#if anyone has weird accumulating trauma

[yuucandoit]

i wonder if mor overblotted if they would reveal that they're an alien land dweller from a completely different world who already died

[lulu2992]

Something I'm still struggling to grasp about the Project at Eden's Gate is their initiation and training process. I guess it's because of how isolated the regions are from each other story-wise.

To keep it short, I can't understand how does "cleanse, confess, atone" mesh with "train, hunt, kill, sacrifice", what is mandatory and what isn't, how does "walk the Path" fit into all of it and how in the world can anybody survive the Leap of Faith without a haystack.

It’s hard because the game doesn’t clearly explain everything and even contradicts itself at times. The story went through several changes too, and it seems that, in early versions of the script, all members of the Project, including those who chose to follow the Father, were abused when, in the game, I believe violence and coercion are only used against those who were captured and have to be converted. Also, the final, current story suggests this only started happening when the Reaping began, but there are still characters who talk about the cult abducting and even killing (even though their goal is to save people, but anyway) Hope County residents long before that, so the lore is confusing…

Story-wise, the three regions are indeed supposed to be way more isolated from one another than they are on the in-game map. People who live in the Holland Valley admit they weren’t aware of what was going on in the Whitetail Mountains, for example. I don’t think the Heralds necessarily like or approve of each others’ methods, but NPCs explain John sends whoever he doesn’t keep to his siblings, that Faith deals with those who said “no” to him, or that Jacob “recruits” soldiers in the Henbane River, so while they each have their own territory and personal (trauma-inspired) ideology, they still work together.

My understanding is that anyone who joins Eden’s Gate must meet John first so they can be purified and rid of their sin. In his letter to Nick, he mentions there are many mothers and children in John’s Gate, so I think families composed of “regular” cultists who joined the cult willingly (or were born into it) and can’t fight just go live there when the Reaping begins to wait for the Collapse. I guess these people don’t do much except be part of the Family and among the 3,000 souls the Voice asked Joseph to save.

Then, I’d say those who want or have the potential to become soldiers can (try to) join Jacob’s army or become Chosen. It seems every candidate has to go through the trials and make a sacrifice. If they do all of that and manage not to die, they’ve proven their strength and devotion and are worthy of being part of the Project’s army; Jacob is confident they will be able to survive in extreme conditions and effectively protect the Family. According to a note, he has a youth training program as well, but there’s only one mention of that so we don’t know much about it or if it’s still a thing.

I think Faith makes Angels of people her brothers can’t convert and who resist them, or members of the Project who are too scared or doubtful and need to be… pacified. If you’re exposed to too much Bliss, because it apparently passes the blood-brain barrier and can never be purged out, it just keeps accumulating and, the more Bliss you come into contact with, the closer you get to ending up “zombified” because of it. Now, that’s if it happens accidentally, but it appears Angels are forcibly made too. A deleted note suggests the first ones were volunteers, but I don’t know if that’s still true. In any case, they’re literally brainwashed and very docile (on top of being able to “resuscitate” because Bliss, especially the liquid form, apparently has the power to do that), so the cult makes them fight and carry out arduous tasks. They’re reportedly fed dog food too, but as weird as it sounds, it seems Faith genuinely “loves” them because of how pure she believes they are.

I don’t know if the Pilgrimage is mandatory for people who join the Project willingly, but like Jacob’s trials, it’s definitely used to attempt to convert those who resist. They’re forced to walk it (sometimes on their knees, say civilians) and either accept the Father’s message, become Angels, or die, whether on the path or after jumping off the statue of Joseph at the end of it. As you pointed out, the leap of faith is not always lethal, but how do people survive it? Well, like Bliss, I suppose it’s just “magic” and only those who are considered worthy and pure will live. It’s also possible they don’t actually jump and just believe they do because it all happens in the Bliss; I’m really not sure because, again, that drug is basically magical and can “explain” a lot of things that seemingly don’t make sense in Far Cry 5.

So yeah, that’s just my evidence-based headcanon of how Eden’s Gate works, but I agree that it’s not always clear, logical, or consistent in the game…

[luckyshouse]

I agree with you. I have a hard time with understanding “the point.” I’m sorry.

its ok my bad, i didn't mean to come off rude. my tone in generals a bit off the past few days bc ive been having a really bad pain flair up. my point is that autistic people experience trauma at higher rates than non autistic people due to how severely ableist society is as a whole, and DID itself is a demonized disorder that is literally caused by trauma and is demonized for the way it breaks social rules. People don't like DID because DID is connected to concepts like gender identity divergence, dehumanization (ie:furries, kinning, shifting, physically dressing weird), self identification, and weird behaviors. most people with DID are traumatized so young that they don't get the proper socialization or learn social skills which mimicks autistic people not understanding social cues or rules. people with autism are more likely to develop things like maladaptive daydreaming or escape into their mind to cope with the outside world, int he same way DID systems do. my point is that i think psychiatry and psychology has set up all these bars between "normal" and "not" when in reality nothing and no one is normal and everyone has some kind of disorder, and i think we need to explore autism being genuinely a neurotype and DID being a type of PTSD that is formed in that neurotype. but i'm also a 23 year old on the internet whos coming with "research" thats mostly been accumulated through personal experience being in the psychiatric system my entire life, so its not like i can say this is true or that the models we have right now are false. but the thing is when i talk to people who have autism and not DID, they tend to strongly relate to my DID traeits especially when it comes to the multiple-selves part, and when i talk to people who have DID but not autism, they relate to almost every aspect of my autism except for the fact that its a neurotype and not trauma caused. i think we're going to see a lot of changes to the way psychiatry is handled in the next few generations or so because of this, because the more i learn about autism it becomes clear that autism itself is a neurotype that comes with multiple physical differences than allistic people that cause them to be disabled, and then i think we're going to be exploring that disability aspect of autism a LOT more in the coming years.

basically the point is, i know that psychiatry is telling us that autism and DID are separate disorders, but psychiatry is also pushing people to avoid getting diagnosed with autism, pushing people to learn to mask, pushing people on antipsychotics and heavy medications to help a disorder that genuinely does not NEED all of that an in reality needs a society that is willing to help them through their expected milestones. and that if you ignore the needs of people, that leads them to get traumatized, and that if you have untreated long term trauma as a child you often end up developing DID. i believe you that allistic systems exist, i really do, ive met them. but every allistic system ive met is either so autistic presenting it wouldn't matter to define the two, or is such a nervous bundle of highwire nerves that i wonder if theyre SO fucked up because they havent learned its safe to unmask yet so people assume theyre allistic.

there is higher rates of both autism and DID than anyones ever expected, and i think if out of like seven years they couldn't figure out or come to a decision on whether i was autistic or just traumatized over multiple different psyches and therapists, i think they need to figure this shit out. if so many disorders are caused by trauma and specifically intertwined with autism and theyre still denying autism is a common thing but over diagnosing things like OCD and BPD and bipolar disorder which all ALSO have connections and overlaps with autism i think theres soemthing there that needs to be figured out. same thing with the physical disorders that are linked to autism. everyone has POTS and binocular vision dysfunction and GERD and EDS and we all KNOW theres an overlap with autism but for some reason its just like "yeah well many people who have it dont have autism. they just ACT like they have autism because of their disorders" in most peoples eyes. which i just dont think is acceptable and is holding people abck from researching this shit

[fukuwatchesbl]

OFTS Ep2 - Stringed throughts

As last time, I already watch the episode yesterday. These are my thoughts on rewatch. I know it may be weird to process this way, but I want to actually watch this series and not focus on analysis first. It also allows me to connect elements better and perceive things I hadn't.

Under the cut.

I thought mew was our narrator, but with more characters showing in the confessional, it's now obvious he isn't. Interesting way to borrow from reality tv format to get insight in characters thoughts. Also, it gets very noticeable that nick has not been shown in the confessional (yet), but every character introduced in the first bar scene of Ep1 has. Is nick set as an outsider of the main group?

[had to take a short break, because my partner is cutting onions]

love to have Jennie and her partner in a stable relationship

cheum is the most romantic of the group, to the extent of being a bit too cheesy/naive for me

boston: it'll last 3 months - mew: watch me

mew, why are you taking top's time limit as a challenge ? also, please reassure me, and tell me your plan to resist top's advances is a joke... that's not a good way to handle any relationship

boston is the worst judge of character. He's convinced himself top is exactly like him (he's wrong), he thinks he and nick are on the same page (they're not)

ray starting to drink in daylight because mew's in a relationship now... ouch, my heart. I appreciate their friendship dynamic though, it's not fully honest, but there's true care

is Top the possessive kind? weird how this doesn't match with the dynamic he and mew have when it's just the two of them... maybe he just doesn't like to share (his toys)

Was wondering how Nick would end up crying in Sand's arms, now I know. I love how Sand looks like he hit the jackpot just because he won't have to move out

I liked that the public confession and the uneasiness it creates for the person on the receiving hand were mentioned.

Top will have ticked 2 of Mew's 3 conditions by the end of this episode

Ray stalker era

whoever guessed sand's weird bottles were plum wine was right

the "favorite"... this felt so manipulative. Nick, run!

the way ray empty his glass in one go, while sand takes his time.

2 characters with past traumas. Is there more?

that shower scene made me so uneasy. it felt like top didn't know if he wanted to go on or to stop

mew is such a tease

boston using a nickname Nick specifically said he didn't like. I would have been pissed if someone had done that to me

see, as much as I don't trust top not to cheat on mew, he, at the very least, doesn't push the boundaries mew clearly sets (the ending of the shower scene is an exception, but it feels like there were more to it). I don't trust boston to do that with anyone

ray stalker era part 2

boston definitely knows about ray's feelings for mew. will he try to use this to drive top away from mew? (this is me clowning, i'm just wondering as to how it'll play out)

so sand is not a hooker, only accumulating odd jobs

back to the confessional: we opened the episode with perspectives on romantic relationships, and we're closing with perspectives on sex relationships

the closing credits have each character alone (mew in ep1, ray in ep2)... will we see characters in pairs later on?

I really like how each character handles relationships in different ways, how we get different views on romance, sex, and even friendship to some extent.

[hanzi83]

I Wanted to Write A Blog as I was Falling Asleep.

Whenever big events are promoted, I tend to have to memorize points for the podcast which never really goes the way I want it, since I am scatterbrained a lot of the time and then when I recap shit, I tend to add a bit of what the discourse is and sometimes writing shit down doesn’t always equal a good reading, especially if it is days after and I have gotten my frustration out, so I did want to vent about this shit in written form even though I kind of talked about it on podcast. But there is something more direct with writing it, instead of just consuming news and hot takes and then sporadically letting it out of my head at weird times at the night since I cannot sleep during regular hours, then I am left with accumulated mental stress from personal mental trauma that never goes away, plus the added bonus that everything is designed to just implode, and maybe people connected know where the future is headed, maybe on some level I might know from the “dream world” since it feels like in the dream society, shit is seeping out from there to the surface, and I figure maybe some advanced shit is being done mentally to give me the “confidence” to give out my predictions of the grandview, because on the surface, I don’t have secret knowledge nor do I know shit for a fact, but when I have seen how shit has played out, I feel in an overall sense I have been right about the trajectory where the world is going, especially with the world of entertainment, since that now has always had ties to political shit, but now it is like the 2 worlds have blended, and I think the actual entertainment and the products have become background noise because the real storylines are done for social media, and now the people who cover shit, and I include sports entertainment personalities who are just “random” accounts that are looking for gigs and to socially climb up. Most people are “shocked” by Vince returning and taking back power, it would not be a surprise to anyone if you didn’t always work hard for the last 20 plus years that this is a dumbed down villain, who doesn’t know what a burrito is, or he doesn’t know what anything outside of wrestling is, yet he hates wrestling. I feel like when you are at a powerful level, you know you are going to take L’s throughout your career, but you don’t know what kind of connections these people have, it doesn’t help that we make it seem like entertainment institutions abide by the same morale and rules that mom and pop shops abide why. It is a problem with all entertainment actually. I know I am an irrelevant podcast and blog and account, but I am still allowed to live, for right now at least, instead of letting me leave this planet since I have no interest in how further right shit is going, but who is gonna give a shit what I have to say. I think at this point, since important people in different entertainment sections focus on what I do,  since they monitor and keep an eye on everyone, I think my shit will probably piss them off and then they have the power to reach the masses and get them even more infatuated with tropes that I dislike, and people who are compromised double down on their rhetoric, hell they have the ability to infect people close to you to buy into being  elitist scumbags who want more power. I think the exploitation I had to deal with and people who used to be close have profited, and now as the years go on more, you are seeing them become worse, never admitting to any wrongdoing, and you hope they secretly read this shit so it wakes them up, but even they will rub my face in shit that they are more popular and they have had a history of trying to always take from me. It is not just a personal problem, every day I see more sports entertainment accounts become the worst versions of themselves and just be performative about the system, they need to hold onto their credibility when the jig is up about the entire sports entertainment shit that everyone is basically compromised. Even when you call out someone like Vince, it is controlled narratives that never dig deeper, only stuff that has circulated on internet chat rooms since the 90’s, and now those are coming true. I knew people were not really for the truth when they would focus on Vince solely and act like other people in that inner circle didn’t know anything about what Vince did or has done, when it goes so much further, especially when this industry is a mafia industry, like on surface Triple H has had shit he has covered up and people have spoke about it, so people hung onto this last grasp of hope that Vince was actually gone, and not that this has been a long con to solidify him as the ultimate villain, like other public figures and powerful people who now exist on social media for the corrupt shit they have done, with nothing happening to them because we are headed in an era where there will be a right leaning takeover of the world and some of the people who have done villainous shit and have political ties are now being exposed, because they did so in an era where it is close where they will never be held accountable, and it will be meant for the people to revolt. 

So I was not shocked about the revelation of him being back. I always suspected and you can check the record on this from past streams or blogs etc, that I always felt that WWE and UFC always had a connection, there is this tactic I feel people like Vince or Howard Stern do, where they have a cult like entertainment program that has made them millions, but sooner or later they knew that there are people who hate them and will always be vocal about it, so if they used their power and resources to cosign something or have another project, it would be succeed to the masses because their names are stained, while they have a loyal following but in order for them to really be successful, they have to cosign shit under the table so people who enjoy the art of whatever they are doing can consume it and have a peace of mind that they are not consuming their shit, and you wouldn’t think so because you don’t see any of their stereotypical handprints on it, which is why the talking heads have to give you what you’re supposed to look out for to know they are involved with shit, the truth is you don’t know how smart these people are and that is not a compliment, I don’t see the words “smart” and “genius” as positive affirming words, they are neutral, because someone can be smart/genius and be the biggest piece of shit on the planet, but people can only hate villains if we reduce them to America’s dumbest criminal type villains who do comedic shit for the memes and nonstop engagement to be talked about. It feels like the shit we have consumed entertainment wise is manifested into becoming a real life reality show. I knew once Succession started, that it would be go to for the discourse because we are going to continue to live in an era where now every public figure in the political or media world will now have those similar dynamics, so we insist on looking at this shit by making up a reality show comedy version of the characters. And we love to think because we post on the internet that we are right about how these people are and expect people to think they are dangerous in some regard but then get mad at people in the wrestling media for not asking the right questions when bad faith actors know they are cogs in the system, like if someone like Vince is quite possibly someone who has committed atrocious acts, exploited people, may have covered up murder etc, again it is not proven officially but those things circulate online and they make enough documentaries where they want you to lean in that direction, then why doesn’t the villainous image you want for him ever include that he could be so dangerous that he could have people fucked with mentally and physically if they truly embarrassed them and asked a real question about the corruption, like if you have done evil shit and fucked up shit has been built upon in your industry then why can’t I assume you are a lot more dangerous than the shit advertised, like once someone lies about shit, people don’t believe them and I am supposed to believe he is only evil in this dumbed down way? But I hold MSM and alt media more accountable for not covering Vince’s shit, every affiliate of Trump got analyzed nonstop and were in the discourse to become caricatures, why didn’t any progressive media outlet “that is better than MSM” and if you don’t believe it, they will mention it every single time before they do their bullshit narratives with bullshit personalities, then why would you not even speculate on this wrestling to right wing politics pipeline that has been developed. You can’t say that is silly, look at how many pro wrestlers have run for office in some way, Big Dick Johnson is literally on Turning Point USA. Rick Steiner is on some school board and spewed anti trans shit, and WWE still has nothing to fucking say about it. They have him under a legends contract. It feels more people who have been let go from the company who have the same politics of the company are part of patriot groups, Q Anon, supporting anti trans rhetoric. Sometimes I wonder if it is supposed to be obvious that celebrities are now playing characters for social media and they will have different moments of rebranding since everything that exists, exists for documentaries, meaning the system will allow your mental and physical abuse go on if they can profit off it later on, like people are initiated into shit and we never focus on why people in the system, especially in entertainment are in these fucked up situations, but we insist on presenting them as regular people who live by regular rules. 

So when I watched Raw, I knew discourse was happening but I was not aware of the discourse and “runsheet changes” that were being promoted until I caught up live when watching the show on DVR, and watching it in a bubble, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary, despite people saying Triple H made shit better etc and some things got better but there are still watered down acts that have shit creative, even if there are some positive changes to some degree, but it seemed like a typical episode of Raw, then I saw the discourse and what was being presented, low morale, script changes, viral photos of the production team getting multiple notes, Seth being told during the break he was not gonna talk etc, it is like they script the discourse to make it more chaotic. For the first time in a while AEW shill are on top of the world, and thing is if this were 2 years ago, maybe they would have a leg to stand on but in the last year and half, they have showed they are not as organic or genuine, they bent over backwards for another billionaire and piled on people who they wanted to get trashed online, but they did it with edgelord rhetoric and cool aesthetic because they tweet about which people in the industry they want to fuck, but then when CM Punk “left” they forced their anti establishment rhetoric and analyzed the show and helped book discourse even if it meant undercutting the program and talent involved to spare the ego of a industry plant in Phil, that is just my opinion, but now that he is coming back, now suddenly they are pro AEW again because they are getting their way because they want to force rebooted attitude era fetish shit and they are not motivated in everyone becoming bigger or building bigger legacies, they want every big match given away every week because they benefit off the discourse, they don’t know shit about booking when attitude era and everything after is what they fucking consumed, people will say “That era made so much money” but the era where you built up to big matches with characters people were invested into, made a lot more money and had more people watching these big matches, you should be able to combine the good of all eras, but my point is that I don’t trust shill accounts that ruined other people’s lives, they would get the white supremacist trolls to shit on if if my opinions about their favorites were getting out of control, they can’t be as obvious about it because they need to punish me by making me irrelevant online so I give up and don’t tweet shit out, but because I am losing followers and no one interacts, I feel more motivated to put my thoughts out there, and they still get triggered even if they are getting their wish of my suppression and mental torment, where it is even affecting my personal life. Talk about people taking entertainment too seriously huh? Of course I can’t officially prove it right, and no one would believe me, but these people believe I should not even express this shit or vent out my frustrations with what this entertainment has done to people’s minds and it is gonna be the end of us. This is just wrestling, now amplify that between other entertainment, and now the political figures are just as much entertainment, we are fucking debating if AOC has a burner account that tweets out sexually explicit shit. I know I go off on tangents but all of this bullshit to basically say that I don’t even trust the anti WWE accounts because they limit internet shit all the time, whenever anyone says “WWE did good things when they were forced into making the decision because of us” like they really don’t know what they are doing, making the amount of money and having the amount of power they do, you really think they don’t know how to work people for real? I am just saying if you are gonna hate villains then hate them for the legit power they have, not this dumbed down bullshit. No matter what people think or say, other companies you watch, are permitted to being there, which is why I never gave a shit if I watched some of the WWE shit, because no matter what you are watching, there is WWE shit within it, every promotion has to do their tropes of being discourse company and it keeps repeating every era, and at this point being an internet fan is just as much pretentious as the “dumb marks” they tend to make fun of or they think they are better than. Like instead of hating these people they think it is the ultimate dunk to go “CAN YOU BELIEVE TRIPLE H CAME OUT AND SAID NOTHING WAS GONNA CHANGE THEN THERE WERE 15 FUCKING CHANGES TO THE PROGRAM LMAO” and then changes happened, like yeah that is pretty much the job of the villain now to say shit where the opposite is being said online which somehow become the outlet where everything is true apparently. That promo was so for the purpose of featuring that in a future documentary down the line, you want to know how I can tell even the “rebellious” talent shtick is a work, like now people are pretending that WWE would really take away someone’s Dana Brookes sign,  because now being screwed over by your boss is a new character arch, not that they didn’t deal with anything bad but it feels like a new marketing trick, and it may have meant more 10 years ago, even 20 years ago, but now, it feels as watered down the product itself. 

Now this is where TK is gonna look the billionaire baby face again, let me guess, he will bring in Jay White, he will bring back CM Punk, he will bring in Mercedes, and suddenly the complaints of the booking will go down even though there was nothing too bad about the booking the last 8 months, maybe some standard modern wrestling booking that might seem filler, but AEW didn’t have the best creative since their inception all the time, not everything was hitting, and I just feel they amplified the worked shit online and made it detrimental to their product and repeating the same talking points over and over and I think booking the product like shit to some degree with obvious booking errors, and the only compelling shit they could come up with the online discourse is the trope of “this person wants to leave” and if they do leave, TK probably gets his shills to discredit them and downplay them, in fact there were some unsavory rumors about what some female talents had to deal with, the shills helped cover that up from the discourse and yet they are some credible experts on this Vince shit. Instead of making the changes to the safety and other shit they know they can do, the system rather create another obvious situation where people have to then state the obvious, you can just book women properly, you are capable, but let me guess we are gonna dumb it down so Mercedes can come in and save it instead of just having a strong division and then the added bonus of her coming. It gets tiring being this invested in the discourse, and then look at the booking errors in the political world, it is good to see political analysts being disappointed with booking decisions, oh you didn’t the villain Trump in prison just yet like you have been promising, well wrestling fans have been dealing with the villains always winning in the end for the longest time, it was the attitude era when Trump did his political thing, like much how fans eventually got sick of Austin coming out for 5 different segments every week, it is the same deal with Trump, everything has been relating to him, and now people who were getting this high off this becoming the political discourse for the last several years, how much money was made from phony coverage from MSM and alt media over things that revolved around Trump, and now the those same attitude era tricks aren’t working as much so they need to get more ridiculous with the political storylines like how the Ruthless Aggression was. It feels like everything is designed to just implode and people are playing different roles to facilitate their part. Everyone is more concerned with becoming a scripted character and I have to dumb it down to be on their level because as sophisticated this shit seems on some level, people are constantly limiting the narratives of all this shit and don’t want to face the reality that your heroes and your favorite institutions are not on the up and up and they have more power and now the “experts online” who are controlled cogs will only call out shit to a certain point until they get their gigs and the power they want before showing you what kind of horrible pieces of shit they are. They make everything a fucking sports entertainment storyline, they think because they are more cynical it makes them more genuine and legit, they would not want to disclose they have been reduced to being the shit disturber that is allowed to be in the castle while pissing on the outside rather than being outside pissing in, they make it look like the opposite and then you have the overly positive ones who can’t wait to partake in acknowledging Roman Reigns at a press conference, some of these people who can pull off their social media character, because they get propped up at the top level all the time, they think they are much more interesting than they are, when they get on camera, it is clear there is a social media team that write their jokes etc, look at the comedy stylings of that libs of tiktok woman Raya who is now doing stuttering John level man on the street shit where she gets a confrontation with public figures etc, it doesn’t feel genuine and she doesn’t have the charisma to really pull it off but because she caters to the right wing and helped manufacture consent for more anti trans shit, so it is okay for her to be this comedic figure. And a lot of the right wing and post left accounts online are in the same category to me. It is clear who is allowed to be propped up and confident in what they say and do are permitted and protected people. I am glad I didn’t reduce myself to end up going to the far right, and you read my conspiracies 10 years ago, you would think I am a prime candidate to be someone duped in, trust me the system tried to find ways to lure me in that direction. 

I waited for the last decade or so for Vince’s exposition and I can’t say I am into how they are laying out the creative of this, they had to book the guy who have a fucking shitty mushtache, that he probably smells like possum piss. It is not even real life anymore, and the closer we are getting to it and when it fully does show you what he is going to do and what he will become, I think I can maybe put this entire fandom behind me. I can’t stick around for another company becoming a discourse company and it is gonna just reboot and repeat shit and I don’t think I can handle another decade of that. I already get sick of official revisionist history and then the online revisionist history is out of control, and then you really don’t know what is the truth anymore, everything starts out underground but it turns out the underground is funded by the mainstream, it is like ECW basically, like something that is known as rebellious even though they were probably always funded by the WWE types, while the WWE/MSM types act like they don’t want it to exist even though they are gonna incorporate their shit into the product, then the handpicked ones from the underground get their MSM gigs and the others who won’t advance any further got sold a movement built up on lies and they will not be paid or get any protection from the system, it is basically the same cycle with a lot of the social media narratives, all these alt media hosts who want to play the role of Paul Heyman from the 90’s then end up being on Tucker Carlson’s show and rebranding their image and we will think they used to think they were rebels when they most likely are not. And it feels like the joke is on me that I have to constantly see and relive these tropes every decade that I still manage to live through. I know I will give in because more craziness is gonna happen because of this Endeavor deal with WWE. I somehow figured there would be connections with UFC since a lot of their characters now have pro wrestler characters, they planted those roots with someone like Brock going there, I always figured that when someone “leaves” WWE they are still part of the family, like if they are not supposed to succeed, they won’t get opportunities and will be blacklisted and have no support system, but since it is a mafia in my opinion, it is like the performers are always kicking up to Vince etc but they can’t officially be tied to WWE to succeed because if WWE cosigns Batista’s endeavors then people would despise him, but him having the image of going viral for criticizing the WWE will be seen as not giving a fuck. And when it continuously gets perpetuated in this narrative shit,. I even debated writing this and I am not even feeling it but I did waste time on this so I might as well publish it, but be forewarned that I will probably try to write another one where I am gonna end up repeating the same shit, and then I become part of the problem. It is hard to escape because there are people who get sent to entice me with dangling me to still continue to watch nonstop and my presence in the fandom is needed, yet they still continuously punish me for having my own narratives, or my own ideas and not dumbing it down and I am not playing by a script and you can tell which people do because once you start making a bigger point, they immediately start to show aggression because they hate that I made a good point that goes above their point and the bigger you are with status, people look at me as someone who is lower than them so the fact they are even being slightly nicer towards me, I am supposed to be so thankful because I am normally treated like shit. I am tired of having to be beaten mentally by people, and because entertainment has played a role in shaping people’s minds, like if I decided not to watch this shit, you have to deal with people who consume it and make it their entire personality who literally terrorize people with that shit, and since entertainment has political ties, it is like everything is trying to get a nonstop reaction from you and when this shit goes 24/7 and no time off from this, this is making us fucking insane, now add incentive of why people want to be propped up as a character, and you have more recipes for disasters, different cliques wondering why people act different and rebrand, like there aren’t gimmick changes on the horizon. It makes no fucking sense. More people want to be characters and all of it doesn’t have any fucking meaning to it. 

I don’t know what the future is gonna be with this company or industry. I can make guesses, I wonder if it forces a revolution, do the elitists run amok and let us know how evil they are and they have no problem with it, because they will remain in power and it is like an NWO level thing going on, people say they are opposed to it and they need to stop the evil of Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, but the more the heels win and then more people in the system who see the heels winning and overcoming despite all of us condemning them, but then they end up joining the NWO and before you know it, we will get 6 or 7 incarnations of the thing, people will start to get amazed by the fact these villains are so evil, but they are functioning and thriving in the system better than before, it is easy for people to see this as a reason why it is better to join them than be against them, and it feels I keep seeing that more and more. It becomes disheartening and it makes me just say that I am ready to leave this place, I would say I have outgrown all of this, but I am 5’6. But it is getting to the point where I don’t want to care about any of this shit anymore but it is one of the last things I had in my life that has been constant in my life since 3 years old, I used to distract from my shitty existence, and nothing has changed, and now with the Stern element and what that did, and people I know being close with people�� in that industry, it is hard to get this out of my life when they have ensured that I will have to have face rubbed into shit. I am at the point where I don’t give a shit about vindication, you can do that when I am dead and exploit the shit. I don’t see a bright future head and i feel everyone is becoming a caricature of what they once were, it hurts more coming alt media figure heads because they made it seem like they are credible and calling out the system and then get mad if you expected more from them, it is like why root for anyone to make it if they are all gonna be corrupted and morally bankrupt, like entertainment and politics are nonstop liars showing they lie, and now I am supposed to root for more people to become liars, like if you have a superpower in convincing and manipulating people, why am I am not allowed to think they would use their superpowers for unethical shit? I am tired of it but my natural inclination is to vent then go back into being back in the thick of things, it is probably no one cares when I vent, because I get sucked back into this shit, and I wish I could find a way to program my mind not to ever care about this shit, but more shit will transpire. I will never be happy here. I need to fucking leave this planet as soon as possible. I don’t even get why people with power would let me remain here, you already took everything away from me mentally and ensured I will never have freedom, like I am already irrelevant and defeated, what more else do you want from me? Do I have to be alive to see people close to me turn into complete heels, it is not about bad enough I was put on the backburner and having to take mental abuse from people but now you want me at my already worst, and have me finally lose my fucking mind. I don’t see any way out of this, they would love for me to attempt suicide because the pain hurts so much mentally, but I know it would be a botched attempt and then I would be even more in their control, I am supposed to lose control, so they bring it back to Stern days so then people see me at the current state and go “Oh look he actually did lose his mind” because they would want that perpetuated and manifested. Anyways, this blog was not that great, but maybe I should write more not so great blogs and make my enemies read it and feel they wasted more time reading it and they will get angered, when some of you have boastful connections and aesthetic which should be fulfilling enough, this is one of those blogs that if you are creative and you’re worried if higher ups are impressed with it, this would shed all doubt that I might suck at this, you have to see the proof for yourself, you need to get your teacher friends on the horn and ask to grade it, this was not one of those blogs. I needed it to get out there. I don’t know why. Listen to the experts, I am a big dumb conspiracy guy rambling with run on sentences about some 80 year old billionaire in Vince and how he runs illuminati, well the wrestling one at least, I think I got bored halfway through, or am I doing a worked shoot to purposefully undercut it by making this a discourse blog and we are just gonna go in a loop nonstop for the next several years and decades. Maybe even centuries, I am passing out as I write this and I am gonna post it. Fuck it all to hell.

[leori-the-unlearned]

Oh, I agree with this a lot. I'm coming at this as more of a Tangle fan, so I've got a bit of a different perspective on it, so it's nice to see yours too! I also took a break to refresh myself on the comics, so I'm not relying on my memory alone.

The Surge situation is weird because Tangle is just... not there. The last time we see her before it is in issue 47, where she heads off on her own to find Whisper (and reinforces the -7 trend of saying something insensitive in front of someone, this time telling Jewel happily that she's leaving the Restoration). The next time we actually see her (besides a mention by Belle) is issue 57, anticlimactically reunited with Whisper offscreen (and immediately saying something insensitive).

You'd almost wonder: is Tangle even aware anything happened between Whisper and Surge? Would Whisper have even told Tangle what happened afterwards, did they even catch up on what happened since they separated? She wasn't even shown visiting Whisper in the hospital - Sonic was, in a flashback, but we have no indication Tangle knew Whisper was even there. So running off that - sure, maybe Tangle saw Sonic giving Surge a chance, and Whisper never told Tangle about being brutalized by Surge, so she had no reason to think Surge was an exception. The problem is that then issue 57 has Tangle get upset at Whisper trying to scout ahead alone, since she 'just had her own close call', which could only refer to the Surge incident.

So why deliberately have Tangle reference that, and... do nothing else about it? If Tangle's upset to the point of shouting at Whisper, even right after they had an argument, why would she not be even more upset with the person who gave Whisper that close call? Tangle should be fighting to get Surge as far away from Whisper as possible, not going with it because Sonic said she'll be cool soon - she's not a fangirl who religiously follows Sonic's every word! She has respect for him, but reducing her to following his example because she has no reason or spine of her own is huge disrespect. (Who was it that coached Sonic out of feeling sorry for himself back in issue 24, using her own perspective? If she was dependent on Sonic for her own beliefs and morale, she should have been devastated herself at seeing him down and demoralized.) I'd rather have Tangle be wholly unaware Surge hurt Whisper due to some coincidence of being unreachable until it all died down and became memories Whisper didn't want to bring back, than make her aware with no real care for the information. Even just seeing Whisper so uncomfortable with Surge for no real reason, she shouldn't go 'Im sure Surge is fine if Sonic trusts her, just chill for now'!

There's been character decay going on with Tangle for a while, I think. The big example I recall is she outright lies in issue 62 where she says she hadn't been 'busting badniks' until Sonic showed up - when in issue 4 when she first meets him, she mentions having taken on badnik raids in smaller numbers 'for a while'. I bet this is in service of characterizing her as a rookie with little combat experience, as opposed to someone with plenty of combat experience, and less experience with stealth/teamwork/structure. The distinction is important - Tangle is good at fighting, and bad at self-restraint or pausing. In the right situation, this is very useful - she's just often paired with Whisper, who often only engages in more stealthy endeavors Tangle isn't well-suited for, and by contrast seems less capable.

There's only so much ire a fictional comic even deserves, and it doesn't benefit anyone - least of all yourself - to let yourself get worked up about it, or push your anger too far. I'm moreso upset that because this is her official characterization now, more people are going to see this as Tangle, and not her earlier appearances where she was more grounded and in her element, and where I like her more. While Whisper accumulates more trauma, Tangle's being Ship of Theseus'd into a whole new character...

We've both had our favorite characters hacked at through the same interactions, haha ^^"

Tangle is such an awesome character! My favourite moment of hers is when she quickly and silently got rid of the imposter who replaced her in issue #67.

(I love this comic to bits, but I do despise that specific panel and pretend it doesn't exist.)

[girl4music]

Comment by Party City Dumpster: “I strongly agree with your observation that Willow is above all else addicted to control. We see a new version of that in s7 where she now has an almost obsessive preoccupation with controlling herself rather than other people. Doing the spell in the finale is her finally fully accepting (rather than blaming) the power that she has and using it in THE most positive way possible: empowering others. S7 confirms that it was never the magic specifically that corrupted Willow, it was simply a tool she could use to soothe her deep-seated fear of loss. Which is of course true of all kinds of addiction.

Also you'll notice that s1-2 Willow has a very passive role in the group. There's a small selection of instances where she takes charge (because Buffy isn't there to) but for the most part, she's not a big decision maker for the Scoobies, even compared to Xander. It isn't until she's given the power and has the confidence to make decisions that we start seeing her preoccupation with control.”

Yeah, Willow’s addiction is not to magic. It’s to power and control. She would have cared less about magic if it couldn’t imbue her with the power she hungered for. And of course, with the possession of power, comes the impulsion for controlling everything and everyone.

Willow has always been a controller but just not in an obvious way. As you correctly picked up about her in Season 7, she becomes obsessed with controlling herself. But before Season 5 and 6 she was like this too. She had a compulsive need to control herself much like someone with an anxiety disorder does. She was constantly trying to please people, to get their attention and validation. She didn’t want to be a burden to anyone but she still wanted to be useful. She was always trying to control her thoughts and emotions lest she be seen as someone weird and unfavourable. She felt inconsequential in everything she did no matter how many times or how much she did it. Which only caused her to do it all the more. And she could never really be honest about herself due to all of this. The Willow we see in those early seasons was a Willow who wanted to crawl out of her own skin. She was not happy, her self-confidence and self-awareness was 0 and she was constantly worried about how others perceived of her. Fearing that they’d see her for how she really perceived of herself. As a loser, as a geek, as worthless, as valueless. As not significant enough to even be given the time of day.

When she accumulates power through her developing the ability to do magic, suddenly the scales tip over. Something bigger than her has taken hold of her and it has nothing to do with the magic itself. That���s just a tool. It’s all to do with how she feels from using magic. Powerful, capable, valuable and eventually - because of meeting Tara and the fact she was a witch too - lovable. She no longer felt like she meant nothing but only because she had that as an emotional crutch for her insecurities and anxieties. Everything else about her began to take a backseat. Her hacking, engineering and technological skills - her scientific side. Even her academic intelligence. She was less concerned about her school grades and more concerned with whether she could get a spell or ritual right. Everything about her became about magic and that’s why so many people mistake magic as the addiction. But if we compare it to actual drug or even alcohol addiction,… while the dependence may be to the substance itself, the need to have or use it isn’t. That’s always other reasons and they tend to be emotional or mental ones. They’re having trouble coping with grief or with loss. They’re struggling with their identity or sexuality,… they’re under immense pressure from school or work to achieve the impossible. They have had an abusive upbringing and are repressing the childhood trauma of it. There’s always something behind a physical addiction where the physical thing itself that is used isn’t really the problem that needs to be addressed. It’s just escapism from the real problem. The underlying emotional addiction.

With Willow it’s the compulsive desire for power and control so that they don’t feel like they don’t matter and that they’re not needed. And ‘Chosen’ is a good endgame for Willow but I really do feel they made a misstep in giving her a redemption arc from turning evil in Season 6 instead of writing her an arc that had her focus on getting to the root of what triggered all that to happen to begin with. To what has been bothering the woman since the fucking beginning of the show. I mean they start with that, - her and Giles talk about the root system and how everything is connected and that was a good metaphor for leading into how all facets of Willow are connected and therefore should be honoured and appreciated. But then they bring Kennedy into the narrative and it suddenly becomes about her saving her or some shit. And while it is sweet and I’m sure Willow enjoyed the caring attention she showed her - it wasn’t what she actually needed. What she needed was to lean on the support system she already had in the Scooby Gang and finally address her shows-long emotional complex trauma with not feeling worthy enough just as she was. And she does sort of do that in the end. But it’s in a very odd, pick-up-where-we-left off way when the whole season should have been dedicated to this.

[attanoempire]

Sun Venus Saturn Uranus

Sun - Ah now we get to the hard ones, I see. I'm patient, I have good control of my emotions most of the time, I'm loyal sometimes to a fault (though not without lines), I'm tall, and... I have very nice calves. Bit weak toward the end but we got there.

Venus - Passionate, caring, intelligent, witty. I like someone with a strong personality, a protective streak, and who isn't afraid to be passionately weird and show it. I also have some preferences that lean toward shorter and more homicidal women. What can I say, even with a sub, there being at least some possibility she stabs me is hot.

Saturn - Trying my best not to just answer "everything" lmao.

For real though, I have some pretty glaring weaknesses. Hypervigilance has me always reading hostility or problems where there are none and then doomspiraling about it, and on the flipside also means I'm basically immune to all but the most direct advances. Low intuitive empathy means I often struggle conceptualizing viewpoints too far from my own. Lacking executive function is hell in general but also specifically makes academia a waking nightmare (get on your fucking meds Ira). I have a bevy of troubles reading people socially that leads to an occasional bad habit of treating people like puzzles to be solved/fixed instead of, y'know, people, because they're easier to understand that way.

Outside shit that's more directly informed by trauma or mental illness, my memory is just also hot garbage, I have some impressively terrible luck, and related but separate to that I have the worst timing of anyone I have ever known. If there is a wrong time to walk into a room, check my messages, do something, or to NOT do any of those, you can be damn sure I'll stumble into it flawlessly.

Hm. Might be telling that I have two paragraphs and could go on about my flaws but struggle to conceptualize five bullet points I like about myself. Oop.

Uranus - Oh boy, we could be here all day, but let me just speedrun some of the changes I would enact if given supreme dictatorial power.

Scale back luxury production, appropriate most billionaire wealth and put them on trial, ensure food/water/housing/internet is universally available to everyone before allowing anyone to have so much as a winter cabin, abolish profit-driven capitalism and fiduciary duty and corporations as we know them, instead implement a similar system to allow people to contribute to projects they believe in/are qualified for, prevent generational accumulation of power via currency/possessions, aggressively expand the schooling system until classrooms are more like 1:5-10 instead of 1:25-35, make post-secondary education freely available, make mental health checkups a routine universal procedure and aggressively expand mental health resources, abolish the prison-industrial system in favour of tremendous spending on restorative and reformative justice (and either low-pop prison or exile for the unreformable, I guess?)

Just, y'know, to name a couple of things. I think at a more cultural level we also really need to address concepts like parenthood, sexuality, and religion.

We've been changing slowly but coasting a lot on "the ways things were done" for far too long. The US still makes laws based on the assumed views of people from the 1700s and a 2000 year old religion, we still think people should have absolute dominion over their child-rearing as long as they don't physically abuse the kid, and murder is PG but a penis is so taboo you rarely even see it in R-rated films.

But yeah no living in this world is great I love going to work and paying my taxes while wars rage and the earth burns.

[kinsey3furry300]

5 ships I hate, why I hate them, how to (kinda) fix them, the better ships you should be doing in that universe, and why you should ignore me and keep writing them if it makes you happy.

Note: this is done for amusement, please don’t be offended; I’m not attacking your ship, I’m just listing some ships I do not always care for, and how I think they could be improved, and maybe made brilliant, by clever writing.

In no particular order, and focusing on ships that often annoy me, with no attempt by me to say anything meaningful or popular about the current state of any particular fandom. I’m also a firm believer in the idea that there’s no such thing as a bad ship, only a badly executed ship, so my objections to these is less a dislike of shipping, or the paring, and more that they raise writing issues that I think are difficult to fix in a satisfying way. That’s why in a lot of the examples below I prefer AU ships to ones that try to messily work it into the cannon. Anyway, enjoy... I guess?

 Marco x / anyone (Animorphs)

Why I hate it: Animrophs is an intensely character-driven story, where the tension of each book comes from the conflicts, external and internal, that the five Animrophs (and Ax) face during a long, hard, traumatic war.  And while several of the character are paired off romantically, it’s always to emphasise character conflict over their different points of view. Jake and Cassie are a pair because Jake’s struggle with having to make hard, grey, morally ambiguous choices as leader is highlighted by Cassie’s burning need to make the right choice, the lesser evil, the choice that leaves some small shred of humanity and dignity and kindness left in this bleak world. Tobias and Rachel are a pair as their arcs deal with literal and figurative loss of humanity, as the slow accumulation of trauma over time turns these happy(ish), normal kids into psychologically ruined husks of their former selves and destroys them slowly, one fight at a time.

Marco’s arc, isn’t about either of these things: Marco’s arc, is about the bright, clear line between A and B, between problem and solution. Marco is a utilitarian, a pragmatist: his concern isn’t the burden of leadership, or the cost of the decision, but about how to put that all aside and make hard decisions that actually work regardless of cost. It’s not about what to do, the path is obvious: the bright, clear line of ruthless logic, but how to do it. His match, his counterpoint, the other character who’s all about the logic of taking awful decision in a way that actually works for the team, and his foil, his female counterpart in this, is not a romantic partner, but his mother: Visser one, making the exact same hard, difficulty ruthless decisions using logic and maths, but for the other side of this war. A romantic paring gets in the way of this arc because a partner doesn’t help him with that bright, clear line, and worse, any attempt to pair him of with either Rachel or Cassie breaks up not only a cannon paring, but their respective character arc.

How to (kinda) fix this: Marco’s arc is, at the end of the day, a trolly problem. So make sure whoever you ship him with is one of the people tied to the tracks. Introduce a character he crushes on, and then in the second act reveal that they are either a Controller, or in the family of a Controller or the proximity of the target of their next mission in a way that will make them collateral damage ,and let Marco struggle with what happens when that bright, clear logical line from A to B cuts through someone he actually loves; you know, like it did with his mother. See, even trying to fix this ship is weirdly Freudian.

The far better ship you should be doing: Ax x / EVERYONE. Ax in human form is described as a worryingly pretty, worryingly androgynous male of indeterminate race. He is a literally Bishonen alien hedonist with no familiarity with human senses, poor impulse control in human form, and no knowledge or understanding of human courtship rituals, and he can shape-shift, including into other members of the core team if needed to compel a mission, he calls Jake his prince,  and he is incredibly close to Tobias, the lonely outcast woobie that the LGBT fans adopted as their poster boy. Come on, the potential for shipping, both with wacky hijinks and sad, tragic star-crossed lovers’ trope is endless. Every line dedicated to Marco shipping is a line of text that could be dedicated to Ax trying to eat a Cinnabon erotically on his first date as a human and hulking out mid way because he forgot just how good they are. What could be better than him leaning into to erotically kiss a team-mate, and then fucking up due to his failure to understand human mouths, making weird mouth sounds, and then licking crumbs of the table in the middle of the mall, in front of the entire school, while his crush awkwardly tried to pretend this is normal? What’s wrong with you Marco-shipper people, do you hate fun?

 Riz/Tem (beastars) Why I hate this ship: Okay, just to quickly ask a question, to people who un-ironically like this as a serious ship and not a dark joke, just one little question: What’s wrong with you? I mean,are you okay? Keep taking the meds: the show is VERY clear on that point.

It’s like those people who say Joker X Harley Quinn is their ideal dark, edgy relationship: no it’s not, it’s abusive! Morticia x Gomez is dark and cool but CONSENTUAL and HEALTHY. This… this is a deeply imbalanced person murdering someone and telling themselves after that fact it was special and rare and magical. ITS HOMICIDE! And even if you write that out (and you shouldn’t, because that changes the character arc of every other major character) it’s still got more red flags that a soviet military parade. This is the botulinum of a toxic, one-sided teenage infatuation. Riz’s entire arc is about how he projects his thoughts and feelings about himself onto this idealised, made-up version of his and Tem’s relationship which, from Tem’s point of view, never existed. Riz never loved Tem: he loved the idea of Tem, the idea that someone would see the real him, see his inner pain and accept him anyway, but he never once told Tem this. He didn’t warn him “Hey, because of you I don’t feel I need my meds any more, do you mind if I try not taking them and we can meet and talk about this in a safe, well-lit pace?” He’s not honest with Tem, and on top of that It doesn’t make sense from the point of view of either of the characters for them to be actually, romantically in love (although  they were clearly close friends), because it undermines and cheepens Riz desire to just be seen and accepted for his real self, and the cannon Tem X Els ship. It also doesn’t make sense from a story point of view: Riz is a shadow archetype for Legosi. He’s what Legosi would have become if someone hadn’t interrupted his attack on Haru. That’s why Legosi needs to beat Riz with his own hands: because then he’s beating the darker version of himself he’s been carrying with him, and he can finally move on with Haru guilt-free. Having Riz and Tem’s relationship actually be what Riz imagined it to be undoes that. It undoes Riz’s interesting, dark inner struggle between truth and fantasy, it turns Tem’s tragic, unsolved murder that sets the entire story in motion into a just sort of weird Romeo-and Juliet suicide. It’s ruins the character arc not only for Riz, but for Legosi, and also, by extension, Louis and Haru, because Legosi’s internal angst over whether or not herbivores and carnivores can have a relationship as true friends needs this example of a tragic, flawed, toxic, failed friendship to bounce off of.

How it could (sort of) work: an AU where Riz’s attack on Tem is interrupted and Tem lives with a slight arm injury, and doesn’t tell anyone out of his complex feelings for Riz. Meanwhile, that bunny girl from the gardening club had been brutally devoured and Rz and/or Tem are so horrified with how close this was to their own near-miss, they start to investigate the murder, and in doing so get caught up in Louis’ inner struggle. Because that’s how the story needs to work, it’s about duality and struggle: and if Riz takes Legosi’s role, and by dating a herbivore he de facto takes the role, so Legosi must take Riz’s. This could be a great AU!

The better ship you should be doing: Pina/Riz (with a dash of Pina x Els), no, seriously, I’m not shitposting. You want to give Riz a redemption arc with a cute woolly boy? How about a story where Pina, out of a need for closure about at happened to him, starts to visit Riz in jail and they talk, mockingly at first, confrontational at first, but later Pina slowly becoming more fascinated in Riz and Tem’s life and asking Riz for more and more detail until they both bond over their shared traumatic experiences and their sense of loss for Tem’s senseless death, Tem’s unfished life casting a shadow over both off them. Eventually, the two of them find, from Legosi who still has the diary, that Tem had planned out an elaborate and beautiful first date with Els that he never got to take her on, and Riz, guilt ridden and sad than Tem never got this beautiful moment, decides to ask Pina take her on that date for Tem, with Riz coaching him by phone cyano-de-Bergerac style, Riz finally getting some closure that he helped one of Tem’s wishes come true and finally acknowledging to himself that Tem had a life and loves outside of him that were cut of short by his actions, and just crying over his lost friend, as Pina and Els slow-dance in Tem memory. Or if you just want to see Tem awkwardly date a carnivore boy from school, why not something less creepy and more wholesome and ship him with Jack? That would be cute AF, and more importantly, not romanticize brutal murder. Or an AU where everything is happy and nice, I’d argue at that it’s no longer Beastars at that point, but if it makes you happy, go for it. Let’s not shame anyone here.

 Snape X Lilly (Harry Potter)

Why I hate this ship: honestly, it’s not for the reason you think; I just like Snape too much as a tragic character, and making him in any way happy destroys his arc in my opinion.  The objection’s others have raised: that Snape acts in a worryingly possessive stalker-ish way towards Lilly, and that if Voldemort had gone for Nevil rather than Harry as a child Snape would have remained a loyal death eater, are true and I acknowledge them as having some validity, but that’s not why I can’t stand this ship. Snape is supposed to be a morally and emotionally complex, tragic figure. That “After all this time?” line was the best line in the Deathly Hallows.  Snape is supposed to show the equality destructive and redemptive power of  love. It’s sort of trinity: Lilly shows the pure power of true, unconditional love in her sacrifice to save Harry, Voldy shows what self-destruction and cruelty a life without understanding love leads to, and Snape sits somewhere in the middle: his one-sided  un-requited love being both the cause of his darkest, and his greatest actions. His curse, and his redemption, fall and rise. Making him happy messes that up.

How to (kinda) fix this ship: make them miserable. Make them fall for each-other only to be pulled apart by circumstance (you know, like they were in the darn original source material). You’re serious about making this a tragic, dark romance? Don’t ship them when they’re at school: Ship them during Voldemort’s rise to power, in the 80’s, after Lilly is married. Have the original Order of the Phoenix send her to meet with Snape and use their previous relation to try to milk some information out of him. Have her feel conflicted about it, have James furious about it, but have her do it anyway for the greater good. Have her meet up secretly with Snape who is angry and distrustful, knowing his must be a trap, and talk. Have the relationship slowly build over time against the backdrop of a cold-war spy thriller, as Lilly slowly realizes that she has some lingering feelings for Snape, but can’t reconcile them her loyalty to the order and her family. Make this a love story of conflicted feelings, divided loyalties, and spy-work against the background of drawing war-clouds. Have Snape offer to leave Voldemort, if she’ll leave the Order, and run away with him, but by that point she knows she’s pregnant and chooses to stay, out of loyalty even though she’s crushing on Snape. Have him show up at the rendezvous expecting for her to be there only for James to lead an Order Ambush, and a fight to ensure, on top of Tower Bridge in the howling wind and rain, Snape surviving but having his spirit crushed and fleeing before Lilly can tell him her true feelings. Make it big, and melodramatic, but above all, make it tragic.  Because that’s the only way Snape works as a character. Always.

The better ship you should be doing: Ginny X Nevil or Luna x Nevil: You want tragic lovers, at school, with divided loyalties, who never get together in the main cannon because a Potter ruins it and gets the girl? Ginny X Nevil. Write what was happening that final year Harry wasn’t at school when they took Dumbledore’s Army and make it work in earnest. Heck, you could even have Snape, as headmaster, hated by them but secretly trying to protect them as a secondary character to their secret, forbidden love. You don’t want to break up Harry X Ginny? Luna X Nevil is sweet and wholesome, but also tragic as they never get a chance, having their school life taken over by the horror of that final year and the need to fight for their very souls in a school run by Death Eaters and the trauma of the Battle of Hogwarts meaning that in order to put away the past and move on, they need to leave each other behind. Hell, do an AU where they canonically end up together, why not? They deserve happiness.

 Dean / Sam AKA Wincest (Supernatural)

Why I hate this ship: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. Several times.

How you could (sort of) fix this ship: You can’t: They’re brothers. The show even makes a joke about how squick this is. I guess a body-swap arc could fix this, as it’s less squicky if its just their bodies with someone else’s minds,  but seriously, the reasons why this shouldn’t exist are extensively covered in the show, and it was hilarious.  To be honest, I don’t hate this ship done as a joke, but I have seen some dark spots on the internet, and I can say with all honesty it’s not always treated as a joke. Some folks are really invested in this, and all I can ask is, is your home life okay?

Now, done as a joke, I’m 110% behind this. This is exactly the sort of insane wacky bullshit that makes for a good crack-fic. For example imagine that the supernatural threat of the week was book that made anything written in it come true, and the brothers are trying to find and destroy it, but they keep getting distracted by their burgeoning romantic feelings for each-other, and suddenly realise that the owner of the book is a fan on the in-universe novels, and writing slash-fic in the book. They need to find the writer before they make them do something they’ll both regret, but it’s just so distracting when Sam’s beautiful eyes are right there and- dammit, Sam, it’s happening again! Make Sam less concerned and even a little amused, with it, but make Dean hate what’s going on. Especially when the writer’s description suddenly makes Sam noticeably better hung that him. Make the villain turn out to be Becky from “Sympathy for the devil” and end with them trying to take the book away as she writes frantically to force them to do her bidding, and you’ve got yourself a good fic.

The better ship you should be doing: Cas/Sam or Cas/Dean or Cas/Sam AND Dean fic. Duh. Once again the show-runners beat the fans to the mark and pointed out that this is the best ship, and then they took it away just to fuck with us.

 Any Katniss ship that ignores her obsession with Emotional Security Logic. (The Hunger Games)

Why I hate these ships: Katniss is, briefly put, a mess before the books ever start, her father’s death and harsh upbringing have arguably given her PTSD before she ever volunteers for the reaping, and it doesn’t get better from there.  In psychology, Emotional Security Theory (EST) is a hypothesis that the heightened emotions surrounding repeated violent exposures leaves children vulnerable to dysregulated distress responses and eventual psychopathology, aka, why Kat be so messed up.  Her internal monologue makes the books completely clear that her choice in partners is not motivated by normal affections, but by deep, deep fear. A fear of loss, abandonment and death that leads her to make every decision about what minimises her, and her sister’s, exposure to potential physical and emotional harm. It’s frantic, fraught, cold survivalist thinking. And the other characters in the book notice and acknowledge it! “Which of us will she pick?” “She’ll pick whoever she can’t survive without.” Kat doesn’t like herself for it, but she does eventually admit to herself that she makes her decisions like this.

How do we fix this ship: Ship Kat with whoever you like, but give her a good reason to pick them: and in Kat’s mind “A good reason” is based on Emotional Security Logic, she needs to have a pressing reason why this ship makes her and her sister safer. Do that, and you’ve got yourself a good Katniss story. Don’t do that, and while you may or may not have a good story, the person staring in it isn’t Katniss Everdeen anymore.

The better ship you should be writing: Finick X Annie. Or, Haymitch prequel ships

FinAnn. This, this ship has some real potential to it, and is criminally underutilized. Finick and Annie’s relationship is one of the most tragic and romantic in the story, and has so much to offer. Or, if you want to have a hard-bitten character from district 12 struggling with trying to find love in the hellish combat of the games, do a prequel in which Haymitch finds love in the capitol during training, but loses then in the area and turns to drink as a result. Heck, you could even have some fun with this and turn it into a dark comedy, or a great tragic love story, whatever you like. It’s got potential, and his backstory is vague enough you could do a lot with it.

So, tell me below why I’m wrong, and have fun with your writing: just because I hate that ship doesn’t mean you should. Enjoy yourselves.

I’m off to write awful Ax/Pina/Luna Polyjuice’d into Nevil/Cas/Finick fiction set at an anime high-school that fights a magical war against other fictional schools, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[ojcobsessed]

oliver jackson-cohen for flaunt magazine, by jessica romoff, july 2019

***

The first horror movie I ever saw was The Exorcist on my grandmother’s RCA console TV, midnight on Christmas Eve. My grandmother is a Catholic Portuguese woman who was devout to cross stitching and Jesus Christ, resulting in crucifixes nailed into every wall of the living room. So, as every flash and jolt from the TV screen would animate the tortured figurines with chilling white light, I prepared in panic and thrill for each one to flip upside down.

Not only did this movie ignite my passionate love for horror, but actor Oliver Jackson Cohen’s passion as well. Mine lead me to accumulating random 70’s slasher movie memorabilia and sporadic nightmares, while Cohen’s lead him to eventually being the star of hit Netflix horror miniseries The Haunting of Hill House as his character Luke Crain, with a few nightmares as well. The 10 episode show is a modern reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s novel “Hill House” and follows the Crain family during the summer they lived in the haunted home, and flashes forward on their lives decades after the tragic events.

During a phone interview with him, I learned Cohen is much more than just a dedicated actor with a jawline that can cut glass; Cohen is a whirlpool of empathy, an artist who gushes his heart into everything he does, and demands that his character Luke, and those battling with similar struggles, are portrayed more than just their addiction.

With your role in last season, I was really impressed by how you portrayed a character with drug addiction, and how you refrained from making him a stereotypical, one dimensional person - and I was wondering how you avoided leaning on this cliche when approaching Luke?

Thank you, number one, I think we all have seen drug addicts portrayed in movies and tv shows before. Most of the time, they are always portrayed as their addiction, and I don’t think that’s very true for anyone who knows anyone who has substance abuse problems; there is actually a fucking person there. So it was very clear from the get-go that I had a responsibility to present a fully formed human being, and they actually brought in a specific writer to write Luke’s character- who was a heroin addict in recovery. I said to Mike, the director and creator of the show - before we even started that it’s very important that Luke is the sum of all his parts and is not just his addiction. So I think that the way I approached it, is that when I first began doing all the research and the pre-work before we started filming, I started looking at documentaries, because I had never done heroin before, so I thought, Oh I’ll start looking at documentaries - but then I realized quite early on that that was putting a judgement on him. And I don’t think it’s fair - because behind anyone who has fallen into this trap is someone who is deeply struggling. And I felt it - I felt a huge amount of, not pressure, but a need to show the person behind the addiction and show the person who is actually struggling, and why he had become an addict. So I focused on that - so I spent no time whatsoever seeing Lucas as a drug addict; I saw him as someone who was struggling to come to terms with everything that he had experienced and happened in his life. And so I focused on anyone who is trying to numb themselves, that know they’re running away from something. So I built up the terror of that, instead of focusing on “I need my fix.”

Was there something that happened in your own life, that was out of your control and not your fault, but regardless someone judged you because of that - perhaps driving your connection to Luke’s character?

Oh 100 percent, and that’s what is so interesting, because I don’t have a substance abuse problem - but I think that out of all the characters I have ever played in the past 10 years, there’s the most of me in Luke. Like, all of that stuff of just trying to function, and the vulnerability, and just trying to be normal, and being so ashamed - all of that is my own shit, and so [laughs] I didn’t need to be a heroin addict to understand the pain that he was going through, so, so much. I think it’s incredible getting to play someone like that because, in a weird way it felt like therapy - I was able to go to work everyday and just be all the parts of myself. I think it’s interesting as well for men, there’s this whole thing about having to be a certain way, having to always be strong, and I think inherently a lot of people do feel incredibly fragile. So all of that stuff of Luke is me, and my stuff, and I didn’t have to pretend - I just got to go to work and be as vulnerable as I feel. You know we all have incredibly complicated lives and incredibly complicated upbringings,  and I used all of my stuff: I was diagnosed with PTSD a couple of years ago so all of that is in there with Luke - and it felt incredibly cathartic to be able to kind of put it all out there and be there.

When your work is something that is so emotionally rigorous, and strenuous, it must be very draining dedicating yourself to a character who is really struggling his whole life  - How do you unwind and decompress from this intensity?

[Laughs] I….you know what, I’m not very good at it. I feel like I’m one of those people, I’m sort of with the school of thought that you either go to work and you fucking do it  - and you do it for real, or go home. I’m not into this whole I’ll just pretend! thing, so it’s probably not the healthiest way of working. But I feel it’s necessary, and then I don’t know how to handle it. There were a couple of days on set where specifically we were filming all of Luke’s episodes or the stuff where he’s sort of roaming the streets - that got way too intense. We would rap at 6 am and I would go back to my house and sleep for a bit, and then wake up and just be so out of sorts: I would have to call people at home to reassure me that everything was okay.

I imagine the intensity can be overwhelming

Yeah, I mean, it sounds really wonky - but I think that when you’re messing around with stuff like that, and you’re tricking your brain into thinking something is real, and then on top of that you’re drawing from your own personal well of shit that probably should be kept untouched - it’s gonna be messy at times. So yeah, it gets… it did get a little hairy. But again I felt that it was important - and I think all of us across the board in the cast felt that it was so important to do that - to give Luke a voice. And what’s been so interesting when the show came out, it was so overwhelming, the response, specifically from people that have struggled with addiction. And it was so warming to hear these stories from people, so I think it was necessary for all of us as actors to go to those dark parts of ourselves, and put that out on screen.

Is there something that you wish you knew before you began acting in a horror TV series? Or about a TV series with intense family drama with horror influence?

Hm..I don’t know. Just… it’s all good. [laughs] it’s gonna be all good.

Honestly, that’s pretty solid universal advice. And I was wondering, are you a fan of horror in general?

Yes! Huge

And is this a genre that you want to continue with?

Yes, I had never done anything horror before, so this was a dream. I remember I watched The Exorcist when I was like eight or something, and it completely terrified me - and I still to this day have nightmares about it. I think what’s so clever about horror, and I think specifically with what Mike has done on our show, it becomes a metaphor for something else. So specifically with Hill House, if you take away the house and all the ghosts and all the horror elements, it’s about childhood trauma. So you can swap out what all those kids went through, the horror they experienced, can be swaped out for sexual abuse, or physical abuse, or anything like that. So you manage to kind of navigate all of these horrific things we kind of don’t want to look at, in the veil of ghosts, so it becomes palatable for an audience. I never knew this, Netflix told me this, that horror is the most watched genre in the whole world.

Really!?

Across the board, yeah! I thought it would be comedy. But that’s why Netflix made the show. Because they realized that actually there was such a massive market for horror. So yeah, a really long winded answer to your short question - yes I was a fan of horror, I always have been.

Me too! I’ve never thought about how horror can be a metaphor for trauma. That’s so fascinating. Just one last question - I know that you can’t say too much about the second season… right? Or they’ll shoot you.

Right [laughs]

So, see if you can answer this: if Season 1 and Season 2 were mythical creatures, what would they be?

[Laughs] What would they be… ahhh...I genuinely don’t know how to answer that question. They’re both just beasts from the darkest corners of our minds. Season 1…. Uh… what I can say - is that season 1 I believe was amazing, and with what they’re doing with season 2 is even…. More incredible.

[sweet-evie]

you would probably be able to go on forever answering this (and honestly i would love something like the way u did when u answered if he loved shirley or kallen more after cc.. if it's not too much trouble for you 😅) but what convinced you that lelouch loves cc the most out of all the other girls (shirley & kallen)? taking just the series into consideration first then the movie. thank u!

Lol true 🤣😂 I could ramble forever.

And if it's about CLuCLu? 🤭😅😂 You better be ready for a lengthy (and I mean lengthy) essay. 😍���

As for who Lelouch loves the most? 

I'm not so sure I would say C.C...

Canonically speaking, that would be Nunnally... And then probably Suzaku (platonically & shipping aside).

It's honestly not so much as I think he loves C.C. the most, it's just the ship that's to my taste. I mean, it's pretty obvious he cared about everyone he had personal relationships with. And I'm not Lelouch so I can't give a definitive answer. Lelouch is so complicated. 🙉😂

We could look at the subtle affection between them though 🤣😂😅 And why Lelouch & C.C. are soooo compatible (in my humble opinion).

But before we do... 

Let’s dive into the background.

And let's address the elephant in this essay.

C.C. betrayed Lelouch by lying to him for the majority of the series.

Okay... But do we understand why?

This is why I don't outright judge any character in Code Geass, because they all have a reason for doing what they do... well, the main cast anyway.

I saw this in a translation of the official texts... 

C.C. is the kind of code bearer who is torn between wanting to die or fulfilling her true wish. She purposely makes her contractors hate her for the sake of making it easier for them to take her code and kill her one day. (Which is why Mao doesn't work. Because he's too obsessed with her to kill her). Because she's desperate to die, and end her suffering. But let's not forget that she also has a secret wish: to be loved... 💝💘❤💗

Throughout R1 (and you only realize this after you watch the series in its entirety) and most of R2, C.C. is hellbent on making sure she dies that time around (especially because Lelouch shows so much promise and potential for ending her existence). Now why would I say that?

She deliberately lies to Lelouch and withholds information from him to make him hate her. So it would be easy to kill her and she gets to die, and he walks off happy without emotional baggage or trauma... In C.C.'s POV, that's a win-win. Her hypothetical scenario looks something like, "I make you hate me, that way when the time comes, you can kill me easily. I finally end my hell of immortality, and you get to live forever, although you may hate it one day like I did."

But you know what's fucking sad?

Aside from living on and on and having accumulated experiences and seeing the world and finding the entire point of life pointless and hopeless, the romantic part of me strongly believes C.C. wants to die because she 1) gives up on life and 2), she doesn't think anyone can truly love her after everything. She may have been hopeful, probably in the early years of immortality, but after everything she's been through, it's fucking impossible.

That might as well be canon. 😆 For all I know, it probably is. 🙉🤷‍♀️

Anyway, back to the point before I went on a weird tangent...

Remember, C.C. even asks him that question outright when they were in the Avalon. Remember? Kallen cockblocked them 🤣🤣😂😂

She asked if he hated her after everything she'd done to him (contextually speaking, & not the actual C.C. quote)

Anyway, when Lelouch finds out the terms of the contract... what happens?

He's moved by empathy... Because in his words, "Living just to die is so sad." He's too damn kind. C.C.'s intentions and plans BACKFIRE. It was in this moment that I believe Lelouch starts to understand (like truly 💯 understand) the depth of C.C.'s sadness and her personal tragedy.

He already started doing so in R1 when he saw her many deaths and he said he'll be a demon because she's a witch.

This series has reaffirmed the nature of their relationship as accomplices and partners plenty of times. First it was C.C. reiterating that in early R1, then Lelouch affirms it after the Mao-shooting-C.C.-in-Clovisland incident, and then the one I mentioned where they said they'd be a warlock/demon & a witch.

Now we circle back to R2, where Lelouch learns her true wish and gets to really see her. Like, C.C. in her entirety. From former slave-girl, to Geass-wielder, and then code-bearer.

Their complicated-turned-wholesome relationship has a slow and subtle build-up that mounts to, dare I say, a satisfying conclusion. For me anyway.

Because in the end, Lelouch did motivate C.C. to start living again. And C.C. stuck with Lelouch even if she didn't have to.

And he came to death smiling. 🥺😭

CG isn't about romance.

But if it did have an element of explicit romance between C.C. and Lelouch, I wouldn't have had complaints. It could have been a tragedy still, and I would be happy with it.

“C.C. didn't have to struggle as much for Lelouch's affection and that she got everything handed to her in a silver platter.” <-------- WRONG!

I do believe Lelouch bounces between hating C.C. and needing her. Like a fucking spectrum. And until her true self is revealed to him, I don't think Lelouch saw C.C. as a human being. Just another means to an end.

Lelouch & C.C.'s relationship is as bumpy as Lelouch & Suzaku's, albeit more subtle in its complications. Obviously, the SuzaLuLu dynamic is more fleshed out compared to CLuCLu because duh, CG is Lelouch & Suzaku's story. 😅

I can literally point out every moment where Lelouch is hating on C.C., and when you can tell he's desperate for her help and her presence. (But that's for another post 😂😂) Point is, he does it plenty of times that it's obvious their relationship is far from lovey-dovey hearts and rainbows.

So no, any sliver of implied romance between them is neither forced nor instant. There 👏 was 👏 build 👏 up! 👏

If CLuCLu romance was an actual thing in the show, it would have been so interesting to see the progression.

It's built on a slow but steady train to Love Land 🤣😂 Slow burn at its finest, as I imagine it would have taken two seasons before either Lelouch or C.C. would fess up and confess. Hell, it took them 2 seasons to care about each other deeply in all reality.

If it were a real shoujo romance, it would have been built on a unique trust... you know, the kind that only crops up when you've seen each other's lowest points and still choose to support one another. Unconditional love and all that 🤪🥳

It's not a stretch to say that Suzaku and C.C. saw plenty of moments where Lelouch was at his lowest, rawest moments. Moments where he strips himself of pride and his façade, and he caves to his burdens.

Lovely example of this is the C's World episode,

Also this scene where he calls and begs Suzaku to protect Nunnally...

And the times Lelouch grieves and despairs in C.C.'s presence.

They even added that lovely scene in the Recaps where he's despairing over Suzaku being Lancelot's pilot and having to fight his best friend. And C.C. is there offering him her advice and being the realistic voice.

A Brief Opinion on Re;surrection

The ending of Re;surrection was truly the closing of unfinished business between him and C.C... and as messy as that movie was, I still love that they touched on the profound meaning behind the names C.C. and Lelouch choose for themselves.

Re;surrection is Lelouch & C.C.'s moment 💯! CLuCLu fanservice at its finest. It's actually a decent (not great) alternate route if Lelouch lives after being killed. Plus, it's kind of obvious now that Re;surrection and the Recap films set it up to be CLuCLu end-game.

Still, it could have gone differently. Lelouch could have stayed behind and let C.C. leave. He had a choice. No one was asking Lelouch to go, and C.C. certainly wasn't goading him into leaving with her. Plus, it's obvious people wanted him to stay. Suzaku and Nunnally especially.

So of all the people he could have chosen to be with at the end of that movie, why her then?

Well, probably because C.C. really does know him and understand him on a level that's not easily achievable by many. Only matched by Suzaku, really. (Even Nunnally could admit to never really understanding Lelouch because her older brother shielded her as much as he could from being touched by the true cruelty of the world).

She wasn't handed his affection on a silver platter and vice versa. It's a relationship that developed mutual trust and understanding, even paving the way to noble sacrifice. Also, their sass is fucking on point.

And honestly, ever since Lelouch chose Geass and his path of blood, he wasn't exactly tethered to the world like a normal human being would be anymore. Both the original and alternate timeline express that wonderfully.

After everything he'd been through and the kind of power he'd acquired (both in the original & alternate timeline), I'd say he now exists on a level that's a little bit on par with C.C... Whether he wanted it or not, he tied his own fate to C.C.'s, in a way, when he accepted that contract and by making the choices that he did.

With that said,

In comparison to the main characters shipped with Lelouch -- Shirley, Kallen, and Euphemia -- C.C. (and Suzaku, honestly) have the edge for a romance with Lelouch. (According to my opinion! 👏👏👏)

Lelouch and Suzaku are opposites... Moon & Sun

Lelouch and C.C. are complements... Moon & Star

I know that's fucking cheesy 🧀🧀🧀 But it's the only metaphor I can think of. 😆😅 (Also, can you tell how pro-SuzaCLuCLu I am?)

All of that ⬆️ got me on board the CLuCLu train. And honestly, I don't want to leave.

[maddie-grove]

The Top Twenty Books I Read in 2020

My main takeaways:

I’m glad that I set certain reading goals this year (i.e., reading an even mix of different genres and writing about each book I read on this tumblr). I feel like it really expanded my horizons.

There are a lot of proper names on my Top 20 list this year, which possibly means something about identity? That, or I just tried to read more Victorian novels. 

Be horny, and be kind.

Now...

20. The White Mountains by John Christopher (1967)

In a world ruled by unseen creatures who roam the countryside in tall metal tripods, all humans are “capped” (surgically fitted with metal plates on their heads) at age fourteen. Thirteen-year-old Will Parker looks forward to becoming a man, but a conversation with a mysterious visitor to his village raises a few doubts. This early YA dystopia has gorgeous world-building (notably a trip to the ruins of Paris) and expert pacing. The choices Will has to make are also more surprising and complicated than I ever anticipated.

19. What Happened at Midnight by Courtney Milan (2013)

John Mason wants revenge on his fiancée Mary after she skips town following her father’s death...apparently with the funds that her father, John’s business partner, embezzled from their company. When he tracks her down, though, she’s working as a lady’s companion to the wife of a controlling gentleman who refuses to pay her wages, and John’s fury turns to sympathy and curiosity. This is a smart, well-plotted Victorian-set novella about a couple who builds a better relationship after a rocky start.

18. Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes (1943)

It’s 1773, and fourteen-year-old Bostonian Johnny Tremain has it all: a promising apprenticeship to a silversmith, the run of his arguably senile master’s household, and...unresolved grief over his widowed mother’s death? When a workplace “accident” ruins his hand and career, though, he must “forge” a new identity. Despite its jingoism and surfeit of historical exposition, I fell in love with this weird early YA novel. It’s a fascinating, heartbreaking portrayal of disability and ableism, and, to be fair, Forbes was just jazzed about fighting the Nazis.

17. Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf by Hayley Krischer (2020)

After universally beloved jock Sean Nessel rapes starry-eyed junior Ali Greenleaf at a party, his queen-bee friend Blythe Jensen agrees to smooth things over by befriending his victim. Ali knows Blythe’s motives are weird and sketchy, but being friends with a popular, exciting girl is preferable to dealing with the fallout of the rape. This YA novel is a complex, astute exploration of trauma and moral responsibility.

16. The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (2017)

Rothstein details how the federal U.S. government allowed, encouraged, and sometimes even forcibly brought about segregation of black and white Americans during the early and mid-twentieth century, with no regard for the unconstitutionality of its actions. He brings home the staggering harm to black Americans who were kept from living in decent housing, shut out of home ownership for generations, and denied the opportunity to accumulate wealth for generations. It’s an impactful read, and I was honestly shocked to learn Rothstein isn’t a lawyer, because the whole thing reads like an expansion of an excellent closing statement.

15. My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (2012)

In this graphic memoir, Backderf looks back on his casual, fleeting friendship with future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, a high school classmate who amused Backderf and his geeky friends with bizarre, chaotic antics. Backderf brings their huge, impersonal high school to life, illustrating how the callousness and cruelty of such an environment allowed an isolated, troubled teen to morph into something much more disturbing without anyone really noticing. It’s a work of baffled, tentative empathy and regret that stayed with me long after I finished it.

14. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876)

Gwendolyn Harleth, beautiful and ambitious but with no real outlet, finds herself compelled to marry a heartless gentleman with a shady past. Daniel Deronda, adopted son of her husband’s uncle, finds himself drawn into her orbit due to his helpful nature, but he’s also dealing with a lot of other stuff, like helping a Jewish opera singer and figuring out his parentage. I love George Eliot and, although this bifurcated novel isn’t her most accessible work, it’s highly rewarding. The psychological twists and turns of Gwendolyn’s story are a wonder to experience, and Daniel’s discovery of his past and a new community is moving.

13. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)

The Roths, an ordinary working-class Jewish family in 1940 Newark, find their quiet lives descending into fear, uncertainty, and strife after Charles Lindbergh, celebrity pilot and Nazi sympathizer, becomes president of the United States. This alternate history/faux-memoir perfectly captures the slow creep of fascism and the high-handed cruelty of state-sanctioned discrimination, as well as the weirdness of living a semi-normal life while all of that is going on. Also: fuck Herman and Alvin for messing up Bess’s coffee table! She is a queen, and she deserves to read Pearl S. Buck in a pleasant setting!

12. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (1850)

Young David Copperfield has an idyllic life with his sweet widowed mom and devoted nursemaid Peggotty, until his cruel stepfather ruins everything. David eventually manages to find safe harbor with his eccentric aunt, but his troubles have only begun. Although the quality of the novel falls off a little once David becomes an adult, I don’t even care; the first half is one of the most beautiful, funny, brilliantly observed portrayals of the joys and sorrows of childhood that I’ve ever read.

11. The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve by Stephen Greenblatt (2017)

Greenblatt examines the evolution and cultural significance of the story of Adam and Eve from the Bible to the modern day (but mostly it’s about Milton). I can’t speak to the scholarship of this book--I’m not an expert on the Bible or Milton or bonobos--but I do know that it’s a gorgeously written meditation on love, mortality, and free will. Greenblatt brought me a lot of joy as an unhappy teenager, and he came through for me again during the summer of 2020.

10. The Music of What Happens by Bill Konigsberg (2019)

Self-conscious seventeen-year-old Jordan is mortified when his widowed mother hires Max, an outgoing jock from his school, to help out with their struggling food truck. As they get to know each other, though, they realize that they have more in common than they thought, and they end up helping each other through a particularly challenging summer. This is an endearing, exceedingly well-balanced YA romance that tackles serious issues with a light touch and a naturalness that’s rare in the genre.

9. Red as Blood by Tanith Lee (1983)

In nine wonderfully lurid stories, Tanith Lee retells fairy tales with a dark, historically grounded, and lady-centered twist. Highlights include a medieval vampiric Snow White, a vengeful early modern Venetian Cinderella, and a Scandinavian werewolf Little Red Riding Hood. Fairy tale retellings are right up my alley, and Lee’s collection is impressively varied and creative.

8. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (1908)

Unnerved by an impulsive make-out session with egalitarian George Emerson on a trip to Florence, young Edwardian woman Lucy Honeychurch goes way too far the other way and gets engaged to snobbish Cecil Vyse. How can she get out of this emotional and social pickle? This is an absolutely delightful romance that gave a timeless template for romantic comedies and dramas for 100-plus years.

7. My Ántonia by Willa Cather (1918)

Jim Burden, a New York City lawyer, tells the story of his friendship with slightly older Bohemian immigrant girl Ántonia when they were kids together on the late-nineteenth-century Nebraska prairie. It was a pretty pleasant time, give or take a few murders, suicides, and attempted rapes. This is one of the sweetest stories about unrequited love I’ve ever read, and it has some really enjoyable queer subtext.

6. Mister Death’s Blue-Eyed Girls by Mary Downing Hahn (2012)

In 1956 Maryland, gawky teen Nora’s peaceful existence is shattered by the unsolved murder of her friends Cheryl and Bobbi Jo right before summer vacation. Essentially left to deal with her trauma alone, she begins to question everything, from her faith in God to the killer’s real identity. Hahn delivers a beautiful coming-of-age story along with a thoughtful portrait of how a small community responds to tragedy.

5. The Lais of Marie de France by Marie de France, with translation and introduction/notes by Robert Herring and Joan Ferrante (original late 12th century, edition 1995) 

In twelve narrative poems, anonymous French-English noblewoman Marie de France spins fantastically weird tales of love, lust, and treachery. Highlights include self-driving ships, gay (?) werewolves, and more plot-significant birds than you can shake a stick at. Marie de France brings so much tenderness, delicacy, and startling humor to her stories, offering a wonderful window to the distant past.

4. Maus by Art Spiegelman (1980-1991)

In this hugely influential graphic novel/memoir, Art Spiegelman tells the story of how his Polish Jewish parents survived the Holocaust. He portrays all the characters as anthropomorphic animals; notably, the Jewish characters are mice and the Nazi Germans are cats. I read the first volume of Maus back in 2014 and, while I appreciated and enjoyed it, I didn’t get the full impact until I read both volumes together early in 2020. Spiegelman takes an intensely personal approach to his staggering subject matter, telling the story through the lens of his fraught relationship with his charismatic and affectionate, yet truly difficult father. 

3. At the Dark End of the Street by Danielle L. McGuire (2010)

McGuire looks at a seldom-explored aspect of racism in the Jim Crow South (the widespread rape and sexual harassment of black women by white men) and the essential role of anti-rape activism led by black women during the Civil Rights movement. This is a harrowing yet tastefully executed history, and it’s also a truly inspirational story of collective activism.

2. In for a Penny by Rose Lerner (2010)

Callow Lord Nevinstoke has to mature fast when his father dies, leaving him an estate hampered by debts and extremely legitimate grievances from angry tenant farmers. To obtain the necessary funds, he marries (usually!) sensible brewing heiress Penelope Brown, but they face problems that not even a sizable cash infusion can fix. This is a refreshingly political romance with a deliciously tense atmosphere and fascinating themes, as well as an almost painfully engaging central relationship.

1. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814)

Fanny Price, the shy and sickly poor relation of the wealthy Bertram family, is subtly mistreated by most of her insecure and/or self-absorbed relatives, with the exception of her kind cousin Edmund. When the scandalous Crawford siblings visit the neighborhood, though, it shakes up her life for good and ill. I put off reading Mansfield Park for years--it’s practically the last bit of Austen writing that I consumed, including most of her juvenilia--and yet I think it’s my favorite. Fanny is an eminently lovable and interesting heroine, self-doubting and flawed yet possessed of a strong moral core, and the rest of the characters are equally realistic and compelling. Austen really made me think about the point of being a good person, both on a personal and a global scale.

[naseemredhorn]

Why Hotboi is a War Criminal

I’ve seen a lot of shitty Essek takes in the last week but I’m gonna break down why it is Essek is an actual war criminal and why this whole “you’re broken too” line of thinking is bullshit. Understand that I’m not blaming the cast, nor do I hate or am quitting Critical Role, and while I may make some real life comparisons, I’m aware this is just a piece of fiction and I’m engaging with it that way.

1) “Essek is just like the M9, he is as hurtful and broken as they are”

The M9′s biggest crimes don’t even come close to Essek’s. Caleb, who has been beating himself up for a decade, killed two people under duress and conditioning of a mentor. The extent to which he was in control of his own actions is unknown but it doesn’t change the fact that he was manipulated to perform his greatest sin. The same can be said for Yasha under the control of Obann, how much she did what she did is unclear, but she was clearly manipulated at a low point in her life to kill her tribe that already had killed her wife. The other members of the M9 don’t come close: Beau, Fjord, and Nott’s damage all come from other people mistreating and abandoning them and feeling unworthy of having good things occur to them. Cad and Jester aren’t even bad people, at worst they’re annoying or weird but not harmful. They have damage due to putting other people’s problems ahead of their own consistently.

Essek facilitated the death, torture, and displacement of thousands of lives. He ordered Veth’s husband’s kidnapping and oversaw his torture. He left an Empire loyalist to die for treason he committed. And he didn’t do it for anything moral, just his own personal advancement in wizardry.

Essek’s damage isn’t due to someone hurting him or him not feeling worthy, it’s a reasonable guilty response to the harm he did and chose to do for HIS OWN BENEFIT. That’s the big divider here, even in the M9′s mostly morally gray actions, they often are acting on the behalf of someone else (Jester’s mom is getting threatened by a guy? Convince him to leave the continent. Fjord might be cursed by this sea entity? Let’s find it what it wants) as opposed to profiting themselves. Essek was fine throwing thousands under the bus so that he could walk away with more knowledge and power.

2) “But Essek is a little 90-year old baby boy, he’s practically a kid by elf standards”

This has got to be the worst one. There is a difference between the cultural expectations of age and the accumulation of knowledge over time. If you and your people lived for 1000 years, you would be expected to, by the midpoint of your life, reach a level of maturity, knowledge, and wisdom that would be unrealistic for anyone to expect out a human being. Relative to that standard, Essek isn’t too old but it doesn't change that he has had 90 years of lived experiences and knowledge that lets him know with much more certainty than the Nein what the reactions of the continent would be to his choices. Essek is a fully grown adult, more so than any of the Nein. Keyleth has a similar life span and she despised being called a child because of course she did, she had experiences to draw from even if relatively she was only in the beginning parts of her life. The same goes for Essek.

3) “It’s about forgiveness, not what he did.”

The Mighty Nein cannot forgive Essek. Essek is their friend and they are sympathetic to him, not to the people he killed. When the war comes to the Nein, they get to teleport away and not have to deal with it. They hear about it occasionally and worry about someone close to them even more rarely. For everyone else? They have to rough out the war. 

The Mighty Nein are not Essek’s victims and they don’t get to say he shouldn’t feel bad or be punished for the death he made happen.

What this sounds like to me, is honestly the legacy of imperialism and the culture of imperialist reaction to the reality of war. Soldiers in imperialist countries often come back complaining about the trauma they faced committing the atrocities they did for the sake of their country’s profit and they are showered in praise, understanding, and empathy for their suffering. But the people they actually killed and hurt are forgotten, their emotions don’t matter or if it does, it matters in the vague moral sense, not in the way that something should actually be done or the perpetrator should have to suffer some form of recompense. It’s a narrative that’s showed itself on the news countless times and I suppose it was only inevitable that I would see it reflected in media that I respected and hoped for better from.

[asoiaf-source]

Fighting Hate with more Hate. That always works, right?

“Sansa’s fans are so defensive of her because of the rest of the fandom demonize her and hate her for no reason.” - helenakey

So then the answer is to demonize the other women characters for no reason?

Of course there are going to be ‘fans’ that hate on a character for no reason, I’ve seen people post unnecessary and unreasonable hate on many of the characters, not just Sansa, and they can be as annoying, but they are not representative of the entire fandom. Not ALL fans are hating on her, and some are just looking at the character critically. I’m new to the tumblr metas (avoided for a long time due to the toxic reputation), but i’ve been on ASOIAF forums for a long time and there are plenty of Sansa supporters, even if she is still quite a polarizing character due to how people wish to interpret her... but Sansa stans on tumblr take it to the next level!

I’ve never seen this side of her fans before, or at least so much nearly every day, and subsequently the many rebuttals! And how often they like throwing other characters under the bus, often for hypocritical reasons. Like the OP yendany said, they ignore the trauma in other characters or dismiss it as not as bad, when it is often much, much worse. They criticize and attack other female characters to prop up Sansa ‘better’ survival skills, or attribute qualities to her she doesn’t possess (I see this a lot in fanfiction, before I realized the self-insert aspect), or use her age as excuse when all the main characters are young or even younger than her. The line porcelain to ivory to steel... can really apply to any character that has to grow up and face the harsh realities of the world... so it is really hypocritical to think Sansa is special in some way for overcoming her situation, all the characters are going through the same struggle, and many have it much worse. That is where I think so much of the anti-sansa stans come from, the hypocrisy and the tearing down of other just as deserving of sympathy/empathy characters, especially other women characters. It is a weird juxtaposition, that anyone with a reasonable sense of objectivity can pick up on and often do.

I mostly see it done against Arya and Dany, the two more prominent female characters in the books (thus the 2 who draw more focus than #3 Sansa?). The two female characters GRRM is telling a lot of his story through and spending a large amount of the text (right from book 1) to develop their growth as characters and showcase their strengths, intelligence, determination, fortitude, agency, cleverness, resilience and so much more. It’s as if because the other women are not ‘pure’ or see themselves that way and stronger in personality and character that somehow their suffering doesn’t affect them as much because they are tougher and didn’t let anything that happened to them stop them from growing stronger. They aren’t dwelling in victim-hood too long before they pick themselves back up and move forward.

And yet, they cheer when Sansa starts to grow stronger... Sansa’s growth has been much slower, we are moving into book 6 and she is just starting to gain a bit of agency, but she is still heavily under the tutelage of Baelish. We will see how far she gains in the next book and if she will break with Baelish by the end of it and be a fully independent player. But her development isn’t nearly on the same scale as Daenerys and Arya. That isn’t to imply that she isn’t going to be important, but it is clear from the text that she is not one of the main focuses for GRRM, or he would have developed her faster and given her more to do. We will see how much ground he can cover in 1-2 books, but there is only so much he will be able to accomplish and have it be believable, especially with so many POVs and story lines that he needs to develop.

I actually think their attempts to (over) defend her backfire, as so many feel the need to point out the falsehoods and misinterpretations, especially when they are wildly mean-spirited and completely refutable by the text. As I traverse through the ASOIAF metas I often come across fans metas writing rebuttals to other posts, to ‘correct’ their conclusion or ‘facts’. I’ve read so many of these they are starting to get repetitive, I also read some of the Sansa-stan posts they are rebutting and, yeah I can see why so many get upset. If you don’t like it when others tears down or dismisses Sansa, why do you think fans of the other characters wouldn’t comment when you go after their favs, especially so mean-spiritedly.

I don’t think I ever felt so much negativity towards the Sansa character until I had to read so many skewed and biased metas turning her into some kind of saintly YA Disney princess type that is just too good for this cruel world. That kind of character has no place in a series like this. You can’t help but want to point out the wild inaccuracies, and it makes me feel a negativity towards a character I didn’t feel negative to before. And I don’t want to feel negative towards her, she is a Stark and I root for the Starks, especially the kids. I often defended her against those who (I feel) just don’t understand what it is like to be a preteen girl, I relate to a lot of Sansa’s weaknesses and how she feels, especially at that age, and that is her appeal (to me) - the fact that she starts off very weak.

Sansa is weak both physically and mentally, she cares too much about rank, privilege, and what others think about her, her desire to conform, for everything to be proper, and properly in their place. She has the luxury to think that way because she is a rich, pretty, noble girl who ranks at the top of society, of course she sees life as great and never questions it... she is already at the top and winning from birth. This is why (I think) she is so hard on Arya, she messes with her idea of what is proper/good/right.  Arya isn’t pretty and doesn’t try to be, she acts more boy than girl, she plays with dirty, smelly, poor children, etc... Those are all an embarrassment to Sansa and go against what a proper lady of her rank should do and care about. Once they head south, all the things Arya gets away with at home will stand out even more and reflect badly on Sansa, by association. So, she criticizes and distances herself even more, because she wants to join the elite glamorous world of the nobility.

The other girls don’t have those weaknesses, that is why they are seen as better able to cope than Sansa does.  They grow quicker and stronger faster because they are not as inhibited by what the ‘rules’ are. This isn’t a criticism of Sansa, this is an observation and I think it is the entire point of including a character like her in the story. GRRM could have followed the original outline for her, but he wanted to ‘reform/rescue’ her character and give her (I hope) a better path back to her family and happiness. I think it is GRRMs way to show how young girls should NOT romanticize noble life or being pretty will lead to a ‘perfect’ life. That thinking of yourself as a lady or being a princess/queen isn’t what is important. That marring a ‘title’ (lord/prince) or a handsome face is not enough to lead to happiness. It is what you do with your life, and how you care about others and who cares about you - that is what is important. But some Sansa fans seem to miss that and want her to have all those thing and more... they want it both ways, her to learn all those things, and yet still get all those things... a beautiful princess life clear of the harsh actions to gain it and also a happy family married to the best, more heroic and honorable man - a fairy tale ending. And that is not ASOIAF.

They are reducing her entire arc to becoming a nicer, more pure, and pretty, prize for a man to love, marry and make their queen. If so, GRRM will botch the ending of his series and all the points he *seems* to be making thus far.

A major theme (to me) in Sansa arc is her lack of value in her home and family. Sansa (to me) is like the small town girl who can’t wait to leave her family / Winterfell behind and to move to the big glamorous city (King’s Landing) and become royalty. But once she got there wasn’t able to accumulate with its more complicated and corrupt realities of the court. Even setting the cruelty of Joffrey aside (he is an aberration, not a normal example), how everyone else ostracizes or ignores her (except the hound, and to some extent Tyrion - although he isn’t all that great). The way the Tyrells treat her before and after her wedding is much more representative of how typical court life and nobility behaves normally (I think). Sansa never saw the true value of being surrounded by people who love and care about YOU and whom you can trust and rely upon - until that is all taken from her. She slowly sees how the people at court are corrupt and deceitful under all the beauty and glamor she so aspired to only after being fooled more than once, and (to me) no longer wants any part of it, but is forced to play, thanks to Baelish.

This is a point I find many of her fan miss, they think Sansa is going to learn to play the game, destroy everyone with her cunning and beauty and rise to the top to be queen or a ruler - a path which will ultimately lead to down a very dark and cynical path... but somehow they think Sansa will be different, and her rise will be more like a Disney princess story, one where she will gain power without having to sink low to do it. That is NOT the kind of book GRRM is writing.

”I’ll make them love me.” - another childish statement, you can’t make people love you, you earn love and respect. And Sansa hasn’t done that once the entire series, she hasn’t made a single friend. No one is looking to follow or fight for/beside Sansa, save Baelish, and we all know that plan is doomed to fail, as he isn’t to be trusted or relied upon and wants to use her. I would even question her friendship with Jeyne Poole as it is clear she never saw them as equals, and that is not real friendship... more like Jeyne was a companion/lady-in-waiting type.

The few people who care about her (other than family) either are working on behalf of an oath to Catelyn, or have their own ambitions/sexual desires/pity for her and not necessarily care about her for herself because she was a good and loyal friend to them. Maybe this will change in the next book, but with Baelish keeping close tabs and guiding her, who knows how well she will be able to make any genuine relationships with others given all the secrets she has to keep.

Her only realistic path to leadership is through marriage and that is hardly giving her agency as a heroic rise to a leader of a men... more like sleeping her way to the top.  Not something I want for Sansa, and I hope her ‘marriage’ to Tyrion works as plot armor against her being used like that.

Besides GRRM has kinda stressed that ‘real’ leadership comes from understanding people, observation, and experience, and not just from strategics marriage (Margaery, Cersei) or inheritance (Joffrey, Tommen, Cersei - she could prove the point all on her own :). Every leader in the book so far has to make compromises, make hard decisions and even make harsh, sometimes very bad decisions and live with those consequences. None of the characters in the series have escaped this as much as Sansa has, since so much of her story thus far is about her lack of agency, and being a pawn used by others (and to some extent she still is with Baelish). For her to make it to the end w/o doing anything and staying ‘pure’ and that is how she ends up on top, by essentially not taking many large personal risks, allowing others to do all the heavy lifting morally, mentally and physically. If winning means standing on the sidelines watching everyone else do the WORK, and just giving suggestive nudges here and there to have things turn out in your favor so you can just coast to the top (that is the Baelish way)... well, that is kinda the worst message GRRM could leave us with.

If GRRM wants Sansa to become a leader, she will have to get her hands dirty too, she will have to take great personal risks to gain power and accept the consequences good or bad that result, learn from them and move forward... otherwise it defeats one of the main points of his series and turns her into a simplistic cliche version of a character.  Every character with a POV has gone through this, it is one of the major themes in ASOIAF, a more realistic, less easy way of looking at how you obtain power and learn by experience and a series of victories and defeats. Thus far Sansa has also avoided examining her actions and how they have affected her, she either never thinks about them, changes the facts to suit her better, or blames others without seeing the part she also played... I’m not blaming her, but her action did contribute to the situation... she never seems to realize this and I feel it is going to eventually hit her hard, she has to mature and grow out of her ‘unreliable narrator’ eventually, and it must lead to something for GRRM to make it such a large part of her narrative of coping with her trauma. I assume he wrote her this way for a reason and is going to do something with it.

I’m looking forward to a darker more realistic Sansa who has more agency and understanding, and I expect her to make her own mistakes and moral compromises (well she already has, but there was some coercion - but it also means she is capable of doing so) just like all the other POVs have had to do. I also look forward to her finally owning up to her past actions and how they also contributed to where she is now. If she can’t take some personal responsibility she will never grow. That is a part of having agency, understanding how your decisions and actions affect you and others.

I wish all the back and forth would stop, cause I’m tired of seeing it in my feeds, but I guess it has been going on for years - the same arguments/rebuttals - so I guess it will continue, even after we get the next book... I think only the completion of the entire series will end some of these arguments, but who knows - after some of the meta I’ve read, there will probably be even more, lol.

Well, I wanted to comment and give my two cents, but it ended up being longer and I guess for me all this is still new and offsetting.  I guess I had more to say that I thought, even though I edited A LOT out because I wanted to keep it focused. I’ve just started to dip my toes into this crazy platform, so I’m sure this is just the tip of the toxic metas that I heard can be found here... can’t wait to read the anti-dany metas... that is sure to fill me with a sad rage as well, i know the show did her no favors, sigh....

[josiepugblog]

Tommy Shelby for the ask game :)

Hi! Thanks :)

Okay...

How I feel about this character: Strongly is an understatement. And this is going to sound very concerning, but I actually identify with Tommy a lot. I mean, hardly at all in terms of the material reality of our lives (thank God), but emotionally I feel like I get Tommy. I too am an utter control freak who struggles to emote enough to make other people comfortable. I enjoy animals more than people and can come off as really cold and distant, especially when I’m uncomfortable. I haven’t killed anyone lol. Seriously though, I love the way in which Tommy challenges a lot of assumptions about people from his background and the way his character represents the profound impact of WW1 on British society. He is also very pretty.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: I’m kind of in the camp of “I will ship anything in the context of a story that sets it up well” so, for example, I don’t have strong Tommy/Alfie feelings in canon, but have read several fics that really worked for me in terms of both their characters. I’ve only really written Tommy/Lizzie and Tommy/Greta but I’m interested in Grace and Mae too. And Freddie. RIP. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Is it weird to put Lizzie for both? Because my favourite thing about their dynamic is the way in which in many ways it isn’t a romantic one, despite them having sex on and off for the last ten years. Mmm that good messy shit. Honestly, it’s a dead heat for me between Tommy & Lizzie, Tommy & Polly, and Tommy & Ada. All very very good. And honestly, despite my occasional frustrations with the treatment of women on this show, there are very few shows I could point to in which the male lead has relationships with three genuinely different and complexly written female characters in a given season. Love all of them. 

My unpopular opinion about this character: Bold of you to assume that I am in any way in touch with popular opinions about anything. Let’s just go with something Tommy himself would probably disagree with. I think that Tommy is naturally deeply empathetic. When he went to War, he was either going to go literally insane or find away to cut himself off emotionally from people. He managed to cut himself off, and now the idea of reforging those connections is debilitatingly painful, not just because he over-empathises anyway, but because so much of that trauma has accumulated that in a lot of ways reconnecting with that part of his humanity leaves him worse off than before. Sorry, Tommy.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I want him to not die at the end. But like, I also don’t really want a happy ending? Basically I want a tragedy that doesn’t end with Tommy’s death and instead focuses on the larger perpetuating cycle of war and class conflict. I want all the pain, but also like a recontextualisation of the classic gangster ending. Because I am a giant nerd who loves angst.

[mariaantonnietta]

My bleach musings.

Bleach is a series I love and somentimes the mood strikes for me to talk about it, so here I will post some theories, thoughts, headcannons and even plot bunnies I've gathered. Of course spoilers ahead.

First, I really like how the whole business with zangetsu ended up for Ichigo, how all inner guiding was rendered fullfilled once he realised the simple truth that both zangetsu's were him. It really gave the impression that he found himself and was finally aware of all his power and how it worked. At the same time, it pains me he never actually explained it or used it fully, I felt dissconected from him, he knew now better than ever what his real power was, and I didn't do at all.

Unpopular opinion, I like the fullbrighter arc, I agree that it was a pain watching it be written at snail pace, and that the total change of setting felt bad then, but reading it again all in one go it's a fantastic piece of mentally torturing your protagonist, so well made how it explores ichigo fears and weak points, with tsukishima exploiting them one by one in a downrall spiral. I found myself wondering how far kubo could break him down...the conclusion here is that it would have been interesting if it went more like this, alas kubo heart is too soft(my is soft too I was relieved he was alright, I just felt the escape from the situation a little cheap. It made sense that people now helped him back, so it's alright) the real conclusion here is that kubo can write psicological pieces if he puts his mind into it.

I want to talk about hollows now, so bear with me. I heard some thing orctwo from the nocels, but I dod not read them and also they're kinda-like canon, so I will try to not mention them or to explain if at any point I get something from them what that is. And if something was explained another way in a novel, then anyways I like my headcanon too.

So, now, my personal hollow theory lesson:

First, hollows are plus that stayed too long in the world of living (generally souls go automatically to siul society, you stay in the living world if you have regrets 'chaining you' there) and whose chain broke with time as these regrets acumulatted, becoming a hollow.

Hollows renounced their hearts to calm the pain, and their remants now form a mask that protects them. Also, they have a hollow left behind that marks their empiness they now feel, they lack humanity and hunger from it. That's why they seek to eat souls, to fill that hole, but they will always remain hungry.

Now we all know some hollows start seeing other's hollows as prey. This has not to do with power level but with a personal thing, I believe. A hollow might always remain a hollow or migth want to eat others and eventually become gillian, and that's intristic on the hollow( think the horse and king discourse here).

Now what happens when someone is eaten by a hollow? Not with their power, with their souls? My headcannon goes as follows:

First do you remember how gillians are said to be hundreds our wills silenced and going numb and adchucas are born from the ones where a voice is stronger than the rest and wants to keep eating? Well, it's always like that. A soul eaten by a hollow becomes part of the hollow, totally suprimed by the primary conscience. They become part of him/her. It's a bit weird, but hear me out. Let's say a shinigami purifies a hollow that has eaten 99 souls. Then all 100 souls are retourned to soul society when they are purified. They return to the balance (quincy wiping out hollows from existance is dramatic) as different souls.

But at the same time, I think these souls do influence the primary mind (the king). Their accumulation does change a little bit the person, even if it's always fundamentally the first soul.

Also, I'm pretty sure there exist two types of eating. The total kind and the partial kind. The total kind gives more power and total control of the soul, the partial is when full can't be done. Partial eating stops the evolution on hollows and twists plusses into hollows of their own.

About shinigamis, I've heard somewhere that they soul reborns in the human world and only their body can be consumed, and at the end it makes a lot of sense. How else will shinigami die?(I think this also goes for anyone living in soul society, they're especially delicious to hollows because they give power but don't add up to the cacophony of voices they are constantly suppressing.(this is probably an instrictual thing they can't turn off)). Aaroniero is an special case like methalasia.

Another thing is that their memories should become murkier the more souls they eat. Hollows all have at least their loved ones on intrinsic memory when they're born (the ones that made you warm the ones you should it) so they all have some memory of their past lives at the start, but it surely gets murkier with more souls eaten. That being said, as hollows are lost souls at their bare, something always lingers with them. About plus souls in soul society, it said the probability is really small, but I think it also depends on who you encounter. If you met your mom when you arrive, you will remember her. (The boy and sado, the boy remembered sado and their promise, because they were connected). The probabilty of such encounter in tour entire lives on soul society is the improbable one, and if you didnt have a strong will to find them as you die I doubt you will even remember they existed. But strong impression might remain, when you don't expect them.

Now going back to hollows, another thing is their masks. It's tabú not only for shinigamis but between hollows themselves to destroy another's mask. (See nelliel reaction to nnoitra destroying her fraccions masks)Also, becoming an arrancar its more inner that destroting a mask, hollow masks grow back when destroyed (nel fraccion, also orihime's brother.)I think is implied by the later that they remember when they were human without it . But he was a new holloow so...what's clear is that they're at their most vulnerable without them, and that it will grow back to protect them. But it may not completely(grim fraccion, nel broken one)...it may cause a trauma that prevents it's vomplete regrow, but is not an advance but a wound, they cover it up. To break your mask to become an arrancar (naturally) must be an inner determination.

About hell, pretty sure hollows always go to soul society, and only can go to hell if they were evil in their human lives too. Soul reapers can go to hell. Also, it can happen that a hollow changes and becomes better and ends up not going to hell. Like, let's say nelliel was an horrible human, now as she changed in hueco mundo she won't end up in hell when she dies, you need to remain a bad person to go to hell.

I have more theories regarding resurrection, the other resurrection, and a lot more things, but this is long enough. Let me give a last thought for now.

Both Aaroniero and Szayel cases interest me, but let's focus a bit on szayel and his brother. I know about what the novel said(the cero espada stuff I find hilarious, it's another number pun: two ceros conjoined made an eight, when they are surperpossed they make again a cero), and what their backstory was in it, but let's ignore it now, even better, let's pretend it's false.

I really find interesting the reality where these two souls encountering is actually accidental.

Tell me, what are the odds, of two souls not only both becoming hollows and managing to miss each other(so the did not eat the other)...but both reaching adjuchas rank(or a adjuchas and a vasto lorde, same thing), and both reuniting, under the same, ambitious man? How infinitessimal the probabilities are? To not be killed by soul reapers or other hollows, to both becoming attracted to eat hollows, to both becoming and active voice in a gillian, to both becoming adjuchas and surviving (and one to vasto lorde if you want)...it's too low to be posible, that's why the novel explamation while not perfect does make more sense, but even so!

I really want to see that scientific face, being so throghtfully confronted by this imposible fate staring right back at him.