#it's more of a quality statement?

[liketolaugh-writes]

Okay but like. Real talk. 'Their son died and they didn't even notice' sounds real bad, but can we like- Danny was still living with them. It is reasonable to assume that your kid that is still living with you is not dead. It is not like he just disappeared one day and they didn't notice.

'Their son died and they didn't notice' is a FANTASTIC line for characters to torment themselves and each other with. Danny can lay awake at night and think about it. Maddie can rip her hair out over it. Sam can throw it at them in a spiteful rage.

But like. It's definitely not an accurate summary of what happened there. And I think the author should maintain a careful awareness of that.

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[unordinary-diary]

Blyke and John: Parallel Characters

I’ve written multiple entries about this,

[x] [x] [x]

But I’m back to make a comprehensive analysis about the glaring similarities between these two. I’ll try not to repeat myself here.

‼️SPOILER WARNING for the whole series‼️ but this mostly focuses on the story before John’s suspension.

Firstly, this scene:

ch. 121

This conversation takes place near the beginning of the Joker arc. It’s after John targets Zeke, after he targets Juni, and the day before he goes after Seraphina’s kidnappers. The timing is important.

“If someone hit your best friend, would you let it slide?”

That question is supposed to remind us what John does to people who hurt Seraphina: hunting them down and sending them to the hospital. Blyke shooting a destructive beam really close to John was an example of a trait they share: they both blow up violently when people mistreat their friends.

John’s downward spiral carries strong themes of hypocrisy. He’s angry at the world, he’s angry at himself, and as a coping mechanism, he chooses to believe that everyone else is as bad as he is. That means that most of the traits he hates others for are the same things he hates about himself. In this scene, Blyke is unintentionally calling out this hypocrisy: “What I did is no different from what you do”.

But Blyke’s just trying to connect with John here, he has no idea what John’s been doing. And John, of course, doesn’t give a shit about what Blyke has to say. This line was here for the audience to notice.

They’re both so similar, but their similarity immediately causes tension between them because, well, John was on the wrong end of Blyke’s protectiveness.

I really love the way this was written— there are so many flashbacks to this scene, but they remember it differently. John remembers the part that hurt him— he’d describe it as “the time that jackass shot a beam at me”. Blyke remembers the part that hurt him, or rather, hurt Remi: “the time that jackass hit Remi for no reason”.

Blyke and John are both hotheaded characters with strong ideals. They’re similar enough that Seraphina points it out:

(ch. 80)

As Blyke grows as a character, he becomes more like John: sticking up for low tiers and speaking out against the injustice in the world. But while Blyke is doing that more, John is going in the opposite direction, until they are fully opposed to each other.

Speaking of Blyke’s character arc, it took me a few rereads to actually understand what part of him changed. His kindness, selflessness, bravery— all of those things were there from the start. Blyke’s character arc was about becoming more aware of his surroundings, and how his carelessness can harm others. Blyke was never malicious, but after X-Rei and integrating more with the school, he becomes aware of people suffering around him and how he unintentionally contributes to it. He becomes less reckless, privy to the flaws in the system he grew up not questioning, and uses his power more responsibly. He even comes up with a more controlled way to wield his ability. The part of Blyke that changes is his maturity.

Part of John’s character arc is also about being careful. It’s not as close of a parallel as other things are, but one of the things that John works on during his redemption arc is holding back. Both of them learn self-control throughout the series, and for John, that means acting early before his emotions spiral out of hand.

Adding onto my first point about the two of them wanting to protect their friends— the fact that they can’t do that makes them both angry and desperate. For most of the story, the “block” that prevents John from protecting Seraphina is in his head. It’s his own trauma that holds him back. The block that prevents Blyke from protecting his friends is, guess what? Also John’s trauma! Parallels abound.

Another thing I noticed in Episode 80 is this:

Notice that when Seraphina says “I’d take that over strength any day,” John is looking at the camera. He’s avoiding Sera’s gaze. Seraphina is saying she prefers honesty over strength. John is very strong, and very dishonest, but Seraphina thinks the opposite because John is so dishonest. John appears to be reflecting on this disconnect.

In relation to this analysis, Seraphina is actually pointing out a major difference between Blyke and John. Beyond that, she’s praising Blyke’s traits, (less strong but very open) above John’s traits, (strong as fuck but a liar with his pants on fire). Furthermore, John really cares what Seraphina thinks of him. Knowing that she would think less of him is the main reason why he spent so much time and effort preventing her from catching his lies.

This leads into my main point here: Blyke is the “goody-two-shoes” version of John. Or, more accurately, the person that John wants to be. Blyke has a clean track record and doesn’t really get into trouble. He is respected and left alone by the school without being hated and feared, he de-escalates conflicts without taking things too far, he doesn’t lose control, he’s someone Seraphina thinks highly of, hell, even his grades are better! Blyke represents everything that John wants to be, and the person that he could have been if he’d gone down a different path.

But, crucially, John is also what Blyke wants to be. Well, not wholly, but his ability? His strength? It’s one of the things John hates about himself, but Blyke wants that strength so desperately that he risks his life for it over and over again.

They’re both desperate to be like each other, even when they hate each other the most. Neither of them have any idea how alike they already are.

I don’t know what Season 3 holds in store for us, but I do hope that John realizes that Blyke embodies who he wants to be, because mutual jealousy would be a very interesting dynamic to explore in my opinion. I also hope that it ends up being something they can bond over, by helping each other accomplish their personal goals. (Blyke being another helper in John’s character arc, and John helping Blyke train.)

A side note: John beat up Blyke four separate times. That’s more than any other character, which is interesting because John’s main rival is supposed to be Arlo. For reference, John has beaten Arlo twice, three times if you count the time when Seraphina intervened, and he only beat him unconscious once. But John beat Blyke to the point of passing out all four times, the worst of which being a shot clean through his chest. (shoulder? Unclear. S1 finale).

It’s odd, isn’t it? Out of everyone, Blyke is the one who John physically hurt the most. John’s only grudge against him is an old memory from episode 33, of an event that didn’t actually harm him. John’s grudge against Arlo is much more serious and again— that’s his main rival. So why is it that he’s so much more violent towards Blyke?

The problem here is that I’ve been thinking about these fights as “John picking on Blyke”. And that’s… kind of true? But while Blyke didn’t start any of these fights, they were all consensual in a way. He didn’t seek to fight John, nor was he ever happy about fighting John, but he was always a willing participant.

(138, 153, 206, & 211)

In three out of these four fights, John didn’t even expect to be fighting Blyke going into it. This is significant because while Arlo is John’s main rival, John absolutely fills that role for Blyke. Blyke’s own agency is what leads to most of these events. The reason, narratively speaking, why they fight so much is not for John’s character, but for Blyke.

For John, his reason for fighting Blyke so much is not narrative but moreso symbolic. John is angry at everyone and everything, but ultimately the person he hates the most is himself. It’s only fitting that the character most like him would bear the brunt of his wrath.

As John is having his positive character arc (suspension and post-suspension), he is becoming more like Blyke, and the two of them reach a point where they’re even more similar than they were at the start of the series.

In the Rowden amusement park, John does start to realize how similar they are:

(249)

Additionally, I want to draw your attention to the parallels between this scene:

Blyke and John’s argument in chapter 249

(which the image limit won’t let me add, scroll until you see red hair.)

And this scene:

Argument in ch. 121 (it’s at the beginning)

Two sides of the same coin.

Furthermore, in the S2 finale, Blyke is shown being taken to Keon. There is an implication that by Season 3, Blyke and John will share Keon-related trauma as well. Despite my pessimistic predictions, I do hope that this is a similarity that can bring them together rather than tear them apart.

[magiefish]

Something I've kind of noticed about a lot of the academic scholarship I've read about Frankenstein / Dracula / Jekyll & Hyde is that everyone just seems to completely dismiss/ignore the characters as actual characters most of the time unless they're the Main Guys. Like, they'll go really in depth about Victor or the Creature's motivations and backstory and spend ages talking about Jekyll's relationship to Hyde and stuff, but the second it comes to characters like Enfield and Elizabeth or Lanyon and Clerval or frankly the Entire Rest of the Cast of Dracula, they just immediately seem uninterested. They'll just sort of vaguely gesture in their direction and go 'Oh yeah X and X thing happens to this character and here's a one sentence summary of their personality which doesn't really matter because this entire cast is interchangeable, anyway, onto the next theme' and half the time their One Sentence is just textually incorrect (looking at the New Woman/Traditional Woman descriptions of Lucy and Mina). And the reason I find this so baffling is because with other analysis I've read (e.g. Great Gatsby stuff) people seem to actually slow down and consider the characterisation and motivations of the cast as a whole with like. Nuance. Like they sit down and treat the characters as multifaceted and complex and having actual relationships with one another, and then you get to these books specifically and no one seems to care? Like they'll go really in depth with various interpretations and historical context for the Big Guys, and then never apply the same sort of examination to anyone else, and if they do, very rarely and probably only for one other character e.g. (Utterson or Mina).

If I had to posit an explanation, I would say its a combination of the archetypal nature of the title characters and the admittedly patchy writing of these books (which arguably lends to their archetypal status). I think academics kind of assume that the primary draw of these books are The Big Guys and the expansive themes and ideas they cover and that everyone else is just a pawn there to enable the narrative around the Big Guys, and the propensity for film adaptations to scrap or rewrite characters probably compounded this impression. And while I think this is at least partly true, the thing is, these characters were not always archetypal Big Guys. They originated in stories alongside *these* other characters *specifically* and it is worth asking what it is about the rest of the cast that makes the story interesting as well. Because, let's be real, if there was approximately no interest in the fucking *narrators* of Dracula, the best friends of Henry Jekyll, or the victims of the Creature, the original readers would have been completely bored out of their minds for most of these novels and public interest in them would not have been as great as it was. All of these novels were stories before they were myths, and academics should not be letting pop culture eclipse them unless they're specifically talking about the relationship between the two.

Overall, I just feel like academics are not only shooting themselves in the foot, but also doing a disservice to these stories by not bothering to investigate the other characters because frankly. It's lazy. It's lazy to dismiss an entire cast and basically skim read any sections involving them just because it's easy to focus on The One Guy. If you people really cared about themes, you'd understand that characters are inextricable from them. Like shit dude I see more care given to characters in essays about Greek tragedies, you guys are waaaay fucking behind

[miliamin1]

Enid gets woken up more harshly than usual. Brutally snatched out of a sweet dream. Her mumbling protests are ignored as she resists getting pulled from under her colorful covers. Wednesday has her up in some wrestling move so that if she doesn’t attempt to stand, prompted up on the smaller girl  she would end up awkwardly on the floor. And so she barely stands as the world seems to be spinning and her muscles weak.

She puts more effort to open her aching eyes and commandeer her dried out tongue after seeing the hour. "Weeends, stooop, it's early, nothing can be that urgent."

Wednesday instantly throws her back on the bed. Enid almost bounces off of it when landing.

Enid groans from her head spiking in pain. But closing eyes only makes restless anxiety in her muscles more apparent instead of providing any relief. She opens them and squints at her phone.

Not only is it early but classes also got canceled, with pack group chat she lurks in blowing up with relief about that announcement.

Why the heck would Wednesday wake her up then?

"Wends, we got no classes today." 

No answer. 

When she picks her head up the goth seems to be back in bed.

But her heartbeat hasn't slowed to nothing.

Enid groans getting up and makes her unbalanced shuffle to the dark side. "Wends, is something wrong?"

"I'm not answering any questions or touching you until I get my coffee," the pretty corpse says gravelly.

Enid’s eyebrows knit together. The seer has been mighty grumpy from her caffeine withdrawal but only got short with everyone but Enid because of it yesterday. 

This change is upsetting. More than the awful state Enid’s body is in for some reason.

Enid flinches at the ping sound notifying of Yoko's message.

' Yo, do u mayhaps know how to witness protect Kate from all the furs?'

Kate isn't really popular amongst werewolves but why would she need-

Enid blinks rapidly. 

Kate.

Dinner chaos.

Coffee deal. Enid lunges for her shoes and jumps out of the dorm still putting them on. Then bounces herself off from the balustrade to sprint back again for her wallet. 

She desperately needs to buy coffee the fastest she can. 

Coffee for a kiss. Another kiss. Oh Goddess Wednesday kissed her! And will kiss her again if she will get her an iced quad! 

Enid has to thunder back to their room again. She needs a way for the drink to survive a full speed run! Her hand hesitates for a beat over the black thermocup she gifted the goth.

"It's clean," Wednesday says, so Enid grabs it and tries to leave by the door one last time.

Before she realizes that jumping off their balcony will be much faster as she almost breaks their window.

None of the few seconds she spends in the air is spent on premature realization on how much absorbing the force of the landing will affect her headache. 

----

okay so apparently a one shot is now a two shot

[kyouka-supremacy]

Tbh the fact that these Harukawa Beast illustrations exist and these are the only images of them we ever got is a crime against humanity

[regicidal-defenestration]

Whilst the return of Doctor Who in 2005 brought lots of good things, including, for sure, the return of Doctor Who, I think it did untold damage to Big Finish audio stories

[a-sketchy]

the thing about yosuke’s shittiness around here (up close and personal, the campout) is that the vast majority of it isn’t doing literally anything for his character. i completely think yosuke’s shittiness is important to his character, but it’s by and large reflections of his own insecurities and flaws. he’s insecure about his masculinity and sexuality, he’s lame, he’s selfish, he’s obsessed with the idea of women, his mouth moves faster than his brain, he doesn’t like himself, and he cares way too much about the societal ideal of ‘normal’. but it’s really important that he’s self-aware! he knows when the things he says are shitty, he knows he’s lame, he knows he’s selfish, he knows he’s putting up a front of being carefree and normal. but there’s absolutely no self awareness here, there’s no recognizing he went too far and apologizing the next day, there’s no regret, there’s not even any self-deprecation, and there’s absolutely no compassion or empathy like he has in serious moments. a lot of what he says is just mean for meanness’s sake, in an execution incongruous with previous behaviour. it’s not even funny!

[kuromi-hoemie]

feels so good being the person in charge of deciding whether our organization will use AI or not. I'm going to write an argument so strong... no we will not waste an ounce of our time and energy on what's essentially a bubble the IT industry Really wants to try forcing on people and is betting on/wanting so badly for it to take off. The real gut punch is at some point I'm going to compare it to NFTs lol

[the-busy-ghost]

Me normally: Let people love what they love

Me, after a Test Match Special commentator expresses their belief that the new All Creatures Great and Small is somehow "better" than the 1978 version: This is pure insanity and TMS can no longer be trusted on anything, how can they even be trusted to know about cricket, do they have no TASTE

[gothra]

we tag-team on Loving Hughie duty

[elitadream]

your blog is my safe place in mario's fandom fr 😭 since the movie was released it's been an ordeal being mario's stan because every time i see a post centered on him the comments are always people saying they prefer luigi or bowser(¿?¿?) not to mention the people who try to villainize mario for "stealing bowser's girl" Anyway I think your art is beautiful and sorry for the spam of likes 😔🤚🏻

Thank you. 🥺🥰 That's very appreciated.

I mean, I totally get the popularity that other characters are getting and I think that's pretty neat actually! :3 But... There's just something about Mario in particular that I find uniquely appealing.

Something to do with his protective aura. The weight, strength and sheer magnitude of it. The fact that he is the older brother, the knight, the defender. I've always deeply loved and admired characters who are unassuming and humble in nature, and yet rise to the occasion whenever bravery and loyalty are needed; not for fame or merit, but merely because it was the right thing to do in the moment.

Character who are real, genuine heroes. ❤🌅

[goblinbugthing]

oh yeah btw i made an ibis brush :)

i was just fucking around with brush settings and accidentally made something really pretty

here’s the gk from the top left corner, and also the qr code by itself

also, fun fact: every single thing on this page was created using this one brush. even the colouring.

[cakemoney]

i don't want to put my uninformed foot in my mouth or get involved with the Discourse but i've been seeing the two extremes of reactions to the korean low birth rates issue (on tumblr and twitter both) and i'm just kind of like. look. i feel like "low birth rates (in many countries but especially japan and korea as part of this conversation) are more broadly the result of capitalism/a culture of overwhelming overwork that makes social relationships and having families incredibly inaccessible to young people" and "low birth rates are very much a part of the current conversation about misogyny and social expectations for women in korea especially in the context of reproduction as 'unpaid labor' for women" are statements that can both be true

[deus-ex-mona]

life changing in 2 different ways yk

[bereft-of-frogs]

I wrote a longer and more overwrought version of this post when I was slightly drunker (yay distillery book club) but the shorter, more sober-clarity version is: it's so ridiculous that about 50% of my current fandom experience is based on things that are now 25 years old (thanks for the reminder, lucasfilm) and yet I'm terrified of being left behind because I 'can't move on' from something that is now barely 5 years old

you could probably attempt to make some sort of sweeping statement about this, like the lifespan of media now versus the early 00s, but what it's really about is my own issues with abandonment which is affecting both my ability to move on (I really struggle with the 'crew breaks up between installment thing', always have) and also the general fear of behind left behind, rather than any real trends in fandom as a whole

ok I think that's enough for superb owl sunday