#i suppose none of this makes sense without knowing his backstory but it does to me.

[burningcheese-merchant]

Its the cycle of History. Civilizations rise up. He watches them thrive. They eventually fall. Witnessing an expected event over and over with no Change can be desensitizating. After all, there's no reason in madness! (Timekeeper being in a similar boat of boredom only satiated by causing problems on purpose in roundabout ways for lols)

One might say that all he does with Destruction gives him a sense of control. Finally he can play HIS way. Speeding up things so he doesn't end up getting attached. Even better if he can be destroyed in turn some day. The combo of adrenaline and spices make for quite the addiction :3 If it turns out he sent spiced out cookies to Mystic then not even his supposed friend is safe from bull

It's rather interesting with what we've seen in Mystic Flour as the first Beast release. Girlie cared too much til she had no more f to give. BS destroys everything before he could prolly care. Can't wait to see Smilk spiraling into silly[tm] from knowing too much! Time to crave tragedy!!

I know, brother. Trust me. I've made a post addressing this before, and... Well. What I work on and study irl has an awful lot to do with history as a subject lol. I really need you wll to believe me when I say I understand the cycle of history. I know it so well, it hurts. It's part of why I'm such a cynic irl. I know exactly how awful history and people are. I really, truly do.

And you have a point, yeah. It could be a play for control. For things to be the way Burning Spice wants them to be, if only once. Sort of like what I suggested in that post: just cut out the middleman and end it all yourself. Be the "solution" to the "problem", before the problem even actually happens. It's a valid theory. Certainly an interesting one.

It's still bullshit at the end, though. Same with Mystic Flour's reasons for turning bad. Same as all the others' reasons probably will be.

Idk I think I'm just... tired at this point. History is a subject that is very near and dear to my heart for many reasons, and has been my whole life. In studying history, you learn a lot about people and life and the human condition. And part of that is hearing every single excuse for doing evil deeds possible. And in hearing Mystic Flour's backstory, and even Burning Spice's (how little we actually see), all I heard were all those same excuses all over again. And I got sick of hearing them a long time ago.

I'm not sure I necessarily see what Mystic Flour did as "caring too much until she had nothing left to give". I see it, I see what you're saying and it's valid, I just... it reads more as outright naivety to me. Girlie acts like she's never heard of greedy people before. "There were people who wished for selfish things and wanted my powers for themselves" uh yeah lol. That happens. There are people like that out there. You should know better than to think otherwise. You should also know better than to just go ahead and grant every single person's wishes. It inevitably leads to greed and entitlement. But regardless, that's no fucking reason to want to wipe out all of man/cookiekind. That's fucking stupid. Some shitty people took advantage of me, therefore every single person on earth should lose their individuality and die. Fuck you, you miserable bitch (I know it's more complicated than that, I'm just distilling it because MF legitimately does irritate me as a character lol)

"I'm bored" oh man. Oh jeez. That's the worst thing that could ever happen to someone, now isn't it. You're so bored, it seems, that you can't even be bothered to explain why or how. Are you tired of building something up and caring about it, only for it to be destroyed, over and over again? Did you lose someone important to you while enforcing that cycle? Are you overwhelmed by the burden of the responsibility you were given without choice, and thus slowly driven to madness? All of the above? None? It doesn't matter because those are stupid, too. And they're rendered stupid because you use them as an excuse to hurt people that have nothing to do with anything. "I destroy things to regain a semblance of control over my life and to prevent attachment" cool motive, still murder. If you (and MF, too) are that bothered by the way things are then just fucking kill yourself. Why not? End your oh so terrible suffering instead of inflicting it on everyone else. But they won't, and neither did the other Beasts, because they are all fundamentally dumb, selfish, hypocritical cowards.

Or, how about this: ABDICATE. You don't want the power and responsibility? Give it to somebody else. You don't want to help uphold balance? Fine, that's fair. LET SOMEONE ELSE DO IT, THEN. Have the humility and integrity to admit you're not cut out for the job instead of doing this heinous shit. The Ancients worked for the power and accepted the responsibility that came with it. That's why they're better than you and always will be. They're not bummed out by immortality or the cycle of history or whatever else you want to cry about. They live their lives and do right by others and get the job done. It's obvious you can't, so just man up and step down. Or don't. Hoard the power and neglect the responsibility and be a blight on society instead of coming to terms with your own shortcomings. Because that's easier, isn't it? Being evil is the easy way out. That's why so many people are. Because they're too weak to try anything else.

That's all the Beasts were and continue to me, to me. Weak. They are right to be unhappy with whatever unfortunate circumstances befell them. They are right to resent their creators and the burden they bestowed upon them. But they are wrong to punish everyone else for it. It's selfishness. Weak moral and spiritual fiber. Congratulations, Mystic Flour, you've proven that your apathy is fake by trying so hard to get the Soul Jam back and wanting to steamroll everyone else's rights, thoughts and feelings with your own. Congratulations, Burning Spice, you're still perpetuating the cycle of history by being the exact same bloodthirsty tyrant as every single one before and after you. I've seen these clowns before, history is full of them. And they all start grating on you after a while lol.

Idk if any of this made sense. I think I'm just irritated with the Beasts (and with villains in general, maybe, to a degree) and your ask gave me an excuse to ramble semi-coherently about it lol. I nevertheless appreciate you telling me your thoughts. You have good and interesting ones. I wish you a wonderful New Year and a big basket full of delicious bonbons

[tragedia]

it's funny for me to consider harlan, antivan crow (status currently pending), in verses where he only does little supply and cooking side gigs for the inq seeing all these different spies having spy offs in the skyhold kitchens while he pretends he can't read.

[let-us-cultivate-our-garden]

I had a long argument with someone on whether or not stomping Belos before he dies was better than letting him die pathetically, and I asked myself if that is what fans really believe in... or if they would hail any Belos' death as the perfect one if Dana choose a different one?

They also justify the stomping as being part of horror-comedy genre and that Belos should not have any dignity what so ever because apparently letting him die in despair with no stomping is running the risk of making the audience feel "sorry" for him.

Honestly, these justifications make The Owl House feel more shallow. Like, why shouldn't the audience be allowed to feel sorry for Belos? What is the danger? That people would agree with Belos' views?

Or are we supposed to develop a black and white view of the world akin to a conservative view but inverted? And then hide behind the horror comedy genre to justify less drama? I hate to say it, but Nostalgia Critic is right about Belos being this strange outlier. The show seems to be afraid of actually doing a complex, tragic and yet irredeemable villain.

It doesn't make any sense to argue that Belos' death fits because of toh's genre as a horror comedy because the scene was neither played for horror nor laughs. At best, you have the image of Philip slowly being dissolved by the rain and then Raine's smug "that was satisfying" line. The overall tone of the scene is one of contempt as Philip tries one last plea to Luz only to be snuffed out (and weirdly validated) by the heroes. Its intent is to be cathartic for both audience (though as you know doubt know, YMMV) and the characters.

Frankly, despite its marketing, I don't see toh as either a horror or a comedy because it spends more time on slice of life stuff and high school teen drama and romance. And even when it does go for the horror and comedy, both are rather tepid. You want a real example of a horror-comedy for kids, then go watch Courage the Cowardly Dog or Invader Zim.

The reason why I argue the heroes validated Belos is because in the moment of his death, he clings to the idea that as humans, "we're better than this!" It's a moment of pathetic delusion that is appropriately met with silence but then it's ruined with Eda and Co. barging in with "Well, we ain't!" only to then prove his point by mercilessly stomping an already dying man to death. There's a reason why kid shows usually end with either the villain being imprisoned or not outright being murdered by the heroes. Evil has to die by its own hubris, not get killed by the heroes after the Big Battle when they're no longer a threat. I made a post about the importance of defeating a major antagonist twice.

Belos' death also doesn't work with a "Kill your oppressors" theme because the show isn't about that. The show barely spends any time showing why the EC is bad for the Boiling Isles and Eda is the only named wild witch we see getting harassed by them and even then, it's mostly played for laughs given how inept the coven scouts are (seriously, they're able to quit without fear of repercussions).

I think a reason fans are split on Belos' death is because of differing expectations; the fans who paid attention to Belos and the implication of his backstory and waited for every lie to come crashing down on him since that's what the show seemed to be building up to only to be unceremoniously ignored in the end were no doubt disappointed. Then you have the other fans who hated the character to the point that any gruesome death will do, regardless whether it made narrative or thematic sense or not.

Ultimately, I think the biggest reason his death doesn't work is because Belos fails as a villain.

Belos' status as a colonial puritan only works on a meta-level; it serves a cathartic release for marginialized people to see a representative of real world oppression beaten by queer characters as it fulfills the fantasy of finally overthrowing an oppressive system. The fatal flaw though is that none of this works on a narrative level because the coven system is either treated as a joke or simply a career path one must choose and we never see the disenfranchisement of wild witches. People largely get off scot-free opposing Belos, which undermines his credibility as both a dictator and a villain because no one cares about him until the plot needs them to. Luz doesn't even care about proving he's evil until Hollow Mind, which is halfway through season 2.

Belos as a villain only works if you project your own feelings and desires in wanting to see the Evil Christian/Evil Parent destroyed. While this is extremely satisfying emotionally, it does not make a sound story.

All the reasons why people like his death ("it's great the evil colonizer died so pathetically!" "omg, the white christian colonizer was killed by two queer people and their adopted son!" etc) are all meta reasons. And to be clear, it's totally fine if you thought his death was satisfying. But for many people, it did not work for a variety of reasons, including narrative ones. And that differing opinion should be respected instead of arguing some nonsense like "we have to make our villain as stupid/evil as possible or run the risk of people liking/sympathizing with him."

Belos should have died in a manner that connected back to his original sin: the murder of his brother. All of his lies and delusions and fear of being wrong should have played a part in the finale. He should have not died thinking he was right. He should have died realizing that all he did was for nothing. And that he is to blame. And that there is no one waiting for him back home.

[foreststranger]

DAN FENG - Tethering The Sky and Reaching For Heaven

ꜱᴛᴀʀʀɪɴɢ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

↳ 『honkai: star rail』dan feng/imbibitor lunae/yinyue jun (ugh can he stop having so many names??? it makes tagging a complete nightmare) x gn!reader

ꜱʏɴᴏᴘꜱɪꜱ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

↳ parting ways with silly dragon guy before he reincarnates and dies idk idgaf abt his backstory 👍👍👍

𑁍 ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 1.0k

ɴᴏᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ

↳ surprise!!!! yet another short fanfic abt a long haired man! anyways happy early 1.3! i wish everyone a very e6 lynx and good luck on whoever you’re pulling for. ALSO HOW TF DO YOU DO CHINESE DIMINUTIVES/HONOURIFICS IN X READER FICS??? 阿Y/N???? OR MAYBE IN PINYIN??? a’y/n or ah’y/n??? OR WOULD IT BE LIKE 阿[the first character of your name] LMFAO

“What do you mean ‘you’re leaving?’ Where are you going?” You ask, taking a step closer to him, trying in vain to figure him out.

“We won’t see each other again. I’ve… done something horrible.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“…It’s not our main concern as of now. I’m sure my punishment will come for me soon. I don’t know how much time I have left with you.”

“Okay, what’s going on? I still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’ll understand soon. I’d just like to spend one final moment with you.” Dan Feng grabs ahold of your hands, his grip almost painful as his fingers lock with yours.

“Are you… You don’t love me anymore?” A thousand thoughts rush through your head, yet none of them makes sense. “Do you want to see other people?”

“No, no, no. Of course not. That’s not what I meant. I meant that…” He pauses, concentrating. “We don’t have much time left.”

“But what does that-“

“Forget it. Would you just follow me, 心肝? Humour me. Please.” Your eyebrows furrow at the odd hypocorism. Before you can answer him, Dan Feng is leading you towards the dock. Bright yellow ginkgo leaves drift down from the sky, signalling a change in the year as they fall. There’s a scent in the early autumn air, and it reeks of… gloom; fraught with melancholy and a lingering anxiety that seems to cling to you. It whispers into your ear sweet serenades, singing a cacophony of incoming danger. The signal of change grows to a warning.

“Why are we heading towards the water?”

“Please, 亲爱的. Do not question me right now. Just… let us have a simple conversation. Would that be alright?” He sighs as the two of you exit the main area of the Alchemy Commission.

“I guess… You’re acting weird, you know that?” you sigh. “How was your day?”

“Great. And yours?” He answers a little too quickly.

“It’d be better if I knew what was happening.” Dan Feng turns his head to look back at you, a million words he wants to say are hidden behind his watery eyes.

Your shoe gets stuck in a crack in the stone walkway as you’re busy staring at him. You stop to pull it out but Dan Feng yanks on you, your shoe slipping off of your foot as he continues walking.

“Hey, wait! 枫仔! My shoe!” He doesn’t let go, his hand shaking in yours with a sense of urgency. “How am I supposed to walk without it?” You hop on a single foot, trying to keep up with his pace. In response, he picks you up into a bridal carry, cradling you like a parent would for their child.

“O-oh. Uh… okay. I guess I don’t mind…” You look up at his trembling jaw. Whatever’s going on, it must be very important to Dan Feng. If only he’d spit it out already so that you could offer your comfort. But the most you can offer right now is a small kiss. You bring your head up, pressing your lips against his cheek before resting your head back down on his forearm. The display of affection causes Dan Feng to stop in his tracks, but he quickly starts walking again.

“I...” He clears his throat, a light blush blossoming on his face. “That… means a lot to me right now. Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could offer you, 枫仔. You look so sad… Tell me what’s wrong.” He looks towards the horizon and the setting sun, a forlorn expression painting his face. The shadows of the evening light leave him looking especially somber. For a moment, he wants to tell you the whole truth. But he holds himself back to spare your feelings.

“I’m going somewhere. And… I won’t be returning. I am sorry, [name]. Truly. I do not wish to part ways but…” He looks down at you. A tear drips off of his face and onto yours. “There is nothing to be done about it. I… wouldn’t have done it if I realized the consequences sooner.”

“You’re… not joking. Would you tell me where you’re going? And when? Why are you being so vague?” You still couldn’t grasp the concept.

“亲爱的，you would hate me if I told you the whole truth. I could not leave knowing that you despised me. But… I’m sure you’ll find out soon when the news gets out.” Dan Feng looks back up towards the sky. You follow his gaze towards a few clouds that are coloured a hue of red from the sunset.

“I love you dearly. I apologize… I have forgone our future and forsaken you. Please remember me as someone you loved, and not a traitor to the Luofu.”

“Er… okay…? You’re really leaving?”

“Yes, I am afraid so…”

“…I love you too. Wherever you’re going, don’t forget that, okay? I… I really can’t believe it. I’m not gonna see you again. Ever…? Will you come visit me?”

“That is not possible, I fear. Though I wish more than anything that I could.”

The two of you reach the harbour. Dan Feng sets you down on the wooden planks and takes a seat beside you, dipping his legs into the water.

“Your pants are gonna be soaked, 笨蛋!”

“I am aware of that fact.” He pays you no mind, looking on into the horizon again. You gently hold is hand in yours.

“This… this is it? The last time I’ll see you? And we’re just… staring at nothing in complete silence?”

“You are speaking right now, [name].”

“What did you even do?” He glances at you. But as you make eye contact, he can’t seem to look away.

“…What are you doing?”

“You ask so many questions, 亲亲. I prefer it when you’re asleep. You’re much cuter in bed, too.” Dan Feng lightens up a little, a smile on his face as he teases you. “I’m just…” He shakes his head, as if to get himself out of a daze. “I’m just trying to remember your face. I need to make sure I don’t forget it…” His expression returns to how it was before, desolate and heartbroken.

“Make me a promise, 亲亲.”

“Go on.”

“We will meet in my next lifetime. And… we will live out a future that we could not have in this one.” He holds out his pinky finger and you take it.

“Sounds nice. I’ll hold you to it, Dan Feng.”

ask before translating, taking inspo from (not copy), reposting, etc. my work. remember to credit me and if you’re taking inspo from it, please @ me as I’d like to see what you do with my ideas!

[belleandkurtbastian]

Further thoughts on Love Simon and its adaptational changes from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda:

Simon’s family

The one change that jumped out to me while listening to the audiobook that I felt was absolutely necessary if adapting it to screen was cutting the character of Alice. It’s the lowest-hanging fruit, and you could absolutely do something interesting with Nora to keep some of Alice’s aspects in the character.

Which… they sort of did? I mean, ultimately, Nora in the film is a VERY different character than in the book. But this makes sense because:

They also drastically changed Simon’s parents. Or… they’re not actually that DIFFERENT, it’s just that the film cut the entire plot thread about them being overbearing and embarrassing. They’re still pretty much as overbearing and easygoing as they are in the book, but them learning from this isn’t really part of the film.

Oh, also, they did give some of Alice’s character traits to the mom, specifically the outspoken feminism stuff. It did feel a little shoe-horned in though.

That said, I actually do like the efficiency with which they addressed the ‘Jack makes jokes about gay people’ stuff. They brought forward the tension between Simon and Jack to ‘earlier’ in the story, and they did actually show him doing it a couple of times, without having it be a major throughline that would require more time from him.

So Simon’s family is different, but I think that makes sense. The throughline of the story is really about Simon, Blue, and their friends. Simon’s family is a secondary emotional and plot centre.

Leah and Abby

This is a small thing, but Abby lives on the way to school rather than far away in another direction. This is purely a cinematographic affordance, but it does make sense because they cut time from the later parts of the book’s story and so cut the need for Abby to be so far away…

But the main thing I want to talk about is [Leah/Abby]’s parents’ divorce.

In the book, it’s Leah’s parents who are divorced because her dad cheated on her mom.

In the film, they instead combined this character trait from Leah into Abby’s backstory of moving from DC. (In the book, Abby’s dad and brother are still in DC but her dad is looking for a job in Georgia still).

And… I have mixed feelings about this. I’m not thrilled about the way that this makes Leah, who was already the most opaque character to me in the book, into an even less-fleshed-out character…

But I do admit that moving that moment onto Abby (and effectively moving Simon’s ‘I don’t really know people’ revelation from the book WAY earlier in the film) gives a little more weight to Simon choosing to come out to Abby before anyone else. There’s a moment of very obvious connection there, and I think that works in a medium where we don’t have moment-to-moment narration of Simon’s headspace.

While talking about Leah… I think her having a crush on Simon makes sense, but I’m also not sure I like the adaptational change because it DOES make the falling out feel like it’s based on Leah being upset Simon rebuffed her… Which isn’t REALLY supposed to be the text there, but that is how it came across to me. Though it does at least give Leah more concrete motives and characterisation. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Leah is the book character who needed a second book to flesh out.

Teachers

This is quick, but the vice-principal is, bar none, my LEAST favourite adaptational change. He feels like he exists to serve the sole purpose of separating Simon from his phone once, but they kept him around to just be a bit creepy and weird… I think the film would ONLY be enhanced by removing this character, even if that left Ms Albright as the ONLY staff member with any significant screentime.

Speaking of Ms. Albright… “She doesn’t like men.” … Okay, first of all, I think the book did a much better job with this, because I KNEW Ms. Albright was a lesbian from the book, despite the book never outright stating it. And I even think the dressing-down she gives the homophobes later in the film does a good job of that too. It doesn’t HAVE to be explicitly stated, it can be implied and that can be fine.

Ethan and Cal

I’m lumping these together (though I will mention Cal again later) because I think there’s an interesting juxtaposition.

First of all: I’m not 100% sure how I feel about Ethan… I think the lack of out gay (male) students at the school was an important facet of the book… But I don’t think adding a single gay student actually breaks the larger point being made with that. And I will admit that it does allow some more pointed conversations later in the film between them. I actually quite like the Simon-and-Ethan scenes after the homophobe stuff.

But on the flipside from Ethan, a character who wasn’t in the book… We have Cal, a character who was BARELY in the film. And this one is more confusing to me.

I think partially they just didn’t have the bandwidth to flesh Cal out as much as he was in the book (which, admittedly, wasn’t a HUGE amount even then…) They made him the pianist for the play, which got him out of the spotlight of being stage manager, and then only really had him interact with Simon once, after the outing.

But the reason I’m putting him alongside Ethan is because… the film outright cuts Cal being bi. Which is… weird to me. There are no canonically bi or lesbian characters in the film, which feels like a let down because the book does discuss the different social ‘acceptance’ of gay men, gay women, and bisexual people within the emails (both actual acceptance as well as the ‘lesbians are hot’ trope).

Martin and the blackmail

Martin feels a lot slimier of a character in the film… I think some of that is probably just SEEING him doing the things he does, because he actually really isn’t written THAT differently at all.

But the more interesting thing to me is that in the film, Simon is MUCH more willing in helping Martin than in the book.

Not to say he doesn’t help Martin in the book at all, but the book goes to great lengths to show Simon trying to avoid committing to helping him get Abby, and also has Martin feeling like he’s not helping ENOUGH…

In the film, Simon EXPLICITLY agrees early on to help Martin, and is generally a LOT more interventionist in his friend group. He’s more forceful about pushing Nick away from Abby.

Oh, also, Martin tagging along WITH Simon and his friends to the party, instead of just showing up at the address… Does actually plug a plothole from the book that didn’t need plugging. How did Martin know where Garrett’s house was in the book? It’s explicitly stated that SIMON doesn’t know it.

The Blues

I think that having Simon imagine each of the Blue candidates in the situations they described makes a lot of sense as an adaptational change. Because the film doesn’t take place in Simon’s first-person perspective, and the long descriptions of Bram’s fingers and legs, or Cal’s hair and eyes… just would not adapt well. So I do get it.

I also don’t entirely disagree with the decision to cut Simon lusting after his classmates physically from the film. It ends up a point of contention with Blue in the book (actually one that feels like it fizzles out rather than resolving) that Simon is attracted to Cal, and the way the plot was chopped and changed in the film wouldn’t have really left bandwidth for that plot point…

Also, given the cutting back of Cal’s character, I was surprised to see that he was still a Blue candidate.

And upgrading Lyle from a character who is LITERALLY mentioned twice in the book in passing to being a Blue candidate, someone who clearly knows who Simon is, and a romantic false-lead for Abby… I think that worked. I’m actually surprised how I like that adaptation…

Also Simon and Lyle are the most awkward people in the world.

OH! And I’m glad that the film cut the part where Simon spirals over whether Blue really is Martin or not. That was excruciating in the book, and I think that adapting that into the film wouldn’t have worked.

Bram, in particular.

Bram’s characterisation is different…

He’s less reserved in person in the film, and some of the things that were part of entire email exchanges in the book (Oreos, for instance)… are just part of his character in the film.

This is an adaptational change that makes sense, because as we said above, the film is working with a more limited time to characterise Blue and we need to actually have seen Bram and Simon interact earlier in the film because we lose the post-reveal interactions between them.

(Simon and Bram get together about 80% of the way through the book. In audiobook terms, they are together as a couple for about 90 minutes, almost the entire runtime of the film. So it makes sense that Bram would need characterising earlier in the film.)

That said, I think Bram being a bit more outgoing and talkative loses something… Because with the adapting out of Cal’s personality too… this kind of removes the underlying ‘type’ that Simon has. In every Blue candidate in the book, Simon likes their reservedness that’s hiding hidden depths. Even with Martin, Simon finds his awkwardness endearing more than his outspoken aspects…

Changes to The Reveal and Fallout.

So, this is the main thing that had to be changed. There is just too much plot in the back half of the book that just couldn’t ALL stay intact or in the order it happened in.

First of all: Martin outright publishing the screenshots instead of just a bizarre homophobic text post… makes sense, but it also drastically changes the PLOT of the second half in a way that I think is ultimately worse.

Secondly: Simon’s friends falling out with him AT the same time as the reveal is… not my favourite choice. I completely agree that in adapting the book they needed to condense the ebb and flow of people falling out… But I don’t overall like the fact that Simon is outed AND loses his friends in the span of a week.

That one comes back to Nick… I think that if Abby found out about Martin’s blackmail FROM Martin as in the book, Simon could have been spared Nick a little.

But the main adaptational changes I don’t really like in this regard… are about Blue.

By having Blue delete his email address after the outing, we lose a really interesting power dynamic between Simon and Blue that is the throughline for the second half of the book.

In the book, Simon gets outed without Blue being directly involved… And over the course of the middle of the book, it becomes clearer and clearer to Blue who Jacques is. So for much of the middle of the second half, Blue KNOWS who Simon is, but still can’t tell Simon who he is, and that leads to a lot of tension both ways.

We lose that in the film.

And moreso than that, we lose the privacy of Simon and Blue’s relationship.

Book!Blue would NOT have taken well to Simon declaring his love for Blue publicly on CreekSecrets and arranging very publicly a meetup that EVERYONE would attend.

And yes, obviously, their relationship is public pretty soon after they get together in the book too, but I feel like the hope and intimacy of the moment works so much better when the ‘I know you’ email is a private thing between them, and not a public declaration. Again: Book!Blue is much more reserved.

We also lose the final 20% of the book almost entirely. We don’t get to see Bram and Simon on dates, or just existing together as a couple or fooling around in the auditorium… And this is a sacrifice that is made in the film for runtime reasons and because the way film narratives climax doesn’t lend itself to a long dénouement… But it feels like a real loss, because ultimately SEEING Simon and Bram being together is the payoff for the several hours of seeing them making their way there.

Was this the right medium?

I don’t think that a film was the right way to adapt this story, ultimately.

The book is semi-epistolary. 13 of the first 26 chapters are JUST email exchanges between Jacques and Blue, and there are more emails later in the book too. The narrative of the book has multiple conflicts and resolutions throughout, underneath the overarching plot…

I think the best adaptation of this book was not as a 2-hour film. It would have been as a 3- or 4-hour series. The emails work as a framing device, a series would have allowed more room for narration and imagination spots, we could have seen more of EACH of the Blue candidates.

Obviously, a series would still have required significant rewrites and adaptation… You couldn’t have had the final episode be JUST Simon and Bram happy together, for instance, and I think you’d still have cut out Alice from the plot…

But I think that there are ways to rearrange the book into a series format that keeps the soul of the story a lot more coherently than the film did.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence on that front that the next story in this universe on screen was a series instead of a film.

[true-blue-sonic]

Silver's profile says he can't remember how peaceful days and blue skies were restored. Like he knows the state of the world before and can't remember how it was fixed.

Now I don't know if Silver is supposed to have a new backstory where he's been fighting Eggman Nega in a peaceful future or still has his 06 backstory without the knowledge of 06 itself happening.

Because Sonic Rivals is canon and Eggman Nega is from Silver's time( and can't exist in timelines where Eggman dies) but they also keep treating Silver as coming from a devastated future.

Legit every single fucken thing about this profile is becoming more confusing the more I discuss it with people oh my GOD😅

Aight, recap, because I am truly getting confused here, haha. As far as I know, multiple profiles plus Silver's Sonic Channel page do explicitly mention that he's from a ruined future. Just some things I found here and there:

Sonic Channel (auto-translated): Silver is a hedgehog who came from the future to change the devastated world of the future. [...] Although he tends to run into things a bit, he has a positive personality and a strong sense of justice even though he grew up in a devastated future. He continues to fight to restore peace to the world.

Sonic Generations: Silver is a hedgehog who has come from the future to change a ruined planet in his timeline. Although he was raised in a world of ruin, he is an optimist and full of a sense of justice.

And spin-offs whose canonicity is more debatable:

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020: A hedgehog from a devastated future.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U: Silver the Hedgehog comes from the future— from a world that seems to have been laid to waste.

None of these mention '06 explicitly, so this could also be a Generic Ruined Future For Character Consistency. However, in Rivals 1 which is Silver's 'official first meeting' with Sonic and co (so to say), Onyx Island is not destroyed and Eggman Nega is heavily implied to have stolen the camera from someone else... neither of which are things I would ascribe to a ruined future. And Silver's dialogue in Rivals 2 both hints at the Ifrit not having destroyed the world yet or having done so already, from what I could make of it. The situation with the Ifrit generally is kinda confusing, lol. Meanwhile, the Fast Friends Forever profile says "Silver’s time period was once ravaged and ruined, but together with Sonic, Blaze, and others he helped restore its blue skies and peaceful days – even if he can’t remember how." This clearly mentions '06, because Blaze is there. And it would furthermore imply that his Rivals 1!future is a good one. Which is definitely possible! However... it does contradict all the above bios, that state Silver is from a ruined future instead. And secondly, the can't remember how is very oddly-worded. That would indeed imply he remembers '06's bad future... which he can't, because he did not recognise Blaze except for a vague feeling neither could place in Colours DS! If they'd just said that he can't remember it at all, it would perhaps have been more clear...

So I believe the overall problem is that it is uncertain whether Silver comes from a good future or a ruined one based on conflicting information in multiple bios, where quite a few might or might not be leaning into his (erased) '06 backstory. Meanwhile, FFF explicitly states that he lives in a good future, and furthermore heavily hints that he can recall the fact that the future was not good in '06. So... yeah, that's the best I can make of it. And I truly have no good answer what is considered the 'right' backstory for him now. I would say Sonic Channel weighs heaviest because Sonic is originally a Japanese franchise... except for the fact that SC is quite explicitly talking about '06!Silver because his one dislike is noted to be Iblis. Personally, I like the idea that in canon, Silver comes from a good future since that is what Rivals 1 seems to hint at most, furthermore supported by his statements in Colours DS. But I would very much appreciate it if we could actually see this in a game or have him say so in a game (and then not a spin-off like Colours DS, haha), since I feel like that holds more weight than conflicting bios written by entirely different people who might not have a full grasp on everything either (like me rn😅). And as for his backstory that you mention, perhaps it is both? The Silver from '06 got yote into a new timeline with vague memories of a ruined world that suddenly became good without recalling the allies he met, all the while Eggman Nega is his archnemesis in that new world? It is not entirely incompatible... just confusing, basically. I can't make too much sense out of it either, I'm afraid!

ETA because I put it in the tags but I think it is actually quite important for the post: I honesty would not be surprised if the four bios above just follow his '06 story because that is more well-known than Rivals, and in '06 he is from a clearly-ruined future. That would be a good explanation for me why they mention his ruined future so much (even if Generations afaik has some mentions to Rivals and Rivals 2 so it does acknowledge its existence but you know): Silver's '06 backstory is simply far more well-known than Rivals is, and furthermore, neither Rivals game explicitly states whether or not the future is good or ruined (with Silver at the end of Rivals 2 even saying "I hope the new future is a happy one.). So... yeah? Maybe? I don't know. There's just too many contradictions in both the games and the bios😅

[wolfsonic]

Hey Everyone!! Sorry I’ve been slacking on drawing monkey’s, but brain got AU in head and it won’t go away. I don’t know the name of the AU yet or the name for who I’m about to show yet. Maybe you guys can help me!

Now without further ado, let me introduce to you Possessed Chao-Xing, but not Chao-axing

In this AU, when Wukong finished his journey, he was summoned to the underworld. Macaque's soul had gone missing, which didn't make sense to the monkey because his mate had been fine when he left after their fight. Angry and pissed, but still alive.

WuKong went on a wild goose chase to find his soul, taking over a month to finally get ahold of it. Whatever did, this didn't make it easy. While he was away, Chao-Xing's egg appeared at WuKong's original hatching place. It was then her egg was taken.

Unbeknownst to WuKong, his Marshals, His Generals, and his Subjects. None knew of the little princess waiting for her fathers and none knew that she was even taken in the first place.

Not-Mayor, on the request of his Lady, stole the princess, and soon she was deemed a worthy vessel. With her egg nearby, LBD made the slow transfer of her mind and soul into the little stone egg. A process that took years.

When finally the transfer was complete, a new being hatched from the egg. Not who was supposed to be Chao-Xing or LBD as she intended. Yes, the two souls shared a body, but a third was in control (the lovely monkey up top there). Chao-Xing was still stuck in her egg, so she couldn't do much. LBD, though, had full control to whisper in the third souls mind.

Not-Mayor was not happy that he was stuck with a child who could talk back to him when it should have been his lady there. Reluctantly, he raised and trained her. Though after a while, there were times she'd go mad with hunger. He didn't know even celestial primates needed actual food or water, so to sate her hungry. He fed her the essence of magical objects.

With the whispers of LBD and her hungry always in the back of her mind, she grew a little crazy. Not kill another person crazy, but enough where demons or anyone would keep a wide berth around her territory.

And if you're wondering WuKong did not kill Macaque, Not-Mayor did so he could get Monkey King off the mountain for when the Egg arrived.

Macaque and WuKong are still mates after the journey, though Macaque does spend a lot of time off the mountain. One WuKong insisted on since the Shadow Monkey had to wait many years for the King to return.

And that's a bit of her backstory! I do plan to make more of this AU, but yea. Again, if you have any suggestions for a name for her and the AU, let me know!!

[psychewritesbs]

Sorry if this has been asked before. Been reading Hana and Angel threads and while the hate is disheartening, I can't help but agree the execution of Hana is really disappointing. That said, Megumi has had so many interactions in the Culling Games but somehow none of them really stuck. At the very least with Yuji, his relationships are well crafted and given more emotional weight but with Megumi? Why is it that the author seem to deny giving him a good and well established connection outside of his friendship with Yuji? Is he purposely being limited to just the MC's friend? I would have thought that as deuteragonist he'd at least be explored more outside of the constraints of his ties with Yuji.

The Hana situation in particular. Thank goodness that she's still alive, but the real question is, will her supposed 'connection' with Megumi play a role in his character development? Or is she just relegated to be a future plot device?

Like, I just don't get some of Gege's decisions. Why bring up the whole 'getting saved by Megumi as a kid' when he could have just went with she's a vessel for Angel and that's it? Why make a connection if he wouldn't bother expanding it (in case all that is in store for Hana is simply to be used as plot device later)? Idk, it feels demeaning to Megumi's character. Like the half-assed relationships around him is a mirror to his character or something.

I salute your passionate love for Megumi, anon 🫡.

But, to your point. I get it about the execution. I just don't think too much about it. I'm over here vibing with Gege, anon 🌊, I acknowledge but ultimately don't focus on the flaws in jjk. I like it enough to be selective about where I focus my critical thinking regarding jjk.

But I do think Gege is very guilty of steamrolling through things and characters and that's why a lot of people can't stomach jjk.

I also must admit I have zero objectivity about Megumi so I see the situation differently than you. I kind of wonder if rather than limiting his character as a friend to the MC, Gege is just writing Megumi as a quiet young man who has few friends with whom he connects deeply with. You know... like the total introvert that he is.

To me, Megumi having few relationships also speaks volumes about how Megumi holds Yuji and Tsumiki in very high regard. It could be hc, but there's something very "attachment" issues about Megumi.

I taco'more about it under the cut.

Regarding your question about Hana as a plot device...

As much as I hate to say it, I think given the treatment Tsumiki got, Hana turning into a plot device is very likely, most especially because her symbolism represents light in the sense that she brings illumination and reason (Angel).

Basically we're reading Megumi Kaisen and Gege just wants to give Megumi development no matter who gets dragged into his drama.

Ok but in all seriousness. While I maintain that having a crush on Megumi does not cheapen her character (even though I acknowledge I'm not a fan of the "girl pines for unavailable boy" trope), I can see why others don't like her back story.

The only thing I can think of is that either we don't have all of the information we need about them yet, or Gege is sort of using the backstory to show something regarding "fate/destiny" but was admittedly sloppy about it.

The thing with "fate" as a trope is that it's hard to execute. If you've read Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle/xxxHolic you've seen it. How do you make it look like fate is happening without it feeling like plot armor?

Look at it this way: what are the odds that Hana would run into Megumi ever again? Under these particular circumstances no less. She's literally host to what sounds like a major sorcerer from the past who has the power to exorcise Sukuna.

It's "fate" plot armor in action if you consider there are millions of people in Tokyo and that the Culling Game wouldn't even be happening if it weren't because Toji didn't kill Geto.

The fact that she calls him "destined" one is a bit too much, yes. And you know what? Between you and I, one of the reasons I've hated how people hate on Hana is because I can relate to her infantile and undeveloped perception of love, which is why I like the hc of a Hana that learns to see the real Megumi--the natural progression of that perception.

But back to the fate conversation, you also want to keep in mind that Megumi is literally a "blessed" child and the son of an unlucky af man who happened to break destiny. He is also the one descendant of the clan that inherited Ten Shadows.

So you have tons of "fate/destiny" type elements around Megumi's character and Hana is one of them.

Regarding his relational dynamics feeling unfulfilling to you. I mean, yeah I gotcha. If you care to come over to the dark side, the way I see it, again, he's very selective of the people he gives his heart to.

You give meaning to things according to how you see the world, so even if Gege is not going deep with the writing, come on, come to the dark side. I must admit I personally don't see how the relational dynamics being half assed says anything negative about Megumi's character. I do love the idea that these dynamics he has with others say something about him though...

Like his dynamic with Sukuna speaks to his own untapped creative potential.

Or how his dynamic with Gojo was part of what made him doubt himself since he already assumed he could never surpass him.

Or how his dynamic with Inumaki shows he's very intuitive.

Or how Hana is a mirror of Megumi's naïveté when it comes to putting certain people on a pedestal because he cares for them intensely. Idk anon, I kinda like this hc about Megumi because Hana metaphorically represents the light/mirror he needs to become aware of this pattern in himself.

In conclusion, I just want to say that I do think this would be one of those situations where, for the sake of enjoying jjk, one just files one's grievances under "don't think about it too much and focus on jjk's strengths and what you do love about it."

Hope these mindset reframes help if you care to consider them, and thanks for stopping by.

[asachuu]

(5/10)

Part 3.3: Fifteen’s response

Content warning: brief mentions of abuse, major Fifteen light novel spoilers.

[List of all parts]

[Part 3, 3.1, 3.2]

All of the former was what we got to learn in the first novel regarding Arthur and Paul’s relation to each other. Personally, when I first read it, I did not even begin to think about much in their backstories that could possibly even begin to “explain” it, or rather, “redeem” it. If the book did not feature the very last part, perhaps I would also be one of the people wondering what truly happened, whether it was a case of simple betrayal or a far more tragic story on both sides— maybe it was some kind of mistake or misunderstanding, maybe they were forced to split apart— there could have truly been anything behind it that might have potentially warranted thinking of the two in a more friendly/romantic sense pre-canon, had it been simply left off that way without knowing any of Paul’s thoughts at the end. The last part, however, does in fact exist within the novel, and thus I did not feel any need to try and “justify” their respective words and actions for the purpose of imagining the two in a healthy relationship. As there was no further context that Stormbringer would eventually provide us with at the time, I did not even think any backstories were necessary upon seeing how these two respectively really thought of each other and how clearly one-sided any care for the other was. That, however, was merely my own take on the shipping aspect of this pair.

Now, to some of you, it may seem straightforward already. If one character cares deeply about another and supposedly feels guilty for acts of mere self-defense towards them, as is heavily implied through Arthur’s words and even his whole character, yet none of it is reciprocated to an extent of the other explicitly being glad the former is dead, how and why, pray tell, do people wish to view the two in a romantic setting? Well, there is already a lot I could say on this and there are some slight caveats I have to point out, too. As I already touched upon certain points earlier, I will now expand on them with reference to the story itself so far.

At first, I didn’t even think people saw it that way myself. Granted, during this time, there weren’t many people who knew much of Arthur and his story in the first place, but a handful were still present, and that handful certainly made itself known. From the heavily limited amount of fan-created content, I assumed people simply did “canon studies” of Arthur and Paul’s supposed relationship/partnership in terms of art, fanfiction or anything else of such nature, as those were all things I have already seen be done before. I take absolutely no issue with them either, I would say I’ve engaged in them myself too and there is nothing inherently harmful about them. However, as I looked further, I found certain people going far, far beyond anything even remotely resembling such content and simply going straight into actively shipping the two.

You may be surprised when I say this, given how I’ve taken to this ship so far, but truthfully, I also took little to no issue with people theorizing on the pair in their past or making content about that time, no matter what it actually was. Despite my proclamation of no longer requiring a backstory for them to decide against romanticizing them in any way, I do see how people would have many questions left unanswered, and speculation over it does not necessarily fall into that category at all. There's nothing truly wrong with doing so— for all we knew at the time, the two could have had absolutely any relationship that simply did not end well, and while I could still say it’s a little bit strange to jump right into envisioning a romance between them after reading what has been stated canonically so far, it wouldn’t make too much sense. That option could have been plausible as any other and to an extent, I can see why people seemed to accept it even without the added aspect of the real-life people it was based off of, more so with Arthur’s heartfelt words and actions. No matter what I could have said back then, it didn’t change the fact that it could fit into the story without breaking the current events at all, even adding a certain type of “explanation” for them. Not only that, it could have also made the story a lot sadder, depending on who you are and what’s your personal stance on such an arc. For me, it would have been equally tragic either way, but for some others, perhaps a romance ending in such sorrow would have pulled at their heartstrings far more, and if that theory made the reading experience more interesting or enticing, I would not be one to try and take it away for no reason, or a reason that didn’t have anything I could confidently stand on.

None of what I described here is something I would actually put into the category of “shipping”, though. While I may have my own personal distaste towards certain Rimlaine content myself, I don’t think this particular approach does any harm at all, but it wasn’t what a small, gradually increasing amount of people involved in this part of the fandom seemed to do.

Despite us not even having an actual design for Paul until a long time after Fifteen’s release, people still chose to try their hand at envisioning it, mainly those trying to draw or write about him and Arthur in situations together. Now, again, as I stated, I didn’t mind any canon studies at their core, the only thing I did was avoid them here and there as a lot of them were not the content I wished to see, but I began to notice others seemingly thinking of the two as a couple even post-canon, some entirely disregarding or joking about the written story while doing so. I assumed that perhaps they were interpreting the characters in some alternate universes where none of the canonical events happened, but that was almost exclusively not the case in anything I ever came across, save for a few pieces of media here and there which explicitly stated so.

While I also have a few concerns regarding the concept of “alternate universes” when talking about Rimlaine specifically, that was mainly brought upon me by the events of Stormbringer, and thus I will talk about it later on in a more fitting section. At the time of Fifteen, however, I didn’t see too many issues with that if it was used for another form of speculation.

Even so, back then, I found it all fairly strange, especially after what I read in both parts of the story I mentioned. I thought I must have missed something absolutely crucial if I still stuck to my initial thought, which was one of believing those two should not be endorsed as some form of “sweet relationship” for all the reasons I stated above. While there weren’t as many glaring problems with it as the ones that would only be made apparent after Stormbringer’s release, rather making way for a myriad of theories instead, it still did not sit right with me to believe a character, who was grateful for their partner’s death, would somehow make way for any kind of acceptable romance with them, even by fictional standards. I also began to have my own guesses about their past, just as many others, but they were all much different to the ones I saw being said publicly— based on the small shreds of content we received, I doubted their past was a happy or even healthy one, if we are to speak in terms of their supposed relationship due to its canonical ambiguity, and while this was nothing more than a personal headcanon left just as unconfirmed as all the other ones, I also came to realize it wasn’t just my own. Usually, such a thing would make me glad someone actually agreed with me, yet in this case, I almost felt some kind of disdain— I wish I was exaggerating or simply making a baseless argument here, but I have seen certain people in the BSD/Rimlaine community agree with this whilst simultaneously still engaging in actively shipping or seeing absolutely nothing wrong with the pair. I have even come across some folks who had a theory of Arthur potentially being abused in the past, yet who also made a lot of content for the pair in a much, much lighter context, and I believe this was the first time I began to have actual concerns about the nature of everything surrounding this pairing.

Now, due to the increasing seriousness/sensitiveness of what I am beginning to speak of, which will only strengthen over the course of this essay, I feel the need to bring up the introduction’s disclaimer once more. Please note that I am absolutely not labeling every single person this way and I’m fully aware from personal experience that there are many people who belong in the community that are truly sweet and well-meaning. All of this is directed only at anyone who happens to actively engage in behavior that borders on, if not outright is, very worrying.

That aside, even amongst the people who did not share those particular personal theories and had a far lighter view, I didn’t really seem to understand why anyone would actively wish to see the two together “once more”, especially after all that was said and done. I could get behind “what-if” situations and content made of such, but definitely not the wish to actually ship the two post-canon or see them together in any way. It was only later that I found a potential other reason, despite it also being quite off-putting to me upon closer viewing— the characters’ real life counterparts. I have briefly touched upon this before in the second part, but I’ll go a bit more in-depth here as it requires some more elaborating.

With this, I also close the Fifteen section, as this was all a recollection of events following the novel’s release.

[Part 4]

[scorndotexe]

i haven't seen any of the others (pickman's model is on my list after i read the story, and i think i'll watch the rest of them at some point) so i can really only speak for witch house. and cabinet witch house is awful.

as a witch house adaptation, it's unbearably bad. as its own thing, it's bafflingly bad. i don't even know where to start.

there were much bigger problems but elwood (or um, frank. fucking frank) was done so dirty oh my god. elwood has a very specific role in the original story and i think it would translate very well to film. walter needs someone to talk to for the sake of the audience, and elwood is his friend. notably, no film adaptation has kept elwood as elwood in terms of his original role. in stuart gordon witch house, elwood turned into frankie, the attractive neighbor with the plot relevant kid. in cabinet, i'm convinced walter and frank didn't even like each other very much. we're supposed to think they're best friends but there's none of that there. frank just wants to have a normal job and maybe help walter a little. the elwood i know would never have to be CALLED to come over. (and then he did nothing. and then he was like "the world will never know what we went through last night." girl calm down, did you have to miss work?)

so i actually took notes the second time i watched cabinet witch house. the episode is titled "dreams in the witch house," because ostensibly, this is an adaptation of the short story. it took walter nearly half the episode to move into the house. there were 2 dreams (out of 4 in total) actually in the witch house, and one of them was drug-induced. so. dream in the witch house i guess. drug-induced adventures into the spooky forest.

dear god i hate the forest. i hate the forest so much. there are so many things to say about it but a) why make it the afterlife. why the fuck is it the afterlife limbo. how does it work. can they just never leave if they weren't ready to die? epperley says "it was my time i realize that now" (i'll get to epperley. i'll fucking get to epperley.) so could she just never leave? i'll also get to keziah as the apparent keeper of the forest, but the forest is genuinely so confusing. kind of futile to compare them at this point with how many changes there are, but the writer and director seem to believe that it is an actual adaptation of witch house, if one that deviates a lot, so i'll continue to compare. the original story was very much about math and other dimensions. there was no math, there was one dimension (with mentions of others? were they just more afterlife dimensions??), and there wasn't even any explanation of the properties of the forest.

you know, there was this article i read where the director was like "we enriched the female characters" and while i'm sure they thought adding more women without developing them in the slightest was a feminist win, epperley's one personality trait was being dead. i guess she had some sort of character development but again, at the very beginning she was like "it was my time, i realize that now" and she was still in the forest?? even though she was fine with being dead. so she had to be brought back to life through magical twin powers and then die. or you know, fade out. so no one else could leave? everyone is stuck there if they're not ready to die and if they don't have a super special twin to get them out?

keziah's the worst part. sure her design is cool but it's only good in isolation. she's shown as human in that book walter reads. (that stupid fucking book with SIX spelling/grammatical errors. i counted. and also zero logic. it's the only backstory we get on keziah and it genuinely makes no sense but we'll get to that.) she died--actually no sorry she was convicted of witchcraft, brought to salem to be tortured, THEN BROUGHT BACK TO HER HOUSE TO BE HANGED. but she was actually hanged in this? she didn't escape? dear god. ok so. she died, went to the forest not because she figured out how to travel to different dimensions but because she actually died (presumably??? i mean. that would make more sense but nothing in cabinet witch house makes any sense), she somehow became a tree. and she wants to escape. and it's implied that she's some kind of keeper of the forest. how the fuck did she become the keeper of the forest if she's just dead. why is she special. WHY IS SHE A TREE. WHY THE FUCK IS SHE A TREE.

HOW THE FUCK DID SHE GET INTO THE BOSTON ACADEMY HOW THE FUCK DID SHE DO ANY OF THAT. MATHEMATICIAN BUT ALSO A HERBAL HEALER. SHE CLAIMED THE ABILITY TO TRAVEL TO DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS DID THAT CARRY OVER WHEN SHE DIED. BECAUSE SHE WAS MORTAL SO HOW THE FUCK DID--

brown jenkin was literally useless. he was just there for the shitty intro that i hate so much and that awful ending that made no sense in the greater story. i hate this stupid movie.

they didn't even make the characters any good. i know i talked about epperley's one personality trait being "dead" but walter's only personality trait was having a dead twin sister. frank just fucking sucked. painter woman didn't even have a name. the nun...god the plot was horrendous. how was the plot so bad.

people are like "oh they gave walter more motivation than just 'smart guy who wants to prove a theory'!" but the thing is walter HAS a personality. or at least you could give him a personality without creating a whole new dead twin sister plot. original walter gilman is very much autistic. original walter gilman has interests and passions. original walter gilman is actually close to elwood.

i think the worst scene was the one where walter goes into the forest and brings epperley back. every part of that scene is so, so, so bafflingly stupid. ok so. he goes through the forest portal. we see keziah in the house. then epperley's like "something followed you in here." and keziah fucking. pulls her tree woman roots from the ground? as if she had been there a long time. if you think about it AT ALL it's so stupid and makes zero sense. AND THE KISS. THE KISS??? HELLO. HELLO. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT SCENE.

there was no math. there was no nyarlathotep. there was no violet light. those are the least of my complaints at this point because of just how bad everything else was but i still want to point them out. (also the house was built on a ley line??? girl at least be consistent with your stupid lore.)

the house was literally just there so walter could say "the key...it's twins" (which is. really dumb. also the way it was carved into the wall like that was also really dumb. person+person=key. twins. in case the geometry in the original dreams in the witch house was too much for you.) there were no angles.

the characters that were there were unrecognizable and badly developed and the new characters were even more one dimensional. painter woman makes me almost irrationally angry. talk about plot convenient prophecies i guess.

even the parts i liked were done so badly in the context of witch house. the design of the house was cool but it was Not witch house. i liked the wound on the ceiling but it was just so. whatever. the movie looked pretty i guess. wish the budget didn't go to something quite so bafflingly bad. wish i could say something nice about it that wasn't "looks pretty." yeah it's fucking abysmal. it's genuinely one of the worst things i've ever seen. between the stupid fucking plot and the terrible one dimensional characters and the packaging of "enriched dreams in the witch house" AND THE INCREDIBLY HIGH BUDGET THAT THEY DID NOT DESERVE (for that episode at least), it's genuinely awful.

the second time i watched cabinet witch house i decided to count some notable things so here you go if you're interested.

notably there were 33 "huh?????"s and 33 "that's really fucking stupid"s.

wish it was better. wish it didn't make me so fucking angry. at this point i almost wish it didn't exist.

Don't you think that the Cabinet's version of The Witch House was... abysmal? They didn't know what to do with their Lovecraft in either of the stories, in my opinion. Don't even get me started on Pickman's Model. Loved their other stories though!

Or what's your take on it? Did you like some parts?

cabinet witch house is one of the worst things i've ever seen in my life.

[aspoonofsugar]

Ironwood and Cinder: The Final Word

Cinder: And that’s… checkmate.

The Final Word of the volume is Cinder’s and it is meaningful she says it to Ironwood.

As a matter of fact Ironwood and Cinder are two sides of the same coin on many levels. This is conveyed also structurally.

Volume 7 is mostly about Ironwood’s tragic spiral. We are shown him struggle with his flaw throughout the whole volume, but in the end he loses to it and becomes just as dangerous as Salem:

Oscar: Then you're as dangerous as she is, James.

Not only does volume 8 close with Cinder instead, but it also opens with her:

And it even gives us her backstory:

Why does it happen? And why is Cinder’s final line so important when it comes to her foiling with Ironwood?

GRAVITY

It is not by chance that Watts calls both Ironwood and Cinder out before the climax of respectively volume 7 (Ironwood) and volume 8 (Cinder). This is because, as stated above, volume 7 is Ironwood’s volume, while volume 8 is Cinder’s. So they both are confronted with a truth about themselves and their reaction to it influences their stories in the Atlas arc.

In a sense, even if Watts is the one dangerously hanging over an abyss... it is actually Ironwood and Cinder who are on the brink. They are deciding Watts’s survival, but they are also deciding their own destiny.

They are choosing if to fall because of gravity or if to fly in the sky victorious.

At the same time, the two scenes with Watts show how Cinder and Ironwood are both similar and opposites.

AS ABOVE, SO BELOW

Ironwood and Cinder are nothing, but two products of Atlas’s society.

Ironwood was born at the very top:

Watts: You just stood atop it and called yourself a giant!

Cinder existed at the very bottom:

Watts: You think you're entitled to everything just because you've suffered, but suffering isn't enough! You can't just be strong, you have to be smart! You can't just be deserving, you have to be worthy! But all you have ever been, is a BLOODY MIGRAINE!

Watts is in the middle and he represents the worst traits of both.

He wants everything, just like Cinder:

Ironwood: I gave you everything you could have wanted!

But differently from Cinder it was no true he had nothing. He was successful, had food, clothes and respect. Still, he was never satisfied and ended up disgracing himself in the search of something more.

He also disregards feelings in favor of rationality, just like Ironwood:

Watts: Our tin soldier’s heart has cost him his mind.

And he sees people under him as inherently inferior:

Watts: Yes, yes, please keep your posse in check.

This is why his death is fitting:

Cinder: I merely added more flames to the fires of Atlas.

He burns with Atlas aka the city he wants to destroy, but also a symbol of who he is deep down.

What is more, his death happens specifically because he blindly follows his wishes:

Watts: Oh, believe me, this is everything I've ever wanted.

And because he is outsmarted and manipulated by Cinder:

Cinder: You deserve this, Arthur. We'll be back.

He is proud of his genius and rationality, but in the end he dies because of his feelings of pettiness.

In short, Watts, Cinder and Ironwood represent three social classes of Atlas and how the system corrupts people at every level. In general, all three want to be at the very top, but disreguard and mistreat the ones below.

-This is why Ironwood seeks control even in situations where he is not in charge, like the Vytal Festival. He also challenges Ozpin’s authority and leadership because he is not used not to be the one deciding. At the same time, he is shown ready to discard Mantle in multiple occasions.

-This is why Watts can call out Ironwood’s arrogance without seeing he is exactly the same as him.

-Finally, this is why Cinder lashes out at people she sees as Atlas elites (the Schnees, Ironwood, Watts), but treats those below her just like she was treated:

Emerald: We don't need him! Everything was going fine! (a slap is heard, and she cries out in pain)

Cinder: Do not mistake your place.

Mercury: Oh yeah? Tell that to--

Cinder: Quiet.

THE ENEMIES OF TRUST

Both Ironwood and Cinder’s left arms are artificial. Ironwood’s is mechanical, while Cinder’s is Grimm.

Their respective arms convey opposite approaches to things.

On a more general level, they are respectively linked to Creation (Ironwood’s mechanical arm) and to Destruction (Cinder’s Grimm arm). As a matter of fact a robotic arm is a human creation, while Grimms are nothing, but the symbol of destruction.

On a personal level, their arms hint at the two characters’ opposite personalities.

Ironwood’s arm can’t feel pain.

Cinder’s is instead linked to pain and feelings in different ways:

Raven: Aura can't protect your arm, it's Grimm.

Salem: You chose to disobey my specific instructions just to fail again.

Cinder: She’s back…

Cinder feels great pain whenever her Shadow Hand is cut because she can’t protect it with aura. At the same time, it is used by Salem to torture her. Finally, it links her to Salem to the point that she knows when her Master is back.

In other words, Cinder’s arm lets her feel more, while Ironwood’s lets him feel less.

This difference is mirrored by both the ways Ironwood and Cinder respectively attack Watts and by their semblances:

Ironwood’s Mettle lets Ironwood suppress his own feelings, so that he can pursue any objective, no matter how cruel or immoral it is. It makes him “superhuman”, but in a very negative sense.

Cinder’s Scorching Caress represents Cinder’s explosive emotions. It is a form of self-expression, which is both destructive and self-destructive.

Ironwood’s semblance is about repression, while Cinder’s is about lashing out.

Similarly, Ironwood goes after Watts at the cost of his arm and he ignores the pain he feels:

Watts: I wouldn't do that if I were you. I mean, unless you're hoping to add more metal to that body of yours.

Cinder instead goes after Watts to vent her anger:

Cinder: What do you mean, she'll destroy herself? How am I supposed to take her power if she's dead?!

Both are extremes and both are wrong, as Winter explains:

Winter: But yes Penny, we must still acknowledge our personal feelings, wrestle with them. It ensures us that we’re on the right path. It’s what makes us human.

Ironwood and Cinder should aknowledge their own feelings not to be consumed by them.  It is also the only way for them to truly be humans, not machines or monsters, but simply people.

Both characters almost succeed just before the climax of their respective volumes.

Ironwood tries to open up to others:

And Cinder shows vulnerability:

However, none of them is able to capitalize on this chance for development. This is ironically because of each other:

Cinder messes with Ironwood’s insecurities, while Ironwood’s ultimatum gives Cinder the perfect chance to ignore hers.

The result is that Ironwood goes back to control, while Cinder goes back to manipulation. Both do so because they are unable to trust.

Interestingly, they take after their respective mentors in this.

Ironwood takes after Ozpin:

Ironwood: Did you really think you were the only one who got to work on a new plan after Beacon? WIth Ozpin gone, I needed my own team of people I could trust.

Oscar: General? Earlier, you asked for my advice.

Ironwood: I wanted Ozpin's advice.

Oscar: And his advice probably would've been to keep your secrets.

Cinder takes after Salem:

Salem: When I chose you as my vessel for the Maidens, I put my trust in you. So, I trust that you wouldn’t possibly return to me empty-handed.

Ironwood’s whole struggle in volume 7 is his search for a “new approach”. He wants to be like Ozpin, but better. This is why he founds his own group, but wants to trust the world with the truth about Salem. However, he confuses trust with control.

Cinder instead wants to become just like Salem and suffers when she sees she is not. This is why she collects assets, just like her master. This is also why she does not trust anyone, but manipulates others.

That said, what is the difference between Ironwood’s control and Cinder’s manipulation? It has once again to do with feelings.

Ironwood’s attempt to manipulate others is about suppressing feelings. He uses Atlas’s military hierarchy and social structures to ask for his subordinates’ blind loyalty.

Cinder’s method to control people lies instead in making use of others’ feelings. She uses both wishes and fears to her advantage.

In short, control and manipulation are nothing, but the same inability to trust declined in opposite ways. They are both “enemies of trust”.

This is why both Ironwood and Cinder find a strong enemy and a foil in the character, who embodies friendship in these volumes:

Deep down, Ironwood and Cinder not trusting others is because they fear betrayal:

Cinder: I won’t have to run now.

Rhodes: That’s all you’ll ever do.

Ironwood: I've chased a lot of shadows over the years, always expecting betrayal. But never once did I think it would ever come from you.

However, Penny too is betrayed and mistreated by others:

Penny: I do not like it when friends fight.

Ruby: I know. Yang and I may not agree on how best to save Mantle but-

Penny: No. I mean Winter. The general. They were our friends. But then the Ace Ops attacked you. And the general, he said people were going to die, because of me.

 However, she does not give up on the ideal of a genuine bond:

Attached but not By strings

Still, if Penny is a positive foil to both Ironwood and Cinder, why does she die?

RISK

Weiss: Trust is a risk.  

Yang: Ruby, they’re not called sure things, they’re called risks.

These two lines taken together are why at the end of volume 8 Penny dies, our heroes fall and the manipulative Cinder wins.

It happens to show the main theme of the two Atlas volumes. Trust is not a “sure thing”. It is a risk and it does not always work. Still, it is necessary to trust as it is necessary to take risks:

Yang: You were being optimistic. Look, blind optimism isn’t great, but no optimism means we already lost. We need hope. We need to take risks.

Giving up on trust and risks means giving up on hope. It means to give in to fear.

Still, this does not mean your trust will always be paid back. And it does not mean that the risks you take will always work, even if you come up with a wonderful plan:

Cinder: I knew your plan would be bold, but I never could have predicted all of this...

Sometimes people will betray you:

Sometimes your risk will end up in a fall:

However, it is still worth to trust, even when you have no guarantee it will work:

And sometimes It is even worth to risk the fall because it may lead to people being saved:

This same idea is conveyed also through Penny’s final choice:

Penny: Trust me.

Winter: Thank you for trusting me with this.

Penny dies tragically, but she still manages to pass the Maiden’s power to a person she trusts.

This is especially meaningful because the Winter Maiden power, just like Penny herself, has been subjected to both control and manipulation.

Ironwood does all he can to make sure the power ends up to Winter. At the same time, he is the one most responsible for Penny feeling as nothing, but a robot:

Ironwood: As the official report stated, that footage was doctored. Penny is completely under my control.

Cinder tries to steal the power three times. She also manipulates Penny’s feelings towards her friends:

Cinder: I was hoping your friends would be here. But it looks like they left you to do all the work. You’re just a tool to be used!

In the end, Ironwood treating Penny as a machine (control) and Cinder using Penny’s love for her friends against her (manipulation) are among the psychological factors that lead Penny to be mortally wounded by Cinder.

Still, while dying Penny negates both Ironwood and Cinder and frees the power and herself from both control and manipulation.

The fact she chooses Winter works well to illustrate this.

Winter is the person Ironwood wants as the next Maiden. However, Winter becomes a Maiden not because of Ironwood’s control, but because of Penny’s trust:

Ironwood: So… the destiny I chose for you has arrived.

Winter: You chose nothing. This...was a gift.

Winter is a Schnee, so she represents both what Cinder hates and what she herself wants to be:

Cinder to Winter: You Atlas elites are all the same! You think hoarding power means you’ll have it forever, but it just makes the rest of us hungrier.

Winter is a symbol of Atlas and so she is a reminder to Cinder that Atlas is not really destroyed:

Robyn: What do you think a kingdom is? The people, or just the chunk of land they live on?

Just like Cinder’s past isn’t.

WORTHY

Cinder wants to be worthy. Ironwood wants to be a hero.

Deep down, Ironwood and Cinder want the same thing. They want to be above others. They want to be more than humans.

However, they go at it in opposite ways:

Ironwood: I have sacrificed everything!

Cinder: I want it all...

Ironwood thinks that victory lies in sacrificing everything, while Cinder sees it as taking it all.

These opposite viewpoints mirror their respective social stances.

Ironwood can say he wants to sacrifice everything because he has everything.

Cinder thinks happiness lies in everything because she has nothing:

Cinder: You’re right. Without you I am nothing. But because of you, I am everything.

In the end, Ironwood and Cinder are each other’s true enemies, but they fail to see it and lash out against the wrong people:

Ironwood and Cinder’s respective fight against Winter and Weiss is exactly this.

Ironwood fights a Maiden he sees as an enemy of Atlas, while another Maiden is attacking the people he swore to protect.

Cinder lashes out at Weiss because of her origins, while Weiss has decided to leave her status and money behind to make the right thing.

Still, Ironwood and Cinder are too hypocritical to see the truth. This is why they attack people, who could have helped them, if they were given the chance.

This is also why they receive a warning:

Winter: No, you have sacrificed everyone else!

Winter: You… are going to pay… for everything you’ve done!

Ironwood claims he is ready to sacrifice everything. However, he never sacrifices himself:

In the end, he is unable to sacrifice his life to fight Salem.

Let’s highlight he has nothing to lose by this point. He is falling with Atlas anyway. In his final moments, he is given the chance to prove true to his words:

I would die Without regret, I’d offer up my life With zero reservations I would fly Into the sun If that would keep our dream alive

Instead, he gives up. He has been shooting his allies until the very end, but freezes in front of his enemy.

Cinder thinks she is closer to her final victory, but in the end she has accomplished nothing of what she truly wants.

She wants to kill RWBY, but they are alive. She wants the Maiden powers, but she fails.

At the same time, Cinder is still far away from what she truly needs:

Cinder: You have everything you need?

Watts: Oh, believe me, this is everything I've ever wanted.

She is given a perfect mirror of herself in Watts. Still, instead of seeing it, Cinder uses his flaw, which is her same flaw, to kill him. Watts’ wants lead to his death and the same thing might happen to Cinder if she does not stop herself in time.

Finally, there is this:

Salem: This game is not yours to win, Cinder, it’s mine. Just because you’re more valuable to me than a pawn, does not make you a player. Everything is already in motion. All you need concern yourself with is your ability to act when I tell you to.

Ironwood and Cinder share a chess motif.

Ironwood thinks of himself as a player and specifically as Salem’s opponent.

Cinder is instead told she is no player.

However, in the end, Ironwood becomes a mere pawn to the point that all Watts has to do is to open his cell to be sure he is going to unwillingly aid in Cinder’s plan.

What is more, he is so fixated on Salem that he fails to aknowledge the people below him. This is why his true opponent is a slave that Atlas exploited.

Cinder frames herself as a player instead. She is the one who truly makes the first move against Ironwood and ultimately she is the one who defeats both him and our protagonists. Finally, she is the one who calls checkmate.

Still, is she really playing her own game?

In the end, the one who gets what she wants is not Cinder, but Salem:

And all she has to do to obtain it is one small move:

Salem: And I’ve realized, it’s all my fault. You’ve fought your whole life unwaveringly for what you want and here I am holding you back instead of lifting you up.

While Cinder is once again letting her talent be exploited by those above her. She is choosing to be Salem’s Queen instead than a player of her own life.

She is the Black Queen defeating the White King, but nothing more.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Chapter 316: BBQ is capable of critiquing BNHA and… Oh boy.

Let's start this off properly, Horikoshi's typical quality of writing has been diminishing in recent chapters, but this week it was so different that it didn't even feel like Horikoshi was the one who wrote it.

To be clear, I'm not blaming Horikoshi for the issues I'm about to bring up. The man is criminally overworked, usually doesn't even get the final say in what makes it in the final drafts, and even in his other rough patches he's still produced decent chapters that hold up amongst the grand scheme of things. This feels like something else is going on behind the scenes, and while I have my suspicions on who/what might be the culprit behind it, I choose not to share it at this time because if I name names some people might go off on a crusade, and that's not what I want.

I just want to be clear that I'm not blindly firing off shots in the dark, but despite my frustrations I want to wait to see if this gets resolved down the line, and while I do I can complain about the specific reasons this chapter left such a bitter taste in my mouth.

Buckle up, buttercups, because we got a lot of points to cover.

Where's the Gun?

Not a literal gun, but I mean Chekhov's Gun. It has always been a staple of Horikoshi's writing and the reason so many of his long-standing plot lines have paid off so well.

Chekhov's Gun is a writing principal that if you see a gun on the table in the first act of a play, it will be used in the murder that happens in act 2. Basically, the author should include details that are relevant to the story and not betray the audience by leading them in one direction and at the last minute pull the rug out from underneath them to go in another direction.

Horikoshi has done this to phenomenal success in the past. Just as one example, he dropped hints about Nomu being human experiments early in the series but held off explicitly stating it for a while. He hinted at the loss of Shirakumo in the main narrative and that he was important to Aizawa and Mic as well as approved it for Vigilantes so when it was revealed that Kurogiri was Shirakumo's body, not only did it narratively make sense but it also pulled in Eraserhead and Present Mic's emotional stakes into the battle with the Doctor, and then when Ujiko reveals he was after Aizawa's quirk the whole time it made the payoff for Mic punching him in the face all that much better and brings the weight of his crimes and the impact they have on the victims full circle.

That's 3 different guns paying off in the long run: the Nomu, Shirakumo, and both Mic and Eraserheads' personal arcs past the loss of their childhood friend and that they could finally finish processing their grief and avenge him in full righteous fury instead of chalking it all up to cruel chance.

He has left details, some particularly innocuously, in plot lines like the Touya Todoroki reveal, Hawks' backstory, Shigaraki's blood connection to Nana Shimura, even with Mr. Compress's backstory, and more. When re-read, these details become more obvious and usually leaves us with a greater sense of satisfaction in the plot knowing that twists and turns were not only planned, but built up to and hinted at for us to find so the payoff is that much better and it feels purposeful instead of just shock factor.

None of that happened this chapter.

Lady Nagant has zero business being in this plotline. She was never hinted about before this arc, and her existence does nothing to tell us about the plot moving forward or the world that they're trying to change. Nothing her existence provides actually has any bearing on the universe or tells us anything we don't already know. But that's not how she was presented.

In the beginning we're given a glimpse of her helping Overhaul escape from Tartarus. The focus on her was odd enough to begin with as a new character, and the fact that she didn't look like she fit the profile of someone who belonged in Tartarus was like a flashing neon sign saying, "Pay attention! This new character is important!!!" She then shows up later with Overhaul in hand to attack Deku out of the blue. We get her talking about how she thought Overhaul might be useful and her disillusions with Hero Society. We catch her mannerisms with eery similarity to Hawks only to find out immediately after she was a senior colleague in the HPSC. Never once to my knowledge has Hawks referred to any of his senior colleagues as a "senpai" - not even his fellow heroes - and when he catches her in midair, he uses the words, "Don't die on me, senpai!" as if she's near and dear to his heart.

The entire character arc is set up for her to have known about Hawks and grapple with her desire to help people and her fear of re-creating what she hated, and this also set up Hawks to be the successor who succeeded where she failed and helped bring her to a place where she could be a hero without guilt again. What actually happened?

They're strangers.

They have never actually met before, and while he seems to know a lot about her, she doesn't even seem to have any idea of who he was - at least as far as being another hero under the thumb of the HPSC. So ALLLL that setup, all that gesturing, and all of the potential themes that would be right at home in an arc like this goes completely out the window.

Her story doesn't tell us anything new. The HPSC bad. We knew that. They're not above throwing innocents under the bus to achieve that goal. We knew that. They preyed upon young hopefuls with powerful quirks with the intent to maintain the status quo. We knew that even if the fact that Hawks isn't the only one now makes more questions than answers. We know that these young heroes can never say no under threat of steep, life-shattering consequences. We knew that already.

So what does Lady Nagant even bring to the table?! The entire "you're just a puppet doing what you've been told" angle is a little tired and out of place in this point and time with actual anarchy in the streets (not to mention hypocritical considering she was a blind puppet following orders and offers zero actual solutions that supposedly fall in line with her heroic nature), and it could have been left to any number of other villain characters who could have executed on the theme better - you know, like Shigaraki who's justification this entire time has been, "hero society doesn't make people safe, it just makes them feel safe" from the moment of his inception.

So from that angle she's unnecessary.

Her presence messes with the continuity of the series as well. If Hawks is supposed to explicitly replace her, that would mean that he wasn't just a fluke find on the commission's part and grabbed to mold into their own special superweapon; and that also would mean that her killing of the former president was before he was discovered which should put her at least in her forties. If this isn't the case, and he was meant to simply replace her in a "special agent" case, that still begs the question of how many more gifted children the commission preyed upon and are still out there.

And maybe the worst kicker for me is that something stinks. The way the art in this chapter is presented, if you completely blanked out the speech bubbles, is the same setup I had before - Hawks reaches out to his former mentor and pulls her from the brink of despair with a moving message about why he never gave up hope in being a hero who could actually make a difference.

Again, this is not what we got. He claims he knows her, and it's implied to have been a deep, personal character witness; but at best he only knows about her from secondhand sources. Even his reasoning as to how he never lost hope doesn't vibe with his character.

We have gotten so many cool one-liners for Hawks, but there has always been a consistent tone and imagery with them.

"Those who can fly, should."

"I don't belong in a cage."

"I'm free of my shackles."

"Can I be a shining light, just like him?"

What we got was, "I'm an optimist to a fault" which was the wording the official release went with and was by far the best iteration I have seen, but even this falls short of being truly in character for him and answering her question properly.

@mikeana made an edit of the titular panels for us Hawks stans this week with dialogue we and a few other friends felt was more fitting not only with the imagery of the chapter itself but internally consistent with the specific expressions Hawks uses in his heartfelt, personal dialogue. I just tweaked it a little bit more to fit what I was going for in our original conversation.

Which brings me to another concern.

2. What's the point?

There was no use for Nagant in the series as she's been presented so far. But more than that, Hawks has no business in this fight to begin with. He literally did nothing to earn this emotional moment, and this should have been Deku's moment.

We were teased in an interview with Horikoshi that Hawks was going to get a special moment as an important end-game character as a "shining light" of hope for others to follow as well as promises for Ochako to have another moment in the spotlight to make a difference.

If this was Hawks' shining light moment, it wasn't necessary, and it does nothing to move the plot forward or develop characters in any true or believable way. It just happened because plot. This should have been Deku's victory through and through, and even he is the reason BOTH Hawks and Nagant made it out alive instead of painting the street below them.

Deku's victory was stolen from him, too. It sours the other promises made to us about other characters moving forward, as well, if this really was Hawks' "Shining Light" moment.

By the way, did you forget about Overhaul? Me too!!! What was the point of getting our hopes up about reintroducing this beloved character with the implications this was a major arc setup to have him scream about pops and then get detained with no clues about what's going to happen to him besides, "Say you're sorry to Eri, and you get to see pops"?!

All this posturing and clumsy narrative flailing only actually succeeded in getting Deku in front of AFO again for plot when we already know Mr. Potato Head could summon, show himself to, or find Deku at any time he wanted. But instead we get this time skip with a bunch of heroes completely mended walking into a big, spooky mansion for AFO to evil monologue at Deku for… *counts*

FOUR PAGES!!!

Only to then give him the "I want YOU!" point over a pre-recorded message and the final nail in the coffin to me that something is off.

3. Ex-pu-LOOOO-SHUN!

It's become almost a game among friends to count how many explosions have happened since the end of the war arc - and specifically fake-out explosions. In the end of 311 we get All Might's car attacked via explosion and Deku cornered by Nagant only for All Might to be fine in the next chapter. In 315 Lady Nagant herself explodes in a blaze of glory to once again not be dead.

Gee! I wOnDeR if aLl the heroes were AcTuAlLy cornered and KiLlEd in that explosion in the mansion!

None of us do. They're fine. We're going to see it first thing next week. The shock has worn off, and it's repetitive and annoying at this point. There is no cliffhanger despite how the framing might try to tell you otherwise.

It's BAD WRITING.

The writing has been moving far too quickly and clumsily with no explanation in sight, and even character interactions are being cut short to the point of them being meaningless and empty.

This doesn't even feel like Horikoshi's bad writing. It feels like someone else is trying to call the shots and rushing him through these final bits of the series, and he's run out of things he's previously set up for months and months to reappear so someone is trying to get Dabi-reveal levels of attention with arcs and storylines that don't have the build-up to result in a satisfactory payoff.

4. At least it can get better... I hope.

Maybe those who share my suspicions or know what particular suspicions I have are with me in believing that this is a temporary disappointment and we haven't seen the last of the writing that's captivated me for years. I don't blame Horikoshi for these glaring faults that all came to a head in this chapter.

It CAN get better later, and I think it WILL- we just probably are going to have to wait for it. Until then, I'm going to enjoy the Hawks panels we got, maybe edit the last few chapters to be more in line with something more like the BNHA I know in a "fix it fic" fashion so I don't groan in anticipation of how long it might take us to get there.

See you all next week, hopefully on a much brighter note.

[jamlavender]

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss: Mrs Coulter, misogyny and the His Dark Materials TV show

The show went hard on misogyny as a vital part of Mrs Coulter’s backstory, and I want to talk about how they did it, and why, and how it might have been done better. This is quite long (when is anything I write not, let’s be real) so it’s under the cut. Read on for thoughts on women, power and fictional villainy.

As a quick disclaimer, though: I’ve enjoyed the show a lot! I’m so glad they made it! Ruth Wilson is mesmerising as Mrs Coulter! There’s so much to appreciate about the show overall, including many aspects of Mrs Coulter’s portrayal. But the HDM team have also made gender politics and misogyny very explicit themes of the show – particularly season two, particularly season two, episode five – and I think it’s fair to critique that.

Let’s be clear: Mrs Coulter is a villain. She murders kids by tearing out their souls. She kills and tortures friends and foes alike without a second thought. She abuses her daughter. She upholds and advances a totalitarian regime. She’s a Bad Person, as confirmed by God himself with the unforgettable line: “You are a cesspit of moral filth.” She’s fucking terrible, but, in life as in art, many of us are fascinated by how such awful people are made. What drives someone to commit atrocities? I am keen to see such questions examined in fiction, because I don’t think exploring a character necessarily means excusing their actions, and because it’s interesting (I mean, of course I find her fascinating, I’ve written a novel’s worth of fic about her). However, after a few snarky comments (“What sort of woman raised Father Graves, do you think?”) and some subtler commentary on sexuality, gender and power (her unsettling MacPhail with the key in the bra in S1E2), S2E5 drew a weird line between sexism in Mrs Coulter’s professional and academic life and her vast and senseless institutionalised child murder, and the longer I’ve sat with that the more I’m like: what the fuck?

Look, Mrs Coulter doesn’t tear apart children to search for sin inside them and poison Boreal and break a witch’s fingers because she’s experienced sexism in the workplace and in her education. That’s… a very odd thing to imply. We have to remember that there are lots of women in Lyra’s world, all of whom will also have experienced sexism, misogyny and other forms of marginalisation (many in more expansive and pernicious ways than Mrs Coulter, who’s a woman, yes, but also white, wealthy, highly educated and very thin and beautiful), and none of them are running arctic torture stations. She will have experienced misogyny, absolutely, and that will have affected her in various ways that inform how she approaches her work, but to imply that being denied a doctorate is the reason she became a sadistic killer is frankly bizarre. Here are a few of the lines from that episode with my commentary:

“Do you know who I could have been in this world?” What does this mean? If she’d been roughly the same person in our world, the answer is: Margaret Thatcher, which is probably a step down for Marisa, all things considered, because the Magisterium is far more autocratic than any recent Tory government and would be a much easier institutional environment in which to enact her cruelty. What we’re supposed to think, clearly, is that she’d have been a different person: a scientist and a mother, and she’s had this realisation because she saw a woman with a baby and a laptop and had a three-minute conversation with Mary. This doesn’t make sense. We live in our world! It’s less repressive than Lyra’s world but it’s hardly a gender utopia. If Mrs Coulter had chosen the scientist-and-mother life (which, as I’ll revisit later, she could have done in her world but chose not to because of her megalomaniac tendencies), she’d still have been affected by misogyny here too. Our world is not kind to young mothers, nor young women embroiled in scandals, nor is the world teeming with female physicists. It might be a little better, sure, but it’s hardly as if those gendered challenges would have been solved.  

“What do you mean she runs a department?” This is just the show forgetting its own canon. Marisa, you ran a massive government organisation (the GOB), including a huge murder science research initiative in the Arctic. That’s a much bigger undertaking and much more impressive than running a university department in our world. Pull yourself together.

“But because I was a woman, I was denied a doctorate by the Magisterium.” This is the show flagrantly ignoring the source material to make a clumsy political point. In the books, there are women with doctorates (notably Hannah Relf, also a major player in the new Book of Dust trilogy) and at least one women’s college full of female scholars. Now, would that women’s college likely be underfunded and disrespected compared to the men’s colleges? Almost certainly. But saying that is different than saying “I couldn’t get my doctorate!” when women in Lyra’s world can. The show knew what point they wanted to make, and were willing to ignore canon to do so, which is frustrating. Also, given that there are female academics and scientists in Lyra’s world, and that Mrs Coulter is a member of St Sophia’s college, it’s clear that she could have lived that life if she so desired. But she didn’t want that, because being a scientist and academic at St Sophia’s imbues her with no real power, and that’s what she craves.

I’m not opposed, in theory, to exploring Mrs Coulter and misogyny in more depth, but I think doing so through an examination of the sexual politics of her life would have made a lot more narrative sense and been much more powerful. It’s better evidenced in the text – her using her sexuality to manipulate people and taking lovers for political sway is entirely canon, as is her backstory where genuine love and lust blew up her life – and it links much more closely with the most shocking of her villainy, which involves cutting out children’s dæmons to stop them developing “troublesome thoughts and feelings,” referencing sexual and romantic desire (and what Lyra and Will do to save Dust is clearly a big ‘fuck you’ to those aims). She even says this to MacPhail in TAS, “If you thought for one moment that I would release my daughter into the care - the care! - of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches - if you thought I would expose my child to that, my Lord President, you are more stupid than you take me for.” Don’t get me wrong, she’d have been a villain regardless, but I do believe that there’s a much stronger link between her sexual and romantic experiences and her murder work than between professional and academic stifling and child murder. It would have been a lot more interesting and a lot less tenuous.

However, the show is trying to be family-friendly, and digging into why this terrible, cruel woman might want to cut the ability for desire and love (and other non-sexual adult feelings, I’m sure) out of people could get dark. We know that the show doesn’t want to go there, because they’ve actively toned down her weaponising her sexuality: in the books, she has an established sexual relationship with Boreal, whereas the show made it seem like she’s been stringing him along all this time, and made it about potentially ‘sharing a life’ together rather than fucking, which was clearly the arrangement in the books. Also, I think Ruth Wilson said she and Ariyon Bakare filmed a “steamy scene” together, and given that only a single chaste kiss between them aired it must have been cut. I think they deliberately minimised the sexual elements of the text, particularly regarding Mrs Coulter (the mountain scene with Asriel, which I did still love, was also a lot less horny than in the book) and replaced that with another gender issue, that of professional sexism, as if the two are interchangeable, which they are not. This is a shame, both for Mrs Coulter’s character and also for the story as a whole, because the characters’ relationships with sex and desire are an important part of the books! (If this minimised sexuality approach means that they don’t use the TAS scene where Asriel threatens to gag her and she tries to goad him into doing it, I’ll scream). Overall, I think they missed the mark here, which is a shame because I also think it could have been done well, if they’d been bolder and darker and more thoughtful.

Why might this happen? Why might the show take this approach? Why might it be latched onto by viewers? Personally, I think the conversations we have about women and power are very simplistic, which leaves us in a tight spot when we see women seizing power for themselves (even in fiction) and weaponising that against others, not just other women but people of all genders, because we struggle to move past ‘women have overall been denied power, so them taking it ‘back’ is good,’ even if that immediately becomes a hot mess of white, corporate feminism and results in the ongoing oppression of many people. I think we are so hungry for representations of powerful women that we – producers and viewers alike – struggle to see them as bad, because it’s uncomfortable to be so intoxicated by Mrs Coulter effortlessly dominating the men around her, subverting systems designed to marginalise her for her own benefit, and generally being aggressive and intelligent and ruthless, and then realise that you are entranced by someone who is, objectively, a terrible, terrible person. It can be hard to realise that if you channelled the energy of someone who mesmerises you, you’d be the villain. So instead of sitting with that (more on this below), a lot of legwork goes into reworking her villainy into, somehow, a just act, a result of oppression, as her taking back power that has been denied to her, rather than grappling with the fact that for anyone to desire power in such a merciless way, even if they have to overcome marginalisation to get it, is really, really dangerous.

The joy, of course, is that Mrs Coulter is not real! She’s not real! Adoring fictional characters does not mean condoning their (imaginary) decisions, nor do stories exist for each person in them to fit neatly into a good or bad box so you know who you’re allowed to love. Furthermore, fiction can be a fabulous tool for exploring and interrogating the parts of yourself that, if left to bloom unexamined, might perpetuate beliefs or behaviour that cause harm to others. Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be a feminist or taking down the patriarchy or a righteous powerful woman to illuminate things about gender, power and feminism for those reading and watching. In fact, it’s important that we explore what happens when women (most commonly white, wealthy women, as she is) continue to perpetuate brutal systems under the guise of sticking it to ‘men,’ because it happens all the time in the real world, and it’s a serious issue. Finding characters like Mrs Coulter so cool and compelling doesn’t make you a bad person, but it might tell you something about yourself – not that you want to be a villain or kill kids or whatever, but something about how you relate to your gender or women or men or power – and that knowledge can be useful! We all have better and worse impulses, and finding art that helps us make sense of ourselves, both the good and bad parts, is a gift that we should relish.

Anyway, tl;dr, Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be sympathetic or understandable or redeemable to be brilliant – but you wouldn’t know that from how she’s been portrayed in the new adaptation.

[zorilleerrant]

Note: I love Gotham, and I don't particularly like strict adaptations, so this is by far not an unbiased opinion. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it has a lot for a lot of people. It does take a few episodes to fall into the rhythm, but I recommend giving it a shot.

Gotham does not follow any specific timeline. In fact, because of when it's set, it ends up blatantly contradicting a lot of established canon, just to get familiar characters in the right places. So, no, it doesn't take its scripts from any of the comics; it remixes them instead. It's a lot like fanfic in that way, but if you go into it knowing it's an AU, then it shouldn't phase you too much.

(It's set in the same universe as Pennyworth, which accidentally retcons it as an alternate-ending WWII universe and a steampunk universe, but that's not actually that visible in Gotham itself.)

Alfred is fairly true to canonical backstories that he gets, but his personality isn't that similar to most canon; he's blatantly gruff and a little rough around the edges, instead of having a polished veneer. Bruce is older than in typical backstories, but his trajectory to becoming Batman is similar to canon (he's not Batman in the show, because the show isn't about that). Selena is Bruce's age, and they meet as kids and spend most of the show together, but other than that and making her unfriendly instead of charismatic, she's fairly similar to canon. Lucius is a minor character who doesn't do enough to go against comics canon. None of the rest of the Batfam really exist, although Dick is implied in one episode.

Jim Gordon, the perspective character of the show, is different from comics canon by a fair degree, but he's also supposed to be a lot younger, so YMMV on that one. You'll get used to him quickly because he is the show's lens. Harvey Bullock is his partner, and is similar to more recent comics where he's shown in a more sympathetic light, but veers away from the darker ends of how he's been portrayed; he's not particularly violent, but he does still have drinking and gambling problems. Leslie is totally different than in comics canon (or any other TV canon, either). She's a fun character, though, and they call her by a nickname so it's easy to distinguish.

Of Batman's rogues gallery, the main ones are Penguin, Riddler, and later on Joker (Harley is implicit in one scene, but open to debate). Other villains that appear include Ra's Al Ghul, Victor Zsasz, Dollmaker. Eddie Flamingo makes a brief appearance but people who don't care about him as much as I do may have forgotten. They're very different from comics canon mainly because the setting of Gotham makes it ideal to create new origin stories for them, and a lot of it is from their perspective, rather than comics' tendency to use the heroes' perspective.

The mafia is also a major villain, which has been true in a lot of Batman content, although much less of late. They're drawn from mafia movie and noir tropes rather than Batman canon, though. (The movies, I mean; Batman comics draw more from hardboiled than noir.) This makes sense within the show, because it's set as a police procedural, although it varies from the formula a lot due to its superhero roots. It's not as dark as noir-inspired would lead you to believe, but it does get very violent and pretty fucked up things happen a lot.

What's of interest to a deeply invested fan is that there are a lot of references to other Batman properties (like, say, Flamingo) and little nods and in-jokes all over the place, but without any particular debt to any particular comic, so there are still lots of curveballs. None of the easter eggs are that important to understanding the show, though, so it should still be fine for someone totally unfamiliar with Batman, and definitely okay for a casual fan. It's one of those things where lots of details appear on rewatch, though, which is cool.

The main relationships in it are between Alfred and Bruce, Jim and Bruce, Bruce and Selena, Jim and Harvey, and Jim and his various love interests. (The villains also have a variety of complicated relationships between them, but those are pretty much all unique to the show and not based in anything familiar from comics.) The particulars of the relationships are different, but the vibes are pretty similar, and should be easy to engage with.

If you like AU fics, you'll probably like Gotham. If you don't like fanfic, or only like canon-compliant fic, you'll probably dislike Gotham.

Have you watched Gotham? I’m debating on watching it but so far I heard that it’s not so good bc it strays away from the comics + original timelines or something like that, but then I also heard that it is a good show so I’m conflicted lmao (I think I remember watching the pilot for it back when it was on Netflix but I guess I couldn’t get into it for some reason but that was a long time ago so maybe my opinion will change?)

I’ve read quite a few Batman comics for the last few years, and it’s always been one of my interests but sorry this is so long I just need an opinion I guess, thanks!

Hi Anon! I haven't personally watched Gotham, or, frankly, most of the DC shows.

I have heard great things and I know a lot of DC fans love them. Personally, I find it kind of hard to get immersed in the TV shows, especially in comparison to some of the larger budget movies. I also don't watch a lot of TV in general, tbh.

This isn't to yuck anyone's yum! I view the comics, shows, and movies as equal entry points to the DC fandom and all 100% valid. The comics aren't better than the shows, and vice versa.

I think a general drawback with any comic television is network politics / licensing issues constraining storylines, character usage, and in-universe events. The Marvel TV shows also have this problem.

[4ragon]

I'm not the original anonymous but I would extremely want to see that essay about Apollo's trust issues.

Also since I just finished Spirit of Justice, do you think Lamiroir ever told Trucy/Apollo about her and if so what would be their reactions?

Let’s see if I can write this up without crying again like I did on twitter.

So a while ago a friend of mine asked me why I liked Apollo, and I really couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew he was my favorite, but unlike Simon Blackquill, I hadn’t done that deep dive into figuring out why. I’d always just sort of loved him, and was never able to pinpoint the part that made me care about him so much. It drove me crazy, too, I love rambling about characters that I love, and I love writing from Apollo’s perspective more than anything. So why did I love him? Why did I care about him?

Well. I figured it out. I figured out my answer.

I think there are two things that characterize Apollo more than anything. One: He has trust issues. He genuinely believes that the people around him don’t give a shit about him. Especially after being betrayed multiple times in that first trial, he truly and deeply believes that the people around him are only trying to hurt him and is too scared to really believe that they care about him.

And two: He cares so much about the people around him that he constantly helps them anyway.

So like. And I won’t tag her because I don’t think she’d appreciate it, but I was watching the laquilasse AA4 stream last night, and the entire opening of Turnabout Corner is so striking to me, especially right after the end of Turnabout Trump. At the end of Turnabout Trump, Apollo’s trust and belief in Phoenix is finally and thoroughly shattered, and Apollo lashes out, punching Phoenix in the face. And for good reason! That was a huge breach of trust! Apollo literally did the exact thing that got Phoenix disbarred, namely present evidence that wasn’t real. Sure, they never exactly claimed it was the real deal, but Apollo didn’t even know it was faked, he just trusted Phoenix and this new piece of evidence and it almost fucked him over. It did sort of fuck him over, he did lose his job and his Mentor.

And then, Phoenix calls him and says that they’re in trouble, and Apollo doesn’t even question it, of course he shows up to help.

Like. You can feel how much he mistrusts Trucy on their first meeting, in everything he does and says. Especially when Trucy and Phoenix are in the same room, he’s actively thinking about how he doesn’t ‘buy their act’ when Phoenix is calling Trucy daughter-ly nicknames. And then, in a way, he’s kind of right? They guilt him into essentially being their errand boy, and I feel like they’re constantly and loudly using him throughout so much of the game.

And Apollo was there anyway. Apollo doesn’t even trust them and he’s still there the first instant Phoenix says he needs his help.

Like you can loudly do and say whatever you want and crush his dreams and betray his trust, and despite everything, there’s always that part of Apollo that desperately needs to help anyone who asks him. He can’t even bring himself to trust them, and he’s still crawling back the moment someone needs him, ready to let them disappoint him over again.

Like this struck me about Apollo from the moment I played AA4, but he’s so lonely? And desperate for connection? He cares so much about a world that has always and consistently never cared about him, and he just keeps caring and keeps caring even as that starry-eyed naivete is ripped away. And I feel like he just wants someone to care about him back, but never really able to believe that they do, because they never really seem to, because every time he allows himself to trust it’s just thrown back in his face so horribly.

Here’s an interesting thing I noticed: in Turnabout Trump, there’s a really interesting line. Phoenix has accused Kristoph of being the murderer, the extra person in the room. Kristoph takes the stand and claims to have witnessed the moment Phoenix committed the murder. And this exchange happens:

Apollo: There must have been someone else there at the moment of the crime!

Kristoph: Justice... I just said I saw no one. Not a soul.

Apollo: B-But, that goes against what Mr. Wright said!

Kristoph: Ah yes, this mysterious "fourth person"... ...who would conveniently be the "real killer", I suppose.

And this is well past the point where Phoenix has accused Kristoph of being that person. There’s no possibility at this point that they’re both innocent, it’s either one or the other. And Apollo is still so desperately trying to find a way for them both to be innocent, basically saying, “Just give me a fourth person and I’ll believe you.” And then Kristoph turned out to be a monster, and then Phoenix turned out to have betrayed Apollo from the start, and as far as Apollo is ever aware, none of the care from either of these men was ever real. He trusted, and he suffered the consequences.

But again. He’s still there. Someone pointed out a while ago, but Apollo stays. Apollo shows up to the Wright Talent Agency under false pretenses, and he complains and hems and haws, and he still stays. Why?

Phoenix and Trucy loudly manipulate him into working their case. They’re perfectly happy to flaunt that they’re basically tricking him. And he stays. Why?

Because Apollo can’t trust them, but he wants to so fucking bad. He doesn’t even seem to like Phoenix that much, but he wants that connection so fucking bad. He cares about them so much and he doesn’t believe for a second that they extend that feeling back at him, and he’s compelled to stay anyway.

He knows Trucy is practically using him, and he’s a sobbing mess when he thinks she was kidnapped for a few minutes. He’s cynical and mean and it’s all just to cover up the fact that he loves all these people around him with all his heart and they never once pay it back. And he comes back anyway. He’s like a fucking loyal dog that is never given enough affection and so he’s constantly trying harder and harder to earn that love while never believing he’ll ever really get it.

(Shit nope crying again)

It’s just so sad. And this is all without adding anything from the 3D games. The 3D games do build on this theme in one way or another, but from the get go, this is who Apollo is. A caring young man who is constantly punished for caring and yet can’t stop caring anyway.

We see it again in the 3D games. And I think part of why I don’t enjoy DD as much as SoJ is that DD doesn’t capture this mistrust the same way. It’s so surface level, that sense of betrayal and mistrust and anger he gets consumed by in that final case. And the worst part is it doesn’t have to be! There’s already that foundation! Apollo has been hurt already a million times. The only person he’s ever been able to trust, the only lifeline that’s kept him above water since he was a child, was Clay Terran, and now that was taken from him because he DARED to trust someone new. That’s so fucking compelling! But we never get that! We never get to see how Apollo is feeling. We get that he’s convinced Athena did the murder, but never really get into the Why, into the What This Means for Apollo.

It’s a bit better in SoJ. We see how far he’s come in terms of trusting people when he trusts in Trucy wholly and immediately in case two. And then, conversely, we see his mistrust and hurt when they introduce Dhurke into the mix. Apollo refuses point blank to believe that Dhurke had come to visit him, that Dhurke cared about him. Apollo demands to know why Dhurke was there, what Dhurke wanted, how Dhurke was going to use him. He’s been able to slowly start building that trust with people like Trucy, but he still cannot let himself trust again when Dhurke had already betrayed that trust.

I said it before, but as much as I hate the slapdash ways in which Capcom keeps throwing backstory at this boy, I love what the backstories are, because they build on this angry, cynical, lonely young man I care about so much. He’s been hurt and abandoned and used and betrayed since he was young, and being good never truly paid off for so long, but he kept doing it, he kept being good, he kept caring about people because he couldn’t help it, and kept hoping that maybe they could care back. And eventually I think it does start paying off for him. People do start caring about him. And I feel like it takes until around SoJ for him to start really believing that the people around him might care about him too.

Also congrats on finishing SoJ! Since there’s a very good chance that they might be announcing AA7 soon, I...hope? fear? expect? that they’ll touch on this then. However, I also worry that they’re going to botch it up so hard.

I know what I want to happen. I want Trucy to be angry. I want her to be angry at Lamiroir and Phoenix. She is constantly putting on a mask to try to make the people she loves happy, and I feel like this is a reasonable breaking point. After all, this is kind of the one thing that Phoenix hasn’t been honest with her about. She had a brother right there, and knew the whole time?! She had a mother there the whole time?! And no one bothered to tell her?! I think she’d be heartbroken, and I think she deserves to be angry. She’s been through so much, and they never give her time to really grieve or be upset.

I think Apollo would be ecstatic and angry at the same time. All he’s ever wanted was family, and now he does! He already loved Trucy, and thought Lamiroir was amazing, so I think he would be so happy to have that family back in his life. On the flip side, I do think he’d be angry at Phoenix, particularly for keeping it to himself before Lamiroir came into the picture, but I think if they talked it out, Apollo would come around to it and be able to forgive Phoenix.

[sometimes-love-is-enough]

re: your last ask about the time travel shenanigans—holy fuck yes please more of this. like, not only is it funny as hell, which i appreciate, but it's also a. more c!thomas and b. points to just how interestingly both the plot and characters of this series have grown over the years and i am ALL for it

"Janus!" is the first thing Thomas exclaims when he sees the Side Formerly Known Exclusively As Deceit rise up where Logan would usually stand. Which just might be a mistake, if Janus’s expression is anything to go by.

Okay, in Thomas's defence -

This is a really, really weird day, even by his standards. Because, like, Logan's currently standing in front of the stairs, and that's not where Logan's supposed to be, and his shirt and tie are all wrong. And had had been grinning. Openly. He had been openly grinning when Thomas had first woken up and looked in his wardrobe and realized that his favorite t-shirt apparently doesn't exist anymore and all his clothes are a half-size smaller than he's used to but also they still fit and - okay, no, back to Logan. He'd gone downstairs and tripped over a chair that wasn't supposed to be there and called out Logic. And he'd been about to ask him what's going on and why everything feels so off and also why Logan's standing in Virgil's usual spot instead of over to the right of the stairs. But then he'd noticed all the aforementioned Very Weird Clothing Things. And he'd stopped and said, "Uh, Logan?" and Logan's grin had dropped and he'd stared at Thomas for a full ten seconds then whispered, "what the fuck," with great emotion.

And then Patton had shown up with a ridiculous amount of pun-riddled cheerfulness that Thomas had been able to clock as sixty-percent fake within about half a second. And his clothes had been all wrong, too, and after a lot of confused, borderline-incomprehensible yelling at each other, Roman had showed up and added to the chaos.

"I am scared and confused and on the verge of completely losing it!" Thomas had declared at some point, which had been the cue for an ominous music sting somewhere to Thomas's right that made everybody jolt in terrified unison.

"Did somebody say scared and confused and on the verge of completely losing it?"

"Virgil, thank god!" Thomas had practically yelled, and just about thrown himself across the room to get to him - before pausing midway and allowing his brain to process... wrong hoodie. Wrong amount of eyeshadow. "Wait. No, hang on, is this - "

"FUCKING WHO," Virgil shrieked, leaping backwards half a flight of stairs, which had led to another round of confused yelling, with Thomas trying to assure them all that he's fine he hasn't had some sort of strange head injury or whatever, he's just really happy to see Virgil and no of course that's not weird, what do you mean who's Virgil, that's Virgil right over there, Roman please put down that sword things are already out of hand -

And at some point Thomas had got it into his head that the most reasonable course of events was to summon the one person who always seems to know everything that everybody else doesn't, which brings everything up to speed, more or less. Roman had gone, "Thomas, what are you doing," and Thomas, feeling slightly manic at this point, had said, "I'm trying to summon a demon, obviously," because the best way to get hold of a certain someone probably is blatant lying, and boom, instant Janus.

"Jeee-sus Christ on a cookie-shaped canoe, what is he doing here?!"

"Janus!"

So, Janus pops up, he looks literally the same as he always has (except maybe with shorter hair? Wait, they all have shorter hair, including Thomas, wait a second -) with his half-snake-face and his hat and gloves that cosy-looking capelet of his. And although his expression reflects faint bewilderment and that very particular 'wait, what' emotion that results in being pulled abruptly away from something you were busy with, he looks so normal that Thomas thinks for a moment he might be the only sane person left.

But then Janus makes a series of start-and-stop noises of incomprehension, and gestures wildly towards Virgil, who's crouched midway up on the stairs behind Logan, looking like a cornered wild animal, and snaps, "Why for the love of everything that's holy would you tell him my name?"

"You think this is me?" Virgil retorts, hands going up to grab desperately at the bars lining the side of the staircase. "I don't understand anything that's going on! He somehow knows my name! He's - he's being nice to me!"

It suddenly occurs to Thomas that this might just possibly be a time travel sort of thing. It would explain the clothes shift. And the altered layout of his house. And the fact that when he'd checked his phone this morning it had told him it was 2016, and also it hadn't been his phone, it had been the one he'd broken a few years ago in a tragic piano-moving-related accident.

...Okay, yeah, this is absolutely a time travel thing.

"Is somebody going to explain why Thomas ruined all of our heartfelt name reveal moments in one fell swoop?" Roman demands. "I thought we agreed we were going to do them gradually and draw them out as long as possible for dramatic effect!"

"I agreed to none of that," Virgil snaps from his position halfway up the stairs.

"Yes," says Logan, "yes, I think we all would like to know what's going on. Thomas? What's going on?"

"Uh - " Thomas, who has just come to a rather startling realization about time travel and also about how shitty his Sides' taste in costumes were pre-wardrobe change, doesn't really have a prepared answer for this. "I have... I am - I just - "

Thomas struggles for words. Really struggles. And everyone's just standing there, watching him with expressions that range from terror to confusion to suspicion, and they all look so weirdly young in a way that's hard to pin down. It's the clothes. It's probably the clothes, or maybe it's the way they hold themselves. Roman, carelessly confident, without a doubt in the world. Patton, still wearing a fixed dad-grin, politely baffled and looking back and forth. Logan, who hasn't been systematically beaten down and pushed back over the course of many, many years. Virgil, who's basically just a ball of grey-and-black anger and acerbic anger at this point. Janus, who's... Janus. Who's looking at him in a way that Janus has never looked at him before.

And Remus is probably lurking somewhere in the back of his mind, too, doing whatever Remus does, and - would Remus be any different now, four years prior? Thomas hadn't had any significant problems with intrusive thoughts, not back then... or, well, back now. Maybe he's calmer, maybe Thomas could actually talk with him. Try to work something out, try to understand.

But wait, he's still got to give the Sides right here and right now an answer.

Hm.

...Thomas has been through a lot in the past four years. Not, like, fantasy protagonist a lot, but more like a extended psychological journey of self-discovery and mental health crises. Now, he wouldn't trade any of this for the world, because he's learned a hell of a lot about himself in the process - but also? The Sides have put him through a lot of horrifying realization-type things.

Which is why he absolutely one hundred percent deserves to do what he's about to do next.

"I," says Thomas, with an extraordinary amount of confidence and self-assuredness, "am psychic."

And the dead silence holds. Now even Patton is staring at him in disbelief. Janus has graduated into outright horror, his face twisted up into a oh god no I am somehow responsible for letting him delude himself this far expression.

"Thomas!" Roman gasps, almost instantly lighting up with genuine enthusiasm. "Oh, Thomas, I'm so proud, we've been working on this for years. Tell me, does this extend to telekinesis, or just somehow knowing all our names and nothing else?"

"What?" Janus says. "What - no. No, you can't seriously be going along with this - what? That... what? That doesn't even make any sense?" He turns wildly from left to right, and - okay, it's very enjoyable to see him out of his depth, to be perfectly honest. Thomas likes Janus a lot, knows he has his best interests at heart, but the whole courtroom thing had been a major dick move. This is satisfying. "Are any of you getting this? Does anyone here understand what's going on?"

"I'm psychic," Thomas repeats doggedly. "I acquired magical psychic powers and now I know all of your names and tragic backstories. Surprise! I unlocked my full potential and the ninety-percent of my brain power that I wasn't using."

"That's - that's a widely-perpetuated and wildly incorrect myth," Logan says weakly.

"Nope. Turns out it's true, and I was only using ten percent of it, and now that I've gone full big-brain, I know that Patton's repressing all his bad feelings because he doesn't want to bother anyone with them, Virgil acts all scary and menacing because he thinks it's the only way that I'll ever listen to him, and Janus is secretly a huge dork with a heart of gold - uh, yellow, I guess."

"How dare you," Janus breathes, looking horrified.

"Wha - " Patton suddenly looks very pale indeed.

"Also, Roman, you're my hero; Logan, please never stop smiling like that ever again, it's literally my favorite thing in the world and if you ever stop being enthusiastic about teaching me things I will cry - and Virgil, I love you."

Virgil lets out a choked little noise like he's just been punched directly in the stomach.

"I love all of you," Thomas adds, an afterthought. "I never say that enough. Janus, that goes for you as well. You're right, I need to take care of myself more."

"I'm - " Janus is still looking around at everyone in complete disbelief, but now his gaze fixes onto Thomas, his eyes wide. "I'm what?"

Thomas is now on a roll. An extremely cathartic sort of roll. "And Remus -"

Everybody immediately panics. Virgil and Logan's hands both immediately leap up to clasp over their mouths, which seems to be a reflexive reaction on Janus's behalf. Patton lets out a deranged-sounding high pitched giggle that edges into genuine hysteria.

"Brother? What brother? I don't know what a brother is!" Roman says loudly. "I've never had a brother in my life! Thomas, your glorious psychic powers are malfunctioning. Have you tried turning them off and turning them on again?"

" - I'm not going to lie and say I love him, but -" Thomas stops abruptly, and staggers  backwards to catch himself on the couch as a thought strikes him out of literally nowhere. "Son of a bitch -"

"Does being psychic make you swear a lot?" Patton asks weakly. "Because, uh. Not sure I like this side of you, kiddo - "

"Logan," says Thomas. "Logan, what's the date today? This is so, so important, what's the date."

"It's... October," Logan says, very slowly. "October twentieth. 2016?"

"Holy shit," Thomas whispers, and then says it louder, "holy shit. Okay, listen. I was going to sort out all of our collective psychological issues in one impressive emotional speedrun, but I've realized we have something much more important to do." He pauses, and takes in a very deep, shuddering breath. "Guys. We can save Vine. Excuse me. I've just realized I’ve got to make a lot of calls."