#to preface: having these two in a drawing does not imply a relationship in a good light.

[t1koy-roll]

An angel would grow their wings if I chose to post more about these two being the messiest ever but I'm worried people can't handle the melodrama of it all Original panel:

[curlsofsagesmoke]

TMNT (2012) characters as dysfunctional family roles

here I go again analyzing a kids show that ended four years ago. anyway, I saw a tiktok by user doinbigthink where they gave a quick overview of the six kinds of dysfunctional family roles, and I immediately thought of tmnt bc it’s my current hyperfixation. so I spent almost an hour doing research and writing up this analysis, as one does.

as a preface: dysfunction in a family can be caused by anything from someone struggling with addiction to a parent being abusive or unavailable/neglectful to someone having narcissistic personality disorder (npd) etc. etc. Usually there is one person who is the root cause of this (very deep seated) dysfunction and the others in the family (often the kids) fall into these roles in order to cope.

Leo: The Hero

The Hero is often the oldest child. They cope with the dysfunction in the family by being high achievers or perfectionists, and they need a sense of control in order to feel safe within the family. They are seen as very well-adjusted, balanced, and high-functional and are often used as an example of how well the family as a whole is doing. They may allow this misconception to continue (whether consciously or unconsciously) in order to hide the family’s problems. They may be parentified as children (that is, forced to take on a parental role for their younger siblings) and usually feel a lot of pressure to solve the family’s issues. With Leo in particular, you see these two behaviors in the way he approaches leading his brothers as well as the way he obsessed over bringing Karai into the family for Splinter’s sake after discovering her true identity. As an adult, the Hero is often drawn toward romantic partners who are emotionally unavailable (again, see Leo’s crush on Karai) and tend to throw themselves into their work (Leo’s obsession with ninjutsu)

Leo: The Golden Child

The Golden Child is not a dysfunctional family role but instead describes a relationship that develops between a parent/guardian with npd and one of the children in the family. In these cases, the parent tends to favor the Golden Child because the Golden Child exhibits all the traits the parent loves in themselves. In Splinter and Leo’s case, these characteristics are their devotion to ninjutsu, their general temperaments, and their more spiritual/mystic natures. There are MANY examples of this favoritism in TMNT canon; for example, Splinter teaching Leo his reiki technique (the healing hands) in “the deadly venom” because everyone things Leo is the most capable of learning such an advanced technique (in the episode, Donnie says that he doesn’t think anyone else on the team could’ve done what Leo did, i.e. using the healing hands on himself and saving the others from karai). The parent has a volatile relationship with the Golden Child and often their love is conditional (that is, the parent will favor the Golden Child as long as the Golden Child continues to act like the parent). Because of this, the Golden Child often has trouble establishing an independent identity (see: Raph calling Leo “Splinter Jr.”, though I can’t remember if this happens in 2012 or just in the 2003 version). The Golden Child may also participate in the narcissistic parent’s abuse against the other children in order to protect themself (this is less explicit in canon, but I think that Leo’s leadership style fits this bill)

Raph: The Scapegoat

The Scapegoat is often the second child. As the name suggests, they are often blamed for things that go wrong in the family regardless of whether it was actually their fault or not. Scapegoats are often very aware of their position in the family and as a result they may feel rejected, isolated, and unlovable. I think a good example of Raph feeling like this is the fact that, early in the show, he only openly expresses his emotions to Spike. Scapegoats learn that negative attention is better than no attention (especially from a parent/guardian) and they often engage in high risk behaviors such as sex, drugs, etc. (in Raph’s case, his reckless fighting style and the way he seeks out fights, and this also explains his temper and overall angry demeanor). Because of this, they tend to get into a lot of trouble and are often singled out as the child who needs individual help (aka therapy) even though the root problems lie with the family as a unit. In cases where the parent has npd the Scapegoat is often pitted against the Golden Child. This is called splitting and it is another way to distract from the family’s deeper issues. I feel like I don’t need to explain the way that Leo and Raph are pitted against each other.

Donnie: The Lost Child

The Lost Child, as the name implies, often fades into the background. Usually this is on purpose in an effort to keep themself safe, as they might be scared to draw attention to themself or rock the boat, especially in an abusive household. They may often feel ignored or neglected and are often described as loners who have difficulty developing social skills or self-esteem. Like the Hero, the Lost Child is often used as an example of the family’s stability and success because they aren’t causing trouble. They tend to struggle when forming friendships/romantic relationships, and they are usually praised for not needing a lot of attention/being independent. Because of this, they feel safer when they’re by themselves. Although Donnie does cause trouble sometimes (see: all the times he’s blown some shit up in the lab, the Mutagen man thing, etc.), he’s not seen as the troublemaker. Raph (and Mikey, to a certain extent) definitely takes that title. Donnie is often alone in his lab---working, admittedly, but he still tends to isolate himself, and he is often seen as the most socially awkward of the brothers (see: his relationship with April). There’s also this very interesting exchange from the episode “Enemy of My Enemy” when they’re in the Shellraiser and Leo is about to take the stealth bike to help Karai:

Raph: Hey, the stealth bike’s my thing. Leo: Now your thing is sucking it up. Donnie: Hey! That’s my thing!

Mikey: The Mascot

The Mascot is often the youngest child. They use humor and goofiness to diffuse tension and distract the family from their issues, though when this works, they feel increased pressure to continue to step in when things become tense or volatile. The Mascot acts from a place of anxiety and trauma, and they may have bouts of depression. They also tend to feel as though they cannot express their negative emotions (because they often see themselves as responsible for their family’s happiness). They tend to bend over backwards for people with little regard for their own safety/comfort, and they are drawn to intense and dysfunctional relationships (whether romantic or platonic) where they will be called upon to diffuse tension. This can be seen in the way Mikey approached his friendships with both Bradford (pre-mutation) and Leatherhead. Mikey is also very rarely shown as being sad, angry, or depressed the way that the other three are, and it’s only in times of extreme emotional distress (like the season two finale) where he drops his humor. Even in the midst of tough battles or tough situations, Mikey tends to insert himself into the middle of the tension and is almost constantly cracking jokes or trying to keep things lighthearted. When he does show more negative emotions, it’s in (mostly) one of two ways. One, giving comfort or seeking comfort, usually from Raph (again see the season two finale, where he hugs Raph to calm him down after Splinter “dies” and seeks comfort from Raph in the Party Wagon as they’re driving away from the city). Two, acting combative with Donnie.

Note: Mikey and Donnie acting combative

This second one in particular is really interesting to me because both Donnie and Mikey exhibit a level of comfort/feeling safe with each other that they don’t display with the other two. Mikey only ever gets physical with Donnie (their little slap fight in “Turtle Temper” or attacking him at the end of “The Creeping Doom”), while Donnie only ever purposefully antagonizes Mikey to get a reaction (slapping him in “Turtle Temper”, which prompts the slap fight, or teasingly insulting him at the end of “The Creeping Doom”, which prompts Mikey to attack him). Mikey likes to get under Raph’s skin, but he never retaliates when Raph gets physical with him. Donnie does occasionally argue with Raph and Leo, but usually backs down after Raph threatens him with violence (see “New Girl in Town”), and with Leo it never escalates past a verbal fight (see the season two finale, “the fourfold trap”). Actually, it seems that in Mikey’s and Donnie’s relationship, they take on the roles that you usually see in Raph’s and Mikey’s relationship. Mikey antagonizes Raph and Raph retaliates; similarly, Donnie antagonizes Mikey and Mikey retaliates, but neither of them would act this way toward their other two brothers.

Splinter: The Root of the Dysfunction

I’ve made a lot of allusions by now to Splinter having npd, or at least some narcissistic tendencies. There are many times where he shows favoritism toward Leo or acts in a very stubborn or even self-absorbed manner. In the season one finale, for example, he refuses to help the turtles fight and only leaves the lair after april is kidnapped by the shredder. In “the pulverizer returns”, he makes the turtles switch weapons (for literally no good reason), they almost die in a fight and switch back, and as punishment, he takes their weapons away entirely; this isn’t addressed in the episode, but i do believe that if they’d had their weapons, they could’ve prevented timothy from being mutated in this episode. (Admittedly there are times when he apologizes, admits he’s wrong, and changes his mind, which is why I hesitate to say he exhibits fully narcissistic behaviors). There’s also the physical aspect of their relationship. He’s teaching the turtles ninjutsu, so you can expect a very physical relationship in the form of training, but there are times when he causes the turtles pain for the sake of pain as punishment (e.g. randori, which we see a few times, or when he goes for their pressure points, or when he trips mikey in the episode “monkey brains”, or when he stabs raph with his cane in the episode “turtle temper”, and these are just the examples i can think of off the top of my head). There has been discourse in the fandom about whether these characters (splinter and raph in particular) are abusive, and i don’t want to get into that. However, i think it’s undeniable that splinter raised his kids with the intent to turn them into child soldiers, and also i fully believe that this (plus his parenting style) is the root of the dysfunction in the hamato family.

[wooahaes]

one step together

pairing: non-idol!vernon x [implied!fem] reader

prompts: n/a (i really need comfort.)

word count: 1.1k~

warnings: allusions to reader having gone through sexual trauma. intimacy (of the sexual variety). attempt at said intimacy (getting undressed with the intent of more) after said trauma and it does not go well. intentional lowercase + no proofreading at all.

daisy’s notes: turning off reblogs for this one. purposefully being kept out of the tags. sorry to anyone who can relate: you guys don’t deserve this, either.

“do you trust me?”

vernon asks this every time the two of you take a step in your relationship. after the first few times of dodging his kisses, the two of you decided to take it slow. that’s where the question started popping up. every action is prefaced with a “can i?” before he takes your hand, or drapes his jacket over your shoulders, or presses a tiny peck against your forehead or cheek (areas that you tell him ahead of time will always be okay, but he asks nonetheless). the first time he kisses you, he asks if you trust him. it lasts for barely a few seconds, but he smiles at you afterward.

“see?” he says. he knows its your first kiss. “not scary, right?”

“it was still bad,” you say, self-conscious at your lack of experience.

he smiles at you nonetheless. “aw, babe,” he says, “it’s with you. i liked it. we can always practice later if you want.”

he laughs when you get flustered by that. you think you love him a little more.

the first time things go a little farther, he asks you again. you had been the one to initiate, yet his hands still stop at the hem of your shirt instead of tapping or tugging at the clothing. he tells you that you don’t have to go too far. it’s just one step out of your comfort zone, and no more unless you’re ready.

you trust him. he takes off your shirt, and goes back to kiss you just as hungrily as his hands explore every inch of your bare skin. that’s as far as you go, just as he said, and you’re okay with that. 

the next, he tries to take one more with you--always with. if you say no, he stops there and asks if you want anything else instead. if you want to be held (you do), or if he can still kiss you (sometimes a yes), or if you want him to leave (once: but only because you had been particularly freaked out, and he never took it personally). you take steps together.

“do you want to go farther?” he asks. both of your shirts are off. he’s toeing that line, yes, but all it takes is one word to stop him and turn this into a movie night.

do you trust him?

you do.

he helps you out of your jeans and you already feel a tightness in your chest. but he kisses you, and you try to let go a little more. his hands are roaming your skin, taking in every single inch now. he’s confident everywhere you aren’t, your back hitting the couch as he hovers over you. you try to let go, to focus in on vernon’s hands as he explores this new territory. he draws one back enough to reach for his own belt, the other grazing your jaw. you think you hear him mutter a soft “god, so fucking pretty...” against your neck. his belt gets unbuckled.

you can’t do this.

your chest is too tight, and you can’t breathe. you manage a quiet “vernon--”, but he’s already drawing away from you. something about the way your voice cracks, or maybe the fact you stop reciprocating (or the fact you’re about you’re close to hyperventilating) and he realizes it a moment later. he draws back, watching you, looking you over to make sure he didn’t hurt you.

he’s afraid. he’s afraid he hurt you. that he crossed a line and didn’t hear you sooner. it’s... new. he gives you space, not touching you.

“what do you want me to do?” he asks, and it’s genuine. “do you need space? do you want my hoodie? water?”

he has the hoodies he always buys in the biggest size just to wear and get his scent into draped over a nearby chair. he abandoned it earlier. your gaze lingers on it a little too long, and he already reaches for it. he drops it into your lap and gives you more space, already reaching for his abandoned shirt.

he watches you pull it on, hugging the fabric close to you as you try to calm yourself back down. he reaches out, gently taking your hands in his own, and he starts counting and breathing with you with the patience of someone you think has done it too many times for you. but if it annoys him, he never shows it. you don’t think it does. you think he might actually, fully love you.

once you’re breathing normally again, he lets go of your hands. he smooths down your hair as best as he can, not getting too close. the sight of your boyfriend, bare-chested and looking kinda hot would normally fluster you. instead, he still just looks worried, too preoccupied with your own well-being to consider putting on a shirt.

“too much?”

you nod.

“that’s okay, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss onto the top of your head. “i’m sorry i didn’t notice sooner.’

you shut your eyes, and let him pull you into his arms, cradling your face against his chest. “it’s okay,” you mumble against his skin. “you still noticed. i should have said something sooner--”

“you weren’t into it,” he says. “it’s okay.” he pulls you a little further into his lap, holding you tight once you melt into him. you can hear his heart beating, and you already know it was racing earlier. it’s calm, now. you almost want to fall asleep listening to it. “which part was too much? do you wanna talk about it now?”

you’ve told him before: the vulnerable part. the part where he sees you and the idea of him still wanting you afterward. that’s the part that’ll always scare you the most. being seen and thrown away hurt like hell, but what do you do with someone who sees you and still wants you? how do you cope with actually being loved?  it always chokes you up worse.

“is it... the actual sex part?” he says. “we don’t have to do it. i just....”

he thought you were ready because you thought you were ready.

you wrap your arms around him a little tighter. one step forward, even if it felt like you took steps back by panicking. why can’t you just be nor--

“stop it.” he says. he knows you too well at this point. “you’re hurt,” he says. “i told you i’d wait for you as long as it takes.”

“but what if i’m never ready?”

“then i won’t be, either,” he tells you. “i love you. okay?” he presses another kiss onto your forehead. “i love you.”

you believe him. one step forward is still a step forward, you decide. even if you took steps back, you were taking them together. that’s all that mattered.

[caffeinatedseri]

Dazai and No Longer Human’s Yozo

It’s no secret that BSD’s Dazai draws heavily from his real life counterpart, especially from his semi-autobiographical work: No Longer Human. To preface, No Longer Human is written from the perspective of the main character Yozo, with the book itself being a documentation of Yozo’s notebooks (essentially his journals) throughout his life. 

As you progress through the novel, it becomes increasingly clear that Yozo lives an extremely two-sided life; his foolish personality acts as a facade to others in attempts to hide the darker nature within him. 

Dazai shares that obvious similarity with Yozo, but Dazai is characterized in a somewhat vague and mysterious way that leaves a lot of his inner thoughts up to interpretation and inferences. Thus, I’ll be going through some of my favorite quotes from No Longer Human and analyzing Dazai’s character through his similarities to Yozo.

(For the sake of readability, excerpts from No Longer Human will be in pictures, and quotes from the light novel will be in regular block quotes).

Dazai and Yozo’s Participation in Clownery

To start off, Dazai noticeably participates in the same “clowning” as Yozo, which in particular stands out with PM Dazai.

““How did your leg get hurt?” I pointed to the bandages, thinking that it must be the result of some violent fight. “I was reading a book titled ‘How to Prevent Accidental Injuries’ while walking when I accidentally fell into a ditch.” I wasn’t expecting such an abnormal response.” — LN 2, Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era (Oda’s POV)

This is pretty standard Dazai behavior, but the interesting part is how Yozo specifically used the word “deceiving.” If we were to assume Yozo’s true thoughts are Dazai’s as well, then it would imply that Dazai feels as if he’s manipulating people with his absurd claims (such as the above). However, in actuality, his clownish behaviors sound more like a joke, or some type of self-deflection, rather than an attempt to manipulate people. (Yozo also states that he would often incriminate himself by overexaggerating certain things, but I don’t think Dazai does that).

The second statement Yozo makes implies that he doesn’t care about ethics, morality, or the supposed “right way” of living life that’s described as “righteousness.”

Yozo’s statement on “righteousness” parallels Dazai’s in Dark Era, but Dazai’s statement carries a slightly different sentiment. Rather than being indifferent to the likes of morality, Dazai says that he’s “hated” by the concept of morality. 

I’ll be speculating a bit here → It’s heavily implied that Dazai had some sort of dark past that led him to joining the mafia, since he was already suicidal prior to doing so. This suggests that something affected his life so drastically to the point where he could no longer trust in such things as “righteousness,” because righteousness has wronged him in the past.

First, Yozo expresses his fear of people discovering his true nature under the mask of clownery, which would then lead to them pestering him for further inquiry. However, his real fear is that people would mistake his true nature as another part of his typical clownery.

More so than before, this attitude reminds me more of Dazai in the agency, rather than him in the mafia. Even though Dazai danced around darker topics in his conversations with Oda, he was still able to talk about them without much conflict. However, in the agency, Dazai doesn’t talk much about himself or any of his personal issues at all. 

Although this scene has comedic overtones, it’s interesting to see that no one would help Dazai if he was actually dying. Still, it could be argued that the other agency members knew it was just Dazai’s regular antics. (or that Dazai wouldn’t die in the first place). 

This scenario repeats itself another time when Dazai gets kidnapped by the mafia, and the other agency members kind of just brush it aside. As much as they may trust Dazai to take care of himself (which I’m sure he can do), it’s worrying that the other members may not be open to Dazai’s possible attempts at reaching out for help, if he were ever to make one. 

In LN 4, 55 Minutes, Atsushi addresses this issue by asking Dazai why he wants to kill himself, but the answer is left open-ended, with Atsushi himself not remembering the answer (or if Dazai even did answer). You could interpret Dazai’s change from his time in the PM as an improvement of his mental state — which I have no doubt that has happened — but Dazai needs to face his issues head-on if he truly wanted to reconcile with his past.

“Perhaps someone should persistently tie Dazai up, open the lid over his chest and stuff the head of a vacuum cleaner in. They have to let Dazai, who should be screaming in pain and resisting, settle down. Following which, the difficult things in his heart must all be dragged out under the sun and stepped on mercilessly.“ — LN 2, Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era

Oda, the man who understood Dazai more than anyone else could at the time, even specifically stated that the pain in Dazai’s heart must be forcefully dragged out, because he knew that this would ultimately be the most beneficial for Dazai’s sanity.

Throughout No Longer Human, Yozo is often misunderstood by others, or other people simply don’t care about him.

When Dazai goes to visit Oda’s grave in Dead Apple, Atsushi finds him and assumes that he’s visiting the grave of someone important to him, as an act of respect or remembrance, something of the sort. However, Dazai makes the automatic assumption that his “clownish words of deceit” (as stated by Yozo) will always be prioritized over the truth, which is why he chooses to brush off his actions as a joke. 

Although I made the point earlier that the agency members don’t give Dazai opportunities to open up about himself, Atsushi is notably different, similarly to Oda, because he’s able to take Dazai seriously and persist even through his antics. 

Atsushi takes Dazai’s act of visiting a grave seriously, even when Dazai plays it off, because he knows Dazai is a person just like anyone else. This understanding between them leads to Dazai telling Atsushi about Oda, thereby allowing Dazai to divulge a crucial part of his past.

Dazai and Yozo’s Friendships

Similarly to Yozo, Dazai’s attempt at “disentangling” himself from these relationships only serves to wear him out in the end. However, they also slightly differ in a way: Yozo is unable to form any friendships for his whole life, but Dazai had Oda. I would argue that Oda was Dazai’s only friend, mostly because of this quote:

“Odasaku understood him far beyond what Dazai had ever thought. He had already reached close to his heart, the place near the center of his heart. Before this, Dazai had never noticed there was someone who understood him so well. For the first time in his life, Dazai wanted to know something from the depths of his heart.” — LN 2, “Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era”

Oda was special to Dazai because Oda was able to understand him — maybe even more than Dazai could understand himself — which is why Oda is the only person that Dazai asks for advice from. 

However, Dazai does the same thing as Yozo when he “plays the clown” as a form of self-protection from such valuable friendships. (which is probably preventing him from becoming closer to the rest of the agency).

“Things that we don’t want to lose will definitely be lost. Now that it has come to this, I have no more feelings anymore. Things worth pursuing will always disappear the moment before you get them. Nothing is worth prolonging a painful life to pursue.” — LN 2, “Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era”

Interestingly enough, Dazai says this when Ango is revealed to be a spy — before Oda dies. If Dazai was in this state of distress from Ango’s betrayal, you could only imagine how devastating Oda’s death was. 

Dazai speaks as if he’s speaking from experience, which suggests that he’s faced a similar loss in the past. Despite this implied experience, he still became friends with Oda (and Ango to an extent), fully knowing that it would only bring him pain in the end. Dazai's statement here acts more as a front that makes him sound cold and detached from the situation, only to hide how he truly feels about losing one of his only friends. 

To give some context to this passage, Yozo’s partner, Yoshiko, had been sexually assaulted by a coworker, of which Yozo attributes the cause to her overly trusting nature. Thus, this leads to Yozo’s belief that trustfulness is inherently wrong or creates weakness.

Dazai’s hesitance to form friendships most likely stems from this same inability to trust others like Yozo, but Dazai does trust a few people, namely Chuuya, Oda, and Atsushi.

With Chuuya, there’s a different type of trust between him and Dazai. Their impeccable trust is obviously a key factor in their partnership as SKK, but there’s a certain limit with this trust. They certainly trust each other in battle, but I’d argue that this trust doesn’t extend to their personal business. 

As of now, we don’t know a lot about how SKK interacted with each other during their time in the mafia (which could change with the new LN), but I doubt PM Dazai would feel comfortable with confiding in Chuuya with anything because they (kind of) hated each other. The level of trust required for a friendship would involve a mutual understanding between two people, but Chuuya and Dazai haven’t necessarily shown us that they were able to do that.

Dazai essentially broke his trust with Chuuya by leaving the mafia on a whim, but he also intentionally antagonized himself to try to make Chuuya hate him.

This scene also has comedic overtones, but it suggests something a bit sadder about Dazai. There are possibly two motivations as to why Dazai chose to do this: (or a mix of the two)

1. Dazai didn’t want Chuuya to be incriminated as his accomplice when he became an enemy of the mafia.

2. Dazai wanted to push Chuuya away because Oda — Dazai’s most trusted friend — had just died. As a form of self-protection, Dazai broke whatever semblance of friendship he shared with Chuuya in order to prevent the same pain that came with Oda’s death. 

It’s also important to consider that trust is a 2-way street; both parties have to have the same level of trust in each other. Just like Yozo, if Dazai is unable to trust anyone, then he may have cut Chuuya off to protect him (since Chuuya may have trusted Dazai more than Dazai was able to reciprocate).

In contrast, Oda and Dazai have a level of unspoken trust that basically motivates Dazai to change his entire life. 

“Odasaku’s eyes radiate with conviction. The words are clearly said with some sort of strong basis. Is it past experience? Or perhaps someone’s suggestion? — He is trying to show Dazai the path he once walked. Dazai understands this. Dazai can trust it.“ — LN 2, “Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era”

Returning to Yozo’s question — “Is trustfulness a sin?” — Dazai answers it by showing us the strength of trust in this moment. Trust insinuates blind faith in another person, the willingness to believe someone else without logical reasoning, which makes it all the more important when PM Dazai — the genius prodigy who operates on a solely logical basis — is able to trust Oda and change his path in life. 

Atsushi is most likely the one that Dazai trusts the most in the agency, due to the aforementioned issues with the other members. However, it seems more like a budding trust that’s growing to become like Oda and Dazai, but it still requires Dazai to take that step forward to further their trust. 

Dazai and Yozo’s View of the World

In this scene, Yozo had made a decision for immediate gratification, but that choice caused him insufferable pain afterwards — supporting his belief that the world was a “place of bottomless horror.”

This parallels two of Dazai’s statements: one from Dark Era and one from Dead Apple.

“Please, take me with you. Wake me up from this rotten world of a dream. Come on, come on, come on!” — LN 2, “Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era”

(Dazai wasn’t talking about himself here, but the allusion sets up a situation where he can talk about himself indirectly — I talk about it more in my other post here)

We don’t really get a reason for why Dazai is suicidal, but from this we can infer that it’s something more complex than he makes it out to be — something like an issue deeply rooted within the world, with no easy solution. 

One could guess that this was the result of an unfortunate decision (like Yozo), or the realization that the world was simply a terrible place (possibly because no one cared for him as a kid and he had Mori as a “parental” figure instead).

Yozo expresses his lack of understanding in the compassion of human nature, but Dazai (as we know) seems to understand other people perfectly, as least enough to manipulate them.

However, this forms somewhat of a paradox: Dazai understands people so well to the point that he can’t understand them.

Dazai understands every flawed aspect of a human being — the tendency to manipulate, lie, kill, etc. — most likely because of his past as a young child. “Human beings never did teach” him the hopeful aspect of human nature  — the ability to love and cherish others.

Shibusawa in Dead Apple reflects this mindset, but take note of what Dazai says: “You wouldn’t be saying that if you actually had friends” — clearly a reflection of Dazai’s personal experience, by knowing how important friends are.

Yozo’s deathly fear of society tames itself when he comes to the realization that society is really just made up of a bunch of individuals working for their individual benefit, so he has no reason to fear society as a whole.

I don’t believe Dazai has this same fear of society, but he does reflect this individualistic mindset in the way he acts. Often enough, Dazai doesn’t tell anyone about his plans and would rather manipulate people into following such plans, even when it would be easier to cooperate. He always takes care of conflicts by himself, and by his standard.

Yozo’s fear of society possibly manifested into Dazai’s ostracization from society. More speculation here, but → My guess is that Dazai was alienated not only as a genius isolated for his intelligence, but also for his ability. There seems to be some division between regular society and ability-users’ society, but I can see Dazai being rejected by both because he’s the antithesis to all abilities. 

Regular society would either shun him like other users or attempt to exploit him for their personal gain (possibly for his intelligence AND his ability), or ability-users would see him as a threat and/or menace to their safety.

When Yozo considers a double suicide with his partner, he comes to this unsure conclusion of whether or not he actually wants to go through with it.

This reflects what Oda believes about Dazai:

“I thought you and Dazai were very similar, unable to see the value of your life, hoping for death, hence jumping into a world of violence and fighting. But that’s not the case. That guy is just a child who’s too smart. Just a crying child who’s been left alone in the darkness, a world of nothingness far emptier than the world we can see.“ — LN 2, “Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era”

At the end of the story, Gide and Oda are different from Dazai because they face an inevitable hopelessness. However, Dazai has a small spark of hope to live on that persists beyond the other two. 

This is represented in Dazai’s own statement to Oda, when Oda is set on walking to his death: “Go and rely on something, hope for something good to happen next, that something will definitely happen.” 

If anything, this sounds more like a plea to himself than to Oda, but it establishes an important point: hope is built upon the assumption that the future will treat your present desires well. Vice versa, hopelessness is built upon the expectation that the future will neglect your present desires.

It’s a bit wordy, so I’ll elaborate on. Right after Dazai says this line, they proceed to talk about their desires → Dazai wants to find a reason to live, so he joined the mafia; Oda wanted to become a novelist, so he didn’t kill anyone. 

Now, the difference between hope and hopelessness:

Oda feels hopeless because he expects that his present desire (to become a novelist) won’t be fulfilled in the future. By losing the one qualification that he felt he had to follow (not killing anyone), he no longer believes that he can become a novelist.

Dazai has hope because he assumes that his present desire (to find a reason to live) will be fulfilled in the future. He doesn’t know that for sure, but he persists onwards regardless of having full assurance or not. 

Dazai’s hope and trust in Oda brings him to where he is in the present, and takes him one step closer towards discovering his reason to live. 

[yakuzacasual]

My friend introduced me to your blog and I aM IN TEARS. Your writing is so good!! 😫 #WritersGoals. Your Relationship 101 with Shinada was adorable and now I'm soft! Do you have any ideas for Rikiya? I miss him a lot ;3; Thank you for writing!!💞

PREFACE

Sksks thank you so much for the kind words I am meeeeeelting here. R101 with Shinada is one of my favourite pieces I’ve written actually so I’m happy to see other people enjoy it as well. Please give my regards to your friend as well, I hope you’re both doing fantasic and I’m glad I could finally whip up a little something for out lovely boy Rikiya. Also ASAHI GAY RIGHTS, YES.

RELATIONSHIP 101 WITH RIKIYA SHIMABUKURO

It is most likely that he was the first one to approach you back in the days before your relationship. However, even if he did, he definitely doesn’t remember it. No matter how much you tease him for it or imply that it’s an act, he still just doesn’t. Maybe he was scoping you out for the longest time and getting drunk seemed like the only way to finally get himself to approach you or maybe it was the other way round where Rikiya approached you way too sober, embarrassed himself and just straight out fainted the moment you were out of the earshot? Mikio and God only know. And frankly, you’ll have better chances trying to learn it from the latter, because there is simply no way the blond cutie would ever betray his bro. 

On that note, it is of utmost importance for Rikiya to make sure that you and Mikio get along when he is not around. Both of you are now the most important people in his life and he simply cannot accept the relationship as it is if you’re not feeling comfortable around each other. Don’t take him for a wimp, he WILL step in. After all, you’ll be hanging out together quite a lot. The rule does apply differently depending on which one of you is the core of the problem, though. If it’s you being unnecessarily hard on Mikio, Rikiya is very likely to first get into a big fight about it with you and if nothing changes afterwards, he’ll just decide to break up. No matter how attached he may be to you, he is a firm believer of “bros before hoes” and you can’t change that. When it’s Mikio being mean, oh, that’s an entirely different story. He gets mad defensive about you, deflecting most criticisms that feel invalid with lines like “You’re just jealous”. It will put a strain on their relationship until the moment you and Miko end up working out your problems yourselves while Mr Shimabukuro is busy being sulky. And then he’s going to boast about how he resolved the situation. Silly man, but you both love him a lot.  

He does his absolute best to seem like the knight in a shining armour.  A bit loud and clumsy at times, sure, but romantic and traditional to a fault all the same. Rikiya is dead set on treating you like royalty. The basic gentleman etiquette is all there, sometimes to the point of being somewhat over the top, but he’s ready to do way more than that. He’ll be there at your every beck and call and will do pretty much anything you ask, even the most ridiculous or atrocious acts he is ready to undertake should you only ask. While he insists on doing literally everything for you, he wouldn’t let you do anything for him, which causes a great imbalance in the relationship. At some point it may end up feeling very overbearing and uncomfortable to you, but it’s surprisingly easy to solve if you just try and talk about it with Rikiya. He’ll be absolutely embarrassed by his own actions, but will definitely promise to draw a healthier line in his wish to support you.

If you’re not a local, this man will shower you in Okinawa trinkets and weird little facts only a true connoisseur would know. Being able to flex his robust knowledge of the land in front of his beloved makes him feel absolutely divine. He does expect you to make fun of him, though, like many others have done before, and would be pleasantly surprised when you either match his excitement or just let him carry on with a smile. He’ll get so, so soft if you praise him, too! And you can bet that you’re going to get the best guide around Okinawa you’ll ever have. He’ll introduce you to every single nook and cranny and you’ll get to meet every single of his local friends. Prepare to have to carry your boyfriend home, though. He’ll get teased to hell and back by every single person that stops you, about him manning up and finally getting himself a partner. No one will be even remotely surprised if you’re not on the feminine side, too. They’ll just accept you as you are, as long as you don’t break their favourite boy’s heart. Additionally, he doesn’t like to leave his home island all that much, but he definitely would not object to visiting your own home town should you ask him to.

Okay, so you know how he and Mikio basically were adopted by the orphanage as the favourite uncles? Well, you’re a part of that family now, deal with it. Even if you’re not exactly the type to like kids, getting to watch Rikiya play sports with them or try to help with homework he absolutely does not understand is as wholesome as it is hilarious. In a way, he’s got a hand for older children and would be over the moon to have you join him intaking care of them. You can count on the orphans to tell you about every time uncle Rikiya talks about you tenderly (or has talked in the past, even before you two were a thing) or is making heart eyes at you as you busy yourself with helping Haruka. He absolutely adores watching that side of his beloved that kids can take out of you, which often ends up with him fantasizing about the family he wishes to have with you some day.

[elytrafemme]

Mare I'm getting emotional over c!Wilbur again....I wanna know where he stands in terms of cough syrup. Like is he fun to write for you? Do you think his arc is interesting? I will love it regardless but I wanna hear your thoughts *does the little sad spongebob boowomp*

UNDERSTANDABLE i'm always emotional over him we can perpetually handshake on that

cs!wilbur is probably one of my favorite characters in cough syrup, but WOW he's fucking difficult to write.

like i didn't anticipate it because i feel like i got a really good grasp of his character overall when i started (he's one of the first characters whose concept i developed, and that's in part because it's heavily inspired both by his character and to be honest here, my brother), but like. the actual logistics of his character is difficult to execute

it's kind of like in canon, i'd like to think. there are a lot of things he'll just sit by and witness, taking quiet note of (because he's distrustful), but he'll draw the line in strange places. he's self destructive and because of that people don't really understand why he makes the decisions he makes. he acts like he's seen it all and takes pain in stride, but he's deeply sensitive and things hurt him even if he never realizes it and someone else, like cs!tommy, is the one to see it in him

i think his character is genuinely really interesting, though. because i think that narratively, in cough syrup, he's compared to a lot with cs!tubbo. he's everything that cs!tubbo doesn't want to be, and yet, in cs!tubbo's opinion, he's far better than cs!tubbo ever could be. cs!tubbo sees him as an older, kinder version of him, which is a very flawed perception of cs!wilbur's character

there are a couple scenes i'm excited to write with him. but overall, i really enjoy his character! i'm trying to think of what i can say that's already happened, but like. i'll say now that one of the characters i need to develop a lot more is cs!philza, but nevertheless i think the two of them have an interesting dynamic, and i really like the way that the cs!tntduo subplot is going to play out as well

i have plans to, for at least one of the chapters, write a oneshot that will probably be in cs!wilbur's perspective narrating a 'missing scene' within the fic -- aka none of the characters are with him at that point in time, but a lot of stuff that only is seen in the background later on develops there

i'm trying my best not to make him too much of a side character. because i think that's a massive disservice. but also, i will both preface and end this response by saying that though he does have an 'arc', it's not a very dramatic one.

a lot of cs!wilbur's character, as seen in cough syrup, developed prior to cough syrup. that's mentioned a lot in chapter 5 and i'll elaborate on it in later chapters, but the most significant things to happen to cs!wilbur happened without cs!tubbo knowing or before he was even there.

to be honest, a lot of his plot right now is more focused on trying to heal. he's very much the image of a person with big aspirations and dreams and a heart full of care for so many people, but at the same time, the kind of person who has had to cruelly face the fact that not all of that is possible for him, anymore.

so for him, a lot of it is navigating a relationship with cs!quackity (who, i can go into a whole thing for but it may be better suited to say after i write more of the fic-- just know that one of the biggest aspects of cs!tntduo is the stages of recovery both the characters are in, because hoo boy is it different). it's also trying to heal his relationship with cs!philza, cs!tommy, cs!tubbo, and (though not yet really discussed, only implied) cs!techno. his relationship with cs!techno is a big one that i don't know if it will get covered as much as it should but i hope i include it somewhere.

it's a lot about him trying to enjoy his life with the help of his friends, and trying to accept the grief he has for his past self, and all of that. so in a way, his character doesn't undergo anything overly traumatic to really upheave him, though there is some stuff plot wise that shakes him

sorry for the ramble. if you can't tell, i really like cs!wilbur. and admittedly writing this helped me sort out a bit of my direction with him. but yeah

TLDR: cs!wilbur is one of my favorite characters, insanely difficult to write, and has an arc more focused on healing, moving on, and acceptance than being front and center.

[emmys-grimoire]

Season 2 review

It is done!

I’ll preface this review with the obvious but nevertheless important: these are my opinions. I am fine with others criticizing my opinions, mind you, but I’m usually disinclined to changing them. Like most opinionated people.

And as with most things covered in this blog, spoilers ahead. Don’t read it if you don’t like ‘em.

The Good

I believe the devs did the side characters justice in terms of character development, which is impressive because they have to fixate on seven other characters for most of the story (the demon brothers are the draw, afterall). It’s a little frustrating because it shows they are capable of revealing a lot about a character in just a single conversation, but they spend a great deal of their time on fluff. It is nothing unsurprising given the aim of the game as a whole (romantic fantasy/escapism), but it does detract from… well, everything else. If you don’t care about everything else, this doesn’t matter. If you’re one of the few who do, like me, you’re in for a drought before you get to the next juicy story morsel. Alas, that is the price we pay.

But, this is ‘the Good’ section of the review, so I will focus on that. Diavolo, Luke, Simeon, and Solomon get fleshed out more than they did in the previous season as promised, and their growing closeness to MC doesn’t feel hamfisted; there’s little realistic hooks strewn throughout that makes the relationships grow organically compared to, say, the newt syrup arc.

At the end of the season MC is set to become Solomon’s new apprentice, they are now instrumental in Diavolo’s plan for realm-wide peace instead of just being a particularly charming exchange student, Simeon is more interested in learning more about MC due to MC’s meddling during the retreat and their performance in his play, and Luke finally can bring himself to admit that he actually enjoys being in the Devildom. Michael is being alluded to more and more and finally drops in to say hi, even though the game stops short of explicitly revealing that it is him. It all feels like a good transition into more romantic things with them in the next season, and I look forward to exploring more hidden depths.

I am relieved they steered away from additional time travel due to its potential to confuse everyone and everything. We need to learn what the deal is with Barbatos but I’m sure it can be done without meddling with the time continuum. The introduction of the Reaper has interesting worldbuilding implications: the souls of all beings are overseen by what appears to be an unaligned third party, though prior lore implies that the departed souls still return to their respective realms (Lilith allegedly forgot how to ascend to the Celestial Realm in her desire to watch over her siblings). But, like with Michael, they avoided actually showing him by having him take a vacation right before Solomon and the brothers arrive.

On the whole, I’m happy with the season’s ending. It’s probably as good as it can get, and sets up the next season well -- assuming there is one (I think there will be).

The Bad

It’s hard to frame this because there were never any explicit promises made but wow was the build-up wasted and the climax went down dry.

Diavolo’s wishy-washiness and reluctance to tell Lucifer about how MC’s presence was slowly tearing the Devildom asunder, his growing jealousy and his doubt in the strength of Lucifer’s loyalty, the foreshadowing in Simeon’s play, Barbatos warning Lucifer that one day he may need to choose between Diavolo and MC/his family and how he was reverting back to his angelic self, the very foreboding storm that was brewing outside, how Lucifer was certain “something bad” was about to happen… all that juicy potential rendered impotent because of the Ring of Light and amnesia.

It didn’t lead to a tortured, difficult choice Lucifer had to make that had the potential to put either his relationships or the realms in jeopardy -- and it really felt like it was headed in that direction. But it couldn’t really lead there because Lucifer lost his memories, and he was just re-familiarizing himself with all those relationships. Instead we had to choose whether or not we let Lucifer martyr himself, and of course he’s willing to do that because he loves us even if his memories aren’t fully intact, and it’s heavily implied that he’s his angel-like self again. The choices we made during the play don’t really come into fruition, and the Ring of Light helps make our choice ultimately irrelevant anyway.

It felt like they winded up for the pitch and then lost their nerve.

Though I’d argue that Lucifer would ultimately be okay with sacrificing himself for MC and the realms even if he was still his full-fledged, assholish demon self… but it definitely felt like fate was going to make him choose between his loyalty and his love. You know, the whole “love is the death of duty”/”duty is the death of love” shebang. It would have been more rewarding -- they can even let the Ring of Light ultimately fix everything and I’d be happy if it was that dilemma! But this isn’t Game of Thrones, so I can’t be too disappointed that my expectations weren’t met.

If you like Lucifer and Mammon fluff, this season gives it in spades. If neither of those two are your favorite you might have been bummed out. They give Asmo an arc but he ultimately concludes he was trying too hard to be like Lucifer which left me all ?????? How? Satan tutors you, but he doesn’t really deviate from what he usually does (though his minor tiff with Simeon when he’s physically affectionate with us was amusing). The devs did suggest they want to explore Satan’s origins more thoroughly in the future in one of the newsletters, and I think we’re due for that in the next season. There’s hope for the others yet... just not much in this season.

The Future?

I think there’s a high probability that we’ll get a season 3. Nothing about season 2���s ending felt like they were wrapping things up. The season as a whole felt like a transition.

I think we’ll get more romantic scenes with our “undateables” and they won’t officially be considered “undateables” any more. We’ll probably get more cards with them. I’m not sure if they’ll fully graduate into dance battle sprites because that’ll require more creative color assignments for glow sticks, but I wouldn’t entirely discount the possibility. There are many shades in the rainbow.

I think worldbuilding necessitates more exploration of the Celestial Realm, and an eventual conclusion to the game storyline requires officially mending relations between the angels and demons and healing the wounds incurred by both the wars of the distant past and the Great Celestial War (which was essentially a civil war). Such a thing requires an honest dialogue between the two factions for it to ring sincere, not just a continuation of the exchange program. The game doesn’t hesitate in stating how violent all of it was.

To that end, I think we’re going to at least get a full-fledged Michael eventually, though I understand the reluctance to add him due to the work that will follow in adding another handsome man fans will undoubtedly want to make blush and kiss. They may leave him a disembodied voice for as long as they possibly can, but at some point fans will start complaining at the teasing. It’ll be like continually having to skip a missing step on a ladder.

Until then, though, he’s a missing step that’s fun to conceptualize.

You won’t get routes. The setting is ideal for a harem: all the potential love interests loved each other before MC ever entered the picture, so they will eventually accept having to share them, jealousy be damned. I’m pretty sure they’re all aware of MC’s affection towards each of them already: it’s just a matter of contention of which among them MC prefers the most. If MC wants to pursue only one of the brothers, it is up to them to do just that -- in the confines of the presented story.

Conclusion

There were some good story bits to chew on here and there, but as a whole the writing fell flatter than season 1’s writing, in spite of the predictability in the latter. The general unpredictability of this season has made things more exciting than the conclusion we eventually arrived at; it’s hard to commend it when it just doesn’t lead to something intriguing.

Welp, at least we get time to level up our cards for the next season. I only have three URs so it was pretty rough.

I’ll probably do more analysis and essays in the interim, as I work through hard mode and think more about stuff. It’s been fun, in spite of my critique.

[himbo-buckley]

Intimacy, Sex and Buddie (better known as I have a lot of feelings about this show, some of which are related to the before mentioned topics) - Part 2

G’day friends, family and lost travelers! Welcome back to another instance of: I read too much into things!

This is where we really dive into the Character analysis and it’s gonna be a fun ride!!! (well, maybe. For me at least because thanks to 3.16 I am living! That episode validated me so much and now I truly believe I am right)

This is part two of a three part Meta / Character Analysis, and while you probably don’t need to read part 1, I would recommend it, so here is the link:

part 1

Also:

I should preface this by saying this meta was supposed to be a lot shorter and only talk about how both Buck and Eddie use sex to distract their respective partners from whatever topic they actually wanted to talk about but since I decided to rewatch the show to make sure I don’t miss any such scenes, it has exploded a bit and taken on more topics.

I should also mention that I am a Buddie shipper and while I tried, you will find several references and arguments for the ship in this Meta, not all of which necessarily call for a romantic pairing but just: These two are deeply connected and you cannot look at one without discussing the other and they are each other’s strongest emotional connection.

I should also preface this by saying that the whole of the 118 has some obvious intimacy / commitment issues except Bobby (which is sort of surprising) but *John Mulaney* voice we don’t have time to unpack all of that!

On another note I cuss a little in this Meta because my parents let me listen to TicTacToe as a small child and after that it never stuck that cussing is wrong so, uhm, parental supervision is advised or something?

This Meta will so far have three parts (this is part two), one for each season and is organised by episode so you could technically follow along

So here goes nothing, Season 2: (Also called „Why is Ryan naked so much?“)

Episode 2.01:

I’m not gonna talk a lot about this episode, because I feel like it’s been analysed to death already. Important to know is that Buck hasn’t yet given up on Abby coming back (see the shower scene), he is very lonely and there is a lot of homo- erotic tension.

Basically this episode goes like this:

Buck *after meeting Eddie*: nooooo, Dad, I don’t want a brother! He’s better than me! Put him back where he came from!

Eddie *takes one look at Buck*: Ui, you guys lied, he’s an ass - I like it! This is way better! We’re gonna be friends!

And then Buddie decides to something stupid to prove themselves (to each other) and they end up saving the day and bonding.

Also Eddie saying: „You guys hungry?“ after the Ambulance blows up? Iconic! He is such a little shit.

Episode 2.02 / 2.03:

(I’m putting them together because two-parter)

This episodes truly proves how hard they’ve already bonded, despite Buck not even knowing Eddie has a kid yet, especially from Eddie’s point of view: I actually think he started seeing Buck as his partner first. 

I love how he always takes charge, even in his first episode and expects Buck to go along with it - which Buck does (after some initial reluctance), because Buck is good at following orders and trusts Eddie. It might be an army thing, probably is an Eddie likes control thing. What is truly unique about Buddie, is the fact that Eddie defers to Buck’s judgement as needed, something he doesn’t do with anyone else, I think, unless the chain of command tells him to. Just look at how annoyed he is by Ali and her interfering.

That being said it really isn’t all to relevant for this meta, except to say: Interest- ing how fast they trusted each other and became a unit - I guess it’s true what they say: birds of a feather flock together.

Episode 2.04:

Here we get our first real insights into Eddie’s character (aside from that he is a little shit and likes to take charge) as well as some very nice shots of the man’s body, proving my theory that someone in charge really wants to get busy with Ryan Guzman. Which I am not exactly complaining about.

I do think however it’s a very noticable shift from the way they treat the other young, attractive guy in the cast. I talked about this a little in the first part of this Meta, how they went out of their way to hold Buck accountable and make him relatable, but refused to bank on his sex appeal, aside from a few scenes which mostly were about explaining why Abby reached out to him (and uh, we do not need to talk about how creepy that really was, do we?). Eddie though really gets sexualised from the get go. Or maybe that’s just me and I missed something? (Someone with more insight on such topics take the wheel? Because that really isn’t my area of expertice and I don’t wanna say anything false)

A main difference between Buck and Eddie at this point (or in general) is that Buck is always looking for connection. He craves emotional intimacy but it scares him because he cares too much and people keep leaving so he searches out physical intimacy - or he used to. Actually by Season 2 Buck is actively looking to connect emotionally with another person.

Eddie on the other hand isn’t even on the same level as Pilot!Buck, because he avoids both physical and emotional intimacy (except with Buck because, you know, steam engine). The episode implies that it might be caused by Shannon leaving, but the rest of Season 2 and specifically Season 3 show us that it’s an Eddie thing (likely caused by his upbringing if you fast forward to 3.15). And it really makes me want to know how Shannon and Eddie met and how long they had been dating before she got pregnant. Probably not that long tbh.

One thing to notice about the episode is that it parallels Eddie both with Buck (neither wants to date one of those girls, both deflect about their reasons) and with Abby - watch 1.03 and 2.04 back to back, both are about a character taking care of a special needs family member, both have another family member consider them stuck when they themselves do not and both feature Buck trying to help (passively by talking to Abby on the phone vs. actively by having Eddie and Carla meet)

Also as I pointed out in another post the conversation about dating is kind of similar to the car conversation, and I really am clowning now - which is why I will not try and parallel the conversation between Maddie and Buck with the one between Bobby and Buck in 1.09!

I still don’t fully understand the need for that scene (you know which one) aside from being another instance where the boys get sexualised and giving us our first insight into Eddie romantically and also the first time he uses Christopher as a shield (also not the last).

The general take away from the episode is that Eddie is bad at asking for help and Buck is bad at asking for permission which means they fit really well - because Eddie doesn’t have to voice his needs and Buck doesn’t have to feel bad about steamrolling him.

In terms of the overall theme of this meta your main takeaway from this episode should be:

Buck - no longer substituting physical intimacy for emotional intimacy but also not seeking out emotional intimacy, both because he has a connection through Maddie and is building one with Eddie but also because he still considers himself spoken for, though the episode ends with him realicing he might not be (and then he keeps realising, because he is one stubborn mf).

Eddie - avoiding both physical and emotional intimacy and using Christopher to deflect, mainly because he doesn’t have the time for either (but still getting a connection through Buck, thanks to someone just punching right through his boundaries)

Episode 2.05:

no relevance, our boys are barely in it

Episode 2.06:

Well, if you want to write about Buddie crumbs than yeah, definitely important. Also, you can draw a definite parallel between Abby and Taylor, because Buck knew both their voices before he saw their faces and built an emotional connection to those voices. This fits because, well, Buck is afraid of emotional intimacy, but when it’s just a voice it’s easier for him to let himself be vulnerable cause it’s not an actual person.

Plus, considering the thing with Taylor is one sided prior to their meeting, he isn’t actually cheating on Abby. Or so Buck thinks. (Also Taylor doesn’t have a chance to hurt Buck and leave him because you know, she is not aware he exists?)

Also Eddie talks about becoming a firefighter because he missed the camaraderie of the army - aka the emotional connection he had with his squadron (is that the right term?). So technically he did actively try and seek it out - to a point at least. Because, as I will discuss in Part 3, Eddie may consider the 118 his family but his relationship with the other three firefighters in not on the same level than the one he has with Buck.

Episode 2.07:

Let’s all give a warm welcome to Shannon Diaz! I like Shannon, I think she is great (I also think she and Eddie are similar because they both run away from problems which is why they would never work out - unlike another possible relationship mentioned sporadically in this Meta, hint hint ;) ... okay, moving on)

We learn that „not in the picture“ means Eddie is still married, which begs the question how much Eddie has told Carla and the 118 about Shannon up to this point (as little as possible), what they assume about her (probably the worst) and if Eddie ever sets the record straight (I’m assuming yes, because while Eddie doesn’t share - Eddie is also protective of his family and Shannon is his family for better or worse - I really wish they didn’t kill her off and instead played out the divorce storyline because there was so much chance for growth! Although that was probably too similar to Athena and Michael, which is why they didn’t do it. So they fridged her. Damn, and I am still salty about it.)

I really love when she comes to the house, because we learn so much about them as a couple. Like how her eyes grow warm when he opens the door but Eddie’s don’t but then he goes in to hug her (and you can really tell that Ryan Guzman is an athlete in the way that he always acts with his whole body and conveys so much through movement). And the fact that Shannon immediately pushes to meet Christopher (probably because with Eddie you need to push, because he is very stubborn and also in need of control), and her saying she never thought Eddie would be into something so fancy? Yet another insight into Eddie’s character and into his upbringing, which while probably not poor seems to have been fairly modest.

Also love how they fight almost right from the get go, implying that it is their normal (as proven in 3.15). They really never stood a chance!

There is a lot of backstory we get through their fighting, both at the house and at the school, most notably that even in marriage Eddie was never able to fully open up to Shannon - aka be emotionally intimate with her. Which made her feel very alone.

And I don’t wanna defend Shannon and her actions because other people have said it before and this is not what this Meta is about but I can see her point of view. With Eddie and the way he just always needs to be in control and make the decisions she probably thought she had to do something drastic to get him to notice her and her struggles.

Interestingly enough Eddie is emotionally vulnerable with Shannon at the end when he tells her that he understands why she left and that he misses her, but then he immediately kisses her and look, we don’t know what happens next  but we can guess from the latter episodes.

And look, tbh with Eddie it’s a little bit harder to draw the line between physical and emotional intimacy than with Buck because Eddie’s love language is touch and actions, so technically in a way he is always emotionally intimate when he is physically intimate (probably why he didn’t wanna go out with any of the girls in 2.04 - Eddie, different to Buck, can not just separate feelings from sex, while Buck has a hard time reconciling the two)

On Buck’s side of this Meta he finally comes to terms with Abby leaving, which doesn’t have too much relevance for this meta except there are a lot of parallels between Buddie in terms of: how long is too long to wait - because while Eddie pretends to have given up on Shannon, he actually hasn’t, whereas Buck outwardly is still waiting for Abby but on the inside has given up hope - something they both come to terms with in this episode

Episode 2.08:

Fun fact: The german title of this Episode is Lovestorys. Can you guess if there is anything of relevance in it?

Okay, first off for the millionth time, in case you haven’t read part 1 or you aren’t convinced yet or maybe you just forgot: Evan „Buck“ Buckley was never a sex addict. Kay? Good.

Also, remember when I said the show doesn’t sexualise Oliver the way it does Ryan? Yeah, this episode exactly. Buck has sex twice and we see less of his body than of Eddie just getting out of bed. Is it a contract thing? Was Ryan always running around naked on set? Did Oliver refuse to take his shirt off? Is he always cold because he’s vegan? Should I figure out Twitter just to ask the cast these questions?

(Also, remember when I said with Buck it’s mostly Girl on top, yay, it stays true)

In terms of actual relevant story, there’s that woman on the freeway (highway? Idk guys, I’m not from the US) reinforcing that Buck has finally accepted that Abby and him are over and then there’s the Taylor Kenny - story, which is sort of just beating the bush of sexual vs emotional intimacy with Buck trying for the latter and only finding the former (remember the Brunette from the Pilot? Yeah, that’s why I’m reminding you).

What I like is the fact that, after spending so much time calling out Buck 1.0 (and they should, because stealing a fire truck? Twice? Babe, for realsies?), this episode went: look, maybe girls like meaningless sex, too? Although, technically they have been telling us from the the beginning, that those girl were using Buck in the same way he was using them (again with the Brunette) - Buck just never understood that until Taylor.

We also get the soulmate scene with the very sweet couple, once again, rein- forcing how lonely Buck is and how much he is craving love and a connection and stability. That really is what his character boils down to at the end of the day: a lost kid trying to find his place in the world. And now I’m sad.

As for the Ali storyline, oh man, I’d really rather ignore it? Not because I have anything against the character per sey it’s just - we get to see their first meeting and then 5 episodes later their first date and by the end of the season they are in love love except by Season 3 she is gone? And in between she is hardly ever mentioned? So I really don’t know how to comment on their relationship in terms of this meta and what it means for Buck except: I think it was one of those right times right moment kind of things and Buck is sort of transfering a lot of his wishes and needs and feelings onto her, but their relationship has a weak foundation, which is why it ended so fast (except we don’t know how fast it ended because there is a 5 month gap between Season 2 and 3 and the breakup gets mentioned one (1) time. Soooooo...)

And Eddie, well, he was in the episode.

Episode 2.09:

I like this episode a lot and it tells us so much about Hen’s issues, but in terms of this meta: no relevance!

Sidenote: I do always forget they did Hen before they did Chim. Then again this episode in general feels very disconnected because there was no prompting, no connection to the present.

Episode 2.10:

Ah, yes, that one! The gift that keeps on giving in terms of Eddie and this meta (and also Buddie, but I’m trying not to be ship-y around here)

(One tiny sidenote though, I do think we see Eddie roll of off Shannon, and, while I don’t want to reinforce some stereotype about Top and Bottom, because I am not a gay man and therefore not qualified to comment, with Buck it’s generally girl on top? So Buck usually lets his partner set the pace while Eddie prefers to be the one in control? Okay, you know what, let’s just say it fits with their characters and maybe they match and leave it at that?)

(also, again with the Ryan shirtless, I mean, not that I am complaining, it’s just ... yeah, please, someone who knows this stuff come talk to me about it and explain because I don’t know and maybe I am seeing things?)

(sidenote #3 with actual relevance: They did not mention Buck’s girlfriend even once. They never do until the final.)

First of, this episode proofs what I said before: With Eddie there is no separating Sex and feelings. It is interconnected („We are working things out.“).

Also there is a point to be made about Eddie and control. So far we have always seen Eddie be the one in control and make decisions and this is our first real indicator that it actually bothers him, that maybe he wants someone else to tell him what’s right or wrong, too.

I’m gonna fast forward a bit, because we are nearly at the end of Season 3 irl and so far we have seen Eddie ask for help several times but only with two people - Buck and Lena - he actually takes the advice. I don’t want to say too much because it really fits better in Season 3, but wether you ship them or not, it is noticeable that out of everyone Buck is the one Eddie let’s help the most. The one he trusts the most.

(Man, they are both just two lost boys looking for their home, aren’t they? (and now I am sad again.))

There is also the topic of trust brought up, which you know, we hear about a few times from Eddie, and it really is such a big thing for him, isn’t it?

To fast forward again, that is one big difference between Eddie and Buck. Both struggle with self worth and trust but while Buck’s biggest problem is that he doesn’t trust people to like him, if they actually get to know him (or if they even want to get to know him), Eddie just plain old does not trust people? Because Eddie is a pessimist, so he doesn’t even try to connect, while Buckeroo trusts way too much and too easily and he is such an optimist and gives away everything and then he still isn’t enough - and then and only then does he give up hope (which is something we see happen in canon maybe twice? With Abby, maybe with Ali, and with Christopher, but again, Season 3 you guys!)

These two really are the different sides of the same coin, huh?

In relevance to this Meta, Eddie is trying very much this whole episode to be open and vulnerable and he struggles so much because he is very scared. The main issue with Eddie is always (and specifically with Shannon) by making himself vulnerable, he opens Christopher up to getting hurt as well (and vice versa because he can’t let Shannon into his son’s life without letting her into his own life) and this is what we see him struggle with in this episode and also what intensifies his already existing issues with intimacy throughout the show in general, his need to protect his son. 

It should be noted that in the end Eddie puts Christopher’s wishes above his own well-being which is in fact what he will always do because Christopher is the most important person in his life.

As for Buck in this episode, well, after having so much development in his last episode, he really was there more as a sounding board for other characters. However I will mention that, after the show points out the whole thing is none of his business twice, Eddie then turns around and makes the Shannon thing Buck’s business, because well, connected and all that. Trusting and giving up control. Emotional intimacy. Just repeating myself now.

Episode 2.11: No relevance.

Episode 2.12: No relevance.

Episode 2.13: No real relevance.

There is the scene in the hospital between Buck and Eddie that reinforces the peas in a pot thing they got going on and a reverse from the Christmas Episode when Eddie asked Buck about what he should do. Here Eddie acts as the sounding board (even though Buck has already done the thing but then so has Eddie by hiding Shannon).

This is also yet another instance of Buck trying to help another person with no regard for his own safety but I’m with Eddie here: I have sisters as well. I too would do countless stupid things to save them with no regard to my own safety and I’m a girl - I was not raised on the believe that is was my job to protect them from harm like both Buck and Eddie probably were (because gender rolls).

Also Buck thinks it’s his fault that Doug even found Maddie and Eddie explains to him why its bull. To reinforce the whole connection thing, it is very noticeable that these two always give each other exactly what the other needs - with Eddie from the get go always working on building up Buck’s self worth and Buck always lending a hand to Eddie and taking control when needed (remember Carla? That was Buck taking control for Eddie because Eddie didn’t know what to do).

There is also the short scene when Shannon comes to the hospital and it prob- ably did a lot to help rebuild Eddies trust in his wife.

Episode 2.14:

STOP MAKING EVAN BUCKLEY WORRY ABOUT HIS FAMILY 2k21 (because it’s too late for anything before that)

It’s also our first real: Eddie can be a dumbass, too sighting and there is that one scene (you know which one) which in text is not shippy at all, but ended up in every gifset because Oliver is looking at Ryan like he wants to eat him alive.

Aside from that, this episode really isn’t about them and that’s okay.

Episode 2.15: Crime is hard. That is all.

Episode 2.16: No relevance.

Episode 2.17:

First of all, Eddie is not shirtless? At the beach? Damn, what’s wrong, 911? Is it because Gavin was there? Have you used up all your contracted shirtless scenes by now? Did Ryan find out he was the only one running around set half naked?

Also poor Eddie, you know, you’d think getting married your done having those: what are we - conversations and then bam: there it is again. He really can’t catch a break, can he?

Also I know it’s been said before, but I’ll say it again: Eddie Diaz is not in love with Shannon. Maybe he has never been or maybe he just stopped at some point, but right then and there he isn’t in love with her. He does however love her deeply (she is after all the mother of his son) and she is his family which is sort of where the problem in their relationship lies. Because Eddie, who has problems with trust and intimacy, frankly doesn’t care enough about Shannon (and also doesn’t trust her enough) to try and be open and vulnerable with her, which is what he needs to be in order for them to work, a fact that Shannon seems to be aware of and have accepted.

(Because if you have to wait for a sign on what to do in your relationship, yeah, you already know - you’re just not accepting it.)

And this episode is so heartbreaking and I just had to stop myself from ugly crying because Shannon loves Christopher so very much. And I just hate that they killed her off, so in my mind I have already half plotted a fix it fic in which she survives because that was just unnecessary angst.

Though that’s the topic of another post.

In terms of the relationship-story I am similarly floored as I am by the „Help!“ scene because (at least for me) this is the first time I have seen media really address that yes, you can be a good parent and still not be ready for a serious relationship because those two things are very different. Sure, you sometimes see examples of it through subtext but never before has it been so outright stated.

And I like that both Shannon and Eddie ask themselves that question, but come to a different conclusion - or actually they don’t. Like I said above, for Eddie this relationship fits because it’s easy and he doesn’t have to change or better adapt. He can just keep avoiding the hard stuff (being vulnerable) and still have the good stuff (sex). And then Shannon might be pregnant again and look at his speech at the restaurant: He is basically saying our child is awesome, so we should get back together because if we make such awesome children than we can’t be that bad together. And that is so very wrong, which Shannon understands.

The problem is, that Eddie doesn’t fully understand why their marriage hasn’t worked in the first place. If you tie it into 3.15 Eddie Begins, I think for Eddie, the reason why Shannon left him was a little to get back at him for leaving her and a lot about feeling left alone and being unable to cope with raising their child alone, but all of that is gonna be different now because he will be there for her physically and emotionally as he is no longer in the army! So the issue is solved. They should be a family again. Even without a new kid. After all: they love each other.

And look, those are all fair reasons and true but the thing Eddie doesn’t understand about relationships in general and his marriage to Shannon in particular is that she also needs him to be emotionally vulnerable with her. Shannon needs Eddie to let her be there for him, just like he is trying to be there for her. Because relationships are always a two way street.

SO obviously this is where the episode ended. There were no more scenes af- ter that. Nope. Bit weird how it was so short but you do you, 911, you do you!

And well, Buck was there too.

Episode 2.18:

I’m just gonna come out and say it: Ramon and Helena are bad parents. Flying to your daughter-in-law’s funeral only to bad mouth her and then try to take your son’s son away again? Yeah, I do not like your style. I wonder how much of Eddie Begins was already planned at this point or if they built that plot about his family for 3.15 based on this episode. Huh. We might never know. (except Twitter)

Also me thinks Eddie choose LA because of Pepa and Abuela, not because of Shannon. She was probably just a bonus.

As for Buck (and Ali): the actors seem to have had fun doing those scenes? I guess? Other than that it’s a little cringy and very out of nowhere and probably more caused by the show having money left over and deciding to built a new set. ANd damn what a set. I wonder how Buck is supposed to be able to afford that because that apartment has probably about 50-75m2 considering there is a kitchen and a living room as well as a room behind the living room and probably an extra room in the upper floor as well (someone do a floorplan and also tell me why Buck needs so much space and wether they think I could move in with him. My apartment is not this nice and LA isn’t that long a commute).

Point being I don’t know why they brought Ali back in the first place, especially in this episode. She was never mentioned after their first date, so why? Just to give people something to discuss during hiatus?

There was no point to have those two incredibly lovey dovey scenes only to have that scenes about what he wants to do next because all those scenes? Would have worked just fine with, you know, his sister (except a little different because incest). Who actually has the what if you can’t go back to being a firefighter - scene with him. So why have a girlfriend you barely introduced and never used before? I’m not mad, 911, just confused! (Fuck me, I really am getting twitter)

As for the topic of this meta, there really isn’t much too tell. Ali honestly doesn’t figure into things except to create more abandonment issues.

I should point out that this episode reinforced the whole Buddie connection thing - from Eddie holding Buck’s hand the whole while he’s pinned to saying „Almost (back to normal)“ to Buck going to Eddie’s ceremony despite probably still being on somewhat of a bed rest.

Other than that, that’s it for Season 2. Whew!

Before I let ya’ll off the hook, though (look, you’ve read it this far, you can now just bear it a bit longer) I wanna comment real quick:

Compared to Season 1 Buck barely had any character development (mainly because he had so much in Season 1 and sometimes stuff like that needs to settle - real life would be the same way)

Eddie however has nearly no development at all and in fact as of Season 3, not a lot has changed in that regard. His issues just became more obvious. Which is something I actually like a lot, because one: he went through a lot of shit in a fairly short amount of time and two: he is such a stubborn and reserved character, anything else wouldn’t be in character and ultimately feel rushed. Plus, because this is his personality it’s feels like we’re actually getting to know him like you would a person in real life? Piece by piece, no unnecessary exposition. Or maybe that’s just me, I don’t really know anything about storytelling.

I also want to comment on Buddie real quick because it would be dishonest if I didn’t and also it’s just glaring me in the face:

The thing is, while I do not necessarily believe they have any intention of making them romantic (because I have been burned too often and just recently by a show that liked to praise itself for its diversity (so a heartfelt fuck you to Sera Gamble and who ever decided to kill off Quentin Coldwater, because that character mattered so much and you destroyed it)), I do think we are right when we talk about connection and parallels and being each others person and just generally being each others closest relationship. Because they parallel their stories so much and they connect them so often and they did do it from the get go like as early as Episode 4 - which was already written and probably already shot by the time Episode 1 aired. So there. I said it. Buddie is real, wether it’s platonic or romantic, it is real. And that also matters!

(although of course if they went with romantic? That would matter a bit more! Tim Minear, listen to me, you could make TV history! This would be bigger than Supergirl making the sister gay in the second season! Ya’ll would be legends, revered by fans for years to come! Also I’d bake you a cake?)

And there you have it! Season 2! We made it! And only like 2000 words more than Season 1.

Can you believe at this point I have written nearly 10.000 words on these two exceptional characters and their issues? And it’s technically only one issue, like I’m ignoring so much stuff just glaring at me right now!

(also on a side note, this is where I tag @angelcamael , who asked me to do so and @greyhello because she inspired me to write this meta in the first place and while it is now ... no longer about that original topic, I’m still gonna tag her)

[iamafxsh]

week 6 - w/c march 1st

march 3rd 2021

The question is this: is Doctor Who is dying? I'm going to talk about this, but first, I'll preface by talking about my personal history with the franchise to establish any bias that may be present.

I started watching the show when I 7, directly at the start of season 3 thanks to a friends persuasion. Every Saturday, we watched the new episode and in the week, we'd watch the previous two to catch me up. And I watched Doctor Who consistently, always when it aired, up until midway through Capaldi's run, at which I dropped off, no longer finding the same level of entertainment in it. I came back to it just last year, at the start of season 12, Whitaker's second, through the encouragement of friends, and I've been enjoying it.

Also, I watched Sarah Jane Adventures too, and later Torchwood, so I'm a little versed in the franchise, but nothing much more out of the TV shows, which is to say not really any of the books or audio dramas.

-

Now to the original question: is Doctor Who dying? In my opinion, unfortunately yes. I hate to say it as it was a large part of my childhood, and is something I still very much love, but it's dying. Just looking at its viewing figures shows this much, so I want to look at what I think are some of the reasons.

1. Change in genre and target audience

These go hand in hand. When comparing the earlier seasons with the more recent ones, specifically Whitaker's, they just feel different. The recent ones feel like they're designed for a younger audience, which will of course affect the viewership. You may gain some younger viewers, but you'll also lose older ones, so it's a double edges sword. I think in DW's case however, they've lost more than they've gained.

2. The writing

So I believe this is the biggest reason, but saying "writing" is very broad and vague so I'll break it down in further points, but the writing is the biggest thing that I think has let the show down recently. It's not all bad, I don't mean that, and I'm not implying that the writers are inexperienced or don't know what they're doing, I just think that the writing isn't right for DW.

For example, and mild spoilers for season 12, but practically every episode is set on Earth. Now don't get me wrong, I like an Earth episode, but not for an entire season. I don't know if that was an intended, conscious choice or it just sort of happened that way, but it sort of dampens the season, if that makes any sense - it's like a little bit of the fun, wacky magic is missing.

3. The companions

Now I like that we had a group of companions, and I like that we had an older companion in Graham, but the problem with having three is that you have to dedicate enough time to them so the audience connects. You have to do that with any companion, but when you have three, you have to do that three times, and there just wasn't enough of that.

Graham acts as comic relief, which is fine, and I very much enjoy seeing an older character as a main. We get some stuff about Ryan, usually relating to his family, and a bit about Yaz, also ofter in regard to family. Now that's not bad, it's good to know that sort of stuff to help establish what kind of person they are, but I know I am more than just my relationship with my family, and so likely, these characters are too. Having three companions has been fun, but it's not great when there isn't enough time.

Nearly every episode in season 12 introduces another character (or handful) for that episode, which is fine except it draws attention away from already weaker characters, and it's unfortunate because that means only broad strokes get filled in with Graham, Yaz and Ryan, boiling them down to one or two distinct traits, and people are far more complicated than that.

It likely links to the first point too, with having a younger target audience; kids don't need as much backstory for a character to be able to latch to them, and so more time goes to fun visuals and not introspective development.

-

Okay, so at to not be mean or feel like I'm just hating in the show for fun, I will pick out some of the things I've really enjoyed from season 12, and so definitely spoilers ahead for that.

1. Sacha Dhawan's Master

So it's not surprise I love the Master - my name is Koschei after all - and so when I heard he was back - from a friend since I was late to the season - it was a big encouragement for me to watch. And I was delighted to not be disappointed, and not only that, but Dhawan's Master is now top ranking in my Master-Missy list.

He is so fully unhinged in a way we haven't seen before. He is completely feral and it's a delight to watch him slowly go further and further mad. With all that we learn with the Timeless Child, it makes complete sense and it's fun to watch that manifest in his behaviour and his chaotic nature, especially in regard to the Doctor specifically; the season, and Dhawan's portrayal, really emphasise that symbiotic but also parasitic nature of their relationship.

And the chemistry with Whitaker and Dhawan is wonderful to watch.

2. The Timeless Child Arc

I liked it, sue me. It was controversial, with what it means for DW lore, but I enjoyed it. It was fun and I very much liked what was done and what was attempted.

There are definitely people that hate it because of what it does for the lore (which honestly I don't see a big deal but I've only really seen new Who), but I also watch Star Trek so maybe I'm desensitised to lore fuck-ups, deliberate or otherwise. But I like that they took a risk, tried to do something different and do something big, and building up the relationship (or completely destroying it, depending how you look at it) with the Doctor and the Master was very much a good thing.

-

It is a shame to see Doctor Who going the way it is. I don't think it's horrible and rotten like some people seem too, but I don't think it's at its best, or even above the middle mark. I hope that this isn't the end of the franchise, by any means.

[palanaeum]

Veth and absent parents

Ok, I just want to preface this by saying that I love Veth as a character and I think her story as a mother and wife is one of the most unique stories in the realm of D&D characters (not to mention the whole goblin curse thing!).  That said, I think it’s important that we talk about all sides of this conversation.

Content warning for small children being upset/depressed and parents and spouses who have to be away

In my family, I’ve seen up-close two different reactions to a situation like this.  I grew up with a father who was gone a lot for work.  There were months-long stretches where he would be working out of state and we could only contact him by phonecall.  I had three other siblings at the time.  This was very hard on my mother in ways that might be hard to predict.  Of course, it was hard wrangling 4 children, especially when we were multiple toddlers and babies (we were each born about 2 years apart), but there was also a household to run and take care of.  Groceries had to be bought (and all of us were brought with her to every store), laundry had to be done, doctor’s appointments had to be scheduled, kids had to be driven to dance and soccer and baseball and music lessons and all of this was done by my mother.  None of it could be delegated to a partner, and none of us really developed a relationship with our dad.

So!  The first response to this that I’m going to talk about is my own (and likely those of my fellow siblings who went through this period of time).  I don’t really have a relationship with my father.  Any connection we do have has been as adults.  I did not (like Luc) idolize my dad or wait restlessly for his return, and I didn’t much notice when he was gone.  It was always just my mother.  Of course I loved my dad as a kid and we would all run to him when he came home from work when he was living with us (usually around 8pm, our bedtime), but we never knew anything different.  That was just the way it was for us.  A dad to us was someone who worked six days a week and left for work before we woke up and came home at bedtime.

This doesn’t mean he didn’t love us or that he didn’t want to spend time with us.  It was actually the opposite.  When he had a day off, or any time he could be home during the day, he loved playing with us.  The rare times he had a Saturday off, he would come to our baseball games or go to the beach with us as a family.  We loved having him around and spending time with him.  We just didn’t mourn his absence.

Now, fast forward to age 12.  My dad has a different job, we’re living in one spot for more than three years, and we welcome a fifth child into the family.  This is my littlest sister (seven years younger than the next youngest), and she is the one who has had the second response I’m going to talk about.

My littlest sister absolutely adores our dad.  She was born in the era where he had a better job with better hours and was able to be around.  There were still a few months where he worked out of state, but he drove home on the weekends.  For most of her life, my littlest sister has had a father at home.

Fast forward to now, when she is seven years old, so about 2 years older than Luc (whom we are going to get to, I promise).  With quarantine, my dad worked from home for about six months straight, and so was able to be around literally all day, every day for my littlest sister, and she has loved this time.  Unfortunately, with the economy how it is now due to the pandemic, my dad lost his job (well, he jumped a sinking ship).  The only job he could find that he felt could support a family of seven with three college students was one in Alaska, 2.4 thousand miles away.  My younger brother is in his senior year of high school, so my mom wasn’t willing to uproot him at the start of the school year to go do online school in a new state.  SO!  My dad is living away from the family three weeks out of four.

When my littlest sister heard that he had to leave, she was absolutely devastated.  The days before his leaving she was upset, and once he was gone she was upset.  She loves my dad and looks up to him so much, and his absence has really hit her hard.  She will be fine one moment, but any little thing can set her off and then she’s inconsolable.  The day after he left, she was playing quietly by herself when she came across some drawings she had done for him that he had saved and put up on the wall in his closet.  That absolutely wrecked her, and she was crying for the rest of the day.

The pattern seems to go like this: when my father is home, she is cheerful and wants to spend as much time as possible with him telling him about all of the exciting things she’s been doing and hearing about how it is up in Alaska and she’s happy.  But as soon as someone mentions that it’s time for him to leave again, she breaks down and freaks out, and as soon as he’s gone, she has to be distracted at all moments or we will find her sitting somewhere crying thinking about him.

It’s rough!  It’s rough on her and it’s also rough on the rest of us, because there’s nothing we can really say to help her feel better.  She gets that he’s coming back eventually, but she’s a child and that doesn’t help her in the moments where he is still gone and will be gone for a while.

SO.  What does this have to do with Veth and Luc?  Well, something, at least?

Veth is in somewhat of a similar situation, she is away earning money to support Luc and Yeza, and she feels it is her duty to save the world.  But she also feels a duty to her family and her child.

What the leaving TM9 / leaving her family choice comes down to for me is how it is affecting Luc.  I know Matt is staying away from blatant guilt-tripping on his part because he wants Veth to make this decision herself and not feel like it’s Matt the DM pressuring Sam the player to make a decision either way, but it seems like Luc’s reaction is closer to my sister’s than mine.  He wants to tell her everything about what he’s been doing, he wants to hear all about what she has been doing and what she’s seen, and he wants to emulate her because he looks up to her!  He adores her!  He sees her as an amazing and cool person and he wants to spend his time with her.

Part of what makes it hard on my sister is the repeated leavings.  Those moments and the time after my dad leaves are the ones that are hardest for her, and that’s with the certainty of how long he’s going to be away and that he is coming back.  I can’t imagine how hard it is for Luc when Veth leaves after only a short time and he has no idea when or even if she will come back.

Now, this isn’t me saying that she is evil if she doesn’t stay withe her family.  This is a very nuanced situation, and there’s a compounding factor in that she is working to save the world and she has friends who rely on her being there for them.  She has a duty to them and a duty to the world that aren’t erased by her duty to her child.

Just... she has a lot going on right now, and I’ve seen some people try to assert that Yeza would be wrong if he even implied that he prefers her here to perform her domestic duties.  Yeza deserves to have a partner whom he can rely on and Luc deserves a mother that can be around for him and actually be a parent to him, not just a person who comes around every once in a while to give him gifts and then disappear for who knows how long. 

What if Yeza meets someone else who starts becoming someone to rely on?  What if this person is more of a parent to Luc than Veth is?  What if this person is more of a part of the family and co-parent than Veth?  Does that make Yeza evil or unfaithful?  Does that make Veth a deadbeat?  Does that mean she deserves to be cut out of her own son’s life?  Well, it’s complicated!

Veth loves Luc!  She absolutely adores him and I think that this is a critical time for her where she is actually coming to face this decision instead of running away from it like she has been.  She had a lot of her own issues to deal with but I think she’s realizing that she could just stay with her family and settle down; that it’s an actual option open to her.  Whatever way it goes, it will have major bearing on her character arc and what she wants.  I think she’s realizing that she can’t be a mother by dropping in at random times and disrupting their routine and then disappearing for weeks or months without a word, and I think she’s really struggling with that now. 

Either way this goes, it will be hard for her and I think it will be really interesting.  I know that Sam will not cheap out on the roleplay for this decision; he has a long history of doing what is right for his characters and not just what’s interesting to him.  It will be fun to watch!  And also, just judging on past big Sam character decisions, painful!

[gunmaestro]

My Problems with Bungou Stray Dogs.

I want to preface this by saying that Bungou Stray Dogs is my favorite animanga. I’m not trying to tell Asagiri how to write the story and I’m not saying these things make it a bad concept--I just wanted to share my criticisms about the show and manga. These things absolutely don’t ruin it for me, and most of them are about the anime only anyway. Note that this list will NOT include the Tanizaki siblings although I do have a problem with their relationship because I’m focusing mostly on storytelling and character analysis. But without further ado, I’ll get into my first criticism. This one, my biggest problem with the series, will be above the cut, but the rest will be under it for length.

Dazai Osamu.

Given that Dazai as an author is a very significant presence in Japan, it’s understandable that he would play a large role in a series based largely upon Japanese authors. The fact that he has a large role is not the reason I dislike him--in fact, he’s been getting a lot less screentime in the manga recently. The reason I view Dazai as a problem with Bungou Stray Dogs is because of his mental prowess which borders on omnipotence.

It shouldn’t come to a surprise that Dazai would play a role in every major arc, given that he’s a main character and all. However, it’s very frustrating and almost boring to have arc after arc resolved because of Dazai. It’s even more frustrating when it’s implied that everything our protagonists do has already been specifically calculated by Dazai, as if their actions are not their own. Having an overpowered character like him makes the narrative seem boring.

At the time of this being written, the manga is in the middle of its arc with the Hunting Dogs and the Decay of Angels. I’m not sure if this is just me, but because of the characters (Ango, Atsushi, Dazai himself) admitting that Dazai had planned for certain events all along, I feel almost no stakes for the arc as a whole. It’s very hard to feel suspense whilst getting constant reminders that everything bad happening is all according to Dazai’s plan. I won’t even bother going into the dick measuring contest between him and Fyodor, either, because I’m sure we all know how that sort of thing can get annoying very quickly in stories.

Dazai being the super genius he is also weakens other characters around him. A striking example of this is Edogawa Ranpo, a character whom I have no problems with at all, speaking in terms of characterization. Ranpo’s entire character hinges on the fact that he is a brilliant detective and the smartest person in the agency--and to people like gifted kids, he’s a very relatable character. It greatly diminishes the quality of Ranpo’s character to introduce the idea that there are characters who know more than him; though Dazai has admitted to not being as smart as Ranpo, the narrative does not reflect this statement. Ranpo as a character works because there is grounds to his bragging--take away his status as the smartest in the series and he becomes nothing.

Similarly, Dazai negatively impacts the characters of Atsushi and Akutagawa. They’re two very interesting characters, but part of the reason they seem to fall flat to me is that they only ever act together when forced into it by Dazai. In fact, it feels like every single character on the side of good in this story would be helpless without Dazai there to guide them--and that makes them far less impactful characters.

Unresolved Plotlines and Bad Math.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky, and I didn’t mind this at first, but there are a lot of cliffhangers and inconsistencies throughout the story. Examples of the latter are easy to come by--Kunikida was initially stated to be a math teacher before joining the ADA, despite being only 22 at the present time in canon. Fitzgerald’s daughter would have been at most 14 at present assuming she was born when Fitzgerald was 18, which is hardly old enough for her to be sent to a boarding school in ANOTHER COUNTRY. These are small, but they somewhat decrease the quality of the story when questioned.

The unresolved plotlines and cliffhangers have a much bigger impact on the story during a time where it is still being released one chapter a month. John Steinbeck’s return has not yet come after two full arcs, despite it being teased by his appearance during Fitzgerald’s return. Going back further, we’ve seen astonishingly little of Agatha Christie--even though she was introduced around the same time as Fyodor.

In smaller cases, there’s the fact that we didn’t get to see what happened with Yosano, we don’t know where Akutagawa is at this point in the narrative, and we weren’t told what happened with the truck containing Margaret. These are small things that won’t be as annoying to read back on once they’re resolved, but having a story set up where everything is left open after every chapter is very disengaging for readers who just want to know what’s going on.

The Anime.

I know what I said at the beginning. The truth is, though, that there’s so much about the anime adaptation that bothers me that I have to summarize it by just saying the anime as a whole bothers me. I’m also aware that it’s very uncommon for mangas to get a perfect, spot-on anime adaptation.. but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a problem with it.

Here’s a speedround of things I don’t enjoy about the anime.

The art style. I’m sure we’re all very tired of the fish-eye lenses, and the weird smiles they’ve incorporated from Dead Apple. This being said, there are times when it looks good, but that doesn’t help the fact that I actually physically cringe whenever there’s a character who’s afraid or overly cocky making a facial expression that reflects this emotion.

The focus on certain characters (Dazai). I’m among the group of people that wanted untold stories to be animated this season instead of Fifteen, because it would have fit better with the plot of the season. The fact that the anime chose Fifteen was a good decision for drawing more attention to the show, since the fans of Chuuya and Dazai are in the majority, but it fits very poorly with the rest of the season. In fact, sorry for the spoiler, but Dazai and Chuuya aren’t even shown interacting in the main season, whereas Fukuzawa plays a major role in the cannibalism arc and Ranpo was visibly shown to have an important connection with him.

The tone. There’s not much to say, here. The anime takes everything very seriously, and one of my favorite parts of the manga are its humorous lines.

The humor. Speaking of humorous lines, they’re always said in a very obnovious way in the anime that makes it seem like they’re trying too hard. This is an opinion rather than an analysis.

The left-out details. Though the conversation between Fyodor and Agatha was not very important to the plot and nor was Steinbeck’s removed appearance in season 3, they both served as teasers for future arcs, and removing them shouldn’t have been completely necessary. 

The changes to characters. The Guild is a particular victim of this particular point. Whereas the characters in this organization don’t come off as a completely serious group of people in the manga, they sure do in the anime. Logically, I can understand why this would be done--they’re the arc’s antagonists, and they’re more intimidating if they aren’t funny. But it completely changes some of their characters if you remove certain aspects of their personality.

The Fandom.

It goes without saying that no fandom is perfect, and a lot of them aren’t even good. The Bungou Stray Dogs fandom comprises mostly of s/skk fans, which is unsurprising, but what makes me compelled to put the fandom on a list of my problems with the show itself is how much they completely warp the characters of Dazai and Chuuya.

I know I have a whole section explaining why I think Dazai is a major flaw of the series, but despite that I actually do find his character interesting, if a bit annoying with how big his presence is. I dislike the fandom’s interpretation of him, specifically the way he interacts with Chuuya. Did he not blow up Chuuya’s car? Did he not let Chuuya suffer for a few more seconds just because he thought it was funny? Did he not make Chuuya embarrass himself for no reason other than his own enjoyment? It’s very disheartening to see him portrayed as someone who would never betray Chuuya’s trust and who is completely devoted to Chuuya.

Speaking of Chuuya, he’s probably the fandom’s biggest offense in terms of making a character unlikable. In my particular case, the way the fandom treats him has driven me away from his character, which I actually do like. Because of how often I’ve seen the fandom treat him like nothing more than a blushing tsundere whose feelings for Dazai are soooo obvious, I’m impacted by these interpretations when I read the manga.

To Conclude + A List of Things I Don’t Mind

No, I don’t think the series is bad and I don’t think these listed things make it bad, but I’d be lying if I said they didn’t bother me. But since I’ve been nothing but negative, here’s a few things that bother most people but don’t bother me at all.

Mori Ougai. I don’t condone his behavior or “preferences”, but I do not believe he is a problem for the show. He is not supposed to be a good character and, as we see with his behavior towards Yosano, his actions are not portrayed as good. There is nothing wrong with the villain of a series being a p*dophile as long as it is not treated as something positive, which it is not.

Tachihara + The Hunting Dogs. This is a spoiler for the more recent chapters of the manga, but despite the lack of foreshadowing I am not bothered by Tachihara’s reveal as the fifth hunting dog. I also don’t care that the dogs are hunting the agency, because it makes sense, story-wise. The agency are technically international terrorists because of what was written in the book.

Lucy and her supposed crush. Romance is not the focus of the show and, likewise, Lucy’s “crush” on Atsushi is not put at the forefront of the plot. However, I have seen fans get annoyed by the fact that she seems to like him.

I’d like to thank everyone who read this for taking the time to do so. I’m not the most coherent with my thoughts and I’m bad at putting said thoughts into words, but I hope you liked the things I had to say.

[schraubd]

The Problem of "Centering" and the Jews

Note: I wrote this piece quite a few months ago, shopping around to the usual Jewish media outlets. None were interested, and I ended up letting it slide. But it popped back into my mind -- this Sophie Ellman-Golan article helped -- and so I decided to post it here. While I have updated it, some of the references are a bit dated (at least on an internet time scale). Nonetheless, I continue to think a critical look at how the idea of "centering" interacts with and can easily instantiate antisemitic tropes is deeply important. * * * In the early 2000s, Rosa Pegueros, a Salvadoran Jew, was a member of the listserv for contributors to the book This Bridge We Call Home, sequel to the tremendously influential volume This Bridge Called My Back. Another member of the listserv had written to the group with "an almost apologetic post mentioning that she is Jewish, implying that some of the members might not be comfortable with her presence for that reason." She had guessed she was the only Jewish contributor to the volume, so Pegueros wrote back, identifying herself as a Jew as a well and recounting a recent experience she perceived as antisemitic. Almost immediately, Peugeros wrote, another third contributor jumped into the conversation.  "I can no longer sit back," she wrote, "and watch this list turn into another place where Jewishness is reduced to a site of oppression and victimization, rather than a complex site of both oppression and privilege—particularly in relationship to POC." Pegueros was stunned. At the time of this reply, there had been a grand total of two messages referencing Jewishness on the entire listserv. And yet, it seemed, that was too much -- it symbolized yet "another place" where discourse about oppression had become "a forum for Jews." This story has always stuck with me. And I thought of it when reading Jews for Racial and Economic Justice's guidebook to understanding antisemitism from a left-wing perspective. Among their final pieces of advice for Jews participating in anti-racism groups was to make antisemitism and Jewish issues "central, but not centered". It's good advice. Jewish issues are an important and indispensable part of anti-racist work. That said, we are not alone, and it is important to recognize that in many circumstances our discrete problems ought not to take center stage. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be heard. It just means they should not be given disproportionate attention such that they prevent other important questions and campaigns from proceeding. Ideally, "central, but not centered" in the anti-racism community means that Jewish issues should neither overwhelm the conversation nor be shunted aside and ignored outright.

Yet it also overlooks an important caveat. Too often, any discussion of Jewish issues is enough to be considered "centering" it. There is virtually no gap between spaces where Jews are silenced and spaces where Jews are accused of "centering". And so the reasonable request not to "center" Jewish issues easily can, and often does, become yet another tool enforcing Jewish silence. Pegueros' account is one striking example. I'll give another: several years ago, I was invited to a Jewish-run feminist blog to host a series of posts on antisemitism. Midway through the series, the blog's editors were challenged on the grounds that it was taking oxygen away from more pressing matters of racism. At the time, the blog had more posts on "racism" than "antisemitism" by an 8:1 margin (and, in my experience, that is uncommonly attentive to antisemitism on a feminist site -- Feministing, for example, has a grand total of two posts with the "anti-Semitism" tag in its entire history). No matter: the fact that Jewish feminists on a Jewish blog were discussing Jewish issues at all was viewed as excessive and self-centered.

Or consider Raphael Magarik's reply to Yishai Schwartz's essay contending that Cornel West has "a Jewish problem".

Schwartz's column takes issue with West's decision to situate his critique of fellow Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates by reference to "the neoliberal establishment that rewards silences on issues such as Wall Street greed or Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and people." Magarik's reply accuses Schwartz of making the West/Coates dispute fundamentally "about the Jews", exhibiting the "the moral narcissism in thinking that everything is about you, in reading arguments between Black intellectuals about the future of the American left and asking: How can I make this about the Jews?" Now, Magarik is surely correct that the Jewish angle of West's critique of Coates is a rather small element that should not become the "center of attention" and thereby obscure "the focus [on] Black struggles for liberation." But there is something quite baffling about his suggestion that a single column that was a drop in the bucket of commentary produced in the wake of the West/Coates exchange could suffice to make it the "center of attention". If Magarik believes Schwartz overreacted to some stray mentions of Jewish issues in an otherwise intramural African-American dispute, surely Magarik equally brought a howitzer to a knife fight by claiming that one article in Ha'aretz single-handedly recentered the conversation about the West/Coates feud onto the Jews.

What's going on here? How is it that the "centering" label -- certainly a valid concern in concept -- seems to routinely and pervasively attach itself to Jews at even the slightest intervention in policy debates?

The answer, as you might have guessed, relates to antisemitism.

As a social phenomenon, antisemitism is very frequently the trafficking in tropes about Jewish hyperpower, the sense that we either have or are on the cusp of taking over anything and everything. Frantz Fanon described antisemitism as follows: "Jews are feared because of their potential to appropriate. ‘They’ are everywhere. The banks, the stock exchanges, and the government are infested with them. They control everything. Soon the country will belong to them.” If we have an abstract understanding of Jews as omnipotent and omnipresent, no wonder that specific instances of Jewish social participation -- no matter how narrow the contribution might be -- are understood as a complete and total colonization of the space. What are the Jews, other than those who are already "everywhere"?

Sadly, the JFREJ pamphlet does not address this issue at all. When "central" crosses into "centering" will often be a matter of judgment, but while the JFREJ has much to say about Jews making "demands for attention" or paying heed to "how much oxygen they can suck out of the room", it does not grapple with how the structure of antisemitism mentalities often renders simply being Jewish (without a concurrent vow of monastic silence) enough to trigger these complaints. It doesn't seem to realize how this entire line of discourse itself can be and often is deeply interlaced with antisemitism. JFREJ's omission is particularly unfortunate since Jews have begun to internalize this sensibility. It's not that Jewish issues should predominate, or always be at the center of every conversation. It's the nagging sense that any discussion of Jewish issues -- no matter how it is prefaced, cabined, or hedged -- is an act of "centering", of taking over, of making it "about us." When the baseline of what counts as "centering" is so low, I know from personal experience that even the simplest asks for inclusion are agonizing. As early as 1982, the radical lesbian feminist Irene Klepfisz identified this propensity as a core part of both internalized and externalized antisemitism. She instructed activists -- Jewish and non-Jewish alike -- to ask themselves a series of questions, including whether they feel that dealing with antisemitism "drain[s] the movement of precious energy", whether they believe antisemitism "has been discussed too much already," and whether Jews "draw too much attention to themselves." Contemporary activists, including many Jews, could do worse than asking Klepfisz's questions. For example, when Jews and non-Jews in the queer community rallied against the effort by some activists to expel Jewish and Israeli LGBTQ organizations from LGBT conference "Creating Change", Mordechai Levovitz fretted that they had "promoted the much more nefarious anti-Semitic trope that Jews wield disproportionate power to get what we want." Levovitz didn't support the expulsion campaign. Still, he fretted that even the most basic demand of inclusion -- don't kick queer Jews out of the room -- was potentially flexing too much Jewish muscle. In this way, the distinction between "central" and "centering" collapses -- indeed, even the most tertiary questions are "centering" if Jews are the ones asking them. This is bad enough in a world where, we are told, oppressions are inextricably connected (you can tell whose perspective is and isn't valued in these communities based on whose attempts to speak are taken to be remedying an oversight and whose are viewed as self-centered derailing). But it verges on Kafka-esque when persons demand Jews "show up" and then get mad that they have a voice in the room; or proactively decide to put Jewish issues on their agenda and yet still demand Jews keep silent about them. Magarik says, for example, that Jews "were not the story" when the Movement for Black Lives included in its platform an accusation that Israel was creating genocide; we shouldn't have made it "about us". He's right, in the sense that this language should not have caused Jews to withdraw from the fight against police violence against communities of color. He's wrong in suggesting that Jews therefore needed to stop "wringing our hands" about how issues that cut deep to the core of our existence as a people were treated in the document. Jews didn't demand that the Movement for Black Lives talk about Jews, but once they elected to do so Jews were not obliged to choose between the right's silence of shunning and the left's silence of acquiescence. To say that Jews ought not "center" ourselves is not to say that there is no place for critical commentary at all. We are legitimate contributors to the discourse over our own lives. I'm not particularly interested in the substantive debate regarding whether Cornel West has a "Jewish problem" -- though Magarik's defense of West (that he "has a good reason for focusing on Palestine" because it "demarcates the difference between liberalism and radicalism") seems like it is worthy of some remark (of all the differences between liberals and "radicals", this is the issue that is the line of demarcation? And that doesn't exhibit some sign of centrality that Jews might have valid grounds to comment on, not the least of which could be wondering how it is a small country half a globe away came to occupy such pride of place?). The larger issue is the metadebate about whether it's valid to even ask the question; or more accurately, whether it is possible -- in any context, with any amount of disclaimers about relative prioritization -- to ask the question without it being read as "centering". The cleverest part of the whole play, after all, is that the very act of challenging this deliberative structure whereby any and all Jewish contributions suffice to center is that the challenge itself easily can become proof of our centrality.

But clever as it is, it can't and shouldn't be a satisfactory retort. There needs to be a lot more introspection about whether and how supposed allies of the Jews are willing to acknowledge the possibility that their instincts about when Jews are "centered" and when we're silenced are out-of-whack, without it becoming yet another basis of resentment for how we're making it all about us. And if we can't do that, then there is an antisemitism problem that really does need to be addressed. When discussing their struggles, members of other marginalized communities need not talk about Jews all the time, or most of the time, or even all that frequently. But what cannot stand is a claimed right to talk about Jews without having to talk with Jews. The idea that even the exploration of potential bias or prejudice lurking within our political movements represents a deliberative party foul is flatly incompatible with everything the left claims to believe about how to talk about matters of oppression. West decided to bring up the Jewish state in his Jeremiad against Coates. It was not a central part of his argument, and so it should not be a central part of the ensuing public discussion. But having put it on the table, it cannot be the case that Jews are forbidden entirely from offering critical commentary. One might say that a column or two in a few Jewish-oriented newspapers, lying at the tertiary edges of the overall debate, is precisely the right amount of attention that should have been given. If that's viewed as too much, then maybe the right question isn't about whether Jews are "centering" the discussion, but rather whether our presence really is a "central" part of anti-racism movements at all.

Drawing the line between "central" and "centering" is difficult, and requires work. There are situations where Jews demand too much attention, and there are times we are too self-effacing. But surely it takes more than a single solitary column to move from the latter to the former. More broadly, we're not going to get an accurate picture of how to mediate between "central" and "centering" unless we're willing to discuss how ingrained patterns of antisemitism condition our evaluations of Jewish political participation across the board.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2MjQd84

[gritandoengay]

differentstarlightsublime mentioned you in a post

@fuckyeahhayleywilliams​ and @dontwantthenextcommanderiwantyou​ and @gritandoengay​ I have not seen homophobic remarks from any Bellarke stans and if so, very few. No one is erasing the fact she was with Lexa. Hell, no one should be erasing the fact they loved each other. In fact Clexa was overcoming my Bellarke love but the fact that they had so little time made Bellarke my final ship.

Ok @differentstarlightsublime​ seeing as you made this asinine post pop up in my notifications again I’m going to make you a list of reasons why I have no reservations calling the Bellarke fandom lesbophobic and a toxic environment for wlw:

Preface: I don’t care what you say you’ve seen or haven’t seen, I’ve seen more than enough on Tumblr and Twitter in the past almost two years to form my opinion.

Section A: Metas 

1. Popular metas circulated and widely accepted in the Bellarke fandom describing Lexa with language literally used to be homophobic towards lesbians:

Toxic, creepy, predatory

Only caring about “getting in Clarke’s pants” and obsessed with Clarke to the point of deliberately keeping her away from Bellamy 

Only caring about maintaining her political power and not caring about anything or anybody else, not even her own people or Clarke (somehow, despite point 2)

Manipulating Clarke into falling in love with her 

Using Stockholm Syndrome to make Clarke fall in love with her. It should also be pointed out that the Stockholm Syndrome metas would imply Stockholm Syndrome is a byproduct of rape, and that Clexa therefore had non-con under/overtones.  

A cyborg that was never truly human 

2. Popular metas circulated and widely accepted in the Bellarke fandom with biphobic language describing Clarke as: 

“Confused” when she kissed Lexa or fell in love with her 

Having to be separated from her friends and mother to fall in love with Lexa

Going through a “phase” when she kissed or fell in love with Lexa 

Using Lexa purely for political purposes 

Section B: Reaction to Lexa dying/Bury Your Gays/Queer Baiting

1. Arguing that Bury Your Gays:

Is not a big deal because straight characters die too

Is not what happened with Lexa 

Is only Bury Your Gays if the character is explicitly killed off for being a lesbian

Is not an issue anymore because there are like 5 other shows with popular wlw pairings 

2. Arguing that Clexa wasn’t queer baiting because:

Clexa got together and was canon

Everybody should have seen it coming and not been surprised

Ignoring that Shawna Benson went on a wlw online forum to literally lie to fans and tell them to go seek therapy (classy) over the trust issues 

3. Defending/downplaying/straight up mocking Lexa’s death because: 

It had to happen for plot purposes! There’s no way she could have lived!

Alycia is on FTWD (their schedules haven’t overlapped since)

She was just a guest star (as if guest stars are limited to two seasons)

“I want to make dead lesbian jokes and if you get offended it’s because you don’t have a sense of humor sweaty” 

Lexa was a bitch in their eyes so no sympathy for the people that liked her

She deserved to die as well as die a more painful and gruesome death

Being killed off by her father figure, who was trying to murder her girlfriend bc he didn’t approve of the relationship, somehow does not echo real world violence faced at the hands of homophobic parents

Complaining that Lexa and her death to this day are still getting attention from the media

Resentment that Lexa has become such an iconic character and is so important to wlw viewers 

4. Defending Jason Rothenberg because:

We should be thankful he gave us Lexa and Clexa to begin with (he also gave you Bellamy and Octavia and is responsible for her beating him up)

It’s his show so he can do whatever the hell he wants with the story (yeah and I can still call him a racist queer baiting shitty writer) 

People make mistakes and he apologized u.u

Lbr the only reason anybody defends him or kisses his ass is because they want Bellarke to happen  

Section C: Dismissal of lesbian characters/wlw relationships in general

1. Clexa: 

Was not groundbreaking or important representation 

Was fan service 

Had too much screen time 

Didn’t have enough screen time thus no proper development (often times said in tandem with point 3) 

Happened only because Clarke was rejected by Bellamy (according to metas and said nowhere in the show itself)

Was annoying/downright infuriating bc it was getting in the way of Bellarke 

Clarke should have gotten over Lexa 5 seconds after her death but for sure is going to still be in love with Bellamy (according to metas) after 6 years of no contact 

Somehow more violent than other ships when Bellarke have done things like handcuffed/drugged/shot at each other, Murphy literally shot Raven in the spine, Octavia hit Lincoln, Kane whip lashed Abby, etc.

Saying that Lexa forced herself on Clarke when they first kissed (have you watched that scene??? no seriously have you??????)

Comparing the Clexa love scene to Ontari raping Murphy 

2. Niylah/Niylarke:

Ignoring Niylah as a love interest for Clarke and dismissing Niylarke as purely “friends with benefits” when we all know people would be screaming canon if Clarke were seen cuddling in a bed with Bellamy like she has with Niylah 

Being mad that season 4 had Niylarke

Literally ignoring Niylah’s existence

Being the reason for Niylah existing to begin with because some people didn’t/refused to believe Clarke was bi after S2 

3. Lexa’s own freaking sexuality:

Writing fanfiction of Lexa having sex with a man (that I’ve seen alone, there’s fanfics of her sleeping with Bellamy, Roan and even Miller, another gay!)

Calling said fanfiction of Lexa having sex with men a “kink”

Shipping Lexa with Bellamy

Writing/drawing Lexa as part of a polyamorous relationship with Bellarke, which wouldn’t be a problem in itself if she wasn’t also often depicted as being involved in sexual activities with both Clarke and Bellamy

Getting upset when confronted, usually followed by asking why wlw shippers can take straight characters and hc them as lesbian/bi but they can’t take lesbian characters and hc them as bisexual or straight  

Section D: Biphobia/lesbophobia towards femslash shippers

1. Speaking over wlw:

Being cis straight and speaking over wlw shippers on wlw characters

Thinking that they have a license to speak over wlw/be lesbophobic bc they ship male characters together

Telling wlw that they need to care about mlm ships just as much as they do about wlw rep and/or that they don’t actually care about lgbt rep if they don’t talk about (insert mlm ship)  

Telling wlw to shut up about BYG/queer baiting bc gays are dying in Russia 

“X and Y people in the Bellarke fandom are wlw and they agree with me therefore I must be right!” 

Reacting to people bringing up the BYG and queer baiting in The 100 with “god move on already”

Telling wlw that complain about the queer baiting and BYG to “seek help” in order to get over their issues with the show, which is a pretty fucking homophobic way of wording things considering that for lgbt youth those words are usually accompanied by being sent to conversion therapy. 

2. Biphobia/Bisexual rep:

Getting angry at people that say there are bisexuals with a preference for women. Imagine that! Bisexuality in itself can be fluid and not always 50/50 attraction or dating! 

Berating bisexuals for preferring to see a femslash ship over an m/f one 

Invalidating the sexualities of bisexuals that don’t ship Blarke

Making up statistics about the prevalence of f/f ships literally to shut down  bisexuals that want to see more f/f ships

Implying that Clarke now HAS to get with a guy, aka Bellamy, for it to be bisexual rep

——————————————————————

There you go, a whole list of reasons the Bellarke fandom is lesbophobic that is not “they don’t ship Clexa” or the outright “I hate lesbians/god hates gays” that has also been seen 

BTW, all of these are things I’ve seen multiple times over the years and many in posts with hundreds or thousands of notes, I won’t shed a single tear if you come crying to me about only a few people doing this 

[psi-psina]

The Hounds of Baskerville, a long-ass read-through.

Pt one, 221B.

I haven’t done this to an episode in years... I’m gonna preface this with a quick summary on how I read the symbolism in the show so that anyone who might happen to read this might have a clue as to what I’m talking about. The symbolism I’m referring to here is the double-meaning attached in the text to food/hunger, drug use/cravings, and tea. 

Edit: I almost forgot! Full credits to Ariane DeVere for the episode transcripts! Without her there would BE no Sherlock meta lmao.

Mirrors are:

Bluebell = Sherlock

Henry Knight = Sherlock

Louise Mortimer = John

Jaqui Stapleton = John

Corporal Lyons = Sherlock

Major Barrymore = John

Bob Frankland = Moriarty

Billy & Gary = Sherlock & John

The Fisherman & The Widow = John & Sherlock

Moriarty: Sherlock

Mycroft: Sherlock

Mrs. Hudson: Sherlock

Lestrade: Sherlock

Baskerville is the Heartroom (a depressing situation).

Note on how I read the symbolism:

Tea = Sentiment. 

Does this need an explanation. Tea is warm, comforting, hospitable, lovely, as good as a hug. Making someone tea is a universally accepted gesture of warmth and hospitality. Sherlock loves tea, he makes so much tea, he wants it ALL the time, because he’s a SCHMALTZ. He goes so far as to reject all other forms of sustenance (i.e. FOOD!) in favour of it, but no one can survive solely on tea, Sherlock! 

Eating as Intimacy and, Hunger = Desire. 

Food, and eating as an act both carnal and communal, carries meaning in all cultures and in literature the world over; the association between gluttony and lust, feasting and orgies etc, is as old as the bible, in which desire and shame itself entered the human realm via the eating of forbidden fruit. It’s permeated literature ever since. Practically speaking, food has been used to denote the other appetites in film and lit for a long, long time for reasons both practical and creative.

So in regard to Sherlock, in the unaired pilot when John and Sherlock go to Angelo’s, they equate the act of eating and the act of having sex when Sherlock pointedly uses the same phrase (“Everything else is transport.”) to field questions about his “appetites”. Then John asks if Sherlock has a “girlfriend” who “feeds him up”, explicitly framing eating (or in this case being fed) in a romantic context.

The pilot isn’t strictly speaking canon, but they have clearly carried this thread over completely into the finished version of the show, they just haven’t spelled it out quite like this, which allowed them to embed it into the show with a lot more nuance. They wait until ASiB to even draw an explicit connection between “dinner” and “romance”.  Eating is still framed very romantically in S1 but the link isn’t made explicit until later when Irene flat-out states that her asking Sherlock to have “dinner” with her is her attempt at being delicate in broaching the topic of sex with him.

In the show, eating is never framed in terms of the act of sex, but in terms of hunger (a synonym for desire) and intimacy. Hunger = Desire, in the text. It’s the simplest synonym to parse, ever.

Sherlock’s Cravings/Drug Use as Lust/Libido

They lifted this right out of Private Life. We all know, Billy Wilder said that he wanted Holmes to be a closeted homosexual who was unable to admit it, maybe even to himself, and that was the reason he took dope. Even in the final censored version of the film, it’s pretty obvious. Moffat and Gatiss were coy about what their intended approach to Holmes’ opium use was going to be in their modern setting, to the point of saying it was simply not an avenue they were going down with the character, despite heavily implying past drug use in ASiP and ASiB. This was yet another flagrant lie, and by the time HLV rolled around Sherlock was back on narcotics. His substance abuse carries the same meaning that it has/was intended to have in Private Life, but has been implemented far more creatively. You are meant to understand the talk of Sherlock’s “cravings” as being textually about his sexual cravings.

It’s also important to keep in mind the fact that they clearly distinguished between this thread and the thread wrt Food, which absolutely does encompass sexuality but is fundamentally about intimacy and sharing. It is positive, and it is always framed that way. Sherlock’s “drug problem” is framed VERY negatively. It is a negative expression of the sublimation of his sexuality.

Anyway. Food is a bit of a non-issue in this episode, the focus in this go-around is squarely on drugs and tea/coffee.

The final thing of import: Irene Adler is a mirror for Sherlock’s sexuality.

In the prologue, we see Henry (Sherlock), running over the moor, amid flashbacks of the Hound killing his father. He’s lost, distressed, confused. He comes face to face with a lady and a hound as he runs; he’s benevolent, curious, friendly. But Henry is traumatised, and with the Hound’s snarl roaring in his ears, he screams in terror when the doggie leans in for a sniffle. :(

The Morning After

Like Mark’s first episode, Hounds opens with a bang. This time as Sherlock slams 221B’s door. Like a gunshot. The camera swoops over to some little hound’s in the window of Speedy’s, heads bobbing as if to show us what’s in pursuit of him. Thematic. Nice tone setting mates.

Inside, Sherlock barges onto the scene, tense, covered in blood, gripping a huge phallic harpoon. Next thing we know, he’s cleared the blood off himself and his giant cock harpoon and is dramatically keening for a case because he NEEDS a distraction. This is the most oddly agitated and manic we ever see Sherlock, and it is not without reason, as it might initially appear. The events in the 12 months over which A Scandal in Belgravia takes place were thus,

he falls in love, bad. like ass over tit bad.

he comes to believe his feelings are, and always will be, unrequited and his hopes (however forlorn) are crushed (Battersea)

and all his WORST fears about love are consequently reasserted (Irene takes advantage of him and fucks him over, and he in turn exerts his own worst self and ruins her life out of spite. MESSY.)

So, he’s not really doing well. This episode, which takes place in the days immediately following the end of Scandal, is largely the fallout of those events. “I always assumed [falling in] love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.” Might as well be called The Hounds of Love.

So anyway, he’s practically vibrating and levitating with the force of all that maddening, doomed sexual energy he’s had pent up for over a year. He paces as John looks through the papers, scowling in disgust when John points out the photograph of him in the hat that Irene had caressed. Sherlock then screams, and slams his harpoon down before abruptly turning to John and demanding John give him some. I mean get him some. Same thing, really. Either way he NEEDS SOME and he wants John to GIVE IT TO HIM. :/

Like jhbkjlkm, could they have framed this demand anymore suggestively lmao. No. John flawlessly deadpans him and Sherlock makes a petulant face and turns away. Apparently Sherlock has tried to force himself to ditch his “habit” cold turkey (what an idiot…) and paid everyone off so he can’t “get any” for miles. Boy realises this was idiocy and hollers for Mrs. Hudson. He then begins frantically tearing the place apart looking for any stray cigarette he can suck on, BEGGING John to tell him where they are;

“Tell me where they are. Please! Tell me! Please.”

Just sayin…he begged...twice.

Mrs Hudson pops in as Sherlock throws himself across the room in search of his Secret Supply, now begging her to tell him where he keeps them. Hudders provides the tea dear, she can’t help you in this area Sherl you’ve called on the wrong mirror my boy. Hudders has no idea what he’s on about and he has another dramatic huff and grabs his harpoon again. Hudders offers to make some tea, and maybe a nice warm cuppa could calm him down enough to settle his (ahem) harpoon but-

“Seven percent stronger…” *[1]

Yeah, tea ain’t gonna take the edge off these cravings mates, he needs the GOOD STUFF.

He rounds on Hudders, brandishing his big harpoon at her (lasjflsd), and segues into a frankly hilarious and exceptionally frustrated deduction about her romantic exploits first thing on this Monday morning. He’s like, “even Hudders is out there taking names, while I am mouldering inside this perpetual hellprison two feet away from the untouchable object of my desires!!!” Also...where, exactly, do the scratch cards lead? i’m dying to know.

He inevitably goes on to point out that her beau is a worthless womaniser so she’d better not pin any real hopes on him, calling back the deductions he makes at Christmas in Scandal about Molly’s love life, which were also embarrassing projections of his own insecurity and heartbreak about the situation with John, and his bitterness and resentment toward John for his slovenly dating practices.

Yes. So in Scandal, Greg’s and Sherlock’s SO’s are sleeping with a teacher at Christmas and it is decidedly not all sorted, and Mrs Hudson (Sherlock) is in a relationship with a womaniser who’s just keeping her on the side of his main gig(s). Uncanny.

Anyway, he successfully upsets Hudders with the jab about her lover because misery loves company, and jumps into his chair, folding in on himself in agitation. John instructs him to apologise to Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock looks positively affronted. He says he envies John for his mind, for being so “placid, straightforward, barely used.” He says it flippantly, as always couching it in insult, to mask the truth in the sentiment. Because his is out of control. He’s tearing himself to pieces. His desires are trapped on the launchpad, tearing him to pieces. :/

He screams, again, that he needs a case, and John screams back that he’s just solved one by “Harpooning a dead pig, apparently.” “Apparently” indeed. This phrase is a play on the idiom “Flogging a dead horse.” As is Sherlock’s propensity for flogging corpses. They twice imply (in ASIP and TAB) that the ‘medical’ reasons Sherlock provides for doing such things are a pretext; “So, bad day was it?” And apparently he’s escalated from flogging corpses, to impaling them. :/ And I feel like this is also very much about Scandal, because:

Listen, it’s not a coincidence that the first is the closing sentiment of Scandal and the second the OPENING sentiment of Hounds, taking place the literal following day. A Scandal in Belgravia = Flogging a dead horse. The Woman (i.e., Love). Tedium. The outcome (rejection, heartbreak, misunderstanding) was always decided. Inevitable. He’s rejecting all of it.

Poor John just...perseveres through this behaviour as Sherlock flails and wriggles around in his chair petulantly. “Nothing on the website?” Sherlock huffs.

Nothing but…Bluebell. A locked room mystery! A rabbit that vanished from inside his locked hutch after he turned luminous, like a fairy! According to little Kirsty.

IMPORTANT!!: This is all about Sherlock. All this talk about Bluebell the luminious bunny is about Sherlock. Sherlock is a Bluebell. And there are some nice info’s about Bluebells:

“Bluebells have long been symbolic of humility and gratitude. They are associated with constancy, gratitude and everlasting love. Bluebells are also closely linked to the realm of fairies and are sometimes referred to as fairy thimbles.”

“Bluebells are widely known as harebells in Scotland.”

“Another name for bluebells is Dead Man's bells. This is due to the fact that fairies were believed to cast spells on those who dare to pick or damage the beautiful, delicate flowers.” [x]

“Even if it’s not forbidden to pick bluebells, you might not want to do that on account of the superstition of bad luck. Picking bluebells and bringing them to your home means inviting bad luck to enter into your life because based on many folklore, the fairies had cast a spell that will bring bad luck to anyone who dare to destroy (or pick) this majestic-looking flower.” [x]

^ Fitting for John, wouldn’t you say.

The Bluebell is symbolic of loyalty, gratitude and everlasting love, but is surrounded with superstitions of ill fate and death due to their reverent and supernatural associations. A lot like the Hound. And you will see, the Hound and the Bunny are equated once we enter Baskerville.

“What am I saying this is brilliant. Phone Lestrade. Tell him there’s an escaped rabbit!”

A genetic experiment. Out roaming the moors. Luminous. Red eyes. Not very dangerous though.

They argue about Cluedo for a moment and then at last, the doorbell rings. Client! And a wild Henry appears.

They sit watching Henry’s documentary about Baskerville. Sherlock’s eyes flick from Henry to the TV as the presenter tells us about the superstitions that surround Baskerville. Sherlock is skeptical of Henry’s fears and their interview starts out brusquely. He interrupts Henry’s reminisces, instructing him to skip ahead to the part where his dad was ‘violently killed’. John reacts to this glib remark in a way that could be suggestive, since there are hints that John’s father is also dead, and even if still living, is certainly lost to him in the way the following subtext suggests. Or perhaps it’s just a reaction to Sherlock’s general assholery. Or both.

Henry recounts his memory of his father’s death; he’s mauled on the forest floor as Henry watches on, terrified. Henry shakes as he remembers it and we then cut to…Sherlock. Also trembling, just slightly. Imagining. 

“It got him…tore at him, tore him apart…”

This brings me to the meaning of the Hound in this episode, and by extension Henry. This is the heart of this episode. The Hound is a monstrous distortion of an ordinary dog that is literally created using “fear and stimulus”. The Hound is a representation of the fear and hatred that transforms a natural, ordinary (dog) love/sexuality into something unnatural, violent and predatory. Homophobia. This is part of what turns Sherlock’s love, his capacity to love and ability to be loved, into something twisted that he is frightened of and deeply cut off from. And the nature of this memory (and now The Final Problem) makes it clear that this damage began very early in his life. So even though Sherlock is outwardly skeptical of this whole Hound business, and he clearly maintains rationally that it’s all complete nonsense, treats it (defensively) like a joke and refuses to believe it even after “seeing” it, he is still very vulnerable to the effects of said “stimulus”. Henry, as a mirror for Sherlock, represents the part of him that has been terrorised and haunted by the Hound since his childhood. The way Sherlock treats Henry is indicative of how he treats this problem in himself.

Henry (Sherlock) imagines the Hound literally tearing his father apart, and losing him forever.

Sherlock acts glibly toward Henry, who is offended by his blasé attitude about such a serious matter and we get this exchange before Henry gets up to leave.

HENRY: “Are you laughing at me, Mr. Holmes?” SHERLOCK: “Why, are you joking?”

It’s interesting, because this is the start of a particular thread about the Hound in this episode and we now have some pretty strong parallels to this thread in The Lying Detective.

People laughed at them. Delusional, paranoid, exploited, taken for a ride, played for an ad campaign, can’t tell what’s real anymore.

They are the same, after all.

But as Henry is about to leave, Sherlock stops him with his deductions, and persuades him back to his chair. So, deducing Henry (….Sherlock).

SHERLOCK: You came up from Devon on the first available train this morning. You had a disappointing breakfast and a cup of black coffee. The girl in the seat across the aisle fancied you. Although you were initially keen, you’ve now changed your mind. You are, however, extremely anxious to have your first cigarette of the day. Sit down, Mr Knight, and do please smoke. I’d be delighted.

Sherlock says he’d be delighted if Henry would smoke for him, which is hysterical to me because honestly, if Sherlock’s cravings were actually about cigarettes (ie, if this show was normal) this’d be the part where Sherlock bummed a smoke for himself. But it isn’t (about cigarettes) and it’s not (normal). So instead, once his feverish deduction is over with, we get Sherlock practically trembling on the edge of his seat as he watches Henry light up, then launch himself off his chair into Henry’s face to suck in the smoke that’s just come out of Henry’s body. :/

“Punched-out holes where your ticket’s been checked […]” SHERLOCK: The train napkin that you used to mop up the spilled coffee: the strength of the stain shows that you didn’t take milk. There are traces of ketchup on it and round your lips and on your sleeve. Cooked breakfast – or the nearest thing those trains can manage. Probably a sandwich. HENRY: How did you know it was disappointing? SHERLOCK: Is there any other type of breakfast on a train? The girl – female handwriting’s quite distinctive [Sure Jan]. Wrote her phone number down on the napkin. I can tell from the angle she wrote at that she was sat across from you on the other side of the aisle. Later – after she got off, I imagine – you used the napkin to mop up your spilled coffee, accidentally smudging the numbers. You’ve been over the last four digits yourself with another pen, so you wanted to keep the number. Just now, though, you used the napkin to blow your nose. Maybe you’re not that into her after all. Then there’s the nicotine stains on your fingers ... your shaking fingers. I know the signs. No chance to smoke one on the train; no time to roll one before you got a cab here. It’s just after nine fifteen. You’re desperate. The first train from Exeter to London leaves at five forty-six a.m. You got the first one possible, so something important must have happened last night. Am I wrong? HENRY: No.

So Henry (Sherlock) arrives at Baker Street that morning, distressed because of ‘what happened last night’ with remnants of his ‘’disappointing breakfast” on his face and clothing

desperate for a cigarette.

No chance to smoke one stuck on the train, on which he met a woman whom he was initially interested in but ultimately indifferent to, had a ‘disappointing breakfast’ and spilled his ‘coffee’. Which he also takes black. Because he’s Sherlock. The coffee & the girl is yet another moment associating women with coffee along with the conclusion he (Sherlock) is indifferent to it/them. The detailed observations about Henry’s (Sherlock’s) smoking habit and ‘cravings’ and a few rather…erotic shots of Henry’s mouth and fingers…in Sherlock’s mind’s eye…

Doe eyes and pouty mouth ehhh...Alla this is…homoerotic. :/

I’ve always been in two minds about this deduction. This deduction is either about Irene, or about something that Sherlock actually….did the night before, when he was apparently out “impaling dead pigs”. I’ve always been inclined to read this deduction as being about Irene & the events of Scandal, which are what caused the Hound to rear it’s ugly head again and compelled him to return to the ‘scene of the crime’ after a very, very long time. It’s also the exact kind of underhanded nonsense Mark loves, he literally can’t even wait for 5 minutes to subtextually disavow any straight reading of Scandal lol.

Anyway, John then asks Henry if this story could be a product of the trauma of losing his parents as a child and we learn that Henry has a therapist, Doctor Louise Mortimer (John), who is the reason all of this is happening. Henry (Sherlock) is trying to confront all of this because of Lousie (John). “She’s the reason I came back. She says I have to face my demons.”

So Sherlock asks Henry what it was he saw when he returned to Dewer’s Hollow, what was it that changed everything? Just footprints. Footprints on the exact spot he saw his father torn apart. Sherlock is truly annoyed at Henry for this, dismissing these fears immediately and quipping “Sorry, Doctor Mortimer wins, childhood trauma masked by an invented memory. Boring!” ....... . ..  .. .. .  . .. .. . . . .If only we could have known…if only we could have known the extent of this bullshit…that this is literally The Final Problem…in which Sherlock is facing his Final Demon s for John…because of John so he can save John…and it’s all framed as. A childhood trauma that’s masked by an invented memory of a dog…

I’m sorry but they’re so stupid and awful I’m gonna die.

Anyway, Sherlock bids Henry goodbye, reassuring him it was probably just paw prints which could be “anything therefore nothing”, not a monster, not a danger, just the fancy of Henry’s troubled mind. “Off to Devon with you, have a cream tea on me.” (Mark 😩) And on that note, he makes a beeline for his bedroom no doubt intending to rub one out immediately but then-

HENRY: Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic Hound!

Sherlock stops in his tracks. He makes Henry repeat his words, loading them with great significance, and with that cryptic bitch look on his face, he's just like “I’ll take the case.” Sherlock later reveals that he takes the case specifically because Henry called ‘it’ a Hound:

SHERLOCK: Why do you call it a Hound? Why a Hound? HENRY: Why – what do you mean? SHERLOCK: It’s odd, isn’t it? Strange choice of words – archaic. It’s why I took the case. “Mr Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic Hound.” Why say “Hound”?

Strange thing to call a dog these days. Archaic. Bygone. Anachronistic. So with that he decides, it’s time to lay this particular ghost.

But not before being a cock about it. Poor John is baffled by this sudden development, not least as Sherlock suddenly puts on airs that he’s “far too busy” to leave London at the moment because he has to solve the case of…Bluebell a,sdjf. John looks hurt as Sherlock taunts him and acts like he’s gonna send John off to deal with Henry and this Hound bullshit on his own, as though JOHN is the one for whom the Hound is a problem, while he sits on his arse at home sulking and obsessing over Bluebell the bunny rabbit instead of dealing with ANY of his problems himself. COCK.

John just looks knowingly at Henry, and then taunts Sherlock right back, tossing him cigarettes he had hidden inside Billy the whole time. Sherlock won’t even look at them now and just flings them over his shoulder, “I don’t need those anymore, I’m going to Dartmoor.” And out he flounces. We now have a Superior Distraction. ��

[1] Just wanted to note; this situation has progressed to the point of being fully reversed in The Lying Detective. In Hounds, he’s still abstaining from ‘drugs’ but his ‘cravings’ have overwhelmed his desire for ‘tea’, and so he begs for a fix, be it cigarettes or a case. By the time TLD rolls around, he’s fully given in to his ‘addiction’. He’s using ‘drugs’ heavily, but now he’s desperate for a cup of tea. He stops taking clients and initially blows off Faith’s bizarre case claiming it’s “too weird” for him, and ends up taking the case basically because he...Bonds with her. 

:(

tagging a few people that might be interested, i guess @sarahthecoat, @impossibleleaf, @obsessivelollipoplalala, @221bloodnun, @gosherlocked, @devoursjohnlock, @mrskolesouniverse, @smoljohnlock, @northstargrassmaiden etc :)

[sayzie]

Funny this should come up. I was actually thinking about this topic recently and was even considering posting about it myself.

To preface — Everyone is entitled to their own headcanons about any character you wish and I am not here to judge or deride but as an aspie myself it is my view that No - Kylo Ren is not autistic.

*Copy from my notes*

Regarding Kylo Ren

A good deal of Kylo’s reactions can be read as autistic and I as an aspie (someone on the Autism Spectrum) do gravitate towards Kylo Ren as character, especially regarding his relationships (both in Canon and Fanon varieties) as they mirror many of my own experiences and feelings. However, I do not believe Kylo Ren to be autistic, there’s far better examples whether intentional, unintentional or simply head canon of aspies in media i.e.

Temperance Brennan from Bones

Will Graham from Hannibal

Hermione Granger of Harry Potter

L from Death Note

Lisbeth Salander of The Millennium Series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo)

and Elliot from Mr. Robot

Any perception of Kylo as autistic is really a consequence of bad writing more than anything else. The films hoping around with directors and story butchered any chance of Kylo Ren having a consistent or fully realised characterisation. But overall as shown in the supplementary material such as the film novelisations and Rise of Kylo Ren comic series Kylo lacks the major indicators of Autism.

He doesn’t have any significant social or communication deficits — eye contact is within normal ranges, he lashes out in TFA a poor but normal response. If questioned he would have a reason that being He’s pissed off, an Aspie can barely differentiate sadness or excitement for indigestion, if an Aspie is acting out and you ask why they could not tell you.

His motor coordination and concentration are neither awkward or stilted, heavy handed yes but that is more a consequence of Adam Driver’s size than a character trait.

IMPORTANT!!! No obvious sensory issues: which is the reason for meltdowns in aspies — they are not tantrums per say which I always considered intentional attempts at provokation or creating disorder for attention. For the most part aspies hate attention, and would not willingly engaging in a situation that would draw considerable attention. Rather an Autistic meltdown is always related to sensory overload — sounds, textures, smells, lights just become too much and the inability to process these things manifests as a ‘meltdown’. Aspies especially children may seem angry but it is in all actuality distress.

There is little evidence of special interests; the Vader Mask has an honest if somewhat misunderstood motivation of carrying on a legacy. When an aspies has a special interest it is often inexplicable and the reasoning often ‘just because’ and ‘I like it, idk’

Finally no obvious aversion to change. Aspies despise change because they love routines. Kylo regularly goes on missions which are implied as lasting days or weeks and occur randomly at the whim of Snoke. An Aspie would hate that.

The 4th aspects especially I believe is where people get the idea Kylo is autistic. And this is valid — Obviously ASD is a complex disorder with a series of traits and two aspies might act completely different. When it comes to ASD you should think about like this: All Aspies have A (say executive functioning deficits or meltdowns) but A by itself is not an indication of Autism. Executive Functioning deficits and meltdowns are present in individuals with ADHD, depression can impact EF as can Trauma, and the inability to do basic tasks as a result of depression or trauma might cause an otherwise functional person to have a meltdown. Thus to suggest Kylo Ren is autistic you require to review the sum of his traits and character and I have to say that Kylo lacks most of the bare minimum indicators.

To my mind Kylo is not autistic but his story when taken as a whole does parallel a lot of Autistic experiences, namely

1. The feeling of being different from peers (Kylo is canonically stronger than his peers and realistically would have been considerably older than them, in addition to being the son of the Hero of the Republic.)

2. Exclusion as a result of this difference (children are mean)

3. Being taken advantage of by manipulative strangers who claim to care but only serve to isolate and gaslight towards their own ends and

4. Rather poor impulse/emotion control (very obvious in the films) — but not ASD just angry

5. Obsessive focus (Rey in Canon, Hux in my preferred Fanon) however ASD obsession rarely involves people so this probably isn’t the best indicator. One could say the Sith Holocrons, Snoke apparently sends him to retrieve (is that just a Fandom thing I can’t remember) but we never see him use these things.

As I said before you are entitled to any belief and if you as an Aspie yourself connect with Kylo that’s fine. I also connect with Kylo Ren — I think he’s a fascinating and complex character but I don’t necessarily think that him having ASD as the most accurate explanation of Kylo’s issues.

Remember I mentioned trauma earlier, the D that Kylo Ren suffers from is not ASD but PTSD (almost certainly of the Complex variety) but that’s another story.

If you’d like me to go into it I can but let’s leave it there for now.

Do you think at kylo ren was autistic because if you you saw in the force awakens he had a temper tantrum

Kylo could be autistic, yes!

- His ‘meltdowns’

- Unfortunately being taken advantage of and being mislead by Snoke

- Unsure of how to express his feelings which can end up in him lashing out

- Obsession with a possession; his grandfather’s mask

[entamewitchlulu]

Besides the resentment cause by some people, what is your current opinion on Vrains? Personally overall I like it but I just wish Yusaku wasn't so perfect and people would stop staying this is best thing in yugioh ever when we're only 10 eps in.

welllllll okay, at the risk of sounding kinda bitchy….I’m not particularly enjoying it so far. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like it!  About as much as any other Yu-Gi-Oh series (except for Arc V which is…always going to be on a different level for me for personal reasons.  But I digress).

Resentment towards the fanbase and it’s antics aside, the show itself is…just a little lackluster for me.  It’s kind of why I stopped doing those episode by episode reviews, because I didn’t want to steal anyone’s thunder with my own lack of enthusiasm.

But…anyway.  Let me try to quantify my feelings more specifically; i’ll put it under a cut cause it might be a bit long.

ALSO, please bear in mind that I’m…actually two episodes behind;;;;  So some of the things I complain about may or may not have been addressed in those two episodes, I don’t know. (but then, there’s the main problem right there…I haven’t felt an urge to watch them….anyway.)

first…the setting.  I just…don’t feel like it’s been utilized to it’s fullest extent.  Virtual reality is cool!!!  It’s super cool!!  But….but VRAINS just looks like….regular space.  Regular space with the occasional data stream/storm to hoverboard through.  It’s not….very visually interesting.  Everything about it is pretty subdued, realistic, and with a darker, duller palette, which are not my favorite aesthetics.  Like, it’s virtual reality, man!!!  Show me beautiful ridiculously spread out environments like mountain ranges and meadows and forests, not just…the same old cityscapes that we see in the real world.  VRAINS and the real world do not look visually distinct, at all.  If not for the avatars, I would not know when the characters were in one world or the other, and I fail to see the necessity of the VRAINS system at all.  Why is it important?  Why is it more important that the duels take place on that stage rather than anywhere else?

The visuals of data storm duels just…aren’t very interesting to me, either.  They’re getting repetitive, and I’m already sick of seeing the Link Summon animation because it’s so LONG.  and what with the backgrounds being so boring, too, i just…I want them to have to zip around obstacles and shit, instead of just zooming down a freeway and then occasionally getting sucked into a data storm, where Yusaku does the exact same animation for his skill as always. (like man there is so much recycled animation in this series, his transformation sequence, the Link Summon sequences, the Storm Access skill…no wonder the animation is so good and consistence, they only have to animate new footage for about half the episode)

Second, the characters so far.  I just…I don’t feel much of a connection to them.  As far as Yusaku goes, I do like him, and I’ll get into the parts that I do like about him later in this response, but as far as he goes, I feel like we’re watching him from the outside, rather than actually getting into his head.  We’re not getting much, if any, of his internal monologue.  I feel as though we’re being told how he feels instead of being shown how he feels.  There’s nothing wrong with a stoic character!!  Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all, I mean, I adore Yusei.  What I don’t like is a stoic character who’s….just stoic.  Yusaku is just a little too perfect so far; he never gets tripped up by anything, even when it looked like Blue Angel had him on the ropes, it turned out he had been planning on the entire situation from the beginning.  Like…I’m getting BBC Sherlock vibes out of him at the moment, and I…I don’t like it.  Let me see Yusaku fail.  Let me see Yusaku get upset when he does.  Let me see him feeling, let me see his flaws, besides his single-minded focus on revenge.

I found Go somewhat lackluster as well; his aesthetic didn’t appeal to me, and he just………what about him was “”entertainment dueling”” ?  Maybe once he joins the crew and interacts I’ll enjoy him more but I really can’t even say much about him because I don’t feel like I learned anything about him.

And as for Aoi…..let me preface this with the fact that she is by and large my favorite character in the series so far.  I think she does the subdued personality better than Yusaku does so far, but i think it helps that we have the duality of her Blue Angel persona to really give her some depth to her conflicted personality and nature.  But besides that…?  She’s been treated very poorly so far.  They set her up as a very powerful and important duelist, which is great! ….but then they immediately had her possessed by the bad guys and sent her into a coma.

and….as an aside, i was….uncomfortable with the long, drawn out scene where she was fighting her possession.  There was really…no actual reason for that whole scene of her losing her wings and falling, like…what exactly was happening there????  And just the drawn out sequence of her just sitting here, screaming, without seeing her internal struggle–like, was she actually fighting the virus?  if so, instead of seeing her losing her wings and falling, I would have liked to see her shouting at the virus in her head and struggling with it.  Instead we just got….almost five minutes of her just screaming in pain and it almost felt like torture porn to me.  I would have accepted the losing her wings scene if we had seen some kind of internal monologue about her feeling like she was failing her desire/purpose to prove herself to her brother, and that was why she felt like she was losing her wings, but…instead it was just, straight up screaming in pain.

don’t get me wrong, i loooove seeing characters get broken down, i just like to feel like there’s a character point to it instead of just seeing it to see it

and finally……the plot.  A lot of people have hailed this as the “first yugioh series to focus on plot” but i would counter with….exposition is not plot.  What we have gotten is not plot so much as it is info-dumping.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, not at all.  I just…it rubs me the wrong way to call it “”plot”” because so far, the plot is still developing.  You can’t act like they dumped all of it into the beginning, and you can’t act like a series not doing the same thing is somehow “not plot.”  Plot is the overarching storyline; what we have right now is not plot it’s just…….vague info dumping that makes me feel like i know less than if they hadn’t told me anything at all.  A lot of that info-dumping has been done in an incredibly stilted manner imo, also.  Like Akira talking to Bishop, and he explained things out loud to Bishop that….both of them would have already known.  He was just saying it for the sake of the audience.  That’s…imo that’s a poor way to explain backstory.  It’s telling instead of showing, instead of letting the plot simmer up through the actual story and peek through the cracks, slowly drawing you into the world and slowly getting you involved.  Nope just…just dumps it on ya.  Here it is.  Here’s the back story.

honestly, let me clarify that previous complaint with this: I am 100% a character over plot person.  Give me characters that I love and I will ride through any plot, no matter how convoluted or poorly written.  I am of the firm belief that if you have well-written characters who interact in interesting ways, the plot will fall into place behind them.  My first rule of thumb when writing is, if you have a scene with only one person, do whatever you can to add at least second person for them to play off against.

So far….?  VRAINS has not wowed me with its characters interactions.  And I think the plot is suffering for it.  I don’t know these characters.  I don’t know how they feel about each other.  The majority of interaction comes from them zipping around from a distance on the field, and they don’t really talk…they mostly talk to themselves about what the other person is doing, and then do some loud trash talking that isn’t real interaction.  The closest VRAINS has gotten so far to getting the kind of interaction I want to see is in the intro ep for Blue Angel, where Yusaku had some good interaction with Ignis and Kusanagi, and then with Naoki and Aoi.

I think it’s telling that the only parts of the show that I’ve really, really enjoyed so far are the above mentioned instances.  Not the duels, not the backstory, not the evil dudes plotting, not the new cards or summoning types, not even the fucking virtual reality gimmick.  The only parts I’ve actually really, really loved watching are the parts where Yusaku is put on the spot and expected to awkwardly interact with things that have nothing to do with his overall mission.

And i think that’s a good segway into what I do like about VRAINS so far.  First, what little we DO have of Yusaku, I do like more than i dislike.  I think he’s cute, and like I said before, during those brief moments of awkwardness he had with Ignis/Kusanagi’s teasing and with Naoki strongarming him into the duel club, i loved a lot.  That is what i want to see more out of him.  I want to see him put on the spot, dragged out of his comfort zone, forced to see things from outside his tunnel vision.  I do love his ticks, like his “three reasons” thing, I think that’s actually a very interesting master gesture for him that implies an extra depth that i hope will be explored later.

I like Ignis, and I like his relationship with Yusaku.  I like that it’s almost a reverse Yuma/Astral thing.  I love how expressive Ignis is even though he’s just an eye. 

The animation is good!  My complaint about recycled animation aside, the animation actually is v good, the CGI bits aren’t too bad, definitely improved since their first usage in BBT.  The characters are nicely articulated and expressive in their movements.  My complaints about the backgrounds and sameness aside, this is a style that would become more than just beautiful if and when it decides to expand from it��s current repertoire of backgrounds.

And the parts of the plot that they haven’t explained?  I am fascinated by that.  TBH I could care less about the AI subplot, but the flashback of tiny Yusaku getting dragged out of a house in a blanket as though there was some kind of fire?  That is interesting to me, because they left questions unanswered, and didn’t throw any exposition at me for it yet.  That i am looking forward to seeing explored and explained and threaded through the story.

And as for what I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to Yusaku getting a squad.  That’s basically it.  I think my opinion of the show will increase tenfold once Yusaku has his friend group.  Like I said, I’m a character person.  I want characters over plot.  Once Yusaku has his team put together, I think I’ll be much more engaged.

So my overall thoughts, if somehow you read through that entire monstrosity of a response?  I don’t hate it, but I’m not currently very engaged.  This isn’t meant to be a comparison, but coming off of the high of Arc V, which is very important to me for personal reasons, it’s harder for me to become engaged in the new story when it doesn’t hit my buttons for the things I generally like in media.

I’m still definitely in it for the long haul, I’ll be watching the entire series no matter what, and I expect to enjoy it, but I don’t expect it to overtake any of the other yugioh series in terms of my overall love and interest in it.

And I apologize sincerely if this wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to hear…I really do wish that I enjoyed it more, and I’m glad for all the people who are enjoying it.  Please don’t let my own disengagement take the wind out of your sails.