#i know the parallels are probably not and very unlikely to be intentional

[saphflare]

If I had a nickel for every fucking time one of my favorite minecraft character on an smp, who also had a divine connection of sorts, ended up killing someone after the explosion of that person's city/base and had the children of that person also witness the death of their parent. Then ended up somehow emotionally connecting with said child of the person they killed and having a odd relationship in which they sorta taken them in at some point, in which they lived near them and just kinda became their guardian of sorts. And the child in some way sees them as someone they can rely on despite the fact of said character being a big source of their grief and pain (sorta, it gets complicated if you look more into that). I would have two (and maybe a half) nickels and things just rhythm somehow.

[mettywiththenotes]

I know the general conclusion people are coming to is "wow so nothing has changed the civilians haven't changed their minds nothing has changed in society" but. how many chapters has it been since the end of the war. actually a better question would be how many days/weeks has it been since the end of the war. because idk man things aren't going to change as quickly as that

You have to factor in how no one outside of Izuku, Shouto and Ochako knew about them wanting to save the villains. When the footage of the final war is inevitably shared around, the first thought probably isn't "wow they saved those bad guys" but likely just the fact that they stopped them from doing more damage meaning they can put them in jail or whatever

Even when you put that aside, society is unlikely to change in a short space of time anyway because there was the general idea that the heroes winning meant bringing things back to how they were. And bringing things back to how they were means a society that favors the good quirks and good victims over the people who are ignored and those who slip through the cracks. If they get that back, then of course things aren't going to change immediately

And in the end, they did get it back. The villains have been stopped. The heroes prevailed. Society is rebuilding as fast as possible like nothing happened. But we've been shown that the idea "things are going back to normal" is usually accompanied by the implication it may seem like that but really things will change in an inevitable way

The saviour squad as a whole (Izuku, Shouto, Ochako, Hawks) all have the potential to speak up about their experiences, prove the world/country wrong about their surface-level view of villains. Shouto and Ochako could relay their thoughts, what their intentions were, what their conclusions are now. Izuku could choose to tell everyone what he saw in Tomura, the crying child. More than that, he could do some introspection, think over his time with Tomura (USJ, mall scene, war arc and so on) and talk about his thoughts too. Hawks being one of the first of the heroes who tried and failed to save his villain is an interesting parallel to Izuku, and also shows that he could have a personal account on this too

With all this in consideration, I believe that it's not going to be a random relaying of these experiences in bits and pieces over the remaining chapters, but rather a single united action together - like their own televised interview or something. It's not like Hawks wouldn't have the power to organize it, the HC literally has the authority to put what they want in the media. Though whether that happens or not remains to be seen

But the point I'm trying to make is that this is going to take time. The whole of society isn't just going to wake up and realize the error of their ways after all of that. There has to be a beginning, a starting line, to the conclusion that maybe villains deserve something better

I say that this is going to take time, while knowing that we have only 3 chapters of the story left... and while it frustrates a lot of people, it's looking to me like this is going to be an open ending. I imagine the very last chapter will show the starting line of change. Personally I'm okay with that, I think it would be compelling. Depending on how it is set out, I don't think it would be a bad ending

Idk how exactly to end this post but... it just seems like people think that all hope is lost because the civilians didn't all collectively wake up the day after the war and change their minds, and I don't think it works that way. It will take time. I believe Hori may give the story an open ending so we are shown the starting line and in the end it will be up to us how things change specifically

[marmota-b]

Glitch IS meant to be Force sensitive, here's why

Clone Trooper Glitch Who Is Definitely Force Sensitive.

As far as I can tell, everyone has fallen in love with that idea and everyone is now saying "Glitch is Force sensitive and you can't convince me otherwise."

Listen, what if I can actually convince you he is, with literary analysis?

I don't think I've ever seen this particular angle discussed (not that I have looked too hard, but no one ever brings it up when talking about Glitch). Everyone just loves the idea that he's Force sensitive because it's a lovely / exciting idea. And, okay, it's never stated outright in the source material, so there's some room for doubt. (And it was obviously intentionally left open-ended.)

BUT

I think the subtext, for those who know what it is, is so thick it might as well be an open admission of authorial intent. You see, Glitch's comic, Defenders of the Lost Temple, is drawing heavily on the Knights of the Old Republic comics in its lore. The Gauntlet they're sent to recover comes from that series. The moon where it resides is named after one of the characters from the series and likely is the moon he moved to at the end of his arc, and there's a statue of him there. There are all these deliberate, easily proven links to the series.

And there's also the less direct but still present parallel of questioning whether Jedi should be fighting in a war at all - Knights of the Old Republic (comics) takes place at the beginning of the Mandalorian Wars when some Jedi went to fight and others argued that wasn't their place, and some people get caught in the conflict without ever wanting to. That's a more dubious connection, and may not have been deliberate, but...

That is - the writer knew what he was doing here, in relation to previously published material.

The main protagonist of that series is Zayne Carrick.

Zayne is a sort of off-beat Jedi (well, almost-Jedi). He is just about Force sensitive enough to be admitted to the Jedi Order. He has "a special relationship with the Force." His special relationship with the Force mainly manifests in him being very clumsy and having the worst sort of luck. No one really thinks he'll make it as a Jedi. His own fellow padawan friends don't think he'll make it as a Jedi. But he's so good and caring and trying. And in the long run, he learns to work with his bad luck, and it turns out it's not so much a bad luck as the Force working... as a sort of swing, around him, with a balance of good and bad events. Things rarely work out as expected, but he learns to expect the unexpected. And once he does, and learns to ride the waves instead of trying to swim against the current, it actually works mainly in the heroes' favour.

Does that remind you of anyone?

Yep.

I'm pretty sure Glitch is a deliberate callback to Zayne Carrick and his special relationship with the Force.

I don't know if he started out that way from the start, or if the idea of "what if a clone was Force sensitive" came first and this theme just slotted into place later (honestly, the latter is probably likelier). But it's undeniably there; with all the other references to KOTOR, it's unlikely the author would have missed the main protagonist's character arc re: Force sensitivity.

Glitch has a special relationship with the Force exactly like Zayne's. He just has, unlike Zayne, also the bad luck of never having been tested for Force sensitivity. (This is all EU/Legends. Don't expect New Canon to stick to any of the above.)

[silverskye13]

talks to u

You will regret talking to me I'm very very sorry

So recently my sister has been reading out loud to me [it is very fun I wish I had someone to read out loud to] and the book she picked was Haunting on the Hill. This book was an absolute minefield of a read because it was advertised as a spiritual sequel to Haunting of Hill House and HOHH is probably one of the books I've been the most emotionally invested in ever. Mostly because I see people take the book and Try To Do It Better constantly, and they do it wrong over and over and over again. I don't know how this became My Hill To Die On, but no one can do a remix of the genre right, especially those that pretend like they're trying to.

Hell House, for example, a book that I hate with my entire being, was a very intentional stab at HOHH. It took the trope of four people -- one a slightly older gentleman who is doing research on the property -- two women -- who is a lonely homebody, and one who is a (implied) bisexual psychic -- and one younger man about their age who has some Obvious Substance Abuse Problems, and sets them in a haunted house to try and figure out why its haunted. The author then spends the rest of the book punishing those characters for obvious perceived societal slights. The old man's sin is being old, and dies because he isn't virile and strong enough to withstand the house [unlike the young male protagonist]. The psychic is punished for believing she is psychic, being a confident woman who lives alone, and being implied bisexual [this is evident in the nature of her death, which I won't share here. It's fucking bad]. Then after these characters die, the white male savior comes back, something to do with the old owner of the house haunting it with his willpower, in a closet with a glass of water? It made no sense. But the metaphor the book was obviously leaning towards was, the Good Guy can win and get the girl if he has strength of mind, is vaguely psychic [but better than the psychic lady obviously] and fucking stands around long enough while his friends are killed.

House on the Hill, which should have been marketed as a reference to Hill House and not as a spiritual successor, is a passable haunted house book that attempts to remix the story by making all of the main characters theater kids. There is an older lady who has been ousted from her community for being too old, the young woman main protagonist who is the Ellie parallel, the Theadora parallel is her girlfriend, a bisexual actress who is maybe a little too full of herself, and their single male character has a substance abuse problem involving cocaine instead of alcohol, like Luke from the original book. The author even seems to have grasped some of the original intention of HoHH as a conversation about isolation and loneliness. However about halfway through the book, it takes a turn and seems to punish Theadora for being the character she was written as, in the same way Hell House punished its Theadora allegory character. The rest of the book proceeds with a lot of standard haunted house tropes -- not a bug exactly, but they don't reinforce any extended metaphor. They're mostly there to be spooky. Which would be fine for a standard haunted house book, but not for a haunted house book that claims its the sequel to HoHH.

You see, Haunting of Hill House, and by extension, Shirley Jackson, the author, have a very subtle but also deeply impactful metaphor about loneliness going on in the background, and everything from the haunted house to the fallout of the characters reemphasizes this theme.

Ellie, Eleanor, is an exhausted housewife-style woman in the 1960s, whose never gone anywhere or done anything with her life, because instead of marrying and moving across the country somewhere, she stayed home to take care of her ailing mother. Now that her mother is dead, she lives with her sister and brother-in-law, and believes herself to be a general tax on the family. She fills stuck, alone, unloved and unwanted. The story is in her point of view, and you quickly realize her way of coping with her trapped feelings involves fantasticizing the world around her. She dreams of who she would be if she just lived over there in that little cottage, how differently her life would turn out if she had a cute little life in that one room house. Etc. When she accepts the summons to Hill House, she steals her brother in law's car and drives there on her own, her first trip alone anywhere in her entire life.

Theadora is a psychic who, if I'm remembering right, lives alone and owns a flower shop. She lives a much more interesting lifestyle than most women in the 60s, in a big city with many different friends and lovers coming and going, completely independent. There is an implication that she has trouble keeping interpersonal relationships -- she's a little too flighty -- and really a woman who can't settle down with a man is a red flag.

Doctor Montague seems fine on the surface, if a little jaded. He's a professor at university who is being slowly pushed out of his scientific field because he believes in the supernatural, and wants to prove it using empirical evidence. You find out his wife is very supportive in this venture -- too supportive. He thinks all of her contributions are nonsense, and so is she. His loneliness is self inflicted. He has a fan club right there with his wife, if he gave two shits about her opinions.

Last is Luke, an alcoholic, and the person in line to inherit Hill House. His loneliness is that he, doesn't want the fuckin' house. But because of his alcoholism and gambling problems, the family has decided he, as the cursed child, gets to take care of the cursed mansion no one else wants to touch. So Luke, ostracized from the family and a little shitty about it, decides he might as well rent out the place for some extra cash to fuel his various addictions. The family is going to be cutting him off soon anyway...

These four characters, over the course of Hill House, become haunted by the house, not because of tragic deaths there, or because the house is alive in any literal sense of the word. But because the House has the quality of an overbearing mother, smothering its children with its expectations. Any piece of furniture moved in the place is replaced as soon as they leave the room. Any door opened to allow air or light inside is shut the minute they walk into the next. The house rights itself back to a self-inflicted perfection that is unlivable, and it wants to isolate you too, to be like it. Hill House tells you exactly what it is and what it wants to do in the first paragraph: And all who walk there, walk alone.

Shirley Jackson wrote this very intentionally. As a woman in the 60s trying to have a successful writing career, none of her books were taken seriously. She was pigeonholed into mother and housewife first. Articles that wrote about her works at the time held the patronizing tone of someone congratulating a child who found a new hobby -- not a serious writer wanting to make poignant stories. Her books are lovely now, the few that were published. But Shirley Jackson lived a life that was full of anxiety and agoraphobia, in a world where she felt belittled and token. Her books are written the way they are for a reason. There is great loneliness in being shoved in a box.

I really love that exploration. I love how the people in the book descend into the box of Hill House, the expectations they place on each other, and the way all the women feel tonally dissonant in their token roles. And that's why I hate so many modern adaptations, or inspired-bys, or spiritual sequels. Hill House is a metaphor before it's a ghost story -- and that is why it succeeds as a ghost story! It is scary because you get invested in the characters' wellbeings, their doomed qualities, their individual, very subtle, madnesses. Watching new writers read the book and punish those characters over and over again for not acting right [especially Theadora, Jesus Christ.]

In fact, since I'm already ranting, I'm going to give you a quick rant in defense of Theadora.

Theadora breaks into the book as a very bright star in Ellie's world. She is, literally, everything Ellie wishes she could be. She lives an interesting life, alone, without being too cripplingly lonely. Theadora, used to a little bit of flirting and over friendliness, falls in with Ellie and Luke immediately. She is charming, and bright and beautiful, and Ellie, who's character flaw is romanticizing everything, falls head over heels for her. They get scared together. They comfort each other when the ghosts start acting up. They get haunted together. And Ellie decides, in the way of someone romanticizing something, when all this is over, she would like to live with Theo. But when she tells Theo this, Theo laughs it off. "This is just a holiday, Ellie dear. We will have to get back to our lives eventually." It's unfair to say this is a game for Theadora. I feel like her feelings in the book, all her charm and her flirting, are genuine. But they're genuine in the way of someone going on vacation and flirting around with the people they meet -- she has a normal life she enjoys that she plans on getting back to. Ellie, who is incredibly alone, and who feels like she has only just tasted happiness now that she's come to Hill House, doesn't want to go back home after this. This is the happiest she's ever been.

Ellie informs Theo she is going to follow Theo home, and Theo turns very, very mean. She starts hitting much harder on Luke [something that makes Luke uncomfortable, but something he never really stops, because Luke also likes the attention he's getting] and belittling Ellie and her wild fantasies. She pushes Ellie away. It isn't kind, but what else can she do? She told Ellie she doesn't want to be followed home and Ellie, trapped in her daydreams, doesn't listen.

The rest of the book unfolds. Hill House isolates Ellie, and makes her feel like she can have no happiness outside its smothering walls. She gets taken by it.

In every book that takes on the mantle of trying to tackle the themes that made Hill House great, I would like to ask you all this: Why do they always punish Theo?

Hell House straight up kills its Theo allegory in a very brutal, overt way, implying she deserves that brutality for her promiscuity. The House on the Hill kills its Theo for being too full of herself, for believing she was entitled to greatness.

Why?

You can make a case for the queer aspects of her probably. Or for misogyny. Or for infidelity. Or for the fact that she appears to choose Luke over her relationship with Ellie. But I notice none of these books punish their Ellie allegory for also falling for Theo. For also aspiring to be something other than a stuffy housewife somewhere. For also falling for Luke, and wanting him to be a part of her happiness fantasy.

In honesty, I really think these authors read Theo and think she's the antagonist. So they write their stories to punish the angry woman who was mean to poor, lonely Ellie. But, here's the kicker, Theadora isn't the antagonist. The house is. Loneliness is. The house leads Ellie to a perfect world, and Ellie, who is the way that she is, cannot fathom a world where that perfection is broken, so she ignores it. So she scares people with her over-attachment. So they try to send her away, because whatever is going on with her, it's not safe and it needs to stop. So she decides she would rather die than leave.

Theadora is only "the bad guy" because she's the one that reminds everyone that the fantasy of this perfect house must break eventually. The Doctor will have to go back to his university that doesn't take him seriously and his wife who takes him too seriously. Theadora will have to go back to her shop with her rotating friends who aren't as close as she'd like, but whom she can't force to stay. Luke will have to go back to his place as the unwanted, failing heir and Eleanor --

Well. Eleanor doesn't leave Hill House.

Everyone gets so mad at Theodora because of Ellie's investment in her. Because Ellie is lonely, and sad, and relatable. The first time I read Hill House, some of Ellie's lines made me want to cry they hit so close to home. All her assertions that when she spoke to people she said too much and was too stupid, she would be better tomorrow. All her quiet chastisements that she needs to be more interesting. All her attachments and how scared she is of being spurned. All her wonder when she looks around at the world and tries to imagine a better life. But it's not Theodora's fault that Ellie doesn't get that. It's Ellie's fault for becoming too attached to something that isn't there, and it sucks, and if this were a story with a happy ending, she would realize that and grow past that, but she doesn't. That's not how the story is written.

On one of the nights when the haunting happens, Ellie and Theo are sharing a room. They are laying in bed and holding hands while the house comes alive around them. Knocking on the walls. Slamming doors. Claws, and whispering, and scraping and screaming. Ellie and Theo hold each other's hands tightly. She hears the torturous sounds of a baby in the other room, a child in pain, screaming for its mother, and she's terrified and she's holding tight to Theadora's hand.

And finds, when the haunting stops, that Theo was out of reach the whole time.

Ellie asks, who's hand was I holding?

[The Haunting of Hill House is a metaphor.]

One of these days I'm going to sit down and write the Haunting of Hill House remake in my head, that I am just egotistical enough to believe I could do well. I would find a more modern metaphor first. Something to do with the loneliness of an infinitely interconnected world. Something to do with how boxed in we all feel, how trapped, and how so many people blame it on computers, even though they should be able to connect us more.

I would build a Hill House where the four characters meet on a forum, the first time they've found someone with similar interests. They would meet in person for this haunting expedition. They too would take in the oddness of a house that rights itself on its own, pretends they were never there. They two would fall in love with each other, and bond, and find community in a group of people who are constantly isolated and are glad to finally find someone they relate to.

They too would have to dear with the objective, lonely horror of realizing this doesn't magically fix their problems. That they were alone in the rest of their lives not just because the world isolated them, but because they're bad at forming connections. They would get catty, and disagree, and worry about the lives they need to go back to, and complain about spouses and partners. And one of them, as is Hill House's tithe, wouldn't be able to cope.

One of them, as is Hill House's tithe, wouldn't be able to leave.

Anyway, not sure where exactly this rant was going. Uh. Nice Sunday we're having anon. Got any niche special interests you've been meaning to unload recently?

[von-rosewald]

A (not so) brief theory about Sukuna and Tengen:

HEAR ME OUT OK

TL;DR: Sukuna/Tengen's relationship parallels and exists within the same repeating cycle of Geto/Gojo and Yuji/Megumi, which seems to form the basis of the overarching JJK storyline

I don't necessarily think that their relationship was romantic in nature (although it could have been), but there are clear parallels in the relationships between Sukuna/Geto/Yuji as well as with Tengen/Gojo/Megumi.

(A few of these parallels are just seen with Sukuna/Geto and Tengen/Gojo because Yuji and Megumi are still living out their main story, but so far it adds up. I'm also going to focus less so on Yuji and Megumi in this post since that has been discussed plenty already.)

I've listed below the cut where I think these parallels are and what other clues have been hinting at this:

Direct Parallels:

“The Fallen”

Angel refers to Sukuna as "The Fallen," which not only indicates him as someone who is evil or lacking in morality, but also as someone who had previously not been that way (i.e he had to "fall" down from somewhere). Therefore, we know that Sukuna must have been someone who was well respected and probably a "good" person before he turned and became a curse user. It it thus not unlikely that Sukuna would have at least crossed paths (if not more!) with Tengen when they were both on the same side of Jujutsu society and the two strongest of their time. Sound familiar?

We know that Geto was also someone who "fell" from grace and respectability like this, after being in his close relationship with Gojo (who remained in that position after Geto's fall). This fall is something that happened following a very traumatic event that restructured how Geto looked at the world around him (and himself within it)—we also see this same thing happening to Yuji over the course of the story (especially with Megumi currently being taken from him and potentially dead—just like Gojo was during the fight with Toji). Could it be that Sukuna experienced the same thing during the Heian era to make him become "The Fallen"?

Remains of their Bodies

In chapter 220, we see Sukuna’a mummified body dressed as a monk left at the site of one of Tengen’s purification barriers, and it is noted how it is not actually needed for the basis of the barrier. Thus, it seems that Tengen had placed Sukuna's body at the centre of one of their most sacred locations, in a position and attire of significance and respectability. Why would she do this with someone who supposedly was the one of the most evil sorcerers in history if it did not matter to the creation or maintenance of the actual barrier? The only answer which makes reasonable sense it that she carried some sort of lingering emotional attachment to Sukuna in some way.

Similarly, in JJK 0, Gojo has to kill Geto, but notably does not take care of his body afterwards in the proper way. This is not exactly elaborated upon, but it is certain that Geto's body was not cremated, and given the reason for this lack of proper body disposal was his emotional attachment to him, it is probably likely that he was intent on doing something else to properly respect his life — perhaps giving the body to Geto's newfound family or interning him differently. Whatever it was, he clearly defied whatever treatment his body was going to endure at the hands of Jujutsu society who viewed him as an evil and corrupt person.

"The One who Taught him about Love."

In Sukuna's fight with Yorozu, she realizes that someone has already taught him about love in the past. During his fights in Shinjuku, this is also repeatedly brought up again, and he seems to think very bitterly about it—which indicates that whoever "taught him about love" is probably someone he cut out from his life in some way, that he may have parted ways with philosophically and that he detached himself from the idea of enduring love, pushing that aside the best that he could.

We know that Geto pushed Gojo (and his love) away when he sought to embark on his quest to rid the world of curses. We also know that he believed that after this Gojo hated him (even though he did not), potentially also looking bitterly back at the past and his naivety about love—he didn't think that love could be that enduring (even though his still endured, he did not think that it was reciprocated).

Eating Curses etc to Gain Power

Sukuna's CT is still unknown to us, however, we do know that in chapter 249, he ate something sent by Kenjaku and absorbed its power in some way. We also know that he is canonically a cannibal, and that he often will use cooking metaphors in his speech, indicating that his CT may have something to do with eating people/something else to gain power.

Geto's CT is that which involves him eating curses in order to absorb and control them, thus forming the basis of his power.

Yuji's CT is also still unknown to us for the most part, but we do know that he has an inherent ability to absorb the power of cursed objects that he eats—notably, Sukuna's fingers. It is also implied that he ate the rest of his brothers, the Cursed Womb Death Paintings, and absorbed their powers through that (such as blood manipulation, which it is heavily implied he able to use now).

"The King of Curses"

In chapter 3, Sukuna is referred to as "the king of curses." In JJK 0, Gojo calls Geto "the worst curse user" (and Geto also is someone who has the power to control curses as their master—I wonder what other word can be used to describe this relationship?). We see then that both Sukuna and Geto are seen by those around them as simultaneously superlatively strong and evil with relation to curses in their respective times.

Other Hints:

Tengen's New Form

When Kenjaku met Tengen again, he called out how Tengen’s current form seems to look a lot like Sukuna’s true form (with a knowing tone in how he pointed this out). Clearly, it is being hinted at here that there is some sort of history between Sukuna and Tengen where Tengen is still holding very closely onto his memory in some way. It is also potentially relevant to mention here how Gojo's blindfold changed in colour from white to black after Geto's death, showing a potential similarity in memorializing their fallen and lost friend—and a refusal from both of them to move on even after they were gone.

Ties of Fate

It is already established in canon that fate and repetitive cycles of fate exist within the JJK universe, where we see how Kenjaku has been tied to the owner of the six eyes for a millennia and is always somehow doomed to lose to them. If this is true, then would it not be plausible that another cycle of a tie of fate exists between these three duos?

Breaking the Ties of Fate

Sukuna remarked recently how Yuji has a spirit that is near-unbreakable (unlike himself according to this theory) and we have also seen how Yuji, despite the trauma he has gone through, has not fallen in the same way that Geto or Sukuna did. Will the crux of the story rest in Yuji's ability to break this tragic cycle of fate? Or will it fail the same way that Kenjaku's sealing of Gojo failed to break his own cycle of failure to the Six Eyes?

If you actually read all of this thank you for entertaining my rambling theory!

[rotzaprachim]

the fun game where I look for yiddn in 1899 for personal enjoyment

note that pretty much none of this will follow canon and I am doing it for my personal Jewish enjoyment. It’s a boat full of Europeans fleeing Europe in 1899 what can I even say

a) Olek - by far the most likely, considering the absolutely mass immigration of Jews from Galitzia (where the postcard Olek carries is addressed to) to New York, where he wants to move. Olek being a secret jew is something I’m 99% the writers didn’t intent but that lines up incredibly well with what’s suggested of his story, the actual history of 1899, and the consistent thematic resonance of people concealing or lying about their ethnic or national origin, including not only Ramiro but Ying Li, olek’s deepest parallel and love interest. (Seriously like… these two parallel each other so deeply in everything and the cantonese speaking prostitutes’ daughter pretending to be Japanese aboard the white western ship and the Eastern European Jew pretending to be a polish Christian aboard the western Christian ship are such a fascinating parallel in nation and region and power relational to the West, as well as a negotiation of the brutal anti-Chinese and anti-Jewish immigration sentiment in the U.S. at the time.) The scenario would place Olek as a polish and Yiddish speaking Jew who was attacked by an antisemitic coworker at the oil refinery where he worked or something, or who had survived a pogrom or displacement, and ended up stealing his attackers identity and postcard after he killed him in self defense. This would be a Ramiro and a ying li parallel, and show the repeated and clearly heavy postcard metaphor in a new light - this isn’t a hopeful golden lit coming to America metaphor, as it seems in the first couple scenes, but a physical realization of olek’s guilt at what he did to survive AND a heaviness that lurks around where he took the postcard from (the coworker on the oil field.)

verdict: both totally unwritten and completely contingent with what we know of canon. JEW

b) unlikely but funny as hell: Ramiro. Ángel thinks he has problems having to pretend to be straight and here we have Ramiriko struggling every fucking day with having to pretend to be STRAIGHT and SPANISH and also remember the order of the mass and not get the paternoster mixed up with shmah yisrael. Absolute comedy act. (He also seems consistently bewildered by Catholic canon or how to even do the priest act.) Adds fucked up flavour and nuance to whatever the fuck is going on with Ángel and Ramiro and the “you aren’t even Spanish” line, although does Ángel know Ramiro is a Jew? Probably not. Had he ever worked out he blows kosher dick? Story suggests Ángel doesn’t blow enough sick to really know, nor that that kind of thing would ever occur to him. This one is kind of unlikely, given there were very few Jews in Portugal in the 1800s and the portuense inquisition didn’t officially end till the 1820’s, but it is technically possible - Judaism began to be legal again in the 1800’s and Portuguese jewish communities began to form again. Furthermore, Ramiro being a jew, particularly a descendant of conversos or marranos, could be the context of the showdown where ángel says that he’s never pretended to be anything other than what he is (unlike Ramiro.) they’re both clealry so fruity that whatever he’s talking about isn’t sexuality. (Ramiro is symbolized by the cross, but the cross, along with he background outline of a church, also shows up as a significant element in his Trauma Room, so it might even be the identity he was forced to take on and then casts off). (The crucifix is also the symbol of the priest Ramiro killed it seems, although I think by drowning. A Jew killing a priest - who might have been ángels abuser - would launch such an incredible amount of antisemitic deicide let’s hunt the godkillers backlash they’d have to leave immediately) verdict: unlikely but not technically against canon. Both hysterically funny in light of being a catholic priest winging it for 8 episodes and absolutely heartbreaking

c) eyk. Oh boy. Unlike the other two nothing to suggest it but also nothing to not suggest it, right, although the concept of a German Jew whose family burned to death in a house he keeps seeing is. Oh boy. Assimilated yekke who turned to piloting as a way to work his way up in the world (and part of why his crew disrespects him.) His wife’s name is Sarah which could be pretty Jewish. Nína isn’t like, Jewish, but also isn’t NOT Jewish, and we don’t know the names of his other daughters, which could be like, Rochel and Shoshana. (Or not! Considering the assimilated yekke thing.) clearly lying about a million things. Is this one of them? Is he even real? verdict: the fire was his maybe-automaton wife knocking over the shabbes candles. Possible yid. Who even knows? Not eyk, for sure.

d) you could spare a thought for Daniel, who actually has a Hebrew name that directly parallels the figure of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible what with seeing visions and being trapped in the den and all that but he and his wife (maybe) buried his son with a cross and that cross keeps repeating with some of the most objectively Christian imagery in the show. Also they’ve buried their son beneath the cross. This could be playing the machine but unlike Ramiro it doesn’t seem so performative. verdict: goy

e) clémence

nothing to suggest it and nothing to not suggest it. Who even knows? Not us. Not clémence most of all

[natalisdragon]

IS THERE ANY ADULT?

I have released some ideas on Twitter lately, but when I realized that there was a common thread, it seemed like a good idea to put them together to organize them better(and maybe expand a little).

The way Bucchigiri approaches the "adult world" is something to say the least curious when you think about it. The gangs seem to be in their own reality, where everything related seems relatively distant. However, what is striking is that despite this, the anime doesn't completely rule them out, it recognizes their influence on their daily lives, and not only that, but also the great importance of adult guidance, with Arajin and Matakara being a clear example of this

Arajin was raised by his mother (we have no information regarding his father) who we can see has always been there for him, giving him her love and guidance, which we see by how she bequeaths him her cooking skills, a curious mix between independence and giving love/affection, key elements to mature as a person (being serious/Honki in a way)

But in the case of Matakara, everything indicates that he was a child raised by another (Mitsukuni) and that inevitably creates a gap between him and other kids his age, especially having grown up in a house where both brothers never felt comfortable, which is easy to notice by their desire to get out of there.

There is something I want to make clear, so far, it doesn't seem that the relationship between the Asamine brothers and their relatives was conflictive or hostile , but some tension can be felt, so I cannot assume that they had bad intentions, but it doesn't seem they did a lot to make both children feel welcome and safe, which can be seen in several details, such as the little (or no) interaction between them and Matakara

Or how, unlike Arajin, his lunches are not homemade, but bought and although it may not seem like it, this says a lot, because both houses are also family businesses in which they have to serve several clients, from what it seems to me that this parallelism is intentional and to make us see that despite coming from similar backgrounds, the treatment that Arajin and Matakara receive from the adults they live with is very different.

This is when food "speaks" in Bucchigiri, because it translates not only as affection, but also warmth of home, therefore, safety(There's already an analysis of this specific topic for those who may be interested). It's an interesting way to telling us (along with his oppressive room) that Matakara never had that while growing up.

Because no matter how hard Mitsukuni tried, he wasn't a father, not even an adult, he was another child, one who must also have his own scars after everything that happened, someone who was trying to play a role for which he was clearly not prepared. The fact that he doesn't know how to cook is a good way to represent it, because it's a skill linked to independence and therefore to adulthood.

In fact, it is very curious that Arajin is coincidentally the only one of all the young characters who knows how to cook, because something similar happens with Mahoro, who cooks for her brother who is in the hospital, but it is evident that she is not good at it, which which could indicate (at least based on what has already been said) that she has not had that guidance from the adults around her either.

However, we still have something else to address, we have already seen that even if it's subtle, Bucchigiri doesn't rule out the importance of adults as guiding figures, but just as this is pointed out, a line is also crossed, making it very clear to us that although There are adults like Yayako or Ken who can be trusted, there are also those who take advantage of young people, doing a lot of damage in the process.

Let's not forget the police officer who was trying to distribute drugs using members of Minato kai and probably other kids in the area, a situation for which Mitsukuni had to assume the consequences of taking the lead and putting a stop to it with his own hands, having to leave his brother behind in the process(reminding us of the harsh reality that exists in Honki city in the process).

And of course Ichiya is not spared, we are talking about someone who took advantage of an emotionally unstable teenager in his most vulnerable state to achieve his revenge against Senya, subjecting him to manipulation and emotional abuse, also using Matakara's pain as basically fuel. Situation that would have had the worst possible outcome if it weren't for Arajin managing to save his friend in time, but removing the supernatural factor, not all young people in real life are so lucky.

But leaving that aside, I think that both "genies" do something important, showing that adults are not perfect and that in a certain way they have not finished "growing" at all, in the sense that they are people who can still learn, commit mistakes, that can hide things from you, even if their intentions are not bad at all(Senya) or understand that their bad actions may have a root (Ichiya). Something quite curious, because like being Honki, maturity/adulthood is something that is sometimes diffuse and not entirely clear.

Although it wasn't the main theme, and it is certainly somewhat in the background, the "adult world" in Bucchigiri is still present throughout the anime in various details if you pay attention. There are still some things left, Mitsukuni and Ken seem to me to be characters that should be talked about separately, because their role as young adults seems to function as a kind of midpoint between the "world of gangs" and the "adult world", as well as maturity and the sense of duty, that is a key element for both.

[ultimate-blorbo-collector]

may I order a toxic winter king x reader. Preferably sfw

Okay, I was a little too excited to get this one, and I basically turned it into a list of ideas that could be possibly used for angst. Hope you enjoy.

There is also a good amount of Princess Bubblegum slander because of how the Winter King is meant to parallel PB. I love her and know she's grown, but I have to bring up her crimes and flaws here. It’s so hard not to.

Warnings: Overall toxicity. Toxic positivity. Boundaries aren’t understood and respected. Mentioning some of the things Princess Bubblegum did in Adventure Time (I just list some of the worse stuff. Everything else fits into another warning). Mention of manipulation and stringing someone along at the end.

I mostly write him as pretty wholesome in headcanons because of his charming persona, but the Winter King is not the best partner in Ooo for sure, and there are a lot of possible avenues for angst.

He showers you in attention and whatever you want, but he can very draining to be around.

He has the same issues our Simon does, for starters, but he’s also the definition of toxic positivity

He never wants to do what you want to do, but he so subtly talks you into it so that you might not even question it.

If you point it out, he genuinely doesn’t believe you. You wanted to go on the last adventures you two went on, right? Why didn’t you say so if you didn’t?

If you’re a magic user or have any kind of curse, he’s going to want you to just put it onto someone else like Candy Queen. He obviously won’t tell you that because he knows you’d hate the idea.

If he could, he’d do it himself even if you didn’t want him to, especially if your madness or curse gets in the way of his whole charming, fairytale king persona.

Even if you felt like you had a good balance with the madness or that the madness was a big part of you, he wouldn’t have any issue taking that away.

And he has good intentions. Even if you tell him why you’d want to keep the madness and why it’s important for you to have it, he genuinely thinks it’s better for you to not have it.

His cheerfulness can also be a bit much as well, especially if you feel bad. You could feel overwhelmed or just like you need to stop being sad around him.

He’d dismiss those feelings as well as whatever else you’re feeling.

I also think that since he’s meant to parallel Princess Bubblegum, he probably has a lot of the same issues she does, especially considering his lack of “bad feelings.”

I could easily see the Winter King doing more of the stuff PB had done in Adventure Time. Torture, genocide, spying on citizens, creating life without any thought into it, creating life that either is stupid or has no free will, etc. is fair game.

Unlike PB, I don’t see him going through the character growth she went through though.

PB and Simon both can be so goal-oriented and single-minded that they both forget to take other people’s feelings into account, so I imagine Winter King would also struggle with that as well.

The best case scenario for a difficult problem is also the most common: He either ignores it or pushes it onto someone else. He may even try to distract you so you can ignore it together

Worst case scenario for a difficult problem: He gets so into solving it that he ignores your feelings on how to solve it and goes in a selfish or less ethical direction.

And again with the PB parallels, I could absolutely see the Winter King stringing along someone so they would do what he wanted like how PB arguably did with Finn. You could argue that’s what he was doing with Fionna as well.

[writing-for-life]

Hi my dear, I hope you're doing well.

I've been thinking about TLOS (SPOILERS)

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and about Morpheus' "relationship" with Iris. I was shocked for a moment, but then I was like "ok".

What was it like writing this? Where did you get this idea from? It's a bit risky, but it's also amazing haha. Was it always Iris or did you think of other gods/creatures for this?

Haha, of course it’s risky, that’s how I roll 🤣

So in case people haven’t read The Light of Stars and don’t want any spoilers, this is the exit sign…

But first of all, I’ll give you Pierre Narcisse Guérin:

I mean, how could you not? 🤣

So that painting was somewhat of an inspiration. Morpheus and Iris have a short history, but they were never an item (who knows with Greek gods though, right? 😉).

Where to start? The easiest way in is probably authorial intent. I needed some hook to make Morpheus believe that Thalia was special in some way. Well, to him she is anyway, but as in, “Why can she transcend certain rules?” Of course everyone who read it until the end knows that nothing is quite as it seems, but that revelation comes fairly late, and up until then, we do believe this is a possibility. And that’s a way in, because if he has a past with Iris, it’ll of course make him think.

Then, I obviously very heavily played on Psyche in the Underworld before you-know-what happens. There are many parallels, many Easter Eggs peppered all over the story that people might only recognise in hindsight, or only if they know their Greek mythology fairly well and recognise the references to Aphrodite’s tests, but Thalia’s path is not unlike that of Psyche (and the butterfly references are also because of that of course). I can’t possibly pick out every reference now because I’d recount the whole novel, but there are many.

Now, what does Psyche have to do with Iris?

Eros fell in love with Psyche, that was obviously the whole reason for her eventually falling asleep (the Stygian sleep was brought on by opening Persephone’s box, and I just took the liberty to spin enough yarn to say that Hypnos/Morpheus/Dream has to be involved in that. Because—sleep 🤣). And generally, Eros is assumed to be the son of Aphrodite. BUT there are a few retellings that make him the son of Iris and Zephyros. And how utterly terrible would it be if

a) Iris had a child that she fears might not be Zephyros’ but Morpheus’? And she she then gave the boy away to Aphrodite to bring him up as her own so Zephyros wouldn’t find out?

b) That child was Eros, who later fell in love with Psyche, and Morpheus played a part in them nearly not getting together (all’s well that ends well of course) without knowing he nearly ruined the love life of his potential son (which is totally something that would happen, he’s just not very good with his kids 🙈).

c) Millenia later, Dream’s own mother uses this to play a slightly twisted game.

d) That c) was exacerbated by the fact that Iris had a twin called Arke who sided with the titans during the titanomachy and hence lost her wings. And I just turned her into Dusk, Night’s handmaiden. Bold move, don’t care, my fic, because it made sense for the premise 🤣

When I wrote TLoS, I probably already had plot bunnies for a The Pillars of Creation (the sequel) without intending to ever write it (that has obviously changed). Suffice it to say, and as people will probably expect from me 🙈, nothing is quite as it seems, and there will be many twists and turns, but it’s a good side plot for the bigger issues at hand.

That probably all sounds super complicated and like blasphemy for Greek mythology lovers, but the Greeks retconned their own gods and their stories so many times that I felt no shame to make it work for me. I just love playing around with Greek mythology, and it made a lot of sense if we assumed that some Greek gods were really aspects of the Endless. And that people only believed they were gods like [Hypnos/Thanatos/Teleute, Nyx etc] while others gods were truly separate beings.

And even without that background, the story still worked. I hope 🙈🤣

Because quite frankly: There’s also something that hearkens back to Eros and Psyche in Morpheus and Thalia themselves, and how their story ends (for now). In more than one way. IYKNYK ���

@morpheusbaby3 ask answered

[fruitsofhell]

Goofy ah Forgotten Land essay incoming:

It took me till like a week ago to realize that KATFL writes Elfilis and Forgo as being the same characters and I don't know how to feel about that. I feel Forgo is more interesting as it's own being the way Elfilin is from 'Lis, because I like the idea of them both being these smaller figments of the past self reduced to childish forms representing absolutes of the original. But at the same time, what made me realize that this isn't the game's intention is when I was going to say something about how hollow Elfilis is as a character in comparison to Forgo.

So really, you either make Forgo and Elfilis effectively one character and Elfilin another, negating Forgo of its own identity as a pathetic pitiable beast so that Elfilis continues to have a presence - or you make all three of them seperate characters, and Elfilis loses what they gain as a character from Forgo's motivations.

Elfilis has not a single defined motive for why it attacked the people of the Forgotten Land very much unlike other Kirby villains who can atleast say something like, "power/gain (Magolor), vanity/power (Sectonia), greed (Haltmann), or vengeance (Hyness)". Elfilis and Forgo are often described as invasive species, but what that entails isn't obvious because all we know about 'Lis' evil intentions is from Forgo. But Forgo has its own motivations that exist outside of Elfilis' original wishes - that being its captivity in Lab Discovera, which is very strong on its own.

It adds a very engaging sense of darkness to the legacy of the Forgotten Land, and makes you pity and understand its raw animosity as much as you wish to defend the world from it. The fact that Elfilis was a violent invader rather than just some other alien adds little to its motive, but does add thematic garnish to the idea of how alien life has approached the Forgotten Land. But at the same time, Forgo's captivity is such a strong motivator it really could have stood on its own and still been effective as an alien antithesis to Kirby... Though I admit not as much as what Elfilis is.

Probably to most people that have been reading straight from the games intentions, the former sounds more appealing than the latter. But, probably due to my own stubbornness and bias I really really do love them being 3 seperate entities even at the expense of depth for Elfilis. Because one of my favorite reoccurring themes in this series is vain idealization of the past fucking villains over.

I like this in Taranza's devotion to a Sectonia that no longer exists, Susie to a father that has long since been lost in his own mad schemes to find her, and Hyness obsessing over a very flawed understanding of his cult's past. And I USED TO LIKE the idea that Magolor's obsession with the crown was him, as a *Halcandran* glorifying Halcandra's past relics, but CANT HAVE THAT ANYMORE.

If the Kirby writers don't got me anymore, I guess I'll got myself. I like the idea of Forgo being as seperate from Elfilis as 'Lin is, but while Elfilin is all of their originals innocence, purity, and hope, Forgo is its raw anger and vengefulness. Visually taking Elfilis's soft/mammalian and alien/insectoid motifs respectively, but both distinctly being immature and incomplete states. Elfilis was not just that anger nor just that hope (wherever it came from), and is only the culmination of those two sides, it's a symbol of a self the two can never be on their own - one that Forgo idealizes and one Elfilin avoids.

For the sake of the ending where Elfilin reclaims the last bit of Forgo/Elfilis that is willing to go on, I prefer the mutuality of Forgo and Elfilin moving on together, rather than Elfilin just accepting Elfilis if that makes ANY sense. I just like the way Forgo and Elfilin parallel eachother more than he does with 'Lis? I like the narrative of healing that acknowledges that Forgo and Elfilin are both lost and grieving children, rather than Elfilin abandoned Elfilis who then became Forgo. Like the latter feels oddly possessive and unbalanced.

And as I said in line with past series themes, I kinda like the idea that whatever the fuck Elfilis had going on is irrelevant, just as seeing the faces of the people of the Forgotten Land is irrelevant - all that is relevant is what was left behind. I like the idea that Elfilis cannot really speak for itself anymore as a character the way the people of the Forgotten Land can only speak through their ruins and audio recordings. And as those people left behind a legacy of reclaimed wonder and terrible cruelty, in response, Elfilis left behind one of innocent hope and unbridled anger. I'd prefer to try and piece together what those two opposing visions say of their predecessor than just assume one speaks for them in its entirely I s'pose...

[agentrouka-blog]

A crazy idea now I had. You know we are pretty sure D@ny coming to Westeros will be after Aegon became king in the south. It will be a sort of Dance 2.0 and there are a lot of parallels, like Barristan becoming Criston 2.0 but worse (he will die much far away from home, in a battle that nobody in Westeros care, no song will be sung for the once most admired knight of his time).

I have been trying to think about others parallels while understanding what's going to happen, using the show and looking at what was mixed and one thing always makes me frown is Varys goal around here, looking at what we had in the books and what we saw in the show.

So, reading Dance, we have the "turncloakers" that went from green to black or from black to green, and we have interesting characters too, like Corlys Velaryon and Larys Strong, and I can see Varys a "good" mix of them. And what do they do? They, supposedly, murdered Aegon after he killed his sister, whatever their motives.

In the show, Varys wished to see D@ny as the saviour, but after witnessing her tyrany, and meeting the Starks (and learning about Jon) he decides to kill her. It's subtly established, when one of his birds report about D@ny not eating the food, and he saying that they would try again. What? Posion her? Yup

So, what if after D@ny/Rh@ny (Maegor With Tits) murders Aegon, Varys becomes part of her Council (he helped Tyri0n escape, he may help him gain her trust) and even if D@ny is mad at Illyrio (probably dead), she may accept him in her circle. And that would be her ending.

What if then we have another parallel of Dance. D@ny dies mysteriously. Jon went to kill her after learning about his half-brother's death and is afraid of her menace to the rest of his family/Sansa, and is a) accused of killing her (Varys killed Kevan with a weapon, what is stopping him from killing her in the chest with a sword, dagger, crossbow) or b) he does a Cregan 2.0 and has to organize the wastelands of Westeros as the heir of the IT.

Idk, I just have this on my mind mostly from Varys plots in the show and his scenes in the books...

Hi there and sorry for the delay in responding!

Generally I agree that if Varys doesn't meet his end in connection to Aegon himself, he'll be one aspect of conspiracy-making around Dany one way or the other.

But I don't think that GRRM would give him the role of ending Dany.

There's too little thematic connection there. These aren't characters who have been known to each other and moving in a shared political constellation for enough time to make a murder like that seem like a meaningful conclusion to her arc. It's not a cynical, opportunistic political scheme that ultimately ends in a new status quo for the Targaryen dynasty. The Dance 1.0 eliminated the dragons as a factor but it reestablished the Targaryens as the ruling dynasty, incest and Valyrian supremacy and all. The ultimately futile and destructive scheming fits that very well.

That will not be the case when Dany dies, when King's Landing is a pile of ashes, when the dragons are ended once again as a factor. This will be their absolute end, clad in the imagry of apocalyptic destruction. High drama. The mode by which it comes about is likely to be thematically drenched in why that's a good thing and why it is inherently inevitable. Whether she is killed by someone with genuine emotional grievance against her destructive power, or whether she ends in self-destruction because of the delusional obsession with fire and superiority... it has to match what makes Dany specifically and the Targaryens generally bad news.

Unlike in the show, book!Varys is a scheming villain, full stop. He cuts out the tongues of children and manipulates people into their own destruction based on his own personal political vision of what's best for Westeros as a whole. A "well-intentioned extremist" at the most generous interpretation. He is essentially little different from Dany, and only vaguely so from Littlefinger. There is nothing inherently special about him that would qualify him to end Dany, on a thematic level. He will likely try. But he will fail. He's not getting a win like that to send him off before his villain death.

If someone (other than herself) ends Dany, it has to be a figure that represents what truly opposes her. And that's not Varys.

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

A realization I shared with The Pit back in March, last year. Heavy on the salt/kinda in character-hate territory

last night I realized Kokichi's and Kaito's deaths also parallel each other's like many other things about them. and I am so mad.

there was never a moment when I was close to forgiving him for brushing off Kokichi's last words as another lie to recover his own face because someone pointed out he sounded almost fond or something like that, they were this close to changing their minds about Kokichi and he had to ruin it, but it's even worse.

Because at the end, Kokichi allowed himself to be vulnerable and honest, alone with a guy who never liked him, dying Kokichi said his truth. Kaito is surrounded by friends, he gets a love confession and he doesn't respond to it, he doesn't have anything other than his usual hero speech to say, because he's never vulnerable with them, he'd never admit he changed his mind about Kokichi, just like he never admitted to anything that wasn't very heroic (in his skewed idea of what a hero is like) of him regardless of whether others could tell,

he's so full of shit, I am not buying into the myth of an idiot with good intentions, that guy is smart and very much capable of emotional manipulation, he's put all his points in charisma and he's using them, easily laying down his biases to his peers, getting away with heaps of hypocrisy, getting people to do things his way even when they know it's stupid/dangerous/both (usually it's both with his ideas),

his bias against Kokichi had to be a combo of unwillingness to admit he was wrong on first impression/ closed-minded refusal to look past first impression/ possibly self-recognition through another (derogatory)/ hypocrisy coming to him that easily, because he clearly convinced himself that he's always right and he's doing the right thing when he hides everything he isn't proud of from people, probably protecting them, unlike other people who only lie because they're evil

[this is the end of the "realization" message, but I will include my side of the group ranting that followed, not including others, they were sharing their opinions in a safe space, actively spreading anti-Kaito agenda is just a me-thing]

he's super toxic and. The fact that so many people took him at face value was my true downfall face-first into joker arc

they're like "Kokichi did x too" disregarding the fact that Kokichi got shit for it from the entire cast and was doing it in his efforts against the killing game while Kaito did it to make himself look good, got praised and didn't take his own advice (x usually stands for forcing people into a situation, referring to Meet and Greet)

He said he's helping Shuichi and Maki so he helped them. No, I need them to get a restraining order on him and go to therapy to recover from the shit he put in their heads.

Maki reasonably tried avoiding attachment, knowing it could be used against her, but Kaito knows what's better for her than she ever could, obviously. And so he made her unstable and a threat

Guy who doesn't take no for an answer, he gave her no choice or didn't even explain before they got there, I was uncomfy with him from that one convo with Kaede early on when he tries to take credit for her idea and asks something of her that throws her off (I think he was asking for a hug?), but he kept outdoing himself in crossing people's boundaries for a while

The whole. Punishing Shuichi and making him apologize for not following Kaito blindly into getting everyone killed in ch4, that's also up there

He wants to be good, but his idea of good is messed up.

also while I'm at it, some screenshots from the times I talked about him in The Saiou Lounge (finally gathering all I wanted to screenshot from that dead server is what motivated this wave of posting again)

Adding another rant to the post, just compiling atp because I don't want to make multiple negative posts: I just think that. people forget Kaito was about to lead everyone into a battle against monokuma with a choice of weapons that he thought looked cool (with Maki just going along with that, not commenting on how most of them wouldn't know how to use those weapons or how unlikely they're to be able to use close-range stuff on monokuma) and Kokichi stepped in with the electrohammers and the idea of re-trying the death road of despair just before they could get themselves killed, while I'm uncertain about ch4, at this point he definitely wasn't on board with everyone dying, and Kaito's illness was The Motive of ch5, while he wouldn't kill anyone directly he was obviously desperate and making everyone else restless because of his Extreme Unexplained Charisma, plan A was isolating Kaito from the group asap, announce the game is over, plan B mastermind made their move, confirming their existence, it's time to act, try to convince Kaito to do the unsolvable murder with him, appealing to his hero complex, as much as I'd like him to have expected Maki, he was surprised, and thought her reason for showing up was "You really love murder that much?"(paraphrasing), and tbh, if I was anyone other than Shuichi or Tsumugi in-game, I don't think I'd expect Maki to feel anything other than annoyance about Kaito, we see cliches & Shuichi third-wheeling, they saw a guy harassing her as she insults him and pouts about it

Me:the transphobic bit comes from the slur he uses when Kiyo reveals to be wearing lipstick in the 3rd trial, it's a word that has been partially reclaimed by drag queens in more urban parts of Japan, but Kaito is a rural boy (or at least that's how I saw it explained) that's still present in eng, sexism is like, THE core trait of Kaito, it's defining to all his relationships/opinions on people Ves: the line about how women shouldn't handle weapons Haunts me his concern about maki frequently seems to be that she's Not A Housewife and not. THE TORTURE it's sad that she's an assassin because women shouldn't be violent :( not that she's much Better lmao. responding to everything by being uwu tsundere by hitting him and deliberately digging at all his worst insecurities Me: YEAH! HE'S LIKE: YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A SWEET DELICATE GIRL, I KNOW YOU'RE A SWEET DELICATE GIRL UNDER YOUR COLD EXTERIOR, I WILL TRAIN YOU TO BECOME THAT GIRL, SIDEKICK Ves: the funniest part is that the narrative treats him as Right she is a sweet delicate girl turns out Me: I got bad vibes from him the moment he was talking with Kaede before they were about to try death road of despair for the first time and he just kept getting worse, like from the moment he punched Shuichi it was just discovering new levels of hatred and violent urges in me everytime he says or does something Ves: the "give me a hug!!' "no." scene makes me laugh so hard im sorry Chee: tbh I felt like he had a bit of a crush on her? or it would be funny if he did Me: pretty sure he did, tbh, Kaede is a lot more his type than Maki, his sidekicks are just charity projects to boost his ego and have allies that make him feel safer in the kg, but in his LHS he wants someone he sees as equal, which he called Kaede (in a way that was disrespectful to her, cause he was trying to leech of credit for her ideas but, he did say that) Chee: I just remember how,, Positive his interactions w Kaede were (on his side at least) Me: it was almost like watching Kaz interact with Sonia again except somehow worse, he's got so much of Kaz, but the narrative assigning him being Right & having unreal charisma ruins all that, he could have been a wet dog of a comic relief character, but he's the representation of every man who ever made me feel uncomfortable or unsafe or enraged, and all of those feelings become deeply ingrained into my image of him the "actually everything he says he is" Kaito that's genuinely a supportive friend that has his sidekicks best interest in mind Spin on his character some fans have pisses me off, double points if they make him queer he can try to be good but he has to be getting things wrong, he has to be a little stuck on some points when he's in the wrong, his traditional upbringing has to get a bit in the way I can tolerate him having a bit of deeply repressed bicuriosity, maybe turing out to be bi, but it has to be a long ass arc and he cannot have anything genderwise, I am drawing the line, no way in hell

[hesherehesthere]

This is going to be a long post, and probably all over the place, but I've been really fixated on Roy and Nate as parallels and contrasts to one another, and I have a lot of thoughts.

This rant is particularly going to be about the ways in which Nate and Roy's masculinity presents, how both of them are men with severe insecurities that manifest in different ways, as well as the ways in which Nate's jealousy of Roy contributes to his arc.

When I first saw Ted Lasso, I initially interpreted Nate's arc as being a combination of toxic masculinity merging with the fact that Twitter is fucking poison for your brain. I do think that's part of it, but I think there's a lot more to it as well. With that being said, that's as good a place as any to start.

In my mind, Nate is essentially the embodiment of toxic fragile masculinity, where Roy is more representative of (mostly) non-toxic strong masculinity. Roy's insecurities are not particularly focused on his masculinity. He doesn't care about Keeley gossiping about him until he realizes she's been talking about something he's insecure about, and he hangs out with older women and drag queens, without any worries about how that reflects on him as a man. Roy's insecurities revolve much more around the end of his career and not knowing who he is as a person, with a healthy dose of wondering if he's a bad person or fundamentally unlovable. Roy is masculine in a very traditional kind of way. However, he uses that masculinity to help other people (for example, both Sam and Nate in S1), unlike Nate, who, particularly in S2 onward, comes across as less masculine and more bully.

Roy is also more internal and self destructive, while Nate is more external and lashes out at others as a result of his insecurities.

To continue along thought, I think it's important to note that Roy has always been a big defender of Nate. It is made extremely clear that Roy has never been particularly fond of the way that people (notably Jamie, Isaac and Colin) treat Nate in S1, but it goes beyond that. Roy is also shown to consistently go out of his way to acknowledge, congratulate, and give Nate credit for things, even after he's come on as a coach in S2. All throughout S2, there are a number of different moments where Roy will go to Nate to hug or cheer with him, Roy acknowledges Nate with a little head nod when he comes back on as a coach in 2x5, as well as several verbal scenes (Roy going to Nate's office to congratulate him on his park the bus play, Roy telling Rebecca "This has nothing to do with me, this was all Nate", etc).

A bit of an aside, but this also seems like a testament to the fact that Roy isn't big on grudges, because despite all the reasons he should be disgruntled, he's still more than okay with letting Nate come back to Richmond in S3. "I don't give a fuck. He's great at the shit I suck at." Even after all the fallout, Roy is still acknowledging that Nate is smart, someone he would be willing to work with, and a significant asset to the team.

Roy has always been a big Nate defender, so it hurts that Nate doesn't even seem to see it, particularly into S2, when he has been given more power. Obviously, he does acknowledge and thank Roy in 1x4, but after that point he doesn't seem to think about it much. I think that Nate is essentially blinded by his jealousy of Roy, to the point that he is unable to see his true intentions, because he so desperately wants to be him, or at least be like him.

In 2x5, when Nate is at A Taste of Athens, he laughs at something that Roy says during his pundit stint. He laughs at Roy tearing into Cartrick, specifically when he makes a comment about him pissing his pants. However, it's important to note that Roy was so aggressive in that scene in direct response to Cartrick being overtly sexist, which doesn't seem to be something that Nate particularly acknowledges. I don’t think that Nate agrees with Cartrick by any means, but I also don’t know if it really plays into why he thinks that interaction is funny.

Nate definitely feels personally attacked by Roy's coming back as a coach. This is probably due in part to the fact that he comes back after Ted essentially laughs at him and tells him that he doesn't think that he can help Isaac through his mental block, but that he thinks that Roy can. His insecurities are made worse by being next to Roy, as he feels as though he needs to prove himself.

I think this is supported by the fact that Nate also gets a lot more verbally aggressive after Roy's back, though he was making slow progress in that direction anyways. In some ways it almost feels like he's trying to copy Roy, to compete with him and embody him.

Because of this, I also want to briefly mention the scene where Nate kisses Keeley. I think it is implied throughout the show, as early as S1, that Nate has always liked her, at least a little bit. Keeley is casually touchy and affectionate as a person, and Nate could have interpreted those signals as her (possibly) being into him. Though he clearly regrets kissing her, in the leadup to that scene, he also laughs at Keeley's impression of Roy, where she's gently making fun of him. I think that it could have boosted his ego a bit to hear Roy being put down. I think his jealousy could have combined with that ego boost and played into that scene.

Another thing to mention is the fact that Roy is not particularly threatened by Nate kissing Keeley, where he is threatened by Jamie telling Keeley that he loves her.

Nate is upset about that because he thinks that Roy should be more mad at him, because he is a threat damnit, but I also wonder how much of Roy not being threatened is that he also somewhat considers Nate to be a friend. Though I don't think that Roy is threatened by him, I think it's also clear that he does like Nate, and even respects him. (I think there's also something to be said about the fact that Roy is more threatened by Jamie, not because he's more of a man than Nate, but because he and Keeley have a history, but that's a whole other tangent that I won't go on today).

I think that's all I have to say on the topic for now; sorry if this post didn't make any sense, I mostly wrote it out to try and organize my own thoughts. If someone else gets something out of it, that would be a great bonus.

[sillystringedrat]

Since recently learning abt the Lego Friends reboot I kinda went silly into a rabbit hole so now I have notes on the first ep and first impressions :3

Zac

* Definitely has some underlying social anxiety

* Lots of interests (that he makes up for other people)

* Gives major good boy dumb jock energy

* Seems to get caught up in his emotions and dismisses anything else that doesn’t have his attention, as seen with how he constantly dismisses Paisley when he’s enraptured with something.

* RAGING PEOPLE PLEASER

* Probably a good dose of bottled up emotions

* Oblivious to physical boundaries (get better soon honey)

* Oblivious also to some—mostly emotional—social cues

* LYING THROUGH HIS TEETH !!!!

* Probably has lived with some expectations to make him the way he is

Paisley

* Introverted, perhaps has social anxiety but not in the same way as Zac (parallels perhaps?)

* Knows her boundaries and is obviously miffed at being treated the way she was

* Has problems with being a pushover, but she doesn’t guilt trip her brain into thinking she must do it, only frustrated she can’t stick up for herself

* Seems to be used to Lianne’s shenanigans

* Unlike what I originally thought, she seems to have no problem opening up to someone—at least when under stress, seeing as she opened up about her stress with Zac to Nova.

* Also bottles up emotions, but unlike Zac presumably she does let them out when people are available

* Seems to not know how to properly socialize to make a new friend, despite this she is quite emotionally intelligent

Lianne

* Has ADHD, extroverted

* Literally just me smh

* Seems to know Paisley’s boundaries and they seem good enough friends that when she pushes Paisley’s comfort zone, Paisley isn’t that angry about it

* However she knows when someone has gone too far and will defend her friend

* Adopts introverts like it’s nobody’s business

* Has nothing but good intentions but sometimes puts people in situations she would better handle

Olly

* Gay ass /j (or is it a premonition?)

* Interested in fashion

* Loves being recognized for his work (perhaps his work isn’t that often? ) This thought is disproven his intro is literally him posing at his locker

Leo

* General good guy as of now

* FUNKY!!! BUTTON!!! UPS!!!

* Him, Aaliyah and Autumn seem to be pretty close friends already

*He’s my son

Nova

* Seems to be the typical nonchalant/distant one of the group for now

* A little arrogant about boasting her gamer status but eh

* So far the one putting the least effort into making dynamics with the other characters

* Just wants to chill

* Her gamer reputation seems to be a generally known fact considering Aaliyah comments if Zac plays video games around her. That or Aaliyah is the type of person to get to know every one of her classmates general interest, either one is likely.

* Can be pretty blunt

Aaliyah

* GIFTED OVERACHIEVER EXTRACURRICULAR KID ALERT

* Too busy than any child has the right to be

* A part of student council

* Very cheerful and welcoming to everyone

* Very organized and determined, a go-getter

* Probably lesbian (LISTEN—)

* Seems to not have much time for her friends although she would love to (Autumn and Leo don’t seem to mind much and seem to be understanding of her situation)

* DEFINITELY has been set up for high expectations

* Control freak to some extent

Idk if I’ll share my thoughts on the other eps, maybe if they’re long enough who knows .,.

[lostrealities0]

for years, i've gone back and forth on whether six becomes the lady, and i think i've finally come to an answer.

yes, she is.

the reason i've doubted before was the difference between them. six is survival bent, willing to do anything to survive and the lady seems very motherly. it seemed very unlikely that they are the same person. however, after some thinking, i've come to the realization that they're not.

one of my favorite theories is that the children of little nightmares all become their greatest fear in some way. this is seen with mono who grew up completely alone and seemingly isolated.

we see that the lady hates her reflection and wears a mask to cover her real face. that's not her being vain. it's her being scared. she has seen what the monsters of their world are like. in her eyes, becoming one would be the same as dying. unfortunately, she is. slowly and surely. her greatest fear, dying, is playing out in front of her.

i'm sure a lot of you are thinking "what about monster six?" that still fits into all of this. the lady isn't a monster (physically). she's becoming one, but isn't completely. monster six is when she would have finished changing. the reason why the lady changes so slowly is because of being so far away from the signal. vice versa, the reason why six changes into monster six so fast is because she is right where the signal was coming from.

now, the lady's motherly behavior. for a while, this one thing completely convinced me that she was not six. i have two possible ways to explain it. the first one is that her being motherly is the opposite of the mentality "every man for himself" that six has. in six's eyes, that would be her succumbing to weakness and probably dying from it. the second reason, which i like much better, is that she isn't being motherly. she is longing for her childhood. she misses when she wasn't on the Maw (i'll get to that in a bit) and was running around. if there was ever a point in her life where the world wasn't messed up, then she is definitely longing for that. either way, she wasn't being corrupted as a child like she is right now. six wasn't a monster, and she's terrified of what she's becoming now.

the timeline of this theory to clarify things:

she goes through little nightmares mobile game (tbh i know next to nothing about that) and game 2. when she is captured by the thin man, she finds out that he's mono. when mono frees her, she betrays him out of self preservation (she may have had ill intent or not. both work). then the hunger settles in as a side affect from being a monster previously. she goes to the Maw and through all of little nightmares. when she escapes the Maw, she realizes the one big flaw in her plan. ITS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN, SHE CANT LEAVE. so she makes a place for herself in the Maw with her powers, taking the role of the lady. now, in this theory, she's trapped in the Maw but tbh there isn't a real reason why. it does occasionally make stops and i assume that she can't just leave because of time or the other monsters will turn on her (which shouldn't be a problem because of her powers) but i have no idea. personally, i think it's because she doesn't know that mono kills the thin man and is worried he would find her. either way, she's stuck there and eventually, is killed by six.

i absolutely love this theory because of the parallels between six and mono. the both become/live their greatest fear. they both are trapped at some point, which is what leads to them becoming/living their worst fear. and, my favorite one, they both meet their end, because of themselves. it's this beautifully horrific loop.

[niofo]

I will never be normal about the multiplayer mages. There is not much about them, but what is there is really fun and i really hope that they bring some of those characters in dad, it would be great to have some of those former field agents of the inquisition running around, and they're blank slates enough to leave writers with quite a free range.

I always found it interesting how Cillian was obviously inspired by Fenris with his design, but also his opposite in the others. Obviously he's a mage, and an arcane warrior on top, someone who spent years just meditating in abandoned elven ruin, probably has an enormous knowledge about ancient elven lore - but also he's just this calm and friendly guy. He's so positive and full of wonder when looking at the world around him. Despite certainly being warned about templars by his keeper, he still calls Belinda da'len, bcos he sees that she's young and enthusiastic, and a bit naive. His vallaslin is June, which doesn't fit his character on the first glance (i would rather put him as a Dirthamen or even Falon'din guy), so i wonder if it was intentional to shine more light on Fenris' lyrium markings looking like June vallaslin. But also maybe there is some untold story to explain why Cillian picked June in particular.

Hissera was going to be a tamassran when her magic first manifested. Obviously there's not much about her bcos she doesn't have any dialogue, but i just find it interesting, that unlike Ketojan, she decided to live free from the qun after losing her arvaarad, i wonder if it has something to do with her previous priestess training. Her name means hope, which is also not something ever associated with saarebas. It would be nice if Bull too her under his wing after the Inquisition is done.

Neria is someone my Ilen Lavellan would love to hang out with, just talking about their respective clans, how it was as the First, perhaps reminiscing about past arlathvens where they met. She wishes to be back with her clan, but she considers defeating Corypheus too important to just let shems take care of it alone, she wants people to remember about dalish and not have them pushed to the sidelines again. I wonder is it was meant to be a neurodivergent trait, but Cillian remembers her as a little girl trying to solve an unsolvable puzzle, and that she was so focused she didn't even notice him leaving. Her vallaslin is Dirthamen, which is fitting for a future Keeper, but also shows her inquisitive nature.

I know most people hates Sidony, and for very good reasons, but i experienced her only after i created Idris, and the parallels were just too fun to let go. They're both necromancers specializing with ice magic, they are both not particularly nice and warm people, although Sidony certainly made it into an art. I think if idris wasn't the Inquisitor he would have a similar reputation, but as much as for him it's just his personality and actually he cares about people too much even, Sidony really seem to mainly care about the pursuit of knowledge and to be left alone. I would love to meet her as a grumpy hermit who lets us use her arcane book collection on the promise that afterwards we'll leave her alone and never come back. Maybe with a little treat that if the players decides to come back after all, she blasts the party with a blizzard.

And of course i have already way too many thoughts about Rion, de facto having him as one of the main characters of my fic. It all started just because he is from the Ostwick Circle, just as mage!Trevelyan, but he's an endearing character on his own. Hhe dresses in a same sort of feathery thing Anders does, for some reason. He makes a lot of jokes, including ones at his own expense, and it reminds me of awakening Anders - perhaps something to ease the tension, to make himself seem less threatening in eyes of the templars, just a silly little mage, yk. But also he is very much threatening, he throws fireballs at people and trying to show off this his spells. He really is dealing with years of complex circle trauma and it's not easy to shake it off. WoT2 also suggest that he was from a rich or even noble family, but refuses to speak about it - and considering he doesn't have any family name listed, maybe they disinherited him on the spot when he became a mage. Just another point of connection with Trevelyan, as they might even be from the same social circles before the Circle of magi.