#this isn't even a depressed post it's just... true

[strange-anni]

These are some good points! The number 7 shows up a lot in the show. There is another one that's fairly obvious and shows us that Mike has not forgotten what Will told him. I mean how could he? It was the last thing Will told him before he went missing. Mike wouldn't forget that even if doesn't understand the double meaning (yet).

At the end of season 1 the party defeats a seven-headed monster and then King Tristan hands out the medals of honor to the heroes.

I think it's also noteworthy that in 1983 Will and Mike have been friends for seven years as well.

As you said, Mike needs to figure out what Will said to him on the 6th November in 1983 and he will in season 5. I'm sure of that. It's right under his nose. Like the pen was and the can of 7-up. It'd be funny if it weren't so sad at the same time.

Some discussions on the possibility of Lucas, Dustin, Holly and Nancy being other alters under the cut

As for Dustin and Lucas I am not sure if they are real or not. However I do find it interesting that these two are the ones presenting Will with the option to either protect himself or attack the Demogorgon. Dustin pressuring Will to cast a shield spell and Lucas pressuring Will to attack with a fireball.

(I think it should also be noted that the alarms are already on. As seen in the very first scene in the science lab. The lights are flickering and a man is trying to escape. My guess is that Wills subconsciousness already picked up that the situation can get dangerous due to the looming threat of the (fictional) Demogorgon.)

The big thing with Lucas specifically is that it's him who tells Will that the number doesn't count as long as he doesn't tell Mike. That can just be circumstance as that's what happend in the real world. The dice landed on 7. That's an undeniable fact. However there is for sure also a double meaning behind it as Lucas words can be read as a reminder or even a warning not to spill secrets. As in an alter warning Will that the situation just got dangerous and he needs to be careful. There is also the fact that we don't see Lucas interact with any other member of the Wheeler family. It almost as if he isn't even there.

Same thing could not be said for Dustin though as he at the very least offers Nancy the last piece of pizza they got. This I think might make it more likely that he exists. Neither Lucas nor Dustin interact with Karen though.

I have just thought of this but do you know what would be really depressing? What if both Lucas and Dustin are actually alters and Mike knows about this and doesn't even question it? Like both Will and Mike have been bullied their entire life and don't have any other friends. I don't know if you can play a D&D campaign with only two people and with one of them being the Dungeon Master but I would at least assume that "the more the merrier" also rings true here. What if one day Will brought these two boys along, told Mike he found two friends who can speak through him and Mike just rolled with it and thought it's cool as they can now all play D&D together. If this happened at all both Will and Mike must have been much younger than they were in 1983. All of this is even more speculative than everything else though.

I guess at the very least we can assume that some alters existed before the day Will disappeared as if it's true what you've written in your post, it must have started before the age of 10. Will being seven would fit that criteria.

Back to the Wheelers though.

I agree with you on Holly. She is most likely also another alter. A child one. A little. My guess is that she represents Wills innocence before the ab*se started. In S4 she even has some bunny symbolism surrounding her which does not bode well for her. That toy she has with the lights. She creates a bunny with it.

kaypeace21 made some great points as to what bunny symbolism means in this post. (as you probably already know since I saw that post as a reblog on your blog haha) Still it should be noted that this mostly about Jonathon and not Will although it wouldn't be too far fetched to assume that Lonnie forced Will to do the same thing he forced Jonathan to do.

More speculation on Holly Wheeler but we will be starting S5 in the fall of 1987 and this is just the right time for Holly to be seven (or eight) years old. We also know that someone will disappear in that season in the second episode. I know I'm not the first person to speculate that it might be Holly but I think there is a fair chance she will merge with the system.

Like Sara Hopper who was also child and probably around the same age as Holly before she died of cancer (and merged back into the system)

Bunny symbolism doesn't stop with Holly though. There is Billy Hargrove, Jim Hopper (rabbits do hop) and Janes room in Terrys house had quite a bit of bunny symbolism as well.

And in S4 Nancy also agrees to give Mr. Rabbit away who prior to this was in the attic. (hidden away and out of sight) This is also bunny symbolism but it's different from Holly. Like for Nancy it could mean a loss of innocence she accepts. She is ready to move on from this.

In the first 5 minutes of the show Dustin also notes that Nancy had a shift in personality which Mike denies as "she's always been a real jerk." Is this really just about Steve and Nancy being a sibling to Mike? Or is there something more at play here? The reason why I think it's important is because they spend such a large part of the first minutes of the show to tell us all of this. This is the time before things got weird. Before Will told Mike in a coded manner. It's the time where things are as normal as they can be. I feel it has to mean something but I can't say what exactly. Nancy is just huge puzzle I can't understand.

(I mean yeah of cause she could also be an introject alter which is probably the case but that raises the question as to who the real Nancy is?)

Thoughts?

[atinystraykid]

Every couple weeks or so I'm hit with the shattering realization that I have an genuinely unlikeable personality and then go on to change absolutely nothing about it.

[dogearedheart]

8i've been thinking about the last asks i got today. and i think it's better for me to take a step back from this account. i know the anon didn't mean anything by it, but i still feel like i am being a negative presence on here and weirding people out with who i am is nothing i want. so, i am not deleting or anything. i am just gonna be less present with sharing personal things or leaving tags. I'll probably be more active on my second account where i don't have that many followers :)

[katyspersonal]

The trap of enlightenment in Bloodborne

Tbh I think the ‘Kos hates humans’ impression, whereas could be true, might miss some nuances?

According to Simon, Hunter’s Nightmare is a place specifically for blood-drunk hunters - an easy parallel to draw with those that murdered citizens of Fishing Hamlet! It is not supposed to target humans in general, only those indulging in the ‘Hunters’ practice - a thing often hinted in lore as a quest doomed by design but benefiting a kinda corrupt (or ‘insidious’ deity).

But also, I feel like Fishing Hamlet residents were pretty comfortable living with their sea mom before Old Hunters ruined everything! From how they speak, they’ve been loyal to Kos ever since she was beached ashore, and aware she was pregnant. Whether mutation was voluntary or not, they definitely resent what hunters done more than what happened to their bodies.

Patients of the Research Hall were trying to get in tune with the ‘sea’, as in earlier Healing Church days, Arcane was associated with the water, and it is very easy to assume that Milkweed was the voice of Kos. It gives me a strong impression that not only Kos encouraged Adeline, who wished Insight enough to wade through horrors that driven other patients crazy, to seek the ‘stars’ for salvation, but maybe herself fallen victim of hunger for Insight - that is stimulated by parasites that possibly sickened her body!

I pointed out already that parasites found within Kos resemble Brainsuckers very much, and I think it makes sense! Tiny parasites resembling a specific type of Kin that sucks your Insight out, you know? The very type that easily could stimulate hunger for eyes.

It is sort of why I don’t think Fishing Hamlet fish-people dwellers were “cursed” by Kos parasite - they look nothing alike, and they seem to be more interested in living in harmony with their Great One than in research for Eldrich Truth. If anything, their mutation seems more like adaptation (similar to spider people such as Patches, with Amygdalas they worship)

We can conclude that Eye is the rune representing the voice that comes from Ebrietas, but also that she is more or less a pawn of the ‘Moon’ on Earth - aware of her twisted role or not. Nonetheless, her resemblance with celestial larvae isn’t accidental, and it goes beyond sharing the way their wings look.

So, essentially, Research Hall patients end up being tortured by whatever they witness in the ‘Sea’, meanwhile whatever the ‘Stars’ are offering are their salvation; nonetheless, the knowledge that Kos (or “ocean” at least) offered Adeline suggests seeking the ‘stars’, and don’t forget the way that OoK cries towards the moon!

Honestly? It feels less like Kos deciding to hate the whole humanity in general, but more like the ‘marine’ enlightenment is not morally aligned (unlike ‘divine’ Star/Moon enlightenment and ‘cursed’ enlightenment Amygdalas and alike offer). If you are a horrible, sinful human being - you will suffer; if you are open and in a way naiive (like Adeline) - you will be mere fascinated by the mysteries.

Moreover, again - it is possible that Kos fell for the trap herself - after all, she has humanoid face, so maybe she herself ascended from a mortal once and came to wish for more knowledge. Or in this case, parasites tainted her with the desire for Insight? We know that the ‘Moon’ is insidious and somehow benefits for the cursed cycle of bloodshed and hunt, yet there is a large layer of ‘facade’ covering her motivations and own depravity, in the form of starry Arcane and Ebrietas and illusion of salvation and Insight.

But all in all, Kos might be not even herself be all aware of the motivations of the ‘Moon’ - so she wishes to be saved from pain and dread that caught up with her even through she herself transcended humanity long time ago! And so even people who waded through all horrors such as Adeline (and Rom I presume) were offered just the ‘seek the Stars for Insight and salvation’. Because Adeline envisioned Milkweed that suggests lumenweed reaching for the stars, and because Ebrietas weeps the corpse that looks much like Rom. Rom also bleeds grey from her head if you hurt her in the Lake area - ‘grey’ blood is very specific for cosmic Kin, too!

Alternatively, Kos is bitter towards humanity, not necessarily hateful. She tells those that try to reach her - ‘Go away and seek the corrupt Moon that governs this world and hunters, maybe this will give you peace!’. But in the middle there are ‘Stars’, that offer illusion of purity and knowledge. Maybe she thinks that by nature humans are not ready for true Insight and the “Sea”, and they are better off (and safer, and kinder) under protection and total control of Stars and Moon... Ignoring what happened to Ludwig and what the ‘Moon’ really wants, apparently.

...or maybe Kos knew of the depraved ‘true’ form behind the ‘Stars’ from the start, Fishing Hamlet priests didn’t know better and had all TOO dignified opinion on her, and Kos and Flora been corrupt lesbians from the start, working against humanity to trap them into vicious cycle from the get go and her “death“ was to curse humanity with search for the Insight and the vicious cycle ( x ) from the get go.

We just don’t know fhhdfs

I guess it depends on how noble and dignified you want to make Kos be?

[magentagalaxies]

.

[navree]

'feel free to find a necktie and test how tall your doorframe is...' good lord, man. I'm not even anti-Dem but what the hell is THAT supposed to do for enthusiasm or turnout?

If your enthusiasm and ability to show up to fill in a bubble on a piece of paper hinges singlehandedly on a college student on the Internet who spends most of her time talking about niche historical figures, television shows, and comic books, you were never going to vote anyway and I don't need to modulate my language to accommodate your sensibilities. My being blunt that the "both parties are the same" equivocation is not only stupid but makes you a bad person unworthy of respect or decency on my part as someone who will be severely negatively impacted by a return to power for Trump is not going to affect anyone who was ever remotely serious about this election or the democratic process.

[rigaudon]

Since the ratfucking has quintupled since the debate last week, here's a reminder that comments like this only exist to depress voter turnout.

these are all comments on the post I just reblogged. from within the last month.

Not every comment like this is part of an astroturfing psyop (and I'm not saying that the people in the screenshots are part of an astroturfing psyop), but we need to remember that the whole point of the astroturfing psyop is to flood your feed with certain ideas or claims in order to make it seem like a lot of people are talking about this so it must be serious and also true!

The thing is, it doesn't matter whether it's an outright lie, a half-truth, or even actually true. Because the goal isn't just to make you believe the lies. The goal is to make you proliferate them. To distort the truth just enough. To use empathy, outrage, fear, and (most importantly) urgency to convince a few regular people like me and you to believe This Thing is important enough to repeat.

And it only takes a few. Because once the idea is coming from someone you know and trust --your friends, your family, yourself-- it becomes the truth.

If the people I trust believe it, that must mean it's true.

If it's true, why is no one talking about it?

If no one's talking about it, they must not know about it.

If they don't know about it, I have to tell them.

If they don't believe me, I have to convince them.

If I can't convince them, I have to shame them.

You are not immune to becoming propaganda.

[cy-cyborg]

Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart

When a character in a story becomes disabled, they'll sometimes experience a trope that I like to call "the disabling change of heart". This is when the character goes through a massive change in their outlook, their personality, their goals or even roll in the story, specifically because they became (or are about to become) physically disabled. Sometimes, this will be in relatively small ways: the happy-go-lucky comedic relief character might become bitter, angry and jaded after getting into an accident that caused a spinal injury, or the severally depressed and nihilistic character might suddenly start acting more cheerful and hopeful, stating that loosing their leg has "put things into perspective and showed them what really matters". In other cases though, the impact is much larger, the heroic character you've been hearing about looses an arm thanks to the main character's actions, causing them to become consumed with anger and self-loathing which they take out on everyone else, eventually becoming an antagonist as they seek revenge for what the main character did to them. The morally grey or even villainous character is injured by their own scheme, giving themselves a permanent disability in the process, which prompts a change of heart and leads them to turn their lives around and become better people, maybe even deciding to team up with the heroes.

Now, having a character go through a personality and goal change due to a major life event, such as becoming physically disabled, isn't inherently bad. A lot of writers are told to tie major shifts in your character's development to major life events, because realistically, something like becoming newly disabled will at least impact how you view the world around you. I very frequently talk about how if I didn't loose my legs, I would have become a vastly different person, but the issues with this trope depends on how it's used and the reasons behind these developments, and whether or not the change suits the character in question.

Before we get into things, I would like to specify that in this post, I'm only going to be talking about how this trope is used with physical disabilities and other easily visible forms of disability. It does show up with characters who develop disabilities under the mentally ill and neurodivergent umbrellas, and is actually a bit more common than what I'm talking about today, but the specific ways its utilised are so different that it's more or less a separate trope, and one that deserves much more attention than I could give it here as this is already going to be a pretty long post. So for today, I'm keeping to it's use with physical and visible disabilities, and we'll talk about how this trope is used with neurodivergence and mental illness another day.

The main thing you need to be mindful of is ensuring that you, as an author, are not including your ingrained biases about disability into the reasoning behind the change. Let's look at one of the examples from before, an evil character who, after loosing their arm (because it's almost always loosing an arm for some reason) becomes a villain and wants revenge against the main character. In a story like this example, the character who became an amputee often views this new disability as something that has ruined their life. It's something that has caused them to suffer, and they want to make the main character (or whoever has "wronged" them) suffer like they did. Stories like this example portray disability as something that is not just horrible, but life-destroying, especially with villains who become all-consumed by the misery this disability has brought them. Many stories that utilise this version of the trope also often perpetuate the idea that if you become disabled, you'll have to give up all the things you love and your goals, even when this wouldn't necessarily be true for the character in question.

Let's say your character was a knight, and the main character cut off their arm in a training accident. obviously you can't be a knight with only one arm because you can't fight anymore, so they left their order. Now this character has become a villain and has found power that "makes up" for their disability, perhaps magic or some other force that doesn't exist in the real world, and are back to get revenge on the character for ruining their lives. Here's the thing though, the loss of a limb, or at least, the loss of an arm specifically, often isn't the career ender people think it is, even back then. In fact, there are many historical records of real amputees continuing to serve as knights and other similar military roles after loosing an arm or at the very least, continuing to fight in other ways. One such example was Götz of the Iron Hand, a mercenary knight who lost his arm to a cannon. Götz had fought as part of the Roman empire's military in 1498, but shortly after left to form his own mercenary company. He lost his hand in 1504 and continued his career as a mercenary with the help of an iron prosthetic capable of holding his sword and the reigns of his horse, among many other things such as writing, for another 40 years. Götz wasn't unique in this though, several suits of armour from the same time period have been found with integrated prosthetic hands, though the names of their owners are unknown. There was also Oruç Reis (aka Aruj Barbarossa), A privateer admiral who served the Ottoman Empire in and around the Mediterranean who lost his left hand - earning him one of many nicknames: Silver-Hand, thanks to the colour of his prosthetic. Oruç, like Götz, continued his career for several more years until he was eventually killed in 1518.

My point in bringing this up, is to highlight how important it is to double check that the reason your character's whole motivation for turning to villainy, isn't just based on your ideas about what a disabled person can or can not do. Actually double check it, research it, especially if it's important for your plot.

Even in the cases where the disability in question actually would stop someone from being able to do something, the incorrect assumptions can still occur and cause issues in different ways. For example, a character in a more modern setting who looses their arm due to an accident the main character was responsible for while serving in the military would be discharged, ruining the character's plan to become a general some day. This absolutely would be devastating for a character like that, and they realistically could struggle to adjust, both in terms of getting used to their disability and finding new goals for their life. They may well feel anger at the main character, however, if you are portraying just living with a disability, in the case of this example, living with an amputation as inherently "suffering" for no other reason than they are disabled, it is still perpetuating those really negative ideas about disability. I've said this a few times in other posts, but villains who are evil or even just antagonists purely because they're disabled or are trying to avoid becoming disabled is a trope all its own and one that is best avoided if you yourself aren't disabled, as even outside of spreading these negative ideas about life with a disability, it's just an overdone and overused trope.

But what about when this trope goes in the other direction? when you have an antagonistic or even just morally grey character who becomes disabled and this is the catalyst that turns them into a good guy?

For the longest time, I knew I usually disliked this version of the trope too, but I couldn't put my finger on why. With disability being the reason someone became a villain, the underlying reason it's there is often able to be boiled down to "I, the writer, think being disabled would be terrible and life like that is inherently suffering, so this character is angry about it," which is obviously an issue (the "inherently suffering" bit, not the anger). However, when a character becomes good due to becoming disabled, the reasoning is usually more along the lines of, "this is a big change in a character's life that has caused them to reconsider and revaluate things" (or at least, that's what I thought). This isn't bad, nor is it necessarily unrealistic. Hell, as I already said, I do consider my disability to be a catalyst that made me into who I am today. I also know plenty of people who, after becoming disabled later in life, did have a big change in how they viewed themselves and the world, and who consider themselves better people since becoming disabled. It's far, far from a universal experience, mind you, but it does happen. So why did this version of the trope still not sit right with me?

Well, I think there's a few reasons for it. The first being that there's a tendency for non-disabled people to think real disabled people are just incapable of evil deeds, both in the sense that they aren't physically capable of doing them (which is bad and not even always true for the reasons we already discussed), but also in the sense that there's this idea that disabled people are, for some reason, inherently more "good" and "innocent" - As if breaking your back or loosing a limb causes all evil and impure thoughts to be purged from the body. This is a result of many folks viewing disabled people as child-like, and thus attributing child-like traits (such as innocence) to them, even subconsciously. This is an incredibly common issue and something disability rights organisations are constantly pushing back against, as this mentality can cause a lot of unnecessary barriers for us. With how often I and many other disabled people are subjected to infantilization, I would be honestly shocked if it wasn't at least partially responsible for people thinking becoming disabled is a good reason to kick off a redemption arc.

This infantilization isn't unique to physically disabled people by the way, in fact it's way, way, more commonly directed at people with intellectual and developmental disabilities - or at least, people are more open about it, but as I already mentioned, how that is reflected in tropes like The Disabling Change of Heart is vastly different and deserves a post of it's own.

That's mostly just speculation on my part though, since that infantilising mindset does show up a lot in media, but not usually as part of this trope specifically.

However, it's not the only reason I wasn't a fan of it. When the disabling change of heart is used to fuel redemption arcs, I think, once again, that the disability itself being credited with causing the change directly is another factor. When this happens, it's usually because "it put things into perspective for me and showed me what really mattered."

This sounds better than our previous example on the surface, but stories that use this logic are often still portraying disability as an inherently bad and tragic thing, something so bad, in fact, that it makes all the other (legitimate) issues they thought were massive before seem so small by comparison. This is a type of inspiration porn: content made to make non-disabled people feel inspired or just better about their own situation. It's the mentality of "well my life is bad, but it could be worse, at least I'm not disabled like that!"

In a fictional story, this might look like an athlete character who dreamed of making it big so they could be famous and get out of poverty. They were a dick to anyone who got in their way but only because they were worried about not being able to make rent if they don't constantly win. One day though, they overworked themselves and got into a car accident on the way home because they were too tired, and now they're in a wheelchair and can no longer walk, which is (supposedly) absolutely tragic and way worse than anything else they were already going through. But they end up becoming a better person because it has put things into perspective for them. Yeah they were struggling to make ends meet, but at least they weren't disabled! Now that they are, they know they shouldn't have cared so much, because money doesn't matter when compared to not being able to walk, right?

As well as portraying disability in a negative light, these kinds of stories dismiss and diminish the other struggles or challenges the character is experiencing, placing the status of "not disabled" above all else.

There's also the fact that, when a lot of real people say their disabilities had positive impacts on their lives, they don't usually mean the disability itself is directly responsible for the change. There's exceptions of course but for myself personally, and most of the people I know who say they are better people because of/since becoming disabled, the disability has been more of a neutral catalyst than the actual cause of positive change. Meaning, it opened the door to allow those changes to happen, but it wasn't the direct cause. For me personally, becoming physically disabled at a young age didn't make me a nice person like people expect, I was still a little judgemental asshole for a lot of my childhood. However, because I was disabled, I had to travel a lot, initially because I needed medical treatment that my local hospital wasn't equip to provide, and later, because I started competing in disability sports. because of both of those things, I met people I never would have otherwise who made me reconsider what I'd been taught on a wide range of subjects, and made me question where those beliefs had come from in the first place. When I say my disability played a part in who I became, it wasn't because my disability itself change me, but it helped me meet people who were positive influences on me and my life. but when creatives make characters who experience arcs like this, they ignore this, again, defaulting to the "this was a bad thing that just put all my other problems into perspective" reasoning.

Some iterations of this trope also use disability as a kind of "karmic punishment" where the disability is portrayed as a rightfully deserved punishment for an evil character's deeds - usually something relating to the disability they acquired but not always. An example might look like an evil tyrant who punishes the rebels they captured by cutting off their hands. Eventually, this catches up with him, maybe the friend or a child of one of the rebels is able to capture the tyrant and cuts his hands off as payback so that he gets a taste of his own medicine, a taste of the suffering he imposed on others. Now facing at least one of the same realities of the people he subjugated, he realises the error of his ways. With some pressure from the main characters, he has a change of heart and surrenders himself, steps down to let someone else take his place, or perhaps he decides to start changing policies to be more in-line with these new morals until some other character usurps him, becoming an even bigger threat than the previous former tyrant.

Once again, stories that use a disability like this are still portraying the disability as an overall inherently bad thing, but there's the added layer at play in this example. The thing is, there are a lot of people in real-life who actually believe disability is a punishment from God. I remember one time when I was over in the US, an older lady came and sat down on the seat beside me on the bus and started asking me about my disability and specifically, how I became disabled. This isn't an unusual interaction, it happens fairly regularly whenever I use public transport, but on this particular day, the conversation suddenly shifted when I told her I became disabled when I was very young. This woman, despite the bus-driver's best efforts to get her to stop, ended up lecturing me for an hour and a half (during which time I couldn't move due to how my wheelchair was held in place) about how my disability was punishment from God for my parent's sins. She then tried to convince me to attend her church, claiming they would be able to heal me. And the thing is, this isn't an uncommon experience.

A lot of disabled people are targeted by cults using this same method: they'll convince people their disabilities are a punishment, make them believe they deserved it, that they just weren't good enough, but don't worry, if you repent and come to our specific church we can heal you. There was even a case in Australia recently that uncovered a cult called Universal Medicine, who taught that disabled people were reincarnations of evil people, and that being disabled in this life was their punishment, as well as that parents who have disabled children were being punished for other sinful behaviours. They were found to be operating a disability care service named Fabic that was being paid for by the NDIS, a subsection of the Australian government funded healthcare system that specifically aids disabled Australians by paying for and subsidising treatments, technologies (such as mobility aids) and other services relating to their disability. Fabic was found to be stealing excessive amounts of funding from their disabled clients under the guise of therapies and carer services, but was not actually helping their clients at all. Whether it's just taking advantage of them to get their money, or actually using this logic as a justification to mistreat them, this mentality of "disability is a punishment" actually gets real disabled people hurt or worse, and so seeing it come up in media, even if there is no ill-intent, can be very distressing and uncomfortable for disabled audiences.

So with all this being said, is the disabling change of heart a trope you should avoid in all it's forms and versions? No, but it does need to be handled with extreme care. I do think it should be avoided as a reason for a character becoming evil for the most part. If that really can't be avoided in your story though, at the very least, ensure that you foreshadow the change. Your happy little ray of sunshine, embodiment of sweetness and innocence type character probably isn't going to turn murderous and want revenge for an accident for example. A character who is likely to be driven to that kind of extreme of wanting revenge for their disability, so much so that they become a villain, probably already had at least a few traits that would predispose them to that line of thinking already, before becoming disabled. As for when it goes in the other direction, and you have a character becoming a good guy, avoid using the reasoning that "the disability put things into perspective for me". Instead, if you must use this version of the trope, use the character's new disability as the reason they encountered other people and situations that challenged their views, things they wouldn't have encountered otherwise. No matter the reason though, be very careful to avoid inspiration porn, and as always, try to find a sensitivity reader to give your story a once-over, just to make sure something didn't slip under your radar.

[Thumbnail ID: An illustrated image showing the same elf character twice. The picture of her on the left shows her laughing evilly, two tiny horns protruding through her brown hair. She is wearing a black dress and red shoes. On the right shows her in a yellow dress, sitting in a bright pink wheelchair with her head held eye and her eyes closed. The horns have been replaced with a glowing halo. In the centre is text that reads: "Disability Tropes: The disabling change of heart." /End ID]

[hamliet]

Excited for your thoughts on the bnha ending

Also I’ll be honest I dropped this like 200 chs ago and I’ve just kept up through your metas because I was so disillusioned with the manga 🥲 I even sold my copies

it's a bit bittersweet to see bnha handled this way. sometimes i think we'll get a promising continuation from the author which is major cope for me T.T

fix its are otw but damn it doesn't mend that it ended this way rn

Diff asks, answering together.

Not saying too much because there's not much to be said besides that a friend who wrote a meta who won't post it (to all our detriment!) said it best last week: this story is cowardly. It's afraid to say or do anything because it wants to make everyone happy and realized it can't, so now it just wants to make no one upset, but everyone's upset.

I feel sad for Horikoshi. His recent interviews are quite depressing, and he seems burned out and done with his own manga in a way that makes Gege look enthusiastic about JJK.

Like, he doesn't confirm Touya dead or alive--which frankly I will take--but leaves it up to the reader to decide. Is the doctor's word final, or is Touya crying a symbol of healing since he previously couldn't? I know which one I choose to believe, but this way people can choose to fit the manga into their personal beliefs. He's trying to say nothing to avoid rocking the boat. And that's just sad, especially when we consider what likely contributed to that.

Which is to say, on a purely story level, the story has no power. There's being open to other perspectives and then there's not having a message. This is sadly the latter. It's a mess. Deku "heroes save" doesn't save, but he's still heroic, but that line isn't demolished or destroyed. AFO may be dead, but he won in the end because what he used to taunt Deku came true. Deku's character is nothing more than a vehicle--no struggle, no emotional climax, no principles. The ships are not even confirmed because the story can't even commit to the obvious Ochaco/Deku (which I dislike even!) for fear of angering other loud shippers. Society is the problem, but also the answer. The hero system is the problem, but also the answer. It's not a paradox because it doesn't explain the layers at play here. It's just noodles that have cooked far too long and turned into a congealed mess.

The only message I can take from it is "yay authoritarianism" which I'm going to hope Horikoshi is saying accidentally (and most likely is). It's as meaningless as GoT season 8, and TROS, and that's not good company to be in.

[kyracooneyx23]

Waldosia

Leah Williamson

summary: Leah still isn't over the fact that you're gone and can't help but looking for you in the crowd every game, even though she knows you'll never be there.

warnings: mentions of death, slight angst, depression, just lots of yapping at the end, not a happy ending. (cringe warning)

waldosia: /wawl-doh-zhuh/ n.  a condition in which you keep scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific person who would have no reason to be there, as if your brain is checking to see whether they're still in your life, subconsciously patting its emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.

You'd had Leah Williamson hooked from the very first time the two of you had met. You'd caught her attention with you're bright smile and warm laugh. She couldn't get enough of you, you were like a drug.

Leah Williamson had brightened up your world during some of the darkest moments in your life. You'd lost your mum to cancer and your sister had stopped speaking to you. When all seemed lost, she gave you a reason to keep pushing even when you didn't think you could.

You were a wreck but that hadn't stopped her from loving you.

The two of you shared a love so special, you were the first person she'd run to when celebrating a win, but also the first persons arms she'd fall into after a tough loss.

She was there to hold you when you missed your mum, and bring back your smile when your sister consistently ignored your calls.

You and Leah had found each other when you were both most in need of love the most.

But it was all a secret.

A love too good for the rest of the world to know.

You feared what would happen if the fans found out. Scared that Leah would be ashamed of a girlfriend like you.

You're insecurities screamed at you, that small voice in your mind a constant reminder that you'd never be good enough for the one and only Leah Williamson

But Leah thought you were perfect, you were real and that's what she needed.

She needed someone who wasn't afraid to talk about their emotions, someone who was there when Leah needed a shoulder to cry on. Someone to keep her head on straight.

And eventually the two of you started to break out of your little shell, finally brave enough to show a little PDA, even if it was only holding hands when the two of you went out together.

You'd even started allowing Leah to kiss you after her games, no longer restricting her to just a short hug.

But of course just as you started to think that everything was going to be good, it began to go downhill.

Down a hill so steep that not even the most powerful breaks could stop the fall.

Fans were too nosy for their own good, trying to get involved in people's business that didn't concern them.

They'd call you ugly, saying that Leah should break up with you and find someone better.

Leah said it was fine, she promised to never stop loving you, no matter what anyone said. You were her world and she swore it would always stay that way. She wasn't going to let this affect her.

But you could tell it wasn't true, you noticed. And so did everyone else. Her performances on the pitch were lacking the quality they used to have. It was clear to everyone that her mind was elsewhere.

And it was. You were all she could think about. Your broken face when you'd look online and see another post dissing you. The tears you'd quickly rub out of your eyes whenever she'd walk in the room, trying to pretend you hadn't been crying.

The guilt was eating you up, and as much as you despised the thought of it, you knew that the only way to fix things was to leave.

And while it would obviously hurt for a while, you'd both get over it. Maybe Leah would find someone new. Someone better. That could give her the love and life she deserved.

You're bags were packed a note left on the side.

That was the last time Leah had ever heard from the love of her life.

She'd tried hard, so hard, to get you back. She'd called you so many times that she'd had to pay unreasonable amounts just to get more data, praying that you'd pick up.

But you never did. Every single time it would ring to voice mail, and she'd leave the same message, begging you to come home.

but her speech would always be cut off by that annoying beeping noise, signaling that she'd run out of time and she'd once again be left alone. No clues to tell her if you'd listened to her and all she could do was cry.

A year later she was still not fixed. It seemed that when you had left, you'd taken part of her with you. She no longer had her favourite person to celebrate with, and suddenly winning the conti cup was no longer as special.

Her jokes were lacking, her eyes not shining as bright as they used to. And everyone noticed, they noticed the change in Leah's demeanor and how talks about you were no longer a usual part of Leah's chats. All that was left was a crack in her voice and tears welling in her eyes from the mere thought of you.

Currently, she was walking around the emirates stadium. Waving to fans who were wildly celebrating the win. But she wasn't paying attention any of them.

She had made a habit of unintentionally looking for you in every crowd, a small part in the back of her mind hoping that one day you'd be there smiling back at her just like you used to. But you never were, and every time Leah would be left alone, but sleep would not come without your arms holding her until she dozed off.

The English captain was doing a pretty good job of keeping everything to herself as she did a lap, until she saw a familiar flash of brown hair in the stands. And that's when her mind went into shambles. She momentarily stopped walking in her tracks and stared at the girl, for a second being convinced that it was you. And then another girl came into view this time with darker brown hair, but she once again was convinced this was you. It was like her mind was playing tricks on her. You're not fucking here...

She brought her hands up to her face and rubbed her eyes harshly, hoping that by doing so she'd slap some common sense into herself. But when she lifted her head, she couldn't stop herself from looking around again, from looking for you. It was as if her brain had set its mind onto something, and decided on finding you in the crowd of 60,000 people. But seeing as it was impossible to actually find you, she just felt as if she was going mental.

Lia, who noticed Leah's fidgeting, looked up at her and grabbed her hand, shooting a warm smile at her friend who was clearly distressed. It wasn't the first time the English had acted this way after a game and it was clear to all the girls the reason why.

'There's someone here to see you.' Lia Walti whispered, causing Leah's stomach to flip.

Was it you? Had you finally come out of hiding?

Lia began leading her towards the crowd of excited people.

At this point, Leah's hands were shaking and her free hand was fumbling with the untucked hem of her jersey. Her heart was racing faster than it ever had before and her breaths were becoming shorter, feeling as if she were starting to lose herself.

What if it actually was you? What would she do if you were here in the stands right now?

Lia lead her towards where Beth Mead and Alessia Russo was already standing, but before they could even reach it Leah abruptly stopped walking. Her eyes snapped up to the girl who Beth was chatting with, eyes narrowing as she couldn't believe the sight before her. It was you, it really was you this time. The long brown hair, which looked a lot darker now (but Leah just assumed that you'd dyed it in the time you were gone) the laugh that made her eyes light up, the jersey with the number 6 on the back that you always wore to her games. And although she couldn't see your face she was sure it was you.

'Y/n?' Leah whispered so quietly, still at least ten meters away, thinking no one could hear her, but of course Lia did.

'It's not her.' She said sadly looking over to Leah who's face fell, her hopeful expression now replaced with a broken one. 'It's just Alex.'

Her eyes filled up with tears and she quickly dropped her hand from Lia's, suddenly feeling a wave of nausea run through her as she responded, 'Fuck, I-I'm... I...,'

Her sentence trailed off as she looked up at the concerned face looking at her, but she couldn't finish her sentence. Her heart was pounding in her chest and she felt like her throat was closing up, quickly inhaling and exhaling in short breaths. She was scared, terrified, of the way she was feeling. The tricks that her mind kept playing on her, giving her hope only to crush it ten seconds later.

'I can't be here anymore, tell Alex I said hi.' Leah tells the Swiss girl before sharply turning around and leaving the stadium, not caring what the fans or players would say.

It was only once she finally got into the car that she let her emotions fully take over, tears streaming down her face as she slammed her face against the steering wheel.

Why would you do this to her? Why would you leave in attempts to make things better when in reality it was just making Leah spiral. A sudden surge of anger coursed through her veins, she was mad at you for causing so much pain when all she did was give you all her love.

She was mad at the fans, and all the other people that had made you feel like you weren't good enough, when you were more than that. You were the best human being she knew, you had a heart too big for this cruel would and nobody had the right to take that away.

Nothing could hurt Leah anymore, so for what felt like the millionth time since you'd left she picked up her phone and pressed on your numbers in her contacts. She couldn't care less if you didn't pick up, no amount of pain could ever hurt someone as numb as she was.

The phone rang for a solid thirty seconds, and Leah was about to give up and just go home when she heard a soft voice coming from her car speakers.

'Hello, who is this?' Your voice rung out and Leah could almost cry from happiness and relief. You were actually talking to her, you were still there and you sounded almost happy.

'Y/n... Is that you?' Leah asks softly, not hearing the gasp coming from your lips. She was shocked that you picked up for once, not knowing that the only reason was because she'd had her caller id off from earlier in the day.

You wouldn't have picked up if you had known.

'Leah?' You're voice was full of shock, the buzz from before gone. 'What are you doing?'

'What do you think I'm doing.' The defender exclaims, 'I've been worried sick about you for a whole year. I have no clue where you are or why you left. was it me? Did I do something wrong?' Her voice trails off as she leans back into her seat running her hand through her bleach blonde hair whilst anxiously biting the nails off her fingers on the other.

'Leah, you shouldn't have called.' She can hear the nerves in your voice but it doesn't stop her from getting angry. 'I've really got to go.'

'No.' She snaps into the phone 'You're staying on this call until you tell me why you left.'

'You know perfectly well why I left Leah.' But she didn't, ever since you'd been gone that was the one thing the Lioness wanted to know the answer to.

'I don't, I wish I did but I don't.' A sigh is heard over the phone line and Leah can hear papers rustling about before you speak again.

'I don't know why you care Leah. You've seemed to move on perfectly, you have Lia now and I'm not there to bring you and your career down with my mess of a life.' At first Leah was mad, mad that you'd ever think you were bringing her down, then confused what were you talking about when you said that she 'had Lia now'.

'Lia?' She says softly voicing her confusement.

'You don't have to act innocent Leah. I'm happy for you and Lia, you're great for each other and as long as you're happy so am I.' It's funny how well Leah knows you, even though you were only together for a short time, she could sense the small smile that you were obviously faking as you said this.

'I'm not with Lia.' Leah says, louder this time to make her point clear, 'how could I ever get with someone when you still have my heart. You had it from the very first time I laid eyes on you, and I'd like it back. Almost as much as I want my girlfriend to come back home.' She laughs lightly, although there is nothing humorous about the conversation the two of you were having. 'You can't expect me to love someone when I've already given you all the love I had.'

'Leah, you need to move on. It's better that way. It's better for you and your career, like I said before I'm not letting myself bring you down anymore.' You say firmly, trying to ignore the ache in your heart knowing after this conversation you might lose the best thing you've ever had, and never get her back. 'You know how much I hate goodbyes, and I would much rather this be hello, but it really is time you move on.' Tears were spilling down your cheeks now and you couldn't stop them.

'I can't move on, you know that.'

Silence filled the car Leah was in and the small office where you were sitting matched that silence. No one daring to speak not knowing the right words to say any more, there was no clear way that this conversation was going to end. You wanted to give Leah the life she deserved whereas the Brit was adamant that you were the one she wanted.

'You messed me up y/n/n, you really did. You left when things got hard, because it was easier for you to walk out than fight for us and I thought you were stronger than that. I lay awake at night, every night, wondering why god brought you into my life, only to take you away from me and leave me a broken mess. I make mistakes, we all do, and if you're a mistake then you're the best mistake I've ever made. But it's still left me broken and I guess that I'm sorry. I'm sorry for caring too much, sorry for feeling joy when I'm around, sorry for feeling safe in your arms, sorry for getting so addicted to you that it feels like I can't think right when your not around, sorry for all the calls and thinking they were a good idea. But most of all I'm sorry that I'm never going to stop loving you and I'm never going to stop trying until I get you back.'

A sob escaped from you, you couldn't hold it back. It was the most heartfelt thing you'd ever heard anyone say, Leah was never going to stop loving you and you would never stop loving her. And maybe in another life where you weren't as depressed and could keep your shit together without pulling down other people with you, you and Leah could've had the happily ever after that are always written in children's fairytales.

Because maybe all along your love story really was just a case of right person, wrong time.

And that was the most fucked up joke the universe could ever play on you.

[olderthannetfic]

I accidentally killed my own desire to write, and I need some advice. To be really blunt about it, what's the point of writing? When I would spend lots of time laboring over making a good story with a plot and characters who were in-character and connecting all the dots narratively so payoffs were satisfying, my reward was dead silence and virtually no clicks. I posted some mindless smut to my side account one day and got more hits in a day than most of my other works combined got in a year. I know, I know. "Write for ~*~yourself~*~" is the common response. It's the "be yourself!" of writing. It's supposed to be a magical phrase that'll make everything okay. But... I don't like knowing that something I spend months working on won't be read by anyone while something I write in a car while bored got thousands of clicks. I don't like making something I'm proud of and then no one ever looks at it. That's not fun for me. It's not fulfilling.

For a solid decade, I've tried to ignore how the level of interactivity in fandom is falling. Fewer comments. Fewer kudos. No comments in the bookmarks. You put your tumblr and Discord in the AN and get a handful of asks and one person who adds you, talks to you twice and then ghosts you. Most of the comments are "well, actuallys", made even more annoying by them being wrong as opposed to actually correcting an error. I avoid fandom drama, wank, and infighting. I don't engage with things I know will make me unhappy. I try to be happy over in my own little corner. I comment on every single work I read. I want people to enjoy fandom. I used to.

Some dumb smut I wrote in 40 minutes gets five times the hits of the writing I'm most proud of, and it gets it in just under three months. I am not a great smut writer. I haven't stumbled onto an incredible talent I had that makes it so the issue is that I'm so amazing my smut brings all the boys to the yard. People just don't like what I write and put effort into. It's very likely that despite 20 years of writing fic, I suck at writing. And people enjoy my writing most when they don't have to put up with anything substantial and can just skip to the sex.

So for the last eight months, when I write, I just sort of give up. Close the Word doc without saving. No one will read this. No one cares about this. There is no fan eagerly awaiting every update like I await updates from my favorite authors. There's not even someone saying, "update soon!" Close the Word doc. Delete old WIPs. There's no point. I do not tell stories worth reading. I used to. In the FFN days people genuinely enjoyed my work. I'd never have had an opportunity to do the 'I won't update until I get 3 reviews' thing because getting that many on a chapter was usually something I'd do overnight. Post before bed. Wake up. Read the reviews before school. I peaked in high school, I guess.

And now I'm just sort of lost. I still have lots of ideas. Ideas for fics fall into my head all the time. That's never been a problem. What I don't have is any motivation to write them. What's the point of writing? If no one else is reading, I guess the point would be so I could go back and read my own story and have fun with it. Write for myself. But I can review the story and have fun with it in my head without writing it down. It's substantially faster and more importantly, isn't incredibly depressing.

So, at the risk of definitely being calld the second-coming of True Art Anon or a troll or validation-seeking or haha mentally ill haha... what's the point of writing?

--

Okay, so write porn in a car while you're bored.

Look, you can whine all you want about my response, but what you've written here is blatantly about depression.

Lots of people in fandom are still interacting. And no, it isn't just on fics that are objectively written to some pro fiction standard or whatever. Teenagers still breathlessly review poorly spelled cracky masterpieces about this year's big anime and so forth.

Yes, there may be reasons why you in particular are in a slump when it comes to fandom friendships or "plz update" comments. We can talk about that. But this ask is all gloom about fandom in general. That's not realism: that's you having a problem.

--

As for why a person should write: because the actual hours you spend doing the writing are fun.

If they aren't pleasurable in some way, find another hobby.

--

But if you want an answer to the age old "Why did my 5 minute fic get 1000000x more asspats", I've seen meta about this for literally decades.

The most likely reason is that the fic we write quickly and without much thought often feels fresher and more fun. The things we labor over endlessly can feel overworked. Even in cases where they don't, they're often heavier subject matter or more niche subject matter. On top of all that, we just care more, so even a high level of feedback doesn't really feel like enough for the effort and care we put in.

--

Do you really need me to tell you why you don't feel the same as in high school when things were fresh and new?

Go read up on combatting burnout or dealing with post-college anxiety or managing stress in a dead-end job in your 30s or finding meaning in your 40s or whatever is going on.

Everyone goes through fallow periods in fandom and in life.

Feeling reinvigorated has to do with internal factors and some general life circumstance stuff. It doesn't have that much to do with number of kudos. That's just the surface trigger for a mood that was already there.

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Exposing SVSSS Fanon: 4/∞

CHRONICALLY/TERMINALLY ILL SHEN YUAN

Rating: FANON - UNSUPPORTED

It isn't an uncommon thing for fans to headcanon their favorite characters as disabled, or queer, or otherwise having experiences that relate to the fan's own identity or promote fandom diversity. This in itself can be a very positive and affirming thing.

I will reiterate, of course, that this blog is not meant to say that anyone's headcanons are bad or invalid-- no matter what canon says, anyone can have whatever headcanon they please.

However, there is a difference between headcanon and incorrect interpretation.

The idea that Shen Yuan, prior to transmigration, was chronically or terminally ill is something that falls more heavily into the latter category. Rather than being known as a headcanon or even acknowledged as fanon, this idea is often taken as canonical fact or "default" in western fandom.

It does not stem from one person's creative interpretation of a character, but instead from an inaccurate TL note on a passage in an earlier fan translation of the novel.

In this early translation, the following passage:

不过沈清秋要求真的不高，在这边混吃等死，颐养天年，他就心满意足了。反正跟他前生过的日子也没啥差别。

was translated as:

However, Shen Qingqiu didn’t have any high requirements. He’d be content to just while away his time here and wait to die. At any rate, it wasn’t much different from his previous life. (CNoveluv/BCNovels Ch. 3)

Attached to this was the following Translator's Note:

Previous life: Bit of a subtle hint that our main character probably had a terminal illness or something that would have taken his life in time.

(many thanks to @furbygoblinxiv for quotes!)

This TL note is where the idea that Shen Yuan was canonically chronically/terminally ill originated.

However, the assumption is wholly incorrect. The phrase "混吃等死" is a saying which translates literally, to "aimlessly eating meals and waiting for death," but refers to a lack of ambition and general listlessness, or someone who just wastes their life away, not making anything of themselves.

This is in line with Shen Yuan's original description of himself:

From early on, he’d known that even if he idled the rest of his life away, he’d never want for food. Perhaps due to this carefree upbringing, devoid of either competition or pressure, he came to believe that ranking in the top ten of a competition was good enough, so long as it had more than ten people. (7S Ch. 1)

In fact, this same phrase 混吃等死 is used here in the original text, where the translation says "idled the rest of his life away."

In fanworks, Shen Yuan has sometimes been referred to as a "pretty boy waiting around to die," specifically in reference to having poor health in his previous life. This comes from another section later on in the novel:

He based this body on the appearance that he, Shen Yuan, originally had in his past life. It wasn’t as good as Shen Qingqiu’s immortal demeanor, but it could still be considered a pretty good body. The only thing was that it gave off a bit of a dispirited feeling like he was a pretty boy sitting around waiting to die. (BCNovels Ch. 44)

Yet again, this is a translation of the same phrase as before, and while not incorrect in terms of a literal translation, the true intention of the phrase does not carry over well to western audiences.

Within the novel itself, there is nothing that directly implies that Shen Yuan was terminally or chronically ill. The headcanon itself is valid as a headcanon, but not if it is taken as a canonical fact.

Of course, it cannot be entirely disproven either-- which is why this post is rated as fanon-unsupported instead of fanon-conflicting. One could argue that his cavalier attitude toward Without-A-Cure could be a result of past experience with chronic illness, or his general disconnect from his past life and body, and that would be a fair enough interpretation-- however, it could also be explained by something like depression (while I am well aware that depression is a chronic illness, the fanon of chronically ill Shen Yuan almost always is referring to specifically physical chronic illness). Either interpretation would be equally arguable, and fans should choose whichever resonates with them personally to use in their works or otherwise for themselves-- or neither, if they would prefer!

However, it should NOT be argued that chronically/terminally ill Shen Yuan is a canonically-proven fact, as it is based on an inaccurate interpretation by a translator, not on the original text itself , and it should not be spoken of as if it is any kind of erasure for Shen Yuan not to be portrayed as chronically ill.

The idea had already circulated throughout western fandom circles by the time the official English TL came out-- so it was deeply entrenched within fanon by then, and many fans likely didn't pay too much attention to the changes because of this. However, the official translation interprets the two passages listed above the following way:

Still, Shen Qingqiu was a man of few needs; he would have been satisfied just idling away to a ripe old age. In that way, it wouldn’t be that different from how his previous life had been going. (7S Ch. 1)

[Shen Yuan's appearance] just had a bit of a certain listlessness—the listlessness of a worthless pretty boy idling his life away. (7S Ch. 9)

This translation, while not word-for-word, is far more accurate in spirit, and much harder to misinterpret.

Because of misunderstandings such as this one, I highly recommend that fans who have not yet read the official translation do so, as many other such inaccuracies and misinterpretations have been clarified in this translation.

[gildedphoenix]

During the great depression, somebody made a wish. Fueled by desperation, powered by the pure dumb luck of being in the right place at the right time to be heard by an ancient Djinn (it was totally Desire) with a sense of humor. 

After the wish, everyone had a red string hanging off their left pinky. It dangled down a few inches and then just faded into non-existence. Nobody knew what it was for a few years but then stories started coming out. People finding their perfect match after feeling a tug at their string and following it. The string would twist and twine and lengthen as you got closer to your fated mate, your strings eventually connecting together. 

Most people’s strings just hung limp. Maybe listing in one direction or another. But 8 Billion people in the world and only one is your soul mate? Most people didn’t meet theirs. It was true that your soulmate was always within 10 years of age as you. But 10 years older to 10 years younger still gave you a 20 year range to work with. Everyone’s string appeared by the time they were 10. Some babies were born with their string already spun, a small red thread fading off into a wisp after a scant inch. 

Nowadays, it was common to go on a “string chase” vacation after graduating high school. Some people were close enough to their soulmates that they could just follow the leadings of their string, which would become longer and more opaque the closer you got to your mate. If your string gave you no leads, there were all kinds of "methods" to help pick which direction you should go.

Tucker and Sam were determined to go on string chase journeys post graduation. Tucker because he loved the excitement of an adventure, Sam to find someone who would truly understand her.

Danny was not so hopeful. At one point they'd all agreed to go together, but Sam felt like she was being led to the west coast while Tucker was just going to start in Metropolis, the nearest big city and go from there, hopping the next train out of town after a few days if he still had a slack string.

After a lengthy discussion of pros and cons, they decided that Tucker was more likely to get himself into trouble than Sam, so Danny found himself packing light and on a Greyhound to Metropolis. It was a shitty trip. Objectively the worst way to travel. Walking, or even hitch hiking would have been more pleasant. The bus was late. They had no way of making their connection in Chicago, and the vent fan in the bathroom was broken, making the bus reek of sewage.

Danny has shit luck and just doesn't believe he'll ever find his soulmate. The universe just doesn't like him that much.

Jason has, somehow, always had a leading direction on his string. When he was younger, there was nothing he could do about it. And now he had baggage and didn't want to pursue romance or relationship. (Even though he's a total sap for soulmate meet stories)

While in Gotham, both their strings keep tugging and lengthening and then falling slack again.

----

I know this isn't much but I promised myself I would post whatever I had and it's almost 1 am. So there. There's that fucking thing. I'll try to flesh it out more tomorrow, Enjoy red ♥️🧵♥️

[a-land-lacking-sleep]

A brief thought on the parallels of the Subway Bosses, The Tao Trio, and Warden Ingo's place

@waywardstation just made an amazing post on her thoughts of Warden Ingo's parallels to Kyurem. Nothing in the game directly connects the two, just like nothing in the game connects the Subway Bosses to the Dragons in Generation V. But the connections are still there regardless, because Game Freak made sure to fill Unova with so much symbolism.

These are the basic thoughts that connect each Man to their Dragon.

Subway Boss Ingo - Ideals; Aspire to greatness, never give up in your journey

Subway Boss Emmet - Truth; You are who you are, there is no need for a mask

Warden Ingo - Void; What is there when you lose who you are? No drive for greatness, nothing to mask. Ideals, Truths, nothing matters except the ground beneath your feet.

In each game that they appear, Ingo and Emmet are relatively flat characters. In Gen 5, they have enough personality to stick in your mind, and nothing past. And in PLA, Ingo's whole personality is "I lost my memory and am depressed, but have hope". Instead, we end up looking at word choice, and in the Subway Bosses cases, other media.

Subway Boss Ingo, across most media, embodies Ideals. He has his eyes to the future, always pushing himself and others to continue onwards. He frames battling and training as a journey ("What can I see after winning, winning, and winning? Where is my destination?"; "Your talent has brought you to the destination called Victory!"; "There is no terminal called End in your life!"), most often when he is victorious. He seeks to create his Ideal self, and wants to push others to do the same.

This comes up in Pokemon Masters EX as well, where the "no terminal" line returns (in an appropriately spooky tone), he also spends time in the Day With Ingo story event talking about how he seeks to better himself and "break through the mold of [his] past self". This event is also the first time he mentions the phrase "greater heights", which appears another 6 times in various snippets in Masters. And finally, we have a triple whammy of travel metaphors for growth in his level up lines.

For Subway Boss Emmet, his connection to Truth is admittedly a bit more tenuous. He doesn't have any tendency for truth-seeking or investigations (outside of the famous behavior in the manga where he likes to eavesdrop on drama, which gossip isn't exactly truthful), but what he has is a strong showing of being truthful, even if he ends up being blunt or disrespectful.

As a consequence of his writing in Japanese giving him a very casual way of speaking, the English translation has him speak in shorter clips, just the bare essentials. The naked truths of his thoughts. He doesn't seek the Truth, or give a Universal Truth; Emmet is True to himself and to those around him. (As a side note, I love when people give power to other usages of the word True through Reshiram. I did it in my fic with a turn of phrase, but I've seen it done beautifully in other works too).

In Pokemon Special, Emmet doesn't hide the truth of why they asked White to train on the Battle Subway ("We're studying you as an example of a Trainer who gets overwhelmed and loses every battle!" "That's not nice, Emmet."), not because he is intending to be rude (Ok, a little bit), but because that *is* what they are using her for. In the games, he speaks of how Pokemon battles can be decided on luck ("I won against you. But I think I just got lucky."), because the Truth of the matter is, you can be highly trained and just have a bad day or get hit by a critical hit. But, most importantly, he believes that battles must be serious for them to be fun. Because what fun is there in putting up a fake fight, when you could just be True to yourself?

Now, to speak on the connection of Warden Ingo to Kyurem, we must first understand what Kyurem is to Zekrom and Reshiram. On a surface level, it is a Husk, a leftover revenant that can be reassembled into a simulacrum of the Original being. But looking into the actual symbolism of them all is where you find threads of connection to the Warden.

Reshiram, the Dragon of Yin, is representative of a more static element, receptive of change but passive in how it does so. It is a recursive existence that reaches out and pulls back towards itself - Everyone has an individual Truth, but that is still able to be changed by The Truth. However, one does not go out and change The Truth, only altering the perception of it while it passively exists. You cannot change what is already there, only create something new. In comparison, Emmet is never really shown to focus on the future, but rather on the present. He knows of the Truth in his life, and while it can be changed by present actions, he knows that he cannot go back to change it, so there is no need to try, or to hide it.

Zekrom, the Dragon of Yang, is active, ever expanding, and pushes up against those around it in it's search for Ideals. Ideals cause you to seek out a goal, to leave your home, your comfort zone, and push away from the past. To represent Ideals is to be in constant flux; Settling into a form makes you into a Truth, as an Ideal is a goal, something attainable, yet unreachable. We've gone over Ingo's future-forward gaze, constantly thinking about what is to come. Life is a journey, and every step you take in life is a step to self-improvement.

Kyurem is a Husk, a Shell. According to Bulbapedia, it is representative of Wuji ("Without a roof"), the absense of Yin and Yang, or "The Ultimate Nothingness". For this reason, I personally also attribute to it Mu, a concept of non-existence and negative space, specifically the lack of something normally there (modern Japanese actually uses "mu-" as a prefix the same way English has the suffix "-less"). Interestingly, the Japanese transliteration of Wuji is "Mukyoku" (lit. Non-polar, another translation of Wuji), connecting the two concepts neatly. In short, Kyurem represents Nothing and Everything.

Kyurem was supposedly the Original Dragon, the deity of Unova that represented Truths and Ideals in unison, a embodiment of Yin and Yang's harmony. In a sense, the Original Dragon was an embodiment of Everything, Unova's spirit of unity. Then, with the war between the Twin Princes (another pair also frequently compared to Ingo and Emmet, in case you think I forgot my boys), it was split into 2, but secretly 3, parts. This third secret part became Kyurem, a being lacking in its original qualities, leaving Nothing but the Husk.

Now, finally, we can get to everyone's favorite uncle, Warden Ingo. His connection to Kyurem is probably the least intentional of them all (which is saying something, because I'm honestly convinced that the Subway Bosses' own connections aren't intentional, but rather just a result of how Unova games were written with Truth vs. Ideal being ingrained heavily), but there still is one. As Wayward says in her fateful post, "Warden Ingo is an empty husk of who he once was ever since he was separated from his life, and from Emmet." Ingo as the Subway Boss may not have embodies the Everything that the Original Dragon has, but pairing with Emmet so closely still meant that Truth and Ideals mixed so cleanly that it might as well have been Everything.

However, the most important connection for Warden Ingo are the concepts of Wuji and Mu. To be "the Ultimate Nothingness" or "Non-Polar" means to be devoid of Everything, yet still have the capability to be far more than Nothing. The singular concept of Mu may mean that Warden Ingo is missing who he is and was, but that is not who we grow know in the game; We connect with a man who is slowly piecing together his sense of self, remembering facets of his past and growing happier with who he can be. Thus, the Mu transitions into Wuji, a void that isn't Empty so much as lacking.

The importance of distinction is that Mu is by nature Empty, while Wuji is Empty and Everything, limitless and confined. Similarly, Ingo is devoid of what made him him (His drive for self-improvement is impaired, even while he pushes the player to climb to greater heights), but becomes something new in the meta-narrative of the story. His actual, plot-related story ends when you quell Electrode and he becomes a challengeable NPC at the Training Grounds, but he becomes something of a kindred spirit in the greater plot of the game. He's like you, a Faller who has lost themselves, and also like you, an avid battler who pushes the system to it's limits (especially in the Path of Solitude).

In short, the connection between Kyurem and Warden Ingo isn't anything in the text, as Kyurem has no explicit in-game theming attached to it like Zekrom and Reshiram, and Warden Ingo doesn't have strong philosophical points that seeps out of the words he says to you. But when you look at the meta-theming for Kyurem, and subsequently Warden Ingo's meta-narrative, the connections become clearer.

Does some of this make no sense? Of course! A lot of this is extrapolating what was said in Wayward's post, and what came from my head as I thought of it. A lot of the connections of the twins to the Dragons has been discussed since 2010, but for all intents and purposes, Warden Ingo is a different character from Subway Boss Ingo. Narratively, he is the same person, hence why his appearance is a tragedy in Legends Arceus, one which we never get to solve. But on a meta level, he functions so differently, and lives so differently, that the themes he inhabits do not match up to the Subway Boss in any way. To end this on a sad note, Warden Ingo is exactly like Kyurem - Broken. He has lost what made him whole, and we've been shown that just reinserting Ideals isn't enough. Hopefully, if Game Freak decides to touch upon the Warden once more, we can find a way to reinsert his Truths as well.

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

Simon is sad.

Ice King is a joke.

Winter King is a threat.

So, I kinda love how much further we explore into the differences between Simon and Ice King and all the parts in between.

With the Crown, Simon's personality gets injected with boundless, reckless, thoughtless confidence - which appears to have its roots in Evergreen or specifically, Gunter's perception of Evergreen.

However, Simon also infused the Crown's influence with his weird quirks, his desperation for love, and his immeasurable grief.

In a different post, I wrote that the root of the Crown's curse latched onto Simon's love, which in its own way is his grief as well. These powerful emotions were decentralized so that even if Ice King couldn't quite understand the source of them, he felt them hard. And moreover, these emotions clouded his capacity to function.

So aaaaaall that infinite confidence tempered and sabotaged by Simon's sorrow, making Ice King into a joke. Oh, sure he's manipulative liar like the way he lied to Finn when he was trapped in the spirit world. But he's quite incompetent.

His intentions aren't any less selfish or destructive but he's just So Bad at the follow through. Absolutely dysfunctional. That makes him easier to laugh at even when he's doing stuff like slapping tape on PB's mouth as she's sleeping because he "breaks up with her" in the next minute.

Winter King wouldn't need tape. That's the difference. Winter King is frightening because he can in fact follow through on all of his selfish and destructive impulses. When he lies, he can get away with it because he's a *good liar*. He's charming without being sad. He's confident without being annoying.

Winter King has Evergreen's strengths and Simon's charisma and wields it with deadly intent because he also lacks Simon's conscience and Simon's fixation on love and connection - true love and connection that isn't something he made in a lab. The fact that Winter King can be satisfied with hollow dolls that resemble his loved ones is TELLING.

Winter King and Ice King are fundamentally separated by their levels of lucidity and competence. And that's pretty much it. Even Winter King's memories remain frosted over and nothing like the original Simon Petrikov's

Which leads me to the original Simon Petrikov. I truly enjoyed the way Simon is differentiated from Ice King and Winter King simply by showing his compassion - which both lacked. Simon immediately plead for Bubblegum's life whereas Winter King was like Nope.

That was so good. Just emphasizing how the Simon and Ice King aren't a 1 to 1 reflection or transformation. Or in other words, that Ice King is not entirely Simon and Simon isn't entirely Ice King.

Also the subtext of Simon secretly resenting Winter King, being unsure if he wanted to be just like this weirdo who just goes around calling himself radical. This chuunibyou motherfucker. He really wants to be that? Really?

But again! Simon's vindication at learning that the Crown can't be fought! Because also fighting is such hardwork and he spent a thousand or so years trying to do it, failing to do it. The way he almost whined at the Winter King, "but it's just so hard to fight the Crown", and he's just so tired. He's just too sad.

In the same way that Fionna wanted an easy, fun, no consequences adventure - Simon wants an easy, quiet, no consequences solution to all his depression. Simon doesn't want to be happy because happiness takes hardwork. All the shit that the Winter (Willpower) King was shilling? That's a lot of elbow grease.

Simon just wants to opt out of existence. Let the Crown take the wheel. He's done driving.

But therein lies... his curse. Winter King is euphoric because it came at the cost of the compassion that defines Simon Petrikov. Love and compassion is at the root of Simon's sorrow, but it's also the thing that keeps him here. Because Simon simply can't *not* help someone - even Fionna who has been a straight up dick to him this whole time.

Simon thinks that there's a "right way" to be cursed because he's holding onto the belief that he could stop existing and not hurt or harm anyone by choosing to do so. And this will keep him on the search. This will keep him as himself for another sad and hurting day, until he can find a way to run - flee without hurting anyone.

Spoiler: It's impossible.

[etoilesbienne]

out of curiosity, what are the common qEtoiles mischaracterizations, and the accurate characterizations you wished people used more? Sincerely, an English speaking fan who is re-learning French!

honestly i kind of consider it a mischaracterization when people like... make etoiles into this team leader who always knows what to do and move things forward. or like that he has a bad attitude to like... match his fighting skills. or like the dark knight brooding warrior. he says he is these things. these are lies. he lies about himself constantly. i wouldnt trust a good 2/3 of the things he says about himself to be true. you read him clearer through his actions than his statements.

in my opinion etoiles is more like. sturdy second in command. he's not there to lead, he's there to fill in the holes where they pop up. he's there as cover. he's quick witted in shortchange scenarios, but that is so not the same thing as a genuine strategist. in another expression, if someone is a leader, the leader is a doctor, etoiles's role is more like... the EMS team in an ambulance. He's not there to fix your problem, he's there to keep your problem covered until you can get someone else to fully fix it. but that doesn't mean his role is any less important when he's needed.

Etoiles is also, like, so very much a team player if he respects and trusts a person. And it is so easy to have his respect and trust. His trust starts at 100% for everyone. he's also so very very very good at reading people (gesture to the bbh clip where bbh moves his mouse slightly downward and etoiles calls him out on being depressed). He read Mousey as enjoying dungeons and pvp way more and wanting to hang out with her. He's also one of the only people who like continuously runs in the girlies group and makes all of them pvp with him and they all love it so he keeps coming back to pvp with them. Thats how he started his whole thing with Tina and pvping with her constantly. Reading other people also, he loves finding other pvpers so he attacks roier constantly now bc he knows roier can pvp.

What else OH Etoiles loves whining (and this is because Rayou loves whining) that dude will just complain constantly. You haven't seen an etoiles stream if youve never seen him whine. Can't say I'm not kind of endeared by it. With this too he loves over explaining things (RIP armor powerpoint wish you couldve been given...) because he wants to help everyone....

OH and he's very over exaggerated too in replying to people in a complaining way and a self deprecating way and also likes to try to push the envelope with people and he does all of that to try and get a laugh out of others. like he's well aware people find him going "Oh so you don't give a shit about me and want me to die ? you want etoiles to die ?" fucking hilarious and also loves complaining in the first place thats why he does that. if your etoiles isn't complaining and whining then it isn't etoiles. the self deprecating thing is... its interesting bc he does have full faith in his abilities but will never say it out loud unless its trying to reassure someone who is worried. pushing the envelope is so specific he won't do it too much and its like........... from what ive seen (correct me if im wrong) heavily directed at non francophones where if they laugh at something wack he's done he'll try to do it again to make them laugh more. shoutout to the time he made bbh laugh so much when he cursed he didn't get languaged by bbh so he kept cursing to try to make bbh do it again. the dudes a total people pleaser.

smaller thing ive talked about extensively already (u can prob find it in my q!etoiles tag if i remember i'll edit a link to the posts in here soon lol) etoiles hates losing he looooooves winning he's very intense about it lol. its cute!

on a final note even if you don't become deeply unwell about etoiles like i am i think this highlight clip video has like everything he's like condensed into like 11 minutes. You should watch it. It's a good starting point.