#or I guess logical outcome of a trope?

[bethanydelleman]

I'm usually pretty diligent about keeping my Kdrama obsession on my sideblog, but everyone, you need to hear about Queen of Tears.

You know the super common trope of mysterious, work-obsessed, emotionally-constipated rich guy falls for a "poor" (usually middle class), spunky, every-girl? (what Pride & Prejudice is commonly mistaken for) Kdramas LOVE that trope. They love it to death. And because their format is almost always 12-16 episode miniseries and then done, you end with a marriage and "happily ever after".

Queen of Tears is set three years later and the Happily Ever After Couple is headed for divorce. Turns out that even true love can't overcome terrible communication and awful families. Maybe acts of service done in secret isn't a great love language. Their Destined, Soul-Mates relationship has crumbled and it's all due to very logical fall-out from trauma and their personalities. It is excellent. It's also gender-swapped for extra fun.

I love it to death and more people need to know it exists.

[kyliafanfiction]

I mean, I guess maybe it's a matter of different uses of the word, but the biggest reason I would not call Worm 'realistic' (there are others) is because when I call a work or aspects of a work 'realistic', I think of 'is the world at large or the characters therein reacting to the ongoing events of the story in a manner that real people or institutions might'.

Worm isn't doing that. Wildbow did engage with the fact that a lot of superhero comic tropes are pretty trite and overwrought and don't make a lot of sense and and whatnot. That they're not realistic.

But what Wildbow seems to have done is not 'how would a real world react to superheroes and their powers and supervillains, etc', but rather 'how do I make a world where all these conventional tropes of superhero fiction make sense as a thing that happens in the world' with a side dish of 'let's make it as depressing and cynical as possible' (because there are ways to have the same general shape the Wormverse has without it all being so goddamn bleak. The bleakness is part of the point for Worm, I appreciate that, and I'm not criticizing Wildbow for wanting to write a bleak work, that's a subjective taste thing, just... it is bleak)

Wildbow builds the logic of his superhero universe's powers and systems and structures to achieve the intended outcome, rather than taking a system, throwing it at a real/realistic/ish world and characters and seeing what happens.

Worm is just as constructed and unrealistic a world as superhero comics, in it's own way, but it does try to have the world make a degree of internal sense as constructed that superhero comic books don't tend to have because of (if nothing else) the chaotic publishing history and whatnot. But it's all built from the ground up to resemble, on the surface, that same endpoint, so it's not a realistic treatment.

For given values of the word, Worm has many realistic elements, and many of the characters do often feel incredibly, even intensely real, but as a total world and world, Worm is not 'realistic' as I would use the word.

[lxrd-ren]

ROSE + NICO POTENTIAL PARRALELS ARE DRIVING ME INSANE

OKOK

(PART 3 OF NICO MASTERMIND THEORY I GUESS??)

Already mentioned how they parallel each other a lot more if Nico is the mastermind in my last Nico Mastermind theory post, but I've realized both how it could make more sense and how the potential is crazy going forward

So, I believe the parallels between them is centered around memory. The reason for Rose is self-explanatory given her photographic memory, but part of my theory is that Nico is unaware they are the mastermind (don't worry I do got reasons and evidence for this but I don't want it to clog up this parallels centric post, so if you wanna read up on it): https://www.tumblr.com/lxrd-ren/764080909602406400/part-2-of-nico-mastermind-theory?source=share

Now, with narratives and parallels in DRDT so far, it seems to follow how 'Two sides of the same coin' tropes usually play out. Essentially, two characters handling the same problem in different ways. Ace and Arei are probably the most clear example of this with both being inherently 'bad' people, but how they deal with this dilemma is VERY different

Knowing this, I wanna change my original thought process from last post. Instead of Rose dealing with a lot of knowledge and Nico dealing with little knowledge, I think it'll be more focused on them both knowing a lot

Here's how I think it'll play out:

Rose having photographic memory (knowing and being able to remember a lot) -> becomes a hindrance to her as she forgets what's important (negative outcome)

Nico becomes aware they are the mastermind as they start to remember (being able to remember and knowing a lot) -> becomes an asset to them as they remember what's important (positive outcome) (for them anyways)

Also, another thought when thinking about last trial:

Usually composed / calm and easy-going Rose -> becomes more distressed and emotional

Emotionally-driven and distrustful Nico -> becomes more logically-driven and reserved

Now, I know what you might be thinking

'What about Charles, isn't he heavily associated with memory with the childhood amnesia? Surely he'd be a better fit in terms of parallels with memory'

Yes, but I doubt that will become a main theme for him moving forward. We've established he has childhood amnesia and he has already discussed it with questioning other aspects of his life. I don't see how this theme could be explored further. Plus, the characters that parralel are usually connected in some way; even if with Ace and Arei, it was through one killing the other. But with Charles, he has hardly any interaction with Rose. Sure they might have some sort of connection in the future, but I think a much more likely candidate has quite literally been with him this whole time: Whit. I won't get into too much detail, but I'm pretty sure they will parallel when it comes to choosing to see and find out the truth. There's many analysis already out there you can go read that explain it better than I ever will lol

[despondent-beauty]

Yeah, like computers, AIs have certain niche uses, but they must be checked and verified and looked over. Like a computer, you need to micromanage it. Something as simple as summing a list of numbers on a computer can lead to an overflow error, for instance. (Where a number gets so large that it turns negative in memor.) You, as a human, need to be able to know how to add so you can very quickly see that a list of 1,000 positive numbers probably shouldn't equal 5 at the end.

Interpreted most favorably, this means that you, as a human, need to understand the output of the AI on a deeper level -- much deeper -- than the AI itself. The AI can move pixels and words around, but that doesn't make it right, beneficial, or pleasing. The AI doesn't know a good composition vs. a bad composition, nor does it understand narrative structure, proper subversion of tropes, and character depth. It might have a perfunctory understanding of those things, but what about the metaphorical overflow error?

Interpreted more reasonably, AI is a fuzzy logic machine, so its overflow errors are going to be subtle and fuzzy and frequent. Unlike addition, there's no literal mathematical formula for creating good art, analyzing historical documents and their relevancy to today, writing a story, etc. This means that their errors are contextual and can't be predicted. They're not even possible to detect as errors unless you're actually looking for them.

Who's going to notice that 'exotic magician' as a prompt exclusively creates people of color unless you're already looking for that, for instance? And that's not even talking about general composition and other actual skills/talents that go into the production of art or analysis. This is just one very real example that we've all heard of recently with image generators being teehee accidentally #raaaacist :)

Honestly, I actually use AI to get an idea of what I want characters to look like or to help refine general questions because I struggle to know what I even need to ask.

I once spent 20 minutes almost arguing with a TA because they couldn't understand a question that I had about the intersection of graph transformations and U substitution in calculus. They got irritated with me because their response didn't help me/answer my question, so I just kept trying to explain what I meant more, which made them think I was being difficult. Autistic issues, I guess.

So I do actually find it really helpful in refining my queries so that I can figure out what information I actually want/need to know. It can even be difficult to search for something online without knowing the precise vocabulary that you need to use to find resources.

Having said that, AI is, by definition, not creative. It's made to be as derivative as possible. It's just naturally going to be shit if you're looking for creativity. If you're looking to refine ideas and guide them to a certain outcome, then go for it. But the algorithm -- and it is just an algorithm -- is, by definition, created to adhere to its source data (in a general sense), meaning that it cannot be 'creative.'

So don't use it to brainstorm new ideas. 'I never would have thought of that' is so weird to me when the AI, even the most advanced models, spits out the same trite drivel that apparently passes for creativity no matter what I do. I already need to have my own creative inspiration to do anything interesting with AIs, else they just fall into extremely derivative and banal shit.

I've literally never had the AI say something directly interesting.

It's always been me getting inspired by something it said. I guess you could argue that that's still helpful, though it feels disingenuous to me because people talk about using AI to generate ideas, not using AI to inspire themselves to generate ideas.

Oh, and even if they did mean the latter, there are better sources for fertile soil for ideas. Like, fuck, you're farming in arid scrublands and thinking you're productive as a result. Go read some good literature and stare at the patterns in the drywall for 20 minutes. That'll do more for your creativity than 5 days with an AI.

Anyway, I'm gonna indulge and take a moment to bemoan AI stories and writing in general.

They're so bad! Why do people think they're good? Is it because the average national AND international literacy levels hover around those of a 6th grader? Is that why? Is it? Anything and anyone capable of writing a setting, rise in action, climax, and epilogue with characters that are moderately consistent is seen as good writing? Acceptable grammar and reasonable diction is suddenly the key indicator of a genius author or something?

Will increasing the education budget and focusing more on communication and literature -- areas that we are sorely lacking due to the misguided hyperfixation on STEM -- help in this area? I don't know. I wish I did. My hypothesis is that it will, but I don't expect the US to get its dumbassery in gear anytime soon, so it's irrelevant.

Pisses me the fuuuuuuuck off.

Bye.

Okay. It's time for an AI rant.

My nephew is 13 years old. Whenever he writes a paper for school, I check it over and fix all of his mistakes for him. He said to me, "Maybe I'll proofread your paper for you in exchange," meaning one of the scholarly articles I write for work. I said, "Cool," and gave him the file. And he said, "Well, this is full of errors! See, you always say you have a lot to correct on my stuff, and look at all the stuff you got wrong!" And I said, surprised, "What? Where?" Because I'm sure there are typos in the draft I sent him, but not, like, that many.

And then he pointed to the screen and said, "Look at all the blue and red lines you have."

And I said, "Yeah, but those are wrong. Like, those are blue and red lines I'm ignoring because the computer is wrong." And then I paused and added, "You know you can't proofread a paper by just looking at the red and blue lines, right?" And he gave me the blankest look, because that clearly is EXACTLY what he thinks. And it became even clearer suddenly why, whenever I correct something on his paper, his immediate reaction is, "It didn't have a blue or red line."

There's a very good reason for that: THAT'S BECAUSE THE COMPUTER ISN'T SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT IT WAS WRONG.

I am so tired of being sold the idea that computers are better than humans and so we should just outsource everything to them, which is clearly the lesson my nephew is absorbing in U.S. middle school. COMPUTERS ARE NOT BETTER THAN HUMANS. Like, maybe they are better at humans at crawling through rubble to find people trapped inside. They are also better at preserving things in a searchable format. Things like that. Very limited circumstances.

I don't want to sound alarmist but everything I hear about people using generative AI freaks me out. It's not just that I'm freaked out by people being like, "I use it to write novels!" (Although I don't see how they do, I have tried to have it write fiction for me and the output was truly terrible.) But I recognize my bias around creative writing and so no one needs to credit my views on artificial writing. But! Other things are alarming, too! "I use it to brainstorm x, y, or z." But...why? Why not just...use your own brain...to...brain...storm? The computer doesn't even have a brain to brainstorm with! And you might be like, "But it comes up with things that my brain would never think of!" So would other people! You could also brainstorm with other people! Or even through Google to see what other people have thought before you (not AI). Please don't belittle the wonder of thinking.

I just feel like the marketing around generative AI boils down to "Wouldn't it be easier not to use your own brain to think about things?" Everyone. No. It would not be. Please just trust me on this. I'm not just an old person who is out of touch with technology or something. I promise. USE YOUR BRAINS. IT WILL BE OKAY.

[kanmom51]

lmfao to the anon who asked for me back, I appreciate that you thought I was well spoken and logical (its me! apparently I get to call myself logical anon!)

You asked what else is in my head and honestly I think I let most of it out (I actually ranted more vaguely in another blog's anon's a few hours ago). It's mostly just this: none of this exists in a vacuum. I can dig up a million examples of BTS members reading and recognizing social media pertaining to themselves and their relationships. They know what happens here, they know what we freak out about, and they know what we trend (JM and JK both coming home the day of hickeygate? about as subtle as a brick to the face, y'all aren't slick boys). They know about fanfic tropes and fandom jokes and exactly what the western sphere at large says about them (for better or worse, mostly worse).

Jikook don't give a fuck. If they didn't want people to think they were together, they would have stopped SO long ago. Every single moment that we get happens in context of all the others and in the context of absolutely everyone involved knowing what the world at large is saying. Other 'ships' in the group have pulled back, and I'm not just talking about TK.

Guess who hasn't stopped. Yeah.

For almost all of the Big KM things (the GCFs, Rosebowl, JK's hand tattoo, "I was with JK at 4am", the 2019 cross-continent birthday flight, etc etc etc) They're powerful enough on their own, taken individually, but if you pull them out of context (like a lot of fans do) they're not nearly as impactful as they are when you consider the fact that each of those things builds on the previous things they've done and said into this pretty irrefutable picture and timeline that spans YEARS.

There is just no way that they are unaware. You'd have to believe they were genuinely stupid to think that they don't know what goes on and what these moments imply. You'd have to think that perfectionist, detail-oriented, romantic JK has this massive blind spot where he's just accidentally making all this incredibly sweet queer coded art about his one Bro (and that he conveniently forgot that one Bro's initials when he went to go get a very permanent very visible tattoo). You'd have to think that emotionally intelligent, incredibly private JM just somehow loves to share details about his One Bro and One Bro Only? Nobody's ever told me how long Hobi's showers are, JM you're holding out on me.

Which leads to two outcomes, its 'fanservice' or its just genuine interactions between two people (who are in love, jikook gay, boyfriends, married with nine children, sorry i had to get that out of my system). We all know how weak the "they're doing it for the money!!!" fanservice argument is.

And honestly? If I'm going to be here and supporting them, and adoring the work the band makes as a whole? I'm not going to believe that they would belittle me and people like me and use us as some kind of godawful marketing tactic to help straight girls get their rocks off. I couldn't stan people like that. (I also genuinely don't think that Outspoken Queer Allies Bangtan would stand to be in a group that continued to use homoeroticism as a marketing tactic, especially not now that they're all more mature and obviously have more power over what they're doing, but what do I know? Min Yoongi I'm counting on you here.)

Maybe that's naive, but if you look at the fanservice that they actually DID do? I'm talking Banket Kick stages, variety show stuff, maybe even arguably the full BS&T choreo? They haven't done anything like that in years (or I have a selective memory, feel free to sound off in the comments people. For what I hope are obvious reasons, I don't count the MMA 2020 Black Swan stage.)

There's another conversation to have here about fanservice, "queerbaiting", homoeroticism, homoromanticism, skinship and how some people obviously have no idea what it looks like to have friends. But this ask is already SO long lol.

Back to my original point, if I'm wrong, I would much rather have spent my time in this fandom believing in love and that the boys are intelligent, purposeful people who act of their own agency. Maybe that's just me. That's another thing I come back to. If I'm wrong, and I can ALWAYS be wrong, at least my worst sin is seeing love where it wasn't, both with OT7 as an incredibly close group of friends, and KM as a couple.

I don't think I'm wrong. Occam's razor, right? The simplest explanation? You don't need to believe in any conspiracies to believe in KM.

Logical anon said it all.

I'm closing up shop now.

Bye bye, it was great while it lasted, lol.

But seriously now, anon is spot on. Thank you for coming back and sharing your thoughts with us. One more level headed voice out there.

[sincerelylaurel]

how to write a detective story

@writingwithacutlasss on instagram <3

source: masterclass

hello and welcome back, this post was requested at some point i think? anyways. first of all what is a detective story? a detective story is one whose plot hinges on a crime that the characters investigate and attempt to solve. also called “whodunnit” stories or crime stories, most detective stories are written from the point of view of a detective, and many detective-story writers feature the same detective throughout a large body of work. some popular detective story writers are edgar allan poe, sir arthur conan doyle, and agatha christie.

5 basic elements of a good detective story

a detective: in order to write a unique detective, you’ll have to spend time thinking about their personality, their strengths and weaknesses, their motivations, and their background.

a crime: since the crime will be the catalyst of your story, it should be interesting, memorable, and seemingly unsolvable in order to keep the readers so tantalized by the mystery that they’ll want to keep reading. some common crimes are dead bodies, robberies, and disappearances.

suspects: your suspects serve as red herrings that keep the reader’s attention away from the true culprit.

an antagonist: your antagonist could be the true culprit, another detective trying to solve the case first, a sidekick of the culprit, etc. their goals conflict directly with the protagonist’s goals.

a setting: detective stories are linked to the time and place they are set in and are memorable because of those details.

give your characters interesting motivation

the motivation of the culprit is one of the most crucial and prominent parts of detective work—what readers want to know even more than who committed the crime is why they committed it. nothing spoils a good detective story more than an uninteresting or unbelievable motivation (for instance, a serial killer who is just “pure evil” and has no discernable reasons for murdering) or an unmotivated confession. similarly, your detective should also have a strong motivation for being in this line of work—it’s not easy, and many people wouldn’t be able to stomach it.

learn about detective work

readers want to feel immersed in the world of your detective story—whether it’s the world of the law or the seedy underbelly of a small town. that’s why it’s so important to get the details right when crime writing—so you can keep the reader’s attention with believable plot points. do the research to make sure that you know who would be the first to make it to the scene of a crime, how detectives would go about tracking people down or questioning them, and what role forensics would play in your crime scene, so that your readers don’t spend any time wondering if what they’re reading is accurate to real life.

don’t make it too easy

readers pick up detective fiction because they want to be intrigued by a good mystery—so if your crime is too easy for them to solve, they’ll get bored and likely not finish the story. trust in your readers’ ability for logical deduction and don’t give too much away, leaving them guessing and really shocking them.

make sure there’s a payoff

try to avoid an outcome where readers will feel let down by the answer to your novel’s mystery. in the words of S. S. Van Dine, a famous mystery-novel-writing art critic, “a crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. to end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.” by that same logic, try to avoid any “deus ex machina” storytelling—in which an impossible-to-solve situation is suddenly resolved with little or no effort from the characters.

experiment and innovate

read lots of detective fiction and then subvert the tropes—what if your main character is the person who committed the crime, and your bad guy is the detective or official investigator working to solve it? or what if your character’s love interest was the victim?

[girderednerve]

i had to read a romance novel for class so i reread lord of scoundrels and then i wanted to post what i said about it in a place i could find it again, so long ramble below cut. content warnings for discussion of racism and glancing references to depictions of intimate partner violence

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase is a classic of modern romance. It’s very well-written, sharp and witty with convincing chemistry between the main characters; it follows the typical structure of the romance novel, complete with third-act crisis; its romantic lead is plausibly the platonic ideal of the “asshole duke” trope. It’s also wildly racist. It does a funny sidestep around its racism, though: all the on-page racism is directed at Italians, as though the various comments on olive skin, dark hair, a prominent nose, and an over-emotional disposition aren’t also commonly directed at people of color. In effect, this choice minimizes modern racism, by implying that the same thing happens or recently happened to white people, while obscuring the social process of racialization and reproducing racist assumptions about people of color. It was unpleasant to read but interesting to consider.

The “asshole duke” trope requires a romantic lead who is brooding, authoritative, and rude or violent (although only in very specific ways; certain kinds of violence are disqualifying for a romantic hero). It is also absolutely essential that his abrasive personality is the result of some childhood trauma, usually an abusive father or absent mother. The lead character must draw this information out of him and help him begin to resolve his trauma in order to cement their relationship. Her wit, intelligence, independence, social competence, emotional capacity, and all other qualities are proven, in this sort of novel, by her ability to fix him. Lord of Scoundrels is absolutely one of the blueprints for this plot, and it’s very well-executed here, although in this case a lot of the duke’s trauma comes from his father’s racism. (The main character, of course, is the very rose of English beauty.) There’s an intoxicating power fantasy at play, and one which is inextricably married to the logic of abuse. 

I love romance novels and I love reading romance novels and I love arguing about romance novels. This novel produced in me a lot of argument. The reason I like Lord of Scoundrels so much is that it is very good at what it sets out to do and what it’s doing is both objectionable and influential, which makes it an excellent discussion piece. Romance novels are in several places touted as potentially feminist or liberatory—after all, they center women’s pleasure, women’s agency, women’s interests, the domestic and emotional spheres neglected by more canonical literature; “by women, for women” was a popular tagline for some time—but they are also in many respects foundationally conservative. That’s true in Lord of Scoundrels: it frames racism as cruel and distasteful, but every character who has racialized features is also over-emotional and flighty in a familiar, racist way; its heroine is a “bluestocking,” who is clever and independent, but she falls into a deeply traditional marriage without protest, as though no other meaningful options existed, after making several sly digs at other women along very sexist lines.

Lord of Scoundrels' formulaic plot is not a weakness, exactly, but a strength; it comforts its readers with an expected outcome, leaving them plenty of space to worry instead about social rules and social reproduction, or, I guess, immerse themselves in the fantasy, and it frees the author to entertain herself with embellishments and specifics. Like many other regency romances, it takes a deep rather than an expansive interest in historical background, furnishing meticulous details of dress and decorum while neglecting nearly all social context. This approach to history, too, fascinates me; this fantasy of extravagant heterosexuality and its accompanying expurgated idea of the past seem to me mutually reinforcing, although I find it difficult to articulate exactly how.

Anyway, romance novels! I love them! They’re often terrible but not the way people say they are!

[heraldofzaun]

what are your thoughts on viktor and being neurodivergent? though like, obligatory disclaimer that if riot ever did come out and say that "hey! viktor is canonically [something]" that would be catastrophic but i think it is a little bit of fun for consideration

Oh! Well I like to think he's autistic, which is partially because I am too. (Of course in canon it would be catastrophic because haha, oh man, look at how they've treated Blitzcrank's biographies ever since they gave him an updated one. There's some coding in there, alright, and I am... not a fan...)

I’ve posted a lot of long posts recently (this is no exception) and this is also on a kind of tricky subject, so I’m readmore’ing it.

So anyways, while I have to admit that some of the reason why (my) Viktor is autistic is because I am - I think that you can make a general semi-convincing argument. Or I'm so wrapped up in my own interpretations that I can, at the least. Anyways, from here on out when I say Viktor I mean my personal take. Your mileage may vary on applying this to other interpretations.

(Also, thoughts on new lore Jayce's being kind of coded to be like, a stereotypical autistic dude? (If you have any I mean.) I don't like that Riot is doing it, of course, but I've seen a few good rehabilitative takes on it in fandom. @hamartio's Jayce springs to mind, because their Jayce has been developed over the years and also written by someone who like. Cares. Anyways, I have my own personal Jayce ideas that rely on his old lore so he's not really an asshole there, at least in those regards, so I don't really have many thoughts on new Jayce. I think new Viktor is... pretty coded as well, but it’s also insanely stereotypical. The whole “always working, always wants certainty, gets into automation not because he (primarily) wants to help those injured by catastrophes in Zaun but because the catastrophes interrupt his work” thing makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I’ll write sometime on why the rewrite of his lore fails, in my opinion, to hit upon the same themes of his first - would that be of interest to folks? Anyways, this parenthetical is too long.)

I think that autistic Viktor is cool and makes sense, somewhat because of the fact that the ways he goes about solving his problems are, er, unorthodox. (Of course I am not saying that the GE is because he’s autistic, because that’s stupid. This is why I’m kind of squirrely about talking so openly about what I think Viktor’s got going on, and why I don’t really trust if a non-autistic person headcanons him as autistic. There’s a lot of room for that headcanon to just reinforce the “autistic people are supergeniuses with no emotions that work based off of Facts and Logic” trope, and I hate that.) Since a lot of autism is about feeling adrift from/at odds with neurotypical society, I think that Viktor’s general solutions and also his idealistic leanings in the face of everything Zaun is tracks for that. Roboticization makes sense as a way to stop suffering and death, because it’s more achievable than individual feats of immortality through magic or whatever. Viktor doesn’t really get why people would be so opposed to it - he’s made it clear that while he dislikes his own emotions and wants them gone, he doesn’t expect others to cast off theirs. (Maybe he expected that when he was in the thick of his emotional pain, mostly because he couldn’t imagine others choosing differently than he at the time, but not in the current day.)

Of course, externally, when the scary cyborg man who admits to cutting off his own limbs says “no, being a robot is cool, you can keep your emotions even”, any Zaunite (or any person) is going to interpret that as “he is definitely lying”. Viktor doesn’t quite make that leap. (I have thoughts on the whole Theory of Mind concept and I don’t mean to say that Viktor can’t empathize - he does, and does too much - with others, but I think that in this instance he just can’t quite understand sometimes why people don’t believe him.) He also doesn’t quite get why people would be so attached to the bodies that they’re currently in, especially if he can make a mechanical replica. Or why people might want to die and pass into non-existence after a life well lived. (To him, personally, there’s always more to do. Also he’s terrified of death but that’s another topic.)

I also think that Viktor’s empathy is of the hyper- rather than hypo- kind, partially because I feel like outside of self-advocacy groups the mere concept of autistic hyperempathy is seen as like... impossible? It’s also because he generally seems to be kind of an emotional guy in canon before Stanwick, what with the lore saying that “almost no trace of the original man remained” in reference to Viktor reemerging as someone without emotions. That, combined with the fact that he was described as having a “hope to better society” before everything went down, kind of makes me believe that he was a naive idealist type. (Again, not that autism makes you naive, but...) But yes, hyperempathy. Hence "no pain, no wars, no suffering, no death” being part of his ideology for the Glorious Evolution. He gets pretty ripped up about people being hurt, and it’s really only gotten worse over the years as he’s grasped the full scope of pain in the world.

Personally, I write pre-Stanwick-incident Viktor as someone who is still somewhat awkward with expressing emotion, but it’s not due to him not having them. It’s due to the fact that the ways in which he naturally expressed them and in which he interacted with the world were just... seen as odd/different/etc. (I don’t think Runeterra has an autism diagnosis or particularly excellent psychology, even in Piltover and Zaun, so he just gets the “you’re a weird dude” treatment for his entire life.) Stimming or smiling a certain way or talking a lot about his interests or, you know, the general autistic existence is weird to most people around him, as it unfortunately is in real life. So he’s more reserved until you actually know him, because he’s just masking all the time. (Fun fact about my Viktor: he’s pretty expressive under that actual mask of his. It helps to not have to micromanage expressions all the time when he isn’t experiencing a bout of flat affect due to [gestures vaguely at everything else going on with his mental state], although he sometimes feels poorly about not being able to manage himself. But that’s his issues, and I think it’s good for him to show emotion.)

Side note - Stanwick was able to do such a number on Viktor due to: a) Stanwick being very charismatic and manipulative, on top of being an actually smart man and scientist - he’s really a great example of a “good Zaunite”, in the sense of being good at being what the culture rewards, b) Viktor actively dealing with the death of his parents and Stanwick being an older adult who’d treated him kindly and had never seemed put-off by Viktor’s oddities, and c) Viktor not realizing that he’d get backstabbed, because yes he knows that that happens in academia but Stanwick’s nice. Whether or not the outcomes would have been the same if Viktor were more competent at being “a good Zaunite”... well, probably not. Viktor ended up where he did because of who he is.

(Secondary side note: Viktor has a very strong and very black-and-white sense of what’s right and wrong, as well as general black-and-white thinking. You can see how that would have... not helped in the situations he was put through.)

This is getting kind of rambling, but I guess the point of this is that Viktor’s wanting to remove his emotions may be cloaked in the language of them being “inefficient” or “unhelpful”, which would feed into autistic stereotypes, but it’s really more of a matter of them being too painful and raw for him to process. He feels too much and hurts too much, and no amount of positive emotions in the world will (in his mind) make up for the pain he’s felt and will feel. So it’s better to not feel anything at all, isn’t it? At least then you aren’t overwhelmed by it all.

Viktor just hasn’t fit in with Zaun for all his life, really. Not as an odd child who can tell you all about science-fiction and techmaturgy, not as an odd and reserved teenager/young adult, not as a bright young doctoral student still dealing with grief but trying to make the best of it, and... not as the Machine Herald. But now he’s given up on trying to fit in, for better or for worse.

(Other miscellaneous and less serious autistic thoughts on him: generally a pretty fixed diet, partially due to being autistic but also due to what’s easily available in Zaun + what agrees with his stomach. A fan of weight and pressure - I like to think that the reason his outfit is like that is that he finds it comforting, and also that he has a weighted blanket or two around. Special interests of general techmaturgy, robotics, and science-fiction. He can talk for hours about any of those, and has. Both his parents were mildly spectrum-y, his mother a little bit moreso, so they just kinda assumed that him being him was out-of-the-ordinary and a bit strange but not something “horribly wrong”. Oh! And his third arm, which is under a little less conscious control than the rest of him, still stims sometimes when he’s working or otherwise not paying attention to it.)

This was very long and jumped around a lot, because I find it hard to give a convincing paragraph-by-paragraph argument about exactly why I think that Viktor is autistic, or rather why I headcanon him as such. But hopefully it was interesting! I just have a lot of thoughts on him, as well as the general state of autistic-coded or perceived-as-autistic-by-individuals (both allistic and autistic) characters in media and so it’s very hard to do anything concise without branching out into discussing other topics.

[intellectual-punk]

Semi-regarding tags. The bullshit I spewed could probably be applied to any ship that you feel this way about. But OP was specifically talking about Vaxleth and so am I.

This might be a little convoluted but it’s the being two sides of the same coin while also being each others mirror of it all.

Like, he is the champion of the goddess of death and fate, he works as her psychopomp; she is the near immortal, near all powerful leader of one of the four Druidic tribes of the world.

Mirror: they are in a position of power that they don’t necessarily think they should be in.

Coin: life, death.

Mirror: a part of the philosophy of the group they have power in is that all things must die one day.

Coin: while all things must die one day the reason is different for each of them. For him it is ‘death gives meaning to life’ and for her it’s a classic ‘it’s the circle of life’ *insert song here*.

(D&D) Mirror: this philosophy makes the undead my natural enemy because they are a pervasion of death.

They are both tropes and while they aren’t entirely genre savvy they are both trope savvy. Neither would ever put it this way but they both know they are tropes and what those tropes are supposed to do.

He knows he is the sad, brooding bad boy. He knows that means he is supposed to mysterious and quite and alone, and he is those things at times, but because he is aware of it he tries so hard to not be those things and therefore he isn’t. He is actually the fun loving, prankster of the group. He wears his heart on both sleeves, it is on a necklace, if he could have a neon sign headband he would, and if you somehow missed all of that he would shove his arm in your face to show it to you. He has seen so much of the worst parts of the world that he actively goes ‘Yeah yeah yeah, vampires, necromancy, lichs but what about this *shaves Grog’s beard* *gives Scanlan a love potion*’. He is optimistic in the most cynical way possible. Yeah something bad is gonna happen but what if, through shear force of stubbornness, he made something mildly okay happen instead. Dude basically gets dnd cancer and told he has two weeks to live and he turns to his friends and goes ‘Thelma and Louise everyone? Let’s go kill a god. I’m not dying boring.’

She knows she is naive and anxious and bad with people. And she knows that means that her journey out into the world break her naivety and will possibly take her innocence with it. And she knows that to be a good leader to her people she does need to leave her naivety behind her and she accepts this. She even accepts losing part of her innocence but she refuses to lose all of it. And her anxiety about her naivety makes her cynical in the most optimistic way. She knows that she doesn’t know much about the world but she knows that at home everything always worked out so logically everything here should work out as well but she also knows that she isn’t home anymore and that the world is much different then home so doesn’t that mean that actually, logically, nothing will ever work out, ever. And so this actually makes her incredibly scared to get close to people, or to trust people, in anyway and makes her closed off because since nothing will ever work out anyone she gets close to in any type of way will hurt her and this is compounded by her extended lifespan if she succeeds in her quest.

And I guess this is what I mean by mirrors but also other half of the coin. It really boils down to they wind up with similar things that are important to them, similar morals, similar philosophies, similar outlooks on life. Yet these similarities come from different places, sometimes drastically and even seemingly opposed places. Like with my earlier mirror/coin examples with death being necessary but them getting there in different ways. The outcomes are the same but the reasons are different and it keeps them distinct while they remain cohesive. They don’t blend together in a way where they would be, relationship-wise unhealthy, and content/storyline-wise redundant and indistinguishable from each other.

another thought:

it’s a very weird feeling to get a ship that is not Your Ship, maybe even like it

but also like,

you can’t even entertain the thought because how could these characters choose anyone else. how can you possibly conceive of a world where they do not love each other. where they are not wholly committed. is this love story not as essential to your being as it is to mine?

of course it isn’t. we are different people.

it’s not a squick, it’s not a notp, i do not hold any ill will towards its fans. and yet.

i get it, i do. but i do not understand.

[ravenhealer5]

Do you like when stories leave things up for interpretation? Or do you prefer they clear things up properly? Like jeankasa at the ending, wouldn't you have preferred it if Isayama made it more obvious?

That... depends.

I do like it when stories leave room for interpretation because thinking is my way of forming attachment. So, when I have something to think for myself, those stories leave a deeper impression on me than those who just spell out everything. However, for the thinking process I prefer it when stories offer clues to direct me. Even when stories leave room for interpretation, it doesn’t mean every possible interpretation is equally valid.

First there are ideas in story telling that are universal. You’ll find them in stories that come from cultures all over the world. Like triumph of good over evil. There’s also genre conventions. Is it a comedy, tragedy or romance? Based on that you can kinda guess how things are gonna go. Then there are culture specific tropes. Like Japanese stories have some common patterns. But even within one particular culture you can find genre specific patterns. Like among Japanese stories, you’ll find some common tropes in shounen mangas. Then, comes story specific filters. Every story has its themes, and has set-ups. So between an outcome that supports said themes and set-ups and one that’s against them, obviously the first one is more likely. Then, there’s character specific filters. Based on what a character is like, their character arc etc, they’re more likely to have certain conclusions. You can also check other characters since character arcs can be intertwined and affect each other. So, as you go applying these filters one by one, in the end you often do have more or less obvious answers. 

Regarding JeanKasa, the interpretations I’ve seen are:

1) it’s a random couple

2) it’s Mikasa with an unknown dude

3) it’s Mikasa with Armin

4) it’s Mikasa with Sasha’s dad 

5) it’s Gabi and Falco

6) it’s Mikasa and Jean

Going by textual evidences, the last interpretation is clearly more likely than the rest. I’m not saying it’s 100%JeanKasa. I’m saying if you think of it like a pie chart, JeanKasa occupies say 50% and the rest five combined have the other 50%. Which makes JeanKasa the most textually supported interpretation. Like the first five doesn’t have anything in the text to either support or refute them while jk does have some points to support it. So we go with that. But then again, this only applies if you’re operating within the realm of general logic (and one doesn’t have to if they don’t want). I once saw one person say it looks like Jean and it being Jean makes the most narrative sense that’s why it’s not Jean because Isayama loves making fools of his readers. Like... interesting way of thinking but I prefer to go by more conventional reasoning when interpreting stories. So, to me, no I don’t need it to be any more 'obvious’ but yeah, it could’ve been cool if I got more content of the ship I like. Or a little better writing (like better build up etc).   

Also, sorry about the super late reply, I hope you’re doing well.

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Hey, feel free to ignore this, but I'd love to hear your grievances against Bridgerton? I saw some of the fashion posts you rbed, but I'm especially intrigued by the "fails on all aspects" parts? Thanks!

Hi there,

There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.

Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.

But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.

Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.

Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.

(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).

I guess in the end Bridgerton’s biggest transgression is it sits for me in the uncomfortable middle where it is neither trashy or campy fun nor is it an interesting work of fiction. Differently put, it is simply neither good nor fun.

[ikuzeminna]

Why I love Gundam Wing and hate Frozen Teardrop

With Frozen Teardrop being the first new thing released in the Gundam Wing universe in ages, I feel I should make my stance on it clear, seeing as I’ve read (and by now thankfully forgotten) a large chunk of it.

So, what do I like about Gundam Wing? I can say without lying, almost everything. I like the story, the characters, the themes, the designs and the music. I like its humor, its subtlety, the fact that everyone plays a role and that there's no definite bad guy (nor good one for that matter). I like its dynamics and how you can view it any way you want, e.g. the Gundam pilots being heroes or plain murderers. And I like that you can and even must dig to understand things. The whole composition really works for me.

And what's best is that this entire composition makes Gundam Wing more; it makes it unique. I grew up with classics like Dragonball and Sailor Moon, the forefathers of the 'Idiot Hero' archetype for both males and females. Even to this day you see series featuring these types of main characters. Classic scenario of a naive yet pure kid growing up to become the savior of the world. We've all seen that.

It's why Gundam Wing is so special to me. It has a completely atypical setup and there's absolutely no stereotype I can apply to any character, no matter what TV Tropes may say. Heero is hardly your typical hero, is he? Heck, Heero is hardly a typical anything. What's more, Gundam Wing doesn't follow the 'growing stronger' plotline that, for example, the original MS Gundam or Seed series used. No, Gundam Wing starts out with fully trained soldiers who can kick your butt from episode 1 and will kill you without qualms if the situation requires it. (That's not to say that the characters don't grow, it's the physical growth and capabilities I'm talking about.) What's truly surprising about that is the age of the characters. This is another important point. Gundam Wing and realism. Many times I hear that GW is realistic. I'm sorry but no. Teens fighting against armies isn't realistic. Teens leading said armies isn't either. Neither is bending steel bars, nor surviving jumping off cliffs or blowing up your suit, nor successfully back-flipping from a motorbike onto a clothesline, nor becoming the Queen of the World as a teen, nor stealing a MS carrier plus suit at the age of ten, nor walking around with bazookas at the age of ten nor what have you. It's safe to say that Gundam Wing lacks any sense of realism. But it does not lack logic.

Realism never was Gundam Wing's aim to begin with. The way I see it, it's not just the plot or circumstances that prove this, but also the "inhumanity" of the characters. Would a real person with a similar background as Heero, Duo or Trowa really exhibit such selflessness or noble-mindedness as them and risk his life for strangers by fighting a war that could end in their death? I don't think so. Would anyone as sheltered as Relena give up her lifestyle, have the guts to go against the world's armed rulers with just words and put her life on the line for the sake of others? Hard to believe.

And that's it. One of the things that contributes to Gundam Wing's uniquity and is therefore a, if not the, defining trait of the series, is that it doesn't tell the story about angst-riddled terrorists and princesses, but a tale of heroes. The characters are ridiculously noble, strong, selfless, courageous, determined, make the impossible possible and still retain a certain purity, despite having gone through hell and back. It's what makes them so awesome. It's what makes the series so awesome. Duo isn't badass because he fights in the war. He's badass because he fights "so that no one else will have to" and when you see what he went through, you can only say "wow". Lady Une killed Relena's father and when Relena is given the opportunity to take revenge, she declines, saying there's been enough bloodshed. That's role model material there. Something that is sorely lacking in a lot of shows nowadays. And something that a lot of people seem to miss the point of (I'm referring to those that call the pilots wussies for not killing in EW).

All of this is the reason I hate Frozen Teardrop with a passion. Forget the nonsensical, recycled plot or the billion clones of everyone or the terrible mobile suit names like Snow White or Merciless Fairies. Forget Treize getting French’d by his mom or the Zero System being a digital cat or Relena’s grandfather being a disgusting ephebophile. That stuff is messed up and random and dumb and I have no idea what was wrong with the author at the time to write this.

It’s also that he completely destroys the essence of the original series, making every single characters whine about some drama and the never ending “woe is me” monologue I had to wade through every chapter.

Let’s take Duo, for example. He woke up one morning and decided to become an irresponsible, gold-digging bastard. To get Hilde’s money, he agreed to her terms to cut his braid off and get a “proper” name, just to buy himself a motorbike with their joined assets. Then he inherited a church plus orphanage, which Hilde got stuck with, too, being his wife, and when she asked him how to fund the orphanage, Sumizawa wants me to believe that Duo freaking Maxwell was just “Eh, whatever, leave them to it. I’m out” before taking off? Excuse me, what???

I’ve had discussions with people about this and there were statements that maybe more people just need to learn how actual manic depressives and people with PTSD act in relation to Duo's development in Frozen Teardrop. I've noticed a tendency for people to want to apply realism to Gundam Wing, especially in fanfics, but as I said before, Gundam Wing and realism don't have anything to do with each other. So why should I apply it?

What I expect from anything featuring Gundam Wing's characters is the same "heroic" behavior that was displayed in the series. Sure, the pilots each had a mental burden to carry but it wasn't what defined them. For example, Trowa's insecurity about not having a name or yearning for a home never became the main focus unlike his endless selflessness. And Heero's bitterness about the colonies' betrayal was well hidden under his joining the Treize faction to be able to keep retaliating against OZ. A noble deed to fight on but was it really necessary for him to go for the missions with the lowest chance of survival?

As I said, Gundam Wing is unique because it is atypical. That encompasses pretty much everything; you have bloody murderers in the role of the 'heroes', noble, honorable 'bad guys' who value life and the ever flashy Gundams that can't even begin to compare to non-flashy Relena's influence and importance to the plot. So why on earth should I go along with Duo and Wufei bickering like kids, like characters from five million other series do? I want my uniquity. I'm not saying that it isn't a possible outcome for Duo and Wufei to become bitter and bicker and argue and not be able to stand each other when they become adults. But considering those two could get along splendidly, it's a letdown. Duo and Wufei are very much alike; they both lost people important to them twice, they both fight partly out of revenge and their loss has had the biggest impact on shaping them into what they are in the series, unlike the other pilots. Heck, they both wear their respective culture's colors for mourning. Despite that, their personalities (or ways of dealing) are exact opposites. It's enough to make for a more interesting relationship dynamic between them than what was done in Frozen Teardrop and a lot of Gundam Wing fanfics.

Heero's regression is the same. He was frozen because J said something to the extent of "a guy like him would be needed in the future". How J is even alive is another point of unnecessary addition. But what would a guy like Heero be needed for? Killing, apparently.

Way to ignore the ending of Endless Waltz.

I guess it's partly my wish for Heero and everyone else to live a well-deserved 'happily ever after' which makes me have such a knee jerk reaction to all the drama. That and the fact that there was nowhere near as much drama in Gundam Wing. Nor sap, nor stereotyping, nor "realism". >_>

This grated on my nerves, which was why I dropped Frozen Teardrop like a hot potato and haven’t bothered since. This novel does not only fail on a general level with all the random, messed up crap and terrible pacing, it also fails to satisfy the Gundam Wing fan in me because Sumizawa, the very head writer of the show, also ignored major character traits on top of everything else. Why would Catherine, who stated that she hates war and did everything she could to keep Trowa from fighting, train his clone to become a soldier? Why would Duo become that deadbeat I described above?

Being the sole writer of Frozen Teardrop meant he could take as many creative liberties as he wanted. But in the end, he took too many, which in turn resulted in so many inconsistencies with the series that Frozen Teardrop now takes place in an alternate universe, in which not the series but the manga Glory of Losers takes place. Which is the sole reason I’m not bothered by Frozen Teardrop’s existence anymore.

There were some good passages in the novel, it wasn’t all bad. The battles with the new characters were exciting at times, I’ll be honest, but even those couldn’t be called genuinely good because of the carbon copies deal. There is always some blemish. Like Heero’s proposal to Relena. I’ve seen fans of the pairing rejoice at the scene. Alas, I’m not one of them because frankly, the characters in the novel hardly resemble the original ones. So I don’t care.

As the head writer of the show I had expected him to treat the source material with more care and not run it over with retcons and meaningless additions. Best example being everything surrounding Odin. The world could've definitely done without him being Heero's father. Or freaking Trant being related to him.

But again, alternate universe so who cares.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep17 (part2)

Now that the romance direction is canon, let’s deal with the dark foreshadowing. This ep is loaded with hints towards the direction kyo & yuki are moving at concerning their future & personal trauma. Off course tohru is involved since her story is linked to kyo, but nothing is shown much regarding the direction of her own personal trauma.

As usual the treatment of tohru’s personal issues within the story is less impressive than the boys or rather less artistically expressed. I’m sure more spotlight will be shown on her later in the coming eps, but looks like tohru is indeed the foolish traveler (giving more than taking/ important for what she gives more that who she is) even on how she’s handled by the writer/anime story-wise, so far. 

-Foreshadowing scene #1 ( the confession going wrong):

As I’ve stated previously, kyo’s “ why are you dreaming of dating a guy like me” is more towards tohru & himself than the nameless girl. Ep,9 has brilliantly established the realistic reasons & the logical justification of his mentality, emotions & decisions. The writer made sure to lock all doors in front of kyo to cleverly introduce a compelling dilemma & intriguing future climax. Kyoko’s “I won’t forgive you” is the key that locked the door for forgiveness. There is no way kyo will confess his love to tohru. She reaches out to him this ep (she’ll confess to him later). The realistic & logical cruelty of kyo rejecting the nameless girl will be paralleled later but harsher. However, I can’t figure out how the writer will open any of the closed doors?!!!! how there’s hope in the future for them?!!!

Possible scenarios are as follows:( I know I made the conversations simple & silly but that is for reasons of space & discussion)

1-Possible Scenarios (A):  [Tohru: I love you. Kyo: Me too, but I think I’ve hurt your mom & she said “I won’t forgive you”. Tohru: there’s no way my mom will ever say that. you must’ve misheard/imagined it. Kyo: really?! Ok. wow! I was in pain for nuthin. let’s marry then!]. Result:it is a possible outcome. I hope not. It would seem very anti-climatic & ruins all the efforts the writer did to create climax & drama. More importantly it would’ve rendered kyo’s dilemma & trauma simple & superficial. Guilt is coupled with extreme self-loath & it’s serious issue. Furuba has always taken mental issues seriously. so, I suppose the writer will respect that in the final eps. Plus kyoko’s harsh words as mere imagination is meh~ development.

2-Possible Scenarios (B): [Tohru: OMG! you monster! you’ve watched me grieve all this time!! mom is my world! I hate you! I can’t forgive you. then more drama happens such as..i duno.. tohru leave the sohma, kyo hurt himself, but first goes to burn the sohma’s estate as they’re the reason they’re all traumatized. Perhaps killing Akito unintentionally in the way]. Result: too dark!!! it scares me!! I mean furuba is capable of that, but there’s always hope...It’ll send a message that guilt & self-loath issues can’t be faced/dealt with/healed & furuba seems focused on healing, hence tohru’s very own existence & character.

3-Possible Scenarios (C): [Tohru: What mom said is tragic! but I forgive you. Kyo immediately forgives himself too. they kiss/or they part ways]. Result: that’s also too simple & unrealistic! if hearing one word of forgiveness can help/heal kyo. then he would’ve been healed by kazuma long time ago. The writer has established that mental & emotional issues run way deep than simple words can heal. She even made kyo say“ it’s not like she healed the ugly feelings within me” That’s part of the reason why kyoru is epic as OTP cuz the writer debunked popular romantic tropes of one saving the other for romance to sparkle & pain to go away. I find it so hard & unbelievable that kyo would forgive himself so easily if tohru forgives him. It doesn’t make sense. This isn’t part of the magical fantasy curse lore. It’s realistic depiction of trauma that has roots in the tender age of 4.

so how?! where’s the hope? where’s the open door? I think knowing tohru’s true trauma will help paint clearer, more hopeful picture or darker one? I duno. But There’s also the theme of accepting help & standing up by yourself. Yuki is doing it, I’m sure kyo & tohru will do it too. You gotta decide to heal, you gotta stop giving up on yourself. This is the hardest part: Being kind on one’s self. None of the trio (yuki/tohru/kyo) is kind on themselves, but yuki is getting there first . This ep showed him accepting kakeru & allowing himself to live! The other two will do the same (I hope), but I can’t figure out how! & I love it & hate it at the same time. XD

Foreshadowing scene #2 (I won’t forgive you Yuki-style):

yuki has his own plot-line & most possibly will have his his own climax that involves his own story. But yuki’s scene with kakeru contained darker foreshadowing with dark music, depicting kyo in dark background. I gotta say his line “I won’t forgive him” is the reason I viewed the nameless girl confession scene as foreshadowing! There is a theme of “forgiveness or lack of” with kyo which is obvious since his trauma revolves around guilt. Yuki will be involved for tohru’s sake. but how?..oh man.. I hope kyo doesn’t transform into his true form somehow with yuki! The climax should be as humanely as possible. no fantasy beings, plz.

-The trios growth, so far:

 I was happy seeing the new/real yuki sneaks through the princely mask in front of tohru’s & co. Not only did he complain abt kakeru openly but his body language wasn’t princely at all & he acted his age!! openly smiling, laughing & getting teased! Part of the reasons yuki’s character growth is more obvious than kyo/tohru is that ,unlike them, yuki’s true self was never out in the open. He wears a heavy mask to conceal his inferiority complex while inside he’s just like a child trying to discover who he really is while fearing ppl will hate the real him. Accepting help, & being content with who he is & forgiving himself/forgiving others is the path Yuki is walking in. Still not completely there but he’ll reach it.

Kyo (while having other issues) was always true to himself. While he’s becoming chill, calmer & more at ease with himself generally, he’s the same with yuki, hana. Arisa & his two dumb buddies: Speaking his mind & acting his age for the most part. The difference is kyo’s changed behavior & growth towards tohru exclusively as he has issues with accepting forgiveness & forgiving himself. he’s always believing he’s harmful/bad/monster/not worthy. So kyo’s growth has to be with his exclusive ppl: HIMSELF, Kazuma, tohru & perhaps yuki, too! The two of them are way more civil & tolerant with each other now. Able to hold regular convos regarding daily life in shigure’s living room with tohru & even shigure. They are accepting each other & they are BOTH aware of it whether they hate it or not.

Tohru is in the middle between the two, she wears mask like yuki but her mask is true to her kind loving personality, she’s honest with others like kyo but not honest abt herself/issues at all. She harbors low self-esteem & inferiority complex & deep feelings of abandonment. (her issues are yet to be explicitly explored/I’m just guessing/digging/trying to form an opinion abt her)Most of the things I say abt her real self is my wishful thinking & me building castles from the little foundation/personal scenes abt her. 

That was a rich ep! I love trying to guess stories’ direction as it’s exciting to be right & more exciting to be wrong! (depends on how wrong tho XD)

[thatyanderecritic]

i really like the yandere dynamic but i dont openly post or reblog about it anymore cuz i've had people give me a hard time over it being problematic. and i get told im terrible, get called a freak... idk. do you have any advice for dealing with this...?

Hey anon, sorry for not getting to you sooner. We have a lot of questioned queued up to be answered but I decided to put you first since this is a pretty big issue. 

To be a yandere fan, we’re in a rather precarious position. Like any fandom, we are plagued with bad apples that end up painting the community’s face as a whole. You know the type of bad apples that all fandoms have: the overzealous stans that either attack those outside the community for not sharing a view or catering to our fandom. We also suffer from infighting/bullying between yandere fans because not everyone shares the same views on what a yandere is or even for something as stupid as a yandere headcanon for a character that never was a yandere, to begin with. But unlike most fandoms, the works that we support tend to go against us at times. That is to say... since we’re a bit of an under “funded” (e.g. don’t have enough yandere media. Especially for male yanderes) fandom, people tend to quickly put CrAzY characters on a pedestal without question. And this hurts our credibility, ALOT.  Having group within the fandom worshipping some non-yandere, psychotic girl as a yandere just because she’s kawaii while the more “sane” fans try to explain, “No, we swear yandere’s aren’t like that” doesn’t look good for our case. 

Is there anything we can do about people attacking us for our preference? Not exactly, I’m sorry to say. The moment humans gained self-awareness and free will, universal mental unity became a myth. There will always be a disconnect, even on concepts that all humans should be in agreement on. Would you believe me if I say that some people don’t believe that people should be allowed to have a livable wage? Of course, people will have their reasons as to why they think a certain way regardless if it sounds logical or not. Just because they have a reason doesn’t mean it’s reasonable but in a world where emotions is king, logical will never win.

People who attack you for liking yanderes most likely were victims of abuse and went through some sort of trauma that yanderes are usually identified/linked with. If they weren’t direct victims then they know someone who is a victim. And if it isn’t either of these two, then they’re most likely a bleeding heart with a “higher than thou” sense of morality. Regardless of the reasoning, they all have their hearts in the right places but rigid in their perspective of the world. Already, the decision is cemented and may never change. To most, we’re as egregious as pedophiles and incest-lovers just because we like villains. After all: “How in the world could anyone remotely ‘like’ such awful people?! Clearly, there is something wrong with THEM.” Of course, we have our reasons for liking yanderes but most people close their ears and eyes since they already judged us based on our interest. For those who were victims of abuse or know someone, I understand that they’re reaching out to attack those who seem to defend characters that may or may not be similar to their assailant/abuser. They attack, they defend invisible victims, and in a way, looking for purpose... looking at how they can turn their trauma into a positive. But most of the time, they overstep their boundaries and try to enforce their authority in something they don’t understand. 

The only way we can approach these types of people is to send an open invitation for a diplomatic talk in trying to reach a middle ground. While a change of opinion would be nice, it would be nearly impossible since a lot of people are grounded in their personal moral compass. If they are open for a conversation, then all hope is not lost. Ideally, if a conversation is open then the most important thing is to validate their emotions invested in this situation. 9 out of time 10, people are stubborn in an argument because they feel like they’re getting personally targeted either by their identity, their pride, or their emotions. Therefore, they double down and become louder in their argument, not because of their view but because they believe they are defending themselves. From there, once the other recognize that you aren’t attacking them, you shift the conversation onto yourself and point out how they were making you feel the same away but they were actively attacking you; not only that, treating you as less than human just because you prefer villainous FICTIONAL characters. Ideally, at this point, the other recognizes their hypocrisy and you both agree in staying in your own lanes. If by some miracle they’re open of a different perspective, then you’re given a platform to say why you like yanderes... typical reasons being the idea of unconditional love or coping. 

But this is all hypothetical and the most desirable outcome. But more than often, people are more than comfortable at screaming at you every time you try to open your mouth... most likely something they learned because someone shut them down in such a way. Not only that, they most likely formed their own counter-arguments already since a lot of yandere fans have the same reasons as to why they like yanderes: unconditional love or coping. The counter-argument can usually be boiled down to two reasons: unethical and risking future victims seeking a “yandere” partner. Ethicality... this is a low hanging fruit to argue. Everyone (well the majority of people, again it’s universally impossible to be on the same page) would agree that it’s bad to stalk a person. Even a yandere fan would say never to stalk a person IRL. But because of this, they think they got you in an “ethical checkmate”. It’s a cheap argument and they’re just trying to make you feel like a monster for your preferences in fictional characters. Funny enough, this is a tactic that abusers would use to shame their victim into compliance... hm...

The second counter-argument people use is “think of the youths!” Let’s be real... it’s scientifically proven that kids and teens are easily impressionable because of their underdeveloped brains and lack of experience. Not only the concerns of the younger members of society, they fear that by allowing us to enjoy our media, we are “normalizing” abusive relationships in society. Considering the state of the United State’s government, I understand where the fear is coming from. But they’re barking up the wrong tree and especially using the wrong method in preventing this dystopian future. I always see these people bring up the ‘Jaws’ case as to why there should be no yanderes and no support for them. You know, the case where there was a sudden increase in shark hunting due to public fear which pushed certain shark species into endangerment. It’s always this argument, I swear... anyways, they always toss this without never diving in deeper as to why this happened. 

Before Jaws, people didn’t know anything about sharks in general. There just wasn’t any interest in sharks because we humans just didn’t find time interesting at the time. They were there and we can’t really eat sharks. But, there were already tales about sharks being “man-eaters” from those stranded out at sea or curious citizens. The stereotype was already there. But Jaws brought sharks to the forefront of public scrutiny and shark hunting competitions came up because “what’s the harm? Sharks are man-eaters”. This dropped the shark population, but because of this there was an interest in sharks, funding to research them suddenly increased. Scientist turned their attention on sharks while later on fed to informing the public, making them educated and less scared of shark attacks. Jaws came out in 1975... Shark Week on the discovery channel came out in 1988... there’s a reason, folks. People became interested in sharks. Yes, Jaws hurt the shark population but it’s slowly been going up. Damage takes time to repair. But it also brought about awareness. While the stereotype isn’t dead (that’s just humans at this point and it’s always been a stereotype ever since man was on a boat), it opened a conversation. And that’s the key point here. (Here’s a link. But you can go even further if you research)

Abusive relationships, manipulative people, toxic actions... these are nothing new. “Getting rid” of yandere fans will not solve this issue, just like telling your kid “there are kids starving in Africa” will not end world hunger. For the Jaws example, I point to the argument that politicians make about how video games create violent people. We know that it’s nonsense, you know it’s nonsense. But there is a fear of the “unknown”. People back then thought that cartoons like Tom and Jerry would cause kids to grow up violent. And even further back, people thought that reading books created lazy people. The fear on what’s on TV is a fear people had since the beginning of time. People aren’t as soft as they believe they are but they can lack information... Instead of shutting down people and censor what goes on TV, use it as a stepping stone for the bigger conversation. It’s a lack of knowledge and fear of the unknown that killed the sharks but it is knowledge that is now protecting them. 

This is especially important for our younger peers. Raise of hands, who actually changed their minds as a teenager after someone called you stupid or told you “no” with giving a logical reason besides “because I say so.” I’m going to guess we got an empty room here. Attacking our younger peers or those who are older just because they like a character trope IS NOT HELPING THEM AND ESPECIALLY NOT MAKING THE ATTACKERS LOOK LIKE HEROES. THEY LOOK LIKE JACKASSES. Fuck man, the younger ones want acceptance and looking a supportive group by joining a fandom. Calling them toxic just pushes them to the edge these people never wanted them to be. The same applying to the older ones. We all got our issues and y’all never know what it is. That’s why I hate seeing people in our fandom gatekeep against our younger peers. They’re going to come in even though you say crap like “Lmaooo, my blog/game is 18+! Okay, byeeeee!” If you want to protect them then be their fucking guide, my dudes. You can have a mature conversation with them and explain the difference between fiction and reality and what’s wrong and right. “Yanderes are pretty cool, ay sport? But notice how that guy gaslighted the girl? That is a common tactic people do IRL. Be sure to recognize it as a red flag.” Fuck, is that so fucking hard for everyone? Some people act like they never grew on the internet during the early 2000s.Y’all were a teenager once. If what you’re doing wouldn’t help teenage you in the past, then you’re doing it wrong. Smh. 

Finally, I do want to make a point for those who use coping reasons. While I do understand where you’re coming from, you guys are our most vulnerable to these attacks but also the reason for the attacks as well. It’s the mindset of “How could you support something like this?! You must be a horrible person.” I know a lot of people aren’t like that but also, we got bad apples... people who take this for coping reasons way too far. To them, I ask them to come back from the edge and let’s look for help together. Using yanderes to embrace “yandere tendencies” or rationalizing your abuse as normal isn’t the way. Use it to help you breathe and help you feel grounded but don’t let it define you... especially don’t make it a lifeline. As for those who know the difference and can separate fiction from reality, I applaud you but you got some work in helping those who are too deep. I’ve seen some of the yandere Tumblr group chats on the app. I’ll be real... YIKES. It’s a bit of an echo chamber. I ended up having to message a user on a side since I saw red flags in the group chat when I was lurking. People were trying to give the wrong help by encouraging their actions. Just... don’t do this y’all. I get you relate but don’t get your homie in jail or a court date for a restraining order. 

Anyways, I’m sorry anon for pulling farther and farther away from you specifically since this is a big issue that everyone tackles and I’m also sorry that I can’t give you an “end all” answer. First, you can try having a civil conversation with these people. Try for the middle ground and if you feel like you can push further, then try to do a change of mind. But I know this is hard, especially when tensions build and emotions get heated. But it’s important to never explode that anger... or at least direct that anger into a logical response. The moment you explode and made an error of judgment, you will lose and suffer publically. If a conversation isn’t possible, then encourage these people to stay in their lane and unfollow you. Why the fuck are they following you if they hate the things you reblog? Sounds unhealthy... suggest some hobbies or blogs to follow instead. From there, if they try to continue the hate, just block them and delete the messages. As they say, don’t feed the trolls. Y’all may think you’ve seen all the hate anons we get but we get a lot more than what we answer. We just delete them because they’re typically incoherent or stupid. They don’t come back lol. 

From there, anon, surround yourself with people who you find agreeable and who you relate to. A lot of yandere blogs are down for a talk, I’ll be real. Just be sure you open up that you want to be friends lol. So... yeah. I’m sorry this isn’t perfect, but I hope it helps. Don’t be afraid of being yourself!

[fedonciadale]

Do you think jonsa happening in books? Even if Sansa pardoned jon he has nothing to bring on much as he give up his claim? Plus he has committed incest n kinslaying which are cursed in books. Please suggest your opinion.

Dear nonny,

I’ll answer this together with another ask I got:

Do you think jonsa marriage is possible bcoz he have nothing to bring. He gave his claim committed incest n kinslaying which are cursed? I think they want to show that despite good heart Jon failed to be a hero. He remembered as queenslayer n king who bend the knee. 

While I do think, we will get Jonsa in the books, I doubt we’ll get a wedding. If we accept that the major trajectories of the characters will be in the books as they were in the show, we might never even see Jon and Sansa talking about their feelings. I think it is a possibility that Jonsa will be portrayed as a deep, but unfulfilled love. It would make me incredibly sad, but it is entirely possible. From what we saw in the show, it is also possible that Jon and Sansa are in love, but not at the same time. Season 6 Jon was smitten, if you interprete their scenes romantically (which I still claim can be done), and season 8 Sansa was in love (just look at how she looked at Jon during the feast). So, this could happen as well, although I must admit I doubt that Jon would fall out of love in the span of a few months (and fall for Dany on top of it). So, I think, it is entirely possible that the whole Jonsa story will be a major plot drive but won’t be fulfilled and will remain a giant  “What could have been”.

I even think that it is a possibility that Dany is pregnant - teasing Targ restoration - and that Jon kills her despite of that. I do think that this combination would certainly cause him to go into self-imposed exile (which makes much more sense than this pure excuse for a trial they had on the show). A Jon who feels the guilt of being an accomplice to war crimes, of not stopping Dany sooner, of kinslaying and queenslaying a pregnant Dany would certainly go into exile - a fate that is one of the possible outcomes for a hero.

In addition his association with Dany might have ruined his reputation. I have said this before, and I’ll say it again now: I do not think this ending would be entirely beyond of what GRRM can imagine. It even makes sense, if you look at Jon Snow alone (regardless of the fact if he was in love with Dany). If you look at that guilt it isn’t really important if he loved Dany, the burden would be heavy enough already, heavy enough to have him leave and punish himself. That is why I think the show made a mistake by making this only about Jon’s Stark family, and not the millions of innocents who died in the dragonfire of King’s Landing.

So, the kinslayer, the oathbreaker, the queenslayer, the man who killed his lover (AND HOW I HATE THAT TROPE!) gets punished, which is entirely in the vein of the series.

It just doesn’t fit with Tyrion as Hand, who did exactly the same things (well, not the kingslaying, but kinslaying and killing his lover) and who doesn’t get punished and who doesn’t even feel the need to get punished. Becoming Hand is not a punishment for Tyrion, not at all, and he was an accomplice to the burning of King’s Landing as much as Jon was. He tried to prevent it, but he did not take the logical path : To save King’s Landing someone should have tried to put Dany out of the picture and only Varys tried that (RIP, smallfolk’s hero).

I’ve ranted about the inconsistency of Jon being punished and Tyrion becoming Hand before. I mean in a grim, gritty world, it might even happen that the hero who failed gets punished and that the smart self-centered villain gets rewarded - but that does not fit with Bran’s ending.

So, I would say, that something is off with this ending. We will see how GRRM does it, but my guess actually is, that we will have a Bael the Bard situation in the North, a wildling bastard who will sire Sansa’s children. It would mean that Jon would not be punished until the rest of his life and this would smooth some of the inconsistencies of the ending. On the other hand GRRM might decide to punish Tyrion after all.

So, to sum up: I don’t see a chance for a Jonsa wedding any longer, but I do think it is likely that we will get a Jonsa relationship, even if only unconsummated. The relationship of Jon and Sansa is a major plot driving point and we will see this more explicit in the books, I am sure. I still have hope for a Bael the Bard scenario at the very end, or in an epilogue, if only that I think that it would make a little bit more sense to call this kind of ending “bittersweet”. The ending, we currently have, is anything but.... It is inconsistent, bitter and nihilistic.

Thanks for the ask(s)!

[orionsangel86]

Narrative Mirror Characters in Supernatural – An Overview for the Uninitiated.

Mirror characters have always been a classic story telling device. The purpose of a mirror character is to reflect on the main characters journey and emotional state and to provide lessons for the main character to learn. Mirror characters in TV and movies can also be used for foreshadowing purposes and encourage the audience to question the main characters path.

A famous example would be Frodo Baggins and his narrative mirror Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. Gollum is a dark mirror for Frodo in that he represents everything that Frodo could become if he succumbs to the power of the One Ring. Frodo’s present is Gollum’s past as Smeagol, and throughout the books Frodo becomes more and more aware of his fate as he grows closer to Gollum/Smeagol and makes the decision to try to save him as a reflection of his desire to save himself.

Narrative mirrors are everywhere and widely used in all forms of storytelling. To deny them, is to deny basic storytelling tropes. Sometimes the narrative mirrors are extremely, painfully obvious, and other times they are quite subtle and have only a very minor meaning in the greater story.

Supernatural is a series which has used narrative mirror characters quite extensively throughout its long history. It frequently uses mirror characters to provide an additional layer to the emotional journeys of its lead characters to encourage emotional growth. Supernatural also often uses mirror characters to highlight unspoken main character storylines which support subtextual themes as well as foreshadowing potential future plot outcomes.

Supernatural relies so heavily on its narrative character mirrors, that recently in episode 14x04 Mint Condition it gave its viewers a textual lesson on character mirrors straight from its lead characters mouths:

Gif Source: (x) 

DEAN (Pointing at Samantha): She’s like your twin.

[SAM pushes his hair back just as SAMANTHA does the same.]

SAM: What? What are you talking about?

DEAN: Soft, delicate features, luxurious hair. She’s like your wonder twin.

SAM: Yeah.

[A man, DIRK, is crouching in front of the comic book stands picking up comics. He has a lollipop in his mouth. SAM points to him.]

SAM: Well, okay, if that’s me then that’s you over there.

DEAN: That guy?

SAM: Yeah.

DEAN: Yeah, we have zero in common

(The scene then proceeds to show just how much Dean has in common with Dirk)

Following this fun scene, the episode continues to show how much Sam and Dean have in common with their mirror characters in many ways, including a moving moment between Dirk and Dean in which Dirk talks about how important his friend Stuart is to him. (Stuart who was first introduced in this episode wearing a tan trench coat similar to the classic coat worn by Castiel – Dean’s best friend).

From this blatantly obvious in-show commentary, we can infer how the Supernatural creators like to present their mirror characters and how we, the audience, can keep a look out for them. The key indicators are as follows:

Similar clothing - Character clothing choices are very important in this show. The brothers are almost always dressed in plaid and what Castiel would probably call “lumberjack chic”. Castiel always wears a tan trenchcoat, formal attire, white shirt, blue tie. His mirrors are pretty much the easiest to spot. Arguably any side character wearing a tan trenchcoat is a mirror for Castiel.

Siblings – Where side characters are siblings, they are mirrors for Sam and Dean.

Parent/Child pairs – Less common, but also often a comment on Sam and Dean’s dynamic, Dean being the parent to Sam.

Immortal characters with a sympathy to humanity – usually a Cas mirror.

Tastes/interests – Like with Dirk, if a side character appears who the main characters bond with over mutual interests, the chances are they are a mirror for the main character in question.

Storylines; depending on overarching season plots – less obvious, but sometimes the most interesting. Characters that appear in standalone episodes that have an emotional tie to the mytharc plot of the season usually serve to give lessons to the main characters. Those characters will stand in for the main characters when dealing with their own emotional turmoil, which will usually be similar in theme to the emotional turmoil that the main characters are going through. Consider Ed and Harry from 9x14’s #Thinman episode - such a blatantly obvious Winchester mirror that it should need no explaining here.

By taking all these various indicators into consideration when watching any episode of Supernatural, it becomes rather easy to spot the character mirrors and depending on the actions and plot purpose of those mirror characters, we can usually conclude their purpose and the connection to the overall mytharc, or in some cases character development plot.

I’m about to pull out some big examples so you can use those as templates to go forth and find the mirrors! But my main point in this post is to argue that meta writers aren’t pulling this stuff out of our asses. Character mirrors are a story telling technique that is used frequently and with clear author intent. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you are seeing things when you believe that characters are meant to be mirrors. It is far more likely that they ARE intended mirrors than not.

I recently came across these tweets on Twitter:

Mark Harris is a former Entertainment Weekly executive editor and author of several books on Hollywood and the film industry.

Brian Koppelman is the co-creator and showrunner of the TV show “Billions” and has worked in the TV and Film industries for over two decades.

I would hazard a guess that both of these individuals have a greater authority on the inner workings of TV show production than YOU or I or anyone else in this fandom about to scream those immortal and highly ridiculous words “yOu ArE rEaDiNg InTo ThInGs!”

But by all means, if you are going to disregard my post as nothing more than a “crazy” fan trying to claim author intent where there is none, perhaps you could first take a look below the cut, because these mirror characters in SPN are hardly coincidence, and the general motto to run by is that if some characters are definitely mirrors, then the chances are that wherever you THINK you see a character mirror, and it makes logical sense, the INTENT was for you to see a character mirror all along. 

So therefore, never disregard a fan interpretation of a narrative character mirror when they see one. 

If you do, you are going to look like a huge jackass.

Please keep reading for glaringly obvious Destiel character mirrors along with some nice brother character mirrors for comparison. We ain’t kidding around folks.

First of all, lets consider some examples where Supernatural has used narrative mirror characters specifically to highlight Sam and Dean’s emotional growth.

A recent and very obvious example is from 14x12.

The brothers interview Eddie, the twin brother of a murdered man in a case they are investigating. Eddie is distraught by his brother’s murder, and he says the following:

“I can’t believe he’s gone. We were close. Best friends. Alan always said he was my big brother, ‘cause he was born first. By, like, four minutes. Losing him is like losing a part of myself. I never knew it could be this bad.”

In this situation, Eddie is a clear Sam mirror character, because his emotional response to his brother Alan’s death is exactly what Sam’s would be if he were to lose Dean. Dean, in this scenario, is the one learning the lesson. He is having to witness through a character mirror the pain that Sam would go through upon Dean’s suicide. This reflects the current mytharc plot in which Dean has chosen a suicide mission of locking himself away with the archangel Michael in order to prevent Michael’s escape.

This is a simple mirror which specifically relates to the theme of the episode. However, other character mirrors have a wider lesson in mind. Another recent episode that used character mirrors for the brothers was 13x12 Various and Sundry Villains.

In this episode, the brothers come up against a pair of villainous witch sisters. The sisters are determined to bring their mother back from the dead and will stop at nothing to succeed. The sisters are dark Winchester mirrors in that they symbolise the lengths the brothers will go to in order to save themselves and their family – putting their own goals above the safety of the world. This episode took place during a season 13 mytharc plot in which the Winchesters own mother Mary was trapped in an apocalyptic universe and the Winchesters were looking for a way to save her (and Jack) regardless of warnings from Death herself that no good would come from jumping universes.

It was also a wider commentary on the Winchesters own toxic co-dependency – a theme that has been running within the subtext of the show since Season 8 which portrays the brothers co-dependent relationship as a negative force in their universe and something that they need to break free of – a theme which has been building quite nicely in these later seasons.

The episode 13x12 ends with the witch sisters horrifically murdering each other whilst under a spell in a scene which symbolically shows just what could happen to the Winchester boys if they don’t free each other from their own toxic relationship.

This was a prime example of character mirrors have a deeper message in terms of their relation to the main characters and their overall character journeys on the show.

Sam and Dean have had mirror characters established in the show since the early seasons. One obvious example was in 1x18 Something Wicked This Way Comes which prominently features a young boy called Michael who feels responsible for his little brother Asher. Michael is an obvious Dean mirror used to emphasise Dean’s loss of innocence at a young age due to the boy’s early introduction to monsters by their father.

Many of the early season character mirrors were used to provide backstory for Sam and Dean such as this one, or to provide dark foreshadowing (like used with Frodo and Gollum) for Sam particularly with the “Special Children” throughout seasons 1 and 2.

In the later seasons, character mirrors are more likely to be used to either provide Sam and Dean with emotional lessons, or highlight their co-dependency as a negative force.

See, its quite simple so far right? Would you actually deny that these characters were Winchester mirrors? You can possibly argue with my interpretation, but you can’t really argue against the mirrors themselves, that much is obvious.

Now is where it gets interesting. Because whilst you may have no problem seeing mirror characters for Sam and Dean in the show, would you feel the same way if I was to present you with an EVEN LARGER mountain of evidence for mirror characters for Dean and Cas? 

Another frequent use of character mirrors within the show in the later seasons is to highlight a potential romantic partnership between Dean and Castiel. This is a controversial opinion and one many viewers of the show either ignore or adamantly deny. However, arguably you can’t pick and choose your meta in this show. If you agree with one set of thematic mirrors, you must surely admit to the same filming techniques being used elsewhere. If mirrors exist between Sam and Dean, they must also exist between Dean and Cas, and sometimes those mirrors are just as blatantly obvious, if not more so.

One prominent example (and probably the most obvious) comes from episode 9x20. Written by the current showrunner Andrew Dabb, this episode was an attempt at a spin off show with a completely new set of characters. One part of this episode included a love story between monster characters David and Violet.

Please refer to this post: http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/178577156431/i-cant-recall-where-but-i-read-somewhere-that-a for further detail about this character mirror. Because it’s so obvious its laughable.

The basic mirror is that David is Dean. He is the son of a powerful monster family in Chicago who is pulled back into the war when his brother Sal is murdered. “David” = Dean, “Sal” = Sam. Get it? That’s one clear mirror. The back story alone is obvious enough.

Violet is the daughter of another powerful monster family, one that is actively antagonising the others and supports the war. She spends most of the episode wearing this:

Violet is clearly our Castiel mirror. A daughter of a troublesome monster family that wants to start war, but who tries to prevent that because of her love for one of the other families sons? Its Romeo and Juliet but it is also very Dean and Cas.

The turbulent relationship between David and Violet is told using lines previously spoken between Dean and Cas word for word, but in an obviously romantic way (because heterosexual romance is irritatingly obvious even when using lines previously given to “just bros”). Seriously, go read the linked post and just TRY to deny this mirror.

One of the more recent obvious DeanCas mirrors in the show comes from season 14 between Mary Winchester and AU!Bobby. In the episode immediately following 14x04’s lesson in recognising mirror characters in Supernatural Mary and Bobby show up to put our mirror recognition to the test.

Mary has been used as a mirror character for Castiel and vice versa since she was reintroduced to the show in season 12. In terms of the key indicators, she has often been seen wearing a tan trenchcoat, or a general tan coat with white and blue clothing (her clothing is often coded for Castiel) as well as her emotional journey being tied to his in her struggle to find belonging among her family.

AU!Bobby is a Dean mirror. His story very closely compares to many of Dean’s storylines over the years, including Purgatory and being traumatised by the loss of his son (a canonical fact being that both Sam and Dean acknowledge that Dean raised Sam and was practically his only parental figure).

The romance between him and Mary is still pretty much completely subtextual, and yet people still acknowledge its existence. It has been shown through longing looks and conversations with the brothers where Mary voices her frustrations at her inability to break through the supposed communication barriers between her and Bobby (an interesting storyline which compares extremely closely with season 13’s long running miscommunication theme for Dean and Cas.)

Bobby and Mary’s current story reflects Dean and Cas’s especially in Mary’s frustrations to get Bobby to open up to her about his troubled past. There is an underlying message here which indicates Castiel’s own frustrations at Dean for not being more open and honest with him (again this was shown far more subtly as recently as 14x12 in how Dean keeps things from Cas because they are far too painful for him to address). This mirror is practically undeniable, just like David and Violet. Yet both are romantic. 

The other glaringly obvious het character mirror pairing for Dean and Cas was Cain and Colette in seasons 9 and 10. Just because the story didn’t resolve itself, doesn’t mean the mirror wasn’t intended and specifically catered for Dean and Cas from the start.

Cain and Colette is a HUGE example of a mirror that was practically textually confirmed (and was actually confirmed by Jared Padalecki at a convention).

(x)

In fact, arguably 10x14 called for the audience to notice character mirrors before 14x04 did! Cain constantly reiterated that he was a Dean mirror TEXTUALLY. He told Dean that Sam was his Abel. He very clearly stated how Dean would live his life in reverse - Cain killed Abel first, then he unwillingly killed his wife Colette, before finally giving in and killing his demonic kin - the knights of hell.

He told Dean he would first kill Crowley - his own demonic kin in a sense, then he would kill Castiel - Deans... partner? Before finally killing Sam. How can I make this any clearer? Oh yeah. This:

In fact just got take a look at the source post for those gifs to see all the other ways Cas is a mirror for Colette and watch me laugh at anyone still trying to deny this: http://casclaire.tumblr.com/post/119456988024/and-everyone-you-know-everyone-you-love-they

Those were the het pairings (among many others) but Dean and Cas have also been mirrored to practically every other queer pairing in the show save one (and that was played purely for jokes for W*ncest fans). 

Now the importance of queer representation is something we frequently discuss in fandom. So before some asshat decides to pipe up and accuse me I’ll just add a nice little disclaimer so said asshat can shut the hell up:

Theorising that queer pairings in Supernatural may also be mirror pairings for Destiel does not diminish the pairing or the representation in its own right. To claim it does so is utter bullshit. The pairing is still awesome and should be celebrated because hey! It’s on the show isn’t it? It’s out in the open as a canon queer pairing! YAY for US! Speculating that it could also be a Destiel mirror pairing only ADDS to the awesomeness. It does NOT diminish it in any way...

Unless you hate Destiel of course in which case... well:

So now we’ve got that out of the way:

Several of our best queer pairings in SPN over the years can also reflect Destiel and their relationship.

Charlie and Gilda is a prime example:

Gilda appears in episode 8x11 as a fairy from another realm who has been taken prisoner and forced via magic to do horrible things against her nature by a bad guy. Charlie is able to free her from her “masters” spell.

Sound familiar?

It should do, because this is basically Castiel’s story in season 8. He is brainwashed by Naomi to do bad things against his nature which culminates in Dean managing to break through to him by declaring how much he “needs” him. Isn’t it all so marvelously gay?

How about this awesome gay couple:

(x)

Honestly I could wax poetic about this episode for a thousand years, but I will just stress this: Anyone who tries to suggest that the mirror here is for Sam and Dean is clearly missing the fact that the entire point of this episode was about a BROTHER getting revenge for and mourning the loss of his BROTHER. So the Brother mirror is already well established at the start of the episode. 

But Cesar? Cesar is all Cas. He’s the “foreigner” supporting his partners revenge quest regardless of his own desires. Hell, even their names are similar. Besides, their entire relationship was a lesson for the audience in how to recognise body language. All those shoulder squeezes and longing stares? Destiel was all over Jesse and Cesar. I have no doubt in that.

But if that didn’t swing it for you how about this lovely canon pairing?

(x)

The fandom coined “DreamHunter” pairing between Claire Novak and Kaia Nieves was built completely on famous Destiel moments. Longing looks, pledges of protection, “I’ll go with you”, saving each other, trying to go back for each other, mourning the others death… Dreamhunter was also still completely subtextual until recently when Jody Mills stated “First love strikes quick” a simple sentence, and it was confirmed as canon in the show. 

Here’s a handy post of how dreamhunter was built on a Destiel framework:

http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/179549508598/tinkdw-first-love-strikes-quick-to-lose-it

Other than these obvious pairings above, there are literally hundreds of character mirrors used throughout the show’s 300 episode run so far which are put in place by the writers and the crew specifically to indicate some deeper meaning to the overall lead character emotional arcs. This has been common and frequent in the show throughout its long history. The above examples are just the most obvious ones related to either Sam and Dean or Dean and Cas.  Almost every episode of this show includes character mirrors in some way or another. Character mirrors specifically linking to Dean and Cas have been particularly frequent throughout Carver and Dabb era (practically every episode in season 8 had a tragic human x immortal creature love story for example).

So for ANYONE to argue that we are seeing mirrors where they don’t exist? Well, those people are straight up wrong. I don’t care who they are, or whether they have some status within fandom or if they are just some asshole on the internet, unless the denial of character mirrors is coming from the writers or the directors of the episodes, they are wrong.

Which leads me nicely to this:

My reason for writing this long meta post was because of this. Simple enough right? We got three kids in 14x13. One is a tall nerdy boy who just seems to radiate with the same aura as Colin Morgan’s young Sam Winchester. One is a fiery young lady called Max, who wears a plaid jacket and has a shy crush on her friend - she also gets behind the seat of the Impala at one point as if that wasn’t obvious enough. The other girl Stacy we don’t know much about, other than that she is quiet, pretty, with dark hair and clearly the object of Max’s affections.

When I first watched this episode with @tinkdw​ and this scene came up we both didn’t even have to think about it. It was so clear to us. Nice one SPN, we see what you did there. The framing, the characters personalities, the coded clothing... there wasn’t a doubt between us that this was framed intentionally, and in a scene literally moments before Cas comes home to his family.

It was supposed to be simple, no big deal. Yet another Destiel mirror among the mountain of Destiel mirrors the show has already given us. Its not even anywhere near as impactful as one of the character mirror pairings previously mentioned in this post. Yet it was enough to cause such a huge wank storm on Twitter and have BNF accounts start a parade of abuse and blame towards meta writers for even DARING to consider that Destiel mirrors may exist AT ALL in this show, let alone with author intent!

Colour me effing surprised.

If ANYONE tries to tell ANY Destiel shipper that they don’t have a right to see character mirrors in the show, to believe that there is author intent, to SHAME them for seeing those mirrors in queer pairings specifically. You go right ahead and block those people. Because their opinions are their own no matter how much they may scream like they have some kind of authority. They don’t. 

No one has any authority over the way you interpret the media you enjoy. Even me.

Don’t forget that. 

So my point on this post was basically to say this.

You go right ahead and keep looking for character mirrors in SPN, because they have been intentionally included in the show since its humble beginnings.  Destiel mirrors are a huge part of that. You are NOT wrong for seeing them. 

Max and Stacy in 14x13 were just the latest in a long line of Destiel specific character mirrors in a show renowned for using character mirrors to the point that it has textually given its audience A. Lesson. In. How. To. Spot. Character. Mirrors. 

I am not making this shit up.

At the end of the day, by believing the mirrors are intentional, and what makes this post controversial, is that it means I am telling you that TPTB are intentionally providing us with romantic Destiel subtext.

Well, that is exactly what I am saying. Because they are. There is no doubt about this. You don’t fill your show to the brim with romantic tropes, romantic character mirrors and an underlying romantic narrative C plot for at least 4 seasons without having some intentional desire to potentially make this thing an actual thing. 

You just DON’T. 

The writers know what the hell they are doing. They want to keep Destiel an option for endgame, so they keep it going throughout the show. Whether or not they eventually make it textual to a point that a general audience can’t deny its existence is another story, because that’s the kind of thing that need a green light from the CW suits. 

But the writers, the creators of the show, everyone involved to an extent, they all know what they are doing. Anyone who at this stage would deny author intent regarding Destiel loses all my respect because frankly its insulting to the creators themselves. No one is so idiotic that they would make something look unintentionally romantic for 10 years.

The mirrors are real. Destiel is real. The creators of SPN continue to include it so they can keep it an option for endgame because (and this is the part I don’t know for sure but can at least guess because I don’t consider the entire writing team to be asshole queerbaiters) they want to make it canon as much as we want it to be canon.

Whether they actually CAN or not is the issue at this point. The debate on whether or not we “are reading into things” has been null and void since season 12. It was practically null and void since season 8 TBH.

So keep looking out for the Destiel mirrors (and the Sam and Dean mirrors and any other character mirrors you may pick up on) and you go right ahead and post and speculate and tweet and blog and do whatever the hell you want to do to voice your opinion on the topic because NO ONE has the right to police what you see in the show - especially when it has already been proven to be clearly intentional on the part of the creative team.

Finally I will leave you with this humble message from our “overlord” in case my post hasn’t already swayed you away from negative thinking and believing the deniers:

Thanks for reading. :)