#i'll blame it to me being accurate to his character

[darkcircles4lyfe]

it's a story about hands (reprise)

Yeah, okay, today's the day.

I gave my blog that title for a reason, you know, and it has loomed over me for years because the hand motif is absolutely everywhere and you could go on about it forever.

Maybe that's something I'll never actually attempt to do, but this chapter, we reached a breaking point.

Before I continue, I need to give a big, big disclaimer: I do not have a physical disability, so I'm not able to speak about that from the standpoint of representation as a first-hand perspective. I have at least listened to enough disabled people to know that fictional characters who become amputees only to miraculously gain their limbs back is, um, a trope. Disabled people in general being "healed" is a conception we would really prefer to avoid here. Not to call people out, but I don't think we're giving enough space to acknowledge that.

I don’t feel comfortable making the judgement call about what should happen. I’m leaving that open. I also don't want to downplay people's emotional reactions. Honestly, I don't know if I can accurately define the line between acknowledging real pain vs. ableist pity. But I’d like to talk about the possibilities of what could happen. Other characters have definitely gotten permanent disabilities as a result of their hero work, or even just the side effects of their quirk. But, for better or worse, I don't think this case is really about representation. Not that Horikoshi won't do that justice. He might. What I'm saying is that's not his purpose for having Izuku lose his arms. It's meant to be symbolic, so we can explore what it means. The other thing I’m keeping in mind here is that Horikoshi is notorious for playing with our expectations, like, alllllll the time. I mean, just take a few chapters ago for a classic example. Eri appeared at the end, and we all assumed she was about to take some sort of action to save someone with her quirk. Then, immediately following, we were given an explanation for why that wouldn’t be happening. And now it’s clear he wanted to do that “fake out” not just as a silly cliffhanger prank, but specifically so we would know not to suspect that Eri could be the miraculous solution to Izuku’s loss of his arms. Rest assured, there is no easy way out of this.

The expectation at play in this particular instance is an old one. It’s very understated, but its subtext has burned so brightly, you’d be a fool not to notice it. It sits with anticipation like one half of a call and response. Man, I was so certain. Lots of people still are. I was really looking forward to printing the panel where it happened onto a t shirt and wearing it proudly. All the hand motifs in this story radiate thematically from a single moment, the one that started it all for Izuku.

It raises all kinds of questions about the act of saving, who needs saving, why, what does it mean, what are the dynamics of power, politics, honesty, exploitation, compassion, pity, disdain, sacrifice. Katsuki has dealt with many of these since he first rejected Izuku’s hand. While Izuku was the one who was convinced Katsuki would keep on rejecting him…

…Katsuki was the one who kept that moment in his mind all these years and eventually came to regret it.

Katsuki is the one yearning for that hand-hold, the one who has imbued it with so much more weight than it ever originally had. Izuku, in contrast, does not allow himself to dwell on what he wants. To illustrate this difference, we need to look at another piece of foreshadowing:

Ugh, do y'all remember when lots of folks were complaining about how there never seemed to be actual consequences for Izuku's destructive treatment of his own body? I don't blame them, I was concerned and confused about it too. There were several "fixes" along the way. Recovery Girl healed him, but left a physical reminder. Then he started training to fight with his legs… sometimes. Then he got support items. All of these were unsatisfying non-conclusions because they didn't present Izuku with a lasting enough impression to change in a meaningful way. They didn't address his core, his origin.

Of course, that all changed this chapter. Now it looks like our frustration was inflicted intentionally. With the current context in mind, all of these moments look more sinister, like this day was always gonna come because they kept putting bandaids on a deep emotional and psychological wound. The problem is pretty much spelled out for us here:

As Katsuki put it, he just doesn’t take himself into account, ya know? He doesn’t care what happens to him. And he lies about it, to keep others from worrying, to keep them safe. To keep them from returning the favor and putting themselves in harm’s way for his sake. His motivations are noble,

…but what about the little boy inside Izuku? Who saves him?

This is all about Izuku giving himself up to the point that he literally has no more to give. The thing is, I bet he saw this coming. He knew his limits and decided to keep going anyway, because his personal safety and wellbeing are not important. Now that way of thinking has come back to bite him because the fight isn’t over yet, and he’s already made his sacrifice. So now we know who will be more distraught over this. Not Izuku—Katsuki.

It’s not about Izuku becoming disabled, it’s about how Katsuki wanted to use the intertwining of their fingers to communicate that he would never let go. Never stop valuing him most. Never let himself make the mistake of rejecting him again. Never let Izuku be so reckless with his life. To say: “we are in this together.”…if only Katsuki believed he deserved to be able to say such things. To reach out his hand would have been the ultimate way to simply imply them and let Izuku be the one to decide. Then, to feel their hands clasped together would be more than either of them dared hope for, but so beautiful, so right. A moment they’ve waited their whole lives for.

Yeah. That’s what we were expecting. We’ve been so comfortable. Horikoshi gave us all the signs. He tempted and teased us over and over. BUT. You know he does this thing were he gives us a desirable, completely plausible and simple thing to look forward to, and then he snatches it away. And THEN he replaces it with something much better, something we were not expecting at all because it seemed too good to be true. That’s exactly what happened when Himiko snatched Izuku away, and we were robbed of the chance to see him and Katsuki fight together. In hindsight, though, I’m glad things went a different way because now there’s so much more depth and angst on display. Likewise, in the present moment, we may consider how, as one door closes, another opens.

As wonderfully meaningful as the hand-hold would have been, perhaps it is still too simple a resolution for Izuku, for his and Katsuki’s relationship. Tbh, it could have been done like 100 chapter ago. At this point, there’s so much more potential. There are a couple of ways it could go. If Izuku stays armless, Katsuki will be forced to use other methods to get his point across. He’ll have to do something else, or say what he means, or both. Yes, I’m talking about what you think I’m talking about. If I say it, I just might jinx it (lol), but I mean it. I’m being serious. Either way, if Izuku did get his arms back in the end, I’m sure that it wouldn’t be an easy fix. It would be hard-won against Izuku’s self-destructive mindset, and/or by Katsuki’s conviction. Again, I say this knowing it is not meant so much as a representation of disability, but as a representation of Izuku’s greatest character flaw taken to the extreme. I know this might sound harsh, like, hasn’t he been through enough? I get that, but… I’ve said it before and I say it again: Izuku is stubborn as hell.

I wish I had a resounding final note to end this on, but I kinda don’t. I’m not sure what’s best. Now we just have to wait and see what Horikoshi has in mind.

[maxknightley]

Which Touhou Girls Can You Plausibly Read As Butch? A Comprehensive Overview

Earlier on Tumblr I saw a post complaining that someone called Hecatia Lapislazuli from Touhou Project butch. This is Hecatia Lapislazuli:

Obviously, like most Touhou characters, she is in fact quite feminine - she just shops at Hell Hot Topic. But it got me thinking: In a series like Touhou, with a cast overwhelmingly defined by feminine (if rowdy) ladies, how many characters could you say are 'butch' without sounding like a complete doofus or significantly redesigning them to fit your headcanon?

CRITERIA

I'll be using four main criteria to judge characters' butchness. In real life, of course, butchness is a multivalent and extremely personal thing, but I'm talking about funny cartoon women from a video game here, so I'm willing to be a little reductive.

These criteria, in order of descending importance, are:

FASHION. In a series where goddamn near everyone is in either a dress or a skirt, the mere act of Wearing A Dress Shirt can be enough to make a powerful statement. Hats may also play a role here, given how many Touhou characters have gay little hats.

HAIRSTYLE. Short hair is not the be-all and end-all of butchness. I, myself, am Decidedly Butch even though I've been growing out my hair since college. But the length and styling of the hair are still a valuable indicator of how someone thinks of themself and wants to be seen.

'TUDE. Could this character be accurately described as "kind of a frat boy?" How do they speak to others? Do they just kind of seem like a character who ought to be butch, regardless of their looks? Do they even lift?

COMEDY FACTOR. Self-explanatory. This will probably only come into play if I run into a weird edge case.

I'll also emphasize that we're grading on a curve here - butchness is being assessed relative to the characters who do not appear on this list. Nobody in this series has a buzzcut, you know what I mean?

THE TIER LIST

AS CLOSE TO CANON AS WE'LL GET

Fujiwara no Mokou. The girl wears a dress shirt, fucking suspenders, and trousers. Not shorts, actual full-length pants. She's also in a perpetual love-hate mutual-murder situationship with Princess Kaguya, who is femme as all fuck. Obviously you don't have to be butch to date a femme - I'm just saying it feels Fitting given their whole deal.

Yuugi Hoshiguma. Most of the time, her fashion sense is actually quite feminine - but her look in the most recent chapter of Cheating Detective Satori, with the one exposed shoulder and the sarashi and all that, significantly alters the balance. Her hair actually reads as more masc to me when she keeps it long and unruly - when she puts it up in a ponytail, she ends up looking very kempt, even elegant. The deciding factor here is 'Tude: Her sheer levels of butch swag are off the fucking charts. (Still, I wouldn't blame someone for arguing she should be knocked down a tier - especially since I'd argue the Comedy Factor works in reverse here. She's way funnier if she doesn't think of herself as butch in the slightest.)

Minamitsu Murasa. In his original appearance I'd argue that Murasa is in "Reasonable" tier - maybe even as low as "Kind of a Stretch." But her big gay Jotaro jacket in Sunken Fossil World, combined with the emphasis on the weightiness and solidity of his trademark anchor, put her over the top. One of the only Touhou girls I consider worthy of being He/Himmed.

Shinmyoumaru Sukuna. The other He/Him-worthy Touhou girl. Very short, slightly messy hair; wears a kimono, not a dress; inheritor of Issun-Boshi's legacy; wears fucking dinnerware as a hat. Why do you want to be Big so badly, huh? So you can pick up women more easily? So you can carry your awful wife through the upside-down threshold of your upside-down bedroom?

Raiko Horikawa. For the longest time I thought her skirt was a pair of shorts because I straight up could not parse it as anything else. Even now I'm like "that can't possibly be a skirt, ZUN just drew it weird. She has to be wearing a full two-piece suit." Skirt aside, her jacket/dress shirt/necktie are still undeniable, as is her short hair. Also, she is a taiko drum given life, and I feel like taiko and timpanis are naturally butch. Maybe if she was a tambourine or a set of bongos I'd rank her lower?

Momoyo Himemushi. Rough-talking miner. Wears a dress shirt, leaves the top button(?) undone. Tromps around a big weird cave with no shoes or socks on. Wears bows and bangles basically everywhere but in her messy, tangled hair. Also, maybe I'm stereotyping here, but I just can't picture a centipede as being femme.

REASONABLE

Wriggle Nightbug. The dress shirt, cape, and puffy shorts all paint a vivid picture, but I just feel like I don't have a strong enough opinion on Wriggle as a character to put her in the top tier. In other words, she's got plenty of points for Fashion and quite a few for Hairstyle, but I just don't think the 'Tude is sufficient for me.

Reisen Udongein Inaba. The skirts are a strike against her, but her whole "dress shirt + necktie + sometimes suit jacket" thing makes a big difference, especially given that we're grading on a curve. Her rumpled ears and (particularly in Inaba of the Moon, Inaba of the Earth) pathetic demeanor go a long way towards giving her a vibe somewhere between "overworked salaryman" and "Detective Columbo."

Aya Shameimaru. All you need to know about Aya is that her "human reporter" disguise looks like This:

Mononobe no Futo. Butch, but in a really weird, circuitous way, imo. Like. She's sort of wearing a dress, but it's sort of a robe - the contrast of the hemline with her big flowy sleeves makes it hard to pin down - and her outfit quite notably has tassels rather than any kind of frills. I don't know what the hell is up with her hat but it's definitely not femme by any stretch of the imagination. Then thou hast the wayes in which she speaketh all "faux-olde-timey," even though nobody else in the setting does that... she transferred her soul into a plate, but she also throws plates around as weapons... It's like she's constantly putting on a performance that only she truly understands. It's like she reverse-engineered "masculine womanhood" by hanging out with a bunch of queens and doing kind of the same thing but kind of the inverse. The more I think about Futo the more I think she's entirely on her own wavelength, but I think "Reasonable" tier is a... uh, reasonable... approximation for the sake of this post.

Sagume Kishin. She dresses like if Bill Nye were a woman, and I think that cuts to the heart of it - she reminds me of a professor who you're not ever sure is gay, but you kind of pick up on a vibe, and near the end of the semester she offhandedly refers to "her partner" and you're like HOLY SHIT I KNEW IT. I went back and forth between putting her in "Reasonable" and "Kind of a Stretch"; ultimately, the Comedy Factor decided it because I couldn't stop thinking about a scenario where she says she's a woman, accidentally upends her whole understanding of gender in the process, and ends up taking testosterone while still ID'ing as a lesbian. I don't actually know if her powers would work that way and I don't care.

KIND OF A STRETCH

Eiki Shiki. I don't have a lot to go on, here, because she hasn't had many official appearances and seems to spend most of her time lecturing people or tormenting sinners. Her uniform(?)/apothecary outfit(??) is pretty snazzy; combined with the hat, it gives her a vaguely "military officer" look to me. We'll call her "butch pending further investigation," which I think she would agree is the correct course of action.

Sekibanki. She's here partially because of the cape, and partially because being sandwiched between Wakasagihime and Kagerou makes her look way more masc by contrast. I know what I said.

Ringo. It's pretty much just the hat and the pants, though - as a butch woman who Loves Eating - I am also inclined to project my own experiences onto her.

Aunn Komano. She reads as more "tomboyish" than outright "butch" to me, what with her whole puppy-dog vibe, but at the same time... she's very much wearing shorts and the kind of goofy-looking button-up shirt that is central to my own wardrobe and the wardrobe of other butches in my life. I'm willing to count her.

Takane Yamashiro. A living testament to the power of small character design choices. I would never in a million years call Nitori butch, even with her gay little hat and all the pouches on her outfit - she just looks like a girl scout. Takane, though? Takane, with her little hair swoopy, and the fucking suitcase slung over her back, and her camo-print dress? I mean - ultimately it is still a dress, which is why I can't justify scoring her higher, but she's definitely chewing tobacco and riding around on an ATV on weekends.

Chiyari Tenkaijin. If she's butch, it's not really because she's trying to be butch, it's just because being femme seems too expensive and time-consuming. She's got better things to do (drink blood all day). Still, I think an argument could be made.

DEFINITELY A STRETCH, BUT I RESPECT IT

Renko Usami. ZUN is kind of inconsistent with how he draws her hat - sometimes it's more of a porkpie/fedora type thing, other times it's round-topped and looks a bit like Koishi's hat. To me, this is a crucial distinction. In a more general sense, I feel like Renko's outfit gets a little less plausibly-masc with each passing album, which says a lot about our society. Or her society, anyway, since she lives in the future. Still, the capelets and bowties...

Rinnosuke Morichika. I think it would be really funny if the only significant male character in Touhou wasn't actually even a dude. I'm not aware of any real textual support for this interpretation, though.

Shou Toramaru. Pretty much only on here because of the hair and because I think there's a certain je ne sais quoi to her whole deal of "she's not a real tiger, she's the idea of a tiger that pre-Meiji Japanese people came up with from secondhand accounts."

Seija Kijin. Not even remotely butch by any stretch of the imagination... But if she did consider herself butch, isn't that exactly what she'd want you to think?

POTENTIALLY NOTEWORTHY EXCLUSIONS

Cirno. "Tomboyish" is not the same thing as "butch," to me, especially if you exclusively wear dresses. Also, I'm not sure Cirno even knows what a lesbian is.

Saki Kurokoma. Not actually butch, just a horse girl. (And a horsegirl.)

Mike Goutokuji. Can't tell if she's wearing a skirt or shorts. She's got short hair, sure, but the whole "matching bell collar and wristbands that also have bells attached" thing makes her look more like a Very Online Trans Woman who just figured herself out and hasn't started hormones or bought any new clothes yet.

[pinkandpurple360]

ppl point out Blitzo literally apologized to Stolas in Ozzie's (when he shouldn't have had to) when Stolas accused him of never feeling sorry but I just noticed

that wasn't the only time

Blitzo literally says 'I'm sorry' when he says he can't go rescue Stolas from Striker because he's busy.

so that's twice he apologized and Stolas somehow forgot

and if you count non-Stolas related apologies he also apologizes very loudly and sincerely to Loona at the end of Seeing Stars.

Stolas acting like Blitzo is this prideful guy who never apologizes and it's a major flaw of his is just him rewriting reality, yet again. it comes off like he only believes it because Blitzo wouldn't cave immediately and apologize a second time for expressing how Stolas made him feel (or in Stolas' head, for refusing to believe Stolas genuinely liked him despite it being entirely Stolas' fault that Blitzo has no good reason to believe that)

honestly it really feels like the classic abuser strategy of projection where the perp accuses the victim of doing something they literally just did to their victim

the perfect moment for Stolas to apologize would have been at the end of full moon - a genuine apology, not that weaselly-words 'I'll do everything but say it's my fault for making the deal' speech he did earlier. but he doesn't and in the very next episode accuses Blitzo of being the one who is incapable of apologizing

yucky abuse dynamics asides, idk why we're expected to believe Stol1tz will last longer than five minutes when one party is comically incapable of self-reflection or sincere regret and the other party is being manipulated into apologizing just for expressing their feelings

🤕 except it’s the writer herself who keeps altering past events to make her favourite character look better. So she creates a new character flaw in Blitzø who has actually apologised more than any in the character in the show. 7 times in the series.

1. Sorry I (x) your husband - to Stella (weird but it counts)

2. In truth seekers when he vowed to be a better friend to moxxie and reminded him his value, and to use his actual name. I count that.

3. I can’t do it tonight alright, I’m sorry. - to stolas

4. Loona my sweet baby girl I’m so sorry I’ll never replace you no matter what.

5. Aw shit stolas i cant today alright I’m sorry I’m literally on my way to take Loona for her very important S.H.O.T.

6. I’m sorry Fizz. I’m so sorry you got so hurt, I’m sorry for what you’ve lost and I know I can never make that right. But You have no idea what I lost in that fire. I mean it’s all my fault, I’d hate me too. I do hate me.

7. Stolas, wait, I’m sorry. - stolas kicked him out

8. Him berating himself and verbally lifting stolas up as amazing, so that he stops crying and stops drinking. Shows remorse also. None of which stolas deserved.

Stolas has once. To via. Unless you count a polite ones in those simpering texts of his. In seeing stars via doesn’t let him because she blames herself entirely due to Loonas words. I struggle to count the “sorry it’s a bad time yet again Blitzy but I’m in a sitch” because he’s asking for something. So if you stretch, that’s maybe 3.

The sad part is Blitzø internalises all of stolas’ cruelty and insults and believes them to be true. Blitzø already has an internal voice of hate and criticism; stolas is his externalised self hatred. Because why wouldn’t he believe the prince, stolas is the one dressed so nicely, singing so nicely with pretty props, crying and surrounded by people crying with him, who all hate Blitzø, so stolas must be right.

Idc, Blitzø knew stolas was in trouble and reacted accurately. He had other things to do and Millie offered to help him. He was going to go over there. It’s weird that Viv wrote him to say “he can get hurt?” “I didnt think he was capable of-” and this was all she could come up with to make stolas all wounded and all betrayed. I’m tired of Blitzø throwing himself in the line of fire all the time. Stolas encourages his worst instincts. It’s not his job to protect stolas. But he did anyway. Even if he had saved him Viv would say “but it’s his fault striker even came back at all because reasons” I think it’s Stella’s fault actually but maybe that’s just me? He’s angrier at blitzø than Stella because he didn’t fulfil his damsel fantasy?

I think vivzie doesn’t account for fans who aren’t knee deep in stolitz Twitter, Instagram, ao3, r34, tiktok etc. Those fans have the romance in their heads the show doesn’t need to even write it. I’m guessing their dynamic will end up as Stolas replacing Loona. Blitzø allows him to abuse him because he feels guilt and sympathy, he wants there to be love between them. The relationship is based on this feeling of remorse and self hate, and pity for how lonely and hurt stolas is.

[inoshibi1]

-Yandere! Doma X Fem!Reader-

⚠️warning⚠️ mentions of death, obsessive actions, NSFW moments and non-consensual actions towards reader (!only kissing though, nothing other than kissing! But still worth the tw)

Fandom: Demon slayer. Character(s): Doma [upper rank 2 demon]

A/N: I don’t know a lot about Doma other than he’s a psychotic outwardly friendly demon. So if this fanfic isn’t very accurate to how Canon Doma would act then I’m sorry pls don’t hate me. :]

*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧880 words *.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧

*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧ *.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧*.:✧ *.:✧*.:✧

Doma held the shaking woman close to him, arms tightly wound around her waist in a loving embrace. His head propped on her shoulder to peer at the carnage he had left behind. The demons breathing was calm, the complete opposite of the girl stuck with him.

She was crying, tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. Her eyes here red from so much crying, lips still wobbling despite the triggering event happening an hour or so ago. She sniffed, a stray tear falling onto Doma's outfit.

The pale man sighed and shut said book, discarding it to the ground beside him. Doma's arms pulled her closer, alerting her of his full attention. "Darling please, why are you still crying?"

Y/N kept her mouth shut, still sniffing and wiping away the tears that just kept coming. Her body began shaking again being Doma to lightly rub her sides to try and comfort her. She still flinched at his touch, though who could blame her?

"Y/N my sweetheart, I asked you a question, I'd like an answer please." His voice still remained calm, a sweet symphony of death and cold. She shivered under his touch, now moving up to her shoulders and back down again.

"Y-y-you k-killed them... y-you murdered t-them...t-they didn't do-do anything wrong t-to you...."

"Y/N my dear, they tried to help you escape, give you a place to stay while you ran away from me." Doma calmly retorted, his hands stopping on her hips to trace his thumbs on the dip. "Next time you leave me I'll find your loved ones and take care of them, but if you stay that won't happen at all. It is in your hands what happens to the people in your life, those people's death was nobody's fault but yours."

Y/N began to sob harder with every cruel word, she knew they weren't true, she didn't kill her dear friend. He did. Doma was just trying to shift the blame and make her feel guilty about finally escaping him. Y/N  knew this, though she couldn't help but feel guilty anyway.

Doma sighed as he used his sleeve to wipe her face clean of the tears and snot. The hair in his face tickling her nose. "You know Y/N, I can make all your pain go away. You just have to say those words. I won't hurt anyone else if you do. Say them, and we both can be happy for all eternity."

The air remained still for a moment. The only noise in the room being the small yet passionate kisses that Doma placed on the woman's sweating forehead. Doma went lower, kissing her cheeks and gradually lowering down to her neck. No area of her body was left untouched from his lips, soon the demon was kneeling down infront of the shaking woman. Taking his sweet time kissing her shaking hands.

She began to protest when she tried to pull away her hand but he wouldn't let her; the harsh bite of his teeth brought the woman back to reality. She couldn't stop the whimper that slipped past her lips at the dark scowl on his face.

It wasn't when he finally stood up did she finally breathe- chest heaving while she stared at him once more with wide eyes.

"Say those words."

The grip on her hand increased; giving her no choice other than to look directly into the hollow depths of his eyes.

"Say it."

"I love you." Y/N's throat went dry, Doma wrapping her in his arms turning her to face him, to cradle her hips. He placed his free hand upon her cheek, his thumb tracing the puff red skin with a pleased smirk on his features.

He softened the grip on the woman's hand, trailing his hand down her body as he placed his lips onto hers. He felt more confident this round, not leaving the woman enough time to really get her breath back as he worked his lips against hers. The hand still gripping your own moved to intertwine her fingers with his while the other hand slid down across your waist as he pulled you right into him, causing your bodies to clash against each other.

The poor woman shook as tears fell down her eyes. She was so scared. How could she not be? These actions were so cruel. What had he done to deserve such cruelty?

Before any more tears could fall down, Doma’s thumb brush away one of the tears that fell.

It became oddly comforting, then. The way Doma was holding her. All she could sense was him. The mild scent of pine with metallic undertones nearly becoming overpowering has he continued to kiss the woman breathless. It was almost enough to forget what was about to happen.

Almost.

The woman began to protest when she tried to pull away but he wouldn't let her go; the whine she let out muffled from his mouth over hers.

When he finally let her go, he left her breathless - chest heaving while she stared at Doma once more with eyes as wide as plates.

"I know you love me Y/N, and I love you too."

[royboyfanpage]

https://www.tumblr.com/big-gay-apocalypse/732547558666289152?source=share

how do these pannels make you feel. they make me feel sad

Hi anon!

For context these are the panels Anon sent me-

For starters, it's totally understandable that these panels make you feel sad! That's clearly what they were written to do.

However.

I can't take it seriously because it's RUDY WEST. Rudy West is not comparable to Oliver Queen! Rudy West is absolutely not a better father than Ollie!

I mean, aside from the fact that it's pretty hard to be a worse father than Rudy West and Roy would absolutely not be "a better person" if he was raised by the Wests, like. Ollie and Roy didn't have that much of a bad relationship when Roy was a teenager. Obviously Snowbirds happened and that changed their dynamic and created a whole lot of tension they had to work through, but this is clearly pre-Snowbirds, and since Ollie still has money+Queen Industries it's also presumably pre-Hard Traveling Heroes, which is where the idea of Ollie not being around stems from. Was there conflict? Sure! But not to the extent that the Teen Titans would be blaming Ollie for how Roy is (actually, the "its not his fault the way he was raised" angle is more accurate for Dick than Roy, but I'm not gonna get into that). And I am doing a lot of explaining and defending for a man who's competition is Rudy West.

Fundamental misunderstanding of Ollie and reducing him to "Batman with arrows" my beloathed.

Also another big issue is the fact that Roy's meant to be some spoilt rich brat, which doesn't really make sense?? I mean, Roy grew up on a reservation, and at this point he's living with Ollie who, based on this panel, is implied to still be at least kinda socialist in this timeline. He's not gonna be some disconnected nepo-baby who shames Wally for his parents' financial status, even at his most insecure, which I guess is the angle they're taking here.

And also why is Garth the one defending Roy? Garth doesn't care about Roy at best at this point, and actively dislikes him at worst. Especially considering Roy's treatment of Garth is arguably worse in this than in the original Teen Titans run. Idk, it feels like it's trying to make Garth into the quiet emotionally mature kid in this scenario, which i don't feel is very accurate to who Garth actually is (I'll admit I'm only recently getting into Aqua comics so I don't have a complete grasp of Garth's character, but I get the impression that he's definitely not as much of a pushover as this comic presented him as- in the original Teen Titans run he was bantering as much as the others were, and he did have moments where he'd get aggressive, such as when the Titans refuse to help him because of their 'vow')

I'm not gonna say I hate this comic. There are some parts of it I really love, like

These panels are cute as fuck and I adore them. I think that the comic really works as its own story outside of the main Teen Titans continuity, with its own interpretations of the characters and their stories. But if you try and apply it to the original Teen Titans series, it does get kinda messy.

So yeah, in conclusion, the panels are sad if you look at them within the story, but I just can't take it seriously in a broader scope because y'know. Rudy West. I'm not even that big of a Flash fan and I still know Rudy West is the worst guy.

[menelaiad]

Hi! I know your favorite character is Menelaus (mine too) and I wanted to ask you, what is your opinion about him in Euripides’ Oresteia? And in Euripides’ Helen? Because as I see, the Homeric Menelaus is a little different, and Euripides didn’t despict him as a nice character.

Thank you for your answer in advance! :)

hi, there!

heck yea! fellow menelaus stans unite, let's make jackets or smth.

UHHHHH i spoke about this a lot in my recent MA thesis and it's the foundation for my phd (or at least a big chunk of it) and yes i'm sorry this bitch is going off about her academics again.

so. euripides was athenian and it's fairly safe to say that the athenians altered menelaus characterisation on a HUGE scale and it was mainly euripides as he wrote the most works featuring him. and it's also fairly safe to say that euripides didn't like menelaus OR helen OR hermione simply because they were spartan and given the context of his time, he couldn't really be pro-sparta. so, he used menelaus' family in a myriad of ways to just mock ALL spartans and spartan culture. i won't go into that too much now and i'll focus specifically on the plays you asked about! :)

ORESTES (i assume you meant orestes? aeschylus did the oresteia but euripides just did this one?): so here we see .... menelaus being not very great with his family. but not in a mean way he's just .... useless .. coward like almost? he's a big fence sitter tbh. he doesn't wanna get involved in orestes' shit and that is painfully obvious. again. that's meant to make menelaus look shitty that he doesn't care about his family and his brothers death and his nephew literally having visions of hell BUT. personally? i dont blame him ASDFGHJK. man just got his wife back. got home. dealing with grief and loss and survivors guilt and maybe ptsd and shit .................... and then orestes turns up like 'help me fix my problems' BRO HE GOT HIS OWN DAMN PROBLEMS. and THEN they're like 'ok uncle that's cool. we're gonna kill ur wife and daughter though' LIKE LEAVE THE OLD MAN ALONE. i LOVE menelaus and agamemnon's dynamic. so i'm not saying menelaus didn't care about aga and aga's family. im NOT saying that. but (and i KNOW its my modern perspective) i can see why menelaus couldn't be arsed. and he wasn't even mean about it? he was just nonplussed. AGAIN the ancients would have HATED that, but my modern ass can relate tbh. and lets not forget. he's caught between a rock and a hard place. if he helps orestes, he risks greek wrath. which (in this play anyway) is already strong enough against him cause of helen and troy. so like. euripides has kinda put him in this impossible situation and then makes him the 'stupid funny lazy ass not helpful uncle' guy when he just backs out. which i think is unfair. AND TO TOP IT OFF. APOLLO COMES AND THEN TAKES HIS WIFE. AFTER EVERYTHING HE DID TO GET HER BACK. justice for this old man i s2g.

HELEN: OH HERE WE GO! SO helen is often referred to as a tragi-comedy which i think is very accurate. and euripides is using it to condemn war as a whole (athens had recently suffered a big loss) like if helen wasn't even in troy what was the point of the war? he makes menelaus very .... pathetic, for lack of a better word. and helen seems to take the reigns in their relationship, which would have been a huge no-no to the athenian audience. it would have made helen look domineering and unmanageable and menelaus weak and foolish. he also has menelaus cry a lot. cry and lament his losses as a king. again, the athenians would have hated a man crying. a GREEK HERO crying. but we have our 21st century vision and tbh ................ menelaus is fantastic in this play. he is so. real. he is so human. he is a man who is tired. who is lonely. who is heartbroken. a man who meets his wife who isn't his wife but actually is his wife ... and we're supposed to laugh at him because he's confused? he gets lambasted by so many characters and it's supposed to be funny and i think it is! i do think menelaus in helen is just .... an incredible character. he's so funny. he's so NORMAL. he reacts how you would expect a man to react. you see so many menelaus' in this play. menelaus defeated. menelaus in love. you see a menelaus in action when he comes up with the plan against proteus but also a man who respects his wife and knows when to shut up. i, much like the athenians back then, do have a giggle at menelaus in this play. but i don't hate him. it makes him all the more endearing to me and i love him.

these two menelaus' are (shockingly) two menelaus' that i like! i love helen's menelaus and i'm indifferent to orestes' menelaus tbh. but i think they're fine as portrayals and they make sense to me!

overall, me and euripides have a complicated relationship. some of his menelaus' i cannot tolerate. and some i adore. and i can actually connect his helen menelaus and his iphigenia in aulis menelaus to homeric menelaus. they're not identical by any means, but the way he behaves and his choices and stuff. you can see homeric menelaus in there somewhere, which is why i love them so much.

[some-pers0n]

Medic is a character I feel people agree is often mischaracterized in fanworks, but nobody can really settle on why that is or how people get to that assumption. What makes him mischaracterized? Does he care too much about his team? Too little? What even is his character to begin with? Does he even have one? Why should we even care since he's a comedic character designed to make you laugh first?

In other words, hi! I'm a fanfic writer who is extremely abnormal about Medic TF2. Those two things are going to be pretty central to the topic of this analysis piece of sorts. This right here is an essay that details the characterization of the Medic from Team Fortress 2 from the character's inception in development all the way until the final comic. Yes. The one character.

I'm doing this mostly as a way for a) me to comb through canon material and study this character so I can remind myself over and over again how he acts and b) me not-so-subtly venting about how much of a nightmare it is to find a fanfic that writes Medic in a way that aligns with his characterization in canon. It 100% is because I'm a picky whiny bitch who can't help but constantly read like a writer and overanalyze everything, but I think I'm not that alone when I say that the fandom's perception of Medic is...warped.

But why? Why do people seem to not exactly understand or get him? Why is it hard to find common ground on what aspects of Medic are in-character or not? Why do so many people have wildly different interpretations of it?

Short answer: Medic's character has shifted pretty drastically from his original inception in 2007 to the last released comic in 2017, retconning him from a cold and calculated dominating doctor to a silly and goofy mad scientist to make him more funny. There is no real proper true characterization and everyone can have their own interpertation.

Long answer? Well...let's get to that.

I should probably preface this with a couple main interpretations of Medic's character and how I think it's fascinating to understand where they come from. They also set the groundwork as to how these different characterizations of Medic come from.

There's what I like to call "Game Medic". Game Medic is the most common interpretation amongst players of the game. Redditors and the like point to this interpretation of Medic and hail him as the "true" characterization of him. Honestly? I can't blame them. Have you heard Medic's voice lines?? A lot of them are him barking orders at the others and hissing at his fellow mercenaries about their incompetency. It gives him the aura of a man driven to madness by having to take care of his teammates, reflecting that of what a lot of Medic mains feel.

Game Medic characterizes Medic mostly as a sadistic man who does not care for the other mercenaries. He's dominating and demanding, ordering around the others. He laughs maliciously when there's death and, famously, he believes that healing is not nearly as rewarding as harming others. People generally believe that Medic would experiment on the mercs against their will and torture them for his own amusement. It's not uncommon in these circles who believe in this characterization for theories and suggestions of Medic once being a Nazi to crop up.

I don't believe this is an accurate characterization of him, at least not anymore. I'll get into the details of why later, but the basic summation is that Medic had a rather different personality in 2007 that was later shifted and changed to be more comedic and silly as the years went along.

The next most common is "Fanfiction Medic". It's the Medic you see in those TF2 x Reader stuff, in the sense of Medic being reduced to a caring and compassionate man. It takes more aspects from the comics but does still miss the point of his character in favour of making him easy to sympathize and identify with. He can have aspects of his in-game portrayal, with him being overly critical of the one he loves. He's affectionate, sweet, and generally really caring and loyal, if possessive and easily jealous. In fanfic, he ranges from being dark and intimidating in a sexy and dominating way to a generally nice guy who just loves his partner.

It's the inverse of Game Medic and is often mocked and made fun of. You'll see memes that compare an overexaggerated version of Fanfiction Medic, with him being extremely submissive and soft, to Game Medic, who oftentimes acts in a more dark and violent way, perhaps bringing into his utter disregard for life and his obsession with experimenting using animal organs.

This interpretation should go without saying that it's also not exactly true to his character. Flanderizing him to the point where he doesn't even really identify with any traits or qualities from the game or comics. And for what? To make him more appealing? Or perhaps can people not fathom him acting in a more mean and rude way?

So...how did we get here? Why is Medic and his characterization such a divisive topic? Characters like Scout and Engineer seem to have pretty consistent characterization through and through all subspaces of the fandom. Why Medic? And, even still, why do most people have a hard time replicating his voice? His personality? Anything?

That's what we're going to talk about here today, folks.

Pre-MtM

Let's start with pre-TF2 days: Invasion. The concept art of Medic was very much in line with the whole orderly doctor archetype. Serious expression, clean pristine white clothes. There's a sense of authority and dominance to him. This is a man of reason and science. He is a mercenary. A Medic who heals his team from the brink of death.

This characterization I feel lasted until the style shift, where TF2 became more of a comedic and light-hearted game. This is where I believe the whole "disgruntled angel of death" stuff comes from. Medic retains that order and dignity, which leads into the game.

His voice lines, as previously mentioned, are aggressive and accusatory to his own team. I wouldn't blame you if you assumed he hated his team entirely. He claims that his skill is wasted here, that they're all useless idiots, so on and so forth. It characterizes him as having a grudge towards his fellow workers, only doing this because he enjoys the thrill of bloodshed and violence. It definitely paints him more as being a sadistic madman like the rest of them.

It's a characterization I've already covered, so for the sake of not sounding redundant, let's say that in 2007, the inception of Medic as we know, was predominantly portrayed as a somewhat sane, albeit sadistic and authoritative man of science. He is violent and generally looks down upon his coworkers, viewing them as half-wits who only get him killed over and over again. From his body language, he's a lot more rigid and straight than the others. It gives the impression that he's a proper, well-mannered serious character.

A major moment of characterization that could've happened was the scrapped original Meet the Medic video. I believe this would've come out in 2009 alongside the other Meet the Team videos like Meet the Heavy, Meet the Sniper, Meet the Soldier, etc and etc. While it isn't canon per se, it's still a topic worth mentioning and talking about.

Around this time, TF2 was becoming a lot more comedic than its original inception. Saxton Hale and Mann Co. had been invented, two things that would be a sign of what the game and property would eventually become. It's light-hearted and silly now! In the Classless Update of 2009, there were newspaper clippings showing a saga in which the King of Australia waged a war against a hill. The Spy VS Sniper Update added Jarate, a literal jar of Sniper's piss. Hats!! HATS!! The games were changing quite noticeably from how they originally were.

Which brings us to the scrapped trailer. A basic summary is that Medic is being interviewed on a train and talking about how he invented the medi-gun. It begins with a cold opening of a BLU Sniper bleeding out while a Soldier of the same team calls out for help. They are then promptly run over by a train, the exact one that Medic is on as the next shot is of him putting away luggage as the gore and guts from the run-over Soldier and Sniper splat onto his window. Again, comedic cold open played for laughs. It sets the tone of Medic as being a serious character with a streak of silliness to him. It also helps that there is a chessboard there, further characterizing him as an intellectual.

Medic then begins his story. It's a dark and terrible sight to see. The team is losing and the Heavy is bleeding out. He seems overworked, having to fend off against a Spy all by himself and quickly trying to save the Heavy. The rest of his team are useless, just standing there screaming as they're in pain. Again, further characterizes him as a savior to them. The only competent one.

Then, something quite new happens. Medic slaps Heavy in frustration once he flatlines. He...slaps Heavy. It's on impulse and clearly done in irritation, but that's quite different. Before, we've seen Medic as a somewhat calculated individual. He's not prone to rash choices out of emotions. He loves bloodshed and violence, but he's fairly contained and controlled.

I think the slap is one of the first examples of Medic's character really beginning to shift. It's done for laughs, yes, but it shows him as being emotional and prone to getting physically violent and angry. I can practically hear him saying: "Live damn you! Live!" as he slaps him.

Then, chaos erupts in the room as a stray rocket blasts into the room. It knocks over Medic and he's left to lie on the ground, watching as his teammates do nothing more than scream and flail around. Yet, through a series of events, everything falls into place to create a naturally healing liquid. He watches on in fascination and amazement before then scrambling back to Heavy, pumping more blood into the puddle of Healing Juice. Eventually, the Heavy is revived.

Then the Spy head is resurrected and begins screaming for death. Again, characterizing Medic as being morbidly comedic. Medic screams (startled by the dismembered head coming to life)(reasonable reaction) and begins shooting it. Again, impulsive and acting on instinct.

Once realizing that the Spy's head is invincible, he shoots it one more time, giggling after it. He GIGGLES. Do you understand me when I say that this is important? Look at him as he does that. Tell me he doesn't do a little "hooh!!" after that final shot.

Medic's laughter is a rather large part of his later characterization, as it goes deeper into the whole eccentric mad scientist archetype instead. It's when Medic is beginning to break away from that only characterization and become...silly. He's sadistic, but he enjoys it with whimsy and intrigue. He is fascinated by the Spy head.

Medic then begins work. It furthers his sadistic characterization by him using the Spy head as a means to hold nails and such. Something that we don't see too much later on from this is that Medic builds the medi-gun. Strange since most of the time the one who's characterized as building things is Engie. This is probably done to give a sense of competency to Medic. He's a man of science capable of doing anything.

The video ends on what would later become the scene of Medic walking out with angelic light behind him and doves flying out. Still has that whole angelic feeling to him AND also when his doves first come into play. Him being seen as a holy saviour feeds into his characterization of him having a god complex. He sees himself as a man who makes gods out of men.

So, what have we learned from this video? Well, Medic's commentary is quite proper and professional. In canon lore, he would've been interviewed by the Director. His characterization would be a man of science who views himself as the only really competent person on the team. However, he's prone to fits of impulsive rage and doesn't seem to feel any remorse for his outbursts. He is an inventor of sorts, who experiments and finds it fascinating to work with science.

I also believe this is when it's first shown that Medic likes experiments. Beforehand, he was just a doctor. Now? He tests and experiments and enjoys it. He's still a sadistic madman who loves violence, but all in all, he seems a little more comedic than he did in 2007.

The original idea was scrapped as the team believed that the short didn't exactly show who Medic was. It didn't comply with what players had when they thought of "Medic". Even back then, I think they wanted to have Medic's character be something else. Something more grandiose. Also, it doesn't really touch on Medic's gameplay. It just introduces the medi-gun. 

Medic's characterization would slowly grow more and more comedic as time goes on, moving away from the idea of him being a serious doctor and more of a mad scientist. What with new cosmetics and taunts. 

But...this isn't enough. No, not enough. He's still not as goofy as, say, the Soldier, Scout, or Demoman. Does he need to be? No, but he could be. He could be something more. 

In late June of 2011, the Über Update happened. It was a large-scale content update that not only made TF2 free-to-play, but also added several new cosmetics, weapons, and maps. But that's not what we really care about here, is it?

You already know what it is. The bombshell that changed Medic's character forever.

Meet the Medic

The short opens up with an action scene of Scout and Demo running away. Both are heavily injured and are trying to escape from enemy fire. Scout gets blown away and is then hit with three different rockets, sending him flying into a window where he calls out for Medic before cutting to the title card.

Instantly establishes Medic as a character who the others turn to for help. Good introduction to the character and his general role and premise as well as a neat prelude that catches the attention of the audience. But enough of that. It's time for the man himself.

Immediately we are hit with an iconic line of dialogue that establishes that, no, this is no serious and stoic character. This is a different, more interesting and developed version of Medic. 

"Wait, wait, wait, it gets better! When the patient woke up, his skeleton was missing, and the doctor was never heard from again!" [Mad laughter] "Ahh... Anyway, that's how I lost my medical license, heh."

Do you see me here? I am gripping my screen here in some attempt to grab you by the shoulders and shake you. Do you understand what this means in terms of characterization? How different he is? How much sillier he has gotten?!

Okay, let's start off by describing this. Medic is performing surgery on Heavy. Based on the bullet wounds, it's suggested that this impromptu surgery is happening mid-battle. Medic is talking to Heavy incredibly casually-- he's TALKING to Heavy. He should be under anesthesia considering he currently has his entire chest open.

This already characterizes Medic as casual when it comes to surgery. He's doing medical malpractice and, not only is he completely unbothered, but so is Heavy. It could imply that this is regular behaviour and Heavy is not worried.

This surgery is just as normal to Medic as a barber cutting somebody's hair. He's telling stories and generally having fun. He's having fun he'S HAVING FUN-- He's laughing and just generally enjoying himself! Being silly!!

Not to mention the story itself is dark. The punchline is that "the doctor stole a patient's skeleton and ran away". Medic laughs hysterically after this. He finds it hilarious. Not to also mention he follows it up with that little "that's how I lost my medical license :)"

Not only did he steal a man's skeleton, managing to keep him alive as implied with him saying that the patient woke up and noticed his skeleton was missing (so he managed to extract the man's skeleton and leave his nervous system in place), but he finds it funny! It's a comical story he finds enjoyment in telling others. He even seems proud of it and doesn't regret it in the slightest.

He doesn't even seem to really pick up on Heavy's face drop or that maybe he shouldn't be telling this story when he's got somebody on the operating table. Perhaps a little socially unaware? Eh, could just be headcanons bleeding into analysis.

He doesn't have his gloves on either. Just handling Heavy's heart without any gloves or anything. Again, casual medical malpractice that he does not seem bothered by in the slightest. This idea of Medic doing surgery and or experiments with his gloves off while putting them on for literally anything else also pops back up in the comics, but we'll get to that soon.

Let's not also forget that this man laughs. Like straight-up laughs like a mad scientist. Before, we had gotten voice lines of him are evil, malevolent cackles. He's mocking the ones that he kills. Here's?? It's a lot more whimsical and silly. It's something that'll be something he does a lot more later on: laugh when he's just generally happy or nervous.

But enough about that one line of dialogue. We have the rest of the short to watch!

Archimedes pops out of Heavy's chest cavity. Medic scolds him and shoos him away. He glances over back at Heavy. For a frame or two, his eyes are wide and his expression shifts. He realized that, y'know, maybe it's not too great from Heavy's perspective to have Archimedes digging around in there. He shrugs it off with an anxious laugh. Not to also mention he absentmindedly wipes the blood on his clothes. Again, very unprofessional and not very concerned about it.

Quick note about the symbolism of doves. Doves are seen as a sign of peace and whatnot, usually combined with angelic qualities. A dove with blood on it would imply that its original meaning is perverted in some way, especially if the dove is going out of its way for the blood. It's a harbinger of peace, but finds infinite more enjoyment indulging in the bloodshed and violence of the destruction it's meant to oppose. 

Medic grabs what I like to call a über implant. It's what gives the heart the ability to be übercharged. He sticks it into Heavy's heart, saying that, while most hearts cannot withstand the voltage, he believes that Heavy's heart will be able to take it.

He puts it near the beam of the quick-fix and it instantly explodes.

Medic overestimates the abilities of Heavy's heart, thinking it was strong enough. It was not. This characterizes Medic as being somewhat optimistic and believes his own theories based on no previous data or evidence. Throwing caution to the wind and hoping for the best.

However! He adapts. He thinks for a second. This is no setback. He quells Heavy's concerns saying that, no, this is the sound of progress, mein Freund. This shows that he is quick with improvisation and is completely fine with deviating suddenly whenever a new problem arises.

He digs into his mini-fridge, where he gets more characterization. He's got a collection of animal organs in here. He likes experimenting with them, so he keeps them on standby. He does not care if Heavy doesn't want an animal organ in him. This is a life-or-death scenario. Either he goes on out there without a heart or he takes the mega baboon heart.

There's also beer, implying that he likes it enough to keep it nearby. He also keeps one of Heavy's sandwiches, perhaps either for himself or for Heavy.

There's also the head of the BLU Spy, a cute callback to the scrapped Meet the Medic video. It's there with a battery keeping it alive as well as an ashtray. Medic dismisses its request to Die without a second thought. He's got more important business to attend to.

He attaches the über implant and holds it under the quick-fix's beam. Here, again, he laughs maniacally. It makes Heavy uncomfortable, but eh who cares about him this is the Medic essay. Medic is clearly enjoying the beauty of experimentation and playing god here, harking back to the idea of him having a god complex.

Finally, it's done. It glows. "Oh, that looks good," Medic says as he drops it haphazardly into Heavy's chest cavity. He doesn't even really know if this is a good sign or not. It's just glowing and beating in his hands. It's fine. Everything's all good.

Heavy asks the completely reasonable question of whether or not he should be awake. Medic laughs anxiously, a nervous tic it seems, and says, "Well, no, but as long as you are, could you hold your rib cage open a bit?" He's fully aware that Heavy shouldn't be conscious, but because of the continuous healing from his quick-fix, he doesn't really care.

Medic being aloof and generally disregarding the rules of proper medical care is a constant piece of characterization with him. Whatever works best he does. Headcanon territory here, but I believe that he finds the rules and restrictions to hold him down. Prevent him from doing what's best with such nonsense things like "ethics" and "moral codes" and "being a doctor doesn't mean you get to play god".

Heavy moves his hand to open his rib cage a bit, letting Medic push in the heart. However, Medic is too rough and goes too deep, snapping one of Heavy's ribs in the process. Medic's eyes widen, but he quickly recovers. "Don't be such a baby." He grabs it and pinches Heavy's cheek. "Ribs grow back." He tosses the rib aside and turns to Archimedes. "No, they don't."

He lies to make Heavy feel better. It also displays that Medic is physically affectionate of sorts when doing surgery. I personally headcanon that he's a very touchy-feely person who generally doesn't care what other people think as he grabs them by the shoulder or cheek, but, again, headcanons. Also! Ribs do grow back, which implies either a) Medic doesn't know this or b) the TF2 universe works a bit differently.

The surgery is complete. Does he check to see if any of the valves, arteries, or veins line up? Nope! Grabs the quick-fix and heals Heavy back up. He grins wickedly while doing this, still enjoying the art of surgery and experimentation.

He helps Heavy up and smiles, saying the: "Let's go practice medicine" line. He likes those quips.

He suits up (putting his gloves on for once) and comes out of the base. Quick note here about the soundtrack. I neglected to mention how much the three songs attached to Medic perfectly reflect his character, from Archimedes being plucky and a little silly, to A Little Heart to Heart being more sinister and perverting the more light-hearted tune of Archimedes, to Medic! being a full-on jazzy piece of glory (and also the best song). I could go further into all three tracks, but let's just do some basic analysis of the first bit of the song here.

The song begins with an angelic choir, which, again, paints Medic in the light of a holy figure that saves and protects the others. Then, it devolves, getting darker and more menacing before the saxophone, trumpets, bass guitar, and drums kick in, going back to the usual TF2 style.

Medic is a mad mercenary like the rest of them. He puts on a facade of being proper and angelic, but he's no different than the others.

It all comes together with him walking out, a radiant white light behind him as his doves fly out. Combined with his steady expression, he seems like an angel who's come to save them all. At least until the song shifts, where he grins and begins to heal the others.

So on and so forth. The next part isn't as character-defining, mostly just a display of Medic's role in the game because, like healing. It does a better job of showing what his class does than the scrapped version, I'll give it that. He heals Scout and Demo before shifting focus back to Heavy.

An onslaught of BLU Soldiers are closing in on them. Heavy glances back, asking if Medic is sure that this plan will work.

Medic laughs, saying that he has no idea. Again, he doesn't know. He doesn't care. He's having fun and is just experimenting willy-nilly without a clue as to whether it'll actually work. He just hopes.

He flicks the switch and, lo and behold, it works. Heavy is übercharged and they march on to victory. The short ends there, with a small epilogue showing the rest of the mercs getting their own über implant surgery. Again, the final scene shows Medic's lack of care as Archimedes is implied to have crawled into Scout's chest and been sealed up when it was over.

Whew!! Two thousand words of analysis on one four-minute short. But, I assume you can understand why, no? This short is monumental when it comes to characterizing Medic. He's not stoic. Quite the opposite! He's careless when it comes to following proper procedures and order. He is a giggly mess who chuckles and laughs at almost anything, nervously or not. He's concerned when Heavy shows anxiety and uncertainty. He's generally a lot more goofy and silly here, you know?

He now instead mostly mirrors the eccentric mad scientist archetype. Laughing, experimenting without a care, and generally being a couple screws loose. Instead of the cold, calculative bloodthirsty character he once was, he's a lot more close and emotional here.

This characterization becomes the basis of what the following taunts and voice lines would be about. His Halloween voice lines are a lot more silly, with him laughing a lot. His Medimedes cosmetic is him screaming in agony and laughing maniacally about his new predicament.

If I may, I want to quickly talk about the Sec-Op cosmetic lines. Sec-Op I personally interpret as a fabricated evil dark side. I don't think of Sec-Op as "Medic's evil secret thoughts" and more of a force that's attached to him that acts like how a typical normal evil dark side thingymabobber works. The joke with the cosmetic is that Medic is as evil as Sec-Op, but is more casual about it. Of course, other people can see it as something else, I just think of it like that.

What I particularly want to talk about are two curious lines. Sec-Op questions whether or not Medic worries he's going mad. Medic doesn't mind. He doesn't care. Even if he is, it's not the end of the world. However, he gets extremely offended when Sec-Op suggests that the other mercs think that Medic is crazy.

Medic gets insulted when others think of him as mad, yet he himself is fine with it. Why? I think Medic himself cares a lot about how he's perceived. He claims he doesn't. He does. If he's thought of in a way that he doesn't want to be thought about, he gets upset. He doesn't care about what other normal people think of him since any conversation they have will come out as negative, but with the mercs? Nah man. Nah...

The ego of this man is a central part of how I view him. He likes being praised and admired. He likes being lifted up and viewed as a god amongst men. He wants to defy the laws of nature just because he feels like he's better than anybody else. He's a little goofy that way, y'know?

Then, of course, we have Expiration Date. I promise I'll try to be a little less exhaustively wordy here since a lot of his characterization is still the same.

Medic and Engie have been experimenting with the teleporters and bread. When Scout, Soldier, and Heavy return from their own trip to get the intel, the pair break the bad news. Here, Medic exhibits characteristics of his in-game self. It could definitely be because of how dire the situation is (they're all going to die in a matter of days), but it's worthy to note.

They don't entertain Scout and instead get straight to telling them about it. When Engie teleports the bread in, Medic tears it apart, proudly showing off the disgusting insides. He tells them all that these green blobs are tumours with a wide, grin. He seems somewhat amused by it, contrasting with the rest of them being confused or mournful.

When asked about how long it'll be, he quickly calculates in his head that they have roughly three days to live. He says it pretty dramatically too. Prissy drama queen.

Engie and Medic then curiously enough spend the next three days experimenting with the bread. Apparently, they were so busy as to not even attend Spy's bucket list meeting. Curious bit of characterization. Engie and Medic both care enough about the team to spend their last few days trying to find some sort of reason for these tumours and possibly a cure. They care about their team (or at the very least their lives) on some level.

Engie teleports bread. Medic grins as it appears in front of him, still humoured by seeing teleportation in action. Or, perhaps he notices it changing and shifting. Regardless, the bread attacks him. Not much to note here other than he's screaming loudly and dramatically. Again, prissy drama queen. He's only having a big bread monster lunge directly at his jugular. Get a grip.

Engie and Medic return to Spy and the rest of them, telling them that, no, they aren't dying in three days, but rather that it's only bread that gets the tumours. Instead, as Medic puts it: "It's some form of self-aware beauty mark that only metastasizes in an environment of pure wheat" before then shaking around the bloodthirsty monster and showing it off. He's just happy and excited to be alive and show off that, no, this is just a bread problem. Everything is all great.

Until Soldier says that he's been teleporting bread non-stop for three days.

Medic tosses the jar aside and rushes towards Soldier, shaking him around. Again, harking back to that moment of physical frustration in the scrapped Meet the Medic short. Him being impulsive and prone to sudden mood shifts is still a part of his character.

They fight the bread monster, they win, Medic corrects Soldier when he says that they'll live forever, and then he rejoins Engie as the both of them inspect the bread monster. Looks like the two of them will get to keep on experimenting.

And there we are. I could touch on the other shorts, but this is already long enough and those shorts are just repeating the same information. Meet the Medic is vital to the characterization of Medic now. Everything in the comics and shorts with him happens because of what Meet the Medic set up.

And, well, speaking of the comics, why don't we talk about those?

Comics

The comics notably do not feature a lot of Medic, at least the ones previous to the mainline comics. The comics are much more entertained with the stories of Soldier in particular. Understandable, Soldier is an almost entirely comedic character (until the comics decide to randomly throw in ideas of him being repulsed by the idea of being a civilian and can only really function in a war setting). However, it does leave the others lacking in a lot of characterization while we get a bunch of Soldier trivia.

But enough about me quietly complaining about the comics, let's talk about the issues where Medic appears!

He appears in A Fate Worse Than Chess, but doesn't do much other than watch the TV playing Saxton's message and then prepare himself for battle. In Shadow Boxers...also not too much. Just sorta dismisses the meeting and says goodnight (??? it's like midday???) before heading off. Nothing really to write home about.

Gargoyles & Gravel is where he actually gets some proper screen time again. He's experimenting on a jack-o-lantern with Engie. As far as characterization goes, he's repeatedly shown to have connections to Heavy and Engie. I'll get to Medic and Heavy soon enough, but with Engie, Medic seems to enjoy experimenting with him. They collaborate on projects and work together.

This is no different. Medic has implanted a brain into the pumpkin, one that belonged to a criminal who tried mugging him. This also implies that Medic has zero qualms about just incapacitating and experimenting on people. Personally? I like headcanoning that he cares more about his team than he does the average person, so he doesn't really feel any sort of guilt or remorse when just grabbing somebody off the streets for a healthy amount of medical malpractice. If he is performing on the mercs, he cares a little more. A Little.

Regardless, Medic is dressed up as Viktor Frankenstein, a matching costume for Heavy's Frankenstein's Monster costume. Again, comparing him to famous fictional mad scientists. Also quite cute.

Medic is again not wearing his gloves. He also declines Engie's offer for a beer, saying that he doesn't drink during surgery. Well, at least he cares enough to not drink during surgery, but y'know. Curious how this is the only real thing he seems to care about. They revive the person's consciousness, having them possess the pumpkin. Medic then says that the pumpkin could "scare the children straight". Does he not like kids or just find them hooligans? Perhaps he just likes seeing people scared. Or maybe it's just Halloween dialogue.

Anywho, Engie takes the pumpkin away and Medic reappears at the end to hold his bonesaw with a wicked smile.

So, now, time for the actual comics.

For the first couple of comics, Medic is nowhere to be seen. He's one of the characters shrouded in mystery for a while. Pauling wasn't able to track him or Engie down. Where could he be?

Then, we learn that he's still alive and well, but now working with Gray Mann as the new Medic for the TFC BLU team. But wait, those are the bad guys!

Medic's introduction scene in the comics establishes a couple of things. One, he's still the same ol' medical malpractitioner who's been busy sewing baboon uteruses into some of the team members. He's excited to work with them. Literally. He brings up how they're "blank canvases", saying how their previous Medic must not have experimented on them.

Secondly, he's still pretty lax with morals. The comics definitely make it more clear how he's unaware that maybe people don't want animal organs sewn into them, whether they know it or not. If asked about it, he brushes it off and says: "Eh, it's not like it's hurting you in any way that we know of yet" before quickly switching topics. 

Another thing of note is that he explicitly lied to the TFC Scout. Interesting. He told him that he was going to fill a cavity, only to then sew three baboon uteruses into him. He's a lot more careless and reckless with the TFC team. Or maybe he also was with his previous team. Again, personal headcanons bleeding into analysis, but I don't think Medic cares nearly as much about the TFC team as he does with his main team. But, again, disregard that if you will. Medic simply just being a lying little prissy bastard is also equally as valid.

The ending panel of the scene has Medic consider and bask in the glory of his "latest triumphs" going toe-to-toe with his "earliest experiments". The phrasing implies that he doesn't particularly care about his previous team. Again, Medic likes his bloodshed and violence. He doesn't play sides or really care. He just wants to see how his newest cadavers fare against the older ones.

Medic then shows up again in the next comic at the very end, smiling wickedly after Sniper is shot by the TFC Sniper. This is then later explained away cause Joke and Funny, but we'll get to it soon.

In Old Wounds, Medic is shown to work on Sniper's body. By his own accord and will, he decides to bring Sniper back to life. Why? Well, number one this is TF2 and death is ultimately meaningless when it's done to the main cast because they're our main characters. Secondly? Well, we soon find out.

After Sniper has his little moment, he wakes up to find Medic there. Medic is less concerned with Sniper's state (both physical and mental) and is more obsessed with the idea of Sniper not being able to witness his crowning medical achievement. Ego! Look at that right there. He's concerned with how he's perceived, probably for just personal pleasure.

Also, the return of the god complex. "It's like I've always said! There's nothing wrong with playing God, so long as you are good at it!" It implies that he's said it several times before, that he's playing God and it's perfectly fine and okay because it works out in the end. He likes the idea of playing around with the laws of nature and God's will.

However, while he's gloating, Sniper attacks. This surprises Medic. Medic was either caught up in his own personal victory to notice Sniper being upset or he never once considered that Sniper would be upset, but rather congratulate him over it. Both? Yeah, probably both. He says this when Sniper says that he killed him. "It's okay though cause I brought you back to life, ja?" basically. He also then explains why he was smiling: it's just how he normally looks. He just looks like that! Smug and evil! 

Medic then also elaborates on his reasoning for why he joined the TFC team. He was bored mostly. Medic loves his experimentation. He would've felt bored and as though his talents were being wasted if he wasn't able to be a mercenary. The TFC needed a Medic, so what then? Join them! He needs the funding.

Again, when explaining he still brings up how it's his greatest triumph, bringing back another person from the dead. Medic in the comics is quite boastful it seems. However, he does seem to care enough about Sniper's physical state to try and stop him from going straight back to work (killing people) before they're then interrupted by Cheavy. Ohhh Cheavy...

Cheavy is rightfully pissed that Medic revived Sniper. Why wouldn't he be??? Medic just revived the guy they killed. And for what reason? Just to say: "Haha!! I brought a man back from the dead?" Cheavy makes it known how upset he is. In a rage, he kills Archimedes.

Medic flips. Perhaps in the only real time that Medic is deeply affected by death, he screams and rushes over to his feathered little friend. Something I've brushed over until now is that Medic really loves his birds. It's a strong big of characterization that his birds, with Archimedes in particular, being something he loves deeply. He cares more about them than he does with anything else. When Archimedes is in Heavy's chest, Medic cares more about Archimedes getting dirty than he is with Heavy having a bird in his stomach.

As Medic is trying to revive Archimedes, Cheavy barks at him. Medic apparently managed to coax the team into buying him a bunch of animal organs. Guy just has a certain charm to him. Or he's just extremely adamant about it. Regardless, Cheavy isn't too pleased with him.

Even while Cheavy is nagging him, Medic STILL tries to boast about his crowning medical achievement. He seriously does not understand that now is not the time to go all: "Yeah!! I brought him back to life!! Isn't that so cool? Aren't I just the best?"

He gets yelled at, but Medic still seems unphased. Perhaps he's either used to it considering that Cheavy just yells at everyone or he's still riding the high of bringing Sniper back to life. He's excited to go out and help the TFC team, saying that he'll be right behind Cheavy. That mirrors exactly what he says to Heavy.

But Cheavy swipes him away. Cheavy doesn't want anything to do with him (which is quite frankly the most reasonable thing to do right now). Cheavy orders Medic to stay in the infirmary and get out of their way, which Medic doesn't like in the slightest. Another headcanon, but I like the idea of Medic being extremely stubborn and constantly wanting to be in a dominating role. He likes ordering people around as shown with his personality in-game and the idea of him having to submit to another person just pisses him off.

And so, he betrays the TFC fully, rejoining the TF team.

In The Naked and the Dead, we open on Medic scrambling to get Miss Pauling blood. Again, improvisation shows here as he manages to figure out that if he just pours blood back into the bodies they'll live. Who cares if blood clots happen because of contradicting blood types?

He also says a curious line. When Miss Pauling expresses skepticism about this tactic working, he just goes: "I know, ja? Why do people even go to medical school?" Some people interpret this as him never even going to medical school. Personally? I like thinking that he's just mocking the need for a proper education when something as simple as pouring a bunch of blood into a person can bring them back to health.

It's a joke, but he's shown to be dedicated to bringing them back to life. He says that he's been soaking their blood using his own underwear for. some reason. Again, joke, but also like...that's some dedication right there.

The next time we see Medic is when he's tending to Demo's wounds. Again, small talk ala Meet the Medic. Medic is catching Demo up on all of the drama. He STILL BRAGS ABOUT BRINGING SNIPER TO LIFE HERE TOO. I genuinely forgot how many times this man brings up Sniper's revival. Oh my god I know that you're proud of bringing the bushman back to life but it's so comical seeing him constantly bring it up like: "Yeah!! And I was super cool and smart and able to do it, ja?" He's so silly.

More jokes here about Medic being able to replace Demo's eye, but because of Monoculous he can't keep it forever. Not much to comment on other than Medic is still rather dismissive of his procedures perhaps causing others genuine distress. Also, him just doing random things for no reason, like scooping out part of Demo's brain because he just got exhausted of hearing Demo ask for his eye back. Also implanting a brain into his leg because he just wants to see what happens. What a goofball.

Something to note is how Medic isn't really intimidating at all during these comics. Evil? Sure, but he's not exactly a looming figure who makes you quiver in your boots. He's casual, silly, and just kinda does what he likes to do. It makes me think about all the art of him with his hands clasped behind his back and with a creepy and unsettling expression. Looking at how Medic is shown in the MtM video and comics? He's...not really like that.

Then, Cheavy reappears. Something to note is that Cheavy doesn't call Medic by his name (or title I should say), but rather by nicknames (and slurs). Frankenstein is his most common one. Medic wouldn't like that.

Again, headcanons, but I think Medic and Cheavy bumped heads a lot considering how hostile Cheavy is to Medic. Because of this, Medic would despise Cheavy more than anything. What's worse than an annoying nagging beast of a person is one that won't even acknowledge his greatness and sees him as little more than a pest that Gray brought on cause they needed a Medic.

So, Medic attacks Cheavy. He reaches for his bonesaw, slashes him across the face before stabbing him in the abdomen. Revenge for killing Archimedes. But, Cheavy survives, reefing the blade out of him and then going out for blood. They both fight before Heavy interrupts.

Blah blah nothing too notable. Medic is a little bit of a sopping wet cat here. He's scared of Cheavy. By all means, he was previously being choked out by him, but c'mon Medic get your shit together bite his ankles. (/j /lh)

Heavy for?? Some reason throws aside Sasha because Cheavy wanted a "good death"?? I know it's coinvent for the plot since it gets Sasha out of the way so that Cheavy can kill Medic and piss off Heavy even more, but still. Maybe I need to do another analysis piece for Heavy to see if he's the type of guy to care about this, but I doubt I could drag it out nearly as long as this.

Regardless, Medic is shot and killed. He's then sent to hell. YAY!!!

FINALLY back to some interesting new Medic characterization. Medic has made a deal with the devil. What for? We don't know. Whatever works best for your fanfic. It doesn't matter what he sold his soul for in this scene though, as Medic is now damned to hell for everything. Oh no!

Until...a loophole. He reads the fine print and points out that the contract says that his soul is only owed to the devil if they own the majority stake in it. Well, Medic just so happened to have grafted eight more souls into him. 100% from the other mercs as he confirms later on, but again, he's just like that.

So Medic has zero qualms about stealing the souls of his teammates. Pretty much in line with what we know about him thus far.

He convinces the devil to sell another one of his souls so that he can go back to earth. In exchange? One of the pens on his table. He acts all surprised and shocked when the devil accepts, clearly revelling in his victory, before then being brought back to life.

If I may break away from the analysis for a bit and go into rambling: I do think Medic should've been slightly more unhinged here. By slightly I mean feral beast of a man, but y'know. Headcanons that alter and shape the way I see him, so I look at this scene and go: "He would NOT be that normal after tricking the devil and seeing the man who killed him" but it is what it is.

Then, the scene we all know and love. Medic toots his horn a little bit as he monologues about planting the uteruses into Cheavy, having him believe that the pen will activate the birthing process and three baboons will explode out of him. Again, he's enjoying himself. He likes seeing Cheavy being scared and afraid.

But, it's all a ploy, and Heavy tears the life-extending machine out of Cheavy. Heavy and Medic reunite, Medic finds the actual inductor and grabs his new baboon child, and...yeah that's the end of the comics. Uneventful, eh?

Conclusion

So, what a character, huh? I like him a little, can't you tell? Props if you actually managed to sit through this mess of an essay. It's mostly just for personal use and reference anyway. Writing about a character and taking notes helps me learn, and I just wanted to try doing something proper, y'know? I've only been writing about Medic for over a year now.

He's a bit of a mixed bag of traits and characterization. You can probably grab the parts that make up the core of his personality plus a couple other traits and then probably shape it into a rough form of who Medic is. It's how I think I write about him, to be honest.

The way to write Medic I feel is just trying to make sense of all of these little bits of character tossed at you, cause, yeah, you call say all these things, but how do you make it work? How do you make a character out of it? How do you rationalize all of these things being possible all at once?

Honestly? It's through trial and error. Soon enough you'll figure it out. Just keep in mind of what his character is. Look at his dialogue and thought process. Would he fucking say that? Would he fucking say it differently? So on and so forth.

Everyone can interpret him differently. Some may look at the things I say and will rebuttal that I'm giving him too much credit. Perhaps he's lying about certain things and is just manipulating them all. That's fair. It's perfectly valid. 

Medic is a comedic character first and foremost. Everything he says and does is meant to be funny. It's just that diseased fanfic writers like me have to overanalyze everything cause we're writing gay yaoi melodrama about murderers. A character who just constantly lies and manipulates I find isn't one I really want to make a protagonist out of, so I don't do it.

So, how do I write him? Well...

I take the aspects that I find most central to him. There's a lot, but I'll list the ones most imporant. His eccentricity is a core part of my enjoyment of him, so I cram it into him as much as physically possible. He's a giggly madman who unabashedly does what he likes to do. Him being apathetic to ethics as well is vital. He clearly does not give two shits about whether or not any of this is legal or moral. He does what he wants to do.

His ego is another big part. He loves attention and he loves being with people who think of him as some smart, grand guy. He's got a complex and has a constant need for others to validate him. If anybody tries taking him down a couple pegs, he lashes out.

That's another thing as well: his emotions. I think Medic wears his emotions on his sleeve and doesn't care to hide them. He's blunt, says exactly what he means regardless if it's nice or not, and generally could not care less over what is socially appropriate. If he doesn't care about a person, he won't make a single effort to even pretend to be interested in what they're saying. If he's excited, he'll laugh and make it known to everyone just how happy he is. Blah blah blah, you get it.

His mood swings and constantly shifting attitude is another thing too. All six of his emotions (neutral, afraid, happy, irritated, unbridled mania, overwhelming hatred and anger). It's easy for him to shift between them very rapidly and whatnot. All that sorta stuff.

The original characterization and voice lines I believe still hold water. I personally like interpreting them as coming from a place of genuine frustration that he only has when fighting. He's an emotional person who snaps and yells and gets annoyed and agitated very easily. His mood fluctuates between mania and seething hatred when fighting. I think it's as to be expected. He's on a battlefield. If you like respawn machine stuff, then it's implied that he's died numerous times and is completely sick of it, lashing out at his teammates for not protecting him.

There's several more aspects of Medic's character to which I write about in my own works, namely him being neurotic about constantly being in control, him being outwardly hostile to people he doesn't know and more close and caring to ones that he likes, and him generally being a lot more fond of his own team than he'd like to admit, but that's all sorta fanon stuff. Only I really care that much about it.

With that being said, Medic is one of the characters ever. Truth be told, this would've been less infuriating to write than, say, a Soldier analysis piece. Writing about my silly goofy middle-aged murderer is nice sometimes.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to stop procrastinating and get back to my fics.

[hbpseverus]

For the past day somebody has been in my TikTok comments arguing about Snapes Worst Memory and the definition of SA (mind you, under a post that was entirely unrelated to the topic!) and their replies are just... insane? I'm going to block this person and I would hope they are simply quite young and very biased towards their favorite character (being James), but I thought I'd share some of my... highlights here. For amusement but also for further discussion since TikTok replies are too restrictive for proper analysis. Obvious trigger warning for discussion of SA ahead.

- Let's start with this topic of pantsing. I do not think this term is appropriate for what happens in SWM because that scene goes beyond the usual understanding of what 'pantsing' is. Severus was simultaneously being choked and magically restrained upside down in the air in a position where he could not defend himself or simply pull down his trousers/robes again. Imagine a boy and his friends restraining a girl in the schoolyard, exposing her underwear for everyone to see and collectively laughing at her. Or a stranger pulling down a womans skirt on the train, for example. Surely both of these cases would be considered SA, right? These women could undoubtedly go to the police with this. So why is it different when it happens to Severus? To me it feels like it boils down to the 'boys will be boys' mindset. When a boy does this to a girl we all agree that it's SA, but when a boy does the same thing to a fellow boy it is 'not that deep' and just a prank. And this exact mindset is a serious issue, with male victims not being taken seriously, especially by fellow men.

- Well... this last reply I thought was absolutely insane so I'll let it speak for itself lol. Fact is, whatever James' intention, the act of exposing someones underwear and especially genitals against their will is always inherently sexual. For obvious reasons, this can not be compared to a parent changing their childs diaper.

- They then dropped this definition at some point. What bothers me the most about this is especially the second part. The intent of SA, even rape, is never truly simple sexual arousal or gratification. It is first and foremost about abusing power. James saw Severus as a love rival when it came to Lily. He did not threaten to undress Severus to gain sexual satisfaction, but to humiliate him and therefore gain power over him. That does not mean it was not SA. The attackers intention matters little to the victim. There are of course also so many forms of sexual assault that do not include physical touch, it can even happen online.

- Finally they tried to argue that James did not threaten to remove Severus' underwear at all, stating that 'pants' refers to trousers, not underwear. Now I am not a native english speaker, but it should be obvious to any literate person who reads the chapter that this cannot be the case. It is described that, as Severus is lifted upside down into the air, his robes fall over his head, immediately revealing his bare legs and underwear with no mention of trousers, followed by other characters explicitly seeing and mocking his underwear. He clearly was not wearing any trousers under his robes. I also argued that it was translated into 'underwear', not 'trousers', which they did not want to hear because JKR did not translate it herself. The movies can not be used as an accurate source here. The source material are the books. The movie was not written by JKR either. The movie scene as a whole was changed drastically. The movie could also most likely not display the full original scene as it's target audience were children and it would be considered too graphic. They then used quotes about other characters wearing trousers as 'proof' that Severus also had to have worn trousers under his robes. Do with that what you want. What I will say is that this conversation often shifts towards victim blaming, i.e. 'it is Snapes fault for not wearing trousers under his robes!'. I don't need to explain how dangerous and morally horrible this is.

Well. Honestly being a Snape stan can be exhauating sometimes. I'm honestly getting real tired of having this conversation so often, but as long as I wake up to my comments blowing up with people arguing about the fucking definition of SA I will keep talking about it because this clearly goes beyond simple arguments over fictional characters.

[shitpostingfromthebarricade]

what are your honest opinions on Les Mis 2000

Before receiving this ask, I had only seen a little under half of Les Mis 2000 (French version). In order to provide a fair and complete response to this question, I started over and watched the entire show from beginning to end over the course of 5/6 weeks.

I will provide more details below the cut, but my completely honest opinion on Les Mis 2000?

Looking at the show as a whole, without considering adaptational value, it's scattered and confusing. A lot of storylines get picked up or dropped with little to no explanation, the characters and their motivations make little sense, and the time skips are inconsistent at best (Félix abandons Fantine when she is still pregnant, JVJ is released after Cosette is already 4yo and just being left at the Waterloo Inn/Fantine is already on her way to Montrieul-sur-Mer, Immortal Gav is 12 for ten years, meanwhile Javert undergoes a dramatic appearance change many scenes into the time skip, Cosette ages up when I assume the time skip takes place, and Depardieu [I refuse to call him Valjean] never ages until after the wedding). If you look at the context, it makes sense: they decided to (rather than dubbing after the fact) shoot everything in French and then again in English, so of course performances are going to flag, editing is going to be a mess, and the storyline is going to get lost in the changes they've made while shooting two shows at once.

Which takes me to my next point: as an adaptation, it's also incredibly weak. I don't know if I should be blaming the writer, director, or a terrible combination, but so many elements are not only not accurate to the book (fair enough, if you want book accuracy watch '25 Les Mis or '64 I Mis, or '72 Les Mis for accurate barricades specifically) but seem to totally miss the messages of the book altogether! Fantine was always in trouble before she gets fired (undermines Hugo's message that even doing everything "right" Fantine was still put in an unwinnable position), Javert gets his usual "obsessed with JVJ specifically and also treated as unusually cruel by everyone else" treatment, Gillenormand looks out for this fellow old man who was a gardener and has now been joined into his family by marriage, and Depardieu's character is going to get an entire section below. The Thénardier sex scenes are a lot but ultimately harmless compared to, say, the part where Javert cuts his hair (?) and attends law school with Marius and Enjolras as himself (?), and then later arrests the entire class for treasonous speech. This kind of belongs in the previous editing section, but a lot of the reveals (Marius knowing his neighbors are the Thénardiers, the Thénardiers recognizing the old man in the sewers, Cosette knowing her dad saved Marius, Gillenormand and Marius knowing Cosette's dad's background, Depardieu's character knowing about Javert's death) happen WILDLY out of sequence, and since they are plot-driving sequences, the motivations become confused, the choices make no sense, and you get scenes like Éponine trying to coerce Marius into having sex with her. I kind of liked the switch from jet beads to stinging nettle fabric except again, it didn't matter because Fantine's downfall was so badly done (forget that she turns to sex work immediately, only later selling TEN TEETH and her hair to make ends meet — Javert threatens to [and later does] arrest her for the completely legal profession of sex work before showing her where she can sell her teeth???) and Madeleine was so opposite from everything his character is supposed to be and show.

Which brings us to our next point: yes, in both the English and French versions, Depardieu's performance falls flat, but more importantly, there is an inherent misunderstanding of who and what Jean Valjean is at each phase of his life. I'll be honest, there was a lot going on when he was in prison with Javert tormenting JVJ for fun and the fire that Cochepaille needed saving from and Myriel announcing that he was buying JVJ the same way Judas sold Jesus and Cosette already being with the Thénardiers, so I don't have much feedback about JVJ's characterization or the paper that was yellow like sunshine at that point, but (ignoring the fact that Fantine apparently shows up in Montrieul-sur-Mer with no established factory in sight) then he becomes the most corporate businessman possible, with no regard for the wellbeing of his employees or town who spends all of his time running numbers? The hospital is underfunded, he only rubs elbows with other government officials/bankers, he is painfully out-of-touch with the people of his town, and apparently he doesn't even pay enough for Fantine to be making ends meet even before she is fired. A big part of what JVJ goes through in the book is that he feels like he cannot safely express his feelings about the system to anyone, leading him to act like a scared animal after Petit-Gervais, living in constant fear of being kicked ( @secretmellowblog has a great post about this here), but this Madeleine is CONSTANTLY venting and complaining to anyone who will listen. Not only that, but after he leaves M-sur-M, the police admit to Javert that they knew who he was and just decided to ... leave him be? This isn't a man who's living in fear, and this isn't a man who has to make hard choices in order to do good and help his fellow man. For some reason, Sister Simplice seems to be like 85% of his morality? (and we are very much skimming over the romance subplot that was going on there) So it doesn't even feel like he helps Fantine altruistically, it feels like Sister said "Please help" and Depardieu sighed and went, "Fine, I'll see if I can't pull some strings." When he gets Cosette and begins taking care of her, it feels ENTIRELY self-serving and creepy, and he later confirms with his own words from his own mouth that his feelings for her are not fatherly. He cares about prison reform because he experienced it, not from any sense of altrustic human kindness, and Toussaint ends up robbing him for having taken a chance hiring an ex-convict? (because ofc this Toussaint is a mute manservant, not a maid who can actually help Cosette, because all of Depardieu-Dad's choices are to serve himself, not to keep Cosette safe or happy). By the time Marius is sending Depardieu's character away, it's the only only adaptation that you're cheering on Marius, because this man calling himself Cosette's father who bought her for 1500 francs and still sometimes shares a bed with her and locks her in various rooms and has just admitted his love is not fatherly needs to LEAVE.

Finally — and I will freely admit that this is the pettiest section — the historical accuracy is in shambles. Electricity in the 1820s? 1840s fashions in the 1830s? The hair and makeup are given as errors, but how do you have accurate men's shirts and repeatedly let them wander around without cravats? And no one, not a single person, thought to check 1800s French currency? Sending Cosette off to buy bread with FIVE FRANCS (~$100USD)? Leaving one hundred thousand francs for the funeral of someone who canonically doesn't even have a marked grave? Even the part where Fantine sells her teeth: these were simple numbers they could have checked (two teeth, one napoléon aka twenty francs each — not ten for four each). All of the prices and amounts were in the book. It is not that hard to call the imaginary coin being passed between two characters a sous instead of a franc: we couldn't even see it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I would respond to this ask before finally answering, but ultimately, I was asked for my honest opinion, and this is it: it missed the mark for me in every way. I'm sure there are some people who enjoy it, and I am happy for them, but it is not an adaptation that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good Les Mis adaptation or a well-executed show.

[undeaddollz]

HENRY BOWERS ANALYSIS!!

btw this is long as shit as it was a ramble to my friend on discord. this is how i interpreted henry, not including the obvious parts of his personality like the racism and much more. thats obvious and everyone knows that, heres something i picked up as i love psychology! i also have a patrick one if you guys would like!

and you can always ask for me to do another IT character as well and i'll try.

so henry is such an interesting character!

it's so obvious he replies on being perceived as masculine and strong because even though he hates his dad he still wants butch's approval and to finally be good enough.

it's part of why he's such a fucked up person and bullies others because it makes him feel stronger and powerful which is something he craves since he is beat at home which makes him feel weak.

bowers gang is a very interesting group of boys, henry is friends with them cause they're kind of like him. we dont get a ton of insight on victor and belch but we know they just think its all in good fun, they dont get as much of a kick out of bullying as patrick and henry. but more or less they're all pretty similar, which henry thrives on. it's obvious he doesnt rely on them or gets emotional with them, belch and victor seem to want henry to but he screams at them every time so they're used to just ignoring the abuse henry goes through.

How henry has a problem with anyone who isnt like himself is an extremely deep rooted problem and the one to blame for this is butch, he beats henry over anything he can, even just little reasons. butch definitely puts some gender roles into henry's head and told him to "stop having a smart mouth" (a reason he hates richie.)

The reason pennywise chose to possess henry is pretty apparent, while it could've gone with patrick i feel like there isnt a lot in patricks mind to break to make him become a mind slave, which is why he just killed patrick instead, using his corpse to manipulate henry. while patrick can be strong he's so mentally fucked up with so many disorders he would've probably just thought his family dying was funny. which makes him a not so great target since he wont be broken like henry could. Henry was having problems at school, home and in his head, there were still parts of him that could be broken as he was not past the point of no return. deep down henry had a lot of fears, one of those fears even being patrick, patricks killing of animals and his own little brother scared henry. while henry could only wish his dad dead, patrick was able to make things like that happen and get away with it and have no guilt, even brag about it.

Henry was still a fairly normal kid until the rock war, thats when i believe he started to go crazy and when pennywise started to get a hold on henry as patrick died shortly after. While henry is scared of patrick that doesnt mean they werent friends, patrick was part of henrys routine, i think having a bit of a routine kept henry sane but the clown started to disrupt that and put henry on edge.

It continues to add shit onto henry's plate to break him. A friend goes missing, he's continually beat at home and it's getting worse. He gets embarrassed in front of his friends, just more and more is added on.

He's then forced to kill his father and then his two closest friends, then made to go back home with evidence planted in his room that he killed all the missing kids. usually he would end up in jail but pennywise knows it will need henry again so it has henry sent to a mental hospital where he endures more abuse and never recovers from having his mind broken as 1, the staff are awful 2, pennywise visits him every night in the form of his dead friends. He mostly takes the form of victor as victor was henry's best friend. the movie isnt fully accurate and uses patricks corpse only when it was actually victor who meant the most to henry, patrick is used as a scare factor.

Although patrick is the one who stuck around to the end and got the same kick out of making people suffer like henry did. he always supported crazy ideas unlike belch and victor. grief is one of henry's huge motivators and pennywise took advantage of that as grief is one of its specialties

[velvetvexations]

I find your reading of Kipperlily really interesting and valuable (even when I don't agree). But I think it's not accurate to suggest that Brennan is setting up something more complex and nuanced with her and it hits on something that's very frustrating for me with the Dimension 20 fandom. I love Brennan. I think he's a great storyteller with very interesting ideas and a generally empathetic attitude toward his characters. But he gets all of the credit for D20s storytelling successes, whether he deserves it or not, and none of the blame for its failings, even when he deserves it. And I think suggesting that he's trying to do something awesome with Kipperlily that the IH are ignoring or not picking up is massively overly generous to him and massively unfair to them. He built her to trigger the reactions he's getting from them, and he set up the jealousy reveal to make them angrier at her. I think there's a chance that he could end up leaning into something more sympathetic because of her age at the end (although the idea that D20 doesn't treat minors as villains is one fandom has been batting around for a while that I really don't understand: Biz Glitterdew? Anyone?). But I think suggesting that Brennan is trying to do anything other than make her hateable is way off-base. That doesn't mean your reading of the character or situation is wrong. Sometimes the best stories aren't what the writers intended. But it feels frustrating to me to see him once again credited him with something he's not actually doing. And the rest of the IH getting criticism for something he's equally a part of (Especially when he was the player dodging nuance left and right when Aabria tried to do something actually interesting with the "villains" of Burrow's End)

I understand your point. I think a lot of the collaborative storytelling in TTRPGs like this is what the players choose to follow up on, though, and players aren't like, necessarily wrong for not missing or ignoring some things. Brennan signaling that Kipperlilly's story can be engaged via empathy isn't much difference than saying a dragon can be fought or you can answer it's riddle. It's like, you can do the gunfight if you want to or you can sneak in the back but on a grand scale that can only be done in a TTRPG.

I said he's "desperately" trying to signal it to the players because I'm a little bothered about the intensity of Ally and Siobhan's reactions to KLCK and the way it feels like none of them are even hearing it, but ultimately there's very little I think any of his players could do that he wouldn't try his best to work with and I agree he does not necessarily consider this absolutely essential.

The only time I can think of him seeming to have actually had an emotionally rough time with was the climax of Mice & Murder. I normally really dislike pouring over every frame of every microexpression like that because it's usually in the service of "everyone at the table is constantly seething at Ally" conspiracy theories, but I blame BLeeM much more for that going down as it did than Rekha and he doubtlessly did too with none of his potential frustration actually being aimed at her. Other than that, it's his nature to roll with where the players want to take their characters, so I don't think he's like, banging his head against the wall trying to make the IHs understand she's sympathetic or that it's the only possible solution to anything, it's just a part of what he's constructed.

I'll say though about things he's also doing, I also don't like that his presentation of KLCK digging up Euegenia was threatening to destroy her grave and not like, digging up her corpse in order to "find the rogue teacher". So he does seem to think of her as more actively sinister than I do, at least in her current state of mind which is not necessarily the end of the discussion.

Also, about the villains in Freshman Year, that was a very, very long time ago and everything was a lot rougher and so even was Brennan as a person back then. I don't think it's farfetched at all that he's gotten even more empathetic and dedicated to praxis than he used to be and is less willing to have a bunch of underage villains get slaughtered like any other enemy and go to Actual Hell for their sins.

[arcadekitten]

Currently on a Witchywool brain rot…. Hurggh I love em so much 😭❤️ How do you keep creating such interesting and unique dynamics to ships? Like, becoming obsessed with a bloodthirsty anthoropomorphic sheep and his star witch girlfriend playing god was NOT what I expected when I first played SnD, but here we are 💀

I have a few questions about them that I’d like to ask, if that’s alright!

1) We know that Stella came in from a shooting star… but where did she come from? What are her origins? I read in other posts that she was made out of concentrated stardust and that she came from an entire race of star people… is it alright if you can elaborate on that more?

2- Similarily, does Stella, Lambchop and the other characters have family or something? And if they do, are they going to be introduced sometime? Or will they just be unimportant NPCs?

3- If Stella and Lambchop ever enter a romantic relationship, how would everyone react? Especially Ruuuby; will she be upset at Stella, or will she accept it (after a lot of tears?)

4- Relating to the last question, how would they get together first? Would Stella develop romantic feelings and confess to Lambchop (probably in a VERY sweet and romantic gesture ❤️) or would it be something else that’ll bring them together?

5-What are their feelings about each other and the relationship in general? And what would their dynamic be like? Would it change much from their original friendship, or would it remain somewhat the same except with more physical affection?

6- What are their love languages for each other? (Gift Giving, Quality Time, etc…) As in, how would they show their love for each other?

7- And finally… what would their wedding be like? ;D

I am SO, SO SORRY if this is too much!!! 😥 It’s just that… well, I’d like to write a fanfic of these two someday… and since these two have less screen time together I am STRAVED for content about them, not blaming you, ofc!!! I absolutely love your work and it’s totally understandable that with the amount of time and effort you put into your games that it’s already amazing that you keep finding time to draw them together and create additional content for em! It’s just that I’d love to see more of these two and understand their characters better so that I can write them accurately, if that makes sense :D

So thank you for taking time to read my silly questions (and hopefully answer them if you’re not too busy) and I wish you a good day!! 😁

I'm so happy you like them!! Now you can brainrot with me!! ♡♡♡

I'll try to answer your questions to the best of my ability!!

Perhaps not at this instance but, time permitting, maybe I'll be able to expand it just a bit! I will say though that star people come in all genders and probably dress in similar ways to how Stella does! (So, like...lots of magical girl inspiration haha!) ===

I haven't thought much about it! Stella for sure doesn't have parents--she was born from the stars! As for Lambchop and the others, it's a mystery! ===

I think everyone would be a bit surprised, but happy for them! I answered once in another post that if Stella and Lambchop were to pursue a romantic relationship, Stella would try to set-up Ruuuby with somebody else to try and dampen the blow. If that didn't work, Stella would explain to Ruuuby very gently that she and Lambchop want to be together. Ruuuby would cry, upset that Lambchop doesn't like her, but would be happy for Stella because she loves Stella and wants her and Lambchop to be happy too! ===

I'm hoping that perhaps I can explain this a bit somehow in some of the arts I make of them! I can't see it ramping up to the level of being a game (especially because I don't want to take away from the themes of the original--and I've got other stories I want to make too!) but I think it might be a mix of a confession and something else. ===

If they were to officially get together I don't think it would change too much about their dynamic, but there would be a LOT of physical affection. Lambchop especially would be very clingy, always wrapped around Stella. Calling her things like "My Stella". They each have their own houses but I'm sure Lambchop would invite himself over to Stella's for a "sleepover" a lot, where they're forced to cuddle on her not-big-enough-for-2-people bed to fit (not that they're complaining) ===

I feel as though their love languages are like a mix of gift-giving and quality time, in their weird twisted ways. Lambchop kills people so Stella will have something to fix. Stella fixes everything so Lambchop will have something to ruin again. They might not even fully realize they're doing it, but they do it! ===

Oh their WEDDING? Well, I think it would be a happy one with all their friends, more or less! (Though probably with a lot of disagreements on how to go about it...) I think Stella also, being from the stars and all, might not be used to the concept of dating vs marriage so she might have to get herself accustomed to the idea. Also Lambchop wears a top hat, 100% === I hope that satisfies! And thanks again for your kind words!! ♡

[tykobrian]

My Caitlyn Kiramman Meta: Part -1 // Why I think a so-called villain arc for Cait is most definitely NOT happening...

DISCLAIMER: Right off the bat, I want to be very VERY clear, this is not an invitation for people to come along and spoil me with the leaks. This is not a competition to see who can predict season 2 most accurately and then correcting them with spoilers. I'm simply writing everything I've understood from the show and the things I wish to see in future/ the things I'd love to see the writers exploring. Sure, I make speculations but THAT doesn't mean I'd appreciate people spoiling me. I'll see what really happens in a month after all.

Moreover, I'm not here to create or stir up fandom drama. I understand what I'm going to write may not be favourable to some people. That's why I've tried to keep this post out of the popular fandom tags. And no, I don't think less of people who expect things to go differently from myself in season 2. This post is not some kind of vagueblog at other fans or posts/ meta.

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

Let me reiterate. The chance of Caitlyn having a villainous storyline is extremely unlikely. Why? It’s pretty straightforward in my humble opinion. Arcane is a show produced by an American/ Chinese company. Both countries have a strong bias towards portraying cops/ military positively. I think this was evident in the first season. Caitlyn’s mentor, Grayson, was shown as a good person striving to maintain peace but ultimately falling victim to the schemes of malevolent Silco and the duplicitous Markus. They even tried to make Markus as sympathetic as possible by depicting him manipulated by Silco from the start, emphasizing his role as a conflicted father (massive eyeroll). Sure, not all the enforcers portrayed in season one are the beacon of virtue. But that’s because Caitlyn will the portrayed as the missing link that will ultimately change the enforcer system for the betterment of both Piltover and Zaun. In earlier League of Legends lore, Caitlyn is depicted as an idealistic sheriff dedicated to maintaining peace between the two cities and refusing to take orders from Piltover’s wealthy elites. In season 1, the writers carefully made it clear that nobody wants to see Cait as an enforcer. Not the current Sherrif, not her own parents, not her pal Jayce. It is implied that she joined the force to solve the murder of her mentor, not for maintaining Piltover’s influence over Zaun. She has a strained relationship with her evil councilor mother for Christ’s sake! They made Mel not recognize her name when Jayce mentioned her to make it clear that she doesn’t hang around elite circles enough for people to know who she is readily. All of this is show that Cait is still an outsider who can’t really be considered to be participating in actively undermining the lives of Zaunites, even if she is the daughter of a Counciler, even if she herself is an enforcer. So, this will make it easier for her to prop up in the audience’s mind as a fitful person to take over the so called revamped enforcers! After Jinx’s attack on the city and her mother in S1 finale, I speculate that Cait might initially feel vengeful, but before she does anything truly harmful, the writers will likely make her regain her composure and act as the “bigger person”. They will never let her “stoop” to her arch-nemesis Jinx’s level and start doing stupid shit like bombing Zaun! She might even suggest herself to let someone like Vi, a Zaunite, to join the enforcers, demonstrating her fairness. I also suspect Ambessa’s character was introduced for mainly for Caitlyn to defend Piltover against an outsider (Noxian) force, making her a savior. Caitlyn will likely play a significant role in protecting the city from Noxian forces and emerge as a hero. Also, they could play the angle of OH CAIT WAS BEING MANIPULATED BY AN EVIL SCHEMING NOXIAN, you really can’t blame her for doing woopsie things a la Marcus- Silco storyline v.2.

The fact that Piltover’s system is essentially feudal, with a severely skewed, undemocratic, and centralized power structure, doesn’t matter as long as a virtuous person like Caitlyn is in charge! Also, she is in love with a Zaunite, Vi, who is literally the terrorist Jinx’s sister. How can an evil person look past these and fall in love with a Zaunite, eh? Checkmate! It’s quite frustrating. I believe, everything I said boils down to: the narrative will go to great lengths to protect the only so-called good cop in the show, because otherwise it’ll be evident that the so-called law enforcement system portrayed in the show, which incidentally somewhat mirrors the system found in real-life, is inherently unjust and evil regardless of who is in power. The main problem of Piltover's law enforcement was that the "right" person wasn't in charge, you see! I think an American/ Chinese show would be the least likely place where something this radical would be portrayed.

----------

Well, that’s what I think they’ll do with Caitlyn in season 2. I really really REALLY hope that’s not how things go for her. But I’ll have to face the facts. Anyway, next I’m going to analyze the show as if it’s not a show written by people but rather something like a documentary. That is, it’s not a written things which is havily enfluenced by the writing teams' personal bias/ agenda rahter something that happened in real life in another universe. This will hopefully let me explore how Caitlyn’s character could have evolved organically. Perhaps I’ll analyze other Arcane characters this way in future.

[lakesbian]

Sorry for the discourse. Once in a reddit comment I called Alec a victim of sexual abuse, do you think that's accurate? A few people went out of their way to tell me that since he was the inflicting those acts (even if he was manipulated into them by his father) he isn't actually a victim. I know this is very specific and loaded but I think Alec being a victim even when he had power over others is a big part of his character. Power over others isn't freedom for him. I'd even say he enjoys having his agency taken away from him, (as in, he likes having someone else to base himself off not in the other way)

first of all you're good this is not Annoying Discourse to me it's just book club. we're literary analyzing right now. second of all:

yes, alec was extremely sexually abused, and despite it being what he talks openly about the least, the impacts it had on his psyche are blatant. unhinged victim-blaming arguments that preteenaged alec was actually totally morally culpable and evil for having sex w/ adults are bizarrely common--see this post for the breakdown refuting them. i do actually disagree w/ one aspect of it in retrospect. minor detail but worth refining regardless because i have to be the most precise alecposter ever or i'll die. read the post for context before you get into my addition to it here, but:

i initially interpreted the "cape groupies" statement as being in reference to child prostitution specifically for his powers, but in hindsight, given the implied chronology of his statement, ward making it explicit that heartbreaker was prostituting his children at extremely young ages (i.e prior to triggers), and alec's propensity for spine-breaking back-bends to avoid acknowledging the severity of the abuse he experienced, i think it's significantly more likely that he wasn't a cape at the time. he's avoiding acknowledging the reality that something he remembers as being one of the only times he was granted any semblance of physical intimacy or care was actually exploitative abuse by implicitly framing it as him being special, powerful, and desirable (a cape) to people who were below him (groupies). w/ the dual benefit that he doesn't have to admit the utter loss of autonomy to himself or the undersiders--he can cope with them thinking he's a horrible person, but he'd really rather not fess up to how badly he's been hurt.

you're also correct that power over others isn't freedom for him--see this post for elaboration on that. to quote myself in said post, "the most core aspect of his trauma is not what was done to him but what he was turned into." he was groomed for 13 straight years to turn into his father, to exist only as an extension of the harm his father causes--when he exerts control over others, it's not freedom for him, it's him being chained to the leash of what was beaten into him as a child. he was a doll being puppeted into puppeting others, and it's not easy to shake off those strings. the time we see him most blatantly exert abusive control over someone--sophia--is during the period in the story where he's telling himself that he doesn't care that all of his teammates (the only people he has in life) like each other more than they like him, the period where he's remembering what his father did to him + projecting the anger he's convinced he doesn't have onto sophia and hurting her for it, and the period where he's (as we retroactively learn through aisha) furiously jealous that other people get to have normal families who care about them and He Doesn't. it's a behavior he (largely unconsciously) wants to leave behind and (also largely unconsciously) falls back into because hurting people to avoid being hurt + to comfort himself was the only coping mechanism he was allowed as a child. it's him having been away from home for 2 years and still waking up and doing the things he was forced to do because sometimes he doesn't know how else to exist.

so yeah, he enjoys someone else calling the ethical shots every now and then, if he likes and trusts them. i go into that a bit here. it's why he starts those weird little conversations where he's trying to figure out what someone believes morally and why. it's why taylor observes that he'll go along with whatever the team decides. it's why he makes a joke about taylor laying down the law and enforcing no human sacrifice when brian is out of a battle. it's why when taylor wants to cram maggots in someone's eyes his final verdict is "if you're okay with it." it's why he thinks it's great that aisha could stab him to death in his sleep. he knows he's fucked up. he doesn't really want to be. so he watches and listens to his team, he fumbles towards being better w/ the little mental notes he unconsciously absorbs, and as much as he's desperate for autonomy and freedom, sometimes that autonomy and freedom comes in the form of being allowed to be the innocuous-looking guy sitting in the back of the room learning what people who weren't groomed into sexually assaulting people when they were ten think is normal. sometimes autonomy and freedom is having people he can trust to make the right calls when he knows he can't trust himself. i wouldn't describe it as "lack of agency," because he's still choosing whether or not to listen (and BOY does he not listen sometimes), but the sentiment you intended is accurate.

ok hope that helps. enjoy the several thousand words of alecposting i just linked you to

[gorgynei]

The Tyler Split Personality Theory

AKA why Tyler Galpin is 100% innocent. And deserves a hug.

Foreword. I know that DID being represented as like an "evil mode/personality" is harmful and not accurate, but I do think its what the writers are doing with Tyler (and hydes as a whole), so heres my theory on why:

Tyler, to my understanding, has 3 modes: Regular Tyler, Evil Tyler, and the Hyde. Regular Tyler is the nice, sweet guy we spend most of the show getting to know. Evil Tyler is the manipulative and cruel side that gets shown off in episode 8. The Hyde is the literal monster (I'll be referring to Evil Tyler and the Hyde both as "the hyde" because they're the same entity, and just calling Regular Tyler "Tyler"). Thinking about Tyler and the hyde as two separate people with different morals and motivations really helps to understand the dichotomy at play with his character.

I believe that Tyler can't control what the hyde does and doesn't enjoy doing violent things, at all.

1. Tyler admits it. Sort of.

To start off, this conversation between Wednesday and Tyler is very very significant. The show lends a lot of weight and screen time to this supposed mural destruction from a year ago for, seemingly, no reason. Yes, it informs how Tyler and Xavier act around each other, but I think it represents Tyler's feelings on his destructive actions as a hyde.

The way Tyler looks off into the distance when he says "I could give you a million excuses, but... the truth is I'm still trying to figure that out" leads me to believe that the hyde had something to do with it. He isn't quite sure whether that was something he did intentionally, or if he was commanded to. If you read everything Tyler says here as him talking around being the hyde and doing violent acts against his will/knowledge, the conversation suddenly means a lot more than it did at face value, and it has a real reason to be present in the show.

In particular, Tyler mentions a "boot camp" which is presumably his torture sessions with Thornhill. He also does not call himself a normie, rather a "townie", which could be semantics, but it's worth mentioning. Tyler saying "I did a terrible thing, but I swear I'm not a terrible person" is also a great way of foreshadowing his split personality and guilt over his actions in a subtle way (assuming this theory is true).

Edit Feb 3 2023: Made a few realizations so I'm adding on.

Tyler isn't just talking around his actions as a hyde or being symbolic, he's literally talking about them, and about his mom. Tyler holds (or held) a lot of resentment towards Nevermore because his mom wasn't offered the tools to try and contain her hyde. When he says "a bitter townie that blames everyone else for the shitty hand he's been dealt", I'm pretty sure he's talking about his mom and how her death was directly caused by Nevermore's failure to help her. Thornhill releasing his hyde specifically using information about his mother feeds into this idea, it unlocked a rage inside of him once he learned that fact.

When he destroyed Xavier's mural, it was an act of anger and frustration. A way of getting back at Nevermore for his mom's death. But afterwards, he realizes that's not who he wants to be. He doesn't want to be an angry, resentful person that acts out and blames Nevermore for his mother's death. He even completely stops pranking Nevermore students, which he did often with the other normies before he "went soft". He forgives them.

Unfortunately, the hyde is an amalgamation of all of that hatred and is being wielded by an even more bitter victim of Nevermore (Thornhill), so he's forced to do terrible things in order to try and take down Nevermore.

Tyler not only refuses the hyde, he also refuses to hate Nevermore for something it did in the past. There's no possible way that he's on board with anything that Thornhill is doing.

2. Jekyll and Hyde

Obviously there's the hyde's namesake: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. If you're unfamiliar, Jekyll is a brilliant scientist that unlocks his alter ego, Hyde, using a chemical mixture. He's aware that he is Hyde and knows that Hyde is doing terrible things, but allows him to do so (at first) because he feels like needs to keep the "evil" inside of him separate from the "good" inside of him.

While it's possible that Wednesday borrowed the namesake just to allude to the well-known story and add to the "monster that transforms into average person" mystery, a INCREDIBLY crucial aspect of Jekyll and Hyde's story is that Jekyll is a good person but also can't control Hyde. While Jekyll unlocked Hyde intentionally, he quickly lost control and Hyde took over more and more until Jekyll was forced to commit suicide. I strongly believe this is also a big part of being a hyde, with the individual affected by hyde-dom taking the place of Jekyll.

Tyler had his hyde unlocked by Thornhill, not by himself, which is immediately a deviation from the old story. To me, this just means that Thornhill tortured Tyler in order to force him to let it out, weakening his ability to hold the hyde at bay, and increasing her hold over him.

3. Tyler's Therapy with Dr. Kinbott

In episode 2, Tyler mentions that he's seeing Kinbott because he has "court ordered" therapy. This is odd given that court ordered therapy is usually only given to people if they are a direct harm to themselves or others, like in Wednesday's case. It's unclear whether this is the result of his hyde getting him in trouble or if he was just ordered therapy following his mother's death because it was especially hard on him.

Near the beginning of episode 8, there's a scene where Sheriff Galpin is listening to recordings from Kinbott regarding Tyler's therapy sessions:

"When I press him on his mother or any sensitive issue, he snaps. It's like I'm talking to a different person. I'm increasingly concerned. I believe the trauma of losing his mother may have left Tyler with deeper psychological scars that I had suspected"

That scene serves zero narrative purpose outside of letting the viewer know this information about Tyler, so it has to be significant. In particular, the line about him turning into a "different person" is especially relevant. It seems like some part of Tyler (hyde or otherwise) is very defensive about his mother and has an extremely hard time even discussing her. This may be the result of Thornhill using his mother to coax the hyde out (see: "Tyler honey, make Mama happy and shut her up."), so any discussing of his mom makes the hyde come to the forefront.

4. Tyler's relationships

A lot of the things Tyler says and does could be interpreted as an extremely well thought out manipulation plot, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. I genuinely believe that Tyler is a good person and that most of what he says pre-e8 can be taken at face value.

Tyler does genuinely care about Wednesday. Many of his actions with her are likely influenced by the hyde (especially their date lining up perfectly with Thing's stabbing), but he put so much care put into their dates and conversations that it's hard to believe it was all a lie. If Tyler really didn't care about Wednesday, he might not have go so far to decorate a crypt, apologize so profusely for wrecking Xavier's mural, or help her escape Jericho when he knew Thornhill needed her for her plan.

5. Episode 8

There's a lot of small but crucial things in episode 8, so I'll just mention them all here.

This tiny moment is EXTREMELY concrete evidence in my eyes. The way the music rises to an intense swell but then fades almost immediately (as if some danger has passed) and Tyler goes from smirking and being all confident to almost crying, it's just the only explanation that makes sense. Tyler was taken over by the hyde and then regained control of himself. Seeing how shaken and afraid Wednesday was overwhelmed him with guilt, so he backs off immediately.

Edit Feb 4 2023: It's also worth noting that when Tyler says "You have no idea what's coming" it is, at least partially, a warning. Wednesday even interprets it as one, later telling Xavier that "Tyler warned me that something bad was coming". I do think the hyde is almost entirely in control in this scene until the moment I described above, but some part of Tyler, some speck of his true self, wanted desperately to try and help Wednesday.

Similar to the scene in the police station, it seems like Tyler snaps himself out of the hyde's control for a moment. But this time, instead of it being at the end of an outburst, it's Wednesday mentioning his brief torture at her hands that brings him out of it.

At first, Sheriff Galpin's involvement in the Tyler vs. Enid fight seems strange and sort of pointless. He doesn't contribute much other than giving Enid the upper hand for a moment and futilely calling out for Tyler. To me, they included the Sheriff here in order to demonstrate that the hyde is not Tyler. If it were, he might have calmed for a moment or even just hesitated before rushing to attack his father, but he didn't. I believe they're using the Sheriff to represent Tyler's humanity, which the hyde has completely stripped away in this moment.

6. Master/Hyde Dynamic

A hyde becomes a "slave" to the person who unlocks it. This is a big part of the unraveling mystery of the show and it seriously calls into question Tylers agency and free will. Even if Tyler was a completely terrible person who wanted to do everything Thornhill told him to do, he would still partially be a victim because hydes by nature form a weird and dependent bond with the person who freed them, even if the hyde was freed against the individuals wishes.

Aand thats all! I'm sure theres more stuff I didn't mention, and there was even stuff I left out because I didn't want to get to bogged down in the micro-expressions, but! There it is. Can Tyler haters give him a break now?

[bigblueoctoling]

So, Side Order

Thoughts and theories below. I'll be getting into Everything.

I think Side Order sets off with a very bad first impression, but the story shortly develops. Side Order's biggest fault is simply in placing the Finale at the end of the first run; Of course one naturally should assume that more content would come after beating your first run, since this was very obviously marketed as a roguelike, but a roguelike generally shouldn't present completing your first run as completing the game. Any contemporary roguelike like Hades or Isaac will also have the credits after the first run, but the conclusion given is typically that Your Job Is Not Over. The way Side Order does it is as if Isaac's first ending was The Beast. I can't really blame people for mistakenly believing that the "Story" was over after that.

I also have to mention that I LOVE the Final Final Phase with collecting All Of The Color Swatches, but it really really cheapens how cool of a moment it is for Eight when the FINAL ATTACK is just... Pearl doing the killer wail a second time. Like, could you really not come up with ANYTHING else? I like Pearl's killer wail, it's cool, but it just felt like Eight got completely robbed of a moment.

With those two things out of the way I can safely say that Side Order was overall very good. It was kind of a rollercoaster for me, initially.

For a lot of it, I was really irked at how generic the whole Evil AI Story was, but it really develops as time goes on without really outright spelling things out for you.

I was deeply worried when I got Octavio's palette; one of my biggest fears for Splatoon currently is the idea of them trying to redeem Octavio, who is blatantly just a war tyrant who grooms child soldiers. That's not me reading too deeply into subtext, that's just what the text is. But as you keep going through it it becomes pretty clear- Marina in particular is the one who's phrasing everything like it's Really Not So Bad.

One of Side Order's major themes is Marina repressing trauma.

Smollusk is never really given an outright explanation on their origin, but I think it's fairly clear if you pay attention to how Smollusk acts- Smollusk is, in part, a manifestation of the "weakness" in Marina's subconscious Order used to infiltrate her mind. As far as evidence goes, it's pretty clear with how Smollusk swoons over Pearl- but additionally, I feel a lot of their notes from clearing palettes are relevant to this. In particular, in relation to the theme of Marina's repressed thoughts, there's Sheldon's info- The fact that they outright condemn Sheldon for taking "two young, impressionable children who've known him since they were babies and raised them to inherit his legacy", and "drill a love for weapons into them" seems to outright be a condemnation of Octavio's treatment of Octarians, while also skirting around directly condemning Octavio of such due to repressing what she went through.

In addition to that, I feel Acht's presence is a key part of this theme as well- it is extremely in character for someone as empathetic as Marina to downplay something she herself went through, especially in the context of being around someone who went through something much worse, with Acht's sanitization. Marina consistently refers to it as her Job, and Octavio as her Boss, while Acht will outright describe it accurately as conscription.

There's also the aspect of the other octarians- namely, the concept of Octarians who "didn't want things to change". At first, the concept reviled me- but I came to realize that this wasn't really about blaming Marina for leaving- after all, this wasn't an active desire of the Octarians involved, this was a shared subconscious feeling. It's less that Marina "abandoned the Octarian Military", but rather, that the people left behind felt abandoned by Marina's leaving. They surely wouldn't actively express this, but... it left an impact all the same.

Most clearly this is expressed by Acht. With the final notes unlocked from Eight's palette, I feel like it paints a very clear picture- Acht cared deeply for Marina. After Marina left... Acht fell into a complete depressive spiral. They used music to fill the void left by her absence, eventually to the point that they were willing to let themselves be sanitized. I feel like a lot of people are kind of distracted by the idea of Acht's irritation of Pearl and Marina's flirting being funny to realize that their discomfort is coming from the fact that Acht had very Heavy feelings for Marina. Acht, possibly more than anyone else, represents the idea of wanting things to stay the same back then. The ultimate conclusion being that Acht moves on from everything, accepts the change, but is happy to be able to be here, in the better future Marina created by making the risk to change everything.

I honestly feel like this is the intended story, but at the same time, that it's going to go over a lot of peoples' heads. But it really paints a very dynamic plotline that I think they handled masterfully.

For context for people who don't know me, to put it bluntly, I kin Acht and Eight pretty fucking hard. I can't say enough how thankful I am that Acht is written largely how I've always envisioned her. I wrote a fairly extensive fic myself on how I imagined sanitization worked, and the way Acht made their way to the surface, and how Marina worked to cure their sanitization. Suffice to say, while my interpretation was different, I'm deeply, deeply pleased that the canonical direction was largely similar to my own, in that Marina would absolutely be way too empathetic to not try to rescue the sanitized octarians from the NILS statue. And for what it's worth, I'm kind of glad, albeit mostly as a writer and less as a player, that they left a lot of the details open-ended, so I have MOUNTAINS of material to work with in writing another, more accurate fic. I'm also very happy that Eight is very heavily relevant! Acht is characterized perfectly. Very emotionally reserved, but has a lot of feelings hidden behind that wall.

As for Eight and Acht, let's talk about them, because I feel they are very intentionally linked, beyond the similarity of their names. It stands out very heavily that Eight's palette is here, but Acht's is simply missing. The idea that Acht's palette was simply already configured doesn't quite track to me- it feels more like an excuse Marina cooked up to keep Acht from worrying. I came to a realization of a theory shortly after completing the game that I was mortified at being true, because it was a worst-case-scenario I thought of shortly after Acht's reveal, which is:

Acht is Eight.

This upset me a lot because, well, I kin both of them- I have a lot of self-perceptions tied to each of them. If they're both the same character, to put it bluntly, it feels like I'm basically having one of them get forcibly removed. Some people get confused when I say this upsets me, but simply put, it just doesn't gel with my brain.

The most upsetting thing is how many holes in the plot it seems to fill in perfectly.

Eight, Marina, and Pearl were the only ones who initially entered the spire. Why was Acht already there, 'physically', as opposed to everyone else who merely got their soul sucked in through the sea cucumber phone?

Where even is Acht, physically? They're presumably still in the NILS statue, since it's pretty heavily implied that the memverse is what made Acht in control over their body.

Why doesn't Acht have a palette, even if it was already somehow automatically complete? Pearl and Marina just sort of have theirs with them. Why doesn't Acht?

Why is Eight's palette so huge and fucked up?

Why does Eight's palette unlock notes from Acht?

Why do we not actually see Acht physically in the real world? On the news, rather than just showing the three standing together, they show Pearl and Marina standing next to the old album art of Acht.

Why do we not get much of any feedback to explain if Eight gets their memories back?

Upsettingly, it even kind of goes to explain why Nintendo would give Acht they/them pronouns- as happy as I am for Acht to just be nonbinary, the explanation that Acht is Eight would explain why Nintendo would do that.

Most upsettingly, it seemed like nothing really hard countered this evidence- Eight and Acht look completely different, but that's kind of a nebulous hurdle to get over when everything else seems to line up so perfectly.

...However, thankfully, I came to learn that, of all things, TABLETURF BATTLE would save me from this theory being real. Acht is real, physically. Logically it doesn't track that Acht would exist physically after Eight, since, you know, you're definitely playing as Eight in Octo Expansion, so I think it's safe to say that this theory is a non-starter. Huge relief to me.

That being said, I still feel like this theory has legs- it certainly would make a very good super depressing fic where Acht has to come to grips with the fact that they don't exist anymore, but I'm not in the business of making that kind of fic.

On the other hand, I do think the fact that so many things line up does imply a lot about Acht and Eight, if not strictly canonically speaking. I think it's very possible for it to be something like:

Eight is a clone of Acht.

This, for the most part, explains the plot holes listed above, and explains the weird green goo that we initially find Eight in. It also adds more fun to work with for writing the two. We get a lot of language like "Who am I?" with Eight in particular, and giving Eight an identity crisis on top of everything else sounds fun. It also explains the visual discrepancies, a clone can look different from the host, but clones sharing souls tracks. I'm keeping this headcanon.

I also just think the color swatch system, and the design for Dramatic Days in Orderland as a whole, are very Neat and very Cute and line up with my autism very very very well. It makes me very deeply happy how autism-coded Marina is in this, and frankly, this being her solution to curing sanitized octarians is even more indulgent to my own interests than my own self-indulgent fan fic was. I cannot WAIT to write more and think about Marina's silly virtual worlds. Especially with how power-trip-y this one is; the fact that she envisions herself as the final boss is really a lot of food for thought.

As a whole, all of Side Order is an enormous amount of food for thought. This is EXACTLY what Splatoon 3 has been missing- fodder for theorycrafting and fanfic-writing and so forth. The world of Splatoon 3 has felt so stagnant and all of this is an enormous breath of fresh air that makes me excited for the future of the series.

In closing:

Smollusk is a product of the subconscious of those who worked on the game.

Acht loved Marina but lacked the self-esteem to express it to Marina. Marina left and Acht took it pretty hard, but they're okay now.

Eight is a clone of Acht and they share one huge fucked up broken soul. Whoops!