#it’s UP versus DOWN NOT left vs right!

[thecursivej]

Remember it’s UP vs. DOWN, NOT LEFT vs. RIGHT!!! Class solidarity forever!

if you suddenly don’t support the shooter bc he’s right wing I’m shaking you like a rag doll I’m throwing you into mount doom please look me in the eyes and remember that your biggest battle is not left vs right it is up versus down. they want you divided. keep your eyes on the prize. you want to eat the rich? so do the millions living in rural america. so do your farmers, your electricians, your welders, your fishermen. the men and women’s bodies who are exploited for labor. the class disparity the fear mongering the human rights violations stems from ABOVE!! they want you to despise each other to alienate each other to think we are not both human beings suffering for their profit. do not cover your eyes with their wool

[leviathan-supersystem]

i don't quite agree with the "it's not left vs. right, it's up versus down" meme- while "up vs down" (ie owning class versus working class) is of course the primary conflict, "left vs. right" does relate to like, significant differences in approach to how to address the "up vs. down" conflict, and one of these approaches is obviously better than the other in this regard.

but i will say that a right-wing working class person is, usually, someone you can and should try to win over.

and a "left-wing" wealthy person is a scorpion on your back. they cannot change their class interests.

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! I was actually wondering if you all could do a really in-depth post specifically on canes versus forearm crutches. I’ve noticed a couple of the recent asks pertain to it, and I think I myself still have one in the queue related to it, but in all of the posts y’all link us too in your answers to those asks, I have found the information is still very sparse and doesn’t directly compare the two in a lot of detail. I would really really love to see a specific dedicated post that breaks down the differences Between them directly, and goes into a lot more detail about what kind of person might prefer a cane and what kind of person might prefer forearm crutches. Differences in conditions, pain levels, fatigue levels, location of issue on their body, other symptoms, examples of disabilities that might more commonly default to one over the other, all that stuff. I’ve looked through basically all your posts on the subject I can find, and still feel like it’s really only scratching the surface, so if there’s a way y’all would be willing to do one big post on this topic specifically, I know at least I would really love it and I think others would as well! Most of the existing posts are a little too broad and surface level, and while I have found them super helpful as a starting point, I would love to see one that zooms in just on these two mobility aids rather than a broad overview of all types of mobility aids being compared like most of the existing resources y’all have. Seriously love what you all do and I would be extremely grateful for this!

Hi anon, just for you:

On Writing Characters Using Canes vs Crutches

[large text: On Writing Characters Using Canes vs Crutches]

This is a writing advice post that doesn't cover every single possibility because that's too impossible to try and do. It's simplified (!!!) to be coherent for writers who have little to no experience with these sorts of mobility aids, and I encourage anyone who wants to write a character using either of these to treat this post as a small part of a larger research process. This post will contain generalizations for the purpose of me wanting to actually finish it. This is writing advice, not medical information, nor something you should be applying to real life.

Please keep in mind that a lot of the disability examples will only be shown in a single category because otherwise this would be a comical block of text. So yeah, I know that a ton of conditions outside the "chronic pain" category also come with chronic pain, but I want this list to be actually easy to look through.

This will compare the cane (singular stick) to crutches (two sticks). Differences between a singular crutch and two canes will be at the end.

Canes

[large text: Canes]

The most primitive mobility aid that's out there. A wrist-height stick with a handle. You hold it in your hand (at a rather natural angle) and that's mostly it - it's meant to follow a standard (left leg forward, right arm forward) gait and be a support meant for generally milder mobility issues. A cane can take up to 25% of body weight, so like half of what a leg does.

As a TLDR, here's what they could be:

One leg unable to bear the entire weight (but not completely unable) - this could be a result of a problem anywhere from the bottom of the foot all the way to the hip.

Milder balance problems - largely neurological, so either a condition that affects the brain, the spinal cord, or the nerves in the leg. There are also some autoimmune, respiratory, and cardiovascular causes as well, plus a few more.

Back/trunk problems, most commonly pain.

To use a cane you need two legs, most people who use canes for leg reasons will have a “good leg” and a “bad leg”. If this is the case, you'd typically hold the cane on the good leg side, as that redistributes the weight - and pain - between the bad leg and the cane.

The good leg needs to be able to bear the whole weight comfortably, the bad leg needs to be able to bear, at the very least, half of the weight. If the disability affects legs to the point where either:

both have problems weight-bearing;

one can't bear weight at all (e.g., amputation, flaccid paralysis, pain too severe);

then two crutches (or other mobility aid, like a wheelchair) would be the move. The cane doesn't replace an entire leg and is meant to be a minor support.

Examples of what would cause someone to use a cane:

Monoplegia or hemiplegia that is spastic (rigid) in the leg. This could be a result of stroke, traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, nerve damage, Brown-Séquard syndrome, polio, encephalitis, transverse myelitis, progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, alternating hemiplegia of childhood, hemiplegic migraines, or being a hemispherectomy survivor. And many more things.

Chronic pain; arthritis, hypermobility spectrum disorders, chronic patellar instability, h-EDS, neuropathy, peripheral artery disease, past injuries (e.g., broken foot that healed incorrectly), systemic lupus erythematosus, joint replacement, chronic bursitis, and a lot more.

Relatively minor fatigue - most fatigue disorders will be on a wide spectrum, and people's symptoms often vary a lot. But a cane could help with fibromyalgia, Charcot Marie Tooth disease, POTS, scoliosis, severe kyphosis/lordosis, COPD (and other respiratory conditions), or milder forms of CFS/ME. Someone undergoing chemotherapy (or taking some other fatigue-causing medication) could also use one.

Muscle conditions, which are an even bigger spectrum. Spinal muscular atrophy type 3 and 4, early Limb-Girdle muscular dystrophy, tibial MD, Becker MD, or early myotonic dystrophy type 2 can all be reasons to use a cane. Keep in mind that these have drastically different presentations from person to person, and it's not entirely unusual for two people with the same kind of muscular dystrophy to use very different mobility aids (e.g., a tilt-in-space powerchair vs ...no aid at all). These are just the ones where I'm aware of a person who 1) has it, 2) uses a cane, even if it's not the most common aid.

Prosthetic leg on one side; usually below knee (high level amputees will more often go for crutches, even if they use a prosthetic).

The second biggest reason why people use a cane is balance. For this the cane can be held in either hand; some people have a preference, generally for the non-dominant hand for convenience - although many people with balance problems will also have a coordination disorder that might make using their non-dominant hand too difficult. Some people will switch the side they hold it on.

For a lot of people with balance problems, a cane might be the aid they use at home, and use a rollator or a wheelchair outside.

A good cane for balance purposes is a quad cane - it has four legs at the bottom and offer more stability than the single point equivalent. However, the larger base might also mean that for some people it can be easier to hit it with their foot, which ranges from annoying to dangerous.

Examples of disabilities that affect balance;

Many of the things included in the first section - primarily those that directly affect the brain or nerves.

Conditions that cause vertigo - again, many of the same things as before because a lot of them tend to originate in the brain. So other than aforementioned meningitis or stroke and the like: Ramsay Hunt syndrome, migraines, basically any sort of brain damage, POTS, Meniere's disease, labyrinthitis.

Respiratory problems, like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, severe asthma, or lupus.

Coordination disorders - again, a lot of overlap with aforementioned disabilities, so I'll skip to things I haven't mentioned yet. Ataxia could be caused by a lot of things; some include the Chiari malformation, ataxia-telangiectasia, Friedrich's ataxia, Parkinson's, brain tumors, or Niemann-Pick disease. Dystonia is usually a primary condition rather than being caused by other things (although it can be!). Dyspraxia is also a coordination disorder generally milder than ataxia, and canes can be potentially helpful for it as well.

As mentioned before, some coordination disorders will affect the upper limbs as well, and it might be too difficult to use a cane. For disabilities like Huntington’s disease, or ataxia that significantly affects the hands, rollators and wheelchairs tend to be more helpful.

Anything that causes the person to fall. Fall risk is the primary reason people use canes.

A cane can also be used for back/trunk issues. One can lift off some weight of the body from above the Problem by putting the weight on the arm instead. I have really severe kyphosis as well as (partial) trunk muscle atrophy/coordination problems and quite literally can't straighten my back for more than a few minutes at most - my cane allows me to do that more easily and without needing to think about it as much.

Examples of some conditions that cause that include;

sciatica;

degenerative disk disease;

past spine injury;

scoliosis or severe kyphosis/lordosis.

In my experience, you need fairly good arm strength to use a cane comfortably. For people with more significant weakness in upper limbs, rollators tend to work better.

Grip strength is also important; there are canes designed to mitigate this (the platform cane/crutch comes to mind) but they're not the most common because often (not always!) when someone has this issue they already require a larger mobility aid.

Canes are often a "starting" mobility aid, i.e., a person starts using it at first but later transitions to using something else as their disability progresses (or they realize that it wasn't adequate in the first place, it mostly happens with slowly progressive conditions - when they decide to get a cane, it's often just too late). A cane can be useful at the very start of an onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but it's basically worthless beyond that.

Similarly (kind of), a cane can be the "smaller" mobility aid for someone who uses multiple of them at the same time. Someone dealing with fatigue could use a cane at home, but need a rollator for going out, or a wheelchair for longer trips. Another person could use a cane when going out with a prosthetic leg on, but use a wheelchair or crutches at home when not wearing the prosthetic.

Crutches

[large text: Crutches]

These are more complex and provide more help. Crutches directly affect your gait depending on the exact disability, and take away both hands. They can potentially take up to 100% of body weight for parts of the walking cycle if you have good upper body strength and balance, and 50% otherwise (so, one good or two half-good legs still required).

Crutches are used for a lot of things (realistically too many to cover here) so I'll just go with the main categories that encompass most of them.

A) Both legs can't fully bear weight;

The same things as in the cane section, but present on both sides rather than one.

Hypotonia; can be caused by thousands of things. Some include Down syndrome, Tay-Sachs syndrome, achondroplasia, being born prematurely, brain damage, and congenital hypothyroidism.

Paraplegia that's low-level and/or incomplete, or quadriplegia that's incomplete. Quadriplegia is a huge spectrum as well, and it will depend on the amount of strength and flexibility that the individual person has in their arms and hands.

Bilateral amputation with prosthetics. (Someone who can bear weight no problem but has a milder balance problem could use a cane instead.)

B) One leg can't bear any or a lot of weight;

The same things as in the cane section, they're basically all on a spectrum, so some people choose a cane and others choose crutches.

Unilateral amputation, or congenital limb difference.

Limb length discrepancy where it doesn't touch the ground or barely does so.

C) Significant balance issues;

Same things as for canes, but either more severe or just someone's personal preference.

D) Back/trunk pain;

Same as C).

Additional note based on things I have seen: you can't use crutches if you have no legs and no prosthetics. You can't walk literally just on crutches. You need at least a single leg or prosthetic.

(Yeah I'm aware that there's probably a guy somewhere who does tricks where he does exactly that for a short video. That's Crutches Georg and he should not be counted because 99.9% of crutches users won't be doing that ever.)

Crutches will provide much more stability and relieve more pressure than a cane, but there is a wide range of the amount of support depending on how they are utilized.

What the disability is can actually present itself in the person's gait - there are a few main ones that are associated with crutches;

Four-point. The two legs and two crutches work as four different points of support, and three of them are in contact with the ground at any time. A lot (not all!) of people who use it will use crutches full-time and/or not be able to stand without them. The most stable and the slowest out of all of these.

Three-point. Probably the one most people have in mind when thinking crutches? The crutches both move at the same time, along with the bad leg, then the good leg follows. This is the "broken leg in a cast" way of walking.

Two-point. The closest to how non-crutch users generally walk. It's like having a cane on each side; left crutch forward, right leg forward. Fairly fast.

Step-to. The crutches work as one point of contact, and the legs as the other - both of each will move forward at the same time. In the step-to, a person puts their feet at the crutches' height. Fairly fast as well.

and step-through. I'd say the most difficult, least stable, providing the least amount of support. The same as in step-to, both crutches go forward before both legs, however here the legs get swung through them while the person is only holding up on crutches. This is the fastest that it gets, and can definitely be faster than an abled person walking. You can run quickly like this.

If you have issues visualizing them, there are a lot of great demonstrations on YouTube that you can look up for clarification.

There are a lot of subtle differences in which one people end up using, but as a rule of thumb, the more balance they lack, the more points of support they need. To provide some examples;

a person with quadriplegic cerebral palsy might lack balance and coordination, so they might use a four-point gait.

A person with one-sided tarsal tunnel syndrome can walk with a three-point gait, as it can be used to mitigate weight-bearing fully or partially - if the pain gets worse, they can just... not touch the ground with that leg.

A person with incomplete thoracic spinal cord injury could also work with a three point gait, though they would put both legs on the ground. If someone has good strength in the arms and trunk, they can get both crutches in the front along with one leg, then try to get the second one to go forward as well. This is how a lot of crutch users with a disability affecting two legs, but with decent balance and upper body strength, walk.

A person who had a traumatic brain injury and now experiences balance problems but not as much leg issues could opt for a two-point gait. It does help with weight redistribution, but primarily provides a lot of balance.

Both step-to and step-through are primarily used by single-leg problem havers (like unilateral amputees) in my experience, but I've seen people with diplegia or incomplete low-level spastic paraplegia use it too. You need very good balance and good upper body strength. I've seen dudes do backflips and ride skateboards on crutches like this. You can run as well and be way faster than you think.

The same as canes, crutches require arm strength. The more you're looking to take away from the legs, the more will go to the shoulders. If someone doesn't have the needed arm strength, a rollator will be more helpful. Walkers not so much as they still require some strength to turn.

More Direct Comparisons

[large text: More Direct Comparisons]

The differences between pain and fatigue levels might be somewhat evident from comparing the sections above - to generalize the subject as much as possible: the bigger the pain or the fatigue, the higher possibility of using crutches over a cane is. They provide more relief for both, as well as providing more balance.

Now, there's always exceptions. Someone might not be able to use two sticks, because of a disability affecting one of the arms - hemiplegia is a common example. In this case, the person could prefer to use a single crutch rather than two. They could opt for platform crutches, which don't require as secure of a grip. They might need a rollator instead. They might have a powerchair that they operate with their good arm.

Another thing is that some people will use crutches even if a cane would work just as well. Some people like the grip more, or find them easier to use. They could also like that crutches are seen as more medical than a cane, which could be seen as a fashion accessory. Maybe they can be faster on crutches than with a cane (e.g., if their disability is limited to a single leg, getting it out of the walk cycle might be more convenient) and that matters to them.

And to go with this, some people just don't like crutches! I personally don't like the forearm cuff because I tend to swing my wrist around with my cane rather than hold it perfectly straight, so the cuff seems annoying. For someone else that could be more than a preference, e.g. if they have a limb difference that affects the length of their forearms to be much shorter - a person like this could prefer two canes.

As to what mobility aids are better for which disabilities, it's highly individualized, but to heavily generalize again: canes tend to be more helpful for relatively milder disabilities, and crutches for relatively more significant ones based on the amount of support they provide. But that's an oversimplification so simple that it's not really useful.

Someone with neuropathy in parts of their foot might find a cane completely sufficient, but it wouldn't be as useful for someone with nerve damage that caused flaccid paralysis from the hip down; they would probably prefer crutches. But then again, someone with mild vertigo could use crutches because they prefer them (even if a cane would work just fine) while someone else might have incomplete C6 quadriplegia and use a cane with leg braces over crutches because they enjoy having a free hand.

For more similarities between the two; overuse injuries can happen to both cane and crutch users, generally in the shoulder(s). They're not very common unless you're putting more weight on them than you're supposed to. They're very annoying because it drastically tanks your mobility until they get better (unless you can walk without them just as much that is), but they're treatable with physical therapy.

Now for the two canes and a singular crutch. Let's start with the fact that the latter is infinitely more popular than the former. It's basically the same as a single cane but more supportive; it's good for people who need more balance than a cane provides but can't use both hands. Two canes is very rare and I can't tell you what the actual pattern of choosing them over other options is outside personal preference because I have no idea.

The general conclusion of the post is that crutches and canes really aren't that different, and are more of a spectrum of usable sticks by the amount of support they provide to the user. That's why often you'll see canes and crutches listed as the same thing when it comes to "management of XYZ disability" type resources - for a lot of them they're rather similar in practice, especially when compared to rollators, walkers, scooters, or wheelchairs.

I hope this was more in depth and therefore more helpful, if this still leaves you with some unanswered question feel free to reach out again.

mod Sasza

[frozenjokes]

cubfan135 vs mumbo jumbo’s monstrous self induced pseudo catholic guilt (and the world)

Mumbo woke with a jolt, nearly a scream, forehead sweating, fingers gripping the sheets, he needed- he needed- this was wrong, this was all wrong, this isn’t what he wanted, this-

Mumbo curled his fingers into his hair, struggling to breathe, the phantom sensation of Cub’s teeth in his neck not helping a bit. He’d lost himself, completely lost himself, he wasn’t- but-

He was fine. He was still here. He still had his head. He.. was fine.

Still hungry. Still starving, undoubtedly still starving, this had not changed, and Mumbo didn’t believe he’d gotten any relief either since he hadn’t really eaten, and if he remembered correctly, Cub hadn’t been very afraid regardless, but..

It.. It was fine. He had killed someone in a human form, and not only had the experience not overwhelmed him, he had kept his sentience. His shadow still yearned for more, but even it had quieted briefly, like that despite not being able to consume Cub properly, the experience of the hunt was enriching enough to settle the monster, at least for now. The ache of starvation still enveloped Mumbo, but he felt.. lighter?

Maybe it was the reciprocal nature of it all. Cub was just as intent on Mumbo's murder as Mumbo was on his, and given the option, both of them would have drawn things out considerably.

But as shock and the wonder of it all began to fade, sitting in bed, Mumbo was left with an ache deeper than the starvation that haunted him day to day. He just.. felt bad. He felt really bad, and had no idea if it was because of killing Cub, but he didn’t think so, the fight was just as mutual as it was violent, Mumbo had no reason to feel so wrong. But he was wrong, he couldn’t shake it, he was deeply, utterly wrong, he was dirty, he’d just done a terrible thing and all the enjoyment he’d taken from the act made him feel sick and depraved. He was blurring the lines between the Good Mumbo, holy and just, versus the shadow, evil and wrong for wanting and taking, and the discrepancy between these two persons was a source of deep distress.

Mumbo hadn’t planned this, he wasn’t ready for this to happen, but it had, and it had been fine, good even, and he was still here, the threat of losing himself to the clinging tar of his shadow proving to not be an issue, at least right now.

This.. This was good. It should have been good. Why couldn’t it just be good?

At least this experience would stay between them. No one else would have to know. Mumbo could work out these issues personally, figure out why he couldn’t just be pleased with himself, and get on with his life. If he dared to be so optimistic, perhaps that life could continue here, on Hermitcraft, if Cub or Scar found a way to permanently curb the hunger, adjust his species, anything.

But right now he felt dirty and lonely and wrong. He considered calling Cub, but Mumbo got the feeling he’d be about as sympathetic as a rock. Honestly though, Mumbo didn’t need someone to spill the details to, he didn’t want anyone to know the details, he just.. most of him just wanted a hug. To feel safe in someone else’s arms, a little less shameful, a little less guilty. Grian was the obvious choice.

But when Mumbo picked up his communicator to give Grian a call, his heart stopped beating altogether.

cubfan135 was slain by Mumbo Jumbo

Mumbo Jumbo was slain by cubfan135

The chat below the death messages had exploded into noise, filled with ??!??!?s and ‘whoa!!s’ and a particularly enthusiastic ‘YAY!!!!’ from Scar, along with questions and teasing and a chat moving so fast it would have knocked Mumbo off his feet if he’d been standing. Mumbo was famous among the hermits for his stance on violence, his vehement straying from all things ending in pvp and death.

And now everyone knew.

…

Cub woke up a little dazed and a little dizzy, as was typical for an expenditure of that much power. The fire of his adrenaline was still simmering down, and honestly he couldn’t say he knew how he died. Sure, having your stomach ripped open from chest to groin wasn’t very good for your health, but Cub hadn’t felt himself slowing down yet. It was just over. Had Mumbo survived? He had definitely been slowing down, hardly fighting back by the time everything went dark for Cub, but who knew. In hindsight, Cub wished he hadn’t gone so hard on the whole ‘trying to kill Mumbo’ thing, it would have made far more sense to let Mumbo take the meal but alas. He was too focused. Too frightened when the dynamic had suddenly flipped, death in Mumbo’s dark eyes where there had been no intention before, where he’d hardly had the energy to fight back, much less chase Cub through the second section of the maze on elongated limbs.

Cub chuckled quietly to himself. Awesome. Yeah. That was awesome.

He figured Mumbo would have probably thought it was something like awesome as well, at least an adjacent feeling; Cub didn’t entirely understand why Mumbo wanted to be eaten in the first place, but even if there didn’t end up being much eating in the end, it seemed like they’d both gotten at least partially what they wanted. This felt like a breakthrough. A win.

He remembered through the daze with a small jolt that he could check the chat, see when Mumbo had died or if he died at all. Somehow, Cub did not expect the explosion of chat messages that greeted him. The attention wasn’t even directed at him, but it was enough to make him feel queasy all the same, having to scroll to find the death messages in the first place. This wasn’t good, no, Cub didn’t think Mumbo would like this at all, not when the topic was so private, so sensitive. He sent a quick message about this being an accident, a thin layer of damage control he refused to elaborate on as he focused on finding the timestamps of their deaths. Two death messages, he’d seen enough to know that, and very few hermits reacted between the first and the second, so Cub doubted there were more than thirty seconds between their mutual ends. Oof. Hermit reactions were bad though. Hurriedly, Cub sent Mumbo a message as well, first asking if he was okay, and then if he was feeling any better. He just needed to make sure. It was too much attention, too much, Cub hadn’t even thought about that, and he doubted Mumbo had either. Before he tried to bite my damn face off at least.

Cub’s mouth hung open just slightly, caught in the memory. Cub seeing, but not understanding until his wrist was clamped in Mumbo’s teeth, Cub’s blood on his lips while Mumbo’s blood was painted on his own, but there was a shift, exhilarating but equally unidentifiable, Cub’s attempts to escape only half hearted when he couldn’t stop looking at Mumbo’s eyes, dying, or perhaps already dead. That look. That would stay with Cub forever. It was.. well, it was making him feel a kind of way, but Mumbo wasn’t there yet, almost certainly not, though if Cub deluded himself enough to chase this.. He nearly groaned at the thought, a hand drifting to his belt, but wait, stop it, silly stupid dog of a brain.

He checked his communicator, looking for confirmation from Mumbo that he was fine. Mumbo had not responded. Well. Cub hadn’t sent the message that long ago. He’d send another, asking Mumbo to confirm, then wait for an answer. Cub could wait. He could! His priorities were perfectly in order here.

Cub stared at his communicator for a while. He set it down, letting his head flop to the pillow. He stared at the ceiling. Shifted his legs a bit. Crossed them. Uncrossed them. Closed his eyes, letting his neck fall back- no, bad idea. He sat back up, mildly irritated, eying his communicator which should have pinged by now; he’d turned the notifications on for this specific message. Cub checked Mumbo’s texts. Mumbo had read them, but not responded.

Probably not a sign of anyone being upset about anything, surely not, said the part of his brain that was still fixated on the way Mumbo had looked at him, no longer seeing a person, but a shrieking meal. How Cub had known, seeing him then, that he was going to die. That he could not stay here because Mumbo, even exhausted as he was, would overpower him. That he had to run. Cub shivered from the memory, the raw emotion of it crystal clear in his mind, and god if he didn’t want to do anything but chase it with his fingers, aided by memories that would never be this fresh again.

Priorities. Priorities. First Cub would hop over to the moth ball and make sure Mumbo was okay. Let him know it was fine, he’d take care of anyone nosing around where they had no business looking, and after fifteen to thirty minutes of alone time, he’d do just that. Take care of it.

Grian was just about the worst person Cub could have met at Mumbo’s base, but ah well. Grian was staring up into the moth ball, face painted in a hearty concern that Cub quite honestly did not want to deal with, so he flew to the top instead, poking a hole in the ceiling to check if Mumbo was there. He wasn’t. Even worse, his patented expert plan of Ignore Grian did not work.

“Cub!” Grian squawked, typical of him when he was feeling particularly strongly, “What happened? Where is Mumbo- Is he okay? What happened!?”

“I don’t know where Mumbo is. I was just looking for him.”

“What-“ Grian did not get to finish, Cub blasting off on his firework rockets toward Mumbo’s mountain-side town. Unfortunately, Grian didn’t seem to get the hint, hot on Cub’s tail when he landed at Big Ron’s. Cub went inside, closing the door on Grian’s face before he could continue pestering. This was not as effective as Cub would have liked.

“Cub.” Grian seethed, feathers at his neck and wings standing on end, “Tell me what happened.”

“It was an accident, Grian, nothing to cry about.”

“You mentioned that.” Grian hissed through gritted teeth, sounding just about as pissed off as Cub was with him, “Can you spare any details? I am worried.”

Cub considered dismissing him, but Grian would not back down on an issue like this, nearly stepping on Cub’s heels as he poked his head into the back room, saw no Mumbo, then started to make his way out of the store. Cub realized a little too late he didn’t have a story prepared.

“He was helping me screw in a lightbulb. Simple as that. He’s tall and I’m on the shorter side, but even he couldn’t reach it, so I got on his shoulders. Fell. Died. Must’ve been low health, I wasn’t paying attention. Focused on the lightbulb.” Cub continued into the next store. Grian stopped where he was, gaping, so Cub took the opportunity to close the establishment door in his face.

Grian half-growled, throwing open the door and stomping inside. “How- Okay, I don’t- How did you both die? And why did the messages say you killed each other?” Grian sounded an awful lot like he didn’t believe Cub, but Cub was more focused on the fact he’d forgotten Mumbo died too. Hm.

“The lightbulb was really high up, Grian.”

“You said.”

“I couldn’t reach it, even on Mumbo’s shoulders. So I was using my kitchen tongs. Have you seen my kitchen tongs, Grian?”

“No. I have not seen your kitchen tongs.” Grian sounded very much like he was losing his patience, so Cub tried to hurry it up.

“They have sharp ends, kinda sharp, that’s why I was asking. So I was using them to screw in the lightbulb, but Mumbo and I lost our balance, and I’m flailing a little, Mumbo is tall, and as I’m falling I get him right through the neck with my tongs, and he- he punched me. Really hard. Then I died. Then he must have also died. Freak accident.”

“I don’t believe you!”

Cub shrugged, not looking back. “That’s a you problem.”

“Cub!”

“Grian. Relax. Mumbo is fine, it was just an accident. He’s done plenty other things a lot closer to murder than dropping me, so I highly doubt he’s any amount upset about it. I mean- he wanted- he agreed to do the lightbulb! He was totally fine with this! Wherever he is, I’d bet anything he’s asleep. We were doing some pretty intense physical labor for a couple hours before the lightbulb incident, so dying might’ve knocked him right out. I’m pretty tired as well. It’s just a matter of finding where he respawned.” Cub left the store pointedly as he spoke, entering another and shutting the door fast behind him, but this time Grian caught it, wrenching it back open and stepping inside.

“If you’re so sure he’s fine, why turn his whole town upside down looking for him?”

“Just looking out for a friend, G.”

“Since when are you two all buddy-buddy anyway? Mumbo’s never said a word about you! You’ve never said a thing about him either.”

“Not to you.”

Grian puffed up, squawking, “What’s that supposed to mean!?”

Cub turned on Grian, his own patience running dangerously thin, “Has anyone ever told you you’re insufferable. This is none of your business, so butt out.”

“I- How dare you! Of course this is my business, Mumbo’s my best friend! If something was wrong with Scar and I knew and refused to tell you, you’d rip my throat out over it!”

“If something this wrong was happening with Scar, I wouldn’t sit back and watch. I won’t do it, not with anyone, even hermits I don’t particularly know very well. But you would. Even Scar would, neither of you want to touch Mumbo’s issues with a twenty foot pole.” Cub took a dangerous step toward Grian, who stood his ground, but Cub saw the twitch of his brow, the crack in his fury, “If you wanted to make this your business, you would have already. But you haven’t. So I did. Cope or die.”

“What- Cub. What did you do.” It was not a question, but Cub didn’t care to answer, pushing past Grian in a forceful shove of his shoulder. To the next building. Cub slammed the door so hard in Grian’s face that he could not catch it.

“Cub!” Grian’s face was furious and red, the door cracking on the doorstop as Grian whipped it back open, “Tell me what happened! Tell me what you did!” Grian grabbed the wrist of Cub’s lab coat to which Cub whirled on him immediately, raking his claws across Grian’s face. Grian screeched, but Cub was not done, Mumbo was not here, and Cub didn’t need anyone tailing him, especially not Grian. Cub lunged, aiming for the throat, but the neck of Grian’s sweater got in the way, tearing under his fingers. Grian screamed, but was too slow, falling shortly to the second blow. Cub produced his sword, ending him quickly. No need to draw out the suffering, not when Cub would be out of here in less than a minute.

Briefly, he checked his communicator. Mumbo had not responded, nor had he said anything in any public chat, and if Grian hadn’t even gotten a message, well.. Cub didn’t believe Mumbo was asleep, that was for sure. If he could avoid any hermits, he’d drop by Mumbo’s shops just to make sure, then he’d start looking elsewhere. Invisibility would be a godsend today. Cub nodded to himself, taking off toward his own base to retrieve a couple potions.

…

Mumbo understood why pigs liked the mud. There was no shortage of it on the Hermitcraft server, especially this season with the rain, but today it was sunny and warm, and the muck was cool and slick and stuck to you like a heavy hug. The pigs were a little less pleasant. Mumbo had never met a pig that didn’t want to put any part of him in its mouth at all times, which, whatever. Mumbo couldn’t say he cared very much, and given he’d been here for a while, most of them were ignoring him by now.

Pigs were not soft or particularly comforting animals, but they were sweet, if not a little dramatic, squealing and screaming at most inconveniences (reminding him of Grian and Scar, sometimes), though he supposed the pig still trapped in his arms had a reason to be shrieking; if it was any other day, that would have meant certain death, but today Mumbo was just looking for a companion. Not that the pig was still squealing; it had stilled eventually when it realized Mumbo wasn’t trying to hurt it, but the quiet was almost worse, leaving him alone with his own thoughts. He didn’t much like it. Maybe he should get another pig to spoon.

A new batch of them had come around just recently, curiosity apparently renewed as they sniffed and snorted and stepped on Mumbo like he wasn’t even there. He was a little annoyed with them, but that was better than thinking about himself, so all in all, he accepted these next few minutes as they were, covered in muck and mildly uncomfortable with a massive sow cradled in his arms and snorting contentedly.

“Dude, this sucks.”

Mumbo shrieked, dropping his pig and making Cub jump up in turn, more startled than Mumbo had ever seen him.

“What?” Cub looked around a little wild eyed, like he was not the problem here, “What’s wrong?”

“You- You- Where did you come from!?”

“I’ve been here for a while now!” Cub matched Mumbo’s volume, but alarm was shifting more to bafflement, “It’s- I thought you knew-“ Cub stopped, looking at his communicator, “It’s been twenty minutes. You looked directly at me I thought- Do you sleep with your eyes open?”

“Not- Not usually-“ Mumbo’s heart still raced, but he was starting to calm down, confusion overtaking his terror. Slowly, he latched back onto his pig, who had apparently fallen asleep. “Goodness gracious me.”

“Yeah. That.” Cub laid back down, kicking absently at a pig who was stubbornly chewing on his pant leg. He was quiet, but only for a moment. “Did I say that this sucks yet? Why are you doing this.”

“I can’t go home.”

“Is this about the death messages?” Cub grimaced, inhaling guiltily through his teeth, “Yeah, I really didn’t think that one through. Not that things went entirely as planned, but oh well. It’s okay though, I’ve got it under control. If anyone bothers you about it, you can send them right to me.”

“I’m sorry,” Mumbo felt his voice crack, and his entire heart and soul split in two. No pigs could have drowned out the weight of his shame, not with Cub right there, not with the extremity of his starvation slamming back into him in the presence of the person he didn’t survive long enough to take. But he wanted it, he still wanted it more intensely than he did before, and maybe the worst thing was that Cub was just fine with that- How was it that he could be so okay while Mumbo was still being crushed under the weight of his own fear and guilt.

Cub sat up, brow furrowing in confusion. “About.. about what? It’s fine, Mumbo, whatever it is. You don’t have to be so upset, not about anything. With the death messages, I’ll take care of it. I promise I will.”

“I know you don’t care!” Mumbo felt wretched, a horrid sob wracking his entire body, “I know it doesn’t matter to you. I know you don’t care. But I care. I care so much, and I can’t stop caring. I didn’t even get to eat, I hurt you and I couldn’t even take it, and you didn’t even care, it would have made a terrible meal, but I’m still- I can’t stop hating it. Hating me. I know there’s not a single reason I should feel this miserable and that’s worse! And everyone-“ Mumbo’s breath caught in his throat and he choked on it, burying his head into his pig, who snorted absently, “Everyone is going to know. It doesn’t matter what you say. How you explain it off. If I have to eat, then they’ll all know. They’ll- they won’t hate me-“ Mumbo’s voice dropped to a strangled whisper, hardly having the strength to push out the words, “They won’t hate me. But if they’re smart they’ll be wary. They’ll be afraid. They’ll know what I’m going to do to them, and they’ll be afraid. They’d be right for it, and I’ll be miserable. Just miserable. And I- I think I’d deserve it. It’s just like you said, isn’t it? It’s such a selfish thing I’m doing, holding on to sentience. To live like this, knowing exactly what I’ll do in the end.”

“I- I don’t remember saying that-“ Cub stumbled over his words, looking like a man severely out of his depth, “Oh dear.”

“Yeah.” Mumbo muttered, somewhat snide as he side eyed Cub from where his face was buried in his pig. He couldn’t help it, the bitterness that crept through his tone. It didn’t really matter what Cub said or did, he had started this. He was the one all but forcing Mumbo to eat, to try it, to hold onto some sort of faux hope that this could work, keep him sentient, only at the cost of doing exactly the thing he so desperately wanted to avoid. Hurting people, his people. Taking advantage of every fear and frenzy, using them to hold on to his own unraveling humanity. Cub would not find a cure in those woodland mansion libraries, nor would Scar, they couldn’t read the language, and Mumbo did not believe any amount of old magic could fix him anyway. He was older than the oldest magic. He was too broken. Evil was too integral to his ever-shifting design.

Cub looked like he was staring down a lion’s den.

“You’re not human, Mumbo,” Cub spoke slowly, cautiously, like he knew whatever he was going to say wouldn’t be helpful, but he didn’t know what else to do, “You’re a predator, you’re hungry, and it’s not wrong of you to eat.”

“It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter, Cub! It doesn’t matter what I do, it always ends with me being miserable. I can’t even spare the world from my existence, I can’t die, I just live on, hunting and spreading my wretchedness everywhere I go. I’m doomed to hurt and be hurt.”

Mumbo could not read minds, but he knew well enough that the stark fear that was pulsing off Cub in heavy waves was not due in any part to the impending destruction of the server, or Cub’s potential role as a rat to a snake. Cub didn't know what to do because there was no reasoning with Hurt. Cub was looking for a way out like a rabbit cornered by a salivating dog, and boy was Mumbo ever, the patch of skin where he held the sow tight to his face wet with his own saliva. God, that pissed him off. That Cub was more afraid of him right now than he’d ever been.

“That- That’s not-“ Cub looked distinctly like he was waging a great internal battle, every single muscle in his body strained, “It’s not true. That you’re only- You’re not only hurting people.”

“Is it not? What do you call this then, Cub? Wiping out whole servers and then having to face what I’ve done before moving on. Worse, befriending the server’s inhabitants before I tear them all to shreds. It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter if I’m not a human, if I deserve to eat, or even if technically it’s not morally unsound to do any of the things I’m doing. It doesn’t matter. Because I, human Mumbo Jumbo, will still feel like shit.”

“No- Not that, not that..” Cub trailed off, and Mumbo was willing to bet he was more fidgety than he’d ever been in his entire life, “You’re not only hurting people because.. I- Some- Some people, just throwing this out there, haha..” Cub stopped, staring so blatantly at Mumbo for any sort of reaction or change, but Mumbo remained stony, glaring daggers right back, “..Some people might find that whole endeavor, uh, kind of attractive.”

…

“Not me though, haha. Not.. I’ll see myself out. But like. If there was a case that this was the case and someone did find these encounters to be some kind of net positive, then you would be wrong. So you wouldn’t have to be sad about it. Because someone. Not.. naming names or anything.. Someone might be very pleased about it.” Cub paused, fiercely anxious, then as if Mumbo didn’t understand, clarified, “Like. In the jerking off about it kinda way. This world is full of freaks, Mumbo. You gotta- you gotta be careful-“ Cub scrambled to his knees, tripping over the pig that was still after his pant leg, “I’ll go. I’ll go.” Cub seemed to hit the height of his terror, seeing an out, desperately trying to leave, and at the back of Mumbo’s mind, he and his shadow both seemed to agree that if ever there was a time to seize a meal, it would be now.

For the first time in his entire existence, Mumbo killed Cub instantly when his back was turned, because any other method would have lost precious amounts of that sweet terror.

And just like the first time, his first human murder, the feeling was all encompassing, but unlike then, in his state of extreme hunger, all Mumbo felt was deep, deep relief.

He took everything.

And afterwards he stumbled away, sluggish and dizzy in the wake of his first satisfying meal in ages, and he laid down in the grass outside of the pig pen. Maybe the craziest part, the most baffling, striking thing about this, was that he did not feel emotionally bad. Maybe he couldn’t feel bad, not in the afterglow of a meal so intense, but this hadn’t.. None of this was engineered. Mumbo was upset, very upset, and he still might be? He couldn’t tell, not now, but Cub had gotten worked up all on his own.

It was different. Distinctly different, but the outcome was still the same.

Mumbo didn’t have the mind to think much longer, about the implications of what this could mean for him or anything else. He was still so tired, from the respawn and the events before, and his limbs were heavy and heart slow, his body seeming to shut itself down as sometimes happened after a particularly good meal.

…

Mumbo was disoriented when he woke up at home. At first he was frightened; he’d been tucked so firmly under the blankets of his bed that he could barely move. He’d wondered if he’d died, but dead people don’t wake up under the sheets. Had he dreamed…? Mumbo tried to go over the events of the past day in his head, and all of it was so certifiably insane that it very well could have been a figment of his imagination, especially the part where he’d killed but not gotten to eat Cub in the labyrinth, hunger dreams were a bitch, but he- quite honestly, he couldn’t get over the bed! He did not trap himself in bed like this, someone else had done it, and they’d done it like they never wanted Mumbo to get out of bed again.

There was something on his forehead.

Wriggling, Mumbo managed to get one arm out of his blanket prison. He plucked the sticky note off his forehead, reading it through bleary eyes.

‘I am so sorry’

Mumbo stared, blinking slowly. That must be from Cub, that’s the only person who could have left it. That’s the only person who could have brought him back here, too, unless he told someone, which sparked a moment of fear in Mumbo that he quickly dismissed. He very much doubted Cub would tell anyone; for all his nonchalance, Cub at least seemed to be protective of this secret. Well. To anyone but Scar, maybe. Still, Mumbo was pretty sure this was Cub’s doing.

Mumbo wrestled against his blankets, finally breaking free with much effort, then sitting up in bed, heaving a long breath. It was almost shocking how much air he could take. In the depths of his starvation, anxiety was one of his worst enemies, and it was always a small shock to remember the feeling of a full chest of air. Mumbo closed his eyes. His head still ached, and badly at that, but it was different. His health was not good, one meal would never fix him so completely, but the voice at the back of his head was just a little bit quieter. He felt satisfied for the first time in so, so long. Not sated, no, never sated. But satisfied. Mumbo let a small smile cross his face, slow, but genuine, and sighed, reveling in a good mood he hadn’t experienced naturally on his own for a long, long while. Maybe this could work. It was truly astonishing how rapidly he’d gone from wretchedly depressed to.. well, maybe hopeful was a strong word. This just.. didn’t seem so impossible anymore.

Mumbo looked back down, squinting at the sticky note.

…

Why was Cub sorry again?

[batsplat]

controversial opinion but I don’t think that in terms of rivalries and feuds marc is that interesting. like if you exclude valentino you’re left with who? dovi? they did have exciting on track battles for sure but let’s face it dovi was never really a huge title threat. and their off track relationship as a result had no tension. but who else?

qualified agreement in that, yes, I also don't think marc's slate of rivalries/feuds is all that satisfying... I just don't feel like this is entirely marc's *fault*. I mean, first off, valentino is definitely a positive outlier in this regard in that he was just working overtime in terms of coming up with compelling feuds. he's not quite the spiders georg of fantastic feuds, but he's not far off either. secondly, when compared to the other aliens + dovi... marc is at a very obvious disadvantage in that those guys were all direct peers who already had a lot of history with each other. dovi made fourteen year old jorge cry, twenty year old casey threw a temper tantrum when dani beat him, teenage jorge was judgemental of casey's fan engagement skills, and obviously there's the jorge/dani of it all. even the bits of that diagram that never had any major beef will have at least had a little bit of sizzling tension, like dovi's wariness of dani as a teammate. marc was always going to be on the back foot here - he really could have done with a pol esparagaro-type figure to crack on and become a big deal in the premier class. you need interpersonal history for a strong rivalry, and marc was always working at a deficit by having to start from scratch

this is the thing, right: imagine a world in which marc is born a few years earlier. in your hearts, do you seriously believe he would not have had a major sustained feud with at least one of jorge, dani, casey or dovi? I'm thinking he gets at least 2-3 in all honesty. casey if they ever ended up teammates is practically a given - and even without that you'd have to say it's a near certainty that it would've gone very badly. I mean good lord, casey vs the marc marquez towing addiction feels like it inevitably ends in casey physically assaulting marc on-track at least once. jorge had feuds with literally everyone, so that one also feels guaranteed. dani was a way less prickly character by the time marc got to the premier class but used to be a notoriously difficult teammate - so those two at honda and, again, odds are pretty good you get something going. dovi's a bit more marginal in that it kinda depends on what their respective competitive situations look like - plus dovi was generally more of a single issue jorge lorenzo hater - but you'd still expect it to be at least a little bit snarkier. so yeah, just a straightforward counterfactual - but it should still demonstrate that the picture is more complicated than 'marc marquez sucks at feuds'. there's clearly more going on here

so I kinda feel like there's two interrelated questions here, right. let's break it down:

how high quality are marc's rivalries/feuds?

to what extent can the quality or lack thereof of marc's rivalries/feuds be attributed to him, versus circumstantial factors that were outside of his control?

now with the first question, again, I do agree that right now in his career... marc could be doing better. he's got one major feud - and admittedly it's a doozy, but it's against a guy who has five major feuds to his name. if you look at that without context then it's quite easy to conclude valentino is putting in all the hard work, with little to no contribution from marc needed. apart from that... well, his other big rivalry on paper is with dovi - which, yeah, that one is lacking in narrative tension. the main issue with that rivalry isn't actually the lack of drama per se, it's that it just doesn't go anywhere. it's a bunch of strong on-track battles with no real arc to connect them, just ends up being completely static past the conclusion of 2017. I never got the sense that the two of them felt massively differently towards each other after 2019 than they had a couple years earlier... that's what kills it imo, like you need something to be happening in a rivalry. you need the two parties to have a substantial impact on each other! you can vaguely make that case for 2017 if you really want to push it - but it's just not enough, it only lasts for a few months, and it's lacking in the build-up and pay-off department. there's no real shift in their dynamic, not in terms of their relationship or their title fights or even their on-track battles... their first big battle is dovi beating marc in austria and their last big battle is dovi beating marc in austria, so you can't even say marc's learned how to deal with the red bull ring's final corner better. the only thing that's substantially changed is that marc knows he'll win the title anyway. look how far we've come

then there's marc's rivalry with dani, interesting on paper and they did have a reasonable amount of tension, but obviously you'd be hard-pressed to mention it in the same sentence as any of the real top tier rivalries. it's just over too soon, marc wins it too conclusively, and they don't have a single memorable on-track battle to their name beyond 'that time marc cut dani's sensor cable'. the jorge rivalry isn't terrible - you've got a few strong-to-iconic on-track battles like jerez + silverstone 2013, mugello + silverstone 2014, mugello 2016, austria 2018... but yeah, the tone is really quite muted and reserved by jorge's standards. there's not a massive amount of development in that relationship post-2013, and it just sort of fizzles out over the years. again, really becomes more of a collection of moments than an actual cohesive narrative arc - like something like austria 2018 is a fun throwback, you've got jorge being mad at marc over the aragon 2018 crash that essentially ended his season, but it also doesn't really lead to anything bigger. maybe there was a teensy bit of hope the honda teammate situation would reawaken that rivalry (me and casey both grabbing the popcorn, mind), but jorge just wasn't competitive enough for that to go anywhere

so, who's fault is this? is marc just mid at starting feuds? why hasn't he started more feuds with a bunch of people who showed they were perfectly capable of starting feuds with each other? why hasn't he given the people more to work with? who can we blame for this sorry state of affairs?

now, honestly, I reckon most of the issues with marc's track record can be put down to circumstance and poor timing. I already said that you'd expect marc to be doing way better if he'd been born early enough to run into the aliens in their primes. this is for several reasons. the first reason is that he managed to miss casey entirely - who on paper has to be the alien you'd expect marc to get on the worst. casey has the most rigid belief structure surrounding riding standards and acceptable levels of aggression, he's the least likely to be okay with marc's 'vicious on-track smiling off it' schtick, he had a multi-year vendetta against the exact sort of behaviour in practise and qualifying marc has made a habit of throughout his career, he is a strong believer in the kind of teammate cooperation in development marc memorably eschewed at honda, he would have also found marc's flavour of media games distasteful at best, he's highly sensitive to anything that could be construed as an attack on him... and marc in turn would have been aware of all this and actively enjoyed pissing casey off. in some respects they feel like an even worse match than valentino and casey. marc and casey on the 'alien compatible personalities quiz' score negative points. so that's just poor timing - marc barely missed out on him! you've removed the most irascible alien from the picture, the guy who had the highest quantity of low level beef with the entire paddock... it's already taken away such a major obvious feud opportunity from marc that you have to be a bit more lenient when judging his record

beyond that, let's turn to two interrelated reasons for why marc didn't get more narrative juice out of his other rivalries with that generation: a) the competitive landscape, and b) how the aliens themselves changed over time. the biggest and most important factor is (a). my general stance with feuds is that it's really really hard to start a feud in year one of a rivalry - you simply need more build-up than that. this is incidentally also 100% true of valentino's feuds. biaggi and valentino already despised each other going into 2001 (incidentally the lack of a narrative arc is why that one's also not a top tier rivalry for me), sete and valentino needed 2003 to set up 2004, valentino and casey were more or less fine in 2007 and ditto with jorge and valentino in 2008 and even mostly 2009. you can likewise point to valentino and marc already having enough significant interactions in 2013-14 to set up the volatility of their on-track encounters in the first half of 2015. for a counterexample, check out valentino and nicky hayden - who were title rivals in 2006 and 2006 alone, and managed to get through that entire year with minimal drama and their relationship emerging entirely unscathed. if hayden had still been more competitive after that year, maybe something would have changed... but as it stands, you do need time to build up the kind of interpersonal history for things to get nasty in a meaningful way. see also btw how dani and valentino's rivalry never got properly nasty, despite some build up in 2006

compare and contrast with marc's situation. 2013 is actually perfectly good set up... except then it's immediately followed by a dud of a season, where marc is dominant enough in the first half to make the title fight essentially a non-starter. after 2013, dani really isn't a competitive threat to marc anymore outside of isolated patches, and marc so effectively wrests control away from that team that he doesn't really need to do anything more dramatic. (also a question of the personalities involved - if you paired up jorge with marc as teammates in 2014, that situation immediately looks a lot more volatile.) now, okay, you might query the lack of tension between marc and jorge in 2015... but marc was just too focused on valentino that year, not least because that's the guy he was actually fighting on-track. and he nukes himself out of that title fight fairly early on, so the interpersonal valentino stuff kinda becomes the main source of competitive stakes for him at certain times in that season. 2016 the title fight fizzles out around assen, and then jorge's off into the competitive wilderness himself at first ducati then honda. and with dovi, you've got the obvious problem is that the seasons are in the wrong order. dovi was a serious title threat... but only in the first year of that rivalry, aka 2017. and only for part of that season! at the start of the year, it was really vinales marc was focused on - hence badgering him in pre-season testing - and it really took quite a while for marc and dovi to establish themselves as the two title contenders. as a season, it most closely resembles the chaos of 2006 - which, again, didn't lead to any drama between valentino and hayden in part because it just wasn't as focused on two protagonists. after that, dovi has a poor start to 2018, and by 2019 marc's just flattening everyone. it's basically like if you switched 2003 and 2004 for sete/valentino (though obviously sete's 2003 is a fair bit more competitive than dovi's 2018)... you needed the proper title fight when they were already established rivals. real take - valentino in marc's situation most likely doesn't start a feud with dovi in 2017-19 for the simple reason that he just does not need to. valentino's feuds typically come from some sense of competitive necessity, or at the very least convenience... casey is the strongest example here, where valentino behaves as closely as he ever has to a rational actor and only really escalates that feud when it makes perfect sense to do so. with dovi, given how little threat he posed in 2018-19 and especially presuming there's not a preexisting interpersonal relationship that can be twisted by the injection of competitive stakes (as there was with sete)... why bother?

this, to me, is really the main explanation for prime!marc's feud record. he runs into versions of the aliens that all eventually drop off competitively, and doesn't have to face the same level from them as a collective as he would have in say 2008-09. he doesn't have to face casey. and his sete equivalent is just not as much of a competitive threat as sete was beyond the first year of that rivalry. feuds do need something to get them going - and generally, competing against the same guy across multiple seasons, feeling genuinely threatened by them, is one of the most common and important preconditions. the second alien-related factor is how the aliens themselves had changed. again, we're missing casey... and then with jorge and dani, well, they'd definitely mellowed from where they were at c. 2006-08. there's a few reasons for this. firstly, they grew up. just a little. it's been known to happen. secondly, you do have to mention the sic factor... discussed a bit here and I don't really want to go into too much depth about it, but obviously it does make a difference that jorge and especially dani had gone through this experience where they'd essentially been feuding with another rider who then died. inevitably, that will have played into how they reacted to marc. thirdly, this is a topic for another post but... jorge and dani (and casey) had become pretty determined in 2011-12 not to give the media and fans what they were so desperately yearning for (drama) - in an act of generational solidarity against the concept of beef. it was a bit of a reaction against how they felt constantly misinterpreted by fans and media, as well as essentially being quite contrarian about being incessantly called 'boring' all the time... and a fuck you to valentino and his supporters in the fanbase + media specifically by having things be more civil between the three of them than they had been in times past (plus how they rejected any sort of hard riding). all this means marc has the misfortune to run into versions of the aliens who are actually very much trying not to start feuds. I mean, even valentino wasn't really out to start feuds, it just sort of ended up happening... it's way harder to start a feud with 2013!jorge than it is with 2008!jorge - and the two major jorge feuds that still flare up past 2013 are one where there's already significant history (like, say, jorge thinking dovi was already attempting to 'undermine his morale' when they were both teenagers)

the other situational factor is the time marc has spent in the competitive wilderness. marc was 27 when his arm injury happened. as a point of comparison, that's the age valentino was in 2006 - by which point he has had two major feuds plus a couple more minor ones. in a way, right, you can say marc wasn't doing that badly at that stage... marc is now 31, aka valentino's age in 2010. by then, valentino had added two more major feuds to his collection; he's quite productive in his late twenties you have to say. but marc obviously hasn't been in a situation where he's going to be getting embroiled in great rivalries... the only title he'd been fighting for before this year was champion of crashes. you're less likely to start feuds when you're in the competitive wilderness - there's just not any point and marc quite frankly had better things to worry about. the thing about 2019 is that at the time, people did feel like marc might have been setting up some juicy rivalries... the most common names talked about back then were rinsy and especially fabio. now, as it turned out, rinsy was outshone by his teammate in the one year suzuki was in the title fight, so that probably wouldn't have become a big thing regardless of marc's situation - but fabio... well, I don't know if I think marc would've started feuding with him necessarily, but you'd at least hope for some flavour of interesting rivalry. admittedly, you were giving marc a bit of an unfairly difficult task here, given the age gap equivalent rival for valentino is casey. again, look me in the eyes and tell me you think fabio quartararo isn't harder to start a feud with than casey stoner. starting a feud with casey is easy mode. give me fifteen minutes trapped with him in a conveniently broken lift and I bet you I could make him my lifelong enemy

still, crucially we never got to see that play out. and without the injury, marc would've already had several years to fight pecco and even jorge martin on equal-ish terms, which again just isn't an opportunity he's had until this year. those were some of his prime feud-starting years stolen from him... though also, speaking of casey vs fabio - I mean, that's the other thing, isn't it. whether you want to blame it on this generation of rider personalities or overly professionalised upbringing or the social media climate or whatever, the general willingness to feud with other riders has massively declined in the paddock. even insulting your fellow riders is pretty rare. casey thought the media and fans were too harsh to him back in the day, to put it mildly, but in a lot of ways it'd be far worse for him now. (incidentally, y'know the whole mir apologising to marc thing - can you imagine casey doing that? the correct answer is no, obviously not, how is that even a question, are you insane.) and even that generation was seen as a milder assortment of characters than valentino's lot, who in turn were at times considered oddly friendly by the guys who came before them. there are no max biaggi's in today's motogp. sete failing to threaten to punch valentino after jerez 2005 was considered disappointingly polite by a lot of the media. It Was A Different Time. it's not just that marc's feud rate is flagging - it's the case for everyone, which is how you get acosta offering to try and spice things up between the current title contenders. marc does need someone to feud with, and it doesn't help if they're all being so awfully conflict-averse

so, that's the marc defence case. marc just hasn't had enough plausible opportunities to start proper feuds, and you can't really judge him by how situational factors keep conspiring against him on that front. now, I think that is probably the main reason why it's been quite so dire for him... but still, it's also not quite satisfying to pretend like marc and valentino are quite literally identical in that regard, that they would have ended up with exactly the same profile of feuds in each other's positions. admittedly I don't really believe valentino would have had a radically different number of feuds in marc's career timeline... jorge is if anything the most proactive of the lot, often not even really needing much competitive justification to escalate a feud. still, you do suspect that there are differences in marc's approach that would always make him a little less likely to come up with these high quality feuds. one factor is motivation - valentino generally needs to get more creative in order to motivate himself to win than marc does, cf how much more flighty he gets when things are going well for him. valentino has long had a reputation for using his rivals to motivate himself, building them up as enemies and so on. there's rivals for which this is more the case than others, and it's a bit more complicated than that... but in general, valentino really benefits from these feuds, and is more reliant on them than marc is. marc can also use his rivals to motivate himself, cf 'his record at misano'. the most egregious example is 2019, where he comes in off the back of two back-to-back last lap defeats, hops onto the rear tyres of the yamaha's for much of that weekend until eventually he has that spat with valentino in qualifying that conveniently gives him the fire to reverse the recent trend and snatch victory away from poor fabio on the last lap. that's probably the most proactive he's been about it, and it's the kind of enterprising spirit I'm always happy to see in my riders. but in general... he does also just seem pretty content to reel off victories without any added source of motivation. valentino needs to jump through a few more hoops to get himself going, which happen to be very feud-inducing hoops. marc is far more capable of showing up and just doing the business

there's a related factor here that's a bit more nebulous and it's just... how they go about winning, both races and titles. now, okay, obviously they're both aggressive riders - marc notably so for the entirety of his career, while valentino got more aggressive after leaving honda and having to compensate for a bike disadvantage (having already been a menace in the lower classes). generally marc is the more aggressive rider, with valentino a little happier to pick and choose his moments and only escalating when he really feels he has to. similar peaks, lower baseline of aggression. that being said, valentino relied on one-on-one duels a lot more in winning his titles than marc did. marc's biggest strengths in winning his titles was a consistent and relentless pace advantage over the opposition, where he was able to score higher on his bad days than they were on theirs. his wins were generally more likely to be dominant than valentino's were (though it is admittedly quite hard to tell at times whether valentino was really riding anywhere close to 100% in his honda days) - and the momentum swings in his title fights tend to be because his opponents had made errors. valentino kinda needed the 1 vs 1 thing to be clicking for him to win his titles, because that's what his whole game is built on. 2004 plays out completely differently if valentino doesn't win any number of close duels - obviously welkom, but perhaps even more importantly the mugello/catalunya/assen stretch of the season he entered with a points deficit and left the new championship leader (with his relationship with sete rather worse for wear to boot). 2008 is obviously the poster child for this, as to a slighter lesser extent is 2009, which has been covered elsewhere on this blog and will be again in the near future... marc, by contrast, kinda thrives on losing close duels against his title rivals that are worrying to them because he was so close to victory at his weaker tracks. you can cite various mugello and austria and qatar races here... again, has been discussed elsewhere, but the point is that it's just a bigger part of valentino's game than it is for marc. and if so much in terms of stakes and championship momentum is attached to these single races... well, that's actually pretty much the perfect trigger point for starting feuds. by the latter half of his prime, marc kinda knew he could get away with losing some of these fights, especially against dovi (vs how he allegedly was 'angry' after the rins defeat and really relished the triumphalism of beating poor sweet fabio). valentino could extremely not afford to lose some of these duels if he wanted to win the title, and often ended up souring his relationships with his competitors in the process of winning. again, laguna 2008 is the poster child here - valentino's behaviour in this race is far more significant in determining that relationship's trajectory than him being 'mildly chilly' towards casey for the preceding one and a half years

the last factor kinda feels like the most obvious one: valentino often was just more proactive in his shit stirring, especially off-track. marc tends to do a lot of his psychological warfare on the track, which is discussed in more detail in the mind games post but is obviously reflected in stuff like stalking specific riders endlessly in practise and qualifying. valentino does plenty of on-track psychological warfare and he certainly wasn't averse to the odd towing shenanigans (just ask casey), but he was also more prepared to just fire a few shots in the media. he's capable of more subtlety than he's sometimes given credit for, had a pretty good feel for escalation... which can actually be quite frustrating, because at times you have to take his rivals at their word when they say he was being mean about them in the media - not always easy to find actual examples of that! he'd also get creative about how to exert pressure on his rivals - for which one of the more obvious examples would be getting proxies like his crew chief jb to do the mudslinging on his behalf. still, it shouldn't be too controversial to say he's more likely to attack his rivals directly in the media than marc is - who ramps up the subtlety all the way and usually just gestures vaguely in the direction of saying something that could be a snide remark... but isn't really direct enough to actually be a clear attack. now, if you set baby casey or baby jorge on the case, notoriously sensitive characters that they were, there'd still be a decent chance they take offence at the sort of thing marc says about his rivals... but as it stands, marc clearly prefers this less obvious approach, and this current lot isn't going to call him out on it. and yes, obviously sepang 2015 and the repercussions thereof will have strengthened marc's conservatism in this regard, a wish to avoid any further drama paired with a desire to show that valentino was the problem in that particular rivalry by avoiding any further feuds. and if marc's less likely to be proactive in media mudslinging and is also less likely to find himself in the sort of race that burns interpersonal relationships... well, it's not surprising he'd be less predisposed to feuds, is it

there's some other stuff we could bring in here, like valentino's tendency to play an active role in narrativising his career that fortunately just happens to also makes feuds more likely (topic for another post currently in the drafts). you could talk about how marc is less sensitive than jorge or especially casey, how he's more likely to brush off criticisms and then commit himself to on-track revenge. how he has a lot of low level beef with other riders that has just never quite been given the space or opportunity to grow into a proper feud. how jorge is more impulsive and is likelier to start fights immediately in response to a perceived slight, versus marc who is far likelier to bottle things up. in general, though, I still put most of the blame on circumstance. while valentino is definitely the frontrunner in the feuding department, there's no single correct way to go about starting your feuds - and jorge, for instance, has really showcased an alternative approach that can also yield some very positive results. marc should have been given more opportunities to figure out his own way to start up multiple narratively complex rivalries/feuds. he has some traits that are well-suited to a strong profile of rivalries and feuds, from his on-track aggression to his tendency to play games in the media to his ruthlessness to his ability to take defeats personally and feel threatened by rivals. the towing thing. his behaviour as a teammate. how uncompromising his approach towards riding is. there's a lot of strong stuff there, it just hasn't been given the chance to shine as much as you'd like

all that being said... he still has time! there's no reason to believe next year won't give us what we hope for in that regard, as long as that's a reasonably competitive title fight. and I don't think it'd be fair to pecco and marc to attribute any heated rivalry between them completely or even mostly on valentino - they have enough reasons unrelated to him to desperately want to beat each other. if anything, the valentino factor is unfortunately more likely to make them both a bit more restrained in that regard, wary of the drama of it all... but here's hoping! and they've already built up a bit of history now, some significant on-track encounters - I'd say that in an ideal world they've done more than enough prep work for them to get to feud territory next year. the other obvious name is pedro, a charmingly genre aware child with what a rather pronounced scepticism towards marc specifically, who feels like he would not only be up for a feud with marc but has quite possibly already game-planned what that feud would look like. hey, you never know, maybe I will successfully barter away my soul to finally make yamaha competitive again... let's see if we can try to get that depressed frenchie interested in some proper rivalries once he's back in the game. hopefully, marc still has a few competitive years ahead of him - and hopefully, he'll also get some help from the other side to get something narratively compelling going. I believe in him! remember, valentino pissed away two entire years in his early thirties but still managed to start his most long-lasting and emotionally devastating feud at the age of 36. isn't that inspiring? it's never too late to burn bridges. I for one hope marc still has something rancid in store for us

[triptychgrip]

New fic: Yuuri vs. Yuri on Hot Ones Versus 🔥🔥🔥

Yura loudly exhaled then sat up straight. 

“Ok, so back in February 2017, there was a local hockey team that began renting the ice for the slot right after this geezer would “coach” his then-fiance,” he began, jerking his head in Viktor’s direction and making a big show of his air quotes. “Notice I used air quotes because 90 percent of the time he was flirting and hanging all over him and it was the most loose definition of coaching possible.”

Kenjirou gave a hysterical sort of giggle and then immediately clapped a hand over his mouth. Feeling slightly defensive of his husband, Yuuri didn’t even have to think much about the words that left his lips.

“Vitya’s unorthodox methods worked, though, didn’t they?” he chimed in, not bothering to tone down his smugness. “Remind me, Yura: who was the gold medalist at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships, again?”

Viktor and Aasha barked delighted-sounding laughs and out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri saw Mila whip her phone out. Presumably, to capture the flush that had begun to stain his opponent’s cheeks.

“Yeah, well…anyway,” Yura resumed in a grumble, doing a pretty poor job of masking his flusteredness. “Most of the players– ”

“It was Yuuri-senpai! Yuuri-senpai was the 2017 World’s title holder!” Kenjirou interrupted in a shout, very unnecessarily. 

Yuuri bit his lip to suppress the mirth bubbling up within him and made a concerted effort not to look over at Viktor.

“As I was saying!” the Ice Tiger huffed, shooting him a nasty look, as if he could read his mind. “Most of the players kept to themselves, and other than some very questionable tastes in cologne that we were subjected to in the break room and locker room, they were fine to be around. But then there was the team captain, Sergei…who just straight up sucked.”

Yuuri decided to adopt a neutral expression.

While he hadn’t been the biggest fan of Sergei, he’d also never known what to make of his love’s opinion that the man had had a crush on him. It was true that Sergei had sought him out for conversation more than a lot of Yubileyny’s other skaters, but he’d chalked this up to the fact that at that point, he had still been extremely new to Russia in general, and had probably seemed starved for friendly faces. 

And, if Madame Baranovskaya had shot laser beams out of her eyes whenever she was in Sergei’s general vicinity, Yuuri had suspected this was due to her distaste for hockey, and not anything to do with a sense of protectiveness over him.

“There aren’t enough hours in the day for me to explain all the assorted means of suckage, but it was sometime in May that I snapped,” Yura continued on, looking impressively impassive. “Sergei had the most douchey hairstyle by the way…this platinum blonde, dyed sort of swoopy-thing that was his entire personality, to the point he never stopped talking about it.”

---

The above excerpt is from my newly uploaded fic (which I teased in this post), detailing Yuuri and Yurio facing off against one another on Hot Ones Versus. Taking place during the 2021 off-season, the two of them are currently the top two seeded skaters in the world, and their rivalry is heightened by the fact that they are both Viktor's students.

Just like my Vanity Fair Lie Detector fic, I had such a blast writing this, and am really excited to work on the final chapter, which will be from Yurio and Viktor's points of view. (Mila and Kenjirou also have large roles in this story, as they have tagged along for the episode filming for moral support, LOL).

If you read this WIP and enjoy it, PLEASE tell me what you think; I love receiving comments!

🔥 You can read Chapter 1, here 🔥

Oh, and as I mention in the pre-notes, this story marks my 20th Yuri!!! on Ice fic. Maybe it's about time I made a pinned post, lol...

[mofffun]

King-Ohger G-rosso S4

Remember when the title is just the most… non-informative with "The Kings Gather Here[at G-rosso]!"? That's. That's literally the plot. Just glad to say all your sentai trope love is satisfied.

There are a lot more actor scenes vs action scenes I doubt if I'm in the right theatre, and much more than S3. Shame on me not having revised on last year's and without realizing S4 is exclusively scripted with the face actors in mind. Even the audio is voiced by the original actors. It's almost like a fan meeting with interactive games and all rather than a Sentai stage play lol.

[spoilers below cut]

(Livestream est. Mar 17, 17:30)

Stage show:

Minnogan broke out of the seal mysteriously and stole the crown lance.

Each cast member has a short sequence of action before transforming. Gira center, Yanma upper stage right, Himeno lower stage left, Rita middle stage right, Kaguragi middle syage left. Rita did the hand-behind-back pose transforming and Papi did the ep16 strike! Jeramie's entrance is all grand with sliding doors in the middle stage. Not just the set blocks sliding horizontally, the projected virtual background (Shugoddom castle platform) also rotates to different angles, so as a stage production, it feels like a level-up from S3.

Minnogan activated the castle spaceship and transported the kings to present day Tokyo, Theatre G-rosso. Yanma commented there seems to be a lot of fun rides, Gira and Kaguragi asked the audience what this place is. Rita remained at the back of the trope.

A kaijin introduced himself as the Magician and blasted them with a beam, the kings minus Giramie suffered a personality inside out. Rita is Idol Rittan, Himeno is yankee (so still violent), Yanma became a coward/shiokara/schoolgirl with pigtails and thick round glasses trope, Kaguragi a flirty jokester. Giramie remained themselves having avoided the attack. When the others stormed off, Giramie looked each other in the eyes and said, "I'll leave that to you." The trust! They are Parents™!!

Yanma shouted, "Yanma is scared 😭" and ran off stage. Rita was the first one that moves versus when they were usually the last. Yuzuyan Rita just immediately switched to the idol voice and came down to the lower stage keep waving at people. When Himeno walked off the scene, they went after her going, "Eh~ don't leave (without) me, Hime-tan!" You can practically see the bottom half of Rita's face 😭

Cut to Rittan chasing an angry Himeno to practice for their Idol act. Rittan turned to the audience and said, "You want to see Hime-tan as an idol too, right?" Jeramie caught up to them and the magician kaijin challenged them to a game to get back to normal.

Kaguragi, Yanma, Gira: Kaguragi became all frivolous with a different tone of speaking (a bit like Ryuta Den-O/Gaon Zenkai). After some routine pick-up lines, Kagu caught up to Yanma, put his arm around his shoulders and said, "How about we have a good long talk, just the two of us?" *wink* Yanma tried to crunch himself as small as possible holding his own hand. HE HIT KAGU WITH A TINY FIST AND SAID "WARUI OTOKO (Naughty guy...)" AND STARTED GINGERLY TOUCHING HIS PECS. Gira arrived just in time for this and said "Are they dating?"

The game is a simplified Flappy Bird but Moffun. Rita's version of Moffun's song played in the background and Rita danced slightly along to it. The audience had too keep clapping loud enough while Moffun (an acutal person is in there moving its arm and legs while in the air) was hanged up by a wire and transported across the stage from left to right. (edit: Yuzuyan sang the Moffun song live instead of a recording. Moffun's arm could be waving because of wire work)

There's a progess bar and game background on the screen too. Of course Moffun fell down half way, Rittan snapped back into the judge voice and yelled at the audience not to drop it (Live Rita scream!!). Jeramie smoothed things over by calling it a practice to make the kaijin give us a second chance. We won the game and they got back to normal. I don't think they have clear memories of their behaviour, but just a vague sense. Regular Rita said, "Feels like I embarrassed myself..."

Kaijin appeared and challenged Gira to a game. The kaijin would call for different poses and Gira had to follow while the rhythm accelerates. Round 1 had Yanma doing rabbit ears and Kagu a tiger's jaw with his hands (like zyuoh shark ED pose). Gira's pose is spreading his arms with the evil laugh act.

Since Gira passed Round 1, the kaijin made the game more difficult by changing the poses faster. Round 2's Yanma's pose is Idol Rittan and Kagu did push-ups. Gira's the same so this session is just watching Taisei got up and down >D< Gira's the one most frequently interacting with the audiene. When they changed back, Yanma was shocked he was standing with his feet pointing inwards. Kaguragi said, "Hmmm, can't tell why but I feel an affection for Yanma-dono."

The six kings regroup. Minnogan summoned Dugded and the kings turned on each other. Gira was not affected but he had to fight off Jeramie. They were quickly de-transformed and appeared pinched.

Prince and Kyoryu Red descended from the middle block and ziplined to the rescue! Prince very naturally said "Otou-chan" >D< The Kyoryu pairs led the audience into a cheer for the King-Ohgers.

The kings regained strength while Dugded revived the Jesters to fight them. Gira transformed with the crown and they did the ep33 crossover roll call.

Yan Hime vs. Hibill & Glodi. Kagu Rita vs. Goma & Kamejim. The pollinator fight is amazing. They kinda ran up the audience blocks up to the last block and zipline back down??? and then they defeated them combining their "King's Proof" techniques. Jeramie and Prince fought Minnogan while Gira and King fought Dugded.

They won, detransformed, did the fist bump circle from ep39, and the kingoh dance.

After talk:

I was at Feb 4 16:00 & 17:30. Both sessions are the same.

The kings invented a game called "King-Ohger Game" (HKers call it "Ping! Pang! Wah!")

The players are in a circle and point to a person while saying a command. You have to say/do the correct response in sequence or lose.

Person A points at B, A says (First Name)

B -> C (Last Name)

C & Everyone (pose)

C -> anyone else *repeats*

The commands and poses:

Gira -> Husty -> "Jaku no Ou!" (thumb & forefinger out pointing the front)

Yanma -> Gast -> "Souchou!" (yankee fix hair both hands)

Himeno -> Ran -> "Kawaii" (this but smiling)

Rita -> Kaniska -> "Saibanchou" (stabs sword to ground)

Kaguragi -> Dybowski -> "Ou-tono!" (pose)

Jeramie -> Brasieri -> "Otto?" (two palms up on side + head shake)

The kings were in this line up 💙💛❤🤍💜🖤 at introduction, but Rita said they are serious about the game and need to see better with their only left eye so they mvoed all the way to right -> 💜💙💛❤🤍🖤. Yuzuyan even flipped her hair a bit and showed the blue eye (me dead at the coolness)

The kings formed a semi-circle to start the game. The audience was supposed to follow with the poses but the cast apparently was just having fun themselves XD. They kept getting faster and faster until it's Wings targeting each other. Yanma lost the game and Rita immediately stepped forward to announce he lost. Yanma asked "Seriously?!" (feels like it's the actors at this point but it still fits their characters lol)

The penalty is a mimic game. Aoto need to do Boon. He skipped to stage center. "Gira nii-chan~! Advent! King-Ohger!"

In the 17:30 show, Erica lost twice. She said the first time is practice but admitted it the second time. She did Suzume's "Help! Shugo Kamen-sama~!!"

After the game, Jeramie asked the audience if they like each member respectively, but paused at Gira's turn. He only asked when Gira said "What about me?" Then he also asked if we like Miss MC (so MC can ask if we like Jeramie). When everyone says "Daisuki", Jeramie gets to say "Me too <3" 😭

At the final bye-bye, Himeno is always pointing out "I see you!" at the fans. Gira will say "���ラだよ!" at the little kids. Giramie did a 🫶 with each other!! REAL. I heard the fans behind me said "There's so much Giramie (<-exact word) in this show" upon leaving.

Conclusion:

Can March 17 comes faster because I need to see this show again. This show is SO worth the price as a fan meeting.

I didn't fact-check this but twitter were saying Takada Masashi is listed in S4's credits. I don't know if he's in the Kumonos suit or in a supervising role but Kumonos looked significantly buffer than before and quite close to TV to my untrained eye. Another thing is I find Jeramie's mantle is much longer than I thought? I thought it just passed his hips but it's almost at his calf.

There were real fire shooting up and the theatre did turn completely dark for a bit so I see why baby kids would be scared. But as an adult I had a LOT of fun seeing the action so close in person and apparently the cast is having a lot of fun too.

Ticketing & seating:

(previous guide)

S3: I booked a general lottery round through proxy and got two permium through twitter. Possibly because most people has seen it, tickets weren't hard to find.

S4: I did not book anything but general lottery round were available on twitter for Saturady (2/3). Permium is hard to find because Jeramie is really popular now his badge is complimentary to the Permium ticket. General Sale opens one week before for Feb S4 (and two weeks before for March). I managed to find tickets in the first block just hopping by a 7-11. (Note: sale starts 1/27 19:00 but choosing your own seat only works after 1/28 0:00) There are still tickets in the middle and last block on the same day. The later the shows, the least crowded from my observation. Saturadays might be easier to get tickets but if you want to feel the atmosphere with kids cheering around you, choose a Sunday show.

Since it's about seeing the actors, I'd still advise seating yourself as front as possible. Even on the far left or right, you can still see the whole stage. I think the ideal distance is Row E or F because down on Permium, your view to the middle stage will be blocked and your neck's gonna hurt staring at what's happening at the ceiling.

Another good seat is any walkway seat or Row L so the suit actors run next to you. Seating at the second block isn't too bad this time because S4 has actors running/descending from as far as Row T.

Both S3 & S4 face actor sessions require real-name registration on the ticket. You have to input a name and a JP phone number at the combini machine, but they don't actually check it upon entry.

[starburstfloat]

Coming of Age Storytelling in TXT's Quarter Life (aka let's talk about korean grammar!!)

Quarter Life is one of my favorite tracks off minisode 3, not just for its coming of age theme but also the raw, unfiltered way their voices carry the message.

A closer look at the Korean lyrics led me to understanding the song anew so I wanted to share that with you guys.

What struck me most was the narrative shift in the song. Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Kai all transition from a contemplative, somewhat hopeless state of mind at the beginning of the song to an empowered and motivated mentality during the second half.

Admittedly, you don't need to pick apart the nuance of the conjugation patterns they're using to grasp this - listening to the song alone will give you a sense of it. But I think knowing the grammar a bit more just makes you feel it more deeply and helps the song feel that much more alive and inspiring. At the same time, I'll weave together my observations on the (wonderful!) storytelling/narrative flow. Let's go!

Beomgyu starts the song with:

A quarter life / 누군가가 나의 나이를 부르는 말

A quarter life / This is how someone calls my age

Note how this opening line establishes a distance from the protagonist: we're not centering on what he thinks at first, but rather how other people perceive him. Perception vs sense of self is a big coming of age theme. In the following lines, he alludes to having walked through a long long (긴긴) tunnel, and in explaining it to us, we get a sense for how the world has shaped him (or more specifically, worn him down). He may be young, but he is so so tired.

Kai reiterates this sentiment by saying:

좋을 때래 아름다운 청춘은 지금뿐이래

(People say) these are the good times, that the beauty of youth is only now

followed by him adding: I ain't happy at all

Once again, the focus is on perception. Their disconnect between how other people think they should feel versus how they actually feel builds a sense of lack and sadness.

The first narrative shift happens right after this, when Taehyun poses a pondering question:

혹시 어두운 이 턴널에도 끝은 있을까

(I wonder if) this dark tunnel even has en end?

-을까 verb endings paired with 혹시 (perhaps/maybe) add a contemplative tone to the question, thus indicating our first transition from Beomgyu and Kai's solemn defeat about youth being exhausting to wondering, maybe there's a way out of this?

Then we dive into the pre-chorus, which gets even more reflective:

어디로 가야 하는 건데

Where do I have to go/should I go?

-ㄴ데 endings are frequent in both spoken and written Korean and depending on context have several meanings. Here it leaves the listener with the knowledge that something has been left unsaid. I often think of it as ellipses that have a slow fade effect. In terms of the song, this line here emphasizes the pondering moment of taehyun earlier, kind of like "where do I have to go....?"

Kai mentions he's lonely, just walking in circles, it's a full quarter life crisis

The chorus hits with its instrumental - a release of all their frustrations and confusion for the tumultuous feelings.

The second half of the song gets interesting. It's here that each line slowly gets more optimistic and empowered. Taehyun says he refuses to say that he fucked up his life. This one thought keeps him grounded and makes him want to keep trying.

Kai's lead into the second pre-chorus is almost exactly the same as the first (on first listen I didn't hear a difference) but he actually changed one of the verb endings: instead of saying 건데 again (that ...? feeling grammar point) he uses an -�� 지 ending:

어디로 가야 하는 건지

Where do I have to go/should I go?

Note that the translation is exactly the same as the pre-chorus earlier, but there's a slightly different feeling attached. The -는 지 conjugation poses a "whether this or that" setup, once again showcasing uncertainty, but this time instead of pondering and ruminating, it's acknowledging the presence of options. He's getting closer to stepping into a decision - a decision he gets to make now, not something dictated by the perception of others.

Taehyun adds:

Don't look back / 돌아갈 순 없지

Don't look back / You can't go back

Many of you may already know -ㄹ 수 없다 conjugation as "cannot do something". Notice how the center is 순 instead of 수. 순 is used as an emphasizing marker, and the conjugation of -지 adds a feeling of someone going "right?" or "of course." There's a slight sense of urgency to it all. Knowing this, I hope you can feel the weight of Taehyun's lines here: he's urging himself to embrace what he has in the moment because he can't go back and he knows it and doesn't want this moment to escape him.

Also noteworthy is the lack of 요 endings to indicate higher formality. All of the song is in banmal, which suggests they're actually talking to themselves/in their own head. Very touching :')

The song ends on a determined high: Beomgyu and Kai affirm they are going to keep wandering through this quarter life crisis. I love the choice to finish the song with their raw vocals and the high of the instruments long gone. It centers us so much on their determination. Absolutely beautiful song and I hope I could give you some insight into the grammar and the feelings it captured.

[gffa]

Oh. Oh no. For the first time in my life pretty much ever I think I'm vaguely interested in a Batman vs Joker comic. This is a humiliating turn of events for me. It's never a good idea to get pre-invested in the potential of a DC comics storyline, that way only ever lies disappointment and "I don't know what I expected" because I should know better. But I can't help it! I took ten years off and came back to a DC that's better than when I left it! I have hope in my heart! And, for all that Gotham War ended with a whimper rather than a bang, I still can see so much potential. Imagine what a real shakeup of the dynamics in the Batfam would look like! I don't believe for a second that they'd do it, but imagine if they actually had Dick in the role of being the family leader, except as Nightwing this time instead of stepping into Batman's boots. He wouldn't want to be the patriarch in the same way Bruce was, but he's about the same age as Bruce was when Bruce adopted him, so imagine the tasty tasty parallels they could do with Dick suddenly in charge of a feral gremlin charge of his own (Damian), some actual support both emotionally and on the streets (Tim and Barbara), a team he actually would be able to call on for help when he needed it (Jason, Steph, Cass, Duke), that in some ways he has it easier than Bruce did, he's not as wrapped up in his own pain in the same way, but in other ways it's harder, he doesn't have Alfred, he has so many moving pieces that are all clashing and aren't necessarily going to listen to him (Steph and Cass and Duke aren't loyal to him the way he was loyal to Bruce)(and then there would be Jason's *waves hands* everything) and it would be out of his control that he'd feel responsible for and it would be a conflict between setting himself up in Bludhaven versus how Gotham still needs the team, not just Bruce being an asshole out there on his own--and god, running into Bruce, always wondering if he approves of Dick's style of leadership versus "You don't get a vote on whether to approve or not." There is SO MUCH that could be done with it! I can't help kind of being fond of the Gotham War set-up, because I like drama and I like Bruce's up and down character arc, and I like a complicated, sharp-edged Bruce who does inexcusable things because his brain is fucked up and lying to him, even when I know it'll disappoint me. But also. I was reading Batman #139 and oh, oh no, oh noooo, I'm interested in "Mindbomb" as a story--as a Joker story!--because it really is the perfect time for it, isn't it? Bruce has been overwhelmed for months now, he's in such a bad place mentally and emotionally that he's letting his fears of loss win and pushing his entire family away, he's doing horrible things to them because he can't handle loving them like he does, so he's separated himself from them, all while he thinks he's in control, but he's not, his brain is absolutely lying to him, and it's hissing in his ear to strip everything that Bruce loves away from himself and so that only Batman is left. Zur-En-Arrh is right there. "I'm in control!" Bruce screams in his own mind, all while Zur just rips through him and so easily takes over. Bruce has no control, he is so, so wrong about all of this, and oh boy the Joker is getting exactly what he wants, isn't he? No more annoying riff raff to get in the way or for Batman to care more about than him. No more Selina, no more kids, no more friends, no more loved ones--just Zur-En-Arrh, the most "pure" Batman in the Joker's eyes, now it's just the two of them. And that's everything Joker has ever wanted. And I don't want to find that to be an interesting extension of everything that led up to and during Gotham War, but crap yeah okay that's kind of a well-timed story when I look at it through that lens. I know I shouldn't get my hopes up, I'm going to be disappointed in wherever this goes, but dammit. The story kind of got me.

[monsieuroverlord]

The last bit of the Fall of X Titles are announced, which means the final two issues of the Sabretooth War

source here

Wolverine #49

written by Benjamin Percy and Victor LaValle, art by Geoff Shaw, cover by Leinil Francis Yu

"Armor up for the penultimate part of 'Sabretooth War!' Wolverine is powerless—but not defenseless.

 Forge made Logan one last invention, and with the lives of the X-Men and all mutants on the line, it’s time to unleash the ultimate weapon! COLLECTORS’ NOTE: Featuring the full debut of the Adamantium Armor!"

Wolverine #50

written by Benjamin Percy and Victor LaValle, Larry Hama + more

art by Cory Smith, Geoff Shaw, Javi Fernandez, Daniel Picciotto + more

cover by Lenil Francis Yu

"Creed vs. Logan—The final showdown! It’s all come down to this: the final battle between Wolverine and Sabretooth. The Sabretooth War concludes in the way it began—a violent, bloody battle—but who will be left standing? Plus: Special short stories celebrating fifty issues of this run and 50 years of Wolverine, from legendary Logan scribes including Larry Hama, as well as a final send-off from Benjamin Percy and Javi Fernández, and some special surprises!"

We also have the final issues of Rise of the Powers of X and Fall of the House of X, and X-Men Forever

Rise of the Powers of X #4

written by Kieron Gillen, art and cover by Luciano Vecchio

"The battle for all time! The X-epic concludes in a battle between those who are outside time and that which is now and forever...and the result is being decided by whether someone can ultimately make the right choice. The end of the Krakoan Age barrels our way as the two series that are one conclude!"

Fall of the House of X #4

Written by Gerry Duggan, art by Lucas Werneck, cover by Pepe Larraz

"The battle for the future! It all comes down to this: Orchis versus the X-Men, winner take the future! Orchis has pushed mutantkind to their lowest point ever, but that just means the X-Men have had to fight back like never before. Will it be enough? We continue to barrel toward the conclusion of the Krakoan Age as the two stories that are one come to an end!"

X-Men Forever #3

written by Kieron Gillen, art by Luca Maresca, cover by Mark Brooks

"Now… War in Krakoa! A hunt in the White Hot Room! And a heartwarming family reunion (by which we mean "possibly involving setting fire to someone's heart with a flamethrower"). Spinning out from RISE OF THE POWERS OF X and IMMORTAL X-MEN comes a must-read for the conclusion of the Krakoan Age!"

X-Men Forever #4

written by Kieron Gillen, art by Luca Maresca, cover by Mark Brooks

"…and forever! Our secrets, sinister or otherwise, are over. X-MEN FORVER ends with a question—after everything, do we have Hope or not? From between the pages of IMMORTAL X-MEN and RISE OF THE POWERS OF X, the final secrets of the Krakoan Age are revealed here!"

Also they have this bit:

That must refer to issue #35, I think, so i guess we have one more after issue #34

[warsamongthestars]

VERSUS... PART 2

Our second round of combatants, xirs, sirs and ladies!

WRECKER VS WRECKER VS WRECKER

TBB Set up Wrecker is the Strong man, the Big Guy, with the soft gooey center, and a background in Demolitions. He's meant to see the world without weighing the context of actions, what is often mistaken for being "simple", but has deep emotional sense.

Overall TBB Wrecker follows his set up pretty well, but too often ends up being a butt of jokes and making his enormous strength mean little to nothing. His so-called emotional intelligence is only really used when around the super special awesome OC, and doesn't once seem to come up with those who might need it, who aren't hte Guest of the Week (Such as an Echo suffering PTSD--which is never protrays--or a Tech who might need romantic relationship advice--which isn't portrayed either--or possibly Hunter falling under the stresses of leadership when there is no leadership anymore--but that never happens to the so called "HERO MAN"--Or the trauamtized brother who was brainwashed against his will to do terrible things... but Guess What Happens instead! Nothing. ) TBB Wrecker is regulated to the background of most things, because like any clusmily written show who breaks its wooden pencil trying to right the word "The", he is often just dumb muscle when the story requires it but will immediately switch to Big Brother Best Friend Forever when the story-don't-start-til-I-walk-in OC pops up. He has only had one attempt to show off his demolition skills and even then, it was about training the superstar and not about actually dealing with any kind of bombs, toxic waste, or burnable materials in any sort of story. He's effectively the Worf of Star Wars, in that he is merely used to demonstrate how terrible the enemy is--at the cost of being competent as a character, making him very bad at his concept and his job.

If there was a saving grace here, its the fact that giving Wrecker a stuffed toy was a brilliant idea. Everyone should have more stuffed toys; it is not only encouragement to the grown audience that they should allow themselves the joys of child-like wonder and comfort, but on a narrative level, even Wrecker acknowledges that he's not always the strong one. Lula additionally implies a stronger background to the Bad Batch's history as a physical example of backstory... though the show fails to act on the very opportunity it made.

TCWs Wrecker is an interesting contrasting character. On the first impression, we think he's just the overly excitable muscle man who clearly had a run in face-to-face with something explosive. (You could say he was... blind-sided). A thrill seeking warrior who seeks action on the battlefield and has no time for technicalities... ... Only to bring up those technicalities if anyone outside the squad asks, showing that, while he may tease his brother's technical intelligence, or cold-hearted demeanor, or not take authority seriously--he does in fact care and back up his squad-brothers, and additionally shows a shockingly precise attention to detail. Even though demolitions never truely comes up with the BB Arc, he shows his skills of demolitions by having that precise attention. He will laugh in roarous joy in a crashing ship, but will visibly become devastatingly afraid of heights if he sees the drop. He is the backup pilot of the Marauder [as seen in the second episode], he is a messy eater with even messier living quarters [the dude just threw a partially eaten chicken leg Somewhere in the ship Where they Live], and he Cannot stand stressful stealthing and will run off to cause or have excitement to cool off. ( I would say that he has an inability to stand suspension, which isn't a skill useful to demolitions--but that's not true. When he pulled off his combat rush in the middle of a "stealth mission", it wasn't long after a long emotional driven fight that left Hunter yelled at and emotionally shut down, and Crosshair who got decked twice. I'd say that, instead, Wrecker can't stand emotionally high tensions. ) As someone who is in things for the fun of things, he does have a competitive streak adn teasing streak with his favorite brother, Crosshair, who couldn't be more opposite to him in attitude. Wrecker is a character of excitement, but he's ultimately a character of terribly powerful control, and potentially more. He can lift a ship without breaking bone or damaging muscle, but he can also lift you up by your neck without crushing it, and he will simply hold you there without doing anything. He is a man that is fully aware that wrong moves hurt people, which works with both his body and his job. ... So I guess that means that Wrecker is the Superman of Star Wars.

Conceptually, TCWs Wrecker and TBB Wrecker come from the same deal and roughly, TCWs Wrecker can easily fit into the Set-Up TBB Wrecker.

The problem comes in, is that TBB Wrecker is an over exaggeration. Instead of the precise attention and man of control, he's more akin to an over excitable child who gets overwhelmed by everything and is just as ignorant to people as he is of his own character. Instead of the teasing and general comrade of TCWs Wrecker, TBB Wrecker too often comes off as a bit of a bully to his brothers, but immediately reverts to "Big Brother Best Friend" when Omega walks in.

Worse, in comparison to the rest of the batch, TBB Wrecker is the forgotten character. He doesn't receive an arc, he doesn't receive character development (not even when he was taken over by the chip), he doesn't receive any meaningful relationships and he certainly doesn't receive an ending that would benefit a character of his status.

TECH VS TECH VS TECH

TBB set up Tech is the smart guy, the logical one, the know-it-all, and the technical support. He has a surprising emotional center underneath the smarts, as well as a reach out to the neurodivergent community.

Actual TBB Tech generally follows the lines of his set up, but seems to falter back and forth if you go any deeper, and the show isn't quite sure what to do with him when it comes to his job or establishing relationships. For someone who is meant to be the Technician, he does a lot of engineering. For someone who is meant to be the telecommunications expert, he seems to be incapable of giving relevant information. I mean "I thought it was rather obvious" but it shows off the show itself's inability to communicate information to the audience, and using the information guy to do it--frankly its a hint at a malicious narrator who will explain episodic problems away, but cannot establish any character nor dedicate itself to any story beyond "Oh look AT THE CHILD, ISNT THE CHILD SO INTERESTING!?" The show wants to hint and poke at Tech having greater relationships with people, but doesn't bother to show Any beyond the super special awesome donut steel. It can't bother to set up brotherly relationships, and it won't even touch on romantic relationships, but will use Tech as the coin-on-string trick character all day. And if Tech was going to be used as the relationship guy, you'd think he would have a greater problem with Crosshair being missing. For the guy who was talking about programming and figured it was a neurochip, he was rather unconcerned about Crosshair losing his mind. After a certain point, we almost have to conclude that Tech's intelligence is in-name only and that TBB Tech is actually totally oblivious to everything until a spark of the story tells him that he needs to know a thing and suddenly he's the dictionary on that one thing. A pick-n-choose know-it-all who does nothing to use his intelligence to either save or improve lives of his loved ones, or even formulate a plan to leave shit circumstances, and will sit in the background, probably with popcorn.

To add insult to injury, the moment he starts being the character he is conceptually meant to be, both in TBB set up and in TCWs, such as being the technician, the telecomms expert, with tight relationships with squadmates to the point of rushing to the rescue of the missing one, and someone who is written to be neurodivergent (though I will argue that the entire Batch is neurodivergent)--the show decides "Y'know what, that's enough, you're getting too much development" and kills him for Shock value. And it is shock value, because the show then treats him like it did Crosshair--his missing status does nothing that wasn't already occurring to the Batch anyway, which is that they utterly ignore everything and everyone that isn't the episodic problem of the week--and his death is treated akin to Fives'--to be only as important as whether or not there's going to be some light rain and maybe a spot of sunshine in the afternoon, what a perfect time for fishing.

TBB Tech was the show's greatest tragedy, and like any tragedy on this show--it meant Nothing. His sacrifice Meant Nothing, it caused nothing, and to add insult to injury, it not only ensured that the TBB's group dynamic would never be healed, and the only one that was seemingly affected was the Indiana Jones of Star Wars... And THat's an insult too, because the show even failed to develop any kind of romance and preferred to poke and prod and tease and otherwise never dedicate itself to anything but placing characters in room and going "Oh MAN A ROMANCE HOW ROMANTIC, THEY EVEN HAVE NICKNAMES".

TBB Tech's set up and development was a catastrophic failure.

TCWs Tech is the Technician, the Technically-Speaking, and the Technology Guy. He is the know-it-all, and he shows this off with various fun facts about disturbing information that nobody asked about. He has a slew of hobbies that are, in fact, nothing but learning, gaining and understanding as much information, no matter how relevant or irrelevant, as possible... and He records Everything. He's always on his data pad, looking up gods know what (either from local defenses, to probably the smallest insect possible on the local planet, to maybe trying to recreate all the colors a shrimp can see but in the human vision spectrum). He's the insane pilot of the Havoc Marauder, landing whether its safe or not, if other people are in the way or not, here we come, Tag You're It! TCWs Tech is absolutely not armored for war, he is armored for deep planetary exploration or maybe he's here to repair whatever monstrous disaster is the local Star Wars power line--either way, its going to be an adventure. He is, additionally, a non-confrontational sort, backing away from fights started by his brothers. He is as far from a soldier as possible, and is more akin to a militant scientist. TCWs Tech is capable of shock and surprise, as well as having the capacity to know when something is important enough to voice (even if its one's own worries), such as running into the fact that the Separatists made a living hard-drive engine out of a living being--and worse, one of his clone brothers. He is still practical enough to distrust the rescuee after the fact, as the hijacking one's mind would lead to devastating results reasonably and logically. (and thanks the force that Echo turns out to have had a will of absolutely durasteel)--though Tech does unfortunately have Hunter's habit of bringing up those doubts and distrusts in the middle of a heart-stopping life-threatening mission. (Nobody on the Batch is good with priorities, let's face it ).

The set up of the Smart Guy character isn't a hard one--and it boarders on Cliche, both TBB Tech and TCWs Tech share the same set up but the difference is the narrative environment.

What's stranger, is that TBB Tech started out as a stilted character, regulated akin to TBB Hunter as being bad at even the thing he's meant to be--but then later is actually developed closer to TCWs Tech... only to be killed unceremoniously for shock value, and by his death, removed the very purpose of the Bad Batch even having their own show.

If you are not going to have the Bad Batch be the Bad Batch, why are they even There? Removing one and teasing his return to just say "Sorry, you honestly thought we were gonna give him back?', is bad enough, but to kill one utterly destroys the point and kills any good will narrative.

There is no justification for Tech's death. There is no argument in existence that would justify this beyond "If we keep the emotional tension up, you will give us money"--and that is an Evil Justification. It was cruel teasing, boarding on school bully tactics, and it turned this apathetic and clumsy piece of work into a Malicious Narrative.

Malice by Apathy and the Addiction of Content Rush.

BONUS ROUND!

OMEGA

Omega is set up to be the same set up that's been used repeatedly in nearly all recent Star Wars Media, even before the Sequels... and that's the "Star Child Character".

She is Half Wesley Crusher of Star Wars. I say Half, because Wesley Crusher was portrayed as one of two things--the super child genius that takes control of the situation and everyone loves him for it, or the super annoying genius that causes the problems. Omega is the first half.

Now, as a stand alone character, she isn't a bad one. Far from it.

She's a sheltered nine-year old who grew up in a military family (well a military, but military family is the closest we can reasonably compare her situation), and while that means she can recognize a hierarchy, she's also additionally a kid who is curious, overly trusting, and is really really good at playing games by herself.

The problem is, is that the narrative makes her the star child, on par with Ahsoka Tano fro the Clone Wars, and Grogu from the Mandolorian. Effectively, someone decided to repeat a "successful" formula but "let's do it for the clones, its not like they have any important people to make shows about!"

She is a poorman's attempt at recreating both, but the narration fails her character by making it too important.

A nine year old was never going to survive the Empire, with its clear film base preference of murdering lots of defenseless people, children too. A nine year old was never going to be on par with commandos, let alone ones that have special powers / mutations / enhancements. A nine year old was never going to have the emotional maturity to help traumatized soldiers, or worse, POWs.

This narrative seems to keep wanting to have all the darkness of a grim story, but tries to make Omega into this odd messiac character that if she just enters the scene, she can fix everything, or will fix it eventually. And not even just the immediate story, it wants her to be significant in the Lore, but refuses to extrapolate.

We all saw that she was set up to have a connection to the Force from Episode 1, and yeah, we all fucking groaned. Half of us oldies thought it was a cliche boring thing to do, a cheap way to make a character important.

The world build had room for her, but the execution, now looking back... it was worthless. Her so called significance to the Bad Batch comes off as utterly meaningless. Her force capabilities never came up with any importance.

(no, Ventress doesn't count. Ventress isn't even supposed to BE THERE. They RESURRECTED HER AND KILLED TECH. They rob characters of having Significant and meaningful exits to the Story. And they thinking that brinig in Guest Characters automatically means that they "Write Good Oohhahah" )

The only reason Omega would logically be there, is to be the child-character that young audiences can experience the story with... but I wouldn't say that this is a story for children.

The Clone Wars had a far better set up with lot more time with Ahsoka Tano, who became a beloved character by Season 3, even though she started out as being Hated for being the OC... because they made her Anakin Skywalker's Padawan, and that's fanfic logic.

But for Omega, it isn't Time she's missing... its Character that is being taken away from other characters, in order to make Omega into a Messiah of Clones.

TBB Crosshair was misvalued, and his story was eventually used in order to make Omega seem more mature and akin to an emotional crutch. Because apparently a child can heal all wounds of war, trauma, torture and worse.

TBB Echo was mischaractered, and then the moment things started becoming more important to him than Omega, they make him leave unceremoniously in order to get Omega's reaction Because apparently abandonment issues isn't a thing that develops when a child loses an important guardian figure.

TBB Wrecker was the forgotten character, unless he was playing Big Brother Best Friend to Omega, but never to a point where he would ever have an actual ending with his best friend. Because apparently a child's emotional guardian figure isn't ultimately important in the long run.

TBB Tech was killed, in order to make Omega "stronger" Because apparently grief doesn't apparently take months and trauma doesn't happen when a child loses an important guardian figure, and it doesn't result in severe disassociation when faced with future traumas.

TBB Hunter was already mischaracterized, but the moment he became the parent figure, his only obsessive goal as a character was Omega, and they made him bad at being his own character in order to make Omega more important in the story. And because, y'know, a child being made into a child soldier and robbed of any attempt at a normal life with no emotional healing from the sheer amount of danger and trauma, and constant communication stutning, will totally grow up just fine, especially if you add a dash of losing them to strangers that will use and abuse them.

This entire Narrative bent around itself to ensure that Omega, the sheltered nine year old, was the super special awesome donut steel totally original character mary sue--who is only mature when the story glorifies it, is only weak if the story wants drama, is always special all the time and anyone who gets more special than her is removed; and will always come on top, because somehow a nine year old has outclassed commandos, assassins, PTSD, fantasy monsters, and an entire fascist government.

And while this is none of the character of Omega's fault... they created the concept of her character, to be placed at the center of where all the problems start, and then tried to argue that she would become a super hero figure, with no problems or trauams, by the end.

Conceptually she's a good character, presently, she's decent... but set up wise? No. Her concept was rigged from the start, and now all your base now belong to us make your time.

ROUND OVER!

[the-conversation-pod]

On Time And Memory

AND WE'RE BACK!

This week we're doing a thematic comparison about how our memory of the past impacts how we perceive our present. In a surprise for us both, we had a lot of positive things to say about Krist Perawat. We're talking about trauma and how we connect to wounded characters this week with Tokyo In April Is... and Be My Favorite.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:16 - Intro 03:10 - Tokyo In April Is... 11:01 - TIAI: Comparisons with the manga 14:15 - TIAI: Strength of execution 26:23 - Be My Favorite 34:00 - BMF: The time travel mechanic 44:47 - BMF: Dings 52:57 - BMF: Jittirain and Gawin and Krist 01:00:58 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes. When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

01:16 Introduction

Ben

And we're back.

NiNi

Welcome, welcome, to our On Time and Memory episode. And why are we calling it On Time and Memory? Well, we're back in the second chance romance space. And when we're in second chance romance space it always ends up somehow being time fuckery versus head fuckery. So [laughs] what are we talking about this episode? We're gonna talk about time fuckery in Be My Favorite, and headfuckery in Tokyo In April Is…

Ben

I think for both of these shows you have characters who are emotionally stunted by their feelings for each other that they don't deal with for years. In Tokyo In April we have a story about two boys who were very close in high school, and a troublesome event separates them, and they don't run into each other again for…ten years. And there's a lot to unpack in the trauma between the two of them that we'll get into in the episode. With Be My Favorite, we have a young man who, approaching 30, isn't really doing anything and is still caught up in his bullshit from when he was in college. Until a magical McGuffin allows him to go back in time to college and re-experience some of these events—with a very strict time travel mechanic that I really liked how it was used. 

Both of these shows offer us some interesting things to talk about with how we perceive the events around us, and how that tends to linger with us and inform who we become.

NiNi

Okay so let's dive right in.

03:10 - Tokyo In April Is…

NiNi

And now we're going to talk about Tokyo In April Is... Ben, what is Tokyo In April Is… about?

Ben

Fundamentally, at its core it seems to be a show about nostalgia? But the description of the setup is, this young man named Takizawa Kazuma is returning to Tokyo after being away for ten years. He left at the end of middle school, finished his studies in America, and is returning to Japan as a pretty well-trained human resources professional and is joining some sort of company that's got office space in a tower. There he runs into another guy who's his age named Ren, who was his friend when he came back to Japan originally when he was a teenager, and they haven't seen each other in ten years. We learn over the course of the show that they were each other's first big loves, and they were each other's first experience sexually. But that encounter ended on a rather sad note for them as Kazuma ended up sick—had to be rushed to the hospital. The relationship became public knowledge to their families, and then Ren was summarily disowned by his family, kicked to France, and forgotten, only to eventually return to Tokyo. 

The two of them have a difficult way to go because Ren doesn't want to talk about what happened when they were 15, and Kazuma—who had a horrible bout with pneumonia and I believe meningitis?—he ends up not really remembering what happened after that night. He and Ren end up in an intimate situation, and Ren establishes a friends with benefits arrangement for them. And Kazuma decides to be patient with this so Ren can work through what he needs to as the two of them become closer. 

Ren also gets involved in a very Me Too era storyline with his work, where one of the women that he works with discloses that she was a victim, and that another member of the team was recently victimized. That the perpetrator has been preying upon the female staff at the company for over a decade. Two like really big threads in the show and I got a little bit lost towards the end there. But, the core of the show is about the…I guess it's sort of a second chance romance? Between Kazuma and Ren.

NiNi

I think we came down on opposite sides of this one, so I want to let you go first. How did you feel about it? What was your take on the show?

Ben

Overall I ended up liking this show a lot—and I tend to like shows that hearken specifically to things that I think are distinctly queer, also distinctly very male queer, because despite how femme our friend group is [laughs] and how many femmes are on Tumblr, I watch BL because I am a gay man who likes stories about gay men. And so I really connected to the youth portion of the story, where both of them were in love with the other, but couldn't conceive of a reality where the other boy also liked them back. And I really like how earnest that felt? Maybe I'm projecting a little bit of the manga onto this, I think it's a little more explicit in the manga, because we get more internal monologues? But I really like how that felt. The reality of that being snatched away from them at 15 was also something I connected to, having something really special and then having it basically ripped from you. In my case by circumstance, but them by being literally outed. 

And then when they get together as adults again, I really appreciate Kazuma’s patience with Ren. I think it's very difficult sometimes to care about someone who's clearly suffered—and you'd like to help but it isn't necessarily your problem to solve or your angst to unpack? Sometimes you just have to love someone very firmly, until they start to settle down a little bit. And I also really liked Ren's friend Ryunosuke, who he met when he was in Paris. I really liked in episode…7? Seven, when he reads Kazuma for filth—because he can't conceive of a reality where Kazuma doesn't understand what happened to Ren. It's less of a thread in the show, but Ryunosuke and Ren identify as gay, which carries political connotations. Kazuma doesn't necessarily think of himself as queer in any way, and so as a result he doesn't seem to consider the social, economic, and political ramifications of being gay, and how that impacts his feelings for Ren. Ryunosuke has been with Ren for ten years, has cared about Ren, has tried to be more than just friends to Ren, unsuccessfully, multiple times—that's text. And he hates Kazuma because this is the person who is the source of this huge knot that's got his friend locked up. And when you meet Kazuma, you understand instantly why Ren likes him. If I were Ryunosuke I would hate Kazuma even more [laughs] because he's so likable.

NiNi

[laughs]

Ben

You would almost want Kazuma to be a selfish prick who didn't appreciate what Ren gave up for him. But the fact that Kazuma is so earnest and gorgeous and naive and kind, makes you hate him even more because you can see what Ren may have been trying to protect. And he succeeded! Oh, I would hate that so much! 

[both laugh]

Ben

And so I really, genuinely loved Ryunosuke’s confrontation with Kazuma about that. I also really liked their domesticity. Because Japanese BLs are always using food as a love language. Food is love is a very common theme, especially when you have so many tsundere seme types, or even ukes who can't necessarily say the things that need to be said, but they can make a mean souffle. Ren doesn't have cooking skills. He's so stunted by what happened to him that he is missing love languages. The only thing he can really do is quality time and physical affection, but even then he's super restrictive about it with his rules. 

I enjoyed a lot of the gay shit in this that sticks with me.

11:01 TIAI: Comparisons with the manga

NiNi

Okay, so here's a question. I did not read the manga, manga's not really my thing, but you read the manga before you went into the show. Do you think that that influenced your experience of the show in any way?

Ben

The simple answer is yes? It's kind of hard not to…when you know the story, you're watching it differently. And that's true for anybody who read source novels watching adaptations, or saw the original work when it's been adapted to another language or something. Your prior familiarity does impact your viewing experience. I will say in the case of Tokyo In April Is…the show is better, significantly. Whatever I would rate the show, it is a full point higher than I would rate the manga. The manga…is, one, way more erotic, and it uses eroticism kind of poorly sometimes? And there's one particular one that is extremely distasteful. There's other really tactful changes they made to the source material. Some of it was just moving the reveals of certain information around for better coherence. 

I think the show is significantly better than the source work. Not in a way that makes me want to say the source work is bad, but very much when they were adapting they were like, [laughs] ‘we have to move some of these pieces around and restructure some of this.’ Some of the stuff when they were kids is far more explicit. They have to say it because they're not relying on the actors to deliver it. So Kazuma being as in love with Ren as Ren was with him is far more legible in the manga I think? And, like that scene on the roof where they're talking about having girlfriends: Kazuma in his own internal monologue in the manga says he's just going to say what straight people are supposed to say, because he thinks it would be embarrassing to admit how much he likes Ren. I don't think that's as legible in the show. Unfortunately.

NiNi

Yeah, and it's strange because the show does use internal monologues, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't have used internal monologues to get those bits across.

Ben

There's this weird dynamic with trying to be a little bit subtle about certain things? Less explicit sometimes about the queer stuff—with the main couples—that I don't know what the party line is on this, because they didn't have a problem doing with Ryunosuke, but he doesn't have any romantic potential, so they can say it for him. He can say the thing, because he's not getting anybody's booty in this show, so whatever. But like there's a whole thing with Kazuma and Ren that was only alluded to in the show. 

I think the young actors are fine, but I don't think that they necessarily conveyed on their own, the missing bits of the internal monologue that I think should have been voiced over.

14:15 TIAI: Strength of execution

NiNi

Yeah. And that's kind of my whole thing with the show? So, Ben and I, I think, fell on opposite sides of this particular one. I thought that this was written really well; I am not sure that it was performed well. Or performed in a manner that grabbed me, let's put it that way. Intellectually I feel the tragedy of the story, but I'm not feeling any of it? And I think the performances had something to do with it, and I think a little bit of it was the staticness of the direction. This is the same team that did Our Dining Table, which is also based on a manga, but that show does not feel as static in the direction as the show does. Sometimes the whole manga styling, it works for me—they linger on a shot and it's very clear that that was like, a full page panel, or something like that? Sometimes that works for me with Japan, and sometimes it doesn't. 

Some of the times that it's worked for me have been, like, Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? But then there are times that it didn't work for me, like here, and The Pornographer. It's the same kind of like static direction, but the acting is not coming through in the same way as it did in Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? I felt at an emotional distance the whole time I was watching the show. It was very clear what I was supposed to be feeling, because the writing's very good. It's partially the staticness of the direction, but it's really the fact that the actors aren't acting through that direction. 

To be fair, when I'm talking about Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? I’m talking about Iijima and Inukai, talking about Uchino and Nishijima, these are top tier actors. These actors are very new. They've clearly been through the training, but they didn't bring out, for me, the emotionality that I would expect to get in a story like this—because this is a very tragic story. It's a tragic story with a happy ending, which is nice, but I neither feel the tragedy nor the joy. I can see that I'm supposed to feel it. The writing is telling me that I'm supposed to feel it. But I'm not feeling it, it's just not hitting for me, I wasn't getting enough of the inner from the performances. And it wasn't coming through in any other way. So if I'm not getting the inner from the performances I have to get it in some way, through a dynamism in the direction, or something in the set design, and I didn't get it through any of those means that I would normally use to soak up a vibe from a show? I wasn't getting that normal kind of pull that I would that I would usually get, that would suck me into something. Objectively it's good, but it didn't touch me? The production did not capture the depth of the story, for me.

Ben

I like Japanese static framing, because sometimes I think you have to just sit in whatever situation you're in. And sometimes that's really fun, like all of the fun eating around a table in What Did You Eat Yesterday? or Our Dining Table. Sometimes it's not fun. When you're watching Kazuma respect Ren's boundary, not asking a question that needs to be answered in a show like this. I totally see what you mean with the set design, about how things feeling kind of generic and bland. But I also feel like that's sort of the point, like, Kazuma is recently back in Tokyo. And the very first thing I thought about his place was that it was too big. But I feel like that's also the point. Missing part of himself because Ren has been gone for so long, and he's willing to provide so much space for Ren. I liked the use of earth tones in the few things that he did have, to ground his place and make it feel more alive than Ren's own place, which was so forgettable.

NiNi

Yeah, this is what I'm saying: normally in Japan, the set design, it pulls you in, the sets say so much about the characters.

Ben

But I feel like that's the point here! The lack of definition from their physical spaces is part of the point, that they're both so ungrounded. With Kazuma’s space in particular…the whole domestic episode of theirs, we kept calling it the What Did You Eat Yesterday? homage episode—but that also feels like sort of the point. That Kazuma is trying to model what he hopes will be helpful for Ren.

NiNi

I just feel like, if it's intentional, then when things shift between them, that it should then change. Because I could have bought the sterility of both of their places at the beginning of the story as intentional, and demonstrating how stuck they both are, that they can't even extend themselves to their surroundings because they're stuck in this moment that happened ten years ago. I could buy that as an argument. But then when they become unstuck, I feel like I want to see that reflected in some way. The story doesn't get there, because when they're moving in together, we only see like the barest bit of their place, and it just looks the same. 

So I can take your point and buy your argument, but then to me, they missed a trick towards the end of the show by not making it clearer that now they are unstuck, and their lives can begin, and their lives together can begin, so their surroundings should start to match the new vibe that they're building together, to me anyway.

Ben

I do get that, I just don't know that I want them to do that in either of their apartments. Because both of their apartments look and feel temporary to me. And I'm really okay with the show starting where we began, with Kazuma on the street reminiscing about Tokyo, with the reveal that now he's with Ren and they're walking off together, and now they can casually talk about their time as teens. I'm okay with them completely starting over. 

Like I take your point. It just didn't bother me because of how it instantly read to me. Like everything seemed off, and that felt intentional.

NiNi

When we were talking about this a little bit earlier you brought up pulps. Because you know how I feel generally about the pulps. I'm most familiar with the Thai pulps and the rhythms of the Thai pulps, so I can point to a Thai pulp and be like ‘that's a pulp.’ But normally you have to like, guide me into realizing that something from somewhere else is a pulp, because I don't have the same familiarity with the rhythms. This now, you described it as a Japanese pulp, and I had to sit with that for a minute, because I'm like ‘oh okay, is this what it is, is this what I'm feeling?’

Ben

We talked about this a little bit. This is not me reading you, don't take it as such.

NiNi

Why would I ever? If you're going to read me, you're going to tell me you’re reading me.

Ben

I will read you on this podcast, but I’m not reading you here. I just think, like one of the things that I've gotten used to as a queer cinema viewer is: we don't get big budget money, we don't get big actors in our stuff. And if we do, it's like, ‘this is their formative work! Look how bad they were in 1992!’ I get used to a certain raw quality or newness with these actors? And I am not put off by it. I appreciate that they were willing to do the work, and I appreciate when they take the work seriously. Like at no point do I think that Sakurai Yuki and Takamatsu Aloha are afraid of each other. And afraid to play two men who are into each other. And I have felt that from Japanese actors…we get the sense that they're not necessarily comfortable working with their male co-star. I did not feel that here from these guys, I just felt inexperience. And I don't begrudge people the experience they don't have. I care about the work that they're trying to do. 

This is a very poignant story about a very specific kind of relationship, that I think is fairly familiar for a certain type of queer viewer who has dealt with familial homophobia and the consequences of being discovered at a young age? Something else the show did that the manga didn't—the manga doesn't do much develop Kazuma’s despair at Ren leaving, and it's one of the things that I really like in the show, because he was very strictly adhering to Ren's rules…about not asking questions that Ren didn’t want to answer, obeying the rules about their intimacy, even though Ren was modifying them, breaking them or changing them on the fly. And you can see how he turns into this shell of himself because Ren's gone. That was so well done, the manga does not develop that at all. 

NiNi

Ben's like, ‘inject the sadness directly into my veins!’ [laughs]

Ben

I need to know these gay boys have been through the suffering! And the knowing, it's my favorite part. There's also the mom. The mom is way better in the show. There's a bitterness about the whole resolution with the mom, that is correct in the show. In the manga they make it seem like…it's almost comedic that she separated them for ten years? The conversation she has in the show with the other woman, about how strong their love is and how special it is and why she separated them? Yeah, she has that with the boys in the manga. I hated that shit. I'm so glad she had that conversation away from the boys. 

The show is better. I gave the show a 9, I would have given the manga like an 8.

NiNi

It’s hard for me to talk about this show because intellectually I got it, but I still felt mid about it. It is well done. It's well written, it does not look cheap. They put work into the show. It's very clear that everybody from top to bottom on this production put the work in. But it didn't hit me. 

Ben

It’s okay, I think, for a viewer to recognize the quality of a story, the intent of a story, but to not necessarily personally connect to it.

NiNi

So you gave it a 9, I would say…objectively it's a 9 show, I would agree with you there. It just, these are two different 9s, let's put it that way.

Ben

[laughs] I get that these are not currently the most compelling actors you've seen. But we're seeing a lot of people early in their careers, when it's cheaper to maybe hire them for these things. And I'm okay with this being some of the first work that people do.

NiNi

So Ben gives it a 9, I give it a 9, that's a 9 for Tokyo In April Is…

26:23 - Be My Favorite

NiNi

Ok Ben, so let's talk Be My Favorite. We, well I, had no intention of watching this, you were going in hostile…Ben, tell the people, what is Be My Favorite about?

Ben

Be My Favorite is about Krist Perawat’s redemption arc. No, Be My Favorite is about this young man named Botkawi, who is thirty years old and still stuck in all of his mess from when he was still a student. He is invited to the wedding of the girl that he has had a crush on for ten years—who he has never really spoken to—has an entire crisis about it, then a magic uncle gives him a plot device to travel back in time to try and change his future. Along the way he ends up realizing that he didn't really understand any of the relationships in his life, and because this is a BL, ends up with the guy who Pear, the girl he was into, was going to marry. 

Honestly, describing the show's plot is going to make it sound really silly, but fundamentally it was a show about the importance of kindness, and just choosing to be a little bit decent to people, even when it didn't feel like it benefited you at all. And how that can have transformative effects in the lives of everyone around them.

NiNi

I think that's a good descriptor, and I think you're right that if you just dryly explain what the show is about, it seems like it's a little silly—but it was really really affecting, I found it quite deep and quite emotional in a lot of ways. Kawi is a loser, but he's a loser because he chose to be. He got into his head that he was a loser and he just cut himself off from all the people in his life, and sort of manifested his own loserdom. When we meet Kawi, like we can see that, because people are trying to be his friend, people are trying to be close to him, people are trying to socialize with him and have him as part of their crew, their group, their whatever, and he is just not having it. He's stuck in his own head and his own sadness and his own perception of himself? And the way that his life has gone? And he can't seem to unstick himself. 

The catalyst for him starting to unstick himself is when this wedding invitation arrives. That's when you start to get the full story of how Kawi even landed up here. You get to go back in time with him to the point in time when the decisions that he made landed him here. He thinks of it as nothing having worked out for him for twelve years, but what it really is in actuality is that he hasn't tried anything in twelve years. He's just allowed himself to become this sad sack of a person, and just told himself that he was a loser. 

The show is very…it delves into the idea of how you can turn your perception, however misguided it is, into your reality. It's a lot about not being able to see the good things that are in your life, only being able to see the bad. There’s a few threads in there that are interesting that the show runs with: threads on alcoholism and binge drinking, threads on decentering yourself from other people's stories. There is a lot the show says about being an active participant in your own life. I thought it was a really interesting show, and well done. Well written, well produced, well directed, and very well acted, I think. I did not go into this as a Krist fan, because I did not think that he was a good actor. And I was very surprised and quite pleased with his chops in this. I love Fluke Gawin, I think he ascended to another level in this particular show. I think he put more of himself into this show than he has into some of his other roles, and I was impressed already with some of his other roles. 

Ben, what did you think about it?

Ben

I went into this show…ambivalent? Many of us in the BL-sphere had fallen out of favor with Krist, and I'm also really hit or miss with Jittirain's work, because I don't like how much lying is a big part of her stories. I was really surprised by how much lying was not part of the story of this. This show cared so much about earnestness. It was very determined for people to say what needed to be said to each other, and begged people to treat each other kindly. 

One of the things that I really liked early in this show was that three different characters confessed to each other in this love triangle. Pear has a crush on Pisaeng, Pisaeng has a crush on Kawi, Kawi has a crush on Pear. They all reject each other, and it ends up improving their friendships, because now that nobody is withholding their feelings for fear of rejection, they can treat each other properly again. They did the thing that Korean stuff does a lot, which demands that people confess, but they did it in a way that showed that it's actually beneficial, and it can get better for people after you confess, even when you're rejected. I thought that was really really lovely. The show just begs you to choose kindness, to be a little bit nicer to people. To not be so selfish. 

And I was not expecting that [laughs] from a Jittirain adaptation with such an unlikable character in Kawi? Because Kawi was not an easy character to like on the front end of the show. It felt very…calculated in the casting, to use an actor that had such a complicated relationship with the BL community? Who starts off so unlikable, and then to make us like him over the course of the show, by letting him grow and change, and letting us grow along with him. Like that was really restorative, in a way that I am genuinely floored by. We didn't want to like him in the beginning, but I genuinely cared about him by the end of the show.

34:00 BMF: The time travel mechanic

NiNi

Let's talk a little bit about the time travel, Ben, because I think that the time travel mechanic is kind of important to the story. So, let's break down a little bit how they do the time travel. 

So like you said, there's a McGuffin object that they use, one of those little music boxes thingies? And when you turn the music box the first time, nothing happens. But then the next time that you turn the music box, you are taken back in time to the first point at which you turned the music box. From then on, you're slingshotting back and forth between two points in time, which is the last time you turned the music box in the past, and the last time you turned the music box in the future.

Ben

The big thing with the time travel mechanic is that you're not in a Groundhog Day story. You're not reliving the same day over and over again. This is not about Kawi having to keep retrying the same moments over and over again. The big thing with the time travel mechanic is that you create a checkpoint in the future and a checkpoint in the past, but every time you go back to one area or another, you're still moving forward. So he comes back to when he first buys the snow globe. He goes back the first time to when he bought it and he tries to give it to Pear, but once he tries to go back to the future after the first jump, whenever he goes back, he's back to wherever he was after he attempted to give it to her. So he has to keep moving forward; he gets one redo of what he did before. And so he's still forced to live with the consequences of his choices, he can't just keep trying over and over again. That's also kind of a metaphor? You can maybe mess up something once, and try again with people? Before they're like, ‘okay well this is who you are,’ and then they leave you alone. 

I really liked this particular time travel story, because so much about jumping forward for Kawi represented where he was in the moment. So the first time he thinks he's accomplished all the things he came to, to do, like save his dad, become friendly with Pear, etc, and he jumps forward—his life is a mess. Because he was overindulgent when he was last in the past, and that played out to him becoming an alcoholic in the future, who was not great in his relationship with Pear, because he hadn't really committed to being in the relationship with Pear, he just wanted to have the relationship. And this caused friction with all the other people in his life. Particularly Max, his gay bestie, who was one of the first relationships he fixed. Like, he had stopped hanging out with his gay bestie because people were like ‘are you guys, like, homo because you guys are besties?’ So he avoided Max to avoid conflict with other people. But he fixes his relationship with Max, and Max ends up staying by his side through most of the timelines that we get to see in the future. 

But a big part of the way this time travel mechanics works, by like—you move forward in both the future and the past—it forces Kawi to be present in either place while he's there. And he eventually learns the theme of the show, which is, live a life that you won't feel like you need to change. We get a great use of this towards the end when Pisaeng, in a moment of fear about Kawi potentially dying, jumps back to the past to try and somehow fix it. Kawi clocks him as a time traveler right away, but they end up revisiting like their first proper date? And end up facing each other as two time travelers trying to fix their past. Kawi really rises to that moment, and tells Pisaeng, ‘don't worry about it.’ I found that in particular to be really satisfying. That for somebody like Kawi who could only see the world negatively, by the end of the show he's able to give his partner—who is incredibly optimistic as an individual, who's facing a really terrifying loss in potentially losing him—the courage to face that eventuality, and say that our lives are still worth living and enjoying even if they might be a little bit short. Which is…kind of a heavy theme for the kind of upbeat Friday BLs that GMMTV likes to do. 

So. I was really impressed with the way they handled the time travel mechanic in this. I think it offered a lot to the storytelling, I don't think this show works as just a relationship show otherwise, I think the fact that it's a time travel show is the only reason this particular story functions. And that makes me very fond of it as a result.

NiNi

Yeah, I like all of the time travel mechanic work specifically because one of the things that it makes you think about is that every time Kawi jumps forward to the future, there is a sense that, almost in a way that time stopped—obviously not, because time has kept going—but more that he stopped developing or he got stuck at the point in time where he jumped forward. So when he jumps forward to the future, he's still the Kawi that jumped forward from the past, he has not grown, has not evolved, has not anything like that. And it feels like all the people around him are stuck too? So it's almost like at the point in time that he jumps forward he freezes everybody in amber, which I really appreciated as a metaphor for, you can't fast forward through your life. You have to live it. Which is one of the themes of the show that I think was executed really well, utilizing that aspect of the time travel mechanic. Every time he tries to short circuit and just go from the past to the future without living through the bits in between, the future doesn't go well, it doesn't end well for him. I really did like that about the way that they use the time travel mechanic. 

I like how this team deals with science fiction mechanics, because this is the same team that did The Gifted and The Gifted: Graduation, which are probably two of the best Thai dramas that I’ve ever watched, and the way that they think about the genre implications and the genre aspects of the shows that they do—they put effort into it, they're not lazy about the genre work that they're doing. And they deeply integrate it into the story that they're telling otherwise, so to to your point about how this story wouldn't have worked if it wasn't a time travel story: completely agree about that. The time travel is absolutely necessary to the emotional core of the story, and to the core of who the characters are and how they move through their lives. It's really…critical aspect of it. If Kawi hadn't already lived through to the version of his future where he's a sad sack, he might not have been motivated to fix his past. And then if he hadn't jumped forward to a point in time that he thought he fixed everything, and realized that he just made it worse, he wouldn't have, again, tried to go back and fix it properly. And then in going back, decided to live his life rather than trying to fast forward to the end. 

One of the things that it really forces him to do as well—because there are rules to the time travel mechanic—basically there are some things that you can't change? There's some things that you can't avoid, there are some things that you can't fix. And this is shown in the person of Kawi's dad. One of the things that Kawi tries to do when he goes back to the past, is he tries to prevent his dad from dying? And he thinks that he's succeeded, because he knows when his dad is gonna die. He knows why he's gonna die. He succeeds at getting him medical help, but he dies anyway, because death is one of those things that you can't avoid, you can't change, it is what it is. Between the discussions of alcoholism and that fact of there being things in the timeline that you just can't change, it led me to the serenity prayer as a reading of the show. You have to know what you can change. You have to have the courage to change that stuff that you can change. You have to have the serenity to accept the things that you can't change. 

So for Kawi, he knew he could change things about himself, things about the decisions that he made in the past. Those were the things that he had to change, and he had to discover the courage to change those things, which he did. But he had to also accept the things that he couldn't change. He couldn't change his dad dying. He couldn't change the fact that Pear did not feel the way about him that he felt about her. He couldn't change the fact that Pisaeng felt the way that he felt about him, or that he felt the way that he felt about Pisaeng. He had to accept those things. And then he had to determine, he had to learn, the difference between those two things—because that's the basis of the serenity prayer, right? You have to accept what you can't change, you have to change the things you can, and you have to have the wisdom to know the difference between those things, which is also what the whole time travel thing is giving him.

Ben

It's the kind of show that makes the audience feel smart because they were paying attention to what was happening. It doesn't require the audience to notice a bunch of things in the set design or the costuming, or easter eggs that are planted all over the place. It just rewards the audience for leaning in a little bit and participating in the themes. Recognizing the kind of story that they're telling, and they're very up front about it, they're very clear that kindness, even small amounts, is transformative. And that just choosing to be nice to someone and not be a dick to them, in a critical moment—even if it's a small moment for you—can affect the way that they view themselves and their life. 

44:47 BMF: Dings

NiNi

Because we always have to talk about our dings: what are the elements in the story that you were hoping that they were going to deal with that they didn't deal with?

Ben

So I wrote a post about Pisaeng's mom, and how she is engaged in some of the worst kind of evils that queer people have faced. Pisaeng’s mom is a wealthy woman pursuing a political career, and you get the sense that his being out is inconvenient for her. Later they tried to recontextualize this as, ‘she was just concerned that his life would be harder if he chose to be out.’ But one of the things that's revealed in around episode 4, I believe? Is that her employees are spying on Pisaeng, and reporting on him when he goes into queer spaces. She jacks him up about that, and then tries to manipulate him into going back into the closet now that he's trying to push the door open. He knows who he is; this is not a discovery story for Pisaeng. And it was frustrating for me that with all of the evils about her trying to manipulate her own son back into the closet—they also have Max, who's presented as wise in the story and woke as shit, admire her for the things she said when Pisaeng feels some kind of way about her because of the way he treats her. And that is never dealt with in the show. Irked the shit out of me. It raised my hackles when it came to the mom so much, that her resolution with Pear’s dad, to just let the kids sort their lives out, was not enough for me. 

On the other end of things that were frustrating for me…I don't like the resolution for Knot. I'm really glad that he got his ass handed to him by Pear and Kwan, because he was a dick. But in a show so much about kindness and change, it feels kind of weird that we leave Knot when he has basically hit rock bottom, and then don’t talk about him or acknowledge him. He just appears at graduation, and he appears at the wedding, and seemingly is a novelist—no matter what history we're in, Knot will be a successful novelist. Max wasn't allowed to have an on-screen boyfriend, but Aou was serving.

NiNi

You talked a little bit about episode 10, and Pisaeng and Kawi's first time, and how it felt like somewhere in there, between them getting together and that moment happening it felt like there was a conversation missing. Now I definitely agreed with you with that, I think a lot of people agreed with you with that. But I do also want to talk about Kawi’s journey with intimacy. There were a lot of people who were reading Kawi as ace-coded throughout the show. I don't think that I ever bought an ace or aspec read on Kawi—well, I wouldn't say not aspec, because I feel like maybe a demi read would be a read that I could get down with. 

But I never bought an ace read on Kawi, and there was a lot about the ways that Kawi was discovering his sexuality, not just in the sense of…sexual identity, of being gay or of being a man who likes men, but also in terms of the fact that, when we meet Kawi in the original timeline, Kawi is a 30-year-old virgin. It's sort of put together as part of his whole loser aura that he never got it together enough to be with anybody? So in going back in time, he's going back into his 18-year-old self as a 30-year-old virgin. So this is somebody who has not experienced any sort of intimacy: emotional, physical, any sort of intimacy in his life. The lift that he's lifting, in terms of discovering who he is as a sexual person—not just as a queer person, but just as a person discovering his sexuality period—that was the read that I bought?

Ben

I guess I'll disclose a little bit before I pooh-pooh on the ace Kawi read. I identify as demisexual, and I don't like the ace read of Kawi. Kawi is almost very much in the BL space of, he's happy if they just cuddle and hold hands only. Which is the space some of the readers of BL and yaoi like to put these boys in. The reality coming from Max to Kawi is that Pisaeng is a gay man, who knows he's gay, who's into you. You must face the reality of male-male intimacy if you're going to be in a long term male-male romance. Which—all I think the point they were trying to make with Kawi and Max. By seeing Kawi choose to face that, in the episode with the amusement park about how Kawi needs to face some of his own uncertainties, and go on the ride that might be a little bit scary for him, ha ha, they're getting that particular point across. 

It's a little bit muddled, but I'm not a fan of the ace Kawi read, because it feels that we project asexuality onto prudish characters or chaste shows. And that's not always what's happening. I don't want to claim Kawi for the ace side of the board? Because while I do think that a demiromantic, demisexual read is totally valid for him? You must respect that that is a read on the character from the place where you're sitting: don't think that is part of the canon of this show. I think the show is making a different point about male-male intimacy, not trying to make a point about ace spectrum existence.

NiNi

I agree with you that the show muddled that point. But it tried to pull it back by having the do-over of the amusement park beats.

Ben

And that's the really muddled part, because by going back to the amusement park date and doing it better the second time, but not taking us to that moment because they didn't want future Pisaeng to take that moment from their past selves, I think it still leaves the audience hanging. It's okay for them to say that that moment is between them, but it feels like we didn't follow Kawi's arc through that big step. We've been with Kawi for so many personal and really ugly moments, that it was kind of surprising that they would slam the door on us right there.

NiNi

They did show us the first time, and they showed us the aftermath of the first time, and whatever they did, Kawi seemed pretty happy with it. It's not that the arc wasn't complete, it was that a piece of the arc felt like it was missing.

Ben

I'm not necessarily mad about it, but it's why I did not give this show a 10. It's one of the reasons I did not give the show a 10.

52:57 BMF: Jittirain and Gawin and Krist

NiNi

You talked a little bit in the beginning about Jittirain stories, because we were both not feeling Jittirain. I am a known non-fan of Theory of Love. I skipped, and Ben did not enjoy, Vice Versa. Ben likes 2gether for reasons, I have never been particularly interested in it. Jittirain is not particularly my cup of tea, I don't really think that you are a great fan of them either? So why does this story work for us?

Ben

Because the show is not about lying. The show is about telling the truth. And almost all of her stories are built on a core lie underpinning the show. I was waiting for some huge lie to upend this show around the midpoint and it really doesn't. This show was about being earnest and forthright with people. And it was fascinating to see an adaptation of Jittirain work—because I understand that very many liberties were taken with the source material—to tell a story that was not about withholding for some sort of power play over the other person. It was very much a show about how our lives are better when we're earnest with each other. I don't know how much Jittirain's original writing had to do with that or not, because I have not read her books? But this particular story really worked for me!

NiNi

I was so surprised that the Krist and Gawin pairing ended up working. The chemistry was there, the emotional resonance was there between the two characters which I really liked. A lot of time when we talk about chemistry in these shows, we end up talking a lot about the physical chemistry or the sexual chemistry, but something that gets sort of thrown to the side a lot is the emotional chemistry between the characters, and the way that the actors play that emotional chemistry. I really enjoyed the emotional chemistry between Kawi and Pisaeng, and I really enjoy how Krist and Gawin played that emotional chemistry and emotional tension.

Ben

I believe that one of the directors talked about this, that Gawin and Krist are kind of playing against type. They had to really push Gawin out of his shyness to play the Pisaeng character, and they talked about how they struggled in some of their early cues trying to get Gawin and Krist to fall into alignment. 

I wasn't worried about Gawin, because Gawin is always playing the emotionally repressed gay man who is sad, because he can't be gay the way he wants to be, in the world he finds himself to be in. That's what he's good at! He's done it three times now! He did it with Mork in Dark Blue Kiss, he did it with Dan in Not Me, and he did it again here with Pisaeng. As soon as they’re like, ‘he's been gay the whole time’ I'm like, ‘there it is! I knew there was a reason we cast Gawin!’

[both laugh]

Ben

But Krist was a real surprise for me, and there were a bunch of interesting callbacks to SOTUS that a couple of us caught along the way, with the way some of the shots are set up, some of the way some of the moments were reconstructed…definite callbacks to SOTUS asking us to compare who Krist was in, say 2016, to who he is now in 2023. And I liked the show giving us all the chance to move on from how we felt about who Krist was at the beginning of BL.

NiNi

It's deliberately done. The creators of the show, they chose Krist deliberately for this role, and part of it was about his public persona; this was a rehabilitation role for him. They've talked about that, and he talked about how hard he worked, because he wanted to change the way that people in the BL fandom thought about him. And I thought that was really neat. I didn't get too much or give too much to whatever the controversies were? My issue with Krist was always that I didn't feel like he was giving 100% in the role that he was playing? And I can't say that I knew why, but there was an eau de homophobia around it, I do have to say. I didn't get into the behind the scenes stuff, and the, whatever he said on the IG live, and, like, that wasn't my thing about it. My thing was that, if you're going to act in a role, play the role, no matter what the role is. So that was always my issue with Krist, I felt like he didn't put his all into the role. I can't say that about him here. Whatever happened back in the SOTUS days, Krist was really young, he was new to acting in general, he was new to this particular industry. Did he make mistakes? He might have, he must have, he probably did. But he put, like, whole pussy into this role, I cannot say that he left anything on the table, and that is definitely the opposite of the way I felt about him when I watched the five episodes of SOTUS that I managed to get through before I quit.

Ben

I'm okay with it! Krist, you may have a plate, sir. You can sit with us now.

[both laugh]

NiNi

I feel like you have done the work, sir. You have earned this plate that you're getting. Good job. So, ratings for Be My Favorite? You said that you rated it a 9, and you had some specific dings on it.

Ben

The mom stuff bothered me, the Knot stuff felt like a thematic misstep, and I don't really think that Aou's character has an arc in the show, he's just there as the wise gay—who has great pants, and nice legs. And like these things are fine. I think the show is fine, but I don't think I'll be rewatching it, and I don't think it's my first recommend. It's a 9, you can have it.

NiNi

I gave this show a 10.

Ben

This show does not get to sit next to La Pluie, Moonlight Chicken, and My School President this year!

NiNi

My 10s are unrelated to all of my other 10s.

Ben

Mine are inherently related to each other.

NiNi

All my 10s are very different 10s! And I gave Be My Favorite a 10 because it nailed, for me, its core premise, like absolutely nailed it. There are, to me, no holes in the core. There are some wobbly edges…there are some little tweaks and stuff that could have been done around the sides, but to me the core of the show is absolutely solid. I got myself a nice few emotional moments, there was nothing about it that bothered me so significantly that I had to ding it. For me, it was a 10. 

So 10 from me, 9 from Ben, so that leads us to a 9.5, which I think is a good place for this show to sit personally. Ben, I think, feels a little like ‘ugh, 9.5 is giving it a lot!’

Ben

It's a 9.

NiNi

Yes, but we have a rule.

Ben

I am weighting the average down a quarter of a point.

NiNi

That is…not how maths works, but okay, I will let you have it. 9.25 instead of 9.5, even though that is not how mathematics work, it is fine. [laughs]

1:00:58 - Outro

NiNi

So, Ben…now that we've got some distance between us and these shows: what are some of the things that are sticking with you? What's lingering?

Ben

Tokyo In April Is... was really really gay, and that was preserved from the manga adaptation. Like I was listening back to it and my love for Ryunosuke holds firm. I really liked that this show and Be My Favorite has a very self-affirmed queer character holding the line on the bullshit. In Ryunosuke’s case, he doesn't like Kazuma, because Kazuma should know better, and he doesn't like what that did to Ren. I like that he's in a position to call that out and it's like, ‘we are gay; that means something in this world.’ 

I really like that both of these shows are pushing past the boundaries of the BL bubble, and reminding the genre and the people who enjoy it that queer people matter, that their lived experiences matter, that there are consequences to the things that queer people experience, that don't go away just because they got some dick. So I ended up, even further away from these shows, like, I find myself thinking about Ryunosuke a lot, and I find myself thinking about Max a lot. I like that Max told Kawi that he does need to reckon with the physical realities of being in a relationship with someone. Felt like very specific shade about BL itself not really considering the physical realities of two men being together. 

NiNi

For me, the further away I get from Tokyo In April Is... the less it sticks with me. But I'm having the opposite reaction to Be My Favorite. The further away I get from it, somehow things are popping up in my mind and I'm finding myself thinking about it.

Ben

I'm on the opposite side of that. I thought Be My Favorite was solid, but I watched like 22 things this season: Be My Favorite is not on my ‘I'm thinking about that motherfucker’ list at all. And it's not like [laughs] it's bad in any way. It's just not the show I'm thinking about. 

Like I really like the way they handle grief, I really like the way they handle people having unrequited feelings for other people, I really like that show's messaging about how unrequited love is still good, and it should be expressed, because it can help that relationship become a more healthy balanced version of itself. I like how that show says that telling people you love them is one of the best things you can do. Like that's a pretty cool message! But this is not the show this year that makes my, even top 10, in terms of things I'm going to be thinking about long term.

NiNi

I think while you were talking about it I figured out what it is. It's the thing about having to live your life; that you can't short-circuit it, that you can't fast-forward it. That you can't even really go back and do it over, in the way that you might want to. ‘The only way out is through’ is one of my mantras, and I feel like that was also one of the mantras of the show. You can't avoid things, you can't circumvent them, you can't jump over them: you have to go through them.

Ben

I think, as always, Be My Favorite was not gay enough for me.

NiNi

We're going to be talking a lot about that, I think, over the course of the next few episodes and the next few seasons, because I think we've hit a point in BL where it kinda has to shit or get off the pot on being queer rep, and what they are deciding to rep for queerness?

Ben

I don't know how exactly to describe it. For me…Max is pretty gay in a way that I found really accessible. Pisaeng is gay in a way that I found mostly accessible? Kawi's queerness was…a bit difficult for me to grasp. I'm not necessarily keen on the ace Kawi read, because it feels like a cop out. I don't like calling characters ace because they are sexually inexperienced and/or repressed. Either make a story about the complexities of asexuality or shut the fuck up. I don't like the way the cutesy shit reads for me these days. 

With Tokyo In April Is... I like how specifically queer their story feels. That you had two boys who loved each other in high school; did not believe the other boy could reciprocate; they have one night together before everything goes horribly wrong; and then one of them tries to take on all of the suffering for the other one, and mostly succeeds? And then they run into each other again, because of course they do. Particularly because the boy who was saved™ never got over the other boy, and has been trying to get back to him for ten years. And that just really works for me. I get the way that both of them are wounded. It doesn't have to be explained to me. Even if the actors may not have consistently landed the performances? Tokyo In April Is... hits for me because it's the kind of experience that I am unfortunately familiar with! And that's the kind of stuff that's going to stick with me more.

NiNi

In winding up here: we talked about second chance romance in the spring, and I feel like we had a lot to say about why we like it? And I just want to get a sense of…how you’re feeling about second chance romance coming out of these two particular shows. 

For me, I was really happy with what these two shows said about second chance romance. In both of them there was in some ways a forgiveness of self that needed to happen, in order for these two couples to get their shit together. And it was a forgiveness of self that needed to happen on both sides of the couple? So it wasn't necessarily that one had done something wrong to the other, it was more that…these are people who were living half-lives. In some ways beating themselves up about something that had happened in their past? And I liked that these two shows really put an emphasis on self healing as prerequisite to love. These people had to find themselves to find their love. I like that message.

Ben

Like I said last season, second chance romance is important for me as a gay person. Our youths aren't easy; I'm feeling a whole lot better about myself in my 30s than I did in my teens or my 20s. I do think that second chances are important for queer people, because a lot of people didn't figure it out until they were away from their families and in school and stuff, and a lot of us who did figure it out early did not talk to anybody about it, or did not have a great time with it, or were interested in people who hadn't figured it out yet. And so second chance romance in BL remains super important for me. It's probably the current style of story that most appeals to me.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on our On Time and Memory episode. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

[hadrians-wall95]

Today, something a little different! Because Votann aren't. Good. In 10e, and Games Workshop are kinda lame anyway. A game of One Page Rules! The Reach Industrial Conglomerate (RIC) has deployed the Hekaton Fortress Noble-6 to extract resources that happen to be in the middle of a City on Harvest World Marwick. The Sanguine Knights dispatch a Calvary Detachment to Shoo them off:

The Sanguine Melta ATVs are the most immediate threat to Noble-6, thus it trundles forward, immediately destroying one.

The other one gets a chance to respond, and takes off 3 of Noble-6's *18* hit points. I love One Page Rules. The Lone Champion, the Hammer Chief, goes to claim the objective. He will sit. there all game. With his 4 inch move. But he did his job. The Khal of the RIC and his Veteran 10-man squad drop out the right door of the fortress, to set up against a bike advacne.

The right Flank has more issues. The Techmarine can heal basically anything in my opponents list, and the Baal Predator puts out. So many shots. The RIC bikes duck behind the bridge, waiting for the right moment to take the crossroads objective. (One page Rules has no victory points. It's battlefront rules. You own it until an opponent steps on it. If you both have minis within the outer hazard circle, it's contested. Shaken units can't hold objectives. This is going to become. *Very* important)

This quickly turns into a battle of the bridge. Whoever holds it will end up taking this battle.

Both tanks trundle onto the bridge. It groans in protest. The Death Company Bikers are shot down by the Magma Guns on the RIC. (Splasers, Baby!). The Baals Machine Guns Whirr, it's Hunter-Killer Missle Sings .. and yet it all plinks off Noble-6's Hull (I would not roll below a 5. That thing could've easily taken down the Hekaton. And each of his characters has fusion pistols. There's no *strength* in One Page Rules. Just a roll to hit a roll to defend. He was throwing a lot of AP 1 and 2, which work like tenth.).

Finally, the battle for the crossroads begins. The bikers move in, and are able to fight the RIC off point with Morale Checks and Charges. The Rich had left too little, and the biker squad in full (the machine gun bikes are separate activations). Was too late to respond. Although they, too, would quickly break (a 4+ is brutal for this. Morale fucking matters in this game). It's looking like an RIC Loss..

Untill the last moment. The other Trike was able to capture the now unattended objective 4. A tank charge from the Baal Predator Induces a failed moral check on the Hekaton, meaning that this day ends in a draw. As the sun sets and artillery roars, both sides are ordered to fall back... This isnt over though....

(overall I had a lot of fun, my opponent seemed to as well. This was a learning game, so I'm sure we both made mistakes rules wise (even with a single sheet) and tactical. Today, we told a tale of combined arms versus bikes. I think next time it may be more Iron Vs Iron....)

[aemiron-main]

Dream A Little Dream Of Me: Is Patty Real?

So, in TFS, Patty sings Dream A Little Dream of Me. And I’ve posted before (even before TFS was released) about the idea of Patty not being real and being a dream/part of a simulation/possibly even a piece of NINA computer code.

And so, it’s just interesting to me that we have the lyric “night breezes seem to whisper I love you,” in DALDOM, versus Patty telling Henry that she loves him up in the drafty attic at night.

It’s also really interesting to me that I talked in this post about how in-show Victor’s “vision,” has constant NINA parallels vs how he was seemingly picked up by the lab on the night of the murders and dropped off on the side of the road with his memories scrambled- almost like he got NINA’d.

The same Victor who claims that during his “vision” (possible NINA simulation), he heard the “voice of an angel,” singing DALDOM and guiding him out of France- meanwhile, Patty in TFS both a.) sings DALDOM and b.) is constantly compared to being an angel, right down to even wearing wings and a while dress.

Did Victor interact with some sort of Patty computer program?? Like Hal from Space Odyssey (which is on the S4 board) singing Daisy Bell vs a Patty program singing DALDOM??

And look, I ADORE Patty, this PAINS ME to type, but I genuinely get less and less convinced rhat she’s real every day. Especially considering all of the Creelby vs Stobin parallels I’ve mentioned previously vs Steve in the bathroom scene talking about Suzie and how he’s “not sure this girl is even real.”

And like, Bob never mentions a sister- and he also mentions his PARENTS (plural) in Maine- but the whole reason why Mr Newby resented Patty was because he adopted her to try and save his failing marriage & then that failed and Mr Newby resented Patty after his wife left him for Ted’s dad. So, why does Bob never mention his sister and why are his parents seemingly still together??

And like?? Is it not just a LITTLE bit weird that there’s all of this focus on Patty’s unnamed mother vs Mother from Alien being a computer?? And Bob naming his radio device “Dad” in TFS?? And Argyle saying that NINA was a “small woman”???

Something weird is going on here.

[calicohyde]

Jack Hyde All-Character Tournament: Round 2, Seed 7

Angelito Alfaro ("Witch Noir")

Angel is a Medium who is ostracized from his community on his 18th birthday for being both a clairvoyant and a man (one of these sins might have been ultimately forgivable, but not both). A Medium is a type of witch that can see into and travel to the Hidden Place, or the astral plane which only Mediums, Gods, ghosts, and cats can interact with. Due to his wrongful enforced isolation, Angel becomes obsessed with helping other clairvoyants like him who have been left to the whims of the secular world by witches who should be welcoming them into their communities. He meets and becomes obsessed with Dido, who he thinks is one such abandoned clairvoyant. He convinces her to elope with him, but when it turns out she doesn't in fact have premonitions, but delusions, he can't face the idea of being alone again and the guilt of possibly having damaged Dido's sense of reality. As a result, he ends up with a severe case of selective etherealism - he involuntarily fades back and forth between the material world and the Hidden Place - thereby cementing his greatest fear of being alone, only ghosts and other people's beliefs for company.

Genre: Horror Fantasy Designation: Love Interest to Main Character Quick Facts: Mexican-American, bisexual, plays ukulele, wears tweed

VERSUS

Milo Bronte (Not Just Us)

Milo is a "demon" - that is, a human who happens to have some demon-like qualities, such as reddish skin, horns, and claws. Unlike a lot of people like him, Milo doesn't bother to alter or hide these aspects of his appearance. He doesn't wear makeup or file down his horns. More relevantly to his story, Milo is also what is known in his futuristic dystopia as a "financial terrorist", i.e. a thief. He robs the rich and gives to the poor, many of whom live in an underground extra-societal community. He doesn't just steal money, though - he also finds and liberates information on the corporations and CEOs that own everything and everyone. He is considered a supervillain due to his "demonic" strength and the severity of his crimes. He has a fun little homoerotic nemesis-ship going with Kenshin Mechado, happily playing the flirtatious Catwoman to Ken's snarky Batman, until such time as he can fully seduce Ken to the right side.

Genre: Political Comedy Designation: Anti-Hero and Love Interest Quick Facts: 8ft tall including the horns, Autistic, tourist chic

[critical-skeptic]

A Response To The Disconnected-Elite Sentimentality

In some dark corners. Huh? 🤦🏽‍♂️ So, not the entire Internet? All social media networks, even those trying to silence any support or pragmatic nuanced take on this case? Okay. 🤣👌

"In some dark corners, this killer is being hailed as a hero."

—Gov. J. Shapiro

Governor, your statement reeks of the same tone-deaf, out-of-touch moralistic drivel that has become the hallmark of those insulated by their privilege and power. It’s a tired tactic—vilify the act, dehumanize the actor, and handwave away the glaring systemic issues that led to this moment in the first place. To dismiss Luigi Mangione’s growing support as the ramblings of 'dark corners' is laughable, considering the breadth of public discourse surrounding this case. People from across the political spectrum—left, right, and center—have recognized that Mangione’s actions, however polarizing, stem from a frustration that resonates deeply with the oppressed, the disillusioned, and the rationally minded.

Let’s be clear: this is not about class, race, or partisan politics. This is about assholes versus not. About greed, corruption, and systemic exploitation versus the people who are sick of being crushed underfoot. But rather than address this, your ilk predictably double down on virtue-signaling and rhetoric that seeks to polarize, distract, and dilute the conversation into a convenient binary of ‘good vs. evil.’ It’s no surprise that those in power, regardless of their political or demographic affiliation, are desperate to frame Mangione as a careless, irrational monster and any support for him as fringe lunacy. After all, admitting that his manifesto and actions stem from real, widespread despair would mean admitting culpability—something those in power will never do.

"I want to begin by thanking our fellow Pennsylvania resident who acted as a hero today,' Shapiro said. 'A Pennsylvania resident saw something early this morning at McDonald's and said something to our local police." —CBS News

Your praise for the 'heroes' who alerted police is another glaring example of the disconnect. It’s not heroism to support a system that perpetuates untold suffering, rewards greed, and ignores peaceful protest. It’s compliance. And while I’m not advocating violence, I also won’t feign sympathy when that system suffers the consequences of its own inaction, exploitation, and refusal to self-correct. The reality is, this moment—a CEO gunned down, the manifesto heard round the world, and the fractured reactions—is a mirror held up to society. And what it reflects isn’t some rogue villain’s chaos, but the logical outcome of systemic rot.

Billionaires, or rather the system that allows for their existence, are the root of this decay. A system where wealth and privilege insulate people like you and your corporate overlords from the lived realities of those crushed under medical debt, denied basic care, or treated as collateral damage in the relentless pursuit of profit. Instead of dismantling and rebuilding this house of cards, you secure it with the blood of the oppressed and the rhetoric of moral superiority. The same rhetoric you use now to delegitimize Mangione’s supporters, sidestepping the ugly truths he exposed.

And let’s give Mangione credit where it’s due. His manifesto is not the ramblings of a madman—it’s a sobering, incisive critique of a system that, by design, fails everyone except the elites. His social media posts—his voice—echo the frustrations of millions. You can call his actions extreme, but when peaceful protests are ignored, when voices of dissent are silenced or co-opted, and when systemic violence continues unabated, extremism begins to look like the only language the powerful understand. Rational minds can see this—not as a call to arms but as a brutal indictment of a system too broken to heal itself.

"Let’s be mindful not to dehumanize [the former CEO] and make him just an avatar of a system that is disliked by many."

So no, this isn’t about ‘dark corners.’ or about dehumanizing anyone. It’s about millions who are fed up. And if you and your ilk continue to turn every act of resistance into a simplistic morality tale to protect the status quo, you’ll only accelerate the very upheaval you fear. Because this isn’t about one man, one manifesto, or one act of defiance. It’s about a system eating itself alive and people refusing to go down with it.

If that scares you, elites, good. It should. 🖕😏🖕