#that i think reflect his ending or his whole arc

[pinkandpurple360]

I wouldn't blame anyone for finding Look My Way too Stolas-sympathetic and weepy but honestly I think on the whole it's way better than most of the songs he gets in the show

and that's because it actually has a narrative arc to it. Stolas reflects on his life, realizes he is the problem between him and Blitzo, actually shows some empathy for the armor Blitzo has developed as a result of being impoverished, then decides on an action: making amends for making Blitzo a means to an end. and it retains his original classist character by having the impish plaything line that the show whitewashed over

it still has the same problem anything Stolas related does in that it's hard to care about his repeated pleas for Blitzo to look his way, but it's a far more concise view of him as a character and crucially he actually shows some ability to self reflect in it and then take action based on his conclusions

ParanoidDJ released the original after ep6 but honestly it would fit perfectly in the show after ep7, where Stolas comes back in from the party. instead of getting drunk, maybe he stops and makes himself think about where things went wrong

instead the songs he has in the show are

Stolas Sings - immediately implies Blitzo lied to him, so no self reflection or introspection. It's set up he'll go to get a crystal but that isn't referenced in the lyrics, it's just a split second freeze frame when he chucks his book into view of the camera which is bad storytelling. It's all self focused self pity - he's the victim and that's that. no sign of care for what he's done to Blitzo or Via unlike Look My Way.

All 2 U - a breakup reflection where he does no self reflection or introspection. blames Blitzo for stuff he did (let him get too close/go on too long/fell too far). all self focused self pity - he's the victim and that's that

duet number - does say he maybe did something wrong, but it only counts if Blitzo didn't actually want him (then when Blitzo confirms that, he proceeds to...show no self reflection or introspection - just he's the victim and that's that, you get the idea)

the show numbers not only fail to move the plot forward, they don't move Stolas' character forward at all. Look My Way really sticks out as one of his numbers because it's basically the only one where he does explicitly say 'I'm in the wrong and need to fix things' where in the show it's always 'maybe I did something wrong, maybe, but you hurt me so you're more wrong and I'm putting off doing any self reflection on what my issues are until Tuesday - when I'll put it off again'.

he's far more proactive in LMW too - he doesn't sound like he'll just give up on making amends at the first failure. meanwhile Show Stolas has done only two proactive things when it comes to Blitzo onscreen: making the deal and breaking the deal. both things were done for his own benefit and he's now back to being passive and expecting Blitzo to be the one to come crawling back to court him even though Blitzo has every reason to think he moved on with the succubus dude to spite him in particular

This moment here

It wasn’t him feeling some guilt/remorse for how obnoxious and forceful he behaved, or sympathy for Blitzs unhappiness. He is thinking “Aww….he doesn’t love me, that makes me so sad. Poor me. I deserve love. I just want a lover.”

Well anon, the simple explanation LMW stolas is so different…..is, Vivienne/Sam Haft didn’t write that. They both do think stolas is the more innocent and more victimised party. That’s why before Full Moons confrontation, stolas has sung not one, not two but three sad ballads about his soft boy romantic feelings. And it’s why stolas’ personality was changed drastically between his nasty truth seekers self to his Ozzies bleeding heart self. To make you forget his 1-6 self ever happened and pity him.

While blitz was only allowed to smirk and make sex jokes in a verse of stolas’ third sad song. With the intent of making him look like the “real” pervert with a cold black heart. His verse in when I see him was intended by Sam to set up “that your first instinct is that it’s always (gasp) about sex (closes eyes solemnly)” line. Stolas is allowed to have an inner monologue, desires, worries, regrets and hopes. Blitz is only allowed say “fuck” “penis” and “im traumatised”** with an asterisk saying that makes him an asshole and not “baby” stolas’ fault. Spoken to you in apology tour dialogue delivered by the lovely: Vivienne Mayday aka Verosika Medrano.

Viv didn’t write look my way, and disagrees with the narrative.

She hates Octavia for not being more grateful to her father and thinks stolas deserves to be free from being her parent. So took his line about her out of the song. Twitter emboldened her to go through with this belief. So she took her line out of LMW.

She hates blitz for disliking upper classes, implies he’s “just like a supremacist” against princes for it. I think this also came from Twitter. You are NOT allowed to point out the racism of stolas or you’ll be branded a striker sympathiser.

She agrees with stolas fans that the real reason blitz doesn’t trust stolas’ gifts with no catch is nothing to do with stolas’ previous exploitative transactional actions….it is….because of his own mean imp father? Because Cash taught him love is transaction. A very convenient excuse Viv absorbed again, from Twitter and YouTube.

Cuz….it was cash. Not the sexual extorter who held his job over his head. That’s his soulmate cause owls only mate once via eye contact and die of broken hearts if they can’t have their mate forever. His 25 year long lust for someone he only knew as a child isn’t weird at all wdym. In fact all the bad stuff is Blitzs fault.

She absorbed all of this nonsense from Twitter takes, specifically the stolas stans, because she thinks putting fandom talking points into canon is a safe bet. The actual story is out the window, there isn’t one.

See how letting the stolas fandom twitter write your story for you makes for a biased fucked up victim blaming story that coddles a sexual abuser with “involuntarily celibate” arguments?

When she makes stolas reflect and take accountability, the reaction she wants you to have is “Poor baby stolas blames himself which shows what a good little boy he is! Even though nothing is ever his fault!” She just wanted to make money off of someone else’s work.

[sufferu]

Hello, was reading your take on the Sloth IF and while I do see the themes of repression, I feel like you're selling Slothbaru short here.

When Rem asks him "Do you regret it" she's talking about having a kid (With all that happening, she had this confession. …Did he want this child to be born?).

And Subaru responds honestly, about how he tried to be a perfect husband to make up for running away (But, I can’t..show you that I am. I……I brought you with me. I’m the one who brought you with me. I wanted to give you everything I had to make you happy. I told myself that I had to do it……).

...and faces his insecurities and self-worth issues head on by accepting that he'll always be afraid, that his fear might never go away (Subaru, as someone who couldn’t look at his parents in the face, always had a fear of becoming a parent. He still does. It wasn’t gone. It probably would never go away... But, at the same time, Subaru knew something. He knew the love of the best role model parents in the whole world.) He thinks of his parents for the first time since he came to this place, admits that he wasn't a good kid, and remains determined to love his kid anyway.

It's essentially everything he was meant to say on the rooftop in From Zero, just filtered through the lens of being a parent. Sure, it took him over a year to get there, but he did face his issues in the end. Thematically, the story wouldn't have ended with that exchange between Subaru and Rem, as well as how he handled Zarestia/Reese, if the story was about him avoiding his problems and succumbing to Sloth.

I really don’t agree with that, to be honest — for starters because Rem’s question about if he regrets it or not is explicitly stated, by Subaru, to be the first time in a year that either of them have actually acknowledged the decision made in the Capital that day to run away. Even if you want to make the argument that Rem wasn’t asking about that (I’d disagree but if you wanted to make that argument) — it’s still very explicitly how Subaru interpreted the question that she was asking him. At the very least, the question of the child is the culmination of “Do you regret…any of the decisions that led to this moment?” In which case, of course, he’s only focusing on one aspect of the question — that being the birth of their child. Even as Rem explicitly grows her hair out in order to emulate her, Emilia still never gets brought up even once. He is ONLY focusing on being a parent and husband — and he’s making a commitment to that role, but in doing so he is avoiding everything else.

And, of course, he is committing to become a copy of Natsuki Kenichi, the man who’s shadow he never really managed to step out of.

This decision later reflects in his relationship with his son being the same as the one that he had with his old man, right down to him passing down that exact same hairstyle to Rigel. —Hell, Rigel’s whole character is just the culmination of all of the things that Subaru and Rem never really managed to properly digest. He’s a one-horned oni, he’s the son of one of the most respected men in his town, he’s even a closet crossdresser. Subaru never really figured out what Natsumi Schwartz was to him and never stopped emulating his father, Rem never stopped feeling guilty about being Ram’s twin and making it so both of them only had a single horn, and now Rigel gets to deal with all of it at once.

(Plus there’s the QnA detail that Subaru gets sent right back to Arc 3 when he dies, which is a pretty major hint that he really, REALLY never managed to come to terms with what happened that day.)

And also — just, on a meta level: it’s a Sin Route. It’s a little different than the others because it does not look all that bad on the surface — everything that makes it a Sin Route hinges on what Subaru specifically Does Not Say, and that honestly makes it look almost downright utopian at times — but it’s still an IF Route labeled after one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It’s marked as a Bad Ending for a reason, and it’s marked as Sloth for a reason, too.

[izzy-b-hands]

Memorial icon change to Tits Out Izzy. Would he appreciate it? Potentially, but he'd also still probably call me a twat for it (and I would be honoured 🖤❤️)

[lemongogo]

why do i love the conflict more than anything else . the misery . the incompatibility that spreads like oil slick . wanting so desperately for resolution that never comes . hmmm

[sskk-manifesto]

ಥ‿ಥ

[sflow-er]

So many thoughts on the fabulous Barbie film, but especially on how anyone who thinks it’s “hateful towards men” clearly isn’t getting the message.

SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT

[Credit for both gifs goes to their makers!!]

I mean... Ken’s arc is secondary to Barbie’s, and rightly so. This is her film, and her message deserves to be the main takeaway.

That being said, I just find it really sad that the people who could’ve definitely used the point of Ken’s arc just let it go right over their heads. Maybe it’s because they aren’t great at reading subtext, or because they just balk at anything presented as feminist, I don’t know.

Because to me, Ken’s arc is about as far from “hateful towards men” as you can get. It’s a multi-layered depiction of how restrictive, outdated views of masculinity can hold men back and make them susceptible to harmful ideologies that promise easy solutions for all their problems but only make those problems worse and hurt others around them.

The first layer is an allegory for real men don’t show their feelings. In the movie, this is represented by Ken’s need to look tough and cool all the time, and to keep his insecurities and sadness bottled up. Barbieland is a utopia where being happy is a social norm, and the main Barbie also starts to struggle with that. The difference is that she eventually tells her friends, and they all support her. Ken just puts pressure on himself not to look weak - in front of Barbie, or in front of the other Kens.

Which brings us to the second level: a competitive and inherently hostile view of the other Kens, aka. toxic male relationships. Some of them are friends, and all of them work together for a while to build the Patriarchy, but they don’t actually bond for real. Even their boys’ nights are mainly about getting back at the Barbies for all their girls’ nights (which really were about bonding). When push comes to shove, the Kens still see each other as competition, which is one of the reasons why the Barbies are able to play them against each other.

Another reason is the third layer: the idea that Ken only has value if Barbie loves and admires him. It starts out as unrequited love that makes you feel sorry for him...until he turns bitter. He basically starts on the path that could lead him down the incel/mra rabbit hole and into a mindset where Barbie owes him love and admiration and the relationship he wants in exchange for his devotion to her. He decides that everything would be better if Barbies were subservient to Kens, but of course that’s not true. None of the Barbies’ newfound admiration for their Kens is real, and his own Barbie still rejects him.

All this is of course underpinned by the final layer, which is Ken’s lack of self-respect and sense of purpose. He’s got a pointless job, he’s not particularly qualified for anything, and he just feels kind of lost in Barbieland - a society run by successful Barbies who are living up to their full potential. That’s why he gets so caught up in the idea of the Patriarchy, which is supposed to make him successful, get others to respect him, and give him a sense of purpose. (This can be generalised to all kinds of harmful ideologies in the real world, e.g. the alt-right movement.)

However, the success he achieves is superficial and not based on any real passion; he even admits that he wasn’t happy in his new position and already lost interest in the ideology. The (forced) respect of others does feel good for a while, but it only goes so far. At heart, the whole thing is still mostly about his feelings of inferiority and unrequited love for Barbie, and instituting this harmful new system did not resolve those for him.

So what does? In essence, breaking out of all these harmful patterns and internalising the idea that he is enough.

He ends up reflecting on his feelings, finally puts them to words (or rather, song and dance), and manages to connect with the other Kens through those feelings. He even cries in relief and acknowledges that it doesn’t make him weak. He and Barbie finally have a proper talk, he lets go of their (non-)relationship, and he listens when she says he needs to figure out his real self. He starts to see himself not through his job, his girlfriend, or even his competition with the other Kens, but as just Ken, who is enough.

I honestly can’t think of a less hateful message to send men and boys.

[gods-perfect-idiots]

Okay bear with me folks, I have some ~thoughts~ about the Vanessa/Wade relationship (or frankly lack thereof) in Deadpool & Wolverine. I should start by saying that I am analyzing this with the (likely erroneous) assumption that everything on screen is 100% intentional and mindfully written to deepen the characters and inform their arcs. For the record, I don't necessarily believe that's true - there is certainly room for mistakes, lazy writing, confusing plot elements, or in this case, sidelining a potentially strong and important character for nebulous reasons (I'm guessing scheduling conflicts + run time concerns + actor's strike complications but idk for sure). (Also thanks to @gossippool and @kendyroy for encouraging me to post my thoughts instead of just rambling in the tags in the first place, y'all are the realest)

Long rambly post below the cut fyi

Now, granted, it has been a while since I watched the original Deadpool so I am not as well-versed in their early relationship as I am in the handful of scenes Morena Baccarin has in dp3, but I do think it is pretty canon that Wade generally struggles to express his deeper worries and feelings (without filtering it heavily through crude humor, sex, and pop culture references of course), especially after the events of dp1 and the physical and mental damage he sustains, and Vanessa is frankly no exception despite how much he cares for her. The entire first movie hinges on the fact that he doesn't really believe she could love him in his post-Francis mangled state, which is pretty contrived imo given that the film has established already how bonded they are, and she doesn't strike me as being written to be so shallow as to reject him based on a physical deformity. I mean iirc she wanted to stick around through chemo despite him being literally riddled with inoperable cancer, so she clearly is in it for the long haul (at least in dp1), messiness and all.

Now, in dp2, obviously she is shot and killed early in the film, and Wade spends much of the rest of the film wallowing in his very profound grief, trauma, and guilt over losing her due directly to his violent lifestyle. He goes to prison, he basically gives up on life and seems very resigned to dying once he has the power suppressant collar on, even excited to do so so he can be reunited with her. She is mostly sidelined as a Fuzzy Dead Wife trope basically, but the important thing here is that he spends weeks if not months in the throes of despair over losing the love of his life just as they were trying to start a family, and trying to reach across the boundaries of death to be with her.

Now, my first couple times watching dp3 I was frustrated by the trite narrative presented in the interview scene towards the beginning - specifically Wade's whole "my girl is getting tired of my shtick and I need to show her I matter". It felt contrived and disingenuous, and I just brushed it off as iffy writing, a means to an end, but the more I reflect upon it the more I think it is based in an emotional reality that is just handled with a very light touch by the film in favor of fanservice and Poolverine content (NOT that I'm complaining in the slightest - I think this movie is a masterpiece in many ways, albeit a flawed one but that's beside the point here), which for the record I am not against because I think it lends it an air of realism. This is Wade's story after all, Vanessa is a part of it but it is ultimately about him and his journey.

Basically, I think the combination of what happened to him in dp1 (the brain damage, the trauma, the awareness of the fourth wall, etc) followed by the events of dp2 (Vanessa's death, his grief and the associated guilt and trauma of being the direct cause of her death) led to an unbridgeable emotional gap between the two of them that ultimately leads to their breakup.

It's important to note that I don't think Vanessa has any recollection of her own death, given that Wade goes back and saves her before she can take the bullet, and so of course she can never fully fathom what Wade went through grieving her and their life together and their potential family, for however long he spent between her death and bringing her back with Cable's device. She can try (and she clearly does in the one scene I'll talk about next) but I fear she accepts, maybe even in that scene, that she can never succeed. He is beyond her reach by this point, and vice versa, his experiences having fundamentally changed him.

The one scene we really see from their relationship between dp2 and dp3 is the one where Cassandra mind-gropes Wade in the Void and we see Vanessa struggling to reach Wade across this aforementioned gap - she wants him to open up, she wants him to share what he's going through, she wants him to be the person she initially fell in love with (not even selfishly - to her nothing has changed really, because to her no time has passed). But not only does he not understand what she's really asking for but he responds in such a way that makes me think he has unprocessed issues that are only tangentially related to what she's saying - ie the stuff about mattering, about asking her if she even wants to be with him, etc. And he's not the Wade Wilson she met back in dp1 anymore. He watched her die and grieved her and brought her back, believing it would make everything go back to normal and they could resume their life together as if nothing had changed, but he has been fundamentally changed in a way that she can't grasp, even if he WAS good at externally processing his trauma openly without the artifice of wry jokes. She didn't "come back wrong" - instead, she came back exactly the same as before, but HE'S different now. Not wrong, per se. But changed.

It's an interesting scene because it's obviously a memory, and a crucial one at that, but you can see how Wade is misunderstanding what she's saying, viewing it through the prism of his own lack of self-worth and his own hopelessness - he takes away that she thinks he doesn't matter (even though like he says she didn't actually say that, but I don't think Cassandra invented that wholecloth - I think she pulled it out of his psyche because that's what he believes deep down, hence why his fixation on mattering even though she never said those words exactly), he takes away that she doesn't want to be with him, that she thinks he's nothing. Which would be frustrating as an audience member to witness as a pretty simple misunderstanding which could potentially be solved with one conversation, but it feels believable to me that these two people who have shared a great love would be fundamentally separated by unimaginable, cosmic trauma, and the on conversation they would need to have to rectify the misunderstanding is one that is impossible for Wade to verbalize and equally impossible for Vanessa to conceive of. It was one thing when they had shared trauma like violence and SA in dp1, but what Wade has gone through in dp1 and dp2, humor aside, is unfathomably traumatic, brain-breakingly so even, and that's not even factoring in the possible mental illnesses he now struggles with (I've seen folks suggest schizophrenia, DID, depression, etc. but I won't get into armchair diagnosing a fictional character here - suffice it to say he is canonically unwell as a result of what has happened to him, and yes it manifests as quirky fourth wall breaks and cheeky one-liners, but within the universe of the movies he is undeniably profoundly mentally ill, and that includes this humorous alter ego he created to cope with his trauma).

I think off-screen Vanessa probably really tried to reach him, maybe for years (the six year gap implies to me that they didn't break up immediately, that they tried for a while to stay together), trying to get her Wade back, but that Wade is gone. He struggled to express that to her until eventually he started to feel rejected because he couldn't express his trauma or how much he has changed, because even he can't fully conceive of the gulf that has formed between them. The truth is, he WANTS to be that Wade again, for her and for himself, but that Wade died when she died. Or maybe he had already started dying when Francis got a hold of him in dp1.

Anyway, all this is to say, I think Morena Baccarin WAS criminally underutilized in dp2 and dp3, but I think there is a strong argument to be made for the believability of their breakup regardless. I think even relationships built on enormous love can crumble due to trauma, and what Wade suffers over these movies is mind-bogglingly enormous trauma. It's especially heartbreaking that he blames himself for their relationship ending, talks like she just got tired of him, thought he didn't matter, whatever. But it is a credit to him that he never seems to feel anger towards her about it. He doesn't seem to feel entitled to her, though he longs for her and what they had and what she represented (hope, love, a future, a family), but ultimately she becomes more of a symbol of what he lost when he gained his powers, because let's be super fr right now - even if they had succeeded in having a baby, not only would they have lived in fear of her or the kid getting killed, but ultimately Wade would likely outlive both of them even if they managed to die natural deaths. The moment he gained his powers he was already destined to lose her, which is heartbreaking because she was the only reason he opted for the treatment in the first place - so he could stay with her.

I think a big part of Deadpool & Wolverine is watching Wade continue to process his own motivations (vis-a-vis Vanessa but also his other friends) and how he does eventually let go of the idea of "mattering" in favor of just saving the people he cares about (*cough* and being saved right back *cough* by Wolvie, as the final line and shot implies). And in the process he finds someone new who cares about him, who thinks he matters, who tries to sacrifice himself for him and his friends after mere days of knowing him, who comes home with him at the end of the story, who breaks his own centuries-old patterns, who has also experienced unimaginable grief and trauma, who has struggled with wanting to die and being unable to, who not only matches his crazy but matches his FREAK and also not only won't die on him but CAN'T die on him - and more importantly cannot be randomly killed by a stray bullet.

Idk if any of this makes much sense but I do think if you read between the lines and consider the potency of trauma and grief, guilt and emotional damage at play here, Vanessa and Wade's off-screen breakup is actually pretty realistic, and really heart-breaking to boot.

You can tell she still cares about him in so many ways - she shows up for his birthday party, she shows up to his welcome home party at the end, she finds excuses for physical contact multiple times, her eyes get soft when she looks at him, but there is a distance there that Morena Baccarin does an incredible job of portraying. She cares about him deeply, she has mourned the loss of their potential life together, she has let him go and accepted that the Wade she fell in love with is gone, but she wants him in her life even though she's moving on because she realizes he's gone somewhere she can't follow (literally and figuratively). And she wants him to be happy which is why I fully believe she would immediately clock the Poolverine of it all and not-so-subtly encourage them to make it official.

Anyway. Poolverine forever. Nothing against Vanessa at all - I think she delivers a nuanced and beautiful performance, I think their relationship is sweet and heart-wrenching in large part due to her acting chops, especially given how little she is given to work with - but I think their relationship was sadly doomed from almost the very start, because Wade becomes this traumatized superhuman and Vanessa would always be at risk in his orbit, but also would always on the outside of his multiverse superhero experiences. I think it's weirdly beautiful, even if I am filling in a lot of gaps and giving the writers maybe undue credit.

Anyway... thoughts? Please DM me or write in the tags, I am feral about this movie and just want to talk about it with anyone haha. If you have further insight into these characters too I'd love to hear it - I am by no means an expert in these movies or characters!

[emdotcom]

Man. The Herobrine really is summat else. We got:

A glitch of a ghost in the machine that causes every error in the game

The White Eyes character, stemming from a texture error, which becomes associated with the cave noise & eventually leads to the creation of the Herobrine myth

Transgender swag

The fucken. Brocraft stream that links to that ONE image & implies that either you or Herobrine are "asleep" & dreaming

The way that Herobrine myths kicked up due to the TF2 influx, after the devs made mention of the game

Every single unexplained structure in the game, all abandoned, all without a clear group that created them can & will be associated with Herobrine

The mineshafts. The ruined portals. The deep dark. It's kind of like a story, told in three arcs, if you squint right

Like something that used to live there, toiled in the soil along with the worms

Like something that got locked away, that wants to go back

Like something that needs to be kept out

Every single zombie looks like Steve. Does that say anything? Does it imply something about Herobrine, another reflection, but maybe a bit more sentient? With teeth that are a bit more sharp, with a malice that is a bit more cold?

Mojang putting the "Removed Herobrine" note in for YEARS, then one day dropping it, only to bring it back 3 years later

N*tch being scrubbed from the game's lore, so he's also (sometimes) scrubbed from Herobrine's lore, leading to alternate origins

He is the first player. He is the ghost of a fellow player. He is an architect, a miner, a builder. He is a friend to all the mobs, & an enemy to those that take all the trees & never replant the saplings. He is a curious onlooker, probably harmless. He is a deep loathing. He is a danger, a legend, just a myth, but is he?

The way that people's opinions of Herobrine have shifted through years, like a litmus test for Minecraft players as a whole

It starts with the eerie feeling of being in a room you KNOW should be empty, but feeling eyes on you, anyways & ends with a sad type of goodbye, a dreamer seeking a dreamer condemned

The way he's more quiet, more calm, less prone to the griefing & attacks he was once known for, like his fire has cooled with time

The Minecraft end poem. Maybe. Do you think Herobrine ever got to hear those words? "I love you," & "You have played the game well"?

The person with the Herobrine username, which has had the catboy Herobrine skin on for years o7

[disappointment-comics]

i think i’m just sad that none of them got to grow before they died

luther was still living in the manor, which he’s always done for his whole life. so much of his arc has been about outgrowing this place and learning to leave. but he still winds up in the ruins of the place he grew up in. i could’ve believed it as a character choice IF we hadn’t already seen luther figure out how to live independently in the world in dallas. instead it was a regression

diego deserved to break the cycle of abuse!! he’s always been softer than he lets himself be, the role of father should’ve been a really big thing for him. and yet he ends the season without his kids and with the whole mess with lila and five. they spent the whole season trying to convince me he was a loser and a failure when he seemed really normal and trying his best. which is exactly what he was as a child, designated number 2 and never good enough.

i was a big s3 allison defender but then they did NOTHING with all the big swings they took with her character, so it was all for nothing?? ray walks out?? (which seems so ooc for him but i guess it was an actor scheduling thing) no conflict with claire very little resolution with her family and no introspection into what her choices and control issues mean for her.

klaus had this whole storyline with his powers and then didn’t get to use them at all… like that’s literally insane. it felt like they were really setting klaus up to reflect on his relationship to addiction and the parts that are and are not related to his powers, but then it just stops. he doesn’t apologize, he doesn’t get comforted, doesn’t learn to save himself, and he just dies, which is such a waste of a character that’s always represented an interesting blurring of life and death. i really would’ve liked to see klaus get some autonomy this season, since so much of his life is other factors making decisions for him, but nope.

five. i don’t even think i have to say anything here.

ben loses so much character autonomy halfway through this season. he’s another character who’s always been at the mercy of others, maybe most of all, and he doesn’t even feel like a main character in the season ABOUT him.

viktor has some moments with getting to confront reggie, but even those fell flat for me tbh. the line from reggie saying “you deserved to wear the mask” just proves that none of them ever understood that NONE of those children should’ve been in the masks in the first place. vik had built a genuinely good life for himself and didn’t get to keep it. dying as an umbrella martyr is not revolutionary when they’ve all been doing that their whole lives. living as a happy, normal person is actually much more radical. also he should’ve got his violin back.

[shiraoyagi]

hot take ??

the only reason people say that "mafuyu and tsukasa have nothing in common" when presented with mafukasa parallels is because they equate mafuyu and tsukasa being similar to "tsukasa has depression" because the fandom equates mafuyu's personality to being depressed and nothing else.

it doesn't help that people (primarily younger people in the fandom) who DO believe in mafukasa parallels end up making the mistake of portraying tsukasa as depressed because as of right now he is not (although it's possible he was in past because of his Very Unclear Middle School Backstory but that's irrelevant)

anyways, mafuyu and tsukasa are narrative foils because their core personalities are built off of the concept of wanting to make the people around them— especially their families— happy.

they both developed personalities at a young age based on someone they looked up to. for tsukasa, it was seiichi amami's performance that inspired him to be a star— a hero that could cheer anyone up. for mafuyu, it was her mother taking care of her that inspired her to be a nurse— and you can see the similarities from there.

for mafuyu, her identity would first come into conflict when her mother expressed her want for mafuyu to be a doctor— suddenly, "everyone's" happiness didn't match what she wanted to do, leaving her in a state of disorder and eventual depression.

for tsukasa, his identity was something he nearly forgot in its entirety at the start of the main story— becoming arrogant and fully absorbed in a hero persona, forgetting the kind person he truly is. furthermore, his current character arc seems to be foreshadowing that what "being a star" to him is going to be called into question— maybe it is something more than just being the main character that saves everyone.

their insecurities are incredibly similar.

in mafuyu's first mixed, mafuyu feels insecure towards ichika because unlike ichika, she feels as if her lyrics have no genuine meaning to be expressed to other people— despite them being her very real feelings. this is brought up again in her second mixed as well.

in tsukasa's third focus event, something similar happens. when watching seiichi's performance, he thinks that his acting is "real" and feels inferior towards him, which is ironic because tsukasa has been method acting this whole time. when tsukasa is acting out rio or bartlett or really anyone at this point in the story, it's not just those characters— it's a reflection of his traumas.

just like mafuyu, tsukasa undermines his passions he's poured his feelings into because someone else's work is more genuine in his eyes.

now, then, foils have many similarities and parallels (and i could honestly list a lot more), but how i define them is that they usually have some kind of major branching difference that MAKES them foils.

for mafuyu and tsukasa it's pretty straightforward.

mafuyu's people pleasing behavior comes from external expectations and pressures— her mother's demands.

tsukasa's people pleasing behavior comes internally, from himself— if he can't meet his own standards, if he can't be the perfect big brother or the perfect star, then he is nothing.

and even then, there's some overlap.

tsukasa's behavior was indirectly encouraged by his mother praising him for being a "good big brother" over the phone instead of asking him if he was okay while home alone.

mafuyu's terrified to be herself around other people because she doesn't want to worry or bother them— she doesn't want to be a burden— and projects her mother's expectations onto them, not realizing that they would prefer the real mafuyu if they knew the truth.

and the concept of mafukasa being foils is most perfectly and blatantly portrayed in these two cards.

mafuyu, the marionette, sitting limp on the floor— puppeteered by her mother's demands and donning a mask to hide her true self.

tsukasa, the jester, standing above everything else— puppeteering silenced plushies— his feelings. he's not being completely honest with himself, and he doesn't even realize it.

mafuyu has cut her strings and ripped her mask in half. she has acknowledged her true feelings and expressed them to her mother, even if she had to run away in the end.

tsukasa has not yet cut his.

[casscainmainly]

Thinking about Cass being shunted off to Hong Kong and having all sorts of feelings about it again.

I think Gates of Gotham is the only series (besides bits of Red Robin) to even touch on how Cass reacts to it.

Gates of Gotham #1

When Dick tells her he didn't know she was back, Cass responds "I'm not". This is mostly referring to the fact she's back for a mission, but it also sheds light on how she's feeling. She doesn't belong in Gotham anymore, not the way she used to. In Red Robin #17, we see she was fighting without a Bat symbol, until Tim gives it back. Bruce sending her to Hong Kong wasn't just a geographical distancing, but an ideological one as well (whether he intended it or not). Cass understood him sending her away as a rebuke of her right to the Bat mantle.

Gates of Gotham #2

How does Cass feel about being 'relegated to Hong Kong'? She sidesteps Damian's comment here (mostly 'cause she knows not to engage), but her silence indicates it's not an easy answer. I wonder if there is some resentment/negative feelings towards Bruce.

Gates of Gotham #4

This exchange is so interesting if you look at it through Cass' perspective. Dick is grappling with his insecurities about not being a good enough Batman, and says "if you don't belong [in Gotham], she'll never keep you." Dick and Cass both don't come from Gotham - his comment unintentionally reflects on Cass' ability to be Batman as well. And given that Cass just returned from Hong Kong, it makes her feel even more like an outsider.

So her response - "you're[...] wrong.[...] It's not about the city. It's about how you choose to see the world. Everything else is just an excuse" - is not only addressing Dick's problems, but also her own. Her whole story is about choice and agency, and here she's making it clear: upholding the Bat mantle is their choice. No one can take it from them, not the opinions of Gotham citizens, not their own insecurities, not even Bruce himself.

Gates of Gotham #5

Cass asserts her desire to stay in Gotham (a decision tragically followed by the New 52, but I'll ignore that for now). Where Dick's arc ends with him telling Bruce he can be Batman, Cass doesn't interact with Bruce at all - her right to the Bat mantle no longer requires a Bruce stamp of approval. It shows the difference in Dick and Cass' approaches to Batman (Cass' loyalty is to the symbol, Dick's loyalty is to the man), but also highlights Cass' growth. She chooses to stay in Gotham because she wants to, not because of anyone else.

I'm not actually sure if her feelings on going to HK are elaborated elsewhere, so if anyone has more info please let me know!!! But I think it's very interesting that her first entry into Gotham is in defiance of David Cain, and her re-entry into Gotham is, in this interpretation, in defiance of Bruce.

[mrs-gauche]

On a more serious note regarding the "Solas is like the devil on your shoulder constantly trying to make you make bad decisions".. I think @corseque made a good point, in that Fen'Harel in Dalish legends is known for giving cunning advice that, in true trickster fashion, may lead to a helpful outcome, but always at a cost or in a twisted way. We talked about how Solas might try to prevent Rook from trusting their companions because of his own issues/experiences with betrayal or that he might try to use Rook as a piece on his own "chess board".

But I think this also goes back to the mage origin in DAO and you being tested by Mouse, a pride demon, and how the greatest danger of the Fade is, after all, careless trust. I'm also thinking back to this banter between Solas and Vivienne, in which she literally said that he "sounds like a pride demon" trying to tempt you to "leave the path". Or Cullen saying that no demon will ever possess him because he is "too much like they are". Given that Solas literally translates to Pride and the Dread Wolf itself being described as a pride demon, this "devil on our shoulder" might end up being like one big test for us to pass throughout the story, much like the Harrowing in Origins. And building on that, there's also still this crucial piece of dialogue from Solas himself, talking about the perception of spirits and demons:

"The Fade reflects the minds of the living. If you expect a spirit of wisdom to be a pride demon, it will adapt. And if your mind is free of corrupting influences, if you understand the nature of the spirit, they can be fast friends."

In DAI, Solas was already a reflection of how you treat him. If it's true that, what the devs seem to be hinting at, we actually get to learn and see what happened in the ancient past and who Solas was before he "called himself Pride" (keeping in mind that Rook doesn't know anything about Solas as a person at the start of DA4), and we come to "understand his true nature"/original purpose/true name, then the above quote might be an analogy for how the relationship between Rook and Solas can develop and how we can influence Solas' character arc (on top of the relationship between him and the Inquisitor already having a huge impact on him?).

And if you think about it, it's so brilliant how they seem to put a spin on the whole thing now, by having the "pride demon" be the one who needs to trust the one who dreams. Or rather, expecting the pride demon to be a spirit of wisdom, and not the other way around.

The idea that Rook challenging/rivaling Solas by going against his "devil on our shoulder" advice/proving him wrong/"pass the test" and not expecting him to be that pride demon after Rook comes to understand his true nature/original purpose, could lead to him being more likely to "adapt", open up and learn how to trust again is so beautiful to me, but that could also mean a challenge for us Solas fans if we have to (at least in the beginning) bump heads with him in order to see that development. 🥲😂 Either way, Solas is truly in for the most intense kind of therapy session.

[melrosing]

so stuff I’ve not liked about the finale and S2 more generally…. unfortunately it’s a lot and i'm thinking i might need to say this in several parts but first and foremost: the pacing really was shit and i don't just mean there weren't enough action scenes i mean the whole season they've had almost nothing to say about these characters and have just been making us think they do by having them repeat the same ham-fisted monologues about power and peace and the cost of war and whatever whilst moving at a glacial pace from one minor plot point to another and by the end of it most of these characters STILL haven't changed, and where they have it feels undeserved, and yes they really are at roughly the place they started so what have they even got to show for these eight hours of TV?? like damn

and I do get that the writer's strike has really effected them here and HBO hacking two eps off their season affected them too and that really can't be helped. but the pacing has been pretty poor from kick off and I can't just put it down to this being a more 'internal' season. i do not care about big battles. it's fine to have a season of a show that’s more about the characters’ interiority rather than plot action. that’s the exact reason why I like AFFC so much.

but these characters barely have interiority like idk what to say. some like Rhaenyra, Jace and Alicent have been spouting the same monologues every episode about wanting peace/wanting agency/wanting peace again etc etc, and the more interesting moments like Alicent's apparent suicide attempts, Rhaenyra's butchering of the dragonseeds etc... I mean where IS the interiority here?? unless they are spelling out a character's thoughts in the most literal way they can (as per Jace's diatribes about the dragonseeds), they leave their audience to do absolutely all the work by showing us nothing, and just leaving us to figure that the characters must be having some kind of thoughts but y'all can decide what they are.

and even Daemon, whose entire ARC was about his interiority.... like look I was so so ready to love this arc. i love fucked up little dream sequences. i love harrenhal. i was really enjoying the angle they took with alys. i was here for it. but now we've seen the whole of his S2 arc, im going to say yes, it was intended as a redemption adjacent kind of arc, and it isn't a very good one. Daemon has a handful of weird dreams, gets shouted at by some Riverlands folk, and he's a changed man.

consider the character everyone compares Daemon to (and who I'm always more than happy to talk about) and that's Jaime. and look at the sheer ground covered in ASOS: Jaime breaks out of a dungeon, Jaime meets a younger version of himself, Jaime gets his hand hacked off, Jaime reveals his anime villain backstory in the bath, Jaime deals with Roose Bolton, Jaime has a weird weirwood dream, Jaime fights a fucking bear - and at this point we're still only about halfway through.

now in contrast, what have they actually managed to do with Daemon this season. where has that finale moment with Rhaenyra been earned. this is not slow pacing for the sake of powerful character development, it's slow because they don't have anything else to say.

and also look at the state of characters like Aemond who seemed really promising in S1, yet in this season he barely reflects on the fact that he hadn't meant to kill Luke, and this war is an accident that he started, etc etc - he's just a killing machine lol. there were some nice touches in there, like i say i enjoyed Helaena telling Aemond how he'll die in the finale. but I no longer trust these writers to do anything with their more inspired ideas because they just consistently fail to do so.

look at Baela!!! like my god, has Baela had the opportunity to do anything except A) what she's told and B) counsel men on their feelings. she has like one moment looking at Daemon and you feel like the series is going to explore how complex it is to be Daemon Targaryen's daughter.... but my god they never do!! so where IS this interiority we've spent eight episodes on! what have they got to show for it!!

and i talked more weeks back about how frustrating i've found the writing of women more generally in this series and as of the finale I am finding it so egregious and so condescending. women want peace. women want to protect their children. women are tired of men. women are tired of war. women are trying to end this war peacefully. women are pacifists. women hate violence. and so on and so on and so on like jesus christ who am i even talking about here. even i don't know. it's so boring. it's so dry. and it requires female characters to always be the paragons of virtue, never do anything truly condemnable, never be unlikeable, never fucking anything except stand around saying how much they hate this. im bored of it and it makes me angry that they would do this in a series that specifically seeks to make everyone grey and everyone complex - they keep suggesting that might extend to the women before abruptly shutting it down again. see Alicent and Rhaenyra even STILL, after EVERYTHING, trying to peacefully shut down the war for the sake of love and friendship in the goddamn finale. I don't believe it anymore!! it's not cute! it's just dull!!!

and finally that just kind of brings me to how shortsighted a lot of the plot developments seem, when you see how the characters fail to reckon with their pasts or shit that just happened. Rhaenyra and Mysaria make out, and then that's never mentioned again and the tone never changes between them. Rhaenyra is done thinking about Luke. Helaena is done thinking about Jaehaerys. Aegon actually didn't mention Jaehaerys in the list of things he's 'lost' in that finale. Alicent's relationship w Viserys was just now condensed to 'we were fond of each other but he always liked your mum better'

like idk it's just. if this season's pacing is all about giving characters the chance to change and grow into the people they'll be when this war REALLY kicks off.... do it. write it. do not just write the same monologue a dozen times and hope it'll hit harder with each. doesn't work like that. sorry.

[ohboyhowdybuckaroo]

As a way to celebrate the end to the first arc of the ASL Gem AU, here's a couple of headcanons and things I put in the story that I was proud of. Also, some shitty memes I doodled and thought were funny. I put all the headcanons and neat things under the read more because there are spoilers for Keep It Simple, Stupid in there.

Luffy actually got poofed four times throughout the events of the first chapter. Two of them were depicted on screen, but the other two were when Ace got him caught in a landslide in their first meeting and when he came back to the bandit hut on the wolf and broke a hole in the wall getting tossed off of Kebab. Ace could've sword that landslide would have poofed Luffy and, I mean, he's not wrong.

Whery told me BTS that Sodalite's hair remains suspended in air as if it's flowing through water at all times. He's got mermaid hair, everyone. Love this guy.

The reason Sodalite struggles to unfuse is because... 🥁 🥁 🥁 He has a hard time unfusing when his components feel unsafe. That doesn't stop anyone strong enough from poofing him (A la Garp) or Sabo and Ace having such a strong disagreement that they come undone (a la the argument before the final fight with the wolves or when Ace post-getting-Luffy'd has conflicted feelings about ditching Luffy with Amethyst and co.).

In the process of plotting this, I wasn't sure how to translate the money-saving-schemes into this AU for the boys. The general layout of the plot is similar to canon, but I wanted to mix things up a little. That led to the parts scrounging aspect, which led to Ace and Sabo having their own waterfall cave instead of having a tree that they keep things in because I didn't think a tree could properly hide most of their junk from sight that close to the Kindergarten.

Sodalite never actually introduced himself to Luffy. (Cursed with Ace's tendency to never make a good first impression.) He learned Sodalite's name when a few gems and people were yelling in panic at their first meeting.

There's another nod to Sodalite inheriting Ace's bad first impressions when he first "meets" the bandits when literally dropping Luffy off after saving him and also when he meets Woop Slap and Makino.

Also continuing Ace's penchant for bad first impressions, he really did get put through the ringer with Makino when he first reformed. I gave him hell this whole arc, didn't I? Poor guy.

Herc and Agna are my contributions to the Dadan Family. I wanted to flesh their numbers out a little bit since we only ever know the names of Dadan, Magra, Dogra, and Pochi. I hope you like them... They're silly. (And probably in love tbh.)

Speaking of them, they made a bet on whether Luffy killed Ace in the beginning of the third chapter and you can see them exchanging money in the sixth chapter when it's revealed that Ace isn't actually dead.

I also added Woop Slap's baker brother, a Beryl to the Azurite crew who stood around while Luffy got his ass electrocuted, and a couple of random characters here and there with no canon version just for the hell of it. Got the chance to flesh this out a little bit thanks to focusing on a small sequence of events compared to the Odyssey that is One Piece canon.

In the second chapter, there are a few things that Sodalite and Luffy say in a couple of the conversations post-saving Luffy from the Azurite Pirates that get called back to.

Sodalite: You can’t be brave unless you’re scared. And if the first hint of danger has you sniffling and running away like a chicken, you’ll never be brave.

This one is a little more obvious. It gets reflected back in chapter 5 when Luffy is in the process of trying to help Kebab out from where he's trapped. Luffy is a bit of a coward and a crybaby when he's younger in canon and in this story. He builds up confidence with being rubber (Though I replaced his rubber body helping to protect him with him being able to reform quickly), having two older brothers to protect him, and eventually his own fighting skills in canon, but I wanted to add a little more oomph to it.

Luffy: I'm not crying, you're crying!

Sodalite: That's not how tears work, squirt.

This one reflects the flashback to when Ace and Sabo fused for the first time. I figured it would help soften Sodalite up to Luffy with the little nod.

Ace: I'm not crying, you're crying, stupid.

Sabo: That's not how tears work, idiot.

There's another point that gets called back to in a conversation between Luffy and Sodalite, but this is the conversation when Sodalite starts to refer to Luffy as "Luffy" mentally and not just Spinel.

Sodalite: Free and kind, huh? Free how?

Luffy: Free to go where I wanna go. Do what I wanna do. Be who I wanna be.

Sabo thinks back to this when he's poofed and trying to figure out what he wants to look like. Freedom is hard to get used to when you're used to a regimented lifestyle. I think it's called choice anxiety, but even though he wants freedom, he still has to learn how to be free, if that makes sense.

Speaking of that conversation between Sodalite and Luffy, I tried to switch up what he was called in the narrative based on whose POV I'm talking through. In the beginning, when Sabo, Ace, or Sodalite are thinking about Luffy, they consistently refer to him as "Spinel." When it's Luffy's POV, Luffy only referred to himself as "Luffy." Eventually, after the heart-to-heart they have in chapter 3, Sodalite, Ace, and Sabo also only refer to Luffy as "Luffy."

Prior to the narrative, Sodalite didn't have a lot of room to grow or a lot of interaction with people outside of battle or when he's alone when Ace and Sabo needed comforting. Being around Luffy and the circumstances of which they can't unfuse gave Sodalite the opportunity to become more of his own person.

I used he/they pronouns for a lot of the story to reflect the Sodalite-not-being-completely-his-own-person as even Sodalite still saw himself as Ace and Sabo and not just Sodalite. He's aware he's a fusion, but he's only now settling into the idea that he is a new person as well.

Ace thinks that Dadan and the bandits don't care about him for most of the story and they don't help things by pretending not to care that he's "gone" when Sodalite's around. However, at the beginning of the fourth chapter, I tried to give a little nod to Dadan being worried about Ace with her sometimes smoking late at night on the porch and staring into the forest. She was looking for Ace and worried about him, but Sodalite can't tell because Ace is blind to kindness. Dadan was losing sleep over you, you dummy.

True to canon fashion, I tried to limit how much I used Luffy's POV as in canon he doesn't really have a lot of internally kept thoughts as much as he doesn't have a filter between mental reaction and physical reaction. Thus, when I did have to use Luffy's POV, I tried to switch it to another character as soon as I could.

Whery once posted an animatic wherein they used the Ben 10 clip of Kevin saying, "You have to treat a car like you treat a woman," and I pretty much used that to shape Sodalite amd Makino's dynamic in my head which led to the way Sodalite and, by extention, Ace feel nervous around Makino, but the nerves just make it harder for them to say the "right" things.

These four posts gave me psychic damage and were the kick in the ass that got me to write K.I.S.S. to begin with. Literally got so wrapped up in them that I wrote a whole fanfic. I was originally going to just write the Luffy and Sabo reunion in Dressrosa. A couple hundred words in, I realized I should probably just start in the beginning to fluff it up with some history. Then I fell in love with Sodalite and underestimated how much I would get into the AU, so now we're here.

Y'all can take Ace being nervous around Makino however you want, but my intention was that kind people throw him off his game. This was meant to reflect how he's a mama's boy in canon and the pedestal-ing he did with his mother. (Rouge is a goddess, though, so like... he's not wrong.)

I tried to write it so Ace Literally Does Not Know how to be anything but a scruffy and snappy little kid since he was raised by bandits and Garp isn't the picture of healthy communication. With the Makino interaction post-reforming in chapter 5, I wanted her to nudge him into realizing that there's another way to handle disagreements and not every time he fucks up will lead to violence or yelling. Easing his toes into the water.

I went back and forth for a while on the scene in chapter 6 where Ace is about to run away. I was very iffy on if it was in-character for him to leave behind his only friends and everything he ever knew. But I also remembered how he acted in canon when people were putting themselves in danger for him and, yeah, pushing people away when people might get hurt """"because of"""" him fit well.

Is it weird that my favorite scene to write was in the 6th chapter when Sabo and Luffy knock a gem into a barrel and run away? I just felt my heart get full being able to write them getting closer and being chaotic together... Can't wait to write these three being chaotic together more.

It was very cathartic for me personally to write the scene where Sodalite first plays guitar for Luffy in chapter 2 and the scene in chapter 6 where Ace bursts out laughing when they fall over.

Sabo and Ace met when they both stumbled upon their cave and started having a turf war over who it really belonged to. They eventually became friends, but naturally, it took a minute and some fighting before then.

Most of the people and gems around don't care one way or another about fusion. Garp, as a gem higher up, cares based on principle and because he's old as dirt and was around when the "No Fusing" rule was more radically reinforced.

Fire Agates were "made" to be demolition gems (AKA why they have the fire going on and are typically very strong). Due to this, Ace can keep more items within his gem that can vary in size. Sabo can keep some things in his gem, but they typically have to be small to medium. Luffy could theoretically keep a lot in his gem, but I genuinely don't think he thinks about it unless he's storing food.

Luffy eats and sleeps because he first formed around the mixed population of humans and gems in Foosha Village and just thought it was neat. Now, he has sort of programmed his gem so he sleeps at night like people do, but he doesn't need to. He just likes it. Silly lil guy.

Ace was initially put off by Luffy wanting to use a different name than his gem type because he struggles with his own identity as a Fire Agate. Using a different name feels like running away from the realities of your gem type. Ace is plagued by his own gem type and feels like he can't run away, so Luffy so casually giving himself a name was foreign to Ace and made him a little bit jealous tbh.

Sabo similarly wasn't willing to call Luffy by his name because he felt cursed by his gem type. He's less touchy about it than Ace, though because he understands Luffy's desire to want to be his own person-- whoever that may be.

I changed Sabo's gem type from Labradorite to Moonstone because he has had some really neat fanart made of him that was Moon themed, and I thought that was really cute. There's some more to learn about Sabo that I've been hinting at, but y'all will find out sometime later.

Shanks was the person who made Luffy realize that he could have whatever name he wanted. I might write it out someday, but it basically went, "woah, I wish I had a cool name," "You can call yourself whatever you want. What, did you think Makino's name is her gem?" "... So what if I did?!" *whole crew laughs at Luffy* "Well, what do you want us to call you?" and the rest was history.

Ace and Sabo will eventually be able to bubble things. Ace can make bigger ones, but Sabo's are less likely to burst when messed with. Luffy could theoretically create bubbles, but I don't really think Luffy's the type to want to capture things in bubbles outside of beetles, and that's easy enough to make Sabo or Ace do.

I took some very vague inspiration from Zuko from ATLA and Ruby from Steven Universe when thinking about Ace's fire abilities. I wanted him to have pyrokinetic abilities, but struggle to use them thanks to some internal turmoil. Thus, his powers come from strong bursts of negative emotions and typically just sprout out around his body. (Yes, he has caused a forest fire before.)

Sabo can create light constructs similar to how Pearl does in Steven Universe. Thinking about Sodalite getting a little more showboat-y with his music and doing light shows? Eventually, fire blasting out of places like some bands do at concerts. That would be metal as fuck.

Sodalite literally always radiates warmth wherever he's at. He's a space heater. You can see a little bit of this in the 3rd chapter when he sits near Woop Slap to keep the old man warm.

Luffy still has the stretchy abilities of a Spinel, but he's still new to using them. In the first chapter when he's got an arm wrapped around Kebab the wolf, it only happened because he got his hand stuck on a spike and Kebab the wolf rolled around trying to get him off. He also has a lil toon force action going on. I tried to show this with a couple of scenes here and there. (When he falls into the ravine, when he runs into a tree in one chapter, the Luffy shaped hole in the bandit hut when he gets flung off Kebab into it, etc.)

I don't even know where the nickname idea of "Squirt" came from. I just thought it would be a funny nickname (derogatory) and it kept reoccurring in my brain and in the writing until it became squirt (affectionate). Who doesn't get called dumb names by your older siblings?

That eventually expanded into Sodalite handing out derogatory nicknames. You mostly see that with Garp. (Bootlicker, marble muncher, etc.) Sodalite is teaching Luffy how to be an even bigger little shit and I love to see it.

I didn't originally plan for the wolves to show up outside of the couple of times they appeared in the first chapter. Then, when I was writing the third chapter I needed a reason to have Garp escort Makino and Woop Slap to the bandits and then I wanted a reason to get Luffy and Co. to go to Foosha Village, so tada.

I especially didn't plan for Kebab to become Kebab. However, I wanted each of the brothers to take out a wolf in their own ways and Luffy just isn't prepared to fight creatures 1v1 right now, so I cooked up the idea of him becoming a pet thereafter.

Damn, that was a lot. Thanks for reading! Go check out @where-does-the-heart-lie for all the cool art they did for this AU, but please don't bother them for more art. I'm pretty sure they're not all that into the AU anymore, but they do have a lot of other cool posts and a comic they're working on for the boys if you need more ASL bros content. They also made a post with several drawings they wanted to do after reading that correspond with several events in the story if you wanna check that out.

That's it for now! Good luck, y'all. I'll be back with some kinda writing soon-ish.

[anthurak]

So by this point, I think many of us are likely familiar with the idea that the breakup of Team RWBY at the end of Volume 3 is meant to thematically parallel the breakup of Team STRQ in the wake of Summer’s death, ie; Ruby falls into a coma for a few days while Summer disappears and then both their teams fracture. Along with a popular sub-theory that Blake leaving Yang after the Fall is meant to parallel Raven leaving Tai.

But the thing is, if Ruby falling into a coma at the end of Volume 3 is meant to parallel Summer’s (supposed) death and the way this loss caused the fracturing and breakup of their respective teams, then Raven’s actions DON’T really parallel Blake nearly as well as a lot of people think.

And in fact, I feel like Qrow could potentially have paralleled Blake’s actions FAR better.

Like people talk about how Raven ‘abandoned’ Tai just like Blake ran away from Yang after the Fall of Beacon. Except if the point of parallel to the Fall of Beacon is Summer’s death, then the parallel doesn’t work because Raven was ALREADY GONE from Team STRQ by the time Summer disappeared. To the point where Tai, Qrow and Ozpin had (and still have) NO IDEA she was even involved in whatever happened to Summer. Raven can’t exactly have abandoned Tai just like Blake did to Yang if Raven wasn’t even around.

Instead, as I’ve discussed in the past, I think Raven’s actions following Summer’s ‘death’ potentially line up far better with WEISS. Like if it turns out that losing Summer was what actually drove Raven to return to her tribe, then that lines up very nicely with Weiss being taken back to her family/Atlas in the wake of the Fall of Beacon: Both return to the shitty, abusive family that raised them. And given how much of Weiss’s character is tied up in her family and their ‘legacy’, then the way Raven eventually took over her tribe makes her an ideal foil; effectively representing a Weiss who did eventually take over the Schnee family and company, but in the process internalized all the pain and trauma her family gave her.

And as for a cherry on top; if Ruby falling into a coma after the Fall of Beacon is meant to parallel Summer’s supposed ‘death’, then what was one of the last things Ruby did at the Fall?

Run off on a special mission with Weiss, just like we now know Summer did with Raven.

Now going back to my point about how Raven was not even around to abandon Tai just like Blake did to Yang, you know who WAS presumably around when Summer ‘died’?

Yeah; Qrow.

Let’s consider what exactly Blake actually did following the Fall of Beacon beyond just a surface-level reading: Yes, she did go back to her family, similar to what Raven may have done, but given that the Belladonnas are NOT actually shitty and abusive, I maintain that Weiss is still the better parallel to Raven. Instead, let’s consider Blake’s whole arc across Volumes 4 and 5 relating to the White Fang: At first being depressed over loss and perceived failure before being inspired to start working for a better cause, in this case pushing back against and stopping Adam’s takeover of the White Fang.

So I have to wonder; what if this reflects what Qrow did with Ozpin and the conspiracy following Summer’s ‘death’? Maybe Qrow and his teammates had helped Ozpin in the past and knew what he was doing, but what if THIS was the point where Qrow became fully committed to Ozpin’s cause and joined the Ozluminati full-time? Perhaps seeing it as a way of ‘honoring’ Summer’s memory.

Instead of staying with the one teammate he had left (and possible partner) who was now in a massive depressive spiral AND had two kids to take care of.

It starts to make Qrow and Tai feel a lot like Blake and Yang, doesn’t it?

This is one of the big reasons why I think Qrow and Tai are the REAL foil to Bumbleby on Team STRQ. They effectively give us a look at a version of Blake and Yang whose relationship failed. Or rather, were never able to ‘take the next step’ and actually form their relationship.

Qrow is a Blake who fully internalized her self-loathing and belief that she didn’t deserve Yang or that Yang was better off without her and has simply been pining for Yang from afar.

Meanwhile Tai is a Yang who likewise fully internalized her fears of abandonment and fully resents Blake for leaving her or may not have ever even fully recognized her feelings for Blake in the first place.

Essentially, Qrow and Tai are the version of Blake and Yang who weren’t able to work through all the problems, issues and baggage which allowed them to actually start their relationship. Like a Blake who didn’t get that vital pep-talk from Sun at the end of Volume 4, or a Yang who likewise didn’t get that vital talk from Weiss in Volume 5.

Which in turn leads us to what I brought up earlier with Qrow joining up with the Ozluminati full-time, essentially representing a Blake who threw herself into reforming the White Fang instead of returning to Team RWBY and reconnecting with Yang. Meanwhile Tai simply throws himself into a deep depression, grief and ‘moping’, ironically all the things he would later accuse Yang of doing (at some point I’m going to do a post on just how much PROJECTING Tai has likely been doing…)

So now Qrow and Tai have this low-key toxic relationship where Qrow is more-or-less aware of Tai’s extremely dysfunctional parenting but has also been enabling it and a lot of Tai’s unhealthy coping mechanisms over the years because he’s been pining for Tai ever since their Beacon days and still is pining in a very depressed, self-loathing ‘I don’t deserve him/to be happy’ way and also doesn’t want to risk conflict with his former partner and also the only teammate he has left.

Thus Qrow keeps his distance and just goes along with Tai’s dysfunctions and/or lets Tai push him away. Which in turn just reinforces Tai’s abandonment issues.

And Ruby and Yang are still stuck with utterly dysfunctional parental figures.

Oh, and if you need more proof about the deliberate parallels between Blake and Qrow…

Then how about the whole damn song where they sing about how they’ve always felt terrible about themselves but now things are looking up for them.

[destinysbounty]

A lot of people like to gripe that Harumi's motivations didn't make a lot of sense, but honestly? To me, I feel like that was kinda the whole point. She's a traumatized kid lashing out at the world, trying to justify her actions with a false veneer of morality - when it truth she just wants everyone to suffer like she did. She wants to feel like she is doing something good, that she's saving the world, but in truth those are just lies she tells herself to help her remain in denial of the fact that she is just a scared, broken child.

"I want you feel the emptiness that I feel!" Of course she didn't have a motivation that made sense!

The thing we need to take away from this isn't "well Lloyd's been through way worse trauma and he turned out okay". The takeaway should be, "people have the power to heal from their pain, but only if they're given the support needed to do so." Lloyd had the ninja there to guide and support him and show him love. Harumi only had her gilded cage of the palace and the emotionally distant royal family.

It's important to note that Lloyd and Harumi are inverse parallels of each other. Where Lloyd's arc began, hers ended (in s9 at least). Lloyd started off as a lonely, traumatized kid with no support system, who unleashes forces beyond his control out of a misguided idolization of Garmadon. But then he's given a home and a loving family, and he's able to become the hero we all know and love.

Harumi's the inverse. She started off with a home and a loving family and a support system, but it all got torn away from her. And in her isolation and neglect, Harumi languished. And when we meet her in s8, what has become of her? She's a lonely, traumatized kid who unleashes forces beyond her control out of a misguided idolization of Garmadon.

She hates Lloyd for the same reason Lloyd never gives up on her, even as late as Crystalized: they see themselves in the other. They're equal and opposite reflections of each other. I think on some level, both of them are subconsciously aware of this.

Harumi resents Lloyd for receiving the life she was robbed of, and Lloyd pities Harumi for falling victim to the life he left behind.

Harumi looks at Lloyd, son of Lord Garmadon, and thinks it should have been her. Lloyd looks at Harumi and pities her, seeing nothing but a broken shell of his past self. This is why Harumi wants to break him and revert him to that past shell. This is why Lloyd never gives up on her, always holding out hope that she can change.

So yeah. Harumi's motives don't make sense. And personally, that's one of the things I find most interesting about her.