#i think this post has a lot of rambling that reveals how much i like a transformers (in general) crossover with ben 10

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

edit : i'm sorry but this post is messy i don't like how this is the ramble that got the most attention shhffs please check out the addendum in the reblogs if you want a more clearer analysis

-

FIRST OF ALL the thing about the paint huffing - Other than that it's funny - is that we were getting ragatha at her most honest . she's more reflective and reveals her mind more which is a Lot considering that she has shown herself to be a people pleaser trying to avoid conflict . this is Literally The Last thing she wants

and honestly it would be fun to see the fallout of this in episode 5 when she would inevitably sober up and be Mortified about that fact considering she said This to gangle here

like . interesting ragatha . is that why you Do Not Stop Jax when he goes to bully gangle . other than not wanting him to hate you you also prefer it if gangle is in her tragedy state . is that it . Is That It -

also you guys don't know how much i fucking screamed at these scenes okay . there's nothing i love more than nice characters that show their less than desirable traits . my favorite thing about ragatha is not that she's a sweetheart but that she's Dishonest . even to the point that gangle mentions it in her talk with pomni

like my ongoing theory right now for the ' evil ragatha ' comment gooseworx made for episode 5 is that ragatha's going to say or do the Most Morally Ambiguous thing possible that will send the entire fandom on fire . like we're talking Arguments on whether she's in the right or wrong Even though this is a show that invites nuance instead of black and white views , and it'll be so fucking marvelous to witness

NOW . i really don't think she's faking being nice ! i believe with all my heart that ragatha's inherently Good and i will throw hands at anyone who thinks otherwise . it's just that she's just Repressing What She Thinks About The Others because , again , Avoiding Conflict ! which is shown by how annoyed she got with pomni talking to gummigoo ( gayass ) , what she said to gangle , and what she said to zooble

yes i screamed about the toybox interaction i knew that ragatha was going to not like zooble's grouchiness But I Digress .

all of this is interesting because . again , ragatha's a people pleaser trying to avoid conflict . i think her reasons for being nice and helpful are both selfless and selfish . selfless - she doesn't want anyone to go through the stress and pain of feeling alone , and selfish - she doesn't want anyone to hate her . they're like a smoothie , she's not one or the other . it's just that the latter reason ... has a lot more influences on her thought processes than she'd like to admit .

and that's showcased if you look at episode 2 with her conversation with kinger . she was worried about pomni going through something traumatizing , yes , but she added that she thinks pomni doesn't like her that much . which . it's a small piece of dialogue but it really shows how much ragatha's Gripping That Fucking Fawn Response . yes , her concern is everyone's wellbeing , but she also Would Not Like It If Anyone Hates Her , to the point that it'll stick to her . and she'll try So Hard to compensate for it .

like . she is really a nice person but she's dishonest because she doesn't want to be hated which is very much a selfish reason . she's falling into that pitfall of ' a friend to all is a friend to none ' . argh . why is she so complicated god i'm going to put her in that deepfryer again

[rexomi]

Something something. Making Solas a liar in Veilguard actively brings back a problem they fixed working on Inquisition.

On December 20 2019 VGS posted an interview with Trick Weekes about their work on Solas. This whole sentence is a link so its large enough for mobile but also disclaimer this is before they changed their name so deadname warning.

Here's a transcription I found here which is where i took the screenshots above. Since I know not everyone has 40 minutes to listen to an online radio interview.

I however highlighted the main point since most of you are not reading the screenshots anyway but skimming through. Rant under Read-more. Also bc i try to not be too negative on people's dashs but also i wanna ramble some more.

"But he lied a lot more. And it really weakened his character."

You can tell this happened during the game. Solas lies only once within Inquisition. He says something he can't be vague about and you push him so he lies, badly. He usually tells the truth vaguely. Typically Solas lies no more than Blackwall.

I fully believe that if in Inquisition your inquisitor figured out that Solas was Fen’harel and asked him bluntly to his face he'd confess. He might even be impressed. But why would you ever start to think that. No one assumes that their coworker is actually Poseidon regardless of how much they love the beach and ocean.

He hides in your expectations.

You can't ask him about being an ancient elf or being Fen'harel of myth because those aren't very probable. They're astronomically low to be truth within that universe. And outside, no one finished DA2 and went i wonder if one of our next companions is the Dread Wolf. Sera said, impossible things can't be surprises. He doesn't have to lie so when the truth comes out it's becomes obvious on a second playthrough.

They then actively bring back a problem they fixed in Inquisitions development. That they were open about fixing. That having a character that outright lies to you makes you have no intention of even hearing out the character. It retroactively undercuts Inquisition bc i see people trying to find Solas' lies in it when they aren't going to find any beyond the court intrigue.

It undercuts any lore we do get from Solas bc people dismiss it outright as being a lie from Mr "I abhor blood magic". I feel like shaking people's shoulders like no, dont do it.

They retconned him guys i have proof from 2019.

And its like if you hate Solas is this even satisfying? Like that's not Solas. His motivations are gone (that's a whole other post) and so is his core personality trait. It's like they went here's the Dreadwolf but during the ten years they replaced the smug asshole who was insufferably right with a 20 yo senior chihuahua that doesnt have any teeth.

My favorite villains are those that tell the truth. Because nothing hurts more than the truth. Can you imagine if he told you the truth. If he told you horrible things that you dismissed as lies to only be true. Wouldn't Varric’s death have more weight if he told you Varric was dead only for you - for everyone - to see him in the Lighthouse. If it was a spirit who took his shape to help you or even because it saw something worth reflecting in your memories.

So you dismiss him until it's revealed near the end oh he was telling the truth and you have an oh shit maybe he was right about other things but its too late to try and stop any of the truths he told you which could be from allies/companions betraying to stuff about Ghilan'nain and Elgarnan.

Like the only way to redeem Solas was to listen to him and by going out of your way to address problems he sees and you can find the alternative to tearing down the Veil by a series a little puzzle pieces throughout the game.

Have it be he will only listen to you if you listen to him. That he'll reject your other solution bc why the hell would he trust you if you couldnt extend the same.

Like Solas couldve been a great villian and he should've been great for both the haters and those that liked him. Not only the romance but for those who became his friend. Like i keep coming back to if i hated Solas would i be satisfied with Veilguard.

And the answer is no because that isnt Solas.

Tricking him has no weight bc he's an idiot in Veilguard like not even in the ending bc doesn't notice you switch the dagger around like right in front of him but none of his actions make sense. Ppl have mentioned the regret prison makes no sense for Elgarnan and Ghilan'nain bc they don't have regrets.

Attacking Solas has no weight because he literally needs the shit kicked out of him by a dragon for it to even begin to work. They literally need him to be at deaths door before its realistic that Rook could take him in a fight.

Redeem has no weight bc of the massive retcons to his motivations. They had to retcon the post credits scene bc even if Flemythal went hey i don't want you to do this Dai Solas wouldve went okay but that doesnt solve my other problems with the veil including the corruption of spirits and the fact its in literal shambles so i guess is still coming down.

I'm just disappointed. By the end of Trespasser they had a great villian and they just tossed it to the side and reverted him and people are arguing about a character who's sole defining trait in Veilguard is a problem they solved before Inquisition launched.

Basically we can sum it up with a screenshot.

[keferon]

I just saw the post about Jazz not taking care of himself and all that, and with the doodle provided on that, i for some reason, have the mental imagine of Prowl now just holding Jazz on one hand while the tiny human sleeps there, and he's just working on whatever it is that he needs to work on with one hand

Because he got scared and now does not want to let go until he's sure he's ok.

There is no context, i just saw Prowl holding tiny Jazz and now my brain itches for more of that i guess.

THO SPEAKING OF WHICH (please excuse the rambling), but like when Prowl first finds out about Jazz actually not being a mech and just this tiny soft squishy human, who, in tfp Ratchet's words, can go squish under their pedes like, now constantly panics about Jazz possibly being hurt

And under no circumstances allows him to walk on the floors in fear he might, in fact, go squish. So everytime he leaves his suit Prowl has him sit by on the tabls or straight out just carries him (bring out that meme of Finn having a pocket for Jake)

Idk, the amount of funny scenarios of Prowl having to learn about how to be careful around a human is endless and i love it, and dammit your au has been stuck in my head i can't stop looking at content for it, it's making me go insane!!

Oh and to hopefully finish my rambling off, but add huamn adrenaline to the mix. Jazz getting severally hurt, but the adrenaline keeps him kicking for a bit longer, like bleeding out and a broken arm but he pushes through as if it were nothing....until they are out of danger and the pain kicks in. Prowl is none the wiser to his partner's injuries until the mecha suit starts to tweak as Jazz starts to let out pained screams, or small gasps of pain depending how much hurt you want him to be in, and then he pops out the chest compartment to reveal how much actual damage he took.

Ok this was supposed be a small "haha Prowl holding a sleeping Jazz" and it turned in to a full on yap session about very different ideas, hope you dont mind ^^;;

Just really love your au man...

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ACTUALLY PREDICTED THE THING I WAS PLANNING TO INCLUDE IN MY THREAD :D

Like. Y E AH. Think of it. Fuckinb imaginb. Jazz falling asleep right where he was standing and Prowl is like. Okay I need to find some safe place to put this tiny guy because I don’t want him to get squashed right?? But he doesn’t really have a lot of options so he ends up just sitting and reading something from his datapad with one hand. And holding Jazz in the other. And it works perfectly because Jazz is small enough to fit in Prowls palm.

ALSO. A L S O

I imagine Jazz has magnets in the gloves of his suit. So! Not only Prowl can carry him around but also Jazz can just stick himself to Prowls plates haha

Prowl: Where tf are you

Jazz, crawling on Prowls back: I’m Spider man

Another Cybertonians react to this the same way people do when they see a spider on someone’s shoulder btw~

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Do you think that we are getting book 8 that will focus on Grim since we almost are on the end of book 7? And how do you feel if that what happened and we get book 8 that focus on Grim and Yuu like why are they here all of that? Do you want to see a specific thing that wasn't mentioned in the main story?

Last question how do you feel about twst ending? Would you stay in the fandom or find another interest? I'm not ready for that like if twst ended I will move to twst fanfics 🥲

But to be honest with how they are using the 3D animation as inspiration too now for the new events I have hope that even if the main story ended we will still have plenty of new events coming plus we have the anime coming too and manga chapters still going. I don't want this fandom to die as soon as main story end.

Honestly I don't mind if the game kept going forever 😂 not necessarily the main story but with events and talk about the world.

Imagine something like twst: The New NRC Generation like they did with many animes XD

Okay I talked so much sorry for the rambling.

As I have stated in the FAQ section of my pinned post (I kindly ask that people check that first before sending asks because I have been asked some variant of “what do you think about a potential book 8”/“how do you want book 7 to end” dozens of times; I don’t answer them because the answer is already out there but overlooked, but I feel bad for ignoring so many people 😅):

"I want to actually see Yuu going home and the current students moving on to the next year of schooling. We could focus on how the guys have grown and are growing, how these more mature versions of the characters interact with the incoming freshmen/first years, or the long-term consequences of their OBs (particularly Malleus's, which probably caused an international crisis). It would also be cool to learn more about RSA students after book 7, but I don’t want them to rehash the OB formula."

"As for a potential book 8, I don’t know if there’s enough evidence for it? Book 7 is cramming a lot in right now so it’s possible that all the loose ends will be tied up there. Book 8 also implies a strong focus on Ramhackle, which… I know we love Yuusonas and all, but the game cannot canonically fill in their backstory a ton or it will ruin player self-inserting/projection. That means we’d have to rely on Grim and Grim alone to be the emotional crux that somehow transcends even Malleus’s chapter. I think that’d be hard to pull off, especially since we'd be expecting book 8 to be even LONGER than the 290+ book 7 is. If there's a book 8 at all, it might have to be closer to prologue length...? Because even if they push the Mickey stuff and revealing Crowley's motives to a theoretical book 8, I can't imagine this would take up more parts than book 7 already has 💦"

Secondly, I don’t think “Twst ending” is… the best phrasing? It’s not like the game is going to shut down as soon as book 7 finishes. Live service games close when they’re no longer financially viable, not because they finished a main story arc. Several of these kinds of games continue the main story into a new arc—and while we don’t have any official confirmation of this for Twst, it would be just silly for a money and merch machine to be shut down for an arbitrary reason. If it's not broken, then don't axe it. I would be genuinely shocked if Twst just left the main story untouched after book 7, though it may take some time before new main story stuff comes out, as the writers would have to... you know, write. Running the servers based on events alone, especially when we are not guaranteed new story events every month, doesn't sound sustainable in the long term. There's still going to be new Twst stuff coming out for a long time between the manga, anime, and light novels too. That's at least a good couple of years.

dyugaoydaswqyb Anyway, I'll be staying in the fandom even once book 7 finished; it's very near and dear to my heart ^^ Like I said, I think Twst will probably continue its service for a while. And it's not like you can only have one interest at a time, right??

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

It’s been one of those days. It’s Time for me to violently defend stephanie brown on the internet beyond what should be considered reasonable or good.

I saw an older anti stephanie brown post which blamed Steph for Robin #87 (when Bruce reveals Tim's secret identity to Spoiler and offers to train her) and all the comments and reblogs and whatever were ragging Steph and it pissed me off and it made me sad so I'm going to break down why being mad at Stephanie for something Bruce Wayne did is insane, why Stephanie is genuinely in the right, and why having the same opinion as Alfred "boy mom" Pennyworth is embarrassing.

This ones gonna be more rambly and less analysis like than my other Steph posts for the record, I just kinda need to get this off my chest.

Let's break it down.

When Batman first brings Steph onto the team as Spoiler he tells Steph Tim's secret identity. When Tim finds out his secret was told to her, he freaks out. Tim's perspective is super understandable. He feels betrayed by Bruce, because he didn't even consult or ask Tim first, a clear betrayal of Tim's trust and the supposed equality of their partnership. Especially in light of how much Tim feels he has sacrificed to keep Bruce's secret.

But lets look at the situation from Stephanies perspective. Because she is just NOT at fault here.

Here are the facts: Stephanie is approached by Batman, who has in pretty much every interaction beforehand been cold and dismissive, and who she expects to tell her to quit being Spoiler again.

This man has only ever shown an ounce of approval towards Steph's vigilantism one time before this, for like one line in Stephs very first appearance. For him to be asking her for help sets off serious alarm bells. Steph is "really scared" when Batman asks for her help to find Robin.

Robin #84

Furthermore, its important we don't take Batman at his word here. Bruce is withholding information, something he does with Steph a LOT. He says "no one" knows where Tim is, and in Robin #87, he clarifies that Robins transmitter went dead.

Robin #87

"No one" is an exaggeration of epic proportions, given that Batman has not checked Tim's boarding school, or contacted Alfred, the location which it is overwhelmingly likely he is at, and the person who would be able to check extremely easily.

Robin #87

Because Bruce didn't want to go to Brentwood himself and run into Alfred, or have to speak to Alfred, on account of their fight in Officer Down, he sends Steph.

While the fear and worry Steph is portrayed with in Robin #84 doesn't really carry over to #87 (one of the numerous inconsistencies between these two issues) the fact of the matter is Steph is misled by Batman about the stakes of Tim being missing, which she is led to believe are much higher than they are.

In addition to this, Stephanie was under the impression that Tim was only ever holding back his secret ID soley because of Batman's wishes, that Tim was just waiting on Batman to change his mind.

Robin #56 #75 #82 #62

Tim will assert this is true later, and he certain says this is true beforehand.

If he's telling the truth, he doesn't have an issue with Steph knowing his identity. He has an issue with Batman telling her without checking with him first.

How is Steph supposed to infer this?

Steph has no reason to think it's important that Batman checks with Tim, because Tim has made it abundantly clear to her that he does want her to know but has just been waiting on Batman's approval.

Let's look how Steph acts when she meets Robin knowing his identity for the first time.

Robin #87

Steph enters the situation seeming to believe Tim will feel happy for her and relieved that their relationship no longer has to be as one sided as it has been. She still leaves room for Tim potentially having conflicted feelings, by mentioning she "hopes" that it's okay with Tim that she's finally on the main team. Tim, as mentioned early, freaks out.

Again, Tim's frustration is understandable. But let's look at Steph's dialogue for a second.

Robin #87

She says "we can be together now". This is weird and really interesting choice, because Tim and Steph have been dating for the entirety of No Man's Land and over the course of her entire pregnancy. This is a substantial amount of time. So what does Steph mean by "now"? There are two explantations.

Steph and Tim were not on speaking terms before this, because Steph was under the impression Tim had been cheating on her. He isn't cheating, but it surprisingly never gets resolved. Like the many other threads which were brought up in Robin #84, it gets completely ignored in Robin #87 and onward. Steph could be referring to the fact that she believes they couldn't be together because he was supposably cheating, but now that she knows his secret identity, he has no reason to cheat anymore. This is a super flimsy idea however, and given the fact that no character brings up how Steph believes Tim was cheating with Star after Robin #84, the logical conclusion is that it was either resolved off screen, or retconned.

The second explanation is much stronger. Steph says "now" because despite the fact that they have been dating for so long, their relationship has been extremely unbalanced. She's been closed off to half of Tim's life, something she agrees to when they first get together, but clearly has taken a toll on her. To the point she says "now" because, to her, the relationship never really truly started.

Robin #80

This isn't a stupid or petty complaint, for the record. Tim has seen her at her worst, he was there for there immediately before and after childbirth, but she doesn't get to know anything about an entire half of his life. This is especially true when you consider much Tim was in control of their communication.

He can show up at her house anytime, but if he doesn't initiate contact Steph's on her own. In Robin #80 for instance, Steph is presumably just hopping around rooftops hoping to bump into Tim, because she has no other way to find him.

Robin #87

And after Steph expresses excitement that they can finally be in the balanced relationship, a real relationship, she is rebuked with a violent "No!" that she seems to lean away from. And in the next panel, she asks, confused: "What?" in a small speech bubble which gets entirely ignored. In fact, neither Batman or Robin speaks to, or even addresses directly Stephanie for the rest of the encounter.

When Robin storms off without even a look to Stephanie, Stephs reaction is (big Shocker) to blame herself. Batman uses neutral language to place the blame on Tim, stating that Tim feels betrayed. In direct contrast, Steph actively disagrees, clarifying that Tim was betrayed, and more than that, she directly places the blame on both her and Batman's shoulders.

Robin #87

But Stephanie is a prop in the plot. Tim doesn't yell at her, he runs from her. Because she isn't Stephanie Brown, his girlfriend who has been in a massively unbalanced relationship, who is overjoyed at finally getting to be in a "real" relationship with him, she's the person Batman told Tim's identity to. He's not angry at her, he's angry she knows his identity and Bruce didn't bother to ask if Tim could tell her. He's angry at Batman. This conversation, this whole drama, is about the partnership between Bruce and TIm.

Stephanie Brown, who believed Tim was just waiting for the Batman go ahead, had no reason to think Tim would be anything but as happy as she was. Importantly, Stephanie Brown is seriously just not to blame in this situation, even if she blames herself (which as I've discussed before, is a running theme with her characterization, her low self-esteem and occasional tendancy to blame herself for the actions of others).

Not to mention, Tim doesn't blame Steph either. So if you're reading Robin #87 and somehow coming to the conclusion that Steph is a monster, please reassess.

Robin #92

How does Alfred factor into this? I'll make it quick.

Robin #88

Oh no Alfred, I'm so sorry that your loyalties to Master Timothy run so deep that you HAVE to yell at the teenaged girl who was more of a prop than anything in that encounter and had no reason to think Tim would be hurt. Oh no, really that must be so hard for you. Well, at least we know he's consistent, I'm sure if he's this mad at Stephanie, he's fucking fuming at Bruce Wayne, right? Right? Right?

No, of course not. Alfred Pennyworth, hypocrite extraordinaire is out there actively defending Bruce to Tim. Which no one asked him to do.

It's all "in his defense" and "you knew the perils" and "master bruce's crusade ill afford the delicacy of privacy required in affairs of the heart" and "stop feeling sorry for yourself"

I cannot believe he has the gall to yell at Steph for this. Talk about wounding Master Tim deeply bro, just wait until its Tim's 16th Birthday Party and Alfreds applying his stupid latex mask with a smile on his face. Sorry Alfred, you’re not always wrong, but when you’re wrong you’re really wrong.

That’s all. Goodnight 🌙

[gemapples]

my new year's artwork won't be done until tomorrow, but i at least wanted to make a little post celebrating it before it turns! see you in 2025 ❤️

going into a personal ramble about my year under the cut. im mostly just talking to the void but feel free to read if you want!

this year has been. wow. if i had to put the definition of an emotional rollercoaster it would be this year for me

so much happened, yet so much DIDN'T happen simultaneously?? i don't really know how to think tbh 😭 i think above all i'm relieved it's over and i get to (hopefully) have a fresh start again

i got a lot accomplished this year. i graduated and got a degree which is a huge thing!!! i went for and accomplished lot of difficult things i had to do that i wouldn't even think about considering last year, and i feel my mental health has been beyond improved from it. last year i took note of how i consistently put myself in a box to make others happy, and i noticed i significantly improved in regards to how i see myself and made sure to put my own health first. there's still MUCH more to work on, god, and i've still been struggling with it, but i've been taking steps and that's all that matters to me. i want to continue taking better care of myself next year

on the downside though.. a bunch of personal stuff i had no control over happened in july and to put it in a way, i was scared for my life. it's settled now, and even got better, but i haven't been that terrified in a very long time. it was so difficult for me to cope with and i'm very grateful it's not something to worry about anymore, but i would be lying if i said i wasn't scared for what horrific event next year will bring for me. i noticed the past few years, something awful happened that made me seriously question, doubt or even straight up hating myself :') and i'm not looking forward to experiencing that again next year in the slightest. but at least, i'll try to get better at it

i've felt pretty disappointed and unhappy with my art this year as well, for whatever reason. it was mentioned to me that it could just be burnout (i HAVE been drawing more consistently than i ever have throughout this year, especially due to college, which makes sense) but whatever i try to do experimental-wise, i just can't be happy with it. i think the major reason is the way i've been shading, because i might be instinctively holding myself back. i don't want my art to be too eyestrainy or give people headaches by looking at it obviously, but i feel like as a result i've been making my art feel too "muddy" for my liking. so! i decided one of my new years resolutions will be to be way more spontaneous with the way i use colors and try not to put that box on myself. one thing i can say is, i tried a Lot of new things with art this year, including working on complex backgrounds, putting in way more effort into pieces enough to be full illustrations, etc etc. and i hope to break a ton more boundaries next year too. regardless, i can't thank you enough for your continued support. it seriously means a ton to me. i know i repeat myself a lot but i always mean it

hopefully 2025 will bring us more kirby too! we haven't had a full year without a new kirby game since 2021, and even then forgotten land got revealed! so i get the feeling something HUGE is coming. also looking forward to pokemon legends z-a too (im insane over it). and the hypothetical manager magolor plush. <- copium.

thanks for reading, and i hope 2025 is a fun, enjoyable year. hopefully it'll be nice to us

~ mac ❤️

[bubblergoespop]

some rambles abt the patreon bonus scene of sam and porter <3 i was gonna wait until the audio released publicly to post this but idk when that's gonna happen so ta daaaa yes ik the audio came out like half a month ago shushhh

okie so first of all, i'm so happy we got another bonus scene like the first one with lasko, huxley and damien and the one with sam NAME DROPPING porter. they've always been fun and exciting and OHHH I LOVE just having audios that are structured slightly differently and these kinds of audios aren't always necessary for understanding the main plot but they reveal so much more about characters, i love them. erik please make this one public so the people can hear it, i'm begging you.

OH EM GEE i love porter and sam's dynamic so much! they're not blood related, not even vampirically, but you can't deny that they're literally family. porter making the classic old man jabs at sam and acknowledging that people always make those jokes towards sam, oh they're brothers.

porter saying "apparently i've become predictable in my old age" just has me questioning how old he is again. i mean, i've always assumed he was AT LEAST vincent and sam's ages but i've never really thought of him as a proper old vamp. just because his personality is youthfully mischievous and he's often just straight up immature in my opinion. was this just an exaggeration or is porter much older than sam? i doubt he's much older to be honest. hearing what went on in his life so far, i don't think there's enough there to make the assumption that he's got that many years behind him.

oh and porter also saying that the solaire clan is an institution that has kept sam and vincent "comfortable, satisfied and most of all SAFE" HAS GOT ME THINKING AHHH!! i hadn't considered that leaving the house would make sam and vincent vulnerable to enemies of the house and now i'm thinking back to the summit when deon wright mentioned that quinn must have come from somewhere, with possible allies that are still yet to appear. even if sam and vincent leave the house and do their best to distance themselves from william, they're still of emotional value to will and therefore are still a weakness of the house OHHH IM GETTING EXCITED

oh and porter's inability to hold in a scoff at samuel HE'S SO SASSY I LOVE HIM especially when he's all huffy and puffy.

"i am a vampire but that doesn't make them my people. i'm a healer. i'm a mate. i'm a friend. i'm a hellion when i wanna be. i'm a lot of things but i'm not that kind of person." sam i'm gonna sob into my pillow.

i adore how erik shows that despite all their bickering and downright mean attitudes towards each other, sam still cares deeply about porter - "you gotta live your own life the best way you see fit, porter. and i wish you well in it. i really do." oh and porter definitely also cares deeply about sam and vincent. i've said before that they're the closest thing he has to a family and i think porter mentioning that leaving the house not only endangers sam and vincent but also the people they care about shows that porter cares not just about sam and vincent's physical wellbeings but also their mental wellbeings. he cares about sam and vincent and by extension those they care about as well.

i like to think vincent attempting to call porter in porter's hbs is also a sign that somewhere in his heart, vincent cares for porter too. especially after learning a bit more about porter at the summit. hence why he wants to talk to porter about everything that's going on now.

"there's a place for you on this side of the table, if you want it. we just wanted you to know that." SEEEEEE SAM CARES HE REALLY DOES DESPITE IT ALL

sam acknowledging that porter's habit of constantly fighting anyone and everyone he encounters is a self destructive one and is NOT going to end well if he continues just leads me to believe that erik has something up his sleeve for this. either porter's relationship with treasure (arguably the healthiest one he's currently got) is going to help him heal from that constant need to fight or this addiction is going to lead to something horrible (but entirely avoidable if porter would just leave it be). oh what fun!!

[jmdbjk]

They take up a lot of space in my head sometimes...

I didn't want to dwell on this in the documentary posts but I know you guys will indulge me as I ramble a little bit.

I want to elaborate on some thoughts I had while watching the second half of Episode 7 when Jungkook went over to Jimin's.

I watched it several times. I made sure to watch it once with a very critical and skeptical eye to keep myself from straying too far...nothing serious but possibly delulu...

This part of the documentary inside Jimin's apartment was filmed on March 13, 2022 following the last PTD Seoul concert.

This was BEFORE PTD Las Vegas where Jimin has told us he talked to the members about his troubles and that's when he embarked on writing the songs that would end up on his album FACE which was released A YEAR after this interview.

It seems Jimin answers his phone in the car after the concert. Tells whoever to get ready and come over and asks what kind of chicken to order. The documentary camera person is already in the car with Jimin... who is he speaking to on the phone? When we eventually see Jungkook coming over later on in this episode, it's natural to assume he was speaking to Jungkook on the phone, who was probably in another car on his way home to his own apartment after the concert, or perhaps already home since his apartment is much closer to Jamsil Olympic Stadium where PTD Seoul was held.

Inside Jimin's residence, he talks about what he does there, basically not a whole lot: eats, sleeps, drinks, has friends over, plays on the computer, and from what we've seen since, he's not much of a decorator.

He wonders if he's revealed too much. I think this was a legitimate question for him, since idols typically do not divulge this sort of thing to the fans. It's plausible to me that Jimin has to unlearn all these preconceived ideas he's had about being an idol in order to forge ahead.

Delivery fried chicken arrives and he runs to get it and runs back to the dining table. Literally runs. The door chimes as it closes. I do love watching him eat. He surely loves his food. A man after my heart.

He talks about how it naturally came about that they needed to have their own spaces. They were maturing young men, they needed their own places even though they'd lived together for so many years. He said their place in Gangnam was so small they put up temporary walls. I believe he was speaking about the house that is now a cafe, Hyuga? He says it was scary living on his own, it was so quiet.

When Jungkook arrives, the door chime sound we hear was different from what it sounded like when Jimin went to the door to get the delivery chicken.

From this footage, we can't know if Jungkook punched in the code and let himself in. Maybe he did, but this footage does not show that. Unless someone is familiar with how that particular door chime sounds when it is unlocked, when it is locked, when it opens and when it closes, we can't know what that chime meant.

We see Jungkook after he's already inside the apartment. He was followed by a camera person. I am certain the camera-person does not have Jimin's apartment's door code. Make of that what you will...perhaps Jungkook came alone and they re-enacted him entering once he got there because it'd be weird if he was just there all of a sudden... we can't know.

Incidentally (fun fact) this is the same jacket Jungkook wore in the video of receiving the President's Award during his university graduation earlier that month (Mar. 2, 2022)... yes, Jeon Jungkook is a university graduate too. He wore a jacket with "QUIT YOUR JOB" across the back of it, to accept a graduation award.... 💀

Anyway back to my delulu...

Jimin and Jungkook are chatting at the table while eating and drinking and get on the topic of their sleeping habits when Jungkook says normally he would take a bath, drink a couple beers and go to sleep and even adds now he goes to sleep earlier. Such a grown up.

Jimin says he falls asleep at 1 a.m. so he must be getting old but it doesn't matter if he falls asleep at 1 a.m. or 6-7 a.m., he sleeps until 4 o'clock in the afternoon.

Jungkook says he decided not to live like that anymore... this the man who in early 2023 was staying up all night to do live broadcasts with us from his living room and waking up his neighbors belting out Unholy, etc... such a grown up.

And then Jungkook says 'oops, I sounded like Yoongi just then, never mind, live how what you want' and whoever that is off-camera wheezing... HAHAHAHAHAHA. Anyway. That whole exchange was... what is it with them? They ride the edge of smart-assy sarcasm and inside jokery with each other constantly. And this time at the expense of Yoongi! HAHAHAHA.

Jimin and Tae sometimes act similarly with each other but it is more role play and nothing like the long-running inside joke Jimin and Jungkook do all the time.

The vibe between them was identical to the one when they were sitting at the dining table that first night of In The Soop 2.

As episode 7 goes on, they show Jimin and Jungkook again, Jungkook is chopping mushrooms and Jimin says "You are doing so well on your own" and "Be careful" and the translation says Jungkook said "okay" but it sounds more to me like a "ayyy stop nagging" sound he made.

Jimin runs behind Jungkook again. Why does Jimin run so much? He's like a nervous, excited little mouse.

They're terrible Youtubers:

The ship wars and solo wars and stupid-things-you-could-ask-during-a-live wars over whether or not Jimin ever ate Jungkook's ramen... FINALLY, after posting all those recipes last year and Jimin saying he wants Jungkook to cook that for him, we see JUNGKOOK HAS COOKED RAMEN FOR JIMIN! Cooked it for him way before any of these wars began too... what a waste of energy.

No, Jimin didn't go over to Jungkook's to eat it, Jungkook came to Jimin and cooked it for him.

Ok, but this is the part that made me need to pause and rewind and write this long-ass post:

Jimin tells us that a friend of his helped him realize he needed to explore the possibility he was depressed.

He recounts the story as they were at Jimin's apartment drinking and they had a small argument. The next morning Jimin wakes up, has totally forgotten the argument and goes over to the friend's to help begin moving. They apologized to each other and the friend came over again that night and the friend said "I think you are severely depressed. You act like you aren't, but you've been acting strange. If you're having a hard time, tell me." Jimin said he didn't think he was having a hard time and the friend told Jimin to take some time to think about it. Jimin says a lot changed after that.

This moment when Jimin is retelling this story, "yet you act like you aren't, but you've been acting strange. If you're having a hard time, tell me." Jimin reaches over and actually touches Jungkook. Look at the way they are looking at each other?

The way Jungkook sat there, looking straight at Jimin while Jimin recounted that conversation/day/moment, chewing on his bottom lip as is his habit, Jungkook nodding during certain points that Jimin was retelling... very very brief moments where body language reveals a lot.

Maybe the "friend" Jimin was supposed to help move, the one who told Jimin he seemed severely depressed... was Jungkook?

You can call me delulu if you want. I see what I see and I hear what I hear.

They have not shown this type of closeness amongst the other members in this entire documentary. And here is Jungkook sitting in Jimin's home, while Jimin tells us this very intimate detail about himself.

If Jungkook was the one... it's plausible, the one who came over to drink, just like they were doing this evening... the one who was moving and Jimin was going to help him. The one who he can look in the eyes and recount this story and his friend can look him straight back in the eye and nod in agreement.

Why retell this story with Jungkook sitting next to him? There were other moments when we know Jungkook is there, he could have been off camera while Jimin told the staff about this intimate moment with his friend. No. He said it while they sat next to each other looking at each other.

It's possible. If not, it seems possible that Jungkook has already heard this story.

Jimin shares more than we've ever heard from him: that he falls into a labyrinth the moment he starts to ponder about what happiness is. He says of course their work and many other things require attention to detail but it's ok if there is vagueness (or imperfection) too. If you get too caught up in the meaning of things (in the importance of things), you feel like you have to risk it all to accomplish them and its ok to let some of it go, enjoy the simplicity of things and not get emotional over everything ... this sounds like Jimin has matured and has tried to push away perfectionism.

He believes he is in a very healthy place mentally right now (at the time of that interview, March 13, 2022) but can't say the same about his body, but he wants to stay healthy as he grows older together with the fans. And Jungkook is still there, but off camera.

This interview was almost two years ago. And now their first solo career endeavors have been accomplished and these two are doing their military obligation together. They've come a long way. We will see them again next year. It won't be as long as it feels.

Anyway, going back to my delulu cave now. Carry on.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Kaito x Stacey: being seen authentically & the value of consent

A little background: Last February, I heard that Sekoguchi Ryo was going to have a significant role on Zettai BL 3 and I got really excited but had nowhere to channel that energy, so I decided to start a sideblog where I’d post one screenshot per day of Stacey, his character from Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger. To keep up my screenshot supply for the blog, I rewatched the series a lot, which led to thinking about the show in a deeper way than I had before. I'd already known I was a fan of the Stacey and Kaito ship, but I hadn’t given much thought to why. All that rewatching helped me develop my thoughts about it more.

I usually write this kind of relationship-focused analysis stuff about BL series. I don’t know if tokusatsu fans want to read this sort of thing about toku shows, or if the folks who read my BL posts would be interested in a relationship analysis about a toku ship. Well, I guess I need to get this out of my system either way, so here goes!

All of the gifs in this post were made by @my-rose-tinted-glasses, who is so generous with her time and considerable skills that, well, I don't know, I'm going to have to knit her a sweater or something. I mean, seriously, how pretty is the gif below? Even if you don't want to read my ramblings, I recommend scrolling through to look at the rest.

Special thanks as well to my sister @porridgefeast for talking through this set of ideas with me.

A very brief overview for the unfamiliar: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger is a Super Sentai series that ran from early 2021 through early 2022. The lead member of the Zenkaigers—and, as it happens, the only human member—is Goshikida Kaito. (The rest of the team are all Kikainoids, robot-like inorganic beings from a different world that got mixed up with Kaito’s.) Kaito is the quintessential sunshine character. I’ve described him before as “a golden retriever who’s had three espressos," which sums him up fairly well. For my fellow BL-watchers, you'll likely recognize some actors in this post. Kaito is played by Komagine Kiita from 25 ji Akasaka de, and as I mentioned above, the actor who played Stacey, Sekoguchi Ryo, played Hatano in season 3 of Zettai BL. Mashiko Atsuki, of My Personal Weatherman fame, also has a prominent role in this series. But you won't be hearing much about him in this particular discussion.

In the sixth episode of Zenkaiger, an antagonist/antihero character named Stacey is introduced. At first you just know that he’s a hired gun for the Tojitendo (the Zenkaigers’ enemies, a Kikainoid dynasty led by its latest heir, Lord Bokkowaus, which went from being tyrants in their own world to taking over nearly every other world in the multiverse...and in most cases, turning those worlds into small metal gears—but let's not get into that). Stacey turns out to be the half-human son of Barashitara, a senior general in the Tojitendo who Stacey absolutely loathes. We’ll get back to him later on. Instead of being associated with his father, Stacey works for Ijirude, an evil scientist with a senior position in the Tojitendo court.

As the series progresses, Stacey and Kaito get increasingly close and (here comes an incredibly obvious spoiler that anyone could have predicted almost as soon as he was introduced) he eventually becomes one of the good guys. Any sort of romantic relationship between Kaito and Stacey is a matter of subtext during the series itself. (Though the subtext gets pretty strong at times! They even have an angsty heart-to-heart conversation at a playground at night.) In the TV movies and live shows that followed the series, that subtext starts to resemble (and arguably becomes) text. For example, in a DonBrothers movie where they make a (sort of) crossover appearance, Stacey writes Kaito a love letter that gets lost and starts a series of misunderstandings. In one live show, the stage lights go out and then come up again to reveal Kaito lying on the ground with Stacey on top of him. In another, Kaito gives Stacey a butt smack right in front of everybody. But during the series? Their relationship is clearly very important and fraught with emotion, but the show maintains a kind of plausible deniability at all points—there isn’t really anything that happens that the show’s screenwriter, Komura Junko, couldn’t explain by some other means. 

As I said, while I was doing all of that rewatching, I thought a lot about why Kaito’s and Stacey’s relationship meant so much to me despite the fact that it mostly exists as subtext. Part of it is just that I loved Stacey as a character overall and took a liking to both Sekoguchi Ryo, who plays Stacey, and Komagine Kiita, who plays Kaito. But it’s more than that. As I kept going through the rewatch process, I identified some of those reasons—things that make this portrayal of a relationship special. 

It’s a unique take on the time-tested enemies-to-lovers trope (or something like it).

Anyone who has spent any amount of time watching/reading stories that center on love and romance has come across the “enemies to lovers” trope. The relationship between Kaito and Stacey is closely related to the interplay between these two types of relationships, but it’s complicated. If you really want to get specific, it isn’t exactly an enemies-to-lovers story. Rather, I’d describe it as a story about two people, one of whom is trying really hard to be the other’s enemy but failing, and one of whom is trying really hard not to become enemies but keeps getting forced into conflicts with the other. Despite all the pressure he’s under to relate to Stacey as an enemy, Kaito keeps pushing back against taking that role. This pressure not only comes from his friends and compatriots but from Stacey himself. Stacey wants to relate to Kaito as an enemy, but he keeps finding himself helping him, sparing him, even worrying about him in spite of himself. 

Of course, Kaito and Stacey really are enemies in a very real sense. They’re fighting on opposite sides of a war. They try to hurt and/or kill each other on many occasions, including one in which Kaito and his friends succeed and actually kill Stacey. (Soon after, Stacey ends up being revived—an advantage of being half-mechanical is that he can be brought back to life.) 

But when Kaito and Stacey first meet, they don’t know they’re enemies. Even after finding out he works for the Tojitendo, Kaito resists fighting Stacey. In their first battle, he won’t fight or even transform into Zenkaiser (his superpowered suit form) until Stacey gives him no choice. At first, Kaito’s reasons for being friendly to Stacey and holding back from fighting him are a bit superficial. Basically, Stacey looks human, so Kaito is reluctant to do anything that might hurt him, and he keeps thinking that if he talks to him he might be able to get him to come around. (It probably doesn't hurt that he's an adorable twink, either.) Kaito doesn’t usually appear to be biased against Kikainoids, but he does seem to have a bias in favor of Stacey because he’s so human-looking. Thankfully, it isn’t long before his reasons become significantly more complex. For one thing, he starts to find out through stray comments Stacey makes that he's been through a lot of trauma and loss, including the mysterious death of his mother (likely either at the hands of his father or on his orders). 

Stacey also bonds with Kaito’s grandmother Yatsude, who doesn’t realize he’s the Tojitendo soldier who’s been giving her grandson so much trouble (she mishears his name as “Satoshi” when they first meet and he rolls with it). His mom issues draw him to her at first, then her sweet, accepting nature helps them relate to each other in a really meaningful way. Understanding Stacey’s context better and seeing a different side of him through his connection to Yatsude convinces Kaito that Stacey really could be redeemed and brought around to the side of good, and he’s eventually proven right. 

Which brings us to the next thing I appreciate about the relationship between Kaito and Stacey. 

Kaito goes to the trouble of really seeing Stacey, which not only allows him to attend to those times when he shows his authentic self, but also helps him recognize when he's not dealing with the real Stacey.  

Thinking that Stacey is capable of change is a sign that Kaito sees him more clearly than other people do. In this respect, he understands Stacey better than Stacey understands himself, because right up to the point where he switches sides, he sees himself as so irredeemable that joining up with the good guys must be an impossibility. 

But Kaito also has other ways of showing that he really sees Stacey. One of the biggest ways this is shown is through the possession subplot that happens toward the end of the series. A being who claims to be God, the creator of all the parallel worlds, shows up and wants to team up with the Zenkaigers against the Tojitendo. (They eventually admit that they don’t have all that much power beyond the creation and destruction of worlds, hence their need for help from mere mortals.) This God can only communicate with people by possessing someone’s body, and when it’s time to get in contact with the Zenkaigers, they choose Stacey’s. But they don’t identify themselves at first—they just pretend to be Stacey instead. 

When God is pretending to be Stacey, some of the differences in their behavior are obvious to everyone. But Kaito is the most observant by far of the disparity between Stacey’s current behavior (really God’s) and his usual way of acting. 

The most noticeable difference at first is that Stacey is smiling, which is very out of character for him. He’s also acting unusually flirty and cute. “Is it me or is he extra cutesy today?” one of Kaito’s teammates observes. It’s true. He speaks in a slightly higher register than usual, enunciates words differently, and he keeps tilting his head and slowly blinking at Kaito in a flirty way. 

(In an interview with Komagine and Sekoguchi translated by @mirai-e-jump here, Sekoguchi talks about first receiving a script in which he would play God. As his interviewer points out, the stage direction for the script instructed him to read the lines "sweetly." Sekoguchi says that he didn't know what to make of it at first, but it got him thinking about gender presentation and led him to decide to try to portray God in a gender-neutral way.)

In addition to God's flirty, "sweet" manner, Kaito notes that this version of Stacey is too easygoing, too ready to cooperate with others. When God first appears, the villain-of-the-week is called Headwind World. They put a sort of curse on the Zenkaigers that makes it so that no matter which direction they turn, they're always buffeted by a strong headwind. Discussing how different Stacey seems and his claim to want to join the team, Kaito says:

Maybe....If it’s the truth, I’ll be full power* happy! But something seems off to me....Whenever I’ve talked to Stacey, he was never like that. He tends to be more…sorta…Yeah! He’s a lot like this headwind! *Kaito's catchphrase is "zenryoku zenkai," which means "full power" or "full throttle" and is the source of the Zenkaiger's team name.

God-in-Stacey's-body makes things too easy. Trying to work with the real Stacey is like walking against the wind. And as challenging as that is, Kaito would rather work with the real Stacey than this flirty, easygoing impostor.

Later in the episode, when they fight side-by-side against Barashitara, “Stacey” seems to find him entertaining. The real Stacey could never find humor in the things Barashitara does. After all, he’s his abusive father and probably murdered his mother. After this fight, “Stacey” suggests that everyone should trust him now that he’s demonstrated his willingness to fight on their side. Kaito responds:

I still don’t get it. You’re not the Stacey I know. If Stacey was fighting Barashitara, he wouldn’t have been like that. He’d be more prickly and less compromising. He’d say stuff like “Stay out of this!” or “This is my battle!” Stacey’s feelings toward Barashitara aren’t like that. 

“Stacey” tries to play it off, but is clearly frustrated by his skepticism. But Kaito doesn’t waver. His facial expressions and body language in this scene are really noteworthy. His face looks stern. He looks at Stacey fixedly, seldom blinking, and his hands are balled up into fists at his sides. This is really out of the ordinary for him—he's typically friendly to a fault. It's unusual for him to even look this way at an enemy. But it won't be the last time his affect looks this way around God.

Kaito is the first to realize that this person who appears to be Stacey isn’t really him. Explaining to others—both his teammates and God themselves—how he knew this gives him an opportunity to show the audience how well he knows Stacey, how much he has observed about his personality. But that’s not the only way in which the theme of being seen shows up. 

One of the ways Kaito sees Stacey authentically is by noticing and acknowledging his deeply painful experiences with trauma and loss. Despite pressures to the contrary, Stacey eventually does the same for Kaito. 

Stacey goes through quite a process to get to the point where he can acknowledge that Kaito has had his own difficult history and continues to struggle in ways he can relate to. When he first meets Kaito, he fights him but claims it’s “nothing personal"—but that changes quickly. The second time they interact, they have a conversation in which Kaito wrongly assumes that Barashitara is helping Stacey and that he's doing so out of parental concern. Naturally, given how far this is from the truth, this is makes Stacey extremely angry. He retaliates by needling Kaito about his missing parents. He mentions the possibility that, given their apparent involvement with the Tojitendo, they could be “lying dead in a ditch somewhere, just like [his] mother.” Then he decides to twist the knife a bit more. “Maybe they weren’t kidnapped, but they abandoned you! Like Barashitara did to me.”

Kaito responds by passionately defending his parents and insisting that they would never do that to him. Kaito's faith in his parents infuriates Stacey. He feels envious and bitter because the only parent he could believe in is long dead and his father was never worthy of his trust. Kaito’s defense of his parents pushes all of these buttons and more and Stacey becomes enraged. He tells Kaito that fighting him is no longer “nothing personal.”

Later in the series, the shift in how they relate to each other is both illustrated and deepened when Bon World (a villain-of-the-week based on a Japanese holiday) becomes the latest adversary to try to take over Zenkaitopia. Bon World causes characters�� ancestors to return from the dead to visit them. Stacey gets a particularly surprising and poignant visit from his mother, Lise. At first he doesn’t trust that she really is who she purports to be, but eventually he’s convinced. He gets to spend a little bit of time with her after their years apart.  

But like a lot of the Worlds the Zenkaigers fight, Bon World’s powers have a two-step effect. First, they bring back ancestors. After a while, these ancestors snap and start going after their descendants, trying to kill them—including Stacey’s mother.

When the ancestors manifested by Bon World start to turn homicidal, the Zenkaigers have their hands full. Zyuran’s great-grandfather turns on him at the same time the Goldtsuikers are attacked by their grandfather. Kaito’s friends need him! But he leaves, trusting them to handle the situation themselves, so that he can come to Stacey’s aid. Why? Because he has a realization during their fight. One of the people he has to battle is Hakaiser, a Tojitendo “experimental soldier” who Kaito has recently learned is actually his brainwashed and physically altered father, Goshikida Isao. He tells Hakaiser he understands why it’s so upsetting for the others to have to fight their ancestors because he’s being forced to fight his own dad. This causes him to remember that one of the returned ancestors was Stacey’s mother. He asks Hakaiser where Stacey is and they both rush to his aid (with Kaito in Super Zenkaiser mode). 

After he comes to Stacey’s rescue, the rest of the Zenkaigers defeat Bon World and the ancestors all disappear. Stacey asks Kaito why he would come to his rescue. After all, they’re enemies. Kaito tells him, “I knew that you and your mom would both hate this happening.” Here’s what I think he means. It’s obviously a bad thing to be visited by an ancestor who tries to kill you. That was true for everyone who had that experience because of Bon World. But for Stacey, seeing his mother again and then having her attack him involved a whole other level of pain and trauma. It was deeply triggering and a terrible insult not only to Stacey’s memory of his mother but also his mother’s love for him. Kaito could see this from Stacey’s perspective as well as Lise’s. For Kaito, this meant that this particular instance of an ancestor attacking someone was a bigger deal than the others and required a more urgent response. But it wouldn’t have been quite so urgent if it weren't for the fact that Stacey means something to Kaito. 

Stacey is profoundly touched by Kaito’s actions and what he told him about his reasons for helping him. This moment ends up being a big turning point in their relationship. This isn’t just because Kaito helped Stacey (though he did) or because he was kind to him (though he was). It’s also because Kaito showed a remarkable degree of sensitivity and understanding in realizing what this experience meant for Stacey. He showed that he paid close attention to things he had learned from and about Stacey, viewed those things as important, and took them into account. I think it’s also clear that as someone whose parents disappeared when he was a kid, Kaito has a better understanding of the loss Stacey has experienced than other people would. And of course, it matters that Kaito prioritized helping Stacey even though his teammates and allies were facing similar challenges.

Stacey ends up keeping Kaito’s experiences in mind and acting on them in a similar way. The biggest example of this is his decision to stand aside while Kaito deprograms his father, Hakaiser/Goshikida Isao. Hakaiser had been Stacey's friend prior to that point, something exceedingly rare in his experience. In fact, Hakaiser may well be the first friend Stacey has ever had. It helps that despite his brainwashing, Hakaiser retains a lot of Goshikida Isao’s warm, optimistic, Kaito-esque personality. Hakaiser quickly becomes really important to Stacey. So when he learns that Hakaiser is really Goshikida Isao, he feels conflicted because his concern for both Kaito and Yatsude pulls him in one direction while his desire to keep his friend pulls him in the other. At first, Stacey turns his back on the Goshikidas in favor of keeping Hakaiser in his life. But once Kaito protects him from his mother's ghost, Stacey can’t keep that up for long. And he doesn't just stand aside during the Zenkaiger's deprogramming efforts. He also leaks data to the Goldtsuikers that helps the team to safely extricate Hakaiser from a giant mecha superweapon he’s controlling (without which the team would have been forced to either endanger Isao or risk countless human beings getting hurt or killed). Naturally, this also means helping the good guys to take the giant mecha out of commission—a blatant act of treason against the Tojitendo.

Stacey doesn’t say much about why he decides to let Goshikida Isao go. But he makes it clear that he sees how unjust and hypocritical it would be to keep Hakaiser around at Kaito’s expense while decrying the way his father took his mother away from him. It's also apparent that the bond he's formed with Yatsude and Kaito plays a role. 

To go from resenting Kaito's faith in his parents to helping Kaito get his father back involves a lot of growth. Just as earlier, the differences in their respective situations angered Stacey, the similarities between them eventually lead him to shift toward helping Kaito rather than hurting him. 

Now I'm going to circle back to the possession storyline to talk about some of its other implications.

The possession storyline allows Kaito to show how much he values consent and bodily autonomy—particularly Stacey's.

Remember how Kaito suspected immediately that the possessed version of Stacey wasn’t really him? An episode and change later, Kaito and the rest of the Sentai finally find out that Stacey is being possessed by God. Kaito doesn’t say much about this when it's first revealed to him, but his eyes are glued to God-in-Stacey’s-body and he turns stone-faced again. He remains like this for the rest of their conversation, while God aims more head-tilting and slow-blinking his way.

The next time they confer with the Zenkaigers, God is in a hurry to get them to agree to work together. But Kaito says there’s something else he needs them to address before that can happen. He asks God what happens to Stacey when they’re possessing his body. Their answer is disturbingly flippant: “His consciousness takes a little nap.” Then he asks God if they have Stacey’s consent to do this. “Do I really need it? When I’m a God?” they ask contemptuously. That’s when Kaito tells them that he can’t trust someone who would use another person's body without their permission, so they won’t be able to work together—unless God sets Stacey free. He offers to let God possess him instead in order to communicate with the group, and the other Zenkaigers chime in to say they’ll volunteer as well. God agrees to this and leaves Stacey’s body for the last time. 

Consent isn’t a common theme in tokusatsu, at least not in any of the shows I’ve seen so far. I don’t know of another toku show that's had an entirely analogous possession story, but it’s not uncommon to see some kind of variation on this theme. Ankh from Kamen Rider OOO is an ancient supernatural being who possesses the body of a random young man on the verge of death, Ryotaro from Kamen Rider Den-O is possessed by a whole cadre of beings from the future at different points in the series, Wataru from Kamen Rider Kiva is briefly possessed by his own father, Otoya, and I have no doubt that there are other examples I'm not thinking of or just haven't come across yet. I've seen the moral implications of possession get some degree of attention in these shows, but I’ve never seen consent foregrounded in this way. (That said, I haven’t seen the entirety of either Den-O or OOO, and there are plenty of other series I haven’t seen, so there may well be examples I’m not aware of.) 

It helps that consent doesn’t just come up in an implied way, in the background, or on its own. Instead, Kaito brings it up specifically and intentionally. The plot is racing along toward the climax of the series at this point. It would be easier for Kaito to allow God to continue to gloss over the question of Stacey’s consent. It certainly would have been easier for Komura Junko, the show's screenwriter, to skip over this question. She could have just used God as her story’s deus ex machina (no pun intended) without exploring the deeper implications.

It’s fitting that Kaito’s insistence on Stacey’s consent comes up in the form of an interruption that stops the forward momentum of the story, because when people are ignoring important consent issues and someone has to speak up about it, it’s often seen as an unwelcome interruption of things that are viewed as more important. Bringing up consent in those situations means bringing other matters to a halt and raising uncomfortable topics that others have tacitly agreed to ignore. As with so many important issues that we need to speak up about in our daily lives, raising the subject of consent is often intensely awkward. When Kaito brings it up, God is surprised and clearly put out, and it means the story has to take a detour before the Zenkaigers can defeat Bokkowaus with God’s help. Kaito doesn’t let any of this stop him, though. He understands how important it is. Even though collaborating with God is by far the best chance the Zenkaigers have of overthrowing Bokkowaus and saving the multiverse, he holds fast and insists that he’ll only work with God if they stop possessing Stacey without his consent. 

It's worth noting another context in which consent comes up in the series, and that is the portrayal of Stacey's late mother, Lise, and her relationship with his father, Barashitara. Lise was Barashitara's 893rd "wife." I'm using scare quotes here because while we don't know the details of how Lise ended up tied to Barashitara and bearing his child, there's no particular reason to believe she consented to the relationship and a number of indications that she didn't. When she appears again in ghost form, he refers to her having always been "feisty," which seems like code for "didn't just let me do whatever I wanted without any resistance." She, on the other hand, seems to hold him in contempt. In Komura Junko's current series, Kamen Rider Gavv, the protagonist's human mother is kept prisoner by a non-human father who refers to her as if they're in a relationship despite her protests that she never sought or consented to a relationship with him. This seems like a more explicit version of what was implied about Stacey's mother in Zenkaiger.

Stacey obviously has strong feelings about the way his mother was treated. When Barashitara reaches for her, commenting on how he's never been with a ghost before (and implying he'd be up for changing that), Stacey hurries over to pull his hand off of her and rushes her out of the room after yelling at Barashitara to keep his hands off of her. Again, Stacey's human mother and Kikainoid father could have been used as a plot device without digging any deeper into the nature of their relationship, but this series not only doesn't avoid the subject, it makes a point of commenting on it.

The themes of consent and seeing/being seen end up working together in a way that undercuts the ship in some superficial respects but ends up emphasizing what really makes it special. 

I mentioned earlier how one of the first clues that God isn’t really Stacey is their facial expressions, speech, and other ways of communicating with others. Well, they continue smiling, speaking in a cutesy voice, and doing flirty mannerisms—and the biggest recipient of these gestures is Kaito. They also call Kaito by his given name, something Stacey doesn't do until the series' penultimate episode. When you add it all together, they’re pretty clearly flirting with him. 

Some stories would take this as an opportunity to develop the ship between Kaito and Stacey. If God-in-Stacey’s-body flirts with Kaito, you could easily arrange things so that this helps him recognize or develop an attraction to Stacey that continues when the possession has ended. (It’s certainly been done before in other shows.) Any possession or body swap story is going to be partly about contrasts—that’s a big part of their purpose—but they can still foment changes that continue when everyone gets their own bodies back. Basically, if Stacey is too conflicted to flirt with Kaito, well, God can do it for him. It works in the other direction, too. If there are things Kaito would do with Stacey if he weren’t so considerate of his feelings, if someone else is walking around in his body, suddenly different possibilities appear.  (And yes, I think some version of all these possibilities could be done even if the ship remained at a subtext level.)

There’s just one problem: Kaito may not figure out for certain that God isn’t Stacey right away, but within moments of meeting them, he’s 95% there. They can’t make him see Stacey in a different way if he doesn’t believe they’re him at least for a while. He isn't even open to relating to them in a positive way. It really is remarkable just how unfriendly he is to God-in-Stacey’s-body considering how friendly he always is to almost everyone else. And when they flirt with him? He’s not into it in the slightest. In fact, it just pisses him off.

Another thing about possession stories is that they can be a way for writers to cheat to get characters—well, close facsimiles of them who are mistaken for them by other characters—to do things they couldn’t justify otherwise. But Kaito refuses to let this happen. He gets suspicious of God almost as soon as they show up, he begins to grow hostile toward them even before he has fully processed the truth about their identity, and once he’s had a chance to think about the situation, he takes his next opportunity to refuse to work with God unless they set Stacey free as soon as possible. 

By having the hero of the story behave in this way, Zenkaiger prioritizes consent and, by extension, the individual right to bodily autonomy. It prioritizes consent over ship advancement, over plot advancement, even over getting the danged heroes into the evil overlord’s castle so they can have their big showdown. There are moments where it’s on the verge of becoming annoying. As TV viewers, especially if we’re habitual tokusatsu watchers, we’re pretty used to possession plotlines of this type. When they start making things happen, we get caught up in escalating events. Having someone like Kaito suddenly show up and say, “Wait a second, is Stacey OK with this?” feels like a weirdly abrupt interruption. 

It reminds me a bit of something Kathleen Hanna from the band Bikini Kill says in The Punk Singer, a documentary about her life. She says that speaking out about sexual violence often results in a "who farted" moment—one in which a group is collectively uncomfortable and looking for someone to blame, generally the person who mentioned a taboo subject like sexual violence. 

Kaito fearlessly embraces a “who farted” moment when he asks about Stacey’s consent or lack thereof. Of course he does—that’s who he is. A principled, morally rigorous guy who would rather be cringe as fuck than hurt someone unnecessarily. It’s no wonder he’s able to turn the “demon prince of the Tojitendo” to the side of good…and even get him to write him love letters. 

In other words, by refusing to exploit the possession storyline for a cheap version of ship development, Komura Junko develops the Kaito x Stacey ship even more, and more meaningfully. 

Could this storyline have been written by the typical cishet dude tokusatsu screenwriter?

It seems noteworthy that this choice was made by one of the few women to have held a head writer position on a toku series. Of course, women are not the only people who care about consent and bodily autonomy, just as they aren't the only people who are subjected to their bodily autonomy being compromised and their right to refuse consent ignored. But women, people who are perceived as women, and men who don't fit into a normative cishet image are more likely to have such experiences than cishet men and thus more likely to find such themes salient, so it would make sense if a woman writer was more likely to include them in a series than the (ostensibly) cishet men who make up the vast majority of tokusatsu screenwriters.

I would argue that the importance of being authentically seen is also particularly salient for many women and that this may have played into the way Komura weaves that theme into the Kaito and Stacey story. Women and people perceived to be women tend to experience a great deal of objectification, and being authentically seen and acknowledged is basically the opposite of objectification.

I recently ran into Martha Nussbaum's typology of objectification for the first time and it turns out that it applies to God's possession of Stacey remarkably well. In the interest of time and length, I'll leave it at that for now, but I'll probably talk about in a separate post at some point. Suffice it to say that God's treatment of Stacey illustrates a number of the facets of objectification Nussbaum lays out. So what does this have to do with the Kaito and Stacey ship? It comes back to my point about how the show presents the possession storyline with all of its potential for ship development and has Kaito refuse to engage with any of it out of concern for Stacey. This makes God a kind of foil for Kaito that gives him the opportunity to show that his interest in Stacey isn't based on objectification.

(Edited to add: I ended up writing more about this in a post on Nussbaum's concept of fungibility as objectification, with the Zenkaiger possession storyline as an example.)

So there you have it. There are plenty of reasons to appreciate the Kaito x Stacey ship without digging into issues like these. The characters are interesting, affecting, and fun. Their personalities fit together in a classic cinnamon roll/tsundere way. The actors have great chemistry with each other. But the way the story treats these concerns, which I contend is colored by the different perspective Komura Junko brings to toku based on her gender, is part of what makes it particularly special.

[sameschmidtdiffname]

I’m so fond of Soft for her Loved Ones Katniss and a Peeta who knows his grumpy wife is the soft one. I think that he always knew she was soft since he saw her with Prim, and that was part of him realizing she loved him. “She lets me get away with murder and my smile and baby blues get me anything”.

On a serious note, I do feel like during their growing back together period, Katniss is just so incredibly gentle and careful with Peeta when she can be. Like when they get close enough they're back to spending every day (every hour, every minute) together again Peeta has to barely suggest something before Katniss is up and running to get it for him. He nics himself once with an exacto knife during a project and Katniss is suddenly all "Doctor Everdeen" again and Peeta 'never had genuine care and affection growing up' Mellark, who somewhat remembers how she used to care for him pre-hijacking, is just slowly melting at every fret and touch, just watching her care with the biggest, lovesick puppy eyes he's ever had because it was tortured out of him to remember how nice it feels to be genuinely cared for.

I feel like this is even more exaggerated by the fact that after Mockingjay Katniss and Peeta I think switch some aspects of their personality. Like I would imagine Peeta is more akin to Katniss at the beginning of the series with falling in love now because he's very skeptical even though he can now remember how he used to feel, but that's like a completely different person in his head almost, so it's more a theory than a memory. So everytime Katniss is kind or loving to him at first he's nice about everything while internally semi distrustful of the whole thing, and definitely not fond of the idea of allowing himself to be vulnerable. Meanwhile Katniss has switched to needing validation and affection so bad it hurts, but knowing she can't demand it because that's not fair to Peeta so she just pours as much love as she feels she's allowed into all of her actions without trying to reveal her state of longing for him because she's just glad he's returned to her period. It doesn't have to be romantic.

I also feel like this would apply to when Katniss has nightmares and Peeta eventually begins comforting her via physical touch. I think it would be extremely obvious how touch starved Katniss is post-Mockingjay even though she tries to hide it for Peetas sake, and eventually Peeta just can't handle not doing whatever he can to help ease her mind, even if it's just holding her hand (which helps a lot) until all the subdued feelings just come pouring out that night they finally confess while tangled in their bedsheets.

Once they're well settled into their relationship? Peeta is 1000% abusing his husband privileges. One time he's three days into a painting project, there's acrylics all over the floor and Katniss tries to clean up but Peeta is insistent that it's fine because once they dry he can just scrape them off the floor with a washcloth. No, really honey, I used to do this all the time, as he pushes her quickly out the door of his study because he's way too invested to chit-chat and wants her to be surprised by the work anyways (he likes the praise from her seeing it go from a rough sketch to a full blown painting, especially since it's turned into a where's Waldo situation of her looking for themselves in his paintings.) And then he goes to clean up the paint himself only to realize this is really nice paint that has stained really nice Capitol-grade imported wood and it is not coming out. Katniss is fully aware of what happened the minute Peeta comes home rambling quickly about these "wonderful rugs Effie had" and "I just had to get one for the house" because "It's good luck" and he'll tell her about it some other time, he's gotta get this rug upstairs. Ignore any bumps you hear! (She does not. The bump is Peeta falling down the stairs cuz his prosthetic glitched and between the giant woven rug and his natural clumsiness that fucker went down.) But she doesn't say anything because he has this stupid smile as he presents her with three paintings and a basket of cheese rolls because he just loves her so much, that's all.

Then there's one time a load of laundry goes missing and Peeta is just insistent that the clothes must be in some odd corner unwashed, even though she could've sworn she put that load in the wash. So for two weeks straight she's just constantly thinking about this load, sometimes getting out of bed in the midst of the night when she can't sleep anyways to look for the damn clothes because they're obviously somewhere. Clothes don't move. But then her husband starts asking her to give up, they'll pop up sooner or later, and she's starting to wonder why he's baking so much bread. Like, lots of bread. Bread with cheese, or honey, or nuts. Just constantly kneading dough in their kitchen while chewing on his bottom lip, lost in thought. And at first she's convinced she's actually losing it. Maybe she's starting to have black out episodes. Is that even possible? To do something and just have absolutely no memory of the event at all? What if she starts hurting people during these episodes? What if she's already hurting people while she's in these episodes?? And that's why Peeta is so nervous now???

She's got an appointment with Dr. Aurelius next week, she'll bring it up to him. Peeta is definitely hiding something from her. But then one day after she comes home from her hunting trip, longing for her favorite sweater instead of the one she's wearing today, Peeta is beaming in the kitchen saying he found the load and it's all washed and hung up in the closet. "Oh, it was just behind the washer! Who knows how it got there."

Except Katniss knows she checked behind the washer. Three times, actually. And Peeta doesn't smile like that naturally. So she's not crazy, and Peeta has got something going on. So, when they go to bed that night, Katniss waits for three hours before she finally slips out of bed, knowing he's too konked out at this point to notice her missing and sneaks into his study to see what all could be in there. And after an hour of looking, she doesn't find anything, and now she feels bad for suspecting something and going through her husband's things. She's about to click off the light when she notices a bottle of oil paint missing in a set she'd bought for Peeta a little while ago for his birthday. And things start clicking together. Because first off, he doesn't go through paints that fast. Second off, even if he does, he never throws away the bottles. Like, ever. There is an entire drawer filled with empty bottles and such of paint and other supplies partially because Peeta needs to remember the names or brands, and partially because Peeta hates the idea of potentially wasting something unless he is fully convinced it's done. Which he never is.

It takes one day before he confesses, and when he does it's because Katniss casually mentions how her favorite sweater doesn't seem to have an old snag from when her ring caught on the yarn and nearly ripped a hole in the arm. And that's how she finds out Peeta accidently left a poorly closed bottle of azure blue paint in his pants pocket and not even Effie had been able to save the load, so she helped him reorder everything. Thus why he's been stress baking. And Katniss is way too entertained to be mad because at this point, there's no better reprimand than the one Peeta has given himself.

But idk tho. I don't think about them much :)

[psychhound]

i ran a combat this weekend that went really well and one of my npcs got beat to shit but also got to revivify a pc and it was just really chewy and cinematic and not that she isnt always on my mind but shes been on my mind a lot more this week BUT

ive been reflecting a lot on her year in the game so far, and the reasons i made her gender conforming but visibly trans when i introduced her, versus how thats evolved with her relationships to the pcs and other npcs now

and i dont know. it makes me really emotional. i think theres no right way to do trans representation but there are certainly some wrong ways. i think making her the first binary trans woman introduced and also pretty clockable would rub a lot of people the wrong way. shes tall, shes buff, she has a deeper voice, she doesnt cover her adams apple. and as a trans man who passes pretty damn easily it means so much to me that she Doesnt and shes so like ... adored? and cherished?

she was introduced as a roadblock for the party and got adopted very quickly, soon becoming a staple of the game. my players are obsessed with her and adore her and talk about her all the time. anytime she does anything theyre like okay but shes our babygirl and we love her forever and also can we marry her. shes an autistic trans lesbian wolfgirl, and her being trans is a lore point because shes the angel of the female wolf god. shes dopey, shes awkward, shes a little stupid, shes very caring, she makes the puppy eyes emoji face just at all times

and shes not visibly gay but is visibly trans. shes not punk. she doesnt have a shaved head or tattoos. overall shes pretty cottagecore and has middle school girl handwriting. she really loves baking and sewing is her most "fun" hobby. shes very gender conforming and also its pretty easy to tell shes trans and everyone just. loves her? two pcs are very parental towards her, we're leaning towards a romance with another pc. despite being a big strong knight, when shes scared, she gets comforted and consoled. she got hurt during the fight and cried about it and got hugged

i dont know. this is a very long rambly post but. living in a very conservative bible belt state, i feel a lot of acceptance as a man and i feel its very very conditional on the average person not knowing im trans. my friends are great and my cohort is largely great and my professors have been supportive. dating has been,, mixed. but then i do wonder how review bombed i would get if my students knew. i wonder how much of how well people treat me is dependent on me appearing to be something im not

and florence cant hide that shes trans!! and people love her!! they think shes wonderful and loveable and hot and adoptable and also complicated when conflict happens. theres no reveal theres no coming out its just like. yep heres florence shes trans shes dorky and sweet and cute. because of the magic of this world, some people may have Questions of how she transitioned, but its not like ... her identity ever gets questioned. you know? its not hidden and also not a problem. its just florence. and shes been such a good character for me to play because of that

okay post over go support your local trans doggirl

[the-quiet-youve-been-longing-for]

Okay time for another small (I hope) analysis on IWTV, mainly the way it's written and its place on current television. I'll try my best to format this so it's not ramblings all over, I promise.

IWTV and plot points

I watched a good amount of television in my time, and one thing I noticed here is the fact that it doesn't hold your hand. It doesn't tell you "hey, this thing x is important, now we will tell again why x is important, now here see x being used, the important thing we talked about so far, did you remember, audience?".

Let's take as an example the "don't drink the blood of the living" thing. It's said to a young Louis (telling also to the audience in the 2nd episode how vampirism in this setting works) and then every time it's brought up it's indirectly (Lestat spitting out the sick man's blood, we see Claudia buying Laudanum and we know what it will be used for, but they don't tell us "Hey, Claudia is planning to poison someone so that Lestat drinks it, because remember audience, dead blood kills them"). Sometimes not only it doesn't hold your hand, but shoves you in a different direction, especially in S2. It contradicts himself, backtracks and then it's up to you to spot it.

For example, attentive viewers may have noticed that Sam was in 2 places at once in the trial, one episode before the actual reveal. It isn't a gotcha they came up with in the finale to give more gravitas to the revelation. When they tell us Lestat mass manipulated the audience, it makes sense for the storyline too because we already saw him do that with the soldiers, we have a previous example to refer to, Armand never used that particular power.

In a time where we see so many social media adopt the "short videos" gimmick, like reels and shorts etc, having a piece of media that references back in this way is super refreshing.

2. Character complexity

Complex characters are the backbone of this show. It's easy to place a character in a box and leave them there. You see it with the stereotype of the villain, the best friend, the hero. Some tv shows may have the character shift into a different box, but it's almost never permanent (think of the times where a hero gets corrupted by the Evil Power, but then reverts back to their hero status after Defeating the Evil Power because they remembered the Power of Friendship).

We have Louis, well meaning vampire who is capable of horrible deeds when pushed to the brink. Lestat, who feels so much to the point it hurts the people around him. Armand, whose trauma and fear bring out the need to control, but at the same time he needs to do that without actually controlling. They are all these things at the same time, and it's impossible to see them in a black and white perspective.

3. Details

A line almost always has its parallels to another line in the show, gazes always mean something, props are detailed and shown (I made a post looking at Daniel's notes in 2x05, which were shown for a second only, but you can also think about Claudia's diaries, all handwritten, or the astonishing amount of folders that were in Daniels computer from the Talamasca. That is all prop work done to be shown for a few seconds at most).

4. Analysis

This is more of a fandom thing than the show itself, but I was suprised by the amount of deep analysis that people here on Tumblr did (but also on other social media). Long essays on the meaning of a scene, or on the many many topics the show brings to light (the fallacy of memory, the impact of trauma, the meaning of free will and agency).

Similarly lots of people said that the show brought them back the urge to start creating, whether it's gifs, video essays, edits, fanart, fics, what have you. I started going back to Tumblr after years (last time I was here was during S4 of Sherlock).

And I feel like this is only possible if you give your audience something to work with, something to talk about and to dissect, rather than simple "entertainment".

5. Final thoughts

Of course, this isn't to say IWTV is error free, all perfect, without flaws. Nor is it the only one that has had this amount of labor and impact. But it's still miles ahead from most media we have available at the moment in my opinion, and I really hope its success brings other showrunners or directors to want to try and dare, to trust in their audience, to avoid shortcuts and to pour love in their creation.

If you got this far, I just want to thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings again! Have a cute Louis as a reward, and see you next time :)

[khloxxy]

hello! i hope you're doing well ^_^ i just wanna ask about your favorite headcanon of rus, cana and ame (if you're up for it, no pressure, i wanna see what kumajirou looks like in your style)

i like your art! don't mind me if you see me liking your posts hehe

Hello (^_^) thank you... Your art is very beautiful I'm honoured... Sorry if this is kinda late(?) my brain works best when it's the middle of the night. I wrote this in my notes at like 3am...

My headcanons are really messy and subject to change so keep that in mind 🙏 Gonna put them under a read more cause they're pretty long and I rambled on and on.. Got carried away sorry!! Also it's kind of cringe at some points but that's okay. To be cringe is to be free.

---

Rus: My beloved... He's cute, yes, but also very creepy. (I love a creepy rus) I see him as this character that's always looming over everyone, always watching... He likes how docile and obedient Cana is, and with Ame... well... He likes the challenge.

He likes the arts... And I believe he's an incredible poet and dancer. I like to think that Rus spends his free time writing hauntingly beautiful poetry in a journal of his since there are a lot of beautifully written Russian literature... That journal could also probably work as his diary too because why not. He also does ballet and figure skating, and Ame probably calls him gay for it, this irks Rus but that's okay. He'll rip the tongue out of that American's loud mouth one day. He just has to be patient. (that last part is cringe but my rusame brain told me to write it)

For music I think he'd like classical (tchaikovsky) and metal. I also think he'd visit old abandoned buildings just to see the ruins. Maybe even appreciate the architecture? He finds beauty in the decay.

His relationship with Ame is a game of chess (Rus loves chess, so he loves whatever he has going on with Ame), each move calculated, each interaction charged with unspoken tension (they never reveal their love for eachother... the only time that would happen is probably in life-or-death situations but with their immortality that's practically impossible – actually you know what?? Scratch that. No confessions... Unless drunk or under the influence of something maybe.) With Cana, it's more like a delicate dance, appreciating his gentleness but always aware of the fragile nature of their bond – he's aware that cana and him are only really bound together through Ame.

---

Cana: Neglected boy (eng and fra both coddled Ame more) ... Envious of Ame but still loves him – he's frustrated. He knows so much about Ame but Ame knows nothing about him. Ame doesn't care enough to bother learning about him. It's unfair. I believe he actually has Kumajirou for comfort... But even his pet bear doesn't remember him (to be fair, he doesn't remember Kumajirou's name either.)

For music taste, I think he'd like shoegaze actually... it's calm yet messy-ish and it matches well with his vibe. (Totally not just projecting my music taste onto him)

He dislikes being in the shadow of his brother but he does appreciate his brother sticking up for him. Doing all the talking for him. He doesn't like new people usually. They never understand. (Never understand his freak.. yes Cana has a hidden freak to me.)

He genuinely gets along with rus. They're more similar than they initially thought after all. I mean they're both shy (to a point), both live in cold climates, both have weird relationships with ame... And both are connected through Ame... Rus and Cana both recognize that they are intrinsically tied together only through Ame.

---

Ame: Insufferable (put him in the eternal torture chamber!) Even so, Rus and Cana are still drawn to him like moths to a flame. Type of guy to test the limits of his immortal body... I wish Hima did more with their immortality because that is such an interesting subject. Probably has more DUIs than you can count. Has crashed a plane on purpose. No way you can be the United States of America and not end up crazy.

For the Cold War... Ame was genuinely disappointed when the USSR fell, he was like "well... what now...??" Because for several decades he had a villain to match his hero... But now that Rus fell off... what now? He misses the thrill and rush of it (he's a thrill-seeker... Type 3 fun typa guy). Also, he knew nothing would actually happen anyhow because of M.A.D (Mutually Assured Destruction) no one would actually drop bombs.. right? (they had a few close calls). Maybe the cold war was just one big edging session... (Lmfao sorry had to say it)

Okay adding to the above thing but the paragraph got too long for me. Another reason why Ame thrived in the cold war is that Rus had his singular attention on him. Just him. He loved that. He loved having all of someone's attention. He can't help it. He's just a girl! 🎀 (Kinda yandere-ish vibes but I fw yandere ideas so... Actually all 3 of them could be yandere in the right mindset.)

To me, Ame is the kind of person who thrives on adrenaline, always seeking the next big rush – he's also a huge sucker for attention. That's why he does the crazy things he does. For attention. After all, what is he without attention?

With Cana, well this is a me thing but I like to think that Ame is actually quite clingy with his brother.. He's one of the only people Ame allows to touch him.. Ame's not a very touchy person. Ame does crave genuine connections and Cana is one of the few that can offer that. They're each other's one and only brother after all. That has to mean something.

His relationship with Cana? Complicated... They seem good from the outside but Ame barely knows anything about his brother. Cana could say a million things about Ame but Ame could only respond with maybe a few hundred or so things about Cana – heck, maybe even that would be stretching it. Although, Ame does care for his brother in his own way, truly.

Last little thing I'd like to add: Ame has a collection of vintage stuff. I don't know why. Vintage things just scream American to me. Like old comic books..

[myfairstarlight]

To Have and to Hold - Penelope and Colin's journey to self-love

Companion piece - or one might say part 2 - of An Ode to Friends to Lovers.

Goddammit this was not supposed to be or take this long.

Ahum. Some time has passed, and after sorting through all my thoughts and feelings, here it finally is, my endless ramblings about two friends in love, but not only.

If anyone asks, no I did not take this long to write this post because of the fact that when taking screenshots to illustrate some parts of this analysis I ended up rewatching whole episodes instead.

So, dearest gentle readers, here's my Bridgerton s3 review, with focus on part 2, but looking at the season as a whole too; the highlights, the let downs, and polin's full love story, let's dive in, shall we?

The one thing I really liked about s3, something the other seasons could not do, is how so much is structured around parallels and callbacks to previous seasons, in the narration and in the visuals, for both Penelope and Colin. It is the advantage of having a main couple who's been here from the start, and with them, many other characters get weaved into their story, more particularly in part 2. I think that's why I personally did not mind the fact we did not get flashback sequences, unlike previous seasons (although I would have loved to see baby Colin and Penelope meeting... perhaps with Edmund and Violet watching them play and noting how they were childhood friends as well...) And what can I say? I'm a sucker for parallels as someone who loves to look at the details and perhaps overthink things.

So before we tackle Penelope and Colin individually and as a pair, let's talk about:

Eloise's love for Penelope

Eloise ends up being the catalyst for this second part, when she was mostly an observer in part 1. In many ways, she parallels Colin. Childhood friends with Penelope, betrayed by the Whistledown reveal, and yet still caring and protecting Penelope in her own way, which also paralleled Colin. And because I can, here's a small list:

Eloise distracting Cressida so she does not bully Penelope (s3e1) / Colin refusing a dance with Cressida to dance with Pen instead (s1e1)

Eloise running after her at the Four Seasons ball after accidentally revealing her and Colin's secret / Colin running after Penelope at the ball in s3e1

Colin visiting Penelope to apologise for his comment last season and offering the lessons to help her find a husband / Eloise visiting her to apologise and wish her the best in her endeavour to find a husband

Colin leaving to travel and find himself at the end of previous seasons but staying now / Eloise now travelling to Scotland to find herself

Now that we have the whole season, you can tell that in part 1, she foreshadowed how Colin would react in part 2, he just goes through her whole journey in a lot less time. See the direct parallel at the beginning of e5 as Eloise yells at Penelope and storms out, then Colin swoops in and comforts her, and then the end of e7, where Colin is the one upset with Penelope and after he storms out, Eloise is there, hugging her best friend and telling her everything will be alright.

When one is absent, the other is there for Penelope, because despite everything they love her and they know that through the years, Penelope has loved and supported them as well, even if she was still hiding this big part of her. Penelope makes Eloise feel listened to, and makes Colin feel seen. She was their safe space as much as they were hers.

Eloise is also the very reason Colin learning about Whistledown goes so wrong. She is the one pressuring Penelope to tell him, and also the one who eventually tells her to never tell him the truth when Cressida comes forward and claims to be Whistledown. Yes, Penelope is definitely still at fault as well for taking so long to tell him, but to her credit she did intend on telling him after publishing one last column discrediting Cressida, before being convinced to give it up by Eloise. And then when Cressida manages to publish something, and Eloise is terrified about what it means considering she just broke off their friendship, it is to protect Eloise from her ire that Penelope takes her quill again and sneaks out to publish, which leads to Colin finding out.

Then comes her scene with Colin as he asks his sister how long she's known, where all the parallels come through.

"Have you already forgiven her?"

"I want to. Do you think you can?"

Colin goes on to say Eloise is lucky that she's never been in love, implying that his love for Penelope makes it that much harder to forgive. However, he fails to understand that Eloise is in love as well, perhaps not in the romantic sense, but she is, or she would not have been this distraught for a year over her falling out with Penelope, and yet always somewhat keeping an eye on her. And just like how eventually, as push comes to shove, she finds her way back to Penelope, Colin will do much the same as a looming threat comes their way.

She and Colin are also similar in their insecurity regarding Penelope's love for them, and in turn Penelope spends a good length of the season reassuring them. She constantly tells Colin she loves him, especially after the reveal so he knows that this part of her was never deceiving. She reassures Eloise that their friendship is just as important as her love for Colin and she doesn't want to lose either of them.

The fascinating thing for me about Eloise when taking into account Polin, is that in part 1 they needed her to be away so Colin and Penelope could spend more time together uninterrupted, leading to Colin realising his feelings. This also applies to season 2 actually! While Eloise was in the hunt for LW and distracted by Theo, that's what allowed Colin and Penelope to have a full proper conversation about their purpose, and I'd argue that the moment Penelope said "my purpose shall set me free", something started to shift in their relationship.

In part 2, without Eloise, I wonder if they would have even been able to come together without any more secret between them, if she hadn't been the one to push Penelope to tell the truth, and then the one to support her while Colin was processing his own feelings.

Penelope's ambitions and womanhood

Penelope's journey to self-confidence continues in part 2, this time in regards to Whistledown as she finally accepts her as a part of her, rather than a mask to hide behind. Enters Genevieve Delacroix, the only character in this show who knows what it means to be a woman with a business. It is no coincidence her scene in e6 comes after Portia's talk of "ladies do not have dreams" and after Eloise convinced Penelope to give up Whistledown, because it is just gossip. She directly opposes them.

In part 1, she helped Penelope be more confident by providing her with a new wardrobe that fits her better, and in part 2, Gen is the very reason Penelope learns to be proud of Whistledown, own up to the mistakes, and yet fully claim her as her.

And then, the final nail in the coffin to me: Cressida, in a red "revenge" dress, shows up at the Mondrich ball, and wields the Whistledown name as Confident by Demi Lovato plays in the background. Cressida stands tall and proud despite the whispers, and I think a part of Penelope truly broke then. If Cressida could exhume such confidence for a body of work which is not even hers, then why can't Penelope be proud of what she's accomplished? This past week has been killing her, she admits it to Gen the eve of her wedding, Colin was a great distraction but giving up Whistledown, putting down her quill, it truly hurt her, and a part of her cannot imagine giving it up again. And so Gen gives her the very advice she needed to hear.

"There is no such thing as true love without embracing your true self."

And look at the contrast before vs after her talk with Gen:

Colin, of course, shares Eloise's point of view, Penelope should just give it up, and to be fair, he's more scared for her safety, since he caught her alone in the street at night, and then the Queen just threatened the family again. But Penelope cannot stand for that anymore, she is tired of running and hiding. That is Penelope having the confidence to truly be herself. By the end of e7, she's fully bloomed into the woman she's always been behind her quill. The irony being that Colin was also the one who helped her embrace that in part 1, as he helped her bring out that part of her that he's always been privileged to.

And in e8, we see her take the reins. Do what must be done to protect the ones she cares about.

So let's talk about Portia now, because she may not have a business per se, but she had to essentially become "the man of the house" to keep her daughters safe and the fortune they have intact. I've seen people say her redemption came out of nowhere but I concur that in part 1, as Penelope's confidence starts to grow and she stands up to her family, Portia is already trying to be a better, supportive mother, and in turn, Prudence and Philippa follow her lead. Portia is a practical woman, not a sentimental one, at least she doesn't let herself be, that we have seen since the beginning of the show, that's why she was reprimanding Penelope for being reckless with her reputation by asking for Colin's help, and then was pushing for the match with Debling, because he was a lord, who could offer stability, and who would be away most of the time, leaving the managing of his estate to his wife, to Portia that is (or rather, was) the ideal life a woman can achieve.

I loved that they had Portia learn about Whistledown before the public reveal, because then she has to truly face the fact that she has overlooked Penelope all this time, the daughter who is most like her, and Portia is also the only one who points out that Penelope has written badly about herself. It forces Penelope to face the fact that in many ways, she truly is her mother's daughter as well.

Portia ends up being the driving force behind Penelope's decision to reveal herself as well, I believe. Because we joke about how Penelope hid so much money in the floor boards while her family was going broke but mind you, she had no idea they were having money problems, because Portia tried to hide it to not worry them, the same way Penelope has kept her Whistledown secret in the misguided belief that it was for the better, that she could handle the weight of it all on her own. By revealing herself to the Queen, she could free Colin from her mess, get away from Cressida's blackmail and, if the Queen doesn't behead her, she can save her family's title thanks to her writing and money.

Portia's and Penelope's mending relationship was the highlight of the season for me, the true redemption I wanted to see and am glad I got. And I want to point out a little sweet moment in the last episode:

After the Whistledown reveal, as Portia comes over to praise her daughter, she notices Colin looking in their direction. I personally believe Penelope told her about the annulment, and this is her way to support her before she sends her off to have that conversation with Colin. Portia, who's never been the affectionate mother before, gently caresses her cheek and calls her "My girl", because no matter the outcome she will always remain her little girl.

The beautiful thing about Penelope's ambitions is that they were driven by the women in her life, that's one strength of this season to me. She was inspired by Eloise's strong opinions she so readily shared, Portia's sometimes ruthless ways in the way she protects her family and herself, and Genevieve's smart business endeavours and passion. And so she cannot, won't give that up for a society who is so unfair to women, ironically because the Queen herself is so harsh on debutantes. And isn't it poetic cinema that she ends up revealing herself, in her own terms, during the very ball she fully funded? And after that, it is Philippa, her family she mended things with, who saves her from embarrassment by releasing the butterflies? And then the very same Philippa who during the epilogue, happily declares that her daughter can grow into a successful writer who might not need a husband, just like her little sister?

Side note again but it is also interesting that in contrast we had the Mondrich subplot, wherein Will has to let go of his bar to be accepted in high society (and he's clearly not happy about it), because the London elites do not work, yet here Penelope is, owning a business approved by the Queen.

Penelope's ambitions, in turn, inspire others. Portia, into allowing herself to be soft, Prudence to be more honest (the pregnancy hormones probably helped too), Philippa to readily consider other paths in life, and Eloise into finally doing something and discover a little bit of the world.

And she inspires another Bridgerton as well.

Penelope's bravery and Colin's envy

The thing about Penelope and Colin, and that has been said before, is that their roles are reversed. In romance shows such as these, the man is usually the one with a hard exterior, with secrets he wishes to keep to himself while the woman is the one who encourages him to open up by loving him. That is literally s1 with Simon and Daphne. And even in some ways, it is also Anthony and Kate, the difference being that Kate was not trying to get Anthony to soften up, she was directly confronting him so he fixes his shit himself (I still have beef with Anthony, good for him for becoming a My Wife guy in s3 but man, the journey there was tough).

Anyway. With Penelope and Colin? Penelope is the one with the secrets, who wishes, at first, for a practical match so she may gain her freedom. Colin is the soft-hearted and romantic one, who although offers the lessons, keeps asking her if she likes any of the suitors she talks to. And then, it shifts again. Not in the literal sense, Colin has no secret after he's dropped his rake façade, but he does become a bit colder after the Whistledown reveal, while Penelope becomes the one reassuring him she loves him, and emphasising their emotional bond after she's gained the confidence to do so and accepted that a love match was still in the cards for her. But now, they must overcome Whistledown, the last obstacle she's been hiding behind.

"Well, if she was hiding behind Whistledown, how come Colin calls her brave even before the reveal?"

Well, I'm glad you asked, imaginary person in my head! Let's dial back a bit again.

I am a firm believer that Colin's envy towards Penelope (and him realising his romantic feelings) actually started back in s2, during their talk about purpose. She was the one leading the conversation then, who knew what her purpose would be, and to him, that is bravery, being true to oneself and knowing your place. And we see how in s3 part 1, Colin resorts to adopting a whole new persona, something Penelope does not do, even after changing her entire wardrobe and facing the Ton's eyes, she remains herself (and she is capable of acting! She effortlessly disguises herself as a maid and fakes an accent when delivering the Whistledown papers), and I think Colin noticed that. She has a new dress, and her hair looks different, but she's still Pen, meanwhile he, on the other hand, is pretending to be someone else. And when the scandal about the lessons came out, Penelope still showed her face when people were still preoccupied by the scandal. Debling says it best:

"Well done."

"For being a fool?"

"For stepping away from the herd, even though you risked becoming a target."

Penelope's bravery and honesty are the very reason Debling is interested in her, rather than in Cressida; she knows who she is, and what she likes (whereas Cressida adapts). Sure, he was not looking for a love match, but he was looking for authenticity, which Penelope always had. Because she's terrible at hiding her identity, actually. Eloise guesses it's her after listening to her once! Penelope has never hidden how much she likes gossip. In s2e1 she admits it outright that being a wallflower allows her to hear everything.

Colin rereads her letters and realises, wait, she really is Whistledown, she writes the same way, and although he had mixed feelings about Whistledown, he described her as clever, a quality he's always associated with Penelope as well. She says shit like "it would have been suspicious if she hadn't written about this scandal"... like that girl is not good at hiding herself actually, has never been, it's just that no one really paid her any notice and she was not put into the spotlight until now. I think a part of her unconsciously wanted them to connect the dots because the loneliness was getting to her but she was still scared to own up to it, so she continued to lie.

She's always been true to herself to some degree though, which is its own form of bravery, but she's never had the courage to ask for what she wanted before Colin helped her build her confidence. Colin, on the other hand, may be dense and oblivious, but when he wants something, he is not shy about it, and can even be a bit too impulsive. He's the one who always seeks her out and always tries to protect her and make her happy.

In part 2, as Penelope truly embraces all of herself, just like Colin is learning to be more vulnerable and let go of his ego, the dynamic between them shifts. He's the man, but she got the power.

It started when she gathered the courage to ask for that first kiss, which changed everything, and it solidified when she is the one who seeks Colin at their wedding breakfast. In that instant, he's the wallflower, and she's the one pulling him into the centre and dance in broad daylight.

And this translates in the bedroom too as she goes from following his lead to riding his d-

Ahum, who said that? Anyway, topic at hand. As the dynamic shifts, as Penelope learns to truly be herself and Colin learns the truth, that is when his envy and lack of direction in his own life become too much, and he cannot avoid it anymore. Because he thought he had found his purpose at last, be Penelope's husband, take care of her, provide for her, be the head of their family. But now he learns she's been living a dangerous double life this whole time, that she "mocked" him at the beginning of the season, and she might not even need him to protect her as much as he thought she did because she has money and a prolific career despite being a young lady with minimal agency.

And he had already been struggling before the reveal. In all of part 1, he was grappling with his sense of self, realising that pretending was not worth it if he felt empty and if it meant losing Penelope in the process as well. And in part 2, we already saw him struggling with his writing, only able to write again after Penelope tells him she's loved him for years. And then, he refuses Penelope's help to edit his journals into a book because he wants to prove to himself and to her that he could do it on his own. That he is worthy of her love.

Also note that at that point, Penelope had given up on Whistledown, and wanted to live through him by editing for him as well. Just before, we had the scene where she burned her old Whistledown issues at the same time as Colin was writing, suddenly overcome with inspiration (in this regard, I like that the show ends up allowing Penelope to keep the column and still help Colin with his book, rather than her giving up LW like in the book, where she lives vicariously through him. I know she eventually becomes a romance author in the books, and I hope she also reaches that point in the show, but it is nice she does not have to give up her pen first, you know?)

So when Colin learns she's been a published writer this whole time while he was struggling to find a purpose? Penelope started Whistledown in her first year out after all, at the exact same time, Colin wanted to prove to his family that he can be taken seriously, leading to his disastrous betrothal that season. He had needed to travel to find himself, and even then, it didn't give him the answers he was seeking, and no one was taking his newfound experiences seriously, except Penelope. He's a third son, neither the Viscount, neither the spare, so he had nothing to himself. But Penelope is much in the same situation, a third daughter, from a family less fortunate that his, and yet she has accomplished more than he has. He was already so insecure about his love being unrequited but now that he knows she does not even need to rely on him for financial stability and security? Let's dive more into that, shall we?

Colin's self-worth and ambitions

I've seen a lot of people lament the fact that Colin does not feel as much of a protagonist as Penelope, and while I agree to some degree, such argument fails to take into account the fact that he is the reason the season exists in the first place, not just on a meta level because he's a Bridgerton, but because every action he takes progresses the story. Colin is the driving force of the narrative, while Penelope is the heart of it because he loves her.

He offers the lessons to make up for his comment last season, leading to Penelope gaining in confidence. He interrupts Debling's imminent proposal and chases Penelope's carriage, leading to the engagement. He confronts Portia, leading to her re-evaluating the way she treats her daughters and the Featheringtons mending their relationship. He confronts Eloise and reminds her how obsessed she used to be with Penelope, leading to the reconciliation between the two. He follows Penelope out of worry and learns about Whistledown. When the blackmail happens, he confronts Cressida, this time things get worse (his infamous impulsiveness biting him in the ass once more), but it is still furthering the narrative, leading to Penelope taking things into her own hands and revealing herself in her own terms.

His actions are loud, however his internal growth is much more subtle and we get less scenes of him alone compared to Penelope. And that, I agree, is a weakness of this season. I mean, he spends barely 1/8 of the season upset at Penelope, when people act like he was for half the season. If you watch from the start instead of just looking at part 2, Polin have a lot more happy and cute scenes than angsty ones. Hell! They have more kisses than saphne and kanthony in their own seasons combined, I bet (I didn't count, truth be told, but since they get together halfway through the season, as opposed to in the later half, and had their first kiss in episode 2, I think it's a safe bet to make) (Edit from Star from the future here: so I admit I was wrong. Simon and Daphne have definitely more kisses because they had so many intimacy scenes upon rewatch. I just forgot about them, my bad (mostly, I tend to block out That Scene too, so). Anthony and Kate, on the other hand, were robbed. It's kinda funny Bridgerton built a reputation to be quite spicy, only for none of the seasons after s1 matching the same level lol). I also do feel like a few flashback scenes of him during his travels, waiting for Penelope's letters but getting none as he starts to act like a rake to compensate for the loneliness, contrasted with the lesson scenes in part 1 where he is carefree and silly with Penelope could have benefited his character. I personally do not think he was treated as a "love interest", he carries the season just as much as Penelope, but his emotional weight is lesser than hers, and that was an issue with the writing and pacing.

So here, I must redirect to my other Colin analysis post, as well as this one comparing book vs show portrayal, and though those were unorganised immediate thoughts after watching the show (and vague memories of the book), I still mostly stand by them and so I can also avoid repeating what I've already written.

Colin's insecurity regarding love is a direct result of s1 and, once again, Marina. The parallels between Marina and Penelope are kinda in your face, especially with Colin dropping the entrapment line.

Side note but between Anthony and Colin trying to get with a family member of their future wives first, I sure hope we won't learn Sophie is related to Lady Tilly Arnold or something because otherwise there's a pattern within the ABC bros.

Another thing is that when Marina's lie was revealed, she admits everything else was a lie as well, including her love for him. He was a means to an end, and there's no reason to pretend anymore. But with Penelope? She still tells him she loves him after the fact, and several times after that. Note that, just like with Marina, he learns of the Big Secret while they're engaged. Just like for Marina, he could just walk away now, Penelope even asks him if he wishes to cry off, but he doesn't.

Colin and emotional intimacy

I already made a post about this, but I will reiterate some points anyhow this time, because I need to make some comparisons with Book!Colin, since I've seen a lot of people be upset that unlike his book counterpart, Show!Colin is not physically affectionate with Penelope while still angry at her. So to address this, let's talk about his journals. It is no coincidence that instead of beautiful descriptions of places he's visited, in the show Penelope reads about his experiences with the "women in Paris" and how empty they make him feel. In the book, Colin is older, he is a rake and very much enjoys ladies' company, but in the show, he's only pretending to be one. It's one change they made I liked, to make him different from Anthony and Benedict (when in the books, all these men sorta blend together if I have to be honest). He's the sweet, sensitive brother, who seeks emotional and physical intimacy. Sure, he has experiences, especially after being mocked for being too green, but they felt like obligations, rather than acts of passion (Benedict) or distractions (Anthony). It is also significant that every time someone asks him about his experiences in part 1, he only ever talks about one contessa and never brings up other women, unlike in his journals where, of course, he goes into more details, knowing no one can judge him there.

And then Penelope reads those words, the depths of his mind and his insecurity, and yet she praises him for his writing, rather than mock him for his feelings of inadequacy. That is when it clicks in Colin's mind, although unconsciously, because he flashes back to that scene when he realises his feelings - Penelope is the only other person he feels comfortable enough with to share such thoughts. That's why their first time is such a contrast with the carriage scene, where it was a moment of passion as they get carried (hah!) away after confessing to each other. He was reeling from realising his feelings and narrowly stopping Penelope's engagement to Debling. There was urgency and then relief. Here, it is slower, more tender, because to Colin, this is it, this is where he can prove to Penelope that this was not a mistake, than he can take care of her, bring her pleasure like she could never imagine. He makes sure to tell Penelope how much he loves her, he asks her consent several times, he makes sure she is comfortable. It's a little awkward, unlike the carriage scene, because this is the real and full deal and he sure does not want to mess it up. After all:

That's why I'm not too mad we did not get a montage with them. Their two major intimate scenes are long sequences with few cuts, emphasised by their proximity and the comfort they feel around each other. They're emotional. They're supposed to make the viewer feel like they're interrupting. And Colin does not want to taint these two experiences, that's why the last intimate scene we get is after they reconcile (though we deserved a longer one). So, to quote myself: Colin does not let his lust take over when he's upset, because Penelope means too much to him. He does not want to lay together only to wake up in a cold bed and still be fighting in the morning. He wants to be hers, body and soul, fully and assuredly, and until he accepts the fact he loves her because of Whistledown and not despite since they are one and the same, then he cannot promise Penelope all of himself either. In his mind, he may be afraid that this emotional intimacy he felt with Penelope when they laid together will be ruined, or just simply gone while he is so tortured by the Whistledown reveal. Everything else is a mess right now but that part of their relationship? It was pure and sincere, and he wants to keep it that way.

And not to dunk on Book!Colin again but that man had anger issues and could be violent, he knew he was hurting her sometimes and did not do shit to stop that. Why would you prefer that over Show!Colin keeping a respectful distance and yet still staying close to Penelope, trying his best to protect her despite it all?

After all, the only time he gives in while they're still fighting is when they argue in the streets and Penelope shouts "I love you" to his face. That is the first time she confesses in the present tense. And for a second, Colin's walls crumble. He's a sensitive man, after all, even when he's upset, he ends up tearing up, so the declaration of love answering his "Then what good am I to you?", a question encompassing all of his insecurities in a few words, well, it's the emotional outburst that makes him almost give in, if they weren't in the middle of the street with carriages passing by. They were also both tipsy in that scene lol.

And while I'm at it, let's link back to my post regarding the entrapment line and the annulment. One thing I fail to mention (there already are so much, to be fair) is that Colin throwing an entrapment accusation can also be interpreted as him giving himself an excuse to remain engaged. The previous episode, he was worried they got carried away in the carriage (and then their future home) and that Penelope was changing her mind. As already mentioned, at that point, just like with Marina he could just walk away. They're only engaged, and no one knows they have been intimate. Sure, it would go against his principles as a gentleman but honestly he already broke them several times when Penelope is involved. And he knows that. He never actually intends to back down, he is determined to marry Penelope, as he said in that carriage this is "a feeling that is like torture, but one I cannot, will not, do not want to give up". But in that one moment, he was hurt and angry and knew what to say to hurt, and did not want to admit that he would have stayed either way because he loves her (and frankly, in this situation, Penelope is in the wrong and she kinda deserves to feel bad about wanting to hide such a thing from him, even if the accusation itself is unfair). So he gives the decision some duty, some responsibility. He's a gentleman, so he must do what's objectively right. Because that is easier than looking into the complexity of his feelings.

And that is marriage to me. Marriage is not a happily ever after. It's a choice, to stay by someone's side through the good and the bad times. And in that moment, he also made his choice, and knew Penelope would be his wife. From then on, they learn to communicate. They were in sync as friends, but as a husband and wife? That is different, even if the foundation is similar, they need to relearn how to navigate life together.

Episode 8 is all about them figuring this out.

Take these scenes for example. First of all, this has been pointed out by many already but: Colin may be mad, but he still stays close to her by sleeping on the settee just outside their bedchamber instead of taking another room. That's dedication.

Right away, Colin establishes a boundary between them and asks for some space, however, he still waits for her to wake up to tell her rather than leave without a word and having the servants inform her. She's visibly upset about it, insisting he should stay so they can talk, but he still leaves. Halfway through the episode, the situation is now reversed, Penelope emerges, already dressed while Colin clearly has not slept all night, she tells him she is leaving and giving him the space he asked for, and it is Colin's turn to be upset and realising that, no, actually he does not really like that distance anymore.

Note that until that point, they both were very confrontational whenever Whistledown was brought up, Penelope on the defensive and Colin on the offensive, they're both third children who were belittled so that is how they respond - Penelope by standing her ground and refusing to budge, and Colin by attacking and asserting himself. But here, Penelope listens to Colin's wants, and lets go a little. She gives him the space he needs, all the while she is also planning how to fix all this mess without lying to or hurting more people. And then later on again, Colin is the one who listens to her needs and her plan. That is the beginning of a healthy marriage as they both let go of their egos, as they both take a step back to listen to the other and realising they no longer have to do things alone, because actually, that distance between them was hurting both of them. Penelope accepts she can rely on others' support and Colin accepts that it is not what he can do that makes him worthy, but simply who he is.

People lament that in the Whistledown public reveal, Colin ended up not contributing much, as opposed to his book counterpart, but that is literally what Penelope asked him to do. She does not need a hero, she needs her Colin. Kind, supportive Colin, who reassured her with a simple smile and a nod on their wedding day, and who did the same when she stepped into the light once more at the Butterfly Ball. He gives her courage, by virtue of being there and loving her. Just like she gives him a purpose by simply loving him as well. The very thing Colin envied, Penelope's bravery? Well, he is one of the reasons it exists in the first place.

In the book, Penelope had no idea Colin was planning to reveal her identity, until the last, like, five minutes. He also told Anthony and Simon behind her back. I love the balcony scene but it always bothered me that Penelope's agency in that decision was taken from her. Therefore I love that they gave it back to her in the show. Just like she said in s1e8, Whistledown cannot be unmasked but if one day she shall be, then it would be in her own terms.

(I also want to say though that despite my criticisms earlier, Book!Polin remain one of my favourite dynamics in the books because despite it all, they're one of the healthiest couples. They work together as a team, and it helps Colin learned about LW before he proposed. They discuss Cressida's blackmail, whereas in the show Colin first dismisses Penelope in his need to prove himself capable of protecting her. We see them encourage each other in their writing more than in the show (fingers crossed for s4 though!) and they even discuss how they will keep Pen's Whistledown money for their children. They're a team, through and through, and in the show, we see the start of that, which makes sense, their show counterparts are ten years younger, not as mature as they are on paper.)

All through part 2, Colin stayed true to his confession in that carriage. His love was like torture. He was so insecure about Penelope not loving him as much as he does, questioning what good he even is to her and if she just lied. And yet he held on and did not want to give it up, he embraced it rather than ran from it like the other leads we had so far. He was shattered by the Whistledown secret and yet, he remained, worked through his sense of self, through his anger, through his insecurity, because Penelope is worth it. He was willing to lie for her, to lie to Benedict to get the money needed, to protect her. And Penelope clung to him just as fiercely, always reminding him that she loves him for simply being him. One always has worth. That is the validation Colin has always craved, that is when it truly sinks in for him and that he understands her selfless love for him; he does not need to pretend, he does not need to be useful, he does not need to have everything figured out, he can breathe. Penelope will be there every step of the way. Has always been, in fact, she's always been a constant in his life, and now that he is lucky enough to stand by her side and soak even a little bit of her light, well, he sure won't ever let go again.

And to end this section, not really a point of analysis, but shoutout to my girl Pen whose first instinct when she realises she can touch Colin is to reach for his hair and boy does he melt at the touch. Unlocked his hair pulling kink right there.

This is still a friends to lovers story

Fear not, the romcom vibes are still here! I kept this part for the last to end on a sweet note, just like this season. And this is also the part where I stop pretending to be a reviewer and I just allow myself to be self-indulgent, pointing out how cute these two are.

So, first of all:

They just fucked and what's the first thing they do together? Laugh. In the carriage, Colin did make a joke, prompting the laughing but in the mirror scene? They simply look at each other and start chuckling because they are so giddy upon realising this is real, they're best friends, and they're in love, and they'll be married and they will soon be able to do this whenever they want. Then, Penelope lets out a bit of her insecurity, hoping this was just as good for Colin as it was for her since she knew he was more experienced, and when he reassures her, Penelope grins and jokes about "the women in Paris", which she does again during the Mondrich ball, teasing him about the spicy parts of his journals. She is so secure in their relationship, she feels no jealousy towards Colin's past experiences but bet if anyone ever brings up Debling again, Colin would lose it, and I kinda wish we had at least one scene of Colin properly addressing his one-sided beef with Debling.

During their whole engagement (and before the LW reveal), they're just so incredibly in love, so sweet it might give you cavities, and it was such a breath of fresh air after two seasons and one spin-off of the main couple never really embracing their love until the later part of the seasons. The way Colin makes Penelope smile during the reading bans scene, then when they dance alone in the church, or when Colin adds the twirl (the flourish!) during the dance at the Mondrich ball and then when they laugh at the Butterfly Ball when everything is said and done and they can finally, fully be themselves... They are just two romantics at heart who are thrilled to be in love and miss no opportunity to flaunt it in front of the Ton who's always judged them so harshly. I wish I could include videos in this because posting screenshots would not give those moments justice.

And the comedic aspect of the romcom vibes of this season are still present in part 2, although a bit overshadowed by the Whistledown drama but I mean:

Penelope and Colin finally having a chaperone in Portia, and having no idea how to act now because they never had to worry about a chaperone before (and by that point, Penelope is already pregnant)

Poor Kanthony trying to find the right time to announce the pregnancy but here come Polin, getting engaged out of nowhere

Portia and Violet's tentative beginning of friendship, wherein Violet is trying so hard to be polite when faced with Portia's over-enthusiastic attitude

The whole charade scene with Anthony getting so competitive and glaring at poor Penelope when she gets the answers right.

All the times someone brought up Whistledown's imminent unmasking and Penelope taking psyching damage every time (meanwhile in part 1, it was everyone telling Colin how kind of him it is to help Pen find a husband). Peak "actions have consequences huh". She could not catch a break. Which okay, she was panicking and then fainted but I still find it a little funny because girl, you kinda had it coming.

The whole scene of Penelope revealing the money she made with Whistledown and Colin's, Eloise's and Portia's reactions.

And I'm probably forgetting other parts. It has now been confirmed as well that a lot of the reshoots were to make the season more light-hearted, more romcom, and they had Colin be less angry than he originally was in the script (notably after their wedding breakfast), so even if I resent that dreadful wig they put on my poor man, I'm so grateful the season remains, overall, more romcom than true drama like the other seasons could have been, because at the end of the day, this is the love story of two friends who already cared so deeply for each other. Honestly, I'd argue the true angst of the season came more from Eloise's and Penelope's rekindling friendship (and also Cressida's home life) (the true love triangle).

And speaking of truly knowing one another, let's go back to the one thing that brought Colin and Penelope together: the letters.

Note how loosely bound Penelope's letters to Colin were compared to the other pile, because he has kept them with him during his travels this past summer and kept rereading them when she did not respond back. And just like the letters (or lack thereof) were the first clues that something had shifted in their relationship and Colin realises how much he misses her, her letters also become the reason he reconciles Penelope with Whistledown because oh yeah, the writing is the same, clever, sharp, and beautiful, just like his Penelope. As he rereads them, he realises how he himself overlooked Penelope for so long, how he was compelled by her quill, how powerful it was that they made him feel more confident and how their absence made his sense of self crumble. The same way, upon his return, Whistledown calling him out, shattered that new self he had tried so hard to build. Penelope was the reason he found his confidence, then lost himself when she did not respond, and the reason he had to look inward when, through Whistledown, she saw through his facade.

But also isn't it sweet, that he unknowingly always praised her writing? Of her letters obviously, but of Whistledown as well. For all his negative feelings about the gossip column, one thing he always admitted is how clever Whistledown is, hence why he did not even believe Cressida could actually be her. Deep down, he's always admired her writing, even if he did not realise it was her yet. He was so attached to her letters after all.

And speaking of writing? Penelope becomes his muse.

That is him writing about Penelope's debut, proving he's always paid attention to her, between this, him being the one to bring up how they met, and recalling all the times Eloise kept bringing up Penelope in conversations. And he's writing all of this after the church dance scene! After Penelope's declared her love for him and how she's loved him for years! He was lamenting that love made him so simple he could not write a single word, but it is love that fuelled his mind once more and broke his writer's block. And then in the epilogue, he is so proud to say Penelope helped him edit his book, he who, a couple of episodes earlier, was so determined to do this on his own to prove himself, now his pride is that he worked together with his wife and they are building a family, and a writing empire, together.

The season ends as they kiss in front of the very window Penelope often sat in front of, overlooking Bridgerton house, hoping to catch a glimpse of Colin, who now will always be looking at her first. They also now have the heir to the Featherington barony, and they inherit the very house with the garden where Colin first broke Penelope's heart, then mended it by offering his help, then where they shared their first kiss. It is theirs now.

And it's just! They're so in love! I have no other words (also this post is so long, I am getting tired myself I probably sound like a broken record by now).

Conclusion

I think Bridgerton s3 has officially become a comfort watch. I'm never one to really rewatch shows, but this specific season has joined the small list I have. As already mentioned, when it comes to romance, friends to lovers has always been a favourite and Polin is such a good depiction of the trope. They're the gigglers on the side of balls, the ones who did not so much seek the centre stage but were thrown in the middle of it, which fits so well even on a meta perspective because Luke and Nicola admitted they sure did not expect their season to come this early either. They won't be the most popular couple, perhaps, but my God, they are mine. Despite the length of this post, I think I probably still forgot some points but oh well, gotta stop somewhere and I'm sure people more eloquent than I made posts as well.

This season was not perfect, I have a lot more gripes about it than this long post makes it sound like (although they're mostly non-polin related or something about the production), but I like to focus on the positives. And for all its flaws, s3 sure knew how to deliver a sweet romance between two outcasts who found their home with each other.

And with that, dearest gentle readers, this humble author - or rather, this person who fancies themself an author at their lost hours - finally lets their old keyboard rest, and hopes you have enjoyed this long read into a mind with too many thoughts about a gentle, kind man who has a lot of love to give and a fierce, passionate woman who wants to be loved.

(The sweetest little parallel to end this on, ever since s1, he's always seen her <3)

[tinycheesecakedetective]

...I'm baaaack.

I mean, I made one post about Swap!PV and then got distracted for months, so I wouldn't really call this a comeback. The moment I did come back though, apparently a bunch of lore just fell from the sky! Beast Yeast is upon us and all of a sudden I remember making an alt. version of this goober.

Turns out there were a few things I wasn't satisfied with in the first one, so here I am with my Swap!Vanilla 2.0 human edition! Even after all this time I still don't have a name for him. There's more white in his design, he has four horns instead of two and they form a crown on his head(that might be a bit hard to see), he also has a halo, his staff changed drastically, and he lost his soul gem. Instead he has two new smaller gems on his "ribcage".

This time around I tried to invoke more death themes, hence the ribcage, more wrappings, the halo, and the burn marks from, y'know, being re-baked and essentially reborn. The halo also makes for a nice double meaning, showing his somewhat good intentions behind the violence and spreading chaos gig.

Speaking of intentions, I maybe or maybe not have mentioned the only swaps happening in this proposed AU are between PV and WL and [possibly] Black Raisin and Red Velvet. I say maybe because if I checked, all the writing would disappear and I would have to start over again. However, I have wondered if those two swapped, how would PV handled the kingdoms? Would it be the same as DE or would the fates of each kingdom end up being swapped as well? It's something I definitely need to think on and develop.

Anyways, ramble break, here's a few doodles I did for Swap!PV!

Yeah, I had a lot of fun doing this. SO! A few changes not mentioned prior. Eyes! There are more eyes, especially on his coat. I took a bit of inspiration from a certain blue jester and his realm of nightmares. It also plays nicely with the whole "truth revealed" theme. Why not give the holder of the light of truth a bunch of opened eyes to represent his awakening? Also they looked good and his cape-coat was too plain without it.

Fun Head Canons: He's always floating, even when he's relaxing his feet never touch the floor. This PV still has a lily garden, it's just hidden away because while he still misses WL despite everything, he refuses to show weakness in front of others. His coat can take the shape of angel wings when angry and multiple eyes can appear when furious or in distress. Speaking of eyes, the ones on his coat glow. Those gems on him are pieces of moonstone that got corrupted after saving him.

As for the story behind him, I had to make a few adjustments. For one, DE and WL are two halves of the same whole, and the only reason either of them exists is thanks to precautions taken by Elder Faerie. Which means Pure Vanilla somehow has to get the stuff from Lily, who came to Beast Yeast without saying much of anything to anyone beforehand. Secondly, it means the Pure Vanilla Kingdom can't be the last kingdom explored. Pre Beast Yeast, the order in which the kingdoms would be explored would change, where White Lily's area would be explored first instead and the Vanilla Kingdom would be last. I'll address the second issue on a different post related to White Lily, but first things first. Fair warning, I wrote quite a bit.

~~~

After forming the seal, White Lily falls ill due to the immense amount of power used. She's not used to using so much of her soul gem, much less creating a seal to lock away ancient evils. Seeing her faltering state, Elder Faerie takes her away to his palace to help her recover. During her time in the palace, White Lily becomes distressed because not only does she feel like she's being a burden, but she won't be able to continue her research on how cookies were made. That was the whole point of coming here, after all. She left her friends and home behind to find the truth and ended up sick and bed ridden instead. The least she could do to redeem herself was to find the truth.

Racked with guilt and regret, she asks Elder Faerie for two favors; she wishes to know the secret behind cookies' creation, and she requests a pen and paper to write with. Before long, White Lily gains a messenger(Silverbell) who gives her books from the library to read, and a way to reach the one other person she understands. Someone who should've known where she was most of all. Pure Vanilla Cookie.

From there the two keep exchanging letters as White Lily brushes up on fae and beast lore. But eventually White Lily would learn about the Night of the Witches in a similar enough way to canon, i.e. finding the book about it. While she's recovered enough, she's still not well enough to go, and Elder Faerie isn't risking her well being and safety for a banquet. She's devastated that her questions may never be answered. If only she could go, if only there was some way to witness it while being in the Fairy Kingdom. And then... she realizes something. Perhaps there is a way for her to know after all...

White Lily, in the discomfort of her hospital bed, writes a letter to Pure Vanilla and asks him to go to the Witch's Banquet in her place. She knows that this is a huge ask, and he has every reason to refuse the favor, but it would mean the world to her if he did. Elder Faerie hears about this and is rightfully worried, telling her about the dangers, and any cookie that goes doesn't come back the same, if at all. He sends his own letter to Pure Vanilla to warn him of the dangers that lie ahead. A few more letters come in from WL apologizing for her request, saying it was out of line and inappropriate. "What a selfish request," she thinks, "after leaving him in the dark for so long, I have the nerve to ask him for anything at all?"

However, despite everything, he eventually decides to go. He knows that this means everything to her, and a part of Pure Vanilla secretly wondered about it as well. White Lily searched heaven and earth to find the truth so she could help others. Why would he keep avoiding it for so long? If he knew the truth as well, perhaps he could use these secrets to help the people of Earthbread alongside her. Maybe now he would finally understand White Lily more.

He wrote a letter addressed to both WL and EF about his final decision. White Lily is surprised at his decision, and is eternally grateful, while Elder Faerie is more resigned and concerned, knowing that he won't be able to change his mind but still wanting to help. He asks her to help write her next letter, and the two send a package to Pure Vanilla. Inside was another letter with the faint smell of lilies, as well as a map to the location of the banquet and a moonstone from Elder Faerie as a show of goodwill and for protection. He in turn sends what would become his final letter to her, unbeknownst to the two reading. He expresses his gratefulness to both WL and EF and declares his determination to find answers both for her and for the sake of everyone, stating, "Let me be your hope when you have none, and you my guiding light in shadows..."

Pure Vanilla proceeds to head to the Witch's Banquet, discovers the bitter truth, and in his attempts to save the other cookies falls into the ultimate dough. The fleeting scent of lilies is the last thing he grasps in his final moments, and the faint glow of a moonstone ensures his survival. His soul gem shatters under the weight of the truth and is scattered across the world, longing to be made whole once again.

~~~

Well! I think I have said everything I can say about him for now. I'm sure I can come up with more things later, but if you read this far, thanks for reading! I did not know I was going to say this much, so yeah. Next post is for White Lily specifically, I hope. I'm also taking suggestions for ideas about the other kingdoms and ways this could go, so if you have anything to suggest, let me know. Y'all have a good evening!

[timeslipcamp]

thoughts on episode 15

this post will contain spoilers and rambles about how much i love rui read at your own risk

he's only at the beginning i know LET ME LIVE

loved the lil walk with rui. i love that dude i wish we could have seen him before he was cursed. the bittersweet "i used to do that all the time" when he was talking about researching his curse 😭 can we cure him too please

this was funny as hell no way does haku have dad energy, he has jealous energy

these two lines honestly just feed into my theory that it's a very understated staff vs ghouls atmosphere (not so understated i guess) and that haku is working for them. traitor 😔

RUI IS ONTO HIM. haku always just knows when to appear, huh? and this isn't the first time, we run into haku everywhere. why is he always out walking? what is he looking for? rui might know, he's in the shadows after all.

i am genuinely curious about the wisteria taking people though. why would they mention that? what does that have to do with anything? is it only certain people?

would love to know why subaru interrupted zenji like that, even mc noticed that was out of character for him. i get the feeling there's more to this place and subaru's past then he let on, but it could also have just been a throwaway red herring line to get us to be more suspicious of the subaru stuff that was going to be revealed later. but honestly my main concern is that zenji and jiro have not only never been to a museum, but they've never been to an amusement park 😭 let them have fun!!! let me take them out!!

haku being insistent on the folk tale channel is interesting, though i'm not sure if it was just to show character traits or if it's actually for the plot. sometimes dialogue is just dialogue, ya know? weird that haku had him record a folk tale so insistently and then never tell us which tale. sus 🤨

this chapter also seems to spend a lot more time on the interaction between the ghouls, which im not mad about. it's always fun to see how the writers balance the mission and also character development. love a good monster of the week show.

i fucking laughed out loud when subaru popped up that was genuinely the funniest thing this whole episode

also not to be such a haku stan when i'm very clearly team traitor!haku but

how come every time he looks at us it's so soft like man cmon please make it easier to hate you. stop being so nice

honestly the more this whole subaru thing goes on i really don't think he's suspicious so much as he's just so terrified of losing control that it's become an obsession.

my whole take on the subaru thing centers around anxiety and poor coping mechanisms. i'm hesitant to say it's ocd because of how mental illness is usually portrayed in horror media, but it definitely feels like the anxious spirals that kind of cycle on obsession. especially once it comes out about the scandal he was supposedly involved in. if you already have anxiety about how you're perceived and something like that happens on such a major scale that you have to step away from the public eye, (and especially after doing something like losing control) it's not a huge leap to think it'd almost become a trigger response. especially the cabbage on the burger part on the table--you see reactions like that all the time. i won't go into a full psychoanalysis, as i'm not a psychology expert, but that's how it reads to me. so far. he's still on my list lmao

also this campus interaction pointed out by @sane-tkdbblog is a lot more interesting now

regardless haku needs to shut up, there's way better ways to get people to stop with the self deprecation 😭 haku pls. still though it was interesting that haku thought it was serious enough that he asked us if we wanted to keep working with them. was it because the violence was that serious? was it a test to see our loyalties and where they lie? was it him being selfish? who knows with haku at this point

more fuel for my traitor!haku is being blackmailed theory. easiest way out is going along with it to save himself.

what i REALLY want to know more about is what zenji's referring to!! whose sos did he miss? is that what led to him dying?? zenji TELL ME

super dark story in this one as well, had my phone screen covered for the last few parts lmao. also INSANE ending, love a cliffhanger, but again i think subaru's probably just going ro try and do something else to gain control of a situation again. post incoming about the tree of severance

🌟10/10 for spooky ghosts

🌟10/10 for zenji's outfits (and everyone's really)

theory posts to make still: subaru's demon, further traitor theories, the defunct houses, tree of severance, and why i hate the teachers. also another one about taiga lmao

asks and dms are always open!