#its a lot and i find it hard to be a hurt person

[noihavenosanitythanksforasking]

thinking about how milevens tend to assume that bylers want mileven to break up just because we want byler to happen.

no love

wanting byler to be canon and wanting mileven to break up are two separate wants.

Mike and El have their own story outside of will. Even if Mike wasn't queer and Will wasnt around this story would still be their story. Will may be a character in their story but the story is still about mike and el. Mike and Els story line is the marriage of the two of their two individual character arcs.

El's story arc is based around the fact that she was abused as a child and was dehumanized to an extreme level that no child should ever experience. She does not have an identity of her own. She wasn't raised to even expect to have one in the first place. Her story is learning to be able to her own person. To just be herself and learning who that person is.

When she met mike she created an identity around him. and identity of being the super powered mage who saved the day. that was El. then she became mikes gf and suddenly she was now "mikes gf". It wasnt until she met max that someone actually tells her that she is allowed to be her own person. "theres more to life than stupid boys" "what feels right" before Max she was just existing trying to play a role of what she was supposed to be rather than figuring out who she was or who she wanted to be. What she wanted. El is not raised to have wants. El was raised to be a weapon, a lab rat, a tool that does what they are told.

When this story intersects with a story arc like Mike has you get the disaster that is Mileven.

Mikes story arc is actually very similar. Mike is a very codependent person. He wants to feel needed. he wants to feel useful. If he doesnt have a use to someone he thinks he must be a waste of space. Mike doesnt know who he is outside of other people. He has never explored what he wants for himself. He is for other people. As a codependent person myself i can relate to this a lot. It can be hard to know what YOU want for yourself, outside of people you care about. Mike puts his loved ones before himself so much to the fact that it tends to get him into trouble more often than not. The issue with being codependent is that you become almost blind to who YOU are and what YOU need. you suppress your emotions for other people and these emotions only tend to surface when you realize that holy shit. i cant do anything here. This is the situation mike is finding himself in during season 4 and continuing into season 5. there is nothing he can do anymore. it is clear that him putting el above his own feelings and giving her what she wants in his attempt to help is not working. In fact its HURTING his relationship with el. Now mike doesnt know what to do. so he's drifting. El was his trauma partner. when things get too hard and too confusing he retreats into "el mode" where his only thought is what El needs. This is not a healthy mindset AT ALL. no matter how much the media romanticizes that sort of thing. IT IS NOT HEALTHY. you cant live like that. but now El has communicated "i dont want that. stop lying and get your shit together".

so mike is stuck. and el is stuck.

because theirs is a coming of age story. however not all coming of age stories are romantic. Mike and El cannot communicate with each other. they are both selfishly selfless in the way they treat each other.

I am going to be who you want me to be because i think thats what you want and it makes me feel secure.

this is not something you want in a relationship. a relationship is based on trust and vulnerability. being able to be youre rawest and truest form of yourself for another person. and feeling seen and loved despite it.

this is not present AT ALL in mileven as a couple. they are both discovering who they are still and are not space to be doing that in a relationship where they feel the need to hide themselves from each other. you cant find yourself that way.

wow look how much nuance i pulled from mike and el without mentioning will once. wow its almost like will is not the reason their relationship is failing

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

Y'know, I think the reason I'm so receptive to the love triangle bullshit in Hamster and Gretel is it resolves quickly. We got a couple moments of foreshadowing of Lauren's crush before one episode where Lauren and Kevin flirt. And then one episode with the drama before Kevin… decides that he's not in a position to pursue a relationship with Lauren (well, also that he doesn't want to get with his friends crush), and then decides to clearly communicate that to her. And then Lauren is disappointed, but accepting. It both doesn't come out of nowhere, but doesn't overstay its welcome either, rather accentuating character relationships rather than overtaking them.

Now, it is possible it comes back, which would be annoying. Though I do like the idea of Kevin and Lauren. They have some parallels as the put upon older siblings of a superpowered person, whose actual interests are put in conflict with their superpowered family responsibilities. Both seem to have an interest in growing more independent, doing things like getting jobs/earning money/gaining approval from their peers. However, I even more so appreciate Lauren and Kevin having a frank talk, being (mostly) honest with each other, growing closer, even as their relationship move away from being romantic. Lauren revealed her identity to Kevin, and now Kevin can openly help her during fights, its only a matter of time before the Gretel secret gets spilled considering Kevin has been helping out Gretel even when they were enemies. They are well on their way to being part of the same superhero squad, which invites opportunities for their friendship to continue to develop.

Which does make me a little worried considering Hiromi is currently trying to figure out Kevin's secret identity/antagonistic to the superhero squad. Which is interesting, but I wonder if Hiromi will get the wrong idea about their relationship after Kevin has shut it down. I don't really want that, but then again I've been surprised by how much I like the relationship drama so who knows.

I DO think that if Hiromi and Kevin do eventually get together it will feel well earned considering the work they are going to have to put into it. Assuming it happens after she finds out the truth and they can work things out, taking the time to actually understand each other. It's not that either of them mean to hurt the other, and they aren't being stupid about it. Both of their perspectives on the situation make a lot of sense, and while Kevin does do a lot of stupid romance drama nonsense, he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place considering the superhero stuff, and he usually means well and learns his lesson in the end.

I mean it also probably helps that this isn't just the "Kevin's relationship drama" show, but also the Superhero show and Family show, which means we get plenty of other episode topics in here too, so it's not always front and center and doesn't completely define any of the characters, even Hiromi, while being mostly Kevin's love interest is also defined being Fred's friend and the schools resident overworked, increasingly bitter, doormat.

[kkoct-ik]

i miss my wife

[ihhfhonao3]

Shockingly, I do think there can be nuance in this issue. "Being proship is a discourse stance, you're going to find discourse and people arguing with the 'other side' in the tag that is intended for discourse, and part of our culture is built upon fighting back against the people that have hurt us and calling out their hypocrisy and cruelty" and "seeing all of this negativity and hatred from antis in a place that is supposed to be safe and welcoming is actively harming my health, because screenshotting someone saying 'you deserved to get raped' and having someone else repost it saying 'this is insane can you believe this!!!' doesn't make me feel very good about myself. and it makes it worse that this is put into every single tag we have, including tags that are more intended for positivity and spreading joy like the tag that is explicitly labeled 'proship positivity.' some of the other tags are also for things that might squick me out, like the comship and darkship tags. there is no place for me to go, I am surrounded by discomfort" are thoughts that can and should coexist I feel

[longmaxsilvarg]

will forever have a soft spot for chloe cause yeah dawg i get it we can try to avoid becoming attached out of the overwhelming fear of being abandoned again but miserably fail together

[princessmyriad]

.

[s4pphoiduser]

maybe a little corny but idrc i guess. so: maybe i'm just getting older or maybe my age/aging is totally unrelated to all this but i find that these days, now that i've grown out of being an angsty teen looking for anger and hate in every corner of the world, i find that now i am more struck by kindness, especially in fictional worlds that are harsh and demand a character let go of their kindness and inherent goodness to survive and never be taken advantage of or things like that. i like when characters are so kind that it's truly truly one of their core traits. i know it's not exactly rare, but these days... kinda feels like it. i'm always struck by characters who fight to be good and kind and still believe in fickle things like love and other people. characters whose kindness make others wary of them and draw them closer simultaneously. characters whose goodness and insanely strong (fought-for) sense of love and humanity (and i don't mean humanity like humankind as a whole; i mean a person's sense of humanity, i mean people. i mean people need people. i mean people need closeness and love and things that like that) makes others around them more likable and ... human. characters whose kindness/goodness/big big big hearts humanize everyone who gets the chance to be basked in the glow of that beauty.

[spikeyjo]

also uh im kind of not thinking about it much because its insane. but if everything goes right (and i mean a considerable amount of things that probably wont go as planned) but if they DO... i will have a major surgery in like two weeks

[istherewifiinhell]

my final missive. about knowledge that you cannot use until you know it. been getting so much information. about bikes. that i cannot use until im biking and have an experience. and follow up like.

when im pedaling but its all give like its not clicking into place, whats that about "your going faster than your pedaling, thats what gears are for, u have to turn it up. when higher gear you pedal less, when its lower its easier, but you have to pedal more" ohhh. you told me so much about hills and stopping but im not doing either of those so much yet. but even on flats... okay

an example more of you possibly are likely to understand. ive absorbed so much art advice passively over my life. i cannot make use of it until im doing it enough to have problems of my own. i dont need the metal rendering tutorial before i try making something shiny. once i have and feel that it was hard to keep the tones straight, i see one that tells me i had the right colours, but can use one as base, and work up from there, the general trends of where certain ones are placed.

you dont know until you know you dont know. and then you gotta get there.

[satanicspinosaurus]

Goodbye 2023, Hello Trees

I'll be away from my computer for a couple of days as I do my annual "seriously, I need to see a fucking novel tree" camping trip. I'll have a little access to internet, but you know something being immersed in the moment, all hail fire, I must look at the moon tenderly like it is my own face etc.

2023 has been a year for me. My beloved first dog finished his story of 14 1/2 years. I sang to him in those last minutes, like I did when I first rescued him but now my voice sounds beautifully like me. My upper body now does that wonderful curve around the shoulders I associate with men when I take my shirt off. Once again I am reminded there's a real intersection between chronic pain, gender dysphoria and neurodiversity that allows me to see the world in a unique way. I'm lucky to have also found another wonderful community of weirdos. You all fill my day with joy and filth and remind me how attention is a moral act at brings aspects of things into being.

I hope you know I love you all. If you don't, please bear with me until I find the words, the way to arrange my face, the way to move my vocal cords until you know the warmth you bring to my life.

[cinnonym]

@pretty-pony I think s3 might work. Either you squeeze it into a pocket between Neverland and the new curse, or - and I think that would work even better - in the witch-hunting arc. Like. The whole season is made for a fake dating plot, obviously, but fake dating like this?? Revolutionary. I would love to see it!

been seeing this tag on ao3 called “mutually unrequited” and i dont mean to nitpick but like….thats not…..what it means…………..

[grimmthorne]

I hope I'm able to let things go that have no purpose in sticking around but I hope that i don't forget what they taught me

[butch-bakugo]

As much as I love bikers and most biker gangs are good but shouldn't be considered automatically so and cars need to look out for bikers...

If you do stupid shit infront of a car and think being on a bike or being in a biker gang excludes from common sense safety on the road, you deeserved to get honked at and run tf over.

[stromblessed]

Mizu, femininity, and fallen sparrows

In my last post about Mizu and Akemi, I feel like I came across as overly critical of Mizu given that Mizu is a woman who - in her own words - has to live as a man in order to go down the path of revenge.

If she is ever discovered to be female by the wrong person, she will not only be unable to complete her quest, but there's a good chance that she'll be arrested or killed.

So it makes complete sense for Mizu to distance herself as much as possible from any behavior that she feels like would make someone question her sex.

I felt so indignant toward Mizu on my first couple watchthroughs for this moment. Why couldn't Mizu bribe the woman and her child's way into the city too? If Mizu is presenting as a man, couldn't she claim to be the woman's escort?

However, this moment makes things pretty clear. Mizu knows all too well the plight of women in her society. She knows it so well that she cannot risk ever finding herself back in their position again. She helps in what little way she can - without drawing attention to herself.

Mizu is not a hero and she is not one to make of herself a martyr - she will not set herself on fire to keep others warm. There's room to argue that Mizu shouldn't prioritize her quest over people's lives, but given the collateral damage Mizu can live with in almost every episode of season 1, Mizu is simply not operating under that kind of morality at this point. ("You don't know what I've done to reach you," Mizu tells Fowler.)

And while I still feel like Mizu has an obvious and established blind spot when it comes to Akemi because of their differences in station, such that Mizu's judgment of Akemi and actions in episode 5 are the result of prejudice rather than the result of Mizu's caution, I also want to establish that Mizu is just as caged as Akemi is, despite her technically having more freedom while living as a man.

Mizu can hide her mixed race identity some of the time, and she can hide her sex almost all of the time, but being able to operate outside of her society's strict rules for women does not mean she cannot see their plight.

It does not mean she doesn't hurt for them.

Back to Mizu and collateral damage, remember that sparrow?

While Mizu is breaking into Boss Hamata's manse, she gets startled by a bird and kills it on reflex. She then cradles it in her hands - much more tenderly than we've seen Mizu treat almost anything up to this point in the season:

She then puts it in its nest, with its unhatched eggs. Almost like she's trying to make the death look natural. Or like an accident.

You see where I'm going with this.

When Mizu kills Kinuyo, Mizu lingers in the moment, holding the body tenderly:

And btw a lot of stuff about this show hit me hard, but this remains the biggest gut punch of them all for me, Mizu holding that poor girl's body close, GOD

When Mizu arranges the "scene of the crime," Kinuyo's body is delicate, birdlike. And Mizu is so shaken afterward that she gets sloppy. She's horrified at this kill to the point that she can't bring herself to take another innocent life - the boy who rats her out.

MIZU'S ONE MOMENT OF SOFTNESS AND MERCY, COMING ON THE HEELS OF HER NEEDING TO KILL A GIRL TO SPARE HER THE WORST FATE THAT THIS RIGID SOCIETY HAS TO OFFER WOMEN, AND TO SPARE A BROTHEL FULL OF INNOCENT WOMEN WHO ARE THE CASTOFFS OF SOCIETY, NEARLY RESULTS IN ALL OF THEIR DEATHS

No wonder Mizu is as stoic and cold as she is.

And no wonder Mizu has no patience for Akemi whatsoever right before the terrible reveal and the fight breaks out:

Speaking of Akemi - guess who else is compared to a bird!

The plumage is more colorful, a bit flashier. But a bird is a bird.

And, uh

Yeah.

I like to think that Mizu killing the sparrow is not only foreshadowing for what she must do to Kinuyo, but is also a representation of the choice she makes on Akemi's behalf. She decides to cage the bird because she believes the bird is "better off." Better off caged than... dead.

But because Mizu doesn't know Akemi or her situation, she of course doesn't realize that the bird is fated to die if it is caged and sent back home.

Mizu is clearly not happy, or pleased, or satisfied by allowing Akemi to be dragged back to her father:

But softness and mercy haven't gotten Mizu anywhere good, recently.

There is so much tragedy layered into Mizu's character, and it includes the things she has to witness and the choices she makes - or believes she has to make - involving women, when she herself can skirt around a lot of what her society throws at women. Although, I do believe that it comes at the cost of a part of Mizu's soul.

After all, I'm gonna be haunted for the rest of this show by Mizu's very first prayer in episode 1:

"LET" her die. Because as Ringo points out, she doesn't "know how" to die.

Kind of like another bird in this show:

[spectral-honey]

being a fan of superheroes against my will and better judgement 😔

[comicaurora]

So uhh. If you feel like talking about it. As someone who lives in the US, how are you being kind to yourself on this upsetting morning <3

Checked in with my loved ones first and foremost.

It's interesting. The vibe I've been getting from my circle is very different from 2016. Much less… dread and horror at a realignment of the understanding of what can and can't happen here, now, in this place and day and age. More "fuck, guys. again? whatever. enjoy your consequences, maybe you'll manage to learn something this time."

Frustration and anger is not the most positive feeling, or even the most fair one to express, but it is a protective one. It hurts a lot less than most alternatives.

And it's quite a shift. It was earthshattering back then. How could this have been allowed to happen? Why couldn't it be stopped? Why couldn't we stop it? Why couldn't I stop it? Why couldn't everyone see what this meant? Why couldn't I make them understand? Did they really not care? What did that mean about humanity as a whole? Were we so thoughtless? How could anyone be trusted?

It seems… much less earthshattering to see it happen twice. Disappointing, sure. Frustrating. But nowhere near as devastating as the first time I saw it unfold. We already knew it could happen. I've already had time to digest the implications. Now I'm just freshly disappointed.

It also feels less indicative of Crushing Truths Of Reality this time. We've seen shit get bad. We've also seen shit get better from here! We know both outcomes are possible, even inevitable. We know hoping for a better future is always worthwhile. This isn't the apocalypse. It's an unremarkably bad turn of events brought on by unremarkably self-centered well-documented human impulses. It's utterly mundane in its unpleasantness. It doesn't need to be dignified with despair.

A democratic election, no matter the outcome or the side we're on, makes us all acutely aware of how outnumbered we are by people whose worldviews and priorities are demonstrably incomprehensible to us. And the first time you get outnumbered, it's a shock. Defeat is haunting. It didn't matter how badly you wanted it; by the very function of democracy, you do not have the power to override greater numbers. (insert electoral college caveat here)

The second time through, I find myself focusing on a different facet that has dramatically reduced the amount of spiralling I'm doing. I don't expect this to work for everyone, but for me specifically, it helped to crystallize a few thoughts:

You don't have the power to control anyone else. You don't. You can't share your worldview and your revelations with them. You can't make them think or understand anything. You can lay it all out for them, but you can't make them listen, and you can't make it click. A mentor can't make their student learn a lesson; that's why teaching is so complicated and hard. An active choice must be made by the person to enable themselves to understand, and they must put the pieces together in their own mind before it makes sense to them, and the pieces must have been presented in a way that makes sense to them in the first place. Lead a horse to water, can't make them drink.

These elections highlight a disconnect in what different groups of people care about; and no matter how clearly you explain yourself or how passionately you perform, caring cannot be forced on someone. Understanding and connection cannot be forced. You cannot make anything or anyone matter to someone. They have to choose to see how it matters in order to internalize it. If they choose not to, that is not your failing. You couldn't have made them do it by just Explaining Better. They are not your responsibility. They make their own choices. You can't reach inside their head and connect the dots for them.

I'm a storyteller. I make stories and put them out into the world. I hope people get something good out of them, but I have no control over what that something is. I want people to be thoughtful and kind and compassionate and hopeful and see themselves reflected in stranges, no matter their differences. I can craft stories that I hope encourage this. But that is the extent of my ability and the extent of my responsibility. I control no-one's actions but my own, and so while I am not having the best day, I am at least content that I am doing what I can, and I am not shattering myself against impossibilities trying to control the things I can't.

Sometimes, people make decisions that I think are really bad. I can't make that not happen. All I can do is try to make decisions that will result in things I think are good. Today, that means checking in on people, and not assigning too much dramatic narrative weight to an ultimately mundane set of unremarkable bad decisions outside of my control. We'll take life as it comes and help each other out when and how we can. Everything else is out of our hands.