#makes me ill as does any suggestion of childhood in this show but this scene specifically is crazy

[natasha-in-space]

Haha, new profile pic goes brrrr, or: childhood friends au my beloved

I find it so funny how baby Rika's hairstyle on the new CG is so similar to how adult Chaewon's hairstyle looks. Coincidence? I think not. Anyway, I don't think Chaewon was ever a big fan of trick-or-treating, since dressing up is not something she particularly enjoys, but she always relented for her brother's sake. If you add baby Rika to that, she won't even complain much! Unless they make her dress too cutesy that is...

Ref. by @spaniforce on Twitter

More childhood friends au lore dump under the cut 👇

It's interesting to me to think about the possibility of these two meeting as kids. Chaewon comes from a wealthy family, and while this comes with its own difficulties in her relations with them, her parents are good people. She grows more reserved and closed off with age, but as a child? She is a rather spunky and outgoing kid. I feel like she would have a 'mean girl' reputation around her school, even though that label doesn't really fit her. She's not a bully, but she has no filter, and she sure loves getting into fights, much to her father's dismay.

So, what if she ended up going to the very same school Rika was struggling in as a child? Such a thought makes my brain buzz. I don't think she would pay much attention to Rika at first, no. (Or rather Serena, to be more true to canon, but, for simplicity sake, I'll continue using 'Rika' here) She's a loner, and never really made any close friends in school, nor did she ever feel the need to. But, I do think she could overhear some nasty words and rumors that are being spread around about Rika between the other kids. Maybe she'll stumble onto a bullying scene one day. Maybe she'll walk in on Rika crying alone in an empty classroom after forgetting her bag for the countless time. Whatever the case is, she wouldn't stand for it. She's not one for mincing soft words, but she can spook off the bullies just fine, and she will offer a snack if she sees a kid crying without showing any rough edges. Her little brother has a much softer demeanor, so she is no stranger to being in a role of protector like that.

I think it'll be a gradual process when it comes to their relationship. Chaewon is very close with her parents, and she always tells her mother all about her day in school. So, her mother will probably be the one to nudge her into making friends with Rika. Maybe she doesn't have any friends and that's why she's sad? Chaewon doesn't have any friends in her class either, so why doesn't she try to be friends with her? Just a suggestion, her mother says.

I do think Rika will be timid and a bit distant, especially since Chaewon is a very blunt kid. If she thinks you look stupid, she will say just that. But, I believe she'll eventually learn that Chaewon means no ill. She never teases her and she never says that Rika's a bad child. She says that she's strange, but she doesn't make fun of her for that. In fact, she continues to find ways to talk to her daily. Rika will be confused by all this. Does Chaewon like her or not?

It'll be a period of this cautious friendship between them, before Chaewon inadvertently learns of Rika's poor family situation. Be it by Rika slipping up during conversation, or her literally being witness to her mother's abusive behavior first hand. Chaewon is just a kid - a sheltered one at that - so she'll be moreso confused and taken aback by it all than anything else.

That's when her parents come in. Rika's family is well off and makes sure to uphold their good reputation, but so does Chaewon's. It won't take long for her mother to suspect of Rika being seriously abused, judging by what her daughter tells her of the situation, and she won't stand for that. There are a lot of ways to go about it, but, what is concrete, is that Rika will be removed from her abusive environment eventually.

She will probably never meet V, nor Yoosung, nor establish the RFA, nor encounter the Choi twins, so... how much of a good ending that is for the overall story of mystic messenger remains in question. But, it's nice to think of Rika growing into adulthood with trusted and responsible adults around her that she can go to for help, and loyal friends to experience life with. It'll change both her and Chaewon inadvertently. I don't think Chaewon will be as brash or closed off as she is in a normal timeline. Rika helps her be more open to the world and mindful of how her words and actions can affect others, as well as motivating her to pursue her aspirations in life. She will probably pursue a career in professional sport thanks to that, too. In canon timeline, she gives up on that dream after losing an eye in a training accident and having a huge falling out with her father, who doesn't want his daughter to risk her safety by pursuing this path... But, I believe Rika could help soothe the tension between them in this au. She has a way with words and can help them both reconcile, as neither Chaewon nor her father have any bad intention towards one another in this conflict. They simply need to come to an understanding with each another, and Rika can be of help to that.

It also gives them a chance to form a healthy and stable relationship (certainly an oddity with these two). I do think it'll take them both a looong time to realize their feelings, come to terms with them, and then finally express them. It's always confusing when the line between platonic and romantic starts to get blurred, especially so when you're only figuring out your sexuality. Makes me giggle to think of them both full on pining for each other while thinking that this is a totally normal 'girl best friend' behavior. Oh, but when they do get together? They are the softest girlfriends ever. First date will be at the aquarium, of course. Can't go wrong with that. Rika would get Chaewon a huge isopod plushie. They name him Snugglebug (it was Rika's idea).

[the-blue-fairie]

On the Subject of Aporia

I guess I disagree with the notion that Show Yourself is Let it Go done “the right way.”

Much can be made of the fact that, in Let it Go, Elsa doesn’t truly work through her issues. But the thing is... she doesn’t really work through her issues in Show Yourself either. She doesn’t confront the roots of her trauma. She isn’t able to meditate on the roots of her trauma. She doesn’t get true catharsis and she doesn’t get true relief. In fact, Show Yourself goes some ways to sweep the roots of Elsa’s trauma under the rug.

And here I have to discuss how Frozen 2 frames Agnarr and Iduna. Because Frozen 2 never dwells upon the part Agnarr and Iduna played in Elsa’s trauma. It idealizes them, ignoring the fact that they were the ones to initiate the separation of the sisters in the first place, they were the ones who taught Elsa that she had to hide.

In the past, I’ve seen people put the blame on Elsa for the separation - saying that her fear after the accident instigated it and pointing to the fact that Elsa herself continues the separation after her parents’ death.

This reading is disingenuous, to say the least. While the accident scarred Elsa as a child, the separation (which was instigated by her parents, with the affirmation and complicity of the trolls) was what cemented the self-hatred in her heart. Elsa continued the separation after her parents’ death because she learned it well throughout her childhood.

I don’t like the fact that certain people place the blame for the childhood separation on Elsa, who was a terrified child at the time. A terrified child listening to the adults around her, adults in positions of authority. Adults who chose to close the gates, reduce the staff, limit her contact with people, and keep her powers secret from everyone, including Anna.

You can’t blame a child in an extreme situation the same as you blame an adult - but I’ve seen people in the fandom do it - and it frustrates me.

And again, as I’ve always said, Agnarr and Iduna are in an extreme situation too - and they are working under the guidance of the trolls. Agnarr and Iduna are good people - but their choices still contributed to their daughters’ pain.

And neither the films nor the shorts show the sisters processing their parents’ actions and how those actions hurt them.

Not even Dangerous Secrets does that - because Dangerous Secrets focuses on Iduna’s and Agnarr’s perspective. It’s not about the sisters processing what their parents did to them.

And again, “processing” doesn’t mean “condemnation.” I’m not advocating that the sisters condemn or hate their parents. Processing can also mean realizing that their parents were in a painful situation and forgiving them, accepting what happened.

But neither the films, nor the shorts, nor Dangerous Secrets do any of that. Even though coming to terms with the past is a key theme in Frozen 2 and a theme that centers on Agnarr and Iduna, Frozen 2 ignores their part in the childhood separation altogether.

It could have brought it up and, in bringing it up, it could have beautifully paralleled Iduna having to hide being Northuldra with Elsa having to hide her powers. It could have the sisters, as they are forced to make tough choices, sympathize with the tough choices their parents had to make. It could have truly confronted the roots of Elsa’s trauma by referencing the separation when Elsa meets her mother in Ahtohallan, giving the scene greater emotional weight. Or, the film could have highlighted that the True Evil comes from people like Runeard - whose fear causes him to kill, whereas Iduna and Agnarr’s fear for their children’s safety caused them to try and protect, even in an imperfect way.

The possibilities that present themselves are limitless - but only if Frozen 2 had the courage to address Agnarr’s and Iduna’s part in the childhood separation - and it didn’t. It had multiple opportunities to. It simply made the deliberate choice not to do so - to brush those actions essentially under the rug.

It’s like the movie thinks that, if it references Agnarr and Iduna’s part in the separation, that will make Agnarr and Iduna seem bad. But actually, the opposite would be true. If the film directly addressed Agnarr’s and Iduna’s part in the separation, they would become even more sympathetic because viewers would get a clearer understanding of what they were going through and see clearly how they were good people. On top of that, both Elsa and Anna could get a chance at true closure with them.

But the film goes out of its way not to bring that topic up. Even when Olaf recaps the first film, it’s like this: “[as Elsa] Anna, no too high! Blast! [as Anna] Ohhh! [as Elsa] Mama Papa Help! Slam, doors shutting everywhere, sisters torn apart. Well, at least they have their parents. [beat] Their parents are dead.”  “Doors shutting everywhere” and “sisters torn apart” describes the event passively. It’s just “something that happened.” The problem is, within the context of the first film, it’s not just “something that happened.” It’s something that happened as a direct result of the trolls’ choices and Agnarr’s and Iduna’s choices. And I stress their choices over Elsa’s because she was a child in this situation and they are the adults in authority. 

Thus, in a film that’s supposedly all about coming to terms with the mistakes of the past, a film where Agnarr and Iduna play a crucial role, this aspect of the past is actively ignored. Even though not ignoring this aspect of the past would enrich both films and clarify things more fully for people who are on the fence about Agnarr and Iduna (also, hopefully it could address the trolls’ part in all this, because no piece of Frozen media even begins to grapple with the trolls’ part in all this.)

And I know you might say, “Well, Dangerous Secrets addresses the parents’ part in the children’s separation!” And that’s good that it does so. But that still doesn’t get to my central point: that no piece of Frozen media shows Elsa and Anna coming to terms with what their parents and the trolls did to them, and how that influenced Elsa’s actions in the future. 

Now, some people have argued that the films and shorts do address the sisters coming to terms with what their parents did to them, because through their parents’ portrayal in OFA and F2 it is implicitly suggested that Elsa and Anna have no ill feelings towards their parents.

But I’ve addressed this before in the past:

“Having ‘no ill feelings’ is the culmination of an emotional journey that we don’t get to see. We get to see the sisters dealing with the emotional ramifications of their childhoods and what it means for themselves, yes. We get to see them reconnect during Frozen Fever. But we don’t get to see them processing feelings for their parents (and the trolls) that must be complicated for them.

And saying that emotional journey is implicit or is addressed subtly because we see that the sisters bear their parents no ill will... I’m sorry, but that just isn’t good enough for me. The sisters bearing their parents no ill will is an endpoint. It’s not the emotional journey itself. We don’t get to SEE that journey addressed directly. We just have to be content with... implication.”

And the fact we just have to be content with implication when Frozen 2 is so much about the sisters’ relationship with their parents and Frozen 2 offers every chance to go beyond implication is... troubling to me.

It’s more than just an oversight on F2′s part. It’s a deliberate choice.

And it weakens the emotional impact of Show Yourself.

Show Yourself is framed as Elsa gaining closure regarding her mother, her trauma, her sense of self. But, regardless of that framing, it... doesn’t exactly give Elsa that closure.

Because Frozen media, outside of Dangerous Secrets, seems bent on glossing over the part Elsa’s and Anna’s parents and the trolls had in the sisters’ traumas in childhood. Because Frozen media doesn’t give the sisters a chance to talk together or reflect together on their parents’ and the trolls’ actions and come to terms with them. Even Dangerous Secrets, which does better in exploring the nuances and complexities of Agnarr and Iduna, can’t do that because the book is telling the parents’ story, not Elsa’s and Anna’s.

So parts of Show Yourself feel like... going through the motions of catharsis with no actual catharsis - because there are still open wounds that Show Yourself doesn’t even try to heal because the film won’t openly admit they exist. Because, as with Let it Go before it, there is still work to be done.

But at least Let it Go let Elsa be frustrated with her parents’ poor choices. At least it allowed Elsa to repudiate the strictures placed upon her:

Don't let them in, don't let them see Be the good girl you always have to be Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know Well, now they know 

There’s more reflection on her parents’ part in her pain in those few lines than in the whole of Frozen 2 - even though much of Frozen 2 is directly about her parents.

I’ve seen people describe the transition from Let it Go to Show Yourself as a transition from reckless defiance to acceptance and peace... but this framing doesn’t work with the film’s portrayal of Elsa’s relationship with Iduna. Because for that framing to work, we’d actually have to see Elsa’s transition towards acceptance of her mother’s actions. We’d actually have to see the emotional process of Elsa making peace with her parents’ choices.

And we don’t.

And that’s tragic because, especially with the backstory Frozen 2 gives Iduna, there’s so much you could have done with Elsa’s relationship with her mother. So many parallels Elsa herself could have made as we see her truly going through the process of healing.

(Also, this last note isn’t related to Let it Go or Show Yourself, but, How does Anna feel about the trolls modifying her memories in childhood? I’m sure it has come up in the intervening years in-universe, but we’ve never seen it addressed... and that speaks to the larger issue I’ve been discussing.)

EDIT: Kristanna and Greatqueenanna have informed me that Anna’s missing memories are the subject of Memory and Magic, the second book in the Sisterhood is the Strongest Magic series - and, while I’m glad of that, I still am a bit bummed that they are relegated to an obscure book that not everyone will read and may be of dubious canonicity at this point instead of being addressed in the feature film that centers on addressing the past and coming to terms with it. While Dangerous Secrets is much more high-profile, I have similar reservations about it as well - because not as many people are going to find it as find Frozen 2. Moreover, Dangerous Secrets is meant to be a supplement to Frozen 2 and it doesn’t focus on Elsa’s and Anna’s emotional journey regarding their parents. I guess Frozen 2 is supposed to be that emotional journey in a way, but because Frozen 2 refuses to touch the childhood separation and Agnarr’s and Iduna’s accountability for it, that leaves a... gap in the text... so that the emotional journey feels incomplete.   

[goldeneyedgirl]

Who’s ur favorite and least favorite twilight character and why?

LOL, oh man. Prepare for Discourse, Anon. 

My favourite character is Alice (that might be very obvious). I think she was wasted in Twilight, and that she has so much potential. 

She has no recollection of being human. She is a totally blank slate with a gift that is essentially an extra sense or limb. Like, this girl cannot be ‘okay’. I believe in my heart of hearts that Alice functions differently to other people. I mean, I infer from canon that her visions taught her everything that she needed to know - from how to feed, to how to convince Jasper, to how to join the Cullens. She’s going to get the wrong answer? She’ll change what she says!

And that is utterly fucking terrifying - especially if she was aware and doing it intentionally. But I do not think she is, in that sense. I just don’t think she would have any idea of how to live without her visions showing her what to do next. Alice is a hostage to her own gift, and always has been. 

Even her interactions with Bella and Edward in canon are really uncanny, like she’s playing a role - which is more reflective of SMeyer’s piss-poor writing ability than any sort of intention - but indicative that Alice is Not Okay, and kind of explains a lot about how the Cullen family is portrayed. 

A lot of what I love about Alice, and her relationship with Jasper, are things I’ve absorbed from fan-content - what we can infer from the information we’ve been given. Her conviction about her and Jasper, to me, is beautiful and both terribly childlike, and something someone who has suffered deeply would absolutely cling to as a lifeline. The idea that Jasper isn’t just her husband, but her very best friend and confidant as well, paints such a lovely picture of the symbiosis they have. I think that, whilst it’s normally Poised, Confident Alice to Rescue Struggling Depressed Jasper portrayed in fandom, that there is a distinctive possibility that two individuals who were both fucked over in the gift department and were holding onto reality by a strand found each other and rescued each other might be closer to the truth.

I also LOVE fashion, so I kind of get Alice on that level; and I treat Alice - when I write her - as someone with mental illness (like myself) because I find that very satisfying to write, and to explore. I can PROJECT, which is super fun.

Jasper’s a close second because holy moly, he has so much potential from a fic-writing perspective? This is a man who was not a good person as a human - like, there are Varying Reasons he would join the Confederate Army and be proud of being a Major, but that’s a TOTALLY different piece of discourse so we’ll put a pin in that because statistically, it meant he was a racist fighting for racist ideals. And THEN he is changed into a vampire and joins the Southern Wars, falling further into evil as far as violence, hate, and senseless death goes. 

Like this man was a full monster.

And it was eating him alive.

So he just walked away. Alice did not save him. Peter did not save him. Jasper walked away. Peter gave him the opportunity to do so. Alice offered him goals and a way to improve who he is. There’s nothing he can do about the evil he sowed, the legacy he has created. And he has to live with that every single day for eternity. Has to deal with the burn of his thirst, exacberated by years of gorging on human blood, every single day. There is no solution to/for Jasper. It’s one hell or another. And that is so much fun from a fic-writing perspective. 

Plus his dynamic with Maria is so crazy fun - Mother? Lover? General? What does ‘good terms’ even mean? I assume it’s code for ‘cold war’ or ‘not actively seeking the other’s destruction’, but who knows. I love that. 

Jessamine is also super fun and beloved by me, but that’s because she’s either Jasper-derivitive or my particular portrayal of a separate character, so she doesn’t count. 

As for my least favourite, that honour goes to Edward. Full disclosure, I have not read Midnight Sun, only skimmed parts, because the only thing worse than that would be reading EdBella fic. 

I think he’s an arrogant, misogynistic, controlling little brat, honestly. He’s above the rules and the laws when it suits him - at the cost to everyone - and he condemns Rosalie and Jasper so quickly and thoroughly with very little in-text justification. 

He says that Rosalie is vain - well, Captain Dipshit, maybe after being violently and fatally gang-raped by a group including her fiance Rosalie might deal with a lot of body issues - and copes with them the best way she can. Maybe after being raised with a priority of being beautiful above all else, and then harmed in such a grotesque way because of her beauty, and then becoming more beautiful might fuck with your mental health a little, Eddie.

Edward has a bad habit of classifying women in absolutes like Madonna/Whore, depending on his personal beliefs - which, as a frozen 17 year old from the 1900s, is fairly goddamn dubious. Rosalie and Tanya are both ‘bad’, Esme, Alice, and Bella are all ‘good’. But there are no women that Edward fully ‘trusts’ or allows to ‘win’/direct him. He prizes Bella because of her unreadable mind - she is a puzzle and something to possess. They are never partners. Edward uses Alice, Who Tries Her Very Best, as a weapon against Bella multiple times. I often wonder if it isn’t Edward who encourages Alice, off-page/off-screen, to play dress-ups, to make Bella into what Edward expects in a wife. 

Edward is over-indulged by both Esme and Carlisle; honestly, with his gift, I wouldn’t be surprised if he manipulates the family into their slightly toxic dynamic (it’s hard to tell because of SMeyer’s obvious bias, and the perspective of the novels) because it benefits him so much. It puts him second only to Carlisle - Jasper cannot be trusted despite his comprehensive understanding of vampires, especially when it comes to turf battles, and Emmett’s just a frat boy. Or is this the portrait Edward has painted so he gets to be #1 Son?

Edward is the goddamn architect of every disaster the Cullens face because what he wants is dangerous and illegal. Without Edward’s Volterra Tantrum, Aro never would have challenged the Cullens in Breaking Dawn. Victoria’s attack would have been neutralised before the Cullens even got wind of it. Bella never would have gone cliff-diving or solo-hiking if Edward hadn’t dumped her in the cruelest way possible. 

I honestly, truly believe that Edward shouldn’t have had a mate, let alone a wife and child. 

Also, movie!Edward looked like he needed a fucking shower and a flea dip in nearly every scene. 

Bella’s a close second because I have known girls like Bella and fuck me, they are deeply unpleasant to be friends with. She fucks over EVERYONE in pursuit of Edward. I understand that she doesn’t have the same interests as Alice, but not once just she make a suggestion for an alternative activity or a compromise (and that could be Bad Writing again, because Bella appears to have very few hobbies beyond ‘reading’ but it’s what we’re working with). 

In fact, I would argue that Alice tries her very best to be Bella’s friend, but it’s a futile attempt - Bella tolerates Alice because of Alice’s proximity to Edward. If Alice had been a human student at Forks High, you can bet that Bella would have dumped her as fast as possible. Bella has very few moments where she’s positive about the people around her outside of the Cullens (by association with Edward) or Jacob. Charlie gets mostly pity. Everyone else is looked upon with disapproval and judgement (which, again, reflects toxic writing tropes.) 

And Bella martyrs herself at every opportunity. There’s a lot of discourse where Bella’s neglectful childhood is examined, but Bella fucking lunges into the ‘victim’ role at every possibility. And ultimately, I really don’t see Bella maturing or learning anything at all through the series. It’s always about what she wants, above everything else. She succeeds because she and Edward are incredibly selfish individuals who are enabled by the parental figures around them. 

Second runner-up is Carlisle. 

[mingmingfufu]

Can we just talk about the ending of KawoShin open discuss. *sort of spoilerish*

I feel like I’m the only one who’s like reallly disappointed LMFAO--ya’ll there’s so much “canon” alternative universe and merchandise for Kawoshin in Evangelion that it kind of makes me upset to realise this couple just went down the drain. Yeah, I can see how people were like, “Kaworu’s toxic” or “Kaworu has a hero complex for Shinji” to which I say are valid points. But the toxic thing I feel like can also be applied to pretty much everyone around Shinji tbh, except for Rei. I did NOT, like Asuka at all but I really love her character though, and I felt for her a lot throughout the series.

I did not ship them either because honestly, Shinji and Asuka seemed better off playing the sibling dynamic instead of trying to play bf/gf which honestly is kind of forced by their living situation. Also since they’re in a similar disposition non existent father and dead mother, you’d imagine they would rely on each other for emotional comfort. Though Asuka—her personality I feel like she can’t differentiate between familial love and romantic love and the affection she wants is a bit of both. But, her character tries to be “mature”; she wants romantic love more and does this through sexual means and romantic gestures e.g. like kissing. One of my friends told me that you can’t stay friends as a boy and a girl cause eventually you catch feelings. Which I say is kinda dumb cause I have a lot of male friends, and I definitely don’t harbour those feelings, but I guess it’s a common phenomena.

I think this is what happens in this case, of Asuka and Shinji. Even after rejection of instrumentality they actually are depicted as childhood friends. But knowing how they both were before to each other, it was not good tbh. Also to mention the choking like thrice— bro if anything, this showcases a really abusive relationship and I think this outstretches the idea of their character tropes. Which I firmly stand by saying they’re superficial to each other. AsuShin were never really there for each other and are using each other in a forced situation. However, you can’t deny that they didn’t at some point catch feels, also Shinji is pretty consistent how he still cares about everyone around him. Which I really like how they add that to his character because it reminiscent of Yui, because you see a duality of both his parents personality in Shinji throughout the series—it’s a really nice touch. But bruh, if we gonna talk about that coma scene—I’m out LOL.

Thoughhhh, she is a true definition of best girl I really like her arc, fighting drive, and her skills as an Eva pilot 😭💗--but bruh she’s still a toxic and sometimes annoying tsundere trope, but still she’s 14 what can you do. So I feel like Kensuke and Asuka are actually a pretty good combo, cause he’s always been pretty mature even without parents. Also Asuka was into older guys, so I guess this is a win win?? Also Rei and Shinji, I honestly cannot get my head around it cause that’s pretty much his mom—so in a way that’s like either his half-sister or mom-ish clone?? Idk but Yui is definitely the donor LOL.

Kaworu and Shinji I felt like brought a bunch of things out of each other. I don’t know which timeline begins first, but I’d like to think the manga, the anime (plus its movies), and then to the rebuild series. Because I think that order is kind of pivotal to observing Kaworu’s character development from being a person who’s trying to understand human feelings to then the kinder person we see in the final series. You can tell how he’s changed and he knows Shinji a lot more as well as being considerate to him e.g. giving him personal space or letting him work at his own pace. Also that “we’ll meet again.” Is an obvious nod to how he’s done this before.

His literal story in every timeline is always romantic LOL, like bruh I can’t remember which game it was but basically a bad ending of Kawoshin route is that you reject Kaworu and he starts the third impact 🤡. Also I don’t know why but I started to see a weird dynamic between those two, in the manga their interactions reminded me of Asuka and Shinji—which Shinji is the tsundere Asuka here. I don’t know if this is relevant but the older character relative to the character they’re with seems to play off a mature vs a childish person trope. Asuka is younger than Shinji and Shinji is actually younger than Kaworu. Then again I could be overseeing this but istg manga Kaworu and Shinji mirror the whole Asushin dynamic. Like he’s seriously agressive against Kaworu, then after killing him he admits liking him. 🤡 I don’t know which is funnier no homo Shinji, homophobe shinji, or just closet Shinji who needs to realise sexuality is a spectrum so he could’ve idk—come out as bisexual, but whatever manga Shinji lol that timeline is over.

Anyways the development of these two is real and I think the rebuild timeline shows them at their best bringing their own personage out from each other like how they both enjoy music together--WHICH I’M SO SAD WE NEVER GET TO SEE THAT CELLO AGAIN. Then there’s those feelings of humanity, love, kindness, etc. Which yeah an angel could represent those things, but Kaworu is still his own person, self-aware of a cycle and if you think about how he initially was there to USE Shinji, but ultimately turned on that plan set by SEELE because he loved Shinji (and a bunch of other things like him showing Kaworu humanity). I also can see the argument, how “ideal” Kaworu is to Shinji, but he’s more self aware of the time he has before he KNOWS he’ll die and knows how to act for himself in that duration to make the most of it. All with Shinji. At some point, I think he fell in love with Shinji tho I don’t know where it began tbh—considering that all those alternate universes do exist. Kaworu does romantically love Shinji--so, in some universe they both reciprocate their feelings to each other. 

In the last movie during that convo with Shinji. Like bREH it’s so emotionally moving because Kaworu remembers ALLLLL the timelines and how he’s been with Shinji and later Shinji himself recalls the events too. Where they show the scene from the manga and anime. Kaworu cries after being set free from the EVA cycle. Which, I definitely understood what he meant by him saying “it’ll be lonely” and how Shinji changed or that he’s actually different this time.

Either way, Shinji did right by him because it’s always Kaworu who has the purpose of “trying to save Shinji” but it always ends up the same. I thought that was really moving because Shinji tells Kaworu he’s gonna let him live a life for himself for once and he wants the same for everyone as well. Which was honestly so meaningful cause I think Kaworu’s character and like Rei too when they start to realise how to “live” like a person and not another puppet it’s truly liberating. Another thing I forgot, bruh Kaworu calls Gendo his father and ngl I feel like this is kind of a weird lore situation because I for sure don’t think he’s the donor. I think he calls him that as an insult because he knows Gendo’s whole doing and relative to Shinji—I kind of see it as a joke LOL. Like it’s equivalent to saying, “daddy chill”, or “hey look it’s daddy and his plans to end the world” also I kind of like to think of it as a father in law thing cause you know, Kawoshin *winks amirite*

The ending, I’m honestly hoping is just an open ending because it gives everything an actual start of their adult lives not being dictated by extraterrestrial forces. Though, I’m kind of wondering if the world doesn’t have EVAs does that still mean everyone else still has the same backstory, and do they remember? Maybe Mari really is just a coworker lmfao, and there’s still a chance for Kaworu and Shinji cause ngl, they did have a convo (presumably from the spoilers) about still remaining close afterwards and that stare at the ending seems very hopeful.

I call bs from Anno saying, “oh Shinji is based off him and Mari off of his wife”, like honestly any OCs made theres always some part of yourself made into that character. Which is probably why a lot of people relate to the characters in EVA because they’re based off real things (e.g. those war machines characters are named after and people around them). I think why Kaworu and Rei are together at the end, is bc they’re very much the same. They’re mass produced dolls—which oddly enough that’s the case for all the children except they don’t recall the loop. Kind of funny also how both Kaworu and Rei became farmers lmfao so ig it runs in the family (yes that’s right I like the idea that they’re siblings it was always noted that they’re like “the same”).

Another thing, i think why the rebuild really did well for Kawoshin and in my opinion canonised it—the convo with elder Ryoji Kaji (Misato’s baby daddy) that there was a time he felt incredibly lonely and depressed thinking Misato didn’t love him and so he started looking out for himself. So self love and found himself a hobby in farming which he suggests to Kaworu—basically saying he might feel like Shinji doesn’t love him but he’s gotta remember to take care of himself. if I go thru a breakup ill feel like it’s the end of the world but Kaji says y’a gotta self love broe and take care yo self gad dam fam 😭 💗.

Though, that look at the end from Shinji to Kaworu—I’d like to believe there is still hope that one day when they’re a bit stable in their adult lives, they’ll run into each other.

[jordanstrophe]

Hey I was curious does Gabriel and Walter ever watch movies together or more specifically scary movies? I'm kind of interested to see how they would react to scary movies honestly

I swear, all of you know I can’t help but to write anything slightly suggested to me at this point. 

I love these asks though <3 thank you

CW: Whump, held captive, *inhales* parental, creepy, possessive, intimated whumper

masterlist

Gabriel smoothed out every wrinkle on his bed blankets, Walter hated it when anything was messy, especially of his.

*CRACK*

The door slammed open as the hinges sounded like they broke as Walter burst in.

"AAH! Please wait! I'm cleaning it, okay!?'' Gabriel cried, desperately trying to fix the new crinkles he created in his panic.

"Eh?" Walter blinked, watching Gabriel on the verge of tears as he fumbled with a shirt folding it over and over again.

"You're okay, little one, you're not in any trouble. It's movie night!" He cheered.

"It's wha?..." That's when Gabriel noticed Walter was holding a huge bowl of fresh popcorn with a blanket balancing on his shoulders.

"Movie night?" He slowly placed the perfectly folded shirt on the bed. Walter took his arm as Gabriel let out the tiniest of squeaks in surprise as he was led to the living room. The lights were off, the candles were blown as the only light came from the old fuzzy TV illuminating the table in front of it full of snacks and drinks.

“Come on now, let's get you comfortable.” He smiled. He sat Gabriel down on the couch and settled next to him, wrapping his arm around his shoulder to pull him in. Gabriel curled up and trembled against the man's arm, scared and uncomfortable to be forced to lean against someone in such a trusting position-

Someone who held his life from strings like a puppet. 

Walter could feel him shaking, he rested his hand against the side of his head to force him to relax even more. He would calm down eventually. He always did. 

“Do you get frightened easily?” He murmured, running his fingers through Gabriel’s hair as he flinched when chills ran down his spine. He knew the answer already, it was rare to see Gabriel not a frightened little dove.

“A-.. A little.” Gabriel whimpered back, half burying his face into his shoulder. Walter chuckled as he hit play on the remote, the TV flashed with a burst of color as it showed the title, “The Exorcist”.  

Gabriel’s stomach sank even further... He remembered from his childhood his mother would play the same old film late at night as he hid under his bed and cried. Even as an adult, he refused to ever watch it just from those memories alone. 

He nervously stuffed popcorn in his mouth as his eyes focused just below the TV, staring at the glint of the shiny buttons slightly reflecting the light from the horror scenes flashing in front of him. 

“Oh! Oh, look son! Do you know how they make those fake cuts and blood?” Walter asked with a mouthful of popcorn.

“N-no..” Gabriel murmured. He didn’t really want to know.

“First, they take material and soak it, then-” He goes on and describes in every detail how they make the special effects and fake wounds. 

A loud scream and jump scare popped on the screen as Gabriel couldn’t hide his gasp, he flinched violently, instinctively latching on to the closest thing for safety: Walter’s arm. 

“Oop! It’s okay little one.” Walter laughed, wrapping his arm around him as he pulled him into a hug. 

Another jump scare.

Gabriel was now latched onto his chest clinging onto his soft robe collar. Walter could feel his heart thumping quickly against his chest as he held him in his lap. He couldn’t help but to let a smile crept across his face as he cradled his boy in his arms. 

So helpless... So fragile... So innocent... So sweet...

“Do you want to keep watching?” He asked. Gabriel was quick to shake his head no. “Alright, that's okay.” He grunted as he lifted Gabriel back onto his side of the couch. He turned on a lamp as he dug through the old cabinet, gathering several movies and DVD’s still in their plastic containers.

It brought back some fun childhood memories. Gabriel was surprised he still had things like this, but he was talking about a man that still used a record player.

“Come! Come sit down, son. Why don’t you pick one out this time?” He waved as Gabriel slunk to the floor next to him. There were so many movies that brought back nostalgia: The original Superman, Wizard of Oz, Grease. 

Gabriel nervously handed him the Wizard of Oz, as Walter ruffled his hair with a smile before setting it up. This time when Gabriel curled up next to him, he wasn’t trembling. He just leaned his cheek against his shoulder as he slowly began to drift off asleep halfway through the movie.

Walter was more infatuated by Gabriel then the movie as he watched the slow rise and fall of his chest, his peaceful expression, his cheek squished against his arm.

Walter pressed a loving kiss into his hair. The night was truly one to cherish. 

@alien-octopus @yesthisiswhump  @lave-whump @whumpasaurus101 @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @hamiltonwhumpdump @just-another-whumper @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @approach-me-and-ill-cry  @whump-it @kixngiggles @as-a-matter-of-whump  @five-fictions-5-9 @rippedjeansandfadeddreams @thelazywitchphotographer  @sophierose002 ​

ʕっ• ᴥ • ʔっ  Thank you for reading!

[amjustagirl]

Chapters: one. ~ two. ~ three. ~ four. ~ five. ~ six. ~ seven.

Wordcount: 2.1k

Masterlist link here

AO3 link here 

Summary:

Akaashi Keiji catches glimpses of another life in his dreams. He dreams of fields of endless gold, of constellation of stars that light up the night sky. He hears the echo of birdsong in her laughter, her songs to the gods in the wind.

Author’s note: This fic is a little different from my usual work, so I’m a little nervous about publishing it. If you do like it, would love if you leave a comment / reblog / anything!

Pro tip: Italics denote scenes in Akaashi’s dreams / past.  

If you’d like to be included in the taglist, do drop me a msg/ask!

Time passes. 

Akaashi graduates from university with top honours and gets recruited immediately by a publishing company. He’s mildly disappointed when he’s dispatched to the manga department instead of the literature department as he originally hoped, but it’s not all that bad, he gets to work with Udai-sensei on his new volleyball manga. 

He’s content, all things considered. 

His mother is constantly on his case to find a girlfriend - because she insists she’s growing old and wants grandchildren soon. To placate her, he goes on arranged dates with daughters of his father’s business associates, with nieces of his mother’s friends. While they’re pleasant enough, they all seem to come from the same mold - well bred middle class university graduates more interested in complaining about their bosses and talking about the branded bags they’re going to get next. 

Once he tried asking one of them about the type of flowers she likes best. His date blinked in confusion at first, but immediately brightened up and she said ‘roses, I guess? They look so good on instagram!’ 

He did not ask for a second date. 

Honestly, he’s not exactly looking to date anyone at the moment. He’s young, barely twenty three. Work is time consuming enough, with his days filled with constantly looming deadlines and chasing temperamental mangakas like Udai-sensei. His mother will just have to accept that grandchildren are very much not in the near future. 

But he does feel somewhat guilty -  ‘even Yuji-kun is seeing this lovely girl, auntie tells me,’ his mother nagged last Sunday, so he picks up a habit of buying flowers to soothe her every time he heads to his parent’s home for a meal. 

‘Pink carnations for your mother again?’ the florist asks brightly. 

Akaashi nods, insisting on paying for the baby’s breath she adds to the bouquet. The florist lets him when he assures her he’s no longer a starving university student, and pulls her gloves off to rifle in her drawer for change. 

‘Here you go!’, she chirps, holding out a tray with his change. His gaze is drawn to the pink burn scars streaked across her hands, and flushes when she meets his curious eyes with a knowing look. 

‘Sorry, I - uh didn’t mean to stare’, he begins to splutter, but she waves it off. 

‘It’s fine. I got them a long time ago’, she replies, a wistful smile twisting her lips, tugging her sleeves down to her wrist. 

He bows and takes his leave. He doesn’t spare a second thought on the encounter when he reaches his parent’s house, his mother exclaiming over the little bouquet.

The table shakes when his colleague slumps into his seat, sighing deeply. 

‘Did your boss get on your case for typos again?’ Akaashi asks, his spoon pausing on the way to his mouth. 

‘Worse’, his colleague groans. ‘He’s sending me to Hokkaido for next month’s feature on crimes that shocked the nation, and I have to travel all the way up the mountains to some dinky little town without a train station.

‘Hm’. Akaashi raises an eyebrow, curiosity piqued. ‘What’s the feature about?’ 

‘See for yourself’. His colleague dramatically slides his folder of articles across the table, bumping it into Akaashi’s plate. 

He thumbs through the folder. Nakamura Yakeru, the mayor of a small mountain town in Hokkaido, found guilty on a multitude of charges - breaking and entering, causing arson by fire, assault and attempted murder of a schoolgirl, her identity redacted. It’s shocking in and of itself - but there’s something awfully familiar about the man’s face. 

He smooths out the creases in the paper, bringing the newspaper clipping closer to his face, and oh - 

He knows that face. 

His mind echoes with the memories of flinching at the sight of Nakamura’s teeth, yellowed from nicotine and bared in a smirk, the acrid stench of cigarettes lingering on his shirt, cursing whenever that inconsiderate bastard left sparks smouldering in dry grass. But it doesn’t make sense - there’s no reason for him to have ever met the man. He’s never been farther north than Sapporo, a born and bred Tokyo city boy after all. And he doesn’t recall seeing the man’s face on the news either when the crime was committed. 

So why would his dreams feature this man? 

‘Akaashi?’ he hears his colleague call his name, but his voice can barely be heard over the pounding of his heart in his ears. ‘You’ve gone really white, is everything ok?’ 

‘I’m fine’, he replies, hastily shoving the article back in the folder. ‘Everything’s fine.’ 

His colleague doesn’t look like he believes him. Frankly, Akaashi doesn’t believe himself either. 

Try as he might, he can’t get the eerie coincidence out of his mind. And after a few restless nights, he finds himself back in his childhood bedroom, holding the old omamori in his hands. It’s just an inanimate scrap of cotton fabric, but he’s tempted to borrow his mother’s sewing kit to pick its stitches apart, to discover the secrets woven into its threads. 

It feels silly being so superstitious, but he can’t help feeling that he’s on the verge of discovering what his strange dreams have been trying to show him - so he tucks the omamori under his pillow, his thumbnail catching on a stray thread, before he surrenders himself to his dreams. 

‘Akaashi Keiji’, a cool voice pronounces his name with faint amusement. ‘Back to change the terms of our bargain? ’

His eyes fly open. 

This time he’s on familiar ground, kneeling on the twenty sixth step of the shrine he visits with his parents for  Hatsumode, the other twenty five steps below him shrouded in mist. But the woman standing before him is not familiar to him - in fact, she’s clearly not even human, not with her red eyes and pale lips, not with the wisteria trailing from her hair and disappearing into her skin. 

That should scare him, but it doesn’t because he can’t discern any malice in her eyes, and the scent of the wisteria is soothingly sweet. 

So his curiosity wins out over his sense of caution, and he asks politely - ‘I’m sorry, who are you exactly? And, um. What bargain are you referring to? ’

Her eyes gleam. ‘I’m offended. Don’t you recognise the guardian of the shrine you’ve been praying at your whole life? And as for the bargain you’ve made with me - I thought you already figured it all out by yourself, little boy.’ Laughing airily, she crouches over him, a wooden plaque dangling from her finger. ‘Remember this?’

He reads the words etched on the plaque.  ‘I wish I could have more time. I wish for yesterday to come again.’ Then he glances up at the shrine deity sharply. ‘I remember that from my dreams. Does this mean they’re real?’  

‘What do you think?’ Her lips stretch into a grin. 

‘Logic would suggest that they aren’t. It shouldn’t be possible to swap bodies, let alone with someone I’ve never met in my life. And yet…’ 

‘And yet?’ she prompts, tilting his head towards her with the nail of her finger.

‘It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore the fact that I know Nakamura Yakeru from my dreams, so that suggests at least some semblance of it is real.’ He looks at her pleadingly. ‘Are you here to help me?’ 

She laughs again, the sound ethereal like the flutter of butterfly wings. The sleeves of her purple kimono slide down her wrists, the scent of wisteria enveloping him growing sickly sweet. ‘Help you? Well, since you asked so nicely, little boy, I guess there’s no harm telling you your dreams are real. I granted your wish on a whim, and look how amusing you’ve been!’

Oh gods his dreams are real. They’re real. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, they’re real.  

Akaashi feels his stomach churn. He inhales a shaky breath. 

That means she’s real, doesn't it?

He thinks about the salaciously titled newspaper articles, the violence implied in its words. He thinks about the innocence in her impulses, the whimsicalness of her thoughts. He feels ill at the thought of someone deliberately trying to extinguish her. 

‘What happens in the end ?’ he asks, blood surging to his head, slamming his palms flat on the ground for support. ‘What happens to her?’

Sunlight pierces through the fog, and the wisteria spirit starts to fade before his very eyes. 

‘Why don’t you see for yourself?’, her voice echoes.  ‘You’ll find all the answers you’re looking for at the shrine in the forest. You know the way there - you’ve been there a thousand times, both in real life and in your dreams.’

He gasps as he jolts awake, hands clenching his sheets. 

He’s in his bed in his apartment. Everything is exactly as it was before he went to sleep. 

Well - everything except the scent of wisteria lingering in the air.

Udai-sensei’s eyes bug out from its sockets when Akaashi tells him he’s off to Hokkaido for an impromptu holiday. 

‘You aren’t burnt out, are you? Is it me? Is it the deadlines? Don’t quit on me - there’s no way another editor can provide the same input on my new volleyball manga like you!’ he begs, sounding dangerously close to tears. 

Akaashi sighs, muttering under his breath about ‘ highly strung mangakas’  but manages to reassure Udai that no, he’s not quitting, he’s just taking a four day break. He thought it’d be nice to visit the flower fields during summer in Hokkaido, and he has an old friend in those parts he might pay a visit to.  

So he puts himself on a short flight to Sapporo, and a painfully long bus ride further north into the mountains, arriving at the rural village he’s traversed countless times in his dreams. He drags his luggage past the high school, the  crunch  of wheels on gravel slowly knocking loose memories of bones aching, flesh bruising, from tumbles down the stairs, from falls off drain pipes, from predestined losses against cement floors. 

He exhales through his nose when he walks past the florist’s shop. It’s a hollow shell of bare concrete and cardboard shutters, a gap where the signboard should be on the shopfront, a stark contrast to the bustling bakery and  combini  it’s sandwiched between. Thank the gods, he mutters, the blaze of hurt and desperation in Hana-chan’s eyes haunting his mind. 

The only inn in the town is serviceable enough, though he’s looked at in askance by the innkeeper when he admits he’s an editor for a publishing company. ‘Another gossip hound ’, the old lady mutters resentfully, and Akaashi has to do damage control lest she assign him the dampest room in the establishment and assure her that he’s no journalist, just a flower enthusiast interested in the lavender blooming in the fields. He charms her enough with his politeness that by the time he checks into his room, she offers him free use of a bicycle to explore the town, and he takes her up on her offer once he drops off his bags in his room. 

The summer sun is starting its descent from the sky as he cycles past familiar dirt paths lined with trees, the anticipation in his blood thrumming as he passes sprawling farms he’s sure he’s eaten stolen eggs from, passes the gas station  she  bragged about stealing petrol from. The rush of blood to his head hits a roaring crescendo when he reaches the edge of the woods. 

Leaning the bicycle against a fallen tree, he sets off to the very heart of the forest, his feet seeming to recognise a path his eyes cannot see. The deeper into the forest he ventures into, the thicker the branches overhead seem to grow, leaves interwoven into a net that blocks the sun. 

The wind ripples over his skin. The trees seem to whisper out to him. 

Okaeri, he hears. Welcome home, the Kodama spirits murmur over the rustle of leaves in the breeze.

Sunlight from the setting sun spills into a clearing just ahead, and though he’s almost blinded by the sudden flash of light, he can make out the outline of a shrine, situated dead center of the clearing and breaks into a run.  There it is , he thinks, dropping to his knees, hands trembling as he brushes fallen branches and leaves off the shrine, deaf to the growing whispers from the trees surrounding him. 

‘Please grant me your secrets’, he breathes, eyes closed in prayer. 

He can feel a pulse in the ground, a sudden shift in the air. Wisteria blooms from the soft earth in his heart. 

Oh. 

Oh gods. 

He remembers. 

Taglist: 

@forgetou @animeflower26​ @kageyamakock @underrated-fruit-tarts-official @bongofrito​

[dahlia-coccinea]

Wuthering Heights - Chapter 3

This is a somewhat difficult chapter to discuss fully in a single post. It introduces so many important themes and has the first glimpse of the story of the earlier inhabitants of the Heights. Sorry if this is too long - I've tried to keep my comments concise. It is difficult for me to not mention every tiny detail I like lol 

We learn that Zillah has worked at the house a year or two and is aware that Catherine’s old room is off-limits but seems to know little else. It shows that despite the emotional unloading that Heathcliff does to Nelly he is very reserved about all that has happened in the past. 

It seems the house has been ruled by chaos for years and there is an instinctual need for the inhabits to defend themselves against it. We see this when Lockwood first climbs into the box bed and closes the doors he says he “felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.” The need to shut out the world and crawling into small spaces is repeated later in this chapter with Catherine's diary details how, with Heathcliff, in an attempt to avoid the cruelty of Hindley and Frances “made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser,” and closed off the world by fastening their pinafores together. 

We get some other interesting glimpses of Catherine and Heathcliff early friendship. It is quite popular to say that Heathcliff is Catherine’s whip and he is a blank slate for her, but I think this diary entry is another example of their oddly egalitarian relationship. First, we have this scene of Catherine lashing out against their ill-treatment:

I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub! 

That Heathcliff swiftly follows her lead certainly shows a reciprocation of the other’s attitude and worldview - or simply that if one is going to get in trouble then the other will follow suit. Still, I do hold that he doesn’t just mimic her or do as she wishes. We get a number of examples that show neither play a clear leader in their antics with one happening shortly after this incident. Catherine's diary continues: 

I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman’s cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.

Here Heathcliff takes the lead in coming up with more plans to get further into trouble and it seems Catherine is more than pleased to go along with it. 

There are other, now iconic, details of Catherine’s character in this chapter. Such as this description of the box bed from Lockwood:

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.

And later:

Catherine’s library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary—at least the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,—rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.

Catherine holed up in the box bed and writing on every spare bit of paper she can get her hands on and scratching her name in the paint, tell of someone who has no one to talk to. She’s alone and is compelled to at least make sense of herself with ink and paper. Nelly does say later on that “there was not a soul else that she might fashion into an adviser” beside Nelly herself. Which is a poor adviser, considering how Nelly disliked her throughout her childhood. 

Adding to Catherine’s loneliness is the endless abuse of Heathcliff and herself, at the hands of seemingly everyone in the house. In this short excerpt from her diary, we are told Hindley’s treatment of Heathcliff is “atrocious,” and that now he is the new master they are no longer allowed to play, and “a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.” Heathcliff has his hair pulled by Frances, Catherine’s ears are boxed by Joseph and they’re both berated and verbally punished by him. Finally Hindley “seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen” where she says that outside on the moors “cannot be damper, or colder.” Upon their return and proceeding punishment she says she’s cried until her head ached. Consistent with what we later hear her tell Nelly, that Heathcliff’s miseries are her own, it is not her punishment or ill-treatment that makes her so upset but the casting out of Heathcliff. She writes: 

“Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place—”

Critics that suggest Catherine is glassy-eyed and naive idealist really gloss over these excerpts in my opinion. There is a constant downplaying of her abuse compared to the other characters among those that seemingly think she’s the only character with moral agency and therefore the cause of all problems in the story. 

I love how strange the encounter that Lockwood has with the book “Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the Seventy-First,” and the following dream is when first reading Wuthering Heights. Hardly anything in WH is superfluous and when rereading it this makes much more sense. This is quite an interesting segue into meeting Catherine’s ghost, and later learning more of her life. Forgiveness is such an important aspect in the book and will come up many times. Notably, while on her deathbed, Catherine tells Heathcliff she has forgiven him and that he should forgive her. 

I think it is amusing and also very interesting how in Lockwood’s dream he’s walking with Joseph (in itself is very metaphorical) and Joseph tells him he should have brought a “pilgrim’s staff” and that Joseph’s staff is really just a “heavy-headed cudgel.”

It’s unsurprising the appearance of Catherine’s ghost is so iconic. It’s impossible to discern if it is merely Lockwood’s dream or him actually encountering her spirit. There are details about her that Lockwood, at this point, does not yet know. Still, he does make many attempts to logically explain what happens. Either way, the imagery of the scene is both frightening and tragic. 

We get some really interesting glimpses of Heathcliff’s character in this scene. Normally he is very collected and if his emotions are out of control they tend towards anger, but here we see him truly terrified and unable to maintain composure after finding Lockwood in the room.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.

Even after Lockwood identifies himself Heathcliff is said to have found it “impossible to hold it [the candle] steady” and was “crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary convulsions.” It is interesting that Heathcliff doesn’t become so angry that he throws Lockwood out. It’s another oddly humanizing moment for him. An overly dramatic author would likely have him behave like a complete monster, but he instead tells him to finish the night there and not to scream like that again. This is a scene that I wish we could have some perspective from Heathcliff. Not only is he startled by a noise coming from Catherine’s old room but then Lockwood adds to his distress by rambling about Catherine saying:

And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called—she must have been a changeling—wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I’ve no doubt!

This and Lockwood’s further talk which makes it apparent he has snooped and glimpsed a little bit of Catherine’s and Heathcliff’s past, does set Heathcliff off: 

“What can you mean by talking in this way to me!” thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. “How—how dare you, under my roof?—God! he’s mad to speak so!” And he struck his forehead with rage.

Lockwood doesn’t quite understand this reaction saying:

I did not know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation; but he seemed so powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I had never heard the appellation of “Catherine Linton” before, but reading it often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer my imagination under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind it. I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that he struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. 

And later when watching Heathcliff call for Cathy through the window:

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony; though why was beyond my comprehension. 

At one point Lockwood also believes Heathcliff to be “dashing a tear from his eyes” during their conversation. Of course, he is confused because he doesn’t know that one of Heathcliff’s few fixations has been looking for signs of Catherine for the last 17ish years. 

I’ve mentioned this before, but something that doesn’t happen in the book because Heathcliff never narrates it, but I think if someone retold the story or made a film adaptation it could be interesting to explore, is how Heathcliff came to find Catherine’s writing on the wall. She must have written it shortly before she talks to Nelly since she’s already considering marrying Linton, and Heathcliff must still be living at the Heights since his name is there also. When Heathcliff returns three years later we know that he takes over Catherine’s old room so really he should have discovered it the first night there, probably after having visited the Grange. 

@astrangechoiceoffavourites has mentioned this in one their posts, but another great aspect of the book is the background happenings that are very realistic for the time and particularly farm life. Cats and dogs roam about, Heathcliff mentions that the house goes to bed at “nine in winter, and rise at four,” and there are mentions of chores, etc. The details create a realistic backdrop and ground the characters in reality. I feel like the novel is never overly sentimental because of this and it really strengthens it. 

After Heathcliff comes down to the kitchen where the household is starting their day, we are instantly reminded how terrible Heathcliff can be when he swears at and threatens to hit Cathy for not making herself useful and working for her keep. Ironically, he tells her, “You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally in my sight,” when, as I’ve mentioned before he has her sit at the dining table with everyone else. He also could just send her away if he despises her so much. 

I see a lot of similarity between the glimpse we get of Catherine Earnshaw from her diary and the current situation Cathy Heathcliff is in. Their situations are certainly different but both are in a similar state of abuse and neglect and both are quite self-possessed and antagonistic towards those that try to control them. They also are associated with books (Catherine filling them up with writing and Cathy reading) and have an affinity for animals. In this chapter it is mentioned that while Cathy is reading she has “to push away a dog, now and then, that snoozled its nose overforwardly into her face.” There are other similar encounters, such as when the dogs at the Heights come to greet Catherine Earnshaw upon her return from the Lintons. 

I’m sure I’m forgetting points I want to make in these posts. I’ll probably to a larger summary after I complete the book and try to tie together some of the ideas I’ve mentioned. Its also difficult because I keep wanting to bring up things that happen later in the book and I want to make a note of it now - but I’m also trying to reread as impartially as possible. Which is really an impossible task lol. 

@astrangechoiceoffavourites

[swearingintengwar]

@sortinghatchats: Bokurano Edition

It’s no secret that I’m more or less obsessed with Bokurano, and that I absolutely love @sortinghatchats​‘s work. So, finally, I’m going to combine the two and sort the fifteen pilots! I’m using @wisteria-lodge​‘s animal terminology and including both burnt and exploded houses. There’s probably mistakes in here since I’m a very new sorter, so don’t expect the work of a veteran here. I’m just doing this because I love sorting and Bokurano’s a good show. Also, there will be SPOILERS under the readmore, as well as the usual content warnings for Bokurano: a lot of child death, plus brief mentions of rape, suicide, and familial abuse. (Let me know if I missed something!)

It’s no secret that Takashi Waku is a Lion secondary. He’s a shounen protagonist. ‘Nuff said. His primary is a little harder to pin down - for a while I was torn between Badger and Lion, but I’m going to go with Badger. While there’s some traces of a glory hound Lion’s “this is gonna be awesome” attitude in him, on the whole he’s driven by the Badger thought process of “the world needs a savior, and, well, I’m the one with the fucknormous robot”.

Masaru Kodama is as exploded Bird primary as they come. He’s organized his life around a strict and unhealthy set of principles, survival of the fittest taken to an extreme, and his wealthy, sheltered upbringing gave him the echo chamber characteristic of exploded Birds. Within the confines of that system, though, he’s a Snake secondary who lives by his whims. Stealing Kokopelli’s glasses, being an ass to the neighborhood cats, going on a rampage through the city - he does things because he feels like it.

Isao Kako’s houses are a perfect storm of tragedy. He’s a very young Bird primary, still working out his system and looking for guidance anywhere he can find it. Even if it’s obviously bad guidance like Dung Beetle’s suggestion to go rape Chizu, he’ll listen to it. The boy’s about to die. His world’s been turned upside down. He’ll grab on to any anchor he can find at this point. His exploded Lion secondary turns those ill-advised ideas into equally ill-advised actions that he throws himself into utterly - Chizu had to kill him to get him off her back.

Speaking of Chizuru Honda, I’m usually not the best at spotting models, but she’s definitely got one. Specifically, she’s a Snake primary modeling exploded Lion. She’s obsessed with a cause - namely, kicking Hatagai’s ass - but not for its own sake. She rages against him because he hurt someone she loves. While she thought their affair was between the two of them, she was willing to forgive him, but when he dragged her sister into it, that was the last straw. Her secondary’s hard to pin down, but I’m guessing a burnt Bird. As a young child, she seemed to appreciate knowledge, but at the time of the series, Hatagai’s betrayal has ripped out her moorings, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make him regret his actions.

Daichi Yamura is also a Snake primary, though if he has a model I can’t see it. More than anything else, Daichi loves his family, and would do anything for them. His secondary seems to be Badger. He’s hardworking, diligent, and finds fulfillment as a provider for his siblings.

Mako Nakarai was easy to pin down as a Badger secondary. She’s studious and hardworking, and loves to work with her hands - all classic Badger secondary traits. Her primary was harder for me to figure out, but Snake seems likely, since deep down she just wants to be loved.

Kunihiko Moji is yet another Snake Badger. He’s devoted to his childhood friends, who are like family to the orphan boy, and he’s very big on the principle that friends should be able to rely on each other. Add his dutiful and reliable personality and he’s a textbook example of his sort.

Maki Ano is definitely a loyalist primary, and I’m leaning towards Badger. She loves her family, she loves her friends, she loves pretty much everyone except Jun (whose treatment of Kana infuriates her) and Dung Beetle (who’s�� Dung Beetle). What really solidified her as a Badger primary for me, though, was the very end of her battle, where she opens up the enemy robot’s cockpit, acknowledging the humanity of the people she’s about to kill. Secondary-wise, she has the boisterous determination of a Lion.

Yousuke Kirie was hard for me to figure out, but in hindsight, it seems pretty obvious that he’s a Snake primary who’s just starting to explode. His family is everything to him, and while he’s not outright hostile to others, even friendly (if a bit reserved) towards the other pilots, he’s more than willing to sit idly by while the universe is destroyed if he doesn’t like the way it’s been treating his mom. I ended up having to guess his secondary, but I’ve got a hunch he’s a Bird.

Aiko Tokosumi had me stumped for quite a while, but I think she’s a double Lion. The scene where she lashes out at Yoko for her betrayal gives me Lion primary vibes. Her secondary’s a little easier to pin down as Lion - she exhorts and inspires, drawing on an indomitable Leonine spirit to lift up the ones she loves. She sings, she encourages her friends, she talks her mom out of a mental breakdown. If Lion is the shounen protagonist secondary, Anko’s got the motivational speeches down pat.

Takami Komoda is a pretty clear Bird secondary - proper, patient, doing things the “right” way. I struggled with her primary for a while, but given the sheer amount of strength she draws from her father’s love, I’m thinking Snake. (Bokurano seems to have a lot of Snake primaries whose circles are their families!)

I didn’t get a very good handle on Kanji Yoshikawa, but the sheer amount of scheming he does points me towards a Bird secondary. I’m even less sure of his primary, but that gives me Bird vibes too.

Yoko Machi is so badly burnt I struggled with her sorting for a while, but I eventually pinned down her primary as burnt Lion. Yoko’s a seeker of justice forced into a fundamentally unjust role, and when she comes clean, her Leonine code of honor shines through. (Killing your own brother in retribution for his transgressions would normally point me towards exploded Lion, but let’s be real here, Dung Beetle deserved it.) Her secondary, however, is burnt beyond recognition. With how much she’s suffered, and how little time passed between her redemption and her death, there’s not really much to go on here.

Jun Ushiro-Tanaka. He’s probably my favorite pilot, but more to the point, he’s a textbook burnt Snake primary, an asshole because he doesn’t know what else to be. In the later part of the show he gradually unburns, first taking a few tentative steps outside his little circle of one when he visits Kirie, and ultimately letting his family and Yoko into his heart shortly before his death, until he finally gives his life without hesitation for the sister he once abused. I had trouble with his secondary at first, but I’ve pinned it down as a burnt Badger. For most of the show he’s pretty listless, but when he’s healing in the last days of his life, the thing he does that stuck out to me most was helping Kana and her friends build a treehouse. Helping others. Working with his hands. Badger things.

I think the onion ninjas are lurking around here somewhere.

Finally, Kana Ushiro is, like her brother, an unhealthy loyalist primary, but she’s the opposite unhealthy loyalist primary to him, an exploded Badger. Could the girl with the martyr complex the size of about three Zearths be anything else? She also shares Jun’s Badger secondary, but hers is healthier. She’s comfortable in the domestic role she’s taken on, patiently caring for her brother no matter how strained their relationship may be, and in the epilogue she tenderly cradles a wounded bird as she comforts the Yamura siblings, showing them that their lost brother was a true hero.

[media-on-the-mind101]

Turtles All the Way Down: OCD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Book)

* May contain spoilers*

I recently finished reading Turtles All the Way Down by John Green, and it is now one of my favorite novels. The story hit me close to home because it deals with a disorder that I was diagnosed with. I thought writing an article about it would be a good way to educate you readers, while also sharing a little bit about myself.

Turtles All the Way Down is story about a teenage girl named Aza Holmes who suffers from OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The story shows how the disorder impacts her daily life as well as her relationships. Because the author suffers from the disorder in real life, the depiction is fairly accurate. However, I spotted a few things that might suggest a whole different diagnosis whatsoever. The story also covers Aza’s treatment which I felt was missing a lot of important things.

According to the DSM 5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a disorder where a person gets caught in a cycle of obsessions and compulsions. Obsessions are intrusive thoughts that trigger distressing feelings, while compulsions are repetitive behaviors that are performed to relieve anxiety or prevent something bad from happening. OCD is often confused with OCPD (Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder) which is characterized by extreme perfectionism, order, and neatness. OCPD is often portrayed as OCD in the media which means that stereotypical OCD is really OCPD.

While Aza does have obsessions that involve cleaning, they are more about health and less about being organized. People with OCD often have a specific thing they worry about, and for Aza it is contracting an infection from a parasite called C-diff which essentially causes food poisoning and stomach damage. While she doesn’t really do anything to neutralize or cancel her thoughts out, she repeatedly reads articles online and uses hand sanitizer to relieve her anxiety.

As you may already have figured out, people with OCD often have illogical thought patterns and they are fully aware of it. But their anxiety makes them perform their compulsion anyway “just to make sure.” This is seen in the book when Aza drinks a bottle of hand sanitizer to insure that all bad bacteria inside her body are cured. Of course we all know, that drinking hand sanitizer would actually be more harmful then helpful.

“Drinking hand sanitizer is not going to make you healthier, you crazy fuck. But they can talk to your brain. THEY can tell your brain what to think, and you can’t. So, who’s running the show? Stop it, please (pg. 210).

In this scene, Aza knows that drinking hand sanitizer is actually more harmful then helpful, but she feels as if something is controlling her brain. The “they” refers to her OCD and she tells it to stop but isn’t able to control it.

While reading the book, I noticed that some of Aza’s symptoms don’t quite fit the diagnosis of OCD, such as her feeling of not knowing if she is awake or dreaming, real or non-existent. In one chapter she says the following:

“the pressing of my thumbnail against my fingertip had started off as a way of convincing myself that I was real . . . every time I thought maybe I wasn’t real, I would dig my nail into my fingertip, and I would feel the pain, and for a second I’d think, Of course I’m real” (pg.106).

The feeling of disconnect she has from her own body and surroundings are actually symptoms of DDD (Depersonalization - Derealization Disorder). According to the DSM, the disorder is characterized by persistent feelings of being a stranger to yourself or your surroundings. According to Psychology Today, however, you have to have no signs of other mental illness that can explain your symptoms, in order to be diagnosed with DDD. This is when diagnosing a patient becomes challenging; so many disorders can have similar symptoms or be co-morbid with each other that it they can difficult to differentiate.

The other symptom I noticed that is actually its own disorder, is the fact that Aza has a habit of digging her nail into her fingertip to the point where her finger becomes scarred. While picking of the skin is often comorbid with OCD, it is actually a separate disorder called excoriation disorder or dermatillomania. According to mhanational.org, this disorder is characterized by picking of the skin that creates skin lesions and that causes disruption in everyday life. It is true that the disorder falls under the category of obsessive compulsive disorders in the DSM, but excoriation disorder is not the same as OCD.

Now we’ve defined what OCD is, but another important part of how the book portrays it is in the treatment. According to Mayoclinic.com, the most common treatments for OCD include CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), exposure therapy, and medications such as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors). These are the treatments that I had during my childhood, and they have been statistically proven to be very effective. 

In the book Aza sees a therapist and takes medication, but she doesn’t get exposure therapy, one of the main treatments for OCD. Aza mainly gets CBT which is essentially talk therapy, but she is not forced to face her obsessions without performing her compulsions. An example of this would be touching a dirty substance and then forcing herself not to take out her phone or use hand sanitizer. 

The last important thing is how OCD effects a peoples relationships. Throughout the story, the characters in Aza’s life talk about how hard she is to deal with. One scene toward the end really emphasizes the importance of this issue. In this scene, Aza and her best friend Daisy get into an argument because Daisy feels that Aza is too self-centered.

She says “and you’re so, like, pathologically uncurious that you don’t even know what you don’t know.” And later she adds “I don’t mean that you’re a bad friend or anything. But you’re slightly tortured, and the way you’re tortured is sometimes also painful for, like, everyone around you”(pg. 216).

Daisy is frustrated because she feels like Aza is so caught up in her own thoughts that she never shows any interest in the lives of others. When she says Aza is “tortured” and it makes it painful for everyone around her, this shows just how much her illness impacts her relationships with other people. Basically, people find her difficult to be around because they, in a sense, have to experience everything with her and they begin to lose patience. At the end of this scene, the two girls get into a car accident because they weren’t paying attention to the road.

Aza’s other important relationship in the story is with is Davis, who is like a friend with benefits. The reason he never becomes Aza’s boyfriend is because of her social anxiety and fear of contamination that prevents her from being physically close to people. 

“I enjoyed being with him more in this nonphysical space, but I also felt the need to board up the windows of myself. Me: I feel kinda precarious in general, and I can’t really date you. Or date anyone. I’m sorry but I can’t. I like you, but I can’t date you” (pg. 162).

I this scene, Aza reveals that she communicates better online then in person and this suggests that she has some form of social anxiety.

Another scene tells us just how much her fear of germs effects her life: “billions of people kiss and don’t die just make sure his microbes aren’t going to permanently colonize you come on please stop this . . . then you’ll get C. diff and boom dead in four days please fucking stop just kiss him JUST CHECK TO MAKE SURE. I pulled away” (pg. 152).

In this scene, Aza has difficulty being physically intimate with Davis because her fear of germs prevents from enjoying it like most people would. Based on this fact, we could predict that Aza will have difficulty in her future relationships because of her mental illness and this is a great example of how it effects people in real life.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, the author John Green himself suffers from OCD. Compared to his own experiences, the book is pretty similar. Like the main character, Green suffers from obsessions about contamination. In an episode of the Vlogbrothers Youtube channel, Green explains that

 “I might worry out of nowhere that my food is contaminated or somehow poisoned and then somehow suddenly that will be the only thought I'm able to think . . . I can lose all control over my thoughts for an extended period of time to the extent that I can't follow what's happening in a TV show or read a book.” (Green).

*John Green, author of Turtles All the Way Down*

So like Aza, he worries about contamination to the point where he can’t focus on anything else. He also has the same kinds of thought spirals :  

“the compulsive behaviors I use to cope with these obsessive thought spirals, repeatedly checking my food for contamination, for instance, or spending hours Googling what will happen to me if I eat moldy bread.” (Green).

As you can see, the characters compulsion of checking in internet comes straight from the author’s real life experience. According to the New York Times, John Green developed the disorder at around seven years old and eventually got it under control with the right medication and CBT. It was not said weather or not he underwent exposure therapy. So the treatment that Aza receives is based on the way some treatments work in real life.

While reading Turtles All the Way Down I  often found myself feeling nostalgic because my own experience with OCD is very similar. Although I do not have an obsession with a specific thing like Aza does, I have the same types of intrusive thoughts. I also have similar compulsions to seek reassurance from the internet or other people about my health, as well as other compulsions to neutralize, or cancel out my thoughts. 

Because I had Tourette Syndrome (a neurological disorder that causes physical impulses) as a child, I developed what is called Tourettic OCD. It is pretty much exactly what it sounds like; Tourette Syndrome and OCD combined. The reason this occurs in some individuals is because the ability to filter out and thoughts and the impulse to move, take place in the same brain area, the basal ganglia. As a result of this, my compulsions tend to be more physical, such as moving my eyes excessively whenever I see negative words in a book, or someone getting sick in a movie.

Like Aza, I went through CBT but I also went through several years of exposure therapy and I take an SSRI in conjunction. I think exposure therapy is a very important part of the treatment of disorders such as OCD and PTSD and I was disappointed that the book did not include it. I think that if you are going to educate a person about disorder, then you have to educate them about the treatment as well. In conclusion, Turtles All the Way Down was a great novel that captured OCD more accurately then any movie I have seen. The fact that the author has the disorder makes it all the more realistic and personal, and I have to say as a person with OCD and a psychology major, I was quite pleased with the way the character was portrayed. The story may have been missing a few important elements but overall it provided a realistic way of educating people about the disorder.

[yaboyspodcastpalace]

For the character asks: Jon, Peter Lukas, Annabelle Cane? (giving multiple suggestions so you can pick one in case you get the same character twice in different asks)

very kind of you to assume i get many asks :') THANKS ill do all of them u_u

[Send me a character and i'll tell you...]

(under the cut bc i love talking and this got long lmao)

Jon

First impression

he's a uptight prick with obvious favoritism for sasha and tim and i love him so! much!!!!!!

Impression now

my poor little mew mew hm................I've got a complicated relationship w/ jon bc i love him a lot, but i loved s1 him the most, and literally everything else just makes me really, brutally, sad ;_; The way he tries so desperately to cling to his humanity and how other characters just call him by the title imposed to him makes me wanna cry

...also he just cares so much ;_; i cry

Favorite moment

probably his interactions with georgie at the beginning of season 3!!! From s5 id say when he killed not!sasha, it felt vindictive ù_ú

Idea for a story

Dhfhdh im p basic when it comes to him ngl, either jon/tim/sasha friends to lovers or jon and desolation!tim or *something*!sasha trying to stay as human as possible, together 😔 (or just any of them living and coping together in s4 n s5)

Unpopular opinion

Im just not a fan of monster jon, at all! He's not the type of character that i enjoy seeing having a corruption arc unfortunately!! It just hurts!!! (and this Is from someone that Loves corruption arcs!!!)

Also i really hate moth jon imagery??? For not particular reason, moths are pretty, but i still hate it u_u AND THE ASSOCIATION OF GREEN W/ JON (or the beholding in general!) I CANNOT STAND IT!! i know its bc of the tma logo but guess what! Its wrong! Purple jon rights!!!

ALSO ALSO the so called pining he had for martin just.... didnt felt like that at all! i have Many feelings abt this!

Favorite relationship

either georgie in s3, or sasha!!! i love how he always praises sasha in her research in s1 and even thought he's at his driest & sharp Trying-To-Project-Professionalism-And-Skepticism she still rolls into his office, interrupts him mid statement to banter w/ him abt pronunciation n stuff and its just Normal, like that speaks volumes of how comfortable they felt around each other! they were friends gdi! the moment he realizes she died and then everytime the not!them mocks him w/ her death makes me wanna break smth q_q

im not even gonna mention tim bc even though i love their relationship It 👏 makes me👏 very 👏 sad 👏

non shippy and also staying strictly canon, i love his relationship with melanie!

Favorite headcanon

sometimes i think abt that one hc that hes really good with arcade games bc he lived near the coast and i smile bc thats cute :) also hes a trans man 💙💗🤍💗💙

Peter

First impression

Mystery evil captain man!!! Fog?? I LOVE him :)

Impression now

I STILL LOVE HIM SO MUCH!!!!!!!!! Hes an asshole and has a lovely voice and smile and hes not, hes not Dumb but also he's far from the whooooa evil lonely influence he think he is (played like a cheap fiddle). He also makes me sad in ways i cannot and wont describe, and its a shame that he died cuz he was the best part of season 4 😔 rip you beautiful bastard man i still miss you </3

Favorite moment

"It has blood on it" "thats Leitner's too :D". Also when martin was angry abt idk, breekon? Jon going into the coffin? Cant remember, but peter was like I said id protect the institute, that guys not my problem ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idea for a story

dfgdfg i have..... a petermart story that dealt with the different flavor of loneliness they both had, half smut half genuine meta of both of them and theorization on the branching of an Entity & how their powers manifested in other people...

basically, peter thinks hes hot shit when it comes to loneliness but gets overwhelmed when martin accidentally projects his feelings abt *fic's plot stuff* on him, its fun stuff!

Unpopular opinion

people either paint him like an absolute devil or an incompetent idiot and hes neither of them! hes an asshole who loves being an asshole but far from the worst monster in the show and he tried to do a clever scheme TWICE on his life and 1. while it was established that any of the rituals wouldnt work singularly the Silence was still a pretty clever attempt if it weren't for gertrude! and 2. well... he tried to manipulate someone petty and formerly supposed to be a web avatar, again not his fault, cant call him stupid for trying dfgdfg

i Do think hes kinda pathetic in some sense considering his backstory, but more out of personal pity than anything else

Favorite relationship

Canonically speaking him and martin! The pull and push of them was The best thing about season 4! Peter being a quite dangerous avatar and martin, beautiful and scared and kinda feisty, confronting him every chance he gets, peter doing his best to manipulate him and martin letting him believe hes succeeding (even thought, he is, partly). They're fascinating characters to have side by side

Favorite headcanon

Partly canonically speaking him and mikaele salesa :) they do bets together! They're lonely sea men! What else could you possibly want?

Also non shippy i like thinking abt peter's and simon's relationship but thats entirely non canon ♡

Diversity wins! The heir of the lonely is a gay man!

Also I think as every rich household(?) the lukases had many paintings and peter as a kid saw the ones w/ sailing ships and imagined sailing far far away from his family. That and seaman aesthetic fucks, which is why he always has the same vibe going on as an adult. He does Not know half of the things he'd need to know to have a ship though but hey he's rich and thats all he needs

Annabelle

First impression

thats a horrible psychological experiment they're making there D:

Impression now

THATS STILL A HORRIBLE EXPERIMENT AND ANNABELLE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER............. idk! she makes me sad in the same way jon (and to a degree, peter) does! to be a living puppet for the thing that traumatized you as a kid and that later kinda killed you / is the only thing keeping you alive, to be devoted to it scrambling to believe in a higher reason for all of it to happen bc to believe otherwise is............. anyway. i love her, and i feel so so sorry for her

Favorite moment

her "maybe ive never been to the beach" at the end of ehr statement (that i fully believe its bullshit but, yknow, i love that she adds that), most of her convos with martin, her "i told you this might happen" "you did, you did" with mikaele

Idea for a story

i think a lot about her having conversations w/ either mikaele (platonically) or sasha (shippy) and their different points of views and treat with her making her doubt the web a bit

Unpopular opinion

listen, listen, i know it sounds like im woobifying her i Know it but reading the scraps of her story how can i Not feel sorry for her? when the story framed her very similar to jon? the supernatural childhood encounter that gave them arachnophobia and the subsequential joining with an Entity against her will? the fact that both the story and the fans treat her like a spider woman always sat very very bad to me, and the fact that the story itself always framed her like a villain (considering All The Other Characters that get the benefit of the doubt) was extremely disappointing

Favorite relationship

her and mikaele!!!!!!! wish we could have seen more scenes of just the two of them!!!!!! *singing* he is her daaaaaad, hes her dad! boogie boogie boogie! (ok no but like... their offscreen friendship is my favorite thing of season 5 ;_;)

Favorite headcanon

Sigh i dont know...i still think she's scared of spiders which make her current existence harder but thats a sadcanon :/ umm...... i love the idea of mikaele and her cooking together from time to time! Mikaele showing her some plates he used to eat as a kid as he talks stories about his life :) and she listens and sometimes tells a story of her own! its been so long since he had a quasy normal conversation! its weird yet nice!

[jedi-order-apologist]

Hello there! Could you maybe put together small SW novels recommendation list? You reference books often and I assume you can suggest a few good ones that shed light/give more insight into the Jedi culture. Thank you for your blog and have a good day 💗

Thank you! I hope you have a good day too.

I actually haven’t read that many Star Wars books, all things considered - there are a lot, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the prequel era stuff, let alone the rest of the franchise. I only recently started getting into the books, and there’s probably a lot more really good ones out there that I just haven’t had the chance to get to yet.

What I could do is go through what I have read and give my opinions on those. So far, in no particular order, I’ve read:

- The novelizations for the prequels and some of the original novelizations for the OT. More on my thoughts on those here (and specifically for the ROTS novelization here), but in summary: TPM novelization is a bit weak, AOTC novelization is decent and really helped sell the romance to me in a way the film fell flat for me, ROTS novelization is nothing short of phenomenal, ROTJ novelization is also pretty good, I don’t remember the ESB novelization enough to say anything on it, and I never read the ANH (or technically just Star Wars) novelization. I’d say they’re worth checking out at least once.

- Shatterpoint. I really like this one, it deals a lot with Mace struggling with the dark side, and it captures the idea of falling to the dark side as something rooted in defeatism, which really resonates with my interpretation. There’s quite a bit of discussion of Jedi philosophy and why they do and believe the things they do (or at least how Mace Windu sees it) - I’ve cited it before in my meta because I think it lays out pretty well why they resist the dark side. It also deals a lot with the costs of war - especially psychologically. There’s also a decent element of Jedi as family through the father-daughter relationship of Mace and Depa. On top of all of that, it’s very well written (same author as the ROTS novelization). I strongly recommend this one, though be warned that it is a very heavy, brutal book - oh, it’s not completely bleak, and it has it’s moments of humor, but it is not a happy story. It ends in victory, both in the immediate situation, and with Mace coming to terms with some of what he’d been struggling with, but I wouldn’t call it a happy ending, more that…well, as Mace says, he’s the last one standing.

- Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. I read this one most recently, and I made a long post on why I absolutely loved it. It’s not perfect but I think it’s the best portrayal of the Jedi in the books that I’ve come across so far - this book really goes hard on the “Jedi as family” idea, which I love, and there are really good conversations on (and inspiring examples of resisting) the dark side, and working through but not giving into grief. Everyone should read this book, it shows the Jedi as an inspiring people with so much tenacity and compassion, doing their best. And it eviscerates every bit of nonsense about the Jedi (and especially Yoda) being “emotionless” or “loveless”- it’s full of amazing passages that are absolutely perfect responses to these notions, direct refutations of them even (as well as refutations about the idea of the dark side having any kind of merit at all) because they get slung around in the story by a lot of the characters. If I could only pick one Star Wars book to suggest someone read, it would be this one, absolutely.

- Kenobi. Do you like Westerns and a sad Obi-Wan with a chronic hero syndrome that doesn’t help him with the whole ‘staying under the radar’ thing? If yes, you will probably like this book. It doesn’t really get much into Jedi culture, since…well, they’re dead, and most of the book is written from an outside perspective, not Obi-Wan’s. I think that was a good choice, because while he’s understandably going to be very sad during this time (it takes place during his very early days on Tatooine), constant exposure to that, in my opinion, would overdo it and wear out the audience. So the outside perspective of how sad and weird he is, where the characters don’t understand the context behind his behavior, but the audience does, works really well. I have some issues with it - for instance, while it’s kind of hilarious how much everyone wants to jump his bones in this book, I do wish that they’d kept the chemistry between Obi-Wan and Annileen strictly platonic (and the language around romance in this book rubs me the wrong way). And how people find out his last name is a bit contrived. But it’s a decent read that I’d recommend.

- Jedi Apprentice (series). I’d recommend this with the caveat that you have to go into it keeping in mind that it’s written for younger readers. Which absolutely does NOT mean it’s all fluff and sunshine and rainbows, very far from it (I call this series “Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Collection of Childhood Trauma” for some very good reasons, and the fact that he tries to sacrifice himself to suicide-bomb a door open with the slave collar wrapped around his neck before he even gets taken on as a padawan is just one of them), but there’s a lot of stuff that…doesn’t feel like it was explored fully to an adult reader’s satisfaction. It has a lot of the usual kind of fridge logic that often comes into play with kids’ media, and while it was written to be favorable towards the Jedi, that fridge stuff gets taken by fandom as reasons to criticize the Jedi quite often. More on that here.

- Cloak of Deception. This one’s…okay? It does spend quite a bit of time with the Jedi, but it feels pretty surface level. Luceno’s strength is in the fantasy space politics; for whatever reason his character interactions always fall flat for me, though I’m not sure if I can articulate why they’re so unsatisfying to me outside of a handful of good moments. But if you’re looking for a look into the politics leading up to TPM (or at least, Legends take on it), this is (one of) the books to look at. I say one of because I actually read Darth Plagueis first, and there is a bit of overlap.

- The Approaching Storm. This is the lead-in book to AOTC. It does a decent job with a look at the Jedi, I think, with a few snags (Barriss straight-up heals brain damage/mental illness to the point of complete personality changes, which seems way outside Jedi abilities to me, and there’s a bit of “maybe we shouldn’t take people from their families” angle instead of the Jedi as family angle). Also for some reason it refers to Barriss and Luminara as humans. And while the book tells us a lot about how important it is that the Jedi negotiate this conflict, most of their actual obstacles are getting places, with the negotiation itself getting glossed over. But it was a decent read, I think.

- Labyrinth of Evil. This is another Luceno book, this time for leading up to ROTS. The character interactions worked a little better here - or at least they had more of their moments - Anakin basically going “Marriage what marriage I don’t see a marriage” in front of Obi-Wan was pretty damn funny…and everyone knows the “infinite sadness” line that follows off of that. I’ll be curious as to what the current continuity gives us for what set off the invasion of Coruscant, because this (as part of Legends) gave us a pretty good reason for it. I’d recommend it, again, for the examination of the political situation, and there’s some decent action in here too. There’s a few insights into the Jedi but it’s hit or miss whether I agree with them, and they’re not the focus.

- Darth Plagueis. This one’s probably the best of Luceno’s books (that I’ve read), but it’s not Jedi-friendly. Most of that’s because, well…it’s from the Sith’s perspective, so they’re not going to be very pro-Jedi. I’m mostly okay with that because a lot of their criticism of the Jedi is very clearly coming from an obviously bad faith position (”the Jedi let the Republic decay” the Sith say as they devour a man’s heart and talk about how the Sith need to make all the problems of the Republic worse), although there’s one scene at the end that I really don’t like because it appears to really claim that the Jedi would’ve told Anakin to never talk about his mother, which doesn’t match up with, well, AOTC, for one thing, or just my impression of them in general. But what this book does do well is a look at how the Sith influenced the political situation, and a lot of midichlorian lore (seriously, this book feels like a middle finger to prequel hate - “oh you thought the fantasy space politics were boring? You thought midichlorians were stupid? Here’s why you’re wrong”). Luceno’s way of doing character interactions actually serves this book really well, because the Sith are able to be written as the focus characters without making them sympathetic in the least. If you’re looking to get invested in characters, probably not the book for you, but if you’re looking for fantasy space politics, it’s pretty good.

- Rogue Planet. This one has a good interpretation of the Jedi, I think, though you do have to contend with the “written before AOTC” issue of authors not realizing that Jedi weren’t supposed to get married and have children. But I liked the look at how they handled discipline - Anakin gets in trouble, and he’s brought before the Council, and the whole process is about questioning him to get him to realize and admit what he did wrong, not punishment. They then make the decision to redirect his energy into something productive by sending him and Obi-Wan on a mission. Also, Anakin sees a Jedi therapist at the end of this book, so it’s a good one to throw back at anyone who claims that the Jedi never helped him or that the Jedi don’t do therapy. But…plot-wise…it’s a little weak, mostly in that not much is resolved because it’s mostly setting up for stuff that won’t pay off until much, much further down the line (as in, whenever the Yuuzhan-Vong show up). The ship-growing thing was cool though.

- Wild Space. If you’re looking for a ridiculously dramatic Obi-Wan whump fic that’s one step away from sticking Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padmé, and Bail in a foursome, this is the book for you. If you’re looking for things like accurate characterization, an interpretation of the Jedi consistent with the films, believable interpersonal communication, or an actual plot…you will be sorely disappointed by this book.

- Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth. This is the sequel to Wild Space. It has a second part, Clone Wars Gambit: Siege, which I have not been able to bring myself to read, which probably tells you all you need to know about my thoughts on the first one, though you can read more about them here. In short, I strongly do not recommend this book at all, and find it to be pretty terrible characterization (even though it’s played for sympathy) of the Jedi and especially Obi-Wan. Wild Space at least has absurdity going for it. Stealth does not.

And that’s it! That’s all I’ve read so far. I’m sure not everyone will agree with my opinions, but in terms of my personal recommendations/non-recommendations, this is what I have.

[iggy-of-fans]

Finally there. The last chapter. The epilogue. The long awaited finale with a Raven redemption, Adrian's story, reactions and a lot of fluffy fluff! Over 3000 words for this.

LIFE GOES ON

Bruce stood at his window, overlooking the rose garden in the backyard, gathered with everyone except Damian and Marinette. There was a strong sense of anticipation in the room. As Bruce looked about him, some of the Kwami zooming around the room, he thought back to the events three years ago. Guardian Angel officially joining the Justice League, the great battle of Gotham, and returning of teenage renegade to Paris. He still got chills when he remembered Agreste's statement of events.

The room was quiet for a moment as Adrien tried to think of where to begin. He stared at the ceiling.

"It starts a year before Hawkmoth first appeared. My mother and father and I lived happily together, father was busy at work, but we were all very happy. Sometimes I would hear them shouting, but it would turn to moans not long after, and father told me when I asked once that mother just needed to be loved properly. Then mother disappeared and father searched furiously for her, until eventually she was proclaimed as dead. Father became distant, and I rarely ever saw him except if I messed up or something. So I tried to be the perfect son, but I wanted some freedom, friends, to fall in love like all my animes. I snuck out of the mansion to go to school, and almost made it in when I saw this old man needed help. So my father's assistant caught me and brought me home. But there was a box on my table, and with it I became Chat Noir. I thought Ladybug was my soulmate because how could we not be? Then my father agreed to let me go to school and I became friends with Marinette and Nino and Alya and my childhood friend Chloe was there too. It was perfect. I was a hero, I had friends, I had a soulmate. But Ladybug was always turning me down, and she was allowed to choose more heroes, and she refused to have any fun. And then Lila Rossi transferred and she liked to tell tall tales, but she wasn't hurting anyone. Marinette was just being too hard on her, too stubborn. If she'd just let it go, just played nice, she would've been fine. Lila would eventually get tired of it all. I always had her back and she knew that. Her 14th birthday, Lila told me about Marinette's love for me. Marinette was supposed to wait for me and we would have a magical night. I found her a ways away, and thought she'd just gotten sick of waiting for me, but I made it up to her and brought her home. But two nights later, the police swarmed our home, and were shouting about my father being Hawkmoth, which is impossible, because he was Akumatized! And I was taken in, because Chat Noir was being accused of rape! And Nathalie was supposed to be Mayura! And none of that made sense! So I tried to have them find Marinette, because she would be able to clear everything up. Three days went by when Ladybug showed up, carrying Marinette's dead body to the police. She had a video of my classmates hurting her, hurting Marinette. And she had the power to fix her and didn't. I was devastated. Then Marinette appeared to me. She was as real and bright as ever. She wanted to be with me. And I wanted to create the perfect world for her. Our class would all be friends, Chloe would be nice to her, and Lila would be her best friend, and Marinette would be Ladybug instead. My mother and father would be happy and together forever, and they would love Marinette just as much as me. Marinette was the one who planned everything and told me what to do. But I knew no one else saw her. But I did as she told me, because once I made my wish, nothing bad would ever happen to her again" Adrien spoke with passion in his voice, but his eyes never met theirs.

Batman and Wonder Woman's eyes met. This wasn't their first rodeo with the mentally unstable.

"Do you feel any remorse at all, knowing that those lives you took will forever remain dead?" Wonder Woman asked.

"Ladybug is the only one guilty. She could bring them back if she wanted to."

"The ladybug powers do not work like that. My mother was once a Ladybug. She needs to absorb the negative energy of a magical attack, like with the Demon, and she uses that to rebuild the world. She can not create or bring back life or heal, because when she does it, she is merely absorbing the darkness from their bodies. Otherwise there would never have been ill in Paris. The dead would have risen everyday. Can you not see that? " Wonder Woman asked.

" Marinette would never lie to me" Adrien stated. He was looking to his side, smiling softly. Wonder Woman was especially concerned that he saw her still, even while under the influence of the rope of Hestia, which should break through every delusion.

The interview concluded, it was decided that Adrien Agreste would serve life in a French Asylum, without bail. When his family was contacted, his father was emotionless, his mother just disinterested. She'd always known he'd be just like his father.

Bruce came back to the present when Damian and Marinette walked onto the scene below. Her 18th birthday was just around the corner, and they were planning a family party for her in that very garden. But Damian had asked for a sem-private moment with her. Knowing they'd all find a way to spy on them anyways, he'd told them to just watch from the office. Damian had grown up a lot since meeting Marinette. He was still chaos impersonate, still the calm before the storm and determined beyond anyone else his age. But he was also considerate of other people, he didn't lash out as quickly or as violently. He took the time to get to know his brothers better, and he showed his gratitude to them in small ways, like remembering their favorite bands and buying concert tickets, or simply sitting with them after a rough mission instead of dealing with it alone. The family was closer than ever before. So Bruce smiled with hope when he watched Damian kneel in the grass.

Dick watched as Damian walked into the garden, speaking quietly with his "Angel". She'd grown into a beautiful young woman, her scars had healed, both physically and emotionally with the constant presence of Damian at her side. He proved his love to her with every word he spoke, with every comforting hug. He truly always had her back and there was nothing the youngest Wayne wouldn't do for Marinette. Even forgiving Raven.

Nightwing and StarFire took Raven back to Star City, where they had built a special cage built in case Trigon ever sent his sons to do his bidding. Placing Raven inside, Nightwing paced. He still remembered Guardian Angel's expression as she fell, thinking that it had been Damian. More than that, he remembered watching as Raven ruthlessly ripped the earrings out of Marinette's ears, or the sick smirk on her face. He paced some more, ignoring Korri's worried looks. When Raven started stirring he walked in, expression cold as he stared down at the petite girl. Once, he would have been happy to call her sister. Now though.

"What happened?" Raven asked, looking at the cage around her. His frown deepened.

"How dare you?" he hissed, the snake miraculous still gleaming around his wrist. He was usually the one to enforce the "no kill" rule the strongest amongst the family, but he could feel the temptation to strongly. Raven furrowed her brow, trying to remember what had happened to get her locked up, but could remember nothing past Damian walking into the ballroom with a girl on his arm. She'd remembered feeling slightly crushed that her crush seemed to have moved on, but the next she knew, everything went dark. Now here she was, in a cage to hold her brothers. What had she done?

"What…. What have I done?" Raven asked, her voice pleading. Nightwing felt his anger rise even more. How dare she sit there, looking innocent. He couldn't believe anything she said or did, because really, who would turn so willingly on her teammates. Who would abandon their friends in mid battle and turn around and kill one of them. He didn't believe the innocent act at all. Korri placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to step in front of him but he wouldn't budge, glaring with all the hatred an older brother could feel.

"Damian had just walked in with the new member of the Justice League. I was sad, because… Well, you know I have a crush on him. But then things got dark, and I heard someone saying something, like a whisper. I thought I passed out. What happened?" she asked again. Nightwing was still not buying it. He felt his hackles rise, wanting to get her to confess.

"And you just expect me to believe that?" he growled, his muscles tensing.

"Nightwing! We know how powerful Trigon is! He only just escaped, we have no idea if he left a mark on her!"

"we also know that Raven is more powerful than that. She has him captured. Is it so wrong to believe she just snapped?" Nightwing snapped at Korri, the image would forever haunt him.

"What?" Raven was so confused. Korri wasn't much better, since she had been on the other side of the battle, and with second chance, no one else remembered anyways. Perhaps we should call WonderWoman here" Korri suggested calmly, trying to settle the tension in Nightwing's shoulders. Nightwing wanted to just throw the cage into a deep hole and never look at her again.

A Portal suddenly opened behind them and Robin stepped through. His fox transformation had long worn off, but Nightwing knew he still had it on him. However, instead of turning on Raven and tearing into her, he turned to Nightwing and held out his hand.

"Guardian Angel I'd worried about your emotional stability right now. Hand over the Miraculous before you do something that will haunt you as much as whichever image makes you so angry now. The ability to fix or change a situation can corrupt even the purest of souls, and you haven't been tested to be a permanent holder." Nightwing didn't even twitch, keeping his arms crossed and his face in a scowl. Nobody would even remember if he slid his finger over the bracelet.

"Please Richard. You do not want that on your conscience" Robin pleaded, his face softening into understanding. And really, who other than Robin, and maybe Red Hood, would understand better? He sighed and reached for the bracelet.

"Transform me" he mumbled, and a blue light went up under his other suit. Sass flew right through the portal, a blue blur trying to get away. Nightwings shoulders hunched. He was no better than that blonde idiot and his friends. Robin grasped the Miraculous and reached his other hand on his shoulder. "No one knows what you do about this battle, Richard, though Guardian Angel has a guess she won't share. What you saw was one outcome, one possibility of many, and you prevented the worst. But you are not all knowing about people, and the Justice League has wrongfully confronted Raven once before. Let Wonder Woman question Raven, and take comfort that no matter her answer, it is the truth."

" when did you get so wise, baby bird?" Nightwing whispered, finally relaxing his posture completely.

" Angel told me most of what I should say before I came through. The rest…. I've just had some good influences in my life, I guess"

Nightwing smiled and Robin stepped back through the portal to Gotham. A few minutes later, Wonder Woman stepped through her own.

"Agreste?" Nightwing asked.

"Still in surgery. Oracle said she'd monitor him for me and send me back in time for the questioning. Now, Guardian said you needed my help?" Korri nodded.

"I'm afraid we can't just accept her word at face value right now. We have no idea if what she's saying is true."

Wonder Woman nodded and sent the Rope of Hestia through a breathing hole. Raven easily picked it up and wrapped it around her wrist multiple times and looked up.

" What is the last thing you remember?" Wonder Woman asked.

" We were all in the ballroom, and Damian came walking in with the new girl. He looked so calm and happy and kept staring at her. I was choking a little bit. I'd had a crush on him since he first came to the tower, and… I just wanted to get some fresh air. I couldn't breathe properly and my head was starting to hurt. I kept hearing whispering, and I just thought some of the guests had noticed, but then I just blacked out. I came to and I was in this box" Raven stated, looking concerned. Oracle decided to find footage of the ballroom.

"Found her. Here come Damian and… Raven just grabbed her head. She is shaking it slightly. I'm picking up a rusty red glow from the jewel in her head. And she's back. She changes her outfit around the time Wonder Woman starts talking. But otherwise, there's no change" Oracle dictates over the comms.

"Can you please send Guardian through? We may need her to look at the jewel and drain it" Wonder Woman says. The comms are quiet for a while, before finally another portal opens. Guardian Angel comes through, followed closely by Robin with his katana drawn. Raven groans slightly and reaches for her head.

"Did I steal your sword?" she asks, her eyes wide and worried. Robin merely nodded before looking at his Angel. She takes a deep breath before walking up to the box.

"Please stand as close to grass as possible" she tells Raven. She's weary, and something is telling her not to, but Wonder Woman gives her a firm tug of the rope, and glares at her in warning. She crawls over to glass and shakily stands up, placing her forehead to the hold not with the rope through it. Guardian Angel raises her hand and places it over the glass on her side, and immediately a black aura tries to lash out at her. She flies back against the far wall, and Robin and Nightwing become defensive.

"NO! Get out of my head!" Raven yells, falling back to the ground and clutching her ears. Guardian Angel is on her feet immediately and rushes back, breaking the glass container. She clutches her hands around Ravens and whispers in an ancient tongue, the Guardian Language. A pink glow emanates from their forms and when it disappears, Guardian Angel is passed out, and Raven is barely hanging onto consciousness. The crystal that once held her father, a black diamond in her head, is now pink.

"He's gone!" Raven manages to whisper out, before passing out as well. Robin rushes to his Angel's side and quickly brings her through the portal back to Gotham, while the others all stare at Raven. Now what do they do?

Dick remembered how Raven struggled with her magic after that. It took her months to gain back control, as her father had been slowly corrupting it, and with it, Raven as well. But Marinette never held her in contempt, like Dick had. She forgave her and helped her heal, and Damian meditated with her to help as well. Raven was now Marinette's best friend, and she wholly agreed that she was better off with Tim, who had been by her side, analyzing her magic capability. Their family had grown so strong from her forgiving and kind nature. He smiled as he tuned back in to see Marinette throw herself into Damian's embrace.

Tim was so happy, watching his little brother and his future-sister-in-law on the lawn. The past three years had gone by quickly, with Damian growing up into a strong, pure force for good. He looked down to Raven's smiling face, and knew she felt nothing but content, watching her sister in all but blood be so overcome with joy. Three years ago, no one would've thought that this would be the outcome after the exhausting battle and aftermath.

The destruction cleaned up, the villains in jail, Raven cleansed and only waiting to hear Agreste's story, Timothy couldn't quite rest yet. He went to the detention centre and asked to see the Parisian boys, to hear what they had to say. He'd come alone, but saw no reason for them to lie or try to fight. He still had his transformation going under his Red Robin suit, so he was confident he'd be okay.

"Max Kantê and Nino Lahiffe. I've come to take your statements" he said, funnelling as much authority as he could into his statements. The boys' heads snapped up from where they sat. Max gulped audibly, while Nino just looked exhausted. He nodded and sat up a bit.

"Why did you come to Gotham?"

"I wanted to warn Marinette. Max wasn't given a choice" Nino stated calmly.

"I believe from video evidence that Marinette is dead" Red Robin said. Nino just shook his head.

"I think a part of me always knew, but I just didn't want to think, at first, that one of my best friends would go swinging into danger like that. Then, after Lila joined, it was just easier to believe her. And she hated Marinette, so she couldn't be Ladybug. Ladybug carrying Marinette's body into the police station would've fooled most, but I just always had a feeling she wasn't completely gone. I just… Assumed I guess… " Nino tapered off, looking at Red Robin hopefully.

" Marinette Dupain-Cheng is dead" he shook his head. Nino's face fell and he looked at his hands. He shook and cried. He'd been against Alya's plan to attack Marinette, and hadn't been there. Maybe he could've stopped it. He thought that maybe that was why he'd come. A second chance to be a real friend.

Max looked lifelessly at Red Robin.

"My family was murdered by Adrien. I… I have nowhere to go." He finally managed to choke out. Red Robin nodded, aware of the atrocities committed in Paris.

"What do you want to happen? You both were the reason the Justice League was able to mobilize so quickly. From evidence gathered and statements from Cesaire, we were able to gather that neither of you ever did anything against the law or of your own free will. Kantê, as you said, your family is unable to take guardianship of you, and if you choose to return to Paris, you may be held in contempt from the public. Lahiffe, your family has been made aware, but they are currently speaking to Social Services, as they're scared for their other son's health and safety" Tim said.

"And if we stay here?" Max asked while Nino broke into a fresh wave of tears. He'd never be allowed near Chris again.

"... The Teen Titans have long asked for an Oracle of their own…" Red Robin tapered off, leaving the rest for them to interpret and think about," you'd be under house arrest for a while at least. But… You could do some real good there."

Max nodded after a moment and Nino did too, still too emotionally distraught to do much else. Red Robin smiled.

"You'll be moved to your new residence in a couple of weeks," he said, and turned and left as abruptly as he came.

Max Kantê, now known as Le Donnèes and Nino Lahiffe, now Sécurise, became an integral part of Teen Titan operations and training, often conferring with Oracle on large Justice League missions. It was easy to say that they'd become amazing heroes. Nino and Max were in Paris now, in fact, for the first time since leaving. Nino had earned his right to see his brother again, but didn't want to go alone. They'd been quite emotional when Marinette came to them the first time, and they'd become close friends once again. Things were far from perfect in the world, but right this moment, nothing at all could ruin this.

And done. I hope you enjoyed! I've been reading a lot salt and angst, and I wanted to get this out of my system, and maybe write another, more happy, one soon. I'm afraid there's no tag list for this because like an idiot, I forgot to write it out, but I'll try to add it in post haste

[turnaboutimagines]

I have one that’s been nagging at me for awhile, and I’m interested in seeing what you can do with it. Prosecutors with an equestrian S/O meeting the horse (bonus if they ride said horse).

Oh, this is a real interesting one, pal!  Got a little carried away with this one because I liked this prompt so much, haha.  And to have the riding for those who do get to, just pretend that all the boxes are ticked and that the horse is suitable for beginners, the barn would be cool with it, you have the proper insurance, and so on and so forth.  Gotta ride responsibly!Characters: Miles Edgeworth, Lana Skye, Franziska von Karma, Godot, Klavier Gavin, Sebastian Debeste, Simon Blackquill, and Nahyuta Sahdmadhi.feat. Equestrian!Reader

Miles Edgeworth.

Miles isn’t a stranger to being around horses, given that Franziska’s been an equestrian herself since she was exceptionally young.  He may be a dog person at heart, but he can definitely see the appeal.  

He never got into it, he preferred focusing on chess, golfing, and playing the flute when he wasn’t focusing on his legal studies.

Depending on what kind of rider you are (be it casual or competitive), he enjoys watching you ride and will be sure to attend any shows or competitions you participate in if that’s your thing (and his work allows it).

He enjoys interacting with your horse under your supervision, mainly in helping you groom them and shower them with affection.

If your horse can be a bit mouthy at times, they’re going to go for his cravat.  He’s not amused, please help him.

He enjoys brushing them the most and talking with you about your day as the two of you work.  It’s relaxing for him and the usual lines around his eyes seem to lessen.

He used to help Franziska with this, too, and he’ll share with you some childhood memories about it if you’re interested.

He’s a bit nervous about actually trying his hand at riding properly, but if you ask him… he’ll give it a try.  It’s an important hobby to you and he’d like to share that with both you and his sister.

His riding posture is mostly correct, but he’s stiff as a board the first time he tries riding for himself as he lacks confidence.

However, he’ll enroll in some lessons after he gets a taste of it (because he wants to spend more time with you) and shapes into a fairly talented rider.

Lana Skye.  (Pre SL-9)

Lana doesn’t have any experience with horses, so she did a great deal of research into the subject.  It’s important to you and she wants to get to know more about horses so she knows how to behave around yours.

After a hard day’s work, she enjoys getting to go down to the stables and watch you ride or train your horse.  There’s something quite calming about seeing you so in your element.

She’s incredibly gentle, but confident whenever she interacts with your horse.  It’s no surprise that they take an almost instant liking to each other, even if that may be uncommon for your horse.  

Whenever she’s around them, she has a bright smile on her face.

She often brings Ema with her, too, and it’s some quality bonding time for the three of you.

Lana always makes sure your horse’s number one fan is safe while petting them, so no worries there.

After Ema seems to learn how to handle your horse and there’s a relationship there, she’ll ask if you could give Ema a ride by leading her around the corral.  

She takes a lot of photos and is utterly melting as she watches you and your horse work so well with her precious sister.

When you ask if she’d like to take a ride around, she’s surprised but agrees after some reassurances from you.  Ema does just fine for walks around, after all, so she should be, too.

She’s a natural at it (unable to wipe the grin off of her face the whole time!) and with some persuading, you can convince her to start taking some lessons.

Franziska von Karma.

When Franziska learns that you are a fellow equestrian, she is delighted!  It becomes a strong bonding point for the two of you.

She is an expert rider and does it competitively and has since she was a child.  The number of trophies and ribbons she has is impressive.

While you may peg her as being a rather discipline forward rider, she’s actually very gentle and while she’s no pushover, it’s definitely not what you’d expect from her.

However, she thoroughly enjoys just going on casual rides with you or helping each other groom each other’s horses.  

It’s… nice to have somebody to share this hobby with and you see her at her most relaxed and happy whenever the two of you are spending some quality time with each other and your horses.

She may compete with you if you’re into the competitive scene, though.  You become her rival and she’s not about to lose to you!

The two of you are going to introduce each other to your horses early on and, after things get quite serious between you, she arranges it so you can transfer your horse to the barn she keeps hers at—if you’d like.

Her horse is well-trained but it only seems to like her at first and is ill-mannered toward anyone else, so it takes a while for you to win her trust.  There’s still not quite a connection there like the one her rider appears to share with her, but you are tolerated.

When she finally takes the saddle, she’s liable to ride your horse better than you do and look damn good while she does it, too.

Godot.

So… horses, huh?  Godot’s never been around one in person before, but they certainly do exist.  And you seem to be fond of them.

He does start to tailor his “lessons” and cryptic remarks to be horse-themed just for you.  He can’t help but grin whenever he picks up on you rolling your eyes at him.

He’ll sometimes bring you some coffee whenever you’re down working, even if he feels terribly out of place in the stables.  But he’s curious and you’re able to lure him in by talking about your horse.

He’s liable to spook your horse at first, given his strange appearance and all.  However, with time, he’s able to win their trust and doesn’t mind helping you groom them.

He’s… very gentle and careful with them, almost surprisingly so.  And you see a rare gentle smile come to his face whenever he’s petting them.

But eventually, he is going to try and let your horse try some coffee if you’re okay with it.  And he’ll do so every once in a while in moderation, trying to find a blend that they seem to favor.

When you suggest that he rides them, he gently turns you down.�� He prefers to just assist you and pet them, riding isn’t quite his cup of coffee.  It’s yours and he’d much rather watch you enjoy it.

Klavier Gavin.

Klavier’s had the opportunity to do a lot of things that the average person has not, thanks to his time abroad and his musical career.  

However, horse riding has not been one of them and he’s very curious to learn all about it from you!

He absolutely loves listening to you talk about your horse and about any stories you have, he’s always asking you questions.  

He’ll hang around the stable with you when he needs time away from work, it becomes a safe space for him… and he does enjoy watching you ride.  He’s got the biggest heart eyes for you.

It’s not an instant connection, but he’s able to form a surprisingly strong bond with your horse as you teach him how to handle them and show him how to bond properly with them.  And yes, he does use Herr/Frälein to refer to them too.

It’s his singing, of all things, that seems to win your horse over to him.  It initially started out as him singing quietly while the two of you worked, but it develops into him straight up serenading your horse.

If you play music from the Gavinners for them when he’s not there, they’ll recognize his voice and linger around the speaker.  

…Your horse eventually seems to like him more than you, which you can’t even be all that mad about, really.

After the relationship is there, he decides to take some lessons since while he’d like to ride your horse, he wants to know that he can ride them well before taking their saddle for the first time.

Whenever he rides, he feels surprisingly light and free and it’s not a hobby he knew that he’d fall as much in love with as he does.  

You’re very good about showing him new sides of himself like that, though.

Sebastian Debeste.

This boy knows nothing about horses, but he’s absolutely trying his hardest to learn more about them once he finds out you’re an equestrian.

He’ll ask you if maybe you have any book recommendations for him?  He wants to study them on top of working on becoming a better prosecutor and… it’s really sweet.

Sebastian’s honestly a bit intimidated by the size and strength of the horses, so he prefers just watching you do your thing from a distance at first.

He’s honestly amazed at how easy you make it look and he slowly starts to wonder if maybe… he could try it, too?

When you ask him if he’d like to meet your horse after he starts seeming more relaxed, his eyes light up and he gives you a very enthusiastic nod.

He cries when your horse immediately seems to warm up to him, nuzzling their snout against his hand.

Petting them and spending time with them is very therapeutic for him and they develop a very special bond under your careful eye.

Definitely start him out with some lessons before letting him ride your horse, he is a complete novice and is going to fall off so he really needs a proper trainer.  However, he always gets back on and continues with his lessons—resolved to become the best rider he can be for you.

It takes time, but when he’s good enough to be able to ride your horse for the first time he’s positively beaming.  

He feels on top of the world and it’s a huge confidence booster for him.

Simon Blackquill.

As someone who participates in falconry, Simon is able to appreciate your hobby and the unique bond you share with your horse.

He’s most interested in the Kisouma breed and the mounted samurai in general, but he knows enough about horses to not be woefully ignorant.

Whenever you invite him to come over to the stables or some horseriding event, he’s carefully observing your technique and making mental notes.  

It’s fascinating to him to observe the differences in training a bird of prey compared to a horse.  It gives him a great deal of respect for what you do and for the animal, soo.

Much like how he encourages you to form a connection with Taka, he’s all about getting to do the same with your horse.

He’s absolutely going to try and bribe them with treats and tries to figure out where they like to be pet the most.  

However, he’s always incredibly gentle and polite with your horse, speaking to them in a low voice.  His typical sarcastic and teasing side that you’re so used to seeing is nowhere to be found.

If you knew him before the UR-1 Incident, you really see the man he used to be come out in these moments.

When you ask him if he’d be interested in trying to ride, he’d agree without much hesitation.

He sits in the saddle with a great deal of confidence for a first-time rider, he trusts your horse, and he proves to be a natural at it.

It gives him an idea of how the mounted samurai felt when riding into battle… and he’d like more of it.  So, he also starts taking classes.  

And if you’re interested in falconry, he’d be more than happy to teach you more about it, too.

Nahyuta Sahdmadhi.

Nahyuta used to see some wild ponies growing up in the isolated region Dhurke established their home, but… he never got to be up close to any of them. 

So, he’s quick to delve into research about horses.  Within a week, he’s practically a walking encyclopedia of equestrian knowledge.

He watches you intently whenever he gets a chance to see you riding and will often ask you if he can come to watch after he’s had a stressful day working.  This is, clearly, important to you and he must admit that he’s quite taken by horses.

There’s a grace to them that he greatly appreciates and, he must admit, that he has a rather strong fondness for ponies as they remind him of his childhood.

Needless to say, when you ask him if he’d like to meet your horse, he’s quick to agree.

Like his mother, Nahyuta is very gifted at winning the trust and affection of animals and he manages to win your horse over within their first meeting.

There are times where you’ll leave him alone with your horse for a few moments, only to return to find him talking in a soothing voice to your horse about how lucky they are to have you as an owner (intentionally trying to fluster you).  He only smiles placidly at you and carries on with what he was doing before.

And if you’ll allow him, he’ll braid your horse’s mane and tail into some rather intricate styles and teach you how to do the same.

When it comes to actually riding your horse, he waits patiently for you to make the offer—knowing that there are a great many factors to consider before letting someone ride your horse.

He rides with the grace of a seasoned rider and he is definitely open to starting some lessons after riding your horse a couple of times.

[princesssarisa]

I just reread Wuthering Heights for the first time since high school. Thanks to @theheightsthatwuthered, @wuthering-valleys, @astrangechoiceoffavourites and others for inspiring me to do it!

Here are some of the things that stood out the most for me.

1. I can’t believe how ambiguous all the characters are! “Morally gray” doesn’t begin to describe it. Even the most sympathetic characters are deeply, deeply flawed, yet just when a character seems unredeemable, they’ll show their capacity for love and altruism. It’s hard to say how Brontë meant us to feel about any of them. I won’t even touch on Heathcliff or the other leads: the example I’ll use is the short-lived yet important figure of Mr. Earnshaw. On the one hand, he’s framed both by Nelly Dean’s narration and by Cathy I’s diary as a kind, benevolent man. He takes in the homeless, orphaned young Heathcliff, raises and loves him as his own, treats his servants almost like family, is reasonably warm and indulgent to his children before his illness worsens his temper, and is very much loved by little Cathy in particular. After he dies and Hindley becomes the tyrannical new master, Cathy and Nelly remember his lifetime as a paradise lost. But he blatantly favors Heathcliff over his own children, sewing the seeds for Hindley’s abuse and degradation of Heathcliff, and during his illness, the disparaging way he talks to and about Hindley and Cathy definitely feels like emotional abuse, at least by modern standards. His harsh words to Cathy are especially heartbreaking given how clearly she worships him and it makes you wonder if her future arrogance is really a cover for self-doubt. But since Nelly depicts Hindley and Cathy as difficult and bratty from childhood, and both become truly toxic adults, maybe their father’s harshness is meant to be justified or at least understandable, and since Heathcliff was a poor orphan who faced who-knows-what horrors in his first seven years, we might argue that he needed more care and affection. But Heathcliff also becomes a toxic adult and Nelly implies that being the favored child made him spoiled and arrogant. And none of the above even touches on the theory that Heathcliff might be Mr. Earnshaw’s illegitimate son, which would definitely cast the latter in a less favorable light. Any claim of “This is how we’re supposed to feel about this character” can only fall flat, because there’s so much ambiguity.

2. The recent reviews by @astrangechoiceoffavourites of the 1939 and 1970 film versions point out something interesting: that in both of those versions, which only adapt only the first half of the book, Cathy (I) is more of the protagonist than Heathcliff. This insight raises a good question: who really is the protagonist of the book? Of course the traditional answer is Heathcliff. He’s the character we follow from beginning to end, whose actions drive the entire plot. But he’s not the viewpoint character; we mostly see him from Nelly Dean’s perspective, and Heathcliff sometimes disappears for months or years at a time from her narrative. Yet Nelly can’t be called the protagonist because she’s more of an observer than an active participant. I think we can argue that, at least in terms of plot structure, the two Cathys are the book’s real protagonists: Cathy I leads the first half, with Heathcliff as the deuteragonist/love interest, while Cathy II leads the second half, with Heathcliff as the villain. Of course this is debatable, but so is nearly everything else about this book.

3. I never realized until now what a perfect inversion Cathy II’s character arc is of her mother’s arc. There are so many parallels, but they happen in the opposite order. Just look:

** Cathy I is born and raised at Wuthering Heights, but as a young girl she ventures to Thrushcross Grange, meets her future husband and ultimately lives there./Cathy II is born and raised at Thrushcross Grange, but as a young girl she ventures to Wuthering Heights, meets her future husband and ultimately lives there.

** Both are raised by widowed fathers whom they adore, although Mr. Earnshaw is stern and critical to Cathy I while Edgar dotes on Cathy II; eventually both fathers die prematurely, leaving their daughters in a tyrannical new patriarch’s hands (Hindley/Heathcliff).

** Cathy I initially loves the rugged, dark haired Heathcliff, who lives as a servant at Wuthering Heights; she helps to educate him and they wander the moors together. But as she spends more time at Thrushcross Grange, she absorbs its snobbery, treats him with increasing disdain (though she really does still love him), and favors the refined, prissy, blond haired Edgar, whom she eventually marries./Cathy II initially loves (or at least cares for) the refined, prissy, blond haired Linton, whom she eventually marries. Having been raised with Thrushcross Grange’s snobbery, she initially disdains the rugged, dark haired Hareton, who lives as a servant at Wuthering Heights. But as she lives at the Heights after Linton dies, she looses her snobbery and becomes increasingly drawn to Hareton; ultimately they fall in love, she helps to educate him and they wander the moors together.

** Because of the above, Cathy I’s story ends tragically, while Cathy II’s story ends happily.

It really is too bad that most screen and stage adaptations only adapt the first half and leave out Cathy II, because it seems to me that Cathy I’s story was always meant to be juxtaposed with her daughter’s mirror-image arc.

4. If I was ever half-tempted to believe the theory that Branwell Brontë was the book’s real author, I don’t believe it anymore. There’s no way a 19th century man, especially one who was allegedly a bit of a womanizer, could have written such nuanced, realistic, non-objectified female characters. Even male authors whose characterizations of women I respect, both of the past and of today, tend to have problems with sexualization, madonna-whore stereotyping, etc. But the women in Wuthering Heights are thoroughly non-sexualized three-dimensional characters: all of them flawed yet (arguably) all sympathetic, no better yet no worse than the men around them, all fully human.

5. The circumstances of Cathy I’s mental and physical breakdown are different than I remembered from high school. I was under the impression that Heathcliff married Isabella to hurt Cathy the way she had hurt him and that Cathy’s brain fever was caused by jealousy and heartbreak at being “rejected” for another woman. I think the screen adaptations tend to frame it more that way. But really, Heathcliff marries Isabella less to hurt Cathy emotionally than to gain power over her husband by gaining a claim to inherit his property and fortune. Nor is Cathy’s breakdown caused by jealousy (she knows Heathcliff doesn’t really love Isabella, after all), but by the conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar that the Isabella scandal triggers, which culminates in Edgar punching Heathcliff, making him flee for his life, and demanding that Cathy choose between them. It’s the crumbling of Cathy’s attempted double life with both men that breaks her, not rivalry with Isabella.

6. When I first started the reread, my dad suggested that I try to see if I could find more sexual tension between Heathcliff and Cathy I than I did in high school. But I didn’t. Their love is just as strangely, fascinatingly sexless as I thought it was. I suppose the question remains: did Brontë purposefully write it as sexless, or does it just reflect her own lack of sexual experience?

7. If I were to write the screenplay for a new film version of Wuthering Heights, I think I’d present it in anachronic order, similar to Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. Scenes from the first half would alternate with scenes from the second half. This way the second half would really be given its due, the mirror-imagery between Cathy I and Cathy II’s character arcs would be especially apparent, and the Hareton/Cathy II romance could be highlighted as a healthy alternative to Heathcliff/Cathy I. I would also make a definite point to de-romanticize Heathcliff, not only by portraying him as a tragic man-turned-monster and not downplaying his cruelty, but by leaving it ambiguous, as I think it is in the book, whether the love he shares with Cathy I really is romantic love or a strangely intense, codependent brother/sister bond. I definitely wouldn’t age them into young adult lovers on the moors the way most screen versions do; I’d portray them at their correct ages, just 12/13 when they roam the moors together and still just 15/16 when Cathy accepts Edgar’s proposal, and highlight that they were only truly happy together as children. That in some ways their love is always the love of two children, both in its selfishness and in its purity. Cathy’s ghost at the window would be portrayed as a child, as in the book, and if I were to show Heathcliff’s ghost joining her in the end, I just might have them both transform back into their 12/13-year-old selves. That could make for an interesting contrast with Hareton and Cathy II in the end: Heathcliff and Cathy I reunited as free, half-savage children, while their foster-son and daughter appear as a mature romantic couple embracing civilization and adulthood.

[grandducktale]

“All Yet Seems Well” - Game of Thrones, Dexter, YGO, and the legitimately troubling trend and implication of “the problem play’s” re-emergence in pop culture

So first off, spoilers, naturally. Gonna be talking tragedy here. Also, cringe warning. I’m going to use mostly anime here. Kid cartoons, even.  But there’s a point to all this. If you were fans of Dexter or the television series “Game of Thrones”, any show that had more than anything an “unsatisfying finale” you might be able to pick up what I’m putting down.

What is a tragedy? The definitions vary, but it is a troubling or melancholic story with an unhappy ending. 

A Tragic Hero is easy enough to define. Hamlet from Hamlet, and Spike Spiegel from Cowboy Bebop. These two men are tragic because they pass away, and are unable to fully protect what they hold dear. But... I wouldn’t say they’re truly tragic. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to be either of them, but Spike Spiegal and Hamlet do to an extent accomplish some of their goals, and go out in a blaze of glory, score a moral victory, something.

(Pictured Above: Spike saying “Bang” as he bleeds out after killing his nemesis and destroying half a criminal empire in a wild one man blaze of glory)

This post is not about those characters. This post is not even about tragedy, necessary. This post is about problems. Problem plots, problem characters, and problematic implications. The title of this post is “All Yet Seems Well”, because the shows and the characters I am about to discuss are highly reminiscient of Shakespeare’s “Problem Plays.”

To start, let me bring up the character of Shouzu Hiiragi from Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V(a cartoon about children playing competitive card games Konami makes to sell trading cards). Arc-V is basically the “problem play” of YGO, if said play had a caged gorilla break out and steal the spotlight for the last third of the performance. “Problem Play” is a vernacular used to refer to three of Shakespeare’s plays that couldn’t quite be pegged into tragedy or comedy, that provoked discussion either about the plot’s structure, the means used to resolve the problem, or both. For those not even slightly into Shakespeare, I’ve always viewed the operetta The Yeomen of the Guard as Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Problem Play”, so to speak, though Yeomen might as well be a straight up tragedy relative to Gilbert and Sullivan’s other works. 

But what makes a “Problem Play” a “problem play”, precisely? Well, since we’re talking about YGO Arc-V, lets go to Act V of one of Shakespeare’s “Problem Plays”, All’s Well That Ends Well. Act V, scene three, to be precise. 

King: Let us from point to point this story know, To make the even truth in pleasure flow: If thou beest yet a fresh uncropped flower, Choose thou thy husband, and Ile pay thy dower. For I can guesse, that by thy honest ayde, Thou keptst a wife her selfe, thy selfe a Maide. Of that and all the progresse more and lesse, Resoluedly more leasure shall expresse: All yet seemes well, and if it end so meete, The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

So to understand the “problem” with the above(besides finding a more contemporary translation and supplementing that with sparknotes, tvtropes, and google), one must understand the gist of the plot of “All’s Well That Ends Well.”

Basically, the protagonist of the play, a common girl by the name of Helena, has just prevailed in her desire to marry the love of her life, the highborne Ward of France, Bertram. The audience and the reader should in theory rejoice in such a moment. Helena was given the ability to choose her husband as a reward for saving the ill King, and though she picked Bertram and stipulated that he did not have to marry her, and though Bertram did not directly reject her but instead provided her with two nigh impossible tasks that required guile, intelligence, and strength to prevail, something just seems off. (Perhaps this is why the King says “All Yet Seems Well)

What is it that is off? Is it that Helena was for whatever reason the only one in France capable of curing the King? Is it that for someone as skilled and cunning  as Helena, telling Bertram he doesn’t have to marry her is pointless? Is it Bertram’s own psychological manipulation, to the point that even if these two people married and truly did love each other, that their happiness is a righteous person’s misery? That doubt, that uncertainty, the vague feeling that runs contrary to the overt, happy plot is what makes up a “Problem Play.” 

Shozu Hiiragi is tragic not because of a vague sense of malice or villainy inherent in his character like Helena. No, in fact, he is an authentic version of the “Noble Commoner” facade that makes Helena so problematic. YGO Arc-V is about a kid named Yuya trying to make it as an entertainer after his father left him at a very young age, vanishing into thin air. Yuya was bullied severely, and his father was supportive and this larger than life figure. Naturally, his abrupt disappearance was a traumatic event for Yuya.

Yuya compensates for this disappearance and his past by playing Pagliacci, a sad clown. The Pagliacci thing aside, the show makes it quite clear in the first three episodes that Yuya holds on so tightly to his identity as an entertainer because of the absence created by his father’s disappearance

Now before I get to Shouzu Hiiragi, I have to talk about Yuzu.  Yuya’s childhood friend and sweetheart is a girl named Yuzu Hiiragi. 

Shouzou Hiiragi is a lifetime friend and operator of Yushou’s entertainer school.  To summarize without being too spoilery, the audience eventually finds out that both Yuya and Yuzu are alot more important than they seem, and that they sort of just... appeared one day as babies. This is where Shouzu starts to become tragic, since we learn that not only did he raise a child that wasn’t his, he did so as a single father

 So Shouzu was second banana to Yushou, but he was an entertainer of some renown. He gave it up so he could raise his adopted child, and later on, act as the operator of “You-Show Duel School”, a school named after Yusho but ran by Shouzu since Yushou disappeared.

Now there’s a lot of issues with Arc-V. A lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. I am focusing on Shouzu but there’s so much to talk about with how this series has a lot of problems that its tone clashes far too hard with. But I’ll show a meme image out of context for the heck of it. 

I focus on Shouzu because he is the legitimate avenue towards Yuya and the show’s main conflict of balancing entertainment with legitimate hurt, dangerous conflict, and immense suffering and pain. He is a man who does good and puts his ambition aside out of alturism to start, but more than that, he is a genuine father figure to Yuya despite all that is on his plate. 

Like his costume of flame suggests, Shouzu is hot-blooded and passionate. As the plot progresses, Yuya struggles with doing what is right, being a good entertainer, preserving his father’s legacy, and a whole bunch of things. The advice of his father, Yusho, and the advice of his mother, Yoko, is to “smile when he feels like crying” 

This advice isn’t bad, but it is a crutch and a mantra for Yuya, one the direction of the show itself portrays as unhealthy and stunted. (When Yuya cries, he tends to wear his goggles so as to not let it show). So let’s analyze a sequence near the beginning of Arc-V’s 140+ episode. Yuya had obtained a special power like any Campbell Hero, but his rival, Reiji Akaba managed to copy said power in a duel against him(Which Yuya won, anyways albeit due to Reiji having bigger things to deal with)

Being bullied and having a traumatic past, then obtaining a special power unique to him that allows him to win duels, and then LOSING that special power, gets to Yuya a lot, even if he is plenty competent as a duelist.

So he runs away in tears.

Shozou hits Yuya with some facts about how naturally, if a technique or special ability in a game was discovered that gave someone an edge, it would only be a matter of time before other competitors used it too. But Shouzou then challenges Yuya to a duel, and instead of telling him to smile instead of cry, instead re-frames Yuya’s situation of losing his unique ability in a postive and constructive manner

A lot goes on in Arc-V, but the pendulum that Yuya swings back and forth on is the legacy of his father and becoming his own person. Shozou, who is Yuya’s de facto father, provides a path towards the latter. 

But... to make a long story short, Shozou is forgotten about. Yuya keeps chasing after his father, and the lesson he learned from Shozou is forgotten. Arc-V, which if you haven’t been able to tell from my essay on the main character’s girlfriend’s dad has an amazing ensemble cast, and spends 50 episodes developing these great ensemble characters.

But in the next 50 episodes, the ensemble characters fade into the background, and Yuya takes center stage only to repeatedly just smile and want to be like his father.

And in the last 50 episodes, the show gets downright mean spirited. A likable ninja character that has the design of a generic henchmen is killed off unceremoniously, an unlikable legacy character manages to shrug off that fate with ease. 

All the while, the show keeps this upbeat tone of optimism and Yuya triumphing.

And Yuya does triumph, he does save the day, but it’s all wrong. 

I am only skimming the surface here, but the reaction I saw and was invoked in me about Arc-V’s ending was the same reaction I saw with Game of Thrones’s ending.

Something along the lines of “I don’t mind a bad ending, so long as it is tonally consistent and not a confused mess!” 

Were this sentiment unique to Arc-V that’d be it. But it is applies to the end of Game of Thrones, Dexter, Netflix’s Watchmen, damn near EVERYTHING that was popular this past decade. This trend of something having a strong beginning and then fading into tonal nonsense, to the point that the viewers either speculate on finding the “true” “hidden” meaning of a piece

, or worse yet, an active desire for a bad or evil ending, so long as that evil at least makes sense

So I have a bad feeling about all of this. Not just because a series I liked went down the toilet, but because, well, remove all these other mainstream series with promising beginnings that nosedove into the ground and crashed and burned, and what’s the most recent universally acclaimed show left?

That’s it. Breaking Bad. A nihilistic story of personal triumph at the destruction of everything else. Which has its place. But with Arc-V, with Game of Thrones, with all these shows, I see a trend of the absurd entering and ruining a show, which leaves people craving order, even if that order is horrible.

I mentioned Gilbert and Sullivan before, so I’ll end this rambling essay with a quote from a song  from the Mikado that was allegedly almost cut from it.

“ My object all sublime I shall achieve in time — To let the punishment fit the crime — The punishment fit the crime; And make each prisoner pent Unwillingly represent A source of innocent merriment! Of innocent merriment!”

The Mikado is a tale about the absurd and chaotic, the same absurdity that seems to be turning audiences to darker, more orderly, things. But the Mikado showcases both the trouble of the absurd, and the genuine opportunity and chance for grace the absurd provides. 

In my opinion, Problem Play Plots are actually tragedies more tragic than regular tragedies. Borderline horror, even. They bring up problems, and the easiest solution to those problems seems to be that of tragic selfish scheming. But perhaps that needn’t actually be the case. That a benevolent and convincing solution to these problem plots exist - one people can accept, and be inspired by, in a good way. 

And if that can’t be done, if the trauma and chaos of these shows serves no point, then the Gordian Knot of problem play plots must be cut. The damage they have done must be acknowledged, the mystery boxes resolved or done away with entirely.

[cactusstree]

1994 v.s. 2019: My Thoughts On The New Little Women Adaptation

Before I start, I would like to say this is a VERY biased review, it is not meant to be objective. I have always loved the 1994 Little Women, and I definitely went into the theater knowing that I would still prefer it. I absolutely enjoyed the new adaptation and I’m sure I will be watching it again in the future, but there are certain things that I feel just can’t be changed about the original.

Jo March

Going into the theater, i had low expectations of Saorise's portrayl of Jo simply because i think Winona Ryder cannot be beat. I still prefer Winona, but i was pleasantly surprised with Saorise. I felt Saorise really captured Jo's tomboyish personality, when I was afraid she would not. I was happy to see Jo's masculine costuming; it seems Gerwig was able to "get away" with more gender nonconformity than the first movie could.

Jo March+ Laurie

In terms of Jo and Laurie's relationship, I have mixed feelings. In the 1994 version, it seemed as though Jo was certain in her feelings towards Laurie. Although it pained her to lose a dear friendship, she never really regretted it besides "I shouldn't turn down perfectly good marriage proposals." In 2019, however, Jo seemed much more indecisive after the two characters argument after Meg's wedding. It appeared that she may actually love Laurie romantically. I felt this was inconsistent, especially because 2019 Jo was much more aggressive in her first refusal, even to the extent that I was hoping Gerwig might actually allow Jo to be a lesbian (as we all know she is). Jo even said something along the lines of "I wish I had those feelings towards you but I don't," which is what got my hopes up.

Personally, I have always felt that Jo made the correct decision in turning down Laurie, as I picture their relationship to be more similar to brother and sister.

Jo March+ Friedrich

I have to say I was very disappointed with this movie's Friedrich. While of course I would prefer that Jo end up independent, we all know that is not going to happen. Therefore, I want her to end up with her intellectual equal, and someone who genuinely cares about her. In 1994, it is firmly established that Friedrich is dirt poor, and has many similar interests to Jo. On the other hand, 2019 only hints at Friedrich's poverty, and makes little to no effort in making him a lovable character; there are only a few interactions shown between him and Jo, and none of them really struck me as anything special. For instance, 2019 Friedrich offers Jo a set of Shakespeare's complete works, and while this is certainly a kind gesture, it doesn't really showthat they have much in common besides a love of literature. In 1994, Friedrich and Jo have an entire conversation about trancendentalism, not only establishing that they have more specific interests in common, but also showing that Jo's parents, while poor, are deeply involved in political and intellectual movements.

I really missed the tender 1994 moment where Friedrich invites Jo to an opera, which we know she has always wanted to attend, and they kiss in the "worst" seat in the theater. Friedrich was not able to afford nice seats, but he wanted Jo to have the opera experience, as he knew she would love it. In 2019, Friedrich simply observes Jo enjoying the opera while he sits in a nice seat and she stands, once again not really establishing any sort of connection between the two.

1994 Friedrich's criticisms of Jo's writing seem genuine. They come from a place of "you are talented and you write entertaining stories, but they don't seem to really come from your heart." Of course, Jo is offended at first but she comes to realize that she needs to write about her family, not just adventure stories. Therefore, Friedrich's criticisms are actually constructive and help Jo along her path. 2019 Friedrich really only says "I don't like it" which doesn't help Jo at all, and then it seems like she had to humble herself and stop being offended? Once again, this doesn't make any sense. Jo had every right to be offended when this man she barely knows starts criticising her life's work with no helpful suggestions. I felt that tension was never really resolved.

And of course, Jo and Friedrich's final scene where they kiss in the rain will always hold a special place in my heart. I love the 1994 version of course because it's simply beautiful. I love the fact that two of them are alone in the rain on the pathway leaving Orchard house. I didn't really enjoy the train station setting as much because it felt less special, especially when they're surrounded by people. Also, the 2019 version just quickly went over one of my favorite moments, when Friedrich says "I have nothing to give you, my hands are empty" (which of course in more powerful in 1994 because of how strongly Friedrich's poverty is established) and Jo responds by holding his hands and saying "not empty now."

This moment was included in 2019, but it didn't feel as special to me.

I think Gerwig tried to make up for Friedrich's characterization by showing that LM Alcott would prefer that Jo ended up a spinster, but I just don't think this was the right way to go. Like I said, I would like Jo to be independent as well, but if she does end up with a man I would like to feel happy for her. Gerwig's juxtaposition between Alcott getting her book published and Jo's moment with Friedrich was clever, but it took me out of the moment and made the last few scenes much less enjoyable.

Marmee

I felt 2019 focused much less on Marmee, which was disappointing to me. That isn't to say Laura Dern did a poor job, just that I have a closer connection to Susan Sarandon. There were several more scenes in 1994 that included Marmee, so I think the audience has more time to become attatched to her. Also, I didn't like that there were a few sarcastic quips between Marmee and the father (such as when father March jokes that he should move to California? I just didn't quite get that).

Mr. Laurence

Something I will say I prefer about 2019 is the emphasis on Mr. Laurence. I LOVED seeing his close friendship with Beth, especially the scene where he listens to her play the piano in his home, and later when he and Jo enter Orchard House together after Beth's death. I felt his inclusion helped Beth seem more significant.

Chronology

While I understand what Gerwig was trying to do with the way she ordered the scenes, I think chronological order is the best way to go. I liked that 2019 ordering was able to make some interesting parallels between the girl's childhood and young adulthood, such as Beth's first and last illnesses, Amy's relationship with Laurie, Jo's childhood at Orchard House and her later return. The problem I have, however, is that the constant scene switching made it more difficult to connect with the characters. One of the reasons we as an audience care so much about the girl's adulthood is because we saw them being foolish, we saw the way they care for one another, etc. This is especially apparent in Laurie's character, because he's kind of an asshole in young adulthood. In 1994, we put up with that because he is so charming in the first half of the movie. In 2019, not much is convincing me that I like Laurie as a character until we're further into the movie. It also took away from the audience's view of Beth. In 1994, we are relieved that she survives the first wave of scarlet fever, and that relief makes her later death more powerful. In 2019, her first and second waves of illness are depicted simultaneously, which makes it difficult for the audience to calm down. For me, this just meant a full ten minutes of tears streaming down my face, I never got a break!

Amy

Listen, I loved Florence Pugh as Amy, but I really really wish they had a younger actress to depict her as a child. I don't mean this as an insult towards Pugh, because I think she did a wonderful job, it was just incredibly difficult for me to believe she was the youngest child during their childhood scenes.

Amy+ Laurie

I have never really loved that Amy and Laurie ended up together, but their 2019 relationship felt even less resolved than 1994. One of the things that helped their 1994 relationship is the moment where Amy is being sent away due to Beth's illness and she laments (in her overdramatic fashion) to Laurie that she has never been kissed. Laurie promises her that he will kiss her before she dies. This sets up a potential for their romantic relationship, and establishes that they both care for one another. In 2019, it isn't really confirmed that Laurie cares for Amy more that her sister. In 1994, Laurie and Amy have a full conversation about how Amy doesn't want to be loved for her family, but rather for being herself, Larie then has to get his act straight and prove to her that he really does love her for who she is. In 2019, they have this same conversation but it never felt completed. It seemed like Amy just gave in, especially because she was so distraught about her sister's death. I will say that I loved 2019 Amy's moment where she explains marriage is very much an economic agreement for women, as I feel that was important to acknowlege in their time period.

1994 Jo's reaction to their marriage also felt like more of a resolution. She seems genuinely happy for them. That isn't to say that 2019 Jo isn't happy for them either, but she is clearly more upset and hasn't finished moving on.

Cineamatography

It is difficult for me to compare 1994 and 2019 in this aspect, as I genuinely loved both. I think 1994 focused more on details and domestic scenery, whereas 2019's landscape shots were more impressive. For instance, I loved that Gerwig included a scene at the beach because it was simply beautiful, and gave the audience something new to look at. The ice skating scenes and the scene right after Meg's wedding were really lovely in my opinion. However, I vastly prefer 1994's depiction of Orchard House. It just seems so much more inviting to me.

(I can't find a good picture of 2019 Orchard House, though I have heard it is more closely modeled to LM Alcott's actual home, so that is something, I just didn't really like it)

I thought these scenes were beautifully framed, I loved it!

Costuming

I absolutely loved the costuming in 2019, especially Jo's writing coat!

Soundtrack

1994 soundtrack makes me weep tears of joy and nostalgia every time I hear it. 2019 doesn't even come close.