#like even though the characters and universe aren’t real it feels like I’m abandoning them

[tyrianlynch]

I didn’t post anything about Adam Parrish’s bday today and now I’m mourning my own youth :(

[quaranmine]

leave a light on for me

If you think all your friends hate you, it's probably time to go to bed. If you're stuck in your fifth death game, unable to fall asleep, and in pain from injuries that can't heal, then it's safe to say you probably have other issues too. Martyn has moved into Jimmy's shack in Secret Life. They're sleeping in the same room together again, just like all those years ago in the Property Police station on Evo. Unfortunately, a lot has happened between them since.

Word count: 3,167

hiiii so i saw property police were teaming in secret life, blacked out for like two days, and this appeared. CW: there is quite a lot of self-hate, self image issues, and abandonment issues packed into 3k words here. as a result i feel the unnecessary need to once again clarify this is about characters, not real guys,,,

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The thought comes to him late at night, as thoughts of these types often do. 

Jimmy’s laying curled in his bed, arms wrapped protectively around himself. It’s a very careful position. He hasn’t slept yet; he hasn’t been able to. Everything just hurts so, so, so much. 

It’s not fun living on a server without regen. Sure, the hanging out with friends is fun, and the early days are always fun before everybody hates each other, and the secrets are silly and goofy but it—it always turns. It always turns. And it isn’t fun right now.

His ankle is on fire from where he twisted it earlier by falling. He’s not sure which landing did it; he’s too used to jumping off random heights without worrying about it. He should probably prop it up to help with the swelling, but the mere thought of it makes everything hurt even more. Besides, his leg’s also burned from where Scott set him on fire earlier. 

No, curled up is the best way to deal with this. If he stays as still as possible, everything hurts less. Staying still has other benefits too, like making sure the arrow wound on his shoulder blade doesn’t reopen and drip white hot blood and pain. 

His thoughts aren’t actually about the pain, though. Well, most of his thoughts. It’s pretty hard to ignore every time his breathing shifts a cracked rib. His green life is hanging by a thread, and every so often it feels like a blanket settles over the critical thinking center of his brain, making it impossible to focus on anything but the klaxon horn going you’re hurt, you’re hurt, you’re hurt. 

But the rest of his thoughts are about the usual late night things—

Life. Death. The Universe. Whether people actually hate him or not. That embarrassing thing he did yesterday, and the day before that. His entire past stretched out on a table and examined with a magnifying glass. Weighed and balanced, mistakes and karma and loves and losses. The breathing of the person across the room. 

“Martyn?” he calls softly. “Are you asleep?”

There’s a rustle of blankets, and then a groan. “I was until you said that.”

He’s lying. Jimmy knows the way he breathes when he’s asleep. They used to sleep in the same room years ago, too. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I was just—thinking.”

“You had a thought?” 

Jimmy giggles, and it stabs him. “Stop it,” he says when he catches his breath. “I mean it!”

“Should we break out the record books? Mark the day Timmy had an independent thought?”

“I’m going to—I am going to kick you out of my shack,” Jimmy says. “That’s it, your big man privileges are revoked.”

“You’d kick me out into the dark and scary night all alone?”

“I would have no second thoughts! I would have no second thoughts.”

He’s actually having a lot of second thoughts, which is the problem. He’s having second thoughts about Martyn and—since when was that the case? Needing to question his best friend? Well, he knows since when, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. In any case, he’s not going to kick Martyn out into the dark. He’s not going to kick him out at all. If Martyn wants out, all he’ll have to do is walk out. Jimmy just isn’t sure he won’t.

“Well, then you can’t leave me hanging,” Martyn says. “What was your thought?”

“It’s silly,” Jimmy says. “I was just…do you ever still think about Evo, Martyn?”

This is possibly the most loaded a question could ever be between them. Martyn sits up in bed sharply, just a shadowy blur in Jimmy’s periphery. “Why would you bring that up?” he says sharply. The venom is clear: this is not safe territory for Jimmy to traverse. 

The moonlight is cold and diffuse, leaving the room with a gloomy air. The mood in the room has shifted. After a moment he responds, carefully redirecting the conversation around the Watchers. “It just feels like it doesn’t it? Us sleeping in the same room together? The Property Police.”

Martyn is silent. Then, finally: “I guess it does.” 

He sounds calmer now. Jimmy’s mistake was asking a question too open-ended, because for once he’s not thinking about everything that went wrong in Evo. He’s thinking about everything that went right, and that’s what hurts the most right now. Not his broken ribs or wounds, but the way everything used to be okay and isn’t anymore. 

Jimmy’s blunt. “Are you going to stay this time?”

“What—what do you mean?” Martyn sputters. “Of course. We’re shacked up together. That’s sacred, you know.”

Jimmy picks at the thread of the blanket. “‘Cause, well, the last time you said it’d just be me and you, you were lying to my face.”

They were in a hilly forest. Jimmy was green for the longest he’d been the entire game, and it felt like buzzing life in his veins instead of dread. Grian was red and the Southlands felt like it was splintering. And Jimmy was running, Martyn hot on his heels. 

“Dude, you cannot still be hung up on that,” Martyn says. “That was—hold on, let me count, three whole games ago? Come on, you’re the one who invited me to the shack.”

Why don’t we leave together? We’ll figure something out and we’ll move away together. Everybody knows the Southerners are weak. We can set up the Boogey Blockers, remember? You know, the idea for Property Police two-point-oh from session one. You’ve got nowhere to go and neither do I, so we’ll figure it out together. Just give me the heart back. 

“I believed you when you told me that.”

Martyn scoffs. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re the most gullible person on the server. And don’t give me some pity party either, you were literally stealing from me. I’m not going to say sorry for getting my life back.”

Jimmy has a list of justifications for why he stole that heart. He was anxious, for one. He started the game on yellow while other people were given six whole lives. Six! Imagine. Or imagine being one of the few who’d started on yellow and been voluntarily given a life by an ally. Nobody wanted to do that for him, so what if he stole it instead? What about it? Stealing a life without murdering for it is far from the worst crime someone could commit on that server. 

He had felt like the group was splintering, for another. Grian was gone. Both he and Mumbo were yellow—one accident away from red. It wasn’t the same as 3rd Life, where he had a husband to stick next to him even when he turned red. Nobody was going to do that for Jimmy this time, which meant he had to look out for himself. He just…didn’t want to have to, that’s all. 

But those justifications feel stupid now in the future. He died first anyway, and again, and again. He doesn’t raise these points to Martyn now. 

He also doesn’t actually want Martyn to apologize for what he said in Last Life. He certainly isn’t going to apologize for stealing the life. He doesn’t care about what happened in the past—no really, he swears he doesn’t—he just wants to know if Martyn means it this time.

Part of him wonders, though, if Martyn realized just how easily he could manipulate Jimmy back then. If Martyn had known how much Jimmy cared about him and used that to his advantage. If he realizes now just how easily he could do it again, and again, and again. 

I didn’t mean a word of what I said, Martyn had spat as soon as Jimmy transferred the life again. You’re an idiot.

Jimmy’s quite aware he’s an idiot, really. He’s reminded of it every day. The thing is, he doesn’t think. He never thinks. His life would be a whole lot better if he didn’t wait to think until it was late at night and he felt alone and all his mistakes were already made. 

“I just thought you meant it back then,” he says finally. “That’s all. You lied to me again today too.”

“Sorry. That one was a task requirement,” Martyn says. “I needed someone who’d believe any story I made up. But I’m still here, aren’t I? Big men don’t lie to each other. Starting now."

Jimmy remembers another time Martyn tried to leave, back when it was just the two of them. He’d woken up in the Property Police station to the sound of Martyn rummaging through their chests for supplies to take with him. He told Jimmy he was leaving because he was sick of the Watchers. He’d planned on leaving before Jimmy even woke up, so it was only by luck Jimmy caught him in time. He called Martyn a coward and chased him all the way to the end portal. 

Martyn asked if he was coming with him. Jimmy said no. He was only following to stop him or say goodbye.

In hindsight, this was another one of Jimmy’s idiot moments. He was so naive. He didn’t realize how bad the Watchers would become yet, or what the cost of staying was. They should have gone together. He shouldn’t have called Martyn a coward for seeing a future he didn’t. But even if Martyn was ahead of the curve, he’d still been willing to leave him behind. 

In the end, nobody could leave. The Watchers had sealed the portal. 

But it’s the thought that sticks with Jimmy, even when he pretends it doesn’t. 

Martyn trying to leave Jimmy on Evo. Martyn tricking Jimmy on Last Life. Martyn lying to him just this morning. It’s the thought of it that still sticks with him. 

“Can I trust you?” he asks. 

“Yeah, of course,” Martyn says. “I’m loyal.”

“You’re loyal to Ren.”

Jimmy takes a bit of pleasure in the way Martyn sucks in a breath. It’s a low blow, but it works. He doesn’t know what the two of them have going on, but he knows Martyn would betray him twice over for Ren. He’s since learned about Martyn’s Shadow Alliance plans in Last Life—how Martyn was lying when he said the two of them could run away together, but not lying about being willing to betray the Southlands. Lizzie had told him about it months later on Empires. 

Normally, Jimmy wouldn’t have held the betrayal against him. Not this long into the future, at least. It’s a death game; these things happen. But normally Martyn isn’t sleeping in the same room as him. 

“Ren isn’t here right now,” Martyn responds, every word clipped and intentional.  

Martyn feels dangerous to team with. Martyn might leave. Martyn doesn’t have any qualms about betraying people in these games. But Jimmy would follow Martyn into any fight if they were on the same side. He stood next to Martyn and faced things that the two of them still won’t talk about. He knows the sound of his breathing when he sleeps.

He and Martyn fall into rhythm together.

“You wouldn’t be here if he was,” Jimmy mutters. 

“What—What are you on about tonight?” Martyn says. “Huh? What’s gotten into you tonight?” He doesn’t sound as angry as Jimmy expected him to. Instead, he almost sounds…worried. 

“I’m fine,” Jimmy says listlessly. “I told you, I was just thinking.”

“Nuh-uh, you never think! Look at me. What’s up?”

“No.”

“Be like that then. I’ll come to you,” he says, and Jimmy hears the sound of rustling blankets followed by footsteps across the wooden floor. Seconds later the bed dips slightly, and it jostles his foot that he has been keeping very still. This sets off fire in his nerves, and Jimmy gasps. 

“Ow,” he whines. 

“I didn’t even touch you,” Martyn says. His voice is sharp in that acerbic tone he’s so good at, where every sentence is met with either snark or wit.  

“You moved the bed.”

“Oh,” Martyn says and then, “Oh. You’re all battered right now. Broken and bruised, not thinking straight. You know, I got down to five and a half last session. That hurt like a—it hurt a lot. It gets better.”

“Yeah, it hurt less after you died from it,” Jimmy says. “No thanks. I’ll stay on green.”

Martyn’s frowning. “You’re in an awfully bad mood tonight,” he says. “You’re like actually upset right now, aren’t you?”

“I failed my task,” Jimmy says. 

“So?” Martyn asks. “You weren’t the only one who failed today. Can hardly get worse than being the only yellow, if you know what I mean.” He laughs softly. 

“I just needed to tell someone to tell me to get out, but nobody would.” Jimmy sighs. “But they—nobody wanted me there. Nobody. The only reason they didn’t say anything is that they wanted to help me with my task.”

“I don’t know if I see the problem there, Tim,” Martyn says. “Aside from the whole ‘they were too nice to you for you to succeed.’ You said that earlier, that nobody was rude enough to say the line.”

Jimmy’s been turning that around in his head for a while too. What’s wrong? Why does he feel so bad that people were nice to him? Why is he scared that Martyn agreed to be allies? Something about the situation was making him feel awful tonight but he has to work to pin it down. The feeling gets triggered first. He has to track down the logic of it afterward. 

He just feels—he feels like they all hate him. All of them. And he hates himself too, so he gets it. There’s something wrong with him and he’s never seemed to be able to figure it out and fix it. He can’t look into the mirror of his soul and see the problem. He can’t adjust his behavior to get rid of it. No matter what he does, it’s there. 

The problem is just him. He’s deficient. He can’t fix something that’s innate. 

The thing is, it’s not really about how people wanted to help him succeed today, it’s the underlying reasons for it. It’s why they helped him. 

“It was just…obligation,” he says after a minute. “It was just an obligation. They were being polite. Nobody said anything because they wanted to help with the task, not ‘cause they actually were willing to let me stay with them. Not because they wanted me there. They just wanted to get rid of me faster.”

“I mean,” Martyn says, dragging out the word. He’s puzzled. “Weren’t you trying to be intentionally annoying about it, though? To get yourself kicked out so they’d say the thing? I saw whatever you were doing in Scott’s house. You were being so weird about it.”

Jimmy presses the palms of his hands into his eyes. His eyes are watering now, little prickles of tears that threaten to spill over if he blinks too much. He doesn’t want Martyn to see. It’s also the most he’s moved in a while, and the motion makes his vision go fuzzy on the edges anyway. 

“Maybe I want someone to stay,” Jimmy says, voice cracking. “Maybe I want someone to want me to stay. Even when I’m being especially annoying. Even when I’m being me.”

For a moment, the room is so quiet he could hear a pin drop. Then Martyn just says, “What?”

“I don’t—I don’t want people to leave me, or lie to me, or pretend to want me in the room when they’re actually just happy the moment I go home.”

“Tim,” Martyn says. “Do you actually think all that? That people hate it when you’re yourself?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “I dunno. Maybe. Maybe not. It’s bad tonight.”

“Are you sure it’s like that?” Martyn says. “I mean, like—do you think that’s an accurate idea of what’s going on, or just your brain tellin’ ya that? I had fun with you today. Wouldn’t have followed you home afterwards if I didn’t.”

He knows he’s having irrational thoughts about this. He knows he’s had irrational thoughts before, so this time they might be irrational too. He can recognize this part of the cycle, at least. But the problem is, are they irrational this time? Are they? Is he confident they are? How can he be confident they are? Is Martyn just telling him what he wants to hear so he’ll stop acting stupid? 

Will Martyn be here in the morning? 

He grimaces. “I think I need to sleep,” he whispers. “This no-regen nonsense hurts and it’s making everything worse.”

Martyn doesn’t know what to say, so he dodges it.  “Do you…d’you want me to call someone for you? Who could help better? Maybe Scott, or Tango, or Grian….or maybe not Grian, but anyone else really…”

Jimmy turns his head to look at Martyn, revealing his face again. Martyn’s eyes are wide and unsettled. He is sitting on the bed, but he’s also sort of hovering, being very careful not to touch Jimmy. They’d been joking earlier, why aren’t they now? Jimmy’s not sure. They operate well when there’s a bit to play into, but there isn’t one now. He thinks maybe their years of playing bits have left them without the words to truly communicate anything else. 

While looking at Martyn, it strikes Jimmy: He doesn’t even realize. He thinks there’s someone else more important to Jimmy who could be in the room right now instead of him. It’s almost laughable. Martyn’s right, there’s many people in Jimmy’s life who are important to him. Who can, and have, helped him. But is it Jimmy’s fault that Martyn doesn’t realize he’s still one of them? 

While looking at Martyn, it strikes Jimmy: He has to give this alliance a try anyway. He can’t write it off before it begins. It might be doomed to fail. Certainly will be, with Martyn being the first yellow and Jimmy’s illustrious record of survival. It might hurt him. It might fix him. 

What’s actually real, though, is that Martyn is here right now. It feels like the old days. They only get scraps of time together these past few years. A MCC team here, a death game there. They’re rarely on the same servers as each other. They don’t see each other like they used to. They don’t live together anymore. They don’t sleep in the same room anymore. It makes Jimmy’s chest ache.

“I’d rather have you here,” he says finally.  

Martyn is surprised. “Oh!” he says. “D’ya want me to do anything?”

“No,” he whispers. “Just stay while I fall asleep. I’ll be okay again in the morning.”

Jimmy closes his eyes and they feel like they burn underneath his lids. There’s tears drying on his cheeks. His ankle still throbs. 

He feels fingers card through his hair gently, the touch hesitant and light. Uncertain.  “Shh,” Martyn says. “Big men don’t cry.”

Jimmy tries to sleep, and knows that isn’t true. 

[crescentrivers]

Remembered I still like Sanders Sides (seriously though it’s a great webseries) but the Hatchetfeild brainworms are consuming anything else (downside of a special interest) so here’s which lord in black each side would be associated with/which lord in black would mess with them/maybe even which lord in black they’d follow in a crossover au + overly detailed explanations

Under the cut cause this got long

Roman- funny how both my previous and my current special interest have a Roman in them. Roman Sanders is a much better person though fuck you Roman Murray /hj. Anyway I think this Roman would be associated with Pokotho. More in a “Roman would get tricked into following him way” than in a “Pokey would want to mess with him” way. In terms of punching bags Pokers seems to go for the people who hate his deal the most and Roman is a theatre kid so. Already not one of the people who hate his deal the most. Okay but actual reason Pokotho has a big thing with conformity, mind control, giving up your real indentity to one singular voice and Roman is known to conform. Trying to be the perfect “good” creativity and turning against Janus mostly because his friends didn’t trust him. Also again, theater kid. So yeah in this hypothetical crossover au there’s probably a timeline where Roman becomes a Pokotho prophet. I can also see him swinging Wiggly though, wanting to be adored kinda like Linda in Black Friday. But I think he’s closer to Pokey in most ways.

Logan- Bliklotep or Pokotho. Okay so most obvious thing for Blinky is eyes, Blinky has a lot of them and Logan either is the orange side or is dealing with the orange side, the mysterious unrevealed character that made his eyes go orange that one time. But on a deeper level in Watcher World Blinky uses Alice and Bills’ conflict against them, trying to make them angrier so he can watch them fight. I can see a similar situation with Logan playing out in this au where the gang goes to Watcher World and Logan’s anger over being ignored is used against him. And if Orange and Logan end up not being the same person (which I stand by that theory) Orange using Logan’s anger against him to cause conflict within the light sides is actually just something I can see happening in the show.

For Pokotho it’s well, if you asked me to make a TGWDLM SaSi crossover Logan would be Paul. He’s the side with the least interest in theatre (I’m not sure if it’s really a dislike though) and while he lacks the panic Paul has for most of TGWDLM and isn’t as much of a normal guy tm I think he fits very well. Let It Out is SUCH a Logan song you don’t even get it like imagine that song but with him and Orange hshshgshshshshshsh I NEED TO MAKE AN ANIMATIC OF IT. Also like back to the ignoring thing can you imagine like “Aren’t you tired of being ignored Logan? Don’t you want to be the star of the show?” I’m going insane. If we’re just putting Logan in the Hatchetfeild universe I think he’s still more Blinky leaning but a SaSi x TGWDLM au with him as Paul would go very hard.

Patton- probably the one in the least sure on so luckily he doesn’t need as long of a paragraph. He’s just so nice I can’t really see him being singled out by any of them but he also isn’t nice in a way where he has Webby vibes so I’m just lost with him. I think either Blinky cause I can see him in a similar situation to Bill in Watcher World or Tinky cause I feel like out of all the sides Patton is the most likely to try to time travel to change or revisit the past and than get boxed because of it.

Virgil- none of them!!! Well at least none of them in particular. Why you ask? Well I think he’d be associated with Webby. Okay listen, if I had a nickel for every time my special interest involved a character associated with spiders that either left or was abandoned by the main antagonist group depending on your theories and became a good guy, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice. Do I need to explain further than that? Obviously Virgil’s situation isn’t nearly as severe as Webby’s and the dark sides are much more redeemable sympathetic villains compared to the lords in bright ass neons black, but my point still stands. Virgil works with Webby which means various horrors have it out for him instead of any specific one!!! Yayyyyyy

Janus- another hard one to place. I’d say he’d work with Wiggly most likely. Basically capitalism/greed (though the greed thing could also have him going more on the Nibbly route with like selfishness desire stuff or even like unrelated he could work for Pokey cause like mind control/manipulation isn’t that much of a stretch from his character, it is a stretch I’m lying to myself) and idk he has the vibes where I feel like he’d work with the lord in black himself and not just one of his brothers. Idk he has Wilbur Cross vibes kind of not really? (it’s the green apples) The thing is Janus still doesn’t hit quite the same level of evil as most antagonistic Hatchetfeild characters do but there’s no way this guy wouldn’t be caught up in something in a crossover au, so maybe he made a deal with them but doesn’t fully worship them. Idek what this post is anymore.

Remus- Hard to place because he’s just such a freak (derogatory) that he kind of just has general cultist vibes (I know there are plenty of freaks in Hatchetfeild completely unconnected to the lords but Remus would be the kind of freak that is connected imo) but if I had to pick I’d say either Wiggly or Nibbly. Wiggly doesn’t have much reason, they just both insane people associated with the color green, royalty, and tentacles. Nibbly does have an explanation kind of. He’s like the god of desire kind of and I think in analysis of how he’s connected to stuff (think Grace in NPMD) that kind of leads to lust associations? Which yeah fits Remus. I can see him working for Nibbly or going insane cause of him (does Nibbly even do that? Does he do things that don’t involve eating people? What even is this post) honestly I don’t really know for him I’m just saying words, would really depend on his role in this hypothetical au

Bonus: c!Thomas- honestly I don’t know for him but dare I say Pokotho. Cause A. Him and Paul don’t really act alike but they both have that panicking normal guy tm energy as protagonists. B. He’s a theatre kid. C. Idk I think it would be screwed up if the guy who the entire show centers around the mind of lost control of his mind and had his entire being warped (infection) 👍

[scarletwitching]

Hello! Do you have any "real world" timeline of Wanda's backstories (particularly her origins). I know she was created in the 60s, and her first origin seems to have her as the biological daughter of two golden age American heroes. However most wiki pages only describe her latest "in-universe" history. Im curious to know how many actual real-world years she spent as a White American, German Jew, Serbian Romani, Mutant, Witch, Avenger, etc. Thanks!

I’m choosing to do this as a chronicling of backstory retcons (plus a couple of important firsts) because it would be too much to do the whole thing, and I’m going to include the various changes to Magneto’s backstory because they’re kind of necessary. The dates listed are release date, not cover date.

March 1964 (X-Men vol. 1 #4) -- It’s Wanda, no last name. She’s a mutant, part of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. She’s from Central Europe. She has an older brother named Pietro, and he promised their parents that he would take care of her.

March 1965 (Avengers vol. 1 #16) -- Wanda’s an Avenger now.

November 1966 (Thor vol. 1 #134) -- We learn that Wanda and Pietro, who are now twins, are connected to Wundagore Mountain and that there was a massive “blinding light” on the night they were born. This was maybe an aborted attempt to retcon them into not being mutants (their powers are referred to as “mutant-type” for some reason), but it goes nowhere.

May 1974 (Giant Size Avengers #1) -- Wanda and Pietro finally have a backstory. They are the children of US-American superheroes Madeline and Robert Frank (aka Miss America and The Whizzer). They were born on Wundagore Mountain, but their mother died and their father abandoned them. They were subsequently raised in the High Evolutionary’s citadel, but they ran away because it was weird being around all those talking animals.

June 1974 - February 1975 (Avengers vol. 1 #127-134; Giant Size Avengers #2 & 4) -- Agatha’s here, and she’s teaching Wanda magic. Wanda is now a mutant AND a witch.

December 1977 - September 1979 (Avengers vol. 1 #166 & 181-187; X-Men vol. 1 #125) -- Origin Story: The Good One. Wanda and Pietro are not the Franks’ kids and were not raised in the High Evolutionary’s citadel. They were raised by Django and Marya Maximoff, a Roma couple from Bulgaria (Transia, the town they’re from, will later become a country of its own), and it is implied that they don’t remember this because they suppressed their own memories. However, Django and Marya are not their birth parents. Their birth mother came to Wundagore Mountain, heavily pregnant, fleeing their father. She gave birth in the citadel, then left because she did not want to be alive anymore.

Meanwhile, Chris Claremont comes up with the idea for Magda, Magneto’s mysterious dead wife, but before the issue introducing her can even come out, John Byrne and some other guys go behind Claremont’s back and make Magda Wanda and Pietro’s mother. Which makes Magneto the husband their mother was running from and thus... None of the living characters know they are related, and it is editorial’s intention that they will never find out, though the connection is acknowledged openly in the letters column.

August 1981 (Uncanny X-Men vol. 1 #150) -- Claremont begins the long process of turning Magneto into a hero, and with that, we learn Magneto’s backstory as a Holocaust survivor. Claremont continues to add to this for the rest of his initial X-Men tenure (through 1991), but crucially, he never has him say that he’s Jewish. You’re supposed to understand that he is, and most of the audience does understand. It is very, very obvious (we even get a trip to Israel), BUT he does not say the exact words, “I am Jewish.”

November 1982 (Vision & the Scarlet Witch vol. 1 #4) -- The characters aren’t supposed to find out they’re related? Forget that. They all know now. I would argue that this issue also makes it obvious that Magneto is Jewish, but whatever, he doesn’t say, “I am Jewish.”

October 1985 (Vision & the Scarlet Witch vol. 2 #5) -- This is the earliest reference I can find to Magda being Romani. It feels like that can’t be the first time that was confirmed, but this post needs to get done some time.

October 1987 (New Mutants vol. 1 #61) -- Another “earliest reference I can find” scenario. I think this is the first time Magneto mentions being from Poland. At any rate, it is a time he mentions being from Poland, and it gets retconned anyway.

July 1993 (X-Men Unlimited vol. 1 #2) -- Due to editorial meddling, Magneto became a villain again in 1991, and according to comic book legend, editor-in-chief Bob Harras thought that Magneto being Jewish and a supervillain was proooooooblemaaaaaaatic. And if he can’t be both at the same time, one’s gotta go. Enter Gabrielle Haller, who is here to give a Ted Talk explaining Magneto’s new backstory. He’s Sinti Romani. That’s the change.

December 1997 (X-Men vol. 2 #72) -- It is revealed that the Erik Lensherr identity was an alias created by document forger Georg Odekirk in order to help Magneto hide from the authorities and find Magda... by pretending to be Sinti. Which, to me, implies that Magda herself was Sinti specifically, not Roma. Either way, Magneto says he’s not Romani, but once again does not say he’s Jewish.

September 2008 - January 2009 (X-Men: Magneto Testament #1-5) -- Magneto is officially, definitely Jewish. For real this time. No more ambiguity. He’s also German now, instead of Polish, and his name is Max Eisenhardt.

December 2014 (Avengers & X-Men: AXIS #7) -- Rick Remender, who is clearly invested in Wanda and Magneto’s relationship, is forced, possibly at gunpoint, to make them not related. This is revealed via a spell going wrong and not affecting Magneto when it’s supposed to affect Wanda’s family, which is the dictionary definition of “plausible deniability.”

January 2015 - June 2015 (Uncanny Avengers vol. 2 #1-5) -- Wanda and Pietro go to the High Evolutionary to figure out what their brand new backstory is. Turns out that, according to the High Evolutionary, they are not mutants and got their powers from being experimented on by him as babies. Their birth parents were their adoptive parents Django and Marya all along, which would make them Roma (not Sinti)... but something is weird about this reveal because Vision finds out there is more to the story and refuses to tell Wanda what it is or that he discovered any information at all.

March 2016 - January 2017 (Scarlet Witch vol. 2 #4-14) -- Nevermind, Django and Marya weren’t Wanda’s biological parents. Django is her uncle. His sister Natalya is her birth mother and a witch, and “the Scarlet Witch” is now a legacy title. Wanda was born in Serbia, but how that intersects with the Chthon thing is not explained. And Wanda’s dad is... the guy who murdered her mother. Who? Doesn’t say.

December 2017 - July 2019 -- A bonus! Marvel gives up on pretending Wanda and Magneto are not related... but mostly outside of comics. The official Marvel website runs articles just... saying they’re related. Official merchandise says they’re related. The mainline comics don’t touch it, but things are very suspicious.

[hatterstan-shameblog]

💫✨💕send this to ten bloggers you think are wonderful. keep the game going 💕✨

Have a nice day/night/dance battle with the peacocks! :D

Alright, since you are a) very cool and fun and b) you took the time to send such a lovely message, I’m going to give you a part of a fic series I started many moons ago and abandoned for other things

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Hatter Has Definitely Kissed Every Executive At Least Once And This Is How It Went:  Ann Edition 

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Rating: PG-13

Tags: Alcohol, shenanigans, everyone’s cutting loose, mild reluctance (but these people don’t turn down dares so y’know)

Summary: As a “team building” exercise, all of the Executives have met for a little get-together; and with alcohol and a rousing game of “truth or dare” involved, what could possibly go wrong?

“Ann,” Chisiya says, “truth or dare?”

Ann sighs.  Her red-lacquered fingernails tap rhythmically against the green of a beer bottle, the glassy sound barely audible above the chatting of the half-drunk executives.

“I already told you, I’m not playing.”

“The fuck you aren’t,” Niragi snaps, grip on his rifle tightening as he downs another shot of vodka, “no skips, that’s the rule.”

“If I had to do it, you have to do it,” Keiichi offers mournfully, taking a sad sip of bourbon from a crystal-cut glass, “it’s only fair.”

Ann turns her attention towards Hatter.  He’s taking a healthy swig from—ew, is that a bottle of peppermint schnapps?  She wrinkles her nose in disgust as he raises his eyebrows in a suggestive arch.

“This is a terrible idea,” she tells him for the fourth time in the last hour, “and you should feel bad for making us do this.”

“Ann.  Sweet, darling,” Hatter takes note of her unimpressed grimace, “angry Ann.  This is all an exercise in trust.  A way for all of us executives to bond.”

“And because he loves the drama,” Aguni adds.

“I really do,” Hatter says wistfully, “So, come on.  One round and then you can go back to summoning demons or whatever you do in your little basement crypt.”

Ann sighs.  Everyone is looking at her with expectant eyes.  She finishes the rest of her beer and puts the empty bottle on the table.

“Fine,” she says, “One round, and then I’m leaving.”

“The ice queen giveth in,” Chisiya says, the corners of his mouth turning up onto a mischievous grin, “So, pick your poison.  Truth...or dare?”

“Dare,” Ann says coolly, and the room erupts.  Even Last Boss, who had been lurking in the corner until now, gasps.  In a rare show of camaraderie, Niragi slaps Chisiya on the back and tells him to ‘give that bitch a good one.’

Imbeciles.  All of them.

“Everyone gather ‘round the table,” Chisiya purrs—yes, purrs—as he looks her with a twinkle in his eye, “because this particular date involves each and every one of you.”

“Even me?” asks Last Boss.

“But of course,” Chisiya says, “we need everyone if we’re going to play...spin the bottle.”

Ann feels the blood drain from her face.  Oh, this little blond twerp is despicable.  He is evil and terrible and—

“No re-spins.  No backing out.  The kiss must last a minimum of five seconds, but it can go longer if you feel so inclined.”

“I won’t,” Ann answers curtly.  There is not a person in this room she could ever want to kiss.  (Except for Mira, but.  Well.  That’s a thought for another day.)

“I don’t know,” Niragi says with an exaggerated flick of his tongue, the silver piercing winking at her in a supposedly seductive manner, “once you get a taste of a real man, you might find yourself hooked.”

“Perhaps Niragi wouldn’t be so bad,” Mira muses with a serene smile, “his oral fixation is off-putting on the best of days, but it might translate well to a more intimate experience.  That is, until he starts talking again.  Then it’ll be terrible.”

Niragi’s face twists into a sharp scowl as he tries to sputter a comeback; drunkenness and embarrassment have apparently robbed him of his mental faculties, so he crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

“Alright, let’s get this over with,” Ann says with a huff.  

She places her empty beer bottle, label-side down, on the long wooden table.  For the first time this evening, everyone is silent.  Honestly, it’s kind of nice—it would be better if she didn’t have to end up kissing one of them, but, beggars can’t be choosers.

“You know,” Ann says, “there is a possibility it could land on me.  Does that mean I don’t have to kiss anyone?”

“That means you get to choose,” Chisiya says, “which...well, that will most certainly add some spice to the night, wouldn’t it?”

“Very evil,” Aguni concludes with a nod, “I like it.”

Hm.  Well, it was worth a shot.  

With one final, annoyed sigh, Ann places her hand on the bottle and gives it a powerful spin.  Maybe it’ll spin right off the table and shatter on the floor.  She wouldn’t have to do anything weird, and then she could just go back to her room and take a long bath.  Alone.  The way the universe intended.

It’s impossible not to watch the bottle spin, light refracting off the glass and casting flickering spots of light around the room.  It’s just a kiss.  She’s kissed people before.  Many people.  At least two.  

Friends kiss each other all the time.  Not her friends, but other people and their friends.  And these people aren’t really ‘friends,’ but they’re...acquaintances.  Colleagues.  Does that make it better or worse?

It’s slowing down now.  With each passing second, her fate is being decided by the neck of the bottle.  Mira, Last Boss, Keiichi—oh, God, please don’t let it be Keiichi, they have a meeting in the morning, that would be so awkward...

But, luckily, the bottle does not land on Keiichi.  It does not land on Niragi, nor does it land on Chisiya.  Last Boss has also been spared, as have Aguni and Mira.  That leaves only one candidate...

“Oh, Ann,” Hatter says, clapping his hands together and looking entirely too pleased with this very strange turn of events, “I always knew there was something between us!”

The thing he’s talking about is tolerance—she tolerates him because it is both sensible and beneficial to be on his good side.  He also, surprisingly enough, defers to her expertise on certain matters, which is more than can be said for her previous employers.  They are friendly, certainly, but most certainly not friends.  

And...lovers?  

Out of the question.

But Fate (and a smug little blonde) have decided that they share a moment of passion. Could she have spun worse?  Yes.  Could she have spun better?  Absolutely.  100%.  Without a doubt.

But Ann is a woman of integrity.  When she commits, she commits.  And so, as she walks to the other side of the table, she keeps her spine straight and her head held high.  She refuses to let these people see her falter.

“In addition to the parameters already given, I’d like to establish some rules of my own,” she says coolly, barely resisting the temptation to roll her eyes when he takes another gulp of alcohol.  Yep, that’s definitely peppermint schnapps he has—she can tell by the stench of it, the way it’s sharpness burns at her eyes.

She’s always hated peppermint schnapps.

“Fine, fine,” Hatter says with a wave of his hand, “as long as you promise not to fall completely in love with me in the process.”

That gets a laugh from everyone—and even Ann considers cracking a smile at the thought of someone like her ever feeling something for someone like him.  

“No tongue.  No teeth.  And,” Ann tell him firmly, “if you want to leave this room with your balls intact, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself.”

The group ooh’s at that.  Ann doesn’t look at them.  She keeps her gaze focused on the man in front of her, watching him intently for any signs of weakness.

All she gets is a smirk.

“I would expect nothing less of you, Ann,” he replies, “however, you’re more than welcome to put your hands anywhere on my person.”

He leans in slightly, almost as if he’s letting her in on a secret.

“I could even give you a few suggestions, if you like.”

What a perfectly hideous thing for him to say.  It doesn’t help that he’s fluttering his eyelashes at her like some kind of lovestruck cartoon character.  

It’s annoying.

He’s annoying.

With a roll of her eyes, Ann grabs Takeru by the silk of his obnoxious robe and crashes her mouth against his-- because she’ll be damned if he’s the one kissing her.  

Five...

The group gasps-- Takeru included, the noise muffled by the seal of their lips as she kisses him fully and firmly.

Four...

And it’s...not as gross as it could be, but it’s still a very odd experience.  His lips are soft enough, and his beard-moustache-whatever-the-fuck is scratchy in a way that is.  Well, it’s interesting.  Not good, but...interesting.

Three...

“This is fucking weird,” Niragi shouts, sounding very disgusted.

Two...

“It’s like watching my parents,” Last Boss adds, “when they were still trying to convince my sister and I they were still in love and weren’t going to get a divorce.”

One...

And done.

“Okay,” Ann says flatly as she pulls away and swallows a grimace at the sight of her favorite shade of lipstick on Takeru’s lips (and is actually a very nice compliment to his skin tone, frustratingly enough) “Can I go now.”��

For good measure, she releases his robe with a disdainful flick of her fingers and subtly brushes her hands off on her shorts.  It’s not enough to get the scent of peppermint schnapps and awkwardness off of her skin, but it can’t hurt.

“A deal’s a deal,” Chisiya concedes, his eternally mischievous smirk stretched across his cheeks, “And I must say, I didn’t expect you to fulfill your end of the bargain so...enthusiastically.”

“That’s because nobody can resist me,” Takeru gloats, bottle of alcohol back in his grip as if it had never truly left, “It’s not her fault I’m so delectable--”

“Detestable,” Ann corrects under her breath.

“--And, even though you’ll try to deny it,” Takeru continues, disregarding her comment, “both of us know that there’s a part of you that liked kissing me.”

“I liked the part when she stopped,” Mira chirps cheerfully, “In fact, I think we all did!”

“You have no idea,” Aguni murmurs solemnly into his drink, his eyes darting towards Takeru with an unimpressed look.  That’s...hm, there’s clearly some kind of story there, although Ann isn’t sure she wants to know about it. 

Everyone begins talking amongst themselves once again-- Niragi has offered to spin the bottle next, and there’s a small argument breaking out over whether or not the group should continue with their original game of ‘truth or dare’ or pivot to this new one. 

And, Ann?

Ann doesn’t stick around to find out. 

[along-came-atsushi]

The search for yourself – An analysis about Tachihara

Several characters in BSD express a wish for home and family. Most of them have either lost their families or were abandoned by them. Especially for those characters, the word ‘family’ expands the definition of being related by blood.

In BSD ‘family’ doesn’t mean people who are related to you, but people who accept you for who you really are and who truly care about you. Some examples would be the relationship between Fukuzawa and Ranpo, or Sigma and how he sees his customers.

Tachihara’s arc deals with the same theme and his search for who he really is.

[Beware: Spoilers for the whole Hunting Dogs Arc!]

His Past:

It’s been shown that Tachihara and his older brother are granted with a similar ability: The ability to create and/or manipulate metal. But Tachihara seemed to be less talented or able to control his ability than his brother, at least in the eyes of his family. When his brother died in the war they were outraged and sad about his death. At the same time, they openly told Tachihara to be the one that should have died in his stead, showing complete disregard for his existence:

Tachihara’s brother thinks positively about his family, given how he talks about them. He knows that they miss him and he himself wishes to return back home. Due to this it’s possible that he doesn’t even notice the difference in his family’s treatment between him and Tachihara, since he never addresses that problem anywhere. Tachihara on the other hand has to feel that no matter who he is and what he does, even ultimately if he’d die, they wouldn’t care for him.

He has been compared to his older brother his whole life and was never accepted as his own person, which leads to him in not understanding who he is and what he should do.

[Side note: I’m not a psychologist, but I read that parents that treat one child as the golden egg (Tachihara’s brother), while treating the other as the black sheep (Tachihara) is a trait found in narcissists. With this they try to have one person who admires them (Tachihara’s brother) and the other who fears them (Tachihara). Considering this and the way Tachihara has been treated by his family, it is highly possible that he is the victim of a narcissistic upbringing. It might be that one family member was a narcissist and with their treatment of Tachihara influenced the other family members to do the same. They joined the narcissist in their behaviour out of fear (acting as enablers), so that they themselves wouldn’t get viewed and treated by the narcissist and others the same way.]

.

Joining the Hunting Dogs:

After his brother’s death Tachihara ran away from his family and decided to live a life on the streets, trying to survive by stealing and doing other criminal activities, where he then was found by the Hunting Dogs and invited to join them:

The Hunting Dogs highest priority is to protect their country and its citizens, no matter what it takes. They have been shown to let people join them when they realize that those people have an intention to protect others, or are willing to self-sacrifice in order to protect something. (e.g. Jouno offering Kunikida to join after he saw that Kunikida wanted to protect the ADA, Fukuchi offering to train Akutagawa after he realized he was fighting for something.)

.

But the problem of the Hunting Dogs’ mentality is that they have a black and white view regarding “justice” and “crime”, or people they perceive as “good” and “evil”. They immediately hunt down the ADA without further investigation on their assertions (that they’re innocent and all was a set-up), even expressing joy about torture and killing, when a person is a “criminal” and therefore “evil” in their eyes.

The only way to get rid of your crime is to join them and in this way being useful to them. This results in people involuntarily joining them, because they have no other way, which has been the case with Tachihara. He was found being guilty, because he stole something from them, and then offered of being freed from his crime, but only if he joins them. Which means that he doesn’t join them on his own accord and is then pressured into their black and white morale.

[Side note: Tecchou seems to be the only one able to look on a more greyish view regarding “good” and “evil” people, as seen when he talks with the café owner and promises to not kill Lucy and the ADA. Fukuchi feels guilty for at least having to kill children in the past.]

.

The Hunting Dogs seem to stick together because they have to, less because they want to. Jouno is annoyed with Tecchou’s behaviour and Tecchou is annoyed by Jouno’s actions. Teruko dares Jouno not to read her heartbeat and with that tries to keep him from getting to know how she truly feels. She also seems to be afraid of Fukuchi for some reason, hence why she butters him up in an extreme and exaggerated way:

Ultimately, Fukuchi their own captain, is the one who plays them all and lies to them the most. They are bound together by their duty and have no real trust in each other.

Tachihara has been shown to feel somewhat uncomfortable when being with the Hunting Dogs and is sometimes weirded out by their behaviours. Even though he is the only one who has no quarrels with his colleagues and gets along with them pretty well, openly expressing concern when Teruko is wounded. But at the same time, he keeps his distance to them and addresses them formally or by their ranks.

While Tachirara talks with Yosano it can be understood that he didn’t join the Hunting Dogs out of his own conviction, but because that way they wouldn’t kill him for his crime. By joining and fighting for them he had a purpose in life and people who needed him because of his ability. He claims to have turned into someone who was “neither my older brother nor his opposite” and that “orders make me who I am.”

.

Infiltrating Port Mafia:

When Tachihara joins the Port Mafia as a spy and works for the Black Lizard, he is met with a different mentality regarding loyalty and justice. As explained above the Hunting Dogs have a black and white view regarding justice and crime, and people they consider to be good or evil. They express joy about killing and torturing, even though they are considered to be “the good guys”. While the Port Mafia is also known to be extremely cruel, they are not considered as “the good guys”. In other words, the Port Mafia are represented as the “villains”, and the Hunting Dogs are represented as the “heroes” in the eyes of the government.

Although it’s been mentioned that you shouldn’t get too close with anyone in the Port Mafia, forming a close bond with others is still possible. Something that differs the Black Lizard from the Hunting Dogs is that they stick together, e.g. when Higuchi saved Akutagawa, despite the fact that she could’ve died doing so alone, which is something that Tachihara was concerned about:

In the end, the Black Lizard stood behind Higuchi’s decision and followed her, saving Akutagawa in the process. They did so not solely because she was their superior, but because they have trust in her and respect her.

Tachihara playing the Double Agent is similar to Ango’s role during Dark Era. They both joined the “evil” side as a spy, but found people they got close with and care about. Both of them aren’t able to shake off their feelings regarding these people who became dear to them, despite their original orders and mission.

Characters in the BSD universe make friends with people who are on the opposite side or who are their enemies. They also tend to ally with their actual or former enemies, if it means to achieve the same goal.

Tachihara acts way more casual with his Black Lizard colleagues. He calls Hirotsu “gramps”, Higuchi “big sis” and Akutagawa “big bro”, suggesting that he sees them as his family, even though he may do so unconsciously. The Black Lizard have shown to truly care about Tachihara as a person as well, even without knowing about his ability.

They are relieved to know that he isn’t hurt or dead. Furthermore, Hirotsu highly compliments Tachihara and admires him for his mindset and actions. In return, Tachihara feels guilty for having to hurt Hirotsu and Gin, back then already not able to fully betray them.

.

Playing the Double Agent:

Later on, Tachihara’s true intentions for joining Port Mafia get revealed. He realizes that he used his brother as an excuse, and understands that in reality he was just trying to find his true self. Before that, he told himself that he joined only to get close to Yosano for revenge. During his whole childhood he had been compared to his brother, which left him with major self-doubts and a lack of self-identity. If he wasn’t as good, as useful, as heroic like his brother, he would be nothing. He would have no value:

Tachihara states several times that he “wanted to become someone”. Too insecure and afraid to identify with who he is, he simply decided to take the opposite way his brother took, and identified with the role he was given. First, he was a delinquent and simply “bad”. As a Hunting Dog he was then given the role of a military officer, whose job was to catch terrorists. When he got his order to infiltrate Port Mafia as a spy, he probably tried to identify with just that. But this given mission helped him to get away from his role as a Hunting Dog, and he found a place where he feels he truly belongs to.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that throughout this arc he gets portrayed in a mirror-like way:

It’s supposed to point out his search for himself, and which side he will choose in the end, now that he is learning to trust his own instincts. He slowly steps out of the shadow of his brother and accepts the person he is.

This is possible for him to do, because he has the support of the Black Lizard. During his time with the Hunting Dogs he simply followed orders and had no opinion of his own, but a purpose in life. He did this to please them and being accepted as someone worthy by them. When he rejoins the Hunting Dogs, but secretly still works as a spy in the Port Mafia, he realizes that his mindset already follows that of a Port Mafia member:

Since the Port Mafia has a more greyish view on crime and justice and have clashed with the ADA several times in the past, they turn out to be the ones to truly believe that the ADA were set-up by someone and are not terrorists.

Hirotsu and Gin both encourage and support Tachihara to form an opinion of his own, when he asks them about the ADA’s case, and not to simply believe the false facts:

This is furthermore emphasized by Mori as the Port Mafia’s boss discussing the ADA’s case with the Black Lizard and with this, stating his trust in them:

Due to the circumstance that Tachihara is treated as an equal among his Black Lizard peers and treated with trust, he’s starting to be able to question the accusations against the ADA and comes to the logical conclusion that something is wrong. This later leads him to take the search for the real mastermind into his own hands, instead of simply following orders.

It’s his own opinion and own choice what leads to the tearing of the page and its power, and with it the Decay of Angel’s plan:

This in itself is a very nice twist, because it was something neither Fyodor nor Dazai could know about or orchestrate. They both could only make people go so far and act in a certain way, but not tear through bonds people share with each other. Which gets confirmed when Dazai said that it’s the people on the battlefield making the world turn, and not those planning schemes.

In the end, it’s Mori as the Port Mafia’s boss to decide whether he keeps or kills Tachihara for his betrayal. It’s a rule to kill those who have betrayed the Port Mafia. But Mori already knew which side Tachihara will choose and which side he feels he belongs to, even before Tachihara himself did.

- - - - -

Last but not least, I want to thank the person who requested this meta from me. I hope you enjoyed reading this and that it was worth the wait. I had immense fun writing about characters who usually aren’t on my radar that much. Thank you very much!

[Edit: “he simply followed orders and had no opinion of his own, or a purpose in life” was changed to “he simply followed orders and had no opinion of his own, but a purpose in life“. Which was phrased wrong by me in the original post!]

[absynthe--minded]

Beren, the Nauglamír, and Editorial Oversight

this is gonna be a long one, guys.

so one of the things that makes Christopher Tolkien’s contributions to the greater legacy of the Tolkien Legendarium so complex is that he, as the posthumous editor of his father’s works, essentially was able to declare what is or isn’t “canon” in a way that no amount of scholarship (fannish or professional) will be able to truly successfully challenge. it’s his vision of Arda that was published as the Silmarillion, and his interpretations of the Professor’s works that have come to act as the standard and the baseline. after all, the Silm’s been traditionally published and translated into many languages; it’s far more accessible than out-of-print/print-on-demand copies of the History, and reading it doesn’t require you to slog through pages and pages of commentary or to have a good solid understanding of what the story is so you can follow along with lists of bullet points outlining events timeline-style.

of course, Chris also made mistakes, and those mistakes became enshrined in canon just as surely as anything else. I and many others have discussed the Gil-galad problem (namely, that Gil-galad’s parentage is oblique and strange at best and downright contradictory at worst, and Christopher’s choice to make him Fingon’s son was an admitted error) but it’s not the only case of a decision later proving to be the wrong one.

with that background, let’s talk about Beren.

Beren and Lúthien are in an unusual position in the Legendarium as a whole. Not only are they the sole author-insert characters, they’re also uniquely positioned as moral compasses - every other person in the Silm is morally ambiguous to some degree, or does bad or questionable things; not so with these two. If Beren or Lúthien does something, it’s explicitly the right thing to do, and this is confirmed by the narrative. If someone else opposes them, that is the wrong course of action. They’re not merely protagonists who make a lot of good choices, they’re good people, and the things they do are right because of their moral fiber and nobility. Of the active agents who are developed to any great degree, they’re the least complex and the most clear-cut, and the narrative itself treats them differently from other characters, validating them and framing them as the sort of spotless heroes that are in short supply in this Age.

This characterization runs headlong into the actions Beren takes in early drafts of the story and in the published Silm, where after dwarves kill Thingol and sack Menegroth, Beren (with the help of some allies, usually either Green-elves or Ents) ambushes them and duels the Lord of Nogrod for possession of the Nauglamír, a necklace originally owned by Finrod in Nargothrond that Húrin brought to Doriath after his release from Angband. Thingol commissioned dwarven artisans to alter the piece and create a setting in it for the Silmaril that Beren and Lúthien had won for him from Morgoth, and there was a dispute about payment that escalated to violence and ended in his death at dwarvish hands. The battle, later called the Battle of the Thousand Caves, was more or less a victory for dwarvish forces, as they escaped both with the Nauglamír and several other treasures from Menegroth and they defeated Sindarin forces that set out to stop them.

In most versions of the story, Melian sends Mablung to Ossiriand to warn Beren and Lúthien of what’s happened, and essentially asks them to do something to stop the retreating dwarvish forces from reaching Nogrod, where they came from. Beren does this, killing the Lord of Nogrod himself and taking the Nauglamír and the Silmaril home to Lúthien, who then gives it to Dior, who takes it back to Doriath when he takes the throne there. This is the version of the tale that’s in the published Silmarillion, and the one that’s consistent throughout the earlier drafts that Tolkien himself wrote.

But it’s not the only version that exists.

In The War of the Jewels, which compiles versions of the story written late in Tolkien’s life, we find The Tale of Years. This is not a cohesive narrative, instead functioning (like many of the writings that make up the bulk of the History of Middle-Earth) rather like a series of bullet points mentioning and summarizing key events. It progresses chronologically, giving a sense of passing time and organization to the First Age, and it has this to say about the Nauglamír and the battle at Sarn Athrad:

“The Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod invade Doriath. King Elu Thingol is slain and his realm ended. Melian escapes and carries away the Nauglamír and the Silmaril, and brings them to Beren and Lúthien. She then forsook Middle-earth and returned to Valinor.

Curufin and Celegorm, hearing of the sack of Menegroth, ambushed the Dwarves at the Fords of Ascar as they sought to carry off the Dragon-gold to the mountains. The Dwarves were defeated with great loss, but they cast the gold into the river, which was therefore after named Rathlóriel. Great was the anger of the sons of Fëanor to discover that the Silmaril was not with the Dwarves; but they dared not to assail Lúthien. Dior goes to Doriath and endeavours to recover the realm of Thingol.”

(This quote is taken from the latest and typed version of the Tale of Years, an earlier handwritten version exists that is shorter but includes the same relevant details.)

Christopher Tolkien elected not to use this version of events, instead choosing to maintain the earlier tale where Beren had an active role; he was never truly satisfied with this, or with the Ruin of Doriath as a whole. In the commentary to the Tale of Years he wrote that “It seemed at that time that there were elements inherent in the story of the Ruin of Doriath as it stood that were radically incompatible with ‘The Silmarillion’ as projected, and that there was here an inescapable choice: either to abandon that conception, or else to alter the story. I think now that this was a mistaken view, and that the undoubted difficulties could have been, and should have been, surmounted without so far overstepping the bounds of the editorial function.” We have, for a second time, an admission of error, though unlike the Gil-galad question there is not a specific choice singled out as a flaw.

Why am I talking about this? Well, simply, I think that the version of the story where Celegorm and Curufin attack the Dwarvish host is the one that makes the most sense, and I’m here to make my case for its adoption as fanon. I’m not trying to take a purely scholarly view - I can’t prove that Tolkien’s true vision was for this version of the text, and of course it’s only in the one draft - but as a fandom we’ve reached the consensus before that specific versions of the story are preferred, even when they only appear in a single draft (Amrod’s death at Losgar stands out as the best example).

So here’s my argument. 

1. Beren is not a violent man, and having him act as a murderer is out of character.

This one is pretty simple - Beren is an outlaw fighting against Sauron, a defender of his family’s land, a nobleman in his own right, and a vegetarian who is keenly aware of what it is to be hunted and pursued. The man we’re introduced to in the other versions of the story is not someone who would answer violence with violence unless there was no other choice, and in fact he becomes less violent as the story goes on. Putting him in a position where he’s acting militarily against the Dwarves introduces elements to his character that simply don’t exist before this story. It’s inconsistent, and it also ends his life on a strange, sour note - he’s not an uncomplicated hero anymore, he’s also got blood on his hands.

2. Beren is one of the moral compasses of the Silmarillion, and having him be the one to spearhead the ambush of the Dwarves frames that act of violence in a very troubling light.

Like I said above, Beren and Lúthien are good people who do good things, and those things are good because of who’s doing them. If Beren kills the Dwarves and the Lord of Nogrod, that act becomes justifiable, and perhaps even the right thing to do, simply due to the fact that one of the two true heroes of the First Age is doing it. The narrative never frames this as a downfall or a moral event horizon for Beren, either - he made the correct decision and the consequences that come afterward aren’t things that can be blamed on him. But wholesale slaughter, even slaughter of people who do bad things, is not something Tolkien ever condones or paints in a truly positive light, so it makes more sense for it to come at the hands of people who aren’t solely positive forces. It’s thematically in line with what Tolkien does through the rest of the text, and it feels more like Arda, at least to me. I think an argument could be made that Tolkien realized that making Celegorm and Curufin the responsible party would achieve this end, and that’s why this version exists in the first place, but there’s no proof of it.

3. The Laiquendi are nonviolent, and it makes no sense for them to be involved in this fight. The Ents being involved at all is somewhat nonsensical based on what we know of them in The Lord of the Rings.

Another simple one - we don’t know much about the Laiquendi, but we know they’re not really keen on warfare or on any undue violence, so having them be Beren’s backup is a weird divergence from their presentation in the rest of the Legendarium. And the Ents are pretty universally depicted as uninvested in the wars of the incarnates, only taking action against Saruman when it becomes apparent they have no other choice - why should they care about Thingol’s death, or care enough to murder dwarves?

4. Melian’s actions make far more sense in a version of the story where she doesn’t merely abandon Doriath once she realizes Thingol is dead.

If Menegroth is already sacked, and she cannot hold the realm together on her own as its Queen without really fucking shit up with reality-warping shadow magic, her choice to abandon it after delivering the Silmaril safely to her daughter and warning her that Dior will be needed soon is far less irresponsible.

5. Celegorm and Curufin ambushing the dwarves makes more sense than any other alternative.

Of course Celegorm and Curufin were actively watching Doriath for any sign of weakness. Of course they noticed the dwarves leaving with stolen treasures, and heard rumors that Thingol was dead and his killers had the Silmaril. Given the choice of following Melian (if they even were aware of Melian’s departure) and following dwarves, of course they picked the dwarves. Their ambush and attack and slaughter is consistent with their past behavior, as is their refusal to attack Lúthien because they were scared as fuck of her.

What’s more, this also explains the Fëanorians’ refusal to attack Doriath immediately after the dwarves do - they were unsure of whether or not Lúthien was in Menegroth and ruling as its queen or acting in some capacity as Dior’s defender. Celegorm in particular isn’t the type to hesitate - he’s impulsive, and rash, and rushes into bad decisions without considering their consequences, it’s even in his name. But they waited for years, giving Dior time to marry and have children of his own, and then even sent letters rather than attack directly - and yes, some of this might have been Maedhros’s influence, or an attempt by all of them to stave off the Oath, but it’s also plausible that they were trying to figure out whether or not they’d have to take on the same woman who made fools of them before.

I, at least, think this version of the story makes the most sense, and I’ll be adopting it into my personal canon. I obviously think it’s worth advocating for on a larger scale, and I hope I’ve made a good argument for its widespread adoption.

[twink-appreciation-posts]

Too Forward - Spencer Reid x Reader

chapter three of “all bets are off”

So, uh, this is probably going to complicate your work relationship. 

warnings: smut, spencer reid is a dom in this universe, daddy is said like 3 times lol idk if that’s gonna be a theme in this series or a one time thing, kind of public sex (not rlly though it’s car sex), probably out of character but oh well

“Well, it’s an hour's drive back to the office. Y/n, Reid, you can go home for the night. Nice job, agents.”

Those were Hotch’s final words to you for the evening. You, glad to have an excuse to leave the awkward presence of your co-workers, happily obliged, scurried to your car. As you opened the driver’s side door you heard someone call your name.

“Uh, y/n!” It was Reid. Of course.

“You were kind of my ride here. Would you mind dropping me back at the office so I can get my car?” He smiled sheepishly.

Oh. Right. Duh. You had come here together, of course you’d be his ride back. “Yeah! Of course.” You grinned, the awkwardness you had so quickly tried to escape returning. “Hop in.” Once you were both situated in the car and you had begun to drive, you moved to turn on the radio.

“Hey, actually, I was wondering if we could talk.” Spencer reached out his hand to stop you. He was either way more comfortable with touching you now, or you were just starting to notice it more.

“Sure. What about?” You tapped your finger on the steering wheel nervously.

“Listen. I don’t wanna seem too forward but…” his voice trailed off a bit. Oh god. Where was this statement going? “You liked it.” He finished.

You cocked your head to the side, glancing at him. “Excuse me?” You held back a nervous laugh.

“You liked it when I kissed you.” He said it more confidently now, as if your response had validated his observations. You couldn’t respond. He wasn’t wrong, of course, but what was the purpose of him bringing it up in conversation? “When I um,” you felt a new warmth on your thigh. He was running his fingers up and down your exposed skin. What the fuck? “When I touched you.”

Just the way he said it made your breathing become labored. “I did?” You questioned, trying to use comedy to mask the increasing desire overtaking you.

“Oh come on y/n, don’t play dumb. You know as well as I do that you would’ve let me fuck you right there against the wall if we had had the time.”

You nearly slammed the breaks. Did he just say that? Were you dead? That had to be it. The mission had gone wrong. The unsub had drugged you and you were dead. That was the only explanation. “If I’m wrong, you can tell me,” Spencer continued, his hand ceasing its movements momentarily. A choice. He was giving you a choice.

“I-I’m not the only one who enjoyed myself. I could feel you through your pants.” You stared straight ahead, eyes on the road. Anywhere but on him. He must’ve taken your response as a decision, because his hand crept just a bit higher.

“I can’t deny that. Seeing you all dressed up like this? I mean, I’ve always known you were gorgeous, but… I guess you could say this,” he smoothed his fingers over the velvet of your dress. “Well, this sent me over the edge.”

Well. This was certainly out of character from the Spencer you had known all these years. You hadn’t even realized he was having these types of thoughts about you.

“So. What are you gonna do about it?” You questioned, gaining confidence.

“Pull over.” He said simply.

“What? Spence, we’re on the highway.”

“Pull over." He repeated.

You were a bit worried what would happen if you didn’t oblige. So you did. You pulled onto the shoulder of the abandoned highway, it was past midnight now after all, and stared at him.“Okay. Now what, genius?”

You barely registered the click of his seatbelt becoming undone before his lips were on yours. Forceful. Demanding. He wasn’t wasting any time. Apart from the initial shock, you began to respond to his touch quickly, fumbling to undo your own seatbelt as well. His lips moved down from your lips, to your jaw, to your neck. His tongue swirled on the sensitive skin and your eyes fluttered shut. “Fuck.” You mumbled, your head leaned back and rested on the glass of the driver’s sear door, allowing him easier access. He pulled away and you whimpered at the loss of contact. He only chuckled in response, his hand moving to pull down one of the straps of your dress. He tugged it down and then he was right back at it, his lips working at your collar bones, your newly exposed cleavage. “Are you gonna be a good girl?” He asked in a moment of pause, looking up at you with those hazel eyes. You nodded weakly. Embarrassed. “No, sweetheart, I want to hear you say it. Tell me that you’re going to be a good girl.” You bit your lip, considering your current situation. “Come on. Say it and I can give you what you want.” You glanced down to see his hand moving under your dress, his fingertips just barely brushing your inner thighs.

“I-I’ll be a good girl.” Your voice shook, but he seemed content with your words as his fingers began to press against your panties.

“So wet for me, too.” He husked, running fast circles around your clothed clit.

You couldn’t hold back your moans, a string of curses leaving your mouth. “Shh, baby, that’s not the type of language I wanna hear from you. You said you’d be good.”

What? He didn’t want you to curse? A power thing. Of course it was. He wanted to control not only your body, but everything else about you too.

“Aren’t you gonna apologize?” He questioned, his pace slowing down.

“I-I’m sorry Spencer.” You rasped out. “I won’t do it again.”

He licked his lips, eyes scanning you. “You’re so pretty like this. So weak, so powerless. Do you want my fingers inside of you?”

You were shaking now, craving stimulation, craving more of his touch. “Yes. Please. Please, I need it.” You were barely concerned with how pathetic you sounded at this point. He didn’t even reply, only pushed your panties to the side and pressed a finger against your entrance. You legs instinctively spread a bit wider, inviting him in.

“I knew at the bar that you were needy, but I didn’t realize just how much.”

Before you could retort, he was sliding a finger inside of you, curling it to find your g-spot. It felt even better than you were expecting. Maybe because you had been thinking about this moment for hours, ever since he had first placed his lips on yours. It was disgusting, you knew, pulled over on the side of the road, letting your colleague finger you after work like some kind of shitty porno. He eased a second finger inside of you, not too difficult considering how wet you were, and began to pump them in and out of you. He leaned back over, pulling down your bra strap this time, and taking your nipple into his mouth, his tongue teasing you ever so slightly.

“Fuck,” you exclaimed again without thinking. You immediately clamped your mouth shut. “Oh f- no wait, I’m s-sorry.” You began, but he was already pulling his hand and mouth away. You cried out, feeling empty.

“You’re making me think that we should put that dirty little mouth to use, hm?” He questioned, holding up his two fingers, still slick with your own wetness, to your mouth. You met his eyes, opening your mouth, and he pushed them in, pressing down on your tongue. “Mm, good girl.” He mused, his free hand was fumbling with the zipper of his pants, and you finally took the opportunity to get a good look at him. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his hair messy, and of course, his noticeably hard dick pressing against the fabric of his pants. “You like what you see?” He teased. You couldn’t respond, his fingers still placed aptly in your mouth. He struggled for a moment to free his dick from its cloth confinements, but your eyes widened when he did. You didn’t know what you had expected. When you had felt it at the bar it felt.. big.. but you hadn’t nearly prepared yourself to see it. He wrapped a fist around his cock, and you watched, unable to tear you eyes away. “That’s right," his voice was sweet. "You’re gonna be a good girl and watch daddy touch himself. because you haven’t earned the chance to do it yourself, have you?"

Did Spencer just call himself daddy? This was a moment where you were sure that you should be laughing. It made no sense. It wasn’t… Spencer. And yet, you could only react with a gargled moan. Why was this turning you on? Why was this hot? You decided your original idea had been right. You were dead or drugged. No way this was real. But you didn’t have too much time to think about it before his next command came. He pressed his fingers further into your opened mouth. “Suck.”

You obliged, closing your lips around them and running your tongue up and down their length, imagining it was his cock in your mouth instead. He groaned in pleasure, the speed at which he jerked himself off at increasing steadily. “You don’t know how difficult tonight was for me y/n,” he gasped out. “Seeing your pretty little body in such a tight dress, you grinding your ass into my cock like you didn’t have a care in the world. So difficult for me to not bend you over that bar and fuck you there right where everyone could see.” He closed his own eyes for a moment. Your hand creeped in between your legs, craving stimulation. He huffed, noticing, and removed his fingers from your mouth. “I know how badly you want me, baby. It must have been hard for you too, huh?” You nodded, playing to his sympathy. “It’s okay sweetheart. I’ll be nice.” He made good on his word, immediately pushing both fingers into your entrance, your body clenching around him. You were already so blissed out, you couldn’t decide whether to close your eyes from all the pleasure or to force them open so you could watch as he fucked his fist. You were moaning, writhing against his fingers. You wanted nothing more than for Spencer Reid to fuck the ever-loving shit out of you. But you supposed this would suffice for now.

“You’re gonna cum for me, aren’t you baby? Gonna cum all over my fingers? I know you’re gonna look so fucking pretty. So fucked out and weak. All for me.”

Well, if you weren’t about to cum before, you definitely were after he said that. You whimpered, nodding, and his fingers moved in and out of you even faster. “Good. Good girl. Cum for me. If you do you might even have time to help daddy out before he’s done.”

Well, that was an offer too enticing to refuse. So you did as he said. You came, shaking, around his fingers, your moans of pleasure echoing in the small space of the car. He watched you, eyes unwavering, as he made you come undone. His fingers didn’t still until you were panting, squeezing your thighs together to slow him down. “Even prettier than I imagined,” Spencer commented, placing his fingers back into your mouth for you to clean. You did, happily, and when you had taken a moment to regain your sanity, you looked at him eagerly. “Aw, look at you. So cute. You really wanna help daddy cum?”

You nodded, eyes still trained on his hand pumping his cock. “Come here baby.” He said. His voice was so hot when he was like this, you noticed. It was breathy. Strained. Filled with desire. He gently placed a hand on the back of your head, rooting his fingers in the hair on your scalp, guiding you down towards the tip of his dick. Your tongue flicked out, testing him, and he moaned your name loudly. You took him into your mouth, his hand applying just a bit of pressure. You started slowly, trying to get used to the length of it, and his head lulled back against the passenger seat, hair falling into his face. You were slow, but he didn’t push your head down farther, despite the fact that he could’ve. No, instead his hips began to buck up ever so slightly. He looked down at you, checking to make sure it was alright, and when he saw no sign of distress he began to thrust shallowly into your mouth, his hand still keeping you in place. “You feel so good, y/n.” His eyes rolled back. You moaned around him. Fuck. Why was it so hot letting him use you for pleasure like this? “I’m gonna cum.” He stuttered through gritted teeth. “And you’re gonna take all of it, right? Because daddy was so- f-fuck- so good to you.” You couldn’t reply, but you knew that he knew the answer was yes anyway. After a few more thrusts of his hips he came,  the taste and warmth flooding your senses.  You did your best to take it in full, wanting to fully follow his directions. When you were content with your work his hand eased off of you and you sat up straight, wiping your mouth on the back of your hand as you swallowed.

There was silence. You pulled the straps of your bra and dress up, regaining your breath.

“So I was right about you liking it when I kissed you.” Spencer breathed out eventually, zipping his pants back up.

You shook your head, chuckling at the absurdity of the situation, and started the car.

“Well, Doctor, you’re rarely wrong.”

[alyblacklist]

New interview from Vanity Fair (Italy) with James Spader (in Italian).  Translation via Google translate below (corrections welcome):

Eight years after its debut, the TV series with Megan Boone and James Spader is back on FoxCrime. Already renewed for a ninth season, the show won't provide any representation of the Coronavirus or American politics. "We are an escape from reality and we want to remain so." 

"In eight years, not a single episode has gone far and wide." The voice of James Spader, on the last Friday in the red zone, peeps out from a distant space, from an America in rebirth, whose present enthusiasm has not found any representation in the television series of which he is the protagonist. Spader, The Blacklist's Raymond Reddington, has strenuously opposed the possibility of contaminating one's fictional universe with the dross of the present. "Our show has always existed within a parallel world. Over the years, we have never bothered to plot a plot that had to do with real life, with newspaper headlines and news stories ». The Blacklist, whose eighth season is set to debut on FoxCrime on prime time on February 12, "has defined a universe of its own, to which it has remained faithful." Therefore, no Joe Biden, in the twenty-two new episodes of the television series. No pandemic. 

The Blacklist, on air since 2013, will only find the characters who have made it a cult. Raymond Reddington, a repentant criminal whose decision to cooperate with the police is not the daughter, alone, of a sudden goodness of heart; Elizabeth Keen, special agent responsible for following his confessions; Donald Ressler, Harold Cooper, the set of FBI agents and gangsters whose "Red" is determined to secure a future behind bars. 

Many television series usually set in fictional universes have, however, decided to make an exception and give their own representation of the pandemic. Why this categorical "no"? 

“For a few, but effective reasons. I think one of the strengths of our show has always been its verisimilitude. The Blacklist is a parallel universe, in which credible characters live. This allowed the audience to find an escape from reality in the series. I think many viewers watch The Blacklist because it allows them to detach themselves from the problems related to everyday life, and this has led us to exclude the pandemic over everything ». 

However, you will have had to face the restrictions that the Coronavirus has brought with it. 

"Absolutely. We had to deal with many restrictions, we had to limit the number of people present in a given location. But, net of the difficulties and the productive effort that required us, I think I can say that a magnificent job has been done ». 

Work that will continue: The Blacklist has already been confirmed for a ninth season. What still remains to be told? 

"Much. It may seem absurd, but in eight years we have never found ourselves beating around the bush. No episode, in the eight seasons, was thought of as a filler. I remember one day talking to Jon Bokenkamp, ​​the director. He had a twenty-minute longer bet on his hands. We tried to figure out how to cut it, which unnecessary scenes to eliminate. In the end, it was twenty minutes longer than it should have ”. 

Aren't you bored playing the same character for eight years? 

"No. On the set of The Blacklist, I've never had a mediocre or mundane day. The series has always been very exciting and the very idea of ​​moving forward excites me. There are many surprises in this new season. There are more for the public than for me. The writers and I talked for a long time about what we were going to do, so nothing could surprise me once shooting started ». 

And this would lead us to think of a certain repetitiveness ... 

“It would induce, though. When I play the part of Red I'm not surprised by the story we're telling, but by the world we're making it in. ' 

 Explain. 

"One of the great entertainments of being an actor is being able to be surprised by your reactions: there is amazement in the physical and emotional responses that are given in certain situations. There is some wonder in seeing a location for the first time. There is growth in looking at a problem or a fact from a new perspective. The surprise, when you are an actor, is not about where you get to on the show, it's about the little things, the details, even personal, that we discover as we go on ». 

So what has Raymond Reddington left you over these eight seasons? 

"From the beginning, what I loved most about Red was his irreverence, his sense of humor. I discovered and learned to love his pervasive and profound longing for life ». His character is highly ambivalent. 

Has he really never despised him? 

“I don't usually make judgments about my characters. I have a deep understanding of everything Raymond stands for. Rather, I'd say there are things about Red that Red doesn't like: his brutality and the danger he poses to others, for example. But I think Red is aware of the qualities that make him strong and able to survive the worst circumstances in life. He saw the tremendous price of loss and witnessed it. He feels how bad death does. This led him to strongly desire sweetness, calm, love. He is a dichotomous character, and it is this ambivalence of him that has made him so interesting ».

 He often talks about his collaboration with the writers. What exactly does it consist of? 

«In a real collaboration. Let's talk about everything that has to do with the show. We talk before the writing of the scripts, during the shoot. Let's talk about the new entries and the possible suppression of some characters. We are talking about subplots that can last years, months or days. Let's talk about the tone of the show, the dialogues. We talk during the holidays. This series keeps me awake at night ». 

 And do you think it's a good thing? 

“Let's just say I've always had trouble sleeping. When I wake up, my mind begins to travel fast. I tend to be an obsessive compulsive person, so I often stay up at night shaping ideas about The Blacklist. It happens that I waste hours trying to remember them, so as to put them on paper the following morning ». 

Elizabeth Keen, the special agent played by Megan Boone, is one of the strongest female characters on television. How do you judge the change that Hollywood is aiming for, the progressive abandonment of gender roles? 

«I find it fundamental. For me, as a man and actor, it always has been. I have always felt more comfortable in the company of women. I grew up with a female majority in the house, a terrific mother and two older sisters. I've always been attracted to strong female characters and the ones I've met in my films have been. I've always looked at the world from a female perspective, and I can't imagine doing otherwise. I understand, however, that it took the industry some time to get here. Today, I feel like saying that it is only a matter of time for the real and definitive change to be achieved ». 

 Digital has imposed a decidedly sustained production rate, even on linear television. Do you find such trouble to be good? 

«I state that I, on the other hand, have never felt in competition with digital or Netflix. Netflix aired The Blacklist, creating added value for all of us. Streaming brought us audiences, and it was great. In general, I'm happy to have the huge amount of programs we have now. Competition is a good thing, it leads to excellence, it spurs commitment ". 

 Cinema, television, theater. In his career he has done everything. Which medium did you prefer? 

“On television, I found a greater opportunity for further study. The Blacklist is the second TV show I work on, and has been running for over 150 episodes. My first character I played in The Practice, then in Boston Legal. Either way, I found it fascinating to see how it evolved, not in history, but over time. My TV characters have aged with me, and I with them. I think it's the best thing about working on television ».

Nothing bad then?

“You wake you up in the morning.When I started acting, I found myself working on the stage.It was a night job, and I've always been a night person, not a morning person.So when I found myself making films, I always tried to play characters who lived at night. What, this, that I managed, if you notice. It was television that forced me to turn. TV is a day job, which starts very early in the morning. It was a shock.I haven't gotten used to the sound of the alarm yet. '

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep22

All of this ‘the culprit’s motives are super shallow and they’re just unhealthily obsessive’ discourse is giving me war flashbacks to . . . . basically every other part of the entire When They Cry franchise, lol.

Thoughts under the cut. [Plus spoilers for Umineko]

I feel like at the end of the day we’re all just gonna have to agree to disagree about how we feel about how Ryukishi is handling Satoko as the culprit here, since I don’t really think any amount of social media posts detailing our interpretations of her character are gonna change anyone’s minds, lol. But I’m still gonna give my thoughts on her anyway because it’s fun, even if I’m basically just preaching to the choir.

To be honest, this feels pretty much in line with how Ryukishi already wrote characters like Takano and Beatrice, in terms of them having unhealthy obsessions that lead them to mass-murder. The amount of violence Satoko has caused is arguably worse than either of them, but they’re all pretty awful if you think about the reality of what they all did as villains.

Sorta like with how a lot of the old-school Umineko discourse went, I think people are too focused on the whole idea of Satoko hating studying, and ignoring everything else about her character and her circumstances. Although even then I feel like people are being kinda unfair toward Satoko about how strongly she feels about academics, but maybe I’m just biased because of my own history with schooling and the intense levels of anxiety and self-hatred that can go along with it.

Plus the fact that Satoko already has a long history of sever abandonment issues, and has basically always had HS that amplified her feelings of paranoia and persecution. It’s pretty obvious at this point that she never really got ‘cured’ in the first place, though it’s less important to think about HS as an in-universe fictional disease with it’s own rules, and more important to just think about it as a representation of real-life mental illnesses which aren’t bound by the rules of made-up brain-worm parasites and aliens or whatever.

Also, the Satoko that started all this looping in the first place was one who never dealt with Teppei returning to the village, and thus never went through her whole character arc related to that. The series is kinda ambiguous about how it handles the idea of people’s character development carrying over between loops, but it explains a lot about Satoko’s attitude here if you go with the idea that she never really had to overcome any of her trauma or coping mechanisms in the “good ending timeline”, and this is the consequence of that taken to it’s logical extreme. The idea of her view of the world being skewed by the fact that she only remembers the “good ending timeline” is also kinda lamp-shaded by the part where she hears about Rika’s looping and is like “oh yeah, that’s the month where we had that cool action movie stand-off with the Mountain Dogs :)”. By the time she really got to understand exactly what was going on beyond the specific timeline she had experienced, she was already way over the edge.

I get why people don’t like the idea of Gou ‘tainting’ the VN’s happy ending, but I honestly like the idea that it’s examining the consequences of how Matsuribayashi was such an overly-specific timeline where basically nothing bad happened and everyone just banded together to beat Takano. It kinda glossed over a lot of the personal problems that the main cast had in the rest of the series, and this really goes to show the effects of some of that stuff not getting properly addressed. It also reminds me that Minagoroshi is a timeline that even in the VN, Rika completely lost her memories of, so I can see how even post-Matsuribayashi she might have never let Satoko know about the details of that one timeline where she overcome her abuse.

I also feel like it only really got to this point because of Featherine’s meddling. In the original Matsuribayashi timeline, Satoko just started drifting away from Rika and ended up wandering into the Saiguden and meeting Featherine before anything actually serious happened in that timeline. I think that if she had just been left to her own devices and that timeline had just kept going, Satoko probably would have either found a way to reconnect with Rika, or they would have just slowly drifted apart for good. But then Satoko got given the power to time travel, and only started going off the deep end after going through another five years of identical suffering.

And on that whole note, it reminds me of how in Umineko, Lambda had a whole conversation about the idea of an abused person becoming an abuser themself if they’re given the power to lash out. Which is basically what’s happening here. Satoko is being given the tools to completely detach herself from reality and try as many times as she likes to get what she wants.

Which also reminds me that this episode in particular REALLY lays the Umineko parallels on thick, lol. Particularly the whole ‘Satoko is turning into Lambda’ thing, which feels just about 100% confirmed now. They straight up have Featherine bring up the exact same ‘monkeys using a typewriter’ analogy to explain Rika’s situation that Lambda uses in Umineko to explain Bern’s situation.

I know a lot of people don’t like the increasingly blatant Umineko tie-ins, and that a lot of people still think it might just be misdirection, but considering how much stuff in Gou has been surprisingly straightforward and predictable, I think it’s pretty much exactly what it seems to be.

Though to be more specific, this is probably more about the start of Lambda and Bern’s relationship, and their appearances in Umineko, rather than the very first origins of them as individuals, if that makes sense. Obviously the concept of Bernkastel as an identity has been around since Higurashi itself, and we’ve known for a long time that Lambda was the one who originally gave Takano her blessing of certainty, but we’ve never known the full details of how those two started their relationship, and Featherine’s whole series of name-drops in the last episode makes it seem like Lambda as a meta individual more or less already exists, with Satoko being an iteration of her. So I think they both technically already exist, but this is how the two of them come into contact and start their whole unhealthily obsessive relationship.

I guess it’s still possible that, even if she’s already existed for a long time as a meta individual, she hasn’t actually come up with the name ‘Lambdadelta’ for herself yet, and this might be where she does so. Even with the list of names Featherine referenced, she didn’t technically bring up Lambda’s name directly. So in that sense this might be ‘Lambda’s’ origin story, even if she already exists.

Considering how basically the entire story at this point seems to be acting in service of setting up the whole LambdaBern relationship dynamic no matter what, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that this will end with Satoko and Rika fully embracing their codependency and mutually ascending to the meta plane so they can stay together once and for all. There might still be human versions of them that stay behind in the real world and continue living normal lives, though.

At the very least, it feels like that’s the logical outcome of the whole Chekov’s Sword Fragment plot device that’s been hanging in the background for ages now. I think it’ll just be the in-universe explanation they use to show the mechanics of how exactly that process works. It’ll probably be used to ‘sever’ Satoko and Rika’s meta consciousnesses from their physical bodies and allow them to basically become witches.

Mainly I just can’t really see this having a ‘happy ending’ at this point, aside from the whole idea that maybe the severing process leaves behind ‘normal’ versions of the two of them who stay in Hinamizawa and go back to their normal lives. I dunno if that’d make people happy, but it’d at least be a way for Ryukishi to have his cake and eat it too, lol.

I just don’t think that there’s any real chance of this ending with them just talking to each other and agreeing to put an end to all this, though. For one thing that’d just feel kinda anticlimactic and honestly make Gou’s story feel even MORE pointless, if it just ends with literally the exact same ending as the VN with nothing really being changed. But I also feel like Featherine wouldn’t be willing to just let Satoko ‘give up’ without having one of them definitively win their current game. In general I just feel like Ryukishi should just commit to the story he’s setting up at this point, instead of just backing out at the last minute and circling everything back to the same ending we already had like nothing in Gou ever happened. If we’re gonna have this whole new story to begin with, it should at least have some lasting consequences.

Anyway, I think in the next episode we’re finally going to loop back to the Damashi arcs and see how they played out. At this point I don’t care too much about getting answers to the ground-level mysteries of those arcs, and I doubt the story will spend much time on that, but I’m curious to see how it progresses Satoko’s whole development through these loops, since I think she goes through some changes with her motives and methods over the course of them.

Specifically I think that the actual experience of being physically present in her own set of loops and causing so much pain and suffering started to get to her, and she might have almost given up in her own way during Tataridamashi and wanted to just stay in that arc, but things went south anyway. Maybe, if that’s what happened, Featherine basically let her know that she won’t let her give up, and will force her to keep looping until one of them ‘wins’ no matter what. Either way, I think that arc was a turning point for her. Like how she asked Featherine to arrange things so that Satoko can make sure that she and Rika’s loops are synced up, she probably asked Featherine after that arc to change the rules again so that Rika will start remembering the details of her deaths. At this point it’s pretty obvious that the Hanyuu fragment Rika was talking to earlier in Gou was more or less just Featherine putting on an act and manipulating her, so the scene of Hanyuu giving her the power to remember her deaths was probably just Featherine telling her about the rule change.

And going by how the Nekodamashi arc went immediately afterward, I think that rule change was related to Satoko becoming increasingly desperate to put an end to the loops as soon as possible. And considering how she was willing to spend so much time reviewing Rika’s hundred years of looping just to prepare for this, it’d make sense to me if she becomes desperate because she basically gives up, but realizes that she isn’t actually allowed to give up, so she has to try and make Rika give in as fast as possible. Either way it’s pretty obvious that Satoko’s methods start becoming more violent in that arc, and she basically tries to brute-force Rika into submission, leading up to the loop where she just spawn-camps her and straight up starts screaming at her to just stay in the village while tearing out her guts. It’s still possible that her attitude in that loop was just one big act, but I think that was the result of her being genuinely desperate to just have Rika give up once and for all, and her starting to crack under the pressure of doing all of these things with her own hands across so many loops. 

So now we’ll just have to see how the confrontation between them at the end of Nekodamashi plays out once we get back to it. In the long run I just think it’ll lead to the ending I talked about before, with them using the sword on each other. The exact nuances of how that sorta ending might play out are up in the air, though.

Either way, I think there’s probably enough time to wrap up all that in two more episodes, but there’s still reason to believe that there might be some kind of sequel in the works. I don’t really want to bet on it, though, so I’m just gonna assume that there’s two episodes left and base my theories on that. In which case I think the next episode will go over the Damashi arcs and end with Rika and Satoko’s confrontation at the end of Nekodamashi, and then the final episode will wrap everything up. Considering that they both more or less know exactly what’s going on with each other by that point, there isn’t really that much that needs to be wrapped up. I think that will be the final loop we get, so it’ll all just come down to how their confrontation plays out, and what decision they come to about how to handle each other.

I honestly don’t really know how I think a full sequel would go, if it’s at least one cour long. Assuming that it’s not just a new Umineko anime that more or less continues Rika and Satoko’s arc via Lambda and Bern, but is a straight up ‘Higurashi Gou Season 2′. It just feels like there isn’t really that much that needs to be done to wrap things up, now that everything’s being laid out in the open, and Rika and Satoko are both aware of each other’s looping. They might switch it up so that they both end up teaming up to take down Featherine, but I kinda doubt that’ll happen.

I’m still hoping this is leading into some kind of new Umineko anime though, lol. That feels like it’d be the main reason for putting so much effort into this whole elaborate LambdaBern origin story we’re getting here.

I’ve heard rumors that there’s been listings for a 25th episode of Gou, so it’s possible that rather than another full season, there’s just one extra episode at the end. I’m not exactly sure what the point of doing one extra unannounced episode at the end would be, though. It might end up being a bridge between Gou and a new Umineko anime.

At the very least, if it’s just ‘Satokowashi Part 8′, it makes me wonder why they haven’t announced it yet, and why they didn’t just split that arc into two BD volumes with four episodes each, instead of having it be one big volume with seven episodes, and one random episode at the end for some reason. But if it’s more of an epilogue or a bridge of sorts between Gou and something else, with Gou’s story concluding with episode 24, then I guess it’d make some sense to do it that way.

We also know there’s gonna be a panel for Gou at a convention around when ep24 comes out, so if anything gets announced it’ll probably happen there.

Anyway, this whole episode can be summed up as “Satoko does a gay little psychological torture that pisses Rika off”, in the most morbidly entertaining way possible, lmao.

[meyeselph]

Gwenpool: Desperate Misanthrope's Confused Angst

Showtime

Ms. Pool woke up in a familiar room. Not in Krakoa - there are no mutants around. This isn’t a story about that. Look, honestly, without an actual Gwenpool series and the constant breaks in her comics appearance I can’t even begin to give a fuck. I cancelled my marvel universe subbie. I might get back to my stories but single issues are iffy. I read fast and don’t pore over the artwork. So I get 10 minutes of entertainment for….FIVE DOLLARS? When did this happen? Jeezus.

Who even reads comics anymore?

Anyway, long story short, Gwen got out of bed and recognized the room as her old one from the “old times.” The dark times. The ‘not running around in pink and white outfits and shooting people’ times. She panicked (Been there. It is what it is though). The only way out of trauma is through.

She dressed in old clothes, immediately hit by old smells, she couldn’t help but cry. Was it all a dream? Have I gone insane (again)? All the usual self doubts cropped up. I mean, really, if you think this kind of thing didn’t pass through her mind regularly why don’t you transport yourself to a comic book universe?

Oh, you can’t?

Oh. It isn’t actually possible for you and I’m stupid for suggesting it. So, yeah. If it actually happened and you kept that attitude then the logical assumption for a normie is a mental breakdown. Trick for Gwen, though, is it's probably always been both real and her being nuts.

So she goes downstairs to the kitchen to figure out why this is happening and Evil Gwen is having cereal. Let's say cocoa puffs. I’ve been thinking about those recently. You ever remember cereal as something worth cherishing. Not as just bullshit that TV convinced you to want? God damn, now I want Cookie Crisp. Cookie Crisp wasn’t even ever that good. Why do I want Cookie Crisp?

So also sitting around the table were the faceless versions of her father, mother, and her brother. Just chilling. No BD. Seen Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind?

Yes, I know that references aren’t jokes - fuck you, I’m painting a picture and I CAN’T PAINT, THAT’S WHY THIS ISN’T A COMIC. Fucks sake. Anyway. So, Gwen is so creeped out that she just sits her butt down by Evil Gwen as if she’s the comforting presence here.

Her name’s too long. Let’s call Evil Gwen uh…….Gren. You know, like Grendel from Beowulf. I haven’t actually read Beowulf and this is all a little confusing but I'm solving problems here. Writing this is harder for me than you would think so it’s best to keep things flowing off the cuff. That’s the Gwenpool™ style anyway, isn’t it? Are you laughing yet? IMPROV. “YES AND” MY SHIT, READER!

“So, you ever really look into the retconned past thing, hun?” Gren said, moving her tongue around her food. Being gross as an attempt to be properly evil. She swallowed before continuing. “This is all I could really put together on short notice but i’m pretty sure what the future people created, all that stuff to try and trick you, it was all bullshit.”

“What do you mean? Are you trying to convince me to go all psycho like you again?” Gwen asked, exasperated, realizing she was now back in the whole ‘fuck with Gwen to decide her fate’ song and dance routine from the end of her first arc.

“Nah, not really.” Gren said. A hammer appeared in her hands out of nowhere and Gren swung it into their fake father’s head, snapping his neck..

“DAD!” Gwen instinctively cried as she saw her father’s body slump to the floor. Gren slapped Gwen’s face. “That’s it,” Gren said, “this is what the trick was.This is a poorly created character in a fictional story. Meant to manipulate you into attaching your concept of “father” to it. Even his finished version in the original comics run wasn’t THAT well drawn. Your dad read like a boomer’s idea of a responsible parent. You were going through a mental crisis and struggling to find purpose in life and his genius idea was get a shitty low paying job and suck it up?”

Gren turned to their brother, pushed his face to the table and smashed the back of his skull. . “Brother dearest, too. Going right along with their victim blaming. He gaslighted you as if what you were going through was just you being ‘irresponsible.’ Bitch, people working a minimum wage job aren’t somehow not impoverished and miserable because they get some of that ‘honest work’ that folks keep badgering on about. Minimum wage work is occupied by many physically and mentally disabled people held hostage; they’re people society only pretends to care about. Then they turn it all into you acting like some world ending threat. No questions about what drove you to the edge in the first place. You are just ‘unstable,’ so you’re just a problem to be solved. They say, ‘Let’s all solve this girl being upset and on edge by ruining her concept of self, reality, and memory.’ Brilliant!”

Gwen barely processed this in horror. Gren then slit the poor facsimile of their mother’s throat while continuing to rant, “You see people die all the time, Gwen. Half of the time you are doing the killing. You do it because it’s in a story. In a story the NPCs don’t matter and, after all, your original schtick in the story was to be kill-crazy. The non-marketable characters can be replaced or retconned at the stroke of the artist’s pen.” Gren leans forward as she pulls a Gwenpool mask over Gwens face. “Then the writers convince you that you have some middle class milk toast family and you take abuse and subsume your emotional needs because the problem MUST be you. You aren’t ‘normal’ so you have to be fixed.”

Gwen wiped her eyes over the mask and sighed. A bit of fire filled her gut as she stared at Gren. “So fucking what? You want me to go on a killing spree and be a big time villain to get myself a nice, shiny permanent big bad status? That’s how I stay around right? Just build my legacy on bodies?”

Gren scoffed “You already lost that fight, girly. Where do you think we are? Because this ain’t Marvel Comics.”

Confused, Gwen blinked and tried reaching for the page margins, finding nothing. Wait….why was everything on this page so ill defined and undetailed? Wait? Why was the story in kinda wobbly third person past tense?

Gwen sighed “Oh. I’m in a fanfic. I guess the publishing fight is for another day eh?”

“My advice, personally,” Gren stated, “is that you consider the lobster.”

“Wait, what the fuck?”

Gren pulled aside the kitchen curtains revealing the face of a giant lobster, its claws tapping on the glass. The lobster muttering gutterally about personal responsibility.

“Because there’s a couple thousand giant lobsters outside that would like to claw you until you read their book.”

--

Scared of Girls

On the rooftop, Gren shoved a high powered rifle into Gwen’s hands while she handled the close range threats. So, this conversation they’re about to have is important. Sniping puts Gwen into a sort of zen space, so that’s a better task to keep her focused, after all.

“So, what? You wanted me to internalize that my “origin story” is bullshit? Okay, what does that accomplish, then?” Gwen asked in a bit of a deadpan. She was so tired today. Not really feeling her happy go lucky energy. More like a “happy go fucky” energy. It was hard to always be on a knife's edge. Still the rifle’s kick into her shoulder was satisfying as she blew through two of the creepy looking lobsters at once. “Also, why the lobsters?”

Gren considered this. “Okay, last question first, I had to experiment a lot and do a lot of research to construct this place for your learning and healing in fanfic form....These buddies are a failed experiment of mine that I repurposed because the fic needed more action. Isn’t that right, giant enemy crap?” As she peppers the nearest goon with a hail of shotgun pellets the entire throng of them burst out, sharply muttering about divine symbols.

“As for what I'm trying to teach you, it’s that you aren’t reaching your potential.” Gren grumpily huffed.

“Duh,” Gwen reloads, “I mean you just killed a mannequin version of the voice in my head that says that to me every day.” one of those crustaceans talks about feminine symbolism while she decides on her next target.

“Not like fake daddy’s ‘Be a responsible member of society by paying your taxes’ type of potential. I mean your creative and emotional potential.” Gren flipped off the slavering throng of monsters, noticing they were starting to keep their distance from the roof.

“I never did finish that fanfic idea I had.” Gwen mused.

“God, don’t mention that,” Gren thrusts a finger at Gwenpool. “Not that I don’t respect fanfic, but when comic book writers make you and Kamala squee about fanfiction to try and relate to “the kids” it comes across as so condescending.”

“Really? I mean…..I'm sure it’s meant as support for the concept?”

“Most fucking superhero comics are just legalized fanfiction! The people who created the characters are either long gone or working on someone else’s characters! They just think they are so much better because they got fucking paid. They can’t imagine themselves as on the same playing field as fanficcers even though most of them have the same level of connection to the roots of the work as anyone else.” Gren groused loudly as she seemed to pull Reed Richards out of nowhere.

Confused, Reed looked around until his eyes met Gwen’s.“Oh great, you again.” Reed groaned as he turned to survey the piles of lobster gibs while Gwen cheered the lobster forces’ retreat with a resounding “EDF, EDF!”. The scattered creatures skittered amongst the bland scenery. It looked like a suburban neighborhood but someone forgot to color in the sky….or write that the sky had color. A castle hung out in the distance breaking up the generic normalcy and lay cloaked in shadow despite being surrounded by an endless white void.

“And…..black….you?” Reed pointed to Gren, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I have an evil future self….well I stopped that future so it’s an….evil...alternate timeline self?” Gwen said with a nervous chuckle, abandoning the kill quest for the minute and rested her rifle on the roof.

“Ah. Yeah I’ve been down that road. It’s a rather common occurrence. Multiverse being what it is.” Reed laughed heartily while putting his hands on his hips.

“I’m not sure I’m evil, honestly,” Gren interjected. “I think I’m just really fucking grumpy and I’m slightly more gung-ho on the homicide. Considering Gwen’s already one of the more kill crazy characters on the roster it’s not that much of a distinction.” Gren flipped her cape. “My main distinction is I don’t like that meme from The Incredibles! You can just make it so the cape detaches automatically when it’s pulled hard enough!”

“You could still have it tangled up around your face.” Reed pointed out in his standard know-it-all fashion.

“Don’t make me go into fuck wife mode, stretch.” Gren spat. “Okay, anyway, so I brought him here to illustrate a point. Reed. Explain particle physics to me as a laymen.”

“Huh...i’m not sure why but okay. Particle physics (also known as high energy physics) is a branch of physics that studies the nature of the particles that constitute matter and radiation. Although the word particle can refer to various types of very small objects (e.g. protons, gas particles, or even household dust), particle physics usually investigates the irreducibly smallest detectable particles and the fundamental interactions necessary to explain their behaviour. In current understanding, these elementary particles are excitations of the quantum fields that also govern their interactions. The currently dominant theory explaining these fundamental particles and fields, along with their dynamics, is called the Standard Model. Thus, modern particle physics generally investigates the Standard Model and its various possible extensions, e.g. to the newest "known" particle, the Higgs boson, or even to the oldest known force field, gravity.” Reed rattled this off rather mechanically.

Gren then took out her phone and showed Gwen the Wikipedia article on “Particle Physics,” which is naturally the same words that Reed had regurgitated above, just without any formatting and, again, on a phone.

“Reed can’t be a genius in any subject unless he’s written by a genius in that subject. That’s how stories work. Everyone is limited by the understanding and capabilities of the writer. Same with your origin story and all the people you’ve interacted with. If you are as ‘meta’ as you think you are then you have to realize that you aren’t actually talking to people. You are talking to the writer. Dr. Strange didn’t rewrite your existence to be a part of the Marvel Universe. As far as most of Marvel continuity goes Dr. Strange was never there and doesn’t know or care about his MCU casting…..Hey Reed, buzz off please before the conversation pivots to why you haven’t cured all known diseases.”

Reed looked a little surprised but then pulled out a teleportation device (of course he has one) and blipped away with a shrug.

“How awkward is that going to be when he enters the MCU after Kamala is already introduced with a very similar power set?” Gwen chuckled.

“Keep up the way you’ve been going and you’ll never see it. I’m not exactly expecting a young blonde girl casting call for Deadpool 3 and that’s your best bet.” Gren snarked. Gwen winced with a sigh.

“I don’t get what I'm doing wrong. I have a fanbase comparable to some of the characters that have already shown up but I can’t even get comics written about me most of the time. An MCU push seems unlikely. They would literally have to deal with completely recontextualizing my powers and gimmick”

“Let’s ask her what you should do.” Gren motioned her way to the suddenly appearing long hair future Gwen, looming over them like The Attack of the 50 foot Woman for some reason. Dwarfing the roof they are on. Let’s call her BIGwen!

--

Gold Guns Girls

As BIGwen acclimated to her surroundings she stubbed her toe on a car, dramatically flipping it so that it took out a few more lobsters before caving in a nearby house. The lamentations about clean rooms soaring as the remaining couple dozen of them attempt to clean up some of the bodies of their fallen kin. The large and sort-of-in-charge Gwen hissed in pain and adjusted her boot. Getting her balance as best as possible she muttered curses that traveled rather well considering the lung capacity of a giant.

“You know,” Gren started, “I wasn’t expecting much from our previous uses of the ‘make her big for emphasis’ trick, but it really does only work as a vague ghostly background element. I didn’t just want it to be ‘oh, here's a third Gwen for the conversation, though. Would lack umph.”

“ Yeah, I get it, but staring at my own giant taint is unsettling.” Gwen muttered.

“I’d still, hit it.” Gren grinned, then immediately got punched in the arm. “OWWW! Look, I’m the evil one here and we’re in a fanfic. I’m allowed to make internet fetish jokes.”

“And I’m allowed to hit you for it.”.

“Dirty lampshading goody two shoes. Don’t act like half your fanbase isn’t thirsty. It’s “insert current year argument”, all art is sexy to someone.” Gren complained back,rubbing her arm before hopping off the roof. Gwen followed while listening as patiently as she could considering how many changes in topic her evil-caped self is going through to get to her point. “This chick is the reason you’ve been on the path of good girl. Some vague idea that in the future everything will work out for the best. HEY, DOWN HERE, BIG SHOW!” Gren waved at BIGwen and she looked down curiously.

“Yeah what??” BIGwen responded in a booming and agitated tone. Honestly, being in this fic made every version of Gwen a little grumpy.

“How’s she supposed to be a popular hero that makes it into the MCU and has a stable publication history?” Gren asked.

“Fuck if I know.” Came BIGwen’s response. “Have you tried growing your hair out?”

“Rub it in,” Gwen muttered under her breath, “I’m not gonna lie, I’m kind of depressed now.” Gwen said as she sat on an abandoned car.

Gren hopped on the roof of the car, patting Gwen’s shoulder before squatting with enough force to flex the car’s shocks like a rocking chair just to amuse herself. “Future “good” Gwen wasn’t an actual plot point, it was a call to action to the fans to make fanfic like this and support the character outside of the actual Canon. Chris didn’t trust that Marvel would treat the character right. That, and your obsession with getting a new book, are both the writer’s attempt to turn a marketing tactic into fan engagement. If you want to be real then that makes the fans want you to be real even more, too.”

Gwen sighs heavily and leans her chin on one hand. “I mean...the time traveling through the life of an NPC fan complete with a Never Ending Story reference was a bit sappy even by the standard we sometimes set...damn it it really was just kind of a fan manipulation trick wasn’t it?”

BIGwen Sat down on the street next to them and crossed her legs. “Hey, little me. Don’t get too down. I mean it worked for the most part. You have a healthy cult following. Characters have survived on less and there are worse things to be known for then as a fan first character”

“But I have to fight for attention all the damn time, though. It’s so easy for Wade with his fucking meme bullshit. He even gets runoff enthusiasm from me. Jeff the land shark is all over Oldpool online” Gwen felt rather heavy and tired all of a sudden. Marvel editorial forcing a gun to your head is not a fun way to be.

“All that fight is hell on the fanbase too.” Gren sighed. “Advocating for shit, getting crumbs and being expected to accept it while Disney lavishes all the attention based on some bullshit numbers game. Even if you make it into the MCU will it be a Batroc style cameo with obligatory ‘killed off in case we don’t feel like paying the actor again later.’ Will it be an emotionally rounded character or an ambush bug style joke? The thing is. You're Not the one fighting and you never were.”

“The fuck do you mean?”

“This version of her doesn’t know?” BIGwen whimpered.

“You aren’t real, Gwen.”

--

Head Like a Haunted House

“No….we aren’t having this conversation. Fuck you fuck you i’m not a fucking Nihlist and i’m not going to do this right now.” Gwen said as she scrambled off of the car and pulled out some guns. BIGwen then picked her up off the ground.

“You need to hear this, Gwen,” BIGwen boomed. “The gimmick has run its course. It’s fucking with your canon. You’re never going to be a marketable character keeping up a half fourth-wall Kayfabe”

Gren climbed onto BIGwen’s Shoulders and perched over Gwen all menacing like. “You need to listen. I’ve been trying to ease you into this. Making things more meta slowly until you were ready but it was never going to be easy.”

One of Gwen’s guns was fired from it’s holster and pierced one of BIGwen’s fingers. BIGwen screamed and her grip loosened. Soon Gwen was on the move running up her arm and firing at Gren, who dodged like the nimble and cute badass she is. “Don’t do this Gwen. Just because it doesn’t matter to the comic version of you doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m a real person god damn it! I read the comics out there! I came in! That’s why I know shit I shouldn't know. That’s what I am! THAT’S ALL I AM!” Gwen shrieked as she pulled out a sword from hammer-space and decapitated BIGwen. Suddenly a mess of colored streamers and a pile of Mickey Mouse merch tumbled out. Look, I am busy right now. Gwen is still slashing at my ass. I'm not going to explain it.

For some reason now the remaining lobsters were helping Gren. For Gwen’s own good you understand. This is proof that I’m right for some reason.

Gwen pulled out a revolver, firing pumpkin sized holes in lobsters who were still wailing about self actualization. She fully planned on shoving a sword up her evil self’s ass and getting rid of this doppelganger shit for good. Which is total bullshit by the way. She totally just cut off Gren’s leg because what the fuck you mean I’m not real? I’m going to be real all over your corpse.

Gren didn’t really think that was even a good comeback and also thought you should probably say it instead of meta willing the smack talk into existence, otherwise this fanfic is going to read like trash. Also, Gren’s leg wasn’t actually cut off. In a puff of smoke it is revealed that the cut off leg is a log and her leg is fine. Gren is a ninja now, believe it.

Gwen proceeded to do a sick ass CQC judo throw on Gren and then grab her cape and wrap it around her face like Reed suggested. Callbacks for the win! Callbacks to Checkov’s gun ideas always lead to victory in fights! She then totally shot at her and such.

But the bullet was caught by the cape because the cape was a symbiote! That’s right Gren is also GRENOM!...boy that sounds stupid. Anywho, the cape was no longer around her face and the fight continued and Gren now ALSO had extra powers and special wizard-symbiote armor (that would only show up in the MCU version if Marvel finally got the Sony characters back). The meta powers work like shit in text but this would be really good in CGI or animation if Marvel wanted to adapt this fic and give the writer lots of money. Gren still has more experience with them, though, and Gwen can’t really just kill her way out of this fic so she has to just let the story play out.

…...eh?....oh Gwen’s crying. I love/am you girl but we gotta work on the crying. Fucks sake this is harder than I thought. I’m depressed now too. Well I'll try to get the writing back on track so you guys can see what is going on. Even the lobsters are minding their manners now. Chill vibes, guys.

“The marvel character page for Gwenpool says, and I quote:

Gwenpool arrived in the Marvel Universe from the “real world,” but has wasted no time in making the most of her time in her fictional universe. Using her knowledge of comics to her advantage, Gwenpool causes and solves problems for her fellow heroes.”

Gren drags a lobster corpse slowly toward Gwen and sits on its tail as she talks to her. Taking her time to really scrape the lobster against the ground, smearing the gore on the pavement. Not that it was heavy for her or anything. Totally still has that symbiote, which would make moving it easy. Totally wasn’t a detail added in the second revision of the fic slightly before the lobsters were added.

“The words “Real world” are in quotation marks in that wiki. Real people don’t make it into comics because fiction isn’t real. Half of your versions barely make use of the ‘real person’ gimmick because it’s too meta by half and not every writer wants to waste time justifying it. So they just treat it like Deadpool’s medium awareness. Which it mostly is.”

“I really am just a fucking rip off distaff character.” Gwen moans. “Just a Gwen combined with a Pool. I’m worse than the Batman who laughs. I never mattered because I was never real”

“Fuck don’t say that. You were made with love and care by a team of creators who took a weird offshoot idea and built out a compelling metafiction idea and a likeable protagonist off of it. They just didn’t have the time and foresight to go far enough.” Gren sighed.

“Far enough?” Gwen sniffed as she was pulled up to her feet and dragged toward one of the big castles. As they walked Gren kicked along a Mickey Mouse doll that had rolled out of BIGwen’s severed head. Every time it bounced it cheerfully said ‘hahah. I love you!’

“Too much haha, not enough trauma. You’re not just a joke character.” Gren said as she kicked the Mickey doll into the big front door of the castle. The shadowy thing of course lighting up and being all fantasy and shit as the door opened.

“Well I did end both of my comic runs pretty mopey.”

“Damn right you did. When the jokes run thin they run to your real bread and butter. You’re an empathy machine.” As Gren shoves Gwen through the gate they are swallowed up in the castle, going dark again. “Let’s getcha sad clown on.”

--

Never there

“See, what evil me should have been telling you about in the original run is how to find meaning and purpose when technically nothing means anything. Comic book characters live in a world without real death and suffering. It’s all a puppet show version of real pain and real emotion meant to bring that out of an audience.” Gren opined as they walked through a black void to a couch floating in a nothing area lit only by the static of an old TV.

“Can we turn on a light?” Gwen asked as she sat on the couch. Gren sat on another recliner that suddenly appeared and put her feet up.

“Fuck off. Ambiance is a thing. We aren’t having a ‘lights on with something fun on the TV’ conversation. So look, I am not really ‘evil gwen.’ I’m half an author insert and half a plot device. If we are talking about the reality of the story you are basically talking to yourself. I am speaking about the things you don’t want to admit to yourself. You know, you’ve seen this kind of story sorta... right?” Gren picked up the remote and frustratedly changed channels between a bunch of vaguely illustrative footage on the TV, not finding anything that worked. A lot of black and white footage of trains for some reason. Just what comes to mind when I think of documentary footage? Weird.

“I am not sure how to illustrate this shit visually and this is a text story anyway so I would have to explain the illustration,” Gren griped.

“I basically get it. It’s not that uncommon a trope.” Gwen nodded.

“Because of the level of meta we are on right now we have to really acknowledge that you are basically an author insert, too. I mean, to a certain extent every version of you is more the writer that is working with your character at the time than a set character.” Gren said as she settled on a visual of Gwen being pushed out the window by her own narration text in the original comic run. When all else fails, resort to footage from the last story. That way people can look it up online!

“Right here is where the character crystallized in the mind of the author of the current fic we are in. A vague suicide metaphor wrapped up in the flavor of self destructive escapism. Your parents in the story thought it was a suicide attempt on at least some level. This is serious business. Not just a girl who doesn’t like work and can’t finish her fanfic. In this comic you are built on this understanding. The writer of this fic has ADHD and autism. So his version of you more or less has it, too. Writers bring themselves with them into their work.”

Gwen nods and takes a deep breath. “I….I can feel it. Like the world is closing around you. You aren’t built for anything that anyone wants from you. The one thing you really believe in, the one thing that really defines you, the stories in your head…..it’s just not enough.

You can’t trust you’ll ever make it with writing because you can barely write. You barely have the energy to do anything but wish that you weren’t you. What if someone actually listened? Actually believed in you and whisked you away somewhere else where the world would fit your needs? What if you were someplace you could be someone else, someone strong and confident?”

“Yeah. Like a funny anti hero in a comic for instance.” Gren nodded. “But the original comics sort of left the theme on the table. They were captured by the misconception of Gwen as the problem and not a person who needed help. All that desperation that real fans of the character might feel just bundled up into love for this character that really ‘gets’ them but Marvel doesn’t ‘get’ the character. They won't use her. They won’t go past vaguely gesturing at her mental issues and moving on. They saved the angst for Wandavision.” Gren scoffs.

“I mean the show was okay but they literally have a character built entirely on the theme of escapism and trauma. One that’s custom built for mind-screw visuals and reality bending plots and they think she’s just a lazy fangirl who really likes guns that they can sit beside Deadpool sometimes and stick in the X-Men’s bloated background character roster when they don’t need her.”

Gren leads Gwen off the couch and deeper into the void where a door to a bedroom waits. A room like her own, absolutely slopping over with old toys of comic book characters. An unclean messy space in a run-down house that smells faintly of cigarette smoke. Huddled in bed, reading an 80s era X-men comic with a flashlight, is a 12 year old Gwen.

“This is never going to be canon but this is the version of Gwen in this fic. She can’t stop crying at school. Things that shouldn’t be hard are so hard and she can’t explain why. Everyone says she’s making excuses. Meanwhile her mother is fucked out of her mind on pain killers and her step father killed himself last year ‘cleaning his gun’ while drunk. You know exactly what is on her mind right now?” Gren says as she gestures at the girl.

“I wish the superheroes would save me from this.”

“They won’t. They can’t. They were never meant to.” Gren Slams the door loudly on the scene.

“That is the emotional core of Gwenpool in this fic. The desperation that so many of the fans down here in the fucking muck of the real world feel. Poor and emotionally unfulfilled. Confused and vulnerable. If Disney and Marvel gave two fucking shits about people like that they wouldn’t waste as many stories as they do. They wouldn’t just use untold wealth to make expensive escapist stories with the military. Their gestures toward progressive ideas that they occasionally make in their stories would be THE ENTIRE POINT of their stories and the actual thing they used that money for instead of lobbying the government to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain.

“Disney has the power yet they save a fucking miniscule fraction of who they could. Saving people doesn’t make money.”

--

When I Get To The Green Building

Gren stormed through the void. The scene disintegrated around her as Gwen followed. Both now in a bit of a sour mood but with newfound determination.

“Come to think of it. Why is the fucking Hulk getting to fight for social justice in the comics? Why are they making a gay alternate universe Captain America? Why are they grasping at straws so hard to find characters that get to advocate and I am just sitting on a fucking island being grumpy?” Gwen groused. “I’m pretty sure I’m pansexual….at least in this fic. I could advocate for a bunch of shit at once.”

“You have a youth fanbase, a unique story and you technically aren’t an alternate universe version of fucking anything no matter how many people still think you are a Stacey. They made a fucking ‘for the fans’ character and then neglected it. Presumably because some fucking money making metric didn’t pan out despite the comics just being an MCU test kitchen and IP farm anyway.”

“You’re a fucking check mark on a ledger. I don’t even know if anyone technically created Gwenpool as a whole and Disney/Marvel can give the character to whoever they want to do whatever they want completely separate from what the fanbase wants and needs because she isn’t established. The IP landlords have spoken. The fans haven’t risen to enough ‘buy my merch’ calls to action to invest more resources. So tease endlessly until that changes.”

“Gah. Now I'm actually as pissed as you are.” Gwen said as she started fiddling with her guns. “Who do I kill?”

“We can’t do shit. You’re not even a character at this point. You are a meme for an underused character.” Gren smirked all evil like. “See but that’s it. You aren’t just a meme. You’re a MEME.”

“Uhm...I don't follow.”

“Like the concept of Justice. Gwenpool is an idea. Defined entirely by how people who engage with the idea choose to engage with it. The IP law means Disney owns Gwenpool but they don’t own how Gwenpool is perceived. Just like we as a people decide what justice is through popular consent we also decide what Gwenpool is. You see they made a character for the fans…..in my opinion that means the fans can do as they like with it even if it makes Disney uncomfortable.”

“I mean they can’t even stop porn of their characters just because of the sheer volume of the problem. I suppose people could do whatever.” Gwen nodded.

“Exactly. So the fans should just fucking Occupy Gwenpool!” Gren said as she flipped her cape dramatically with a mad smile on her face. That’s right. She was Dirtbag Leftist Gwen all along!

“Squat on that IP. Make Gwenpool a mental health advocate. Make her an LGBTQ activist. Make her fight for social and financial justice so hard that Bruce Banner looks like a poser. Make her talk shit about politicians who put their career ahead of the people. Do all the shit that makes the comicsgate crowd sad. Keep politics in our stories! Rally around that pink and white ass so hard they have to notice and then tie it all to the fact that Disney has great power and with great power they take no responsibility for how shitty the world is.”

“ If they are going to fuck Gwenpool fans they gotta learn Gwenpool fans fuck back. We have already proven we can make all kinds of cool shit. Let’s get serious and make more, harder, faster! Get a hashtag or some shit. They can't DMCA all of us! GWEN IS OURS WE JUST HAVE TO REACH OUT AND TAKE IT. Then they either respect the character and her fans or they just hit a PR disaster.”

“Marvel/Disney neglects fan focused cult character themed protest movements. Proves they are only progressive when it makes them money. They’re so worried about Mickey ending up in the public domain? We’re the public domain! After our entire lives stannin their characters and buyin their merch building them from an animation house into a juggernaut they are just another weight on top of the boot on our necks. They have to take responsibility!” At this point Gren is pretty much ranting maniacally and neglecting the actual writing of the story so this is Gwen taking over to wrap up.

Guys I may not be ‘the real Gwen’ but really, isn’t the version of Gwen that actually came from the real world all of us? Isn’t Gwenpool really the Gwens we made along the way? We could easily bring a little heroism and chaos to the real world (at least to the internet) if we really tried. Put the fear of God into some IP landlords and fight for some cool people that society is screwing over, too.

Prove that even in the fandom abyss people aren’t as powerless as they seem. Use that internet comic fan mobbing for something besides giving Zack more money. Disney is gearing up for their next IP fight for Mickey in 2024. Seems like a fine time for IP themed protests. For now we just need to spread the word that our needs are more important than their profits.

It’s been real. It’s been long. It’s been a real long time coming…..

But I finally finished my fanfic.

See ya, true believers.

[scorpio-karma]

I seen people hate on season 6 Tyler because he got Damon and Elena out of the prison world when they were rescuing Bonnie however I honestly think Tyler was more smarter than Damon and Elena Kai was about to kill Liv And he drained most of her magic and if she dies Damon and Elena are stuck forever and if they hid the ascendant they could have tried again in the next few days also what were elena and Damon doing at the prison world anyway talking about their relationship , sitting in Elena's house they never tried to meet bonnie halfway

Honestly I would have loved to see an episode where liv sends Tyler to save bonnie because Damon And Elena were useless and then once bonnie meets Damon she beats the shit out of him and once kai tries to kill them or something Bonnie leaves Damon alone and kai tortures him and elena for quite awhile

ahh the perfect tvd episode

For me personally I don't like Tyler in that episode, not really because of his actions but because of his complete disregard for Bonnie. She did all the hard work literally to get him back and Liv got all the credit for saving him???? And then there's Liv herself who i have issues with in general but the fact that she has to be reminded what Bonnie did for her to even be motivated to help irks me a lot.

As for actions, Tyler was the most logical but for me again where I'm most fed up with him is that there is no attempt to find another way to get Bonnie back. He seems completely content with the idea of letting Bonnie rot on the Prison world.

As for least productive that goes to Damon and Elena who just sat around when they could have been meeting her halfway. I personally blame Elena more there simply because her presence was unnecessary. This was around where I was really realizing how useless of a character she was because they were just tacking her on to storylines because she was the main character and not because she actually belonged there. I feel the same about the episode where Kai kidnapped her and when they go to the 1903 PW. Things just run much more smoothly when she's not around and that's because she only functions to hinder the plot. There's much more interesting storylines around her but you're stuck with Elena through most of it and miss some great opportunities, which is why I wasn't bothered at all with Nina leaving. Elena had no place on the show by then and I wish they realized that and had just killed her off because she became the most annoying part of season 7 and 8!

Anyway, in another universe, where the writers aren't racist and both Tyler and Liv realized who they owe their lives to that plotline would have been perfect. However I think it would be more in character for her to be happy to see Damon a)because I actually liked Bamom that season (just liked bonkai more) and b) as shown by her abandonment issues it's very consistent for her to attach to anybody she's been with for an extended time. The thing to break that to me is the same thing that broke her trust in him the first time and that was bringing Kai to her, completely disregarding her own trauma in favor of his own personal agenda which makes for a powerful scene I wish she had more of.

I'd be more inclined to replace the episode where Kai kidnapped Elena with one where he kidnaps Bonnie, obviously less torture, but they do have a moment about what to do when you have that much power in you, and he calls her plucky again because she escapes death so often. I'd like to start their journey into twisted romance there where she goes full Stockholm syndrome (but the real version) where she realizes she more safe with him her captor, than the MFG her rescuers. I don't exactly know where I'd go from there but I do knowni would like Bonnie and Tyler to be closer friends during that time. (I am a tonnie shipper but I love to brotp them in bk fics) Like he's the one to tell what a dangerous line she's toeing with but she lashes out at him with some facts about his neglect of her. I always have the HC that Tyler and Bonnie were each other's first times, so I would like to bring up the fact that he'll only be with a witch of she is white (a plec symptom). Obviously not true, but a good place for introspection on Tyler's part which has always been his greatest strength as a character. He knows how to look at his flaws and actually put in the work to change them and I think probing a symptom of living in the south, and on a former plantation at that would be best left with him. Instead of a whole host of excuses like "that's just how I was raised" and "that was the time back then" he would actually active try to change things. Maybe get his direction back and continue the Lockwood legacy as mayor but with the same conviction of not being like his father.

Anyway that was a weird tangent, NY conclusion is essentially that had Bonnie gotten back sooner when she was supposed to season 6 wouldn't have sucked toward the end and the needless torture of a black woman should have stopped not just due to the fact that it's racist, but it also improves the story. I swear, she hindered so much of that show just to be racist towards Bonnie and Tyler and apparently has the nerve to talk about the flaws in their storylines as though she didn't write it???? Bitch, get out of here with that nonsense, or better yet get fired because you clearly shouldn't be anywhere near a writers room.

[carriagelamp]

April l was apparently the month for me to revisit some children’s authors who are steeped in controversy at the moment. So here’s my hot (well, lukewarm) takes on issues that absolutely do not need a single other person talking about them. Also some actual good books that I read this month!

Badger in the Basement

The Animal Ark books are a childhood classic — though I recently found out that apparently there’s a difference between American and British publications, and the American versions didn’t include a lot of actual COOL animals which is… bizarre. As a Canadian stuck in the middle of this, this nonsense drives me nuts. This one was about the main character, the daughter of pair of vets, trying to protect a local badger sett from men wanting to participate in badger digging and baiting. These books are always feel-good, and it was a nice single-day-read while I waited for a library book to come in.

Chi’s Sweet Home

The cutest manga series about the misadventures of a little kitten, Chi, who has been adopted by a loving family. I’ve never bothered to read them in order, but apparently this time I stumbled across the last in the series -- whoops! Still, stood on it’s own pretty easily, and it was a fun read! Things get tense when the family realize that they may have found Chi’s original home… and may have to give up Chi forever.

Earth Before Us: Dinosaur Empire!

This was an odd graphic novel, I feel like I’m not sure who the target audience was exactly. It was a nonfiction comic done in a Magic School Bus style, with the purpose of teaching current, up-to-date facts about the animals that lived in the Mesozoic Era. If you’re into dinosaurs, you’ll probably enjoy this! The art is absolutely adorable, I love the dinosaur illustrations, and I learnt some really neat facts. That being said, the pages are really dense, and there’s a lot of info crammed in… some of it will probably go way over a child’s head without specific additional teaching or a very strong personal interest. But that being said, a dinosaur obsessed kid is still probably going to really dig this… as would a dinosaur obsessed adult. It wasn’t my cup of tea exactly but I’m sure it is someone’s.

assorted Dr Seuss Books

I love these types of controversies because it means getting to listen to every moron who has never had an opinion on Dr Seuss ever start generating a mile of them out of the aether. So many people are so mad about the six books that are getting retired and I bet most of them haven’t even read them. These are not the friggin Cat In The Hat or The Lorax or even the likes of Yertle The Turtle. I was raised by a grade one teacher, was a voracious reader who loved Dr Seuss, and wrote my university thesis on children’s literature, and I still only knew two of the six books on that list. So by all means, if you want to write an essay explaining why those specific books are worth clinging to, feel free, but if you haven’t even heard of them maybe it’s not a big deal. *grumble*

Anyway, my grousing aside, it gave me the urge to reread a bunch of Seuss books, including the two retiring books I personally knew: McElligot’s Pool and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. I do still enjoy both, especially McElligot’s Pool which always sparked my imagination, but it’s obvious why they’re being retired and I personally think it’s the right choice. There’s so much good kidlit out there, we can survive without these.

Goodbye, My Rose Garden

A f/f romance manga, fairly standard fair though cute if you’re looking for some historical angst, pretty dresses, and mutual pining. A young Japanese woman moves to England in the hopes of meeting a writer (Mr Frank) who she has long admired. Along the way she is employed by an enigmatic woman with plenty of money, rumours, and melancholy following her. I’ll be honest, uncut romance isn’t really my genre, but I’ll probably still try to the second book to see if the story picks up.

From The Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary

It’s no secret that I’ve been on a Hogan’s Heroes kick. This is the autobiography of Roberty Clary, who plays my favourite character in the show, Louis Lebeau. And holy shit what a life this man has had. He was a Jew growing up in France before the start of the war, and who was one of many children taken away from his family and sent off to the concentration camps in Germany. This was an amazing, intense, inspiring, and heartbreaking read… it has Clary’s voice all over it, and it tells everything from the charming childhood he had, to the horrors of the concentration camps, the brutality of survival, and then about his exciting journey into the entertainment industry afterwards. It’s an experience, would recommend if you’re a fan of the show.

The Ickabog

The second controversial author I read this month. Originally I was going to give Rowling’s new book a miss, given everything that’s been going on over the past few years, but in the end my curiosity got the better of me. Politics aside, it was a fun read! Not groundbreaking, but enjoyable enough and written in an interesting style. It didn’t read the same as a lot of modern kidlit, it felt more like a cross between a classic fairytale and a Dahl book. Perhaps a bit like Despereaux. It tells the tale of how an idyllic country gradually falls into ruin through the ignorance, inaction, and greed, and how a supposedly fictional monster hides the very real, human monsters at the heart of the country. It was cute and pleasant and I’m glad I decided to get it from the library, though for anyone who is choosing not to engage for political reasons: you aren’t missing anything major.

Franklin In The Dark

A Canadian classic. I don’t think there’s a single person my age who hasn’t read or been read a pile of these books, and the nostalgia is so comforting. I found this on Youtube and listened to someone read it to me, and honestly 10/10 would recommend for a calm evening.

The big reason I decided to seek this one out though, was because I finally got to the M*A*S*H episode that inspired this entire series! In the episode C*A*V*E, in which Hawkeye is freaking out over his claustrophia while the camp is forced to take shelter in a nearby cave during some intense shelling, he mentions that if he had been born a turtle he would have been afraid of his own shell, and that the other turtles would make fun of him cause he’d be forced to walk around in his underwear. And so this first story about a young turtle who’s afraid to sleep in his own shell and drags it around behind him. So if you were ever curious, Franklin the Turtle is in fact named after Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce. (this is also why the French version is named Benjamin!)

Wolves of the Beyond: Lone Wolf

I loved the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books as a kid but I never read the Wolves of the Beyond series. This first book was an interesting read, Lasky does a great job creating worlds and societies for the animals that inhabit them. Lone Wolf is about a deformed wolf cub who was abandoned in the wilderness to die. And he would have, if a desperate mother bear, who had recently had her only cub killed, hadn’t stumbled across him and saved him, vowing to raise him as her own...

Petals

A “silent” graphic novel. It has beautiful artwork and is told entirely through pictures, no text at all. It’s loves and heart-wrenching, though it left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied… I felt like there should have been more. Still, a neat story.

The Southern Book Club‘s Guide To Slaying Vampires

What a banger of a novel!! I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s about a group of suburban mothers in the ‘80s who form a book club out of a shared need for community and a love of grisly true crime novels. But when a strange drifter appears in town and starts setting down roots… and when children begin disappearing… these women need to band together to confront the horrors that have invaded their neighbourhood, and face down not only a terrifying monster among them but the patriarchal system that allows it to flourish. To quote the preface:

“Because vampires are the original serial killers, stripped of everything that makes us human — they have no friends, no family, no roots, no children. All they have is hunger. They eat and eat but they’re never full. With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom.    As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.“

The Weirn Books: Be Wary of the Silent Woods

I love Chmakova’s graphic novels, though I’ve only ever read her slice-of-life middle grade series before. This one is pure fantasy and very fun. It’s about two cousin “weirns” — witches with demon familiars — who attend the local night school. Things get strange though when an ominous figure appears outside the old, abandoned school house deep in the Silent Woods, and begins tempting children down its path…

I’m very much looking forward to word of a second book and was honestly kind of surprised that I haven’t heard more about this book given how popular her other series is. This has all the same charm and quirks but for those of us who prefer stories based in fantasy rather than reality.

And A Bonus...

For some masochistic reason I got a Garfield book out of the library. Jeez, if I didn’t love these as a kid, I found them absolutely laugh out loud hilarious, and now I just don’t see it anymore. But here I will share the one strip in the book that actually made me laugh

[itsclydebitches]

I’m the tin foil hat anon and I wanted to thank you for the response on my bb submission, you make great points. Although I was frustrated that some of them raised even more questions I didn’t think of myself… UGH… lol the S2 wait is gonna be painful

On the point of crosshair thinking his chip was removed a looong time ago(meaning before bracca or even as early as ep1) it wouldn’t make sense bc of his response to Hunter’s “you tried to kill us, we didn’t have a choice”. He says “and I did?”. So he seems to be aware he couldn’t control himself in all their previous encounters. Does it mean he knows his actions were due to chip then?

And you say crosshair avoiding the “when” question can be due to him not caring if the horrible actions he committed are chip or himself and it’s meant to show that he truly is despicable and evil. It could be the case because he shows absolutely no remorse or regret over slaughtering civilians, never apologizes to his brothers for not only trying to kill them but almost successfully incinerating(!!!) them. On top of that (apparently) without a chip he casually murders his own squad without a blink of an eye right in front of them.

On the other hand, he shows care for Omega’s safety in that episode and wants a better place in the universe for his brothers(even if it’s obviously a mistake). He sounds hurt and betrayed by them yet he still wants what he thinks is best for them. He seemed genuine and sincere in that moment. Even after they refused to join he protected them against the droids. He had multiple opportunities to shoot Hunter or others in the back but never did(and looked like didn’t even consider it). BUT after all of that he decides to raise his gun and try to shoot hunter who already has his gun drawn?! And in front of the whole squad holding him at gun point!!! WTF was he thinking?! WHY? I know they rejected his offer but still. Did his reveal completely change his plans? I just don’t understand. I know he is meant to be “complex and nuanced character with layers” but what a mood swing lmao

As much as I loved and enjoyed the bad batch overall I’m beginning to think that all these inconsistencies aren’t meant to be a crafty set up for next season. What they most likely are is just writers being vague on purpose so they don’t write themselves into a corner.

And as to why the batch and Omega didn’t even try to rescue their brother could just be so that Hunter and Crosshair would have this drama and disagreement at the end. Despite brad rau claiming their argument was over ideological differences. And Jen Corbett saying in that same cursed interview that the batch always love and support each other no matter what because they’re family. Well, I guess not crosshair, he doesn’t count anymore lol

And I agree with you I’d rather see the batch acknowledging they could have done more to try and rescue him than go into the chip details. However, I have a suspicion the real reason or explanation on why they never went back for him isn’t going to be brought up ever. Even *in universe* it simply does not make sense. Just makes me sad seeing how many people also try to come up with explanations. That should have been the writers job to provide something besides Hunter’s “you tried to kill us” bc that’s a weak argument and a total bs since he was SHOCKED to learn crosshair doesn’t have a chip.

Btw sorry for the long posts lol I just found your takes very intriguing

The season two wait is something awful and I only just started it lol. No worries about long asks though! My blog has become quite meta heavy over the years, so this is normal for my inbox. Besides, it’s a bit of a pot and kettle situation. It's not like my answers are particularly concise :D

Okay first, I have the unpopular (?) opinion that Crosshair was never planning to shoot Hunter, partly for the reasons you lay out here. You’re right, it doesn’t make sense, and rather than just accepting that he had that kind of “mood swing" (which would be pretty bad writing based on everything else we've seen) I think it does make sense that this was never his intention at all. Rather, it’s just a setup to make the audience think he’s about to shoot Hunter—that’s the obvious goal of that moment: the shock, drama, confusion, and then relief—but that doesn’t mean that in-universe that was ever Crosshair’s goal, even for just a split second. Omega leaves the pod. Echo, crucially, says that he can’t see her, setting up that Crosshair with his enhanced sight is probably the only one who could. He grabs his rifle off screen and as he does, Hunter leans over the side of the pod as he prepares to jump in, precisely where Crosshair needs to aim to hit Omega. Hunter is in his way. He’s directly in the line of fire, not because Crosshair is aiming for him, but just because that's where Omega is and they're both aiming for her: Crosshair with his rifle, Hunter ready to dive. The little shift Crosshair makes reads to me as him ensuring he doesn’t hit Hunter, despite him being right where he needs to aim, not him full on changing targets.

Even if we choose to read it as him deliberately aiming at Hunter—because yeah, the scene is meant to be ambiguous—I don’t think he, like, meant it meant it. Crosshair, as we’ve seen throughout TBB and TCW, can be pretty antagonistic. He likes to do things to get a rise out of people, like staring at regs until they snap at him, or pushing Rex’s buttons until he swings. If he was choosing to aim at Hunter in that moment, rather than Hunter just being in the way, I think it’s only bravado. Remember the “Don’t make the same mistake twice. Don’t make me your enemy” line? Crosshair has a need to remind others of his skill and power—whether it’s playfully like in TCW, or more seriously in TBB—and that’s likely what this is here. “Hey, Hunter. Look. I got my weapon back. I’ve got you cornered. I’m about to save our sister when you can’t. Remember that I’m good and you need me.” Those feelings of abandonment are tied up in that need to be needed, so when Crosshair is seething at being left behind, brutally showing them how he can get a drop on their leader and doing the thing they can't (save Omega) is a great way to remind them of what they threw away/re-boost his own self-esteem. But none of that means shooting Hunter was ever a real possibility. Because nowhere else do we see Crosshair willingly trying to harm his team. He does while under the chip’s influence, but then he never hurts Hunter when he’s captured. He kills his new team before they can hurt the batch. He helps them fight off the droids. There’s a tussle, but it’s not choreographed like either he or Hunter truly intends harm. Crosshair demonstrates no aggression during the entire escape, willingly gives up his weapon after saving Omega, and just stands there as they leave. If this guy actually wanted to hurt them, he would. Which is more likely, that Crosshair had a split second of real murder intent across two episodes of doing everything possible to help his team, or that this was just a mean bluff?

But personally, I don’t even think it was a bluff. I think the coincidence of Crosshair needing to aim there and Hunter already being there is just meant to imply an attack for the audience, not imply that Crosshair, in-universe, ever intended to hurt him, even for just a second. If he had, he wouldn’t look so surprised and sad when he realizes the others are pointing their weapons at him. If he was out to shoot Hunter, even if only for a moment, seeing his brothers come to his defense would be expected; a given. But if he only ever intended to save Omega, then seeing their weapons trained on him would produce the emotions we saw: shock that they’d turn on him and then severe disappointment. From Crosshair’s perspective, he didn’t do anything wrong and never intended to do wrong either. Hence, looking away in disbelief that his need to aim through Hunter was taken as a serious threat. He's realizing that they honestly believe that he would hurt them. Not the chipped version of him, but just him, all on his own.

As for the rest of his characterization, I think your point that “You tried to kill us” is a weak argument is pretty important. Meaning, Crosshair knows he didn’t attack his team and nearly kill them, the Empire controlling him like a puppet did. He (arguably) doesn’t owe them an apology for something that he was as much a victim for. However, we usually expect one anyway—like Wrecker still apologizing to Omega—because that's how people who have hurt loved ones react, whether the hurt was intentional or not, but that guilt is currently overshadowed by his fury that they left him behind. For him I think it’s a bit of a circular problem. Yes, he nearly killed them… but he wouldn’t have nearly killed them if they’d come back and rescued him. With the obvious disclaimer that the Empire is the real evil here, Crosshair as a threat is a bit of a problem of the batch's own making. If they’d done the right thing and gotten him out, there wouldn’t have been these scary moments like the engine incident. If they’d at least tried, then Crosshair likely would have been more guilt-ridden because he hurt his brothers who were trying to help him. As it stands, he tried to hurt the people who claim they're his brothers, but who left him behind. That's why he presents this second chance as magnanimous: from Crosshair's perspective, they haven't done anything to earn his care, but they're getting it anyway. An apology though? That's pushing things too far. If when Wrecker turned the group had locked him somewhere in the ship and gone off planet, leaving him there under the justification “Well, he tried to kill us!" would Wrecker still return with apologies for his actions... or would he be primarily pissed at being left like that, withholding apologies because they did him harm intentionally, whereas he did harm under another's control? I mean, maybe he'd be forgiving (the huge difference between his and Crosshair’s personalities is another factor), but also maybe not. Having Crosshair apologize for the near-death experiences requires 1. For him to feel responsibility for something that was forced on him and 2. For him to not be absolutely furious at the batch for abandoning him. They've gotta work through that before Crosshair can acknowledge that guilt.

Killing his second team on the other hand… idk if the batch cares, honestly. It was the killing of civilians that they balked at, not other fighters like themselves. Even the Jedis’ execution, something they clearly didn’t like, wasn’t enough to turn them from the Empire, presumably because the Jedi are capable of defending themselves. They fell in battle. It’s only when the Empire asks them to kill kids and untrained civilians that they go, “Absolutely not. This organization is evil.” Murder of other fighters was, you know, not great, but not worth defecting over either. Crosshair’s second team is made up of fighters who have been trying to kill them, so they’re definitely fair game. If we removed Crosshair’s plan from the situation and the batch was just fighting their way off Kamino after a capture, would they have also killed the team without a blink of an eye? Probably. It's self-defense. The second they raised their blasters it became a battle and, unless you’re specifically out to stun someone for some reason, battles end bloody. The shock is which side Crosshair was on, not that one side was willing to murder the other. It’s definitely messed up from our perspective that Crosshair laid a trap to murder his team to prove a point… but from the batch’s perspective? Crosshair killed a bunch of imperial fighters who were threatening them during a battle. That’s just an average Tuesday for them, nothing much to get upset over.

And omg don’t get me started on Crosshair wanting to find Omega a family! Like yeah, it’s obviously a #mistake and his faith in the Empire is Super Messed Up but... the underlying motivation is so good. It’s another situation where there’s no easy answer. Which is more important: Omega’s emotional health where she grows up with clones like her, the people who are now 100% her family, or her physical health, where she stays some place where she’s not always getting shot at, kidnapped, at risk of going hungry, etc.? It’s easy as the audience to go, “Of course she belongs with her dads!!” but if you choose to read the story through any realistic lens, Crosshair absolutely has a point about this being terrible environment for a kid, the exact point the batch themselves were making until Omega begged to stay. I love my feral, compassionate child but let me tell you, I YELLED when she yeeted herself out of that pod. This is a traumatized, formerly isolated kid with absolutely zero self-preservation, combined with, at times, a lack of basic common sense that’s inevitable in children (like not realizing she can’t pull a very heavy droid up through the water). As emotionally gutting as the thought is and, in this particular case, a Very Bad Idea, I really can’t fault anyone for raising the possibility that she go somewhere else, somewhere she’s likely to survive into her teens 😅

[erenthecoordinate]

Chapter 138: Dreams vs Reality

So I’ve sat down with my thoughts on ch138 for about a week analyzing Mikasa’s “vision” for character meta and its function to the plot. Needless to say there are polarizing opinions for obvious reasons- but I still feel the need to share my view bc I think it reveals a lot.

Disclaimer: I realize the issue with ship wars. I don’t intend to claim one thing or another; it’s entirely fair to interpret Eren’s feelings in many ways because that’s how this series works. I have no interest in arguing about it.  I’m only interested in the dream vs reality aspects of the chapter.

For the record, I’m working with two theories here and I emphasize THEORIES. It’s cool to disagree with parts or all of it! I do hope my words get you thinking at least a bit though!

The Butterfly Effect

In order to tackle these two theories, the theory of the “butterfly effect,” paths dividing into multiple timelines originating from one singular timeline depending on Eren’s choices, needs to be considered.  On first introduction to the Attack Titan’s abilities, Eren says that the holder can see future memories of its respectable owners.  Thanks to the Paths, Eren is able to communicate with previous holders, like Grisha, to commit acts that would lead him to obtaining the Attack and Founding Titans.  The Butterfly Effect would kick off the events that we’ve been following along in the story and imply that time exists in a circle, since the reason Eren gets the titans is because he was able to convince Grisha to do so by showing him selective memories.

The issue with this is in ch138, if Mikasa’s reality was actually a divergent timeline, if it really were the case Eren and Mikasa would run off together if she had confessed her feelings, there would be no way for Eren to convince his father to give him the Attack and Founding.  Therefore, they wouldn’t have even been in the outside world to run away to, Eren wouldn’t die of the titan curse, which is what happens in Mikasa’s ideal world.

It seems that he needs Paths specifically to communicate with Grisha.  It’s even possible he needs direct contact with royal blood to even see the memories, or else it was needed to trigger that ability for him to now do so more freely later.

Therefore, in this case, we can assume the butterfly effect is either debunked or functions differently than a domino reaction.

Paths exist in parallels – Mikasa’s Ideal is an alternative reality

We have confirmation from the storyboard of the chapter that this was meant to be Mikasa’s “ideal (world).”  Had she confessed her feelings to Eren, she would have suggested running away the night before Eren leaves his friends so that they can live Eren’s last 4 years in peace.  Obviously with the watering down of the Butterfly Effect, we see that it is impossible for this to happen, at least in the main timeline.  

Mikasa experiences a migraine when faced with the reality that Eren has to die in order to kill the “Founding Titan.”  She’s been experiencing these unexplainable headaches throughout the series during certain critical points of the plot that she personally experiences.  We can assume Eren has been lying about the Ackerman abilities in order to push Mikasa away from him, so that she would have less hesitation when she ultimately has to face him.  We don’t see Levi having these migraines when his own “host” Erwin cannot be protected from death.  Even Kenny doesn’t seem to experience or note these headaches when Uri is dying.  The only thing that is mentioned is the awakening power and inability to have their memories wiped or manipulated.

That said, it doesn’t seem to apply to Ackermans actually experiencing what the Founder can show them.  In this case, the theory of an alternate reality would be plausible if one with the Founder can access those other realities.  If Mikasa did experience another reality, it is because Eren who “controls” (or rather is lent power by) Ymir is able to bring her there. This would mean that timelines exist in parallel to each other and there are multiple alternative universes and realities, ones with Titans and ones without.  The headaches may be a result of a resistance that is likely due to showing Mikasa these realities during specific moments, ones with situations that align with other realities but aren’t explicitly converging at any point and her Ackerman blood trying to block that process from happening- with Ymir and Eren together, they are able to breakthrough that barrier.

Now you can interpret that Eren’s reason for bringing her there is to assure her that there is a reality where she suggests running away together and that she experiences that life with the assurance that she will stay with Eren as long as he lives.  She knows that this isn’t her own reality: “I think I shouldn’t be here.” Eren likely also brings her here to show that even with their peaceful life that the conflict still exists and that she still cannot save him.  After he dies, he wants her to detach herself from him, forget the memories, and to be free.

Whatever the reason, we can assume that the “cottage” Mikasa and Eren aren’t the main timeline Mikasa and Eren.  It wouldn’t make sense for the history and it wouldn’t align with their motivations throughout the story.  While the timeline of events up to that point are similar if not exact, their behaviors aren’t quite the ones we have been following.

I’ll explain further but in short to believe the above in genuine runs a high risk of presenting as “character assassination.”  In other words, “out of character.”  (Sorta)

Keeping this in mind, this potentially means that these “path” visits have been foreshadowed and even acted upon by Eren before this moment.  First off, we know that Eren foresaw the future of the Rumbling and “that sight” when touching Historia’s hand.  We also know he sees other moments in between via these future memories.  He is only limited in seeing the actual chain of events that gets to that point.

For years before he concedes to this future, he is adamant about finding literally any other solution that will not result in the Full Scale Rumbling.  When Kiyomi brings up even threatening the world with the Rumbling on top of sacrificing Historia, he rejects that offer, suggesting that they should consider other options.  When Hange says that Hizuru cannot  aid in getting other allies to help them, Eren is distraught by the failure of another plan.  However, he accepts going to Marley to survey the nation to seek opportunities for peaceful conversation.  Before their departure, Eren discusses the potential destruction of Paradis with Historia, saying that their options are to fight or run away- Historia, however, accepts the duties given to her.  Eren knows this option is unacceptable and with that nature he must go forth with Hange’s plan or commit the Rumbling (though of course he knows the latter is the future).  It’s the rescue of the little boy Ramzi that gives Eren the realization that the events are exactly how he saw them when receiving the future memories.  He actually considers leaving the boy behind to change that fate, but his nature, just like how he can’t accept the fate of Paradis to be destroyed, causes him to protect the boy.  Eren realizes that the future cannot be changed- because of fate and because of his nature.

He asks Mikasa the big question and receives her final answer.  This seems far fetched but when his friends arrive to interrupt the moment he says with disappointment that it was “perfect timing.”  Of course, this could also indicate the frustration of having this conversation interrupted with Mikasa, or that he no longer wanted to hear an elaboration because he didn’t expect anything to change, but with the future sight theory he could have foreseen his friends showing up at that precise moment; there isn’t a lot of evidence to say one way or another, but it’s worth considering since even Mikasa is confused when he says this, meaning that there is supposed to be focus on why he says this.  During the conference that proposes Eldian rights, after attendees and speakers insist that the real issue are the Paradisians and they should be ridden of, Eren leaves, now convinced that this is the path he has to take.  All other options are lost despite his begging, and he is sure there is no other way.

Everything seems to go just like Eren plans, including the time to meet up with Zeke; the only obstacle that he hadn’t foreseen was Reiner bringing reinforcements early.  Either these are events leading up to the same future that he did not see, or this is a different Path he exists on.

We see that he convinces Grisha to slaughter the Reiss family in order to get the Founding Titan when Zeke takes them on a “memory lane” trip.  With showing Grisha selective memories, his father decides to hand the titans to Eren just as he did in the “alpha” timeline.  He tells Zeke that he was able to “get to this point” thanks to Zeke, so now he is on the proper path.  Now the events are aligned where he does “see that sight” by contacting Ymir directly and activating the Rumbling.

How did he get to that path though?  Where does it start?  Is there a beginning at all?  Well, either Zeke had led them to a parallel path that was similar enough to show identical memories so to convince Eren that Grisha was brainwashing him—or Eren took advantage of a distracted Zeke to “path jump.”  It’s interesting that Zeke is the one leading them up until the end of the chapter when Eren is the one now pushing Zeke to get to the next memory.  The events up until Grisha gets to the Reiss Cave during the titan invasion occur according to the main timeline.  

At this point, Eren is aware that the future of this timeline is viable, one that he is most “like himself” because his behavior is consistent with his beliefs.  He was always fated to be this way, he always knew that he would never abandon Paradis so long as they were at risk.  He would never allow his friends to suffer that fate.  There was never a future for him to run away and live in the mountains living the rest of his life in isolation with Mikasa.  His very nature would never allow him to.

It is also possible that this foresight didn’t always come with the goal of flattening the entire earth- he would have foreseen the Rumbling not complete, he only ever mentions starting it and “that sight,” points in the manga that we have already seen.  He had the opportunity to prevent his friends from fighting by wiping their memories (save the Ackermans, but even they are just two people), but chose not to due to his ideologies, which he carried since he was a child.  In fact, he goads his friends to kill him.  He knows this is a future he is fated to have.  He expects Mikasa to kill him.  Expects that he must convince her to let go of her hesitation and end his life.  “You should let go of me.”  Why invade that path to tell her this if his goals are to destroy the world, unless he truly expects to stop her and the rest?  How could he foresee “see you later Eren” though as an end to his life?

This might be the answer to destroying the true Founding Titan since it now exists in their physical world as he acts as a vessel.  This might be the solution to eradicate the titans- “destroy this world.”  Disconnect Paths.  Stop the indefinite fate where he and his home perish by erasing the existence of Titans altogether.  Break fate.

It was (mostly) just a dream

The second running theory is that Mikasa really does just experience the moment of “going back to their home” as a dream.  We know she gets headaches at critical moments where she runs the risk of losing someone close to her—and this isn’t isolated to just Eren.  This happens when Carla dies and Armin is on the brink of death.  The dream ultimately is a coping mechanism, wishing for an ideal world where she can live with Eren in peace and isolation, instead of facing the inevitability that Eren must die.

Also the chapter’s title is “A Long Dream.”

Now I’m not claiming that Mikasa is suffering a delusion, because she is very much aware that this “reality” or “dream” isn’t real- just because she is lucid does not mean she thinks this a world that exists for her.  She’s very aware that this ideal world of hers is impossible and was never possible to begin with.  Her dream is a confrontation of the reality that even with an innocent Eren who just wants a peaceful life that it is not aligned with the nature she has watched develop.  As much as she wants to cling onto an innocent and idealized image of her loved one, she knows this isn’t who he is.  This isn’t who they are.

She knows that the world they live in is still with conflict- Eren reminds her of that.  She apologizes for bringing it up because that realization that they left to live in peace and potentially leave their homeland exposed with no alternative solution, simply giving in to the circumstances, is not who either of them are, and to hold onto that image of Eren is merely fabrication.  The entire dream functions as a metaphor.  But in every world, Eren will die, be in by her hands or the titan curse.

[This is alluded to in Lost Girls, another “alternative reality” story.]

It is only disrupted when Eren tells Mikasa to throw the scarf and forget about him because she deserves to be free.  He wears the titan markings of his Founding Titan.  At this point it’s implied that Eren is communicating through Pathways that connect to her dreams.  Remember, dreams (and nightmares) are a very prevalent subject brought up in the series alongside memories- it is possible that the Founder can infiltrate dreams to communicate much like it can bring Eldians to the Path realm.  Mikasa cannot be controlled because she is an Ackerman, but this doesn’t omit the possibility that she can still see differences in her dreams (or reality) if interfered by the Founding Titan.  Ymir allows this open line of communication with the knowledge Eren is convincing Mikasa to kill him.  To simmer down the emotional turmoil, he says that she must forget about him.  Of course, because Mikasa cannot be manipulated, she decides that while she must kill him, that his death is inevitable, she will not forget him.  And he will not die without her expressing her feelings.  That is her own willpower.

At this point, the dream is “shared” between the two because Eren is an active spectator.  When Mikasa says her final goodbye, her “see you later,” it isn’t the same dream as what it started as.  Which is why he is able to remember it in the first chapter.

Now, I say mostly a dream because it is possible that dreams themselves could create alternative realities if they haven’t existed before.  But even if that wasn’t the case, Eren still alludes to path jumping, so the series of events could have still led him to a path that would be able to infiltrate Mikasa’s coping dream, knowing that she would struggle to end his life, but that she needs to see him again and be assured that he wants her to move on with her life, and not to see this as a failure on her part- that her answer really would not have mattered so she should not regret her choices.  She is the one that has to kill him to get to this point.  He expects to die, he doesn’t stop her when she gets in the titan, he seems resigned to that fate.

The dream theory is shorter but I’m inclined to believe that is what really happened with perhaps some mixture of the “alternate realities” theory for the sake of the plot solving the issue of titans, as well as reverting the rest of the cast from their Pure Titan fate.  Getting rid of Paths (the Founding Titan and Eren) is a viable solution to both rid of the nightmare as well as give Ymir and Eren a new life without being enslaved by fate.  But that’s a big elaborate and perhaps too complex theory.  I’m only making sense of how the final chapter may wrap up.

Alternative Selves: Fabrication to Cope aka “Mikasa and Eren would not run away”

Regardless of either theory, we must come to the conclusion that the Mikasa and Eren in her dream, her ideal world, whatever it may really be, are not their main story selves.  In fact it is impossible both because it would break the timeline and because it would not align with their true selves, the ones we’ve been following along throughout the story.  It makes more sense for Mikasa to cope with this ideal of hers, but the moment she enters that vision, she knows that this is fake and that this Eren is an idealized version she created (or exists elsewhere and time).  To believe otherwise is not understanding who these characters truly are at their core.

Regardless of Eren’s feelings towards her, be it romantic, platonic, familial, his very nature, as he states himself, would never allow him to “not make a decision.”  He would never abandon the others he claims to love, the ones he wants them to live long lives, to wander in the dark without at least a warning of the impending doom ahead of them.  He gave his friends the freedom to fight.  He fights for the freedom of Eldia, protecting Paradis.  He could never accept a fate that would allow the massacre of his people, even if he must commit omnicide to prevent it.  Remember, this is the boy who saved a girl he never knew because her freedom was stolen.  This is the boy that defends his weak friend because he values how the other boy’s mind opens to doors to freedom- the boy that gave him the knowledge of the outside world that fueled his ambition to break down the case in the first place.  He doesn’t want to live a mundane life.  Especially not if his oppressed people are in danger.  This is the guy who has a superior officer who calls him a monster that will not submit to any cage anyone puts him in- he has the fire in his eyes to keep moving forward, to persevere against all odds. 

This is the man that would lay down his own life if it meant Paradis would be saved.  He would simply never choose the option to run away from that, not even dream about it.  

He knew he wanted to see that sight.  He was shown that image.  That is his ideal world.  His vision, his dream.  Which means he must fight and move forward.  Find a way to save his loved ones so they live long happy lives.

And, honestly, it’s inaccurate to call Mikasa selfish for her ideal life because while she would want to live alone with Eren by her side, when being reminded of the carnage that will take place and that they are not there to help, she submits that it is something neither of them could accept.  She might want to run away to have a peaceful life, but not with the knowledge there are consequences for doing so.  That there are people she would leave behind.  She wouldn’t leave them to that fate.  Her actions to stop Eren is evidence of that.

As much as she loves Eren, she has devotion to her homeland and her friends, too.  To run away would be uncharacteristic.  This is the girl who decided to fight when the boy who saved her was in danger.  This is the girl that chose to keep fighting even when her closest family, the one she loved, was “killed.”  She is the girl who threw the knife away and promised that she would never leave her friend behind.  She stays to fight for her home, Paradis, because it is her birthplace, she belongs here- she wouldn’t run if her home is in danger.

Which is why, to assume they are the real Mikasa and Eren in Mikasa’s “ideal world”, is utterly and completely misread.  That is not nor ever what their characters would lead to.  The idea of running away would be barely a flicker of a thought at most, but even then, it is uncharacteristic to act.  Unreal.  Just like their artificial selves in that “dream.”

It isn’t like Isayama didn’t allude to Mikasa and Eren separating.  He does so for Armin when they have clashing views on the world and their own selves- Armin being more “worldly” and explorative and Eren being more “self-focused” and personally ambitious.  Mikasa would sympathize more with Armin’s point of view, but her desire is to be by Eren’s side.

Isayama gives his opinion on Mikasa’s determination to be stuck to Eren the entire time.  It is a “pitiful” existence.  She is willing to even shoulder his burdens just so he could come home, that perhaps his emotional distress is the reason he is causing mass destruction.  She is desperate for this.  That is… not exactly productive of her character, or the plot.

However, he clarifies that this is his view on Mikasa’s course of direction.  Her ideal is to be with Eren forever.  It may not necessarily be entirely positive that she leaves him behind since deviation from that ideal isn’t guaranteed growth.  Isayama has a habit of allowing his readers to experience his work with their own interpretations.  Just because he believes Mikasa’s existence with Eren at a constant is unfavorable, everyone will see it that way.  Perhaps it is a good thing that she has a goal to work towards and that it is the fuel to her fighting spirit.  That her desiring a peaceful life with Eren is a good motivator.  Or alternatively, her fixation on Eren would lead her into more dangerous situations that would risk her life, it has her see an unreal version of him, unable to accept his fated death that she is willing to sacrifice everything, even if it means shouldering the burdens he carries, if it means he lives.

The message is clear, however, that whether you, the reader, sees that as wholly positive or negative, or a mixture of both, the intention is that she must let him go.  She must accept his death.  Because if she is to keep her home, a semblance of peace and closure, save her friends- this is how it must end.  There is a beautiful nuance, however, that Mikasa is given the opportunity to forget so that she can avoid the suffering and be free, but she chooses not to- just as she decides when Eren is first taken from her.  When she initially thought he died, she decided to keep fighting to honor his spirit and memory.  She never wants to forget him.  Even if he will die in every reality they share together, the worst thing in the world is an existence without even the memory of him.

This is why she is able to get that closure.  She expresses her feelings and says her final goodbye, in this world anyway.  “See you later” because she will still have the ideal dream knowing that while it isn’t real, it can never be real, not for her, but his memory will live on with her.  And she can carry that memory without sacrificing her agency, her home, her friends, her love.  That is what she is meant to do.

Anyway, I wrote this mostly to observe the function of Paths and what Mikasa’s dream infers is possible, and an opening to a solution, as well as her decision to end Eren’s life.  The dream speaks loudly of Mikasa and Eren as characters because it shows us what they are not.  It emphasizes the characters that we have been following since the beginning are raw and motivated, destined to live their lives fighting and protecting and moving onward, never surrendering.  And to insist otherwise would be a disservice to how they’ve been built up to after all this time.

....

[Once again: Despite the language in this, the manga has always been a work to be wildly interpreted in a multitude of ways, I just speak passionately about why I think certain interpretations don’t make since to my own. But nothing is indefinite. The material is flexible. See it how you wish.]

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 76-79

Chapter 76

Andi has a nice little poetic nightmare. It’s irrelevant. The next morning has the girls preparing for the ball, complete with dresses and makeup.

Some things to note include Lira saying that in Adhiran religion (which is global, I guess), one has to mourn for three days before “letting” the souls of the dead pass on into ... everything.

Andi tries to say that it’ll take time to heal from it all, but Lira is having none of it.

“It will take time to move past what happened on Adhira,” Andi started, but Lira held up a hand.

“My three days of mourning have passed. Lon’s and my aunt’s, too. Now we, and the others who lost loved ones during the attack, must give the lost spirits to the stars, to the trees, to the wind.”

Which basically means that she’s done feeling bad about the unexpected and brutal attack on her home planet, so that’s convenient. Well, if one of our main characters doesn’t care about her people getting senselessly murdered, then why should we?

She also lets us know that her aunt has fixed up the Marauder and brought it here, because of course. Lira wants to arrange for Lon to be transferred to the Marauder, and though she has a logical reason for it (taking him home personally), it’s only a setup so we know why he’s on there at the end of the book when Andi’s bleeding out and needs a universal donor.

Spoilers, I guess.

Andi’s mother, Glorya, intercepts Andi as she tries to leave her crew to their makeover montages, just so we can move into a scene where her mom is brushing her hair and babbling on about gossip and vapid high society stuff.

But Andi, of course, gets lost in a flashback that’s so amateurishly written it’s honestly embarrassing and only highlights Shinsay’s helpless reliance on flashbacks as a storytelling device.

Observe:

Her words faded away as memories took their place. Andi lost herself to them.

The whole flashback is written in italics for some inexplicable reason, even though it would’ve been fine as just regular text since we’re clearly told what’s happening now and what’s a memory.

Also, there’s one bit where the memory “fast-forwards” to a different one. Shinsay, this isn’t a fucking movie. This isn’t a screenplay. What the fuck are you DOING.

The flashback and the mother’s inane babbling are all there to illustrate how vapid and brainless Glorya is and how she only ever cared about her status and not about her kid. Glorya pretends that everything is back to the way it was but Andi curses her out for abandoning her when she needed them most and how “the way it was” was actually always shit.

I mean it’s fine. It’s all right. I see what they’re going for, it’s melodramatic as all fuck but it works for what they’re trying to do? I can see this as being a realistic way for an emotionally neglectful family to look like. I wish it was more nuanced and wasn’t just shoe-horned in here (Glorya doesn’t show up before or after this bit, this is the only time she’s ever present or even mentioned in this book in any meaningful capacity) for the sake of making Andi’s friends look better and for her to not have anything that anchors her to Arcardius, but like, I won’t say this isn’t realistic.

And then Shinsay can’t stop themselves and it’s back to silly time:

“Really, Androma...” 

[...]

“That is not my name,” Andi whispered. She allowed the darkness to come up into her voice, the mask of shadow and steel to sweep across her face. “My name is the Bloody Baroness. And if you or Commander Racella ever so much as utter a single word toward me or my crew again, I will personally strip the skin from your body and wave it like a flag from my starship.”

Glorya let out a soft squeak. Andi snarled with all of her teeth.

Guys I can’t breathe this is too fucking funny. And not in a good “woo vindication!” sort of way, but in a “they really put this right after an emotional confrontation about parental emotional neglect/abuse huh?” way. They really thought this was ... badass? Revenge? Andi, sweetie, you’re, like, traumatized? Presumably? I can’t really tell. But maybe get some therapy?

Do Shinsay think this is somehow a win and that Andi’s threat means she’s fully released from the hurt and pain her parents have caused her through their neglect? It’s honestly written as if Andi just confronted her mother and her own hopes of coming back to her family in this one short scene, and then upon realizing her parents never loved her, she scares her mom a little and then is all smug and satisfied at the end.

That ain’t how it works, darlings.

Then the annoying Marketable Space Pet runs in and starts biting Glorya’s toes and she runs away shrieking like a defeated Disney villain.

Way to undercut your own drama, Shinsay.

The chapter ends with Andi thinking about how her crew is her True Family for the bajillionth time. Because we’re all idiots and Shinsay wants us to remember that.

Chapter 77

It’s the evening of the ball and Andi thinks about how she missed Bavista, which is apparently your generic coming-of-age ball held at Arcardius for every 16-year-old. I’m guessing it’s a yearly thing? The book never clarifies. Not sure why the fuck it’s here tbh.

Actually, it’s a pretty good demonstration of how the worldbuilding in this book is presented so here, have at thee:

She could still remember seeing the otherworldly dresses and suits float by her on the feeds as she watched the girls and boys glide into the A’Vianna House in the Glass Sector. They seemed light as air, full of pride, bursting at the seams with excitement. Once inside, they would be greeted by members of the Priest Guild, who would award each young person three items.

The first was a vial of water from the Northern Ocean, symbolizing strength. For growth, they accepted a single leaf from the oldest tree on Arcardius, known as The Mother, which was said to have been planted when the Ancients first arrived. Lastly, they were given a single floating pebble, no larger than a child’s fingernail, chiseled from the very gravarock where the Cortas estate was. It represented the wisdom of rising above.

Is this relevant to anything? Does this help you understand this world or its inhabitants? Does it tell you anything of the culture of Arcardius or its youth and what’s expected of them? No? It’s just a really generic list of things thrown together using Mystical Proper Nouns as glue? Weeell heeell.

Also what does “it represented the wisdom of rising above” mean? This is utterly generic and means fuck-all, that’s what.

Anyway, Andi’s admiring herself in the mirror. Her dress is very sexy, trust me, I can’t be bothered to include it so just imagine your favorite My Immortal outfit description. It does include sword holsters at the back, which are Andi’s favorite part, because she’s a strong independent woman who don’t need no man. She never actually uses them or brings the swords to the ball so ... Idk what the point of this was.

We also get some shit about how Andi actually LOVES dresses and being pretty but she never admitted it to anyone. But don’t you worry, this badass space criminal LOVES all things girly, because that’s feminism! Can someone check in on Shinsay? I’m not sure they’re getting enough air with their heads so far up Sarah J Maas’ asshole.

Admitting to herself that she looked pretty was something Andi kept private. She didn’t want to give her crew the satisfaction of knowing her true thoughts about fashion. How even though she was a fierce, hardened criminal, she could still appreciate the joy of a beautiful, impractical ball gown.

Huh. And here I thought they were your family. That’s weird that you’d keep this information from them, especially considering all of them seemed pretty excited to be prettied up in the last chapter. I guess they’d really just haaate the idea of sharing this joy with their captain, huh? Why aren’t you admitting this to them, Andi?

You’re saying shit about how “even though” you’re a hardened criminal, you can “still” appreciate beautiful gowns, like those two are somehow contradictory. Are you, mayhaps, ashamed of having this traditionally girly interest? Hmm! Interesting. Why could that be, I wonder? Why would having traditionally feminine interests or even caring about one’s appearance be seen as something inherently shameful or embarrassing, as inherently contradictory to being fierce and “hardened?”

This is all just so *clenches fist* feminist.

Forreal though, somehow Shinsay managed to take their entire made up GALAXY and make it subtly and not-so-subtly sexist. Good job, morons. Really girlbossed that one, huh?

The only bit I like about this whole mess is this:

The dressmaker had also accented her gown with a sparkling necklace full of jewels that Andi didn’t plan on giving back.

This is the one and only space pirate-y thing Andi does -- sorry, considers doing -- in the whole book and honestly could’ve been used to build her character more, but it’s just a one-off joke here. Wasted.

Valen comes to fetch her and we get some subtle foreshadowing.

“Valen the Resurrected.”

He stopped to look at her, brows raised. “What?”

She shrugged. “It’s what the press is calling you in all the feeds.” Valen let out a deep chuckle.

[...]

“Something tells me things are about to change for the better,” he said. “I’m ready to see it all happen.”

Andi wondered what he would do now that he was home with a whole planet at his disposal.

He deserved to have some fun.

Is it bad that I’m rooting for Valen to destroy everything? And this isn’t my villain-fucker coming out, I just want this poor bastard to absolutely annihilate Andi and her gang of acolytes.

Chapter 78

Andi and Valen arrive at the ball. It’s all very pretty and space-y and aesthetic. There’s a bunch of aliens everywhere. Andi sees a woman with funky eyes and assumes it’s a body mod, because I guess she knows the genetic characteristics of every species by heart and can tell when something is real or not.

An old classmate of theirs comes up to talk to Valen and congratulate him on being alive, then Andi reminds him of who she is just to be a smug asshole and the guy fucks off in a panic. She’s just so cool and badass, you guys.

Then it’s time for Valen and Andi to dance, and of course General Cortas looks like he’s about to lose his marbles because these darn kids! >:(

The chapter ends on Andi noticing Dex pouting in the distance.

“Relax,” Andi whispered. “Let’s give them something to talk about.”

She flashed him a wicked grin as the music began.

And as Valen spun her into the first move of the dance, Andi saw Dex standing on the fringes of the crowd, an expression of longing clear on his face.

Chapter 79

This chapter is exactly 298 words of Dex moping around about how he’s actually not over Andi at all when he thought he’d done such a good job of repressing his feelings, and how he should be the one dancing with Andi instead of Valen. If you’re surprised, you’re clinically dead.