#this is LITERALLY what death of the author is FOR

[whereserpentswalk]

Thinking about how well Worm handles disability, especially compared to most other things in its genre. The way lifelong injuries are treated as a normal part of being a cape. The fact that Taylor is blind for awhile and it's not treated as a tragedy, and how when it's healed by scapegoat it's not treated as some sort of redemptive miracle, but just a thing that happened. Defiant's wounds still being something that effects him even though he has tinker magitech. Kid Wind having adhd and being helped by meds but then having to go off them due to side effects. Taylor seeing paralysis as a fate worse then death being seen as a her thing and not an objective fact (and probably being from trauma during the leviathan fight). Genesis's disability being something the people around her care about a lot more then her. Labyrinth and Bitch both being basically neurodivergent from their powers (labyrinth being essentially high support needs, and Bitch being essentially low support needs) with both being able to live fulfilling lives with people who care about them (also that scene with someone trying to baby talk Bitch near the end really hit home for me).

Also, Dragon, despite not being literally disabled is a very good disability allegory. People who don't know she's a machine often think she's disabled. The way her father put so many constraints on her because he didn't trust her, because of what she was. The way so many human characters see her right to live as something up for debate. The way Saint calls Defiant's attraction to her a fetish because he can only comprehend someone loving her as being some strange abnormality. The fact that teacher thinks it's ok to put constrains on her basically because he physically can. Defiant and her being intimate by testing how well they can feel sensations. Even just the way Saint talks about her not being able to truly feel emotion, but saying she tricked herself into doing so, is reminiscent of how some people talk about people with Cluster B disorders. And beyond that, the fact that all of the people who dehumanize her are framed as unquestionably in the wrong. Hell, she had a trigger event so even the eldritch horrors affirm her personhood.

I realize the discussion of Dragon was longer then I planned. But yeah, worm has much better disability rep then anything else I've seen in the superhero genre (probably because it's written by a disabled author).

Also I'm pretty sure you have to be neurodivergent to read a 1,672,617 word long internet book about the sociopolitical ramifications of superpowers. /j

[librababe99]

A Bloom of Despair

Tags: MDNI, 18+ ONLY,  Logan Howlett x Reader, Hanahaki Disease, Angst, Body Horror (descriptions of internal injuries,  physical suffering, mentions of blood), Major Character Death, Hurt /No comfort, No Happy ending

Word Count: 1.1K

Summary: Stricken by Hanahaki disease, you endure the agonizing bloom of petals in your lungs, torn between hope and despair as Logan unknowingly becomes the source of your slow death.

Author's Note: Hi my loves! It’s been a few months since I’ve posted anything on my blog and honestly with everything going on in the world…I have needed an escape. Also this is my first time writing about Hanahaki so I hope I am able to deliver... lol As always comments, likes and reblogs are appreciated! <3

(Marvel Masterlist)

The first petal came while the mansion slept. It was small and delicate, a pale pink thing crumpled between your lips as you jolted awake, choking. The metallic tang of blood was faint but unmistakable, and you stumbled to the bathroom, panic bubbling in your chest. You stood under the fluorescent lights, trembling, staring at the petal in your hand.

It couldn’t be real. But it was.

The next morning, you tucked the petal into a tissue and shoved it deep into your pocket, forcing yourself to smile through breakfast. Logan was there, of course, leaning against the counter with his usual gruff demeanor, grunting responses to Scott’s sarcastic remarks. His dark eyes flicked to you, giving you that half-smirk that had been your undoing since the day you met.

“Mornin',” he said, his voice gravelly.

“Morning,” you replied, your voice betraying none of the chaos inside you. You quickly looked away, your heart racing, feeling the sharp sting of unrequited affection digging deeper into your chest. The disease was already taking root.

The petals came more frequently as the weeks passed. You’d excuse yourself from meals, from training sessions, from late-night conversations, all to cough up those cursed blossoms in private. Each petal was a tangible reminder of what you could never have. Your love for Logan was killing you—literally.

It wasn’t just the petals, either. They began to claw their way up from your lungs, tearing at the tender lining of your throat. You felt the scratches long after each episode, raw and burning, a cruel reminder of what lay inside you. Sometimes you caught glimpses of stems, jagged and thorny, trailing out with the petals. Your hands trembled as you tried to clean up the mess, staring at the streaks of crimson mingling with the delicate pink of the blooms. It was horrifyingly beautiful—a grotesque contradiction that left you sobbing on the bathroom floor.

You tried to suppress it, to smother your feelings beneath layers of forced indifference. But the disease thrived on hope, and you couldn’t stop yourself from hoping. Every shared glance, every accidental touch, every gruff word of encouragement from Logan made your heart race and your condition worsen.

The first full bloom came after a mission. Logan had saved your life, his strong arms pulling you from the wreckage of a burning building. You’d coughed violently in his embrace, blood spotting your lips, but you managed to hide it before he noticed. Later that night, alone in your room, you hacked up a handful of petals, crimson-tinged and velvety soft. But these were not just petals anymore. Nestled among them were small, sharp thorns, jagged and coated in blood. They cut the inside of your mouth as they came, leaving your throat aching and raw. You stared at the mess in the sink, bile rising in your stomach.

Your tears soaked the petals as you sat on the bathroom floor, clutching your sides, which ached from the relentless coughing. You knew what this meant. You’d read about Hanahaki disease in dusty, forbidden texts in Charles's library. Unrequited love that festered into flowers, choking the life out of its victim unless the love was returned—or surgically removed, at the cost of those feelings and the memories tied to them.

You couldn’t bear the thought of forgetting him.

The final blow came one evening in the mansion’s rec room. Jean was there, sitting close to Logan on the couch. Too close. Her laugh was soft and melodic, and Logan’s rare smile stretched across his face as he responded to something she’d said. The sight made the petals rise in your throat, sharp and unforgiving. You felt the thorns digging into your lungs as you stumbled from the room, each breath a struggle. You clutched your chest and fled, ignoring Storm’s concerned call after you.

Back in your room, you collapsed onto your knees, your body wracked with violent coughs. The petals came in a torrent now, soaked in blood, tearing their way out of you. Larger blooms mixed with shards of stems and thorns spilled from your lips, the pain blinding. You felt them tear through the soft tissue of your throat, leaving jagged cuts in their wake. Your chest burned with every cough, the petals relentless in their assault. The metallic scent of blood was suffocating, mingling with the cloying sweetness of the flowers. Your vision blurred, dark spots dancing at the edges of your sight. When it finally stopped, you slumped against the wall, too weak to move.

Logan found you two days later. You hadn’t left your room, and when he kicked the door open, the sight froze him in his tracks. You were pale, your skin clammy, the bed and floor around you littered with withered petals and dried blood. Some of the petals had started to rot, their edges blackened, the sickly-sweet smell making your stomach churn. Your eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice calling your name, raw with worry and anger.

“What the hell’s going on?” he demanded, kneeling beside you. His hands hovered over you, unsure where to start.

You tried to speak, but your voice was barely a whisper. “I’m sorry, Logan.”

“Sorry? For what?” His brows furrowed as he looked around the room, piecing together the horrific puzzle. “Is this… You’ve been coughing this up?”

You nodded weakly, tears sliding down your cheeks. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“The hell it doesn’t!” he growled. “We’re getting you help. Now.”

You shook your head, your hand reaching out to grip his arm. Your fingers barely had the strength to close around his wrist. “It’s too late.”

His jaw tightened, and for a moment, you thought you saw something in his eyes—fear, maybe even regret. But you knew better. Logan cared, but not the way you needed him to. Not the way that would save you.

“Don’t do this,” he said, his voice softer now.

“I… I loved you, Logan,” you confessed, your voice breaking. “I just wanted to tell you before…” Your sentence trailed off as your strength faded.

“No, no, stay with me,” he said, cradling you against his chest. You felt the roughness of his jacket against your cheek, the warmth of his body. It was the closest you’d ever been to him, and it was enough.

Your breathing slowed, your hand slipping from his arm. The last thing you saw before the darkness claimed you was his face, twisted in anguish.

When the others found you, Logan was still holding you, his shirt stained with blood and petals. He didn’t say a word as they led him away, his expression blank, his eyes hollow.

The mansion was quiet in the days that followed. Logan was quieter still, spending his nights on the porch, a cigarette between his fingers, staring out into the distance. The others gave him space, knowing better than to ask questions.

In his pocket, he kept a single petal, pale pink and fragile. It was all he had left of you.

[aces-to-apples]

You know, funnily enough, I actually can use the canonical enslavement of the clones as a point of criticism against the Jedi and senate and all other characters in Star Wars. And I do. Because the clones are literal, by-definition slaves. And it is a worthwhile point of criticism regardless of narrative framing because the heroes very literally and textually use slave labor to fight their fundamentally unjust war. Like it happens right on-screen, no ambiguity about it at all. And it doesn't matter that talking about it isn't how you "professionally analysis media" because I'm not getting paid to call George Lucas and Co. an insufferable hack, I do this for free and fun! For the joy of calling the creator of a slave army of brown men a cunt! And also yes I apply it to every single character in Star Wars and consider them all at least mildly evil for accepting the widespread evil of slavery to exist, nay, flourish unchecked, and that actually supports my analysis of Star Wars, to wit: age up the intended audience about 10 years and it's just Game of Thrones In Space. Everyone is shit, they all suck, there's no winning only widescale losing because the fights are literally never going to not be about stupid esoteric religious bullshit and maintaining the status quo in favor of the rich elite at the expense of the actual fucking people. Ta-da.

[nebulations]

[ID: A collection of screenshotted tags.

indigoire: SY bought all the chapters and extras canonically so he was like a very persistent patron subscriber who had very vocal opinions - notably about how Binghe was wasted potential and how original SQQ should have been castrated #plus his handle was a dick joke and we know Mr Masturbation Joke probably got a giggle from that #if I were a struggling author and I had a "'fan"' like Peerless Cucumber I'd remember him too and I have the shittiest memory on earth #nothing could stop me from thinking fondly of 'hi I'm Amazing Dick. Your work is compelling garbage. Here's $20.' #svsss #cumplane #airplane shooting towards the sky

droogproxy: #incredible friendship #ever have so much fun online u have nightmares about a guy u haven't been in the same world as for -20 years? #svsss #scum villain's self saving system #AND THEN HE SHOWS UP AT WORK #and the entire world starts revolving around him. just like your dreams

fandom-drake: #im pretty sure its canon that SY was obsessed with the pidw #and regularly sent paragraph long comments to Airplane #but also ended up reading the whole thing the was probably paying for it too just to complain to Airplane

the-evil-pizza: #He's been dead for 80 years and somehow #Peerless cucumber is forever branded in his brain #God shen Yuan's levels of haterism must have been so next level #fix it fic gone wrong

princess-of-purple-prose: #why is no one commenting on sqh literally having nightmares abt peerless cucumber in the form of a giant cucumber dildo trying to kill him #all the way back in DISCIPLE DAYS #that man SCARRED HIS PSYCHE and THEN KILLED KIM!!!!! #svsss

bifrosted-flakes: #prevs he was in airplanes fucking WALLS

spindoctor3875: #tbf #laughing at cucumber bros #rage post #was very much #what kick started #his death and transmigration #I'd remember the fucker who accidentally killed me

teazart: #i love how sy was such a hater it transcended lives Imao

yeetsintotheabyss: #sy is such a little hater and sqh is a slut for guys that are mean #see: mbj #svsss

townofcan: #sy left insane 800 word essays on every single chapter (of which there were hundreds) in the span of like less than a month #of course he remembers him. imagine experiencing that

waitineedaname: #svsss #this is especially wild now that im rereading #and i've been reminded that shen yuan read pidw in TWENTY DAYS #what the FUCK was he posting if he had that significant of an impact on airplane after not even three weeks. End ID]

you know what the funniest part of cumplane relationship to me is? that airplane remembers sy’s Internet handle. because airplane, at the point he realizes sy is a transmigrator, has been dead in his own world for decades. he hasn’t seen a computer in decades and so it would have been very normal for him to have forgotten many Internet handles. Heck, this guy probably does not even remember his own damn password. Again, very normal considering everything.

So like, what level of insane dickriding did Shen Yuan do to CEMENT his Internet handle onto airplane’s brain is beyond me but it sure makes me giggle harder the more I think about it

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

I really love how you draw Karkat and Calliope. You've already talked about how the other relationships within the POABPCL, so I was wondering if you could talk about Callikar in more depth as well.

Heehee okay so the short reasoning is that first of all, Karkat is also highly reminiscent of Caliborn, so there's Calliope's natural attraction there. But also Calliope desperately wants to experience a flushed romance, and Karkat is a crazy person who can't keep his quadrants straight. Which, for Calliope, would actually be a plus instead of a minus????

But yeah, for the Caliborn similarities, apart from the grey text and (mostly) capital letters and general cantankerousness and candy red blood and random textual callbacks to shit Karkat says:

CG: OK I DON'T SEE HOW WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH LIKE I'M WIGGLING A GNARLED TREE MONSTER'S DICK IN YOUR DIRECTION. [...] uu: HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE BECOMING FRIENDS. IF YOU RECOIL FROM MY OLIVE BRANCH. uu: LIKE I'M FLAILING A WITHERED MUMMY'S SEVERED LIMB IN YOUR DIRECTION.

CG: THE FACT THAT YOU ARE DUMB CG: IS AN IMMUTABLE FACT I AM STATING FOR THE RECORD. CG: IT DOES NOT MEAN ANIMOSITY IS WHAT IS TAKING PLACE HERE. [...] uu: AND THE FACT THAT I MIGHT NOT CLuE YOu INTO YOuR FATE ALL THE TIME. uu: DuE TO MY AGGRAVATED APATHY OVER THE MATTER. uu: IS AN IMMuTABLE FACT. I AM STATING FOR THE RECORD. uu: IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT GIVING A SHIT IS WHAT IS TAKING PLACE HERE.

Did you know they both weirdly have a thing for right angles?

DAVE: i dont want to see your lines making any right angles do you understand KARKAT: IN MY MIND'S EYE I AM PICTURING A BEAUTIFUL LATTICE OF LINES AND COMPARTMENTS, INTERLOCKING WITH SUBLIME PRECISION AT NINETY DEGREE ANGLES. KARKAT: I IMAGINE THIS MODULAR RETICULATION AS AN ELEGANT VESSEL, IF YOU WILL, FOR THE GRAND SYNTHESIS OF OUR SHARED SHIPPING DREAMS.

So yeah, you know, they've got some similarities! Enough to fuel some initial cherubic romantic interest, I feel.

But obviously, cherubic romance is primarily - if not exclusively - pitch. Calliope expresses this in a way that makes it very much sound like it's a setup that her happy ending does, in fact, involve her finding a matesprit.

UU: thoUgh i trUly wish i were capable of those feelings. UU: perhaps the fact that i am not is why the topic fascinates me so. UU: and why i have been prone do indUlge in sUch... UU: fancifUl visUalizations. UU: of yoUr people's lovely bright red relationships. UU: they mUst be nice. u_u

Personally, I think that cherubs "can't experience redrom" the way humans "can't experience blackrom". In that, y'know. ;)

But let's move from Calliope's side from a moment and talk about Karkat. Hey, do y'all remember how he had a crush on a different Space player? (The fact that Karkat actually totally had a crush on Jade, and continued to think incredibly fondly of her for years after the fact, to the point of using one of her passwords as the password to his dream hive, gets lost in the melange of ~yaoi~ is honestly one of the reasons I'm not a fan of DaveKat).

CCG: I'M GOING TO VOMIT. CCG: I'M MAKING A MENTAL NOTE TO SLAP MYSELF THREE HOURS FROM NOW, FOR BEING ENOUGH OF A SAP TO START DEVELOPING RED FEELINGS FOR A DUMB ANNOYING HUMAN, IF I'M READING BETWEEN THE LINES CORRECTLY. FCG: I JUST SLAPPED MYSELF! I REMEMBERED MY LAME NOTE TO MYSELF FROM THREE HOURS AGO, AND THEN SLAPPED MYSELF SPECIFICALLY TO MOCK YOU. FCG: IT STINGS TOO, YOU'LL FEEL IT IN A WHILE. AND THEN THE GHOST OF PAST ME WILL CRY.

Hussie's commentary on this is also fucking hilarious, by the way:

First, by defending Jade like this, Future Karkat is virtually making the case to his own past self to give her a chance, and to try to acknowledge that his aggression toward her is masking romantic attraction. If that wasn't nuts enough, the altercation doubles as an actual confession of this to Jade, which she now has to bear in mind as she goes forward befriending this guy. Like most other shouting matches Karkat has with himself, it's a complete free-for-all of self-owns and eyebrow-raising psychological revelations. And yet, in the totality of this clusterfuck, it's probably about as sufficient as anything else he could have done to get her to start giving the friendship a chance. How do you sidle out of something like this? You don't. This miserable basket case needs all the help he can get.

But this is another example of Karkat's horrible problem with mixing his quadrants and sending out all sorts of mixed signals, which he lambastes himself for later RE: Terezi.

FCG: IS IT?? TELL ME, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU TREATED HER IN A WAY THAT COULD BE OBJECTIVELY CONSTRUED AS A FORM OF BLACK SOLICITATION? CCG: THAT'S JUST CCG: NO, THAT'S HOW WE'VE ALWAYS ROLLED TOGETHER. IT'S LIKE CCG: SPIRITED PLATONIC CONTENTION. CCG: TOTALLY NORMAL TERRITORY IN A HEALTHY MATESPRITSHIP. FCG: YEAH, A *HEALTHY* ONE, NOT ONE INVOLVING A DEMENTED LOUDMOUTH WHO CAN'T KEEP HIS SHIT UNDER CONTROL. FCG: LET ME ASK YOU, HOW MUCH OF THAT ANIMOSITY IS INNOCENT "PLATONIC RAGE"? FCG: COULD IT BE THAT SUBCONSCIOUSLY YOU WANT TO PUSH THINGS WITH HER ONTO CALIGINOUS TURF, MAYBE SEE HOW THINGS WORK OUT THERE? FCG: SEE IF YOU CAN HAVE YOUR GRUB, AND CULL IT TOO?? FCG: THAT WAY YOU HAVE HER ALL TO YOURSELF!

And even his "confession" to jade has shades of this, as he basically forced her to auspicetize between himself and... himself. Just a really messy guy who can't keep his quadrants straight. I've already talked before about how this would be completely fine for Eridan, who is literally too bad at social shit to notice and is just happy for the attention, but... doesn't that seem like it would work for Calliope, whose fundamental attraction model is based in pitch?

And to really get into this, we should also talk about Karkat's taste in movies. The three posters he has hanging up in his room are for Serendipity, Hitch, and 50 First Dates. Between the three of them, it becomes really clear that Karkat is really into the idea of soul mates - of finding a romantic partner that just kind of perfectly clicks with you and all your idiosyncracies, with whom the romance is natural, and brings out the best in both partners.

Serendipity most obviously, as the entire movie is practically a treatise on destiny and fate (and also, if you're only going to watch one, watch this one - it gets namedropped twice in the comic and I genuinely think HS draws like 30% of its DNA from it). Hitch's A-plot couple is widely considered the worse one, but the B-plot couple turn out to be perfect for each other - all the guy's lame, embarrassing aspects just happen to be what she finds adorable, and he just needed a courage boost and chance to be noticed by her. And 50 First Dates features a guy in Hawaii who loves taking visiting tourists on whirlwind romances, but is terrified of commitment, meeting a girl who can't make new memories - functionally rendering every date their first from her perspective - and it's really sweet. It doesn't even make you want to punch Adam Sandler at all. Like, not even a little bit.

In any case, what this says to me is that, while he still needs to undergo character development to be ready for it, the romance Karkat should eventually end up with is one where he doesn't have to compromise who he is, warts and all.

A lot of Karkat's more common fandom pairings tend to downplay, or even outright forget about, how genuinely uncomfortable it is to experience Karkat's nutso vascillation. Even if the edge is taken off via moirallegiance, Karkat is still the sort of messy guy who tells his flushed crush to "set the table on [his] bulge for their candle light hate date." Jade clearly isn't a fan of being treated rudely, while Terezi eventually gets driven off by the mixed signals he puts off... but what if there was a species who primarily experiences pitch attraction, who would find Karkat's frequent dips into black-coded flirtation hot?

And also... Karkat is obviously Calliope's favorite character troll...I mean, she's got his symbol as her cufflinks. And also:

CG: I THINK THIS SUBJECT IS BEYOND A LOT OF PEOPLE'S GRASP BUT I KNOW A LOT ABOUT IT, NOBODY EVER REALLY WANTS TO TALK TO ME ABOUT IT THOUGH. AG: Whoa really? Oh no shit, REALLY???????? CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

And:

UU: actUally, i have written hUndreds of pages examining the striking differences between hUman and troll romance, as well as reprodUctive habits, as the comparison makes for a marveloUs case stUdy in xenobiocUltUral differences. UU: as long as i am sharing specUlation with yoU, perhaps yoU woUld like to read my essays? UU: i coUld even paste each page right here in sUccession, and allow yoU to read them back to back to back to back to back to back! ^u^ TT: Oh hell no. UU: ah. UU: yes, yoU're right of coUrse. i'm probably getting carried away as UsUal. UU: forgive my enthUsiasm, it's jUst that i so rarely have anyone to talk to who shares my passion for these matters.

They could both be SO ANNOYING about quadrants and romance together. It would be beautiful.

[yuseirra]

金輪際現れない 一番星の生まれ変わり

キラキラお星様宿したあなたのeyes カラカラ渇いて可哀想なlack of 愛？

[boopshoops]

No Yan Sim OC questions! (by quartztwst!!)

1. Does your OC have parents or family in the AU? If not, what is their current living situation?

Yuu Shi does! Her mother, father, twin sister, two brothers, and two other sisters. Oddly enough though, each of them go a different school than she does. She lives pretty far from this school in comparison to the schools her siblings go to.

2. What are their thoughts on Quartz?

She's honestly a bit puzzled by Quartz. Why kill Azul when you can set up a giant social scandal and revel in the collapse of his carefully built empire that will surely ruin a big part of the rest of his life? Like there are worse things you can do than death but go off ig 🙄 (She relates to hating his ass, but not to the same degree. She's willing to do business with her but otherwise prefers not to think too much about how many possible murderers are at her school.)

3. What is their thoughts and relationship with Azul? How did they meet Azul?

Oh she hates his ass- but more so in a petty way. She was assisting the student council before he even arrived, so they met through that during his freshman year (her sophomore).

She hates the way he speaks down to her- and to most people. The way he puts himself on a pedestal ABOVE her, staring daggers like he knows that she's nothing but some bug under his shoe. She eventually wants to take his position in the student council, literally just out of spite. Just to see the look on his face.

Therefore their interactions usually are akin to banter- banter and arguments. Deals that go back and forth and back and forth and inevitably get nowhere. Rivals.

That being said, over the past two years Azul has had to internally admit that she's far more capable and intelligent than he initially pinned her to be- and the fact that he can't always tell what her intentions are bothers him to no end. A hindrance.

4. What are their relationships with other characters/OCs?

Student Council: She is rather uptight around a majority of the student council members with the exception of Kalim(club mate) and Vil(they share makeup and style tips :)). She takes extra care to retain an air of professionalism in this environment- and therefore takes on a very serious, academic persona a majority of the time.

Music Club: Ahh, now this is her home- she's a bit more comfortable being herself here. A smug grin is more likely to slip around the ones she truly considers friends.

Teachers: This is the academic persona cranked up to 10. She's always volunteering for them and giving her best. She feigns respect for their authority and always takes the time to talk with them in as sickeningly sweet of a way she can imagine. Aint she just an angel?

Others:

Jade: She wasn't sure about him at first. Yuu Shi just seemed to assume that he was the same as Azul- and of course, that is correct in some areas, but she failed to account at the time that he's actually hilarious. She finds his odd hobbies very funny- and with his high intelligence, he was able to clock her as a figure to take seriously faster than Azul was. They banter similarly to her and Azul, but it has a lighter vibe of teasing to it. They both entertain each other in different ways- they match each others freak, platonic version.

Vizzie(@twistedwonderlandshenanigans): Ahh, one of her blackmail sources- She gets info from Vizzie in exchange for keys to rooms that offer privacy. This info includes things like meeting spots or objects someone may have, mostly posted on sticky notes outside Yuu's locker. She is a bit uneasy about Vizzie's tendency to psychoanalyze- but nonetheless remains on friendly relations! She often catches herself slipping into a more honest persona with Viz- though holds herself back at times due to her uneasiness. Besides this, they vibe.

Yuya (@cheerleaderman): She is well aware that Yuya is a fellow dealer of sorts in the school- however they both are currently on civil terms! Yuu Shi is always prepared for that to change, but that applies to everyone really. They mind each others business when it comes to, well, business, but in a more normal school setting they usually exchange light teasing and banter.

Shuu (@oya-oya-okay): Yuu isn't too familiar with Shuu, but she knows the basics. She is a very kind figure with many friends around her- able to see the good in people. When talking together, Yuu often reflects off of Shuu, putting up an overly sweet and smiley act. In actuality, she is becoming increasingly frustrated that she hasn't found much of any overly incriminating blackmail-

Ace: One of her few closer, true friends outside of the music club. They banter and tease and prod and poke and prank- all in good fun, of course. However, similarly to her club buddies, her side business is kept quiet. (not exactly outwardly lied about, just... quiet. Remember, you out her, she outs you.)

Deuce: They are friendly, and that is about all it extends to. She has begun tutoring him as a bit of a side project for the student council. Internally she's screaming at him but externally she's trying oh so hard to be patient- she has a soft spot for the effort he puts in, actually. They are gradually getting to know each other more and become better friends primarily through Ace.

and more!! (Feel free to come talk to me about possible interactions with your ocs in this au!! i'll edit this and tag you here)

5. What grade/year is your OC?

Third year. Junior. She is 18 in this AU.

6. What is your OCs goal for the school year or in life?

fuck bitches get money /j (Gain higher standing)

7. Your OC is being framed for murder of another student by Quartz, how does your OC react to that? Does your OC know it's Quartz?

Oh she knows, and she has evidence. Of which has several copies and pictures made of it, and are planned to be conveniently placed all around the school. Sure, it outs her as being a big source of gossip, but hell if she's getting accused of murder.

8. Your OC notices Quartz carrying a weapon in her skirt pocket. That's strange since the female school uniforms don't have skirt pockets. Does your OC report this?

uh duh thats a fork found in the kitchen. she doesn't care, thats part of her business- unless, ya know, Quartz betrays her in some way. Also the uniforms should have pockets. sincerely, ms. yuu "im way too into my set fashion to the point that i narrowly dodge a uniform violation slip on the daily and only get away with it due to my good relationship with the teachers" shi.

9. Where is your OC usually with or at during school? Classes? With Azul? Skipping class? Where do they eat lunch?

She usually eats lunch with her club buddies- that or in the library, doing some studying. At the end of the day she spends her time in the student council room, though she is known to frequently wander when she's making deliveries for them or her teachers.

10. How are your OC's grades?

She gets very good grades! She dedicates a lot of her time at home to study- and even does it as a hobby occasionally (like a geek but she will deny this /j)

The brain worms got me-

SOOOO this is for @quartztwst's au no yandere sim! I fell in love with the idea and had to throw in an interpretation wooo

Game mechanics wise- i think yuu shi would be the one who helps upgrade certain stats and unlock things to make getting around the school easier. Her reputation itself is odd- often being very well liked by many and very disliked by some as well, all with conflicting statements. She basically controls the gossip world. If you give her blackmail she wants, she's got your back. She believes she's too helpful to be potentially offed- especially since she doesnt get in the way of Quartz or other potential rivals. But it doesnt make her invicible obviously lmao honestly if she was one of the people who was offed first itd be funny- but she wont go down without a fight. Shes a great ally to have but also a horrible enemy if you wrong her and keep her alive. At least she isnt a nark

Tags!

@lowcallyfruity @skriblee-ksk @cecilebutcher @justm3di0cr3 @kitwasnothere

@techno-danger @scint1llat3 @the-trinket-witch @thehollowwriter @distant-velleity

@prince-kallisto @beneathsakurashade @qsoap @twsted-canvas @kathxrat-01

@sillyslipperybananapeel @tixdixl @twstinginthewind @jadelover69

[bestworstcase]

Something I can't help but think of is the Great War in RWBY. How Ozpin in one of his past selves had to basically wipe out entire armies of soldiers and people with a single attack from what was likely the Sword of Destruction.

I have to wonder just how many generations of men and women were wiped out. How many settlements of people basically lost their breadwinners or no longer had anyone to protect them from Grimm.

How many years of battle experience and wisdom about the follies of war, just annihilated in an instant. How many lessons that could have been taught to a new generation made lost forever, ensuring that many of the newer generations could not learn from the past except only through a distorted, flawed lens.

I wonder if this loss might have contributed to Atlas' lackluster military capabilities, because anyone from Mantle who could have held the jackasses at the top to account with hardened experience and wisdom JUST. WEREN'T. THERE.

anon i am grabbing u gently by the shoulders

you have fallen for ozma’s propaganda that he is the Main Character of history. and also activated one of my many trap cards (sorry)

the institution of huntsmen is – overtly, albeit not couched in exactly these terms – predicated on the Great Man, the idea that the course of human history is predominately a product of the decisive choices and actions of Heroes, of individuals whose superior intellect and fortitude and so forth elevated them above the common people. this is the fundamental idea undergirding ozpin’s whole thing – his guardians, the maidens, silver-eyed warriors, his “smaller, more honest soul,” the greatness he promises oscar, the way he describes ruby as possessing “something unquantifiable: a spark, that can inspire others even in the darkest of times” – these are his Great Men. the practical short term purpose of the huntsmen academies is to mold children into warriors in order to guard his fortresses, but in the longer term the point of them is to create Great Men.

narratively, this is an idea that rwby does not agree with; the thematic critique leveled against this view of history begins with the inherent contradiction between ozpin’s soaring rhetoric – the stated ideal of everyone standing together as one – and his actual behavior, which (as salem points out, correctly, in her v3 soliloquy) betrays the hollowness and lack of conviction in his professed “faith” in humanity. to believe in Great Men is fundamentally cynical; it is anti-humanistic; it is self-defeating.

we don’t really have time to outline everything in the CFVY novels that leads me to believe that this narrative critique is building inexorably toward bringing the common people into sharp focus as the true engine of history in vacuo – suffice it to say that there are passages in both books which elevate and emphasize the importance of ordinary people working together to achieve greater things than huntsmen can – but the atlas arc already offers a tangible shift in this direction with civilian politics dawning as a central narrative concern in contrast to the insularity of the beacon and mistral arcs.

the point being that the story structure itself is dismantling ozpin’s view of history; civilians are distant, abstracted set dressing within the hermetically sealed artificial reality of beacon academy, and irrelevant in mistral until the instant the lost fable shatters ozpin’s grip on the narrative and then – bam. brunswick farm is a horror-tragedy about subsistence farmers. the kids stay with the cotta-arcs in argus, and it is this connection with ordinary people that gets the kids to atlas, where class tensions between mantle and atlas and a contested council election dominate the plot and ozpin’s Great Man crumbles because he’s still hermetically sealed inside that artificial reality where the common people don’t really matter or exist in any meaningful way.

you see?

(and of course, professor oobleck, the exception who proves the rule: there is no one still living in the hollowed out ruins of mountain glenn, but that mini-arc is the one time in the beacon arc where the existence of ordinary people feels real and tangible and important, and it is because the history teacher says when i look at these ruins i see lives that were lost. i see a failure that must never be repeated. i see lives, past and future, and this is why i am a teacher, because history is more important than heroism.)

ok. so

the great war.

in qrow’s account of the great war, ozma – the king of vale – is the Great Man. the story of this sprawling, worldwide conflict is that the king of vale tried and failed to avert it, and for ten years the war raged on without an end in sight, until at last the king of vale took to the field of battle himself and single-handedly ended it by the sword; everyone bowed to him in surrender, but he lifted up the world by the hand and established a new world order.

no one else – not a single other participant in this conflict aside from the king of vale and (qrow hints ominously, and completely without evidence) salem – has a drop of agency or even a meaningful presence in the great war as qrow, received from ozpin, would tell it. and i do not think that is supposed to be taken at face value whatsoever; none of the other WOR spots are objective. these are character studies as much as they are worldbuilding shorts.

rwby is a narrative that has rejected this kind of simplicity over and over and over again. the great war was more complicated than that. some big chickens will be coming home to roost in the vacuo arc.

so with all that being said.

the historical exemplar that rwby’s great war seems to be modeled after is the first world war. (in brief: fought 80-90 years ago; the conflict was preceded by decades of increasing tensions driven by imperialist expansion and economic competition between rapidly-industrializing great powers; the war itself famously exploded from a single gunshot – although rwby eschews the political assassination angle perhaps because there were only three extant states in the world; the ending of the war resulted in massive redistribution of imperial territories and the formation of multiple new states. i know the usamerican tendency is to forget WWI happened and that ozma ‘nuking’ the battlefield with the sword to decisively end the war is likely to evoke the atomic bomb in the mind of the average viewer, but here i will remind everyone that the united states massacred nearly a quarter of a million civilians and that figure does not include deaths from cancer or long-term radiation exposure. because we dropped those bombs on cities. in contrast WWI was decided on the battlefield with the hundred days offensive.)

the real great war lasted from the summer of 1914 to the autumn of 1918. four years, three months. do you know how many people died?

an estimated 9 to 11 million military deaths, and 23 million more wounded. 7-8 million of those deaths were combat-related. upwards of 6 million civilians died. one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and aside from WWII (in which as many as two thirds of fatalities were civilians and genocide and war-related famine killed millions and millions of people, so many of these deaths were not combat-related), the only two conflicts in history that killed more people than WWI lasted 14 years, and 47. again, WWI lasted just four years.

ok. the reason WWI was so deadly, and the reason almost all of those military fatalities were combat-related is because of when and how this conflict was fought. in 1914 when the war began, the world was just coming out of the second industrial revolution. that was a period when railroads really began to proliferate, mass-manufacture of steel became possible, rise of production lines, automobiles, the telegraph, that kind of thing.

cannons, and things, had existed for a relatively long time at this point, but the second industrial revolution heralded the dawn of modern artillery weapons, and warfare, cultural conceptions of how wars are fought, had not caught up yet to the sheer scale of destruction that were now possible because of this new technology. which meant that WWI was the last conflict where war meant lining up troops on the battlefield and smashing the armies together, except everyone had things like rapid-firing heavy artillery, and explosive shells, and machine guns, and barbed wire, and chlorine gas.

this is what led to horrible, bloody stalemate of trench warfare and the unprecedented scale of casualties and the idea of “no man’s land” – it’s why the cultural image of what a battlefield looks like in the popular conscious for decades and decades after this war has been and often still is just a barren, muddy, completely obliterated wasteland strewn with debris. WWI was the transition between pre-industrial and modern warfare where industrialization had led to the development of military technology that rendered the old way of doing war obsolete. suicidal.

in the WOR spot, those are exactly the the conditions surrounding the great war except more lopsided because one side has a massive technological advantage. vacuo wasn’t even a state, it had no formal government of its own and it was under mistrali occupation when the vacuans rebelled. not an industrialized nation. vale was had probably industrialized to some degree (the artwork in the WOR spot doesn’t reflect this, but “no one knows who shot first” and vale/vacuan forces were reliant on dust munitions – everyone had guns) but mantle was significantly ahead of the curve.

so.

you have ten years of trench warfare – more than double the length of our own great war. you have the grimm, who are drawn to all negative feelings but especially to violence. you have huge swaths of territory that are just annihilated and never reclaimed. qrow mentions food rationing, so there were probably widespread famines caused by the loss and destruction of farmland. and this was happening all over the world, on every continent, including the unnamed continent that is now literally uninhabited – it wasn’t always, there used to be settlements there, they’re shown in i think WOR: vale – for a decade. right

ozma brought the sword of destruction onto the battlefield to break what was either a brutal stalemate or a slow grind of brutal attrition depending how lopsided the technological advantage was – after ten years of what had to be every military commander and every leader trying everything they could think of to force a surrender because nobody wants this – in the single bloodiest battle of the war, which, yes, means he personally killed an unfathomable number of people because trench warfare is a uniquely deadly form of warfare –

but the vast, vast vast majority of people who died in the great war were not killed in that one battle. remnant’s population is a lot smaller than ours – millions, not billions – so it’s unlikely that millions of people died. but proportionally this war probably killed hundreds of thousands of people and i would not be surprised if at some point a character drops a figure like “almost a million” or even “over a million” – like just. in raw terms, thinking about this as remnant’s great war – the historical exemplar is really not. subtle – that lasted for a decade, this is a conflict that wiped out a significant percentage of the global population.

all that said,

the military tacticians and strategists largely would have survived and military historians would have been all over this conflict. lessons learned. the infantry poured into the trenches were not gaining any battle experience other than “this is actual, literal hell” while they endured hours of artillery barrage. the only wisdom that can be imparted by trench warfare is that it must be avoided at any cost because the only way to win is for the other side to run out of men or ammunition or popular resolve first. pure attrition. that’s the only takeaway. never let this happen again.

i think this is why the atlas military immediately pivoted to, like, robotic soldiers and armored mechs and the warships. that is “we cannot do trench warfare again. we cannot do trench warfare again.”

(in combination with radically changing the way you deploy troops, tanks and aircraft is indeed how you never do trench warfare again – there were tanks and light aircraft during WWI but none of them were good enough to break the stalemate.)

the problem, largely, for the atlas military – in terms of tactical innovation – is that in the eighty years since the great war, there’s only been one large-scale conflict and the faunus revolution was an insurgency, which – had to have been a protracted war waged by some phenomenally tactically ingenious faunus because the insurgents won – and that is a completely different kind of ballgame.

strategic doctrine and military tactics are developed and tested through practice. we did not jump from WWI straight to modern warfare, there have been many many regional wars and smaller conflicts between then and now. after a war, win or lose, you can theorize all you want but until there’s another war that puts your new technology or new tactics to the test, there’s not really a way to know if you’ve learned the right lessons and corrected successfully from whatever errors you made in the previous war.

in a world like remnant, where there are only five states in the entire world and there is so much pressure against open warfare, military innovation is going to be really slow. glacial even. stagnant. the horrifying scale of the great war is not something anyone wanted to ever repeat, and you can see that in the development of atlas’ military technology since then. but, as we can see when salem begins her assault on atlas:

the doctrine has not changed significantly. we have unmanned robotic light infantry arrayed in formation support the atlesian equivalent of tanks, with heavy artillery mounted on the warships in formation above. and, in the back, trenches for the human shock infantry and huntsmen. this is still very much warfare in the pre-industrial mode.

the calculation that the atlas military made here is quite clear – pursue aerial superiority to control the skies so you can eliminate ground-based enemy artillery, mass-manufacture lightweight disposable robotic infantry to feed into the meat grinder, deploy soldiers in heavily-armored mechs supported by those disposable infantry bots into the no man’s land to lead the advance and clear a path for the human rear infantry (<- those mechs would be excellent for cutting rapidly through barbed wire, a major advantage over tanks in another WWI-style conflict).

this is a military that reacted to trench warfare by investing in armored ground vehicles and heavy aircraft (✅ tanks and bombers), and by substituting disposable drones for human shock infantry instead of the shift toward evasive maneuvering and detection avoidance that undergirds modern warfare. which is not unreasonable! if in 1918 it had seemed remotely possible to anyone to replace human troops with little war machines, people would have tried! and in a world where a) the technology to do that proves viable and b) the great war is followed by an 80-year period in which the only major conflict is an insurgency, it’s inevitable that the doctrine stagnates there because it’s untested.

no matter how many drills and VR scenarios and war games you do, you can’t know how this new approach works in a real war until you fight another war. the iterative process of improvement is stalled.

and the terrifying thing about salem is she knows what the fuck she’s doing. it is clear that one of the lessons ozpin took away from the great war is that the general public cannot be entrusted to know that war is on the horizon – he’s furious with ironwood for bringing warships to vale because (aside from risking a bona fide diplomatic incident that could inflame tensions between vale and atlas should the vale council take issue with the uninvited presence of a foreign state’s air force in their kingdom!) he’s concerned that it will make people tense.

you know, like how people were tense when mistral occupied eastern vale and ozma tried to avert war by appeasement, and then there was a deadly riot that exploded into a decade of trench warfare. like how things were probably pretty goddamned tense before the faunus revolution broke out in response to humans being – as oobleck very delicately put it – “quite, quite adamant about centralizing the faunus population in menagerie.”

(that’s code for, at best, systematic persecution intended to make living outside menagerie so untenable that faunus would leave en masse; mass deportations and genocide at worst. in case that isn’t clear.)

i doubt ozma was remotely as obsessed with absolute secrecy such that the common people don’t even know there’s anything unusual happening prior to the great war and the faunus revolution. ozpin is a trauma reaction to those conflicts, deeply and profoundly shaped by them and terrified to the point of irrationality of allowing the “energy” that preceded the outbreak of those wars to happen again.

salem hits beacon with three separate and extremely public terroristic attacks all on the same night – she planned for four, but one fired early – all of which were broadcast internationally, live. she spent eighty years observing how oz reacted to the great war and then struck at him in a manner he would never be able to conceal, and (if he’d survived) would have gotten him stripped of power and cast out of his fortress in disgrace. i think her calculation here is that ozpin would either be dead for at least a few years or self-immolate out of panic.

haven, of course, she had lionheart in her pocket and planned a covert operation. low risk, quick and quiet.

but then, when her plans shuffled and brought her to atlas – a military power that has spent eighty years preparing for war between industrialized states, trying to claw its way ahead of the curve so it won’t be trapped in a trench stalemate again – salem made an inexhaustible force of grimm and delivered a an old-school siege, because a post-industrial military that has focused for eight decades on the problem of avoiding trench stalemate is not prepared to handle an enemy force that is effectively immune to artillery fire.

i think the atlas military would have done a lot better in a round two of the great war. but that’s not the war it got. it got a premodern siege by the eldritch roman legion with instant and infinite respawns so artillery barrages just don’t matter. it’s not about overpowering the enemy! it’s about taking away what power they have!

(this, plus the atlesian military’s development of devices that provoke massive grimm swarms as per arrowfell, makes it emphatically clear that the atlas military does not exist for the purpose of grimm extirpation. it’s an institution that has been built from the ground up for open warfare with other states.)

[the-poppy-outie-effect]

only the biggest brained individuals understand that Grif is actually the smartest of the reds and blues. only the wisest among us know that it takes a genius to get away with the bullshit he gets into on the daily. only the sharpest crayons in the box get that Grif has been playing everyone the entire show and only acts dumb so everyone underestimates him. only the smartiest of pantses can comprehend him.

[wonder-worker]

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

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

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

[x-i-l-verify]

#God my irl friend is like that#he like deaths for the “plottwist” value #and it's so infuriating when i try to explain all the wasted potential and he just shrugs #i don't want to hate on anyone's taste #but it is so heartbreaking that so many are satisfied with this #i know it's a shonen battle manga and it doesn't have to be that deep #but i just has such high hopes after S1 and it's so disappointing seeing my love evaporate just like that #and trying to excuse deaths like “consequences”? #bro you are just coping with shit narrative choices #or somehow you just hated the characters and try to explain by bullshitting your way through this

i'm sorry i just saw a tweet of someone saying "jjk is the best shonen because characters actually face consequences for their bad decisions" in response to nobara's death and i'm flabbergasted. why is it heroic and admirable when every other (male) protagonist decides to risk their lives to keep fighting an opponent but when it's nobara it's "she fucked around and found out lol" and "it's so cool because the point of the show is that death is meaningless"....... huh????? what even is the point of jjk if it's not about the tragedy of sacrificing innocent lives in the process of saving others? don't we think of geto and sukuna as antagonists because they also see death as meaningless?? nobara's death (if she's actually dead) isn't edgy and philosophical -- it's just bad storytelling. she has unfinished business and the way she died was so sudden there was no emotional build-up, no narrative significance aside from shock value, no real impact on the other characters (whether characters actually have any space to mourn and grieve in jjk is whole other essay...)

i recognize that i'm merely facing the consequences for my bad decision of getting involved in anitwt but if i see another person sully nobara's good name with their piss poor takes i'm going to whip out the straw doll technique

[metanarrates]

watched a majora's mask analysis earlier today with my fiancee. my verdict is that I actually really enjoyed the op's interpretations, but that I wished that they talked more about mm's literal level and what one can get from it, rather than talking about those events as if they are strictly metaphor. yes, of course the metaphorical layer of the game is rich to dig into, but it's also such an open-ended and surreal game that it's difficult to nail down every single distinct metaphor that can be derived from its events. which is why I consider it necessary to discuss the way the literal layer presents itself and what sort of motifs and ideas exist there as a baseline before you begin looking at it as metaphor

[solis-angelus]

BABE WAKE UP NEW LOW JUST DROPPED.

source

[sskk-manifesto]

Finally got around to watching ep 11 (´；ω；｀)

[call-me-insane-but-wth]

What gets me the most about jc stans who forcibly whitewash Jc's personal motivations is if you were to ask them whether the other cultivational sects were in the wrong, they'd answer absolutely. But what is the difference? Bc you watched the DRAMA and the furrowed brows, clenched immaculate jaw, and pursed lips were so evocative? But that's just the outside. If they were REAL fans, they'd love jc in all his inferiority, insecurities, and eventual growth instead of dwelling on just the former. The drama did the character of jc a great disservice, in that it softened him from the arbitrary, hypocritical, arrogant young master whom he started out as and eventually grew from. Jc stans (if they're literate enough) will cry out 'death of the author! I can do what I want!1!1' But what they should really be saying is, 'Death of the character!'

Bc their version of Jc bears no resemblance to the force of nature that Jc was. All that passion, pride, insecurity, vulnerability, and vitriol that they identified with that WAS derived from and directed towards trying (and failing) to control Wwx, GONE. Bc they don't want to present the canon jc who objectively IS an antagonist. Jc stans need to unpack their need to be morally right and pure.

Jc was an antagonist. There's nothing wrong with liking a character who is. There's nothing wrong with creating an oc. But when you retcon a characters core identity to make it seem as if *they're* the fostered orphan being used as a whetstone and groomed to become an indentured servant, essentially wwx by another name, you just make yourself seem absolutely illiterate

(in terms of comprehension of the narrative that was a commentary on classism, collective punishment, toxic filial piety, and feudalism)

Coming away from a story that narrates the horror of being unjustly slandered, ostracized, disenfranchised, genocided, there's no way that they don't know right from wrong, so all they can do is hollow out their favored rich boy pretty male character of all meaningful characteristics, and just like the individualistic capitalist they are conditioned to be, make it all about themselves while justifying hating on the actual mc and shitting all over the original premise of the novel in the process.

They shld just be fucking for real and tag their shit as s.i fanfiction, bc that is what their shit is.

And if you tell me "Well wouldn't you feel bad if you thought of this in a different context from what was established by the moral compass of the novel?", I don't care, because the novel itself tells me not to do that regarding what it is trying to do with it's thematics. It lessens the sympathy within passages of each other regarding Jiang Cheng. Because whatever he may have gone through, he does even worse to Wei Wuxian and that's where it stops being sympathetic or reasonable.