#they are living up to the ''no one has any idea what they're doing'' theme

[bibibbon]

TBHX and the disposability of man pt2

Here is part 1

Even though it is just the beginning of Yang cheng's story, the theme of disposability within a flawed society seems to strengthen within the story.

Episode 5 begins with the death of Yang cheng's parents and the plan for them to quite literally sell him. To buy something implies to later dispose of it later on when it's out of use or when it becomes obsolete and we see this language being used towards a literal human child.

On a visual note, you can also interpret this scene as Yang cheng's parents, who are now dead, symbolising that they are obsolete with a small Yang cheng whom still holds value alive and next to them.

When Yang cheng grows up and becomes an E-soul actor, he is now in his prime use and has to differentiate himself from the other E-souls. In a world of a million actors, you can easily be disposed of over and over because another actor can replace you and play the role you serve to society. This is best seen in the E-soul actor competition with all of these actors playing the role of E-soul any of them can be him and become him physically speaking however, no one will ever fully know or understand the true E-soul and his motives and no one will fully discard of their core to become a blank slate.

The battle between the two E-souls and the publics reaction it is really interesting, and I think hammers down on this theme. Even with Original E-soul serving the people for 34 years, he can be easily disposable in the publics eyes simply because they find the younger E-soul much more reliable, attractive, and a breath of fresh air. As long as there is someone with the hero name of E-soul who is eye candy and does what the public wants the people will hold them to a favourable standard until they grow old, tarnished and lose their uniqueness being replaced by another copy of them in the grand capitalist machine.

Yang chengs story ends with him becoming a puppet to Uncle rocks wishes and replacing the original E-soul. The public doesn't care, it was live and broadcasted that one of the E-souls lost their lives and that their trust values merged but as long as there was the concept and abstract idea of a quick electricity hero named E-soul the people will dehumanise and worship the hero even if he killed another man on live television.

While the battle of two E-souls and Yang chengs story is one way the story illustrates the theme of disposability another way the story does this is through the two nameless characters that uncle Rock uses as puppets to inact his plan.

I don't remember the show ever disclosing these two names, and I think that adds a lot to how the show refuses to humanise them in a way. The same goes for Yang chengs parents they are nameless people who lived lives and were killed. They were puppets in a capitalist system that only benefits the elites. We are introduced to these two, and right from the get-go, we are shown that they have money problems and will do anything for money even if it means kidnapping someone. They might sound repulsed at the idea, but they're willing to do anything for survival, and we see this happening multiple times, whether that be them kidnapping little pomelo or killing shang chao they're willing to be puppets and play the role that society has given them if it means there is a chance at an escape or survival.

I think this is why it's so distressing when we find out that they were essentially puppets there to further push along and benefit Uncle Rock, who needed them for Yang chengs story and when they become obsolete they suffer the same twisted fate as Yang chengs parents : death by drowning in cement.

Two people killed, no one cares for them, no one will look for them and no one will know the truth because while they might have their names in prison on paper they were killed trying to escape a system that immediately discards of useless powerless cogs.

[inseparabiles]

There is this line in the script, not shown in the film. Though I wish it did. Where Caracalla is speaking to the senates before Macrinus presents Geta’s head.

“My hand held the blade, but my Father's hand guided mine. I was the puppet, dancing on his string.”

I have this theory or thought, Caracalla is not just reliving himself k-lling Geta. But also “playing out” what he witnessed their father do to Geta.

Obviously it is Macrinus’ hand. But we understand how the twins see the people they trust, as parental figures in some way. Which is probably why Geta felt betrayed by Acacius and Lucilla (deleted scene where he suggested if Lucilla should adopt them).

Parental figure is such a theme with this film that I think people tend to overlook. Finding your mother, looking for a parent figure in someone. Even making yourself a “parent” to yourself and others to survive.

Another line before, that is also deleted. “Now I am the only one.. I was the true us, and he was the false me. We were always "we," all our lives, but now I am only I, me, alone.” It is likely just his illness overtaking him since he is already in the late stage of syphilis plus lead poisoning.

I can’t help but ponder on that line, like where in their story (in film) would he say this for besides Macrinus pushing him to the wrong idea. Like what did Geta do to make Caracalla think this way during the entire film before executing Acacius.

God YES. All of this.

It's obvious with Lucius, but less glaring with the twins - yet they are, throughout the film, paralleled thematically with Romulus and Remus, orphans raised by a wolf. "Raised by wolves" on its own is a phrase used to describe people who grow up in harsh circumstances, without adequate love and support, struggling to survive and forced to fend off for themselves. The real Caracalla and Geta weren't twins, the ones in the movie are for symbolic reasons. This says as much about them as it says about Rome.

And both their characters are shown to be judged for their shortcomings; for their lack of an education, for their mismanagement of the state, for their cruelty and insularity. Yet when we meet them, and are shown them as people, both of them are so desperately seeking guidance from any real adult around them: they're very young, and they have no idea what they're doing at all. The tragedy of their situation is that, like so many people with childhood trauma, they turn away support which is caring and supportive because it makes them suspicious, and turn for the kind of authority figures whose perceived love for them is demanding and conditional. This isn't any more conscious for them as it is for most trauma survivors, but it is such a painful pattern. If they can't perceive someone's ulterior motives, they can't trust them, and they've not been raised to understand that people might be altruistic and strive for the betterment of the whole without a selfish angle. This is why Geta pushes Acacius: Acacius is much like their father, an older, powerful, respectable, dignified military general who has the nation's support and love. But Acacius must want something for himself. Geta hates that he refuses to show it. That he turns down personal honours and tries to slink away from his duties to attend to some shady business called retirement and home life and loving your wife. That doesn't compute with him so there must be more and if he just pushes him far enough, surely Acacius will show his true colours.

They do the same with Lucilla: the reality that she doesn't desire anything much for herself just doesn't sink in to them at any stage. They think they can leverage glory and luxury and power with her, but she doesn't want it. She'll never give to them what they're looking for because in exchange for their power and status, they're offering her more of the same, and it's about the last thing she could possibly care about.

So what is HER ulterior motive, then?

But Macrinus, who is always a push and pull, trading "care" for leverage, sinks in like a hot knife to butter. Instantly. Because it seems that he plays by their rules: he wants something, but what he wants is benign so they can give that to him, because he is taking it in such a way that is beneficial to them, he's only looking out for their mutual best. No questions asked. Neither of the twins pushes for anything.

And with what happens with Caracalla, I. Fucking. I'm.

The thing is, Caracalla would not really go for Geta's life, just as Geta would not go for his. Macrinus doesn't realise this and his plan almost fails for it, because Macrinus does not understand love like they have for each other: he thinks that pushing these same leverages with them will ultimately lead to its natural conclusion. Only, for whatever fucking reason, Geta gets through to Caracalla and Caracalla stops his assault on him and that will not do because if they resolve it peacefully - then Caracalla will expose Macrinus's plan to Geta. Before this point, Macrinus never dirties his own hands, and I don't believe he had any intention of doing it here either. Caracalla killing Geta is both obvious to the world and expected and sickeningly convenient for Macrinus, because Caracalla is sick and easy to control through that. Geta is already doing it left and right and Macrinus is so much better at it because he doesn't love Caracalla, so what the fuck does he care what he tells him or how he bends him to his will. Geta is a problem, Caracalla is an available tool to be wielded. But when Caracalla doesn't kill Geta, Macrinus has to - in a way that allows him to convince Caracalla that, actually, he did that. It was Caracalla. So that Caracalla won't complain and the plan can proceed regardless of the minor hiccup.

Caracalla's mental state is so bad in that scene. He's utterly frozen and dissociative and unresponsibe when Macrinus takes to him. He's literally just witnessing, apparently his own hand but he's not moving it, kill his brother before his eyes. Whatever Macrinus tells him after to explain this is fair game. And in the moment, yes, this is his father acting through him. It's what Severus always aimed to do, what they both feared their whole lives. Geta got in the way. Now he is punished, from beyond the grave, for it. He should have submitted to his fate a long time ago. He's always been a problem, an obstacle. And now Caracalla is alone but he's alone because he... wanted it? He did want it. Always wondered what it would be like if Geta wasn't in his way, if he wasn't perpetually overshadowed by him. Of course he did this to Geta. Of course it was his hands. Of course it was meant to be. Him, wielding a blade, and guided by his father's final justice.

And why is he crying for it? Why does it hurt? He's not crying. He's fine. He has consuls to name. Tomorrow, he'll look for Geta again, because Geta always comes back after their fights. He wouldn't leave Caracalla alone. But Macrinus tells him that Geta is unwell and that doesn't quite make sense but it has a horrible echo and Caracalla's willing to accept this explanation because questioning it would break him and he doesn't have it in him anymore to be broken. More than he is. Geta would be proud of him, so he goes on with this thing that he wanted, his dream of being a fully realised emperor, a single entity, a person in his own right.

I've never really figured out what makes Caracalla think that Geta would lie to him, because Geta seems honest to a fault, his only lying is by omission and he only does that to keep peace. It might be something their father would shout at him - because Geta would, obviously, lie for Caracalla. Lie to take the blame, lie that he doesn't know where Caracalla is, lie about just about anything to direct his father's anger away from his twin. Might just be echoes. Might be something Caracalla made up because he feels slighted and things don't make sense to him. Geta will tell him things that are contrary to his reality because his reality, long ago, stopped making sense.

[imminent-danger-came]

Anyone else absolutely allured by how wrong everyone in lmk is all the time. Everyone is an unreliable narrator and no one knows what's going on or what they're doing. It makes it so fun for me

[8housevenus]

3rd house placements and your voice!

hii, i wanted to do more of a light & fun themed post that goes over the kind of voice you have, the type of communicator you are, and other things as well according to your 3rd house placements. if you do not have any placements in your third, check out the house ruler and apply it accordingly, ex; my third house is ruled by pisces, apply the neptune features to it!

sun in 3rd house - talk about thinking out-loud!! sun in 3rd people are such great communicators, they get things across loud and clear. never ones to hold back, natural conversationalists, and you have a voice that often sounds younger. when you talk it's heartfelt and you feel that half-assings in conversations is just not you! sometimes, your age is mistaken due to your lengths of knowledge and the ability to express your inner child through your interests. you use your hands often when you speak! often have such a memorable voice and this placement is a strong indicator of being a music artist too; justin beiber, jay z, drake, britney spears, all very household names and all are always getting their voice impersonated by other people interestingly enough!! there's versatility that spews through these people, not hard at all for them to improvise, standup, debate, etc. can be gossipy though and involved in dramas very easily because of this.

moon in 3rd house - mental clarity goes crazy here. your emotions give you all the drive you need- creatively and you don't hold back on that. they intellectualize their emotions and can formulate feelings into words very well. the kind of voice they have is much softer, eloquent, and comforting. they're the kind of people that send you a voicemail and you listen to it over and over again because it's endearing. "say it with your chest," type of people, as the moon is mostly fixated in the chest-stomach region. they have a good discernment of their environment, walking analysts, know when to intervene, etc. celebrities with moon in 3rd; jennifer aniston, megan markle, margot robbie, etc.

mercury in 3rd house - very fast-paced talkers, versatile in the way they communicate. also uses their hands while they speak, has a witty and sarcastic tint to them when they speak. often very humorous people and naturally highly innovative. for these people ideas flow into them at fast rates, often giving them plenty of projects to work on. placement of high intelligence, and great at mirroring. "excuse me, may i interrupt," types of people. love adding on to others and i notice with 3rd house mercuries as they get older, they do become a lot quieter and keep ideas to themselves. celebrities with this include; jim carey, nikola tesla, stephen hawking, etc. (like i said super wise and funny thats a dub for sure)

venus in 3rd house - first thing that comes to mind is glamorous voice. often times they talk about their love-lives (yes they always have the craziest stories about others or themselves in love). just like the sun, these people have a notable voice too. one that can even get them famous. often these people have strong followings, or crowds that really like listening to them. highly influential and lowkey some party heads. might have some commitment troubles, but other than that they have good projecting voices- soothing, and has good posture too. celebs with this; cristiano ronaldo, taylor swift, kris jenner, etc.

mars in 3rd house - i like to say they have some of the most electric voices ever. seriously. they know exactly how to spice up conversations and they move a lot when they talk. they inspire others to take course of action, usually very good individuals at gaining crowds as well, but what differentiates venusian people and mars people- is the attitude. mars gain people's attention through their eccentric-ness. other people find mars in 3rd house bundles of expression, always on the go and actually very good manifestos. usually has raspiness and deepness to their voices because they tend to shout a lot. celebs with this; miley cyrus, harry styles, katy perry, etc.

jupiter in 3rd house - these people have a love for languages. usually very diverse linguistically, and always the guy that knows a guy. very good at developing acquaintances in their environment. usually has more high-pitched voices, slow and even sensual, but clear. they like knowing a bit of everything while they can. sometimes, these people can attract things out of thin air, and receive many comments on their voice or abilities to make their life experiences sound a lot less gruesome than it really is. kind of in their own little world and has open demeanor. often times you see these people unexpectedly associating with others that "make no sense" for them or in environments that "make no sense for them". side note: the biggest struggle these people will face is people trying to mold them to be somebody they're not. they love to expand wherever they can. celebrities with jupiter in 3rd; lana del rey, lionel messi, jim carey, and gordon ramsey.

saturn in 3rd house - mean big business ok!! let me tell you, these people are amazing at using their environments for their endeavors. they're very humble speakers, reserved and kind of talk when asked to. they are great at explaining principles of underlying things, usually seems older than what they really are. they stick to one thing at a time, and they are actually easy to read while talking to them. their body language is more telling than their words sometimes. watch a saturn in 3rd house's jaw clench when they are stressed, or crack their knuckles while thinking heavily. celebrities with this placement; steve jobs, kylie jenner, bjork, zoe kravitz, etc.

uranus in 3rd house - "you can't outdo the doer," is what i get from this placement. highly intellectual people, makes significant shifts into the world. when they speak, they're actually very good at impressions, get told they don't look like how they sound, or will attract many "haters" because they challenge status quo mentality. they will never stand down when communicating their deepest interests. they seem quirky & nerdy, however highly reliable and feels a strong sense of "these people need me." as they become older, they are more cherished, while they are younger they might seem air headed. their voices are so unique to them, that you cannot easily be reminded of them by others. they are completely in their own lanes. one of a kinds. celebrities with this placement; albert einstein, elon musk, celine dion, michael jordan, etc.

neptune in 3rd house - has a deep understanding of the environment they're in. they are very quiet and timid. these people really like to connect to people based off their souls and not their physical forms. and when they speak, they have a genuine tone and strive for genuine connection. sometimes, these people think many people they cross paths with are meant to make them feel good, feel bad, question, etc. highly accepting and others can admire this person too. seems ditzy, but on the inside is a whirlpool of feeling and emotions they sense. sometimes they can get abnormal praise, simply for the way they express themselves. i notice with these people they love to make facial movements when speaking, like very dramatically sometimes. you can always tell when these people are nervous too, watch how many times they shake their feet to soothe themselves. always seems very introspective wherever they go. celebrities with this placement; al pacino, leonardo dicaprio, beyonce, kendrick lamar, etc.

pluto in 3rd house - bringing pluto into this mix, wherever they go they love to change what they can in their environments. they want to change things for the better, and usually really find interest in talking about things that isn't so typical in conversation. they are very serious people when in discussion. they hate to say a lot without leaving impact. these people will sound much older and have a profound tone. often they bring the collective darkness to a collective lightness. i notice they love using metaphors, talking in 3rd person, and dropping their egos a lot in conversations. makes undeniable changes to societal norms or social structures. these are life changers and add some humanitarianism to everyday encounters, really love dropping a lot of their own lore too! celebrities with this; angelina jolie, martin luther king, adam levine, kylian mbappe.

thank you so much for skimming through this i appreciate it as always, let me know if you relate, disagree etc. super interesting in seeing what you think, let me know if u want me to do more like these <3

[loriache]

Kabru, impossible mutual understanding & unknowable objects

Despite his concerted and constant efforts to understand other people, it’s established in a few extras that Kabru believes that true mutual understanding between certain different races is impossible. Specifically, between long-lived and short-lived races, and between humans and demi-humans. Partially, we can trace this conviction back to specific hang-ups caused by his life; the trauma of the Utaya disaster, prejudices he carries from his childhood, and his experience of racism among the elves. In this “little” essay, I’m gonna discuss how I think those experiences formed this belief, how it comes out in his actions, and how some of his actions seem to contradict it. The question of whether it’s possible to reach mutual understanding with other living beings despite our differences is one of the core themes of the manga, and I’ll also touch on how this aspect of Kabru’s character links to that.

Seeking understanding

Kabru is a character who devotes a huge amount of time and effort to understanding people, and he is very good at it. In his internal monologue, we can tell how advanced and complex his skills of analysis are. He is able to read a huge amount of information just from looking at people's faces and body language.

People are, to him, what monsters are to Laios. This is something that's been expanded on at length in other, excellent meta. It's the fact that they're foils; it's the fact that Kabru is also very easy to read as autistic, with a special interest which is the opposite and parallel of Laios'. It's something that came out of trauma and alienation, as Laios' special interest in monsters also began as a coping mechanism.

The complicated origin of this "love" for monsters and for people comes through, I think, in the fact that one of the places we see both characters use their fixation is in being very, very good at killing the thing that they love. This also ties into the idea that loving something isn't even remotely mutually exclusive with using it to sustain your own survival; using it for your own purposes; hurting it or killing it. Love can be, and often is, violent, possessive and consumptive. This understanding is part of what makes Kui's depiction of interpersonal relationships so compelling to me.

While Laios fixated on monsters and animals to seek a place of escape, in both his imagination and his self-image, from the humans who he couldn't understand and who couldn't understand him, Kabru seems to have fixated on understanding people in order to navigate the complex, socially marginal places that he has been forced into throughout his life. As an illegitimate child raised by a single mother with an appearance that marked him out as different to the point his father's family wanted to kill him, and a tallman child raised among elves who didn't treat him as fully human and wanted him to perform gratefulness for that treatment – treatment that, after he met Rin at age 9, he certainly always understood could be a lot worse – his ability to work out what people wanted from him, whether they were friendly or hostile or had ulterior motives, wasn’t just an interest. It will have been an essential skill.  

Milsiril, I think, was a flawed parent who tried to do her best by Kabru and did a lot of harm to him despite her best intentions. She may have treated him much better than an average elf would have, but like Otta and Marcille's mother, there are other elves with different outlooks on short-lived races. How would they judge her treatment of him? We don’t have any insight on what it could be, but to be honest, the person’s whose opinion of her I’d be most interested in knowing is Rin’s.

But even if she'd been perfect, living as an trans-racial adoptee in a deeply hierarchical nation with a queen who is a 'staunch traditionalist' who wouldn't even acknowledge the existence of a half-elf like Marcille (according to Cithis) is an experience that would deeply impact anyone.

Elves & Impossible mutual understanding

While Kabru was living with Milsiril - in other words, while living in the Northern Central Continent - he came to believe that "there was no way to achieve mutual understanding with the long-lived races."

This is evident in his political project: he wants short-lived races to have ownership over the dungeon's secrets. Despite his dislike of the Lord of the Island, he's a useful bulwark to stop the elves taking over. Despite his doubts about Laios, Laios needs to be the one to defeat the dungeon, because if he doesn't the elves will take over.

Kabru still carries a deep scar from Utaya, one that was exacerbated by the fact that he never got an answer to any of his questions about what happened or why. This, despite the fact that Milsiril knows about the demon and how it works. Do you think Kabru, with his social perceptiveness that borders on the superhuman, wasn't aware that she knew more than she would tell him?

Given that, the fact that he gets to a place where he "doesn't have any particularly negative feelings about [elves/long-lived species]" .... well, to put it bluntly, I believe that he thinks that's the case, but I kind of doubt it. After all, if he did have resentment, of Milsiril (someone who was his primary provider and caretaker since age six, and who despite her flaws, loves him and who I do think he loves) or of elves (who he has had to play nice with for most of his life, in order to survive, and will still have to play nice with in order to achieve his goals, since they hold all the power) what would that do except hurt him and make his life harder? Kabru is Mr. Pragmatic, so I don't think he'd let himself acknowledge any such feelings he did have. Exactly because he can't acknowledge them, they're well placed to get internalised as beliefs about the Fundamental Unchangeable Nature of the World.

However, these stated beliefs seem to contradict his actions. Despite his belief in the impossibility of forming a mutual understanding, he certainly seems to try to understand long-lived people, just as much as he does short-lived people. There's no noticeable difference between his treatment of Daya & Holm versus Mickbell & Rin that isn't clearly down to their relationship with him. His skills of human analysis were honed and developed while living amongst elves, and as soon as he's alone with Mithrun he immediately sets to understanding him - his interests, his motivations, his needs, and his past.

He treats him considerately and without bias, and despite the fact that Mithrun conquering the dungeon for the elves is both a reenactment of a core part of his childhood trauma and a political disaster for his aims, that doesn't seem to colour his perspective on Mithrun negatively at all.

This is something I find extremely laudable about Kabru, and it's another way he parallels Laios. He seems to understand that people, as a rule, (in Laios' case, he understands this about monsters - and eventually, all living beings) will act in their own interests, and if those interests conflict with yours, might harm you. But that's just their nature, and it's not something that should be held against them; you're also doing the same thing, after all. The crux of Laios' arc is precisely that he has to accept the responsibility of hurting someone else in order to achieve what he wants.

Kabru is deeply concerned with his own morals, what he should and shouldn't do, but mostly in the context of responsibility for the consequences - a responsibility he takes onto himself. He isn't scrupulous about what he needs to do in order to create the outcome he wants, but if he fails to create that outcome, then....

He blames himself to the point of thinking he should die. He doesn't blame Laios, or seem at all angry with him, despite concluding he should have killed him to prevent this outcome. That's because in his eyes, ultimately Laios was going to act according to his own nature, and it's Kabru's fault for not understanding that nature well enough. He's extremely confident in his ability to understand and predict others, (including elves and other long-lived people). Then, where does his conviction that mutual understanding is impossible come from?

Partially, it's the "mutual" part. I'm sure Kabru, who isn't able or willing to deny Otta's insinuation that Milsiril saw him more like a pet than a son, has felt that his full interiority, the depth of his feelings and his ability to grow, act, and think as a fully equal being, was something that the elves around him just couldn't grasp. Because that was their excuse for it, he came to understand this as a gulf between short-lived and long-lived beings, an inevitable difference in outlook caused by their different lifespans.

This experience might be part of what leads to his iconic “fake” behaviour. He trusts his ability to understand others, but if they aren’t able to understand him, then there isn’t any benefit to being honest about his feelings and thoughts. If his attempts to reach mutual understanding with his caretakers were never able to be fulfilled, then it isn’t any wonder that he reacts with such surprise and horror at blurting out his desire to be Laios’ friend.

In his experience, making yourself vulnerable in that way only leads to being hurt. Soothing him, hushing him, lying to him, talking to him like a child that isn’t able to use proper judgement – that’s an inadequate and deeply hurtful way to respond to genuine distress, the desire for autonomy, or disagreement. Ultimately, I think that’s why he comes out on the side of being grateful to Milsiril; because she did equip him with the skills and knowledge he’d need to reach his goal, and let him go.

Though he could understand them, they couldn't understand him. To the extent that was true - which I'm sure it was - it wasn't due to anything about lifespan. It was due to the elves’ racism, and the solipsitic mindset & prejudiced attitude that it caused them to approach him with.

Because, if it needs to be said, the idea that there is an unbreachable gap in understanding between the long-lived and short-lived species is not true. Marcille and Laios have a much greater difference in lifespan than any full elf from any short-lived person, and they’re able to understand each other – maybe not perfectly, but better than many other people who are closer in life-span to them.

That doesn’t mean that I think Kabru is wrong about this, however. Because there’s an interpretation of his statement that is reflected in his actions and is true. When he talks about his problem with elves, it’s not just their attitudes: it’s their power, and what they use it to do. They “explain nothing and take everything”. Though it’s presented in the guise of ‘guiding and protecting’, in fact it’s a simple case of a powerful nation using their military power, wealth, access to resources, and historically stolen land – including the island itself – to protect their own interests and advance their own agenda. That’s why they’d be able to show up, seize the dungeon, and forcibly take Kabru’s party and Laios’ party to the West. If Kabru wants to stop that from happening, or change that status quo, persuasion or a bid to be understood would be completely pointless. Between the political blocs formed by long-lived species and the interests of short-lived species, “mutual understanding”, given their current, unequal terms, would be impossible. This is something that we see reflected in Kabru’s actions; before he asks his questions about the dungeon, he grabs Mithrun as leverage. He never really attempts to persuade the canaries to see his point of view, because that would be pointless: they’re agents of the Northern Central Continent’s monarchy, and will act in its interests regardless of any individual relationship with him.  

I don’t think Kabru sees the different dimensions of this belief of his in quite such clear terms, however, as is evidenced by the other group who he thinks it’s impossible to communicate with.

Demi-Humans & Unknowable Objects

The other place that we see his conviction about the impossibility of mutual understanding is in the kobold extra.

I'm including the whole thing, because I think it's an excellent and clever piece of world-building. Aside from what it says about Kabru, which I'll expand on shortly, what this extra does is deconstruct and call into question the usual "fantasy ontological biology" present in these sort of DnD-like settings. Essentially, the kind of worldbuilding where a race (such as kobolds) can be described as war-like, and that's establishing something essential about their biological nature. That's common to the point that if Kui didn't include this, some people would probably come away thinking that's the case about, e.g., the orcs.

But here, despite what Kabru is saying, the information the reader actually gets is:

the conflict between short-lived humans and demi-humans such as kobolds is mostly over access to material resources that they need to survive.

These resources are scarce because powerful nations, such as the elves, have monopolised them.

Kabru, who has grown up in a place at the centre of these conflicts, ascribes essential, negative traits to a cultural group which was in direct conflict with his own. Communication with this other group is impossible; they aren't people, they're more like objects.

oh yes! just like this conflict between groups of tall-men, a conflict which the reader will immediately interpret as more clearly analogous to real-life racism. Our other protagonists also carry prejudices from growing up in a place where a marginalised group was in conflict with the dominant group over scarce resources. It's definitely impossible to communicate with these people, and you can only kill them.

Woah, when you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad!

But also, nobody walks away having had a realisation or unlearned their prejudices - because they don't have the tools they need to do that work. Yet. I do think, to an extent, it could happen - especially with Kabru, since it's suggested in the epilogue that Melini might become a safe-haven for demi-humans.

To focus in on Kabru, the key here is his statement that you should think of demi-humans as "unknowable objects". Even his extraordinary powers of understanding have seemingly hit a limit. Part of this is just inherited prejudice, and doesn't need to have a complicated psychological explanation, any more than the elves who were prejudiced against him need one.

But also... this is probably somewhat linked to the way demi-humans seem to be considered "pseudo-monsters". They're the place that the strict delineation between the human and the monstrous is permeated. Laios, who is not interested in humans, remembers and is excited by Kuro. Chilchuck and Laios argue over whether it's OK to eat a mermaid. Kabru's prepared to (pretend to) roll with the idea that Laios ate the orcs.

But these are people, aren't they? Of course, this is a social construction, as we see from the fact that in the Eastern Archipelago, the label of "human" is reserved for tallmen, but in most of the rest of the world it depends on some obviously arbirary classification based on number of bones; "demi-humans" aren't in any essential way monstrous, except to an extent in their appearance, and physical location - due to their marginal social status, they're pushed out to live in unsafe places such as dungeons.

Therefore, Kabru's view of demi-humans as fundamentally "other", unable to be understood - monstrous - could be read as akin to abjection, the psychoanalytical concept described by Julia Kristeva. In order to create a bounded, secure superego, that thing which permeates and calls into question the border between self and other, human and animal, life and death, is rejected and pushed to the margin.

“Not me. Not that. But not nothing, either. A "something" that I do not recognize as a thing.[...] On the edge of nonexistence and hallucination, of a reality that, if I acknowledge it, annihilates me. There, abject and abjection are my safeguards. The primers of my culture.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 11) “It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. ” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 13) “The pure will be that which conforms to an established taxonomy; the impure, that which unsettles it, establishes intermixture and disorder. [...] the impure will be those that do not confine themselves to one element but point to admixture and confusion.” (Kristeva et al., 1984, p. 107) (discussing food prohibitions in Leviticus)

This is both (due to its affinity with food-loathing and disgust) a very fruitful concept to apply to dunmeshi, and a psychoanalytical theory which I wouldn't exactly cosign as True Facts About Human Psychological Development. You may also know the abject from its utilisation in the classic essay "Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine" by Barbara Creed - that's a lot more approachable than Kristeva if anyone's interested.

Key here, though, is that through the symbol of the "demi-human" is embodied a step between "human" and "monster" - and that's a prospect that puts at risk the whole notion of an absolute separation between those two categories in the first place. To Laios, that's something wonderful, and to Kabru, it's terrifying. We can see this principle further embodied in the relationship both characters have with the notion of becoming monstrous.

To Laios, this is transcendent, and represents a renunciation of everything human - in fact, if it didn't, it wouldn't "count".

To Kabru, it's a deeply-held fear, established by his childhood alienation (due to his illegitimacy, his eyes, and perhaps also his neurodivergency), deepened by monster-related trauma and the sense of responsibility and survivors guilt he feels for what happened at Utaya. His identity as a human who is not monstrous is key to his sense of stability and safety; he doesn't want to touch monsters, he doesn't even want to see them.

To acknowledge a kinship, a possibility of similarity between the things he loves (humans) and the things he hates (monsters) would be more than touching them - it would be putting them inside him. We know, quite explicitly, that this notion is triggering to Kabru. He literally has what seems to be a flashback when he's about to eat the harpy omelette.

So he abjects it, classifying the demi-human as fundamentally unlike him - an unknowable object, or an object that he refuses to know. Because in understanding it, he would interject the things he hates and fears into his self, which is already, always under threat by that hated and feared object.

Of course, again, Kabru isn't very good at enacting this refusal in practice. For one, when he chooses between his desires and ingesting the feared object, eating monsters... he eats monsters. Part of this is treating himself badly, the "ends justify the means" mentality. His goal is to destroy all monsters, so if he needs to become monster-like to do that, he will. But part of it is also the other motivation that he didn't even seem to know about until he said it: he wants to become Laios' friend, and to learn from him how a person can like monsters. He wants, at least in some part of him, to reconcile the feared and hated object into something he can understand.

For another:

Kabru can speak the kobold language. In the first place, while this may have been common in Utaya, it also could have been something he chose to learn, an early expression of his interest in understanding and talking to all sorts of people. It isn't the kind of thing you learn if you believe that communication between yourself and the group that speak it is impossible, is it?

It's possible to harbour prejudices against a group while being kind to an individual, and given Kabru has those prejudices regardless of his reasons, that is what he is doing. But also, his treatment of Kuro doesn't reflect a sincerely held belief that he's an "unknowable object" at all. His approach is exactly the same as it is to any other person: an analysis of goal and motive, and an attempt to help if he's sympathetic and their goals align - going out of his way to give language and local knowledge lessons in secret. His conviction that Mickbell and Kuro will truly become friends when they can properly communicate is completely contradictory to any sense of demi-humans as fundamentally different, or impossible to reach mutual understanding with. To me, it seems like this self-protective shield against the corruptive force demi-humans as an idea present to his identity, this abjection, when Kabru is face-to-face with one, just simply can't hold up against his finely honed skill of intellectual empathy. Perhaps because he's autistic, it seems his "empathy" is less an emotional mirror response, and more a set of cognitive skills for analysis of others. That instinctual, emotional empathy might not trigger when presented with a member of an out-group, but if it’s possible for Kabru to turn his cognitive empathy off, we don’t see him do it.

This isn't to say that this prejudice doesn't affect his behaviour. For one, it could negatively impact his judgement of politics and policy, where individual people don't enter into it. For another, I'm not convinced he'd be willing to overlook Mickbell's exploitative relationship with Kuro if Kuro wasn't a kobold. As it is, since both of them are satisfied, he doesn't feel like he needs to intervene, regardless of the fact Mickbell isn't paying Kuro. But if Daya and Holm were in a relationship, and Holm took both Daya's and his own share from their ventures, but only compensated her in living expenses and kept the rest, do you think he'd tolerate it, for example? Even if she said it was OK?

Conclusion

The kelpie chapter establishes that "people can never know what monsters are really thinking." That isn't just true of monsters, though.

True mutual understanding is impossible - between anyone. We can never truly understand another person's heart. This is touched on in, for example, the existence of shapeshifters and dopplegangers. Even a monster that seemed like a perfect copy of a person wouldn’t be that person, and wouldn’t be a satisfactory replacement.

We’re intended, I think, to understand the winged lion's repeated suggestions to just replace people who have been lost with copies as something uncanny, which demonstrates the way that the winged lion never manages to attain a complete understanding of humans. A version of a person who was created to fulfil your memories of them, to be the person who you wanted them to be, would be a terrible, miserable thing.

Disagreeing, coming into conflict, and misunderstanding each other, are essential parts of what it means to be living beings, as fundamental as the need to eat.

The only thing to do is not to take more than you need to eat to survive, and not impose your own desires onto others. To do your best to sincerely communicate your desires, even if they're embarrassing or vulnerable or strange, like Kabru eventually does with Laios; like Laios does, bit by bit, with the people around him; like Marcille does, Chilchuck does, Senshi does... to hope they will accept you, and do your best to understand them in return.

We can re-examine, in that context, Kabru's line about the elves' tendency to "explain nothing and take everything".

They have the power to impose their preferred "menu" onto less powerful groups. And in that context, mutual understanding being impossible just means that they won't give up their power because they're asked nicely. Kabru's goal is to seize the truth that they won't give to him, and to create a situation where they can't take everything. Because he's accurately surmised that nothing about the treatment of short-lived races will change so long as the power imbalance remains. Despite the way he mistakenly ascribes part of that to "long-lived vs short-lived" or "human vs demi-human", the actual gulfs in understanding he identifies are structural, are about power and about access to material resources and safety.

I think he could come to recognise this. Yaad is teaching him political science after all, and while a prince's lessons on political science won't exactly get at much that's radical or invested in the interests and perspectives of the marginalised (Capital is a critique of for a reason after all...) I believe in Kabru's ability to learn critically and get more from a lesson than it was intended to teach.

[mayaree-darling]

who's to say what's real or fake// Genshin SAGAU

from aree: impostor au but you actually are the impostor? but ofcourse theres a twist. I think i'll call this FakeGrace!Reader. This was just going to be a headcannon post but ended up a whole fic plot

warnings: themes that all come with the sagau tag (yandere, lots of religious talk, cult, etc.)

word count: 2k~

You end up on Teyvat and immediately the characters recognize you as their Creator; of course you're their Creator - you have the same face, name, and voice. You go through the ordeal of getting to know all the characters all over again and they in turn love you as the god they’ve been waiting for all this time.

You decide that well, this is the world and characters I spent blood, sweat, and tears building (even if it was behind a screen) so might as well help out and do what needs to be done. The people come to you for their problems and you find that they're not as difficult as when you were simply a player. Maybe a minor dispute here and there between the NPCs, but now the vision holders and the Archons ask for your thoughts on how to go about political matters concerning their nations. Even Snezhnaya has signed a peace treaty with the other nations as a show of good faith to the Creator (even if you know for a fact its a temporary one).

All has never been better.

Until another Creator appears in Teyvat, and this one bleeds gold the way their stories foretold. In a way you do not.

The vision holders are torn. Yes, you are an impostor, and they want to hate you for tricking them, but at the same time haven’t you only shown them love? Haven’t you been patient with them and understanding despite being thrown into a world you’re unfamiliar with?

But with careful coercion from the other god, they have to choose to follow their true Creator. You decide to take pity on them and step down from your position yourself, choosing to live with the Aranara who have gladly taken you under their wing (fake god you may be, you are still a friend of the forest, and the forest always remembers its friends).

The Archons tell their new Creator that you are no more. They pretend to not hear when the Creator says they should have brought your head with them, maybe just a bitter reaction for finding out that they have been serving an impostor all this time (the Archons are lying when they say they do not feel sickened at the idea of hurting you, and disgusted at this new God's words)

It soon becomes clear to the people of Teyvat that this new Creator is not you - none of the patience or kindness you had showed them. This new one thinks helping their people is below them, even laughs at some of their problems. They chuck their duties as a god to the vision holders and spend their days leisurely, wining and dining on the best food, expecting to be waited on hand and foot. And at first it was fine, the characters understood. Maybe their Creator was just enjoying the fruits of their labor for once (although in the back of their mind, they can't help but compare you - you who worked tirelessly to attend to everyone even when they’d almost beg you to take a break). The characters tell themselves that they just need to get used to this new god, their true Creator. It will all right itself in time. Even as the Creator acted more like a child by the day, calling for the punishment of characters for the simplest of things. It’s fine. It’s fine.

It didn't take long for their will to break.

The God of Wisdom is called as such for a reason. Nahida may be younger compared to the rest, but she is braver than most. She simply tried to impart a fraction of her wisdom, softly suggesting to the Creator to show mercy for their people who were gravely punished for things they did not do.

This Creator was not you. They did not have a drop of patience that you had, nor any love for their creations. Their god saw this as nothing but an act of treason. How dare a mere Archon tell them what to do? She dares to question who the Creator can and cannot punish?

The silence is deafening in the throne room as the Creator calls for the death of Lesser Lord Kusanali and the destruction of Sumeru. If it is mercy she asks for then it is the last thing she and her people will receive. The other Archons agree past gritted teeth, the sin of Khaenri’ah weighing heavy over their shoulders still.

Nahida had been banished to Sumeru before the order was given, so the Archons make their way to the Nation of Wisdom to tell her of her sentencing, hoping to beg her to ask the Creator for their forgiveness.

This can't be how it ends. Are they to spend their lives in fear of the god they so revered?

They enter a forest emitting divine energy in search of their friend, hearts heavy, but they found something else.

They found you. They found the Creator they loved once upon a time.

They seemed to have caught you mid-conversation with Nahida, and to their surprise (and resentment) the Tsaritsa; they can only assume that the god of Snezhnaya has informed you first of Nahida's fate. The Wanderer catches sight of them and stands in front of you in protection. You don't even bat an eye. You swallow hard and stand, Nahida's hand enveloped in yours, and the other gods would be lying if they say they did not feel jealousy strangling their lungs.

With a steady voice, you tell them that should they take one step against Nahida, you will meet them halfway. If they decide to send Sumeru to hell, they will have to go through you first. You will do everything you can to stop them, and if Sumeru falls then you fall with them.

They don't have to look at the others to make up their mind. There's a beat of silence but first it's Morax, and Beelzebul and Barbatos and then Focalor, and they are on their knees, heads bowed low.

It is only right to show respect to their god, after all. How could they be so blind?

Validation of their actions comes soon after as you let go of Nahida's hand and tell the Wanderer to stand aside. You do something that tyrant of a Creator that sits on a glass throne would never - you kneel before them and hold out your hand.

"Why are you all kneeling? Stand up. I am no longer your god. But I hope you will have me as a friend. Will that be alright?"

There are tears in their eyes as they let out stuttering laughter. Yes, this is their god. Their god with so much love and compassion and a heart that does nothing but bleed for them. A heart that does not ask for them to bleed.

You are their god. You are their true Creator. Golden blood be damned. All that gold has done nothing but blind them.

Eventually, you all end up on the forest floor. You accept the role of a friend as promised, and catch up with them. The Archons are almost in tears as you listen to their stories earnestly, squeezing their hands in sympathy as you listen to the pain they've been through under the rule of their so called Creator (they really should find a new title for you, the god that sits on your throne has sullied your rightful name). At one point they stop telling you stories of their mistreatment, unable to see your face be any sadder than it already was. They take to retelling your stories together, reminiscing better days - because is that not what they have done all this time? Think about the lovely you for every wrongdoing the other god had done in your name?

As you laugh and smile with them and their stories and their company, the idea burrows through their mind without your knowledge, taking root, and they refuse to let it go. Wouldn't it be so much better if it was always like this? Seeing your smiling face with them, a person that deserves to be called a god even more so than all of them combined. Knowing you were safe from harm, not having to defend yourself, especially from them under orders from a tyrant. Knowing you loved them the way they loved you.

It was all better with you.

When you weren't looking, the Archons gave each other knowing looks and curt nods in understanding.

You are their beloved Creator.

As a peaceful silence falls over you, they watch as you smile sadly, their hearts breaking to see such an expression on your face. In a soft voice, you apologize for not being able to do much to help them. When you lift your head, golden resolute eyes meet yours.

"You’ve done enough, Your Grace. Let us handle the rest."

You may have laughed at the old title, but the Archons are hell bent in returning it to you. Although it hurts them to say goodbye, they know it’s only for the moment. Soon, you will be with them. Back in your rightful throne, as you have always deserved.

Nahida is the youngest, and so they decide to spare her the carnage. The rest know she is no fool, they don't need to tell her what they had planned for her to know what happens next. She does not fully agree in the others' decision, yet she stays in Sumeru, promising to make sure you do not find out. Word travels fast to the other vision holders in the form of a breeze from Barbatos. Barely anyone had disagreed with the notion of removing the rejected god from the throne, and those who were hesitant at first changed their mind after hearing how you were ready to go down with Sumeru. Morax and the Tsaritsa lead the rebellion.

A god is only as powerful as the people who worship them. By the time the Archons arrived in the throne room, the Creator had no one to hide behind.

They made it a spectacle. They spin a tale for the people that the god they so worshiped was an impostor who had switched bodies with their rightful god, which explains the gold blood that should be yours. They say you were patiently waiting for them all to come back to you, to remove this impostor from your throne. You were ready to accept them all, they just needed to get rid of this filth that dared destroy your name. The Creator - no, the Impostor - is horrified when the people accept this story so easily, but they only have themselves to blame. Who cares what they have to say to defend themselves, although it’s not like they can anyway - how can they when their tongue was cut off?

Teyvat was silent as gold painted the streets of Liyue Harbor. Teyvat no longer cares for golden blood, not after all the blood and tears it had taken from its people. After all, a golden soul stands ready to take back their rightful place.

Your followers thought it had all been worth it - the pain, the hardships, the blood - to see you smile the first time you set foot outside Sumeru after what felt like years to them. And yet, despite the joyous occasion, you hesitantly turn to them and ask a question not even Irminsul would answer you.

"What happened to the Creator?"

You would be lying if you said the soft smiles each of them gave did not unnerve you as they all said the same thing, like a joke everyone knew all except you.

"We simply removed the Impostor from Your Grace's presence."

They are thankful that you are blinded by your love for them to see the gold shine on their hands. You do not ask about the shimmering streets either. Liyue was the city of gold after all, was it not?

For now, their biggest concern is your acceptance that they are your equal, but that can easily be fixed. You are their friend now, but someday you’ll be their god again. Slowly but surely. They will sit you back in your throne. They will kneel before you again. They will give you the reverence you so deserved.

It will all be yours.

You're their wonderful Creator, after all. Maybe not to you right now. But you always have been for them.

They’ll start from calling you Your Grace. You’d be too kind to tell them off over and over.

You always had been good at adapting.

You had gotten used to it then, you’ll get used to it again.

✨ Masterlist ✨ 

Taglist: 💛@anime-allover  💛@faeriessky  💛 @prksolon 💛 @dai-tsukki-desu

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine and belong to their respective creators. Their portrayal is merely my own interpretation of them and may not be accurate to their intended characterization. I stake no claim to the original works, only to the ideas and plot of the fictitious stories I’ve written them into.

[goawaypopup]

It's time for some Look Outside posting. Are you ready?

I'll be analyzing the mechanics of the Visitor's effects a bit. Sam meets most everyone in the apartment building, and often gets firsthand accounts from them too, so we have a pretty good set of samples to draw from. Yay!

Part 1: The Why

First up is my personal theory for why being observed by the Visitor affects humans the way it does.

Here's what we know about it: (Spoilers, kind of.)

Being perceived by the Visitor causes humans to transform into unique monsters, on varying timescales. Its perception inherently changes things when it observes them, but humans and other animals are especially affected. What it does to them is "communicating... in a way".

Humans that transform tend to have a "theme" related to what they were near or what they were thinking about when contact occurred.

The Visitor only perceives living things when it, itself, is perceived by them in some manner. This is why looking at a photo or drawing of it will also cause a person to change.

The Visitor's interstellar size means that it takes time for the rest of its body to be aware of what each part is seeing.

The Visitor, prior to meeting Sam, had no concept of itself as distinct from other beings, as it has never met another living entity before, and it's used to independent things that it communicates with just being other portions of itself.

Now here's my thoughts:

When the Visitor looks at someone, it's assuming this is an unfamiliar piece of itself, and it forms a connection with them in the same way it would a neighboring chunk of its own nervous system that isn't physically connected closely enough for signals to travel all the way between them quickly.

The bond forged by the Visitor starting to perceive through someone puts their whole body in a volatile, changeable state due to having a steady portion of its attention.

When it does this, it can barely make sense of the human thoughts and concepts coming from the new "neuron". When a new one is especially salient to it, it reinforces the concept, trying to think about what that is - often through (what it thinks is) the node of itself that's picking up that idea. The human.

Think of it as rotating a cow in your mind, except to do this, you turn someone else into a cow. And then rotate them.

And of course, the human body isn't an alien monster neuron, so when it gets beamed with one of the person's own thoughts reflected from the confused Visitor, in its volatile state, it starts to distort.

The people whose new forms reflect a clear concept are products of this. Consider the case of Rana, who resembles a spider. In her story, she's an arachnophobe, and was worried about a spider she lost track of back in her house.

She's not a realistic spider, though - she's black, and hairy, and prominently fanged, with way more than eight glowing red eyes haphazardly arranged all over her head. She's an arachnophobe's idea of a frightening spider.

The monsters who sort of just resemble monsters more than any idea in particular, like Lokjaw, Stretchface, or the wacky creatures seen on the roof, could be products of more abstract thoughts, but they could also be the few that received an alien thought from the Visitor rather than having one of their own fed back to them, resulting in an unpredictable change.

When a witness goes back inside, and the Visitor can't back up the signals it's getting from them with its own perception of the area, its attention eventually wanes, and they're set aside in favor of other nodes whose feedback makes more sense to it, concluding the peak period of mutation.

Next time: a little on "contagious" transformations.

[anjelicawrites]

I was playing with the idea of Simon and Ghost being to separate identities *and* domestic Simon, this happened. Tbh I have no idea of what this is, it could evolve in some sort of domestic team 141 thing.

You were supposed to start annual leave four night shifts ago, right in time for Simon's return from deployment, instead you're dead on your feet, have tried to use your badge to open the car door, have input the pass code for the ward to enter your building, and you're now staring owlishly at Simon, surgical mask still on his face, warm cup of tea ready for you.

Suggestive themes, 18 + only please!

"Why are you here? It's not visitor's time yet." "You're at home, dove."

You stare at him, look at yourself in your normal clothes, stare at him again, and then sigh.

"Bad night?"

You drop in his warm embrace, snuggling his chest for warmth and comfort.

"Make it four. I'm so tired I only want to sleep, but I need to shower first. Do you think I can do both at the same time?"

Under the mask Simon smiles.

"You can try, dove. Come on."

He turns you gently, his big hands light on your shoulders guide you towards the bathroom; you shuffle a little, your feet achy and sore. You're so tired you can't coordinate them and drink the tea Simon has, so lovingly, prepared you.

The bathroom is crammed. The whole apartment is as well, now that Simon basically lives here with you; you two are supposed to find a bigger place but, between his long deployments and you working in healthcare to atone for your sins, you two are still struck in this overpriced shoe box.

You sit on the water closet, sipping your tea, while Simon starts the shower and removes his hoodie.

"Are you joining me? Because I think I am too knackered for anything." "I'm not aiming for a repeat of last time."

Ah, yeah. when you two tried shower sex and Simon had knocked his head one too many times on the shower head and you two had flooded the bathroom: definitely not your best performance as a couple.

He takes the empty mug from your hands and places it on the small sink. His hands cup your face and you lower the surgical mask, so that he can kiss your closed eyes with his scarred lips; they're so chapped you know you'll have to wrestle him into a whole session of skincare to savage the damages of the weather he has encountered wherever he was.

Simon is huge, humongous frame and thick muscles, yet he still surprises you with how gentle and graceful he is as he undresses you and starts washing your hair with your shampoo; you know he holds a strength you will never match, and that he has such a complete control over it drives you insane with need, even now that you're ready to fall asleep while standing up.

"Short routine?" His voice rumbles against the tiles, you're so out he has to ask twice. "Yes please baby."

Of all the people you have dated in your life, Simon had been the first to truly listen, and absorb, your hair and skin routine. You had explained to him once, when he had stared at your latest haul of products with curiosity, so you had sat him down and went through everything; you had never expected him to truly follow your explanations, and to help you go through the full routine during one rainy Saturday afternoon. He still doesn't get why you want to use your products on him, he can manage with the basic stuff he gets at work, but lets you pamper him because it makes you happy, and that's his only goal when he's home, with you.

By the time he's rinsed the shower gel off your body, you can barely keep your eyes open, simply following what he's telling you to do to help him dry you and your hair. You're fully asleep when he helps you into one of his T shirts and carries you to bed, laying you on the sheets carefully, before joining you; he doesn't expect to sleep, he's had full four hours last night, yet your slow breathing mesmerizes him, until he follows you in a cat nap, ready to wake at any time.

When you wake up it's lunch time, Simon is laying next to you the surgical mask back again on his face: he's still hovering between himself and Ghost (and you hate that you were so tired you didn't see it as soon as you had arrived). You weren't there to help him shake his shadow off, for four days you two were ships sailing at night, you so tired you had barely managed to peck him before heading to work, him so hollowed out by the latest deployment, he had barely the energy to exist, let alone put Ghost to rest, for a while.

"Hi handsome." You purr, voice still laced with sleep.

For a moment you see the two of them coexist: Ghost's cold, calculating glance, and Simon's burning love for you, the latter winning (and thank God for that, you're too tired to deal with Ghost right now).

"Hello, dove."

Simon had woken up not that long ago, his mind still hazy and confused by his surroundings when he hadn't felt your weight against him; Ghost had raised his hackles immediately like a bad omen in the back of his mind, and refused to leave, even when Simon had noticed that you had rolled away in your sleep and had pushed an arm between your splayed legs to grab at your back and pull you against himself. Even then Ghost had kept watch for Simon, and for you, his uneasiness at the peaceful morning setting Simon's teeth on edge.

You could try to butt heads with Ghost, you have tried long enough to know he's too stubborn to leave until he thinks Simon doesn't need him.

"Breakfast?" You ask.

You tackle Simon as soon as he's vertical, your legs wounding around his hips, your arms tight around his chest; he's still too wound up to truly laugh at your antics, yet you feel his whole body relax a bit.

You eat your breakfast straddling him; your stomach can't fathom lunch when you're just up, that you leave the steak to him, while you enjoy your cuppa.

"I'm going to steal you away tomorrow." He tells you with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Take you camping up in the Lake District or the Cotswold. Me, you and the bike." "In the wild?" "Aye." "Have I told you how much I love you?"

He doesn't answer, he prefers to abandon his head against your chest, letting your fingers scratch his nape and scalp, playing with his hair, now slightly longer and curlier than when he left.

Silently he stands up, anchoring your body to his as he heads for the sofa, where he lays you, before he drapes his heavy frame over yours, his head on your stomach so you can keep scratching him like you would a cat.

Blindly you fish for the remote and find one of those 'How it is made' shows that Simon likes so much and that helps him relax fully into himself, his other half in standby; when you wake up he's still watching and his muscles are liquid under your fingers.

"Pizza?" He drawls "I love you so much my heart is going to burst."

He's lost the surgical mask somewhere, now that Ghost is gone, and you can appreciate his smile, with his cute canines showing.

"After food." He deadpans. "Oh God yes! I would hate to die on an empty stomach!"

[metanarrates]

Hello. Sorry if this a stupid question u can ignore if u want.

How can someone get better at media analysis? Besides obviously reading a lot.

Im asking this bc im in a point where im aware of my own lack of tools to analyze stories, but i don't know where to get them or how to get better in general. How did you learn to analyze media? There's any specific book, essay, author, etc that you recommend? Somewhere to start?

I'm asking you because you are genuinely the person who has the best takes on this site. Thank you for you work!

it sounds like a cop-out answer but it's always felt like a skill I acquired mostly thru reading a ton, and by paying a lot of attention in high school literature classes. because of that I can't promise that I'm necessarily equipped to be a good teacher or that i know good resources. HOWEVER! let me run some potential advice to you based on the shit i get a lot of mileage out of

first off, a lot of literary analysis is about pattern recognition! not just pattern recognition in-text, but out-of-text as well. how does this work relate to its genre? real-world history? does it have parallels between real-life situations? that kind of thing.

which is a big concept to just describe off the bat, so let me break it down further!

in literature, there is the concept of something called literary devices - they are some of the basic building blocks in how a story is delivered mechanically and via subtext. have you ever heard of a motif? that is a literary device. it's a pattern established in the text in order to further the storytelling! and here is a list of a ton of common literary devices - I'd recommend reading the article. it breaks down a lot of commonly used ones in prose and poetry and explains their usage.

personally, I don't find all the literary devices I've learned about in school to be the most useful to my analytical hobbies online. motifs, themes, and metaphors are useful and dissecting them can bring a lot to the table, but a lot of other devices are mostly like fun bonus trivia for me to notice when reading. however, memorizing those terms and trying to notice them in the things you read does have a distinct benefit - it encourages you to start noticing patterns, and to start thinking of the mechanical way a story is built. sure, thinking about how the prose is constructed might not help you understand the story much more, but it does make you start thinking about how things like prose contribute to the greater feeling of a piece, or how the formatting of a piece contributes to its overall narrative. you'll start developing this habit of picking out little things about a text, which is useful.

other forms of in-text pattern recognition can be about things like characterization! how does a character react to a certain situation? is it consistent with how they usually behave? what might that tell you about how they think? do they have tells that show when they're not being trustworthy? does their viewpoint always match what is happening on screen? what ideas do they have about how the world works? how are they influenced by other people in their lives? by social contexts that might exist? by situations that have affected them? (on that note, how do situations affect other situations?)

another one is just straight-up noticing themes in a work. is there a certain idea that keeps getting brought up? what is the work trying to say about that idea? if it's being brought up often, it's probably worth paying attention to!

that goes for any pattern, actually. if you notice something, it's worth thinking about why it might be there. try considering things like potential subtext, or what a technique might be trying to convey to a reader. even if you can't explain why every element of a text is there, you'll often gain something by trying to think about why something exists in a story.

^ sometimes the answer to that question is not always "because it's intentional" or even "because it was a good choice for the storytelling." authors frequently make choices that suck shit (I am a known complainer about choices that suck shit.) that's also worth thinking about. english classes won't encourage this line of thinking, because they're trying to get you to approach texts with intentional thought instead of writing them off. I appreciate that goal, genuinely, but I do think it hampers people's enthusiasm for analysis if they're not also being encouraged to analyze why they think something doesn't work well in a story. sometimes something sucks and it makes new students mad if they're not allowed to talk about it sucking! I'll get into that later - knowing how and why something doesn't work is also a valuable skill. being an informed and analytical hater will get you far in life.

so that's in-work literary analysis. id also recommend annotating your pages/pdfs or keeping a notebook if you want to close-read a work. keeping track of your thoughts while reading even if they're not "clever" or whatever encourages you to pay attention to a text and to draw patterns. it's very useful!

now, for out-of-work literary analysis! it's worth synthesizing something within its context. what social settings did this work come from? was it commenting on something in real life? is it responding to some aspects of history or current events? how does it relate to its genre? does it deviate from genre trends, commentate on them, or overall conform to its genre? where did the literary techniques it's using come from - does it have any big stylistic influences? is it referencing any other texts?

and if you don't know the answer to a bunch of these questions and want to know, RESEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND! look up historical events and social movements if you're reading a work from a place or time you're not familiar with. if you don't know much about a genre, look into what are considered common genre elements! see if you can find anyone talking about artistic movements, or read the texts that a work might be referencing! all of these things will give you a far more holistic view of a work.

as for your own personal reaction to & understanding of a work... so I've given the advice before that it's good to think about your own personal reactions to a story, and what you enjoy or dislike about it. while this is true that a lot of this is a baseline jumping-off point on how I personally conduct analysis, it's incomplete advice. you should not just be thinking about what you enjoy or dislike - you should also be thinking about why it works or doesn't work for you. if you've gotten a better grasp on story mechanics by practicing the types of pattern recognition i recognized above, you can start digging into how those storytelling techniques have affected you. did you enjoy this part of a story? what made it work well? what techniques built tension, or delivered well on conflict? what about if you thought it sucked? what aspects of storytelling might have failed?

sometimes the answer to this is highly subjective and personal. I'm slightly romance-averse because I am aromantic, so a lot of romance plots will simply bore me or actively annoy me. I try not to let that personal taste factor too much into serious critiques, though of course I will talk about why I find something boring and lament it wasn't done better lol. we're only human. just be aware of those personal taste quirks and factor them into analysis because it will help you be a bit more objective lol

but if it's not fully influenced by personal taste, you should get in the habit of building little theses about why a story affected you in a certain way. for example, "I felt bored and tired at this point in a plot, which may be due to poor pacing & handling of conflict." or "I felt excited at this point in the plot, because established tensions continued to get more complex and captured my interest." or "I liked this plot point because it iterated on an established theme in a way that brought interesting angles to how the story handled the theme." again, it's just a good way to think about how and why storytelling functions.

uh let's see what else. analysis is a collaborative activity! you can learn a lot from seeing how other people analyze! if you enjoy something a lot, try looking into scholarly articles on it, or youtube videos, or essays online! develop opinions also about how THOSE articles and essays etc conduct analysis, and why you might think those analyses are correct or incorrect! sometimes analyses suck shit and developing a counterargument will help you think harder about the topic in question! think about audience reactions and how those are created by the text! talk to friends! send asks to meta blogs you really like maybe sometimes

find angles of analysis that interest and excite you! if you're interested in feminist lenses on a work, or racial lenses, or philosophical lenses, look into how people conduct those sort of analyses on other works. (eg. search feminist analysis of hamlet, or something similar so you can learn how that style of analysis generally functions) and then try applying those lenses to the story you're looking at. a lot of analysts have a toolkit of lenses they tend to cycle through when approaching a new text - it might not be a bad idea to acquire a few favored lenses of your own.

also, most of my advice is literary advice, since you can broadly apply many skills you learn in literary analysis to any other form of storytelling, but if you're looking at another medium, like a game or cartoon, maybe look up some stuff about things like ludonarrative storytelling or visual storytelling! familiarizing yourself with the specific techniques common to a certain medium will only help you get better at understanding what you're seeing.

above all else, approach everything with intellectual curiosity and sincerity. even if you're sincerely curious about why something sucks, letting yourself gain information and potentially learning something new or being humbled in the process will help you grow. it's okay to not have all the answers, or to just be flat-out wrong sometimes. continuing to practice is a valuable intellectual pursuit even if it can mean feeling a tad stupid sometimes. don't be scared to ask questions. get comfortable sometimes with the fact that the answer you'll arrive at after a lot of thought and effort will be "I don't fully know." sometimes you don't know and that can be valuable in its own right!

thank you for the ask, and I hope you find this helpful!

[dunmeshistash]

Do you have any other Ryoko Kui Oneshot recommendations? I just read the last ones you mentioned and i absolutely loved them

Honestly! I recommend all 3 of her published one shot compilations, they are all REALLY GOOD

You can read about each of them on this post, the text is from the english pamphlet of the Ryoko Kui Exhibition

A few that really stuck with me other the ones I've already mentioned here (wolves tell no lies, perfect communication and how to be that girl) were these (the order is just the order I remembered them)

The Dragon's School is on Top of the Mountain: The titular story of one of her published works, it makes me think about a few parts of Dungeon Meshi where Laios is trying to find an "use" for monsters in the surface. I really enjoyed the idea of trying to make dragons "useful" so they can continue to exist, it's very bittersweet.

Home: From the same collection as the previous one, it's about what happens to The Hero of the story after he has defeated the big evil, in the perspective of the simple villagers from his hometown. Makes my heart ache. Other stories in this collection have a similar theme of "story after the story" what might have happened after the conclusion of an adventure but this is the one that stuck to me the most

Spring and Autumn: Two oneshots from terrarium in drawer that tell the same story in different perspectives. Quite possibly the best "what if humans were pets" story I've ever seen (I've seen at least 2). I cried so hard, I'm crying right now 10/10 don't let the premise scare you off

Distant Utopia: Terrarium in drawer is AMAZING but here just one more to maybe convince everyone to read, children are tasked with creating a story about "bullying persecution and discrimination", end up realizing things aren't so simple as they first thought

A Modern Fairytale: Ok dragon school might be my favorite one shot collection. This one is about a fantasy creature (centaurs) living in modern times, and the struggles that might cause in society alongside humans. It's a really interesting and grounded take that I don't think I've even seen before (Plus the centaur wife that shows up in short sections is adorable)

Mermaid Sanctuary: From Seven little sons's of the Dragon like wolves tell no lies. A guy finds a mermaid that keeps trying to go into land for some reason. Everyone tells him to leave it be cause "mermaids aren't human, they're just animals that mimic humans" but he decides to help her anyway. It's very interesting with how it portraits mermaids

That's it for my favorites! I really recommend everything by Kui tho, I had to stop myself before I just listed all the oneshots

Btw you can buy Seven Little Sons of the Dragon in english

[bones4thecats]

Hi! hello! It is I, 👪 anon 〜⁠(⁠꒪⁠꒳⁠꒪⁠)⁠〜

I saw your requests were open and I saw that you write for some characters who I particularly adore (but see very little writing for (⁠｡⁠ŏ⁠﹏⁠ŏ⁠)) so when I saw them on the character list I was like (⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠0⁠*⁠)⁠ﾉ Heck yeah! \(⁠≧⁠▽⁠≦⁠)/

So, may I request Fellow Honest, Gidel, and Ruggie befriending a reader who bakes for a living and likes to treat them with baked pastries, pies, and other assorted treats. They even pay attention to what flavours and textures that they appear to prefer, and tailor their treats to their preference (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

I hope you have a lovely day! I'm sending good vibes your way, and they're not gonna stop (muahaha (⁠ﾉ⁠◕⁠ヮ⁠◕⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧)

Their S/O Being A Professional Baker

Characters: Fellow Honest, Gidel and Ruggie Requester: 👪Anon A/N: Hello again 👪Anon! I love your ideas when it comes to requests! As you guys should know when looking at my character list, you'd see that Gidel is one of the platonic only characters, so there is no romance insinuated in his part! Also, this is significantly shorter than other pieces. ⚠️ Spoilers/Trigger Warnings for: Stage In Playful Land Event ⚠️

••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●•

»»——————————-　   Fellow Honest　  ——————————-««

🦊 Fellow Honest, much like any other fox beastman, has a special kind of pasty that he can stand. His kind is not a large fan of chili peppers and garlic when it comes to certain foods

🦊 So most spicy things are off the table

🦊 But, if you were to bake him something with berries like blueberries or raspberries or even something with apples or grapes, he would fall head-over-heels for you. No doubt

🦊 When you first gave him and Gidel two pies, one fitting Fellow's taste or berries and the other fitting Gidel's of having a fishy-tang, he gave you an actual honest smile before kissing your forehead and helping Gidel settle himself at a table in your small bakery in the carnival

What do you think of Baker! Reader?

"I love their pies. They taste absolutely amazing, especially when they make a tiny fox-shaped figures on the tops!"

••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●•

»»—————————————-　Gidel　—————————————-««

🔨 Much like with Fellow Honest, as a beastman, Gidel has limitations in what he can eat wholeheartedly. Not saying that he'd die, but he'd get quite the stomach ache

🔨 These foods that upset him, such as mustard and chocolate, are things that Fellow Honest warns you not to put in his foods. And thankfully for both of them, you listen well

🔨 But, he does have a passion for when you make him desserts with cooked fish or even bananas, he gives you so many hugs and cute gifts that he either finds or makes

What do you think of Baker! Reader?

"They're yummy!" He writes

••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●••●•

»»——————————-　 Ruggie Bucchi 　——————————-««

🍩 Unlike most beastmen, Ruggie's sub-kind, which is a hyena, doesn't have any real threat to his system when it comes to food. Unless he ate something such as plastic, which is highly unlikely

🍩 He's smarter than that

🍩 Anyways, as his favorite foods are donuts, he loves it whenever he comes by your dorm and finds that you baked some yummy meat-pie themed donuts and even some cute berry-cupcakes

🍩 He also has a penchant for grabbing some of your pastries behind your back. He can't help that they're so delicious!

What do you think of Baker! Reader?

"I have only have five words to answer that. Their treats are the bomb. And if you disagree with that, then your taste buds have obviously given up on life and you have no taste."

[reflectionsofacreator]

[takes a long drink from my Arizona iced tea] so like one of the central themes for FFXV is like, growing up, sure. You know that, I know that, whatever. Coming of age, coming into your own, taking the mantle of king, whatever you wanna call it. Cool, awesome, we love a good coming of age story!

But I find the sub theme of that one to be probably the most fascinating? By and large, all the chocobros have to deal with the fallout of being lied to by the adult figures in their lives, and it's the most prevalent with Noctis and Gladio. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of it in Ignis and Prompto too, but the particularly insidious way that Noctis and especially Gladio were lied to sometimes gets me.

See I don't even really think it was actually all that intentional. Not really a conscious act by Regis and Clarus, or the society around them? More like... I dunno, the lies that you get told by your parents as a little kid and you grow up to realize that the world is a lot different than you thought.

That being said, Noctis was absolutely lied to by his father; both about the nature of the King of Light and the idea that he'd succeed Regis as reigning monarch. Regis did it out of love, knowing that Noctis would die young, and reasoned that Noctis should get to have a relatively normal life, but it was still a lie. Gladio, likewise, was lied to by his father and Regis, told that he would be the next monarch's Shield, that he would fulfill a role that's got a pretty set expectation in their society.

See, Gladio expects Noctis to act a certain way, to act as King, and he gets increasingly frustrated when Noctis doesn't, or can't live up to that. He's not precisely wrong to expect it either, given their roles and their statues, and knowing that they're taking the throne during a full blown war. The problem is that Noctis was never taught how to be the thing that Gladio was told Noctis was going to be? And that's what causes friction with them all the time. It's fascinating, watching it play out and realizing the underlying issues with their relationships actually have very little to do with them as people and instead because of what they were told to expect from each other.

Gladio is also his own kettle of fish that I don't think the narrative is quite self aware enough to articulate properly, or even get into. Gladio falls into the trap of toxic masculinity very often -- struggling to articulate his feelings, expressing most of his feelings as anger, picking fights rather than talking about what's going on, using his strength as both a character aspect and bonus, etc. The list goes on. There's also the fact that he's sort of portrayed as a bit of a womanizer and the masculine ideal; tall, rugged, strong, etc which plays into all of that. XV plays him very straight (and straight) with these concepts, and just sort of ... expects it to be fine? Which is at odds with how the other three bros interact and are more emotionally available towards each other, leaving Gladio as one of the weaker bros in canon.

It kind of sucks too, because like, there's so much to unpack with him? His DLC is about wanting to have the strength to protect Noctis on the surface, but really when you look at it... you could also argue that the DLC is about Gladio's fears that he'll end up as dead as his dad did (ha, try that for alliteration) and the crushing weight of failure. Gladio has every right to fear his mortality, fear the fact that he is, nominally, the first in line on the battlefield and the the last defense for Noctis. If Noctis is to die, they will go through him first, and that's! Scary! But the game doesn't really get into that, hardly at all, and it makes picking up the pieces for Gladio kind of frustrating. Out of all the bros, he's the one I have to dig the most to find any kind of depth despite being prime real estate for it.

Anyways Gladio and Noctis' dynamic is fascinating if you actually start to unpack it, especially because it's built on the lies that their fathers fed them as children (that they themselves also bought into). I'd go so far to argue that between the two pairs, Noct/Gladio is in much more of a dire need to sit down and actually hash out what they are to each other, outside of their king/shield dynamic. Noct/Iggy certainly has shades of that, but Ignis has decided that they are friends and that he will defy fate if he must, let the world burn if he must, to save Noct's life. That has some depth beyond king/retainer that they're presented as. Noct/Gladio are sort of just... falling into the king/shield dynamic because they're expected to, and it sort of hampers their relationship and their communication.

I'm gonna scramble them both like eggs, probably into an omelette. They make me Think you know

[asmogorna]

Ok so for the last couple days ive been ill in the head about The Black Parade as mcr's alter ego/characters and i wanted to share some thoughts i had so far :3

It doesnt align with the canon lore that we have (i didnt really use it for reference at least) so it can be viewed as some sort of an au

I dont know if im gonna give them new names that just sound similar to the names of mcr themselves, so for now i will be referring to them by the names of the band members

So far I've been thinking about the typical "chosen by fate" scenario, where the characters lives lead them through a path for a specific cause

So

Post WW2 England

5 kids under their own circumstances witness a big parade (I will be doing some research and see if it could be some kind of victory celebration parade? It's just that I'm not sure if England had those. Not that I'm aiming for historical accuracy atp it's simple curiosity)

The kids get heavily impacted by that event and carry on (ha) that memory throughout their life

Now to the specifics of the characters cus by God they all gave me a headache

Heads up: they're all british orphans lol

Frank and Bob are students/residents in a Christian orphan school, and later on in life are priests in the town church

The reason why is that they both have badges on their uniform with crosses that could be associated with christianity

(I couldn't find any info about what exactly certain design details could be referencing, so ig it's up to interpretation)

The military theme in Gerard and Mikey's costumes will be explored on later (Mikey's medal could be either The Victoria Cross or The Distinguished Flying Cross, and the symbol on Gerard's shoulder is most likely the Order Of The Garter star)

And I couldn't figure out what to do w Ray, because I'm not sure if his uniform design details reference anything specific 🤷🏾🤷🏾🤷🏾

Now, Gerard and Mikey lost their father to war, and their mother passed away when they were both very young

And after that they ended up in the same orphanage as Ray, befriending him and finding out about their shared passion for music

This doodle was made abt that specifically <3

Later on in early adulthood they decide to start a cabaret band, in which Frank and Bob both join them later, deciding to leave their priest lives behind (partially because iirc both of them kinda fanboyed their way into the band irl lol)

After receiving little recognition, the band decides to take a train to America, to try their luck there. With a lot of hope and determination

That, sadly, doesn't last for long, for the train crushes with no survivors on board

The group crawls out of the collapsed train in their no longer physical forms. Yet, even after their death, they still have a desire to move forward. And that desire, though thoughtlessly, forces them to go forward. The souls of all the other people who lost their lives to the train accident follow them, through the landscape that no longer feels like earth

They then reach the end

Walking in one by one people disappear, finding their own peace and meeting their own finish line

After it's done, The Black Parade now have officially made themselves into what they're supposed to be. Gaining a new purpose and a new sort of life

I got too poetic for my own good here I fear .. anyway

Their job now is to lead the lost and the forgotten to the afterlife

They could be referred to as some kind of a grim reaper, I guess

I'm still thinking about adding more to the story, and maybe I will change some things, but so far this is all I can share really !! I hope if you've read this far you found this entertaining .. this is all for the satisfaction of my urges so I might or might not have too much fun w it in the future :3

The story was mainly inspired by this specific post from Gerard himself, because i liked the concept a lot ..

Also

She's gonna be here as a separate character too probably...... Cus I'm self indulgent and I love the ideas bubbling in my brain

[luvfy0dor]

“Please Don't Cry ♡⁠˖” BSD x GN!Reader ੈ✩‧₊˚

Warnings; crying, Nikolais kinda an asshole

Description; The BSD men seeing you cry, whether it's their fault or not

A/n; hi guys :333 one more request until they're all finished!! It only took me 6 months to do what, 11? 12? I don't know, I'm really slow when it comes to reqs, so I'm sorry it took so long!! I've also decided not to change to a gray theme cuz I don't wanna feel like I'm copying anyone, maybe one day though!!

Osamu Dazai ★

• It's probably his fault in most cases, but for this scenario we'll assume it isn't. Your day has just progressively gotten worse, and you were at the point where any minor inconvenience or annoyance would set you off and make you cry.

ೃ⁀➷

You pushed open the door to your apartment that you shared with your boyfriend, bags in your hands ready to rip from the weight of the groceries inside. You huff and kick the door shut behind you, annoyed when it doesn't fully close and requires you to kick it one more time. You carry the bags to the kitchen counter and set them down rather aggressively, not minding the strength you put into roughly placing them on the surface while you turn to put them away and wait for your boyfriend to arrive home from work for once. You sigh with a hand on your hip and the other on your forehead, opening the fridge and observing your current minimal amount of food and get to stocking up. A few things make it into the fridge before you hear the door open again and your boyfriend call out to you. "Y/n? Home?" A hum erupts from your throat in response and he quickly makes his way to you, following the sound of your voice. "Hey, babe, how was your day?" He asks, grabbing a head of lettuce to hand to you. "Terrible, 'Samu, nothing tragic happened but like, all the little things, you know?" You say, shoving the head of lettuce into one of the bottom drawers of the refrigerator. He reaches over to grab the milk, but realized that the half-gallon wasn't completely full, and upon further investigation (lifting the jug up), he realized that the plastic had broken and milk was spilling out into the plastic bags, onto the counter, and down onto the floor.

"Oh, the milk broke." He says, taking a large, exaggerated step past you and over the milk to bring the half-gallon to the sink. You straighten your posture and stand up straight, head swiveling towards the counter with whiplash inducing speed. You felt your throat close up, making you unable to say anything in response. Before you knew it, your shoulders started shaking and your tears quickly followed that motion. You whimpered quietly into the palms of your hands which attracted Dazais attention again over the milk. "Aw, don't cry over spilled milk now!" He jokes, but when you give him an agitated glare and open your mouth to defend yourself, he switches up and pulls you in for a hug. "No, I was just joking, but it's okay! There's nothing to cry about, we can get more milk. Do you have any idea how it coulda happened?" He asks you, stroking your back. "M-might've put the bag down to roughly.." you say, sniffling and wiping your tears from your face. He gives a pitiful frown and kisses your cheek quickly.

"Well that just means you're too strong for your own good! Oo, see I knew there was a reason why I had to clarify I was joking, you could've broken my neck if I didn't." He playfully says, trying to cheer your up a little bit. You let out a shaky sigh and nod. "Yeah...I guess. We can go without milk for tonight, I'll get some more for tomorrow." You grab some paper towels from the roll on the counter and start cleaning up all the milk. He nods in agreement and pulls you into his body, pressing a kiss to your forehead and squeezing your shoulder. "Yeah, we'll live. We should get take out for dinner, I don't think either of us are really in the mood to cook." A little bit of weight is lifted off your shoulders, one less responsibility for tonight. "Okay, Chinese?" he nods and smiles. "Yeah. I'll call right now, you want your usual, right?" He asks, pulling his phone out of his pocket. You hum against his chest, ready to knock out and take a nap. His words blurred together as you felt yourself slipping into sleep, but with that you also felt great amounts of gratitude for your boyfriend for making you feel just a little better. Or maybe you just needed to cry a little, who knows.

Chuuya Nakahara ★

• Chuuya is no stranger to annoying co-workers and tiring missions, often wearing him down through the day, but sometimes he's unintentionally snappy. Don't worry, he's always quick to make it up to you.

ೃ⁀➷

Throughout the day, the texts between yourself and Chuuya had indicated that Chuuya was having a rather troublesome day, especially because of the frequent complaints followed by the facepalm emoji. You decided that you'd kick back with Chuuya and relax, opening a new bottle of one of his favorite wines and maybe giving him a back massage or something to relieve his stress. You eagerly awaited that familiar sound of his key in the door, and when you finally heard it, you stood up from your seat. In walked Chuuya, his appearance a little roughed up. He hung up his coat and hat without a word or glance to you, walking right passed you into the kitchen. 'That was kinda rude.' You thought to yourself, but you knew Chuuyas job was stressful and sometimes overwhelming, so you let him walk off on his own for a while. You knew where he was going and it didn't concern you, just to the balcony for a cigarette. You crossed your arms over you chest, hoping that he'd come back in a bit of a better mood. You turned on the TV and occupied yourself with that for a little bit before his familiar, light footsteps were heard coming back into the house. "Chuuya?" You called out to him. You could hear his loud sigh. "Yes?" His tone of voice was clearly agitated and disgruntled.

You were taken aback by how clear it was that he didn't want to talk to you right now, and you knew it wasn't personal, but you couldn't help but be saddened over it. "Are you alright-" you go to ask, but he quickly cuts you off. "Yes, I'm fine, y/n, just leave me alone. God..." His words were followed by the bedroom door closing. You were stunned. Your mouth hung agape for a moment before you had to close it to swallow the shock that closed your throat up. After prying your eyes away from the closed door, you averted your gaze to your feet, feeling tears well up in your eyes. You felt bad for crying, but what could you do? All you wanted was to make him feel a little better and he wouldn't even give you the chance to. He chose to take some alone time instead, which you didn't mind, but he didn't have to be so mean about it. You went into your hands, some of the tears falling through the cracks in your fingers and silently onto the floor. Your sobs became louder and audible to Chuuya, who laid face first on the bed. He felt a bit guilty too, he never once asked how your day was and for all he knew, your day could have been just as bad as his. He knew you only had good intentions, and he didn't need to shove you off like that.

He sighed and got out of bed, opening the door gently instead of swinging it open and walked into the living room again, frowning at the sight of you. "I'm sorry, doll, y'know I didn't mean it..." He whispered quietly, placing a hand on your shoulder. You turned your head to look into his eyes, seeing the apologetic expression that painted his face. "Yeah, I know, but you didn't have to be so mean about it." He sighed and pulled you into a hug. "Yeah, I know, that was a dumb move. I just wanted some alone time, ill be better about it next time though, I promise." He says, grabbing your hand and kissing your knuckles. "Wanna tell me 'bout your day?" He asks, looking over at you. "Thank you. It wasn't terrible, just bland and regular." You tell him, erupting a hum of understanding from him. "I can only assume you already know I had a rough day." He jokes, trying to lighten the mood. "I'm real sorry though." The smile from his laugh turns into a more neutral one, almost a faint frown. "It's fine, just don't let it happen again, I don't like it when you're annoying like that." You punch his shoulder playfully. He groans in response, laughing as he stands up. "I won't, promise." He says, tilting your head backwards to kiss your lips. "I do still want that alone time, though, so I'll see you in a little bit, alright?" You nod in understanding. "Alright." He walked back into the room, giving himself some time to do nothing more than exist. He didn't sleep and he didn't think, just existed. You stayed on the couch, waiting for him to return with open arms, happy to see him giving himself personal time instead of forcing himself to be around people, even if it was yourself. Everyone needs a break sometimes, and Chuuya was grateful that you understood.

Fyodor Dostoevsky ★

• Fyodor came home to you, and that was enough to make you sob your eyes out. Happy tears, ofcourse, but your days had been riddled with anxiety since he left. He knew you'd feel that way, and he was fully prepared to open his arms to you again with that faint smile.

ೃ⁀➷

You watched the helicopter land on the helipad with your heart pounding in your throat. Your fingers fiddled with the collar and fabric of your shirt as you waited for the propellers to come to a full halt and your lover to step off. Leaves, gravel, and dust alike all blew around your feet as the blades finally slowed and your boyfriend came into view. Your body tensed and almost started moving towards him on its own, but your anxiety stopped it, keeping you in your place. Your eyes scanned over his intact body and granted you a sense of relief when you saw no visible large injuries. He took notice of you and gave a small wave, walking towards you with a steady pace. You couldn't stop it anymore and all of a sudden you were moving towards him at an increasing speed. Before you knew it, your arms were once in their familiar spot around his torso and he was quietly chuckling. He ran one hand up and down your back and kissed your forehead. "Someone's excited." You nodded, feeling your tears falling down your face. It wasn't until he got a better look at your face that he noticed you were crying, and his smile widened. "You missed me that much, Myshka?" He says, tilting your head upwards to look at him.

"Obviously! You knew I would." You huff, sniffling and wiping your tears off of your cheeks, but they just kept on flowing. He laughs at you and pulls you back into the hug. "Well i'm home now, and you don't have to worry about me anymore. For now, atleast." Now he's already got you stressing over his next leave, but luckily you're able to push it away from your head in the moment and be grateful to breathe in his familiar scent again. You felt him place a hand on your head and exhale, his heartbeat being your favorite sound next to his voice. The feeling of his hands on your body was easily #1 in the category of touch, and his appearance was, to you, the very best sight. And his kisses, his lips, were by far the best taste. It had been so long until you felt his lips on yours, so you went for it again, cupping his face with your right hand and pulling him into you. He hummed and kissed you back, rubbing your hip with his thumb. When you pulled away, his face was pinker than before and his breathing unsteady. He swallowed before speaking. "Everytime I come back to you it's like adding gasoline to the bonfire that is my love for you." He says, looking into your eyes.

You couldn't help but find his words as silly as they were romantic and pulled him in for another brief peck. "You talk so formally all the time, it makes me giggle." You tell him, caressing his pale pink lips with your thumb. "It's better than the things I say that make you cry, yes?" He had a point. "Very true." He grabbed your hand and held it in his own while leading you away from the helicopter and to your car, more than ready to go home. "Your face is still wet from your tears." He whispers, wiping the remaining dampness from your cheeks with a smile. "Much better." You blushed and nodded. "Yeah, I'm glad you're finally back to wipe my tears for me." You tease. "Was a workout doing it all by my lonesome." He laughs at your remark and 'tsks'. "Well then maybe you should get more active or stop crying so much." He replies, a smug grin on his face. "Says you, the only arm movement I ever see you getting in is moving the mouse of a keyboard around." He shakes his head. "That's very untrue, you see me using my arms for other things rather frequently, actually." He insists. The sun shone down on his raven hair and gave him a halo-like highlight. How unfitting to the rest of the world, but sensible to you. "Fine, I guess so." You leaned your head on his shoulder as you continued to walk, finally liberated from the depression and anxiety that overcame you when he had left all that time ago.

Nikolai Gogol ★

• Nikolai doesn't mean to hurt your feelings with his teasing and jokes, but when you trip and fall face first into the pavement in front of a bunch of people and all he does is laugh with them, you can't help but cry out of embarrassment.

ೃ⁀➷

You walked along a sidewalk with your boyfriend, one hand holding his and the other holding a coffee. Your conversation was filled with mindless chatter as your stride stayed at a steady speed. Your eyes were flickering between him and the pavement in front of you as you were careful to watch where you were going. You saw the feet of many people walking passed you both, avoiding the states they were bound to give you and your clownish boyfriend. Something astonishing must have come out of Nikolais mouth at a point though, because you've never turned your head so fast to look at him and stare for long enough to not notice the tree roots that poked out of the ground far enough to trip you and land you right on your face with both coffee and dirt all over your shirt. All falls silent for a moment before you start hearing snickers and then the outrageously loud cackle of your boyfriend.

You pushed your body up off the ground, clearly embarrassed over the whole thing and shot a glare at Nikolai. "Really? You're just gonna stand there and laugh?" Your cheeks were hot and your heart heavy with both annoyance and fluster. "I'm sorry, dove, it was just so funny! That stains gonna take awhile to come out, though." He says, pointing out the big splatter of coffee on your light colored top. You can't help but scoff. "It was so funny that you couldn't even help me up?" He nods, exhaling audibly and wiping a tear of amusement from his eye. "But ofcourse! If I wasn't paralyzed by my laughter than I would have been the first to help you." He started walking back home along the paved path with you, going to grab your hand but furrowing his eyebrows when you snatch it away. He looks up to your face with an exasperated frown. "Oh, don't tell me that made you cry." You just sniffle and huff, letting your tears drip from your waterline. "Come on, don't be such a baby. It's just a material item, I can always get you a new one." He says, referring to the shirt. Your expression is one of confusion before you snap out of it and correct him. "It's not that, it's the fact that you just let me trip, fall, and spill coffee all over myself and let everyone laugh at me! You even laughed with them! That's so rude." You say, trying to cover the stain to no avail.

He blinks. "Oh. Well, I told you I would have if I wasn't laughing- I thought we were like that, we laugh when the other falls, you know?" He raises an eyebrow. "Okay, yeah, but not in front of other people." You say, chewing on the inside of your lip. "That was....oh my god, I'll never erase that from my memory." You say, still completely overtaken by embarrassment. He bites his cheek and grabs your hand before reaching over to wipe your tears from your cheeks. "I'm sorry." He tells you, leaning his head on yours. "It wasn't ever with ill intention, darling. We'll go home and I'll get you changed out of that ruined shirt and whatever it takes to make you smile again." He says, smiling and opening his portal to whisk the two of you away. Soon enough you were standing back in your living room with a new shirt already in hand. "See how quick that was? Can I take this off for you?" He asks, tugging at the hem of your ruined shirt. You sigh and speak. "I can take it off on my own, thank you very much." You roll your eyes and pull it off, but it's quickly replaced with the new one. He laughs for a moment at your discombobulated expression, but the noise quickly quiets. "I really am sorry, sweetcheeks." He says, leaning in to rub your noses together. You peck his lips and brush his hair from his face. "It's fine, but don't be doing nothin' like that again. That was so embarrassing." You say, averting your eyes. He hums. "Alright, as long as my dove forgives me!" He smiles and pulls you into a hug, happy with your decision to forgive him.

A/n; dawg I'm writing this in the tj Maxx bro forgive me if it sucks lol

[revive-the-fandom]

Jack's sparkle powers & rotg's continuity issues

commenting on some replies from a previous post

I understand that Jack's sparkle move is not actually sparkles.

It's never really explained what it is, though tbf. It could be a bolt of ice or frost, but I prefer the idea that he's performing a sort of superfreeze move that's turning all the water in the air around him/in a direction into ice crystals,

which is why the sand explodes almost from the inside out, and curving along the arc, it's got more water in it (presumably bc the nightmares are living, breathing, creatures) than the surrounding air.

hence.. sparkle powers.

I don't think it's a "basic" or "simple" move that just everyone can do.

A big part of why I love the idea that he's a civilian is because it pulls back from the prodigy archetype.

There's not a lot of reason for Jack to be a prodigy either. He's the audience surrogate, the guy who needs things explained because the audience doesn't know either. His background is meant to show his isolation, set up his motivation, and having him be a prodigy would raise questions that the movie doesn't have time to answer - why is he a prodigy, who trained him, why couldn't he just hang out with this trainer who could see him?

(the idea that there's this host of other spirits available to talk to is also complete fanon, and no the Rufftoon Comics don't count, neither do the GoC books. There is canonically 2 known spirits outside of the Guardians and Jack - the Leprechaun, and the Groundhog.)

It also just makes him more sympathetic, and builds Pitch up as dangerous. A civilian vs. the Joker is more frightening than Batman vs. the Joker.

Jack's a bad fighter. He lowers his guard too readily, he rushes in without a plan, he freezes up, his moves are predictable and limited.

And while that might be my opinion, I think it is backed up by the juxtaposition of the Guardians to Jack in just about every fight. He's shit scared, frozen up, caught in a bad position and needing a rescue - while they're moving perfectly in synch, reading each others minds, picking up each others slack (including Jack's most of the time). If nothing else then I think the sheer confidence and ease they show in every fight proves that Jack is subpar.

The final fight still has Jack make multiple mistakes that he needs rescuing from - mistakes that build tension, that wouldn't exist if he was already a good fighter.

(bonus point) Jack doesn't freeze because someone else helped him, he freezes because he's shocked and scared.

This one I'm not actually willing to put up for debate, lmao sorry. He sees an attack coming that he doesn't expect/can't dodge, he freezes and then he is saved by Tooth and Sandy.

I am willing to change my statement from "this is a continuity error" to "I wish this was a continuity error" because, if it's not a simple continuity error, it's lack luster writing.

I feel it worked better as a new power discovery, because there was more theming to suggest that course of action. There was a significant amount of screen time dedicated to showing Jack's powers as proximity based (prior to the reveal). The opening scene in particular was quite poignant,

and as I said in the previous post, theres a lot of moments where Jack is shown to touch his staff, or his hand or even use his breath to cast his powers onto a surface,

it just felt very intentional to me. It would be a shame if it wasn't, all for the sake of two blink and you'll miss it scenes?

Jack's powers being limited to proximity based created an interesting weakness, an opportunity to power crawl, and a visual comment on his desire to touch all in one. Yet in two throw away scenes - that are never mentioned again, nor have any attention dedicated to them - that is all lost?

plus I think it weakens the reveal scene iteself. If it's a simple power up, instead of a new development, then... Jack's not gaining a new perspective in battle (ranged attacks), and he's not confronting his relationship with touch (by withdrawing from it, taking the focus off of it, being able to survive without it).

All Jack gains from a power up is confidence. Which he gets with a new development anyway.

So, maybe it wasn't a continuity issue, but I sure hope it was.

[luckyofthelawnvariety]

I've finished Etho's s7 hermitcraft so guess who's back with a slightly updated/slightly consolidated list of things about ethoslab I have noticed! or just enjoy!

(the previous list)

I have no idea when he learned to noteblock. I don't know if he knows. he knows how to noteblock tho. he's really good at it.

on that note, did you know that there is not a single piece of non-noteblock music in etho's s7 after the first episode? there might not even be any in the first episode. every single timelapse or montage is set to noteblock music

(he sang along to parts of his paper planes noteblock cover too. he was going shopping. I was entirely too delighted)

(also, there is some like...sitcom music theme that I don't know what show it's from. it's bothering me that I don't know. what you need to know is that throughout his s7 etho uses said sitcom theme as the transition before Shenanigans With Fellow Hermits clips play. his life is a sitcom. yes it is the noteblock version.)

I think that etho desperately needs minigames for enrichment. if he's not playing one he's working on one. he needs them and he will let them completely consume his life

the etho decked out 1 runs are hilarious, partially because it's funny to see him play it and realize how absolutely insane decked out 2 is, and how much of a madlad tango is. etho is still the same menace with great luck and skills. I had forgotten about the hole to the void in the middle out decked out 1 tho, that was a fun reminder

etho could make a career out of translating classic type games into minecraft. he kind of has, but it's a pattern.

he also keeps coming up with new games that are minecraft only and is good at figuring out how to balance them well.

again, king of minigames. he will in fact analyze them as much as possible. he caught on to the pattern of impulse's whack a mole game in like...2 rounds? maybe 3? he's good at pattern recognition and will put it to good use no matter the minigame

etho, I cannot stress this enough, is a little shit and enjoys being such. free glass is obviously an iconic moment, but I had forgotten about him scamming scar out of diamonds for "information" about the resistance, or about sneak-e-e's business model (you can't tax what you can't find!), or about how he kept being extremely ridiculous with beef in regards to record shop payments...the list goes on

etho is also very competitive. I mentioned this in the last list, but man...he joins like every single competition he can. he wants to win. he's not like, a sore loser, but he likes to win, and he'll get a little upset if he doesn't.

etho and beef have clearly known each other a long time and ngl I miss their interactions a bit. let them bother each other a bit more please. I want to see them trying to kill each other in ridiculous ways again please. or doing minigames together. they're so silly.

kind of similar, but etho loves getting a rise out of people and it is the best thing ever actually. it's fun watching him use dirty tricks to beat bdubs to sleeping for a prize. it's perfect actually.

that being said, I still really like when etho is just on his own working on stuff too. s7 has a lot of moments where etho will go "I'm gonna use this block palette!" and I will think "bro that's ugly" and then he will make an extremely cohesive build that I want to live in out of it. I think a good way to describe it is that for example bdubs is really good at detailed builds with texture and not much color, and a very realistic twist to them. etho is not afraid to use color at all, and embraces how the colors can work together or contrast. it's fascinating to watch and I love it.

he is also a redstone genius. I feel I am starting to understand how some things with redstone work. could I design something myself? absolutely not but I could work from a tutorial and not feel completely lost on why I have to use a dispenser and not a dropper now.

I think s7 etho is really experimenting a lot with style and how he wants to do things. he does a few more elaborate intros, for example, that are very planned out, but he also does a lot of the classic "hello everybody this is etho and welcome back to hermitcraft!" it's fun and it works, but I honestly feel he might be more confident in some ways now in s10, which is nice to see.

(side note—I think etho has some trouble with tone sometimes, where he really wants to make sure everyone's having a good time, but also he really wants to tease people. this works well with like Beef, who he's known a while, but especially in people he's known less he's quick to catch on if they take what he's saying too seriously, and clarify that he is teasing. it's nice to see tbh, just the clarity even with his audience)

speaking of llamas, I had not realized how recent some really big updates were. bamboo and pandas were new at the start of s7. the nether update came like halfway through?? I was more in the casual build side of mcyt at the time but man...I didn't realize how crazy that is to think about.

just...the way that etho visualizes builds is great. not just like, leaving space for farms, but filling in the spaces with a lot of details that make sense but also work with the space to cover anything it needs to AND to connect with the rest of the base. the sightlines thing is something I see a lot of other builders using but etho really uses them a lot in the Monstrosity in order to keep it from being Too Much as you walk through.

really just...he wants to have fun, and he wants to learn, and he wants to experiment and figure things out. if he can mess with some friends when he does it, that's a great bonus, yknow?

man. what a guy.