#the way TR presents abuse is interesting

[bibibbon]

It's just infuriating seeing media after media doing the same mistake! All because the folks in charge of creating these medias keep favoring these horrible characters so much, that they rather make EVERYBODY suffer than to hold them accountable! It's turning into propaganda at this point! Enable the abusers/jerk*sses/monsters, but condemn/lash out/hate the victims, kind people, and people who fight back! Ps, Transformers Earthspark had a MHA Easter egg in one of the human kid's room, making how the show handle abuse and racism/immigration themes feel like they took a book from MHA but watered it down. 5/5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 part 4 part 5

There are many shows and pieces of media that handle and present the topic of abuse differently.

Abuse comes in many forms and can effect others in different ways meaning that there are a lot of different ways it can be explored in shows.

A lot of the shows can ineffectively explore abuse in a horrible way and make their shows messaging sound awful and while ONE of the reasons is character favouritism there are many other reasons like simply not giving the issue enough screentime to develop or not narratively highlighting the issue of abuse and more

I think a great example of a show that has some trouble dealing effectively with abuse (but it's not because the author favours the abuser character) is tokyo revengers

The way tokyo revengers handles abuse is well interesting (I do have some critiques that are mainly surrounding the akashi family and Shiba family)

I understand that due to the manga publishers cancelling the manga and making Ken wakui wrap it up at chapter 278 combined with wakui's own health issues that he wasn't able to delve deeper into the unhealthy and dysfunctional dynamic of the akashi family. The unequal treatment of sanzu and senju by takemoi or the neglect that they all went through or the straight up hate that sanzu has for senju and takemoi ETC ETC. However, I still feel like it's important to bring this up since it seemed like there was potential for them to be developed and portrayed in an interesting light.

Moving on to the Shiba family. I think that the Shiba family and their arc was written well! My problem lies with the friendship that mitusya and taiju fromed and more specifically the lack of screentime when it came to the aftermath of the black dragon for the Shiba family. We are told that taiju changes his ways but it's not shown specifically with the way he Interacts with his siblings. I also have a problem with how yuhza an important character in all of this isn't actively present here at all especially when it comes to her brothers 'change'.

Now the Shiba family dynamic is interesting to me. You have taiju the older brother who is viewed and introduced as the primary caregiver of yuhza and hakai since neither their mother or father is in the picture. We never learn much about their parents since the story is told from hakai and yuhza's prespectives. It can be argued that the eldest sibling taiju maybe aware of what happend to his parents and that they may have influenced his behaviour well we know that their absence within the family definitely did since there was no one to correct taiju's aggressive behaviour and it maybe from the absence of his parents within his life that he started to develop such a twisted idea of family and using it to manipulate his siblings.

We actively see the consequences of taiju's actions whether that be hakkai and yuhaza growing afraid and distant towards taiju because of his manipulative and abusive behaviour or hakkai developing a twisted idea of love and saying that he always though that "love was supposed to be painful" until he met mitsuya. We even see a young hakkai start to mimic taiju's aggressive behaviour in beating kids up but all of that changed when hakkai met mitsuya.

The narrative goes out of its way to clearly contrast mitsuya and taiju. They are direct foils to each other and show two vastly different ideas. This is best shown during their fight when we see their beliefs clash with mitsuya making a grand entrance and saying that to be a big brother you need to forgive and be kind to your family whereas in taiju's case we see him try to murder and belittle his siblings.

The narrative (thankfully) frames mitsuya in the right. Going on a tangent, but the way mitsuya and taiju are framed is interesting to me. We clearly see that taiju is depicted as the much more muscular and stronger looking one whereas mitsuya is the shorter and less muscular character. I think its interesting that this view can be framed in a way where we see that mitsuya is the little tiny sliver of hope within the black dragon arc and this specific fight.

Mitsuya represents both his belief of family and becomes the embodiment of hope and courage for hakkai, taking hits and matching taiju's strength punch for punch (kind of reminds me of the interpretation of hope. Hope isn't some strong dude or girl but just an incredibly resilient being whose covered in mud and blood and would still get up and shine because that's them:hope).

Mitsuya influences hakkai and both him and takemichi end up influencing him to stand up for himself and him sister. Mitsuya influences hakkai to stand up and tell the truth while takemichi and his actions help hakkai come to an understanding that even with his fear and cowardice towards his older brother he needs to and will stand up to taiju. The fight ultimately ends with taiju defeated by Mikey and the siblings leaving taiju behind.

Now I do like this ending of the fight as I think it showed:

Hakkai and yuhaza are no longer connected or associate with taiju

They have both developed and managed to overcome taiju (their abuser)

Hakkai has overcome his cowardice and his inferiority of not being able to be a man and be the one to take the hits for yuhaza

Yuhaza finally receives acknowledgement for what she sacrificed and is no longer bound to be taiju's punching bag, neither is she bound to protect hakkai from taiju

Taiju is the one that loses everything that ranges from his family, to his gang, power and even money (that he used koko to gain)

There's a hint of hypocrisy and irony in Taiju's arc here as he is a religious Christian who went to pray in a church during Christmas eve. Taiju went to pray which is seen as a form if religious practice yet he doesn't follow his religion properly, I am not Christian but iam pretty sure that abusing, manipulating and beating your siblings is a sin. Ultimately, taiju ends up losing everything and his family on Christmas eve which in Japan is am incredibly important day as its spent with your loved ones to share and spread joy yet the complete opposite occurs.

My main problem with taiju's arc is how wakui involves him in the story later on. We see fromba tiny flashback that mitsuya and taiju are in contact and they seem to be friendly. We also are shown and somewhat told that taiju has changed but the thing that annoys me is that we don't see that change, we don't see or get to know why and how it happend. Finally, we don't even get to truly see hakkai's and yuhaza's reactions to all of this (at least with hakkai we got to see a shocked face but even that is too little and they robbed yuhaza of screentime)

The fascinating thing is that while abusive, unhealthy and toxic family dynamics within tokyo revengers play a big role in the story, there is also focus on individual characters who have been abused.

What I mean is that tokyo revengers also focuses on characters personal abuse without the families of those characters being active fleshed our characters. The two primary characters of this are takemichi and kazutora.

Takemichi's experience from the first timeline specifically his life experience between middle school to his adult life are what shaped him as a character. The reason why takemichi is so weak willed and such a bad fighter in the beginning of the manga all adds up to what happend to him with kiyomasa and him running away. Takemichi is in a sense a haunted character because even after creating and altering the timelines so much that they aren't recognisable he still is very much effected by kiyomasa and the manga takes it time dealing with the effects of that (while kiyomasa's name is never directly stated to be the cause its kind of obvious it is) however, more focus on kiyomasa and takemichi specifically would of been interesting and needed in my opinion. While kiyomasa and takemichi do interact and takemichi does try and fight against kiyomasa just to fail and return to square one remembering just how much kiyomasa and his abuse truly effected and haunted him. Overall, I do think that later on in the series we should of gotten a chapter where takemichi meets kiyomasa again and contrast chapter 1 takemichi with the now developed, stronger and currently healing takemichi.

During his time under kiyomasa takemichi was used as a tool. He and his friends had to become perfect bidding tools using their bodies fighting, winning and losing to entertain a crowd all while getting beat by kiyomasa if they didn't achieve the desired goal or effect. This continued on for approximately 3 years of takemichi's life being physically and emotionally beaten by kiyomasa to such a degree that the second he graduated from middle school he ran and never looked back. Kiyomasa's mistreatment was so bad and horrendous that takemichi thought his only escape was to move far away even if it meant sacrificing everything else like his friends, girlfriend, education and home. Ultimately, even though takemichi ran foolishly trying to achieve a sense of autonomy and agency he ends up having it robbed again by another thing: capitalism.

Due to the lack of education takemichi receives and the direction his life choices took him in, he ends up being a slave to the modern cooperate system (japan is also known for their work culture). In the end, takemichi can only bow down to others and ask for forgiveness if he ever did anything wrong. Due to the damage kiyomasa's abuse caused and the slowly pileling reasons of him accidently doing something wrong and peoples reactions start to all eat at him and effect him. Being told that you're incompetent and useless so many times that you also start to think so and become the embodiment of that as well. Takemichi's life was never free and so he couldn't run away from a job meaning that all he could do is apologise and mentally try and escape his miserable life devoid of loved ones.

In all of this running and avoidance takemichi forgets who he really is and forgets himself. This is exactly why we see him shocked to hear his ex girlfriends name or how he believed that middle school was his peak but when he sees himself he realises that he is wrong. This can also explain why takemichi physically forgot how he acted at that age or how he forgot how to fight. Takemichi was trained and toughened (forced to for survival) during the 3 years kiyomasa made him fight like a lab rat. In all of those years michi would of learnt the basics and even more so it makes sense he would of left that all behind and tired to forget everything in the end.

Even through out the series Takemichi's behaviour reflects this. He is always effected by that incident and it haunts him. Takemichi feels, acknowledges and even sobs that he is inferior that if he was a bit more like Mikey in terms of strength or a bit more like draken in terms of kindness or a bit more like baji in terms of courage he would of already solved everything, he would of already saved everyone and had the perfect life. Whenever anything goes wrong he blames himself and his flaws. This is mainly seen in chapter 134 and 135 when takemichi contemplates if he should just die since he believes that it was due to his incompetence that naoto died.

Evidently, through his own experiences loneliness and fear takemichi is able to understand and help other characters like hakkai and mikey even if it cost his life because takemichi has experienced loneliness, how painful it is, how haunting and scaring it is and he wouldn't wish it on anyone else especially people he cares about.

As the series progresses takemichi comes to terms with these aspects of himself and even if he beats himself up for it he comes to the understanding that these things are apart of him and that he can live surrounded with loved ones. He would do anything to achieve that goal even if it meant sacrificing his original ideal world the bonten arc because he understood and hated what mikey was going through.

In the end I definitely enjoy the way tokyo revengers handles abuse however, some of the cases wakui tries to tackle like the akashi family and South end up falling apart due to the lack of focus and development. There are good cases of how the story handles abuse like the Shiba family, takemichi and kazutora but they do end up being quite flawed and in my opinion need more development

[loveharlow]

SEVEN - 005

PAIRING ‧₊˚ JJ Maybank x Fem!Reader

SYNOPSIS‧₊˚[6.2k] based on 1x05.

WARNING(S)‧₊˚ swearing, mild violence, detainment, mentions of child abuse

NOW PLAYING‧₊˚

A/N‧₊˚ here's how I imagine TR's midsummer's outfit, also shoutout to Chris on the tumblr support team and bigger shoutout to @thepoguelife101 for helping me to get this uploaded.

˗ˏˋ series masterlist ˎˊ˗

PETERKIN SLAMMED HER OFFICE DOOR SHUT. You sat in the chair across from her personal one, avoiding her eyes as she sat on the wood of the desk. “Y’know, I expected to see your friend in here. But not you.” The woman started. “Especially not with a felony as your first offense. Felony destruction of property could get you tried as an adult.” 

You remained silent, fiddling with your fingernails as she tried to intimidate you with an unwavering stare. A common interrogation tactic, you learned that from your mother. 

“Unlawful discharge of a firearm, trespass on protected habitat, felony destruction. Those are all Maybank’s charges, your little partner in crime?” She listed off. “I want you to take a trip with me into uncharted territory — your future. Picture this,” She started, leaning in further. “You, six months from now, sittin’ in juvie in Wadesboro, just a cell block away from the Maybank boy.”

You cringed at the thought, eyes finally looking at the Sheriff in front of you. She pulled out two papers from a manilla folder, laying them out in front of you. “You seen these guys? You know ‘em?” She inquired, crossing her arms over her chest as your eyes scanned the pictures.

They were mugshots of the square groupers. But you remained silent, jaw clenched and eyes stoic. “Do I need to repeat myself?” Her voice was lower now. You pondered for a few moments, should you tell her or keep quiet? But you figured the damage was already done.

“They…broke into John B’s house, trashed the place. They chased us through The Marsh, too.” You told her, making eye contact with the older woman now and scratching the back of your neck. 

She huffed under her breath, pulling more documents from the folder. “Here’s a more recent photo.” She laid them out, the photos presented to you almost made you gag. They were autopsy images of the groupers — deep slashes, pale skin, and bloated bodies. “Somebody gaffed ‘em, then used ‘em for chum. Whoever killed these men is still out there, and I got pretty solid reasons to believe their next target is that friend of yours. John B?” She told you. 

Then, she was leaning down so close that her lips were right next to your ear but you didn’t move. “You kids don’t think you’re the only ones after the Royal Merchant, do you?” Your eyes flicked over to hers, staring at the woman through hooded lids. “Yeah, I know about that, too.” She muttered before getting up and rounding the desk again, placing herself behind it.

“He isn’t looking for it, anymore.” You blurted, straightening in the metal chair. “Okay? He’s done.”

“Yeah, your friend said the same thing when I had him in here. I’m just tryna keep him safe. So, I’m gonna tell you the same thing I told him. See if your friend John B is interested in talkin’ to me and maybe we can keep you out of Wadesboro.” She snipped, shuffling the documents back into her folder and leaving the office.

“ARE YOU HER GUARDIAN?” The officer behind the reception desk asked, your mother shuffling with her purse angrily on the other side of the glass as you stood behind her. 

“Unfortunately. I’m her mother.” She snapped, sending a nasty glare your way that you rolled your eyes in response to. 

“Hearing will be in two weeks. If you fail to show up, you forfeit your bail.” The lady-officer informed, not even offering up a glance. “The restitution will be based on the average of three outside estimates of the cost of the damaged article. Sign right here, please...” She instructed, shoving the clipboard through the glass-slot.

You squinted your eyes harshly and sighed. You didn’t even think about restitution and your were praying that Topper’s boat wasn’t crazy expensive. You could faintly hear your mother muttering under her breath as she absentmindedly scribbled her signature on the bottom of the papers, spinning the clipboard back around to the officer before turning on her heels to face you.

“Let’s go. Now.” Her pumps clacked against the precinct floors, the woman practically throwing the Sheriff Station doors open. You followed closely behind, throwing your slightly matted hair into a ponytail. The jailhouse look was not your best one. “So, when I told you about the Thornton’s boat you just neglected to mention that you were the one that did it?”

You yawned as you tried to keep up with her pace, too tired to respond sensibly. “Yeah, I guess…”

She chuckled with no humor behind it. “The least you could do is pretend to care. The only reason I’m not going to make you pay this restitution your damn self is because I don’t need this becoming a bigger issue than it already is. Do you think I need the entirety of Figure Eight knowing my daughter’s facing a felony charge against one of the most prominent families on the island?”

“Right…” You dragged out, licking the bottom of your front teeth. “Because God forbid the Cul de sac finds out I sunk a boat after getting roundhouse kicked in the ribs...”

Your mother sighed, stopping on the driver’s side of her sleek, black SUV as your rounded the passenger side. Just then, you spotted JJ walking with his father, who you hadn’t seen in God knows how long. Your mother seemed to follow your line of vision, wagging her finger from the other side of the car.

“No. You?” She pointed. “You stay away from that boy, do you hear me? You stay away from all of those pogues.”

“Are you serious? He’s my best friend.”

“Yeah, well not today, he isn’t. Get in the damn car.” She spat, yanking her own door open and jumping inside before slamming it shut. You stood with your hand on the handle, watching JJ hesitantly get in the car with his father. Reluctantly, you opened your own passenger side door and got inside. Your mother nearly broke the key with the aggressive that she started the car with.

Your eyes were glued on Luke’s vehicle as your mother drove off but you could’ve sworn their car was shaking a crack-addict. And if you weren’t crazy, you saw a fist connect with a face through the back windshield. Your back straightened in your seat. “Wait, mom-”

“You mind your business.” She warned, looking between the road and you. “What happens between that boy and his father is none of your concern...”

YOU PRACTICALLY BOLTED UP TO THE COMFORT OF YOUR ROOM WHEN YOU WALKED THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR. Marley was sitting on your bed. You felt bad for being away from her so often recently, but you knew she could entertain yourself. You always left her three bowl of food and water when you had a feeling you’d be gone, knowing your mom didn’t care for the dog as much as she used to. Or at all, really.

Your mother had stopped her yelling and berating about ten minutes into the ride home, receiving a phone call from Shoupe. Even with the device to your ear, you could still make out what the man was saying.

He and Peterkin sent out units to basically spy on John B ‘s house, planning to wait until the boy appeared and make their move. Moments like this made you despise living on an island that was hit by frequent hurricanes, unable to warn any of your friends about what was happening, especially not knowing when John B would pop back up after his run from DCS.

The animal jumped off the bed at the sight of you, jumping on you as you knelt down to her height.

“Hey, Marls.” You cooed, scratching the retriever’s neck as you wiggled up underneath you. “I know, I miss you too. How you been, girl?”

“...Thanks, Anna. I’ll let her know..” Your mothers voice rang in your ears as she stopped in front of your open door, ending the call she was on. Her attention was directed towards you now as she rolled up the sleeves on her blazer slightly. “Clean yourself up. You’re going dress shopping with Kiara.”

“For?”

“Midsummers. You’re going.” You groaned, you’d never been to Midsummer’s because this was your first-year as a Figure Eight resident. With the help of Mrs. C, Kie’s mom, your mom managed to wiggle her way into the Island Club, scoring you an place at Midsummers. Kie described it as the ‘Met Gala from Hell’.

“Wouldn’t a better punishment be not allowing me to go?” You tried, even though you knew she’d never go for it.

“No because that’s exactly what you want, both you and Kiara.” She said, so you assumed this was a small punishment for your best friend, too. “Shower, buy a nice presentable dress, and be there. On time.” Was all the woman said before she continued down the hall to her own room.

Your eyes drifted down to the dog as you pouted, she was staring up at you cutely, mouth open and tail wagging. “I’ll steal you some sliders”

“SERIOUSLY, YOU LOOK GREAT.” Kie gushed beside you, eyeing your hair as you walked into the dress shop. “Like, I know neither of us want to go but you look like a goddess. For real.” 

You couldn’t help but giggle, bell jingling above the door as you both entered the small corner shop on the mainland. “I won’t say I don’t want to go just yet. I’ve never been...” You told the brown-haired girl. 

“Anything I can help you ladies with?” An employee approached with a bright smile, hands clasped in front of her. She looked so well put together.

“Oh, we’re okay. Thank you.” Kiara politely declined, leading to the racks in the back by your arm. “Everything in here is so hideous but there is a gold mine in the back. No pun intended.” She whispered as she tugging you towards racks you wouldn’t even know were there without her.

“Sometimes, people try and hide their shit on the clearance rack so no one will take it and they can come back and buy it later.” She told you.

You eyed a couple of dresses that peeked your interest — a slim black one, a floral green one, a lacey blue one. There were so many. You plucked up at least five dresses from the rack, Kie’s arms just as full as you both silently search, the shop music playing in the back.

When you were both satisfied, you rushed to the dressing rooms. Kie went first and you almost forgot how picky she was. The girl looked good in almost anything but when she walked out in a purple, cowl necklace, satin dress, you both knew it was the one.

“Oh my, Kie, you look so good!” You exclaimed, squealing like a school-girl. “The purple makes your skin look amazing, Kie, you have to get it.”

“I’m not leaving the shop without it.” She said like it was the most obvious thing in the world, a smile on her face. “Okay, let me change so you can try yours on.” She said, slipping back into the dressing room as you gathered your hangers of dresses from the seat beside you and entered the room after she left.

The first couple of dresses were just not your thing. It was either too loose or unflattering in color. You were about to give up and head back to the racks until you realized you still had one more dress to try on — a mulberry colored dress with a sweetheart neckline. Slipping it on, you stepped out of the dressing room and did a twirl for a Kie.

“...If you don’t buy it, I fucking will.” She looked you up and down with wide eyes.

“Is that a yes?” You questioned.

“It’s a hell yes.” She scoffed. “You look stunning in that dress, Y/N.”

“Need any help in here?” The same employee from earlier came in, stopping in her tracks when her eyes landed on you. “My God, it suits you so well.” You weren’t sure if she was just doing her job but her compliment was all you needed to decide that this was your Midsummers dress, for sure. “Oh! I have just the thing to compliment it.” The woman gushed, rushing out of the fitting room and returning within seconds, a flower-band hairpiece in her hands. 

She placed it gently atop your hair, adjusting it until it sat right. She told you you looked beautiful and left you and Kie to yourselves once more, not before bringing a matching hairpiece for Kie that suited her purple dress. The employee took all of your unwanted dresses back for you while the both of you re-dressed and went back out to search for shoes.

With Kie’s help, you settled on a pair of block-heel pumps that closely resembled the color of your dress. The woman at the register happily rung you both up, offering you a friendly smile on your way out the door. You were maybe five feet from leaving when a familiar head of blonde hair entered the shop as you and Kie were leaving, bumping in between the middle of both of you.

“Oh! I’m so sorry-” She stopped mid-apology when she realized who she was apologizing to. “Oh. It’s just you two.” Sarah’s tone wasn’t as cheery as she eyed you both up and down. “Midsummer’s?” She asked, motioning towards the bags in your hands.

“Yep.” Kie gave the girl a fake smile. “How about you? Out for prey?”

“Okay, you know what, Kie?” Sarah started, causing a scene in the small shop as you tugged on Kie’s arm.

“We should just go…” You whispered.

“Oh! And thanks for sinking my boyfriend’s boat, Y/n. Real classy.” You couldn’t help but scoff, edging in front of Kiara.

“Which boyfriend? I mean, it’s clear that Top isn't your main man anymore, so when’s the next guy gonna pop out?” The blonde girl smiled, licking the bottom of her top teeth before speaking.

“Be careful what you wish for.” She spoke in hushed tone, your eyes pinching in on each other.

“The hell’s that supposed to mean?” Kie jumped in.

“Is there a problem… over here?” An employee came over, a much older woman. The manager you assumed.

“No.” You replied, winding your arm through keys before pushing the store door open. “No problem at all.” You told the lady, eyes mugging Sarah as you left.

“EXCUSE ME SIR, DO WE HAVE TO SHUCK THESE OURSELVES?” Kiara put on a fake accent as you both snuck up behind Pope, the boy turning around with an irritated expression before realizing it was you two. “‘Cause it might mess up my costume.” Kie laughed.

He smiled and pulled you both into a tight hug. When he released you both, he turned to you first. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve never-”

“Pope, don’t. It was my idea.” He swallowed his pride, accepting that you wouldn’t allow him to apologize.

“Have you seen JJ? Since the arrest?” He asked, voice laced with worry.

You nodded. “We spent the night in the holding cell together. Last I saw him was when he left the station with his dad…” You told him, the events of this morning flashing in your mind. You knew JJ’s dad was a little off his rocker but now you were wondering just how bad it’s gotten. 

Pope’s mind seemed to wander after that. You wanted to ask if he knew anything, if you were right to be worried but you decided to just wait until you saw JJ. 

“You ever seen this many kooks in one place?” Kie cut in, staring at the growing crowd of people.

“Yeah,” Pope replied, standing next to her. “Last year.”

“We’re in the lion’s den.” She said solemnly, eyeing Topper and Kelce from across the field.  Applause broke out prompting your attention to turn to the family entering the party — The Camerons. Rose, Ward, Rafe, Sarah, and Wheezie descended the stairs in typical Cameron fashion. “Here come Lord Capital and the Exploiters. This is gonna be fun…”

IT’D BEEN A COUPLE HOURS SINCE YOU’D ARRIVED AT MIDSUMMERS. You and Kie had been sneaking Pope drinks as he worked, almost getting busted by Heyward. 

“Y’know, I’ll admit,” Kie started as you both leaned against each other while Pope continued preparing food in front of the grill. “This is a lot more fun with you guys here.”

“Aww,” You cooed, rubbing the girl’s arm. “We love you, too.”

She giggled. “Are you tipsy?” You looked up at her through your lashes as you leaned on her arm. You held up your hand, hovering your index finger and thumb in front of one another.

“Jus’ a little.” You whispered, eyes drifting around the party. You watched the party-goers dance and drink and socialize. But your eyes managed to land on a familiar head of scruffy blonde hair. “Is that JJ?” You perked up, taking your weight off of Kiara. You hiked up your dress slightly in order to speed-walk across the lawn and reach the boy, Kiara calling out behind you. “JJ!” you whisper-yelled, catching the boys attention.

He looked star-struck for the briefest of moments and he still hadn’t spoken when you reached him. You waved a hand in front of his face, snapping him out of it and watching a small smile edge on his features.

“It’s so good to see you, princess.” He cheered quietly pulling you into a tight bear-hug, lifting you a few inches off the ground. You didn’t hesitate to hug him back, wounding your arms around his neck right before he put you down. 

But your smile dropped when you got a good look at his face. “JJ..” You whispered, fingers tracing the bottom of his lip where a large cut sat, a large bruise on his cheek. “Did your dad do this?”

His blue eyes met yours, pulling your hand from his face and holding it in his own and edging closer to you. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”

“What do you mean don’t worry about it, JJ? He can’t hit you like that-”

“It’s nothing that hasn’t happened before.” He cut you off. “Okay? Just keep it to yourself. Please, Y/n.”

You looked between both of his eyes — they were pleading with you to just drop it. To let it go. And you didn’t want to. But JJ did. You nodded, squeezing his hand. “Okay…” you agreed. “Don’t worry about all of this, okay? My mom’s gonna pay the restitution, so if that’s why your dad’s mad just let him know-”

“It’s okay.” The blonde. “John B and I, we have a plan. We’re back in the G-game.” Your eyes went wide.

“But there was nothing there. The wreck was empty, JJ.” 

“John B will explain everything, alright? But I have to do somethin’ really really quick.” He backed away, walking backwards from you, basically skipping. “And you look gorgeous, by the way! Prettiest Pogue Princess there ever was!” He mildly-shouted as he walked away, a bright smile breaking out on your face. 

You turned back around to find Kie just standing there. “What was that?” She inquired as you both walked back to Pope. 

“What was what?” You asked, plucking a shrimp off the scorching grill as Pope swatted your hand away with the tongs.

“You and JJ…” She trailed off. “You don’t think that was weird?”

You scoffed, looking up at her through your lashes. “He’s one of my best friends, Kie. Plus, we’ve been through a lot in the last 24 hours. Why are you making it weird?” She didn’t respond after that, just giving you an odd look. You only spoke again once Pope asked what happened. “JJ says we’re back in the G-game.”

“How?” Pope asked, still paying most attention to the food in front of him.

“Not sure. He says John B will explain it all later.” You pulled your phone out of your bra, looking at the time. “Shit. I need to go find my mother before I become the next thing on the grill. She wants me to meet some business partners of hers.” You dismissed, waving goodbye to your two friends.

You weaved through the crowd, spotting your mother at one of the decorated table talking to a much older, elderly couple. She spotted you and pointed before motioning you over. You stood next to her, smiling at the couple.

“Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty, this is my daughter, Y/n.” You shook their hands, told them it was nice to meet them. Your mother had explained that these were the people that helped her succeed in law so she wanted you to meet them and get their advice, despite your several protests that law was not your desired career path.

She kept trying to fit you into her shoes knowing they would never fit. But you listened to their takes and advice, mostly for their sake. You’d been idly engaging until you saw JJ bolt into the clubhouse, Rafe and his crew hot on his tail. Your plastered smile dropping for the smallest of moments.

“I’m so sorry,” You chuckled awkwardly. “You wouldn’t mind if I used the restroom, would you?”

“Not at all, darling-” The old woman told you but your mother was quick to add in her two cents.

“You can hold it, can’t you?” She fake laughed, eyes going back and forth between you and her mentors. “I mean, you wouldn’t want to be rude.”

“I didn’t know peeing was rude, Mother.” You cocked your head, lifting the skirt of your dress as to not trip over it on your way into the clubhouse, looking at the Daugherty’s once more before you left, offering them a smile. “Excuse me.” 

You walked as fast as you could into the building, accidentally bumping guest after guest on your way in. You no longer had sights on the group of guys, following the trail of shocked guests and shifted furniture that they left behind. 

To the people around, you probably looked a little crazed but this wasn’t like at The Point or at The Golf Course or during The Movie. Rafe would have JJ cornered with two guys behind him. You knew that realistically you stood no chance against a trio of guys but you weren’t about to leave JJ to fend for himself.

You searched the place up and down, stumbling towards the restrooms, immediately heading into the men’s one. You ignored the wold-whistles, protests, and men peacefully using the urinals, following the sound of hushed voices into the connected locker room. 

“Actually, there is an issue,” You heard JJ’s voice as you got closer. “We got a criminal trespass in progress here. Blatant disrespect for private property, I’m in violation of all kinds of shit here, sir.” You shook your head at his words, knowing he was seconds away from getting thrown out. The Island Club’s security was tight. 

“Excuse me, miss,” a voice startled you from behind, causing you to whip around. “You can’t be in here.” You opened your mouth, stuttering to find an excuse as the other security stared at you but you just settled on throwing your arms up. Clearly, JJ was safe, even though he was getting kicked out. 

As you were being led out, you looked behind you to see that the other officer had a hold of JJ before Rafe’s voice sounded out. “Hey, tell Y/n she looks hot in that dress! But she looks so much hotter out of it, trust me!” The Cameron boy laughed out and you watched as JJ snatched himself out of the guard’s hold and charged back into the locker room. The action made your heart jump but you weren’t sure for what reason as the other guard continued leading you out into the main hall of the clubhouse. 

You weren’t sure which exit the other security guard has escorted JJ out of so you made your way back to the deck of the clubhouse, head whipping left and right until you spotted that familiar head of blonde hair. JJ was reckless and chaotic but he was still your friend.

You weren’t gonna watch as they practically threw him out an event when he didn’t even instigate anything. “It’s okay everybody! Do not panic.” He shouted with his hands up in the air, the majority of the party’s attention now on him. “Leave it to the men and woman in uniform. Let’s hear it for them! Rose, you look like lady liberty.” 

“You can let go of him!” You called, skipping down the steps and into the grass. “He doesn’t have to be manhandled, he didn’t do anything!” The security turned to you, still gripping JJ by the upper arm. JJ took the opportunity to shove the man off of him, his blue eyes on yours across the lawn.

“Hey, mandatory power hour at Rixon’s, princess!” He pointed at you. “Kie? Pope?” He motioned to them as well. “Rixon’s Cove. Let’s roll! Throw off your chains!” You watched as Kiara snatched away from her parents and Pope ran away from his dad. You were making a move to follow them when a hand gripped your upper arm, your mother coming into view.

“We talked about this.” She said firmly, fire in her eyes. “Do not embarrass me, right now.” The woman warned.

“I don’t think there’s any way for me to make you proud anymore, Mom.” You told her sadly in a hushed tone before snatching your arm out of her grip, running towards your friends. You could hear her calling out your name behind you but you ignored her, jumping into JJ’s open arms and leaving Midsummers. 

CICADA’S CHIRPED IN THE MIDDLE OF RIXON’S COVE AS YOU ALL SAT AROUND A RAGING BONFIRE, waiting for JB to speak. “So, like, my dad’s already gonna kill me.” Pope started, sat on a log in front of the fire across from you and Kie while JJ and John B stood, throwing rocks. “So, what’s this mandatory meeting about?”

The two boys sat down, eyeing each other before JJ spoke. “Might as well tell him before we’re gaffed, man.” He said, the statement mainly directed at John B.

“...The gold never went down with the Royal Merchant. It’s been here the whole time.” The brunette said, a small victorious smile on his face.

“Here?” You exclaimed incredulously from where your head laid on Kiara’s shoulder. He just offered up a simple nod.

“It’s on the island.”

“I would like to voice my skepticism.” Pope raised his hand.

“I’m sure you would, Pope, but can I please present you my evidence, sir?” John B spoke mockingly as he got up to speak at the forefront of the group.

Pope motioned with his hand. “Proceed.”

“In my backpack, I have a letter from Denmark Tanny. Denmark Tanny was a slave that survived the Royal Merchant wreck. Check it,” He handed Kiara the letter as you eyed it as well. “Slaves weren’t mentioned as crew members on the ship, but my dad found the complete manifest. That was his big discovery. Tanny used the gold from the Merchant to buy his freedom, and then his farm.”

Kiara passed the paper across the fire for JJ and Pope to see as John B continued. “And that farm is, drumroll please…” Kiara patted her thighs rapidly, shaking your frame back and forth which prompted you to sit up straight. “Tannyhill Plantation.”

You blinked hard, craning your neck forward. “Tannyhill?” You and Kie exclaimed simultaneously. Like, the Cameron’s Tannyhill?

“Yeah. After that, he used the money to free even more slaves, and then he sold a shit-ton of rice, which pisses off all the white planters, and they decide to lynch him. On the day they were coming to get him, he writes a farewell letter to his son and in the last line of that letter, he leaves a coded message about the gold’s location.”

“Where?”

“Harvest the wheat in parcel nine, near the water. Except, there’s no wheat. Wheat is code for gold, seeing as the gold has the wheat symbol engraved into it.” He slapped Pope’s shoulder with a smile.

“Holy shit...” The dark-skinned boy said. 

“All we need is an original survey map of the property, and we’ve found the gold.” John B concluded, small smiles on the faces of the entire group.

“So, whats the plan?” You asked, and you figured it was nothing good when John B had his attention fully on you and Kiara, his shoulders square. “Well, Sarah Cameron’s coming tonight-”

“Hold on...” Kie was the first to speak.

“She’ll bring an original survey map.” 

“Why Sarah?” She asked.

“This is gonna be good…” JJ muttered, looking down at his feet.

John B sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. “She… got me into the archives at Chapel Hill yesterday. That’s where I got the letter.”

“You were at Chapel Hill with Sarah Cameron?” Kie spat out unbelievably.

“He was mackin’ on her.” JJ added in quickly, avoiding all eye contact.

“Of course...” You muttered disappointingly.

“I wasn’t macking on her, okay? I was… using her for access.” 

“Did you tell her about the treasure?” Kiara inquired, an undertone of hurt laced in her voice. 

“I was trying to get into the archives!” JB argued back.

“Is that a yes?” You chimed in, truly not believing John B could be that idiotic. But you guessed that was the Sarah Cameron effect.

“I was just using her for information. I’m trying to make us filthy rich here. Okay? So, that we can pay off a boat, or send Pope to autopsy school so he can study dead bodies. Look, you guys know me.” He continued talking, looking around at the group. Kiara was visibly uncomfortable. “Do I look like the type of person to fall for Sarah Cameron?”

“Yes!” You exclaimed with scoff. 

“Look, you guys don’t know her yet, I do!”

“John B, we do know her. A hell of a lot better than you ever will,” You started, anger and betrayal in your voice. “For the last time, you can’t trust her. With the gold or your feelings.”

“Her brother did hit me in the back with a golf club...” Pope reminded, massaging his shoulder with a grimace.

You blew out a breath of air. “Yeah, her brother’s done a lot of things…” You quipped underneath your breath. 

“What’d she do to you both, exactly?’ JJ aimed the inquiry at you and Kiara.

“She’s like a spitting cobra.” Kie spat out. “First, she blinds you and then- and then she-”

“This is a bad analogy…” The blonde muttered.

“Listen to me!” Kiara pleaded. “Whatever we get, she’s going to try to take...”

“I THINK I’M GONNA DO THIS ONE BY MYSELF…” John B told the four of you who were crowded in the back of The Twinkie. Kiara rolled her eyes and the rest of you sighed unbelievably. “I don’t wanna spook Sarah with the peanut gallery.” 

“I just don’t understand why we’re involving her at all.” Kiara snapped, throwing her shoulders up.

“Kie, we’re not involving her, okay? It’s just, like, a business…meeting…thing.”

“A business meeting between their tongues…” You muttered as JJ made kissing motions with both his hands. 

“Look, once we get what we need, we cut her loose, alright?” John B reaffirmed the group, dismissing your suspicion and doubt. 

“...Promise me nothing is happening between you two.”

“Nothing is happening, Kie.” The boy sighed. 

“I’m being serious. This isn’t about you and this isn’t about us,” You, JJ and Pope shared a tense glance.  Was Kiara sure she didn’t have a thing for him? “Dude, she’s gonna get inside your head. Just promise me nothing’s happening between you guys.” She spoke solemnly.

“I…I promise.” John B told her. “...Anyways, I’m gonna go.” John B said in farewell, opening the van door and exiting.

“We’ll just sit here…in this hot ass car.” Pope said as he shut the door.

“...Can’t believe he’s been seeing Sarah Cameron.” You thought aloud, disgust filling your words.

“You guys do know that holding onto your grudge is like drinking poison and hoping Sarah will die, right?” Pope threw out. 

“‘Hope is the companion of power and mother of success.’” You quipped back, remembering the quote from a random in class. 

“Seriously, what went down between you three? This is like some deep-rooted hate.” JJ added.

“Does it matter? We’re supposed to be a team and John B jumping ship to mack on the Kook Princess doesn’t exactly scream teamwork.” You told them. “We all know that deep down, when we find this gold, John B is going to have fallen madly in love with the serial cheating, two-faced snake that is Sarah Cameron and she’s going to break his measly little heart and steal what we find and then we’ll be left gold-less and picking up the pieces of John Booker Routledge’s little broken heart.” 

The space fell silent after your small rant, wide-eyed glances exchanged between the three. “Okay, I was wrong. That is some deep-rooted hate.”

“We shouldn’t have let him go out there alone…” Kie muttered, staring out of the window, thunder clapping outside. It was a thought shared amongst you all, a silent agreement. The van fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments.

Until it was broken.

“...help!”

Your eyebrows pinched together, lifting your head from JJ’s shoulder. “Did you hear that?” You asked looking up at the blonde. 

“Hear what?” You all sat silently for a few more moments, the only sound being the howling wind and the thunder booming until you heard it again, this time you all did.

“Somebody please help!”

You all didn’t wait to sprint out of the van, almost knocking one another over on your way out. You don’t even know how you and Kiara managed to run in heels without tripping. The four of you bolted in the direction of the tower, following the path that John B took and reaching the end of it to find Sarah cradling his unconscious body.

“Sarah! What happened?” Pope questioned as you all came to an abrupt stop in front her.

“He needs help. I don’t know what to do. Topper shoved him.” She cried, rocking back and forth with John B in her arms.

“From the top of the tower?! What the fuck was Topper doing here?” You spat out, head whirling left and right looking for any sign of the aforementioned boy.

“Where is he, now?” JJ interrogated.

“Please get help, I don’t care who. Just call someone.” Sarah bellowed as JJ urged Pope to run for help, especially with all of your phones being abandoned in the Twinkie.

“John B, stay with me…” The blonde girl cooed, running her fingers through his hair before planting her lips against his. You glanced to the side, not missing the absolute look of betrayal in Kie’s eyes and maybe you would’ve found the same emotion in your own.

John B lied, to all of you. But that was the least of your concerns now.

YOU HATED THE FEEL OF HOSPITALS. They were stale and sterile and boring. But most importantly, they made you anxious. The four of you sat in the waiting room, they wouldn’t allow you in the actual hospital room because Ward had paid for it and he wanted to give Sarah a moment with John B when he woke up.

“This is such bullshit.” You said unbelievably, tapping your foot incessantly. “She cheats on her boyfriend and gets our friend thrown from a tower but we can’t even sit in his hospital room? She’s probably holding his hand and praying like some widow…”

“Let’s just be glad that John B’s okay…” Pope tried to reason.

“No, Pope,” Kiara rolled her eyes. “He lied to us. Did you see the way she was holding him and-” She cut herself off, throwing herself back into the chair. 

“Look, we can be mad when he wakes up, but let’s just chill right now, alright?” JJ snapped, basically telling you all to shut it and you only then took notice of how tense he was — biting his fingernails, his hands visibly shaking. You took his unoccupied hand into yours, giving it a squeeze. He absentmindedly returned the gesture. “When I find Topper, I’m going to kill him. I should’ve done it on the beach…”

“Don’t say that.” You told him firmly. “That’s how they want you to think, JJ. Don’t feed into it, otherwise they win.”

“They always win, anyway.”

“Only if you let them.” You concluded, letting the hospital noise fill the silence — telephones ringing, patients coughing, nurses walking, family members crying. 

Taking in the scene around you, where you had all landed, you were starting to wonder if finding gold was really worth the trouble.

next chapter >

feedback is appreciated! thanks for reading.

SVN Taglist; (let me know if you'd like to be added!) @esquivelbianca @fallingwallsh @calmoistorm @i-love-ptv @liability28 @rivaiken @sophiahristov @rafxcameronss (striked means i'm unable to tag you!)

©loveharlow.

[bijoumikhawal]

Part of the problem with MLM fetishization discourse (mainly found onTwitter, but i see it here too), is that people see effeminacy and femininity in men itself as a fetish, and therefore can't be assed to understand actual issues we face with regard to sexuality

It's impossible to talk about fatphobia, underlying assumptions often related to white supremacist beauty standards, adultification, ageism, etc that feminine men experience because people are too busy getting in a tizzy over a guy wearing skirts in media. One of the big issues for me is hypersexualization- I was getting sexualized at a very young age for being what I am, it's a big issue historically, and a lot of media I could access when I was younger was basically just porn/erotica. And that porn/erotica was often like. Racist, it hypermasculinzed Blackness in comparison to white effeminates, and it only portrayed fem men as submissive bottoms (which isn't itself bad) whose effeminacy was humiliation, and submission was bc they're worth less than "real men"

And like, the joke is people are so focused on wether or not people writing femmes who bottom is bad (it's just a thing that happens irl) that you can't talk about anything else. It's also a form of hypersexualization. The only other thing ppl wanna discuss is "heteronormativity". Fiction where femmes are fucking isn't a bad thing with that being said, and desexualizing us is also a common homophobic thing to do, and tends to loop back to the "less than a real man" thing.

And like, "yaoi"/"BL" isn't the big driving factor in hypersexualization here. If nobody in the US knew what that was I still would've been getting hit on by men twice my age at 16 (who sometimes would loudly advertise their interest in femmes specifically, or more accurately, "femboys" and "tr*ps").

And honestly when you deal with just like- grown ass men looking at you that way, people moaning and bitching that the big concern for fetishization here is basically wether or not the character exists only deepens the shame felt from those interactions. I was made to feel uncomfortable and gross because my gender presentation was seen as sexual when I was a teenager, and all this shit does is go "yeah, it is sexual, when I look at people like you I think about sex and how the sex you have is bad". And part of my Ick with portrayals of femmes is that we're assumed as submissive bottoms because I'm not, but this is still deeply harmful to people that are because you're telling queers the way they fuck is morally wrong and you're instilling shame over it.

And like... actual fetishization for me is more often when femmes as objects of sexual desire are seen that way through a lens of "you're a faggot so you're beneath me, you should thank me when I call you slurs and do xyz, you're trash, shaving you so you have less body hair (so you look more feminine) is a punishment and symbolizes my superiority" because it's just intracommunity femmephobia/effemiphobia with a boner.

Its not that other things are non-issues but cis women clumsily writing a masc/femme dynamic is probably more likely to make me laugh than feel ashamed or disgusted, and instances of feminizing a character for bigotry reasons in fandom are less common than people complaining about effeminacy existing at all (including with femme transmasc characters, especially because usually those aren't being written by cis people). The actual things that have made me cringe with shame and disgust about cis women's view of feminine and effeminate men sexually are more difficult for me to unsnarl because I see it less often, and it's sometimes more visceral because while I was sexualized by men I was actually abused by women, but I'll be frank; those things usually aren't occurring in discussions about fandom.

When I get disgusted in fandom discussion isn't about femme characters existing at all, or top/bottom/switch- they're about people acting like writing romance/erotica about men fucking is the sacred right of cis women and any discussion about equity in publishing means you're attacking fandom when they're two different things, and that that right is more important than the fact that queer men can struggle to get published in romance- and subsequent issues with poverty. Or the insistence that to be fetishized you need to be a woman because fetishization is stored in the pussy (revealing they haven't thought about racism in the romance genre, and don't think about trans women). Its about queer men in fandom writing smut and getting harassed by women who write the exact same type of it because the way they do it is somehow bad. It's about my sexuality being seen as piece of land to fight over, that I'm not supposed to be on, not writing about men in fishnets.

[frozenmoonshine]

A serious post ahead:

I know it's become super trendy to hate on Takeomi, and I'm guilty of joining the trend myself, after seeing the info in CB#4, but!

It got me thinking about his character, and just how damn unfair Wakui was towards him. He introduced Takeomi with all the hype possible (cocky, sarcastic chainsmoker who was Shinichiro's right hand man, the Vice-Commander of the OG Black Dragon, the so-called "God of War", etc), and signaled very clearly that he's going to be super important to the story (the "3 mysterious Akashi siblings", in Senju's own words), only to completely abandon him in the last arc!

And before you ask, no, I am not defending him in any way, and I am even less of his apologist. This is not about the character's likeability and morality, but about the way he is written.

However, I'm not a (professional) writer, and I can't really talk much about character development, plot resolution, etc. 'cause I don't wanna talk out of my ass about something I'm not competent enough to talk about, but I do think it's more than clear that Wakui did him dirty.

He made us squint at Takeomi, like: "Is he a good guy, is he a bad guy, what is his deal, really?" And it was interesting, it made us think. And then we saw a tiny bit of his backstory, he became slightly more relatable, we realized he isn't inherently evil, but... then there came the chapter 241 and we saw what a shitty brother he was to Haru. And yet again, we were left wondering if Takeomi is someone to hate or not.

But that was it, we were left there, hanging on the cliff of his character arc that never happened for real. We never got to see what had really happened between him and Haruchiyo, and most importantly - why it happened. We can all agree that Takeomi is a horrible big brother, it's just a fact. But I also have a strong impression that there was supposed to be an explanation for his attitude towards Haru. Just like how Taiju was abusive to Hakkai and Yuzuha because he wanted them to become "strong", maybe Takeomi had his own similarly warped idea to make Haruchiyo "toughen up" by being unreasonably harsh and strict towards him.

It is one of my greatest disappointments in the manga, that Takeomi as a character was never expanded on. I'm pretty sure he'd have become one of the most relatable and compelling, if not likeable, characters. We see him being flawed, very flawed, and with very real, mundane flaws, that all of us have to some extent. He's suffering from low self esteem, he's trying to make a name/reputation for himself, he's struggling with the responsibility of parenting two kids who are not his kids but siblings, and at such a young age! If you have younger siblings, you most likely know from personal experience how wrong it is to push older children in the family to parent the younger ones, instead of parents parenting all of them!

And yeah, we could argue now that the Mitsuya were in a very similar situation, but Takashi turned out just fine.

First of all, in real life, every person is an individual, and every person's experience is different, and no family circumstances are the same. And since TR depicts family issues, social issues, and (inter)personal issues in an exceptionally realistic manner (main reason why I love it so much!), same can be said for the Akashi and the Mitsuya. Mama Mitsuya is a single mother, but she seems to be as present in her kids' lives as possible, while working her ass off to provide for them. She seems to be a good parent, and therefore the Mitsuya family is not toxic. They all love and support each other.

And to retrace to the abovementioned hypothesis that "Takashi turned out just fine" - did he, really?! He's in a delinquent biker gang, he ran away from home at least once because he couldn't deal with the pressure, he drew (illegall) graffitti, he got a temple tattoo, spent time in a brothel playing poker... His character is very understated and lowkey, so we don't exactly tend to think of him in that light, but when we look at the facts... he's not as much of an angel as he may seem.

Back to the analysis of Takeomi, his parents are not present in his and his siblings' lives. We never got a single hint about what happened with their mother, and all we know about their father is that he left, so the three of them were brought up by their grandma. And therefore, Takeomi had to shoulder the role of the "father". I wish we got to see at least a glimpse of his perspective on that. A glimpse of his own relationship with his parents. With his grandmother. Or why Shinichiro gave him the nickname 'Rainbringer'. Why he was so obsessed with money and "success", why he felt the need to be famous. Why he pushed Haruchiyo to his limits. So damn many unanswered questions, and it's just one single character! Wakui still owes us countless answers, and I will totally not be bitter about it forever!

Just make Tokyo Revengers 2 and answer everything properly, damn it!

[penrose-quinn]

TR 258 thoughts. Mostly Taiju. Also spoilers under the cut.

I've been trying to grasp why I don't like Taiju appearing in particular. This isn't a rant btw. I'm just thinking haha.

I can't blame anyone who got excited on his entrance and it's awesome that he's on Toman's side because Taiju's built like a fucking unit and everyone needs the manpower, especially when they're in the receiving end of the fight.

The thing is yeah, he's still an abuser (I'm a little biased over this because BD arc is an emotional ride for me) though I also don't think Taiju is the kind of character that necessarily needs a redemption arc. But it sort of feels like it's going that direction in this chapter for some reason.

It's just that he already had a solid character arc from start to finish. He was a good antagonist, if not one of the best ones in the series. Wakui wrote him in a way that made him despicable but human. One of the things that make BD arc interesting for me is that Yuzuha and Hakkai don't have to end the arc with a "I forgive you" but it concludes with them saying what needs to be said and going on their separate ways. Honestly? That's realistic and way more satisfying. Then Wakui steps it up and does this interesting thing with Taiju by helping Takemichi in the Manila timeline. Not because he owes him, but it's motivated from the fact that he still cares for Hakkai. It doesn't redeem him much, but it shows that he's a nuanced character.

Taiju's story feels finished tbh. But who knows? TR has always emphasized how fate plays a big role in the story, regardless of the timeline. Things keep circling back; things keep repeating, overlapping. Maybe, Taiju reappearing right now is supposed to mirror his reappearance in the Manila timeline where he helped Takemichi. I mean, we do see this with Kazutora too, with the Bonten and BD bad timelines in a way. Maybe, it's something like that.

So here's my second point. Practically, everyone needs more manpower so maybe Mitsuya asked for his help. Narratively, why is he here when there are other characters who have a good reason to fight in this war?

Enter, Kazutora and Takeomi.

The former is because we've been shown time and time again that Kazutora is determined to save Mikey. With Pah-chin’s return and Draken's death, I was hoping what's left of the founding members would team up to save their friend. But of course, I'm aware Kazutora is still in juvie (ngl, he's safer there too) so it just isn't possible right now, unless Wakui pulls out something batshit insane again hehe.

On the other hand, Takeomi has every reason to show up here. I'm sure he will. Because if there's anyone who has a shot at redeeming himself in this fight, it's honestly this guy – as an older brother to his siblings and a friend to BenWaka. Besides, he still has a large role to play regarding Senju and Sanzu's backstory.

On another note, I think it isn't fair to not consider why Taiju has to be brought back into this arc. So here's just my two cents.

With his reappearance, I can't help but think if this ties back to the Black Dragons somehow.

All the former BD members are present. Even mfing Shion is there. Let's all just wait for Takeomi, he'll come. Since we started this arc with the First Gen BD, I'm hoping this is what Wakui actually set up for Taiju. Maybe, he'll get punched by Benkei too haha. I don't think Taiju being here is a fanservice-y moment. But, really, I'm just hoping they talk about Shinichiro again ✌️ and it could just be a stretch, but also maybe, maaaybe, have an Inui flashback. Sadly, the latter seems unlikely now because at this point, everything is either heading to Sanzu's backstory/time-leaper reveal and a possible Black Dragons reunion (+BenWaka backstory).

[worstloki]

What to you think anout this interview with MW?

The part that stood out to me the most was this

just talking about how Steve Jobs was adopted and how people who are adopted are out of control at the most important moment of their lives. And that movie is about how Steve Jobs is so obsessive about end-to-end control over all this technology. I drew a really interesting parallel between Loki and Steve Jobs: The desire to rule. “I know best. I want to rule. I want to be in control as an adult because I was, in fact, so out of control as a young Frost Giant baby.”

It honestly tells me so much about how MW misunderstood Loki’s corse motivations (at leats prior to TR but I’m not counting anything after). Loki didn’t want to rule? I’m not even gonna go on about this, because it’s been talked to death in fandom (amazing meta everyone), but I just cant wrap my head around how he literally missed the whole point if Loki. Did he even watch the scene in Thor1 where Loki literally breaks down during the fight with Thor on the Bifrost and shouts

“I never wanted to rule! I only ever wanted to be your equal!”

And yes, I agree that Loki craves, needs, a sense of control over his life, but not because he felt “so out of control as a Frost Giant baby.” It’s because he never had any control over his life or over how people perceived him. The reason he couldn’t have felt out of control his whole life because of his lack of control as a baby is because he didn’t know he was adopted, so he couldn’t have internalized this feeling, and the moment he DID find out he had a psychotic breakdown. But by that point he had ALREADY felt out of control his whole life. This doesn’t even make sense from a chronological standpoint, and it’s what he based Loki’s character on in the show?(Also, earlier in the interview he talked about how Odin killed Laufey and then took Loki. What?? Loki killed Laufey?? Did he even watch the movie?)

Also is it just me, or is his whole thing about people who are adopted kinda weird? Besides, even if we do admit that Loki’s need from control comes from some trauma about being adopted (which I won’t), it STILL wasn’t about that. Loki didn’t break down because he was adopted. He broke down because he was stolen like a “relic” with the purpose of being used for political gain. It wasn’t because he was adopted, but because he realized WHY he had been treated as less-than his whole life, WHY Odin treated him the way he did: because he never mattered to Odin as anything more than a tool. And he was hurt by the deception, but a big part of that was because of what the deception was about. Odin and Frigga didn’t just lie to him about being adopted, they concealed the fact that he was Jotun, and the turned around and sowed the seeds of racism in their eintire nation’s heads, Loki’s as well. Loki isn’t “burdened with glorious purpose” because he wants to be in charge, but because he needs to prove to himself that hes worth something. And that’s not because he was adopted, but because he was fed a consistent diet of self-loathing his whole life.

I am so frustrated, could this man have gotten the point any less? And then he turns around and talks about how “Beyond that, what I connect to about him is the same thing the legions of fans do, which is his humanity and his vulnerability”.

It's interesting because the show itself reflects the contradictions really well, especially through trying to condemn him as someone who inherently causes suffering and insisting Loki can change and has good in him - what with jumping between whether he cares or not, flipping from saying Loki is smart to having him clown around, etc. and it feels as if the show has no idea what's going on either.

Which on one hand is cool and fun, but on the other hand it is - as of yet - being done in a pretty basic way. Repeated lines, really obvious (often physical) humour, upturning dramatic dialogue, etc. doesn't really suit the character presented in Thor 1 or Avengers 1, and it's sad to see it replaced with something so... cringe. I do feel the character was made to cater to the show rather than the opposite way around, and though I'm enjoying watching it I'm definitely annoyed that the colonial narrative and torture and abuse were only hinted at in ways that treated them as non-issues to begin with.

The writers really should start paying attention to where that humanity and vulnerability comes from because along with somehow misunderstanding the character so much it adds to why the character feels aimless with characterization. Though I reckon that's to be attributed more to retconning to begin with, and that can be dated back to about Ragnarok.

Honestly I'm a bit concerned of what could come out of it if they did address any of his issues seriously, considering Marvel's handling of other heavy topics and MCU Loki in general.

[vavuska]

This girl is right: Freud's mom was a hottie!

Sigmund Freud (aged 16) and his mother, Amalia, in 1872

More about Oedipus complex:

Who were Freud's parents?

Freud was born to Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austrian Empire (now Příbor, Czech Republic), the first of eight children. Both of his parents were from Galicia, a historic province straddling modern-day West Ukraine and southeast Poland. His father, Jakob Freud (1815–1896), a wool merchant, had two sons, Emanuel (1833–1914) and Philipp (1836–1911), by his first marriage. Jakob's family were Hasidic Jews and, although Jakob himself had moved away from the tradition, he came to be known for his Torah study. He and Freud's mother, Amalia Nathansohn, who was 20 years younger and his third wife, were married by Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer on 29 July 1855. They were struggling financially and living in a rented room, in a locksmith's house at Schlossergasse 117 when their son Sigmund was born. He was born with a caul, which his mother saw as a positive omen for the boy's future.

In 1859, the Freud family left Freiberg.

Jakob Freud took his wife and two children (Freud's sister, Anna, was born in 1858; a brother, Julius born in 1857, had died in infancy) firstly to Leipzig and then in 1860 to Vienna where four sisters and a brother were born: Rosa (b. 1860), Marie (b. 1861), Adolfine (b. 1862), Paula (b. 1864), Alexander (b. 1866).

How was Freud's relationship with his parents?

The answer to this question could be found in the letters from Freud to Wilhelm Fliess, a Berlin nose and throat doctor with whom Freud carried on a passionate 15-year friendship. The letters suggested a greater anguish by Freud over the abandonment of the seduction theory and several details about his auto-analysis.

Mothers and Nannies

Amalia was considered by her grandchildren to be an intelligent, strong-willed, quick-tempered but egotistical personality. She has been described as lively and humorous, with a strong attachment to her eldest son whom she called "mein goldener Sigi".

Just as Amalia idolised her eldest son, so there is evidence that the latter in turn idealised his mother, whose domineering hold over his life he never fully analysed.

However, nannies or nurses were always present in the Viennese's bourgeois households. The Freud-Fliess letters attracted attention to Freud's nanny and also to the role played by nannies in the ideal family of psychoanalytic theory. Included in the models that explained the bourgeois family since the nineteenth century, but excluded by analytic theory, the nanny, ever present in Austrian upper-class families, still poses a question to the father-mother-infant triangle. The relevance of the nanny's presence in children's development is fundamental and could introduce themes such as adultery, sexual harassment by the master, illegitimate children.

Freud's interest in nannies began, it seems, with the analysis of the cases that would be known in the analytical literature as those that were in the origin of the 'seduction theory' – and also with his auto-analysis. His interest, though, extended well beyond the time of this emergence, as we will see.

Almost all of his patients had a nanny or nurse – some of them had two, what would lead to a curious unfolding of this character, either in the duo good mother/ bad nanny, or, in a kind of duplication, as good nanny/bad nanny.

Freud's nanny, from whom even the name is disputed, could have been a Czech woman, a catholic, who took him to masses and reproved him for being good for nothing. He wrote:

"Today's dream has, under the strongest disguise, produced the following: she was my teacher in sexual matters and complained because I was clumsy and unable to do anything."

In the next letter (October, 15), Freud registers what his mother had told him about the nanny. Asking her if she remembered the nanny, he got the answer:

"Of course", she said, "an elderly person, very clever, she was always carrying you off to some church; when you returned home you preached and told us all about God Almighty. During my confinement with Anna (two and a half years younger) it was discovered that she was a thief, and all the shiny new kreuzers and zehners [coins] and all the toys that had been given to you were found in her possession. Your brother Philipp himself fetched the policeman; she then was given ten months in prison."

Telling that his nanny made him steal money to give her, Freud interpreted his dream as a reproach for asking money from his patients for his bad treatment of them, in the same way as "the old woman got money from me for her bad treatment." The fact that Freud used his mother's remembrance to strengthen the interpretation he made of the dream –in which he was the thief - doesn't matter here, neither his identification with the nanny, observed by some analysts of this famous dream ("I = She"), but it is relevant to consider that it seems that it was with his auto-analysis that the nanny figure began to be seen as a malignant one or, in the best hypothesis, as an ambiguous one.

What needs explanation is how the theory of the Oedipus complex accounts for the boy's guilty impulses toward his mother but ignores the boy's arousal at the hands of his nurse, especially in view of how much more attention his nurse gets from Freud than his mother does.

Discussing the possible interpretations of Freud's dreams along his auto-analysis, many authors saw the relevance of the nanny's presence in his development until his conclusion that "the remarkable circumstance" is that Freud, in effect, had two mothers, his actual mother – whose nakedness he can only mention in Latin – and his nanny whom he remembers in association with numerous disturbing sexual experiences. Having two such mothers, and the luck of having the 'bad' ugly mother banished from his life when he was only two and a half, allows Freud to maintain a secure split between the internalized good and bad mothers.

Unconsciously, Freud's nurse was his seductress and shamer, his mother the pure object of guilty desire.

Thus Freud's discovery of the Oedipus complex emerges not only from memories of a small boy's guilty, aggressive lust for his mother, but from memories of dependence on her, too – a dependence remembered, however as the seduction of a small bourgeois, Austrian boy by a Czech working-class woman in a province of the Austrian Empire still recovering from the Revolution of 1848.

Freud's father

To begin with the so-called 'seduction theory': in 1896 Freud published a polemic article in which he attributed the origin of hysteria to a sexual trauma suffered by his female – and some male - patients that ranged from sexual harassment to sexual abuse in the hands of a member of the family: uncles (some of whom were revealed as fathers in subsequent publications), brothers, guardians, school colleagues, or nannies. He said that this trauma was "unhappily" caused "too frequently, by a near kin."

In this article he said that in 18 cases of hysteria until then analyzed by him (six men and twelve women), all of them showed this etiology, or cause, of the condition.

By 1897, Freud was spending six days a week analyzing his patients, many of them suffering from hysteria. Increasingly, their problems resonated with his own. Freud began to suspect that he too was neurotic, suffering from what he described as "a little case hysteria." He became consumed by his own self-analysis.

In the spring of 1897, Freud wrote his friend Fliess about a new patient, a young woman with hysterical symptoms: "It turned out that her supposedly otherwise noble and respectable father regularly took her to bed when she was eight to twelve years old and misused her…"

It was Freud wrote, "fresh confirmation" that the prime cause of hysteria was the sexual abuse of an innocent child by an adult, most often, a father. But his theory had alarming implications. If he himself suffered from a form of hysteria, and if an abusive father caused hysteria, then Freud was forced to draw a distressing conclusion. He began to imagine that his own father might have abused him. Three months after Jacob's death, he wrote Fliess: "Unfortunately, my own father was one of these perverts, and is responsible for the hysteria of my brother… and those of several younger sisters."

Freud realized that he can not get further in understanding others unless he analyzes himself. That was another one of those great ideas. [But] The dreams that he analyzed are not really particularly well analyzed.

Freud interpreted the message "close the eyes" in his dream after his father's death to mean that there was something he was not meant to see, nor to know about, his father. To make his theory work, his father's secret had to be that he had sexually abused his children. But, when he could find no evidence of such behavior and no clear memory of abuse among his brothers and sisters, his seduction theory collapsed.

By the next year, he began doubting his proposition, and wrote to Fliess: "I don't believe in my neurotica [neurosis theory] any more." Even if he mentioned the seduction theory in other letters of this year (and also years after), he began, then, to treat these denounces of his patients as a fantasy.

[phandom-against-onision]

You have probably already informed yourself, but here is a masterlist anyway.

MAJOR CONTENT WARNINGS: BLACKFACE, SLURS, RACIST COMMENTS, CHILD PREDATORY COMMENTS, NSFW CONTENT, BEASTIALITY, TRANSPHOBIA, MISHANDLING OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES, OUTING AND MORE! PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

Shane Dawson has been shown to mock black people on several occasions, saying the n word, doing blackface and creating stereotypical recurring characters.

When beginning on YouTube, Shane had a character called “Shanaynay” who was supposed to be a “ghetto-white girl”. When playing her, Shane often used ghetto stereotypes. She was a recurring character from 2008-2011. Although he has long stopped playing this character, he was continuing to sell the merch and profit off his racism as recently as last year!

He has also done blackface in his character skits, and said the n word as Shanaynay. On one of these occasions, he called an actual black woman a “n*gga bitch monkey woman”. Watch the full video for all occasions.

Here are some additional comments on this matter.

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Shane Dawson has acted inappropriately with and around minors for a long time.

He has probably done this even more than his blackface, and that’s saying something.

This clip, which went around last year, contains him calling a 6-year-old child sexy and admitting to googling CP. This is from his Shane and Friends podcast, which contains a lot of explicit clips.

He has also asked his teenage fan to “show herself” and “shut up and twerk”. This is from 3:55 - 4:29 in this video.

One of the instances really going around on Twitter at the moment is him pretending to jerk off to a picture of the then-11 year old Willow Smith.

A reminder that her family has not forgiven him, so neither should you!

Honestly, there are way too many occasions of this. Please check out this Twitter thread which lists a lot of times he has made inappropriate comments and did inappropriate things.

Another very distasteful thing he has done is claim to solve the murder of an actual six-year-old child, profiting off “speaking” to her spirit.

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Shane Dawson has joked about bestiality on camera multiple times.

This is just straight-up weird. It went around a lot last year, but in case you’ve forgotten, here is a playlist of a few clips. He also rubbed his face in his dog’s crotch but I can’t find a direct video of that by itself.

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Shane Dawson is transphobic as hell.

Watch this full video for the details where he uses trans as an insult and says tr*nny while knowing it is a derogatory term.

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Shane Dawson has promoted and supported terrible people and channels.

This has been a long-time criticism of his viral documentary series, but it is still important to remember.

Let’s start with the problems with this in chronological order. 

His first viral documentary series was The Truth about Tanacon.

Tanacon, to begin with, had several issues. Despite big dreams, it failed spectacularly due to lack of organisation and preparation before the event. There were many last minute changes and it generally lacked several necessities in events. Some issues were disorganised registrations, reserved meet and greets that didn’t go through the system, clashings with VidCon (a bigger event), inappropriate content creators, adversied content creators that didn’t appear, condoms in the goodie bag, lies about free tickets, no food, no room for anything, one hallway, lack of regulation in wristbands, underestimation of guests, overly expensive merch, no cooling system, no fire solutions (meaning they kicked everyone out) and it goes on. 

Despite actual people suffering due to the incompetency of Tana, Shane made her out to be an innocent martyr. This gets even worse as you realise than Tana has been exposed for several racist comments throughout her YouTube career.

Shane is clearly shown to be a terrible interviewer, presenting more as a friend than someone who is willing to find the “truth” of Tanacon. Instead of learning about Tanacon from an unbiased journalist, we get an obscured version of what happened, engineered to sympathise with Tana instead of her admitting to her mistakes.

Yet, this somehow was only the beginning of the problems with the documentary series, as the next one was with Jeffree Starr.

I don’t even know where to begin with the problems with this.

Firstly, Jeffree is perhaps the most problematic YouTuber who is still popular on the website. He has been exposed as racist, sexist, supporting of rapists, terrible to fans, transphobic, ableist, fatphobic, homophobic, insensitive to suicidal people, sexualising of minors, fascist and violent. Check out this thread here for the full details and proof of these claims.

Shane is not stupid. He is aware of these controversies, but has continued to support Jeffree. When a fan called him out, he was extremely rude and was very mad, and supporting all the hate the fan was getting.

The entire documentary series is about him befriending Jeffree, and making him out to be a good person. 

Jeffree should NOT be given a positive platform like this, and he should NOT be continuing to get away with being “cancelled”. So many other YouTubers have been “cancelled” for lesser things, yet Jeffree manages to always get away with it.

The next documentary series was the Jake Paul series. This is perhaps his most controversial documentary series.

Shane is not a therapist, a psychiatrist or a mental health professional. Even though he did consult some people, they are not allowed to diagnose people based on suspicions and videos. Yet, throughout the entire series, he calls Jake Paul a sociopath, and using that label to justify everything he has done.

Jake and Logan have both stirred up some of the biggest controversies on the platform, yet Shane gave them the ability to thrive. Like he did with Tana and Jeffree, he humanised him and edited it to the audience would sympathise with Jake. He has been exposed to scam his young fans, been rude to his neighbours and cast members, made light of serious disorders like anxiety, saying the n word and doing several things for clout, such as “marrying” Tana Mongeau.

As addressed in the documentary series, Alissa Violet, Jake’s ex-girlfriend, has shared her stories of physical abuse in the Team 10 mansion in private life, yet Shane did not fully address this or even mention this to Jake in the episode after. This further proves that Shane is incapable of running a documentary series with such deep themes as he will gloss over them or not address them properly.

This issue is further seen in his documentary with Eugenia Cooney.

A warning that I have not actually seen this as I have heard it contains triggering subject material which I do not wish to subject myself to in interests for my personal mental health - I am only going off the statements of experts and viewers.

In theory, this documentary could have been brilliant. After all, it is two people who have gone/is going through eating disorders and discussing it. However, experts have said that this could be harmful and it is easy to see why.

As much as I do not like Shane, I, and experts, do believe that he had good intentions behind this documentary. However, it probably would have been better if they consulted an expert regularly throughout the documentary when handling a touchy subject. After all, many of Shane’s viewers are young and/or influential, and a correct portrayal of a subject which is terrifying and real to many people watching is very important.

Here is an excerpt from this article about how he handled this:

Other fans were concerned with Cooney's safety, given that she referred to having an eating disorder in the past tense, signaling that she may not be considering further treatment.

"She certainly looks like she is physically healthier, but mentally she still seems like she's struggling a lot and she tries to cover it with her overwhelming positivity," another comment on the video says.

Experts who spoke with INSIDER — and who have not personally treated Cooney — are wary of considering Cooney's treatment a success story.

"When we are in the midst of our eating disorder we are very, very good at wearing masks. We're very good at playing a role that is very convincing and wants to let people know that we're okay," Chevese Turner, the Chief Strategy & Policy Officer for the National Eating Disorders Association, told INSIDER."A month of treatment is just barely scratching the surface of the road to recovery. While she put on a good face and was very chipper and cheerful, I'm not convinced that's what's going on inside. How do any of us know for sure?"

While both experts told INSIDER they believe Dawson had good intentions, they also expressed numerous concerns with the way the video presented the reality of eating disorders, and Cooney's recovery in particular. Turner says having Cooney share her story could be very cathartic, but she worries how much of her appearance was intended to resurrect or preserve her career."What's essentially happening is that people are bullying her online for her looks and her body and that does have an impact, it impacts all of us when that happens. For someone with an eating disorder, the impact can be devastating. I think [Dawson is] trying to help in his own way, but probably the thing that would help the most is her having more time in recovery," Turner said.

"I don't want to speculate, but obviously her success on YouTube is a driving factor to get back to work. None of us know if she's fully capable for that work and I would want to believe that the people around her who care about her most are confident that she can handle it," she continued. "I hope that they'll encourage her to take a break."

Overall, it has been shown that Shane is unfit to handle a documentary series with his evidently extremely biased views, and he should consult more professionals when editing. Although many people would argue that he has good intentions, it is possible to have good intentions while being irresponsible. Shane is aware of his large audience, and his influence over people around the globe. He should be more careful when creating a video with strong themes which many viewers may be suffering through or offended by. 

Either than his documentary series, Shane is also friends with other problematic people outside it - most infamously, Trisha Paytas. 

Trisha Paytas’ brand has become being extremely controversial. However, this doesn’t excuse that she has done and should not normalise her behaviours. She has been proved to be very transphobic and homophobic, as well as racist, ableist, abusive and insensitive to people with mental illnesses and disorders, notably DID. She lives to stir up drama on YouTube and more recently, TikTok. Despite being aware of this, Shane has continued to be close friends with her and excusing what she does because she’s just Trisha.

He has also openly supported far-right people on Twitter, giving harmful conspiracies a platform on his channel.

-

Shane Dawson has contributed to destroying growing/popular channels.

When 20-year-old growing YouTuber Bobby Burns released a video giving valid criticism to Shane Dawson, Shane featured him on his channel and pushed him as a heater.

This was not a thing which only happened once. Shane decided to continue to feature him on his channel, branding him as a hater. However, Shane’s dedicated fanbase did not like this and began to send hate to Bobby. Due to the lack of popularity, Shane stopped interacting with Bobby and didn’t feature him in any more videos without attempting to “save his career” like he has done with so many other people.

That is not to say that Bobby is faultless. I am not that familiar with his content, but I have heard that he did contribute to his channel’s demise, which makes sense. However, as a huge content creator, it was irresponsible of Shane to take a growing channel and brand him as a negative hater. He is aware of his audience, and that is important to remember. When he has such a large fanbase, he needs to be more careful with the videos he is showing them, and the characterisations of YouTubers.

However, what Shane is going under fire most recently is his involvement in the James Charles scandal last year.

Despite denial, Shane has been proved to play an important role in the “cancelling” of James last year, encouraging Tati to upload the video and making false accusations of predatory behaviour. This was highly likely done to degrade a competitor’s palette so his collaboration with Jeffree would be more successful.

Recently, he posted these screenshots on Twitter and then deleted the Tweet.

This proves his blatant immaturity. Somehow, James, the youngest of the four YouTubers involved in the scandal, has grown up the most. Shane was a part of the downfall of James, causing him to debate suicide. His defence for this was saying that he “needed to be served a slice of humble pie the size of the fucking Empire State Building”.

James Charles is not faultless, and he should not be made out to be an angel or a martyr in this situation. However, no one deserves to have suicidal thoughts, and anyone who defends this by saying that it was the humbling he needed is disgusting.

-

Shane Dawson attempted to out Dan and Phil for views and clout.

As a bisexual man who has opened up about his fear of being outed when he was closeted, he should be ashamed of everything he did to Dan and Phil.

Like many YouTubers at the time, Shane used the Phandom to get views and subscribers. In doing this, he objectified and sexualised Dan to his young and influential audience. Check out this video where he said that he wanted to facefuck Dan in an orgy while watching a video where he just turned 18. In that clip, he also split up Dan and Phil into “cute” and “not cute”. 

It even went to the point where he asked the Psychic Twins about the sexuality of Dan and Phil. In this clip, he accuses them of queerbaiting as well as supporting the Psychic Twins’ invasive and insensitive comments about them not dressing gay enough, diss of them refusing to go on their podcast and outing and stereotyping them. This was as recent as 2017.

-

There are actually a lot of other reasons why Shane is under a lot of controversy at the moment. Here were my sources, and some further reading for anyone interested:

THE PROBLEM WITH SHANE DAWSON: a thread

shane dawson sexualizing young children: a thread

One of YouTube's biggest stars made a viral 'documentary' about another YouTuber's eating disorder. Experts say it could be harmful for its subject and audience.

Jake Paul tried to use looting for YouTube views, and is facing charges. These are all the ways the controversial star has stirred up outrage in the past.

Trisha Paytas’ racism

THE PROBLEM WITH JEFFREE STAR: a thread

EVERYTHING WRONG WITH TANACON: an ongoing thread

So what from here? Shane has released an apology video, but words don’t mean anything without action. Here are some suggestions for what he could do to actually show further improvement.

He could stop doing conspiracy videos in the harmful and biased style he is known for, and delete his videos despite the views.

He could stop being friends with such toxic and controversial people.

He could donate his money and time to helping out the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and to black charities/organisations in general. It does not negate what he has done, and it is not in my place to forgive him if he does do that, but it would represent his improvement.

He could formally apologise to the parents and the family of the children he has sexualised.

But he will probably not do that. However, as a hater of cancel culture, I hope that he does improve as a person. It is not my goal to send hate, but to inform people. Sending Shane death threats or insensitive comments are the last things we need. To criticise him for doing that, then doing it yourself is hypocritical and harmful. Instead, we’ll just have to inform ourselves and wait for the future.

[swampyswan]

Bakugo’s character in the Fallen Angels manga translation is fundamentally misunderstood and here’s why:

Warning: mentions of slurs and curse words

Bakugo’s character stems from the idea of a subversion of a Japanese delinquent. He is supposed to act and look like a troublemaker, but is actually a genius and a good student in spite of how he looks, dresses, and acts. In Japan, he’s a walking contradiction. In the west, we interpret him as a variation of an Antihero, a gruff guy whose good at what he does.

But here’s the thing: the version of Bakugou that curses every other sentence? That guy doesn’t really exist in the story at all.

In Japan, there aren’t a lot of curse words, and Bakugou uses a sort of catch all bad word (I believe it’s pronounced “teme”) that is seen as rude and unpleasant. But Bakugo’s rudeness was expressed less on his word choice and more of its content. What makes Bakugou unpleasant to a Japanese audience isn’t his language, but his general hostility.

The infamous Fallen Angels scanlation came out and was the first real translation of the Manga. For whatever reason, they translated a lot of Bakugo’s language to be WAY harsher than he ever was in the Japanese version. I despise that translation with a passion, especially since it casually uses words like “r*tard” and “tr*nny” on a whim. If you want an example of how bad it is, the translation has Shigaraki refer to Magne with the T slur. It doesn’t even add anything, because Shigaraki doesn’t misgender her in the Japanese version, calling her that adds nothing to the plot, and just serves to make the language... edgier? I don’t know what they were thinking. Plus we got weird dialogue like this:

Todoroki isn’t exactly a “no cursing” kind of guy, but seeing someone portray him like this is a bit funny. This isn’t the worst example of this translation, just something I thought was a bit strange.

Bakugou gets the worst of it though, with a bunch of weird, unnecessary additions to his previously much tamer dialogue. Compare the more accurate translation from the manga of “sh*tty nerd” to the worst translation of “sh*tty f*cking r*tard”. A ton of Bakugo’s dialogue is morphed into this, but when you compare them side by side out of context, it looks like dialogue from two different characters.

And you might be thinking, “why does it matter? It’s just a bad translation, it doesn’t hurt the story too badly.” However, I think it does because it regresses what people think of Bakugou as a whole. Unfortunately, this bad translation has shaped how people see his character; the poorly translated Bakugou were many fans’ first intro to the character, and what they got, rather than a nuanced, hotheaded, prideful child whose hostility alienated him from others, we get a vulgar bully whose dialogue seemingly overwhelms a lot of his characterization.

I’ve seen people claim Bakugo to be abusive towards Deku and get on the backs of BakuDeku shippers using these translations as evidence, but the thing is that these translations purposefully make Bakugou seem WAY harsher and crueler to Deku than he’s supposed to be. Not to downplay the bad things he’s said or done to Deku, but it’s clear that the translation has had an impact on how the fans view him. The translation I think gives off a different impression than the original translation:

The translation even gives him some weird romantic tension with Ochako that wasn’t present. Don’t get me wrong, Ochabaku fans can ship it, but dialogue between them is changed to imply he has a crush on her in situations where he shouldn’t really care about ANY romance. During their tournament, he refers to her as “Angel face” rather than “round face”, implying that he’s complimenting or hitting on her. It’s pretty much completely missing the point of the fight; Bakugou doesn’t respect her because he has a crush on her, he respects her because she tries as hard as him and is smarter and tougher than people assume her to be (which is probably ship worthy in and of itself). Also, Bakugou would NEVER flirt in a competition, he takes himself too seriously. It’s arguably more respectable of Bakugou to respect a girl that he isn’t romantically interested in than only respect cus he thinks she’s cute.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people write Bakugou as a huge potty mouth that curses every other word. This is prominent with practically every ship that involves him too (bakudeku, Kiribaku, ochabaku, etc). So many fanfic and artwork show Baku saying “f*ck” or “sh*t” every other sentence. And I theorize that this translation has a large part of why.

So, to anyone who wants a more accurate manga experience, I would not recommend Fallen Angels.

[dillydedalus]

september reading

there is literally no way it is september. impossible. anyway this month we have  horror, Fake Dating, the rashomon effect, a time war, and most importantly, no neutrals to be found anywhere

the old man & his sons, heðin brú (tr. from faroese by john f. west) published on the faroe islands in 1940 and the first faroese novel to be translated into english, this is a story about the dramatic shift in life style during the 30s on the faroe islands, from hardscrabble subsistence farming/fishing to market economy. interesting look at changing life on isolated isles, and a much lighter (and shorter) take on the stubborn autonomous subsistence farmer than laxness’s independent people. 3/5

the white shroud, antanas škėma (tr from lithuanian by karla gruodis - english/claudia sinnig - german) a modernist, fragmented, nonlinear novel about a lithuanian poet gone into exile, now working as an elevator operator in a new york hotel, who is involved with a married woman but might also be terminally ill. in between the present timeline, the book flashes back (both in the character’s own writing and in third person) to his youth in lithuania, his torture at the hands of the soviet regime, his time at a DP camp in germany and so on. quite interesting, with some great writing. 3/5

things we lost in the fire, mariana enríquez (tr. from spanish by megan mcdowell) really good collection of horror-ish short stories that also touch on gendered violence, child abuse, poverty and argentinian history (esp. dictatorship and disappearances) - some stories are more overtly horror, with clear supernatural elements, others are more ambiguous. i don’t read (or watch) horror stuff so i’m a bad judge of how scary this is - i found it more gruesome and upsetting than terrifying, but the dread is strong in this one. favourites: adela’s house (hungry haunted house), end of term and the title story (women & self-inflictred violence), under the black water (the poisoned oil-choked river is very bad but maybe.... there’s something worse in there). good, vividly gruesome, sharp sharp sharp. 3.5/5

axiom’s end, lindsay ellis i really like lindsay ellis, of all the ~youtube video essayists~ she’s probably my favourite and this book a) has a cool premise - aliens + conspiracies + alien communication and b) a really cool cover, and it’s lindsay, so i was super excited for this one. and it would be unfair to say i was disappointed with it; it’s a fun first contact romp with really good pacing, cool aliens, on-brand lindsay ellis humour and some interesting ideas on communicating with someone who is truly alien and incomprehensible. it’s fine! i enjoyed it and will definitely read the sequel, it’s just... i was hoping it would be AMAZING, and it just wasn’t. no huge problems (except for a few lines i would have liked to take a red pen to), just.... it was fine. 3.5/5 

zeno’s conscience, italo svevo (tr. from italian by william weaver) imagine you’re a businessman in trieste who does a little unsuccessful writing on the side and one day you decide to take english lessons to improve your business opportunities with the uk and your english teacher is JAMES FUCKING JOYCE who tells you that you need to keep writing. incredible. anyway these are the autobiographical notes of one zeno cosini, a hapless hypochondriac smug self-delusional fool, who just cannot quite quit smoking, marries the one sister out of three he least desires, & works as an accountant (for the man who married his most-desired of said sisters) despite his rather tenuous grasp on bookkeeping. my favourite scene is when his future sister in law (2nd most desired) complains lightly about her difficulties with latin, he tells her that he believes latin is a man’s language and even roman ladies probably didn’t actually speak it, only for her to correct him on a latin quotation. i will say tho that this book is way to long to maintain the endearingness and often drags. 3/5 tfw u write for an audience of one but that one is james joyce so fair enough

der hund/der tunnel/die panne, friedrich dürrenmatt dürrenmatt (in addition to having a cool-ass name) really fucking slaps!  his stuff is really good, and often really really wild. these three stories are all weird & slightly existentially scary, two degrees left of reality, and just. so interesting! we have a man stalking a street preacher and his monstrous dog, a train going through a tunnel for way too long (and it is very scary), and a man becoming involved in a pretend-trial (or is it) and becoming convinced that he actually is a murderer (or is he, really?). anyway, dürrenmatt.... slaps. 4/5

wow, no thank you., samantha irby a mix of memoir and comedy blogpost and social critique blogpost about growing up poor & black, dating while fat, chronic illness, and settling down in rural america. it’s fine. i haven’t read irby’s previous collections so maybe i’m missing that emotional connection, but i thought it was mostly...okay?? not especially funny imo & i prefered the more serious chapters of which there weren’t enough. 2/5

they say in harlan county: an oral history, alessandro portelli really impressive oral history about life in harlan county, appalachia, focusing on the labor strikes and conflicts in the 30s and 40s, but really exploring life and politics in the region from the first non-native settlement there to today. really interesting, sometimes inspiring and often infuriating and probably worth reading if you’ve ever listened to which side are you on. 4/5

rashomon & other stories, ryunosuke akutagawa (tr. from japanese by jay rubin) fun fact: if you read the short story “rashomon” expecting to get the, y’know, rashomon effect, you won’t get it bc the film actually takes its plot from the story  “in a grove”. anyway this is an interesting collection of classic japanese short stories, many of which are actually about unreliable witnesses/narrators. i particularly enjoyed “in a grove” and the truly disturbing “hell screen”, but found this particular collection just a bit too long. 3/5

women without men, shahrnush parsipur (tr. from farsi by kamran talatoff & joceyln sharlet) a magical realist feminist novella about 5 women in iran who all try to liberate themselves from men in one way or another, more or less successfully (one of them turns into a tree, another becomes undead), until they end up in a semi-utopian garden together for a time. disturbing in its depiction oppression and sexual/gendered violence. i don’t really know how i feel about it, but it’s a really unique and interesting reading experience; very fraught and ambivalent in the end. 3.5/5

take a hint, dani brown, talia hibbert i think this is the first actual pure genre-romance book i’ve read... in years??possibly ever? idk. anyway this is mostly a pretty fun & sweet story about ambitious & emotionally constipated phd student dani brown and security guy with tragic past zaf ansari, who begin a fake relationship for Various Reasons (as you do) and both develop Real Feelings (as you do, predictably). it’s mostly really enjoyable but man i’m really not used to Romance writing & it’s a lot. in the end everyone is very genuine & earnest & emotionally honest which.... not to be even more emotionally repressed than dani but i cannot deal with that. anyway given that 2020 truly is the gift that keeps on giving this was a fun fluffy delight & i might  read more from the series. 3.5/5

this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar & max gladstone two agents (red and blue) on opposing sides of a time war (the futuristic techy Agency vs the eco/organic Garden - neither of them is Good or Bad exactly) start writing letters as they hunt each other through the strands of time’s braid and eventually (inevitably) fall in love. really interesting concept of time travel and different timelines (if, like me, you conceptualise past as down and future as up, this will trip you up so much), very lyrical writing that sometimes toes the line to overwritten but mostly really works. 3.5/5

DNF: the madman of freedom square & the iraqi christ, hassan blasim (tr. from arabic by jonathan wright, german tr. by hartmut fähndrich) bindup of these two short story collections about iraq. these are incredibly brutal, depressing & horrifying stories about a country in a constant state of war & struggle. couldn’t bear it, probably not ever & certainly not right now. 

allegro pastell, leif randt (audio) this is brilliant, bitingly funny novel about a millenial couple, tanja & jerome, and their on-and-off long distance relationship. they are privileged (and half-aware of it), attractive, successful, very in touch with their own feelings (couldn’t be me), self-reflective, faintly ironic in everything bc sincerity might be cringe, and you will hate them. these are people who perform their feelings rather than feel them, dissect all their opinions and impulses to the point of both paralysis and narcissism, engage in constant navelgazing and cannot form any relationship that isn’t based in constant evaluation and judgment. they pride themselves on their nonconformity but are really the greatest conformists of all, and the most square, boring, spießig people under the veneer of their urban liberal drug-and-club lifestyle. had so much fun with it even as i was constantly cringing at these people. 4/5

[classicdaisycalico]

ever watch The Game Theories’ videos about the Mario universe

I’d prefer not to, and for a number of reasons:

1. MatPat deliberately skips over several instances of Mario lore so he can “prove” his bullshit theories as valid.

For example, one of his “theories” touts the idea that Mario is a communist. If he were a communist, why would he go out of his way to rescue/protect/fall in love with a princess who is clearly of higher status than him? Obviously, since he supports the Mushroom Kingdom monarchy, he is as far from a communist as possible.

THEN there’s the idea that Mario has narcissistic personality disorder (yeah, the same disorder people accuse D*n*ld Tr*mp of having) because he’s “mean to his brother” and “has had several different love interests”, which is also bullshit. One (1) cutscene in Mario Power Tennis where Mario purposefully steps on Luigi’s foot out of friendly competition has NOTHING on the times in the “Mario and Luigi” series where they are more than happy to hug each other after being separated for a long time. (Also, slight spoiler, but in Luigi’s Mansion 3, when Luigi rescues Mario, the latter JUMPS into his bro’s arms and hugs him, which is SUPER ADORABLE btw). As for the love interests thing.........Daisy was just a one-off until Nintendo started pairing her up with Luigi. Pauline and Mario have been confirmed to just be friends since Peach came onto the scene. Finally, Rosalina is just a strong independent space queen who don’t need no man. (Although, personally, I ship her with Pauline, but that’s another story altogether).

And guess what? It gets worse! He once theorized that Peach had the hots for Bowser because she has Stockholm Syndrome, which a terrible way to characterize Peach. Bowser has been nothing but abusive to her and it has been shown quite a fair amount of times that she wants nothing to do with him if she can help it (Super Mario Odyssey, in my opinion, shows this the best). On top of that, abusive relationships are nothing to make light of, and this theory kind of does that with the way he casually presents it, and that is not okay.

2: He tries to justify his theories using logic applicable to OUR world, instead of that of the Mario-verse.

Judging just by how high everybody jumps in the Mario-verse, along with how quickly they go up and down, one would have to assume that their Earth’s gravitational constant is different from our Earth’s (for us, g = 9.81 m/s2 downward). As a result, the results from all the physics MatPat applies to his theories is utterly useless. The kicker is, he also applies it to places that aren’t even Mario’s Earth! I once saw a video of him trying to apply it to the Super Mario Galaxy games. Anyone with common sense knows that gravity is all kinds of fucked in outer space, so MatPat can fuck off with all that mess.

Furthermore, we see a lot more MAGIC than SCIENCE in the Mario-verse, so that would make MatPat’s theories even more convoluted. If energy and matter cannot be created or destroyed (as per scientific reasoning), then how does that notion hold up against magic, which goes against BOTH of those laws? So, once again, checkmate, Game Theory.

3. He presents his theories as if they’re undisputed evidence that should be treated as canon.

Trying to back your claims by cherry-picking sources that fit your narrative does not justify your point, especially when there are substantially more instances that prove otherwise. Trying to apply real-world physics to a fictitious universe with its own (un)scientific laws will not work, either, since the two worlds are so vastly different. When it comes down to it, MatPat is essentially mansplaining the Mario-verse with his edgy theories in that smug, pretentious, grating, douchebag voice of his. (I know I’m going into “personal” territory now rather than “objective”, but you get my point.)

TL;DR: Game Theory is just MatPat trying to flex on everyone by trying to show off how “intelligent” he is when he’s really just trying to turn a harmless, family-friendly cartoon into something it’s not (dark and edgy).

So yeah, fuck Game Theory, and thanks for coming to my TedTalk :)

[angelskyladiana]

Abandoned (Valeska x oc)

Prologue: An angel living in the garden of evil 

Summary: Interest became adoration, a crush became mutual, a relationship began and their love flourished, a relationship ended and an obsession began. How could she ever abandon them?

Warnings: Abuse, manipulation, violence

Word Count: 2448

—————————

"Reyna! Come out, come out wherever you are!" He called, strutting down the dark never ending hallway. His wide eyes scanned over each and every crack and crevice. Soon enough he reached the grey coloured steps leading up to the bedroom, his head tilted up as he once again scanned every inch of area he could see. He sauntered up the steps, his fingers clicking together in anticipation of finding his treasure.

His knuckles grazed against the steel as he ascended the large staircase. Still not a sound echoed in the house but his footsteps were loud and clear. To the left of him would be the lounge room and two extra rooms and to the right of him was his own room and hers...

She would not be daft enough to hide in her own room. He turned left, "I'll find you, doll." he went into the first room. Checking underneath the bed, in the closet, bathrooms and anywhere else her 5' 9 stature could fit. His eyes furrowed when he couldn't find her, so he went to the next room and the next. Still no sight of the curly haired queen. He straightened up, stopping all movement for a moment in an attempt to hear her.

However, his frustrations soon grew out of his logical side, "Reyna! Come to me now... it'll hurt less if you do..." He yelled her name before speaking somewhat quieter about his threat.

Reyna had been in the wardrobe for what felt like hours, although it probably could have been minutes. Why? Because he being so deluded was obsessed with checking in on her every ten minutes, so this time she took yet another attempt at escape when he left her. Attempt. So here she was, snuggled up in a ball of anxiety behind shirts that probably costed more than four months rent. At least he couldn't see her, not that he would look here as it was the most obvious place and therefore he would overthink it like always.

But he would come in here to look eventually..

She had to run. Carefully, Reyna stuck her head out of the wardrobe checking the coast was clear. Then as silently as she could muster, she pulled herself out from behind all the clothes and stood up. Scampering up to the door of the over-sized walk in wardrobe and past his bed. The door to the room was wide open and if he came down this hall now, he would see her and she'd probably be dead.

This was it. As careful as she could, she placed light quick steps on the ground and began moving towards the stairs. Her eyes never wavering from the moving shadows she could see at the end of the hall. He was looking for her, desperately. "Where do you think you can run to?" His shadow straightened up, a shiver ran down her spine, she felt as if he had seen her and it was all over. But that was impossible and she had to keep going, she'd already made it part way down the stairs when his yells echoed through the house and a series of crashes sounded down the hall, "you can't leave me! You have no one else but me!"

She kept tip toeing down the stairs until she reached halfway. One foot in front of the other, it wasn't so hard, but the raging psychopath metres from her made it quite a terrifying exercise. She suddenly heard a smash from one of the spare bedrooms, he was getting angry. She didn't have much time left. "Reyna! I swear when I find you-" his yells made her jump a bit in fright, her hand hitting the cement wall causing a sharp 'slap' to echo through the house.

He heard it. His head snapping violently to the direction of the sound. His dark haired treasure... A sadistic smirk formed on his lips and soon a full blown smile, teeth and all, were present. She was his now.

She knew he heard her. Reyna gave up on being quiet and ran as fast as she could, missing some steps in the process of getting to the lower floor faster. But Reyna couldn't hear his steps following her, which made her believe she had made even a greater mistake. As the brunette reached the bottom, she quickly ran past the dining room and kitchen, running down a hall that lead her down further and connected to another hall and then another until finally it reached a huge metal door.

Reyna pushed in the code she had watched him put in everyday the but the only sound were the two beeps symbolising it was the incorrect code, she huffed, reentering the code, but the same beeps sounded again. Her hands hit the metal door, attempting to push it open or even breaking it if she could, which was beyond impossible. "C'mon, c'mon!" She went back to the pad code, instead putting in the old code she used a thousand times back when she loved coming here, but that only triggered an alarm to begin blaring.

Her head snapped behind her. He wasn't behind her. He'd be there by now, unless he was casually strolling, there was no way he wouldn't of caught her by now. The only other door nearby was the front door, which was back past the stairs down the aimless hallway. Oh well, she was bound to die anyway...

She quickly ran as fast as she could back down the other connecting halls praying that within this maze he wouldn't pop up. Passing the stairs, her head turning to the side. His smirking face stared back at her from the stairs. He was enjoying this, watching her scamper for freedom. It was a game. His head turning as she ran past him, eyebrows turning upwards in amusement. Pushing herself to go faster, she reached the door and threw herself at it, unlike the other door this one was normal and should've opened by the single button to the right, that was not the case. It did nothing.

Another wave of tears fell from her red eyes and onto her reddened cheeks. It was locked. His smile proved it all. She hit the button over and over again, it gave nothing. Her legs gave way and she sat on the ground with her legs to her chest and head in hands. Her body shook rigid with sobs emitting from her thin figure.

He came down the last step, pivoting until he looked straight at the front door and straight at her. His light, terrifying eyes scanned the crouched over figure, an urgency to make her feel better overcame him. But she ran away from him. What she needed was to be taught a lesson.

"Reyna!" He yelled viciously at her. She jumped slightly, her head snapped up immediately, his light eyes graced with her dark ones. Reyna let out a slight whimper at the sight of his angry expression. He was fuming. "Come here, doll." He ordered.

She sucked in a breath, "why?"

"Just come here."

"No," she sniffled, "you're gonna hit me."

His eyes narrowed in on hers. Her red, teary eyes watched his every move with fear. He stared almost longingly at her, "you don't want me to walk over there, do you?" His voice sinister.

"N-no-"

"Come here." Her legs grew tired from running, but slowly she pulled herself up from her position and onto her feet. Her eyes not once leaving his demeaning gaze, "I'm waiting, doll." She walked towards him slowly, feet dragging behind her. Only a metre and a half away, she stood from him. His glare deepened. "Closer,"

She whimpered aloud again, not bothering to cover her sniffles with her hand but instead shuffled closer to him with tears as her trail. He now stood two feet from her but she didn't look up at him. Her long curled locks shielded her face from his gaze.

"Look at me," he ordered once again, she complied almost immediately. He smiled sadistically, "Closer." Her breathing grew heavy as she moved to be standing right in front of him. His face cracked a smirk immediately at her fearful face, he began laughing. But his face soon turned back to her with a wide toothed grin.

His pointer finger and thumb dug slightly into her cheeks as he pulled her even closer and made her look right at him. Reyna's body shook more violently as she stared up at him, her chin hurting in attempt to look down.

His smirking stopped suddenly. "God you're beautiful," he breathed, leaning down until his forehead touched hers, cupping her cheeks in his large hands, "I could never hurt a face like that now could I?" He asked seriously, hand moving to grip her neck, "what was it you used to always say? Broken is beautiful? You did say that didn't you?"

She nodded slowly. He felt her pulse quicken underneath his finger tips.

"Well then your just too goddamn beautiful for me!" He hollered, stepping a few steps away from her and throwing his arms up in exclamation. She visibly relaxed. A chuckle left his lips as neared her once again, his hands reaching up to her cheeks once again, "but it's ok doll...we can fix that." With that said he nudged the bridge of his nose with hers and smiled. Grabbing her wrist, he pulled her towards the kitchen and trapped her body between the island bench and himself.

"J- Jer wait..."

"No, no, not now," He said, placing a pointer finger to his lips, "you're not getting out of this one with that pretty little face," he spoke, stroking her cheek once again, "and that innocent tone of voice," smirking he continued, "from those perfect lips." He traced her lips lightly.

"Please-" his hand hit the marble bench top behind her.

"I said not now!" The red head growled.

His hands went down from her lips, to her throat and then her forearm, picking her up and sitting her on top of the kitchen bench before pressing her thighs apart. Now positioned between her legs, a smirk resisting to form on his face, he moved to the second draw beside her calf. Moving back in front of her before she could notice what he was holding.

Reyna's fear rose. His unoccupied hand trailed up her thigh until it reached her hip bone and held her with slight force. His other hand slowly came up to her other thigh as well, the sharp and shiny piece in his hand glinting in the lamps light. She squirmed immediately, trying to get her legs from his sides. Not even trying to use her arms as some defence, that never worked well.

"Ah, ah, ah," He tutted, pressing the blade slightly into her leg, not enough to puncture the skin but enough to send a message. Which was received clearly as Reyna immediately stopped squirming. "It's not for you. You're already beautiful enough," he smiled, "no need to be so vain Rey Rey,"

Picking up the razor, he took it to his temple right next to his left eye. Reyna began squirming in discomfort at his actions, "look at me," he smiled sadistically at her, before dragging the razor down half an inch. A slight shriek emitted from her the same time a laugh came from him. The blood began dripping from his wound and down his cheek. Her eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to witness the bloodied scene in front of her any longer.

A clang rang out as he dropped the razor onto the bench. Hands soon gripping the thighs he was between. "Look at me." He commanded, nails digging into her skin, leaving tiny half-moon punctures. Reddened eyes stared at him in fear or more specifically, the blood trailing down his chin.

His long fingers trailed up to her face for the third time this night, then moving to his chin where he felt the liquid oozing down. With his thumb he swiped the blood down his cheek, coating his fingers in the thick liquid. His eyes flickered up to hers maliciously, his bloodied thumb reaching out for her. In a desperate attempt to get away from his advances, she leaned back, ignoring the aching feeling of his other hand reaching at her curled hair and tugging it to pull her closer.

But Reyna being the stubborn woman she was didn't back down, her hands beat his chest pushing him away from her. Growing annoyed by her childish antics, he growled, his features darkening as he yanked her off the bench by her thighs. She almost lost her balance as her feet hit the cold floor, her mind spinning in confusion and fear, suddenly she was caged and like a lioness she wanted out. Her neck was caged by his long fingers and forced backwards, practically on the table, as he hovered above her, and there was nowhere left to run to, nowhere left to hide and nothing to do.

A choked sob rang from her throat. blood, "J, please, don't-" she began, ultimately stopping when his thumb reached her mouth and he drew it up her cheek and down and then up to the other cheek, a bloody smile left in his wake on her deep complexion.

His fingers danced on her face, her tears mixing with his blood. The man stepped back slightly, admiring his art and giving her some much needed space for the tiniest second before once again imposing on it.

"That's all I wanted," he spoke, bringing her closer to him so that almost every inch of their bodies were touching, her hands at his firm chest trying to push him away still. He smiled lightly and the most terrifying part about it was that it was a real smile. A genuine smile. A smile he once gave her all the time that would make her want to be in his arms. The arms that now she just wanted to run from."I just wanted to see you smile. You never smile anymore doll. I needed it!"

Reyna could tell he was at tipping point so she did the wisest thing she's done all day and kept her mouth shut.

"Ya know, I think you've had enough time wasting away in that room, you've had enough time to yourself to get over... things. Baby, we're gonna have some fun," he spoke lovingly, "And I mean obviously, you love me right?"

[adelinafugowantstowrite]

Nice! My otome game scenario is writing itself up, as expected!

Synopsis: Saito Sakura, a woman working as an author for the famous VN company “N*tr*pl*s” is currently the main writer for an otome game scenario coming up. One night, during The Crunch, she collapses and wakes up in her game world! However, she wakes up as Adelina Fugo, the main villainess/pain-in-the-butt for the commoner protagonist Petra Saenz. Worse than that, since the storyboard was never completed, she’s only got a general idea of where the story’s headed in each of the four main routes, and they all lead up to exile or death of her character!

“Well, worse comes to worse, this all serves as inspiration for when I wake up!”

Recap from last chapter: Adelina and Petra got introduced to each other like a wrecking ball--- quite literally, since Petra actually crashed into Adelina with enough force to tumble her down the dirt! What was actually surprising was The Queen of TenCal Academy actually maintain her cool composure - at least, if you asked anyone who knows her on a basic level. Instead of the expected lashing out and abusing her authority, she welcomed her instead, and set up a date to drag her somewhere!

But first, she needs time to cool off. She’s been having wholly invasive thoughts that keep derailing her mind. What exactly is going on?

Chapter 03/??:

?????????????????

Adelina Fugo did not scowl.

No, sir-ee. Scowling was something that plebeians did when encountering any meaningless difficulty along their pointless lives.

I glowered, thank you very much. Now that’s a much more refined word fitting for someone of my status. The question being now, was-

“Why?” my face would’ve screamed to me had I looked into a mirror. As if there was such a convenient thing to know what anyone was thinking; except, this is my mind, I clearly know what I’m thinking.

Except not really, since somehow, someway, my memories and thoughts started getting jumbled. I know I’ve been to Japan before, they’re a hot vacation spot for the Nahuatl Republic after all, but these memories tell me that I’ve lived in Japan for well over 20 years. My latest place was over at Chiba, a 20 minute commute in bike to the Narita Airport if I so decided, but---

I shook my head.

Right, this is why I Absolutely Need to sort it out before even daring to see anyone outside.

Alright court! Rise! Greet! Sit!

Judge Adelina Fugo, present.

Jury Adelina Fugo, present.

Executioner Adelina Fugo, present.

Bring defendant Sakura Saito to the podium, please~ Is what I would say if this were an actual show like Judge Judy--

Ah, naughty, naughty~! I’m sorry, defendant Sakura Saito, but you cannot overrule nor impose your will over Queen, Judge, Executioner, Jury, AND Executioner Adelina Fugo so easily! Now, what shall we do with you?

Let’s see if this mental feedback is two-ways. Now, if this works, let me see who you really are instead of telling me!

Hmmmm... A mediocre writer, barely making ends meet, with big dreams that remained unaccomplished even when reaching your thirties, 28 is close enough for that, right?

Motivated enough to rise in the ranks, disregarding marriage opportunities? Why should I pity you about that? Our cultures are extremely different and I don’t really care to learn the details, so cut it out with that. Know your place, this is not Japan anymore, nor is this body that of Sakura Saito.

See? You’re not even bothering to talk back to me. At least try to make suppressing your voice entertaining. While I’m certain that whatever audience is out there is having a riot at hearing me monologue, at least try to emote so that more people can actually know how you’re feeling; otherwise they’d be really lost!

Hop*? --a--A-----A-----!!!!

OOOOOOHOHOHO, did you really think that me, The Protagonist of the story you were writing, was really let you have any screentime? Eeeeeeeh? What’s that, as The Queen I’m supposed to be the Villiainess? Aren’t those roles, like, two sides of the same coin? After all, without me, Petra won’t be able to fall in love with my fiancée, much less those other two nobodies, am I right Saaaaakuraaaaaaa?

Hey, hey, why are you acting so surprised? After all, this world you were writing about, it has magic, right? Unlike your boring world, where you lived and died as a mediocre person, not even fit to lick my shoes, didn’t even develop the mastery over your mental landscape to a degree such as mine, right? Right? Right!?

Oh, amusing, this is too amusing! A plebeian who could be considered a creator goddess, dying of exhaustion, and ending up as a prisoner within my mind! A goddess who, from what I’m gathering, has set in motion my own downfall via that oh-so-sickly-sweet Petra Saenz! But let me say one thing with absolute certainty, Sakura Sato.

I, Adelina Fugo, as your Judge, Jury, and Executioner hereby declare: Your punishment for daring to defile my mind is the utter and complete destruction of your narrative.

I’ll play my part as the Villiainess. However, Petra won’t be the ray of sunshine you envisioned her to be. If I am to go down, it shall be guns blazing, as it’s fit for someone of the Fugo famiglia. If I have a say in it, and I absolutely do since it’s my right, she shall be the Brutus to my Caesar.

For what it’s worth, your motivations DID inspire something in me. Your ravings to be a recognized novelist sparked an interest in the arts within me. So, rejoice! That mediocre story you were writing before you decided to become a freeloader was picked up by a much better writer than you ever could’ve been!

Best of all, you get front row seats to all the action! The nitty gritty details that you wanted to iron before heading back home, and drowning your mind with static while eating on cheap noodles are now here!

Hey, hey!

Aren’y you glad at all, Sakuraaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Ok, case closed~ That definitely felt good to do!

Aaaaaah, now that’s a much better expression on my face that nobody should ever see. An intense gaze, nose pointed upwards; and instead of a sneer, the biggest shit-eating grin as if the cat caught the mouse.

Rejoice, indeed.

I’ve got a date to attend to with Petra, after all; and it’s going to be glorious.

Chapter 03/??: Hostile Takeover.

[lilhermitcrab1]

House of Balloons- ENC Project

The Weeknd or Abel Tesfaye is universally recognized as one of the biggest music artists out right now. He has won multiple awards through the years including three Grammys. Through all the success The Weeknd has dropped numerous projects including three mixtapes and an additional three studio albums. Originally releasing three tracks under his now-famous stage name, The Weeknd began drawing some attention online. Up to this point, not much was known about who The Weeknd was. Questions began to pop up with some speculating that The Weeknd was a group and some others wondering whether this was just an alias for a famous artist to release a passion project. All the speculation and rampant rumors culminated in the release of House of Balloons, a mixtape that would forever change the landscape of both pop and R&B music and would serve as one of the greatest and least expected debuts from an artist ever. One very interesting thing I have noticed while researching this mixtape is that every song tells a story. The first line of the entire mixtape comes from High for This. It states “You don’t know what’s in store” and it was genuinely the perfect intro to this mixtape. The song delves into a tale of The Weeknd convincing a girl to use drugs and get high with him as implied by the name of the track. It continues by the crooner stating that for the things that are about to happen the girl will indeed “wanna be high for this.” This track stirred controversy when some said it depicted a non-consensual confrontation when in reality The Weeknd himself has stated that “The tone is dark, the environment is the dark. But there’s not force in it. They want to have a good time. Everybody wants to be there. Whether they regret their choices after is whatever. But everybody is in consent.” The song's ending is almost as perfect as its beginning with the beat slowly transforming into the beginning of the next song. The next song was all about him seducing a woman who already has a partner. The ever so present lyrics on drugs also pop up again but in a very different from with The Weeknd saying that he was the drug she was fiending for the entire time. The next song shares half of its name with the album itself: House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls. The name of the song is derived in part from Tesfaye’s former home on 65 Spencer. “We’d throw these shitty parties and have girls over, and we’d try to make it celebratory, so we’d have balloons.” The first half of the song is very upbeat considering the dark lyrics The Weeknd delivers. The Weeknd sings “This is a happy house, we’re happy here, in a happy house,” almost as if he were trying to convince himself that he was actually happy and enjoying what was happening around him. This verse and track as a whole describe a very interesting underlying message in the album which is that although The Weeknd seems to be enjoying himself, he is not truly happy. The Weeknd is not only trying to convince himself, but he is also attempting to do the same to those around him including a girl is attempting to dominate. “You're in my world now, you can stay, you can stay, but you belong to me, ooh, you belong to me.”

The song eventually transitions into the second half which I interpret as The Weeknd having a “bad trip” due to all the drugs he has indulged in. Speaking of drugs this song as a whole has been linked as a metaphor to cocaine use. This can be seen at the beginning of the second half. The Weeknd chants “Bring the 707 out” which can be interpreted in multiple ways. A 707 is a glass table made by Boeing which can be the inspiration for the title of the second half of the song. It is also a drum machine known as a Roland TR-707 which was most likely used as a tool in producing the song. Another interesting fact that some listeners discovered was that 707 was also the chemical name for a cleaning solution specifically made for glass that maybe The Weeknd used it as a reference to the underlying tone I pointed out earlier which was that it may be used to clean the tables after snorting lines of cocaine. For his fifth song on the tape, Abel unleashes quite possibly the most popular song of the entire album. Wicked Games serves almost as a form of therapy for The Weeknd as he tells of how he cheated on his partner because the relationship was no longer sustainable and he no longer loved her. He tells the girl that he needs to feel something, so for at least the night he needs to hear someone say they love him even if it isn’t true. This goes back to my theory that The Weeknd is looking for an escape from a lifestyle that some see as fun or exciting, but the reality is that he is lonely. The next track is “The Party & The After Party” which is just as the name suggests has two parts. There is some difference however between this two-part track and those before it. Some of these changes are how there is no beat switch and at no point does he change his flow. He does this deliberately because this song, although it does have two parts, tells one complete story. In this track “The Party” is about Abel giving a girl drugs, attention, love, and sex. He takes us back to an earlier track “What You Need” by telling a girl who might perhaps be the same as in that track, that “Everybody wants you, you can have them all, but I got what you need..” With that, The Party ends and now “The After Party” has begun.  His line works and he convinces her to leave the party and go upstairs to a room with him. Once there, his true colors begin to show. Abel doesn’t really care about her and is only in it for himself. He tells her to invite friends if she wants and then he admits how high he truly is. One of the theories surrounding this song is that the drug he is talking about is ecstasy, which is often abused to further the feelings of arousal and lust. It also is one part of the moniker The Weeknd turned into a label and motto: XO. The X short for ecstasy and the O for Oxycodone. He begins confessing that he craves attention and that if he doesn’t get it from her he will “start drownin’ from my wrist.” This can be seen in two ways. He is either threatening to commit suicide or inject himself with even more drugs in order to escape the pain. Speaking of drugs, he continues by talking about the girl he is with. He calls her Rudolph and says that she would probably O.D. before he introduces her to his mother. “Rudolph” is The Weeknd’s way of saying that his girl has been snorting cocaine. Her nose is red like the cartoon reindeer. This girl doesn’t truly love him, but he is still addicted to her. He is so addicted that he says, “no call is worth stoppin' so, momma please stop callin.” Abel has become so addicted that he doesn’t even want to take time to speak with his mother. This song returns to the central message that The Weeknd is trying to convey. He is tired, lonely, and depressed and his only escape is to poison himself with substances that given him moments of relief. The two big ones are drugs and women who do not really want him. This is his curse. He wrote the album almost as his cry for help. He attempted to tell a story about how drugs, sex, and a bit of money can change someone’s life. Even with all his “friends” and “lovers” around him he is truly alone. Even though he is addicted he doesn’t know how to live or function without the drugs. This is why he chose to call his story the “House of Balloons.” He named the album after the one place that his words most accurately described. That home with the lavish parties and that lonely boy who partook in the activities as a way to hide from his depression.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

The Last Jedi: What I Disliked About One of the Most Fascinating Films Ever Made

The Last Jedi is probably one of the most controversial films ever made for a lot of reasons. This movie did a LOT of shit, a lot of shit that would piss people off. Hell, it even pissed ME off. But when I see people on the internet frothing at the mouth and calling this movie the worst shit pile to ever exist, the most offensive thing Star Wars has ever produced, and threatening the director with death and calling him a soulless piece of shit bastard… I’m pretty inclined to defend the movie. Frankly, anyone who reacts THIS negatively to TLJ is an utter braindead moron; you do realize you can dislike a film without being completely, insanely hyperbolic, yeah? Again, there’s a lot I hate in this movie too, and I’m gonna talk about it shortly, but in a franchise with Jar-Jar, the holiday special, and vast swaths of the Legends continuity, is this seriously the worst this franchise has had to offer? If you answer anything other than “No,” congratulations, I’d say you’re about the same mental capacity as people who think Watto is some sort of offensive Jewish caricature.

But as much as I would love to spend an entire post insulting all the whiny bastards in the Star Wars fandom, I have more pressing matters: criticizing stuff in The Last Jedi. And boy do I have a lot to criticize. I actually did review the movie a while back, and while I stand by my initial thoughts, I gotta go into more detail about what I didn’t like. However, before continuing, I want to make one thing  absolutely clear:

I think The Last Jedi is a genuinely good movie. Maybe not GREAT per se, as I have more criticisms for it than just about any other film in the series, but excellence is just so wholly ingrained into the DNA of Star Wars theatrical films that even at their most divisive they still have some level of charm. And at any rate, this movie is a hell of a lot more interesting than Rogue One. I’d say out of the newer films, this one sits behind Solo. Anyway, let’s get on to the main event… here are all my issues with The Last Jedi, presented alphabetically, and with lots of spoilers:

Canto Bright: This is probably the most annoying waste of time in the entire film, a blatant and obnoxious stretch of padding the runtime. Nothing that happens in the entirety of this subplot is truly important in the grand scheme of things; the only relevant bit of plot is that they find DJ, and this could have been done a lot quicker. This wouldn’t be so bad if they had made Canto Bright a bit more interesting, but it just feels like another attempt to rehash Mos Eisley’s cantina. It also doesn’t help this part of the film has blatant, unsubtle moralizing and cuts away from far more interesting plotlines that get much less development, particularly Rey training with Luke.

Ditching Kylo’s Motivation: In The Force Awakens, Kylo was motivated by a sort of misaimed admiration for his grandfather, where he viewed Vader as someone to emulate and who he looked to as he struggled between the light side and the dark side. All of this helped make him rather intriguing, as well as making him a very intentional Darth Vader clone character; his whole purpose was to emulate Vader, after all. All of this is ditched close to the start of The Last Jedi, and the Kylo in this film feels almost entirely different to the one seen previously. While I did like Kylo Ren  a lot more in this movie, I wish they didn’t completely rewrite his character and ditch everything established in favor of what they did. It could have easily been worked into how he acted in the film.

Finn’s Diminished Importance: After being something of the star of the last film, complete with a noticeable character arc and a lot of focus, Finn kinda gets shafted here, relegated to a shitty, unnecessary sideplot that leads the heroes nowhere. It just seems really weird, though I’m not unhappy Rey got more focus and was fleshed out better.

Holdo: While I tend to view people who write her off as “The purple-haired feminist bitch” or “Captain SJW” as inferior human beings – and they are, seriously, if you unrironically say shit like this you’re a drooling nincompoop – I really can’t deny in the slightest that Holdo was written rather poorly. She really is a poor excuse for a captain, openly lying to her underlings and keeping things secret when explaining the plan would have effected nothing except her entire crew’s compliance. It almost feels like this plot was written so we’d be on Poe’s side, but it works a bit too well by making Holdo far too arrogant, stupid, and haughty to really get behind. If not for her awesome heroic sacrifice  (one that might not have been needed in the first place if she’d been more honest but hey) I’d probably list her as one of the worst Star Wars characters ever… but a heroic sacrifice of this magnitude,  no matter how unearned it may seem, never fails to impress me.

Killing Snoke: I can kinda see what they were going for, seeing as Palpatine as well was killed with very little revealed about him in The Last Jedi… but we have now had several years worth of canonical prequel material to flesh him out, and it’s honestly pretty stupid to assume you can pull off the same trick in a franchise twice and expect it to go off as well. Snoke was unflinchingly cool, creepy, and badass, so his bisection comes across as a waste of a truly intriguing villain. That there may be prequels detailing who he was do little to ease the sting of Andy Serkis being built up as the big bad only to be cut down. At least in Black Panther he got more substantial screentime; here,  he’s s till cool, but it just feels like there is so much more he could have been.

Luke’s Attempted Murder: While overall I loved Luke’s characterization in this film and how it tied excellently into the theme of not deifying your heroes due to the trouble that can cause, it’s hard for me to rationalize Luke’s attempted murder of his own nephew, leading to Kylo Ren’s turn to the dark side. While Luke has always been a bit impulsive, this man believed he could redeem Darth Vader, AND DID SO. Need I remind you what Anakin did to those younglings? And yet his own nephew, he won’t give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, he did stop himself, but the very fact he went in there lightsaber ready to cut down the child of his sister and his best friend just feels really jarring and out of place, even within his more cynical characterization.

Phasma: Phasma has come across as a forced Boba Fett replacement since The Force Awakens, to the point where in both films she has appeared in she has been completely and utterly outshined by mooks – Nines (AKA TR-8R) in TFA and the Praetorian Guard in this one. Despite her getting a ton of fascinating backstory and depth in  canonical supplementary material, literally none of that is ever showcased even slightly in this film, and after a short, underwhelming fight scene, she apparently falls to her death. Sure, she COULD have survived, but this still feels like a rather big waste of the character. For someone they hyped up so much, the way she is handled really feels undignified.

Rey’s Parents: I’m not gonna lie, this reveal is stupid in and of itself, but the stupider thing is that a lot of people seem to be taking it at face value. When was it collectively decided we should trust the creepy, evil Sith lord who has made it perfectly clear he wants control over Rey? Why are we taking Kylo’s word that Rey’s parents were drunks who sold their kids as FACT? Honestly it just seems like a further ploy to manipulate her more than anything.

Reylo: While it isn’t canon as of yet, this movie really hammers in a bunch of hints for the obnoxiously popular ship between heroine Rey and antagonist Kylo Ren. And, quite frankly, I absolutely fucking hate this ship, but probably for a lot different reasons than most people. Do I think it’s shipping abuse? No, I don’t think it’s that any more than I think any other hero-villain ship is. Do I think Kylo doesn’t deserve to be redeemed by Rey? That’s not it either; the entire premise of this franchise is that any person can be redeemed. Kylo Ren is really no exception, though considering he killed my favorite character I’d be happy to see his ass beat. No, I hate it because I just absolutely hate the trope, if it even is one, of the hero redeeming the villain through romantic love. I feel like it would cheapen Rey’s character, and just turn the entire new trilogy into an overly long romantic drama. All the heavy-handed hints towards this pairing is just gag worthy, and frankly I’m going to be annoyed if they ruin both of these characters by going through with it.

Rose: Rose is without a doubt in my mind the worst character in the entire franchise. This seems like a rather tall order considering her competition, but consider this: her biggest contributions to the plot are the Canto Bright plotline, the absolute worst part of the film… and stopping Finn from performing a badass heroic sacrifice that might have saved the heroes a lot of trouble, delivering the stupidest line  in Star Wars history, kissing Finn, and fainting. She’s just utterly pointless to the point she feels like someone’s OC from a fanfic where they get with Finn was slipped into the script.

Wasting DJ: So you get Benicio Del Toro,  and you put him in your movie. Great so far, good. He does some weird accent and makes the character have a quirky personality, still good. You give him a very morally ambiguous personality and show the shades of grey in this idealistic universe that leans towards black vs. white most of the time, excellent, awesome! AND THEN… he betrays the heroes and vanishes from the film. What. DJ didn’t die, and he could come back… but he just feels shoehorned in and just doesn’t really reach his full potential whatsoever. He was such an interesting idea, and they just did the bare minimum with him.

Despite all of this crap, though… The Last Jedi still manages to be awesome. Holdo’s final sacrifice, the Kylo Ren and Rey fight against the Praetorian Guards, Yoda’s surprise appearance, Luke’s final battle… Hell, I even liked seeing Leia finally use the Force by flying through space with it; as cheesy as it is, it left me floored when I saw it in theaters. Then, of course, there’s that epic opening space battle… there’s just a lot to love here. In particular, my favorite moment is probably Luke becoming one with the Force. Maybe it’s not my MOST favorite moment, but it just feels so poignant and important, with his final moments mirroring the start of his journey, as he gazes into twin suns one last time before joining his teachers and father. It just… it gets to you, you know? I may have a LOT of issues with this movie, and a lot of stuff I didn’t really like in it, but more than any other movie I have so many issues with, I like and even RESPECT this film. You can say a lot of things about this movie, but one thing you can’t say is that it’s dull. It sparks discussion, and debate, and obnoxiously hyperbolic worst-everism. At the end of the day, whether it’s good or bad doesn’t really matter. The only thing that matters is that this film just… IS. And one way or another people will have something to say about it. Just don’t be a hyperbolic douche about it and try and enjoy things, you know?

[tcpdog]

Was Archer ever convicted because of his involvement with Team Rocket? How would he handle prison?

I’m going to assume you mean after HGSS, when Archer revives Team Rocket and tries to bring Giovanni back as their boss.

I have several ‘paths’ / verses for what happens after Archer and the other executives are defeated and Rocket is again ‘shut down’, so the answer to this would vary depending on which path is followed.

I tend to default to the assumption that Archer (and the other executives) are still at large, after the showdown at the Radio Tower. he’s managed to successfully evade the authorities even before being recruited into Team Rocket, so his skills have only grown since, and he’s pretty fucking good at not being found when he doesn’t want to be.

the thread I have with Saz  ( @lookertickets​​​ )  takes place post-HGSS, where Archer had intentionally shown himself to draw Looker to his location and lured him into a back alley where he planned on finishing him off. of course it isn’t exactly turning out the way Archer wanted it to. so the police are still very much on the hunt for ex-Team Rocket members, especially the four executives and their former boss.

I actually had a headcanon that, if TR were to ever actually ‘fall’ and its information, assets, etc. confiscated or put into jeopardy, there was a plan between Archer and Giovanni, which essentially manipulates all of their information that could be used as evidence, and frames Archer as the mastermind behind it all. any connections between the two of them would be painted as Archer trying to frame Gio instead, and using him as a backdrop or scapegoat.

essentially the information is arranged and presented to make Giovanni look completely innocent and Archer completely guilty. this is on purpose, with full awareness and agreement from both of them, because Archer wants to take the fall so that his boss can live freely. so he would basically be convicting himself at that point, of everything Rocket has ever done (and, admittedly, a lot of it is his doing, since Archer was basically the engine of Team Rocket and did the bulk of the work required in running it).

I like to imagine the universe of Pokémon in a more realistic (and thus darker) setting or perspective than is canonically represented, because a lot of what would make sense in it has to be ignored or only vaguely referenced by the writers, since it IS a children’s show. that’s the kind of mindset I use for this blog’s content, as it makes things much more interesting that way.

if Archer were convicted, he would either get life in prison, or the death penalty. I don’t think it 100% impossible for truly heinous and longstanding criminals to be put to death, even in the Pokéworld (if it were more realistic of course) because Archer qualifies as – among other things – a terrorist, and the leader of a terrorist organization. he is dangerous even behind bars, and a lot of lives – Pokémon and human alike – were lost, ruined or traumatized because of him and Team Rocket. those lives, and their relatives, would want justice. there would be a lot of support, in this darker version of the Pokéworld, for the harshest punishment on those who were the driving force behind Rocket.

but assuming he was given life in prison, I also imagine that it is just as harsh (and sometimes lawless) as the real world’s prisons can be. some of the inmates look at him with respect and fear, others would absolutely despise him. Archer would most likely be kept in solitary, at least until when they can ascertain if he’s going to be as much trouble behind bars as he was outside of them.

I’ve spoken with Saz in the past of how it would be like for Archer in prison (particularly in the case of if Looker is the one to bring him in). his biggest abusers would very likely be other officers and prison wardens. as he’s not only a hated criminal, but the presumed leader of the largest and most notorious crime syndicate in the world, they’d treat him as bad as they felt they could get away with (which is a lot, since he has life in prison, and no one is going to want to look out for his ass.)

ironically, Archer would use this abuse to vilify his own beliefs that the police are the true ‘criminals’ of this world, and as much as they like to tout their ideals of justice and how they’re right and he’s wrong, they’re really no different from Team Rocket. he would obey when it is in his best interest to do so, but for no other reason than that. he’d talk down to the officers and basically push his limits as much as he could, and they’d only use that as an excuse to treat him more like shit, which feeds back into his beliefs that he draws his behavior from… and it’s basically a vicious cycle of that.

it helps distract him from his despair at the loss of Team Rocket and Giovanni, so…that’s a plus, I guess.