#the second thing i think about a lot is the fact that we were not allowed to build our own fires or use anything sharp

[iconicname]

Yeah

Always think about that scene where lucifers mother tells him that instead of being sent to hell, God wanted to kill him.

And while she clearly had her own motivations for telling him this (to get lucifer angry enough to get revenge)

So whether or not she was straight up lying for bending the truth, what gets me is how fast lucifer believes her. That belief doesn't come out of nowhere. Which never gets addressed ever again???

Though you could argue that that belief came from sending lucifer to hell indefinitely (which is just if not more cruel because c'mon) Netflix lucifer has a lot of canonical self hatred and implied suicidal ideation (plus his "devil form" which supposed to be a reflection of how he subconsciously see himself)

Coupled with the fact that we've never been given any indication whatsoever of the actual events that led to lucifer being sent to hell other than a vague "rebellion" and a something about Michael manipulating lucifer (which feels like a cop out but whatever)

uppermost with how in the show (bcs comic lucifer is a completely different dude) lucifer is extremely pacified, sure he makes scary faces and will get violent every now and then but nothing about him screams "diety who committed a sin so grave and horrific and showed no sign of stopping that the only option was to banish him to a place so dreadful that the goddess (a being who should effectively be God's equal) feared going back" painting a picture that lucifers punishment was not necessary or just.

And speaking of the goddess or Charlotte ig, she was also sent into hell. And I get the reasoning that it's because she kept causing mass death to humanity, which might seem justified from a human perspective, but to her, God, and her children this is the equivalent to sending her son to Diyarbakır Prison because he said "no" to you or challenged your authority some way. And then later, sending your wife to the same place because she knocked over your ant farm that you were investing more time than into your family.

Because both Lucifer and Charlotte have shown to be good people. Sure they're a little fucked up and have a tendency to use underhanded methods to get what they want but they're motivations while sometimes misguided are rarely malicious.

Charlotte was introduced a big scary figure (let's not forget how wary and downright scared of her he was initially) but she's really a hurt (rightfully so) ex spouse who wanted to get back at God for what he did to her (and lucifer bcs that scene in hell with dead uriel proves that she does love her kids she probably has trouble expressing affection in a straightforward way a trait that was either worsen or caused because of stay in hell) her method of revenge was likely the only thing that could save her herself too because lets be real, everytime both lucifer and her were on earth they both had angels coming down to bring them back to hell through extremely violent means. (I don't care if they were apparently "misguided" every angel that came after them wholeheartedly believed that what they were doing was justified and were pretty damn sadistic about it, too. that belief didn't come from nowhere)

From episode fucking one, it's unsaid, but we establish lucifer as a character who has already had his redemption (and this is through the assumption that he was more "evil" before the show starts) the whole plot with Delilah, someone who made a deal with lucifer to become a star but ended up a addict and involved with shady people. She was at her lowest when she asked she owed lucifer (I think about this a lot bcs I believed she assumed that whatever lucifer would ask of would either be something she couldn't give or something she wouldn't want to) lucifer said to "get her life together" as payment, thus giving Delilah a second chance at life.

Again this is episode fucking one, one of the things I hate about the show and fandom is it portrays Chloe and Lucifers relationship as "the awful misguided evil who is tamed, saved, guided by the second coming incarnate" everytime lucifer has growth as a person the credit is given to Chloe like she did something or just being around her gives you heaven points instead of the reality "lucifer holding Chloe in such high esteem because he's falling in love with her that he bends himself backwards to make himself into someone she would approve of"

because that would acknowledge that God was wrong, that lucifer didn't grow because of his interference, not in fact he did all the work himself (reconciling with a sibling who was hostile for a long time, forgiving his mother for being a bystander, even going to therapy like srsly bro is stronger than me).

And this is why they have God coming in acting like some goofy harmless guy because the narrative established that lucifer doing good thing = Chloe doing "miracles" and since Chloe was directly made by God thus put in lucifers path, it means Lucifer's "redemption" and happiness is on account of god.

That's why everyone is so easy with him. Lucifer is hurt and mad and God is like "but a gave you Chloe ☝️😊 aren't so much happier now?" And "lucifers like damn ur right, all is forgiven!" Chloe's the same way.

And since he's literally God the same goes for every other character for whatever reason or another he's essentially bribed every character to like him and has been playing a long term honeymoon phase (cycle of abuse) with lucifer. lucifer has essentially lost his support system which makes me grind my teeth.

OP you're especially right about Linda because Lucifer specifically made himself vulnerable to her about his traumas, self-esteem, self hatred and so much more to her and for her to say that to him must be gut punching, because she essentially invalidated everything he expressed to her 🫠

Honestly, to me, Lucifer Netflix as a whole has a lot of trouble validating lucifer as someone who was hurt. They love to hammer on his flaws (which makes sense since it started as a series about growth) but when it comes to his trauma, self-hatred and or when he's hurt by another character it gets brushed aside or mentioned once and never again.

Take for example the early seasons with Chloe and Lucifer first developing their partnership it it always delves into a series of misunderstandings, Chloe being a no-nonsense person and lucifer doing everything out of the box. What usually happens is that lucifer steps out of line Chloe will lash out (verbally) and lucifer goes "I don't understand your point I will go to Linda about it" wakiness ensues and by the end of the episode Lucifer has learned some kind of life lesson.

But the thing is that Lucifer is a character who's so genuine with his actions and is worldview is vastly different from hers in so many ways, he always means well so when Chloe says hurtful things (I'm not berating her for this it's completely understandable from her perspective) it's never acknowledged later, no "Hey I was wrong" or "sorry for calling you that" or maybe a "I should have taken you seriously"

It's such a miniscule aspect but it's brushed aside. Same thing with the whole poison situation there's little remorse and Chloe gets to handle the consequences on her terms.

Its like that with every situation really, any character (but mainly chloe) gets to stomp all over him and he's never allowed to fight back or they get "proven right" .

the most annoying part of lucifer on netflix is that he was literally right the whole time. i don't give a shit if the literal actual god was "just trying his best." lucifer was 100% right to be angry at god and in fact, i think everyone should've been downright pissed when they met him. ESPECIALLY linda. fuck her for real for telling him that his conflict with god was partially his fault. lucifer described an abusive father to her countless times and the second she met him she started fawning over him? fuck that. chloe should've punched god in the face

[tmbgareok]

My new band consists of two strange girls, and we are thinking of playing to a prerecorded tape machine rhythm track. Do you have any advice or thoughts about the format?

JF: well, it's your project so the general things I would say is do what is interesting to you, and is the boldest expression of your ideas. Pay more attention to what you do well and less to what is happening on the immediate scene. People might say they are into some trend or sound, but as a friend of mine once said "people don't know they want to be surprised." Take advantage of all the ways you can approach stuff (and as I will explain--don't fear getting really small)

___

Okay on to the specifics of working with a track or drum machine.

We had an advantage in that we both sang, and we both played instruments that could be rhythm or melody instruments, and contrasting the possibilities there really helped keep things dynamic.

Our evolution as a band working with tape was pretty simple. We started with pretty elaborate tracks with a lot of varied sounds thinking the sonic range would drive the audiences experience, but over time found it was more effective to just have bass and drums on tape--really pare things down as to not take away from the stuff we were doing live. (there were irresistible exceptions of course, but it did really get pretty spare.)

Although it never felt too too close, I think our approach even from the beginning was always kinda negatively informed by "track acts" (the promo shows in nightclubs and discos where singers would jump on stage or by the DJ and sing over--or in some cases along--with their record or some remixed version of their record) Although this was all before Milli Vanilli, there was a general notion that these performances were too canned, so we were informed by that, and tried to keep as much action going in our own playing as possible.

I would also say, make your track or computer set up small, simple and as completely bullet-proof as possible. Although home computing and MIDI were just emerging when we started, there were sequencing boxes in the world and other musicians did suggest we would benefit from diving into those formats for our live show, the sync issues and general instability just made the tape seems more durable.

You also should have a plan b and maybe even a plan c for when you have the inevitable technical issue. (like a shiny a cappella or other unaccompanied number you might be saving for a second encore but is available to pull out that really shines) When the Fates pulled the rug on your act, the audience will be forever grateful that you anticipated this and can keep your show moving forward. (In fact meeting this kind of challenge is inevitably the highlight of this kind of show--because ultimately folks are always rooting for YOU, not the track!)

Finally, while working with tape or MIDI is easy and reliable and wonderfully affordable, and certainly a charming kind of show in a small venue, it might not scale! So when your act blows up and you are playing theaters, don't let the format define you--get a great backing band!

[tacitusk1llwhore]

Don’t cancel me for this, y’all, but I’ve seen a lot of politically charged posts about RDR (as I should; games about outlaws and the corruption of big and small government are and always will be inherently political), but one thing has really bothered and stuck out to me the most, especially in male-dominated spaces in the fandom. The idea that the Arthur Morgan in this day and age would be a raging MAGA conservative—I’ve gotten so, so many posts about it on my TikTok today, and this is finally me snapping. Here are a few arguments I’ve heard for this. “When he hears that the Democrats want to take his guns, he’d say hell no to that.” “He’s from 1899; you really think he would vote for a Black woman?” And my personal favorite: “Arthur says in-game he doesn’t engage in politics.” I’m not going to go through each of these and explain, in detail with evidence from the games themselves, why I think these are the dumbest takes I’ve ever heard in my life. In a space I hope is more open to this discussion, I hope you’ll join me.

1.) The gun control issue. I know, I know, this one seems pretty obvious; I mean, he’s a red-blooded American man and cowboy. How could anyone possibly think for a second he’d be for the party of gun control?? While this is true, you know what’s also true? The fact that he lost a child to gun violence. Now, of course we don't know exactly how Isaac and Eliza were killed, but judging from the time and efficiency, we can assume they were shot. Now let’s get away from assumptions. Arthur mourned the loss of his son, felt the agonizing, intense pain of losing a child, and said that it changed him forever, hardened his heart. Do we really for a second think that Arthur would listen to the story of Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and countless others and say, “No, guns are more important.”? Absolutely fucking not. Not only has Arthur felt that loss, that pain, but he is deeply empathetic; hearing the testimonials of children in these buildings, families that lost their babies, would be more than enough for him to understand and push for common sense gun laws. The erasure of Arthur Morgan's trauma of losing his son and the erasure of his empathy for children and families is rampant in political spaces of the fandom; to simply assume that because Arthur is an outlaw, in modern times he would be this “don’t tread on me.” “Cares more about guns than kids” kind of guy is asinine to me. Even if he hadn’t felt that loss and that pain, there are multiple times in the game where he is given a deeper understanding of things he has never experienced; he becomes angry at that pain inflicted, takes the mission with Charles and the Bison, and hears about the vaccines being diverted from the reservations, and the Black doctor (I think he’s a doctor) you meet in Rhodes. Once he heard these stories, these testimonials, or saw the pain, the hardship, he was quick to step in and do something to make a change. He would not value weapons over the lives of people, as we can see from the game.

2.) This one is always fun to see because it assumes that Arthur is inherently racist. Now, I’m going to state one of my least favorite but still valid arguments: he has minority friends. This is very true; look at Charles, Lenny, Javier, and Tilly. Here is why it’s one of my least favorite arguments: you can have minority friends and still be racist, sexist, homophobic… Having friends doesn’t make you antiracist, so what makes Arthur antiracist? One camp interaction stands out to me the most in regards to this, the one with Tilly when they first move south. Tilly comes to Arthur in specific to talk about how nervous she is being so far south; she understands that the south is a dangerous place for dark-skinned people, especially the location they’re in. Arthur, while he tries to soothe her, pointlessly at first, claiming that it's a good place to run from the law, also understands this, almost immediately changing his tone and telling Tilly not once but twice that e personally will keep her safe, that she has his word that he personally will keep her safe; a man that has hate in his heart for POC would not do that, ever. Another interaction is one with Lenny, where Lenny points out that Arthur wouldn’t notice the difference in the more southern states because the worst they’ll do to him publicly is say that he is friends with POC (less soft than that, watch the clips of it on YouTube if you want the full dialogue), whereas for Lenny the worst that can happen to him publicly is a lynching (which he states all the way back in chapter one where he almost was lynched). Arthur is not ignorant of racism; he knows that it exists—I hate the whole “Arthur doesn’t know about racism.” Because he does, and saying he doesn’t is an insult to his intelligence and awareness of the world around him. He knows racism exists; he personally just cannot fathom it; he cannot picture himself perpetuating racism (again, see the scene in Rhodes with the Black man), which is where I think that confusion that people say he doesn’t understand it comes from—he isn’t confused by racism; he’s confused why that man assumes he’s racist, because in his head he simply can’t fathom being bigoted.

This one has two parts, so bear with me. This also assumes that Arthur is sexist; the argument I see for this is the one-off comment he makes to the working girl at the saloon, "I didn't know I was talkin' to a lady." Was this an ok statement? No. Does it make him a raging sexist? Also no. Let's look at his relationship with Sadie; he does not underestimate her because she's a woman; he trusts in her and her abilities with unwavering confidence, so much so that he entrusts the safety of John, Abigail, and Jack to her. Now let's look at the camp interactions, one of which Arthur states that he sees no difference between men and women (bi king) and that most are bad, but some are worth loving. A man who is a raging sexist would never say something like this; he would never equate men and women, but Arthur does see them as equals. I see a lot of people point out that Arthur is far more protective of the camp girls than most, but this isn't because he sees them as less than him; he just understands that a lot of them lack the ability to fully protect themselves (Love you, Tilly and Mary-Beth). He isn't quite as protective of the women that he knows with confdence can and will protect themselves with confidence, but even then he will stick up for them if needed. Arthur Morgan is a protector of women, which is so incredibly important today and back then.

3.) Here’s my favorite. Arthur doesn’t engage in politics. Looking at this in terms of the game, he absolutely does engage in politics; he has opinions on rights and the government; that is, in fact, political—he doesn’t vote, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t make political statements or isn’t even unintentionally political. Now let’s look at this in the frame of today. Being non-political in 1899 and being non-political in 2025 are two wildly different things; politics has changed drastically in the last almost decade where thngs have circled back around to be voting for or against human rights, and from my evidence above, Arthur would be voting for those rights. In modern times it is almost impossible to be nonpolitical; I dare say it's impossible. Everything now has politics attached to it; that argument is their gotcha moment because they don't understand that, which is why they make the argument in the first place.

So, why does this matter? Arthur is a pixel outlaw in a fictional setting of 1899 America. I guess in the grand scheme of life it really doesn’t, but in fandom culture it absolutely does. Many people, including myself, come to fandom spaces to escape, to cope with things from their past or events of the day, to chat about characters, and to share theories and art, and so on. Imagine someone who lost a child, sibling, or friend to gun violence logging on for their daily dose of distraction only to see someone making points as to why a character who is comforting to so many people wouldn’t care about the death of their lost loved one, just guns. A POC or member of the LGBTQ community doing the same and seeing arguments as to why Arthur is homophobic or racist. Seeing something like that is in fact harmful; taking things and stretching them to fit your narrative despite the actual source material pointing in the opposite direction requires erasure and explaining your own personal biases publicly. Someone stating that Arthur is a racist is just them stating that they themselves are a racist or that they themselves care more about guns than lives—as we’ve seen, the public stating of controversial things or overall morally reprehensible ideals when gone unchecked spirals and spreads, and soon we have a space of people who will openly state bigoted things and push the people in the fandom here for reasons of a shared enjoyment for whatever reason or the people who use things to cope or as a distraction out of the space, effectively ruining it and potentially the outlook on the content of the game. Fandom spaces shouldn’t tolerate bigotry, and lots of Red Dead fans have been expressing bigotry lately, and these people have started to go completely unchecked. It bothers me; it always will, even if it is just a silly cowboy game.

[the-broken-pen]

Hi! I just watched Mulan and I think it was AMAZING (which inspired me to send this ask) and I love your writings too! If youre not too busy, can you write a male villain x female hero who disguises as a man but one day in their fight, the villain finds out! You can continue how you'd like the next part to be

Thank u, have a nice day <3

“Well,” the villain said, swallowing hard. “This certainly makes things regarding my sexuality a bit more confusing.”

Out of all the things she had expected him to say, it certainly hadn’t been that.

She dropped her hands down from where they had been protecting her face.

“I’m sorry?”

The villain waved a hand at her, brow furrowing.

“Yeah, you know, this complicates some stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Stuff,” the villain agreed.

She rubbed a hand over her brow.

“So you’re not…mad?”

At first, it had been an accident. She had been undercover, and her disguise had apparently been better than she thought, because the villain had taken one look at her and decided she was a guy. Which she didn’t have a problem with. It for sure made her worry less about her secret identity. But at some point it had been too long for her to correct the villain, so he called her a him and she did her best to drop her voice an octave and failed so spectacularly she was surprised that hadn’t tipped him off in the first place.

“Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know,” she said, voice wavering. “I’ve been lying to you? Apparently, this is causing a major upheaval in your understanding of your identity? There’s a lot of reasons!”

“Would you…” his brow furrowed. “Like me to be mad at you? Because I can do that if that’s something you need to get through this situation. I’ve been told I’m a good actor. Tree number four in my school play when I was six and all that. Talent you can’t teach, you know?”

She stared, slightly dumbfounded, because this was not what she had expected. This wasn’t even in the same realm, same dimension, as anything she had expected.

“You are being remarkably chill about this.”

The villain laughed, then gestured to himself.

“Oh, no. There’s a fair bit of internalized screaming going on at the moment. Like. Quite a lot to be honest.”

“Screaming,” she said faintly, and he nodded.

“Yeah, loads of it. Which is not your fault at all,” he blurted out, like he truly was incredibly worried about her taking it the wrong way. “I’m just. Grappling with the fact that I don’t like you any less as a woman than when I did when you were—well, when I thought you were—“ he amended, “a man.”

“Oh,” she said intelligently.

And if they were being honest in this acid trip of a conversation, she had a fair bit of internal screaming going on too.

He just stared at her with something like awe. “You’re just. So pretty. Like even as a guy you were pretty. You really can pull off masculinity. Or like. Androgyny. Just for future reference if you’re wondering. Just like. Damn.”

She furrowed her brow.

“Should I be feeling objectified right now?”

“I mean, I don’t think so, but I’m not really the one who should be telling you how you feel.”

He had a fair point with that.

“Okay,” she made a gesture that could have been interpreted as ‘spooked feral raccoon please don’t bite me’ but was mostly just to stop anything else from tumbling out of his mouth. “Can we just run this back before you say more stupid things in an effort to keep all your,” she gave him a dry look. “Internal screaming internalized?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “Go for it.”

She sighed. “You liked me as a guy. Apparently quite a bit. And now you know I’m a woman—which by the way, sorry for not telling you, that’s my bad—and you still like me quite a bit. And that’s…helping you discover some things about yourself?”

He thought for a second.

“Pretty much hit the nail on the head, I think.”

“Okay,” she managed. “Okay. In all of my bouts of anxiety surrounding this, this was never any of the scenarios my brain conjured. I’m not even sure the chemicals in my brain would have come up with this. They certainly don’t know how to handle it.”

He frowned, and it was too reminiscent of a kicked puppy for her to look at it for too long. Or directly at it, for that matter.

“What did you think would happen?”

“Murder,” she replied. “Like, an immediate attempt on my life. Very gruesome.”

His eyes snapped to meet hers, filled with so much immediate, panicked concern that she almost choked on it.

“I literally bought you a sandwich last week.”

“And you also threw me into a wall. Lots of mixed signals there so I feel justified in my own insane scenarios.”

“Ok but like. The wall throwing was in a nefarious way.”

“And the sandwich wasn’t?”

“It could have been poisoned. You don’t know. I’m nefarious like that.”

“You’re overusing that word—“

“You ate a potentially poisoned sandwich without thinking about it, which I think we should talk about—“

“It had the good cheese on it, did you think I would turn that down? That stuff is expensive—“

“It’s like seven dollars from Fred Meyer. What cheese are you eating—“

She slapped a hand over his mouth, and his eyes widened to something almost comical.

She was surprised.

He was surprised.

The universe itself was probably surprised.

“We are getting very off topic.”

He nodded behind her hand, but made no move to contribute further to the conversation. Which again. Was probably for the best.

“So.” She glanced over his face. “You like me.”

He paused. Then nodded once.

She blew out a breath. “Okay. Alright. Well, that complicates things for me. I did not calculate for this—“

He snatched her hand from his mouth, but his grip stayed gentle. 

“Wait. Did you think I wouldn’t like you if I knew you were a girl.”

She swallowed. Hard.

“Ok. Well. We can very gladly put that fear to bed.”

She nodded once, and he returned her hand back over his mouth.

She snatched it back before he did something stupid. Like lick her.

She wouldn’t put it past him.

The silence between them was awkward in a way it never had been. 

She kicked at a rock.

“So,” she said.

“So.”

“Haven’t they made a movie about this kind of thing before?”

She shrugged one shoulder.

“What haven’t they made a movie about?”

“Dogs that play basketball.”

“No, I think they got that one.”

His eyes lit up. “Will you—“

“I will not watch it with you,” she said sternly. “I don’t do well with CGI dogs.”

He deflated, morose.

She sighed.

“So gender doesn’t bother you then.”

“I’m beginning to realize gender is a construct,” he said slowly. He stopped for a second. “Unless you like gender! Then it’s very real. I am supportive of Schrödinger’s gender.”

She squinted at him.

“I fear they should have studied you.”

“They did. Didn’t figure anything out though.”

It startled a laugh out of her, and he grinned like it was the best thing in the world.

“You’re not going to go easy on me because I’m a woman, right?”

He looked insulted.

“If I go easy on you, it’s because I’m in love with you,” he corrected. “But then it’s not really fun if there isn’t the underlying threat of serious bodily harm, so unfortunately you’re going to have to deal with more fighting,” he said, very seriously.

She bit her lip to stop the next laugh.

“Oh darn.”

“I know,” he agreed, and she could hear the amusement on his tongue. “What a bummer.”

“Not exactly the word I would have used, but—“

“I know. You use all the serious words in correct circumstances, and I use all the stupid ones at the right times and the smart ones at the wrong ones.”

“I mean. At least you’re aware.”

“At least I’m aware!” He said it proudly.

He looked at her with a sort of extreme fondness she had never been on the receiving end of.

In the distance, something exploded.

She jerked around to look at it, then whirled back to him.

“I should,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder, and he merely stepped back.

“Off you go,” he said, sweeping his arms out like a butler welcoming her into their house.

“You’re not worried I won’t come back?”

He grinned, a boyish thing.

“Oh, you always come back to me.”

She flushed bright red, then took off over the tops of the buildings.

He was right, though.

She always, always, came back.

[starry-eyed-psychopomp]

REAL. People in this fandom bend over backwards to blame Wei Wuxian for every little thing, as if the entire point of the series wasn’t that he was being used as a scapegoat.

Like, Wei Wuxian is an unreliable narrator, specifically in the sense that he has an incredibly low sense of self-worth, defaults to blaming himself for everything, excuses any wrongdoing done to himself, and represses the memories of his own trauma. And he’s like that specifically because of his upbringing with the Jiang. Madame Yu blamed him for anything and everything, Jiang Fengmian enabled her and made Wei Ying feel like every bit of kindness incurred a debt that had to be repaid, and Jiang Cheng relied heavily on Wei Ying taking the blame for everything, so much so that he never really learned how to manage his emotions in a way that wasn’t blaming Wei Wuxian. He was raised a scapegoat, and that continued on in his role as the Yiling Patriarch. People blamed him for anything and everything, because it’s easier to pin all your problems on one convenient target than accept the complexities of a situation (and reflect on your own culpability in them).

Over the course of the novels, we see a lot of people blaming Wei Wuxian. Madame Yu and Lan Qiren are the first, and Jiang Cheng picks up soon after. Once the Sunshot Campaign ends, everyone is quick to blame every little thing on him and his cultivation. Then people like Jin Guangyao take advantage of that and manipulate it in their favor. Jin Zixun blames him for his stupid curse, then Jin Zixuan pops up and starts blaming him for the entire fight. There are mobs of people at the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds who blame him for all sorts of unreasonable shit. Jiang Cheng is CONSTANTLY blaming him for anything and everything: Lotus Pier, his parents, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, none of which were actually his fault. Shit, after the Golden Core reveal happens, Jiang Cheng starts blaming Wei Wuxian for the fact that he can’t blame Wei Wuxian for his problems anymore! And don’t get me started on Lan Xichen and the “his only mistake was you” conversation, as if Lan Wangji’s incredibly inobvious crush was somehow his responsibility to reciprocate while starving to death and trying to prevent a genocide. As if Lan Wangji’s punishment was his fault, despite the whole point being that Wei Wuxian was telling him to stop trying to help him. People lob so much shit at Wei Wuxian, and within the context of the novels, it is abundantly clear that it’s all just SHIT.

And the thing is, the novels understand this. Even though Wei Wuxian might not personally blame characters like Jiang Cheng or Lan Xichen for their reprehensible actions, the narrative ensures that they face consequences. Like, people get upset about Jiang Cheng’s ending, but he had ample opportunity to make amends with Wei Wuxian, and he refused. He just kept blaming him! Jiang Cheng never would have had to learn about the core transfer if he’d just shut his damn mouth and put the whip away, but he wouldn’t, so his entire fragile sense of accomplishment was destroyed. Now, he can’t blame Wei Wuxian for all his problems, because he knows Wei Wuxian gave up EVERYTHING so that he could lead the Jiang sect and be a powerful cultivator. And he can’t cope with that, so he ends the series unsatisfied and in seclusion.

And then look at Lan Xichen. Wei Wuxian never blames him for the whole mistake thing, but I really don’t think we’re supposed to see Lan Xichen as being in the right in that conversation. Like, first of all, he’s needlessly cruel. Second of all, with what we have read about the Second Battle at Nightless City, how would it be in any way reasonable to describe Wei Wuxian as being “satisfied with the killing?” People make Lan Xichen’s actions out to be understandable concern for his brother, but then Wei Wuxian gets nothing in regards to his own grief over the deaths of his sisters? Third of all, Lan Xichen is, at that moment, STILL making allowances for Jin Guangyao, even knowing the awful shit he did. Pot, meet kettle.

And that’s the thing! Towards the end of the series, the cultivation world’s mob mentality shifts from scapegoating Wei Wuxian to scapegoating Jin Guangyao. Technically a more worthy target, but even Wei Wuxian himself expresses discomfort at that shift. Lan Xichen, who still loves Jin Guangyao and is probably shaken by his own guilt over the part he played in his schemes, defaults to scapegoating Wei Wuxian instead. And sure, this scene happens in large part because of the narrative need for wangxian to get their shit together, but it still contextualizes Lan Xichen’s arc’s conclusion. And I’d argue that’s why he ends the series miserable and in seclusion too. He needed to be strong armed into feeling guilt and taking responsibility for his actions.

But back to the main point: I think a lot of people don’t understand that Wei Wuxian largely isn’t to blame because most of this comes in as subtext. Wei Wuxian is the narrator and he often tells us that everything is his fault, that the things he’s put through aren’t so bad, but in moments of flashbacks, when he’s knocked out or using empathy and doesn’t have so much control over the narration, we see more clearly that he had noble intentions and was consistently backed into a corner. Meanwhile, we’re seeing all these other characters turn a blind eye to injustice (or actively participate in it) and then turn around and say UNTRUE SHIT about him. Even though the narrative doles out karmic punishments for characters’ fucked up actions, the fact that Wei Wuxian doesn’t SAY they’re wrong and deserving of consequences trips people up.

MDZS is a story that really needs to be read with a critical eye. I feel like a lot of people just hear that Wei Wuxian is an unreliable narrator and decide that means he’s crazy and can’t be trusted. Or they see that he uses ~dark magic~ and has technically killed a lot of people and decide that means he’s “morally grey” or a war criminal or smth. Or they personally like Jiang Cheng or Jin Guangyao or Lan Xichen, and end up blind to those characters’ flaws and resort to the same scapegoating of Wei Wuxian that those characters engage in. And that’s whatever. You’re allowed to like flawed characters. It just bothers me that this leads to SO MANY misinterpretations of the books. Or when people go too far in trying to make the conflicts in the story seem like ~both sides~ are at fault, and it ends up with some…questionable real-world implications.

AND it fucks with the themes of the story, which include some very poignant messages about propaganda, scapegoating, the ways that people in power shift blame and make themselves out to be victims, and how people can be pushed really far when backed into a corner while still being fundamentally good and deserving of happiness. A cornered dog is going to bite, it’s fucked up to criticize people for the methods they use to crawl out of hell, especially when YOU should have lent them a hand, etc.

Rant over. For now.

It frustrates me so much when people use Jin Zixuan's death as some kind of proof that Wei Ying was out of control because you do remember he was being attacked at the time, right? Like he accepted the invitation to see his nephew in good faith, and instead, he was attacked. Violently. With the intent to kill. They were shooting arrows at him. If he hadn't spurred Wen Ning into action, he would have been killed. Like, you guys remember that, right? And it's not like he could just hop on his sword and fly away. He was cornered, and the only way out was to fight.

I'm not blaming Jin Zixuan for his own death, that blame lies solely on Jin Zixun, but I still think it was incredibly stupid of him to walk right into active fight zone and not expect to get hurt. Also, why was he telling Wei Ying to stop when Jin Zixun was still trying to kill him???

I don't understand this need to find something to blame Wei Ying for. He's always acting in defense. Against forces greater than him. He's reactive. He rarely actually starts things first. Like yeah he's a flawed character but that doesn't make him automatically culpable.

People at Nevernight were calling for both his blood and the Remnants, and he's supposed to just take that???? Just let it be? Take the Remnants and hide??? To where???? Wei Ying was so desperate to find them a place to go the first time that he took them to the Burial Mounds. The Burial Mounds. Do you know how desperate you have to be to consider a haven for corpses and ghosts as a safe haven??? Where else was he supposed to take them???

Even then, THEY shot him first. He didn't even make the first move. I do not understand why people think Wei Ying is in the wrong for simply fighting back to protect people he cared about.

For the love of God, someone needs to explain this to me because I'm really sick of this fanon character assassination

[mrincrediblyblind]

MASSIVE S4 ANALYSIS

ANALYSED BY YET ANOTHER GAY TEEN ON THE INTERNET!

okay, this is about the California crew, (except Argyle). This is Byler, but i’m talking about it from the confirmed perspective that Will has a crush on Mike.

Firstly, just to set clear that were all aware the Rink ‘O Mania outing happened on Will’s birthday? If not google the date of it, it’s March 22nd as confirmed as Will’s birthday by Joyce in season two.

also please reblog this because i put my entire twinkussy into this 😭

ANYWAY!!

the things i’m gonna talk about:

1. Will’s birthday

2. The Hug

3. He knows :0

4. Jonathan sees Nancy in Mike

5. Joyce

6. Eleven

7. Will and Eleven

8. Friends Do Lie

9. Micheal Wheeer.

read on, dear friends!!! ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

1. WILL’S BIRTHDAY

((okay but he looks so epic in this shot, ily Will❤️‍🩹))

So for starters, the fact that Will probably convinced Joyce and Jonathan that he was going to Rink O’ Mania to celebrate his birthday with Eleven and Mike makes me want to kill myself!!! 😍😍😍

He probably thought he’s seeing Mike and he was gonna get a hug like when they last saw eachother and Mike would have an explanation as to why he could barely contact Will, and he’d probably had written him out a card or something for his birthday.

HE PROBABLY BROUGHT THE PAINTING FOR MIKE SO IF HE GAVE WILL ANYTHING HE COULD BE LIKE “oh, that’s so sweet… i actually did this for you. I’ve been working on it a while and thought i’d give it to you cos i’d see you today”

Mike also flew in on Will’s birthday. Can you imagine how happy he was? Byler shipper or not, they haven’t seen eachother in a year and Eleven gets the news that Mike’s coming to California. She tells Will “oh, he’s flying in on.. March the Twenty Second”.

Will, internally probably thought “that’s my birthday? is mike flying in to see my for my birthday?”, because who wouldn’t think highly of someone your close to in that way?

Regardless, you CANNOT tell me Will’s the “He didn’t have to get me something but the thought would be nice” TYPE OF PERSON

Poor boy probably saw the flowers and either

1. Thought they were for him

2. Knew they were for El, but Mike had something else for him

2. THE HUG

he got him absolutely nothing. not even a proper hug.

LOOK AT THE GRIN ON MY POOR BABY’S FACE WHEN HE SEES MIKE!!

HE LITERALLY HAS THE PAINTING IN HIS HAND, YET GOES IN ARMS WIDE FOR A HUG DESPITE THE FACT HE COULD CRUSH THE PAINTING??

He also grabs Mike’s backpack in an attempt to pull him into a meaningful hug. It’s been a year since they last saw each other.

We know Jonathan’s high off his balls, but he looks at the painting and then the boys “hugging” (if you can even call that a hug). He’s probably confused why Will didn’t get round to giving Mike the painting.

3. HE KNOWS :0

There’s no doubt that Jonathan knows what’s up. Lonnie used to verbally abuse Will for being gay so i’m sure he’s confirmed it to Jonathan at some point.

Also which, i’m sure he sees the fact that he has been in a similar situation with MIKE’S SISTER??

There was another person (Steve) who was with his love interest while him obviously being in love. Does that not parallel like crazy?

Jonathan’s not stupid, he’s just as high as a kite for the entire season, which if anything would probably make him overthink about the scenario.

When people smoke weed the THC in Cannabis (weed) can effect your frontal lobe which is responsible for a lot of creativity and logical thinking and enhances your senses overall. This is probably why Argyle suggested they fill up the pizza dough freezer.

Depending on how much he’s smoked, he could also be incredibly paranoid, as too much will cause a massive dopamine spike and can cause you too feel anxious and overthink.

Just because he’s had a couple hits doesn’t mean he doesn’t know what’s going on. He probably does, maybe definitely. He’s either thinking really deep about it or is super paranoid and thinking worse case scenario.

this moves me onto my next point

4.JONATHAN SEES NANCY IN MIKE

Nancy is unable to express her emotions and we know this, Jonathan knows this.

She struggled to tell Steve she loved him, Jonathan knows this. Jonathan was ALSO there when Will was trying to get Mike to (struggle to) say I love you.

He ALSO sat through Murray exposing Nancy for not being able to admit her love to Steve. On top of this, He’s dating her and experiencing the lack of communication first hand

as well as being stuck in the exact same weird love triangle thing. Eleven and Will are both in love with Mike. Jonathan and Steve were both in love with Nancy. He’s watching his brother go through the same thing.

I’m also certain that Will would’ve talked to Jonathan about Mike not talking to him like, at all. We know that they have a very close sibling bond so I’m sure Jonathan is aware.

5. JOYCE

We know absolutely jack shit about Joyce and what she knows, but she’s overprotective as.

I’m sure she would’ve insisted for Will to come do something with her and Jonathan for his birthday. He either would’ve:

A - insisted on going because El was going

B - Insisted on going because he hadn’t seen Mike for so long

C - Made up a lie that the roller skating was for his birthday

I’m sure it would be C, and some other contributing factors. Will doesn’t have a job and neither does Eleven, so where would the money for the skating tickets come from?

Joyce likely gave Will and Eleven money for them to go skating with Mike for Will’s birthday.

6. ELEVEN

Eleven is never ever at fault for Mike being… Micheal.

If anything, she went through an awful lot as well this season, so let’s unpack.

Before Mr Minion (Mike) arrives at the airport and all, were shown life in California for the Byers. Eleven and Will are in high school and Eleven is getting relentlessly picked on. It’s assumed that it might be her lack of education and social intelligence. Nonetheless, we know she is being bullied and the main perpetrator is Angela.

Angela humiliates Eleven despite her attempts at being nice and trying to befriend her. She doesn’t understand that Angela can be mean to her because she isn’t aware anyone is capable of wronging her.

She knows the people who work for the government and ones employeed at Hawkins lab are bad, hence why she calls them “The Bad Men”. She knows that they are out to get her because she’s escaped and is still on the run.

She thought Hopper was rude, but she learned he was only trying to keep her safe.

She thought Max was rude, but quickly learned that she was mistaken and formed a bond.

Eleven is forgiving. She let Kali/Eight’s punk friends (mainly Axel, with the mohawk) be rude to her.

She was deemed untrustworthy by lucas the whole 1st season and even lashed out at him, yet kept trying to be his friend and eventually earned his trust.

She was yelled at time and time again by Mike, who planned to get rid of her after finding Will, yet still got close to him.

She is unaware that people outside of the Hawkins Laboratory can be bad, as everyone she thought was bad has turned out to be an assumption proven wrong. She thinks that if she keeps persisting in being Angela’s friend then it will work out.

Eleven probably suggested they go to Rink ‘O Mania.

She already knew the popular kids hung out there, she tried to convince Mike that they were her friends in hopes that it would turn out well and they would meet Mike and hang out and have a good time.

She missed hanging out with a group of people who all valued her. She grew up in a group of lab experiments, she hung out with the party. Being alone reminds her of her darkest times, being experimented on and locked away, isolated in a claustrophobic deprivation tank, being on the run and surviving in her own.

Eleven hates being on her own, that’s why she hated being by herself in season 2 in Hopper’s cabin and alone in Mike’s basement. When she found out that there are nice people in the world (by meeting Benny) that weren’t just the other children in the lab, she wanted to surround herself with people who could look after her.

7. WILL AND ELEVEN

Finally, Will knows that El is being picked on. Instead of going home on his birthday after the disappointment of it all, he stays with Eleven.

He’d seen her get made fun of for her diorama of Hopper (who she assumed was dead??) and probably every other petty drama with Angela off screen.

He stayed with Eleven and Mike, third wheeling on his own birthday so that he could look after her.

He could have changed his mind and gone home, yet Eleven lied about having heaps of friends and going to the roller rink all the time, and when he saw them approach the table, he knew it would be a good idea to put her first.

8. FRIENDS DO LIE

“friends don’t lie” is something the Duffers familiarised us with up until the point of season 3 when Max tells El “Yeah, well boyfriends lie. All the time.”

We see Mike has been lying to El, and what does that teach her? Boyfriends lie and girlfriends lie.

She lies to Mike in her letter about having friends

Mike lies to her about…

MOSTLY JOKING IM SORRY MILEVENS IM SUPPOSED TO BE NON BIAS, IM JUST SAYING ELEVEN LIED TO MIKE THIS SEASON AND THEYVE BOTH RUINED THE TRUST IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP

9. MICHEAL WHEELER.

Not too much to say about him(/j). Firstly, I genuinely cannot back him up on the whole Will’s birthday thing, that shit makes me wanna cry. We might need the byler lawyer for this one.

However, it’s obvious Mike is very torn between the two. I’m trying to include as little byler as possible, but we are shown that Mike CANNOT deal with both Will and Eleven at the same time. He doesn’t write Will letters, only Eleven, yet he’s known Will since kindergarten and being his friend was the best thing he ever did.

The fact that he couldn’t reach out to Will does show that he is suppressing something that he doesn’t want Will to find out about. He’d rather upset Will then come to terms with something about himself or about Will.

I’ll leave this up to you as the reader, but take into account the fact Will is canonically gay and Mike is canonically a dick about it since season three. It might be a tough pill to swallow if you don’t think Mike has a crush on Will, but here’s what I’m saying.

Mike knows Will is not attracted to girls.

Season 2 final episode at the Snowball Dance, the girl approaches Will and asks to dance. He stutters and mumbles “i’m not-“, going to turn her down when Mike repeatedly hits him, encouraging him to dance with her.

Season 3x3, Will and Mike fight in the rain, Mike settles with the most considerate accepting words he could’ve.. 😍😍

“it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!!” 🥰

So Mike is aware of Will’s homosexuality. Would this contribute to him not wanting to be affectionate anymore? Because Mike is being homophobic? “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”? that’s literally homophobic

Please explain to me (non Byler shippers, this is), why he wouldn’t feel comfortable around Will. I don’t mean this in a passive aggressive way, i actually want someone to explain it to me.

Regardless, i’m mad at Mike for being a shit friend on Will’s birthday.

YOOO!! You’ve reached the bottom! look at you! go. Share your thoughts with me please, this took so long so if you could reblog, i’ll give you a kiss on the mouth (/hj)

[myjjongie]

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.ᐟ ── we need to talk

SYNOPSIS: you and jay have been at each others throats for the whole time you've been enrolled at decelis university. the reason for the rivalry in question? the #1 rank on the academic leaderboard in the university. you went through your whole high school life being #1 on the academic leaderboard. you meet jay, who also had the same upbringing in high school. things then start to turn into a constant battle. leaving you constantly in second place and jay in first place every rank update.

word count; 1,271

in that very moment i felt my whole world come to a halt. the boy i’ve had a minor crush now turned into potential relationship was going to be my soon cousin…

thinking as far as i could, i remembered hearing my uncle talk about his girlfriend briefly on many occasions. there were times when he mentioned that she had a son who was around my age as well. but what were the fucking odds of my uncle’s now stepson, is the guy i so happen to be talking to romantically… i stared at the newly engaged couple and their son standing at the front of the living room. not being able to help it, my eyes land on heeseung. a lot of thoughts raced in my head at once. how did i not see him around the house at all until this very moment? why did this end up happening to me? i slowly began to regret not taking the time to try and get to know my uncle’s girlfriend whenever he had her around. lost in my inner thoughts i was unaware of jake standing next to me. his hand was placed on my shoulder tugging at it gently to gain my attention. jake was as shocked as i had been but knew he needed to be composed for me. finally snapping out of it i turn to jake wide eyed.

“we need to leave…” i mutter out as i stood planted in place. the only time luck was on my side tonight was for the fact jake and i stood at the living room exit.

speaking up again to jake i turned one more time to look at my uncle and his finance. one more glance to truly check that it was all real and really happening… chills ran down my arms as i locked eyes with heeseung. for the brief moment i looked at him, his face had a look of pure confusion. feeling the embarrassment creep up, i yank jake’s arm and tug him towards the door. jake willingly complied as he knew the first thing i wanted to do in the moment was get out. once out the door i instantly bolted to jake’s car. i almost ran down the driveway with the pace i walked away from the house. jake was silent as he followed behind me. jake was unsure of what to say or do in the moment as well. as i stood infront of jake’s car i rummaged in my purse to get my phone. staring at my lockscreen glowing back at me, i dazed off for a second to then remember what it was i was doing. unlocking my phone with shaking hands, i swipe on the screen to find my message app. as my thumbs frantically typed across the screen, i type a message to my uncle. the text was telling him i needed to leave right away and was sorry for not saying goodbye. after sending the text i lock my phone not even waiting for a possible response back. as quickly as i dug my phone out of my purse i quickly shoved it back in.

“can you take me home now?” my voice came off weak and dejected. as if i was due to cry at any moment.

jake softly nodded his head as he reached into his pocket to get his car keys. once hearing the door unlock i climbed into the passenger seat to only stare out the windshield. my mind was a mess of its own. feeling major amounts of embarrassment mixed with confusion and shock. hearing jake close his car door i blink a couple times helping bring myself back fo reality.

“do you wanna talk about it?” jake’s voice was gentle and calm. in any other situation jake might’ve cracked a couple jokes at everything. but he knew this moment was not something to not crack a joke at.

hearing his words my eyes began to brim with tears. little by little did the tears fall from my eyes and into the palms of my hands. once the droplets started it didn’t take long for my tears to build in eyes. tears dropped as i blinked away the blur building up in my eyes from the water.

“god i feel so embarrassed…”

“hey don’t feel embarrassed. you had no idea..” jake reached out a hand and rubbed my back reassuringly. it was comforting but only made my tears worse.

“jake i was practically about to date my cousin…. what’s not embarrassing about that!?” i couldn’t help but raise my voice at the end. my head sharply turned to look over to jake. despite my eyes blurring from the tears i was able to see his face. jake had a worried look, i could tell he didn’t quite understand my reaction. to me it had been the general idea of almost dating my to be cousin that made me feel embarrassed in ways i found hard to describe.

jake was right, there was no reason for me to react the way i am. wanting to forget everything about the situation there was a small underlying thought i had. i knew my uncle had a girlfriend. yet i never took the chance to ask about her or her son. those thoughts alone fueled for how i felt about everything right then and there.

“jake you can’t tell anyone about this…” a heavy sigh left my lips as my tears began to dry up.

“of course i wouldn’t.. but what about keeho, sunoo and nings. you’re gonna tell them right?”

“of course i’m gonna tell them. they always need to be in the know.” i chuckled at the concept of our friend group always knowing everything about one another.

“i just mean. don’t tell sohee, seunghan and sunghoon….”

“i would never even dream of sharing this info with them. if the situation was different there would be a slight maybe. but your trust is always first for me yn.”

i looked over at jake fondly. he was just truly the greatest friend ever. even if his one downside was being best friends with jay, i’m happy i was able to look past that and befriend him.

“thank you.” at this point my tears finally stopped. all i could do was sniffle as my nose was clogged from all the crying.

“what are you gonna do now about heeseung?” jake tip toed around the question. but it wasn’t wrong to ask. what was i gonna do about heeseung?

“for now… i don’t think i can talk to him or face him…”

“so you’re gonna ghost him?”

“i think so….”

“as much as i am for someone to support woman’s rights and wrongs. i don’t think this is the way to go about it…” i punch jake’s arm softly at the woman’s rights and wrongs statement. he let out a tiny ow playing along before he looked at me seriously again.

“you’re right…. but jake i don’t think i can face him anytime soon. i need to think…”

“if that’s what you wanna do yn sure. i’ll support you no matter what. but don’t make yourself regret this okay?” jake’s eyes were a reflection of seriousness mixed with genuine care for me. he had every right to be doubtful in my decisions. but it was the only way i could go about coping with the situation.

“let’s go home now.” jake said as he turned to look straight ahead.

i shake my head in agreement as jake started the car driving away from the house.

prev | m.list | next

a.note; hold on now. how many words are in this chapter ????? anyways. may the yn bad decision begin. the ghosting does not end here please know that. also thank you for the 100 notes on chapter 15 !!!! everyone was so shocked and it was so enjoyable reading all of your reactions !!!! also hopefully this written chapter isn't so bad. be prepared for a even longer one in like 4 chapters. but until then my lips are sealed :3

fighting for first taglist (open) ...

@idontknowhowtomakeusernames @right-person-wrong-time @jakeyverse @minthoons @punchbug9-blog @starfallia @heartheejake @ikeulove @rairaiblog @kazemiya @yourssincerely-mimi @wondipity @leehsngs @justalittle-hee @chandmyseven @letwiiparkjay @dylanobr1ens @bbsantc @beigerin @mwahvvis @nickiminajleftasscheek @firstclassjaylee

©myjjongie 2024

[dewthegay4403]

DUDE YESSFF

SILLY YAP SESSION! ALL LOVE! NO HATE! GRAAHHH😼😼

lowkey the fandom always forgets that Nexus is a deteriorating husk of “Moon”. Moon literally was driven to insanity BECSUSE they cared so much about their family. Everyone always puts Moons GOOD actions onto Old Moon, but then brushes away every single little mistake known to mankind onto Nexus. Nexus shouldn’t be viewed as the villain. She should be viewed as a mentally ill character, because that is what she is. She turned to what only can be put as drvgs and a life groping for power because she knew the family would NOT accept her back because of her mental health.

Now I’m not saying the celestial family are the villains in play, but I am also? Eclipses recording showed Moon in a very disturbing state which should have been focused on more than the fact that Moon was going to make plans to kill Ruin or BloodMoon (two known villains/Anti-heros in tsbs. More on that in a second.) Earth wants to be seen as a therapist, and we can see that in the episode “Confronting MOON! In VRChat” Earth gets upset when Moon says she ISN’T a therapist. She says “I will NEVER forgive you for the words you just said to me.” The fandom agrees with Earth, “Moon has no right!” “She was just trying to help!” & xyz were thrown across the fandom, but genuinely most of these were incorrect. If Earth wishes to be viewed as a therapist, she does Infact have to learn to put aside her problems with her patient to actually help them, which she didn’t do. This of course simply reinforces Moons statement that Earth is not in fact a therapist and has a lot more to learn before she can become one. Of course this comes back to show Earth probably couldn’t have helped Moon even if she wanted to. She would’ve had too many difficulties and problems to set aside from Moon before she could’ve listened, learned, and helped. Now, to address something bigger. The whole Moon trying to kill Earth thing. Let’s jump into that.

“Moon KILLS EVERYONE!! In VRChat”

Moon enters the room at 3:55 and it’s quite obvious they’re going to kill someone. They say it’s not their fault if Earth accidentally dies. Skip to 4:30, Moon and Ruin talk about god knows what, their family and Moons insanity til 14:00. That’s about 10 minutes of talking which will provide importance in a second. At 14:00 Moon brings up they’re going to use star power and states they will not hesitate to kill everyone and everything in the room, including earth who is tied up. He actually shoots at 15:30, a minute and a half later. In this minute and a half, Ruin could have been untying Earth to let her go but for whatever reason chose not to. Same thing goes for the him talking to Moon for 10+ minutes instead of letting Earth go.

Now that has been covered, allow me to point out the differences between “Moon tried to kill Earth” and “Moon tried to kill BloodMoon and Earth was in the way”. Moon did not pointedly try to kill Earth. They tried to kill BloodMoon. This is VERY DIFFERENT from them trying to kill Earth. If you say Moon tried to kill Earth, you’re wrong. They tried to kill BloodMoon.

Twisting back to Nexus’ mental health and everyone’s view on it. I’m going to discuss the fandoms view of her mental health next.

Everyone always says “Nexus had no reason to go insane!” “Suns the real one who deserves to go insane!” “Nexus doesn’t deserve to go insane!” “Nexus doesn’t have enough trauma to go insane!” & xyz. Now, here’s where these statements are wrong. Somebody can’t deserve to go insane. They simply do. Insanity is not something that is willing, it’s something that is built up.

Think of it as a beaver dam. The water at first flows smoothly and openly. We’ll acknowledge this as somebody’s thoughts, emotions, and views of certain things. Then, here come the beavers. The event. It doesn’t have to be a big event. It can be little ones that slowly place up a wall. The dam that closes off everything else. Oftentimes the person will bottle everything up. Making the water stop flowing. Over time, the river will rise above the dam, and cracks will begin. This can go on for months, years even. Eventually, the dam will break. Snap. All those emotions and thoughts, and reason will get washed away in the thick of things and the river will swell, flooding the banks which will cause problems. Untreated, this can be incredibly bad for the person and cause them to deteriorate into a husk of the person they once were. This is what happened with Nexus.

I believe the start of the build up of the dam for Nexus would begin at his talk with Old Moon. Where he was told to kill himself for his family’s wellbeing. Reminder that this is fresh after Solars death, so the pressure is still on his shoulders. The build up continues through his breakdown and then we reach his hallucination. This is the point where I think Moons’ dam began to crack, twigs spring out and water slowly begins to flow only to be closed up too soon. We can watch as Moons dam slowly gets flimsy and then breaks from that episode to the Earth and Sun confrontation.

Onto the last part of my yap session. (Ur a real one if u read this far down.) Moons imprisoning which was a BIG SLIP UP.

Honestly, imprisoning Moon in a small cage was the worst thing they could’ve done. Leaving him alone for days, weeks even, with his hallucinations, only popping in every few days just to flat out torment them (Monty.) and continuously compare them to their “superior self” (Sun). Moon even stated that they were “Screaming at nothing and thrashing about” for days on end and Sun paid no mind to it. Which is genuinely surprising because Sun was in this exact position, but instead of paying aid to Moon, he orders the computer to shock him unconscious and walks out not another word nor glance.

God these robots man, THESE ROBOTS GRRR. They’re all flawed so perfectly to antagonize each other but the fandom is so closed minded they can’t sort out that each character has REASON for beings one way or another🙏

in conclusion I miss Nexus and her goofy self and Moon and their stupid braindead self☹️☹️

I miss new Moon

Honestly, I don't care about Nexus but thinking about what happened to New Moon specifically hurts me a little. I just still can’t believe that a character who we knew for a year could just go POOF so randomly and sudden

And the worst part is that everyone in the show acts as if he never existed at all. As if only Nexus existed and everything good he did in his life was actually old Moon

It's weird. I kept hoping for a happy ending for him. I even thought he would eventually just leave with Solar to some random dimension after realizing his mistakes. But unfortunately it seems that the only way for a major character to go off screen is for them to die

Anyway I'm already changing some lore stuff when redesigning characters so have the biggest change so far: my Nexus is alive and "domesticated" (I love domesticated villain trope a lot). He lives in Sun and Moon's basement and only goes outside to get some snacks because he is still very salty about everything that happened. Nice

[butterflywomanstuff]

What do you think about the Satosugu?? And the fanbase? It’s okay if you don’t ship lol. I ship it them.

(You can still ship Satosugu. The ones who don’t misinformation and accept they are Fanon ily ❤️❤️❤️❤️.)

(Also credit most of this information from Reddit 👍 )

Well I understand why people ship them. I don’t mind it at all because that’s the whole point of being in a fandom, people will ship. The thing is there is less Satosugu fans that understand that their ship is NOT canon. A lot are just delusional and misinformation also read off TikTok. Plus they misinformation into everyone believing in it. Not all only some. People might say “why can’t male friends just be friends.” The thing is Gojo and Geto aren’t just friends and they don’t see themselves as lovers either. They are CLOSE, they are BESTFRIENDS. Gege did a great job for making them seem close and have more writing put together because in my opinion they have the best friendship writing more than men which is why ppl ship them.

Let me just “confirm” about the manga scenes in Jjk.

A lot of Satosugu would use this manga scene and say “Gojo picked up Geto’s button after he slaughtered the village and held it so hard in his hand that he bled ” that is not true. He clenched his fist so tight that his nails digging into his skin so hard that it bled. The fact is even when the author confirms something some people will still go AGAINST the author?? And the pull out bs such as “Gege didn’t say they were JUST friends” well guess what dipshit. If the author has already called Gojo and Geto bestfriends.Then there is no reason to add “just” to specify they are only friends.The use of “friends” implies between them is not romantic. Honestly it proves that they don’t know the terms “bestfriends” and think there’s always gotta be love going on.

“Gojo said ily to Geto” No. Gege said that the last words Gojo said to Geto was in the manga.

“During the stage performance Gojo said to Geto Koisheriteru to Geto” That was not confirmed, plus the play wasn’t organised by Gege. We don’t know what they said and people have been saying that they switch up their words each performance.

“But the MAPPA animators drew them two together.” That’s okay. But are they Gege? The author? No. They are fans just like you and everyone else. So it ain’t valid. Whatever extra art they draw is just fanart like everyone else. Doesn’t make it canon.

“Gojo said my one and only one.” Yes he did, he said my one and only “Bestfriend” you guys cut out bestfriends. Gojo says Geto is his one and only BESTFRIEND because they both understood each other. Gojo had a lonely life has a kid. When he was a teenager Geto came and made him have a childhood, Gojo never had. Gojo never experienced what it felt like not being used or seen as a weapon.

“Gojo recognised Geto by his scent.” It his was six eyes and he actually noticed Geto cursed energy he noticed. This scene can be interpreted in many ways but people only go for the romance.

“Koi was used alot in the jjk inventory and koi mean ily” And koi also means love and “friendship” you only use that one word “love.”

“The s2 intro was a love songgg!!!” first of all go check s2 song of the second season on JJK AGAIN! ..the writer and also singer of the song has made a comment on the first take channel saying what he was thinking while writing it ...ITS A NOSTALGIA SONG ...and it was made to be the jik opening of gojo's past arc because it fits the theme of that arc ..nostalgia ...the past ...times you can never go back to again ..youth ...what romance has to do with anything ...being bestfriends with somebody doesn't have to be romantic ...it's a different kind of love but also the same level of love …..i would love my bestfriend and my boyfriend on the same level but those 2 types of love would be different. idk what yall are about but there was nothing romantic between the two and it was shown ..sometimes i wonder if we even watched the same show ..it's okay to have expectations but to force it on the show when that wasn't intended from the author is just delusional behaviour. Shippers choose to see the ship romantic which is fine that’s shipping behaviour, but taking things a lil more and turn it into a headcanon to enjoy the ship more.

“They were inspired of a BL” I’ve seen this wayyy too many times. No. Yes Gege reads BL, that’s cool. But he never said anything about Gojo and Geto being inspired of a BL, this was just a fan interpretation. So it was not confirmed, Gege never said ANYTHING about Gojo and Geto related to a BL, this was just made up by a random fan.

“Gojo and Geto rided on two bikes which means love or it’s illegal in Japan.” First of all none of that is true. Riding on two bikes is not illegal in Japan neither does it mean love. Don’t believe everything off Google.

“But they’re soulmates!!, it’s platonic love, they’re mean for each other.” I fear, y’all don’t know what bestfriends mean. Yet again they were never confirms to be soulmates, you can come at me and say “They seem like soulmates, they showed it throughout the movie.” But was it confirmed?? No…Fan interpretation again.

“Gojo smiled at Geto when he saw him again.” Yet, no he didn’t. He knew that wasn’t Suguru because he LITERALLY said it himself and he didn’t believe it was Geto. We don’t know if he smiled or just opened his mouth in shock. Im not gonna assume anything🤷‍♀️

The fact that SOME delusional Satosugu fans will hate on you if you don’t ship saying “your probably a Gojohime shipper” or call you homophobic if you don’t agree with their ships. I know that I don’t ship anyone unless it’s confirmed by the author bcs it leads to drama.

“Gojo and Geto died on the same day! december 24 a romantic day of celebration !!” Alright? And so did Choso? And a lot of others. 24 dec in Japan is a romantic day, not celebrated by lovers. Even families, friends, etc…

“Gege said that both of their theme songs and they’re about breakup and romance!!” Gojo's theme song is Avicii's "Shame on Me" as a "breakup song" doesn't necessarily mean that Satoru and Suguru are more than best friends. It's possible that the song is simply meant to symbolize the end of Satoru's carefree youth and the beginning of his responsibilities as the strongest sorcerer. Regardless, the fact that Gege confirmed that Satoru and Suguru are best friends is the most important piece of information here, and nothing in the manga or anime explicitly confirms them as lovers. "Come back home" by Two Door Cinema Club is Geto’s theme song. Given the title of the song, it could be interpreted as a call for Geto to return home, either metaphorically or literally. It could also symbolize Geto’s desire to return to his former self before he was corrupted and fell into darkness. The song’s lyrics also mention themes of longing and nostalgia, which could be interpreted as reflecting Geto’s feelings of regret for the choices he has made and his desire for redemption. The songs doesn’t always mean their relationship it could relate to their characteristics. What you think of the song can be interpreted tho 🤷‍♀️.

Gojo’s and Geto’s body language isnt even romantic...

Thats all just a headcanon.

They mention "blue summer" which I believe what they mean to say is "Blue Spring". These words come a Japanese word called seishun which uses the kanji for blue and spring. The word means adolescence or youth.

It does not have to be romantic. Its like "one of the best times of my life" Especially before something hits you in the face with the reality of adulthood. Basically, a precious time that you thought would never end.

The song is from Gojo's POV, but it is just about his youth. It isnt romantic. The singer always refers to them as friends in interviews. Here's one you can read.

Also, OP/ED, music, merch, promo art is not canon material. It is fan service. It takes inspiration from the source matrial, but dont take it too seriously.

Sometimes they throw canon things in there but they are not all canon facts unless the mangaka says so. For example, the season 1's second ED from JJK is set in winter at the beach. We know that never happened because the manga finally reached winter in the timeline; some of those characters are MIA from the story; other characters look completely different. That person brought up 12/24... yes it is a romantic day in Japan. Gege most likely made that choice for Yuta's and Rika's pure love. Just happens to be that Geto died that day. Of course Gojo wants to bury his friend on the same day he died; the manga is based on buddhist beliefs.

Just so you know the words that are muted in JJK 0 can be heard in the Italian dub. For some reason they never muted it. You can find it on crunchyroll. Gojo says "Caro amico mio". These words mean "my dear friend". Which correlate perfectly with what Gege said a while back; about how the words can be found in JJK 0; because Gojo and Geto refer to each other as best friends.

Shinyuu is the Japanese word that is used by them.

That word that means closeness like family. The kanji in that word makes it very clear. So "my dear friend" is a great choice for shinyuu.

Nakamura-san (Gojo's voice actor) also refers to Sugita-san (voice actor of Gintoki from Gintama) as “shinyuu," which means best friends or close friends, someone you trust and share happiness with, but not in a romantic way. 青春 (Sei Shyun)

“若 時代” it means a young age, the times back in

your youthful days. It's a time when everything seems so happy and filled with hope. Of course, it can also imply that teenagers are starting to take an interest in the opposite sex. I used "opposite sex" because it typically refers to men if it's for women and women if it's for men.

Ppl on tiktok are just shipping. But i know some do believe it, but toh they are letting head canon run a little wild. They are applying western standards of queer culture to another country. They are saying a story about friendship indicates queerness because they dont watch enough anime or dont do research on eastern countries. Also, a lot of the "hints" arent even canon and are fan service. Japan knows they have fujoshi audience; they will pander to them for money.

Edit:

According to the official english jjk fanbook Gege says Gojo said the words in Jjk O. The fan translation by Shiro and Soukatsu also said that. So thats 3 reliable translation.

So imo gojos words to geto were definitely something like "my best friend, goodbye best friend, etc". Basically something with friend in it lol

Edit 2:

Theres also a theory going around that Gojo's words are

"you'll be lonely." In Japanese its "-MALUK?".

He says this to Yuta.

It would be really fitting consider gojo character arc, and loneliness is a huge theme in the manga.

If this turns out to be true, then Italian dub was

mininfremation.

Its okay if you dont want to believe in the Italian dub. I'm not claiming it is fact. I just know that dubs translate from the original source material. And it matches exactly what the ENG VA said about it being 3 words.

Coping so hard. Bby please turn off the internet for a week.

Bs like this 🤣🤣. “He would’ve made it clear they were JUST friends?” Honey, he did. But it’s okay you just need to experience what it’s like having a bestfriend. It proves you are literally going against the authors words when he just said that they were “BESTFRIENDS”. No point analysing stuff and turning Gege words when he never said any of this bs, your trying to make the ship Canon when it ain’t . Gege doesn’t need to be CLEAR for you, it’s his manga, not yours. If it’s not clear enough for you then that’s your fault. Mad that it’s not canon??? Go read Wattpad or ao3 and goon to them. Guess what, Jjk is a curse killing anime, not a romance.

(Not to all Satosugu fans ily some of them who accept the truth and don’t misinformation. You guys are fine with me ❤️❤️❤️)

[wander-wren]

i’ve been trying to look for critique of 17776 but it’s actually quite hard to find. not because i dislike it (i don’t think you could look at my blog and come away thinking i dislike Football Satellite Story) but because i just like to see critiques of things i like sometimes. opens up the old brain.

plus there are certainly things that i could critique in the story, i just haven’t quite figured out how to articulate them. most of them feel like quite low-hanging fruit, anyway—the whole narrative is predicated on time essentially pausing in the 2020s, plus apparently all bad things have been eradicated (war, hunger, money, i don’t know if it’s explicitly stated but i assume bigotry etc). american government still exists as it does today, at least in name—there is a president and governors. quite a lot to unpack there.

i read 17776 as a utopian story. it’s not a perfect world, but as jon bois says several times, the imperfections are necessary, deliberate, chosen. therefore….don’t they make it perfect? up for debate. it’s certainly the only utopia i’ve encountered that i respect, for the simple fact that it never turns out to be a lie or boring.

that said, there is SO much of the world of 17776 that we don’t see. we don’t see disabled folks, and we especially don’t explore what that looks like with the nanos. we don’t see people from the places that were underwater, that juice tells us survived and “continue their cultural practices elsewhere.” we don’t see anyone wrestle with the premise, that is—no more children. no making new families. no change. a flooded world. an infinite sun. the unfairness of everyone who didn’t make it to the end of the world. and of course you can say, to the last bit, that it’s been 15,000 years, people have already done all of that wrestling. you’re telling me it doesn’t still hit them?

that’s not even touching on the fact that we don’t see the rest of the world. we don’t know what happened to it, what the politics are, what land has even survived. jon bois is very insistent on glossing over all of the difficult questions.

and i’ve written before about how i admire that, for the guts alone if nothing else. why don’t people die? who knows! what about this bad thing? it’s gone. what about this problem with the world? it’s fine.

so 17776 is flawed, mostly in that it is deeply american and apparently uninterested in engaging with the less comfortable parts of its premise. for the first, i want to know what else anyone expected from a story titled “17776: What Football Will Look Like In The Future.” for the second, i maintain that changing that would require that jon bois had simply written a different story.

17776 is ultimately a positive narrative to me. i almost said hopeful, but it’s not that. there’s no hope after the end of the world, there’s no need for hope. it’s just content, despite the occasional dips. this is the part i struggle to articulate, because i so clearly understand where jon bois needed to go, and it is obvious that he was steamrolling over any pesky bits that would detract or distract or slow him down in getting there (again: guts). i respect it.

would telling those grittier narratives, turning this utopia into a dystopia, be worthwhile? certainly, to some. would it wreck the existing themes/message? very probably. would that make a better story? do the themes deserve to be wrecked because the way they were presented is flawed?

up to you.

[throwaway635735]

Thank you for your replies. Now that I know a little more about your personal situation I hate to say anything against your conclusions lest it seem to reflect on your personal choices. To make it even, I’ll tell you a little about my background too.

I am a woman in my 40s. When I was a teenager I married the man who is still my husband today. Neither of us has perfectly lived up to the biblical ideal (or the worldly ideal) of the perfect spouse or the perfect parent. Although my husband sometimes makes me unhappy, it is really valuable and meaningful to me that our marriage is a lifelong commitment not based on our emotions. A lot of the ways in which he causes me grief are due to his physical disability and mental illness, which he didn’t choose and regrets every hour of his life; if I had left him when those emerged and he got less fun to be around, I can’t imagine that he would even still be alive today.

To me, marriage means family, and family means faithfulness, support, and second chances. Of course, that’s an ideal to strive toward daily, not a simple one-and-done decision, and at times things have been so difficult that I can only make myself stay in this marriage when I think of staying as a gift of love from me to God, as my meager attempt to be Christlike by reflecting God’s unconditional love to my husband. At times like that, when I look around my church and see that half of all the couples are remarried after divorce, and hear both the music director and the priest gleefully planning their second weddings (separately; they’re not marrying each other) although neither of their divorces are even finalized, the feeling of being alone in this struggle is agony.

I guess I have to admit that it’s partly for selfish reasons that I wish there was more emphasis on marital fidelity in the affirming churches.

Turning back to the bigger picture, though, I suspect that you and I have a more foundational disagreement on the purpose and usefulness of ideals. When an ideal - like marital fidelity, or honoring your parents, or spreading the good news of the gospel to all nations - has been used by imperfect humans in a fallen world to cause harm and oppress the weak, should we get rid of the ideal because it was used to cause harm, or should we keep it and try to learn to do it better? An interesting question for debate.

This is a bit picky, but I’d like to ask where you got the information that, before Jesus, Jewish women who had been divorced could not remarry and were necessarily left without resources. Looking at Deuteronomy 24:1-2, the woman in this example marries another man after her divorce, and the law does not appear to condemn that part of the story. In fact it was Jesus, not the Torah, who said that marrying a divorced woman is adultery (Matthew 5:32). So I’m curious where you read that Jesus intended to make divorce and remarriage easier for women, which I think is what you mean; I may be misunderstanding you. I wonder… it is a common fault among us Christians that we often unintentionally make pre-Jesus Judaism sound more cruel than it was. Based on the logic that A) Jesus was good and kind, and B) Jesus spoke out against Jewish practices, therefore C) Jewish practices were bad and cruel. Even priests and pastors with PhDs make this mistake, especially when preaching on the parables; it’s something that we all need to watch out for. I wonder if your interpretation has roots in that way of thinking? /respectfully

P.S. you’re right; this Tumblr user loves and supports St Paul and all of the epistles, even the ones that say they were written by Paul but weren’t!

Am I the only Christian on earth who both wholeheartedly supports queer identities and same-sex marriage, and also believes that Christians are called to lifelong marriage with no cohabitation outside of marriage?

Others have advocated better than I can for each of these positions separately. I would only like to point out that it is possible and reasonable for Christians to embrace both positions simultaneously, and to question why I have never yet heard of a church or an individual that did.

Instead, it seems like all of the churches that support same-sex marriage also support (in practice if not on paper) both queer and straight couples living together outside of marriage.

Meanwhile, only the churches that reject queer identities and same-sex marriage dare to set any standards or boundaries on how church members may express their sexuality.

Yes, Christ died for us while we were still sinners, and whoever comes to Him, He will never cast out. Yet He also desires us to sin no more, and to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him.

A Christian approach to sexuality requires self-control and the sacrifice of desires from everyone, regardless of our sexuality. There must be a middle ground where Christians of all sexualities are both accepted and challenged to channel their desires into lifelong marriage commitments. Am I the only one trying to find it?

[faunandfloraas]

Seungmin saying they changed song by so it would be easier for people to watch and listen and then me seeing people going "Yes! It's good it's on tiktok and shorts now" and I'm like. Oh. You're all so fucking stupid <3

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville] was the only member of [Crown Prince Edward of Westminster's] original 1471 council not already on the king’s council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward’s minority. [She remained on the council after it was expanded in 1473 and granted significant new governing and judicial powers]."

"In 1478 Prince Richard married the Mowbray heiress. Like his elder brother he had a chancellor, seal, household and council to manage his estates. His council, like that of Prince Edward, comprised the queen [Elizabeth Woodville] and a group of magnates and bishops, few of whom were Woodville supporters [...] It was Elizabeth who mattered, for Richard resided with her and Rivers treated his affairs as their own."

— J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503 / Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives in the Wars of the Roses

[snekdood]

bitches be like. i hate vegans so much that i’ve decided i like killing animals and its fine and i dont feel bad and animals dont have feelings and its fine and im cool subversive and different and edgy and like to post fucked up stuff to make vegans uncomfortable bc im just so cool

[a-tale-of-legends]

Yeeeeeeeep. It's one of my favorite things about swsh tbh. Just how many parallels that can be made. You pretty much hit every point there. The conflict between Hop and Naomi put a lot of things into perspective with her, Leon and Raihan. It's what inspires her to actually reach out to them again ( she starts with Raihan, bc he isn't as busy as Leon, but they all do end up talking).

Ough, Leon, Carol n Bede sll having to take care of themselves from a young age....yeah. Yeah, that's just about right :')

----

( post darkest day)

Nessa: .....Hey remember that ghost story you told us when we were younger? About the dragon?

Raihan: Yeaaaah?

Nessa:

Raihan:

Raihan: ( realization) WAIT-

Nessa: You jinxed us.

Raihan: NO I DIDN'T!!!!

( she's joking lol)

----

( nods nods) Nessa going into the league as a gym trainer first definitely builds up experience. I think the fact that she got so far within the gym challenge itself made her like one of the top suspects for the new gym leader role, though I don't think she'd just take it without feeling she worked hard for it. Gym challenger is one thing, gym leader is another, you know? Two different fields, two different mindsets- she has to hone in if she wants to be the gym leader she thinks she can be! Of course, this applies to her role as a model as well!!!

When I was writing that, I was just imagining Nessa in like. Full blown fishing gear, something that people would not expect her to wear, willing and ready to rangle aquatic pokemon if needed. She scoffs at Leon suggesting herding wooloo is more difficult - try getting a slippery fien to stay in one place for one second and then come back to her.

Nessa, to me, was always the cool one to Leon. Okay that's a lie. Leon thinks all of his friends are like. The coolest people ever and he's so grateful to have met all of them. Nessa is cool on how she carries herself, how she knows so much about water and the beings within them, as well as the different stories she could tell from simply being a trader's daughter. So yeah, he thinks she's so cool :) ( I think everyone does lol)

---

Soul appearing in Leon's nightmares would be bc he's worried about his health, yes. Like simply being away from him and the family would make things worse ( since he's not there to help). He knows Soul encouraged him to follow his dreams. He knows that, and he's having a blast. But he can't help but worry.

As for Eternatus....maybe? I don't have a lot of brain juice on that, outside of maybe! And. Yeah. Bede could have gone there. I don't think Rose and Oleana....well maybe Oleana( but I also don't know how far she would let Bede go in terms of getting hurt) , but Rose doesn't seem like the type to put Bede in that type of situation ( where. He could get hurt or worse). But Bede willingly going down that path if he'd known about it? He would. His desire to please Chairman Rose is BIG, and getting wishing stars is an absolute must. Going into a restricted area that potentially contains a treasure trove of them? Yes please!

What was the young adults (Nessa, Raihan, Sonia, Leon, etc.) gym challenge like in Legendsverse when they were younger?

And any foreshadowing or hints to Eternatus?

I'm stilllllll figuring that out, especially bc it's been a while since I exactly expressed my ideas of what they were like back then. I'm gonna focus on Leon, Sonia, Raihan and Nessa. Maaaaaybe Piers. We'll see. This will be long so buckle up!

Leon and Sonia are gonna get grouped together for now bc man. The parallels. I haven't fully decided who endorsed them. I wasn't sure if I wanted Leon to be endorsed by Rose and Sonia by someone else, or if Rose endorsed Sonia ( like in the manga) and Mustard endorsed Leon ( old friend of Gerardo, mayhaps?). The point being that these two went on their gym challenge together.

Sonia was the better trainer.

....At first. Sonia was someone who Leon could not beat when they were younger, and in the earlier part of their journey she really was the better trainer, and favorite of the media. Of course, among the favorites, there were plenty of people who called her a nepo baby and thought she was ruining the sport. Leon wasn't that shabby of a battler. But in terms of skill,back then, he wasn't as good as Sonia. But what he did have was passion and determination. Leon knew from the jump what his goals are. He wants to become champion and he wants Galar to become stronger for it. So even if he wasn't as skilled as Sonia ( yet) he was going to claw his way to that top just everyone. And people noticed that. That fiery passion, that light that he had. It was a much more gradual buildup compared to the success of Sonia who was kinda hit with everything from the jump ( can't imagine that really helped with her enjoyment of the gym challenge),and once Leon started going he could not be stopped. And when you just keep going, someone has to get left behind right?

Personality wise, again something I haven't fully thought of. I used to like the idea that Leon was shy, but I think it fits him more that he was always this full of energy and ....I dunno expressive? But also hard to read. Someone who's determined, who's passionate, who has a good laugh, but you always don't know what he's thinking. That. Sonia....I feel she used to be rather confident in herself. Dare I say, she might have been a smart alek back then,willing to "um actually" someone ( Raihan. It was Raihan). But she was still Sonia. She was still awkward, and kinda uncertain of herself at times. She has a tendency to get in her head that just keeps her stuck - oh hey Hop, what are you doing here? ( This kid and his many parallels).

Where Leon gradually became a force that could not stop, Sonia....well. The gym challenge was wearing her down. Like I said, she has a tendency to get stuck in her head. She would make battle plans, said plans fell apart, and she was left floundering her way through a battle. Everyone's eyes were on her and....and all her friends were so bright. Leon was so bright. They all were bright. They all knew what they wanted....did she know what she wanted? When was the last time she enjoyed a pokemon battle? ......

I'm of the mind that Sonia dropped out of the league around the 7th gym, so at Melony's gym. She had won, said gym, but at that point she could have sent herself that she wasn't having fun and just felt. Lost. Her friends were also so far ahead too so. No way she can make a comeback now, huh? I think this is when her and Leon's friendship breaks bc just like Hop and Naomi, it's been them. Sonia and Leon, against the world. I can't imagine what it's like watching your best friend give up ( even if in the long run, it was literally the best option for her mentally), having that friend just. Close herself in. And there's already a big gap between Sonia and Leon by this point, so when Leon turns around to check on her, not only is she far away, but she's most likely walking in the opposite direction. Or at the very least, too far away for him to reach. It's been awkward after that. But this is about the gym challenge so. Story for another time.

Raihan....oh Raihan. It's been years and I still haven't figured out a solid backstory for him. It's driving me insane. So for simplicity sake, I'm gonna say he was endorsed by the old gym leader of Hammerlocke gym. What's their relationship exactly? No clue, and we're not gonna talk about it right now. Kid Raihan....well tbh, I've always seen him as a little chill, but have a very mean mischievous streak. A pure agent of chaos that one. He was a bit more.... rambunctious (?) back then. Kiiiinda wore his heart on his sleeve more and reacted as such- but overall, really chill. Sometimes had to be the voice of reason for Sonia and Leon ( which is incredibly funny since he is most likely the one that put bad ideas in their head/ goad them into trouble. The duality of this kid). Sonia and him would get on each other's nerves and bicker a lot bc their both smart ass kids, and depending on the subject one is more chill than the other. But it gradually just became custom for them and a form of affection! They both ended up becoming the others impulse control. Raihan and Leon.....Leon kept beating him. And despite how chill he is, Raihan has pride, so each loss just makes him more frustrated. Fortunately, Leon being Leon smoothed things over - he honestly couldn't bring himself to be so mad. Plus, their rivalry was fun! They kept each other on their toes, each move being done with great intensity and vigor. Raihan had a goal to one up Leon one day and Leon would embrace it fully. ( Leon being Champion kinda. Sullied that notion. It still exists, but with lots of outside factors going into it, specifically that their rivalry is now treated as something for others to consume and watch, not just two friends who wanted to see each other grow stronger and try and best each other). In the end Raihan was the one that faced off Leon for the champion title....and lost. And honestly, I think. He reacted pretty badly. I can't blame him, he's a kid, his loss was in public for everyone to see, and he worked so hard- I do not blame him for reacting badly. But man did it make things tense between him and Leon. Even when things settled down, and the initial issue was gone, that tenseness never fully went away, but that's getting way ahead of the gym challenge. Overall, Raihan was that chill but very mischievous friend that loved to bicker with Sonia about history and battle Leon to be the best.

Nessa....I don't have much for her outside of this very specific thing: she was competitive as fuck and a bit of a hot head. I see her carrying herself with so much dignity that the other three could not help but move aside when she was walked by. Leon and Raihan found her intimidating/scary. Sonia found her criminally pretty. I actually think it was Sonia that had Nessa integrated into their little group. Not that Leon and Raihan didn't interact with her, but Sonia was the one that couldn't help but want to get to know her. I mean, she was so confident! How on earth can she be able to walk by like she owned the place. She had to figure it out. ( Raihan: Or you just folded at the first pretty face you saw. Leon: Pfft- Sonia: SHUT UP!!!). They actually became fast friends! Nessa was friendly, if not a bit more stern about the gym challenge ( "quite fooling around and take this seriously!" <- something I can see her saying). Leon and her actually ended up getting along REALLY well! I think it's the market kids bonding over their families respective trade - humble beginnings I suppose. Raihan pissed her off a lot though. One minute they could be having a normal friendly conversation and the next, Raihan is laughing his ass off while Nessa is shaking him by his shirt. And yeah! I'm not sure when she got eliminated - yes eliminated, Nessa is not someone to quit imo. Maybe during the champion cup, maybe somewhere else. But I think she had a really good run! I can actually see her being the one to encourage Sonia to quit her gym challenge, since she saw how unhappy it was making her. I think the promise that they'll still be friends and Nessa cares more about Sonia's happiness kinda just cemented the feelings Sonia had, both platonically and romantically. Nessa is a good good friend to Sonia,even past the gym challenge and years to come.

Yeaaaaah, I'm not doing Piers I don't have much for him. I do think it was Raihan that befriended him first! I feel like he was very much that friend of a friend that didn't reallllly hang out with the others as often but would still get dragged into their shenanigans and was genuinely part of the group. He was the closest to Raihan, but still gave every one cute lil nicknames :3

And finally: Eternatus is weird timeline wise. I don't think Rose got it around the time Leon became champion. I feel that happens some years into Leon's career? Maybe in his teens. So during the gym challenge, Eternatus was still very much a fossil.....but here's an idea. Leon gets lost. Like he usually does. But it's worse here, because he's lost within the deeper levels of the Galar mines. Charmeleon is with him, so he can see, and he's fairly confident in his ability to handle the wild pokemon....but it still sucks. ( It's moments like these that makes him wish that the Galar Rangers are still a thing. Wish that his dad was there to guide him). So he's still wandering around, trying to get himself out of this strange situation....and then he sees it. On the wall,a giant fossil. Or at least, a piece of a fossil? He can't really say but it's there. Right before him. Has anyone ever seen it before? He is rather deep into the mine- he's pretty sure he's not supposed to even be there. Sonia would love to get a look at it.....he can't seem to turn his eyes away. There's something about the fossil. Something.... daunting. Something heavy. It makes his stomach sink, and he feels himself shutter a little but he can't look away. It wouldn't be until Charmeleon takes a hold of Leon's hand , looking at it's trainer with concern. Leon smiles, even if it's clearly nervous, thanks Charmeleon and turns away from the fossil. He eventually does get out of the caves, gets scolded by Sonia and Raihan and goes among his merry way. He forgets about the fossil by then. Though maybe it's still there, at the back of his mind. Maybe that's why, when he sees it again, it feels so familiar.

Just a lil plot bunny for ya :)

[morningmask27]

Tonight, right now, not even ten minutes ago, might have been the closest I got to an outright hatecrime