#okay but genuinely I think it would work really well

[kingjasnah]

idk if this has been discussed but i do wonder if there was a way jasnah could have won over fen. jasnah calls her very emotionally intelligent and she only started responding positively to dalinar in ob once he got truthfully frustrated with her and did some yelling and idk i wonder if jasnah had set aside all her philosophical talk and made a passionate and emotional plea if fen would have been more receptive. but of course jasnah wouldn't do that

short answer: agreed. long answer: ive been wanting to talk about this for weeks. so you're getting kinda a long one.

jasnah is obviously one of my favorite characters and that's almost why i was clapping and cheering during the taravangian takedown--like all of her flaws and everything that makes her compelling was completely cracked open. if jasnah cares about anything at all, it's how she is perceived. we dont know what happened to her when she was a child and we dont know why it seems that she was institutionalized or at least in confinement for a period of her youth but we do know that every single thing she does is a measure to keep her from never going back to the kind of powerlessness she felt back then. i remember shallan commented on her perfect her hair and makeup and clothing was waaay back in book 1/2 and thought how interesting it was for a self professed heretic to still take care to make sure the darkeyed sailors on their ship to the shattered plains never saw her out of makeup. jasnah has been vulnerable in this series, sure, but only to her family. or maybe shallan. or maybe hoid? persumably. every single page she has appeared on in this entire series has reinforced that to her a huge part of the way she does her job (and im considering hiring a spy to follow her sister in law her job too, not just being queen. i mean what she considers her role to be in her family) of statecraft is in the perception that she is perfect. and yeah, that's why it was never going to work with fen

dalinar did have a hard time cracking fen because i think that in the beginning of their interactions they both made fundamental misinterpretations of each other based on where they came from. fen only thought of dalinar as a warmonger who would walk all over her country in the name of conquest, and dalinar straight up did not understand that fen's perspective was so heavily influenced by the thaylen mercantile culture. they still found common ground and yeah it was a frank conversation and an abandoment of diplomat speak that did it. jasnah's made emotional pleas before but i think the crux of her error with fen is that she DID know how important the mercantile culture was but she interpreted it as "fen is going to leave the alliance if she gets a better deal for her country so i need to prove that im her best option" instead of "fen values exchange of commerce but she really values relationships. fen's culture involves building relationships with other merchants so that they can trade with each other and understand each other" (please see the original two rysn interludes). fen didn't need a perfect argument from jasnah but she also didn't need dalinar's approach either. all she needed was for jasnah to TRUST her enough to treat her like an equal partner in their alliance instead of a marker to be moved around a war map.

cause let's be honest. fen is an extremely capable ruler. she's smart and she's been in power for a long time. i do not think for a second that she was genuinely aghast that jasnah sent spies after aesudan or well, the kharbrath murders were pretty bad but im certain that a middle aged to senior member of ruling nobility has seen worse. it's not a bad thing for jasnah to put her people first. i am convinced that fen felt betrayed because jasnah had already set the parameters of their relationship by even engaging in this debate with taravangian. fen saw her logic backfire on herself and went "oh. okay. you are putting YOUR people first because you do not see the thaylen people as having the kind of relationship to you as, for example, vstim had with the shin or with the reshi king. you see us as an argument to be won over, as numbers on a map, as a thought excersize. not onyl withh you walk all over my country in the name of conquest (like dalinar might have) but you'd do it for the sake of what, rhetoric??" in that way, at least taravodium was honest.

but yes. jasnah would never do that. jasnah put on a full face of makeup every morning in her cabin just in case a handful of sailors that she never learned the names of would see her. of course she would never let a queen that she respected see her worry for her kingdom on purpose but it's over now. the mask has cracked, she lost, and she knows that the trap she fell into only closed around her because of her own hubris/the kind of love you have for winning that you'd have to have in order to spend your pre-apocalypse time actively arguing about heresy with every scholar and ardent out there. taravangian's arguments would not have worked on fen if jasnah had never put her in the position to be won over in the first place. i cannot stress enough that jasnah was my first love in this series and watching her finally crack and expose what i have always considered to be the most interesting thing about her was easily one of my favorite moments in the book. insane shit. i can't wait to see how she builds herself back up.

[masochist-marmot]

Spoilers for HSR 3.0

Words cannot express how insanely much I love the relationship between Mydei and Phainon. It honestly feels like Hoyo went into their little character laboratory and created a dynamic specifically targeted at me. Okay so let's review:

Rivalry: Has to be mentioned since I live for rival dynamics (as my blog history will testify). There's just nothing better than two characters challenging each other with the hopes of surpassing the other. And the fact that they seem to be more or less equally matched in power. They'd probably consider sparring a valid form of foreplay.

Banter: The way these two flirt with talk to one another gives me life. Every interaction is perfect, with all the teasing and jabbing and general playfulness. And the best part is that it's reciprocal.

Genuine affection: Despite the way they talk, they very clearly care for each other and aren't afraid to show it in their own way. This is actually something that can often be lacking in rival dynamics, where the parties are by definition somehow opposed to one another. But these two navigate it beautifully. They may say they're both friends and enemies, but I think it's understood that they are friends who occasionally roleplay as enemies. (Until we get a moment where Phainon turns on us and Mydei has to beat him back to his senses. Not a prediction, but a girl can dream.)

Mutual trust: They obviously respect each other's capabilities and are willing to rely on one another, but it's not codependent. They work well together and they work well apart, and they trust that the other will manage. It feels really balanced too, since both parties clearly care about the wellbeing of the other.

Mutual understanding: They seem to have a deep understanding of how the other is feeling, even though they show it through convoluted means (like starting a competition to give the other the space they need but won't ask).

I just can't get over how perfect it is. Mydei waiting for you and Phainon during the competition to make sure you find your way through his hometown. Mydei being ready to concede his right for the final blow on Nikador as a result of the competition, but Phainon insisting on having a fair battle for it (because the whole competition was a pretense anyway). Phainon pointing out that Mydei would be better suited to carry the coreflame of strife even though it's been his life mission. (And on a sidenote, Mydei demonstrating silent wisdom by refusing the flame in the first place because he doesn't want to repeat past mistakes? King behaviour. I love him so much.) Phainon telling Mydei to skip his ritual to nurture his wounds, but then clearly being a little sad that Mydei is not there. And then Mydei showing up anyway because of course he was going to.

I probably missed half of what I wanted to say but god I just want more of these two, preferably injected straight into my veins.

[theus-what-are-you-doing]

Final Scene Analysis and Key Sender Theory

A theory below? It might be obvious, but I'm being a dumbass and connecting dots that might not be there. That and I'm trying to wrap my head around the plot of season one while making predictions for season two too.

Words: 768

Okay, I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out already, but this has been playing on my mind like a catchy song, and I genuinely need to vent it.

Something is telling me that Chase is being used by Buddy, indicated through the interaction shared by him and Violet at the end of season one.

Nox "can't do this" anymore because he's slowly falling for Chase. He's coming to love and care for him, like during the finale arc e.g. shielding him from water, comforting him during his breakdown, kissing him to be his hero.

He doesn't want to hurt the ones he loves, especially knowing how much Chase is trying to help others around him, specifically his own mum. See below:

Now, I think Nox is intelligent enough to put things together. So, I think these lines spoken towards him during Chase's breakdown could have made things click for him: Why Chase was sooooo determined in the beginning of the series to go into the book's for example, despite how irritating and upsetting Nox tried to be.

Given Nox is more familiar with Chase's personality now, it would only make sense for him to use the wish for someone else he cares about, hence Nox's hesitation to continue stealing the naratonin. As Nox cares more for Chase, he may come to want what Chase wants too, like a couple would.

But what's to says he's stealing it?

Well, we know Nox is a key now, and by all means, I don't think he can gather Naratonin by himself as it's established other keys can't. Though he was priorly human, I think he lost the ability to gather Naratonin when he became a key.

Considering we've been shown no other key holders, I don't believe any of them are left too, that there are any humans to help collect this naratonin. I really think it's just the keys.

Yet we've been shown that keys can use naratonin and that Buddy plans to use it to get a wish. But instead of wishing like a birthday wish where you whisper your secrets to the naratonine, I think you need to consume or absorb it, much like Silver did earlier in the series.

Here, it's shown that Silver fixes herself using the Naratonin Chase collected, so who's to say that Buddy isn't either. He just needs more because the thing he is trying to fix is his human self, to regain it.

Now i think that staying close to Chase is just a way to transfer his production of Naratonin to him and Violet, as they're also keys, or that Chase's production of Naratonin also goes over to them. It would explain why Chase gets so little every time and why Buddy wants to be close to him so often.

Keysender Theory

And so here's where my theory comes in. Let's focus on that second panel again!

"After all you've done for this"

I can't help but get a feeling that Nox was the one who sent the other keys out, or at least orchestrated getting them out with someone else acting as a proxy. It would explain why he's done so much work for this, to become human.

If my theory is correct and Libris holds no current key holders, the only way for Buddy to get Naratonin would be to get the keys into the hands of other humans, follow them into the books, and retrieve naratonin from being near them, so he can heal himself much like Silver did but to a larger scale. This is what we see happening with Chase after all.

Yhe keys have been scattered too, perhaps to not only heighten the chances of getting more people into the books but to also prevent them from gathering all the keys to make that wish (Like Silver admitted to Chase, you need all her family to make the wish)

Future predictions

With this in mind and my rambling over, I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for things I'd love to see from this analysis and theory, if they ever became true.

I'd love to see Buddy be confronted for this, perhaps out of guilt he would tell Chase he's been stealing narratonin and thus Chase obviously gets upset, as he's trying to collect if for his mum. I feel like this can be a way for them to share their wants for each other and even help each other with getting their way.

Anyway, that's all my rambles done. I hope they made at least a semblance of sense!!

[bogkeep]

okay i Finally. finished wind and truth

first i wanna preface that maybe i should've waited to read/listen to this book until i was in the right mood for it, and until i had some better Quality Audiobook Focus Time (which is usually when i work with clocks at school) instead of scattering it piecemeal throughout my winter break. at least the second half i've been listening to while assembling watches at my practice placement, which has worked very well.

as for the Mood, i just haven't been vibing that much with brandon sanderson's work lately, not because it's Bad or anything, it just hasn't been scratching the right itch. i still feel dismayed with all the worldhopper business and the MCU feel that they invoke in me. i also feel like the last two books have had more of a pathologizing bent to them, bringing contemporary psychology into a high fantasy world in a way that feels Weird. i loved the first three stormlight books so so much and they didn't feel Like That, i think. granted, i also read them for the first time before a kind of. uh. a period in my life that for better or for worse changed who i am as a person, and my tastes in stories might just have Changed.

i think the two first books especially have a much more limited scope, and stayed very close to their worldbuilding, which was a huge draw for me in the first place. but with the introduction of more and more Cosmere Lore and Off-World Characters it has gotten harder for me to keep up and keep invested in the larger plot, like... first we establish a lot of rules and now we insert elements that don't follow the established rules so keep up!! same goes with the modern psychology aspects - inserting concepts from our contemporary culture, particularly concepts that our perception of which changes frequently as we learn more about them, into a world as alien as roshar, just. feels intrusive! obviously i think roshar should have therapists, but it seems incredibly odd to me that nobody on this planet has "invented" therapy in any form for thousands of years. idk. i don't know how to feel about kaladin's therapist arc! thematically, as a synthesis between his medical identity and his military identity, i'd buy it. he's always been inspiring and has experience overcoming bad brain times. but in practice... idk!!! idk. i think angling it explicitly as therapy made it weird to me.

it was similar with shallan's plurality - book three had her accepting her plurality, and book four had this incredible intro with her being open about it, changing her hair color to indicate who was fronting, veil making friends with kaladin and adolin as her own person, i Loved That So Much. but then the book got like, Really medical and clinical about it, like you can tell the author talked to some people for increased accuracy, but it... mh. reducing shallan's alters from their own people to "no we are Purely a coping mechanism who only exist as training wheels to you" made me so sad. like, Thematically i understand why shallan's story is taking the integration route, but it made me so sad to fridge veil over it! like, several characters in these books get arcs centering about accepting their personhood and their right to exist in peace and make their own choices, but veil and radiant Don't Get That because the story hammers in that they're Just coping mechanisms. i would personally much have preferred that for shallan's character development, they relinquish their burdens to her (her Memories and her Violence) and then they could stay and exist and find identities beyond those burdens. maybe that's a radical take but it is my take

ANYWAY sorry that's a lot of lukewarm dismay. here's things i enjoyed:

- ace jasnah !!!! jasnah is ace.

- i really liked kaladin's, dalinar's, szeth's and adolin's arcs !

- genuinely dalinar is an incredibly written character and his arc over all five books is really really good and i think about dalinar moments often. i love that he has changed so much and still finds new ways to change. i can't believe it took like five books for me to go "wait is the way of kings just The Bible. is this an allegory for the bible" and even then i still think it works so so well. like i think his story would rule even if it was just straight up the bible and nohadon is jesus

- kaladin and syl dancing together <33333333

- very happy for renarin and rlain congrats to them

- the more i think about adolin's arc the more i love it. i love that he lost a leg Possibly Permanently. i love that he had a Privilege Revelation in the middle of a life or death fight. i love that he forms bonds with spren without oaths that rules so much

- gavinor as odium's champion was an inspired choice!!!!! i'm sad that he got sidelined so early when things could get soooo juicy

- i am So pleased szeth fired his spren. i am also very pleased that his spren got character development

- oh god when i realised szeth's mental illness arc was moral ocd. yowch (complimentary)

- szeth's story in general... man !!!!!!!

anyway that's what ive got for now. my freshest impressions straight from the oven

[takiishichika]

What do you like about Endo character when his entire personality is being brainless dog for chika? Outside chika he has no real character or development at all .

i know you sent this in bad faith and i should ignore this, but you've given me a good excuse to talk about endo, so thank you! before i begin, let me say :

why are you on the Endo Liker blog hating? that's, like, my brand. being the Endo Liker. i won't agree with you.

in case you are genuinely curious, strap in!

i love "loyal dog to a master" trope in general so yes, part OF the appeal for me is that he's takiishi's loyal dog.

as many characters in Wind Breaker, Endo follows a trope: "brainless loyal dog to evil master". that is his trope, however, when he's introduced, this is NOT how he's introduced, is he? Endo is first shown as someone who pretended to be part of KEEL to see a fun fight play out, and we learn that he orchestrated this. then, we learn he orchestrated the Gravel incident too. two things that matter here: none of those were for, or because of, Takiishi. we learn about him later. so, importantly, Endo is already displaying that he does things outside of his time with Takiishi, and does things that have nothing to do with him at all. he clearly has connections in the criminal underworld and uses them well for goals beyond, or unconnected to, Takiishi. either for his own amusement or because he needs to build some sort of rapport for something else, etc. we didn't even know Takiishi's name at that point. he also has his own sense of style, humor, scents he likes.

the point of his character is that he largely (not entirely, as i wrote above) has no personality outside of Takiishi's likes/dislikes/etc and that THIS IS A PROBLEM. Endo isn't happy, in fact it makes him quite miserable because you cannot base your life around just one person and then be okay. you can see this through the entire fight between Ume and Takiishi, yes, Endo is jealous, but you see that even before - when he fights Sakura. if he really was just a brainless dog with no personality, he wouldn't care if Takiishi ever acknowledged him, yes? of course, Endo SAYS he doesn't care and he was going to continue following him regardless, but he wasn't going to be happy with it - how long until he finally broke down? Endo as a person is first of all a liar and second of all unable to understand how his own brain works, which makes him prone to tantrums and hissy fits. Endo's jealousy wasn't just based on "oh no the person i like likes someone else!". it was based on the fact that he believed, truly, that Takiishi doesn't know he exists. if he was a brainless dog with no personality, he wouldn't care. but he does, and it injures him. it makes him miserable, but not only that, he understood what IS exhilarating - fighting (being heard by) someone who acknowledges (looks at) him. that is a part of who he is, as a person, and it's something Takiishi did not give him. he realized this. that's part of his development.

to understand though why Endo would follow Takiishi to this degree, though, you have to have some critical thinking and understand Endo's past/childhood. Endo claims it was okay, but let me reiterate, Endo is unable to understand how his own brain works so you have to read between the lines there. he was born with Alexithymia. his childhood was lonely, so lonely he claimed he preferred to DIE than go back. do you understand this? do you understand what it means when a child is happy getting beat up by their friend every day, ignored and discarded, and they say they'd rather DIE than stop experiencing this? do you understand the level of loneliness and trauma that being unable to participate in society brings? this is a recurring theme in Wind Breaker, really: how someone can become an outcast, why they may turn to delinquency, and it does it with grace and understanding. neither of the cast really WANTED this life, but because of the fact they were born outside the norm, this is how things ended up. it is the same with Endo, too. for the first time in his life he was able to feel happy and excited. for the FIRST TIME he wasn't faking it. nothing, NOTHING else had made him feel this way until Takiishi, and then until Sakura. so yes, if only one thing in the whole wide world made me feel excited or scared or anxious for the first time ever, i too would cling to it, i think.

Wind Breaker does a good job, imo, of showing complex personalities and mistakes people make in a way where "everyone is wrong and with a good conversation it will be okay". Ume made Takiishi and Endo come to have a proper talk, and we haven't seen this yet - so we don't know how Endo and Takiishi's relationship has changed now. we'll have to wait and see.

if you didn't understand any of this about him, then you didn't understand Wind Breaker in general and you didn't understand Choji either. not all development is overt, spelled out, or linear.

[thecomet-and-themeteor]

I don't know how much sense this makes but I need a Langelique Cinderella AU, I think it'd work pretty well

[bitchthefuck1]

you know what, I actually will talk about this because it's bothering me. The issue with focussing so heavily on syd and carmy's potential for a romantic relationship isn't that there's something inherently unintellectual about romance or whatever, it's that a lot of people seem incapable of doing that without immediately flattening the story and ignoring or intentionally misreading any and all nuance for the sake of that romance. Every scene suddenly becomes about how it impacts their relationship, every analysis is done through a romantic lens, every frame or line of dialogue becomes about finding some easter egg or hint that "proves" these people should start dating. Their dynamic is absolutely a fundamental part of this show, but if you can only see it as a will-they-won't-they, you miss so much of what the story is actually trying to say with these two.

There are good versions of this story where their relationship is romantic and there are good versions of this story where it isn't, but as soon as you decide them being together is "the point," you lose the ability to actually judge the story for what it is, not what you want it to be.

[writhe]

[moe-broey]

"An awkward gesture" like yeah. And that group of guys who gathered around in Portland ME in full Nazi paraphernalia on April 1st that one year were just joking. Right.

[did-you-fall-for-a-shooting-star]

In what world is it considered okay to go and complain to someone about how much you miss a co-worker that died, MONTHS ago, when you werent too too extremely close. When the person you are complaining to about how you still struggle to do your job, had a really bad week this week missing him, etc. IS HIS CHILD??

Like Im sorry, I didnt realize I was supposed to be consoling YOU.

And to top it all off, HE WANTS TO HAVE AN EMPTY CHAIR AT THE DJ TABLE FOR HIS WEDDING TO HONOR MY DAD. Like look bro, Im sorry that he cant be at your wedding as your bestie or DJ. But ya know. I’m not gonna have him at my wedding either to WALK ME DOWN THE AILSE. SO MAYBE FUCK OFF.

[icewindandboringhorror]

It always seems a bit unbalanced on The Great Food Truck Race when there will be multiple teams who are cooking a wide variety of complex dishes with 10 different components and a bunch of prep work, and then there's that one team who like... exclusively serves plain crepes with some premade nutella on them, or plain waffles with just some whipped cream and cut up strawberries lol...

[crehador]

parting thoughts on ragna crimson (first cour)

i think it was... the first episode? that i didn't really vibe with. felt like a decent enough fantasy, but unremarkable in just about every way

THEN A WEIRD GUY APPEAR

iirc it wasn't until the second week that we really met crimson, which is kind of a shame because imo the show doesn't really start to come together until then. i like ragna well enough, but it's really the combination of the two of them that compels me

always love a duo where they have the same goal, but drastically different personalities/values/modes of operation/etc

always extra love a duo that's like "team up with me, a dragon, to kill all dragons then once we've achieved our goal you'll kill me too"

(like vanoe but with dragons. i think. my memories of vnc are actually very hazy)

and always extra extra love when ayu gets to just do his thing, playing guys who are girls who are guys who are etc etc etc

it's certainly not the best of the season, and still overall fairly unremarkable imo, but also not really bad in any way. if there's one thing i find lackluster i guess it's that i feel like they don't lean enough into this... pseudo-past life thing that ragna has going on (with the powers and presumably memories of his 'older self' passed down to him)

like ragna is still more or less his 'normal' self in terms of personality, which is fine, he's got a fun enough personality, but if he had some like... old man tendencies mixed in there, or if we saw more of his memories with crimson maybe? i don't know, just feels like something more could have been done with that fusion of past and present (or rather future and present)

looking forward to the second cour but at the same time... hoping this series won't be too long lol

[yoichichi]

I’m going to my new position this week but tell me why I’m feeling sentimental about the stupid ass shop I’m gonna leave 😭😭😭

[jovalencia]

not to be dramatic but I literally feel like I’m going insane lol

[chadsuke]

Books Read in 2023:

Liberated to the Bone: Histories, Bodies, Futures by Susan Raffo (2022)

Unflattering Photos of Fascists:  Authoritarianism in Trump's America by Christopher Ketcham (2020)

Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline (2012)

A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid (1988)

Why are Faggots so Afraid of Faggots? Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (2012)

The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner (2019)

The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple by Jeff Guin (2017)

Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash by Edward Humes (2012)

The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating (2007)

[ID: Covers of the aforementioned books. End ID.]

[autism-corner]

i dont want to lose weight bc what if a pretty boy needs to cling to my arm or sit on my lap?? then where would they go?