#so :) that adds some interesting layer of perspective here huh

[teatitty]

Wild for him to be saying this when he's dating Crystal who is called an inhuman

[mirror-to-the-past]

Okay, I finished playing Re:Coded. Went through it pretty quickly; it was a shorter game. Also, very interesting and welcome in concepts. I was hoping for an expansion on the data world since KH2, because the prologue of that game made me extremely intrigued regarding everything with how it affected Roxas (Bonus, was also happy that Roxas, or at least an iteration of him, got some screentime in this game, too. Gives me more hope for a reappearance in the future.), and I'd say it delivered!

Just like the Nobodies, the data version of Sora definitely demonstrated questionably emotional displays for a being that "doesn't have a heart." With similar sentiments to Roxas and Xion, I seriously question whether or not a heart is all that important/necessary for a full scale of emotions if they act that real "without" one. I also question if people can't just create their own hearts out of pure strength of will (I mean, if the Org. XIII Nobodies were very strong willed individuals for coming into being, I don't see why the inverse can't be true- that because they are individuals of strong will, they can't just forge their own way and find their own heart/spirit.)... but I digress.

I joked earlier that "haha, for all of the fiction tropes Kingdom Hearts fully exploits, I'm surprised 'the prophecy' hasn't come up yet." Ding ding, another joke come true for me to add to the books, because Maleficent mentioned a whole damn book of prophecies. I'm strapping myself in, mentally. Hoo boy, here we go, create new worlds from stories, huh? Also once again, such a queen, she highlights the fluid nature of reality KH set ever since "Is this for real, or not?" I love when she chided Pete, with: "Ah, but who's to say a fairy tale's not true?" Hilariously meta, coming from her. Also yeah, Disney/FF game is slowly becoming aware of the fact that it's a Disney/FF game but it's owning it. Another one of the funniest aspects of this series is that, from the characters' perspectives, everything is fantastical in a normal way- there is no precedent set for what is "normal" when multiple worlds have phenomenon like talking animals, magical princesses, spells powered by love, antagonists like evil fairies, or other threats that are very real to them. It's only from us, as the audience, with our cultural awareness of Disney movies and the like that we laugh at the ridiculousness of Mickey Mouse being a plot relevant character. So, it's like the characters, completely and utterly serious about everything they interact with, are slowly learning the magical/fiction nature of their reality. I dunno, a bit of a disjointed ramble there, but it makes sense to me. Sure it's not exactly a groundbreaking sentiment- "woah, fiction is reality to the fictitious," but anywho. Still waiting for it to go the whole nine miles and make Earth canon as contrast to everything else- go full fourth wall breaking. I'll show you how fiction you guys really are, buster!

Anyway... uh... where was I? Oh yes, other Maleficent line that caught my eye (playing games on emulators afford me the opportunity to write things down more... :D):

"You should have stayed inside, boy. There, the worst fate to befall you would have been eternal slumber...

...Such a shame you understand so little of the darkness. The world desires its embrace! There is nothing in darkness. No sadness, no cause for hurt... In darkness, one cannot see ones mistakes, or the dreams that failed to be."

Here, darkness as an element adds a new layer to its characterization throughout the series from just ambition/power, knowledge, or the like. Here, darkness is more of a shield from pain, or an obfuscation. Darkness is more of the gentle lie than I've seen light as being. And that's... something. When someone is dealing with darkness within this series, or trying to gain a mastery over it- has it not been in a futile attempt to puff themselves up and disguise hurt/insecurities/unsteady ground that they walk upon? I can't say for sure for Xehanort, but it has been the case for Riku and Terra, so...

Contrastingly, that would make light the element that demands everything to be pure, honest, and open. It would have no inclination towards unsteady foundations, or soft versions of truths/white lies with good intent. Something something, soft moon versus callous sun. Funnily enough though, with both of these explanations, it's apparent that their respective foundations both lead to some sort of emotional repression, either out of a desire for utter individual control and strength emotionally (darkness) (not possible) or out of a desire for perfect order and lack of duplicity (light) (also not possible). And with that, maybe Xehanort's got something to the whole "balance of light and dark" thing, who woulda thunk extremes would be problematic? Of course, the whole genocidal tendencies is... eh...

Naminé! That was the other thing I wanted to speak on. Am I to understand that with Mickey's letter at the end of the game, Sora finally knows of Naminé and his relation to her, as well as Castle Oblivion, at least a little bit?? Literally on the edge of my seat, guys. Mickey said he'd tell our Sora about the Coded journey, so I hoped that'd be a part of the package. :/ I was happy to see "Thank Naminé" get concluded at least a little bit, even if it was just Data Sora, but pleaseee...

Also, oogh, Sora's consistent character conflict being centered around repression and its various forms continues to pull at my mind a bit. I transcribed part of Naminé and Data Sora's conversation because of how Relevant it was feeling. As well as addressing Sora's own hurt, Ventus' with the "they've been sleeping a long time," the conversation also doubled as serving as an explanation for events such as the Xion fever dream in Days where she/Sora by extension experienced Riku's memory from CoM:

S: "These are my memories?"

N: "No, not yours. These belong to people connected to you."

S: "What? Isn't it weird for someone else's memories to be inside me?"

N: "Right, it's not usually possible. When I first found them while repairing your memory, I thought I'd made a mistake. But all the evidence I found proves they belong in your heart, where they've been sleeping a long... long time. One day, Sora will have to call them to the surface. They're important memories... but very dangerous ones."

M: "Dangerous how?"

N: "These memories are too painful. Handled the wrong way, they could damage Sora's heart- even break it..."

Like when Data Sora told Data Roxas he'd carry his hurt from then on, Sora effectively symbolizes the individual who gives and gives of themselves to such a degree that the pain of others becomes his own- putting his own hurt and individualism eternally aside for the noble cause of "keep on keeping on." Of course, to be affected by the pain of others is to be human, but in such an identity defining way as is the case with Sora, as well as Naminé noting such things aren't typically possible (within this universe's rules) and that the others' memories "belong" with Sora, it's clear what this is doing to him- you can't help but wonder if Naminé's worry about Sora's heart breaking from having to confront internalized hurt and memories might be warranted. I'd dare to say that it makes sense why Xion saw so much of herself in Sora even outside of the memories, considering the way they unwaveringly waver on who they are, all for the sake of being what is perceived as needed for others they deem important. Am I looking way too much into it? Maybe. Do I care? No. I'll pathologize my boy with a case of "chronic people pleaser on a thematic level" all I want. Is he an Empath,™ a teenager being a teenager, or is he losing himself- perhaps all three? Find out... next episode...

(Can't wait to find out whatever the "research" is that Ansem stuck within Sora's sleeping mind. Can't help but assume its importance, given that it's been mentioned twice, now.)

Alright, that's everything on Coded, I'm now gonna hop to dumping some thoughts on Dream Drop Distance that I've started a little bit of, because.... :D

[transsexualhamlet]

Moriarty the Patriot + The Final Problem

aka another unecessary essay from ya boy on how yuumori, instead of taking away from the original text, adds meaning and depth to it

So I finally got around to reading the final problem after wading through all the memoirs of sherlock holmes and yes, I am in fact reading these because of yuumori. I wanted to see how it was portrayed, what the differences and influences from the original source were. I did end up getting incredibly attached to the original series too, so yeah... I'm glad to report that the original and adaption get along well.

And yeah, I have a lot of thoughts, most of them being just me generally praising yuumori. I think it was straight up genius how they pulled so much content from... well, frankly. The Final Problem was a 15 page short story tossed off by Doyle in order to have an excuse to be done with sherlock holmes, told from the perspective of someone who wasn't even there. And yuumori still managed to make it generally very accurate and complementary to the original, while still being, uhhhhh really fucking different, let's say that.

Read more because again, long essay

Just my observations on the final problem itself is that it is so underdeveloped and told from an outsider perspective. Because of that, so many questions go unanswered, and the reader gets a sense that they are only witnessing a very small part of what actually happened. Sherlock can't afford to go into detail on what Moriarty was even involved in, Watson isn't privy to what's honestly even happening most of the time, and Moriarty just... has this extensive network of organized crime that just isn't even talked about other than Trust Me It's Bad Bro. We don't know Moriarty's intentions, most of who he is, and more questions are honestly brought up than answered within the story. Sherlock knows, oh that's for sure, Sherlock knows what's going on and he has no fucking time to tell Watson. You get a sense that Watson himself isn't even telling all that went down.

So yeah, I can see where there's so much room to expand upon here, not even to change things or make it different because it would be cool, but there's so much that could be happening just within the realm of plausible deniability in the canon.

And I think that it's amazing how Yuumori chose to market itself that way- not as an adaption or reimagining- but that this was in fact the Real story, with Doyle's final problem being... honestly a bit of a cover up, a purposeful misrepresentation of a small slice of the full story. It lends itself completely to that, and I think that's amazing.

(One thing I do find funny is that in Yuumori the story "the final problem" is depicted as a full novella that could be published on its own... man it's not nearly long enough for that but I find it funny in any way)

Of course, there are elements of yuumori that are yknow, simply not realistically something that could have happened, but most of the story is actually within that range of plausible deniability since the canon is so vague and sparse. And since they state that things were changed on purpose to protect people and the moriarty plan, it basically covers that all as simply The Truth. It's well done, and very interesting, especially with the new anime ending taking them to Reichenbach itself.

Like, yuumori didn't even truly change the appearances of the characters, from the descriptions. (we're not counting the illustrations lol) like, Sherlock was never stated (as far as I can tell) to have a specific hair or eye color, hairstyle or such.... he was described as tall, thin, eccentric, messy, with like... long fingers and stuff. Man, yuumori did not go against that. With Moriarty it's different, though he was also reportedly Tall and Thin and Built Like A Yaoi Protag for some goddamn reason, he... you know, has these weird and unattractive features as well, which... in the context of Watson trying to portray Moriarty as unmitigated evil in order to protect the plan, were in this situation made up specifically to further the idea that he was just that.

Because of this situation, the Moriarty that is portrayed as yeah, a smart guy and a threat but seriously just A Bad Dude who seems to have no particular reason behind his actions save being A Bad Dude actually make more sense as a cover up behind a more dangerous secret of him having Real Feelings than the only stated reason being "he inherited being evil from his family". (like... watson, really?)

It explains the vagueness and the events and the weird connection between those two better than the original does, and that's really cool to me.

On their own, without yuumori to back me up on these things, reading this would have left me confused and depressed. But as a half truth immortalized as the real story, you get so much more out of it.

Especially these certain scenes:

When Moriarty just pops into Sherlock's house and they proceed to have a basically wordless conversation amounting to

"you know why I'm here" "you know how I'm going to respond" "well then" "here's date and time of our mutual destruction" "thanks I'll be there" "well I'll be off nice knowing you" "wow it sucks that we're enemies he's such a civil guy"

It just really adds something to that, don't you think?

And the subject of their fall itself, simply the fact that Watson wasn't even there. No one witnessed it. No one found even Moriarty's body. No one found evidence of anything at all.

All Watson could say was that Sherlock and Moriarty had gone up to the mountain together, Moriarty told Sherlock of his plans, let Sherlock write and leave a letter to Watson, and that they never came back down. So he came to the conclusion that they must have fought and both fallen off.... like, holding each other. Not really sure how they reached that conclusion, to be honest.

It doesn't even make sense, exactly told how it is. If Moriarty wanted to kill sherlock and survive, he would have just... brought a fucking gun. Or just pushed him off on the way up. As soon as he got him alone just fucking stab the man. It would have been that easy, but no, he had a whole ass convo with the man, they went up civilly side by side, and they stayed on the cliff a long time while Sherlock wrote that letter. Even then, Sherlock could have just waited to catch Moriarty off guard and pushed him off. But he didn't.

Why would they even have fought, if it was so scheduled? You telling me to believe that after this letter was written and moriarty stood there watching him sipping tea or whatever he was suddenly like "ok im ready to fight now", knowing they would both probably die, and if they were genuinely trying to kill each other and survive, that would even make sense?

Of course, these problems in the original stem just from Doyle no longer giving a shit and slapping this together after losing motivation for sherlock, he was obviously, not hinting at some great conspiracy in the slightest.

But damn, Yuumori really does change that all for you, huh. It adds a whole new layer of context to it. And I like it a lot, I like what they've done on their own, I like what they've done for the original stories, and I especially like what they've done telling the "real story" of this short, vague, mystery that otherwise leaves you feeling unsatisfied and confused.

[justanothersyscourse]

I found that twitter thread and managed to trace these sources back to you and the post you made talking about the dysfunction criteria, and to me it just looks like some of these sources disagree with you. If you have some sort of clarification, I'd like to hear it, sure.

Alright, let's go through it tweet by tweet, we'll look at the sources and quotes that Cambrian brings up specifically. If you have further questions, I'm happy to cover more. (Heads up, I go on a couple tangents and rants here)

So, first, the two links in question are:

[1] DSM-V perspectives on disentangling disability from clinical significance

[2] DSM-IV Diagnostic Criterion for Clinical Significance: Does It Help Solve the False Positives Problem?

Tweet 1

Here's the full quote, from the first article:

Setting thresholds for caseness has long been important to researchers and policy makers who have interests in distinguishing people with mental disorders from those who are suffering transient symptoms and expectable reactions to the stresses of everyday life [ie normal from pathological]. The ubiquity of the latter conditions makes this distinction of crucial importance for the identification of homogeneous research samples and for the allocation of scarce resources for mental health services. Clinicians, particularly those in primary care settings, are also frequently confronted with routine emotional and behavioral complaints that raise the question “treat or don’t treat?”. The importance of accounting for distress and impaired functioning in daily activities when determining caseness has always been an underlying concern for clinical and health policy decisions, although not one clearly articulated. [x]

To understand this portion, we actually have to look ahead to this part:

The DSM definition of “mental disorder” has contained the concepts of distress and limitations in activities since the release of DSM-III. DSM-III also implicitly dictated that careful specification of symptom criteria for each disorder would suffice in establishing a disorder threshold; that is, the combinations of symptoms specified for each disorder would be inherently distressing or disabling.

Now, there's an entire argument to be had about what "being disabled/disordered" looks like-- and I'm a firm believer that it doesn't need to look like someone locked in a padded room. Being a system, in and of itself, comes with additional difficulties that automatically add a layer to life that inherently constitutes disorderedness without having to involve extreme dysfunction-- and this is as per the DSM's presentation of the clinically significant distress criterion.

And that's what this article is about!!

But first, since the above quote talks about "to treat or not to treat", let's take a really quick look at what the DSM 5 says-- YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED!

disordered =/= dysfunctional and in need of treatment

HUH-- that doesn't seem to line up with needing to be "INCREDIBLY DYSFUNCTIONAL", does it?

Let's also look at this quote from the DSM 5:

Right off the bat, the dysfunction criteria is nothing more than a generic placeholder. It's also VERY important to remember that the dysfunction criteria was added to pretty much EVERY disorder in the DSM, with the exact same wording-- so if we're looking at something like Major Depressive Disorder... In the DSM IV, it "apparently" didn't need to cause distress or impairment (it did, it was just in the preface of the DSM, not listed under the criteria), and then suddenly, in the DSM 5, it needed to!? WHAT?! Sorcery. Ableism. DEPRESSION DOESN'T IMPLY INHERENT DYSFUNCTION?! /sar

I would like to know why it was added to pretty much every disorder, but DID/OSDD seems to be the only one where people are like, "I'm not disabled, I'm not dysfunctional." Like, are we going to start gatekeeping people with depression or anxiety, because they're not "dysfunctional" and "impaired" enough? Like, where is this argument coming from?

Let's take a look at one more quote from the DSM 5 itself.

So... "disturbance in an individual's cognition" would be DID/OSDD, DEFINITELY. That disturbance, therefore, reflects a dysfunction (or abnormality) in... well, all 3. Psychological, biological (scans now show damage to brain tissue in those with DID), and development. So how would that affect distress/disability in important areas of functioning? This part, specifically, is unique to the disorder that you're looking at. The criteria was added to all disorders, but it's highly subjective to the specific one being discussed.

Dysfunction and impairment in OCD is going to be different from dysfunction and impairment in GAD, and they're both going to be different from the dysfunction and impairment seen in DID/OSDD, and THOSE will all be different from the dysfunction seen in GODDAMN CATATONIA-- like, was it really necessary to add that specifier there?

Apparently, yes, because they ALL got the specifier, and it's different for all of them. The impairment in catatonia, despite having the EXACT same wording, will not be the same as depression-- by the logic of DID requiring severe impairment, unless you're basically catatonic, you're not DID. Like, WTF? How does that make sense?

You can't judge the impairment criteria as though it's a one-size-fits-all. It's not.

But let's go back to the article and tweet-- with the DSM's explanation, this article will make a little more sense-- specifically that, "not clearly articulated" part. Because it's not clear. It's subjective and meant to be applied on an individual basis and judged by a clinician.

"Impairment in everyday functioning and activity" when applied to DID is going to involve, "hey, that literally wasn't me at school/at work/with my friends/etc." That alone is a type of dysfunction. Memory issues are a type of dysfunction. Not being able to settle on an activity is a type of dysfunction. I feel like I have zero free time-- my alters will jump out and do the things they want, meanwhile, I've been working on a project for months that they're not helping with, and I'm starting to feel stressed about it, I'm starting to hate it, despite the activity having been my favourite at one point. I feel rushed and frustrated that it's not done. This is dysfunction. It doesn't need to be me locked up in a padded room, or drooling in a corner. It can be so much more simple.

And that's what this article is discussing. Cambrian pulled a few quotes out of context and claimed it says that dysfunction needs to be severe. Where?

The entire article is about how inadequate and confusing the criteria is, and how it can be fixed in the future.

Part of the article states:

Consistent with the authors’ suggested solutions, the incorporation of dimensional measures of symptoms into the diagnostic assessment process will help differentiate symptom/syndrome severity from disability by focusing specifically on symptom ratings of frequency, intensity, and/or duration

This is something I wholeheartedly agree with, and there is a current task force working to update the DSM 5 to change the clinical distress criteria to focus instead on "frequency, intensity, and/or duration". If that were the wording instead (as they're going to make it), this wouldn't be a conversation anyone is having. The clinically significant distress criteria can essentially, at this point, be read as, "are the symptoms recurring, ongoing, and pathological".

On that note, Tweet 2

It's from the same article, the first one. I don't see how this... doesn't support the point that the dysfunction criteria is redundant and useless? He seems focused on the activity limitation, but what this passage is saying is that the activity limitation isn't enough, and should be combined with a GAF-- that it isn't limited to activity limitations.

Here's the rest of the context for that quote:

However, the problems with the DSM’s handling of disabilities, including the clinical significance criterion and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF), were many. These problems are well stated by Üstün and Kennedy. First, the concept of “clinically significant distress or impairment in functioning” is not defined and the terminology is not consistent with the World Health Organization (WHO) standard. The GAF is not a “clean” scale, mixing as it does symptom severity, social functioning, and assessments of dangerousness. The DSM symptom criteria themselves are confounded with activity limitations, apart from the clinical significance criterion. Finally, the operationalization of syndrome severity is inadequate. These limitations have substantial consequences for research and clinical assessment of mental disorders.

Basically, tl;dr, NO ONE KNOWS WHAT DYSFUNCTION IS. No one knows how to define or utilize the criteria. It's harmful, at this point.

Tweet 3

Yes, because activity limitations aren't a good way to measure disorderliness. Enough said. The full quote:

We are also taking steps to separate activity limitations from symptom descriptions. Consistent with the authors’ suggested solutions, the incorporation of dimensional measures of symptoms into the diagnostic assessment process will help differentiate symptom/syndrome severity from disability by focusing specifically on symptom ratings of frequency, intensity, and/or duration.

ON TO THE SECOND ARTICLE, and a new post, because I've hit an image limit??? what???

[phoebehalliwell]

if you could give 3 positive and 3 negative personality traits to each of the next gen, what would they be?

ooh love it. okay. we know i talk a lot. A Lot. i’m doing this in waves. first set of siblings under the cut (wcm). 2.9k. ily!

wyatt i think it’s say kind bc like. he genuinely tries really hard to be a nice person. considerate which is kind of the same as kind but again he like. he knows the elders almost killed him as a little kid he knows there’s a world where he does go dark side and that does weigh on him, so he tries to put other’s feelings first as much as possible. and then third positive trait ummmm generous which again is kinda all in the same category but it’s like. like wyatt is insanely talented not just like as a witch tho he’s that too he’s also like really smart but he’s not a dick about it he’s one of those kids who’s always like i’ll help u with your homework! what r u doing after school later! like. he has a wealth of knowledge and he doesn’t just sit on it he likes to share. this is one of the reasons henry jr is also so close with wyatt because like. they both share this genuine love and interest in the study of like old magicks so to speak like. histories of witches and demons etc most classes the rest of the next gen honestly find kinda boring. on the flipside his negative traits would be like um a tendency to play by the book he’s a little too strict not because he necessarily believes in it but more again he wants to stay in line so as not to get you know. murdered or w/e. another negative trait is a i would say wyatt gets like way too overattached, especially in relationships, but it’s not limited to that. yes he’s a jump then fall guy & i’ve written about this before (multiple times), but i also think it’s the same with like innocents. like the fact of the matter is is that you literally cannot save anyone but wyatt has never and will never learn to accept that and i think he gets. he takes it real hard whenever he loses somebody and gets really pissy and closed off in the aftermath. a third negative trait is like. overprotective. like. in my writings he’s not the twice blessed anymore but he’s still wicked powerful, and he’s also like. the eldest. so he kind of feels this burden to protect his family. it doesn’t help that throughout their youth like chris ever the demon hunter always sought out trouble and leo who Really Didn’t Want To Watch Chris Die Again kind of always passed on whatever the mission was to wyatt. which, yeah, gave chris issues, but it also gave wyatt issues! because in his head, it really is his responsibility to handle these things for his family. and, yes, sometimes he can relinquish this power a little bit like not actively hover over his family while they’re demon hunting, but if he’s not you know. actively there, he’s either scrying or he’s sensing (if he can do that idk) and just. he’s got this feeling that anything bad that happens to his family is his fault. like he has this great power, so if someone gets hurt, like, he should have been there because he definitely could have stopped it. however, this energy kinda harshes everyone else’s buzz, which is why the other tend not to involve wyatt in their plotlines too much.

moving on to chris who just for the record i already wrote for but thanks to the beauty of this site i accidentally clicked the wrong button & now it's gone. so. take two! i don't remember what i said. okay so first trait i'm giving him is. i honest to god cannot remember what i said previously no wait that's a lie because i remember now because it was interesting. because i think chris is interesting, and i think that's a good thing. because like. i wouldn't describe him as likeable i would not say he has the personality trait of Likable™ because like. he doesn't. but people still really like him. because he is interesting. like they see him and go huh wow i wanna know what's going on there all in all i think people kinda gravitate towards him. but of course flipside i think he doesn't necessarily choose to become friends with everyone who approaches him i think he tends to be a bit picky just because you know he's so guarded so i think he has friends but no like. really super close friends. so like first negative trait is he kinda appears aloof because i mean. he's kinda gotta lotta issues you know and it's not something you can really easily explain to someone non-magical because magic is so deeply ingrained into who he is (which also adds to the aloofness because there are just certain topics he'll drop certain things he just won't talk about and its not because he doesn't care or anything it's just like. that's a really big reveal and rather that spin some elaborate web of lies i think chris just like straight up does the i can't tell you that bit, which makes him seem you know well like aloof kinda a little bit dickish). and then of course there's also like. like a lot of vulnerability involved in understanding who chris is he really doesn't have any middle layers nothing that sits between the surface mortal chris and the charmed chris with an inferiority complex it's either you know it all or you know. he just seems aloof. but again like. i think he's interesting. so much so that a lot of people are just kinda willing to look past that. so like. a lot of just external relationships. surface level. & then another defining trait of his on the positive side is clever. because like. he's smart. like i think he's a really skilled witch i think he's an excellent spellcaster and then like. i also think he can do math and stuff (in my fic he is a coder so like. yeah.) but i think it's kind of beyond just like Oh He's Smart i think it's the way he applies his brains applies his knowledge that really kind of sets him apart from the rest i think he really is clever. and then third positive i think chris is resourceful. i think like. i think he likes to have a sense of indepence away from his family because like. i mean he is a halliwell and he doesn’t shy away from that but at the same time he doesn’t really want to like. lean on that rest on well the thing is it’s not even his laurels to rest on. he wants to have this sense of independence and he’s actually p good at getting it. like i having him living on his own (so 2 speak, he has like. 4 roommates? i’m p sure) and yeah he’s not super great at it from just like. a living perspective you know but he’s making it i think like paying his own rent all that and yeah like the food he eats isn’t great and his room is kind of always a disaster but like. he’s made it p far i think a lot farther than people thought he could no disrespect. so i think he's really able to take what lifes gives him and make the most out of it i don't think he likes to coast by on others' accomplishments. which kinda segues into the second negative trait which i think you probably could guess he's overly-independent like independent to a fault. because like. i think he really wants to define himself with kinda comes in a two-fold way because like. okay in-family he wants to. okay so like obvi, there's a major drop off in power between him and wyatt. and i think he's always kinda been insecure about it think what on earth caused such a cosmic fuck up that he's just a telekinetic and then his brother is like. a baby god. so i think chris really feels this need to prove himself worth of a place in the warren line like cement his skills as and really say you know i deserve this title. and then flipside!! he really doesn't want to rely on titles you know he doesn't want respect because he's a charmed one or because he's a halliwell he wants respect off his own merits he wants people to know him by his actions not the legacy he carries. (also maybe gives reason for chris to occasionally use the name chris perry in the altered timeline??) and then. kind of building off that negative trait for his third one i'm saying listless because like. i think the crucial difference between the chris from the dark timeline and chris from the light timeline is like. darktl!chris has always had purpose. like yes it's a shitty purpose it's a burden it's too much to place on one boy but he is the last halliwell you know it's like basically all on him to stop wyatt from you know annihilating the world. (someone should probably tell him the cupitches exist in the dark future lmao) you know from like very very early on in his life darktl!chris has known he's destined for something big and honestly he might fail but he's gotta give it the ole college try because this is the world on his shoulders he's gotta put up a good fight for it. lighttl!chris literally does not have that. he does not have some grand, epic purpose, some monumental destiny to fulfill and like. what is he supposed to do, you know? why is he here? and he feels like he should have some epic destiny hmm well no not exactly he wants some epic destiny but he feels like if there were some epic destiny to be had it'd probably pass over him in favor for something better just like everything else in his life does. like why is he here? literally why is he here i mean okay so like disclaimer is that chris in my story is like. 20/21 and um. also a college dropout lmao haha and like. call a spade a spade we're probz looking at some undiagnosed depression here like give him a zoloft he'll be fine but like. chris feels like he's kinda on a raft in the middle of open ocean in a sense like. the best option is to pick a direction and paddle and hope he reaches land but he's literally in open ocean there are no markers no indicators he doesn't know where to go and like. if he picks wrong he's just heading closer and closer to nothing at all emptiness death whatever And There's No Way To Know Which Way Is Towards Land. and if he fucks up, like, he's screwed. shout out to all my early twenty-somethings. woot woot. but yeah. i think chris really wants a sense of purpose that simply put he does not have and honestly? will not be getting. i am not giving him a prophecy. i am not giving him a destiny. he will have to live with that. and, at this point in his life, i think he's doing a p bad job at that. lmao.

melinda!! baby girl. angel. honestly? i'm going to give her kind too because i think a large part of her just really wants to help people. i've previously called her the most-whitelightery of the next gen, & then also she is currently going to school with designs to become a nurse because like. she's also an empath you know and i think she definitely has aspirations to kind of mix her magical and mortal sides find a balance of both worlds and use her magic powers to enhance how she can better care for people in a mortal way. i'd also say she's really understanding. like, she's the third sibling to the wyatt-chris duo And she's an empath like. even if she doesn't get it, she gets it. like. things are complicated relationships are complicated like she can literally feel all sides of the story whenever there's a wyatt-chris-leo argument and like. what? is only one of them right? is only one of them allowed to feel the way they feel? no. she gets it. she all kinda understands where they're coming from. she understands. and then third positive trait she's really loving. like she's not a person who's stingy with her love (in a platonic sense. i think it a romantic sense it gets a lot more complicated because like. as an empath on the first date well it's just too weird man and it's. it's not like she can't keep her feelings sorted it's just like knowing exactly how they feel about her��.. like it's weird. pass.) but i think she really like. i think she loves her family i think she loves her friends like. ❤. wow. on the more negative side i think she kind of like. self sacrificial. like she'll goes to the ends of the earth for the people she loves before she ever stops to think about herself. she doesn't. like she won't self advocate she won't draw a line in the sand when it comes to the ones she loves she fails to um. to see how sometimes her needs might actually be more important that others like. like if she loves you she will walk until her feet bleed. like. you have to be real careful because like. if you ask her to do something like she'll do it you can tack on that "but it's fine if no you don't have to" because if she feels your need to have this task done she'll do it. it's for love. but it's not good. (she will also extend this to non-loved ones again if she feels their need their like desperate need because at the end of the day she's a giver. hey kinda like the giving tree. i think she loves that book.) i also think she's just a shade naive and i kind of hesitate to use that word because like. i feel like it implies kind of a lack of worldly experience and like. melinda has seen a lot. but i think she like really does kind of see the world through rose colored glass i think she believes that people are intrinsically good and want to help each other and um. this can kinda tee her up for a lot of heartbreak and/or disillusionment with the world when kinda the reality is placed there right before her and it just kind of blows. i think it kind of hurts fresh every time. and then a third and final negative trait i think she like takes on too much, from an emotional standpoint, and doesn't really give anything back. kinda the same as self-sacrificial, but like with a twist. like, yes, as established, she has a lot of love in her heart, and she will take on her friend's emotional burdens (as well as any other burdens they might have for her) but then kinda gives nothing in return. she's a bit guarded in a sense. because again. this all comes back to the empath thing. kind of build on the dating thing. you really get live feedback on what exactly they think about you when you unpack, and like. melinda can't take that. she's too in her head on how this directly impacts their view of her and then she's just reading them and not focusing on her own problems you know like. like ladies if you've ever hit like. 1:30 in the morning at a slumber party when shit starts going from hehehe chetoh doost lasdkajldf to like. i don't think i could ever reasonably get married because divorce has really been the only constant in my life and i genuinely don't think i could trust another person enough to tie myself to them legally.? that's melinda's mcfuckin time to shine i think she does play therapist/peacemaker like a lot she likes it because again. she likes helping people! especially the people she loves!! but um. she'll never partake the other direction she really doesn't like getting vulnerable herself because like. you know if your friends are lying to you like you say something really personal and then cap it off with a y'know? and they all go yeah totally but you can feel them going what,,, the fuck. no?? like. like melinda could not take that it has not happened to her yet (probably) but she's come up with the hypothetical and she could not take that. this doesn't really extend to family just because she knows them so long like oh what chris thinks she's lame? okay. wyatt thinks she's overreacting? yeah i know what i've seen buddyboy. & then. for the record. neither or her brothers would never think she is lame or overreacting even If melinda is being lame or overreacting because they just like wouldn't they know her too well. but melinda's def the person who comes up with worst case hypotheticals in regards to her relationship/empathy powers like. all the time.

[vaguely-concerned]

Any tips for a TF POV fic? I want to write one because I too went through a time in my life when I let feelings bounce off cuz that was easier, but I feel like that's not quite on point for him 🤔

God I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about this and they’re all so wordless and frustratingly evasive to me yet (I am in the process of writing a looooooong T.F. POV fic and it gives me much more trouble than Graves POV, probably because as a person I’m quite a lot more like the T.F. Type in real life lol). But yes, here we go, let me try to express some of what I personally try to have as my hm ‘anchor points’ for his perspective. (Heavy disclaimer that these are just my personal & disorganized little musings and by no means the only or ‘correct’ way to read the character!)

- First of all I agree, the image of ‘bouncing off’ doesn’t feel quiteright -- it’s in the right neighbourhood but the wrong address sort of thing, but it’s really hard to come up with a way to explain how I feel the nuance here.

*insert three hours later spongebob meme here* Okay, so the metaphor I came up with is: T.F.’s relationship to emotions is a direct parallel to his relationship to water/the ocean: it’s scary down there, it’s dark, it’s dangerous, and if he should ever be dumb enough to try to go in too deep it’ll kill him dead because boy oh boy on so many levels this man just did not learn how to swim. As far as he’s concerned any sensible person would simply bob along on the surface in a sturdily built boat and try not to think too much about the weird shit that lives down there in the depths. (In this metaphor the layer of artifice and performance so habitual it’s basically integrated into the fabric of his soul is the boat. Y’know, the part that’s Twisted Fate and not just plain ol’ Tobias. I’ll hasten to add that I think both parts of his identity are equally ‘real’ and equally him, but the Twisted Fate part is like… protecting the Tobias part. Keeping him from drowning, as it were. I’m not sure he’d think of it like that himself for the longest time, though, I suspect he has more of a ‘that man is dead’ attitude towards the Tobias part after Graves is gone)

I think what I’m trying to get at is the idea that to him, raw emotion is as hostile and unknowable and unnavigable an ‘environment’ as the deep ocean. (And the only time we see him willingly go there, physically and otherwise, is for Graves, so you know let’s jot that down first of all lol.)

- He seems to genuinely quite like and be interested in people – how they think, what moves and motivates them, their secrets and foibles. So I tend to try to keep the uh ‘detail work’ in his POV focused in that direction. Priority going like 1) people 2) people’s valuables 3) the relative availability of people’s valuables at this moment if you have clever hands and a very charming smile haha

- One of my favourite things about T.F. is that he seems, I don’t know… quite genuinely good-natured beneath it all? If you back him into a corner some sharp and dangerous things peek out (he has survived in his line of heh ‘business’ for like thirty years, and a lot of it on his own), but for the most part and when unthreatened he has a sort of mildly amused and intrigued live-and-let-live attitude to the world even as he’s conning it that I find deeply charming. Which to me ties in with:

- T.F.’s first instinctive reaction to danger (perceived or real) the majority of the time seems to be ‘Flight’. Confrontation and violence are basically his ‘when literally everything else has failed’ options. (As seen prominently in Burning Tides, where he just keeps running and running and the only time he actually starts throwing punches is when he has to because Graves is in immediate danger and they’re backed into a corner. Which feels like it means something huh lol, I often think about what could actually make T.F. angry enough that he would openly express it and that seems to be the most likely angle for it in my eyes.)

- My take on one of the fundamental differences between Graves and T.F. is that Graves has A LOT of feelings but doesn’t quite know it (or more like can’t quite conceptualize it I should say) – he has a hard time identifying or finding vocabulary for feelings that aren’t some shade of anger. Meanwhile T.F. KNOWS he has feelings, he just doesn’t like it, ardently wishes he didn’t, and will do pretty much anything to run away and not have to engage with them haha.

Another important difference: when brought out of equilibrium Graves gets angry, and T.F. gets scared. I have the feeling that beneath it all he’s scared a lot, and it’s why his persona is so oriented towards gaining control in ways where people don’t realize it enough to even think try to take that control away from him until he’s already long gone. Misdirection as a way of life babEY

- This might be too deep in the ‘my WIP/process specific’ territory to really count as general analysis, but I think it’s there in canon too – there’s almost a feeling that he implicitly feels like he has to make up for some fundamental flaw or lack he has at the core? (Not a weird thing for him to end up feeling, considering what happened to him as a kid.) All the rest of him, all the cleverness and style and charm, is there to ‘make up’ for how at the end of the day he’s… wrong somehow. As Graves, who knows him better than anyone, focuses right in on, a coward. And that is CERTAINLY not the whole truth and even Graves in a full rage relents when he sees the effect the accusation has on him and once he gets the actual facts of what happened. But I think that sense of deep unworthiness is what’s stuck with him emotionally. His people left him because there’s something fundamentally lacking and immoral about him. He lost Graves because he’s not good enough, because he’s a coward who leaves people behind. He deserves to be alone. Mix in a ton of survivor’s guilt to taste, and I think you have the like… core emotional wound he’s constructed around.

There’s also something here about fear of profound powerlessness specifically in situations where words, generally his strongest card that’s not a literal card (har har har oh we do have fun here), simply don’t work right at the moment when he needs them to the most – he tried to beg for his people not to leave him behind, he tried to convince Graves to get the hell out with the rest of the crew… and it didn’t work. (In Burning Tides you see he’s given up even trying to explain himself, he just wants Out in whatever way leaves both him and Graves tolerably in one piece, even if he won’t be understood or heard or less alone afterwards. It takes him until like half way through the entire chase to even THINK about just telling Graves the truth. In all fairness to T.F. it probably wouldn’t have worked at that moment, but it does vaguely crack me up that he didn’t even consider it until all of Bilgewater harbor was already burning merrily behind them fhsajkfa)

- He has a little bit of a (perfectly justified considering his background honestly) chip on his shoulder, especially when it comes to powerful or arrogant people. There seems to be a special satisfaction in outsmarting and robbing specifically rich assholes (which would also be the people who have the most to steal, so y’know good times all round). From his short stories and few places in his bio you almost get the feeling that he has a funny sort of Robin Hood-esque sense of lopsided justice about it. (Robin Hood-esque only so far as to define ‘the poor’ as the eternally hard-strapped ‘T.F. & Graves Waistcoats and Cigars Fund’, of course lol)

I think T.F. both has a mind that tends more towards analyzing the big picture and also has more direct experience with like… structural/systemic powerlessness and oppression. So the cons they pull are probably partly how he channels the emotions that arise out of that (and the rest he just represses, like the relatable guy he is haha)

- Graves being back would cause some IMMENSE internal conflict in him, I feel – of course all the feelings of relief and attachment and love, but also… so much of who he is now came about specifically to find a way to deal with Graves being gone, with seemingly just shutting down the entirety of his need for real human companionship or closeness for like a decade, things that are suddenly starting to be brought online again and must be tremendously stressful to deal with when you’ve had it completely suppressed and deadened for so long. He’s put so much into trying to be fundamentally unattached to anything, anywhere, anyone (and there are some things here about perpetually being an outsider his whole life that I can’t quite put into words, but that’s a dimension too.) That sort of psychological self defense mechanism doesn’t just contentedly nod its head and go away just because something good happened one time haha. Probably a work in progress there huh (at least he’s not alone in it now <3)

PLUS some bonus Graves POV observations because man. I love writing him, he’s just a marvel of a man

- I know I call him a dumbass all the time, but in a street smart way I think he’s actually quite clever haha, he just has a bad tendency to get hung up on an idea and get tunnel sight. (I’ve based this a lot on the short stories but see also more recently his Sentinel skin voice lines for good examples: he’s incredibly straightforward in that ‘well obviously if it doesn’t affect me personally I ain’t gonna give it that much thought’ way, but you also have glimpses of surprising insight/shrewdness and… I don’t quite know how to put it, but something like an ability to get to the bottom line of something without getting caught up in the details. (I suspect T.F. does find himself lost in the details quite frequently, he’s much more attached to the decorative curlicues of the world.) Graves clearly & frequently has no idea what’s going on, but he strips things down to the essentials very quick: Lucian’s story as a direct thematic mirror to Viego’s, Is There A Sun Lady – Oh, I See, all of this is weird and creepy and needs shooting, and maybe most crucial of all: Isolde doesn’t want to be with her husband anymore so what he’s doing is just like. Extra shitty. He gets what he needs to get and then just barges ahead heedlessly with that. Icon.)

- He’s actually pretty darn eloquent in a gruff sort of way and uses some quite sophisticated vocabulary! And the way this is contrasted with the tendency to slip into blunter coarser language just as readily -- like when he takes the time to describe the monster that takes down the Prince’s ship in such poetic terms as ‘gargantuan’ and ‘the behemoth’s immense, distended jaw’ and it having ‘pallid dead eyes the size of the moon’, and meanwhile during his swim at the beginning of the story we get bastard cold and bastard dark and full of bastard jellyfish and crabs – brings me such immense and unending delight

- He’s more eloquent in his internal voice than he is when speaking (especially noticeable in Destiny and Fate; he does have a tendency to fumble his words when talking lol), and he gets quite easily lost in his own meandering reflective musings in a way I find incredibly endearing. I’d almost call it whimsical at times, honestly, hilarious as that is? Like when he’s literally so absorbed in a line of thought he forgets which way they’re rowing and T.F. has to remind him. (I think T.F. generally has more of a grip of what’s going on around them than Graves does lol)

- There’s an important distinction to be made that Graves actually does, by and large, read T.F: very closely and seemingly also pretty damn accurately. He’s good at (and clearly very interested in) reading his moods, spotting what tactics he’s using interpersonally, when he’s being genuine and when he’s being dissembling.

What Graves is actually bad at is understanding his own emotions, and to not bleed those emotions into other people’s motivations and behavior, especially when he’s upset or in heightened states of feeling, like he is all the way through Burning Tides. He can only name his own feelings in a vocabulary of anger, when it’s pretty clear from the subtext that there’s a whole bunch of other stuff going on there, and he has incredible trouble divorcing those feelings from what other people’s got going on with them right then. He feels hurt, betrayed, and undone by everything that’s happened to him, so the intention to hurt, betray and undo must live in the other person who he feels caused it. In less drastic cases you see him do this a bit when he feels like T.F. is being evasive with him – taking it as a form of rejection rather than realizing T.F. is just lost in his own thoughts, sort of thing. There’s a real improvement in this one between Burning Tides and Destiny and Fate, though, so maybe he’ll have an easier time of it with some time and practice.

Sorry it took so long to get back to you on this and that it’s a bit of a rambling mess, words have been real hard recently. Or rather I have too many words, all the time, left and right, I just can’t put them into the right orders to make any sense hahaha, I hope there’s some useful point in this somewhere for you at least!

[currentlyreadingmanga]

Toilet-bound Hanako-kun Chapter 17: The Little Mermaid (Part 2)

Previously:  we started a new arc and things get complicated for both Yashiro and Hanako. We met “the other Hanako” and with that, we got a glimpse of Hanako’s backstory (if his reaction is anything to go by). After being so shaken by the encounter, Hanako starts to avoid Yashiro and it couldn’t happen at a worse time since the Mermaid’s followers found her and now are trying to get Yashiro to sever her bond with our ghost boy and to go with them instead. The chapter also brought up the concept of trust and how Yashiro views her relationship with Hanako so far (with Tsuchigomori putting in his two cents and talking a little about how Hanako probably feels), and I really really love how the author is handling it so far.

Now onto the next chapter!

Ohhhhhh!!!!! That’s the image from the anime opening!!! The one that I think made every anime-only go “wait….what???”. This image was pretty disturbing without context, but now knowing that the shadowy figure could represent his brother, it adds another layer of yikes ngl

Ah, right, when we last left off, the fish had forced Yashiro into the water when she declined their invitation. A great way to get her to trust you, guys. Truly a phenomenal job.

………..

I want to be where the people are, I want to see- want to see 'em dancin'~~

Again: that’s fucking rude! Don’t you go dissing my girl like that, she’s a bit ditzy but she’s wonderful!!

I was gonna say “how do you expect her to come with you after trash-talking her like that?” but that’s probably the angle they’re going for. They’re trying to crush her self esteem so that she has no choice but to think that going to their world would be the best thing she could do. Clearly, they’re not above using dirty tactics.

…………..sigh Yeah I was afraid of that. Like, the way I see it, Yashiro’s concern with popularity stems from her own desire for people to like her (it goes hand in hand with her romantic personality), so if these fish tell her “Oh, you’re nothing more than a walking disaster as a human, no one will love you if you stay here. but if you come with us, you will be loved by all”, it doesn’t surprise me that she would be tempted by the idea.

Oh, is Hanako finally here?

There he is!! And as always, he arrives just in the nick of time and rescues her with great dramatic flair. Also, there’s something about fish!Yashiro’s expression that is just really funny to me.

He says “your world may be kind to her...this one my be cruel...but it doesn’t matter” 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh ಥ‿ಥ you tell them, Hanako! They have no right to try and take Yashiro away from this world and him. Also, this page is beautiful holy shit, it’s simple yet detailed where needed. “Are you gonna praise the art style every recap?” you ask……...yeah, probably

ಥ‿ಥ  I love them so much ಥ‿ಥ

You know? Sometimes I forget how scary Hanako can look sometimes. But then his eyes go all black and he smiles like that and I remember.  The threat seems to be enough to send the fish packing, though, even if they do say that they won’t give up on getting Yashiro to go with them.

Ahhhh, this makes me so happy! They’re clearly still learning to interact in a more “serious” manner around each other. It’s a slow process but they’re communicating more effectively (Yashiro with her speech to him when she gave him the donuts and Hanako apologizing not only now but also after the confession tree incident) and it’s really nice to see. And just look at how happy that made her! That’s all that she wanted, for him to reach out to her after he avoided her for a while. Another thing that I really appreciate is these rare moments where we get Hanako acting sincerely, no jokes or cheeky smiles, just him laying out his genuine feelings; especially here, since it proves that what the fish said was wrong.

I feel the need to point out that she’s not denying it. Like, yes, she meant it as friends, but the implications are there and don’t think for a second that I don’t see the “badum, badum, badum” and the blush. The romantic chemistry they have is very apparent and I’m living for it.

OH! There it is! Well, I’m glad that the reveal didn’t take very long (even if it was a pretty important thing to be spoiled on).

That’s a nice detail. He’s trying to act naturally but this is clearly a sensitive topic for him……..which makes me think that Yashiro’s assumption last chapter will be right.

……………..yeah, there it is. Can’t say I’m particularly surprised but it’s still a hard pill to swallow. I talked about it last chapter (and maybe during some of the other chapters as well) but with the clues we’ve been given and considering Hanako’s behaviour, the theory that makes the most sense to me so far is that Hanako probably killed his brother in self-defence. Then again, this is still pretty early in the story, so there’s probably a lot we still don’t know. Like I mentioned earlier, Hanako also has moments where he looks/acts scary, so there could be something more to that. It could also just be a side effect of him becoming a supernatural but  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hanako asks her if she really wants to get to know him after learning that, and tells her that if she does, he will tell her everything someday. And this is a great step in the right direction. Not only it puts Yashiro’s concerns ("does he trust me?”) at ease, but also it shows his current feelings ("i’m not ready to share yet, but i need to let het know that) and his willingness to open up and be vulnerable in the future. Character development, gotta love it.

(TдT)(TдT)(TдT)

OH!!!! Are we shifting perspectives to the suspicious girl?? Because I remember that in the anime she was always the one that spread the rumors over the radio, or, well, the intercom, I guess. And since we now know that she’s Hanako’s brother’s assistant, there’s a very high chance of seeing him again. I’m both excited and terrified by the prospect. ALSO what the actual fuck is that on the left. Why are there body parts seemingly floating around??? is this just an artistic choice or are they actually there?? Either way, it’s creepy as hell.

Oh, god, it looks like those things are actually there in the room and just imagining being there gives me goosebumps. But yes, anyway, there she is! And Natsuhiko, too! Gotta say, kinda missed our suspicious person 1 and suspicious person 2. He’s worried about letting Hanako’s brother run off but she says that he wouldn’t have listened to her if she had tried to stop him anyway. Which is interesting, since while Hanako does march to the beat of his own drum, he still seems to take what Yashiro and Kou say into consideration (even if just a little bit).

Oh? “boundaries within cities”? Like, not just within the school? We know that she has knowledge of the boundaries thanks to her conversation with Yashiro in the library but maybe she’s expanding her search to reach a bigger scope?

Natsuhiko is worried about the chance of our wonder trio finding out they’re the ones behind the changes in the rumors. And that’s a valid concern, since Hanako is in charge of maintaining the relationships between humans and supernaturals, and he obviously would have to intervene. 

………...I-I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this omfg. She certainly has him wrapped around her finger, huh?

(⚆.⚆)  Oh boy, there he is, oh boy. 

I’m sorry I just have to point out how utterly done she looks. Like, since she slapped Natsuhiko for touching her hand, I’m guessing she’s not a very touchy-feely person, so this must be quite bothersome for her. Still, her expression is wonderful lol Also! It looks like not caring about people’s personal bubbles is something that runs in the family……….oh, is that why she called him a cat? Possibly.

Okay, so he says that this is not his usual outfit (and that explains the more Japanese-style outfit I saw him wearing in the spoiler) but he wore it because he “was seeing Amane for the first time in ages.” So there’s the confirmation about the fact that he hasn’t been at the school for a significant amount of time. And, again, that’s very suspicious.

Okay. Listen. He looks very cute. But Hanako’s terrified expression keeps reappearing in my mind when I think that. So I’m gonna wait and see what’s the deal with this boy because for now I mostly feel….unsettled.

“He looked happy to see me,” he says, while floating around in a childlike manner. I, uh, um. Are you sure about that, honey?? Because it sure didn’t seem like it to me. 

Also: “But I still can’t move around that well yet. They chased me off.” So that’s what happened on the rooftop. He said that she had helped him get here, so maybe his spirit form hasn’t fully “materialized” enough  for him to move around comfortably.

(⚆.⚆) (⚆.⚆)  Remember how I said that I felt unsettled? Well, this really isn’t helping the matter jfc

Wow he’s really clingy, like, even more than Hanako by the looks of it. He’s like my cats when it’s time for me to feed them. Also! Sakura! I’m guessing that’s her name, right? I can finally stop calling her suspicious girl lol

But yeah, quite the trio we have here. Now that Hanako’s brother is here, I’m guessing that their little ensemble is complete since they would work in direct opposition to Yashiro, Hanako and Kou.

Oh! I feel like I’ve said “oh” so much this chapter….oh, well. The fish are back! “We’ve found him” Are they talking about Hanako’s brother? Do they know who he is or maybe they are mistaking him for Hanako?

Ah, no. They saw what happened in the rooftop the other day; they recognize him and they remember how shaken Hanako looked at the time so they want to win him over to be able to fight against Hanako. I mean, it’s not a bad plan. Hanako’s brother doesn’t seem to want to hurt him but by that one interaction they had, we can see that their relationship definitely has some complicated layers.

So what’s been happening with the rumors has reached even the mermaid’s kingdom? That really makes me wonder exactly how interconnected the different worlds are since information seems to travel quite fast.

Natsuhiko spotted the fish and…

*me, remembering his comment about wanting to see how the fish are on the inside*  (⚆.⚆)

(;;⚆_⚆) (;;⚆_⚆)

(ﾟдﾟ；) yeah, I don’t think he’s gonna listen to you, Sakura.  jfc that’s a face that’s gonna appear in my nightmares

Σ(ﾟДﾟ|||)  (ﾟдﾟ；)  Σ(ﾟДﾟ|||)

……………………don’t get me wrong, I wanted the fish to stop interfering but. not like This. I-Well, that’s certainly a way to end a chapter omfg. The fact that Sakura and Natsuhiko, seem to be used to him doing this kind of thing is…...concerning, to say the least.

[wichols]

Kyoya x Haruhi Accidental kiss?

By accidental kiss, I sure hoped you meant accidentally getting caught in a compromising position… Let’s be honest my boy Kyoya probably knew exactly what was going on the whole time. He is a sneaky sneak like that. I hope you enjoy this anon! Thanks for the wonderful prompt!

Shrouded Kiss (Kyoya x Haruhi)

The twins went overboard with this dress. Grabbing a handful of the cascading fabric on the front of the dress she swept herself in between the dancing couples making her way towards the exit. She could faintly hear Tamaki calling out to her but she decided against turning around to acknowledge his frantic voice. 

Classical music and chattering voices filled the empty hall as she lightly closed the door. Shrouded in darkness, she made her way to an unoccupied sitting area a ways away from the dance hall. Though the night was just getting started, her head already began to pound from Tamaki insisting that during the last dance to practically spin her around the entire time. The dress fabric fluttered as she slumped onto one of the couches. Closing her eyes she pressed her fingers lightly to her temples rubbing small circles to relieve the pain. 

“As enduring as he is, he can be over-exuberant at times.” Kyoya’s voice broke through her concentrated ministrations. “He sent me out here to check on you.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Between the twins stuffing me into the dress this afternoon and Tamaki’s preferred dance style, I am just feeling a little out of sorts.” Giving him a small sigh as their eyes connected. “I should be ok in a few minutes, thanks.”

“Though I came to speak on Tamaki’s behalf, I would like to say that the twins did do an immaculate job as always with your dress.”

“It looks nice but I kind of look like something that would be found at Honey-senpai’s table.”  

“Cupcake like indeed. Maybe a few too many layers but considering you deny them almost daily in being able to dress you up in their more feminine creations it was to be expected that they would go over the top for the ball.” He chuckled while watching her smooth out a layer of tulle. “What did Tamaki say about it?”

“Audibly?” She paused. “Only dogs would have been able to understand him but what I gathered he thought it was a perfect dress fit for someone dating him, something something, no one better touch me, something something, best girlfriend ever.” Propping her head against her open palm she leaned on the armrest. “I know he enjoys seeing me like this…” Gesturing with her free hand at the yards of fabric and beads. “It just doesn’t quite feel like me. The hair, the makeup, don’t even get me started on the shoes.” Lifting up a few layers of the front of the dress revealed a moderately tall heel hidden among the under layers. “Then add in waltzing around the room, the jealous side-eyes from other girls, just everything. He seems to be all in or all out. Don’t get me wrong it’s a nice quality of his but it can get rather exhausting.”

“I fully understand where you are coming from.” Resting his back against the couch, he gave her a reassuring smile. “Trust me, I know exactly what that feels like. Since you two became more serious I think you have taken the brunt of his enthusiastic tendencies. It’s been rather nice for me but how are things going between you two?”

Her eyes flicked to the flower arrangement set on the small end table beside the couch. “Fine, I suppose. The only thing that has really changed is his protectiveness towards me. You would think that after we got together he would have calmed down a little. And he is constantly making public declarations about our love to all and any nearby person(s).”

“It sounds like some of those things bother you to some degree? Do you not like spending more time with him?” His glasses shifted, catching a faint flicker of light.

“It’s not like I don’t like spending time with him and even when we do kiss or do couple things it does feel nice. Though, it is not much different than when I hang out with everyone else.”

“So you do kiss.” His hands settled into a comfortable interlocked position on his knee. “Are you indifferent towards his affections?”

Her eyes shifted back to him. “I don’t know if I would say indifferent. I do enjoy them most of the time but is nice the way you would describe with being with someone else?”

“Nice is one way you could describe a relationship but it seems to me that nice might not be the only word you would like to describe your relationship.” His eyes raked over her figure as his statement hung in the air.

Noticing his lingering stare, a small shiver went up her back as she adjusted slightly straightening herself.

“Well if you don’t mind, we can run a little experiment. If you want to know if what you are feeling is love him towards him or not you could kiss someone else and see if you feel the same towards that person as you do Tamaki. Since you said gender doesn’t really matter before, you could kiss a male or female, your choice.”

His proposition caught her off guard. “Kyoya, I am pretty sure that is called cheating.”

“If you feel nothing towards that person and you’re not going to pursue anything further, what’s the harm?” Holding up his index finger for emphasis. “I am not telling you to go kiss the entire school body I am just saying, one person. If it bothers you to do that then you could always just tell him either before or after. But knowing him it is going to be a big deal either way. Or another option would be to just talk with him. But if you don’t do either then you will never know if you are truly feeling any degree of love or lust towards him?”

“There seems to be some logic behind what you are saying but why would lust matter?” Cocking her head in confusion.

“I will let you figure that one out and if not I am sure you wouldn’t know what you are missing out on anyways.”

“Hypothetically, if I was to do what you are proposing, who would I even go to?”

“Well if we are speaking hypothetically probably someone who can keep a secret. Though, I would suggest you not include Mori-senpai or Honey-senpai for reasons I cannot disclose quite yet. And I would stay away from Hikaru considering his immature nature.”

“So hypothetically speaking unless it is Kaoru or yourself my options are pretty slim outside the club.” She quipped.

Clearing his throat, “let me remind you that you are not just limited to male participants although outside of the incident during your first year I am not too sure how many willing female participants you will have.”

“Thanks… you know how long it took me to convince Tamaki that my commoner upbringing did not predispose me to same-sex attraction? Answer: too long. It was his fault anyway that I kissed her.”

“There seems to not be a shortage of interesting situations surrounding our Host Club balls. I wonder what will happen this year?” Addressing no one in particular. Standing up he extended his hand to help her off the couch giving his best host smile. “If we wait too much longer Tamaki will send out a search party for us.”

With an exasperated laugh, she reached out taking his hand but was surprised by his sudden movement. Losing her balance, she grasped the air towards him, stumbling into his chest causing both their bodies collided awkwardly as they tumbled towards the floor. 

“Kyoya?” The blond peeked out cautiously from behind the door. “Kyoya, did you find Haruhi? Does she know how sorry I am?” Glancing around he saw a flutter of lavender tulle out of the corner of his eye. “Haruhi?” Curiously, he started walking towards the commotion. As he rounded the corner, a look of horror flashed across his face as he stumbled upon his friends in an extremely compromising position.

Pools of fabric draped around Kyoya’s body as Haruhi laid on top of him. Their necks craned away from each other. His arms gripping tightly around her waist. From his perspective, he had held onto her so that they would fall together instead of her falling on top of him and potentially having their heads collide. But all Tamaki could see was his girlfriend in the arms of another man laying on top of him.

The same gasp caught Kyoya’s attention as his eyes locked with Tamaki’s. “I would say it’s not what it looks like but at this point, I am not sure what you are even thinking.” His tone was steady as he helped Haruhi find her footing without stepping on her dress.

“But…”

“Seriously Tamaki, do you really think that your best friend would try to seduce me? I slipped and he caught me, end of story. We were just about to head back in until you showed up and well here we are. Let’s all head back in.” Grabbing his hand she led him back into the ballroom

“Uh…? Ok.”

Kyoya was left alone still laying on the floor as the couple rushed back into the ballroom. Pushing himself off the floor he chuckled. That was interesting. I guess we are going with the kiss someone and not tell option. Closing his eyes he let his fingers lightly drag across his lips. Even if it was a total accident, it was pretty clear that whatever just happened was not something that she has experienced before. A ‘nothings there’ kiss doesn’t include softly moaning. “Huh, I might just need to look into this matter further.” The grin slipped away from his face, replaced by his usual host smile, as he entered back into the ballroom resuming his night.

[thequeenfullepisode-blog]

The Queen Full Episode

Prior to moving to the Tampa Bay area of Florida, I lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for 17 years. During this period, I went to high school, graduated from college, and we started our business which we subsequently moved to Florida. Quite often I am asked to describe what life is like in the "Queen City," representing the city's nickname ("Queen City to the West" to be precise). I have lived in quite a few locations throughout the country, not to mention visiting many more, but Cincinnati was a unique experience that is difficult to describe; instead, you have an intuitive feeling that is difficult to articulate. Such is Cincinnati. There is just something "different" about it. It is certainly not like Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Akron, or any other city in Ohio. It is unique. For example, most cities have their airport near the downtown area; Cincinnati's is across the river in Kentucky, not Ohio. The airport designation "CVG" doesn't mean "Cincinnati Vicinity G???", but "Covington" instead (Kentucky) thereby representing an interesting political chapter in Cincinnati's history.

The city rests on the northern shores of the Ohio River in the Southwest corner of Ohio, adjoining Kentucky and Indiana making up the "Tri-State" area. It was settled in the late 1700's, and it was a frontier town that made good. So good, it quickly became the crossroads of America, where settlers traveled through on their way to the western frontier. The city prospered so much in the early days, the federal government seriously considered moving the capitol there after the British burned Washington during the War of 1812, thereby eliminating the potential of attack by the sea. This, of course, never transpired but Cincinnati continued to grow nevertheless. By 1870 it represented the mean center of U.S. population. Today, the Queen City is strategically located within a 700 mile radius of two-thirds of the industrial wealth of Canada and the United States, making it an ideal locale for conducting business.

The city has a strong German heritage based on immigrants settling there and setting up shop. Breweries grew, shipping and manufacturing proliferated, and for a long time was called "Porkopolis" because of the pork processing plants there. Even to this day, Cincinnati's strong work ethic, food, and general attitudes can be attributed to its German roots.

Seven hills surround the city making up a valley that traps pollutants and humidity, and explains why it has evolved into a "Sinus Gulch" where the inhabitants suffer from an annoying nasal "Sniff" heard throughout the day. During the summer, the weather can be stifling; in the winter, the valley can retain the cold. Spring and Autumn are perhaps the two most scenic and enjoyable seasons.

Cincinnati has a unique sight, sound, smell, and even taste to it. From an architecture perspective, the city has everything from massive mansions made of brick and hidden away in country settings, to simple turn-of-the century wooden structures with steep roofs and front porches that dominate the neighborhoods. Television is rather unique, or at least was a few years ago. Considerable television innovations originated from the Queen City and, for a long time, local talent dominated the channels with homespun humor and a blend of bluegrass and midwest music. Natives fondly remember people like Bob Braun, Paul Dixon, Bob Shreve, Glenn Ryle, and "The Cool Ghoul." However, celebrities such as Steven Spielberg, Jerry Springer, Doris Day, Roy Rogers, and the Clooney family all started here as well. Alas, the locals eventually gave way to national programming and the Cincinnati character faded from television screens. Fortunately, local radio stations still feature homegrown personalities.

Over the years Cincinnati has had many breweries due to its German heritage. One by one, they were all pushed aside by national brewers. Names like Burger, Hudepohl, Schoenling, and Wiedemannn slowly faded away. In terms of food, Cincinnatians enjoy their restaurants. Since there are no real glamor places to relax locally, particularly in winter, there isn't much to do but tuck away the groceries. In addition to having some of the finest restaurants in the country, the fare is based on its "Porkopolis" past, featuring a variety of sausages, ribs, and a breakfast meat called "Goetta" which is similar to Philadelphia Scrapple, but made with pinhead oats instead. Cincinnati chili is also unique. Do not expect a bowl of hot spicy meat. Instead, it is served on a bed of spaghetti, with a layer of onions, a layer of kidney beans, and topped with a bed of grated American cheese.

Even driving around town is strangely different in Cincinnati. Instead of a cut-throat rush hour in the morning, Cincinnatians seem to just quietly go about their business in the morning and possess an intuitive understanding of every twist, turn, and back alley to be navigated in the city. It is also common to see motorists stop to give aid to other motorists in trouble.

What this all adds up to is a strong sense of neighborhood in Cincinnati which took me a long time to figure out. At first it seems elitist in nature. The citizens genuinely love their hometown, particularly their sports teams (e.g, the Reds and Bengals), local celebrities, and hometown boys and girls that make good on the national stage. It's no small wonder many people grow up and never leave Cincinnati, nor understand why people want to leave. It's very introverted in this regard. Should you move to the area, as we did many years ago, you must adapt to the culture for it will certainly not adapt to you.

Not surprising, Cincinnati is conservative in both its thinking and politics. They simply do not like to change. This has hurt them on more than one occasion, particularly the downtown area which has lost considerable business over the years to Northern Kentucky. When I return to my old neighborhood there, it is like time has stood still; nothing of substance has changed. I know where everything is and all of the names of the families. Although I've been gone for over a quarter of a century now, it is like I never left. Although it may take an act of God to implement a change to Cincinnati, such as a new building, road or restaurant, the citizens remarkably embrace it. On the one hand, Cincinnatians give the appearance of being "stick in the muds", but on the other they are some rather creative innovators and inventors. In addition to television and radio, Cincinnati is home to massive jet engines, consumer products, machine tools, banks and insurance companies, and some rather impressive computer technology. Their strong and determined work ethic, coupled with a competitive imagination, and strategic location in the country to conduct business, makes Cincinnati a stable work environment.

As an aside, it is relatively easy to recognize a person from the Queen City. They will say "Please?" instead of "I beg your pardon?" or "Huh?" I haven't heard this specific idiom used anywhere else in this context. Also, true native Cincinnatians tend to say "CincinnatAH" as opposed to "CincinnatEE." It's a dead giveaway as to their roots. "Sniff".

Keep the Faith!

[girlhorse]

im in the mood for an abemiha meta so im going to talk about the language use in oofuri! and by language use i mean the use of the word “like” (suki/好き/スキ)

im putting it under the cut since i gotta include some images. beware of minor manga spoilers! really, really minor though lol

first i’m going to provide an explanation of terms and stuff, and their connotations (info is from jisho.org and wordreference. i am still just a beginner in japanese but i am fairly confident in these explanations!)

a lot of you may know this but japanese has three systems of writing, which is going to be very important for my discussion! these are broken down into hiragana and katakana (referred to together as “kana”, symbols are syllabic) and kanji (written characters that represent a word/phrase) you can express japanese in writing in kana alone, but its way more common to use kanji along with kana in writing. this will be really important to my discussion, as i will be highlighting the distinction between katakana usage and kanji usage of the word “suki” 

suki, written “好き” in kanji and “スキ” in katakana, is defined as: “liking; fondness; love” which can be a little confusing - the distinction between “liking” something and “loving” something isn’t quite available, so that typically necessitates context. but with written language, especially in a language with three entirely different writing systems, i think it is safe to say there are other ways of constructing that distinction.

(i can hear a distant “but gabby what about DAISUKI!!! isn’t that MORE about love?” yes and no! ive addressed this in an earlier post but in general the word “suki” is considered to be more serious and romantic, while “daisuki” is a bit more.. uh.. “extra” and frivolous)

so why would an author choose to use kana (in this particular case katakana) in place of kanji?

the kanji is difficult/obscure (gonna just say that “好” doesnt seem particularly difficult at all - it is taught in grade 4)

the author wants to stress sound of the word/emphasize the word (this is important for my interests lol)

a stylistic choice

(i picked up this info a bit from japanese language forums & from translating stuff so it might not be completely accurate but! i think this sums it up)

now that that is out of the way im going to make my bold ass claim! that in the text of oofuri (or just in mihashi speak), スキ is love, and 好き is like! i will now try to show u how i came to this very very bold conclusion:

the first instance we see of “suki” being used in the manga is when abe tells mihashi he likes him as a pitcher (bottem left bubble is “i like it”) 

which is followed up by this panel:

in sequential panels, we have two different spellings of “suki”. it is made clear from the very first chapter in the manga, that (esp for mihashi) that kana “suki” and kanji “suki” have different, important implications. it seems here that mihashi is bewildered that abe would say anything like “like” to him, and writing suki as スキ only drives this home further, almost as if “like” was in bold or italicized

now this is just the first instance and only proves that katakana can be used as a tool to emphasize something, or that maybe mihashi doesn’t know the kanji for suki, or that this is how “suki” is translated to mihashi speak - but it can also set us up to look out for this distinction in the future. I’ll get to the confession scene last my dudes just hold on a minute lol 

now the “this is the mihashi version of suki” theory could work if not for the fact that we have at least 2 instances of mihashi using 好き:

the first when he says he likes the big carrot chunks in the curry: 

and again when he asks abe if he likes catching (i’ll say more on this in a bit):

so if mihashi didnt just learn 好き (its fair to say he always knew since hes not like illiterate dgfdg) then in this instance, “suki” doesn’t have any particular emphasis -- ie mihashi is saying “like” here

setting aside mihashis fondness for carrots is the question he asks abe which is “you like being a catcher, huh?” to which abe emphatically replies: 

this is followed by mihashis conclusion, where we see the shift back to スキ:

“i see. i like pitching. and abe likes catching”  (mihashi uses スキ elsewhere when he talks about his feelings towards pitching; we can pretty much assume that he loves it. thats like his whole character) mihashi wasnt sure how much abe liked catching, and after hearing abe’s response, shifts 好き to スキ. it is subtle, but it means a lot! abe likes/loves catching as much as mihashi likes/loves pitching! there wasnt really a need for clarification on the reader’s part here - we can get what abe is saying right away, but mihashi must confirm it for himself and re-confirm to the reader that “スキ” has a special meaning in this manga/to mihashi

moving on!!!!!! just to solidify, i want to show a couple more instances where スキ shows up:

here, in the word for crush: (the word crush is lit. “person you like” - interestingly, while “person”(人) is in kanji, “suki” is written in katakana)

ofc this could just be because this is handwritten, and it is easier to read handwritten kana, so perhaps it is this way for clarity (人 has 2 strokes so its not an issue, but 好 has 6 so its just a bit more complicated) BUT higuchi. (unfortunately for amateurs like me who try to translate her work) really is not opposed to handwriting more complicated kanji in her manga. i also haven’t looked hard enough but perhaps there is an instance where 好き is handwritten. dont know though!

and here, unrelated to abe and mihashi, when suzune is telling her boyfriend  ookawa that she loves him (its blue cuz its an omake on the cover thats just how it is)

again, it is handwritten, but also this scene seems to rely on the emphasis provided by the katakana

and now. drumroll. im finally focking ready to talk about the confessoin scene! i have talked about how it can be read as a “confession” in this post, but i think it is definitely worth bringing up again bc it is my focking point!

maybe u already guessed (or read my other post) but when abe and mihashi tell each other they like each other it is with スキ:

am i trying to imply theyre in love already? yes and no! i think that スキ here is meant to draw our eyes to the word so we remember it well, or maybe give us a hint of what’s to come in the story (like a real confession scene between them) the two of them are very naive and dont know each other well in the beginning, but it is clear higuchi wants us to pay attention to this word and ask ourselves why it might be written in this way, and how this writing can kind of make the meaning of “suki” ambiguous 

(as an aside id like to note how in the panels above, the phrase “i like you” is isolated from the rest of the sentence. as u probably know abe’s full phrase is “not just as a pitcher, i like you as a person, too!” bc of the way japanese grammar works, though, abe’s “i like you” clause out of context can work as its own sentence; and higuchi chose to give it its own bubble. mihashis “i like you” is even isolated from his “me too!” which i think is interesting. mihashis flashback later in the manga to abe’s “i like you” is segmented in exactly the same way)

also in this scene is where mihashi says he loves being a pitcher w/ スキ:

so if we add the layer that this scene is from mihashis perspective he may very well be meaning “love” in this scene, and may have even interpreted abe’s words in that way (again at the beginning we already see mihashi interpreting abe’s 好き as スキ, so perhaps he is doing it again - though it is left unclear on purpose)

make of this what you will - i could be just picking up on unimportant things. after all, “suki” absolutely isn’t the only word that is emphasized/ kana in the manga, so perhaps this is just a coincidence. but i think it is pretty significant that it is fairly consistent of a distinction in the manga, for such a loaded word, and i honestly suspect this isn’t going to be the last we see of it.

[vorthosjay]

Let’s Talk About Something Else Entirely

Let me tell you something, sometimes these titles are hilarious when you add ‘Let’s Talk About’ to them. Something Else Entirely is one of those stories. There are some juicy background details in today’s story, so let’s dive in! And don’t forget about the Vraska the Unseen feature also out today!

River’s Rebuke by Raymond Swanland

Even when his ears couldn't hear anything, Jace could still hear endless talking.

So Jace’s powers are returning to him. I’m sure that won’t end poorly for someone.

Kerrigan, the burly ogre who served as ship's cook, showed him how to maintain a galley-fire without burning the ship down. 

Whoops. I assume this is meant to say ‘Orc’.

Jace had been told that, before the Legion of Dusk's arrival on Ixalan two years ago, this had been a place untouched by the war at home in Torrezon.

Ah, so the Legion of Dusk arrived two years prior. Not that it’s connected, but that’s around the time the Eldrazi were released, Jace became Guildpact, and Tezzeret was sent to Mirrodin.

He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Breeches, a goblin as talented at knot-tying as he was at yelling. "ALE AND CARDS! ALE AND CARDS!" he chanted with fervor.

Breeches is my favorite character.

"DEBT AND ALE AND CARDS!"

Breeches is a Millennial.

Breeches pumped a fist in the air. "DEBT AND ALE AND CARDS AND FESTIVITIES!"

Breeches!

"It began about five months ago. I was contacted by a wealthy patron from overseas, not part of the Legion of Dusk. His name is Lord Nicolas, and he hired me to retrieve an item of great power."

Note that this is roughly the same time as The Promised End, at the end of Eldritch Moon block.

Malcolm nodded. "The object we're after is in Orazca, and it is known as the Immortal Sun. It used to be kept in the monasteries of Torrezon, in the kingdom that would eventually become the Legion of Dusk. For generations, it remained under the protection of its holy custodians in the mountains of the eastern continent.

"Its presence gave the old rulers incredible power," Malcolm continued. "Jealousies blossomed, and Pedron the Wicked's forces broke into the monastery where the Immortal Sun was kept safe and stole it. As they departed the sanctuary, a winged being descended from the sky. It took the Immortal Sun, carrying the relic across the sea and into the west. No living being knows its exact location, but this compass is meant to help us."

This is a heavy download. We already know from the Ixalan Plane Page  that both Mavren Fein and Vona are searching for Elenda, the first vampire and guardian of the Immortal Sun. Here we learn of Pedron the Wicked, who stole the Immortal Sun. Then a winged being descended from the sky...

You all know exactly who I think that winged being is.

I wonder what the timing here, is. The Player’s Guide puts the war the sparks the creation of the Dusk Legion at about 800 years ago, after Ugin is dead. But I wonder if the Immortal Sun wasn’t stolen earlier? And who were these rival factions? Was Pedron actually the predecessor to the Dusk Legion, or their enemy?

I also wonder if the lack of the Immortal Sun is what turned to Dusk Legion into vampires in the first place. Oh and hey, the Immortal Sun was left with monks, huh? That reminds me of someone...

Flying Crane Technique by Jack Wang

@artcrit pointed out the coin on the forehead of this braided warrior on the ground, too.

Call to the Feast by Yongjae Choi

If Ugin came to Ixalan, it would make sense that similar cultures and myths sprung up around him.

Of course, it might also be another draconic being that has been hinted at...

"No reading my mind or the minds of my crew," Vraska said, "But everyone else is fair game. Except our employer, but I think he may be a better telepath than you."

"Do I know him?" Jace asked.

Vraska went quiet for a moment as they walked.

"No," she said finally.

"You paused."

Vraska crossed her arms. "We're from a large city."

So Vraska doesn’t know (or isn’t sure) if Jace knows Bolas. Also, he’s DEFINITELY a better Telepath.

"And I was a politician there?"

Vraska chuckled. "You were horrible."

"I imagine. I must have been forced into the job."

This exchange is golden, but there’s a hint of sadness as Vraska explains things to Jace. Will she really become Golgari guild leader, and if so, does Jace have to die for her to succeed?

"You weren't forced into anything. You had a great big campaign!" she said. "Flyers, stump speeches, banquets to fundraise. 'Jace is Ace!' was your slogan."

This really took a turn.

"What was our old city like?" Jace asked.

Vraska tilted her head in thought. "It is massive. Soaring towers and bridges that cross over layers and layers of city. It is colder than here, and it snows in the winter."

Did we know it snows on Ravnica? @sarpadianempiresvol-viii pointed this out to me.

The illusion vanished. But the look of guarded wonder on Vraska's face remained.

She was beautiful.

And so, in his way, Jace told her.

Oh god. Please, Jace doesn’t need to fall in love with every black-aligned woman planeswalker.

A massive lion with a man's face, eyes wide with horror, wailing like an infant on the rainy ground as he gasped for air and his wings dumbly thumped the ground.

It frightened Jace.

Jace has a vision of Alhammarret. In case you haven’t figured it out, his memories aren’t really gone, and this is a memory of something that should have been wiped from his mind a long time ago. 

Jace chose his words carefully.

"Existence is adaptation to changing circumstances. The self is an accumulation of what one has learned from those changing circumstances . . . Our agency gives us the means to alter our own path. You are who you decide to be. And who you will become depends only on how you choose to adapt."

This is a theme recently, as Ajani shares a similar perspective which is part of why he’s so against killing. It’s also a good rational for redemption.

"I wish I could forget like you have," Vraska said, hushed and small.

"What do you wish you could forget?" asked Jace.

Vraska's gaze was distant, locked on the horizon.

Jace knew immediately he had said both the wrong and the right thing.

Her response was terse. "Prisons."

Prisons, plural. This gets referenced again.

When they eventually took the blindfold off, I thought about trying to petrify myself to make it stop. But I wanted out more than I wanted to end.

This is... rough.

But the place I escaped to was a prison, too. I was trapped there, alone, for quite some time. Just me and all my memories of the source of all that cruelty.

At least we now know the void Vraska was trapped in is different than Ixalan. I wonder where she got stuck?

Vraska had finished her tea. A few bits of leaf were stuck to the inside of her cup. "'A person should die the death they deserve.' I lived by those words for quite some time. They gave me comfort."

"Do they still?" Jace asked.

Vraska's mouth was a hard line. "Yes."

They sat in silence for a moment.

"The part I haven't figured out yet is if they all deserve to die," Vraska said after some time. "My magic may lie in death, but I take no joy in killing. Before, I did it because I didn't have a choice otherwise. Now I have to do what is right for others like me."

Vraska’s evolving philosophy is interesting.

Also, note, that the entire Gatewatch (except Ajani) has a pretty big body count. Ain’t no judgment there.

But with their changing relationship, I’m wondering what will happen when Jace gets his memories back.

His theory went thus: the thaumatic compass worked by pointing toward a very specific type of magical expression. Small illusions didn't move the needle, but whatever it was that Jace could do (with effort) did.

If his theory were true, then the Golden City would have to be a massive hub of magical energy—and this compass would point directly toward its source.

Ah, my favorite part. I made a half-joke on Twitter the other day that the Planar Bridge might need a power source if it’s to transport the entire Eternal army. Maybe the Immortal Sun, like I suspect with Project Lightning Bug, has another purpose.

But there’s also the matter of the winged creature. If Ugin moved the Immortal Sun himself, it has to be important to him. I need some more information before I make more sweeping theories. I’m sure the Immortal Sun isn’t just a powerful artifact, there HAS to be more going on here behind the scenes.

[tellmewhatthekriff]

Let's talk about pairings

The title probably should have contained the word "ships" in it for the sake of making a stupid joke to kickstart this...article?

So, yeah. Let's talk about pairings.

To make it clear, I would like to talk about why, In my opinion(like anyone cares though), some ships "sail" even despite the canon and some sink or are left with little to no attention.

This article is mostly based on my observations from years I've spent on AO3, Tumblr and similar resources while being a part of quite a few fandoms.

Though on many cases I've been content with the canon ships or was okay with having no obvious romance going on at all(the dull life of someone, who's here for a story, huh), I've never been a part of the ship wars, due to my acception of all more or less believable ships.

An important disclaimer here: Any ship deserves to exist and to be shipped.

Also, you may like or dislike the ships I'll talk about down here, but, well, like I said - I'm here to share my thoughts on the audience's preferences.

People don't believe in love from the first sight

"Prince Derek: What? You're all I ever wanted. You're beautiful!

Odette: Thank you. But what else?

Prince Derek: What else?

Odette: Is beauty all that matters to you? " - The Swan Princess(1994)

Thankfully, everything ended with a happily ever after for the quoted characters, but the thing is, the it seems like people don't believe in "you're beautiful, I love you" thing just like Odette.

No way such a poorly set pair could've been pulled off. By "poorly set" I mean, that a "love from the first sight" move usually looks like it was romance for the sake of romance or it's just simply lame.

Though in fanfiction such plots still pop up, even there they rarely get enough acknowledgement.

For instance, look at the Riverdale Fandom's ships. Canon ones. Throughout the season one Archie hooks up with various girls, but never stays for too long. I may be just me, but I want you to take into account that directors and writes show those romances from Archie's perspective like this:he sees a pretty girl, he charms a pretty girl and then he takes the girl. Pretty realistically though these affairs don't last long, as there's little to no feelings aside from passion or lust. Lack of these short term pairings on AO3 also hints that for viewers these don't work out either.

Readers and viewers tend to want more psychology, more chemistry. They need some foundation, some common ground.

Which leads to another conclusion:

People like romance based on friendship

There's nothing to add to the title. Most of the ships, that are not canon, have really intense bromance going on.

Shoutout to:

Destiel

Johnlock

Newtmas

Percabeth

FinnPoe(Stormpilot)

Bughead

And Lord knows how many else.

These have just popped up first.

No matter, canon or not, these ships are based on feelings, that I'll dare to say are much stronger and way more intense than just love. Because love can be different. Every single layer adds depth to the final result. The more layers you've got in the stack - the more solid your relationship is.

You don't treat your lover just as seriously, like it's not just a liver, but also a friend, a family even(not by blood, of course. No Lannisters allowed).

You may have shared some really shaking life experience, some mutual interest, you may have worked together by each other's side or all this together.

This is the unshakable foundation. Something so complex and interesting, something so entirely magical by the mere existence of such a bond.

Shared experiences, events they've gone through together, all the pain and all the happiness leaving marks on their souls, that will never fade.

The compassion, the trust, the understanding.

Something eufemeral.

"The beauty and the beast" won't work

With all the hate towards reylo in SW Fandom, I couldn't stop to think about one of the main "cons" of the ship.

Actually, the ship didn't sail smoothly, with TFA serving the only obvious clue for it - the Interrogation scene leaves an impression of Kylo being intrigued. Though, the impression didn't last long, because the next time we see them together, he wastes any chances he had left to, at least make Rey not to want to kill him on the spot.

Anyway, in TLJ the ship did sail a bit steadier, more believable this time, but with a death sentence on it:

Abusive relationship

I don't want to talk about all the poor Belles and Cinderellas out there. Nope.

Just a quick note for anyone, who loves those "a girl/boy turnes a villain into a sweetheart with their love" like I do.

This isn't going to work. Today's "hero of the generation" is a hero, that knows his worth, being confident, independent and strong person, that needs no one's shit.

Even with a lot of explicit works on AO3 with dom/sub vibes, outside of the bedroom the characters are, in most cases, self content persons.

These types of ships are still popular though. My guess is that it's because of the fairytale vibe and ultimate belief in any sinner's redemption.

Psychology matters

To sympathize a character we need to understand a character. Because to feel the whatever we've been craving for(even smut get's hotter with this twist! ).

This is just that simple. We need to feel a fictional person like it is a real one. Then, we need the character to lead us through the whatever romantic mess is going on.

Characters look awkward and unnatural together not because they seem to have no common ground or visible chemistry(the latter is important though), but because the character's insight is either not credible enough or is simply missing.

Anyway, this was my not-so-brief look at shipping tendencies, so in case I've managed to ignite someone's interest, I could've added a part two with more detailed examples.

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to Wynonna Earp: Episodes 210-212

An Occult 23andMe

The Setup: Miri and Kris adore Wynonna Earp and have been reacting to this season a few episodes at a time. As always, we are in awe of Emily Andras’s writing, Melanie Scrofano’s face and general talent, and the entire cast and crew. We also have a few questions, critiques, and predictions that are sure to be proven wrong. 

Find our previous Wynonna Earp s2 reacting here, here, here, and here.

Spoilers through the season 2 finale, “I Hope You Dance,” below!

KRIS: I feel like you should lead with some all caps here or something

MIRI: As usual I HAVE A VERY MANY FEELINGS

THE BAAAABY

WYNONNA

***ASCENDED WIDOW MERCEDES?!?!??!***

And Jeremy is just such a peach

as per usual

KRIS: I actually saw this Scrofano Instagram the night of the episode (and I watch the morning after via iTunes) so I had some sense of the twist coming

MIRI: OH MY GODDDDDDDD

(I was really proud of how well I avoided spoilers this time)

KRIS: Which was kind of a bummer, but it still landed for me

Especially because of the detail of Nicole’s involvement

MIRI: Yes! An excellent tying together of various threads

KRIS: So you kind of called this, or something like it, back when we reacted to the pregnancy. Was this what you had in mind?

MIRI: ...I might have to reread that reaction really quickly to refresh my memory on what I meant

KRIS: I remember you said “noble sacrifice”

MIRI: Ohhhh yes

Yeah, I think from a show and a show writing perspective this is what makes sense

KRIS: At the time my mind went somewhere darker and more supernatural

MIRI: Because it is the version that reinforces/adds a layer to the core plot of the whole thing--Wynonna has to end the curse. For herself, but mostly for everyone she loves because she refuses to let this fall on someone else like it fell on her

And the baby adds to that, but without having to change the actual structure of things drastically--which they would have to do to add an actual baby in week to week

Also, this is the version with a combined maximum pain now and pain in the future. (slash tension, slash stakes)

KRIS: Yeah it definitely is obvious in hindsight that Wynonna would not want her baby in the Triangle

MIRI: But they covered it with the revenant question so well it didn’t feel obvious at the time!!

KRIS: It’s a little funny to me that Wynonna’s version of “I named her so no one looking for an Earp will find her” is “I didn’t give her a name that starts with W”

MIRI: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

KRIS:  Because I feel like “named after the grandparents” is pretty standard?

MIRI: “It’s just your mom’s name and my mom’s name and we’re only MASSIVELY FAMOUS/INFAMOUS within the community of people who might want to use/abuse this baby”

KRIS: I guesss maybe people wouldn’t necessarily expect Doc as the father

MIRI: Maybe, but several people with great knowledge of history already know

Like the Firebros Cult

KRIS: But aren’t they all, like, barbecued now?

Did I read that scene wrong?

MIRI: Oh, right

I forgot about that

Which is funny, because in the moment I was super excited about Dolls using his fire again!

KRIS: Right! And obviously I wanted a wide shot but I UNDERSTAND

MIRI: I mean, they already got a helicopter and a baby in the budget

KRIS: That did feel a little unresolved, mechanically, I guess because Dolls’s goal for the episode (get the doctor) was ultimately irrelevant

Emily Andras was very happy about her helicopter

“I was bluffing!”

MIRI: Let me just say for the 8,000th time: I would very much like to be Emily Andras when I grow up

KRIS: I usually roll my eyes at “gonna move to Canada” but if it’s “gonna move to Canada to work for Emily Andras” I’d have to be like “yeah that makes sense”

MIRI: YES

K: I really do like Canada, just not when Americans say they'll move there to run away from our problems

KRIS: Stuff like not getting a resolution beat for the Order made me think, not for the first time, that this show definitely rides a knife-edge of just having too much going on

MIRI: Yeah, I feel that re: Rosita and Mercedes too

KRIS: And if the emotional storytelling wasn’t as assured the whole thing could easily fall on its face

YES Rosita

MIRI: And I wonder if it was part baby clock/changing the whole season so late in the game?

KRIS: Maybe

I’d probably have to rewatch the first season

MIRI: But in general this show is just chock full of plot

Rosita is the only one that really bothered me

KRIS: I’m not super clear on what Rosita’s plan was, re: safe passage

MIRI: I wonder if there’s a scene or two on the cutting room floor there

(in this episode or previous ones)

Because she’s set up to be pretty cool, and while her point about the whole “I’ll shoot you last” thing being kind of TERRIBLE to say to someone/have to live under is valid, the turn just felt rushed to me

KRIS: Yeah

MIRI: Also, did she die?? Was she Saved? What exactly happened?

KRIS: I had to look up the last time Peacemaker turned blue and it was when Wynonna shot Willa

MIRI: Ahhhhhh I did not remember that

Huh

KRIS: I thought maybe she’d been un-revenanted but her reaction was still pretty angry so that didn’t feel right, so then I thought maybe Waverly had fired a warning shot?

MIRI: So maybe its when it has to act outside of normal bounds? Killing an heir, working for a non-official heir (yet?)

KRIS: Yeah that makes sense

MIRI: Hmmmm I’m holding out a tiny bit of help for it having saved Rosita and her not understanding

which is why she’s angry

KRIS: I definitely hope she comes back

as a regular

MIRI: And that would potentially fit with the idea of Waverly being something else supernatural

Me too!! I really love her

KRIS: Also sentient or semi-sentient weapons are always a favorite trope of mine

MIRI: I know this is not at all what you meant, but it reminded me that I love the Wynonna moment of declaring that she’s her own damn weapon, not anyone else’s to use

KRIS: And although I think the more straightforward reading here is “Peacemaker does what Wynonna says,” I also kind of like the idea of like “Peacemaker’s understanding of Family has caught up with the 21st century”

Yeah!

M: Speaking of family...(I love this gif and couldn’t find a better place for it)

MIRI: Well if Widow Mercedes could do it, maybe Peacemaker could too

Can we talk about her? Because I’m low-key obsessed

KRIS: Yeah that was wild

MIRI: I was 100% shocked

did not call her turning against the husband at all

and I LOVED IT

KRIS: Yeah, and a break with Beth was pretty well set up with her getting steadily disgruntled by everything over the last few episodes

MIRI: Yes! Her turning on Beth felt totally natural, but I did not even consider her turning on demon husband

How did you feel about him being all weak? I know someone who didn’t buy it, but to me it totally worked nicely as another Andras subversion of the expected story.

KRIS: That made sense to me

MIRI: Especially if he’s a demon who needs to feed (as the Widows clearly need to) and he’s been cut off for 100 years

Cool

KRIS: And I definitely didn’t feel cheated out of a battle with a demon lord or anything since I was invested in the baby stuff

MIRI: Totally! They did a very nice job of shifting the main tension and keeping stakes very high

Did you briefly think that Doc had become a revenant? Because I briefly thought that when he was talking to Bobo and I was Very Concerned

KRIS: No, but what line made you think that?

MIRI: When Doc said he’d been to hell

(yelling down to Bobo in the well)

And Bobo mentions Wyatt screwing both of them

But then he called Doc mortal

KRIS: Oh okay. Yeah I just really liked that line both on the level of having lied to Wynonna earlier and on the level of conceding that at least so far Doc’s maybe done more bad than good

MIRI: Yeah, it all worked, I just had a moment of fear

KRIS: So now we know that Doc listens to Adele

MIRI: As any right-thinking person does, yes

Wait, we jumped off of Widow Mercedes too quickly

I just need to say that she was SUPER COOL all ascended and powerful and shit and I wish there had been time to have her be the big bad of her own 3 episode arc or something

Ok, moving on to the bullet splitting thing

KRIS: My concerns about too many plot threads notwithstanding, I actually think this season was just as long as it needed to be and I don’t know that another major twist would have worked for me

MIRI: No, I don’t think it actually should have happened. The overall narrative would have suffered. I just wanted more Ascended Widow Mercedes in like a pocket universe or something

KRIS: She had kind of an Evil Elsa from Frozen thing going on (as someone who has not seen Frozen)

MIRI: And an interesting mix of Dark Willow and finale, white-haired ascended Goddess Willow from Buffy

KRIS: Oh that’s probably more what they were going for

Okay bullets

MIRI: I think the Frozen thing is valid

Yes, bullets! Doc finally gets to kill something/one

KRIS: I feel like we have literally never seen Wynonna load Peacemaker before so I had gotten to a point of accepting that it magically didn’t need to be loaded

MIRI: Hahahahahah

KRIS: I did kind of want his dramatic “When I shoot something, it dies” line to be lampshaded by someone

Although to be fair he called it out himself last week

MIRI: I would like to take this opportunity to say something that is not fair of me, but I feel strongly:

Tim Rozon’s face doesn’t make sense to me without the Doc Holliday mustache

KRIS: HA

MIRI: He’s still handsome! It’s a good face! but it just makes no sense to my brain

KRIS: There was a time in my life when I wished I could grow a mustache like that

It’s possible that time has not entirely passed

MIRI: hahahahah

KRIS: But mostly it was like, senior year of college

I feel like we should probably circle back to episodes 8 and 9 10 and 11 for a second

MIRI: Definitely

They did a whole episode without Wynonna! That is so fascinating and ballsy

KRIS: I feel like I wrote down notes somewhere about this but I can’t find them so maybe I just think about it a lot -- how do you feel about tropes like the Couple Destined to Be Together, or “destiny” tropes in general?

MIRI: Hmmmmmmmm it entirely depends on how well executed they are. Sometimes I am ALL IN, other times I think it gets creepy

I’m good with it here

Because it’s not super heavy handed to me

It falls more on the “they are just so right for each other, they keep finding each other” side of things than the “they are Destined To Always Be” side

Plus they had known and cared about each other as friends for a while in the alternate reality

You?

KRIS: As a trope it’s not my thing at all and I may be reacting more to fandom reactions than to anything actually in the text

MIRI: Been there

KRIS: I mean generally I was onboard with it

I think “they’re so right for each other” vs “they are destined” might be a distinction without a difference but I agree that execution counts for a lot

MIRI: I am a little bummed Waverly is confirmed gay (rather than bi) but I’m still so happy about the character and her sheer existence

KRIS: I’m also not sure exactly when it happened (and part of me is deeply suspicious and legitimately concerned that literally letting her hair down had something to do with it) but this last run definitely cemented Nicole as my favorite character

MIRI: Well I think the difference falls in what makes them right for each other being destined implies predetermination and an outside force

While being right for each other comes out of who they both are as people, and there could theoretically be other people just as right for them out there Say more about Nicole as your favorite

KRIS: Maybe part of it’s that she’s in a way the least intense of everyone? Not in the sense that she’s boring but that she has a healthy sense of perspective?

MIRI: Right. She is arguably the normal amongst all of these eccentrics

KRIS: I feel like it can’t be as simple as “audience surrogate,” but I guess there’s a little of that

MIRI: And she’s working to remain that, per Nedley’s speechifying

KRIS: And I think a lot of it is in her line readings -- like you could easily see someone delivering “your ass is top shelf” and “I’d do a lot of things to you” with too much of a wink

EASILY

MIRI: Yes! She’s just so sweet and earnest about both and it MAKES those lines

So, how did you feel about alternate reality without Wynonna?

I don’t know if I 100% buy Doc as the town bad guy, but he was kind of a dick before

So i guess becoming worse is as possible as becoming better

KRIS: I also think -- and I’m getting a little more real than I’m generally comfortable with here -- that as a straight man with a tendency to be hand-wringing about my trying to be a good feminist, there’s a safety in identifying with a character like Nicole who is also sexually attracted to women but by virtue of NOT being a man (and being written and acted as well as she is) is free of a lot of potentially toxic baggage

MIRI: That makes total sense to me

KRIS: I think the alternate reality was a pretty good execution of the “this one person makes all the difference” trope

(The “Remedial Chaos Theory” episode of Community is the high bar for me there)

I bought Doc as a bad guy but maybe not entirely as a ringleader

MIRI: Fair

KRIS: I loved how Rosita, Jeremy, and Nicole had all taken on bigger Black Badge or Black Badge-adjacent responsibilities

MIRI: Yes! I liked all of their interactions

The Iron Witch stuff worked for me too

KRIS: Yeah, better than I think I would’ve expected

MIRI: Grounding it in the sister relationship is always a safe bet on this show

KRIS: That bit where she let down the glamor for a second and Waverly and Nicole were Slowly Spinning in their “real” outfits was pretty cool

MIRI: Very dreamy and funky

I buy Waverly making a stupid choice to save Nicole. You?

KRIS: Yeah, in general I think pushing her luck when other people don’t want her to makes sense for Waverly, and definitely on the heels of everything she’s been through up to that point

MIRI: Agreed

KRIS: I really liked the team interactions in 8 a lot

Dolls telling Waverly “let’s just say it was an order”

MIRI: In the vision quest ep?

KRIS: The Nicole in the Hospital ep

MIRI: Oh, 10, not 8 👍🏻

Yeah, I like the friendship between Dolls and Waverly a lot. It’s never super heavily explored, but it’s always really charming

KRIS: Oh wow I totally lost track of the episode count at some point

MIRI: It was a 12 ep season, not 10

I think we got slightly thrown off in our thoughts about when we would react, that’s all

KRIS: I also really wished there’d been more of a reckoning between Jeremy and Wynonna about Rosita

That seemed like a really important beat that ended up not going anywhere because of all the ensuing crazy

MIRI: Yeah. I hope they come back to it in some way next season

KRIS: But I also really liked Dolls stepping in to be the test subject for awhile and I thought it was weird that possibility didn’t come up earlier

MIRI: Hmmmm

That is valid

Maybe because he couldn’t be killed? And she couldn’t either, but revenants can be harmed short term

KRIS: There also was never an acknowledgement that Waverly broke a promise to tell Wynonna about Rosita

MIRI: Like she was out for a few minutes when Tucker shot her

KRIS: I mean I bought it happening

MIRI: Yeah, people have been in general shitty to Rosita

KRIS: But there was a beat missing on either end -- even Rosita didn’t really mention it

MIRI: Maybe her turn was more earned than I have acknowledged

Right--the building blocks are there, but she never really had a good moment dealign with it all

KRIS: Oh, Nicole’s soon-to-be ex-wife!

Again it felt like there was a beat missing in Shae’s recognition that Waverly was the new girlfriend, or someplace where that might have come up explicitly, but I really liked skipping right over the jealousy tropes

MIRI: Agreed on both counts!

Do we think she’ll come back though? Only because of the note on the divorce papers

KRIS: I didn’t really get that sense, I more just read it as “hey here’s a healthy relationship that’s nice”

MIRI: I think you’re right

I like that Waverly can be weirded out without going full tropey Jealous Girl

So @sweet-but-mostly-sour wanted us to discuss Jeremy’s apparent powers. Any thoughts?

KRIS: I don’t know that it would’ve occurred to me independently

The line there did seem to be hinting at something (I can’t recall what he said) but it also would have made sense to me that he just knew the plan?

Especially because Waverly was pretty clearly expecting Doc at the rendezvous, as opposed to meeting up with him beforehand

Oh it was something about why he’d been recruited into BBD

MIRI: Yeah, one sec, I’m almost to it in the ep

I think

Ok I was wrong but I WILL find it

Oh, I think you were right about it being a warning shot--Waverly grazes Rosita’s temple and Rosita runs out

KRIS: Ah

(I wonder if she just missed?)

MIRI: Yeah, no idea if it was a deliberate warning or not. We know how tricky Peacemaker is

Found it!

Doc asks how Jeremy knows stuff and he says:

“I told you I was in an accident. [The car accident when he was 11.] I wasn’t recruited to Black Badge for my excellent Seinfeld impressions.”

KRIS: Hmm

MIRI: I really love how transparently into people he is without ever creeping on them

KRIS:  “I’d feel it in my groin”

I guess in hindsight that is also a plant

MIRI: The groin or the powers?

I forget who he said that about

KRIS: Doc

A plant for his having powers

hidden in a “Classic Jeremy” joke

Honestly I think I might prefer a Jeremy who picks up on things like Wynonna’s pregnancy just because he pays more attention than other people (or other men)

But I’m not against Jeremy having powers or anything

MIRI: Well, hopefully one doesn’t preclude the other

KRIS: I liked “I don’t fit in here. None of you asked me to” a lot

MIRI: YES that was beautiful without being shmoopy

KRIS: It was an unexpected way for that line to go

MIRI: I think he and Nicole could get a long very well

Yeah, I was expecting a “I never fit anywhere but here” thing and I liked this much better

KRIS: I think my other favorite finale line was “That better not be a nickname for your beav cause I’m not in the mood”

MIRI: Wynonna is always so very Wynonna and basically it’s just dialogue goals in all the ways

KRIS: And Melanie Scrofano finally got her f-bomb! Though I don’t know if it was censored on air

MIRI: I love how important that was to her

We have not yet discussed Mama Earp

KRIS: Oh yeah I really wanted to come with a Mamas Earp joke but blanked I guess there’s not really a joke there, I just wanted at some point to say Mamas Earp

That was another spoiler I stumbled on ahead of time (gif somewhere)

MIRI: I did not get what you were doing there but I finally caught up

Oh no!

So has Wynonna known where Mama Earp is this whole time?

KRIS: I didn’t even think of that. I guess so. That’s interesting

I definitely thought the very first line of that VO was a “flashback” line

MIRI: Me too! I think it still might have been?

KRIS: It seemed like it was part of a “There’s X, and there’s Y, and then there’s Z”

What do we know about Mama Earp?

(Do we know Mama Earp’s name?)

MIRI: (Is it Michelle? the baby’s middle name?)

KRIS: Oh right

MIRI: We know she left when Waves was 2, if I recall correctly

And that’s about it

KRIS: Hang on I’m gonna rewatch that bit

MIRI: “There are men, Wynonna, mean as a rattlesnake cornered at dusk. And there are demons sweet as clover honey. And then there’s him. I told you he was real. I never stopped believing. But he will rise. And when he does, you’ll believe it too.”

KRIS: Man there’s a lot going on there

And maybe a lot of possibilities

MIRI: I know!

Has she been working on this the whole time? Did Waverly get her researcher tendencies from Mama Earp?

KRIS: Right! Is this why she came back to Purgatory?

MIRI: But she’s not fully back

KRIS: Was there some point when Mama Earp might have reached out post-return?

I mean Wynonna coming back

MIRI: Oh, did you mean Wynonna?

Gotcha gotcha

Also, will we get specifics about the mean men and sweet demons?

KRIS: (I also have to say -- #sorrynotsorry -- that I appreciate a show that is this careful about its use of needle drops)

MIRI: (this is such a Thing for you and I love it)

(Also, the music in Wynonna Earp is always damn effective, so I think I have to agree)

KRIS: Is mean men and sweet demons an unusually poetic line for the show or do I just feel that way because when other characters say lines like that it doesn’t always feel right?

MIRI: I think it is unusually poetic, but the HEAVY accent might be meant to somewhat excuse it as country sayings?

Also, I think it’s meant to read as “something my mama used to say” the way we took it, and then twist to be much more literal

I think Mama must have been wrapped up in the occult too. It can’t just have been Ward’s thing. Even if it was after she married in, the “I told you” part means she knows a decent amount about how all this started and where it might go

KRIS: Right

I wonder if Wynonna might have reached out to her after the vision quest?

MIRI: Would she have kept it a secret if she did? I’d buy that

Oh, speaking of Bulshar and secrets, what about that little nod Nicole and Dolls have when we see Nicole has the ring near the end there

KRIS: Definitely seems like Nicole getting an unofficial promotion (that I guess they don’t want Waverly to know about?)

MIRI: Maybe it’s less a secret and more a “when we have time, we’ll discuss all this”? I hope?

KRIS: The classic Intense Dolls Stare did come close to being unintentionally comical in slow motion, that close to Waverly’s line of sight

MIRI: YES

KRIS: Yeah I don’t see how it could be a secret

Maybe Dolls and Nicole are already just moving ahead and they want the others to Have a Moment

MIRI: That makes sense for all involved

Ok, is there anything big that we’ve missed?

KRIS: It’s kind of insane that we’ve mentioned Bobo literally once

I don’t know that I have anything to say about him, but still

MIRI: RIGHT, I meant to bring up Bobo!

KRIS: I guess I’d missed or forgotten that he was specifically Magneto-ish and not generally telekinetic

MIRI: I do have things to say, or just to bring up, I guess

Yeah, I had too!

And I wonder if there’s a reason for that that we will see/explore?

Ok, points that I don’t really have much to say about, but I feel should be stated: 1) He’s now an acolyte of Bulshar and 2) He called Waverly kin, but is pretty certainly not her father

KRIS: Someday Waverly’s going to start an occult 23andMe

MIRI: Hahahahahahahahahahhaa

KRIS: I definitely had one more little thing I wanted to mention but it’s escaped me

Oh Nicole’s cat!

MIRI: Calamity Jane!!!

KRIS: (God I have to get back into Deadwood)

MIRI: Do you have any predictions for next season? (Knowing, of course, that Andras will subvert all expectations and impress us all in the process)

KRIS: I basically wouldn’t dare at this point

Though I will ask for a web series that’s The Adventures of Randy Nedley and Calamity Jane

MIRI: OH MY GOD

I never knew I wanted that until just now

They are grumpy best friends

KRIS: I’m even too afraid to guess in which “act” of the season Waverly will come face to face with Mama Earp

MIRI: You say that, and I’m like, “Oh, well...wait. No...Could be..?” Andras is breaking my brain

I can definitely see a first episode option, a midseason option, an end of act 1 option, etc...

I predict we’ll learn what Waverly is, if she’s not entirely human

KRIS: That makes sense

I still kind of want to know what happened to BBD but I get the sense that’s a closed door

or at least as closed as TV gets

MIRI: Yeah, I’d say try to let that hope go for now

I wonder if we’ll be getting any new members of the gang? I feel like no

KRIS: Hmm

MIRI: Maybe someone to replace Rosita if she’s gone?

KRIS: I mean I hope Rosita comes back to the fold, somehow, but I could just as easily see her having a more complete villain turn

I could also see a version of this that’s vaguely Alias season 2 where Mama Earp is around a lot

MIRI: But I feel like things are pretty well balanced, plus we’ll be getting Mama Earp and surely some new enemies/adversaries

KRIS: I really hope Jeremy gets time with her

MIRI: Yeah, same. And she may come with a supporting character or two Interesting

Wait, with Mama or Rosita?

KRIS: Mama Earp

Just for the jokes

MIRI: Yes, I’m weirdly into that

KRIS: I was a little surprised there wasn’t a Wynonna-Dolls beat somewhere at the end

MIRI: I wonder if they didn’t want to put it in competition with the Wynonna-Doc beat

KRIS: I don’t see where it would have fit in but I’m curious about which ship is sailing next season

Yeah that’s what I figured

MIRI: I thiiiiink it’s Wynonna/Dolls

I think the little kiss with Doc was just an acknowledgement of the magnitude of it all and that they care about each other

She and Dolls seemed pretty settled after the vision quest

KRIS: Yeah

MIRI: Which reminds me that we may have the same side/opposite sides thing come up again next season

KRIS: With Doc and Dolls?

MIRI: Dolls and Wynonna

They discuss it in bed after the vision quest

KRIS: Ohhhhh right right

That kind of came out of nowhere for me

MIRI: Yeah, I think it was either a red herring going into the finale arc, or groundwork for future tension

KRIS: I’m basically just looking for a good Andras or Scrofano tweet to end this on

https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901230636748464128

https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901474002631249921

https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901272365060861952

MIRI: She has a voice she uses to talk to/about cakes. Again, I aspire to be Emily Andras when I grow up

KRIS: https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901278447497994240

https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901278890181574656

https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901265498771513344

MIRI: KRIS you have to give me time to react to things, stop texting at the speed of Wynonna plot twists!!!!! KRIS: OH we forgot about Jeremy referring to Wayhaught as Wayhaught!

MIRI: Jeremy is the most genre savvy, but in a totally non-annoying way and I love him very much

Oh my godddd I missed this as a callback

KRIS: Oh me too

MIRI: I feel like Jeremy’s “It feels like a Phil” line means they’re not going to go too far with whatever his perception/power is

He’s not all knowing. He has feelings and observations that are just him being Jeremy too

KRIS:  I think I found the winner

MIRI: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

They did say vagina/euphemisms for vagina a lot this episode

KRIS: https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901264948176629760

MIRI: https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901263525510873088

KRIS: https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901279279379611648

We’re clearly out of control

MIRI: Our role models are not helpful on that score

KRIS: I feel like this has been a reasonably successful seeing-a-season-through

MIRI: Yes! I liked doing it this way and would be down for picking a show or two to do this for in fall

https://twitter.com/VarunSaranga/status/901268191984439296

KRIS: Maybe a half-hour?

MIRI: Yeah, that would be good. Do we want to do a new one or something returning?

KRIS: I guess we should wait and see

OH we should do Crazy Ex when it comes back

MIRI: YES

That’s not a half hour but YES

KRIS: OK we should really wrap up and have one of us start formatting this monster

Thanks to anyone who followed along with us

MIRI: Definitely! We hope you enjoyed and that you come back and keep enjoying. And let us know if you have any requests!

KRIS: Also fuck it, if the others aren’t watching The Bold Type by the time the season ends we should just do a finale reaction

MIRI: YES SOMEONE IS FINALLY GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE BOLD TYPE WITH ME

KRIS: SOMEONE PLEASE CATALOG EVERY SUTTON REACTION SHOT FOR ME

Wow that’s completely unreasonable, sorry Tumblr I take it back

MIRI: Never apologize, Kris.

Would Melanie Scrofano apologize? I think not

KRIS: Our Lady of Go Fuck Yourself

Hmmm, not my best

MIRI: No, I liked it

[floralmotif]

The Audience (for Cas) 12.12 Meta

12.12 seriously made me consider making a video essay instead of a written meta because holy fish, the amount of perspective stuff in this episode is nuts. Inconsistency in subjectivity is very normal in media but this episode goes out of its way to establish it, then defies it, then establishes it again. 

This episode uses a lot of subjective and objective camera tricks but it can be occasionally difficult to pinpoint the exact rules of what’s through their subjective PoV and what’s the objective camera bias needing to tell the audience things for reasons.

Give me a break here, SPN. 

I’m not really gonna talk about the Reservoir Dogs references here. Other people have already done that very well. I’ll be linking to more of other people’s meta throughout, mostly hidden in words. Click on the underlined bits in the post. I’m kind of late to the party on this one. If you wrote something pertaining to what I have here and it’s not linked somewhere, I apologize. I unfortunately don’t see everything or I can’t find it. feel free to add it or message me and I’ll add it directly:

http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/157443210863/12x12-episode-review-still-screechingthis http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/157393322319/12x12-stuck-in-the-middle-with-you-dammit-show https://godshipsit.tumblr.com/post/157487887094/deancas-is-peach-y http://grey2510.tumblr.com/post/157340506918/reservoir-dogs-the-power-of-its-homoerotic

I hope I can explain this in text because it’s not the best medium for what I’ll be saying here. Don’t get me wrong, 12.12 is awesome but because of the nature of its storytelling, it’s weird on a structural front. It’s basically a microcosm of episodes showing the relationship between Cas and his established others.

Below is sort of a break down but I’m going to focus on certain aspects and scenes longer than others.

Establish Mary’s perspective using Ketch’s intro. Call back to Metatron telling Cas a story. What we see in the episode is technically through a character’s perspective. We don’t know which one at first. Breakfast scene unfiltered. Framed with Cas as the overall subject. This is because in a lot of ways, this ep is about Cas. But again, he’s not the one telling the story, not even here. What happens to him drives the emotional connection. So he connects with our emotions in this scene. Establishes empathy. This is the most “true to what happened” the show gives us. Dean’s goofy faces and all. ^During the scene Wally, Dean and Sam all help frame a narrative device. Dean starts his posturing when the nurse shows interest in Cas. This could be considered normal, except Wally is there. Wally idolizes Dean and partially serves to justify his actions. We don’t know what Dean would have done if Wally wasn’t there, but the cut to Dean’s reaction when Mandy calls Cas handsome could give us an idea. Simply cutting to show that Dean was upset because Mandy likes Cas instead of him is kind of a silly editing choice. It’s possible but film tends to make simple connections and Dean’s care for Mandy doesn’t matter in the episode. If Dean really didn’t want Cas to go after Mandy, he would have said so. That perspective doesn’t compromise his image. Him being interested in Cas does though.

^The last aspect of framing for this scene is Sam. Poor dude can’t get a wifi signal. This coming from the man who is often headcanoned as being a sentient wifi tower. Communications are down and it’s seriously impeding his ability to progress. Guess what’s happening at the table while he's trying to get the wifi up: communications are down on pretty much every front (him and the wifi, Dean and Cas, everyone and the waitress, Mary and everyone, Wally and dietary facts, Wally participating in Mary’s lie) it’s seriously impeding real progress. At this time, the audience doesn’t know the extent of that communication error, so the framing is built for this scene to establish relationships and that something is amiss. Now that everyone’s on the same page plan wise(as far as the audience knows), Dean ends his awkward posturing by calling Cas handsome and joking with the waitress, and the wifi is back. 

^The escapade with the waitress is kind of odd in itself. She’s kind of a sucky waitress and there seems to be something off about her from what Cas shows us but it never leads to anything. Even Dean’s insistent “teachable moments” don’t go anywhere. It only ends with Cas giving him confused looks and him laughing awkwardly to himself. It almost feels like it he knew Cas wasn’t into it and it was never meant to be serious. Huh.

There is a ton of meta about this scene. Go poke it. In fact, just go poke the archives of all of the people I link. There is so much in their 12.12 tags too I’d imagine from them and others. I know @mittensmorgul​ has a ton http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%2012.12

Moving on:

The smash cut tells us that regardless of Mary’s reassurance of communication, everything is not going to be fine. Something went wrong here and many people in the audience have probably already noticed that the wrong was hers. The rest of the scene from the cut establishes some of the things that also went wrong with the plan: Cas getting hurt, demons being involved and Wally getting killed. In my original meta for this ep’s promo, I seriously had to resist the urge to refer to Wally as “Fodder”. From what I can tell, his existence has always been to establish a justification for Dean’s behavior by specifically idolizing him and to die early to establish stakes. Poor dude.

After the medias res scene, we get our first real character card: The Wounded Angel. Cas’ block has begun and his is the most confusing subjectivity wise. His block pretty much acts to show his current place in things. He’s still got the Cosmic Consequences looming, he hasn’t found Kelly. Cas continues to be shown as an incompetent hunter. He’s still a fairly passive character during the episode which means he’s not fully healed as a person. There’s still something missing. The ending of the episode arguably gives him that thing or at least a stronger start of it. Again, this episode is in a lot of ways about Cas, but he is not the perspective. The perspectives we get are everyone else’s reaction to what happens to him, which makes his being the first block make sense. His block also establishes what happens to him and sets in motion the rest of the episode. 

^An interesting aspect of Cas’ block is that it recaps the opener with all of the antics taken out. Mary’s apparent retelling doesn’t include any of the mis-communications and this time tells it as though it went smoothly. She even glosses over that there were mis-communications at all. This is actually the scene that jumbles up the PoV rules a little since it pulls the rules of “what really happened, who’s PoV we’re in, what is she telling Ketch and what is just her PoV?” into question but never really gives a defining answer. My reading is that it’s Cas segment and Cas dismisses the antics, he wants to know what the plan is and I think he can tell Dean is posturing. He keeps looking at hims like “are you serious right now?” He also dismisses the communication issues which is interesting. The episode uses some weird PoV layering. What characters are seen with in their segments is important for their characters. Again though, even as Cas’ segment, he’s not telling the story but it does tell us what the episode finds is relevant to his character. I could go on forever about the subjectivity in this episode and how much it makes my brain hurt.

^They seem to want to use the “perspectives” of everyone else to convince the audience of how each of them feels about Cas in the episode and what’s happening in general. The only PoV we don’t get directly is Sam’s because his PoV is the only one that doesn’t need distinctive convincing to the audience... and because the episode only has so much time, but if there was really a question there, he would've had a solidifying segment of some sort. I kind of consider the opener/medias res scene his segment since he sort of acts as the facilitator for the episode’s dilemma and it gets glossed over in Mary’s recap during Cas’ block so...join me if you want. It’s just my reading.

Mary’s PoV (Mother Mary) starts when Sam asks her what she’s gotten them into and the emotional connection with Yellow Eyes is called on. Cut to her and Wally establishing her lie for later and telling the audience who their after. The PoV here is also a bit weird and it makes me wonder about whether Dean actually does know about “the most sacred oath” because we are privy to a conversation here that she has with Wally about the BMoL that I doubt she would actually mention to them. I dunno, subjectivity is weird anyway and since editing and dialogue is built on emotion first, the technical aspects tend to get lost. I don’t know many movies or shows that use subjectivity and consistently keep the rules throughout. It’s frustrating to people like me, but most wouldn’t notice.

^In the car, Mary justifies working with the BMoL but never establishes if she really trusts them. More silence as an answer that SPN likes so very much. Later in the house, we get Sam and Mary talking about getting what they want ending on a depressing note for Sam. I think Sam has really been gunning for Mary to get out as proof that he can. Her saying that probably hurt him but I think he still holds out for her getting out as proof of his own ambitions. He puts her on a pedestal just like Wally did with Dean. Dean postures for Wally and Sam(for similar reasons). Mary doesn’t posture for anyone, and it’s created a dissonance for her and Dean, just like Sam’s pedestal does for he and Dean. I haven’t seen the new episode yet but I have some things to say about that.

Another recap of the opening, this time without the cute parts of Dean’s posturing.. I agree with Mittens on this one.

^Enter the colt. At the time, we don’t know it’s the colt. Well, we kind of do if you know how to read recap speak but theoretically, it’s just an artifact at the moment. Good thing they didn’t show it too, if they did this early, they’d have to fire it hehehe. It being shown at the end means it will get fired by the end of the season. I have a guess as to who gets the bullet but I’ll need 12.13 to think about it more.

-More Michael imagery!

^Mary gets Cas into the barn (ha, another one), Mary texts the BMoL and Dean and Sam come in. Now up until this point, we have gotten a lot of reassurances that Dean and Cas have... something.. just in the episode alone. Dean greets Cas during his segment before everyone else, Dean is a dork to Cas during breakfast, Sam tells Dean to get Cas, etc etc. From this point on, Mary gets to witness that condensed into an hour or so. When Dean and Sam come in, Dean pretty much immediately runs to Cas and in Mary’s block, they talk to each other while Dean tries to cope with the possible loss of Cas (again). Sam doesn’t go over until Dean calls him.

Mr. Crowley enters. Crowley’s segment establishes that he A) Cares about “feathers” B) Some important backstory about himself, the lance and the Princes of Hell and C) That he’s willing to break deals for the sake of people he cares about, just like Cas did in 12.09. He cares about the Winchesters even if he doesn’t admit it. Sadly, communications between he and the Winchesters are as bad as ever when it comes to each other but that probably sounds familiar at this point. Good character paralleling. *pats head* And again, Dean in this segment shows the most verbalized concern for Cas, not dealing with Crowley well and going for anger and disbelief. 

^Poor Crowley gets thrown through the wall of the barn. Note though, that he gets thrown to the left. Bad guys are thrown to the right typically. Even allied bad guys. Left is regression in western film, right is progress. If he was thrown right, it would have been the direction progress and that doesn’t fit his arc. Welcome to the club Crowley, bout damned time. For me, this meant Crowley’s gonna save them and it’s not just because they inserted him with the archaic lance description.

Now for the fun part:  “A Real Barn Burner”. This title is two fold. It’s technically Dean’s segment but it also alludes to everyone being present. A “Barn Burner” is a riveting sport event which sort of pokes fun at the fight that’s about to happen and the race to save Cas. All the previous establishments and blocks in the episode as well as what triggers the block and what happens in it tell us who this segment belongs to.. but the label is plural. It refers to a group. Just like how all the previous establishments and episodes tell us what the “you” means. These episodes don’t exist in a vacuum and this episode is a microcosm of that concept.

 After Crowley disappears, we have everyone’s favorite part of the episode. Cas starts to tell them of his dying declaration but Dean is the subject here. This is his block, his segment, his episode. This is what was important for the audience to see about his character. When Cas says “I love you,” he looks at everyone, but when he says “I love all of you,” he looks at Dean and his gaze stays on him after Dean’s reaction insert. He’s telling him there’s a difference and Dean makes some note of it. It’s hard to say if he internalizes it or if he’s just scared of the situation but throughout the scene we and Mary are given a distinction. It also shows how much Cas really does care for everyone by including Mary. Throughout the episode, we have been shown that distinction. It’s subtle but it’s there and this episode wants to shyly tell us about it.

Throughout the entire episode, we didn’t know who was really telling this story, but we had hints. In all of the scenes with something pertaining to Dean and Cas’ relationship, Crowley caring about Cas or instances involving the BMoL that only Mary would have known about tells us it’s Mary. She is the one surprised by them, she is the one who changes the story, she is the one who slowly grows to understand and to fear and to question. She is the audience, the surrogate for the PoV at the beginning. Ketch asks the audience for the story and Mary gives it. She is the audience in general, she needed convincing of that distinction of Dean and everyone’s care for Cas but she never out right says it and neither does the show. She never outright says if she trusts the BMoL either. At the end, she calls Cas one of her boys... because like the audience, she’s been given a microcosm of relationship between Cas and everyone else, she’s been given that distinction, she’s seen the episodes as a whole and what each one says and we know she has, because she’s telling the story. She got it the same way we did and decided what it meant at the end. We got our answer through our PoV, our surrogate Mary, the audience who needed convincing that Cas loves and is loved.