#i think *that* would cure all my problems

[rizzanon]

You know what would be funny? Is that reader would be the prime target of villains and even the rouges for a sidekick-join-me-to-the-darkside sales pitch because

A) she could be molded into what they wanted her to be due to her wanting validation

B) she's determined. Girlie got the guts even if she lacks skill

C) she's just fun to be around even if she only shows up in slow nights

Ivy and her share gardening tips (more like Ivy gives her a crash course in botany every time they met), which she later on shares to Alfred

Harley will always try to psycho analyze her, and her emotions whenever she's not busy blocking Joker's attempt to catch the lonely bat away from her nest, she can he Harley Junior, don't ya think sugarplum? (Like bitch get away from the child?!?!?!)

Catwoman couldn't count the times she had to teach stealth to this girl and how to have quick hands. (Why is Batman allowing this baby out????? Imma keep this kid in a spiky bubble wrap)

Two-face likes her. He can see the conflict she has within herself and would love to see how she turns out. Would it be Heads (she gets what she wants [Validation] but would break her) or Tails (she gets what she needs [self appreciation] but would break those around her). They have lengthy debates on whether Gothamites are immortal at this point or not

The Riddler is somewhat reluctant to fight her because the girl can't even do Sudoko for God's sake (she just doesn't want to answer it in front of him) Now he teaches her how to say what she wants without actually saying it. Bro just gives her lessons in riddles and problem-solving better than the bats did with her "training"

Killer Croc won't hurt the kid who's been feeding him A grade Wagyu since she was a toddler who accidentally dropped the grocery bag she wants told to hold because she's a big girl now. Now they just have this truce whenever she slips some bags of meat down the sewers that Alfred definitely didn't notice

Bane, just straight up, don't want to interact with the puny kid that word on the streets feeds Croc and has fun time spa sessions with Ivy, Harley, and Catwoman not that he's afraid of course. He just doesn't want to steal the little peace the others have whenever she's around

The Penguin likes to have her around because she got the skills in handling business like the Lounge (props to all the lessons she has with Lucius in how to deal with the company and playdates with Tam)

Mr. Freeze likes her ideas on how to cure Nora it may be unorthodox or out of the box, sometimes like putting her in a Laz pit, but no, it would make you indebt to Ra's so that's a no to idea 156 then

Clayface likes how she acts like her acting skills and would want to hone it

Scarecrow would like to have a new test subject

Mad Hatter would like an Alice

Joker can go fvck himself

Like do you see my vision or nah

Anyways, I'm just whispering some ideas in your head wooooo~~~~~

putting this out here because this is way too good anon holy shit i love this sm. though i wouldn’t say that undoing fate reader has this sort of relationship with gotham’s villains/ rogues, this will definitely be a very good what if to write about LOL. also spoilers¿? catwoman, ivy, harley, penguin and two face will definitely make an appearance in undoing fate (probably chapter 8/9/10, haven’t really fully drafted those chapters yet) im not sure if im planning to have the other of gotham’s rogues and villains appear in undoing fate, but this is what i’ve planned so far HAHA

[ellenchain]

Forgive me if you've already answered this somewhere else but is Jayce's leg still super fucked up in his new remade body? I know you mentioned that his wrist is scared from where the runestone was ripped out, but is his leg and back also scared over or are they still arcane-y from the contamination/infection of the future world?

Anyway love love love all your jayvik work, and i think your finalized explanation of post-canon viktor retaining the machine herald look while still being able to look human is so far my favorite of the genre :D

Ohh no no, I didn't answer that anywhere (and even if I did, I'd be happy to answer it again)!

In my head (and thus in my comic), Jayce will get a normal back scar, since it was a chainsaw that injured him before his journey, and an arcane scar on his leg.

The back injury was certainly still open when he landed in the other universe, yet I don't think the anomaly had much effect on that wound - we see his lip burst open and other minor injuries that didn't end up being contaminated. That's why I don't think his back has been infected (but of course it's possible)

The leg is another thing. It broke and healed while he was in the other dimension. It healed badly, which is why he will probably have problems walking or even running for the rest of his life (modern medicine as we know it to perform bone correction seems unlikely). So it makes sense that he continues to wear a brace.

After s2 now hard to say...

The rune had an effect and I strongly suspect that both were cured of their hexcorisation. The magic has presumably not only healed Viktor, but also Jayce. The question is how much they were healed.

Because there's still a knot in my head: Viktor was terminally ill, the hexcore healed him, but also modified his body. The Arcane could have replaced the hexcore and therefore changed his body. We can see from Viktor's legendary skin that he has a normal body with arcane markings. Mage Viktor also has normal hands again, from what we've seen; guess he has mastered to handle the Arcane to transform his body back - maybe the rest looks similar to his legendary skin with arcane scars.

So it stands to reason that our Viktor now also has a human body again, possibly with the scars of the Arcane running through it.

Long story short, but if the arcane could heal Viktor completely (body and illness), it would also heal his leg injury. Same with Jayce's.

But to be honest, that would be an erasure of the things that make them who they are. That's why I've decided for myself that Jayce and Viktor will keep their injuries (voluntary or involuntary; I haven't decided yet). As a sign of their journey together, their connection and of course to continue to give weight to Jayce's words that beauty lies in imperfections.

That's why they still wear braces. When naked, the scars are probably clearly distinguishable from the other leg. As a sign that the arcane was there.

At the end of the day, it's just my theories and I'm not that familiar with the original lore, so it may well be that Viktor ends up keeping his machine body and Jayce is spit back out of the rune unchanged as a human 🙃

BUT thank you so much for your lovely words, I'm really happy to hear that you like my work 🥺❤️

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

whenever i say that a character needs therapy and healing before they start a relationship, people jump at my throat and assume that i'm saying that people with mental health issues shouldn't date at all or that they're not deserving of love.

folks. i have bipolar type 2. i'm also a psychology major. trust me when i say that i never said people with mental health issues shouldn't date at all.

i just think that it's a lot healthier to get into a committed relationship once you've started therapy and/or medication. no one is stopping you from getting into a relationship before that, but there is a higher chance of the relationship turning unhealthy and/or complicated. not just for your partner but for yourself as well.

and there are other relationships that people can and should focus on. i would never recommend an individual completely isolate themselves because they're mentally ill. that's the opposite of effective, it will only worsen your mental health.

romantic relationships aren't the only form of love. and when a person focuses solely on their romantic relationship, pushing aside their familial and platonic relationships, there's a higher chance of the person becoming overly dependent on their partner, which can again be unhealthy.

and keep in mind, my criticism is also more from a fictional perspective. stories that ignore a character's trauma and just give them a romantic partner aren't trying to tell you that people with mental health issues deserve love too, they're trying to brush the character's trauma under the rug and hoping that you won't notice.

a lot of these writers seem to genuinely think that romance will “cure” a character, and that's such a harmful mindset because it discourages people from seeking professional help. it's the same logic as thinking that birthing a child will solve relationship problems between a couple - that's just not how it works.

and in cases like catra, it's even worse because catra is not just dating anyone, she's dating the same person she has abused since childhood. this is destructive for both of them, not just adora. we have to realize that toxicity often stems from some kind of trauma (though not always) and it's not ableist to say that an abuser shouldn't be dating their victim.

one good example of a relationship involving a victim of trauma, in my opinion, is steven and connie from steven universe.

steven universe future focuses entirely on steven's deteriorating mental health, caused by all the trauma he endured in the original series. but in the end, after experiencing a mental breakdown, he actually seeks professional help before beginning to date connie.

it must also be mentioned that their relationship had great development since their friendship was already quite healthy and mutually supportive, and connie has been with steven through all his highs and lows. and so, it doesn't feel like this relationship came out of nowhere, just so that steven gets a happy ending.

it's a satisfying conclusion to both of their arcs and even better because they're allowed to stay away from each other and pursue their own goals while still being in a relationship, meaning that there won't be the risk of them becoming codependent.

this is all that i'm asking writers do with their characters with mental health issues/trauma. you can give them a romantic partner, just make sure you address their personal problems too, instead of brushing them under the rug.

[pouletaulait]

I don’t mind the conversation either. I always enjoy having a discussion with people who have a different point of view and who are open to having a discussion, like you are, so I appreciate your reaction. My reblogg wasn’t intended as criticism, not at all. I just wanted to point out that personally I can’t quite see why this story would be distorted into something it’s not intended to be if we approach it under a romantic lens. Like I said, personally I think it’s intended to be a romance, albeit not a banal or a „simple“ one but you’re absolutely free to disagree. I understand realism as a fictional portrayal that’s intended to be realistic, in the sense that it attempts to portray a situation in a fashion that stays as close to a possible reality as possible and in which the author seeks to represent this portrayal in an objective manner. A romance, in this context, I understand to be an unrealistic, idealised portrayal of love/a relationship. (Do our understandings differ on this?) But like you pointed out in your original post (if I understand you correctly) what we deem realistic or unrealistic is ultimately influenced by our subjective perception of reality, which might explain why our opinions on this differ. It seems like I didn’t explain my view very clearly; There are many aspects of the manga that I do find realistic in it’s portrayal, such as the CSA, what I don’t find realistic, however, is the portrayal of love, the romance. I find it very idealised and romanticised for the most part (i.e the falling in love at first sight (I’ll get to that), Doumeki being Yashiro’s exact type, Doumeki happens to be impotent which allows Yashiro to develop feelings for him, the fact that Doumeki is completely accepting of everything Yashiro does regardless of how Yashiro treats him, the fact that Doumeki is still in love with Yashiro after he shot him the leg, maybe he even stayed in the Yakuza world just to be near him (although who knows why exactly he did that?) Idk maybe it’s just me but I find it very unrealistic. It’s this romantic idea of „there is this perfect person out there who accepts you just the way you are and you don’t have to do anything to keep them happy, you can even shoot them in the leg and they’ll still love you, they’ll stick around no matter what it takes to be with you“. Idk, to me personally this doesn’t seem like the author seeks to portray a realistic relationship here and to me that’s what it boils down to when I’m saying that to me it reads like a romance (of course this is just my opinion, I don’t know anything about Sensei’s actual intentions)

What I meant by „she’s toying with the idea of idealized romance“ is the fact that most, but not everything ,about the romantic aspect is idealised, hence my example that Doumeki’s love doesn’t cure Yashiro’s trauma. Maybe „toying“ is not the most accurate expression to use in English in this case… but what I mean is that Sensei is ,like I said, employing many aspects of an idealised love, imo, but that she doesn’t fully „commit“ to it if you know what I mean; the way I see it she’s building it up to be this fantasy, this ideal of almighty love, but then she defies our expectation by creating a climax (Chapters 23-25) that’s the opposite of what you’d expect from a romance; instead of Doumeki’s love being the answer to all of Yashiro’s problems and them ending up together, it ends in a disaster (in the sense that Doumeki ends up hurting Yashiro deeply and that they part ways). So, I think she’s taking a more realistic approach in that sense but I think the story remains anchored in the idea of the ideal romance, because that seems to be its point of reference imo. If there was no idealised romance at the core of it (which to me seems evident in the exposition) there’d be no expectation to defy in the first place if you get what I’m saying. I hope I explained this in a somewhat understandable way… but maybe this is not making any sense to you since you seem to have a very different opinion on Yashiro’s feelings. Just to clarify: You don’t think he’s in love with Doumeki? Or do you think he doesn’t want to be in a committed relationship with him, or something else entirely? The way I see it, there certainly was an instant attraction to Doumeki on Yashiro’s side. I guess you could argue that it wasn’t „love“ but just sexual attraction, that’s certainly debatable, but the way I see it, he at least started developing feelings for Doumeki very quickly, hence his interference with Doumeki’s sister, his jealousy, etc. so, yes, the „falling in love at first sight“ part comes down to interpretation but personally I find it likely and my assumption is that he wants to be in a committed relationship with Doumeki (that’s purely my assumption based on my interpretation which obviously heavily influenced by the fact that I understand this to be a romance) Anyways, what I meant by problematic: If I’d look at this story as a entirely realistic portrayal of a relationship or love, I’d find a lot of aspects of it very problematic (how Doumeki is completely devoting himself to Yashiro, how he’s basically stalking him, how he keeps going after Yashiro despite him shooting him in the leg, etc.) That’s what I meant by I wouldn’t root for them to end up together if I’d look at this as a realistic portrayal. It wouldn’t be an irredeemable situation for me either but it’s just nothing that I’d be interested in reading, that’s my personal preference. I’m not opposed to realism in general but, like I said, in this specific case, it doesn’t make sense to me personally. Honestly, I don’t think our opinions on this are entirely different because I agree that Kou Yoneda sensei appears to be taking a quite realistic approach in many respects. I think where our opinions differ seems to me to be the point that you seem to regard this as a work of realism, while I think of it as a romance that challenges romantic ideals in some ways but that ultimately stays anchored in an idealised romanticism. But like I said I think I’ll only know for sure once the story’s been told in its entirety.

An example of novel that follows the literary realism tradition but is sometimes approached under romantic lens, and therefore distorted into something else entirely - maybe because of the (bad) movies adaptations? because of the marketing and the covers? I don’t know but I will link this no longer rebloggable post for you to check - is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

I read Lolita when I was seventeen, felt deeply discomforted but I liked the book, understood what it was doing with its narrator, but I have to add, before reading Lolita, I had already read Flaubert (Sentimental Education, didn’t finish Madame Bovary) and Émile Zola to name a few. I think that growing up I have read more books in this genre than others? I don’t know considering that back then I had to read a lot classics for school.

But long story short, I think something similar maybe it’s occurring with Saezuru. To be clear, I am not saying that you have to read it in a certain way, please I don’t really want to even imply that. Read it for yourself and your pleasure first. What I am saying is that, like Lolita, to me Saezuru makes total sense if we assume that it is written with a realistic intention and therefore not exactly bound by the rules of romantic novels that tend to present more positive and idealized views. After all manga are divided into demographics more than their genre, so authors draw very different stories. I still want these characters to find happiness! But I also want to be able to buy the eventual resolution and therefore I appreciate that the development of the story feels organic.

Anyway just a thought. Nakobov himself wrote (in Strong Opinions):

Reality is a very subjective affair. I can only define it as a kind of gradual accumulation of information; and as specialization. If we take a lily, for instance, or any other kind of natural object, a lily is more real to a naturalist than it is to an ordinary person. But it is still more real to a botanist. And yet another stage of reality is reached with that botanist who is a specialist in lilies. You can get nearer and nearer, so to speak, to reality; but you never get near enough because reality is an infinite succession of steps, levels of perception, false bottoms, and hence unquenchable, unattainable. You can know more and more about one thing but you can never know everything about one thing: it’s hopeless. So that we live surrounded by more or less ghostly objects— that machine, there, for instance. It’s a complete ghost to me— I don’t understand a thing about it and, well, it’s a mystery to me, as much of a mystery as it would be to Lord Byron.

As for marketing, if you check the link and think about Saezuru: the covers and merchandise vs the content of the chapters, vs the story as it’s told, the parallel with Lolita makes sense to me. The cover only has one imperative: to sell. But once you are alone with the story, you see that stylistic choices, tone, everything suggest that you read it in a critical way.

The way Yoneda Kou draws is also quite sober, discarding decorative details and paying attention more to frame and pov. The way she presents what happens is objective and detached, neutral I’d say, making us impartial observers most of the time, letting the actions speak without commentary being made. The dialogue is hard for our translators because it recreates the speech patterns of the various characters faithfully. And these characters are common yakuza that live harsh realities, the gritty social aspect of it is visible and part of the story, as well as social injustices and personal trauma, and keen and realistic attention to human behavior.

I guess all this clued me in to reading the story the way I do, and probably also why I chose it in the first place. Realism is the genre of fiction I am more read in, although I am expanding my horizons more and more.

[vanweezer]

from february 💘

[alta1312]

shameless self-insert......... :))

i really want to hug and smooch that robot and give him all the love he deserves ♥

[pinacoladamatata]

if they Tamlen solas' ass, that might just be IT for me

[mamawasatesttube]

uh oh i can feel myself getting bogged down in the perfectionism sauce again... i need to write smth stupid and self indulgent ough

[someslothcheese]

Zombie au :]

"You ever thought it would end up like this?" "Like this?"

[anewbrainjughead]

i will say that the way poor things handles disability and disfigurement left a bad taste in my mouth

[thermesiini]

i may or may not be a little autistic but honestly i’m never going to get a diagnosis for it nor do i think that my symptoms negatively impact my day to day life enough to need a one because i don’t necessarily need any specific tools to make my navigation of life easier so it’s ultimately a label that i won’t liberally apply to myself

[toomanywordsnllines]

Thi-thinking about Ghost being flexible and being able to do splits... With no effort... and hand stands...Im thinking about it...Again

[widevibratobitch]

ive been havin a worrisome amount of Gender Thoughts in the last few weeks. or months even. im this close to just shaving off my eyebrows completely. i need to do Something. i need Change. and therapy.

[springbreak-ibelieveinyou]

kinda sad and parasocial but i had a bad time a few months ago and one night sobbing in my bed at 4 am my main thought was that brennan would give great hugs

I can't get over Brennan getting up to hug every single ratfish contestant as they came through the door. This man has achieved his final form and it is Dad™.

[ratspider]

why is it that i feel like i'm dying when i'm laying in my bed but as soon as i sit at my desk i'm all 'OUGHGHG LET'S FUCKING GOOOO' is this the ansewr to all my problems

[neon-sunsets]

okay. let’s talk about jayce’s monologue, since people are calling him ableist.

for context, not that it matters: I have a significant mobility disability and a progressive chronic illness which, even when managed, can kill me. I’m not in exactly the same boat as viktor since my disease isn’t terminal, but I’ve had very similar experiences to him. this shapes my perception of him and of this storyline.

this is the monologue:

You’ve always wanted to cure what you thought were weaknesses. Your leg. Your disease. But you were never broken, Viktor. There’s beauty in imperfections. They made you what you are. An inseparable piece of everything I admired about you.

first, it should be noted that “what you thought were weaknesses” is not the same thing as “things that are good.” jayce is not saying that viktor’s disease is or was a good thing. what he is saying is that he admired (loved) everything that viktor was, which included the things viktor thought made him a burden or a problem. remember also that jayce almost doomed the world because he couldn’t let viktor die; he would never imply that viktor dying was a good thing.

the next question, then, is whether viktor sees himself as a burden or not. I think it’s implied that he does — it’s certainly not unrealistic to think that viktor might have come to view himself, or at least his disease, as a burden and a flaw. disabled people often view ourselves that way either because of internalized ableism or because society constantly tells us that we’re burdens and that our bodies are abnormal and wrong. viktor displays behaviors that indicate internalized ableism, including hiding the fact that he’s coughing up blood from jayce the first few times it happens and generally refusing to be in the public eye in a way that is self-effacing and not just him being private. yes, he says in act 1 of season 1 that he believes in himself, but he does also call himself a cripple in a dismissive way in that same scene; also, he doesn’t have the disease at that point. arguably the entire scene where he runs despite clearly being in pain is an example of his internalized ableism, but that’s another post.

more evidence for viktor’s perception of himself being negative is that he clearly has a sense that he doesn’t deserve to be loved (specifically by jayce, but maybe also in general). we see this when he asks jayce why he’s still persisting in saving him. we see this with his generally self-effacing behavior. we see this with the fact that in all of season 1, the only person he allows to touch him is jayce, and that the only person he actively touches in the entire show is jayce. viktor is reserved and not good with his emotions, which is a huge part of his arc this season. all of these behaviors point to him having a negative self-perception.

I think it’s important to really consider how jayce perceives viktor and how viktor perceives himself. I don’t think this season handled everything perfectly, but I think they handled this very well. viktor has been written with a fullness and complexity that most disabled characters don’t ever get. him being morally grey doesn’t mean he’s “problematic” or “bad representation.” obviously I’m only one disabled person, but I really love jayce and viktor and I think their story is beautifully written.