#i haven’t written analysis about them in a while!! :D

[slothteainfuser]

thinking about the tarlos break up again and the fact that tk “blew it up” when things were too perfect and he was too comfortable…i wonder if that had anything to do with his relationship with alex, which we honestly don’t know much about. based on what we do have, it seems like the closest to canon is that alex wasn’t obviously terrible and there were no clear red flags (even if tk might’ve had rose-colored glasses) and they probably just drifted away for any number of reasons: maybe the fact that alex was cheating and “in love with someone else,” maybe they had fundamental differences that didn’t click, maybe alex was a dick, etc etc.

just thinking about the fact that, yes, cheating on tk is enough to make alex an asshole, but it’s more upsetting to think that like...until he finally told tk, there were no obvious signs that anything was wrong. to tk, at least, maybe they were drifting apart but he thought that everything was perfect and fine. (yes, he probably proposed out of an act of desperation instead of safety because he felt how distant they were from each other, but alex’s cheating and betrayal also completely blindsided and wounded him in a way that makes me think that he really, sincerely thought they were okay. even after they’ve been broken up for months, tk still calls alex his “soulmate.” for whatever reason, he thought they were in love). i wonder if that affected how he felt when carlos bought the loft, which was, among other things, this huge romantic gesture that almost seemed too good to be true. he was with someone who loved him unconditionally, everything was perfect, and they were about to finally live in a place they called their own. thinking about how desperately he felt like he needed to be in control again, and how hurt he was, enough to blow it up and run — it was a total power move, he said. it just makes me think about what made him so distrustful in the first place and compelled him to end a seemingly stable, good, and loving relationship.

[mha-grievances]

MHA and Hori’s Stat Rankings

Ok, so if there’s any post of mine that someone can call nitpicky, it’ll be this one cause what I’m about to talk about doesn’t really affect the story of MHA in any meaningful way. Rather, it’s just going over some supplemental information that really makes no sense.

So hardcore MHA fans and/or frequent visitors of the MHA wiki know of the Ultra Archive Book and the Ultra Analysis Book. In these books, various characters are given rankings based on several stats: power, speed, technique, and intelligence/wits being the stats shared between the two books. Cooperation, the final stat in the Archive Book, was replaced in the Analysis Book by each character having a humorous stat that tells the reader a bit about them. Denki’s signature stat is Friend (6/6 S), Izuku’s is Presence (1/6 E), etc. In addition, the Analysis Book is slightly more in depth when ranking stats. Each letter has their own tiers, either being positive, neutral, or negative. For example, Izuku has a power score of 5/6 A+ while Ejiro has a power score of 5/6 A- and Mezou has flat score of 5/6 A.

The way the stats are written are easy to understand. However, when you compare the stats of some characters to one another and what we’re actually shown them being capable of doing, a lot of it doesn’t add up. Here’s I’ll be breaking down some examples of what I mean.

Power:

Perhaps the biggest examples of this area being bullshit are Shota, Hitoshi, Stain, and Tooru’s strength rankings. Throughout both books, all four characters have had a consistent power ranking, with only Stain’s really changing from a 3/6 C to a 4/5 B and Hitoshi changing from a 1/6 E to a 2/6 D. Meanwhile, Tooru has a power ranking of 2/6 D and Shota’s is 3/5 C. However, keep in mind that neither character has any sort of offensive abilities granted to them by their quirks. Stain’s is a paralysis quirk, Tooru’s makes her invisible, Hitoshi brainwashes people, and Shota’s shuts down quirks. You can make an argument for Tooru being able to refract/reflect light based quirks, but that’s something she learned later on, so keep that in mind. Meanwhile, Izuku in the Ultra Archive Book, has a power stat of 1/6 E. Now, it is basing his strength off the fact that he’s unable to properly use OFA without breaking himself, but there is absolutely no way he should be weaker than Shota, Stain, and Tooru in the power department. Izuku is at peak human strength. You can definitely say that both Shota and Stain are as well, but Tooru isn’t, struggling to do a pull-up. Despite that, she’s a tier higher than him. Speaking of Stain and Shota, you can argue that their weapons are also accounted for when Hori gave them their ratings, but that makes no sense in Shota’s case cause his capture scarf can be cut by a knife. As for Stain, his blades haven’t been shown to have any special properties, so how the hell do his blades alone allow him to beat Mina’s 3/6 C+ power. Mina’s acid melts through stone and steel with ease. Stain’s swords have nothing on that. Speaking of Mina, her power stat’s somehow lower than Mashirao’s. Sure Mashirao’s tail is pretty strong, but his best feat in the strength department is cracking concrete while Mina’s disintegrated steel with no effort. Himiko Toga also gets screwed over in terms of a power stat, being a 1/6 E in both books. Despite not having an offensive quirk at the time of her ranking, she has shown off superior strength than Tooru and Hitoshi by pining Izuku. Sure, a successful pin does involve technique, but a twig isn’t going to be able to pin a peak level human without some sort of strength. Another character who’s rated lower than they should be is Tsuyu in the Ultra Archive Book, also being a 1/6 E despite her quirk granting her enhanced strength. This was rectified in the Ultra Analysis Book with her getting bumped up to a 3/6 C, but there’s still no way Shota, a man with no superhuman abilities, should have an equal power ranking to Tsuyu, who could probably shatter a skull with a kick. Finally, there’s Dabi, who’s always thrown in the 4/6 B category. While he might not be able to use his quirk for extended periods of time, the fact that his flames are confirmed to be hotter than Endeavor’s means he deserves to be ranked higher. There’s no way you’re telling me Katsuki’s explosions are stronger than Dabi’s flames. I can also ramble about how Kyouka’s quirk is arguably one of the strongest quirks in the series but that’s for another time. To conclude, the power rankings are wonky. Peak human characters are either ranked lower than characters they should realistically beat in terms of power or are ranked higher than they should be, and characters who should be ranked higher like Mina and Dabi aren’t.

Speed:

Arguably the most consistent stat in this series is speed. There’s really only one example I wanna talk about and that’s Mezou. Mezou has a low speed ranking of 2/6 D in both books despite having some of the best performances when it comes to raw speed. He was able to save several of his classmates at the USJ before Kurogiri could warp them all away, he easily intercepted and backhanded Himiko (someone who both Shota and Izuku struggled to keep up with even when the latter was using 5% of OFA), he ran away from a full powered Dark Shadow, and he successfully countered a full barrage of Pony’s horn missiles with only his fists. Despite this, his speed stat is lower than everyone else I’ve mentioned when it should be higher.

Technique:

Easily the most flawed stat here. For starters, Hitoshi in the Ultra Archive Book has an equal technique stat to Izuku, the guy who is able to counter people by reading their body moments, and Shoto, who has been trained by the number two hero. Mind you, all we’ve seen Hitoshi do is mind control people and flail pathetically against Izuku during the Sports Festival. Katsuki, who has a 5/6 A and 5/6 A+ stat in technique, has not received any form of training and has only fought people weaker than him prior to U.A, so he also shouldn’t have a higher skill stat than the son of the number 2 pro hero. Dabi, the guy who managed to mimic the special move Shoto had to take time to learn and has the ability to mimic all of Endeavor’s moves, only has a technique stat of 2/6 D. Mezou and Jurota, the characters Hori said were the strongest characters of the first years when it came to fighting without quirks, both possess lower technique stats than Katsuki. Yui Kodai, the girl with 5/6 A+ technique, somehow got easily defeated by Ochako, who is a tier lower than her in technique. Yes, she got a surprise attack on Reiko, but Yui should’ve been able to jump her after Reiko went down. Mashirao and Itsuka are both martial artists but they both only have technique stats in the B ranks, which is lower than most of their classmates. Pretty much Hori’s rankings when it comes to technique is either constantly ignored and/or makes absolutely no sense.

Intelligence/wits:

For this section, I wanna mainly focus on Minoru. Minoru’s intelligence stat is currently ranked at 5/6 A+. Now, I’m not saying Minoru’s not smart, because we’ve seen that he is smart, but his intelligence stat’s a bit too high. For starters, Kyouka scored higher than him on the midterms despite only having a maximum intelligence score of 4/5 B. In addition, he’s ranked above Tenya, who had the second highest score on the midterms. He’s also tied with Mei, someone who Power Loader described as a “one of a kind genius”. Now, some of you might be saying that Minoru might be better at working on his feet, hence his higher intelligence stat, but Izuku’s able to accurately read an entire battlefield and scored fourth on the midterms, blowing Minoru out of the water in these instances. Moving away from Minoru, Power Loader, the head of the Support department, only has his intellect at a 2/6 D according to the Ultra Analysis book. That’s lower than the majority of 1-A and 1-B’s intelligence stats. How is the head of the support department going to have such a poor intelligence rating? Dabi, who once again is a prodigy, was the only one who had suspicions about Hawks’ loyalty, and is capable of instantly mimicking moves that Shoto and Endeavor had to take time to develop, only has an intellect of 3/6 C, which is crazy to me. Hori really has no idea what he’s doing with regards to these stats.

TL;DR: Hori’s stat assignments are bullshit and need to be drastically reworked.

[quirkwizard]

Year Six: A Retrospective

Followers: 3,124

Total Posts: 10,750

Most Popular Post: Happy New Years with 12,876 notes

Favorite Post: Definitely my Keystone post. Not only is probably one of the biggest things I have ever written and had a lot of effort go into it, but it was actually kind of fun revisiting the arcs and figuring out how I felt about them. The D&D one was pretty fun though.

Least Favorite Post: While I don't dislike What’s This-All For One Edition: A Christmas Parody, there were a lot of annoyances around it. Not only was this kind of a pain to write, especially with such a fast song, the scheduling made it come out over a month late.

Funniest Moment: As much as I liked the wrestling commentary and joking about Aoyama's attack, I really liked the Pro Hero Parent Tier List. I think the concept itself was funny and had some jokes sprinkled throughout while still being offset by the actual analysis of these character.

Best Moment in the Manga: Izuku vs Tomura:

I hesitated to include this since it's still going on, but I couldn't deny how good everything has been between these two. I'm really enjoying a lot of the interactions and tactics on display between them, especially in the shared realm where it feels like these two can finally just talk to and understand each other.

Runners Up:

All Might vs All For One: For what sounds like a terrible idea on paper was honestly pretty amazing. It gives lot a of great moments and resolution with Toshinori and his character, all while giving one of the most unique fights in the series.

Toga vs Ochako: The dark horse of this arc. I did not expect the whole part to be this good and actually handled everything with a lot of tact and nuance. Plus, Ochako is finally getting some deserved recognition by the fan base, which is nice.

Worst Moment in the Manga: Stain's Death

Man, what a waste. For one of the most popular villains in the series, the guy that helped define the manga both in and out of universe, having him die without any further impact on the fight or story was such a terrible move. We can only hope that there is some justice for Stain before the series ends.

Runners Up:

Aoyama's Blast: I don't out and out hate this moment, but it does feel like a rushed after thought. It was barely built up to or shown, Aoyama Awakening his power comes out of nowhere, and Hagakure's appearance does feels extremely convenient.

"Decay" coming from "Overhaul": It could be that the wound is still fresh from this, but tying those two Quirks together raises so many questions and issues in the series. It felt like a pretty pointless addition that only caused issues.

Best Moment in the Anime:

Runners Up:

Worst Moment in the Anime:

Runners Up:

Once again, I have skipped out on this season. I haven’t been interested in picking it back up. Heck, I haven't even heard anyone say anything about it. Again, sorry if any of you were curious.

How would I summarize the year: I feel like things are starting to take a turn for the better.

What I would do differently: I really should close the ask box more often.

Thank you all for such a good year. Hopefully the next year will be better.

[melonteee]

May I recommend some One Piece fics? One of them has me clawing the walls and wanting to write ten billion fics about all the OP women _:(´ཀ`」 ∠): and the other fundamentally changed me as a human being.

The former is a Robin centred fic and the latter is a Sanji centred fic. If you have read these before, sorry if I’m just parroting what you’ve already read! Also please feel no pressure to read these, I just wanted to share with a fellow OP enjoyer :DDD

Sanji Fic: Custom of the Sea - 17K: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39516201?view_adult=true

So this one really, REALLY explores Sanji’s duties as a chef and how far he’d be willing to go to ensure that his crew won’t starve (if you know what the title of the fic means then you’re halfway there) and there are heavy warnings at the start of the fic that I won’t repeat but I will state that the fic is tagged with “angst with a happy ending” so a heaping helping of optimism is needed whilst reading!

(I did not read the tags thoroughly though I still enjoyed the fic, but please don’t be as silly as me)

I love when a One Piece fic explores the connections between the Straw Hats (some more than others, cough ZORO cough) and I especially love the flashbacks we get with Chef Zeff— I will never be able to stop thinking about them and clutching at my chest like I’m trying to ease an unseen weight (the burden, oh the burden of loving a fictional blond man).

I love how Sanji is written, how we get to see him reduced to his base components, how as he thins with each day we see what becomes transparent beneath all the layers; who he truly is when stripped down to the bone.

^ tryhard

There is also a scene that is so reverent; so intimate; so raw that it feels like a violation to intrude upon such a private moment and a discourtesy that it isn’t being analysed and examined by every literature study or professor alive. Wow it fucks me up that this fic only has 8K hits. The author also writes some good ZoSan fics if that’s also something you’d like :))

Robin Fic: What is and What could never be - 58K (unfinished as far as I’m aware): https://archiveofourown.org/works/42768912/chapters/107441889

Robin. Has. A child.

[incoherent wailing about motherhood, unconditional love, the fear of loving someone and letting them love you back, love you thought you lost but has endured all along]

I haven’t even finished it yet nor am I even anywhere close in the timeline in which the fic takes place but I already know it’s one of my favourite fics I’ve read, and has made me realised that I have overlooked the OP women in the most egregious manner possible.

I absolutely adore your OP character analysis videos, and having your big brain analysis sitting in the back of my mind while reading this fic has made me appreciate and enjoy this fic tenfold.

Nico Robin I love you in a way that heals me and hurts me.

I am also a tremendous sucker for Frobin (the author wrote smut for this fic which 😳) but I also adore her relationships with Chopper, Nami and Luffy which absolutely enamoured me and has scorched my brain, leaving a permanent mark. Also extremely cruel and wicked that this fic only has 8K hits.

Anyway I wrote all of this at 1am, so if I sound mad it’s because I am. Thanks for creating hilarious and extremely insightful analysis videos, I’ve been watching your channel since the MHA character design video (I still burst out laughing thinking about Todoroki’s design sometimes) and I always look forward to new vids :D

Thank you for these but I can’t promise I’ll read them haha, I don’t tend to read too many fics but I appreciate the thought. I know you didn’t do it here but I also ask to please not send me smut fics or anything since I’m not an nsfw account and also a stranger to you guys 😅

And thank you so much for enjoying my content! ❤️

[kadextra]

another orv longpost is here 🕺

(again huge spoilers for the novel don’t click if you haven’t read)

since my last one of these, I have completed reading the demon realm revolutionary arc >:D

now lets get some miscellaneous thoughts out of the way before I go into analysis

THAT SCENE FROM AGES AGO WHICH I BARELY REMEMBERED FINALLY REVEALED ITS PURPOSE!!! MY JAW DROPPED. thank goodness fatherhood has made han myungoh way more likeable 🎉 he’s so soft & doting about his daughter <3 I want their little family to reunite go away asmodeus…

b i y o o.

I have noticed that the author loves to use the phrase “cold water poured over [the mood]” and that’s sooo accurate cause I felt exactly this way when dokja opened the 1st revision of TWSA and found it became an account of events influenced by his involvement in the story & is set after his future death. chills.

when dokja was legit about to die after destroying the demon duke guy in the big factory monster my heart was racing too. then joonghyuk came with the save last second :’D

the part where he described his senses after re-entering the scenario, the story embracing him, changing his breathing to feel alive again, and how that frightened him. ohh my god…..

also neat to see how the fourth wall helps practically too :D like when dokja was all mentally scattered and couldn’t think straight it helped by putting the pieces he already knew together for him

-

now onto some analysis dissecting dokja’s behavior :))

multiple times I’ve read how he hears a shocking thing and instantly goes like “I thought it was an auditory hallucination.” his first reaction to unbelievable stuff is believing that it’s not real. his power literally disassociates him it makes complete sense to react this way, good detail

it’s cool how he will be like ‘I think this’ then the fourth wall goes [Kim Dokja is thinking this]. sometimes it’s a helpful expansion of those original thoughts, or vice versa with dokja continuing off what the fourth wall says first

but it can be that the two lines of thought presented aren’t alike!! so I have had to read deeper into what he’s really thinking/feeling :D

through that, it is becoming way clearer to me in this story how some things dokja says & does are contradictory with what he himself narrates. it’s something that needs my closer attention while reading bc otherwise I could get fooled, he’s an unreliable narrator

sometimes he feigns disinterest when all signs in the dialogue point to him being emotional, or he puts on a confident narration but then the fourth wall or his actions exposes insecurity. sometimes he straight up has no idea why he’s acting certain ways -which I try piecing together- and occasionally he fights with himself too

these lines show that stuff pretty well

It was a reckless battle. It was uncharacteristic of me and I didn’t know why I acted like that.

No, don’t think like this. Kim Dokja, please wake up. You’ve survived so far thanks to this novel.

I wanted to ask why he came here. I wanted to ask what he would do in the future. However, completely different words emerged from my mouth.

I smiled slightly while covering my eyes with both hands. I didn’t appear so on the surface, but I wanted to say that I was smiling.

he was absolutely crying in the last one I know it

not my first rodeo with unreliable characters I love them <3

lastly, dokja was more desperate in this arc than I’ve ever seen him before. I saw how he started to get more troubled as it went on, but ofc the constant painful disintegration didn’t help 💀 the 1st revision.txt is useful with figuring out what to do but it’s sorta vague, he’s still anxious

that’s why I LOVED the writing on the wall conversation with jang hayoung.

it delved into those stresses and had him trying to think of a way to move forward. probably one of my most favorite discussions in the story thus far

I had to write something on this wall. This is despite the fact that it might change what has already been written…

I didn’t want to be a person who only read.

I had been acting as a reader the whole time. In order to see the ending I wanted, I had to create a new story. In fact I had already warped reality.. I just didn’t know yet who would read it.

👏🔥👏💯🔥👏💯🔥👏

a person who doesn’t just read, but writes too… so curious to see what he does now especially since he doesn’t have multiple lives to mess with

wow long ramble but I love love deep diving into stuff I can’t wait to see more cool things as I go on <3

if you wanna see my other rambles about orv check my tag #kade reads

[yumedoca]

Hi hi! I always love reading analysis and your analyses always fun to read!❤️

Ok. So as fellow Ataru's fan myself I always wanted to see an analysis about Ataru's character (not about his character in general because there are so much about him)... Its more about comparison of Ataru's characters we got (manga, 80'anime, and All-stars), not for which one is better but more about how they are same but have their own uniqueness/something that makes them different with each others.

It is so interesting for me honestly, even for all-stars Ataru who is based on manga Ataru still has difference with his manga self

Ok lets stop here because I will just rambling in you ask box, I just wanted to leave request huehue

((I was planning to make this analysis myself but then I realized I suck at it :D👍))

Hai there! First of all, Thanks so much for the compliment 💐 

Hope you’re doing great and thanks for being patient!!

Analysis under the cut…

Welcome to today’s episode of ‘Yuca Analyzes Silly Things (Bonus Edition!!)’ You know what we’re discussing since you’ve probably read the ask, so here we go!!

Ok, so first we’ll talk about the differences between manga and og anime Ataru. Then, we’ll compare it with remake Ataru… 

OG anime Ataru is someone who I have a love/ hate relationship when it comes to writing. His character is not really written well from a writers POV, he is still pretty funny though. But I figured out the reason why it is like that. It’s because of simplicity. You see, back in the 80’s UY is a gag anime, so when you present something to the audience, being simple instead of complex is the way to go. Of course, nowadays we have more complex storytelling in some gag stories, but that was the 80’s. Gag anime aren’t really known for complex stories, so the prospect of giving UY characters more character development wasn’t really something people thought of that time. Yea, I know the surrealism stuff exists, but that’s probably their way of showing “we can be more than a funny show but without the character development“  So instead it became simple. Something you don’t need to look it too much, but still have fun with. You can exaggerate things more than it actually is or you can do the opposite. Not to mention, different episodes had different writers and each writer put their different views into writing (looking at you, Oshi). And in that way, along with everyone else, Ataru also became simple. Some of his gags were exaggerated, some remained the same and the others were lessened. So it creates an inconsistent character (the reordering of chapters doesn’t help either). To prove my point here’s an example from the Inaba storyline when Ataru sees his married future with Lum, and the difference in character between both versions (I haven’t seen the anime version in a while, but I do remember what happened so the order might be a bit clunky, so apologies for that.)

Original Anime: Ataru (and Lum) sees Future Mendo brooding about how he doesn’t accept their marriage and that he’ll come for her in the future. Then they see Lum coming out of a church with her new husband Ataru with tears in her eyes (of joy). Everyone they know is around and they all celebrate together happily and then take a group photo together. And Present Ataru is happy to see their married future and honestly why shouldn’t he be? Aside from the fact that he doesn’t get a harem, he gets to be with the one he truly loves and everyone is happy about their wedding. He has no reason to hate this future. This in a whole is a simple take, Ataru’s character changes a little because of him showing that he doesn’t mind a married future with Lum. That is all. It’s a sweet and romantic moment shared by them.

Manga: Ataru sees Lum coming out of a church with her new husband Ataru while teasing him happily and then joyfully cries. But Ataru is having trash thrown at him and being heckled at because apparently there are many who don’t accept his wedding with Lum and is harassing him in that sense. And Present Ataru is happy to see their married future, but here he has a reason to see it in a negative light. Ataru is being hated here by many and they are not celebrating, but the reason he wants to save this future is because Lum’s smiling, not because of himself. This in a whole is a complex take, Ataru’s character changes a lot more not only because of him showing that he doesn’t mind a married future with Lum, but it’s also because he only cares for her happiness and hers only which is quite selfless of him. This is hinted at a little in the og anime with Ataru’s line “She’s crying…” which is also in the manga, but here because his situation isn’t all that great for him, it adds to the sentiment. This scene adds a bit more depth to Ataru as well as Ataru and Lum’s relationship as a whole. It’s more deeper than the og anime’s and it’s something you can understand if you look into it deeply.

You can see how one shows a take on what you expect love to be and what it actually is. This theory I stated was actually from a Japanese website where someone described the original anime’s take on romance as childish and like a fantasy, while the manga’s take on romance was more mature and down to earth. And honestly, I agree. This explains why Ataru and Lum has had genuine kisses in the anime but not the manga. And this explains tons of other things as well. I do prefer the manga’s more mature storytelling, but I love the anime’s more simple one as well. That's the one that more people can understand easily and no one ever said simple was bad, it's quite refreshing. Being an audience to both types of media, while understanding how and why each is written differently instead of going ‘X is better than Y’ or ‘Y is better than X’ and causing arguments, You can learn to appreciate them more. I know I appreciate the anime more after I read that random Japanese person’s opinion (Thank you random Japanese person).

Now remake Ataru, how is he different from his manga counterpart? I would say he shares 3/4 similarities which his manga (OG Ataru shares 1/2). The first difference between them is that remake Ataru isn’t a complete character. There are a lot of chapters skipped in the remake and each chapter is supposed to build his character, so because a chunk of chapters aren’t there, he isn’t the complete Ataru. Do we see him on his first date with Lum? No. Do we see his first night with her? No. Do we see the time he cared for a caterpillar no one else cared for? No. And really, that’s how it is, because the remake is four cours long not everything’s there and there’s nothing the writers can do because that’s how the show was ordered. The parts of his character which are the same to the manga is like that because the writers wanted to make it a good adaptation, so that didn’t change most of the things. The only other difference I can point out between remake and manga Ataru is that early manga Ataru is waaaaaay pervier than early remake Ataru is. For example, in episode 10 Ataru in exchange of showing two girls a yo-yo trick, he asks to go on a date with them. In the manga, Ataru just straight up flips a girl’s skirt. Ataru’s perviness decreases as time went on the manga and remake Ataru’s horny level is on later manga Ataru’s level if you know what I mean. I guess it’s to make him more likeable or problematic? Idk. But that’s really all differences I can gather.

TLDR; Manga Ataru is the full package and has more character depth. Original Ataru is simple in character, it’s not consistent but he is very much absurdly funny and Remake Ataru is 3/4 of the package and is less horny. In the end, they are all great in their own way

Thank you for taking time to read this analysis and sorry If I made any errors. Hope you all have a great day ahead and thanks @ikemengoessbrrrrr for the suggestion! 💕 

[lullaby-for-a-shark]

I Have Good Music Taste >:D

Hi there, hello. I just wanna do a giant music ramble, cos I haven’t done that yet and I have absolutely no idea how. Music is my life, my entire goddamn life. Here are my top ten bands/artists

Silverchair

avenged sevenfold

nirvana

parkway drive

system of a down

green day

slipknot

cavetown

The beatles

Bo burnham

these artists (and many more) got me through the toughest times in my life. A lot of people say this and they express being understood, and I felt that to some degree. I was sad, autistic, and lonely and it was bad through my early teenage years. But there was something else about music, aside from relatability that really struck me. And that was the pure beauty of all music. Every single piece of music from Beethoven to the beastie boys is so stunning and not enough people talk about it. I became a hopeless slave to my love of music, I was infatuated with music theory, with learning every instrument I could get my shaky hands on.

this is all thanks to an alt-rock Australian band from the 90’s named Silverchair. If you’re a middle aged dad from NSW, you know them. If you’re literally anyone else, you probably don’t. But I fell deeply in love with their music. I’ve never felt love as strongly for a single person as I have for silverchair’s music. In fact, I don’t even know if any of the love I’ve ever felt even counts in comparison. Let me rant about them for a paragraph

silverchair was formed in Newcastle NSW in 1994 by a group of literal goddamn 14 year olds. They won a competition with the radio station Triple J and as a reward got to record an EP titled Tomorrow. Instant success. The following year, the band at age 15, released their debut album frogstomp. The album is quite grungey, though bares minimal resemblance to Nirvana (who they were constantly compared to) instead their influences lied in 70’s punk. The album contains heavy drop d guitar riffs, impressive vocals and all round amazingness from a bunch of teens. They brought out four more albums. Freak Show, an album released in 1997 with lyrics surrounding the idea of being a ‘freak’ which is how the band felt after being cast away on tour. 1999s Neon Ballroom, a heartbreaking album written in the lead singer/guitarists bedroom, in complete isolation after having a mental health breakdown. Diorama, 2002, my personal favourite, featuring epic orchestral pieces, vivid lyrics and vocals so beautiful they sweep one off their feet. And lastly 2007s Young Modern, a turn into pop rock while retaining the orchestral properties of their previous album. Silverchair do not have a bad song. They are all beautiful.

all this to say, I will be doing an in depth analysis on my interpretation of every song by every band in that top ten list, starting with silverchair. I would love to maybe introduce some people to some genuinely great bands in the process, so if you’ve read this far, pans you don’t mind, give this post a reblog to share the passion with other music lovers. I would love your input into my analyses and maybe your own interpretations of the pieces of art I hold the closest to me

have a wonderful day :)

[doonthestair]

The absolute worst part of homebrew Dungeons and Dragons campaigns is that I can’t lurk in online discussion threads about plot theories, there aren’t ridiculously long character analysis videos I can put on while I clean my room, I can’t fangirl (gender-neutral) with others about favorite NPCs, I haven’t set any fanart as my phone background, and I can’t read a plot summary on Wikipedia to learn spoilers in a 2AM moment of weakness. 

I could go on for lengths about how fascinating it’s been to watch the campaign universe expand and blossom into the storied and beautiful entity it is, 

about how proud I am of our newest player for really stepping up into roleplay and helping provide for an intensely engaging plot, 

about how much I adore the little physicalities everyone adopts when acting, 

about how weak I am for Elion interactions, 

about the shivers I felt when Morgana stood firm on her beliefs and how impressed I am with that player’s creative spell usage,

about the tears that fell from my friends’ eyes as soon as my voice began to crack in-character,

and about just how goddamn motherfucking excited I am to see this arc of our longtime running campaign through to its end, whatever that may be.

But those names mean nothing to people who aren’t there with me on the bedroom floor, rolling dice and clasping their hands over their mouth when the twist comes to light. And at the same time, that’s the best part of homebrew D&D.

The best part of homebrew Dungeons and Dragons campaigns is that they will forever be something special and intimate shared only between people around which you can show such a vulnerable part of yourself.

There’s inside jokes that make me giggle every time, there’s the knowing glances exchanged across the room when the consequences of past arcs are hinted at, there’s the simultaneously hated and respected tension built at the end of a session knowing we all have to wait until next time and we can’t just look up the answers online. I’m so lucky to have the most brilliant DM and the coolest group of players that I could ask for. The internet doesn’t create fanart but my DM prints out in-universe newspapers with original writing and as of today, an original picture (of MY character no less), and there are some crazy talented artists in my group who produce wonderful character designs and stunning renditions of session scenes. I would love their art either way but I almost feel like their scarcity makes them that much more meaningful. There’s no subreddits for our campaign but we have Discord messages showing insane and passionate rambling about narrative ideas and character development. We have the most dedicated note-taker and I appreciate their work dearly, not only in helping us down the line in recalling important information but also effectively creating a written highlight reel that I would otherwise search for in YouTube compilations. The people who showed up for today’s session showed UP if you get what I’m saying. They proved their commitment. They proved their intrigue. I’m just so happy to be a part of it all. A massive thank you to @nplutonian, the sinister and loving genius who facilitated all of us being here in the first place. 

[anachronistic-falsehood]

i haven’t written much analysis on Jane and that is a federal crime that must be corrected immediately

Why Jane Crocker’s Role As A Villain In HS^2 Doesn’t Fit With Her Character At All: A Long Winded Essay I Wrote In The Middle Of Multiple Work Shifts

Warning for discussion of sexual objectification, grooming, abuse, and sexual assault/harassment.

Jane, much like Dirk, is a victim. She was born and raised to be the heiress of the Condesce and groomed to be the owner of Crockercorp. Her Crockercorp tiara/headband thingy brainwashed her into obeying the Condesce. She was an antagonist, but only briefly, and it was not of her own volition. She has been groomed by adults, excessively sexualized by her peers, and brainwashed into doing things she never would have done normally.

As a villain in HS^2, her main acts of villainy include a) sexually assaulting her husband, which is something she threatened to do when she was brainwashed, b) having sex with an underage troll (Gamzee, who at the time was about 16 due to Retcon Hijinks), c) abusing/neglecting her son, and d) literally trying to commit genocide on all of trollkind. Most of this is limited to the Candy timeline, but her racism against trolls is consistent through both Candy and Meat.

I’m going to address the troll racism first because it’s her biggest role in the plot of the epilogues. The long and short of it is, she just. hates trolls. She just fucking hates them. I don’t even know why. She calls them “rats” and “insects” and insults their entire species, and for WHY. FOR WHY. There is no explicit reason given as to why she hates them. At all. It’s never explained. Even if they did try to come up with an explanation for it, it wouldn’t land. Jane is not like that. She’s not the type of person to hate an entire species for no reason! She cares so deeply for her friends, and while she can’t always understand why they do the things they do, she doesn’t give up on them. She fought alongside the trolls in the final battle. She trusts them, she cares about them, so her hating their entire species is complete bullshit and extremely out of character.

As for her sexual harassment, god I could write a whole nother essay about how sexuality is used in a misogynistic way in the epilogues in order to turn Jade and Jane into antagonists, but for now I’m focusing on Jane. In HS Proper, Jane is constantly objectified by her peers. The only time we see a reaction to this is when Caliborn is talking to her and her reaction is extremely negative. We don’t know what she thinks of Dave and Jasprose calling her hot because we don’t see her reaction to that, but Caliborn’s comments were vulgar and excessive, so in general, it’s safe to say that she doesn’t like being objectified, especially not to that extent. Hearing that kind of shit when you’re young can be unsettling at best and traumatizing at worst. It’s possible that Jane has some kind of sexual trauma due to constant objectification, but that’s up for interpretation.

The writers making Jane someone who sexually assaults and harasses her husband and troll side-piece (god i fucking hate jane/gamzee) is incredibly insensitive. I see parts of myself in Jane, encountering sexual comments and stuff when you’re not ready for it. They could have made Jane a sexual character if they wanted to; it could have been a way to reclaim her bodily autonomy and participate in sexual things on her own terms. But they shouldn’t have just made her a “sexy milf” and used misogynistic stereotypes and had her abuse her husband just because they wanted a character to mess with. It’s insensitive and terrible and I hate it.

As for the abuse of her kid… this one could have been interesting if they wrote it right. Homestuck Proper is primarily focused on kids and the failings of the adult figures in their lives. All of the antagonists are adults, and multiple kids are traumatized because of their parents/parental figures. The writers could have kept up with that theme by focusing on the younger generation in the Candy epilogue. That would have been so cool! If Jane had neglected her kid, whether intentionally or without meaning to, it would have been such an interesting commentary on the cycle of abuse and how it only stops when someone actively realizes that there is a cycle and chooses to stop it. Seeing that through the eyes of Tavros Crocker would have been so fucking cool. The writers had something interesting set up and they completely fumbled it.

In conclusion, fuck the post-canon writers for messing up my girl like that. She deserves better.

[violettelueur]

— FUSHIGURO MEGUMI + GOJO SATORU + NANAMI KENTO || THEIR S/O FAINTING AFTER A MISSION

↳ featuring : fushiguro megumi + gojo satoru + nanami kento from jujutsu kaisen

↳ warnings : grammar issues and mention of blood

↳ form : headcanons

↳ published : 15 january

↳ pronouns : non specified in headcanon

↳ request : Hi hi!! How are you? I really hope you are doing okay! Can I request headcanons for Nanami, Gojo and Fushiguro pls? With a female s/o who is a skilled sorcerer? Something like, one day she just faints from exhaustion in the middle of a difficult battle, they catch her before she hits the ground and she is all beaten up and such? I just want this men to pamper me lol! Thank you, and pls have a nice day!!

↳ barista’s notes : let me admit, i didn’t see the ‘in the middle of a difficult battle’ when i read the request, so i do apologies for it ʕ ꈍᴥꈍʔ ALSO WHO IS EXCITED FOR JUJUTSU KAISEN TO COME BACK TODAY? AHHHHH FINALLYYYYYY ʕ♡˙ᴥ˙♡ʔ also i do apologies for the lack of updates yesterday since i was busy with my classes and was sorting out my university offers/studies since my government is making a whole mess on what is going on with my a-levels (i hate it here...)  moving on from that, i hope you enjoy your cup of classic black coffee (jujutsu kaisen request!) and please come again soon ╲ʕ·ᴥ·　╲ʔ

When Fushiguro sees you beginning to fall, he is ready to rush towards you before you even touch the ground since he didn’t want you to get any more injuries - presumably to your head - than the ones you have already.

Fushiguro is somewhat surprised that you had fainted after killing the curse, but also not surprised at the same time.

He is surprised because you are a skilled sorcerer and whenever you came back - in whatever condition you were in - you always had a smile on your face even when you were tired.

However, he is not surprised because this fight you two had was extremely exhausting and difficult due to the cure being one of the special grades that were holding Sukuna’s finger.

Even though he is a person that hides his emotions quite well. However, when it is about you, his emotions are a bit more open and obvious.

So when you fainted, he is extremely worried and scared - this is very visible on his face - and begins to check if you are breathing first before checking up on your injuries.

At the beginning of your relationship, he would carry you on his back but after a while into the relationship, he would just instantaneously carry you bridal style.

Once he knows what state you are in - he would feel better if you are stable of course - he would rush back to whoever was transporting you both and firmly tell them to get you both back to Jujutsu Tech to see Ieiri.

During the whole car ride, he would just keep you near him and continuously check up on you - if you wake up during the journey, he would ask if you are okay and inform you how long you guys have left before you reach back to the school.

When you get back to Jujutsu Tech, he would just immediately carry you in his arms and rush to Iriei so you can get fixed up.

Once you are healed, Fushiguro will force you to rest no matter what because he is genuinely worried about you since this is one of the rare moments where you blackout during a mission and he’s worried that you might overwork yourself - he will stay beside your bed at your beckoning call. Ask him for a cup of water and he will rush to get you one.

I feel like he would scold you a bit like a parent telling off their child -  but as I have said, he is just extremely worried.

But he will continuously ask if you are doing alright during the following days especially during training days since he doesn’t tell you to take it easy - hell, he will probably tell Kugisaki to go easy on you, much to your dismay.

Once Gojo sees you staggering, he knows what is going to happen is behind you the second you lose your footing.

To be honest, he doesn’t blame you for falling to exhaustion since you have been going to many missions back to back before this and this mission - which was the last one - had to be the most exhausting since the higher-ups had to send both of you on it.

Gojo will be angry at the higher-ups, but there is nothing he could do now since he had to concentrate on you right now and from what he could see, you were in a bad condition with your body plagued by bruises and cuts.

Depending on your injuries, if you are losing a lot of blood, Gojo will become extremely worried and it is very evident - heck, even a single cut gets his worried

Unlike Fushiguro, Gojo is comfortable with physical touch in a relationship and will instantly carry you bridal style since the beginning of the whole relationship.

Since you are unresponsive, Gojo will rush back to the school within a flash and make Iriei heal you immediately since he didn’t really check your injuries thoroughly since like I said, a single cut gets him anxious - he will probably tell her to hurry up to which annoys her quite a bit

However, if he has to take the car, he would keep you close to him by having you on his lap and will keep looking at you to see if you wake up or suddenly become worse

Once Ieiri has completed her healing session with you, Gojo will carry you back to your shared room and keeps an eye on you from time to time - if he has to go away on a mission, he would leave a piece of cake or a sweet on your bedside table and messages you a text.

Let’s just say when he has to meet the higher-ups, he will get extremely angry at them for sending you on too many missions and will probably threaten them with his chest - with C O N F I D A N C E.

When he gets back, he will hold you close and comfort you the best he can since he thinks you’ll feel guilty after what happened - but he will sweet talk you to make you feel better.

From what we all know, Nanami is a very observant person and once you both kill the curse, he would already be right by your side.

However, when he feels you hit his body, he instantly knows that you are exhausted but is somewhat surprised that you had fainted.

Even though Nanami is confident in your skills as a sorcerer, he can’t help but tell you to make sure you don’t over push it since he is anxious about you from time to time.

So when you faint, he gets worried - but unlike Fushiguro, he can easily maintain his emotions - but there are times where his emotions get the better of him (like when Nanami got extremely worried about Itadori in the last episode)

He will check your injuries with an intense stare and will come with a conclusion on how you are by his analysis - he will set a time on when you have to get back to Jujutsu Tech before you become in a critical state.

He will rush Ichiiji when you have fainted - poor man - and will pressure him to drive faster - he will look at his watch every second.

Nanami would lay you down on the back seat with your head on his lap, so he can see if you wake up before you and him get back to Jujutsu Tech.

When he gets back to Jujutsu Tech, he will bring you to Ieiri and he will be impatiently patient with her since he knows that she is capable of bringing you into your top condition for now.

Once you wake up, Nanami will scold you - worse than Fushiguro - and questions on you why you were pushing yourself when he told you not to.

He will also scold you for not listening to him since we all know that Nanami Kento is a very responsible person out of everyone in Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.

He will check up on you to make you have eaten and hydrated yourself and if you haven’t...don’t be surprised when he will lecture you again.

Once his lecture is done, he will force you to rest and tell you not to pick up any more missions for the time being - he just doesn’t want to see you hurt and just has a different way of showing it compared to Gojo and Fushiguro.

© violettelueur 2021 : written and published by violettelueur - do not steal or repost

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[vizowrites]

“We” vs “Me”| or “Why BlitzStrike Works So Well For Me But Stolitz [as of episode 6].....Doesn’t”

Alright my Loves, so I said that I was going to talk in further detail about my feelings regarding Stolas and the multi-layered portrayal of his relationship with Blitz in the new episode, and today’s the day where that happens!!  First of all, though, before I really get into my feelings about things, I want to just make it ABUNDANTLY clear that I’m not trying to sway anyone from one side to the other, or trying to shame anyone for shipping two fictional characters.  I’m fully in the boat that you are completely entitled to ship whoever you want, but I also think it’s wise to at least be able to recognize the faults and flaws in a pairing--and especially to be able to recognize them in the context of an IRL relationship.  In this analysis in particular, I’m specifically focusing on these two relationships within the realm of the Helluva Boss universe [......Hell] and within the specific context of their characters as they’ve been portrayed in the show thus far.  And, my biggest disclaimer of all: I’m doing this for no other reason than I felt like putting my jumbled thoughts together into a cohesive post so that they don’t have to stay bouncing and buzzing around in my head.  Please keep that in mind that this is just pure personal opinion and interpretation before anyone comes at me with torches and pitchforks.  <3 <3 

SO WITH THAT LONG ASS DISCLAIMER OUT OF THE WAY 

Let’s finally get to the good stuff.  And the not so good stuff.  :D

So I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone who follows me here that I’m a huge BlitzStrike fan.  What I think fewer people know is that when I first entered the fandom a few months ago, I actually was on board the Stolitz train like so many others that I’ve met here in the fandom.  Naturally Stolitz was the first major pairing I was introduced to, and I did find both the characters of Blitz and Stolas incredibly interesting and compelling in their own rights AND saw the potential in how they could really come to grow into one hell of a relationshp over time.  I was honestly really excited to see it happen, too.  

And then I watched Episode 5 [still my favorite episode, btw] for the first time and had this sudden question hit me like a truck that even now is still relentlessly burning in the back of my mind because I still haven’t found a legitimate answer for it: Why in the FUCK wasn’t Blitz falling head-over-heels in attraction to Striker throughout this fucking episode??

And I don’t mean that in a “They’re so hot and I ship them now why didn’t they get together?? DX DX” kind of way--I mean that in the genuinely perplexed “I don’t understand based on what has been presented to me thus far about Blitz as a character and the storyline overall why he’s reacting so nonchalantly to this whole thing”.  To Note: This is me wondering this from the context of what’s in the show itself, not from any extra fan materials like the Instas or Twitter or just straight up knowing that the most likely answer is that there are people on the creative team that ship Stolitz really hard and realistically wouldn’t have probably written Blitz as being attracted to Striker because that would just be--to quote Jack Sparrow--blowing holes in their own ship.  No, this is me disregarding ALL of that and trying to rationalize this with myself from the perspective of a fan whose entire knowledge of the show and its characters comes exclusively from what’s in the episodes themselves.  .....And that’s where I just can’t find my answer, except for the Stolitz positive “He’s not attracted to Striker because he’s in love with Stolas” answer.  Which really doesn’t even feel like a satisfying answer, because the entire vibe I’ve gotten from Stolitz in the show has just felt.....strangely.....off.  Like, the framework is there and the elements are there, but I’d felt as though they had so far to go still that it would be entire SEASONS before they got there.    

And THEN the new episode [Episode 6] came out and I’d heard a handful of fans going crazy because the show was finally addressing Stolitz in full, and I thought to myself, “Well, maybe if the show really is going to go with saying that the reason Blitz wasn’t interested in Striker is because he’s in love with Stolas.....sure.  I’m curious to see how they finally establish it in an episode, especially since there’s only two more episodes left in the entire first season.”  And then I watched the episode.  And then it hit me why Stolitz just does not do a damn thing for me but BlitzStrike does despite the fact that we’ve had 4/6 episodes [5/7 if you count the Pilot] of Stolitz but only 1/6 [1/7] of potential--not even canonical--BlitzStrike:

When Striker talks about Blitz, or interacts with Blitz, he always talks about them as a “we”.  As a team.  A partnership.  OR he just straight up puts the entire focus on Blitz and his accomplishments and keeps himself out of it entirely.

When Stolas talks about Blitz, he always talks about them within the context of “me”--of himself--of what Blitz does or should do for him.  Even here in episode 6, in the most “selfless” instance we’ve seen yet, where he does ask about Blitz’s safety first BEFORE going right back into how Blitz’s actions affect him and what Blitz should be doing in response for him.  Stolas’s focus is always automatically set to himself--and even when it comes to the people he supposedly loves the most.  

To explain what I mean here, let me give some examples directly from the show itself, starting with the Stolas side of things: 

Episode 1

Blitz, in the middle of trying to hide so much that he actually clamps both of his hands over his mouth just to muffle the sound of his own breathing, knowing damn well that this psychotic bitch who already shot him once won’t hesitate to do it again if she finds him.....gets a call from Stolas.  Stolas, who we clearly see from his leisurely hang out time in his bubble bath, is literally watching this happen and is fully aware that calling Blitz right then was potentially putting him in danger. But what does he say when he gets Blitz on the phone?  He offers--not help--but Blitz the use of his book in exchange for monthly sex.  Stolas literally uses Blitz’s peril as leverage here--consciously or not, though given the fact that he knows the situation at hand, I’d find it very hard to argue that he didn’t do this on purpose--just to get him to agree to be his bootycall until further notice.  

Stolas not only doesn’t lift a finger to help Blitz once in all of this--even at the moment where he and Millie are about to be shot in the face--but instead continues to stay on the phone talking about all of the things he wants for their upcoming future rendezvous.  He already got exactly what he wanted out of this and he still just continues to go for more for himself.

Episode 2

.....There are honestly so many fucked up things that happen here as far as Stolas and his relationship with Blitz goes but honestly the thing I want to draw the MOST attention to is actually Stolas’s storyline with his daughter, Octavia.  I know it’s a little left field, but bear with me--this is actually something I want to use as comparison for Stolas’s relationship to Blitz as we go along:

When Stolas first decides that he’s going to take his daughter to Loo Loo Land, he does so while completey setting aside the fact that she doesn’t want to go.  He just offers her assurances that it’s going to be so much fun because he remembers that she loved it so much when she was a little girl--effectively putting his memory above her wishes even as she’s sitting right there and telling him that she doesn’t enjoy the idea of going now.  

Stolas doesn’t actually notice just how uncomfortable he’s making Octavia throuhought their entire trip by spending his time sexually harassing paying more attention to Blitz than he is trying to cheer her up.  This tells me that Stolas--though I do believe he genuinely wanted to do something to make her happy--still wasn’t able to completely overcome his own self-centered tendencies at first even when it’s for her.  And this is the person that Stolas loves more than anyone or anything else in the entire world. It still wasn’t enough.

It’s only when Octavia runs off and completely breaks down that Stolas finally gets the much needed slap-to-the-face of reality to understand just what he’s putting his daughter through--and, for the first time in the entire show, he actually puts someone else’s needs and well being above himself.  It’s the one solid honest display of love that we see from Stolas in the entire show--and it’s how we as the audience come to learn that that’s how Stolas shows that he loves someone: When he puts their needs above his own with no strings attached or expectations of something in return.  A true selfless act just because he loves them.  **Keep in mind the parallel of Stolas carrying Octavia out of Loo Loo Land at the end, and how it compares to Stolas carrying Blitz out of D.H.O.R.K.S headquarters.

Episode 5

The. Fucking. Cigarette.  I had no idea that something so small and quick would be able to infuriate me as much as it did, but the fact that Blitz used the post sex cigarette to free Stolas from his wrist bondage but then Stolas turned around and put the cigarette out on Blitz’s horn which is literally a part of Blitz’s body just.....honestly it sums up exactly what I’m trying to get across in this entire huge ass post: Stolas only ever thinks of himself first and anything pertaining to anyone else just doesn’t cross his mind at all unless you blatantly put it there in front of his face.  And the fact that he’s still at this point with Blitz all the way here in Episode 5 is not.....promising for their relationship.

The fact that Stolas literally cannot stop himself from calling Blitz “Blitzy” or talking to him in such a condescending way no matter how frustrated Blitz gets and how many times he asks him to stop.  I just--how is that supposed to be interpreted as someone talking to a person that they love?  There’s no respect or dignity given to Blitz at all on Stolas’s part, and the fact that it seems to be presented as a “Oh teehee it’s just their cute couple thing” is just.....I really, really don’t like that.  It also doesn’t match with the Stolas in the very next episode which I quite frankly think is because the creators have been listening to the feedback from fans and were like “We need to SHOW THEM that Stolas actually does speak to Blitz respectfully!!” but that’s just my personal opinion there and, also, it still didn’t happen.  

Episode 6 

Keeping in mind that THIS is finally the episode where we see Stolas actually save Blitz from danger and demonstrate even the slightest inclination towards his well-being.....I think that honestly makes the next few things here even more fucked up

First and foremost: “WE”.  The second after Stolas asks if Blitz is alright and gets the assurance that he is, he roughly grabs his cheek and points out that “If you get in trouble, I get in trouble!  WE don’t want that”.  The fact that this is the first time that Stolas ever talks about Blitz in the context of “we”--when really what he’s really saying is that him [Stolas] getting in trouble is going to be a bad thing for all of them--is just.....so, so disappointing.  At least with this I could hope that perhaps the idea here is that Stolas is genuinely afraid that if he gets in trouble, he won’t be able to protect Blitz from the undoubtedly much worse trouble that he would be in as an imp, but still.  The fact that Stolas immediately reverts back to his self-centered perspective so quickly after supposedly being so worried about Blitz’s wellbeing, really makes it seem as though it’s just his own ass that he’s trying to protect.  And that.....isn’t  exactly what I’d been expecting from “the episode that confirms Stolitz is canon” feedback I’d been hearing.

"Am I going to get ANY thank you for the rescue Bltizy?”  This for me was kind of what actually lead to me having this whole epiphany over Stolas’s selfish perspective in the first place.  I realized that even here--even when he’s just been the most “romantic” towards Blitz that he’s ever been in any previous episodes up until now [and yes this shift in his character was incredibly jarring for me because of that]--Stolas still goes right back to thinking about what he’s going to get out of this now that he knows Blitz is safe.  Let’s take this back to that thing I was saying about Episode 2 and comparing how Stolas rescued Octavia and how he rescues Blitz.  Obviously they’re going to be different because it’s Stolas’s daughter vs his hook up BUT just think about where the focus is for Stolas in both of these scenes.  With Octavia, Stolas is entirely focused on making things up to her--taking her to do something she wants to do--even if it’s something that he himself doesn’t fully understand or isn’t fully into.  That doesn’t matter though, because the entire point is that he’s doing something just for her.  It doesn’t have to be about him.  But now go back to the scene where Stolas is carrying Blitz out of the room.  What does he do?  Ask what Blitz is going to do for him.  That just takes the idea that this scene was a confirmation of their love and throws it right out the window.  Stolas--as we’ve been shown before--would never ask for something in return from someone that he actually loves.  

Now let’s take a look at the one and only episode we have of Striker and Blitz interacting together, with an honorary shout out at hallucination!Striker’s appearance in Episode 6: 

Episode 5: 

Striker knows Blitz’s name.....and he uses it.  He’s literally the ONLY other character that we’ve seen so far refer to Blitz as “Blitz” instead of “Blitzo” or “Blitzy” by someone who wasn’t a member of I.M.P..  Aka someone who wasn’t a member of Blitz’s family.  He shows Blitz respect at that basest level, and only builds on that from there going forward.

Striker first recognizes Blitz for being “the bold imp that started his own killin’ biz”.  Not his hotness, not his skills in the Harvest Moon games because at that point he hasn’t seen them yet.....but for his accomplishment in starting up his own successful business down in Hell.  He treats it as an accomplishment.  With the kind of respect that comes with acknowledging another person for their accomplishments.  Right there, within two seconds of meeting him, Striker demonstrates more respect for Blitz than Stolas has yet to do in the entire show.

The Harvest Moon Festival Games.  Now this is something I find fascinating to think about from Striker’s perspective in particular.  We as the audience are shown pretty early on that Striker has a strong desire to be the one who comes out on top.  He likes the idea of being superior and he openly relishes in the praise and attention he gets for being better than everybody else.  ....Except Blitz.  When they tie in the games, Striker doesn’t seem bothered with sharing the spotlight with him at all.  If anything, he--again--respects just how skilled Blitz is in rightfully earning his place beside him on the stage.  That, to me, is HUGE.  I’m not going to go so far as to say that Striker necessarily sees them as equals because I think that might be going a bit too far for his ego but he does still fully acknowledge that Blitz is in the same general class as him: that is to say, better than most.  Worthy of the same kind of acknowledgement and praise that Striker gets.  I literally can’t get over just how big of a thing that is for what we’ve been shown of Striker’s character, and I think it’s unfortunately something that’s incredibly easy to miss or gloss over. :(

And now--for what I personally think is the most significant thing of all--we have: “We”.  How many times does Striker suggest during that final scene between them that he really wants Blitz to join forces with him as equals?  He never demands that Blitz join up with him, he doesn’t threaten him into joining up with him--Striker barely even hurts Blitz at all during their fight scene compared to how he tried to straight up murder Moxxie--and, most of all, Striker continues to acknowledge that Blitz deserves better than his current arrangement with Stolas.  And he’s right.  But instead of putting it as “I’M right and this is why you should do this”, he always puts his focus on Blitz himself, or the two of them together as a partnership:  “You are so above sucking on a a digusting rich pompous Goetia” | “We could be the most dangerous beings in Hell, Blitz” | “You could partner up with me and klll the unkillable--starting with the one that treats you like a plaything”.  It’s just--I honestly can’t believe it’s taken me this long to put together why Striker appeals so much more to me as a romantic interest for Blitz, but really breaking it down episode by episode and comparing the differences in wording between Striker and Stolas’s dialogue when it comes to Blitz is just.....holy shit. 

Honorary ShoutOut of Episode 6: 

The fact that the only thing hallucination Striker has to say to him is “But you don’t want to do things alone Blitzo!” is really, really interesting to me in the fact that he’s.....not......wrong??  Like, To be fair, Striker, RoboFizz, and Verosika all spill their harsh truths, but the thing is.....Striker’s is markedly different in that his wording really isn’t harsh or aggressive at all the way the other two are.  He’s just kinda stating a fact in an overexaggerated way because tripping balls hallucination sequence.  It’s very interesting to me that that’s the worst that Blitz can imagine him to say--as well as the fact that halluci!Striker calls him “Blitzo”, which is really weird considering that Striker’s never called him “Blitzo” once in the entire show.  Makes me kinda wonder where that came from tbh. 

Alright so, in conclusion of this very long and rambly styie post: I want to take things back to where I started by reiterating that this is not me trying to convince anyone that BlitzStrike is “right” and Stolitz is “wrong”, or that you should stop shipping what you’re shipping in the fandom.  This was just me honestly getting way more excited than I should’ve been over having my “Eureka!” moment for realizing why this new episode didn’t put me back on the Stolitz train like it did for so many other people--and why, in fact, it actually made me think even more favorably of the idea of Blitz and Striker being together.  

Thanks for sticking around with me for this very long read, I hope you found it interesting, and I really really hope that it didn’t piss anyone off or rub too many people the wrong way.  Like I said at the beginning, ship who you want to ship!!  That’s part of the fun of being in a fandom.  I’m just hoping that this might help make it easier to understand at least one perspective on why Stolitz is seen as being so problematic as a ship [as of where they are right now].  

Here’s to seeing where things go from here!! 

[eirenical]

Things I can't survive: I just saw a gif of WWX learning that LSZ is Yuan and he touches his forehead ribbon while caressing his face and no one says anything cause he's his dad and I just can't..... it's too much. Had to share cause I haven't noticed it before.

OMG, nonny, I know EXACTLY the moment you’re talking about.  This beautiful moment right here:

And I’m just… I’m absolutely dying over the facial expressions going on here, so LIKE ALWAYS, I need to babble about it, OK?  OK.  ^_^

So, let’s zoom in a little… (and go behind a cut so I don’t kill everyone’s dashes… ;D)

ETA (2-18-21): *pokes up from under the pile of notifications she got buried in overnight* I see this post is making the rounds again... ;D  Since it is making the rounds again, I just want to put a disclaimer here that I should have done from the beginning but didn’t know enough to do at that point in my CQL fandom life. 

I am American and in no way of Chinese descent.  Since writing this post, I have done more reading and research into Chinese cultural traditions, written by members of the Chinese diaspora with much more understanding of their culture than I.  Based on that, I now feel it is more likely that Sizhui was taken into the Lan clan and raised BY the clan, not that he was personally adopted by either LWJ or WWX in the more Western sense of the term.  So, please, take the following interpretation with a grain of salt, and understand that the scene analysis you are about to read came ONLY from my personal take on the scene as a Westerner with very little cultural understanding.  Thank you.  ^_^

First, we have Wei Wuxian.  He’s just had a really emotional moment with Sizhui, then does what he does… backs off and makes it a joke.  “Aaaaah~~~! You’re really strong!  Just like someone taught by Hanguang-jun!”  Because he has difficulty accepting that someone could feel that strongly for him, that someone could have missed him that much.  But then Lan Wangji turns it right back around and reminds him that he taught Sizhui, too.  (”He’s both our son, silly!”)  And he’s right back in that emotional moment that he already couldn’t entirely process.  So he falls back on joking again.  And I’m going to skip adding the subtitles here because it’s all him joking and that’s not what caught my attention here.  It’s his face and his body language.

I mean… just look:

How slowly he moves in.  How he telegraphs every move he’s making.  How carefully he’s watching Sizhui’s face so he’ll knew if he’s crossing a boundary.

And how even when he does reach out to touch, he’s so gentle, so careful, so light with that touch.  Just like his shijie used to be with him.  His shijie… the closest thing he ever had to a mother figure.  She’s his model for interacting with a child.

But now let’s zoom in a little shall we?  Because they’re both taking AMAZING facial journeys here and I JUST CAN’T OK?

Wei Wuxian first…

Again, yeah, he’s joking, but look how serious that face is.  Look how intently he’s focused.  Look at that slight scrunch to his brows and the way he’s ever so slightly frowning.  And again, look how carefully he’s moving, so he can pull away at the slightest hint that his touch is unwelcome.  And why the side of the head, anyway?  Where he could accidentally (or otherwise) end up touching Sizhui’s ribbon?  He might, again, be modeling on Jiang Yanli’s preferred method of reassurance, but I think… I think he’s testing the waters.  I think this is his way of dealing with the fact that he can’t put what he’s thinking into words either.  This is him reaching out to Sizhui and telling him, in no uncertain terms… “I think of you as my son,” and asking Sizhui if he feels the same.

And just LOOK AT THIS NONSENSE HERE.  This is the face he makes when Sizhui accepts that touch, accepts Wei Wuxian’s hand making contact with his ribbon.  This is not the smile of a man who just successfully made a joke and praised himself by doing so.  It’s TOO MUCH for that.  This is the face of a man who just asked their long-lost child if he’s still their father… AND WAS TOLD “YES.”

And now Sizhui, because I’M NOT DONE YET…

As carefully as Wei Wuxian has been watching Sizhui, Sizhui is watching him just as closely.  He’s practically holding his breath.  He sees that hand coming.  He knows where it’s going.  And he has ample time to prevent it, to move away, if that’s what he wants to do.  But he doesn’t.  He doesn’t want that.  He still has that tangle of feelings banging around inside him: sad and happy and ecstatic and grief-stricken and disbelieving and so many other feelings all tangled up around each other and he doesn’t know what to do with all of it.  But he knows that Wei Wuxian knows what the headband means.  He knows that if he allows him to touch it, it’s as good as declaring them family.  And when he couldn’t put his feelings into words earlier, Hanguang-jun had told him, “Then don’t.”  But this?  This is clear.  This feeling doesn’t need to be put into words.  Just like that ecstatic hug they just shared, this is an action that speaks for itself, because all three of them will know what it means.

And then when Wei Wuxian’s hand makes contact, Sizhui leans right into it.  He drops his gaze because it’s too much.  He can’t look anymore.  He swallows hard, he closes his eyes, and he ducks his head, because he’s sitting right on the edge of crying here and he’s done enough of that already in the last five minutes, THANK YOU.  But this is it.  This is the moment.  This is acknowledgement.  “We haven’t seen each other in 16 years, but we’re still family… and we always were.”  And then he can look up again, because he can’t bear to look away for too long.

AND NOW I’M GONNA GO CRY IN A CORNER SOMEWHERE OVER THESE TWO AND HOW CAREFUL THEY ARE WITH EACH OTHER AND EACH OTHERS’ FEELINGS, OK?  OK.  TT^TT

[theyarebothgunshot]

this is exactly how it went down in my head.

misha: hey, everything okay? do you need me to do something?

jensen: no, lay low. we’re figuring it out.

misha: got it.

— the next day —

misha: things settled. should i say anything? draw attention? stay neutral?

jensen: you don’t have to, but if you want, tread lightly. we’ve had enough chaos.

misha: say no more.

when nobody got your back you KNOW dmitri got your back.

ANYWAYS i turned my back for TWO MINUTES and y'all went the fuck off in my inbox so, you know the drill: more under the cut

NO BUT JENSEN’S RESPONSE LMAAAAAO honestly fallout theory is so on oh my God I can’t stop-

on god they are so loud like-

Worst damage control i've ever seen. god bles.

so true bestie

I think Jensen probably just wants to be done with this petty little drama, so if he has to pretend everything between them is okay he is going to be the bigger man and lay it to rest. Whatever is going on between them he definitely doesn't want to sort that out on social media and the earlier he pretends everything is sorted out the earlier people will forget about it again.

Also it's kinda funny how J*red Tweet was like implying they had a misunderstanding but still talk to each other regularly, while Jensen went full on the we grow apart a little bit, because we were busy, let's catch back up. Makes me wonder if they actually talked or if there managers just said hey that's not good pr, let's put that to rest. Also did J*red know before yesterday that they had a falling out or did he just not realize.

- 🐌 anon

literally jensen went out of his way to say 'uhhh we never talk, worstie' god if pr management is involved then they did a bad job. also j*red still does not realise they have fallen out. jshfjdsfh

Jackles was like God bless but we ain’t talking like this worstie

good for her.gif

csdsc heeft gevraagd:

All I need now is for Misha to tweet “ is it safe to come out now?” And I’ll be complete lmfao 😂😂😂

that would have been better than what we got lmfao

I have one fear and it's Jensen being forced to add j*red to his show and his other projects because he couldn't stop whining like a baby,,, ugh i hate him

i pretend i do not see

Kinda selfish of me tbh but i don't want them to be "friends" again, Jensen sweetie run as fast as you can

co-signed

Ok Jensen's answer to Jared tweet made me feel so bad for him. Like, I can see it's damage control and public relations (obviously) but there's stuff behind it. I can't name it, but idk, I felt terrible for texas man this time, I don't think that reply was written with a "love and light energy" or even without much care. I felt some heavy vibes.

- 🌻, who is now a fortune teller and a prophet apparently

yeah i feel hella bad for him to, for having to deal with this shit. nonnie please if you ever have anything to predict, lemme know sjdfhs

You know Jensen's tweet has the energy of like kindergarten wenn an other kid started a fight with you and the kindergarten teacher wants you to forgive each other and hung it out and you really don't want to, but your kindergarten teacher is being annoying and he isn't worth the annoyance either.

- 🐌 anon

you are not wrong

Incredibly thankful that I have the day off from work 😂 I'm with hatching chick anon, the 3 dots read as passive aggressive/insincere to me, and I love it! I haven't spent this many hours on tumblr since I first discovered cockles! (On a side note, the lack of fimmf posts today has me feeling like it's not friday lol) -🐢

i, too, miss fimmf but alas things happen, they do they do they do

I was right. :(

It got almost romantic...

👀

nonnie you know i love you but this is really not the case, like, at all??? idk how you could look at those tweets and think it was almost romantic. it was THEE most scripted, pr bullshit ever. it was staged and fake. idk what else to tell ya

Danneel liked Jensen's tweet

i saw

That is so so awkward I feel so sorry for all of us being exposed to this and so happy I chose to leave the Internet for half a day - tea anon

god bless your stance on that cause i would have hated missing out on this lmao

You know what? I think it’s okay being a 38 year old moron if you’re bringing us this type of content

im happy with the food but still think its not okay tbh

pspspsps Misha this is the perfect day for you to drop the gay Cas essay pspspspsp it is still pride month pspspsps

you know you want to king pspsps

So that JIB6 link (I think it was from your post, right?). I went and watched that bit, and a little more.

Jensen makes a comment about Jared being first on the call sheet because Sam was supposed to be the main focal character.

And that him nor Misha cared about what number they were, so in all that time it never changed.

And I’ll be… if that just doesn’t perfectly sum them up and their feelings on things. And how a certain someone can be petty… 🦚

idk if it was from my post? but maybe? my analysis probably? but yeah things are making more and more sense huh

Ohh that's also an alien? Welcome to the extraterrestial family then, purple alien anon!

Also it's probably because I'm coming off the high this drama gave me but I'm not looking forward to them trying so hard to convince us everything is normal between them. Even though we now Know, they will have to keep pretending. Today (yesterday?) was a shitshow but some masks fell off, at least for a moment and I kinda wish Jensen was less professional 😂

👽

oh for real, fallout theory IS confirmed and nothing they said today will change my mind, it only made me believe in it even more lmfao and with that in mind i am just gonna sip my tea if they try to be buddy buddy on main again

I THINK MISHA UNRETWEETED BUT HE TWEETED "LOVE AND MISS YOU BOTH" I'M LOSING MY DIGNITY HERE - tea anon

yeah he now answered them sjdfhsjfhsf instead of rt

MISHA COLLINS IS A KING I STAN THE RIGHT MAN

YOU SURE DO

I just know Misha’s process was oh crap I have to let people know I’m supporting them and I can’t choose sides. Ok. Retweet. NO. Delete. I love both of you. Yes, good.

sjdfsdfh this makes me think of that post that dissected jackles' birthday post for misha where he used the heart. 'call him bro, that makes it less obvious. nailed it.'

Lol I'm off for a few days and come back to total chaos... God I missed it here

Like the "et tu... #bravo" tweet? Made my day! Frikking hilarious (every time I see it I picture J*red with a pissy frech accent saying it out loud lol) it's just such an incredibly petty hissy fit he threw (I know he tweeted more later on but... Really all that stuff coming afterwards just sounds like damage control)

Missed you Rose

-🐻

LOVE the french accent detail im gonna do this too sdjfhsjfh missed you toooo!!!!

Oh man Misha is really gonna get hate for that I KNOW IT

sigh well. nothing he isnt used to by now, unfortunately

i mean i believe they feel like brothers, but constantly falling back on the “brother” thing to keep up appearances is really starting to feel like “#spnfamily” at this point.

honestly brothers can be very annoying, or so i have heard, so it fits with the fallout theory lmao

They actually said if we’re gonna make this gay we cannot have Jar*d Pad*lecki involved

oh my God this is the funniest timeline to ever exist God bless I’m just waiting to canon bi Mary

king shit tbh

[loser-lenny]

Tommy :D

so as my followers probably know by now, i’ve been watching tommy since august and i am completely biased for his character on the dream smp lmao. you’re never gonna catch me having an 8 month sub to tommyinnit and not being on his side in things

i’ve also been saying for a while that i’ve been meaning to write a big analysis post on his character and that i haven’t gotten around to it so for the sake of answering this ask and because i’ll probably never do it, i kind of want to talk about what the main point of that essay would’ve been if i had ever written it

so a few things that struck me about tommy’s character as i was rewatching the disc war and l’manburg war etc:

dream was offline at the time and had either one or two of tommy’s discs in his possession. so, tommy’s plan to get the discs back was for him and tubbo to xray through the ground and find out where dream lived since it was a secret back them. if i remember correctly, wilbur was whitelisted on the server and they were both citizens of l’manburg as this was happening

after running around a bit, tommy and tubbo find dream’s base and start searching for anything they could use as leverage to get the discs back. the two of them had been talking about whatever and in the conversation, these two lines came up that i thought were really cool:)

tommy: the only thing we care about right now is l’manburg. or— no, we care about the discs

tubbo: yeah

that is extreme paraphrasing there but essentially, tommy doubled back on saying that his number one priority as they were searching through chests was l’manburg and instead said that it was actually his discs. this was very consistent for his character at the time but what was so interesting about it was how, either a few minutes or a few days earlier, i forget, he had pledged his absolute loyalty to l’manburg which you’d assume would make that his top priority

they ended up finding a stack of diamonds in one of dream’s chests and decided to take them as leverage. tubbo asked if he could use a few of them to make armor or something and tommy very quickly said no. this is paraphrasing again but “i’m gonna give the diamonds back to him, i just want him to give me my discs”

i also think this is super cool !! because it shows that tommy doesn’t really care about material wealth or his association with his country. at this time, all he cared about (supposedly) were his discs.

you can connect these qualities to how wilbur felt about l’manburg. forgive me if my discord is reading this bc i have quoted wilbur on this about a million times, but, “if we get no revolution, then we want nothing. we would rather die, than give into you and join your smp”

all wilbur wanted at the time was his country, and he was willing to do anything to get it, including go to war. however, despite being the general of an army, he didn’t wear armor, he didn’t fight, and he utilized his words above all else.

the biggest similarity to them in this regard is how, even though it seemed like they both cared about their attachments more than anything else (whether those attachments be a nation or two music discs), they ended up choosing their friends.

wilbur, after l’manburg was blown up and eret had betrayed them, told his men that he had to surrender to keep the rest of his army safe and stop any more blood from shedding.

tommy challenged dream to a duel to prevent wilbur from losing his country and eventually ended up sacrificing a life (after already losing one btw) and losing his discs because he cared that much about the people who lived in l’manburg.

and i could go on and on about more current stuff: how wilbur ended up killing himself after losing his nation (if we get no revolution, then we want nothing. he quite literally did die after being exiled) and how tommy almost went down the same path of spiraling and betraying his friends and nation if he hadn’t pulled himself out of it and chosen tubbo over his discs again.

the parallels between their arcs are amazing and it sucks that no one talks about it that much:)

[potteresque-ire]

I’ve got several asks about BJYX supertopic’s recent battle for the top CP ranking. I’ve meant to answer them the way they’re asked, but the answer gets long. Dear Anons ~ please forgive me for splitting the answers into multiple posts!

As with everything I’ve said about CPs, they’re mostly my limited observations—unlike history and news, it’s impossible to find articles about any of this that pass journalistic standards. Therefore, please consider the following to be my personal impressions and ramblings, and as usual, everyone please feel free to point out mistakes and add your own thoughts!

Everyone probably knows already, but the new drama that has brought waves to the Weibo’s CP ranking list is Word of Honour (山河令, which I will abbreviate to WoH), and the CP pairing is known as Lang Lang Ding (浪浪釘, LLD). I haven’t watched this drama yet but as a Wuxia (and slash) fan, it is on my to-watch list. Nonetheless, I’ve been watching the developments surrounding the popularity of the drama and the CPs, and I think I can make the posts long enough just with these observations alone. (I’m incredibly long winded :D )

For the CP competition, I think it’s important to point this out: the LLD supertopic is a mixed character-CP and real-person-CP supertopic, unlike the YiZhan supertopics (BJYX, ZSWW, LSFY) that are real-person-CP only. This means comparing LLD and the YiZhan supertopics is really …  comparing apples and oranges, especially when WoH is still airing (and therefore providing fresh candies for the character CP with every new episode). I therefore wish this kind of popularity competition doesn’t take root in the international fandom; it’s … a bit silly to me, really. It makes little sense.

That said, however, I understand why c-turtles are fighting so hard for the #1 CP spot. C-ent (as is true with many other aspects in the country), numbers and ranking are everything. That 20(?), 40(?) minutes during which BJYX supertopic fell to #2 the first time already made “news” headlines that claimed that WoH had surpassed The Untamed (TU)—an even stranger comparison, if one thinks about it. BJYX, technically speaking, doesn’t have anything to do with TU. It’s a GG/DD real person CP.

But it doesn’t matter—numbers are numbers, and they talk to c-ent watchers, the commercial interests looking for their most promising future investments. The perceived power of c-turtles hinges on them and by power, I mean both fan power and spending power, which are almost synonymous terms in c-ent. Many of you have probably seen those charts that rank the popularity of c-ent entertainers by how much goods, in monetary value, they’re able to sell. How much do the c-turtles contribute to these monetary values? Are they, as a collection of fans, worth keeping, worth wooing?

The notion that only the fan’s spending power means something may cause unease in many i-turtles—and it is, indeed, a very cold-hearted assessment, as it implies that fans are little more than living wallets to be emptied. My observations have been that such a notion doesn’t bother c-turtles for the most part and, IMHO, they’re being realistic for their sociopolitical environment. They also respond to this notion accordingly—while it is difficult to tease out the exact percentage of turtles among Gg and Dd’s active fans (fans that make major purchases goods and merchandises), c-turtles have previously demonstrated their ability to contribute a substantial fraction (in the 10s of percent) of money spent on Gg and Dd. As these splits are only very occasionally visible to the public, the CP ranking likely serves as a constant reminder of c-turtles enormous fan/spending power — without which, Gg and Dd’s popularity will also take a hit.

In that sense, c-turtles are fighting for their right-to-exist. Remember when I talked about the “traditional” thinking that CPFs < solos, and that one CPF = one (loyal) solo lost? This means c-turtles must be able to demonstrate their ability to offer something that the solos cannot, and more importantly, that their offer will not come in any other name. If c-turtles proved last year that they wouldn’t change their name to solos, then this year they’re set to prove they’ll not change their name to LLDs or other CPFs. 

If the latter sounds a bit like a battlecry, it may be exactly that. Ever since the announcements of the long line of upcoming Dangai’s, ample inflammatory posts have been made on the platform to get c-turtles to “defect” to the new dramas, or predict that as soon as another pair of random, beautiful men start to throw candies on screen, c-turtles will promptly forget about Gg and Dd and join the fun. The latter, especially, can be quite insulting to read, as one can imagine. However, with c-turtles being a loosely connected group of millions, despite their apparent firm stance that they shall stay turtle, their underlying nerves that these “insults” may turn out to be true can also be felt — the worry that c-turtledom will haemorrhage when the next popular Dangai with enticing M/M CPs (character or real person) come along. 

WoH, as the first drama that fits the criteria, is therefore a test— a test that many c-turtles likely view they must pass with flying colours to prove their point, to stand with their heads held high among those who do not care about BJYXSZD (not necessarily solos—many solos, BTW, have actually helped the turtles out this time); to show that turtles are not only every bit as loyal as other Gg and Dd fans, they’re not so … cheap as to take any random “industrial saccharine” (工業糖精; referring to ZQSG-free candies created solely to lure in fans) and walk away.

The reform of the BJYX supertopic (which now allows candy analysis and explains the sudden appearance of many old candies), the flood of BTS videos from almost every Zhan Jie previously involved with the YiZhan CPs, the temporary retaking of the top 3 CP spots by BJYX+ZSWW+LSFY ... can therefore be viewed as a rally of c-turtles. The message is: we’re not going anywhere. We’ve got enough candies that no other (M/M) CPs can hope to match in quantity, in quality.

(And the parade is indeed impressive.) (The reform also didn’t come out of thin air; there have been discussions about the supertopic’s candy sharing rules before.)

Some c-turtles have rightfully been concerned about how such a parade of candies can affect Gg and Dd. They point out that some candies should still remain 閱後即焚 (“burn after reading”, instant return to hiding after release like certain BTS videos); that at some point, c-turtles have to let go of their obsession of staying on top of the CP rankings. TU is already almost 2 years old, and being a little lower on the CP ranking list will take the heat off the YiZhan fandoms in the long run, incite less outside forces trying to fan the flames between the shrimps and the motors and the turtles.

The rules and guidelines of c-turtledom therefore remain a work in progress, and c-turtles, the millions of them, are still learning as they go.

Personally, I have faith in what will come. I also haven’t been too concerned about the candy parade, because most information is already out there for those who’re determined to find them — on Bilibili, Douyin, Zhihu etc. I spent some time talking about the Gg Assistant fic not with the goal of eliciting pain or panic, but rather, as a demonstration of why it has been the tradition of CPFs—not only the turtles—to play things very cautiously, with 閱後即焚 and 圈地自萌 (“to play within the circle”; ie, keep all information and candies within CPFs) being the default rules even after removing the “queer factor” from the discussion. Real person CPs have fate as one of their writers and so, unlike character CPs, their candies can have unintended, unpredictable consequences. As the YiZhan fandoms have now grown big enough that their candies can no longer be realistically well-contained, it may not be such a bad idea for especially the sensitive candies to return under the “jurisdiction” of the BJYX supertopic, so to speak. c-turtles can then gain better control of their comes-and-goes. Their narratives.

(CPN below.)

About narratives. @rainbowsky have previously written a thoughtful piece on the possible reasons the YiZhan fandoms have been allowed to thrive, and I’d like to add the following hypothesis—it may be a way to take pre-emptive control of the Gg/Dd narrative in preparation for the scenario where their relationship is exposed without their consent. Some i-turtles, I think, may have already gained a sense of how ruthless, cruel and above all, quick the c-ent rumour mill can be. If Gg and Dd get outed by a third party, chances are they won’t have time at all to create a fresh narrative, and the one that come out of the rumour mill will likely be … very ugly, containing every worst misconception people have against homosexual relationships. Whereas now, c-turtles already have a narrative at hand—the canon-fanon that, while c-turtles may not agree on every detail, is largely agreed upon on the important milestones. The supporting materials are also ready: the videos, the images, the voice and arrow guides on them.  

For me, another interesting question is whether this c-turtle rally and parade of candies are truly necessary in the end.

I’m curious about what will happen to the LLD supertopic when WoH completes its airing. There’s really no precedence for this kind of a mixed character + real person M/M CP supertopic setup — the history of Dangai is short, of popular Dangai’s, even shorter.

Guardian (鎮魂), the first successful Dangai aired exactly a year before TU (in the summer of 2018), never had a dedicated CP supertopic (please holler if I got this wrong! I know there’re Guardian fans here ~ hello! *waves*). Discussions of Guardian’s CPs were found within the drama’s supertopic (剧版镇魂); the real-person-CP also never had its own name; its discussions were hidden under the character CP (巍瀾) tag.

Then came TU. Its real person CP (BJYX) split away from its character CP (WangXian) long before the airing for the drama—the birthdate of the BJYX supertopic was 2018/04/28 (TU’s airing date: 2019/06/27).

After TU, two Dangai dramas have already aired before WoH that seemed to have largely passed the attention of i-fandom: The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (成化十四年) and Winter Begonia (鬢邊不是海棠紅). Winter Begonia, in particular, was well received. Their character CPs never really took off, however, being conceived and perceived as more brotherhood than romance. Age also played a factor for Winter Begonia—Yun Zheng (尹正), known to many turtles as Dd’s motorcycle buddy, is 34, and Huang Xiaoming (黃曉明) is 43. The associated real person CPs also never became popular as a result; Huang Xiaoming’s famous marriage to a beautiful actress also meant that a real person CP was likely to be off the table for Winter Begonia from the start.

The best reference I can think of then, when it comes to speculating the fate of LLD, is therefore the fates of the CP supertopics of 2020’s summer hit, Love and Redemption (琉璃). I’ve talked about its character CP before; essentially, just days after the drama was done airing, the (het) character CP (初遇夫婦) was broken up and in a manner largely criticised as unnecessarily cruel to CP fans. Its supertopic closed immediately afterwards. The supertopic for the real-person-CP (冰橙汁) got to live, however, and is still active today.

The commercial forces behind WoH will likely break the character CP as soon as the drama is done airing; popular het and non-het character CPs in the recent years have gone through similar fates. What does this mean to LLD then? Does it mean the supertopic will be shutdown, since the drama itself already has its own supertopic? But what will happen then to its real-person CP, which has been incorporated within the LLD supertopic? Will the real-person CP be broken at the same time as the character CP to allow for immediate “purification” of real person CP fans into solo fans, to avoid future “headaches” like BYYX—a bound between the actors that cannot be severed—or 227 that, in the eyes of many passerbys, remains an issue of solo vs cpfs?

Only time will tell, and I very sincerely hope it’ll get a happy ending. Fans are made to love, and it saddens me every time to see them being severed from their loves, or pitted against each other especially when it’s clear it’s the social media platforms, the commercial interests behind the scenes — not just the production/media companies but the YXHs, the water armies — who will reap the benefits in the end. Personally, I feel no joy in seeing anyone’s favourites getting torn down, even if they aren’t my own. Gg and Dd’s safety — and the safety of every upstanding, hardworking c-ent entertainer like them — doesn’t hinge so much on their CP or solo or drama ranking, but whether their fans can refrain from bringing their conflicts into the public eye, from “occupying social resources”—ie, deflecting the public’s attention from the “core socialist values” the government intends it to focus on.

Fandom is big enough for us all.