#like really. it shows that we know we shouldn't be doing it but we don't actually want to stop so let's just say they're lesbians.

[imjustaf444keriguess]

first off, anti endos often insist that it's impossible, when science often doesn't state impossibility and searches for possibility instead.

i personally think people's internal experiences that have been documented online and offline for decades now is enough for me, but there is currently a study going on about tulpas with brain scans (this is their AMA on reddit because i don't think the study is technically "finalized" yet, but they are doing research into this). i'd like for there to be more direct comparisons between endogenic systems, DID/traumagenic systems, and singlet controls, but science takes time, and the doctors are also mostly trusting peoples personal experience because they can't read minds yet.

i also think that the idea of a "self" is a bit flimsy and is also currently being studied (alongside why we are even conscious in the first place and how consciousness works), so unless we get to a point where we can say "everyone has one solid identity and you cant make multiple without this this and this, and this is why, this is what happens if you try, and this is why we think everyone is a singlet without trauma" for certain, we shouldn't insist without evidence that endogenic systems aren't experiencing plurality.

i have read some of sophie's studies and research links, and some from the guardians system's google document, which so far makes me believe that it's understandably possible, at least in some form, to have multiple 'selves' without trauma. alongside, you know, personal anecdotal experience, the knowledge that the brain can already create "separate people" with trauma, and the knowledge the brain is very suggestible and moldable. it would not be impossible, in my eyes, to create some similar experience. if there are any further research papers that show a distinct difference, then i'd like to see them when they come out, but for now, the research says that people have plural experiences.

you also bring up maladaptive daydreaming, which is a bit strange to bring up because that's... also, possibly, a disorder. afaik, it's not officially a disorder in the DSM, but it's something that people have struggles with. i don't believe that it's the same as endogenic plurality identically, unless there are research papers in the future on maladaptive daydreamers and endogenic plurals that show they are the same and prove me wrong. but it's kinda weird to say that they potentially have an entirely different disorder that's not officially even in the DSM.

i'm not saying that i know for 100% undeniable fact that endogenic plurals are really plural in the same way DID/OSDD systems are, but from what i've seen, i do believe people when they say they are plural. and for anti-endos to say that they are impossible is wild without proof.

so, where are the papers showing the consensus that they're not real and that they're experiencing a symptom of a disorder (that's not in the DSM)? are they in the room with us? i'd love to see your evidence!

(and genuinely, again, if they are better and more logical and have loads of scientific backing, i'll take a bit to consider it, and if i end up siding with you, then... idk, i'm on the side of science still, just to me right now it seems that endogenic systems are systems, and i prefer to trust people at their word and listen to their experience unless i have good evidence against it!)

also, one more thing, weird to say that they're roleplaying in the reblog i responded to before, and then say that they're maladaptive daydreaming the next reply? again, maladaptive daydreaming is considered disordered behavior and while i currently don't know the status on if it's going to be recognized as a disorder, it's weird to compare that to roleplaying. maladaptive daydreamers are experiencing a disorder, which may be triggered or influenced by trauma similar to how plurality can be (with, yk, the disorder called DID?).

to me, this would be like comparing someone being overdramatic to get their way to someone having a meltdown because of autism or something. yes, they're both kicking and screaming, but one's overstimulated and reacting instinctively, and one's trying to manipulate you.

similarly, maladaptive daydreaming as a maladaptive experience... is, you know, disorderly? not healthy? not the same thing as roleplaying? often involuntary, as far as i am aware?

could be wrong on that but i just noticed that and wanted to comment on it. probably should keep your story straight yk.

(starting off, we are a traumagenic did system. we have did.)

endogenic systems are absolutely punk and they belong in punk spaces (pluralpunk, systempunk, whatever) and here’s why:

- punk is about embracing who you are and living your life authentically and unapologetically

- punk is about not letting other people dictate how you live your life and who you can be

- punk is about radical acceptance, equality, and solidarity

- punk is about rejecting authority and the establishment (and yes, this includes the medical establishment which is often ableist and causes disabled people real, long lasting harm)

there is no room for anti endos in punk. being anti endo literally is being anti punk. learn more about what punk means, and do better.

[maddy-k-reads-all-day]

Okay so here's my current take on Wooly:

Child actor, a bit older than Amanda but only by about 3 years max.

Worked at Hameln longer than Rebecca, not excatly loyal to them, just terrified of what's gonna happen if he is disobedient. Like he doesn't seem to agree with their values at all.

Bottles up every negative emotion. He doesn't want to remember his past as a human.

He is starting to become more rebellious over the course of the second game and is slowly repairing his relationship with Amanda.

Will avoid talking about uncomfortable subjects at all costs. Tends to be a bit controlling.

His intentions are good. But let us remember what they say. The road to hell was paved with good intentions. 🫥😬😬😬

Also, he seems to be that one goody-two shoes friend in a friend group that's like: "We shouldn't do this." Even if it's objectively not that bad.

And while I'm at it. Current take on Amanda:

Rebecca Colton. Obviously.

Had morbid interests as a child long before Hameln. Girl could read off Jack the Ripper's crime record with no hesitation without even being ASKED. She enjoys watching the cat hunt and finds death amusing on multiple occasions, such as silly Mr. Fox, when she says a hunter will shoot the bunnies little ears off, etc.

As Rebecca, she was genuinely a ray of sunshine to be around. (Even with morbid interests).

Secretly has a dark sense of humor

Very adventurous (obviously the show was based around that)

Loves to draw (we see it multiple times).

Has had past trauma before Hameln even entered the picture (Sam's despite what she's been through in reference to her adoption).

In the second game she seems to be trying really hard to control her temper for us, maybe to keep the demon from hurting us?

Girl had some level of interest in goth/emo/punk clothes. I mean, that one picture of her just gives off such a "if the kind goth girl working at hot topic was a 5 year old" vibe if that makes ANY sense. Obviously the clothes available at that age wouldn't be full on goth anyways.

She's starting to act more and more like Rebecca

She doesn't resent Sam.

She wants out of this hell that is these tapes even if it killed her. (I feel like it's indicated in the butterfly scene. If we can help the butterfly, it flies away. If we can't, Amanda says: "It's suffering" and puts it out of its misery). I mean, hypothetically, she's already dead, so it would be more like putting her soul to rest/at peace. Everyone she loved is dead as far as we know. She'll never have her childhood back. And her chances of ever having a life at all are very slim. Still, she wants out. And I don't blame her one bit.

[eff-plays]

What are your thoughts on some of the wording that is used to describe Taash's gender dysphoria in Veilguard?

Anytime their gender identity crisis is discussed, it's always called "non-binary stuff." There is also one character in the wetlands who is non-binary and they say that another character helped them with their "non-binary" stuff.

Surely, the terms gender dysphoria, gender identity crisis, or even just saying "helped me figure out that I was non-binary" would have been better writing.

It feels like they didn't have faith in people to understand other terms or context clues.

Please note that this ask is not meant to be in bad faith and there is no pressure to answer.

I am generally curious if this is an example of bad writing or if non-binary stuff is the correct term over gender dysphoria or gender identity crisis in this context.

I think it all goes back to just using "non-binary" in the game itself. And while I get how some enbies think it's important to use our language to describe us in fiction, and that's a justified opinion to hold, I'm going to disagree. Games with heavy and extensive lore and actual conlangs shouldn't just fall back on hyperspecific modern terms when we all know they're capable of delivering the same message in a way that doesn't lean on the fourth wall or break immersion. Krem, for all the clunkiness that surrounded him, got a whole in-universe explanation for how he fit into the Qun.

Now, to be clear, I'm not saying I value immersion over representation, or that nonbinary people are immersion-breaking. That's an insane opinion to hold. It's just that I, personally, feel more out-of-place and alienated when a fictional world's attempts at including me uses modern terminology. It doesn't tell me that I belong in that world and there is space for me in it, but that there isn't. This vast world, which has fantastical locations and magic and Blighted old gods and dragons, which has room for all of those things, but doesn't have room for language and identities unique to it that might reflect mine? It has to use language that doesn't belong there to explain people that supposedly do? Do you get my issue here? There is an inherent contradiction in this approach.

By not bothering to integrate nonbinary people into Thedas, by falling back on and insisting on modern terminology, BioWare isn't telling me "you're valid, you belong" it's telling me "your presence is so incongruous with our world that we couldn't do anything but use existing terminology to describe you." In their attempt to be inclusive, they just didn't bother to actually integrate nonbinary identities into its world. Then they keep highlighting their own failure by pointing at my identity and telling everyone in their world how valid it is. Imagine you're just existing in a crowd and some motherfucker points you out and goes "YOU. YOU'RE VALID! EVERYBODY LOOK AT HOW VALID THEY ARE!" That's what's bothering me the most. It makes me feel like a freak, not like I belong. And maybe that's a me problem, but given the responses I've seen to my Taash posts, I don't think it is.

Anyway, sorry for that tangent. I don't think gender dysphoria or gender identity crisis would've been better writing, personally. I was pretty confused for why this random NPC told me about their gender identity at all, to be frank. Especially when they, in the first conversation, gave us their pronouns in a very naturalistic way, and Rook + the companions repeated those pronouns later. Like, for me? That, combined with Flynn's very androgynous appearance, was enough to clue me in to who they were. We only have two interactions with this person (AFAIK, if they show up again then I haven't gotten to that point in the game yet), there really doesn't need to be a spot where they clarify their highly personal discovery of their gender identity.

However, if you're very desperate to include this as explicitly as BioWare intends, I have a solution: have them only mention the "non-binary stuff" to a trans and/or nonbinary Rook. My Rook is nonbinary and people know this about them, and since Rook is becoming well-known, people will know their pronouns and identity. So, have Flynn be like "Yeah, my mentor helped me figure myself out. You know how hard it can be to do on your own, Rook." Ya know? Suddenly, you get what they're talking about without having them to be like "ah yes, have I mentioned I am non-binary today?"

I get wanting to make things explicit, but it happens at the cost of believability and actually representing how enbies exist as people. I don't talk to friendly strangers like "I had a hard time figuring out I'm nonbinary, but I got there in the end!" Most of my classmates only know I'm nonbinary because it says so on my Discord profile, and the same goes for the ones I know are nonbinary. Most of it is just clocking each other across the room or hearing other people use our chosen pronouns.

As for Taash's dysphoria ... That's another long-ass can of worms type post that I might make once I'm finished with the game and have a complete image of their storyline. But rest assured, I have plenty of thoughts on that, as well.

[fanficaddict4life]

It's funny to me watching this shit. Like, gimme some popcorn. Can't we all just like what we like and let them like what they like?

(fr tho we can't because I'm pretty sure it's human nature to argue over the dumbest things. I'm sure some people in cavemen times would argue over whether or not they should eat these berries, even though Steve at them last night and dropped dead, foaming at the mouth, but surely they can't be that bad)

You can't change that Annabeth was, in the book, a blonde, white, but tan, California chick. There is a difference between tan and black.

Can we talk about how ridiculous this is? You say it's for representation, and that's well and good, but taking a character that was notably white and making her black just for the representation isn't right either. It's wrong in the same way taking a black character and making them white is wrong. It's changing their identity. If you want to do it on your own time, that's fine. If you wanna make a character that's not white, more power to you.

But what fit would be thrown if Piper's actress was... Idk let's say Irish. Irish people were an oppressed and abused minority, we should give them some rep. Or maybe Leo should be asian. We got enough Latino rep, let's give a little bit of asian rep.

Does that sit right?

Hell, why does Percy's actor look blonde? He is supposed to look Greek! Why aren't you all in arms over his actor not being Greek? Is it because he's supposed to be the "white boy"?

Now I know I'm kinda going in two different directions with this, and that's because there isn't really a right option. People are free to do whatever the fuck they want. Which means both sides are free to make their own art, and unfortunately both sides are free to hassle each other over the other's art. Both sides are entitled to their own opinion. We just need to learn not to be dicks about it.

It's not hate. I am drawing this character this way because this is how I think of them. I am respecting the source material. I don't watch the show.

The only reason they made Annabeth black is to get people on their side so they can say "look how generous we are, look how open we are, we are being representative of these people." Pat themselves on the back and go sit on their cash piles while the fandom goes to war with itself over this. We are fighting over this, something that is, in its simplest form, cosmetic. Does Annabeth being black affect the spider attacks, her finding Thalia and Luke, and her growing up in camp? Does it affect her relationship with her mother, her dad, her friends?

It shouldn't. And if it does, there's something wrong there.

Hi guys, wanted to discuss something going on for a while now. What the hell is wrong with pjotwt? Like...whats wrong with this people? Do you see what they say? What they are even trying to do?

First of all, let me start by speaking about the cast. They are all wonderful children, Leah especially! She is doing an amazing job as Annabeth. But book Annabeth still exists yk? She is and she is literally white. It is not racist. But denying about a character being white in the books, even spreading hate like this...is racist. There are people out there related with Annabeth for years. People love her, every version, maybe book more maybe even the movie. How can you disrespect her like this? And most importantly, how can they attack an artist like this, with an art being so beautiful. What they are trying to do is not protecting Leah, it is spreading hate. It is awful. Making this fandom toxic, so so much.

Them trying to erase book Annabeth because she is white, trying to cover her by painting on her, shaming artists, calling people that loves her racist...What do we do about this in pjo fandom? This fandom used to be so beautiful, but now. This people are not part of the fandom in my eyes, because real fans, would respect every version of the characters, love them with their anything, even flaws. They would protect this characters because they love them, so much. And not to mention this characters are the ones Rick wrote 20 years ago, they were with us for so long.

What do tumblr think about this I wonder? Since pjo fandom is pretty active here :3

[mae-i-scribble]

So I'm not really that into Arcane fandom or anything like that but is anyone else a little worried for how season 2 is progressing thus far? I'm not talking about the apparent Caitlyn vitriol that some people are falling into- god forbid you have complex characters am I right. But watching the first act of season 2 it's all so terribly rushed and not in the same way season 1 had fast pacing but with tight writing to make up for it.

Spoilers for the first 3 episodes ahead but the fact that we barely even get to know the new enforcer characters that come to Zaun annoys me. The most we have is the girl introducing herself to Vi. The other two aren't even named in the show let alone have any sort of personality. For the big shield guy why is he even allowed to be an enforcer???? Sir you were seemingly living on the streets drinking away your problems last I checked with no indication you were or wanted to be an enforcer. The kid that follows Jinx around doesn't even have any sort of lines until episode 3- which would be fine if it was clearly a deliberate choice for her character but considering that the show is trying to juggle so much it just feels like she fell to the wayside.

I'm also very much not a fan of how the 2nd season is structuring its storylines thus far- certain scenes loose their tension because they're so intercut with other scenes happening simultaneously- take the vi and jinx fight for example. Like I get it you wanted to show how them interacting with the run was actively interfering with the fight but the constant cuts back and forth leave a bad taste in my mouth. The structure they use for the various sections with music overplaying them are hit or miss to me- some I love, some I think should have been actual scenes with dialogue.

I'm also really sad to see them seemingly rush over bits of character development we really need to see. Like take Vi- her not wanting to be an enforcer is 200% justifiable and believable, we haven't been shown anything about how the enforcers work that would give Vi a reason to want to join. And then after the attack in episode 1 she silently comes to a decision to join which fine, I can buy her wanting to help now that Zaun is conducting terrorist attacks. But she just agreed to the plan to use the gray against the people of Zaun???? Really???? Vi did??? Shouldn't Vi, someone who is only joining the enforcers out of desperate necessity, be way more critical of any use of force in the undercity? There's even little things like when Caitlyn arrests the henchman I was expecting Vi to stand up for him because almost *everyone* in the undercity is some sort of criminal so that they can survive. But no it just turns into Vi asking them to ditch the side characters we know absolutely nothing about.

Speaking of Vi- for the record the cait/vi kiss in my opinion was stupidly forced in. I would have liked to see their relationship develop this season because in season 1 I could see the beginning of something there. I really loved the moment in the first episode where it's only when seeing Vi that Caitlyn breaks down a little because Vi is someone she can trust to be open with. Great stuff to further develop- oh no they're kissing after no development just to make the immediately following break up more dramatic? Great yay yippee representation -_- Don't get me wrong I would have loved to see it develop into a romance but not in episode 3 with no buildup (1st season does not count as buildup to me for an actual romantic relationship).

This is also somewhat petty but I do hate the fact that Ambessa is revealed to be behind the memorial attack in episode 3- I much would have preferred for that information to be revealed to the audience alongside whatever character discovers it. Revealing it like that is dramatic, sure, but I feel like it ruins the mystery of Ambessa's morality in a way that is not satisfying.

All in all I'm not the happiest with these first 3 episodes but we'll have to see how the other 2 arcs go before making any judgement calls overall.

[rosenclaws]

Since you're taking requests again, mayhaps some Charlie content 🙏 Dealers' choice when it comes to the prompt. I'm just starved for content of my favorite loser.

“Don’t pretend like you’re not happy to see me like this.”

“You are more than you think of yourself. You’re everything to me.”

wc: 660

600 follower drabble masterlist

a/n: I went with my favorite (angst sorry charlie!!)

This was really the last thing you expected to deal with at three in the morning on a random Tuesday. Seeing your ex boyfriend show up at your doorstep with a black eye and a bloody lip.

"Charlie." You sigh as you stand at the door. He's leaning against your door frame. He tries to smile but winces when he irritates his eye.

Silently you step to the side and let him in. He collapses on your couch as you go and find your first aid kit. You haven't had to use it since, well since you two broke up. You don't bother asking what happened this time. You already know what happened. He owed someone money and he got beat up for it.

"Hey baby." Charlie smiles tiredly as he sits himself up. You gently climb onto the couch next to him. You don't answer him as you gently dab at his face. It's deja vu as you think back to the times you've had to do this before.

"Shit." He hisses as you apply alcohol to his eye. "Sorry." You whisper. Charlie smiles, hearing your voice again was music to his ears. He can feel the disappointment radiating off of you. He wants to apologize but the truth is he isn't sorry. He missed you so bad. He needed to see you. After you finish patching him up you get him some water.

"What are you doing to yourself?" You ask sadly.

He feels a irritation grow as you look at him. Those same damn eyes that make him crumble. He can't stand them, they stare right past into his soul, into the deepest most insecure part of him.

"I'm fine." He slams the glass down onto the table. This was a mistake.

"Fine? Is that what you call showing up at my doorstep with a busted face?" You press as he gets up. He walked out on you before but you won't let him again, at least not without an explanation this time.

"Don't pretend like you're not happy to see me like this." He snaps.

"Like you're not happy to know that you were always right about me."

"What are you talking about!? Charlie I was in love with you. Win or lose. You were the love of my life!" You shove his chest out of anger. When will he get it in his thick head that all you ever wanted was him.

"Charlie, you are the love of my life." He lets out a frustrated yell and falls back onto the couch. His face in his hands.

"You are more than you think of yourself. You're everything to me." You sit next to him. Legs touching as you rest your hand over his. His fingers lock with yours as he relishes in the feeling of your touch. It's been so long. He ran because he was angry, jaded, he was spiraling and he'd be dammed if he took you with him.

"I shouldn't be baby, I'm no good for you." You roll your eyes and grab his face. Forcing him to look at you.

"Shut up Charlie." You know what he thinks of himself. He's a loser, he's washed, he can't do anything but make stupid bets and false promises. But you never saw him like that. He was always your Charlie.

"Come on, it's late." You grab his hand and stand up.

"We can talk in the morning." Charlie lets you drag him to your bedroom, almost in awe that you're letting him be here with you.

He crawls in next to you. His arm wrapped tightly around your waist as you bury your face into his chest. He knows he's got a lot of groveling left to do, that you aren't going to forgive him this easy but fuck he missed you. If this is the start of your forgiveness then he'll spend as long as it takes until he makes it right.

[sokkastyles]

OP, I appreciate you're being polite and you like the character, but Mai is a villain, and she did do the villainous things that @the-badger-mole listed. They didn't say she was a supervillain, but I do think it's valid to criticize the way she dismisses Zuko's feelings in "The Awakening." We know why this happens, because as we've discussed, Mai is uncomfortable with Zuko's emotional expression, but that's an explanation, not an excuse. What she says is pretty awful, and given the context that actually makes it worse. It's not just that Zuko has a more emotional personality, either, because what Zuko says in this moment is actually extremely understated. He dances around how he feels precisely BECAUSE he doesn't expect anyone to care. It's actually really frustrating to see Mai stans admit that Mai makes a cruel remark because of her own emotional dysfunction, but then backtrack and say she shouldn't be expected to be Zuko's therapist, because it's also clear from their interaction that Zuko doesn't feel safe disclosing his real feelings to her. Because he's an abuse victim who is used to having his feelings shut down, especially in relation to talking about his abuse. But even the vaguest admission that he's not okay is too much for Mai, and that's not just because of her personality, either. It's because she doesn't want to admit that if Zuko wasn't going home to his abuser, she wouldn't get to kiss him. What she says is incredibly cruel in that context. Her getting together with Zuko as a manipulation tactic by Azula is expanded on in the comic "Going Home Again." But even if you don't consider the comics canon, she did agree to help Azula capture him. Azula also did manipulate him under the catacombs to get him to side with her, and although that isn't Mai's fault, it is her fault that she agreed to help Azula capture him, and that is also a context that contributes to her being unwilling to acknowledge his feelings upon going back to face a man who has physically hurt him and permanently scarred him. I think part of her unwillingness to acknowledge Zuko's feelings is that she cares about him, and if she really thought about it, she'd realize what a dangerous position she helped put him in. But part of it is also that she benefits from it. That's actually pretty awful. It doesn't make her a supervillain, but nobody said it did. It does make her a villain, though.

If you go back and rewatch the scene where Zuko requests a fruit tart for Mai, you will see that his language is very polite, almost hesitant. This follows from the previous scene where Zuko is shown being hesitant to accept things from servants and very uncomfortable, probably from his own time living in poverty. Mai, of course, does not have that context, but as you said, there are other scenes where we can interpret that Mai DOES enjoy treating people cruelly, so it's not a far cry to say she enjoys ordering servants around, and suggested it to Zuko because it is something she enjoys. Zuko asking politely for a fruit tart is a pretty far cry from ordering (Mai's word) servants around for fun and suggesting that she could eat a whole tray of fruit tarts. She takes something Zuko did because he wanted to make her happy and brings it to a hedonistic extreme that Zuko never intended, because she does not understand Zuko AND because she at most enjoys treating people cruelly or at least does not see servants as real people. This is a reasonable thing to conclude from the context of the show. It also mirrors things Zuko's abusers do to him, like when Ozai takes Zuko's words about the Earth Kingdom people having hope and interprets them as Zuko suggesting that they should destroy their hope. Of course I'm not saying that Mai is the same as Ozai, but a lot of the ways she treats him would at least be triggering for someone who was abused in the way Zuko was. In my most generous interpretations of Mai, I think she does this accidentally, but in my least generous interpretations, I think she does it on purpose to avoid having to face his uncomfortable emotions, or because she realizes she can get what she wants out of him that way.

i actually can't process why people don't like mai. is it because of the "i just asked if you were cold" scene. is that it. okay LISTEN i will go to bat for her. she says it herself in the beach episode, she's been raised to not share her opinion or like. care about anything. she probably deflects in that moment because it's obviously an emotionally heavy conversation and she's been told her entire life not to share her feelings. or share other people's feelings, tbh.

she's ngl pretty incompatible as a match for zuko, who is constantly full of feelings, and needs someone who can help him work through them in his life, like iroh or katara. but that does not make mai the stone cold bitch y'all haters want her to be. i promise she's fluffy on the inside, the stone cold bitch is but a thin outer shell that protects all the love and care she contains within herself

[sciderman]

I would say you’re more of a Mr peanut butter type yeah

doggy doggy what now?

[nostalgia-tblr]

one of the best Fandom Discourse Topics is the one about how this female character i have minimal to no interest in is TOO GOOD for my male blorbo. she can do MUCH BETTER he's A CRAP BOYFRIEND and so that's why he has to be paired with my other male blorbo, who lacks The One Braincell and thus will believe himself to be in a wholesome loving relationship in the endless fluffy fanfic i will read/write about him and BLORBO, THE WORST POSSIBLE CHOICE for that female character.

obviously i ship her with this woman she interacted with in one scene, who is also SUCH A QUEEN YASSSSSS. god i love this wholesome lesbian ship between these two women who probably don't even know each other's full names <3 <3 <3 i might even hit reblog on a gifset of their one scene together someday. i probably won't, but i might.

so anyway back to blorbo and how amazing he is, i bet he'd be a great boyfriend for this other white guy.

[thedreadvampy]

Btw in all the chat about Dot & Bubble and racism has anyone like. acknowledged that it's kinda weird that in the series featuring the first ever Doctor of colour we have seen uhhhhh:

3 specials in which the new Black doctor appears at the end of the last one for like 5 minutes after being replaced with a previous (white) Doctor for the big event episodes (a thing that has never happened before)

3 regular episodes

Episode in which the Doctor is mostly tangential to the plot except as a bomb

2 extremely Doctor-lite episodes, which are a common feature of Doctor Who but are pretty much never stacked back to back

FOR THE AVOIDANCE OF DOUBT. I like all these things:

Russell T Davies' work on Doctor Who

Ncuti Gatwa's fucking masterful acting

Doctor-lite and companion-centric episodes (which honestly are some of the best New Who episodes. Turn Left? Human Nature?)

but. it is notable that this series - which I would consider so far to be 9 episodes in which Ncuti Gatwa has had a reasonable cut of screentime in like... MAYBE 4? - is a) by far the least Doctor-focused episode ratio that I've ever seen, b) the only one where an actor's actual onscreen regeneration has been pushed back by the return of an old actor, and is c) COINCIDENTALLY the first ever season starring a Black Doctor 🤔

(because like. this could be a coincidence. there are often Doctor-light episodes to give the actor a break, for plot reasons, etc)

(buuuuut. two in a row? and they're both genuine Doctor-light episodes, ie one which is Turn Left style where the Doctor only appears to bookend the episode and is otherwise taken out of the universe, and one which is Blink or Love and Monsters style where the Doctor only appears in brief bursts, on screen, through the episode, with one monologue near the end, while we follow another character around for the bulk of the time. I can't think of many series of New Who with 2 Doctor-lite episodes, especially not in the first half of a season. In Davies' original run there were what, 4 Doctor-lite episodes in 5 years (and that's IF you count Fathers Day which I kinda don't)? and we've had half that many in one season, back to back, only 4 episodes after we DIDN'T SEE THE NEW ACTOR FOR ALMOST 3 FULL SPECIALS?)

(and I do know that Gatwa had shooting commitments with Sex Education but the thing is. back to back in the first 5 episodes???? it's not a good look! it's just not! you don't have to shoot in series order, you can literally space them across the series if you need to work with his shooting schedule! like I am sure it's not intentional but COME ON.)

[greatwyrmgold]

Sorry about responding to a reply to this post again; it's attracted replies that are hard to respond to in a paragraph or so. Anyways, @theoneandonlyshipqueen4q

The narration is Akane's; however, we see lots of scenes she wasn't there for. Not just Ruby scenes; chapter 165 has police(?) discovering the Hikaru Kamii Murder Cult Conspiracy Board with no Akane in sight, for instance, and a panel of Kana reading a script alone. And 164 had Akane narrating over a page of B-Komachi members who didn't seem to invite Akane to their...post-concert news-watching party?

Also, the fact that her dialogue is disembodied narration (rather than, say, half of a conversation with someone in the same room as her) frames those thoughts as The Voice of the Narrator. By default, The Narrator is reliable and describes things accurately.

This is reinforced by Akane being the Smart One in OnK's cast, e.g. figuring out 90% of Ai's past with one night of research or figuring out that Hikaru was Aqua's father by watching some videos of Hikaru acting and thinking about things Aqua said. It is opposed by...nothing. We are expected to treat Akane's words as true by dint of them being the words of Narrator Akane, and also the only way we can make sense of chapter 166's slideshow.

...

I don't want to say you shouldn't "feel the weight of every panel," but for me, there wasn't much weight to feel. Chapter 166 opens with five panels of Ruby crying around the apartment, in poses I've seen countless times, with no dialogue or anything else that might set it apart.

You can blame this on Akane not being there, but A. you can show things the narrator wouldn't know about, B. it was Aka Akasaka who decided to put that limitation on himself by both framing Ruby's breakdown this way and keeping Akane away from most of it, and C. he didn't think of anything that could take the place of dialogue.

Then we get a couple panels of Ruby gathering her resolve, then running while crying, then hugging Kana and MEM-Cho while they cry. It feels less like a scene than a montage, a way to quickly convey the idea of Ruby recovering and nothing more. Which is not always a bad thing, but with all the weight put on Ruby in general and this last leg of her character arc in specific, it was the wrong choice for this story.

I agree that the biggest problem is that we don't see Ruby's recovery, but even if we did, the depiction of her grief would be weak. It conveys the idea of grief without getting into any specifics—nothing specific to Ruby, nothing specific to Aqua's death, no idiosyncratic reactions that don't make sense, even though real people do similar (or at least similarly stupid) things.

Again, I point to Kana's slap as an example of how to get it right. Kana holding it together for a while, then suddenly slapping Aqua's dead face and breaking down in an increasingly tearful rant, feels very specific. It's specific to Kana's personality, to her relationship with Aqua, to specific things she said (and didn't say) to him. It's really good! No one else would react to Aqua's death like that, and Kana wouldn't react to anything else like that, and while it wasn't un-foreshadowed, I'm not sure I would have guessed that Kana would follow through on that spur-of-the-moment promise to slap Aqua if he died.

By contrast, Ruby gets a dinky little montage.

The more I think about it, the more baffling Ruby's treatment in the last chapter of Oshi no Ko is.

The last few chapters didn't do much to establish Ruby's reaction to Aqua's stupid plan death beyond general details like "she cried a lot," so I assumed the last chapter was going to focus on that. And I guess it kinda did?

But it fast-forwarded through all the details so we could get to her Dome Concert halfway through the chapter and focus on that. Don't focus on Aqua's death, focus on Ruby's life and what she accomplishes.

As advice for Ruby, that's fine. But as a way to write Ruby, it means we don't feel the weight of Ruby losing Aqua/Goro-sensei. We're told that she cried a lot and stayed in her room a while, but only for a moment. We get a panel in chapter 165, two pages in 166, and then the entire rest of the chapter is Ruby standing up and Getting Over It.

What was the point?

I could ask that about many things in the last arc or two of OnK, but right now I'm asking it about Ruby in chapter 166. What's the point of showing us that Ruby overcame her grief if her grief was never presented as a real obstacle? Why should I care that she got to live the life Ai and Aqua wanted her to if there's no real struggle?

(Why should I care that Ruby's lighting up her fans' world the way Ai did? In the end, what did that do for her? Aren't we back to square 1?)

There's a lot that OnK had yet to properly resolve, and it spent its last chapter telling us about Ruby's awesome idol career. And that's it. And that's disappointing.

[medicinemane]

I don't know... horrible things happen all around the world and it's not a competition

Atrocities are committed against multiple groups in multiple parts of the world at the exact same moment, and none of them erase each other. They all matter, all the people in this world who are being brutalized matter. There shouldn't be any line you draw where one group doesn't actually matter as much as another

You're welcome to prioritize your energy towards helping one group or another, but what's not ok is invalidating or dismissing people who are actively being harmed

Same goes for trying to figure out which social group has things worst (and lets be honest, always using a US lens)

Like... maybe the important thing is to prop each other up and help everyone get on their own feet rather than trying to... pick fights about if physical disabilities or mental illness are less respected (I'm trying to pick a more absurd example but sadly I've seen exactly that argument happen before). Maybe it doesn't really matter and what matters is helping who we can when we can

I'm tired of it, I'm just fucking tired of it. Support people, champion them when the world is just brutalizing them, but you don't need to throw a single other person under the bus to do that

Which seems to be an absolutely impossible lesson for people to learn

[supersymmetries]

i've finally reached the part in the semester where we're covering the second law of thermodynamics. matt bellamy we're in it together now

[licorishh]

Most people really don't seem to understand that friendship is a two-way street.

They expect you to wait on them hand and foot as they rant about and constantly pour on you either their issues or their passions and when you finally have something you'd like to talk about you get a "Man that sucks :/" or a "Cool" in return.

Find somebody who doesn't do that. Then you'll have your best friend.

[i-miss-music-247]

Morning rambles...

[spring-lxcked]

evil evil man but he can't date sb who doesn't enjoy physical affection from him because he's so damn needy. he sees his partner sitting down and he either has to be in their lap or as close to them as possible. even if he falls asleep next to his partner not cuddling, they'll still wake up with him half on top of them. kisses as greetings and goodbyes and because he's bored and yes there's a 43.25% chance he'll try to turn it into a makeout even if they're busy with something. partner is like "you're distracting me" and he's literally rubbing his face against theirs like "no i'm not." and he'll start this shit in the pre-dating """Platonic""" phase too if the person will let him and he likes them enough.