#idk maybe it is! but in context I kind of just assumed it was about rough/violent/in some way fucked up sex lol

[nostalgia-tblr]

loki/william rufus fic, where bill explains that as the second son he has inherited england while big brother bob only got the duchy of normandy, ha ha ha.

[windowsloth]

i love ethel cain’s music, but it reminds that me that I don’t love the way fans can get really insistent on the “correct” interpretation of a concept album

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Saint of Bright Doors

a surreal Sri Lankan fantasy about colonialism, revolution, mixing fantasy with the modern world

follows a man raised by his mother to kill his father, a god-like cult leader

but as an adult he puts aside his life of violence and moves to the city for a quiet life

he becomes fascinated with ‘bright doors’ around the city that never open and have no other side, and joins a group studying them to find out more

and a support group for those with divine heritage that becomes increasingly revolutionary, until the task he was made for reemerges and his life upends

[dnpbeats]

I feel like dan and phil still kind of play up the dichotomies between them when actually they are soooo similar and I find it rly interesting. Or idk, maybe they don’t even play it up anymore but the vestiges of it are still there. They definitely don’t do it to the extent they used to, and like obviously there ARE differences in their personalities/interests/etc, but I feel like there are also so many examples of the phandom (myself included) assuming something was decided by one of them when actually it was the other

like okay, the song in tatinof. The whole joke within the show was that phil really wanted to sing this song and dan was like 🙄 and dragging his feet until eventually he’s like “okay fine we can sing.” Now obviously this was a bit for the show, but it definitely fit with the personas they presented at the time with phil being all fun and whimsical and dan being the more serious one. The bit felt like a reflection of real life/their personalities as we knew them… and then story of tatinof comes along and dan is like “yeah I was the one who insisted on there being a musical number.” Now idk, looking back i’m not shocked it was dan, but at the time it was definitely surprising yk! Something that had “phil” written all over it (which they KNEW, which is why Phil was the one who wanted to sing within tatinof) was actually dan

but I find myself still today sometimes being surprised by things like this. with the dapc slime video, I (like others) assumed phil was the one who came up with the concept/directed it because phil is the horror guy! And it was somewhat reminiscent of phil’s old school YouTube stuff. like you think of the basket and dapc slime coming from the same person, it checks out. But turns out nope, it was dan who came up with the idea and directed it. And then with the phouse, everyone felt like the style was very “dan” bc there was no color anywhere it and was so sleek and modern and then phil was like no this is my taste too 😭 I think he talked about it once in the context of the living room but he also specifically said the entryway was his idea, even though to me it's something that's very "dan"

of course at the end of the day dan and phil are separate ppl with different personalities and i’m not trying to say they like have no identity separate from each other. Just like. I feel like sometimes I get so caught up in the idea that they’re day/night dark/light grumpy/sunshine etc that I forget they’re also like. idk. two vines that have been growing together for so long and are so intertwined that you can't tell where one starts and the other begins

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

Wicked Gelphie fans, i need you guys so badly to know how well Elphaba/Glinda are "good timeline"d "history doesnt repeat, it rhymes"-ified by Dorothy/Princess Ozma in Baum's original Oz book series. like. Dorothy/Ozma get everything; theyre the sweet, intimate friends-to-"??? are they a couple?"-ified political power-sapphic-duo that Gelphie would have wanted to be. like??

if you merge canons, fam... Wicked-Glinda must be struggling, seeing Dorothy/Ozma be everything she and Elphaba could have been.... omfg... the angst potential, the envy of watching a couple of sapphic childhood sweethearts get everything they were denied, fulfill Glinda and Elphie's dreams, and seemingly so easily too...

(also!! they even CAN look like a kid-Glinda and kid-Elphaba! there's canon to justify that kind of appearance paralleling!!)

faq below if you want more context

edit, psa: i did read these books from like.. the ages of 10 to like 14 or so, maybe as young as 8? idk, i dont remember. anyway. its been a decade since i picked them back up. and i didnt think this would gain as much traction as it has been after 100+ notes in less than 24 hours. uh. so. take my chronic memory loss-addled summarization with a grain of salt?? like? i just wrote this post so i didnt have to re-vent (agAIN) to my friends about how much i fucking love Dorothy/Ozma, period, much less in parallel to Gelphie. so. enjoy, carry on, and whatnot lmao

1️⃣: there's Oz books? plural???

yes, Baum wrote 14 books about Oz, actually. also, he wrote them under the appointment of "the royal historian of Oz" instead of "author", so there's other "official" Oz books by other "royal historians of Oz"

Baum wrote so much bc (he needed money, yes, but also:) kids would send him questions in fan-mail, and he would proceed to answer them via new novels. so he never planned to make more Oz books, he just (wasnt good with money and also) was routinely inspired by the kids who wrote to him and would write the stuff they wanted to learn about Oz and whatnot

2️⃣: does Dorothy go back to Oz? wasn't it all a dream for her??

yeah, Dorothy returns to Oz a lot in the books, she eventually even moves to live there permanently. bc, in the book series, it's a real place

only in the 1939 film was Oz ever a dream

3️⃣: how does Dorothy look like Glinda OR Elphaba?? what are you talking about?

okay so, "The Wizard of Oz" has an illustrator, W. W. Denslow. in the book, Dorothy is confirmed to be wearing a blue-white gingham dress (she changes outfits tho, she doesnt always wear the same dress all 14 books like she's some cartoon character); but im pretty sure her hair was all Denslow(? i could be remembering wrong. p sure im not tho??). this is what the 1939 movie based her appearance off of. so i can see why youd go "she doesnt look like Glinda or Elphaba"

BUT Denslow and Baum started feuding. so for the rest of the Oz books that Baum wrote, he had a different illustrator by the name of John R. Neil

and Neil decided to give Dorothy for every one of the books he illustrated (so, 13 of Baum's books to Denslow's 1 book of Baum's) a cute lil blonde bob, making her look like what i assume blonde-Glinda looked like as a child. i think she'd approve lol

so!! Dorothy very much looks like a trendy little Glinda, with her cute blonde bob, her fashionable drop-waist dress, and bows for most of the Baum series, actually!

(also, Neil had a preference for dressing Dorothy in this red and polka-dot number, but, again, she does wear other outfits)

(lmao also look at Tin-Man and Scarecrow with blonde-Dorothy, they look like her two gay dads encouraging her to just go be herself at school?? i love them)

(also, if you see "Eloise At The Plaza"-energy in this Dorothy design, im right there with you lol)

4️⃣: who is Ozma??

she's the Princess of Oz. she eventually appears in the second book of the series. she rules Oz after the Wizard

she's actually a really interesting transwoman allegory too. (spoilers for a book from the early 1900s?) she was born a little girl named Ozma, but has a spell put on her as a baby to be genderbent and was socially raised as a little boy under a different name, and she later realizes who she truly is: a girl. she finds the transformation scary, as she returns to her girl-form she always truly was, but she feels better and more herself now that she is Ozma again. i dont think L. Frank Baum intentionally wrote her to be a trans allegory, but you can very obviously see why our trans elders fucking LOVED Ozma back in the early 1900s

also, she has a similar "sir, you fucked up" relationship with the Wizard as Elphaba*. and, also like Elphaba, Ozma politically tries to make things in Oz better (just.. unlike Elphaba, Ozma has the power and support to do just that p much asap)

* (edit for contextual clarification on how the Wizard fucked up: the Wizard fucked up with Ozma because he is ultimately and p directly the reason why she was genderbent/hidden. he deposed of her family and sent her away. Baum decided later on to backtrack a little bit on this(?) because he wanted to bring back the Wizard and, in order for Baum to do that, has to try to not make him SO terribly horrible??? so like. Ozma does end up forgiving him and tolerates him amd he's nicer, later on, within the books. but i doubt any modern adaptation of the books would follow that, personally. even as a kid, i went "bullshit" and headcanoned that Ozma fucking hated the guy and, at best, MAYBE tolerated him for Dorothy, but overall did not like him for justifiable reasons! i think the direction society seems to have taken the Wizard is interesting, and i wouldnt be surprised if there was at least one future adaptation that made him The Bad Guy in a very Rumplestiltskin in the Once Upon A Time TV show kind of way. but like. in the books, they do END UP getting along. i just forever disagree with Baum on that lol i think the Wizard fucked up, and in book 2 of the series (the one where Ozma is, y'know, introduced), it is obvious the Wizard FUCKED UP. but yeah. also, Ozma does get her dad back. her mom was kind of never in the picture to begin with, specifically in a Ponyo's Mom kind of way, like, she made Oz and then left it for her husband and kid to rule, so. yeah. im getting off track. my point is the Wizard did a full-on coup on her family and then banished her and genderbent her so no one would recognize that she had claim to the throne he was sitting on!! he fucked up! so, like, i personally hc that Elphaba founded the "i hate the Wizard" club to which everyone slowly joined, like Fieyro and etc, and Ozma is their youngest member. the Wizard did both Elphie and Ozma so dirty, omfg)

it also should be mentioned, Ozma in NBC's "Emerald City" was casted as Black (her actress being Jordan Loughran). so, though Ozma does not have green skin (but also? neither did the Wicked Witch of the West in the books, she wasn't green there. that was a 1939 film decision to make her green. so! Ozma could be green!! why not!), but she does have Black features to theoretically remind Glinda of Cynthia Eviro's Elphaba when you consider that casting. or, if you prefer a Jewish!Elphaba casting, a'la Idina Menzel's Elphaba, i think Ozma's book design works well to interpretively parallel those features too. or both, if you like the sound of a Black-Jewish Elphaba and Ozma paralleling lol

(edit, because i thought i mentioned this but? no?? i didnt?? i must have misclicked or something to have deleted the paragraph. im so sorry, here you go:) also, when Ozma was a boy, she was basically enslaved to her jailor of a caretaker. which one could interpret as "oh, a Cinderella story!", sure. but, with a Black Ozma, it does read as an intergenerational grief-formed power-fantasy that is both empowering and poignant for Ozma to have ran away from her enslavement and gone on to become a princess afterwards. to any Black folks who may be going "is this going to trigger me?" about Ozma having been a child-slave, i remind you that Baum wrote this intentionally for children, so, no, the books do not sit in the trauma and horror of enslavement, but whether or not it would trigger you yourself is up to your discretion. i will say, Baum did NOT write the American Girls' Addy of his time (context: a children's book about a child-slave that does go into the horrors, some, though in a kid-friendly way) or Louis Sachar's Holes (i asssume i dont have explain Holes since its movie was such a hit), i remember it as even more kid-friendly than either of those also-children's books, so i would assume most people would be fine? but you are responsible for your own mental well-being, i urge you to confirm if it is fine for yourself however you need to do that. but, yes, you can use this backstory as further evidence for your Ozma being Black, of course! you can have Ozma be Black regardless, but if you want this as further evidence, go ahead! and also, it does parallel Ozma to Elphaba in the sense that Elphaba's family mistreats Elphaba! (i will, regardless of if you prefer a Jewish and/or Black Elphaba, add that doing so is also a nice "fuck you" to Baum in how, being a white man of the late 1800s and early 1900s, did end up throwing in racist and/or antisemitic caricatures here and there within his 14 books, unfortunately. i, an Indigenous American, remember as a child still immensely enjoying Oz despite Baum being racist towards Native Americans. if youre curious on the egregious level of it all and if the story could still be enjoyable, id say it's in the realm of Peter Pan, Willy Wonka, and Matilda of "wow. that is shitty. im going to pretend this thing i love is good instead via cognitive dissonance")

regardless, in John R Neil's illustrations, Ozma does have black hair, so that too coincides with modern understandings of Elphaba

(there is also her appearance in Disney's "Return to Oz", performed by Emma Ridley, where she is blonde. but, though i love that spooky movie, that's neither here nor there. as far as im aware, only in that movie has Ozma not had black hair)

anyway, she rules Oz; and by book 3, becomes really close friends with Dorothy. they're not a canon couple, not anymore than Gelphie is, but they are such close and affectionate friends that they are so easy to ship as childhood sweethearts (so, no, there is no moment of 🎶loathing🎶, but i find that sweetness makes them an angstier parallel for Glinda to watch over, personally lol)

like here's some illustrations from the books of them just being two "gal pals". no wonder our queer elders shipped them lmao and this isn't even all of their illustrations together, this is just the first spurts that google shot out at me lmao

also??? this is them with book-Glinda. not only do they look absolutely darling, also, yes, Dorothy becomes a princess, because Ozma said so. they co-rule Oz together. they are just too sweet, fam, i love these two little childhood sweethearts, i choose to see Dorothy's princess-ship as the same as two kids promising to marry one another when they grow up. this is so cute

and can you imagine Wicked-Glinda? looking down at these two, seeing what could have between herself and Elphaba had things turned out different??? im making myself sad

(also "Book of Glinda" is so wild. both in terms of "...Baum, how do you not see this as queer?" like with one example being like "Baum, you put that Glinda has 100s of single women at her beck and call in her palace, this is so easy to see as sapphic, sir"... and then, over here, we have John R Neil repeatedly reading "gave a platonic, innocent kiss" and going "okay, so, uh, making out? i dont do platonic kissing" lmao anYWAAAAYYYY, THAT'S NOT RELEVANT HERE)

🌟5️⃣ bonus:

so, you might have a few follow-up questions. like, what is "Elphaba" like in the books? what does she look like?

well, she's really only in the first book. she's one-note, evil, dies. she's not green-skinned, and she isn't given any sort of name. she is only called "the Wicked Witch of the West", that's it, she is not Elphaba

however, i will mention the Wicked Witch of the West, in the books, is a fashion disaster and i want to see her look used as evidence that "yes, goth-Elphaba and dark-academia-Elphaba are 10/10, but also?? kitschy grandma-core knitwear-Elphaba × her fashionably Barbie pink girlfriend". i'd love to see art of that. i'm just saying

also?? this isn't related to her at all but guess what

Scarecrow/Tin-Man was like THE ship for our queer elders. they are so emotionally intimate, they live together, it's great, look at these pictures of them being absolute bros (can you see why they were shipped so hard)

i bring this up, bc you could argue Fieyro/Boq if you merge canons to make your own narrative and whatnot. guess Fieryo and Boq kinda had their own mirrored 🎶loathing🎶 period under that framing lmao

or, if you hate Boq, youll probably love the Tin-Man's angsty "ship of Theseus"-like backstory as the once-Nick Chopper(: his human name, pre-tin-ification) that is in the books

so! enjoy that knowledge!! theyre super cute in the books, i love them. again, not a canon ship, but still beloved by our elder queers, just like Ozma and Dorothy

i hope it makes even more sense now why our queer elders used the phrase "Are you a friend of Dorothy?" as code to see if someone else was queer, not even taking into account the 1939 movie or Judy Garland's relationship with the queer community

anyway, albeit this is all the basics generalized, that should be everything

but yeah!! Ozma and Dorothy reminding Glinda of what could have been, of what she lost, being the sweeter "next generation" version of Gelphie?? tugs so hard at my heartstrings

but yeah, do whatever you want with Gelphie, Fieryo, and Part 2. im just saying. the angst potential of being envious and living vicariously through someone and seeing other people get the happy ending you were denied?? is right there lol

(edit: this awesome video by Kaz Rowe JUST came out if you want to hear more about the Oz book series, its queerness, its author, its GLARING PROBLEMS including but not limited to instances of racism, and so on and so forth. Kaz Rowe is a fantastic video-essayist, so i hope you watch the video and enjoy their hard-polished craftsmanship)

[ougougougoug]

something that makes this a thornier question than "what is a mainline mario game," is that i think people generally have an understanding that what counts as a 'main character' isn't always strictly clear, but they dont have that kind of understanding for what counts as a 'mainline' entry to a series

like, to a certain extent most works of fiction don't have a strict line between main characters and side characters, especially the longer it runs or the more characters it has. Whereas a series of books, movies, tv shows, games, or whatever, almost always have numbered entries in one way or another, which means a given instalment has to either be part of the core series and given a number, or left out and not given a number

I guess my point here is that like, idk, while all categories are fraught, the category of "main character" is generally more fraught than the category of "mainline entry in a series". So it's less useful to try to come up with strict, distinct categories to fit everything into

[NOT APRIL FOOL’S RELATED]

As the only supermariologist I follow, I wanted to know your opinion on a shower thought I had regarding the Mario franchise, specifically, what might be considered the “Main Cast” of the super Mario franchise.

I’m mostly curious about:

A) is there an official or semi-official set of characters defined in this way?

B) if not, what is your personal opinion (if any) on who that might be and what criteria that would require

Considering Mario, Peach and Bowser are almost certainly part of that cast (though Bowser is an antagonist…) I would say characters that appear or are playable in most if not all of the games who’s plot revolves around Bowser kidnapping Peach should be counted. That leaves me with Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad (but is he a single character?), Yoshi, and Bowser.

I imagine that this is one of those things like “what is a mainline super Mario game” that has multiple ambiguous answers, but simply interested to know your way of approaching it!

this is a great question!

so there actually is a semi-official list of "main characters" for Mario in the same way there's an official list of mainline Super Mario games. over on mario dot nintendo dot com slash characters we can see that the main characters are:

Mario

Luigi

Princess Peach

Toad

Bowser

Yoshi

Daisy

Wario

Waluigi

Rosalina

Bowser Jr.

Boo

Donkey Kong

Diddy Kong

whether or not this list is an actual satisfactory answer to "who are the main characters in Mario" is another question altogether of course. besides the obvious questionable things here, I'd like to point out the odd inconsistency of referring to "Princess Peach" by her full title while being on a first-name-only basis with Bowser, Daisy, and Rosalina. fun!

personally, I'd say there are a few different "tiers" of main character status in the Mario games. the main main characters are Mario, Luigi, Bowser, and Peach. like, literally only those four. those are the four characters where it is always remarkable when a Mario game doesn't include one of them in a major role.

tertiary main characters would include all the recurring playable characters in ensemble multiplayer games, like Waluigi and Diddy Kong. (Diddy Kong would count as a main character if we were talking about Donkey Kong characters, but the question is about Mario characters, and Diddy Kong is definitely a tertiary main character in Mario games specifically) the real interesting question is who counts as being a "main character" at the layer between these two tiers.

I think Yoshi, Toad, Wario, and Donkey Kong are all a given for secondary main characters, but beyond that I'm really not sure! should Toadette count? what about Nabbit? Daisy? Kamek? Bowser Jr.? the Koopalings? Toadsworth? who knows! it's all very debatable, and there's no definitive answer here. nintendo's official list certainly isn't helping!

[olderthannetfic]

Sorry to ask this. I was going through a blog when I saw a callout post. I checked it out of curiosity. One of the things that was pointed out was : "when they were 31, they had sex with a 18 year old -they are a teenager!- and it's predatory! I (the writer of the callout) am 21 years old and even I don't have sex with 18 year olds because they are very young and it's very predatory!"

So, idk how to feel about that? Especially as someone who has never been in a relationship. I'm 20 years old, soon I'll be 21. Looking at myself at 18 and the future 21, I really didn't change that much? Physically or mentally. Yeah 18 is young but so is 21?? I don't think it's predatory, am I wrong?/serious question

And for the first part, yeah a 31 year old being with a 18 is weird for me, but aren't they both adults? They also said it's because 18 year olds lack experience, which can be true but that's assuming they have never been in a relationship before(with people their own age or similar). So, it can be weird but predatory? Is it?/serious question

I'm sorry if the questions are upsetting &/or weird but I really don't have anyone else to ask- parents are out of question, they literally think you should teach people about sex right before marriage- and I don't trust most online spaces. There's also zero books about such things in my country because "protect the children!!". So now we have an adult(me) who was raised to never ask question about these things and now is confused as hell. Hmm.....

--

It's all hogwash.

On average, I would assume that a 31-year-old having sex with an 18-year-old is a bit of a creep. However, it would depend entirely on the circumstances. Is this 18-year-old a naive high school student? Or are they someone who's been working a job for several years? Maybe the older person is their coworker whom they got to know.

A 21-year-old and an 18-year-old can be weird in the US if they only just met and one is a high school student while the other is a university student. But what if they met in some very different context where they're more in the same stage of life? Sure, I side-eye upperclassmen who start dating freshmen the first week of their freshman year, but what about later on in the year? What if both of these people aren't students at all and are, again, working a job together?

"You're mature for your age" is a line that creepers feed to younger people, but it can also be true. Some people just get along better with older partners.

We shouldn't be too draconian about any specific rule. You can only judge by the real circumstances of a specific set of people.

Predators are defined by their behavior, not ticky-box demographics. There is no absolute that lets you detect them and protect yourself. People wish there were because they would feel safer. That's what this kind of post is about.

[melrosing]

How do you think Dany will get along with the starks (Bran, Sansa, Arya, Rickon, and Jon)

I think in theory she could get along really well with all of them - but it’s a story so I guess I can only imagine there’ll be some friction somewhere down the line, whether that’s upon initial meetings or further along.

w Jon specifically it’s murky because we don’t know what he’s going to be like once he comes back, so you can’t really gage Dany’s chemistry w a character you can’t anticipate. I imagine him coming back as like…. angrier and more hard-headed, but I don’t think the rest of his story would work if it robbed him of all heart. like Beric still has a tenderness about him as he’s died countless times. so in any case, would imagine the two don’t get along perfectly to start with: Dany finds Jon a strange sort of guy who doesn’t go out of his way to accommodate or appease her, and maybe Jon thinks Dany’s quest for the iron throne is a vanity project compared to what he has on his hands. I do think they’ll become a couple, so presumably they overcome initial impressions to achieve a dialogue and then become closer…. but the whole undead Jon thing really sticks in ur teeth lol like I have NO idea where this couple is headed together. where’s this going george

for the Stark sisters, I think both would naturally be attracted to Dany’s character but it’s only to be expected that they’ll have reservations of their own? Dany has a negative opinion of House Stark owing to Ned’s part in Robert’s Rebellion, whilst the Stark sisters may remember what the Targaryens in turn did to their family. then there’s also the fact that neither Stark sister has had the kindest encounters with queens so far, so I think it would be normal if they’re troubled by a new player arriving out of left field?? but as I say I think both Stark girls would admire Dany: Sansa would think Dany is like some kind of platonic ideal of a queen and I think develop an affection for her as she does Margaery (only more bc she could be surer of Dany’s authenticity) and likewise Arya would be in awe of Dany and all she’s accomplished and hero worship her as she does Nymeria. and Dany is a found family kind of girl who I think would be naturally delighted w two new lil sisters. but all of that’s complicated by the context - this is a story, things get lost in translation, there’s a war going on (actually there’s several), etc etc. so as i say there may still be a great deal of scepticism between the three of them.

Bran and Dany….. I mean Bran is a similar case to Jon. I don’t think he’s going to return as some kind of human computer as he does in the show - Bran’s sweet nature is such a key trait of his, it seems it defeats the point of the character to do away with who he is as a person to better accommodate his powers. and I always saw D&D’s doing this as simply a betrayal of the fact that they’ve never known what to do with Bran, much less once magic is involved. but he’ll still be operating on a separate plane to the other characters and I can only assume the way he engages with Dany will be based on what he sees of her future. and idk what that future is, so like…. idk lol. I do also tend to think that Bran will be one of the last characters to arrive at Winterfell (if indeed that is where he spends TLN). Bran supposedly knows all, and you don’t really introduce a character like that until the others have had time to puzzle it out by themselves. otherwise (per the show) you just have bran coldly watching from the sidelines. anyway, in neutral circumstances i think Bran would get along w Dany as he does everyone, and Dany would adore him in turn uwu

and finally Rickon. tbh I think he will just be pestering her for rides on Drogon and then if she ever obliges he’ll start pestering her for a second ride

[hazshit-hotel-hater]

Rewatching “All 2 U” and under the contexts of how I personally perceived Stolas’s songs in “Look My Way” and “When I See Him” theres so much potential here for this to be actually interesting and its so far just being thrown away. In every song I have mentioned Stolas has moments where he stops and thinks “maybe I was the problem”.

Examples being:

"Unless it's me, and no matter what in this world I could give; it's not enough to get through the walls you've conjured up to live"

"I will try to make amends for making you means to an end"

"Am I doing something I can't take back? Would he want me if he was free? And if he's only here as a prisoner what kind of monster does that make me?"

"But maybe it's all on me for missin' every sign and every glance and every turn."

"Maybe there's somethin' here for us to glean for you to teach, and me to try to learn."

All of these imply so much that Stolas could be coming to the conclusion that he was one of the biggest issues in their relationship. Yes Blitz also hold fault, but thats a post for another day. I so truly believe Stolas could be so so interesting even if I personally think Helluva Boss should NOT be a romantic story, there’s still so much potential to it. I’ve mentioned before that I was in a very very similar relationship to whatever “Stolitz” is, and while I both hate my ex and how she treated me, it was not a one sided issue. Yeah she was abusive but also I can’t just say I wasn’t a bit rude at times. Getting off topic though, what I’m trying to say is even if one person is the main issue and you hate them, in certain circumstances you can still have part of your mind that wishes the best for them. I think my main point is that for people like my ex who have mental problems that get in the way of relationships and can result in abusive behaviours, I want the chance for them to see themselves in a character that has done the same things, recognized it, forgiven themselves, and made an attempt to be a better person.

I myself have been in many relationships where my mental problems got in the way and ended up separating me from people I care about in one way or another and I know how dogshit it feels when it happens, especially when you are the problem. Many people don’t like acknowledging that they may be the problem and then when they eventually do realise it, they struggle on trying to fix the issue.

This spans to the people you surround yourselves with as well. Just for example in “All 2 U” Stolas is not the first person to call Blitz a “motherfucker” he explicitly goes to “I don’t think you meant to hurt me” meanwhile Verosika and Tex push the implication that Blitz is the problem and during the rest if the song, as stated before, we see Stolas point out “maybe I was the problem” to which Verosika and Tex immediately but in with blaming Blitz instead. And honestly they have reason to (at least Verosika does and Tex is going by word of mouth I assume) but it plays into the idea that a bad person or abuser cant also be abused.

You can see every time Stolas considers something isn’t Blitz’s fault Verosika and Tex are so quick to step in and tell him he’s wrong. He’s just surrounded by yes people right now and i really believe thats something that could be used in the narrative. Stolas getting away from these people to take in reality and then finally be like “no it was me i was right about it”. And idk it could even lead into more Verosika development where she acknowledges that Blitz has now seen how shitty one-sided and abusive relationships can be and they talk more instead of just like 3 minutes on the stairs. This is a topic I touch on with my Vox rewrite but thats in a different way. I just think with so much buildup to Stolas realising he was a huge issue they could do so much helpful representation in certain ways for people with problems like BPD, bipolar, ROCD, and a bunch of other things. I suffer from the last two and I hardly EVER see these portrayed respectfully or how they actually affect people. It’s always just “im happy and then in 2 seconds im going to be mildly upset :(“ or “omgg I love cleaning!!” with OCD. It’s just so infuriating to see Vivzie not touch on so much potential again.

Also “stolitz” should not get back together even if Stolas became a better person, just to clarify.

[maddy-k-reads-all-day]

Something I noticed when rewatching some of the Amanda tapes

Edit: didn't like how this theory turned out so I'm going back through and editing some parts :)

I was rewatching the Amanda tapes to make sure I was writing Amanda and Wooly accurately in the fic I'm working on... and I noticed something...

When Wooly gets his eye ripped out, Amanda comforts him a little. "Don't worry Wooly, we can fix it!"

"Quit being such a baby Wooly, you'll be fine." (even though she's still bullying him a bit here, she still says he'll be fine. She didn't have to do that, she could've easily made things worse or said/done nothing)

And like I'm not saying this is hugely helpful or overall THAT nice of her, but it's still more than what Wooly does for her.

When she says they can't fix her heart. He looks really sad about it, but he doesn't say anything. At one point he awkwardly coughs when you're getting the heart but still... nothing. When you give her the heart and she says "Thanks for trying." he still does NOTHING.

So I looked for more examples of this and they were not hard to find.

During the scene where Amanda is upset by the buried clothes, Wooly buries it.

I find this pretty interesting, because he sees the clothes, he sees how it upsets her and immediately goes to "bury it". He doesn't say anything. He doesn't ask if she's okay. He just gets rid of the problem...

Then there's the entire "When You Feel Bad" tape fiasco. I realize in the first draft I said he wasn't trying to cheer her up, I had written that assuming people had read my tape analysis so that might have came off wrong out of context. My theory about that tape is that Wooly himself doesn't like the story that gets played in that tape, so he tried to change it to tell a new one to avoid this. Technically, he was still trying to cheer her up, but he also ended up putting himself first here. Which isn't to say he had bad intent, just that he lost sight of the original goal.

Again, he doesn't actually ask her how she's doing. Which has me wondering why doesn't he ever just ask her what's wrong? Offer to listen? Why do Amanda and Wooly never seem to discuss their situation with each other (I think it would do both of them some good).

In the end, it's probably just the fact that they are both people, and people don't always think and act logically. They do what they think is best.

When Amanda gets upset after being covered in paint in "Let's Practice Patience" Wooly says "c'mon Amanda, have a little patience." It doesn't seem like his intention was to make her feel worse... but in that usually wouldn't help someone feel better. Idk maybe some people in this situation (weird situation but let's roll with it) might find a bit of humor in Wooly referencing the theme of the episode and be cheered up. I don't think he's trying to mock her, it seems like he was just trying to joke around... which Amanda didn't appreciate.

I don't think he's deliberately trying to make her feel worse or that he doesn't care. He looks like he feels bad when Amanda is upset. It’s either that he doesn't know how to comfort people or something else idk.

Anyway THE THING I WAS TRYING TO POINT OUT was that there is a major contrast between Amanda and Wooly here. We know Amanda doesn't even like Wooly, but that doesn't mean she can't have a moment of empathy. The way Rebecca (before becoming Amanda) is described gives of the vibe that she was a very kind person and I feel like the second game shows a lot more of her Rebecca side. The point is, even though Amanda didn't like Wooly she still TRIED to comfort him a little.

But Wooly, despite looking like he wants to... can't comfort her... or doesn't even try.

Actually it's interesting that in earlier scenes, an effort was technically made to cheer her up. (Burying the thing that upset her, telling a joke, suggesting doing an activity together). In context, they weren't all that helpful, but in the We Can Fix it Tape when Amanda talks about her broken heart. Wooly does nothing. Like... literally nothing. Honestly, maybe it's because he couldn't cheer her up before? Like idk, he gave up? IDK IDK I just thought this was a really interesting parallel!

[cripplecharacters]

oh yeah another question abt intellectual disability: what do people with moderate id speak like? i assume they wouldnt be perfectly articulate but i know making them talk like cavemen would be bad too. i do want it to be clear that they have language difficulties, but im not sure how to do that realistically. so what kinds of grammar errors are actually common? would it make sense to have them mix up words with similar pronunciation, or have difficulty discerning the differences in implications between words with similar meanings (like "pretty" vs "attractive")? do people with id ever 'imagine context' the way people(well, me) do when half-asleep where the brain mishears a statement as something completely unrelated? would spatial and situational awareness be impaired? also this is kind of a different question but if you can give advice on what to do with game mechanics for an id character in an rpg, that would be nice! i already have the stats figured out for every character and theres no stat that i think would be strongly affected by id but in terms of depicted fighting style and other mechanics maybe thered be some stuff informed by it (i cant do anything too complex though, im using rpg maker vx ace). idk! im spitballing here. main thing i need to know is how to write dialogue for a character with id ^_^

Hey, we have a post somewhat about this that you might find useful, I'll try to go over the other questions below.

Keep in mind my ID is mild (and on the milder side of that) so my answer will be all second-hand knowledge from talking to people with moderate ID in my SPED years.

A lot of it will depend on what condition causes they have. People with Williams syndrome have very “normal” verbal skills majority of the time, and you can't really tell in my experience. On the other hand if they're autistic you can potentially guess from the tone of the voice e.g. they speak in a very loud and monotone way. People with Down syndrome are very likely to have a speech disorder, someone with cerebral palsy might slur their words, etc.

A lot of people with ID might be less talkative than your average person (there's definitely exceptions). So your character could use shorter sentences, simple sentences (in the grammar sense), prefer to use other forms of communication for things that don't require speech (e.g., nodding instead of saying “Yes, I agree”, or doing a thumbs up, etc.), or have to be prompted to actually answer/take part in the conversation.

I personally don't recall ever hearing the “mixing words with similar pronunciation” in someone's actual speech, maybe unless they learned the language from reading rather than hearing it. If that's the case, then ID could affect their speech more than if they didn't have it, otherwise I'd assume that the character might have brain damage or is maybe hard of hearing and simply mixes them up because they can't recognize/hear the difference between them.

Mixing words based on specific meaning makes much more sense in my opinion (probably because I do that myself). Synonyms or words that might make sense in one context but not the other are the worst. Your example here is great. When someone has ID they might take away the wrong meaning out of a word and use it incorrectly because of that. E.g., their parents used to take them camping to a forest with lots of bugs, they don't like bugs, they can later call something “foresty” to mean “with lots of bugs” even if it doesn't have much to do with an actual forest. This might make more sense for a character with more severe ID (or if they're just young) but using “attractive” when you'd normally say “pretty” makes sense for someone with moderate ID in my opinion.

Something that can also affect speech of someone with ID is word repetition. Not really in the echolalia sense (though it can be that too) but just using stock phrases that get repetitive over time. I try to edit it out from my posts, but you can still kinda see it. For some people it will be ending most sentences with the same word, for someone else it will be starting two paragraphs with the same three words without realizing even though they're right next to each other or overusing “maybe” and “if” to start sentences.

As for the “imagining context” while mishearing something, I'm not sure if I know what you mean by it, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't do it.

Situational awareness is definitely impacted for all people with ID but to different degrees. I don't know if it's part of the diagnostic criteria, but it might as well be. When the person's ID is mild it might look like someone who's just kinda unaware of what goes around them, maybe don't recognize that they're doing something that could end up badly. The more severe the intellectual disability the more obvious it is, the person might elope (wander off) and not be able to find their way back, not be able to use cooking utensils safely because they don't recognize the risks in real time (not really in the “not realizing that the knife is sharp” way if they have moderate ID, more like “not realizing that you need to be careful when putting things on hot oil, or you can get burned”), assuming that people are automatically safe to be around, things like that.

Spatial awareness doesn't affect everyone, but one of the biggest comorbidities of ID is dyspraxia, which does affect it a lot. There are people with mild ID with severe dyspraxia, and severely ID people with no dyspraxia. It varies.

Unfortunately I have never played any RPGS, and I'm not really familiar with the mechanics. Here's an old ask about intellectually disabled characters engaged in combat, hopefully it's useful?

If you want some real-life resources for hearing how intellectually disabled people talk, I really recommend this playlist. It's a bunch of interviews with people with Down syndrome and you can see that they're all very different from each other despite having the same disability.

I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[transmascutena]

the scenes where characters go to the dueling arena without an actual duel are so interesting with the context of it actually being the planetarium in akio's tower.

in episode 9 there's the illusion of the castle falling down and anthy in the coffin when saionji tries to bring her to the arena. so many questions of who did that and why. definitely to mess with saionji in some way obviously, anthy's coffin is the same that he and touga found utena in, and he's been thinking about that moment throughout the episode. touga is the one who wrote him the fake letter from end of the world, but he couldn't have known all that would happen (he certainly couldn't have caused it to) unless he was working with akio. but when he calls him at the end of the episode, it's definitely implied that he didn't. so i think it's more likely that its was anthy who did it, to keep pushing things along. she and touga do kind of work together a lot in this arc to manipulate people (usually nanami, though that isn't really relevant here). touga needed to set up his fake rescue of utena and it makes sense that anthy would help him out by messing with the projector (the fact that utena gets another moment to feel like a hero is a bonus too). which means akio probably did also know, and just pretended he didn't in the phone call with touga later. i also don't think touga knows about the projector or the illusions, i think he just assumed anthy would. idk, pretend to lie helpless on the ground, not all the elaborate bullshit she pulled instead. he does only come up there after the illusion is gone, after all.

the scene in episode 36 is cool because it takes a moment for the floating castle to actually appear, which implies that utena and touga's trip up there was unexpected somehow? the projection isn't on. or not fully on at least, since it still is projecting the arena itself. i wonder what it means (i have thoughts but nothing coherent). it's also kind of funny that touga comes to get utena in the tower and then they walk all the way to the arena which is. also the tower. and they go up there to stargaze! which is ironic. and symbolic. they think they're looking at real stars, but it's still the projected ones. it shows how much touga has bought into akio's worldview, even if he is trying to do what he thinks is right here. and honestly, it is kind of a sweet moment, just not for the reasons he thinks. they're two lonely kids who have been (and are being) hurt by the same man in a very similar way, even if neither of them realize how true that really is. touga is framing his request for them to sit together in a very romantic way, which it obviously isn't, but maybe they can still offer each other some comfort. who knows. it's kind of tragic that it's all happening in akio's tower though. they are not free. not even slightly.

i think the parallel of both of these moments being touga using the arena to stage his "rescueing" of utena, the first one being entirely manipulative, and the second being something of a genuine (if completely misguided) attempt, is very cool.

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

hey, im assuming its a mistake but just fyi the whole vague "noticing patterns" language is an antisemitic dogwhistle: https://www.tumblr.com/onethirdofimpossible/726829590062006272?source=share

no idea who the account you shared from is, just wanted to pass this on!

Okay so I got this message when I woke up this morning and decided to delete the post until I got around to checking out the OP's blog. Nothing about their blog has anything to do with antisemitic movements or even hints at potential content like that.

The original post is this

It's specifically referring to literature and academia (don't love that it's tagged with harry potter but I know that fandom is still tied up to those circles)

I think we have to be careful about policing speech and "calling out" things that may not actually be there. I get that the point of a dog whistle is that no one is supposed to understand what it means except the Nazis. But these people really aren't as slick as they think they are with this sort of thing.

A good example is the "okay" sign that got co-opted as a white power dog whistle. It's been used pretty obviously by white supremists who think they're being really clever about it but like... they're using it in the middle of a "white power" rally while waving Nazi flags. It's not exactly subtle.

Whereas we also used that sign in scuba diving to signal "okay", with a thumbs up being "ascend" (which confused the hell out of me as chronic "thumb up-er" when I was learning). I'm pretty sure when we're signaling "okay" 20m under the ocean we're not secretly signally "white power". Context is important.

This post and everyone reblogging it is not talking about any sort of conspiracy theory - just how being in a fandom and being excited about something makes you notice patterns and parallels. It's also kind of an "autism meme" too.

But idk... I know when people reach out to "let me know" about something, it's in good faith but it's... frustrating when the context is pretty obviously not that. Being paranoid about dog whistles is kind of the whole point of them.

White supremists/antisemites ect. like having power over others by making them question reality and gaslighting them. But again, they're usually about as subtle as a brick wall about this sort of thing. Not saying they can't be quiet about it sometimes but ... it usually isn't hard to spot. Especially on personal blogs.

Maybe I'm just tired that leftist spaces continue to try to tone police and "call out" their own in-groups *just in case* someone might be a secret Nazi while the real actual Nazis and Christian Nationalists are quite literally taking over the American government (which affects the entire world, especially countries where I live like Australia that are allies with the US and extremely influenced by their politics).

And actual Nazis aren't even using dog whistles any more, they're marching in the streets loud and proud because they feel empowered enough to do so...

So idk... maybe lets focus on that and work on mobilising and organising against what is going to be a really rough 4 years.... Though I wouldn't even be surprised if it goes beyond that, looking at past history and what happens when fascism takes power...

[daryfromthefuture]

smashing my three hyperfixations together in a layton ft. ace attorney bttf au

hear me out (spoilers for the back to the future trilogy, unwound future, azran legacy and a spoiler-y character from ace attorney 3 (though no aa context is provided)

and yes, this deserves to be on my main blog

part 1: so we have luke as the mc (=marty) and hershel as his mentor (=doc). they live an ordinary life in 1960 london when hershel suddenly tells luke that he's constructed a time machine out of the laytonmobile (not telling flora (= jennifer except she's luke's sister figure instead of gf because i dont ship them) because of the safety shtick he has going on unfortunately </3), and demonstrates it to him.

the reason he built it? well, claire (dead wife) taught him a lot about physics and her field and yapped to him about the time machine they were creating, and it was always her dream to finish one, so hershel, following her death, took it upon himself to make it real because that's the kind of person he is.

dimitri (=taking the role of terrorist) too, wants access to a time machine to get claire back, and with the help of spies tracks layton down that night and has him killed. luke escapes to the past, a day 15 years prior that hershel had typed into the machine because of something personal i haven't thought of yet lmao. anyway.

the main characters here are college-aged layton, brenda (= lorraine) and clark (= george), as well as descole (= biff except he's not after romance). clark was actually an even more competent archeologist than hershel was during college, having earned a good reputation. descole, invested in the azran and wanting to hunt down target, constantly tries pressuring clark into giving him information, and since clark doesn't strike me as having much of a spine, he complies. he and brenda meet by accident when they literally bump into each other in the university hallway. luke, realizing he's in the past, runs to the university to get hershel and fix the damn time machine, prevents clark and brenda from running into each other (“oh, i would have bumped into that guy if it weren't for you! thank you!”), causing his parents to never meet. since they've told their first meeting story a lot, luke picks up on it and realizes he's cooked.

cue him trying to get them together, which is hard since brenda isn't a fan of clark being kind of a doormat and is just. not interested. (in the movie, martys mom falls for him because they're the same age when he's in the past, but i will not do this here because brenda would be around 20-ish and she's NOT falling for a 13 year old boy). in the end, he succeeds, also distracting descole when he boosts hershels confidence and reputation when enlisting him for repairing the busted laytonmobile (they run out of some maybe ancient af metal that is needed for the time machine to run, and hershel, being a great archeologist, digs it up for luke to get home somehow idk yet).

luke gets back to 1960 and, having warned hershel in the past, finds him alive and well at the site of the demonstration! yay! all is fun and games until…

part 2: layton, having just traveled 30 years into the future, comes back to 1960, frantic and panicked. someone who he assumes to be lukes child because of the similarity in appearance is threatening london, and he needs luke to help put an end to this madness. flora gets to be there this time, too, because she was very insistent on coming with them.

so they all travel to 1990, where scientists are disappearing. sound familiar? that's right, the young man is, in fact, not lukes child, but in fact, clive (= taking marty jrs place). in this au it wasn't the time machine accident that killed his parents but maybe an explosion in a factory since his birth is delayed a couple decades from the canon timeline, and he seeks revenge for the explosion by wanting to destroy the company and rich businessmen responsible for this (capitalism am i right). so hershel, luke and flora kinda stop him from doing that - except descole, older but still around, overhears luke and flora talking about buying a sports almanac and taking it to the past to make quick cash. and so, when the laytonmobile is left unattended, descole yeets himself to 1945 to give the book to his own younger self and brings the time machine back to 1990.

when hershel, luke and flora return to 1960, they find it a hellhole. in this reality, descole remained clarks terrorizer to the point of having him killed because he knew too much. with the money he bet on, he financed the downfall of targent and rules london now. realizing they need to fix what went wrong, they find out when exactly young descole got hold of the wretched book, and then travel back to 1945, where luke and flora go on a whole espionage mission to watch older descole give younger descole the book before spending a day snatching it away from him. they succeed, securing their timeline - until there's an accident and hershel is sent to the 1890s with no ticket back.

part 3: hershel left the time machine somewhere hidden for the kids to recover in 1945, with repair instructions for his younger self because he can actually replace the busted parts because technology advancement from the 1890s to the 1940s. in a letter, he tells luke and flora not to go back for him and that they should return to 1960 to their regular lives (flora will have to be staying with luke and his parents if they do so). however, before they do that, they accidentally discover hershels gravestone: died by poisoning, september 7, 1890, erected in eternal memory by his beloved nick. (flora and luke looking at each other. “who the hell is nick?!”)

and so, the kids go to 1890s london on september 2 to save layton's life. hershel is surprised - he's made a life for himself as librarian and historian, and was getting content with his fate of staying here. as soon as he hears that he will die, however, he agrees to go back to the 1960s - except the laytonmobile is out of fuel and there is a limited availability of gas stations. so until that is settled, they have 5 days.

hershel, in all this commotion, forgot that he had made a commitment and had agreed to help a group of american lawyers to help research a case that had ties to london. however, as fate would have it, he walks by when one of them slips and almost falls off a bridge. he manages to save the man's life, they lock eyes - oops.

turns out this is phoenix wright (= clara)(because yeah hi main blog followers, i am a laywright truther. layton vs ace attorney makes you ship them) together with his assistant maya fey and friend and prosecutor miles edgeworth (who needs to be there because his pompous cravat screams 1890s). the two of them instantly click, and it is only when maya calls phoenix nick that hershel realizes this is the nick referred to on his tombstone as seen on the photograph of it that luke and flora showed him.

but hershel is actually super in love and doesn't say no when phoenix invites him and the kids to a fancy ball taking place on the 5th. they dance and bond and have a great time until dahlia, a woman having a crush on phoenix (maybe the three lawyers are actually somewhat celebrities), gets very jealous and decides to poison laytons drink. he would have drunk it and died two days later if flora hadn't been interested in that kind of thing and instantly detected it, preventing her father from drinking the poison and thus preventing his demise.

phoenix and hershel run away from the ball into the night, spending the time at an empty park and kissing under the stars, but hershel is faced with the decision of either staying in 1890 with phoenix or going back to 1960 with his children. he goes with the latter because he's rational and feels enough guilt for the mess his machine has resulted in as it is, which leads to an argument between him and nick because the latter doesn't believe the time machine excuse, leaving him heartbroken.

meanwhile, dahlia is pissed at flora for screwing up her murder plan and wants revenge (i don't know how yet, bear with me here). maybe nick ends up saving the day because despite the fight, he doesn't want hershel or luke or flora to die. they reconcile, and phoenix, after seeing the time machine with his own eyes, instantly agrees to come with hershel, and maya and edgeworth also get to come because it'd be boring without them.

THE END!!

congrats for making it here. here's a sketch of them in their 1890s outfits that i hope to color tomorrow

this all is so silly and incredibly self-indulgent lmao, but at the same time i cooked can't lie

[katherinearandez]

I don’t think Tessa is one of the good guys

I have a lot of questions about Tessa. What are her goals? Is she really on copper 9 for the reasons she told us in episode 6? Does she have hidden motives, and if so, what are they???

The lines of “morality” in this show are super squiggly, so by “good guy”, I mean an individual with positive or helpful intent toward the main characters - in this case, drones. The concept of Tessa bearing ill-intent for drones as a ‘species’ seemed contradictory at first: after all, she’s so nice to N, V and J, right? We’re talking about someone who, as a kid, saved zombie drones from the dump(cough, mass grave, cough) where their human owners left them to rot after creating them by means of improper disposal. Why would she want to kill drones? Especially in the same callous, procedurally improper ways that created the threat of Cyn to start out with?

Well…

Let’s not forget about the evil AI that massacred her family and the guests of their gala. AFTER Tessa took her in as an act of kindness, against her parents wishes. Parents who did seem to look down on her pretty severely, regularly chained her up in her room as punishment(you don’t install heavy duty, floor anchored chains for the occasional time out) and possibly kept her socially isolated???

That last point is pretty speculative, since a lot about the earth of N’s flashbacks screams post-apocalyptic vibes. Maybe there just aren’t a lot of humans left for Tessa to socialize with. Tessa’s dad reinforces this idea in his speech by listing “currently being alive” as an attribute the Elliots are known for. It could just as well be a meta joke(since they are killed in the next few seconds), so lacking more context, I hesitate to extrapolate from this point alone.

Anywho, back to Tessa’s callous drone murder. Even if her parents were crappy by the usual standards, she clearly didn’t want them/the other gala guests to die. She tried to save them by “murdering her a robo-child”. Idk, does this blacked out redacted image of Tessa in the aftermath of the massacre seem upset??

Reasonable assumption. So adult/older teen Tessa has changed the way she feels about drones after these traumatic events. Maybe she doesn’t outright hate them, but she views them from a colder, more pragmatic angle than she did in her younger years. Does she still feel empathy for them and the horrible mistreatment they suffer at the hands of humans? Probably. But she’s now aware of the danger they truly pose and has good reason to eliminate them to ensure the absolute solver mutation no longer has a pool of hosts in which to spread and evolve.

So why the callous drone murder at the end of episode 3? We know you’re supposed to follow a 2 step procedure for decommissioning drones. Software death via lethal injection of a kill program(sounds fun!), followed by hardware death via “core removal” to ensure the decommissioned drone doesn’t reboot with corrupted software and an “increased chance for future errors”.

Did she hastily kill this random drone to keep her arrival on copper 9 secret, foregoing procedure for the sake of urgency? If so, who is she keeping her presence secret from? Is it the remaining drone population of copper 9, who Cyn used to collapse the planet core and kill all humans there? Possibly, Uzi is a prime example of anti-human sentiment, and during Mr Doorman’s parent-teacher conference he mentioned being on a “kill all humans kick when he was her age”. Perhaps Tessa assumes all the c9 worker drones are hostile to humans.

When you start making assumptions about what characters are assuming, it’s generally a good time to stop and just accept you don’t have the answers 🫠 so that’s where I will cut that line of questioning short. That being said, I’m not quite done yet…

What’s with this shelf of small human skulls in Tessa’s room? Why are the trash robots she “rescues” her only friends? Do her parents chain her up in her room because they suck? Or… do they have reasons not yet revealed to us, the audience?

Tessa’s perception among most of the fan base is fairly positive and on the surface there’s good reason for this. She’s presented as peppy, compassionate(except toward that one worker drone, lmao), ~tenacious~ and resilient. Actions like salvaging drones from the dump and perceived displays of affection and warmth for the disassembly drones leave viewers with the impression that she’s a good, kind person.

There is, however, another light in which to view her actions, and it casts a shadow on the motives we may have assumed were pure up to this point.

While it’s easy to parse Tessa saving drones from the dump as an act of altruism, it can also be interpreted as sinister. It could be an example of a character with a savior complex; a power dynamic wherein the “savior” exerts control over those they “rescue” by taking advantage of their gratitude and using it in manipulative ways. If this is the case, Tessa’s motives take a sharp left turn, flipping from selfless and kind to egotistical and controlling.

The show actually gives us direct evidence of Tessa using manipulation to get her drones to do her bidding.

“It wants paid time off…”

This instance of her using corporate buzzwords to drive J into a rage strong enough for her to bite through metal chains. Or how about her outright lying to the drones at the start of episode 6? Asserting that her intention was to “burn to the ground” labs Cyn was interested in, while later that same episode revealing to N that her “true” purpose was to obtain a list of drones infected with the absolute solver?

Preeetty manipulative. She manipulated and/or coerced Doll as well, in order to obtain the keybug. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if come episode 7, she switches it up yet again, revealing a new manipulation or perhaps, finally, her real mission.

Tessa’s manipulation of the drones she supposedly cares about isn’t the only hint that she might have a savior complex or similar egocentric tendencies. She’s also shown that she’s not very respectful of the drones autonomy, another red flag that can signal a propensity for narcissism and the controlling behaviors associated with it.

N is the example this time.

Tessa’s signature greeting for N, which is to grab his face and swing him around with excitement that borders on aggression. Maybe it’s just me, but his expression doesn’t suggest it’s mutually enjoyed. Looks more to me like he’s uncomfortable and only humoring her pep because he feels like he has no choice… after all, none of Tessa’s “dumpster pets” want to let down their saving grace.

We see this same kind of contact again throughout episode 6, with Tessa grabbing N’s face as a greeting again, and also playing with his hair on the way down to cabin fever labs. The way Tessa interacts with the drones(J and V as well as N) shows that she sees them as objects in her possession, rather than friends, peers or their own individuals with unique thoughts, wants and feelings.

Uzi even calls her out on this very mindset at the end of episode 6 after Tessa asks her sardonically to “don’t date my robot, please.”

Granted, I’ve got no solid backing, just observation, speculation and a suspicious mind. Tessa could be a great person… “good” or “bad” though, she’ll definitely try to kill our main character sometime soon, so… yup. Killing even an anti-hero typically slots you into the bad guy category, even in a show where the moral lines between good and evil are so artfully blurred.

TLDR; I think there’s more to Tessa than meets the eye, and even though Cyn is still probably Murder Drones “big bad”, I feel like Tessa has an element of villainy to her that I hope will be further explored in canon.

[daniclaytcn]

the ‘sunshine personified’ / ‘he makes everyone around him happy’ thing is sooo interesting because i don’t think we’ve really seen that from buck, have we? and by that i specifically mean in the fanon context of buck being the social PTA dad at all of chris’s school functions while eddie broods in the corner and only wants to talk to buck. if anything, we’ve seen the opposite behavior with eddie — he’s clearly good friends with chris’s friends’ parents, he was so happy and glowy when he first met the 118, he befriended may and linda so easily at dispatch, and i could go on and on.

he just seems to connect with people so easily, and i think a lot of that genuine friendliness is lost on people because he also has a tendency to get casually snarky with people he isn’t so fond of, whether it’s annoying temporary coworkers or selfish people on calls or opportunistic reporters. the same thing goes for his private nature vs. buck’s bleeding heart — it’s assumed that eddie isn’t a people person because he likes to keep his innermost feelings close to his chest and it’s also assumed that buck is good at instantly forming connections bc his feelings spill out of him at all times.

and like. it’s not that buck isn’t a kind and friendly person, but i do feel like his specialty is deep acts of love for the people he loves. idk if i’m articulating this right but i’m trying to point out that he’s never more ‘sunshine personified’ than when he’s with the 118 and co. he would do anything for them and he lights up around them in a way that he doesn’t really do with anyone else. and we haven’t seen him be so casually close to people outside that friend group.

when we got a glimpse of connor and buck’s friendship, it seemed more about what they could do for each other than about true connection. when we got that episode about buck and red, a lot of it was projection on buck’s part re. his fear of abandonment and his desire not to let his future turn out like red’s and it was also about his need to fix things for everyone else so he can feel like he’s needed. when he met lucy, he was desperate to fill a void and not feel as hollow as he felt going home to taylor kelly every night with his sister and his brother in law and his partner gone.

don’t get me wrong, i’m not trying to ascribe selfish motivations to buck bc i do believe he always tries to do the right thing, but when it comes to people outside of the 118, with the way it’s been written in canon, i feel like those dynamics have always been more about his own issues than they’ve been about actual friendship. and this isn’t even getting into how he acts when he feels like someone new is encroaching on his territory (see: eddie in 2x01 and lena). idk….i just think that kind of casual connection comes so much easier to eddie for whatever reason. maybe it’s because his abandonment issues are a whole other flavor, or because eddie’s upbringing was so different from buck’s. either way, it’s so interesting and ppl blinded by fanon are really missing out. i apologize for the long ass rambling and i don’t think i really articulated this well, so TL;DR — fanon sunshine buck and broody eddie do not exist in canon and i’m Very excited to see the way that mr. possessive, jealous, broody evan buckley acts when eddie meets someone new this week :)

no, you're so right about all of this, though! buck genuinely does light up and is at his most comfortable and golden retriever-like around the 118, because he sees them as family and trusts them so much—and i think people get carried away and attribute the same thing to everything else (like, for example, the social PTA dad thing). when in canon, buck on multiple occasions has not dealt with new people too well—whether it was eddie, or lena, or ravi...and now, as it looks like, tommy. and you kinda hit the nail on the head about how most of buck's relationships outside the 118 being very transactional in nature up to this point, it's sad, but it's true.

eddie is the complete opposite in this regard, though, like, the guy goes around collecting new friends like they're pokemon. lol. he is so wildly different to the fandom portrayal of him as this anti-social loner that i struggle with understanding how people even got there in the first place (i mean, i know why. but still).

anyway, buck's issues with jealousy and insecurity are sooo interesting to delve into as character flaws and so much more compelling than fandom's portrayal of him as a perfect angel baby who's never done anything wrong, but 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️ at least i have canon giving me the stuff i want lol