#i really did like the turnover arc

[ohsonowyouwantahazel]

hi nanna

(random review roulette - repost 06 jan 24)

i'm watching hi nanna today for no reason and i wanna comment on it as it goes so uwu here:

i'm nearly bored of father-daughter/father-son/mother-son stories. where is the mother-daughter insanity. why do we not get stories about that.

him yelling at his daughter and breaking his promise: worst father goodbye. don't ever come back. I DON'T LIKE THIS FAKE SENTIMENT.

why is he STALKING her. don't stalk and photograph random people without consent? UNCONSENTED PHOTOGRAPHING IS NOT ALLOWED. PISS OFF.

stop romanticizing that oH MY GOD.

"i love you" shut up????????

why do we think random guys saying they love us sounding? is so hilarious and dumb and horribly stupid.

why do guys stay friends for love. why can't you just. care for your friend. what kind of a crap friend are you.

DON'T KISS. WHY. WHY ARE YOU KISSING. it is so out of pocket for telugu films to have kisses like. you just do that for shock value. not becaiusfdhdkhoewhsfidhgkjdfh NO. it's not normal don't try to normalize that?

bruh. mrunal thakur is so pretty ngl.

"kids are nothing but our extension" dude. don't. this is why you're a bad father.

this guy's a jackass? hello some people have relationship trauma? have you ever considered that? oh nooo her fears are so irrational. DUDE. TRAUMA IS A THING. YOU'RE A SHIT PARENT FOR THIS VERY REASON. BITCH.

god i can't believe every movie is about the guy. even this movie, is about HIM as a FATHER.

she is putting down such a valid argument and he's calling her crazy. she literally left her family and background to be with you and you can't stand anything. bitch.

IT'S. NOT ABOUT. PROVING WRONG. there are so many things wrong with this story i can't even start.

WHY WOULD YOU STOP THERE? THE KID IS GONNA GROW UP THINKING HER MUM HATED HER FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE. THAT'S NOT FAIR TO HER?

oh.

oh well. i mean i'm not surprised and it almost could be predictable but. oh. well. i didn't see that coming. wow. hmmm. okay. i'm kind of scared now.

it's well paced i suppose. no. it's just well edited.

"she wanted a divorce" this is why you both are awful parents. no offense but you made the awful decision to have kids.

HE'S BLAMING HER? SHE HAS TRAUMA. YOU CAN'T BLAME HER. WHY ARE YOU MAKING YOUR CHILD'S DECISIONS FOR THEM. BITCH. FUCK YOU.

oooooo. i like this now. nice. the movie is getting better here.

she's asking him to describe HER to her. bye. this is hilarious.

SHE KISSED HIM W THE EXACT SAME DIALOGUE. OH MY GOD. I TOTALLY LOVE THIS MOVIE I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I SAID. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS.

nvm they immediately objectify her nvm bitch.

i REALLY love angst stories :] hehe

what's the good news, WHAT'S THE GOOD NEWS?

oh they're gonna fall asleep OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU ALL SO DRUNK.

SHE SAID HE LIKES HER. THIS GUY MUST BE GOING THROUGHFDKJKJHGFG OH MY GOD I'M ENJOYING THIS SO MUCH.

why is that guy tryna marry her. leave her alone. her mum sucks. my god i hate her mum.

-_- "do you even remember me?" sighe.

i don't really know what to do with this movie? i can't hold the mother's trauma against her child but i don't want to side w the father. this is a complex story.

hEY NOTHING IVES YOU THE RIGHT TO BE MEAN TO HER? SHE DIDN'T ASK FOR THIS.

this is so. bro what even. skjhfdkjhdfkjghdf. why won't anyone tell her anything.

thats so mean. "youll be like his wife" that is so mean. you're demeaning her trauma. that is so fucking mean.

this isn't fair to either of the mothers. why do you all get off on. sighe. this is so not how you represent motherhood trauma.

why can't anyone represent maternal narcissism without dismissing the trauma of motherhood.

okay. so. they didn't fuck that up. that is good.

ohhhhhh. they have an entire team of doctors. ohhhh. niceeeee.

i really hope they actually tell her that she really is her daughter. or something. or deal w it. they have to let her know.

huh. hmmm. that was not bad. huh, guess it's okay.

[fruitbasketball]

wnba recap 6/19

washington mystics vs. indiana fever

ARIEL ATKINS LOOK AT THAT LONGHORNNN that 3pfg nasty tho we’re not gonna worry about that. 17 minutes for emily engstler?? i’m impressed

lord does this team miss kira and edd. aaliyah off night but did she get hurt??? i saw she had like a stiff back or smth someone lmk.

washington struggled mostly on efficiency and got out rebounded on the defensive end. they also got out scored in the paint, and it looks to me like they didn’t convert off of turnovers as much as they could have, which again comes down to issues with efficiency.

on the other hand, indiana won this game because they did all of those things better. neither team was hot from 3 but caitlin clark has a double double and aliyah boston and kelsey mitchell get 22 each for a pretty solid night. alarming lack of bench production for indiana tho.

seattle storm vs las vegas aces

i mean seattle just got outplayed in a star to star matchup. you have a’ja and jackie showing the fuck out with 27 and 32; absolutely ZERO mercy. the storm shoot like shit from 3, jewell is effectively absent (35 whole minutes with not a single field goal made and only 1 point off of ONE free throw.

jordan horston and ac both get solid minutes off the bench tho. i mean jordan gets 18 points off the bench, talk about second string production. aces bench was more or less absent except for ac - kate martin girl your iowa is showing. 10 minutes and nothing to show for it but a foul? jesus CHRIST.

good to see chelsea gray getting some mins in before the olympics. can’t quite place why the aces have been having such a tough time, but i really do think it’s the fact that they don’t have chelsea gray distributing on the floor.

atlanta dream vs. minnesota lynx

not much to say here either like it just looks like it’s a matter of lesser of two evils from box - 29% fg vs 35% - i guess it really came down to the 3 ball, but minnesota only shot 32 from the arc so it’s really just a matter of the little things here

getting to the line, sure, but more importantly: FINISHING at the line, and points in the paint, which minnesota had the leg up on, even tho atlanta got to the line more.

tina charles plays a complete game, haley jones plays an efficient one, but both get stuck with 3 fouls. bench not hugely helpful for atlanta except on the boards. even phee didn’t have that good of a game last night.

yeah this was just not good basketball overall - two middle of the pack teams duking it out to see which one is worse is just… meh. honestly don’t have huge hopes for either team in the postseason this year.

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

heya, i have a couple of questions about CN since i'm re-reading it for the nth time. like i kid you not, i have a week or two every month where i just gravitate towards both CN (and ITYSG too)

anyway, so question #1 is: is Ajax ever gonna meet the Tsaritsa or her equivalent in the new Teyvat since he changed history and stuff? like, would there be people whom he knew from Earth, like the other Harbingers, that he would eventually meet down the lane in the new Teyvat?

question #2: is he ever gonna meet himself since his ancestor is alive and thriving?

question #3: there was a part in the story where Aspasia and Crimson Thorn discussed the possibility of the people they lost due to the mutiny being able to reincarnate or be brought back to life since they would be retrieving Sophron from the Abyss. do you know if Basileios and the others they lost would be able to return? or if they would be lost forever?

sorry, i know this is a lot but i really just couldn't help myself whenever i re-read CN coz that fic of yours is just so awesome that re-reading it doesn't lessen its quality and it always feel like the first time, and loving them all over again

#1: no, because that would require for things to go exactly as they did in the og timeline, and not only is he trying to prevent that but he also sort of made it impossible for that to happen, what with celestia's turnover. the reason why he would be invested in bringing about the existence of other people (genshin's roster) is because at least there he has a through line to follow of possible ancestors and possible surnames. but for the people in his reality? not only does that require a catastrophe to shift who is alive where, but he also has no means of tracing back anyone's parentage beyond the tsaritsa, and even then that's not going to be easy. like- yeah the lack of archon war is going to make things complicated, but at that point in time most of everyone is staying in their own nations so it's not that hard to accomplish with enough planning. but on the other hand... #2: he's not going to meet himself for the same reasons as above. without celestia trying to thanos them, with the volchiy and zvezdochoty still alive as species and without the archon war to kill those who may have survived (nadezhda), it's more than likely that vephar's child will go on to marry and have kids with literally anyone else, now that they're not being persecuted and they have a family and someplace to stay n stuff like that. and the butterfly effect explodes after that. basically we have to assume that nobody who was in the arc beyond the second cryo archon is going to be born in this reality, and the same goes for most of everyone alive in-game atm (with the exception of the playable characters he'll manage to successfully bring about, for lack of a better expression) #3: i decided to leave that open and up for interpretation since it was no longer ajax' concern, but. i do like happy endings more than i do angst (if you'll believe that), so in my mind they were going to retrieve sophron and there would be a bit of a crisis in celestia as the energy imbalance settles (the three captains were linked to the island in a deeper level) and the next starfall (i think the reincarnation event was called that) comes around earlier than expected (like a week after sophron returns, immediately after the energy settles). so yeah, in my head, crimson thorn and aspasia would've gotten basileios back not long after returning to their teyvat, and it would've been a heartwrenching reunion.

[woodsfae]

Babylon 5 s02e09 The Coming of Shadows s02 Table of Contents • previous episode

I am very interested in finding out what G'Kar decides to do about the Centauri Emperor visiting.

As per usual, I am blehh about their sexually dimorphic haircuts, and could only sigh when it was revealed it's mandatory haircuts they all definitely make out of their own volition.

Will Londo backstab the Emperor that just gave him the gift of divorcing 2/3rds of his wives? I can't decide.

Haven't seen Kosh in awhile...maybe Kosh will pop up now that the Emperor has expressed an interest in the Vorlon.

If G'Kar actually stabs the Centauri Emperor I will be very surprised...

Poor Emperor, living the most privileged and powerful life on Centauri Prime. :( I do see how that life could give one existential depression, though.

Proselytizing in your will is a choice!

Strange, logical, and unsettling use of telepaths by Centauri. It makes them feel more alien.

G'Kar's armor definitely got prettier in this episode. Murderous calm suits him.

He likes to look extra good and as blinged out as possible before assassinating heads of state.

Sometimes I think Delenn might be a telepath. Like when she eyeballs G'Kar's murderous intentions from fifty yards.

Oh, no RIP to the Emperor yet. Secret message from the Emperor! Doctor Franklin has a quest given by royal mandate.

So Londo has gotten over his earlier hesitations pretty quickly. Using Morden to wipe out even more Narns, knowingly this time, in order to instigate war, is several steps too far.

Poor G'Kar. It woulda felt so good to stab the Centauri Emperor and I do want that kind of joy for him.

Since we didn't hear the Emperor's message from him, it'd be pretty funny if it was more like "He wanted to stand in neutral territory by a Narn and say "haha, suck it"," and Dr Franklin was like "he is dying anyway, I may as well help facilitate peace between two interstellar superpowers," and made up this heartfelt speech.

I think he did send the apology, but it would be pretty funny.

Londo is racking up the war crimes like crazy. He's weakening one of the best and most fervent allies they have in the upcoming conflict against the Shadow. Which they have no evidence of also thanks to Londo actively collaborating with Morden that Shady Asshole.

G'Kar: "I've heard something and it makes me think there is still hope for us after all. I'd believed your people capable of only murder and pain...but apparently there's still a spark of decency in your genetic code. It's not much of a foundation, I'll grant you that, but - it's a start! I never thought I would be saying this, Mollari, but ... to the health of your emperor. And perhaps, to your health as well.

Yeah, make him feel guilty as fuck with your genuine hand of alliance, G'Kar!

Man, the colony really is wiped out. A lot of political turnover and turmoil going on across the main powers!

Sinclair!!! He looks good. The Minbari Ambassador position must be nicely restful.

My friend. I miss him.

He has rangers!! I love this arc for him. Secret association against the Shadows.

250,000 people wiped out or taken prisoner with no hope of seeing them alive again. I'd be fucken ticked at Londo, too.

Sinclair: "Stay close to the Vorlon and watch out for shadows. They move, when you're not looking at them."

G'Kar :( I support the Narnuan right to live their lives without being wiped out by the Shadows or the Centauri.

Emperor: "How will this end?" Vorlon: "In fire."

ominous.

"Sheridan's rule number 29: always make your opponent think you know more than you really know."

Sheridan is a dork. Even if that's sound advice. Probably, anyway. Idk, I don't have enemies...

The info sharing is great.

Tell them off, dying old Emperor.

Or don't, and just die.

Londo: "[The Emperor] said, "Continue. Take my people back to the stars.""

I don't believe that for one second. And to lie so brazenly in front of telepaths. Londo.

"Mollari, what did he say, really?" "He said...that we are both damned."

That sounds more like it.

"Well, it's a small enough price to pay for immortality."

This other Centauri politician is less conflicted about it, but Londo just did a shitload of war crimes. Feeling a little weird about it is only proof of possessing a sad, dying, twinging conscience.

The Centauri are really hardcore slavers, huh. Just insistently keeping all the Narn civilians for forced labor.

Legal observers from Earthforce is a lot more than I was expecting from Earthforce.

But it did make the Centauri back down on keeping the civilians, at least, and I'm glad.

G'Kar is phenomenally moving in his unfathomable grief/rage state of mind.

It is completely unsurprising that Londo's death vision of him strangling G'Kar is actually the other way around with G'Kar stranging him. It does make it more infuriating that he's so into Centauri imperialism. What is it, "get them before G'Kar gets me?"

Awwww Delenn! And Sinclair! Hello old friend to you too, Commander Sinclair.

next episode

[forcebookish]

Tag people 10 you'd like to know better/what's up!

@jonginnation thanks for tagging me!

Last Song: Cutting My Fingers Off by Turnover

Currently Watching: My School President, GAP the series; trying to finish Arrow and Xena: Warrior Princess (rewatching them up to my last stopping point). I miss watching anime idk why I haven't been :(

Currently Reading: The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead (rereading) and A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin. Funny how they're both the last/latest in the series and I'm taking forever to finish them... I don't like finishing things.......

Also recently got back into manga: Dengeki Daisy (reread/trying to finally finish it but I'm stuck on the same arc I did last time lol), Citrus+, and Sasayaku You ni Koi wo Utau.

Current Obsession: ForceBook. (Obviously.) Really, they're at the top of the list because my foray into them is fairly new so I'm still at the "I need to catch up and therefore learn everything about everything" stage. But other than Thai dramas, it's my old mainstays: EXO, BLEACH, and Marvel/DC. They've been my current obsessions for 10 years 👁️👄👁️

I also play a LOT of video games, although I've cut back recently since I got sucked back into fandom (and writing!) - mainly Overwatch, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Hades, and Catherine: Fully Body.

@ellasaru12 @laowen @athousandbyeol @forcebookbrainrot @force-book @fireworksgalaxy @blkgirlmahou @carcharias-11 @a-jaggedpulse @thiscouldbeacity

[bitegore]

WIP ask; dysfunctional bulkhead fuck yeah please and thank you

This one spawned out of a conversation I had with @honestlyvan, resident Bulkhead understander and one of the friends I have the absolute most fun bouncing ideas off of because for real I have never met someone who is so good at yes-anding ideas until they turn from a one-off line into something really cool. If I remember right, we were talking about Bulkhead's very visible delineation between "people I care about" and "potential targets," since Bulkhead is pretty clearly kind of... like...

ah, continued under the cut because this got long. A lot of discussion about Bulkhead characterization and then some very light details about the fic, because I did that thing where you have a general point but no actual outline and you run out of plot super fast because you never had much to begin with.

Okay so let's take a very brief detour through the land of psychology. Empathy runs on the idea of an "in-group" and an "out-group". The in-group is where you feel strong empathy, the out-group is not. This is what empathy is for, largely; it makes you feel bad for the people around you when they're hurting so that you don't start killing your buddies. Nothing wrong with that. The trouble is where this in-group ends. And for Bulkhead, at least as far as I see him, his in-group stops right at the end of Team Prime. Miko is in, Jack is in, Raf is in, Fowler is in eventually, and Wheeljack his old friend is in. And that's it. Everyone else could drop dead and Bulkhead wouldn't shed a tear. Why should he care? They're not his people, he's not invested in them. If they die that's their problem. He's got better things to worry about.

He's also an ex-member of the Autobot Warcrime Squad, the Wreckers. The "get in, kill everyone, get out, try not to die" team. He and Wheeljack are the only ex-Wreckers still standing, which is pretty damn impressive because even outside of IDW it's still a team with pretty high turnover (see: Marvel).

Anyway none of that gels too well with the way Bulkhead gets written in fic, which is to be a nice soft sweet kind of guy a la Animated. Which is fine, all the more for you guys, but I just find it painfully boring. There's a reason I don't read Animated fic unless my friends have written it and asked me to.

So on the face of it I basically just wanted to write Bulkhead kicking ass and not even bothering to take names because who gives a shit. Not him. He's got better things to do, people to give a crap about. Don't die here and he'll remember you to kill you harder later, maybe, but unless you're annoying or matter to someone who matters to him he just sort of doesn't give half a crap about who you are. He is just going to put you in the fucking ground. Bye.

in practice that is not what I did.

In practice I wrote a couple hundred words of internal monologue and went "oh, fuck, hang on", because guess what I did? Smartest boy ever, best writer in the world. I forgot to come up with a plot.

So then it crashed headlong into my obsession with the Combaticons and I had some vague idea of pulling the FoC Combaticons in for Bulkhead to just lay brutal waste to without waiting around to care too much about who they were. I thought about having him go fight one of the Insecticons but decided against it because I don't know them well off the top of my head and I didn't want to make a whole oc up so I'd probably be working with Hardshell, who doesn't work as an enemy for "named and therefore not someone I can just kill off" reasons. I'd established that it was during the whole "hunting down the Iaconian Relic macguffins" arc(s), so it didn't make sense to me for me to pull in characters that die before that or make significant appearances after, and there's really not that many that just show up and vanish without a trace. So okay I needed a new set.

Trouble is I've never played Fall of Cybertron.

So then I was like "ooh, I'll watch a playthrough". And then I did not do that. You understand how it goes.

Anyway, as a result the fic has been languishing ever since, but because it's so goddamn short i'm just going to copy paste the entire thing down here for your perusal. Enjoy.

Things were different back when the Wreckers were still running together and no one was really running with them. Much as Team Prime was small, it wasn't a hyper-specialized unit designed for getting in and getting out and getting slag done and nothing else. Totally different internal culture. Sometimes Bulkhead didn't really know what to do with it. And the humans- anything weird about Team Prime was weirded ten times harder by the humans. They were small, and fragile, and they didn't seem to realize it at all, constantly putting themselves beyond their stress tolerances for no good reason. Miko kept wandering straight into battlefields like she'd forgotten guns existed, and Bulkhead had to admit she was better at evading fire than he'd first expected but the other two humans definitely didn't have her reflexes and they kept on following her and needing the Autobots to get the three of them out of trouble. These things were so much more convenient when he and Jackie and Seaspray and Springer and the rest were all just doing what they did. They were good at that. Team Prime was pretty damn effective, sure, but they weren't half as good as getting in and getting out and laying out everything in their path, the way the Wreckers had been. At least Wheeljack was here. If he needed to blow up a metric fuckton (thank you, Miko, love that expression) of Vehicons, Jackie was always good for it. Aw, whatever. Jackie was off doing whatever it was he was doing- wherever the action was, that was for sure- and Team Prime was on one of their completely weird and inexplicable little backwards jaunts again. Recon, digging old weapons and scrap up out of the ground to keep them out of the Decepticons' hands. It'd've been nice if the boss would've let them use the really cool ones, but for the most part Optimus Prime had a very firm "no powerful game-changing strategies" policy.

[autistic-speedbump]

YOU WOULD BE FUCKING SURPRISED.

I worked in a mall for 8 years and let me tell you, places like that change a man. There were feuds and rivalries between stores, the food court had factions, and the SCHEMING. See, places like that tend to have high turnover rates. If one of your coworkers rubbed you the wrong way, you had a real chance of successfully plotting their downfall.

Even I engaged in Machiavellian plots to remove a few undesirables, like a guy who would press trash down into the garbage can with his bare hands and go straight back to cooking. Looking back, I have no idea what came over me. I could have just reported that shit, but I went into a full villain arc with a scheme that involved asking him to cover a shift on a day I knew upper management would visit. That alone didnt get him axed, but it made everyone pay more attention to him and all his other violations.

But now I'm like "did I really have to do all that?" It was like the entire mall ran on cloak-and-dagger politics and I just got sucked in.

imo one of the funniest genres of dude is the ones who post shit on social media like "in 2024 I don't have time for fake friends" "so many people trying to betray you and stab you in the back, can't trust anyone but yourself" "I got a lot of enemies, a lot of people praying on my downfall" and then they work at like the mall or something like bro what kind of life are you leading there cannot be that many people out to get you

[sillywormz]

kamen for bingo!!! and mayhaps,,,, azi?

THE WAY I REBLOGGED THIS ASK GAME HOPING SOMEONE WOULD ASK ABT SCAVENGERS REIGN LOL. o7 thank you for your service

kamen. i'm so obsessed with him he's like a diseased stray animal to me. i hate him but i love him yknow. i wanted to just hate him at first but he grew on my brain like a fungus. i think he reminds me of myself but the parts of myself i don't like/don't want to think about, and that's one of the reasons why he's hit home so hard for me. he's just really pathetic and awful but i also kinda want him to get better and for him to be ok. Complex Feelings abt this guy for sure. i've seen a couple of crappy fandom takes on him but overall most scavengers reign fans are rlly cool people with galaxy brained takes on the characters so i didn't want to circle the "incorrect fandom takes" one. the writers also did an excellent job with him. i don't think there's a single thing i'd change abt his canon characterisation or arc even if i could.

i think the fact that i'm so obsessed with him and somewhat identify with him probably has some not-great implications for my own psychology that i would rather not think about lol. there is something wrong with me that is also wrong with him and it sucks. but it's also fun and insightful to see a character who reminds you of the bad parts of yourself imo

AZIIIII MY LOVE. i adore azi so much. out of all of the scavengers reign characters, her, ursula and levi are probably the ones i would want to hang out with irl the most. ik she's one of the main characters but i was still tempted to circle the "not enough canon" option bc i desperately want to know more abt what her deal is. i think by nature she's a kind person, but by the time mia met her she was clearly kinda bitter/jaded and not super interested in socialising and it makes me wonder if something happened to make her that way. like ik she claimed it's because of the constant crew turnover making it hard to make connections, but i don't believe that that's the ONLY reason. we know next to nothing abt her history or where she's from originally, if she was born on earth or a colony, if she has any surviving family, etc. azi strikes me as someone who is very lonely/craves connection but puts up a tough shell around herself bc she doesn't want to get hurt. but even so, she still falls for mia, still lets herself care abt levi, still does her best to help barry and counteract kris's influence on him, etc......... she cares a lot despite trying not to. i would love to know more abt her

didn't circle the "deep seated reasons for loving her" thing even though i DO love her, bc the reasons are not deep seated lol. they're very obvious. i'm a lesbian and she's a butch with a buzz cut running around in either a cool black coat and/or a tank top lol. but also personality-wise she's just awesome and funny and so real. i think it's obvious why i love her and idk why someone WOULDN'T love her tbh

[comicavalcade]

Submariner Summer 33

Mira mira time for #SubmarinerSummer read through. Today on part 33, we have Tales to Astonish #99: When Falls The Holocaust! A hell of a Hulk cover, but we're not here for that. Title splash pose for Namor in the ruins a US submarine has made of Atlantis, and a dramatic recap

Atlantis' fleet is off to retaliate, but Namor isn't happy left out. A complete turnover of the creative team for Namor this ish, with Archie Goodwin as writer and Dan Adkins on art, and Gaspar Saldino lettering. Not unfamiliar names but an odd time for a total changeover

Namor knows he needs to prove himself to prove his innocence, but is still too weak to keep up with the ships. However, they then launch a special untested experimental weapon, the Hurricane Inducer, that Namor is afraid might backfire so he determines he has to stop it

As an aside, I do wonder if the Hurricane Inducer is somehow based on the weapon Attuma tried to use to destroy Atlantis.

Meanwhile, the US sub that trashed Atlantis smugly heads away, when they detect the Atlantean fleet in pursuit. Unable to take them on they flee instead, trying to use the undersea terrain to their advantage, impressing even the Atlanteans.

Under command of Warlord Seth, the Atlanteans manage to turn their ships so as to not crash and decide to wait for the Hurricane Inducer

Speaking of which, Namor manages to break into the ship which carries the Inducer, trying to do as little harm as possible. He's forced to knock out a couple of guards before making his way to the room that houses it, only to discover it's already been set in motion!

Namor's only choice is destroy it before it has a chance to go off. To his people, this is just more proof he's turned traitor and they try to stop him. The Inducer and ship are now doomed, though, so the crew all begin to abandon ship. Seth sends the fleet back to rescue the crew.

Now the lives of not just one ship's crew but the whole fleet are in the balance if everyone is caught in the Inducer's explosion. So as the rescue is undertaken Namor desperately pilots the ship away behind the undersea mountain before escaping, thus saving the fleet.

Warlord Seth realizes Namor must have saved them, calling him a traitor, a hero, an enigma, and a Prince. Truer words. Meanwhile the US sub doesn't understand what happened, but are happy to leave since the explosion turned the Atlanteans away. But Namor's dilemma remains

A dramatic conclusion to the Plunderer Arc, and I always like seeing the Atlantean Navy in action. Namor is now considered dead by Atlantis even as it lies in ruins, while he himself feels he has to prove that he did not betray them through action against the surface. Goodwin and Adkins really brought the tale home.

And boy will it lead to action; get ready for one of the great superhero battle issues of all time as we finally get THEE Tales To Astonish crossover of Namor and Hulk NEXT in Tales to Astonish #100: Let There Be Battle!

[bleachbleachbleach]

Really enjoyed your takes on various bleach characters, got anything for Shinji? Be it an analysis, headcanons, or a breakdown of his dialect, I'm interested in seeing what your big brains have in store. Gimmee aaalllll the word vomit.

I really like Shinji! One of the first things I did as I was getting back into Bleach was spent some quality time with him, because I got it into my head that I wanted to try to read Bleach in Japanese.

Important note here: I don’t speak Japanese. I went to Japanese School on Saturdays during middle and high school, but I was a very bad student—second from the bottom of my class, actually! I often missed class to go play soccer and sometimes when I was in class I was more occupied with like, math homework or video games or making a shogi set out of foamcore. But I did take Translation Theory in undergrad, and that class has remained a formative part of my education, including my enrollment at Tumblr University, with a Major in Bleach Studies.

Anyway, back to Shinji. I chose to start this "read Bleach in Japanese" journey with Turn Back the Pendulum, because it was an arc I didn’t know that well with a bunch of characters I didn’t know that well, and it was fairly self-contained and together and wasn’t going to be intercut with some bullshit fight I didn’t care about (looking at you, Oomaeda vs. Elephant Guy). As far as being a fun language experience, THIS WAS A MISTAAAAAAAAAAKE LOLLL because when Shinji and Hiyori really get at it, Kansai dialect is really hard to make any heads or tails of when you already have poor language ability in standard Tokyo Japanese. I am now intimately acquainted with so many Kansai dialect websites and resources. It made me appreciate Aizen intensely, because he’d roll up speaking the most textbook-perfect polite Japanese and I’d be like, "Oh god, finally, someone speaking sanity!" There are a number of times where my notes (I stopped taking notes after the first half of TBTP because it was way too much work; we die like note-less kings at B3) just say, "idk some Kansai shit."

But thinking/reading so slowly with Shinji and his panels was really pleasurable, and led to some of my now-favorite random nuggets:

Using the nuances of language to get an immediate feel for Shinji and Aizen’s characters, and their relationship to each other in TBTP

An origin story for Shinji’s TBTP-era speakers

Shinji being able to pull back illusory hunting blinds

Also, this is one of my favorite Bleach panels ever lol, because WHAT A MOOD:

This is the part in TBTP where Shinji makes a comment about the amount of captain turnover happening and uses the onomatopoeia "korokorokorokoro," which is like, the sound something small (and potentially hapless) makes when it tumbles down a hill. LEGEND.

--

I haven’t done a lot of writing for Shinji yet, because I’m not really a big Vizard persont, but I’ve written a bit around him because I love Shinji with Hinamori, and Shinji alongside Kyouraku and Ukitake (RIP). And I am really interested in their reasons for (half) of the Vizard to return to Soul Society, and what that negotiation was like, what that year and a half prior to TYBW was like. I mean, obviously they didn’t come back because they love Soul Society oh so much; and Soul Society isn’t a place that welcomes "prodigals" back easily, either. I don’t think they came back to wage a coup from the inside or anything, but there's no way they came back to join the status quo. The Vizard need more than what the Living World is able to offer them, and Soul Society is vulnerable and understaffed, particularly in the Experienced Captains department. Ergo, an arrangement comes about.

Hiyori probably refused this plan on the basis of it feeling like returning to Soul Society like a kicked dog, tail between its legs. (She probably says something akin to this canonically but I did not look it up.) Shinji doesn’t see it that way, though he doesn’t particularly care if others do. It'd probably make things easier if everyone did, frankly.

"It makes you look weak," Hiyori says, stating the obvious. She states the obvious when she wants a rise out of him. The obvious is his eternal weakness.

"But we’re not," he says this time.

"It makes you seem forgiving," Hiyori needles.

Shinji smiles, all wide teeth. "What’s there to forgive. You don’t can’t hold grudges with children. It’s silly. They’re silly."

Hiyori frowns. "...Yamamoto?"

(Yes, Yamamoto. And then Kyouraku, actually--after only seventeen months on the other side of the senkaimon, Kyouraku and Ukitake. And then Kyouraku, alone.)

—

I’m just like, really fascinated by the idea of Shinji’s role in post-TYBW Soul Society. As far as people with institutional memory go, he’s probably next on the list after Kyouraku out of the Gotei members who are still alive. And I think one of the few with both the ability to influence Kyouraku’s leadership in addition to the energy/willingness to do so. Not that he’d want that formalized, or to actually have any particular job related to running this goddamn ship, but I think he keeps tabs, and Kyouraku is aware he keeps tabs, and that awareness does the work of keeping certain considerations from falling to the wayside, decisions made in certain ways, etc. Without Yamamoto, and then without Ukitake (for Kyouraku in particular), there’s this big ABSENCE that needs filled, that if left unattended would probably just fill with shadows and soft lies. I think Shinji exists as a level of mostly passive, nebulous scrutiny that, regardless, is critical to the version of Captain Commander that Kyouraku is in the process of creating. Which, even if shit hit the fan during TYBW and everything kind of sucks in trying to resurface from it, is a lot more than Shinji would have been able to get were Yamamoto still in charge. Happy accidents?

--

This post has already lasted an age, so I will attempt to keep this on the short side.

In case you missed some of these other random Shinji nuggets:

I muse about Shinji’s record collection and find some good music: https://bleachbleachbleach.tumblr.com/post/675451079488634880/me-i-dont-know-what-these-records-are-but-i-bet

One of our earliest posts where we investigate Shinji’s tongue piercing: https://bleachbleachbleach.tumblr.com/post/653382026937991168/i-am-a-little-disturbed-that-i-have-learned-this

Looking back, we have made a surprising amount of original posts about Shinji, even though I didn’t realize he was a favorite character. But I guess he is an interesting guy, so there’s a lot to muse about and have fun with.

This observation isn’t directly about Shinji, but have you ever noticed that Ichigo calls Shinji “Hirako”? It’s interesting, because for the most part, Ichigo is on a first name basis with everyone, everyone except his classmates. But just about all shinigami, regardless of class or position, he calls by their first name. I always thought this was just a sign of Ichigo being a punk. He has a somewhat rough way of speaking, and apparently doesn’t have much respect for those older than him. But his classmates? He’s always perfectly respectful when addressing Orihime and Ishida, by calling them their last name. The only exception appears to be Shinji.

Not even the other Visored call him Hirako. They all call him Shinji! So why does Ichigo call him Hirako? He’s on a first name basis with Byakuya, Kenpachi, Toushirou… and I’m sure others. So my only possible way of reasoning this out is that since Shinji was originally introduced to Ichigo as a classmate he just… continued to address him as one. Does this make any sense at all? No. But in whatever system Ichigo has going on, I guess it makes sense to him.

[hopeswriting]

#i did see muffin's pregnancy theory in the notes and i can also definitely see that being an option #but oooooo booooiiii does that have some Implications for Aria (or a potential 4th Sky Arco we don't know about who held the pacifier #until Aria was able to take over the curse herself which considering uni got it at like 7...) #based on aria's appearance we're probably looking at 30-40 years of these arcos including the future arc #that's almost a sky per decade which is a horrific turnover rate #though that is assuming aria is luce's pregnancy which idk if that's actually explicitly confirmed vs implied #vs breadcrumbs we all ran with

via @ravensilversea

@ravensilversea do you remember when it's said the sky flames are the addition of all the other flames? I tried to find it in the manga but i couldn't. And the way i remember it, i thought that was just fanon? 🤔 Was it in the manga or anime? Because you know what the anime can be like lol @hopeswriting I swear the anime's Future Arc exists solely to cause me pain. So, I can't find anything that explicitly says Sky Flames are a conglomeration of all the other flame types (*gets smacked with the That's Actually Fanon Bat once again* lol). However, in Ep 79, Lal says "The waves running through your body is the energy necessary for producing flames from the rings... The size and balance of the waves are determined when you're born. The waves, the rings, and the boxes…. All three must be of the same class or the box will not open. Out of the seven classes, sky is the only one capable of opening all of the boxes. That is one of sky's advantages. Few possess sky waves." And in Ep 76, TYL!Yamamoto explicitly calls these waves Deathperation Flames In this case, I think fanon took that and Gokudera's Sistema CAI which relies on him having 5 flame types to use it completely and extrapolated to "Sky Flames are a composite flame", especially since Sky Flames are noted to be rare and Gokudera is the only character shown to even have a snowball's chance in hell of using Sistema CAI given most everyone else is seen with 1 or 2 flame types at most

putting our replies here so people who might want to pitch in have all the information more easily!

okay so, i'm actually a bit disappointed sky flames being the combination of all other flames is just canon, because it really would have answered the question so nicely. (LOL, big mood tbh. it's okay, it happens to the best of us. 😭😂)

about sepira, i can get behind her having been a sky, but it's unlikely she was the (first) sky arcobaleno (tho i did talk about how we could make that work anyway lol). and it's fun how you brought up the idea of her having been the sky arco for multiple generation of arco, because i also thought it's one way it could have gone! and why it could have come to go this way despite them creating the pacifiers specifically so humans could bear them. but that only works if we agree sepira could have been a sky arco at some point, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

on the other hand, it's very safe to assume humans aren't suited to bear the trinisette. like, as much as the trinisette as we have it in canon was created with the express purpose of having humans bear it, it still doesn't change that it's an earthling job to do, and so there's naturally drawbacks/side effects to humans bearing them. but why one of those drawbacks would be specific to the sky pacifier? well actually, i guess it could be because canonically it's the most powerful part of the trinisette, but why in the form of a short lifespan instead of the toddlerization like for everyone else? especially because now you mention it, we also know that canonically sky flames users are rare to begin with! so if three sky arco per arco generation is the average number of sky arco per arco generation ever since they created the pacifiers? it IS horrific and aslo seems totally counterproductive.

but you know, wouldn't kawahira/sepira would have realized that too? and that they didn't do anything to change it seems to reinforce the idea the sky pacifier just has to work like that for one reason or another. and i just really can't figure out what that reason could be.

oh right, also. aria is luce's daughter, yeah! like it's never said outright, but you know. uni is called luce's granddaughter, and we know for a fact she is aria's daughter, so yeah.

Apologies I am late to this conversation but I always assumed the reason Aria and Uni were not made into babies was just because of how they received the pacifiers. That Luce was still a baby, and most likely whoever of the orange pacifiers was cursed through the events of the representative battle or the fated day became babies but their descendants who were cursed outside of it didn’t. Did I just make that all up in my mind for all these years?

Why is Luce always drawn as a baby then?

hi nonny, thank you for your ask!

well idk about you making it all up in your mind lol, but as much as canon doesn't deny it, it also doesn't imply it's the case. and imo the way i see it, i don't see why it'd be the case?

like i agree the representative war and the fated day are the "official" ways to be cursed, yet they're still two different ways to go about it, right? and canon tells us that either way, the sky arco aren't turned into babies. so when it comes to the third way of inheriting the pacifier like with the sky arco, i don't see why the rules of the sky arco's curse should suddenly change in that case. like, they still end up cursed the exact same way as luce was/the other arco are, aren't they? like, the weight and technicalities of the curse stay the same no matter what, so that's why to me, it makes more sense that it'd still operate under the same rules. that said, your reasoning holds up just as well in canon too, so if you like it better, by all means stick with it!

now why IS she always drawn as a baby lmao. 😭 that sure is the million-dollar question nonny. (outside the anime, that is, which isn't canon, but even in the manga it happens.) like, as much as byakuran explicitly states that the forms of the sky arco don't change in the rainbow arc (and that in exchange they're cursed with a short lifespan), there's still mixed signals in the manga that kind of contradicts that. but well, amano went out of her way to make byakuran say that, so that's what i personally go with and stick with anyway. if for no other reason than because, like. imagine you're cursed just the same as your fellow arco, with you being turned into a baby and having your flames constantly stolen by the pacifier, but then you, specifically, are also cursed with a short lifespan going forwards just because???

also if the short lifespan is in exchange for them not being turned into babies, then it also explains why the arco are turned into babies to begin with. looking at those two facts together, it seems that the weight of the curse is too heavy for their normal bodies to bear it without them meeting an early death, and one way or another, them being turned into babies makes them more suitable to bear it for longer. (which of course both kawahira and the trinisette would gain from it, because it means they can feed off their flames for longer amount of time at a time.)

[vickyvicarious]

For the ask game: Regina, Emma, and Killian from Once Upon a Time?

Three, huh? All right, can do. I’ve done this game for at least Emma and Killian before, a long time ago... hopefully I won’t be repeating anything!

(Once again, these are based on pre-Camelot, since I stopped watching fairly early on into that arc.)

Adding a readmore partway through Regina since this got long...

Regina

Headcanon A:  realistic

Being Mayor of Storybrooke was a really good learning experience for her. Sure, she had been a queen for a while before that, but based on the flashbacks I would say she was not paying much attention to the day-to-day duties of being a ruler. No trade deals, no study of the law of her country, no effort put in to learning what kind of taxes might be reasonable, or coordinating aid efforts to help with that drought/illness/bad crops, etc. She was very focused on herself at the time, and just didn’t pay much attention.

But in Storybrooke, while everything came pre-set in the way she wanted, she was still Mayor of an actual town for a long time. Not only was it more expected in this world, but there’s also just upkeep that has to happen. The magic kept people from getting older, but not Henry’s playcastle on the beach, for example. Regina had to be in charge of keeping the town functioning, and there’s only so much magic could do. So she actually learned how to do the right paperwork, a bit of how to allocate a budget, etc.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Regina was all ominously proud of her apple turnover in S1. Obviously, this was actually about the poison apple thing, but I think it would be really funny if she’d made that joke before. Like, Storybrooke probably got kind of boring at times when she was the only one who remembered. Add in the fact that it’s definitely the kind of place that had an annual baking competition or something...

Regina got the idea once to make an apple-based dessert and submit it to the competition, after ensuring Mary-Margaret was a judge. It wasn’t poisonous, but it made her very amused to see her once again just willingly eating the apple, so to speak... however, Regina lost the competition horribly that first year. Her dessert did not taste good at all. This did not sit well with her, and so she practiced and practiced (full on training montage) until she has pretty much mastered several apple-themed desserts, specifically to win the competition every time and make Mary-Margaret have to eat them for her own private amusement. She also definitely did the “give an apple to your child’s teacher” thing multiple times as well.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

When she was a little girl, Regina used to write letters to an imaginary friend. She couldn’t send them to anyone, since she didn’t actually have any close friends (closest she had were polite acquaintance of similar social class or nice servants/staff in whom she knew better than to confide), so she just collected them. They were a sort of diary for her. At first, she was really friendly and optimistic about her home life, but this soon devolved into lying fantasies about what it would be like if she had a happy family. She wrote about a mother who loved her deeply and wanted to spend time with her, about messing something up and no one scolding her, about her father defending her from some mean lady who’s clearly a stand-in for Cora (since letter-Cora is perfect), and all that sort of thing. It wasn’t all about her family, letter-Regina also had a super special horse who she rode to win a race, and the cook always made her favorite treats, etc., but the family stuff was the majority of it.

Her father found the letters one day, and thought they were sweet. Meaning well and absolutely missing the context, he showed them to Cora. She called Regina in to watch as she burned them, scolding her for wasting time daydreaming when she should be focusing on bettering herself in order to make a good match down the line.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Regina was not able to give Henry a TLK. I have talked about this in the past (here’s the link to the TL;DR, which itself has a link to the longer rambly thoughts), but I don’t think their relationship was such that she could, despite wanting to. And that’s not even taking into consideration that she lacked a heart at the time.

In my ideal world, Regina secretly hoped to be able to give him a TLK, and her failure to do so was kind of a wake-up call. It could easily go the other way into feeling like the whole world is against her, but this time it didn’t. She thought about her relationship with Henry and when he was saved (through whatever other reason), she realized just how badly she never wanted this to happen again. She wanted to change - and this time, she was willing to put in the work. Of course, it took time and there were probably backslides and stuff, but Regina began to really put in the effort to repair her relationship with Henry, to actually treat him as important and to value him outside of herself. This didn’t magically repair her relationship with anyone else (the whole point of this headcanon is effort vs magical change!) but treating Henry with respect and care meant not starting stuff with the other people he loves, and in general it became easier over time. Emma supported Regina a lot too, mostly for Henry’s sake in the beginning, but it did help.

Basically, the failed TLK led to a more realistic ‘redemption arc’ where Regina was kind of shocked out of being selfish or taking Henry for granted, and this eventually led to a much healthier outlook on her part where she felt less persecuted and accepted her responsibility for her actions, without feeling too overwhelmed to keep on trying for a better future even if not everyone can/does forgive her. She and Henry would be so much happier, despite it taking a while, and it would feel earned to me. Plus, it means that she wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to blame everything on the Author, a storyline I really hated.

.

Emma

Headcanon A:  realistic

She’s very smart, got a good sense for when people are lying, and is good at noticing and following up on relevant details. Emma never finished high school, though she did later get her GED, and definitely never went to college. While she was doing pretty well for herself as a bail bondsperson, she actually had been thinking about getting a private investigator’s license and starting her own business. There’s a fair bit of overlap between the two careers, and Emma liked the idea of not having to work for anyone else, and also being able to hopefully be a little more choosy about the clients she chose.

She was still in the process of researching the requirements and debating over taking some local college courses in that field before trying to actually make any big changes, when Henry showed up at her door.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

I really love the idea of Emma bipiddy-boppedy-booing about once she gets better with her magic. Just using it for little, silly things that no one else really uses magic for. (Maybe the reason is that most people don’t have that much magic to use for frivolous stuff, or the magic always has a price makes them way of depending on it too much.) But Emma doesn’t depend on it, she only just kind of plays with her magic, pretty much only in private, but she finds it really fun. So she will sneakily change the color of her dress while spinning in the mirror, or she will animate all the socks to race one another into the laundry machine, or whatever. Just small things, only sometimes, but it’s really cute and she always gets a little giddy/silly about it.

At one point, Killian catches her pretending to have an argument about dishes that don’t want to be washed because they’re scared of the overzealous sponge, and he can’t help laughing. Emma is super embarrassed and makes him swear never to ever tell or even hint to anyone, ever. He eventually agrees but teases her about it, saying he’s rooting for the sponge, or whatever. It’s just fun and cute and very silly. :)

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Emma’s first memory is of her first ‘parents’ giving her back. They were the Swans, they took her in when she was very cute and small, but then when they had their own kid they basically said they couldn’t support multiple kids and couldn’t keep Emma. Either they had already finished adopting her, and now gave her up for adoption again, or they were still in the middle of the process and just stopped it. But they kept her until their child was born a healthy baby, because they had already had multiple miscarriages or something. Emma obviously doesn’t remember all the details of this, but she has a vague first memory of the parents she loved leaving her behind and never coming back, which for a long time she secretly thought might be about her bio parents despite knowing she was a literal newborn when she was abandoned.

As an adult she researched her own past, and learned about this whole situation as well as the ‘left on the side of the road’ thing. She visited the Swans secretly/looked them up, and they were living happily with their biological kid, showing all signs of being great parents and having a close-knit family. Emma never confronted them, and doesn’t like to admit her complicated feelings about them, or even that this ever happened to her. But she absolutely has conflated her issues with them/her birth parents, and yet she’s clung to the last name ‘Swan’ since it indicates someone loved her enough to make her theirs, even if only for a little while.

I wrote a short little ficlet about something this once and ever since it’s been my headcanon.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

Probably some of the others already contradict various moments in canon, but whatever. Here’s the one I’m going with:

I firmly believe in bisexual Emma who absolutely fell in puppy love with Lily, please and thank you. (I wrote a fic about it, even.) Also, I quite like the idea of her wanting to have a one-night stand with Ruby to stop thinking about could-have-beens and feelings after Graham died. However, things were happening pretty quickly, and in such a small town she didn’t want to get involved in anything else potentially messy at this point. Add in that she saw Ruby almost every day so there would be no avoiding her, and fearing Mary-Margaret would try to either help her find love or give her some kind of intervention about Graham if she found out, and Emma never went beyond thinking about it. (After the curse was broken and she learned that Ruby had been her mother’s close friend, she was pretty glad about that choice.)

.

Killian

Headcanon A:  realistic

Killian gets phantom pains sometimes in his missing hand. He’s been missing it for much longer than he ever actually had two hands, but that doesn’t make a difference as far as those go. (It also doesn’t change the way he sometimes forgets he only has one hand when he is half-asleep. Only ever for a moment, but long enough to reach for something and not be able to pick it up.) He has various things that tend to trigger the pain (when he’s thinking too much about the time he lost it, it always pulses with a strong pain that he just determinedly ignores whenever he’s around Rumple; heavy rain can trigger it; if he does too much work with his left arm, like carrying something heavy with his hook or something, often that night or the next day will hurt), though sometimes it seems to come on randomly. Likewise, he has a few different methods to deal with it, from painkillers to getting drunk to putting the stump in a warm bath to trying to imagine stretching out his hand, that all help sometimes. Other times, though, he just kind of has to wait it out because nothing works.

One time, Emma notices he’s bothered and finally gets him to tell her what’s going on. At the moment, there’s nothing she can do (it’s a ‘wait it out’ day), but she looks up other methods of helping, and the next time she notices Killian going through it, she gives the mirror box a try since it is relatively easy to do in the moment. It actually helps, and after that she and Killian are able to figure out a couple other ways that can help reduce his pain.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Killian gets motionsickness on long car rides or roller coasters. He’s perfectly fine on a boat that is swaying all over the place in the harshest of storms, but for some reason riding in the Bug for more than thirty minutes will make him feel sick to his stomach. He finds this deeply ridiculous and does not like to acknowledge it in any way. Emma find this deeply ridiculous and loves to tease him about it.

The issue with roller coasters was a complete surprise - again, because he’s usually fine with high-adrenaline activities, they both thought it was only cars that bothered him. When Emma first took him and Henry to a roller coaster park, he was actually most interested in all the fast rides, only to be disappointed and have to sit down in the sun and drink some water while Emma and Henry were completely fine.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Killian has been alive for a long time, and most of the people he loves have been dead for the vast majority of that time. Even as a child, he could barely remember his mother - a vague impression of her voice, of the way her hair would sway... After Liam died, Killian was left without any kind of memento of what he looked like. When they were together, Milah drew several portraits of herself and Killian bother separately and together. She also drew her son, determined to keep him with her and not forget what he looked like. Killian thought about asked her to draw Liam for him as well, but he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to describe him well enough and that the portrait being only a half-likeness or something would just bother him more, so he never did.

He deeply regretted this later, when after nearly two hundred years in Neverland he realized that he could no longer remember what his older brother looked like. Sometimes, kind of, but nothing clear or reliable. He still remembered how much Liam meant to him, what they did together, of course all of that - but he couldn’t recall exactly what his brother’s voice sounded like when he was angry, or the particular shade of his hair, or whether he ever had freckles. Over time, Killian forgot most concrete details about Liam, no matter how much he tried to cling to them. He was terrified of losing Milah’s memory in the same way, or Emma during the year apart, and would often try to think of them as clearly as possible, to linger on specific memories and indelibly etch them into his mind. Still, he couldn’t help but notice that (particularly with Milah) some things were slipping away despite hims best efforts. Small things, like not remembering how Milah took her coffee, but he is still terrified of losing even the smallest of memories.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

My mind is blanking for some reason. Maybe I’ve just been doing this too long... How about, Rumple was lying when he said Killian’s briefly restored hand was never cursed. I can’t remember if that was implied to be a lie or not, but I’ve always thought it was. Maybe not a deliberate “curse” exactly but I have always liked this idea that the hand is frozen in time in more ways than one (and Rumple would’ve known that).

[thistransient]

- I went back to class today, not entirely willingly because my body was not exactly ready to wake up two hours earlier than I’d gotten used to while on holiday. I had a green tea at home with breakfast. A box milk tea at school. A medium milk tea at the brunch place for lunch. I’m awake, but at what cost (ie: will I ever be able to sleep again). Finally, our strange classmate who could neither speak intelligibly nor understand anyone to save his life (but refused to leave the level) finally failed out, and the administration could forcibly relocate him on the basis of school policy. We have more teacher turnover, but it’s our (very decent) intern teacher from last semester who was doing 2 days per week, now she’ll do the main days and someone else does the 2. I can live with this. 

- I have been walking around for some time on a flip-flop with a hole worn fully through the heel, which itself has cracked in half and continues to cling on only by a thin shred of foam (not to mention the strap has been reattached via several rubber-bands for a couple months now), and I swear today is the day I’m going to get new ones! (Sad that this pair only lasted from March 2021! I had high hopes! But I suppose they did the best they could considering how often I wore them hiking.) I also kind of want to take bets with myself as to when the heel will simply give up the ghost, first severed and then consequently digested by an MRT escalator.

- If I thought my crowning achievement was going to the (ill-mannered) doctor in Chinese, the next step is apparently to have a consultation (not with him, thank god) over the phone (I don’t even like talking on the phone in English). Although come to think, I do tutoring via audio call every week. Then again, tutoring doesn’t usually involve medical terms, nor is it regarding something that costs 幾萬臺幣, and if I really can’t understand something we just type it in the chat. I think I can do this though- or die of embarrassment trying. 

- Taiwan’s borders are slowly creaking open, there’s visa-free entry for certain nationalities again, and on the 13th supposedly 4 day hotel quarantine + 3 day “self health management” (staying at home, with some restrictions that no one actually checks up on) will be replaced by 7 day self health management only. I told a friend I’m loathe to forfeit my hard-won ARC (who knows how many trees died to photocopy all those documents) but I’m also extreeeemely tempted to not study in the spring, just leave in January and come back on a 90-day visa free entry (Japan is opening up too), but he seemed to think returning to a life of sloth would not do me any favours, and to be honest he has very good judgement when it comes to my blind spots in self-perception. I shall persevere, I guess.

[spockandawe]

Well, this is interesting! So, in that post yesterday, there was one line that really baffled me, a thing about people brushing off a character as an asshole “because he shows literally zero growth.” I kind of set that aside because it was such a weird non-sequitur, and guessed that it was just someone’s sentences not quite keeping up with their train of thought, which has happened to me many times. Apparently I was wrong! I already spent long enough on that one post, I’m tired of talking about that, but this is new and interesting. 

Okay. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk about this purely in terms of abstracts and not characters, but I don’t think it’ll work. It would be frustrating to write and confusing to read. It’s about Jiang Cheng. Right up front: This isn’t about whether or not he’s an abuser. Frankly, I don’t think it’s relevant. This also isn’t about telling people they should like him. I don't care whether anyone else likes him or not. But I do like him, and I am always fascinated by dissecting the reasons that people disagree with me. And the process of Telling Stories is my oldest hyperfixation I remember, which will become relevant in a minute.

I thought I had a good grasp on this one, you know? Jiang Cheng makes it pretty obvious why people would dislike Jiang Cheng. But then the posts I keep stumbling over were making weird points, culminating in that “literally zero growth” line.

So! What happened is that someone wrote up a post about how Jiang Cheng’s character arc isn’t an arc, it’s stagnation. It’s a pretty interesting read, and I broadly agree with the larger point! The points where I would quibble are like... the idea that it’s absolute stagnation, as opposed to very subtle shifts that still make a material difference. But still, cool! The post was also offered up as a reason why OP was uninterested in writing any more Jiang Cheng meta, which I totally get. I’m not tired of him yet, but I definitely understand why someone who isn’t a fan of his would get tired about writing about a character with a very static arc. Okay!

Now, internet forensics are hard. I desperately wish I had more information about this evolution, because I find this stuff fascinating, but I have no good way to find things said in untagged posts, reblogs, or private/external venues. But as far as I can tell, that “literally zero growth” wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, it’s become fashionable for people to say that Jiang Cheng is an abusive asshole (that it’s fucked up to like) because he doesn’t have a character arc.

Asshole? Yes. Abusive? This post still isn’t about that. This is about it being fucked up to like this character because he did bad things and had a static character arc.

At first, that point of view was still deeply confusing to me. But I think I figured out the idea at the core of it, and now I’m only baffled. I’m not super interested in confirming this directly, because the people making the most noise about this have not inspired confidence in their ability to hold a civil conversation and I’m a socially anxious binch, but I think the idea is: ‘This character did Bad Things, and then did not improve himself.’

Which is alarmingly adjacent to that old favorite standard of ‘This piece of fiction is glorifying Bad Thing.’ I haven’t seen anyone accusing mxtx of something something jiang cheng, only the people who read/watched/heard the story and became invested in the Jiang Cheng character, but things kind of add up, you know?

Like I said, I don’t want to arbitrate anyone’s right to like/dislike Jiang Cheng. That’s such a fucking waste of time. But this is fascinating to me, because it’s like..... so obviously new and sudden, with such a clear originating point. I can’t speak to the Chinese fans, obviously, but exiledrebels started translating in... what, 2017? And only now, in 2021, do people start putting forth Jiang Cheng’s flat character arc as a “reason” that he’s bad? I’m not going to argue if he pings you in the abuse place, I’m not a dick. I’m not going to argue if you just dislike his vibes. I’m just over here on my blog and in the tag enjoying myself, feel free to detour around me. But oh my god, it’s so silly to try to tell other people that they shouldn’t like him because he has a static character arc.

I want to talk about stories. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to say, because it’s impossible to make broad, sweeping statements, because there are stories about change, there are stories about lack of change, there are all kinds of media that can be used to tell stories, and standards for how stories are told and what they emphasize vary across cultures and over time. But I think that what I can say is that telling a story requires... compromise. It requires streamlining. Trying to capture all the detail of life would slow down most stories to an unbearable degree. Consider organically telling someone ‘I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ versus the computer science exercise of having students describe, step by step, how to make one (spread peanut butter? but you never said you opened the lid)

Hell, I’ve got an example in mdzs itself. The largely-faceless masses of the common people. If someone asks you to think about it critically like, yes, obviously these are people, living their own lives, with their own desires, sometimes suffering and dying in the wake of the novel plot. But does the story give weight to those deaths? Or does it just gloss by? Yes, it references their suffering occasionally, but it is not the focus, and it would slow the story unbearably to give equal weight to each dead person mentioned. 

Does Wei Wuxian’s massacre get given the same slow, careful consideration as Su She’s, or Jin Guangyao���s? No, because taking the time to weigh our protagonist with ‘well, this one was a mother, and her youngest son had just started walking, but now he’s going to grow up without remembering her face. that one only became an adult a few months ago, he still hasn’t been on many night-hunts yet, but he finds it so rewarding to protect the common people. oh, and this one had just gotten engaged, but don’t worry, his fiancee won’t mourn him, because she died here as well.’ And continuing on that way to some large number under 3000? No! Unless your goal is to make the reader feel bad for cheering for a morally grey hero, that would be a bad authorial decision! The book doesn’t ignore the issue, it comes up, Wei Wuxian gets called out about all the deaths he’s responsible for, but that’s not the same as them being given equal emotional weight to one (1) secondary character, and I don’t love this new thing where people are pretending that’s equivalent.

When Wei Wuxian brutally kills every person at the Wen supervisory office, are you like ‘holy shit... so many grieving families D:’ or are you somewhere between vindicated satisfaction and an ‘ooh, yikes’ wince? Odds are good you’re somewhere in the satisfaction/wince camp, because that’s what the story sets you up to feel, because the story has to emphasize its priorities (priorities vary, but ‘plot’ and ‘protagonist’ are common ones, especially for a casual novel read like this)

Now, characters. If you want to write a story with a sweeping, epic scale, or if you want to tightly constrain the number of people your story is about, I guess it’s possible to give everyone involved a meaningful character arc. Now.... is it always necessary? Is it always possible? Does it always make sense? No, of course not. If you want to do that, you have to devote real estate to it, and depending on the story you want to tell, it could very possibly be a distraction from your main point, like the idea of mxtx tenderly eulogizing every single character who dies even incidentally. Lan Qiren doesn’t get a loving examination of his feelings re: his nephews and wei wuxian and political turnover in the cultivation world because it’s not relevant, and also, because his position is pretty static until right near the end of the story. Lan Xichen is arguably one of the most static characters within the book, he seems like the same nice young between Gusu and the present, right up until... just before the end of the story.

You may see where I’m heading with this.

Like, just imagine trying to demand that every important character needs to go through a major life change before the end of your book or else it didn’t count. This just in, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go through multiple novels without experiencing radical shifts in who they are, stop liking them immediately. I do get that the idea is that Jiang Cheng was a ~bad person~ who didn’t change, but asdgfsd I thought we were over the handwringing over people being allowed to like ““bad”” fictional characters. The man isn’t even a canonical serial killer, he’s not my most problematic fave even within this novel.

And here is where it’s a little more relevant that I would quibble with that original post about Jiang Cheng’s arc. He’s consistently a mean girl, but he goes from stressed, sharp-edged teenager, to grief-stricken, almost-destroyed teen, to grim, cold young adult (and then detours into grim, cold, and grief-stricken until grief dulls with time). He does become an attentive uncle tho. He..... doesn’t experience a radical change in his sense of self, which... it’s...... not all that strange for an adult. And bam, then he DOES experience a radical change, but the needs of the plot dictate that it’s right near the end. And he’s not the focus of the story, baby, wangxian is. He has the last few lines of the story, which nicely communicate his changes to me, but also asdfafas we’re out of story. He was never the main character, it’s not surprising we don’t linger! The extras aren’t beholden to the needs of plot, but they’re also about whatever mxtx wanted to write, and I guess she didn’t feel like writing about Jiang Cheng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But also. Taking a step backward. Stable characters can fill a perfectly logical place in a story. Like, look at Leia Organa. I’m not saying she has no arc, but I am saying that she’s a solid point of reference as Luke is becoming a jedi and Han is adjusting his perspective. I wouldn’t call her stagnant, the vibes are wrong, but she also isn’t miserable in her sadness swamp, the way Jiang Cheng is.

Or, hell, look at tgcf. The stagnant, frozen nature of the big bad is a central feature of the story. The bwx of now is the bwx of 800 years ago is the bwx of 1500+ years ago. This is not the place for a meta on how that was bad for those around him and for him himself, but I have Thoughts about how being defeated at the end is both a thing that hurts him and relieves him. Mei Nianqing is a sympathetic character who’s also pretty darn static. Does Ling Wen have a character arc, or do we just learn more about who she already is and what her priorities always were? I’m going to cut myself off here, but a character’s delta between the beginning of a story and the end of a story is a reasonable way to judge how interesting writing character meta is, and is a very silly metric to judge their worth, and even if I guessed at what the basic logic is, for this character, I am still baffled that it’s being put forth as a real talking point.

(also, has it jumped ship to any other characters yet? have people started applying it in other fandoms as well? please let me know if this is the case, I am wildly curious)

(no, but really, if anyone is arguing that bwx is gross specifically because he had centuries to self-reflect and didn’t fix himself, i am desperate to know)

And finally. The thing I thought was most self-evident. Did I post about this sometime recently? If a non-central character experiences a life-altering paradigm shift right near the end of the story (without it being lingered over, because non-central character), oh my god. As a fic writer? IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE. This is the most fertile possible ground. If I want to write post-canon canon-compliant material, adsgasfasd that’s where I’m going to be looking. Okay, yeah, the main couple is happy, that’s good. Who isn’t happy, and what can I do about that? Happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, etc.

It’s not everyone’s favorite playground, but come on, these are not uncommon feelings. And frankly, it’s starting to feel a little disingenuous when people act like fan authors pick out the most blameless angel from the cast and lavish good things upon them. I’m not the only one who goes looking for a good dumpster fire and says I Live Here Now. If I write post-canon tgcf fic, it’s very likely to focus on beef and/or leaf. I have written more than one au focusing on tianlang-jun.

And, hilariously. If the problem with Jiang Cheng. Is that he is a toxic man fictional character who failed to grow on his own, and is either unsafe or unhealthy to be around. If the problem is that he did not experience a character arc. If these people would be totally fine with other people liking him, if he improved himself as a person. And then, if authors want to put in the (free! time-consuming!) work of writing that character development themselves. You would think that they would be lauded for putting the character through healthier sorts of personal growth than he experienced in canon. Instead, I am still here writing this because first, I was bothered by these authors being named as “freaks” who are obsessed with their ‘uwu precious tsundere baby’ with a “love language of violence,” and then I was graciously informed that people hate Jiang Cheng because he experiences no character growth.

[antiloreolympus]

5 Anti LO Asks

1. you know what i noticed while skimming through the lo book at b&n? they didnt take the white buffer out (which is good for webtoons, its so single panels are the focus on a phone screen instead of jumbled or cramped) but when put into print it just makes it so theres an overwhelming lot of white space, which makes the panels look even tinier and cramped in. how did the designer not re-format this stuff?

2. Gotta love how Apollo and Hades are basically the same person in LO, but because RS says they aren't fans don't see it. I'd love to have that level of mind control over people.

3. I’ll say it, the beginning of LO was good enough for what it was. Art styles changes but it had a lot of personality, and that’s good for a comic. The story took a good turn from Hades kidnapping Persphone to driving her safely (i wouldn’t say it’s the best thing to do since he knew she was friends with Artemis and should have found her) but it worked out good for both characters. Like it was suppose to be just a over the top first meeting.

But then it got complicated. In the original pilot Minthe gets dumped pretty early and Hera tries to set hades and P up after a fight with Zeus and I forget what’s after that, but if she stuck with that I feel like it would have taken a lot of bs out.

Instead the story is built like a tower held on by glitter glue and rubber bands. Minthe and hades have their own problems that get worse with Persphones presence. Other female characters who don’t like the idea of Hades and P randomly try to push it but we see nothing that gives us real comfort that hades is good for Persphone or vice verse (even tho hades is with Minthe) persphone even admits to being a child about Hades and her feelings, but we don’t see her grow we just see the situation in her favor. She wants hades, hades breaks up with Minthe. The audience assumes it’s gone be the smack that does it, but they don’t even really talk about that, they talk about Persphone more and hades even sucks in that break up. Now all RS had to do was find a way to really get rid of Minthe without sacificing Hades’ “good guy” character. Which in my opinion went horribly.

There’s also just so many other elements in the story that just feels like Persphone is a passive main character, she’s thrown into her situations more often than doing something or learning a lesson. P falls for an guy in a relationship, she cries about and gets with him anyway. She gets an internship through Hera. And I know people might wanna argue Demeter made her that way, but now with flash backs P is just whatever character traits RS wants her to have for that chapter. The most I’ve seen her done for herself was telling Leto off, but honestly that scene was a little cringe. Like I get what they were trying to do, but why make a little humor pulling on the veil, when Leto could have been an actual scary villain.

With this trial arc also, persphone looks like hades spoiled rich daughter, which isn’t helping with the age gap. Like the story had an interring start, thought it was gonna be a basic drama but now it’s a hot mess

4. In terms of "style changes", the issue with that is that in most cases, it's the artist(s) getting a better grip on what works for them and evolving, with the art often improving. LO has had the exact opposite trajectory, especially with its high turnover rate within the art team who more often than not fail at emulating rachel's more boring style, much less her early more interesting one. You guys can admit the art isnt up to par with what it once was without making every excuse under the sun.

5. does rs not know or just not care that making her main character the most perfect person in the world who's better than everyone else on earth isn't good writing

[ginger-grimm]

I also wanted to say I have no idea what even really happened this season. I guess I am willing to chalk it up to the fact that COVID is still hindering production and that the Olympics got in the way of air times and that there's been a bunch of turnover both on and off-screen for actors and characters alike, but like, this season (kind of just like last season) feels so surreal to me. Maybe it really is because of all the breaks but there's storylines that start and get ended prematurely/never even get resolved. What happened with Cruz's PTSD? Why did the beer squad immediatly conceide their whole business idea when they could have literally just searched for another brewery? What happened with the private ambulance business? Why are we being shown a million OFI investigations this season? Why do Cruz, Hermann, Mouch and Ritter not get literally any proper storylines that aren't just comic relief? Why are they turning Brett into a whiny "when will my husband return from the war" character? Why are they ruining Gallo's character so hard? Are we ever gonna get some proper storylines for the OGs if so many new characters are popping up? I am still not over them kicking Pelham to the curb. I was so excited to see Stella whip an all-new troupe into shape and to see Pelham bond with the others more. What was the point of his whole arc just to write him off a couple of eps later? Jeez, I feel like I've been on one long drug trip this season.