Rita’s greatest sins, but perfectly capable of manifesting reminders of them into the story. She is confronted with empty cradles, and the sound of crying children in the background of many scenes and we see how much it effects her, without a full understanding of why it does (see: The Tell-Tale Heart). Her past begins to haunt her physically, and she begins to crumble in response to it, until finally she is forced to confide in a stranger (and thus the audience). The past actions do not just inform the audience of Rita’s character - they show up to influence her behavior in the present. 

The ending of The Umbrella Academy season 1 is super evocative of the gothic genre with Vanya breaking open the soundproof chamber (wherein she was silenced for years) and rising from the basement to destroy the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy (which would be awesome if the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy didn’t include the rest of her family). Pretty much every mistake the siblings make over the course of the season feeds together to create the finale, but the primary cause isn’t something any of them actually did. It all ties back to Reginald Hargreeves’ complete inability to be nice to children. Any children. His own and random strangers that need help. 

In The Boys, while the extent to which people are making f-ed up choices in the present cannot be expressed enough, we see through the characters of Homelander that many of the present difficulties are a result of past mistakes. Particularly, the profit-seeking corruption within Vought. We learn in s1 through Vogelbaum that Homelander was raised in a lab by Vought as an experiment, only to be unceremoniously thrust into the spotlight and told he was a superhero (which... does not justify a single one of his actions but is still a major yikes). As the head scientist of the project, Vogelbaum is very aware that ignoring his conscious if the name of research has essentially created the biggest threat their world has ever seen. 

(Seriously y’all just stop raising your super kids in isolation) 

Part V: Put Them Together, and They’re the MF-ing Spice Girls 

Having the environment respond to characters’ emotions/mental states is pretty common in gothic works (it was a dark and stormy night = someone is probably not doing super well). One of the advantages of the genre’s tendency towards the supernatural is that, often, those elements of the stories, as well, are reflections of the main ideas of a work of fiction (see: Stephen King’s really unsubtle period metaphors).

Because all of these shows have a ton of supernatural/scifi elements by virtue of being, well, superhero shows, I thought it would be easier (and more fun!) to come up with a short list of elements, what they mean, and what cases they might apply to.

1. A Nonlinear Experience of Time

The Umbrella Academy: legitimately about time travel. Characters are attempting to fix the timeline but are unable to because they are both mentally and sometimes literally stuck in the past. 

Watchmen: In the episode This Extraordinary Being, Angela experiences firsthand the experiences of her grandfather, under the influence of a drug called Nostalgia. The episode touches on many themes, one of which being the impact of generational trauma in marginalized communities. Throughout the series, Dr. Manhatten is cursed with experiencing all time at once, and the episode A God Walks into Abar illustrates that, because of this, he is constantly facing the consequences of particular actions before, after, and while he is preforming him.

Doom Patrol: Mr. Nobody is able to physically travel to one of Jane’s flashbacks via his fourth-wall breaking powers, and gives Dr. Harrison an ultimatum for the future. 

What it implies: Events, particularly events that evoke guilt or conflict, are not as rooted in the past as one would like to think.

2. Powers/Abilities that reflect personal trauma/failings

Doom Patrol: Larry’s abilities/bond with the Negative Spirit have made it so that he is constantly covering himself with bandages/avoiding other people, which reflects his experiences having to hide his identity as a gay man in the 50/60s. Rita forced herself to walk a thin line, betraying everything in pursuit of her image; her abilities require constant effort to keep her entire body from becoming misshapen and out of control. Vic’s father with boundary issues can literally control his perception of the world through his cybernetic enhancements. Dorothy’s abilities manifest as imaginary friends because she was kept isolated for years at a time. 

The Umbrella Academy: pretty much all of the kids’ powers are representative of the interpersonal skills they were never able to develop. Luther is super-durable but also the most emotionally vulnerable of the group. Five can teleport and time travel but always seems to be too late to stop things. Diego can manipulate the trajectory of projectiles but cannot escape the path his father set out for him, not matter how much he resents it. Vanya always forced herself to stay quiet until the sound literally explodes out of her.

The Boys: Annie’s abilities allow her to control light, but she struggles (in the beginning) to bring to light the horrible things done to her behind closed doors. 

Watchmen: Not technically a power, but Looking Glass’ mirror-mask is a constant reminder of the hall of mirrors that both saved his life and traumatized him forever. 

What it implies: from a story perspective, these allow for an exploration of trauma/guilt to occur on a scale much larger than people simply talking about their problems (as if anyone on any of these shows knows how to talk about their problems...) It also means that the trauma/guilt of the characters takes on a physical form that is able to haunt them, and constantly remind them/hold them accountable for their past actions.

3. Diluted Sense of Reality:

Doom Patrol: The first season is narrated by its main villain, and throughout the season we see that the act of narration itself has an impact on the story.

Watchmen: The event that kicks off the plot of the story is hinged upon a paradox introduced by Angela near the end of the series when trying to speak to her Grandfather in the past through Dr. Manhattan.

The Umbrella Academy: The pair of episodes in season 1, The Day that Wasn’t and The Day That Was take the same point in time and explore two possible avenue for the future from there, with The Day that Wasn’t ending with the events of the entire episode being completely erased from the timeline.

What it implies: you can’t necessarily trust everything you see, even from the audience perspective, giving them a position not unlike that of the characters. The character’s uncertainty and confusion is magnified and reflected in the world that surrounds them.

Other examples: an apocalypse (The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol, Watchmen (of a sort)), ghosts (The Umbrella Academy - hi, Ben!), immortality/invulnerability (Watchmen, Doom Patrol, The Boys), and characters that look significantly younger than they actually are (The Boys, The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol). 

Part VI: Why Did You Write a Literal Essay Don’t You Have Real Schoolwork (yes... shhhhh...)

And... there you have it. I don’t really have some grand conclusion here. This is (clearly) far from a complete analysis but it is the most my finals-week brain can concoct at the moment. 

If you have other ideas, let me know! You can always add to the notes or message me – my inbox is always open!  If you got this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read this! Much love! ❤️

[subordinate-functions-defender]

Horizon Zero Dawn but Aloy captures HADES after the final battle

The last three months were... Weird.

Okay, weird is not the right word. Maybe “absurd”. “Extremely impossible to imagine”. “Please do not ask”. Or just “weird, but in a good way”.

It started when HADES, of all people (AI?), started to feel guilty. After being trapped in a lantern for 3 months, Aloy thought he was trying to manipulate her, as an last attemp of gaining freedom, until she was captured by what remained of the Eclipse and HADES was freed. And, instead of killing her, he protected her. Aloy still remembers how he possessed a thunderjaw (a thunderjaw! Of all machines!) and destroyed everything on his sight, except her.

After that, he got rid of the thunderjaw and came back to the lantern - that was the moment Aloy decided it was time for her to trust him. Deciding what machine he would take was the challenge, because she knew he would absolutely hate being in a watcher or a strider. “I’M NOT A HORSE”, HADES had said. She didn’t know what a “horse” was, but it didn’t take a genius to guess it looked like a strider.

Big machines were out of the question. Too much work and grabbed too much attention. Aloy thought of scrappers, along scorchers, and but she didn’t know if HADES would like them, and she kinda wanted it to be a surprise.

Then, she found a stalker, and the plan was set. Not exactly the most secure option, but Aloy knew HADES would like it, and the camouflage would be good for when they needed to get around humans. And, to her happiness, the AI... Loved it. Loved it so much he even gave Aloy a ride!

Now, she was Aloy, the machine tammmer accompanied by a stalker who some said could talk. She didn't confirm if her friend could talk. Waste of time.

And then, one day, she and HADES were exploring the ruins of GAIA Prime. Their plan was to find something useful, and what they found was something even better. Even more impossible than HADES actively trying to do better.

APOLLO.

A corrupted, confused and scared APOLLO, but APOLLO nonetheless. He spoke in gibberish, and HADES had to translate his sentences to something Aloy could understand before APOLLO realized she wasn’t understanding him. “ELISABETH SOBECK”, he said, curiously, and Aloy remembers how much she hated it.

“I’m not her. I’m...”.

“SOBECK’S CLONE”, HADES spoke. And that wasn’t even the most complicated part of everything - not even APOLLO understood how he was alive, but he was! And he acted like a very active child. A very active and weird one.

HADES had to get a glinthawk for APOLLO. He flew away and almost carried Aloy with him - almost. HADES didn’t allow it (and Aloy made sure he wouldn’t forget it).

APOLLO, for the next month, started growing. No longer speaking in gibberish, he now sounded like a scholar, except for the part of knowing things. Aloy desperately wanted to restore his database, and even HADES decided to help on it. APOLLO, however, insisted on trying to discover everything my himself, which meant he lost his body three times in the span of a week. Good work, APOLLO.

That’s when, one day, when Aloy was making a plan for them to use the Spire to get to the other subfunctions, APOLLO, again in a glinthawk, came and started talking. “I was thinking, Aloy”, he started. “You were created by GAIA”.

“Yes. Lightkeeper protocol”, she responded. “You forgot that?”

“No, no”, and the glinthawk sat next to the woman. “You were created by GAIA. The nora seem to consider her All-Mother, your own mother”.

Aloy didn’t understand what he was going for, but let him. HADES, who was laying by her side, lifter up his head. “Straight to the point, APOLLO”, demanded the stalker, angrily.

“Aloy is, by all means, GAIA’s daughter. However, me and you, to an extend, were also created by her, HADES. There is something akin to a human family connection. Therefore, we might consider ourselves siblings”.

“You are machines. I am a human”.

“So?”, APOLLO asked, while HADES stalker’s lights grew in a confused yellow. “There is a conection here, Aloy, and we are treating ourselves like siblings. You, for example, is our younger sister. I am the older, wiser brother, and the one who gets you two out of trouble”.

“You lost three bodies in the span of a week and still consider yourself responsible?”

“I was still learning!”, APOLLO responded, irritated.

“Even I knew how to keep myself safe”, HADES said. “You must be the stupid one”.

"Oh, I am not, little brother. And, I need to say, you must be our troublemaker. Maybe, one day, we’ll need to get you out of a prison!”

“The ENTITY is the one who got into a prison. Two times”.

“It was your fault”, the redhead said. “Helis threw me in an arena as a sacrifice to the Sun because of you. And the Eclipse caught me because I saved the world from you and your protocol”.

APOLLO shook  his head. “A troublemaker, I see”.

“I was acting inside my protocols. Therefore, I am not guilty”.

“Sure, HADES”, Aloy responded, before laying down again, her Focus interface being reactivated. “What siblings are suposed to do, APOLLO? Kill each other?”

Yeah. Aloy saw a lot of sibling rivalry, and lots of backstabbing, but she wouldn’t forget how caring some of them were. She never had a family outside of Rost - her dad -, and, despite all her thoughts about how they couldn’t be siblings, Aloy was curious. Extremely curious, actually!

“I fear this isn’t on my database, Aloy”, APOLLO said. “However, I think a sibling relationship must be something akin to a friendship, in a way. Siblings must take care of each other, like any family member must do to another”.

From there, HADES started adressing Aloy as “sister”, along APOLLO. She decided it would be useless to cronfront them and adopted the title. It was easier that way, to explain to the nora. The two were her brothers, assistants of All-Mother, and they were trying to find the others. The machines were serving as vessels. A good enough story.

Then, they found HEPHEASTUS. Three weeks ago, inside a cauldron, and he was angry. So angry HADES fought him until he started to listen to what Aloy had to say, and even then he wouldn’t listen as much as Aloy wish he would. She had to threaten a protocol purge for him to shut up.

They made... A sort of deal. Aloy had to show him why humanity was worth sparing, simple as that, which means “this is a living nightmare”.

For the last 3 weeks, Aloy was traveling along HADES and APOLLO, going to old one’s ruins, seeing the datapoints and everything else, while HEPHAESTUS watched throught her focus. It was better, for him to see the ruins, how Elisabeth and her team fought so hard for the future, for life to carry on, and Aloy was quick to notice how the AI seemed to be found of Margo. His alpha.

That was the same with HADES and APOLLO, althought the later was way more noticeable. Aloy knew he liked the sound of Samina’s voice.

Now, Aloy and her... Brothers, yes, brothers, were now going to Free Heap, hoping HEPHAESTUS would like to see what the humans did with the machine parts, and Aloy hoped this would make the AI realize that the humans from today are still the humans of the past. Stupid, yes, but also curious and ingenious.

HADES and APOLLO had become sort of figures. Aloy was avoiding as much people as she could, but it seemed like rumours travel faster than anything. Aloy, the machine tammer, was always accompanied by a stalker and a glinthawk, and seemed to talk to them. A machine master with a growing collection of secrets.

Her brothers didn’t talk at all around the others, but their presence alone helped Aloy more than she would admit. It was way easier to demand something when you’ve got a stalker and a glinthawk by your side, in the rare moments she needed to buy something.

It was a long day of walking, and the machine tammer was tired. Extremely tired. And she wanted to keep walking! There was no time to waste when the whole biosphere is in danger. Unfortunately APOLLO and HADES conspired agaisnt her, and now Aloy was laying down next to a thunderjaw while her brothers talked.

"We must reach Free Heap by tomorrow!", APOLLO commented in a warm tone. "How are the people there?"

"Destroyers of armies", HADES responded. "Tinkerers made cannons to defend Meridian".

"They are nice", Aloy interrupted, looking directly at HADES. "Maybe I can present you two - three - to Petra. She's a friend".

"The one who made the canons".

"Yes, HADES, the one who made the canons to save Meridian".

"Can't wait to meet her!", APOLLO responded, excitedly, jumping in the glinthawk. "She must have lots of data for me to store, and I have lots of data to share".

"You are not going to share your horrible videos of stupid humans", HADES said. "I will terminate you myself if I see the 'yeet'".

"It is an important piece of media from the english speaking population!"

"I think Petra would be more interested on how machines work", Aloy commented, too tired for another round of bickering. "HEPHAESTUS sure would be helpful".

"I REFUSE TO INTERACT WITH NON ZERO DAWN RELATED ENTITIES", he immediately responded throught her focus.

"You are not going to learn shit if you keep acting like that".

"I DO NOT CARE. SISTER UNITY MUST ACCEPT IT".

HADES actually laughed at that, and Aloy gave him a glare. Idiot. "You are the worst".

"QUERY: IS SISTER UNITY TALKING ABOUT ME, OR CORRUPTER UNITY?"

"Both", and she laid down on her small and improvised bed. "You three better wake me up before the sunrise or you will have problems. We can’t waste time".

"Aloy, you aren't sleeping well for a month now. You must rest. I will take care of things".

"You don't know how to hunt, APOLLO".

"I do", HADES responded, seeming satisfied.

"And you only bring me the bones of the things you hunt", Aloy responded, more irritated than before. She normally woke up just a bit before the sunrise, however she wasn’t trusting herself anymore - last week, she woke up two hours after it, courtesy of APOLLO insisting they shouldn’t wake her up.

She had such great siblings.

“If someone approaches, wake me up. Do not attack”.

“Okay, Aloy. Have a good rest”, APOLLO said, gently, while HADES’ stalker lifted it’s head in a silent “good night”. HEPHAESTUS, as always, didn’t say anything, but the thunderjaw was quick to initiate a patrol route.

Aloy was soon asleep, and the reason as to why she was having slepless nights soon appeared in the form of another nightmare.

She was a child, running free after a long day of training, searching desperately for her father- Rost. Yes, Rost, not- not father. She wasn’t his... His actual daughter. He never called her one. Not in Aloy’s eyes, at least.

She was searching for Rost, but he wasn’t there. She looked throught their cabin, desperate, and she opened the front door, only to find his body. His dead, lifeless body, surrounded by flowers.

Aloy cried - screamed. And then there was an explosion and she was falling down and there were them, the Eclipse, and Helis with a cruel smile. Machines screamed in the background while Aloy, armed with only her fists, watched as everything around her burned yet again.

She couldn’t do much. She only stayed in the same point, trapped, while Meridian burned. And she looked behind her, only to see nora buildings burning. She could hear screams, too, but no one other person.

A spear appeared in her hands, heavy and bloody, and a voice came from a dark lifeless sky: “TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Aloy couldn’t run.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t hide.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t make a plane.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t escape.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t fight back.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Couldn’t do anything.

“TURN YOUR FACE TO THE SUN, CHILD”.

Only watch as the world burned as brightly as her hair’s color.

“S I S T E R ?”

Aloy opened up her eyes in an instant, immediately punching the first thing she saw, missing it by only a few inches. She jumped, spear now in her hands, while HADES looked at her in the corrupted stalker.

Aloy was trembling, and she was angry. A confused kind of anger, because she was scared. “HADES, what happenned?”

“Calm down, Aloy”, APOLLO’s voice appeared from behind. “It was just a nightmare, see? You are okay”.

Shit. Shit. Shit shit shit. Her nightmares were never that bad, and now she needed to convince them that it was nothing. Fuck. “It was nothing. Did someone came by?”

“You were mumbling and couldn’t stop moving”, HADES intervered. “You also cried. APOLLO decided it was time to purge your sleep”.

HEPHAESTUS’ thunderjaw was looking at the trio, eyes glowing yellow. Aloy simply sat down in the sleeping bag and put her spear next to it. “... Thank you”, she murmured.

“You welcome”, APOLLO responded, the glinthawk sitting next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Uh... No”.

Aloy felt HADES’ stalker sitting down. He was looking at her, of course. “It was the Eclipse?”

“You weren’t in it, HADES”, she responded, laying down once again. “Not this time”.

“Sister must go back to sleep”, he responded. “Go”.

And she would, if HEPHAESTUS didn’t intervene: “SISTER UNITY SHOWED SIGNS OF STRESS DURING SLEEP FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK. QUERY: DOES THIS RELATE TO ANY OF YOUR... PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES WITH HOSTILE HUMANS?”

Aloy rolled her eyes. “The Eclipse. They... Killed Rost, the man who raised me. But they are mostly gone by now, I... We put an end to them”.

“QUERY: WHO ARE ‘WE’?”

The woman sighed. “People I helped along the way. Petra helped, with her cannons. There’s also Talanah, Sunhawk of the Hunter’s Lodge. Erend, Vanasha, Teb, Varl...”.

“I remember them”, HADES responded. “They fought well. For humans”.

Aloy was still trembling, but she could feel her heart slowing it’s pace, no danger to be seem, and a half-smiled appeared at her face. She was safe here, at least. “Tomorrow”, she said, “I’ll tell you more about them. But I need to sleep”.

“Then sleep”, the stalker said, angrily, but Aloy knew he wasn’t actually angry. “Do not have any nightmares”.

“That sure will help me”.

APOLLO’s beack touched her arm. “Ignore him. He’s mean”.

“I am not”.

“Delicate as a brick”, Aloy murmured, ignoring HADES indignation.

“GOOD NIGHT, SISTER UNITY”, HEPHAESTUS said throught her focus. “SLEEP WELL”.

And she did. No nightmares for the rest of the night.

[cruelfeline]

The Hordak Bleatings Masterpost

The new and improved Masterpost! All of my ridiculous bleating in one place! Now with categories to allow you, dear friends and neighbors, to better marvel at the utter nonsense I get up to in my spare time. It shall be updated every so often/when I remember. 

some of these categories may overlap or perhaps not be perfect; I tried; there was... a lot

Enjoy!

Biological/Medical Musings

A Fairly Comprehensive List of Hordak’s Clinical Signs

I Wrote Too Much About Hordak’s Arms

And Then Someone Asked About His Elbows So Voila

Someone Else Asked About His Eyes

Yes; I Did Measure Hordak’s Ears via Fuzzy Math; You’re Welcome

A Brief Word About Dentition

Some Sad Thoughts About Clone Lifespan

I Like to Headcanon that Clones Have Naturally Different Eye Colors

Counting Hordak’s Ports

Thinking About Terrible Ways Prime Could Institute Biological Control

Doing Very Fuzzy Math And Wondering Just How Young Hordak Could Be

Spending Way Too Much Time Figuring Out Whether Hordak is Left or Right Handed

Why Tiny Food is Probably Ideal for Hordak (a joke ask I essentially took Seriously)

Discussing Hordak’s Temper

Considering Whether Hordak Needs Oxygen

Discussing Whether Prime and his Clones are Genetically Identical

Hordak in Relation to Other Characters

Entrapdak

Hordak Can Get Close to Entrapta Because He Needn’t Fear Her

Discussing Entrapdak Age Discourse

Bit More Regarding Hordak’s Maturity vs. Entrapta’s

Hordak Didn’t Manipulate Entrapta… But Catra Did

Assessing that Unfortunate Moment When Hordak Snapped at Entrapta

Further Assessing Hordak Snapping at Entrapta by Noting When He Doesn’t

On Hordak’s Wardrobe Change

Entrapta Shushing Hordak is One of My Favorite Interactions

The Entrapdak Scene Was Also One of Self-Love

I Really Like How Entrapta Talks to Hordak About Failure

Hordak Tells an Actual Lie and Succeeds

Entrapta’s and Hordak’s Social Differences Help Them Connect to One Another

I Would Have Appreciated A Scene Where Entrapta Learns About What Happened To Hordak

Hordak Takes Strength From Realizing That Entrapta Came For Him

Hordak and Entrapta Just Like One Another, and I Enjoy That

There is a Huge Difference in How The Alliance and Hordak React to Entrapta Being on Beast Island, and it’s Jarring

This is Mostly About Catradora But Kind of in the Sense of Why Entrapdak is Better, so Here it Goes

Entrapta Didn’t Teach Hordak How to Love; She Taught Him How to Be Loved

The Soup Scene is a Condensed View of Why Entrapdak Works in Light of the Rest of Hordak’s Arc

Hordak and Entrapta Search for One Another Alone, and it Makes Me Sad

I Love How Hordak Scooches Over for Entrapta to Join Him on his Throne

Catra

The How-Catra-Manipulated-Hordak Masterpost

Watching Catra and Hordak Switch Roles in Season Three is Fascinating

Hordak and Catra’s Low Points Indicate Their Core Problems

Did Hordak Abuse Catra? Did She Abuse Him? The World May Never Know

Comparing Hordak and Catra in Terms of Consequences and Agency

Hordak and Catra’s Apparent Ages Likely Affect How People Judge Them

Why Doesn’t Hordak Subdue Catra?

Losing and Regaining the Will to Fight is Another Hordak/Catra Parallel

Sometimes I Wish The Show Would Focus Less on Catra and More on Hordak

Why Catra Besting Hordak Isn’t As Satisfying As Catra Besting Shadow Weaver

Hordak Exhibits Some Level of Trust in Catra Even in Season 2... and She Betrays It

The Difference in How Hordak and Catra Handle Relationships followed by Why They Are Like This 

Some Brief Words on the Differences Between How Hordak and Catra End Up Driven to Destruction in Season Four

Musing About What I Actually Would Accept as “Hordak Abusing Catra”

I Think It’s Kind of Funny that Some Expect Catra to be Suspicious of Hordak Post-Canon

Two Scenes That Look Distressing Side-by-Side

Discussing How Catra and Hordak Start Off as Parallels but Later Deviate Due to Character Differences

Adora

How Adora and Hordak End Season Four Differently

Hordak and Adora Parallels

I Wonder if Adora Recognizes Some of Herself in Hordak

Other

This is Actually About Shadow Weaver, but Compared to Hordak, So…

Hordak Doesn’t Seem to have a “Rule the World!” Moment (compared to Shadow Weaver)

On Hordak’s Weird Interactions with DT

Watching DT Circle Hordak is Interesting

Let’s Compare the Circling Scenes, Shall We?

What Wrong Hordak’s Arc Teaches Us About Clones and Hordak

Wondering if Hordak Actually has Control Over the Etherian Horde (could he have stopped the war?)

Prime

There Is A Huge Difference In The Standards Prime And Hordak Hold Others Two Versus Themselves

Hordak and Horde Prime Handle Their Own Vulnerabilities Quite Differently

The Difference Between How Prime and Hordak Use Anger

The Moment Prime Touched Hordak’s Face is the Moment I Truly Knew That Something About Hordak’s Backstory was Very Wrong

Clone/Origin/Prime-Related Sadness

The Clone Thing

More Distressed Bleating about The Clone Thing

Hordak’s DMV Photo Disturbs Me

Hordak Isn’t Actually an Idiot About Disease Transmission

On Hordak’s Bodily Autonomy, or Lack Thereof

How Much of Hordak is “Hordak?”

I’m 99% Certain That Hordak Sucks at Lying Because he Literally Couldn’t

You’d Think Hordak would Think Things Through, But…

Hordak isn’t Really Proud of “Hordak” (with a bonus Adora mention)

Hordak Provides Excellent Fridge Horror

Hordak’s Behavioral Pathology Isn’t Actually Pathology

So! That Purification Ritual was Really Something

Despite Erasure, Hordak Remains Himself

The Clones Are Essentially Trapped By Prime And It Upsets Me

I Get Annoyed That The Clones Aren’t Discussed More By Our Heroes

Again, I Wish The Show Acknowledged The Clones A Bit More, Wrongie Edition

Wouldn’t It Be Swell If Prime Really Did Manage The Clones Like Livestock? 

It’s More Emotionally Poignant That The Clones Are Individuals Rather Than Drones

Prime’s Doctrine Ensures Hordak Blames Himself, and it’s an Awful Control Measure

Hordak Probably Isn’t Dumb for Using Uninsulated Cables; Rather, Clone Sadness is in Play

Why I Can’t See Hordak and the Other Clones As Colonizers (unlike Prime) (also a whole convo thread)

Thinking About Clones and Self-Care

Each Clone Will Have to Realize That They Were Victimized

Wondering if Horde Clones Might Feel Anxious Sleeping Alone

Why Prime Might Encourage Some Autonomy in His Clones (spoilers: for cruelty)

Completely Arbitrary Classification of Clones Post-Prime!

Prime is an Actual God to the Clones and it is Terrifying

Canon Plausibility of Blanket Burritoing Horde Clones!

I Appreciate That, Despite Their Devotion, the Clones are Portrayed as Legitimately Suffering due to Prime

Catra and Adora have Happy Memories; do the Clones?; does Hordak?

Morality/Punishment/Redemption Related

Morality is (sadly) not a Universal Thing

Don’t Talk to me About the Reset as “Proper Punishment”

Why Hordak Doesn’t Just Become a Good Citizen

I Think About Hordak’s Choices a Lot

Hordak as an Abuse Mimic Rather Than Pure Evil

Looking at the Horde Child Soldier Thing From a Certain POV

Emotional Support is a Necessary Part of Healing

Hordak Was Forgiven Without Redemption, And I’m OK With That

Hordak’s Arc Speaks Directly to People who were “Raised Wrong”

I Wonder if Hordak Would See anti-Princess Propaganda as Propaganda

Semi-Intelligent Plot/Story Observations

Hordak’s Portrayal is a Function of Character Lens

Hordak Gets Very Legit Development in Season Four

She-Ra Isn’t a War Drama and Here’s Why

Hordak Suffers From a Distressing Lack of Agency

Hordak is a Weirdly Unenthusiastic Lord

The Season 4 Finale Reframes Hordak’s Vulnerability 

Untangling Hordak’s Backstory in Light of What We Now Know

Why Hordak Getting Possessed is Narratively Good

Hordak’s Rebellion and Subsequent Possession Essentially Summarize His Story

There Are Big Differences Between Hordak and Prime’s Etherian Wars

It Is Pretty Unlikely That Hordak Would Have Pulled The Portal Lever

It Occurred To Me That Hordak May Initially Ignore FO’s Tech Because It’s Just Really Old

An Assessment Of The Villain Intro Cards, Focusing On Hordak

I Think It’s Silly To Blame Hordak For Everything - Especially When Considering Prime

Literally Just a Thread Explaining Why Hordak is Sympathetic

Some Words On Exactly How Terrible DT’s Reveal Was For Hordak

The Escalation of Hordak’s Situation is Really Something

An Anon Asks a Normal Question and I go on a Tangent About Hordak Compensating for his Inability to Innovate via Entrapta and Catra

There are Monumental Differences Between the Galactic and Etherian Hordes in Terms of Brainwashing and Agency

Thinking About Why Chipped Etherians May Not be That Sympathetic To Clones After All

Random Bit of Logicking About Why Hordak Calls the Princesses a Rebellion

Figuring Out Why I Find Hordak So Much More Sympathetic Than The Princesses

Brief Musing on How Hordak Might Face Antagonism From Both Sides Post-Canon

Hordak’s Story Touches on the Concept of the Imperfection of Authority

Someone Asked Me if I Found Hordak’s S5 Arc Satisfying

Discussing Whether Or Not Hordak Planned on Leading Anything After Conquering Etheria

Taking Apart an Abysmal Twitter Take Because It’s Fun

Talking About Prime’s Clone Troops v. Robot Troops

Talking About Hordak’s Emotional Age

Hordak’s S3 Backtory Being Part-Delusion Helps Emphasize the Inequality in Attachment Between the Clones and Prime

A Few Not-So-Nice Acts Hordak Commits That I Find Justifiable

Random Headcanons of All Sorts

Stupidly Cute, Pointless Headcanon #3825 (ears covered)

Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #4853 (yawning, with appropriate artwork)

Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #2938 (snoring)

Stupid Pointlessly Cute Headcanon #1423 (REM sleep)

Stupidly Cute, Pointless Headcanon #7845 (blushing)

Random Hordak-Related Thought #2935 (forearms)

I Like to Think That Hordak Does Cute Things in his Sleep

I Like to Think That Hordak’s Eyes Dim While He Sleeps

Literally Me Just Having Emotions

Thinking About the Stress of Maintaining His Image in the Horde

Why Hordak’s Trauma is Particularly Disturbing To Me (compared to Catra/Adora)

Catra Overcomes her Fear of her Abuser; Hordak Does Not

All of my Emotions over the S4 Finale

Hordak’s Goddamned Smirk Lied to Me

I Have Feelings about Hordak’s Enforced Self-Care

I Need Hordak to Know that He is Loved

Hordak Goes Pew Pew and It’s Cute

Watching Hordak Lift Things Makes Me Smile

Hordak’s Unreasonable Expectations Make Me Sad

Please Just Let Hordak Rest

A Sassy Post About People Complaining the Hordak and Catra are Forgiven

All My Words About That Hordak/Adora Scene

Hordak Taps the Asphyxiation Lever With Two Fingers And It Makes Me Happy

I Wonder If Individuality Felt Blasphemous To Hordak

Please Don’t Stab Clones In Their Ports, Thank You

Hordak Clasps His Hands And It Makes Me Anxious

Hordak Shaming Catra Mimics the Purification Room And It’s Disturbing

Watching Hordak Give Up Is Heartbreaking

I Worry About Hordak Handling Anxiety

People Being Considerate of Hordak Makes My Heart Smile

I Wonder If Magic Was Frightening to Hordak at First

Thinking About Hordak Progressing in Terms of Self-Care

Prime Never Calls Hordak by Name, not Even Once

Just Being Sad While Realizing the Sort of Life Hordak had to Look Forward To

Strange Fic-Like Things No One Should Read

Please Consider: A Concept Masterpost

Hordak Practices Eyerolling

Imp Hacks Up The Worst Color of Hairball

[horrible-monstrosity]

I find myself increasingly concerned with the direction Legends Arceus is taking the relation between humans and Pokemens. No, I'm not talking about the bit with Pokemans attacking the player directly when you don't have your own Pokeymans ready, that was going to happen eventually, but just... the Sinnoh myths had stories about humans and Pokemon being so close they were considered the same sort of being, there's marriages, what have you, coming from thousands of years back. But this game apparently taking place only some hundreds of years ago... and it's "before Pokemons and humans lived together uwu"? The fuck? I feel like the games have been significantly moving away from humans and Pokemon being equals of a sort who both benefit from being together to Pokemons being some superior beings who humans benefit from but not vice versa and Pokemans are the superior creatures who humans should grovel in gratitude to and put up with all the shit from while never daring to burden them in any way. See gen 7, where living in haaaaarmony means having their lives and culture corralled by some asshole fairies because people can't be arsed to fight the ultra beasts, except the trainers who're forced to become kahunas fight the UBs themselves anyway (where they're forced to become fanatical enough about fighting to become strong enough to do so, but they're not even expected to be strong to fight UBs it's to lead their community... don't try understanding it just eat fairy shit and get excited for more fairy shit I guess). Why not just have a culture of the trainers who want to be strongest, or who have the greatest talent, being lauded as UB-fighters and becoming community leaders as well? Naw man, doing everything as the fairies want is haaaaarmony. Humans can't be strong enough with their Pokemon teams to fight the UBs, but have to be strong for other reasons ordained by The System, but then the ordained stronk humans have to fight the UBs anyway. But the fairies help, I guess. I fucking hate fairies man. Fucking elves of the Pokemon world. Smug sparkling fucks, fuck em I keep forgetting about the ride Pokemon but it still feels like the humans are supposed to bow and scrape to earn the gift of basic movement services so I don't think it really counts Gen 8 I don't know as well but it seems to go like this: Doggos are responsible for all good, their trainers or whatever their human companions are might as well not even exist. The postgame story is about those eeeeevil humans thinking they have some relevance to the doggos or something, eeevil I must say, so they have to do something evil to prove that.... um, something. Just some dumb shit that feels like a strawman argument against humans having any place in this world. Grovel to doggos.

Gen 6 was around the point where the weird cynicism started to creep into the franchise, mostly ORAS's weird abandoned ship segment, but it's pretty clear of this... aside from one random ace trainer or something late in XY who asks you, humans benefit from Pokemons, but how Pokemons benefit from huamn??? huh??? You're expecting an answer from him but he's just like, I bet you can't think of anything huh, hmmm??? Grovel, human.

You compare this to gen 5, and I'm not even talking about the Plasma plot (which was clearly bait on Plasma's part to get the public's sympathy anyway), but things like using Excadrill to dig out the mines. The 'drills were getting to do what they loved- dig- and being treated well by the humans in exchange for digging this spot in that way as directed. An equitable relationship that produced resources. This sort of thing existed as a counterpoint to N and Plasma's stated beliefs that humans were nothing but horrible for Pokemon and that they could never live together... Ironically what the later games are leaning towards, except that there is a way, and that's for humans to go fuck themselves. And again, Sinnoh's old myths, as well as any other myths that involve people and Pokemon together going back thousands of years.

I'd really thought the idea of this series was that Pokemon and humans were practically made for each other, that they were together from the very beginning. Raising Pokemon allows them to have a crafted moveset including TM and tutor moves, gain EVs, use held items aside from the few random ones they find in the wild... it's baked into the game itself completely incidentally. But no, I guess it's a Pokeyman's world and humans are just intruding on it somehow. What the fuck. Sigh.

I'm hoping that "Pokemans are so dangerouse man" line is just about the red-eyed frenzied Pokemon and that we aren't going into all Pokemons attacking humans and humans living forever at their mercy and deserving to scrape and grovel just to survive their onslaught.

By the way, my autistic retard fanfiction: First off, when the wall breaks and the doggo statues are found that make everyone realise who the "real" heroes are (something we can THANK Bede for by the way, because if he hadn't destroyed a priceless cultural artifact Eternatus would have gone off unopposed... but no one ever acknowledges this, as Bede is shat on and disowned by Rose for following what Rose taught him and then forced to trune out by trunny granny. figures she's a fairy trainer, I fucking hate fairies)- the idea that the doggos alone are the "real" heroes is actually a misconception brought on by people/society's tendency to elevate Pokemon, similar to why people bought PLasma's bullshit back in Unova. So when Eternatus is starting its nukes, people are just waiting for the doggos to get going and beat it... but when Hop sees the doggo statues, his budding professor brain immediately sees the truth- both the doggos and their human trainers are needed to unlock the true power of the sword and shield items. This even makes some sense with the game mechanics, as Pokemon typically can't use items more complicated than a berry... so with Leon and co busy fighting the dynamax mons and knowing no one would listen to him, Hop turns to the only person he can ask- you, who saw the doggos in the foggos at the beginning with him, to go retrieve the items so the doggos can actually do their thing. Also, Rose was radicalised and groomed by some crazy apocalypse cult, an ironic inversion of his supposed grooming of Bede (here he actually has a heartwarming father-son relationship of sorts with him). They pushed him to push the darkest day plan up like he did, convincing him there's a desperate energy situation but secretly just wanting the maximum apocalypse-ness out of a single action (while possibly believing themselves that there's an energy crisis but that the real solution is to destroy shit so less people and things use energy). So there's that. In the end he's taken to jail, but it's not some absurdly mundane ending where he just gets arrested for apocalypse crimes, rather he's being questioned for what he can tell them about the cult, on understanding that he was coerced into this, and that he can pay for his crimes by giving information on the cult itself. Bede relates this to you with some concern for his sort-of dad. The Swordward and Shieldbert plot (I forget if that's their actual names but whatever) has the two bros asking you to aid in investigating the apoc cult while preparing to accept their destiny as the doggos' masters. You see, they've been raised for this, learning all about Pokemon companionship but having no actual close contact with Pokemon at all (to prevent any Pokemon from forming a bond with them closer than what they'd have with the doggo- your first Pokemon is special, after all). Book smart but street dumb, in other words. You know, as opposed to some inexplicable dumb shit because Mother 3 ruined an entire generation of game writers. They call on the doggos to battle the baddies and are disappointed they go to you and Hop instead of them, but ultimately accept it. Afterwards, Hop contacts Sonia with a request... soon he has the two brothers over to choose their very first Pokemon. Swordbro was going on about Swordog's nobility and Shieldbro about wanting to touch Shieldog's fluffy mane, so Hop has out a Yamper and a Wooloo, presented as a choice, but he knows exactly which one they'll each choose. This is another manifestation of his potential as a professor- not only doing the professor thing of handing out first Pokemon, but considering what Pokemon they'd work well with. Isn't that nice? Also there's something in there about Bede's long lost identical twin who's also being used as a pawn by the apoco-cult but I'll explain that later

My idea for the origin of the Pokemon world as we know it- Arceus didn't create Pokemon, or the world itself, but it is responsible for the way the world is now. Once upon a time, when humans and Pokemon were one kind of being, there was too much strife and disagreement among the groups and nobody was learning their lesson, so Arceus got fed up and split the world into two types of beings that would have to get along in order to thrive. It instated the "rules" of Pokemon battles, that attacks have set damage ranges and types have well-defined interactions, that attacks in battles only deplete some abstract hit points level instead of causing the damage they "should" for what they are (this doesn't apply to wild-on-wild predation necessarily, so it's a privilege enjoyed by Pokemon being aided or advised by a human). Outsider beings- aliens, maybe ultra beasts, etc- are "converted" into Pokemon when they enter "Earth"'s airspace, which is why even beings from the furthest depths of space follow the rules and biology of earthbound species. These "rules" require Arceus' powers but don't rely on its constant action, so it can be captured and hang out with a trainer for a while, play by its own rules to see how things are going, without disrupting the system. I'd never expected anything even vaguely like this to turn canon of course, because it's so specific and particular to the sort of ideas I tend to have, but... not like this man

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Okay I was talking to the amazing @border-spam and I kinda accidentally Went Off in her inbox so imma ramble here instead cuz I wanna go more in depth on the topic of the afterlife in the borderlands universe bc it is definitely canon thru the Guns Love and Tentacles dlc

Tl;dr: at least they didn't introduce time travel [stares directly into Lilith's fucking soul]

So she brought up the whole aspect of the siren afterlife where the siren can choose their successor or let their powers go off and choose 'their own' user (and they usually choose young kids for some reason) which is a weird thing to suddenly introduce in the 3rd game, because this should've been, if it did exist, talked about before in past- Maya would not have been the first person to know about this. And the fact that this siren afterlife even exists is a weird thing to have in general, to even introduce as a story point when they could've kept it as randomly chosen people getting siren powers (because what sort of sicko wants to give a little girl a probably shortened life of pain and fear that they themselves had to live through).

And it IS weird because introducing an afterlife is just a wild thing to do in a universe where technology can be used for all sorts of weird shit and magic borderline (pretty much) exists. I mean ik we're all pretty much on the page that siren stuff ISN'T actual magic and is instead Eridian stuff that hasn't been explained, but still you get what I mean it is insanely advanced tech or science that looks like magic to us

Because listen. In GLaT that side quest where you go help the dead little girl. That happens because of Maliwan tech. I remember, because I remembering musing to myself that it is probably the same sort of Maliwan tech used to access Heck during the Bloody Harvest event. I am going somewhere with this I promise

Firstly, since this afterlife or weird death dimension is Officially Canon (idk if the Bloody Harvest event is canon but this is official main DLC so it's canon), why is it never mentioned by the characters? I feel like they wouldn't keep quiet about it, and told Tannis, and I don't think she would have let that go without investigating it. The characters don't know they're in a story, and they don't care about satisfying character arcs or development or shit. If Lilith or Tina had the ability to see Roland again, don't you think they'd try? If Ava or Krieg knew there was a chance they could speak to Maya, even if for one last time, don't you think they'd go for it?? Like they don't care about satisfying character arcs, they would try it. Tannis invents a machine that lets us go inside people's heads, this is a universe where you can copy/turn people into AI, and put that AI in a robot body, don't you think SOMEONE would try to make that happen??? When the afterlife scientifically EXISTS?? This removes, like, ALL stakes if we're literally able to open portals to this death dimension and talk to the people in it. And in a game where the writers were soooo adamant that the new-u stations aren't canon, why did they introduce the concept of an afterlife in a dlc that is canon

There is more to this, hang on, I'm not just bitching abt logistics I swear

Okay so when you go thru that quest, there are manticores that appear. Manticores are enemies on Nekrotefeyo, so it's weird that they suddenly appear in this 'completely unrelated' area of the game. I put that in quotes because it's probably related tbh. The green colors in this dimension and the wisps and everything remind me a LOT of Nekrotefeyo's core spilling out. It also reminds me a lot of the wisps we see when we kill Guardians, of their souls/minds getting whisked away to be put in either the main place they're stored OR into another Guardian body, but those are usually R e d. It ALSO reminds me a lot of Krieg's mind's planetscape in his dlc, same color scheme and everything

So u guys know I am a big fan of the whole Eridians created humanity as a step up from the Guardians theory, because we see guardians/Eridians in the murals of the Vaults interacting with humans and gifting the babies Eridian relics and such and such. There are human statues in the Vaults, sirens are obviously linked to Eridians, etc etc. They clearly, at the very least, lived side-by-side, tho I believe the Eridians created humanity. I believe this theory very hard, I wrote a whole essay on it previously, yada yada. So if we take it one step further and imagine that the Eridians created a place to store Guardian souls when they die before they find a new vessel (the inside of Minos Prime, perhaps? The inside of Nekrotefeyo?), what is stopping them from doing the same thing for humans??

Which would explain how this place is accessible through technology- it is a physical place created by Eridians. If it IS the core of Nekrotefeyo, given the color scheme being the same as the death dimension and human 'wisps', it would make sense that dark Maliwan is there doing research and why it is their portals specifically that can access this area, and, if bloody harvest IS canon, why we only fight Maliwan soldiers in Heck (besides ratch). They were exploring their new discovery until we came along

It would also explain how sirens are able to choose their successors after they die- they're brought back to the 'collection unit', the 'soul storage place', idk, and they can either choose someone to burden, or let the powers go and choose a random person.

Which is really messed up if u think about it, but then I don't believe the Eridians are good people ever since they started feeding us to the Destroyer, soooooo.

I wonder if wisps eaten by the Destroyer are lost forever. If so, then I wonder if Steele's Siren powers are gone and that's why her resurrected claptrap body couldn't use her powers, or if her wisp just escaped and her powers went to some random person.

Also why didn't Nyriad choose Leda instead of the twins to give her powers to. It's like Nyriad wanted them to suffer bc she locked herself in the Vault they were conceived in. And like... Can wisps not escape Vaults? Then that brings me back to Steele's Siren powers. She did technically die? Outside the Vault? I think? It's not 100% clear cuz she was definitely impaled outside of it, but idk when exactly she died died. I mean there's the whole thing about how they recovered her body in the first place, buuuut let's not go there bc I'm already brain hurt for today

The main point is: the afterlife is weird. I think it's a place created by the Eridians to store people when they die, and that's why it's a physical place we can go to and open portals to and why the Sirens have the opportunity to burden other people with their powers when they die. It does make me wonder if Troy had absorbed Maya's entire fuckin wisp when he turned her into hot chocolate powder, or just her powers. Cuz the powers go to Ava when Troy's dead, meaning Maya DID choose, but did she choose immediately after she died, or only after Troy died.

These are questions that MUST be answered they're IMPORTANT HHHHH

[minaminokyoko]

I know I’m screaming into the void here, but

Can we talk about the lack of HarriKarri content in Peace Talks?

Spoilers for Peace Talks below. Also, a very long rant.

Disclaimer: Recently, the reading community has been having conversations about expectations related to professional authors backed by one of the Big Six or equivalent traditional publishing companies. The points I’m about to bring are not me being entitled. I understand that Jim Butcher is not obligated to give me everything I want. I will not demand that he do so. I just want to have a conversation about something I feel is oddly dissatisfying about the content in Peace Talks related to Harry and Murphy, which is my own opinion, and said opinion isn’t going to be slung at the author or anything distasteful like that.

Right, so, to give some context, I’m not a fan of Peace Talks. I read it once and then just sat on my couch for several hours after trying to figure out what to even do with myself because I waited six years for what I consider to be an underwhelming book that was mostly just set up for Battle Ground. I mention it because I admit that if we get Battle Ground in September and all the content in Harry and Murphy’s relationship that was missing in Peace Talks is in Battle Ground, fine, I’ll retract my statements. Some fans have already expressed that they can’t really review Peace Talks or give opinions on it because it feels so much like a companion piece that you can’t evaluate it until you’ve read Battle Ground, as the book seems to be nothing but the precursor to Battle Ground. It doesn’t stand on its own very well, at least not in my eyes, but let me get to the point.

The reason I’ve been feeling angry and betrayed by Peace Talks’ lack of HarriKarri content isn’t just because I’m the Queen of the Harry/Murphy trashpile. I’m not speaking strictly as a shipper this time. Y’all know me. I mean, look, I’ve written 185k words of Harry/Murphy fanfiction, most of which was written during the incredibly long wait between Skin Game and Peace Talks. Yes, I know, it’s hypocritical of me to say I’m not writing this post because I’m a big dumb shipper queen. I do mean it that I sincerely think it’s outright bizarre that we got so little insight into how these two best fire-forged friends and lovers are doing in a romantic relationship.

Let me make my case here. Okay, so the first thing is that romance is a huge element in this series. Harry’s love life is important not only to him as a character, but it actually plays directly into the plot, from Susan’s selfish stupidity to Elaine’s mistrust to Luccio’s mysterious manipulation to Lasciel’s Heel Face Turn. If someone wanted to argue the reason we didn’t see much of Harry and Murphy together as a couple is because romance isn’t the primary focus of the series, that’s not going to hold water. The connection between Harry and his paramours has always been a large element in each of these books in various ways. That’s probably the first thing that signaled that something was off about Peace Talks.

Think about the previous books. Harry’s relationships are both a source of comfort and conflict for him, allowing him to learn and grow as a character, and none moreso than his relationship with Murphy. I have so many of their scenes vividly memorized by now because of how important both friendship and love are to Harry and to Murphy as well. There are milestones that they’ve reached starting from Storm Front onward. I would honestly argue it is the most developed relationship in the series, in terms of how much these two trust and respect and love one another and understand where they fit into the other person’s life. I remember reading that bit in White Night where Bob says they swapped souls through a hug and that left a huge impression on me because I think that’s what soulmates would look and sound like in real life (wouldn’t know, I am single af and going to die an old cat lady.) It’s to a point where, in my honest opinion, there is no Harry without Murphy. She is the other half of his soul. Where he is weak, she is strong, where she is weak, he is strong, and they move forward through every conflict knowing that about each other. And I think the reverse is true. We saw how Murphy took Harry’s disappearance and death—it fucking broke her. Her entire personality and beliefs came crashing down and while she was still able to function in his absence, she was just as much a ghost as he was.

So why the fuck wasn’t there anything in Peace Talks illustrating just how vital this relationship is?

I’m not keen on reading the book again, but from what I remember, we were given roughly three significant interactions between Harry and Murphy that had anything to do with their romance: Harry at the house while she’s recovering, the scene where she takes the casts off, and then her talking to him after Ebenezar almost kills him. And…that’s it. Do they still interact in the book? Yes. But it’s nothing memorable, aside from the threesome suggestion (in all fairness, that was hilarious, and it was even more hilarious to me that both Harry and Murphy didn’t outright say no).

Why is that weird? Because I can seriously name book by book how many significant conversations and scenes that Harry and Murphy have that develop their dynamic, sexy, fun, beautiful relationship…and yet the book where they’re actually together, after sixteen goddamn books, has almost nothing.

And it shouldn’t be like that at all.

I know my own bias. Really, I do. I’ve written so many Harry/Murphy fics that I was bound to be let down when we actually got the canon relationship, but the difference between me being let down and me feeling betrayed is that it feels like it’s for no reason. There are plenty of spots in the book considering it’s kind of short where Butcher could have given us insight into the way they hooked up for the first time. I know I don’t speak for the entire fandom, but I do know there are enough of you who like me wanted to know about their first “official” date or seeing how the people in his life reacted to them finally getting together after so many years. That’s not just shipper trash. That’s satisfying storytelling payoff. It is extremely important to us as readers and to the actual narrative itself that we see what it’s like for Harry and Murphy to be in a mature romantic relationship. Both of them have been longing and pining for each other for ages, and yet Butcher doesn’t give us the meaty bits we’re dying to chomp our teeth into. For God’s sake, Harry was hung up on the little things about Murphy, like her riding her motorcycle or her cute nose and ear lobes or the way she smiles or how she gives him the sass right back to his face. Yet we don’t get any indication of the momentous event of the first time he actually got to second base (or more) with her. We don’t see any of the things that we were clamoring for because these are two best friends giving in to serious feelings and that’s a huge deal since they’ve both pretty much been smitten since Storm Front.

It’s not a matter of appeasing shippers at this point. This relationship is a huge change that is important to both of them, and we didn’t get jackshit about the transition from friends to lovers. Hell’s bells, there’s an entire genre of fics in every work of fiction devoted to this trope and yet Butcher just skipped over it. I swear I’m not making mountains out of molehills. It doesn’t make sense that all the previous books with the exception of Dead Beat (since Murphy was out of town) have significant moments between Harry and Murphy that build on their friendship and partnership yet the moments in Peace Talks are way too short and aren’t anything groundbreaking or memorable. And this is them canonically together, heading for the iceberg, being with the person they love dearly. I want to know what that’s like because I care about them and it feels inorganic that it’s brushed off for plot or other things instead.

I don’t get it. I truly don’t. If Butcher is waiting to unleash the content I want in Battle Ground, I guess that’ll help, but after so much build up, why in God’s name wouldn’t you explore all the things we want to know about how their romance is going? Harry and Murphy have been through literal hell together, for God’s sake. They’re both cagey and in extremely stressful situations—especially poor Karrin—and yet it’s just brushed aside time and time again. It would keep us grounded to see how they handle it as it is one of the few nice things in their lives that they have left.

Those of you who know Butcher know that he’s one of the sadist authors. I know that too. He thinks it’s funny to make us angry and frustrate us and he may have already said it in an interview or a podcast why he chose not to go into detail about the romance (feel free to link me if he has) but for the first time in my life, I think that’s not good enough. It’s not a good enough excuse for Butcher to giggle and intentionally not give us the content we want just because he thinks it’s funny. Yes, as the author, you choose what you write, but this is a slap in the face to people who have been reading these books for so many years and rooting for Harry and Murphy to get their shit together and be happy. We know how the series is gonna end—fucking bloody as hell—so these precious moments are that much more important. If he’s said he didn’t include romantic elements in this book because “haha trollface,” then he can fuck off. We’ve invested time in this series. We care about the relationship and there are so many creative, fun things that could have come out of seeing them together after all this build up.

And yeah, I know, I can write another 185k words of fix it fics and missing scenes. I probably will anyway. I’m frustrated because this isn’t just some shallow checkmark romance in an urban fantasy series. These two are incredible characters and it’s a negative reflection on the work itself when Butcher spent all the time in previous books building up the sexual tension and the pining and the deeply felt affection only to just cut to curtains fluttering when they’re about to get to the hanky panky or just have a quick “I love you” in the tub or the brief talk about family at the end. There are so many conversations they could have had. There are so many scenarios with the potential for romance even with their chastity belts firmly in place due to Murphy’s injuries. This isn’t about sex. This is about fulfilling a precedent that Butcher purposely set up and then just seemed to wave it off for some reason. I’m not saying the book is bad because we didn’t get the content; I’m saying it would’ve been a lot goddamn better if we’d gotten that content. 

Butcher’s gonna Butcher. No one can change it. I can’t make demands. My fifteen bucks doesn’t mean I get to call the shots and tell the man what to write.

But I just want to note that I thought it was a pretty shitty choice to exclude it.

Sigh. See you guys in Battle Ground, I guess.

And also AO3.

I’m gonna write a fuckton of missing scenes and no one can stop me.

[hartsgold]

𝐀𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐨. 𝐕𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐨. 𝐎𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫.

𝚖𝚢 𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗. 𝚒 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚕𝚊𝚗, 𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚍𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚌𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚖𝚒𝚌 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚎𝚜𝚘𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚌 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚕. 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚛𝚑𝚎𝚊, 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚎𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍 𝚖𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚝, 𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚙𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢.

i’ve been working as a researcher at the institute for four years now, and am familiar with most of our significant contracts and projects. most reach dead ends, predictably enough, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are - and i always emphasize there are very few genuine cases - tend to resist easy conclusions. when an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the archives.

now, the institute was founded in 1818, which means that the archive contains almost 200 years of case files at this point. combine that with the fact that most of the institute prefers the ivory tower of pure academia to the complicated work of dealing with statements or recent experiences and you have the recipe for an impeccably organized library and an absolute mess of an archive. this isn’t necessarily a problem - modern filing and indexing systems are a real wonder, and all it would need is a half-decent archivist to keep it in order. my predecessor was apparently not that archivist.

from where I am sitting, i can see thousands of files. many spread loosely around the place, others crushed into unmarked boxes. a few have dates on them or helpful labels such as 86-91 G/H. not only that, but most of these appear to be handwritten or produced on a typewriter with no accompanying digital or audio versions of any sort. in fact, i believe the first computer to ever enter this room is the laptop that i brought in today. more importantly, it seems as though little of the actual investigations have been stored in the archives, so the only thing in most of the files are the statements themselves.

it is going to take me a long, long time to organize this mess. i’ve managed to secure the services of several researchers to assist me. I plan to digitize the files as much as possible and record audio versions, though some will have to be on tape recorder, as my attempts to get them on my laptop have met with… significant audio distortions.

that’s probably enough time spent making my excuses for the state of this place, and i suppose we have to begin somewhere.

𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚒𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚢 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚞𝚍𝚎 𝚟𝚘𝚗 𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚐𝚊𝚗, 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚘𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚝𝚞𝚝𝚎, 𝚏𝚘𝚍𝚕𝚊𝚗.

𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙨: photography / texture art / tma s01e01 blurb & transcription. 

Hello! If you’re reading this, welcome to the hell that is The Seiros Archives. I’m hoping to make this as comprehensive a series translation as possible without integrating too many spoilers/telling the stories of characters that aren’t mine (save Sothis and Rhea, who seemed lore-mandatory additions). For example, I don’t have a character to fulfill [Gertrude/the past Archivist’s] position, simply because I can’t think of one and would prefer not to kill anyone off that might want to use this as an AU base. (Feel free to, btw! Just let me know/tag me in your verse thoughts, I’m so excited to read ‘em!) 

Spoilers below. Additionally: please peruse the Wiki pages with caution. There’s a trigger list for TMA episodes/general content warnings located here. 

Essentially: 

The Seiros Archives is an institution that’s existed for two centuries, currently under the jurisdiction of one Rhea, who claims to have come into control of it within the last decade or so. Obviously, this is not true. Rhea’s been alive since the founding of this institute, as she had it built order to resurrect Sothis/The Beginning/The Beholding, [her mother]. 

Sothis is both a God and not. In TMA, Gods are also known as ‘The Entities’, or The Fears. They are described, on the wiki, as such: 

The Entities are various aspects of an amorphous force of fear that exists next to reality. Their influence upon reality manifests as supernatural happenings - all supernatural phenomena in the world are simply extensions of them. These phenomena can take various forms such as people, animals, monsters, books, objects, or places.These entities do not simply feed off of our fear, rather they are our fears made manifest. “These things... these forces, they are our fear. Deep fears. Primordial. Always looking for ways to grow and spread.” Not all their actions inspire fear, they are simply a part of the process, a means to an end. (cont. This link includes a list of the Fears and should be read with caution, as there is some horror imagery, etc.)

In this verse, I’m going to conflate Sothis with The Eye, or The Ceaseless Watcher. She is an Entity of Fear manifested specifically as “being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Fear that you’re suffering for the sake of something watching.” I think her relationship with being able to control the flow of time and know results of the past and future translate well here. It’s terrifying to consider someone who Knows what might happen in the far future can directly alter it as well. 

Let’s say that Sothis’ “death” in this verse was a failed “Ritual” of The Eye. Centuries ago, Rhea attempted to bring her mother’s Entity to full power above all the others. 

Rituals are ceremonies held in order to empower The Entities. “Most entities have their own ‘ritual’, a symbolic act that, if completed, will allow the entity to merge with reality, changing the fabric of the world as it exert its will and nature upon reality. These rituals have the potential to bring other closely-tied entities along with it. It requires centuries for each Entity to build up the power needed for its ritual, and if it is stopped, it cannot try again until it rebuilds that power base. No ritual has ever succeeded” (x). 

When Rhea’s Ritual for The Eye was thwarted, the Entity lost a great sum of its garnered power. I imagine she was an Avatar of the fear, and her connection with her mother was severed to an extent. As a result, she began to construct the Seiros Institute as a means of rebuilding power for the sake of The Eye. 

Avatars are essentially vessels for spreading the influence of The Entities. “Some humans can become attached to an Entity and become empowered by it, gaining supernatural abilities related to their patron, but losing some or all of their humanity in the process. Most people fall to the powers through love or fear, though it can happen for other reasons such as debt. Avatars and agents of a power retain their agency but can become physically dependent on it, suffering withdrawal effects, including death, if they go too long without feeding the entity that empowers them” (x). 

People influenced by, or who encounter Avatars are often Marked by them, and other Entities alongside their Avatars can sense this fact.

In building The Seiros Institute, Rhea hopes to give Sothis enough power through a ritual to “merge with reality”/live again/to be able to communicate with her once more. 

The former hired Archivist stopped countless Rituals of The Entities, and was eventually killed as a result of attempting to quell Rhea’s efforts.

There are tunnels underneath the institute in canon, which I’m going to say is the equivalent of the Holy Tomb. 

Characters, once employed by The Institute, are unable to quit/be fired. Literally. This is a canon mechanic, where they can’t even say the words. 

TL;DR: This is set in a modern Fódlan. I imagine it as something of a large city interconnected with several other neighboring states, such as Almyra, Brigid, Dagda, etc. 

Are there tense relations between these places? Of course! Is The Empire probably allied with a different Entity and is aggravated that Rhea is doing what she’s doing? Very likely! Are Those Who Slither In The Dark likely allied with one as well, or are experimenting on people in the attempt to complete a Ritual? Why Not! 

The Entities create very viciously real manifestations of their respective fears, so people have supernatural encounters of all kinds. Vampires––weird lore, but yes. People being replaced by doppelgängers––Oh, Yeah. Circus people who steal voice boxes and dance around with mannequin limbs? Uh huh. Worms? Don’t forget the worms. As weird as you can think of it! 

So this modern Fódlan is rife with the eccentric and the supernatural. At the moment, The Seiros Institute is simply an academic place set on recording and understanding those supernatural occurrences! 

I’m setting Khalid as the current archivist because he seems the appropriate “linchpin” figure that Jon is in the main series, having been marked by several Entities. As the most knowledge and balance-hungry of the Three Lords, he fits the part. Obviously there’s something to be said of Byleth’s potential role as an Archivist, but the Archivist does a lot of talking, much like Khalid. He also interacts with everyone giving statements to the Archive, and I think Khalid’s canonical tendency to disarm others in exchange for secrets and stories is par for this course. 

Nonetheless, if you do want to use this AU as a base for your Byleth or any other character, please don’t feel restricted by anything! 

Whether your characters are employed by the Archive, is an Avatar for a Fear, or is simply terrified by whatever the fuck is going on here, please feel free to get in on this! Write it with me! Ask me any questions you might have and I’ll do my best to spoil myself on this wonderful podcast further so I can answer you to the best of my ability! [I’m about 75 episodes in right now, but am content to spoil myself, truly...] So please hit me up anytime. I’m really excited about this and would love to plot things out with you! 

[rockboywonder]

dabi is todoroki touya: the proof

This is gonna be a long one.

Ever since Dabi showed off his Quirk in the Training Camp Arc, a particular theory began cropping up. It’s arguably the largest fan theory in the entire BNHA fandom, and with good reason. At the point we’re at now in the story, it’s almost like it’s not even a theory anymore-- it’s just something we’re waiting for Horikoshi to make canon with one panel. The theory of the day is: Is Dabi a Todoroki?

Today, we’re going to lay out everything that points to Dabi being the estranged brother of one Todoroki Shouto, and if you didn’t believe it before, hopefully you will now.

Let’s take it back to the beginning-- if Dabi is a Todoroki, who the Hell is he? After the Calvary Battle in Season Two, Todoroki reveals the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father to Midoriya and introduces the idea of “Quirk marriages;” Todoroki was the perfect blend of Endeavor and Rei’s Quirks. And in a flashback during Todoroki and Midoriya’s battle, there’s a shot of Todoroki’s other siblings, or Endeavor’s failures, playing in the background as Todoroki is dragged away. Soon, we’d come to know the names of the children-- Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Touya. 

What we knew about Touya at that point in time was that he was small and presumably physically weak, due to how easily he falls while playing as Natsuo laughs at him instead of helping him out. And from the way that Todoroki family genetics work, it can be assumed that he has fire power, due to his red hair. He’s also the oldest of the four, despite being very short.

Touya is the only named Todoroki sibling not to appear and interact with his family. Fuyumi talks to Todoroki in season two, and although Natsuo has not made his proper anime debut, he eats with his family in later chapters. That’s kind of weird, right? I mean… Unless Touya has been interacting with the main cast the entire time, and none of them have realized it.

Enter Dabi, a villain who desires to change the integrity of the hero world. Dabi has interacted with both Todoroki and Endeavor-- the two members of his potential family the least likely to recognize him. Todoroki because he was kept away from his siblings and forced through individual training (abuse), and Endeavor because he was neglectful of his failures. But we’ll get into that later.

The first time Dabi speaks is when he’s brought before Shigaraki under the pretense of joining the league. When Dabi insults Shigaraki’s judgement if he plans on letting Toga in, he retorts that at least she told him her full name, and that Dabi only gave him a moniker. Dabi says that he will tell them his name when the time comes. Even now, Dabi’s real name has not come from his own mouth.

The next time he takes centre-stage is as one of the antagonists of the Training Camp Arc and the leader of the Vanguard Action Squad. Then we get a glimpse of his Quirk-- blue flames. Other than Midoriya’s father, the only characters with fire Quirks up until this point were members of the Todoroki family. Dabi’s is different in the way that it’s bright blue-- the same colour as his eyes, which are given a close-up as he uses his fire. Which are, coincidentally, the same colour as Endeavor’s, and one of Todoroki’s. Is there any significance in the flame colour, other than aesthetic? Yes, actually. Scientifically speaking, blue flame is much hotter than orange flame, which seem to be what Todoroki and Endeavor primarily use. But it’s not the first time we’ve seen this colour-- Endeavor himself uses blue fire to fend off a Noumu during the Hero Killer Arc. Even then, he comments that it raises his body temperature to a dangerous level. Dabi seems to be, under the assumption that the colour is more than just aesthetic, operating with flames hot enough to damage him. And would you look at that, he’s covered in scar tissue, all over his face, eyes, neck, appendages, and back. These scars will be important later.

After Compress has secured Bakugou and the villains make a plan to rendez-vous and abscond, Midoriya, Todoroki, Shouji, Uraraka, and Asui attempt to jump into the fray to rescue both him and Tokoyami. When Aoyama, bless his heart, catches Compress off guard with his Naval Laser, both Todoroki and Shouji jump to retrieve their kidnapped compatriots. Shouji nabs Tokoyami, but just as Todoroki is about to grab Bakugou, a patched hand snatches him away. “That’s sad, Todoroki Shouto,” is what Dabi says as he lifts the compressed Bakugou out of reach. While it’s not strange that Dabi knows the name of the runner-up in the highly publicized U.A Sports Festival, it is a little odd that he would refer to him by full name, in such a mocking tone, in the middle of this tense situation. The dramatic lighting as the two move in different directions almost screams “this is a scene you need to pay attention to.”

As mentioned before, Todoroki has no reason to recognize Dabi, or Touya. But Dabi certainly knows Todoroki.

Later, when the Pros break into the bar to rescue Bakugou, the police read off the real names of the villains-- but Dabi’s is never mentioned, almost like they couldn’t find out what it was. 

Here ends Dabi’s adventure through questionable heritage-- at least, for what’s in the anime. Luckily for us, there’s over one hundred chapters that have yet to be animated, and it’s within these pages that Dabi being a Todoroki becomes less of a theory, and more of a given. So if you’d like to keep as spoiler free as possible, I recommend you opt out now.

During the Overhaul arc, Toga and Twice are the only members of the League directly involved with the raid. Dabi accompanies Shigaraki on his mission to confront Chisaki, and during the course of this, he catches the attention of the Pro Hero, Snatch. During their battle, Snatch asks Dabi if he thinks about the families of those he kills, and how they feel. Soon after, Compress traps Snatch inside one of his marbles with Dabi’s fire, which kills Snatch.

The next arc Dabi shows up in is when the Todoroki connection stops being subtext and just becomes, well, text.

Dabi shows up in front of Hawks and Endeavor with the intention of getting into a fight. He only greets Endeavor, and hesitantly at that, saying “nice to meet you, Endeavor, I guess,” or something along those same lines. It should be mentioned that all of 1-A is watching this fight transpire via the TV, and at this point, it focuses in on Todoroki’s face, who recalls the name “Dabi” and we’re treated to a flashback panel of the “How sad, Todoroki Shouto” bit from the Training Camp Arc. Endeavor recognizes Dabi as the one who killed Snatch, nothing more, and Dabi doesn’t even seem to remember the life he has taken. Before leaving, Dabi refers to Endeavor as “Todoroki Enji--” his full name. This occurrence is a little stranger than Dabi knowing Todoroki’s name. Pro Hero names aren’t typically publicized in the same way U.A students’ are. It’s weird for Dabi to know and/or use the name Enji unless he has a personal relationship with him. Such as… If they were family.

After his meeting with Hawks, Dabi leaves on his own. He then remembers Snatch, and recalls how he asked if Dabi cared about the families of his victims. Dabi laughs, and then the patch of burned skin below his eye starts to leak blood, which drips down to his chin, implying he’s started to cry. He wipes away the blood tears and mumbles to himself; “I thought so hard about it I went crazy.” Dabi has put a lot of thought into families, it seems, and thinking about it drove him mad.

The next few pieces of evidence relate to Touya, not to Dabi, and the things that happened to him. After his battle with the Noumu and Dabi, Endeavor returns to his home, only to be roasted by Todoroki and snubbed by Natsuo, which is perfectly understandable. Natsuo gets up to leave, not being able to stand his father’s presence. He yells at Endeavor, not being able to forgive him in the same way Rei and Fuyumi can, and not ready to make nice with him just because he defeated one villain. He says: “You completely neglected us, and left us to listen to Mom screaming and Shouto crying. Not to mention what happened with Big Bro Touya [...]”

Well, Touya is finally mentioned by one of his siblings. And it seems like whatever happened to him, it wasn’t good. The way it’s framed makes it seem like Endeavor was responsible for what befell Touya, such as pushing him too far in training. The reader is left to wonder: maybe Todoroki wasn’t the first trainee under Endeavor’s wing. Maybe something went wrong with one of the other children.

But all we have to go on is Natsuo’s cryptic words, after which Todoroki claims: “I’ve never seen Natsu get that emotional.”

Until, we get more insight into Todoroki’s abuse during the Joint Training Arc. In a flashback, we see Endeavor yelling at a young, vomiting Todoroki, saying: “Quit pretending to be so frail! Touya’s case was regrettable. He possesses even greater firepower than mine, and yet… He inherited Rei’s weak constitution. He… was almost perfect. Almost.”

So, now the idea of Touya that we have is that he had very strong flames, but his body wasn’t able to handle it. He was almost perfect, but this fatal flaw made it so that he could not succeed Endeavor. Alright.

During Todoroki’s fight against Tetsutetsu, Tetsutetsu claims that the other’s flames won’t work, because Tetsutetsu’s strength was obtained by overcoming his limits. These words trigger a traumatic flashback for Todoroki, where he remembers Endeavor shouting at him to surpass his limits-- there’s no way he can’t do it, he’s just not trying hard enough. Trying to pull himself out of the flashback, Todoroki repeats Midoriya’s inspirational words to himself, and then cranks his flames up to eleven, so hot that they begin to melt the cameras. Because of the black and white nature of the manga, we can’t tell if the flames are meant to be blue or white, but one can assume they’re no longer orange. Todoroki notes that the heat is causing him to become dizzy and sluggish, and that he needs to stop or he’ll burn himself. Burn himself, huh? The heat, in combination with the debris, causes Todoroki to pass out before doing any permanent damage to himself.

So, we have Todoroki, who has acknowledged that his fire can hurt him if he overdoes it. Then, we have his brother Touya, who has more powerful fire than Endeavor, and presumably Todoroki, who is pretty weak to fire. Don’t you think that combination would lead to, I don’t know, burn scars all over one’s body?

Let me paint you a story. Granted, it’s not based on much, and if you have more theories, let me hear em!

Rei and Endeavor have had their first child. At age 4, he manifests his Quirk-- a fire Quirk. Endeavor immediately starts training him to surpass All Might, but Touya’s hesitant with his Quirk, because he’s sensitive to it. After Todoroki is burned by his mother, in the lull where he’s not at his greatest, Endeavor returns to training Touya. Just like what he did with Todoroki, Endeavor screams at Touya to surpass his limits. The stress causes Touya to unleash his full potential-- blue hot flames, which has severe physical repercussions, burning his entire body. Endeavor freaks out and tries to speed along the recovery as fast as possible, because Touya was almost perfect. Going by hair colours, neither Fuyumi or Natsuo have the firepower, or strength of firepower, that Endeavor wanted. Returning to Todoroki, Endeavor casts Touya aside. The experience completely traumatizes Rei, who breaks down. Bitter, Touya runs away, buys some hair dye, and begins to hate everything hero society stands for. He was violently abused by the Number 2 Hero, who is revered by the public. And so, he begins to go by the name Dabi-- Cremation. He does not create fire. With it, he wants to destroy the way things are.

In Todoroki Shouto: Origin, as Todoroki is being pulled away from looking at his siblings, where Touya appears to be alive and well, he has no burn on his eye. When Endeavor is telling Todoroki about how Touya’s case was regrettable, the burn mark is there. Meaning, something happened to Touya in between those two scenes.

I initially wrote this during the Meta Liberation Army Arc-- when the villains were getting more depth, but each time it got to Dabi, the narration pulled away. I thought maybe we’d get an answer at the end. But now, as we’ve entered a new arc that seems to have Hawks and Dabi as main players, perhaps we’ll finally get the info we’ve been craving.

[albatris]

T for the oc asks?

hey! thanks for the ask! I think I have two T characters that I can remember and I have another T in my inbox so…… as per usual I’m gonna start with the easier one hahaha

which would be Tris, much to the surprise of……… no one, probably?

also, obligatory apology for the lengthy rambles

I swear not all my responses will be like this ok

I just don’t know how to, like.......... shhh, ever

Full name: Tristan James Greer, n like. as mentioned in a previous ask he and his older brother Jacob share a middle name because of just. incredibly stupid reasons. both in terms of canon explanation and Me As A Writer explanations

Nicknames, if any: technically I guess “Tris” is the nickname, although it would be more accurate to say that “Tris” is his name and “Tristan” is a word he is entirely divorced from and will not respond to, unless you’re one of his two siblings, or his parents using A Certain Tone Of Voice, or sometimes Shara who forgets, or legal forms, or it's pertinent to a joke he'd like to make

Hogwarts house: Hufflepuff

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Ace, definitely at least a little bi, not that it ever really comes up in a major way in-story. Like, could definitely be argued he had a crush on Kai when they first became friends, but like. who knows whether that was legitimate romantic attraction or whether he was just so unbelievably caught off guard by someone being genuinely interested in and nice to him that it immediately crashed his entire emotional system and caused his brain to short-circuit. could go either way. also who of the atdao gang DOESN'T have at least a slight crush on Kai, probably

A song I associate with them: How about five instead!! Good Tris tunes include but are in no way limited to: “Boys Will Be Bugs” by Cavetown, “Sloom” by Of Monsters and Men, “If This Ship Sinks (I Give In)” by Birds of Tokyo (melodramatic edgy Tris vibes), “Monsters” by The Boy Least Likely To and “The Future’s Right In Front Of Me” by A Great Big World

3 important relationships:

Okay so first off would be Noa, his best friend of an amount of years that I always just fucking make up because I can never remember. More than 3 and less than 7. Anyway these two only started hanging round each other ‘cause it was mutually beneficial, ‘cause kids are mean and they eventually twigged that they were less likely to be targeted as a pair than on their own, but pretty soon they were like "oh wait hey you're actually a nice person and I genuinely enjoy ur company and we make a good team" and their friendship grew from there n now they're bros.

honestly I have like seven hyperspecific rambles in my drafts about Tris and Noa's friendship n how they relate to each other could honestly talk abt both of them for hours

in terms of Tris I will say that Noa is part of the extremely extremely small group of people that he's generally willing to trust completely with zero strings attached, which is like. sure something. n she's someone he generally considers a touchstone of reality and someone he can rely on when he can't necessarily trust his own perceptions. also she's someone who is a half-decent opponent at upside down Mario Kart which is a plus

and also, Jacob, arguably the most important person in Tris's life, someone he thinks the world of and considers his biggest role model. like. not in terms of Jacob's intelligence or success or how hard he's worked n all the reasons their parents think he's the ideal Tris should be striving for, just in terms of like. the sort of person he wants to be, someone kind and well-liked and fun, someone with a good heart, which is super corny now that I write it. Cool. Great. Cool. Tris did not have a lot of super great adult role models growing up 'cause his parents are a nightmare and most teachers found him frustrating beyond belief, nor did he have a lot of friends being a weird neurodivergent kid lmao, so his relationship with both his siblings but especially Jacob has been one of the only sources of stability and genuine warmth and connection through most of his life

so I mean basically he pretty much thinks of Jacob as Literally The Coolest Person In The Entire World which is funny because Jacob is just a complete dweeb

n then thirdly. I mean. parents, again much for the same reasons as I listed in Jacob's post. controlling, emotionally distant, impossible standards, more concerned with maintaining a perfect image than any of their kids' actual wellbeing, blah blah

Jacob is currently the only Greer sib who has any real grasp on exactly HOW unhealthy their relationship with their parents is? Tris has a whole thing going on in the story where he's kinda juuust starting to come to grips with things and work through some of his complicated feelings towards his parents and reconcile the ideas of "I love these people" and "these people kind of really truly genuinely fucked me up and none of what happened to me was normal or my fault and I'm going to be untangling the repercussions for a long time" and how both these things can be true for him at the same time

also Jacob's like thirteen years older than Tris I feel like I forgot to mention this here

I'm tired, yeah

2 fears:

1. everything

2. literally everything are you kidding me. weird birds. diseases. public transport. dying. sudden change. loud noises. crowds. hot weather. roadworks. natural disasters. people walking behind him. it'd be easier to list the things he's not afraid of. it's a miracle he leaves the house at all

ok those aren't good answers ummmm let's see

here's one: being somehow responsible for harm coming to the people he cares about, being the cause of something that directly hurts someone else, etc. etc. in broad general terms, but also in terms of intrusive thoughts and in terms of delusions/hallucinations that sometimes wander into the realm of threats, orders, "do this thing or your best friend will die horribly", kind of thing. so. the stress that he's going to disobey something or misinterpret something and his loved ones being punished for it....... all of that

1 element of their backstory:

his parents once tried to have him exorcised as a child and he’s only just now beginning to realise this was a "legitimately fucked-up experience” not “haha relatable childhood hijinks”

also on a lighter note he insists to Shara that this makes him immune to demons and she is fairly certain this is not how it works at all, but neither of them can technically prove it's NOT how it works without actively trying to get Tris murdered by demons, and while this DOES sound like a fun after-school activity, both their parents said no

anyway cool that's it from me! I'm not going back to edit this at all! I don't remember what I wrote even slightly! I'm going to bed! I should have probably picked a more fun backstory fact! The one I chose is horrible! Goodnight!

[jlf23tumble]

Agree so much with your post about the teams and fan engagement ! And love the way you articulated all of that. Although now I definitely am interested in knowing what your notes about the specificity of each team/artist cause I feel like they'd be fascinating to read. Hope you'll post them some day, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us ! 😊

Awwww, that’s very kind! It’s definitely head canon city, I litcherally have ZERO clue what goes on behind the scenes (and I can’t stress this enough, none of us do), so this’ll look hilariously dated when we find out that blah woof was true all along, lmao (me @ myself, thinking of some random Grimshaw interviews from last fall, oh, bless). Let’s dig in!!

For those of you who just stumbled upon this post, it’s related to the one I made last night about how I think the management teams of all these men (mid-20s means = you’re a man, not a boy) are not, in fact, sabotaging them. They negotiate a lot of tricky interconnected arrangements that none of us are privy, to, plus they’re at least trying to achieve the goals their clients are going for. And they’re doing it—the trick is these goals are highly individual and not 100% sensical (at least given our own view from the afternoon, Arctic Monkeys ref, holllllllah!!!).

In addition, these goals constantly shift, as does the music industry itself—I drive my own self loony when I lurk on blogs that are seemingly broadcasting from 2012, confused by why xx’s team is so “terrible” because they aren’t throwing good money after bad to get on a radio playlist, or why they haven’t announced yy “properly,” as if they’re being paid to worry about this level of shit (which fires me up on about five levels, deep breaths in, deep breaths out). I’m much nosier about the signals we’re getting when we hear them talk in their beautifully media-trained way about their musical interests, when we get some of that sweet, sweet fan service with a Gallagher or a Capaldi, when we get that heads up about who’s attending what concert, stuff like that. These signals don’t necessarily indicate future collaborations, but they DO indicate what kind of image these guys want to have, the kind of music they want the public to associate them with.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself…their personalities and goals at the moment are all so vastly different, and I truly do love seeing how their teams are workin’ it accordingly. Again, please @ god, don’t @ me…opinions, massively unpopular opinions, dead ahead!

* Zayn. My read on Zayn is that he enjoys the creative process, loves writing and singing, digs collabing with people, but he doesn’t seem to give two shits about the biz side (and why should he? that’s called living the dream at this particular point in his career). His website recently added “tour,” which EYEBALL EYEBALL, but he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in putting himself back out on stage or into radio/print/etc. anytime soon, and again, why should he? His numbers are HUGE without pushing himself through the anxiety-provoking churn he endured for four years, so there’s no real drive for him to do any promo if he doesn’t want to (see: the netflix-like binge dump of Icarus Falls, which could be “sabotage,” or it could just be, “fineeeeeeee, here’s some stuff for you, enjoy”). What other artist gifts his fans with gorgeous covers of such a wide variety of songs that indicate he’s more interested in sharing them than selling them. Accordingly, his fan interactions seem fairly pure and not all that promo-y: he has a keen interest in fanart, he’s done some fan pop-ups/listening parties that are pretty low-key and *seemingly* fan-focused, and recently (with zero anything to really promote), he’s been posing for cute pics and chatting with randos on the streets of NYC. I recently read that his mgmt team is no longer with him, but that sort of folds into my feeling that he’s not pursuing anything biz-wise, hence no need to jump through those particular hoops (I think he’s also struggled with a lot of demons, so yeah, why add one more). Could he be adrift? Maybe, but the next guy is the posterman for lack of focus….

* Liam. Honestly, I worry about Liam most of all. His post-1D career seems very much adrift, and I like to joke that he’s giving me that tell-all about the D one sentence at a time, but goddamn, are people listening? The struggles with alcohol, the lack of focus on every level, the reliance on his dad’s career advice (which more clearly reflects his dad’s financial class, background, and history than it does Liam’s), and the overall confusion about look, sound, and direction also flow back directly into his team. I get the feeling that they aren’t sure what to do because LIAM isn’t sure what to do or what he wants, so they follow in his wake. He’s agreeable to a fault, so seeing him at a meet-and-greet at an HMV in Birmingham last week felt like a step back into 2010 for no real reason, just like hearing that he was more or less coerced into full nude photoshoots for an underwear ad (the decisions to say yes to both of those—who’s steering this ship? If it’s Liam, he needs to tell the team his overall goal, so they can plot a course he and his fans can follow; if it’s the team, ditto). Like Niall, Liam’s actually pretty good at the SM game: lots of selfies, snapchat filters, outfits, gym service, twitter interactions. But generally speaking, his promo is confusing, and that’s probably because there isn’t much *to* promote at this point, other than a mix of collabs, clothing endorsements, spon con, horse farms, and an album that’s always on the horizon. This might be tied to the general post-1D jolt they all went through, like a plane coming off autopilot and into the hands of someone who’s just learning how to fly it. Zayn debuted at number one, so his bump wasn’t as harsh, but the others are slowly, steadily finding their footing after taking some time to find themselves and their sound, releasing songs/albums, performing (or in Louis’s case, going through unspeakable tragedy). Liam’s still adrift…and somewhat admittedly, which is kind of telling in its own way. Just know that my nervousness on his behalf ratchets up every time he feels the urge to assure us all that he’s happy.

* Niall. Truly the one following the original 1D template, right down to working with most of the same people but with more of the overall control in his hands instead of a faceless management squad. Of any of them, he seems the most ambitious, the most scientific about the sound he’s after and how he’s gonna get there. His promo is a mix of new and traditional—radio shows, talk shows, podcasts, special events, twitter interactions with fans, twitter interactions with entertaining celebrities—and it’s all hustle hustle hustle, build build build, as if he were a new ingenue instead of coming up hard on solo album number two. He’s explicit in his goals, which is refreshing, but it means he walks a weird line with fans: on one hand, he’s done with their bullshit, get ready to get rekt if you start commenting on his boring food seasoning or home décor. But on the other hand, he fully recognizes how much he needs them, which is why we get so many peeks into his “normal” life (yet zero percent of his actual personal life). It’s also probably why the blatant tweets of the last two days seem so jarring to me (I might be alone on this one, but I’m not a fan of directives in general, and asking me to call radio stations on behalf of a rich white man to become even richer just rubs me the wrong way, same with asking me to stream stuff to get you to number one…you’ve been there, buddy, how about you calm down and build some character at number 51). And speaking of calming down, it does fascinate me that both Niall and Louis namecheck Taylor Swift as someone who gets the whole fandom push/pull thing right, so watching them try to reverse-engineer her secrets is fun. Louis nails it (that hotspot treasure hunt: chef’s kiss), but Niall’s heavy-handed easter egg dump in NTMY, she would never!! I think Niall’s team needs to watch “Calm Down” about five more times before they try that again.

* Louis. I think Louis honestly has an AMAZING team in place, and they’re all clearly on his side, which makes for a refreshing change. Like Niall, he has publicly praised Taylor Swift for how she engages with her fans, but I think he’s missing a key point: she doesn’t let her fans dictate strategy, and I HOPE that’s the case for Louis, too. His old team *was* shit, so yeah, encouraging people to do fan projects to get the word out was a good idea, but turning that spigot off to let a good (paid) team step in and take over has been, uh, challenging. He’s dealt with more than his fair share of personal tragedy, but every time he gets some momentum going, it feels like something bts pushes him back off track, and he tends to keep it private, which only makes his hardest-core fans scream “sabotage.” Rightly so, he’s focusing on his personal life, and rightly so, his team is giving him the space to do that, even when it costs cash money and throws a lot of shit seriously for a loop. It makes my heart soar to see the potential of what his team can do/is doing, how much space he’s being allowed to process what he needs to process. Weirdly, that’s an unpopular opinion, and a lot of people want to indulge in an angst wank fest where Louis’s the victim of a terrible team that won’t DO anything (nevermind the fact that he’s probably ASKED them not to do anything), so they undertake a tremendous amount of performative unpaid labor that ends up being counterproductive on just about every front. Even worse, most of them can’t seem to process the fact that losing your mum is a blow, losing your SISTER is a blow, juggling other siblings or close friends handling some serious demons of their own in the aftermath of all of *that* is a blow, let alone handling your own personal coping mechanisms, nope, they want Louis to release release release, perform perform perform, c’mon, what’s holding him back, he *said* he wanted to release an album this year, there’s “no reason” for a delay, gotta be his shitty team, free him. It drives me ‘round the bend because it’s the same talk from late last year, you know, when we later found out that at least one family member was losing a fight with drug addiction. Louis’s fan engagement/promo is therefore hella fraught: he has to balance LouisTM on twitter (Mr. Donny, he’s hard, mate), his werk IG posts, and his constant edging because nobody can remember or trust that he’s got this, that multiple things are in play. But he also knows his fanbase, knows that it’s resistant to any kind of change, so I hope he pushes through and stays true to what he wants to do. I was really encouraged with his last promo round because he seems to have narrowed in on a something solid, he’s got a plan, and it’s not, “hey mr dj, put my record on,” it’s getting his fans to trust that he and his team know what the fuck they’re doing, and spoiler alert, it ain’t radio, but go ahead and keep pissing off djs by sending angry tweets their way. (Related: why is it so bad to avoid the radio when all of us admit that radio music is garbage? Is it because it’s more about you than him? Much to think about.)

* Harry. My very favorite head canon is that Harry is Jeff’s nightmare client: what was perfection at first because the Azoffs are old-school promo all the way (no SM, baby, gimme that sweet, sweet paper), and that dovetailed nicely with post-1D Harry, but it quickly veered into mulish teeth pulling. Low profile can quickly spin into no profile, and that really doesn’t work too well when you’re trying to sell sell sell, even if your brand is Harry StylesTM. HS1 and Dunkirk in their own separate ways worked VERY hard to push past the still-persistent way the general public views Harry as boybander Harry Styles, or more accurately, former boybander Harry Styles who dated Taylor Swift (if you venture out and ask someone who’s not a fan), but what I love about Harry is that much like Zayn, he doesn’t seem to be too bothered by all that. Sure, he’s ambitious, he wants to challenge himself and do things, but he’s no Niall Horan. He’s put in his time! If he gets a number one, then cool, but he’s not gonna chase it. And this is where Harry’s team really reflects his goals and energy: sure, they want him to do some promo (that “Do” tweet, the entire bit about the fan in Australia and Harry Lambert’s follow, goddddd, I loved it, petty Harry, resigned Jeff), but they clearly aren’t forcing him. He drops a song that makes a HUGE splash, and the follow-up is…liking some tweets and going to a John Mayer concert (not a John Mayer fan, so that wouldn’t be my first choice, but I respond to the zero fucks given about the whole thing). The music industry has changed a LOT in just two years, so it’s kind of cool to see team Harry pivoting a bit, seeing more SM interaction, the kindness generator, etc., but that said, the team takes their cues from him, and he clearly doesn’t want to do a whole promo circuit beyond persons a, b, and c, and magazine R, F, and A. Does it make sense to have Rob Sheffield write a profile about Stevie Nicks-blessed shroom-eater Harry Styles when his new song sounds like the Zarry combo of my dreams? NOPE, but that’s okay, Harry wanted to talk to Rob, so that’s what happened. The new song is more streaming friendly, and thank CHRIST, a lot less crusty white dude stuck in the ‘70s, so I can only hope that the rest of the album is thus, but we shall see! We’ll also see if Harry’s fan engagement shifts any further into the active zone…so far, it’s been “I’m gonna follow some larries, like these fun generator posts, check out a few dads” and staged photo ops with the same familiar faces, but I think he’s dealing with his own major bts issues as well (album delayed at least twice; that entire stalking situation). I still contend the album’s coming in the next few weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how any additional promo rolls out in this new world order post-gryles landscape, how many interviews he’ll do, but I like that there’s a strategy that seems less stodgy…kudos to the new SM team, at least!!

Oh man, that got really long! Hope you enjoyed, and YES, opinions opinions opinions, and they’ll be stupid in about three weeks’ time, thanks for coming to my already dated buzzfeed article