#i saw this quote and immediately saw in my mind every screenshot i would need to illustrate it

[laurelwen]

The Sins of the Father

(East, West - Salman Rushdie)

[Like Minds Aesthetic Masterpost]

[lukewarmkraftsingle]

hi can you elaborate on divorced au mp100. i saw your video and i just went fucking nuts sitting in bed. in my brain. i need to know is it /j or /srs i need to know. im really obsessed. i think it would be really good

[the post. for context]

8:44 AM

thanks for the question! i woke up the morning of January 1st, this lovely, beautiful morning, with some animal crossing song stuck in my head. i know it's from new leaf because it has the theme for that game in it, but i cannot for the life of me remember what track it was. it can't be any of the new year's ones, i know how the new year's ones sound. i have an excellent memory for music and not much else, you see. the song is in very vivid detail in my mind, but i just cannot put the face to the name. or whatever. i'm listening to the whole ost right now to see which one it is. but after my eyes were open and whatever, i opened my phone to see what time it was, about 8 am, which is fine. i didn't stay up until midnight last night anyway. i fell asleep much earlier, passed out sideways on my bed, until the fireworks they do nearby every year kicked up right at midnight and woke me up. but i did get back to sleep. had weird dreams.

back to this morning, then. after checking my messages and all, i opted to look at my tumblr, because why not, sure, i have been known to do that sometimes. i scroll through any new posts, then i see something in my inbox, i open this message, read it quickly, still only half awake, immediately started cackling. there is no better way to describe the sound i made.

the animal crossing ost is on the hourly music now. i know it's not any of that either. but i like the hourly music. i'll let some of em play out. whatever.

but this message intrigues me. i thought about it while i got out of bed and took a shower. the animal crossing song was still trucking along at this point. i cleared out my shower drain the other day, so it was nice and in full functioning order to start off the year. lovely. but i also washed my shower curtains and completely forgot to put them back, but it was too late by the time i realized that i needed to do that. i was already determined to go through with the shower. maybe this is some kind of metaphor. for the new year i mean. mayhaps i will have the strength to take on whatever sort of stress that the year will throw at me, as the shower drain did, but it will be done with a sort of messy transparency, as the shower curtain-less experience offered. maybe this is the only way we can properly take on our greatest challenges. insert reigen quote. whatever. the floor is dry now, it's fine.

anyway. i think i can offer you the initial discussion that led to me making that video. much like a weed-adjacent post i made a while back, this is a discussion between me and The wife. i will offer brief commentary and context as needed below each image. or as not needed. none of this commentary has been needed. i will keep up the trend.

i take a lot of screenshots when i'm going out and about on the internet. just of little things that i find entertaining. or intriguing. i find it to be a much more reliable method than just liking the post or putting it in twitter bookmarks or whatever. much less likely to get deleted, or buried, or whatever. said reigen folder does not really exist. i do have a collection of snippets of posts like that, but there is no dedicated folder. it's with all the other mob psycho ones. there are currently 150 screenshots in that folder. do with that information what you will. i may be interested in posting those reigen ones, though. i'll think about it.

oh. it's on the rainy versions now. i think i'll just skip over those ones. about the same, just less instruments. same for the snow ones. this playlist is thorough.

this is one of the major issues with the divorced au: is it a mischaracterization of reigen? there are concerns that no woman would ever want to be within twenty feet of him. gf has expressed such sentiments previously, and i am partially inclined to agree. but i cannot say much, as anyone can see my post history on here. and you can see my reigen profile picture in these messages. while my picture was not that exact reigen image in november of 2022, it was still a reigen image. i will provide below for full immersive experience.

i am not taking questions at this time. anyway. back to the important discussion.

this is the one part of the au that i provided myself at that time that is not included in the actual post, and the main catalyst of the divorce, perhaps. i have seen other proposals in the tags, yes, but i am refraining from bringing those up. this is the initial discussion, yes? i'm keeping it disconnected from anything outside of this initial conversation.

all of the creation of the picture in the video was done in paint, with it only being moved to photoshop later so i could better flip the image. this is relevant later. i feel the need to specify, i ultimately did not end up tracing a photo. much too difficult to do in paint, and it wouldn't provide a very good look for what i was going for anyway. i did, however, heavily reference another better stock photo i found. surely said photo is not very difficult to find, which is good, because i do not have it on hand either. sad!

and here is the reason why the drawing was turned into a video. for whatever reason, i was possessed to flip the small drawing of mob (psycho 100), and i discovered that it was, perhaps, the greatest activity i could have possibly chosen to partake in. it was mesmerizing. this message was sent after the video was made, but i feel as though it is much more clear than the message i sent before making the video, which was simply a crazed declaration of it "flip[ping] so good," followed by a complaint about the lack of a flip shortcut in paint. if anyone knows of a "flip selection" shortcut in paint, please let me know. i could not find one, even though i searched very carefully for one.

..

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Oh

ok

the animal crossing song was not the new year's one. it was the fireworks festival music. from new leaf.

listen to it. it's one of my favorites. i can't believe i forgot when it plays. very sorry! and to all of my one-earbud user friends out there, use both for this one. as you should for all animal crossing music. or turn your sound onto mono i don't know.

anyway. i suppose i should offer a brief summary of where we've gotten: reigen arataka, greatest psychic of the 21st century, had a wife at some point, and he no longer has a wife, due to a divorce, presumed at least a bit messy. questionably canon. it could certainly be inserted into canon fine enough. he is gay.

let's take some questions from the audience, then!

there are a couple of tags along these lines, i believe, but this provides a degree of severity to any sorts of divorce theorizing. it's a bit of a spectrum in my mind. i like the percentages. really meshes well with the rest of the series. 100% divorced. y'know?

not me creating lore for this. i think this one offers an interesting perspective on all of it. i suppose that my depiction does offer a sort of swapping of their usual dynamic. when i first saw these tags, it brought to mind an alternate approach to the usual depictions of the standard "age swap" au, in which i feel, in my heart, pushing 30 mob is at least 16% divorced. the dynamic in the video, when taken at face value i think, would be more descriptive of overly enthusiastic younger reigen and some degree of "divorced in vibes" mob. surely most are familiar with such au shenanigans, and surely you are too, dearest anonymous person, if you have read this far. you seem to have some interest in alternatives to canon. if not, it is certainly not hard to come across. i have no other constructive comments on age swapping. someone else go and do that. i don't know.

but i suppose i should be speaking with slightly more relevance. i do have some purpose in drawing them in this manner. i see the show as a bit more lighthearted, generally. this is absolutely not to downplay the themes it tackles. but the average episode is generally more playful. and with reigen often being the cause of that. uh. m. i feel like i was going somewhere with this. but uhh. such shenanigans in the drawing are for the purpose of exaggerating the uh. the abnormality. yeah. sure. definitely did it with Grand Purpose and not just because i thought the mob looked funny.

and now we come to some constructive criticism! i love receiving constructive criticism.

uh. yes. but this is divorced au. anything is possible. the fabric of reality is tearing apart as we speak.

and now, the question we've all been waiting for: who was he married to? there are certainly some possibilities. as i currently have none, i am turning to my notes again.

i believe this tag presents an interesting possibility. this is not a marriage of romance. i was not actually familiar with the term "lavender wedding," but i am certainly familiar with the concept. two people going into a heterosexual marriage to conceal their true attractions, yes? this does go against my suggestion that the divorce is caused because reigen is gay, but it does resolve the constructive criticism presented above. i find this concept incredibly entertaining the more i think about it, however. imagine being so desperate to try to conform to societal norms that you marry Reigen Arataka. imagine coming to find the concept of having to pretend to be in love with reigen so aggressively unappealing that you are willing to forgo the social acceptance you've gained for yourself and divorce him, which depending on what kinda situation you're in, that's no good either. and after all the work you've had to put in to pull this off. imagine. incredible. does he fight for it? does he go deeper into the act?? do you start getting convinced that he was straight and in love with you the entire time?? actually maybe not that far. whatever. entertaining concept. love that.

and now we get into something a little bit funky. !!!!!!!!!!! and this section is a tad bit spoilery if you haven't read the reigen manga yet this is your first and final warning !!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!! and also go read it it's not that long and. i think you should !!!!!!!

i'm not sure how that timeline would work. they knew each other before the manga? imagine the drama though. a whole new way to read the spinoff. reigen's ex-husband (wife???????) comes across his goofy little psychic business, and reigen immediately starts trying to one-up him with spiritual level bs. and both fake psychics, they're soulmates <3 until they got divorced. whatever.

OK I'M DONE WITH MINOR SPOILERS YOU CAN COME BACK NOW

and finally, i uh

uhh. um. well. i sure hope not.

but i suppose as the arbiter of mp100 divorced au, i should offer my own thoughts on who his ex-wife is. uh. i don't particularly have any. it could be literally anyone. maybe they don't even need to be named. but i suppose if someone really needs to be his ex-wife, it's whoever you think is funniest, dearest anonymous asker person. whoever you feel is his ex-wife in your heart. i am only here to present a handful of possibilities. the truth that you seek lies within you. as long as his ex-wife isn't me. god i hope it's not me.

i guess i could consult gf about this hold on

.

.

.

HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i can't do this

you don't have to listen to them. ok. you don't. it's not true.

.

anyway. just a few things to tie this up nicely at the end.

much appreciation to everyone who put keysmashes in the tags. i am honored. and everyone else too! i like reading my notes. fun times. you're all cool. i tried to keep the tags i put here focused on the task at hand, but every tag has been thoroughly appreciated, do not worry.

i am also honored to present the award for Tag That Made Me Absolutely Lose It When I Read It to this one:

thank you for being significantly funnier than i could ever dream of being.

and finally, to send all of you off, one last thing tossed together and heavily inspired by a couple of the tags, which i am upset that i did not think of myself:

is this all /j? is this /srs? i want to say it's /j, but i've put too much time into this now. very sorry dearest anonymous person. you have sent me into a sort of crisis. i suppose i put too much effort into everything that should remain as 5 minutes max /j Content. well.

hope that answers your question!

4:20 PM

[khaleesiofalicante]

While a positivity blog is great, posing it in opposition with the "call-out" blog immediately devalues it. The one person who was called out on that account (the original one) was an adult sexualizing teenagers who blocked anyone who tried to tell her that what she was doing was harmful. It makes it seem like you're trying to support adults who sexualize minors.

There's no way to "communicate" with someone who blocks anyone who tries to "call" them "in". a call out is a statement that this type of behavior isn't acceptable and a promise to make the fandom a safer space for teenagers.

I asked very respectfully not to send me follow up questions on this matter. Because this whole "call out" thing had been weighing on my mental health.

But once again, I keep getting dragged into this.

This my response to every ask I've gotten regarding this matter over the last few days. The asks I've been ignoring because it's not my place to give an opinion on this. Or rather, I do not have to. I don't have an obligation to do so.

But here we are.

The very reason I find the call out blog problematic is because of a sentence you said in your ask.

You mentioned that because I find the call out blog problematic and I quote "it makes it seem like you're trying to support adults who sexualize minors."

This is the problem.

The call out is not the problem. It's the way in which they are being called out.

Over the last few days, I've seen tsc blogs, for the lack of a better word, being "investigated". Posts dug from the past, follower lists analysed, screenshots posts and shared in public.

This is not a call out. A call out refers to interpersonal confrontations occurring between individuals on social media. In theory, call-outs should be very simple – someone does something wrong, people tell them, and they avoid doing it again in the future.

Now I understand you mentioned an individual refused to listen. I will not comment on that - since I do not know this individual personally or how they reacted. I do not prefer to talk about people I don't know personally. Neither the people calling them out - or the person being called out.

But what I can tell you is that when you call out someone, it only works when you point out why they are wrong, not what what they are doing is wrong. So, instead of calling someone a pedophile, it is essential to explain how their behaviour impacts you or your peers. It is important to address this issue in the larger fandom, not just by spamming one person's ask box. Because this issue is greater than one blog.

The reason why I don't condone this call out blog is because it is so easily possible to get carried away and overpunish people, turning alleged perpetrators of upsetting acts into victims themselves. The moral high ground people stand on evolves from calling out to public shaming of individuals.

I am requesting this entire fandom to rethink your actions and to reevaluate your choices. All of you.

It breaks my heart that you would say that I support adults who sexualise minors when have spent my whole adult life protecting children from such people. It is literally my job.

I recently saw one of my dearest friends being called "homophobic" because they support Jace - because Jace 'outed' Alec and therefore those who support Jace are also homophobic. It really hurt because I know the struggles my friend had to go through in order to protect themselves from their own homophobic family.

It makes me so sad and yet so angry that you are not aware of the consequences your words have on people.

People who make such claims. You seem to forget that we live in a digital world now. You all seem to forget that we are living through a pandemic. We study online. We work online. We entertain ourselves online.

So when you shame people online so callously, it can affect irreparable damage on their professional lives. It can ruin their mental health. It can impact their families.

While the intention of the callout blog - and those who support it - might be honest, the way in which they are achieving their goal is incredibly harmful for people in this fandom regardless of whether they are guilty or not.

I want to point out that this call out blog achieves nothing. It doesn't root out the pedophilia and sexism that exists on Tumblr - or in the fandom. The call out blog does't achieve anything. I'm sorry. It had to be said. The only thing this blog achieve is spreading a culture of shame, fear and stigma in the tsc fandom.

So, I urge you to rethink your actions and reevaluate your methods.

I do not believe in giving bland advice. So, as someone who works on these issues, allow me to point you in an healthier and more effective decision.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

If the goal is "a promise to make the fandom a healthier space for teenagers" then you are doing it wrong. I say this as someone who works on creating healthy spaces for teenagers. It's up to you whether you want to listen to me or not.

But you are going about it wrong. Here is what you can do instead.

1. What we are doing wrong? Currently, you seem to be focusing on the people - not the issue. If you want to make the space feel safe, you need to address the root cause. What differentiates a call-out from bullying is that it shouldn’t be about punishing someone for something they have done, rather it should be about establishing a new pattern of behavior. In other words, when someone calls you out they want you to start showing through your actions that you care about the issue you’ve been called out on. So, show that you care about the issue.

2. How do we show we care? Focus on the teenagers. You are focusing on the wrong group of people. Cancelling out someone or calling out a blog or getting someone to deactivate is not going to make teenagers feel safe. Trust me on this. You need to address the issue to the victims. You need to ASK THEM how they want to be feel safe. While your method might work for you, it might not be what everyone wants. It might not make everyone feel safe. So, talk to your peers. What is it that you can do for your own community? Is it writing an email to CC about this issue in the fandom? Is it addressing it in a larger platform like a magazine or YouTube? Is it reaching to Tumblr and talking to them about doing their job and enforcing the community guidelines efficiently? THIS is how you fix the problem - not by chasing people out when you find them to be problematic.

3. Why are you complicating this? Why can't we just call people out? Because then you will only be addresing the symptoms, not the root cause. I understand that most of you are minors and therefore will not have the same awareness about how the system works or don't ahem access to same resources and opportunities we adults do. But unfortunately, it is our reality. We all live online. We all need to educate ourselves and do better.

I'm sharing an excellent resource here which was developed by UN WOMEN in 2021 to speficially tackle the issue of bullying, disinformation and hate speech experienced by youth - especially young women. It's a free online course that helps you learn this topic better. It even gives you a certificate from the organization.

I am ALL for calling people out as long as you do it the right way. So, if you want to be a warrior on Tumblr, if you want to protect your peers, if you want to create a safe space, you need to learn how to do it the right way. Otherwise, like most social activists, you are doing more bad than good. Your attempts to create a better world only lead to more chaos and pain.

4. I still don't understand. Then here is a simply answer. I hope this helps.

Please make better choices. Be conscious of how your actions online affect people both in digital and offline spaces.

You are allowed to fight for your safety. You are allowed to fight for your rights. But you are not allowed to hurt another person to prove your point. Then your whole initiative becomes counterproductive.

You need to be more aware. You need think more critically.

Finally and most importantly - I once again ask that you do not drag me into this. I am not the president of this fandom. I am not your parent. While it is my job to create awareness and work on online safety, I am not on tumblr to be an activist. This is my safe space. This is my comfort space. This is where I come to take my mind off all the stressful and heartbreaking things I have to work on as an activist. I am here to shit post like most people. I do not have to teach you to be decent or how to be sensible or how to be kind. That is the job of the education system and your family.

I'm sorry those around you have failed you and it has come to this. I only hope you do not fail yourself.

Make better choices.

Love, Dani.

[alloftheblackwidowfeelings]

Almost every reviewer on YouTube wasn’t satisfied with this movie IMO they said it was just Marvel combined some elements from other marvel movies so they could throw fans a BW movie so we could stfu, it didn’t do justice to the the character ,what do you think, is it really that bad.

To be honest, I've been working on this one for a while but I keep writing and deleting my response. Because all the things I want to say sound gatekeeper-y, in one of several ways.

I think you can be a Nat fan and not read the comics. I think you can be a Nat fan and never talk about her. I don't think you need to know everything about canon and be an "expert" to be a fan. I'm not interested in a locked-gate version of fandom. I don't think this movie should just be for die-hard Nat fans. And I don't think that all Nat fans will like this movie, for a variety of reasons.

Despite all of that, a lot of the comic book/movie expert reviews I've seen feel, to me, like they were evaluating a movie that isn't the one this movie was ever trying to be, and missing some of what the movie explicitly says it is because that doesn't fit what they want from it.

A bit more spoilery and a lot longer under the cut. I am so sorry I'm like this.

This movie felt tailor-made for me. Not because I loved every answer they gave, but because the questions they asked are ones I've been waiting to hear since 2012, when I first saw Avengers and then immediately went back to see the rest of phase 1. I think people disliking the answers is a legitimate opinion, and I'm looking forward to detangling that with people. What surprised me in reviews was not reviewers disliking the answers, which is legit, but not even seeming to realize the questions had been asked.

Most prominently, what felt like the huge thematic arc of the movie to me has been nonexistent in so many reviews that I've started to feel like I made it up, even though I took notes of exact quotes so I could reference them. The movie isn't a Nat origin story, and it's not about her as a cool edgy villain, so not seeing either of those didn't bother me. It's a movie about Natasha's trauma and how that manifests, and how her attempts to break free of it have harmed others in the past, and how she can move forward from that. We never get the key that unlocks the history of Natasha's past, so if you approach this as a puzzle box, it's going to fail.

THIS INDENTED PARAGRAPH IS THE CLOSEST I GET TO DIRECT PLOT POINTS, FEEL FREE TO SKIP

Specifically most of the reviews seem to view Nat's motivating guilt as over how she escaped the Red Room, particularly one casualty she deemed an acceptable sacrifice. But as I interpreted it, Nat's guilt in this movie came from a much closer place: the other Widows were all she'd had, and Nat being able to escape the Red Room made the Red Room hold on to the other Widows that much tighter. She thought she'd taken it down, but she was wrong. So her freedom, essentially, came at their expense. Natasha working to take down the Red Room this time is personal both to avenge her own trauma and to make up for her guilt in the Red Room still existing and creating more trauma for her peers. Without this context (and to be clear, I have gone back over the quotes several times to see if I'm misinterpreting and I really don't think I am), the idea that all of her guilt is over what she did to a single person makes more sense, but it also makes the movie a lot less interesting. If Natasha is justified in blaming Alexei and Melina for condemning her back to the Red Room, how could the other Widows not blame Nat? To me the entire story swings from that, and by not acknowledging Nat's (inadvertent but still very real) responsibility for continuing the cycle, the movie would feel hollow.

PLOT POINTS OVER.

Many critics they seem to feel like the potential this movie introduced was wasted because Nat's dead, so what's the point. First of all, the point is she's Nat and we care. It's not like we went in to Iron Man expecting that we'd have a decade of a franchise; we cared in the moment, and this movie is asking for the same thing. It delivers for over two hours of NOT murdering Natasha, which is more than I can say for Endgame.

To be clear, BW does set up other things for the MCU, and it's but if you're only watching it for what it's going to tell you about the future of the MCU (and I get it, because that's how I'm watching Loki, and it's a very different type of watching than I did for FATWS), this probably IS going to be a disappointment, because this isn't a big crossover event movie; I mean, none of Sam's "Big Three" show up at all. But again, that's about the movie someone wanted it to be, not the movie this was aiming to be.

Is this like a lot of other Marvel movies? Kinda. It's definitely taking a lot from Civil War for its set-up. Its arc felt like a close mirror of to Winter Soldier to me, to the extent that I'm planning to rewatch that on Thursday so I can see how much that's just me projecting my fave onto it. The third act is very Marvel-third-act-y, as adapted to Nat's character; the adapting to Nat's character are the parts I like and the rest is kind of what I consider the MCU price of admission.

I also kind of hate that it feels like the last few movies- Black Panther, Captain Marvel, now this and some rumblings about Shang-Chi- have all been kind of dismissed with "it's just the Marvel formula." It is, but that doesn't change the fact that different protagonists make it different. Dr Strange is pretty much just "Iron Man 1 with cool magic" and people didn't mind, but "how does this formula change when the protagonist is fundamentally different than the archetype to this point?" is apparently not different enough. I get Marvel fatigue, I really do, but for me it's tempered by how, in this case, Nat doesn't have the moral clarity Steve or Thor or even Tony or Scott has. No one in this movie lets her forget that she's a trained killer who little kids look up to.

Again: there are parts of this movie that don't work. I also don't ever ever EVER want to seem like I'm saying that if someone didn't like this movie they're not a real Nat fan or they're wrong. I know there are reasons to not love this movie, and I'm sure I'll figure out more the more I watch- it may not make me not love it, but it will at least complicate it for me, and i think we all know I live for that shit. Moreover, I intimately know how much it sucks when something you've been enthusiastic about and anticipating for ages doesn't pay off and everyone else seems to like it- it's isolating and upsetting and you just sit there wondering why no one else understands, and that's bullshit and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. People who don't like this movie are valid!

But if someone has a history of seeing Nat as just background, or considering her as a T&A deliver system more than as a character, or caring about hot women with guns but not care about the trauma that turned them into that, or saying they like movies about women but just not THIS woman for every comic book movie about a woman not there for them to ogle, or claiming to be experts in all things comics while doubling down on their theory that Yelena wouldn't appear because she was in Agent Carter (YES THAT HAPPENED, MORE THAN ONCE, THE NORTH. FUCKING. REMEMBERS. AND WISHES THEY KNEW WHERE THEY SAVED THOSE SCREENSHOTS), I don't need to weight their reviews heavier than the adrenaline rush I felt watching this movie.

So in answer to your question, I don't think the movie was really "that bad." I think this movie delivers in very specific ways, which definitely are not the flashy ones or the "every Marvel movie builds to the next great EVENT" ones or the male power fantasy ones, and if those ways aren't the ways you care about, it's going to be a disappointment. Even if those AREN'T the ones you care about, it could be a disappointment for any number of reasons, some of which I noticed during the movie and some of which I'm sure I'll be surprised to read about Friday morning.

But it wasn't one to me. For whatever it's worth, despite the movie's flaws, I loved it, I haven't stopped thinking about it in five days, I can't wait to see it again, and I hope that whether other people do or don't like it, they want to roll around in it as much as I do to pick out every single shred of canon worth overanalyzing.

If this is all we ever get for Natasha- and it is a CRIME if this is all we ever get for Natasha but that doesn't mean it's not so- I am grateful that this is what we got.

[outbythehighwind]

The Misconceptions of FF7: A Cloud, Aerith & Tifa Analysis Part 3/5

Link to all parts: https://outbythehighwind.tumblr.com/post/640347336477966336/the-misconceptions-of-ff7-a-cloud-aerith-tifa

This post will examine the kind of love that Cloud has for Tifa.

I determined last post that his love for Aerith is that of a true and powerful friendship, but can, in interpretation of the narrative (which, unlike plot, is up for player interpretation), additionally be romantic. Regardless of the interpretation, it does not change the plot – that Cloud is romantically in love with Tifa. My emphasis from the prior post is that friendship, along with Eros (romantic love), is one of the highest forms of love, and its meaning & significance has sadly been lost in the world today. So I once again urge that people forsake this notion of ‘competition’ that one girl must win ‘all’ of Cloud’s affections (which is a betrayal to his character, for not all love need be Eros), and that at the expense of ‘winning’, his relationship with the other is belittled. With that in mind, let us proceed to part 3.

Cloud’s Eros love, in the plot sense of FF7, is Tifa.

“The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive wall of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being.” – C.S. Lewis (on Eros)

I have already established that Tifa is Cloud’s driving force. The weakness he attributes to himself resulted from his inability to save her at age 9 when they fell off Mt. Nibel’s bridge. His desire for strength came from his desire to be able to protect her, and coupled with his “sealed up secret wish” to win her acknowledgement, 14-year-old Cloud left to join SOLDIER.

The depth of Cloud’s feelings toward Tifa (whatever they may be at this stage) is emphasized in the circumstances: that they were not close and yet at 9 years old he had such strong desire to protect her; that over the next five years – despite their minimal interaction – he fervently held that conviction; and that the conviction grew to the point where, the moment he heard of Sephiroth’s strength (a way for him to act on it), he left to join SOLDIER.

A common misperception is that Cloud only wanted general acknowledgement – from Tifa and the other kids and villagers. He did want general acknowledgement, yes. But let us consider the Lifestream revelation summarized in the 12 screenshots below.

When Tifa asks Cloud why he joined SOLDIER, a dialogue occurs between the Cloud she is speaking to and his inner voice in the white text (his true self that they are presently trying to reach). Note that Cloud’s inner voice only ever speaks to Cloud; nobody else can hear it. Here, ‘real’ Cloud (the voice) says to “Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud – ie. Cloud from his inner subconscious says to himself – with both emphasis and exclusivity – “Who? You know who! …You, that’s who.”

“Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud then repeats aloud, “You…” to Tifa.

The context is of the singular person pronoun, in elaboration of Cloud’s statement “someone would notice.”

“You” is exclusively Tifa.

When Tifa is surprised and exclaims why her, Cloud brings up a time in their childhood that she does not recall right away – which he will reveal to be the Mt Nibel bridge incident. Immediately before showing her that memory, ‘little’ Cloud appears (the other manifestation of Cloud’s true self, as I noted earlier). ‘Little’ Cloud invites Tifa into this memory when Tifa engages with “Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud again, who reveals a “A sealed up secret… wish… Tender memories no one can ever know.” This wish is his answer to Tifa’s “Me? Why!?”

Cloud still holding this desire at present is evidenced in that it is “Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud – rather than ‘little’ Cloud – who states this. ‘Little’ Cloud is able to engage with Tifa. Were it his sealed up secret wish alone – something Cloud had only once desired – then he (‘little’ Cloud), not “Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud, would have been the one to tell her.

We are then taken to the specific memory of the day Tifa’s mother died and the accident on the Mt. Nibel bridge; the moment Cloud began his obsession with gaining strength in order for that sealed up secret wish to be realized (as he saw it).

I’ve already discussed his feelings of weakness and failure with regard to protecting Tifa. So I will just point out the last screenshot below in light of the sequence before it, where he says “Then even Tifa would have to notice me…”

Tifa being singled out as the “Who” he wanted to be noticed by has already been confirmed. This statement does not alter that exclusivity. Rather, it is Cloud’s affirmation to himself that his goal will be realized through the means of ‘strength’; if he becomes ‘strong’ then he will be acknowledged by others, he will be worthy – and surely then, even Tifa would have to notice him.

Cloud promised to be Tifa’s personal “hero”. What he has already resolved to strive for becomes a binding, personal promise between them – having resulted from, to his surprise, Tifa’s suggestion. This promise is both the heart of the entire internal plot (saving Cloud) and what brings Cloud and Tifa into the external plot (saving the Planet).

“Hero” to Cloud is synonymous with “SOLDIER”. “Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud therefore feels enabled to keep the promise, and joins AVALANCHE (and the fight for the Planet) with the sole primary purpose, as it had always been, of protecting Tifa.

Even while Cloud’s ‘real’ self is trapped in his subconscious and his memory is muddled, Tifa’s uniquely distinct importance to him is enforced throughout “Ex-SOLDIER’s” journey. Alongside this is the emphasis of his reliance on her – that Cloud, striving to be strong for Tifa, sees Tifa as his source of strength.

He hopes in himself because Tifa knew him.

He trusts only Tifa in what is true pertaining to himself.

It is when Sephiroth breaks through the trust between them that Cloud’s entire identity shatters (both “Ex-SOLDIER” Cloud and ‘real’ Cloud are lost). Sephiroth plays to Tifa’s confusion surrounding Cloud’s identity and her doubt in her own memories that do not align with Cloud’s. It is when she cannot give Cloud an answer that Sephiroth is able to convince Cloud of the lie that he is not the “Cloud of Nibelheim” she grew up with – synonymous with him not being Cloud the being at all.

Sephiroth, whilst successfully manipulating Cloud, is still threatened by their bond. He keeps an illusion over Cloud where Cloud cannot hear Tifa’s voice as she screams for him to not hand over the Black Materia. Later, Cloud will hear her voice above the cries of all souls within the Lifestream.

In the Lifestream, Cloud and Tifa cry out to one another simultaneously and Cloud draws her into his subconscious. This is revealed in both versions of their night under the Highwind, and is thus an emphasized plot matter – the big difference being that in the low affection version (see the red textboxes below) Cloud is thinking out loud rather than speaking directly to Tifa.

The English translation is vague in the fourth screenshot (“I think I’ve heard about it too”) – the Japanese being 俺も、聞いたような気がするな (which literally translates to “I feel like I heard it too”). “It” is referring to Tifa’s voice outlaid the fifth screen – “At that time, it was Tifa’s voice…” (あの時、TIFAの声を). Cloud chooses to introspect rather than engage directly with Tifa.

In the high affection version, the same term is used: he says to her that it was her voice (TIFAの声が) calling him from “the sea of consciousness in the Lifestream” (ライフストリームの意識の海から). The English translates this as: “You were calling me back from the consciousness in the Lifestream”, which, in both high and low affection alternatives, refers to all souls within the Lifestream (for Tifa quotes that her and Cloud were “surrounded by all those screams of anguish” when they were separated in their fall).

The point I wish to get across is this: that in both versions, Cloud’s subconscious cries out for Tifa and simultaneously hears her crying out for him amidst every scream from those returned to the Lifestream. We see this scene play out not as Cloud, but as Tifa, and the black void emphasizes their complete separation. Yet Cloud, in comatose state, unable to communicate physically at all, manages to draw her into his very subconscious.

Now here is the thing most players miss:

Aerith – as Cloud knows for certain – is also in the Lifestream, and having maintained her full consciousness rather than merging with the Lifestream like all these other souls crying out, would be capable of reaching both Cloud and Tifa more easily than they can reach each other.

Is she aware of their situation? Undoubtedly, she would have been watching over them throughout their entire journey since her passing. Does she somehow help behind the scenes? Quite possibly, and very likely. Aerith is already implied to be the reason Cloud survived the week before he washed up on the shores of Mideel (Cid is told by one of his finders, “That boy must have one powerful guardian angel watchin’ over him”).

So I like to think Aerith had a part in Cloud and Tifa’s survival too – but we’ll leave that one to theory. Just a thought.

Whatever transpired, only Tifa could reach the ‘real’ Cloud, and I have no doubt that Aerith knew this. So Cloud reaches Tifa and Tifa reaches Cloud, with all of their being each crying out for the other.

Now, we come to the long debated ‘scene’ – did Cloud and Tifa make love under the Highwind?

I believe the answer to be, under the high affection version, yes. But that is irrelevant to this discussion of whether their love is romantic – for that experience is not a plot matter (occurring in one narrative alternative), and may operate without Eros or as part of Eros. Of course, in Cloud and Tifa’s case, it would have stemmed from their Eros (my point simply being that it is not a necessary ‘proof’ of their love).

But before considering the high affection alternative, let us turn to what we can find in the low affection scene. The scene also results in Cloud and Tifa sleeping against each other. After they board the airship the next morning, they find Barret, Cid and Red XIII and the following conversation ensues:

Tifa then runs to the window and faces the other direction in an awkward stance, while Cloud turns away also and scratches the back of his neck. “Were you listening?” If nothing romantic was said at all, as the argument goes, what then is there to make of their embarrassed reactions?

In the high affection version, this conversation with Barret, Cid and Red XIII plays out the same up until the point where Tifa responds. Instead of saying, “Were you listening?” she asks “Were you watching?” and then falls to her knees in embarrassment.

There is a reason there are two versions of this scene and it is not whether Cloud and Tifa ‘get together romantically’ at all. Rather, it is what transpires – according to the player’s agency (for their earlier decisions result in either narrative) – around Cloud and Tifa’s sealing of their romantic relationship (Cloud’s feelings having already been brought to light in the Lifestream):

        In the low affection version, they declare it with words (that their friends listen in on).

        In the high affection version, they declare it, like they have been declaring it the entire game, through actions (which their friends, to their dismay, end up watching).

Now, with Cloud’s love for Tifa having been openly revealed in the Lifestream, this night under the Highwind is centered on the revelation of her love for him, and upon that love being mutual, the sealing of their relationship. The version the player ends up with is therefore dependent on the affection points earned with Tifa throughout the game.

These points being ‘low’ simply means they do not make love as they do in the high affection alternative, despite high emotions with the impending doom of the Planet. Like Gold Saucer, the narrative can differ. Their love coming together, however, is part of the plot.

Sephiroth’s manipulations through Tifa’s doubts – the catalyst that caused Cloud’s psyche to shatter – is paralleled in the Lifestream with the restoration of his psyche. After Cloud’s “sealed up secret… wish” is brought to light, Tifa is able to fully overcome her doubts over both Cloud and herself. And it is then that they return to the Nibelheim incident, where Cloud regains his true self. It is when Sephiroth broke Tifa that Cloud broke; it is when Tifa overcomes herself (“You weren’t created five years ago. My childhood memories weren’t all made up!”), that Cloud gains the strength to both recover and accept his true self.

They share a oneness and complete mutual reliance on one another in pertinence to their very personhood.

So far runs Cloud’s love for Tifa that it is at the core of his identity. While he cannot recall who he is even within his own subconscious in the Lifestream, his inner voice (true self) recalls Tifa as the motivation at the core of his being.

There is no ‘you and me’ in pertinence to Tifa and Cloud. There is only ‘us’. And alongside this reciprocative Eros (which I will soon examine on Tifa’s part), exists a friendship that surpasses that which Cloud has with anyone else. They are wholly absorbed in each other, and they are side by side in vision. Tifa is his rock as much as he is hers, fighting beside him in every sense of the word; she is his best friend.

Let us now turn to Aerith and Tifa:

https://outbythehighwind.tumblr.com/post/640347336477966336/the-misconceptions-of-ff7-a-cloud-aerith-tifa

[n1ghtcrwler]

So there is a post that I recently saw that I just don’t want to add notes to for a number of reasons, not least of which being that I’m about to go on a significant tangent, so I’ll just say what I needed to say about it here.

The post is screenshots of a tweet thread about how bad “Cuties” actually is, from someone who claims to have watched it, and that’s fine. I haven’t seen the movie, I have no input to give on that matter. My concern arises in a reply offered by one user, who goes into more detail about how disturbing it is to consider that someone had to, at minimum, be comfortable putting the underage actresses in the situations depicted for the sake of filming them for the movie, and again, that is probably a valid point. But they ended their tirade with this:

“If you didn’t believe it before, the fact that this movie was even released and is being defended by the elite is proof that there is a deliberate plan to normalize and eventually legalize pedophilia and child porn.”

And that, my friends, is some QAnon bullshit.

See, this is a great example of how conspiracy theories work. We tend to only think of them in terms of their major propositions and the implications of those propositions--that the Earth is hollow, your average garden-variety antisemitic caricature of a shadowy society controlling you, that sort of thing--instead of talking much about how people fall into that hole in the first place. And, in our day-to-day lives, it’s really where the theories start that we need to be vigilant about more than where they end. Where they end is important, obviously, but no one buys the end product immediately. They get there through a process. And the user who posted the above quote is playing into that process.

Here’s the process that I want you to see in that paragraph, and to look out for elsewhere:

0: ‘Facts’ that are viable, and possibly even true

Step Zero is not to lie or even to introduce new information. I call it Step Zero because it isn’t automatically part of a conspiracy theory; obviously, if we’re going to talk about the impact of anything on the world, we have to talk about what is actually happening. But I point it out because conspiracy theories always start with a premise that you can accept. Always. Every time. You cannot assume that you will recognize a nonsense theory based on immediate nonsense. No one starts there. They start in the real world. As above, where they are describing very real or at least realistic consideration for the ways filming such a movie can groom young actresses and audiences.

1: Framing facts through key concepts

A good conspiracy theory begins not in the facts provided, but in the way they are provided.

Consider the bit of the paragraph I copied where it said, “the fact that this movie was even released and is being defended by the elite.” Who are the ‘elite?’ See, the use of that wording is intentional. What the user has done is frame the delivery of the fact or near-fact (that the movie and its mode of production are abhorrent) in a way that an elusive enemy is embedded in the fact or near-fact itself (that the elite are defending the abhorrent thing, making ‘them,’ whoever they are, also abhorrent) such that it is difficult to separate that idea from the rest of the fact or near-fact. In fact, I expect that if anyone wishes to argue with me about this post, they will do so by framing my dismissal of a mythical elite with being part of their work; that is, the primary means of arguing against this post, based on the way people have argued with me about similar things in the past, will be to hold that if I doubt that part of the sentence I must doubt the whole sentence and doubting the whole sentence means not finding pedophilia abhorrent and that, by extension, must make me either a pedophile myself or a man comfortable with pedophiles.

I’m sure you’ve seen that play out before in some context or another. This is why it plays out that way: the fact or near-fact has been married, unsuitably, to a claim that sets up Step Two.

2: Using the altered fact or near-fact to demand a pre-determined conclusion

Here’s the thing. If there is an elite who are actively trying to make and promote and defend “Cuties” (which is a highly suspect claim already), then the logical question is why they are doing so. Well, by golly, our friendly neighborhood conspiracy theorist has an answer! See, it’s “proof that there is a deliberate plan to normalize and eventually legalize pedophilia and child porn.”

That conclusion is not demanded by the agreed-upon facts. That is, if I agree with the theorist that the movie is, indeed, a work that grooms actresses and audiences, there are actually a variety of conclusions we can draw about why the movie was made. Maybe it was filmed with entirely different intentions and the end result is because of editing, or license taken by questionable cameramen. Maybe the version shown at Sundance or whatever was not actually the version currently on Netflix, so the people defending it were defending something other than what the twitter thread author saw. Maybe the producer really did have terrible motives but managed to convince someone at Netflix that that was not what was happening. Some or all of these may be false. I have no idea. But here’s the thing: neither does the person who posted the paragraph in question. The facts given in the post are actually pretty sparse as far as coming to a certain conclusion about intent are concerned. You need more information to know what is really going on here.

But see, that’s why they added information in Step One. By making it a behavior of that conspiracy’s boogeyman, they can easily come to a conclusion. The facts or fact-adjacent statements made in the body of the post, paired with a conspiracy-based understanding of who the elite are and what they want, is enough information to come to a conclusion. And it’s a conclusion that is only reasonable if the elite are real and are who the conspiracy says they are. See, the goal of getting you to believe the bigger conspiracy isn’t by telling you who the elite are, but by getting you to accept something that requires them. Which is why

3. Frame the delivery in a way that hides the conspiracy

The post leading up to the quoted paragraph is actually fairly long (admittedly, not as long as this post), and every part of it fits the conversation that has been had about the movie and is presented in a way that makes sense. So while the average tumblr user is scrolling along, if they read through, they’re being hit with a lot of sensible discourse about a movie they probably haven’t seen but have seen more discourse about, and then that bit of QAnon is just kinda slipped in without any major change to wording and presentation. It’s bolded for effect, but the content itself seems to flow naturally from the rest of the post. It’s only in stopping and thinking seriously about what has been said that the diversion away from a discussion of facts gets noticed.

The point is to be distinct enough to set up the conspiracy theory, but subtle enough that you accept it as part of the rest of the post’s claims. See, because, what happens there is that if the rest of the post makes sense to you, and you aren’t thinking about the fact that the post has taken a left turn, you accept the conclusion being given as a natural part of the post. And accepting the conclusion requires that you have, maybe without realizing it, accepted the claims about the ‘elite.’ And that sets you up.

4. Go Deeper

Because once you have accepted the conspiracy’s claims about the elite, preferably without recognizing that there was a claim about the elite, you are ready to accept other things that connect to that. Someone comes along and says something that also sounds plausible, and also ties into the conclusion that the elite are trying to legalize pedophilia. Well, because you’ve already accepted that this was a reasonable conclusion elsewhere, and it seems reasonable enough here, you accept it here as well. And this is solidifying in your mind the idea that it is known that there is an elite working toward that goal. But the questions remains of who the elite are. So, when someone finally comes along and ties the ‘elite’ to a specific person or group of people that you do recognize (usually Jewish people or some caricature thereof), and offers some evidence that is pretty flimsy but plays very nicely with claims you’ve already accepted, you buy it. Or you don’t, but you’re so deep now that you have to provide an alternative if you want to reject the answer you’ve been given, and so you start to spin your own theory.

Either way, the end result is the same: you are convinced of a claim that would have sounded crazy to you a year ago, and your family is trying to tell you how crazy it sounds to them now, but they just don’t know! They haven’t seen all the facts! You should probably show them the facts. Ideally, by starting with something they already know to be true. And the cycle continues.

Please. Be careful out there, folks. Don’t be that guy.

[leopardprintismybrown]

i don’t really keep up with cam or anything, but would you be comfortable sharing what he said about you? i’m just kinda curious about this whole situation 🤷‍♀️ if not, don’t worry about it :) i respect your decision

I want to share this because I want to explain why I made a parallelism with a cult, because these fans are brainwashed in a worrying way. What I am quoting now is what it's been said on the private chat. 

He was angry that people were calling him disrespectful on Tumblr and his adepts immediately came to the rescue:

“Cam, if you need anyone to fight for you, I’m your gal”

“CAMILY ARMY”

He encouraged people to “bunny block them haters” and he was saying that it was because of his celebrity parent that people on Tumblr are jealous of him and of the Camily friendship and that we want to be part of it inside.

Some comments of the fans after ignoring why I associated them to a cult i.e. for their toxic behaviour, for following another person’s orders, for looking for culprits to block, for making death threats:

“They’re even hating on the Camily, like what did we do?”

“Based on what they said you know how desperate and jealous they were”

“They had the audacity to call the Camily a brainwashed cult”

“I’ve also noticed certain people on the stream I’d consider blocking”

Cameron started to find the cult mention very funny without even understanding the reason behind the parallelism and how problematic some of his fans are for how they express their support for him. They told me he wore a cult leader vest in his live stream on IG, they're making memes about the situation, decontextualizing and twisting my words and mixing up things other people said or shared with me on my blog:

“Someone else said that I am my bro are problematic me for having a cult around me” (don’t ask me to translate) “and some people think I’m using my dad for fame. Bitch I’m not trying to do that. Just cuz I use the name Deaky. They were like oh they treat him like a saint and everything. They said I was quote feeding the fandom. Like people wanted that type of content.  And now I stopped it. So like? Do I post Queen videos anymore? Nope. People are only saying this stuff because I’m fucking related to a celebrity. Gonna go insta live for a rant”

Here comes another demonstration of their sick minds:

“Wait. If we’re being called a cult, let’s show up to their door with guns”

And after this affirmation to be proud of, they started to deny their own words and they were saying that they were obviously trying to get my Tumblr taken down because I was bullying Cameron:

“They are also giving death threats. THEY’RE ACTUALLY GIVING DEATH THREATHS FROM WHAT CAMERON HAS SAID” “Ours is a joke. Theirs is actual death threaths” “Cameron said they’ve been making threaths” They posted a screenshot of my blog adding comments like “I’m not surprised it’s a Rog stan tbh" I was told someone was asking Cameron to tell ROGER about what I did.

At this point Cameron read a screenshot somebody sent him (probably about an anon I received talking about his brother) and he said: “She’s harassing me by posting about it. She was reposting slandering things about me and my brother. Like if my brother saw those comments as well I’m sure he’d be really humiliated and upset too”

One of the adepts' comments:

“She was slandering and talking abt John n not respecting privacy”

Cameron decided that: “If nothings done about it they’ll just continue. Clearly they came to my stream again”

Reaction of the adepts:

“We work out who it is in stream tonight and block them”

I also want to explain why I panicked yesterday. Someone from this discord was making me read everything, and not only I was clearly stressed for what I was reading and because they twisted every single word I wrote, but I was also witnessing live these fanatics commenting on my blog and providing a screenshot of my username and homepage and reporting me in mass. At the same time, the person that was only trying to help me was begging me to change my username repeatedly. "They're going to pile on you, change the url" I was confused and I didn't know what to do. Ironically, I was having a problem with my internet connection and couldn't access to my Tumblr so I was afraid they were already taking down my account (I don't know how these things work) and that I couldn't ask for help, justify myself or warn someone. In addition to this, I was getting bunny emojis and other anons saying that Cameron was roasting me on his IG live, something I think went on for hours because friends of mine were sending me stuff the whole night. 

I didn't obviously watch the stream so I cannot tell you what he said about me but I was told that he would keep on venting about it in the next days. Just to say that I am having a public persona with thousands of followers easy to manipulate publicly mocking me, encouraging people to cancel me, block me, report me by using his influence. This is bullying, ignorance, abuse of power, mind manipulation of teenagers from a 27 year old. He needs someone to monitor him. What hurts  me even more is that he's related to someone I respect.

I also got many messages from fans who are on that chat saying that they are sorry for what happened to me but that they are afraid to defend me because they don’t want to be called “traitors” and that the people on the chat feel like they have to go by what Cameron says. People apologized to me because they realized they said awful things about me but didn’t know the full story. Other people that defended me were blocked and are still asking me to not make their names public. 

What would you call this atmosphere?

[the-nope-train]

i’m gonna vent bc i feel like no one will see this anyway... i will title this “i hate long distance” and also “i hate people who can’t take responsibility for something they know they did wrong”

so basically my LDR boyfriend is really good friends with my ex-friend...

we’re all a distance from each other and i introduced her to all of my friends in my discord server and apparently my boyfriend and her got along really well. 

they ended up playing a few games together and listening to music together for hours in my discord chat which kinda bothered me at the time and what felt bad about it is he was so invested in everything she was saying whereas he’s literally told me he doesn’t care about something i said or he just says “oh” and sends a shrugging emote. i’ve told him before that when he says he doesn’t care it’s hurtful, so he stopped, but i recall him saying, “i’m not going to say i don’t care because you’ll get mad,” just to imply that, yeah, he didn’t care. don’t get me wrong, he’s not always saying it, but he doesn’t ask what’s going on in my life anymore. 

anyway, that night, i told him like hey i just kind of feel like u don’t care. i didn’t mention my friend because i didn’t want it to seem like i was just jealous; it was genuinely an ongoing issue and that was my breaking point. well... he got mad  ignored me for 3 days instead.

in that 3 days, he spent more time with my ‘friend’ and she told someone that they had played animal crossing for 6 hours while listening to music together in HER server that she made. a server she didn’t invite me to. she actually made two of those, by the way. what was weird about it is she deleted a whole channel with them talking together and no one saw what they talked about. she claimed the reason was that it was just spam messages. 

so i confronted her the next day and was like hey it just feels kind of weird that ur spending so much time with him and not once did u check on me (she was told by 3 different people that i was really upset about everything) and i was like “it would just be nice if u were more open about it” and she agreed and said she’d stop talking to him until things were okay between us. she tried to say she wouldn’t be his friend anymore, but i told her that i want them to be friends, but that i want her to be transparent about their friendship. the next day, my bf (who still wasn’t talking to me) was in my discord chat listening to music and she immediately started texting him in the channel and then that night my friend sent me a screenshot of them talking and she was asking my bf to play games w her again and he said something about his sleep schedule being messed up and she said “i hope it’s not my fault” and he goes “yeah i’ll blame you” and that also made me really upset bc she wasn’t even following through with what she told me hahahaha

so, i just unfriended her. i talked to my bf about everything and he took her side (of course) and was saying i owed her an explanation. he said she doesn’t think she did anything wrong and that she did what i asked (no, she didn’t). so, a week later, i gave her an explanation. i wrote a page and a half of everything that went through my mind and she said, and i quote, “i don’t think i’m a good influence on either of you, but i’m still going to spend time with him, and i’m not going to apologize because i didn’t intend for any of this to happen. i think your reason for being upset is crazy and i don’t trust you on my social media anymore. i don’t intend on getting close to either of you though. i think you’re just upset because he didn’t talk to you and talked to me instead.” the best part of this was when she said “i don’t think i have to tell you when or if i spend time with him.” okay, sure. spend all night talking to my boyfriend while he ignores me, when you’re supposed to be MY friend. yeah, that’s cool. anyway, she then proceeded to unfriend everyone from my server, except my boyfriend, and i have since blocked her. 

my boyfriend showed me a screenshot yesterday of his discord and the only other chat was her and some other person he met through her. so, i know they still talk quite a bit. i’ve noticed recently he’s been using emotes she uses a lot and once ‘accidentally’ sent me a text that i know was meant for her (it was regarding art, which is what she lives and breathes). i also noticed that he follows her on instagram now. so much for not getting close to him i guess?? 

ever since this happened, my boyfriend has been extremely distant. he’s always spending time alone. he doesn’t say i love you. he doesn’t show affection. says “maybe” or flat out says no to doing things together. i confronted him about this too and all he says is “i’m just like this, you get accustomed to a lot of attention in the beginning and then i focus on myself.” he didn’t have much to add because apparently i was laying out too much for him and it was giving him “a headache” trying to tackle every issue i brought up. he said it’s valid and that he understands how it would hurt me, but that it’s just how he is and that he can’t help some things (ex. he can’t call me anymore because it’s hard to do that living in a small apartment with parents, which is fair). but... after that discussion, he literally didn’t talk to me for FOUR days and claimed it was because he’d be sleeping off and on. i told him... i saw you online? he said that he just leaves discord open. that’s funny, i didn’t know discord statuses could change themselves. he said that if it mattered so much that i could’ve just messaged him again and ask him myself. i asked him why i’d do that if the last time something like that happened he ignored me. he asked what i wanted, and i went to town talking about how he needs to be as good at communicating as he expects me to be, and i went on and on. all he did was say “okay.” bullshit.

i don’t get why he needs more time alone when we’re already miles apart and don’t even do half the things we used to together. we’d spend all day watching movies, shows, videos, calling each other, playing games, drawing, telling stories... and now it’s hard to even have any real conversation with him. yesterday i asked if he’d be interested in watching this movie with me and he said no. i cried. i don’t even know why i cried. but i realized... it’s because if it were the person he was, he’d have said yes and said “anytime.” but he won’t do that anymore. not for me. 

it’s worse that one of the servers my ex-friend made was for minecraft and i’d been asking him so much to play with me and we only played once together and he’s been avoiding it ever since. he just doesn’t want to play it with me. and i KNOW it’s not because he doesn’t like minecraft anymore bc he’d tell me when he was playing by himself. so it’s either he likes to play with her or he likes to play by himself, maybe? i know that’s not even a big deal but jesus fuck

i’ve been drowning in sorrow for the past two months over this. and yet, i don’t let go.

[thesummerstorms]

Rev Recaps Hard Contact (Chapter 10)

CW: murder, death in combat,slightly graphic descriptions of corpses

TL:DR Recap: Etain and Dar go to one of Jinart’s safehouses and are immediately betrayed, which yet again, kind of justifies Etain’s paranoia. Darman kills a man, which perturbs Etain. Omega steals mining equipment and accidentally captures Guta-Nay. Hokan is pissed that Dar and Etain got away, and reveals that Jinart literally murdered the collaborators and tore them to pieces.

unfortunately, after posting the last recap I saw two Kal mentions in Chapter 9 that I missed, so we’re starting at a Kal count of 18.

Beginning Kal Count: 18 Ending Kal Count: 19

I regret to inform you I missed TWO references from Niner about Kal in chapter 9, so we’re starting at a Kal Count of 18.

I won’t screenshot the opening quote, but it’s basically a notice to the farmers on Qiilura that anyone who has Republic soldiers on their land without knowing will be sold into slavery and anyone helping the Republic on purpose will be shot. It does provide some needed framework for the rest of the chapter. Then we open in Darman’s pov, and IDK, I just kind of like the opening line. He still thinks of Kamino as “home” apparently at this point in time.

Etain is still being kind of unfairly snarky, and Darman’s at a loss what to do about it.

“Darman took is as a sensible observation rather than an insult.” Etain isn’t really being great right now, I recognize that, but I still love that line.

Anyway, they stop at the first safehouse and Etain goes to knock. Darman hates feeling obvious and exposed, and compares his lack of ability to blend in to, you guessed it, Skirata.

Kal Count raised to 19, BUT so far I think that’s the only one in this chapter.

Anyway, the house is empty; the family fled in the middle of a meal. Darman is still overly cautious, and walks Etain through house clearing procedure, even though her Force-sense tells her it’s safe. He points out that she can’t sense a tripwire that would murder them, even though Jedi Danger Sense is an established thing in the EU by this point and-

Sorry.

He also redirects her when she’s peering over his shoulder into the pantry instead of standing guard at the door and watching their gear, although he’s gracious enough to admit it had probably never occurred to her with Jedi senses.  While he raids said pantry with the intent to test the food for toxins later, she goes to fill bottles of water from a pump outside, and he asks why she isn’t using a filter. Again, we were just giving Etain shit a few chapters ago for being too paranoid and now she’s asking if he was trained by Nemoidians, but honestly I’m feeling kinder to Dar than Jinart because it really is a culture clash.

Yet again, I wonder how the Kaminoans can afford to kill that many clones out right when each clone is such an investment to rain and train in terms of both input and time. 

Darman doesn’t know what to make of a Jedi who isn’t the perfect demigod he was promised, which is affecting his trust levels. And Etain hasn’t been helping a lot with that. But she does notice something is wrong with him; she just doesn’t know him well yet, so she assumes it has something to do with his physical injury.

They eventually make it to another safe house, when they meet a woman “with a face like a gdan”, several children, and a few other adults. Dar is briefly overwhelmed because it’s the first time he’s seen this many humans who aren’t clones. I guess the commandos never saw their Sergeants group up.

Darman places mines all around the entrance to the building before he goes in, which I’m sure would win him no love even if the farmers weren’t already under threat of execution or slavery. The family at the safehouse says very little, outside of one woman who wants to know how the Republic is better than the Nemoidians, but they do attempt to feed Dar and Etain, which I have to say, is generous for the kind of place they’re living in. Or would be, if the family weren’t planning to sell them out & use the food as a distraction.

Dar, honey, she’s going to be able to read you in the Force better than anyone else in the galaxy by the time this is over and you’ll like it, so you might as well just buckle up. 

Also, clones are able of discerning thoughts/behavior patterns/moods really easily through minute observation and there’s nothing ruling out Etain doing the same her, but I guess it makes sense he jumps to mind reading the way the Kaminoans built up the Jedi.

Lots of little thoughts here. There’s post to be made based on a conversation I had with rey-skywalkin-away about Etain and food that I’ll save for another day, but for now, let me just say as much as KT tries to present Etain as a picky/snobbish eater, lemme just say that I don’t blame Etain in the least for being suspicious when the last stew Jinart tried to serve her included grains literally picked out of the manure on Etain’s cloak. Also, it’s still kind of sweet that Darman notices she isn’t eating enough and immediately offers her his bread, even though he’s in heaven getting “real” food. It’s generous. 

But good things never last, and Etain pretty much immediately is warned by the Force that someone is approaching unexpectedly. Darman flips out and the family immediately flees, which only confirms his suspicion. Dar and Etain brace for combat, while Etain uses Force-sense to pinpoint the incoming enemy forces. It’s actually kind of a great little action scene for the two of them.

“She put her lips so close to his ear he jumped.” Idk, I just giggled at that.

It’s just kind of a great little moment, getting to actually see Etain use her Force skills competently in an action scene. But of course, it immediately devolved. Darman, being raised to be a soldier, kills the one surviving Separatist, who’s injured on the floor. Etain, being raised a Jedi, doesn’t understand. Again, it’s a culture clash, but given the military focus of the books, we know who the narrative thinks is right.

I STILL WANT TO KNOW... who the hell were the clones supposed to be killing on Kamino? I can’t imagine the Kaminoans would let the clones kill even “worthless” Kaminoans, for fear of the armies they were raising getting ideas. I suppose Jango could have snuck back a bounty that was supposed to be dead every now and then, but that wouldn’t be a lot of people for training with 3,000,000 men. 

Also, Darman literally had his freak out over killing people on page 56 of this same, book, so it comes off as a tad hypocritical, even though this isn’t the last time he’ll not understand what Etain is upset about wrt killing.

Anyway, Darman is shot in the shoulder, though it’s a minor wound, they’re now on the run with no “safe houses” to hide in, and at the end of this scene, when Darman asks if Etain can sense droids, we find out she can’t when a droid starts shooting at them.

We then skip to Niner and Atin and Fi raiding a quarry for droids/explosives/equipment. I’m not gonna lie, I could care less about the plot of this section. This is my third time reading it and I’m still fuzzy on it. But it has a few fun little moments:

Atin is tricky. Also, I’m pretty sure that if this wasn’t a Star Wars book,that line would say “pants-shittingly nervous” rather than “drink-spilling”. With the facility seemingly cleared out, Niner and Atin go in to loot it, and we build some more on the “Atin is the tech guy” thing.

Except the guard shack isn’t empty. Guta-Nay (again, the would be rapist) has been hiding there, since Hokan wants him dead. Guta-Nay tries offering various bits of information if Niner will keep him alive, and KT really, really leans in to the whole “to stupid to function” thing, which is still making me uncomfortable, but comes to a head a few chapters from now. Eventually, Niner concedes that they’ll take Guta-Nay prisoner rather than kill him. Atin is displeased, but starts leveraging it to try and find a technical solution to one of their other problems.

Niner, you should absolutely keep thinking mean thoughts about Vau.

Atin hacks some droids, and they’re going to use them to move the mining charges and smuggle them into the places that need to be blown up, including the Nemodian comm relay in Tekklet. Atin still does not like Guta-Nay.

And then one bit that really makes this scene:

Tiny bit of foreshadowing for Triple Zero and True Colors. GREAT moment of Fi’s typical sass. “Don’t stand there being so ugly, man. You’re scaring him.”

We then close the chapter with Hokan being pissed that Darman and Etain escaped. I’m not going to spend too much time on it, because it’s mostly Hokan yelling at his subordinates.

Things that are of note,  with a CW for a graphic description of mutilation of corpses: this is what Jinart went and did to the collaborators.

As negatively as Traviss paints them, I actually feel really bad for the farmers in this book. She’s not much sympathetic to them, and she explicitly goes out of her way to show why you’d be stupid to sympathize with them, but on the one hand you have the Separatists and Hokan torching these people’s land, selling them into slavery, and executing them. On the other... you have Jinart. 

On top of which, they’re literally starving because of the Nemodian’s financial control of their lives. They don’t even have 21st century plumbing, in Star Wars. Whatever point Traviss thinks she’s making about unworthy civilian/local populations, it rings kind of hollow in the face of that information, because I can understand exactly why the NPCs act the way they do, even if they’re technically in opposition to our protagonists.

Anyway, Hokan pulls all droids out of Tekklet, where the comm is, to guard Uthan’s facility. He tells his men he wants either Darman or Etain alive, especially if Etain is a Jedi. Preferably both of them. Again, remember, he tortured Kast Fulier to death with Fulier’s own lightsaber, so remember what we’re working with here.

And that’s where the scene ends.

[neversidekick-blog]

Flamethrower’s Alleged Harassment

What’s going on?

deadcatwithaflamethrower has suggested she is the victim of a targeted campaign of harassment, and along the way she’s used some antisemitic dogwhistles, which would be problematic on its own, but is especially insidious IMO given the topic of the alleged harassment.

I am positive that I am one of the people she says harassed her, though I maintain I did no such thing. 

I’m going to attempt to provide the fullest accounting of these events possible, with the caveat that I simply don’t have copies of a few key pieces of evidence.

If you’re going to follow along, I ask you read all the screenshots and quotations carefully, because the details do matter if you want a complete picture.

The first two sections are background info for those unaware of a few relevant facts. The issue of alleged harassment follows.

Jewish Snape

Flamethrower has written a long, serial HP fic called Of a Linear Circle. In it, Severus Snape is portrayed as Jewish. While his Jewishness is touched upon in multiple chapters across multiple parts of the series, this is how it is introduced:

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

Severus rolls his eyes and taps the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t obvious?”

Nizar gives him a baffled look. “What does your nose have to do with it?”

“It’s a…stereotype.” Severus grimaces at Nizar’s continued look of confusion, but he still meets older adults who’ve never heard the word used that way. “Racism.”

“Oh. Idiots,” Nizar mutters. “Besides, if you wanted to see some truly horrific examples of nasal protuberances, you’d find yourself a Viking who’d had their nose broken four or five times.”

I applaud including Jewish characters in fic, even in the case where they are not Jewish in canon. Positive portrayals of Jewish characters should be encouraged throughout fandom.

Picking Snape to be the character from Harry Potter to reframe as Jewish is a complicated choice, because of the vile and enduring antisemitic stereotype relating to Jewish people having large, ugly noses. 

Consider the following quote spoken by the Marauder’s Map in POA:

Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.

Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.

Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.

Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

Leaning into a stereotype is a difficult choice. It’s not bad, but it should be handled with some thought. IMO you either need to ignore the canon association with Snape’s nose, or you need to deliberately deconstruct it.

Flamethrower did neither. This by itself I would not say is antisemitic, merely clumsy. She went to great efforts to portray Snape’s Jewishness positively, and I honestly applaud that.  

But I know I’m not the only person who encountered it and was uncomfortable with the antisemitic stereotype being on display so clumsily. Not that I thought it meant flamethrower or her fic were antisemitic, just that this particular use of a stereotype was uncomfortable. 

A Thread about Hebrew

Of a Linear Circle is heavily concerned with linguistics. It features discussions of many languages, including Hebrew. One of those discussions contains an error, a faulty transliteration. This is a minor mistake, and in a fic with so many linguistic discussions, some mistakes would happen for even a true polyglot.

The problem is that when a Jewish fan commented with a polite suggestion of a fix to the error, flamethrower proceeded to Goysplain both Hebrew and the Shoah to her.

It’s not a good look. It’s arrogant and condescending. By itself, though, it’s not antisemitic, just an author being a little too defensive and overbearing. But it’s there, and more than a few Jewish fans noticed it because flamethrower has promoted the fact that Snape is Jewish in this fic.

Where the Harassment Supposedly Begins

At some point, a Jewish fan (who implicitly identifies herself as such later), leaves a comment on the chapter of flamethrower’s fic with the potentially upsetting antisemitic nose stereotype.

The request is for a tag or warning of some kind for the comment, just so it doesn’t take readers by surprise. Perhaps requesting the fic as a whole be tagged with “antisemitism” is a step too far and would seem bizarre, but the gist of the comment is a request for a content warning. Flamethrower could have sorted out a note or a less inflammatory tag if she cared to do so, but she never replied to this comment.

The fact that she didn’t reply to this comment doesn’t matter really. She gets a lot of fic comments, so the idea she missed one or didn’t feel like replying isn’t the issue. 

But this comment was left on August 10, and when it received no response for a week, I believe the same fan sent flamethrower an ask on the same topic, which is where the saga of supposed harassment begins.

The Ask

The text of the ask was as follows:

HI! I LEFT YOU A COMMENT RECENTLY ON YOUR FIC OF A LINEAR CIRCLE, BUT I CAN SEE YOU WERE VERY BUSY AND PROBABLY DIDN'T SEE IT. I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND ME ASKING, BUT WOULD YOU MIND TAGGING IT FOR THE ANTISEMITIC HUMOR IN IT? I KNOW IT WAS MEANT IN GOOD FAITH AND YOU HAD A JEWISH FRIEND CONSULT, BUT NOT ALL JEWS ARE COMFORTABLE WITH JOKING ABOUT STEROTYPES, AND FOR THOSE OF US THAT AREN'T, A LITTLE WARNING WOULD BE VERY KIND. THANK YOU!— queried by heatherly84

I consider this fairly innocuous and polite. As I said above, perhaps the reasonable outcome wasn’t the exact tag suggested, or even a tag at all--maybe a note in the intro notes of the chapter warning for it would have sufficed.

But this is how flamethrower responded:

So, because you had a single moment of twinge due to a child character’s self-consciousness regarding their appearance and their religion as they struggle to come to terms with stereotypes they face every day…you want me to add a tag to my fic that will see it immediately black-listed as anti-semitic even though it’s absolutely nothing of the sort.

No. No, I will not.

I am not here to gatekeep your internet experience. If that moment made you uncomfortable, you should a) think about what the character was going through instead of expecting it to be the author being a dick, and b) click your back button.

EDIT: No, wait. I’m not done.

What really gets me here is that you are asking me to tag a scene as anti-Semitic when this underconfident Jewish-born child, already dealing with horrible stereotyping, is promptly reassured by an Adult that there is nothing wrong with his faith or his appearance, and said child shouldn’t put stock into the people doing the stereotyping.

You want me to tag something as Bad that is meant to be enouragement for anyone in that position, a common theme in YA lit.

Are you sure it’s the perceived anti-Semitism that’s the problem, or is it something else entirely?

I saw the ask and flamethrower’s response shortly after it was posted on her tumblr. To say I found the response troubling is an understatement.

Flamethrower condescends to a fan asking, not for any substantive change or edit to the fic, but to a mere content warning.

Flamethrower presumes to tell someone how they must feel about the handling of antisemitic stereotypes in a fic, which would be bullshit even if she didn’t handle this particular antisemitic stereotype so clumsily.

Flamethrower accuses the fan of some secret and malicious motive because she, the author, is overly defensive.

Particularly considering the topic of antisemitism, I found the response wanting, so I decided I should say something.

The Submission

In an attempt to convey to Flamethrower that the concerns about the antisemitic stereotyping of Snape’s nose wasn’t the concern of a single fan, and to try to open a dialogue and point out some other missteps I felt she had made in the general region of Jewish representation in fandom and antisemitism, I decided to send her a submission.

I am an ancient member of fandom from the days of usenet and livejournal, and to be honest I just never got tumblr, so I had to create an account solely for this purpose. I’m sure that makes me sound like a bizarre dinosaur, but it’s the truth. And I created this account and wrote up a submission to flamethrower and sent it in.

Admittedly, my tone was a little sharp in a few places due to very genuine frustration, but as I tried to make clear, I was trying to appeal to her to do better, not simply condemn, and definitely not harass.

The following is the full and exact text of my submission to flamethrower: 

I feel that you're being deeply disingenuous. You introduced Snape being a Jew in your fic with the following lines:

“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”

Severus rolls his eyes and taps the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t obvious?”

And a Jewish person rather politely asked you to mark it as referencing antisemitic stereotypes, because holy fuck you made a character whose nose is remarkably large in canon Jewish and leaned into that in. Sure, you followed it with a joke about Viking noses, but that's not the deconstruction you seem to think it is. It's just a handwave that accomplishes nothing.

That, by itself, I could maybe give a pass, but then there's this comment thread: https://archiveofourown.org/comments/113294382 Someone tells you they're Jewish and gives you a bit of helpful advice about a bit of Hebrew linguistics that you have absolutely and totally wrong; it's not something, as you suggest in your replies, that varies with regions. It's universally understood, but you talk over the person whose cultural language you're using as if you know better.

But the part that really crosses the line is that you say the following in your scramble to throw shit against the wall to insist you could be right:

Then there are the parlances common to specific groups that are just fucking GONE because of the Holocaust, and we don't have any way now to know how they might have said certain words.

You Goysplain the Shoah to a Jew.

If you actually care as deeply about positive representations of Jewish characters in fandom as you say you do, maybe listening to actual critiques from actual Jews should be a thing you do, instead of reacting defensively and shutting them down.

Also, please never refer to a person as "Jewish sidekick" again, as you did in that thread. Unpacking the baggage there would take a separate submission. I'm taking the time to write this out, perhaps foolishly, because I hope you're sincere about caring and will actually listen. Shutting down the voices of Jewish people is not a part of portraying Jewishness positively in fandom. I hope you can see that and will listen and do better.

She posted and responded to this. I don’t have a screenshot of her response, nor do I have the full text because of how quickly she deleted it, but I do have a partial quote of her response:

However, you did accuse a Jewish woman by proxy of Goysplaining, which I find incredibly insulting on my best friend’s behalf. (She wants her name left out of it for anxiety reasons, and given how this is probably going to turn into a huffing and puffing Drag Down The Evil Witch Goyim thing, I don’t blame her.)

This bit of rhetorical gymnastics on her part served an interesting and infuriating purpose. I objected to her refusing to listen to actual Jewish fans trying to tell her things on multiple occasions, and I also criticized her use of the “I can’t have done anything wrong, my best friend is Jewish,” defense. Here she doubled down on that defense, essentially saying the person she has referred to on multiple occasions as her “Jewish Sidekick” insulates her from all possible problematic statements re: Jewishness.

The rest of her response was equally inane, but as I can’t quote it directly in her own words, I can’t justify saying more about it.

A Second, Unpublished Ask

As I mentioned above, I’ve never really used Tumblr. The difference between submitting posts and submitting asks confused me. I knew the original request for a content warning tag was an ask and that I’d done a post. I was afraid I should have sent an ask instead.

I was also rereading her response to heatherly84, and I was annoyed that she didn’t get why the joke about Snape’s nose wasn’t okay.

So I sent in an ask before my submission was posted and responded to.

I don’t have the text of my ask, but I give flamethrower permission to post it in full if she chooses. I recall saying two things:

1) In the form of a question, I tried to walk her through understanding why the joke about Snape’s nose could still read as antisemitic.

2) I acknowledged I’d sent the submission, and said I would prefer she respond to it, since it was more detailed.

Perhaps I committed some terrible tumblr faux pas in submitting a post and an ask on the same topic closely together and that constitutes harassment.

I suspect the former is true but the latter is not.

Flamethrower Deletes Posts and Claims Harassment

In a matter of minutes after flamethrower posts my submission and her response, she deletes it. A new post goes up.

I have to assume the combination of two asks and a submission is what she is saying is harassment. You’ve seen the text of one ask and one post, so hopefully you’ll agree one ask was very polite and the post was slightly terse but A) not harassment, B) not an ad hominem attack, C) and a list of reasons why she was wrong to do certain things, not a list of reasons why she as a person was awful. I maintain the unpublished ask is in the same vein, and she is free to publish it in full if she chooses.

Then she begins posting more, and her claims about what she was sent escalate.

Here we have what is called a dogwhistle: she’s not saying evil Jews are conspiring against her to make her look bad. However, in response to criticisms of potentially antisemitic behavior, she falls back on the trope of “devious” Jews in a malicious conspiracy. This is problematic, and I will say flat out it is antisemitic.

She also misrepresents what was going on: Jewish fans asking her to listen to them without being condescending. Jewish fans asking for a single content warning.

I believe at this point I sent either another ask or submission, with the gist being, “If you’re going to post about things I submitted to your tumblr and characterize them a certain way, I would appreciate it if you reposted them so viewers could judge for themselves whether what you’re saying is accurate.”

Continuing to engage was a mistake, clearly. 

Her vague posting with the context hidden continued.

And she ends by going full non-sequitur. 

She never raised not wanting to attract white supremacists and Nazis as a reason to avoid a warning tag. 

She condescended and attacked and told a Jewish fan her reactions were invalid.

If flamethrower cared about Jewish representation in fandom, opposing antisemitism, and Jewish fans, she could have compromised with some sort of warning in some fashion.

Even if she were absolutely opposed to a warning of any kind, she could have not condescended and invalidated the experiences of Jewish fans trying to speak with her.

Even if she couldn’t do that, she could have avoided deleting all context and then going on a posting spree that suggests an evil Jewish conspiracy is harassing her.

The only conclusions I can draw from all of this are as follows:

1) Engaging with flamethrower as a person who cares about Jewish fans is a mistake, because she cares more about presenting herself as an authority on Jewish experiences to non-Jewish fans than she does to listening to any critique, no matter how minor or polite, from a Jewish fan.

2) Flamethrower is happy to oppose antisemitism in the shallowest possible way to pat herself on the back and seek congratulations from others, but the second she’s in conflict with actual Jewish people, she resorts to vague and just barely deniable antisemitism herself.

3) Flamethrower is unable to accept anything she perceives as criticism, no matter how kindly it’s presented, because she’s too invested in presenting herself as the absolute expert on every topic she has passingly researched for a fic. Her defensiveness over a trivial topic is merely odd, but on more serious topics, it becomes problematic.

4) No one has harassed flamethrower, and nothing she is construing as harassment is part of a “setup” or conspiracy.

5) I probably don’t know how to use Tumblr properly.

Edited to Add: What I Think Is a Lie

I have been refreshing flamethrower’s tumblr nearly non-stop since this began, as have several people I know. Unless the offer of a different tag occurred in a private message, I am confident in saying it is a lie, particularly given her instant negative reaction to the very idea as shown above. If screencaps are provided, I will of course retract this and apologize.

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

Rocky’s Bar and Dean’s split self

I’m still intrigued by Dabb’s choice of song-quote for the latest episode and the scene with Dean trying to collect himself in front of the mirror. To quote myself from the above link--

It’s interesting that, while the textual reading in relation to the episode is obviously a Dean vs Michael one, the whole thing is obviously a subtextual exploration of Dean’s kaleidoscopic identity, his personality full of contradiction, the layers of disguises, the subtle threat of his self shattering always looming. Of course his case is not, like for the song, a personality disorder, but simply the ways he’s had to adapt to his environment, the coping mechanisms he has been performing to survive and try to thrive (Dean does not thrive on trauma, Sam, Dean has developed an extreme adaptability to trauma since he was a tiny bean, but the fact that he’s been doing for so long doesn’t make it any less complicated and exhausting.)

It’s just you, it’s just you. It’s all you.

Textually, it’s about Michael. Subtextually, it’s about Dean’s identity and the many facets of it, and the ways he’s been struggling to handle the various facets in relation to the environment he’s lived in.

Now, let me explore an idea about the scene playing in Dean’s mind. While I do agree that this post makes a valid point about the business lady representing Michael’s way to ensure Dean’s acquiescence, I want to try another reading (not necessarily conflicting).

I was thinking (there’ll be a post) about the parallel between Dean’s door that keeps Michael locked in and the wall that kept Sam’s trauma locked in when Death delivered his soul back. When the wall was broken, Sam had to recompose the different pieces of his self. He was literally split across multiple versions of his self inside his mind.

Now, Dean. When we saw the first glimpse of him inside the bar, we speculated that the mysterious guy passed out on the counter was also Dean. Then we found out that multiple individuals were involved in Dean’s illusion scenario: Pamela, the business lady, the two vampires. But are they really separate constructions, or are they also Dean?

When Sam and Cas enter Dean’s mind, they see him, they see Pamela, they briefly see the vampires (not the business lady). By the time Dean recovers his memories of reality, he’s the only one remaining. My theory is that he has reconstituted himself, although not in a visually noticeable way (like in Sam’s case in 6x22). Every person the appears inside the bar, in the loop, is a part of Dean, a facet of his self.

In the last few days, browsing through tumblr, I have noticed that different people have different interpretations of the positivity or negativity of Dean’s experience with the bar in the mental scenario. Some bloggers have emphasized a positive quality to it: Dean has his own business, is not dependent on anyone, is not shackled to anything, loves what he does, in fact does the thing pretty much exclusively out of love for what he’s doing. Dean is independent and does something he loves, hangs out with a friend he feels comfortable with, is cool with Sam and Cas hunting across the country, while he uses his hunter skills to defend himself and the bar if the occasion arises.

Others, me included (see here and sorta here), have emphasized a negative nature of the situation: the moment Dean is forced to live through on loop, although he doesn’t realize it, has a feel of isolation to it; the cinematography gives a dark, claustrophobic sense to the ambience. The bar is almost empty, and implied not to be successful; Dean only serves alcohol to himself and his staff member. He spills monsters’ blood in an establishment that serves food that he is responsible for, he who as a thing for cleanliness...! The only things that happen in the loop are Dean serving alcohol for himself and his waitress, resisting the pressure to sell the place, and killing vampires who’ve attacked the place. There’s emphasis - we hear it over and over - on the fact that Sam and Cas are on a hunting trip and Dean only knows when they should be back, meaning he’s not sure. Here I have basically described how being a bartender would be good for Dean: and that’s not what we see Dean doing, not what Dean really experiences in the scene playing on loop.

Now, I am not saying one’s right and one’s wrong (heck, I’ll be the first person to be happy if Dean gets to give food people by choice and is happy about it x x). The amazing thing about Dean Winchester is that you can interpret him and his experiences in completely different ways, and still not be wrong. He is multifaceted. And I think that this is the key point here.

There’s definitely a part of Dean that would appreciate the scenario. No major responsibilities towards others, his own business instead of the suffocating “family business” built on guilt and sense of duty. A job that allows him to take care of people in a very lowkey way - he serves them alcohol and food but is not responsible for them (he isn’t fazed by a drunk guy passed out). But that’s also not all of what Dean is. I’m reminded more of what a teenage Dean, tightly wrapped in the ties of the family as run by John, considered an ideal career: fix cars, which then leave, and you’re no longer responsible for them. Would something like that be enough for him now?

Dean thrives surrounded by people - not random people, rather his chosen people, but still people. He loves taking care of them - not because he’s forced to but because he can. In the bar scene, he has Pamela, but everyone else isn’t there.

There’s also something that could be said about the alcohol. Dean and Pamela are the only people we effectively see drink alcohol in the scene. It’s in fact the plot of the scene: Dean prepares drinks for them to drink together. It’s all about alcohol-based socialization. He thinks Cas and Sam have gotten back from the hunt, he immediately prepares a beer for Cas. Alcohol is a ubiquitous part of his life and relationships in this scenario.

So, we’ve had a look to bartender Dean. Now let’s look at Pamela. Confident, going on dates with hot guys, wearing items that subtly (or not so subtly) cue to Cas; equipped with an extreme emotional intelligence and empathy; whose tasks include “cleaning up the blood” when monsters attack the bar. Pamela who worries about Sam and Cas but don’t tell Dean, he’ll use it against me. Who is amused by Cas’ weird (non-flirty) way of talking to ladies.

Pamela is also Dean. A ‘feminine’ side - still badass and assured and strong - whose emotions will be used against him by his own ‘masculine’ side, that prefers to keep his emotions a secret, although projected onto Pamela this becomes a light quip (interesting how she says ‘don’t tell Dean’ not so far away from Dean that he can’t hear her: he doesn’t react, but you expect him to reply ‘I can hear you’ from behind the counter, just like Michael said earlier). A side who carries the memory of getting back from hell thanks to an angel. A side who confidently helps with killing monsters but also tries to wipe out the signs of the violence of the hunting life. A side who is aware of his own emotions and desires and messy psychological things.

I don’t know about you, but for me -- all of this? Also Dean. These aspects get projected onto Pamela because that’s safer. I think this is an important point: Dean keeps aspects on himself that are safer, projects uncomfortable (in various ways) aspects on other ‘characters’ of the scene.

In fact, let’s see the other characters. The drunk unconscious guy who turns up a decoy and attacks Dean and Pamela... is also Dean. The depressed, self-harming side. The side of unhealthy coping mechanisms.

And the vengeful vampire whose nest was killed is also Dean, although there’s a difference - the vampire who yells comes from the outside. It’s like the symbolism is saying that revenge and aggression are part of Dean’s identity, but come from the outside.

Now, the business lady. This part is where I had most difficulty figuring out how I was supposed to read it... until I had a realization, which you can find here. Basically, I think that the business lady represents - together with other aspects of the bar, especially the space where Dean does the paperwork - the side of Dean that is attracted to death.

The lady is visually reminiscent of two pivotal figures in the episode Byzantium - Lily Sunder and Anubis. Lily chooses death in the episode, which turns out to be a liberation, an act of elevation and a reward. And Anubis is a deity of the afterlife, tasked with the paperwork. Dean’s office space is also reminiscent of Anubis’ office which we see when Lily arrives there to get her new evaluation. (Please open the link above for the screenshots.)

There is a lot of elements that remind of death (and Death) in Dean’s mental scene, including the Mexican-inspired figures on the wall that connect us to the Mexican restaurant where Dean asked Death to kill him but then killed Death. The parallels with Anubis also make sense, considering that Anubis has been presented as a Dean mirror. And the lady with the briefcase and the paperwork (who, again, comes from the outside), in my opinion, represents the side of Dean that feels the appeal of death, or at least has a closeness to the idea of dying, if you get what I mean. Which opens interesting perspectives.

She offers him a deal. Death for Dean (not necessarily his own) is generally associated to deals. Mary’s demon deal (his first symbolical death is at four...), John’s demon deal, his own demon deal, the deal with Cain, multiple deals of some kind with Death (when he becomes Death for a day, when he kills Death...) and so on (you could say it even starts with Sue-Ann Le Grange’s deal). In particular the episode is filled with references to his experience in hell - which obviously started with his own most iconic deal. I know you said you weren’t interested, but it’s just a few signatures and you could... Dean says that the bar - his soul, his life - isn’t for sale. Rocky’s looks pretty dead. It’s a very generous offer, the lady retorts. Why would I want to give you anything? Keep your gutter soul. It’s too tarnished, anyway. But Dean put his foot down. No deal. The lady stomps off. Dean doesn’t want to die. He has to intention to make that sale. I’ve never had anything this nice.

In this metaphor, the bar becomes his soul, or his life. Many posts have been written about the interior decor of the bar, filled with symbols of what’s important to Dean. In one of the posts I linked earlier I talked about the bar as the Noah’s Ark opposite Michael’s flood, and it makes sense that his soul is this little thing, tossed around the raging waters but never sinking, never breaking.

But just like Dean is both Noah and God, the bar is more than Dean’s life, because Dean is also Death. Not as in the actual entity with the official job (although he’s done it for a little bit...) but he is a force that has everything to do with death. In the wide sense of the concept - the circle of life and death, the cosmic balance. He’s the force that reconciled creation and destruction, he’s basically always walking the line between life and death. He’s a dispenser of death but also overflowing with life. Killer and nurturer at the same time. But I gotta stop before I end up typing 10k words describing Dean.

Dean’s paperwork office, as I pointed out in the post I linked, is reminiscent of Anubis’ office. A deity of death, who represents the judgment of a person’s morality, the moment that determines your salvation or damnation. Anubis told them that he’s just the guy doing the paperwork, he’s not the actual entity that decides whether a person will be saved or not. The individual is the real judge of themselves (Anubis’ own father punished those who judged themselves worthy of condemnation inside their hearts...), humans are the real “Anubis”, the real “God”. The ones writing the story. And Dean, Humanity and Divinity at the same time, best represents this. He’s the god of salvation and damnation. And by the end of the episode we find out that he’s the one who can either save or condemn the universe - of course.

Behind Anubis there’s a clock, behind Dean there’s a fan. Circles that keep running in the same motion, round and round, the ouroboros of life and death and creation and destruction. Eternity and time. (I haven’t been touching the topic for a while, but at some point I was very intrigued by the undercurrent of space and time in the Dabb era, and maybe it’s time to get the topic out).

I’m going to conclude this post here because otherwise I might go on forever. Thoughts?

[tearlessrain]

I’m about to watch Arthur and Merlin, which is free on youtube and came up in my suggestions randomly. I have no idea what it is but I am hungry for the arthurian Content so Imma watch it and see how it goes

update: it was way better than I expected and accidentally SUPER gay. that merlin tv show everyone loved was amateur hour compared to how gay this was.

“there is magic in the air, and in the water, but it has been forgotten by many in these lands” wow why does that sound familiar I wonder

the funny thing is I watched fellowship of the ring literally yesterday so this will be hilarious

but there is hope [extremely unsubtle cut to a baby who is definitely important]

now I think... and I could be wrong... but guys I suspect this baby might be the chosen one.

oh god there was no father he was conceived by midichlorians

THE SKYWALKERS HAVE INFILTRATED THE CELTS

okay place your bets is it arthur or merlin

it’s Merlin. or Merddyn rather, in a surprise twist this movie was written by Fucking Nerds

so far mild cheese aside this is surprisingly watchable

“your crops fail and so you ask the king for help, but do not help yourselves! where are your alters?? starvation is punishment for your lack of faith!” THE RNC HAS INFILTRATED THE CELTS

okay so near as I can figure out the mark is from the old gods but there’s a druid who I guess speaks for the king or something who wants them to worship different old gods and now he’s demanding the villagers make a human sacrifice and it’s gonna be Smol Merddyn.

aw no they killed Celtic Shmi. Merddyn got away though and is now wandering the Forbidden Forest

I’m mad this is actually a solid movie so far. absolutely nothing unexpected has happened but I didn’t click on a movie called “Arthur and Merlin” to be surprised

oh wait that kid who freed him was Arthur

fifteen years later arthur is... a military leader who looks strangely like one of those romans played by obviously white actors in older movies

I honestly can’t pinpoint when this movie was made on aesthetics alone

ooo some Roving Misogynists™ are here to cause trouble and assault random women for being christian. by order of the druid no doubt.

“you mock us!” “I do.” okay I’m starting to like this arthur.

oh my god is that. he just fucking. tripped over excalibur while wading in like a two foot deep pond to get this woman’s cross back for her. best interpretation ever.

wait Olwen??? as in Ysbaddaden’s daughter Olwen?? once again I assumed they’d go with Guinevere or make someone up but I forgot, this movie was made by Fucking Nerds.

okay I know insisting everything is gay is a constant thing on this site but I want to point out that Arthur has showed nothing but very platonic friendship to Olwen but this is the face he makes when he sees Merddyn in a vision

and I mean to be fair to him this is what Merddyn looks like now

goddamn

oh no they’ve immediately made it very clear that he’s Romantically Involved With Olwen In Secret Look They’re Kissing Nobody Is Gay

so now I really want to know who wrote this movie because what I’m seeing here is people who intentionally chose to use the name merddyn, and know that olwen exists, but then decided to pair her romantically with... king arthur. and culhwch just doesn’t exist I guess. not that this is the most off the wall welsh mythology ship I’ve encountered but still it’s a weird one for this kind of media even if it’s an indie film

who are you people. how did this movie get made. I mean I like whatever it is but for real how and why did you do this.

I love how there’s just this trio of random dudes who don’t even have names who are arthur/olwen’s friends. and yet somehow they’re likable and I’m rooting for them. whoever they are.

so the only real problem with this movie that’s denting my enjoyment is that nobody has names and they all have the same haircut so I lose track of who’s doing what. see these are arthur’s friends:

and these are bad guys:

and Olwen is the only person in either screenshot who has a name

if any of them ever changes into a new outfit I’m screwed.

I’m gonna be real with y’all I love me a cursed forest

in an ironic twist, excalibur is now firmly stuck in a tree trunk and arthur cannot get it out

why is this movie GOOD what the heck. I mean the druid and king situation is blatantly ripped from wormtongue and theoden but I still like. care about the king. they’ve done it well.

“I’ve already told you, I am no longer a man.” “are you so sure???” see I know nothing will happen since this is a movie not a fanfic but that line is the quintessential hate-makeout segue

THIS IS VERY HETEROSEXUAL they’ve had most of the argument while approximately that distance from each other

oh god what the fuck arthur’s friends got sacrificed by the druid just to make a point to olwen. this is the opposite of a Sacrificial Girlfriend.

they do not need to be this close to each other to argue but they keep on doing it

they’ve been on screen together for less than five minutes y’all

arthur: maybe you’re right, you are no longer a man

merlin: [conjures an entire patch of flowers for him to make... some kind of point I guess?]

okay now they’re arguing again but there’s all this “I thought I knew you” talk (which, again, it’s been five minutes) and the actors have clearly decided that their dynamic is based entirely on constant, roiling sexual tension

why does every single thing they say scan like dialogue from a slow burn enemies to friends to lovers fanfic

“the girl in the village, did you love her once?” “I know little of love” “Surely a man who can control the growth of a flower must be able to make love blossom” JUST FUCK ALREADY

this is how they’re having this conversation by the way

there was only one shrub hollow

“to control nature is one thing, but only the most powerful sorcerer could control the mind of a man- OR WOMAN,” he said, heterosexually.

y’all I’m gonna be honest I thought I was just projecting at first but this is the gayest thing I’ve seen since the baseball song in high school musical 2. this is just absolute beleg and turin levels of probably unintended but utterly blatant homosexuality. I’m so glad I decided to watch this movie and youtube was right to recommend it to me.

this movie really speaks to me because on a spiritual level I too am a mystical but irritable and socially stunted forest hermit with sexy hair just waiting for a brash but pure-hearted warrior who looks like a roman statue to draw me out of my cave with homoerotic banter. 

oh it’s not excalibur it’s... nuadu. which I guess in this movie is not the king of the tuatha de danann but a sword forged by them? see my first impulse would be to assume that the way they’re mangling everything, the writers knew nothing about Celtic folklore, except that they’ve chosen such weirdly specific things to mangle. they know their shit, they’ve just deliberately chosen to go absolutely buckwild with it.

THEY’RE DOING IT AGAIN THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF ARGUING WHILE STANDING MORE THAN TWO FEET APART

for real though character-wise this might be one of my favorite interpretations of merlin/merddyn I’ve ever seen. I feel like everyone involved was genuinely super passionate about the subject matter they were working with. like all jokes aside he’s really honestly well acted and well written.

STOP IT NOW YOU HORNY SIMPLETONS

uh oh they’ve been captured by... bandits?

oh it’s olwen’s uncle

“TO GOOD WOMEN... WHY DO YOU NOT DRINK, MERDDYN”

it is a mystery, olwen’s uncle.

a mystery.

this motivational monologue could have been so cheesy but like. I’m here for it. I would follow arthur into battle.

aw come on. olwen’s uncle betrayed them. I kinda saw it coming but dammit.

again, the druid should be absolutely stupid but he’s kind of a cool villain.

yay olwen’s uncle unbetrayed them. probably so would I if I’d seen what merddyn just did to the druid’s guys.

so the druid is trying to sacrifice ten thousand souls to raise a god from the underworld and merddyn is on the fucking warpath. and olwen’s uncle is ON BOARD HELL YEAH.

THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS TO ISENGUARD TO ISENGUARD

arthur and merddyn have escalated to clutching each other’s clothes during their heated two-feet-apart discussions

olwen is a badass in her own right like she has her own whole thing going trying to save the king from basically his own literal dementia and the druid who’s taking advantage of it, which is somehow way more compelling than just magical mind control.

“I thought the cave taught you fairness” “well... you taught me fighting” JUST KISS.

okay let’s see how they pull off this dark god on the shoestring budget they definitely have, at this point I honestly believe in them.

by avoiding showing the god entirely apparently but they made it work even with that.

aw the king has named him his heir. which again we all knew would happen but it’s still so well done.

and we end on merddyn placing the crown on arthur’s head while lovingly quoting his own words back at him, while olwen looks on with the kind of approval that implies they’ve ended up with some kind of road to el dorado situation. solid.

so I was expecting this to be absolute garbage with bad actors and checked out writers just trying to make another mediocre coattail-riding medieval fantasy movie and what I got was some weirdly good actors and writers who are clearly obsessed with celtic folklore and desperately wanted to just run amok with it for an hour and 45 minutes. and they did. they poured every ounce of their hearts and souls and tiny, tiny budget into it. and it was beautiful. 10/10

[pigstepmp3-moved]

the writers really did buck dirty in s01e02

its the post you’ve all been waiting for—my Aggravated Analysis Of Everything That Makes Me Mad about the Therapy Scene tm, now featuring some things that show just how emotionally and mentally fucked buck is. now, i know we All hate that scene with all of our hearts (buck deserves to have a Good experience w therapy for once, but thats just my opinion), but i wanna go into detail about what exactly makes me SEETHE about that scene, complete w gifs and screenshots so i can better explain myself. im putting it all under the cut bc its kind of A Lot, so click that “read more” if you wanna read my angry complaining

alright, lets set the scene (i know we’re all aware of the situation behind this scene, but i think its important to remind you all of it). season one episode two. bucks still very much a Huge horn dog. buck has also very recently suffered his First loss on the job and its taking a huge toll on him. i think what’s most important to talk about before we get to the therapy scene itself is the scene where abby’s watching him on the news with carla.

(not the greatest quality, but that doesnt matter). he very clearly looks uncomfortable just talking about what happened in such a Casual, No Pressure setting. he says, “i was just doing my job. i’m happy we were able to help the people we helped and i’m really sorry about those we couldn’t save.” he stutters a few times as he says it, looks and sounds very uneasy, which seems very out of character for him. he’s usually super confident and chill, but as he’s asked to talk about this (most likely) traumatic thing, he kinda clams up, yknow? theres also something in his voice that reminds me very heavily of the way My voice sounds when Im trying to force back tears, but that might just be The Way He Talks

another thing that he says that really stands out to me (i dont know if this is necessarily important to the topic at hand, but i wanna talk about it so whatever) is, “. . . um, i’m sure they’re just turned on by the uniform. you know, i don’t know if they would feel that way if they saw me out of it.” ignoring the more sexual connotations to what he’s saying there, let’s talk about what he most likely meant by that particular statement. he still sounds a little nervous as he says it and kind of avoids the reporters eyes. it sounds to me like this is a rare moment of buck’s insecurities being let loose. “i don’t know if they would feel that way if they saw me out of it.” this implies, i think, some insecurities about like.. every part of himself. it almost seems like, in this moment, he thinks his only redeeming quality is the uniform. which might actually be what he’s thinking right then, ‘cause he’s still trying to figure out how to cope with his first loss. i think theres some part of him, somewhere behind that overly confident persona, that has a lot more insecurities than he shows, but thats a conversation for another day.

now, let’s move on a little from that. what i think is very important and notable about that scene is some of the things abby says after watching buck on the news. first thing she says that stands out to me is, “i’ve been thinking i might want to call him to see how he is.” she’s worried about him. i think she’s probably been worried about him since the first time he was on the news, earlier that episode. and for good reasons, i think, because later on, she says, “. . . he needs help, you know? i mean, he’s got so much pain in his face. everybody’s treating him like a hero. he doesn’t feel like a hero. as far as he’s concerned, the guy that he was trying to save fell.” like, wow, just tear my heart out and stomp on it a bunch, why dont you? its such a wonderful and apt summary of what buck’s going through. to put it rather simply, he’s fucking distraught, and for good reasons. plus, that quote is one of the Big things that influenced my headcanon of buck having depression, and i could probably analyze every single scene bucks in in this episode that have added onto that head canon of mind bc there are at least a couple different things i could blather on about, but that’s some analysis for another post (if you’re interested in me talking about that tho, definitely feel free to let me know)

now, let’s move on a little further to the Dreaded Scene (i’d totally go into the scene that immediately follows the last one i talked about, where buck and abby are speaking on the phone, but i think i’ve emphasized my point of buck going through some shit in this episode to the point where that isn’t strictly necessary). for the rest of this post, i’m gonna kind of analyze every single little thing that buck does and says in the therapy scene bc pretty much all of it contributes to my burning hatred of that therapist.

like, yeah, no SHIT, honey!! as far as we, the audience, are concerned, this is the First time he’s EVER been to therapy. in my own personal experiences, my first time going to therapy was SO uncomfortable. and just looking at buck right here makes me feel uncomfortable, too—he’s fidgeting with his hands, looks to the side, looks down, looks up at her for a moment before looking away again. this boy looks nervous as hell, and for good reasons. he confirms that he is in fact uncomfortable, and then the therapist says, “well, that’s not unusual. you’ve been through a trauma. that’s why you’re here—to deal with those feelings.” remember that, because i’m not gonna go into the importance of that quote just yet.

the next thing buck says is, “uh, yeah, i’m, uh, i’m not really into feelings.” he kind of avoids looking at the therapist as he says this, though not as much as he did in that last gif. but his voice is like... uncharacteristically quiet as he says it.

more!! avoidance!! he keeps averting his eyes, looking anywhere that ISNT his therapist. and at the end of what he says here, he clenches his jaw a little. a nervous tick, maybe? i don’t know. as he talks here, though, his voice is, yet again, very quiet. he sounds just about broken right here, and it makes my heart ache so bad for him

after a brief break to check out what athena and michael are talking about, his therapist says, "i treat a lot of first responders—people who run toward danger—but maybe there's something you're running from as well? what is it about discussing your feelings that scares you?" the answer buck gives her? a very defensive, “i’m not scared.” if youre not scared, then why are you avoiding talking about your damn feelings like the fucking black plague? and when i say that he says it defensively, i mean, like, way too defensive to Not be suspicious

we don’t get to hear anymore about that particular question because next, we’re checking up on athena and michael again, and then we’re talking about something else. the therapist says, "you lost somebody. that's hard."

as he says this, he sounds fucking SAD. he sounds completely and utterly BROKEN. throughout this whole clip, he sounds entirely broken. the therapist asks if this was his first time. he responds with, "i mean, i've had calls where it was... too late, but, uh, but i've only been doing this not even six months. now, i... i just can't shake the feeling that this one didn't need to go down the way that it did." again, he sounds like he’s hurting really badly. this loss is really taking a huge toll on him and that is Very clear. she then asks him if he thinks there was something he could have differently. he doesnt respond, just looks up at her like this:

his eyes are a little red, and it looks like there are some tears in his eyes. like wow, you could murder me and it would hurt less than seeing buck like this

now, the next snippet is about where everything Starts Going To Shit (this is also the part where i start sobbing like a dumb baby, but thats neither here nor there). 

you see that shit right there?? if you listen hard enough, you can hear my heart breaking into a million pieces. from this point on, buck is CRYING. honest to god fucking CRYING. he looks like he’s hurting so badly, especially at the end of that gif, when he furrows his eyebrows. it looks kind of like he’s trying to keep himself from straight up Sobbing. i’m sure it seems almost like i’m dwelling on this for a little longer than necessary, but i think emphasizing how emotional he is in this part is very important to understand just how much the end of this scene makes me fucking SEETHE. this next little bit is where i start to transition from Sadness to absolute Rage

you see that? this is the start of my slow deterioration into madness. up until this point, everything about this therapy session was completely and entirely professional. but home girl decides, hey, yknow whats a good idea? waltzing my happy ass across the room, sitting down directly in front of my PATIENT, and resting my hand on said PATIENT’s arm. i dunno about you guys, but this seems terrible on so many levels that it isnt funny.

now, yknow what happens next? some classic avoidance from our boy. she calls him mr buckley, so he says, "it's, um... it's actually just buck." (after VERY AUDIBLY SNIFFLING by the way, but i digress). he then deflects even FURTHER by asking her if she friended him on facebook. 

“i thought you looked familiar,” he says. he’s no longer actively crying at this point, but there are most certainly still some tears in his eyes.

now, do you know what happens next, after a brief break to check up on athena and michael? the worst thing that could happen happens! i know it, you know it, little miss unprofessional sleeps with buck! and yknow what she says Immediately afterwards? “i can’t believe i just did that. i am so sorry.” like.... no! saying “sorry” doesnt change the fact that you TOOK ADVANTAGE of someone who is CLEARLY not in the right frame of mind to consent to something like that. yknow what he was doing the last time we saw him? crying. bc hes in a very vulnerable place in this episode. and yeah, sure, i guess you could make the argument that he was seducing her a little, but that doesnt change the fact that this is fucked up. now, side note about me, i’m only in high school and i’ve never had any job before, so i dont quite know the ins and outs of the professional world. but i do know a thing or two about common sense, so its pretty easy for me to assume that shit like this is awful on like a million different levels. i think the power imbalance is super clear to anyone who has any number of brain cells.

now, buck being as emotionally stunted as he is, says that she made him feel better (probably just for a few minutes, but thats neither here nor there). and yknow what she says? “you should go.” remember that quote from earlier? the one that i said was important and that i was going to go into later? “well, that’s not unusual. you’ve been through a trauma. that’s why you’re here—to deal with those feelings.” yknow what buck Didnt do? deal with those feelings. he talked about his feelings for maybe ten minutes, and that’s assuming that, during the cuts to athena and michael, the session was continuing and that it wasnt a matter of like, oh, this stuff is happening At The Same Time.

and all that is just During the session. we dont ever see the aftermath of it, we dont ever see buck talking about that session or anything along those lines. and we most certainly dont see him trying to go talk to a different therapist. the rest of what im going to be talking about this post is purely speculation, but i think its highly probable that this could all be canon. like i just mentioned, as far as we know, buck hasnt gone to another therapist after that shit show. additionally, we can also assume that buck really hasnt talked to like....... anyone about the shit he’s gone through, both past shit and shit that was brought up from this first loss of his. so as far as we’re concerned, he’s never properly worked through it all. he’s also probably never gotten any proper coping mechanisms to deal with any further losses. it seems a little too morbid to think that bucks just gotten used to the feeling that comes with losing someone, so i think its pretty safe to assume that, after every single loss he suffers, he gets like..... super fucked up, purely because he never talked about (a), the reason why hes scared to talk about feelings, or (b), how to deal with said feelings, especially when they’re bad. and thats not fair to him!! that loss clearly took a huge toll on buck, Most of the description of that episode is talking about the roller coaster and bucks feelings, but he never got to heal from it. if buck doesnt get something akin to a redemption arc, where he gets to see a therapist to properly work through all of his issues, i’m going to riot

anyway. thats all i have to say on the matter. i’ve been working on this for most of the day because i have so many thoughts and feelings about the way buck was treated during this episode. i will die mad about it. but i think i’ve said pretty much all i have to say on the topic now, so i hope my frustrated rambling was interesting or whatever to read. so, thanks for reading! ♥

[dcarevu]

Batman TAS: The Clock King

Hi, guys! Gee, it’s been a while! For another week or two, doing these blogs are going to be incredibly difficult to accomplish. It’s the last two weeks of my school semester, meaning that it’s crunch time. Overall, school has kept me so busy that watching the episodes has been doable, but writing about them has been a huge problem. It sucks, because doing this blog and venting my thoughts is incredibly satisfying. To be honest, if I didn’t include screenshots and captions for most of them (like how I used to do things), these posts would likely still be coming out regularly. But they are a lot of extra work. It more than doubles the creation-time, believe it or not. It is work that is worth it, mind you, it adds a massive leap in awesome-factor. But I just don’t have time for it at the moment. I have watched up to Robin’s Reckoning as of the moment I type this. Because of how far ahead that is without actually writing anything about those episodes, it’s going to be hard to write meaningful blog posts about them, simply due to the episodes not being as fresh in my mind. I will try to rewatch them (or at the very least skim through them and read about them). I’m in a bit of a rut. I didn’t want to stop watching episodes entirely, because I’d like to get through the DC Animated Universe in a somewhat timely manner (I’d watch an episode per night if only I could). Luckily, after the 10th of May I should be back at it in full. I’m likely way more excited about it than you are, but hey, I’m mainly doing this for me (with a hearty “welcome” to anyone who happens to discover and enjoy these along the way). Just figured I’d keep any readers updated! This is the last post for the next couple of weeks. I’ll check in soon! In the mean time…

“Thirty-seven pages? That would take a copier exactly one minute and forty-nine seconds. One more delay like this and you're fired!”

Episode: 25 Robin: No Writer: David Wise Director: Kevin Altieri Animator: Sunrise Airdate: September 21, 1992 Grade: B

So lately I’ve been watching these episodes using my Blu Ray copy, and receiving the screenshots from my DVD copy. There hasn’t been too much for variance, aside from one looking obviously better, but The Clock King is an example of a pretty drastic difference in how two episodes can be presented. The Blu Ray copy is much brighter than the DVD copy, and while that does allow us to see what is going on a little bit better in dark scenes such as when Batman and Temple Fugate face off inside the clock, it also makes other scenes uncharacteristically bright, and honestly a little bit tacky. Seeing Batman walking around in broad daylight is odd enough, but when you further get rid of the illusion of how cool he looks by upping the exposure an additional amount, it makes him look really out of place. In the series bible, I can see why they wanted to keep Batman only appearing after dark. In the real world, it would be a lot easier to see Batman as a normal guy in a dorky Halloween costume when not cloaked in the shadows or when the ability to see him before he attacks is present. Of course, this isn’t saying that if Batman were to see trouble during daylight that he should just ignore it. It makes sense to break the rule sometimes, and it’s not even a problem to me in this episode, I just don’t think that the remastering of the Blu Ray release does it any favors in this case. The brightness also brings out the budget, revealing a whole lot of bland blues, grays, and browns. These colors have not been shy since the beginning, but there is no disguising them this time.

Fugate is a villain who’s main flaw is not only how obsessive-compulsive he gets about his schedule, keeping track of things, being on time, etc, but also the fact that he extends this to other people. He expects them to fall in line with his standards. For example, he keeps track of how long he and Mayor Hill have been taking the subway together, and expects Hill to know his name just from that. Also, his employee/intern who brings him a stack of papers too slowly for his standards, because apparently a photocopier should only take “one minute and forty-nine seconds” on that particular stack. And then, the biggest one of all, when he expects Mayor Hill to immediately know the significance of the time 3:15. This is the time that Hill suggested Fugate go on his coffee break, indirectly leading to Fugate losing the court case, ruining his life and creating the Clock King. But this was seven years prior! If someone came up to you and went, “1:47!” would you have any idea what they were talking about? Sure, a lot of things have happened at 1:47, maybe even some significant things, but as far as what they are, most people probably do not keep track. Another theme that I noticed was the idea of hindsight. Have you ever been in a situation where you gave someone a mere suggestion, they willingly took it, and then when something happened to ruin it, they blame you and insist that they knew it was a bad idea? Right, of course in hindsight it’s easy to say that, but truth is, neither of you saw the consequences coming! On top of that, any bad things that happened were completely unrelated to what you suggested, and luck just did not happen to line up. Maybe if Fugate hadn’t gone on that coffee break at a different time than usual, something else would have happened (not to get Final Destination-y on you). Point is, Fugate is completely missing the mark by staying mad at Mayor Hill for that long, and it’s like the old saying goes, “Shit happens.” Ironically, for a man so precise and knowledgable when to comes to all things time and clock related, looking back in time without heavy distortion does not seem to be something he is capable of doing in this case.

The main thing I liked about this episode (as I think a lot of people did) was its incredibly cruel nature. Just how mean to a guy can the writers be? “All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy”. That’s a Joker quote (taken from The Killing Joke), and it’s something I think about from time to time. I often wonder how much is between a rational brain and a completely irrational one. How much subconscious effort does being sane take? What’s keeping any of us from letting go and succumbing to the lunacy? Do our minds even work that way? Well, I sure as hell don’t know. And nobody worry, I’m not even the least bit afraid of snapping or anything, hahaha. It probably greatly varies from person to person as far as what would be enough to drive them crazy. In Temple Fugate’s case, it was a lot less than it would take for the majority of us. But this is hammered home by the drama of him being late to court. The bloody browns, dramatic shadows, and violent ticks of a clock do not necessarily represent how Fugate sees the situation, but they are there to represent how the situation affects him. If we were to be affected like him, this is how we would have to experience the situation. After all, everything is relative. This is juxtaposed brilliantly by the prior scene where birds are chirping and the sun is shining. Fugate seems like an alien trying to act casually as he struggles to relax for those few seconds. This is also more from our point of view than Fugate’s. These two scenes being back to back make us feel confused and baffled over our villain, all while allowing us to understand him completely. To me, understanding does not necessarily mean that something makes sense to us. Understanding is knowing the why. But, as an analogy, someone can tell me why they like the taste of zucchini. But that doesn’t make it any more clear to me those reasons can be enough for someone can like it. It just is what it is, and the bottom line is that all of our realities are different. For Temple Fugate, this is an unfortunate reality.

The producers of Batman set a goal of having a crazy set piece at the third act of every episode. They wanted it to aid in the excitement and to be memorable. I’m pretty sure not all episodes did this (it would become formulaic is abused), but this, along with Prophecy of Doom are the two that come to mind as demonstrators of this concept. Unfortunately, the animation lacks the spark that it needs. Luckily The Clock King wasn’t infected by Atom disease, and so the climax downright corny like Prophecy of Doom, and seeing the inside of the clock was neat, but… It wasn’t beyond just neat. I wish we got a bigger sense of scale, seeing further to the bottom of the clock, and maybe getting some better angles along with quicker action. I wanted a sense of height like what Mayor Hill was experiencing from the outside, as he was tied to the clock-hand. Plus just better fighting. It was such a tease of an action scene. I wanted to be at the edge of my seat, but feeling that way would require forcing it. And I just don’t have that kind of energy, man. Sunrise tried, they really did. The scene (and the whole episode in general) looks passable. But the blandness holds it back. It’s like eating the macaroni and cheese from my college. It’s mac and friggin’ cheese. So of course it’s going to be edible. Of course I’m going to like it. But where is the usual flavor? Where is the element that I usually am head-over-heels for? I can make vague comments about what it’s missing or what I would personally do to make it better. But probably the most firm statement I can really make is only, “Just do it better next time.”

I feel bad for people like this. We’ve all met them. They hold themselves (and others) to an impossibly high standard. Think about how much energy that must use.

The shock of Fugate hitting his coffee break at an odd time. She’s worked with him a long time. 

Batman’s idea of a nice, sunny day. As noted, it’s brighter on the Blu Ray. One of the scenes where the brightness adds to it. That tree is casting a shadow, but it almost looks like the clock is the one causing it...

The Blu Ray variant.

Great stuff! The tick of a clock gets louder and louder through the scene. 

“Then perhaps this will teach you to be on time for a change.” This line holds so much weight, as to someone like Fugate, it cements the idea that one moment of leniency was one too many.

This drawing could have been a little more grotesque, but not bad!

“I take it taxi-drivers are no longer required to obey traffic signs.”

I find it a little whacky that Bruce Wayne noticed trouble from way down on the streets.

Bruce going through that car was animated incredibly strangely. It looked like he entered the car, but then it looked like he emerged from behind it. But anyway, maybe this was a Superman homage? In one of the Superman movies, he walked through a car and emerged completely changed. Batman doesn’t have that amount of speed, so maybe this is kind of like his version of it. In the shadows, where he belongs. 

Wow, ugly screenshot. But see how odd it is to see Batman in the daylight?

Again, here is the Blu Ray version. And on a much better frame. 

Why he didn’t hurl the explosive directly at Batman is beyond me. He just kinda threw it into the distance. Maybe as a warning (much like Walter White vs Tuco for any Breaking Bad fans). 

See what I mean by blandness so far? A little more style would have gone a long way.

What an awful way to die this would be. Split in half by two hands of a giant clock. Imagine the impact this would have on Gotham if it had have worked. 

A few bits from inside the clock, including Fugate’s apparent death. But Batman doesn’t seem to think he’s gone... Some of these drawings of gears frankly suck. The line-work just isn’t there. This episode felt like a Twilight Zone episode, I’ve gotta say. I think it had to do with the personality of the villain along with some of the events that happened. Batman and Twilight Zone... Now there’s a crossover with possible potential...

Char’s grade: B Next time: Appointment in Crime Alley

Full episode list here!

[theteablogger]

Thanfictioning is Returnofthenecromommycon / Necromommycon / Carlanime

After I posted my first response to Thanfictioning, I googled the blog name last night. The only two results were my blog and a Dreamwidth community where Necromommycon had posted her Sluagh read-through. That was odd.

(Incidentally, I have no reason to believe that the sole other member of that community had anything to do with any of this.)

I read back through everything Thanfictioning had posted up to that point. There were several lines that reminded me very much of things Necromommycon had said before, including that Thanfictioning had done a couple of things in the past that made them look bad in ways similar to Andy (see her tf-talk comments on channeling: 1 | 2). Thanfictioning used a tag she had used a number of times. On the other hand, the story of how Thanfictioning first attempted to reach Andy and finally made contact with him didn’t seem to correspond to her story of being unexpectedly PMed after she commented on CFC’s “other side of the wank” LJ post. Finally, given our interactions and her history (corresponding with Turimel, sharing Andy’s messages full of lies about mental illness and Brittany, being empathetic toward Abbey and other previous associates of Andy’s, writing commentary on some of his posts) I could not imagine her minimizing and misrepresenting Andy’s abusive actions as Thanfictioning had done. This made me suspect that Andy or one of his friends (probably at his behest) was trying to stir shit up and mislead me and other bloggers/anons into believing that Thanfictioning was Necromommycon.

I didn’t think it could actually be her. Neither did Abbey or another anon, when I talked about it with each of them separately. I had had enough positive interactions with Necromommycon that I trusted her. That trust was enough for me to vouch for her publicly when an anon expressed concern about her still being friends with Andy. Fuck, three years ago, Necromommycon offered to send money to help with my wedding, a gesture so kind and so unexpected that it almost moved me to tears (which is an extremely rare occurrence). Abbey and I were even more convinced of her innocence when we saw the post denying that Andy was a rapist: Necromommycon did not seem at all like the kind of person who would be so cruel to a rape survivor.

I decided that now was not the time to call anyone out for impersonating Necromommycon, although that really seemed to be what was happening. Watching and waiting seemed like the best course of action. 

Instead, I started a response to the rape apologism post. When I’d just about finished, I finally thought, “Fuck it. She needs to know what’s happening before someone else puts the pieces together and confronts her.” So I sent Necromommycon a PM on Tumblr chat and an ask. I knew she wouldn’t be able to prove that she wasn’t Thanfictioning (you can’t prove a negative), but I wanted to be able to say that I’d confirmed it wasn’t her, and I was willing to take her word for it. 

Unfortunately, this was the response I received:

Today at 6:14 PM

returnofthenecromommycon

I'm sorry to tell you this, but it was me. Last summer when I was at the cabin, Andy had me convinced that [a nightmarish thing related to being trans had happened to him years ago, and he was struggling with severe psychological problems]. I wrote four posts in total, intending them only to be read by two specific friends of mine, one of whom had the sense to tell me that I could ask Abbey if [the nightmarish thing had really happened]. She confirmed that hadn't happened.I then deleted the posts, or so I thought, from the cabin--and thought no more about it until someone informed me it had been mentioned on tf-talk. The posts were originally password protected, and I had never intended them for public view. I just needed the two people most able to tell me if I was being realistic to now everything I was thinking, so I spewed it all out in four posts. I reposted the Diamond one this morning, since it briefly seemed more honest to make it all public than to just screen it and walk away, but then I saw that would only make things even worse and deleted it. You can quote as much of this as is helpful, but please keep the [redacted information] private (Abbey can confirm that I asked about [the nightmarish thing], I guess, but it's not a detail I want shared at large). 

I was utterly gobsmacked, horrified, and furious. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided that I still needed to post my response to the rape apologism, because any number of people might have seen it before the Tumblr was deleted. I also replied to Necromommycon as follows:

I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I'll start with the dates on those posts. The first one was dated July 19, 2018. The "Andy isn't dangerous" one was dated Oct 26, 2018, just a week before it was linked in tf-talk. And the post about Diamond mentions my list of reasons why people think Andy is dangerous, which only went up on Oct 22, so you couldn't have written all of that over the summer. And even if you did...are you saying that during the summer, while you were calling out Chris for rape apologism and posting screenshots of him saying it was wrong to accuse Andy of rape, before ANY posts were made in the Thanfictioning tumblr, you didn't think Andy was a rapist?

She has not responded to that message.

It appears that all that time that Necromommycon was expressing empathy toward Abbey, she may have privately believed that Abbey was “lying or exaggerating” about a lot of things. Despite her calling out Chris over the summer for saying it was wrong to call Andy a rapist, she herself did not believe he was a rapist. She posted records of Chris’s rape apologism, but subsequently attempted to discredit Diamond. Over a period of years, she engaged in discussion with me and other Andy awareness bloggers, reblogging many of our posts and adding her own commentary, all while she apparently thought that I/we ought to be subject to legal action for things we were saying about Andy.

Some people will doubtless characterize this as a blow to the credibility of all Andy awareness bloggers and anon communities. It isn’t. The only person who looks bad here is Necromommycon. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the emails and messages from Andy that she’s shared in the past, especially since Andy and CFC have indicated that they’re real, so there is no reason to remove them from the timeline. I see no reason to regret or second-guess anything that I said in my two responses to her Thanfictioning posts.

One of my favorite quotations, which I have on a little pewter keychain clipped to my bag, is, “Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend.” (Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles) It means a lot of things to me, but one of the most important is that when the evidence suggests that someone we like and trust has done something wrong, we should not immediately assume that they’re innocent. We should continue to gather evidence and explore the possibilities, bearing in mind that the truth may be something that makes us uncomfortable. I’m generally good at acting on that principle, but in this case, I clearly was not.

[boyf-canons]

I Can’t Believe You!

Ship: Evan Hansen x Reader

Warnings: Panic attack, swearing, brief online bullying, talk of suicide. 

A/N: Requested for the sentence prompt, “I can’t believe you!” I really hope this is what you meant. In this, you take Zoe’s place. I switched around the lyrics to words fail and took some dialogue from this scene in the show, because I felt that the words they already spoke/sang were so important. I don’t know how I feel about this, and I still don’t know how to end things but regardless I hope you enjoy. I’m thinking of making a pt2 where they meet up in the future to talk this over, but I’m not sure. Let me know if anybody wants that! 

-Mod Rae 

It's funny how everything can change in a moment.

Your phone rang. Grabbing it and seeing a blocked number, you swiped to answer.

"Who is it? Who is it, (y/n)?" Larry questioned.

You ignored your dad. You just wanted to see what the person on the other line had to say to you.

"Connor said all of his hope was pinned on you," the voice spat. "You're a stuck up bitch; I hope you feel what Connor felt."

"Have fun with your miserable life, bye." You mumbled, hanging up.

Honestly, you were expecting any phone call or text to be some form of harassment at this point, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt you.

It all happened so fast.

Everything was going so well for your family. Evan had given your family your brother back, started a successfully inspirational project in his honor, helped all of you grieve, and most recently become your perfect boyfriend. You couldn't ask for more, if you were telling the truth. It was like this was how things were meant to be. But all good things come to an end, right?

You came home from school one day. It had been odd; maybe it was your imagination, but it seemed like people were ignoring you all day. Some flashing nasty looks at you, even. Tired out from paranoid thoughts running through your mind for 8 hours, you flopped down onto your bed and groaned. After staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, you felt your phone ping.

New message from Evan <3: Are you okay?

Furrowing your brows in confusion, you unlocked your phone and typed back a quick, "yeah why?"

New message from Evan <3: Are you sure?.. If you don't want to talk about it I won't make you but I want you to know I am here for you..

To Evan <3: Huh? Evan, what are u talking about?

New message from Evan <3: You don't know?...

To Evan <3: What? Did something happen? Call me please

Moments later, you saw Evan's contact pop up on your phone as it rang. You picked up immediately.

"Ev?"

He was silent.

"Evan, what's going on? Is everything okay?" You asked nervously.

"(Y/n).. I think, um.. You need to check your social media, (y/n)." He muttered, clearly distraught.

He was too quiet for you to be comfortable. You felt your stomach churn. Pulling up your Instagram first, you saw 9 different new tagged photos of you along with 19 comments. What? That couldn't be right. Pressing on the tagged photos first, you noticed screenshots of what appeared to be a letter. Out of nervous curiosity, you pressed on one to read it. Mumbling it out to yourself, you read the first sentence.

"Dear Evan Hansen,  turns out today wasn't an amazing day after all."

Your blood ran cold. You knew these words. This was the letter Connor had in his back pocket when he took his life. How did people get this? You flipped back to your notifications page and began reading through the new comments.

Fuck the murphy's.

Connor deserved better than you heartless god-awful people. I hope you burn.

Connor wrote his suicide note to evan hansen cause he knew his family didn't give a shit.

(Y/n)'s parents, by the way, are insanely rich. maybe they should have spent their money on helping their son.

You're a disgusting excuse for a sister.

You closed out of the app quickly, not able to look at anything else.

You were too engulfed in your own confusion and panic to hear Evan calling to you through the phone. He hung up without you realizing. Feeling as if the world was crashing down around you, you felt hot tears begin to fall and leaned over your bed, breathing faster. Before you could even fully process what was going on, Evan burst through your door.

He ran to you, taking you in his arms and pushing hair away from your face. "(Y/n)? God, I- I'm so sorry. Listen to me, okay? Please listen to me." He begged. Your breathing stayed fast and tears remain in your eyes, but you looked up at Evan.

"How did people get this?" You asked. You thought you saw something inside of him crumple, but you didn't point it out. When he didn't say anything, you abruptly stood up. "We have to show my parents."

"O-okay." Evan stuttered. You took his hand and lead him to the kitchen table, calling out for your parents. They joined you both, and you explained your social media and they checked theirs as well. Unsurprisingly, their Facebook notifications were flooding with the same brutal remarks. So here you were, your family gathered around the table yelling and arguing over a computer, while Evan stood nervously by the wall. You'd hung up your phone and went back to screaming with your family.

Your dad grabbed your cell, shutting it off. "You don't take more calls from blocked numbers, do you understand me?" He ordered. You didn't answer.

"Maybe right now the best thing to do is to wait and see if this blows over." Larry advised.

Cynthia laughed bitterly. "That's always your solution isn't it; just do nothing?"

"Is that what i said?"

"Wait and see. Right, Larry?"

"Can you guys just stop?!" You chimed, begging.

"I had to beg you," Cynthia started, "every step of the way."

"Okay, hold on."

Evan spoke up just quiet enough where nobody noticed him. "I'm sure the comments will stop-"

"I had to plead with you for therapy. For rehab." Cynthia continued.

She and Larry started yelling over top of each other to a point where their words were blended together.

Cynthia raised her voice. "All you cared about was picking apart everything that I did!"

"What I cared about was picking out a program, and sticking to it." Larry objected.

"No, you wanted to punish him!" You announced.

"Listen to your daughter, Larry!""

"You treated him like a criminal!" You accused.

"Are you listening?"

"You think you were any better? You let him do whatever he wanted." You shot back at your mom.

Cynthia ignored that and went back to firing at Larry. "When he threatened to kill himself the first time, do you remember what you said?"

"Oh, for christ's sake!"

"He just. Wants. Attention?!"

"I'm not gonna sit here and-"

Cynthia interrupted him. "He was getting better! Ask Evan. Tell him, Evan."

Evan spoke softly. "Oh, I shouldn't-"

"Evan was in denial!"

They began screaming over each other once again, hardly stopping for breathes.

"Read the note, Larry! Read what he said. God knows the world is reading it."

"Actually-" Evan chimed.

"I did the best I could."

"I wish everything was different." Cynthia quoted.

"That's not-" Evan was interrupted again.

"I tried to help him." Larry boomed.

Cynthia went on. "He wanted to get better. He was TRYING to be better!"

"I don't know what to tell you!"

"He was trying!"

"And he was failing!"

"WE failed him!"

"No you didn't, you didn't fail him!" Evan yelled for the first time.

"Look at what he wrote!" Cynthia challenged.

"HE DIDN'T WRITE IT!" Evan screamed. He stared at the ground, taking a sharp breathe in before he yelled again. "I wrote it!"

He three of you gaped at him for what felt like forever before Cynthia spoke up. "You didn't write Connor's suicide note, Evan." She said in a weary tone.

"It wasn't a s-ugh. It was an assignment, um, from my therapist. Write a letter to yourself; a pep talk. Dear Evan Hansen, today's gonna be a good day and here's why. I was supposed to bring it to my appointment, but Connor took it from me. And I guess that he must have had it with him, um, when they found him." He spilled, speaking quickly.

"What are you talking about?" You asked, not processing a word.

Evan broke down, beginning to cry. "We weren't friends."

"Evan.. Evan, no. No, no, no!" Cynthia cried.

"I never meant to make such a mess of things. I never.." He choked. "I never thought it'd end up going so, um, so far." Evan continued, putting his head in his hands.

"There were emails. You showed us the emails!" Cynthia reminded him, refusing to believe what was happening.

Evan ignored her. "So, I- I'm just... Here, trying to find something... Something to say."

"But you knew about the orchard. He took you the orchard." Larry chimed in.

"That's where you broke your arm." Cynthia added.

Evan took his hands off of his face and wrapped them around himself. "I broke my arm in the park by myself."

"No, no, no! that day at the orchard, you and Connor at the orchard!" Cynthia continued to object.

"There's nothing I can say. I'm-god, there are..." he hiccuped, "there are no words."

Cynthia sat down, unable to stand anymore and began sobbing, reality setting in. Her son never even had a friend. He really was alone.

After sitting quiet, you finally spoke up. "But you told me that you.. that you would talk about me, and that you would.. how could you do this?" You questioned.

"I never had this kind of thing before." You noticed Evan had begun sweating. "Nobody's ever-no, um... I've never had that perfect girl in my life who saw past my flaws, and chose to see the good side of me. I've never had a dad who stuck it out; mine left when I was-when I was 8. You all know that. My mom was never there just b-because that's who she was supposed to be, she's..." He cried into his hands again. "She's never around."

Cynthia ran out, not being able to stomach the situation unfolding before her. Shortly after, Larry followed and it was just the two of you.

"That is not a... a worthy explanation. There is absolutely none, I know that." Evan explained, his cries echoing through the air. "Nothing could p-possibly make sense of all these.... these things that I've done."

It was this moment that everything hit you. Evan, the one person in the world that you thought you could trust... The person you told everything to, and who told everything to you, or so you thought... He had lied to you about everything. The entire basis of your relationship was a lie. Everything was a lie. Connor never cared. He never had friends. He never wanted to reach out to you or fix anything. He never cared about the orchard, or you, or your family or anything. None of this was real.

It felt as if you had been standing knee-deep in the ocean, and everything was still. Everything was still, and everything was calm; but before you could so much as turn around, a tidal wave crashed down over your head and kicked your feet out from underneath you, knocking the breath right out of your lungs.

You had never felt this blindsided or betrayed in your entire life.

As you took your own hands into your hands just as Evan had done, you cried. "I don't... I don't understand." You said. Anger began to slip into your voice. "What made you think this was okay, Evan?" You broke.

"I never-"

You interrupted him. "What made you think you could just come into my life and give me false hope about everything I've ever known, and then just take it all away in a heartbeat? You made me let you in, only for me to figure out all of this was a lie! I can't believe you! Was any of this true, Evan? Do you even love me?" You demanded.

He looked you straight in the eyes, his face contorting in pain as body-racking sobs took over him.  "This wasn't- I didn't... Oh, god." He doubled over, clutching himself. "Imsorryimsorryimsorry." He sputtered, slowly letting himself fall to his knees. He began crying so hard that he could hardly catch a breath. He tried to speak, but it ended up coming out more like mumbles and groans, as if he was choking over every word. He trembled, putting his hands on the ground to keep himself from completely falling over.

You knew exactly what this was. You had been with Evan long enough to know what his panic attacks looked like when they were forming, and he was obviously headed into one. Despite how desperately shattered you were feeling, you knew you couldn't just leave him to fight this himself. You ignored the twinge in your heart and the aching you could feel in your chest, and headed over to Evan.

You would deal with your confusion and broken heart later.

You sat down on your knees directly in front of him, pulling him into your chest as tight as you could and beginning to softly rub his back with your right hand. As you had discovered, calming physical touch could normally bring Evan down when he got this worked up.

He let out a wail, sobbing "I'm sorry" into your shoulder over and over again. You felt your own eyes continue to pour, but you ignored it. Hearing him let out long, body-raking cries into your t-shirt and just physically feeling his body quaking, you squeezed your eyes shut, trying your best not to begin completely sobbing again yourself.

You stared at the floor to keep yourself grounded.

45 minutes later, you found yourself still clutching him in your arms and softly running your right hand through his hair as you felt him slowly breathe in and out. The both of you were silent; you knew if either of you spoke it would mean it was truly the end.

So as you sat, feeling so small in the eerily quiet house that seemed to engulf you, your eyes remained trained on the floor and your mind remained blank. You didn't want to think. Thinking meant that you had to come to terms with this immense feeling of desolation, and in the meantime you wanted to push that as far out of your head as you possibly could. But you knew you couldn't stay like this.

"Evan..." You took a breathe in and paused for a second, but spoke once more. "I think you should go.

"I know."

"I think you should go, and you shouldn't come back. Please."

"(Y/n).."

"Please." You repeated.

Evan gulped, but then he stood up. He didn't say anything. Maybe it was because he knew there was nothing left to say, or maybe he just couldn't think of anything.

Regardless, he stood up and he walked to your doorway. He walked through, and he didn't look back.

You sat on the floor, staring at where he had been moments before. You didn't know how you felt. Part of you felt empty, but another part of you felt all of the broken pieces of you shattering all at once. You pushed that part out. Either way, Evan was gone. And so was everything you had come to know.

It's funny how everything can change in a moment.

Isn't it?