#less the phrase itself and more just the dudes that say it

[the-witchhunter]

There’s something concerning about that specific combination

Just saw someone on bumble who described himself as punk but was also apolitical and like baby girl(gender neutral) those things are contradictory

[adachimoe]

How clueless is Yukiko anyway?

Early in the game, when we're introduced to Yukiko's character, we're given the impression that she has good academics and grades, but she comes off as something of an airhead who isn't aware of the attention she gets from boys.

For example, when Mitsuo tries to ask her out, she seems clueless about what he was after:

The on-looking students even make a remark about the "Amagi Challenge":

These are your first scenes with Yukiko in the game, and it informs your first impression of her. There being an "Amagi Challenge" especially tells the player that she just shoots down guys left and right. But I think the game hints at her being not so clueless, and that what you initially perceive as cluelessness is an act.

I touched on this briefly in the post about "Teddie and Scoring", but when Yukiko appears on the Midnight Channel, her Shadow self announces that she's going to "ナンパ (nanpa)... 「逆ナン (gyakunan)」":

ナンパ is like saying hitting on, picking up, flirting, etc. But it's typically talking about guys trying to pick up girls. Yukiko's Shadow pauses, then corrects herself to say 逆ナン instead. 逆ナン is a combination of ナンパ and the character for reversal/turnaround/etc.

tl;dr = ナンパ is "guy pursues girl", whereas 逆ナン is a reversal of that, so "girl pursues guy".

Let's remind ourselves of what the Shadows are: They poke at very real insecurities that the Investigation Team has, but they manifest as practically caricature-like versions of the people they're based on. Then we're told in December that Shadows hate the truth, and the moment when humans want to see the truth is what makes Shadows go nutso and attack.

When you think about how the game plays out, then the Shadows attack the Investigation Team because the "You're not me!" is the brief moment when humans yearn for the truth. It's a truthful enough statement to torment the Shadows, causing them to lash out.

In the case of Yukiko, her Shadow proclaiming she wants to 逆ナン seems to be part of the caricature-like nature of her Shadow that doesn't represent her. Case in point: Yukiko doesn't go around Inaba hitting on dudes as a way to escape. Perfectly sound logic.

At the beginning of this post, I asked if Yukiko really is clueless about all of this. Considering how her Shadow says "ナンパ" then corrects itself to "逆ナン", I think her Shadow's use of these phrases indicates Yukiko does understand that men are hitting on her. Even if her Shadow is a caricature, her own insecurities and experiences are real.

As we see, people in town are reaaaaaaally not subtle about how horny they are for a 16 year old girl. It's not just boys her age who do this to her, it's random TV reporters and even her own teacher who treat her like this. She is constantly being objectified:

If her Shadow is going on about ナンパ and 逆ナン, and she actually does know what is being said to her, then it seems from the scene on April 12th that Yukiko's way of dealing with this objectification is to just... feign ignorance.

I think you can also assume that one of her other solutions to this is, "Let Chie do something about it". We're not shown this directly, but we get the impression that Chie sometimes deals with these guys herself, and this must be a recurring thing if there's a meta game recommended strategy about talking to Yukiko alone:

And this is probably why her Shadow brings up Chie as a prince figure:

If Yukiko knows she's being hit on and is more aware of these situations than she lets on, then what is this about Chie? Less than genuine helplessness and reliance, it feels more like she is intentionally making her problems become Chie's problems. But Yukiko has a new struggle due to Mayumi Yamano's visit and death, called "managing the ryokan while having no idea what the hell you're doing and also being a high school student". Which is why Chie is no longer qualified to be her Shadow's prince: Ultimately, Yukiko can't make the ryokan also become Chie's problem.

As the game goes on past Yukiko's Castle, there are scenes where I think Yukiko responds differently than before her time in the TV and before everyone saw her Shadow, and I think they lend to the idea that yeah she did know all along.

For example, Yosuke wants her help academically and mentions "private lessons". Yukiko interprets this as something inappropriate. She doesn't bother to ask him what he means by that and reacts by slapping him, insisting that her hand simply moved on its own:

Like how the news reporter and even her teacher acted, in this scene we're also told that ryokan visitors say inappropriate shit to her.

There's also the scene Yosuke tries to get Yukiko's phone number, and Chie mentions that Yosuke calls her to tell her dirty jokes. Yukiko does a thousand yard "......." stare before changing the subject entirely and not giving him a response:

(I've read an interpretation that Yukiko repeatedly acts dismissive to Yosuke because Chie likes him and he's oblivious. I'm not into that pairing, but I get where they're coming from cause early 2000s media did have some "two people bickering with one another means they're going to get married and have 4 kids" type of shit going on.)

Yukiko also reacts when she sees Kanji has an anime nosebleed. She's the one who pushes him into the water, not Chie:

Compare these scenes from after the TV world with how she treats Yosuke and Mitsuo on April 12th, before anything with the TV happens. Yosuke says he tried to ask her out before and got shut down, and she acts like she isn't sure what he's talking about:

While she ends up shooting him down (again), she actually bothers replying to him (as well as Mitsuo), she doesn't get physical, and she shows her fake reliance on Chie by asking Chie what Mitsuo wanted anyway.

You'd think if that she was genuinely oblivious about these interactions with boys as she's shown to be in April, then would her Shadow even know what ナンパ is? And in the May and June scenes, wouldn't she be asking questions like, "What does he mean by 'private lessons'" or "Hey Chie, why is Kanji's nose bleeding?" (which would then lead to Chie pushing Kanji in).

And the culmination of all of this is her response to the reporter who wants to film her bathing in the onsen and offer "all day menus" (99% sure this means "turn the ryokan into a soapland"). Rather than continue to make things Chie's problems or expect Chie to do something or pretend like she has no idea what's being said, Yukiko -- having seen a caricature of herself -- takes her own initiative.

...buuut this raises another question. Even if Yukiko is aware of when dudes are being gross to her, what about the other moments where she seems completely oblivious...?

Is she only aware of the interactions with guys because of how frequently they happen? Or is she actually a master of deadpan humor who is perfectly aware during scenes like this too?

[marley-manson]

Do you have any petpeaves regarding the M*A*S*H fandom?

lol sure i'll take the opportunity provided to express a few, ty for the ask!

Overall Mash fandom is pretty awesome imo, and I actually don't have many compared to a lot of fandoms I've been in, and the ones I do have tend to apply to most fandoms anyway lol, they're staples of fandom in general.

-- The biggest one is probably the common take that Hawkeye is insecure, self-loathing, emotionally repressed, thinks he doesn't deserve love, yadda yadda yadda. This isn't really Mash specific because the bad-self-esteem-ray hits every bottom in fandom at some point lol, but it's extra grating in Mash fandom for me because to me it feels more blatantly OOC than most versions of this.

Now to be fair to fandom there are a few scattered lines throughout the series you can take out of context to justify this take, and one bad episode that provably contradicts the rest of the show (Who Knew), but I feel like you have to stretch like a gymnast to justify it and ignore 99% of the rest of the show and Hawkeye's behaviour.

And it's boring and flattens Hawkeye to a caricature of someone else imho.

-- Generally, and again this applies to all fandoms lbr, I dislike the way a lot of people need to jump to accusations of bigotry to justify their personal preferences. One example I've seen a couple of times that's absolutely bizarre to me is the take that if Klinger gets dicked down and/or feminized in fic it's because of racist fetishization. That's Maxwell Q. Klinger, the dude who wears dresses throughout most of the show and canonically grows to genuinely enjoy it. And even if he was 100% masculine, that's what a lot of fandom does to every single dude they love ever lol, all it means is that Klinger has a fanbase, which is a good thing. imo attitudes like these help contribute to non-white characters getting less fanworks about them, and while I don't think it's prevalent enough in Mash fandom to have a negative effect, I've seen it destroy other ships featuring characters of colour.

Another example is the classic bad take that if you don't ship women in het or interpret a heterosexual relationship as doomed/not romantic/etc, it's because of misogyny lol. It's not hugely common in Mash fandom but I've seen it occasionally from BJ/Peg shippers and the very occasional Margaret enthusiast.

Oh and another example is that depicting Hawkeye as effeminate is homophobia. Again, this is Hawkeye, the dude who proudly calls himself unmanly in various ways every episode and makes 50 jokes about wanting to get fucked in the ass. Frankly it's a bigger stretch to me to assume he wouldn't easily and happily adopt actual effeminate body language/phrasing and tone if he's, say, at the bar and wants to pull a top. Or maybe even just if there are no straight people around, yk? Why not? The take that writing unmasculine men is offensive is a fandom classic and usually strikes me itself as homophobic, gender essentialist, and basically just someone's masc4masc kink masquerading as an issue.

Like to be clear there is certainly bigotry in the Mash fandom, as in every fandom, and it's worth discussing, and sometimes depending on context it can even apply in the above cases (eg if a fic about Klinger getting dicked down earnestly described him as idk exotic or something, or if people who 'feminize' male characters take it to silly extremes and start writing meta about how these men are woman-coded/victims of misogyny lol) but this ain't it chief, this is people repackaging their own pet peeves in social justice language to win perceived arguments, and it's a bad vibe.

-- This one IS fairly Mash specific lol, and to be clear it's 100% harmless and just something that makes me roll my eyes sometimes because I'm not into it myself and it strips away the things I do like about the ship: the way a lot of Hawk/BJ fans headcanon BJ as much more supportive and sensitive to Hawkeye than he actually is, by taking various things he does and assuming he does them for Hawkeye, like he's constantly aware of Hawkeye's unexpressed needs and catering to them.

Yk, he wears pink shirts for Hawkeye! He grew the moustache for Hawkeye (never mind that Hawkeye hates it)! He stole Hawkeye's joke to give Hawkeye enrichment because Hawkeye loves... being upset I guess. Joker Is Wild? All for Hawkeye because Hawkeye loves being paranoid and alienating people. (The reasoning I've actually seen is that Hawkeye loves having an excuse to throw a tantrum lol). He totally comforts Hawkeye when Hawkeye is upset, they just never show it. He is devoted to Hawkeye, he'd do anything for him, ignore the episodes where he calls him crazy and ditches him while he's facing adversity. He's Hawkeye's emotional support!

I've seen it in serious meta and casual headcanons and fic where BJ just falls into role of tender, emotionally intelligent emotional support like it's an assumed part of their dynamic despite not only never seeing that in canon, but Hawkeye actually pointing out multiple times that BJ is not very supportive.

It's also a misreading of Hawkeye who is actually the emotional support of their friendship, rather than vice versa, and tends to go hand in hand with my first pet peeve: Hawkeye as an emotionally insecure, repressed mess lol. BJ goes to him when he needs a shoulder to cry on, something consistent to the point of it being a way to manipulate Hawkeye in Picture This. Not vice versa. Hawkeye goes to Margaret or Mulcahy or Sidney. The only example I can think of where BJ provides emotional support (by which I mean listening to Hawkeye's emotional concerns and offering supportive input) to Hawkeye is the end of Comrades in Arms, and it's like the bare minimum of fulfilling the typical best friend on tv role.

(I like that BJ doesn't fulfill that role tbh! It's more interesting that way, it makes their dynamic feel more unique and intriguing.)

-- Also people who think Mash got more progressive in the later seasons. I think it demonstrates a shallow understanding of the political implications of the show. Getting rid of the character with a slur for a nickname doesn't automatically equal less racist, it's just an easy thing to point to that doesn't require much critical thought. And the growing feminist concerns go hand in hand with depicting republicans, patriots, and racist imperialistic military commanders as good people.

And to be fair I sympathize with this take, I've seen it everywhere from fandom to grumbling republicans complaining about mash getting preachier to professionally written retrospectives and academic analysis lol, so it's not like I hold fandom to higher standards. The ways Mash grows more regressive are more insidious, and the problems in the early seasons are much more obvious and in your face than in the later seasons. And there will always be some debate on whether eg rampant womanizing is worse than pro-imperialism messages, though I know what side I fall on there.

But imo it still sucks that it's such a popular opinion.

-- The emphasis on found family, especially in a 'the war brought them together' sense. Any hint of gratitude that the war let them meet people they love in fic, or whatever. This is something I can't completely blame on fandom because the show itself veered uncomfortably close to this a few times too in the later years, but yeah I'm not a fan. To me the most important aspect of Mash is the fact that they all hate it there, the war is worse than hell, they're virtually prisoners trapped in a nightmare, and any of the draftees would absolutely trade those relationships for an end to the war or just a ticket home. Their friendships are less a silver lining and more a painkiller that just barely takes the edge off. I think this vibe is clearer in the first half of the show, but that's yet another reason the first half is better and more progressive politically lol. And it doesn't disappear in the latter half either, just gets a bit more muddied.

-- This kind of goes hand in hand with the above points, but I feel like it's more of an older Mash fandom issue that I encounter when archive diving moreso than a thing currently (though I do occasionally still see it these days): fans who actively like the military stuff lol. I've read fic where dog tags are kinked on/romanticized, fic that depicts draft-dodging as bad, etc. These days it's more stuff in line with the worst parts of canon, like taking Potter at face value as a Good authority figure who deserves respect because of his military experience, but yeah. Don't like that.

-- Okay that's all I got off the top of my head. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to whine lol

[somniumfaults]

omg omg i finally finished reading ep 7 of tkdb and it was SOOOOOO GOOD. yuri and jiro are obviously sweethearts and i would die for them.

spoilers for ep 7

i also SCREAMED at haku calling the mc princess bfdhkqakfsdjhjgkl..... like, i had already seen it online! i knew it was gonna happen!!!!! but still ghdfksjk; he's not even my fave but he's so SWOON worthy.

the scene where it's revealed that jiro is zenji's brother was also so :( i kinda wish we had gotten more but also i'm happy with what we do have. i Do wish i could have experienced it raw but. cest la vie or whatever the french say. ZENJI GETTING SAD JIRO DOESN'T KNOW HE STILL EXISTS MADE ME SO SAD THO. LET THEM MEET!!! LET THEM REUITE!!!!!! HAKU WHAT ARE YOU DOING!! (being responsible probably but still. kicks him!! useless!!!)

i also totally saw dante approving of the gala from like, a mile away. prof nicolas had me scared for a moment but we've seen hyde call dante out wayyyy too many times for being a softie for me to think he wouldn't agree to it. HYDE ON THE OTHER HAND.... i think its reallly interesting to see them start to more obviously lean into the nature of "hyde" being the more nefarious side of jekyll. i have my doubts that they'll ever do anything so blatant as a personality change, but i do suppose i could see them sort of using it as it is already? or well, in the sense that the name reference is less so something to imply a future personality change, as most series would probably do, and more-so just an indication of hyde's two faced nature.

a part of me honestly is starting to wonder if all the ghouls up until now have been red herrings... maybe hyde is the one who is the spy after all. i honestly wouldn't be surprised, and since he's giving out "special missions" i suppose it could also lend itself to the other ghouls feeling guilt over their actions bc they know for a fact they're being shady. also: see sho saying that he's the only man for the job during his introduction could be a reference to the fact that hyde was the one behind everything and as his brother, he's the most fit for the job of taking him on. of course, this is a super flimsy defense for the theory lol bc there are so many other ghouls who kind of phrase their intros as holding responsibility for taking care of whatever disaster is happening during the intro but. still. i think its possible!!!!

OH. AND HOW COULD I FORGET JIN STEPPING IN FOR THE MC WHEN TAIGA WAS BEING A LIL BITCH AT THE AUDITORIUM. he's so tsun and cute hgkjfklsjdlk; "noooo i totally didn't do it for you" ass.... the idea of taiga and jin duking it out is actually sooooo cool and sexy. i went SO WILD during the comic scene where they were staring each other down and debating the amount of money bc it was just so cool....

i'm also super curious about the dynamic btwn romeo and hyde bc i... will not lie it really sounds like romeo is being taken advantage of. i mean, maybe that's just stating the obvious LOL but honestly despite romeo's brattiness (affectionate), i can't help but feel bad for the dude because that whole interaction just screamed "i'm way out of my depth even if i don't realize it". i'm really looking forward to the next chapter and getting to see more of sinostra and their dynamic

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: Confounding Oaths by Alexis Hall

4/5. Releases 8/27/24.

vibes: Shakespeare x Jane Austen, a man in uniform, WHIMSY

Heat Index: 2/10

The Basics:

Mr. John Caesar is escorting his sister Mary through the marriage mart--avoiding his parents' own desires to see him settle down, because, like, that's not John's goal. Things get a bit more complicated when Mary accidentally ends up with an evil fairy godmother, which leads John to work with Orestes James, a war hero who's ready to leap into action. (Perhaps in more ways than one.) As they attempt to rescue Mary, Orestes and John grow close; but even if they do live through this, is John ready to commit wholeheartedly to anyone?

The Review:

Another fun, whimsical, magically-narrated fairy tale/Jane Austen romcom from Alexis Hall! These books are quite unique, to be honest. Not only in terms of the narration--which is delightful--from Robin, a literal omnipresent immortal, but just... the world? Early in the book, we have a discussion about Jane Austen fandom and writing fanfic? From a couple of Regency-era girlies? It's so fun, so lighthearted, so completely itself.

And in general, Alexis can always write the fuck out of a book. The way he shifts between styles is honestly so impressive to me. Dude can turn a phrase, and that makes his books just... a pleasure to read for the sake of reading. The uniqueness of these particular novels only adds to it. (Do you need to read Mortal Follies before this one? Not exactly, but it might help; and to be real, you should just read it anyway, as it's a good work.)

Where I will say this book does fall a little behind MF for me is that the romance feels a bit less prominent. This is probably because John and Orestes are essentially trying to save someone for much of the book, whereas the last novel had more direct peril for the heroine. So it does feel a little more "save the day forward" versus "romance forward". Not that there isn't romance. There is, and it's lovely, and I also really liked that Alexis gave them breathing room and didn't act as if these were two guys lacking life experience simply because they were queer in a homophobic society.

Speaking of, both Orestes and John are Black (John is biracial) and this fantasy world of Hall's doesn't just throw racism out the door. It's not heavy, but it is thoughtful... and comes with a rather snarky remark alluding to the deplorable treatment of a certain duchess. And I did appreciate that. I don't know if Alexis was responding to some of the... less than perfect choices of a certain big time Regency romance show. I don't want to say he was. However, I did find this book's observations much more interesting and insightful.

The Sex:

This is a closed door romance--sex is definitely alluded to, but because our narrator is a third party, he doesn't just sit there and perv on everyone. Which makes sense. I support that choice. Alexis Hall is one of the only writers who can make closed door work for me.

All in all, this is a fluffy yet adventurous Regency-ish fantasy romance with a lot of humor, a good bit of sweetness, and a fuckton of wit. It's a good time, as most Alexis Hall books are a good time. Is it my absolute favorite of his? Maybe not, but a good book by Alexis Hall is better than a lot of other people's best books, to be real.

Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Spring 2023 Anime Overview: Oshi no Ko

Spoiler free premise: A doctor in a small town is a fan of a sixteen-year-old idol Ai Hoshino. But then Ai shows up with a secret pregnancy. Now he’s going to have to figure out how to deal with her secret and safeguard her from obsessive fans as he helps her give birth…

Spoiler for the entire first super long episode twist premise under the cut:

…that is, until the doctor is murdered by Ai’s stalker and reincarnates as Aqua, one of the twin children Ai gives birth to. The other twin, Ruby, is also a reincarnated soul. She was a former patient of the doctor’s, a twelve-year-old who was a huge fan of Ai before dying of terminal illness. Both twins are unaware of the other’s former identity, but they both enjoy their new lease on life and come to love Ai all the more.

All seems well (I mean well for the twins, that is, not for the viewer who has to grapple with all this bizarre and creepy premise) until the same stalker that murdered the doctor murders Ai herself. Aqua realizes his father/Ai’s secret lover must have leaked Ai’s location to the stalker on purpose. The problem is that Ai never told Aqua and Ruby who their father was. So Aqua vows to track down his father and kill the man for what he did to Ai, whatever the cost. After growing into a teenager, he gets more involved in the entertainment industry and begins his search for his mother’s true killer in earnest.

Yeah, that’s a lot isn’t it? And it probably doesn’t help when I tell you that before he becomes Aqua, the doctor basically admits he, an adult man, wouldn’t turn down a date from the sixteen year old Ai, prompting the nurse to call him a lolicon (because anime will always insist on using that phrase where they should say ‘pedophile/ephebophile'). Or that baby Aqua refuses to breastfeed with Ai, but his twelve-year-old-girl-in-a-past-life twin happily does so with a huge, lascivious grin. (There’s also a discussion where Aqua says ‘he’ll let it slide’ when he learns Ruby was a girl in her past life too, she’s like ‘wow so great I was born a girl so I can enjoy mama's/Ai's breasts” and he’s like “no it’s not okay actually” and you just have to sit back and realize this is a conversation you’re watching on TV. This is where your life has bought you. )

Why did you keep watching, you ask me when I say these things? Well, it was well-made and engrossing. The animation was great, the pace was snappy, and Ai was instantly endearing. Plus everyone was talking about it endlessly on a discord I belong to, and they said after the first episodes the weirdness of the reincarnation angle becomes less important, the horny baby antics go away, and it becomes more of a straightforward murder mystery and a intriguing exploration of the entertainment industry.

And that’s pretty much true. The show goes out of the way to handwave Aqua’s past life by saying going through puberty and infantile amnesia means he now doesn’t know where he starts and the other dude begins anymore, and he essentially feels like a teenager.

Where Oshi no Ko is truly compelling is it’s exploration of the predatory entertainment industry and the twisted misogyny and parasociality of idol fandom.

It makes some basic, but very needed, points. It points out that fans who freak out over 'their' idols having a relationship and blame them for it are gross, and the industry that puts them in a box is gross. This is very basic stuff, but still underdiscussed in anime. A lot of anime pretend all is well for an idol since the anime industry itself makes bank off idols. So it was satisfying to see to see a character scream ‘You all fall in love with idols, it's selfish to say idols can't fall in love! You take out all your anger on women because you don't have a girlfriend!" at the endless twitter comments saying it was "expected" that Ai was killed for ‘betraying’ her fans. It's also clear the author did a lot of research on the entertainment industry and has a lot to share. A lot of what he has to share is really interesting, and I appreciate that in his interviews he wanted to make sure Americans understand that Japanese actors and idols don’t have unions and it leaves them open to even more exploitation.

(Even the bizarre premise of the anime is nod to a gross “joke” idol fans make- a lot of 2channers apparently joke about wanting to “be reborn” as their favorite idol’s child whenever there’s a marriage announcement. However, it feels like the premise is rooted a lot in shock value...)

At the same time, Oshi no Ko doesn’t really go as hard as people act like it does. It’s not Perfect Blue, and it pulls its punches. It still goes for easy answers sometimes, and what’s worse, easy answers that lionize its obnoxious protagonist. Never is this more apparent that the cyberbullying arc.

First, let’s be clear- the cyberbullying arc focuses on a reality show actor, a girl named Akane, being driven to attempt suicide after a bunch of internet detractors harass her over something she did on the show (that the producers pressured her into doing in the first place). However, Aqua saves her at the last minute.

Hana Kimura lost her life in a very similar incident just a few months before this arc in the manga was published and the author’s spoken about it on record. Hana was a pro-wrestler who was on the reality show Terrace House, and what happened to her is the same thing in broad strokes, only she didn’t get a convenient rescue. But nobody bothered to contact Hana’s family about any of this, so Hana’s mother was blindsided when she heard about it, and claims some of the hate messages in the anime are identical to the ones Hana received in real life. She pleaded that "Because it raises important issues, I would like to support a work like Oshi no Ko.  However, I don't think it needs to be done in a way that makes people  who have actually been victimized on social media suffer when they see it.”.

Oshi no Ko fans, having just watched an arc about the serious consequences of internet harassment, were of course respectful to the grieving mother of a harassment victim- nah, they harassed Hana’s mom for criticizing the show. Another example of the incredible media literacy of anime fans.

All of that was already not a great look for the manga and show, and I think the kind thing to do would have been to contact the family before telling this story. But even if that wasn’t a thing, I didn’t like how this arc was handled. After Akane is saved by Aqua, he leaks her attempted suicide to the press. Though there’s a mention that this unethical, he’s never really taken to task or confronted with the fact this violation of her privacy could have led to another (potentially successful!) suicide attempt. Then he talks to the director, reminds him that Akane is a teenager and adults should protect children, the director has a change of heart. Aqua's given permission to release footage of the cast being friends, the harassment dies down and Akane immediately gets better offscreen, because that’s how trauma and depression works!

God, ‘depression is NBD! You recover quickly!’ is one of my biggest fiction pet peeves. Considering how despicable the producers were to Hana IRL, the whole storyline wrapping up like this wasn't just sloppy and lazy, it was insulting.

Rather than explore with the actual messy fallout this would realistically have for Akane, it just had Aqua get to be the edgy savior who was In the Right even though his actions were horrible and could have had catastrophic consequences. Also the ‘adults should protect kids’ moral felt weak when Hana and many other entertainers who hurt themselves after being mistreated by fans and the industry were adults. Did they not deserve to be protected?

And I guess it sums up a lot of my problems with the show. It's painstakingly researched and talks about interesting stuff (though sometimes one character has to become an exposition machine just so we don't miss ANY of the author's research, which can feel awkward). It has some interesting and complex main female characters … but 3/4s of them have some romantic connection to Aqua, which grates. It’s more honest about the idol industry than most anime, but also sometimes pulls its punches when it comes to exploring actual mental illness and industry abuse.

'Aqua is the smartest and all the girls are sooo into him’ gets pretty annoying. Two girls are already in love with him, and even without the really unnecessary ‘was a pedophile in a past life’ baggage, he barely has a personality. Aaaand there’s how we have to listen to him muse about whether he was in love with his mom. Aaaand there's the looming threat that the next girl to fall in love with him will be his sister, since she muses she was in love with the doctor in her past life.

Once sis mentioned that, I started wondering if I should even come back to season 2. Leaning towards ‘no’ right now (definitely not if the manga really does…that). I don’t regret watching ONK- it was interesting, well animated and produced, and the theme song is a certified bop- but it’s also not something I could ever recommend to anyone. It’s the most fraught show I’ve watched in a long time, and in the end, I’m not sure all of its weird parts add up to a satisfying, truly subversive story.  It’s a mess, but time will tell if it’s an intriguing enough mess for me to come back to.

[rolloollor]

Though Three Drops of Blood is pretty short, I'm still gonna do a post mortem about it. Mainly I'll be discussing the original tale (The Dragon of the North) and talking about what I used from it and what I did differently.

First and foremost, Malleus plays the role of two characters that appear in the original. Obviously the dragon (which seems to have been a giant frog in earlier versions? that'd explain why it just sat around) and a female character called the Witch Maiden. The hero stumbles upon her bathing in a magical spring that maintains her youth. She invites him back to her home, which has those magical servants that dress in white. To her credit, she doesn't do any hypnosis and she doesn't trap him. Since Malleus was also the dragon, and the dragon just has to lock eyes with something and it hurls itself into its mouth, I figured that's basically a form of hypnosis so why not.

Anyway, she offers to marry the hero, there's the three drops of blood stipulation, etc. The birds warned the hero that giving her that blood would mean she would steal his soul. He doesn't end up going for it. But who knows, right? She says she needs it to ensure their love lasts forever. What if that was the truth? We don't know since the word of birds apparently holds more weight. What if they're wrong? Dude would rather trust animals. I'm the Witch Maiden defense force and she deserved better.

She shows him the ring, tells him she'll give it to him when they wed, shows him the different methods of using it, and he basically goes, "Haha cool. I don't believe you though, can I try?" and she lets him. He flies up into the air with it and she laughs and says, "Come back, friend, for now you see I have told you the truth!" And he just flies the fuck away. Less dramatic than the wedding scene I went with, but it's like... more mean-spirited? I dunno, I feel like maybe he could have worked out a deal to borrow it. She has 0 connection to the dragon, so... And she wasn't threatening him at all. Again, you're gonna trust a couple of birds over a lady that housed and fed you just because? Who's rich and offered to live with you like royalty (she says "like princes")? Who handed over the ring so you could try it out? Who asked for a paltry offering of three drops of blood? What was this dude thinking?? A rare fairy tale protag that's wary and it ends up biting him in the ass.

After defeating the dragon, he marries a princess (becoming a prince) and lives a pretty sweet life... until the Witch Maiden finds him. She takes the ring back, abducts him, locks him up in a cave, and feeds him just enough each day to ensure he doesn't die. The hero's eventually rescued by some knights and returns to his good life, but he didn't have to go through that needless (though not undeserved) suffering if he'd just negotiated a deal with the Witch Maiden. Come on man.

"‘Now, villain, you are in my power!’ cried the Witch Maiden. ‘I favored you with my love, and you repaid me with treachery and theft. You stole my most precious jewel from me, and do you expect to live happily as the King’s son-in-law? Now the tables are turned; you are in my power, and I will be revenged on you for your crimes.’ ‘Forgive me! forgive me!’ cried the Prince; ‘I know too well how deeply I have wronged you, and most heartily do I repent it.’"

Really, asshole? He made no attempt to return the ring to her or anything. I didn't want to do this part of the story for Malleus and Rollo, so I changed things. But I was very "hell yeah get his ass" when the Witch Maiden confronted the hero.

The last line of the fairy tale is, "Now, if YOU had been the Prince, would you not rather have stayed with the pretty Witch Maiden?" Even the narrator nudges us and gestures at the hero like "What a fuckin moron." And Rollo does stay with the pretty dragon fae. I couldn't do that same ending or phrasing, so I did something I felt was kind of similar with the Rook bird. He appears throughout the fic and it was interesting to have him have the last word.

Now, about the dragon itself. The confrontation with the dragon in the tale is pretty different... mainly in that the hero brutally kills it. He gets an iron horse on wheels, chains, and iron spear, etc. As he's heading north, a raven gives him last minute advice, which I didn't adopt. You think Crowley's gonna come in and save the day? No way. The advice was, while invisible, for him to ride the iron horse but use his spear like an oar and push himself along. The dragon sits around with its mouth open and the hero paddles himself and the iron horse inside. Before the dragon bit down, the hero stabbed the roof of its mouth with an iron spear, then he jumped off the horse. So now the dragon is hurt and can't close its mouth properly, so it can't eat him. The hero then chains the dragon down for a few days. It tires itself in the struggle to free itself and then the hero beats it to death with the help of the ring. Obviously I took a different path.

Rollo offers himself almost as collateral to save his home, with an added bonus of getting to stay with Malleus. I couldn't really delve as deeply into the emotions of it all as much as I might have in other fics, but he fell in love with Malleus at first sight and, while he has done some terrible things and killed a lot of people (maybe a bunch of fae as well?), he's lonely and pathetic. And really, the desperate consumption of everyone around him could be seen as him trying to fill the void inside, right. Rollo can fix him. (or make him worse)

This turned out a lot longer than I thought it would be... But I think this fairy tale worked pretty well as a mallerollo story! With tweaks, of course.

[dontletthishappentoyou]

Princess Bride (the Movie) is about a small, sickly little boy and his grandfather who reads him Princess Bride (the Book). We don't know for sure what the grandfather left out, but from what is depicted on screen, it seems like Princess Bride (the Book) is about a young lady who has a farmhand who after less than a minute of shared screentime is reeking of sexual energy. They kiss, and then he is taken by the Great Pirate Robinson and never seen again.

Coincidentally, she also gets taken by a band of outlaws with a big sailboat, although the sailboat isn't prominent enough for them to be pirates apparently. I guess they're basically pirates. Princess Bride, a.k.a., Buttercup, falls in the water and is nearly attacked by an eel, but it is punched by sir Andre the Giant.

Butt! They soon realize they're being followed! By whom? Whom's to say. Andre collects them all and climbs a rope, triple piggy back style, all the way up the face of a cliff. Skinny masked man climbs faster, because he's only carrying himself.

Lucky for the gang, Indigo Montoya is a master swordsman, and awaits the masked dude, ready to duel. He has gratuitous amounts of honor and doesn't cut the rope so masked man gets a fair fight. He also gives him a minute to rest so they can chit-chat and he can count his fingers (just to make sure). Not only that, but he fights with his left hand. They fight for a comically long amount of time. A Youtube fencing expert has analyzed this fight and concluded that it is fantastic cinematic swordplay, although it would be extremely unrealistic for it to actually last for more than a few seconds. It builds character well, especially since both of them turn out to be faking the whole left handed thing. When our boy Montoya loses, he's smacked hard, but his throte is left intact.

Masked Man moves onto his second opponent, who also fights honorably. It's Andre the Giant again, and little masked man is a bit faster and different in quantity than the giant is used to fighting, so it's an easy victory.

Last up we've got the man who says clitoris adorably and inconceivable frequently. He's got Buttercup blindfolded (for reasons not detailed by the grandfather to the sick boy) and challenges Masked Man to a game of whits. Masked Man knows just what to do, and like a fox from some kind of old European fable, whips out isocaine powder, a deadly poison! He pours it into ''one'' drink, switches them around, and tells his small nemesis to pick one to drink out of. Said nemesis secretly switches the drinks, and when Masked Man says he just lost, a confession was made, followed by laughter, followed by death itself.

As Masked Man falls down the hill (did Buttercup just push him? I don't know), he says "as you wish," his famous catched-phrase. Buttercup rolls down the hill with him so they can cuddle, and then other people show up I think. Are they still being chased? Probably.

So they run through a terrible forest with very few survivors. Oddly enough, they end up being survivors, by hiding in quicksand and fighting gigantic rodents.

But alas, the hunters weren't that surprised after all. You see, they horsed around the forest and caught them on the other side, rendering their escape useless. Masked Man who has since been revealed to be Wesley, comments on one of his captors sixth finger, mentioning a friend was looking for him. He appears to be very self-conscious about his polydactylism and blushes, punishing Wesley severely for his social trnasgression.

Turns out, Wesley had not been killed by the Dread Pirate Roberts, but had become him instead, as many had done before him. If Buttercup had been DPR's daughter, they could have had a great "I am your father" kind of moment, but they forgot to work that into the plot for insense related reasons.

So Wesley gets taken and Buttercup I think has a little more lee-way. Andre finds Indigo Montoya drunk in a small town of who is implied to be nothing but failures and losers, sobers him up, and convinces him to join the quest to retreive either Buttercup, Wesley, or, perchance, both.

They do indeed attempt to save them, but not before Wesley is nearly tortured to death in the place of a memorable but at the moment forgotten name. I'll get it. Indigo finds him nearly dead, and brings him to some doctor, who I'm pretty sure is implied to be Jewish. Not sure what the deal is there. But he's great and he hears that Wesley is in the market for some ''true love'' and revives him, after getting yelled at by his lovable but equally ancient wife.

The three of them venture out to find Buttercup. Oh! She's engaged now, but not in a good way. To maybe the six fingered man or his prince. So Wesley fights the prince, mostly getting stabbed, but also standing up and doing some stabbing himself, Mr. Montoya does a great deal of stabbing for the sake of avenging his father. Oh! It was the Pit of Despair! Of course. He recovered well though. Then they all jump out of the window, wearing secret harnesses to not cause Andre IRL backpain and they horse away into the distance.

The End!

[thedepressexpress]

some more space things to look at that I like and you might like so we can collectively look up more to see them

sharks are 450 million years old. what does this have to do with space? here are some things that sharks saw come into existence: Betelgeuse, Cassiopeia A, the Sirius star system, Rigel A, the Pleiades, Canopus, Altair, Geminga, Mizar, Spica, and a lot more

to calibrate some instruments on a telescope the telescope needs something to look at that it already knows. so if a telescope knows for sure that some object is flat but it looks wonky, it can figure out how to fix its alignment but sometimes instead of finding something, they shoot lasers in the sky to make a fake star for the telescope to learn from because it's a big dumb idiot that needs a laser pointer

there's a reason we distinguish between universe and observable universe. this is because they are different.

the way they show stars zooming past spaceships when they go into hyperdrive is pretty close, it's called relativistic beaming

photons are finite particles AND waves so when you look up, you are technically seeing something that will never be seen again the way that you saw it

the universe is basically just a bunch of filaments of different density regions so yeah you have this warped string of galaxies but you also have places called cosmic voids

the word planet comes from a longer phrase meaning "wandering stars" but planet itself is from a word for "wanderers" because anything that seemed to move relative to the background of stars was a planet

we didn't and still don't have good definitions of planets. one of the definitions says something like "it can't be a star so it's got to be less that 13 Jupiter masses" but every exoplanet database includes bigger planets because they think it's a bullshit definition

one of the ways of finding exoplanets is to watch their stars wobble. since planets and stars all orbit around their center of mass, big planets around stars kind of dance around their center of gravity and that can tell us there's a planet there even if we can't see it

a professor of mine said that in his personal opinion, there are two reasons people study astronomy. the first, he said, is to learn and try to find others like us. these are the people who study planets and stars and the spaces between stars and the spaces between planets. then there are the people who study astronomy to find God. these are the people who study galaxies and cosmology

there was something called the Great Debate in astronomy where two dudes Curtis and Shapley argued back and forth about the nature of the universe and they were both right and wrong. at the time no one could agree if the Milky Way was all there was or if those spiral shaped smudges could be other worlds. Kant called those smudges "island universes" but we call them galaxies now.

this was about 100 years ago btw, galaxies are a relatively new concept (1924) and we only really got to know because Edwin Hubble (you may have heard of the telescope named after him) measured the distance to Andromeda and it was WAY too far away to be part of the Milky Way

look, people need to shut up and look into the universe more so here are some fun space things that I like that maybe you'll like

you don't look up to see the stars, you look out because the only reason you feel upright is that the planet is thicc and keeping you in place. most likely you are angled as fuck rn.

most of the first stars ever made haven't died yet so they've just been watching you. you specifically. while you pick your nose.

black holes sometimes start screaming in the radio frequency. and then they suddenly stop but they scream so loud that they leave an echo (radio lobes) behind and if they decide to start screaming again their new scream lies on top of their old scream. we don't know why they're screaming, why they stop or how. (screaming = emitting light in this case)

Jupiter. I just think we need to appreciate Jupiter a lot more and think more about how if we could see the jovian magnetosphere from earth it would look like a giant sperm in the sky

there's something we can find called Lagrange points which are very very special and there are 5 of them. L4 and L5 are special because they are points in space 60 degrees ahead of us in our orbit and 60 degrees behind us where nothing happens. nothing. stuff just stays there.

places where stars are actively forming can be called stellar nurseries like they're plant nurseries but for stars.

everything distorts time a little bit and most of it is completely negligible but having a DUMP TRUCK ass can technically slow down time

at the event horizon (the 'edge' of the region of influence of a black hole) there is no time. everything is no ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ. and that's it. no time. idk what to do with that information but now you know it and you also don't know what to do that information.

neutrinos. they shoot through your body all the time and a lot of them are from the sun and to detect them we put a bunch of hard water in a tank underground and detected almost nothing and it was really important.

you can use sunlight the same way you can use wind to sail in space

one of the reasons stars are hot and space is not is because there isn't enough stuff in space to conduct heat to you

we are absolutely idiots when it comes to life on other planets because we only know how to imagine carbon based life so yes we have habitability parameters based on stuff like carbon dioxide, water, atmosphere, temperature, etc. but there could just be life that isn't carbon based and we have no idea how to account for that and that's annoying

people have only managed to go about 400,000 km (~250,000 miles) into space. for reference one of the smallest units we use to measure distances in space is AU, which stands for astronomical units and it's the average distance between the earth and the sun. rounding up we have only gone 0.0027 AU or 0.00000004 light years.

the moon is a part of the earth so it's like if your amputated forearm was following you around

some animals can navigate using the night sky

[smokeybrandcompositions]

Where My Country Gone or The Brain Worms Cometh

So that Jason Aldean video is a little bit racist but the song, itself? Yeesh. As a black dude, those lyrics straight up read as a threat. I've literally heard those exact phrases hurled at a protester holding a sign in the most racist city in America. Like, i don't see how you can what that dude it's saying and not think "Sundown City." Probably because you don't know what a Sundown City is, which actually still exists to this day because, like that ridiculous f*cking song, the United States of America is racist! What the f*ck is going on right now, man? Did i travel back in time and didn't realize it? Did i slip into a willfully ignorant, and aggressively stupid, timeline? It's been the hottest day of in history, worldwide, for, like, a week straight and people still don't believe in climate change. Koalas are on fire but whatever. Motherf*ckers are drinking Borax, thinking it helps digestion or some sh*t, even though its literally poison and has a big ass warning label on it telling you not to do that exact thing! Marjorie Taylor Greene, who thinks Jewish Space Lasers start California wildfires and was still elected to Congress by an entire state of utterly ridiculous white people, showed a picture on the house floor of Hunter Biden's raw dick for reasons and nothing has happened about that. Trump literally tried to incite a civil war and people still plan to vote for this clown! This man has been indicted, like, three times this year (twice, federally), and he's STILL the leading republican candidate! Dude got on TV and basically said, if he's re-elected, he's going full Putin and people cheered! I don't even understand. Like, i see and hear these thing and think, "Danger" or "Problematic" but other people, who just happen to have less melanin than me and lived and entirely different life devoid of said melanated issues, see "The good ol' days" or "A Strong leader" or "Liberal woke myth." Is it because I'm black? IS it because I'm smart? Is it because i can think for myself and have the ability to come to my own conclusions? Is it because i trust in science and not Jesus? How can so many people listen to a song like Try That in a Small Town or watch a film like The Sound of Freedom, and just accept those dog whistles as gospel? Admittedly, The Sound of Freedom isn't as f*cked up as the media would lead you to believe but it's not entirely free of controversy, especially considering the utter craziness it's lead actor pushes anytime he has a goddamn platform. Like, the people who watch that and think it's little more than alternative Hollywood , conservative propaganda, probably listen to Joe Rogan and thing he's the second smartest person on the planet after Elon Musk.

[smokeybrand]

Where My Country Gone or The Brain Worms Cometh

So that Jason Aldean video is a little bit racist but the song, itself? Yeesh. As a black dude, those lyrics straight up read as a threat. I've literally heard those exact phrases hurled at a protester holding a sign in the most racist city in America. Like, i don't see how you can what that dude it's saying and not think "Sundown City." Probably because you don't know what a Sundown City is, which actually still exists to this day because, like that ridiculous f*cking song, the United States of America is racist! What the f*ck is going on right now, man? Did i travel back in time and didn't realize it? Did i slip into a willfully ignorant, and aggressively stupid, timeline? It's been the hottest day of in history, worldwide, for, like, a week straight and people still don't believe in climate change. Koalas are on fire but whatever. Motherf*ckers are drinking Borax, thinking it helps digestion or some sh*t, even though its literally poison and has a big ass warning label on it telling you not to do that exact thing! Marjorie Taylor Greene, who thinks Jewish Space Lasers start California wildfires and was still elected to Congress by an entire state of utterly ridiculous white people, showed a picture on the house floor of Hunter Biden's raw dick for reasons and nothing has happened about that. Trump literally tried to incite a civil war and people still plan to vote for this clown! This man has been indicted, like, three times this year (twice, federally), and he's STILL the leading republican candidate! Dude got on TV and basically said, if he's re-elected, he's going full Putin and people cheered! I don't even understand. Like, i see and hear these thing and think, "Danger" or "Problematic" but other people, who just happen to have less melanin than me and lived and entirely different life devoid of said melanated issues, see "The good ol' days" or "A Strong leader" or "Liberal woke myth." Is it because I'm black? IS it because I'm smart? Is it because i can think for myself and have the ability to come to my own conclusions? Is it because i trust in science and not Jesus? How can so many people listen to a song like Try That in a Small Town or watch a film like The Sound of Freedom, and just accept those dog whistles as gospel? Admittedly, The Sound of Freedom isn't as f*cked up as the media would lead you to believe but it's not entirely free of controversy, especially considering the utter craziness it's lead actor pushes anytime he has a goddamn platform. Like, the people who watch that and think it's little more than alternative Hollywood , conservative propaganda, probably listen to Joe Rogan and thing he's the second smartest person on the planet after Elon Musk.

[soporificsponge]

And nobody knows like me

Once when I was a little kid (maybe in the fourth grade?) I threw a bit of hissy fit on the drive to school because I wanted to cut bangs or dye my hair or do something to my head that my mom vetoed, noting that whatever I wanted to do would probably be unflattering (and let's be honest she was definitely 100% right). I remember saying something under my breath about how "it's my head" and "I should be able to do whatever I want to my own hair" and my muttering made my mom lose what was left of her thinning patience and she screamed behind the wheel "You wanna look like some crazy homeless Korean hooker? GO FOR IT."

That night after both of us regained some semblance of sanity she tried to explain her reasoning behind why I shouldn't abuse my hair with the kiddy safety scissors. I don't remember the entire lecture, but one phrase has stuck with me since and (literally I'm not kidding) I think about this phrase every fucking day:

"You eat with your eyes first."

Okay, so the other day I was listening to Love Grows (objectively a fucking banger) but I have a couple of issues with that stupid song. Actually I only have one issue with it, but it's an issue with a lot of implications. An issue that contains multitudes. Or whatever.

As everyone knows, the song goes (my bitter interpretation of the song is in italics):

She ain't got no money

She's really fucking hot

Her close are kinda funny

I put up with her quirkyness 'cause she's really fucking hot

Her hair is kinda wild and free

But in a hot way

Oh, but love grows where my Rosemary goes

I follow her around 'cause she's hot

and nobody knows like me

Everybody knows that she's hot

...

She's really got a magical spell

She's smoking hot

and it's working so well

She is a fine looking woman

that I just gotta say

hey

So, my issue with the song actually has nothing to do with the song itself. The song itself is probably written with genuine romantic intentions. I just assume that the dude who's singing this song "ate with his eyes first." I don't know why this pisses me off so much. I just kind of wish the song went something like "She's a snaggletoothed crack-eyed bitch with unsightly legs and a lot of acne, but I'm still attracted to her." That'd be true love. Instead for whatever reason I just assume that he's willing to put up with all of these "quirks" (talking lazy, people saying she's crazy, her life being a mystery) because she's hot.

The thing is, I have no fucking right to complain. I do the same thing - I eat with my eyes. I always assume that I can size someone up before I even talk to them. Problematically, my intuition is often accurate, if imprecise (and by that I mean I am typically on point thematically if not exactly e.g. I can tell that someone might be unpleasant to be around, but I'm not immediately conscious of the exact reason). Another dangerous assumption I make (and I am yet to decide whether or not this is valid): that my intuition about people is accurate because people treat other people based on how they look, and how people are treated shapes them. What a fucked up positive feedback loop.

What I mean to say is: ugly people are treated less delicately. They are not savored. I think this treatment affects everyone's outer texture. Ugly people become tough or chewy or sinewy. Beautiful people aren't worn down like that, so sometimes they're more sharp. I don't know if this makes sense.

(A brief aside, I don't really feel like explaining what beautiful and ugly are. You know what they fucking are. Don't even try to say that they're subjective, because that's only true to a certain extent and everyone knows that.)

The phrase "you eat with your eyes first" is particularly acute because relationships born of visual attraction are born to be more like consumption than love. This begs the question -- have I been chewed up and spit out because I'm ugly?

Maybe. I think the fact that I'm not hot doesn't help. But then again I have objectively gorgeous friends who are treated like shit all the time, so obviously whatever profound thing I think I'm getting at here doesn't explain it all.

Ultimately, I have a crush one someone right now that I never found to be extremely physically attractive. On first glance I thought he was somewhat below average, actually. When I first got to know him I found him intolerable. He's objectively weird. I still find him intolerable, but in a way that hurts my chest instead of my head. I think he doesn't hate me. And now I like his face and his weird gangly limbs. His facial features that I once found harsh now seem to carry a strength I couldn't notice before. It's almost like his company sort of eroded whatever bullshit beautiful/ugly dichotomy I drew my whole life. I don't notice the pores on his face anymore. (Another thing about beautiful people - they're like that Seurat painting.) To beat this metaphor into the ground with a baseball bat so that I may never think of it again: I ate with my eyes, but apparently YOU CAN'T TASTE WITH YOUR FUCKING EYEBALLS. QED.

Anyways, I get the song now, and I think I might cut my hair tomorrow.

Because Love grows where my Rosemary goes And nobody knows like me It keeps growing every place she's been And nobody knows like me

… If you've met her, you'll never forget her And nobody knows like me

… La la la- believe it when you've seen it Nobody knows like me

(This guy has a girlfriend, btw. Fuck me.)

[badboysupr]

Leo sometimes contemplated whether he’d avoid awkward situations if only he learned from his mistakes and shut his mouth. But then Leo’s contemplation on the subject would always end pretty dang quickly on the “shut his mouth” part. Need he say more? (The phrasing there is intended, by the way; no, he never needs to say more, but yes, he always will.)

Because people could, would (and probably should) call him out on his bluffs. Intentionally or not. Like Tim’s doing right now, what with his comment on how much of a charmer Leo is (a hilarious concept in and of itself), the what seemed to be deliberate shifting of his position to draw some attention to certain things . . . and coincidentally the “things” Leo was just mulling over his falling short in regards to. Leo set up the shot here. And Tim, unlike most people who just laughed him off, slam dunked that immediately. (Those were two different sport analogies, weren’t they? Whatever.)

Sure, yeah, Leo liked when people could keep up with him. He just somehow never expected it.

“Dude, I’d need about a week of spa days to help any of what I’ve got going on,” he scoffs, forcing himself to look away from the show with a firm (and rare) voice of reason telling him not to get distracted. “I’d hate to do that to the poor workers, y’know? Too much of an awesome thing can become a not-awesome thing, I mean; they wouldn’t know how to handle all this.” Most people don’t, he wants to add. But he figures that’s a given.

Luckily for Leo just then, he’s occupied his hands with a coil of copper wire while Tim keeps talking, and so his fingers look less like they’re fidgeting and more like . . . maybe he’s actually got an end goal. He lets out a puff of laughter, cocks his head a bit like that’ll help him hear the guy better—or maybe correctly, because did he really just—?

Letting out an appreciative whistle, “So not only are you going around kissing people for favors, but frequently enough you have reviews . . . ? I’ll have to check out your Yelp page later, see what I’m getting into. Until then—” Leo shrugs, since a gesture like that usually meant, I’m done thinking about this and definitely not, Well, now I won’t stop thinking about this. “You’re off the hook. I’ll cash in my prize when you least expect it. Things are fun that way.

“What’s the grandiose surprise, my guy?”

Tim can’t help it: sarcasm aside, the bow is cute. Tim nods his head in a return of the gesture, eyes twinkling with a matching glee to Leo’s. 

“Aren’t you the charmer?” He grins. “And a bold one, too. I could sweeten this offer, sure; what did you have in mind? Shall I make some suggestions?” 

The son of Aphrodite crosses one leg over the other, which should have been a more attractive pose, were it not for his baggy, skater-punk shorts that aren’t exactly mini length (capris. They’re capris). 

Still, his arms are exposed in his low-side tank top, and he’s sort of banking on that to get him stares. Child of a love goddess or not, he trains, and he trains hard. With a spear. The celestial bronze tip of which is shaped like a heart. (It rules).

So, he knows his upper body does him favors. 

“You need something from the city? Want a spa day?” Tim’s tone goes coy. “Or are you thinking of something more immediate? I’ve never had a negative review of my kisses before, and I like to think I’m pretty generous with ‘em. Spread the love, y’know?” He leans on one hand. 

“Not that I’d pressure you. I know we’ve barely spoken before, so I promise not to rush into things unless you want to.” He winks. 

“But, seriously, I will buy your silence with whatever you ask for; I really want this to be a cool surprise.”

[olderthannetfic]

Do you know what the origin of the "sold to One Direction" thing is? I know it's a common trope (or was), but, I have no idea where I first heard of it, where I learned it was a thing. How do weird tropes like that get started, anyway? Why do some concepts take off and become huge parts of a particular fandom, but others don't? (And does this particular premise show up in other RPF contexts as much?)

--

tl;dr - Wattpad circa 2013, probably

--

I'm only familiar with that from doing Wattpad research. I don't think it's a major RPF thing, at least not under that exact name. Horny f!sub is kind of the Wattpad way, so a lot of the popular tropes there make sense from that perspective. I've definitely seen plenty of badtouch sexy slave/kidnapping victim/stalk-ee stuff with BTS and other music groups. But maybe somebody reading has more specific 1D history knowledge?

As for why one thing takes off and another doesn't, the big answer is:

Historical accident

We can look for patterns, sure, but a lot of it is ultimately survivorship bias. That's the thing where we look at what's remaining (successful companies, popular fic tropes), and we assume they have some special property that made them survivors and then extrapolate from that. But maybe it's coincidence, or maybe it's a different type of causality than the one we're looking at.

For example, a trope in a popular fandom will spread farther faster than a trope in a dinky little fandom, so maybe fandom size is what matters and not the nature of the trope. Most analyses assume it's the trope itself that matters.

On an individual basis, many specific tropes get popularized by a particular famous author or fic that other people imitate. Some get popularized by a fanworks exchange or fest. (That's how 5 Times fic spread.) But why do they stick around long term? Why do they gain traction elsewhere?

Aside from random chance, it's probably something to do with broad applicability and easy entry points.

So, for example, the show The Sentinel doesn't actually have Guides as such, but the AU added an official role for the other dude to make the two of them super destined. Sentinel AUs took off across a ton of fandoms. (Less so these days, but I've even seen them in BTS, so they're definitely not gone.) The AU version is basically soulmates + potentially codified top/bottom roles + superpowers. People like fantasy AUs. They like frameworks to fit their ship into. The trope isn't highly specific otherwise, so it can be tacked onto many settings, both real world and sff. It fits two-person ships easily, which is most popular ships. One can do some worldbuilding about whether there's One True Guide for a given Sentinel or whether the bond is more a matter of choice. Guides might be equal in numbers/prestige/public visibility to Sentinels or not. The existence of all this can be openly known by everybody or a secret like in the show.

A/B/O has a similar level of "proof my ship belongs together" stuff with room to play around with worldbuilding. It also overlaps heavily with prior popular tropes people like for pretty obvious horny reasons. Same with plenty of tropes. They're often a slight remix of already popular stuff.

Sense8 AUs, however, never really took off as a thing. I saw some fans sadfacing about this, but in this case, I think we could have predicted it. Why? Simple: the concept involves OT8, and that's not going to apply to most people's fandoms unless they happen to like a kpop group or a superhero team with 8 people. The 8 also don't have specific roles that would make this simpler to write. If you're going for less OT8 and more of a complicated network of relationships, that's a complicated story to write and it has much less of a template to work from. So low applicability + high barrier to entry.

Hogwarts AUs, on the other hand, are super popular. Why? My guess is that the biggest reason is that a million bajillion times more people know Harry Potter than know Sense8. Hogwarts also has some canned roles that are more obvious: which house is your Fave? Shit that could be in a clickbait-y personality quiz is easier to write fic about than something that requires you to make up everything yourself. But also, four houses are easy to keep track of in a way that all those Myers-Briggs types are not. Add too much mandatory complexity, and it gets too confusing.

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If I had to guess about the popularity of Sold To One Direction, I'd say a lot of it is due to the problem of getting Mary Sue or y/n into the room with them. Why is she there? This fic concept provides the answer in one quick title or tag. Sexy slavefic and dubcon have had broad appeal since forever. There's room to go really dark or fluffier. Some of the fics are nothing but ravishment fantasies, while others are more abuse recovery stories (where 1D are better than whatever came before).

I don't think there's some simple answer for why this specific thing and not a closely related trope became such a known trope in 1D. Probably, if some BNF had posted a ravishment fantasy with a different pithy title at just the right time, some adjacent trope would be big instead.

As for why I've heard of this trope, it's absolutely due to 1D being a fucking massive fandom such that its popular tropes occur very frequently in a sample of Wattpad writing of the right eras. It definitely owes its lulzy memeticness to fandom size: lots of people care enough about 1D and 1D fic to know what the trends are and make jokes about them.

Here's Huffpo being dicks about 1D slavefic back in 2013. They don't mention the exact phrasing though. Here's a pretty standard specimen from 2013-14.

I presume this was also a big thing on Quizilla (RIP) and I see extant examples on Quotev. Sadly, these and Wattpad are fucking hard to study, and a lot of the meta-writing types stick to AO3, so I don't see as many good analyses of this part of fandom.

Any 1D fans want to weigh in?

[asterekmess]

Been seeing you getting hate mail and while I absolutely can't understand why anyone would go to all the trouble to make some one else feel bad... I also kinda really love the discourse on Scott? Like YOUR RANTS oh man. On point. Always. Tbh I tried giving Scott a chance... He is the main char after all... But I was like??? Wtf? That dude does nothing but refute others and does whatever he wants. And this was when I didn't particularly like Stiles either (first time watching Teen Wolf). But then I got to know more of him and like Tony he went asshole to lovable asshole—seriously, Stiles might not be the ‘nicest’ but he tries and his heart is in good place—while Scott is just... self-righteous. Someone pointed out that he sees people as possessions and that irks me too that I can actually see it being true. The dude has literally nothing going on except for being the one that gets bitten. And the Romeo-and-Juliet-esque romance he has.

Okay, okay, where was I going with this?? Right. LOVE YOUR RANTS. People need to understand that Scott not being liked isn't because of his race or anything trivial like it—he just happens to be—but because of his actions. Or inactions, as it were. *remembers the pool scene and Scott saying he's busy and resists the urge to chuck a shoe at him*

Basically, love you, love your work, and love your words! ❤️

I've talked with some friends about it, and our number one issue sort of...boiled down to the hypocrisy of the show? I....sort of rant a lot here, and I would add a Read More, but I can't find the option anymore?? I fucking hate Tumblr. EDIT: I found a post that told me how to do it!

So, since he's the character I focus on the most, let's talk about Stiles' morality. Because, you're right. Stiles is an asshole. He does some fucking awful shit in the first season, and even if he had a Reason to do it, it was still bad. And I still don't like it. But I understand it.

Stiles' lack of shits about what is 'lawful' is literally established in the first ten seconds of the show. He's a sheriff's son who sneaks onto people's roofs in the middle of the night bc they aren't answering his calls, who listens in on his dad's work conversations and is willing to fuck up a crime scene because he's so excited about getting to see a dead body. He doesn't care about laws. He doesn't even care about most basic manners (invasion of privacy much, with having Scott sniff Lydia to see if she liked him?). He's a dickhead, even to the people he cares about sometimes. But personality and morality aren't the same. Stiles' entire actual morality system is based around whatever he needs to do to keep the people he loves safe and happy. Lying to his dad so he doesn't get murdered by hunters? Totally fine. Telling Scott that it was "Jackson's own fault" that Scott attacked him with superstrength and dislocated his shoulder, so Scott doesn't feel like an asshole? That's just best friend duties! He will lie, steal, cheat, and he will kill to keep his loved ones safe (let's not forget this boy threw molotovs at Peter, knowing damn well what they would do to him). We can headcanon all we want about all the different people who are in this group of loved ones, but the list is canonically very short: Scott, his dad, and Lydia. Later on, like, past s3B? It includes Derek. Canonically. Stiles puts his life and the lives of others he cares about on the line while he lies to the matriarch of the Calavera hunter clan, to save Derek Hale. Derek is just canonically a part of that group now, and he fucking knows it bc Stiles is his anchor (that's canon too bb). End of Story, Sterek or no Sterek. It's why we get that insane number of lookbacks when Derek is dying before his evolution. Because Stiles is being forced to choose between two people who are BOTH in his ride-or-die group. He Cannot Pick between Scott and Derek, until Derek begs him to leave.

SO, yes, Stiles does fuckface things, and I don't always agree with what he does, but it is ACCURATE TO HIS CHARACTER. He is morally grey. He NEVER CLAIMS to be pure or good or just or righteous. Stiles knows who he is, and he stays true to himself. And I love him for that.

The same goes for a bunch of other characters! For Peter, who is strikingly similar to Stiles, in that family goes above literally everything. Screw the idea that he was following Derek around waiting for the chance to steal back the Alpha spark. That man put his life on the line (his second life, no less) to get the shit beaten out of him until Derek let him help save Derek's life Again and Again. Family Comes First.

Scott's morality is...confusing as fuck. I thought at first he was similar to Stiles, in that family came first, but...while he's protective of his mother, he also does a lot of stuff that puts her at risk without seeming to care/worry (like leaving Peter alone with her once Stiles hits their car, so he can chase Jackson) (or asking her to come to the high school when he's convinced there's a bomber in it)? Seriously, he's more protective over Allison, than his mother. It's very black and white the rest of the time. Very "this bad" "this good." And if you do "bad" then you are bad forever, while if you do "good" you are only good until you do "bad." The Betas were "good" until they asked for the bite, and then they were "Bad." Derek was "bad" when Scott met him and scared him, so after that, no matter how much "good" he did, he remained "bad." But only when it suits him. Allison is good even when she does bad, because he wants her to be good. Chris is good even though he's done mountains of bad, because of the minuscule amount of good that Scott has seen him do, because Scott wants him to be good. Even DEUCALION is good, despite the crazy CRAZY amount of bad he's done and despite having seen him do NO GOOD, just because Scott wants him to be good. Lying to those closest to you is bad, unless Scott is doing it, and then it's good, because he knows HE is good. Killing people is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Letting villains go is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Biting people is bad, unless Scott is doing it. Protecting family is good even if it requires killing or lying, unless it's not Scott doing it. Revenge for past slights is good, unless it's not SCOTT doing it. And you try to understand it! You try to say, okay, then he's morally grey, got it. He plays with the rules to suit his own morality, whatever. Except that Scott, the other characters, and THE SHOW ITSELF, are all telling you otherwise! They all say that Scott is morally pure. That he is good and righteous and lawful. That he always does the "right" thing, and that when he does "bad" things, it's justified and he had to. THE HEAVENS THEMSELVES say Scott is somehow better or more righteous than the other characters by MAKING HIM AN ALPHA OUT OF NOWHERE. (I'm talking abt canon here, not going into deaton conspiracy theories) It's like....Like in the hate mail response I did, where I pointed out that Every Single Thing people get angry at Derek for doing, Scott did too. Lying, killing (or at least attempting it), attacking innocents, losing his temper, keeping secrets, refusing to work with someone who could help, etc etc etc. Everything Derek has done that is morally "wrong," Scott has also done. And that's okay! Doing a bad thing doesn't make you a bad person, and even if it did, Scott is ALLOWED to be bad! GO FOR IT.

Except that he is sinless. It isn't that he learns from the bad things he does, it's that they aren't treated like bad things in the first place. Because Scott did it, and Scott always does the right thing.

Derek's behavior is reprehensible at times, but the show ADMITS that and frames it as bad. Frames it as him doing a bad thing when he scares Isaac or throws Peter or tells Erica who to date. And that's fine, because Derek is established as not being morally pure.

But SCOTT IS. And because they were so desperate to make him continue being "Pure" they didn't frame the things he did as wrong, or if they did, they absolved him of it immediately, using the exact same reasoning that works for Derek's situations, but this time Actually Accepting it.

He scares Stiles, well it's because he's scared. He throws Isaac, it's because he's upset. He attacks Jackson well it's because Jackson was being a dick. He orders Allison to date Matt, well he had a goal to accomplish. Every reason is treated like a fucking doctor's note that erases the bad things he does.

Being scared, or angry, or retaliating to someone being an asshole, or trying to protect himself, was NEVER a good enough reason for Derek to do ANYTHING "Bad." It was never an acceptable excuse.

IF IT WERE: If the show were making a statement about how fallable people are, how they do bad things, but they do them for a REASON. How people will do wild and terrible things out of fear, and how that doesn't make it less bad, but it makes it understandable, so don't demonize them out of nowhere. If that were the case, I would HAVE BEEN FINE WITH IT.

Scott is held to COMPLETELY different standards than everyone else in the show! And I DON'T mean that people held him to higher ones. They dropped that bar so fucking low. Anything was allowed, and any excuse was good enough.

He made out with a girl who was dating someone else, who his best friend was in love with? It's just the full moon, he's angsty about losing Allison. He ducttapes Liam to a bathtub and starts throwing random phrases at him that he hated Derek for saying to him? He's freaked out! He doesn't know what to do with a bitten wolf! It was an accident! He works with a mass murderer behind people's backs without telling them the whole story? Am I talking about Gerard or Deucalion? Who fucking knows. Either way, it's okay, because he was protecting his family. He plots to murder a cancer patient slowly and painfully by replacing meds that likely included painkillers with mountain ash, and the uses someone else's body to deliver the killing blow, and it's okay because he was just being smart! He was just working ten steps ahead! He was saving his mom and the whole town! Who cares if it DIDN"T WORK?

He walks into his ex-girlfriend's hotel room and scares the SHIT out of her while she's naked and alone in the shower? It was the wolfsbane. It doesn't matter that no one else's impulses included HARASSING someone. He lies to his girlfriend's face about her own life because he doesn't think it's important enough for her to know (who am I talking about, come on, take a guess, which one is it? Allison or Kira? Trick question: it's both). He was just being kind! He didn't want to worry her! He didn't want to make her feel bad! She didn't need to know!

I'm so far off track it's not even funny. My point was that Everything the other characters in the show are demonized for or framed as evil or bad or wrong for doing, Scott is shown to do and it's treated like at minimum a comedy, if not a Perfect Brilliant Strategic Move.

God, fucking hell. I mean, the PARALLELS you see in this show, between Scott and others. The scene of Alexander Argent going to the hotel after being bit? That bit where he pulls his shirt up in the mirror? It's a near PERFECT replica of Scott looking at his bite at Deaton's. They paralleled SCOTT MCCALL with AN ARGENT. Deaton has this whole line in S2 where he's bitching at Derek about "the person you should trust the most doesn't trust you at all" And then seasons later, we have Scott look his best friend in the eye and refuse to trust him, only to get upset later because Stiles doesn't want to work with him anymore and he "lost them." Scott goes running into Derek's house in S1 to accuse him of killing the bus driver, and when he can't get a real response, he EGGS HIM ON by accusing him of Murdering his SISTER, just to get Derek to react. Which is the EXACT same thing Kate did when she showed up and wanted Derek to lose his temper. Scott is CONSTANTLY paralleled with villains and assholes, and constantly does the things that others are persecuted for. But instead of feeling regret or learning something from it, instead of growing AT ALL. Those actions are treated as good. We are told they are righteous. And clever. That they are what heroes do. AND YES: There are parallels between Derek and Stiles' behaviors and villains/morally grey characters! Of course there are!

BUT THEY AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THE TRUE ALPHA MAIN CHARACTER. SCOTT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUY. HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO MIMIC/EMULATE THE VILLAINS, AND HE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE REWARDED WHEN HE DOES IT ANYWAY.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; I understand the urge to think that the Teen Wolf writers did all of this on purpose. That they built Scott up as an unreliable narrator, so that we're forced to come to terms with a protagonist who isn't good, and we watch them fall into a villainous role while thinking all the while they are a hero. That all these parallels are intentional and the writers just couldn't Tell us what was going on bc they didn't have enough power.

And sometimes I play into it. I will lie to myself about Scott being the 'narrator' of the entire show, and that we're seeing it all through his eyes so of course things are biased and conflicting, just so I can actually Enjoy watching it.

But I think it's absolute bullshit that this was done on purpose. It wasn't. The parallels appeared because they Wanted Scott to do the badass things that they had all the villains doing, throwing people and being sneaky and clever, and stopping the bad guy, and they didn't want to deal with the fact that they were having him do bad things. So they just pretended he wasn't and refused to acknowledge that they'd already punished other people for doing the same exact shit, but somehow Scott was getting rewarded. They wanted Scott to be the hero, so they made him the hero, and screw everybody else.

[cerastes]

What do you make of Specter's operator record? Personally I liked it, but that's with the knowledge we're getting more Specter backstory soon.

Ok, so! Just as you pointed out, I went into it with the knowledge that:

We're getting Under TIDES soon.

Specter gets a second Operator Record later, some time after Under TIDES.

And with that in mind, I'm fine with it, but if I was a CN player and all we got was Specter's first Operator Record without any knowledge of the future, I would be pretty pissed, lmao. In fact, CN players were pretty pissed, the reception to her Operator Record was pretty bad. Specter is a popular character both in terms of gameplay and character (the latter more so in China, she gets a steady influx of cosplayers, fanart and fanfic in Weibo, Lofter, and such). It's believed that Hypergryph announced her second Operator Record because of this backlash.

Now, with the context and preamble on the table, I want to say: Great idea, not so great execution. Overall, I enjoyed it, but again, that's only with knowledge of the future. Despite that, I sincerely praise Hypergryph for actually having the balls to try a narrative approach like this one on a mobile game. The thing is, just because an idea is interesting doesn't mean it's good, and I think a lot of aspiring writers and designers need to hammer that in their head, especially armchair game designers that like to theorize oh so much about how cool it would be to have a game that did this or that. I don't care if it's cool or not, is it enjoyable to experience?

And that's just the thing with Specter's Operator Record: It felt lackluster in many regards. The approach was definitely interesting, bold, I'd even say, but that doesn't really matter too much if the result isn't a success, now, does it? Let's immediately address the Originium Slug in the room: Specter doesn't even appear in it. Now, is that an interesting approach to an Operator Record? Sure! Is it good? I don't really think so, especially with a character that fans really have been clamoring to see more of in actual cutscenes, given the wealth of clues they've put regarding Specter in other places:

Blue Poison' Files -> We learn that Blue Poison knew Specter personally before her descent to madness, addressing her with her real name.

Skadi's Dialogue -> Skadi implies that Specter was on a very important mission, and more or less confirms she knew her before she went crazy.

Several pieces of official art -> Specter is associated with the phrase "All seas are singing your name".

Ceobe's Fungimist -> It's implied the cursed painting depicting the end times is the same confusing painting Specter painted in her Token.

Rosmontis' Files -> It's confirmed that Specter's spinal cord is filed to the brim with originium fluid, and the Medical Team theorizes that, just like Rosmontis, her infection was artificially induced. It also confirms that they have no idea how Specter is able to fight such an insanely high level of infection.

So, see, this has been a character that fans have really been clamoring to see again. The only cutscene Specter's ever been is the secret cutscene of Grani and the Knight's Treasure AKA the very first event in the game. Understandably, after two years of the game existing, people were a bit miffed that once again we just get breadcrumbs and a non-participation 'appearance', to say the least, in what's supposed to be her day in the limelight.

Now, personally, I kind of get how they are handling her, and the Operator Records are a very faithful reflection of this: Specter is meant to be this mysterious force that we don't have clearance to know about, as Kal'tsit herself is the only one authorized to treat her or even enter her containment quarters. And, in this regard, I think the Records succeed:

It all starts innocently with Suzuran drawing Specter in a Secret Santa and then having to start deep diving to find out who the hell even IS Specter, because absolutely no one knows of her. Eventually, Suzuran lucks out by asking Meteorite, who did participate in a mission with Specter once, to which Suzuran immediately reacts: "Hey hold on, don't they send you on pretty dangerous missions all the time?", and Meteorite's answer is, "Yeah, and she's right at home there."

Now, this is really interesting because we, as Doctor, have some level of clearance: We know things about Specter and can even converse with her to a certain degree, because Doctor is a high authority in Rhodes Island, but the average Operator, like Suzuran, Aosta and Chiave, doesn't even know of her existence. She's one of Rhodes Island's well kept secrets, even within Rhodes Island. Even Meteorite, a veteran Sarkaz mercenary and a bombardment expert, only knows about Specter in a need-to-know basis (because they deployed once together). More telling is the fact that Meteorite doesn't think she'd get along with Specter, simply based on the fact that, just on that one operation, the level of violence and carnage brought upon by Specter unnerved even her, a Kazdel Sarkaz veteran. Well, to be precise, it's not the sheer level of destruction that Specter is capable of that unnerved Meteorite, it's the fact that she does it all seemingly without a care in the world, expressionless, soundless, simply following orders to the letter without showing or taking in a single emotion. To paraphrase Meteorite, "someone that can unleash such destruction and violence upon others so easily, and that can then just not mind it in the slightest, has something wrong and concerning going on with them, no doubt".

Next up, we also learn that Folinic has very restricted, also on a need-to-know basis access to Specter. Keep in mind that Folinic is extremely competent and not at all a stranger to danger: She handles Phantom. So this is a huge hint: There's perhaps more to the secrecy regarding Specter than just her being a dangerous, unstable element. Folinic could reasonably handle Specter professionally, but it's not about whether she can or not, it's about information, and this brings us back to Grani and the Knight's Treasure: Kal'tsit makes it clear to Skadi that Specter is, as a whole, inaccessible to everyone but her, that only she has clearance to access Specter's quarters. Keep in mind that Skadi does not operate in the same conditions, despite also being an Abyssal Hunter. In fact, it's well known that Skadi is infamous among other Operators for being unreasonable and obstructive in operations, as well as unapproachable outside of them (unless you are Grani, who managed to successfully befriend Skadi and vouches for her). There's things about Specter that are so sensitive, so important, that Kal'tsit can't risk them getting out, and even using her as an Operator is something reserved for very dangerous operations. Not even Warfarin, senior staff and Operator that's been with Rhodes Island for a very long time, has full access to Specter, but she clearly knows the importance of keeping her under curtains, given she immediately diffused the Folinic-Suzuran situation by coming up with a compromise on the spot.

There's another interesting contrast between Files and the Operator Record: Meteorite describes Specter as "dead silent". Mind you, we knew from before, thanks to Specter's Files, that the shark is completely silent in battle, but we also do know that she incoherently rambles quite a lot. Folinic sheds some light onto this, explaining that Specter intentionally stays silent most of the time so as to not say anything that could be misunderstood when around others. When she's in a more private setting, however, she does let loose with the insane talk. This is confirmation of something that had been hinted at before: Even though she's insane, there's a fervent part of her clinging onto sanity for dear life with bloodied, splintered fingers, and it manifests itself in how she'll never harm an ally, and how Specter is, to a certain degree, aware of how far gone she is, and thus keeps her mouth shut around others that aren't Doctor or Kal'tsit, so as to not spook them out or accidentally threaten them with her insane rambling.

Then, at the very end, after Suzuran managed to get her present to her, Specter does in fact deliver a thank you present back to Suzuran: A music box, consistent with Specter's love for the arts. Of course, the gift might have been chosen by a proxy of hers (Skadi or Blue Poison, both known to also enjoy music), but the message is all the same: Specter clearly appreciated the gift, and was mentioned to see an improvement in her condition after receiving the doll Suzuran gave her.

So, in paper? All of this? I love it. Of course I do, she's my favorite character, and it was such a bold way to present her Record, too, I respect them trying out new things, it managed to capture the essence of "the mysterious, terrifying fighting machine Operator they don't want us to know about that's actually a pretty sweet and decent person, just going through some really hard stuff" that they've been going for with Specter, it's just, I can also understand (and agree with) fans because... It's been two years, bwahaha, let us see her again, you know? It's her Operator Record, we've gotten some VERY good insights into the lives and days of other Operators through those, like with Angelina's or Kroos'! Of course we also wanted something like that, bwahaha.

What I would've loved, and what I think would've made it all better with fans, is if the final scene had Specter actually show up in Suzuran's room like the cryptid she is, with Suzuran noting the security door had just sort of been casually pried open, Specter's perpetual smile on her face as she's holding her thank you gift before Warfarin and Folinic just sort of storm into the room like "DUDE, WE SAID YOU CAN'T--", she thanks Suzuran wordlessly, gently hands her the music box, and then she calmly turns back and walks back to her confinement quarters.

But, yeah, I've gone on for long enough. I appreciate it overall, knowing what's coming, and I appreciate the idea, I just think they could've handled it better, but the whole essence and message of it, I think lands pretty nicely.