#it's definitely different but it does portray her in an interesting light with what we know of bobby

[mutsubaki]

Growing up, I understood that Death Note is about mistreating children. But only when I’m older (than most of the main cast), I undrestand how much it weights on failed parenting.

Light Yagami is a child, treated like an adult. He’s seventeen at the beginning of the story, and at most times, he would be considered a young adult, an older teenager. He poses himself like a grown person, but his conceptions of life are naive. His actions are close to juvenile - and it’s perfectly fine for boys his age. Everyone needs their own time to grow.

But because of his intelligence, his actual personality is overlooked by his parents. In the beginning, Light’s boredom is so loud, a God answers. He’s successful - but it doesn’t give him any satisfaction. He’s following a path to his career, but his dedication is hollow. Light portrays a picture perfect student, so nobody would question - is he really okay? What is going on inside his head? How does he feel about world that he lives?

How being a picture perfect son shaped him as a person?

Yagami’s family doesn’t pester psychopathic tendencies consciously. Some kids would seriously just try the thing that has “KILLS PEOPLE NO CONVICTION” to see if it works.

It needs to be noted that most seventeen-years olds consider other people as living beings and wouldn’t.

But the following plot of Death Note shows that Light didn’t value human life and felt himself superior; how did this happen? Being Kira filled his life with purpose as nothing before; how it came to be?

Discussion on relation of characters of DN to the autistic spectrum is still alive; and one might see some behavioural patterns in Light as sighs of autism, but that’s not to infantilise neurodivergent people. That’s to show that different ways of development need different types of parental attention; and that there are different types of neglect, and some of them can be masked by formal success.

But Light’s inner world, definitively different from his family, and definitively troubled, is not in a spotlight. Treating a growing person like they have capabilities and needs of a grown is neglectful.

And Yagami family continues that pattern, when they let Misa, a grown woman, in their house, when their child never shown any interest in her and was so visibly disturbed by her intrusion - because he’s treated like an adult. It continues, when Light forgets about Kira and inserts himself into the case, continuing abhorrently twisted relationship with another mistreated man, L.

In L’s case, we see deliberate neglect in different way, and him being stunted rather than really adapted to society shows that he’s treated like a function, not a person.

(If I see any antis in my mentions I will block immediately and I WILL be mean)

Death Note is a great piece of social critique, but it really shines on child-parental issues, on the reasons why we come to live in the world of Kira supporters. Light is an intelligent, in-proportionally rational man who adapted to the world on his own, and was never questioned on the ways he looks at himself, his purpose, other people, because he presented a successful facade. That was enough for his family.

[sailormoonandme]

Long Rant Incoming!

I am honestly just exhausted with how the Sailor Moon fandom so often bashes the original anime, in particular when they do so by presuming bigotry of any kind on the part of the staff members.

Sure, show me a quote or an interview where they definitively say something and I will listen with an open mind. 

But why does this fandom presume that, for example, AnimeRei’s interest in men was obviously changed from the MangaRei’s more negative attitude because of sexism?

Or that Usagi being naked in the last episode whilst Mamoru was in his Endymion armour was again rooted in sexism?

Or that old favourite that has now become oh so trendy again thanks to Cosmos, that the Starlights were physically male in the anime (as opposed to simply dressing as men and pretending to be men) because the anime staff were being homophobic. More specifically, that this change was implemented so that the UsagixSeiya relationship was ‘less gay’.

Let’s talk a bit about that shall we?

So....

The original 1992 Sailor Moon anime had two men explicitly in a relationship in season 1, Kunzite and Zoisite.

It had two women explicitly in a relationship in season 3, Haruka and Michiru.

It had a character in season 4 who, to my understanding (please correct me on this as I am not overly knowledgeable on the subject), was trans, Fisheye.

When you go beyond the explicit into merely very obvious subtext, Sailor Moon’s track record for LGBT representation gets even larger. The pair of female animators in episode 21. Fiore and Mamoru’s relationship in the R movie. The fashion designer and his assistant in episode 140. Sailor Lead Crow and Aluminium Siren’s relationship.

Not to mention the UsaRei ship:

Or the MakAmi ship:

It’d be weird for a show with this kind of track record (that was indeed a trailblazer in the context of the time) to suddenly got cold feet over another female-female relationship.

Now there are two counter arguments to this:

a) Most of the above doesn’t apply specifically to Sailor Moon herself, the UsaRei ship being subtextual for this very reason. In other words ‘its okay for side characters’

b) Sailor Stars was under new management. It is entirely possible said new management had very different attitudes towards female-female relationships

Let’s tackle a) first. 

It’s okay to portray side characters in same sex relationships

First of all, Usagi was attracted to Haruka in episode 92. Even after she discovered Haruka was (in her eyes at least) a cis woman she still regarded her as attractive and desirable, usually blushing whenever Haruka flirted with her and being all too happy to dance with Haruka in episode 108. 

Isn’t it a little weird to argue it would be bad for Usagi to be dating another woman when there wasn’t a world of difference between how Seiya in the manga and Haruka in the anime were framed and presented to the audience. 

The main difference was that in the manga Seiya was explicitly pretending to be male and therefore would not have corrected anyone’s presumptions that she was a man, which is exactly what Haruka did at the end of episode 92 when Usagi and Minako discover Haruka is not a cis boy. 

Whilst we might argue that the character of MangaSeiya would have presented herself differently had she not needed to disguise herself, from a narrative POV if the anime had stuck with Seiya being biologically female she would have had to maintain that disguise for the overwhelming majority of episodes anyway. In other words, she would have been presenting herself as a cis male the entire time outside of Sailor Senshi fights. 

Second of all, the anime was still explicitly shipping Usagi and Seiya even after the big reveal in episode 188 where the Senshi and Starlights discover one another’s identities. In fact, episode 189 has Minako explicitly state that the Starlights are in fact girls:

Now, whilst Minako regards this as a dealbreaker for her own romantic affections for the Three Lights, Usagi is still obviously conflicted about her feelings for Seiya. This culminates in episode 194′s famous “Am I not enough?” scene and their conversation in episode 195 where Usagi lets Seiya down backstage and he kisses her goodbye on her cheek.

Before episode 194 the show was going hard on this ‘star-crossed lovers’ imagery and ideas, with the Starlights and Outer Senshi trying to pull the pair apar. Seiya even communicated to Usagi at night whilst she is in her bedroom , which imo is deliberately evoking Romeo and Juliet. Moreover, the animation frankly framing the pair in a romantic light, with plenty of blushes and soft lighting liberally appearing all over the place. 

Sure, on screen you have a biological woman and biological man. But the show has explicitly stated that that Seiya is not a man, or at least from Usagi’s POV that isn’t the case. 

Now one could argue that this is nevertheless reductive. After all, you still have a female role assigned and a male role assigned in the relationship. But again...how different is this really from Haruka and Michiru who are present and as explicitly romantic as ever in Sailor Stars?

In terms of ‘presenting’ as male or female Haruka and Seiya are in the same boat 99% of the time (the 1% is for episodes involving bathing outfits or other forms of partial nudity). Most of the time Haruka visually presents as (for its day) typically masculine until she assumes her Senshi form where she presents as more typically (again, for its day) female. The only difference between the two characters is that the viewer intellectually knows that Seiya has a penis that becomes a vagina whereas Haruka always has a vagina. But since in both cases we never see those particular pieces of anatomy it is a moot point.

So the argument that ‘on screen’ Usagi is not being shipped with a woman is irrelevant. To all practical purposes, from a purely visual POV she might as well have been shipped with someone just like Haruka. It didn’t make it ‘more acceptable’ at all. In particular when you consider the show heavily implies that Seiya’s male body was nothing more than a guise assumed on Earth for the sake of their mission. So, had anyone been extrapolating forwards Usagi and Seiya potentially forming a long term relationship, Usagi would have been in a relationship with someone who was biologically female anyway. 

Third of all, the ‘side character’ argument falls apart when you consider HOW popular Uranus and Neptune were. In Animage’s 1995 poll episode 110 "Death of Uranus and Neptune!? Talismans Appear" was voted the most popular episode. A major reason why SuperS was so unpopular was because the Outer’s were absent, which is why the very first episode of Sailor Stars practically revolves around them. Hell, exempting Usagi, of all the Solar System Sailor Senshi, Uranus and Neptune are the last ones standing, dying in the third to last episode of the entire show. 

This isn’t even mentioning HOW prominent they were in season 3. Like, sure, they weren’t the MAIN characters, but until Hotaru shows up, they were by far and away the most important characters in the show just behind Usagi. Sailor Moon S as a whole is ostensibly one great big ideological debate between Usagi’s idealistic philosophy and Haruka and Michiru’s more hardline realistic philosophy. 

To codify them as ‘side characters’ in the context of season 3 is akin to describing Mamoru or Chibi-Usa as side characters in the manga. That is to say, the difference between them and Usagi is a matter of mere degrees. Are we in all seriousness arguing that those degrees make the difference between how okay it is to present characters as part of female-female relationships? That’s rather ridiculous isn’t it?

Let’s move on to point b).

The new management didn’t like same-sex relationships 

Yes. It is entirely possible that the new management had very different attitudes towards female-female relationships than the people in charge of the prior four seasons of the show. Thus the representation present in the prior four seasons doesn’t excuse season 5 of being homophobic in its decision to make the Starlights biologically male.

You know what else is entirely possible? That there were any number of other reasons for that decision apart from homophobia.

Again, I’m willing to listen with an open mind to anyone that has a statement or an interview or something like that from production staff members that might support the above interpretation. But in over ten years of being a Sailor Moon fan I have yet to see anything that implies this rather damning motivation on the part of the production staff. At which point why is anyone at all just presuming the worst faith interpretation?

Here are some good faith interpretations for why the Starlights were biologically male:

- Making them biologically male could raise a bit of intrigue on the part of the viewers. Even if they figured magic was the reason how they could change from male to female, they’d still be enticed to watch to see the process in action. Which would be even more intriguing compared to four seasons of transformation sequences where girls simply put on new Senshi outfits.

- Making them male made it easier for writers to generate the show’s all important filler episodes and opened up more storytelling opportunities. 

If the Starlights are biologically female it would mean either scrapping episodes or scenes where the Starlights are involved in partial nudity. Case in point, episode 178 where Luna is revealed to have taken a bath with Yaten, episode 183 where the gang vacation at a lake and are in their bathing suits, episode 184 where the gang see Seiya getting out of the shower, or even episode 176 where the Starlights are in dance outfits which naturally are tight fitting and therefore do not leave much to the imagination. 

Perhaps these instances could have still happened with the Starlights as biological females, but it would have been trickier and required a lot more strategic thinking on the part of the overworked writers who were on a deadline. Making them male frankly just made their lives easier

- The anime staff might have simply believed that the idea of three women disguising themselves as men and maintaining such a secret amidst becoming super star idols, attending high school, etc was simply unconvincing, too big of a suspension of disbelief.

- Making them biologically male might have been a ‘creative flex’. What do I mean by this? Simply put it is not at all uncommon for people adapting a piece of media to throw something in of their own invention. 

This might happen out of boredom on the part of the people adapting the source material (it can potentially be dull merely replicating something) or it could occur due to ego (see the majority of modern MCU films and TV shows that change no end of things from the comic books). 

Ego, unfortunately is all too common amongst creative people, especially those who have made it professionally into the entertainment industry. There is a desire by many to put their stamp on a work, even if it is not a work of their own creation per se. 

This may well be the root of several other changes between the manga and the anime too, regardless of whether those changes have anything to do with gender, sexuality, female representation of other such issues. 

- Making them biologically males who transform into biological females, in the eyes of the production staff, might have been more avant garde and progressive towards the LGBT community as it rendered the characters as arguably trans or gender fluid characters. 

- And finally...it may well have just been a mistake. The manga and anime were produced simultaneously but also at very different paces, the manga releasing monthly vs the anime’s weekly schedule. 

Between Takeuchi’s busy production schedule, not to mention however else she was involved in the (by then massive) Sailor Moon brand, it is entirely possible that she either hadn’t decided upon, or simply miscommunicated her ideas for the Starlights, thus resulting in the anime staff misunderstanding her intentions or extrapolating them to be biological men in their civilian forms. 

Indeed, Takeuchi herself misunderstood the Starlights in the anime as she apparently missed the dialogue that implied they were biological females who used magic to become biological males for their mission on Earth. She instead got upset that they were men who were Sailor Senshi.

Now, I came up with the above off the top of my head and don’t have any hard evidence in support of any of it. Which means they all carry  just as much weight as the ‘obviously it was bigotry’ interpretation.

And, once again, I have to bring up the fact that Sailor Stars features Uranus and Neptune in a relationship and arguably even ramps up their flirtations compared to season 3. So, kinda weird that they’d include one female-female relationship in season 5 but would be apprehensive over another one. 

In conclusion

Can we as a fandom please just fucking STOP automatically presuming the worst of the original anime and its production staff?

Seriously, its really, really, really, really WEIRD!

More than weird though, it is simply unfair.

It is unjust. 

It is hateful, even.

Which is particularly ironic since this is a franchise literally built around a character who stands for...well...you know...

[fierce-kiwi]

Thrum

I recently finished reading Meg Smitherman's novella, Thrum, and I have some thoughts. I was not expecting to be so captured by this tiny little book as I was. None of what I am about to say is earth shattering, but I wanted somewhere to put my thoughts anyways, here it is......spoilers ahead, proceed with caution.

**SPOILERS**

How would our simple human brains react to coming face to face with something that is otherworldly? The talk of extra-terrestrials and are we truly alone in the universe is such an interesting topic and whether or not you agree or disagree with the idea, the question holds true. Throughout the story, Dorian, this vampire-esque alien gentleman, constantly tells Ami that the ship is sending out a frequency to protect her mind from basically imploding on itself because human minds are too fragile to grasp the concept of his entire existence. The ship, although somewhat protecting her, is also the cause of her extreme paranoia and memory loss. Ami inevitably makes it to the heart of the ship, where Smitherman provides an intense scene of light gore and somewhat of a reveal of who or what Dorian truly is. Blood is leaking out of every orifice on Ami's body and her skull pounds as if it is seconds away from shattering; ultimately this scene depicts a human nervous system collapsing from the brain trying to formulate what it is seeing into something it understands but is failing. If we were to make contact with something within or outside our own solar system, would this be how our bodies and minds would react or is the human mind capable of more than we think?

Smitherman also addresses throughout the book the concept of reality. Scientists are still debating and testing the brain to understand how it formulates reality; how experienced realities differ from perceived realities, no two brains are alike, and so on. I am by no means a neuroscientist, but its books like this that make me wish I would have gone that route. I will never be able to eloquently discuss in depth make-ups of the brain at this point, but it still fascinates me that two people can be sharing an experience but be processing it differently. Ami, in our story, is losing her mind quickly, or so we think. Towards the end of the book, it is revealed that she possibly has been losing her mind much slower and over a longer period of time due to the frequency emission of the alien ship/Dorian. She hits a breaking point and no longer believes anything she is experiencing or seeing is real. During these instances in the book were probably the main times I would consider the story a horror novel. The panic I felt as I imagined myself in Ami's place definitely caused some heart palpitations and secondhand stress. Later in the book, I start to wonder if it is actually the ship continuing to portray these images of false realities, or is she experiencing an extreme case of PTSD, and her own mind is creating her new reality. Especially the "ghosts" of her crew that she sees in the shadows and confronts on her trek to the ships core.

At the end, Ami chooses to stay with Dorian, who at this point is screaming Eldritch terror, but I felt she was caught between a rock and a hard place. She either stays with Dorian or accepts a slow painful death drifting through space on her dead ship. It seems that with her final acceptance of Dorian, she experiences an extreme calmness that I am assuming is her brain coming to an acceptance of the things around her, almost lowering her brains mental shields entirely and fulling succumbing to the ship. However, I can't help but wonder if the "memories" Ami was experiencing that explained what happened to her crew were true, going back to the issue that led her into this frenzy panic about what is real and what isn't. She just all of a sudden accepts the images she is seeing, concerning the deaths of her crew members, as fact. What if these were false memories created by the ship/Dorian to make Ami stay with him? Does Ami believe the feelings she is experiencing for this extra-terrestrial being are real? The fact that she killed her human love, Lily, makes me feel like everything Ami was experiencing, once contact was established, was a reality created for her for the selfish desires of the ship/Dorian. If allowed to be in her right mind, she would have remained with her crew and would have found a way together to get away or died trying. Or possibly would have been swept away by this all powerful being to sail across the galaxies in a very BBC special kind of way.

Maybe that is where the true horror of this novella lies. Having everything you know warped and taken away from you; only realizing it when it is already too late. To have control over not only your body but the deepest recesses of your mind, consumed for the gain of another; engulfed in an endless night and falling.

[lux-et-astra]

analysis of what each sink scene represents - session three

once again thank you tash for the reams of analysis material!!!! spoilers (obviously) under the cut

for reference, i'm calling fire/dry girl/narrator kate, and her victim/best friend birdie

needs to dig: here we have a father, a pool employee, and referenced is a young girl. now this scene sets up the important setting of the pool!! it is also, apart from the feathers/bath scene and some choice moments elsewhere ("Choke on a wet ham slice!"), the first mention we get of wet or dry! so this scene is starting to build the idea of needing to be dry, a theme which comes up a lot later, and so we can see pretty explicitly that the referenced young girl is kate rather than birdie. the fact that the parents are divorced ("Because – her mum thinks I don’t give her enough physical outlets, I, I only get her every other –") suggests familial strife, which we can infer anyway from kate's living situation given that she lives (probably) with her grandmother. this scene sets up kate's need for dryness & her pyromania ("For the fire. She wants it all to be dry so it can be a fire. She won’t stop. She won’t stop until it’s all a fire.") which is interesting because we can definitely see that in her childhood and right up to the camping trip, kate's main desire was for fire, however it seems after the camping trip, her main desire becomes finding birdie. interesting! kate's also portrayed as very different from other children ("Everyone else got to bring their toys in!", "Sir, the problem we have, is that a metal spade is not a toy!") in that she is not interested in anything other children are interested in, she has different "toys", she doesn't do what they do. another facet to her obsession with birdie, perhaps? if kate isn't like everyone else, finding one person who likes her might be overwhelming enough that she never wants to let her go.

sand: ugh what is going on here. sand & psychic, two scenes in which i find very little to say. goddammit tash. ANYWAY! the main thrust of this obviously is the fact that birdie doesn't know what happened to kate/where she went ("Yeah, well people could be everywhere, couldn’t they? Once they… once they disappear, you don’t know!", "Well, I’m just saying, love, if you don’t need the sand, if you care about her, you tell me!", "Where is she?") which we can see is something birdie just does not know. the guilt trip of "if you care about her" is so interesting! it definitely puts the sand saleswoman as an antagonist against birdie and someone on kate's side - given this is all a dream, she could even represent birdie's image of kate (not kate but birdie's idea of her), asking to be found, in a visualisation of birdie's own guilt at leaving kate behind. the other fun thing about this scene i think is the implication that birdie is not safe because she doesn't know where kate is, which is very subtle i think ("People just feel safer, I think, if they can see the footprints, in, you know, in the sand in the house or home. You know where everyone’s been!") but is definitely implied. "People just feel safer [..] you know where everyone's been". oh my god been is such a weird word looking at it now. been. OKAY anyway this is calling out to birdie!! you're not safe!! where is she!! which puts the "where is she"s in a different light - ignoring the "if you care about her", then "where is she" is a call for birdie to protect herself. where is she. is she close. are you safe? whoo i got some nice analysis out of the sand scene! proud of myself for that.

children in there: monologue time!! we didn't get one in session two but here we go, another "i have a story"! fantastic. there's a lot of bizarre stuff in this one ("There were children in there, I thought. Children… in there. There weren’t any children in there, but imagining there were made everything feel more exciting." tash what the fuck) but it's a very plot scene as well! it sets up the "childhood friends" angle reinforced by cat ashes given that the speaker (birdie parallel) and the boy peter mansford he's talking about (kate parallel) are friends as children. there's the build-up of kate's childhood obsession with fire ("You can’t jump out, and no one comes. The fire consumes you and the Minotaur feasts on your bones.") but crucially it also provides some explanation for this!!! peter mansford (and therefore kate?!!) was in a fire himself and got maimed!! ("It didn’t kill him, the fire. But it did maim him.", "I’d wave, but I don’t want to boast about my hands. Best not to annoy him.") this also leads into a suggestion that family try to warn birdie off kate because she's dangerous/weird/etc, something we saw a little of in bearings and the feathers/bath scene, but gets a little more textually explicit here ("I told Margaret later, and she said “if that boy offers you something, just take it.”", "All things considered, best not to annoy him.") also, the mention of birdie & kate playing games together sets up the importance of the birdman game later! fun times. i think there's a very special quote in this scene - "children are allowed to have horrible tiny hands". given that it's implying that peter mansford (our kate parallel) has horrible tiny hands, it's very interesting that apparently only children are allowed!! i think the camping trip takes place when the girls are older teenagers, veering on adulthood - suggesting that kate's antics are about to get a lot less permissible. being obsessed with fire when you're a "harmless" little girl isn't such a crime, but being obsessed with fire when you're an adult with the capacity for harm is suddenly a problem. in fact it could lead to kate getting put away. so i think it's very interesting that the camping trip incident happens on the cusp of adulthood, when it's not "cute" anymore, when it's not "allowed" anymore, for kate to be as odd. children are allowed to have horrible tiny hands. adults? not so much. so kate needs to do something soon before she's not allowed anymore. also there's something about the triad of serial killing, right? bed wetting, setting fires, and cruelty to animals. kate's checking boxes ("Peter said “cowabunga!”, and went into the garden, and bothered the worms.", "She won’t stop until it’s all a fire.")

birdman 2: not masses to say here given there's not much new from birdman 1. however the fact that john and jim seem to remember a little more than they did last time ("How did you know that?") suggests that birdie, who's dreaming, might also start to be remembering more! the current-time plotline, birdie dreaming and kate giving sleep advice, is progressing - does kate want her to be remembering so soon? no. ("Not yet. We’re not there yet.") she keeps cutting it off before birdie remembers how she got out of the camping trip, how she found help. i wonder why? the dream only gets to the meeting of john&jim and birdie after birdie remembers the whole camping trip incident, although we get a little more each time ("Jesus – Christ, are you burnt?", "Oh my God, oh my God, what’s happened?") but crucially, never to john's line: "Oh – fire!". kate doesn't want birdie to remember the fire without remembering her first.

psychic: yeah this scene is there i guess. sorry tash i can't get on board with the jingly jangly beads. maybe it's cause i never did geography gcse. okay interesting things: the girl and her mother had a cat and the boy from cat ashes also had a cat. is that anything? no no it's not. fuck's sake. okay time to get into it for real this time. the person seeking the psychic's help is probably a birdie parallel, i think. so it's interesting that she's so interested in knowing how well her dead people-she's-close-to are doing ("Jus– just wanna hear she’s okay, she’s alright, she’s doing –") is this really about your mother, birdie, or is it about kate? clearly there's little reason you should feel guilty or worried about your mother ("Had years with her, did you? [...] Years of her holding you? And, and talking to you?") so where is this misplaced guilt coming from??? from kate. birdie wants to know that kate is okay in the afterlife cause she still feels guilty about leaving her behind! however kate is not happy with her! "She left! And she’s blaming you!" - this is OBVIOUSLY not about birdie's mother is it. but who does it sound like?? kate. "They do just get very selfish." interesting?? after kate's "death" she doesn't seem to care about anything other than birdie it's true. it's selfish of her to want birdie all for herself. it's selfish of her to want birdie when birdie wants to move on. what's best for birdie? to have kate or not? clearly she feels guilty. "It’s a simple question, no offence. Where did she go?" she feels guilty about not knowing what happened. she wants her to be happy in the afterlife. but i don't think birdie wants kate back. i think she just wants to stop feeling so guilty.

session three is one of my least favourites so i'm glad that's done fdhn;lgrw; i made no sense in some of those bits i'm so sorry. as always PLEASE chat back if you have any thoughts!!!

[42-42-564]

whats so interesting to me is that i personally have no trouble imagining the kind of person maka's mom might be. we have so little information but from what we do have im able to put something together. she seems like someone who chose to completely cut ties with spirit and just want nothing to do with him, didnt want to drag out any court stuff just wanted to break off the relationship and be done with it. and then went on a soul-searching "im my own person and im gonna go explore the world and expand my horizons" world trip. that is a thing people do ESPECIALLY after something like a divorce. just those two things about her make such a realistic person in my head, or at least a realistic snapshot of one part of someones life.

maka admires her mother because she thinks she's strong. and i dont have trouble believing that! i definitely believe that maka's mother was written as a character to be that type of independent person. which is why her absence in maka's life is so weird and therefore interesting. theres suddenly more depth there because we have contradiction. makas mother is portrayed/spoken about as an independent, possibly stubborn woman. we also know that she was the one to put a stop to stein experimenting on spirit, which could show her being brave or moralistic or caring, or caring specifically for spirit, or being especially perceptive for figuring out it was happening. its pretty vague and could go a lot of directions, but most of them give us yet another positive trait.

so why would she let her contact with maka be so abruptly limited? im not entirely on board with condemning her just for the world traveling. really the only thing making this weird is that we're told she's the one with custody. if spirit had custody or it was left ambiguous there would be nowhere near this much issue. but she does have custody in canon, and she does leave to travel in canon. which puts "cutting ties with spirit as quickly and completely as possible" into a different light, where she just cut ties with... everything. her whole life in death city. for something that drastic i think it means she must care a lot about maka to still be sending her what little mail she does. it makes it seem like she was deeply hurt and damaged by spirit's actions.

maka's mother seems like a headstrong, perceptive woman who was possibly blind to or denying her husband's cheating, until it reached a breaking point and her daughter was also aware of their family falling apart. maka's mother seems like someone who was so shaken to her core by this that she felt like she had to abandon her entire life with spirit, only keeping the barest contact with her daughter. honestly, she seems like a cool character with a lot of potential for development/plot. its really a shame that she just doesnt exist.

[imunbreakabledude]

Hello Maevelander blorbo anon here 😆

Another reason why I love your Maeve/Homelander snippets, takes, and posts is that you write them in shades of gray whereas others will write them as completely black and white. Whenever Maeve is in a WLW ship, it's always seen as good but I rarely seen her shipped in MF ships since Men Are Bad™.

Dare I say, you don't write her in a biphobic lens like some authors do. You acknowledge her bisexuality and not simply wave it as a phase.

Looking forward to any fics you write of them 🩷💜💙

hello again! always nice to hear kind words like this, thank you.

there definitely is some biphobia out there around Maeve. thankfully it tends to be rare/unintentional, due to the show explicitly calling out one form of biphobia (bi erasure) thru her storyline. (I think it's also rare simply due to there not being much discussion/fandom around her; i think if she was a character still presently on the show and heavily featured and had a large following there would be more of it... lmao). anyways, that's a big part of why i love her - i'm bi, and while canon bi representation has become more widespread and of better variety/quality in the last several years, it's still sometimes rare. and i love maeve for being a great example of a bi character whose bisexuality is acknowledged and does matter to the story of the show, who also happens to be someone i find fascinating for many other reasons!

you speak to something that does irk me around maeve and also around female bi characters in general - there often is that sense that bi women in fiction (or, fictional women whose sexuality is not explicitly labeled but who are shown to have attraction to/relationships with people of different genders) are Meant to be with Women, because that is the only way they are truly living their queerness and thus being Good Representation. i'll stop myself from going on a whole tangent about this... lmao.

in the case of Maeve, I do get it though. because i think a lot of the disinterest in maeve/homelander for some people is not just because he's a man, but also because it is explicitly not portrayed in a positive light in the present of canon, and because homelander is very much the villain of maeve's story in canon. like, not that you can't ship people who have an antagonistic relationship, of course, but like, i can get why some people look at that and are like "i'm just not interested in imagining when they were together"... on the other hand, though, i've seen much more positive reception towards maeve & butcher's hookup (though I disliked the execution of it quite a bit), and I suspect if they had shared even one (1) more substantial scene in s3 that wasn't pure exposition or that one hookup scene, then that ship would have a decent following. and if there were any other obvious male character for her to be shipped with, we might see it more, but the fact is that there's not a lot in canon to foster ships besides the ones already mentioned, unless you wanna work real hard for it :P

overall though I agree with what you're saying. I obviously do not see Maeve and Homelander's relationship as all good. i mean, as far as canon is concerned, I would say that yes, i do think it was "bad" for both of them. hm, bad is the wrong word - it was "wrong" for both of them. but there HAD to be enough "right" that they went there in the first place, and that there's still lingering tension there... at least on homelander's side. shades of gray, as you said.

necessary clarification that i mean no shade to others for holding the interpretations they do, but these are a few common interpretations i've seen in fic/fan posts about maeve and homelander that just ring false and not capturing the "gray" of it to me:

Homelander as totally submissive and Maeve as totally dominant in their (personal and/or sexual) relationship. i know this might be a Preference for some people, nothing wrong with that, but it always rings false to me based on what we know of both of them in canon. (this irks me in a similar way to people portraying maeve as like "always rude and obnoxious loves to swear and call everyone twinks loves to dominate men and OF COURSE she's always wearing a strap 100% of the time because she is mean and hard and rude and masculine and dominant." again, not that there is anything wrong with her being those things. she IS those things... to an extent. but i think it's a bit of flanderization taking the two (2) times she said the words "twink" and "bottom" and extrapolating that to make her a caricature. likewise, i won't claim to have spent half as much time ruminating over every aspect of homelander's portrayal as i have over maeve's, but this dynamic rings false for me on his side, too. it's not that I don't believe homelander could/would want to be submissive, or to be dominated. i do see that. but I have a really hard time imagining him opening up about that to anyone, even to Maeve; tbh to me that seems like it's probably a unique and very important aspect of his relationship with Madelyn, that he's able to let himself be both ordered around and "taken care of" by her... every time we see him with Maeve in the show, he's actually rather dominant and commanding of her. again, doesn't mean he only wants to be that, but it says to me that he feels that's what he's SUPPOSED to be with Maeve. i've written before about how a large aspect of their relationship to me is what they feel they're SUPPOSED to be performing - either literally for the public, but also performing intimately for each other for a "normal" hetero relationship. so it's not that I think homelander would never ever want to be pegged or maeve would never ever wanna slap him around or whatever. but i do think both characters a) want MORE than just that, and b) would not necessarily feel comfortable with doing those things with each other specifically.

Maeve 100% hating Homelander the whole time, her never wanting any part of the relationship and feeling forced into it. again, if someone resonates with this interpretation, that's fine, power to them. but it doesn't ring true for me, and also just preference-wise, I don't like the way this version of it gives her less agency, less responsibility in her own narrative. in ep 304, she actively takes responsibility for being with him even if she presently regrets it ("i'm the one who was with the asshole"), and she also notably never claims to Elena that she was forced into the relationship with him or that she never ever liked him. because she did, at some point.

A lack of acknowledgement of - or feeling the subtextual presence of - the fact that Maeve loved/loves someone else for the entire time she is with Homelander. canonically, Maeve was with Elena before she was with Homelander. she loved Elena first and life got in the way, but she still loves her. and idk, i get why if someone sets out to write about Maeve/Homelander as a relationship, they may or may not care so much about Maeve/Elena, and may or may not like the idea of that ship being "endgame". for me, i mean, full disclosure mosssst universes I imagine for this show i see their relationship as the hypothetical Ideal Endgame for Maeve (though it may be derailed or denied in a tragic story!)... but even if i'm writing a story/scenario that is Less about Maevelena, that is still a really important bit of context for Maeve and Homelander's relationship to me. Maeve comes into that relationship already knowing what true love feels like, and also believing that she fucked it up and lost it forever. However, I don't mean to say that must mean all portrayals depict her pining for Elena 100% of the time she's with Homelander. what I mean is, the context even colors WHY she would want homelander in the first place. for example: things went sour with her and elena bc their relationship had to be hidden - well, her relationship with homelander is extremely public, maybe that'll work better! ... Elena didn't understand/want the life that came with fame, well Homelander's right there in the same boat with Maeve! ... Maeve herself didn't want to come out, well, not only does she not need to come out about being with homelander, the whole world declares that they're Perfect together and WANTS this to happen! ... Maeve had trouble making it work with a Regular Person, so maybe it'll work if she gives it a try with not only a Supe, but someone who uniquely gets what it feels like being isolated even from other Supes!... and so on.

those are my pet peeves, lol, and as you can see, yeah, it's a lack of that Grayness. the grayness is specifically what interests me about these two. that feeling that they're soooo wrong for each other in truth, yet also feel so CLOSE to being right? Like if only, in another universe, maybe they'd live happily ever after. except i haven't found that universe and tbh have little interest in trying :) bc the "if only" is the point to me. which is distinct from what i love about maevelena, of course. maevelena is a ship i do desire a Happy Ending for (at least mostly! i enjoy a good angst/tragic fic too!). i think they're deeply FLAWED as a couple but also right for each other and can pull through a lot of hurt and difficulties to stick together. but they're not better because elena's a woman. and homelander's not wrong just because he's a man. Also, also, it needs to be said - it's not JUST about who's right for Maeve. i have always felt that Maeve is not the right "happy ever after" romantic partner for Homelander, either! idk if there's any other character who I would say IS the "right" romantic partner for him, insofar as such a thing exists, but it sure isn't Maeve. I think Homelander wants to believe that she is that person for him for longer than Maeve ever wants/manages to believe that Homelander is right for her - mainly due to what i discussed in point 3 above: Maeve has experienced that feeling of love, with Elena. Homelander has never had it - not from parents, not friends, not a romantic partner. I think he feels great passion and possessiveness over Maeve because he THINKS that is love, and it's the closest he's had up to that point in his life, maybe. and for many reasons Maeve is the only person that he could imagine being "right" for him based on who he is and the world he is in. but at his deepest subconscious level, he's gotta realize fairly early on that it's not quite right with Maeve just as much as she knows it. Homelander is someone who craves affection, honesty, mutual vulnerability, and unconditional love (understandable!). Maeve is someone who is famously bad at all of those things, even with the person she loves most. they have a lot in common, but their actual personalities and (forgive me) "love languages" just don't mesh very well. i think they both know this whilst continuing their active romantic/sexual relationship for quite a while before finally giving up... and i think they both stick in it for a while largely out of the fear that if this doesn't work (and, in maeve's mind, elena already 'didn't work'), then there's no one else for them. and that's not exactly a foundation for healthy, lasting love, but it IS a really really juicy, endlessly interesting dynamic to me!!!

anywho i could just ramble more on these thread for a long time but yeah, agreed. boo to biphobia and black-and-white portrayals, yay to endlessly imperfect characters who try to make it work together far longer than they possibly should!

[essie007]

Wheel of Time Season 2 Thoughts

Now that the season is over and I’ve had a few days to process I thought I’d put some of my thoughts about the season. No major book spoilers but I do make mention to some of the changes they’ve made while adapting the first two books. I might make a more book spoilery post later.

-Overall I really enjoyed the season. I think it was well written, tight and delivered both storywise and character wise. The costuming, special effects and art direction continues to be top tier and I found the season highly watchable and compelling. I did not love absolutely every moment and decision and definitely have a few nitpicks but as a whole I really liked it. I will say that I think a lot of the issues I did have with the season can be boiled down to the limited amount of time they had to tell the story they needed to tell. I really think this show would benefit from at least 10 episodes and season if not more, and I know that’s an opinion many have echoed.

- I loved all the White Tower stuff in the first half of the season. It was a good set-up for tower politics, different factions, how The One Power works and it introduced us to a lot of important characters.

-Hi Elayne! I love you and you are perfect girl!

-Nyneave’s Tower story and block was A+

-I personally didn’t mind Siuan’s book scenes being given to Liandrin. I think it was necessary to tell the story they needed to tell in the time they needed to tell it. And I thought Liandrin’s whole story, the explanation of why she turned to the Black Ajah was interesting both to make her a more compelling villain and to set up the stakes of the universe. We need to be worried that our heroes will choose the dark at some point, and for that to be a real threat we need good reasons why other have. All of her scenes were great. Loved her scenes with Nyneave, Egwene and Lanfear. And her petty fighting with Suroth. *chef’s kiss*

-I’m just gonna say it ok? Are you ready? I LOVE show!Alanna. Book fans can give me the stink eye if they want, but as she’s been portrayed on screen so far she rocks. The actress is incredible and the writing has done an excellent job as setting her up as a genuine, moral, strong and honestly necessary pillar of light in the dark. You really feel she is fighting on the side of good with everything she has, no matter what it costs her. She’s also a genuinely good teacher in the Tower! The way she fights for the girls, and for Moiraine, and later for Rand. We love to see it. Her story in many ways mirrors Moraine’s. The show has done a very good job of making her a character that you are strongly empathizing with and rooting for. And honestly book knowledge has only made me feel that more strongly. Knowing how many darkfriends she is holding the line against, you FEEL how necessary and important the work she does is. And I am starting to understand how she, like Moiraine and Siuan this season, and Rand in the story to come, might start feeling weighed down by that. My girl fits right in with the themes of the story. Sorry not sorry. I am weak for MILFs.

-Egwene’s entire storyline this season kicked ass. I think she had, hands down, the best story arc from beginning to end. I have very little to say about it because it was all perfectly done. And when she killed Rena, instead of sparing her like you’re expecting, oh boy did I cheer.

-Rand’s storyline, if you knew who Lanfear was from the outset was fun all the way through. Though I have it on good authority from @steel-wings that if you went in blind, it was quite slow in the beginning. I do have to say that the introduction to Rand this season being “he’s sleeping with an innkeeper for room and board” was the funniest and best thing I have ever seen. Dana The Darkfired from last season continues to give. No honestly, this is genuine foreshadowing (Selene is also *gasp* a Darkfriend) and character work. They decided to show Rand’s declining mental state and self esteem by contrasting how willing he was to sugarbaby this season with how against it he was last season. 10/10 no notes.

-Rand is a Mental Health Worker! I’m going to cry! Yes I know he has reasons for doing this but watching Rand with that old man, knowing he’s been doing this job for almost a year. Excuse me I need a moment.

-The Lanfear reveal kicked ass. She is so crazy and so evil and so manipulative. Love to see it in a villain. The scene where she “learns” Rand can channel was honestly hilarious. Although this was the moment that @steel-wings lost her patience with the storyline.

Steelwings: Ugh. This is so boring. She’s just there for his manpain. I can’t watch any more of this. It would have been better if she was evil.

Me knowing my wife is at the end of her patience and is about to abandon this show I love but not knowing how long they’re planning to draw the reveal out, pausing the tv: Do you want me to spoil you?

Steelwings: Yes! Spoil me! PLEASE tell me she’s evil.

Me: She’s evil :D She’s the most evil bitch whose ever lived. She’s so evil and so crazy and so manipulative. She’s Oppenheimer if he worshipped the devil and *horrifying spoilers*

Steelwings settling back in to watch: Love that for her. 🙂

-Perrin’s storyline was the least ineteresting and slowest of the mains but with the rest of the show so jam packed it felt like a nice break in some ways to have some breathing room with Perrin. We’ve got Egwene being tortured by the Seanchan and Mat being tortured by the Forsaken and Rand being imprisoned by the Amyrlin. Meanwhile, Perrin has met a cute girl and a dog. Good for him.

-MAAAAT. MAT! My baby boy Mat Cauthon. You are having a no good very bad life huh? And it’s only season 2 *cries* I did love the way he turned the dagger into a spear there at the end and also…HE’S A HERO OF THE HORN! I thought that was a perfect choice. Really made sense with his storyline and character arc. It also gives them a really good plot excuse for him to suddenly know how to fight with his big stick. Mat’s “I remember” and his Old Tongue and his immediate military Glow Up. So good. So fun. I will be screaming forever.

-Speaking of screaming forever the Cauthor reunion had me screaming and crying and dying. I will never be the same. It was giving big stars fading (but i linger on) by @butterflydm vibes. If you haven’t read it, it’s a fic that also adapts The Great Hunt as season 2 by saying “what if Rand just hung around Carhein playing Sugar Baby and getting dicked down while everyone else hunted for the horn?” (It’s really good and you should read it.) Hey @butterflydm how does it feel to be so smart and correct all the time?

-I was expecting the Mat stabs Rand moment to be caused by Compulsion, not friendly fire. It would have given him a really good reason to go searching for something to protect him from the OP in the future. But I’m not mad. We got some top tier cradling out of it. Although this is the second time Ishy has pulled that move (the first was with Rand at the Eye). Boy is not an original thinker.

-I know a lot of people were sad that Rand did not get cool sword battles this season. And look, I get it, the books lean hard in to the cool power fantasy moments with Rand, so if that’s your thing and what you came for, this show probably is letting you down. But I gotta say, as someone who has always been here for the characters and themes and narrative, I LOVE what they did with the battle here. AND with Rand’s learning curve.

-I love that Rand knows exactly one weave at this point, and that that weave is “make knife.” I LOVE that Lan is the one who taught it to him. (Miss me with your Lan hate.) I love that the first thing he did with it wasn’t fight an enemy but free Moiraine from her bonds, heal her, even though he’s not a healer. A knife is a tool and you can use it to heal or to fight. Just as Ryma used her healing weaves to rip Damane bodies apart, Rand uses his knife weaves to “heal.” I love that the second thing he uses that weave for IS to destroy Turak’s fighting force. I did not at all feel I had been robbed of a sword fight. I cheered! Excellent little Indiana Jones moment, right there. Rand WAS badass. And most of all I love that he wasn’t able to to defeat Ishmael on his own, that he needed Egwene and Perrin and Mat and Moiraine and Elayne and Nyneave. Like that’s the point! Lanfear is running around the city trying to dump the other Forsaken in the ocean. Ishmael is standing on that tower alone and betrayed with no allies. But Rand has friends! He has people who come to help him! And that is why he wins. That’s whole point. Hello theme of friendship and connection, I love you, never go anywhere.

-Also Moiraine being like I would kill thousands of people to help Rand made me snort and go “Ok Mom.” Yeah yeah scorched earth morality. Ruthlessness. She is on a mission to save the world even if she has to destroy the world in the process. But also Moiraine IS that meme from Parks and Rec. She has only had Rand Al’Thor for a year but if anything happens to him she will kill everyone in this room and then herself. Now fly the Dragon Banner.

-All that being said, there was one storyline this season that really did not hit for me, and I am sorry to say it was the Siuan Sanche of it all. I have spent a lot of time turning that episode over in my head and I still haven’t put all my thoughts together but ultimately I will say this. Yes, if you were expecting Siuan from the books her actions were definitely character assassination. She makes the exact opposite choices in the show. However, I understand why, both narratively and time wise those changes were made so I’m going to do my best to react to the story they told and the character they wrote, not the one I was expecting. The real problem I think with the story they told is that they didn’t give us enough time in Siuan’s POV and with Siuan’s story to really truly empathize with the decisions she’s making. We spend the episode in Rand and Moiraine’s POVs and honestly I think that’s a big mistake, because we don’t learn any new information about either of them. But in order for that moment at the end with Moiraine to truly be heartbreaking, in order for us to really understand why she’s imprisoning Rand at all we need to see her struggles and her fears and her beliefs. I talked earlier about how they do a good job showing what Alanna and Moiraine are up against but they needed to give us that with Siuan. We’re told she has enemies in the tower, we’re told she’s been depending on Moiraine and Rand to be the ace up her sleeve in the last battle, but we don’t see the emotional toll of that. And at the end there I think the writing needed to make it perfectly crystal clear that Siuan believes that Moiraine is black ajah. A casual viewer should understand and feel for Siuan who is doing this terrible thing because she believes she is saving the world, saving Rand, from a Forsaken and a darkfriend who has lied to her and betrayed her. But it's just not there. I understand that this plot point and this story serves a narrative purpose. It sets up Rand's relationship with the White Tower and the Aes Sedai as a whole. It draws a thematic parallel between the three Oaths and the Seanchan oaths and damane system. It brings up the theme of how power corrupts, how even good people who are doing their best to help the many, can use their power to do horrifying things when they believe it is necessary. But I think it still needed more set up and more character development and more room to breathe. I have…a lot more to say on the subject but I might need to make it it’s own post. I definitely think the writers have set themselves up for a headache when it comes to next season but that’s spoilers so I’ll end this here.

[bohemian-nights]

There’s something I’m really trying to wrap my head around: if you hate Nettles for breaking up Daemon and Rhaenyra then what difference does her skin color make?Like, I’ve definitely criticized Martin for his habit of having an older man finally meet his soulmate who just happens to be a young dark haired tomboy but I’m consistent about it. Why would Nettles being white make her more palatable? She’s still breaking up a ship

When I say that Nettles being race-bent would make her more appealing to this fandom, I’m basically going off of the pattern with other fandoms when it comes to Black female love interests and how this fandom has been treating her so far.

Go into any fandom(The Bear, The Flash, Marvel, Sleepy Hollow, Vampire Diaries, The Flash, Twisted, Riverdale, you name it, it’s there) and watch how they act when a Black girl might get/gets with the resident fandom hottie that everyone lusts after.

Like clockwork suddenly there are a million and one excuses on why she can’t get with the guy or how their relationship is “wrong”(she doesn’t need a man she’s strong and independent, why can’t she just be friends with him, they have no chemistry, it’s abuse, she’s a lesbian, etc).

Google fandom misogynoir and what pops up will leave you feeling a mix of vindication cause you aren’t going crazy and severely depressed because no one really accepts accountability or gives a sh*t so the problem keeps festering for years.

People will try to gaslight you into thinking nothing is wrong(which is what they are currently doing with Nettles since her fanbase is small) until people are finally forced to admit that there is a problem once they've been called out by white people or several articles have been written about their vicious behavior. By then it's too late.

Most Black people leave fandoms for this kind of abuse because when you are treated like less than in real life then when you try to have some fun like everyone else you are still treated like crap. Fandoms should serve as a source of escapism, yet for Black fans they are just another headache.

The only reprieve Black women have is when we create our own shows and movies (which people still get mad at but that's another discussion) and even then sometimes you are still dealing with a load of bullcrap(Shonda Rhimes I am looking at you).

The reason why this happens is because sadly fans use most of these female characters as self inserts. And while Black girls have no problem seeing themselves in other women the same isn’t true for other women(and that has to do with the ignorant belief that they are better because they aren’t Black).

These people are not used to not being put on a pedestal for nothing other than having the right skin tone so when once in a blue moon that doesn’t happen(or it looks like it won’t happen) it sends some into panic mode and thus comes in a need to put those Black characters back into the undesirable box.

The HOTD/Dance fandom in particular has a problem with this.

See how before this show Laena used to be thought of as Daemon’s great love, but the moment she became Blackish she was tossed to the side in favor of saying Miss Maegor was his great love, called her N-word, and compared her to a monkey. People don't have a nice word to say about show!Laena unless it's to support a ship where their self-insert is at the center of that didn't even happen with essentially no canon basis.

And you can’t use the excuse that the fans don’t ship it because Daemon was a crappy husband to Laena. After all, Dumbnyra wasn’t portrayed in a healthy light either yet it’s the most popular ship in this fandom by a long shot.

Now, I obviously don’t think everybody would suddenly start shipping Dettles if she were white or race-bent, but for a great deal of the people objecting to the ship and hating on her, it seems that Nettles’ race is the main reason why:

The fact that you have Dumbnyra stans(the last highlighted one) respecting Alys(a character from another team who they actively dislike) more than Nettles says it all and if that’s not enough then you also have this:

I guess props to them for at least acknowledging that Nettles is Daemon’s lover, but saying it’s fine to replace her with a white woman? Okay😒

Another anonymous individual straight up admitted they don’t want Daemon with a Black woman:

And it’s not as if people haven’t actively wanted Nettles to be race-bent, denied she’s Black-ish in the first place(see people thinking that it’s impossible for Black people to have brown skin🙃), or said that she was going to be played by insert non-Blackish.

Even when that beach photo was leaked no one really bothered looking for the two Black actresses in the pictures(some dumba** literally thought a obviously Black woman wasn’t Black and instead was a white woman in Black face because she wasn’t the color of the night sky🤦🏽‍♀️).

Team Green is not innocent either because the only value they see in Nettles is as a prop for a racist white woman’s awakening or as a gotcha moment to say Daemon is a pedo:

I would take you guys saying she's a child and her relationship with Daemon is icky seriously if you didn't ship the white version of Dettles, Alysmond.

All of this isn’t a coincidence. Nettles’ race is literally the thing that makes these people uncomfortable with her character, her relationship with Daemon, and her presence in the show(and the book for those who actually read it and didn’t immediately descend into a fit of rage at the mere mention of her name). She’s disrespected and treated like sh*t from this fandom because she's Black.

Again everything wouldn’t be peaches and cream if Netty wasn’t who she was, but as it stands, Daemon and Nettles would not be met with such visceral hate and repulsion if Nettles were white(or even non-Black) instead of a Black girl which non-Black fan girls refuse to actually relate to.

[skania]

Do you think kana would be perfect for aqua once he tells her everything and heals from his trauma? Kana is light his bright shining star and kana long term crush on aqua will be a good payoff for once. Akane will probably see that kana is best for him and help them get together? I see fans theorize on this and I want to hear your opinion

I typed a reply to this and Tumblr lost it! 😭

I'll also replying to these here because they're all Aq/Kan related:

I'd also like the chance to clarify something. I'm not here to convince anyone that Aqua/Kana won't happen! It could very well happen! A part of me is expecting it to happen,not because it'd be the best outcome but because it's the most predictable one lmao

So yeah, I'm not here for that and I'm not interested in doing so either. I'm here to talk about Akane, Aqua and AquaKane and all the reasons why they won me over and why I personally find them much more satisfying!

Forgive me for the PSA anons, I'm answering these but I need to redirect my agenda to the ship I actually ship lmao

To summarize what I wrote before Tumblr ate my reply, of course there are theories like those because it's the most obvious reading of the manga. If you take every Aqua and Kana interaction at face value, it's natural to come to that conclusion. And they could very well be right, maybe Aka is subverting expectations by making us think he is above going for the obvious, only to do exactly that. It's possible! The ships in Kaguya were blatantly obvious, too.

Except. And here is the big thing. Aka has already written a character that approaches love in the same way Kana does. This character is Maki. She was in love with a boy but never did anything about it. The consequence? The boy started to like her best friend and pursued her. What did Maki do? Nothing. The boy and her best friend started to date, a casual relationship turned to love, and Maki did nothing but mope pretty much exactly like Kana. Was Maki's love rewarded at the end? No, because Aka portrayed her inaction as wrong.

Now, the main difference between Kana and Maki is that Aqua may very well be into her, too. But the rest of the picture remains the same: lack of action from Kana, a complete lack of development between them, etc., while Aqua and Akane have gone through like 10 different relationship stages in that same amount of time, growing closer each time.

So which road you find most rewarding depends on which road you personally think has been more developed in the manga. Same goes for whether you think Kana would be perfect for Aqua; I think that at the surface, the manga wants the reader to get that impression. But is she really? Kana is too naive. Whenever Aqua manipulates her, she blindly falls right into it. She wears her heart on her sleeve; this may be refreshing to Aqua, but it also puts Kana at a clear disadvantage because he knows exactly what to say and do to get her to react exactly how he wants her to. Would theirs be a relationship between equals? Right now, I'm not sure I can see it.

But you know what? It's actually impossible to know how Kana would fare around Aqua, the whole Aqua, because we have simply never seen it. Aqua's darkness has always been kept from her. And the scenario you're painting here involves a perfectly healthy Aqua, but he may never be like that. I am definitely hoping he heals and I'm sure he will heal, but that won't magically erase everything he has gone through. Is Kana equipped to deal with that? Maybe, maybe not. We won't know until Aka actually allows her to see all of Aqua.

So all in all, my thoughts are that it's kind of pointless to worry about this. You either enjoy Aqua/Akane's dynamic more or you don't. There isn't a right answer, it's subjective.

I have no thoughts about this lol Akane was just trying to reassure Aqua, she had no idea that Aqua had never done emotional acting before because at this point, she was only getting to know him. Akane isn't the type to force her way through without first having a clear understanding of what is going on inside the person.

Once she sees how he acted in the past, Akane figures it all out and gets to the heart of the matter. What does Aqua act for? Why does he want to act in the first place?

And she doesn't settle for Aqua not giving her a straight answer.

Ai was Ruby's light too. Was Ruby in love with Ai?

In this manga, being someone's light doesn't have to be romantic. Now, I'm not saying Aqua's feelings for Kana aren't romantic; like I've said a bunch of times, the in-your-face reading of the manga is that they are.

I'm saying that Kana being Aqua's light doesn't automatically mean she's his one true love, because being a light for someone isn't an inherently romantic concept in this manga.

As for whether Aqua was "forcing" himself to think he would be better off with Akane...

Aqua dated Akane because he wanted to and he stayed with Akane because he wanted to; because she did him good. Aqua's actions show a dedicated boyfriend who literally calls his girlfriend every night.

But Aqua's happiness was built on Aqua deliberately turning his eyes away from the truth about Kamiki. Rather than face the music, Aqua ran away. Same goes for his bond with Kana. Instead of having a honest talk with her, Aqua let his trauma get the best of him and simply cut her off his life.

I think deep down, Aqua was aware that he was running away. But by running away, he was able to spend his days in relative peace. So even when Gotanda spelled out the truth to him, Aqua couldn't find it in himself to stop running.

Of course, this is only part of what weights Aqua down during his "freedom" period. I believe another thing that weights Aqua down is that he hasn't told Akane that he is Goro. Despite all the truths he has told her, he is still hiding this from her, and we know for a fact that he sees this as him "deceiving her."

All of this, coupled with Aqua's inherent trauma which shapes itself into thinking: Do I even deserve to be happy? shackle Aqua to the past he is desperately trying to run away from.

But this is such an interesting topic that it probably deserves its own post lol

[wcrriorhearts]

Welcome to part three of my positivity shoutouts. I will be doing these in alphabetical order and hope my scattered brain won’t forget anyone. Given I can only put people on here I follow and therefore know, feel free to send in positivity for people in the House of the Dragon fandom who I have missed & not mentioned, so I can include them in a later post! 

@idanazaldrizes - what a lovely oc you have! there are a lot of oc children for rhaenyra out there, but i literally never grow tired of them, because rhaenya is the mom ™ and deserves all the babies. aerea ( also kudos for the name choice, i love that name from got lore ) is beautifully written and a delight on my dash <3 keep up the good work

@incissam - another wonderful, talented and lovely rhaenyra! i have absolutely no duplicate anxiety and love to surround myself with other amazing beans who write my favorite character and this phenomenal mun does the best job at breathing life into her and doing her justice!

@inspireswar - beautiful lyanna <3 vic is one of the absolute best people on here and even though lyanna technically is a got muse, she has a hotd verse and i therefore claim her for this fandom :D vic is an incredibly talented, kind, creative and just overall perfect gem of a human being and makes my dash a better place with all of the characters she writes. lyanna is stunning and you should all interact with her!

@kipagircs - my son! we’re not just basically neighbors, but hannah also writes rhaenyra’s my favorite son perfectly. our sweet boy is wonderfully fleshed out, and the mun has developed him perfectly past his SUPPOSED death that never actually happened bc my boi gets to live a long and happy life. amazing & kind mun, who is just a joy to have around!

@leschanceux - another amazing mulit with a wonderful collection of hotd muses that are all written incredibly well and there are even some of the rarer ones we don’t get to see very often. the mun is also absolutely lovely, welcoming and super approachable. couldn’t imagine my dash without them on it!

@lykosog - technically another got muse and not hotd, but it is becoming a trend here to just include everyone who roughly belongs to the same world, because you are just all so freaking talented and it would be a shame not to mention you. a beautifully written version of robb, brought alive by a very nice and talented mun. absolutely worth a follow and so nice to have around!

@mccndancer - my sweet, sweet vesta <3 your baela is the light of my life ( and that of Elaena ) and I just adore writing with you on her. you put so much effort in bringing her to life and i love the way you portray her. baela is one of the coolest characters in the dance and you do her absolute justice <3

@nvrqn - ah, my darling! a wonderful, perfectly written rhaenys through and through. the mun has so much love and passion for her character and it shines through in everything she does. she has so many amazing verses for her and is just in general very approachable, kind and insanely creative. i love her so, so much and i am so grateful we get to write our silly little angsty verse together.

@nyratcrg - a rhaenyra that is entirely based in modern and so interesting! the mun has done an amazing job of developing her in a completely different setting than canon and fleshing her out to be a well rounded character. definitely worth a follow for all of you who thrive in modern verses as well and want to write with a lovely black queen!

[shazzeaslightnovels]

Fate/Strange Fake 1

Author: Ryohgo Narita

Illustrator: Shizuki Morii

Label: Dengeki Bunko

Release Date: 10 January 2015

My Score: 4/5

Genre: Action, Battle Royale

This series is part of the Fate franchise and it follows a “fake” Holy Grail War in America. The rules are a bit different to the usual Holy Grail War, in ways that aren’t made all too clear in this volume. This volume serves as an extended prologue as we are introduced to the masters and servants that we will be following throughout the series. Each chapter introduces a new pair and focuses on them.

This was a really good first volume. It got me intrigued to follow the story and the characters. The characters are all interesting and the story has a lot of potential. it’s definitely an introductory volume that made me more excited in what this series will become rather than enjoying this volume on it’s own. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to get through it but it was the kind of book that always made me want to read on. I‘m super interested in how this series is going to progress and I ended this volume just wanting to read the next.

As much as I enjoyed this volume, I don’t feel like I have a lot to say about it and I’m worried this is going be recurring issue with this series so I am going to talk about the characters that appear on the covers for each volume that I do. Similar to what I did with Youzitsu, but I want to go more in-depth.

On the cover for this volume is Archer/Gilgamesh and Lancer/Enkidu. Their identities are revealed soon after they are introduced so I wouldn’t consider it a spoiler (also, I think everyone in the Fate fandom knows what Gilgamesh and Enkidu look like). For most of the servants, their identities are either explicitly stated or we are given enough clues to make an educated guess. The exception is a certain someone who is introduced at the end of the volume and I haven’t been spoiled as to who they are so I am very excited to learn more.

Gilgamesh is the first servant to be introduced in this volume. Gilgamesh would have to be the servant with the most appearances in this franchise. He was in the original, he was in Zero, Extra CCC, and this, and of course he appears in Grand Order and I’m probably forgetting something. Gilgamesh is always a fun and interesting character so it’s not hard to see why people love him and each writer is usually able to do something with him to make things interesting. Here, it seems to be his relationship with Enkidu that will be explored, and I really am excited to see more of their dynamic. I might be more interested in Gilgamesh’s master though than Gilgamesh himself. His master, Tine, is a Native American, and it’s so cool to see Native American representation in anything. I’m really interested to learn more about her and what her role in the narrative is going to be.

I think this was Enkidu’s first appearance in the franchise. They later appeared in Grand Order but I think this predates that. I love seeing a non-binary take on a figure like Enkidu and I really like the way that they are portrayed. Enkidu’s master is a wolf and I love them. I hope nothing bad happens to them. These two are my favourite pair so far. I really hope the wolf survives this series.

Also, I had to laugh at Nasu’s afterword where he talks about how Narita pitched this as a 5-volume series. Nasu says, ‘Narita, do you really think this plot is going to fit in 5 volumes?’ The series is ongoing at 8 volumes so I had to laugh.

Adaptation Notes:

A TV Special anime adaptation came out recently. I watched and it motivated me to finally read the light novels so it definitely works well as an advertisement for the series. It condenses the first volume into a 55 minute episode and it does a pretty good job of it. There’s some stuff that’s cut out and some details are lost and it makes it feel more like highlight reel than anything else but it manages to tell a coherent story and get you pumped for the full anime. Because of the way that the original volume was structured with each chapter focusing on a specific master/servant pair, the anime did some restructuring of scenes to make the timeline more linear so that we jump between different storylines. We get more backstory and details about the masters and servants in the light novel. In particular, the anime cut a lot of details about Assassin’s identity and the situation with Tsubaki. Also, most of the last chapter, where we are introduced to Ayaka is cut from the anime.

A full-length TV series has been announced and there’s been some speculation as to whether they will continue where the special left off or readapt the first volume more faithfully. I feel like they will continue where the special ended and adapt that last chapter fully. I feel like they will have to add back in the details that were cut with Assassin and Tsubaki at some point but maybe there will be a good time in future plotlines to do that and they won’t do it straight away. I don’t think they will just readapt the first volume. The special is a perfectly serviceable adaptation to introduce the characters and, aside from those bits, I don’t see any point in readapting it.

[witchyfoxelf]

[tv review] ds9 3x06 "the abandoned" (1994)

this is a well-structured episode that sets up two main plots that have drastically different stakes & scale but have very coherent themes that dovetail effortlessly with each other. one of those times when it’s very clear what the show is saying without it being remotely forced.

the problem is that what the show has to say in both of these plotlines fucking sucks.

(cw: this episode depicts an adult dating a minor, and does not condemn it. i am about to rip it to shreds for this, but yeah, didn't want to spring that on anyone.)

in one corner, we have a rapidly-aging jem’hadar that was recovered from some gamma quadrant salvage and became the station’s problem. odo takes the boy under his wing, and it’s all very sweet until it isn’t? but we’ll come back to that. in the other corner, jake sisko, a 16-year-old boy, is dating a 20-year-old girl. his father is, rightly, really fucking upset about that, but the whole plot is about making him okay with that and just. fucking. can we not?

in main, serious plot land, we actually get off to a pretty great start. sisko oohs & ahhs over the infant in sickbay, and i just fucking love how much he lights up in this scene. one of the many things i love about sisko is that he’s consistently portrayed as a kind, nurturing father, and this scene is just such a wonderful concentrated form of that. and when odo takes the boy under his wing, he’s uncomfortable & awkward as hell but clearly has the boy’s best interests at heart.

for like maybe 50% of the episode things are going swimmingly, and then odo boots up a combat program to give the boy a healthy outlet for the aggressive urges he’s having trouble regulating, and kira barges in & pulls odo aside to tell him she violently disagrees with this? and the episode totally bears her point of view out? the only way odo is able to defuse the situation is by taking the boy to the gamma quadrant and turning him over to the dominion to be a soldier-slave, and worse the episode literally ends with him sitting down & telling kira, “you were right.” BARF!

so if you’re keeping score at home, this episode spends most of its runtime asking interesting questions about nature vs. nurture and head-fakes at breaking down prejudice, and then ends up coming down decisively on the side of “nature” & justifying a prejudiced view of the jem’hadar, a race of people that is literally enslaved. COOL.

over in subplot land, there’s some goalpost shifting where sisko’s objections to jake’s relationship with mardah is framed as being about her being a dabo girl rather than JAKE BEING A LITERAL CHILD AND HER BEING A LITERAL ADULT???

they have this family dinner and sisko finds out that she’s actually very smart & pursuing an education, which like, NO SHIT? a lot of people are in demeaning service industry jobs to support something like this, and those of us who are stuck there and have no path out are oftentimes also well-educated? like, that’s his objection? really??? so yeah, that whole thing is just immediately off the rails and at the end of the episode he’s like… still got his misgivings, but not like “this is probably illegal & definitely not okay, STOP”-shaped misgivings?

i just. this whole thing is SO fucking weird & irresponsible, and i cannot believe that it got written, performed, edited, and aired without anyone with the power to stop it doing so? like, i know that plenty of skeevy shit ends up on the air, but this is fucking star trek staking out an “idk, maybe it’s fine actually?” position on adults dating minors????? fucking… HOW is that a thing that happened???

you know what, i don’t care that parts of this episode were good, both of its plotlines are morally bankrupt in ways that are inextricable from the very nature of the episode, i’m not giving this one a pass. it dealt me psychic damage. d-rank

[pink-bird-30]

Titans 4x07

Spoilers Ahead

Read at your own Risk!!!

Welcome back Titans, lets dive into this weeks episodes! 

I have a very strong feeling Mother Mayhem is doing all of this work to get to Trigon, she has absolutely no care for Sebastian but as a means to an end.  And I think that will blow up big time for her once Sebastian realizes what she is doing and turns against her.

When she tell Sebastian “Your Power Will have No Equal” I rolled my eyes so hard.  How can he not see through her bullshit?  Even long before we learn that Kori has the power to defeat him, Sebastian should have an understanding that Mother Mayhem is using him, he can't be that dumb.

What I do like about this episode is the setup for Trigon to comeback.  A real full circle moment to end the show, and hopefully the fight we deserved since season 1 and season 2.  

Moving on,

I’m assuming that since they changed the order of episodes, we don’t get to see how the Titans managed to survive Sebastians blast???  I just find it weird that they all disappear and then they are just there again?  Weird.

Also, Lex Luther leaving a gift for Dick?  Why after everything Lex has caused, he knew he would die and would need to leave the journal to Dick? and what are his plans for Connor?  Leave my little super baby alone you creep.  Even in death he manages to blind the poor boy!

Also, Lex’s journal also portraying Kori’s dead body really had me reeling.  Dick is soooooo over these prophecies.

Are we all agreeing that Jinx is dead dead?  What Raven did for her was beautiful, but before Jinx died she said “Not again,” so does this mean she’ll be back? (I still have not watched the new promo for 4x09)

I also don’t like how calm everyone was after disappearing?  I would be panicking!

ROBERTA

I always love how Dick knows so many different people and how they can help in so many different situations.

I love how she was questioning if Kori was a real Tamaranean and then that big WHIFF Roberta took of Kori, If you look close enough, you can see Brenton trying so hard not to laugh.  I was dying.  

Roberta mentioning Kori didn’t have orange light was really interesting and a piece of info I’m filing away for later…

“Another day another Prophecy”  Richard John Grayson, as a detective himself, you think he would notice a pattern when it literally throws itself at him everyday!  This man is so deep in denial that I will cry when he realizes he’s been ignoring the obvious and it will be too late.

I love when Tim has his genius moments, they’re always so random but super helpful.  Especially in this instance where they need to find the horn before Sebastian does. 

Somedays, I really miss golden retriever Connor.  This season he is definitely in his anti-hero era, but I really do miss the old him.  I really hope he get a redemption arc by the last episode, I don’t think I could be satisfied if Connor ends this show as a Lex wannabe.

Bernard.

This man is such a cutie pie and I am not surprised he drives this little cute blue car.  I do find it a little annoying they play into the genius and awkward trope, like why can’t Bernard be a confident nerd?

Now to the meat of the episode: Caul’s Folly

The second the RV went through that weird barrier of magic, I knew whatever happened there was no going to go well.

The whole Diner scene had me on edge, I knew there was something off with the people but to the extent of their brainwashing is insane.

When Kori brings Dick to the barrier and doesn’t believer her at first, boy, the amount of shit we have all seen these last three seasons and he’s questioning being trapped in a small town?!

But boy oh boy, the way Dick reacted when Kori started to show signs that she was unwell, *chefs kiss, He straight up went into over protective mode and just wrapped her up into his side and walked her to the RV.  I- There were moments over the years where I wished for them to have that level of care and intimacy with one another and it finally finally happened!

To my surprise, I am not shocked that I would run across actors from other shows I’ve watched.  But seeing Valentine Morganstern on Titans was not what I was expecting.  Alan Van Sprang has always been a great villain and I’m glad he was a part of this crazy episode.  Him being the “gatekeeper” to this town and helping Mother Mayhem to capture Dick, Kori, and Rachel was great.

Titans always seems to keep the same formula that has run through the last 3 seasons, and seeing how they always end up splitting up from one another is so common, but I’m glad in this instance.  Bernard and Tim really needed to talk and I kinda like how their scene in the motel reflected Dick and Kori’s from season 1.  I thought it was sweet.

To round out this episode, why am I not surprised Dick going off on his own would be a bad idea?  Has this man not realized he cannot do things by himself anymore, that he needs his team?

 Overall, this was an ok start to the second half of the season.  Felt like a filler episode, but I’m not surprised since we usually don’t have split seasons.

I'll post my feelings on 4x08 next! Stay Tuned!

[curried-mermaid]

A Review: I’m the Villainess so I’m Taming the Final Boss Volume 1

Author: Srasa Nagase Publishers: Yen Press Illustrator: Mai Murasaki Age Group: Teen Genre: Isekai Romance Type: Light Novel; Manga

Content Warnings: NONE Spoilers ahead

Plot

When Aileen Lauren D’Autriche finds herself in the middle of the villainess’ engagement annulment event, she remembers that this world is her favorite Otome game. She’s even more startled to realize she’s the villainess of the game and must prevent her death by the final boss. 

Although we have a strong female protagonist, this is a sweet, first love romance. It proves that just by accepting the person you love for who they are creates a sweet romance and deep connection between two people. You don’t have to be domineering or ‘alpha’ to win the girl. It’s okay to let your barriers down and just be. When two people are just themselves it can work out. Not to say that it doesn’t take work. As it does consistently throughout the series, but if you truly love someone, you won’t give them up even when others tell you that if you love them you should give them up. 

Character Development

The personalities of the characters are very defined (sometimes predictably). They do grow and evolve as each character interacts with Aileen and the changing world caused by her fighting the fate of each game (across the whole series). 

One thing that I love about Demon Lord Claude is that his emotions are portrayed through weather phenomena. This gives the story a bit of comedy as we figure out what he’s feeling whenever he interacts with Aileen. 

Aileen is kind of protagonist that refuses to cry and spend another minute on something that no longer deserves her attention. She’s the type of person to look you in the eye and say “challenge accepted, with interest”. She never gives up, is a bit of a workaholic, and gets into a lot of trouble. It’s a good thing she has an eye for talent because she needs them to help her get out of trouble, not only with those around her but especially with Claude. 

World-building

The audience is thrust into the world of the Ellmeyer kingdom from Aileen’s perspective. It has a very common Isekai start (for female protagonists). All of the history we learn comes from Aileen’s knowledge of the game. This world is very character focused rather than setting or plot focused. 

The settings are common things we would expect to see with a feudal hierarchy (but add emperors rather than kings) and a Demon Lord. The Demon Lord’s castle, parks, royal quarters, etc. Though the Demon Lord’s castle being in disrepair is a great touch to expand the minor character line-up and force growth for the Demon Lord and his subordinates. There is just enough description of settings that we get the picture without being elaborate. After all, this is supposed to be more character focused. 

Themes

The themes for this series are pretty straight forward. You can change fate or fate is not written in stone. You can grab life by the horns and make it your (insert favorite swear here). Whichever you prefer. 

Observations & Predictions

This is one of my comfort series I go back to over and over. 

While each book covers a different Otome game or the side content, it can get a little cyclical to have her continuously fight for Claude. Albeit, in some of the most cliche, comedic, and sometimes out-of-the-blue ways. 

This series is an easy read and doesn’t take a lot of brain power. So relax, grab a cup of your favorite beverage, maybe some snacks, and enjoy. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it’s definitely worth trying. 

Recommendations

This week I’ve added this section of recommendations with variations from my current review. Take a look! If you want me to review or have further recommendations just let me know! 

If you like this series but need something with a bit more intrigue: 

Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke’s Mansion By: Milcha Translation: David Odell

If you like a strong protagonist but want it more sweet:

The Savior’s Book Cafe Story in Another World By: Oumiya Based on Novels by: Kyouka Izumi

If you want something with a soft female lead that’s just as sweet:

I’m Giving the Disgraced Noble LadyI rescued a Crash Course in Naughtiness By: Fukada Sametarou

[writing-portfolio]

How do Artists and Writers Portray Escapism in Their Works?

Reality has always been an overwhelming experience, but over the past few years the amount of incredibly stressful events in the world have skyrocketed. The real world is insane. It's reasonable that we would come to rely on technology and stories as a brief respite. Whether it's Spending a few hours immersed in video games or getting lost in a book, almost everyone has indulged in escapism to some degree. Where things get interesting is when the media starts to form an opinion on us escaping into it. 

Dana Terrence’s Disney Cartoon, "The Owl House", tells the story of Luz, a neurodivergent and queer teenager who finds herself in a magical realm of witches and demons. She was meant to go to a summer camp to help her become more “normal” but instead spends the summer on the Boiling Isles, also called the Demon Realm. Here she has no trouble making friends, something she has always struggled to do in the Human Realm. She is also free to  express herself when doing so previously had always led to bullying from her peers. But when the summer ends she is forced to acknowledge her real life and the impact her absence has made on reality. By the end of the series, Luz has found a way to balance her life in the Demon Realm with her life in the Human Realm. 

Luz is a character who is very special to me and who I have a lot in common with. I would jump into that portal to the Demon Realm in an instant. Escapism is very appealing to kids who might feel alienated, especially in situations like school. The idea of being able to spend time in a world full of dragons, friends, and magic definitely sounds better than monotonous reality. For Luz, the Demon Realm is a chance to do what she wants with her life and be supported and understood while doing so.

"Deltarune" is a visual novel and RPG video game by Toby Fox. Similarly to Luz spending time in the Demon Realm, two of “Deltarune’s” protagonists, Kris and Susie, go on adventures in Dark Worlds. These Dark Worlds are filled with friends, puzzles, and magic. Both Susie and Kris are deeply neurodivergent coded and are both canonically queer. Susie also seems to have a very unstable home life. In the Dark Worlds these things are accepted or fade into the background. Each Dark World is designed around a common means of escape, like imagination or the internet.

There are a few concerning details in the game that condemn escapism, like two characters from the Dark Worlds. The first, Jevil, has seemingly lost the ability to tell the reality apart from games. He is completely disconnected from reality. The second, Spamton, is similar. He views the world as a game and does not view other people as “real”. Spamton has become lost in the endless void of the internet. He, like Jevil, has completely dissociated. These two characters may represent people who took escapism too far and lost touch. 

Videogames are themselves a common means of escape, so "Deltarune’s” theme is very much informed by its medium. No matter how you choose to play the game, escapism is always present. One route of the game, the Weird Route, casts escapism in a very negative light. In this route, Kris uses the excuse of unreality to emotionally manipulate and abuse Noel, a character who otherwise becomes close friends with Kris and the rest of the party. In the other routes of the game, escapism is only condemned indirectly through vague dialogue and characters like Spamton and Jevil.  

An RPG’s ability to tell different stories informed by hundreds of tiny choices that the player makes lends itself to portraying different degrees of escapism as a maladaptive coping mechanism. The player’s involvement in the story also makes any morels or themes present seem more personal. "Deltarune’s” theme of escapism is woven into every part of the game.

Another text with a strong theme of escapism is Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline”. In the book, Coraline, a young girl who is discontent with her life, finds a huge door in her parlor. It leads to a world not quite like her own. Everything is the same but slightly off. Everyone has buttons in the place of their eyes and uncanny valley features. At first, Coraline is willing to ignore this because the Other World is interesting and has delicious food and fun clothes. But the bloated rotten underbelly of the Other World quickly becomes apparent to Coraline. Inorder to stay in the Other World, she must stitch buttons into her eyes. By permanently stitching her eyes closed, Coraline is actively choosing to ignore everything disturbingly wrong with the Other World and accept its illusion of perfection. 

This text’s examination of escapism is definitely darker than the previous two. Coraline’s attempts to escape her real life are clearly shown to be maladaptive. Coraline realizes immediately that something is off in the other world but basically keeps going back there out of boredom. At one point the Other Mother, The book’s antagonist,  says “Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.” (Gaiman, 64). As the Other Mother becomes more controlling, people in Coraline’s real life begin to disappear. Her parents and eccentric neighbors slowly disappear from her already remote community and soon Coraline has completely isolated herself. 

Being a novel, Coraline’s internal monologue is made clear to us. We can see her thought process and quickly become attached to her. Coraline is younger than the escapees of the previous two texts, but is maybe the most aware of what is happening to her. Her experience with the Other World is much like that of someone who has become dependent on escapism or disassociation and is trying to recover. Every time she thinks she has returned to reality she is dragged right back into the Other World. 

The Other Mother is the root of Coraline’s peril. Similar to how you can't get rid of a coping mechanism like maladaptive escapism before you have fixed what you are escaping from, Coraline cannot escape the Other World until she has defeated the Other Mother. 

“Coraline” casts escapism in a very negative light, but only in extreme contexts. Coraline loves make-believe and TV. She pretends to be an explorer. She makes up stories and has a very active imagination. These are all shown to be good things. It is only when Coraline tries to entirely escape from her reality that the text decides that her escapism has gone too far. 

The article “Why Escapism Can be Harmful” discusses why escapism can be a dangerous coping mechanism, like it is in “Coraline”. Lyn Reed, the author of this article and licensed therapist, discusses how constantly avoiding our struggles through escapism stops us from actually improving our lives. She describes people who rely too heavily on social media as a form of escape as addicts. Relying on escapism can lead to things like dissociative disorder, a separation from yourself or from reality. “The ultimate goal of escapism is the destruction of self” she states (Why Escapism Can be Harmful, Reed).

This is an informational text based on a pervasive issue trying to offer support to those affected. Unlike the other texts chosen, it is not an artistic exploration of an issue, but a resource trying to help actual people who struggle with it. Because of this, it is a lot more critical of escapism as a coping mechanism, but it also offers support to those who use it. Reed suggests doing things like spending time face to face with friends to begin to overcome the need to escape from your life. She makes a clear distinction. “Not all escapism is bad for you. It is important to identify why you need to escape. If you are running away from reality then the consequences are not likely to be good. But if you are accessing another world in order to gain some insights to bring back to this one – well, that IS good.” (Why Escapism Can be Harmful, Reed).

This is a distinction that can be found throughout all of these texts. In “The Owl House”, Luz’s arc required her to switch the mindset of her escapes to the Boiling Isles from “running away from reality” to “gaining insights to bring back” (Why Escapism Can be Harmful, Reed). This was not an easy journey for her. Dana Terrence clearly understood this distinction and incorporated it into her show. The same goes for “Coraline”. Imagining that you are a famous explorer for a day is good, but running away to the Other World is not. Toby Fox makes a similar distinction in “Deltarune”. Having fun in a Dark World is ok, but be careful not to end up like Jevil or Spamton. It's ok to check out from reality for a while. Just remember that the real world will still be there for you when you're done, with all of its problems, insanity, overwhelming anxiety, and messy, painful, real, beauty. 

[themovieblogonline]

Spoonful of Sugar Review: A Welcomed Dose of Horror Goodness

Isn't it amusing how they named a horror movie after a popular song from Mary Poppins? Regardless of people's opinions about the film itself, the title alone brings a sense of humor to it. Spoonful of Sugar, directed by Mercedes Bryce Morgan, is a psychological horror film that stands out with its focus on character development instead of relying on an excessive number of predictable jump scares. It takes viewers on a captivating journey into the minds of a family and their caretaker, who looks after their unique son named Johnny. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJNPwELdysY From the beginning, it becomes apparent that Johnny is far from ordinary. Apart from his other peculiarities, he remains silent and has severe allergies. The family hires a young woman named Millicent, recognizing that a child like Johnny requires a caregiver with exceptional skills and patience. Initially, Millicent appears to be an average young woman with ambitious goals and a compassionate nature. However, as the movie progresses, intriguing mysteries unravel, shedding light on her and the family's bizarre traits. While the film doesn't break new ground in terms of originality, it remains enjoyable and respects its concise ninety-four-minute duration. If you're seeking a chilling and twisted horror experience, this film is right up your alley. The standout performances by Morgan Saylor and Danilo Crovetti contribute greatly to the movie's appeal. Saylor undergoes a remarkable transformation as Millicent, a genuinely terrifying character whose motivations initially elude us. As the story unfolds, we gradually discover more about Millicent and her unsettling habits. In the role of Johnny, Crovetti delivers a challenging performance. Despite having no spoken lines, he successfully portrays a "creepy kid" through his eyes, body language, and facial expressions, effortlessly conveying a sense of unease. Sadly, however, there are moments in the film that resemble a Lifetime Original movie. The dialogue is often weak, and there are excessive romantic sequences that may elicit eye-rolling reactions. Nevertheless, overall, Spoonful of Sugar pleasantly surprised me and left a positive impression. While it may not revolutionize the horror genre, the film offers an enjoyable experience, bolstered by Morgan Saylor's compelling lead performance. It's not going to be one of those movies that cinephiles are going to sit around talking about for years to come, but it's certainly an enjoyable movie that has more than enough goodness to offer. Consider me super interested to see what director Mercedes Bryce Morgan does next, because she definitely has promise. Additionally, the film's atmospheric cinematography adds a layer of visual flair to the storytelling. The use of shadows, dimly lit rooms, and eerie locations effectively create a sense of foreboding and tension. The sound design also deserves praise, as it skillfully builds suspense and enhances the overall creepiness of the narrative. One aspect that sets Spoonful of Sugar apart from many other horror films is its exploration of deeper themes. The movie delves into the complexities of familial relationships, the consequences of unchecked ambition, and the blurred lines between normalcy and madness. These thought-provoking elements elevate the viewing experience and make the film more than just a mere scarefest. Despite its flaws, Spoonful of Sugar manages to entertain and keep viewers engaged throughout its runtime. It may not reinvent the genre, but it's a solid entry that horror enthusiasts will find enjoyable. If you're in the mood for a psychological thriller that relies on suspense and character-driven storytelling, give this film a chance. With its mix of eerie atmosphere, strong performances, and intriguing mysteries, Spoonful of Sugar is a treat for horror fans looking for something different. Read the full article