#this is actually 100% true. not even an exaggeration

[koravelliumavast]

Tire shops in bigger cities: oh sorry this tire is unfixable. It’s been patched up too many times. (It had been patched up twice)

Tire shops in small towns: 7 nails in one tire? That’s a new record for you guys. I’ll patch that up for you. This is the third time this week you’ve brought a car in here, did they grade the road recently?

[astrow1zar6]

Astro Observations-32

Gemini moons have very unstable opinions and values. They usually change what they believe in based on their social environment. It’s very easy to convince them it’s this and not that if you’re convincing enough. These constant changes can make people confused in what they actually believe in. Very rare they have fixed beliefs about something. They contradict themselves a lot.

Gemini suns if underdeveloped can be big copy cats. I think they do it as a way to fit in so they’re more susceptible to changing their style or mannerisms based off of others they inspire to be like

Aries suns get triggered by everything very easily. If you say something they don’t like or that offends them they can take it from 0-100 real quick. They can be very mean at times but that’s usually their defense mechanism for feeling hurt. They can let wayyy to much things get to them they should learn to not take things so personally even if they are offended (this goes for Aries moon as well!!!) Controlling their reactions to how they deal with bs can help their mental peace a lot. When they learn not everything needs a reaction they can really become some bosses fr

Pisces/12th house placements show different versions of themselves based off of the persons vibe their interacting with. Which is why some ppl can see them as quiet and reserved and another person can see them as hot headed and loud and another can see them as sweet and outgoing etc. They can read ppls energy very easily which is why I believe they’re able to subconsciously change their personality to certain ppl as a defense mechanism to sorta see if that person is safe enough to be their true selfs. This can be why a lot of ppl see them in so many different lights. (Ex: my brother has a 12th house stellium and with family he’s extremely awkward & reserved but I’m his school he’s extremely popular & social and gets in trouble for talking too much). Learning to be more comfortable showing ur true self to others (other than the people they see as safe) can help others pin point better the person you are.

Cancer moons are so emotionally intelligent it’s insane

I notice your moon sign acts more like the stereotypical sign then your sun sign (ex: Scorpio moons act more like stereotypical Scorpios then Scorpio suns)

Leo moons are very passionate ppl. They want to live the intensity of life & they live it like that. That’s why ppl mistake their behavior for exaggeration & drama. These are actually their feelings they don’t exaggerate they truly feel that intensity. They’re only playful with selected people which is why others can see them as cold at times. If underdeveloped they can act like know it alls a lot, they can be very defensive and hard headed to others advice bc they believe they know better. Can result in big ego problems if not checked. But overall genuine hearted ppl.

Virgo moons get the “ick” from people easily that don’t value what they value

Sag moons do you guys deal with deep emotions at all? Everyone I met with this placement is abnormally very jolly & nothing usually bothers them much. How do you guys deal with emotions?? I’m lowkey jealous of this moon placement because of how well you take negatively. They’re able to transmute negative energy into something positive with such little effort. This can be somewhat stressful for deeper signs however to really see under all that joy. This lack of depth can make it harder for others to relate at times. This placement is the definition of golden retriever energy.

Ppl with Aries mars in their chart gain muscle VERY easily (especially in their arms) these people actually enjoy working out and going to the gym normally. As kids they had a surplus of physical energy. They were usually always running around or climbing stuff making obstacles courses, arm wrestling ppl etc. this placement is a blessing in terms of energy levels and health.

Taurus placement can sit around and watch tv all day if u let them. They really love TV especially movies. I notice this more with Taurus mars as well, they’re more likely to watch movies all day or binge watch shows for hours. It’s usually their happy place (and when u add food to it they’ll never leave lol)

Taurus moons usually always grew up loving fashion and clothes. Even as kids they can be very creative with the outfits the wore. They were usually too stubborn to have their mom pick out their clothes cuz they wanted a certain “look” (I’m guilt for this) they are also very fond of thrifting! Can be big shopaholics lol

Pisces moons tend to ghost ppl they’re close too with very little warning. They’ll just randomly decide to move to another state without informing anyone which can catch ppl off guard a lot. They do this especially when they feel overwhelmed with life and responsibilities. These are the hardest ppl to keep in touch with (unless you’re a love interest) they tend to put their love interests before everyone.

Pisces suns fall in love with some of the most psychotic/mentally unstable ppl ever lol. They tend to have very chaotic love life’s and tend to go for people that need some sort of mental help.

Out of all the Venus signs I feel like Taurus Venus’s have the easiest time in relationships. They tend to go for very stable people that usually treat them well. They have the ability to attract very helpful partners. (Cries in aqua Venus 🥲) however they can be more likely to take their partners for granted and don’t realize how good they have it.

Another question for other astrologers does the house of ur Venus give the same affect as the sign? Like for example ( does having a 5th house Venus give the same effect as having a Leo Venus in a way? Or is it not as strong?)

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Azul Ashengrotto - Platinum Jacket Vignette

"Happy 100th Anniversary"

[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]

Azul: That painting was done by a painter from the Coral Sea… I'm rather surprised at the number of merfolk focused paintings here in a museum on the surface.

Azul: I suppose I should expect nothing less from this Land of Dawning Museum with 100 years of history lining its halls. Their collection includes a wide variety of works.

Azul: Fufu, it does bring me pride a supporter of the museum. I must do my part well… Oh?

???: She's a lot bigger than I expected… Did the Sea Witch really need to grow to such a size…?

Azul: Well, well, Jamil-san. If there is anything I can elucidate you on this painting of the Sea Witch, I would happy to do so.

Jamil: Don't just listen in on someone else's personal mutterings like that. Your ears just pick up everything, huh.

Azul: The scene depicted in this painting is of when the Sea Witch was admonishing someone who tried to change their contract.

Jamil: And don't just start explaining without being prompted. Even I know about the story of when she transformed to that titanic size.

Jamil: But when I actually see this painting in person, she's just much larger than I had imagined… It's just hard to believe.

Azul: You believe this depiction is a fictional exaggeration of what actually happened?

Azul: I completely understand that. I had the same thoughts the first time I saw this painting.

Azul: Nevertheless, this painting has faithfully reproduced a well-known legend passed down in the Coral Sea.

Azul: The Sea Witch embodies the spirit of compassion. And yet, she also demonstrated her anger at the mer who broke their contract.

Azul: But all of it was for the purpose to reform the soul of the mer who had acted in bad faith!

Jamil: What, she disciplined them for their own good? …Actually, yeah, there are some people who don't learn their lesson from just a light scolding.

Azul: Indeed. That is how it is taught in the Coral Sea.

Azul: You cannot just spoil someone rotten, there needs to be some discipline as well. I believe that shows true compassion.

Jamil: I can't believe something reasonable actually came from your mouth… What's wrong, are you sick or something?

Azul: Not at all. I only say this because there was someone close to me who would do the exact same thing.

Jamil: You personally know a mer who is similar to the Sea Witch? Who could that be?

Azul: My grandmother.

Azul: She always dotes on me… And when I was a child, I was definitely spoiled rotten by her.

Azul: However, she didn't hold back on scolding me when I didn't heed her advice and mixed some dangerous potions together.

Azul: And that was beyond terrifying… She was as furious as whirlpools in a strait.

Jamil: Whirlpools in a strait, huh… I bet that was as intense at the Sea Witch in this painting.

Azul: Indeed she was. Even if I had wanted to swim away, my legs were shaking so much, I couldn't even move.

Azul: However, I do understand now that she was tough because she had been worried about me.

Azul: Even after leaving home, I diligently put forth the effort every single day while always remembering her teachings.

Azul: So whenever I go to work, I remember what she would say to me, and use that to strengthen myself before beginning.

Azul: She would say… "Become a mer who is capable of helping someone else."

Jamil: …I see.

Jamil: I gotta say, I wasn't expecting you to be that much of a grandma's boy. That's a bit of a shocker.

Azul: A grandma's boy… Well, I suppose. I am who I am now thanks to her.

Azul: Of course, it also wouldn't be incorrect to say that I learned the importance of proper compensation from her, either.

[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]

Azul: This is… a painting that depicts story of when the Fairest Queen disguised herself as an old woman and visited a young girl who lived in a forest.

Azul: If I recall, as a way to help the young girl in love, she personally came to deliver apples that the she needed for a dish.

Jamil: So she was going to get through to her love interest through their stomach, hm. If the Fairest Queen herself brought them all the way there, those apples must have been especially delicious.

Azul: Indeed, one can almost smell that sweet apple aroma just by looking at this painting.

Azul: I'm sure it would be rather difficult for a painter from the oceans to draw such a real-looking apple.

Jamil: You think? Apples are imported under the sea, too. I feel like they could draw it by looking at that…

Azul: Of course, we absolutely can get our hands of apples in the sea. However, there is a large difference in how the light hits it and how the color shines upon it when it is at the sea floor compared to the surface.

Azul: Unless that painter has spent enough years on land, the way they draw them will be completely different from how they look on land.

Jamil: Interesting. Speaking of differences, Azul… Is it true that things smell differently on land and in the sea?

Azul: Oh, you're quite knowledgeable.

Azul: It often does feel as though the same things smell differently under the sea or on the surface.

Azul: When I first came on land, every scent was new to me, so every time I came across something new, I made it a point to determine its aroma.

Jamil: You just went around sniffing everything left and right… Haha, makes me laugh just imagining it.

Jamil: I bet everything smelling different caused some confusion, huh.

Azul: I suppose so. However, I did make some new discoveries. I especially found my meal times to be very valuable.

Azul: I can never forget that moment I realized just how different the flavors of ingredients that we also had in the ocean could be just from the change in aroma.

Azul: People do often say that fragrance is a valuable part of determining the taste factor of a dish.

Jamil: That's true. Oftentimes spices are used as a way to add fragrance in the same way.

Jamil: So, what was the dish that made you realize that even the same ingredients could affect the flavor?

Azul: Just a simple grilled dish. Char-grilled meat or fish, for example.

Azul: Of course, I've eaten things made on land underwater before, but the flavor was completely different.

Jamil: Char-grilling, hm. I can definitely see that as having a different flavor, since those dishes heavily rely on aromas.

Azul: Indeed. As such, at Jade and Floyd's suggestion, we had a barbeque soon after we came to the surface…

Azul: However, our ingredients became charred due to our inability to control the heat properly, and smoke kept getting into our eyes… It was one hardship after another, since we had no idea how to do it effectively.

Azul: Not to mention that Jade and Floyd found it entertaining to keep blowing the smoke in my direction… It was a wretched time.

Jamil: Sounds like fun to me. I can picture just how disgruntled you must have been.

Azul: Oh, is that right? I'll make sure to invite you next time, Jamil-san, since you seem interested.

Jamil: …I think I'll pass, actually.

[Land of Dawning – National Museum of Art]

Jamil: This is a painting of the Lord of the Underworld and his human helper from his legends, huh. This lady looks pretty unhappy.

Azul: It is said that they would have troubles compromising often, and it seems that she is very reluctant towards something here.

Azul: In addition, she had failed in a task that the Lord had given her, and made a major misstep by reporting incorrect information.

Azul: However, he didn't abandon her and instead gave her a chance to redeem herself.

Azul: How utterly generous he is… The Lord of the Underworld is a wonderful inspiration as someone who knows how to rouse his people.

Jamil: Well, I can't deny that, but… To me, there's something to be said about being too tolerant.

Jamil: I know I personally would rather not have an increase in workload because something gets promised without thinking.

Azul: Are you perhaps talking about matter of raising the PR level of Night Raven College that the Headmage requested?

Azul: When that topic was brought up in the last Housewarden meeting, Kalim-san was so forthright in accepting the task.

Jamil: You accepted it, too. This is an unbearable weight on me, and my fellow dorm students, you know.

Jamil: I get why softhearted Kalim took it on, but why would you go out of your way to accept this sort of annoying task?

Azul: No reason why… The Headmage was in need, so I volunteered out of the goodness of my heart.

Azul: Also… If this PR were to succeed, then it would be beneficial to me, as well.

Jamil: Beneficial to you?

Azul: If the good name of our academy is spread, then that will also reflect on us, you see?

Azul: More than ever people will recognize us as being students from that Night Raven College…

Azul: And if it is a grand success, then as one of the organizers, I may have the chance to grow my own opportunities.

Jamil: So that's why. You're completely different from Kalim, who just took it on because the Headmage asked.

Jamil: But anyway, this is all just hypothetical, right? There's also the chance that it's all just a waste of time and effort.

Azul: That is true. However, that is no reason to sit back and do nothing.

Azul: My main goal while at this academy is to maximize my own marketability before heading out into society.

Azul: In order to achieve that, there is nothing I am unwilling to do. I must take every opportunity that is given to me.

Jamil: Sigh, that's just like you.

Jamil: Speaking of which, have you already come up with how you're planning on increasing PR?

Jamil: I hear that the organizer will have to implement the best idea personally. That's a pretty hefty load, don't you think?

Azul: Fufu, I can't go into details, but… Of course, I've thought of some feasible ideas.

Azul: If you're interested, why not join us, Jamil-san?

Azul: It would be remiss if I were to completely monopolize this wonderful of an opportunity.

Jamil: No thanks. I'll be leaving now before I get wrapped up in anything troublesome.

Azul: Fufu, and there he slips away from me. …Hm? This painting…

Azul: It's the mermaid who fell in love with a human from one of the Sea Witch's legends. She seems so naïve and vulnerable; one prone to being led on.

Azul: Fufu… The world is cruel, after all. I wonder how much of reality she actually understood.

Requested by @pianostarinwonderland.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: The Running Grave

[mysterious circle of robed figures] JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: i have a new ssstory for you tonight Rowling: a new ssstory of cormorant ssstrike Jesse Singal: wow mommy it's great! Maya Forstater: the greatest story ever told Rowling: Rowling: well i haven't told it yet

Helen Joyce: i'm not exaggerating when i say that this is 100% the best story ever written in human history Rowling: you haven't heard it yet Joyce: i don't have to hear it to know it's better than any other story in the world Rowling: Rowling: oh

Joyce: i don't need to know anything about it or even hear it to say that jk rowling is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life Rowling: Rowling: i dunno Rowling: for sssome reassson thisss jussst isssn't ssatissfying

[midnight society] JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: i have a new cormorant ssstrike ssstory Barker: don't you have your own group to tell that to? Rowling: no all they do isss praisss me and tell me i'm great Rowling: it getsss tiring Rowling: you all wouldn't underssstand

Rowling: sso cormorant strike is an ugly detective with a terrible personality who also reeksss of cigarettess and fartss conssstantly and also his hair lookss like pubess Rowling: naturally the women are all hungry for hiss D Patricia Highsmith: crazy dames, who can fathom them

Rowling: the thing iss women can't get enough of cormorant ssstrike Rowling: did i mention hisss hair looks like pubess? Rowling: women jussst look at his sscrotum-like head and think Rowling: damn i can't NOT fuck that

Rowling: but cormorant sstrike hasss no time for women Rowling: women are all just a bunch of dumb bimboss who only care about sstupid clothes and being shallow Highsmith: bitches be shopping, it true

Rowling: cormorant ssstrike is hired by this rich arissstocrat to resscue hiss adult sson from a cult Rowling: ssee, his sson is autisstic so he can't be trussted to make decissionss Rowling: you know how autistic people are Rowling: they're bassically eternal children

Rowling: ssso the dad is all 'i need to have my adult autistic sson declared mentally incompetent sso that i can control hiss life totally and forever' Rowling: as a good father would

King: gosh joanne King: as a father i have say King: i would do anything for my boy joe King: but that seems a little extreme don't you think? King: sometimes the hardest part of being a parent is letting go Rowling: Rowling: you know what ssteve? sshut up Rowling: jusst sshut up

Rowling: this cult, sssee, it sseducesss and recruitss vulnerable autistic youth who, as you know, can't think for themsselvess Rowling: remindsss me a little of another group now that i think about it King: Poe: Barker: Koontz: Lovecraft: Rowling: you know who i mean

Rowling: thiss cult alsso ssays itss about ssocial jussstice & being kind Rowling: but really it's actually a ssecret front for pedophiless Rowling: remindsss me a little of another group now that i think about it King: Poe: Barker: Koontz: Lovecraft: Rowling: you know who i mean Rowling: thisss cult alssso hass lotsss of money and ussess frivolousss lawsssuitssss to sstop criticisssm Barker: gosh now THAT reminds me of someone Barker: but who? Barker: who could it be? L Ron Hubbard: Barker: yes but Barker: i'm thinking of someone ELSE

[cherryxcadbury]

When the Alcohol Kicks In

context: context: you get drunk one night, and you and Jude start arguing

2nd person POV

Getting drunk was a rare occurrence for you. One, you didn't drink very often, you had too much to worry about. Two, you had a very high alcohol tolerance. Five shots didn't phase you in the slightest. 

However, on the rare occasions in which you did get drunk, it was bad.

You never intended to get as drunk as you did. By the time you left the house, you and your boyfriend Jude had gotten into a bit of a squabble. You had intentions of going out with your somewhat large group of friends, consisting of both males and females. That wasn't what Jude was worried about.

There was a certain someone in the group, Lewis, an acquaintance of yours that Jude didn't like.

"He's so clearly into you Y/N!" Jude had said before you left the house.

"Don't be ridiculous Jude, I hardly talk to him." You scoffed.

It was true. Out of all the people in your group, Lewis was the one you spoke to the least. You guys had gone to the same secondary school, but you barely knew each other. Let alone, be familiar enough with each other that he'd actually like you. 

"I'm telling you Y/N, just watch!" Jude warned you.

"If you're so concerned just come Jude!" You shouted back at him.

Jude sighed, "You know exactly why I can't! The club would kill me."

You rolled your eyes. The man cared more about his club than you. Maybe you were over exaggerating a bit, but you didn't care.

***

The lot of you were at Suhana's place, dancing and drinking. It wasn't a party exactly, but a gathering of "close friends". 

You were dancing with your two best friends, Tilly and Elijah. From any onlooker, it was more like bouncing around wildly. You were tipsy at this point, and that's where you'd stand. Elijah and Tilly left to grab more snacks from the kitchen while you continued bouncing around in your spot. You were very much an ambivert. Introverted to most but really quite social and extroverted with your friends.

You were enjoying just hopping around to the beat of the music when you felt someone's hands on both of your hips. You immediately turned and smacked both hands off.

You looked around to see if anyone had seen, you could only see someone having fallen asleep on the couch. Everyone else had been in the kitchen eating. 

"What is wrong with you!" You hissed, stepping very far away from him. 

Lewis shot you a lazy smirk. A disgusting one at that. 

"Aw come on, Bellingham's not even here." He slurred, you could smell the alcohol in his breath.

He stepped closer to you, trying to touch your face and kiss you.

This time, you slapped him hard, and shoved him before shrieking.

"I hope you never see the light of day!" You spit, before the rest of your friends came running.

"What's happened?" Tilly frantically questioned.

"She slapped me!" Lewis defended himself, pointing fingers at you.

"He touched me and tried to kiss me!" You shouted in defense of yourself.

Lewis just smiled lazily again. Tilly, Suhana, and the others bolted in Lewis's direction to physically assault him. Elijah stopped them from getting too chaotic and kicked Lewis out. Everyone else then turned to you, who was leaning against the wall with your arms crossed in front of your chest. You were staring down at the ground, tears slowly escaping your eyes.

Jude was right. He was 100% right. And you had just ignored him and scoffed due to a silly little fight.

"You okay love?" Tilly asked, putting an arm around you.

You wiped your tears off before nodding.

"You want me to take you and Tilly home?" Elijah offered.

You shook your head.

"I just want a drink. Something strong." You requested, this was a mistake on your part.

The reason many people thought you had such good alcohol tolerance was because you stayed away from the strong stuff. Realistically, you were a lightweight.

"I have tequila." Suhana offered.

You nodded, following her for the glass.

***

Two hours later and many missed calls from Jude. Elijah and Tilly were walking you home, you were drunk out of your mind. They'd never seen you in such a state.

"This must've been her first time drinking tequila." Tilly whispered to Elijah as they helped you up to your flat.

"I always thought Y/N had a high tolerance." Elijah responded.

"Stop acting like I'm not here! I do have a high tolerance, I'm not a lightweight!" You protested.

"Calm down Y/N. It's been a long night. You just need some sleep." Tilly tried to soothe you.

The three of you stopped abruptly once you got to your flat door. Your friends turned to you for keys. You somehow managed to grab them out of your bag and began fumbling with them. Before you could even get it into the lock, the door swung open. There was Jude, stationed by the door with a relieved look on his face.

As it turned out, when you hadn't picked up your phone, he called the others and finally got a response from Suhana who said you were on your way home. Normally, he would've been asleep two hours earlier, but he stayed up, waiting for you to come home.

You walked in, avoiding eye contact, heading straight for the couch while Jude said his hellos and goodbyes to Elijah and Tilly.

"What the hell? You didn't pick up your phone! Do you know how worried I was! What the fuck is with you!" Jude gritted through his teeth.

All you wanted to do was run to him and cry in his arms about your crappy night, but you were too stubborn for that.

"I'm sorry! It was a long night, I must've forgotten or something!" You mumbled.

Jude's face began to soften as he heard the tremble in your voice. 

But then he smelled the alcohol on your breath, that was enough to forget about the softness in your voice.

"Are you fucking kidding me. You're bloody drunk. That's why you did not pick up your phone." Jude shouted.

This was where you drew the line.

"I'm not drunk so shut the fuck up. I honestly can't with you! Stop acting like you own me!" You yelled at him, slamming the door as you made your way into the bathroom which was connected to yours and Jude's room.

You looked in the mirror and sighed at the reflection. You didn't wear makeup so it wasn't a terrible sight to behold. But, there was mascara running down your face. Your hair looked a little crazy, and you looked like a shell of your usual self.

Note to self, stay away from hard alcohol.

You pealed your clothes off, and got into the shower. Letting the hot water consume all of the negative thoughts. Once you were finished, you came out a new person, like your normal self. You wrapped your wet hair in a towel and left the bathroom to see Jude still up, scrolling on his phone.

He would never go to sleep without knowing you were safe.

You climbed in bed next to him, scooting close to him to hug him from his sides.

"I'm sorry." You said, burying your head in his neck.

He moved closer to you and kissed your forehead.

"I love you." He mumbled to you.

That brought a smile to your face, "I love you too, so much."

Jude grinned at you, coyly.

"So. What did happen?" Jude asked you with concern on his face.

You sighed, "You can't say I told you so." 

Jude's smile immediately darkened. His face grew very easy.

"It was that son of a bitch wasn't it? I swear to god, I'll show him. The nerve he has, trying something on my girlfriend." Jude began muttering under his breath.

He sprang out of bed, getting a winter coat and shoes on. It was very clearly he was about to hunt Lewis down and very likely punch him senselessly.

Before he could get himself arrested, you grabbed Jude, slowly beckoning him to come back to bed. 

"Please." You begged him, looking up at him with big emotional eyes.

Who was Jude to say no to that?

Jude sighed in defeat as a smile found its way on your face. You both went back to bed, you snuggled into his side, him with his arm wrapped around your body. 

"We'll both go beat him up tomorrow, when we're well rested and have stronger punches." You smirked at Jude.

"That's my girl." Jude grinned before kissing you again.

it feels nice to be writing again

[starboysbrainrot]

I have never publicly said this but : Jet drowning Gaipan and Zuko burning down Kyoshi Island are

1) narrative parallels

2) are widely exaggerated by the fandom as actions taking place in a 100 years war and performed by two teenagers

because yes context does matter. and you CANNOT possibly think that these actions come even close to the atrocities of what the rough rhinos did to Jet’s village or what Ozai intended to do to the Earth Kingdom.

NO THIS IS NOT ME EXCUSING WHAT THEY DID. DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THIS.

all I’m saying is that context, intentions and knowing what is going on in a character’s head are actually important in that case for a better understanding of their actions.

let’s take a look at Jet. he’s an orphan boy, who grew up with this very idea that every thing that went wrong in his life was caused by the FN (which is true) and that the only way for him to survive is to fight the FN (which is, again, true). therefore, the logical conclusion to years of trauma, and impregnated ideas of vengeance and wrath is to loose touch with your sense of morality and ending up doing heinous things because he’s convinced that it is the right thing to do. the ONLY thing to do. to survive and to escape the war. what people like to forget is that Jet didn’t grow up like Sokka and Katara, who even though faced a terrible tragedy after their mother’s death, and had to live in a tribe that had been weakened by the FN, also lived in a sheltered place for most of their lives, with their Gran Gran and father’s love, with a community, a family. Jet grew up in constant solitude, hunger, pain, fear, death and had to become a parent to those around him. and that’s not me trying to compare them. but you cannot seriously think that they grew up in the same conditions. growing up like that you just CANNOT turn out fine. the absence of love and protection coming from an adult actually does that to a kid. as time passes he realises that he, as an orphan boy, has to do what has to be done in order to survive. the question of morality doesn’t even crosses his mind. because fear and anger are the only thing left for him to survive. and all of this leads to him drowning Gaipan, and committing this heinous crime. which well doesn’t really happen because everyone is safe ! everyone survived ! yes the village is destroyed but that’s material loss. that doesn’t come near the loss of actual people.

now for Zuko, his core character trait in season 1 is that he’s very short sighted. he only sees his goal, and never what’s in between that. this shortsightedness comes from years of obsession fuelled by extreme (FN) propaganda, indoctrination, trauma and anxiety in regards of what awaits Zuko if he never gets to catch the Avatar. like Jet, Zuko’s anger and fear brings what’s most ugly in him : his lack of regards for any collateral damage he might provoke while trying to reach his goal. which ultimately leads to Kyoshi Island burning down. however, they are a few things that need to be said here. he never steps a foot on Kyoshi Island with the intention of burning it. that’s actually where it diverges from Jet. Zuko is extremely short sighted and his only goal is to find Aang. nothing. else. which differentiates him from his sister especially. who wanders through the earth kingdom while yes chasing Aang but also never stopping (or at least trying) to expend the FN’s power in the EK. Kyoshi island burning down comes actually from him being shitty at managing his firebending (and his crew) in season 1. it’s quite literally collateral damage and most of the damage on Kyoshi Island actually comes from Zuko’s soldiers (who we never actually see receiving orders that would indicate Zuko wanting to burn the island. he only says “I want the Avatar” before splitting up, and go rewatch the scene if you don’t believe me). we do actually see Zuko shooting a few fireballs at Aang but we see only one of them actually hitting the cabins. so it would be logical to assume that it was Zuko’s crew, while fighting the Kyoshi Warriors that did it. after the gaang left, Katara even says “he would have destroyed the whole place” meaning it wasn’t destroyed. and then Aang eventually saves the village and Zuko and his crew leave.

what I’m trying to say with this is that I cannot keep seeing people actually demonising and adultifying Jet and Zuko’s actions (especially at the very beginning where both of them are clearly villains with the narrative intent of doing heinous things) with using these two specific scenes, where, ultimately, no one got hurt (except Sokka & Aang while fighting Jet and the Kyoshi Warriors while fighting Zuko).

this post isn’t me denying what they did. at the end of the day, Gaipan got destroyed and Kyoshi Island lost a lot of infrastructure and cabins. this post is me explaining why I’m tired of the over exaggerated claims in regards of these two characters.

the problem with this fandom is that people will talk about Jet and Zuko’s actions in episode 10 and episode 4 like they would talk about Long Feng’s actions or Ozai’s actions.

like, no, two indoctrinated traumatised teenage boys in a war cannot be held accountable in the same way that two adults (who funnily actually did kill people !) are held accountable. like, textually by LAW they cannot be held accountable in the same way. because of their age, because of the circumstances, the consequences, etc etc.

and what’s even more important is that both actually do their best to make amends. even though doing this after years of indoctrination is actually hard. jet dies while doing so and Zuko nearly dies at the hand of his father for doing so. (and that’s without even talking about his actions as a Firelord)

you can dislike Jet and Zuko as characters. but the hate these two get will always look ridiculous at the end of the day. because it’s either completely exaggerated or out of context or doesn’t apply to them because they actually did change. and did try to make amends.

again, this is not me saying that they weren’t villains at the beginning of the series. this is also not me saying that these actions are excusable or even remotely okay. no, it’s me begging the fandom to just use their brain for two fucking seconds. it’s me begging the fandom to just understand what the war and it’s consequences does to people, especially children. on all sides of the war. especially war children.

[polarspaz]

Knowing too much AU

It starts out so innocent and simple. Tim is spending a relaxing day with his friends, when Kon starts complaining about Tim sneaking up on him again. “Not a meta my ass! I swear, you Bats have this super creepy ability to make NO SOUND. I have super-hearing. I can hear a damn pin drop a mile away. Yet once again, I nearly shit myself this morning when I saw you in the kitchen!”

Tim just rolls his eyes. “The reason you don’t hear me Kon is because you’re distracted. I just learned how to take advantage of that.”   

But Kon crosses his arms and vehemently shakes his head. “Tim, I hear a lot of shit. Stuff, I really, really don’t want to hear. You though? No footsteps, no breathing and your heartbeat? I gotta actually listen for that! I swear it’s like living with a ghost!”

The gang laugh it off after awhile but the conversation stays with Tim. While Kon tended to exaggerate, what he said was kinda true. Tim is 100% sure he’s not a meta and he doesn’t feel any different then usual, but he can keep an eye out on the rest of the bat-family, right?

What he sees changes everything. Dick is too fast, too flexible, his body twisting in ways no human should. Jason accuracy is beyond that of a machine, and his ability to recover from injuries is too fast. Cassandra’s eyesight is incredible, Barbra’s memory is vast, and Alfred isn’t aging. Damian and Stephanie seem to be the least affected but there are signs that is changing.

Whatever is changing them, it’s influencing Bruce the most, and Tim is determined to figure out what the hell is going. But some things shouldn’t be known, and Tim finds himself delving into the world of the Eldritch, and that has consequences.

IN short, Tim finds out the bat-family are becoming less human because an ancient eldritch being is obsessed with them, and Tim finding this out through his poking around accidently progresses the change happening to him even faster.

So now Tim’s a half eldritch being who has to make sure the world’s greatest detective doesn’t find this out, because the same thing that happened to Tim could happen to Bruce.

Small tiddbits =Fear gas reveals Tim’s true form. Tim’s form is the embodiment of hope for Gotham. Looks like a manta-ray cause, I guess, manta rays are pretty smart? Can eat magic and fear.

[carlyraejepsans]

I really respect your dedication to these characters and the fine nuances in writing them with pinpoint accuracy but lord it must be really really hard to find any amount of fanfics by people who feel the same and don't unintentionally do something kinda ooc once that makes you stop reading a story. With short comics and art and whatever you have to go out of your way to mischaracterize characters since there's not a ton of internal substance, they're just kissing or telling a line of dialogue, but with fic it's so descriptive and so much more thought on how a character's inner workings carry on, and I feel a lot of people have fun writing fanfiction in a way that does not result in 100% accurate characterizations because that would take so much continual, constant effort and very thorough character analysis skills and applications to get right pretty much all of the time. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say beyond it must be tough for you specifically to find stories that don't annoy you- or perhaps that is not accurate! I don't read much fic so I don't know, it just seems like it'd be exhausting from an outside perspective

BAHAHAHA the eternal struggle of the Hater. I'm kind of obsessed with how you described it here. You're mostly correct! And kind of missing a crucial detail at the same time.

It's true, it is extremely difficult to find fanfiction that agrees with me--especially for a fandom like Undertale with 1) a very young audience and 2) a very heavily character-centric form of storytelling, which inevitably results in nuanced personalities that are hard to grasp without full context (which means analyzing the canon... a lot!)

There's two very important things you should note though!! Undertale is a HUGE fandom. As hard as finding really accurate fics might be, they ARE out there, and when i find them I'm so invested in their accuracy and analysis that I enjoy them 10000 times more than someone who just... doesn't think about this stuff. It's about quality over quantity.

The other thing is: being this ""picky"" and analysis focused doesn't actually stop me from reading fanfiction. Just lately I've been going through the entire fandom tag on ao3 in reverse alphabetical order and trying out anything that doesn't immediately put me off via tags/summary. Is there a lot of stuff that reads ooc or that I just plain don't like? like, a LOT of it? absolutely. But at the end of the day, that ALSO becomes an exercise in analysis. Why did this portrayal come off as ooc? Was the character voice accurate to canon? If not, what made them differ? Was it the way the character acted, rather? Is this the author's bias or exaggeration? Why do I feel like it would be at odds with the person they are in canon? Would they ever be driven to behave like this? What would push them? Was that accurately justified in this fic? and so on.

it's true that engaging with fandom on the regular can heavily skew your perception of the original, but i feel that engaging with fanon and habitually returning to the canon as a point of reference, as contrast, as fact checking, is one of the best ways to truly understand both the characters and the fan communities that they gathered around them. overall, it's good fun!! well worth the occasional cursed content, and even then it gives me something to inflict psychic damage on my friends with.

[majaloveschris]

About that girl, I think it was revealed that those messages were faked anyway. Doesn't really matter now, considering it was so long ago though. I also think it was way to random to have been real anyway. I mean, her "story" and those "screenshots" just popped up out of nowhere. Also, look at when it happened. It happened when a lot of fake stuff was coming out after he was tied to A and this situation. The whole thing just seemed faked, like a lot of stuff that's happened.

Also, and this is just my opinion, and I know people would disagree, but I don't think he goes around DMing a bunch of random women on Instagram the way a lot of people think and have said. I think, like other things people have said about him, it's something that just became exaggerated and people took it and ran with it, like they do a lot of things, especially with a lot of lies that have come out pertaining to this situation he's in now. I also think it's tied to this "extreme sexual man whore" image a lot of people have sprouted about him, which I also think isn't true. I think it comes from a place of hate, so people make up things or hear a rumour online with no substantial evidence that it could be true and run with it like its gospel. Or people go around reading tarot blogs and taking the readings as 100% truth. It's like when someone on another gossip was spouting how he had slept with this younger actress and had apparently treated her bad (yelled at her, etc.) and it came out that the person who kept spouting that was someone who was actually stalking him and quite possibly had a mental health problem. See what I mean. You can't take everything people say to be the truth.

Obviously, I'm not saying he hasn't had hookups, or has made arrangements with women he's probably known for a while. But that's the point, I think he's someone who feels more comfortable with women he already knows. And there's nothing wrong with that. But I don't believe he's comfortable just going out there and messaging random women online all the time, even if he may find them physically attractive. Now, we've seen before he's followed some women when he first started his IG, but we have no evidence he actually DM'd anyone. He's a typical male in the sense that when a beautiful woman posts herself openly online, he'll look. But like I said, these are my opinions. He's said himself he gets shy and intimidated when there's a women he finds attractive. And no, I'm not saying he's innocent or holy, but I just don't think he's as extreme as a lot of make him out to be. I think he's just human, like the rest of us. We're freaking complex lol.

Was it proved to be fake? I didn't hear about it. I don't know if I would say it came out at a weird time. Didn't she say something like her boyfriend cheated on her? Anyways, she said something about the boyfriend, so she probably shared those to show him she could've gotten him. Either way, whether it's true or not, it doesn't really mean or prove anything, other than he might've reached out to a girl on Instagram. 

I don't even know why this whole he is texting women on Instagram thing became something. Following someone doesn't mean you immediately reach out to them to bone down. I didn't see anyone saying or stating anything like that up until this girl, and whether this was real or fake, it's only just one girl still. I'm also not saying he's never had a one-night stand or never hooked up with anyone, but I do agree that saying he's had sex with every single woman he's ever interacted with is a reach. 

People definitely shouldn't believe everything they read online about him or believe tarot readers. There are a lot of people who simply don't like him, so they start nasty rumors about him, or people who are way too obsessed with him and have nothing better to do. I always say how important it is to take everything with a huge grain of salt, because you don't know these nameless, faceless people, but some people are lost, and you can't convince them. 

[anticomedygarden]

Percabeth hurt/comfort post Tartarus ptsd?

Basic I know but you can't go wrong torturing some comfort characters 😂

one of my favorite pjo tropes! so so true, thanks for the prompt. (you're my first ever prompter! bit of a landmark for me :) )

-

Staring deeply into his blue comforter like it held the secrets of the world, Annabeth didn't need to be a child of Athena to know that her boyfriend wasn't really there with her. It wasn't the first time one of them had found the other like this, and it probably wouldn't be the last.

He wasn't making noise or moving, actually not doing anything at all, which led her to believe that he wasn't having a panic attack or a flashback. Dissociation then.

After a lot of trial and error following the titan war, they'd figured out touch - especially involving water - helped ground him the best, so she didn't bother with trying to talk to him, not knowing how far gone he was yet. Instead she got some ice out of the water bottle on his nightstand, happening to glance at the few pictures she'd been able to bring for him to Camp Jupiter. Sally, Grover, Tyson, Thalia, the Stolls, Clarisse, and a few other campers smiled back at her.

If she'd known they were going to fall into Tartarus, she'd have packed a few more.

Turning away from the photos with a sigh, she sat down cross-legged on his bed and winced when the mattress bouncing got no reaction from him, so she gently picked up his arm in the hand not holding the ice and starting rubbing it up and down his tan forearm.

"Percy?" she murmured. "I'm gonna count backward from 100, okay?"

Predictably, he didn't answer, but she started her countdown anyway, studying his form for any changes. His jet black hair was falling into his down cast eyes, low enough that she couldn't see his seagreen irises. His pants were creased where his elbows rested on them, and she realized he was wearing the same thing as he was when his watch ended an hour ago. It hurt to know that he could've been like this for so long and she had no idea, but there wasn't anything she could do, not without leaving the ship vulnerable.

Then - movement. His hand twitched; she didn't dare stop, though, not wanting to risk backslide, just kept on counting and rubbing the ice up and down his arm.

A few minutes later, he pulled in a sharp breath and sagged a bit so that the only thing Annabeth could see was the top of his head. She'd lost count of how many times she'd made it to a hundred and back at this point.

"Percy? Are you with me?" He waited a bit and nodded minutely. "Can you try and breathe with me?"

She drew in an exaggerated breath slowly and let it out even slower. He didn't join her, so she tried again. This time, he managed a shaky, slow breath that almost aligned with hers.

After a few minutes passed and he seemed to be more present, she put the ice down on the nightstand, and he sagged even more, head landing on her shoulder like his strings had been cut.

She ran her fingers through his thick curls, illiciting a sigh from him. "Hey, baby."

His breath hitched, and she was afraid for a moment he'd start panicking, but she soon felt her shoulder grow wet.

"We're together," she whispered, hoping his words from so many (weeks? days?) ago would bring him some comfort.

They were still the most important words in the world to her.

At some point, his hands must have unclenched because she felt his nails softly scrape her thigh. "How long was I gone?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "At least 15 minutes, an hour at most."

"Damn."

Sadly, he pushed himself off of her shoulder, leaving it cold and salty. "What's the last thing you remember?"

He looked off into the distance, thinking. "I remember sitting on the bed to get to ready to shower, and nothing else."

Her heart clenched as that meant he must have been gone closer to an bour. Do you have any idea what triggered you?"

"Uh...I think maybe when I looked across the hall and saw your empty bed..." He trailed off, and she nodded.

"I'll keep the door closed from now on," she promised. It wouldn't be any kind of major change since she never slept in that room anyway. The only reason it had been open was because of habit from Coach Hedge.

Now that Percy was present and they were both calmer, they started getting ready to shower, not wanting to be without the other. (Only shower. Neither of them were ready for more at the moment.) It wasn't long before they were climbing into bed together, both considerably more refreshed but exhausted from a long day on the Argo II.

It had to get better at some point. It just had to.

[khaire-traveler]

Hi! Sorry to bother you, you can delete this ask if it will overwhelming somehow.

How do I become a good follower? Whenever I see posts about paganism and/or polytheism on the internet, it's people talking about receiving signs, how their Deities talked to them, how they feel them, and I don't get any of that and it makes me feel really bad.

Maybe there are some kind of exercises or something else to experience what all other people do? Do you have any advice?

Thank you, if you will answer this ask.

Hey, Nonny, thank you for your patience!

Most of the time, people on the Internet are exaggerating or wording things in a very casual way (when in reality, it looked a lot different or took a lot more work to figure out). Honestly, the best thing you can do for yourself - as a follower or even as a person - is try not to compare yourself to others. Practices vary wildly from each other, and what works for one person may not actually work for you anyway. Maybe your happiness will be found through other means.

Nonny, you're not doing anything wrong by not receiving/interpreting signs or whatnot. You're not a bad follower for not catching onto such things. I'm certain your deities wouldn't dislike you over something like that. It's also likely that they do send you signs, but you aren't used to interpreting them yet. Or maybe they're waiting for you to ask for signs! You're more than welcome to simply ask directly. I promise they're not as scary as some people make them out to be.

As for things you can do to practice, I'm honestly not sure. I'll try to provide some suggestions anyway, though. You could try deity meditations where you focus on the thought of a deity for awhile, maybe listening to peaceful music that reminds you of them. You could try identifying the "energy" of offerings you've given them, as those are likely to have the deity's energy on them. You could light a candle in honor of that deity and ask for them to increase the strength of their energy/presence while closing your eyes and attempting to focus on it. I'd recommend looking at my pinned post in the Deities & Entities section. I have a lot of more useful information there, most likely.

But I'll be honest and say that sometimes people are just headblind - meaning you can't really feel anything spiritually at all. There's nothing wrong with it if you are. I'm not saying that's an issue for you, by the way, but I think it's important to acknowledge the possibility.

I do also want to say that "talking with deities" is a very common thing I see on sites like TikTok, though, and I strongly advise you to 1. not listen to a damn thing you see on TikTok and 2. be extremely skeptical of the experiences people are willing to share online. Oftentimes, and I hate to say it, people tend to post such things for the attention they get. Either that, or when they say they "talked" to a deity, they really mean that they sat down and did divination or had a meditation. I say these things to make it clear that many of the things you'll see online are not 100% true to the way it actually happened. Sometimes people just make shit up, too; I see that happening constantly, especially on PaganTok and WitchTok. I cannot stress enough that you don't go there for genuine information. In fact, I highly recommend trying to read books on such topics rather than Google them or read about them online; that's where you'll find the best information!

But yeah, this is what I have to say: deities love us for who we are, not for someone we wish we were. They love us for the person we actually are, and in my experience, they enjoy it when we are ourselves in our worship. They tend to support authenticity. Instead of trying to be someone else, focus on who you already are, and the many strengths and talents that you may not even be aware of yet. Maybe you're amazing at different types of divination! Maybe you're fantastic at dream interpretation! May you're a wiz at bird identification (something I see a lot for deity signs)! Focus on learning more about yourself and less about others. You are talented, worthy, and powerful in your own way. And it's a beautiful thing to be you, to be who you are.

I hope this helped, Nonny! Please take care, and I wish you the best on your newfound journey. Have a good day/night. 🧡

[adachimoe]

Adachi and the Midnight Channel

Previously, I went into long ramblings about Adachi being the person in the fog and how that means he didn't actually know what was going on, and also how he was showing up in the fog expecting Namatame to kill someone because he hates that guy.

Something I did not bring up in the fog person post was the Midnight Channel. The premise of "Adachi being the fog guy" is that if he is the fog guy, then it just means he had no idea who Namatame put into the TV. But if Adachi say... watched the Midnight Channel, wouldn't he have an idea about who Namatame was throwing in?

So this is an unhinged attempt to deduce if Adachi watched the Midnight Channel, and if so, how much did he watch it? I argue that if he did watch it, it was 3 times at most. Furthermore, this idea is based on... stereotypes about Japanese work culture.

The player's introduction to the Midnight Channel

After Chie tells the group the rumor on the 12th, the three of them go home and watch the Midnight Channel on April 13th, then talk about what they saw at school the next day.

Seemingly, all 3 of them saw Saki, but to varying levels of clarity. Chie and Yosuke aren't able to identify her as being "Saki" even though they both know her from school, and Chie is able to make out her physical details more clearly than Yosuke.

When they question Namatame later, he says Saki's image became sharper as he watched, and he even recognized her.

As the game goes on, there's always that initial "fuzzy", less focused Midnight Channel image. And then, there's the more clearer image when someone is actually thrown into the TV, at which point their identity should be obvious. Whether the person can be identified or not from the blurrier image varies early on (e.g. Chie/Yosuke can't, Namatame could, the protagonist can't make out Yukiko's image). But as the Investigation Team talk to one another and share info, they all quickly begin to identify who the mystery figures are.

Adachi's introduction to the Midnight Channel

When Adachi puts Mayumi into the TV, he isn't portrayed as freaking out because he can touch the TV. He says he wants to scare her, then he backs her into the TV and grabs her, and he's surprised that her whole body can go in. The implication here seems to be that he knew he could touch the TV, but he didn't know he'd be able to fit her whole body inside.

After this flashback, he has some lines where he talks about the Midnight Channel.

Some people seem to think these lines are talking about the flashback with Mayumi, but, I disagree. In the Mayumi flashback, Adachi isn't freaking out about being able to touch the TV for the first time. Again, his shock is that a person can go in.

He does say this on December 7th where everything else he says seems really over exaggerated, made up, or just straight up lying, but I don't think this part is 100% bullshit because it comes up again later on during the true ending.

First off, when Adachi sends you the letter at the end, I don't think he's lying about anything he says here purely because of the context of which he sends you it. His game is over and there is no need to act like a Tough Guy anymore. In his letter, he again mentions "rumors at the station", and also that he heard about it before he heard about it at the station.

And next, "reaching out and touching the screen" is something that seems to be a common thing between the ones who Izanami gave power. I think Adachi had an offscreen scene where he touched the screen, similar to the protagonist and Namatame. Perhaps the three of them were drawn to do so after receiving power from Izanami?

We know from elsewhere in the game that the Midnight Channel is supposed to show you your soulmate. In actuality, it shows you a person who is on everyone's mind after they appeared their recent media appearances or media mentions. Furthermore, we know from Namatame's flashback that Mayumi appeared on the Midnight Channel, more than likely due to their scandal.

So presumably, Adachi heard about the Midnight Channel (maybe from Izanami?) both shortly after arriving in town and again at the police station. He watches it, sees Mayumi, reaches out and touches the TV, and discovers his hand can go inside. He thinks Mayumi is his soulmate, and goes to the Amagi Ryokan to ask her about the affair. She doesn't give him a good answer, and he decides to use the TV to scare her in someway. Instead, he discovers that her whole body can go in.

Overall, I feel it's pretty safe to assume that Adachi watched the Midnight Channel and saw Mayumi on there. This is the really simple part.

But did he watch it again?

The idea that "Adachi didn't watch the Midnight Channel" feels so "off" because it's part of the player's routine - you go home on a rainy night, you can't even go anywhere else, you watch the TV, and see your friend's Shadow making an ass of themselves. It's so baked into your brain that the idea that Adachi, the guy who claims to have been masterminding everything along!!!!, possibly not watching it just seems wrong.

And yet, because of Adachi's appearance as the fog figure dude in the shopping district, you know he doesn't have all the info. If Adachi showed up on Yukiko, Kanji, and Naoto's dungeon deadlines expecting a dead body despite knowing they were all home safe, then does that not suggest he had no idea who Namatame put in the TV? And furthermore -- does it not also suggest that he did not see them appear on the Midnight Channel...?

I believe that, at best, after Mayumi's appearances, Adachi saw the Midnight Channel a total of 3 times during the plot and this pattern is based entirely on when Dojima is home at night.

My basis for this is that Adachi is Dojima's assistant, and it's noted repeatedly that the police as a whole are very busy now because of the recent murder cases. I think it's pretty fair to assume that if Dojima is not home, he's at the station. And if Dojima is there, then Adachi is also there. This might sound fucking stupid, but the stereotype that, "You can't leave until the boss leaves" is a stereotype for a reason.

In fact, we can actually prove this for two nights. Namatame calls in to the Inaba PD on the very first night that Yukiko appears on the Midnight Channel, which is April 15th, and he gets Adachi on the phone. Dojima is not home at night on April 15th, and the Midnight Channel airs at, well, "midnight". Adachi was stuck at work at 12am on April 15th. You can also assume that despite perhaps having access to a TV at the station, he did not see Yukiko on the Midnight Channel, else why would he show up looking for her dead body while knowing she's home on April 29th?

Furthermore, Dojima and Adachi are also shown to be out working at night time on April 16th, which is another Midnight Channel night:

...aaand then there's no other nights we can actually prove this for cause we're never shown the story from Dojima or Adachi's PoV.

But Dojima and Adachi being stuck at work or out in the field investigating feels significant as I believe it would limit Adachi's ability to watch the Midnight Channel. As the 16th shows, they aren't always actually at the station (access to a TV). And even though December 3rd proves that the conditions for the Midnight Channel are misleading, I don't think there would be an event early on that causes Adachi to rethink this and try watching it without the exact conditions being fulfilled.

Dojima's availability on nights when the Midnight Channel airs

Here is, with screenshots, every night the Midnight Channel airs, where you are either shown a story scene or have free roaming around the house to see if Dojima is there or not. I did not count April 11th even though it's raining that night cause the protagonist doesn't try to watch it. (Also: Maybe the Midnight Channel only appears for people who hear the rumor...?)

And here is what airs on these dates:

April 13: Saki appears; the protagonist, Yosuke and Chie all see her; Namatame later says that he saw her and the image became sharper; Dojima is home

April 14: Unknown, the protagonist doesn't watch it this night; according to Namatame, he saw Saki being attacked by something; Dojima is home

April 15: Saki found dead, Yukiko's outline, Namatame calls

April 16: Yukiko's Midnight Channel program, Dojima and Adachi are shown to be working at night in a cutscene

May 14: Kanji's outline

May 15: Kanji's outline

May 17: Kanji's Midnight Channel program

June 21: Rise's outline; the protag goes straight into his room, there's no free roaming around the house so it's unknown if Dojima was home or not

June 22: Rise's outline; Dojima is home

June 23: Rise's Midnight Channel program

July 26: Mitsuo's Midnight Channel program

September 14: Naoto's outline

September 15: Naoto's Midnight Channel program

So if we follow the "Dojima's nights at home" logic as an indicator to when Adachi could have actually watched the Midnight Channel, then that means he, at best, saw it April 13th, April 14th, and June 22nd. (Plus whenever he saw Mayumi appear which I guess happened off screen / before the story began.)

I'm not sure if he actually watched it on all of those dates, but I believe that Dojima's availability works as an outline for all of the possible nights when Adachi saw it.

And notably, none of these dates conflict with Adachi being the figure in the fog: He shows up in the fog on Yukiko/Kanji/Naoto deadlines, and Dojima is not home when any of those 3 people appear on the Midnight Channel. Oh shit... Maybe I am not going insane... Maybe these things genuinely are related...

Considerations

So what might we be able to learn from the dates when Dojima is home? I think this is where you have to get into weird theoretical wild guesses because the story is not shown from Adachi's PoV. But hey, maybe he did? Here are some possible things to think about:

April 13th...

April 13th is the probably the most straightforward. If Adachi saw the Midnight Channel on April 13th, then he would have seen Saki. So would he have assumed she was his soulmate? Perhaps this is why he happened to catch her at the flood plain with Namatame the next day - he was trying to stalk her around Inaba?

Though while you get the feeling he saw Mayumi and thought she was his soulmate because of how hyper fixated he is on her, he doesn't seem to talk about Saki the same way. But it certainly seems possible and might explain why he was keeping tabs on her to begin with.

April 14th...

This would have been the day that Adachi saw Namatame and Saki together, then Adachi called Saki into the PD, then threw her into the TV. The protag doesn't watch the Midnight Channel on this day, but Namatame and the students at Yasogami High say they saw Saki struggling. This sounds different than the other days when people are first put in the TV (e.g. Yukiko's Shadow advertising her hunt for a hot guy). But it was also a fog / deadline night, so I think something different being shown makes sense. (After all, part of the protagonist's routine later is watching the TV on the fog / deadline nights to make sure no one is still inside.)

Did Adachi watch it on the 14th? He was actually at the station on the night of the 14th despite Dojima being home. Altho, nothing exactly stopped him from taking her into a room and pushing her into a TV to begin with; who's to say he didn't go off into a room at midnight and watch?

On the other hand, tbh, I think Adachi's appearance as the dude in the fog on the later nights suggests he did not learn that you can see who is currently inside the TV. He knows dead bodies get spit out on fog nights. If he knew there was a way to check if someone was inside the TV on a fog night, why not try checking a fucking TV on the fog nights before walking to the central shopping district and checking manually??? Lmao. I guess there is the possibility of "Adachi saw but did not understand". Tho, I do believe he would have understood that "I am seeing the person currently in the TV" if he had seen Saki on there on the night of the 14th simply cause he is the one who put Saki in.

June 22nd...

This is the weirdest one to verbalize anything about because it doesn't feel like it affects the plot even if he did check the Midnight Channel.

The only other night when Dojima is home is the 2nd time Rise's outline / shadow-y figure appears on the Midnight Channel after she comes to Inaba. And incidentally, Rise's deadline is also one where Adachi does not show up in the fog. The way I see the Rise's deadline incident is that Adachi doesn't show up in the fog because of Morooka's body being found somewhere other than the Central Shopping District.

Let's assume he did see her. I think the simplest read here is that he saw her and might have assumed Namatame would try to "save" her. Thus, knowing this, he did not appear on the fog night because Rise turned up safely already before the fog date, and the police presumably know because Rise says she speaks to Naoto - who is working with the police - after she comes back. (This is more or less my argument on the fog guy post - Adachi shows up on nights where he does not know someone is out of the TV, and he does not show up when he does know someone is out of the TV.)

This might seem weird because of June 23rd, but there is a whole friggin' tangent about that after the tl;dr.

tl;dr

I am being either a dumbass or a genius by using the stereotype about not being able to leave work before your boss, combined with Dojima not being home on certain nights, to try and determine when / if Adachi watched the Midnight Channel.

Using this pattern, there are possibly 3 nights during the game narrative that Adachi saw it - April 13/14 (Saki) and June 22 (Rise).

Curiously, none of these dates conflict with Adachi being the figure who shows up in the fog on dungeon deadlines.

And now, a huge bonus tangent about June 23rd that feels unrelated and related at the same time

Adachi seeing Rise on the 22nd might get a little messy when you consider the player's perception of what happens on June 23rd. It's presented as Dojima getting suspicious of the protagonist on June 22nd after hearing he went to warn Rise, Nanako interrupting their convo at dinner, and then he sends Adachi to follow the IT around on June 23rd.

Then June 23rd happens and Rise gets kidnapped. A lot of people seem to read this scene as Adachi facilitating Namatame kidnapping Rise. So the idea that Adachi saw Rise on the Midnight Channel the night beforehand would conform with this idea as it would mean he knew Namatame was going to kidnap her, and his presence on June 23rd was to help Namatame.

IMO, there are multiple issues with this:

The IT were going to go to Marukyu to stakeout and try to catch the killer no matter what. Their run-in with Adachi at Shiroku didn't encourage them to go or try to bait them into going. Like, they went to Shiroku because they wanted to buy snacks before camping out in front of Marukyu.

The way June 23rd goes down, it is written in such a way that you could remove Adachi from the abduction scene entirely and it would still play out the same way with Rise still getting kidnapped. Yukiko points out the photographer on the pole, Chie points out that he's running away, Kanji leads the charge to capture him, and then everyone follows Kanji. And this happens without any nudging or dialogue from Adachi. The IT are dumb teenagers - they think they got The Guy, and they get ahead of themselves and chase after him.

The idea that Adachi was helping Namatame that day would require Adachi to understand that he sees the same person on TV that Namatame does -- does he know that? Honestly, something about his fixation on Mayumi is actually telling me "no". Although, if he did see Saki on April 13th/14th, then perhaps he did figure that out.

Namatame and Adachi were not shown to be in contact beyond Namatame's phone call to the police. Meaning if Adachi did do this all based on Rise being on the Midnight Channel on June 22nd, then he somehow had to stage the photographer being found at that exact time (remember that Adachi does not point out the photographer) and also stage Namatame driving by (Adachi had a package sent to Marukyu with that delivery time...? Maybe...? Idk how else this would work) to both happen around the same time. And he would have had to do all of these arrangements within [x] amount of time after seeing Rise on the TV on the night of the 22nd... Hmm. Seeing as how Adachi is characterized as being a low effort piece of shit, I find all of these hypotheticals really, really, really hard to believe.

Okay tangent over.

[gemsofgreece]

Hello! Firstly, I wanted to thank you for the work you do on this blog. My mother's side is Greek and came to the US around WW2, and as I've gotten older and tried to learn about Greek culture, I've found that it's hard to find sources that aren't inundated with American pop-history. It's been really lovely being able to learn more from your blog for the past couple weeks.

Second is my question -- re: the pop history issue, I've noticed that people in the American queer community have a knack for "reclaiming" figures in history and mythology without always having an abundance of evidence for their claims. And like, I'm trans. Obviously the idea of some of things being true is cool, but it also feels disingenuous sometimes. Do you know of any good resources or books written by actual queer Greeks about either their contemporary experiences, or the history of queer people in Greece that isn't just conjecture?

Thank you again! Have a great day :)

Hello! It makes me so happy that you found my blog suitable to inform yourself on this part of your ethnic / cultural background. I hope the blog will keep being a useful source of information.

Because I am not going to lie, the way Greek history and culture, more like a snippet of it, has been almost forced into American pop culture is indeed through a disingenuous conjecture. Honestly, it's not so much a matter of accuracy per se. It's more that a niche piece of the culture has been taken and presented as almost the entirety of this culture, which eventually leads to tremendously false impressions, no matter how earnestly this niche part is explored. There is also the tendency to shape ambiguous evidence into unquestionable conviction.

I will attempt to explain why this can be a problem. Let's take the axiom - because it has reached the lengths of being treated as an axiom - "Ancient Greece was gay or Greece is gay or Greek culture was gay culture or Greece is / was a gay haven". If we really study Greek history and culture in its entirety, in a span of 3,500 years or more if we also take into acount the pre-Greek civilizations which eventually helped produce the Greek, while the existence of gay people (i.e Sappho), non-straight sexual practices (i.e erotic amphoras), ambiguous literary relationships (i.e Achilles & Patroclus?) and varied expressions of sexual desire observed especially in male deities are 100% well attested and recorded, they still comprise overall a very tiny part of the Greek civilization. Whereas it is often portrayed in western pop culture as the very essence of Greek civilization, exploration and studies of sexuality and gender identity throughout its history could amount to maybe a 1-5% of all documented knowledge associated to the Greek ethnos, its history and its legacy. Think of it this way; Greece happened to be in the epicenter of many formative achievements of humanity; spreading, contributing or improving on science, arts, extant religions and linguistics. It has been an area extremely ravaged by war because it has a very strategic position on the map. It has been in the core of three of the world's largest empires and it has been positively or negatively influential to all three (and the generator of one of them). There are so many things, struggles and achievements, to study and explore and draw from as part of your identity, that a constant foreign obsession and trivilization and sensualization of the sexual practices of people long gone eventually will start sounding disingenuous or lacking or even demeaning. Just like every individual aspires to be acknowledged and respected for more than just their sexual or gender identity (i.e skills, feelings, talents, achievements, personality), it is the exact same with culture and heritage. People want their culture to be appreciated in its entirety and not for a super niche area that is also exaggerated, if not exploited to serve foreign agendas, trends and marketing (because let's be real, not all have noble representation motives).

Okay, now I have to ask: do you know Greek? Because I can recommend you some sources, however Americans do not translate Greek works unless they are from 750 BC :)

Here's a quick heads-up:

The Greek society is a pseudopuritan society - one where people act like puritans when it comes to judging others but not at all when it comes to themselves. The gay male community has by far the biggest visibility nowadays. Lesbians come second. Other sexual orientations follow i.e bi, poly, pan. Gender (trans, non-binary, fluid etc) identities have less visibility. Asexuals also have near non-existent visibility. Most non-het non-cis people face problems in their families rather than in their studies or in urban environments. Non-cis people, especially AMAB people, might also face hardship in the workplace (like not getting easily hired).

Because the society is pseudopuritan, it tolerated and embraced and worshipped several LGBT people, except if they attempted to communicate their experience. Great composers and authors were openly gay and Greeks knew it and loved them, because they didn't explicitly involve their sexual identity in their work or because they didn't expose the pathogenies of the Greek society. If they had done that, the reception could have been different. Because of all these reasons, most of my sources will be from the perspective of gay cis men (the most visible LGBT+ community) and it will be mostly the great work and legacy they left behind, rather than their explicit documentation of the experience of living as LGBT+ in Greece.

LGBT poets and authors:

Constantine Cavafy (1863 - 1933), one of our best poets. This can be useful to you because his works are actually translated in English.

Napoleon Lapathiotis (1888 - 1944), openly gay in such times, he wrote a lot of erotic poetry.

Augoustos Korto (1979 - ), a married gay man, successful writer and activist, he has written extensively on the topics of death, depression, motherhood and love, often drawing from personal experience.

Kostas Tachtsis (1927 - 1988), poet, distinguished author and activist for gay rights during the Colonel dictatorship in the '70s. He suffered in his life and in his death as well. His murder has not been solved yet. He has written an autobiography and numerous novels with autobiographical elements. He was gay, either cross-dressing cis or maybe trans or non-cis (we don't know that back in time how exactly he identified) and had also been a sex worker for some time.

Napoleon Lapathiotis

Music:

Music won't give you direct information however it could be a way to bond with people you could connect with over similar experience.

Manos Hadjidakis (1925 - 1994), one of our two greatest composers and a rare genius, was openly yet "discreetly" gay, not out of shame but because privacy on all aspects of the human experience was absolutely essential and sacred to him. He was also an Oscar winner, although he would hate me for saying this (he threw his Oscar in the trashcan). Besides listening to his music, I would recommend watching interviews or listening to excerpts from his radio shows, because of the ease with which he could challenge anyone's intellectual capacity.

Sotiria Bellou (1921 - 1997), a lesbian or perhaps bisexual woman, she is worshipped for her unique voice, which became the ultimate symbol of the heavy-duty (underground at the time + now part of UNESCO's cultural heritage) rembetiko music genre.

TV Shows with representation:

Maestro in Blue on Netflix, a big part of the story is the romance of a gay couple suffering in oppressive families in the province

Milky Way, one of the main characters is pansexual and non-binary, and the actor is gay IRL. There is also a brief lesbian romance or a side narrative of supressed female homo- or bi- sexuality. This show will soon get in some international platform but I don't remember which one (not netflix), so keep it in mind.

Milky Way

YouTube:

There are a lot of LGBT+ people in Greek YouTube but my faves are:

ΚΡΙΜΑ by ZoePreTV: Zoe is a lesbian or bi herself (not sure but I know she's openly in a relationship with a woman) and she makes lengthy very informative quality podcasts with celebrities or everyday people, often belonging to marginalized groups, and they talk about their experiences. If you can understand Greek, this might be the best source for what you ask. I watched a fantastic episode with a trans woman and sex worker talking about her life. It is one of the greatest podcast episodes I have ever watched, hands down.

Eponimos. Zoe's best friend, who is an openly gay man, although he approaches matters of sexuality very delicately as he values his privacy a lot. He doesn't talk often about such matters (recently he did) but his channel is awesome for his lighthearted humour and the maturity of his positions. I love watching his content.

The podcast I mentioned.

LGBT+ Magazine: ANTIVIRUS. ANTIVIRUS also has this list with recent queer literature, featuring both Greek and foreign writers. Here is the link. It's in Greek though, like everything above...

Art: Yannis Tsarouhis (1910 - 1989), one of the most influential and successful Greek artists. He painted a variety of themes, he was inspired and developed Greek folk and Byzantine art, however he was also particularly notable for his love for the masculine physique and he established the classic image of the "Greek sailor" in art, theater and cinema internationally.

A great photo of Tsarouhis in his atelier.

I wouldn't consider myself well-versed in the topic, so I invite anyone who knows sources that could also ideally be easily accessible to the Anon, to give some recs in the comments. From my side, Anon, hopefully I was of any help.

[foundfamilywhump]

i get where ur coming from but i feel like “carewhumper” does just designate a specific type of abuse. my understanding is that a lot of real life abuse does encapsulate cycles of cruelty and kindness but whump is not a 1:1 w real abuse and so the cruelty tends to be exaggerated and constant. which is why it might be useful to have a distinction between purely sadistic and harmful whumpers w ones who seem to contradict that role and show some form of affection or intimacy. i think this meta is very interesting though id be interested in the other people who voted “no” in that poll and i appreciate ur commentary 🤔 do you think its actually dangerous?

i'm gonna start by providing some context about my relationship to these terms: to my understanding, words like 'whumper/caretaker/whumpee' are situational shorthand that describe a character's role in the scene or story being told. they are not all-encompassing, all-descriptive, and prescriptive of every action a character referred to this way takes. i do not know where the idea that they are supposed to be flat, reductive, 'this word means this character is All Good Or All Bad All The Time and they behave x way 100% of the time' came from, and i do not agree with it. that's not how i use those words, and it's not how i've ever perceived the intent of those words to function in the broader whump community.

that said, here's why i don't think 'carewhumper' is a distinction between 'purely sadistic and harmful whumpers with ones who seem to contradict that role and show some form of affection or intimacy', at least not the way i use these words, and why it's not a word that i will ever use or like. and why i think it's not necessarily dangerous per se - that's a strong word - but it is something i think plays into some harmful societal narratives about abuse and abusers.

you're right that whump isn't a 1:1 with real life abuse, and i definitely am not operating under the impression that it is or should be! there are a lot of extremes in whump, that's very true. but it's also true that the extremes aren't the only thing that exist, and they aren't the like. default setting of what 'whump' or a 'whumper' is. they might be to some! but i don't think that's the default for everyone, or even the majority. and i don't think a whumper behaving kindly sometimes makes them... not a whumper anymore. the way that 'carewhumper' as a term implies.

there are a lot of issues in real life about people thinking ‘oh so and so would never abuse anyone, they’re so kind’ or pointing out that an abuser cared for you when you were sick or something so it couldn’t have been ALL bad. abusers themselves point to their acts of kindness and care to confuse victims and excuse their behaviour. oh you can't cut that person out, what about all they did for you. oh you can't throw away your family/relationship, what about the good times. etc. they weren't All Bad. they didn't intend to hurt you, their intentions were good. these are things real life abuse victims, myself included, deal with on a daily basis.

obviously fiction is not responsible for this, but it can play into it. and when the term carewhumper comes up it really feels to me like something taking a really flattened, reductive concept of a whumper (who is bad and cruel all the time forever and intends to be) and a caretaker (who is good and kind all the time forever and intends to be) and saying ooooo what if it were ~more complicated and nuanced. when like… there are posts about intimate whumpers, manipulative whumpers, whumpers who show kindness, all the time. they don’t need a special word to contain that sort of variation. they all follow a common format of '[adjective] whumper' to denote a specific subtype of whumper. 'carewhumper' not only bucks the trend of how specific subtypes of whumpers are designated, but it combines that with another specific role that is not the whumper, as if to imply 'oh but they're not a whumper. they're Something Else. because they're nice sometimes. or they didn't mean to hurt someone on purpose (as if that is at all relevant to whether or not they did)'

and I don’t think it’s true at all that ‘whumper’ is generally accepted to mean someone who is only violent all the time. whump ISNT a 1:1 with real abuse but the way it’s discussed can mirror that, and saying that the presence of care or affection somehow moves a character into a category that isn’t a ‘pure’ or ‘total’ whumper but instead is something else - something mixed with a role that is shorthand for a positive, caring presence, not interpersonally and diagetically but narratively - makes me personally very uncomfortable as an abuse survivor in the whump community. it's mixing the roles of caretaker and whumper in a whump narrative when those roles are, BROADLY SPEAKING, meant to convey 'this is the person causing active harm' and 'this is the person whose presence is meant to contradict/combat that harm and promote healing and safety'.

caretakers can fuck up. caretakers can be complex and nuanced and angry and imperfect and busy and tired etc etc etc. that doesn't somehow make them not caretakers, though i know there are a bunch of people who for some reason insist the mere act of calling a character a caretaker is somehow reductive and dehumanizing and making their whole existence revolve around the whumpee. falling again into the idea that these words are meant to be concrete intrinsic character Types and not a situational shorthand for a role they are fulfilling in a specific story so that you don't have to explain in every single generic post who tf this person is. caretakers being imperfect or not all helpful or all good all the time doesn't make them not caretakers or not a positive force in the story. the same is true for whumpers. someone who punches you in the nose and then cleans up the blood and tucks you into bed is not somehow less violent and cruel than someone who stops at punching you in the nose, and implying that they are or that their acts of care somehow meaningfully dilute their violence and cruelty is deeply, deeply troubling to me. 'whumper' is not a nuanceless term unless you make it one and i don't know why you'd want to make it one.

and 'carewhumper' to me is not describing the complicated feelings a whumpee might have to a whumper who displayed kindness, either. because these words are not referring to diagetic interpersonal relationships. they describe an external meta-narrative role that a character is fulfilling within the perspective of the story being told. a whumpee having complex feelings about a whumper doesn't mean they aren't a whumper anymore.

there are plenty of posts around about whumpees feeling complex things about whumpers - missing them, loving them, trusting them, being devoted to them, etc. the ‘carewhumper’ thing is just to me at best superfluous and annoying to the part of my brain that is like. that’s just a whumper with a particular type of tactic and there’s no special word for any OTHER kind (captivitywhumper? superwhumper? etc?). and at worse it’s actively conveying the message that ‘if someone is sometimes not completely violent and cruel 100% of the time then what they’re doing isn’t actually As Bad and they’re not - NARRATIVELY SPEAKING - the Bad Guy. they’re ~nuanced and complex. as if everyone isn’t. as if that can undo the harm they did.

again, im not the cops im not anyone's mom. i hope i dont come off sounding aggressive or like im trying to police what anyone is writing about. i don't judge anyone writing dark things or writing about common abuse dynamics - me of all people lmao. i am 38k into a fic right now about rape and abuse that is pretty graphic and deeply deeply upsetting and triggering. but what i do care about is the way that these things are talked about. i do think it matters when these implications are popularized uncritically, and i think that 'carewhumper' is not a good term, especially if people are intending to merely convey a type of whumper and not a character who isn't 'wholly' a whumper at all. if that's what people mean, i would suggest affectionate whumper, intimate whumper, manipulative whumper, etc. something that aligns with other language commonly used to refer to specific subtypes of whumper rather than directly implying a different category of role altogether, and one that mixes that role with something that is generally accepted to be positive/good.

[oulkheir]

Hi, how are you?

What do you think about the fact that Juvia basically stalked Gray for months, was mean to every girl (threatened their life, etc) that came close or even spoke to him (especially Lucy) and that he only feels "obligated to like her" because she saved his life? (like saved victims fall in love with their firefighter or doctor) I want them to work out but if their gender were reversed, everyone would scream that it was grooming. He told her "no" multiple times, he was clearly averse and if a guy would not accept a "no" there would be backlash. Juvia is an amazing character with a lot of development but I think that Fairy Tail often makes fun of serious sexist behavior rather than addressing it. Like making fun of Lucy's naked body or horny old men gawking at young and underage! girls. I'm aware that it's a manga and that Japan has huge issues with gender equality and sexism but I kinda expected more from the new manga/anime. According to Unicef, every 11th boy (and every 8th girl) is a victim of sexual violence. For a long time, nobody took boys being a victim of sexual violence seriously. Of course, Juvia didn't "do" anything to Gray. But it's the same when people said to girls "if a boy is mean to you it means he likes you" (hello Sasuke!). This teaches children that they don't really have a choice and bodily autonomy. Juvia never accepted a "no" and we as the audience should believe that this is her being persistent/ romantic/ etc. It shows: if you just keep harassing and stalking your person of interest, they will eventually like you back. At the end of the original anime, it felt like Gray feels the same and we are made to believe that this him finally realizing his "true" feelings. But it kinda felt like "i'm giving up the fight, you won't stay away anyway". Important notice: I only watched the original anime, so if I missed something in the original manga, please tell me.

hi anon ! i'm good thanks for the ask :) was truly not expecting this lol

first of all, the fact that i've watched fairy tail first when i was younger may bias my analysis and i apologise for that. of course, i've read it again enough to change my opinion on many aspects but the filter still may be a little present. but well you did ask for an opinion haha :)

juvia's obsession and gray's feelings

as you mentioned that you only watched the anime, be aware that it exaggerated juvia's stalking by adding her in scenes where she wasn't actually present and by creating a weird running gag with her obsession for gray. however, she does have an obsession with gray, which can't be denied, and which lead her to be pushy with both gray and her "love rivals" in different directions. but rather than this, she wants to prove him and show him that she loves him whenever she has the occasion, because it's usually what you want to do when you're proud to love someone. it's more clumsiness than wanting to force him into something. since it can make gray uncomfortable, it's not defendable to say it's okay every time, but there are plenty of moments when these are cute attentions rather than stalking. she's not hindering gray's job, sleep and life, by repeating how she loves him. juvia still respects gray's boundaries by not forcing him to go on missions with her or following him at his place.

besides this, i don't think you missed other important points from the main manga, but sorry if i'm spoiling the 100 years quest later on.

if you think that gray feels like he owes her his life and must return her love, then i strongly disagree. gray already had feelings for her by that time, that's why he tried to commit suicide as well to save her. he didn't feel obligated to love her just because of that. he said before the final arc that he wanted to talk about these feelings seriously with her, and had already shown proofs of love by spending time with her during the timeskip after tartaros. gray considers juvia as more than a simple friend since longer than what he says, otherwise you couldn't explain why he chose to create a unison raid technique with her at the grand magic games, nor why he could assure their bond was strong enough for this. he's not avoiding juvia like the plague, or apprehending seeing her, and that is the case since their first encounter. he's glad that she's joining the guild and helping them. in the main series, he feels more reluctant to public display of attention than to her showing her love. in the spin-off, he's being more open to his feelings than before and that's why everyone is shocked around him, but juvia seems quite used to it.

that is all about how i perceive the characterisation of gray and juvia. sorry if i've missed some points, tell me if it's the case :)

now, i feel like most of your criticism is about how fairy tail, and the shounen manga genre in general is associated with sexual fan service issues and sexism. my blog isn't so much of a place to deal with such political and societal questions, but let me try to answer at least partly.

sexual fan service and other borderline behaviours issues

first, when you talk about the gender reverse thing, don't you think it's more the other way around ? i can't see people reacting more to juvia's insistence if she were a man, because you already quoted other issues related to sexism and fairy tail fans don't really complain about it. or at least, they make abstraction of it. have you ever seen someone calling natsu a pervert/stalker because he's breaking into lucy's house all the time ? the most important thing remains to not be hypocritical with these situations : if you consider juvia a stalker, then at least you have to admit that natsu breaking into lucy's place is not okay. and as i said earlier, i don't remember juvia even following gray to his place even once. but that's not the main point here.

to keep it to what you said about the gender reverse, i think it's actually the contrary, and that people tend to accept men's obsessions/non-con acts more than women's. that's why the word "stalker" is so easy on juvia even when she's mostly just watching gray without any bad intentions.

fairy tail has a fair amount of wrong sides that you shouldn't teach to young teenagers. but is this supposed to be a life lesson to them, in the first place ? can you choose to show fairy tail to your kids just so they know how important friends can be, how you should treasure your bonds, how you can be free if you don't harm the others ? is it the best show to watch when you want to learn about care and freedom, even when the sexualisation of both boys and girls is overly present and when the said characters are sometimes minors ?

nowadays, i feel like the shounen anime genre tries to get better on these points, slightly, here and there (jujutsu kaisen being the most obvious example that comes to my mind) but the 100 years quest sequel is in fact directly linked to the main series and since the author is the same, he didn't bother to change anything in his way of making fan service. he likes doing that in his gags and art, it's part of the vibe of his series, so he won't take that away nor even reduce it. i'm a bit sorry that you can't have high expectations of the 100 years quest just because it's more recent, regarding the sexualisation of the characters or of their borderline behaviours. but if you enjoyed the main series, then there's no reason why you couldn't enjoy the sequel because of these.

i hope it answers your questions ! thank you so much for the ask again, i don't usually analyse fairy tail characters this thoroughly because although they are all really good and enjoyable characters, i can't guess if the author wanted them to be so deep after all. have a nice day !

xx

[luvsellie]

ELLIE WITH "IM YOURS, IVE ALWAYS BEEN YOURS" PLEASE 😩 CONGRATULATIONS ONCE AGAIN ON 1K (deserve more honestly 🤭) 🎉 IM SO PROUD OF U 🥹 YOU ARE AMAZING 😘🫶

— pairing ellie x fem!reader | wc 0.4k | prompt "i'm yours, i've always ever been yours." | note THANK YOU CHAL 🫶 AND IT'S STILL YOUR BIRTHDAY WHERE I'M FROM SO TAKE THIS AS MY BDAY PRESENT FROM ME TO YOU <3

05:37 pm

ellie spent way too much time with dina.

you had determined that this statement was, in fact, 100% true after the third time she had ditched you for the black-haired girl. your inherent jealousy—if you could even call it that—prompted you to approach your girlfriend about the subtle feeling of abandonment that had started to bloom like a flower in late spring.

unfortunately, she wasn’t taking the whole situation as seriously as you would have liked.

“i am not ditching you for dina,” ellie scoffed from her bed, eyes glued to the tv as she played some game you couldn’t remember the title of on her playstation 3. “i spend most of my time with you, actually.”

biting the inside of your cheek, you sat a little straighter. “when was our last date?” the question hung awkwardly in the air, and ellie didn’t answer, still focused on the pixels on the tv. so, sighing through your nose and rolling your eyes, you stood up from your spot beside her, moving to intercept her gaze. “ellie,” you repeated again, “when was our last date?”

she finally gave in to the conversation as her eyes slid up to meet yours. game forgotten, she set the controller beside her before leaning pack on her palms. she made a show of looking out her window to exaggerate how hard she was thinking. “ummm, probably last week,” she said, somehow convinced by her own answer.

you raised your eyebrows at her, crossing your arms over your chest. “no, actually, it was last month; you took me stargazing, remember?”

“what does this have to do with me spending time with dina?” ellie asked impatiently. she wanted to return to her game, you could tell.

inhaling deeply, you tried not to lose your cool. “just make time for me this week, okay?”

your blunt request finally managed to catch your girlfriend’s full attention. she scooted closer to the edge of the bed—closer to you—as she said, “i always make time for you, babe. you’re the most important person in my life.”

“well it sure as hell doesn’t feel that way at the moment,” you told her bitterly, lips drawn downwards in a frown. “it’s like you’ve become dina’s girlfriend all of a sudden. and the worst part is you didn’t even take the time to break up with your actual girlfriend.”

ellie’s eyebrows knitted together as she stood. uncrossing your arms from your stiff person, she grabbed your hands, the look on her face becoming concerned. “i’m yours. i’ve only ever been yours. i promise, babe.”

you sighed through your nose as you looked at her. damn ellie and her sweet words of reassurance.

the girl knew just how to get you, and, by god, she had you.

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