#not that i have any issues with self inserts whatsoever (clearly)

[sreppub]

me and the little video game guy im projecting on

[void-tiger]

Sorry this is late but you are so right in the tags (the memes for post se8 au one)!!! Like Kuron didnt deserve any of that shit both in canon and story wise. Like there is doomed by the narrative and then there is whatever this was, like freaking Haxus was given a moment of silence and Allura reminding Zarkon of his shit was treated as more morally wrong then this. And just half the reason i have this au is because i want Jiro to be angry about this like he deserves. Like he did nothing wrong but my good he should have, he deserves to bite people. He 100% deserve to be angry at Shiro and Allura (and Keith. Keith was the one most assertive that he was Shiro, Keith was the one that basically got him killed. Jiro is taping up Keith and Haggars and a bunch of other people's pictures on a dartboard and throws darts at it as stress relief as we speak)

Ohh I am SO angry at Keith.

“The Black Lion Roared! It claims Keith as BP!”

NO, fools. The Black Lion wants to save the damn clone who quite literally threw his bayard away—at Allura; if anyone was “next in line” it should’ve been her. We all know it. Mir practically animated it that way in addition to him wiping the floor with them but nobody actually got hurt. HELL even while possessed he gave them TIME to Get The Fuck OUT. And Allura had to blow up her castle to fix Lotor’s Major Fuckup, anyway. He could’ve easily crippled the paladins or Voltron by killing them Right Then or taking the bayard or Black Lion with him.

He didn’t. He’s literally playing 3D chess in a split second—while possessed—and he largely goes unsung, anyway.

He keeps the showdown against Keith largely in Keith’s Favor and deliberately missing shots and destroying the cloning facility (rip to the clones. They are innocents in this too.) and. Keith still nearly gets himself killed, anyway.

Black Lion’s the one to save Jiro when he’s finally close enough in-range for the Lion to sense him—despite them not having a true Lion-Paladin bond.

Black Lion saves Shiro (and Green Lion saves Pidge) VERY early on.

Black Lion saves Shiro again—while being the most damaged by that S1 Fight against Zarkon and Haggar—by teaming up with Keith very briefly (then has to go offline again; they need a Castle Pickup.)

Black Lion saves Shiro by uploading him—you mean to tell me a Teleporting Lion who clearly adores THIS Paladin and does not come back online until Every Single Character (save Coran) tries bonding with it would just Lose his body like that? NAH. That’s NOT how the scifi tropes for transporters or transporter delays/accidents even work.

As horrific as it is, if the issue was really Shiro needing a body verses Black Lion wanting to save a clone trying so hard and loving so much, too, um. [gestures at It’s Raining Men errr Shiro Clones.] Black Lion had options. I am not a fan of this particular fanon fix. Those clones deserve a chance to live, too. BUT it does point out the even more obvious flaw in what actually happened canonically.

Buuuuuut, Monsantos didn’t care about that. They just wanted their Officially Bastardized Version Of Keith to be their grimdark edgelord BP self insert. (Oh, and make Allura their Narrative Tool to do it.)

-

…soooo…yeah. Jiro deserves to be fucking pissed at Allura, Shiro, the paladins, and especially Keith.

Shiro has every right to be upset with Jiro. (Misdirected, sure. But, imo he’s allowed to be imperfect without getting villainized for it, y’know? Trauma and processing trauma and healing isn’t tidy whatsoever.)

(And Allura should NEVER have been used by the writers for what happened. Or framed as “just as bad as the galra! Teehee!!” in s8, apparently—I staunchly refuse to watch it.)

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

Muns of the RPC stop projecting all your personal issues onto your muses without any disclaimer whatsoever challenge. It's fucking hard to have to go through every OC blog that follows me with a fine-toothed comb just to make sure they didn't admit to self inserting / projecting in an ooc post somewhere (and believe me I've seen that happen multiple times!) there's one person I've blocked twice when she followed me solely because of this. I suspected her OC was a self insert so I searched her ooc posts and she'd admitted to it in a very very old post that is now deleted after she revamped her blog. Nice try. My rules clearly state no self inserts.

[oumakokichi]

Welcome back!!! I’m not sure if you’re taking any requests regarding analyses/meta, but if you’re looking for any ideas/when you have the time, do you mind doing a character analysis on Shuichi Saihara? I understand that he’s the main character but there is a lack of analyses about him. Although there are few, most explore his role as a protagonist/relationships with the others rather than digging deep into his character/personality. I just feel like there is more to him.

Hi anon, thank you so much! I’d be happy to write a character analysis for Saihara. I’m pretty sure I wrote some pieces specifically about his character back in the day, but those are all pretty old by now, and there’s definitely so much to talk about with his character.

Obviously discussing Saihara in-depth will cover spoilers for the entire game, so be careful when reading!

It’s interesting that you bring up the fact that Saihara tends to lack more character analyses, because I feel like this is kind of the result of a few different factors. First of all, there’s the fact that he was never originally advertised as the game’s protagonist. I know that the bait-and-switch with Kaede left many people conflicted; even years later, I see a lot of people saying that while they like Saihara a lot, they would’ve preferred for Kaede to live, or that they still don’t know quite how to feel about his role as a protagonist as a result.

Combine that with the fact that Saihara is simply so different in his role in the game than either Naegi or Hinata were, and I think this leaves a lot of people either uninterested in analyzing him as an individual character or unclear of where to start. Ndrv3’s themes as a whole are such a drastic departure from the Hope’s Peak arc of the first two games that Saihara himself sometimes tends to get overlooked, despite the fact that I firmly believe no one would have worked better as the protagonist of the game precisely because of these very different themes.

This itself is an interesting proposal, because at the same time, I also believe that ndrv3’s cast had the biggest potential for every single character to be the “protagonist” of their own narrative. Not only is this just straight-up alluded to with the reveal that Kiibo was actually the audience proxy, and therefore the “protagonist” through which most of the audience were experiencing the killing game in chapter 6, but we even get brief playable moments with both Maki and Himiko, further driving home the narrative that these characters all had the potential to be the main character. You could even argue that the abundance of ahoges in the ndrv3 cast is a tongue-in-cheek joke about how many people must have had “protagonist syndrome” when auditioning for the show.

But having a cast full of potential main characters still doesn’t negate the fact that Saihara was simply the best choice possible for the protagonist of ndrv3 specifically. I don’t believe we would’ve had nearly the same experience without viewing most of the events through the lens of his inner narration and character growth, and that his specific role in the story as the detective was the perfect way to encapsulate the game’s themes of truth and lies.

Let’s begin by discussing Saihara’s actual personality: he’s timid, riddled with anxiety, and incredibly prone to doubting himself and his own abilities. These traits are at the core of his arc of character development throughout the story, as he constantly struggles with his own feelings of inadequacy and lack of self-worth despite being the most vital contributor to everyone’s survival in the class trials.

Even before he’s revealed to be the true protagonist of the game, these traits are incredibly easy to see from an outside lens. By playing as Kaede, however briefly, we nonetheless get a good look at what Saihara is like even in chapter 1; his lack of self-esteem and debilitating issues with anxiety and doubt are, if anything, even more noticeable when put into such stark contrast with Kaede’s optimism, self-confidence, and attempts to bolster the group into working together and believing in one another.

In fact, it’s through Kaede that we first get a glimpse of Saihara’s backstory, and slowly come to understand that his timidity and anxiety are largely shaped by his past trauma. Saihara feels personally responsible for ruining a man’s life after accidentally uncovering the truth of the man’s crimes, then later learning that he was attempting to get revenge on the person who murdered his entire family. The knowledge that he not only ruined this man’s attempts at revenge, but that this person actively hates him with a passion, has left Saihara emotionally scarred and deeply afraid of even maintaining eye contact with others.

As simple as this little bit of backstory is, I really love it in all of its presentation, because even in chapter 1, it begins to paint a much clearer picture of what Saihara is like. His inability to say no to people and attempts to please everyone begin to make a lot more sense knowing that he is incredibly afraid of being hated or blamed by other people. His reluctance to come into his own as a detective or acknowledge his obvious talent makes perfect sense knowing that he can never fully “bring justice” to a number of crimes, and that his job is by definition one that sometimes makes other people miserable by shedding a light on the truth—even when, sometimes, it might be better to leave the truth covered up.

This established backstory also immediately sets Saihara apart from previous protagonists like Naegi and Hinata, by first shaping him into a separate character who we get to know in chapter 1, and only later re-introducing him as the actual protagonist of the game. This isn’t to say that Naegi and Hinata don’t have established character flaws, or that we don’t know anything about their life prior to the killing game. But these two are very clearly set up to be more of the “everyman” protagonist than Saihara ever was: characters who the reader can insert themselves into by some degree, and whose primary traits tend to revolve around feeling “average” or “mundane” in a way that your typical reader will usually relate to much more quickly.

This makes sense for the Hope’s Peak arc shared by both dr1 and sdr2. These games in particular are centered around the narrative of a “talent-driven society” where only the most talented, elite in their field are rewarded with entry into the “best school in the country”—a narrative that is no doubt supposed to be commentary on Japan’s extremely competitive academic system and society in real life.

With Naegi, we see perhaps the best example of a truly average, normal person thrust into a group of these whacky elites. We trust Naegi almost instantly as a protagonist, specifically because his lack of any particular superpower-like talent makes him more relatable to the reader. And his contributions to the trials and eventual friendships with the other students are meaningful precisely because they prove that you don’t need these incredible talents or make outstanding contributions to society in order to be a fundamentally good person who helps others and forges real, genuine bonds with people.

Hinata’s narrative takes this idea of averageness among “the elite” and takes it a step further in terms of narrative complexity: not only does Hinata lack any sort of talent or trait that would make him stand out, but specifically because of this, he desperately craves a talent of his own. Hinata is incredibly easy for readers to relate to as someone who, in a competitive society where talent is everything, feels useless and meaningless without an elite-level talent of his own. This struggle with identity and self-worth in a talent-driven society is something that most readers will also have experienced on some level, and so makes Hinata instantly relatable and likable for most people.

Which takes us back to Saihara—again, I want to stress how different the setup for his backstory and even his personality are from our previous two protagonists. Saihara isn’t meant to be a self-insert for the reader, or instantly identified with the same way Naegi and Hinata were.

Even other bits and pieces of his backstory and home life, which we learn from his FTEs with Kaede in chapter 1, as well as portions of their salmon mode together, show how incredibly eccentric Saihara is compared to the other two. Saihara doesn’t come from what one might call a “typical home life.” He’s estranged from his wealthy, celebrity parents, and lives with his uncle, who is also a detective. His FTEs reveal that he’s spent his time wrestling alligators and, to put it nicely, being a huge weirdo for most of his life. He’s not our “everyman protagonist” by any means; he’s yet another whacky Danganronpa character who happened to be thrust into the protagonist spotlight through his role as a detective.

In short, Saihara is not what most people would expect from a protagonist in any story, let alone a DR game. He’s certainly not the “everyman,” between his established backstory and somewhat eccentric home life. And he doesn’t have the usual set of traits most people would expect from a protagonist, either. Unlike Naegi and Kaede, who are by and large optimistic, cooperative, and somewhat confident in themselves, or Hinata, who is assertive and forward-thinking, Saihara is… extremely pessimistic, anxious, and lacks any confidence in himself whatsoever.

And yet, in spite of all this, I think many people can and do relate to Saihara. I know I certainly do. Having a character who explicitly struggles with issues like anxiety and depression, not only as the result of the killing game itself (which would understandably fuck anyone’s mental health up irreparably), but even before entering the game, is something I absolutely love about ndrv3. Saihara is hardly the only character to struggle with these issues within the DR franchise, or hell, even just within ndrv3 itself, but it’s hard to ignore how textually canon his depression is when he spends multiple scenes in chapter 5 lying in bed and thinking, “there’s no reason to live, there’s no reason to live” over and over again.

Saihara’s specific set of character traits may set him apart from the “average” reader, but for people who struggle themselves with mental health and self-worth, I think his character hits close to home in a very different way. Over and over again, throughout the narrative, Saihara is called “weak”—by the people around him and even by himself. This “weakness” is a fundamental part of his character that simply wasn’t there with Naegi or Hinata; while the two of them were certainly considered “average” in one way or another, they were never described as “weak” or “lacking what it takes to survive” the way Saihara consistently is.

And it’s true, on some level, that Saihara is what most people might consider “weak.” At the very least, he’s dependent: quick to latch on to anyone who shows him even the slightest sign of affirmation or support, reluctant to admit to his own talent or take credit for his own accomplishments, and unsure of whether he can actually meet other people’s expectations without some kind of helping hand or support.

We see him immediately grow attached first to Kaede, then later to Momota, constantly seeking out a larger, more charismatic personality to hide behind. He’s so unsure of himself that he would rather let other people who he sees as “more likable” or “more crucial” to the group get all the attention and the spotlight; we see this lampshaded somewhat in chapter 4, when everyone nonetheless begins to single him out as the main reason they’re still alive, and he’s clearly baffled and uncertain as to how to reply to the praise and recognition.

Even what little we see of his pregame self from his audition video fits within this framework. Despite a lot of fan portrayals of pregame Saihara (often called “Inchara” or “Kagehara” in a lot of Japanese fanworks) as someone undeniably “evil” or “irredeemable” for actively wanting to participate in a killing game… in the end, all we really know about him is that he is desperate to die. He talks about wanting to kill people, yes, but the emphasis is placed on how much thought and effort he put into his own execution. Even before entering the killing game at all, we can clearly see that Saihara went in with the specific intention of dying.

He wants to play a detective if at all possible, but it’s clear that he’s desperate, nearly feverish, at the idea of “being a part of the world of Danganronpa” at all, in any capacity. This obsession itself feels like a form of unhealthy attachment, and is a clear sign that he (and most of the participants, if we’re reading between the lines) is so damaged and downright suicidal that he views getting 15 minutes of fame on his favorite TV show as the absolute best way to go out. In a word, he’s still “weak,” long before becoming the fictional character version of “Shuuichi Saihara,” and it’s this weakness that Tsumugi herself says she wanted to encapsulate in the show, by making him “weaker than anyone else.”

It’s this “weakness” that I honestly love best about Saihara’s entire character. Because while a large part of his character arc is certainly about becoming stronger and more confident in himself, it’s also a fact that his “weakness” never explicitly goes away. His depression isn’t just magically cured by the end of the story, and he doesn’t wake up one day deciding that his struggle with suicidal thoughts or feelings of worthlessness are over. If anything, chapter 6 ends with a huge subversion of this “magically cured” trope in most fiction, by having Saihara embrace his own weakness as something that actually helps him arrive at a third option when presented with the seemingly black-or-white choice of “hope vs. despair.”

Saihara is, as he admits himself, “weak.” He’s unable to choose the forward-facing optimism that “hope” represents in the killing game—moreso if that “hope” only contributes to the cycle of the killing game itself, enticing people into wanting to see more and more of it. But he doesn’t pick “despair” either, exactly. His inability to choose between this forced dilemma is specifically because he realizes how sick and cruel it really is, and empathizes all the more deeply with the suffering he and his classmates went through. It’s this “weakness” of his that allows him to really put into words how much pain they all went through, and how their pain matters, regardless of whether they’re fictional or not.

It’s an incredible moment in the game, and probably the point at which he became my favorite protagonist in the DR franchise, as well as one of my favorite characters in the series overall. Saihara’s character arc, unlike Naegi and Hinata, was never about “moving forward” or “choosing hope.” He says himself that he’s not the kind of person who can simply make a choice like that. Rather, his arc is about toeing the grey line between “truth” and “lies.”

As we mentioned earlier, Saihara is a detective. In any mystery novel, a detective’s role is to seek out the truth and expose it, no matter how tragic or upsetting the outcome might be. So it’s interesting, then, that by the end of the game, Saihara ultimately comes to understand and even value the concept of “lies.” For someone who knows exactly how painful the truth can be, and who is unable to simply live life optimistically in spite of that truth, the recognition of “gentle lies” told for the sake of helping someone cope, of finding meaning in an otherwise meaningless or cruel life, is incredibly important.

Unlike the Hope’s Peak arc, which sort of placed “hope vs. despair” as some very black-or-white battle with a clear winner (even when some aspects of the series, like dr3, also sort of suggest the idea that it’s an ongoing cycle that keeps repeating itself), there is no real battle or winner between the concept of “truth and lies.” In the end, both are equally important. Saihara both embraces his role as a detective and acknowledges the power that the truth has on people, while simultaneously acknowledging that lies (and therefore fiction) also has power and can be used to influence people and even inspire the world.

This character development is just absolutely fantastic to see, after watching Saihara struggle with so much pain and grief over the course of the game. Seeing a character actually acknowledge the importance of “lies” and “fiction” precisely because of how important of a motivator it can be to depressed, broken people is incredibly satisfying, and not something we often get in most stories. The fact that Saihara is so undeniably “weak,” that he isn’t the type of character you would usually expect to live to the end given how suicidal and deeply traumatized he is, makes his survival at the very end all the more of an uplifting message.

You don’t need to be “cured” to find a reason to live. You don’t have to magically wake up with the most positive, forward-facing outlook in life. You can be “weak” and depressed and hurting inside, and in the end, you still deserve to live, and have the opportunity to find meaning in your own life, whether it’s through truth or fiction.

This has gotten pretty long by now, but I hope I could make it clear exactly why I love Saihara so much. I understand people’s dissatisfaction with the protagonist-swap, and while I perfectly understand that he isn’t for everyone, he’s still a fantastically written character in my opinion, with a wonderful and meaningful arc of development that really resonated with me, as someone who also has struggled with similar mental health issues. I think the decision to do something extremely different from Naegi and Hinata was an excellent decision, and while I still love both of them as characters in their own right, Saihara is just so compelling both as an individual character and the protagonist of ndrv3.

Thank you for the question anon, and thank you to those of you who read to the end! I hope I could offer a decent character analysis!

[bestworstcase]

replies on this post ( @ngocthach4020​, numbering mine ):

Counterarguments:

1 - While I do agree that Zhan Tiri does a good job making it seem like she does care about Cassandra, the fact that Cassandra trusted a total stranger for over a year in itself makes her intelligence dubious at best. Not to mention Cassandra never asks the total stranger who mysteriously knows this much about her for her NAME during all that time, nor tries to find out anything else about her.

2 - Rapunzel is the heir to the throne. Of course she’s going to get more recognition than Cassandra. Cassandra herself was given multiple guard assignments throughout Season 1, cheered on by the people of Corona even when she came second place to Rapunzel at the Challenge of the Brave, and trusted with leading the assault against Varian in the season finale. This isn’t even getting into how she has plenty of opportunities at Ingvarr or Vardaros.

3 - The people of Vardaros focused on Rapunzel despite preferring Cassandra over her, yes, but that doesn’t change how they treated Rapunzel like dirt and Cassandra seemed to LIKE that.

4 - In the song I’d Give Anything, Rapunzel does acknowledge she wronged Cassandra.

5 - Just because Cassandra has legitimate grievances, it doesn’t excuse her trying to murder people who never did anything bad to her, which she does several times throughout Season 3.

firstly: i mean this in the kindest way possible but none of these are actually counter-arguments to the point i was making, which is that cassandra has very good reasons for her decision to trust zhan tiri and be emotionally vulnerable with her in the house of yesterday’s tomorrow. #2 is the only one relevant to the subject at hand, #1, #4, and #5 all concern things that happen after the incident being discussed and are thus irrelevant, and for #3 it’s unclear to me what point you think you’re countering and also, i have no idea what you’re talking about. 

but as with anything i have plenty of thoughts

#1: i have two thoughts about this one

the first is that this is, first and foremost, a writing issue. for whatever reason, the writing team was not interested in digging into cassandra’s character arc in s3, and they also were not interested in developing zhan tiri as a character, and they really were not interested in elaborating on the cass + zhan tiri friendship whatsoever. the end result of this lack of interest is that all of this character development is gestured at or loosely implied, and the vast majority of their relationship occurs off screen. we are shown their first meeting in relative detail, given a handful of brief glimpses that mostly comprise zhan tiri saying a line or two while cassandra listens and glares, and then given the end result of cass doing whatever zhan tiri tells her to do until a narratively convenient plot device is inserted to make her stop. the character development in this arc is extremely poor. no one is arguing that it isn’t. 

however my second thought is that, as a consequence, “cass travels with this person for almost a year without ever asking her name or trying to find out anything about her” is not, in fact, canon. that’s a matter of interpretation. (eg: i spent the entirety of the first half of the season assuming that of course cassandra knew who zhan tiri was, my reaction to CR in this regard boiled down to “well if cass didn’t already know that was zhan tiri she certainly does NOW,” RTTS did nothing to change my mind, and i was legitimately taken aback when OAH confirmed that cass just didn’t know. all of this was a plausible interpretation because so little of the cass + ziti relationship actually develops on screen. there is SO MUCH information missing.)

the point being: the only canonical information we have regarding zhan tiri’s identity and cassandra’s knowledge thereof is that cassandra doesn’t learn zhan tiri’s true identity until OAH. this does not preclude cassandra pressing the issue and zhan tiri lying to her by telling her a fake name, or feigning ignorance (a la “i’ve been trapped in that house for as long as i can remember and i have no idea where i came from or who i was before then,” which is absolutely a plausible cover story given the kind of things tromus pulled off whilst team corona was trapped in the HOYT and that cass herself has very recent experience with magical memory loss), or masquerading as an aspect of the moonstone itself (which is at least plausible enough that a good chunk of the fandom theorized that that’s who she was in the early half of the season). 

there is, frankly, no evidence to support interpreting cassandra’s “who are you?” as “i’ve literally never asked this question before” instead of “you told me things about yourself that i believed but it’s not adding up anymore so i’m confronting you on your lies” or vice versa, because... we just don’t know. i personally favor the latter interpretation over the former, because it makes more sense to me, but the text is unclear.

all of which is to say: the post was about why cassandra trusts zhan tiri initially, a questions which - as i said in the original post - is answered very clearly on screen. there is not enough canonical information about the development of their relationship afterwards to do anything more than speculative analysis, ie headcanon, regarding how zhan tiri cultivated that trust. for what it’s worth my personal assumption is that zhan tiri continued to act as she does in RR, fostering the emotional connection between herself and cassandra, and that shortly after the stinger in who’s afraid of the big bad wolf (ie their second proper meeting) she gave cass some explanation of who she was and what she wanted. i also make the general assumption that they shared a lot of conversations during the long walk back to corona because it is ludicrous to imagine otherwise. 

#2: cassandra is a commoner who was indoctrinated from birth with the cultural belief that the lives of the royal family are more important and have more inherent worth than her own. this only intensified once rapunzel returned to corona. cassandra exists in a system that chews her up and spits her out without so much as a thank you, and rapunzel is the center around which that system orbits. “rapunzel is the heir to the throne so of course she gets more recognition than cassandra, her servant” isn’t, in fact, a counterargument. that is exactly the problem. the world cass is in is inherently devalues her personhood. even her own father repeatedly prioritizes his duty to the monarchy over the wellbeing of his daughter.

in s1, cass is given guard duties which she is expected to fit around her already extremely busy schedule as a maid and lady-in-waiting to the princess, all without ever being made an actual member of the royal guard. she is given, in other words, all of the work and responsibility without any of the recognition, salary, benefits, or job security afforded to actual guards, and she is expected to do it during her scant time off. and she does it all with the constant unspoken threat of being sent to a convent against her will if she screws up looming over her head. that’s not... privilege or an opportunity, that’s flat out exploitation. 

even in SOTS, she is only put in command of the assault on old corona because most of the higher officers of the guard are out of commission, including the captain. and this happens mere hours after her father forcibly sends her to a convent, which really underscores what little autonomy cassandra has in her life and how capricious and arbitrary any “opportunities” that come her way in corona are. 

yes, she is better accepted in vardaros and the queen of ingvarr did at one point extend an invitation for her to join the battalion in ingvarr, but—again, that’s not really a counterargument. “cassandra would have to leave her home and move to a foreign kingdom in order to be treated with respect and live as her authentic self” is an enormous indictment of corona itself. 

#3: the vardarans are less than receptive to rapunzel attempting to force her sunny demeanor onto them and react with hostile indifference when she persists even after being told—by multiple people including vex, quaid, cassandra, and iirc eugene—that her behavior was not wanted or welcome. they make their opinions known without making any attempt to soften the blow, but—with the one exception of “ya clod” lady—none of them harass or bully her. i’m not sure where you’re getting “they treat her like dirt” from. they treat her like people who are annoyed with having someone else’s culture jammed down their throats by some foreign princess, which,

cass, by the same token, enjoys being surrounded by people she “clicks” with and with whom she can just relax and be herself, and she repeatedly cautions rapunzel against trying to make the vardarans act, think, and feel like coronans... in other words, she advises rapunzel to be culturally sensitive. and she’s right to do so. cass doesn’t start gloating about being better liked until after rapunzel lashes out at her and makes a huge deal out of cass’s events being different / more in tune with vardaran culture than her own. 

#4: things rapunzel does a full year after cass meets zhan tiri in the shell house are not relevant to the question of why cass trusts zhan tiri in the shell house and also lol no... she doesn’t? these are the lyrics of i’d give anything: 

[RAPUNZEL] I know we've grown apart It breaks my heart in two I miss your company The closeness we once knew

I won't pretend to know Just what you're going through But I'd give anything for you Yes, I'd give anything to relive everything with you So if you find that you're in darkness or despair Though you won't turn to me Please know I'll be right there Name any sacrifice I'll pay the price that's due 'Cause I'd give anything for you Yes, I'd give anything to relive everything we knew Yes, I'd give anything For you

i don’t... know how to read an expression of apology or even just acknowledgement of wrongdoing into this song because it... isn’t there. this is the exact same sentiment rapunzel spends the entirety of s3 expressing, which is that she misses her friendship with cass and would do anything to get it back and she doesn’t understand why cassandra is so upset. and frankly it really. does not reflect well on rapunzel as a character because cassandra explains her grievances very clearly at the beginning of the season: “my whole life, i’ve been cast aside for you. no more,” followed by, you know, the entirety of crossing the line.

like even just... compare rapunzel’s lines at the top of crossing the line:

[RAPUNZEL] This has to stop now Whatever it is that you're going through We'll fix it together, me and you Just like we've always done

to her lines in i’d give anything: 

I won't pretend to know Just what you're going through

there has been zero growth. zero recognition of the fact that cassandra has, by the time of i’d give anything, told rapunzel what she’s going through at least three times. (she laid everything out for rapunzel in the dark fortress after taking the moonstone; in gothel’s mirror room in TOTS, cassandra expressed her anguish over gothel’s abandonment and her feelings of inferiority; in OAH, cass used feldspar’s play to fumblingly express her difficulty sharing her feelings with rapunzel; and if you want to count the BVA rock telepathy and cassandra furiously screaming “i don’t follow your orders anymore!” in CR, that brings us to a total of five times that cassandra shares at least part of what she’s “going through” with rapunzel only for it to, apparently, go in one ear and out the other because by plus est raps is still like “what could POSSIBLY be GOING ON with cass.”)

the closest rapunzel ever comes to expressing her own wrongdoing is the mealy-mouthed “we both did things wrong” sentiment in OAH (“maybe you’re right and it is your fault, rapunzel... partially...”), which she then undermines by going essentially “but if you had just told me how you felt then none of this would have happened” (ignoring that cass... did... tell her how she felt... repeatedly... in s2...) and rapunzel acknowledging that it was probably annoying to deal with a sunny “flower child” when she was fresh out of the tower (which is true, but entirely glosses over her treatment of cass in s2). in the former instance it’s unclear what, if anything, rapunzel truly thinks she did wrong (certainly “not listening” isn’t it), and in the latter case she is apologizing for being ~too free-spirited~ in the first couple weeks after the tower which... wasn’t even the problem back then and certainly wasn’t the core problem in s2. and by her own admission in i’d give anything rapunzel still doesn’t even understand why cassandra was upset in the first place, let alone how she may have contributed to it. 

like the utter dearth of development between cass and zhan tiri, this is ultimately a writing problem that reflects poorly on the character, rather than a character problem per se. for whatever reason, the writing team didn’t want to examine the legitimacy of cassandra’s actual grievances—which by extension meant that they couldn’t write rapunzel as having any awareness of those grievances, so the end result is cass obsessing over gothel and rapunzel spending the entire season baffled, just baffled, about what cass is so worked up about, all while sadly pining for the friendship they used to have and vocalizing a desire to get it back but simultaneously ignoring everything cass says about why she’s upset, because rapunzel listening to cass would require rapunzel to genuinely wrestle with her own role in what happened, which isn’t possible because that would loop us back around to all those legitimate grievances that the writers just didn’t want to (or couldn’t) deal with.

but tldr no at no point in the narrative of s3 does rapunzel genuinely acknowledge the actual things she did wrong by cass.

#5: i’m genuinely not sure why you think this is even relevant at all, unless you somehow read “cass did nothing wrong” into the argument of “it is both natural and reasonable for cass to trust the one (1) person who appears to give a damn about how she feels,” which i think says more about you than it does about me. 

[gascon-en-exil]

I can't put my finger on it, but Mercedes and Jeritza's supports and ending bothers me. It feels like an insult to Mercedes character and like they coddled Jeritza, as if the ending make up for what he did somehow.

The massive irony in this is that his Mercedes ending is the only one, including the two that were added in Wave 4, that punishes Jeritza in any way for his crimes. I’m more surprised that there’s any scenario where he lives that he serves any prison time at all, being one of Edelgard’s most useful minions. He’s noted to be hard to control, so maybe he killed someone the emperor didn’t want him to? Still, all of Jeritza’s supports go to ridiculous lengths to try to soften him, but you’re right that Mercedes’s may be the worst when so much of their dialogue is taken up by her inability to look past the sweet boy Emile used to be for the cosplaying serial killer with severe mental issues that he is now.

To sum up my feelings on Jeritza, let’s talk about retainers and the two Part 2-exclusive characters. Gilbert as a unit is almost a clone of Dedue. Yes, Dedue is better because unmatched early game tankiness + brawling proficiency for grappler/war master > riding proficiency for great knight, but nonetheless Gilbert is clearly intended to perform a similar role in your army. This is only because AM had to write Dedue out of its Part 2 because he and Dimitri were too gay for each other for the self-insert fantasy to work properly, so Dedue is turned into a sacrifice that the player has to opt into bringing back and Gilbert is brought in to fill the gap. Despite this however, Gilbert’s characterization and story arc are completely unlike Dedue’s, and they even have friction in their support lines over their loyalties to Dimitri and Gilbert’s past failures. I strongly dislike how AM handles both of them, particularly as they’re two of the three playable units exclusive to that route (and because, let’s be honest, we’re talking about armors here - they were always going to be lower tier anyway), but as characters I enjoy how their stories play off one another and how important each of them are in their own ways to Dimitri’s past and to his ongoing development. I don’t resent Gilbert for taking Dedue’s place in the story and on the battlefield; I would have just preferred an AM where they could have both been in there as roughly equal participants barring that Dedue is basically married to Dimitri and Gilbert is not.

Now, Jeritza on the other hand is a fantastically fun unit and always something to look forward to in my CF runs. He gets so many fun toys to play with - Mastermind, Counterattack, Darting Blow on a male unit - and while there’s a bit of crossover with Hubert’s role (death knight is a physically-oriented dark knight which is Hubert’s best endgame class) they play very differently even apart from the availability gap. Instead it’s in characterization where most of their similarities lie, and there’s no contest: Jeritza is an inferior Hubert in every respect. Both are patricidal murderers and kidnappers who wear evil as an aesthetic, but Hubert owns all that with a sinister panache and total sanity (if no regard for moral scruples whatsoever) and he’s even a better-realized bisexual character to boot. The attempts to rationalize and soften Jeritza’s actions with stuff like ice cream and roses and justifying the patricide with the threat of (step)parental incest feel painfully contrived, and it doesn’t help that half of them are stealing from Edelgard’s playbook on how to look like a sympathetic waifu when you’re out grinding the world beneath your heel. Others have dissected Jeritza’s mental situation much more thoroughly than I could, and suffice to say that his claim to having a second personality driven by bloodlust doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. He’s clearly not well, but the multiple personality thing just comes off as a weak attempt to make him somehow not culpable for being a serial killer*. All the characters who support Jeritza come off looking worse because they go to ridiculous lengths to downplay how terrible of a person he is. 

Jeritza’s one saving grace is how entertaining he is to use in battle, which goes a fair way toward distinguishing him from Gilbert, but in every other way he’s awful - possibly my least favorite character in FE16, if I’m being honest. Also his voice acting makes him sound perpetually catatonic and/or high.

*Unrelated tangent, but after taking a closer look at Jeritza in CF I have to conclude that the infamous “hunting grounds” remark in his Byleth support is not referring to a literal Hunger Games-style setup where Edelgard throws people she doesn’t like into the woods for Jeritza to hunt down and kill (while Hubert magically TiVos it so he can rewatch the goriest bits in super slow motion to take notes and/or jack off to). Jeritza says during exploration that he doesn’t care about the Empire or Edelgard’s cause but is only in the war because it gives him the opportunity to kill people relatively uninhibited. I think therefore that the hunting grounds line is meant to be him speaking metaphorically about the war itself in the overblown dramatic way that he often uses as the Death Knight. The alternative is a lot funnier in a very dark way, but I don’t think it’s something Edelgard has come up with (yet - Hubert’s got the proposal drawn up on his desk and is just waiting to present it to her, although of course he leaves out the potential for wank material out of respect for Her Majesty).

[razberryyum]

undefined

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 10, Part 2 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 29, 30 and 48…kinda]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+ 🐰🐰+ 🐰+ 🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰+🐰

Continued from Part 1:

I love this scene from the episode so much because for me it was absolute proof that Lan Zhan had totally fallen for Wei Ying: he actually SMILES because of him...not once, but TWICE...  

...and then the way he says good-bye to Wei Ying just about murdered me with sweetness. Even though he did smile once before, during the lantern raising moment at Cloud Recesses, one can argue that he was just reacting to the picture of the bunny because he loves bunnies; but here, there is no question whatsoever that he is smiling because of Wei Ying. I think it shows that despite maintaining a generally stoic façade in front of Wei Ying, his heart was already captured by him. Personally, I still don’t think he was actually in love Wei Wuxian yet but definitely crushing hard on him.

When I first time watched this scene, I remember being a downright distressed that Wei Ying was missing all of Lan Zhan’s little signals here because he was too busy getting drunk. At the time it felt like an opportunity lost for another lovely WangXian moment, but now I understand that the purpose of this scene really was to give us a glimpse at Lan Zhan’s feelings. That’s another aspect about The Untamed that I appreciate a lot: the fact that we are getting to see Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s love story from Lan Zhan’s point of view. In the novel, the focus was mostly on Wei Ying‘s point of view, which makes sense of course since Wei Wuxian is the main protagonist of the story, but I think by giving us Lan Zhan’s side of the story and allowing us to see in real time what he was experiencing emotionally actually adds to the poignancy of their story because for me it basically reinforces how helpless Lan Zhan was: in terms of falling in love and then eventually in not being able to do anything to save the person he fell in love with. I felt the tragedy of his situation so much more as a result.  

Odds and Ends

My first impression of Nie Mingjue: damn, he looks like a hardass. I immediately felt bad for Nie Huaisang, it’s no wonder he was so afraid of his older brother. Compared to his novel and donghua counterpart, I think he was pretty well-casted. Even though Wang Yizhou had a relatively limited number of scenes, he had a pretty strong presence so that I couldn’t help but pay attention to him whenever he was on-screen. Word is the second online movie might actually be centered on the Nie brothers, which means we might get to see much more of him and Ji Li’s NHS. Although at first I was just a teeny bit disappointed that we might not be getting more of the Yi City boys’ story instead, the more I think about it, the more I actually like the idea of getting more of the Nie brothers’ story because I actually don’t remember if much was said about them in the novel other than just their basic introduction, so I would love to see more of their past and their relationship. I think it’s fascinating that even though on the surface NHS is utterly afraid of his brother, he obviously intensely loves and respects NMJ at the same time considering the lengths he went through to avenge his death. I hope we get to see NHS’s side of the events in the live action, especially during the 16 years between Wei Ying’s death and resurrection when he realized Jin Guangyao’s true nature and guilt, and then started to put his grand revenge plan into motion. I hope this also means we might get to meet the real Mo Xuanyu before he gave up his body and soul to bring Wei Ying back. It would be so damn cool if Xiao Zhan played him as well! If they are indeed constructing these two specials on scenes they’ve already shot but couldn’t fit into the series due to pacing issues, there might very well be a chance of XZ playing Mo Xuanyu. Holy crap, that means we might get to see Xiao Zhan play a FOURTH personification in the show, since young Wei Ying, his Yiling Patriarch and Wei Ying-Mo Xuanyu are already three distinct personalities! Oh my God, I’m getting excited, but I really shouldn’t yet since it’s all just rumors and my own wishful thinking now. Guess all I can do is keep my fingers crossed that that’s the direction they’re heading for the second special.  

By the way, I just have to mention something about the captions on the show: whoever inserted those captions with the characters’ names was clearly on speed or something because they would appear and disappear so damn quickly there was hardly a chance to even read them. I’m surprised I even got Nie Mingjue’s so clearly in the screenshot because usually half the name would be gone before the rest of it had even finished appearing. It’s a minor technical issue but it did bug me at the beginning because I was trying to read the damn names.

Seeing the Twin Prides of Yunmeng actually acting like twins who are completely in sync (giggling at how NHS is reacting to his big bro) just makes my heart feel so heavy now. They will never be like this again.  Makes me want to cry.  

Lan Zhan’s look was interesting though. Whenever I see him watching Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng, I sometimes wonder if he’s slightly jealous of the bond they share or of the fun they’re having. Or maybe it’s neither and he just enjoys watching him laugh and smile. Honestly with Lan Zhan, it might be a combination of all three.

These three gossiping dorks. I love them. They’re just so adorable when they get together; I love their interactions and I wish this wasn’t the beginning of the end for all the fun between them cuz there’s really not much more time left for any shenanigans after this.

I also love that Xue Yang is like cracking up in the foreground there but it’s not even certain if it’s because he can hear what they’re saying (about Meng Yao/JGY) or if he’s just being his usual psycho self. I really like that even when Xue Yang is not the focus of the scene, Wang Haoxuan (who portrays Xue Yang of course) is still constantly acting and reacting. I’ve seen folks criticize him for doing that, but I think that’s a little unfair since that had to have been the direction given to him. Not to mention, I think it’s entirely reasonable for Xue Yang to be extra like that, all the time.  

I don’t hate Jin Guangyao, similar to how I feel about Xue Yang, I simply can’t hate him, but I do absolutely hate what he did to Wei Ying, especially when I see this scene again and am reminded of how Wei Ying had also treated him with sincerity and respect, just like Big Bro Xichen did. And yet, while JGY was only protective and caring toward LXC, he basically chose to fuck Wei Ying over. I know the difference is in whom he loved, but still, damn him for that. Wei Ying deserved better from him.   

This was an interesting scene because of how great a risk Jin Guangyao was putting himself in. Wen Zhuliu could have totally accidentally killed him. Even though his aim originally was probably just to injure Nie Mingjue, JGY is not as strong as NMJ so a strike that may only injure the other man could have easily been fatal to JGY. So I guess in this instance, JGY’s intent on saving his master was sincere? But that’s still such a HUGE gamble. He is really so fascinating as a character. And his relationship with NMJ is fascinating as well because there were obviously genuine feelings between them as well—NMJ was freaking crying when he was banishing JGY—and yet the way JGY ultimately ended NMJ’s life was so damn brutal. I know there’s a fine line between love and hate but because their lives continued to be intertwined afterwards, I wonder when exactly it was the two of them crossed over to hate completely. I mean, I have an idea, which I will eventually give voice to, but I still feel a little uncertainty because of certain events that happen immediately afterwards.  

I wish we got to see just how Jin Guangyao found and rescued Big Bro Xichen and oh my God would I LOVE to see the time they spent together, presumably alone, in hiding while Lan Xichen was recovering from his wounds. I feel like we were royally deprived of some serious XiYao time by the live drama. Considering the fact that they seem to thoroughly support this ship, I’m honestly surprised that they didn’t use this opportunity to creatively fill in that big blank. I mean, instead of giving us all those unnecessary scenes of Wen Ruohan and his stupid zombies, they should have given us some XiYao-in-hiding scenes instead dammit.  

Questions I Still Have

Why didn’t Wen Zhuliu go for NMJ’s golden core? Especially since he clearly had an opening when NMJ was busy with the injured JGY? Also, how strong is Wen Chao supposed to be that he could even injure NMJ that seriously? I now he was already weakened and Wen Chao did attack from the back like a coward, but still, his cultivation level can’t be higher than NMJ so I’m just a little surprise his hit made any impact at all, especially since he seems mostly weaksauce in all other instances. This whole fight scene was just a little weird to me. And also, damn is JGY a shitty liar at that point. I actually laughed out loud when he full on denied that he was the one who killed that dude (who I thought was a total dick tbh so I kinda don’t blame JGY for killing his ass) even though he was still holding on to the murder weapon which was dripping with the guy’s blood. Guess he still hadn’t perfected his lying skills. 

Overall Episode Rating: 9 Lil Apples out of 10

[kob131]

https://izetarion.tumblr.com/post/189410998186/theres-two-versions-of-adam-taurus?is_liked_post=1

Monty!Adam: Created by Monty Oum, a minority. Focused on the Faunus, while wanting to get back at the humans for their mistreatment of his kind, a man of revolution who was focused on the safety of his people - seen as how he was strong-armed into working with Cinder Fall after getting her maiden powers, wasn’t so psychopathic that he would turn on his own kind and kill humans out of sheer glee (seen with Cinder and her lot, as he gave them a chance to leave), prioritizes the cause over a cat girl, who was his student - sharing a “student-mentor” relationship as established by the show’s creator as well as said cat girl (“Forget it! It’s time I headed back to Mistral!”), has a legitimate reason to hate humans - especially those affiliated with the Schnee Dust Company, very charismatic, somewhat of a fallen mentor figure given the way the catgirl described him, his cause steadily consuming him (“I had someone I care for, who changed…”), is one of the most popular male characters in the series in the first half of RWBY - despite having little screentime, has an aesthetically-pleasing look to him, compared to DMC!Vergil and Jetstream Sam - two of the most iconic video game characters, in terms of looks and fighting style, Adam Taurus fans signs his adoption papers so that Miles and Kerry would never touch him. People use this version in their fanfics and RPs, turning him into a redeemable person while still keeping his morally grey aspects. Tauradonna is more mutual than lovey-dovey.

Okay so let’s break this down and show this is bullshit.

“Focused on the Fanaus-”

He is never shown to actually help any Fanaus and all White Fang activity, ESPECIALLY in Volumes 1 and 2, revolves around fucking over human. In fact, considering Tuskon, the fact that Vale does not have discrimination against Fanaus and V1 E1 openly says a peaceful protest of Fanaus was interrupted by the WF (” In other news, this Saturday's Faunus Civil Rights protest turned dark when members of the White Fang disrupted the ceremony. The once peaceful organization has now disrupted...”): Adam has acted AGAINST the Fanaus since LITERALLY the first episode.

“A man of revolution who was focused on the safety of his people-”

Which is why, in an EARLIER episode than the one you cite (Volume 2 Episode 12 meaning MONTY was in charge here as we know since he was cited with putting in the Raven scene in the SAME EPISODE against Miles and Kerry’s wishes): Adam gave no shits about his men DYING when he openly said he’d convince them to work with Cinder without so much as a glare at her. BTW, Adam specifically cited Cinder being HUMAN for the reason why he didn’t want to kill his men (’I won’t sacrifice my men for a human cause’). If the human part wasn’t the reason why he wasn’t agreeing with Cinder, why would his dialogue not be ‘I won’t sacrifice my men, no matter what.”?

“ wasn’t so psychopathic that he would turn on his own kind and kill humans out of sheer glee (seen with Cinder and her lot, as he gave them a chance to leave)-”

Nuh uh, in the same Volume Adam out right STABS Blake and says he wants to destroy everything she loves, in the previous Volume he didn’t care about his men dying and said nothing about trying to DESTROY VALE killing THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of people (including FANAUS) and at the VERY beginning, he tried to blow up a train car full of people who hadn’t even raised a finger against him even though, as Blake shows, he could have detached the train.

“ prioritizes the cause over a cat girl, who was his student - sharing a “student-mentor” relationship as established by the show’s creator as well as said cat girl (“Forget it! It’s time I headed back to Mistral!”),”

Except that, again. Adam STABS Blake and outright shows malice towards her in the SAME VOLUME, Arkos shows mentorship and romance are NOT exclusive and even THAT line is delivered with Adam looking furious clearly showing he’s hung up about Blake.

“ has a legitimate reason to hate humans - especially those affiliated with the Schnee Dust Company-”

Not really, especially since Adam was shown to be selfish in previous Volumes so why would he care about other people? In fact, the ‘fuckboi’ Adam you’ll bitch about later has the reason to hate humans, especially those with the SDC. This version, since he’s apparently completely seperate, is just racist.

“very charismatic”

Never shown OR said. Just projecting.

“ somewhat of a fallen mentor figure given the way the catgirl described him,”

Notice how here they don’t actually say WHAT the description is despite KNOWING about quotes? That’s because there’s nothing actually said in the show that is ambiguously about a mentorship.

“ his cause steadily consuming him (“I had someone I care for, who changed…”)”

Doesn’t prove anything AND it coinsides with ‘fuckboi’ Adam.

“ is one of the most popular male characters in the series in the first half of RWBY - despite having little screentime,”

So is Kirito, wanna guess what V1-2 Adam and Kirito have in common? They don’t have defined personality and their popularity came from people projecting onto them.

“ has an aesthetically-pleasing look to him, compared to DMC!Vergil and Jetstream Sam - two of the most iconic video game characters, in terms of looks and fighting style”

Both of which are incredibly common in anime.

“ Adam Taurus fans signs his adoption papers so that Miles and Kerry would never touch him”

Too bad according to you, they weren’t the ones who ruined Adam. No no, your issues, as I have shown, existed with MONTY. So you better start smack talking him... what’s that, if you did that you couldn’t profit off his name and his fanboys would rip you to shreds? Maybe you shouldn’t be a disingenuous fuck.

‘ People use this version in their fanfics and RPs,’

And people turn Jaune into a generic self insert and Ruby into an edgy angsty psuedo anti hero- that means nothing.

“ turning him into a redeemable person while still keeping his morally grey aspects.”

So basically making him a generic anti villian instead of a tragic case of someone not being able to get over their past tramua.

“ Tauradonna is more mutual than lovey-dovey.”

And it’s more ‘abusive’ than mutual.

Fuckboi!Adam: Created by Miles and Kerry, two amateurish white guys noted for writing sub-par comedy segments and part of the upper echelons of Rooster Teeth. Born out of the criticism of “show, don’t tell aspect” of the show - barely having any visible evidence of Faunus racism, born out of the two admitting they couldn’t write a racism sub-plot - despite having the money and resources to do so, established as an abuser by CRWBY and demonized heavily by them and the fanbase despite little evidence of such prior to because of catgirl’s various descriptions of him pointing towards someone “dear” (“More of a mentor, actually…”),  “hElLo, My LoVe!” “tHe bElLaDoNnAs HaVe CaUsEd Me NoThInG bUt GrIeF!”, “sO i JuSt wAsN’t GoOd EnOuGh FoR yOu.”, A fedora wearing crazed nazi ex-boyfriend, DMC-Reboot!Vergil but with the edgelord turned to 11, “Tauradonna? More like Tauradon’t!”, How many zippers does your dumbass outfit need? lol, Why did your voice crack?, Even his own VA hate him, Is an incel-ass bitch, Gaston apparently, Lol he’s attempting the birdbox challenge, That stupid ass face reveal did nothing as the damage was done, The fandom - primarily BMBLB, and CRWBY sing of his death (“Ding-dong the bitch is dead!”) - with the BMBLB fandom using his death as major evidence of their ship becoming canon. Also, his death caused such dissonance in the fandom that shit hit the fan in all kinds of ways, not to mention his death started the slow deterioration of RT - embodying the spite element that Blake attributed him, probably because he was pissed at CRWBY to the point where his hatred manifested as a curse - causing their various injustices against their employees to come out and be heavily criticized as a result (No, seriously, RT is visibly crumbling shortly after his demise).

“ Created by Miles and Kerry-”

And yet will somehow completely overlap with the Volumes Monty had the most control over.

“ two amateurish white guys”

Miles is part Mexician.

“ noted for writing sub-par comedy segments”

While Monty is noted for never writing whatsoever so i guess that means you think Miles and Kerry are better.

“ Born out of the criticism of “show, don’t tell aspect” of the show - barely having any visible evidence of Faunus racism, born out of the two admitting they couldn’t write a racism sub-plot - despite having the money and resources to do so,”

The criticism being located SOLELY in Volumes 1 and 2 Aka MONTY.

“ established as an abuser by CRWBY and demonized heavily by them and the fanbase despite little evidence of such prior to because of catgirl’s various descriptions of him pointing towards someone “dear” (“More of a mentor, actually…”)’“

You know...despite the fact that every single aspect of Adam’s character has been shown WITH MONTY, as I showed above.

“ “hElLo, My LoVe!” “

Located in Volume 3, which you cite as a Volume where ‘Monty!’ Adam existed.

“ “tHe bElLaDoNnAs HaVe CaUsEd Me NoThInG bUt GrIeF!” “

Huh, if you spelled “Belladonna” as “Miles and Kerry”, that sounds an awful lot like you...oh

“ “sO i JuSt wAsN’t GoOd EnOuGh FoR yOu.” “

They scream as Rooster Teeth ignores them.

“ A fedora wearing crazed nazi ex-boyfriend”

Never actually shown wearing a fedora or ever showing any personbality traits associated with it...but then again, you know what they say about mirrors...

Also at least it’s better than ‘blank edgy emo teen’ he was in Volume 3 which you loved apparently.

“ DMC-Reboot!Vergil but with the edgelord turned to 11″

Uh oh, Op’s brain rotted so he can’t actually make arguments....oh wait, he was always like that.

“ “Tauradonna? More like Tauradon’t!” “

So basically ‘wah wah wah. my otp is not canon’.

“ How many zippers does your dumbass outfit need?”

Dunno, why is wearing a tux as a freedom fighter and sticks out like a sore thumb?

“ Why did your voice crack?”

Why did he sound fourteen in Volume 3?

“ Even his own VA hate him,”

Ever since Volume 3 which you cite as “Monty!Adam”

“ Is an incel-ass bitch, Gaston apparently”

Or you know, a Beats who never grew up and never became a better person. But who needs insight?

“ Lol he’s attempting the birdbox challenge”

*insert Family Guy skit here*

“ hat stupid ass face reveal did nothing as the damage was done”

They say as most of the fandom did a 180 on how they view his character and gave him more justification for his actions than “Monty” Adam ever had.

“ he fandom - primarily BMBLB, and CRWBY sing of his death (“Ding-dong the bitch is dead!”)”

Which considering he was meant to be hated is a GOOD thing.

“ with the BMBLB fandom using his death as major evidence of their ship becoming canon”

Basically ‘wah wah wah make MY otp canon”

“ Also, his death caused such dissonance in the fandom that shit hit the fan in all kinds of ways”

all kinds being two ways: accepting it and throwing a fit because you didn’t get your way. Also inadvertently justifying wasps being assholes because they did the same thing during Volumes 4 and 5.

“ t to mention his death started the slow deterioration of RT - embodying the spite element that Blake attributed him, probably because he was pissed at CRWBY to the point where his hatred manifested as a curse - causing their various injustices against their employees to come out and be heavily criticized as a result (No, seriously, RT is visibly crumbling shortly after his demise).”

And said curse infected many of his fans where they all became monsters after his death like say, using the suffering of others AND THE DEAD *cough* MONTY *cough* all over a fictional character that didn’t even exist because as I have shown Adam is completely consistent with his characterization from the Black Trailer to his death. Something I am certain OP knows deep down because half way through this point they completely abandon any attempt at actually proving what they are saying to instead spout a bunch of memes in a vain attempt to appeal to people’s confirmation bias because they can’t actually make an argument to prove Adam had changed AT ALL, especially since their obsessive behavior, attempt at creating an abusive/parasitic relationship with RT and their own childishness has all but prove Adam is in no way unrealistic as they act like him except with NO justification whatsoever.

But sure, scream loud enough and people will think you’re right. That hasn’t BACKFIRED before.

[sociallyawkwardsailor]

Words: Sometimes I Cannot Make Them

I woke up in a bit of reflective mood this morning, and wanted to write it out before I forgot or lost motivation.   I want to add that the following is by no means me griping or complaining, or needing the usual “pls get help here’s resources” line.  This serves primarily as a way for me to work out why I feel what I do, and an explanation to others as a bonus.  So basically I am doing therapy/self-care.  Anyway.

As I may have mentioned previously, the most evident (and lingering) effect is having troubles with my speech.  Now, usually, yes it is unnoticeable and not a thing that happens all the time (thankfully).  My sarcastic, dry wit has not suffered, and if anything has gotten better!  But when it does, it can be very frustrating for me to deal with for several reasons.

The biggest is due to the fact that I’ve always been better with words and language than with numbers.  Writing papers was never a problem for me, and I’d always been very articulate.  While I can’t say if writing a paper is still easy due to not having had to do so since I finished my associate’s in 2010, actually speaking the words is sometimes the issue and some days it just doesn’t happen.  The best way I can describe it is my thoughts are floating around in the half-soup that is the word part of my brain, and the neurons are firing trying to do work but it’s like Snorlax is blocking the path and it’s taking 5ever to find the detour to my mouth.  It’s frustrating because I know the words that I need to make but I cannot get them in the right order, come out clearly (stuttering), or to even make sense.  I sometimes want to resort to drawing a picture which would probably look like my word soup because I have zero talent in that department whatsoever, or using more primitive language, such as “the thing you get when you push the button on the handset but you don’t speak” (key).  Of course this leads to people, especially other technicians, to wonder how the hell I am in the rate I’m in, let alone the Navy.  

As you can imagine, it’s incredibly frustrating for someone who’s never had an issue with this before, and especially in a rate where asking questions is more often than not seen as either lack of knowledge (which is fine, not knowing stuff is not bad; I don’t know a LOT of stuff) or confidence (which is unfortunately looked down on and subsequently taken advantage of).

Most of the time my questioning is due to me needing clarification, either on what I am being asked to do, or how to do the thing, because if I have never done the thing before, I need to learn how to do the thing, especially with respect to any sort of software/cyber-type stuff (I’m not a “computer geek” at all which is why I paid Verizon to set up my Fios and not myself).  Sometimes it’s because what is being requested of me is being done in a very vague way and I point blank don’t understand what it is that’s needed.  And sometimes, I do in fact need it broken down “Barney style” because I am not an officer and fluffy language is unnecessary.  

I realize that for anyone in a supervisory position this can be annoying at best and I often feel I am a burden because of this, or get the feeling that they think it’s best to just not ask me and instead pawn me off to do menial tasks because I am “dumb/useless.”

And that is why I will quickly tell anyone who has the audacity to think  I will ever be Sailor of the (insert whatever here) that they are out their got dang mind.

[fuck-customers]

I actually love everything about this

I'm a front end supervisor at a grocery store. We're really bad about cross training in that almost no one knows how to do anything other than cashier, so when the service desk associate has to go on break I have to cover the desk while also attending to my supervisor duties (turning keys, handling any customer issues at the registers, assigning incoming cashiers to registers, making sure everyone is getting their breaks, getting baby formula out of the lock case, etc.). It's only for 15 minutes but the multitasking gets HECTIC and I feel like I'm being pulled in 5 different directions.

I'd just sent the service desk associate on break when this older woman approached the desk with a loaf of bread, hamburger meat, and some paper towels. She puts the stuff down on the desk and asks for some cigarettes. So I infer that she's going to make me ring her out. Great. idk about other stores but at mine the service desk can get super busy so we really don't appreciate people bringing their purchases up expecting to be rung out. Even if they only have a couple things it holds the line up for other people who can only get what they need done at the desk, whereas if you're just buying stuff you can go to a register or self checkout.

So I go to start ringing her out and she tells me that the bread and meat is going to be separate from the paper towels and cigarettes. Great. I ring up the bread and meat and she tries to hand me a debit card so I have to direct her to the pin pad that's right in front of her. She's moving at the rate of a particularly slow snail and inserts it. A man gets in line behind her and I ask him what he needs help with on the off chance it's something simple like him wanting to ask where something is but unfortunately for him he wants to do Western Union so I have to finish with the woman first.

She's having issues at the pin pad because she asked for cash back but is trying to run it as credit. I explain to her that if she wants cash back she needs to put in a pin. She grumbles and starts digging through her purse and eventually pulls out a little notebook. She leisurely pages through it, apparently looking for her pin, no regard whatsoever for the man waiting in line behind her. A cashier calls out for a key so I excuse myself, telling them I'll be right back.

When I get back she's STILL flipping through the notebook. She eventually finds a number and types it in but my screen tells me it's the wrong pin. Great. I tell her it was the wrong pin and to try again. She flips through her notebook some more. Eventually she gives up and says she just won't get cash back, so I have to cancel the payment and have her reinsert. I have to stop her from trying to request cash back again.

It's at this time that the phone rings, which I have to answer. It's a service desk rule that the phones need to be answered even if you're already with a customer. So I pick it up and am thrust into the most excruciating conversation of my life. The woman on the other end launches into this story about how she was in the store earlier that morning and how the service desk associate was just SO RUDE to her!!! I ask her if she'd like to speak to a manager about it and she tells me no, that she already talked to the store manager. But she wants me to pass on a MESSAGE to the service desk associate.

I interrupt her because a) I don't know who the opening service desk associate was and b) I'm not passing on some petty message. I tell her that I'm not sure who she'd encountered that morning (I could easily find out, but she doesn't need to know that) and that if she already talked to the store manager about it that the associate would already have been "counseled", so there was no point. She's not taking no for an answer and just keeps talking. "I just want you to tell her that I talked to the store manager and HE said that I get to use the phone WHENEVER I WANT and that I don't have to WAIT IN LINE or ASK normally I only have to use it once to call my mother but sometimes like today I have to use it more than once because there was something wrong with the car's tire and I don't like that she was RUDE to me and I'm ALLOWED to use the phone I just want you to TELL HER THAT!" And that is actually a highly condensed version of what she said.

I'm dying because this woman is just spewing this never ending crap, the most boring story I've ever heard, and it sounds like a verbal run-on sentence because she never pauses (how does she breathe?) and I have absolutely no intention of passing on her stupid message to anyone. I'm also dying because the slowpoke woman in front of me is clearly super displeased that she's having to wait on this and it's fucking hilarious. I'm on the verge of laughing. She's getting a taste of her own medicine and it's oh so sweet.

I can't get the phone woman to stop and at some point the service desk associate comes back from her break. She starts helping the Western Union guy (thank GOD because that poor man did nothing wrong). She can't help the woman because the transaction is on my terminal and we have rules™ about that (actually I probably could have gotten her to finish the woman's transaction first but fuck her tbh). And unfortunately for the woman, the phone doesn't stretch far enough for me to me to try to deal with her transaction at the same time. I glance over at the screen and see that the card went through but that it looks like she'd accidentally changed the amount to something that didn't cover the entire total (of course she did), so some money was still due.

I'm finding the situation hilarious but I also am 100% genuinely trying to get the lady on the phone to stop. I ask her AGAIN if she wants to talk to a manager and she declines. I straight up tell her that I'm really busy, I have a line forming (someone else had gotten behind the woman and my coworker was still busy doing the Western Union transaction), that I'm not going to pass on her message because it would be unprofessional considering she'd already talked to the store manager about this. The piece de resistance? She's like, "Oh, well do you want me to call back later when it's not busy?"

This woman is the personification of obtuseness. The patron saint. Monuments should be erected in her honor. I realize I'm going to have to stop pretending to be polite and I tell her in no uncertain terms that I am absolutely not passing on any message to the opening service desk associate, that she can talk to a manager if she wants (she doesn't), but that I need to GO and have a nice day! And I hang up. Like, sorry not sorry but you're being ridiculous. From what I could gather this woman likes to just barge up to the service desk and help herself to our phones without asking first which is RUDE AS FUCK so I don't fault my coworker at all for giving her some flak.

I apologize to the woman in front of me who's been waiting, even though I believe she got exactly what she deserved. Came and held up someone else with her bullshit, got the same thing in return. I lay it on thick though, telling her I am SO sorry and that I just couldn't get that woman off the phone! I get her to pay for the rest of her first transaction and ring out her second and she's on her way, just as inconvenienced as she felt comfortable inconveniencing others. If you want one-on-one hand holding attention from a cashier while paying for your groceries you need to go to a register, booboo. It would have been faster for you. The service desk is for handling specific types of transactions and issues. It's not here so you can avoid waiting in line at a register.

🍒 Cherry on top: She ended up calling the store a couple hours later to complain about me. Told the service desk associate that I shouldn't have answered the phone and that I was rude for making her wait. Literally the best way this story could have ended.

[it-stheaulifeforme]

40 to 60

awwwwww yiSSSSSSS

40. What is the wildest thing your OC has done?

Not exactly one for being super wild, but they have a habit of underestimating energy drinks and drink quite a few of them, or when they get a particularly good haul they sometimes spend it on cool shiny rocks. They can be quite careless like that, but r o c k s.

41. What is your OCs motto about life?

They don’t tend to have a lot of mottos about life, just trying to take it easy, understand things and see the sights. They try not to worry about the future, life has been out of control enough. They tend to cross bridges when they come to them whilst also being prepared; it’s the past they have problems with. They try and remember what their mother taught them, especially when it comes to using violence. They’re not of the strongest disposition but they’ll only fight when they have to. Life shouldn’t have to be about struggle and suffering, you shouldn’t have to put up unnecessary fights in order to learn and grow. You just gotta take care of yourself.

Of course, when Ego reveals a very horrible truth, violence is pretty much the key, alongside the assertion of human connection and individuality. The latter part is just as important.

42. Does your OC drink coffee or tea?

Coffee, but their eyes usually get caught by energy drinks and interesting sodas. Which certainly gives them an interesting buzz and they really like collecting the cans or bottles. Makes them think of the differences compared back to Earth, which can make them terribly nostalgic.

43. Who is your OCs biggest hero?

Their mother. They have the biggest connection to them and admire them a lot; her values have stayed with them despite everything. They often despair at what happened to her and how things could’ve been, feeling very much cheated but still wanting to carry around her memory and values because she was the most stable figure in their life that meant a great deal. Like anybody would, it becomes absolutely soul destroying that you’re now stuck on a planet alone with a father that killed your mother, where they find even more of a reason to keep her memory and that connection alive, in more ways than one.

44. What colour eyes does your OC have?

They take a lot after their mother and have predominantly hazel-green eyes. I feel it made a lot of sense because they started off as a self insert, and they’re very close to their mother. It very much represents nature and growth as opposed to Ego’s destruction of everything to remake it in his image and it’s very clear that they’re not whatsoever like their father at all, in the end. I thought this would be suitable symbolism where we get to see a real growth in their abilities and more of an understanding of a connection with their mother.

45. Does your OC like reading?

Since they’re usually cruising space in their own ship, it’s one thing they like to do. Apart from listen to their music, they manage to have one book from Earth that was in their bag when they were abducted and that’s the War of the Worlds (in a clearly more battered condition) which their mother bought for them after they got interested in the musical version. It takes their mind off of things, which browsing libraries on different planets also happens to do. Especially Xandar, which they found to be the most peaceful and easy to reside in.

46. Is your OC loyal?

Well...they have enough trust issues and they’re more of a loner, so it’d take a lot for them to be convinced before loyalty comes into it. They’re already cynical enough by the time when they meet Ego, especially since they have a sense they aren’t aware of them not feeling great when someone of a particularly evil nature is nearby (which they always chalked up to allergies or eating the wrong thing - it’s not so bad in general but since Ego is on such a terrible level of evil they don’t suspect any connection until it’s too late). It probably helps that they’re only half Celestial but get more from their mother (which is symbolic in of itself that they were the ones that inherited the gene and somehow still get a good deal from their mother, that clearly meant something).

So, frankly, they’d rather avoid the company of others in general, and a whole lot of repressed feelings and trust issues just kinda explode out by the time they’re with Ego. There’s a lot of trauma they’ve had to deal with, and that’s hard enough when you’re travelling around the universe learning to survive and get on with things.

47. Does your OC tolerate violence?

Answered in this post.

48. What social class is your OC from?

I don’t know how our distinction between classes on Earth applies to outer space or different planets for that instance, but they’d be the equivalent of working class. A lot of the time they find space junk and get some of the profit in selling it; it’s just a case of making enough to get by and frankly they’re fine with that. There’s a lot they’d rather be doing but they need the money like anybody else. It doesn’t help the kind of rough environment they entered when they got abducted.

49. What country was your OC born in?

The south of England. Their mother was originally from the US and met Ego the first couple of times but had to leave with her family to the UK (she was in her early 20s and she was having problems finding work) and it was there she found out she was expecting and ended up having them there. She did see him the next couple of times when he came over after they were born but he said he eventually had to leave, even making the (broken) promise to come over and they’d go back together.

50. Does your OC cry easily?

Usually, but they had to learn to hide it when they got abducted, so they ended up managing to do much of it in their sleep. It was tolerated to an extent but they ended up keeping a lot to themselves because it made more sense that way. On their own ship they do end up crying a whole lot when interacting with much of their mother’s stuff they still held onto and a whole lot of it really comes out when they find out the truth about Ego. They do cry beforehand, out of anger, wistfulness and wanting to understand, but that all gets thrown out of the window and all the pain gets directed at him in the end. So frankly, though they’ve had to hide it a lot, it never went away and they are certainly a very emotional person.

51. What is your OCs favourite genre of music?

They don’t have a specific genre but they are partial to acoustic and rock, usually heavy, sometimes classic but especially pop rock.

52. How does your OC feel about insects?

They’re alright but they can be annoying. Especially when you’re travelling around in space, the breeds can get quite...interesting, so they’d rather stay far away from them. They weren’t the biggest fan of them on Earth but left them alone to do their own thing, although they did make an exception for butterflies.

53. What is your OCs sexual orientation?

Asexual. They’ve never really felt that spark with someone and is frankly kinda repulsed at the idea of sex, so they find other things to do. They prefer listening to music, reading and spending time at libraries at different planets, preferably Xandar. Which also takes their mind off of things. Though that doesn’t eveh take into account their own loner status and trust issues; they’ve just not felt that connection with anybody and would preferably not get involved anyway.

54. Does your OC smoke?

Never. Their mother was the first they learnt not to do it from and no matter what from that point on they never felt the need to. They had more than enough to deal with without taking up smoking.

55. What gender is your OC?

Nonbinary but leans towards a more masculine presentation. It took them a while to figure it out but frankly they were really in over their head with a lot of things, so they didn’t figure it out properly until they were more or less out of the environment they were abducted into. They were still pretty much dressing more gender neutral/masculine before then, but they eventually found a safer space to understand themselves.

Of course, this still really leaves them open to misgendering; they prefer they/them pronouns but don’t mind he/him; unfortunately they have been mistaken for female and been referred to with she/her pronouns which can be grating at the very least. Ego is the worst culprit as per usual, as even if he only becomes slightly aware, he can be kinda patronising about it and when the truth is revealed and hell breaks loose, he’s way more malicious about it.

56. What kind of clothes does your OC wear?

Always keen on them jeans and trainers, but often swaps out t-shirts and jumpers depending on how they feel. Leather jackets are a go to but they’re just as keen on wearing hoodies. They also find it really nice to wear fingerless gloves and when we find them when they see Ego, they’re wearing what looks like the equivalent of a bandana to keep the hair out of their eyes - it’s only later when they realise how sick they are of everything and let out a lot of repressed emotion that they just fucking---cut it off. But that’s their usual stuff - casual as hell, but we see a particular change in appearance when things really take a turn for the absolute WORST.

57. Would you call your OC adventurous?

Probably. They do like planet hopping and cruising around, even if they prefer to stick to some more favoured places like Xandar and their own ship. They just wanna be left alone and do their own thing. They just want to have that freedom away from things and find their own peace.

58. Is your OC introverted or extroverted?

Introverted. They predominantly find energy more or less by themselves and feel restless in social situations. Not that they mind it, but they prefer getting on with things by themselves just fine. Besides, they’re wary enough of things without getting involved in deep conversations and suchlike, generally. It takes a lot.

59. What is the first thing someone would notice about your OC?

They’re generally shorter and keep to themselves as they walk around, carrying headphones around their neck.

60. Does your OC enjoy nature?

Generally. When they were back on Earth, they used to go for a lot of walks in the country with their mother, especially since they were right near a whole lot of countryside. They haven’t managed to find the same feeling since, especially since they’re wary about the species on different alien planets. It was a whole different feeling on Ego’s planet though, which really took their fancy before...everything happened.

[eeveelutionsforequality]

I know I've seen you guys post about how shipping incest is okay, but I don't think I've heard much of your views on shipping pedophilia/age gaps/loli/shota/etc. those kinds of things?

When it comes to incest, I think that it's absolutely fine to ship it, and I also think it's fine for two consenting adults to engage in consensual incest in real life - I hate that people can still get absurdly long prison sentences for completely consensual sex (heck, I hate that people can go to prison at all for consensual sex between adults).

You can't really ship pedophilia, since that means "an attraction to children", so I think that what you mean is minor/minor, minor/adult, minor/self insert, and those kinds of ships? In which case I think that it's totally fine to ship that. However, when it comes to reality, I mostly agree with the age of consent laws in my country, which is 16 years-old but with some caveats - anybody 12 or under can never give consent, and it is always illegal to willingly have sex or sexual contact with them; if you're 18 or over it's illegal to willingly have sex or sexual contact with somebody aged 15, 14, or 13 unless you had reason to believe they were 16 or over (so it's not your fault if somebody deceives you, rapes you, etc); it is illegal to pay for or sell sex with somebody 17 or under (or to take, sell, distribute, etc, sexual imagery of them); it is illegal to have sex with somebody 17 or under if you're in a position of care over them (ie a teacher, power of attorney, police officer, etc). By "mostly agree", I mean that I take issue with some sections of the law using gendered language and gendered definitions of rape (which is a problem throughout my country's law), and I disagree with any potential criminalization of teens who take or share photos of themselves (I don't think that they should take or share those photos though, I just believe that it's wrong to criminalize them for doing so), and I think that somebody 17 or under shouldn't be able to get married, and a 17 year-old and a 13 year-old does not sit right with me (there should be some kind of age-gap based system when it comes to that second section regarding those 13, 14, or 15 years-old, possibly something like up to 3 year gaps being okay when one or more party is 13, 14, or 15, with caveats for situations involving rape and/or deceit). Consensual incest between adults harms nobody, so it's fine in fiction or reality, but sex with children does harm them and is not okay outside of fiction... but anything, even that, is fine in fiction.

Like incest, age gaps are fine even in reality (provided all parties can and do consent), and are completely fine in fiction - I find the insistence that any power dynamic is abusive to be incredibly dismissive of the mechanisms of abuse; a power dynamic can be used to abuse but it isn't necessarily abusive itself.

Loli and shota are illegal where I live, which I think is absurd - they are drawings, fiction, just lines on paper, and should not be illegal at all (what's doubly ridiculous about it is that it's illegal to draw a 17 year-old... somebody who you could legally have sex with). It's infuriating because charities that should be protecting real, living children waste their money rallying for these laws.

The TL;DR version of my opinions is that literally anything whatsoever is okay in fiction, and should always be okay in fiction... if we criminalize fiction (as the obscenity laws in my country do) then our society is crap, our laws our crap, we live in a dystopian hellscape, and we haven't left the Victorian era. But I also think that almost anything is okay between consenting adults, so there are some things that antis are against in fiction (like incest) that I'm even totally chill with in reality.

Side note: Please remember that the other mods do not necessarily agree with me, and I don't represent every single mod when I speak - I only speak for myself. Also, I put "intentionally and willingly" before, because "intentionally" is the wording that the law uses, but I decided to use just "willingly" for the purposes of this post, because intentionally has different connotations colloquially than it does in law and I don't wanna be misconstrued (ie being a victim of rape doesn't make you a criminal, or at least it shouldn't... but courts and laws can be weird and messy). It's also illegal and should be illegal to aid in - by soliciting or otherwise enabling - child abuse (but that section was already getting really long and I ramble on too much). I also view familial relation as a position of care, therefore meaning that I would say that both parties should be 18 or over regarding incestuous sex (informed consent should be given and no coercion should be involved... obviously, otherwise that's rape in any situation). I think that prostitution, porn, and sex work should be legal as long as all parties are 18 or over, sober, and give informed consent. Please don't view this as an exhaustive list of my issues with UK law or an exhaustive list of my opinions on law, consent, or fiction - I have a lot of opinions, from strongly held ones to still forming ones. Sorry that I keep tinkering with the wording - this is a topic that you just know someone's gonna misinterpret you on as much as they can, so I'm trying to word it as clearly as I can (if you do take issue with some wording, please ask about it before going off, hopefully we can avoid misunderstandings and have a reasonable conversation if you do disagree with me on this, admittedly very heavy, topic).

You can read up on the age of consent laws for the UK here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/42/contents

I've talked more about the UK's obscenity laws here: http://eeveelutionsforequality.tumblr.com/post/184095555707/a-fictional-depiction-of-an-illegal-act-isnt

I've talked more about my opinions on incest here: http://eeveelutionsforequality.tumblr.com/post/184006728027/cookingwithroxy-someoneintheshadow456

You should always research your local laws.

~ Vape

[flyswhumpcenter]

Nurse Café - Chapter 2/6: “Of Fogged-Up Screens and Downgraded Sensors“

PREVIOUS CHAPTER / NEXT CHAPTER

Fic Summary: Life could have honesty been simpler than that for Hokuto, a second-year Liteature major. There’s, however, someone out there willing to just make it easier on him.

Fandom: Ensemble Stars! (College/Coffeeshop AU) Ships: HokuAn (Anzu/Hokuto)

AO3 version available here.

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Chapter Summary: Waking up in someone else's bed with no real recollection of previous events is bound to confuse everyone out of their already confused mind.

Chapter Wordcount: 1.5K words

Chapter Notes: Ya boi's bacc after working for like 2 days in a row non-stop on not-so-secret-anymore project BWI, please excuse me for the late update. But hey, it's HokuAn fluff and a visit to my roots so! hell yeah! This is frankly cheesy but hey what more can I say? I just really like shippy, simple sickfics dude lmao Also was I supposed to find out on my own that Subaru's surname is "Akehoshi" and not "Ahehoshi"? I even transliterated it in the Greek alphabet wrong because of that, peak dumbassery

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Despite the lack of clear memories, he knew something was weird the moment it all felt fuzzy around him as soon as he woke up. It just wasn’t something that happened to him often: usually, getting up in the morning was merely a task to accomplish, a minor thing he wouldn’t have thought even once about and, clearly, wouldn’t have had any difficulty handling said task.

It wasn’t limited to just a weird case of short-term amnesia. As it stood, his entire surroundings were unfamiliar: through his slightly clogged nose, he could tell the sent around him was familiar, but not his flat’s, not even his grandma’s. His visuals were blurry and inexact, but he could still swear under the oath that it was unlike anything he had ever seen, let alone slept in. Where was he, exactly, and why?

 Right as he thought about sitting up and sightseeing the room for himself to determine where he could possibly be, a pounding headache came back with all of his previously lost memories. Oh, right, he had gone out to get a coffee, got mistaken in his cafés, and Anzu had asked him if he was fine. After that, nothing: in the end, had he drunk his coffee? Presumably not, considering he was waking up and not working on this presentation he had sworn to finish tonight. Mission failed there. He’d have to retry next time, perhaps now, even if…

He had to admit defeat there. His entire body felt like lead. In fact, on second thought, he wasn’t even sure if he could hold a pencil or even sit up. If a tight-knit schedule, a mile-long of obligations and excessive amounts of caffeine of a questionable quality had managed to keep him afloat for a short while, the inevitable happened: he was experiencing an exhaustion crash leaving him to be even less productive than a broken computer whose keyboard had been smashed into a wall, bearing an interface that had gotten corrupted during a forced shutdown.

 He could continue on the metaphor for a while, considering he wasn’t feeling able to even lift a finger, with his head as the only part he could tilt. It had felt like a shutdown because he had run out of battery, completely cessing to function until he could recover what he had lost in great quantities over an extended period of time. Not that anyone could have been able to do something against the issue that wouldn’t have taken time: in these moments, he was finally understanding how much people were frustrated when their phone was discharged.

Time sure seemed like a nice thing to have and not just endlessly run out of, huh…

 Voices in the distance. Echoing footsteps from far, far away, perhaps from a corridor nearby. Like everything else, they felt distorted and unfamiliar, until they weren’t: once the distance had reduced between him and the rest of the world, he could distinguish Isara and Anzu’s voices chatting about something, tone impossible to identify. He wasn’t even sure if those actually were their voices or someone else’s, albeit Anzu’s voice had left an important-enough impact on his mind for him to be certain he wasn’t getting mistaken there.

Trying to grasp onto the last of his memories and the few clear thoughts he could produce, Hokuto realized one thing: if he wasn’t at his place, he had to go back there, no matter what crazy and improbable situation he had found himself in. Akehoshi and Yuuki had dragged him in enough weird affairs for him to know exactly what could happen: in a way, this is just yet another wacky situation his friends had gotten him in.

But, when he tried to get up and get moving, his body didn’t bulge from a centimetre, his arms having failed him, his head having become too heavy for his neck to transport across the campus. Wherever he was, he was there for a while. Now if that wasn’t just amazing.

 “You’re awake!” Anzu’s voice had suddenly teleported right next to his ear, almost making him jump (or, at least, making him bob his head in surprise. It was weird to jump from getting scared when your body couldn’t otherwise move).

She put a cold hand on his forehead, brushing loose strands of hair aside. It was one of the oddest feelings to get: when he’d have the occasion to touch her skin, for any reason, she’d have the warmer fingers of them both. He had always been told to have been born a cold-blooded person, quite literally so: was this what Anzu felt every time he worried about his blood circulation? It had no right to have felt this soothing.

 “A… Anzu…?” His voice sounded groggy. Awful. Dry. The shadow of its own self, truly. He was almost ashamed to speak in such a fatigued, slowed-down tone. It sounded no better than absolute trash. “Where’m I…?” His words were slurring too, how delightful.

“At my place. I guess it must be confusing you to wake up in someone else’s bed…” She shone him a timid smile, shoulders rising a little with a nervous twitch. “How are you feeling?”

“…t’rble…”

“I’d have guessed… You really have Mao and me a scare! He told me you should be all good in a few days, but as your friends, we can’t help but worry, you know?”

“I… Isara was…?”

“Mao was passing by the café right after you passed out. He helped me get you to my place. He’s just left though and gave me some advice, so you should be fine!”

To be fair, Anzu was the one he trusted the most after his grandmother about anything serious. Better be vulnerable in front of her than in front of anyone else. He guessed he should have felt lucky he hadn’t stepped in his usual café, then, if it was to lose consciousness like that…

 “Can you say “aaaah” for me for a bit, Hokuto? I promise it won’t be for long.”

Not like he had any other choice than do as she said, allowing her to put a thermometer under his tongue. Needless to say, it still wasn’t a pleasing feeling. Fortunately (or unfortunately, he’d decide about that when the fog in his brain would have finally let out) for him, the thing beeped quickly after she had first inserted it in. The face she made (from what he could see of it, at least) when reading the result wasn’t exactly conveying him a great feeling about it all, putting her hand back onto his forehead as her eyes stared at the numbers.

“This fever’s no joke, how were you even up running such a temperature?!” Oh God, she sounded angry and worried all the same.

Not that he had any explanation to give about it or justification as to how it had gotten this bad. He didn’t know what number it was. He tried looking it up from the stick directly, but his eyes could only read something finishing in “9.7”. That wasn’t very useful to say the… Oh. Oh.

 “I-I mean, you’ll be fine if you just rest for a couple days! I didn’t have fever reducers anymore, but Mao gave me some from his flat, so it should be just fine… Can you swallow anything? You need to down the pills with a glass of something, so I’ve brought you just that!”

Gathering all his forces, he pushed his upper half with feeble arms against the wall behind him, the back of his head hitting the hard material. That lethargy poisoning his entire body was no joke either. At least, he could now take the glass of water and pills Anzu was handing him. How was he supposed to resist against her bright smile and concern, huh? Not that reducing what had to be the prime source of his discomfort, especially now that the chills were knocking at the door, was bothering him in the slightest.

Downing the glass had been painful. It seemed like he hadn’t just worked himself to complete exhaustion: in the process, his immune system had weakened considerably. This whole situation kept adding on points onto his internal list of why he should never try doing such a thing ever again.

 As usual, Anzu had come all prepared to a fight, putting shortly thereafter a wet washcloth on his forehead and gently pushing him back into her own bed, hands on his shoulders and opposing no opposition whatsoever from his side of the equation.

“Wait, n’zu…” He managed to squeeze out of his pained airways. “Wher’re you goin’ t’sleep…?”

“I’ve got a futon prepared on the floor; I’ll be fine. Just rest, okay? We’ll see if you’re good enough to go back to your flat tomorrow. You’ll only get better if you sleep.”

He merely nodded, sinking back into the covers. Their scent was nice, soothing even. It made the endeavour a bit more enjoyable, even if the word suddenly sounded too strong on his tongue.

“G’dnight then, I s’pose…”

Through his blurred vision turning to black, her smile shone again.

“Goodnight, Hokuto.”

[stevejones313]

Brooklyn 99 - What’s not to love?

You know, I fucking love the cast of Brooklyn 99, the writing, just everything about it. But one thing I love more than anything is how every character has something you can just say “man I wish I could have as much <insert quality> as <insert character>”.

Detective Jake Peralta

An insane infectious positive personality who always means well, even when being competative. He wants everyone to have a great time and even when he’s not feeling confident, he plays it cool and uses wit and his great zest for life to get through any obstacle. He can’t stand to see anyone in pain and if he has to be the butt of the joke to cheer people up, he will. Plus, he has the confidence of a God. He not only finds the joy in life - he takes the joy and shares it with everyone.

Detective Rosa Diaz

Undeniably cool, mysterious and grabs the attention of everyone in the room, regardless of what is going on. She’s hot, absolutely, but never relies on it for anything. She relies on her skills, her wit, her guile - she’s dedicated to being the absolute best she can be, and she refuses to allow herself to be complacent or lazy. No man, no woman and no weapon on Earth will stop her, whether she’s in pursuit of justice, personal goals or - especially - coming to the defence of her friends. You cannot stop her - you can only delay the inevitable.

Captain Raymond Holt

A true leader, Ray Holt may seem overly stern or plain, but actually he is just incredibly dedicated to helping everyone around them find their potential. He leads by example not to dominate or rule with an iron fist, but to help those he cares about be the best they can be. Whilst he may joke about being a father figure to Jake, he deep down finds it touching. He’s well read, multi-talented, and would follow those who serve with him into the pits of Hell if needs be. He is the leader we aspire to be and, whilst he’ll never admit it, he wants everyone to be happy, just like Jake does.

Gina Linetti

Gina is that person who calls bullshit when they see it and don’t give a fuck about upsetting anyone over it. Sure she’s not the most gentle with her criticisms, but she’s honest in it and won’t betray her beliefs for the sake of fitting in. She doesn’t fit in - the room reshapes itself to conform to her. She is unapologetic for who she is, and she will not let anyone tell her who or what she can be. She’s comfortable being who she is and she cannot be humiliated. If you don’t get her confidence, that’s not her problem. Not only that, but’s she’s fucking clever in her scheming. She can play mental chess with all her ‘Detective’ colleagues, beating them at their own game. She plays the fool incredibly well. Gina Linetti is the person in our life we stupidly underestimate every single day.

Detective Charles Boyle

Charles Boyle, whilst a joke to many, is literally the most loyal friend a person can ask for. He may go overboard, but that’s because he loves his friends. Not just Jake, which we could obviously discuss for ages, but everyone. He’s complimentary and knows his colleagues so well. He’s attentive and remembers the small details like people’s important dates, likes and dislikes, etc. His greatest attribute though is that is is arguably THE MOST RELIABLE member of the team. If you need anything, he’s got your back. He doesn’t judge you or your emotions. He’s the loyal friend who we take for granted and could do more for.

Sergeant Terry Jeffords

Terry is the true combination of strength and vulnerability. Terry steps up and leads, not by shouting and threatening, but by knowing the strengths and weaknesses of those he works with. He works with people by UNDERSTANDING them. He is empathetic, committed and loyal. He’s also unafraid of showing his emotions, something that spreads to his team as we see with Jake, Rosa, even Holt. He’s a dedicated family man who is not scared of being seen as being feminine or emotional. He’s the guy who will KNOW when something is not right with you, and will pull you aside privately and TALK with you and WORK with you to help you out. He’s the boss we wish we all had.

Detective Amy Santiago

We all know the smart kid in class who knows the answer to every question and it’s easy to make fun of them. But they’re one of the best people you can know. Amy Santiago is a perfect example of that. Amy is organised, well read, willing to learn, adaptive and possesses a strong moral compass. When a solution is needed, you can rely on Amy to find it. She’s ambitious, tenacious and whilst she may not be ‘cool’ she’s definitely strong willed and a force to be reckoned with. She’s the person that when we need help whether it’s improving a skill or working out a problem, she’s got our back.

Detective Norm Scully & Detective Michael Hitchcock

On the outside, they seem like lazy old guys who don’t do any work and are just collection paycheques and snacks. There’s a quote attributed to both Bill Gates and Walter Chrysler (though there’s no evidence either said this) but if you hire a lazy person, they’ll find the simplest solution to a problem. Scully and Hitchcock are often able to find a way of solving any issues. Their strongest attributes are in two parts. 1 - they have no shame whatsoever. They simply couldn’t give a shit for what you think, so if they make a joke and it doesn’t land, unlike most people who would feel timid, they’d just shrug it off and go “well I find it funny”. 2 - They love one another. They’ve literally been through everything together and as such, know each other so well. They are each other’s rock and when one of them is down, the other will ALWAYS pick them up. You cannot pull them apart. When you have a friendship like that, you can never truly be alone.

Detective Adrian Pimento

Okay, they guy is clearly not very stable, but here’s the thing. Pimento has been through utter Hell, but he’s still alive and kicking. Not only that, but despite the toll it’s taken on him physically and mentally, he has never once let life destroy him. He keeps on fighting and will keep fighting until his dying breath, and then he’ll fight the Grim Reaper. In the world of the Unstoppable Force meeting the Immovable Object, you can call him either or. You can describe him as something you just cannot stop, or something you just cannot remove. Bring on your armies - we have a Pimento.

Doctor Kevin M. Cozner PHD

Finally, how can we forget the incredibly intelligent, loving, dedicated husband of Captain Holt? Kevin is undeniably intelligent and so protective of his partner. Who can forget one of the most deep moments of B99 when Kevin opened up to Jake Paralta as to why he didn’t like cops? He will go to any lengths to protect the man he loves. Whilst he doesn’t fully understand his husband’s friends or certain aspects of their personalities, he tries to be as accomodating as possible once he opens himself up to them. He isn’t their friend, but he respects why they’re important to his husband.

So what do we have in this cast of characters?

Jake Peralta: I wish I could have his enthusiasm and undying love for life.

Roza Diaz: I wish I could have fire and dedication to self improvement.

Raymond Holt: I wish I could have his leadership and cool-under-pressure skills.

Gina Linetti: I wish I could have her undying confidence and observational skills.

Charles Boyle: I wish I could be as good and helpful a friend.

Terry Jeffords: I wish I could be as emotionally strong and dependable.

Amy Santiago: I wish I could be as organised and committed to my goals.

Scully & Hitchcock: I wish I could have/be as loyal and emotonally open friend.

Adrian Pimento: I wish I could be as unstoppable a force and as relentless.

Dr. Kevin Cozner: I wish I could be as bright and dedicated a partner.

This is why I love B99 so much. It’s undeniable funny of course, but it’s just having an amazing set of characters who I not only identify with, but also feel inspired by. They’re just so awesome and we could all do with having friends like them...and being more like them.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 6: KING ARTHUR & MERLINA

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a new mini-series of mine, in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll be fighting the knight while living life as we discuss the dark spirit of Sonic and the Black Knight, as well as the schemer behind the scenes: King Arthur & Merlina.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a peaceful kingdom was threatened by the rule of a corrupted king. A young wizard named Merlina valiantly defied this monarch, the famous King Arthur, and attempted to escape the clutches of his evil army, but alas, she was cornered like a poor little lamb. In desperation, she called upon a brave and noble hero to help save her kingdom.

She got a blue hedgehog instead.

He did it guys, he did the thing, we can all go home now.

Eager to fight the villain of the week, Sonic was instead put aside by Merlina, who explained to him that as long as King Arthur had the scabbard of Excalibur in his possession, he was basically Jesus and couldn't be wounded in any meaningful way. She also explained that the king was once a noble soul, until the Lady of the Lake, Nimue, lended Excalibur to him, presumably under the belief that granting an ambitious ruler immortality and the power to pluck monsters from the underworld couldn't possibly be a terrible idea.

It was.

Luckily for Sonic, Merlina guided him to a forest where a poorly guarded sword was held, the one weapon capable of dealing some real damage to the evil king. Sonic even got a chance to make it count when Arthur himself showed up right after, but since this was still early on in the game, he fucked up so badly that Arthur and the sword itself - yes, the sword itself - were both laughing at him for his incompetence.

By the way, I hope you like desaturated cutscenes.

Nonetheless, the sword - who went by the name of Caliburn - decided to give the cocky teenager a chance in spite of his own reservations, and granted him the honorable title of Knave the Hedgehog. Sonic took issue with this title, because he didn't want to be mistaken for a fancharacter (probably). As they discussed their next course of action, Merlina waxed nihilistic poetry about flowers for some strange reason.

Because that's how nature works, silly girl.

So after a trip to the Blacksmith to get Caliburn in tip-top shape for regicide, Sonic went off to seek out Nimue in order to get an idea of what to actually do. Upon visiting her, he was asked to locate and gather the sacred swords, though he was forced to detract from his mission for the sake of saving some helpless townspeople from a cruel dragon, because that's just the kind of guy that Sonic the Hedgehog is... Just as well then that it was part of Nimue's test all along! (Just as well also that King Arthur was presumably patient enough to wait for Sonic to pass his tests instead of using that time to destroy the kingdom.)

All the while, he confronted the Knights of the Round Table, who - being the king's most trusted and most capable soldiers - did nothing other than get their asses handed to them.

Pictured: Useless twats.

Until at last, when everything that had to be done was done, Sonic and Caliburn went to the Faraway Avalon, where King Arthur himself dwelled. The battle was intense to say the least, but with a little help from the sacred swords, the Blue Blur prevailed, and the corrupted monarch who plagued the kingdom... dissipated? Like the Knights of the Underworld before him...? Well at least they got Excalibur back.

Seeking to get to the bottom of this mystery, Sonic brought it to Merlina's attention, who revealed that the King Arthur the hedgehog slayed was a fake, and that there never was a true King Arthur to begin with, as he was an illusion created by Merlina's grandfather, the great Merlin himself.

She also revealed the slightly more important fact that she's an evil bitch who used Sonic for her own gain, and proceeded to use Excalibur to give the hero a very bad time.

Holding a sword like that with her hair so close? Bitch is mad.

After some reassurance that all was not in vain, Sonic convinced the Knights of the Round Table to stop kissing the now-deceased Arthur's feet and help him save the kingdom for real. Using their sacred swords, the Knights formed a powerful barrier around the kingdom's castle, and then immediately proceeded to go right back to being useless.

Just kidding. The barrier wasn't even strong enough to amount to much. That puts the Knights' usefulness points right back to zero.

“Why do people call this our last hurrah again...?”

When Sonic finally confronted Merlina in her domain, with the understandable query of why she was such a manipulative witch, she revealed that her motives are less “cackling rapscallion” and more “morally grey”. You see, with the supposed rift between Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain, and the eventual downfall of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in general, the kingdom was doomed to suffer an undesirable fate no matter what. Seeking to fix her late grandfather's mistakes, she wanted nothing more than to create a world that would never end, for ultimate peace and prosperity... as far as she knew.

Sonic had none of it and promptly called her out on her selfish desire, but the wizard proved too much for him to handle, as evidenced by the surprisingly savage beatdown that he received immediately after. Caliburn got broke in half for his troubles, and the Knights commanded the hedgehog to get the hell out of there, but Sonic remained stubborn, as he never backs down no matter the opponent. This eventually paid off for him, as his heroic nature inexplicably summoned the power that granted him a new form: the knight in shiny gold armor, Excalibur Sonic. This was fortunately just the right amount of power necessary to defeat Merlina's final form of King Arthur 2: This Time It's Personal.

Beaten, but not outright killed, the depowered Merlina was left a broken woman. But Sonic wasn't afraid to show a bit of compassion to the wizard, as he gave her the advice that while the world may not last forever, we must live our lives to the fullest, and make the time that we do have count.

"Well yeah, that’s easy for an iconic mascot like you to say. As soon as this game is over, my career is finished. Eat shit, rodent.”

Also, Sonic turns out to be the real King Arthur. Because self-inserts are canon. Credits!

The Design: King Arthur's design is a bit on the generic side for Sonic standards, but it's decent enough for the type of villain that he is. Though you do have to wonder how he can stand upright with those gigantic shoulder pads of his.

This photo was taken moments before his kneecaps crumbled into dust.

Meanwhile, Merlina heavily resembles Shahra from Black Knight’s predecessor, as befitting of her initial role as Shahra's replacement for Black Knight, as well as making her true role all the more surprising.

“Shahra? No. I'm my own original character... Backstabbhra.”

When the latter becomes the Dark Queen, she initially settles for turning purple and gaining some fashionable feathers, before unleashing her final form which basically amounts to a collection of blue and black tentacles.

Typical angsty teenage phase.

Arthur and Merlina's designs overall are... okay. Just okay.

The Personality: As someone who is more a force of nature than an actual character, King Arthur's personality amounts to saying a bunch of evil things and not much else. That's alright though, since Merlina is the true villain of this particular story, so it’s her personality that counts here.

But here's the problem... Merlina doesn't have much personality either. She spends the first half of the story taking the role of the typical assistant, and the second half whinging about how her kingdom will be ruined unless she does something about it. That is all you get with her. Yes, there is clearly meant to be more to her, as evidenced with her misguided beliefs and her relationship with her grandfather, but very little is actually done with those aspects beyond giving Sonic more things to lecture her and shout at her for.

The Execution: On paper, Merlina is a character who should be among the greatest of Sonic villains.

On paper.

But you see, while she is unique in the sense of being the rarity of a female villain AND an anti-villain in a Sonic game... there really isn't anything else going for her. Once you get past those two initial brownie points, you don't have much of real interest left. You may get a cool moment like the aforementioned beatdown of Sonic come the endgame, but you're given no reason to actually care about the person doing the deed, despite the game wanting you to do so.

“I've not been given any particular reason to do so, so no.”

There's a lot of telling with Merlina, rather than showing. She's presented as a well-intentioned extremist, but we're given no reason whatsoever to actually bother trying to see things her way, even if we would still ultimately acknowledge that what she's doing is wrong. Even Sonic himself doesn't bother considering her side of the story for a second, and while that is certainly in-character for the Blue Blur, it makes Merlina's anti-villain status - one of the very aspects that makes her unique among Sonic villains - fall flat all the more. Likewise, the only information we get about why the kingdom is destined to be doomed comes straight from Merlina's mouth, and that's it. We're never shown an example of what exactly she wants to prevent aside from vaguely alluded ruination, therefore we're given less reason to express actual interest in her motivation and goals.

Also, it must be stated: There wasn't nearly enough foreshadowing with her true intentions. Of course you don’t want to beat the player over the head to the point where they can see the twist coming from a mile away, but you still need a decent amount of build up to make a twist work, otherwise it practically comes out of nowhere. And since you don’t even need to count the hints with one hand in Merlina’s case, it does feel out of nowhere.

Overall, Merlina - and King Arthur, for that matter - are just kind of forgettable at the end of the day. Not terrible. Not outright bad. Just forgettable. And it's a huge shame, because Merlina COULD have been amazing. She had all the ingredients to stand out and be in the same tier as the likes of Eggman and Erazor. But she simply can't live up to the likes of them because there wasn't enough sufficient effort to make her truly blossom as the type of antagonist she was intended to be. There was something good going on with her, I can acknowledge and appreciate that there was something good going on with her... it just wasn't enough.

Which is kind of how I feel about Sonic and the Black Knight in general. It doesn’t do an awful lot with the things that it gets praised for. And the story as a whole - while serving as a great character analysis for Sonic himself - is just kind of boring for an actual narrative in a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

My favourite Sonic game is the one where Sonic made fun of attempted suicide.

Crusher Gives King Arthur & Merlina a: Thumbs Sideways!

[charminglatina]

Why Bughead is a terrible couple.

1. They have no romantic or sexual chemistry: I’m sorry but it’s the truth. Bughead have absolutely zero chemistry. None! Nada! Zilch! Zip! There’s no romanticism in their relationship whatsoever. When Jughead and Betty kiss, I feel like I’m watching two siblings making out. Their relationship looks like two platonic friends (which is what Jughead and Betty canonically are in the comics by the way) trying to force a romantic connection between them that doesn’t exist by kissing each other. This is why I seriously don’t understand how people can say that Jughead and Betty have romantic or sexual chemistry because where is it? It’s just not there at all and it’s nowhere to be seen. I know chemistry is supposedly subjective, but as someone who’s been in numerous fandoms and has supported a variety of different romantic couples throughout my almost 29 years of life, Bughead just simply doesn’t cut it in the chemistry and romance department. Their chemistry comes across as forced, as if their trying to make themselves appear as a romantic couple but are badly failing at it. When Jughead and Betty were making out and almost had sex in 1x13, it came across as incredibly awkward and non-sexual. I don’t care how many times Bughead make out, THE. CHEMISTRY. IS. JUST. NOT. THERE. I don’t know but a large part of why I can’t buy them as a romantic couple is because of the serious lack of chemistry between the two. At this point, Jughead has more sexual tension and chemistry with food than he does with Betty Cooper.

2. They’re toxic and borderline dysfunctional: Jughead and Betty have proven over and over that they are a toxic and dysfunctional couple. Their relationship is borderline toxic (never mind, it IS toxic). All Jughead and Betty do since Season 1 is constantly argue and fight with each other and break up and make up afterwards. They insult each other constantly and then they apologize afterwards. It’s like a repetitive,vicious, ugly cycle of making up and breaking up between the two that it’s become almost abusive and destructive to both of their characters. THEY’RE RELATIONSHIP IS REPETITIVE AND BORING. Jughead is always fighting with Betty and putting her down constantly. He constantly points out her insecurities and makes Betty feel bad about herself. Like when Betty decided that she wanted to throw Jughead a birthday party, Jughead cursed Betty out and made her feel terrible for doing something nice for him on his birthday. What kind of relationship is that? If anything, Jughead should be appreciative of what Betty did for him but he wasn’t. Instead, he yells at her and then tells her that their relationship is on borrowed time because he  feels that she would drop him for Archie if he reciprocated her feelings eventually. That’s another thing that makes Bughead toxic: the fact that Jughead is insecure about Archie and Betty’s feelings about him. Jughead has known his whole life that Betty has always loved Archie and he’s always come first for her. Jughead knows at the back of his mind that Archie and Betty will always have this undeniable, powerful, and strong bond and connection that Jughead and Betty will never have. Barchie have HISTORY, they have friendship, they have companionship and they have things in common; that’s something that is going to make Jughead feel insecure and like he doesn’t measure up to Archie in Betty’s eyes. Insecurities in a relationship are never a good thing and that’s exactly what Jughead and Betty’s relationship is based on. Finally, they’re toxic because Betty feels she has to lose her identity and who she is to be with Jughead. The fact that Betty wanted to become a Serpent to be with Jughead is so disgusting. And the fact that Betty, a 15 year old minor, was willing to climb up on a stage and striptease on a  pole just so she could get a taste of the Serpent life is APPALLING. I don’t feel that Jughead and Betty accept each other for who they are. Their relationship is one of convenience I feel and I feel that Betty just using Jughead as a replacement for Archie rejecting her. And that’s not a healthy relationship.

3. They are forced/rushed/badly written: This is the biggest reason why I don’t ship Bughead. THEY ARE FORCED. Their relationship was rushed and it came out of nowhere. There was zero build up to their relationship and they had no development whatsoever. There were absolutely no hints that Jughead and Betty had any romantic attraction or connection whatsoever until Episode 5 and then the next episode they are making out with each other after one day. I mean, Betty has spent years loving Archie. In the first episode, she was clearly in love with Archie, and then he rejected her. But then four episodes later, she’s falling in love with Jughead and they are kissing each other? I mean, does that make sense at all? How can Betty go from loving Archie so much to all of a sudden declaring Jughead as this epic love and soulmate? Also, BETYT DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHEN JUGHEAD’S BIRTHDAY WAS and she’s supposedly known him since childhood? How could Betty have known Jughead since they were kids and for her to not know when his birthday is? That’s just bad writing.  Their relationship just doesn’t make sense at all and Bughead was very badly written which is why they are forced and rushed.

4. The ship name is ridiculous: Yeah, I said it. The ship name for Jughead and Betty’s relationship is Bughead. I mean, need I say more? Doesn’t that just give away how horrible and shitty of a couple Bughead is? If the fact that the ship is named Bughead doesn’t tell you how horrible the relationship is considering the fact that they’re named after fucking head lice, then I don’t know what does.

5. It’s not canon in the comics: I’ve been an avid Archie Comics reader since childhood and there has never been any inclination that Jughead and betty have a romantic connection or are more than friends. Their relationship is strictly platonic in the comics which is why I can’t buy them being a romantic couple on the show in any capacity. As someone who has a strong respect for the source material, I think if there’s going to be a television adaptation to any source material that’s a book or comic, they should follow what’s in the comics. Bughead doesn’t exist in the comics and it never has. Bughead aren’t a romantic couple int he comics and they never have been. Betty is and always will be in love with Archie and the main storyline of Archie Comics is the love triangle between Archie/Betty/Veronica, period. There is no room for a Bughead relationship in the comics so it doesn’t make any sense why the writers of Riverdale even tried to put Jughead and Betty together romantically on the show because it just doesn’t fit.

6. They are too different from each other: Let’s face it, other than a love for writing and both of them having dysfunctional families, Jughead and Betty have little to nothing in common in regards to outlooks, personalities, interests, etc. It’s not even the fact that Betty and Jughead come from different social classes, it’s the fact that I feel they don’t understand each other on a fundamentally deeper level. The lack of understanding between the two is a clear sign that they don’t understand each other at the core of who they are. It’s why Betty and Jughead are always fighting with each other because there is a serious lack of deep connection. The fact that Jughead and Betty have a serious lack of communication between the two is a huge issue, which brings me to my next point...

7. There’s a huge lack of communication: Jughead and Betty don't communicate or operate on the same level. They are constantly keeping things from each other and hiding things from each other. They don’t tell each other the truth about their problems. For example, Jughead didn’t tell Betty that he kissed Toni. And Betty didn’t tell Jughead about the Black Hood and the fact that he was threatening her. Also, Jughead and Betty don’t seem to support each other all that much anymore. Jughead and his lifestyle is indirectly causing Betty a lot of emotional pain and troubles and he doesn’t realize it. Also, Jughead hasn’t been the supportive boyfriend that he should be to Betty especially this season. Archie is the one who’s been acting like Betty’s boyfriend instead of Jughead. Jughead has made constant selfish and impulsive decisions which have beeb detrimental to Betty and his relationship with her. Him joining the Serpents and getting involved with Penny Peabody are just a few of them. The fact that Betty can’t turn to Jughead and tell him what’s on her mind or what’s bothering her is very problematic and is a sure sign that there’s a lack of communication in their relationship. The constant lying that the two of them do to each other is a sign of a relationship that is unstable and lacking something significant.

8. Bughead is fan service: Bughead doesn’t exist in the comics. The only reason why Bughead happened on Riverdale is because a small,yet vocal group of fans wanted Betty to get with Jughead because Jughead is portrayed by Cole Sprouse. Bughead is fan service because the writers have decided to appease high school age girls by getting the audience surrogate and self insert (aka Betty) to live out their fantasies with Cole Sprouse through shipping Bughead. Most Bughead fans are high school aged girls who think Cole Sprouse is the hottest thing in the world and the writers have chosen to destroy their own show and story by catering to these screaming Cole fangirls. Bughead is fan service with a capital F and if there was a definition for fanservice in the dictionary, Bughead would be the definition. 

I’ll be adding more reasons in a Pt. 2 post, but these are some of my reasons why I think Bughead is a bad couple and why I don’t support or ship them.