#i should be so excited at the clear turning point his arc is about to take

[dazais-guardian-angel]

new BSD chapter is almost here and i still haven't gathered my thoughts on 117 yet, so i'm doing that now. My..... extremely frustrated thoughts, to say the least. kinda been numb to it all for weeks now which is why it took me this long to ramble about it, meh. incoherent negativity and spoilers belowwwww

I'm... really not happy with Bram's death, to put it lightly. and yes you can say I'm just grieving, I'm in the denial/depression stage. but I'm not just sad because he died. I wish that was all it was. I wish I could just be devastated in a normal, well-meaning, bittersweet way. but I can't.

Because this is BSD. And that means there's a chance he could come back. And I know, I know, I hear you: "that was so final, so conclusive, more than any other named character death in the manga so far; there's no way he would be brought back after dying peacefully and having been reunited with his wife and daughter." And you're absolutely right! For all intents and purposes, this was Bram's permanent sendoff! And I would 100% believe that with absolutely no room for doubt.... if this wasn't bungou stray dogs!! Where people drop dead and then come back to life as casually and rapidly as going in and out a revolving door (cue that one Simpsons door gif)! If this was any other manga, I wouldn't for a single second question the permanence of his death. And yet..... because it's BSD, there's a 1% chance, as low as that is, as final as that sendoff felt, that he might still be back one day, against all logic. And that's the most aggravating part of all this.

Because I can't just be sad. I have to be sad while having hope. I have to be sad, all the while wondering if my grief will all be for nothing in a few months. If my feelings are being played with, yet again. I can't just grieve here and now and accept it and that's the end of it; I have to go on still hoping, because this manga has trained me to not believe that ANY death of a named character will be for real.

While it was much more obvious compared to Bram that say Chuuya and Dazai weren't going to stay dead after chapters 101/109 (because they're popular characters lol, but especially because their arcs aren't finished yet if Chuuya even gets one, which I despairingly doubt more and more every day), I felt for everyone extremely distraught by their deaths at the time. I mean, Dazai is one of my favorites as well, and regardless of whether or not I thought his death would stick, it was incredibly painful to see him in that state. Just like it was painful to see Fukuzawa get fatally stabbed 34596 times multiple chapters within the same fight, and painful to see Mushitarou's initial fakeout death after his arc, and Kunikida's when he exploded himself on the helicopter. It hurts, and you go through the grief, only for "whoops they're fine actually!" just a few chapters later, meaning that none of your grief ever mattered and that you never needed to go through all that in the first place; it was just for shock value, just to extort strong emotions from you in the moment that weren't meant to actually hold any meaning, because soon after it would be like the angst never even happened. And that's exhausting. It's not fair. It makes future deaths hold less and less weight and become harder to believe in/take seriously, as many people have said, but on the other hand, if a large part of you does believe in it, if that's your fave and you're grieving over their death, prior experience tells you that you might just be having your emotions played with; that you might spend all that time being sad ultimately for no reason at all, that you have to keep hoping for god knows how long. The rational side of you says "don't be affected by it, because it won't last" (which is shitty in of itself if you succeed in that, because imagine seeing your fave die and just instinctively not feeling anything???), but the irrational side of you that IS scared and upset because we're humans and we can't help but react strongly to something like this, has to contend with the thought of "but how many months am I going to have to wrestle with "will they or won't they"? How long am I going to have to be strung along with the possibility that this might not be permanent, like no death ever is in this series? How long will I be forced to have HOPE, until it's crushed even harder than it is right now?"

Again, everyone is going to have a different response to a character death, based on the person and based on the character and the circumstances of their death. But the objective fact remains that we haven't had a single permanent named character death in the manga so far (except for... Ace, I guess? lol that's the only one I can think of. And Fukuchi, I guess, for now lol), so it follows that anyone would have at least some small degree of doubt, even with the most damning of circumstances like how Bram went out here — I mean, in a sense, he already had one fakeout death before he came back to Aya here briefly (the end of the last chapter literally cliffhanger'd on his revival lol, the opposite of what it normally does), and his death here happens in the same fucking chapter as another death that is 100% not going to stick, which just makes it even more laughable and harder to take seriously!!!

But there's another side of this, too, that makes all this even worse. Let's say that Bram's death is permanent, that this is indeed no fakeout, no take-backsies ten chapters from now. Why is Bram the first time plot armor has no effect? Why is HE the first character who has to die for real? After so many instances of characters getting to come back from literally anything, it doesn't feel like him being the first one to actually stay dead is because there's something significant about him, or about everyone else inversely compared to him, but simply because Asagiri chose to finally go against his formula and lift the plot armor at random just this once. AND THAT DOESN'T FUCKING FEEL GOOD!!!! Not that having your body taken over by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (god what is this series) is something I'd expect someone to just shrug off, but literally all these other characters shrug off getting stabbed, shot, EXPLODED, etc, so why is it only Bram that can't get off just as easily, just because the writing said so? Hell, Asagiri literally went out of his way to have Bram come BACK in another body one last time, so that was even MORE reason to assume he could have found a way to permanently stay alive not in Aku's body though obviously, with how powerful he is — I mean, supernatural rules are made up by the writer, Asagiri could have made it so that Bram could come back and stay back if he wanted to lmao, versus actual physical wounds that you can't just magically survive (again without supernatural interference). But he didn't do that, because Bram needed to die, because he's the unlucky one in a series where you can survive literally anything. Okay then. Sucks to be him and sucks to be a Bram lover, I guess. Sucks to be Aya.

Listen. I love Oda's death. Oda is my favorite character in all of BSD, and his death is my favorite moment in the entire franchise so far — which sounds contradictory, of course, but as devastating as it makes me, his death is so beautiful, and so pivotal and meaningful for the series as a whole, not just for Oda and Dazai themselves. I wouldn't want it to be removed or changed in any way, and I would be perfectly fine with him and a couple other notable light novel characters being the only ones to actually die in this series. BSD is a hopeful series, ultimately, so I don't need deaths everywhere, since it's ultimately about people learning how to live and getting those second chances — Oda being the notable exception to that and catalyst for the entire story (and I do mean the entire story). But what I don't need are the illusion of death and stakes, only to not commit to any of it for that aforementioned message, trying to have your cake and eat it too. Because, as beautiful as Oda's death still is, it looks rather foolish now, because now things have reached a point where I (and others too, I've seen) ask "how is it that he died from just a little bullet, when so many others have since survived similar or worse?" Which is what I'm similarly asking with Bram now, if I'm meant to believe this really is his death, when the only reason we have to believe he couldn't just override Fyodor himself (or at least Akutagawa permanently) being "because Asagiri said so". His death is beautiful too in isolation, just like Oda's is, with everything he says to Aya, and the closure and peace that he gets. But how can I appreciate it or take it seriously when all I can think about is how A) there's absolutely no reason he had to die here, when so many others before him survived, and B) that I could potentially spend months being distraught only for him to come back eventually anyway, and that minuscule amount of fleeting hope just makes it hurt unfairly even more?

I love that he found peace, in the end, and felt like Aya helped him get closure with his daughter. I love that I fucking called it that Aya is going to become a knight for him and save the day (aka beat Fyodor herself, most likely), in his place, because that just makes sense for where her character has been going, and I feel vindicated in seeing him say that to her, as much as the circumstances fucking kill me. I don't MIND the idea of Bram's death in of itself, I can't stress this enough; I love him so goddamn much and I want them to be a family together so much it hurts, but I don't think it's unreasonable to imagine writing him dying to further Aya's character development, and there are a thousand ways it could have been done. But I just........ hate the circumstances leading up to it here. I hate that it feels so sudden, I feel like we still needed so much more time with him, and FAR more than merely two pages of backstory for him and his family. I hate how all the fakeout deaths before it make it feel like a cruel, unfair fucking joke even though it's supposed to be a powerful, moving moment — when Kunikida DIES BY TURNING INTO SPARKLING SOAP BUBBLES LATER IN THE SAME FUCKING CHAPTER, A DEATH PLAYED JUST AS STRAIGHT AS BRAM'S DESPITE HOW RIDICULOUS AND OBVIOUSLY IMPERMANENT IT IS (so if the manga is putting them both on the same level and wants us to take both equally seriously, what does that say about Bram's death???). And if it is indeed permanent, I really hate that even though Bram's last words to Aya were so touching, Aya's last words to him were basically telling him to gtfo — obviously it's a completely reasonable reaction for someone her age in that moment, she doesn't know how to cope, but you're telling me that that's the last thing she'll ever say to him, which we know she'll hate herself forever for??? It just leaves a bad fucking taste in my mouth, ugh.

Idk. I've been pretty disillusioned with the direction of the manga for a while now, and how much its changed from how slower-paced and more thoughtful it used to be, so I know I'm very biased and very tired and that that's clouding my judgement lmao. But I just hate this so much 🫠🫠🫠 I never wanted Bram to die, but worst of all is having him die like this, where i just feel numb and bitter and angry, instead of sad but touched, the way a good character death in the vein of Oda's (which Bram's is very much meant to emulate) should make me feel. It's so rushed, and all the "deaths" around it and before it undermine it so badly it's just pathetic. I'm looking forward to Aya's future development, but I'll always be bitter at how much better she and Bram deserved, and if he does come back I won't be surprised at all lol (and I hope he does, not just because I want him back, but because he deserved a better death than this....)

[indigosabyss]

The Not-A-Curse (JJK x Nanbaka Crossover) AU: Kyoto Goodwill Event – Possible Track for Nanba?

The Goodwill Event was a collaboration between the three major jujutsu education organizations in Japan: Tokyo Jujutsu High, Kyoto Jujutsu High, and... Nanba Training Academy.

"Why'd you say that weird?" Yuuji asked, immediately picking up on Megumi's reticence on the subject.

Gojo tapped his chin, "Well, how to put this? Even compared to sorcerers, they're weird."

"The Goodwill Event only happens either here or Kyoto because they literally will not tell us where their secret island base is." Megumi explained sourly.

"An island?!" Nobara screeched, "So unfair! I'd throw the match so we can get an island vacation next year."

"Which is exactly why we let them not host." Gojo tutted, "Otherwise, everyone has an incentive to not do their best!"

Then above them, a loud 'POOF' rang out, followed by a cloud of white smoke. When it cleared, there was a man dangling upside down from the ceiling right in front of Gojo, using a belt that resembled more of a tail wound around a lighting fixture to keep him there.

Bright red markings around his eyes heightened the dry glare leveled at their teacher from mere inches away, who smiled beatifically.

"Heard you were talking shit." The guy drawled finally. Yuuji thought he was really cool.

Gojo grinned, turning to look at his students and pointing at the interloper, "See? Weird."

(more excerpts thru the entire arc under cut)

------

"'Goodwill Event'." Principal Hyakushiki - nicknamed 'The Warden' - scoffed as she marched in front of the chosen six students for the event. They all straightened their spines as she continued to lecture, "Don't let your hearts soften. Don't lose sight of the target. Remember: this is war."

Zakuro gulped, leaning to whisper to his trainer, "Doctor, isn't this a bit dramat-?"

He was cut off by the Principal bellowed, "WHAT IS THIS?"

"WAR!" The rest of the group readily yelled. The Department Five duo he expected to like that sentiment, but the Dreams track guy said it with way more bloodthirst than was normal.

----

Jyugo didn't want to invite the Kyoto group to the school. He just happened to be passing by with Inumaki and Panda who wanted him to break into Kusakabe's car.

And now he had been cornered by this scary guy with a topknot.

"You. What's your type in women?" He asked, towering over him.

Jyugo blinked, struggling to understand how they had gone from carjacking plans to this.

"I... don't like women." He settled on saying.

"Men, then!" The interrogater switched tracks easily.

"I don't like men either." This finally hit a dead end for the guy. Was it really that strange?

"Complete emotional unattachment is his entire identity." Panda backed him up.

Mai waved a hand over the weird guy's eyes, to no reaction, "Woah, you broke Todo."

---

"Hey, Number Fifteen. Want to watch the event from the screen us staff get?" Gojo asked, half-distracted by a strawberry popsicle, "Your old supervisors have great taste in snacks!"

Number Fifteen shook his head, looking listlessly at the book the blind fire-cursed man had given him, "Kinda busy right now."

"Okay then, have fun staring holes into a book you clearly can't stand!" He ducked back out, beating the bad thoughts back with a stick.

---

Zakuro's hands were shaking lightly as he pulled Jyugo's hand into a handshake, "Holy shit, you're the original Cursed Shackles user."

Funnily enough, the Cursed Shackles were the last thing people pointed out as weird about him, in jujutsu spaces. Everyone was more excited by the Hollow Spirit aspect.

"Thanks." He managed, extracting his hand from the grip, "Should you be down here?"

"We should run away." Zakuro suggested, already thinking about the future, "This world, these chains, we don't deserve it. Let's get out of here."

Jyugo considered it. He looked back at his room, still covered with deadbolts on the outside.

The idea wasn't too unappealing.

---

The curse with tree roots growing out of its eyes flexed its cursed energy, facing down the young sorcerers surrounding him.

The tiny boy with plaster-white skin flickered his cursed energy wildly. His classmate in the red jumpsuit started moving back.

"Brace yourselves." He warned, "Upa is unleashing his technique."

Everyone backed away as the boy fell into a stance, waiting in anticipation as he concentrated higher and higher cursed energy into his palms. Until finally he released a blinding beam of it directly at the curse.

Smoke rose up from the spot, eviscerating the creature previously standing there.

"Your secret technique," Megumi said with withering disappointment, "was just hypercharged cursed energy blast."

"Yes." Upa said simply, "It is a talent treasured in Department Five."

Megumi fucking hated Nanba Academy.

[the-oc-lass]

ECHO GIRLIES WHO WILL BE EMOTIONALLY TRAUMATIZED IF HE DIES NEXT WEEK (it's me I'm Echo Girlies) RISE UP

The past two episodes have me both very excited for Echo because he's been so cool while also being so fucking stressed because he's in a dangerous situation. Take my guy out of that situation please and thank you.

So, to calm my nerves, I handed him a baby. Echo and a Baby is now on Ao3.

Crosshair and a Baby

Wrecker and a Baby

Gregor and a Baby

It's been pointed out to me that it might be easier if instead of posting each clone as a different chapter, I just post them as separate fics, so please cast your vote and let me know your thoughts on this.

Full fic below the cut in case you don't wanna go to Ao3:

Echo has known Rayona Yothia since his ARC Trooper training. Outside of his brothers, she is the most important person to him. She’s his best friend, and he’s utterly devoted to her. He was honored when she named her son after him and was happy to—along with his brothers—help her raise the baby. He loves Ec, just like the rest of his brothers do. He’s also dubbed himself the best with Ec which, usually, is perfectly fine. However-

“Echo!” He’s in the middle of meeting with Rex and Rayona about a prison transport they want to go after when his name is practically screamed across the base. He sighs and lifts his head, watching as Howzer comes rushing into the room, holding Ec out like he’s a bomb ready to explode. Howzer is perfectly capable with children around Omega’s age because of his time on Ryloth, but he’s incredibly lost when it comes to Ec. And, as it turns out, full diapers. Rayona snorts behind Echo and he turns to give her an unamused look. When he raises an eyebrow at her, she simply leans slightly on the holotable and grins at him. 

“Oh, no, honey. He called for you,��� she says. He knows that if he insisted, she’d chuckle good-naturedly and go change Ec’s diaper without complaint. Instead, though, he simply sighs and turns to look at Howzer. He crosses the room and takes Ec from the frazzled former captain’s hands, watching how he almost instantly relaxes. Echo looks down at his namesake, who giggles up at him, and sighs again. 

“Alright, let’s go.” 

Echo cleans the baby up with practiced ease, barely having to think about it as he moves. 

“You’re a little menace, you know that?” he says, looking Ec in the eyes. The child simply smiles at him, and Echo sighs and shakes his head. When the diaper has been changed, Echo lifts Ec into his arms, bouncing him slightly. Ec giggles and joyfully pats his hands against Echo’s chest. After a moment, the little boy yawns and Echo chuckles. “Tired, ad’ika?” Ec doesn’t reply, but instead yawns again and curls tiny hands against Echo’s armor. Echo smiles and adjusts Ec in his arms, then turns to walk him across the room to his small bassinet. Ec whines when Echo goes to put him down and Echo pauses, inspecting the child for a moment. Ec stares up at him with big eyes, almost like he’s pleading for something. After a moment, Echo smiles softly and sighs. “Alright.” He clears his throat slightly, then opens his mouth again. The song falls from his lips with ease, bringing him back to a simpler time. This song is in a language he barely knows, learned from a woman whom he fought beside in battle during the war. He heard her sing it to her daughters often. He misses her. Misses all of them, really. But he can remember her with the lullaby that he learned from her, by singing it to this precious child. Ec makes a soft noise, curling into Echo’s chest. By the time the song is done, Ec is breathing steadily against Echo’s chest, fast asleep. Echo plants a kiss on the tuft of light green in Ec’s otherwise brown hair, then gently lays him down in his bassinet. He strokes a hand over Ec’s head, smiling down at the sleeping baby. Even with all of them pitching in to help take care of him, Ec can still be a lot. Part of it comes from worry, of course. Ec is young and small. He’s the son of a clone and a non-human Jedi, both of whom risk their lives almost any time they aren’t with him. The child has no concept of how fragile he and his life are. From the moment he found out Rayona was pregnant, Echo swore to protect not only her but her baby as well. Now, here that baby lays before him. A perfect beam of shining starlight. After a few moments of watching Ec, the door opens and Echo lifts his head. Rayona curls her arms around his torso and rests her chin on his shoulder, looking down at her son. 

“Thanks for taking care of him,” she says softly. He hums, head tilting slightly to rest against hers. 

“Of course. You know I don’t mind,” he says. She hums, and they both stare down at Ec for a moment. “You made a good kid, Ray.” She chuckles softly. 

“He wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t kept me from getting myself killed.” She looks at Ec for a moment. “I’ve never loved anything as much as I love him.” 

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” Echo asks. She lets out a shuddering breath. 

“Terrifying.” Echo curls his droid hand—the one she and Tech built especially for him—around her arm and squeezes gently. 

“We love him too, Ray. We’re here to help you protect him. He’s our baby too.” She chuckles again. 

“Yeah. I guess he is.” They stand there for a few seconds more. 

“I’ll bet you ten credits he wakes up in less than an hour.” She laughs into his shoulder. 

“I might as well just give you those credits now.” He grins. 

“Pay up, General.”

[blackjackkent]

Halfway upstairs in search of Voss, Rakha notices the small elephant creature from the Open Hand Temple floating in lazy circles next to one of the pub's tables:

"Another case closed, another bottle opened!" the hollyphant crows aloud as Rakha draws near. "Huzzah to Valeri-AH!" She cackles, deftly wrapping her trunk around a glass of wine and pouring it down her throat.

Rakha, of course, recognizes Valeria from their brief moment seeing her in the Temple. Unlike Hector (who kind of hated Valeria), she doesn't have very strong feelings about the investigator one way or the other (notwithstanding the automatic beast urge to wrap the little thing's wings around it and then punt it like a football through the nearest window).

However, she did get invested in finding out what happened to Lorgan, partly because Wyll and Jaheira think the accused refugee's name should be cleared, and partly (altogether too much) because such a murder is of ritual importance to the taint of Bhaal in her blood.

This is why she has Wyll carrying the murder weapon they found in his pack, and this is why she halts, turns, and settles herself into a seat in front of Valeria at the dingy table.

Valeria squints blearily at her. "Hang on a tick. I recognize that face," she says. "You were talking to Yannis after I left the temple. I'll bet she's put you up to something."

Rakha nods curtly. "I've found new evidence."(*)

Valeria gives an exaggerated sigh, floating in an unsteady arc from one side of the table to the other. "Why must you busybodies insist on interrupting a perfectly good night of..."

She trails off, catching Rakha's dark glare, and groans. "Ugh. I know that look. You remind me of Devella." She steadies her flight path out so they're facing each other again. "Fine. If you doubt my conclusions, out with it. What have you found?"

Rakha tilts her head to one side, bemused by this appraisal. "Who's Devella?"

"My assistant," Valeria says dismissively. "She's posted in the Lower City investigating Duke Stelmane's murder. Now - back to it. What have you found?"

"Gods," Wyll mutters, barely loud enough for Rakha to hear. "Stelmane is dead?"

(A/N: Bit of game weirdness here. Our most recent dream with the Emperor was set to trigger upon us learning that Stelmane died, since the whole conversation is about the Emperor being upset that she's gone. I was assuming it triggered from us hearing the newsboy shouting about it out in Rivington, and I just didn't notice at the time.

But Wyll doesn't seem to have gotten the memo. So possibly that scene actually bugged out and popped early? Whoops. :P )

Rakha takes a moment to gather her thoughts, ignoring the little shiver of excitement that comes with considering the murder scene and the dead bodies once again. "I spoke to both corpses," she explains. "They were killed by a dwarf dressed in red."

Valeria grunts, unimpressed. "That doesn't make sense," she says, shrugging. "Why would this dwarf kill Father Lorgan? I need something more than vague allegations. I want something compelling. Hard, tangible evidence, and nothing left."

Rakha scowls. Turning, she reaches a hand into the pack on Wyll's hip and pulls out the dagger. It feels warm in her hand, blood-warm, solid and heavy, and for a moment she feels the overwhelming urge to lift it and stab the point straight through Valeria's eye.

Then the urge passes, and she sets it on the table. "I found the murder weapon you missed in a tunnel under the temple."

Valeria blinks owlishly at the weapon, her gaze sweeping from point to hilt and back again. "That's quite the discovery," she says. "Doesn't tell me everything, though. *Why* was Lorgan killed?"

Irritation starts to prickle at the base of Rakha's skull. Is this not the investigator's job? Rakha is battling through inner demons of divine strength at the moment; surely Valeria can make an effort! "How about the shapeshifting assassins under the temple?" she growls. "That good enough?"

"No!" Valeria snaps back, equally irritable. "I want proof! If someone else killed Lorgan, I want you to tell me *why* they did it." She sneers, downing another glass of wine with a deft jerk. "Come back when you've got some real evidence."

(A/N: OK. Now Rakha has strong feelings about Valeria, and they are not positive ones. I also just realized that we never went to the Flophouse, even though Rakha has a lead there and Jaheira told her where it was. So we'll go there after Sharess's, and then come back and shove the Bhaalist list in Valeria's face, I guess.)

-----

(*) Full in-game line: "Afraid so - I've found new evidence, Inspector."

[yellowocaballero]

re: utopia, one thing that i personally find funny is that a popular CN gacha game (damning words when it comes to taking me seriously, i know) just had an arc where the antagonist was a guy following Order that wanted to put everyone into a collective hallucination where everything would be perfect (obv without the opportunity to grow as a person Ever, but well, at least everyone is Satisfied), and him being a jesus figure that would suffer for everyone's sins and be aware of the dream/control it. (man i wonder if they had a naruto rerun while writing penacony)

i really liked it, but i did not anticipate that i'd get two cakes due to my favourite writer tackling similar themes (well they do be as old as time)!!!!1!!!1 and i think that you're really good at getting your point across — you once said that writing a fic is kinda like a dialogue with yourself to you, if i'm not mistaken —, and i always have to clear my glasses after reading your works because they get covered in dried little tear dots from my eyelashes, and what im saying is that im excited to do so again. it sounds stupid. thank you for sharing your work, im incredibly excited to see you unravel the narrative knot into heartstrings. yellowocaballero going to ascend to moirahood on national tv in 2035, keep your eyes peeled, everyone!

anyway sorry for blabbering so much i hope this didn't come across as comparing (though you'd be better obviously) i just crack up every time i think that you got around to writing naruto fic when that arc dropped. the timing is great. prophets of the new age receiving a beam of light telling us about personal growth and lifted jesus allegations. if i ever see you writing fic for honkai star rail or genshin or whatever it's going to be both too soon and the greatest thing i've ever read in that fandom. stay funny (not an obligation or a threat, you can be unfunny if you want, but i don't think the universe prepared for that opportunity. it'd flop into itself like a wet tissue)

Oh, literally I downloaded Star Rail because I was interested in some of the stuff I heard about it. Played it a little and never picked it back up again. I should, I'm just awful about phone games! Not ADHD enough. Maybe I can watch a playthrough...?

I love nice life parallelism. I do think the themes of "the bad guy wants everyone to be happy" is inherently kind of interesting, because it inherently raises a lot of questions - why is he a bad guy, if he wants to be good? What about his plan makes him a bad guy instead of a good guy? What delineates a bad and good guy, anyway? How did this guy get so turned around that he thought badness was good? If handled well, it's inherently a rich character. If badly, then it's just kind of nonsensical and goes against its own messaging.

The "well, the bad guy is right, but since he kills people about it that invalidates his own point" approach is always boring and conformist, but it can be surprisingly hard to shake. I don't think Obito, Madara, and the Ame 3 are 'bad guys who are right morally but with bad methods' - I think they're good people who are so deformed by their world that a hugely destructive evil scheme is the closest they know how to come to goodness. By that logic, Obito had to be written as...deformed. Very much so. But that was what made him so interesting to explore. How do you un-deform that? Is that even possible? When we put him on the good guy team, is he genuinely a good guy who overcame his warped nature, or is he just a warped person doing good guy things? FWIW, I think a big difference between the HSR character and Obito is that what Obito can't partake of this Eden because he thinks of himself as somebody who's far too late to save (also, isn't God/Jesus all about Free Will?)(Calvinists DNI).

I don't think this story gets too sad...it's just too nuts...but, of course, you have to feel sorry for Obito. He wants to change the system that ruined him, but as the evil created by that system he still can't fully see the very important thing that he's missing. We've seen him shy away from the thought already - if only a perfect world can create good people, how the hell do you explain Naruto? As the reader, we want him to be helped. We continue reading in the hope that he will be helped. Thanks for the ask, I really should find some way to consume HSR.

[mynonclicheblog]

After seeing the first 5 minutes, it's VERY clear that both Ben & Devi's actions post-boink are very much (virtually 100%) being driven by fear and insecurity. They both feel awkward that it wasn't some epic fairytale First Time (because that happens sooooo often to teenagers in the real world, right?) and they're overthinking each others' behavior to the point that it's clouding their judgement.

I'd like to talk about them both, but I'm going to focus mainly on Ben since he appears to be our little troublemaker this season (compare w/ Devi's season 2) - and also, I think I have a better idea where his emotional/romantic development arc is going this season. To start off:

I'm sorry to the dxtons who tried to relay this scene in the most disparaging and anti-ben way possible, but this is the face of a boy who WANTS to talk. A boy who was surprised and excited when Devi turned towards him because he really really likes her and it seems like she's actually initiating communication- for real this time! All he's ever wanted was for them to talk candidly about their feelings!

...But then, like a teenage dum-dum (who is still nursing the wounds from two years ago), he hits the panic button. I, uh- I should probably hit the hay.

This swallows up the crumb of hope Devi was clinging to that maybe, just maybe, the whole thing wasn't as bad as she'd thought - and as we see in her following scene with Elfab, sure enough, she has been drowning in fear that she didn't measure up.

Girl... no he wasn't 😂 you were embarrassed for you, and Ben was embarrassed for Ben! [John McEnroe voice] That's how this works!

But it's just a great example of my very first point: that all of their thoughts, actions, and perceptions are based in insecurity right now. Fortunately for Devi, she has two supportive besties who know both her and Ben, who are here to talk and help her work through what to do next.

But as Ben tells Dwight Howard... he doesn't have any friends. So he resorts to a complete stranger.

I want to quickly point out the parallels between Ben & Devi's dialogue here (Devi in the last section and Ben in this one). They are both thinking about themselves. They're worried/making the assumption that the other person thought they... ehm... performed badly, and now they are confiding in other people rather than clearing it up with each other (because they're idiots [affectionate]).

Devi makes a great first step by inviting Ben out for coffee, and can I just say how PROUD I AM OF HER? Like, yes, love! Open up that avenue of communication! Talk it out! There's nothing to be afraid of!

But across the valley, Ben tells Dwight Howard that after having sex, Devi "didn't say anything, she just got up and sprinted out"... but that's not really what happened, is it? Ben fumbled the ball when he offered to call her an Uber, and Devi took that as her cue to leave. We (and Dwight) are listening to Ben's inaccurate retelling of events, skewed by the post-boink anxiety he's been stewing in. This boy who was once delighted that Devi turned over in bed to talk, has since repressed the mortifying moment that followed wherein he blew her off. Now all he remembers is her darting out the door.

In accordance with spoilers, it looks like Devi's Starbucks text comes through while Ben is still talking with Mr. Howard - and since Ben provided him with a misleading picture of how things went down, Dwight is going to tell him that Devi doesn't really love him. That she's just going to hurt him again. That he deserves someone who brings out the good in him. (All of this coming from a man who doesn't know Ben, has never even met Devi, and has no insight whatsoever into the relationship he's advising.)

Unfortunately for Devi (& us), this is Ben's biggest fear, so he listens. He takes the easy road yet again and pursues the less scary option... but she's still not Devi.

I truly believe that in the first few episodes when Ben talks to Devi, he is doing nothing more than basically parroting what others have told him. Why? Because those words will justify his urge to continue retreating to safety; they will enable him to avoid confronting his biggest emotional truth, something he's been running from for two years. As much as he obviously, clearly WANTS to give into his feelings for Devi, he's still afraid. And even though she's the one who hurt him, he still thinks she is incredible (which she is!!!), and that he couldn't possibly live up to what she deserves. There's so much to unpack here and I think this is a great way to make the events of season 2 a relevant topic again without being contrived.

Similar to Devi in seasons 2 & 3, I think Ben's arc is going to be about gaining the self-worth to stand on his own rather than passively agreeing to what others think he should do (i.e. Dwight and Margot).

The back half of the season will be Ben not only overcoming his greatest fear by talking with Devi and learning how deeply and genuinely she wants him this time around, but in doing so, he's going to become more confident in his relationship with her and learn to make his own decisions regarding it. He will learn that he can trust his own instincts again, no longer paralyzed by heartbreak or feelings of inferiority. He can trust Devi with his heart now. She's all in.

[howlingday]

The Dirge

"That should do it for the fire tonight." Lie Ren said as he swiped his palms together, clearing off the residual sawdust from his hands. It had been a week since Team JNPR, or rather Team JNR joined Ruby Rose in her quest to head east, towards Mistral and Haven Academy. The past few hours have been strenuous to say the least.

"Finally." Nora Valkyrie huffed as she dropped her load next to the pit. "It feels like we've been carrying logs for hours!"

"It was only for ten minutes." Ren assured. A crack from behind alerted him to the sudden presence of his team leader, Jaune Arc, and their friend, Ruby Rose. He turned to find them walking away from the makeshift tent. Looking past, he could see Ruby's uncle, Qrow Branwen, laying inside. "How is he?"

"He doesn't look good." Ruby said, voice full of concern. "That weird guy stabbed him with his tail, and he's been running a fever ever since."

"He'll live, though." Jaune voiced in a very matter-of-fact tone. "He just needs rest and antibiotics."

"The second of which we don't have." Ruby pointed out.

"He'll live." Jaune repeated. "Haven's only a few miles away."

"Can we make it, though?"

"We can," Ren said, though not without a very begrudging tone, "if we cut through Kuro Yuri." Nora flinched at the name. "I'd prefer not to, but it is the fastest way there."

"Anything you want to share, Ren?" Jaune asked.

"No." He shook his head. "There's nothing but ghosts there."

"...Like, real ghosts, or...?" Jaune let the question hang.

"No. Ghosts aren't real."

"Are you sure about that, Ren?" Jaune knelt next to the pit and began scraping flint and sent sparks flying into the dried leaves. Almost instantly, the fire came alive with a crackling snap and pop. Jaune then seated himself on a log. "We've already seen a lot."

"Grimm." Ren clarified. "A ghost is different from a Geist."

"I wonder about that." Jaune said with a smile. It then faded as his blue eyes stared into the contained inferno. He almost looked hypnotized by the dancing flames.

As the others sat down, Jaune began to start humming a tune. It was deep and low, like a bellow from Ursa, yet softer and somehow more wild. Nora opened her ration pack, carelessly tossing half a granola bar to the blaze. Jaune reached across, through the fire itself, to snatch the healthy treat from it's scorched fate.

"What were you singing?" Ren asked, choosing to ignore the self-inflicted burning his leader had placed upon himself.

Jaune smiled. "Just an old song I used to sing for my family." He continued to stare into the fire pit. "I usually sing it to myself when I miss them, or whenever I need to ready myself for the worst possible scenario."

"Like a song of bravery?" Ruby asked, biting into her granola.

"Not quite."

"Can you sing it for us?" Nora asked.

"I don't think you want to hear it." Jaune waved his hand. "It's not very good."

"Come on!" Ruby whined.

"Pleeeeeeease?" Nora pleaded.

"Another time." Jaune said, standing up. "I'll go check on your uncle. Maybe get him to keep some food down."

"Aw! Okay..." Ruby and Nora pouted.

Ren watched as Jaune entered the tent, and noticed something off. In the encroaching twilight, darkness settled in, and the sky dipped from it's orange hue to a more violet and blue shades. Yet Jaune's eyes remained an icy blue, clear to be seen in the approaching dusk.

---------------------------------------------------

This was a dumb idea. Stupid! Idiotic! Hands down the worst idea Ruby ever made in her entire life, and possibly the last she ever made in her life.

Twigs and dried leaves crunched as she hammered her feet through the forest. She could hear the growling Beowolves behind her over the thundering in her chest. She should have stayed at camp, stayed where it was safe. In her excitement, she left behind her precious Crescent Rose; a sin she would never repeat so long as she lived.

As for now, she chose to follow a phantom she caught floating amongst the shadows of the forest. A phantom she recognized from only a month ago. Her curiosity would be paid in full by the Grimm if she slowed down.

She tripped over something, and her body's momentum carried her over the ground. She fell down a hill rolling along the ground until she came to a stop. Her back slammed against the boulder, knocking the air from her lungs. Cornered by two Beowolves and out of aura, Ruby knew it would be where she died.

"I'm sorry, Mom..." Ruby wept a single.

As the cold wind blew, a low hum carried through the air. Beneath the shattered moon, she saw him. His piercing blue eyes the only light within his indistinguishable silhouette. With a click, a red block held by the end shifted and extended into a long-bladed scythe. It was Crescent Rose, and without a care, she flew through the chilling night air, landing at her master's boots.

"Pick it up." The voice growled. Ruby looked confusedly between the shade and her weapon. "Pick. It. Up."

Without a second thought, Ruby scrambled to her feet, gripping her baby tightly in her hands. The ghost began to hum, and the night suddenly grew colder. Especially in Ruby's spine as she noticed the two Beowolves had multiplied into almost two dozen.

"This is it, Little Rose." The shadow called out to her. "This is where you prove to me how bad you want to be a huntress."

Before Ruby could ask what he meant, her battle began as a Beowolf lept for her. With a turn, she twirled her scythe and rended the Grimm in two. Without hesitation, the next one came, swiping it's insidious claw. Ruby ducked, then severed it's legs from it's body. As she spliced it's head apart, two more jumped at her from behind.

On and on, her dance of death continued. Her muscles ached and her breath grew more and more ragged. The air grew colder, and the humming grew louder. She could almost hear words echoing from all around.

She was down to the last Grimm. Her lungs ached as her throat burned. It was the only warmth her body felt as the night air grew colder and colder. She lept for the last remaining Grimm, when her body suddenly seized itself. She watched in horror as the Beowolf stalked closer, pure malice glowing in it's eyes. She choked back a scream as it's fangs drew closer to her eyes.

In a blink, it was all dust. The Beowolf suddenly died, and she uttered a silent prayer of gratitude to whoever it was that saved her.

"I wouldn't start praying yet, Little Rose." The voice came back, and she felt herself being turned over. A hand found it's way to her throat, and her head was forced to turn with bony thumb and index finger. The digits were cold as ice, and the chill bit into her skin. "Oh, there's still some life in you. Too bad about that last one, though. If it was your time, you would have died there, unfulfilled."

"Please, don't kill me." Ruby's eyes welled with hot tears as she stared at the gaunt face in front of her.

"Oh, I don't kill people, Little Rose." His hand released from her neck. "I simply watch them die, and then help them move on to their next life."

"Who-" She swallowed as she sat up. "Who are you?"

"I am the last thing you will ever see." His eye seemed to twinkle at her. A flash of blue. Just like that night. "Oh, that wasn't me." He said, as if reading her thoughts. "That was somebody else."

"What?" Ruby wiped her eyes. "I don't understand! Who are you?!"

Taking a deep breath, the figure turned and began to hum. The wind blew again, only it was accompanied by singing once more. However, Ruby then noticed that these voices in the night air weren't singing. They were screaming. Begging. A thousand souls, maybe more, all pleading with agonized voices.

"Please, no!"

"I'll do anything!"

"Take it all!"

"Take me, not her!"

"It's not my time!"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

Ruby blinked and she was elsewhere, laying on a tree. She clutched her chest, trying to steady her beating heart. The tears poured hotly from her eyes as she panted.

"Ruby?!" She looked up to see a familiar face running towards her. "Are you okay?! Where have you been?!"

"I..." She panted. "I-I-I saw a shadow, and I followed it, and then there was a Beowolf, then another Beowolf, and then I fell, and- and-!"

"Easy, Ruby." Jaune held her hands and rubbed her back. "You're okay. Everything's okay."

"I... I almost died." Ruby gulped.

Jaune didn't say anything. He simply sat next to her and held her. She looked up to see Crocea Mors laying against a tree, next to a scroll. The scroll was powered off, and the tree was dead. Every tree around it was alive, but this one was dead, and being carved into by Jaune.

"Were... Were you training?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah." He looked up. "I found this dead tree earlier, so I thought it would be good practice."

"Wouldn't one of these other trees be a better target?"

"Yeah, they would," Jaune nodded, "but I don't want to cut their lives short. Not before their time."

Ruby looked to the ground and saw a pile of dead leaves laying at the base. For some reason, she felt her soul resonate with the dead, scarred tree.

[ewingstan]

6.8 felt like a big point in the story for me. So it seems like a good point to update my overall impressions on Breakthrough:

I think Victoria is a strong protagonist. That said, Wildbow's strength is character arcs focusing on the protagonists slowly but surely deciding to sacrifice their selfhood in order to make the bastards pay. Victoria already lost her selfhood and got it back, and while its probably too early to really get a sense of it, I don't have any clear expectations of what her arc could be.

Rain has had some of the best writing I've seen from Wildbow and his story has been incredibly engaging. But I don't think I understand Victoria's leap to "he's taken big steps towards becoming a hero" stance. He defended himself against a bunch of people who were trying to kill him. Mama Mathers was gonna send people after him, his clustermates were out for blood, he didn't have a safe group anymore except for Breakthrough (who wanted to fight the guys trying to kill him) and March. Obviously he was gonna help fight, it was his best and only chance to save himself. We haven't really seen him have a chance to do something truly heroic for someone else yet. We probably shouldn't; as much as I like Rain, a recovering Christian Identity member really shouldn't be given a position as a cop.

I'm more excited to see where Kenzie goes than any other character right now (I know her ending isn't great, but we can have good times until then right?) She has the most interesting relationships with every other character and has such an unusual perspective on everything that she consistently elevates any scene she's in.

I know we're still early in but it weirds me out how we still know so little about Chris. He's got an interesting if seemingly hard-to-narrativize powerset, he has a lot of active threads out, and he's gotten my favorite line so far:

(yeah i know its corny. It's still extremely my shit). But we still know pretty much nothing about him besides 1) gets along well with Kenzie and 2) is weirdly eager to throw himself into battle. We knew more about Alec even by this point in Worm. What's this guy's deal?

(I know some of this guy's deal. I don't yet know how we get from here to what I know about this guy's deal).

I feel like Tristan and Byron have been waylaid by the plot for the last few chapters, but I want to get more of them, which I'll take as a good sign.

Ashley is usually the most entertaining character in any scene. Her whole deal is catnip to me. I still think her wanting to go to prison is bullshit.

Sveta is a very fun and engaging character who is clearly meant to be overly naive, but at the same time I feel like the text ends up justifying her opinions too often. The paragon do-gooder voice shouldn't be right too often in a parahumans book, it ends up with too many thematic contradictions between it and Worm. Yeah, her being the moral voice does give her a chance to come out and plainly say the underlying thesis of the work:

But there's still weird issues. The big one for me is still the "Ashley and Rain should turn themselves in" being treated mostly as true; Sveta is treated as naiive for this, but only for believing the justice system is complete enough to process them, not for the belief that "serving time" is a necessary part of cleansing oneself of sin. I mean, Amy going to the birdcage was depicted as useless self-flagellation and running away from responsibility! Taylor doing jailtime was a game she had to go along with to flimsily justify her inclusion on the Wards! Wildbow obviously has put active thought into the theoretical and practical shortcomings of the justice system beforehand, why is it suddenly being sanctified? I'd chalk it down to just being Victoria and Sveta's perspective, but literally nothing is pushing back on it besides Kenzie and Ashley is going out of her way and characterization to agree with it. And I know I'm not gonna get a satisfying answer to this because its one of the things that people bring up as an archetypal problem with Ward, but at the same time I can't just accept "fuck you its ward" as a satisfying explanation! I need answers John! What were you doing with this!

[airlock]

so I found myself thinking about Byleth

I should make myself clear: Byleth is not a character that I find interesting or compelling. thing is, though? the more I think about it, the more I realize that there's a point of view from which to argue... that making Byleth a boring character was a feat. an accomplishment in shitty writing that defies the sheer potential of the premise.

I'll start rambling under the cut

let's get one thing out of the way promptly: I am not, whatsoever, referring to the way that Byleth's Mute Protagonist Syndrome is diegetic and woven into, even justified by, the plot. this is not a new thing that Three Houses did. it is, in fact, an observable and increasingly common tendency in games these days, because audiences still generally like their silent protagonists, but not if they don't have some spark of actual character somewhere to distinguish them from the myriad other silent protagonists that the medium is peppered to the gills with. this is even, in fact, one of the things that draws comparisons to/accusations of bandwagonry of Persona 5, whose Joker is as silent his two predecessors in the series, but absolutely oozes personality through motion alone -- and is, multiple times in the story, described by others as quiet, but determined.

but if this isn't the part of Byleth's character that I'm referring to, then, well... what's left? but again: what I'm increasingly finding mystifying is the empty space that ended up where something more substantial would very easily have been. and it starts with this: Byleth is a teacher.

we never thought much of this idea, did we? the premise of Three Houses is that this is Fire Emblem, but (partially) in a school setting. obviously, if you're going to be inserted into that story in the role of strategical leader, a la Robin; if you're going to have mechanics that turn this school setting into the ultimate unit customization gameplay -- then making the player insert character a teacher is such an obvious idea, it borders on braindead, right.

well... is it actually that obvious?

there's an endlessly immense amount of media that takes place in a school setting -- but very little of that media is about school. which makes sense. school is, famously, not interesting. school is something that the primary target audience for media with school setting is actually looking for an escape from. school settings are relatable, but relatability without adventure is, what -- a sitcom? not even that. even mundane, slice-of-life stories draw their adventure from somewhere -- but studying for midterms is not an adventure that can trivially be rendered exciting to watch.

(in fact, even if we once again look at FE16's ostensible inspiration in Persona 5, we're not really looking at a school story. the first arc of Persona 5 is about school; after that, though, the plot's scope expands, and school becomes a small appendage of the game. Joker stops attending school altogether in the final arc (as he goes into hiding), and the only difference it makes is the removal of three minuscule and intermittent mechanics -- of which one is the commute.)

all of this is to say -- despite all of the school settings, how many modern stories do you know, where the main character is a teacher?

I'm not saying there are none, but I'm just saying, I can only think of three off the top of my head, and I never actually watched the other two.

makes sense, after all -- teachers are almost invariably satellite characters. if the story is absolutely only using school as set dressing, it will make the teachers uncomplicated and competent, the sort of person you can imagine putting in charge of children without scratching your head, barring maybe one funny quirky to prevent them from being completely boring. if the story does want to dig its fingers into the school life somewhat, then the natural move is to take a look into when relations between students and teachers are tense, whether it be because the teacher is in fact a cartoon villain, or because the teacher is not readily well-liked but has hidden depths. in every piece of this equation, though, the teacher is an Adult as seen from afar, and not the Human who must embody this Adult in spite of all the adversity.

Byleth, of all people, is put in the unique position of embodying that struggle. and that's not a peculiar reading of the text or a fanonical backfill; it's something that the game actually tries to pitch as a conflict, for a brief lull.

say we forget for a moment that Byleth is Byleth, and picture this: a story about a young manwomanthing, given work as a teacher because of the, let's call her that for simplicity, headmaster's ulterior motives. work that our womanmanthing keeps being told they can do just fine, because they have a relevant skill that they've honed and could instruct the students in -- but they're sheltered and inexperienced in much outside of that one skill, so being a guide to others is not something they ever imagined themself doing. as the days go by, though, they take to the role with a natural affinity, finding it even to be something of a true calling; indeed, the longer they put in the work, the more alive they feel. by teaching others, they become enlightened.

how did intsys manage to make that story suck?

[siena-sevenwits]

Jan 1 - Day #2 - A Fortnight of Books

I am loving these prompts!

Most surprising (in a good way) book of this year?

"A Doll's House" by Henrik Ibsen

I was shocked how glad I was that I read this, because I knew it mostly as an example Chesterton and similar authors of the rough time period used to discuss the controversial feminist ideas of the day. In other words, I knew it by reputation through the lens of "'A Doll's House' reflects everything wrong with how we think about women and marriage these days." This is not to say the historical context/critical reception at time of its release is not important - this play would fall flat without them. But taking the play on its own terms, here's what I say. Nora is 100% right about the problem she and Torvald face - even though they do their best to love each other and have been happy in the lesser idea of marriage society has shaped them to believe in, there is no respect or maturity in their marriage and it will ultimately fail. Nora has her eyes opened to the idea of what marriage should be - utter self gift of each to the other, striving and sacrificing always for trust and respect, together helping the other thrive in all that they are, as a team and in their own individuality and in their responsibility to their children and community. A marriage with no stupid delineation between love and respect, a marriage of equals. She has no words for it, but what she's talking about is a ToB marriage, in fact.

But she realizes that society has fed her and her husband extremely messed up ideas about what it means to been a good upperclass woman or man, and to have a good marriage, and that they're not equipped to embrace what a true marriage should be. So she walks out and leaves no contact information. I think she made the wrong choice. I think what we see in this play, as horrible as the situation is, is a Flannery O'Connor time moment of grace. The true ugliness of Nora and Torvald's relationship has been made clear, and the contrasting beautiful marriage they both desire has been made manifest. This is awesome! This is what a play SHOULD do! The solution it proposes leaves a lot to be desired, but I think that's only because neither Nora nor Ibsen knows how to solve the problem, and making a clean break is all that they can come up with. But it seems to me that in that moment of grace, Nora and Torvald should have determined to make one, last incredible try. Separation might have to be involved, for a time. Certainly extremely hard work and brutal honesty would have to be involved. And there's nothing to say they would be successful - but if they only gave it one chance now that they KNOW the truth that was hidden from them... And that's why I like this play. I disagree with how Ibsen wraps it up, but he was RIGHT to raise this issue to the light back in his day, and I think the conversations around it must have been stupendous. Where is that post about how all fiction has been touched by sin, and you can focus on that, but you can also find where it has been touched by truth? So I have a complex relationship with this play, but am very glad I read it. Oh, and Nora has such an amazing arc.

(Some of this may be off - it's been nearly a year since I read it and some bits are hazy.)

Most disappointing book/Book you wish you enjoyed more than you did?

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson

I DNF'd this one. Ugh, I was so excited for the new Cosmere book - bought it the day it hit the shelves, and everything! But the good parts became overshadowed for me by all the immature body stuff and "sneaking peeks." I roll my eyes in this book's general direction. If you want to make a point about vulnerability, there are better ways to do it.

Sanderson, if Stormlight 5 isn't an awesome series finale to make up for this, you're the one who's getting magically turned into a coat rack.

[clarajohnson]

the magicians s1e5

being concerned about the fate of the friend who nearly permanently incapacitated you in a mind prison is sooooo babygirl of quentin

the way that q and julia (and like i'm guessing the other first years in the main cast? but not a given) are like, only probably 22 at this point. literal children.

traveling is such a neat concept one point to the magicians for that

i'm constantly shocked by s1 margo she's very sweet very shallow and not so acidic. also her outfits are shit. i'm so looking forward to no-bullshit heart of gold high king margo with her unbelievable fillory wardrobe.

(eventually) killing ted coldwater is one of the evilest things this show does

eliot wouldn't wear a bowtie. i know this. i should have run the magicians.

circling back to julia being 22 YOU MIGHT HAVE YOUR UNDERGRAD DEGREE AT THIS POINT DON'T PLAY HOUSEWIFE FOR THIS MAN

"if magicians could cure cancer why would anybody have cancer" "because we like secrets" this episode laying a lot of groundwork for fandom hand-wringing in the future

everyone here is so babyfaced and yes i'm talking about margo again

every julia scene makes me more and more nervous knowing how close we're getting to reynard. also more excited because we're closer to best bitches but mostly nervous.

margo's welters outfit i say yay yippee hooray hooray hooray

you know the physical kids are the main characters in this show because they all have fun character-specific welters uniforms while the nature students are wearing fucking maroon tunics

who knew you had it in you !!!!! you're so right margo we should get married

julia's s1 arc being like, ooh i'm a magic junkie is so embarrassing but you have to remember that their like Main Poster for this season used the literal tagline "magic is a drug" and it's like oh yeah they thought this would be harry potter for adults with stick and pokes

love the entirety of kady and penny's relationship being open and honest communication, excellent banter, and routine sex that is apparently consistently unbelievable. also very clear and pure love.

"you slept with me two days ago" "you're welcome"

this show really does villains well, they're always kind of polite and basically unstoppable, these facsimiles of civility that intend to turn you inside out and you can really only stop them by a miracle

eliot doing his best impression of a man who cares about alice >>>>

"what if i could fix him?" (narrator: he could not fix cancer puppy)

there seem to be two types of magic in this show: there's very involved tutting and there's a kind of... i don't know, like, magic that seems more like strong-willing things to happen. like some of it is about doing the right steps in a very specific order and some of it is about wanting it badly enough.

"get ready for the first spanking you won't enjoy" "that actually sounds kind of hot" they are my best friends

god alice/margo had so much potential

"penny i think you were in fillory" LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[thekaijudude]

I think the strongest form of next Ultraman for year 2024 will be debut in movie and Ultra Galaxy Fight, instead of debut in mid episode.

Can't say much for the movie since as I've went through, movies are getting less and less exciting every year.

Z didn't had a movie (exception cause of covid)

Trigger had no new forms + GE was clearly able to easily take out the movie threat, they didnt even had the need to even bring out Truth

Decker had no crossovers, introduced a defunct form and didn't even resort to Dynamic Type, dude clowned the movie boss just in his base Flash Type form lmao

(But of course the origin of Dinus and Decker is a major contribution to the Ultra lore in general, I'm just phrasing the movie this way for comparison purposes in this light only)

Blazar looks to have no crossovers + no new forms even

So from the downwards trend, really not looking forward to see what they'll do (or NOT do) for Arc's Movie

UGF seems to be the answer tbh as I've also went through before, every UGF installment introduces some new form of Zero + a new strongest form for Reiwa Ultras

UGF1:

Zero Beyond (Galaxy Glitter): a temporary, superpowered state but I guess its "technically" a form??? Same concept as Glitter Tiga

Also Ginga got back his access to Ginga Storium from this point on

UGF2: US Zero + Taiga TS Rainbow

UGF3: US Zero (now stronger due to using WB as base) + Deathcium RC

So for UGF4, we can roughly predict what's gonna happen. Recall I shared that the NG's designer posted about a "new form" for Zero which looked very similar to Saga for Zero's 15th Anniversary.

Considering that even the US Zero (WB base) didn't really even do much to AT, TsuPro has to give Zero even more handouts to try and continuously hype up the "rivalry" between the 2.

And looking at the trend of Reiwa Ultras getting new strongest forms, Trigger should be next in line to get an upgrade form. Which tbh its pretty obvious what would be the concept of said form. Recall Trigger Truth was fused by simply imbuing Multi-Type's Key with Trigger Dark's, back in 2021, I alr stated that an obvious upgrade would be to do the same process, but simply replace Multi with the GE Key. And in turn, basically get a GE version of Truth

Following this trend, Decker would get his own strongest form in UGF5, which ngl, I have no idea what it could be since there's not much basis to go off of, so it has to be something totally new but tbh, I think Dyna revealing his own version of Dynamic Type seems more likely that Decker receiving a new form since its just kinda weird that the parent Ultra dosent have (or has yet to reveal) his own version of Dynamic Type when his "child" has

Blazar is actually even more obvious that those above, cause clearly he's an experienced monster hunter as what Taguchi said, and wouldn't be surprised if Firdran Dragon isn't his only kaiju companion. As I've also stated last year, there's clear routes for further development for Blazar's upper limit since he could perhaps fuse with other kaiju companions or even fuse with multiple kaiju companions.

So for Arc as u mentioned, I mean that eventually is gonna happen at some point I suppose?

Assuming there isn't any breaks like the Regulus prequel/sequel, the earliest we'd get a new strongest form for Arc would be in 2027 or sth for UGF7 lol

As for the movie as said, don't really see that happening as long as there isn't any changes to the downward trend rn

[mdhwrites]

What are your thoughts on Odalia and Alador? I was very disappointed by them.

When i first saw them, i thought they would be a fun villain couple who loved eachother and that they would represent the different types of parental abuse. Odalia being the more controlling, active abuser, and Alador being the more passive abuser.

When Reaching out came out, i was excited, because i thought it would be about Amity seeking approval from Alador because 'well he isnt as bad, so maybe i can gain his approval!' but then the message would be 'no, passive abuse is just as harmful and should not be glossed over and minimised.'

instead it turned Alador into a 'distant but caring dad', and then later, it emphasised this by making Odalia this insane idiot who didnt care about the genocide, stupidly thinking she would be exempt.

I agree! Just in general I agree! I'll first talk about Alador because honestly what was done with him was... Boring and pointless? At best, it's to give Amity resolution on at least one of her parents (which is questionable because I'd argue Reaching Out makes her goal... Murky. I don't know what she wants from her father honestly because her coven beliefs and her little speech at the end make it clear she doesn't give a single shit about his opinion or Odalia's so... *shrug* ) and maybe to give an answer against the Abomatons but neither of those ever paid off. At all. Ever. So instead you have someone who is just an extremely inconsistent character because it feels like the first three times we see him are three different versions of him and that is including Understanding Willow where he didn't give the impression to be a space cadet or not on board with what Odalia pushed. The fact that he's pushed to be incompetent also makes his writing like a lot of the guys in the show because he's hard to take seriously, Edric is similar, and he's just... there. Oh, I guess there's also the fact that he's clearly making robots instead of just golems, even to the point of mech suits, and I hate that because what the fuck is TOH's technology level? But also who cares when the writers clearly didn't? Speaking of: Odalia. Odalia is actually the worse of the two despite getting less screen time and I don't just mean because she's a worse person. Don't get me wrong: She is. She feels like some bad, animated 90s movie villain where money and personal gain is how they'll justify doing literally ANYTHING. But also Odalia is still bad at it since she thinks executing a child is a great way to sell HOME DEFENSE PRODUCTS. Because the death of their kids is definitely what you want on your customer's minds! Before I get into her real problem though: I also hate that she knows Belos' whole plan. Hunter doesn't know it. Darius, Eberwolf and Raine, all coven heads, had to sneak and steal the plans to get the information. Why the fuck, besides making her somehow even MORE evil, did Belos ever tell this bitch who probably never even asked what he was doing with the abomatons? Just... It's bad and dumb writing. But kind of like all of Odalia's writing: It still matters. Odalia is written like a one off villain while being AMITY BLIGHT'S MOM. And that is her real problem: How evil she is throws all of her children into question. The twins seem worried about their mom's retribution so why do they skip class? Why do they invite trouble that Amity, at the peak of her being busy with school, was able to notice? How do they get away with it? I made interesting and fun answers to that while the show doesn't even care about the question. And Amity is even worse. Her arc is thrown into question. How was she able to befriend Luz so easily when we know Odalia wouldn't approve of her? How was she able to throw away her old social group? How could she have been confident enough to bring Willow back as a friend? Why wasn't there ANY more worry about her mom when she knows her mom. She probably could have guessed her mom would try to kill Luz, or even Willow, if they became her friends and probably should have gotten livid at her abandoning her 'better' friends. Back when it was just Understanding Willow, one could make a case that maybe Odalia eased up on it since then. That's what I did in my story, The Power of Love. That the pressure Amity felt was at least as much in her own head as it was externally pushed on her. Things that would have been WAY more interesting than what we got. Because what we got with the Blight family as a whole is a bunch of characters who don't make sense, flip their characters on a dime and are just trash as a whole unit. And that's from the family that was BURSTING with potential at the end of S1. And I will actually go "Hey, if you want a better Blight family, check this out," because I'm still incredibly proud of how I wrote them in my monstrous first story for TOH.

[goldazu]

Okay, I know people are tired of my Pokemon shenanigans, but hear me out. Some people were also interested in what I thought about the overall plot and I will try to go ahead and give my two cents on it.

Personally, I'm somewhat sick of the same recycled Pokemon plot in which the rivals are overly friendly, hold your hand throughout your whole journey, and act a little too light-hearted for my tastes. Give me a mean rival again, those were fun. However, that isn't to say I didn't enjoy Nemona and Arven in particular. Especially Arven. His arc was very mind-blowing for me by the end of the game considering what happened with his family.

Truth told, before I started the game, I definitely heard rumors of people like "the story made everyone cry." So, I wanted to see what exactly was so heart-wrenching about it. Initially I thought it was the whole plot arc with Arven and his sick dog who showed little to no signs of recovery even as you collect the Herba Mystica (basically nutrient-loaded food for the Pokemon) for him to feel better, which I'll admit was indeed sad and tugging on my heartstrings at some point, but it wasn't anything too eye-opening for me all the same.

Little did I know, this was just the beginning of it.

As the player explores Paldea and collects the Herba Mystic for the professor (Sada or Turo depending on your version—I played Scarlet so I got Sada), your ride legendary also gains some new powers. Dashing, jumping, swimming, gliding, climbing, etc. It's clear throughout the adventure that Arven and the professor have strained relationships due to Koraidon/Miraidon yet the player doesn't really know why until the end, which I consider the most exciting part of the overall story.

Once the Herba Mystica subplot was finished, the player then has to make their way to the forbidden Great Crater since Arven just kinda goes "okay, we need to find my mom/dad." Yes, the professor is revealed to be his parent, though I didn't see it coming even when in hindsight they do resemble each other. That's on me, I guess. Oops? Anyway, the professor up until that point has and continues to communicate with you, the player, via Rotom phone so you never actually get to meet them. It turns out they're "trapped" in the lab in Area Zero, which leads you and the gang to travel there despite the prehistoric/futuristic Pokemon crawling about. All of which are quite powerful in their own right.

Eventually as you approach the lab, it's revealed those Pokemon from the past/future are too dangerous for the ecosystem and must be stopped/contained in their "respective times." It makes sense, to be fair. Should they escape Area Zero, then they'd undoubtedly infest all of Paldea and probably turn the whole region into a living Hell for all the other, much more weak Pokemon who are from the current time period. So, the professor asks you to disable the time machine that they themselves made to prevent that from happening, since a lot of the paradox Pokemon are already starting to go out of control.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, there's just one small complication.

Turns out the professor is actually an AI based on Arven's real parent, who died in the respective time zone of their field of study. They died in an accident trying to protect Koraidon/Miraidon yet somehow the AI still lives on. Ironically enough, even the AI recognizes the whole time machine thing was going to be a bad idea and faults the original professor for it. They warn you that if you try to disable it, they will be programmed to fight you since anything that tries to stop the time machine is immediately deemed a threat.

Now, this is what I find very interesting. The AI is on your side, yet you have no choice but to defeat them in battle. Even though they don't want to fight, it's just how they're wired and programmed, unfortunately. This battle is also very exciting from a blind player's perspective because the AI's whole team is comprised of Pokemon solely from the "past" and "future" that the player has yet to encounter, forcing you to guess their weaknesses if you haven't already spoiled yourself by this point. For those going into the game 100% blind, I can see why the fight poses the greatest challenge yet.

Anyways, after you defeat them, the AI explains they can't leave the time machine which is why they were "stuck" in the lab all this time. Despite your efforts, it doesn't exactly "shut down." There are too many protocols and it turns into a Koraidon vs Koraidon (or Miraidon vs Miraidon, again, Scarlet vs Violet differences) showdown. Yes, there are two of them, by the way. Apparently the one you own is the more submissive one who lost a territory fight or something, but I think it's kind of awe-inspiring that it beats the one it originally lost against. It just goes to show that since you traveled with it all throughout the game, your bond overcame everything else.

Instead of disabling/destroying the time machine, the AI decides they, too, want to go on their own journey. All this time, monitoring you as you collected the Herba Mystica, beat all the gym leaders, challenged Team Star, etc., it's revealed they envied you. Makes sense, since they spent all that time tethered to the lab/time machine. I guess even AI can develop a thirst for adventure.

Enough recap, here's where I add in my opinions on everything.

Honestly, the idea of an AI character in Pokemon developed this way is very interesting to me. I know they tried to do similar in the past, but the exposition here was much more intense than other games. And the fact that it's revealed Arven's sole parent who already spent little to no time with him throughout his childhood as is died, I realized "wow, this is darker than I thought for a Pokemon game." I love it. I actually came to adore the professor more knowing they were an AI in the end. Their parting words to Arven before the time machine transported them was something along the lines of "s/he really cared about you." And I don't think they're lying, either. If you take a look at the lab, you'll see the original professor has a picture of Arven and his dog when he was just a child.

The whole game, all the side characters encourage you to "find your treasure." Yet, here we see with the professor that sometimes people go overboard with their treasure hunt, and they devote all of their time and energy to their goals that they forsake their loved ones, their kids, their family, etc. Hell, the professor even developed all those protective measures so that the time machine would never fail, which just goes to show they wanted to research those paradox pokemon no matter what—even at the cost of neglecting their kid.

If I was in Arven's shoes, honestly, I'd be devastated. The one parent I came to resent and never spent all that much time with turns out to be dead, and I was only speaking to an AI version of them all this time. Crazy, right? He surprisingly took it well despite all the rivals being kids, but still, crazy stuff. Makes one wonder what his life would be like if only he had an active parent around.

Now, I may be biased because I played through Scarlet, which means Arven had mommy issues with Sada. However, I just cannot imagine Arven and Turo for some reason. 💀 Maybe it's because I also played as a girl, and considering his beef with Nemona who is also a young woman, it makes sense that Arven has a distrust towards the opposite gender due to his mother's absence. Sound familiar yet?? Omg, Arven is even good at cooking.

Back to the paradox Pokemon, there are theories that they aren't actually from the past/future and that they're just the professor's imagination coming to life due to a third unrevealed legendary. To be honest, I think this theory is sound. After all, how can Sandy Shocks, a Pokemon resembling manmade magnets, come from the ancient past???

Overall, I loved how surprisingly dark the story in Scarlet and Violet were this time around. Please give me more plotlines like this. TL;DR, Arven is best boy and deserves everything good in this world. 😩

[berserkchip]

I read through your Noel route fic a few days ago and had a lot of fun going through it! I've always been really fond of this kind of full-length canon divergence AU that explores an alternate timeline in detail and it's neat seeing yours come together. You do a great job mimicking the prose of the original Tsukihime

Some thoughts

Digging into the stuff with Tokie is a really smart choice for this. It's an obscure bit of canon that rarely gets touched on but it absolutely should have implications for Shiki's character. By its very nature a Noel route is going to involve pairing Shiki with an older woman leveraging a position of power to take advantage of him so it makes perfect thematic sense to spend some time thinking about Shiki's previous experience with that kind of thing and the ways in which it is and isn't the same. You do a good job grappling with it

You write an excellent Akiha. She's got ice in her veins her verbal lashings are delicious. Your Arihiko is great too

I'm a little confused about the sequence of events that leads to Akiha selecting Noel as Shiki's tutor. Noel sends home a fake report card with arbitrarily lowered grades for Shiki on the first day in the hopes of getting his family to hire a tutor for him and then Akiha attempts to hire one and Noel does something to prevent any other female candidates from applying? But a lot of it seems to rely on Akiha taking actions that Noel has no control over - deciding to hire a tutor at all, agreeing to hire Noel when she’s the only candidate instead of just getting someone from farther away, etc. I’m also quite surprised that Akiha seems to actually like Noel here - I would have thought her flighty unreliable personality would be something Akiha can’t stand

The original Tsukihime mostly used its (consensual) sex scenes as an emotional climax close to the end of a route cementing the main relationship after spending a long time with Shiki and the heroine slowly growing closer. It’s kind of neat reading a route that takes the opposite tack - a ton of sex scenes early on while the characters still know almost nothing about each other. Noel’s a sexually frustrated adult woman hitting on a student, not a teenage girl looking for love so I think this makes a lot of sense for her

If I’m tracking things right Arc should have resurrected, went to look for Shiki, and gotten chased by Vlov’s minions while Shiki stayed at Noel's apartment. Without Shiki to push her into confronting Vlov sooner I imagine she’s going to lay low for a while to build up her strength and then show back up in a few days at full power unimaginably pissed off. I’ve been liking this whole alternate sequence of plot developments a lot and I’m interested in how far it’s going to diverge by the end. It’s very funny that Arc’s initial assumption that her killer is a church agent will turn out actually be true by the time she catches up with him in this timeline

As a sidenote, writing fanfiction for an incomplete canon like this is an interesting writing challenge. TsukiRe sets up a ton of mysteries for the far side and while we can assume answers to some of them (Arach being the spider DAA is obvious) there are others where it's a lot less clear what's going on and any fic is forced to choose between carefully skirting around the plot point and just making up something while acknowledging that in a few years it may be invalidated by the other half of the game. You've done a solid job handling it so far

Noel’s relationship with Ciel is by far the most interesting and complex part of her character and I’m really excited that the next part of the story looks like it’s going to start exploring it. So far Noel has managed to mostly hide the stuff that’s really wrong with her from Shiki but the further in he gets the more he’s going to realize how broken she is

Ending things here with Shiki’s vampirized classmate calling Noel out for her bullshit and getting stabbed by Shiki for it is fun. She’s really speedrunning stuff - it’s been under a week since she got hired as a teacher and she’s already fucked the student she went on an undercover mission to investigate in the first place and dragged him out at night to help her hunt vampires. Zero professionalism. It seems unlikely that she has any real feelings for Shiki either - he’s cute and she’s fond of him but at this point she’s just using him for sex and professional advancement

I’m interested to see where you’re going with all the Nanaya stuff. It’s not quite a full alternate personality but Shiki changes a lot when he swaps into that mode - the narrative voice becomes a lot more masculine, aggressive, and misogynistic, Shiki’s actions become much more aggressive and dominant, etc. You do a good job distinguishing the two. One thing TsukiRe does with this that hasn’t come up here yet is that when Shiki swaps into this mode in combat he starts doing a lot of numerical computation, counting times, speeds, distances, like his brain is automatically calculating the most efficient route to kill

This is less writing feedback and more copyediting but you should do a pass on the earlier parts of the story to edit for tense consistency. You shift back and forth from past tense to present tense a lot (this is actually relatively accurate to how VNs are written in japanese but it sounds wrong and is disorienting in english)

Some minor canon accuracy nitpicks that don’t matter but I’ll bring up anyway: The Tohno mansion is at the top rather than the bottom of a hill, Shiki only returned to the mansion once after the incident and it was so Makihisa could dismiss him, Makihisa’s study and Akiha’s study are separate rooms at opposite ends of the mansion

This is very much a matter of personal preference but the erotic scene that stood out the most to me here was actually the makeout scene at the lockers near the beginning. The tension of being desperately attracted to each other but knowing that you shouldn’t act on it and forcefully tearing yourselves apart is very hot. In comparison the later scenes where they get to actually have sex relieve tension rather than building it and aren’t as impactful to me

As a final note you should put this fic up on Ao3 so that it’s easier to find! That’s the first place most people looking for english language fanfiction will check (tragically the community of people writing english language fanfiction for Tsukihime isn’t very large to begin with but some readers is still better than no readers)

Thank you so much for reading and thank you so much for the feedback!! It brightened up my day!!

I definitely see what you mean about being confused as to why Akiha would choose Noel in retrospect, I don't think I explained that well enough. I might have relied too much on coincidence actually, since it's supposed to be Noel's plan, and the main reason Akiha picked someone from Shiki's school is because of his anemia attack during dinner. It makes sense that Noel could narrow things down on her end, but it makes less sense for her to have been able to get Akiha to pick someone from his school in the first place. Hopefully I can come up with something lolol

And as for Akiha getting along with Noel initially, it's more that Akiha was interested in embarrassing stories about Shiki, which Noel happened to have, and less actually liking her as a person. Their relationship will get really rocky as the story goes on.

It's not much of a spoiler to say Arc does indeed resurrect. I'm gonna do some interesting things with her but she unfortunately won't get too much of the spotlight this time around. Not for a while, anyway.

For writing for incomplete canon, yeah Part 2 is definitely going to have some Fullmetal Alchemist (2004) moments where I'm going to purposefully deviate from canon, and if I feel like it, I may go back and retroactively change things as new entries come out, or maybe I'll just leave it as is and have it be an AU. That's definitely going to apply to Saiki Gotou, but despite there already being some evidence of what Dr. Arach is, I'm actually going to purposefully do something different with her as well.

With Noel, she has the unrealistic and unachievable goal of "a normal life" which, to her, means getting back the old life that she had. Barring that, she at least wants something that resembles what everyone else has, so everything else is just a means to an end. You are entirely correct that she doesn't have real feelings for Shiki, but I think the fact that she took being called stupid 'so' hard because it was coming from Shiki shows that she's 'starting' to see him as more than just a pawn.

Plus, she did ultimately choose to save Shiki by calling Ciel, rather than leaving him to die or risk trying and failing to save him by herself. Noel's arc is going to center around what it even means to have a normal life, which is a big part of why I used that song to close out the chapter. She's realizing at that point just how incompatible she is with the life that she wants for herself.

I really should do like 7 or 8 more once-overs, lol. I had a deadline and I wanted to meet it, but when I started, I was doing past tense just because that's kind of the default, but I eventually realized that doing present tense reads better for Tsukihime, and went back and retroactively changed as much of the past tense stuff as I could find, and even still there were times when I'd accidentally slip back into past tense and be like "wait DAMNIT" and go back and change a bunch. It doesn't surprise me that I missed some, lol. I also notice that I have a really bad habit of repeating words either in the same sentence, or one sentence apart. Like "it's time, now. We're going now." or something like that. very bad habit, lol.

I was wondering what you thought of the extra chapter with Noel at the monastery. I put it there to try and build tension for the eventual reveal of what actually happened when Shiki's memory was blocked out that night, like "oh no did he..." But also I wanted to portray an idea of what it must've been like for Noel growing up after the French incident. There's a throw-away line where Noel thinks about what'll happen if she gets discharged, and that they'll send her back to the chapel, and she says something along the lines of "I can't survive there anymore." So I figured I'd flesh that out to make Noel a bit more obviously sympathetic, instead of having readers infer what her life must have been like based solely off of the things she says.

I also wanted to define Noel's "powers" more. In the source material, it just says she uses "sacraments" but that can be one of two things, either equipment the church gives you, or literally just magecraft that the church conveniently calls "miracles" or "blessings from god" or whatever. I wrestled over whether I wanted Noel to actually be considered a "magus" especially since that whole dichotomy technically works differently in Tsukihime, but afaik it's not as well defined as it is in Fate, so I'm actually leaning more towards Fate lore for how her powers work, and hoping it's not 'that' different from TsukiRE. I mean Melty Blood Type Lumina literally opens every round with "Open Your Magic Circuits" sooo, lol

As for AO3, I'll give it another look, but last I checked they didn't have an option to embed word/pdf files, which might mean I'd have to axe the images, which I'd really rather not. Also I think there was a 50k word limit so I'd also have to split it up into multiple chunks.

But yeah again thanks so much for your feedback!! It means a lot!

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 2,628

Karkat: Troll this worthless human.

Author commentary:

Is there something incongruous, or emotionally dissonant, about the fact that this adorable, pajama-wearing Future John has his head sandwiched by a device emblazoned with the image of a grotesque rapist? Maybe I should change the subject. There's so much to talk about here, it would be a shame to get hung up on the sexual crimes of john's favorite celebrities. Anyway, this panel is a great and exciting way to get into the arc of A5A2. Just this single shot of Future John and a few points of dialogue tell us so much. Cool new outfit, plans are being hatched, everybody's friends now… It's a future-plot snapshot imbued with optimism and intrigue. It lets us know very swiftly what the ultimate narrative purpose of A5A2 is going to be: to bring us to this moment and reveal what happens along the way. Some of the energy from Hivebent's intense nonlinear storytelling patterns are carrying over to the next sub-act. A5A2 isn't quite as freewheeling as Hivebent in terms of "show literally anything, from any point on the timeline, literally any time," but it jumps around enough to keep things interesting and unpredictable.

The time-hopping here isn't purely narrative trickery, or me being whimsical by pointing the camera at whatever I want, whenever I want. There's a good in-story reason for scattering nonlinear focal points throughout A5A2. Which is that, unlike in the acts prior to Hivebent, now we have the luxury of seeing events from a troll point of view. And the trolls are all accessing human events through Trollian, which lets them bounce around the human timeline like maniacs. So we get to see what they see sometimes, which isn't necessarily the order in which we would be viewing things if we didn't have their POV at our disposal.

Because of the intriguing Future John pajama panel, I'm launching into some bigass paragraphs on storycraft. Frankly, since the last book, that's basically what this gutter has been used for. So be it. But in doing so, I'm almost missing the chance to reflect on this really epic screed that Karkat introduces himself to John with, which, as we now know, might as well be a love letter. John says he's not gay. I mean, sure, I guess he technically is "not a homosexual." But aside from that, who are we trying to kid? Everything going on here is really quite spectacularly gay. All of the trolls' involvement with the humans originates from one poorly thought-out, helplessly hate-smitten and gay overture made by a cranky teen boy. Karkat had this whole tirade bottled up inside, ready to unload, but because John is totally expecting it, and already knows Karkat well, he is able to completely disarm, flummox, and redirect all of the hostile energy. The ensuing backwards-chatting idiot spiral is a direct result of John affably and naively sabotaging Karkat's high-strung, breathlessly romantic overture. The lesson is clear: the entire Homestuck universe turns exclusively on the axis of of gay teen follies.

Everything John is saying here, his whole attitude, and lines like "oh god, the quadrants…" reflect the fact that he clearly knows considerably more about the trolls than he did when we last saw him. In other words, it's almost like he just got done with the onerous process of reading Hivebent, just like we did. And he probably has about the same take on most of that material as we do. In this story, the characters literally never stop behaving as stand-ins for the readers in various ways. This conversation winds down in the fairly predictable manner we've come to expect from Karkat, with his stubborn commitment to ongoing gestures of self-humiliation and outlandish insults. But then there's a curveball at the end. People really got a kick out of John's final line. But "soon," as we're going to gradually learn, is a pretty relative concept. Sometimes you need a lot of patience when waiting for stuff that's coming soon.