#literally i have to or else i will succumb to the horrors

[rustinsscohles]

okay so like. i got offered a job (yay!) and if i accept (which i probably will cause nothing else is coming my way) then i will definitely have to work another job to ya know. bring in enough money to live and sustain myself (which is fine just. tiring) but i don’t think the full time job would wear me out like the other full time jobs i’ve had in the past so going and doing part time work wouldn’t drain me too bad. so? i guess i have a job?

[re-lmayer]

i desperately need help to stay off the streets

my last two posts (here, and here) explain how and why we got here. unfortunately, the situation still hasn't been resolved, and that caused me to have another mental health crisis episode. as it stands, i'm unhoused. i spent a night in a basement sharing a cot with my two-times rapist out of desperation to try and save money, but i frankly couldn't tolerate that, so i've gotten a hotel room

i went to the housing authority with my moving truck on the day i moved out, and flat out told them if they couldn't assure me i'd be housed asap that i would contact the media and do an interview right in front of their building with the truck. that finally seemed to light a fire under them, so i was assured they would make a contract and i can move into an apartment next week, although they couldn't promise an exact day

so, after renting a truck, hiring movers, and getting a storage unit, i'm once again broke. i guess because it's the holiday season, the local hotels are all over $100 per night. the room i got is $132, and i don't even have enough to stay until tuesday, no less hire movers and renting a truck again. i am in a shelter desert. i desperately need to get through this final stretch and into a new unit, then hopefully i can focus on trying to recuperate and seek more intensive behavioral health treatment. my family is abusive, toxic, and enablers, and i don't have a local physical support system, online is all i have. i don't know where else to turn or what to do but beg to try and get through this until my housing is finally stable. i have three emotional support cats as well, and i'm so terrified of losing them or them being hurt because i was a literal day late and dollar short

paypal is probably the best way to donate to me. in the state i'm in i unfortunately can't offer commissions right now. the free and most massively helpful thing anyone can do is share this post so folks who do have the disposable income to help can see it and reach out. all donations and shares are so meaningful, i've only been able to survive thanks to everyone's support, and i'm so sorry to be a burden like this. this is a genuine attempt at survival and trying not to succumb to my worst urges. the horrors persist but i'm trying to as well

[therainscene]

I've described myself in the past as "overly-queerbaited" as a way of explaining why it took me so long to come around to Byler endgame as a legitimate possibility... but that's kind of a misleading way of putting it.

Truth is, I've always been too much of a cynical fuck to fall for queerbait... or any other story that promises positive queer rep.

[Sherlock couldn't touch me; I saw this cringe homophobia coming from a mile away. Fans mistaking straight anxiety jokes for meaningful gay subtext was clearly doomed to end in mockery. Nobody deserved to be treated like that... but god, it was easy to predict.]

I think it's a symptom of having grown up under Section 28 -- feeling like I'm being unreasonable for wanting to see queerness normalized is such an ingrained habit that even today I instinctively recoil like a vampire touching sunlight whenever an optimistic queer story falls unrequested into my lap.

But I'm hardly alone in feeling this way -- many queer Millennial and Gen-X fans of Stranger Things are against the idea of Byler because it would ruin the catharsis of watching the gay boy growing up in the same era as we did slowly succumb to the same despair that we did.

[For those who haven't played the VR game: Vecna is speaking in this screenshot.]

There's genuine comfort to be found in painful stories -- this type of catharsis is practically the cornerstone of horror as a genre -- so I can't really fault myself or anyone else for wanting it, despite the obnoxious oversaturation of disappointing queer endings in media.

This is the nostalgia show, after all -- and like it or not, for many middle-aged queers in the target audience, nostalgia is shot through with the pain of homophobia and loneliness.

But do you know who else is a hurt queer(-coded) adult who resents happy endings? This cynical fuck:

Henry personifies despair and loneliness and the dark urge to take our pain out on others -- and when Will is in the picture, I would argue that he also represents internalized homophobia.

Will might represent who we were -- but Henry represents who we've let ourselves turn into.

And I don't think many of us want to admit to that, because that would involve questioning why we have so much in common with the literal villain of the show; why we're still so consumed with self-pity after 20+ years that we're obsessing over the fate of some kid.

I'm not suggesting that wanting a less-than-fairytale ending for a fictional gay boy is equivalent to being a child killer lol. It's perfectly valid to want to see your pain acknowledged, and stories which appeal to that desire deserve to exist.

But between Henry's connection to Will and the cycle of abuse themes of the show, it's clear that this particular story simply isn't about wallowing in the bleakness of growing up gay in the 80s, but about self-actualizing in spite of it all.

So I just can't bring myself to want a "relatable" ending for Will.

As much as I struggle to enjoy positive queer rep, I don't want to be so cynical. I'd thrown up so many walls to protect myself as a teenager that I forgot how desperately I wanted to see just one of those painful queer stories end on the same uplifting note that straight stories were always entitled to: with true love overcoming the odds, saving the day, and living happily ever after.

[But I'm A Cheerleader, a surprisingly fun movie about conversion therapy, is proof that stories like this did exist when I was a teen... but finding them in the pre- and early-internet days amidst so much censorship was a tall order.]

What makes Stranger Things different from most queer stories -- and what allowed it to pierce through my defenses and stab me in the gut -- is that it perfectly mimics those bleak, acceptable-to-the-censors stories from my youth -- only this time, the secret uplifting gay plot twist is real.

Not for the sake of shock value or of grabbing some empty woke points at the last second, but because the plan all along was to slap the audience in the face for believing homophobic lies about the existence of queer happiness.

That's some gourmet catharsis, if you ask me.

Just the possibility that my inner child might finally be vindicated has allowed me to truly let myself want the things I want for the first time in 20 years -- and that's the first step towards finally crawling back out into the sunlight.

Happy Pride Month, everyone. 🌈

[wickjump]

im autistic so i made a post rambling incoherently about chara (maybe ooc hell if i know) for too long let’s go

I FUCKING LOVE CHARA!!!!! ever since i discovered chara existed (via a playthrough i watched because i was too young and silly to do the geno route on my own) in like 2016 i LATCHED onto them. idk what kins are but if i could kin anyone it would probably be chara. i have projected so much onto them throughout the years. even when i thought they were evil i still loved and projected onto them. chara is everything to me. i love this edgy ghost kid that narrates everything. chara would have been the funniest teenager because you just know they’d be “it’s not a phase mom” about it. rip chara you would have loved set it off and mcr and panic! at the disco. chara would have loved messing around with knives. they have a plastic knife they used to bonk asriel with thats my headcanon (bc i have a plastic knife from an old halloween costume that i still bonk my sister with). they would have loved horror films.

the narrator chara theory is canon to me and i love the chara-frisk friendship i imagined in my head they’re literally best friends. every time frisk dies in some brutal battle chara is the one to give them the memories that sparks the determination in them to not die. i like to think one of the reasons frisk’s determination is so strong it can overcome flowey, who was made via pure determination, is because chara’s determination is also there helping guide frisk. i also imagine that chara struggles so much with being awoken by frisk’s determination and seeing how everything changed. i think that chara is a mix of horrified at how monsters want to attack frisk when they were so kind to chara, but then understanding it because frisk is the last soul needed to break the barrier. chara can understand that desperation in a way. it doesn’t stop their heart from breaking when the asgore fight happens though

i also like to think chara sees themselves in frisk. a human that fell down for what i headcanon as another not so happy reason. i think they’re close in age, maybe chara’s a year older (not that i don’t love it when chara is like 13 and frisk is 8 so it’s like an older sibling younger sibling dynamic). and that chara wants frisk to live like they didn’t—or maybe they want frisk to break the barrier. maybe some part of them wants frisk to die, just a small part, to free monsters. not that chara would let them, though. and most importantly, not that frisk would let themselves. chara ignites the spark of determination by encouraging frisk to not give up, by giving them the memory of their family pleading for them to live, but it’s frisk’s own determination that does it.

in the genocide route it hurts too. because chara only starts really supporting the player after toriel dies. after their mother, who they loved so much they killed themselves (via buttercups) to try and free alongside the rest of monsterkind. the mother who took them in and loved them when nobody else did. after toriel dies, chara succumbs to the idea that humans are all cruel and they were a fool to think they were any different. they just hollowly repeat ‘but nobody came’ over and over and over again. they’re along for the fucking ride and hate all of it but still help because that’s all they’re able to do. and with asriel flowey siding with them, maybe this is what they’re meant to do. and yet they’re confused by the player’s actions and don’t support them (calling something perverted isn’t exactly a compliment). they don’t want this—they literally tell you hey dude pick another fucking route will you???

i also love the idea that chara in the geno route is the personification of karma. consequences of our actions. after controlling everything for so long, chara takes it back. i like that

i also also like the idea of them seeing flowey for the first time and not recognizing him as asriel till later. and being horrified and guilty that this is what their brother has become. if they hadn’t been so stupid, asriel would still be alive. i think chara would see the suffering flowey went through, and feel guilt over it—especially since it’s become obvious that flowey’s current mindset somewhat mimics chara’s nihilism towards humans, but to an extreme that spreads to monsters. flowey still idolizes chara, even now, and chara feels blame towards themselves. chara isn’t a fan of murder, they only suggested it for their plan because they were a kid who didn’t realize the severity of taking a life or how difficult it would be. knowing asriel, as flowey, has become this. it would break them a bit. so much has changed and they feel like it’s their fault. if they hadn’t been stupid, toriel and asgore and asriel would be happy and together. they ruined everything.

except they were like 11 and only wanted to help, just in a pretty non orthodox way. they ruined monsterkind—they’re all hopeless now because of them. they’re depressed, and their only hope is to kill the human children that fall down because that’s how desperate they are, even though chara knows monsters are the most peaceful beings in the world and would have never laid a finger on them. Asgore was the most loving father, and yet Toriel spits out his name with venom. i feel that chara would feel so much blame and guilt that it destroys them a bit. the least they can do to make up for it is help frisk. chara is a human, and humans are nothing if not cruel. i think chara would refuse to acknowledge that they were just a kid, because above that, they’re a human. and humans are only capable of evil things, in their mind.

my favorite aus are the ones where asriel and chara are alive for no reason other than for fun and frisk is their friend and so is mk who comes over sometimes. and they’re all best friends. im a subscriber to the idea that sans and papyrus raise frisk, not toriel, so i like to think they have sleepovers/playdates. come on. you know they’d all be besties. i had this au thing when i was younger where frisk split their soul in half to give to chara, so it’s like a split soul scenario where each of them have a half of frisk’s soul. it got edgy real quick but i still like that idea. i think it’s neat. but at the same time im also fond of frisk and their dead ghost friend and flowey that frisk stole from the underground to bring to the surface world.

frisk and chara’s non-canon relationship is my favorite part of this fucking game and it doesn’t even exist. they’re my favorites. i love them and chara wants to protect frisk because they are scared and chara knows how that feels. goddd

chara is so tragic too. like imagine having killed yourself believing that it was what would free monsters, your brother promised he’d help you (even if hesitant), and then it failed. failure, it’s just a string of failures and misery. and it’s not asriel’s fault, you can’t expect some 10 year old to be happy with killing people—even after being attacked, asriel couldn’t bring himself to do it. since asriel’s absorption of chara’s soul was the last thing keeping them ‘alive’, the last thing chara processed was the fact that humans had yet again taken everything from them, before being awakened when frisk fell.

also chara would be so pissed they’re not a monster tbh. so would kris but this is charaposting not krisposting. chara would hate their humanity so much. autism chara is a hc of mine because ive been diagnosed with autism since i was a literal toddler so it’s been a part of my life for nearly all of it, and i like to think chara was too. and the disconnect i feel to my humanity is something i think they’d also feel too. i process my existence differently, i see my body and self as extremely separate entities. the body is human, sure, but my self can’t be fit in that box. i think chara would feel like that too bc projection. chara has always been my favorite to project on ngl i was also a really troubled kid and they’re my favorite ever

ok that’s it. for now…

[sabiartrin]

Sandor, my beloved character of the series!

I have been attached to this character for years. He vividly portrays an innocent curious soul, charmed by romance and chivalry, and then so brutally maimed by cruelty and roughness.

He has no mercy for himself; he literally allows others to call him a dog, harbors hatred towards the world and himself, towards his childhood dreams that never came true. If he couldn't receive love and compassion in his childhood, then he'll have to convince himself that he never needed it anyway.

Sandor's father had a choice, he could have punished Gregor, but he didn't. Thus, he made it clear to Sandor that strength solves everything, and his feelings don't matter. His pain and loss of face don't matter to the closest person, to his father. If he couldn't get understanding and sympathy from his father, why would he expect it from anyone else in the world?

Oops, Sansa!

Of course, he mocks Sansa because she mirrors his inner child, maimed, crying, devoted, and misunderstood by everyone.

BUT! Sansa broke through that long-hardened shell. She brought him to tears. She broke something in him, an impenetrable stone cracked, and now something can grow from it. Deep inside, he doesn't lose faith in the goodness in this world, that's why he saved Sansa, that's why he cried. In the end, he managed to turn his principles upside down and send the Lannisters to hell, although before, his service to them was the only thing that kept him in this uncertain balance and prevented him from completely succumbing to self-deprecation or destroying himself over Gregor Clegane. He realized that care, sympathy, and love don't look like what the Lannisters showed him, like what his father and his people showed him.

He realized that things can be different.

Why does he call himself a dog?

Loyalty. Honesty. Sincerity. His ancestors' dogs gave their lives for their master. True knights acts similar in songs. They sacrifice themselves for a higher goals, for their lord, for their beloved woman. In my opinion, some part of Sandor still dreams of chivalry, of this fairy-tale chivalry that exists only in songs and in the minds of young girls.

But since the cruel world has so desecrated the concept of "chivalry," he gave it a less glamorous name, somewhat derogatory, because that part of him that tries to protect his inner child from even greater horrors deliberately mocks his love for knights and makes him hate this concept... It's simple, but at the same time catchy, simple but aggressive.

The Loyal Hound.

...and it still reflecting the essence of what both Sansa and Sandor crave.

[bestworstcase]

Hello! I’ve enjoyed reading your rwby analysis posts, especially the things you’ve had to say about Penny. The amount of care you put into thinking and writing about her is great. I’m curious what you thought about Penny getting turned into a human, because… I personally really didn’t like it. It just really hurt me that after she was attacked repeatedly because she was built differently, that the solution to that was to remove everything which was different/unique about her and make her “normal.” And then have the actual physical representation of her differences violently die and then be obliterated like they were some horrible, hideous thing.

A good chunk of her story seemed to revolve around being just as much a person as anyone else even though she had a body that worked differently. And I sure did relate to that irl! But then turning Penny human seemed to send the message that Penny could only actually be a full and happy person (such as immediately discovering how wonderful hugs feel) if she was normal. I want to believe I’m taking that scene the wrong way, but… I’m not sure how else I can interpret what happened. So yeah, I’m curious what you think! I’ll be interested to read your thoughts, whatever they may be.

ooh, well, i’m not keen on the way the fandom writ large interprets the scene (as ‘penny became human’/‘penny became real’) and i like how it was done because imo it is really NOT framed as a positive transformation?

there’s an element of relief and joy to it of course—because everyone’s glad that penny survived this ordeal with the virus—but, as you say, the self-destruction of her robotic body is a big focal point of the scene and it is done in a very horrifying way, with the camera moving between penny’s POV as she watches it happen and her robotic body’s POV as it desperately tries to reach her before succumbing to the virus. and penny herself is profoundly disturbed by the experience—she’s not happy to be ‘free’ of that body at all, and ruby hesitantly asks if she’s alright because penny clearly isn’t. 

so while penny does then find a small thing to appreciate about her new flesh body and that momentarily alleviates the horror… the tone is very much set by the amount of focus given to penny watching a part of herself die and, after that small burst of joyous relief, watching her old body crumble into ash and flinching away with horror again. 

to me, this reads as a rebuke of how flippant yang was about the loss—“the mechanical parts are just extra,” except penny’s body isn’t truly equivalent to a prosthetic, right? that’s just her body. 

it’s not all she is, but it’s also a lot more like the arm yang lost than it is like the prosthetic yang got afterwards. penny loses a core part of her identity…

…which is reinforced later, inside the portal, when penny is taken off guard by the abrupt realization that she no longer has floating array. weapons are a fundamental part of huntsmen identity, seen and understood as “extensions of our selves,” and penny’s is literally destroyed by her involuntary transformation—involuntary in the sense that it’s a choice she was forced to make under extreme duress thanks to watts—and she has to recreate that piece of herself with magic.  

and there’s smaller, subtler things wrong, too. i think the amount of focus put on her bare feet is meant to highlight that she does not have thrusters any more—an essential aspect of her natural mobility is just gone, again leaving her dependent on the maiden powers to do something she used to be able to just DO. 

or consider how disoriented she seems right before cinder gets her. in her original body, penny had sophisticated tactical software built into her sensory array which among other things made her virtually immune to emerald’s semblance. she could see infrared light and aura and the tactical analysis program worked much, much faster than any human could keep up with—because her physical brain was a computer! and then she loses that and spends the entire fight mainly getting clobbered and then struggles to keep track of what’s even happening when cinder gates her off from her allies!

her new body is healthy and whole by human standards, but measured against what penny had before… the narrative gives, like, a LOT of attention to signaling that penny has been measurably disabled in a multitude of ways. if she wasn’t also the winter maiden—& bear in mind that penny only became the winter maiden BECAUSE of what her original robotic body could do!—penny would have been rendered utterly helpless by this transformation. no weapon, no flying, in a much more fragile and vulnerable body that could feel pain. (think about how much screaming she does during that final fight, compared to the time she gets flung several blocks by a grimm so hard there’s an impact crater and she’s like “ouch! :)” about it)

and obv, that fragile new body is the only reason cinder was able to kill her at all. i think that’s sort of the point: penny did the equivalent of *barely* surviving a debilitating illness, went from her sickbed to a battlefield, tried to fight like that, and died because she in a state of extreme physical vulnerability due to recent illness. that’s why all of her friends were so insistent that she not participate in the fight—she wasn’t ready to be fighting! if she’d lived, she would have needed to spend quite a long time recovering, learning and accepting her new limitations, and training within those new limits.

so, to me? the narrative framing of the transformation feels somber, with “she lived! it worked!” being the silver lining on what is otherwise a tragic outcome. watts infected her with this brutal, horrific virus and the only way to save her life was to sacrifice a fundamental part of her self, in this acutely traumatizing way. i think the fandom collectively sort of tunnel visioned on the pinocchio narrative of ‘becoming a real girl’* to such a degree that the bittersweet framing and the underlying horror of what happened to her gets widely overlooked. and i don’t think those tragic/horrific notes are there by accident—the narrative puts quite a lot of emphasis on them, and deliberately bookends the joy of “do hugs always make you feel this warm?” with those moments of intense horror with the violent death and then destruction of her robotic body. 

(*something that… really isn’t a prominent theme with penny?, because her struggle with personhood is centered on how *other people* treat her like an object and i would argue her pinocchio ‘becoming a real boy’ moment is actually her acceptance of the maiden power—not because that ‘proves’ she’s a person or whatever, but because it’s a moment of emotional self-actualization where she chooses to do the right thing according to her own judgment instead of mindlessly following orders like the puppet ironwood expects her to be. it’s symbolic! & that gets called back to explicitly by winter, later, with “you were *always* the real maiden, i was the machine,” the ‘realness’ in the pinocchio narrative here is about emotional authenticity and refusal to sacrifice conscience or heart in the name of following orders.

rwby is… pretty profoundly uninterested in the question of ‘does the robot girl count as a person?’ because it answers that within literal seconds after revealing that she is a robot with an emphatic ‘yes, obviously, she has a soul, zero ambiguity here’ lmao. what it does do is leverage pinocchio to explore themes of dehumanization and personhood within an authoritarian military regime.)

so yeah, that’s how i read that. it’s joyous because she lives but it’s also not a victory earned without grievous loss, and the tragedy is exacerbated because she *does not have time* to catch her breath / process / learn how to live in her new, disabled body before cinder… cinders.

[write-to-tell-your-story]

Write stories that bring you hope, not stories that drag you down. People may call those stories childish, or naive, or immature for valuing hope and happiness in a world where so many people are suffering.

That's okay.

People have said all of those things about Lord of the Rings, too, but that whole novel itself is a thorough rejection of the powerlessness of hope or wisdom found through despair. People have called Lord of the Rings a black and white fantasy with little nuance or realism to be found, but I say those critics are missing something fundamental to the story and the value it places on hope.

The good guys won the war, but Frodo lost.

The final sections of Frodo's journey are marked by his growing despair. Moments of light and hope become increasingly fleeting and harder to cling to, while the weight of the ring is a weight around his neck that only grows heavier. Sam stays at his side with relentless devotion driven by love, and he finds his own brief, distant glimmers of light to cling to so that he can keep pushing them forward as Frodo slowly loses all hope. He'll even carry Frodo when Frodo can't walk any more, though Frodo won't let him share the burden of carrying the ring. As the darkness consumes his own mind, Frodo clings only harder to the ring as his burden and no one else's.

And Sam loves Frodo too much to take that burden from his loved one by force.

No matter how much the ring hurts Frodo to carry, Sam cannot bear the thought of himself hurting Frodo to take it, if Frodo won't share this burden with Sam on his own.

Their strength of conviction, their love for each other and the rest of the world, the knowledge that they are the greatest hope for the future of their far-off home and their loved ones and friends, all of this pulls and pushes and carries them onwards through ever bleaker landscapes that serve as a mirror to Frodo's internally growing despair.

Love and hope and the support of the people who love him and who love their homes and the world, too, give Frodo the strength to keep going right up to the climax of his journey.

And right at the literal edge of victory, Frodo's despair wins out and he loses.

With the world on the cusp of salvation, Frodo embraces the darkness that has become all he sees and says, "No."

Frodo puts on the ring, and he loses.

And all his friends but Sam are much too far away to stop him, doing their own part to give Frodo and Sam whatever last desperate chance they can offer without even knowing if they're even still going or if they are already dead.

And Sam can only watch on in horror, because Sam loves Frodo too much to stop him by force, even when the world itself hangs on the hope of their victory.

The world is saved in the end because of Gollum. The ring is destroyed and the world survives because Gollum is willing to hurt Frodo to take the ring from his hand. It is not love or kindness or any type of positive intention, but rather Gollum's greed, violence, and sheer dumb luck that prevent Frodo's choice from dooming the whole rest of the world.

The world won by the end, but Frodo lost on the edge of that cliff.

He lost because he gave into despair. He lost all his hope and could no longer find any light left in the world.

But the world won because he managed to find hope for so much of the journey. The world won because Sam loved him enough to find hope when he couldn't and kept pushing forward beside him. The world won because the rest of the company, and so many others beside them, kept fighting their own battles too, with only hope of their own to go on that Frodo was still alive and fighting in his. The world won because people elsewhere all across Middle Earth still clung to kindness and love and compassion and hope, even as Frodo fought and clawed and slowly succumbed to despair and the heavy weight of the ring. The world won because Sam saw the person he loved most in the world falling apart, and he couldn't take Frodo's burden without Frodo's consent and he didn't know if he could save Frodo from being claimed by his darkness before the end came, but he could stay beside him and carry Frodo a little bit further when Frodo could no longer carry himself.

And the world won because Frodo once showed Gollum compassion and chose not to kill him when he easily could have. When Frodo lost, when the bleak despair in his heart had consumed him and he chose to let the whole world burn to claim the ring's power as his, his earlier choice of compassion meant there was someone there who would take the ring from him by force, and the world was saved by a single lucky misstep.

Sometimes the world is dark, and frightening, and lonely. Sometimes the world is cruel, and vicious, and full of the things that make hope that much harder to find.

Sometimes the fate of the world comes down to sheer luck, and that can look awfully cruel all on its own.

But hope, joy and love and compassion and determination to keep going when hope is most hard to find? That is what gets us far enough that one lucky misstep can then make a difference, in the moments when despair creeps too high and we fail at our own final steps.

Write your own version of stories that bring you hope, and joy, and a light in the darkness even during times when those things are hardest to find. The times when it's hardest to find hope are often the times that we need it the most, after all.

[ddlcbrainrot]

I have thought about this topic extensively before and I've concluded that the normal contest relies heavily on whether its act 1, act 2, or the side stories.

I think most people agree Sayori and Yuri are not winning at all lol. Being the ones with the most explicit mental disorders across all timelines disqualifies them in most people's eyes, and I don't have much reason to go against it. Yuri probably wins most weird because of her interests, general demeanor, and the fact she gets to exist in act 2, but we shouldn't discount Sayori for getting second place she is not any more put together than Yuri is and still did that stuff in act 4.

I want to give them some credit though because both are still capable of being the voice of reason in certain situations, especially in the side stories with Yuri being the mature reliable one in a lot of scenes and Sayori being the only emotionally intelligent person in the room.

Honestly mc could win most normal for the main game simply because he's supposed to play the role of generic-white-bread-self-insert guy with average interests, normal backstory, and a total of 0 mental disorders. he just hangs out for fun. Other than Sayori saying he'd become a neet without the club he's just a normal guy you'd see in high school.

The problem comes in act 2 where he stops being a person because of Monika shenanigans. If we're going from a meta level, mc would also technically be the most weird due the circumstances of the game's creation since he's the only one without a character file and not considered a person. this is furthered by act 2 making him act more blank-slate-y to the point where he has no emotional reaction to a dead body. With that in mind idk if he could keep the most normal award if we consider act 2, especially when he has no side stories to back him up

Natsuki in base game is certified straight man (the trope) amidst all the meta horror when compared to the rest of the girls, which I think is kinda funny considering how in the side stories she is very much not that. like i'd argue she's the least normal there. Natsuki's interesting between the four as her lack of "explicit" mental health issues in the mental health issues game is balanced out by being the only character with a pretty important non-generic backstory. While there's different interpretations for her home life the one constant is that she has literally never had a healthy relationship in her life and has the club as her only safe space. These facts clearly affect her and her behavior, making it a big driving force in the side stories especially. All her self esteem and relationships issues lead to pretty not normal behavior and notably several breakdowns. like I'm pretty sure it's more than the rest of the club. With everyone else having grounded personal problems that anyone can have within side stories and act 1, Natsuki's whole life situation makes her stand out a lot more.

Yet somehow all that seems extremely tame by act 2. Even with Monika's making her dad go from normal bad to active threat on her life. Somehow she wins out by being the only person to notice all the weird stuff going on and also being the only person not on active suicide risk. By act 2, Yuri is insane, Monika is Monika, Sayori doesn't exist, and mc is halfway there. With Natsuki being canonically the least changed, she plays the pretty notable role as the voice of reason in a world that's clearly falling apart. She realizes when Yuri is acting strange, she calls out Monika for her own weirdness, she writes about all of this in a secret note even when Monika is desperately trying to get her to ignore it. She acts in defiance to Monika's attempts to dehumanize them. In contrast to mc's dehumanization or Yuri and Sayori succumbing to Monika's control, Natsuki's final moments has her retaining her independence and humanity (by puking on the floor (the expected response to a rotting corpse)). With all the stuff she goes through to avoid being messed up, she at least deserves something.

and then there was Monika.

do i even need to say it.

To summarize every Monika essay ever, she is a very normal person turned into the actual weirdest person ever due circumstances outside her control as well as the horrors. If a group of high schoolers has one person with powers over reality and knowledge of the great beyond I think that person would be the weirdest by default. The funny thing is that side stories Monika is actually the most normal out of all of them. While we can't get a look into her head and psychoanalyze her like base game Monika in act 3, she's notable for being a popular girl at school whos responsible, well put together, and no major issues compared to the rest of the club. She has her struggles, but they're like normal struggles the average teenager gifted kid has in like a high school movie. Compared to the other's struggles who could either get a trigger warning on a game website or an armchair diagnosis by the internet, Monika is easily the most normal.

That is until she gets epiphany beamed and destroys the polycule over it. I'm sorry but you kinda lose your normal card once you start trying to justify dehumanizing your friends with the code magic you were born with to the point of insanity for a guy you know parasocially. Like we all understand her circumstances and empathize with how she got there but that was still a weird decision on her part, existential crisis or not. We should also mention that unlike side story Monika, the epiphany very much did make her apathetic to her world and depressed to the point of actual suicidal ideation. Not that it changes the scales of most weird person ever but it that alone would have put her on the same as the rest of her awesome normal club. On a meta level she's also constantly singled out as the odd one out, having the only non-Japanese name, having different shoes and tights, not having a romance option, always having a front facing portrait, etc

(now that i think about it Monika still has her admin powers in the side stories she just doesn't know it. how does this affect the ranking)

OK somehow I never actually got too into their individual personalities but this is already kinda long and we already know they're all weird dorky anime tropes with big personalities so its not a big deal when the in game events are more interesting to debate with (my opinion is that by going off personality alone Yuri wins most weird and mc gets normal)

After all this it's kinda hard to judge who wins anything definitively since what defines weird and normal is subjective and dictated by ~society~, and when multiple timelines are at play you just kinda have to pick and chose what's more canon for your argument. Mc is close to most normal person ever, but his existence meta-wise as a whole is probably not????? A real world au maybe????????? Natsuki narrative-wise has her written as the token normal one in base game, but in the side stories the opposite is true. Monika is the the inverse narrative-wise, as base game has her written to be the odd one between the club as well as the antagonist due to the horrors, while the side stories makes her the definitive normal one. This isn't even getting to Sayori and Yuri, who are still very weird but are also vital voices of reason in the club. What I'm getting at is that none of the club members can be bound by a simple most or least weird without getting specific on what that means. After reading a whole tumblr essay only to have no definitive answer you may be wondering what the point in it all was, and to that I say what is the point in anything. Why are any of us still here if not to create meaning within the meaningless. also brainrot. its in the name.

tldr; mc is the most normal in act 1, natsuki wins act 2, monika wins in the side stories, but actually everyone in this club is simultaneously the most normal and the most insane person in the world. thank you for coming to my ted talk

i made the polls bc i couldnt figure out the "normal to weird" scale on my own and after reading your ask i think i know why it was difficult for me. bc i kept thinking of the characters as a whole, instead of dividing them into act 1, act 2, and the side stories like you. the difference between act 1 and act 2 are obvious, but act 1 is also basically the girls without their side stories character development (plus some minor differences in their personalities as a whole like that email says)

anyway, i agree with your conclusion

[foxett]

Hey guys did you know im clinically insane and have multiple OMORI AUs not just swingset? Yapping below! (Spoilers for canon game sometimes i guess)

Swingset AU / SSAU / TRTT (two ropes tied together)(fic name abbreviation) wasn't even the first au I've made.

The first one i really created was ODS (Omori didn't succumb) but the original concept of that whole au is completely different to what it ended up. Originally it was Sunny surviving the bad ending but I changed it to him just remaining as a ghost that can sorta turn physical at will. No I will not make a fic of this.

The next au i can remember making (after swingset) was Kanpekikel (which i completely forgot existed until a few days ago) which is just your average hikikel au with a side of horrible parenting and lots of Kel angst. No, again, I will not write anything of this. I'm pretty sure Kanpekikel was a really early version of Daburumori without the whole double isolation for the kiddos thing.

Like a few days after i got the general idea of Wasurerumori which basically. Everyone forgets Mari and Sunny ever existed and Sunny has to navigate his new reality of "whoops guess nothing ever happened then! My friends don't know me" - again nothing planned to be written

I don't know when but i had a conversation with my friend which led to RWmori being created. Rain world/Omori au where everyone is a slugcat (but anthro. Clothes and stuff!) and deals with the Omori plot with bonus spice (Sunny is Hunter from rain world, a character that literally is terminally ill. Whoops. Sorry Sunter (the name)). I don't plan to write a fic of this one BUT I did start an animatic of it. Might finish it. We'll see.

Daburumori is my second most fleshed out au. I have some (outdated) reference sheets for the main gang (+headspace vers for Kel and Sunny) just check out the tag i guess. I will probably not write anything of it as the plot isn't really cohesive. Might make little comics though!

The next au(?) is basically more of a fic idea. I called it Fire And Ice and i might write it alongside swingset but without the usual once per week updates. It's basically just suntan with some royalty, magic and transgendering. You know me, i love suntan!

I promise not all of these aus are suntan. I PROMISE. (I might be in denial) (Sorry i love suntan sorry sorry AugghhHHHHH)

The last au i have is sporemori which is a big mess of media i like. Infections, mushrooms that really like growing in your bodies, elements from the ghibli movie 'Nausicaa and the valley of the wind' (I don't remember the name please don't attack me) and a whole lot of body horror! I've actually drawn sunny for this au but since i haven't finished anyone else's designs i won't post it unless i randomly get possessed and finish them all. I MIGHT write something for it. No promises. I tried to write something but it got a bit too messy 2k words in (and it was just like. Before the plot?)

Edit! I somehow forgot the existence of headspaced au. It's not that big of an au and it'd work more as a mod. But i cannot mod. Which is why i refuse to associate myself with this au because it's hell on earth to try to explain the lore. /Hj

Fox out ! Yay seeya

[see-arcane]

Why did Dracula "save" Jonathan for the very last night until his journey? We know from how he fed on Mina for three days she was pale and weak, but not dead, so he could have been feeding on him for a few days/week until he succumbed.

But he kept him unbitten until Jonathan's final letter was written and only then Dracula declared that "he is mine tonight", and the rest is history.

Dracula prefers foreplay over the climactic act when he's enjoying himself rather than pressed for time. He likes playing with his food and/or future conscripted vampires. With Jonathan, he gives the superficial reason of wanting the Englishman around to learn how to speak in the same way. Which might be part of it! But to have him prisoner and literal captive audience for two months implies the more likely desire of just enjoying the cat-and-mouse of it all. Teasing things out until the last possible night and what Dracula assumes will be Jonathan's last night as a human being full of terror before the Brides have their turn with him, forcing him into inevitable vampirism.

Even with the Demeter crew, we see him playing. None of the men aboard strike him as anything other than another revitalizing meal in potentia, so the only fun he has is playing the torturous game of picking them off one by one in the dark, but the play is there.

You mentioned how different his MO with Mina was--how brisk. I'd say it's because it was all business. And petty vengeance. Not only was he striking at an enemy by trying to conscript her, not only was he violating her and her husband in what played out very much like a rape and a hovering promise that in time she will very literally be another of his pretty undead pets like the Brides. It was also to (unsuccessfully) give him eyes and ears on the group using her borrowed senses. He was on the clock with Mina, which is why she gets the quickest treatment.

Though I think there is something else worth mentioning in how he preys on Lucy; the character we're meant to assume is the template for how he hunts out new undead members to the Dracula club. And what do we learn from her case?

We see that if it weren't for Mina, Van Helsing and the suitors' intervention, his playtime with Lucy would have been far, far shorter and had even less impression on him than the book already showed. Lucy has friends. Lucy has people giving her new blood to stall her undeath. Lucy's conscription keeps getting stalled--and that is what keeps Dracula interested. It's a matter of engagement, pride, and, most likely, the only reason he really bothers to play more extravagantly with her. Hence the theatrics of getting poor Berserker in on it.

And after all that back and forth and bleeding and biting and Bloofer Ladying? He immediately loses interest and starts sniffing after the Pretty Girl in Piccadilly. Which, while indicative of him being a glutton for beauties, shows another very lopsided treatment compared to how he toyed with Jonathan.

I've pointed out before how Jonathan is the only character in the book Dracula goes out of his way to have whole conversations with. Mina gets one villain monologue, the group gets some fist-shaking and moustache-twirling at the Piccadilly house, but even when he has no reason to, Dracula really does go full gothic horror 'courtship' mode with Jonathan. Chatting, cooking for him, maintaining the whole castle charade; true, with increasing acts of abuse and psychological torment, but he actually engages with Jonathan.

This, when Lucy doesn't get so much as a 'Hey xoxo ;)' and Mina is given a traumatic speedrun to get her into vampire mode ASAP.

Dracula shows minimal finesse with Lucy, none with Mina, and devotes two months to Being Very Intimately Weird with Jonathan. Which means the question is less 'Why did Dracula wait so long to bite Jonathan?' and more 'Why is Jonathan's treatment so different from every other victim of Dracula's period?'

[raisedbythetv89]

No but the symbolism of Spike and Buffy’s relationship makes me INSANE 😭😭😭

All they’ve ever done is dance - soulless he is death - darkness - shadow - evil. As a slayer she is ALWAYS “dancing with death” and trying to out run her death wish aka her desire and attraction for Spike.

End of season 5 she stops dancing with death and instead embraces it literally with open arms diving in head first - the same night she invites Spike back into her home and entrusts him with Dawn’s safety because she has been given a way to embrace Spike/death selflessly to save the world and her sister. The scoobies can’t fight her about Spike’s presence with the threat of Glory and the apocalypse - again she finds a way to get what she truly desires without guilt or shame because of the valid reasons outside of her own feelings and desires.

When the scoobies brought her back they not only took away actual heaven from her which was described as peace, safety, and security everyone she loved was ok without her protecting them - they took away her “valid reasons” aka ones outside herself to embrace Spike/her death wish which had also given her peace because she had finally been free of the guilt imposed by angel and the scoobies for wanting “bad things” like a souless vampire who loved her and to be free of the burden of being a slayer.

Because she already embraced and accepted her deepest “darkest” (according to the scoobies) desires at the end of season 5 when she comes back in season 6 she just doesn’t have the strength or desire to resist them again and the scoobies guilt and judgement just no longer holds the same weight after the choices they made. So she succumbs to her death wish aka Spike in a unhealthy way because she’s in complete denial and pretending all her actions are outside of her control - telling Tara “she lets Spike completely take her over” when actually Spike is always taking all of his cues from her.

She has completely let go of any accountability of herself which is why she tries to turn herself into the police so someone else will hold her accountable for her (begging Tara PLEASE tell me I’m wrong aka please tell me to stop because I CANT stop wanting to still be dead)

Which is why as soon as she does accept that she does want Spike/to still be dead (“it’s killing me”) she ends it and tries to revert all the way back to before she was the slayer because she never learned to truly accept and embrace all facets of herself as a slayer just because they’re apart of her and she wants “bad things” because of them (re: season 5 she only embraced death aka spike because she had valid reasons to justify her desires - aka she still needed outside validation to be ok wanting the things she wants that she knew her friends, watcher and angel wouldn’t approve of) which is what she finally does in the finale of season 6 with death and makes peace with it and shifts from trying to protect dawn to training and empowering her (incorporating Buffy’s own innocence and girlhood into her life as a slayer instead of trying to keep them separate) but when Spike leaves to get his soul he stops being a representation of death for Buffy and her acceptance of her love for him becomes a separate journey for her in season 7 that I think is symbolic of her journey towards loving herself and believing she deserves love, tenderness and affection even though she’s a slayer who loves a vampire, is a warrior instead of a normal girl, and still has hope despite all the horror she’s seen because she sees the change aka the hope for redemption in Spike. Because if she can forgive and love William the Bloody she absolutely can forgive and love herself for all her mistakes and any harm she feels responsible for. Which is why Buffy ASKING for tenderness from Spike is such an absolutely monumental moment and why she’s so much stronger after that night especially after Spike returns the belief and support she gave him before he was taken by the first ten fold in his speech to her that night.

[phlyaros]

need more on that monster attracted to death benry au STAT. it's so good actually

Firefox fucking crashed while I was typing this the first time im going to kill god. Tysm but god typing all this out again WOOF.

Okay so it starts here with “I use au's and shipping to explore concepts/characterization that I feel is overlooked/unexplored in canon” and Benry already has a lot of associations with death to me (the skeletons, his explicit dying whereas everyone else has other explanations, his 'song of death', “there are no predetermined deaths”, him being a inscrutable and inevitable force that is only your enemy if you make him so)

this is a horror-aligned thing so uh body horror and other violence under the cut

I have other stories with benry that explore his relationship with death as well, this is just the one where Benry understands how fucking bad it is for Gordon in the first place and it's more of an interpersonal conflict than one of misunderstandings. They still do misunderstand each other but like.

Anyways most of the basic stuff also goes for how I generally interpret Benry; he's a simulacrum of human life basically. He's always been dead, he's never been dead, he's always been alive and he's currently living. I made a thing a while back out of cut up wiki pages to try and explain what I think of him better but never got around to prettying it up.

Anyways. He's something like that one interpretation of a changeling to me; something that's usurped the body and eaten it from the inside out, until all that's left is him. Partially this is a plural thing to me. Old host chipped away over time until it's something else entirely. Whoever he was before doesn't exist anymore. There is only Benry. (what is benry? well, he is.)

And so uh, Deathry specifically is the horse edition of this. He actually looks human most of the time but it's fun to draw him as silly little beasts. Deathry as established is drawn to death; he feeds from this somehow (the horror hunger enjoyer in me said so) but i'm not sure yet if it's a physical sort of eating or more of an energy-based one. Leaning to both, like a vampire.

I tried making him as compatible with canon as possible on the mechanical level at first. Something that's drawn to the doomed and the damned? Well, we all know what the rescas was like. I think he's just so desensitized to death that he does understand the gravity of it on a deeper level but nobody cared when HE died so why bother.

The story itself isn't compatible though because I was listening to my fucked up and evil music and thought to myself “well if two guys were out hiking alone in the woods and one tried to kill the other with an axe would that be fucked up or what” and now that's thoroughly lodged in my head. and uhhhh the personal drama of it all.

Listen. I am a gay man. I think about frenrey and think about them choking each other to death and I giggle and swing my feet. I love when they are violence and killing.

But also I am a gay man and thinking about a literal embodiment of the condition of death sitting in a tent as the guy he personally cut the arm off of (yes, him, personally!) is slowly succumbing to the cold; wrapping Gordon in his jacket, quietly laying on top of Gordon as the weather gets worse through the night, unsure of what else he can do... comparing Gordon's blackened frostbitten fingers interlaced with his own skeletal black hands, Gordon's slowly crawling pulse to his maybe one heartbeat a minute, Gordon's once loud and comprehensive speech slowly descending to confused muttering, becoming more like him. More like dead. The rituals are intricate okay.

And uh something that makes me crazy is that Benry in canon was explicitly the thing that was holding the rift between worlds open and he didn't even. Notice. With Deathry that sheer power manifests as freak weather events, flocks of birds dropping dead mid-flight, interrupting radio signals, making compasses go crazy. That sort of shit.

Deathry also takes pictures in places he ends up. Gordon is fucking flabbergasted at the underwater caves, dive bells from the outside, impossible angles on known landmarks, but it makes sense to him later. Gordon's probably more riled up by all the random shit Benry's collected over the years - what do you mean you don't want this coat covered in decomp?? aren't you cold??

Anyway. Au is also a fun excuse to think about frenrey shenanigans. Turns up in a hospital after being missing for 3 months raving about a guy who defies all physics with wounds that are only a few days old. Thinks about him for the next month until he randomly shows the fuck up with photos of Gordon bleeding in the snow with benry posed with the axe in front of him like they're having a fun girls night out

[deceptive-daydreams]

Till Death Do Us Apart

Eddie x Reader

1.6K Words

Warnings - Upside Down, dark thoughts, very sad

A/N - I was listening to this song and couldn’t help myself 🥲 also i posted this wrong before so I'm reposting

Masterlist

If death meant spending eternity with Eddie Munson then whatever came next didn’t seem so scary.  Any afterlife you were subject to would be your heaven if he was there.  The earthquakes rattling the ground and bracing the world around it to crumble soon wouldn’t matter, the flashes of red and screeches of creatures unknown would be gone if you’d just succumb to your inevitable death—if you’d just stop fighting it.  No more hive mind, no more eerie atmosphere of darkness and destruction, the anxiety could stop, your heart wouldn’t pump faster than it was capable of because you simply wouldn’t exist and that sounded euphoric right about now.  

There was no chance from this point, the sky was quite literally falling to pieces at yours and Eddie’s feet, you were separated from the others, not even the slightest idea of where they’d ended up and if they too were experiencing the end of the world.  If they got lucky and found a way out it was lost on you, there was no communication once in The Upside Down.  Eddie’s eyes feigned terror while he clutched the shield he made from a garbage can lid in one hand and a spear in the other, your hands shook as you attempted to formulate some kind of last resort plan in your head.  There wasn’t one.  

The ground violently rumbled, sending your bodies flying backwards as you stood outside Eddie’s trailer, the version from hell that didn’t actually belong to him.  No, this was the one that was stuck back in 1983 that was full of forgotten items and precious memories, the closest thing he’ll get to saying goodbye to Wayne.  The gate inside was sealed, leaving you an Eddie scavenging for a way out only to find there wasn’t.  Mouth dry, stomach churning in horror, and legs wobbling beneath you, you stumbled up the steps of the trailer for some temporary shelter, Eddie seconds behind you as a cold sweat dripped down his face.  With the door slamming shut, you’re met with a cold and lifeless room devoid of any life or the warmth of the Munson home you were used to.  It was like being trapped in space and time, a void that was endless.  

Eddie emptied the contents of his stomach in the corner without a second thought, the turmoil was too much for him and his brain was screaming in fight or flight, not able to differentiate between the two and ultimately overwhelming him to the point of nausea.  Although you were in your own bubble of frightening thoughts and horrible outcomes, you’d taken to providing him as much comfort as you could, a hand stroking up and down his back shakily as you pulled his dangling strands of hair back.  “It’s okay, it’s okay.”  You breathe heavily, lying to him and to yourself.  “I’ve got you, Eddie.  I’ve got you.”  That wasn’t a lie.  He began dry heaving while the trailer shook vigorously from the outside elements, tears streaming down his face, guaranteed to originate from his fear and not only from puking.  His chest heaved while he clung to the wall for support.  “I don’t wanna die.”  He chokes out, spit dripping from his lip, he’d never appeared more like a scared little boy in his life, even in his traumatic childhood.  “I know I said I wanted to earlier, I know what I said.”  Voice helpless as it cracks, he shakes his head in misery.  You flash back to your conversation earlier and his statement that had rendered you speechless and made your heart throb as if it were a raw wound.

I know this is gonna sound fucked up but dying doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, y’know?  I don’t have much else to live for outside of this.  They’ll just throw me in prison and everyone else will move on and what?  I just rot away?  At least this way I go out looking like I stood for somethin’

His sobs in the tiny trailer only added salt to the wound, he never could have it easy, even during the end of the world.  “I know, baby.  I know you don’t, I don’t either.”  You begin to let the hot tears consume you, bringing him in by the collar of his leather jacket and wrapping your arms around his waist.  “It’s not fair.”  A whisper with an unsteady voice finds his ear.  “It was never supposed to be like this.”  You tell him, squeezing him as if he could disappear at any moment.  “I’m sorry you got caught up in all of this.  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” You blabber, tears soaking the surface of his jacket, his body shaking against you while he grips the back of your shirt.  His broken voice speaks up suddenly.  “Stop apologizing, don’t you apologize to me.”  He grits his teeth.  “You never did anything wrong.  I’m the one that ran away.  I’m the one who got us here.  If I could sacrifice myself and know you would get home safe tonight I would but you’re stuck here because of me and you don’t deserve it.  You don’t deserve a damn thing I’ve put you through.”  It makes you feel sick the way he puts the blame on himself as if you didn’t actively follow him into the pits of hell on your own.  “Shhhh.  Eddie, not now.  Don’t do this now.”  You pull away and cup his cheeks in your hands, the pads of your fingers melting with his tears.  

You both knew your fates and it terrified you but also brought you a strange sense of peace.  The way Eddie’s doe eyes looked at you knowing he was living his last moments had you crying harder, nose pressing to his as if to drink every part of him before the world imploded.  “Let’s—let’s n-not dwell on everything w-we couldn’t change.  Just lay with me, okay?”  It’s your final request for him in this life and he obliges, nodding his head as his tears and snot mix with yours, his forehead pressed to yours.  “Okay.”  He sniffles, squeezing his eyes shut before grabbing your hand in his and leading you to what would be his room if it weren’t so grim and full of particles floating through the air. 

Pulling you down onto the bed as it creaks under the pressure, he lays on his back and brings you to his chest, laying your cheek against his heartbeat for the last time, his chest moving up and down unevenly from crying.  “I love you.”  He croaks out, hand gently moving up and down your back, flashes of red illuminating the room every few seconds and loud bangs thundering in the distance.  It only got worse and worse and your blood felt like it was gushing through your veins.  “I love you.”  You tell him, clenching the front of his shirt tightly in your hand.  “Please be there when this all ends.  Wherever we go, please be there.”  You whimper as if he has any control but it makes you feel better to voice it.  “I promise, sweetness.  I promise I’ll be wherever you want me to be.  I’m right here.”  He says weakly, cradling the back of your head and pressing a kiss to your crown.  “I had the best time loving you, I-I want you to know that, okay?”  Tears brim at his waterline again as he holds onto you.  “Y-you’re my best friend and if there’s s-some kinda light or whatever bullshit when this ends I-I’m gonna follow you, okay?  I’ll be right there with you.  I'm not saying goodbye b-because I know we’ll meet wherever we end up.”  The room is full of sobs, both from you and him while you dig your nails into his chest, clinging to him desperately as the explosions and booms outside grow larger. 

The trailer walls begin to crack and the angry world outside of it starts to swallow everything in its wake.  Eddie’s weight is now on top of you as he shields you from any falling debris, eyes shut in anticipation while you cower into him.  As you brace for the sky to cave in on the two of you, you find that it’s taking way too long for the world to come to an end.  Strong gusts of wind engulf the room, belongings are flying around and you and Eddie’s screams are muffled by the thundering noises accompanying the turmoil.  

This is it, this is it, this is it.  

This is the end.

Until it’s not.  

And you’re met with Eddie’s big beautiful round chocolate eyes from earlier.  Much earlier.  A breath escapes your lungs, it feels like you’d just swallowed water and you’re suddenly surrounded by Steve, Robin, and Nancy—still in The Upside Down; however you’d been in this exact spot before, it’s a feeling deep in your gut.  This wasn’t the afterlife, this was still the current life.  In some kind of fucked up way you’d reverted to the events from earlier just before you’d split up from everyone.  Eddie’s expression gave away that he was experiencing the same thing, it wasn’t just you.  He further confirms this by grabbing you and holding you tightly in his arms, this time happy tears welling up in his eyes.  

Nancy chimes in, glancing from Steve to Robin and then to you and Eddie with the smallest upturn of her lips.  “It worked?”  Steve has a prideful grin and Robin has a sparkle in her crystal blue eyes.  “Let’s get outta here.”  Steve says, a hand on your shoulder and a hand on Eddie’s.  

~end~

Masterlist

[tobiasdrake]

2-3's handling of its killer is... this is another one of those things I have mixed feelings about. Because it's about halfway good and halfway bad in my book.

There are two issues I have with it.

Like. Let's get the good out of the way first. Monokuma's been offering to restore people's memories since the 2-1. Here, he goes through with it, bringing Mikan back to her full Remnant of Despair persona.

This reveal is handled really well. Remnant Mikan's persona feels strongly rooted in Mikan's personality; Just twisted and perverted by Junko's despair-emphasizing ideology. This feels like exactly what it's supposed to be: A Mikan who's succumbed to hopelessness, who's internalized that nothing will ever get better for her, and who is now lashing out at a world that's offered her nothing but cruelty.

I said before that Mikan Tsumiki did the Cycle of Violence stereotype except she tripped over her own foot and fell into medical care instead. Remnant Mikan, on the other hand, is straight-up Cycle of Violence.

Which is a noxious cliche given the way it shames and demonizes abuse victims. It's in the same ballpark as Genocide Jack and Chihiro. Danganronpa's pretty fucking tone-deaf.

The problems here are two-fold.

The first is that, while this is a really cool and interesting reveal that adds to the mystery and horror of the Remnants' missing pasts, it's not really about Mikan. The killer is "Whoever Had Their Memory Restored". This literally could have been any one of them. It's completely arbitrary; Her name might as well have been drawn from a hat.

They try to make it feel more meaningful that it's Mikan with the implication that she caught the Despair Disease while tending to everyone else. So that's something, at least. But the initial infections already happened seemingly at random, so that doesn't really mitigate the feeling like this could literally have been anyone.

The other problem, as I touched on earlier, is the seemingly meaningful but actually arbitrary identities of the victims.

Remnant Mikan, upon reasserting herself upon Mikan's persona, promptly murders her abuser and the one other friend she had from before. People very close to her. People she has a strong relationship with. One of whom she has every reason to hold a profound grudge towards.

And the reason she killed them?

Circumstance. Nothing more. Nothing less. Ibuki, infected seemingly at random, happened to be infected by an ailment that made her convenient to kill. Then Hiyoko, strictly by coincidence, walked in on them.

This isn't an engaging character-driven mystery at all. Monokuma killed three people at random. That's all this amounts to. And it absolutely sucks that the end of the TSMC clique happens in such a way, with zero regard to who any of these characters actually are.

This could have worked. Remnant Mikan could still be a thing, but she could have killed Ibuki and Hiyoko for reasons that are rooted in their actual history together. But the creative team got so excited about their really cool lore moment for Remnant Mikan that they forgot to write these women as characters.

[superm4ks]

Which one you’d choose as teammates, not necessarily at red bull: Lewis/Max, Charles/Max, Charles/Lewis?🎤

This the brain heart pussy trifecta of hypothetical teammate combinations fr: brain says charles/lewis AT M£RC specifically because like sharl leaving ferrari for merc wud be kind of a serve like the all black replacing the full red .. 🖤 the way merc is like the protestant team and sharl is turning his back on the vatican like that’s a much needed refreshing light on sharl as a person and a driver. Curious to c how those wud 2 deal wid each others pr machine because they’ve expressed a lot of mutual admiration and they seem to genuinely get along on and off track. But they’re both such heavyweights bro. The balance has to tip in every team and yk rn m£rc’s whole vibe rn is already out of wack. Shar is not George let’s just say that. And lewis is far too good at this to let sharl build a narrative that’s not centered around him. Now obvi the heart longs for Lewis and max always because the heart is blind and stupid. They can’t race they can’t talk they have no idea how to be normal literally the opposite of love isn’t hate is indifference and there’s never been two people less indifferent towards each other. Bro even recently u had Lewis saying it’d be ✨wonderful✨ to be teammates wid max but of course max doesn’t want that 😜 and max being like 😐😐 I don’t care 😐😐😐it’s not gonna happen.. It’s not realistic so who cares😐😐 . Mind u these people are racing each other in practice 1 to this day. Real ass fucking hating none of that gay lestappen shit this is day 1 on sight mutual assured destruction. Now they wud both never sign wid the others team ((no really . Never)) so like idk throw them into a fucking haas let’s c what happens. But speaking of gay lestappen shit max/sharl on equal machinery I think wud either barely survive the horrors or succumb to them in the greatest possible way. That’s the supermakussy special. I think the same issue all these hypothetical teammate situations have is that ur putting 2 top dogs in the same cage and telling them they can’t eat the toy and they can’t chew on each other. Max and sharl have chewed on each other before, in a different cage. They know each other, prolly at each others worst , and what may seem like an issue to others to them it’s just exciting. It’s part of the game, it’s actually what makes the toy worth pursuing. They’re both similarly insane about racing and being racing drivers and driving cars nobody else can drive. If shared crazy wud be what holds them together or effectively tears them apart bro I’m just sad we’ll prolly never get to find out 😭😭😭

[narwhalandchill]

(new hsr quest on feixiaos writing + penacony/FF complaints ramble again brought on by the former. yeah back at it still sorry)

ok i swear i have more constructive and original things to say about hsr and penacony than just complaining about fireflys terrible writing but im just. now having done the xianzhou continuance its like. does feixiaos writing and lore not make fireflys mess of a narrative presence and (under)utilization in any genuinely compelling manner just 3 times worse in hindsight????

bc like. these two have a genuinely shocking amount of parallels if you think about it imo like. yes the stellaron hunters serve a different part in the overarching story than the xianzhou and its not a completely fair comparison to make 1 on 1 but just

we have two characters suffering from an as-of-now considered wholly incurable genetic ailment that is effectively by design (& literally crafted purposefully as such for the iron cavalry) going to strip away their freedom and agency making them essentially doomed to a predestined, horrifying end to their humanity. be it the entropy loss syndromes engineered way of ensuring the iron cavalry could never outlive their intended use as tools of war or the foxians inevitable succumbing to the moon rage and with feixiaos borisin blood making hers particularly intense. its very reminiscent, no?

and theyre both essentially child soldiers explicitly raised to perceive the beginning and end to their existence as being made for war and nothing else. the only real difference is the flavor of that violence - the borisins brutality and terror for the sake of it and use of foxians as inferior cannon fodder rather than the more organized and calculated cruelty of creating bioengineered soldiers to throw at the swarms advance. but they were raised and indoctrinated to the idea of life being nothing more than war all the same and would grow to witness horror after horror and compatriot after compatriot falling during their early life. endure and become accustomed to endless brutality and senseless violence as all there is to your being.

but theyre both also characters who felt a deep desire for something more in spite of those circumstances and are actively seeking both meaning to their conflicts and life as well as any potential cure to their ailments. like firefly and feixiao are both characters whose lore sets them squarely in conflict with their own "intended" outcomes who refused to just accept that meaningless answer of. succumb to your predestined end even as theyre forced to confront the possibility of never truly finding that cure they seek and the ever-present uncertainty that comes with opposing your fate in a vast, uncaring universe where youre surely not the first of your kind to hold similar ambitions against the odds. knowing youre just the next arrogant attempt to make the impossible a possibility in a long line of failures

like. feixiao and firefly are characters who are quite literally at war with the flesh of their own bodies. the makeup of a foxian with borisin blood doomed to hear the siren song of the moon rage calling her in the battlefield as its frenzied brutality overwhelms her rationale. the eternally-fading away molecular makeup of a soldier designed as disposable reminding her of her fragility and the unfairness of her circumstances every time she dares to step outside the suit they made her for.

again its still not a 1 to 1 and their philosophies arent exactly identical really (like feixiao very consciously chooses to embrace her warring nature even as it risks her sanity whereas firefly seeks to be more than just SAM and discover and assert who she is as a person without it) and im not the authority on FF lore anyway since the writing turned me so off of her character starting 2.0 that i never even bothered for a lot of her promotional content lmao so like. ppl who know better can surely argue against just a base comparison much better than me & not saying this is all there is to FF

BUT.

i Did still play the penacony storyline and as much as i think the premise was greatly underdelivered on. there is a narrative parallel that i think was at least Attempted to be this grand clash and narrative foils between the arcs antagonist and their philosophy (orders dream and sunday) and fireflys. which is very similar to how hoolay and feixiao foil, parallel and mirror each other in their arc its just that one of those fucking sucked writing wise because flattening firefly to an easily marketable pretty anime mecha gf who wowes twaiwblazew soooooo much uwu was more important than Actually laying the groundwork for them to Earn those v brief moments of firefly standing up against and rejecting the idea of accepting penaconys dream as her "salvation" and the "easy" way out of her cursed fate and for the story to explore the depths of her backstory the way they did for charas like sunday, aventurine n acheron. they didnt build that arc and that dynamic between sunday and firefly over time in a way thatd make it a grand narrative. when they managed to establish exactly that with full points and far less time needed for the very same concept to land Exceptionally well between feixiao and hoolay.

(and like. to be honest i dont even think it Should have ever been firefly v sunday as the center conflict rly. shouldve been robin 100%, she was benched in the grand narrative and conflict against her OWN brother so badly its unreal. but evidently hoyo wanted firefly to embody the "waking up to a cruel reality over a blissful dream is still the choice worth making" idea so. I will proceed with that one in mind)

because like. lets look at the genuine potential there that went all but wasted.

similarly to hoolay and feixiao, you can very easily see the potential to build the dual arc of characters who had very different but thematically connected origins (tho the 2 furries here are. Literally distant relatives from the same borisin pack they do have more in common inherently). and became very differently driven as a response, leading to a conflict where they clash on the same subject (blissful dreams vs uncaring uncertain reality) from complete opposite sides. and where the antagonist attempts to sway the other from their pov by demonstrating the way they COULD have the cure and freedom they desire. by just accepting their vision.

for feixiao to be free of her moon rage if she only embraces hoolays heart and her borisin blood to become the new warhead like no other.

and for firefly to be allowed a flawless kind dream crafted by sunday himself in which all her compatriots can come back to life. in which she is free of her suit. cured of the entropy loss syndrome. or sth along the lines like just let sunday cook a convincing argument lmao. not about the specifics just the idea

the point is that in order for this to work the story needs to devote TIME to establish the commonalities between the characters. to display the antagonist aka sunday recognizing the bridge that can be built to sway fireflys resolve. they need to show all the small steps along the way as hoolay demonstrates when he slowly realizes all his borisin kin have become weakling soyboys puppeteered around by a lord ravager chasing a savior in him rather than raise their kin up themselves. when he realizes that HIS legacy is embodied in feixiao instead. in her blood her brutality and power. her might as a hunter and a worthy adversary. a worthy SUCCESSOR. and his leverage, her weakness, his way in. (tho still lost bc shes HER but rip ig)

for this to WORK. its not enough for sunday to suddenly bring up fireflys backstory and him knowing it One time and then she goes sore wa chigau yo danganronpa style and never hesitates on the choice between dream and reality ever again.

it needs TIME. it needs sunday specifically singling out firefly as someone whod understands best where hed come from. where he is born in penacony in relative privilege and comes to realize the injustices elsewhere and the aeons disinterest in any such matter and becomes driven to the orders dream as an answer. where that is his starting point, fireflys Literally the textbook case of EVERYTHING his argument is based on.

why did the iron cavalry exist? the swarm. an aeon whose disastrous surge over the cosmos only got the rest of the aeons' attention once it got so out of hand that THEY had to intervene. like as much as the iron cavalry was an inhumane system for those birthed, used and discarded within it, this was an existential struggle and one caused by an aeon. like if youre sundaypilled would the swarm and aeons as a whole NOT be the true culprit between fireflys unjust fate? the losses she faced? the disease that eats away at her body every moment? would that not be an argument to chase? that as much as the SH are against nanook, they still dont look at the broader issue that is aeons existing to begin with?

(again. not abt the specific argument here im just spitballing ideas for what sunday could base it on. FF predicament is basically the poster girl for every argument sunday makes in favor of the dream)

like. he should show immense sympathy for her. particular attention. approach her mysteriously one on one for some sort of philosophical debate that doesnt have to like, change fireflys mind overnight but just so theres Something dynamic going on w her relationship and thoughts about the dreamscapes meaning for her specifically

bc like. there are times when she points out the way penacony allows her to freely exist in a form otherwise impossible or too risky. there are pieces of an arc centering her as an actual ideological adversary to sunday stuck between these two worlds.

but it never fucking goes anywhere proper because going on a date with her was more important than like. Idk. having her navigate a maze of her own order-dream. like they SAID she broke free from it first (iirc. not sure) when the gang is getting ready to square up against order-sunday for real. But like. WHY did we not get to SEE that???? See her dream and her memories and backstory and all the ways she is being convinced by her own deepest wishes and broken dreams and losses after losses to maybe just... stay dreaming? where she has to reject the body that feels so light and free in the dream and force herself awake in the one that tries to dissolve into thin air every raspy breath she takes? the one where she wakes gasping in pain? where sundays showing her exactly what she could have if she just left the real world behind??

and THEN she can break free and yell at sunday that her future is hers. then she can earn that shit and that moment that firefly metaphor in her very name. that even with an incurable disease she wants to see that shit through. and as much as his perspective has shown that he truly understands her pain and circumstances in a way i doubt is really all that regular in her life. she Still refuses to succumb to his escapism. etc etc etc

like. dide i dont even CARE about firefly as a character but just. post feixiao and how much they cooked with her and how based hoolay was as the exact perfect adversary for HER. What were they fucking doing.

they did ALL this with feixiao and hoolay. successfully. showed her origins, her lore, why she is the person she is now. they showed her inner conflict with the hunt and how she desires an end to the path itself so no more lux arrows have to fall. how she has fears of becoming the monster herself and losing control. how she is offered an easy way out of her moon rage by hoolay that she still rejects because it goes against everything she stands for. how she deals with the inevitability of her eventual succumbing to her bloodline and accepts being killed if she is overtaken by the crimson heart. and so on.

(and also gets to be so fucking cool every step of the way without having to be nerfed into complete blandness with TB rizz plot armor or w/e)

like literally we see feixiaos dynamics with her ragtag duo of malewives landing better and with more impact than firefly with the entire SH pretty fucking much in ALL of penacony????? (at best like. outside of the FF blade convo) when all 3 were completely new characters??? yet we get to see a more nuanced exploration of what they mean to each other especially jiaoqiu and feixiao?????? when firefly got all but delegated to TB interactions only and losing every shred of interesting and unique characterization around us because marketable cute anime girl was more important than Actually using her lore and potential to build penaconys narrative????? Shits unreal man

but we didnt get to go on a date with feixiao where everyone comments on how cute and super lovey dovey we look around each other so i guess shes a failed character 😔😔😔 minus feixillion sales smh, hoyo going bankrupt any moment now yall