#it feels like they genuinely could not come up with a real interpersonal conflict between them so they just came out of left field

[spoiler-alert-andabunchofnumbers]

Anyone else start as a fanfic writer then started writing your own original ideas, and the best way to do it is to write your drafts like fanfiction of your own work? Like that's the only way I get stuff done.

I write a story with the characters I like, write an arc with facts about the world and characters as it becomes relevant, no real point to the scenes except me having fun with a scene I happen to be enjoying. I take a character I wanna have fun with, say "Go do that important thing so we have a plot while you show off how cool you are", then add random ideas that sound generic but fun to act as story beats. They went to a town, they got beat up by monsters, they discovered a super power, they make friends.

I take breaks between writing the story to obsess over other stuff, then come back when I have an epiphany in the shower a month later and quickly resolve the current arc in order to jump them into the next one. Like, there's still continuity, they mention "Hey we just went through something, wanna talk about your feelings?" "Not really man, wanna go on a quest for that Macguffin and uncover our deep-seated issues that way?" "Sure!" But the story follows a barely-connected story beat with side characters and new world building for the new adventure. And then this happens over and over.

Then I come back, one day.

I'm 600 pages into this Sysphian writing style of starting arcs that have barely any organization yet undeniable continuity and I think to myself, "Man, what if I just start the whole thing over now that I know where the story KINDA goes." So I start writing my second draft...like it's a fanfic of my original draft. I can do whatever the hell I want with these quirky facts about the characters, maybe translate one hobby into a backstory, take this tragic fact about the backstory and make it into an actual trait that defines how they react to situations, take these two characters that would TOTALLY get along and make them friends, I can take a character who should be getting introduced way later and just introduce them now!

And then it's...it's good? It's something I would genuinely read without cringing at??

It's got foreshadowing and interpersonal conflict and secret passions and even more secret traumas and it's humorous and the introduction of characters or quests actually seem to...make sense??? Like oh shit there's actually a REASON we want this thing, it's not a Macguffin anymore! Oh crap these two characters who were later revealed to be related can have a really interesting dynamic if I introduce them like they know from the beginning they're related instead of dropping it like the most casual thing ever in an arc 300 pages later??? These two characters are prominent figures so they would likely get along but have SO much sass between their one braincell. Ya know, this guy would be a really great guy for them to talk to in order to solve that weakness they have, but they wouldn't fix it because they don't get along. OH MY GOD I COULD SHIP THESE TWO AND IT WOULD BE PERFECT -

And what I get is a story where a lot of things have changed, mainly plot-wise, but the bare bones of the former story is still there. I think "Would this character know anything about this topic?" and then think "Well I made them an inventor with a backstory like this, so maybe they wouldn't know it directly, but they'd know a famous story about it" or "Yeah, that knowledge works with their backstory. Actually, if I take that thing I can expand it into this whole other thing. Wait, that means they would definitely know this other character. Oh, they would NOT get along with this character, how can I get THEM in the same room?"

Bonus, because my draft is so long, I feel the natural urge to be like "I wanna write the most exciting scene RIGHT NOW, how do I skip over all the fluff to get to the stuff I wanna WORK with" and so I've written a way more interesting hook that feels more natural jumping into the middle of their lives. I don't have to have the long-winded backstory from birth to the present, but now I can have them reference their backstory as more of a mystery to the characters they just meet - who are learning at the same time as the audience. I can think about how this character perceives that backstory and chooses to describe it, how another who was related might see it differently, and make it unclear who had the more accurate recounting since, ya know, I didn't actually write it beat for beat in this version!

The characters sometimes evolve into something completely different from my original telling - and I have NO IDEA how but I'll take it man! I had a shy and nice character get introduced as a more mysterious but knowledgeable and competent character because I had finally figured his personality out later on. He's still a tragic and kind person, but now he's being introduced to someone who doesn't know him and I get to see how yo he would be so much cooler if THIS was the side of him we saw FIRST. This is how he acts to strangers, rather than bearing his heart and true personality on the first go around because in the first draft I just wanted to get to the part where we're already going with his true version.

This is just how I write fanfiction. This character had this thing about them, but what if it was introduced like THIS?!

Basically I'm an AU OC writer at heart. Ask me to pull a story outta my ass and you'll get the equivalent of burnt toast, but ask me to write a fanfic of my own characters and I am a Master Chef in my natural habitat making a buffet. Why does my brain work like this? Am I the only one that does this?

[sushis-brainrot]

I know you are Danish, but as a Dane what do you think of Valhalla as a game? (I’ve always wondered what a local person would think of a representation of their country history). How does it feel seeing your history and potential ancestors on there?

Oh, I could write a novel on this. 😅

Even if Eivor hails from Norway, most Vikings who conquered, settled and raided in England - came from Denmark. A fact you'll oddly enough find most Danes proud of. Nonetheless, AC Valhalla has a super interesting take on it and still manages to apply real historical context - despite the game being fictional. With most Danes being able to track their ancestry back to Odin, and taking pride in their Viking heritage, AC Valhalla had a challenge ahead of them. But I genuinely feel like they've written us a beautiful love letter while staying true to the franchise.

Having grown up with Norse Mythology, though, and having had an insatiable interest in it since my first encounters with it as a child, that is what truly piques my interest. Norse Mythology is such an incredibly fun and human experience. A story and a world that translates well into a setting such as AC Valhalla. And not only because of the historical context.

The representation of mythological characters, the gods (æsir and vanir alike), the jötnar and dwarves are, in my opinion, fantastic.

Odin's arrogance, his hunger for power and knowledge, with just a touch of something playful.

Loki's mischievous nature, his cunning and intelligence - how he seems to believe the impossible to be improbable, and like a riddle to be solved.

Frigg's motherly determination.

Freyja's smarts and passion - how they remember that she's not only a goddess of love but also a goddess of war.

Each god has different qualities, weaknesses, and attributes. In Norse Mythology, an important characteristic is how the gods exhibit a plethora of human traits, behaving much like humans with emotions and interpersonal conflicts. The gods were meant to serve as role models, showing humans how to live and which rules to follow – and which ones could be broken. The existence of the gods was just as fraught with problems as that of humans, and their primary task was to ensure that chaos did not erupt. They're meant to be relatable - human - in their person and behaviour. And this is something I feel AC Valhalla shows and explores well.

The narrative of AC Valhalla doesn't shy away from presenting Odin's choices in a morally ambiguous light. The impact of Odin's decisions on the world around him, including the relationships with other Isu (Loki especially) and the well-being of Ásgarðr, serves as a reminder of the intricate web of cause and effect. While Odin's decisions, driven by a mix of self-preservation and concern for his people (or family), blur the lines between right and wrong. The game invites players to question the morality of Odin's choices, fostering a deeper engagement with and understanding of his character. Even as an Isu, a God, even as he believes himself infallible: Odin is human. He's flawed.

And it reflects in Eivor. She's confident in herself, and in her abilities, sometimes verging on arrogant. But through her discoveries and development throughout the game, she's humbled and realises what is truly important to her, which eventually leads to her rejection of Odin. Her whole experience and journey are so authentically human. Her emotions, her experiences, and her relationship with Odin. Finding herself, despite what whispers in her ear, and realising what holds her heart.

But this is something I feel the AC franchise does well: they tell stories that are unique to the human experience. Something that harmonizes well with the themes of Norse Mythology.

I feel they've done an amazing job with AC Valhalla. I genuinely love the game, I keep coming back to it; thinking about it. With AC Valhalla they've crafted a captivating and immersive experience that seamlessly blends the storytelling of Norse Mythology, Viking Culture, and the fictional aspects of Assassin's Creed, while beautifully conveying the complicated message of the human experience.

That's it.... I apologize for getting carried away 😅

What was the question again? 🤣

[cgogs]

So I’m the anon who sent the first oxeye ask last night and after having a full day to come to terms with the ending, I was absolutely right that I would never recover from this (/hj). I truly don’t know how I’d survive an epilogue because there’s no salvaging their relationship. That said, please bring on the pain if/when you’re able!!

Also, just a couple scattered thoughts:

- I’m absolutely floored how well you nail the “fundamentally loving but too individually fucked up to be sustainable” relationship dynamic. You did a fantastic job of keeping the intended ending ambiguous enough to make me hopeful through the whole story, while still foreshadowing the eventual fracturing of their relationship. The chemistry in the dialogue and the careful way they dealt with their issues together really lulled me into this false sense of progress. Since they seemed to get better at conflict resolution over time, I was really rooting for them to constructively handle the hidden comm together instead of falling apart around it. They were such a likeable, realistic couple who felt genuinely in love–the sense of grief at watching them fall apart is still palpable haha. And god, Dream blocking George on his comm at the end was fucking brutal. I want so badly to know what happens between them next, but I know it can’t possibly be good after that.

- The effort you put into making the world come alive was phenomenal. It’s clear that you put a lot of thought into the using the game mechanics and SMP characters as a foundation to build the world on instead of a limit to world building. Aside from just being fascinating to read about, it made for some really unique storytelling. For example, creating a setting with populations outside the SMP characters gave you a way to drive Dream’s paranoia indirectly (ie. The conflict came from the lingering threat never knowing who/where was safe instead of from having to specifically fight off Sam, Sapnap, Q, etc), which contributed to interpersonal misalignment between Dream and George around survival strategies/priorities. There are other examples, but that one really jumped out at me. I absolutely loved it, and there’s a specific kind of sadness around not getting to explore more of their world that comes with the end of the story.

Thank you for your hard work on this piece-it’s one of the most gripping new stories I’ve read in ages, and made me feel Some Kinda Way! I’m looking forward to more from you :D

MOUTH AGAPE ? OH MY GOD OH MY GOD THANK YUUIOU THANK YOU EAHATAATATAT 😭😭😤😭😭😤☝️😓🤒😇😓🥰😩😩🥰

'The chemistry in their dialogue' -- i am so glad that I was able to make their dialogue not only realistic but also enjoyable, theres so much thought put into the way they move and touch each other, but they're not one for poetics. I wanted to get across something very human while feeling larger than life

'The lingering threat came from never knowing who/where was safe' -- I knew that it would feel cheap if I kept the home base characters in the plot itself, I also wanted several degrees of separation between George and the fine details of what happened to Dream. George never finds out who tortured him, why, or the extent of what happened in general.

AUTHOR COMMENTARY:

I feel like if dream had ever asked about the comm, ever put some real thought to the situation instead of just trying to ignore it and keep himself in the present as much he could, they would have had a constructive conversation about the comm instead of the shitshow that happened. Hell, if it had been during the day and george had been awake they probably would have had a better situation go down than what happened. It was extremely situational and that's the worst part to me personally. Dream still would have left, I dont think theres a way that reveal happens where he doesnt, but it would have hurt less. And maybe George would have tagged along, I dont know for sure

"Theres no salvaging their relationship" THERE IS! i PROMISE! They cant go back to how it was before, they both need to realize that living in the past/trying to restore it will only ever make things worse for themselves. But they can heal and carve a better life for themselves, they can salvage this, it's not hopeless. But the odds are just so stacked against them, admittedly. But they cant be without each other- however you want to believe that manifests is up to you. "After me, the flood" and all that

I'm so glad you liked my fic in depth kinds of asks like this blow my mind I smiled so hard when I saw this thank you thank you thank you 😭

[discotreque]

LwD 2.05: An Embarrassment of Dooplers

So I was a little nervous about this one! I hadn’t heard any spoiler-spoilers, but screeners have been out for weeks now, and I’d heard a bunch of individual, vague, non-spoilery hints about (1) big character moments, on the scale of a mid-season finale even though the show’s not taking a mid-season break; and (2) an ending that would make me cry.

I guess I imagined something relatively serious and dramatic, like “No Small Parts”? This show makes me cackle with laughter and giggle with nerdy glee and “d’awww!” at heartwarming friendships every week, but it’s only ever made me cry once—and then I was impressed that they were going to get there from the wacky hijinks we saw in the brief teaser.

The lack of a cold open made me apprehensive too—in my experience, that’s typically a sign that there’s so much plot in the rest of the episode that they need that extra scene—but after ~21.5 minutes of aforementioned hijinks, I was having so much fun that I’d completely forgotten about the alleged tear-jerker at the end…

…and they were not the tears I was expecting.

I didn’t think I’d be smiling and crying!!!! That was wholesome as SHIT!!!!!

I almost can’t believe they earned that—but they totally did.

After a Mariner–Tendi episode and a Boimler–Rutherford episode, we’re back to the “usual” Season 1 pairings… except the relationships between these characters have changed since Season 1. Mariner still feels thwacked in the abandonment issues by Boimler bailing for the Titan, and Rutherford’s having a tiny little existential crisis about losing an entire year of his life.

Both of which are extremely understandable and very heavy situations—and both of those situations get resolved because everyone in them is vulnerable with each other and honest about their feelings—AND that honesty and vulnerability brings both pairs of friends closer together. Are you kidding me?? I would watch SEVENTY seasons of that shit. Put it in my veins.

Onto the notes:

So basically Dooplers are Tribbles, but for cringe comedy instead of slapstick? Ohhhhh boy.

Look at Ransom the diplomat, tossing his own fork on the floor! I like that he’s actually a pretty competent Starfleet officer, despite also being a completely ridiculous person.

Wait a second, is that—OH HOLY SHIT, THE DOOPLERS ARE VOICED BY RICHARD KIND.

It makes sense that B. Boimler would find William annoying—who likes seeing their own flaws reflected back at them? And who could be a better reflection of one’s flaws than one’s literal duplicate?—but most interesting to me is that it implies on some level, Bradward knows the stick up his butt is a flaw. (Does William?)

Why does the Cerritos model have working phasers?!?!

I’m loving hot pink as the currently en-vogue colour for “dangerous sci-fi energy” in animation (cf. almost every previous episode of this show; Into the Spider-Verse; other stuff I can’t remember right now). As a former child of the 80’s, I’m living for it… but as a former teenager of the 90’s, I can’t help but wonder if it’s going to age as poorly as the harsh neon green of The Matrix, every Borg appearance on Voyager, and like 80% of the websites I made in high school…

SKANTS! SKANTS! SKANTS!

That fake-out joke with the fly-by over the Cerritos model was in the season trailer weeks ago, and I was so enthralled by that handsome lady that the sticker coming into frame still got me good 😂😂😂

BECKY Mariner????? omg yes

Some top-quality Boimler screams in this one. Poor Jack Quaid must drink gallons of throat-coat tea when he records.

One of the great things about Star Trek to me is that you never know what you’re going to get from any random episode. A murder mystery? A road trip? A spooky thriller? A cheesy romance? Broad comedy? Body horror? Didactic political screeds shrouded in tissue-thin science-fiction metaphors? Brain and brain, what is brain??? And after this many years of watching, you’d think I’d be hard to surprise. But if I ever told you I thought I’d see a Blues Brothers–style car chase through a frickin’ shopping mall on an episode of Star Trek, I would have been straight-up lying to you. I loved it, it worked for me, my jaw was on the floor and I was clapping with joy—but I’m definitely comfortable calling this one “unexpected.”

It’s CAPTAIN SHELBY!!! And an ancient babydyke crush rose from the depths of my childhood subconscious… (Also I think her Number One is based on the original makeup—eventually deemed too complicated—for Saru? Now that’s a deep cut.)

In 20th-century Trek, you almost never got to see what was going on inside a starship from the outside. Even after they switched from physical models (where it was next to impossible on a single episode’s budget) to CGI (which was still in its infancy, still not exactly cheap, and still broadcast in SD anyway), it was a rare thrill to see any meaningful interior details in an exterior shot. Disco’s modern VFX have given us some tasty, tasty treats in that department, but nothing quite as sublime as all the pink Doopler light glittering through the Cerritos’s windows.

Mariner says she’ll take her contact Malvus down with her, and threatens that they’ll end up “in the same cell.” Malvus is a Mizarian, a species introduced in TNG’s “Allegiance,” in which Captain Picard is held in a mysterious prison with one. I think I see what you did there, McMahan?

Bartender… so hot… lesbian circuits… overloading…

The Tendi and Rutherford C-story was, well, a C-story within a 22-minute episode, so there wasn’t much to it, but the one scene that mattered actually mattered a lot. I’m ambivalent on whether they should end up romantically involved—I’d prefer they don’t, but they’ll be one of the cutest couples in Trek history if they do—and as long as they keep that pure, sweet friendship between them at the heart of whatever else happens, I’m on board.

Carol Freeman was already one of my favourite captains before this season, and she’s been steadily moving up the list. The quiet throughline about her ambition to be on a better ship has been fascinating so far, and it’s starting to actually make me feel a little conflicted: I’m of course rooting for Captain Freeman to recognize her worth, make Starfleet recognize her worth, and become the ass-kicking captain of a hero ship that she’s clearly ready to be—but that almost surely means she’d be kicking ass off-screen, because LwD isn’t about those kind of adventures, and I’d be devastated not to have Dawnn Lewis on the show every week. So I’m kind of on the edge of my seat about this one!

I had so many favourite jokes this week I put them in a separate list:

“Even the replicated water on the Titan tasted better” is a low-key brilliant dunk on people who can’t shut the fuck up about the cooler places they used to live.

“Ooooh, they have a Quark’s now! That used to just be an empty lot where teens would make mistakes!” ← That’s literally me every time I go back to where I grew up. I felt so Seen™ I almost hid under a blanket.

“I would never go down the stairs!” (evil grin) (goes up the stairs)

The “well, shit” expressions from Mariner and Boimler as their crashed car sank right into the water… which started to bubble innocuously… and then the bottles of Data bubble-bath popped up, paying off a joke I thought had already been paid off—that was the one that woke up my poor cat this week. Just exquisite timing.

“YOUR PAGH IS WEAK, AND IT DISGUSTS ME!” “I don’t even know what that is, but I don’t like your tone!”

“Okona’s in there? He’s not even Starfleet! This is outrageous!” made me shout “NO!” at the screen like I was scolding my cat for scratching furniture. (She did not wake up that time.)

Best background joke: the neon sign at the dive bar advertising FREE SHOTS & BEERS. (Get it? Because they’re on a Federation starbase? Where nobody uses money?)

And of course Quark merchandised DS9.

This wasn’t just a standout episode of Lower Decks, this was a brilliant episode of Star Trek, period. The Dooplers, though extremely silly, are nevertheless also a clever sci-fi metaphor for real and relatable personal/interpersonal issues, and an effective plot catalyst for meaningful character growth from all four of our ensigns and the captain.

The jokes were hilarious, the action was kinetic, the A-, B-, and C-plots linked up thematically, the visuals were consistently and thoroughly gorgeous, the character beats—between Mariner and Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford, Mariner and Capt. Freeman—were all genuine, heartfelt and wholesome, and the references to other Trek canon were both deep and deeply affectionate.

Only 15 episodes in, and this series knows exactly what it is, exactly what it wants to do, and knows that it can knock our socks off doing it. Mike McMahan has said in recent interviews that the back half of S2 (and the apparently almost-fully-written S3) is a straight line uphill in quality from here—which surprised me at first, because McMahan seems like a pretty chill dude who doesn’t normally brag about his own work like that.

But then the Prophets sent me a vision of my space dad Ben Sisko, who reminded me of the words of 1930’s baseball player Dizzy Dean:

“If you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

[Thanks to cygnus-x1.net for the screenshots this week—I was too lazy to do my own.]

[dabistits]

To talk about Twice and villainy is to talk about class and criminality (IV)

(Masterlist)

cw: references the dehumanization of “terrorists,” like, irl

The trash of society

“Disposability” is a framework that interrogates the way human lives are valued. Arising from observations about material disposability in the rapid industrialization of post-’45 and the increasing hold of mass-production and consumerism, “disposability” eventually expanded to an investigation of the human cost of this modern landscape. Theorists raised the question of how the disposability of human lives could be understood in tandem with the disposability of material goods, linking together issues of class, poverty, migration, imperialism, race, production, and consumerism. In essence, disposability as a framework investigates how human lives come to be rendered as disposable—and thus, like waste, byproducts of a lifestyle of endless growth.

This concern is one that receives frequent exploration in fiction that delves into the framework of humans-as-waste; for example, the sci fi dystopian short story Folding Beijing follows a waste worker in his efforts to fund the education of his adoptive daughter, who he found abandoned outside his waste-processing station. Although the conditions in BNHA aren’t nearly as grim, there are nevertheless clear connections drawn between its villainous characters and the concept of humans-as-waste, to the point where villains refer to themselves or are referred to by others as “trash.” Quirks may have effected a massive social upheaval, but that didn’t do away with, only shifted, the specifics of the idea that there are people who are deserving and people who are not, innocent people and criminals.

Throughout the series, we see characters mistreated while a society of deserving innocents looks on. There was little concern from the public when Izuku was mocked and bullied for his Quirklessness, when Rei was sold into a marriage for the benefit of a wealthy and abusive pro hero, when five-year-old Tenko wandered the streets alone, and when Jin was left to fend for himself as a teenager. Under the framework of disposability, they might as well have been rendered “waste,” as Zygmunt Bauman writes: “[t]he story we grow in and with has no interest in waste[...],” instead

“[w]e dispose of leftovers in the most radical and effective way: we make them invisible by not looking and unthinkable by not thinking. They worry us only when the routine elementary defences are broken and the precautions fail—when the comfortable, soporific insularity of our Lebenswelt which they were supposed to protect is in danger.” [source]

It is, interestingly, a bigger-picture version of the charges Shigaraki Tomura directs against the world of BNHA: like Bauman says, the innocent civilians are oblivious, recognizing neither the fragility of their peace nor the artificiality of it as it is maintained by heroes, unwilling to acknowledge the "leftovers”—the people who weren’t saved—until they return as villains and that very peace is threatened.

As for the leftovers themselves, they feel their alienation acutely. According to Bauman, to be “redundant” in a productivity-driven economy is to “share semantic space with ‘rejects’, wastrels’, ‘garbage’, ‘refuse’—with waste.” He outlines the conditions of redundancy thusly, describing it as a kind of “social homelessness”:

“To be redundant means[... t]he others do not need you; they can do as well, and better, without you. There is no self-evident reason for your being around and no obvious justification for your claim to the right to stay around. To be redundant means to have been disposed of because of being disposable[...]”

The experience of this kind of disposability is evident in BNHA, as class and exploitation seem to be highly correlated with social isolation. The members of the Shie Hassaikai were used and abandoned, and bonded strongly to one another after joining Overhaul. Jin’s experience of “social homelessness” shows him walking alone through empty city streets, before he ends up talking to his own clone below an overpass. Jin, too, finds companionship in joining a group, the League of Villains, but fears of disposability and further isolation plague his thoughts. Whether or not he genuinely believes League of Villains would abandon him, Jin feels the need to continue justifying his place among them. The societal bleeds into the personal; Jin’s disposability to society, best represented by his interactions with law enforcement and with his employer, also becomes an anxiety in his interpersonal relationships. Horikoshi’s decision to characterize Jin in such a way makes it impossible to ignore the larger issues that created him; namely, class issues that reflect real-world concerns.

As Jin sits below the overpass, talking to his clone, he asks whether he went wrong somewhere. The other Jin responds that it must have been “being born without an ounce of luck.” Bauman comments on unluckiness thusly:

“In Samuel Butler’s Erewhon it was ‘ill luck of any kind, or even ill treatment at the hands of others’ that was ‘considered an offence against society, inasmuch as it [made] people uncomfortable to hear of it.’ ‘Loss of fortune, therefore’ was ‘punished hardly less severely than physical delinquency’.” [source]

These observations are perfectly applicable to the characters we’ve met. It’s often the “unlucky” who get treated the worst: Izuku was bullied relentlessly for his “unlucky” Quirklessness, and Rei wound up trading her “unlucky” marriage for an institutionalization of ten years. Jin was fired from his job after an “unlucky” accident, fell into a life of crime, and is finally killed by the same hero who offered him a second chance. When Dabi probes Tokoyami Fumikage in an attempt to make him contend with Jin’s “ill treatment” at Hawks’ hands, Tokoyami dismisses it and justifies Jin’s execution, undoubtedly because it would be uncomfortable, possibly even world-shattering, to acknowledge Dabi’s charge. The fact that these people have been unlucky, or have even been actively mistreated or failed by others, turns the public’s gaze away in an attempt to escape the discomfort elicited by these embodiments of society’s waste. For the “redundant” to remind society of its human cost—or even to remind the non-redundant of the small gap of bad luck that separates them—they become objects of revulsion, to be forgotten or discarded as quickly as possible. Rendered “invisible” and “unthinkable” as leftovers, they become “ontologically non-existent.” [source]

Some of the anxiety towards the “redundant” is precisely because the framework of “becoming waste” is permeable. This permeability accounts for the possibility of transforming from citizen to disposable human; perhaps, then, when “all it takes is one bad day,” the line which separates citizen from villain is just as permeable. In the framework of hero society, it may be argued that villains are not simply redundant waste, but the trash whose alienation hero society relies on in a highly visible way. "The disposable, the waste as objects and humans, inhabit a place of exclusion from society which provides not only an unrecognized space of reinforcement for society itself, but also the fuel and the labor for maintaining the status quo.” [source] In BNHA’s terms, not only are villains excluded from a deserving, innocent society, they are also the fuel for maintaining it by embodying its opposite—the guilty and undeserving—their exclusion constantly reinforced through the public spectacle of their arrests and the public idolization of heroes. Villains are no longer simply inert leftovers that can be easily ignored, as Bauman described; villains have broken past hero society’s elementary defenses, and threaten the Lebenswelt of deserving innocents. While their visibility transforms villains back into an acknowledgeable existence, the very act of breaching their invisibility renders them a kind of waste that must be permanently disposed of.

A livable life?

Heroes do not kill. This is stated in 251 by the death-seeking Ending, who, despite his best efforts, is spared an unceremonious execution at the hands of a hero, who the readers know is a domestic abuser. The deathless resolution to Ending’s conflict, then, further compounds the horror of chapter 266, when Jin is eliminated with extreme prejudice by Hawks, who admires the aforementioned hero. The irony is shocking and bitter as readers witness the violation of one of heroism’s fundamental tenets, broken no less for the elimination of one of the series’ most sympathetic villains, after Hawks himself concedes that Jin is “a good person.” It may be said that heroes do not have carte blanche to kill, but neither is it an inviolable principle, and of course a no-kill mandate says nothing about the ways villains have been injured or tortured at the hands of heroes. While arguments can be made about the imminent risk of certain occasions, the issue remains that it’s often the most vulnerable people who pay the highest price for maintaining a nebulous definition of societal “safety” (a “safety” which always seemed to exclude certain people), a concept that is primarily defined by the state and the policing class. Furthermore, the willingness of a hero to kill in defense of hero society begs the question: who may be killed without consequence, and under what circumstances?

In her collection of essays addressing responses to terrorism, Precarious Life, Judith Butler writes:

“Certain lives will be highly protected, and the abrogation of their claims to sanctity will be sufficient to mobilize the forces of war. Other lives will not find such fast and furious support and will not even qualify as "grievable."”

The notion of a “safe” society hinges on the protection of those sanctified lives, at the expense of vulnerable lives deemed “disposable” through poverty, homelessness, or criminality. A threat against the deserving innocents or the murder of a hero unites every other hero and every citizen in public mourning, and then in opposition against murderous villains—there is no such mobilization for the suffering of Quirkless kids, abused women, or orphaned, destitute teenagers. The threats against their well-beings are considered part-and-parcel to their world—normal, unavoidable, and indeed not violence at all. Certainly, a murdered villain will not find such unanimous grief nor anger mobilized in the wake his death, not even directed toward changing the isolated, impoverished conditions which made villainy an appealing choice in the first place. Jin’s death is privately witnessed and privately mourned, only by those who comprised his ibasho. It’s through these uneven displays of grief that Butler questions: “what counts as a livable life and a grievable death?”

Butler argues that certain lives are removed from the bounds of “normative” humanity, and thus “grievability.” Violence against vulnerable lives is dismissed or legitimized by the state through their dehumanization: in the world of BNHA, villains are “presented [...] as so many faces of evil” and treated as mere vessels of a killing instinct.

“Are they pure killing machines? If they are pure killing machines, then they are not humans [...]. They are something less than human, and yet somehow they assume a human form. They represent, as it were, an equivocation of the human, which forms the basis for some of the skepticism about the applicability of legal entitlements and protections.”

This kind of dehumanization is, of course, explained through the claim that certain people are “dangerous,” a designation which (as Butler points out) is determined by none other than the state itself.

“A certain level of dangerousness takes a human outside the bounds of law[... T]he state posits what is dangerous, and in so positing it, establishes the conditions for its own preemption and usurpation of the law[...]”

Perhaps, then, if villains are something other-than-human, something so dedicated to violence that they can be stopped only through death, no "sanctity,” and no law, is violated if they are killed.

The ability of the state to designate certain people as “dangerous” is linked to another political strategy: defining the difference between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence. Butler explains:

“The use of the term, "terrorism," thus works to delegitimate certain forms of violence committed by non-state-centered political entities at the same time that it sanctions a violent response by established states. [...] In this sense, the framework for conceptualizing global violence is such that "terrorism" becomes the name to describe the violence of the illegitimate, whereas legal war becomes the prerogative of those who can assume international recognition as legitimate states.” [source]

In the world of BNHA, clearly such a discernment exists between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence. Although certain readers have been quick to draw the “terrorism” analogy, the series itself tends to differentiate between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” violence not through charges of terrorism, but through the designation of “hero” and “villain.” Legitimate violence is wielded by heroes in defense of the state, in defense of property, and against villains, whereas illegitimate violence is wielded by villains against the state, against property, and against heroes. This difference between “hero” and “villain” is, in actuality, insubstantial as far as the question of morality, as even labeled villains such as Gentle Criminal behave within a palatable frame of ethics, while some career heroes are just as capable as villains of taking and ruining lives; nevertheless, the state has a vested interest in strongly promoting the idea of this divide—of legitimate, heroic violence as moral, justified, and legal, and illegitimate, villainous violence as immoral, unjustified, and unlawful. In this way, the state can engage in “legal war” with very little questioning or dissent from its populace, and it further delegitimizes the violence of its opponents. The violence of heroes is justified, and therefore they have an understandable human rationale; on the contrary, the violence of villains is unjustified, it is attributed to their innate violence, which is incomprehensible and inhuman.

“The fact that these prisoners are seen as pure vessels of violence [...] suggests that they do not become violent for the same kinds of reason that other politicized beings do, that their violence is somehow constitutive, groundless, and infinite, if not innate. If this violence is terrorism rather than violence, it is conceived as an action with no political goal, or cannot be read politically. It emerges, as they say, from fanatics, extremists, who do not espouse a point of view, but rather exist outside of "reason," and do not have a part in the human community.” [source]

No one personifies this better than Tomura himself. He is named the “Symbol of Terror” by AFO, and is undoubtedly viewed as such by the heroes and civilians of BNHA. It has been repeatedly emphasized that to everyone but the League of Villains, Tomura is not so much a human as he is the embodiment of thoughtless destruction. Tomura is referred to as a monster, as someone unshackled to humanity, as an “it,” as something that cannot be reasoned with. This is an idea that Horikoshi himself seems to play into somewhat, because although Tomura voices certain critiques of the hero system, he nevertheless seems to remain rather apolitical in who or what he decides to target. It’s Jin, then, who lends a political voice to the villains by criticizing pro heroes from his very first narrated chapter, but even a clear articulation of his grievances gets him no understanding reaction from the hero in front of whom he raises these charges.

While the fictional heroes may see villains as nothing more than vessels of violence, it can be argued that Horikoshi himself went through an extensive effort to depict the rationale and humanity of the villains. As I’ve stated before, Jin is very clearly connected to the real-world struggles of certain Japanese citizens, making him real and relatable in ways other characters may not be. At the same time, the rationale and humanity that Horikoshi recognizes are things that heroes like Hawks can’t grasp: as someone who idolized a hero as a child, and who was, for better or worse, enveloped by the hero system, he does not question the legitimacy of the hero system. Hawks understands only unluckiness in Jin’s circumstances, and shows little awareness of the fact that Jin was failed by the very society Hawks defends, that his suffering was both enforced by the legal system and by his boss, and ignored by institutions supposedly designed to help. Jin, of course, is not so obtuse—he reiterates his awareness that he is one of those disposable, ungrievable lives that heroes don’t save, and he is ultimately proven right—when Hawks’ offer of rehabilitation is rejected, he instead moves to kill. Jin, and other villains, are so thoroughly dehumanized, likened to killing machines, that it doesn’t occur to any hero that they can possibly be reasoned with. 

Could there have been any other conclusion? I don’t believe so—not without a significant shift in thinking from heroes. For many of the villains, there’s very little to gain from rejoining the society that they were ejected from. Bauman writes that, for “disposable” humans:

“Unwelcome, tolerated at best, cast firmly on the receiving side of socially recommended or tolerated action, treated in the best of cases as an object of benevolence, charity and pity (challenged, to rub salt into the wound, as undeserved), but not of brotherly help, charged with indolence and suspected of iniquitous intentions and criminal intentions, [they have] few reasons to treat ‘society’ as a home to which one owes loyalty and concern.”

It should come as no surprise, then, that Jin rejects Hawks’ offer of a “socially tolerated” rehabilitation into the society that both caused and ignored his suffering, which he has no reason to believe wouldn’t outcast him again for another slip-up. Of course, he instead chose the place he was understood, where his mistakes were met with patience, where he wasn’t forced to justify his presence, where his sense of belonging felt stable. The people he called his ibasho were a home, a place he was allowed an ontological existence—the very inverse of that old, disposable life.

Conclusion

Bubaigawara Jin should be read as class commentary. The various obstacles in his story are all too reflective of the systemic issues of real-world Japan, concisely highlighting the shortcomings and common abuses of the alternative care system, the justice system, and the workplace. It’s also highly likely that Horikoshi himself is aware of economic inequalities on some level, which seems to reflect in the obvious and less-obvious ways he addresses class in BNHA. I think this probable intentionality is important, as it can lend itself to our speculation on the series’ messages and themes. Importantly, if Jin’s story is a commentary about the real-world trials of economic marginalization, then surely this also applies to the way he is treated by heroes and by wider society. Beyond simple evaluations of “X did this, which forced Y to respond,” certain narrative choices may be better understood as a pattern of illustrating disposability, of the way this fictional society creates “human waste,” and to relate them to real-world patterns of which lives are considered worth saving.

I somewhat downplayed the real-world inspirations for Bauman and Butler’s texts, because I believe those are true and serious topics about capitalism and war that should be discussed on their own merits, unrelated to a fictional series; however, they also perfectly show how certain beliefs in the real world are transferrable to BNHA’s world. Because these beliefs are transferrable, readers’ reactions to certain narratives in fiction are rooted in certain truths we believe about the real world as well. For example, it would pointless to call the League of Villains “terrorists” as a condemnation, unless someone believes that the charge of “terrorism” in itself tells us anything meaningful about morality. As Butler has explained, and as real life shows (e.g. through the designation of black radical groups like the Black Panthers or antifascist groups as terrorist organizations), the term “terrorism” alone holds no inherent moral implication. Imagining that the label of “terrorist” can meaningfully convey anything about morality, and that "being a terrorist” removes a person from the boundaries of “normative humanity” (and thus due legal process in-universe, and reader sympathy out-of-universe) reflects an ignorance about certain real-world political processes.

Injustice in the world doesn’t only take the form of obvious oppression and violence; manipulation is also involved. There is a vested interest by the ruling class in guiding the ways people think and perceive reality, teaching us what we deserve and don’t deserve, what prices are acceptable and unacceptable to pay for human life. These lessons must be rejected from the outset, leaving rules and definitions open for interpretation. What qualifies as violence? Is violence more than a physical act of harm? Is it violence to isolate “unproductive” members of society? Is it violence to deny them food and shelter? Is it then violence to cage and execute them when they do not non-violently accept their subjugation? What forms of violence are unacceptable and why? Where does violence really begin?

Dismantling oppression can only be achieved by questioning its very foundations and the language used to justify it; fiction, by enveloping us into a new reality��a new world with new rules—should make this questioning easier if we’re willing to divest ourselves of certain beliefs fed to us by those in power. BNHA, as imperfect as it is, certainly tries to raise some of these questions about the designations of “heroes” and “villains,” about the deserving and undeserving, about who is saved and who gets left behind. I would go further, and argue that to invest legitimacy into the hero system is to invest legitimacy into everything that perpetuates it: the poverty, the violence, the disposability of those judged “villainous,” and the idea that agents of the state are uniquely positioned to enact legitimate violence. Confronting crime means eliminating the need for it and the conditions that give rise to it, and only then, not a moment before, will the problem of villains largely cease to exist.

[bluecoloreddreams]

(Disclaimer: this contains spoilers for the Fruits Basket and Fruits Basket: Another manga, as well as taking into consideration tidbits from Takaya’s twitter.) 

So, okay, first of all we have to address the YMMV aspect: Some people don’t like this ship. As long as they’re respectful, I have no beef with that. I’m well aware that some people cannot/choose not to make the distinction between “real life” and “fiction”— I have the luxury of this choice, so some of the “problematic” ships/character aspects within Furuba don’t bother me (for the most part). It’s fiction, and I’m aware of this.  

Again, some people cannot/do not make this distinction, and that’s none of my business because that’s their personal life. I’m aware that people dislike aspects of Akigure, and that’s fine. 

Personally? I’ve been reading Furuba since like, basically the dawn of time. I was reading scans on, like,  MSN groups. I remember a friend at church (of all places) telling me about the Akito reveal because I was behind on updates. It’s literally engrained upon my shipping heart at this point. 

(Headcanons ahoy! Like literally, this is all headcanon/my perspective on the series as a whole. YMMV/YKINMK/Dead Dove, the whole works, if you know you know

YES I wrote it like it’s an actual research paper because I have No Chill At All, please forgive me. It’s long and pretty rambling.) 

Addressing the first elephant in the room: Given my limited interactions with the fandom, my impression of Akigure from a generalized fan POV is that it’s pretty divisive. Every episode she comes up there are “I hate this kid” comments and I cry

Akito is a favorite of mine, and it’s impossible for anime-only’s to make a deep, informed call on her character. On the other hand, a lot of manga-readers dislike her too. 

So, why am I talking about whether or not people like Akito as a character? 

I’m of the opinion that it impacts people’s ability to view her character arc as one that deserves a happy ending. That she doesn’t deserve to have love, happiness, or forgiveness, all of which are given to her when she and Shigure finally end up together on equal footing. (Do I think the way it’s rushed in the original Furuba ending? Yeah, but hey. Sensei had like a huge ensemble cast to wrap ends on. Now there’s Furubana to look to and it’s just chef’s kiss.)

There’s a mental aspect in this, involving the dichotomy between “reality” and “fiction”. 

There is absolutely zero argument that are a lot of things that Akito does that uh, listen, if it was IRL she’d be in jail! Jail for terror baby! Jail for life! 

Fortunately, Fruits Basket is a work of fiction. These characters aren’t real, they’re idealized brushstrokes of human nature created to move a plot and a message along. 

That’s why Akito and Shigure work as a couple and as characters: 

They’re both incredibly deep characters that get passed off as one-dimensional by a lot of people (and the original anime, woof). Some of it is again, because anime-only fans just don’t have the whole story, since Akito’s arc is one that builds gradually until it hits a point where all hell breaks loose, which we are a ways away from. 

So what’s the message that their relationship and characters are supposed to pass on? 

Well, it breaks down into two categories: world building and thematic arcs. The latter is more important and what I’ll be focusing on, while the former is just a little spice that I, personally enjoy, and won’t really talk about in depth. (It’s that the magical realism in Furuba sets up the idea of soulmates, it’s just…. Something I enjoy and it’s really heacanony, so I can’t really justify spending more words on it!) 

When discussing Fruits Baskets in any capacity, I feel like we must first keep in mind the thematic “lessons” of the series: 

There is an inherent loneliness in living as a human being, since loss, grief, and hurt are indelible parts of the human experience, and learning to cope with these feelings in a compassionate manner is a life-long lesson 

People react differently to the loneliness of existence, and their reactions are based upon their personalities, their upbringings, and their own choices 

Everyone is capable of change and learning, if they choose to do so, however: 

Personal agency is taught, but in the vacuum of positive reinforcement, the ability of a person to choose to be compassionate is stifled or outright inaccessible

Therefore, if you are not taught to deal with your grief and existence outside of others, your ability to connect may become warped, manipulative, or abusive, and this is not the fault of the child but instead the parental figure 

Eventually, you will be aware of your actions, and then it is your burden to choose—some people do not take this choice (the head maid, Ren, Kyo’s bio dad, Rin’s parents, Sawa’s mother in Furubana)  

Abuse has long lasting effects on the psyche and can be physical, emotional, and/or mental in nature and must be dealt with in order to grow as a person

“Dealt with” does not mean that it goes away, but that it is acknowledged and given a positive outlet (Yuki’s garden, Aaya’s shop, Rin’s art, Momiji’s violin playing)

Forgiveness is not linear

Forgiving yourself is a long and arduous process, and happens independent of other people’s forgiveness

This is really brought to the forefront in Fruits Basket: Another, when Shiki talks about how his mother interacts with the rest of the Sohma family. It’s shown she’s done what she can to make amends, but recognizes that while she can individually hold relationships with certain family members, as a whole, it's best if she allows them to be away from her. 

This is a whole tangent on its own, but there’s a certain blanket of casual forgiveness given to Akito by the entirety of the shown Zodiac in Furubana, in that they trust that she’s raised a kind and thoughtful son and allow him the grace of his own family. 

Again, in Takaya’s tweets post-series that acknowledges that Akito’s friends with Uo-chan, despite her relationship with Kureno (and it shows a depth of awareness on Kureno’s part that he stays away

People flourish in environments where love and positive reinforcement is given freely, even when people are in the wrong

This doesn’t mean that no one is ever scolded: see Komaki and Kakeru, Kisa and Hiro, Hatori chews out Shigure all the time, but never ceases being his confidant 

So okay, that’s A Lot. But every single character in Furuba follows these themes in their own manner, because the series is about healing and learning how to heal from abuse, neglect, and isolation. Someone’s gonna have to be doing it. Point blank, the end, to tell a story there must be conflict, and boy howdy, there’s a lot of conflict in Furuba. Every personal thematic arc in the series ends up tying into a romantic one, because Furuba is a romcom drama. 

There’s a loop that goes “personal betterment”->”crush”/”friendship”->”conflict”->”personal growth”/”relationship growth” in the series for every character. That’s the bread and butter of Furuba. 

But anyway. To the question: 

I love them because they work, they’re both their own people with their own narrative focuses, motivations, conflicts, and flaws. Both Shigure and Akito are believable in their own right in the context of Furuba, and I think Takaya did wonderfully in crafting a story where their personalities mesh well and give each other reasons to better themselves.

To talk about them together, you have to talk about them separately. 

I’m gonna start with Shigure because, truthfully? 

I just want to lament about how often he’s simply passed off as either comic relief or absolute trash. He’s so underestimated! 

“He’s a joke of a grown man… He is reliable and I trust him.” (Another, v. 3)

He’s incredibly intelligent when it comes to interpersonal relationships, which is why he’s able to do what he does. He’s also incredibly kind—no one made him take in Yuki or Kyo or Tohru. He could have just went “ah, I’d prefer not to” and moved on. But he didn’t, made up some bullshit so Haru would feel like taking in Yuki was a transaction, and let me just tell you, I am the same age as Shigure and if you gave ME three teenagers to be the guardian of?! It would be a full on disaster.

He’s actually incredibly trustworthy (if he wants to be), insightful, and a genuinely good guardian despite his jokes and wisecracking. 

He forced Kyo to go back to school, knowing full well it would be good for him. He lets a whole host of children run rampant through his home. Kids who actually enjoy his presence. He’s shown as having a good familial relationship with Rin (who tries to warp that for her own means), Kisa, Haru, and Momiji. His advice to Tohru is genuine, insightful, and ridiculously helpful. 

Shigure is good with people. He gets up at the crack of dawn to drive Shiki to see Sawa in Furubana. He’s who Mutsuki and Hajime immediately go “holy shit you need to do something about this” to when they find out Shiki’s getting nasty notes about Akito. He’s who Shiki goes to when Sawa fell down the stairs as a child. As much as Shiki and the others make fun of Shigure, he’s obviously someone who’s trustworthy. And that’s not some new development, he’s always been trustworthy in regards to those he loves. No one asked him to show up to Tohru’s teacher conference, he volunteered. Like this dude loves people, he’s the dog spirit after all, and rightly so. 

Does he have his own motivations? Of course! But so does everyone else in Furuba. He’s a complex character, man! 

He laughs and jokes a lot because he’s projecting this image of a laid back, doofus. When you think about who he’s friends with, the whole middling goofball act makes a lot of sense. Just like some of Ayame’s over the top behavior is a defense mechanism, I believe that Shigure casts himself as a generally unappealing man to keep himself safe from advances when he was in school, but also to temper the wildly unequal personalities of his other two friends. He’s the sort of person who would just go “eh, whatever makes it easy”, and that’s just how he is. 

He doesn’t mean the creepy school girl thing, it’s a bit and I think the only people who don’t realize he’s running a bit are Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru who are absolutely too stupid to realize he’s playing them for reactions. He thinks it’s funny. 

Anyway:

When the older Zodiac had the dream of Shigure, Shigure is the only one who made the active choice to seek out that feeling. His soul was touched, and he decided that he wanted that and only that. This doesn’t necessarily mean he went full Jacob from Breaking Dawn, but it does mean he acknowledged there was a bond, and he wanted it. 

When you get into the technicalities of the curse, it’s mentioned that their Zodiac spirits influence how they interact with Akito, and that going against her can cause physical and emotional pain. Yuki cries when meeting her, and it’s mentioned that that’s just the normal reaction for the Zodiacs. 

It’s hard to say how much of their early interactions are influenced by the curse, but it’s obvious that Shigure has genuine fondness for her. She wasn’t always absolutely broken, as shown in Yuki’s backstory, and was a precocious child, one who sought affection openly. 

Shigure has an indulgent personality, and is shown to love being adored. Guess who loves him! Akito! Guess who wants lots and lots of affection! Akito! 

Their personalities are very well matched as they get older: They’re both intelligent and coy. They both have fairly sharp tongues when needed, and have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to get what they want. 

Shigure wants Akito to be independent from the curse. He’s made it clear to her he doesn’t want to be her father, he doesn’t want to be her friend, he wants to be her lover. Those are boundaries that Akito’s never been given before, and his frankness with her and his jealousy with Kureno is something she agonizes over, simply because she’s never been given any sort of serious interpersonal boundaries, or repercussions for her actions. He’s always kept himself separate from her, because of those boundaries, even when they were children. 

That’s important. It opens the door to the idea that her actions have consequences, and is a persistent nagging in the back of her mind. 

“Even though you hadn’t realized it, I was waiting for that day.” (ch 101)

For the bulk of the series, the only person who sees Akito as a person separate from the curse, and sees a future where she can grow is Akito. He has an extraordinary amount of patience for her, and forgives her for a lot. 

There are only two incidents that Shigure cannot forgive: Her sleeping with Kureno, and at the very end of the series, I’m of the full opinion that if Akito had pushed Tohru off the cliff, Shigure would have been done with her. Look at that expression, that is the look of someone who is toeing the line of throwing away all his hopes and dreams. If she really had pushed Tohru, I just...... The series would have taken a much darker tone. 

OKAY that’s enough about our favorite terrible author! (Okay, an aside, Shigure, please share your work ethic, you goof off so much but you’ve published so many things…how…)  

ONTO AKITO! 

“I’ve  finally realized… she hated her own shallowness all this time, from the very start.” // “It’s frightening because you have no choices.” (ch 121) 

A lot of people dislike Akito because she, for the bulk of the manga, is violent, manipulative and just downright unpleasant. And that’s fine, but it’s not the point of her arc or the themes of the manga.  (It is, however, the point of Rin’s: you don’t have to forgive everyone.) 

She’s not the only violent person in the series. If we as readers can forgive Uo-chan and Kyoko, or even Hana-chan for her moment of violence, why can we not extend the same grace to Akito? 

Violence is often shown as a knee-jerk reaction to fear and sadness: Kyoko, Uo, Hana, Kyo, Rin, and Akito all react violently to negative situations and feelings. Even Kisa reacts violently when she’s at her worst, biting both Haru and Tohru when she’s in her tiger form, which is shown to actually cause pain like a real tiger would. (It’s played for laughs, but has anyone been bitten for realsies by a house cat? That hurts! How much more would a house-cat sized tiger hurt!!!) 

Out of all of them, Hanajima and Kisa are the only characters to show immediate remorse, because they have what the others don’t: A positive support system. Once positive role models and support systems are in place, all of the others begin to learn how to react differently and ease out of the knee-jerk reactions that were ingrained in them. 

It’s made explicit in the manga that you have to be taught how to react positively, you have to learn and choose to be good, to be friendly, to love yourself outside of others’ perceptions of yourself. Look at Yuki’s arc. Look at Uo-chan’s. Kyoko’s. 

Yuki sums it up nicely in the last chapter of the manga, where he tells Tohru that she taught the Zodiac how to become human. She allows them to grow into people who can make the choice to be loving, compassionate individuals. 

Just because Akito doesn’t interact positively with Tohru for the bulk of the manga, it doesn’t make it any less true: 

Akito is kept in a juvenile state of being: No one teaches her to suck it up, that the world exists outside of herself, that other people are people and not things. In fact, she’s actively encouraged to act the way she does. She’s incredibly broken, between the maids of the Sohma estate just… allowing her to do whatever the fuck she wants and her absolutely jacked up relationship with Ren and Akira. She has no moral compass at all. No one bothers to teach her that her actions have serious consequences. 

She knows, in a roundabout way that hey, these people don’t like me. There’s a serious mental dissonance between what she latently knows—these are all people with no connection to her other than the bond of the curse. This is why Tohru is able to break through to her at the climax of the manga: 

She knows she’s wrong, but no one has ever told her she’s wrong but understood why she’s doing it. Akito just didn’t have the words to explain herself. What do children do when they cannot communicate? They lash out. Kids will bite, scratch, yell, kick, fall to the floor and have screaming tantrums out of frustration. Eventually, most kids learn that there are other ways to express frustration, and move along. (Not all, though, but most.)

Akito was taught that this is acceptable, allowable, and is her right as god. She is actively broken and kept that way through the neglect of the Sohma family maids, Ren’s abuse, and how Akira framed her role in the Zodiac. 

I can go on and on and on and on why the way Akito was treated for her role in the Zodiac by her parents and the rest of the Sohma estate was just awful. I hate it, it’s terrible, she never had a chance to learn and grow and be the genuinely thoughtful woman we know she grows into. 

She doesn’t force her path of forgiveness onto others and is fully cognizant of what she did, the repercussions of her actions, and lives her entire life after the curse breaks trying to right what she did wrong. 

“Even if she gets hurt, she says she deserves it. She tells me not to let it bother me, but… I’ve always, always loved her so much.” (Another, ch. 13) 

Tohru opens the door for Akito. She extends her hand, offers her friendship despite having seen the absolute worst of Akito. She tells Akito that everyone is lonely, everyone wants bonds, and acknowledges Akito’s worst fears, that Akito herself is selfish and dirty for wanting something assured and unending because she, Tohru, herself is dirty and selfish. Tohru knows what Akito has done, knows she’s injured some of her beloved friends, had plans to lock up Kyo, hurt Hatori. 

Tohru still forgives her. One of Tohru’s striking traits in the manga is that she is suffering, every day, she struggles with the grief of losing her mother and the fear of being alone in the world. Through nothing but her own empathy and realization that loneliness is universal, she’s able to forgive people. She forgives Akito and cares for her, and through Tohru, Akito is introduced to the realization that she’s been wrong and that maybe, she shouldn’t be forgiven. 

Shigure also forgives her, and this is the crux of their ship. 

To me, that itself is wildly important. 

They’ve always circled around each other, and Shigure has always been waiting for Akito to be able to come to him again, in full control of her life and choices. He wants Akito the woman, not Akito the god. 

He’s been waiting for the day Akito can meet him as an equal. Akito wants it too, and has wanted him to turn and see her for a very very long time. But she’s been terrified, the entire time, that when he does see her as herself, Shigure won’t like what he sees, and will leave. She’s aware of what she’s done post-curse, she’s aware of the impacts it will have on the former Zodiac members, and she’s aware that once the “bonds” of god and the animals is gone, there may not be anyone left for her.

Neither of them are under any illusions at the end of the series: Akito knows she has to atone for what she did, Shigure knows she has to learn to grow into a person who can function alone. They both know that there are people who are against them changing the oppressive structure of the Sohma family. 

Neither of them care. There are things that they want, together, and it’s enough. There’s a whole new world for them to explore and learn about. And in Furubana, this is shown to be a lifelong effort on their parts: 

“She said after meeting me, she learned so many things for the first time. She smiled happily as she said it.” (Another, #13) 

To close, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the curse and Shigure, and how he set things in motion. 

Without Shigure, the curse would have devolved on its own, yes, but the circumstances would not have allowed for the freedom the Zodiac had at the end of the manga. It would not have ended with Akito being able to learn and live freely. Allowing Tohru into the Sohma family cracked open a door to compassion and kindness none of them had ever experienced before, because the Sohma family seems to exist in a vacuum of stability and love. 

It wasn’t that Shigure knew instantly that Tohru was kind and loving and thoughtful, if anything, his read on her was “completely normal, albeit strange, teenage girl who obviously has a rough life”. But she was normal, she was from outside the Sohmas, and he knew that was enough. No one in the family was stepping up to change the status quo and how stifling and abusive it was, so he did it himself. 

He did it because he loved Akito. 

Not because he felt bad for himself, or Hatori, or any of the others, but merely because he loved her to the point of manipulation. It backfired in his face, because he got a big ol’ dose of “loving and respecting” juice from Tohru, but he still got the end he wanted. 

What I mean to say is best summarized in  chapter 123: 

“It would be nice to live in a kind world, without any troubles, without any fear, without hurting anybody, without ever being hurt, only doing the right thing. I wish I could reach this kind world by the shortest path possible. … “That’s wrong”, or “that’s stupid”: If it’s someone else’s life it’s so easy to make such irresponsible comments. ...It would be great, but it doesn’t exist. … Little by little, walking one step at a time, is all you can do.” 

We get to experience the roughest part of the path with Akito and Shigure, we got to watch them be terrible people who were lonely and in want of love struggle and learn how to get up and move on. 

They tease each other, Shigure is thoughtful of the distinction between “the person Akito was raised to be” and “the person who Akito is”. He’s seen her at her messiest, and she’s seen him at his most jealous. They still chose each other, despite the hurt they caused each other, and others. They make up for it, reflect, and live a life that demonstrates that they have learned. They have friends who are thoughtful and loving and would not hesitate to drop everything and help them, lend an ear when they’re frustrated, help them not to make the same mistakes. 

And then we get to see them be wonderful, kind, thoughtful, loving parents in Furubana. 

We got to see their adorable, kind, compassionate child be friends with the children of the people Akito hurt, because everyone in the former Zodiac’s family collectively decided “never again, no”. 

Their child adores them. Shiki in Furubana #13 radiates love for Akito and Shigure the same way Mutsuki and Hajime do. 

They are genuinely good parents, even when they tease Shiki, and I think that is testament for how good they are for each other and how much they’ve changed as adults. 

I think that’s enough of a reason to ship them, don’t you?

[otomeramblings]

My thoughts on Act 2, Episode 5

Yes, I’m incredibly late to the party. It took me longer than I thought to finally be able to finish reading Ep 5 BUT here it is! I’m gonna try to summarize my initial reactions and how I feel about the main plot points here both for myself and for anyone that wants to read them.

Long post under the cut!

One small thing I want to mention before delving into the big stuff: seeing all the boys starting new stages in their lives was honestly super heartwarming; they’ve grown so much both as individuals and together as a company (and as friends), and it was a delight to see it. As a fan of small details, I loved to see that the conversation Banri and Yuki had in “Into the Night!” (about him taking acting seriously and maybe going to college to bring back the knowledge to the company) was reflected in his choice of going to Veludo Arts University.

But anyway! There’s 3 main things I want to talk about in regards to this episode:

First up is Masumi’s arc:

Hooooo boy, I hadn’t been this angry about a fictional parent since we learned about Misumi’s family. I think the main thing that irked me a lot about his dad was how little regard he seemed to have for his son as an actual human being. Especially because of how hypocritical it sounded when his secretary said stuff like "Mr Usui is concerned about you living without a parental figure for so long" because we all know that Masumi has been living basically on his own for a long time and the excuse of "Masumi has only been living in Japan this long due to his parent's desire to keep his environment as stable as possible while they were married" felt super empty because yeah, right, coming back to an empty home every day is the healthiest way to raise a child, it surely can’t affect his well-being and his sense of worth in any way.

Masumi saying "I thought it might make them happy if i got good grades or did well in sports, so I tried my best, but...nothing ever changed"  and the story about him begging his parents to come to the show and tell and his dad's response was just "Listen to your parents, that's all we want from you" was so heartbreaking. It made me incredibly angry but it also helped me understand Masumi as a character a lot more; no wonder he has attachment issues (which are mainly centred around Izumi/the MC) and his constant need for validation, he just wants people to be there for him and be proud of his accomplishments. He just wants a family but his parents were just too busy to even give a crap. 

Also, in relation to Izumi: I think he still needs to learn that the obsession he has with her is not healthy (and hopefully one day he can grow out of it) but it's clear that he doesn't do it to purposely make her uncomfortable; he's misguided and he doesn't know how to deal and express the affection he feels towards one of the people that genuinely cares about him. Also I'm not saying that he doesn't have a crush on her, I think he does but he behaves this way because he never learned how to express his feelings in a healthy way and he's probably scared someone "could take her away" at any moment because boy hasn't he had to deal with people going again a lot already.

About Masumi’s grandma: love her, she’s a darling and she clearly cares for her grandson’s well being. One thing she mentions is that her son changed when his company found success, and like, I get that he needs to put time and effort to keep his company afloat but like. not even considering what your son wants and feels? Maybe talking to him every once in a while? Being busy it's not an excuse; your son shouldn't have to wonder if his parents love him. But this also ties to the end of Masumi’s arc when his father finally lets him stay in Japan: I'm glad that Masumi's father apologised and realised the error of his ways, it doesn't undo the years of loneliness Masumi had to endure because of it, but it's a start.

Final thoughts on Masumi’s arc: 10/10 would read it again for the feels. I really loved the depth they gave him and how they made him realise that Mankai (not just Izumi) are important to him because they’re his precious family and he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. One little moment after that warmed my heart was when Izumi tells Masumi that she's glad that he's been taking care of Tsuzuru while he's busy writing and he answers with "I mean, he is...family",,,,,,,,,,,I’m not crying, you’re crying. I hope we can get more moments with him in the future that are centred around his personality, his likes and dislikes, and his relationships with the other boys.

In second place, Chikage’s introduction and arc.

Let's see. I knew coming in that Chikage was a controversial character within the fandom and I knew the main reason why because of spoilers, but I didn’t know all the details. Also, something you should know about me is that I found morally grey characters interesting, so that made it so I went into this with an open mind.

Overall, I liked the episode and I ended up linking Chikage as a character well enough. But I’m not gonna lie and say that everything was perfect. The biggest issue I had with his arc was the way they handled his relationship with Izumi/the MC, especially in regards to the kidnapping. I’m usually pretty good at putting a dividing line between fiction and real life, which is what allows me to enjoy villains and morally grey characters; but as a woman who grew up with my mom saying “never leave your drink/food unattended”, seeing it done here and then having it go unpunished really left a bad taste in my mouth; because every girl grows up hearing this (and i know this is a problem that affects all genders) and it’s horrible because it has happened to so many people. So my biggest gripe about this part of his arc is the consequences, or more so the lack of them.

The only things that made it a bit more acceptable *for me* were three things:

This line from Izumi: "What Chikage's done is unforgivable. But I can't just ignore August's dying wish and Hisoka's thoughts on the matter." I have some mixed feelings about it but It just aligns with Izumi’s personality; she’s always been portrayed as incredibly selfless and giving, someone who’s ridiculously kind (to a fault) and who always tries to see the best in people and puts others before herself (and also because ~plot~ demands it, but that’s a thing with a lot of media these days) Do I wish she had been angry and wary towards Chikage after having been drugged and kidnapped? Yes, I do, it would have been nice to have a portion of the story dedicated to Chikage having to earn her trust back because what he did really was not okay.

Sakuya’s conversation with Chikage when he tries to leave after opening night and in particular these two lines from Sakuya: "This isn't about the play....for some reason, I get the feeling we shouldn't leave you alone right now" [...] "You're different now. I can tell you're broken and hurting. I feel like you've lost your way." Regardless of personal feelings, I think Chikage showed that he really was shaken by the weight of his own actions after he found out the truth. He knows that what he did was wrong and that’s why his emotions and all his guilt were crushing him all at once. He was driven by revenge and anger for so long that once he learned and accepted the truth, he completely lost himself. And seeing him have to deal with all of that made me really glad, because even if he’s not gonna have to deal with external consequences (aka having to deal with the rest of the company’s distrust, even though I wish he did), he still had to find a way to not only forgive himself but also to atone in his own way for what he did (aka putting down his walls, fulfilling his promises and making it his mission to protect everyone at mankai from the organisation) 

Now, as I’ve been saying, I really wish Chikage had been able to tell the others the whole story about what he did and why he did it but…..we didn’t get that. What I am glad about, though, is that at least he told them that he took her away on purpose (even if he didn’t tell them how or why); also both he and Hisoka pointed out that anyone who knows the full truth about their lives could be in serious danger and that having Izumi know was already risky enough. And yes, that is indeed very plot convenient but it’s the bare minimum and I’m willing to give it a pass this time.

tl;dr I think Chikage is an interesting character that has a lot of potential and I have hopes that he will get some more development in future events. BUT, I really think they could have handled his arc in this episode a lot better.

Now, all that said, if you still couldn’t bring yourself to forgive or look past what he did and you still don’t like him: no one can force you to like him after the things he did since it can be very triggering for a lot of people, so remember that your feelings are totally valid.

In third place and in relation to Chikage’s arc, I also have to mention Hisoka and the development he got as a result.

The only thing that bugged me in relation to Hisoka was that even though I knew he couldn't because of ~plot~ (and probably because part of him is still unsure about what he didn't remember and how it could affect the others even if he did say that the person he was before didn't matter anymore) but I really wished he had told anyone "hey so like......Chikage said some weird stuff to me just now and I might need help" because their first 1 to 1 confrontation was a threat if I've ever seen one.

But yeah, other than that I really love that we not only finally got to learn about his past, but also we got a good foundation for his development in the future regarding his interpersonal relationships with the winter troupe. The fact that he couldn’t remember who he was has been a point of conflict in the past and this brings that issue to a close in the sense that he is willing to tell them (part of) the truth once he sorts things out. And I loved loved how the trust Hisoka has in them is the direct result of all the ups and downs that the winter troupe has gone through so far in learning to open up to each other. I know they said during nocturnality that they’re not a family in the same sense the spring troupe is, but I honestly disagree; they way in which they’ve come to rely on each other shows how strong their bond is.

[ardenttheories]

I don't expect a super serious answer from this, but I'm just curious. in a perfect world, how would hs^2 be written? do you have any particular headcanons or plot lines that would be interesting to explore? I understand the hesitation in answering a question like this, because other people might try to discredit your critiques under the guise of "well its not ur headcanons so that's why ur mad". anyways, just curious because I respect your perspective and ideas

In complete honesty? The first thing I would consider vital is a diverse team of people - genuinely diverse - to consider every point of representation with. I’m talking people of different races (to avoid the anti-black coding of Gamzee), with mental illnesses (to avoid the ableism in both Gamzee and Dirk), with different gender identities (to more accurately and healthily portray Jade, Roxy, Vriska, June - any character we could feasibly want to make trans or nonbinary), with different romanticisms and sexualities (so that we could write genuine MLM and WLW relationships without falling into homophobic pitfalls; to avoid biphobic stereotypes), and overall, with different traumatic experiences and triggers (so that we could more accurately gauge what triggers would need to be tagged and how to go over them in an appropriate and respectful manner).

We could never be 100% perfect, but with a team like that, we could at least get close to it. 

Additionally, I’d bring back either fan prompts or closely listen to fan theories and conversations. Homestuck^2 was touted to be written with the fandom in mind; to consider the direction we were asking it to go in, while basing it around a general barebones structure. I’d want to make sure we were including as much of that in as humanly possible. So, if a fan theory seemed like it’d fit into the story? I’d want to include that with the rest of the text; if the fans liked a specific character? I’d want to try and include them more often. Little things to show that we’re listening and that we’re writing the story WITH the fans - like how early Homestuck used to be.

On an actual storyline basis, I really do love the concept of Meat and Candy; that there’s one timeline that goes off the rails and one that is very rigidly stuck to a track. I wouldn’t want to change that concept entirely, but I would want to make it more palpatable for people to read. 

This would mean, for me, absolutely getting rid of anything to do with Yiffany. I’d completely replace that with Dave and Jade having a child together via ectobiology; how Jade has to raise their child in Dave’s absence after he goes missing, how that affects her, who she turns to for comfort and help. 

I’d want to focus Candy more on that feeling of helplessness and dissociation. On John feeling adrift in a world that doesn’t quite connect with him, that doesn’t entirely feel real; how that would affect his relationships, his friends, his family. In this timeline, all of the rebellion stuff would be completely background to the interpersonal connections everyone has (the things that supposedly don’t matter, as is the point of Candy), with much more emphasis on how useless and frivolous the whole war is. It’d get to a point where nobody actually knows why they’re fighting anymore except for the fact that they are, and that even Jane, who started it out of a genuine fear for the human race, is getting tired of it, is losing resources, is starting to realise that she’s drifting away from her own child. 

A truce would be garnered, started by Jane who just very much wants to reconnect with her son, with Karkat taking on the role as troll emissiary. It features long talks in a large, empty room, pouring over papers, where Jane admits that she doesn’t actually know what anyone is up to these days, how long it’s been since she’s seen her husband, since she’s seen John, and Karkat quietly confesses that it’s been several years since he’s seen Dave or Jade, and that he misses them both. 

After that, a lot of the content of Candy would focus on healing. They would get back to their happily ever after, even though some things would never be the same, and there would still be inconsequentialities. It would also correspond with John coming to the slow realisation that he really doesn’t need a plot to be happy at all; that just because it doesn’t matter to the overarching story doesn’t mean it can’t matter to him. 

The Candy timeline, therefore, would close early; it would fade from our view just as Dirk feared, but it would be happy and content, and free from any further meddling. I’d essentially want to enforce this idea that, yes, we can still have happy endings - even if they aren’t “full of meaning”. They can still be satisfying.

The Meat timeline, on the other hand, would have a significant focus on Dirk and his attempts to continue the plot. I think it would be fun, admittedly, if nothing went the way he thought it would. That after all of his villany and his acceptance of destruction in order to facilitate something he thought would be better, he actually just lost complete and utter control. 

The plot isn’t something that he alone can continue. It’s created with character conflict, with motivations and rises and falls and losses and gains; trying to recreate SBURB, to try and restart the cycle, isn’t what a plot needs to be. It isn’t what he thinks it will do. 

I’m unsure if you’ve seen this recently, but there’s been a lot of fanwork around the Lord!Jake English idea that went around several years back (when people saw the Caliborn sona). Now, this I’d want to put into it. 

Jake, fed up with being stepped on, walked over, hurt, suffering from the trauma of being completely and utterly ruined by Dirk, absolutely flips shit. He chases after Dirk to seek revenge, to cut short whatever bullshit he’s trying to do, and therefore much of the comic becomes this constant back and forth with an increasing fear for Dirk the closer Jake gets as he traverses Paradox Space.

It’s very much clear that when Jake arrives, Dirk will lose. There’s no question about it. Nobody suggests that anything else will happen. There’s several arguments on Meat’s Earth C over whether or not they should try to stop Jake, or let him stop Dirk - and whether or not Jake will calm down afterwards or continue his rampage. 

In the end, Dirk fails. Jake catches up to him, and just before he hits the killing blow, the entire thing goes dark. Our narrator dead, the plot abandoned; there is nothing more to see. This I would want to use to enforce the idea that, yes, plot can still be satisfying as hell and still have integral moments and be heavy and harsh - but it can also end in a way that leaves open questions because that shows that it isn’t the best ending you can get. 

And then we jump back to Terezi, using her Seer powers. Both timelines have been her trying to use her powers to See what’s in store, where she should go, what she should do. She’s still floating through Paradox Space, looking for Vriska, and as such she’s met with this... sort of internal dilemma. 

She knows, now, that the chances of her dying out here are high. She also knows that even if she does survive, she’s pretty much never going to see Vriska again anyway. She knows there’s a chance at a happier relationship with John, and that the only way she can get that is if she somehow manages to make a timeline where Meat and Candy merge together at once. 

So, she flies back. She manages to arrive on Earth C the day of John’s big decision, and interrupts him before he can go to the picnic. Through their dialogue, John gets it stuck in his head that, hey, there’s something BIGGER out here that you need to do, but you need to do that amazing thing again where you make a third Choice.

When John arrives at the picnic, he decides to eat some of the pumpkin instead - to which you might be thinking, what pumpkin? The one he put there, of course, using his retcon powers.

So we start on the Pumpkin timeline, written entirely in the 1st person narrative from John’s POV. It’s a completely biased interpretation of what’s going on, but it’s honest to John’s own thoughts and feelings, too, allowing everyone to act the way they usually would do without any influence, but still having a narrative touch. 

It shows John actively fighting to free the timeline from Dirk’s and Alternate Calliope’s narrative controls, those little hooks they’ve planted in it since time began, with a lot of back-and-forth as the two talk to John through the narration (which, he hears their voices as thoughts in his head). 

John attempts to free them both from their own biases and chains, encouraging Alternate!Calliope to leave the space she’s isolated herself in and join Earth C while convincing Dirk to undo the bullshit villain schtick he’s on (and that plot or no plot, there’s still a reason worth living for). 

It’d be a timeline filled with references back to original Homestuck (and funny quips from both Alternate!Calliope and Dirk along the way), a lot of morality discussion, plenty of theorising on narrative control and arcs and the placement of plot and fluff in a satisfying story, and have plenty of representation and romance and hints towards kids, too (such as nonbinary RoxyJaneCallie, DaveJadeKat, aromantic Jake, JohnDirk [because I couldn’t stop myself, honestly, with how their Classpects work so well hand in hand], and definitely RoseMary being the first to adopt a child that they absolutely do not call Vriska). 

It’d fill plotholes the fandom wants to be filled, and it’d have drama, of course, in the form of figuring out a way to destroy Lord English that doesn’t inherently lead to the Candy timeline. But it’d go back and forth between the heavy, plot-filled moments and the slower, relationship-based moments, with more humanising and development of Dirk and Alternate!Calliope and John as rounded characters.

That’s the best my tired mind can come up with right now. It’s something I’ve daydreamed about a lot, actually; how I’d rewrite Homestuck^2, or what my own ending to Homestuck would be using it as a foundation. I hope it makes sense! It’s a fun little thought experiment, honestly.

[elrondsscribe]

My complicated feelings on Maiko (please God, no shipping war drama).

Spoilers for Avatar: The Last Airbender. Mild content warning for mentions of abuse and trauma.

I mean it, y’all. NO DRAMA. 

One thing right off the bat: I have no patience for anyone who either opposes or supports any ship with anti-Mai or anti-Zuko rhetoric - though honestly, in this context, I feel more compelled to stick up for Mai because, from what I’ve observed so far, she’s the one typically gets more of the side-eye in these conversations. They are both my babies and I will not see them demeaned!

And I still do ship them. These two grew up together and seem to have a lot of experiences in common, and I like the affection between them. Both of them also grew up with Azula, whose treatment of them (and Ty Lee) appears to have always been abusive to some degree,* and they each clearly have trauma from that, and I think there’s a lot of potential there for a beautiful story of two survivors who’ve known each other through many years of abuse finally being free and making a way together.

I also don’t appreciate claims that either is “abusive” of the other. On the one side, Zuko acting possessive and jealous over Mai in “The Beach” is pretty obviously an extension of his mounting self-directed frustration and anger following “Crossroads of Destiny;” I don’t think that’s normal Zuko behavior, as Mai comments on him being out-of-sorts and then breaks up with him. I think it’s relevant here that Zuko is a firebender and she’s not, yet she feels like she can both reprove him and break up with him publicly. These are not the actions of a woman physically afraid of a superpowered abuser. On the other side of that equation, I feel like a gal should be allowed to not be particularly impressed by random seashells and spilled ice cream without it being a Mark Against Her. And how would she know the extent of Zuko’s internal conflict? She hasn’t been along for the ride of the past two seasons like we have, and he clearly didn’t talk to her about it if her reaction to his letter is any indication. And how would she see his actions as anything other than plain ol’ treason? And yet - even though he’s a traitor to her country, even though he broke up with her via letter, even though he locked her in a prison cell - she still saves his life, knowingly incurring the anger of Azula (her actual superpowered abuser), doing some treason herself in the process. Don’t tell me she doesn’t care about him.

But … I don’t think a ship needs to be abusive to be ill-advised or dysfunctional.

Because I don’t think she does get the extent of what post-banishment Zuko’s transformation is doing to him - at least not until after “The Boiling Rock.” Accordingly, her behavior toward him comes off as dismissive and insensitive, and it is, if only by default. And the single, very brief scene they got together after "The Boiling Rock” shows a “make-up” that doesn’t really address much (and really, there wasn’t time for a scene that would have).

EDIT: post-banishment Zuko is also a softcore SJW now, and Mai’s idea of a good time with him was to “order some servants around.” I find it hard to get a grip on Mai’s moral compass at large, though she quite obviously cares about Zuko and Ty Lee, but if “Return to Omashu" before Azula’s arrival (i.e., when she’s not repressing or following orders) is any indication, she’s not particularly taken with the Plight Of The Marginalized on its own merits (“Fire-flakes, Dad?”).

Now, @attackfish has made a very convincing case that having grown up as Azula’s “friends” has forced both Mai and Ty Lee to repress genuine emotion in favor of performative apathy and worshipful cheerfulness respectively. Even during the campfire scene in “The Beach,” each is keeping up a layer of emotional subterfuge that the other understands and upholds. Zuko is very much not in on the game, so he probably doesn’t know the real Mai all that well. Bless Zuko’s heart, but I don’t think that boy can tell a lie to save his life, much less comprehend or practice long-term emotional deception; he’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Point being, he’s enough of a loose cannon that I don’t think she feels like she can really share herself - her real self - with him.

In sum, I think that, especially post-banishment, the gap in interpersonal knowledge between Zuko and Mai is so wide that you could just slide Jupiter in between them.

And even apart from the disconnect between them, Zuko is awkward, impatient, given to brooding and angry outbursts, and inclined to be oblivious. Meanwhile, Mai’s protective apathy-mask would take considerable time and patience to unlearn, and even apart from that, she seems to be fairly aggressive and edgy when she’s not repressing. I’m not saying I don’t think long-term Maiko can work, just that I would need to see them heal and grow a lot in order to have a reasonably healthy lasting union.

[Which, by the way, is the reason that I think Mailee is an even more awesome ship, even apart from the fact that I still have a really hard time reading Mai as straight :) While they obviously handle the trauma of Azula in very different ways, they seem to get each other and can communicate even in code. And Ty Lee is a lot more perceptive and a lot less gruff and given to outbursts than Zuko is. There’s a protective dynamic between them, especially as displayed at the moment of truth in “The Boiling Rock,” that I really love. Now there’s a story of two survivors of the same abuser coming together and claiming their freedom!]

TLDR: I still kinda-sorta ship Maiko. But I see where people who don’t are coming from.

[smuttymess]

bts astro soulmate reading | for christiana

sign: libra sun | cancer moon | taurus rising

lover: park jimin | soulmate: kim namjoon

This reading is for Christiana, a Jimin bias who regularly finds herself wrecked by Taehyung, Namjoon and Jungkook. The girl has taste! I hope this brings you some joy during this wildly uncertain time. Take care xoxo

Dreamy, empathic, and sociable are just three of the many words that can aptly describe you, dear Libra. As one of the most popular in the zodiac, people naturally gravitate towards your nature empathetic, enthusiastic and caring nature. Your interpersonal relationships are of great value and importance to you - people often come to you for your sound advice, to be heard, and to be understood. Your Taurus rising, however, does not let just anyone into your space, as you are prone to people trying to take advantage of you. While you supremely enjoy the company of others and enjoy a wide social circle, you are also fully comfortable to retreat into solitude at a moment’s notice. This allows you to pause before leaping forward into a job, relationship or important decision - providing you with a level of protection when it comes to your heart that many Libras lack. More than anything, you crave balance and harmony across all areas of your life, because that is when you are most at peace. You are likely to avoid anyone or anything that could disrupt said harmony like the plague.

With your sun in Libra and rising in Taurus, you are one that appreciates life’s many luxuries, and you are known to self-indulge in all that brings you joy. While you want balance in your relationships and work life, when it comes to physical and material pleasures it is likely that excess is not in your vocabulary. Often at the center of social gatherings, you love to be seen, admired, and adored with all eyes on you, preferably with a glass (or two) of champagne in hand. On one night out in standard Libra revelry, you can’t help but take notice of the dark haired boy that emerges next to you at the bar, his presence disarming as he flashes you a flirtatious smile. You can feel his eyes fixated on you with as he watches you try to order a drink before he intercepts the frazzled bartender with merely a swoop of his hair and orders a bottle of Dom. All of that for you? You tease, more than happy to talk to this handsome stranger. A devilish, smirk moves across his face as he hands you a glass. Well, there are two glasses and two of us. Why don’t you join me?

It is not long before you and Jimin - both Libras - become practically inseparable in a whirlwind relationship. Despite his sultry persona and ability to practically undress you with his eyes, you quickly discover his deeply sensitive and emotional nature, and recognize that you are kindred spirits. With his Jupiter in Sagittarius and Venus in Scorpio, he is equally charming, romantic, intense and enthusiastic. In him you see a reflection of a kind, genuine and peace-loving soul, in which you find true comfort. You are also thrilled to find that his shared love of excess extends into the bedroom, wherein he can never leave too many kisses along your neck (all over your body) whisper too many sweet nothings into your near. In bed with Jimin, time does not exist - he is fully devoted to enjoying every inch of you, however long it takes, and is not afraid of running late to his next engagement if it means making you cum back to back. You often lose yourself in intellectual conversation only to find Jimin on top of you, his eyes taking you all in as he presses his weight into you, making you whine against him as his cock hardens between your thighs. As meticulous he is with his dancing, he is equally deliberate with all of his movements, his fingers moving calculatingly over your most sensitive parts as you practically beg for him. Look how beautiful you are, and just for me.

While your affair starts of very passionate and filled with long nights into longer, blissful mornings, this fire soon subsides when you two of you emerge from the early-dating fog of sex, pillow-talk and champagne. Soon enough you two begin questioning each others actions, his jealous and possessive Venus in Scorpio emerging as your shared insecurities bubble up but never reaching the surface. Remember: you’re two Libras, after all, who are practically allergic to conflict. Eventually, your worries about where the other has been and who they were with become exhausting and at odds with to the equilibrium you both crave in a romantic partnership. Your shared inabilities to address issues head on, wanting to exist solely in the fantasy world of your romantic relationship, is not possible to maintain when faced with the complexities and hardships of the real world. You both need someone who will somewhat lead, and ultimately you cannot find that in each other. After the dust settles and emotions are quelled, this becomes a lifelong friends relationship...with the occasional benefits.

Reeling after Jimin, you’re certainly not expecting to fall into anything else so soon other than perhaps a quick rebound at most. So you are surprised to find yourself suggesting coffee exchanging numbers with the cute, tall guy you run to catch up to after picking up his abandoned airpod on the street. Its only hours later when you tell your friends about the encounter with the clumsy, slightly awkward stranger that you’re told its the Kim Namjoon. Of course, your interest is piqued further.

It is weeks before you actually meet again in person and you are happy when he invites you to a small, gorgeously designed cafe. You tend to idealize people and relationships, and you have of course had this idea of him formed in your mind since your first meeting. Namjoon is one of the few people, however, that is truly genuine and lives up to your expectations - he simply exists like that. He is a Virgo through and through, with the fully analytical, reasonable, and hard-working nature that comes along with it. He knows what he wants and the path to get him there, striving for perfection in every area of his life, and he does not shy aware from sharing his goals and dreams with you on the first date. You immediately admire how knowledgeable he is and how strong he is in his beliefs and convictions, while still open to learning more. Both cautious to trust too soon, you take time to open up to each other, falling in love with each others minds over months of long walks hand in hand through the city’s parks and many galleries. Neptune in Capricorn speaks to your sensitive, dreamy Cancer moon and he finds comfort in your ability to make even the most guarded soul relaxed and at home. His Jupiter in Scorpio grounds you - not in a restrictive way but in a way which helps you problem-solve quicker than you would on your own. Suddenly, you can begin to see all of your big plans, hopes and dreams begin to become your reality with him at your side. Your Cancer moon nurtures him, and he is elated to have someone who so openly and ardently loves and supports him and that enigmatic brain of his.

In the early stages of dating you may be intertwined - quite literally - in your own private fantasy world, discussing your current reading lists before his hands move to embrace and explore your curves.  As with everything else, Namjoon wants to be knowledgable when it comes to pleasing you, and it shows in his tender approach which is loving and affectionate with lots of touching and caressing, but also animalistic - think spanking and dirty talk into your ear as rubs your clit and fucks you from behind, endlessly enjoying watching you come undone beneath him. You can, and do, spend countless days and nights together this way, lost in each other’s presence and bodies. But it is not long before your Libra heart begins to crave more of that energy you gain from large social gatherings and groups of friends. His Saturn in Pisces protests, regularly and often. But baby, do we really have to? I’d much rather spend time with you here. His mind quickly changes when he sees you in your LBD, stilettos on, ready to paint the town red. its not long before he too is dressed and out the door to whatever night you have in store. 

Few people know how to get under this Virgo’s skin better than you, Libra. You love how easy it is to rile him up, often without even trying. Namjoon, with his Virgo in Scorpio, is equally annoyed and turned on by your sociable nature, which often has many pining for your attention. For however famous, powerful, and desired he is, he has nothing on your innately flirtatious aura which is akin to a bee to honey. This magnetism you possess is one of many things that attracted him to you, but it also is what gets his blood boiling, bringing out his jealous, controlling and possessive side. This is a man that hates acting out of character or losing himself in emotion, but you cause him to become someone else entirely. You looked so fucking good tonight, everyone couldn’t stop staring. Why do you need to be so sexy? You enjoy seeing him like this, his seeing his eyes darkening as he throws his keys onto a side table and loosening his tie before his big hands grip your waist, hoisting you up onto the kitchen counter to straggle his torso. I’ve been waiting for this all night. I couldn’t stop thinking about getting you home, away from those eyes. But I know you liked the attention, didn’t you princess? Your kitchen is fairly decorative (we know Joonie’s cooking skills) so you are happy to lean back, your legs raised supported by his hands as he devours you whole, making you drip all over the cold marble countertop. 

You and Namjoon are a true opposites-attract pairing, existing on two different wavelengths that manage to flow quite nicely and making you true partners in love. Namjoon adores you for how optimistic yet level-headed you are, and you enjoy his strong, disciplined and future-thinking persona. He needs to understand that perfection is an illusion, and life is meant to be savored. Over time, he learns to be less critical with your sensitive heart, which you remind him of whenever he goes into full Virgo-mode. Ultimately, you know that Namjoon means no harm - he simply wants you to be your best self because he sees you for not just who you are today but who you can be tomorrow. As you both crave balance and fairness, your home will overall be one with minimal turbulence as Namjoon is a problem-solver who will always seek to meet you halfway. It is likely that you cohabitate in a plant and art-filled abode high above Seoul, creating a comforting atmosphere for the two of you to retreat into and find peace. With Namjoon, you create a life that successfully balances autonomy with interdependence and teaches you how to trust in true, long-lasting love. 

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Series Review Pt. 2/3

Part One

Part Three

Continuing the trend, lots to read under the cut.

In part one we established that the central conflict of the series as a whole is not so much a black and white “good guys side vs bad guys side” but of a much more complex societal problem stemming from individual choices and series of choices made by individual people and the impact those choices have on others. This is the heart of the current conflict between Hawks and Twice.

Twice and Hawks share many things in common and have been shown to develop a genuine friendship in their shared time in the PLF. This, however, has not changed the fact that they are still functioning from opposite sides of the central conflict - at least the institutional facet of it. Each of them has taken up a position fundamentally opposed to the other in attempts to bring about their prospective “big picture” futures, but that comes with the added emotional baggage each carries from the events that have happened to them in their respective pasts.

The visual direction of the scene enforces this concept. Each one is seeing the other literally from a different angle and in a different light. Twice is on the ground prone in a room where the only exit is blocked while Hawks stands alert and at attention over him, obscuring the only source of light entering the room. 

From Twice’s perspective Hawks’ face is obscured- the harsh light from behind casting a dark shadow across any features that would clue him into what Hawks is feeling - and he has to use the context clues he has available (posture, words, immediate events) through tears and adrenaline to interpret how to respond to Hawks. He’s been so suddenly thrust into this situation he literally and metaphorically can’t properly tell which way is up from where he lies. (Note how Hawks’ silhouette is sideways and looming over him in the same direction as Twice would be seeing from his place on the ground on page 13.)

From Hawks’ perspective Twice is knocked off balance and panicking like a cornered animal, completely unaware of the larger situation at hand and how they arrived here. When the perspective of the camera shifts and we can see his face again for the first time we get a completely different picture of what’s going on. Importantly, we can see in the change in perspective a closeup (usually used to highlight the key emotion) of Hawks’ face, complete with a somber and compassionate gaze that Twice is incapable of discerning right now.

Read this section through again twice. The first time use only the frame from Twice’s perspective and the second time read it with Hawks’. This is something I’m actually intrigued to see the anime handle because depending how deep the divergence in perspective goes, even the vocal performance may be different depending on the camera angle.

Twice sees a sociopathic, unempathetic monster who has used, abused, and thrown away his sincere offer of friendship to get what he wants and then has the audacity to try to convince him to play the fool again to get Twice to betray his friends for an easy way out. Hawks sees a person who feels betrayed and scared so Hawks is trying sincerely to explain to him what has been going on in order to be transparent because that’s the only way he can think to communicate the fact that he still values Twice, ending on the note that he believes that while Twice has crimes to answer for, he is still a good person who deserves to have a real shot at a happy life and that Hawks is personally invested in making that a reality if he’s willing to take the offer and trust him.

Hawks is operating as an enforcing tool of the law, but while he believes that law is set in place for general stability and safety it takes a human to human connection and cooperation to save someone to whom the law is blind. On page 16 when he says, “I don’t want to fight you, Bubaigawara!” he’s identifying with him not as the villain Twice, but as a person with an identity and will separate from the personae he’s crafted for himself over the years. Hawks would probably use his own real name to try to hammer this point home if there was a way to naturally do it. If Bubaigawara continues to resist and fight Hawks cannot make the case to others that he deserves a second chance. 

The exact memory that comes to Hawks’ mind is Twice’s words, “Anyone who helps his friends can’t be all bad.” Hawks is trying to say in this scene, “I’m your friend! I’m trying to help you! I know you see me as the bad guy, but I want to be your hero so please let me save you the only way I know how! Please trust me!”

He needs the cooperation, but Twice resists and Hawks has no other choice but to operate as law enforcement for the sake of the greater good. Twice has chosen to be a “villain,” so Hawks has to be a “hero.” All those feathers were for Twice in the case Hawks needed them, and now Hawks has to subdue the Sad Man’s Parade alone as well as Dabi whom neither knows is on the way.

That’s the bad news, but the good news is that hope is not lost. 

This is where I repeat my mantra of “we won’t know specific, individual fates until they happen." However, I think there are notable observations to keep in mind as we watch these final battles unfold.

Coming off of the discussion with Twice and Hawks, many including myself (and arguably even Twice) have gotten hung up on whether Hawks will choose to join the League eventually. Where we are now, I think it’s become a moot point almost not worth discussion anymore. If he does, we’ll see it soon; but Hawks seems to recognize that as long as the core complaints of the individual League members - and any of their sympathizers, for that matter - are not directly addressed, some other criminal force will come alongside and clash with them continuing the cycle of bloodshed and violence as influential leaders focus on gaining power until they are absorbed or achieve their end goal of complete anarchy and societal destruction. (Remember, he’s been following the League and their movements at least as far back as Kamino.) We saw it with the MLA, we saw it with the Shie Hassaikai, and even with Stain - along with the League of Villains, it began with a guerrilla group of revolutionists seeking to right a societal injustice; but if and when a separate opposing force of revolutionist outsiders cannot agree with them a battle ensues until one is subjugated and the strength of the loser is granted to the victor. Until the underlying issues are addressed, this cycle will only continue.

This is also to bring up the fact that the League of Villains is genuinely strong in terms of interpersonal loyalty but as an organization with foundational core values and a unified end goal has been fractured and shaky since the beginning. We saw those particular cracks most prominently just before the fight with Gigantomachia when lack of outer conflict began to highlight the inherent lack of unity in the LoV, only to be interrupted once again when some outside force stirred up a reason for them to work together for survival. Remember, all of the current members of the League of Villains were initially attracted and recruited because Shigaraki falsely appropriated Stain’s ideology. Dabi has stated he wants a world where heroes are obligated to their families first and that thinking of the misery he’s left the survivors of killed heroes “drives him crazy.” Toga wants a world where she has a network of unconditional support without feeling repressed. Twice wants a world in which he can trust others and be trusted and useful despite his bad luck and occasional mistakes. Spinner has clarified he needs a cause to believe in and fight for that supports outcasts like him, and Mr. Compress’s reasons for joining the League are simply to challenge the current status quo instead of mindlessly embracing it.

Shigaraki’s nihilistic dystopia of “burn everything to the ground” is not necessary to achieve any of these goals, and if enough confidence in alternative solutions and doubts in Shiguraki’s loyalty grows in the minds of each member of the League it could genuinely fall apart at the seams, though that isn’t to say that the League isn’t an incredibly tight knit and loyal group - quite the opposite, they’ve constantly shown to be willing to risk life and limb for each others’ sake - just that they’re more concerned with tearing down the current order than restructuring a cohesive new one. However, if the context around their unity has genuinely shifted to center around Shigaraki himself as a symbolic leader as it's been implied since the fight with Gigantomachia and the MLA, this will be clarified very quickly.

Even for most other villains we’ve encountered through the series this violence-first upheaval of society is not necessary to realize most of their goals. Gentle Criminal sought to shake up heroes’ apathy and overconfidence in their strength - La Brava following him closely because of her unwavering loyalty to him as a person - and even Stain was not opposed to the concept of heroes, just an institution of heroism that breeds greed and apathy instead of elevating the ideals of heroism. 

There have been exceptions like the Shie Hassaikai (who sought a complete erasure of quirks from the human genome) and the initial ideology of the Meta Liberation Army (a world ruled by the strong with completely unimpeded use of quirks) that would have required an entire shift in society on a cultural, governmental, legislative, and economic level; but for most the heart of their issues with society is an issue of the heart - that is, a cultural shift is necessary first and foremost to alleviate the problems each of these criticisms address.

This drastic but necessary change has been difficult to achieve up until this point because most of the mouthpieces for these cultural criticisms are either not weighty enough to carry traction without the threat of violence or are held by those motivated by personal vengeance who are not guaranteed to sit and talk  about peaceful options even if the opportunity was presented to them. The “outsiders” are so deeply ostracized in the current social and political climate that they can’t get a word in edgewise to those “inside” who go mostly unaffected by the shortcomings the outcasts are attempting to bring to light. This is where the series’ proposed solution enters the stage.

[dyketectivecomics]

Since I’ve seen too much general bitching about this decision from the writers and not enough Thoughtful Analysis of what it actually means & ways it could be improved. I guess I’m gonna have to bite the fucking bullet and talk about this. So buckle up kiddos.

Here’s Why Zatanna & M’gann Giving Artemis ‘Closure’ Is The Most Interesting Thing to Happen to Them All Season. And One (1) Way It Can Be Improved: (under the cut bc im not a dick that’s gonna Force people to scroll for miles through analysis they don’t have any interest in reading. Just remember if you’re thinking of Reacting to this, i GAVE you that out)

Let’s talk about the Decision on the writers part for this first, and why everyone needs to set aside personal feelings about it. Conflict is needed to drive a plot. And sure, this conflict is only JUST being set up, but this is a wonderful opportunity to develop these three characters together now.

Say what you will about Miss M in the second season, whether you agreed or disagreed with her methods from then is irrelevant (it was mindwiping criminals to the point of leaving them in a vegetative state, just so we all recall. Which. Is a whole other topic to dive into at a different time). It created a Conflict, and a subplot, that was more or less resolved by the end. As little development as characters end up getting with such a huge cast, M’gann was still provided an inciting moment & points of progression throughout the season. It even became relevant to the overarching plot, which is ideally what a writer should be doing with the characters.

Developing the characters personally & interpersonally alongside the greater conflict that may be beyond the protagonists’ control. That is what Makes Stories Interesting. How you feel about those decisions is almost irrelevant. The fact that the writer got you to feel something, means that they’re working effectively. (Or that you might be over-involved/projecting onto the work/characters. Which can be valid, but like.. Take a breath & take a step back maybe if you find yourself getting genuinely bothered by the narrative/narrative decisions. There may be something Deeper at work there bro.)

Now, this situation between Zee & M’gann manipulating Artemis is similar, but not the same as M’gann’s conflict last season. And that’s an important distinction to make. All characters have made questionable decisions and well-intentioned manipulations of others. It’s an age-old, tried and true conflict to introduce. This is a wonderful grenade who’s pin has been pulled, and it’s either a matter of time before someone slips about the news, or something that’s being so carefully kept together begins to provide internal conflict for those In The Know.

M’gann’s already made questionable choices about manipulating the minds of others (again, see season 2), it’s been touched on how she’s altered the minds of those close to her (so far only with Conner before this new development of course), but that conflict and aftermath was never actually shown to us, the audience. Another difference to note, however, is that M’gann didn’t force Artemis through this situation. Zatanna was very clear that everything in Artemis’ mindscape was her own creation and own subconscious working through her grief towards a path of acceptance.

It was a manipulation, nonetheless, but we can wax poetic about intentions vs consequences till the cows come home. It’s happened, it’s done. Now the question needs to be about those consequences: how will Artie react to it, if she ever finds out about it? Hell, how would Conner reaction if/when he finds out? Other members of the team? Etc? Again, it doesn’t matter if you personally agree with her involvement, it’s all about how the decision develops these characters & their relationships to each other, and whether we agree with the effects and implications of these decisions.

So onto Zatanna’s involvement as well. Zatanna is a character who has also been molded by her ‘bad’ decisions. Similar to M’gann, she’s erased memories and altered personalities and manipulated more than her fair share of people. She’s taken justice into her own hands and doled it out with impunity. It’s not something everyone likes about her character, but it IS a part of her pre52 canon, and we can’t deny it’s there. So for the writers to have her do something similar, by giving her friend a chance to seek closure even if it may be at a cost, even if some might not consider it ‘real’, isn’t totally out of character given her history. (Just maybe out of character, given that YJ’s canon hasn’t given her much of one until now) Agree or don’t agree with the intentions writers have given her. They’re there now. And now she’ll have to live with the consequences.

So back to the archer herself, Artemis has been seen grieving Wally all season long. Many characters have gotten a chance to show their grief in their own ways. Very much to the point where it became obvious the entire season was leading up to this One Moment.

But saving this moment and this potential development till the end was the real Poor Decision.

Many fans were similarly mourning Wally’s death, and with the time jump in the show nearly matching the years it had taken to bring it back, showing the different types of grief the characters felt over the season was a wise move. But showing how they moved past it would be just as important. And giving Artemis closure, should have been a mid-season plot point, not an end-of-season one. It would have provided the audience a sense of closure and excitement for new opportunities from the narrative to come, would have given more of a punch when other characters grieved alongside us even after this closure (because grief is not a linear, over and done with thing), but providing the first step is just that. A First Step.

And to circle back to the conflict it would have provided between M’gann, Zee & Artemis, it would have created a good half-season of development as they each tiptoed around each other on the issue. Once again, a chance to further develop all of these characters & their relationship to one another, possibly even to the greater part of the teams as well. (For example, maybe mix it in by showing how Artemis handles a Betrayal, and giving a further connection for Tara to hold onto, truly Showing how anyone can be forgiven for even well-intentioned mistakes, or if they hadn’t wanted to subvert the usual Judas Contract narrative, further push Tara away by having Zee & M’gann’s choices condemned. But if that decision had been made, we’d be opening up a whole OTHER can of worms)

Whether we see this nugget of conflict potential actually come to fruition is another point all together. But knowing the likely time-jumps to occur for season four, the cast continuing to expand to unreasonable proportions, and the fact that even our Original Main Cast have become nothing more than overblown cameos at many points during this last season, I wouldn’t be holding my breath on this one.

[agwitow]

Hey, it's the person from the new writer post. Answer when you are more human haha How do you come up with a story line and conflicts, without constantly almost copying other stories? In my story, I have a setting, some characters, and the general idea that I want their to be conflict (some bigger conflict, and some to do with disgust in 'mixing of races') - I just don't really know what the main conflict will be. I have a world in mind, but don't know how to build the actual story. Help?

Hey there! :) Sorry it’s taken me a couple days to get back to you. Life has just gotten in the way, unfortunately.

So, first of all, I want to (re)assure you that even if details of your story are similar to another, by the fact that you are writing it, it will be different. You’re going to bring not only your unique author’s voice to the tale, but also your experiences and creativity. So never be afraid to draw inspiration from other stories!

Now, as far as conflict goes, there are two broad types. Internal and External.

Internal Conflict - a personal struggle of a character. Examples include: fear of intimacy but also abandonment; desire to act ethically in face of a required and unethical action (*cough*Hamlet*cough*); guilt over a past action; desire to care for someone who may harm them (not just due to being abusive, could also be due to a worsening medical condition); or some disconnect between what a character thinks and what they feel

External Conflict - a problem outside of a character that requires them to act. Most movies and TV shows use external conflicts as their main driving points, so I’m sure you’re familiar with many examples.

The real fun in storytelling is mixing both types of conflicts. For example, you could have a character with a combined fear of intimacy and abandonment confronted with an external problem that requires them to get close to someone to overcome, with the consequences of not being that they’ll be left alone/abandoned for an extended period of time.

And that’s a very basic example.

You have multiple characters, and each can have an internal conflict (though not all of those conflicts need to be spelled out on the page), and when characters have opposing internal conflicts, you’ve got a recipe for added tension and drama. Will Character A’s issues around acting ethically in midst of a war be helped or hindered by Character B’s belief in the sanctity of (some) life?

Let the characters internal conflicts (if you choose to use them) act as foils to each other.

And when you then pit those internal and interpersonal struggles against an overarching conflict such as a war? Well, there’s lots of fun ways for all those tension points to interact. Like baking soda and vinegar.

Now, a good way to figure out what the main conflict will be is to focus on your main character(s). What do they want? It can be as simple as a glass of water, or as complex as restoring the lost honour of their family name. But whatever obstacles are in the way of that need...that’s your main conflict. All other conflicts in the story need to link to and/or interact with the main conflict.

Okay, let’s say your character wants a glass of water. What’s standing in their way? Maybe it’s an alien world where the natural liquids are too acidic to drink. Most people get their hydration through gel-like substances. Actual water is reserved for the elite of the elite. Okay, so we’ve got the goal and the obstacles. If you don’t already have a “why,” now would be a good time to come up with it. (An injury requiring clean water to treat? An elite character who lost their status struggling to regain it? A scientist wanting to prove that they can replicate genuine water - if they had a sample of it?)

With the broad strokes of the want, the why, and the obstacles outlined, you’ve got a great start on your main conflict. Everything else should be obstacles/challenges toward resolving the main conflict. And it doesn’t all have to be wrenches thrown at your protagonist. Maybe some action has resulted in even the elite losing access to water. Well now you’ve got some fun potential for pointing fingers, working with the enemy, new obstacles to overcome, or even just a moment of re-evaluation (e.g., is this conflict worth the price?)

Does this all make sense?

As far as what you mentioned about the conflicts you want to include, I would say the racism makes for a good internal conflict, especially if you can pair it with reasons for such beliefs to be confronted and potentially changed. (Not saying they must be - some people are just too stuck in their ways, after all - but that opportunity showing why those beliefs are unfounded or however you frame it is what keeps the racism belonging to the characters and not the story itself*)

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have further/more specific questions :)

xoxo

*Note: I’m a white Canadian. I may be completely wrong here. Any POC followers want to chime in?

[cfavigncn]

hi hi! my name’s hannah ( she / her, 23, est ) and this little marshmallow is juliette dewhitt, though most here would know her as avignon!  she’s a front desk receptionist at the hotel. i’ve got info on her below the cut! like this or message me if you want to plot because it’s my fave thing ever!  i’m also in the discord so we can talk there too. can’t wait to get started!!!

tw: cheating, verbal abuse, alcoholism

INFO.

❛   ｡   ❄️  ﾟ danielle campbell. female. she/her /  did i hear you say flowers pressed between the pages of a well-loved book, sunlight peeking through clouds, a half-empty bottle of lavendar perfume, & a smile no less genuine just because it’s exhausted ? then you must be talking about avignon, i’d recognize them anywhere. i’ve heard that the twenty-three year old front desk receptionist is a cancer and honestly, i see it. they’re known for being stubborn & overbearing, but their kindhearted & selfless tendencies make up for it. they’ve been working at du lac for two years and i think that their real name is juliette ‘jules’ dewhitt, but don’t spill. ( hannah. 23. she/her. est )

HISTORY.

so juliette was born in paris to arthur dewhitt and and celeste boucher. they were a bit of a cliche, him being an up-and-coming author and her being the darling of french theater.

when they first got together, arthur told anyone that would listen that he fell in love with celeste while watching her on stage, before ever having said a word to her.

the issue with their grand love affair, though, was that it was exactly that- an affair. celeste was already married to another man. he was a prominent director and had oh so coincidentally been the one to cast her in her first breakthrough role. and though celeste wasn’t in love with him anymore, he was still utterly devoted to her.

with the baby on the way, arthur started putting pressure on celeste to leave her husband and be with him openly. but as much as celeste did love arthur, she loved her career more and she feared what the revelation of the affair would do to her chances to perform.

 she pushed him away, telling him that she loved her husband (she didn’t) and that she wanted to give her baby the best chance at happiness with a nuclear family (that hadn’t even come into her head until she said it out loud). 

arthur was heartbroken, but he respected her wishes.

years later, he ended up writing a novel that drew heavily from his own experiences with celeste. it was critically acclaimed- beloved by the critics, made into a movie, generally agreed that it would be one of the novels that defined the decade. 

unfortunately for celeste, there were enough details that mirrored their own lives that her husband finally caught wise. he confronted her and though she lied and denied as fervently as she could, he ended up leaving her and the daughter that he now knew wasn’t his. 

 without the income of her husband, and now getting too old to land the roles that once sustained her career, celeste ended up moving herself and juliette to a small town in france. 

she hated it there, having always been so used to the hustle and bustle of paris.

juliette would have been only 13 or 14 when this happened and to say that it was devastating would have been an understatement- within the span of a few weeks, she found out that her mother had cheated, that the man she had always considered her father wasn’t and that he no longer wanted anything to do with her, and then got moved away from everything that she knew.

she ended up getting a job as a bagger at the local grocery, riding her bike to and from work. 

her mother talked about getting one herself but never seemed all that pressed to actually start looking. instead, she focused on reliving her golden days and began drinking heavily. 

slowly, she devolved into a hateful and cold shell of her former self.she resented her daughter, thinking that it was because of her that the perfect life had unraveled around celeste.

jules learned to grow up very quickly after that. she cooked dinners, made sure that the bills were actually mailed out, always put a blanket on her mother when she passed out on the couch, and turned a cheek at the words spoken while still awake.

despite everything, jules is actually an incredibly positive and kind person. she realized very young that no amount of bitterness at her own plight would change things and that she wanted instead to focus on putting joy and kindness back into the world. 

she focused on creating healthy friendships and relationships, on her schoolwork, on anything that wasn’t her home life. 

she probably wouldn’t have told anyone about what she was dealing with at home, as she didn’t want people to worry about her. 

when it came time for university, jules decided to study hospitality. she was an incredibly detail-oriented person, and had learned over the years how to manage her own household. plus, it was a career that she thought her good nature would be suited to. 

it was hard to leave home, not knowing what state her mother would be in without her, but jules reasoned that she couldn’t hold back from having her own life forever. 

at school, jules really started to thrive. left to only care for herself, she started exploring every hobby that she could think of and learning everything about herself that she could. 

she even reached out to her birth father, who was thrilled to finally get to acknowledge his daughter. they’ve begun a tenuous relationship that they’re both very nervous but hopeful of. 

it was actually a suggestion of his that, as he hadn’t had the chance to support her while growing up, that he could get her a connection at the hotel du lac, where he regularly stayed when he wanted to write. 

she’s even started going by his last name! it’s really exciting for her. at first it was just because it would help with the job interview but it’s started to be something she does in her own head too.

she works at the front desk, and actually really likes it. basically her whole job is solving problems for people and staying friendly, both of which are right up her alley. also, she always loved visiting avignon while growing up and to have it as her codename is actually very charming to her

HEADCANONS.

she’s super afraid of heights. one time went to the top of the eiffel tower and nearly puked. hasn’t been up since

she loves oversized sweaters, soft blankets, fuzzy knee-high socks, basically anything cozy. would probably sit in front of a fireplace for a year if she had the time

laughs at her own jokes. sometimes literally can’t get through telling her own jokes because she’s laughing too hard

she has a really impressive book collection. growing up, she’s always loved the escapism of reading and ever since she got in touch with her father, he’s been sending her his own favorites. her favorite ones are the ones that he’s written his thoughts in the margins, a habit which she’s since picked up

she’s a total pushover. would do anything for anybody. honestly, to the point where it’s a character fault. it’s led to her being taken advantage of more than once in her life

hasn’t ever had a pet before but she would totally love to get a cat one day

doesn’t handle interpersonal conflict super well. like, she could get yelled at by a guest all day long without breaking a sweat but if someone that she cares about gets visibly upset with her she kind of freaks out and overextends herself trying to make things right again

loves knitting and baking when she’s stressed out. it’s nice for her to have something to do with her hands while her mind is racing and then at the end of it all, you’ve got a nice little treat for yourself!

has recently started keeping a little journal that she writes in. it’s partially to try and collect her own thoughts and get to know herself better and partially because she wants to have something shared between herself and her dad

WANTED PLOTS.

friends!!!!!!! avignon has never really had the chance to have close friends growing up because she never had the money/time, and she was afraid to get too close to people and have them realize the situation with her mom

her dad. this one will actually be a wanted connection, but i would love to have arthur (obviously that name isn’t set in stone lol) around and start to navigate their relationship actually being together for the first time

a love interest- avignon is very guarded about romance because she’s got deep abandonment stuff and also is afraid that she’s not good enough for it but like i can totally imagine her having these huge feelings for someone, either requited or unrequited that she doesn’t know how to handle and getting very blushy about it

a bad influence- she’s never really had the chance to let loose and have fun before, so i’d def like to see that happening. plus, she would probs start trying to like take care of them in return and make sure they drink water and the whole nine it would be very charming

irritant- tbh, she isn’t most peoples’ cup of tea. she’s very almost aggressive about her kindness and i can imagine that there are people that would absolutely hate that and they would just butt heads over it

[zmediaoutlet]

you saw endgame! please share with the class! assemble!

haha, okay, well–here’s some thoughts, since we’re far enough out that I don’t think this will be too spoilery for people – but it’s gonna be super long, so it’s under a cut, either way:

Well, it was–spectacular! In that it was literally a spectacle, for one thing. I had pretty lowered expectations after not particularly enjoying Captain Marvel (it was fine, but boring) or Infinity War for that matter (better-made, but the stakes were obviously nonexistent because we knew something was going to be done). Here, though… I just really, thoroughly enjoyed it. It was thoughtfully done, well-executed, and just as a moment of payoff for those of us who have been here all ten years… It was just really something. I saw Iron Man on opening weekend in 2008 and fell in love, and even if I haven’t loved every single movie since then, I feel like Marvel just sent me a love letter, and I was so–glad. What a good movie-going experience it was.

I say all that having seen SO MUCH rending of garments and gnashing of teeth from the !stans and shippers, but all of that’s so very much missing the point. This is the story of *this series*, this great arc that led to this point. The thing to remember is that the MCU is fanfiction itself–it’s based off of characters who are based off of characters from a canon that’s been rebooted and re-blended about a billion times. This is the story this group of fic-writers, essentially, chose to tell, and I think they did it pretty damn well. You can write your own fic where Steve weeps into Bucky’s hair for 70 years if you want to. This story isn’t that, and that’s okay. (Genuinely, if fandomites could take like half a step back they’d be much happier people. I know it’s hard–I’ve been in a process of letting go with SPN that I haven’t really managed to do well–but c’mon. Don’t get so het up about it.)

Some things:

1) I was genuinely impressed with the time travel mechanism, especially as it bounced meta-ly off of other examples we’ve seen in pop culture. Finally, a story that allows ACTUAL alternate-universe time travel instead of boring-ass time loops. I’ve always thought it was spectacularly dumb when the worry is “but if I kill myself in the past, I’ll die now!” Nope! Avoided! Thank you, folks. It’s kind of weirding me out that so many people online seem confused about how the time travel worked, but it was incredibly clean and I just want to high five the people involved. The one thing that seemed like a plot hole was Old Steve at the end, with the implication that he was co-existent in this timeline for 70 years (and did nothing about Hydra??)–but then the Russos said that they assume he went to an alternate timeline, and then came back to this one to give Sam the shield. It wasn’t on screen either way so you can make your own headcanon, but I’m good with that. So: successful time travel. Hoo-fucking-rah.

2) Thor. This was the one real spoiler I had going in, that Thor Got Fat. All this weeping about how he’d been mistreated by the narrative. So, I was pre-emptively worried… and then ended up not thinking it was that bad. Look, I’m a chubster, I’m well-aware of how sensitive that can be for people. What I found interesting about it was that it was, yes, kind of a visual joke, just because The God of Abs was a pudge, but it was actually treated remarkably kindly by every character for whom that would be in-character. Meaning, sure, Rocket makes fun of him, and Rhodey’s kind of a dick (because Rhodey’s like that with Tony, even)–but Bruce, Steve, and even Tony all deal with him quite gently. That scene where he tries to volunteer for the gauntlet and Tony carefully holds him back was so sweet and sad. Poor guy. It was a good exploration of the depths that the last ~10 years of his life have pummeled him into. It wasn’t that he was fat, it’s that he was broken. People will make up their own minds about the equivalencies there and what’s being implied, but it was a good visual metaphor as far as I was concerned. If he were “just” a sad drunk no one would have believed that he wasn’t ready for what was coming, and he wasn’t. But he got better, because his friends really were there for him. (Also, Korg was wearing Taika’s pineapple shirt! I hope there are nice fics where Korg and Maik gently just play XBox with Thor because that’s all they can do for him.) 

Also on Thor, re: Thor/Loki – more rending of garments about how he didn’t go see Loki. Let’s think about this: you’re on a top-secret time mission to save the universe (Time Heist!), and you go see your trickster god little brother who, yes, you miss, but who also hates you at this point in his life. That’ll go well. I completely understand why there wasn’t a scene. The scene with Frigga was all I needed there.

3) Steeb: I’ve never been the… biggest fan of Steve. I mean, he’s fine. His character is caught awkwardly between the man, Steve Rogers, who abhors bullies and will break rules to do what’s right, and between The Man, Captain America, who kinda Is Rules and needs to do what’s right but also represents an idea greater than himself. There’s a lot of wonderful tension there, but the movies haven’t particularly capitalized on it, and when they’ve tried it’s been in a lip-servicey way.

That said, this movie deals with it really, really well, I think. At the beginning he’s trying to live, and isn’t doing a great job of it. The plan they come up with is simple, perfect heroism – he’s not representing an Ideal, but he is one: he’s the man and the ideal simultaneously, that striving toward right will eventually create a more just, fairer world. If sacrifice is required he’s willing to make it. That scene of him standing alone against the massed forces of Thanos with his broken shield strapped tight to his arm is like a distillation of who Captain America should be. I’m so glad we got that, at the end.

As someone who doesn’t invest in Steve/Bucky but who completely understands it, I also see no issue with the thing where he goes back to Peggy. Bucky understands, too. That moment where they hug and he tells Steve, so-softly, “I’ll miss you,” oh man, oof. Bucky knows. I hope there’s a lot of pining!Bucky in that fandom, y’all are missing out on a STELLAR opportunity if not. Especially pining!Bucky where Steve knows and can only do his best to be Bucky’s friend. Steve going back isn’t out of character, either, despite the clamoring. He misses Peggy, he misses peace. Who knows what they got up to in that alternate timeline–maybe he and Peg went and routed Hydra early, maybe they saved Bucky, maybe they had a WWThreesome with Buck, whatever. But Natasha and Tony both told Steve to “get a life,” and he finally got to. He’d done enough. He earned it.

4) OH MY GOD, NATASHA. What a character arc. I friggin’ adore the mirroring of her and Clint’s stories. The brutal assassin who gained a family and learned what it meant to love something so much she wanted to sacrifice herself for it–those scenes on Vormire were heartbreaking. I’m also super glad that the movie paused, after that. Someone called her death “fridging” – wow. No. She was a hero, as much as Tony was. Whatever it takes.

5) Tony. Holy shit. In a lot of ways this was his movie–in a more meta way, it was RDJ’s movie, and Favreau’s, and Feige’s. It all started with Iron Man, and that’s where it ended. There wasn’t a stinger scene because we got that funeral and then the moment in the credits with the originals signing the screen, and of course they saved Robert for last. The success of this movie is really a testament to the risk everyone took, way back then. It sure as hell paid off.

“You wouldn’t lay down on a grenade to save your men,” Steve said. How many different ways can Tony prove him wrong? At least once more. ;-;  I’m just super emotional about the whole thing. So many good moments all leading up to what happened. Little Morgan in his helmet, Pepper’s faith. Steve’s faith, for that matter. (I still have a tiny pocket of my heart reserved for Steve/Tony, no matter how non-canon it is. What a great relationship they have.) The panic and misery when Carol brought them back, calling Steve a liar, and Steve just–gentle with him, again, and how there was no anger there anymore. Argh. 

That’s the thing that I think I appreciated about the movie most, in the end. Despite all the craziness, the spectacle, the easter eggs slinging at you left and right (”Hail Hydra.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!), what I loved most is that in the face of this ultimate goal, this literally universe-saving moment, the stakes were actually felt because the characters (and actors, and script) sold how unimaginably important it was. Interpersonal bickering fell by the wayside; any dumb conflicts just washed away. No drama for its own sake, or manufactured arguments. Just–working together. The Avengers we hoped to get in the aftermath of the first team movie. We got ‘em, finally, even if we lost a lot too.

This all sounds super elegiac, I guess. It sort of is. It wasn’t a perfect movie by any means, but it might be perfect for what it meant to do, and what it set out to do. There were a couple of little nitpicky things that I might change, but they’re so small so as not even to be mentioned. And so many more tiny moments that I loved, loved, loved. It’s the first one of these movies that I’ve wanted to rewatch in literal years, and that’s making me really happy all on its own. I’m just left with this utter… satisfaction. Not sad, just happy that they made it worth my while.

Put another way: when I was leaving Shazam I felt like I’d spent about 4 hours wasting my time. When I was leaving Endgame, I felt like it had been an instant. Just yay, all ‘round. I loved it three thousand.

What did you think?

[firebirdsdaughter]

Alright...

... A wee bit more rested, and w/ a better quality video, we are back at it! XD

In no order:

Okay... Seems the Wozes aren’t switching off... Which is vaguely disappointing. I wanted to some day see them fight over the recap.

THAT WAS ABSOLUTELY A FAMILY MOMENT. Sworz is scolding Heure, and he even straight up is like ‘Are you listening to me?’ like a frustrated dad, oh my god. XD

So... What did Mirror¡Shinji just hang out in there mirror world and didn’t get effected by the time alteration, or... What. Not complaining, just curious,

Ah. So this, too, is Decade’s fault.

That look Sworz gave his son there was somewhere between proud and suspicious.

Oooo, infinite mirror trick!

Really? We’re really just gonna... Skip Geiz coming home? Really? *cries in exasperated, friendship-obsessed language*

Well, the boys are still working together well--even if this fight isn’t going great.

I love the parts of these three hanging out discussing things. I just live the Zi-Ot3, okay?

They’re having a sit down to discuss all the multiple timelines and goals of everyone involved, using chess pieces. This is adorable.

Awww. Sougo’s asking what future they want. I think he’s been playing it down, but is genuinely kinda bothered by the ‘Geiz is still gonna kill you’ thing. Partially bc he really wants to think that he can not become Puma Zi-O, rather than the only option being to kill him.

Oh my god, that cute little smile.

Geiz.exe has stopped working. God, Sougo, I get why you’re asking, but you know Geiz is bad at feelings! You’re gonna break him!

I think that also just showed very well that whatever Shiro Woz has said, Geiz is still just getting more conflicted. That was the face of someone who has no idea what they want anymore.

Tsukuyomi to the rescue! She’s well-acquainted w/ Geiz’s problems w/ interpersonal relations.

Aw, look at the babies investigating!

Oooo, editor man looks good!

This is so ‘amateur investigators’ and I LOVE IT.

Geiz ensuring the other two cover their mouths and noses before coming in (also him just using the collar XD). Even if it’s tiny, I love protective Geiz.

Yay! Shinji lives! It’s okay, dude. It’ll be okay. Having watched the ep once I get why you’re upset, but I promise it’s okay.

Also, Ren, come get Shinji. He’s gonna get himself killed again. Does he still owe you money in this timeline?

So here’s my question. Was Shinji actually trying to kill himself bc he thought it might stop his mirror self, or did it just look like that bc he was trying to cover up all reflective surfaces and accidentally trapped himself?

They’re all sitting here. I love this. I love the Zi-Ot3. I LOVE THEM.

Geiz is one of those people where, if punching it doesn’t work, he just punches harder.

I feel like this is a perfect example of his personality and fighting style though. Just, like. Go for it. Just tank right on. Like, oh, this guy reflects attacks? Simplest way to deal with that is just sacrifice myself.

Sougo is like ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea’ and thinking it’s theoretical, but Tsukuyomi literally standing w/ this face like ‘no, Sougo, you don’t understand just yet, he absolutely will do this.’

Sougo’s goofy geometry pyjamas. That is all.

Junichiro does the only acceptable movement for describing Woz’s appearance w/ hand motions.

Why is Sougo shocked by this thing? HE SAW IT LAST EPISODE!

I get that Sougo’s distracted, but does have to walk in the middle of the path and where is everyone?

Sougo can’t think and talk to Kuro Woz at the same time. I will admit, dealing w/ Kuro Woz is a bit much, so...

I LOVE THIS SCENE. Kuro Woz is being Kuro Woz, and Sougo just walks away. YES. Force the asshole to walk after you! Do it!

Also pretty sure he’s bullying Kuro Woz again, and I love it.

My first guess is that the reason the Zi-O II Watch wouldn’t activate was that Sougo was doubting himself? Or something like that?

If you are a Woz, you have no sense of personal space.

Elbow him in the stomach, Sougo!

Kuro Woz is... Really not getting it that Sougo’s not interested in that, is he?

Tsukuyomi expressing concern, very valid concern.

Okay, here’s the thing. Even if he’s not saying ‘only I can do it’ exactly, he’s still very much not suggesting Sougo do it. Like, at all. When he actually tries it, he does it. He knows perfectly well he could die doing it. And if he dies, then Tsukuyomi’s on her own trying to prevent Puma Zi-O (Shiro Woz does not count). And besides, if Sougo dies doing it, that’d be sure to prevent Puma Zi-O, right? But even if it’s not explicitly stated, he’s making an active decision to risk his own life rather than Sougo’s. Have I mentioned I love protective Geiz, even lowkey protective Geiz? Bc I DO.

This is like, another reason why I see him as the ‘protector’ sort of point of the triangle that is the Zi-Ot3. That’s just who he is. He’s the tank, the guardian. Even if he’s not quite noticing it right now, he’s absolutely shifting into being willing to die to protect the other two.

Also, it’s kinda another show that, no matter what else happened, he doesn’t really want Shiro Woz’s future, either. Bc he can’t be the ‘saviour’ or anything if he’s dead from this, ya know?

Tsukuyomi’s like ‘I knew it, you bloody idiot!’ and also pointing out that Sougo was against the idea which causes Geiz to have feelings for a moment bc he’s actually touched Sougo doesn’t want him to die, but also CONFLICTED. XD

I love how both Geiz and Sougo have come to the conclusion that if either one of them stand still in one place for a certain amount of time, either Shiro or Kuro Woz respectively will be somewhere in the vicinity and they can just yell. ^^

Also, I love how he seems to almost always have Tsukuyomi w/ him when he talks to him. It’s like he’s decided he needs a chaperone or something. Reasons vary from funny to sad.

So I guess Geiz is asking what Shiro Woz’s future is like. Apparently... It’s the same? So... No new inventions or anything? I dunno, I find this answer suspicious.

Okay. ‘It’s as if time has stopped.’ This line ratchets the suspicious factor up. It seems simple and sensical enough for the online translator to be right about it, so I’m just gonna take this as what the line basically means for now. But... Remember how a lot of the symbolism in this series has been about ‘restarting clocks’ and stuff like that? In the Build arc, Junichiro had that speech bout how you can only restart your own clock, which Sougo reiterated when meeting Heure. Just this past arc, Hiromu’s father’s watch started moving again at the end. Therefore, I hypothesis that ‘time has stopped’ is not actually a good thing and there is something else going on here.

WHO IS GOOGLES? Seriously, was he Geiz’s brother, his friend... Is that even a guy, I can’t really tell, I shouldn’t be assuming... It’s nice to see their dead body again, I guess, but I need more information here, Toei!

That was not the face of a person I trust. Admittedly, at this point, anyone w/ Woz’s face doesn’t have the face of a person I trust.

Okay, not you in real life, Keisuke, you’re a sweetheart.

See, this makes me think we’re not meant to trust Shiro Woz even more. Geiz only seriously tried to kill Sougo when he knew only about the crimes Sougo committed as Puma Zi-O and nothing about him in the present, when he perceived Sougo as moving toward that path, and when he thought he had no choice (Kasshin showing I think made hims start to wonder if it was even possible, but he got some hope again when Sougo was willing to actually give up and had to be pushed back into it etc.). Shinji, however, is not, whether now or in the future, an active or willing participant in these incidents. It’s like a Yummy, twisting innate wishes out of shape. He’s terrified and upset, and may even have been trying to kill himself to make it stop (not sure though bc this is a kids’ show). When Geiz actually considered things, saw Sougo as the person he was at that moment rather than just as Puma Zi-O, he balked at going through with it. Shiro Woz knows perfectly well this guy is innocent. But he doesn’t hesitate at all. Big red flag. Did any of that make sense? I don’t think that made sense.

Also get away from Shinji you bastard. Ren!

I literally spent this whole episode yelling for Ren to come help Shinji.

No, wait. I’m sorry. Ron.

I mean, I guess Geiz, who looks kinda like how I’d imagine a baby Ron might look, is protecting him, so there’s that.

Ron! Come help Shinji! Ron? RON!

Okay, so... Ryuga was an actual thing in Ryuki? I’m so sorry, it’s been so long since I watched Ryuki.

Heure is absolutely getting revenge on Shiro Woz for the car incident and you know what.... Valid.

Honestly... It’s nice to see someone beat Shiro Woz up a bit for once.

Rider Kick interruptus. All the little hiragana digitise out of existence when Sougo pulls him out of it, that’s a nice effect.

Also I feel like that was slowed down, but I dunno. How fast do you move in a Rider Kick?

Dramatic friendship moments in suit for you viewing experience! XD

I love this, though. These two, I feel like are gonna have a sort of dynamic ‘don’t you dare die on me I’m the only one allowed to kill you’ on Geiz’s side and ‘I’m the king and I didn’t give you leave to die’  on Sougo’s side. XD Like, not necessarily exactly that, I’m being silly w/ the wording, but you get the point. I hope.

Anyway, Sougo is upset that Geiz was risking his life like that, which results in more feelings.

I feel like it might be an important distinction that he uses the Zi-O II Ride Watch not purely in order to gain power and become king or whatever, but in order to save people--most specifically, at the particular moment, a rather self-destructive warrior-type friend. Though the preview does indicate it comes a little late... DX

Geiz is embarrassed. I mean, like I said earlier, there’s a level of this that’s basically him making a choice to risk his own life rather than Sougo's... Or even Shiro Woz (I woulda made Shiro Woz do it).

Sougo is like ‘nope, nope, nope, that’s enough of that.’

So Geiz recognises the Watch? Maybe. He wasn’t there when Kuro Woz dropped it off. Tsukuyomi was, though. Did she not know it? Hm.

I managed to pause it when it looks like Geiz is looking at the camera like he’s on the Office bc Sougo’s power up isn’t working. XD

Also, oh my god. Sougo gets pulled into the mirror world, and Geiz’s immediate response is to rush over and try to follow him/pull him out while yelling (well, yelling ‘Zi-O’ we’re not quite to regular name status yet) worriedly. I LOVE THEM.

I’m assuming everything is backwards, but I couldn’t read kanji in the first place so...

Did Okuno drop his voice an octave for Mirror¡Sougo?

Sougo is initially surprised to see another version of himself, then worries that it’s him from three days in the future again.

Mirror¡Sougo is doing this weird head tilt and it’s so hilarious I just... Can’t.

Sougo makes the unfortunate discovery that not all other versions of you that appear are your friend. I’m sorry, sweetie.

Wow, Mirror¡Sougo just straight punched him.

Okay, I know we all saw it in the preview, but... Mirror¡Sougo does this, like... Really weird walk/motion, and... It just. Has to be seen. I’m serious. HE’S FREAKING WINKING.

Sougo is confused.

Okay, I know this is serious, but it literally looks like he pulled the mirror Ride Watch out of his hair.

Mirror Driver has very weird, distorted voice.

Also WHY IS HE HUNCHING LIKE THAT NO SWEETIE THAT’S BAD FOR YOUR SHOULDERS!

Preview: I saw a translation that said ‘I’ll cut the future’ but the online thing here says ‘create’? Personally, I’d prefer create, but it’s probably ‘cut.’ In other news... If they make a mention that defeating Another Ryuga might be the way to get Sougo out of the mirror world, that would raise Geiz’s ‘sacrifice myself to defeat it’ thing to also being sacrificing himself to save Sougo. And. I love it. ^^ XD <3

Anyway, that’s all for now. Digital macaroons for anyone who read all that. And if you don’t like macaroons... Caramels! Digital caramels.

I’m slightly worried about the little ‘what’s your future like’ convo bc it might indicate Shiro Woz is getting his claw sin between my kids, but pretty much everything else was great. Geiz doesn’t seem to even consider suggesting Sougo try the plan, and Sougo’s genuinely upset when Geiz tries to do it, and at the end, Geiz is upset when Sougo disappears into the mirror world. Tsukuyomi tries to mediate, and do so quite well, is the one who clearly is well-aware that Geiz will absolutely go through w/ the sacrificing himself plan and that he needs dissuading. Looks like she’s unable to stop him next eek, though... And, finally the Zi-Ot3 are investigating together again, and frankly, I just LOVE IT.

How about I subject everyone to my new favourite picture again? (It’s not technically spoilers now, there was a version in the preview for next week)

If you could all the ‘XD’s in this post... You get another hardy handshake.