#it's literally my entire tl right now even though I have everything related to it muted

[fitzselfships]

Who would've thought that being exposed to one of your triggers (that you only recently found out is a trigger) on a daily basis would be bad for your mental health. Save me f/os </3

[threeletterslife]

Hii! It's me again. I was curious how you came up with this? Was the whole series your idea or someone elses, or mabye where you found your inspo and such. And when you started writing it, did you come up with all the plots and stories yourself and did you have doubts on it? OH and also how did you come up with all these characters and fantasy like places and stories and names?You're welcome to answer or just ignore tho. Whatever is nice for you! 💓

wellllll this is quite a long story, so buckle up!

i consistently write a journal documenting my journey with lod, so i will be copy-pasting excerpts here. i am planning to post the entire journal once lod is finished (right now, it is 37+ pages, but it'll definitely be much longer lol. not sure if people would even read the full thing, though.) FYI: below the keeping reading line, words in red omits spoilers (aka the chapers i haven't posted yet) and words in green are commentary (since i wrote this journal a couple years ago)

tl;dr: i was bored in quarantine and had a lot of motivation, so i came up with lod. the entire series was my idea, but i found inspiration from other fantasy/magic series. i did have doubts when it came to plotting, but i had a couple of friends who proofread. coming up with everything was definitely a process—i explain it in detail below:

1. HOW IT ALL STARTED

November 1st, 2020, Sunday was the day I created the first LOD-related Google Doc. I remember for the longest time, I wanted to write an ultra-long series. I had no idea what this series would consist of—the only thing I did know is that I wanted it to be a slow burn. Of course, I began dabbling with the idea of the internet’s most beloved trope: enemies to lovers. I realized that I don’t exactly have much of an interest in developing a story based on modern-day happenings. If this series was going to be long, I wanted to go all-in—that is, I wanted to play around with some extensive world-building. Though I admit I have some experience in world-building, I say this with a grain of salt because I’ve never actually expanded upon my new universes. (Most of my world-building work has been through the Society Series, which included seven stories that ranged from 2k-29k words. And 2k-29k words are barely anything compared to the long series I wanted to write.) So I took on this challenge of creating an entirely new world with new nations and cultures and people.

Except I didn’t know where to start. I think I found it the easiest to figure out who I wanted to write. I definitely wanted to write a somewhat angsty relationship (definitely something on the lines of enemies to lovers). So I knew my main characters had to have a lot of spunk to them. I still wasn’t so sure about the setting, until I realized how interesting it would be to write a story about a war. I’ve never quite done that before. I accepted the challenge. And with this setting in mind, I began to piece together my characters. I typed out a quick: general!yg (26) and general!yn (23) into the Google Doc. It was actually smooth sailing from there.

1.1 Castings, Genres and Plotting

I created two nations: Solaria and Darlae and then split them up as the elemental magic group and traditional “wand” magic group. I wasn’t so sure how to build upon the magic, though. I decided to leave that problem up for the future me. Meanwhile, I assigned Yoongi the role of the cynical, cold yet somehow gentle Solarian General. Of course, to add some *spice*, I cast our OC as the kindhearted, passionate Darlaean General. I took a lot of inspiration from Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Harry Potter franchise but ultimately decided that I’d create my very own system of magic (somewhere along the line). I did know that the Solarians would control the elements and the Darlaeans would use what I later called their birthstones to do their own form of magic. But other than that, I literally let alone the magic. I figured I’d begin to create the magical guidelines when I felt more comfortable with the other parts of the story.

From November 1st to the 7th 2020, I plotted every day. But these were very general plot points—mostly to map out where the story would go. I came up with an introduction that I felt was a good hook, and from there, I focused a lot on moving the plot along. It’s a little problematic considering I didn’t exactly flesh out my characters yet, but I thought it would be better to just word vomit than stay stagnant. I realized I could tweak the plot a little (or a lot) after I got my ideas out. So then, I made the whole storyline of OC’s lost memory, Yoongi being suspicious of her, her feeling a little lost in Solaria, then her assimilating and gaining Yoongi’s undevoted trust. The plot was very much centered around her and the Solarian General. I remember being stuck at a particular plot point, however. It was after the fact that OC went into battle and got “captured” by the Darlaeans. I knew she’d meet her past lover (Jungkook) and it’d be a whole angst parade. But there were a few complications that are plot spoilers of the latter half of the second act, plus acts III and IV, so I will not share them for now. Just know that it wasn't until January 2nd to 14th of 2021 that I finally configured the ending of LOD

1.2 Creating the Title

I also came up with the title on January 10th. I had some possible choices too: ​​Forgotten Memories, Lost Memories, The Legends of Two Kingdoms, Legends of Magic, Legends of Darlaria. At first, I really wanted to incorporate the motif of memory in the title. [Reasons are redacted.] But then I started brainstorming some ideas and realized putting ‘memory’ in the title sounds cheap/an attempt to sound overly deep. I didn’t like it. So I realized I could branch off and talk about the nations. The Legends of Two Kingdoms gave me Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities vibes and I was not there for that. Legends of Magic sounded straight-up stupid. But then came Legends of Darlaria. It clicked. I was so happy with that and it stuck like glue.

1.3 Fleshing the Plot Out

1.3.1 Creating the Acts

January 12th, 8:38 AM, I copy-pasted my plot doc into a new doc specifically for chapter divisions. By 8:46 AM, I had created three acts. Act I is OC’s time spent in Solaria. Act II encompasses the entirety of OC’s stay in Darlae. Act III is the ending. I didn’t flesh out any of the chapters/parts. In fact, I spent the next several days splitting my story into parts. And by January 26th, I had all 65 parts basically fleshed out (plus the epilogue). It ended up being 57 pages, 33 more than my original 24.

January 16th, I first came up with the idea of having four acts instead of my original three. I felt like if I stayed with three acts, act II would be unnecessarily long. [Redacted discussions about acts III and IV].

1.3.2 Major Creations and Edits

From then on, I worked on my chapter divisions doc sporadically. I skipped the whole month of February. Then, I only worked on it twice around the end of March. I remember this was because I was losing a lot of motivation for Legends of Darlaria. I had completed a lot in a pretty short amount of time: creating a title, creating functioning characters, creating a 65-page plotline, etc. It was safe to say that I was (a) getting tired of it (b) realizing my ideas weren’t so great as I had originally thought they were. It also might have had a lot to do with college decisions and online school burnout. I remember I was just tired all the time—even though I was getting more than enough rest. Legends of Darlaria felt so… bland. Every arc I had, I felt like it had been done before, and there was nothing really special about my characters either. In fact, I started to worry that they were really, really starting to look like Mary Sues (especially the OC). 

But I got ahold of myself and began working again, picking up momentum. I entered the chapter division document (my main doc) on April 19th, ready to get back on track. I remember, I felt kind of lost, then. I wasn’t sure if I should add any more details to the plot or whether I should even take parts of the plot out. I felt like to change one little detail, I had to change a billion other things. So in the month of April, I remember obsessively reading over the document and editing every little piece of dialogue, sentence, plot point. I even built upon my characters. On April 19-22, I gave them zodiac signs, IQs and their place of birth. Zodiac signs were easy. For OC, her stubborn nature and willingness to stay grounded made her a Taurus, which is perfect considering that she has an April birthday (in order to have the diamond birthstone). I didn’t plan for that to happen, but it did happen to work out. Yoongi’s an obvious Aries; head on his shoulders, also stubborn and pretty tough (redacted information). I always imagined Jungkook as a Virgo (which he is in real life). On April 20th, I created the five sectors of Solaria—literally on a whim. Each element would get its own sector and there would be a heterogeneous capital sector. Coming up with the names for that was so fun. I basically looked up “names that mean [insert element]” and created my own variations from what I found on the internet. Needless to say, the names did not disappoint. (I’m usually shit at coming up with fantastical names, so this was an improvement on my part.) This was how I was able to figure out that Yoongi’s birthplace is Aithne; OC and Jungkook are both from Darlae, a huge kingdom with no separate cities/sectors [that obviously got changed later LOL]. Figuring out their IQs was a roller coaster ride [even though honestly it shouldn't even have been a huge deal since IQ doesn't define intelligence whatsoever]. In the beginning, I gave OC the highest IQ of 133. Jungkook had the lowest of 127 and Yoongi had a 131. But I thought about those numbers for a long, long time. (The funny thing is, IQ is not even remotely important to the story, so I have no idea why I was fretting so much about it.) But two days later on April 24th, I edited the IQs. Jungkook now had the highest of 131. Yoongi had the lowest of 127, and OC had 130. I remember realizing that I didn’t want the nations’ militant leaders to be too above average; that’s not how usually the military works. But I did want their IQs to be a little higher than average, too—because let’s face it—these characters do some smart shit in the story. But I ended up bumping Yoongi down the IQ ladder (for reasons that are purely intuitive; I can’t explain them with words). Jungkook went up (because I realized he’s one of my most intelligent characters), and OC is just right behind him.

1.3.3 Art & the Quest of Smut

No one asked for this, so I will be omitting this excerpt LOL.

1.3.4 An Obscene Number of Things to Fix

April 27th, I fleshed out the five sectors of Solaria, creating their relative sizes and different ecological biomes. (I literally remember researching the different biomes during my math class—it was a nice bio review!) I also realized I needed to take the initiative on my still ever-so-present dilemma that Legends of Darlaria felt bland. I was ruminating about the reason it could come off as bland for months. But I finally got somewhat of an answer. It was definitely because there was too much focus on the main characters; the side characters didn’t get the time of day! I also thought that the main characters’ flaws were not well-portrayed enough in the plot. So, I came up with a list called ‘THINGS TO FIX.’ It consisted of 10 bullet points: (1) yn’s not good with kids, (2) [HUGE FUCKING SPOILER], (3) [another spoiler LOL], (4) the ending drags on too much, (5) [semi-spoiler but omitting just in case], (6) sprinkle in stuff about sectors, (7) [more spoilers bruh], (8) add seokjin to the flashbacks, (9) add more female OCs, (10) figure out dates/times

(1) OC gets to meet children in chapter 5 where she voyages to the capital with her General. But I realized, it doesn’t make much sense for OC to be a kid-person. Even when she was young, she was mature for her age, and she had to grow up quickly due to the death of her mother [changed this to her parents' neglect instead]. She never got a chance to be a child. So it would make sense for her to be awkward around children. She doesn’t know how to treat those mini-adults!

(2) Nope

(3) Also nope

(4) Semi-spoiling the ending, so will take out just in case

(5) Also a semi-spoiler...

(6) I just created the different sectors, so I realized that now has to be integrated into the story.

(7) Oops also a spoiler

(8) Seokjin is a character we barely see in the whole story, which sucks because his character has so much potential. Even though I didn’t write it down anywhere, I always internalized that Seokjin is a misunderstood character. (Kind of like Jungkook.) He has a lot of potential and is a highly disciplined individual, but doesn’t quite understand how to interact with others. I think he’s a very “rigid” character. He likes to follow the rules. He likes to obey orders. I think a pivotal point in his character is when [REDACTED]. But since Seokjin is such an interesting character, I want to put him in the flashback scenes. He must have played some role!

(9) I knew for a while that Legends of Darlaria would not take in place of a patriarchy. Men and women are literally equal. So it was just sad to see more male characters than females. But that may have something to do with the fact that this is a BTS fanfiction and I kind of promised myself to include all seven men. So, of course, there is an imbalance. My concern, however, was coming up with female characters who could be seamlessly integrated into the plot.

(10) I realized while writing this longass series (which I had no idea would be in several months), I would also have to write descriptions of the setting. But the setting also includes the weather. How am I supposed to write about the setting if I don’t even know what season the chapter is taking place? This last bullet point perhaps stressed me out the most. (For some reason.)

1.3.5 Fixing and Creating New Characters

I worked on LOD basically for the rest of April—almost every day. I was really big on weaving the to-fix points into my plot. I remember I made 81 edits in one day trying to sprinkle in bits of the sector stuff. I also changed a lot of the dialogue and the choices the characters made for them to stay true to their character. At the beginning of May, I focused a lot on rounding out my main characters and fleshing out the world-building. I created a money system, which, I have no idea why I made (but whatever. I guess it made my world feel a little more real to me). I added three things to my to-fix list: (1) add more bits of confident yoongi, (2) add more yoongi character flaws (his willingness to surrender/give up), (3) add more yn character flaws (too trusting, overthinks, workaholic). I still felt like my main characters were Mary Sues (except Jungkook LOL). So I realized to make the audience sympathize with them and root for them, I had to make them seem more human by giving them notable flaws. 

I took a break for a couple of weeks and got back on track in the middle of May. On May 18th, the Lieutenant of the Solarian Army Kang Doyun was born. I didn’t really know much about her other than the fact that she speaks her mind and is a generally likable character. The same day I created her, I also decided that ultimately, she has to die. Originally, I planned it so that OC and Doyun do not know each other too well. That would make it easier for OC to take Doyun’s place as the Lieutenant when she dies. In hindsight, I realize that is definitely not how the military works—even in a fictional nation. But we’re going to let my past self be in blissful ignorance. [Which is why I changed it later so OC never becomes the Solarian Lieutenant General LOL.]

May 19th, Hana was born. She was created for the sole purpose of tripping up OC because she’s so similar to Hajin. Immediately, I knew I had to design her as a very likable character. In fact, I added to my to-fix list: make ALL characters more likable/complex. By the end of May, my original 24-page document became 71 pages. 

I worked on the document for three days in mid-June. Mostly, I was working hard to polish up the plotline; my goal was to slowly get rid of all the bullet points from my to-fix list. I worked on the document for one day in July—mainly to add to some important plot points. I think at that point, I thought I was basically done fleshing out the story.

Anyways, the rest of this journal is me doing a breakdown of each chapter I've written in LOD, which can get quite tedious, so I won't include that. Hopefully, this gives you a better background of how my idea came to be and knowledge of some of my pre-writing processes!

I began writing LOD after I settled into my college dorm, and three years later, I'm in my apartment still writing. I will most likely finish and wrap up this story when I soon after I graduate and begin working full-time

[not-poignant]

Hi, Pia! I am thinking of going the same route as you - free chapters on AO3, then Patreon - for my historical m/m romance projects. Could you share a little about your journey, and how did you manage to gain visibility within the originals section of AO3 (I know it's not easy)?

Hi hi!

We've talked a little over at Subscriptions for Authors I think! *waves* :D

Okay firstly, i don't know if any of this is going to be very helpful, because to tl;dr it - I didn't set out to be a professional author when I started this, and I wasn't even trying to be a professional when I started my Patreon (though I did approach it seriously, like I wanted to treat my readers well). I didn't believe I could be one, my impostor syndrome was so epic I literally started an entirely new AO3 account and kept it secret from my main account because I believed all the people being nice to me about my writing were somehow just lying to me because they felt sorry for me.

That's...

That's a whole lot of impostor syndrome insanity. But I've always been pretty honest about having mental illness so....

Re: my journey...

I started out in fanfiction. I started writing Rise of the Guardians fanfiction (a two part serial called From the Darkness We Rise & Into Shadows We Fall) and it went viral (I did not expect this) and I put in several original characters to flesh out the world, because I added a Seelie/Unseelie Court element that wasn't in the original movie or the books.

Two of those original characters had roles as semi-significant ensemble characters. One was a terrible villain who is defeated by the other, who is the Seelie King (also defeated by the main characters of the fic but *coughs* anyway).

I started getting people asking me what was going to happen to those two characters, especially once people found out they had a relationship history together prior to the events in the fanfic. I mostly put those people off - I fully intended to keep just writing fanfiction - until finally I decided to write some fic of those two characters. It was like...revenge hatefucking, lmao. I wrote three chapters of that, and then more, and then finally realised I couldn't give them the tragic ending I'd planned to, and that I'd have to actually figure out how the hell to save them from their own machinated doom.

And that became the first book in my original Fae Tales series - Game Theory.

It was my amazing readers who asked me to make this Tumblr, my amazing readers who asked me to write that original story, and they were the ones who asked me to make a Patreon (and then a Ko-Fi), and so in a way, they were the ones who let me know when I was ready to try making this work in a (slightly) more official capacity. They were the ones who believed in me enough to keep me doing this, and they still are. *waves to you all*

They were the ones who gave me visibility, I don't know that I did anything specific to make that happen, except writing the stories, turning up, and listening to them.

It's a very weird way of doing it and I don't know that anyone else has ever done it quite that way like this. I feel like a massive outlier in that sense. I don't relate to anyone who is starting out in professional subscription with no readers because I could never do that, my lack of confidence wouldn't let me. But there's aspects I think any author can replicate: I reply to all my commenters (except the trolls), because they're great and I want to support connection, community, and conversation. I embrace fandom and love all transformative works, and also, like 99% of my writing is free on AO3. (You don't have to make everything free, but it certainly doesn't hurt on AO3).

I mostly finish my serials and folks can trust my happy/hopeful endings and they can trust my hurt/comfort. And I'm pretty communicative! As you can tell by how much I'm rambling right now x.x I intentionally provide a safe space for queer people and neurodivergent people as much as possible, and write a lot of representation for us. I set out to make a space I would personally feel comfortable in. That might not work for everyone, but it works for those who stay.

From there though, I'd say a lot of visibility came from word of mouth, writing chapter by chapter over time (serials naturally pick up readers simply because they're often at or near the top of a tag or fandom category on AO3 - there is NO algorithm there), sometimes sorting by kudos, and me just posting about random stuff on Tumblr with good tags.

I still write fanfiction on another account (my impostor syndrome account) that has also had some people trying my original fiction. There's quite a few people who came directly from fanfiction to the original fiction because the themes were the same!

I didn't have the confidence to intentionally try and be a professional writer. When I started writing that fanfic I was writing it because I was depressed, sad, and I'd quit an unsatisfying job as a professional artist (I loved the art and my clients, I could never make the income part work). I didn't want to be a professional writer. I was writing as hooky, as escape from my real life, and as 'oh god I just need some hurt/comfort and I can't find what I want so I'll write it.'

To this day, I still write fanfiction as an escape, it's partly why it's now on a separate account to my original stuff (but even plenty of my original fic is indulgent and self-escapist in nature, which is maybe why other people find it escapist and cathartic as well).

In writing, financially, it makes more sense to publish books, or do serials-into-books, and develop a backlist of novels alongside the serials. I don't do that. I should, I plan on starting soon. I can point out a lot of the things that I either did wrong, or that I can see a way of doing better, because I didn't set out to be a professional writer, and I still put 'keeping it fun' and 'the readers' ahead of 'making money.' I'm not very mercenary and I make financially not great decisions in favour of 'but I enjoy it more this way.'

(That's partly because I am really very ill, and I can't afford to make myself sick through my work, and not enjoying it is the fastest way to do that).

What I do know is how to help create a community, though. And how to encourage and try and care for that community of people. How to respond to what they want and sometimes don't want, alongside what I want and don't want. How to have boundaries in that space. Well, I'm still figuring it out but I think I'm more comfortable with it than I used to be!

I also don't want to make it sound like I didn't know about writing before this. Long before doing serials for 10 years, I did creative writing and scriptwriting (among other things) at university. I wrote very technically correct short stories with sad little tragic endings that won awards and sometimes decent cash prizes. I hated it, and it put me off writing for years afterwards. I felt trapped in trying to write the 'correct' way. I am entirely unsurprised that to this day I reject standard formulas for novel lengths, and that in order to write, I kind of have to break a lot of the rules I was taught.

But I was taught how to write 'correctly' by Australian standards back in the early 00s (very spare, evocative prose). These days I follow a lot of scriptwriting / television drama beats in serials and have always really enjoyed doing it that way. :D

I'm meant to be talking about some of this in the Subscriptions for Authors podcast tomorrow and it's going to be a mess, as you can tell, lmao.

(There's something to be said about the lightning-in-a-bottle moment where I just wrote a fanfic I thought everyone would hate in a popular fandom and people were just ready for that story and it took off. I had no idea how to deal with it and it was very overwhelming and I had a bit of a breakdown a year and a half later over it. It's no coincidence that a year into the Patreon I paused it for 1.5 years and walked away because I couldn't handle it. But then I did some growing up and came back and figured it out.

But yeah I didn't do any of this the right way, or in a super intentional way. The only part I know I did well was supporting a community, and communicating with the people who turned up. And I did that for very selfish reasons - I wanted to be in a community, and I enjoyed meeting people who had things in common with me. I sometimes feel a little like a gremlin who just stumbled into a community and was like 'oh, um, I'm here, I guess.'

It's really everyone else who made it magical, but it did help that I think I am (in retrospect) pretty good at writing a hooky, addictive serial for the right kinds of readers. I cannot understate this enough -> learning how to write serials and exploring episodic television drama can be very helpful).

[mynameisnowwyrm]

Spoiler warning

TL;DR horrible adaptation, but very enjoyable on it’s own

(Also just wanted to say I was so sure I was going to hate this bc of what’s different but they changed so much the cartoon and the live action are barely connected in my head)

Okay my review will be split up into two parts: fate: the winx saga as an adaptation and as a standalone work

As an adaptation:

0/10. Maybe 0.5 if I’m being generous.

The things that were unchanged from winx club:

There are characters named Bloom, Stella, Musa, Aisha, Sky and Riven

Aisha, Bloom, Stella and Sky resemble their cartoon counterparts

Riven is an asshole

Bloom is a dumbass

Magic exists

The specialists exist

Main characters go to schools for magic and specialists respectively

The dragon flame is a thing

Witches exist

Other than that it’s a completely different show. The plot vaguely resembles season 1 of winx club only in that Bloom is trying to discover her true heritage. Musa, who is supposed to of East Asian descent is not, Flora was not included and in her place is a different character with similar powers, Tecna was excluded entirely ( I believe this was to distance the show from the futuristic elements of winx club and focus only on fantasy, which doesn’t make sense since they changed Musa’s powers ).

The magic system was changed. Fairies don’t on the regular transform since in the show the know-how to do so was lost, though Bloom does unlock the ability in the finale. Instead of each being a fairy of an individual concept, everyone’s powers ale element based, with Musa’s powers being changed to her being an empath. While this does feel more generic, it makes more sense from a world building perspective and I can see why they changed it.

The fashion is horrible. You will never be able to convince me teenagers dress like that. One of the reasons the original cartoon was enjoyable was all the colourful, fun clothing. The clothes feel dated and too mature for the characters, like I can see a twenty-something person in 2013 wear some of those outfits. It especially feels like a missed opportunity since 2000’s fashion is coming back into style.

The characterization of some of the characters compared to winx club was hit and miss. Riven was an ass and Bloom was impulsive and naive, which is accurate, but Stella, oh Stella was a disappointment. Stella was a jealous, manipulative bitch, which in context of her character backstory makes sense, but is so far from her original portrayal. Cartoon Stella was spoiled and at times self centered, but she was also genuinely kind, helpful and bubbly. To see her character take a 180 and become the all too familiar jealous ex archetype was upsetting.

Now, aaaaall that being said, I don’t believe we should judge this as an adaptation. They changed so much that it is quite literally a new story. So let’s see how it stands up on it’s own.

Summary, taken from the wiki

The series tells the story of Alfea, a fictional boarding school where teenagers study. The world inside this universe is not only magical and full of monsters, but it is also a world of real teenagers who do the most common things: make friends and enemies, go out and of course... fall in love. They are eager to find their place in this world. This universe is different from the one we have all known for a long time.

The attention is focused on a group of proud teens, also well-designed female characters. Sometimes they are heroines, sometimes weak girls. Sometimes they are friends, sometimes rivals. Of course, they are not perfect, but they are real. A group of girls who did not know each other until they are included in the same team inside a school that is strange to them. They will meet forces that are beyond their control and things they do not understand. But, throughout the series, they will find themselves, form an indestructible bond, and transform into powerful and strong girls, ready to change not only the supernatural world, but also ours.

Character summary:

Bloom is a newly discovered fairy from the human world who is attending Alfea college in the otherworld. There she meets her new roommates: chatty Terra, athletic Aisha, uptight Stella and stand-offish Musa. She also meets Sky, Stella’s ex, who is training as a specialist.Shortly before coming to Alfea, Bloom discovers she has magic powers by almost burning her house down and killing her parents. She is distraught over this and it is why she is eager to gain control of her powers.It is discovered that Bloom is a changeling, a barbaric practice where a fairy baby is exchanged with a human one. This leads Bloom on a quest to discover her true heritage.

Musa is an empath, she can feel the feelings of everyone around her. To shut them out and escape she listens to music through her headphones. This leads to her initially coming off as uncaring when Terra tries to get to know her better.

Terra is an earth fairy with a particular talent for making plants grow. She is very nice and chatty, eager to make friends, but not afraid to stand up for herself. She struggles with finding someone to like her and compares herself to “cool girl” Beatrix who has boys following after her.

Aisha is a water fairy who swims twice a day every day. She comes off a a good person who wants to make friends and do the right thing. She also tries to do everything in her power to protect her friends.

Stella is a light fairy and princess of Solaria, the realm in which Alfea resides. She is repeating her first year due to an event prior to season one where she lost control of her powers and blinded her best friend. She is very uptight due to her perfectionist mother and tries to exert control in every other area of her life, when this doesn’t work, e.g. when someone flirts with her on-again-off-again boyfriend she gets jealous and causes trouble. She is also generally rude to the people around her.

Sky is a specialist legacy and Stella’s on-again-off-again boyfriend who has an interest in Bloom. His father was a famous specialist and he was raised by his father’s best friend.

Riven is Sky’s roommate, best friend and a genuine asshole. He insults and antagonizes everyone around him and gets involved with Beatrix. He seems dissatisfied with the life of a specialist.

Beatrix is an air fairy with a lightning powers. She seems mysterious and looks to be the villain of the season. She has enlisted the help of Riven and Dane.

Dane is a first year specialist who first seems to be friendly with Terra but gets sidetracked after spending time with Riven and Beatrix.

What I didn’t like:

The world building is sparse and the magic system is generic. I feel like things could have been better expanded upon. Throughout the show they bring up archaic fairy magic but it’s never really explained how that’s different from current fairy magic.

The interactions between Riven and Dane come off as a bit queerbait-y although they could be setting things up for a second season.

Everyone is constantly so rude towards Terra. Even her supposed friends are mean to her. What gives?

Stella was constantly rude to everyone but by the end they are all the best of friends when she really hasn’t changed much. Also Stella being the jealous controlling ex archetype and not enough people calling her out on her bullshit.

What I did like:

For a Netflix teen drama there is surprisingly little sex between the teenagers. This might be subjective but it was refreshing for me.

Again subjective but I could definitely relate to Bloom’s antisocial teen flashbacks

Beatrix was a fun villain

Though the story might be a little generic, I felt it was compelling throughout. I genuinely wanted to know what happened next.

The story was well paced. It never felt like anything was dragging along

Overall:

The show was definitely enjoyable to watch. There is a lot of room for improvement. It sometimes felt like different plot lines were unconnected and the costume choices leave a lot to be desired. Aside from that they set up a solid story and likable characters (some of whom I love love and love to hate) which I very much want to see further developed in the future. As a stand-alone work 6/10

[etheriadearie]

“Promise”

Why can't you just… Promise ?

Today's goal is an in-depth look at one of the most beautiful and breathtaking episodes of She-ra: "Promise"

Storywise, it's incredibly important to the series, and focuses entirely on Catradora. It's the first time since Adora left Catra behind to seek out the sword that the girls really have an opportunity to talk, and things are not going well. Both of them are royally pissed off at the other, with good reason.

For Adora, we're gonna deflate that proud hair poof of hers a bit, as we'll take an honest look at her as a person at this point in her life. And Catra... she's really guarding her feelings closely, as she's already deeply angry with Adora. But we will use the combination of Catra's younger self in the memories they see, plus looking at other times in the series that relate to this episode, where she was less guarded, in order to understand her as a person at this time. Also: warning: tl;dr, best enjoyed while cozy with a drink..

To get started, we skip to when they end up stuck together…

After Adora takes drastic measures to ward off the security spiders by collapsing the tunnel, the girls are now stuck together, and so… they talk...

We immediately see how incredibly irritated they are with each other as Adora chides Catra for being in the Crystal Castle, since the monsters will continue to attack them as long as she's protecting Catra… only to have Catra retort that she didn't ask for protection. Some snippy bickering back and forth happens, then...

Adora asks: "Does Shadow Weaver know you're here?" Very deadpan assertion from Adora. She knows Catra must be disobeying orders, she just doesn't know why.

"I'd say Shadow Weaver has bigger problems right now". Catra is already starting her move against SW back at the Horde. With SW abusively blocking her every move within the Horde, and now that Catra knows that SW was going to mind wipe Adora, Catra has decided she must deal with her abuser.

Adora puts on her telltale sideways grin, and Catra chafes at Adora's flirtation, saying "I told you it's not because I like you” downplaying Adora’s suggestion that this was the reason she let her go. Catra freely admits here that she does like Adora, but it's not the real reason she did it. Still, Catra doesn't explain further, and we see later that Catra often lets Adora explain away her actions this way... but that Adora constantly misses the deeper truths.

"Where are your new best friends? I thought you did everything together". She's very snarky and dismissive of Adora and her flirting. She's mad about Adora leaving her for her new life.

"The ones you let SW imprison and curse?" Adora is angry at Catra for what she did, which was a sudden escalation of things by Catra.

"Yeah obviously, what other friends would I be talking about?" An obvious dig at Adora for leaving her, everything behind. She deadpans this, staring back plainly. Catra is obviously really angry at Adora... while Adora is legitimately mad at Catra for doing something so nasty to Bow and Glimmer...

::Let's take a moment to talk about Catra's feelings about Adora's new friends: Catra feels horribly betrayed by this. Adora completely tossed her aside, and replaced her with Bow and Glimmer. What comes to mind is at the end of Sea Gate, Catra is thrown in the water and then looks up at Adora, who is celebrating and cuddling with Bow and Glimmer. Catra is emotionally forlorn watching this, as Scorpia comes to drag her off to safety, Adora doesn't even look back towards her.

She's forgotten, Adora showed no love towards her at all in that scene (and then hardly any at Princess Prom, either). Adora ignored her plea for her to return, she didn't reach out to Catra at all. And now she watches her cuddle with her new friends: everything Catra thought she had with Adora meant nothing, and she's been replaced with these feel goodie goods who are fawning all over Adora.

Suffice to say, Catra couldn't do this, she's got way too many issues with emotional intimacy and touch aversion. So she watches Adora, seeing that what she offered her wasn't good enough, knowing because of it she's forgotten. Catra was trying really hard to be a close friend to Adora in spite of her issues, but as we will see, Adora wasn't trying to understand what was going on with Catra. And because of this, Catra was too afraid to express her affection openly, and yet here's Adora... accepting all of Bow and Glimmer’s love, for which Adora really did nothing to earn. Adora took Catra’s friendship for granted while ignoring her deeper needs, as will be explained, then completely abandons her, not even seeming to miss her. Catra is deeply hurt by the unfairness of this.

>Catra stares back at Adora, frustrated when she doesn't even acknowledge their lost friendship.

"Well, we don't need to go together. You do your weird little magic quest thing I'll find my own way out". Catra looks resentfully at the sword on Adora's back as she says this. Catra is laying down boundaries, except it's useless since they are trapped together. But, boundaries are important to Catra and as the episode progresses, Adora shows that she doesn't really understand Catra's.

>As they walk along, both girls' shadows loom equally tall. The symbolism is that in this story, both are equally important... it's also a shockingly beautiful sequence. (pic above)

After entering the room of infinite darkness, Catra tries to separate from Adora but the door is gone, they are stuck together. Weird things start happening. As the Fright Zone appears, both of them are confused. Adora decides to suspect Catra, after all, she attacked her friends. But as Adora grabs Catra, Catra is surprised and confused... Catra doesn't like being touched unexpectedly, Adora knows this but is ignoring that and attacking her. She gets treated as an enemy when she clearly hasn't done anything wrong, and it sets the tone for the two of them: Adora has constantly treated Catra as an enemy since the very moment she defected, not even trying to understand Catra's point of view. And so Catra increasingly emotionally distances herself from Adora. Catra angrily casts Adora's arm aside, not liking being vilified by her, and Adora doesn't understand why Catra is so upset. Catra slips away to explore, needing space from her.

The way Adora immediately suspects and then attacks Catra is symbolic to the whole episode: by defecting to the Rebellion, Adora chose to start treating Catra, and her entire unit, as enemies, backing it up with hostility. But Catra doesn't really agree that the horde is evil... in her experience, it's just how life is.

>The two girls, now separated, call out to each other. Adora hears Catra's call, then another: young Catra is behind her, looking lost and insecure. Catra joins Adora as their first memory has just begun…

~DISCLAIMER TIME~ A lot of information in She-ra is inferred by emotional context, so if this seems a bit head-canon-y, I assure you, I have data! Please ask questions and seek clarifications, I promise to answer back! ~EtheriaDearie

>A worried and hurt young Catra runs to young Adora's side. She is emotional and needs support. Adora checks her out then gets the real deal: Catra was in a fight with an adult. It hints that Catra always had to deal with people messing with her, even before SW began her abuse. This is a guess, but it's probable: this is likely a happy memory of the two of them right before the hurting began. Along with the "promise" memory and the moments immediately preceding their entering the Black Garnet chamber, these scenes set the baseline for what their friendship was like before Catra suffered SW’s abuse. Also, this memory is a happy one, and how Adora remembers their friendship: it was likely triggered by her memories. The next ones are not, as I believe they are triggered by Catra, who is trying to explain to Adora what was so painful about their childhood...

>Catra doesn't know what to expect when she shows Octavia to Adora. She probably expects Adora to try to apologize on her behalf, or to give her a hard time about what she did. Instead, Adora sticks with her friend and yells “Hey Octavia, you're a dumbface." This brings young Catra much joy, Adora is sticking with her, not passing judgement. The two young girls run together hand in hand, experiencing childhood bliss, but it doesn't last. The present versions of themselves return, holding hands...

They share a brief moment of connection before Catra pulls her hand away in anger. Adora is surprised at the strength of Catra’s reaction. They are not on intimate terms any more, in fact, I suspect they had been struggling for a while before Adora's defection. Adora doesn't want the moment to stop, but Catra does. It hints that the gulf between them is already wide.

"How can you deal with all this magic stuff?" Catra has a deep distrust of magic, as it was used in her abuse. She resents it, and throughout the series whenever anything magic happens that she doesn't see coming she gets creeped out.

"I'm only dealing with it because I need to figure out how to heal Glimmer after someone got her cursed." It's a valid criticism, but Catra deflects it.

"What do you want? An apology? You're not getting one." We don't get the full story on this moment until season 5 when a young Catra tells Adora she'll "never say sorry to anybody, ever." Adora doesn't like Catra just refusing to explain, and as Catra pushes her away, Catra is full of reproach at Adora's judgement.

::As an abused child, Catra was continuously vilified and abused by everyone but Adora. And when Adora would suggest she apologize throughout their lives, she can't understand why Catra won't. It comes down to literally everyone in the world judging Catra and being cruel. Not once did any of them apologize to her, even though she didn't do anything to deserve the abuse. Except Adora... but that has issues, too. In fact, SW literally tells her "I won't apologize" regarding her abuse of Catra. Can you imagine the hurt at that?

[pic caption: Catra refuses to apologize, Catra often shows her deeper emotions while blinking, in this case: the incredible pain she experienced from SW’s abuse.]

So no, Catra won't apologize, she had a thing she was trying to do by kidnapping Bow and Glimmer and taking her sword, and it ended badly. But she felt she had a good reason to do it: she wanted to force Adora to see her, to make her acknowledge how big of a part of Adora’s life Catra used to be. And it's not like anyone has been helping Catra, she's had to make every single decision on her own her entire life and live with the consequences.

Also, mistakes for Catra have an entirely different meaning than they do for Adora. Whenever Adora made a mistake, she was given an opportunity to fix it. This is a theme of their relationship: Adora expects Catra to let her fix her mistakes. But for Catra, she learned that any mistake she made was dangerous, as when she did make a mistake, SW would torture her for it. And if other people saw it too, they'd use it to perpetuate the notion that she's some kind of no good fuck up. So Catra is extremely careful to not make mistakes, and if she does, she tries to cover it up, distance herself from it. (note: this isn't the same as Catra's intentional rebellions against this system where she was unfairly targeted for abuse-). This is why Catra simply cannot forgive Adora easily for breaking her promise: in Catra's world, she had to be perfect, or she could have been dead by SW's hand. She wasn't allowed to make mistakes like Adora is, she is what is clinically known as 'hyper vigilant' and always preparing for the worst. And so she applies this standard to be perfect all the time to Adora, and therefore she won't give Adora the same license to make mistakes with their friendship. Catra thinks Adora should know better, and see the consequences of her actions.

>Adora lets it go: when Catra seems to shut down, Adora does her best to try to accept her. Adora tries a different track. She asks Catra why she let her and Glimmer go when SW had them imprisoned, when it could have resulted in Catra getting in trouble. Catra walks ahead, trying to distance herself from having to answer. But the magic of the Crystal Castle intervenes: as Adora slips and begins to fall, Catra saves her. It's a symbolic moment: Catra has always tried to protect Adora, to save her from pain. It's why she changed course to give the sword back to her, partly.

"Did you really think I'd just let SW erase your memory like that?"

"I don't know. Probably." Adora shows such little understanding of their friendship. It shows Adora really is thinking of Catra as an enemy, not as the complicated person stuck between protecting her friend, and the cruel necessities of her life.

Catra looks at Adora with disappointment. "Yeah, well, you never did have too much faith in me." Adora tries to understand Catra's emotions, fails.

"Huh, can you blame me?" Ouch. Adora smiles at Catra, trying to show love for her roguish quirks. But it just shows how little Adora understands: she is repeating a negative stereotype of Catra that everyone in their old life believes and perpetuates. And Adora should know better, instead of just assuming the worst about her. That persona is one which Catra uses to protect herself, partly from her own emotional feelings, but also as a necessity to protect herself from SW. She had to act like she doesn't care, doesn't try, so SW wouldn't see her power.

"Psh, not really." As Catra turns away, again she deadpans this but you can see pain and disappointment leaking past her indifference.

As she walks away she trails her tail across Adora's hand, flirting and drawing Adora's attention to her butt. It's a cute little moment of telling a truth to counter the lie: 'Adora, you should know me better, and also, I like you.' Still, it's only a half truth: Catra couldn't let SW win because SW is Catra's true enemy. But, Adora takes the flirtatious hint, as always. She accepts it and doesn't dig deeper.

Catra asks Adora about their childhood, trying to understand how Adora could just throw it all away. Adora gives a very direct and impassioned speech, she looks Catra in the eyes, trying to convince her and make her understand why leaving was the right thing to do. Catra hides her emotions, weighing Adora's answer. She doesn't agree with her sentiment, in Catra's experience good and evil are relative and exist as such everywhere. Also, she's right: we meet many people in the Horde who aren't evil. And Adora's finding the sword is one giant sinister manipulation by Light Hope. Moral grayness is a constant theme in this show. Still, this isn't really why Catra chooses to stay with the Horde.

Adora sees her explanation failing to convince Catra, so she tries reminding Catra of their deeper friendship, telling her she misses her too. Catra is temporarily taken aback at being called out before remembering to deny it. She tells Adora to get over herself, and Adora tells her she won't stop until Catra says she likes her. They flirtatiously rough house, and Catra smiles during it: yeah, she does. But she denies it anyways.

::Adora often tries to be respectful of Catra's personal space but is making an exception here: she's telling her that she finds her desirable, and if Catra wanted it, they could be together. Adora can't understand why Catra feels the need to resist this, but she knows doing it helps her friend feel wanted. Still, this shows how casually Adora views their attraction.

Yes, they should be together. And actually, they had an unspoken agreement that they would be. But Catra's not going to open herself up to that just to serve her desire. She wants more from Adora, for Adora to show her that she really does see her, and cares about her. If she did, maybe Catra could open up about some of her pain. Being intimate without doing that would be impossible, and so far Catra's life still isn't safe enough to risk her feelings. Adora's promotion could have meant the beginning of something new between them, where they worked together to build a more secure future together where Catra didn't have to be fearful all the time. But instead, Adora left her.

So begins the second memory. The two girls, now teenagers, compete against each other in sparring. It's clear they are flirting, and neither is fighting all out. When Catra taunts Adora by putting her finger to her forehead, she shows how much better she is at fighting. She full heartedly laughs, Adora enjoys this and then throws a purposefully weak strike to restart the fight. When Adora seemingly turns the tables through brute force, Catra plays hurt to exploit Adora's naiveness. As Adora tries to show concern, Catra turns the tables back. She wants to teach Adora a lesson: that not everyone will play fair, as Catra knows all too well from SW's abuse. But Lonnie interrupts her. Catra doesn't appreciate this and makes quick work of Lonnie, showing just how good she is. Adora attacks, getting the predetermined win. Catra doesn't enjoy the beat down but accepts Adora's help up. She heads to Lonnie as Adora receives compliments from their commander.

As Catra confronts Lonnie, she tells Catra "you were playing dirty, I was just leveling the field". Catra will hear these words again when she leaves Adora behind in frustration near the end of the episode. They are significant: these are stereotypical views forced on Catra, and those views ignore that Catra was just doing something she felt was important: teaching Adora about the harsh realities that exist in the world. Real enemies don't play by the rules, and will be unpredictable.

As Catra’s anger rises at this, Adora puts her hand on Catra's shoulder to calm her down, then compliments Catra on her fighting skills. Catra ever so casually tosses the comforting hand aside. She's saying 'I can handle my emotions without your help, but thanks for asking.' As she tells Adora she let her win, Adora tries to tell if Catra really is ok.

Thus starts one of cutest exchanges between the two of them: as Catra tries to explain why she lets Adora win, Adora puts on her sideways 'you like me' grin while she playfully denies that Catra let her win. Catra gives a very animated and obviously made up explanation about not wanting to have people expect things from her. Adora grins along, and halfway through her lie Catra leans in, staring at Adora's lips before looking up into her eyes. Once again, Catra is undoing a lie by telling a truth: she let her win because she likes (loves) her. But it's only a half truth, once again...

Adora accepts the explanation, keeping her sideways grin: 'it's so cute how you like me'. Catra's explanation done, Adora moves on, wanting to catch up with their unit. Catra lets her do so while excusing herself. As Adora leaves, a huge amount of meaningful information passes across Catra's face…

First, Catra feels bad about having to lie to Adora, and it shows. Then, as Adora leaves to socialize, disappointment and rejection shows: Catra had hoped Adora might look deeper, and try to see the deeper truth. As Adora turns away and leaves we see a look of total love and adoration on Catra's face. She really, really loves Adora. She's the light of her life, a real idiot no doubt but Catra will always love her for exactly who she is.

The girls remain their younger selves as the rest of the memory plays out, Adora staying to accept praise while Catra separates to deal with her internal feelings which Adora always fails to see: the hurt and aloneness she feels.

>A frustrated young Catra cries, expressing her repressed emotions. It would be easiest to assume she cries because she's sad about losing, but we have to look ahead to the next memory to find the real truth.

Catra is sad because she never had a choice. SW took that choice from her, and while Catra is happy to let Adora win because of the love she feels for her, it hurts that she never really got to decide. And Adora doesn't see that, doesn't see the pain Catra is bearing, hiding. And so she cries for that, too. The one person who should love her doesn't really see her. As she looks up in the mirror to see herself, since no one else in her life seems to see her pain, she sees her present tearful self looking back. The pain of the past is real in the present, and while she's older now and won't let herself give in to tears, she feels the pain as she did back then. (pic 1, below) She sees the tears and it snaps her back to her present self, totally unnerved by the simulation as the security detects her and attacks. A fearful Catra screams, wanting help, wanting Adora.

>Adora snaps back to herself, having been participating in the replay of the memory post Catra excusing herself. She tries to run to help Catra, full of worry. She sees a terrified Catra trapped by the spider. As the spider begins to drag her away the two girls lock arms, trying to free Catra. But it's too strong, and as we see their grip start to slip, Catra looks to Adora wanting, pleading for help. As Catra is pulled away, Adora feels helpless, knowing she couldn't help her friend. She thumps her head in frustration that she wasn't there for Catra.

The scene speaks to an obvious truth: Adora has never quite been there enough for Catra. She's always less present, less aware of Catra's reality than she could have been. But since Catra was experiencing a painful memory when this happened, her reaction shows her vulnerable emotional state, and so she called out for help: Catra just wants to feel safe, for Adora to be there to help her. But she wasn't.

>As Catra is dragged away, she feels helpless, and calls out mournfully for Adora. But she's long gone; Catra is alone and scared, as usual. She screams out her frustration, the realization that she’s never gotten the help she needed, she always ends up alone. She cries tears for the suffering and anguish she feels from that. (pic 2, below) It’s a moment that shows us the real inner Catra: She feels deeply, whether it be her desire to be seen, loved by Adora, or the fear she feels in this moment and others. She tries her best to act confident in herself, but it's a lie: she needs support, yet is left behind by everyone, including Adora. She was willing to bear her pain for Adora's love, but she has become increasingly aware of how tenuous that really was growing up.

>Catra digs deep, like she's always done. She will handle this, won't take the abuse lying down. She shifts her mentality to being the survivor, the person who has survived years of abuse. She frees herself and gets to her feet, accessing her foe, determined to defeat it. She attacks, using her anger to deal damaging blows, seeking to destroy her enemy, to make sure she survives. She stands back, confident she's won, proud of herself for it. She doesn't quit, she always perseveres against those who want to destroy her. (pic 3)

Adora shows up, finishing the monster. Catra doesn't drop her mentality, this person who has lived a separate life from Adora and survived on her own, doing the hard things like winning fights and resisting Shadow Weaver's abuse.

Adora walks forward, seeing Catra's anger, determination. She looks blankly, trying not to upset Catra. She's trying to get a read on Catra but not having any luck, so she's being cautious. She asks if Catra is ok, casually pulling webbing off Catra's shoulder, trying to exist in her physical space without upsetting Catra further. "I had it" says Catra, not dropping her fighter stance, mentality at all. Catra is very much feeling the aloneness of her life from everyone, including Adora.

Adora tries to casually put aside Catra's assertion that she had it, she smiles diplomatically. She tries again to touch Catra, to break down her animosity and get her to calm down. It doesn't work. "We need to make sure we stick together from now on." As Adora touches Catra, she tenses, uncomfortable. Catra has strong touch aversion, and Adora knows this but she also knows doing it sometimes helps Catra shift her mentality, so she's trying to get Catra to connect emotionally, to get her to accept care.

"Will you stop telling me what to do?" An exasperated Catra says. We see a look of total dismay cross Adora's face. She's not understanding why Catra has so much animosity in this moment. (pic below)

As Adora looks at Catra, she hunches her body, looking misunderstood and isolated. Adora has consistently failed to see Catra's emotional states and so Catra is feeling more and more apart; that the mentality of the survivor she's feeling now is the right one. Adora didn't really help her at all growing up, and she doesn't see her for who she really is, either. Adora always took the easy explanation, like saying that Catra did things for her because she liked her. Never looking deeper, trying to see her struggle. And so Catra doesn't drop her combative pose, she stays in it because she feels in control, less vulnerable.

As for the words "stop telling me what to do", that's an essay in itself but consider: just now Adora became frustrated when she lost Catra, and now tells her they need to stay together. But they didn't, they never did, and even when they are together Adora is no real help to Catra. So she reacts in anger to Adora trying to direct her. After all, in the next scene we will see that Adora leads Catra into danger, and then doesn't really help her as she gets abused. Adora is no great leader, not according to Catra's experience.

::Adora is having a total loss, here, as she tries to understand Catra, why she's angry at her: It's because she has never really known this 'survivor' side of Catra. Adora wants to comfort her and calm her down, but Catra isn't having it. I think this is when we first see Adora begin to realize that there is something is very wrong with her friend that she has completely failed to see, and she's deeply worried by it. (pic 2)

[pic cation: Adora can't read Catra's emotions, Adora realizes Catra is deeply angry. Outside SW’s chamber, Adora wants to take Catra’s hand.]

Adora loves Catra, but can't seem to get through to her: Catra is holding herself apart from Adora. Again, Catra pushes Adora's hand aside, frustrated. She expresses her exasperation at the situation, saying she's sick of what's going on. Adora follows along, confused. As Catra seemingly purposefully leaves her behind, Adora demands to know what Catra's problem is, saying that she was trying to save her. Catra looks down at her confrontationally, frustrated with Adora's lack of vision. "For the last time, I don't need you to save me. I've been doing just fine on my own. No thanks to you." Uh oh.

The words "no thanks to you" are especially cutting. Adora has totally failed to see the struggles Catra had all her life, she didn't understand the hurt and abuse Catra was fighting against. And so Catra did it all on her own, protecting herself and trying to remain strong. Her love of Adora might have helped her have hope, but fundamentally Catra overcame the abuse by not giving up on herself, believing she had worth, and not letting others tear her down.

Adora runs to Catra's side, taking her arm in one hand. Feeling her friend becoming increasingly distant from her, Adora tries authentically telling Catra her feelings, hoping to make her friend see her desire to help and understand her. Adora explains that she's sorry for leaving and that she did it because she couldn't stand the war the Horde has pursued. Her next words are telling: "but I never wanted to leave you". 'Want' is an important word in this series, and it comes up again in season 5 when Catra asks Adora "what do you want, Adora?”. By choosing to leave the Horde, Catra feels that Adora wanted that more than she wanted what they had together. Also, promises are not something you're supposed to break over a 'want'. And Adora so casually breaking their promises makes Catra think she doesn't matter to Adora. It's not the truth, but this belief still determines her reaction in this moment. Even though Adora dearly loves Catra, including at this point in the story, she hasn't shown it in a way that Catra can see as meaningful. As Adora finishes saying this, Catra looks back, feeling alone and unwanted, seemingly thinking 'but you did leave me, Adora.'

Adora tries to appeal to Catra to join the rebellion with her. Then she says "I know you're not a bad person, Catra. You don't belong with the Horde." Catra must be thinking 'Ok so at what point did you become the authority on whether someone is good or bad, Adora?' Adora has shown no interest in understanding Catra's position, she treated her as an enemy without fail since she left her, literally in every single case including at Princess Prom when Catra was trying so hard to romance her. And Catra doesn't accept Adora's naive black and white view of the world. Think about it: when Adora defects she begins treating all Horde with hostility, including her dearest friend, she judges them all and doesn’t even try to see them as the complicated people that they are. So when she suggests Catra doesn't belong with the Horde, Catra looks back at her, feeling totally isolated from Adora. Even though Adora's plea is earnest, Catra declines it.

>As the next memory begins, we see Adora now has both hands on Catra's arm, she's desperately trying to hold on to her bond with Catra and show her desire to fix things between them. Catra doesn't drop her wary demeanor at all, and Adora looks lost and anxious over this as a young Catra runs by.

The memory starts out full of childhood innocence as the two of them play together. When the girls see that the Black Garnet chamber is open, young Adora remarks "we're definitely not allowed in there." Young Catra looks at Adora, seemingly asking if she wants to go in, trusting her. Young Adora runs off, and Catra follows her in. Yes, Catra participates in the decision, but she's not the one who runs towards the chamber, and that's important to what happens next.

A worried (adult) Adora looks to her friend who seems so distant, stoic. Anxiously, Adora tells Catra "You don't have to go in there." Adora knows what happens next is very bad, that this is a hurtful memory for Catra. As an unwavering Catra begins to walk towards the chamber, Adora looks down at Catra's hand. [pic above] She wants desperately to reach out and take it, to hold Catra back from this terrible moment, to tell her she's sorry for messing up. Adora knows now that she screwed up, that she's let Catra down, somehow more than she ever realized. She doesn't know what to do about it… she follows Catra inside.

The young girls explore, Catra touches the black garnet and gets shocked. Adora has second thoughts, she realizes they're trespassing.. but of course, SW returns, so they try to hide. As SW takes off the mask, Adora cries out, taken aback... young Catra looks at her in dismay. She's about to pay for Adora's mistake with a lifetime of suffering. Offended, SW tells them to "Get out!" but rethinks. She puts the mask back on, and decides to use this moment to instead abuse the girls and use the crime of their trespass against them. As SW tells Catra to stay, Adora turns around, seeing that Catra is caught, and she's scared for her friend. She really did make a poor decision, and as a highly empathetic person, what happens to Catra scars Adora, too.

Held powerless by magic, Catra tries to explain that they were just playing. SW's words to her set the stage for a lifetime of physical and psychological abuse: SW leans over her menacingly, telling her "Insolent child, I've come to expect such disgraceful behavior from you, but I will not allow you to drag Adora down as well." Again, it's not Catra who decided to go in, so it's really not her fault. SW disparages her and heaps blame upon her for Adora's bad choice, ignoring the truth.

Adora weakly tries to protect Catra, saying "SW, it wasn't her fault. It was my idea too." It's an understandable response, as they're just little kids. Still, Adora could have taken the blame for their trespass, since she led Catra inside. But it's about to get a lot more hurtful for Catra...

SW's voice echoes through Catra's head as she trembles in terror: "You have never been anything more than a nuisance to me. I've kept you around this long because Adora was fond of you but if you ever do anything to jeopardize her future, I will dispose of you myself. Do you understand ?" Catra trembles in fear, her eyes unfocused, the room empty but for SW menacing her. She's in a dissociative state, terrified and helpless. I think some people probably feel like this must have been a idle threat, but it isn't: SW abuses Catra many times after this for her mistakes. And the depiction of the dissociative state helps us understand just how damaging it was. While Adora seemingly goes on to not realize the importance of this memory, for Catra it is formative to her entire life.

Again, Adora tries weakly to stop what's happening, putting herself between them. She tells SW "please, stop" then looks over at Catra, full of concern. Running over to SW, she tells her "she didn't mean to". This is so hurtful, as young Catra is very smart. Catra knows Adora has blown it again, after all, what is it that she "didn't mean to" do when it was Adora's idea to trespass? Adora isn't getting the magnitude of the situation, and Catra is very much left to fend for herself.

SW then does a very insidious thing to Adora, a very directed abuse that's meant to work against her personality and empathetic reactions to others pain. She tells her "Adora, you must do a better job of keeping her under control. Do not let something like this happen again..." SW follows this up with years of manipulation to make Adora even more susceptible to abuse. But in this moment, SW again heaps the blame for Adora's mistake onto Catra, who did nothing wrong. For Catra, she comes to believe that what she did doesn't even matter, nobody cares what the truth was. Even Adora. But for Adora, the hurt goes deep as well. She made a bad decision, her friend gets hurt for it, and she never comes clean... instead, she's told she has to do a better job of controlling her friend, and that she has to be perfect so that it doesn't happen again. It's a deep and hurtful moment for Adora, just like it is for Catra. But the hurt is much less direct, and more sneaky. Nonetheless, Adora struggles with this moment, this abuse of her, in the most intimate and painful ways all throughout the series.

Young Catra watches on as SW completes her manipulation of Adora. For Catra, she's left with the feeling that nothing she does matters, she was blamed for something she didn't even do. And Adora seemingly took the easy out, spreading the blame. But she doesn't realize this moment is so insidious for Adora, that it attacks and manipulates her at her emotional need to help others. From this moment on, Adora is afflicted with a desperate fear that she can't protect others, and must lead perfectly so they don't get hurt. This internal conflict erodes Adora's self worth, and causes her great emotional pain throughout the series. Catra, instead, believes she is being told she has no worth, and isn't even allowed to make her own decisions. It's hurtful, and it's part of why she tensed so badly at Adora for trying to tell her what to do earlier. We see this realization cross young Catra's face: she feels forgotten in this moment.

We see the young girls walking away from SW's chamber, Adora with her hand around Catra's shoulder. This comfort is not enough... Catra really needed Adora to stand up for her there, to come clean, and she didn't. Trying to comfort her now seems hollow. As they flash to their present selves, Catra knocks Adora's arm aside in frustration, accusing her of needing to play the hero.

Adora responds, saying she was only trying to protect her. Catra's next words tell the real truth of their childhood: "You never protected me! Not in any way that would put you on SW's bad side!" Adora at first chafes at this statement, feeling like she did try to protect her, then crosses over to confusion at the strength of Catra's assertion. Catra is telling Adora she was blind to her pain. She wasn't there for her, and this is very much at the core of Catra's disappointment with Adora: the fact that she never stayed, never tried to understand. Adora let SW control her, make her ambitious, and so Catra was put to the side of that, and over time Adora grew apart from her. Catra’s exact words here are important: she says that Adora ‘plays’ at being the hero, yet always seemingly protected her status as the favorite, never standing up to SW and risking harm onto herself in order to save Catra from pain.

And so, the fact that out of seemingly out of nowhere, Adora decides to risk everything and defect in order to fight for people she doesn't even know, insults Catra. Adora abandons and consequently fights against her own people, leaving Catra behind, unilaterally treating her as an enemy. Never, in their whole lives, did Adora ever fight for Catra, only offering affection afterwards to make up for the cruelties that happened to Catra. So no, Catra doesn't want Adora to save her, or her sympathy, when she seemingly cared so little about her pain. Adora was no hero to her.

Now an obvious question might be: if the manipulation is that Adora is supposed to protect and control Catra, then shouldn't she have had to see SW abuse Catra for it to work? The first part of the answer is that it was never really about that, once the idea was put in Adora’s head, SW used it to manipulate her further into a mentality where Adora would accept praise, promotion on her path to becoming a force captain.

The other is that when someone is being hurt like Catra was in that moment... if the one person in the world who is supposed to get it doesn't get it... then it becomes very hard to ever bring it up to them again. It's a specific type of hurt and abandonment: for Catra, she goes on to believe that this is her burden, that somehow she alone is supposed to learn these hard lessons. And so she doesn't tell Adora about the abuse. Also, keep in mind that they are small children, and Catra doesn't want Adora to hurt like she does... so she's actually protecting her, in her mind. But the fact that time goes by and Adora never seemed to care, to stop and see Catra's pain, was very hurtful to her. And Catra’s feelings of betrayal at Adora’s not seeing the hurt are justified: in episode 1, we see Adora watch SW menace Catra, then happily run off to accept her promotion, only remembering to check on Catra as an afterthought. Catra needed Adora's support, and never really got it.

[pic caption: (left to right) Adora’s apparent willful ignorance of the abuse.]

So Catra believes she learns these hard lessons so Adora won't have to, but is left alone in her pain. This also means that SW specifically abused Catra at times and in places so Adora wouldn't be aware, which again, tells us it was never really about making Adora responsible for Catra's decisions. No, the reasons were much darker, and Catra bore it all alone.

The girls flash to their younger selves, and Catra accuses Adora: "Admit it, you love being her favorite." Catra is telling Adora that she was disappointed and hurt that Adora kept accepting praise and privilege from SW, after that moment when she so clearly should have seen how SW abused her, and the maliciousness of the death threat. In Catra’s mind, Adora could have rejected SW. As painful as it is for a small child to be without any parents, it would have been the right thing to do, for Catra. SW was no good to Catra, and they could have shared the pain of being orphans who only had each other, but instead Catra ended up bearing all of the abuse while Adora was given privilege.

Adora denies this assertion, and yet she did accept the privilege SW offered her. Catra's next words show how ignorant Adora was to the realities of their lives as they flash back to their present selves: "Oh yeah? When you left, who do you think took the fall for you? Who was protecting me then ?" Catra bore all the abuse and punishment for Adora's leaving, and Adora wasn't there to see it. Catra did this bravely for Adora, in fact, up until before Princesse Prom, Catra did everything she could to cover for Adora, just like she asked, protecting her, hoping she'd come back to her. But Adora shows no understanding at all for what Catra went through, she didn't even think about what must have been happening to her. Adora has never taken the time to think about how her actions affect Catra's life.

Adora counters, suggesting that Catra could leave the Horde, and therefore get away from SW's abuse. Catra just glares back at her, disappointed. Catra knows running from the abuse won't solve anything.

::What this comes down to is a totally different understanding of the world. For Adora, she thinks she became a hero for leaving the Horde, and becoming She-ra. She doesn't realize she was lucky to fall into the situation she did, with Bow and Glimmer helping her gain acceptance and protecting her. She's totally unaware that the reality that her becoming She-ra is a manipulation born out of evil intent. For Catra, she's always known that the world is harsh, and that bad people exist who will try to destroy you. She's not afraid to fight, she's had no choice learning these harsh truths. It's a jaded view that negatively affects her perceptions of people, but it prepares her for the worst, and so she relies on it. So when Adora suggests she run from it, she rejects her as naive. They flash back to their younger selves after Adora suggests Catra can leave like she did, and Catra accusingly points out that she doesn't need to follow Adora around. That they're children is relevant to the previous memory where Adora led Catra into danger, and then didn't protect her. Catra isn't interested in following Adora blindly after she's put her in danger so badly in the past.

Flashing back present selves, Catra tells Adora she doesn't want to leave. As she says this her face conveys her anger at the world, her drive to face SW instead of flee. She says "I'm not afraid of SW anymore, and I'm a better force captain than you ever would have been." Let's take this in parts: Catra won't run from her abuser, she's already planning to take her down. Doing so is important to Catra, as it fixes her world in an important way. And that Adora can't see this just shows how far apart they are now. In Catra's mind, Adora was supposed to stay, and as they rose to power together, they would have supplanted SW, fixing Catra's world. The two of them would have been stronger in the end. But Adora did leave, so Catra impatiently tries to get Adora to see that she won't just run away. If Adora doesn't want to help Catra overcome this evil, then she'll do it on her own.

Her disappointment in Adora for abandoning this fight is apparent, what comes to mind is when Catra calls Adora weak in the Sea Gate episode. And now Catra knows she's got the power to do this, she's a force captain, and if she can just find a reason to depose SW she knows she has the station and fighting ability to take her down. She always knew she could lead, but was happy to let Adora have success because she really didn't want that responsibility. So she points out her superiority, not to show that she's better than Adora, but to tell Adora she was blind to Catra's worth, and to be hurtful to Adora for abandoning her.

They flash back to their child selves: Adora looks at Catra, hurt and confused "You always said you didn't care about things like that." Adora is feeling hurt by the idea that she was unknowingly taking advantage of Catra, because Catra has seemily just told her she was lying.

Now, this next part is important, and it's important that we are seeing Catra's reaction as her child self: Catra looks sad and lonely as Adora finishes her question, and she's crying. Something adult Catra would never let herself do. So we're seeing a much more authentic expression of Catra's hurt and emotions than if it were her present self. What you need to understand here is that those emotions don't really match her words... Catra tells her "Well I was lying, obviously!" But her face says she's angry and hurt at Adora for not seeing her pain.

As she delivers those words her face is full of accusation and insult, she's being dramatic, something we will see Catra do time and time again. She stares down Adora, eyes scrunched up, showing Adora how betrayed she felt by her insensitivity. Then we get sadness, disappointment. Finally, we get a lonely kind of furious sorrow: all that time feeling alone and Adora didn't bother to understand is written on her face.

The tears are still flowing, but as she turns away they shift back to their present selves. Adult Catra looks totally alone, heartbroken.

Ok but how we REALLY know Catra isn't telling the truth is this: almost word for word, this moment exists in episode 1. ANY time you see that happen in this show, you need to look back to find the meaning of it.

>We will need to look in totality of this scene in episode 1: An excited Catra pounces on Adora, asking her what SW said. She sees the badge and takes it. Here's a funny thing, because we see Catra jump on Adora you might think Catra is always like this, she just comes into Adora's space as she pleases. But once Catra has the badge, we see no anger or jealousy. Just total wonder. She shows nothing but exuberation and happiness for Adora's promotion (pic 1, lower left fyi).

Catra knew this could be the turning point she's been waiting for, that Adora was due for promotion. And so she's jumping all over Adora, full of joy. We only see her attitude change once Adora tells her SW isn't letting her go on missions. And so, we can infer a lot of information from this...

Catra expected this moment to change their lives for the better. That Adora's rising in rank means freedom, the beginning of something new. Some many new things, in Catra's case. But Catra definitively shows us in this scene that she doesn't desire the success for herself. She only shows happiness for Adora, for them together, and she's ecstatic. (pic 1, fyi)

This, in Catra's mind, probably means the start of their romantic lives. If Adora is the force captain that brings them to victory, SW won't be able to just trample all over their lives. Catra can begin letting down some walls, maybe even let Adora pursue her romantically. If they're together, and Adora is on her side because of that, she becomes safe from her abuser. It's a much better outcome than trying to fight SW, but that's not how the story goes. No, Adora leaves her instead. How's that for emotional whiplash? All of these truths are laid bare in s3ep5, when we see Catra's perfect reality, when she and Adora are together romantically. Catra only wants to be safe and to be loved, but when Adora leaves her she loses trust in the goodness of Adora, and in people in general.

> Adora tells Catra she shouldn't be surprised she's been cut of of the mission because she's so rude to SW, to which Catra responds by calling Adora a people pleaser, then storming off in anger...

::Note, as this is important: Adora is taking SW’s side, and not Catra’s, which is entirely opposite of their early childhood memory of Octavia. It shows how Adora had started listening to the negative judgements others placed on Catra...

>Adora goes after Catra, finding her sulking on the roof. Catra is angry, betrayed by the world, at the injustice that SW is in her life. Adora asks "I didn't even think you wanted to be a force captain?" Catra tossed the badge at her, saying she doesn't. Then she folds her body up, holding herself. Adora sees this, but doesn't touch her. She's being careful to respect Catra's boundaries. But the anger Catra feels here isn't about being denied the chance to be a force captain, it's at all the hurt that SW has dealt her and continues to do so. And Adora doesn't see that, which disappoints Catra. But, she's unable to verbalize it herself, she is too insecure in her emotional vulnerability, so she lets it slide.

What we have here is two different instances of the same question with two different answers, but in both cases Catra is telling the truth. In episode 1, it's the truth that she doesn't care about being a force captain because of her love for Adora, and the promise, in her mind, that they will eventually be together. In episode 11, Catra then says she lied, and this now is also true: Catra did think about what she was going through, all the pain and sacrifices she made for Adora, which were done in the name of love. But Adora doesn't love her the way that Catra loves Adora, instead leaving her behind. And so now that Adora didn't ever see how excellent a person Catra actually was, how dedicated to her she is, and the pain she was willing to bear for her sake, it does matter. Because that's shitty of her, and so now Catra will survive on her own by her own excellence, her strength that Adora never stopped to see. So Catra is guilting Adora, trying to make her see how blind and unfeeling she is.

>Back to ep11: Catra tries to walk away from Adora, who desperately chases her, trying to understand why Catra is becoming so distant, wanting her to tell her what's wrong. She reaches out for Catra's shoulder in one last attempt to get Catra to talk, she knows touching Catra could maybe get her to be more open. But the truth is Adora has been far too easy on Catra, she needs to be more forceful if she wants Catra to talk, which she later comes to understand... she's been coddling Catra, and so Catra is allowed to wallow in her unhealthy mental states.

Catra takes Adora's hand, forcefully holding it away from her and delivering a hurtful line: "Why do you think I gave the sword back to you in the fright zone? I didn't WANT you to come back, Adora!" This hits Adora like a load of bricks, her dismay is evident. And it's all true, which is the sad part. Catra was already preparing to cut ties with Adora, as even by that point she had come to a realization, a decision: if Adora doesn't want to be with her, then she'll do it herself. She will do the hard things on her own.

She turns away from Adora, looking hurt and betrayed. And Adora is at a complete loss, she doesn't know this side of Catra, this part of her that has survived hardship all these years... she lets her leave, not knowing what to do.

Adora is then attacked by the security, which takes up her time. As that happens, we see memories only shown to Catra. Catra runs, emotionally overwhelmed as all the unfair judgements, the abuse, and hollow apologies ring out around her. All the years of frustration and sadness weigh on her, she tries to keep it together, lashing out at the holograms. She falls to her knees, fighting back emotion and trying not to cry, her inner, vulnerable self is near the surface, and she's trying not to break down in tears over all of the hurt she's had to bear...

… and then she hears soft crying...

She turns to see her younger, tiny self, crying. Then, a tiny Adora joins the tiny Catra. Unlike the other memories, Catra never flashes into her younger self, she just watches...

The tiny Adora pulls the blanket down, Catra hisses at her... Adora sits down next to her tenderly. And we finally get the promise, the two parts that Adora has so tragically broke...

Adora tells her "It doesn't matter what they do to us, you know? You look out for me, and I look out for you... nothing really bad can happen as long as we have each other." The tiny Catra looks at Adora, wanting to trust her, to believe in her. As she says the question, present Catra echos it: "You promise ?" This was a sacred moment that gave Catra hope as a young orphan, that maybe she would be ok.

And so, the present Catra echoes it. Adora tells her she promises, as the skeptical present Catra looks on. Tiny Catra is still sad, insecure... she hugs Adora, needing this. Adora suggests they go back out to play... and we see tiny Catra look at her, still afraid, reluctant, wanting to stay. But she decides to trust Adora, and so they walk out, holding hands. Then something unique happens. Tiny Catra stops to look up at her present self: note, this is entirely a unique moment in the simulation, it never happened in reality... and yet Catra is given this moment...

The innocent child stares up Catra, making her see her. It's a look full of meaning, it doesn't carry any specific emotion... only innocence. Catra is having an inner child moment. That most deep and innocent part of her, her vulnerable self who feels love, is communicating with her. It's asking her to see it's vulnerability, and it's pain. Catra sees this, all of the pain Adora has caused her, the breaking of the promise, the promise that this innocent part of her was holding on to desperately with hope. She is forced to acknowledge Adora's disloyalty to her, her carelessness. Catra is reflecting on how she did her absolute best to keep that promise, even after Adora failed to look out for her in SW's chamber. Catra was so loyal and so good to Adora all of their lives; she made sure Adora had a good life, and she played by SW's rules so Adora could be the chosen one, wanting to protect her. All in the hope that they would be together, and that their love was real. But Adora couldn't even do that much, she left her. And Adora doesn't understand her, she doesn't even seem to miss her.

[pic 9: Broken Promises, Catra’s inner child, The Hero goes Her Own Way].

Present Catra watches her tiny self leave, coming to the tough realization: that she's never been able to trust Adora, not really. Her love isn't reciprocated, not by her standards.

…. which makes Adora a deeply unsafe person to Catra...

Catra survived SW's abuse, learning to believe in herself, protect herself because no one else would. All while keeping this hope of love in her heart, this vulnerable core of herself that has tenderness and loves Adora, and needs love back. But, her need for love goes to such a deep vulnerability that giving in to it and then again being rejected or forgotten by Adora would simply destroy her. SW held the threat of death over Catra’s head her entire life, and Catra resisted it, got through it by being tough and trusting in herself. So now she sees she can't trust Adora: everything that happened since she left her behind, the fact that Adora always treats her as an enemy, that she seems to show no lingering desire for her, and doesn't even seem to miss her while replacing her with new friends, seems to confirm her worst fears. Fears that have been building over the years, starting when Adora broke their promise in SW's chamber, and then as Adora pursued her success while accepting praise and privilege from SW, ignoring the abuse Catra bore because of it. She decides she can't trust Adora. Love is a lie, a weakness. A weakness that could destroy her last bit of individuality, and belief in the world.

And so, Catra, The Survivor, makes the decision... in her mind it's the brave one, just like way back when and she decided to bravely stand up to SW's abuse and not let it destroy her: she will stand up to the threat that is the weakness of her love for Adora. Adora is selfish, she doesn't deserve Catra's love. She was stupid to believe that love was even possible, for someone like her… who has always been ignored, and told she is unworthy of praise or even existence. There's only one thing left for her to do: she will be alone, strong on her own, for herself.

Her gaze hardens... that part of her that has made sure she survived SW's abuse, and made sure she won fights when she was threatened, is now the decider. It will protect her from her vulnerability, and reject Adora for her. I suppose you might be confused as to what I'm referring, or maybe not... If you haven't had to fight for your life, whether physically, mentally, or otherwise, you might not know this side of yourself well. But we all have it, it's The Survivor. And while I knew mine would protect me, I didn't accept it as my real self, I didn't accept its necessary but vicious deeds as my own. This is very much how Catra is, and as the series goes on she puts this survivor in charge of more and more decisions, we watch her deteriorate as this part of her gets out of control, protecting her from darkness with more darkness. All the while her vulnerable inner self suffers, watching the horrible deeds and becoming more and more alone, desperate for affection.

>Adora is outnumbered, eventually ending up hanging from the cliff's edge by spider webs. She hears Catra return, dealing with the spiders. Adora looks up, hopeful because Catra has returned...

Catra saunters in. Let me say a few things before we go through this part: Catra is about to say a lot of things that aren't really true. They are instead meant to be hurtful to Adora, Catra is being intentionally mean. We shouldn't take her exact words as her authentic beliefs, because they're not... no, Catra is doing what she believes she has to so she can be apart for Adora, and be safe from her. The truth is, Catra needs to be away from Adora. She's too scared of the vulnerability that is her love for Adora, because Adora hasn't shown her that she cares. And she can't do that by defecting, no, she must stay with the Horde. It's the only thing she feels there is left for her to do.

Now, let's go through this: and heads up: I'm getting at something very powerful that's going on here that you may not have realized. This speech is, in fact, a heroic moment. A heroic moment... for Catra. Not Adora, for Catra. And you just need to open your ears to hear it...

"Hey Adora."

🎶 is sad

"Catra! Help me, please!"

"This thing wouldn't work for me if I tried, would it? It only works for you... then again, you're special... that's what Shadow Weaver always said..."

🎶 is melancholy

"Catra, what are you doing??"

"Ah, ya know, it all makes sense now... you've always been the one holding me back... you wanted me to think I needed you, you wanted me to feel weak."

🎶 has even tone

"Every hero needs a sidekick, right?"

"Catra that's not how it was.."

🎶 rises, falls, sad (“Promise” begins playing)

*Catra chuckles* "The sad thing is I've spent all this time hoping you'd come back to the Horde... when really you leaving was the best thing that EVER happened to me..."

🎶 lowers, is dark, is dramatic. -Note: we see Catra seemingly become deranged as she says this line. This is Catra deceiving herself out of perceived necessity.

"I am so much stronger than anyone... ever... thought." *she cuts part of the web*

🎶 begins to rise, uplifting

"I wonder what I could have been if I'd gotten rid of you sooner." *she cuts the rest of the web, Adora falls, catching herself*

🎶 rises, is dramatic

"I'm sorry! I never meant to make you feel like you were second best. Please, don't do this."

🎶 is still rising, uplifting

*Catra stands proudly, nobly, looking at the sword. She looks down at Adora, then she casually tosses the sword past her...

🎶 is rising, hopeful, heroic.

"Bye Adora, I really am going to miss you..."

🎶 is heroic, violins now playing, adding depth

*Catra turns and walks away from Adora, proudly*

🎶 has risen to its height, crests, is heroic.

"Catra... Catra, no!!"

🎶 remains high, cresting, heroic

*Adora cries, sad, confused by Catra's leaving her...*

🎶 crests again, fades out...

Ok, so... let's talk about what just happened here. The undeniable conclusion is that this was meant to be a heroic moment, and a damn heroic moment... for Catra. The writers are telling us that Catra leaving is an important part of her hero’s journey, and that it was the right thing to do. You might be wondering, how can that be? The short answer is, Catra is on a hero’s journey unlike all the other hero’s journeys normally portrayed in fiction. All of it, even her darkest deeds, all her cruelty towards Adora, will be part of a very... important... and powerful... journey. One which will forge her into a hero in this series, in her own incredible right... how this is, what she is, is yet to be revealed... but make no mistake, she's a hero. Just not the one you expect…

We see Adora open her eyes, and see Light Hope. She tells Adora to let go. She means of her emotional attachments, as we find out. Adora cries for her lost Catra, that she couldn't bring her back to her. She lets go...

BIG ASSERTION TIME: Now, I know it's a common theory that these memories were all just an elaborate manipulation by Light Hope to divide the girls from each other, but I don't agree with that. No, I believe this was a memory journey guided by Catra, subconsciously, to help her tell Adora why she couldn't come with her, why she has to be apart.

Take for instance the memories and visions that Adora sees when she's on her way to the Heart of Etheria in season 5: this system exists apart from Light Hope, who dies at the end for season 4. This simulation comes from somewhere more primal: in my belief, it is the deep magic of Etheria being visualized through the First One's tech. We see the simulation show Catra the promise memory, something Adora isn't shown at all, and then allows her to see her inner child's hurt. Something deeper is going on here, and you should consider how strongly the magic of Etheria is resonating with Catra when it does. Because the magic of Etheria will again speak directly to Catra, this isn't the last time... In short, the magic helps the two of them to understand each other, because Catra is an important part of Adora's true She-ra journey.

I also believe that a theme of this series is that abusers, like L. Hope, are not perfect vindictive manipulators. They are flawed, and L. Hope in particular, I believe, is no genius: she fails time and time again. That L. Hope uses the moment to get Adora to let go is her using the moment to her advantage, she didn't play ultimate control over it. She just piggy backed on Catra's hurt to do it. So that last memory really was for Catra... Furthermore, I simply cannot believe L.Hope would understand the concept of the inner child… as she can't even understand sarcasm.

But now, because of this, Adora now knows of Catra's pain... and this is the beginning of Adora's long journey back to Catra, of her repairing their bond…

Let's address the obvious counterpoint: Adora now knows that Catra is hurt, but she doesn't yet understand why. And it's not really her fault, as Catra doesn't know how to talk about her feelings, among other things. But it's apparent that Adora doesn't remember these crucial memories as well as Catra does, even though they were critical in her development as well. Adora is a mess of emotions, just like Catra, and (if) she has ADHD, it might be one reason why she doesn't really get Catra. Especially if her parental figure has been manipulating it against her. Adora very much vibrates between stimuli anxiously, so SW might have made her forgetful by distraction over time. Also, the way in which Adora treats Catra as an enemy when she doesn't accept Adora’s (totally rushed, afterthought, and hollow) ultimatum that she defect with her, is a reflection of Adora's ingrained Horde war training… this is something she has to unlearn, as it is wrong. But Adora is a good person, she really, truely, is, because Adora never stops trying to make it better. And so, she slowly, but surely, comes to understand Catra’s trauma.

We get one last scene of Catra returning to the fright zone. We get to see Catra's truth here: She walks, as if she's not even there, she's deadened by the sorrow and the inevitability of what her life will now be: one of hard work, and zero joy. She will try her best to stand on her own, and put Adora out of her heart, slamming its doors shut against love. It doesn't work, but that's what she's trying to do, nonetheless. This is the beginning of a profound depression that builds over the next 3 seasons, and combined with new traumas, nearly takes her life.

But the tech Catra has brought back will end up giving her what she needs to face down and depose SW, just like she needed...

::Here is another complicated twist that's so essential to She-ra as a series: Catra, in fact, protects Adora by taking down SW. Catra may go on to command the Hordes forces so effectively that it pushes the Princess alliance harder than it's ever been pushed before, but her deposing SW is extremely important in the story. She both removes SW’s ability to attack Adora, and then denies her any sorcerous power by taking the Black Garnet from her, since SW needs an external source to draw power from in order to use her vampiric powers...

Ok so more theory time: it's a common belief that Catra stays with the Horde, and goes on to try to conquer the world out of some deep need to externally validate herself, and to prove she was the better child by beating Adora. I don't think any of these explanations are true. Catra may go on to play such a character on a surface level, but every time she professes to have any such ambitions, she is either in the presence of Adora, or under incredible stress. In the one case, she's saying those things to try to hurt Adora, and make her see how naive and foolish Adora always was, especially now that Adora thinks she can fight against her.

In the other case, it's actually her survivor mechanism trying to take over, to make her world safe. In every case where Catra says something about ambition, somewhere in that scene, Catra shows the distinct emotions of her true inner self: generally, these emotions are sorrow, fear, and loneliness. They don't exist on screen long, they are what is known as micro expressions. (See below for a short discussion of Catra’s micro expressions.)

To put it simply, the only reason Catra stays with the Horde is so she has somewhere she can be separate from her feelings and heartbreak over Adora, and then she climbs the ranks in order to find safety, first from SW, and then Hordak, once he threatens her life with his temper tantrums. That she fights against Adora is just a collateral consequence, she isn't out to get Adora, but nor does she care if Adora gets hurt, because she’s hurt her. Catra does fight against the princesses, though (including She-ra).

A core feature of Catra's character is indeed one of personal power. She's a person who is told to hurry up and die at an early age, but refused to do so. So her arc, her issue, isn't a cautionary tale about chasing validation, it's about her overcoming her fear of vulnerability and allowing herself to rely on others in a way that lets her be safe without needing to combat the darkness with more darkness. But vulnerability scares her because of the abuse she experienced.

As for validation, the only person she would want that from is Adora. This is because Catra believes in herself already: that she has a sacred right to exist, no matter what SW and others may tell her (note: Adora struggles with this, she's actually the one who seeks validation). But, she also needs love, and she is too fearful that Adora doesn't really love her and is afraid of being hurt by that. It's also why I think she's so chaotic towards Adora: her inner child tells her adult self to protect her from her love for Adora, which it tries to do, but that same child misses and needs Adora in so many ways. So she's trying to be mean to compensate for the incredible desire she feels towards Adora. I love it when Adora calls her a brat in season 5, it's such a well deserved line, mmhhmmm.

Actual discussions of how these particulars play out in the show are better left for another time, but there you have it.

Promise sidebar discussions: Catra’s micro expressions; Catra nearly dies at the Battle of Bright Moon

“White Out” microexpression discussion: [see pics below] This is the first time since the Battle of Bright Moon that Catra and Adora meet. So it's a good time to talk about Catra’s micro expressions. Picture 1: Adora says “Hey, Catra” out of the blue and Catra is completely blindsided, she figured she wouldn't be bothered out in the middle of nowhere. She's anxious and unhappy to be seeing Adora. Along with her suspicious absence the episode before in “Roll With It”, the answer is obvious: Catra has been avoiding Adora. She may have cut ties with her in “Promise”, nearly bested her at the Battle of BM, but she doesn't want to see her. She doesn't know what she feels about her.

Picture 2: Enraged monsters are decimating the base, and a battle breaks out over the corrupted disc. Catra is desperately trying to protect it, because she can control Adora if she has it... and she needs this chance to have her back. As Catra reaches to pick it up, she's facing away from everyone and so no one can see her desperation and sadness from missing Adora. (pic 2) Shortly after, we also see her clutch the disc desperately to her chest in a way that's very endearing, right before the monster attacks her and makes her drop it. Then, as she's about to die in its jaws because she doesn't want to give Adora up again, Scorpia breaks the disc and saves her life. We see in this episode as Catra completely loses track of her emotions, and now realizes she has to come to terms with the fact that she's so desperately sad from missing Adora, she was willing to die just for a chance to have her back.

Pic 3: Catra hates working for the Horde. She HATES it. She gets zero joy from the job, and she’s already figured out that Hordak will kill her if she screws up too badly. She didn't want this job, plain and simple, but now feels stuck with it. None of this is the life she wanted. Combining this knowledge against Catra’s declaration to Adora at the end of Promise, we know she's not happy that she had to go her own way...

Catra’s near death experience at the Battle of Bright Moon

At the Battle of Bright Moon, Catra leads Adora (She-ra) away. They battle, but then Catra retreats and instead starts listing out every single worst fear of failure she thinks Adora has. It's a dark moment, she's acting much like SW did to them as children, and we watch her manipulation take root in Adora. Finally, her words are too much, and as Catra looks down at Adora's (She-ra's) back, we see Adora become deranged, overcome with her fear of failing everyone... (pic1, above) she picks up a boulder and throws it directly at Catra. Catra is knocked flying, and only by the barest of margins does she keep from falling to her death. Adora nearly kills Catra. And so, as Adora drags Catra up from the cliff and slams her into the wall, we see a totally heartbroken and emotionally crushed Catra. In this moment, Catra believes all of her worst fears are confirmed: Adora only cares about being She-ra, so much so that Adora would kill her in the name of being that hero. Catra uses this moment, this belief, to justify her division from Adora. Sadly, she's wrong... she's ignoring the seriousness of the threat that the battle poses, and as Adora was facing away from her during that moment, she doesn't see the terror and desperation Adora experiences due to her cruel words…

Oh, and one more thing before we go: when Catra says “What, did you really think this was about you ?” SPOILER ALERT: It was. Because She-ra is one big Catradora story… and we love it.

As always, thanks for reading. <3

~EtheriaDearie

P.S. :: as I am new to tumblr, if you enjoyed reading this, please consider giving me a reblogg! Thanks!! 🙇💛

[scrawnytreedemon]

Neurodivergency, and Sephiroth

Right, I’m going to see if I can try and explain why this reading appeals to me.

For some background, I’ve watched a full silent LP of the OG, watched Advent Children, and am largely familiar with his characterisation in Crisis Core(though it gets a bit patchy in some areas). I am not familiar with his characterisation in KH, Dissida, or any other spinoff appearances.

I’m going to be looking at this with an autistic lens, as, hey, I’m autistic, however much of these patterns aren’t exclusive to autistic people by any means and thus are fairly applicable to other labels.

This is an explanaition on why I find this element worth considering, and while I hope that others can relate or take away something from this, in many ways it is highly personal and not intended to be a decleration on Sephiroth’s ‘true nature,’ as it were. I’m not claiming that this was intended by the writers-- Infact, I���d be very surprised if they considered it, at all --As many of the traits he exhibits could be brushed aside as due to his upbringing.

That being said, let’s get into it!

1. Alienation

A common thread in neurodivergency, autism in particular, is some form of alienation. This doesn’t necessarily mean being outcast-- I, for one, have been largely accepted by those around me, and yet there is still that sense of being ‘other‘ that’s always been there, long before I even had a word for it.

Now, of course, in Sephiroth this is more related to his lineage, and how it’s expressed in... well, everything. Even still, I find value in expanding that, and considering just how getting the sense you’re implicitly divided from your peers.

There is, of course, the matter of Sephiroth’s literal isolation-- However, as fun as those scenarios are to play around with, I don’t think Sephiroth was raised wholly, or even mostly in the labs. The reason being that it would be nigh impossible to have hid just what made Sephiroth different, especially knowing how observant he is. It’s clear that Sephiroth had had extensive contact with other children, as epitomised by the line:

“I knew ever since I was a child, I was not like the others. I knew mine was a special existence. But this is not what I meant!” 

Sephiroth was painfully aware that he is different, even if he didn’t know exactly how. It is at once an oddly thrilling, and lonely sensation. Thrilling, because-- Hey! --You can do and see things others can’t and/or wouldn’t; and lonely, because it makes it hard to relate to others or have them relate to you.

2. Socialisation

I would like to start off by saying that, while I find it a tad more faithful and endlessly less grating than Sex God Sephiroth, Sephiroth is not a complete and utter social failure. While it’s clear he has difficulty articulating emotions and understanding others, it’s very clear even still that he knows how the game works, and knows how to play it.

This is going to dip far more into speculation territory, so buckle up.

A thing that, perhaps, I don’t see talked about often enough online when it comes to neurodivergent experiences, is that many things that are considered ‘normal‘ get experienced as systems that we need to actively learn and maneuver-- Socialisation especially!

Now, of course there is always some degree of social interaction being a give and take, a step forth and step back, regardless of neurotype, but it’s dialed up far more when you deviate from ‘the norm.‘

If I can give my own example, a thing I struggled with when I was little was humour! Not because I didn’t find things funny, or didn’t know what it was, but because I had issues grasping at the machinations of what made something funny. This lead to alot of nonsensical jokes that left my siblings confounded, until I picked up a joke-book, and started analysing from there. It was mostly alot of puns, which! Due to their simple structure, are a great way to learn the basics! I didn’t even know this was unusual, until my mother pointed it out to me years later.

And that method goes for alot of things.

Sephiroth, above all else, is observant. He makes efforts multiple times throughout the OG and Crisis Core to check up on others and ask how they’re doing. He asks Cloud how he feels returning to his hometown, and about seeing his mother, and urges Zack to check up on Aerith in Crisis Core, to name some notable examples. Even if you get the sense that his attempts are, perhaps, a little ungainly, it makes it clear more than anything that Sephiroth tries.

I think the reason that people have leaned alot more into the overly-awkward perception of Sephiroth in recent times, is because it humanises him. I feel there’s been far more of a shift within fandom to focus on the mundane, on relatability, on humanity. A veneer of endless, effortless confidence really isn’t that sexy anymore-- When sexual-appeal even comes into the matter, at all.

That being said, this section more than anything, I think, is very easy to brush aside due to his... interesting upbringing. Depending on how you construe the timeline, Sephiroth got sent to war as early as twelve, and wouldn’t have had much of an oppurtnity to develop these skills in a healthy and timely manner.

Even without that, a degree of social awkwardness is far from exclusive to any particular neurotype-- It’s the way it arises in him, though, that piques my interest.

3. Analysis and Obsession

This... I think, is the one where I’ll be grasping at straws the most.

While, yes, the obsessive research demonstrated in the OG during the Nibelheim incident and even before that to a lesser extent in Crisis Core could be some indication of a degree to absolutely immerse yourself in a subject in that Very Autistic WayTM, more than anything these are brought on by dire circumstance(the former especially by the question of his very humanity), and as we don’t see Sephiroth as a child, it’s uncertain as to whether he displayed these behaviours as such and to this degree under ‘normal‘ circumstances.

Even so, I get the feeling that Sephiroth is very analytically-minded, in a very Stranger In A Strange World sort of way(not in any way referring to the 1961 novel by a similar name, lmao). I get the feeling he’s the type of person to pick up some highly-esoteric text just for fun and come away with a menagerie of strange and unusual and obscenely specific factoids that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.

Like, someone might mention a topic offhandedly, and though he’d keep his mouth shut because He’s Like ThatTM, a slew of all the little bits and pieces he’s seen or read on the matter over the years would just jump to mind.

What I’m trying to say is, I think Sephiroth would take joy in painstakingly pouring and mulling over topics that not many people would have the consideration nor the mind to hold any long-term, inimate interest in.

If the last point was easily brushed aside, then this one you’d merely have to breathe and it’d fall apart. Nonetheless, I feel that within fandom’s current common framework with how we perceive Sephiroth, this wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

I, however, want to make it clear that I can see the issue with labelling Sephiroth as neurodivergent. He could all too easily fall into the cliché of cold, emotionally and socially-inept, often rather callous depictions we see all too often in the heavily-neurotypical media that sees us as Missing Something; less than. Things have gotten better, but even still, there’s such a tendency to flatten us down to the things we can’t do, or lawd as us Potential Einsteins in spite of it-- Which, just, while it happens, on the whole it isn’t very helpful or realistic to expect this from us.

We are by no means a monolith, and while I take comfort in the idea of a neurodivergent Sephiroth, I understand that for some, it can feel like taking on a label to a character that vaguely fits the stereotype, and thus, perhaps, insinuating that to be autistic you have to look Like That-- And when it comes to villains in particular, it’s all too easy to dip into demonisation.

This isn’t even getting onto some of the issues that’d have this fall apart, were we to look at other symptoms. The first that comes to mind, and one that even I, as innocuous as I am, experience: sensory overload.

While it is entirely possible that Sephiroth learned to deal with it accordingly in life, or was forced to surpress it, because Shinra’s Science Department(cough cough Hojo) has been shown time and time again to force its subjects into little boxes and blame them for any failures expressed, the fact is that such a symptom could make fighting on the battlefield downright impossible.

Again, this is something that could’ve been given a ‘solution‘(as much as you can or even should think about long-term surpressing your basic thresholds), it nonetheless remains an issue.

I just hope that, on the whole, this served as some food for thought.

TL;DR: Sephiroth is autistic because I Vibe With It.

Also, happy Disability Pride!

[spike-and-faye]

Hello, I require your infinite wisdom please!! :O So I just finished cowboy bebop and I am so confused like who the fuck was Julia. WHAT was Faye's past. I literally never process tv shows and the bebop was not immune to my stupidity LMAO like... I guess the ending just really confused me, from what I gathered Spike and Vicious were friends? But then they weren't? And Julia dated Vicious but also Spike? And he? Went after Vicious even after Julia had died? I am Confusion. Please help. Thank u...

Oh BABEY I am so glad you asked! :) Be prepared for a long answer and I apologize in advance for how incoherent it will probably be.

ALSO Please note: this show is fucking complicated. I have watched it all the way through several times a year, every single year, for over a decade now, and I am *STILL* finding new shit every time I watch it. It's packed with symbols, motifs, allusions and underlying themes that are just so rich. It is so extraordinarily well-written that it could give a lot of classic literature a run for its money. I'm literally working on an in depth literary/film analysis my husband lovingly calls my Manifesto on the series right now. SO PLEASE don't beat yourself up about not catching everything on the first go round.

HEY BTW for anyone who hasn't finished the show, please know there will be MANY spoilers ahead!

Anyways ~

1.     Spike / Julia / Vicious:

The information we get on Spike's past, including Vicious and Julia, is pretty limited considering how big of an impact they have on the story. We get our first glimpse in Session 1: Asteroid Blues, then again in Session 5: Ballad of Fallen Angels, Sessions 12 + 13: Jupiter Jazz, and Sessions 25 + 26: Real Folk Blues. I recommend reviewing these episodes for you Julia and Vicious fix.

What we know:

Spike and Vicious were both members of an organized crime syndicate called the Red Dragons, which is roughly analogous to the Yakuza or the Mafia. Their positions in the organization are not clear, but there are some images alluding to them being hitmen, and they likely rose up in the ranks as they were close acquaintances of Mao Yenrai, a Capo of the Red Dragon.

Spike and Vicious were close comrades. Spike taught Vicious everything he knew about fighting, and the two had a deep trust in each other. Which Spike fucked up ….

^^Vicious looks hot asf here

Julia was Vicious' lover/girlfriend. One night in 2068 (three years prior to the time we watch in the Bebop) Spike is injured, presumably from a syndicate-related fight and he passes out in front of her door. She takes him in and nurses him back to health and he SIMPS HARD for her. We’re all but told he's in LOVE love with her. They start an affair, and Spike tells her he's ready to abandon the whole life - the syndicate, Vicious, Mao, all of it - and they could run away together.

WELL Vicious finds out about this whole affair, and is DOUBLY betrayed because his literal best friend and girlfriend have been having an affair, and tbh I think he was just as jealous of Spike's attentions as he was of Julia's. (Whether or not it’s a sexual thing for Spike … well … I have my own headcanons about that). SO when he finds out they're going to run away together, he gives Julia an ultimatum: you can either kill him, or I'll just kill you both. Spike had written her a letter about meeting him in the graveyard to start their new life together, which she tears up to hide his location from Vicious. (This is the falling ripped up pieces of paper we see in Spike's flash back in Session 5).

^^ r/gifsyoucanhear

**NOTE: There are those who disagree with this view, (looking at you Cowboy Bebop wiki) instead suggesting Vicious and Spike were buds in the past, but then hated each other once they were both considered as potential successors to Mao. That's why Vicious wanted him dead, and he was enlisting Julia (who he didn't necessarily have a romantic connection to) to help kill Spike since he knew Spike loved her. Personally, I think there is plenty of evidence that Vicious also wanted Julia, and in fact was already with her, when Spike started seeing her. If you want me to cite my sources please send an me an ask about it :)

Spike gets the idea, whether by her just not showing up or word around the syndicate being like YO Vicious wants you dead. Despite Vicious' ultimatum to Julia, he was gunna kill Spike either way. SO he sets up an ambush, and SadBoy™ Spike walks intentionally into their trap. Somehow, he doesn't die, though the entire syndicate thinks he did. (Note Annie's reaction to seeing him alive in Session 5). It’s also implied that this is where he lost his eye.

HIS EYE - possibly the most important symbol in the show so I do have to mention it. In episode 26, he explicitly explains to Faye that one of his eyes only sees the past. (PS this isn't dissimilar to Jet's arm… we can get into that another time). Basically, he's constantly living halfway in the past and halfway in the present, and describes the past like a dream he can never wake up from. Because dysfunctional or not - the syndicate WAS his family. (Again - see his relationship with Annie, Mao, and Vicious (prior to Spike's betrayal)). It's his reminder that Julia didn't run away with him, and that he'd left behind that life for her. (He didn’t know she was being threatened until the final episode). Basically Spike is hyper-fixated on what he had and what could've been.

Not long after this, Spike starts bounty hunting because like? What else is he going to do. He doesn't care if he lives or dies but if he has to be alive, he may as well be able to eat. He joins up with Jet Black on the Bebop.

TL; DR: Spike stole Vicious' lover, Julia, so Vicious made Julia choose between her killing Spike or Vicious killing them both. She instead went into hiding and Spike thought he'd been stood up. He fake died and got the hell outta dodge.

2.     What was Faye's past?

Ok let me start by saying Faye is my wife and my life. HOWEVER I hated her the first time I watched this show circa age 13 because I thought she was annoying/vain/shallow (also because #internalizedmisogyny lol am I right fam). Good news! She is all those things! But she's also very lonely and scared and an amnesiac and secretly a sweetie and she realizes she loves the crew of the Bebop like family.

SO my wife's backstory:

she was born in the 1990s (#only90skidsremember). There's some debate over her race/nationality, but due to the images of her hanging out in Merlion Park in Singapore, my bet is that she's Singaporean. She comes from a wealthy family with a big house, and we see some utterly *adorable* film of her as a child/young adolescent in Session 18: Speak Like a Child. I cry everytime </3

^^ Holla for the representation

In 2014, circa age 20, she and her parents were going into space when the shuttle they were on had some kind of malfunction/accident and it killed an unknown number of people, including her parents. At the time, the technology didn’t exist to be able to save her, so she was put into a cryogenic sleep state. Meanwhile, the Lunar Gate accident occurs, breaking up the moon and causing rock showers on Earth's surface. Most people died, moved to Mars, or settled underground.

She wakes up from her cryogenic sleep in 2068. (Also the year Spike leaves the syndicate.) She's 'woken' by the corrupt Dr. Bacchus who plans on charging her for the years and years of medical debt she's accrued. (See Session 15: My Funny Valentine.) Luckily a lawyer takes interest in her case (Whitney Haggus Matsumoto) and tries to help get rid of her debt. The two fall in love, but turns out Whitney is a Scumbag. He's actually Dr. Bacchus's nephew, and faked his death, writing Faye as the sole inheritor to his will. This means she'll take on all his debts. So baby girl has LOTS of debt at this point.

In the intervening years prior to her joining the Bebop, she gambles, cheats, gains a lot of street smarts, and adopts a very seductive character to get her way. She joins the crew on the Bebop in Session 3: Honky Tonk Women.

TL;DR: Faye is Austin powers

YIKES this is so long I am so sorry. Bitches are obsessed with this show. (I am bitches)

3.     The Ending

Okay I'm going to present this in the way, in my scholarly opinion, would be correct, though there are SO many interpretations other than simply 'Spike died :/".

To understand the plot of the last couple episodes we actually have to go back to Session 5: Mao is instructed* to sign a treaty with a rival syndicate called the White Tigers. (*He's instructed by The Van (Council of identical creepy old men) who are the actual head of the dragon. I think we only see them in Session 26.) Well - Vicious is a Bastard Man and he and his fellow mutineers blow up the White Tiger guys' ship and slit Mao's throat. Before he dies, Mao is like "Gotdamnit if Spike was still here this shit wouldn't have happened." Later in the Cathedral battle, Vicious explains to Spike he killed Mao because Mao 'lost his fangs'. He planned on killing Spike for good her, IMO, so there'd be no rival to take over as Capo for the Dragons.

^^These guys are The Van btw

THEN in Session 25, the Van basically catches Vicious and is like “you killed Mao and now you have to go to Time Out.” The Van also decides to just kill everyone associated with Vicious, just 2 B safe. That's why there's a big ass shootout at the Loser Bar where Jet and Spike are chilling, drinking, (missing Faye and Ed and Ein lol) and Shin (younger brother to Lin, who's helping Vicious overthrow the Dragon) explains all this to Spike. OH and PS JULIA IS ALIVE AND HERE IS HER LOCATION :). (**Notice Spike's reaction at this point is different than his reaction in Jupiter Jazz when he hears there's a Julia on Calisto. Much less excited… hmm…).

SO THEN you know we get some flashbacks of the past as previously explained *and* Julia just happens to run into Faye. She recognizes that Faye is one of Spike's friends from the Bebop (she was keeping tabs on him it seems) and picks her up. Faye doesn't know who Julia is but is like damn bitch I'm a little gay for you. (I mean … that may just be my bi ass projecting, but Faye is REALLY struck with her. Look at how she describes her to Jet, I mean come on.)

 Faye's like, 'we should team up' and Julia says 'no thanks but also tell Spike to meet me at *the place*'. Meanwhile back on the Bebop Spike and Jet are talking and Spike goes on about some dream woman who was his other half. (We assume he means Julia … I have my reasons to doubt this … I have a lot of angry DMs about my opinion here lol but I just do not give a fuck (: I can expand on this in another post or you can refer to the title of my fucking blog haha) Personally, I think Watanabe personally left this specific scene open ended, the same way he does with the ending and various other things.

more like SIMP Spiegel

ANYWAY Faye comes back to the Bebop to tell Spike about Julia, and Jet gets intel from a former cop buddy that there's some shit going down with the Dragons. (Again, the Van is hunting down everyone ever associated with Vicious, including your pal Spike). Bebop is attacked, Faye tells Spike what's up with Julia, and he heads out.

 PAN TO VICIOUS chained up - about to be executed - but what's that!? It's a bird!? It's a pla- no it's just a bird. (With one glowing red eye … hm … reminds me of Spike, also the drug Red Eye. Pls let me know if you have any thoughts on this). Just a bird with a BOMB! Explosion (RIP bird c. 2065 - too soon), Vicious kills the elders, his buddies show up and are ready to go fuck shit up.

this show could not be more of an aesthetic

MMMPhhh okay RAINY CEMETERY. Spike and Julia. She draws a gun, explains why she didn't meet him that day, and then hugs him. Now Spike is not *great* at showing his emotions but he literally just stands there. Maybe it's a stoic expression of how sad he is that he never knew she still cared, when it seemed like she dumped him. Maybe he's finally getting some closure on his past. Maybe the past doesn't mean the same thing it used to. (I'll elaborate later on this).

They go to Annie's to get stocked up on stuff, she lets them know she denied knowing Spike was still alive and hey also the Van was assassinated by Vicious and his guys so. Watch out for that. Then her shop is surrounded by Vicious' guys and she dies :(. Spike and Julia escape to the roof, but she's shot and dies in Spike's arms, and says 'it's all just a dream' :(. (Refer to: Spike living in a dream of the past).

Anyway Jet SAID he wasn't gunna go after Spike but. Jet's parental instincts kick in (oh yeah he was shot in the leg earlier btw) and he goes to Sitting Bull to see if he knows where Spike is. He basically says yeah Spike's about to die somewhere. (I want to do a further analysis on all the Sitting Bull scenes.) Well conveniently Spike returns to the Bebop, eats, tells his story about a tiger-striped cat. (At one point Jet asks if he's going there for her, and Spike is like well she's dead now so whatever). THEN we get to the scene where Faye is like HEY YOU CAN'T GO OFF AND DIE ASSHOLE and he's like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I 've been living in the past so I might as well see if I'm living now. (**This will play heavily into my interpretation of the ending). Faye is pissed, shoots the ceiling and he goes off to the syndicate headquarters to fuck shit up.

He basically John Wicks his way through the building, Shin dies, he and Vicious have the big boss battle and whatnot. He kills Vicious and stumbles back out down the stairs and says "Bang!" and collapses. We pan to the sky and see a star fade away.

Well that explains the plot … now here's what I think happened!!! ALSO may I mention, anon - you picked up on something I feel like a lot of people miss out on. Why *did* Spike go back to kill Vicious if Julia was already dead??

Basically, once it became clear that anyone associated with Vicious was being killed, Spike knew they'd hunt him down, and they weren't beneath Kill-Billing their way to him, (i.e. systematically destroying this companions to get to him). And for all his apparent indifference - he really loves his new found family. Jet is literally like an older brother to him. Ed is a little sister. Ein is well … a very good boy. And Faye? Well the relationship is complicated, and I'm not going to get into the 69,420 reasons I ship them here, but I think it is beyond argument that he really does care for her, even if that just in a filial way. He didn't want the syndicates to kill them for their association to him, or in order to get to him. So he did what he had to do to protect them. *AND NO* I am not saying that he didn't love Julia. But it was clear that his desire was no longer to run away with her. I think he genuinely loved and cared about her, but at some point between Jupiter Jazz Pt 2 and now, he accepted that their time together was over. Now he had a new raison d'etre, which is the Bebop.

I think at this point Spike has 'woken up' to reality (as he implied to Faye in their final conversation in episode 26: "Look at these eyes. One of them is a fake, because I lost it in an accident. Since then, I have been seeing the past in one eye, and the present in the other. I had believed that what I saw was not all of reality...I thought I was watching a dream that I would never awaken from. Before I knew it, the dream was all over." (This is from the sub btw I'm too lazy to look up the dub transcript.) He wasn't going there to die, he's going to find out if he's really alive. This line is fucking cool and everything - but it's implications are multitude. I won't go into them all here but basically : what makes him alive now is that he's free from his past. He's alive because he has this new family and protecting them is all he really wants now. Spike was protecting Jet, Faye, Ed, (and Ein) by going and facing the entire syndicate, knowing that their lives would all be in danger.

SO - did Spike die? Well again - Watanabe has purposely and artfully left this open ended. Well, if we're following the symbolism from Sitting Bull, then yeah, the man is as dead as disco, and wouldn't that be a fitting ending? BUT at the same time, Spike always refers to having 'died' before (meaning when he was ambushed by the syndicate, and they all thought he died, and he pretty much did). Don't forget that in  movie (takes places roughly between episodes 22 + 23, and yes, was made AFTER the series but whatever) he like .. DIES dies. He goes to the afterlife and everything. He wakes up to find he's chilling with Sitting Bull, who's like nah it wasn't your time to die yet. So the fact Sitting Bull confirms Spike will die in the final episode, means yeah, Spike is pretty much dead.

BUT -- okay now hear me out -- could this death in the final episode be a death to his previous life? The person he was in the syndicate? Now that he's extinguished the Red Dragons for good, is it not possible that its merely *that* life which has ended? That's the optimist in me saying that, but if it keeps me from staying up all night crying, I guess it'll have to do. Watanabe definitely wants to leave it up to the viewer, so whatever you think, I feel like there's validity to it.

WELL any anon, sorry for the fucking lecture - and believe me, I could've said MUCH, MUCH more - but I enjoyed this question. I always love talking about this show so please all you fuckers feel free to message me or send an ask about anything any time. I am really slow at replying because #life'sAbitch.

Love you all.

SY,SCB <3

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep15 [FINALE]

For better or worse I think Ryukishi achieved exactly what he set out to do with this series, and I guess everyone’s just gonna be forced to reckon with how they feel about his own perspective on this franchise versus how they feel about it, lol.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I’m not entirely sure where to even start with this, but I guess the TL;DR is that I honestly think Gou/Sotsu was ultimately just fine despite it’s issues, and part me of can’t help but be like ‘I told you so, lol’ about how this really did end with this episode, and also committed pretty hard to the Umineko prequel elements.

It’s not like all of my theories were correct in the end, but I at least think I was pretty spot on in my prediction last week that this would end with the miracle of them side-stepping the sword issue entirely and choosing the third option of forgiveness and reconciliation. And also them ending it with an epilogue where we go back to the Matsuribayashi timeline and get a happy ending for Rika and Satoko that provides a ‘non-magical interpretation’ for the story while also giving us an idea of how Bern and Lambda formally split off into their own entities and start the relationship we see in Umineko.

I didn’t quite expect them to go down the route of having them agree to just spend a few years apart and accept that they don’t need to literally always be together, but I think that was a really good way to wrap things up between them. It’s pretty much the healthiest compromise to their conflict that doesn’t come across like it completely invalidates one of their dreams. I get why it feels too anti-climactic and convenient for people, but when you pull at that thread you get into wider topics of what the entire story is about, since this was always going to end with Satoko being redeemed and forgiven. People might not have taken him seriously, but Ryukishi was 100% genuine about his regrets about Matsuribayashi’s ending, and how part of why he came up with this new story was to create a better ending, while also doing more with Satoko as a character.

Basically I think a lot of the fandom negativity towards this boils down to people fundamentally disagreeing with the idea that Matsuribayashi was even ‘flawed’ in this sort of way to begin with, or that Satoko was badly written. It’s valid to disagree on this stuff, but at the very least we all have to grapple with how Ryukishi has his own specific relationship with this series.

People like to focus on how he’s a troll who likes to mess with people, but I feel like this is a bit of a wake-up call for people about how he’s actually extremely sincere, almost to a fault, and he likes to use his stories as a vehicle for expressing his personal philosophies and ideals. 

This whole story is also a good example of how he just sees this as ultimately being a fictional story about fictional characters, and not literally a matter of real people who need to be sentenced for their crimes or whatever. As early as the original VN he was almost being outright preachy about the message that nobody is irredeemable, and that philosophy carries through to this. But to be more specific, nobody *in this story* is irredeemable. He’s pretty open about the fact that in practice you can’t apply this sort of ideal to real life, but fictional stories are their own separate matter.

I think this whole issue of how he views this as a story first and foremost is also the central reason why this ended in a way that comes across as Satoko being let off too easy for her crimes. One way or another, Ryukishi’s made it clear that he sees this as being no different to how other characters had arcs where they committed crimes but still got forgiven, or how Takano is basically a straight up war criminal who also got forgiven for her crimes.

Anyway, this episode at least committed to the Umineko stuff, so that was satisfying. Sure there’s people that still want to deny it, but at this point I think a lot of people are just being stubborn, so it’s not like anything would have really convinced them, lol. I’m also genuinely not sure what people even would have expected them to do beyond what we saw her, aside from having the two of them literally put on their gothic lolita outfits and turn to the camera and go ‘we are literally Bernkastel and Lambdadelta from the video game series Umineko When They Cry’. I almost feel like there’s some kind of misunderstanding from people who aren’t familiar with Umineko when it comes to the idea of what it even means for this to be ‘an Umineko prequel’, or ‘a Bern/Lambda origin story’. I mean, this is quite literally exactly what I expected and hoped for in that regard. It’s not like I was expecting them to incorporate anything related to, like, Beatrice or the Ushiromiya family.

I think this is also one of those things where you just have to decide for yourself whether or not you want to earnestly engage with the story that’s being told, or if you want to assume that there’s some level of malice or trickery going on.

To be honest, I wasn’t expecting them to literally have Rika and Satoko recite part of Bern and Lambda’s final conversation with each other word for word, lmao. Combined with the scene at the end where ‘Witch Satoko’ talks to herself about how she’s going to give her body back to Satoko while she goes chasing after Rika, it was literally just the exact origin story of their relationship as it’s depicted in Umineko.

I still feel like this would all only really be ‘worth it’ if we actually get something like a full on anime remake for Umineko, but at this point I can’t help but feel satisfied with this part of it all.

It’s not like I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is perfect or anything, though. I don’t hate it as much as basically everyone else does, but I think Ryukishi’s the sort of VN writer who really struggles with the shift to writing for an anime. I think a big part of the frustration people have is just from how this is formatted as a weekly anime series spread across basically an entire year, instead of being something like a stand-alone VN chapter that you can read at whatever pace you want, even if it ultimately takes the same amount of time to read as it would to watch all of Gou/Sotsu.

There’s also the whole issue of this being a sort-of-remake, which snowballed into a whole list of structural problems. They absolutely tried too hard to have their cake and eat it too, and they should have just committed to it being made for old fans only, instead of trying to sincerely incorporate elements from the VN that old fans don’t care about anymore because they’ve gone over it already.

And as I’ve said several times before, it was a major issue for them to decide to put Nekodamashi in the middle of Gou and then spend like 20 episodes on flashback answer arcs until finally getting back to that cliffhanger. I’ve been waiting until this all ended to decide exactly how I feel about that, and now that it’s all over I still think it was a really bad idea. I don’t think it was an issue for them to reveal that Satoko’s the culprit that early, but having the gun cliffhanger specifically happen that early just gave people misguided expectations and tainted the answer arcs because people were just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. And then the cliffhanger itself ended up being somewhat anti-climactic, which is what I’d been fearing would happen. It would have worked fine if they shuffled it around so that the cliffhanger happened right before Kagurashi and was followed up in the very next episode, or if this was a VN where you could binge your way through the flashback stuff, but spending like half of an entire real-life year to get back to that point only to have the resolution be ‘Satoko just shoots Rika and the death loops keep going’ just didn’t really work properly.

I’m a lot more generous towards the Akashi arcs than most people are, since I think they really over-estimate how much re-used content there is there, but they still suffer from the central issue of the show trying to be accessible for new fans. It could have been heavily condensed otherwise, without losing anything in terms of Satoko’s whole character arc.

On the other hand I think the first half of Kagurashi was awful specifically because it highlighted how bad of an idea it was to put Nekodamashi so early in the story. They still ended up having to go back to that arc and repeat it anyway, in the most 1:1 recap-y way in the whole show, but that wouldn’t have even been an issue in the first place if that was instead the first time that arc happened in the show.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I would rearrange the story to make it flow better while still following Ryukishi’s intentions, and I think they could have condensed it into a 2-cour season with this sort of structure if they did something like this:

-First arc where Rika gets thrown back into the loop and quickly figures out that somebody intentionally caused this to happen, and it’s not Takano because at least in this idea of mine she’d try and investigate her only to find out that this version of Takano regrets everything and is planning to flee the village with Tomitake.

Basically I think this could tie into the idea of Satoko initially wanting to just concoct an idea world for Rika so that she won’t want to leave this time, but sort of like what I think happens in Saikoroshi, Rika would still reject it, and this time around there’d be the additional layer of her knowing that somebody did this to her for an unknown reason. Maybe they could even initially market it as a new adaptation or a remake of Saikoroshi, and then reveal that it’s a sequel, to keep that whole element to the series. Either way I think this would end with everything going to shit when Rika rejects that fragment and wants to go back to St. Lucia’s, and Satoko basically snaps and kills her, and that way the audience can find out about her being the culprit without Rika finding out about it yet.

Maybe there could even be some dramatic irony where Rika’s attempts to meddle with certain ‘trigger events’, and her displaying her looper side, inadvertently triggers people around her to get paranoid, and the whole fragment would start to spiral into tragedy from there. I think they could at least use the whole conflict in Tatariakashi about Teppei actually being good this time as a starting point for that sorta thing.

-Second arc, rounding out the first cour, which is basically just Satokowashi. I don’t think there’s much that you’d need to change here, but like I said above I like the idea of her initially trying to just invent a perfect world for Rika and her to live in, instead of jumping straight to murder. But maybe instead of her literally just watching Rika’s loops, she could instead just be stuck using her looping powers to try and figure out how to create that ‘perfect world’ in the first place, by personally investigating all of the different tragedies and how to prevent them.

-Staring the second cour, a third arc where we basically just get to see those loops Satoko goes through, and her whole process of solving the tragedies and ‘purifying’ characters like Teppei and Takano, until we eventually see her perspective on the first arc, and how she reacts to Rika ultimately rejecting the world she tried to make for her.

-A fourth and final arc which is basically just Nekodamashi + Kagurashi, where she just totally snaps and tries to just torture Rika into never wanting to leave the village again, and eventually Satoko gets exposed and they have their direct confrontation with each other.

With that sorta story structure, you’d keep all the relevant bits of Gou/Sotsu as it is now, while being more focused on Rika and Satoko instead of doing kinda half-assed reruns of the Rena and Shion arcs. It’d also push the big cliffhanger between them until near the end of the show, while still revealing to the audience relatively early on that Satoko’s the culprit.

I’d also like them to do more with Satoshi and Shion, so maybe like with how Teppei gets redeemed and Satoko almost gets to have a happy life with him in Tatariakashi, the central question arc of this hypothetical story could also involve Satoko making sure that Satoshi wakes up from his coma, and Shion also gets to have a good relationship with all of them. You could probably do something interesting with the idea of Satoshi and Shion being in the camp of not trusting Teppei and his whole redemption arc.

Honestly I could spend a long time talking about how I would have done things differently, lol. For one thing, I think the Akashi arcs would have been much better if they just changed it so that Satoko used psychological tactics to make people paranoid, and we completely cut out the whole syringe plot device. I get how it fits with Satoko’s whole certainty gimmick, but it made those arcs way too predictable. Even if we knew the outcome, it’d at least be entertaining to see exactly how Satoko might go out of her way to set up the different tragedies. We kinda got glimpses of that sorta plot point in Wataakashi when things seemed to go outside of her control, but they didn’t really do much with it.

Anyway, this is a whole lot of words to say that I think that in spite of the serious structural issues going on, I think Gou/Sotsu as a whole is fine, and was at least working with a lot of perfectly good ideas that could have been executed much better.

Also, on a side note, that one scene during their fist-fight at the start where the art-style changes a bit was kinda weird, but I really liked how it looked, and part of me almost wishes the whole show looked like that, lol. I like Akio Watanabe’s character designs, but I feel like that sort of stylized, almost TWEWY-ish art style would have been really fitting for this series, especially in the horror/action parts.

Oh, and the new rendition of You was so good it almost felt emotionally manipulative, lol.

[lex-malla-non-est-lex]

Tatiana, Belial, and their plans relating Jesse in the past

I’ve dabbled on this topic a few times but your comment really got me thinking. @delilahssbard

This turned out long so I’ll put it beneath the line.

Like, ever since CoI I’ve been highkey thinking Tatiana intended for Jesse to be possessed, but the specific phrasing you used reminded me of a part of ChoG and suddenly everything fits even more now.

- Chain of Gold

Back then, I honestly assumed Belial was talking about preference here, especially since he’s made it clear the reason he could possess James without destroying his body is they share blood, but that’s clearly different in Jesse’s case.

Considering how it’s repeatedly clarified that the anchor was placed on Jesse while he was a baby, that fact is probably significant. If anything, I’d dare say the anchor seems to be a workaround Belial’s destruction not just because he was literally anchored to Jesse’s soul, but by way of tolerance, especially since James also seems to have drawn a similar conclusion.

- Chain of Iron

There it is. Belial would have the anchor and a body to possess, as Jesse grew older. The anchor was in him since almost day one, and Tatiana clearly knew about the anchor, but what’s to say she wasn’t involved? We know the only one who was reluctant to place the anchor on Jesse’s soul was Gast. At no point is Tatiana mentioned in this until Belial outright says that he owed her a favor.

Jesse is just Nephilim, unlike James and Lucie, so by all accounts, a normal possession by Belial would have destroyed him, but the anchor intervened in such a way that there didn’t seem to be any visible consequences at all to him being possessed repeatedly (unless we subscribe to the theory that Jesse’s ghost started fading faster near the end because of the possession, but as of right now we honestly have no way to be sure about that specific fact).

We know Jesse’s childhood sickness involved fevers, and perhaps weakness, the latter coming from the statements in which he’s specifically referred to as weak. We also now know that the real reason Jesse died was because the rune he was given reacted badly against Belial’s essence inside him. Jesse’s description of his own death is that he collapsed into bed after getting the rune, then woke up feverish and in agony. Honestly, that just sounds like a worse version of his alleged childhood symptoms.

Considering his death was basically the result of a rune’s angelic magic clashing with the demonic essence inside him, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to assume his sickness was just his nature as Nephilim having a bad reaction to Belial’s essence, even if he only died because of the rune. I find it frankly impossible to believe that the anchor wasn’t hurting him, because we know under normal circumstances Belial would destroy a body within hours.

And let’s be real, Tatiana knew this. The only question in relation to her is whether she intentionally let him die.

The following are all quotes from A Lightwood Christmas Carol.

“He is very delicate,” said Tatiana. “Nephilim like yourself wish to put Marks on him, because they are intent on killing my boy as they have killed everyone else I love. You sit on the Council, do you not? Then you are his enemy. You may not see him.”

“I would not force Marks on the boy,” protested Gideon. “He’s my nephew. Tatiana, if he is that ill, perhaps he should see the Silent Brothers? One of them is a close friend, and could come to Jesse at our house. And Jesse could know his cousins.”

Before CoI, lines like these could be shrugged off to Tatiana being paranoid about her son being hurt by marks because he’s sickly, but no, we know now that Tatiana is entirely correct.

And it makes perfect sense that she refused to even let the Silent Brothers examine Jesse. No doubt they’d have been able to notice what was wrong with him wasn’t a sickness. Tatiana made a show out of it to exacerbate her own hatred of Nephilim, but she isn’t unaware of things, she just likes to spin them in a way that can be used to blame her enemies for things.

“Father planned alliances for us, when we were children.” Tatiana shrugged. “How ashamed he would be of you. How is your grubby servant?”

Then there’s her attitude, of course. The implication that she thinks it’s perfectly normal to involve children in alliances and plans. We know she didn’t hesitate to have a dark power forced onto Grace, if anything, it’s implied she requested it. We know Tatiana only sees Jesse as something that is hers, not as his own person, so it’s completely within the realm of possibility that she involved him in her own plans for revenge, even if he was just a newborn with no choice in the matter (or perhaps because he had no choice in the matter, considering how badly she reacts to the fact that Jesse *gasp* has a different worldview than her).

“I don’t care!” Tatiana shouted. “My son is of the blood of two of the oldest of the Shadowhunter families. He is not weak like your son. Go back to your weakness, Gideon. Get out of my sight, get out of my house, and do not darken my door again. I have not missed your company, nor your brother’s, and I am relieved that my child will not grow up under the corrupting influence of either of you.” 

Now, this one isn’t so relevant as much as it’s interesting, because while it looks like Tatiana is just flexing and being mean to Gideon, that whole implication that Jesse isn’t weak does compare to how Belial views Nephilim in general.

- Chain of Gold

Belial had the anchor placed on Jesse alongside his protections as a newborn. Humans never get such protections against possession, and Belial still chose one of the Nephilim as his alternate vessel. He was that plan of his as completely viable.

And much like Tatiana, Belial clearly sees Jesse as a tool, as a method to push his agenda.

- Chain of Iron

And assuming Tatiana knew of the anchor from the start, that checks out. Belial wanted Jesse as a vessel to get closer to his goal. If he’s never seen him as an end-goal, then he’s always planned for Jesse to be a temporary vessel. Tatiana wants the Nephilim destroyed. Letting Belial possess Jesse probably sounds like a completely reasonable thing to her. It solidifies her alliance with Belial, makes things easier for Belial, and as Belial himself implied, Belial owed Tatiana a favor.

- Chain of Iron

Seriously, I can say with reasonable confidence that Tatiana knew Belial would use Jesse, perhaps even agreed beforehand to the anchor itself being placed, because to the both of them, Jesse was basically a puppet. (I mean, even the clothes she had him dressed in within his coffin literally scream Belial)

Then of course, what I believe to be the nail in the coffin for Tatiana’s involvement is just what she tells Grace near the end.

- Chain of Iron

She literally has the audacity to claim Jesse was to blame for his own death and basically defended Belial. You know, Belial, who was possessing and controlling her son. Belial, who placed an anchor in the soul of her newborn son and has basically robbed him of anything resembling a normal life or even afterlife. Tatiana is taking Belial’s side on that without any hesitation.

If anything, Tatiana might have let Jesse get runed just to be able to tell him off, like “ha, told you you were too weak to be Nephilim” or something like that, despite knowing damn well the reason runes would kill him was Belial. Tatiana had literal demons to do her bidding, I don’t doubt she could have physically prevented Jesse from following up on his threat to run to Alicante if she didn’t let him get runes, had she wanted to.

Belial probably can control the dead like Lucie can, most likely having far more experience at it. Tatiana surely knew that. Belial said Tatiana called him after Jesse died, and that he owed her a favor, hence the preservation of Jesse. Obviously, Belial benefited from this, but clearly Tatiana saw Jesse’s death as an opportunity to bend him to her will, because he never shared her beliefs during his life.

Now, this is actually where I believe Tatiana and Belial’s views of the situation diverge. Belial outright says raising Jesse as Tatiana wanted wouldn’t suit him. He had Jesse kept in that so-called twilight state that certainly proved useful to Belial, but I don’t think whether Jesse was alive or not mattered pre-Cortana. Not only does Belial clearly not care about consent, he also probably wouldn’t need it, because his anchor was already deep within Jesse’s soul. Jesse being dead or alive was likely irrelevant to the possession, since the one part of Tatiana’s statement that’s correct is that Belial probably wouldn’t have guessed Jesse would die as he did.

Tatiana wanted Jesse resurrected for herself, for her own desire to have her son follow her beliefs and intentions. Belial just cares for Jesse as his vessel. While they’re allies, I don’t think those two usages were as compatible as Tatiana thinks they were, which is probably why Belial outright says reviving Jesse wouldn’t have suited him, and honestly both of them seem pretty angry about losing control over Jesse.

(Belial’s clearly salty that Lucie exorcised him and Tatiana’s mad he’s “in the clutches of a Herondale”, but clearly both of them lost something they valued as an instrument, none of them are actually mad about their loss of access to Jesse as a person, because they’re honestly both terrible people, to say the least).

I know I called that other one the nail in the coffin, but in relation to Tatiana letting Jesse be runed even though that was practically bound to kill him, Belial outright says Tatiana killed him, even despite recognizing the rune was technically the cause.

- Chain of Iron

TL;DR: Tatiana definitely knew about the anchor, Tatiana definitely knew Jesse would be possessed and used by Belial, and Tatiana also definitely let her son die just because it suited her.

[nikibogwater]

Was sick today and watched one of my absolute favorite comfort films to distract myself. And now, an editorial for you all:

Reasons Tangled is one of the best animated Disney movies (in no particular order):

It is very focused and story/character-driven. There are no wasted scenes or useless characters who are clearly only there to sell merch. And no, I don’t want to hear that Pascal was useless, he was literally Rapunzel’s only source of genuine, selfless love before Flynn stumbled into her life, and he spends the entire movie just making sure she’s safe and happy. Also even if he was useless, at least he’s quiet.

Nothing irritating or cringey, like fart jokes, whiney voices, or meme references.

That being said, holy flip, this movie is hilarious. It uses slapstick comedy in such an effective way, along with punchy dialogue, witty one-liners, and unexpected visual gags. But at no point does the comedy ever overstay its welcome.

The story is very self-contained and intimate--it’s only interested in the fate of its two main characters, and it doesn’t try to convince you that there’s anything more at stake than their personal wellbeing. It is also a very smart re-telling of a classic fairy tale with some much needed updates to the story that don’t detract from the original vibe or appeal of said fairy tale. 

It takes a good hard look at the nature of manipulation and abuse, and doesn’t shy away from showing just how subtle those things can be--which is not something you usually get from a “kids’ movie.” 

Rapunzel is not a superpowered Mary Sue who gets everything done by herself. She’s smart and goal-oriented, but is not ashamed to ask for (or demand, as is the case with Flynn) help when she knows she needs it. She is timid and naïve, but also kindhearted and sweet. She improves the lives of everyone she comes into contact with simply by being polite and accepting of others’ flaws. So no, she’s not a girl-power fantasy heroine, she’s a relatable and realistic young woman, and I personally like that a lot better.

Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert isn’t a stereotypical Disney Prince. He has depth and complexity, a muddled sense of morality that comes from being exposed to the cruelty and unfairness of the world from far too young an age. BUT HE IS NOT A FATALISTIC CYNIC WHO TRIES TO FORCE HIS BAD EXPERIENCES ON RAPUNZEL, IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT SHE IS AN EASY TARGET FOR THAT KIND OF THING. Once they become friends, he’s even eager to show her the nicer parts of the world, and does his best to make sure she has the happy birthday she deserves. 

Also on the subject of Eugene, even though he initially has no interest in helping Rapunzel achieve her dream, he is still respectful towards her and protects her when the situation becomes genuinely dangerous. Yes, he’s a self-centered prat at the start of the movie, and absolutely tries to manipulate her into letting him out of the bargain, but he’s not a heartless monster, and at no point does he ever entertain the thought of actually threatening or harming her in order to get the crown back. 

One more thing on Eugene: him rediscovering the self he left in his childhood through Rapunzel’s enthusiasm and kindheartedness is a good arc, and it makes him falling in love with her even more believable. 

Eugunzel is one of the best examples of a healthy couple in any Disney movie. There’s no imbalanced power dynamic between them, they are very much a team from very early on, working together as equals. And once they realize how much they truly care for each other, they are both willing to sacrifice anything and everything to keep the other safe. Tangled doesn’t give you that “Oh, love is a flittery feeling in your stomach, it’s the starry eyes and romantic gestures, it’s a feeling” nonsense. Tangled straight-up says “Yo. True love means you’re willing to put yourself and your desires aside in order to help the other person--and I don’t just mean accepting minor inconveniences, I mean actually dying to protect them, if necessary. Love ain’t for pansies, y’all.” 

Unlike other movies (cough! Frozen! cough!), which just had to spell everything out for us in easy-to-remember one-liners that summed up all the major messages in the movie, Tangled never shoves its themes down your throat. It’s most concerned with telling a good story first and foremost, and everything else is woven in there with subtlety and nuance.

The film doesn’t shy away from the fact that the world is messy. It’s not the dark, soul-sucking void that Gothel tried to tell Rapunzel it was, but it’s still unfair and sometimes cruel. But you can always find good, even in the most unexpected places, and that’s why you can’t close yourself off to experiencing the outside world and its inhabitants, even those you might initially write off as “bad.”

This movie is flipping gorgeous, alright? Like, if I had the choice to visit any world from any Disney movie, I would pick Corona, hands-down. Every environment is so beautifully crafted, with intricate, artistic detail. The Lantern Scene is one of my absolute favorite animated sequences from any movie. And the character expressions are so real and evocative, it makes you feel those emotions right down to your bones. 

The voice acting is incredible, and it is the standard to which I’ve held all voice acting ever since I first saw this movie. And no, Mandy Moore isn’t just “another celebrity voice” here. Her voice is actually perfect for Rapunzel because it captures that sweet, youthful enthusiasm that is the core of her character. 

The music is good, idk what y’all are talking about. No, there’s no Broadway power ballads or anything, but it serves the movie well. Also Tangled was more interested in being a good story than having a soundtrack that would be touted and overshared so much and blared in so many grocery stores and waiting rooms that eventually people would become embittered towards it.

And finally, this is not an objective reason why the movie is good, but I had to include it: Tangled is one of the most influential movies in my life. I first saw it when I was 13 years old, and it has shaped my creative style and taste in media more than any other film or book. If you read any of my fanfics, I can easily point out some small element of it that connects back to this movie. If you look at any of my doodles, they are very heavily inspired by the lush colors and expressive faces that defined Tangled. 

TL;DR: Tangled is good, and I want more people to understand that, and not dismiss it as “just another Disney Princess movie.” 

[redcat921]

Watch. Soul. Twice.

God, I haven't text posted in AGES but I think breaking down twice in a row for this pixar movie just hits so much BETTER. This movie will be on my mind for ages just because of how memorable it is.

EXTREME SPOILERS AHEAD!! Though, if you want to follow my lead, I'll tl;dr.

Watch the movie from Joe Gardener's perspective first. After, watch the movie from 22's perspective.

So, first off, I'll start with this. My own experience of watching this movie which was... absolutely amazing!! You're thrown into the middle school band class, and you immediately connect with Joe's music passion. Then, of course, crushed by the responsibility of having a job as a teacher. Even though his mother sees it as good, he still doesn't. And when he gets the chance of the lifetime to play with one of his jazz icons, Dorothea Williams, you feel as if he's finally getting what he's always wanted. Then he dies. You understand why he wants to get back to his life and his convictions, so you're rooting for him.

Obviously, this is Joe's story first and foremost. Which is why you're watching from his perspective, why you're watching him dream his dreams. Everything, from that first moment forward, is his perspective.

Okay, okay, that doesn't explain why I'm so heavy on watching Joe's perspective first, but I feel like any reader here will get it? As a movie goer, you want Joe to succeed in his dreams yet he's also beginning to care (platonically) about 22. Movie continues, and you see how much 22 is growing as a person, but you're still driven to let Joe back into his body to fulfill his dream. Then, when it hits that 22 found her spark and Joe snaps at her, his drive to become a jazz musician is only fueled. Of course, it's uncomfortable to watch how awkward 22 was in his body, but he's "just about to start living."

The best part? This one performance he felt his entire life built up to? It's... not everything he chalked it up to be. Then, that conversation with Dorothea hits. Joe wants the ocean even though he's already in it. And he only realizes it when he's home alone, playing the piano watching 22's memories in his body flash by.

This is why Joe's perspective hits. This moment, his Epiphany (according to the tracklist), is the trademark Pixar cry moment. All the memories of his life, the ones he didn't think of as important, are the ones he sees before accepting "death." This whole sequence just hits so well, as he realizes how small he truly is yet how meaningful his life was to those in it. Even more so because 22 deserves to live, maybe better than he ever could.

Now, I see this "climax" of the film (where 22 becomes a lost soul then is saved by Joe) as great, but most see it as unnecessary and a little immature in comparison to the rest of the movie. And this isn't the pixar cry moment every watcher probably had five minutes ago during Epiphany. This scene is probably the reason why I'm saying to watch it twice, but I'll get to it later.

End of Joe's story where he gets a second chance. (Yes, it's vague but that's because the literal point of the movie was that there wasn't a set purpose or meaning to his life. Hot take.)

Now, what you probably came for. Why you watch it twice. Well. That's simple enough, actually watch 22 this time. She's still a main character even from her first appearance past the title card, so she does deserve to be treated as such.

From 22's perspective, this Joe Gardner's life is the definition of dismal. Bleak. So much dreariness in life it could be draining... Yet, Joe wants to go back. To Earth which seems like the worst place ever. From her comments about how, "You can't crush a soul here. That's what life on Earth is for." AND "I've been trying for forever to find my spark.", you see her plight. Along with the fact you've seen how deeply this affects her in your first watch through, her movements matter a lot more.

I think the moment that stood out to me is 22's interest in Joe Gardner's life when Moonwind takes them to the "thin spot." It's a blink and you'll miss it moment for sure. But, for a split second, she looks at Joe while he's meditating and imagining his home. I can't help but imagine her interest in life despite all the things she's been told by the many mentors she's had. Then, you get to see her perspective about life on Earth.

From the awkwardness from standing still on the sidewalk in NYC to experiencing pizza for the first time, this is a true step outside 22's comfort zone. And she LOVES it. You get to experience how she found her spark in the littlest things that end up on Joe's piano during that first Pixar cry moment. You see when she talks to Dez, Joe's barber, and how she half reveals that she's scared of finding the wrong "spark" or "getting someone else's." You see her joy in playing with the window, taking the Take One van flyers, even laying on the grate pretending to fly. And you see how impactful Joe's relationship with his mother is too. Interesting that Joe's voice comes out during that conversation, which I noticed on my first watch, but really hit the second time. 22 has found out how meaningful human relationships can be.

Wow. The helicopter seed moment. Watching humans experience life and have relationships with each other is her spark. And that hits. Maybe enough to cry, maybe not. But 22 doesn't know about her spark, but you understand how desperate she is to live.

Then, of course, she gets put back into the Great Before, and Joe snaps at her. This hurts. You know how badly Joe wanted his own dreams, and he claims that your own life is only because he made it so. And... For that moment, she believes he's right. So she gives him the life he's been begging for and comes to the crushing conclusion that she doesn't have a purpose. She doesn't have that spark everyone else typically has. And, if that isn't relatable nowadays for those with mental health issues.

Yeah, it takes the wind out of the Epiphany moment, to watch from 22's perspective. But when you get to that moment where 22 wonders why she doesn't have a purpose in that white space, that broke me. The sand vortex in her lost soul did too, but that moment of being told that there is no being good at life, that evry soul is simply living, that no purpose could ever replace the relationships that she could build just like Joe had... "You're pretty great at jazzing." That's the second trademark Pixar cry moment.

For both of these watches, it makes the last moment when Joe holds 22's hand as they fall to Earth work. That's the lynchpin of this whole movie. This makes me cry too, but if you're too tuckered out from the other two, you're alright in my book. Both perspectives just allow this moment to be... That this mentorship mattered for both of their lives as they move forward.

Honestly, rewatch this movie 5000 times. This movie HITS all the right notes (forgive the pun) in their respective storylines.

I might watch it a third time after talking about it at length. To allow both stories to hit me. But, I hope you had fun reading my emotional journey while watching this film twice. (Yes, I did cry like a baby multiple times. I nearly cried writing this. Let me LIVE.)

Tl;dr Watch Pixar's Soul twice to get both perspectives from both Joe Gardner's perspective and 22's, so you understand the story in full. Thanks for reading!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

let me explain to you the plot of borderlands 4 (kidding. mostly)

tl;dr: the eridians are evil, or, worse, completely uncaring about the things going on in their little sandcastle. the guardians are salty bitches about it and need our help and/or are going to start slaughtering people and im gonna fuckING TAlk ABOUT IT mostly because i need to write this down bc its been bouncing around my head since the game (bl3, not 4. that’d be wild) came out. minor spoilers for Guns Love and Tentacles. mostly that side quest.

tl;dr: tl;dr: eridians bad, guardians mad, and we are caught in the middle of a war that’s about to go down between them. spoilers for GLaT

tl;dr: tl;dr: tl;dr: Fl4k was a warning. Spoilers.

i dont even know where to begin because FUCK THERE’S SO GODDAMN MUCH TO THIS STORY

so im just going to start listing facts or points (+) of this theory that i remember at this very moment and probably forget a lot of them alright i’ll elaborate on all of this i promise. okay? lets go

+the eridians made a bunch of vaults that hold monsters in them

+some of these monsters are clearly constructs. some of them are not

+those that are clearly constructs:

the warrior

the traveler

the sentinel

+those that are not clearly constructs:

the destroyer

the rampager

the serpent

(possibly) gythian

(possibly) graveward (more on this in a bit)

+those that are not accounted for:

the timekeeper (but do keep this bad boy in mind)

+the eridians made the guardians: biomechanical constructs that are somewhat sentient, gaining sentience, and are supposed to guard the Vaults

+we also know now that there are these things called proving grounds with a salty, sentient guardian named the Overseer:

“vault hunter, I thought you might show up sooner or later. so naughty your species, so curious. the vault of vaults has been opened and IT has been released. prove your worth and I will reveal why the masters made me wait for you”

“naughty humans have opened the vault of vaults but the masters will determine who is a fault. until next time, warrior”

“long ago there was a brief spark, the first vault was opened, a light in the dark. a riddle, yes? perhaps it will unravel next time, hunter”

“so, you’ve returned. persistent, yes. or stubborn? or both. are you so desperate to prove yourself?”

“we were created for one purpose by our masters- and we couldn’t even do that right (laughs). but don’t blame us! when a cog breaks, point your finger at the artificer, not the cog! are you a cog, Vault hunter, or an artificer? Or both? prove yourself worthy.”

“pity us not, though the world has been broken. those who sleep will soon be awoken. not long now, seeker.”

“the eridians were our masters, but we failed them. they gave the order then silence. they VANISHED. such is our fate, Vault Hunter. server to a master who has left the house so long ago. prove to me that you deserve an introduction.”

“we were supposed to guard the Great Jail. but no quarter for servants who fail. but servant, that is not quite right. ‘Prisoner’. that is what i am. Until next time, adventurer.”

“a final chance to prove yourself. but will your reward be what you desire? a prisoner in a cell staring out at the fathoms of a sleeping universe. after a time, how would you know if you were prisoner or master? consider this while you prove yourself one last time.”

“it has come to this. one last trial. but will your efforts be worthwhile? that is what we will determine next time, hero”

“I am a prisoner, but you, vault hunter? what are you? hunter, warrior, hero? no matter what name i use, you return to prove yourself time and time again. but prove it to whom, i wonder? perhaps you seek a greater audition”

“it is done and my masters have taken note. would you like to know what they told me right before they vanished? ‘beware the vault hunters, they will take your kind’s place’. now i am free, and you are chained. until next time, guardian”

“well done, but have they taken note? that is what I wonder.”

+ the entire thing about there being a Fallen Guardian we have to kill

+ how the entire thing of the trails are copies of the worlds we visited to open the Great Vault. either the eridians can see through time (TPS) or they built these recently

+how dark Maliwan is probably working together with the Guardians on Nekrotefeyo given the fact they’re working together in one of the trials

+oh and remember how i suggested Maruice’s ghostie goo (ectoplasm) is actually related to eridians and such? YEAH. turns out that was right.

+Nyriad, the unreliable narrator

+the fucking Forgetting

+how the eridians are NOT ACTUALLY GONE FOR GOOD

+the seraphs!!!

+how the guardians are all named after angels, sirens are tied to humanity’s religious imagery

+how tyreen literally only loosened the chains on the Destroyer and the destroyer is going to break free from pandora

+how animals and people like bloodwing, slag psychos, etc mutate due to the eridium on pandora

+the destroyer’s reaction to slag being injected into its eye is straight panic

+the vault monsters that are fleshy were probably science experiments by the Eridians to test eridium and/or the results of being locked in the vaults for ages

+humanity was probably created by the eridians as well (more on that later)

+the Watcher actually WANTS us to have more Vault Hunters, she warns us that war is coming. all we can assume right now is either the Watcher fucked up big time, or she WANTED all this to happen. More on that later.

+the guardians are preparing for war. the overseer seems especially salty about the cause of it.

+ graveward was killed at some point, so the guardians brought it back using the ships, so that they could use their souls to posses it (further proved by the loot: Grave, relic, and Ward, shield)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 alright holy fuck

that’s a lotta stuff to go over!!! Let’s do this thing.

Let’s start with the Eridians themselves

so. these bad boys. We never really knew much about them, but it was always kinda assumed they’ve been long gone bc of the destroyer, or just out of reach.

now that bl3 dropped we’re supposed to assume that they’re all officially dead bc of Nyriad/the Destroyer

and i am here to say that Nyriad is an unreliable fuckin narrator because she doesn’t know the whole story. in fact, she admits to not knowing everything!!

here’s what I actually think is going on, and yes, I believe 100% the eridians are shady motherfuckers who decided to play god:

the eridians are from a dimension that isn’t ours. we can assume this is a higher dimension, bc of all their weird space/time fuckery, especially the Vaults.

the eridians decided to do some science experiments. they make the vaults and use our dimension to store them and put all their experiments inside. they make guardians to guard their vaults, and they realize they can do better in the ‘making a fully conscious being’ department. they make humanity. they make sirens after experimenting with eridium. they decided to go big or go home, and they make giant monsters. after all that, they realize they fucked up, because there is one monster they cannot contain anymore, after all the shit they put it through

so the eridians realize they done fucked up and escape fully to our dimension, where they placed us and the guardians and all the science experiments they didn’t want to deal with at the moment. The Destroyer follows them

they land on nekrotefeyo, their ‘first landing’ in our dimension (hence the quote above). This, or the eridians had been in our dimension for a while now. Nyriad never says where the Eridians came from, just that they and humanity lived side-by-side, so it’s likely they’d been here for a bit, sending scientists back and forth, just doing their experiments all willy-nilly. And I would bet they created the Destroyer in that time frame.

“for their curiosity, they were rewarded with doom” i believe is a correct statement, but not in the way Nyriad thinks. I think the eridians created the destroyer to see if they could, to test the bounds of what was possible. and it backfired on them in the worst way.

Nyriad also says this, but I have a hard time believing her here

the most this is is speculation, because if none of the civilizations who met the Destroyer had nothing else to pass on, then humanity would not know of their existence. (I mean, she even says ‘SURELY it had different names’) Humanity has no record of other (intelligent) alien life in the universe, or their own civilizations being destroyed by the Destroyer*. It’s just the Eridians. 

*There is a reason for this, but let’s hold on for now.

So why tf do I think humanity was created by the Eridians? well, for one, I like the parallel to them having a god-complex. If they haven’t created humanity, then they definitely fucked with us to create Sirens. Sirens have a strong connection to Eridium and the Vaults (and other Sirens).

second, the murals in (most of) the vaults in bl3

show human-like figures hanging out with kids, and one touching something that seems oddly similar to a relic

like so

(on the left there)

there are also these really tall cloaked figures standing (t-posing) near the end of the mural

and most statues are depicted with robes on

a lot of the human figures in the mural are shown helping each other stand up, coming up from the ground like they’re being created, looking around (up at the sky at rays of light), and standing with a lot of eridian junk (there’s a vault symbol next to one). they’re also not shown to be wearing any sort of clothing, even tho extra steps were gone in to show the robed figures

it reminds me a lot of how a lot of religious texts describe humans as being molded from the earth or dirt or whathaveyou

long story short, it very much reminds of something like a creation myth, so i imagine humanity was, in fact, created by the eridians.

ESPECIALLY this smaller one reaching up to touch the relic

there’s no concrete proof for this, but its a hunch i have after studying this mural for a while. especially after Nyriad constantly questions why the Guardians were made to be on the brink of consciousness. humanity is Guardians 2, electric boogaloo. guardians were a mix of machine and bio goop, we are full bio goop. and that means we are curious, and have emotions, and are very naughty.

that or vice versa, eridians made humanity, realized we weren’t as subservient as they wanted and made the Guardians to fill that niche. Also, most importantly, the Guardians were literally made to be disposable. That’s their entire purpose. Their bodies will degrade, but then their souls will just eventually find another vessel. They’re trapped forever.

EITHER WAY

the Eridians created humanity and the guardians around the same time. enough that the guardians are likely vvvv salty about it.

humanity was made. Sirens came after that, through eridium experiments by the Eridians, explaining their connections to Eridium, as well as the other dimension (the one we are assuming Eridians are from) (think about the Lab Rats and Sirens and such)

so were the eridians preparing for something? war, maybe? possibly. they need firepower and obviously they wouldn’t sacrifice their own people when they have perfectly good constructs, so they’ll use their naughty meat slaves.

but the eridians need more than the sirens. they keep dying, and given the failsafe measures, its hard to keep track of them if one decides to let their powers go, despite the fact they added in, like, a siren gps for sirens to find other sirens and be drawn to them and shit

their big boy guardians, their constructs, aren’t doing enough to defeat their enemy

they start experimenting more with eridium. They learn it has the power to mutate things (mostly elementally, but also causes an increase in size, especially the longer/more they’re exposed to).

they create seraph crystals, condensed eridium, which mutate things at an increased rate. These become discarded eventually for reasons below

they begin finding other kinds of life and mutating the hell out of it using eridium/seraph crystals, in order to create their giant buttfuck squish monsters. These monsters are probably pissed the hell off bc they’re mutated and also probably being attacked by people. so they rampage, killing everything in their path.

the eridians need a way to store the big boys and also take them to the battlefields where they’ll annihilate the enemy, so they create the Traveler and the traveling Vault (which is why there was really nothing of substance in that Vault OKAY TAKE IT). Perhapeth the big flesh monsters mutate more due to being locked inside the Vaults and constantly exposed to eridium/whatever energy is in the other dimension.

Things are going well, and the big flesh monsters help turn the tide of war in favor of the Eridians, until the other party is completely wiped out by what they dubbed the Destroyer. So the eridians decide ‘well, we had our fun, time to put the monsters in their cages and forget about the seraph crystals’.

and most of the big boys, creation and mutation alike, are shoved in their Vaults, guarded by the Guardians so they can’t be released bc of naughty humans. except for one, notably the uncontrollable Destroyer. because it wiped out their enemies, now it wants more, with its insatiable hunger, so it turns its eyes on the Eridians and Nekrotafeyo

sort of explaining why the planet looks like it fucking exploded

the destroyer began to give it the SUCC

but there’s more about that planet

cuz the inside is all glowy and green and you totally know where this is going because i told you im pretty sure the eridians created humanity along with the guardians

i think this is the giant storage unit for all the souls, including the Guardian souls. humanity is depicted being pulled up from the ground in the Vault murals.

lemme explain here

I think nekrotafeyo is where the Guardian souls are stored, like one bigass computer. That’s also, we can assume, where the Eridians got the spark for humanity as well. 

around the game, when u ‘kill’ guardians, you can watch their sparks leave (they’re the red glowy things), they fly upwards and disappear. You can also see blue/green versions of these floating around and not doing anything, notably outside the Rampager’s Vault. 

I am curious if these color differences indicate a difference in wisp type (guardian v human) or if the red means they found another vessel and blue means they chillin. It is interesting to note that the Rampager has the ability to succ the wisps, so its possible its also related to the Destroyer. I mean, its way smaller, but it does IMMEDIATELY start wrecking shit as soon as it leaves the Vault.

anyway there’s more to this, because now we get to talk about ~ghosts~

if u didn’t heed my warning earlier, there are spoilers for guns love and tentacles past this point!! 

DOES THIS LOOK FAMILIAR TO YOU?????

THIS IS JUST HANGIN GOUT IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM BTW

LITERALLY NEKROTAFEYO

and let’s not forget the Halloween event that showed ghosts are a v real thing in the borderlands and not just on carpenter planet

like super real. and the ‘hecktoplasm’ we get fuels a portal to heck. literally another dimension. that BY THE WAY is powered by a Maliwan device. that BY THE WAY is filled with Maliwan troops.

cuz remember on Nekrotafeyo where there are a bunch of Maliwan soldiers, but they’ve all got the DARK prefix to their name? you know how in the proving ground the dark maliwan troops are fighting side by side with a bunch of Guardians?

something fucky is afoot.

reminds me a lot of the terror effect

ANYWAY

i believe nekrotafeyo is where the eridian stored the sparks for both humans and guardians, that’s where they are coming from, and when nyriad questions how tf the guardians got that spark (stolen like fire of the gods), its because they’re slowly gaining sentience over time, probably relating to how many times they’ve been killed (returned to the core and then back again). because i 100% believe the eridians created the guardians just as an endless, permanent workforce, and the guardians that have been disposed of time and time again are starting to realize that and get SALTY. the reason i do not say that the guardians are gaining sentience with regards to how long they’ve been around is bc there’s such a huge difference between the intelligence of The Watcher and just a normal-ass Guardian that I have to assume their developing sentience has a different trigger.

anyway back to the eridians getting the succ from the destroyer. the eridians realize they can’t just run away from it back to their home dimension, maybe bc its tied to that dimension due to the vault mutations (i vaguely remember typhon mentioning that the destroyer is a dimensional horror) so they have to imprison it somehow. How do they do that? well it is fucking terrified of eridium (when you inject the eye of the Destroyer in TPS, it panics and freaks out), probably due to all the fucked up experiments they did on it, so let’s imprison it using that. 

And once we do that, we should probably get the FUCK outta dodge, bc these science experiments are getting c r a z y, let’s remove ourselves from the experiment and observe from beyond

so what do they do?

they get one of their sirens to operate a Machine they built that will send them back home. all of them, at once. we’re going home, fuckers. seeya. and obviously they will not tell humanity, because humanity will want to come with, like a lost puppy. and they will constantly question the other dimension and pester the eridians about it. humanity is annoying and the eridians have 1 big regret, im sure. 

they’re also leaving the Guardians to do their dirty work for them, keep the vaults closed so that humanity won’t open them and send the Eridian’s pissed off creations after them. Also explains why there are no Guardians for the Vault of the Warrior (is an Eridian construct) and why the Traveler had Guardians inside it but not on the outside (to keep it running). The only Vault that made me do a big think is the Vault of Elpis. But more on that later.

so they tell this siren that the machine is going to kill them all, and use their energy to power to machine (lol) to close the Destroyer in Pandora, giving a perfectly good super powered monkey severe anxiety. 

they also (apparently) do this ‘Forgetting’ thing, which Nyriad mentions, which makes humanity forget that we lived side-by-side with the Eridians and also everything about the Destroyer. which is so DUMB of the Eridians. 

because SERIOUSLY people, if you don’t want your idiot children opening something, the one thing you don’t do is make them FORGET WHAT IS INSIDE OF IT SO THEIR CURIOSITY GETS THE BETTER OF THEM WHEN WHAT’S INSIDE OF IT IS LITERALLY ‘HEY, YOU’RE ALL GONNA DIE’. literally pandora’s box. LITERALLY- that’s half the reason I think this is all just one big experiment to them. They don’t give a FUCK about us, actually. they just want to see what will happen. they named the fucking planet Pandora ffs.

like YEAH some people would probably try to open it, to try to kill the Destroyer. but guess WHAT FUCKLENUTS we could have had humans working to keep pandora sealed instead just your cryptic ass guardians. CURIOSITY IS A DANGEROUS THING

and listen. there’s a lot of reasons i believe the machine actually sent the eridians home. even if they actually are just morons and thought the Forgetting was the best thing to do for humanity (scoff)

fdgdsffssfgfsg

all-home

there’s more to this

what are we up to? i stopped writing this like 3 days ago and just came back to it

you guys know the whole story now. im not saying my whole entire backstory is fully correct (like, a lot of it is major speculation) but i do firmly believe these few points:

the eridians are from a higher dimension than our own, and came here for science, or to escape the destroyer

nekrotafeyo is named “first landing”

they have an obvious connection to another dimension thru vaults, eridium, and sirens

the eridians either created or experimented with humanity, eventually leading to Sirens

sirens have this connection to both eridium, vaults, and the other dimension

they have similar powers to some Guardians

on Elpis there are ‘pseudo-Sirens’ created upon exposure to chemical sludge near the Vault

Sirens probably are the result of very exact experimentation, meanwhile these fake Sirens are not

The Leech is able to create ‘Anointed’ who have Siren-like powers and turn to eridium when killed

In bl2, the Lab Rats can see the other dimension when phaselocked by Maya after they were experimented on with eridium by Hyperion

unlike other enemies who only see ‘blue’

every vault monster is the way it is because of the eridians doing shit, including the destroyer

the reason the rampager is so angry and begins destroying everything right away? it was mutated by the eridians/being locked in the Vault. It was stuck in there with a bunch of Guardians, probably either conducting more experiments or there as ‘prison guards’

the destroyer appears frightened of slag in TPS when you inject it, but it also gains power from it- pretty similar to Sirens, and if eridium caused these mutations it could explain the fear

eridium causes LOTS of mutations as we can see throughout the history of the borderlands games. i’ve written 2-3 long-ass posts about this now, i think y’all get the idea lol

terry, badass wildlife, slag/burning psychos, etc

we don’t know how long the destroyer/rampager/etc was exposed to eridium. We’ve only seen (relatively) small doses/exposure times

the eridians lied to Nyriad and are in their home dimension right now, probably laughing at us. or at least like ‘holy shit quick write this down’. this is probably all an experiment to them

I just have this FEELING

so sudden, and new

but really tho

The Overseer basically TELLS us that the Eridians are still out there somewhere

she calls them her masters, talks about how they left the ‘house’, then talks as though they can still see us in the present

Actually you know what, let’s talk all about the Overseer’s lines now because they’re dummy important

copy and pasting this because i forgot...

“vault hunter, I thought you might show up sooner or later. so naughty your species, so curious. the vault of vaults has been opened and IT has been released. prove your worth and I will reveal why the masters made me wait for you”

so IT is most likely the Destroyer. i have the firm belief that Tyreen just ‘slipped its chains’, as Nyriad puts it in her log right before the fight

like r u seriously telling me the eater of worlds is the size of a single story house lmao

NO

bigg

‘why the masters made me wait for you’ “MADE ME” I get the feeling she is here against her will, until her mission is completed

and that mission is to see which humans can pass the trials/the execute the trials

why? we’ll get to that. but she even hints that the reward may not be what we want.

“naughty humans have opened the vault of vaults but the masters will determine who is at fault. until next time, warrior”

so the second time she references her ‘masters’

Vault of Vaults is the vault of the destroyer. which is interesting to me. I guess it makes sense, is a big vault with other, tinier vaults on the surface.

I really wish we got an explanation as to what the Vault of the Architects was. might even explain the pyramid key ;-; fuckin pyramid key

so when i first heard this i thought there was some sorta ‘the masters will determine who is at fault’ rift between humans (the calypso twins or the vault hunters)

but now after learning more i realize this is probably between humans and guardians

are humans at fault for being naughty, or are the guardians for failing their only purpose?

i get the feeling the eridians will blame the guardians. the less favorite child :(

“long ago there was a brief spark, the first vault was opened, a light in the dark. a riddle, yes? perhaps it will unravel next time, hunter”

sooo im pretty bad with riddles

either this takes place long before our recollection of events, or this takes place around when typhon opened the first vault on promethea

what i think this means is possibly the beginning of Guardians gaining sentience

nyriad describes the smarter guardians as ones having a ‘spark’. i believe this is what the Overseer is referencing here- their gaining consciousness

THAT, orrrrr the guardians saw themselves fail at their only task and began to realize they could do more with their lives

failure breeds success, after all

“so, you’ve returned. persistent, yes. or stubborn? or both? are you so desperate to prove yourself?”

the differences between humanity and the guardians. humanity has strong desires/emotions, the guardians don’t

or, at least, they didn’t.

“we were created for one purpose by our masters- and we couldn’t even do that right (laughs). but don’t blame us! when a cog breaks, point your finger at the artificer, not the cog! are you a cog, Vault hunter, or an artificer? Or both? prove yourself worthy.”

lots to digest here

one purpose - to keep the Vaults closed

the guardians recognize they are only cogs in a machine, that they’re only tools, and it seems that they’re becoming bitter

‘point your finger at the artificer’ obviously blame the Eridians, not the guardians

‘are you a cog... or an artificer. or both?” i think is very important. i think this is another hint that humanity was created by the eridians

‘or an artificer, or both’ showing that humanity can step out from the shadow of whatever the eridians planned for them and make their own choices/destinies. the guardians can’t. ... yet.

“pity us not, though the world has been broken. those who sleep will soon be awoken. not long now, seeker.”

‘though the world has been broken’ - either bc the Eridians left them/the Vaults have been opened

more importantly “those who sleep will soon be awoken”

what i think this means, personally:

Graveward is a vault monster that appeared deceased (already killed or just died of natural causes) when we got there

but it was combined with a bunch of ship parts

this is confirmed both by the art book and by just LOOKING AT HIM lmao

these ship parts are likely a way to resurrect him by allowing the guardians to posses him

guardians are biomechanical constructs, so it makes sense that they would begin scavenging ship parts from eden-6 to fit to graveward

so they can have a stronger body to pilot

something had to be pulling those ships in to crash

also, this means BALEX didn’t do anything wrong lol

when you get to the vault, tannis is confused, because there should be a vault monster, but there’s only guardians

that is, until you kill Grave and Ward

they (and a bunch of other Guardian souls) then possess Graveward, bringing him to life- or, awakening him

what i think this means: the guardians are going to start possessing more and more stuff

why this means ‘those who sleep will soon be awoken’ possibly vault monsters who are killed aren’t actually killed, they’re just put in a sleeping state and the guardians will be using their tech to control them with guardian souls

the guardians stuck in that big ol computy machine somewhere (god pls let it be nekrotefeyo) are ‘sleeping’ and by taking control of those vault monsties, they will be able to wake up and pilot their own bodies

that is, there are too many souls, too little bodies, so they need more vessels

tl;dr: MORE GUARDIANS

also can we talk about how Sirens can absorb guardian souls pls?? bc what the FUCK tannis

ugh how fuckin’ creepy would it be if the eridians made the fleshy Vault Monsters and used the guardian souls to puppeteer them

seriously though, Tannis absorbed a bunch of Guardian souls why are we not talking about this

how was that not an important plot point

is tannis going to be okay?? i love tannis. please don’t hurt her. are guardian souls just pure energy?? what does it mean??? GEARBOX-

“the eridians were our masters, but we failed them. they gave the order then silence. they VANISHED. such is our fate, Vault Hunter, server to a master who has left the house so long ago. prove to me that you deserve an introduction.”

i think its really important that the Overseer doesn’t say the Eridians are DEAD. instead, she says they just ‘vanished’ or ‘left the house’

i think this further proves they’re still out there somewhere. probably watching over us like creeps

literally from the new DLC... come on. COME ONNNN

also confirmation the eridians are the ‘masters’ the Overseer is referring to all the time

side note i have the game sitting open on my other screen and wainwright just asked someone to drink him under the table what the f-

it does sound like they’ve been forgotten as even servants to the Eridians because she specifically says “were” and “but we failed them” probably meaning the Eridians were their masters UNTIL the guardians failed to keep the Great Vault from being opened

though i do think “prove to me that you deserve an introduction” is interesting

like do we not deserve one yet? well, not until we complete the trials she’s supposed to test us with

“we were supposed to guard the Great Jail. but no quarter for servants who fail. but servant, that is not quite right. ‘Prisoner’. that is what i am. Until next time, adventurer.”

kinda repeating what we learned from the above quote

‘Great Jail’ they put the Destroyer in evil baby jail for his crimes

no quarter for servants who fail - yeah the eridians are like ‘wow you guys suck, fuck you guys’

‘prisoner, that is what i am’. the guardians are all stuck in their roles. they’re trapped here

“a final chance to prove yourself. but will your reward be what you desire? a prisoner in a cell staring out at the fathoms of a sleeping universe. after a time, how would you know if you were prisoner or master? consider this while you prove yourself one last time.”

‘will your reward be what you desire’? we learn that the reward is actually being a guardian, so... it’s not great, if our deductions hold any water

‘a prisoner in a cell staring out at the fathoms of a sleeping universe’ - what the Overseer probably sees her position as guardian of the trials as a prisoner- same with all the other guardians stuck watching over the Vaults

i do also think this may be in reference to the fact she’s stuck in this dimension with us while the eridians ran away

“I am a prisoner, but you, vault hunter? what are you? hunter, warrior, hero? no matter what name i use, you return to prove yourself time and time again. but prove it to whom, i wonder? perhaps you seek a greater audition”

‘hunter, warrior, hero’ note she calls us by a bunch of titles throughout her greetings/goodbyes. but we are not satisfied by any of them

clearly we’re not proving ourselves to HER, since she questions who we are trying to prove it to

‘greater audition’ is likely in front of the ‘masters’ who are the eridians. remember, we have to prove to her first that we are worthy of an audience

“it is done and my masters have taken note. would you like to know what they told me right before they vanished? ‘beware the vault hunters, they will take your kind’s place’. now i am free, and you are chained. until next time, guardian

the eridians know what we’ve done- now humanity takes the place of the guardians

“beware the Vault Hunters, they will take your kind’s place” seems like a pretty fucked up thing to say

but also, more proof the Eridians knew what the FUCK was up, kyle

humanity is just guardians 2: electric boogaloo

the trails were ultimately a test to see if we were up to the task

and now that humanity (or, at least, the Vault Hunters) has taken the place of the normal Guardians, the others are free to do... something

what... i wonder.

i do think it is interesting that the Overseer is pretty morally gray here. like, she’s trapped here to oversee the trials for however long the Eridians have been gone, to see if humans are truly the successors to the Guardians

she obviously doesn’t want to be here, calling herself a prisoner

she even warns us that the reward won’t be something we want- i imagine she might not exactly be able to tell us WHY we will not like it, she is being watched by her masters (the Eridians)

like, i get WHY she doesn’t tell us what’s going to happen. if i were trapped there, I’d do the same thing

but here’s the thing

since we are (we assume) fully squishy and not mechanical in any way, we still have our free will (unlike, we can assume, the guardians)

so we’re not literally trapped in one job forever- we can choose whatever we want to do

so WHAT exactly do i think the guardians are going to do? well, they’ve got an entire army’s worth of souls, they’re resurrecting dead Vault Monsters, and they can modify their bodies now to become more weapon-like

what do I think is happening? The Guardians are preparing for war with the Eridians- they want to destroy their creators, and with us becoming the new guardians, there’s this loophole that allows the old Guardians to finally, FINALLY do whatever they want

(Is Fl4k supposed to be foreshadowing for this? Yeah, I believe they are!!)

+ also before i forget: the entire thing about there being a literal Fallen Guardian we have to kill

i believe this has to do with the fact when you kill it, it drops money. since we can assume the trials are crafted/designed by the Eridians, we can assume the Fallen Guardians are apart of that design as well. It drops money, which probably shows how it’s become corrupted compared to the other guardians. it has desires (collecting wealth). Since the Guardians are inspired by angels (especially in TPS), it’s probably supposed to be a direct callback to that

alright so I think you all are probably like CRUDDY THE PRE-SEQUEL

and like, yeah, that’s what i’ve been building up to the whole time

The Watcher!!!

“War is coming, and you’re going to need all the Vault Hunters you can get”

Let’s just look at the Watcher’s actions throughout TPS and Tales (well, her inactions in Tales, as well as 3)

In tps, the Watcher brings Zarpedon to the Vault, allows her to see the future, and creates the Lost Legion

so we all assume that yes, she’s trying to stop the Elpis Vault (and, by extension, Pandora) from being opened

but here is the thing. the lil thing. the BIG thing actually.

she stops us from killing zarps in the BEGINNING of the game

in the middle-ish when we kill zarp for realsies, she is NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Zarp lets Jack know where the Vault actually is and little miss alien face IS NOWHERE AROUND

when you are inside eleseer, lilith mentions that the Guardians there actually let her through, like they WANTED her to be there

now let’s remember Lilith’s actions in tps (and remember that she is IN NO WAY at fault here. jack is a dickbag. you try to tell me this is lily’s fault and i’ll kick your shins into your asshole)

while jack is seeing the future about the Vault of the Warrior, she punches the treasure of Eleseer into his face. this cuts off the vision, so unlike Zarps all Jack sees is that he opens the Vault of the Warrior. Nothing about the Destroyer destroying everything.

and still, the Watcher is nowhere to be found.

So Jack opens the Vault of the Warrior, Lilith learns she can activate the Vault Map, the events of Tales happens, and Lilith has Athena tied up and is about to shoot her

WHEN FINALLY

FUCKING. FINALLY.

THE WATCHER SHOWS UP

and tells us that ‘we’re going to need all the vault hunters we can get’

now let’s TAKE A STEP BACK HERE

obviously. OBVIOUSLY.

this is pretty backwards from what the Guardians are actually meant to do: keep the Vaults closed. If she wanted us to NOT open the Vault of the Destroyer, she probably should’ve just come right out and told us what’s up. 

no, I think she 100% wanted the events to happen in the way they did.

Because remember, after this, SHE NEVER SHOWS UP AGAIN!!!

not in tales, where she could have stopped the Vault of the Traveler from opening (in fact she could have let Athena die and lowered the team’s chances of defeating the Vault Monster with whatever canon choices there are), not in 3 when she could have prevented the twins from doing any number of things they did, not to give advice to lily on sanc-iii, not during Commander Lily (even though she’s mentioned briefly) she did FUCK ALL

she did J A C K S H I T

it’s because she wanted this to happen. she WANTS the vaults open.

why? well, see above. The Guardians want the Vault Monsters all killed so they can resurrect them as big boy guardians

and that war she’s talking about? it wasn’t the war in bl3. That’s why she never shows her face. she’s talking about war with the Eridians. 

Which is probably bl4.

alright im tired. eridians bad. guardians okay-ish. they might try to kill us all and use our bodies as vessels, who knows.

anywaY this was all an elaborate plan for me to explain the backstory of h2o au and why magic is real in the borderlands universe and why they decide to FIGHT- [gets dragged off computer by a cane]

wow this is a 36 page document, why can’t i be this enthusiastic about school??

[intpstyle]

Detective Conan Meta: Trauma, being seen & the Inner Child

Okay, so it’s 6AM and I woke up with this essay half-formed in my mind and I need to talk about DC. Yesterday, I saw a quote on tumblr that read

“to be loved is to be seen”

and it literally haunted my dreams. I dreamt of Shinichi being unable to tell Ran who he is for so long now (we won’t go into the half a year debate (in this post)) and it got me thinking about the unbearable loneliness of it all. Then I thought of Heiji and of how liberating it must be for Shinichi that some people do know him for who he really is - that some people see him, that some people are able to love him, all of him, because they’ve recognised him even when he looks like a child. And that got a chain reaction of symbolism going in my brain because THINK ABOUT IT, Shinichi is literally forced to live as his own inner child.

So, we open with this lovably weird 17-year-old (fuck no, in the manga he’s actually only 16) with barely any survival skills who’s been left alone in a huge mansion because his parents went adios, who doesn’t have a whole lot of close friends because he always found it difficult to connect with others because he’s so focussed on his detective work and who, when he finally manages to ask the love of his life out on a date and inevitably stumbles over another murder, claims that “you get used to it”, that corpses don’t affect him, that nothing really affects him and, worst of all, he actually means it. This is our protagonist. He’s All Grown Up. He always tried to be All Grown Up. Frankly, with parents like these, he always had to be All Grown Up. And it’s okay! Because he found something he loves doing (finding the truth, restoring justice, helping people) and he’s good at it and people actually love him for it (look at all these fan letters, Ran, look at them!)

And then Ran (bless you, angel child) starts crying because - because so many reasons. One, she’s still affected by what happened. Two, she sees the love of her life being strong - and he always has and had to be strong; it must be so bloody exhausting and he’s not even aware of how tired he is, but to ask him to take a break, to take a look at what all this death and suffering and loneliness really means, to take it in, to stop, would be to take the one thing away (apart from her, but she doesn’t know that) that keeps him stable and grounded and to risk having him fall apart. I don’t think she knows this consciously, but Ran is empathetic and has been around Shinichi all her life - this, I think, is the moment it really hits her that this brutality (a literal decapitated corpse that spews blood like a fountain on a roller coaster!!!) has become her best friend’s “normal”. She is scared. She is worried. And she shows it.

And then Shinichi (bless you, cool child) tries to play it down, to make her feel better, to show her that this is nothing to despair over. He, too, is trying to be considerate of this incredible girl who always takes on other people’s burdens and their pain and grins and bears it. But it isn’t all compassion - he frankly also does not have the tools to deal with someone being so vulnerable and innocent and, dare I say?, child-like. And what does he do? Does he stay and engage with her side of things? Does he hear her out and consider that he HAS become callous and somewhat addicted to shedding light on the dark sides of other people? That he feels uncomfortable feeling the light turned back on himself? No! No, of course not! He’s 16 and has the emotional range of a tea spoon (#relatable). Instead, he latches onto the next sign of mystery and turns back to his quest for truth where he feels safe and needed. He LITERALLY tells Ran to “go ahead” and that he’ll “catch up” and boy, will he ever (emotionally).

We all know what happens next: he bites off more than he can chew. He stumbles over a case that even he admits is “serious” and is LITERALLY hit over the head with the realisation that this - socio-economic corruption, systemic criminal organisations, being vulnerable and opening up to a loved one - is the world of adults and he is NOT ready for it. So he, like everybody else, is given the choice to call it quits or to choose life, start over and re-learn the things he missed out in childhood to become an adult. He becomes his inner child again (the first chapter literally ends with the dialogue

“You okay!? Can you stand up, little boy?”

“Huh?”

and he’s trying. He’s trying to stand up, okay?) and it smarts. In this old/new form, he is taken care of, but not taken taken seriously by the policemen (”You must’ve been scared”) and it freaks him out that they treat him (the master detective!) like a child again. At this height, he fails to get into his own house (some more symbolism right there) and he is not recognised by Professor Agasa until he shows him some impressive deduction work, demonstrating that this really is at the core of his character - he enjoys and is good at mysteries. That was never the problem. Neglecting just about everything else was (- the same goes for OG Holmes, I’d argue). Seeing how the situation he went through literally (damn that’s a lot of literally) turned Shinichi back into a child, Professor Agasa warns him not to inflict the same traumatic damage on others - especially since the situation is not yet resolved. (...but Agasa’s involvement is another can of worms)

There’s a whole other post in Shinichi’s choice to call himself “Conan Edogawa” and wearing his father’s glasses as well (aka trying to redefine his identity by viewing the world through the lense of the people he admired (notably his father’s frames without the lenses though!)), but the most interesting thing happens when Ran shows up. He tries, desperately, not to be recognised - not to be seen - by her in this form because it’s not HIM (it is though) and because it would involve Ran in danger; would put her in the adult world he couldn’t deal with and couldn’t protect her from, thus, ironically, infantilising her and (although in an attempt to be heroic, nonetheless still) limiting her agency.

And this is where the irony really kicks in - because Ran finds it much easier to talk to this raw, vulnerable version of himself that he doesn’t allow her to see as a “grown-up” 16-year-old. It is now, as a child that asks straight-forward questions, that he learns that Ran really does love him and that she knows the good (dependable, brave & cool), as well as the bad (full of himself, bit of a jerk and obsessed with mysteries) sides of him better than he does. At the very moment, he, touched by her vulnerability and wanting to open up, decides to tell her the truth, he is again reminded of the Men in Black by Kogoro falling down the stairs like a sack of potatoes and he (dependable, brave & cool) decides not to involve anyone in the mess he brought upon himself until he can stand up to the world of adulthood that he shrank from.

The beauty of the series is that Shinichi slowly realises, bit by bit, drop by drop, excruciating chapter after excruciating chapter, that the way for him (an INTP) to become an adult is precisely by letting others see him as he is and thus forming lasting, real and dependable relationships (by developing his Fe). This tragically begins with Akemi Miyano (a first step and another reminder that he is not capable enough yet), is slowly built up with the Detective Boys (who are honestly so important for him), continues with Ai (#bestpartners, for both of whom Professor Agasa, the eternal child-inventor, is a safe haven where they can catch up on what they missed out on, Ai obviously much more so than Conan), reaches a really, really sweet high with Heiji (#bestbromance), a rather dissatisfying conclusion with his parents (who, and I cannot stress this enough, decide the best way to convince their traumatised son that his life is in danger is to point a literal gun (okay, it’s a pistol) at his face in disguise) and climaxes with Eisuke Hondo (at which point he is confident enough to proclaim who he is even while still in the form of a child (although that doesn’t make the context of the situation any less stupid (thus proving that he IS still a love-struck teenager at the end of the day))). tl;dr By being both the professional adult “Sleeping Kogoro”, as well as the cooky child “Conan Edogawa” at once, Shinichi can play with both facets of his teenage life until he reaches a level of stability that allows him to integrate the child mind into his adult mind - and that will be the point at which he’ll be able to fully become (not just temporarily play the role of) Shinichi Kudo.

PS: It is also interesting to compare Ai’s and Shinichi’s approaches to being stuck in their childhood selves. Shinichi, not as scarred and slowly building up a network of people he trusts, is eager to move on and begs Ai to give him the temporary antidote as often as he can - he WANTS to grow up and be a grown-up so badly. There is so much (Ran) waiting for him there.

Ai, on the other hand, is much more cautious and warns him not to jump the gun. To her, much more scarred and still rather alone, this is an invaluable second shot at life and she is as careful with it as she humanly can, constantly worrying and on the look-out that someone could drag her back to the prison of responsibilities and obligations. That’s why it was SUCH a pivotal moment for her when she used and realised the use of her adult form when she saved the Detective Boys from the fire. She, too, is slowly connecting the two halves of herself but I suspect that it’ll take her an entire childhood to do so. (Also, interestingly, as an INTJ, she puts down her roots in a very different way from Conan. She cherishes her new relationships and protects them fiercely, but the real signs of her settling down ever-so-slowly is her growing willingness to reconstruct her internal moral system (Fi) and to acquire and find security in material possessions (Se), like her designer handbags and her little football-man-phone-strap.)

[vowled]

Unpopular Opinion: Johnlock edition

So, I am, as invariably suggested by my blog and username, a major Sherlock fan. I absolutely love it. The first time I watched it, I immediately related to it, and my peabag brain instantly saw a friend in John Watson. Sherlock’s character, on the other hand, was quite unconventional to me. I couldn’t bring myself to quite like him for the first 2 episodes. He was.....different. I knew I wanted to watch the series just for the dynamic duo and their and sweet friendship. The cases I couldn’t at first care for much, but eventually that changed too. I always was completely amazed by how well they had managed to adapt the series to the 21st century and their subtle winks to the original canon too was quite impressive. Eventually, I fell in love with it, and proceeded to watch the entire series thrice. in a row. I was, and still am, completely obsessed. 

Then came the thought, which was also somehow initially suggested subtly by the show itself, ” What if Sherlock and John are in Love?” I must agree, I had read too many conspiracy theories about certain celebs being closeted to not come up with that question. 

At first it was just a thought. But then, critical analyses on tumblr came up. I couldn’t stop reading them?! and so many of them were thought-provoking and persuasive and honestly, I was living for it. The phone = heart theory is still one of the best Theories I’ve read among all the fandoms I’ve ever been in. And that is just one among many. JohnLock was everywhere. Other ships were persistent, but none could reach the amount of fervor as JohnLock. And I was living for it too. I still really enjoy all the adorable fanfics and the ever-interesting theories, and honestly, at this point, my motto is “I’ll find homoerotic subtext even if it kills me”.

Shipping is ok, shipping is good. But here’s the deal we need to talk about:  we shouldn’t justify our ships to the point of interpreting every action as romantic. This propagates unrealistic expectations and results in harmful stereotypes.

Yes, I’m talking about the unending debate on Johnlock. 

From season one itself, Johnlock was phenomenal. It is widely argued that  the show-runners themselves inserted subtle hints, and hence, birthed this beast on their own. The Sherlock fandom remains one of the oldest fandoms in the world, with its beginnings rooted in the Nineteenth Century when ASiS was published, and since then many have argued about the latent homosexual subtext embedded into the writing, my point here being people have been shipping Johnlock for well over a hundred years. Hence, It’s not really a surprise that people are still drawn to this ship. But to be shipped by this magnitude of people? This invariably suggests that there’s material provided to us by the creators themselves that is very blatantly obvious about the relationship. And while in most cases shipping two characters is completely okay in itself, according to me, shipping Johnlock has further validation in the fact that there is proof of intent of it becoming canon eventually (at least in the first two seasons).

Like I said before, shipping is OK, shipping is good. 

But is shipping okay if we take it to the point of over-analysing every move?

Sherlock is a comfort character for me. God knows half of my maladaptive daydreams are about him being a father figure towards me. My entire twitter tl and Tumblr dashboard is stuffed with cutesy or angsty things about him, and that’s great! But being in the fandom for about eight months, I’ve realised how this sort of feed eventually resulted in me completely forgetting the original storyline, and more importantly, in me forgetting how flawed a character Sherlock is!

Everyone(including me, the first time) freaks out in HLV because of how Sherlock isn’t listed as John’s pressure point. I, however, think we should question ourselves: Why should John still consider Sherlock that tantalizingly close to himself as he was in the beginning? John learnt his best friend had died, and he decided to do the bravest thing he could: make peace with it and move on. BUT NO! The Ghost of the man who loved him returned from the grave to haunt him! Here I talk about the other possible reasons why Sherlock wasn’t a pressure point for John in HLV. 

I am tired of this constant sugarcoating of Sherlock’s character. I am tired of seeing constant posts about how Sweet and caring Sherlock is and how much he loves John and how he loved her more than Mary. I am done with over analysis of every single shot where Sherlock looks at John, completely done. This shot below? It’s been overused for so many fanfics and cheesy romantic lines that I forgot that it’s supposed to be a look of GUILT.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sherlock so dearly because he’s a very unlikeable character. That is precisely what sets him so far apart from the other characters. Sherlock started off with a hateful and dismissive character, but through the course of the events he undergoes a lot of emotional development. And that is truly noteworthy. In TFP he said for Mycroft, “ He did the best he could (for Eurus)...” and that is truly sentimental. This sort of development is always heartwarming.

What I want people to understand is that Analysis is, obviously, important. And CRITICAL ANALYSIS more so. And it’s saddening to see so many people glossing over the critical part of the analysis. Why is it so wrong to point out HOW HURTFUL SHERLOCK’S ACTIONS TOWARDS JOHN HAVE BEEN?  Why is it wrong to to point out Johnlockers borderline bully other shippers? 

Can we finally talk about the problematic aspects of Johnlock, or rather Johnlockers?

Even though I’m relatively new to the fandom, I’ve noticed how dismissive people are of anything negative said about Sherlock. In the beginning, it was endearing, really; but now I see this pattern of constantly singing praises of Sherlock’s character, and it has lead me to realize how detrimental it can be to the relatively younger audiences. Sherlock is Rude, period. There’s no question about it. And this constant glorifying of his rudeness and arrogance and dismissing it as  a quirk could very well possibly give the impression that arrogance and vanity are in fact not so bad, and hell, it might make one seem a little cooler even ! Oh, don’t be mad if I act like my comfort character ! I’m quirky like that !

Constant bashing of the creators. And when I say constant, I mean it. This sort of bashing about is never-ending. And when I say this, I don’t mean that the creators were perfect; some of their mistakes were, quite frankly, blatantly ignorant ( like Irene the Canon Lesbian falling for Sherlock), but I don’t see enough people praising it for what it is. Even now there is so much slander against the creators ( and personally I feel bad for Mark Gatiss because he’s actually on twitter and is constantly spammed). Is it really a surprise that the creators hate the fans and especially the Johnlockers? Was it supposed to be so shocking when Martin said that being in the show wasn’t very fun anymore because of the fans?

We just don’t actually analyze anymore! I get that we haven’t got any new content for FOUR muheffing years but please I literally don’t see anything that’s actually interesting or analytical anymore and that kills me because that was the reason I joined this fandom- to read and comprehend the subtext, and the AMAZING META!  All I see are cute couple-ish pics of ben and Martin and tbh we can do so much better than that?!

Johnlockers have so much actual stuff to talk about? There is literally so much going on Subtextually, and yet all I see is people losing their mind over any interaction between Sherlock and John. This is so unfair! AND it’s detrimental too! With people painting every interaction as romantic in nature, the younger teenagers in this fandom who might not have experienced Love or Attraction may glean unrealistic ideas about them! It is difficult as it is to navigate oneself through romantic entanglements, let alone being fed such rose-colored ideas! And I say this because although I don’t know much about the audience on Tumblr, but Stan Twitter is like, (at least) 50 percent teenager-fuelled. It actually isn’t healthy for them at all.

Stop with the Benedict-worshipping for God’s sakes. Are you only in here because of him? We all get it, he’s absolutely stunning but come on, we’re here for the stories too right?

Romantic love is important, no doubt. But you know what’s completely overlooked? The platonic sort of love. And it’s tiring. Sherlock and Molly/Janine/Irene/John are all amazing duos and each pair has it’s own uniqueness and tang to it! Let’s not constantly dissect everything in the name of shipping, shall we?

lol looking back at it, I feel like it’s a vent rant for the prevailing circumstances on Stan Twitter. I apologize if anything I said hurt anyone, it wasn’t meant to. I completely understand that shipping people is for...recreation (?) but this was just my opinion. Let me know what you think about it!

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 21: 3x04 And the Children Shall Lead

Okay, I’m finally going to write up my thoughts on And the Children Shall Lead. I think I’m (mostly) over all of my excessively-strong emotions about this ep lol. Maybe going through my notes will bring them back. Or maybe not. I’ve felt very tired and uninterested in everything today so it’s hard to tell. So far the process is not going well: tumblr ate my first attempt at a post, like literally I wrote a few lines, clicked to a new tab, and when I clicked back the post was empty so thanks for that, and I keep on just generally not being interested in the task. So, we’ll see.

The tl;dr is that I don’t see why this ep is considered one of the worst. I actually really liked it!

Single-color jumpsuits: the fashion of the future.

Another old Kirk friend! (This isn’t even important lol; it never comes up again or matters that Kirk knew this guy, but we must always be reminded that he is the best networker in Starfleet.)

“He’s dead, Captain.” Not “he’s dead, Jim”?? Sounds wrong.

“The enemy within.” I thought that was a S1 ep?

Ah, another bunch of creepy kids. In pajamas this time, apparently.

Kirk is not having fun being the center of their creepy little rhyme.

RIP to McCoy but my diagnosis is “alien shenanigans.”

“I’m sorry, Captain Kirk.” Such a polite little alien.

McCoy corralling the kids

This sounds a lot like Miri, except purposeful—something targeted all the adults but left the kids, just like the virus in Miri affected all the adults, but not the kids.

…A disturbance in the cave!

Lol at Kirk’s anxiety face. I feel you, man.

Spock’s never experienced anxiety? My first thought is ‘sounds fake’ but actually… maybe he really hasn’t.

“There has to be an explanation.” This is the MOST Jim line.

I like these kids. They’re actually pretty cute. Also love Kirk trying to relate to the kids.

Where are they? Is this Sulu’s greenhouse lol? I love it. They should have used this set more.

“That place is for adults.” Gotta say, I wrote this down but now have no recollection what it actually refers to. The bridge? I think it’s the bridge.

Are they performing witchcraft? Intriguing.

“Friendly angel”—nothing creepy about that at all.

Got a little alien cult going on here. Every time I feel anxiety from now on I’m going to assume it’s an alien cultist nearby.

“We’ll pursue this in my quarters.” Wink wink.

Can’t fool Uhura.

Never mind. Yes you can.

For someone who wanted the kids guarded all the time, Kirk sure was ok with them just traipsing around the bridge. I mean the guards are at the door but like…they’re only at the door.

Never really thought about how there’s apparently an…engineering component... to flying the ship? I don’t know, I don’t really get it but it’s cool.

"Evil does seek to maintain power by suppressing the truth." Damn. Great line.

BAND OF MARAUDES. That’s a cool backstory for the dead alien society. Basically, they’re ghosts. Greedy ghosts. Alien ghost pirates.

Great triumvirate scene. McCoy want to protect the kids and Kirk’s like “…but the ship, though?” Which is fair!!

What does the ghost want? Um, a ship to maraud in, were you not listening to Spock’s exposition of the back story?

No don’t beam anyone down!!

Love any time Spock pushes someone else out of the way so he can man the transporter. He’s somehow the second-best expert on it on the entire ship.

Eeek, low-key gruesome death there. Look, I know that this is one of the scenes that haters love to point out as a reason to despise the episode but I personally don’t think deeply enough into the transporter situation to wonder how much information they have or assume before they beam people anywhere. Also…weird alien stuff is happening, guys. Just attribute it to that. Also also, if you’re gonna nitpick like that, be prepared to hate all of TOS.

THE KIDS STOLE THE CAR.

“Sulu, what did you to do my ship?”

Uhura’s watching this little witchcraft scene from the background like ‘aw, so cute.’

“Call upon their beasts.” Metal.

“Go to your stations.” This little kid is a future Captain in the making.

SPACE KNIVES

Kirk's like "Oh no, my crew is deserting me, I'm gonna have to fly the whole ship by myself AGAIN.”

“Captain, why are we bothering Starfleet?” Et tu, Spock?s

How did they get to Spock? He doesn’t seem scared of anything…more like he’s under the influence of a general hallucination, like the others seeing the planet on the screen even after they left orbit.

I remember this part, with Kirk freaking out. Spock doesn’t like it one bit.

He’s just being a littttle Dramatique.

Cannot believe that all Spock has to do is say “Jim” in a quiet, intimate voice and Kirk is immediately okay. Just let it out of his system, grabbed onto his friend, heard his own name, and the beast is defeated.

“My Vulcan friend”? Lol.

Kirk’s face when he realizes they’ve got Scotty too…

“Go away or we’ll kill you.” That was legitimately creepy. Scotty gone rogue.

Aw, Spock was worried about him again.

“Without followers, evil cannot spread.”

“Where did you hear this order, Chekov?” / “The voices in my head.”

It’s interesting that Kirk and Spock can’t be manipulated—perhaps because they have each other?

Enough of this—fight time!

That guard sounded like he really liked that nerve pinch; he was kinda moaning as he went down.

“Spock, corral them to their rooms.”

Outta the chair, brat.

Is Kirk going to defeat the alien evil using logic?

Summoning the “angel” by using the old recording is very clever.

When did they decide to start calling him the Gorgon?

“It lost its power in the light of reality” = “I looked into Spock’s eyes and knew myself again.”

HE IS GENTLE. It’s true and you should say it.

And he doesn’t even dispute it. “AND we are ALSO very strong.”

"You are full of goodness. Such as you cannot be changed."

So the girl is Jankowski.

This is very Candyman. The alien needs their belief to live. When they cease to follow him, he literally disappears.

Honestly, this whole alien scheme starts to look equal parts silly and sad, trying to call the crying children "generals.” They’re babies!

McCoy loves to see children in tears lol.

Kirk just hands them all off to McCoy, like ‘well, my work here is done.’

Okay, now we reverse course to pick up those stranded security guards still on the planet, right? Right? No? Okay, guess not.

Uhura, immediately ready with the paperwork lol. Now IS the time.

The end!

Now to try to interpret all of my other, more general notes.

The way I interpreted Spock being able to defy the mind control was that he was affected by Kirk. Because he clearly was affected, but then when he saw Kirk starting to freak out, he looked concerned, and then got them both off the bridge—he had a breakthrough of clarity long enough to understand he needed to get off the bridge. Then he’d be away from the kids, and they wouldn’t have as much control, and he could snap Jim out of it, too.

Like I’m sure his Vulcan resilience could easily have been part of it, too, but that resilience wasn’t enough to keep him from being affected at all—and of course they could have easily written it that way—and it seems obvious that his moment of clarity was caused specifically by watching Kirk starting to lose it. There are so many shots of him specifically watching Kirk and the guard.

The K/S vibes were so strong. Spock was so protective, then they get in the lift and Kirk basically clings to him. All he has to do is say Kirk’s name and Kirk is fine, which is basically the power of true love. And then even outside of that scene… for the whole rest of the ep, they’re a duo. It’s not just Kirk against the Evil of the Week, it’s Kirk and Spock, working together at every turn. Neither of them could have done it alone.

it's a pretty classic trope, in fact, especially in s1, to have Kirk all alone, abandoned by all...where he's the last man standing, the one who has to run the whole ship and save the whole day. Naked Time, This Side of Paradise, and Trouble with Tribbles (kinda) all come to mind. But this time he has Spock! You see the progression of their relationship in that.

I really enjoyed this episode in general. Lots of classic tropes: creepy children; surprise alien; old alien society not as dead as we thought; Kirk has to run the whole ship by himself (with Spock); heroic!Kirk saving the day… It has it all. It’s clearly revisiting some older themes and ideas, but in a sufficiently unique way that it doesn’t just seem like a rehash of an older plot. In some ways, it felt like a Classic S1 episode to me. It has some Miri elements, some Charlie X elements, some Naked Time elements…

I literally don’t understand why it’s so disliked.

Skimmed the wiki and the only specific criticism in there is that Kirk shows an “unmistakable hostility to the children.” Well first of all, he doesn’t. He might not have the best manner with them, but why should he? He’s certainly not mean or cruel to them. He recognizes they’re a danger to his ship, and to the whole planet of Marcos-12, which by the way is objectively true, but that’s not being hostile. McCoy is the one who represents ‘exclusive care for the children’s welfare’ in this ep, but he CAN do that, because he’s not the Captain. He represents that perspective, he gives his opinion, which is both his job on the ship and his role on the show, and then Kirk takes that into account while doing HIS job, which is running the ship. McCoy would have literally let the kids take over their ship and conquer the galaxy as part of their grieving process lol. Kirk was right and I should say it. (Also btw he understands that killing the kids might be an option—but he obviously doesn’t actually do it.)

I actually think this ep is a great example of the triumvirate functioning--McCoy reminds Kirk that the children are just traumatized children, and Spock reminds him that he's responsible for 400+ people on the ship, and Kirk makes the decisions that vanquish the evil, save the ship, and free the kids.

And look, even if you don’t like this episode, you’d have to argue very hard to convince me it’s the WORST, as in worse than Spock’s Brain, worse than The Alternative Factor, worse than Assignment Earth (not even a real TOS ep!), worse than The Omega Glory.

Some stuff I actively liked: the concept of the alien taking over the children specifically (both creepy and…kinda makes sense? That they’d be vulnerable); the message that the followers of demagogues can be both truly dangerous and objects of sympathy; the backstory of the evil empire of pirate aliens—and how greed doesn’t die; the witchcraft aesthetic, ESPECIALLY when paired with the kid antagonists, since kids are so into that like chanting, incantations, rituals thing; that the ep used every single main character (when was the last time a TOS ep did that?). Also I thought the kid actors did a good job!

The theme about the authoritarian and the cult followers was actually quite resonant, I thought; inevitably made me think of Tr/ump and his Tr/umpies. Just like in this episode, you must have some kind of… if not sympathy, at least willingness to do the hard work of deprograming and then bringing them back to the fold, or else the country is never going to heal and it’s never going to be able to go forward in a positive way. It might not go forward at all! But fuck it’s hard to have that sympathy; they’re so abhorrent. Here, you see the terrible things the kids do, and yet sympathy isn’t so hard, because they’re kids. You see how much they are victims/pawns also. And so in that sense, Kirk’s ability to deprogram them is comfortingly optimistic—a little bittersweet, as TOS often is, because the kids have done horrible things and seen horrible things and now they’ll have to live with it, but comforting nonetheless.

I can’t even think of that many things I didn’t like in the ep. Mostly just nitpicky things. Like, was McCoy a little inconsistent in what he thought should be done with the kids? Yeah, but we get the general idea. Did Kirk drop the ball when he let them hang out on the bridge? Yes, especially as he knew how dangerous they were at that point, but I actually don’t mind it so much because they’re kids—it’s understandable that their true dangerousness didn’t fully compute to him. I don’t see that as a mistake or sloppy writing tbh. And was it an amateur hour mistake to beam two people into space? Yes, but it made up for it in being creepy and upping the stakes of the ep.

I guess I could see how the fist gesture could be seen as a little silly. But the other option, having them speak rhymes each time, would have been distracting—and probably also looked silly! Also, as my mom pointed out, it looks like a kid’s game (sorta like the start of rock paper scissors) so it fits appropriately with the theme.

I really liked how they wove in the aesthetic of kids’ games, kids’ manners of playing, into the narrative. Kids can be really creepy! They like creepy things! So the ring around the rosy rhyme at the beginning—a quite disturbing chant, of course, about the Plague, that is also very commonly sung by actual kids—foreshadows the summoning chant that brings the alien to them. It’s all of a piece. And just like the rhyme is just a rhyme, and they don’t know the real meaning behind it, they probably also don’t fully understand the meaning of the summoning chant or the alien that comes with it. It’s all one big game to them.

It’s interesting that the alien seemed to play off their desire both to punish their parents for working too much ("they like the planet, they're always busy") and to have freedom from parental rules (how they react to any instructions from adults, the alien's promise that the whole universe will be their playground, etc.). He really picks their sore spots as kids specifically and turns them into his “generals” accordingly. Like all kids, they don’t think too much about the larger consequences of their game because in some ways, it really is all just a game to them.

I liked how the episode characterized Kirk’s ability to interact with kids. He’s not bad with them at all, but he’s not like McCoy or Chapel either. He “wants to communicate with the future adult in the kid,” as my mom put it, which is perfect. He doesn’t exactly treat them as mini-adults—he doesn’t say inappropriate things to them, and he does simplify his language and his ideas for them—but he does treat them very seriously. And he’s probably best at one-on-one interactions like with Tommy. I think this makes total sense for his character: he doesn’t have kids (David aside lol), he doesn’t have younger siblings, he doesn’t work in a place where he’d see other people’s kids, he doesn’t get to see his nephew much, etc.

…Okay those were all my notes. I know I had other thoughts that were a little less scattered later, but… I’m tired. And most of it is probably in here in some form or another. I also found a list of, like, actual critiques of the episode, and I was considering going through them and addressing them all, and I might still do that. But I think that’s for another day.

[ruusverd-fandom-blog]

I started this as a reply to another post, but it got super long and went in a bit different direction so I made my own. It probably needs a "read more" but I'm on mobile, so oh well.

Note: I'm talking exclusively about what we see on the screen in the Netflix show here, not the information from the books or games or fanon interpretations.

I think it's interesting that Geralt's supposed emotional constipation and weak social skills only seem to get mentioned in relation to his interactions with Jaskier. Geralt gets along fine for the most part with pretty much everyone else he meets if he wants to (except for his fight with Yen about the wish) and even though he isn't as chatty as his book counterpart, his emotions are generally very clearly conveyed and not inappropriate to whatever situation he's in at the time. There's definitely a lot of trauma and trust issues going on there, but all things considered he's actually a surprisingly functional adult.

I think people assume Geralt is emotionally repressed and socially stunted because he doesn't act like he likes Jaskier or wants him around, but that's only a sign of emotional repression if it isn't true. Watching the show... it looks to me like Geralt genuinely doesn't like Jaskier and doesn't want him around. I'm not going to analyze every scene because this is already going to be really long, but Jaskier gives Geralt very little reason to trust him, let alone like him. It's not a crime or a sign of bad social skills to not want to be friends with someone, particularly someone who doesn't respect you at all. (It definitely is a really bizarre writing choice for both characters since they are supposed to be best friends, but I digress.)

In the very first episode Jaskier is in, he sees Geralt in a tavern, decides all on his own he's going to make him his muse, completely ignores that Geralt isn't interested, gives him some "help" that Geralt didn't ask for and actively objected to, then in later episodes acts like Geralt owes him friendship (and favors, and actual money) in return. He constantly treats Geralt like an idiot who needs Jaskier to run his life. And he does this for literal decades. What part of that was Geralt supposed to interpret as genuine friendship? That's not how a friend would act, even if Jaskier's intentions were good.

And for once let's not pretend his actual intention in writing the song(s) was a selfless desire to help Geralt, at least not entirely. Netflix Jaskier isn't book Dandelion the master poet, celebrated graduate of Oxenfurt and independently famous bard. Netflix Jaskier when we meet him is a young guy who can't even busk in a tavern without having things thrown at him, his songs are that terrible. He latches onto Geralt of Rivia the famous witcher as a potential career boost for himself before he knows Geralt doesn't like to be called the Butcher; he was equally happy to write songs about the Butcher of Blaviken before Geralt punched him. (Also a strange writing choice by the way, Geralt isn't generally the type to punch random strangers for being accidentally insulting. Or even purposefully insulting for that matter.)

People like to talk about how Jaskier made Geralt famous and improved his reputation (which is debatable, I'll get to that in a minute) but I seldom see anyone point out that Jaskier's own professional reputation was entirely built on songs that he attached Geralt's name to without his approval, capitalizing on Geralt's already existing fame to boost his own.

How much the song(s) really helped Geralt is, as I said, debatable. He was clearly already pretty famous if Jaskier recognized him on sight, and the worst instance shown of human prejudice against witchers occurs in episode 1 before the Butcher of Blaviken came to be. In the tavern in Posada he's sitting alone, but he's clearly visible to the whole room and not hiding in his hood like he was in Blaviken, and no one seems hostile towards him for being there. The farmer isn't scared to approach him with a job, and even pays him up front. The Blaviken incident doesn't actually seem on screen to have made Geralt's life noticeably worse than it already was in a practical sense, he just really hates that memory and doesn't like being called a butcher.

The only major difference I can see for Geralt after Jaskier writes his song seems to be that occasionally he gets called White Wolf instead of Butcher (though Butcher is still far more common, at least on screen), and that he now also has a reputation for slaughtering elves, as shown by Calanthe's banquet. Granted the latter likely doesn't hurt his popularity with humans, but Geralt obviously (and rightfully) hates it.

I say again, what part of this is supposed to make Geralt so incredibly indebted to and fond of Jaskier?

There are a lot more instances I could mention, (grabbing the djinn right out of Geralt's hands, trying to use the wishes all for himself and what he chose to wish for, immediately lying about Geralt's feelings to bolster his own reputation when he thinks Geralt just died, I could go on) but the overall impression is that this relationship is really heavily slanted in Jaskier's favor, and Jaskier engages in a lot of controlling behaviors to ensure that he continues to benefit as much as possible, frequently at the expense of Geralt's physical, emotional, and moral comfort. I'm not sure why it's considered "emotionally constipated" for Geralt to be unhappy with this and pretty bluntly tell Jaskier to go away and leave him alone through the whole show.

It's not until episode 6 that Geralt finally snaps and phrases his oft-repeated "go away and leave me alone" so harshly it finally gets through Jaskier's habit of filtering out everything Geralt says. Too harshly maybe, but Geralt has been saying essentially the same thing at every opportunity for 22 years and Jaskier doesn't listen or else just doesn't care. No wonder Geralt finally blew up. It's actually very telling that after so many years Jaskier doesn't even know Geralt well enough to read his moods or warning signs. Maybe Jaskier is the one who actually lacks social skills and/or emotional awareness?

Regardless, I was super turned off by Geralt and Jaskier's relationship in the Netflix show. I wanted so much to like it, but frankly I was relieved when Jaskier finally left in ep 6, for both their sakes. And I felt so bad that I was relieved, because it could have been so much better. If these two are supposed to be friends, the script should have been written so that both Geralt and Jaskier actually like and respect each other and want to be friends, because so far they're just two completely incompatible people. I hope season 2 is better, but given how tv shows usually work my hopes aren't high.

Tl;dr, I don't think the travesty of Geralt and Jaskier's relationship in the Witcher Netflix is due to Geralt being socially inept or emotionally stunted. It's due to the fact these two characters, instead of being written as opposites that attract, are written as a man who deeply hates being taken advantage of, and another man who ceaselessly takes advantage of him. It just doesn't work. Jaskier can't just force or guilt-trip Geralt into being his friend if he doesn't want to, and he's given Geralt precious little reason to want to.