#whether you explore other interests or not

[nenelonomh]

why should you solo date?

self-discovery: spending time alone allows you to get to know yourself better. you can explore your interests, preferences, and thoughts without external influences.

boosted confidence: doing things on your own can build your confidence and independence. it shows that you can enjoy your own company and handle situations without relying on others.

for example, imagine you are planning and executing a solo travel adventure. it will require you to make various decisions, from choosing destinations to managing your itinerary. this practice can enhance your confidence in making choices independently.

relaxation and mindfulness: solo dates give you the chance to relax and be present in the moment. you can enjoy activities at your own pace without worrying about anyone else’s schedule or preferences.

personal growth: taking yourself out on a date can be a form of self-love and personal growth. it encourages you to prioritize your own happiness and well-being.

flexibility: when you’re alone, you have the freedom to do exactly what you want, when you want. you can change plans on a whim without needing to consider anyone else’s desires.

creativity and inspiration: solo time can spark creativity and inspiration. without distractions, you might find new ideas or solutions to problems that have been on your mind.

stress relief: taking a break from social interactions and responsibilities can reduce stress. it’s a chance to recharge and focus on your own needs.

enhanced appreciation: spending time alone can help you appreciate your relationships more. it gives you a chance to miss your loved ones and value the time you spend with them.

you can participate in most everything on a solo-date. whether it’s going to a café, visiting a museum, or simply taking a walk in the park, it can be a fulfilling experience. some of my favourite solo date activities include going to the cinema, visiting the farmers market, and reading at the park.

definitely always use your head when deciding where to solo date. avoid remote/risking hiking trails, bars and nightclubs, and large social events (festivals).

happy solo dating!

🫶nene

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[taffywabbit]

oops i accidentally wrote a review for zelda II: the adventure of link

(originally posted to Cohost on Feb 22, 2024. you can ignore this if you want, i just wanted it archived somewhere before that site disappears)

Finally beat Zelda II for the first time last night (I forced myself to finish it before starting Splatoon 3's Side Order DLC, because I knew if I didn't push through to the end of the Great Palace THIS time then it'd be years before I tried beating it again. This is probably my 4th or 5th attempt at this point). Not that this is a particularly hot take by most people's standards, but I don't think it's all that good, at least from a gameplay standpoint.

I don't regret playing it though, because I think I'm finally able to put my finger on the stuff I actually disliked about it vs the stuff that was honestly fine, or even (very rarely) actually good? I'm kinda fascinated by it, honestly. Sequels where they immediately screw around with the first game's formula (to mixed results) are neat! FE Gaiden is another example that comes to mind (hey they should give Zelda II the Shadows of Valentia treatment, that could be really cool actually).

Obviously Zelda II has a reputation for being kind of a rough experience. It's an NES game, and NES games are often susceptible to being frustrating, buggy, hard to control, or overly punishing. Sometimes, all of the above! And for what it's worth, the original Legend of Zelda was a tough and sometimes very cryptic experience as well. But I feel like the two games are challenging in drastically different ways, and I think TLoZ ended up being the formula that was retained in the long term primarily because its method of challenging the player overall did a better job of inspiring curiosity and exploration. Despite narratively being a direct sequel (with a really badass story premise that is unfortunately not really conveyed at all in-game) Zelda II took a different approach to nearly every element of the original's gameplay, which is a pretty bold move I suppose. Whether or not it succeeds at anything is fairly subjective, but it's undeniably had a lasting impact on the series, as well as the people who grew up with it (and then they went on to make some really excellent mid-2000's flash games inspired by it that I frankly enjoyed a lot more than this... and also a weirdly solid licensed Adventure Time game on the 3DS? I should go back and play that sometime, it's really fun).

Where to start with this...? Uhhh, the EXP-based leveling system where you choose what stats to put your points into is interesting! It creates a risk-and-reward system for fighting enemies instead of avoiding them, whereas in most other Zelda games besides BotW/TotK, the only reward for killing monsters is "they are no longer bothering you while you solve puzzles, and also sometimes they drop rupees/hearts/ammo". It also introduces a bit more player choice in what areas you'd like to get stronger in first, which is cool! I just wish it actually mattered in a way that let you feel powerful for even a moment. Instead, leveling Life (which is functionally just defense) is never enough to actually make you feel like you can afford to take a hit - the expectation seems to be that leveling Attack, Life, and Magic is something you do purely to keep up with how badly every single thing in this game wants to stomp you into the ground and soak up a million hits and waste all your magic. You CAN skip out on leveling one stat to prioritize another, or even try to evade tough combat situations entirely, but if you aren't leveled enough and in the exact things the game expects you to be WHEN it expects you to be, you'll immediately bump into some new asshole who jumps out of nowhere and can cut you down in 2-3 hits. Leveling doesn't make you tangibly stronger, it merely keeps the game barely playable.

This actually ends up being the core problem I have with Zelda II's design, far more than just the combat being clunky and overly punishing or the levels being visually samey and super hard to navigate. In most Zelda games (and also in a lot of other RPGs!), you get a better sword or a new power or item, and it opens up exciting new options for both exploration and combat. In Zelda II, you level up or earn a new item/spell, it's useful for maybe 20-30 minutes, and then it's immediately nullified. Wow, you got the Fire spell! Now you can finally deal with Tektites and Basilisks (which are immune to all other attacks) on the way to the next area! Well, I hope you had fun with that, because Fire doesn't work on most things you run into afterwards.

Easily the biggest game-changer is when you unlock the Downward Thrust sword technique, and finally have another option for combat besides just crouch-hopping and poking monsters with a dull butter knife. It's satisfying to use, it looks cool (by this game's standards), and it even has some utility for crossing hazards or defending yourself against swooping enemies! Cool! Unfortunately, they don't let you play around with that for long either, before nearly every enemy you see starts rolling up with helmets or shells that make them immune to attacks from above, and you never really get anything like that again (the Upward Thrust exists later, but it's far more situational and frankly not very fun or intuitive to use). Rather than feeling like you're being given tools to overcome challenges and stay above the difficulty curve, it feels like you're constantly just slightly underequipped for everything (even if you grind to earn extra stat levels) and any edge you're given is swiftly taken away from you. (Except the Reflect spell, which is ALWAYS a banger after you get it because it makes your shield Actually Do Its Damn Job after nearly every enemy starts shooting projectiles you can't block. Good work, Reflect spell.)

I feel like I grew up hearing plenty of people talk about the overall difficulty of Zelda II, though most of the complaints about its puzzles were surface-level jabs about the short cryptic NPC text, and none of that prepared me for just how ridiculously obtuse its mandatory puzzles/secrets can be. I genuinely have no idea how anyone would EVER find the Life spell - pretty much your ONLY source of healing outside of towns, since there are no hearts to pick up in this game - without some kind of guide. I was FURIOUS when I finally looked up where to find that lady's mirror and discovered that you have to walk into one of the houses, go over to the table that looks EXACTLY like every other table in every other house in the entirety of Hyrule, crouch, and press B, and you'll just pull the mirror out of nowhere. This type of interaction does not exist ANYWHERE else in the game and there's no in-game hint to indicate that you should try this. Absolutely maddening.

This and its predecessor are both games that seemingly expect you to have the physical manual on hand to help you find secrets, but at least in the first game, the way the game was designed was consistent enough that you COULD feasibly find your way to the end of it without a guide. Bombable walls in dungeons always being located in the center, things like that. It had rules and it could generally be trusted to follow them. Zelda II, in comparison, has a final level (the Great Palace) in which there are numerous rooms that look IDENTICAL and if you make one wrong turn you can go through the entire [very difficult and dangerous] dungeon on a path parallel to the one you need to be on, only to hit a dead end and be able to see the spot you're supposed to be reaching on the other side of a wall. Except you would also never KNOW you need to get there, because it looks like another dead end full of monsters but there's actually a completely invisible hole somewhere in the floor over there that drops you into the hallway leading towards the final boss. Also there is no map. TLoZ had a map. I don't know why this game doesn't have a map. Possibly because if you try to look up maps online, most of the dungeons feature non-Euclidean spaces? Idk, even a Super Metroid-style grid map would've done wonders here.

The combat is... fine? I truly don't understand how anyone thinks it's GREAT though. Zelda II is kind of like a version of Castlevania where you don't have a whip and instead have to stab everything at extremely short range, and also sometimes enemies have shields so you have to crouch sometimes to stop them from blocking you. It feels tense and high-stakes but only because, as I mentioned earlier, you really cannot afford to take stray hits in this game. Most enemies chew through your health at an alarming rate, even with the Shield spell active, and there's almost no way to replenish it unless you use a Life spell (which costs a huge chunk of your magic, possibly softlocking you if you end up in a place that requires other spells to progress). I got better at the combat over the course of my playthrough, but I never felt like I got good at it - most of my victories against strong enemies felt like pure luck and there were rarely consistent strategies for success. All of this combined with the fact that Zelda II has limited lives (and I mean LIMITED - there are only six 1-UPs in the entire game, which can each only be collected once) and getting a Game Over anywhere outside of the final palace will send you all the way back to the starting area, and it makes for an incredibly stressful experience. Even making use of savestates to lighten the fear of death can only do so much to improve it.

Overall, I think that Zelda II is a game that has a lot of really promising ideas, but then just absolutely flops when it comes to the execution. I didn't have a better way of organizing these but here are a few examples of elements I DID particularly like, even if they didn't always stick the landing:

I like the idea of the RPG leveling system in theory, but wish it was more empowering in practice and actually let the player make meaningful choices instead of just being required to survive. Choosing to hold off on a Life upgrade and instead save up just a little longer to boost your Attack feels awesome, until you time one of your inputs wrong and get destroyed. In a game with better-tuned difficulty and combat, this system would be great!

I REALLY like that Zelda II introduced a magic system to the series! I think it's cool as hell to have Link learning and casting spells to protect himself, solve puzzles, and exploit enemy weaknesses, instead of relying purely on items. (It's honestly weird to think that a system I associate so strongly with classic Zelda gameplay has only actually showed up in 4 of the games?? I guess you could consider the runes/hand abilities in BotW/TotK to be kind of like modern spells, or the slowly-refilling energy gauge in ALBW to be the most recent iteration of a Magic Meter, but both are highly debatable. Anyways I just think they should let Link shapeshift into a fairy again, that was cool.) But most of the spells in this are fairly situational and your access to magic refills is so limited that you rarely have the freedom to experiment with the spells' secondary functions (hey did you know the Spell spell turns most enemy types into slimes? that's wild. I wish I'd known that sooner).

The overworld functioning like a traditional JRPG, with top-down exploration broken up by semi-random enemy encounters, was something I honestly didn't hate. It's a little weird for Zelda, sure, but I could see it working well to support other systems in a more polished game. Overworld encounters that switch you into a type of gameplay other than turn-based JRPG combat are something I've always been fascinated by!

Anyways, weird game! I'm glad I finally got closure so I could figure out how I personally feel about it, independent of whatever the random youtubers I watched as a teenager thought. And now I never have to play it again :)

[collegetennisoriginstory]

Idk if this has been asked before but is CT:OS a standalone game or will there be sequels?

Haha. It absolutely depends on whether I can continue writing interactive fiction for the next 2 years, 4 years, or way more. Finances and whether I end up writing full-time somehow are a big factor, as is interest/burn out :)

If I've only got another 2 years in me, likely CT:OS is a stand-alone game.

If I've got 4 years, probably substantial DLC content using some of the ideas in PT:OS (below) but I've got so many other games/plots I want to try my hand at.

If I've got way more years in me... definitely a CT:OS sequel (or two, to be exact). TLDR above the cut, long ramble below the cut.

Pro Tennis: Origin Story

Where MC is 4 or so years out of college, has turned pro, and has risen slowly, painstakingly through the challenger tour ranks, and is now trying to break into the Top 50. At their age, it's probably a make-it or break-it period, as if they don't succeed then, they'll probably never succeed.

While CT:OS is about found family and coming of age and pursuing one's dreams, which I love, I'd want PT:OS to be about losing faith in one's dreams or one's talent, wondering if their sacrifices are worth it, wondering if one's actually good enough (or crazy enough), building a family of people who are firmly in your player's box (who has faith in you even when you don't have faith in yourself.)

More about PT:OS

Choose what happened to their relationships after college and after the first couple of years on tour (I love writing exes: e.g. broke up in college or breaking up fresh out of college cause the tennis road-life/ambition etc. killed the relationship)

Additional stats to balance like money/sponsorships/media presence/fame, and just... normal adult struggles like cooking for yourself, doing your own laundry, booking your hotel rooms, making ends meet (see elaboration below)

I want to write a story about being in a long dark tunnel, wondering if one should keep pushing, keep grinding, keep sacrificing their life and youth and sanity and relationships for this insane dream of being a tennis player

I'd probably keep the original cast of ROs, but introduce maybe 2 more? Perhaps a celebrity e.g. actor/musician (we all know how those love to flock around tennis players, but only famous ones), and maybe one's coach for spiciness?

As someone whose favourite part of Challengers was not, in fact, Zendaya's hotness (gasp, blasphemy) and instead, the scene where Patrick Zweig's character is struggling to find a hotel room for the night & starving & desperate for calories, I really want to make a game where the player not only has to deal with playing tennis, but also all the other practical life bits that need to align in order for a Top 200 or Top 100 player to become a Top 50 player.

Like yes, there's the Nadals and the Williams sisters and even the Nishikoris (who never quite lived up to their potential) but what of the players whose names you've never even heard of?

I'm interested in class (how only rich people get to tough it out / stick it out for years without significant sponsorships) and also race/gender/sexuality and how that coalesces with finances and media presence etc.. and also how mediocre players scrounge together a team to support them, plus of course the emotional toll of always being on the road (and always being exhausted) without ever seeing much of a pay-off until they crack some invisible threshold of 'greatness'.

Finally, the trilogy would probably be rounded out with a final game.

Third game (no idea what the name would be)

MC is older, maybe 30? And has suffered some career-ending event (injury, horrific tailspin drop-off) after winning a grand slam, perhaps seeking one final shot at proving to the world that they do have what it takes to be a champion, a legend to be remembered as someone who isn't just a one-slam pony.

Themes explored would be:

Age (when is it too late to hang up one's boots?) and still feeling like you've got what it takes even though the world's telling you you're past your prime, the limits of physicality

Trying to rebuild something that has been broken, when everyone's telling you that it'll never be fixed

Leaving a legacy, fame, self-worth (figuring out what to do when one is stripped of something that has been a guiding star)

Maybe even addiction?

<This would be the game that would be most heavily inspired by Carrie Soto>

If you read all of that, wow, I'm impressed, and yep, that's what I'd foresee for CT:OS. A trilogy, if I've got it in me.

RO speculations:

Tobin could even become one's physical trainer or nutritionist/physiotherapist, though maybe that's a bit of a stretch.

Sam could become world's most biased sports podcaster/journalist

Rayyan continues as MC's rival/(possible lover)

G is ... still adamantly Not Part of the Tennis World even though they attend every game?

What do you guys think?

[typellblog]

Hitagi End - An Analysis

Well, that’s it, folks. We’ve finally reached the end of the Monogatari series. It’s even right there in the arc title.

Hold on, I’m being told that there’s another whole season. What the fuck, I’ll be well into 2025 by the time I’m done with this.

But yeah, as usual with the naming scheme the second word seems to be the thing our title character has to confront - Hitagi is in active resistance against the End, and whether in the abstract form of the conclusion of the series itself, or the more literal threat of Sengoku Nadeko, there’s one common feature. Graduation.

One thing I remember vividly from Koimonogatari - from the first time I watched Koimonogatari, several years ago - is Kaiki’s offhand statement that Hitagi and Koyomi will probably break up in college. He says it so matter-of-factly, but it’s not something I ever considered, watching the rest of the series. I was fully immersed in the teenage perspective, convinced that nothing would ever end. It takes the perspective of a washed up older man to break the illusion, I suppose. You always hear the same complaint about romance manga - there should be more focus on after they’re already in a relationship. Getting together shouldn’t be the story’s end. 

One reason why it might be the story’s end is because as long as it ends there you can convince yourself it will last forever. Their relationship will never sink to the level of mundanity, of lovers’ quarrels - there will never be the possibility of being interested in someone else, finding someone else, being replaced. 

That is the kind of idealistic, indulgent, static ending that Sengoku Nadeko desires, and as a result is the kind of ending that Senjougahara Hitagi fights against. 

This is where I say something about Kaiki Deishuu. Something to make sense of what he’s doing in this story. He’s a man in search of an ending, I could say. Ever since the death of Gaen Tooe, he’s been looking for a way to move on. Perhaps this is why he tells Nadeko the same cause of death - the person you have a crush on died in a car accident. So mundane, so unexpected, so implausible. He thinks she will accept it. Does he?

He’s a man who’s already met his end, I could say. Such is the fate of the specialists. They’ve already graduated, already long since handled their personal agreements and disagreements. They’re stuck, now, bound to their own nature, their own rules. They appear only as supporting characters, never the protagonist. Well. I guess that’s a lie. 

In adopting narrators other than Koyomi, Second Season shifts the focus away from his obsession with helping and connecting to others. Koyomi’s interactions with and idealization of women results in a sense of distance - he struggles to see himself in them and their problems. How much of his attempts to cross that distance are really just attempts to help himself? 

This dynamic collapses when the female cast, facing their own issues, are made protagonists in their own right. They experience themselves as the Other, & Koyomi’s standard process of understanding the girl by first understanding the oddity becomes in these cases a process of self-exploration. 

And yet here we are, back to seeing a male protagonist confronted with the issues of women that he struggles to understand. 

I don’t mean to rag on men, exactly, I just think back to how there tends to be less distance between Koyomi and other men, how he’s more capable of seeing them as another version of himself, and I think that the best explanation for Kaiki’s presence here is that he’s filling in.

He himself thinks so, although it’s Oshino, and not Koyomi, that he considers. 

Regardless, the parallels to Koyomi are established firmly enough by the ending. Kaiki was poison to Hitagi but a surprising help to Nadeko, while Koyomi is the opposite. Put that way, their differences and similarities seem readily explicable. Koyomi saves people. He forgives the harm they do to him. It works for the prickly Hitagi, who needs a pillar of support, but not Nadeko, who needs to be told that she isn’t a victim.

Kaiki lies to people, but that doesn’t mean he’s trying to hurt them. Ononoki proposes a reading of his involvement with Hitagi where he had no ill intentions whatsoever. He didn’t try to free her from the crab simply because he didn’t think it would help her to regain what she had lost. He caused her parents’ divorce to keep her from under the thumb of her mother. He even swindled the cult, although more as an act of revenge than anything. Perhaps there was some impropriety in their relationship, perhaps he exploited her feelings for him, but our understanding of the events is vague enough to give him the benefit of the doubt if we really want.

Kaiki fails to help Hitagi, not (just?) because he’s trying to scam her, but because he’s fundamentally incapable of being honest with her. All his actions move around her and ignore her wishes.

When it comes to Nadeko, on the other hand . . . I mean, it doesn’t initially seem like he’s doing much better, does it. He has no luck with his manipulations, with currying favour, with bold untruths. In the end though, the way he helps Nadeko is a lie that they both know is a lie. Really, it’s more like telling her a story. 

And I’ve written before about how Nadeko needs stories.

Kaiki doesn’t tell her anything that another person couldn’t have. Koyomi, Hitagi, even Nadeko herself is probably aware of similar advice on some level. Don’t throw your life away pointlessly. If you want to do things, then you should do them. You can’t succeed unless you try. 

Kaiki’s talent is simply in recognising that Nadeko needs to hear it. Koyomi wouldn’t have thought to say it, because he doesn’t know why she became a snake god. She doesn’t want to tell him either. He’s stuck. 

But it’s not as if Kaiki has some unique insight into her psychology that lets him work this out. As he puts it, he’s not like Oshino. He didn’t ‘see through’ Nadeko, he just straight up ‘saw’ it. He broke into her room, twisted open the lock to her closet with a 10 yen coin and fucking looked. Her parents didn’t know what was in there, Koyomi didn’t know what was in there, Tsukihi didn’t know, Oshino didn’t know, even Hanekawa who heard about it from someone else and thought it might be an important detail couldn’t possibly know without opening the god damn closet.

This is where Kaiki’s habit of working around people becomes useful. Because more than anyone else, he recognises that Nadeko might be fine as a god, just as he thought Hitagi might be fine staying weightless two years ago. He’s not trying to save her. He’s not trying to do what’s best for her. He’s simply trying to scam her, with all the lack of respect for her personal belongings that implies. 

This establishes, perhaps, an important difference between Koyomi and Kaiki, but it also establishes a similarity. In dealing with oddities - in dealing with people - the key is getting to know them. 

This is something Koyomi struggles with, out of a fear of being too forward, a fear of hurting them, a lack of appreciation of his own value, as a kind of half-person, a fake person, that could only weigh others down. Kaiki embraces his nature as a fake and adopts only the most rational and most unscrupulous methods of approaching others.

The question, I suppose, is why? What does Kaiki get out of playing a character that informs all of his actions without explaining them? What does he get out of remaining unknowable even to himself, reacting with surprise to his own feelings and motivations? What does he get from acting without thought, tossing away caution, tossing away patience, and tossing away money in an attempt to toss away the past?

Kaiki values money for its endless acceptability, its exchange value. He doesn’t wish to have money, he wishes to use it, and in keeping with this philosophy, he considers nothing irreplaceable, not even himself. The person named Kaiki Deishuu is deliberately false, deliberately contradictory, and he’s long since given up on getting to the bottom of that particular well.

I begin to understand why he comes up, now, in relation to Nadeko, who is lost in a web of her own identity. 

Sengoku Nadeko is telling herself a story. She has to, in order to not hate herself. She is, and will continue to be, in love with Koyomi-oniichan. This isn’t something that motivates her actions in the conventional sense so much as a wall to keep out the world, to assert that she is normal. So why does she still hold onto it, in this situation where it has become so far beyond normal? 

Because she considers it part of herself. She is still playing the role of Sengoku Nadeko, and she can’t cast aside the most Nadeko piece of herself, the piece that she has spent the most time and effort showing off to other people. It would call her existence into question, make her look fake, make her feel empty. The sense of normalcy she’s trying to achieve is not in how other people see her, it’s in how she sees herself. She takes the pieces of herself that are left, the pieces of herself she’s been given, and pulls them together into a story that makes sense. To her, loving herself means never changing, never throwing parts of herself away, never identifying a problem in her own behaviour. 

She’s happy, Kaiki thinks. It feels a little different from the end of Otori, where Kuchinawa was still presented as a separate existence. He no longer pokes at Nadeko’s insecurities, at least not obviously. In recognising her own role in the whole affair, Nadeko is no longer worried about hurting others, of being seen as a victim, because she fully acknowledges herself as the one with all the power in her interactions. Godhood is an unusual role for her, but she seems happy to take it up, viewing her job as responding to the prayers of worshippers. It's a much simpler, more transactional view of social relations than she had to navigate as a human. She likes people who are nice to her and doesn't like people who aren't.

Ultimately, though, she's still playing a part, putting on a performance for Kaiki’s benefit. Her cutesy habits as a god are a far cry from the more genuine rage she expresses in the classroom in Otori. But then again, she doesn't have to worry about that, because she's not a human. She's no longer a part of society, with all the freedom that entails. An entirely negative freedom, of course. She doesn't have to do anything and thus there's nothing for her to do, besides play games with Kaiki and drink the alcohol she could only sneak sips of behind her dad’s back at home.

She’s happy, but does that matter?

Kaiki doesn’t think so. The other parallel established in the ending is between Nadeko and Hitagi. Compared to Nadeko as someone who never throws anything away, Hitagi is someone who rejects unnecessary things, rejects convenient narratives of victimisation, rejects divine assistance.

Nadeko is broken, thinks Kaiki. Like Hitagi’s mother. Like Hitagi almost was. And being broken has a specific meaning for him - it means no longer accurately recognising the value of the things you have. Nadeko overvalues the things that play an important role in her delusions and ignores everything else. In comparison, think back to Hitagi listing out everything she has to Koyomi back in Bakemonogatari. She has so little, but it’s all precious to her. Not only that, but she manages to offer it to another person. It’s only in recognising the value of herself and also someone else that they can form a mutually beneficial ‘exchange’, a real connection.

In Bakemonogatari, Hitagi’s self is framed as a series of external objects. You are the people around you. In Koimonogatari, Kaiki’s self is found in his money. Endlessly exchangeable, never unique, always mercenary. He offers himself up to Nadeko and gets nothing in return, because she fundamentally doesn’t value what he’s bringing her. Donating to a shrine at New Years’ is a sucker’s game, Kaiki thinks at the beginning of the novel, and he’s proven right enough.

For Kaiki, you could say that the money he spends is spent on himself, on presenting a certain image of himself. So what of the money he takes from others?

He accepts Hitagi’s woefully low payment for the job. He accepts it as a job, because if it’s not a job he’d have to start thinking about what his relationship to her is, if not client and employer. It would become unique, no longer exchangeable for any of the other half-dozen scams he’s running. 

He accepts Izuko’s 3 million severance fee. He accepts it and goes on working. It’s unlike him, Yotsugi says. He’s contradicting himself. The money isn’t being exchanged for anything, he’s just taking it. But isn’t that the job of a scammer? To get as much money for as little effort as possible? Then why does he keep doing the job? 

He’s acting unlike himself. Throughout the novel, he’s constantly pointing out new sides of himself. Phrases he’s said for the first time. Actions he’s never done before. After a certain point, I have to conclude he’s lying. Kaiki acts unlike himself in Koimonogatari because acting unlike himself, unlike the persona he deliberately acts as, is one of his most characteristic actions.

Being a specialist is about balance - or at least so we would assume from the actions of Oshino Meme. It’s about give-and-take. But Kaiki is a fake specialist, a conman. He should only want to take. It’s not a coincidence, then, that he keeps giving. 

I understood it on an intellectual level, but now I get it. I really fucking get it. He’s just, so, Araragi Koyomi. He’s so thoughtless and impulsive, so concerned with appearances, enamoured with his own edginess, stubborn, self-deprecating, cowardly, dense, inconsiderate, self-sacrificing, willful, proud of outsmarting children, reluctant to commit to anything, and most of all half-assed.

That is the characteristic trait of Araragi Koyomi as I understand it. He’s trapped between worlds, vampire and human, but doesn’t seem particularly inclined to choose one or the other. He doesn’t just look to the future, but the past too. In reaching towards what he wants, he’s immensely reluctant to give up what he already has. 

All the way back in Nekomonogatari Kuro, he characterises Hitagi and Suruga as different to him, more forward-looking, prefiguring Kaiki’s comments about Hitagi as someone willing to throw aside the most important things to her to get what she wants. 

It’s funny, because in doing so he also talks about Tsubasa as someone who’s the same, who also looks for solace in the past. Tsubasa, who in Nekomonogatari Shiro we come to understand will casually cast aside the past if it doesn’t suit her. 

She has a different perspective, you see. She thinks Koyomi is different from her. He’s ‘unshakable’, in her words, not concerned about losing his identity. Precisely because he keeps looking back, because he keeps confronting his past, he’s able to accept all of himself, unlike her. 

Despite Monogatari being a series about people changing, several times characters espouse the idea that you can’t change, not really.

The thing is that while change is obviously possible, what this idea cautions against is ignoring and forgetting about what you used to be like. Tsubasa can’t just make a new version of herself whenever things start getting difficult, she has to understand herself as a continuous person composed of everyone she’s ever been. 

The Rainy Devil teaches Suruga something similar, as regardless of the kind of person she wishes to become, the arm can’t fundamentally transform her. It simply shows that she was already the kind of person who could learn to run fast, already the kind of person who wanted to brutalize Hitagi’s new boyfriend. Koyomi’s idea that she’s somehow more forward-looking than him seems laughable when she feels as though Hitagi and her issues are something that she ran away from.

It’s a fundamentally half-assed application of Numachi Rouka’s methods - for running away from your problems to work you have to remain detached, and the devil’s grasping arm is evidence both of Suruga’s failure in that regard, but also of the attachment to life itself that Rouka lacked. No wonder it felt off when it suddenly disappeared in Hanamonogatari. 

At the same time, though, losing the arm is evidence of her change throughout that arc. Her running no longer isolates her, but instead can be seen as a way to connect with others. It’s no coincidence that’s how she ends up meeting Koyomi near the end. It’s his advice that gives her the confidence to get over the finish line, but the first step is abandoning everything and just running - not trying to beat anyone, not trying to hold back, with no particular goal or attachment to a wish. It’s the first time she really can since she started using the monkey’s paw.

Notably it’s Kaiki that offered her an alternative and advised her to just let Rouka have the parts. Kaiki, the one who seemed to be collecting them himself. Isn’t the concept of him possessing what is in a very real sense the remains of Gaen Tooe so fascinating? But it’s the yet-living Suruga that he calls her legacy. It’s hard to say if meeting her, in some way, helped him move on. 

Once again, we see a difference from Koyomi, who advises Suruga to act like herself and do what she wants. Kaiki tells Suruga to do what’s easy, what would cause less difficulties for her, in a similar way that he seems to understand Nadeko is much happier as a god and Hitagi wouldn’t have to confront her memories of her mother as long as she remains weightless.

By regaining her weight and her emotions, nothing will change, Oshino cautions Hitagi. She won’t suddenly make up with her mother. But it does allow her to move forward, to value her memories correctly, not allow her missing weight to weigh on her so much that she will never be able to become close to anyone else.

“She’s different now, more so than if she were a different person” Kaiki says, and it’s so easy to read him as relieved that she’s not stuck as she was when he fucked her up. That she’s still always in the moment where she truly fell in love for the first time. That she was able to remain the same person while still loving someone else. 

Tsubasa’s immense righteousness is subverted in Nekomonogatari, Suruga’s seeming single-mindedness is deconstructed in Hanamonogatari, and despite the effusive words of praise they both have for Koyomi Araragi it’s evident from his internal narration that he’s more pathetic and wavering than anyone else - and perhaps that’s how one ought to be, here. Never able to make a decision on what’s most important. Always most invested in whatever you’re doing right now, whatever person is right in front of you.

Hitagi is a character that we never see from the first person. Koyomi’s view of her as a titan striding headlong towards her goals is never really contradicted in the story, because despite her immensely evident vulnerability, she’s shown as making a more active effort to move on than anyone. 

The shadow of her past relationship with Kaiki hangs over Koimonogatari like a specter.

In Nisemonogatari it’s mentioned that her animus towards Kaiki probably comes from the fact she wasn’t able to hate him in the past. While she was still under the influence of the crab, her emotions regarding her mother were dampened. Kaiki’s acts of splitting her family up likely wasn’t something she was capable of expressing her resentment for at the time. 

If you think of that hatred as a final remaining regret, her kidnapping of Koyomi and confronting of Kaiki in Nisemonogatari the expression of such, then it makes sense that Nisemonogatari also marks the start of her mellowing out, never again reaching the heights of violence she demonstrates at the beginning of that novel. 

An interesting thing about Kaiki’s role there, looking back, is that he’s clearly aiming for that outcome. As soon as Hitagi confronts him, he leaves. He tells her to stop worrying about the past, about the fact that she once had a relationship with him, because he’s thoroughly uninterested in her as she is now. He provokes her into affirming her current self and relationship with Koyomi. And he says that the man who tried to violate her died in a car accident. 

Is he lying? Is it just a coincidence, that he goes with the same manner of death as Gaen Tooe, the same line he feeds to Sengoku Nadeko? 

Either way, the purpose of the line becomes a little clearer. He’s trying to get her, both of them, to move on. To understand that the people who seemed so important to you are mundane, the events that shaped your lives don’t mean anything in the big picture, and your past is just that. It’s over. It’s the end. 

He almost embodies the concept, in Koimonogatari. We see from his perspective and he is indeed far less ominous, far less portentous, far less important, than he seems from the third person. 

He’s also really bad at it. Despite his exhortations to ignore the past, he himself clearly still cares a lot about Hitagi. She as well can’t quite avoid falling back into old patterns of banter, admiration, reliance. 

And his ideology isn’t enough for Nadeko. He can’t just deny what she’s clinging onto now, he needs to give her something new. They called Osamu Tezuka a God, she says, hesitantly forming a bridge between her current self and the future she wants to inhabit. Telling herself a convenient story that patches it all up. 

It results in an oddly ambiguous message. Nisio loves his tricks, revealing something the narrator was mistaken about at the very end, but when Hitagi says she never loved him and hangs up it’s hard to tell which one of them came out ahead in that little back and forth. Maybe Kaiki, the eternal washout, was so enamoured of his own unique subjectivity he never considered the schoolgirl he was scamming wasn’t so enamoured of him. 

Who am I kidding, it doesn’t feel that way at all. Her rejection of the idea that she ever liked him was unconvincing in Nisemonogatari and it’s unconvincing here. And the novel frankly endorses that wilful self-denial. Perhaps it’s important to always act like you’ve fallen in love for the first time. Perhaps it’s important to believe that you’ll never break up with your boyfriend. 

In this seeming endorsement of Kaiki’s ideology, I have to wonder what kind of End Hitagi is even fighting against. 

Nadeko asserts that a single failure is the End, it’s Nadekover, she has no choice but to kill everyone and then herself. In resisting her, Hitagi asserts her right to change, to move on, to love Koyomi even after her life was destroyed by Kaiki. 

On the other hand, Kaiki asserts that failure means nothing, he doesn’t care about anything that has ever happened, after this he’ll just move on and start another moneymaking scheme, same as the last. Hitagi also resists this. She must, if she is to believe her relationship with Koyomi matters in the first place. Her denial that she ever liked Kaiki ends up an odd sort of validation for their relationship. If she did crush on him, that would be important to her, therefore it didn’t happen.

It perfectly mirrors Kaiki’s refusal to admit he ever cared about her. It puts the lie to his whole persona, but, like, it’s supposed to be a lie anyway, I think. They’re both lying to each other and themselves all the time, so much so that they fail to understand even the most straightforward exchanges between them. It’s fine, honestly. They don’t need to be true to each other as long as they’re true to themselves.

One thing that I never really mentioned is the other way you could take this arc title. Hitagi End as in the end of Second Season - the end of the series as a whole, potentially, if you take Nisio’s afterwords seriously (he doesn’t, as evidenced by the several previous times he’s pulled this exact gag). 

Astute fans of the anime airing watch order will note that placing Hanamonogatari, an arc set well in the future, before this one robs it a little of that sense of finality. Nadeko is not so much of a threat, knowing our protagonists survive. This is of course the twist, the lie, the joke of this arc. Life goes on, almost interminably so. The idea that graduation would be the End for Hitagi and Koyomi is as ridiculous as the idea that making some mistakes at fourteen would be the End of Nadeko. 

Even Kaiki’s attempt to escape the narrative, put a pin in the whole thing by killing himself off, is neatly and instantly subverted by remembering his presence in Hana. It’s not supposed to be a reveal, exactly, that this man is a liar. It’s just there, from the first page to the last. 

After Ononoki cautions Kaiki that he’s acting unlike himself, before he goes to talk to Nadeko for the final time, she spends a bit of time telling him what Kagenui’s been up to. Sounded like she was the same as ever, he thinks. I think of this, amongst all his attempts to dramatize his own life, differentiate himself from himself, craft his own ending. His life keeps going on, and Kagenui’s still marching to the beat of her own drum, same as ever. 

Happy New Year!

[lunarriviera]

Hi I was wondering did you see this interview of tan jianci and jinshijia discussing the relationship between shen yi and du cheng, they are basically saying the relationship between those two in s2 is like a compass, regardless of how far shen yi explores or how big the circle he draws he is still firmly held by the center of the circle (du cheng) and his exploration depends on this fact, I found that really interesting https://m.weibo.cn/status/5110711277585719?wm=3333_2001&from=10EC093010&sourcetype=weixin&s_trans=3182113252_5110711277585719&s_channel=4&jumpfrom=weibocom#&video

HI HEY HELLO yes I DID see it and am gonna embed it here, for readers who maybe can't access Weibo (thanks to all our fabulous governments who get along SO WELL, and their idiot firewalls), and my (very bad, HSK2.5) translation of Tan-laoshi's comments:

interviewer: The character outline [in promotional materials, maybe?] says the relationship between the two of you is like a compass: Du Cheng is the foot of the compass, and as long as he stays in place, Shen Yi can draw a wider circle. Do you agree with this statement?

TJC: Shen Yi keeps exploring, more and more. But no matter how far he explores, whether it's a small circle or a wide one, he never goes far from the center. That's the relationship between the two of them.

interviewer: Jia-ge, are you willing to be the one in the center?

TJC [teasing]: Can you use your actual voice [to answer]?

JSJ: [laughs, says nothing]

What I especially love about this (in addition to Duoduo chattering away as he does, and Jia-ge sitting there like he's physically in pain) is the idea that Shen YI and Du Cheng have evolved this system of working together over time. We get to see them in s2 so far from where we left them; at the end of s1 they'd barely concluded their enemies to husbands speedrun and were still newly acquainted. They'd cleared a handful of cases together, including a very big one, but it had still only been at most a few months since Shen Yi showed up at the Beijiang precinct and smiled wryly and said 好久不见.

So now here they are at the start of s2, having developed a working relationship with much greater trust. Du Cheng knows to listen to Shen Yi when his eyes get big and starry and he has some insight that sounds initially bizarre and involves art history, because it will invariably pan out. And for his part Shen Yi knows in his bones that Du Cheng is reliable like sunrise and will show up when he needs him, will always come in clutch with his service weapon and his bike rack.

It's not that they don't still clash—s2 shows us crucial instances of them each failing to pick up what the other is throwing down. But overall they seem to have accepted the role the other occupies. Du Cheng knows that Shen Yi's sharp-eyed observational skills will pick up what he would otherwise miss, and Shen Yi knows that Du Cheng will believe him, whatever intuition-based theory he throws out there.

There's a scene that illustrates this beautifully, actually, in s2 ep7:

Here, Du Cheng and Shen Yi question a witness (while Shen Yi enjoys his froufrou little caffeine drink), and Shen Yi immediately gets distracted by, it turns out, some relevant Gauguin reproductions. But see how Du Cheng doesn't even notice that Shen Yi just randomly gets up from the table and wanders away. He's not only used to it, he takes it for granted—he assumes there's a point to Shen Yi's curiosity, and that he'll tell him all about whatever it is he observed, afterwards.

This shot offers a literal visualization of the foot of the compass holding still and steady, while the point of the compass is free to describe a wide arc around it. It's them. And I think that's beautiful.

[mandalhoerian]

ty SO much for that non mc explanation bc i felt so heard!!! People also lately have been kind of shading us bc we like the non mc vs mc angst train. Like I understand where they're also coming from. the whole angst and infidelity trope. But with how intense the story is with the Mc and the romantic bond, it's hard not to explore that with the angst genre with non mcs

what the hell im so sorry???? i really want to see what they're saying just so i could argue back not gonna lie. you cannot be serious about people liking and wanting to explore certain tropes it's 2024 PLEASE LETS STOP THIS BEHAVIOR 😭😭😭

For readers who don’t identify with the MC, the whole experience of playing a game like this can be rather complicated. Instead of feeling immersed in the story or imagining ourselves as the protagonist, we end up watching from the sidelines and become an observer to someone else’s love story. And when the narrative focuses so heavily on bonds that feel unshakable, like love transcending lifetimes, it’s hard not to feel like an outsider or an intruder. That’s not exactly a fun feeling, but it’s one that a lot of us can’t help but explore.

The idea of being “the other woman” isn’t just a trope. it’s a manifestation of that disconnect, of not seeing yourself in the MC’s place. When you don’t identify with her, it’s like the game is constantly reminding you that you’re not the one in this love story, even though you’re the one playing. This taps into some of the most raw and vulnerable emotions,, jealousy, inadequacy, the desperate desire to be seen. The MC has this deep, cosmic connection with the love interests, and when you feel like you’re standing on the outside of that, it’s natural to imagine yourself as the one fighting for their attention, even if it’s messy and painful.

Take the “second choice” trope, for example. There’s something deeply emotional imagining yourself as the person who’s loved, but not quite enough. You’re the one they turn to when the MC isn’t around, the one who’s good, but not destined. It’s heartbreaking, but it also feels so real. Who hasn’t, at some point, felt like they weren’t someone’s first choice? Exploring that trope in fanfiction isn’t wallowing in negativity--it’s taking those feelings and giving them a space to exist, to be validated, and to tell a story of their own.

Then there’s “rivalry with the MC.” This trope lets us channel the frustration of not identifying with her and turn it into a narrative. The MC becomes more than just a protagonist we don’t connect with, she becomes a character in our story, someone we can compare ourselves to, fight against, and even try to outshine. It’s not always about villainizing her (though that can happen in some fics), it’s about wrestling with the idea that someone else has everything we want, whether it’s the love interests, the role in the story, or the cosmic importance. It’s cathartic to play out those emotions, to explore what it would feel like to stand toe-to-toe with her and demand recognition.

And of course, there’s the ultimate gut-punch: “wanting to be chosen over her.” This one is such an emotional minefield because it’s not just about romantic longing--it’s about self-worth. It’s imagining yourself standing in the shadow of a destined, reincarnated love story and yearning to break through the inevitability of the narrative and prove that you’re just as valid, just as worthy, even if the universe itself seems to disagree.

These tropes aren’t just for the sake of drama, they’re deeply personal. They give voice to feelings of inferiority, longing, and frustration that so many of us feel when we can’t connect with the MC. Writing or reading stuff on being the “second choice” or the “rival” isn’t a desire to tear down the MC or dismissing her story. sometimes you just want to find a way to exist alongside it, to process what it feels like to be an outsider in a narrative that’s supposed to include us.

So for people shading us for exploring these tropes? Please. Let’s take a moment to recognize that not everyone experiences stories the same way. For some of us, the MC doesn’t feel like us at all, and these tropes let us carve out a space in the narrative where we can explore our emotions and tell our own stories. The intention here isn't glorifying jealousy or resentment, it's deeply internal grappling with what it feels like to not fit into the role the story has handed you.

These tropes give us permission to be messy, to feel things deeply, and to exist in a space that isn’t perfect or polished. Whether it’s imagining being the second choice, facing off against the MC, or yearning to be the one who’s finally chosen, it’s all about exploring the human need to be seen and valued, even when the odds are stacked against us. And honestly? That’s some of the most powerful storytelling there is. Let people have their angst—it’s valid, it’s cathartic, and it’s beautiful. ❤️

[piromantic]

checking the tag and immediately seeing posts about how allison & tammy are interesting but ontologically evil like noooo haha please dont miss the exploration of how abuse victims can end up abusing those around them even with the best of intentions....

like. to me allison's 'toxic' behavior makes complete sense when you put it in the context of her mother, her parents dying young, and her almost immediately becoming attached to kevin (a man who puts her down in the same ways that her mother did while cutting off all of her other relationships). she's lived with kevin and with barely any semblance of love or support, let alone a sense that she deserves it, for TEN YEARS. to me it makes COMPLETE sense that when she starts building relationships with new people, she becomes someone who demands a lot from others while giving little in return. she's been giving her all for nothing in return for a very long time, probably had that same toxicity modeled for her by her parents, and to expect her to immediately have a healthy understanding of how balance works in a relationship is ridiculous.

(side note it kills me every time people judge allison for being married to kevin despite how obvious it is that she hates it. especially when they judge her intelligence and treat her accordingly, thus accidentally reinforcing kevin's abuse both by treating her as stupid and by deeming her unworthy of reaching out to)

and then patty. god i feel like i need a second watch to understand her because i was so taken off guard by where her character went (in a good way). like i'm kicking myself for this lol but for most of the show i didn't think very hard about her being 'one of the guys' because well, it's a sitcom trope, whatever. but i feel like her queerness (however you read it, personally i lean towards lesbian + heavily aspec) led her to use that position as a shield. it's a precarious position where she isn't fully expected to play the typical role of a woman and can sometimes join in their antics, but this position requires that she put down other women to reinforce her own status, and as soon as she stops doing what the men want she'll be thrown out of the group without hesitation. it's a way to feel like you're hacking the patriarchy when in reality you're just playing into it in a way that makes you less personally uncomfortable.

tammy is so much more interesting than i expected tbh. it's not really my call whether she successfully subverts the tropes that she's representing (lesbian cop + disposable black girlfriend) or is just another example of both of them, but at least her character was informed by those details and makes the choice to leave for her own well-being. like she's not good for patty, but patty really isn't good for her either. i think her issues lead her to replicate abusive behaviors in the same way that allison does. she's got no one in this town that's like her, so when she gets even the smallest chance to find someone she can be with she's desperate for it, but takes it to a degree that's controlling and inconsiderate of who patty actually is as a person. also i love that moment where she acknowledges that allison can't just divorce kevin because it really puts that dissonance of 'cops can't actually help people if their job is to enforce the status quo' front and center. i kind of wish she'd gotten to learn the whole story and we could've found out whether she'd understand their actions or stick to the law, but i don't think they had the time for that and that's okay.

man i could keep going. this was so good

ahhh i finished kevin can f himself and i want to talk about it but i need to fix my sleep schedule for real :/

[allthegothihopgirls]

i think my last straw with tiktok was the whole thing of people being ridiculed for showing interest in things that were popular >6 months ago, as if 1. everyone on the bandwagon weren't all interested in it seconds ago. and 2. the only way to live is to reinvent yourself every week to follow all the microtrends and mass hyperfixations of tiktok.

[koinotame]

sometimes you realise you've set up what could be a really interesting dynamic and go ohoho.... anyway reader taking advantage of yan silver and silver going along with it wholeheartedly, and lilia noticing and trying to intervene because that's his son you're hurting, but yan silver is yan enough that he gets very upset about his father antagonising and/or trying to hurt you, so lilia is forced to think about what exactly he's going to do about you because he can't just watch and do nothing but even one wrong step will cause irreparable damage to his relationship with silver

[kyouka-supremacy]

i do find the current evolution of what proship/antiship means really confusing, even as someone who’s always disliked how the “two sides” debate reduces the nuance of what the conversation actually is. it feels like everyone who identifies as “pro-ship”/“antis dni” assumes antiship is just being against any relationship thats unhealthy or toxic. meanwhile most of the people i’ve seen who id as “anti”/“dni proship” seem to assume proship is ONLY applied to ships between an adult and a minor.

i find the whole debate really fucking stupid because i’ve witnessed the nuance between these two factions with my own eyes. i’ve seen as many “proshippers” who enjoy underaged ships as i’ve seen “proshippers” who just enjoy toxic yaoi. and i’ve seen as many “antis” who hate couples that fight as i’ve seen “antis” who just don’t want to interact with people who ship siblings. theres no genuine consistency among the factions so why the fuck do people hold onto these labels?

speaking to bsd specifically, the discourse around so many of these ships cannot be neatly categorized by either “this ship is pro” or “this ship is anti”. the discussion around sskk is much different than it is around say, atsushi/kyoka, dazai/odasaku, or young dazai/mori. all of these relationships appear in the fandom with different contexts to unpack. trying to divide them between pro and anti would be a nightmare.

having said all this, i will admit i think ur assessment of why someone would say “proship dni” with sskk in their bio is disingenuous, but it speaks to just how meaningless all these labels are. its just as likely someone who’s anti proship in the bsd fandom wants to avoid people who make young dazai/mori content as it is that they think sskk is genuinely healthy, and hates any ship that isnt. ultimately i think if we stopped leaning on pointless labels and just said “hey if you ship adult/minor content dni” our conversations as a fandom would be much more productive. but anyway.

Yeah, you're most definitely right. Those words just don't mean anything anymore.

[wuffgang-ameowdeus-moozart]

character dynamics become infinitely more compelling when you learn to differentiate between them wanting and needing one another

[lollytea]

The Blight family are so interesting IN THEORY. In execution they are....😬

[cherriiramen]

You know… I’m starting to think that Steve and Loki could work too. 😳

[dawdlecentric]

Man, this doujin isn't fucking around

Meanwhile, Seikuri in the background...

Doujin: Flashbackers by Totobe

[roobylavender]

i missed that class what dont you like about starlins rendition of their relationship?

(and also like, DID you think he did something in particular well or was it all…meh

the crux of my issues in this regard stems from batman #416. in the post-crisis era you began to see this way more lopsided depiction of bruce and dick's relationship wherein the former was portrayed to be almost.. bitter that dick had moved on to establish his own life. and it stood in great, great contrast to the bruce of the pre-crisis era, who was certainly devastated at the realization that dick was growing up, but also very intent for him to find his own happiness and way in life. they would have their disagreements on occasion (e.g., bruce initially disapproving of dick dropping out of college, bruce immediately taking leadership of a situation where the titans were involved when dick was better equipped to handle it, etc.) but the outcome of those situations was never outright bad yknow. bruce was very much capable of recognizing where he might have overstepped and subsequently stepped back to let dick have his own space. and i think initially max allan collins expanded on that dynamic in the post-crisis era in interesting ways by juxtaposing bruce's desire to see dick flourish against his own constant fear for dick's life. so instead of mike w. barr's comedic and lighthearted backup stories in early 80s tec where bruce disguised himself to keep an eye on dick's shenanigans and assure himself everything was going alright, you got this more serious confrontation within bruce with regards to his position as a parent. i don't think a lot of people read it that deeply but i've always viewed batman #408 as one of the most sensible depictions of that dilemma. the general complaints tend to be that this issue robbed dick of his pre-crisis decision to retire robin on his own, and i'll concede that as a worthwhile concern. but i don't think it's esp damning what with the implication that bruce no longer wants to be the person indirectly making the decision for dick to continue to be in this line of work. their moment at dick's bedside is less about bruce robbing him of the decision and more about him saying, if i let you still be robin, that's a direct reflection on me, bc i'm the one who got you to do all of this originally. i'm the one who put you directly in harm's way. if you're going to do this from now on, you need to do it on your own terms. you need to decide for yourself that this is who you want to be, without your relationship with me even being a factor.

it's a moment contributive to that delicious dynamic between them wherein every decision bruce takes to service dick's agency is inevitably read the wrong way by the latter to imply that he's not valued or not worthy of being seen as bruce's equal (and before the hounds pounce on me this obv does not include the increasingly abusive depiction of their relationship as the 90s progressed). that is an unavoidable dilemma when you're simultaneously someone's ward/adopted son and also their partner-in-crime! dick wants to be bruce's son and to be entitled to all of the love and care and protection that that entails but he also wants to be bruce's brother, his equal, his confidante, the one person he trusts more than anyone else in the world, etc. it's a tough place to be! it is paradoxical! and i'm so, so open to seeing that explored and think the way collins attempted to approach it in #408 was marvelous. but the way starlin (and other writers as well) totally swerved right in #416 to create this sudden resentment in bruce that dick had grown out of needing him was.. so utterly bizarre. like completely out of left field in a way i don't understand why people don't question it anymore bc in light of everything in the immediate fifteen years prior to the crisis it makes so little sense. their relationship with each other was so valued, bruce was so anxious to see dick establish himself while nonetheless maintaining a protectiveness over him, but it was all very much in good will even if he could overstep on occasion. it had all of the potential to allow for a very nuanced, empathetic exploration into the dilemmas of parenthood and esp when you are someone like bruce who has to forever live and contend with the crime of taking kids with him out onto the streets. bc he has to feel guilty! there is no escaping it. this is history, done and dusted forever, can't go back in time, so on and so forth. whatever harm comes any robin's way he has to live with as in some part being traceable back to his own actions. and i frankly believe that would be far more likely to evoke grief and anxiousness and concern than it would be bitterness that his son is charting out his own life

[blujayonthewing]

reflecting on how all of my other DMs have gone above and beyond to lovingly weave my and my friends' backstory elements into the larger worldbuilding of the campaign by contrast to all of the ways Elyss' DM has gone out of his way to suppress or excise any influences her family may have ever had on anything and I'm genuinely near tears over it