#obviously who cares but this is a personal diary post

[sunspira]

also finding out the discrepancy between my other cognitive skill scores and my working memory was abnormally extreme even for adhd people was very validating it definitely points to a more severe case and i had definitely been feeling like how come some adhd people are barely affected by it and some are like me like almost unable to perceive time (tho i'm getting better at this with intensive practice and special neurodivergent friendly tactics but it was never going to be something that i learned naturally)

"Catherine's is 55 points lower" instead of the average adhd persons 8.3 made my jaw drop tbh.

i definitely figured i was imagining it but no it's really um a bit debilitating and serious as a disability and stuff. I know i can come to adapt to it and live my best life but specialized therapy to adapt to the deficit and target the underdeveloped cognitive skills with special training and practice was very much needed and i'm glad i'm doing it now

IQ tests are dumb but i gotta admit being adhd i thought i was a little bit stupid my whole life but just good at school stuff until i was 21 and they had to test my IQ for the adhd diagnosis and the fact that it was a bit high was huge for my self esteem. i genuinely did not believe in myself like that at all i was expecting something very average. and it was healing to know that too since my ability to do school work fell off abruptly in college and thinking that was the one thing i was good at had left me was kinda more than a little scary so knowing i might have some intrinsic good parts of my brain still left was helpful to hear and healing i can't lie

[emeryleewho]

Saw a fun little conversation on Threads but I don't have a Threads account, so I couldn't reply directly, but I sure can talk about it here!

I've been wanting to get into this for awhile, so here we go! First and foremost, I wanna say that "Emmaskies" here is really hitting the nail on the head despite having "no insider info". I don't want this post to be read as me shitting on trad pub editors or authors because that is fundamentally not what's happening.

Second, I want to say that this reply from Aaron Aceves is also spot on:

There are a lot of reviewers who think "I didn't enjoy this" means "no one edited this because if someone edited it, they would have made it something I like". As I talk about nonstop on this account, that is not a legitimate critique. However, as Aaron also mentions, rushed books are a thing that also happens.

As an author with 2 trad pub novels and 2 trad pub anthologies (all with HarperCollins, the 2nd largest trad publisher in the country), let me tell you that if you think books seem less edited lately, you are not making that up! It's true! Obviously, there are still a sizeable number of books that are being edited well, but something I was talking about before is that you can't really know that from picking it up. Unlike where you can generally tell an indie book will be poorly edited if the cover art is unprofessional or there are typoes all over the cover copy, trad is broken up into different departments, so even if editorial was too overworked to get a decent edit letter churned out, that doesn't mean marketing will be weak.

One person said that some publishers put more money into marketing than editorial and that's why this is happening, but I fundamentally disagree because many of these books that are getting rushed out are not getting a whole lot by way of marketing either! And I will say that I think most authors are afraid to admit if their book was rushed out or poorly edited because they don't want to sabotage their books, but guess what? I'm fucking shameless. Café Con Lychee was a rush job! That book was poorly edited! And it shows! Where Meet Cute Diary got 3 drafts from me and my beta readers, another 2 drafts with me and my agent, and then another 2 drafts with me and my editor, Café Con Lychee got a *single* concrete edit round with my editor after I turned in what was essentially a first draft. I had *three weeks* to rewrite the book before we went to copy edits. And the thing is, this wasn't my fault. I knew the book needed more work, but I wasn't allowed more time with it. My editor was so overworked, she was emailing me my edit letter at 1am. The publisher didn't care if the book was good, and then they were upset that its sales weren't as high at MCD's, but bffr. A book that doesn't live up to its potential is not going to sell at the same rate as one that does!

And this may sound like a fluke, but it's not. I'm not naming names because this is a deeply personal thing to share, but I have heard from *many* authors who were not happy with their second books. Not because they didn't love the story but because they felt so rushed either with their initial drafts or their edits that they didn't feel like it lived up to their potential. I also know of authors who demanded extra time because they knew their books weren't there yet only to face big backlash from their publisher or agent.

I literally cannot stress to you enough that publisher's *do not give a fuck* about how good their products are. If they can trick you into buying a poorly edited book with an AI cover that they undercut the author for, that is *better* than wasting time and money paying authors and editors to put together a quality product. And that's before we get into the blatant abuse that happens at these publishers and why there have been mass exoduses from Big 5 publishers lately.

There's also a problem where publishers do not value their experienced staff. They're laying off so many skilled, dedicated, long-term committed editors like their work never meant anything. And as someone who did freelance sensitivity reading for the Big 5, I can tell you that the way they treat freelancers is *also* abysmal. I was almost always given half the time I asked for and paid at less than *half* of my general going rate. Authors publishing out of their own pockets could afford my rate, but apparently multi-billion dollar corporations couldn't. Copy edits and proofreads are often handled by freelancers, meaning these are people who aren't familiar with the author's voice and often give feedback that doesn't account for that, plus they're not people who are gonna be as invested in the book, even before the bad payment and ridiculous timelines.

So, anyway, 1. go easy on authors and editors when you can. Most of us have 0 say in being in this position and authors who are in breech of their contract by refusing to turn in a book on time can face major legal and financial ramifications. 2. Know that this isn't in your head. If you disagree with the choices a book makes, that's probably just a disagreement, but if you feel like it had so much potential but just *didn't reach it*, that's likely because the author didn't have time to revise it or the editor didn't have time to give the sort of thorough edits it needed. 3. READ INDIE!!! Find the indie authors putting in the work the Big 5's won't do and support them! Stop counting on exploitative mega-corporations to do work they have no intention of doing.

Finally, to all my readers who read Café Con Lychee and loved it, thank you. I love y'all, and I appreciate y'all, and I really wish I'd been given the chance to give y'all the book you deserved. I hope I can make it up to you in 2025.

[dropthedemiurge]

Love for Love's Sake | Messages you didn't notice #6 | Sunbae Theory

I wanted to add this to my previous post about other messages and their translation and theories (here) but it was becoming too long, so I'm posting it separetely.

Guys, I kept thinking about the fact that we never got to learn more about the meaning of these "random" messages. And then I realized I was overthinking it too much.

ALL THESE MESSAGES WERE ACTUALLY FROM MYUNGHA'S SUNBAE WHO MISSED HIM IN REAL LIFE!!!

In the final episode there's a moment when the last message shows up, and the author is finally written.

"I hope that place sparks your hope. From sunbae."

After we learn Myungha's full backstory, we now know "that place" means "afterlife". And if you look back on all the messages it MAKES SENSE, if you think that these are messages that are still coming on Myungha's phone from a friend – or, if we consider that everything is happening in Myungha's head, these are the thoughts about him by someone else.

Sunbae missed Myungha who was suddenly gone from life.

[In May, there is Children's Day, Parents' Day, there is even Teacher's Day but there is no Day when I can meet you] [I was passing by and saw a bracelet that you used to wear long time ago. It reminded me of you. I wonder if you still wear that bracelet.] [I broke a vase that was a gift from you. Can it be repaired?] [I thought only you dressed like that but others do too. I knew it wasn't you but I still followed. But why would you be dressed like that] (last sent messages) [I miss you. If only I could go there…] [Everything depends on what you'll do. Get yourself together.] [I hope that place sparks your hope. From sunbae.]

Tell me if these messages don't look like they were written by someone mourning the loss of a dear person. Someone who might be still sending messages to the number that will never reply anymore (and Myungha never did!). A chat that has become a diary of memories and longing, filled with a ghost of someone whose specific details you keep noticing in your everyday life. There is no Day when they can meet anymore. If only he could see him again...

I'm not sure about the vase but Myungha wore a bracelet in the beginning of the story (that was the first detail we notice about him tbh when he looks through the novel draft in the very first scene).

Someone else on Tumblr has expressed a theory that sunbae is a friend (or someone who loved Myungha) who decided to commemorate his friend in a written novel because they wanted to give him a happy life instead of a miserable one Myungha lived in real life.

I am so on board with this theory, (even though I like the grim reaper/deity theory or Myungha creating the world for himself), I think sunbae did exist in real life. And he obviously cared about Myungha, whether his love was to teach him a harsh lesson or to commemorate him in a meaningful story. After all, isn't this what all authors do to their characters? They make them go through conflicts and breaking points in order to overcome it all and finally find a happy ending.

Maybe sunbae has regretted that Myungha was never able to accept the love that others wanted to give him so he wrote the story to change that. Maybe sunbae is actually Yeowoon who wanted to put Myungha in his shoes and teach him how to love and be loved – actually, remember young Yeowoon, who lost Myungha due to his decision to erase himself from the game, who cried and picked up a pen to bring him back, starting a mission to make Myungha happy.

Maybe this novel is a desperate attempt to make peace and hope that someone you lost could be still loved at last.

No matter what, Sunbae was surely grieving Myungha.

[little-forest-goblin]

Hey guys so a did a recent post about the diner deli scene and the different variations of five there and i had listed all of the ones i can put a name on (its all a personal opinion my word is not law) and we all know that they have some odd subtle differences between each other though they still may be five they are still from other universes and timelines and not one five is gonna be the same completely. So i decided to list and give them the personalties and such that i can (Again my word is now law please by all means make whatever you want this is just personal opinion and thought)

So here is the list of the fives that i had personally named.

1. Booth five

2. waiter five

3. brisket five

4. Newspaper/good with numbers five

5. Mathematician/journaling/theorist five (There is three cause if i remember correctly there is two fives and i just know one of them is obsessing over numbers and i was wondering what the other one is doing and thats what i got)

6. Anxious antsy/waiting five

7. Drunk five

8. Loose neck tie five

9. chef five

Those are the ones i could put a name too. Some of them i have no clue what to call them but if you have a suggestion or an idea please let me know.

1. Booth five

Booth five is probably a funny laid back guy who is just wanting to chill after having tried and failed so many times to save the world and his family only to have it blow up in his face time and time again. He is mostly unintentionally funny it seems. He wont get why what he said is funny at first but once he does he will probably laugh it off with you or give a playful eyeroll.

2. waiter five

Waiter five looks like he would be that person in the friend group who is always mothering the group. Attentive and caring can be serious when need be but for the most part also pretty laid back and not really a stick in the mud.

3. Brisket five

You cant tell me he wouldn’t be a sweetheart. He looks like he would be making small talk and smiling and cracking a couple jokes here and there and just overall you would be comfortable around him. He is probably one of the fives that the others go to vent or just need something to take their mind off of whatever they got going on. There��s that and let’s not forget he apparently wrecks shit sometimes as confirmed by booth five.

4. Newspaper/good with numbers five

Newspaper five has always newspaper always in hand whether it be old news or new news he has one nearby or in hand. This is also helping him with his good with numbers part. He is just uncannily good with numbers obviously having been shown in the scene where he tells the amount of times they tried to save the world. He is basically that scene from criminal minds where Spencer Reid gets the guess right for how many boats are on lake mead. He knows random info and facts and when engaged in conversation he is a fact and info dumper.

5. mathematician/journalist/theorist five

-mathematician five is somewhere writing in his notebook with equations and numbers all probably trying to find a possibility for any possible safe timeline that isn’t gonna go to shit. He could also just really like numbers.

-Journalist/diary five is always writing in his notebook about his days there at the deli/diner. he can recap anything that has happened from the start of when he arrived there and more then likely has a log of all the fives that have arrived and whether they have stayed or went off to try and save the world and the family again.

- theorist five i believe is a variation of five that had driven himself crazy with possibilities and theories whether it be about the apocalypse and saving his family or it might be over something small and insignificant. sometimes this can spiral and cause outbursts of panic and rage or straight up mental breakdowns. His notebook is filled with possibility after possibility. Theory after theory. Some of the pages are random scribbles and writings and if you sit close to him you can hear him muttering to himself about the writings. His hair is also probably a little greasier than others considering his obsessive behavior with writing theories but he isn’t unclean.

6. anxious ansty/waiting five

Anxious ansty five seems to be on edge a lot. All the trauma he has gone through has finally bled through and has made him anxious or antsy. He can be seen with his hands always fidgeting or chewing on a random object like a pen or the tip of his straw to try and silence the anxious thoughts even for just a minute. He may be seen waiting for his order at the counter but he isn’t always waiting for that he can be seen waiting anxiously for some kinda ball to drop and everything to go to shit. He is probably more than likely a paranoid person.

7. Drunk five

Drunk five is quite self explanatory. It’s a variation of five that is drunk but when you think about it. Why was he called drunk five in the first place? why wasnt he called something else kinda like how newspaper/good with numbers five is or theorist five is? its cause he is more then likely always drunk meaning this variation of five is probably the one filled and consumed by regret and grief and sadness and has given up completely. Not all variations of five are happy or composed and this is one of them. He has done so much, seen so much and has dealt with so much to where he drinks to forget and drinks to have a good time. When you approach him you can get a few different emotions whether it be a sad drunk one day or a cracking jokes and making drunk conversation. He is more then likely the one getting into some form of trouble (as seen with S3 where five makes boozy cereal or does random stupid things) he may not always be sad but deep down we know why he drinks.

8. Loose neck tie five

People may argue and say that this is drunk five but if memory serves me right drunk five was off doing something stupid and this one is just hanging out by the door. Now i don’t quite know what personality to give this one since its just a loose neck tie and doesn’t really correspond with personality other then maybe being tired or exhausted or being disheveled in the first place. He may be a five that is a little less organized and put together. I will leave this one up to y’all.

9. Chef five

Not be confused with brisket five cause yes brisket five i guess technically would be a chef considering he is making food but brisket five is called brisket five for a reason. Chef five is the other five behind the counter. If you look at the picture you can see a five eating a soup meaning there probably isn’t just sandwiches here in the diner/deli. Chef five can always be seen hard at work cooking and probably trying out new recipes or making new ones too.

There we have it folks my personal opinions on the five variations in this weird five verse. I hope yall have fun and if you have ideas and different names for some of them put it in comments and i made add them to a list or something who knows what i might do.

[inkdragon1900]

K I actually want to talk about it. What’s with the white favoritism around Lestat?

Like I’m new here. Started watching the show last month. Like I love him obviously he’s a glorious toxic bastard. (Check my blog ie Aaravos from tdp and Ianthe from TLT)

But there’s like…this woobification vibe that some of yall in the fandom have.

And this isn’t about posts like “my babygirl is innocent.” Or “free my man. He was in a silly mood.” Cause like I get it. That’s just me with Armand. (Free my man he did all of it. But you’re honor he’s my wife)

But like…I’m AWARE of Armand’s whole deal. I’m not like “but he’s not that manipulative.” Gurl it’s why I’m into him. He’s a hot fictional bisexual vampire who manipulates like a woman playing 4d chess.

But these freaking takes like “just wait until Lestat can tell the full truth.”

Like I’m sorry but if the white man gets his turn with the talking stick and we get the story from his point of view and the writers make it objectively more factual then 3 freaking POC abuse victims I’m literally out and will not be tuning back in.

And like this is not my first rodeo in a fandom that has an issue with this.

Same problem in the Arcane fandom with the complete disregard and or needless hate over the POC character; Mel, Jayce, Sevika, Ambessa, and yes I have also seen a shit ton of Caitlyn hate or erasure of her being mixed race) and weird micro aggressions about Ekko.

Meanwhile Jinx, Silco, Vander, Viktor, and Vi are Fandom favs.

And the woobification off actually well done mental health struggles. Acting like Jinx’s BPD symptoms wouldn’t have happened if Vi had been a better sister. Or that Viktor is an UwU baby who can’t take care of himself. Bitch he’s disabled he’s not an infant.

And I’m seeing sooooo much of this with these Lestat takes. And as a fellow white person I do genuinely feel the need to call this shit out when I see it.

This like belief that Louis is dragging Lestat’s good name through the mud talking about his abuse and his experiences. Like I’m sorry but during season one I think Louis was a bit too nice about some of that shit Lestat pulled.

Then acting like Armand is some mustache twirling villain getting between Louis and Lestat’s great love??? And all he’s done is exhibit similar fear of loneliness as Lestat and all the manipulation that comes with that???

I’ll tell you what I still haven’t seen Armand do. Beat Louis to a pulp in front of their child then drag him by the chin leaving a literal trail of blood behind. Then draining him and dropping him from miles above the ground.

And I’m what just supposed to disregard all of Claudia’s diaries as well??

Cause I’m all here for the narrative already painted “that memory is a monster.” That we’re all slaves to our memory’s and that truth lies at the abstract of feeling and unclaimed in the middle of a multi perspective story.

It’s what makes this a great show.

Like yes please give me Lestat’s perspective I’d love to be able to see him fleshed out some more. But not at the expense that every single character be made a conniving liar.

[whinlatter]

HEYYY I really want you to reflect more on Ginny’s insecurity when it comes to her relationship with Harry. I’ve been thinking about it since your latest chapter. I don’t know how you can portray all these emotions tbh😭 it’s just way too perfect

ok the inbox is aflutter with questions along these lines so! with no spoilers for the rest of the fic, here's a little (big) lunch break meta on my read on the tensions and insecurities in harry and ginny's post-war relationship, and where harry and ginny are at at this point in beasts. thank you anon! 💞

spoilers for chapter 9 are below the cut!

in chapter nine, we see harry and ginny physically the closest they have been to each other in months, but beginning to discover the real distances between them at play in the current version of their relationship, and see the symptoms showing up in their interactions and (lack of) conversation. after the flashback, this chapter begins with ginny, back an awful time at school, waking up in her boyfriend’s bed, enjoying the luxury of time together and opportunities for physical intimacy. as @ashesandhackles pointed out in her very lovely comment, physical touch - particularly a very natural and instinctual expression of intimacy - is a defining feature of harry and ginny’s romantic relationship in the canon series. canon’s also full of examples of them communicating silently/non-verbally (their in-jokes, as early as PoA, but also the various moments that the two read each other’s minds or have entire interactions without having to say a word). these are obviously important, lovely things and something both of them value in their relationship. but, in this case, where ginny is hiding so much, they can quickly become things to hide behind. tellingly, ginny does not wake up thinking oh good now I have all this time to tell harry what’s up with me, and, over the course of the chapter, finds that secrets have a way of slipping out even if you try your very best to keep them under wraps.

why won't ginny open up?

without spoiling the rest of the fic (!) i think there are few things to bear in mind about why ginny isn't opening up to harry, and what insecurities she might have about the relationship that are preventing her from being honest about the hardships she's going through.

the first is that ginny, canonically, is an extremely guarded person who does rarely opens up, including - or especially - to harry. late canon is full of examples of harry seeking reassurance and emotional comfort in ginny, but examples of ginny doing the same in harry are few and far between. 'lucky you' is a reminder that ginny's own distressing experiences credential her as someone harry can seek reassurance and answers from; it is not a cry for reciprocal help or support. her mentioning riddle's diary in HBP when she finds out about the prince's book works similarly - though harry reassures her about it, her concern is for him, not herself. in the birthday kiss scene, only the 'there's the silver lining i've been looking for' line gives away that ginny has been going through emotional difficulty. in fact, it's ron who conveys that ginny has been 'really cut up' over the breakup. throughout the series, ginny consistently practices a kind of emotional selflessness and self-sufficiency. she understands how important she becomes as a source of comfort and safety for harry, and she is happy and proud to fill that role. she cares deeply about harry, she wants to meet his emotional needs, and she does it very well. she's canonically a fantastic liar, too, which is maybe my favourite characterisation note from her - while hermione and ron are both very easily emotionally read, ginny has an incredible poker face and can lie so well she can have literal dung on her hands and convince her own mother that it was crookshanks throwing dungbombs at the door of the order meeting. in canon, we see ginny crumble only once in her emotional stoic-ness in front of harry (in her bedroom after the birthday kiss - and even then she turns away and tries to hide it). we can speculate about why it is that ginny is like this (...), and i talk more about what this means for harry and ginny long term below. but for now suffice to say that ginny doesn't have a track record of divulging her emotional state and anxieties in very many people, including harry.

the second is that ginny is fiercely protective of harry and tries to shield him from pain, including her own. from CoS thru the rest of the series, ginny cares about shielding harry from criticism, distress, and emotional harm ('leave him alone!') it makes sense that, given ginny's interest in safeguarding harry's happiness and keeping her own sufferings private, she would also seek to protect him from information about herself that would upset him or make him feel worse when she recognises he's already going through a tough enough time. (harry himself practices this form of love in his parental relationship with sirius, eg. trying to retract 'my scar hurts' in GoF - sweet child).

the third - relatedly - is that ginny has begun to link her symptoms to her own wartime experiences, and to torture she endured under the carrows, the full extent of which hasn't been addressed at this point in the fic and which harry doesn't know. harry spends most of DH ignorant about what is happening at hogwarts - he worries for ginny post-sword-stealing, but he's reassured that she won't have been tortured because she only got sent into the forbidden forest. cue neville in the hog's head tunnel quite modestly revealing what really has happened at hogwarts, that the torture of children by way of the cruciatus curse has become a daily occurrence, and that the DA, ginny especially, have gone through a fresh hell. that harry crucioed amycus carrow for so much at spitting at mcgonagall tells us something about how harry might take the news of what actually went down at hogwarts during the war and especially what happened to ginny. in ginny's mind, the idea of strolling up to harry and banging on at length about the sufferings she has endured would be to lay more at his door than he deserves to have to worry about.

there's also this other point, the only issue between harry and ginny that is verbally addressed (but not resolved) in this chapter, which is ginny's lingering insecurities about her relationship with the trio, which also colours all of this. the conversation with harry and ginny in bed about harry staying for at the burrow christmas in ron and hermione’s absence is actually the first section i wrote for this chapter, and one of my favourite parts to write. it picks up this theme of ginny’s ambiguous relationship to The Trio as a unit, something i think a lot about and which i play with a bit in other writing (it comes out at a few points in orchards). i want to write a proper meta about this one day, but running thru this canon is a dynamic of ginny constantly being left out of the trio, from ‘go away ginny’ in PoA (‘oh, that’s nice!’) all the way thru DH. ginny only rarely explicitly complains about this exclusion, though it’s clear she has both noticed it and is irked by it. by the series’ end, this dynamic remains unresolved, even though ginny has become emotionally important to all three of the trio individually.

so why doesn't ginny get angrier about it? we know ginny is a stubborn person perfectly capable of sticking up for herself when being mistreated. that we would expect someone as outspoken and stubborn as she is to actually kick off many more times suggests not that ginny doesn't care, but that she has learned to actively fight her impulse to raise the issue and demand better for herself. my read is that the trio excluding her is, like harry's chosen one fate, just another thing ginny has had to (privately) be hurt by, but get her head around and accept because she recognises it’s part of a bigger picture and, by hbp, connected to a broader more serious quest that has something to do with the. (lots of hinny fics have ginny get mad at harry after the war about the break-up and for keeping her in the dark, and, sometimes, for keeping her out of the trio, but i think actually ginny is too far down the self-denying i-just-have-to-deal-with-this path to get mad without external stimulus. she hasn’t let herself be mad about this sort of thing for a long time, much as she has a right to). as a result, the ginny we see in beasts is a person who has become very self-denying, and who has spent a lot of time telling herself she shouldn’t be selfish or let her ego or pride get the better of her, and to accept certain lots in life for the greater good. would harry/ron/hermione be horrified if actually made to confront this? yes, i think so, absolutely! but they have done this to her and are yet to face the music on how they have excluded her so consistently throughout her teen years. it's a tension that absolutely still needs to be raised and resolved.

what will happen now harry knows something is up?

this chapter sees harry start to realise something's going on with ginny. he finds out ginny saw her ex, michael, about a health condition he's having that might be related to hogwarts last year, that ginny describes 'DA stuff'. luna later accidentally clues him onto the fact ginny, too, has had some mysterious health issues she hasn't raised with him, despite their near constant letter communication over the past four months (luna, your bluntness is extremely narratively convenient, thank you). ginny's blurted out question to harry - ‘you still want to stay, right?’ when finding out romione aren't spending much time at the burrow that christmas - echoes harry’s own at the start of the fic (‘you’ll write, right?’). it’s meant as the same act of a character blurting out a revealing question that speaks to a big insecurity and need they have. when harry calls her up on it before bed later that night, ginny tries to reassure him by showing him some of this mental work she’s done over the years to understand and accept what he + ron + hermione are to each other, reassuring him that she doesn’t want to intrude on that, and to go as far as to say that although he’s extremely welcome at the burrow for christmas, he doesn’t have to spend his christmas there if he’d rather be with his best mates. and what we have in harry’s response is him having to face up, for the first time, not just to the extent of ginny’s exclusion from his friend group, but how much work she has done to be at peace with her exclusion from parts of his life and particularly from his friend group which includes her own friend and brother. in her most insecure thoughts, ginny’s thinking oh god what if harry doesn’t want to be here with me as much as he does with ron and hermione; harry’s like, i’m just now realising the person lying next to me seems to think i want to leave to go hang out with my friends instead of spend christmas with her during this awful time for her family, seems to think i’m doing her a favour by staying, and seems to be hiding something from me that is connected to her own wellbeing.

what will harry's reaction be?

i will be keeping my cards reasonably close to my chest on this one, but i will say this... it was important for me to have two issues come up at the same time: harry working out ginny's keeping secrets while also finding out that she feels much more insecure about how important she is to him and how much she just wants him to be happy even at her own expense. i also wanted it to take place in a chapter that hammers home how much the weasleys, including ginny, are people grieving a great loss and struggling with it, harry a witness to ginny's attempts to hold her family together and make this time together special. of course harry's suspicious, and, likely, hurt. but he's also aware of what she and her family are going through, watching them all suffer extreme pain, and he's also just accidentally been informed of some of his own failings and shortcomings when it comes to ginny and her insecurities about her place in his life. that harry isn't immediately demanding answers and calling ginny out is a sign of him both processing dynamics years in the making, but it's also him reading the room. it would be extremely entitled to storm in and demand answers from ginny when he is seeing her and her family in such extreme distress - so instead he's keeping quiet for now, showing her wordless physical affection, and really deeping what's going on here.

harry and ginny will be facing the music very (very) soon. so far in the fic, the moments where ginny has come closest to giving the game away have been whenever harry and ginny are physically in the same place (st andrews, hogsmeade midnight field picnic). i wanted all the issues to start to come up this chapter now that harry and ginny are back together 24/7 and can't hide behind carefully chosen words in letters, and for their physical displays of intimacy and affection to start to stop working as well as strategies to paper over deeper conversations that need to be had. hence ginny waking up in harry’s bed with no nightmares after physical intimacy at the start of the chapter, but going back to the nightmares despite his proximity and physical displays of affection by the time we get to the chapter's end. their coping mechanisms are running out of road.

would harry be jealous of ginny telling michael?

harry (and ginny) are canonically a bit jealous, absolutely. but they're only really jealous when they're broken up and have more reasons to be insecure about their relationship (ginny with cho, harry with dean/krum - all are tensions that happen while they're broken up. when they're together, it's something they laugh about, eg. romilda and fleur). some of the responses to the fic (understandably) have focussed on oh my god ginny saw her ex. but i think ginny seeing her ex (which she doesn't deliberately keep from harry but realises after the fact she should tell him about, and is careful not to lie to him) is less likely to be upsetting to harry than the idea that ginny went and saw someone that she shared intense, traumatic experiences with that harry wasn’t a part of, and that, throughout DH, he’s in the dark about. that it's michael doesn't improve things, but it's the bigger context that makes the act more upsetting.

are harry and ginny doomed?

a lot of hinny critics cite various versions of the above dynamics as reasons why hinny would ultimately not make it long-term as a couple. i (obviously) disagree with that, because i believe these are two characters willing and able to make this relationship flourish and thrive. with that said, i don't think people writing harry and ginny as a pairing should ignore the existing dynamics within hinny as a relationship that would need to be unpacked and worked on as they rebuild their relationship as a foundation for a happy, healthy future together. this includes the fact that their relationship has been uneven in the level of mutual emotional support in canon, and full of cultivated omissions and silences. i'm not blaming harry (much) for this - i think harry has had, if not good reasons, then understandable reasons why, in the canon timeline, he gives ginny less emotional support than she gives him, not least because 1) he has (frankly) needed more (not to diminish ginny's post chamber trauma, but i think this is fair to say), 2) because ginny has great trouble accepting emotional support, and 3) because the arc of the later series is harry slowly accepting the role of the chosen one, deciding that he is not a normal person, and setting himself on a singular path to destruction stripped of ties to other people, even though he longs for the life of a normal person deep down. less dramatically, harry also ends the series a repressed 17 year old boy with some obliviousness issues and some growing up to do in ways that make him actually extremely typical of even emotionally healthy teenage boys (do i think every kind supportive man i now know in my late twenties was the best at emotional literacy and maturity at age 17? no no i do not. having met some of them at that time, i can you for a fact that they were, in fact, Not, and none of them were the subject of a terrible prophecy and all fought in precisely zero wars).

i believe harry wants a mutually supportive relationship with ginny. i believe him capable of having just that, and willing to do the work to build it. we know in canon he wants to build a family and instinctually practices reasonably healthy dynamics within one (in his familial relationship with sirius, it's often harry who sets the boundaries and healthy precedents). harry also often worries about ginny's wellbeing, physical and emotional, in his internal monologue, and sincerely wants to make her feel better about the awful things going on around them and that he is putting her through (see the birthday kiss scene - his instinct is to comfort her, and it's ron's rage that stops him). i'm always struck that in DH he starts to watch ginny on the map not when she might be in physical danger (eg. when she comes into contact with carrows/snape), but when she is in bed, alone with her thoughts/dreams/nightmares, and imagines himself reaching into her brain and hoping she's doing ok. in the battle he tries to reassure ginny in the thick of fighting even though he knows they are 'empty words'. across all his relationships more generally, he does show capacities for emotional awareness and generosity, consistently building loving, supportive connections with other characters throughout the series arc, and worrying particularly about the emotional state of the people he views as family (sirius chief among them).

when push comes to shove, harry potter, by the end of DH, is getting much better at knowing how to make his closest loved ones feel better. my favourite example being his perfect detonation of words and physical comfort to ron in the forest of dean - ron feels forgiven, loved and understood by harry so beautifully in that scene. i argue that he would take this hard-won work-in-progress trait and run with it when it comes to building his postwar relationship with ginny. but i think harry has a lot still to learn about how to communicate effectively, how to verbalise that concern and action it into meaningful emotional support and comfort, and at this point in beasts, he's perhaps beginning to realise how deficient he's been in this department. ginny, too, has a lot of work of her own to do. and it's my pleasure to try and figure out how they do that, and i'm grateful for the faith in me having a go at writing a version of it in this fic!

[mauveberries]

Hiya!

You mentioned you don't read Tomarry in another post. Because I'm super curious (but no pressure or judgment over here), may I ask why not? Why do you read Harrymort only? Why makes you prefer Harrymort so much that you'd ignore Tomarry altogether?

Also, what makes a fic Tomarry vs Harrymort for you? Because I can think of a lot of fics that I consider Harrymort where they switch the name from Voldemort to Tom and even switch his appearance sometimes. (Like anything Maeglin_Yedi writes or Of Your Making by purplewitch156)

I personally love both with all their various tropes, I read both, and I write both. However, in my case, my energy and focus is devoted to my long Tomarry time travel fic rather than my much shorter Harrymort arranged marriage fic.

This is all just genuine curiosity from me with no judgment attached. I wonder what keeps you away from Tomarry, yet what draws you to Harrymort. I find it fascinating. So curious! Haha! xD Anyhoo, if you answer, thanks for humoring me and I send you good vibes so that you may have a lovely day. <3

hiiiii ahh thank you for this ask!! it's so nice that you're actually curious about this. ❤ this may be a bit rambly, so bear with me, yeah?

one of the reasons why i don't read tomarry is because personally, i think that they are just not compatible. no matter what. tom riddle is an ambitious young man with a horrifically cruel streak. he is not afraid to take advantage and manipulate the people around him. he treasures loyalty above almost anything else, and likes when those around him fear him. harry has.. none of those.

i know that the point of enemies to lovers is to somehow make this compatible and to somehow make them fall in love with each other, but i can't see tom being attracted to... any of harry's character enough to get together with him. why would he do that when there are people willing to listen to him already? it's illogical in my opinion. and i know the whole dynamic is 'oh, harry's defiant towards me, what a brave, intriguing guy, i need to see what he's up to.' but the truth of the matter is, i think tom would just plainly dislike that. i know people think tom would like a challenge, and i agree, he does, but i just don't think that would expand towards trying to win people's feelings. he wouldn't care.

the context of tomarry is usually always time travelling and i stand by the fact that i think tom wouldn't think too much of harry. probably because if harry tried anything, tom would easily get harry expelled/killed. he would win easily. back in the 1940's harry wouldn't have enough plot armour to survive through everything. if tom can frame hagrid, he can frame harry, too, and dumbledore might be the only who cares enough to try and override an expulsion but obviously, dippet wouldn't have it. and then if harry's expelled, (which he most likely will be) tom wouldn't spare him a second thought. and i know that in canon, tom does, in fact, spare harry a second thought, but i think that's because he's already voldemort and he's paranoid. if he's young, and he comes across the prophecy, he would just kill harry, it's really not that deep, i promise you. if tom spared a second thought to plan a murder, 100% he would succeed and dumbledore can't say anything because he stayed silent when myrtle died too. it's not drarry where they're trying to hurt each other. this is tomarry where tom will kill harry if need be, and succeed because suddenly harry has no plot armour. it's not the same.

tom riddle isn't as incompetant as voldemort.

ALSO, just wanted to add that in COS, that is not the real tom riddle. that is a corrupted horcrux. obviously, it's going to sound deranged and obsessive after having been stuck in a diary for 50 years. i don't like it when tom is portrayed overly obsessive because people mistake him for the diary horcrux. i do think he was obsessive to a degree, but only towards something that benefits him, not people.

i just don't think harry is special enough to stand out to tom riddle. harry's duelling skills are mediocre, his studies are mediocre and his looks are average. i know in many tomarry fics, harry tries to get tom's attention and succeeds, but i don't think that's realistic because many other people are also always trying to get tom's attention 😭.

and i know many tomarry fics use the fact that harry seems to be the only one who dislikes tom and because of that, he takes notice of harry, but i strongly disagree with that. tom is assumed to be muggleborn/half-blood. back in 1940's, blood supremacy ran rampant. of course there will be purebloods who will never like tom! (prpbably walburga and orion) and tom knows this. he's not going to pay attention to every single person who dislikes him, he's not abraxas malfoy.

the only way i can see harry getting tom's attention is through speaking pareseltongue. and then, after tom hears him speak parseltongue, he spirals. he desperately searches through every single geneology book and when he realises that harry isn't related to him, tom would kill him, because he's supposed to be the heir of slytherin, no one else, and now he is paranoid, because if not his relative, then who is harry? 🙁 so harry is fed to the basilisk. no fawkes and sword of gryffindor to save him now, since he's in slytherin, right?

i genuinely don't think tom would be interested in harry romantically. not when he already has a simpering crowd which worships him. as much as you want to say tom would think them beneath him, that is literally not true, he valued the lestranges for their loyalty. he gifted his notebook to the malfoys for safekeeping. he trusted bella enough to place a piece of his soul in her vault. he obviously appreciated them. what he doesn't appreciate, is being disrespected by someone he sees as wayyyy below his league.

but this is not to say that i have never given a tomarry fic a chance. i have read about 6 to 7 long fics and i figured that i did not like the dynamic at all. obviously the authors can write whatever makes them happy, this is not a them problem at all, this is a me problem. so i just stopped reading tomarry all together.

also, i feel like people characterize tom riddle softer than he actually is, and this makes tom and harry's dynamic more... levelled and i don't like that. even if tom riddle hasn't turned in voldemort yet, i need them to have some kind of imbalance with the scales tipped on tom's side. overall, the usual tomarry is kind of a nothingburger ship to me and it just ends up being murderous drarry.

the point of the hp series is that voldemort is the main, whimsical, mysterious main villian and i don't like that tomarry obliterates this dynamic.

also, i'm not a huge fan of timetravel because the ages mashing up is something i dislike. like, if harry travels back in time, then usually only ron and hermione come with him. it's fun, but i like it when everything is in its canonical place, you know?

you probably know my stance on same age aus at this point 😆.

now, moving onto why i like harrymort muchh more. as you could probably already tell, i love the doomed, dead-dovey aspect of this ship. the psychological horror aspect is really good, too. i adore the age difference and the grave power imbalance. i love that for this ship to happen, harry's morals have to be completely obliterated. i loooove post-war era, i love the potential for forced proximity. everything is just soooo good. the prophecy? epic. the power imbalance? count me in. with harrymort, there is usually a rigid structure i like, like there is no way harry can overpower voldemort in any way whatsoever. (personally, i don't think harry can overpower even tom riddle.) (i know most people don't like this, so now i avoid harrymort fics as well 😭) but yeah.

i really really dislike it when harry calls voldemort 'tom.' if voldemort hates it when even mighty dumbledore who knows almost everything about him calls him tom, how can he like it when someone who 'killed' him, and someone who is practically a stranger calls him that? no way. just.. no. if harry wants to get together with him, he better respect that.

as for voldemort's appearance, i like it when he looks like an older tom riddle. (snake-face is a joke to me 😭😭) it's more poignant when voldemort looks like tom riddle, there are more themes to explore through that, instead of evil = ugly. good = handsome. snake-faced voldemort is horrendously shallow to me.

oh, and i love love love the trope where after the war, harry becomes terribly depressed and he dreams about tom/voldemort, like, ohhh i love that trope so much. there are just so many interesting things to explore in harrymort that tomarry just doesn't have room for. in other words, tomarry is lowkey tame.

what makes a fic tomarry is when voldemort is younger, he's still inexperienced. (borgin's and burkes era, hogwarts era, wool's era) and harrymort is during the first war/second war/time during his travels era.

i hope my answer makes sense, i know you're writing a tomarry timetravel fic and i hope that i have not offended you 😭😭 i'm sure whatever you churn out will be absolutely amazing. people can and are allowed to have different interpretation of tomarry from me, and i completely respect that. people can and should write whatever they enjoy :)) i hope you enjoy writing your fic, i really admire how dedicated you are to writing!!

but yeah, i think i'll stop here before i descend into incoherent rambling yeah?

thank you for this ask!! ❤❤

[thecoddaughter]

This started as just me thinking of one hc for BBH based on my 4Halo playlist then I got into a headcanon mood then this list became massive. So here’s a bunch of my headcanons:

Bad smells like daisies… like the saying pushing up daisies meanings to be dead, man’s is surrounded by death (inspired by the song big jet plane)

I’ve expressed that I think the eggs shift to look more like their parents, so I think Pomme’s hair looked like Bagz UNTIL Bad dyed his hair and then Pomme changed hers to match Bad’s (Dapper does it too but it’s the thing where it’s the under layer of hair so no one can really see it)

While Phil doesn’t understand or know why he trusts Tubbo so much or why he made him the godfather of the kids, Phil sees himself as Tubbo’s godfather from time to time. The person who is meant to care for Tubbo is obviously nowhere to be seen so he decided he needed to step up.

When people take breaks from the server without being kidnapped, the joke is often they went out for “milk” or “cigs” but I imagine they actually went out adventuring or trying to find a way off the island and got lost (or killed depending on if they ever come back)

I said this in my previous Fevela5 post, but the Fevela5 (+Roier [and I guess now Bagi?]) all live in the Fevela in houses right next to each other and it’s that co-parent situation where the kid stays in the one house and the parents switch who lives with the kid.

Pomme’s diaries aren’t fancy, leather diaries… they are very 90s-00s styled (hot pink, sparkles, cheap locks, some are fuzzy, and on and on). Dapper on the other hand uses composition notebooks like a proper middle school scientist.

Early days they often joked about not having service or cable, but some families had tvs and computers. What if there was just federation funded shows (cartoon propaganda and news)?

Pac 100% think he and Fit are already dating. He thinks they are… they have never talked about it. They went on a date and that means they are dating. That’s it for him. (This is based on something my roommate and I talked about this week)

All the avian members of the island have a massive treehouse they hangout in (it has an elevator for Phil). It’s rare that they are all their together but it’s a place in the jungle just for them.

Baghera has a room at Bad’s base because if she’s taking care of the kids and they want to be at that house, she can just sleep in her own room. He did not tell her he did this. It is completely personalized (aka a bunch of stuff from her own house that he liberated).

[gumy-shark]

untitled shou wip #1

yeah. decided “fuck it we ball” and am posting a wip i like. POV shou, set post-canon, 655 words. Shou does some introspection while working on his homework.

Shou may have his flaws, but- well, actually, Shou hasn’t put much thought into whether he has faults or not. He’s sure that he probably has them (and equally sure that you could ask pretty much anyone from Claw HQ about them and get a whole list), but it’s really just not the kind of thing he bothers to worry about. As far as Shou’s concerned, dwelling on all of your problems all the time is a great way to waste the little time you have on this earth.

The point is, whatever other faults Suzuki Shou may or may not allegedly have, being a liar isn’t one of them. It’s not in his nature to hide things, not when he could just come right out and say them. (Well, obviously he’ll make some exceptions for politeness and stuff, he’s not an asshole.) (Wait, is he an asshole? Maybe he should ask Ritsu about it, Ritsu’s pretty good at that kind of stuff.)

Shou makes a mental note to ask Ritsu about whether or not he is, in fact, an asshole. 

Maybe he should ask when the next time he needs help with wants company doing homework and Oh Right Homework He Still Needs To Do That.

The homework in question glares accusingly from his backpack. He’d gotten so caught up in thought that he’d forgotten all about it. Maybe he should get a diary like Ritsu, so that all of this thinking can become writing and doodling in the margins and then he won’t want to do it as much. Maybe- wait a second. This is stalling. Shou doesn’t want to do the stupid homework, so he’s running off with random trains of thought to avoid doing it. And stalling is for cowards who waste time and aren’t tough enough to face their problems head-on, so Shou forces himself to sit down and actually look at the worksheet he’s supposed to be turning in tomorrow.

Six minutes of extremely valiant effort later, Shou has reached new heights of hatred for (in no particular order): math, his teachers, his dad (who was not directly involved in this one but also Shou’s situation is almost certainly his fault somehow), his mom’s ancient old cat (puked on the floor), and most of all for the first worksheet he pulled out of his bag, which has stubbornly remained impossible despite Shou’s best efforts. The numbers just swim around in his head and he can’t keep the equations straight and no matter how hard he tries he just can’t get it to work.

There’s only one person Shou knows who could actually make any of this make sense. Looks like he has a reason to visit Ritsu today after all!

(It’s not running away, what he’s doing. Shou’s not running away here, he’s making a tactical decision to attack the problem from another angle. That’s still facing his problems, and he’d waste more time by struggling on his own since he clearly isn’t getting anywhere. Also, because asking for help isn’t cowardly OR running away it’s actually harder and tougher and therefore cooler. And also because running away isn’t even a bad thing, even if he was running away it would be fine and it wouldn’t make him a coward. See? He’s growing! He’s learning!)

As he leaves the train station and starts the trek towards Ritsu’s house, Shou pops into a convenience store on a whim and walks out with some soda and mentos. That way, if math still makes him want to explode things, he can do it without destroying the whole house (again).

Now that he thinks of it, Shou’s pretty sure some of those guys from the 7th Division ended up working at a convenience store somewhere in the city. Shou’s glad he didn’t end up walking in there- not that he’d particularly care, of course, but it just seems like it’d be kind of weird for everyone.

[wingsoverlagos]

Hi, wingsoverlagos! Love your blog from The Bruce McMouse Show' Paul to your posts on magic Lewisohn. Thank you a lot! And not that it matters but I thought about you when read this comment on youtube (by @DrAnne-mc8er, who tells nice and seems truely stories about her family, especially on her unkle worked with The Beatles in 1969, and her own childhood near Paul, John, George and Ringo),

'… I've kept written diaries my whole life, which our youngest daughter is in the (necessarily) very long process of putting in date order with my help. These go way back to the early 50's, and include things which (now) seem so innocent and naive. Like when John knocked me off a swing in the local park, and when John and Paul had a real fight over a pair of £2 roller skates, both refusing to give up the one skate they each were holding on to for dear life! LOL Obviously this was when we were all still teenage kids fooling around.

Yes, I was contacted by a lady well over a year ago from "the office of" Mr Lewisohn in London, which to be quite honest, I thought was an arrogant way of him going about things, and I said so to the lady. Anyway he called back to "personally apologise". I should probably clarify that I'm now well into my seventies, and have a number of health issues. Yet rather than come up and see me at home in Liverpool, Mr Lewisohn assumed that I would be so keen to be in his book, that I would take the 3 hour train journey, to go and see him (or an assistant) in London, stay overnight if necessary, and then "hope" that anything I would say about the early days, might make it into his planned book. ALL at my own personal expense!

Needless to say I told my husband what Mr Lewisohn expected, and I also phoned Paul to tell him (in no uncertain terms) what I thought of the man. Frustratingly, our daughter who's here now, has just said I can't say what Paul said to me over the phone, here in a public forum. So that's as much as I can say. Well, other than I chose NOT to take the delightful Mr Lewisohn up on his offer! (I'm angry with him now all over again, just recalling what the arrogant sod expected me to do!) But anyway greenatom, you now know the story behind all that.

PS - Our daughter's gone home, so I'll quickly tell you that Paul said he'd talk to Richie (Ringo) about everything, and would phone me back. Anyway in the meantime, Barb phoned me and said Richie was furious with this Mark Lewisohn about what had happened, and that he should "stick his effing book where the sun don't shine!" LOL Then Paul phoned me back the same evening, and said he'd been round to Richie and Barb's (which of course I knew after chatting with Barb earlier), and said it was entirely up to me. but that he and Richie, both felt that I should tell Mark Lewisohn to "eff off". So I don't know for certain, but I think Paul and Richie might have temporarily fallen out a bit with Mr Lewisohn. Not just because of how he spoke to me, but mainly because as Paul said over the phone, the book is supposed to be about The Beatles. Not what the lads got up to as kids individually. Sorry for writing such a stupidly long reply, but take care anyway, and please stay healthy and wear a mask x' From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hv2EkzqUb8&lc=Ugy-Dnq03NdsYhh6xTB4AaABAg&ab_channel=YouCan%27tUnhearThis

Thank you so much for reading my posts, and for sending this message along! The comment thread in question is very interesting and sent me down quite the rabbithole. I wanted to believe! But I fear this person's story doesn't line up on close inspection.

The thread in question is at the top of the comment section on this video on the You Can't Unhear This Youtube channel. It's from the user "DrAnne-mc8er" who claims to be the neice of Bob Moog, of synthesizer fame. The thread is over 100 comments long with many replies by Dr. Anne. In addition to being the neice of Bob Moog, she claims to have known Paul and George as kids, being a couple of years younger than them, and to still be friends with them to this day. She says she has many handwritten journals starting in the 1950s and, most pertinently, she claims to have been contacted by the office of Mark Lewisohn. Her story goes that a research assistant of Lewisohn contacted her; Dr. Anne thought it was rudely done, and Lewisohn then conteacted her personally to apologize. She came away with the impression that he was full of himself, and then spoke to Paul & Ringo, who confirmed that Lewisohn was bad news.

Obviously, this story was like catnip to me. Having beef with Mark Lewisohn is such a specific thing to lie about, I thought, would anyone bother to add this detail if they were simply LARPing as someone celeb-adjacent? Still, there were some details that gave me pause. Dr. Anne said, for instance, that John was a devout christian at the time of the Maureen Cleave interview, which...lol. But one very wrong assumption doesn't necessarily invalidate her entire story. She also said that George Harrison had done uncredited backing vocals on London Town, which sounds improbable, but idk, you never know???

So I decided to dig in to see if anything she said held water. First, I image searched her profile picture (crazy how using a basic google function makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes), and the results were somewhat encouraging: the picture was indeed of a Dr. Anne Cremona, a psychologist. Further digging showed that the real Dr. Anne and the commenter Dr. Anne both professed to have at least four children. On the flip side, Commenter Dr. Anne purports to live in Liverpool, while Actual Dr. Anne practices in London. Not a realistic commute, eh?

But the story truly fell apart once I looked into Bob Moog, who I previously knew nothing about aside from the fact that he was the Synthesizer Guy. Commenter Dr. Anne said that her mother was Bob Moog's younger sister, who had moved to the UK in 1938. She named her grandfather as Robert Sr. There are claims with all of these problems, not the least of which is the fact that Bob Moog seems to have been an only child. I read the first few chapters of a biography of Moog--(Switched On by Albert Glinsky)--which provides plenty of detail on Moog's family going several generations back, but doesn't mention any siblings.

The second issue is the timing: based on this commenter's story, she would have been born around 1944 or 1945. Bob Moog was born in 1934. If he somehow had a younger sister who went unmentioned in his biography, she would have been at most three years old in 1938, when she purportedly went to Liverpool--with a non-parent guardian, as Bob Moog lived with both his parents. This sister would have been ten at the oldest when "Dr. Anne" claims to have been born.

Then we have her grandfather, Robert Sr. Bob Moog was actually the first Robert in a long line of Georges. His dad was George, his grandfather was George, and his great-grandfather was, I think, Georg. There may have been another George thrown in there.

So it seems like this commenter is just doing some high effort LARPing. The thing I'm left wondering is whether or not this commenter is actually Dr. Anne Cremona. If it isn't, they didn't just pick a random picture for their troll account, but used her name as well, all while incorporating details that seem pulled from her life. There's the number of children for one, but the commenter also sprinkles in some psychology talk.

What's the deal? Is this an actual psychologist doing some dedicated trolling (the comment chain spanned a time period of more than a year) with her actual name and picture? Or is this a troll impersonating an actual psychologist as part of their neice-of-Bob-Moog routine?

Thank you for sending this my way, @tavolgisvist! It may not be the genuine article, but I had a lot of fun digging into it. The Mark Lewisohn Tipline (my askbox) is always open!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I have weirdly posted very little on Tumblr about the current Taskmaster season, despite being absolutely obsessed with it. I’ve been enjoying it hugely, but every time I go to write a post about it, I get in my head about whether I’m enjoying it wrong. I need to stop reading the internet.

So I’m liveblogging this episode, like I used to do. Because it’s fun. Thoughts on Taskmaster s17e06, written as I watch it:

- That intro was the funniest one they’ve had in a while. The aunt relay story was like the Platonic ideal of Taskmaster intro Alex banter. Great start.

- John Robins is, as I expected and specifically called (you have to call it so you can have the bragging rights if you’re right and never bring it up again if you’re wrong), absolutely killing it, points-wise, throughout this season of Taskmaster. But his prize tasks aren’t what I was expecting, especially since good prize tasks are usually correlated strongly to a contestant who cares a lot about winning, as the others just fill in the list without much thought. John started really strong with the diaries, and since then has just brought in things that float around the internet four separate times. I would like to see the rest of his Taskmaster meme collection thought.

- And Nick brought in an ice cube, so maybe John’s still in the game. Quite funny how he sold that though, his entire face swearing that this is definitely a reasonable thing to do.

Look, I’m trying to stop drinking, and I am definitely over the mentality I had in my twenties, about how you have to drink things “properly”, where “properly” means never diluting the alcohol content because, to quote Lord Gregory Davies, “I’m not a pussy”. My days of believing that sort of thing are long over, I swear. Or I thought they were, until I saw this. Don’t put ice in wine, guys. Obviously. Don’t put ice in wine.

- Ohhh, this is that episode Joanne was talking about on the podcast, where they refer to the prizes as “presents for Greg”. Good stuff, that was funny.

- The contestants who turn up on Taskmaster having obviously never seen it before are the ones where I’m least likely to seek out their other work, because I just cannot believe I would find anything relatable in anything written by a person who could go on a show like that without doing any research beforehand. However, those contestants are often funny in the moment. And Sophie not knowing what prize tasks are by episode six is pretty funny.

- Of the first three prizes, Sophie’s is the first one I’d actually want. I’ve always thought going around in those giant inflatable balls looks like enormous fun, but I’ve never done it. Can’t see Greg enjoying it, though. What a terrible gift.

- Alex’s petulant “They’re not presents!” was also very funny. Strong first six minutes of the episode for Alex Horne.

- I would also like Joanne’s present. And unlike with Sophie’s, I don’t see why Greg wouldn’t. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t. I shouldn’t want this because she’s one of the two people with a shot at catching up to John, but five points to Joanne. That’s got to be the best present.

- Oh, this is the episode when Steve pulls out that cryptic crossword message that people found back in the fall, when this was filmed. Yeah, okay, I hate to say it but that’s got to be five points to Steve on effort alone. They’re a good thing to get into, too. And it should be four to Joanne; I’ve got bragging rights riding on John but top marks in this one should go to the two people mostly likely to catch him. I’m extremely impressed by anyone who can do a cryptic crossword, much less set one.

- Further to my argument that competitiveness is not just entertaining for its own sake, but it is also funny when done on this comedy show: the look on John Robins’ face after Steve reveals the cryptic crossword and John realizes he’s fucked this one by comparison. You can’t tell me that’s not funny. That is a funny realization to watch come over a person’s face. Also, this is the most I’ve liked Steve in the show so far. That is some proper effort.

- Yep, I hate to say it because of my bragging rights that are on the line, but I think Greg scored that prize task exactly correctly. You’re going to need to pick it up in the studio tasks, John. And maybe stop bringing in shit you found on the internet. I’m fine and invested in the competitive side of this a normal amount.

- I frequently like the tasks in which they have to reference each other in some way (like the season 12 prize task where they brought gifts for the person sitting next to them is one of my favourite prize tasks ever), but I’m not sure how well it’ll work in a season where aside from Nick and Steve, none of them seem to know each other (at least before filming this). In addition to two people not knowing what show they’re on. Joanne’s probably got a bit of an advantage here because everyone knows some stuff about Steve Pemberton.

- No victory criteria specified on the task, so this will be a two-parter. Which means actually, the points may not even be based on how good the hamper is, so maybe that’s no advantage at all. The points will probably be based on what they do with their hampers once they get them.

- Just to be pedantic for a moment: the information is on the task, and the task itself never actually says their hamper has to match the wheel.

- Joanne bringing in that thing I mentioned, that she’ll be able to come up with something for Steve because everyone knows at least a bit about him: holding up a disembodied head, “This ‘cause I know he likes weird shit.” Yep. I haven’t actually seen any of the League of Gentlemen shows, but that’s the one thing I know about Steve Pemberton from outside Taskmaster. If I had to represent what I’m pretty sure his work is like, I think there are probably disembodied heads and other weird shit.

- Steve Pemberton quoting the wrong song back at Alex after “1, 2, 3, 4” was also pretty funny. He’s slightly growing on me this episode.

- Joanne’s first thought of what makes things exciting: tequila. Very on-brand.

- I like the idea of this task, fairly open-ended and leaves room for creativity. It’s not far off from the “create tension” task, or the many similar “make [thing] the most exciting” in previous seasons, but those often tend to be good. And this season has a few people who seem to shine in the ones where they’re allowed to do a whole sketch. Nick, so far in this season, has squandered several opportunities to show off his actual memorization/magic trick-related skills, but has squandered no opportunities to show off his theatrical side.

- Joanne going in a split second from giggling about Irish stereotypes to accusing Greg of racism: also funny.

- And one scene later, we have Nick’s theatrical side. I knew he’d go big on this. Constructed a set and organized lighting and music. Good stuff.

- Sophie might be okay here, point-wise, if she comes up with a narrative to justify the dancing when selling it. But I bet she won’t.

- Having seen her in the studio – and she didn’t. Why did Alex have a pigeon on his head? You need a narrative, Sophie. Greg likes a narrative.

- “And that, Greg, was a thumble brag.” – Alex

Thumble brag, it’s thumble brag, thumble brag of the week!

- Everyone’s very on brand in this task so far. Nick goes theatrical. Sophie does a confused abstract dance-y thing. John goes sporty.

- I wrote that before seeing Joanne in a moustache, doing an unnecessarily complicated game. That’s less on-brand but I like it.

- My reaction while watching John’s set-up: That’s funny, he took the opportunity to turn the tables on Alex, making him read out and do a task. Aw, got the Queen song titles in there, well done. I wonder if they’ll… hang on, are you allowed to just light shit on fire in the grass on the Taskmaster grounds? What the fuck? He says he had a two-hour health and safety meeting to clear driving that car with an egg, but no one stopped him from lighting a fire in the grass?

- I have no idea what the hell is going on in Joanne’s attempt but it’s definitely not a thumb war. What did Joanne think the task was?

- Whatever John and Alex were doing was also not a thumb war, though maybe slightly more because they did hit each other with pretend thumbs. Also, I don’t care whether it adhered to the remit, because that was enormous fun to watch. I would genuinely watch that like an actual sport. I would pay good money for the uncut footage of that whole game. Why don’t more people on Taskmaster hit each other with sticks?

- Okay, lots of things in this episode have been funny so far, but the first one to make me actually laugh out loud was John freaking out about naming the wrong Queen album when asked what a particular song was on. It’s the split-second transition between the confidence with which he delivered his first answer and the panic when he realized it was wrong. That transition is never not funny. The cheeky look on Alex’s face was pretty good too.

- Ugh, they saved Steve for last because he’s going to go really big, isn’t he? He’s been good in all the theatrical tasks so far. I’m not saying “ugh” because I’m not impressed, I just don’t want him to narrow John’s lead in the overall scores.

- Okay that was fucking funny. He went even bigger than I expected, how did he put all that together in that amount of time? Yeah, fuck it, well done, Steve. You made a movie. But you didn’t hit Alex Horne with a stick, did you?

- I’m enjoying Alex in the studio being briefly unable to read the autocue because he’s giggling too hard at Steve’s theatrical production.

- I think I’d have put Joanne on the same level as Nick and John – I’d personally probably have put John one point higher, and that’s not because I have bragging rights staked on him winning the series, it’s because I like watching sport-type-things and people hitting each other with sticks – but if I take out my subjective bias, I think the three of them were probably about the same. Other than that I agree with the scoring though.

- I enjoyed the high five between Nick and Sophie over both being at the bottom of the scoring. It’s always fun when the two lowest-scoring contestants bond over that. John’s only one point up though, rough episode for him. But he’s got a cushion of a few points on his lead overall, it’s all right. Steve was always going to win that theatrical one. Also, Alex just said the word “darts” when introducing the next task, which makes me think John’s about to claw some points back. That’s his thing.

- Oh yes, those are darts in the initial shots. Let’s go, Johnny JR. Here’s where you make up the points.

- Oh it’s a team task. Okay this might go less well. Means he can’t pull ahead of Joanne here. But he can at least catch up to Steve. I bet Steve Pemberton can’t throw darts.

- John doesn’t even get into the dome before informing the team that he was on the college darts team. I’m impressed that he managed to hold back from mentioning that he was the captain. I’m actually looking forward to this, aside from its value as a Taskmaster task. I’ve spent a lot of time listening to John Robins brag about his darts skills, and it sounds like he can back that up, as other comedians who’ve seen him play say he’s good, and presumably Oxford doesn’t make you captain of their teams if you can’t do it. I’m pleased that I’ll (presumably) get to see if he can do it. Or see him fail at what’s supposed to be “his thing”, which will also be funny.

- You know, there is a bit of a pattern of Alex putting things in this season that seem like little things related to John Robins, mainly just little Easter Egg things for Alex's friend. Pickled onions in that glove task, when John is always going on about how much he likes picked onions. The task on the first episode where they had to rank each other by who’s won the Perrier Award (that of course applies to Steve too, but I assume Steve has enough other accomplishments in his career so he doesn’t define himself by it so much). Reading in Welsh. Darts. I would have counted rum being in the gloves task as one of those little nods to John Robins things, though doing that on purpose would be pretty fucked up right after he quit drinking, so I’m assuming it was just a really weird oversight. A really weird oversight. I would like them to include less fake alcohol for the alcoholic, and more tasks based around activities he’s really good at (I’m sorry, I can’t refer to darts as a sport, but it’s a very impressive skill). Mainly because I have bragging rights riding on him doing well. And because I want to see how good he actually is at darts.

- And Alex gets in a mention of John being captain of the darts team, after John refrained from saying so himself. Alex does do this while calling John out for stripping off on camera, though, so it doesn’t come off as that much of a compliment.

- Well we won’t find out if Steve’s any good at throwing darts, but Nick Mohammed doesn’t seem to be. And Steve Pemberton is definitely not much of a gymnast. I wonder if that would have gone better if they’d traded places? Nick’s probably more flexible, but being short seems like a disadvantage, not being able to reach as far. I’d have also expected Nick to be better at the bottle thing, given that he does party tricks for a living.

- I wrote the above point before hearing them have that exact discussion in the studio. I think Nick’s wrong, they had it the right away around. I also think all of Sophie and Nick’s interactions are quite funny. But all be honest, at this point I’m mainly focused on getting to the next part so I can see John Robins throw darts.

- Sophie declaring that she’s actually pretty good at bottle flipping and then immediately tossing it on the ground was perfectly timed. Or well edited.

- I've been avoiding filling the post up with screenshots the way I have in previous Taskmaster liveblogs (mainly because it takes too long), but John and Joanne's facial expressions immediately after Sophie throws the bottle on the ground are pretty funny:

Those are two people who have confirmed they are definitely going to need to rely on darts skills and flexibility.

- I was doing well with avoiding screenshots until I got to the part of the episode where they keep having reactions to Sophie’s incompetence. I'm quite enjoying John watching with dismay as Sophie drops it on the ground again, then as soon as her back is turned, he glances at Alex like, "What am I expected to do with this?"

It was a great idea to set up this task so Sophie Willan can perform some straight-up slapstick comedy in the background the whole time. It's like the time they put Guz Khan on a chair and made him eat chocolates in an amusing way while the other two got on with the task.

- God damn, John. Yep, the man can play darts. It turns out he can, in fact, play darts. That’s pretty cool to watch. It’s not a sport but it’s cool to watch.

- Have to give some credit here to Joanne’s contortionist abilities too. That’s pretty good. They definitely got it the right way around.

- Holy shit, that’s really impressive. I’m enjoying the montage of John smugly repeating “bullseye” but I wish we had more shots of him actually throwing. What we did see was cool.

- Second proper, significant laugh out loud of the episode comes from Alex telling them they have to do it again in different roles, and then admitting he’s joking. Good joke, Alex.

- Holy shit, was Joanne really clambering around in there for an hour? I can believe that, if they had 43 moves. An hour of that would be just over a minute per move. That is impressive on her part, for the stamina as much as the flexibility. That’s fucking cool. I would like the uncut footage of that task as well, please, Taskmaster.

- Oh I like that interior task location. How have they not used that until the second half of the season?

- Ah, that’s where they were going with the hamper. We haven’t had a good “create a portrait” task yet this season, and this a fun deviation from making ones of Greg. I guess there are only so many portraits of Greg the contestants can be forced to make.

So actually, if they were being strategic in the hamper task, they should have put basically nothing in there, to stop their opponents from being able to make anything good. But they couldn’t have known that and it could have backfired if they’d tried. Also I guess they’re technically on a comedy show.

- Joanne’s running monologue throughout this task is horrifying.

- Oh shit, Steve’s isn’t bad. Solid use of banana. Actually looks like a person. Unnecessary detail, as there has been in most of Steve’s tasks throughout this season. I’m a big fan of unnecessary detail. I’d probably quite like Steve if I’d never heard him on the podcast admitting to breaking that egg on purpose. But he did so I still want him to get beat. I doubt he will on this task, though.

- Written after seeing the next picture: definitely not by Joanne, he won’t.

- This has nothing to do with the episode or anything but I like Joanne’s t-shirt. The one she’s wearing. Not anything about the picture she made. The picture she made is almost as horrifying as her monologue while making it.

- Oh, John’s is surprisingly not bad either! It looks like an actual person. An orange person, which is not the colour Nick Mohammed is, but still. To be fair John did have flour, which is an advantage over the others, you can make a proper picture with that.

- And Nick’s is terrible, but his attempt to sell it in the studio is pretty funny.

- Oh and Sophie’s is properly good! Though she also had easier materials. That’s got to be the five-pointer.

- What? Nick over John? I don’t think so. Come on, Greg. That’s the first score I’ve really strongly disagreed with all episode.

- Sophie and Steve celebrating the five points together is funny, though.

- Okay, John’s not fallen that far behind. Only three points behind the top score, going into the live task. That’s less than his overall lead. If this is going to be his weak episode it’s not that bad, depending how the final task goes.

- Oh, I like a team studio task.

- Well they’ve definitely got it the right way around this time, having Nick get covered in rings. The other team might have had it wrong, as Sophie’s slightly shorter than Joanne, but more importantly, Joanne would probably be better at throwing than Sophie. This is one that’s a big advantage to the team of three since there are two throwers, but that’s only an advantage if Sophie can throw.

- That got exciting at the end. I stopped pausing it to write stuff down once they actually started the studio task, because I did end up getting into it like a sport. Maybe too much like a sport, the words “Come on John” came out of my mouth a couple of times before I remembered it’s not really a sport. It’s fine, guys. It’s fine. It’s not really a sport. Credit to Steve, though, the man can throw. And Nick can move. Some good catching from Joanne, too.

While watching this, I’ve thought of another way that competitiveness is definitely funny. It’s just a parody, isn’t it? Parody is funny. You take something that really exists outside comedy, remove its contents but keep its structure, and fill the structure up with silly contents. In this case, a task like this is a parody of sport. The tension, the competitiveness, the physical effort, the strategy, the skills on display, the commentary, the drama – the structure of a sport is all there. But you fill it up with something silly. Parodies are funny, and they get funnier the more seriously they’re taken.

- Oh shit! It’s a Wilkinson situation! I mean, without the drama of the Wilkinson situation, because Steve Pemberton is doing fine overall and doesn’t really need this. But still, I do like it when Greg actually sticks to the rules and disqualifies people when they deserve it. Fine margins, Steve! Fine margins!

John winning team tasks is a double-edged sword, obviously, because it bolsters Joanne's points too, and at the moment she's in second place. But it's not like it would be better if they lost, and I think it's still more important to extend his lead over Steve than over Joanne. Even though she's ahead of them, I feel like Steve is more likely to catch up to John than Joanne is. Partly because of something Nick said on the podcast a while ago, mentioning that the competition in their season was usually between John and Steve. If Joanne ends up winning the whole thing, you'd think he'd have included her in that.

- Oh, and just after I wrote the above point, I played the video again and they showed the overall season scores so I didn’t have to be keeping track in my head. John’s still got his lead comfortably. Getting to the point where Steve almost can’t catch him in the time they have left, though I don’t want to say that yet. Having a task like this that goes 5-0 for John over Steve was big for that.

Joanne could definitely catch him, which makes me glad they’re on a team, so she can’t get ahead of him via team tasks. It’s a good position after six episodes.

- And Joanne gets on the board with episode wins. That’s good, she definitely should be there. And I definitely remember that this is just a parody and not an actual sport. It's fine. Good episode. I am a normal amount of invested in it.

[arosnowflake]

In that last post I primarily talked about Riju and Zelda's parallels because I think those are the most obvious and important, but Riju, Zelda, and Link also do a great job rounding out the 'weight of duty' theme as a trio in BOTW.

In Zelda, we see someone cracking under the weight of duty due to the excessive pressure she receives from others. She fails to awaken the powers until at the very end, when one of the very few people we see who actually supports her unconditionally is doomed to death unless she doesn't. Again, we never receive an explicitly stated reason why Zelda couldn't awaken her powers until then, but the implication to me is fairly obviously that the pressure she was under was backfiring. Either which way, putting pressure on Zelda did not make her awaken her powers faster. Ultimately, while Zelda did manage to seal Calamity Ganon to buy time, there was already a lot of damage and death done. Zelda's character shows how you can buckle under the weight of duty due to excessive pressure, and how this can be fatal.

In Riju, we see someone who is largely supported by those around her in her duty. As discussed in the last post, there are issues, but the Gerudo show an overwhelming love for Riju as a person and care a lot about her. While she still deals with insecurity, Riju is an incredibly successful chief and is stated to take some leisure time to play with her sand seal and to rest under normal circumstances. Riju's character shows how that the weight of duty may be heavy, but that it can be managed by proper support, and that people perform better when they are not under excessive amounts of stress.

Rounding out the trio of parallels is Link, who gets significantly less character, but whom I'd argue still contributes to the overarching theme. Pre-Calamity Link is stated to be under a lot of stress, as exemplified in Zelda's diary entries, most notably in the fact that he doesn't talk for fear of disappointing people. Post-Calamity Link, on the other hand, is an open world game protagonist, and as such spends a lot of time messing around and having fun. While technically not a "canonical" part of his character, because the way you play the game is obviously up to you, I'd say this contrast between misery due to constraint and pressure and happiness due to freedom is deliberate. Notably, too, is that Link fails in his duty in the past. He goes down in battle and is unable not just to defend Zelda further, but to fight Calamity Ganon. A hundred years later, however, waking up with a blank slate due to amnesia in a wide world of wonders to explore, free from any direct external pressure, Link succeeds in his quest. Link shows a character who failed when faced with undue pressure, but succeeded when freed from this.

Altogether they show three sides to the topic, rounding out a theme and ultimately concluding that the weight of duty is always heavy, but that people fare better when you don't put undue pressure on them.

[STILL HAS NOT PLAYED TEARS OF THE KINGDOM DISCLAIMER]

[soo-won]

Yona and Keishuk as representations of Suwon's feelings and pragmatism.

Disclaimer: Yona, Keishuk and Suwon are obviously their own persons with dozens of more layers than what I talk about in this post. The scenes I use as examples are also about much more than what I use them for here. All of this is just one way I like to read things and I don't claim that the manga is meant to be read that way at all (the contrary honestly). This is just me having fun overanalyzing everything.

Something that has been on my mind since chapter 232 now, is the idea that Yona and Keishuk represent perfectly the duality inside of Suwon. I have loved this trio for all the potential they hold since the castle arc now, and I didn't get as much as I wanted with them at all but this specific page of chapter 232 still makes me "oooooh".

(Long post under the cut. sorry)

I know the important part comes just after with the "You are needed." Suwon-Yona scene, but I think the composition is super interesting here. Yona and Keishuk are having a full conversation, debating over what to do about Mei-nyan, and Suwon doesn't participate at all (he only enters the conversation next page but doesn't say anything on that matter specifically until chapter 233, when he makes his decision). As if quietly listening to both sides and considering all the points they present. Yes saving Mei-nyan is a bother, why should they do so much for one captive? Yes it's also dangerous to let her in enemy hands given the informations she has against Suwon. It's not farfetched to imagine Suwon can agree to both of their statements. Suwon is hidden by the bubbles of their conversation, erasing himself to give room to their discussion. It's as if we were inside Suwon's head and being a spectator of his trains of thoughts, as if Yona and Keishuk were two parts of Suwon's psyche. They're obviously their own independant characters outside of that with their own merits and personality etc ect but I think it's still interesting to read their dynamic this way.

After all, didn't Yona always represent for Suwon his own feelings? And Keishuk the lack of them? Discarding Yona (and Hak, but I think Yona especially represents that) has always been synonym to discarding his feelings. By discarding her, Suwon discards that he is not a 100% impartial human being that loves (and hates) some people more than others, and that he actually cares and cannot always 100% control his heart. The reason he discarded Yona when the coup happened is because his feelings don't matter from that point on and are directly in the way of his goals. And one of the reason he rejected her so much in the castle and kai battle arcs is exactly because she means something special to him and she keeps trying to appeal to Suwon's heart and feelings (by making several references to Yonhi for example, but also simply by being herself and asking Suwon to save the prisoners, etc) and tries to make the situations personal, two things that Suwon forced himself to stop and not do for a plethora of reasons I won't develop here.

(About Yonhi, the manga has made a connection between Yona and Yonhi a few times? One thing is Yonhi's hairpin that Yona also wears on one of the magazine cover, and there are the few mentions Yona makes of her in front of Suwon. I don't think the manga tries to say that Yona=Yonhi at all, but rather that Yona acts as some sort of reminder of her to Suwon? After all, there's close to no one left in the world who knew her, and even less in the castle and around Suwon in contrast to how Suwon grew up and is surrounded by Yuhon's faction and people admiring him. But most people forgot about Yonhi or never thought much of her. So I assume post-diary Yona tries to balance things out a little bit on that aspect, showing that even if people see Suwon as Yuhon's successor, he is also at his core his mother's son and it's sad to pretend he is not.

In parallel, even if not as explicitely as Yona (as I don't remember Keishuk ever mentioning Yuhon in front of Suwon?) Keishuk is one of the many reminder of Yuhon to Suwon. Keishuk definitely isn't Yuhon either, but the way he thinks and his ideology are similar enough. So you could say that Yona and Keishuk are Yonhi and Yuhon's voices in the present.)

In parallel Keishuk represents the exact opposite of listening to your feelings. Keishuk needs analysis posts for him alone, but even though he is obviously not without emotions at all, his place and role by Suwon's side is precisely to present him things as objectively as possible and make the most practical and efficient decisions, leaning towards machiavellianism (and I love him for that <3). Plus, contrary to Suwon, Keishuk doesn't have any emotional attachment for Yona and Hak, so while Suwon can rarely think straight when it's about them, Keishuk can, and is essential. Suwon would have never made it like he's engaged to Yona, he would have never proposed an alliance with her in the first place, nor would he have asked her to support him on the battlefield on his own. Before the alliance, Keishuk also investigated on the DDHHB behind Suwon's back, and tried to kill Yona and Hak several times because he knew they would be/have become a nuisance, while Suwon overlooked what Yona could/does represent because of his feelings.

Keishuk takes the decisions Suwon can't. And I think a part of Suwon is aware of that. Keishuk is like a point of reference and the reason he has Keishuk by his side and lets him do all these things is because he agrees that these actions are sounded and benefit Kouka in some way. Suwon would have never imprisoned Hak himself, but when Keishuk tells him about it, Suwon doesn't object. When in chapter 2 Keishuk tells Suwon to kill Yona, he doesn't object either, and readies himself to do so.

Keishuk is Suwon's speaker. Suwon rarely voices his true thoughts but Keishuk as a proxy often gives us an idea. His personality makes him more snarky and they don't agree on everything, but Suwon knows that Keishuk will always absolutely prioritizes Kouka as a whole over everything else and he can trust that. And that's also why I think Keishuk can represent one part of Suwon's psyche. He is the part of Suwon that shows no remorse for his colder decisions and is resolved to make any sacrifices needed for the sake of his goals. He is the part of Suwon that refuses to let himself be moved by his emotions and unable to make sound decisions because of it, the part of himself that won't prioritize someone only out of love or compassion.

And Yona is you could say the speaker of Suwon's feelings. Take the Hak imprisonment fiasco for example. This is a moment that shows a bit of Keishuk's vulnerability, but if you decide to read every interaction between Keishuk and Yona as some kind of metaphor of Suwon's inner conflict it's also super interesting. Keishuk wants to kill Hak because he is a threat to Suwon's life: simple and straigthforward. Keishuk doesn't love Hak and is still afraid of the danger he represents for Suwon's life at that point and very much doesn't like how Hak tries to get closer to Suwon without his approval. These are points very specific to Keishuk as an individual, related to his backstory and his personality. But this very reactive answer to Hak suddenly getting too close to Suwon is also very befitting of how Suwon feels imo. Suwon doesn't know Hak was here at that point sure, but on a meta level rejecting Hak so extremely the second he gets too close and sees him at a weak point just makes sense. Hak was the very last person Suwon wanted to be seen by this way. And him not objecting to his imprisonment is for me a sign that he is okay with things this way. He doesn't want Hak to get close. It's better like this. If Hak gets close, he can't think straight in more way than one. So let's discard him.

But then Yona enters and stops Keishuk. This scene is meant to show Yona's development and how she is able to protect Hak her own way and how Hak's life is not something she will ever compromise on, things that are distinct to her as an individual as well. But if you see Yona's rise in the castle as the rise of Suwon's closeted feelings, getting harder and harder to repress, it also shows that it got to the point where these feelings directly clash with his usual mindset, that these feelings for Hak have enough power to put a curb on the "discard every piece in your way" ideology.

Suwon is a secretive person who learned to keep most of his thoughts and feelings to himself. He is by nature someone who doesn't react to tragedies the way you would expect him to, looking detached and unconcerned. But what Akayona showed again and again is that by no mean this is equal to him being indifferent and not feeling anything at all. This is just his way of processing and dealing with grief(I'm not gonna go on a tangent on how he can be read as neurodivergent but yeah. he's so real for that). Being openly emotional like Keishuk and Yona is just not who he is as a person, it happens but only rarely, so the two of them are the perfect proxy to show the turmoil going on in Suwon's heart. Whether it's when Suwon is annoyed and angry, or when he's worried about Hak's whereabouts, they're his voice. (Interestingly Keishuk seems to be the only one convinced Hak is dead and thinks as such. Something something Suwon swaying between hoping that Hak is still alive somewhere(like Yona) and giving up on that hope(like Keishuk).)

But Suwon is not Keishuk. And actually a lot of times when Keishuk advises Suwon to kill someone, Suwon compromises to only capturing and imprisoning them or even lets them escape in Yona and Hak's cases. And one of the way I choose to interpret the Kai battle arc like is that it's all about Suwon accepting his own feelings, that even if he agrees with his father's ideology, he is his own person and he can't keep discarding the part of him that cares and loves and worries and feels. He can't keep discarding Yona and Hak. Yes Yona is needed, his own feelings are needed.

And he is not Yona either. That's why he still sees saving Mei-nyan as a nuisance. Suwon is Suwon, and being able to look at things calmly and evalutating the risks and costs of an action over another and making his decisions based on that is still very much a part of him that you can't remove.

He is somewhere between Yona and Keishuk. A King who inherently prioritizes the bigger number over a few individuals, and yet someone who genuinely likes the people around him and can be swayed by his own emotions. He is very much both his parents' child. And he has to learn to reconcile both, without discarding one or the other.

Going even further, Yona being a proxy of Suwon's feelings fits perfectly the role she has now. She always tries to help the people that Suwon discards for his goals and he used to not let her do so, as a symbol for closing himself off completely, but now he accepts it (with still some reluctance but hey!) and knows he can entrust her with it. I don't think this is inherently a bad thing and it works well with Keishuk as a parallel again, as Suwon always entrusted him with all the logistics and the things he doesn't like to think about. Keishuk also often carries the bad role and direct the negativity at him (on purpose or not) so it doesn't reach Suwon. So like, to each their own role.

TDLR: Yona and Keishuk are like the little angel and devil on Suwon's shoulders respectively telling him to save and kill.

[krakenselfships]

Slight vent about not feeling heard in the self-ship community.

Nothing heavy, just putting it under read more in case people don't want to read about feelings of isolation.

I don't much care for the unfortunate reality of liking mostly older, unpopular, or just obscure characters. Honestly, a lot of the reason why I stopped interacting with the community as much last year was because I didn't want to deal with being ignored in self-ship specific servers all the time and blatantly insulted by people in other unrelated servers while trying to express joy. Talking about a f/o and no one even acknowledges it, only for the crowd to go wild when someone immediately posts over me with a picture of some conventionally attractive anime boy. I never really blame anyone, it's obviously bound to happen, but it's still a really frustrating and isolating experience, nonetheless. It got to the point where if I wanted to say something, I'd just type it in a Google doc instead like some sort of diary. I was much less upsetting to pretend that I didn't want to be heard, that way I wouldn't have to deal with the pain of being ignored or rejected. I've since gotten involved again, and I'm trying to make more content to be more engaged, but sometimes I still can't help but keep things I'd really rather share to myself. A lot of my f/o's sources are special interests for me, too. I feel like that makes it worse for me, because those are an important part of my life, and when people don't want anything to do with it, it feels way more personal than it actually is. I know no one intends to offend me or anything. I just wanted to put this out there for anyone else who might have a similar experience, so they can see that it isn't just them. I know I wish I could interact with more people who relate to this.

[xerophylloom]

The Times They Are a Changin' by Bandtrees and Hatsunoid is absolutely amazing

...And if you can handle the contents of it. No seriously. The fic is definitely dark and if you're sensitive to MEDICAL ABUSE, GORE, AND ABLEISM—Don't read it. It's especially centered around those and unless you close your eyes for all of it, you're not going to be able to handle it.

BUT!! It's so good, I would love to erase my memory just to experience reading it for the first time all over again. The disturbing parts aren't OOC (in my opinion at least) and it's very well-written, some optional out-of-site parts too.

A Laconic Summary: Mob loses control over his powers and causes permanent brain damage to Reigen and Ritsu. This fic explores the possible effects of that

Things of Note (as tags): Ambiguous Ending, Parasites (Specifically maggots and they're not TOO important, but they're there during a somewhat important moment)

Extremely long rambling (with spoilers) below the cut

This fic is so good, I created a sideblog for my AO3 to post about it. This fic is so good, that I had to stop what I was doing even though it is probably going to be detrimental to my grades. This fic is so good, that I was nearly about to rip my hair out from its roots

It's about 100k chapters long, separated into two parts. I'm easily bored and there's been plenty of times I've read a fic with maybe half the length, gotten bored, and thought of some parts as a slogfest even when it really wasn't—I just suck at getting through longfics. But reading through this, there was never a point where I thought that. Tensions were always high, rising even when I thought it wouldn't be able to, and I would end up near-screaming

And the way it shows how different characters feel? Gorgeous. Amazing. Love it.

Obviously, we have the normal book style descriptions from one character's POV, but then we have Teru's diary and Shou's little monologues(?), and it's all really cool??!?! Maybe that's what helped keep my attention. That and the little off-site links.

Speaking of those, I think I found all of them, but I'm not that observant so I could have easily missed some. And wow. Jesus christ. The last couple ones, the ones of Shou's gallery as his phone was getting wrecked, I was. just. In shock. I'm a very sentimental person who cares about photos and things, and I don't know how Shou didn't begin loudly crying right then and there because I would have

And god, so many times did I think 'Is this fic going to have untagged MCD?'. I was constantly at the edge of my seat expecting that someone would die. Reigen, Ritsu, Mob, Shou, Teru, Dimple (especially when he confronted Mob right as he was about to lobotomize Ritsu)... Basically all the main characters in the fic had moments where I was preparing to mourn

Mob really left for the deep end in this fic. I won't say that I fully get why he was so convinced that what he was doing was right, but it makes sense for him. He's not the type to let go easily, he's someone who draws strength from his bonds, and his aspect could be blood. And almost all his life, the message to never give up was basically struck into his head over and over. The one time I can recall where it wasn't? Claw, Seventh Division, where Reigen told him it's okay to run away. But I doubt that tilted the scale into being balanced in the slightest. There's so much more I could say about him in this fic. But I'll save it for now

Teru was... Teru. I understand him more than I did Mob, I think if I were in his situation, I would have maybe stopped at a certain point but we would be very similar in most of the actions we take. In the first chapter, I went 'haha silly!' at his entries. Seeing them as a little treat between the downers surrounding it. But then after he helped 'operate' (It doesn't feel right calling it that), I guess it really hit me. Then I started questioning if I would have done what he did. Then I realised I would have. Then I spiralled until I told myself this kind of situation will likely never happen to me and if it does, I'll get to it when I get to it

Serizawa is easily one of the ones you can feel for the most. Unlike Mob and Teru, he hadn't done anything to Reigen and Ritsu personally. And unlike Shou and Dimple, he didn't say harsh words. Perhaps you could blame him for not taking action sooner, but they all can be blamed for that.

Shou... Oh my god. Shou. At first, I was ready to fight Shou tooth and nail because really? That one comment on FriendBook wasn't necessary. I don't know how or why Mob didn't block him. But then as Mob spiralled further and further, I was hoping for him to make his way back into the narrative to save Reigen and Ritsu. Then he did. And he failed and he was injured and I thought he was going to die. Then he didn't. And it's implied he could have helped them. But could he have also made it worse? Who knows, that's why I put Ambiguous Ending as a thing of note.

DON'T FORGET THE OUT-OF-LINK STUFF!!! Mixed media fics that have off-site links are truly beautiful. My friend and I love that shit. Should she ever get into MP100, I'll recommend this fic to him with a shit-eating grin on my face. I hope the word count doesn't intimidate him erogdfkg... Every single bit of the off-site links I saw was just so cool. The art of Reigen made me feel strong unease, the real videos too, and that one animated video with Ritsu and Mob and Teru. Okay basically everything gave me a strong unease. But that's the point!!! And it was done well!!!!

This fic is pure talent, skill, and effort put into something that shouldn't just be preserved via a PDF file, but should be carved into stone for future archaeologists to discover. I wish I could hold even a fraction of power needed to create something this masterful

On a more less-serious note to finish this off: Mobway. Red Mobster. I was about to lose my shit. Every single time one of the companies showed up I was about to tear my hair out (in a funny way) because it felt like falling for a prank. I ESPECIALLY LOST MY SHIT AT PSYCHOLOGIST PEPPER BECAUSE IT TOOK ME SCROLLING DOWN BEFORE REALISING. Truly, the minds behind this were geniuses

Also, this might sound weird, but I got reminded of KomaedaLoveMail while reading this. The off-site links to websites for sure helped, but I guess I just associate talk of gore in written form in this way with KLM? Or maybe I haven't quite recovered from consuming that piece of media (Can you even call KLM that?) yet. This isn't bad by the way, I loved deepdiving into KLM even though my feeble brain couldn't comprehend shit.

And and one last note- Opening the song link in the end notes was like emotional whiplash. I had to sit there for a bit to process. Good music

This is a whole mess. Even for a ramble, it's a whole mess. I don't have words or sentences or even phrases for how I feel right now. I'm a mess

[aggold15hi01]

A life update- 5th September 24

Very long post so . . . you might want to be prepared for a long and lengthy post here.

Aloha everybody,

so it has been a while ever since I did an actual post of my own on Tumblr however there are sad news I do want to truthfully share with everyone ever since it has been a long while I did an actual post on here.

Firstly, the first sad news I got to say is my 6 year old 2019 Macbook Pro had gone dead on me last night after dinner and when i did tried to turn it back on and also I tried pressing all of the correct keys onto the keyboard of the Macbook Pro unfortunately it didn't truthfully work which does truthfully worries me ever since I am going to have a huge and grave loss over many of the files I had neglected it for way too long and worse; those files won't be truthfully recovered at all to be honest ever since the 6 year old Macbook with the now discontinued touch bar had decided to take it's own life dejectedly out of nowhere.

(For anyone who are truthfully wondering what is the type of Macbook model I am using; the Macbook Pro I am using is a 6 year old 2019 model with the now discontinued touch bar which I'd think it might be a relief because I truthfully don't know whether my 6 year old Macbook pro with the touch can be repairable and if not then I guess I'll have to start all over with a brand new Macbook; a brand new OS [That's Mac OS Sonoma which I am not feeling truthfully impressed about in my own opinion.] and most of all having to re-do so many of the work I did have neglected for way too long honestly and clearly.)

Secondly, I have been feeling truthfully missing for a very long while ever since i do have to focus on my current job where I am now working as a receptionist in addition to a cleaner as well whom she did have to clean up the massage beds and sanitize it as well ever since working with not one but two jobs can be so challenging especially when we are talking about how it may look like family owned business but in reality you only have two people running the business and yet they both are part of the family which is actually both an advantage and a disadvantage.

(Again, I am actually working at a my family's Traditional Chinese Clinic in case if you are wondering what exactly I am truthfully talking about here obviously.)

Despite how I also lost many of the documents from my now 6 year old dead Macbook Pro I am supposed to do it for here as well as my personal blog however the good news is that I did managed to publish the Lolex AUS GP 24-Paula's edition onto my personal blog in earlier of this year in addition to many of the pictures I did truthfully saved on both my Macbook as well as publishing and uploading them on both my personal blog and also here as well plus my X account as well, i guess if there is one lesson I did truthfully learn from the experience of having a Macbook pro; it is to make sure to always back up on everything and never ever (EVER) forget your files especially the ones which you had seldom used it ever since Macbook doesn't last for long and make sure, you can take very good care of it as well plus to make it both clear and understanding; make sure you can always back-up your files every now and then from your very own laptop everybody since we may never know what is going to truthfully happens to your laptop everyone.

Thirdly, although I do have to re-write many of the writing projects by paper and pen (More accurately; both my diary and also a pen as well) and also on my iPad as well which I am feeling thankful I have it to make sure I can do the writing just in case if something goes wrong with my laptop plus it is also going to take a very long while ever since I do easily get drained and burned out both from my very own work in real life as well as having to truthfully experience on what feels like a 'One hour/ 1 Hour ride' back to home and vice versa going to work now ever since my estranged family/ ohana have to move out to a brand new location back in the month of November which is around late November 2022 all because of the nosy and the equally talkative neighbors whom they do truthfully have nothing to do all day but to simply gossip on about us out of both jealousy and spite from two houses away from the old and currently vacant old house where we used to live for 17 years long and honestly; to dig a deeper hole into the grave; the opposite neighbor of the nosy and talkative neighbors whom all they want to do is to gossip about us as if we are truthfully the main topic of both the news and the gossip in addition to also thinking about how we are also 'The talk of the town' just as when they mentally think we are the same as the royal family however we are just only a normal family whom we are all just living with our normal daily lives from the house no. 22; unfortunately another terrible neighbor we do have to truthfully experience is how the daughter had told her mother about how she felt so scared about going to sleep at night in her own room only because of how loud and noisy yet irritatingly crazy (But more so in a paranoid type of way where people would ask you questions of are you mentally ill or not honestly.) I am for making so much of noise very late at night then this is where we are truthfully forced to move out of late November 2022 to a brand new house and a brand new location where everyone seems to be very happy but I am the only one who seems to be the one and only genuinely unhappy camper from the move to the brand new house and the brand new area obviously.

And finally, i know this does feels like a very long post on here however I'll only be returning to writing if I am feeling truthfully both equally productive and also creative about the idea of the writing process however with so many of the things are happening in my very own real life in a very crazy way (Not in either a good way nor it does happens in a bad way but more so of a bumpy way where I did felt as if I am surfing in the waters of Waikiki during the summer season); I won't be continuing doing any writing projects unless if I am truthfully and willing to do it thus if there is another lesson I do have to pretty much learn from the experience, I'd think it is truthfully okay to take the time to truthfully take a step back and also having to truthfully prioritize and take care of yourself first despite how it does truthfully selfish and uptight at certain times but . . . if there is a lesson we can learn from it; I would say, it is truthfully okay to take steps back & take care of yourself first.

Anyway, since this is a very long and lengthy life update I have done it on here for the very first time however i am going to definitely carry on with this blog as usual whenever I can truthfully get the time to do any of the writing (Plus if you didn't feel like doing it; that's truly okay because another lesson we can definitely learn is our own personal projects isn't going anywhere for real--I learn that lesson from Tina who is Imawonder as both an artist and also a YouTuber from YouTube as well as a business owner of her very own online art shop of Imawonder.) Projects however I'll still sometimes pop in whenever I can on here plus I'll see you all very soon; take really good care of yourself and sending endless peace, love and prayers to everyone in general.