#its just fundamentally not the same event in the show

[displacer-beasts]

Yeah the parallels between Venat sundering the world vs Solas creating the Veil - both fundamentally changing the world and the people in it so deeply that it's basically like they destroyed the old world.

Emet Selch and Solas both trying to undo that and bring the world back to what it used to be (and inhabitants that used to be immortal and more magically powerful)

The destruction and death toll that it would cost for either of them to succeed. The fact that their idealized view of the past is flawed due to their grief at what they lost, so they ignore or forget the bad aspects of that time.

The inhabitants of the current world fighting for their survival, since bringing back the old world means invoking a calamity with a huge death toll, and the 'ends justify the means' argument doesn't exactly work for the people who will die in the transition to this supposedly "better" world.

Although FFXIV did a much better job at convincing me that the current world is improving and worth saving. Since it had a lot more time to show the injustices and terrible side, but it made the way the world was changing for the better feel more impactful. To be fair, they had multiple expansions to set this up and so the payoff felt earned. Seeing everyone the WoL helped coming together to help them defeat the Endsinger was incredible.

Also seeing the Unsundered World and seeing the events that led to its downfall (and seeing the Dead Ends which showed a similar utopian world that fell to despair eventually just the same) makes its fall seem inevitable.

In Veilguard it seemed like they were afraid to openly have that debate, making Solas's plans so vague and undefined, ignoring the plight of the elves and mages. That memory where Mythal talks about the modern elves "don't deserve to have the world they love ripped away to sooth [Solas's] guilty conscience" kind of falls flat if you played the other Dragon Age games and know how the elves are treated.

And since Veilguard didn't want to make it seem like Solas has a point, they ignored all the slavery and segregation and mistreatment. And so they end with keeping the status quo without actually improving anything or hinting at the situation improving eventually. The opposite in fact, since the South gets overrun by the Blight and is implied to be basically destroyed.

I need to make a 5 hour video comparing FFXIV Shadowbringers + Endwalker to Dragon Age: Inquisition + Veilguard, and then you'll see

the wildest part is that, writing-wise, there's an equivalent scene or situation or character to almost everything they were trying to do in Dragon Age, except it was actually pulled off with cohesion in FFXIV. So it would be hard to gather all the comparative examples.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

sorry to bother you and please delete this if it's too obnoxious but can you explain what was going on in that last post with the "smol bean hitler" thing I have cognitive issues and definitely want to block at least one of the people involved but I don't really understand what's being said?

Okay I don't blame you for not understanding it because there's a lot of context there. I will do my best to give a rundown of the situation and explain everything to the best of my ability, but my account of the events might be incompelte because I really didn't witness everything.

A little over a week ago, tumblr user siwolism made a post about how she watches a lot of videos about korean fried chicken, and she had noticed a trend in the comments of these videos: a lot of those videos had comments from americans (mainly black americans) bragging about how the only reason why koreans have fried chicken is because african-american soldiers took the recipe to korea during the korean war. She said that as a korean she found these comments uncomfortable because for korean people the korean war was an extremely bloody conflict and korea hasn't still fully recovering from its effects, and americans displaying such pride about any of the things they did during the korean war is an appalling display of american chauvinism. And that the fact that black americans were displaying the same chauvinistic mindset that she would have expected from whtie americans showed that being black or any racial minority in america doesn't exempt anyone from the privileges of american imperialism or the chauvinism of defending it.

At some point I got involved by making a comment on the post, about how I found it silly that people were insulting op and tagging the post as "#tw antiblackness" when all she did was complain that it's downright evil for americans, regardless of race, to joke about the time the USA invaded korea so violently that 1 out of every 10 koreans got killed.

(I still stand by that, considering that the post didn't complain about black ppl in america in general, only about the ones that she saw acting in a specific chauvinistic way, and despite how much people have accused her since of "singling out" black americans as the main beneficiaries or defenders of american imperialism, the post went out of its way to make it clear that this was just a manifestation of a wider problem that applies to all americans regardless of race)

I also made another addition to the post about how i think many of the people making those comments were probably motivated by the way so many african-american inventions in the US have their roots erased once they become popular with non-black people, but that in my opinion they were failing to understand that, despite how superficially similar they may look, "a black american telling a white american that they should be thankful because black people invented jazz and rock" is a fundamentally different situation from "a black american telling a korean that they should be thankful because black people brought fried chicken to them during the war", because the power dynamics between these two countries and the history of the korean war fundamentally changes the situation.

These additions in particular picked up a lot of steam, which somewhat accelerated the post in question breaking containment.

Siwolism was accused of being antiblack for using the term "amerikkka" in her post. Your mileage may vary on that one, but regardless of your opinion I don't think it invalidates any of the things she said in the post.

She was accused of erasing the racism and oppression that black people face in the USA. She repeatedly clarified that she (like any serious anti-imperialist) recognizes that racial minorities in the imperial core face racism and oppression, but that their oppression in that axis doesn't erase the fact that living in the imperial core puts them in a position of privilege over people in the imperial periphery.

She was also accused of erasing anti-black racism in korea (which is a complete non-sequitur tbh, unless you're interpreting her post as "all black people oppress all korean people" and not "black people in america have the capacity to act in imperialistic ways toward people in other countries"). She clarified that she thinks racial discrimination in south korea is a serious issue, that she faces a great deal of it as a north korean immigrant of hui chinese descent, but that she obviously doesn't have it as bad as the discrimination black people face in korea. However, she said the situation of a black person from korea and a black person from america is not the same with relation to imperialism, and when a black soldier is stationed in one of the numerous american military bases in korea they don't face the same struggles as a korean black person because they're acting as part of an imperialist occupying force.

As the post broke containment, she faced increasing levels of harassment. She started getting anons calling her anti-asian slurs, particularly someone who called her an "antiblack gook bitch", "gook" being a slur extensively used by american soldiers to refer to koreans during the korean war.

(that might have been the same person who left me an anon calling me a "fucking antiblack beaner" in response to my additions to silowism's post but who knows)

She also had multiple anons telling her that they hoped she and all her friends got killed by the next american soldier they encountered, which is especially vile considering that american soliders stationed in military bases in south korea have a history of killing and commiting sexual violence against korean women and facing no consequences for it, to the point that the US government coerced the South Korean government into signing a treaty that prevents any US soldiers caught comitting such acts from being tried in a South Korean court.

At some point she psoted the following meme

This is a meme that has been used numerous times on this website to make fun fo the way how a post gets misinterpreted in increasingly ridiculous ways as it gets further away from your mutual circle. I think it's clear that none of the categories on the right are targeted specifically at black people, but instead at the people running with the worst possible interpretation of anything she said in her post (a lot of whom weren't even black americans, I think it's important to acknowledge that a lot of them were white americans who were pissed of that imperialism were being called out and decided to amplify the accusations of racism because it was a progressive-sounding way to shut down discussions of american imperialism). Still, a lot of people ran with the worst faith interpreation of it and started talking about how she "literally said all black people are illiterate chimpanzees"

She also, at some point, after days of continued harrassment, told one of the people harassing her to hang themselves. Again, people ran with the worst possible interpreation of it to talk about how "she's literally sending lynching theats to black people"

Eventually the harassment was so much that she deleted her blog.

Almost two weeks later people keep playing telephone with increasingly outlandish misinterpretations of the things she said, resulting in the tags you saw screenshotted on the post you're referring to, where someone accused her of "implying black people invented imperialism"

so yeah like I'm not going to tell you who to block or even to block anyone at all, but that's my attempt at catching you up to speed on what's going on in that post.

[fuckyeahisawthat]

What is Mage Viktor doing?

So it turns out I do have a take on what's going on with Mage Viktor, why he's messing with timelines in the way he is, and what he hoped to achieve by bringing Jayce to the torment nexus dimension and then sending him back to his own timeline armed with facial hair, trauma, and the ruthless determination to somehow stop his own Viktor.

Of course this is just my own reading; there are many ways you can interpret the reveals of the final episode. But it's become my preferred reading because it makes Mage Viktor come off as absolutely BATSHIT. The apotheosis of all Viktor's best and worst qualities. As he would be.

First we gotta lay out some fundamental principles about how I understand Viktor that will inform this reading.

Viktor was never being controlled by the Hexcore. This deserves its own whole meta, but tl;dr, I think it is directly antithetical to the core themes of the show to think that Viktor wasn't making his own decisions all through s2.

Over and over again in Arcane, we see characters become "monsters" and do monstrous things, and every time the thematic point is that this is still the person you love. When Vi says that her sister is dead because she is Jinx now and when Jayce says "my partner died in this room" THEY ARE BOTH WRONG. The person they love is different now but they're still in there and they can still be reached.

Viktor is transformed by something terrible happening to him (like many characters in the show!) but all his decisions are still his own and to me they seem like perfectly consistent--if extreme--extensions of what we know about him as a character before he gets a Hexcore heart.

So my analysis starts with the premise that Mage Viktor is not trying to free his past self from an outside influence. He's trying to hack his own character traits to make a different version of himself do what he wants.

Viktor is BOTH genuinely altruistic and compassionate AND deeply arrogant. This is such a banger combination and I think turning down the dial on either trait makes Viktor less interesting. I think Mage Viktor has genuine remorse about what he did in his timeline and he is, fundamentally, trying to find a way he could have stopped himself from killing everyone (within certain constraints; we'll get to that). When Jayce is able to show main timeline Herald Viktor his memories of what Viktor is about to do to their world, the first thing Viktor sees is not dead Jayce, or himself left alone in an empty world. It's all the ordinary people who are going to die terrified because of him.

I do not think any version of Viktor wanted this result. But Viktor is so convinced he is always right that his arrogance carries him right past the point of no return before he realizes oh actually I haven't freed everybody I have killed them.

So I do think Mage Viktor is trying to find a timeline where this doesn't happen, but he is not timeline-hopping in order to preemptively stop other versions of himself from making the same mistake. If he wanted to do that, he would just leave all the many many timelines where Jayce dies in a blizzard as a child alone. No Jayce who grows up obsessed with magic, goes around Academy rules to get the hex crystals, invents Hextech and gives Viktor the power to fuck everything up. Easy peasy.

But no. Instead, Viktor is actively going into other timelines and changing them at the point where Jayce would have died.

He is doing things that appear to make the sequence of events that leads to his world-ending magic blast WAY MORE LIKELY. And that's because...

Viktor is obsessively selfish when it comes to Jayce.

Mage Viktor wants to find a timeline where he doesn't doom the world but not at the expense of meeting Jayce and spending years doing science with him.

If the goal was only to prevent Jayce from dying in the blizzard, he could have done it quietly, waiting for Jayce to collapse in the snow and then transporting him to the base of the mountain, leaving before Jayce had any idea who saved him. Instead he makes SUCH A DRAMATIC PRODUCTION of it that Jayce remembers and can repeat the steps of the action years later, well enough that he actually produces a working spell from a barely-tested Hextech prototype. Mage Viktor wants that shit burned into baby Jayce's brain. He wants to make sure he fundamentally alters the arc of Jayce's life, bending it into a trajectory that collides with his own.

Viktor also (as far as we see) doesn't go the route of going back in time and killing his younger self, or steering the course of his own life along a path where he never meets Jayce. He doesn't even go for a timeline where he and Jayce meet each other but they don't invent Hextech. Now maybe it's the case that some time before our Jayce arrives in his timeline, Mage Viktor tried all that, and has figured out that none of those options work. (Maybe in some of those timelines Jayce is the one who goes Machine Herald, and there's no partner there to talk him off the ledge of ending the world.) But I think it's also possible that, now that he's gotten the experience in one timeline of spending years with Jayce making once-in-a-generation scientific breakthroughs together (which I truly believe is just as important a part of their relationship to Viktor as any romantic or sexual element might be)...he can't bear to deny any version of himself the chance of having that--even if the price is the rest of the world. Because a world where Jayce isn't his partner isn't a world worth saving.

So what I think Mage Viktor is doing is sitting there with his stubborn engineer brain and the husk of his dead soulmate, fiddling with the timelines like a Rubik's cube, going Not meeting Jayce CANNOT be the only option. There MUST be a timeline where Jayce and I meet each other and entangle our lives in an alarmingly codependent way AND we dodge the apocalypse at the last minute, I don't end up killing him, and we do not doom the world together. And I'm going to fucking find it.

So he's been hitting timeline after timeline, trying to find the combination of factors where everything works. He is not trying to preemptively save every timeline from himself, he is trying to prove to himself that meeting the love of his life doesn't doom the entire fucking world. It's devotion that is SO PROFOUNDLY SELFISH that he is willing to doom timeline after timeline, but driven by someone with enough compassion and pride that he doesn't want the guilt and shame of knowing he can only have this one life-changing thing if he ruins everything else for everyone, and enough arrogance to still look at this as a problem he must be smart enough to solve.

At some point in this process, I think he also figures out that Jayce is the only person who has any chance of reasoning with any version of himself. I think it's worth paying attention to the exact wording of his "in all timelines, in all possibilities" speech, because it's not just a love confession (although it is that).

"I thought I could bring an end to the world's suffering. But when every equation was solved, all that remained were fields of dreamless solitude. There is no prize to perfection. Only an end to pursuit. In all timelines, in all possibilities, only you can show me this."

And while this is some hella romantic cosmic soulmate level shit, it is also Viktor saying I need you, because you are the only person I have ever trusted enough to save me from myself.

It's the Hexcore promise all over again. Viktor knew he couldn't destroy his own creation. I read this not as Viktor being physically unable to destroy it because the Hexcore had some power over him, but not having the will to destroy it. Because this huge leap in Hextech technology was his big breakthrough and not (as I think he saw it) him supporting Jayce's dream. He knew he couldn't do it. So he asked Jayce to do it for him. Please, save me from my own pride, my desire to leave a legacy. I can't do it on my own.

It's a huge extension of trust, for Viktor to admit such a need. And now he's doing it again when the stakes are MUCH MUCH higher. I need you, because you are the only person who can show me the horror of what I am about to do and have me believe it.

Of course, the deep irony is that really the only person Viktor trusts to tell him he is wrong is HIMSELF FROM THE FUTURE. Astral plane Machine Herald Viktor is standing right behind Jayce, watching Jayce's memory of Mage Viktor telling him what the consequences of his actions will be, and that is the moment the horror sinks in and cracks him fully out of his machine shell.

But of course Jayce is the only person he would ever trust enough to carry such a message (from himself!!) to somewhere close enough to reach him.

It's not clear exactly how much of a detailed plan Mage Viktor has when he sends Jayce back to the main timeline, or how much of that plan he shares with Jayce. But I think he has figured out some broad strokes which affect how Jayce behaves.

(1) Jayce has to immediately go and kill commune Viktor. Squishing Salo is maybe a bonus side quest, but Jayce doesn't even take time to fucking shower before he heads for the commune. (I would love to see the part of the conversation where Mage Viktor is like yeah you know that pit you just climbed out of? Yeah the first thing you gotta do is go right back in there, all the way to the bottom, and find me looking like ethereal cyborg Jesus and blast a fucking hole through my chest.) Maybe this is because if Jayce waits around at all, commune Viktor finds a way to get to him and he folds and joins the cult. Maybe this is because there are just fewer variables involved in forcing Viktor to speedrun his own villain arc by Jayce repeatedly turning him down in one "perfect" form after another. Maybe Mage Viktor knows himself well enough to realize "yeah if you say no to me even ONE TIME but ESPECIALLY when you are HOT and SUFFERING I will go fucking apeshit and we can use that to our advantage."

(2) I think Mage Viktor has realized that he can only be stopped at the very very VERY last minute. He has to be able to see the direct line between what he is about to do right now and the arcane-blasted hell world he's about to create. Otherwise his ego will get in the way and tell him he is smart enough to figure out a way to somehow not kill everybody. Yeah Mage Viktor fucked that one up obviously, but I, main timeline Viktor, will be smart enough and well-intentioned enough when the time comes to simply not do that. I think this is why, for example, Jayce doesn't go to the commune trying to get Viktor to see the error of his ways. It won't work until it is allllmost too late.

Main timeline Viktor stops literally seconds before the point of no return. The arcane corruption spikes that we see everywhere in Mage Viktor's world are already starting to appear.

I think Mage Viktor knows that Jayce has to let him get right up to the edge, close enough to be looking over into the abyss, before he'll be able to pull him back.

But he knows Jayce can do that. That's what they do for each other, right?

This is why I think it was always the plan for Jayce to fight him all the way to the top of the Hexgate, and then surrender. Jayce has to survive until the end of the fight, and maybe for magical physics reasons he has to wait until Viktor sends the anomaly into the sky above the Hexgate. But once they get to the top of the Hexgate tower he stops trying to fight Viktor altogether. Maybe Mage Viktor told him exactly when it had to happen or maybe he just realizes this is the exact same place where he died in Mage Viktor's world; this is his last chance. But in any case, Jayce lands on the top of the Hexgate on his knees and he doesn't try to get up.

He waits, and when he senses Viktor behind him he doesn't try to fight or run away.

I think he knows, either because Mage Viktor told him or through his own intuition, that he has to let Viktor pull him into the astral plane if he wants a chance at reaching him.

How exactly he was going to get through to him and/or get close enough to share the memories before Viktor assimilated him...ehhhh I don't know if either of them had that figured out. The "you were never broken" part of Jayce's speech, while important from a character perspective...very crucially DOES NOT WORK. IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. Viktor is assimilating Jayce the whole time. You can see Jayce's astral body changing from the unique version that's still him (like his hands on the left, when he first enters the astral plane--which still look more or less human even though Viktor has already erased "imperfections" like the scrapes and cuts from his time in the pit and the arcane corruption that's spreading up and down his arm from where the rune is embedded) into a featureless gold blob like the other assimilated people.

You can watch the gold light creeping up his body steadily during those lines until it reaches his eyes.

The ONLY thing that stops this timeline from ending the same way Mage Viktor's does...is EKKO.

I think you can make the case that Mage Viktor sent Ekko to the no-Hextech timeline intentionally. But it is such a complex chain of causality for Ekko to get to the point where he's chucking a time machine at Herald Viktor's face that there is no way anyone--even a remorseful demigod with lots of time on his hands--could control every possible factor.

However elaborate Mage Viktor's plan was, and however determined Jayce was to keep his promise to him, it all would have failed if not for factors outside their control and random fucking chance.

Arcane is FULL of near-misses and what-could-have-beens and characters who are trying their best to do something getting knocked off course by consequences they never could have foreseen. Season 2 in particular introduces a persistent thread of chaos and the sense that even events that have understandable root causes are now spiraling out of characters' control. So it feels fitting that such a moment factors into the show's ending.

This is Jayce right before Ekko blasts through spacetime right above Viktor's head.

Yeah that guy was cooked.

The only thing that stops Jayce from being assimilated is Ekko breaking time to throw the Z drive at Viktor's face.

Which startles Viktor enough that he takes his hand off Jayce's head in the physical realm, and also breaks a piece of his machine mask off in the astral realm.

As he always does when one of his "perfect" bodies gets damaged, Viktor withdraws and tried to hide, enough that he lets go of the assimilation connection with Jayce.

Jayce starts to regain his own identity/autonomy.

And he gets a do-over. Exactly the same way Ekko used the Z drive to get a do-over with Jinx when he was trying to talk her out of suicide. Jayce gets another chance, and that's when he goes for "all I want is my partner back" and "because I promised you." Which works.

Mage Viktor's plan, I think, was for Jayce to help main timeline Viktor realize what he was doing before it was too late, and then give him the runestone, which allows him to release all the minds/souls that are connected to him before this becomes some runaway chain reaction of arcane power that swallows everything around him. (How the runestone does this exactly, and how the anomalies play into it, is stuff I am still thinking about. But tbh I am less concerned with the details of made-up magic physics than I am with the character beats.) Mage Viktor had accepted that main timeline Viktor was probably going to die in this process and he'd made peace with it. That's what "should" have happened anyway, if Viktor never found a way to forestall his illness, right? As long as this Viktor got to spend the best years of his life with his Jayce, it was okay.

I don't think Mage Viktor ever expected Jayce to stay there until the end. His goal was to save the world and spare Jayce from himself. And why would he plan otherwise? We know why Jayce stays, but Mage Viktor never got that part of the story. He schlorped up his own Jayce's consciousness with everyone else and maybe he only understood the depths of what Jayce felt for him in the moment that he was killing him. And main timeline Viktor certainly does not expect Jayce to stay. He's shocked when he realizes Jayce has no intention of leaving. No, that wasn't part of any master plan. That part was all Jayce.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Oct 14, 2024

It was hardly a plague of locusts, but it was disruptive nonetheless. During the annual LGB Alliance conference at the Queen Elizabeth II centre in Westminster on Friday afternoon, teenage activists unleashed thousands of crickets into the auditorium. The inconvenience was only temporary. The crowd simply relocated to another room and the event went on as before.

As those responsible were apprehended, many people were struck by just how young and posh they were. By this point, it should surprise precisely no-one that anti-gay activism in its current form is a predominately bourgeois pursuit. The symbolism of the crickets was, of course, deliberate. It was an attempt to dehumanise those in attendance, to suggest that they were akin to parasites, vermin, spreaders of disease, a common trope of those who seek to demonise minorities.

The perpetrators were children, and so it would be unwise to speculate too much on their motives. It is likely they were being manipulated by the group that has claimed responsibility, calling itself “Trans Kids Deserve Better”. As Bev Jackson, co-founder of LGB Alliance said on my show last night:

“Trans kids do deserve better. They deserve better than to be told lies that that they might have been born in the wrong body. They deserve better than to be told that these hormones and surgeries that they are clambering for will somehow solve all their problems. Many are on the autism spectrum. Many are struggling with their sexual orientation. We know that. They deserve better than to be told that we hate them. And they deserve better than to be labelled trans when they’re going through all the turbulence of adolescence, when your feelings about yourself are in constant flux.”

Irrespective of the intentions of the teenagers involved, this was anti-gay activism. To attack a group of lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have assembled to discuss the ongoing threats to their civil rights could hardly be defined in any other way. Likewise, to refer to groups such as LGB Alliance as “anti-trans”, “transphobic” or “hateful” - as activist media outlets such as the Metro and the Guardian have been known to do - is also an anti-gay strategy. In order to address a problem, one needs to label it accurately.

Gender identity ideologues are, by definition, anti-gay. They are campaigning to force their pseudo-religious belief-system onto the rest of society, one that claims that same-sex attraction is a myth, and that a mysterious spiritual sense of “gender” is the defining feature of homosexuality. Even if they have convinced themselves that they are “pro-trans” and “compassionate” and “progressive”, the implementation of their demands would result directly in the demolition of gay rights. And so “anti-gay activism” is not only an accurate description, it also cuts to the heart of what is at stake.

The trans activist movement in its current form is dominated by this belief in a material and stable “gender identity”, what one trans campaigner explained to me as an “essence of male or female”. This is a departure from the theories of Judith Butler, who posits that “gender identity” is an illusion created performatively and repetitively in accordance with societal expectations. For all their deification of Butler, the trans rights movement is insistent that she is wrong on this key point, and that an individual is “born trans” when there is a misalignment of body and “sexed soul” (to borrow Helen Joyce’s phrase).  

This belief is wholly incompatible with the struggle for gay rights, which has always been predicated on the notion that there exist a minority of people who are innately attracted to their own sex. Activist groups such as Stonewall now argue that “homosexuality” is based on gender rather than sex, meaning that it is possible for a man to be a lesbian. He may have been born male (or “assigned male at birth” to borrow the voguish parlance), but his “gender identity” is female and this should be the salient factor when it comes to sexual orientation.

It is no easy feat to explain the contortions of logic on display here. Lesbian dating apps are now replete with men who claim to be women, many fully bearded and bepenised. Likewise, sex clubs for gay men now routinely admit women who have had their breasts removed and believe themselves to be male. The gay male hookup app Grindr even prohibits its users from filtering out women. As the company’s website puts it:

“When designing gender settings on Grindr, it was important to us to not further perpetuate discrimination and harm for the trans and nonbinary community. For this reason, we allow filtering based on gender - you can specify that you want to see men or women - but this will include all men or all women, because trans men are men and trans women are women.”

In other words, a company that has made a fortune from gay men’s sexuality is now shaming its customers for being gay.

The situation is so confusing that we now have mainstream celebrities such as Billy Bragg effectively campaigning against gay rights without realising it. He is not homophobic (as far as I’m aware) and yet he is assiduously promoting a movement whose end goal is the eradication of homosexuality. Bragg’s 1991 song Sexuality included the lyric: “Just because you’re gay, I won’t turn you away”. Perhaps a more appropriate version would be: “Just because you’re gay, I’ll have you surgically corrected in order to better conform to heterosexual paradigms”, although it wouldn’t scan or rhyme.

This is why to grow up gay in 2024 is considerably more risky than during the time of Section 28 in the 1980s. We have gay conversion therapy being promoted by the NHS in the form of “gender-affirming care”, and children who are gender non-conforming (and therefore statistically far more likely to be homosexual in later life) are being medicalised and shamed for their orientation. Moreover, the very organisations that were originally established to fight for gay rights are now actively working against the interests of gay people.

To release bags of insects into a gathering of homosexuals is the kind of tactic we might once have seen from neo-Nazis and extreme religious fundamentalists. Just because those responsible now claim to be “on the right side of history” does not justify their behaviour or make them any less regressive. These are the new reactionaries, espousing a particularly toxic form of anti-gay ideology because it has the approval of the corporate, media, political and managerial class. Homophobia never went away, it just took on a fresh disguise.

==

[ Source. ]

Gay men are not allowed to filter out women from their dating pool.

[nientedal]

This protest had solid intent but it's unfortunately really frustrating to read about. The article above does a good job of framing it positively, but most of the articles from more widely-read sources maintain focus on the Gala itself rather than the protest, because of course they fucking do; you are not going to have the reach doing this that you think you are unless you actually make it to the location where the event is held and can disrupt the photos, as we saw success with last week at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The odds of making it to the door without a plan are extremely slim, and sure enough, it did not happen this time. Protesters lingered in Central Park; those who did attempt to march on the Gala were blocked by police at every turn. If you're protesting an event as big as this one, you need a way to get your people to disrupt the event itself. At the bare minimum, you need an extensive network of media contacts pushing pushing pushing this on social media and in the news, or you are going to be drowned out by the spectacle.

I am absolutely not saying Don't Protest At Celebrity Events, but for fuck's sake, part of protesting is pushing your cause higher into the public consciousness and that is not going to happen here and it just drives me up the wall. You have to make sure you have laid the groundwork for your voice to be heard when you do something like this! You're marching against the goddamned Met Gala with no strategy to make you bigger and actually get you to the Met Gala? What?

I dunno. I see what they were trying to do, and it did get some news articles. But it does not seem to have succeeded in generating focus the way it would have if they had, you know, actually made it into the crowd at the door. I'm not reading that they had any plan to that effect and it's just so frustrating.

ANYWAY "nobody better be posting about" etc. etc. without also posting a link to a local bail fund if possible. In this case, that'd probably be the Action Bail Fund, which supports protesters in New York. Bucknell has a multi-state list of bail funds as well, though many of these are cause-specific. Do your own research, but please support protesters where you can.

(Here's also a link to a list of Palestinian fundraisers that I believe have been vetted as legitimate. Clicking here will generate a random fundraiser from that list; the website's About page says they prioritize fundraisers that haven't gotten as much attention or have stagnated. So, that's cool. Donate & signal boost, you know the drill; getting more eyes on aid will hopefully help individual people a bit more than just posting a vaguely guilt-trippy link and calling it good.)

nobody better be posting about the met gala without mentioning the giant pro-palestine demonstration going on outside

[hangingslothcentral]

Yesterday was International Podcast Day and I completely didn't notice because our boiler broke so I spent the whole day trying to field progress on getting a new one whilst being Very Cold. But I've things to say!

Audio drama tends to get overlooked at big podcasting events. It often feels like we're treated like the odd and slightly embarrassing cousin of nonfiction podcasting. In part this is because advertisers haven't quite worked out what to do with us yet.

In a lot of ways, this industry is very old, if you trace its roots to radio drama.

To me, though, audio drama feels like it's been stitched together from radio drama's remains. It shares a lot of the same parts, but it's a fundamentally different individual, just as Frankenstein's monster is something else besides a bunch of bits of other people sewn together.

From that perspective, then, audio drama is very YOUNG. We're an industry that's still cutting its teeth. Tiny indie shows can pop up in your feed next to massive industry giants, like your aunt's home-movie being listed on Netflix next to David Fincher's last film.

I think over the next few years we're likely to see a radical change in the way that we consume and make audio drama. There will be benefits and drawbacks to it, I'm sure, but it has felt to me like change is on the wind for some time now.

Audio is a fantastic medium to write for, presenting its own unique challenges and pitfalls. Anyone who writes ought to give it a go, even if they've no intention of actually making an audio drama. It'll challenge you to develop new descriptive strategies!

The medium of audio drama has so much to offer in so many ways. The way this media is engaged with by the audience can be incredibly intimate. It's got so much scope and such broad potential. However the space changes in the coming years, I'm eager to see what it offers us.

[hannahmanderr]

If it makes you feel better, I’ve encountered multiple people who either didn’t know that Danny phantom wasn’t part of DC, or in two separate strange cases, people who thought Batman was separate from dc and was part of the “phantom-multiverse” (whatever that is supposed to be)

It just goes to show how much of its own fandom DPxDC has become. And that's fine, I really don't care if DPxDC wants to do its own thing.

But it's when it starts to encroach on and overshadow the original fandom that still stands as its own fandom that I honestly get really upset. These days, it really does feel like Danny Phantom as a phandom is not allowed to exist without having to bow to DPxDC. Multiple phandom events have had to make rules and allowances and adjustments simply to work with/around DPxDC. I can personally attest to this, having helped run Ecto-Implosion. We've had to have serious discussions about how to accommodate DPxDC because it's so pervasive and it's so fundamentally wormed its way into the DP standalone phandom.

That's not even getting into how some events have tried to very politely explain that their event is intended for the Danny Phantom phandom only, and DPxDC fans have gotten extremely offended that they be asked to respect that. It's not like DPxDC has their own events that cater to their fandom. No, the Danny Phantom phandom has to kowtow to the DPxDC fandom. We're not allowed to have anything that's just ours, nevermind the fact that we were here first.

We're not even allowed to have our own tag. People have time and time again begged and pleaded with the DPxDC fandom to just use the right tags and kindly refrain from posting in the main DP tag, and DPxDC fans get so offended and angry at being asked to do this one simple thing for us. I flat out refuse to go into the main DP tag because - and this is no exaggeration - at least half of the posts are DPxDC. And before anyone says anything, yes, I do have the DPxDC tag(s) blocked, but as a DP fan, it's so discouraging to scroll through my main tag and see blocked post after blocked post, having to scroll forever just to find my own phandom's content.

And that doesn't even account for the untagged or improperly tagged DPxDC posts in the main DP tag. People either keep using the wrong tags (as far as I'm aware, #dpxdc and #dp x dc are the standard tags) or just simply don't tag it as the crossover. I know the main argument coming from the DPxDC fandom is to simply block the tags, and that's valid, but blocking tags doesn't work if people don't use them. I shouldn't have to add a dozen different iterations of the same tag just to keep from having to see them only for it not to even work because some people just neglect to use any crossover tag. The number of times I've been vibing with an unblocked post only for it to suddenly take a turn into DPxDC is honestly depressing.

Look, I don't want to be angry or upset. I really don't want to have an issue with DPxDC. If people find joy in DPxDC then that's great! But I would appreciate if DPxDC would let me have my own joy too without demanding I also make it theirs.

[centrally-unplanned]

The thing about morality is that it only matters when it's real. Discussions of rules or norms for what is right or wrong are almost always, at some level, illusions, approximating reality and guiding decisions in an uncertain world - which does not make them useless, just contextual. Profaning god in your bedroom can never be “wrong” - there is no one to hear you, no one to be hurt by it. You can only show something is really wrong from the intentions of the actions and their results.

So with that out of the way, lets talk about Knives Chau - and specifically, how the comic vs the anime handled that part of the story.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Reification of Dating a High Schooler

There is an extremely pervasive meme in Scott Pilgrim discourse that our titular Scott is a scumbag. Our returning whipping boy the Kotaku article loves this idea, describing Scott’s “detestable behavior” and wondering “was it too subtle the first time about Scott being an absolute shitbag?”. There is this viral headline screenshot from an interview floating around right now riding that same line:

Which is, of course, pretty much false. Its up to you in the end, “shitbag” is a subjective description, but the story just isn’t about events that would be described that way. Its the story of a guy getting over an awful ex, hurting some people, then meeting a new person, and realizing step-by-step what it takes to be their partner and levelling up as a person each time he does. He starts off broken, and Ramona of course is just as broken - getting better is their mutual arc. And its fundamentally about relationship drama - those stakes don’t make you a scumbag lol, just clueless, unless you are terminally online and don’t know what real stakes are.

I will let O’Malley get the last word in with his quote the writer of that interview is hilariously trying to torture into his headline:

There's a bit of, like, young people see Scott Pilgrim a certain way, and, you know, there's a lot of, like, 18-19-year-old fans that are really judgmental of the character. They're like, "Oh, he's a bad person. I would never do that." But I always tell them, like, get back to me when you're 25 or 30, tell me how your 20s went. Were you a bad person? Everyone has to make choices and do things in life that maybe they're not going to be proud of later.

Scott is a scumbag the way everyone is - you yourself will likely commit similar sins; that at least seems to be the authorial intent, and I agree with it.

So how does dating Knives Chau slot into this?

Despite the memes, age, in fact, is just a number - two consenting people dating does not a sin make. The reason dating underage people is bad is because of its consequences, not the categorical imperative. So what are the consequences of dating Knives Chau in the comic?

Knives is, as a consequence of dating a guy who is simply via his age able to appear so much cooler than her peers to her, absolutely obsessed with Scott. She worships his band:

She starts aping his taste in music and interests; she slots herself into his circle of friends, who don’t relate to her, even after their breakup (often drinking her way through it):

She totally spirals after he cheats on her and leaves her, blaming everyone but him; she is wounded and hurt for months, a year, over a relationship that lasted weeks:

Knives Chau is a literal poster child for why you should not date a high schooler. She is, at every turn, emotionally not ready to date someone who is not at her own level of social development, and is deeply affected by it. It is, sometimes, played for laughs - that is the nature of the comic, everything is played for laughs, but I would have given it a bit more dramatic space myself - but over the course of the story Scott himself realizes how much of an ass he was to her, and how he didn’t take what happened seriously.

The reason I view this with charity is what Scott did to lead to this - he met a cute girl on the bus! He was deeply hurt and kind of numb in life, and found someone who was safe and easy to talk to. He never attempts to kiss her (she starts trying to kiss him which he repeatedly rejects) they don’t even hold hands, and it lasted a few weeks. He knew deep down, pretty much immediately, it was fake:

Then he met an actual person he liked, and with some browbeating from Wallace agreed to break up with her, but chickened out for a day. Then the next day he decides to break up with her, and she drops the L bomb before he can, so he instantly ends it. It is really awkward for everyone involved.

Pushing off an awkward and uncomfortable conversation resulting from a dumb decision you made on a whim for a week - god I relate to that, that’s everyone! If you think it isn’t you I think you're lying. Its why this relationship is so interesting in the comic - Scott is always one step removed from it, putting it at abeyance, and the fact that something so minor to him is so destructive to her is a really good portrait of how these kinds of things happen. Its so easy to hurt someone when you don’t even know what the stakes are, and when its coming not from malice, but from weakness. Its a very good portrayal of a bad relationship because its bad in a relatable way, even if as a story is a bit more dramatic than is typical. And its a great portrayal of how fraught age gaps can be - this bad relationship is part of what makes the comic a good story.

But its 2023, we don’t give a shit about any of that anymore!

O’Malley in the same interview discusses the cultural shift around these kind of relationships:

I felt like in this day and age, I had to provide clarity on that [relationship]. Because when I wrote the first books, I took it for granted that people would understand that dating a high schooler was a bad thing. But on the internet, in this day and age, people are like, "He's dating a high schooler. That's terrible!" Like, that's pretty much what I say on page 1 of the book. But I try to spell it out a little bit more this time.

He isn’t telling the full story though - it was bad in 2004, but not bad the way it is today. Its dubiousness was mitigated by its frequency; people were doing this kind of shit all the time. Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in an indie band; fucking groupies is like built into the cover charge. Half the problem Scott has in dating Knives is that she is the wrong kind of 17-year-old - had Scott met her at 1 am in the aftermath of a Born Ruffian’s concert at the Whippet Lounge knocking down shots off the back of her fake ID, no one would have even noticed. Hell, no one does notice; there is someone who actually makes out with a drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau in the comic Scott Pilgrim, and isn’t Scott Pilgrim:

No one cares about Kim’s inebriated petting session here; that is 10% because she is a Girl and Girls Can’t Be Predators, 40% because she isn’t the main character, and 50% because Kim Pine’s dating history is not a useful proxy battleground for GamerGate-adjacent nerd culture wars in ~2014; but that is road that goes directly to hell, so let's veer back.

The point, of course, is that in 2004 this is a crime flecked with normality, something your friend would do and you would maybe just cock an eyebrow at:

Its not that in discourse today - it is radically more condemned. It is not a contextual sin, but an original sin. It underwent a process I am calling reification - where it goes from being just a shifting descriptor of reality, to a thing in itself, with a defined (reified) meaning. And to be clear, that is in a lot ways on net a good thing? The reality is that, despite everyone’s protestations, there are today thousands of 17-year-olds taking the L line out to a gig at the Brooklyn Steel and going down on a 25-year-old guy they just met in a back alley off Frost St who swears he’s a “drummer in a sick new band” that played here “just last week”, he promises, and she is having a great time, bragging to her friends about how hot his tattoo was, and then shipping herself off to Cornell next year to start on her pre-med track with barely a memory. But for every dozen of those, there is at least one person who is deeply, deeply hurt, a Knives Chau who never deserved this. The rest can have a slightly worse time, its probably worth it.

That does not make it a categorical imperative, though - the reification has masked that truth. The crime comes from the context - those other girls aren’t victims, they would laugh at you for suggesting they were. But in 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is no longer concerned with context. It is telling you, right to your face, that Scott is a bad dude. Over and over and over - jokes from the Evil League about “wow, I thought we were evil”, its not subtle.

Yet meanwhile, Knives Chau is, like, fine? She dates Scott, is totally into him, and then literally in the middle of his funeral forgets about him for Envy crashing it:

Picks up the bass and has yuri-inflected playtime with Kim the literal next day:

And less than a week later is pitching an off-broadway musical adaption of Scott’s life to a billionaire Matthew Patel - I can’t explain that okay, I’m as confused as you are.

She is mad at Scott, sure, but she is over it in a matter of days. Hell, notice how she was already a fan of the Clash at Demonhead now? There is no scene of Scott introducing her to his kind of music. He didn’t change her. By the end she is a member of his band and they are totally chill:

This is, again, about a week or two later.

Knives is not an important character in this show, way less than in the original, this is no grand sin. But I still find it very interesting: O’Malley is wrong. He “spells it out” way less in this version when it comes to the actual consequences of Scott’s actions. Everyone’s verbal condemnations are substitutes to replace the real damage his actions dealt in the comic. Scott is a better person this time, in a world that has universally agreed he is worse (still not a good move ofc). Even Scott’s moment of apology to Knives about their dating is so tepid its almost Straussian:

Its ‘frowned upon’…which is not the same thing as saying it was wrong! I don’t think this is intentional, its just funny, but its a nice capstone nevertheless.

And it had to be this way, not just for media in general, but for Scott Pilgrim in particular. Not only are sexual crimes far more reified today, but Scott Pilgrim’s sin of dating a high schooler is reified as well - its the first piece of discourse everyone encounters about it. Its the ur-debate of the franchise. The idea of actively engaging on this point, and digging deeper into it…its too hot, too controversial. Way better to shy away from it, disown it. The discourse wrote this part of the script over the course of a decade; its not something the creatives had any say in.

Honestly they should have just gone all the way - just make Knives 19. Then how tepid it is wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. Scott can just be an asshole for cheating on her, that would work fine. If you aren’t going to commit to the reality of these things, you shouldn’t bother with it at all.

[mswyrr]

One of the most important bits of dialogue in hotd is from Viserys in 1x01:

"The idea that we control the dragons is an illusion. They're a power man should never have trifled with. One that brought Valyria its doom. If we don't mind our own histories, it will do the same to us."

This is a man who bonded with Balerion, The Black Dread, the oldest dragon who had actually hatched in Old Valyria. This was the same dragon who flew Princess Aerea, a 12-year-old girl who bonded with him, back to Valyria against her will - sickening and killing her in the process (Fire & Blood, p 263). The little girl was away from her home at the time and probably feeling "I want to go home" but what Balerion did with that feeling killed her. His will was strong and his memory was *deep*.

Viserys only rode him one time, his inaugural flight, and then never again. IMO he experienced something bonding with that ancient beast that--in addition to studying the family's history and Valyrian lore--convinced him of the danger and fundamentally uncontrollable nature of dragons.

It is totally in keeping with canon events that Vhagar, in the current timeline the most ancient dragon alive--a dragon who drank deep of bloodshed and war with Visenya during the Conquest and *likes* war--translated Aemond's anger at Lucerys into murder of the boy and his small dragon. It is perfectly in keeping with what the show has been saying since episode 1.

An ancient, powerful and wilful dragon overcoming the will of its rider is *literally canon*. Princess Aerea must have been terrified during the whole, long flight to Valyria, and yet all her protests couldn't stop the dragon she'd bonded to.

I would also say that the Valyrians turned magical creatures, dragons, into weapons of warfare - that the dragons, in that sense, represent war. And the show is imo fundamentally antiwar - so here war is something you cannot control. GRRM has said the dragons are "nukes," which fits with this reading:

“Dragons are the nuclear deterrent, and only [Daenerys Targaryen, one of the series’ heroines] has them, which in some ways makes her the most powerful person in the world,” Martin said in 2011. “But is that sufficient? These are the kind of issues I’m trying to explore. The United States right now has the ability to destroy the world with our nuclear arsenal, but that doesn’t mean we can achieve specific geopolitical goals. Power is more subtle than that. You can have the power to destroy, but it doesn’t give you the power to reform, or improve, or build.” (source)

War and nukes - you cannot aim them only at the guilty, only at those you hate; you cannot prevent them from consuming the innocent as well. They a raging fire that consumes, that is all. And so, on that level, I just adore what they're doing and how it all fits together.

Aemond's domestic violence fits too - boys go to war thinking it will be honorable and manly and they'll protect "their women" but instead come home and hurt those very women. This thing burns and burns until it is exhausted, and it doesn't stay contained, not within you or outside you. "So it goes," to steal a phrase from antiwar writer Kurt Vonnegut.

The reason I keep coming back to my antiwar reading of the show is that things that people dismiss as "bad" or mock actually come together beautifully if you don't expect to war to be glorious and masterful and heroic. If you take the text seriously, in terms of what the dragons are metaphorically and what characters have outright said about their fundamentally uncontrollable nature. The lore supports what Vhagar did! That she could overcome a teenaged human's will with her century old bloodlust.

[fairuzfan]

I’m a genocide historian and I do think comparisons between the Holocaust and the genocide in Palestine are unproductive because A) the Holocaust is pretty distinct from Palestinian genocide not in its exceptionalism but in its method - the “shipping” of victims from 20+ countries by international rail to a handful of centralized killing sites; 15000 people being gassed in Auschwitz daily (a single gas chamber had standing capacity for 2,000 people) and their stolen hair sold in bales for use as maritime rope and cushion stuffing - and forcing Holocaust parallels obfuscates the terrible and very unique methods of genocide being used by Israel against Palestinians. B) People often invoke the Holocaust as an emotional appeal regarding the moral culpability of all Jews (“how could you do what was done to your ancestors!”) when the same responsibility to end the genocide in Palestine exists regardless of one’s background or religion.

What Israel is doing in Palestine is 100% a genocide. Whether or not it is similar to the Holocaust (or any previous atrocity) does not make this any more or less true.

The thing that doesn't make sense to me with this point is that no one is saying that the Holocaust and Palestinian genocide are a 1:1 comparison. Like most people acknowledge the terrible genocide that occurred in the Holocaust against all its victims. But when they're talking about comparing genocides, there are tell tale signs that repeat throughout history that are precursers to larger events. Like when people compare the Warsaw ghetto to Gaza. I'd say those are quite similar in practice and intention. When we "compare" genocides (not a 1:1 but more of a drawing parellels by disecting the inteion and reasoning behind certain events that werent necessarily actively violent but passively violent) its to show "hey this is going to get really bad really soon because something like this happened before." Masha Gessen has an article about this that I reblogged.

People should care about fighting injustice everywhere I agree. But that doesn't change the fact that parallel drawing is an act separate from emotional invocation. When genocide scholars and survivors talk about "Hey this was like xyz that happened to me/in history" it's to show that there is precedent for this thinking and a terrible methodology happening when genocides occur. They dont just get really bad out of nowhere, you need to examine the precursors to prevent the large event from happening. How that large event happens differs from place to place, I agree. But to say that because things happen differently against different people means you can't examine the underlying reasons behind those actions is kind of reductive. By this definition you can never compare any genocide ever and all the terrible things that happen just happen naturally without any political or social influence.

Arnesa talks about how the Bosnian genocide precursors mirror the Palestinian genocide. She also talks about how Lula specifically should have mentioned other genocides (like Rwanda, Bosnia, etc) in his statement because there are parallels there too. I'd argue that's the real intention behind genocide studies, in that you notice trends and patterns to analyze how certain events might turn out.

I do want to mention because this is where im coming from a little bit, it is a pretty big zionist talking point (by especially American dems) saying you can't compare the holocaust to what's happening to Palestinians because it's antisemitic, which is not a real talking point and actually kind of rude in that it assumes that Palestinians can't call out parallels between their treatment and the treatment of those in the Holocaust because they're fundamentally doing it from a point of antisemitism and not a plea for recognition that the events are mirroring each other.

[marsattaxk]

「Swan Song」 / KATSUKI BAKUGO

── .✦ ENCOUNTER. 1 The only thing I got were wounds

SYNOPSIS: KATSUKI BAKUGO has gotten used to the monotonous routine of his physical and quirk therapy. Going over the same sign-in chart, same exercises to bring back feeling in his arm, and slowly introducing his quirk back. That all changed when one day, during one of his usual session times a teen around his age showed up. Wearing two ankle braces. 

MY HERO ACADEMIA  ✦  KATSUKI BAKUGO × BALLERINA!GN!READER  ✦ ©marsattaxk 2024

NOTE + WARNINGS: Reader will and is a ballerina in the story and will be described as tall no other reference to their appearance, reader has a quirk called Swan Song, due to their quirk reader is very emotionally unstable after their quirk is used (be used in later chapters), reader is also a Shiketsu student, poor description of physical therapy, katsuki is curious and intrigued as hell by reader, poor description of ballet (I haven't done it in YEARS), description of injuries, teenagers being teens so swearing (we'll get to dialogue eventually just let me cook)

WORD COUNT: 4.6k

KATSUKI BAKUGO HAD ALWAYS BEEN ONE FOR ROUTINES. His daily life, ever since middle school consisted of one: waking up early, going for a morning run, having breakfast, going to school, homework, study, more training, dinner, shower, and go to bed at the latest of 9pm. A cut and dry routine that he, himself, had created. He was a creature of habit and never liked change. That of course changed when he entered U.A.

His life, the one he knew, changed when his childhood best friend suddenly and out of nowhere got a quirk. His quirkless childhood best friend had a strong quirk and was improving fast. Way too fast for his liking. The ideal life and routine he had in his head changed to now include his goal of surpassing and still being better than IZUKU. And his immense growth his first year at U.A was proof of that. 

His loud, explosive, and angry personality had consistently mild down throughout the year and the events that he and his classmates were and had experienced. Of course it is no secret that a war would change a person fundamentally, especially him considering he had died for a moment of time during it. Thankfully, he was able to be brought back and see the end of it, marking the end to one of Japan’s darkest times and even witnessing his childhood best friend become the greatest hero of all time. Finally allowing for the reform their hero society needed to begin. 

However, surviving a war didn’t mean he got out scot-free. Katsuki was left with some gnarly scars and a heart that had to be monitored, reminders of what he went through. But those were the last of his worries when it came to his dream and goals of becoming the best hero of all time. His worries came with his arm. During the war his arm had received a lot of damage, profusely messing it up. He could no longer fully move his hand, and his quirk, which relied on his sweat, was practically unusable in its current state. After waking up in the hospital, getting time to get used to being awake he was told that he had two options. 

One: get his arm amputated and get a prosthetic, or two: go the long route and go through physical and quirk therapy. 

Katsuki knew one thing at that moment and that was if he wanted to even fully use his quirk and achieve his dream, he’d have to have both his arms. So his choice was pretty clear, he was going to go through the long process of physical and quirk therapy. He not only had the support of his parents but of his friends as well, so the road ahead didn’t seem too rough to him. 

With the defeat of Shigaraki and All for One, society was slowly but surely starting to recover which meant that physical therapy clinics were finally and fully opening back up. Plus with most school’s needing to be rebuilt or fixed, summer came early for students all around the country. And so Katsuki’s routine changed once again for the third time. His training had now been replaced with physical and quirk therapy at 5pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

From the moment he got discharged from the hospital, he was immediately required to go to his first session on a Wednesday. And just like that Katsuki had a new routine. Being a month into rehab, Katsuki had gotten used to the monotonous routine of his physical and quirk therapy. Going over the same sign-in chart, same exercises to bring back feeling in his arm, and slowly introducing his quirk back. That all changed one random Wednesday when he showed up. 

Katsuki always liked showing up a little bit earlier than his scheduled time, just so that he could get the sign-in chart quickly over with and not have it take up time from his appointment. He, like usual, had been dropped off by his mother at the clinic, her promising she’d be back in an hour, with him responding in a disinterested tone that he knew and understood. He’d then watch her drive away, a byproduct of his senses always on edge, before finally walking into the building. He expected it to be empty as it had always been but to his surprise there was someone there before him. 

The person that from what he could see was around his age. They sat there with their head low, the cap on their head covering most of their face except for their lips and chin. The cap wasn’t what caught Katsuki’s attention as he went and sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area. What caught his attention was the two ankle braces they were wearing on each ankle. The sight genuinely intrigued him, making questions fill his head. Why two braces? How did they injure themselves? Did they hurt one ankle first and then the other? Or did they hurt the two at the same time? Were some of the few that filled his head. 

The waiting room was mostly silent, with the only noise being the typing of the receptionist and the low humming noise of the A.C unit. Katsuki had genuinely expected the teen to at least maybe look in his direction and acknowledge him or even attempt to make conversation. But no, all he got was silence on their end. The silence didn’t help his curiosity at all, with him taking peeks at them as they both sat in the waiting area. 

Every time he’d expect them to at least have slightly moved, but no, they continued to sit in the same position he had seen them since he had entered. Their elbows resting on the arm rests, their head hanging low, body slightly slouched as if they were ashamed, and their feet firmly planted against the floor. And god, those damn ankle braces didn’t help in want of knowing what happened. But Katsuki was never one to initiate a conversation, and if the teen didn’t want to say anything then he wouldn’t either. 

It genuinely felt like an eternity in the waiting room, with the silence so deafening that Katsuki began to contemplate if he should speak up just to get rid of it. But before he could decide whether or not he should, his name got called out making him turn his head in the direction. It was time for him to start the usual routine he mentally created for himself. As he stood up and made his way over to the nurse that had called out to him, Katsuki glanced one final time at the teen, before heading to the back to get started. 

Katuski believed that when he’d get out of his session the teen would be gone but to much of his surprise, they were still there. He guessed that their session ended before his since they were at the receptionist desk setting up their next appointment for Wednesday at the same time as he would be right after they left. From where he stood he could catch a glimpse of their face, seeing their clearly tired eyes, and the frown on their face. He could tell that they didn’t want to be there, and that just added more fuel to the fire, wondering what happened to them for them to land here, just like him.

Their frown wasn’t just the only thing that intrigued Katsuki, but their height as well. Katsuki was tall, clearly. He stood, proudly, at five’ eight and used his height as an advantage over villains. But from what he could see this teen a few feet away from him was taller than him, only by a few inches. They towered over the receptionist, with her having to crane her neck to look up. Normally something about that would infuriate him but with them it was different. Their height added to the curiosity that he held for them and maybe even some attraction, but Katsuki would never admit that. 

He watched them only nod in response to the woman's words, giving her one last nod before walking and out of the clinic, clearly they wanted to get the hell out. And honestly Katsuki didn’t blame them for it, he also just wanted to be done with his therapy sessions and go back to his regular life, going back to doing hero work. Standing there he listens to the receptionist talk about his next appointment and the upcoming ones he had next, watching as their silhouette walked away from the building and got into a car. 

✦ 

[Y/N] HAD ALWAYS HAD ONE DREAM SINCE THEY WERE A CHILD. From the moment they had seen them gracefully glide across their screen, twirling, dipping, and jumping, they knew that was what they wanted to do. Seeing a Prima Ballerina perform Tchaikovsky Swan Lake, they knew they wanted to be the white swan. They knew they needed to be a ballerina. 

They still remembered going up to their mother and telling her how they wanted to do ballet, how it didn’t matter to them if they got a quirk or not, they just wanted to perform Swan Lake. They remember the begging they did, trying to convince their pro-hero parents to allow them to do ballet, begging to break the family tradition of being heroes. They knew how important it was for their parents for them to follow in the tradition, it was the legacy their great grand-parents had started. But, even as a small child they knew that wasn’t what they wanted and what they did they saw dancing on their screen.

Their mother was more skeptical, not seeing the appeal of it, that maybe there was another activity that they could do related to hero work. Their father was the one who fully listened to them. Maybe it was because this was his only child wanting to do something they wanted, or maybe it was because that spark they had for the dance was the same spark he had when seeing his father be a hero. He made them make him a promise. He made them promise that if they ever stopped or showed disinterest in the dance style, they would start hero training. 

And ever since that day, they have never broken their promise. Everyday from that day forward they spent their life going to dance classes, practices, going to rehearsals, performances, doing pointe shoe fittings and getting lead roles in productions. Even when their quirk came in, aptly named ‘Swan Song’ they continued to dance no matter what. Their entire elementary and middle school years were spent perfecting their craft, hoping and dreaming that in a couple years their dreams of becoming a Prima Ballerina would become true. And it was during the 8th grade, that it finally happened. 

That lifelong dream came in the form of a letter from the official National Ballet of Japan, with them offering them the position of their brand new prima ballerina. To say that [Y/N] was excited would be an understatement. They were ecstatic over the fact that they would be finally able to fulfill their childhood and lifelong dream. Of course their dream opportunity came with an exception, that being that they would have to move to Japan and attend one of the country's prestigious high schools. 

[Y/N] was used to going overseas and going to performances all over the country, but moving to a completely different country by themselves? Without their parent’s? Now that was a whole new experience. The thought of being thousands of miles away from their parent’s, their family was daunting, scary. This was their dream, their once in a lifetime opportunity, but doing it without their parent’s? That was something they weren’t prepared for. Talking and telling their parents about this life changing opportunity was one of the hardest things they had to do.

They remember their mom telling them another opportunity like that could at some point present itself again, that they didn’t have to commit to this in a completely different country, that they should stick with their current dance company. Their dad on their other hand had only one question for them. ‘Have you fallen out of love with the dance?’ The moment that question left his mouth, [Y/N] knew what they had to do. And that was mailing their acceptance of the offer back to The National Ballet of Japan and looking into what school they would go to. 

After hours of research, enrolling, transferring their grades and transcript, packing, mailing their stuff over to their new school dorm rooms, heading over to Japan, [Y/N] was finally able to step foot into their room in Shiketsu’s dorms. With their overseas move, The National Ballet of Japan welcomed their new and first foreign Prima Ballerina. But, as things would have it, their first year at Shiketsu and as Prima Ballerina did not go as planned. Every student in Japan's lives were put on hold right after the Paranormal Liberation War and with the fight to stop Shigaraki. While [Y/N] had good control over their quirk, they didn’t play a role in fighting in the war, they mostly helped in the sheltering of civilians. 

With the war over and life slowly but surely beginning to go to a sense of normalcy, [Y/N] was finally able to go back to what they loved doing the most, ballet. As much as [Y/N] had become accustomed to the constant Piles, Pirouettes, first, second, and third positions, it was hard for them to get back into the rhythm of things. Their dance instructor never blamed them for making simple mistakes, or slightly tripping when making moves, he knew that with the war and the lack of practice their body wasn’t used to going back to the constant practice and rehearsals. 

Even if their ballet instructor wasn’t frustrated with them, [Y/N] was frustrated with themselves. This was their craft, their lifelong career and dream, the fact they couldn’t land a simple saut de chat was infuriating to them. How was it that in a couple months they were able to just forget everything they had been doing since they were four years old? When did they regress in their abilities? 

Everyday at practice and rehearsals for their company’s production of Notre-Dame de Paris, they kept pushing themselves to get back to where they were originally. It was a constant push and push and push to dance at the level they had been used to, pushing their muscles, feet, legs, and arms to keep up to remember what they knew. Of course dancing with frustration and having tightness in their muscles was never a good sign, because during one rehearsal practice they took a tumble and ended up landing weirdly on both of their ankles after a jump. 

Their instructor told them the same thing he had been telling them the past month, ‘take it easy. You are getting back into the rhythm of things. Take care of your ankles’. The same speech and lecture they had been hearing since the start of the new season. Did they listen? No, [Y/N]  was a teenager who thought they could improve by sheer force and will. And that unfortunately backfired on them greatly. On opening night of the first performance on Notre-Dame de Paris, and their first performance back on the stage, in front of their parents, during their Esmeralda variation that [Y/N] took a fall after the finishing jump, absolutely decimating their ankles. 

The ride to the hospital felt like an eternity to [Y/N], their hearing muffled as the only thing they could look at was their ankles. Bruised beyond belief, showing the damage their fall had done to them, the harm that their frustration and push to dance had caused them. They couldn’t hear the words of their mother or of the paramedics as they talked to them or around them. The only thing they could hear was the screaming thoughts in their head telling them their career was over. 

The arrival to the hospital was a blur. The morphine that the nurses had injected into them made them tired, before everything went black after having anesthesia for their urgent surgery. Due to their untreated ankle twist and the fact that they had been applying pressure on both of them, [Y/N]’s ankles were messed up beyond a point. Their ligaments and tendons had been worn down, making them require surgery to fix them. Thankfully everything went well, but that meant that [Y/N] would have to undergo physical therapy to even get their ankles back to their full health and back to what they were if they wanted to go back to dancing. 

The lecture they had gotten from their parents was justified. It was reckless of them to not take care of themselves, to allow themselves to become so frustrated they were willing to hurt themselves just to improve. But of course, they could understand the frustration. They were hero’s after all, their careers hanged on the thread of them getting better quickly. In their hospital room, [Y/N] and their parents discussed what would happen now, fully talking about itf they’d go back to dancing or if they’d finally stop. But they weren’t gonna stop, this was their dream. Plus they had a promise to uphold. 

 So they made their first appointment at the Musutafu Physical and Quirk Therapy Clinic. And all they hoped for was that they got better quickly so that they could go back to dancing. 

They arrived an hour early, due to living on the complete other side of the city, since Shiketsu was on the west side they had a long commute to even consider arriving on time. The train ride over was as peaceful as you could call a subway cart. As well as the cab over. When they arrived it was empty, allowing for the receptionist to take the time to explain the charts, documents, and sign-in sheet they had to fill out, that taking up most of their time before their appointment. 

Sitting there in one of the chairs of the waiting room was embarrassing to [Y/N]. Not because they had physical therapy but because of how they could have prevented this if they had just listened. If they had taken the time to rest their weirdly twisted ankles they would have been able to do the full Notre-Dame of Paris show and wouldn't have had to have surgery on their ankles. And so they sat there, with their head hanging low with their cap on their head, their braces on full display, they waited for their appointment time to arrive.

At some point from what they could tell someone new had arrived. They genuinely had no interest in who this person was or even if they were there to have a session like they would, all they wanted was to get it over with and get out as quickly as possible. However, maybe it was their imagination or maybe it really was happening, but as they sat there, looking down at their shoes, they could feel as if someone was glancing at them. Very continuous glances. They had no idea if it was the person who had just entered or if they were making it up. And so they ignored it, continuing to look down at their shoes.

The feeling stopped when the person who had, in fact, arrived went to what they assumed was one of the rooms to have their own session, and soon enough it was their turn as well when their name got called out. [Y/N] had no idea what to expect for their first therapy session and thankfully it was something simple to start. Just some ankle pointing, circling, and some resistance band pulls, some simple exercises to get them used to the motion of using their ankles once again. 

Their session ended early, they chalked it up to needing to start off simple so that they wouldn’t hurt themselves again. Going back to the waiting area, they stood at the reception desk, listening to the nurse at the desk explain how their session would go on from then on, and of course setting up their next appointment Wednesday at the same time. This time, however, they were able to get a glance at the person who had entered the clinic. It was a boy, clearly around their age, with blonde hair and scars. Something about him looked familiar to them, but they could figure out why. 

And so they just chalked it up to probably seeing someone similar to him somewhere and left the clinic to get to the cab waiting for them outside. Having no idea how just their presence at the therapy clinic had impacted the blonde teen. 

✦ 

TO SAY THAT KATSUKI WAS INTRIGUED WAS NOT FAR FROM THE TRUTH. Getting into his mom’s car as he answered the usual questions she asked him after his sessions all he could think about was the teen who had been there as well. Never in his life had he cared so much about someone else, excluding Izuku and All Might, that this was jarring to him. And the fact that he told his own mother about it was even more jarring. He never told the old hag anything like this before. 

To say that his mom wasn’t curious about this person who had captured her son’s attention was a blatant lie. She was intrigued and needed to know who had captured her son’s attention immediately. Katsuki being Katsuki he refused to tell his mom anything. The hag, in his opinion, didn’t need to know anything and telling her was clearly a mistake considering she couldn’t let it go the entire car ride. And couldn’t let it go the next two weeks after she picked him up from his therapy sessions. 

During the course of those two weeks and the sessions Katsuki had, his curiosity for this teen had severely increased as weeks went by. He wanted, no, he needed to know about them. He needed to know why they were even in physical therapy. To say this was just morbid curiosity would be a bold face lie. This kid had an obsession with a person he had no single piece of knowledge about. This was a complete stranger, for christ sake. How was it possible that a random teen was able to capture his intrigue more than any other person he had ever met could. 

Going to his therapy sessions had been something he had started to look forward to, honestly. And that was information no one would be able to get out of him, no matter what. His annoying friends didn’t need to know, his parents didn’t need to question him about this person, and Izuku and All Might clearly didn’t need any form of indication that he was obsessing over a total stranger. And genuinely, he knew just telling them about his ‘obsession’ would either make them make them try and help him or raise concern in their heads. And it was probably the latter. 

Every time he’d show up and he’d see them his mind would go wild. It’d go racing with thoughts and guesses on who they were, what they did to land in physical therapy, what their quirk was, were they a hero in training just like him, did they go to U.A just like him. And apparently the receptionist at the front desk had picked up on it as well, much to his chagrin. 

It was like how he had found them the first time he had seen them when his session had ended. They were at the reception desk, clearly setting up their next appointment, when the receptionist did something. And by that something, he meant, making up a made up policy that required her to look at patient’s faces to make sure it matched their ID. Telling them they had to take off their cap to be able to look. Katsuki knew that was a lie. From the moment he had started there had never been a rule or policy that enforced that at all, but he knew the receptionist was doing this for him by the way she glanced at him. 

Their response of a nonchalant, almost disinterested ‘yeah, sure’ were the first words Katsuki had heard them say in the two weeks he had seen them. He watched as they removed their cap, finally getting a good glimpse at them. Something about seeing their face that made an unknown feeling bloom in Katsuki’s chest. This unknown warmth that he had never felt before. It wasn’t the usual warmth he felt from his quirk, it was different and he couldn’t explain why it was. And so once again, he watched them walk out. 

Standing up at desk, Katsuki listened to the receptionist tell him that since they couldn’t give out any information on them, the most she could do was tell him to look up a website. That website being The National Ballet of Japan’s page. Telling him he'd get the information and answers he had been looking for by searching through it and the dancers in had under its company. 

To say that Katuski went home and didn’t look up what the receptionist had told him would be a lie. In the comfort of his room, he went onto his laptop and looked up the National Ballet of Japan. He scoured the page looking through performances, articles, awards, seasonal tickets, class registration forms, information about the company before stumbling up on the dancers. He scrolled through hundreds of dancers, all of them stemming from the past and the present until he reached a face he clearly recognized. And a face that made that warmth he had felt back at the clinic, spread through his chest once again. 

✦ 

THIS WOULD MARK THE FOURTH WEEK OF [Y/N] PHYSICAL THERAPY SESSIONS. Apparently their plea of wanting these sessions to go by quickly had been heard. Every day for the past week had become the same for them, going to therapy, doing the exercises, and going home to do them once again, all in hopes to better than ankles quicker. This appointment would mark if they would be able to start going back to practice once again. A light practice, as their instructor had told them, a small step into the swimming pool before even attempting to go back on pointe shoes. 

They had thought this session would be normal. Showing up an hour early, doing the sign-in chart and just sitting in silence as they wait for the teen boy to show up and for their appointment to start. But something in their head told them today would be different. And clearly it was. The blonde boy was there before them. Which was odd. What was even more odd was where he was sitting this time.

Usually when they sat in the waiting area, there was a space in between them, the two always leaving an empty chair. However this time, the boy was sitting in that chair. They didn’t want to seem rude and just move one seat over, then again they really didn’t care where he sat, so they just sat down, and didn’t say a word. The waiting area was quiet like it had always been but, once again, today was going to be different. 

“Hey,” a gruff, almost raspy voice called out to them, making them turn their head in the direction it came from. And for the first time since the two of them started attending physical therapy at the same time, [Y/N] AND KATSUKI MADE EYE CONTACT WITH ONE ANOTHER.

AUTHORS NOTE: hello hi! welcome to my first ever ‘x reader’ fanfic that I have fully committed to and actually have written. This is the first ever fic that I have posted to tumblr, more like the first ever piece of content I have ever posted to tumblr and I’m both nervous and cautiously excited about this. this isn’t my first rodeo posting fic's on the internet (we don’t talk about wattpad) but it is the first one I’m actually proud of since I’m no longer writing like how middle school me did back then. all I ask is that y’all don’t burn me at the stake for however long it takes me to put out chapters. I am a college student so my grades come first than this silly little fic. I hope that y’all enjoy this piece of fiction that I’ve written and I’ll be back whenever chapter two is ready. buh-bye!

P.S: it was while editing and talking to friends that I decided to make this a ‘universe’/ connected story series. whenever this series is over and fully completed (re-edited at some point because i’m never happy with end products) i’ll announce the next one. so stay tuned for that.

TAGLIST: @oddball08

[melodyofthevoid]

The Crane Wives: Beyond, Beyond, Beyond

(The finale, for now. Hard to believe that I've been working on these for almost 2 years. Anyways, enjoy)

Now we arrive at the threshold, album five. The first studio album in nearly a decade, and a testament to all that came before and between. Themed and defined by change in all its forms. The lack of, the desire for, the consequences in both its wake and absence. The price of moving forward and the price of standing still. Even the sound isn’t immune, with the newer tones and style developed over the singles shown off in solos that range from electric to more traditional. Some songs challenge ones from years past, others a continuation, but all part of an ongoing conversation that ends with resolve. A desire to cross through. 

The question is, will you follow through the looking glass?

Scars

How did this happen? It’s a question that comes naturally whether or not there’s truly a reason. Why am I like this? The eternal feud of nature vs nurture, whether the tangled mess of anger and bitter emotions stemmed from a single event or bloom from somewhere within. If the well was poisoned before the symptoms started to show. 

And does the source even know that they left the poison to begin with? 

The first few chords warp those of another song, a crooning cry from a parent who’s severed the ties and left the singer adrift. Their mournful tone twisted and distorted until it turns into the sharp twangs of a guitar, heavy footfalls that drive the song forward. A tired trudge burdened and haunted. 

The singer is not who they thought they were. The refrain that carries over and over again- starting each train of thought. They’re struggling to keep their head above water, aching in a way they’ve always known. Born to in a storm that left them with a piece of itself forever. The anguish hereditary. Or maybe there’s another reason. The effect is still the same. This misery is a constant companion, 

Ruefully they acknowledge all of the effort put towards them, the love and kindness, plans made with all good intentions to guide them towards a brighter and better future. Futile efforts made to no avail. They watched as they failed time and time again, trying to cross the gap to understand where the singer was and give a way forward, but a bridge constructed from only one side is doomed to fail. Letting that hard work near them risked vulnerability and letting the other close. 

And how could they let them close to who they are? Broken in some fundamental way from the beginning. Destined to fail and shatter leaving them scarred, to signal to the outside what was wrong within. 

Then the subject switches from those who’d tried to help, to the origin of their suffering. The piece is a companion to “Never Love an Anchor”, and the one left behind sees only the abandonment, the fact they weren’t enough to stay for. The anguish their parent felt at their personal failings and inability to care for the singer now passed on, a wound to their ego. A tire fire, caustic and toxic that refuses to be put out. 

They were meant to fall apart, to wind up with scars. 

Because isn’t it easier if there weren’t any other options? If this flaw sabotaged all of the work put in and rendered it all futile? Then there’s no fault, no blame to be laid. An easy surrender to the inevitable.

The question is will they continue to live like this. To allow the scars to fester, or seek out a balm despite the pain. For now, they accept their fate as the music cuts all at once. 

Bitter Medicine

Hard truths go down easier with a bit of sugar, you catch more flies with honey, axioms to explain the act. Of using a veil to cover up the unpleasant parts of life. Without it what’s left? Just the ugly, twisted, reality of it all. Sometimes it’s all you have. And it’s stifling. 

The singer looks at where they are. Wasted, inebriated either in a literal or metaphorical sense. Unable to be trusted to take themselves home or to drive their own life. A pathetic state of affairs, one they’re all too aware of. It’s the bed they’ve made for themselves, the consequences of their actions they accept with a blithe and self-effacing smile. They wonder how the one they love sees them. If they’re ashamed or if the front they’ve put on until now. A cheap imitation of some “better” person that isn’t long for this world. 

They could be worse, so much worse. Poison sits on their tongue and they swallow and bite it all back to keep it inside. The toxicity accumulates in their body and slowly kills them inside as it has nowhere else to go. No one else deserves it, to know how corroded and hollow they are on the inside. They’re sick, but they can’t let anyone in. They’ll play the part of everything they’re not in hopes it distracts and entertains but it’s hurting them just as much as the rest. 

And if someone sees through it, what then? Can look past the facade? The singer both yearns for it and fears it in turn. They need someone to clean up the mess around them, the mess they’re unable to touch. The accumulation of a thousand small cuts bleeding out into a river. Each on their own barely noticeable but together they build upon each other. 

Accepting an offered hand is another question in and of itself. Do they deserve it? Is it a gift given or is it taken? Someone’s else’s good intentions wasted on their act, for their own faults. It’d be a waste on them, and so they continue on as they were. Suffering in their own skin and hiding behind the mask that chokes them. 

In another life, they’d let it all go, but this isn’t that life. The singer’s convinced this is all there is. Convinced that their arsenic laced words are medicine. The truth. But they’ve decided that it is. 

And so it is.

Higher Ground

When you’re lost in the midst of an upheaval, when the earth itself is turning on its head, sometimes the only option, the only means of survival, is to go, to remove oneself from the situation. But there are things left behind, an impact not intended. A decision that can be as consequential as the event itself. 

Such is the singer’s predicament. They’re trying to look out ahead, but they can’t see the horizon, can’t see beyond today. Higher ground could give them a better view, a larger picture and save them, but there’s a cost to that choice. A domino effect is spiraling out after they spoke their mind, let go of the truth. What’s done can’t be undone and now everything is changing, shifting. What once was close drifts apart, what once was parted clashes, titanic shifting of tectonic plates. Inexorable forces that leave nothing untouched. 

And nothing undamaged. Someone’s going to get caught up, hurt. Once they come down they’ll see the full extent of it all and that terrifies them. But again, it’s out of their hands.  

Every warning sign is flaring, ravens and crows are heralding incoming danger. A predator. A threat to everything in sight. But with all that they’ve set into motion, is the warning for them? Or about them? This wasn’t the plan, not to hurt anyone, not to change everything, but they won’t know for sure. Not until the dust settles and they stand above it all. 

They’ve survived, at least. 

Predator

When every shadow becomes a claw, every smile hides a threat, the world becomes an endless hall of mirrors, reflecting back all of one’s fears. Nowhere is safe, not when you’re the world’s prey. 

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” The rhetorical question, that to the anxious, isn’t rhetorical in the least. It’s the risk they measure the outside against, the guide to all actions. If they can imagine the worst possible outcome then it can be prepared for, warded against. Because disaster will come, inevitably. Staying on guard at all times, lest their comfort come at the cost of their safety (even if the sky is not falling, it’s easy to panic at every little crack. Perhaps they’re too prepared.) 

When it hits, as it always does, it’s their own fault. They know better. They let in a predator, lowered their walls and their guard to someone who, not for the first time, left them wounded and vulnerable. Signs were missed that they’d seen before, a lesson they should have learned the hard way but failed to truly comprehend. So it’ll happen again. 

Regardless of the fact that someone else took those actions. It’s their fault. It has to be. 

To the prey animal, confrontation is to be avoided at all costs, so the response to danger is to fawn. Follow the path of least resistance and never put up a fight. If there’s a problem, it’s probably their own misinterpretation of the situation, because… If they say no, if they push back, there could be consequences. They could get hurt, cut by sharp teeth and sharper words. 

But there’s only so much that someone can put up with and stand before it’s too much. Gaslighting finally igniting a spark of resistance. They’re already struggling to breathe, struggling with the constant anxiety and fear and this? They don’t need this too. What if they didn’t have to live like this anymore, and they finally said no? 

And at last they confront at least one of their fears. Calling out their treatment, the fact they’ve been used. Trying to better this person, hoping that they’ll see the harm they’re causing on their own, they’ve done it a hundred times and it’s never happened. They keep getting hurt. The predator can’t see the blood on their teeth, doesn’t know their own strength, the bodies in their wake.

But no, not this time. 

Say It

No one wants to be the first to leave. The first to sever ties. Admit defeat. Even in spite of years of change, of what once was withering on the vine, sometimes there’s still hope that the garden can recover, however impossible and slim. A loyal dog that waits, tied to a post, for an owner that won’t come back. Because what if it goes back to the way it used to be? That honeymoon phase where everything blossomed and bloomed. But it won’t. 

The singer wonders where it went wrong? Staring at the person they once considered so close and begging for an answer. Was it them? Was the reality of their personality, their flaws, too much to bear? Erasing the idealized version that their partner once held of them? Were they, are they disappointing to know truly? 

Without an answer, they demand a different one: tell them it’s done. Let them out. Let them stop hoping for a spark to rekindle the flame of passion. Otherwise they’ll remain there in the dark. Pining for better times. 

Because once upon a time their lover gave them everything. Provided a haven and home. A gentle hand that wiped away their tears and pulled back their layers. All of those memories of warmth against the bitter cold of the present call into doubt their sincerity. Did they really care before? Was it all pretend? 

Would it be better if it was? 

The guillotine hangs over their head, a blade that could sever and end their suffering but instead hovers. A reminder that it could end at any point but won’t. They wait dutifully, a dog who can’t help but take what they’re given. Loyal and faithful even when that love and devotion isn’t returned. 

But if it was real once, they would do it over again. Wouldn’t they? Or would the one the singer holds so dear choose to avoid their relationship altogether. To alter their paths so that they never met. Have things fallen apart to where it was never worth it in the first place? Is the thought of what they’ve become so toxic, so tainted, that they'd give up whatever good came of it to spare themselves?

The question lingers, and so the singer does nothing but wait, too afraid to take the first step. 

Waiting for them to say it. 

Mad Dog

A fruitless pursuit, an endless chase, the eternal drive to reach for that promised oasis shimmering just beyond the horizon a few steps away. There is no exit condition when a paycheck is all that stands between you and losing it all. Enter the workforce at 18 (or younger), keep working until you’re 72 (or older), then you can maybe lie down. Can’t grind yourself to the bone too early, can’t run out of steam yet. If just a little more money is made, a few more spare coins stuffed away for later, maybe it’ll resemble happiness. 

The singer’s blinders keep them on the same track they’ve always known, striving to achieve when all it’s done is lead them further and further from home. Tunnel visioned and yet it’s never in reach. No matter how far they run. How hard they work. 

But no one else is keeping their bills paid, no one else is going to make them a millionaire, so they keep repeating and repeating. Hoping that they’ll get an answer back that isn’t the same as before. 

Thus, the chase continues, a dog chained to a post snapping after a rabbit it can never catch. Running, and running, and running, yet forever tied to the same spot. Once that leash runs out of room the retaliation snaps back with a vengeance. Punishing the hound for stepping out of its role and putting it “where it belongs”. Daring to yearn for more cannot be tolerated.

As if the empty race weren’t enough, there’s debt to be paid too. A rock burdening every step, forcing those bound to it to step lightly. Any misstep could spell disaster, drop the guillotine, it’s a constant tightrope cutting into their feet. And it’d be easier if someone else, anyone else, could choose which way to go. To give a direction that won’t lead to disaster. To take that burden off their shoulders. 

Because water’s coming in, the debt’s getting worse, and they’re going to go down. The shore’s visible, it’s there, there’s something beyond the current situation, but it’s not getting any closer.

Whatever hope there is, it’s almost manic. The only thing keeping them afloat. Maybe they’ll get lucky and strike it rich, maybe they can make this paycheck go a little further. But there’s no support, no one to wipe their tears, keep them from teetering off of the edge. 

So the race continues. The pull and snap, the desperate clawing up the hill until Sisyphus’ boulder falls back down again. Stuck in a cycle out of their control. 

At least until they can find the one that chains them. They may not catch the rabbit, but they can bite a hand.

Arcturus Beaming

There’s something special about that moment at rock bottom. Not in the state of it, the despair, the agony, no. There’s something about that moment when it changes. Changes from an endlessly growing pit to… simply the bottom. A moment in time where suddenly the perspective shifts and now there’s a way out and up, a perspective changed by a sight once taken for granted. Maybe it’s the leaves changing in the fall, the sound of people laughing and talking in a cafe. A favorite drink you want to have again. 

Or maybe, it’s the sky. That shimmering tapestry. Dotted with a trillion points of light (should you live far enough away from any pollution to see it) it has served as an inspiration for so many. Ever changing and yet… always there. 

Arcturus glimmers as the 4th brightest star in the solar system, visible during summer in the northern hemisphere. Visible to those even in more light polluted areas, reminding them that there’s more out there than the limited vision of the pit.

The singer begins there, thanking that dark place, where despair threatened to ravage them. They hid from the world there, sheltering to wallow in their pain as it became all they could see for a time. It shrunk their view of what could be, leaving a feat that seems all but impossible. Plato describes a scenario in which a prisoner lives their entire life within a cave like the singer’s own, shown only shadows of objects. Those simulations as their only context, all that they know. But the singer is curious, and that fear can only hold them for so long. They may understand the cave, the pain, but what else is there? 

Hurt accumulates over time, sediment that solidifies into a weight that’s carried wherever one goes. It can be an impossible challenge to free oneself of it, to breathe easy after lifting that stone for years. One’s ribs aching from the strain. But stone is not permanent. Not invulnerable. A steady drip of water can erode, a river can carve a canyon so impossibly wide it’s visible from beyond our atmosphere. Those layers, both easily added, can also be worn away. Leaving something new in its wake. 

That time spent has a cost, of course. Dreams left abandoned, relationships broken, so many avenues that could have been simply… gone. That grief will linger, and that’s alright. But what exists beyond that? What happens when we look up and dream? 

Beyond what we know, beyond what we understand, are there others who look at our sun and wonder? Beyond ourselves are there others crawling out of their caves and seeing more. Maybe we could all dream more

It’s not too late to do something once the revelation hits. To forfeit is the only ending, when we resign ourselves to suffering. But that’s not all life is, it can be changed. We just have to do it. Have to take the steps to push past the indulgent self-flagellation of the cave, and resolve to keep moving. 

This experience rings true for myself. I found I’d dug into a mindset where I feared so much. The future, stagnation, the impossibility of becoming anything other than what I was. Littered with the half started remains of failures, hesitant half starts cushioned by a numb resignation. Couldn’t be disappointed if I never hoped. Cycles of self defeat. Overwhelmed, I laid on the deck outside and stared up into the same sky that inspired this song. Clear inky darkness pinpointed by a million specks of light. I laid there for some time, the same music I’ve detailed in these pages my only companion to a realization that felt so obvious in hindsight and yet I… I needed to come to the conclusion myself.

I can start again. 

It doesn’t matter if I’ve tried a hundred times and the patterns didn’t stick. I can try again. Old behaviors, failed coping mechanisms, they can rear their ugly heads but there is tomorrow. There is a future that I can find. A me I can guide with new tools if the old ones don’t serve me. It may take time, it may hurt. But that’s my decision to make. 

Nothing will change until I change. And we can. 

Time Will Change You

The constant, the inevitable, the sensation of sand slipping through fingers and waves wearing down a shore. A metronomic beat follows the sound of a rusted hinge, thudding footsteps from a never ending march that never relents even as a guitar twangs above it. A companion in the flow. 

The singer too is dragged along with it, pulled along as they almost gasp out the words. It hurts, some part deep inside them finally gave way and broke. It aches and it won’t end- They’ve loved and lost, planted the remains of their heart into a grave, a seed watered by their grief that may or may not bear fruit again. 

And yet there is a twisted comfort on the horizon. Time will continue as it always does, seasons will pass, and with it, things change. For better or worse the singer will change. Everyone will change, and as they do they’ll leave behind what remains stagnant. Phases and traits that once defined are now locked in amber. No longer a part of the present. 

Time doesn’t affect all equally, there is no system that doles out appropriate fates, some can swim and survive the current while others are subsumed entirely. The rush overwhelming in the moment, and it’s impossible to tell which way is up. But the tide will ease, nothing is forever, good or ill. Relax, let time move you and you’ll float along it. 

And you’ll be changed. Like the stone smoothed by a river, edges worn away, the place you once rested, now far in the past. 

And letting go takes effort, make no mistake. Healing even more so. If the grief never grows, doesn’t evolve, doesn’t become more than what was put there before, then it can stay where it is. Left to fade into nothing more than memory. A step along the winding path to the end. 

The journey no one leaves the same.  

Black Hole Fantasy

The concept of a black hole needs no explanation nor introduction. The complete and total collapse of a star, pulling in all light and substance. The basis of many a metaphor for endless hunger, destruction. The end of all things. Yet- they’re often theorized to contain more. Maybe the end of one thing could lead to somewhere else entirely. 

For her part, the singer finds herself stuck in place, whether by some inexorable gravity or circumstance. Repeating the same orbit, going through the motions of life and losing sense of herself. If there’s more to living, a chance or opportunity for a different path, it’s fading from view. The longer one stays complacent, the harder it becomes to move. To find that missing piece that their soul longs for, but doesn’t have the words for. 

Every day blends into the next, the walls of their home becoming smaller as their world shrinks. At the center lies the Black Hole, the gnawing yearning, the pit of absence that they’re ignoring. Hoping it will go away, but it won’t. Ignoring hunger won’t fix a want of food, pretending not to hear a leak won’t prevent the damage. 

And they know what they’re yearning for, or rather- who. But it’s- surely it’s nothing. Nothing more than a chemical reaction, serotonin and oxytocin playing tricks on her. It’d be easier if she could suppress it. She doesn’t know if it’s real, and so what if it is? Confessing, taking a chance… There’s a cost. The foundations she’d build could all crumble to ashes. 

That is if the hole in their chest doesn’t collapse it all first, the time lost to routine is getting longer, time speeding by even faster, with whole weeks passing in an indistinct mass. 

So she goes to confront it head on, driving to confess on the doorstep. But then she stops. What happens next. What happens if it all goes wrong? What if they lose them forever? What if they don’t feel the same? How could they feel the same. The singer doesn’t believe in a happy ending, frankly. Why would any dream of theirs have one? Even in the best case there’s so much that could go wrong that it’d be safer to leave the car running. To leave. Retreat back into themselves where they won’t get hurt. 

But the world keeps crumbling in around them, their room is suffocating, as they’re consumed by the limitations they’ve put in place. Months, years, what does any of it even mean? None of it means anything… and the temptation to look into the black hole finally wins out. 

Instead of a small, enclosed world, there’s more on the other side. She catches a glimpse of herself and there’s light in her eyes, laughter on her lips, and- is she even capable of that? Could she be? Can she find what could bring that life, that joy, that love- 

No, she does know. 

Stars shining above, the singer returns to the dream she shows away from once. But this time she’s turning off the car. This is what she wants. Throwing away the keys and the fear and running up to the door. And it opens. Their love is there and every doubt is gone as arms reach out for her. 

Wrapped in an embrace, the singer can finally catch her breath, and when she pulls back, she smiles. Laughing at how complicated she made this simple moment. Maybe she wasn’t alone in that, as her love joins her. They were waiting on the other side of the door, after all. Twin stars pulled into each other’s gravity, destroying what was before and starting something new. 

Gentle guitar replaces the singer as she walks towards her new life, no longer bound to what was. Closing the scene, rolling credits. 

Red Clay

Work harder, just put more effort into it, the struggle makes it worth it, nose to the grindstone, phrases that are ingrained into the zeitgeist. The more pain experienced, the better the outcome. 

Right? 

An endless climb up a clay mountain, never fully able to get a grip, a Sisyphean struggle that feels like reality. With the Sun beating down, the top never coming closer, the question occurs: what is this for? Why keep pursuing this path that’s only lead to more suffering? Suffering that’s self inflicted no less. 

That one pause is all it takes to break through the tunnel vision, for the singer to take in all of their surroundings. Another path, shaded and just within reach was there all along. They don’t need to do this “the hard way”. It may be all they’d known, but they can see beyond that mound now. 

Their struggle wasn’t for naught, they were afraid for many years, yes. But they understand their fear now, they can be brave, even with that fear. They don’t have to keep on this path. 

The shaded trees beacon. 

River Rushing

Something finally gave. The frustration mounting day by day, it’s too much. Dammed up and now the singer’s had enough. They’re breaking down the walls, the barriers, everything that keeps them crushed under the weight of their regrets. They’re going to change. To let loose their desires and follow the river. 

The singer craves freedom, the person they once were buried under layers of concrete and expectations. If they hold onto these regrets, all the grief of time wasted, then they’ll never grow. Beneath every thought is the phrase they know is true: that there’s no shortcuts here. The only way out is through, charging ahead no matter what. 

Maybe they hesitated before, waited too long and lost something. Someone. But a voice reassures them to hold themselves steady. To go when they’re ready. Because they are ready now. 

Just believing that everything will work out kept them in place, they’re full of defiance, they have bite, a voice that demands to be heard. They’re going to pry the hand around their throat off once and for all. They’ve set their mind to it. 

They’re ready to go beyond. 

[frustratedasatruar]

I want to talk about Mandalorians for a bit

I have long had a great deal of interest in the Mandalorians, going way back. But I've noticed that I don't have the same appreciation for them nor for the same reasons that other fans do.

So let me talk about how how I envision the Mandalorians.

The basic, root thing that I liked so much about the Mandalorians and thought was so unique, was that they are your classic SciFi/Fantasy Proud Warrior Race... who died out. Because obviously, that sort of aggressive, self-destructive behavior isn't sustainable, and a society either abandons it or collapses. Their homeworld is glass.

Remember back when Boba Fett was supposed to be the very last one?

I like that. I like the commentary in the Mandalorian-Warrior-Culture that was fundamentally hoisted by its own petard. The concept of the Battle of Galidraan has permeated fairly far into the fandom, and make no mistake; I like Galidraan as a historical event in the setting, and I like how it can play into the later decisions and characters both of Dooku and Jango Fett, who were there, and also how it can be of broader import to the factions with a relationship to the event.

But I get the sense that I am one of the few people who actually read the comic that first depicted the event; at Galidraan, Jango orders his men to attack the Jedi first. Fett lets his pre-existing prejudice against the Jedi dominate his decision making, and it gets everyone who trusted him as their leader wiped out.

The whole reason that Jango and his Jast'ade were on Galidraan in the first place was that they were hired by the Governor to put down a rebellion. You know, that same Governor who turns out to be working with Kyr'tsad, the demagolkise? That Governor. He has an ongoing insurrection against his rule.

I wonder why.

Does it perhaps seem reasonable to presume that, in this Star Wars story, these Rebels are the good guys here?

The Jast'ade wipe them out. Its just a contract for them, just a day at work. They presumably comport themselves fairly well for wartime; Vizsla is forced to... fabricate... the evidence of Mandalorians Killing Civilians that ends up getting passed on to the Galactic Senate, which speaks pretty well to the Jast'ade's ability to abide by whatever-the-setting-equivilent-Laws-of-War-are.

But they were clearly, unambiguously, literally fighting for the Bag Guy here.

To me, it always seemed kind of obvious that a key part of why the whole fiasco is so upsetting for the Jedi is that, due to trusting the (Sith Infiltrated) Senate's word, every part of this situation gets bungled.

Evil Governor commits whatever-sapient-rights-abuses (I suspect that among-other-things he is selling people into the Galactic Slave Trade) lead to the rebellion, with absolutely no response or censure from the Galactic Senate.

Rebellion starts against corrupt rule. The Jedi are not dispatched by the Senate to help overthrow the Governor, nor are they even sent to negotiate a peace. The Senate doesn't care enough to do that, presumably because its only poors and nonhumans dying.

The Governor is then able to contract an entire mercenary company, something which no doubt required a fair bit of negotiation and significant money changing hands, to come all the way to his backwater planet. He is able to direct these mercenaries to crush the entire popular rebellion.

The Senate takes so little notice of these things, that when the Governor contacts them to claim that Mandalorians are attacking his planet, the Senate in no way ties this back to the Governor's no-doubt-expensive contract with a Mandalorian mercenary company. Which, y'know. It shouldn't be hard to come to the suspicion that he's trying to break his side of the deal.

Only now are the Jedi informed of this situation, and an emergency task force needs to be mustered and dispatched on very short notice. Civilians are being massacred right now. Consequently, they are wildly under-briefed on the situation.

They show up and are directed by-the-governor towards the so-called "True Mandalorians." The Jedi get there, find a sizable and well supplied Mandalorian warparty on a planet which they-know-has-seen-pillaging-and-civilians-being-killed-by-Mandalorians (Kyr'tsad, remember).

Perhaps least important of all, is their actual encounter with the Jast'ade itself. They are, as mentioned, fired upon first and the Jast'ade do not offer surrender even as the battle quickly turns against them, instead fighting to the death. An unnecessarily large number of Jedi die in this battle, speaking to organizational failures preparing the mission, and I could certainly write an analysis comparing this to the first Battle of Geonosis and the similarly under-prepared initial Jedi response there. Ultimately, the primary problem in both cases is that there are a small number of Jedi total (low five-digits even prior to the Clone Wars) and the Republic has them assigned to way too many jobs. They cannot take their time, so they have to take risks. Risks which see higher casualty rates and mean that there are even fewer people available for the next crisis- y'know, in a couple days.

Again, scheduling concerns; the Jedi are not permitted to do their own post-operation cleanup. Consequently, Jango Fett is handed over to the crooked Governor for local trial, and is instead illegally sold into slavery. Kyr'tsad, the more extremist militant Mando faction, is able to leave totally unimpeded, as the Jedi do not learn of their involvement until later.

In terms of the ongoing Mandalorian civil war, the "moderate" traditionalists are now removed as a faction. Oops.

The Jedi have plenty of reason to be unhappy about this fiasco, and it serves as a solid radicalization-point for Dooku against the Republic. But the only thing that you can really say the Jedi did wrong was "trust the Galactic Senate," an organization they were treaty-bound to obey in either case.

[dalesramblingsblog]

I know we've been commenting since The Star Beast on the irony of Russell T. Davies taking Disney money and using it to say trans/gay rights as part of one of the biggest British television events of 2023/2024, but I think Dot and Bubble fully opened my eyes to something I've been quietly contemplating since at least the time of The Giggle.

I am genuinely convinced, knowing everything I know about Davies' comments on the state of the BBC and the kinds of art he's been making of late, that Series 14 is a brilliant and purposeful piece of artistic subversion that has taken Disney's money to not just say trans rights, but to actively comment upon the cold, empty yawning abyss that is modern MCU franchisecrafting.

Time and time again, the show has returned to the idea that that sort of "artistry" is completely anathema in a cosmic horror sense to the very fabric of Doctor Who. The Toymaker is an arbiter of rules and continuity, who threatens to turn Doctor Who into a knock-off of The Avengers before everything collapses back into a game of catch with the Doctor in his underwear.

73 Yards is quite explicitly about the loneliness, emptiness and futility that accompanies human beings trying to impose rational, ordered frameworks and narratives on a fundamentally chaotic and strange universe. The very fact that the episode exists in a media ecosystem where hackish YouTubers will be falling over themselves to make "Ending Explained" videos for it *is part of the point*.

And then we have Dot and Bubble, where the modern glut of franchisal/social media (and the two are often close to interchangeable, as proven by this very blog post) is explicitly shown to have an anaesthetising effect that insulates people from real-world suffering. But it's more than that, because that same anaesthesia ties into expressions of actual, direct racism that are so baked into the foundations of that media and who it tends to uplift (white, conventionally attractive and implicitly straight people) that they become indistinguishable from said suffering.

After years of Doctor Who trying its hand at being a generic MCU-esque property and fans creating mockups of Phase-esque release timelines with a million spin-offs focusing on the Wacky Adventures of Miss Evangelista or whatever other bullshit fandom constantly clamours for, here is an era that puts its foot down and says "Actually, the foundational elements of that brand of media consumption are materially connected to the constant racist or sexist backlash you see against the casting of Ncuti Gatwa or Jodie Whittaker or Kelly Marie Tran."

And it is absolutely, positively, 100% correct.

How, then, does Doctor Who resist the creeping power of this monolithic cultural entity? In a world where studios seriously try to argue for the artistic worth of tripe like Morbius or Madame Web or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, what is the appropriate response?

The same response that it's always had, the thing that it's been doing for sixty years. Getting people to learn how to run down corridors from hokey aliens, hoping against hope that those people don't turn out to be massive fucking racists and telling them exactly where they can shove it if they are, and instilling the children of the world with a healthy dose of fear and light-hearted humour.

Welcome back, Doctor Who. God, I have missed you.

[syndromestatic]

Something I’ve been thinking about… because of recent moominous events & also the classes I’m taking:

Queer artistry is so so special. & when a queer artist creates something, it resonates with other queer people. The art becomes inherently queer. I think it could probably be debated if all art made by a queer person is, necessarily, queer- separation of art and artist and all that- but at least I think that’s the case.

The question is: does this remain the case after the artist is gone and their art is altered? You probably see where I’m going with this. We think of these characters as inherently queer because of their long and storied history, but at the same time, we know that Moominvalley has changed these characters, too. I’m not going to definitively state that they’re made… not queer, because I don’t believe that to be fully true, but if fundamental aspects of their character and how we perceive it can be changed, can their queerness be so as well? And if the queerness is not erased, then what is it? tamped down? undermined? mishandled?

& Maybe this is the point where you go “okay static it’s not that deep” but I really do think it is! Moominvalley 2019 mishandles a lot of things, i daresay even skirts around the queerness of itself without fully leaving it out. Here is my main case: If they were going to be more explicit with Moomin and Snufkin’s queercoding, that very much should have been followed through with. & let’s speak on how much Moominvalley played around with and constantly changed the nature of Snorkmaiden and Moomin’s romantic relationship with little to no actual explanation or context? Guys I don’t know. It’s odd, it’s weird, and it certainly doesn’t sit right with me.

To me, Season 3 left off in a place where Snufkin and Moomin’s relationship was at it’s tipping point between romantic and platonic- the season literally ends with them arm and arm- And that’s why season 4 falls flat in the demonstration of their relationship. I never expected season 4 to deliver on that front in the first place- by season 2 I felt that the Moomin/Snufkin moments were heavy handed and a bit too forced to be completely natural, and I knew it wasn’t about to become explicitly canon in the first place because Moomin and Snufkin never have been- but to me it’s about follow through and writing, and the fact they were dropping such obnoxious hints only for that tension to be dropped last season feels like both a cop-out, and perhaps even intentional.

The contemporary Moomin boom occurred in 2019, in the wake of the series. Shippers went wild. absolutely nuts. If Moomin has no fans, the world is dead, but this definitely contributed to a spike in viewership. and listen. Season 1 had its flaws but if every season onwards was of the same quality, and each season included the snufmin subtext only as much as season 1, I would not be upset right now. I do, in fact, believe, that the queer fanbase of this show was teased and strung along with the Moomin/Snufkin relationship. And I think the way it was handled in season 4 was due to the fact that they wouldn’t need that part of the show to, excuse my terminology, bait viewers along because it was the last season. Obviously this is all speculation, but I really don’t think it’s all that unlikely. And I’m not even saying that it’s strictly the writers’ fault, but I think there was someone in power who let the queer shit- the shit was was just obvious enough to give young queer viewers fuel- pass by for as long as it was useful, but by no means could the show surpass a certain limit.

Ahem anyways I love Moomins and I dislike Moominvalley 2019… for many reasons but also for this… sorry for incoherencies, typos, the like.

[drdrizzey]

(possibility part 1) of Putting Arcane characters, events and politics into our world's perspective! (Because why not?)

That french guy on tiktok pointed out the sociopolitical implications in arcane, linking them with actual political events or politically engaged individuals and dynamics in France and in the US, and I couldn't agree more on a lot of things he says.

I won't cite most of the french politicians he named because it's not that relevant, but I will break down a few of his points and add up on them. I find the captions pretty tricky when it comes to translation so I'm going to use my bilingual powers for that one<3

Silco :

For starters, he points out the way Silco portrays the instances where left wing revolutionaries who purposely intended to fight against capitalism (piltover) ended up reproducing said capitalism at their own scale (the shimmer empire). On that I'd like to add the fact that Silco's actions keep entertaining this whole concept of "becoming the person you're fighting against". In wanting his nation of Zaun, protecting Zaunites, he actually ends up making their lives worse in many ways, creating addicts, and insecurities. The same way piltover uses Zaun for its own cause, Silco ends up doing the same with many Zaunites.

Vander :

On the other hand, Vander is more of a portrayal of people giving up on activism to protect their personal lives, the same way that would be the case with activists stopping their actions after receiving death threats, or people that were very active in their communities when they were younger but gradually stopped when their priority switched to their family and when they got the occasion on going back on it they simply didn't, but never gave up their initial morals and values, simply the will and ambition to put them into actions. It's pretty self explanatory.

Jayce :

Then, jayce would portray the kind of people who due to their heritage are fundamentally more left sided socially speaking, but are more prone to range alongside more right wing politicians and elitists as a way to grab opportunities whenever they show up, suddenly brushing off their background, not that they are ashamed of it, but more that they need they "have to" in order to succeed and meet the expectations people might have of him, or to "open more doors" for himself, constantly leaving a bitter taste to any of his success. To a certain extent it could lead to him feeling like the lines of his own morals are constantly blurring, the same way it's shown in the scene where due to his fatigue he tells Victor that Zaunites are "dangerous". It's not only due to his mental struggles and tiredness at the moment but also due to his exposure to very closet minded people on the subject, enforcing ideologies that he maybe wouldn't have had on his own. It doesn't take much for him to switch from one way to the other, making it hard for him to make concrete decisions sometimes.

Jinx and ekko :

Jinx and ekko are the manifestations of the consequences of sociopolitical conflicts. They are a result of it. That much is also pretty self explanatory especially with jinx being a woman and ekko being black, and them both being late teenagers, even with the matter of racism not being directly a subject in Arcane, it is something that speaks to us as viewers. They both unwillingly are stuck in a position where their communities (Zaun in this case) are being minimised and dismissed in a way and they struggle to make their voices be heard (the same way this is often the case in both feminism and BLM movements.) It's a clear overpoliticalisation, and even if it's not on purpose (since arcane has a brilliant way of normalising diversity in the best ways possible), the fact that they are who they are just makes sense to a lot of people and reminds them how activism can be in real life as well. Ekko and jinx also have very different ways of manifesting their engagements in their actions. You could as well see ekko like those people making smaller communities and associations for exemple.

Caitlin :

Caitlin could be a right wing from a very elitist and more conservatism oriented household who's racist but "I'm not racist! My friend here is black." Or "x is different." And thrives off claiming wanting to help people and helping getting "insecurities and street violence" off and making the (higher classes) people (her own community) feel "safer" by simply converting their ideas into socially threatening actions and opinions towards minorities. Sugar coating hate speech or justify cop violence, basically.

Vi :

Vi would be anyone who came from more precarious households or minorities and ended up switching sides, turning up against her own people. It's kind of a more extreme Jayce case in a way. (Which makes them an even more interesting pair when we have that in mind.)

There's actually so much more to talk about, I've added a lot of my own interpretations but he also says that Mel is basically Kamala Harris (which is a bit funny, it is accurate.) those are just most of the characters he talked about but I could easily think of other things to say for pretty much any arcane character, it's part of why Arcane is so good.

Also a French moment here, can I point out how great it is that a french studio got to make a show with so much political implications and will for revolution and change while France is currently in a pretty politically complicated state at the moment? (When is it not honestly? but you get it.)

There's so much more to talk about so let me know if I should go over more characters, everything and everyone is a bit political when you really think about it.

I'm a bit tempted to go over more stuff on the subject now))