#which to me says that we are not meant to read him as analogous to those characters

[oswaldthatendswald]

This is not a new observation, but I think One Piece handles Doflamingo's backstory-- how it continues to affect his behavior and choices, as well as how it fits into the overall story-- exceptionally well. The villain who is evil due to a tragic past is a very well-established trope, but it is increasingly done quite poorly. Attempts to flesh out a villain and garner sympathy for them can become misguided justifications for their actions or goals, muddying the themes and tone of a story. My point isn't that morally complex characters can't be interesting when done competently and purpose; it's that when the villain with a tragic past is meant to be evil but his past becomes a justification, the writers' intended dynamics of the story are damaged.

Doflamingo's story never has that problem. His backstory makes it perfectly clear why he does the things he does, but it never implies that he is right to do them. It is a reason, not an excuse. The reader gets the sense that Doflamingo is very much the product of his childhood: first the golden excess of a Celestial Dragon, then the abrupt fall from grace into hatred and pain. It's the perfect storm to set a person down the worst paths possible.

But I think the reader might also feel (or at least I did) that this wasn't a fate set in stone. Doflamingo could have unlearned the ideology of a Noble and perhaps that the harm done to him doesn't justify further harm-- except that the only guidance he ever got was worship by Trebol and the other Executives, who were the nail in the coffin for any redemption Doflamingo might have had. Their appearance only validated and affirmed the beliefs Doflamingo already held regarding his place in the world.

Instead of ham-handed sympathy bait, Doflamingo's backstory is a beautifully executed extension of the worldbuilding and themes already present in the story. It is another tragedy in a world of tragedies, another story where children are put through hell. But without the external guidance and support the heroes get, Doflamingo takes the other path, becoming another perpetrator of tragedies, and a reminder that our heroes are the people they are as much (or more) because of the love and mentorship they had than due to innate goodness. It's the road less traveled, but they still might have traveled it.

[needle-thread-thimble-spear]

Revolutionary Girl Utena and Epistemic Violence

or

Why Anthy is not a trans girl (but she is to me)

~~

Ohtori, as any good setting tends to, carries a lot of thematic weight. It’s a fairy world, where metaphorical illusion blurs personal hopes over a poisoned interior structure, to the point where an outside perspective may struggle to distinguish between what a character is thinking and what is actually happening. Time and memory are suggestions whispered in the ear of its students, a cyclic hell where the same puppets are played in position, memories broken but dreams intact, to test new victims and forge new swords. A kingdom of nowhen, ruled from above by a king that refuses to see that the prison he built cannot ever free him. A hierarchy where the misogyny taught to children to prepare them for the grown up version is baked into the very structure of the world, belying a culture of horrible sexual violence. And at the very bottom of that hierarchy, the victim-witch, is the kings own sister. A sort of broken Omelas, where one girl must suffer forever and ever, not to end the suffering of others, but to keep them in the dark. Especially her brother. What Ohtori is, and the hierarchies that it represents both within the work and outside of it, hinges on the suffering of that girl. And, maybe more importantly, her silence.

~~

Revolutionary Girl Utena changed my life. I’ve been saying this nearly two years now, mostly as a joke, but with distance I can see it really isn’t. When you are in the depths of an abusive relationship, it is extremely difficult to see what’s happening to you. I don’t wish to dwell on my own story here too much, but how can I ignore it? RGU was the language I used to understand what had happened to me. Images from the show flit through my mind as though I were a Tamarian. Utena, in the window. Anthy, with the candelabra. Utena, her hands cut with thorns. Anthy with the white beret. After finishing the show for the first time I felt sickened. Not merely because of the subject matter depicted, raw and horrible as it is, but because I saw myself in it. Why do I feel such a kinship with Anthy?

I think, dear reader, you may be able to imagine the horror inherent to that realization. You might have felt it, you may be feeling it now.

It seemed obvious to me then, for reasons I could not begin to fathom, that Anthy was a trans girl. Reeling from my first watch, this felt like the only conclusion I could draw though I couldn’t tell you why. For years, I have drafted and redrafted essays attempting to justify this feeling. Recently, I posted an reading of Miki as a transfem character, and I don’t feel particularly strongly about that reading! Sure, aspects of his character were relatable to me, I could draw analogies well enough, but that was completely secondary to my actual goal. Practice for the transfem Anthy essay. Looking back on what I’d written now, I don’t. Hate? What I wrote. There’s definitely some aspects I’d repudiate now. If you enjoyed reading it, if it meant something to you, I’m glad. But even as I was writing it it felt incomplete and limited. And I believe I understand why.

What did I get wrong about Miki and Kozue? What lies in Ohtori’s heart? What lies in that bed of rotten rose petals?

We all know what does, but we do not want to see it and certainly don’t want to talk about it.

It’s Nanami’s disgust with Anthy, with herself. It’s Miki and Kozue’s confused but earnest posturing. It’s Utena looking up at Akio, it’s Anthy’s vacant stare.

Even here, I’m speaking in abbreviated reference. But it’s abuse, sexual, at times incestuous abuse, that touches every character in RGU.

I’d recently seen a few posts which I think hit on a really common phenomena among fans of the show. Our own stories, our own disgust, our own fears and our own traumas, sort of get in the way when we talk about RGU. I think it’s a natural consequence. RGU deals with heavy subject matter that is very difficult to sit with. I don’t think it’d be incorrect to say most western fans of RGU are queer in some way. We’re much more likely, as consequence, to suffer from interpersonal abuse. And naturally, we are drawn to these characters since they represent, with so few holds barred, some of our worst experiences. But does that make them like us?

For the record, I think it would be ridiculous to suggest that RGU isn't a queer show and that it isn't filled with queer characters. But, for as obvious a conclusion as this is, a surprising depth of that queerness is veiled in subtext. It’s worth considering, the endless arguments over whether Anthy and Utena are lesbians or bisexual, is sort of inconsequential. The important thing is that they have escaped, together! We could suppose that, were Ohtori a real place, we could go track down the two of them and demand from them an answer. How do you feel, Anthy, about your attraction to Akio? What does that mean to you? Would you please quell that horrible disgust we feel thinking about it? Inquiring readers would like to feel better know!

When one leaves Ohtori, one leaves the view of the audience. Utena and Anthy are in love with one another, but what that means to them (and themselves) is out of our reach.

And yet, I can’t seem to shake my original conclusion, from my first watch. Surely it cannot be intended! Hell, even the fact that Anthy is desi is sort of incidental to any commentary on social injustice, the motivation for depicting her (and Akio) this way was to exoticize them relative to the rest of the school. So is this image of Anthy as a brown trans girl, her position in Ohtori being a result of transmisogyny, some western myopia? Mere projection of the aggrieved self on a character who, by her nature, absorbs the feelings and impressions of those around her?

Sort of?

Revolutionary Girl Utena was created in a Japanese cultural context, to be sure, but it’s worth noting that while the precise execution of (trans)misogyny and other gender injustices may vary from culture to culture, patriarchy isn’t exactly exclusive to the west. There is a lot of different directions we could run in here, but the one I want to focus on is epistemic violence (a good primer linked here if the term is unfamiliar). *

In Ohtori, all girls are like princesses, unless they are like witches. And, sooner or later, all girls are like the rose bride, the doll-witch, the synthesis. This is how patriarchy works. There is a concept of “permissible” femininity, and an “impermissible” feminity. There is the wife, the mother, the domestic servant, who is permitted some limited social power by her utility to a patriarch (primarily as a mother to trueborn children). Then there is, well, everyone else. “Loose” women, sure, but also those who have been damaged by sexual violence. Those who cannot bear children, because of some accident of their physiology. These women are used, for feminized labor, for sex, but because of the stigma associated with them and the issues they present toward patrilineal succession, they are subject to various censure. One does not talk about survivors of sexual violence or sex workers in polite society. It is possible for some to travel between these two categories, although it is far, far easier to go from ���type 1” to “type 2” than the other direction. Indeed, for some it is not possible to have ones “virtue” restored. If we aren’t being reduced to predatory inhuman monsters, trans women, both a hypersexualized object of intense fetishization and incapable of bearing children, are placed into the second category automatically. Lots of would be abusers are happy to whisper in our ears, that they will treat us like we are “type 1”, but invariably they do not.**

The most maddening thing to me about being a trans woman is this, inability for anyone to see the violence that happens to you. People don’t believe you can be the subject of (sexual) violence, even though the fact it occurs to you, regularly, should be obvious to anyone who thinks about how we are perceived for just a moment! You cannot speak up without sounding delusional, it can happen right in front of a stranger, your best friend, and they wont bat an eye. That you are so incredibly disgusting, no one would want to hurt you that way.

Anthy isn’t a trans girl. But the system that silences her, treats her like she deserves her victimization, that she is irrevocably tainted by her relationship with Akio, the system that keeps us, the audience, from internalizing the dreadful truth of her character, this veil of silence, of covered ears and closed eyes, is extant in the lives of all misbegotten gender-oppressed rejects. If we are going to draw analogies between ourselves and Anthy, or Utena, or Nanami, or any the rest of them, we need to pull back that veil. Indeed, it's confronting (and then escaping from) that choking, word-stopping bile that sits at the core of RGU's thesis. I don’t think it’s wrong for us to relate to the characters in RGU, and write about that. But we might stop to consider why before we do!

*If you’re curious to read more about patriarchy across cultures, here is a really incisive article on the phenomena of third sexing, the operation of (trans)misogyny and gendered violence in parallel across cultural contexts, and how that relates to the western and desi sphere (but also more broadly).

**It should also be noted that there can be no comparison of suffering of anyone under patriarchy. Even the most vaunted cis man, I suppose. But there can be a comparison of power, and this is why we discuss it rather than throw up our hands.

Thank you for reading, I think this is the last I'm going to write about RGU for a while, though there's quite a bit I want to say about Utena and Anthy's relationship. So someday, I'll get around to more! And a perennial thank you to @empty-movement for the high quality archival images.

[mrs-monaghan]

Hello Shaz

I would love to hear your opinion on 3D and all the talk around it

My thoughts on the talk around it is; "wow, well this is a load of garbage" (no offence to any friends I may have who don't like the song I just disagree that its a terrible song)

Alright. 3D. Let's talk. My thoughts. First, what's with the fucking homeless trousers??

I hate rich people 😭😭😭😭 if I wear this people will wonder why I didn't go back home to change after I fell in mud 😪

Anyhu, before i even say a thing. We should probably all try to remember that JK said this

(Thanks @chicknbunny13)

Yeah sure, even if he doesn't write a song, he may resonate with it. But not everything he does is a reflection of his actual life. This one, is for the Jikook antis btw. This is why my anons are still off. People, I dont have the energy for antis rn. JK sang 'girl' so what? This topic is super old and tired and consider it officially retired from this blog. I'm sooooo over it 🥱🥱🥱🥱

Now that we have that out of the way let's tackle the fact that our JK is a grown, grown adult. I don't need to bring back the live where he told people he's an adult and he is almost 30 and he will do what he wants to do. And if he wants to sing about this, that's exactly what he will sing about.

Oh my,

Even Jimin knows all about it

Tweet

BAHAHAAHAHAHA!!!

Let is be known i am choosing to take that sentence literally. I think JK just means him, the girl, with champagne and confetti. I really don't think it means anything else here. But, seeing as this is another sex song, I won't put it past him.

Anyone else notice a recurring theme here?

Okay then. 😳

Also shout out to this random kid with the horse

I can't be the only one who has no clue what his point was 😂😂😂

While we are on the champagne topic,

I mean....

Make no mistake, SEVEN and 3D are singing about the same thing. If SEVEN was in your face, 3D is subtle. But they are both just talking about sex here. Which is why it doesn't make sense to me why people are so upset??? As a person who likes Harlow and has heard his songs before, this did not shock me one bit. There is nothing wrong with this song. It is meaningless and shallow but guess what, thats the type of music the GP is listening to rn. I understand why Asians have an issue with this line

And I can respect that. I don't have to understand it, but if Asians say its offensive, then its offensive. In which case I think that's just ignorance on Harlow's part. The people behind the song and JK himself are not going to okay something degrading. So it is of my opinion that people are reading too much, way too much into something that aint even meant to be deep.

It's a song, about sex. The only thing deep about it, is the holes that will be getting penetrated.

This song doesn't require to be analysed. Okay, maybe when trying to decipher the analogies being used but that's it. JK has one agenda and one agenda only; release music that the general public will devour, get his name out there and be a huge pop star. And it is working.

Cue Boracity's new video about each member and who their target audience are for each solo project

JK did not write these songs. If he did I'm sure they would have more meaning. But that's not what he's aiming for rn. Right now the man just wants to put out something that he knows will sell. Wants to put out something that will be a hit. And 3D is exactly that. Just like SEVEN. Mans was asked for the meaning of the song and by his answer, I'm not sure even he knows.

What??

Did anyone understand that???? If you did, break it down for me coz I did NOT understand that 😂😂

This song has no meaning. Its shallow, catchy, easy to remember and move to. Enough with trying to complicate shit! It ain't that deep. Period.

JK cared more about the choreo.

While Jack is calling himself a whore for wanting 4 women, JK is busy dancing throughout. So I will listen to JK and enjoy the song and choreo. Because there is nothing in the lyrics and there was never intended to be.

Idk why y'all mad when we stan a consent king:

Personally I dont have time to be angry because 1) i see no reason to be, and 2) i am too busy admiring JK's body proportions 🤤🤤

Damn, Jimin's man is hot!!!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[bubblesxo]

i dont know if you will see this but i am a big fan of your g!bruce meets the batfam!!!! I literally have tumblr just for this series (and now that I’ve tried it im beginning to love it ngl) . Annyywaayy ive just read the new chapter and it’s so good!?? Like i am really excited for the next chapter!!!

Oh and I haven’t watched gotham ( im planning too ) but i sometimes mix the twins????? Like your explanations are good dont get me wrong but yk when your reading and you need to check which ones which? Yeah … and like i want to fix that idk how .do i just like memorize the twins personalitys??

also in this au is theres 2 jokers??????? I saw you once mention Jerome(?) being revived or something

ps .im that great at English sorry .

oh wow wow wow thank you so so much!! i'm really glad that you're enjoying my story so much! it really means a lot to me. <33 i think your english is good! but if you need/want me to clarify anything i say here, just let me know and i'll try to rephrase it for you!

okay, so in the Gotham tv show (this has spoilers for all 5 seasons, so read on if you're okay with that) the way that they approached writing the joker was actually really up in the air in the beginning. this is because they didn't have the rights to use the name "joker," and so fox (the company that made the show) planned on making a bunch of smaller characters in the show as a kind of easter egg as people who could be the joker or who resemble him in some way.

this changed when cameron monaghan (the actor for both jerome and jeremiah) guest starred in s1e16 "the blind fortune teller." in it, the character of jerome is introduced as a 17/18 year old boy who travels with the circus with his mother, who is a snake dancer. he is meant to be one of the aforementioned joker-like characters in the show and wasn't actually supposed to be included again after that episode, if i am not mistaken.

however, the viewers LOVED his performance and jerome came back in season two as a member of the maniax, a group of arkham inmates who were broken out of the asylum. i won't go too into detail about the actual plot, but in seasons two, three, and four, jerome shows up in at least a few different episodes with very memorable storylines each time.

it isn't until season four of the show that jeremiah is even revealed at all! jeremiah and jerome are identical twin brothers, however, jeremiah has been in hiding for years under the fake name "xander wilde" in an attempt to escape jerome, who wants to get revenge on him for lying to their mother about what he (jerome) did when they were children. basically, jeremiah lied to their mother (lila, who jerome is revealed to have killed in 1x16) that jerome tried to kill him, causing jeremiah to be sent away and be adopted by rich people and get to go to a well-funded private school where he could live out his best life as a child prodigy (which was jeremiah's end goal to this), whereas jerome was left behind in the circus that they lived at (haly's circus, the same one that dick grayson later was raised in before being adopted by bruce). during this time, jerome was horrifically abused by his mother, his uncle, and his mother's many romantic partners. this eventually caused him to crack, which creates the character we see in the show.

here's an easy way to remember the difference in their personalities:

in the standard american deck of cards, there are two jokers: one that is black and white and one that is in color. in this analogy, jeremiah is the black and white joker and jerome is the one in color.

this is jerome:

he's got a *very* boisterous personality. he's outgoing and charismatic and, of course, severely messed up in the head. he *enjoys* the pain he causes people and does it with little to no reservations. he thinks things through less thoroughly than jeremiah but jerome always has a plan and is actually quite smart. i couldn't do him the disservice of calling him the dumb twin, despite some points about jeremiah that i'll get back to later.

anyway, jerome has a grand plan for all of gotham: he believes that, fundamentally, everyone in the world is like him and is also at least a bit crazy inside. he wants everyone to tap into their inner selves and let themselves run free / go crazy. he successfully ensnares huge hoards of gothamites with his persuasive way of speaking and interesting flare to his words. he amasses a large cult following, all of whom are very similar to him in the sense that they all demonstrate similar signs of instability.

here's some more gifs of him.

jerome kind of invented the iconic "HAHAHA" signature joker laugh in the gotham universe, even though he isn't the one who goes on to become "mr. j" (gotham's version of the joker) in the end (that's jeremiah, though i have a lot to say about that).

jerome's always smiling, a genuinely creepy smile that throws people off at first but can be really scary once you know what you're looking at. he single handedly turns gotham into a madhouse on multiple occasions and is the one who basically spread the "crazy" to the general population (for short: genpop).

he's a classic cult leader in the sense that he can mesmerize a whole room with his magnetic presence but also will ruthlessly cut down any of his followers if they so much as upset him (or even if they're just being annoying or could have a greater purpose, like when he stabbed a follower in the gut to take their blood to draw a frowney-face on bruce).

that reminds me, another important thing to know about jerome is that he has an iconic stapled-on face! this is because he died once (in season two, though he came back to life for season three onwards) and one of his followers tried to revive him using some insider medical knowledge from doctor hugo strange (who is just... a whole thing. ew.). he thinks that he failed at doing this and steals jerome's face so that he can wear it on television in an attempt to control jerome's followers (spoiler: this doesn't work).

however, it turns out that jerome *was* revived from this, and he's pretty upset that some dude stole his face! so he uses a staple gun to re-attach it after he gets it back (and kills the guy who did it). his face is later punched off by jim gordon but reattached more properly during his time at arkham afterward (the carnival scene happened in season 3 and jerome came back with a kind-of healed face in season 4).

here's some gifs with jerome's messed up face!

jerome is the colorful joker because he's very much expressive. he lets out every single emotion he feels---unless he's trying to deceive someone, at which point he is a phenomenal liar. (in season 1 when we are first introduced to him, he almost successfully gets away with the murder of his own mother.)

jerome is funny and laughs a lot and is *loud.* he's also absolutely insane and incredibly cruel, as well as impulsive, but he's able to curb his instincts if he feels like he can pull off a big plan.

jerome is a showman by nature. he's a product of the circus and it *shows.* everything he does is like an act, something that is acknowledged by many people in the show.

he's a funky lil dude. totally crazy, but kind of adorable at times.

he's also SEVERELY traumatized from his horrible past and has huge trust issues.

so, yeah. jerome is colors! remember that.

unfortunately, pookie died in season 4 and doesn't seem to have been revived this time </3

now, onto his twin brother jeremiah!

jeremiah is, at least at first, presented to be the complete opposite of jerome. he's calm, collected, and seemingly sane---at least at first. bruce trusts him at first and he even befriends him for a period of time before jeremiah betrays him.

jeremiah is a genius engineer, and, when looking into his past, we can assume that he was a child prodigy. he worked with thomas wayne before he died and designed the wayne plaza building under the aforementioned alias "xander wilde." he also locked himself in an underground maze for ~6 years (i believe?) and never went outside, instead sending his proxy (ecco) out to act in his place during business transactions.

as seen here, jeremiah seems to be the complete opposite of showboat jerome:

when we first meet jeremiah, we are told that he is totally sane, but we can later see that this is not the complete truth.

i'll use jeremiah's project as a metaphor for this. jeremiah was building a set of generators which could make energy harvesting and usage much less expensive and much more bio-friendly (if i remember correctly). bruce promised to fund his project and jeremiah accepts his offer quickly.

after jerome dies in season 4 after kidnapping bruce and jeremiah, he left behind a concoction of chemicals that seemingly make jeremiah go insane. this is a play on joker toxin / joker venom from the greater dc universe.

however, after jeremiah reveals his new self

he says that the spray did not actually change who he actually is, but just gave him an altered appearance. there are a lot of fan theories about this, but the general consensus is that the spray likely lowered his inhibitions, which gave him the kick needed to reveal his true self.

even his complexion resembles the joker he corresponds with: black and white. he is the black and white joker because he isn't as expressive, is way more calculated, and is more cruel and less happy. even his skin is paper white.

here's some gifs of what he looks like after those "slight cosmetic changes" :

that looks a lot more like the joker we know and love today, right? bleach-pale skin, red painted lips, green hair. he's instantly recognizable as the stereotypical joker now.

remember when i mentioned the generators? let's go back to them. the entire time that the generators have been around, they've also been perfectly functional as powerful bombs. their ability to be used as bombs does not undermine the fact that they can also be used as generators, and both of these things were true at the same time *for the entire time they have existed.*

it is in this way that jeremiah's paradoxical nature has always existed. jeremiah is crafty, cunning, and absolutely vicious. he has no care or concern for human life in general and will sacrifice most people in his life if it means that he will get what he wants in the end.

this is shown both before and after the joker toxin in how he lied about jerome when they were children (which caused jerome to be heavily abused) and in how jeremiah willingly killed one of his most devoted and beloved followers, who was being ransomed, just because someone put him on hold and it was personally easier for him to just kill him than sit on hold on the phone for a while. (he also has a vicious streak, though, because he immediately moved the demolition of the bombs up to immediately once he was out of the blast zone because those people inconvenienced him.)

something that's important to realize about jeremiah is that he has an issue with being called crazy. jerome does, too, but he eventually comes to accept the term, almost like he's reclaiming it, but jeremiah is *violently* against it. that's one of the things that set him off in the previously mentioned interaction.

both jeremiah and jerome are obsessed with bruce, though in different ways. jeremiah sees bruce first as his best friend and later as the "brother [he] could never have, that jerome could never be." jerome just sees bruce as a particularly entertaining and interesting kid who he enjoyed tormenting who he would eventually kill.

anyway, despite jeremiah being crazy (or, depending on who you ask, just less inhibited) he is still crazy smart and calculating. he thinks through everything before he does it and his master plans seem like they go on forever with 10000 parts to them and backups and contingencies galore.

the only time that jeremiah ever really seems to break out of this is when he's fighting with bruce. while he still does have a greater point to make or something he's trying to accomplish, he thinks through things less with him and shows his impulsive and rash side a bit more, which is interesting because jerome showed his thoughtful and contemplative side when faced with the obstacle that is bruce thomas wayne. i love parallels and contrasts, especially in these two characters! i just love writing about twins, they're always so interesting.

some important things about their relationship to one another:

even though jerome kidnapped jeremiah and seemingly strapped a bomb to his neck (after breaking into his house and telling him that he would kill him), jerome doesn't seem to actually want jeremiah to die. instead, as we later find out, he wants jeremiah to unleash his true self and carry on his legacy of chaos and cruelty in gotham for him after his death. this is why he left behind the laughing gas for him.

(the fact that jerome thought to do all of that shows that he really was a smart character and that he truly did understand the world around him well. he knew exactly what would happen in the event of his death, i.e. bruce offering to fund jeremiah's work and jeremiah accepting, as is shown when jerome has the joker venom in a present box which claims to be sent from wayne enterprises.)

jeremiah *hates* to be compared to jerome in any way, as he thinks of himself as "the face of true sanity." he actually has an entire notebook full of jerome's ideas, which he says he will outdo and perfect, thus defeating his brother in the end, which i don't know if i agree with, but whatever.

i think that it's because of the reputation that jerome got at the circus. jeremiah wanted people to think of him as better than jerome and as the perfect child, which he succeeded at. to him, jerome is synonymous with crazy, which i've already mentioned that he hates to be called.

okay, just one more part to talk about. the infamous, much anticipated Mr. J!!!

in the series finale, it is revealed that jeremiah, after falling into a vat of acid, is horribly disfigured and pretends to be in a vegetative state for the whole ten years that bruce is on his quest to improve himself before becoming batman. he does this as a way of waiting for bruce to come back to gotham so he can continue to be obsessed with him.

however, though this is jeremiah, it seems that he has actually gone through immense mental trauma sometime during this time (perhaps during his fall into a vat of chemicals), which has caused him to sort of lose his sense of self. he once says that there was "another me" [another him] once, which is, of course, referring to jerome. this implies that jeremiah sees jerome as an extension of himself, almost, and almost makes it seem as if mr. j is a whole different entity of his own.

hopefully this clears everything up a bit for you!! let me know if you have any questions or want to know anything specific about the characters and i will be glad to oblige!

thank you once again for being so kind as to leave this ask!! it really made my day. thank you for enjoying my fic, i hope it continues to live up to expectations. i have a lot of fun things planned (and i am very happy that you decided to look into these characters more, because they are actually extremely important to the plot as we get more into the actual story!). <33

[silverquillsideas]

This episode was the best for me so far!! 🥺 I absolutely adored the way they handled kongthap and atom's respective misunderstandings, atom's fears of coming out to people and how others might perceive him and kongthap because of their relationship.

(I'll just jot down some of my thoughts as a casual viewer, and disclaimer, I haven't read the manga, and forgot half of what happened in the KH adaptation, so this is purely my personal perception of the Thai adaptation.)

Atom has a dramatic personality, he overthinks situations and gets caught up in his own big fears, and the fears are absolutely justified, in this case. And I think the imaginary montage with the two moms was more of a way in which we get a glimpse into his larger than life, chaotic, comedic thought process more than suggesting a "dismissive of queer identity as a joke" POV I've seen in the tags here, but that's just me :')

I'm glad he trusts kongthap enough to confess his fears to him, and that kongthap takes him seriously and tries to understand where he's coming from.

Glad the show didn't go the homophobic teacher route implied in the preview last week, and instead gave us two queer elders guiding atom and kongthap on their journey ❤️

I liked the analogy that Annop gave of different kinds of love and the chocolate cakes :') it was a gentle way of unravelling atom's genuine fears of their relationship being "different from other people's" and the way he's more afraid of how people will look at kongthap in a negative light than what people think of him, and that just goes to show how selfless he actually is, deep down.

Annop acknowledges the difference of the love atom was talking about, but he also says that even tho they may be different in form and shape and how people express them, essentially they are still love, and Atom shouldn't judge himself so harshly for his feelings. He shouldn't bow down to other people's perception of him and kongthap and end up hurting them both.

Also, I've seen a strange criticism of the musical performances in MLMU being "too overdramatic / cringe / OOC" from mostly US American / western bloggers here, and I just wanted to say, please chill out 😂 musical segments are pretty common in south Asian / SEA media/ storytelling in general. If you've seen any Indian/bollywood films ever in your life, chances are that, you'll see at least 2 songs and 1 dance and all of them are meant to be taken FICTIONALLY, with suspension of disbelief and not literally assumed that the characters breaking into song and dance are seasoned performers or what not. The music and dance segment IS a part of storytelling itself, meant to convey the mood of the characters, the emotions in the scene, in that segment of the story. So please cut atom and kongthap some slack lmao

I, for one, am thoroughly enjoying gemfourth's heavenly vocals and wish that peace on other viewers too :')

Also I'm loving how Gemini and Fourth as actors interpreted Ida and Aoki. In the jp version, personally, Ida felt a bit too stiff and robotic for me, I'm glad Gemini played kongthap as more of a soft, quiet boy who laughs, jokes around, and gets petty and silly at moments as he navigates his feelings. I also love how Fourth is playing Atom, giving him comedic beats and dramatic expressions but there's also a certain grounded, vulnerable core to him that comes out in heavier moments and absolutely punches me in the guts.

Overall, I'm genuinely enjoying seeing these 2 being dorks in love, navigating their big feelings and finding friendship and community in the people around them 🥺❤️

[infiniteeight8]

(on anon because this song ref is going to date me horribly, but) the more I read your IronStrange ficlets, the more I'm reminded of the 2000s song "Crazy for this Girl" by Evan and Jaron. I'm not sure if this is meant to be a "look at these lyrics and see if they inspire you" prompt or just a compliment overall of how consistent your characterizations are, but thank you for so many amazing glimpses into their many (many, many, many) relationship moments.

Thanks so much! I have a lot of fun writing these two, and I’m glad my take on them rings true. 😀

Those lyrics really do scream IronStrange, don’t they? And really, I could see it going either way. Maybe it’s a bit more Stephen coded, what with the 14 million futures and him falling for Tony first, but my muse is in the contrary place today (still?), so here’s a bit with Tony as the ‘narrator’. Er, inspired by the song, but it seems I did wander off on a bit of a tangent, so not too closely. lol. 

-

Tony sits on one of the desks in the library and watches, smiling, as Stephen searches through the volumes for the book he needs. “The analogy that compares ley lines and magical concentrations to rivers and lakes is even more apt that I realized,” he says as he flips through a book. “It turns out that they change position over the years. Usually very slowly, but as with water, it’s also possible for abrupt events—the magical equivalent of floods or earthquakes—to carve new channels. Which made me wonder,” he puts the book back on the shelf and goes looking for another one, “could they be moved artificially? After all, we can redirect watercourses.”

“More or less,” Tony puts in, as much to see Stephen’s reaction as because it’s true. “Some rivers are more amenable to redirection than others.” 

Stephen lights up. “An excellent point. I suspect ley lines are similar in that way, too.” His expression goes abruptly thoughtful. “I wonder if the similarities indicate a connection between the water and magic… Where is that map?”

Is this what he’s like when he’s on a research binge, Tony wonders. Almost glowing with energy, passion radiating off every inch of him? It can’t be—his research binges used to drive Pepper and Rhodey nuts. Stephen is just amazing. It almost makes Tony want to learn magic, just so he can dive in there with him.

Stephen makes a triumphant noise and brings the book out to the table next to Tony. There’s already a map spread out there, but now Stephen carefully unfolds a second. He grunts, dissatisfied, when the parchment of the second blocks out the first.

“I could do a holographic overlay, if you want,” Tony suggests.

“Please,” Stephen says, beaming at him.

Tony’s heart leaps. God, but he’s crazy about this man. A quick scan with his glasses and the projector in Tony’s watch flares to life, displaying both maps in an overlay.

“Perfect,” Stephen says absently, already absorbed in studying the correlations between the maps. He doesn’t ask why Tony’s hanging around, playing sounding board and logistical support. At some point, Tony thinks, he’s going to have to come up with an answer other than I was thinking about you, and then I had to see you. 

Stephen turns to go find another map.

But not yet.

[abuse-ken]

Ito is not an evil murderer for no reason: a meta

I'm going to be breaking down the lyrics and PVs of three songs: Yellow Papa (x), Dear Suns (x), and Flower War. This is a chronological look at Ito's story. Feel free to look them over if you need a review :3 the song is linked in the first word, and the lyrics in the second. I left a second translation for Yellow Papa and Dear Suns because I like the second one better for readability. Flower War has lyrics in the captions of the PV

Before I start: As I understand things, this series of songs by Abuse is centered around a cult that primarily idolizes indulgence to any degree. Especially through Ito and Zoy, we see sex and cannibalism heavily intertwined. For this reason, I interpret cannibalism to be both literal and a metaphor for rape

Ito himself is the oldest of four siblings. He is fully man himself, but serves as a parallel to Ote in that his mind is that of a beast while his body isn't. His mom is a beastman, and his absent father is a man

Yellow Papa

*Please note that Ito is described as "only just learning how to read" during this song, making him around five

The general point of this song (which I assume most people don't know as this is a song that was initially supposed to be Dear Suns, but Abuse cut and put on Abuse Bundle instead) is to illustrate Ito's childhood. Both this and Dear Suns seem to serve similar purposes, both coming out after Flower War to further humanize Ito. This song follows a parentified Ito and his siblings as Ito begs for love from their parents. So fun and chill ty Abuse

We see a lot of talk of meat and being eaten, as is standard with Ito ofc:

Most notably, the line "'Love us, love us!', My mother's fangs gobbled me up, and I became raw meat". Obviously Ito was not literally eaten here, which leads us to the conclusion that Ito's mom is sexually abusive

This leads straight into "That sort of sensation was of falling from the top", tying back to the opening line of "I ate the raw meat that had fallen from the top", meaning one of two things. Either we are meant to take the first verse's lines as autocannibalism, a metaphor for how he is having to take care of his siblings with their father absent; or we are getting our first glimpse at why Ito might be a cannibal: need. If this isn't meant to be taken as an analogy and Ito is eating "raw meat" (presumably people), this paints a picture of him and his family being in a dog-eat-dog kind of world, having to cannibalize other vulnerable people around them in order to eat

We also see his mother ask if he is going to eat her, which he says he is. This is touched on more in Dear Suns, obviously. He cites his reason for eating her as because his father doesn't love her. With the final chorus showing Ito more desperate for his father's love than food, which he and his family are very clearly lacking, it gives us the general themes of Ito as a character:

Love, sex (and sexual abuse), and eating are all one and the same to him

Dear Suns

*Ito is older here, he seems to be at least a teenager based on the illustrations, but there is no lyrical acknowledgement of his age

As I'm sure most people know, this is more insight into Ito as a character rather than any particular event in his life, outside of the detailing of him eating mother and siblings

To begin with though, we get some elaboration on Ito's life before this song and how he came to be at the church. At about 1:43, the PV reads, "one thousand necks have been severed, so many bodies remain, sever the necks of one thousand [millionares?], blood stains remain even in the shower stalls, I'm in the middle of the street, I spend a year in the hospital, I don't know my name, I don't know where I live, 'you are a child, and this is your new family'." This implies that somewhere in between Yellow Papa and this song, while Ito was still young, he was eventually taken in off the street and to a hospital where he lived for a year, the church taking him in as him "new family" afterwards. This is over the line in the song that reads "you must protect your family, carve it into your DNA," which points to the church directing him into the role he takes on in Flower War to at least some extent

At 1:04, we also see a shot of text that reads, "for the first time in my life, I have a purpose" right as soon as the chorus starts detailing Ito killing and eating people, yet another implication that this is something he took on as more of a job than a crime of passion

There's also a shot of him wearing a collar with a chained lead at 1:26, which is obvious enough a sign of being controlled, especially when all the characters are dog-based. There is an inherent dehumanization to all of the characters in this plotline of Abuse's, but it applies to Ito too, not just the beastmen characters. Despite being fully aware of his actions, he is collared, compared to an animal, and dehumanized by the narrative itself

This song especially is full of evidence that Ito was brought up in the church for the sole purpose of protecting the people in their cult. With several lines about "having to protect his family" and especially "protect your family and their connection to you, it's carved into the spiral/(alternate translation above)", it really makes it seem like he's more of a child soldier for them than just the common interpretation of him being a yandere type. There's also the mention of "xochimiquiztli"* which ties in more with Flower War (obviously more explaination later), meaning not only in Flower War but this song too, he is canonically compared to an honored soldier going on what is basically a suicide mission for the sake of pride and protection of their religion

And of course, the song closes with Ito saying "this is wrong". He's aware that he is commiting horrible acts on some level, yet he keeps doing it because he loves his family

*Refers to a death on the battlefield in a flower war. From the Aztec Empire, roughly translates to "flowery death"

Flower War

*Still no age for Ito, and he is pictured as a fox, so it is hard to gauge

To begin with, I'll give a brief summary of what flower wars are. In the 1450s, the Aztecs were going through a famine, and determined that the gods were angry and needed human sacrifices. In order to obtain these, soldiers were sent out into small, pre-arranged battles to take prisoners. Any deaths (or xochimiquiztli as before mentioned) were considered honorable, and the dead would join the god of sun, fire, and war.

This is tied to Ito's character as a whole. He grew up in the church because of growing up on the streets without food, he is heavily tied to sun imagery in Dear Suns and Flower War (while Zoy is notably tied to fire), and Flower War tells the story of his noble flowery death. In my opinion, this is too much connection to brush off as just reading into things. Ito is almost canonically called a child soldier through this analogy alone

This song really only follows Ito's last kill and his own death, which is a mission he goes on in order to kill people who "made fun of father (Zoy)" and "tried to kill Ote". The whole way he goes on about loving his family and his victims (again, love=sex=hunger to Ito), degrading himself, and praising his family members. He also mentions several times (2:06, 3:26, 4:01) that he is not supposed to kill children, which seems to be his undoing. While reminding himself of this rule, which he seems to only follow because someone else set it for him, he is shot and killed

In the final shot of the song, we also see a carnation that is red and yellow, the red meaning love (or specifically love for your mother, bc he has mommy issues ig) and the yellow representing disappointment and contempt. Like Dear Suns, this final moment displays some level of regret for his actions, and a final callback to his mother, who has now been mentioned in all three of his songs

In conclusion: my blorbo did nothing wrong /j please stop pointing out that he is a cannibal every time I mention liking him

[bestworstcase]

You’ve mentioned a few times that Salem is awkward, could you get into you’re reasoning and evidence for this characterization (as she is currently)? I’m fascinated by this reading and fully persuadable. Her origin story being the tower, it makes sense she’d be a little socially stunted but she was charismatic enough then to convince others to fight for her through words alone (tho that is different from in person social skills (to that point she persuaded kingdoms to revolt against the gods)). Millions of years of isolation wouldn’t put a shine on amicability, but these things /inform/ characterization. I’m interested in what you see in her as awkward in how she’s presented to us in the Current Era (Remnant Era?)

this post regarding her interrogation of oscar in 8.4 is salient because that's the scene that rly convinced me she's being written this way on purpose. there's a lot of contributing factors, though:

both then (fomenting rebellion) and now (recruiting hazel), salem's standard approach to getting people on her side involves basically walking up and "demonstrating her powers," i.e. inviting or just letting the person she's trying to sway kill her over and over again until they're willing to hear her out. she can (and did) make a compelling enough argument for people to follow her, but the way she chooses to make people listen is by subjecting herself to extreme violence.

further, it's shown in V8 that even within her own inner circle, there is a lot of confusion regarding what salem wants—so much so that tyrian and hazel think diametrically opposed things. why does this confusion exist? ozpin (and most of the fandom) believe it is because salem lies; but a) salem hates lies and liars, and b) the idea that salem herself is deceitful is founded on things jinn says of her in the lost fable, which is a verifiably unreliable narrative. if we look at the two onscreen instances of salem speaking of her goals—"the moment you put your desires before my own" and "in pursuit of a new world"—what strikes me about both is her vagueness.

when cinder questions her in V5, salem answers in a very oblique way: "working with bandits? leaving ruby alive? what's the point!?" -> "never underestimate the usefulness of others; take leonardo. he was one of ozpin's most trusted, but now…" both the bandit (raven) and ruby were or are among ozpin's "most trusted," and salem's point is that she wants to turn both of them against ozpin (like leo and summer). but she does not actually Say That. i made this analogy in the oscar interrogation post but i'll make it again: the way salem answers cinder's question is like showing her work on a math problem but not actually giving the answer. a lot of salem's dialogue is like this: she talks in examples, hints, and implications.

in fact the one time we have ever seen salem clearly state what she means is after ozma asks her "what are you saying?" <- i find this to be significant not only because it flags that other characters find salem's speech to be opaque or unclear sometimes, but because salem answers him honestly and without any hesitation, which indicates that she was not trying to be vague or obfuscate her meaning on purpose. asked for clarification, she clarifies.

then there is what she says to ozma once he tells her the whole truth: "why spend our lives trying to redeem these humans when we could replace them with what they could never be?"—now i am not going to get into my whole theory here, suffice it to say that i think that by "them" salem meant the gods in accordance with her longstanding ambitions—but the salient piece for this discussion is that this bolded phrase is a direct paraphrase from the final lines of 'the shallow sea' and i do think that that is, given the preponderance of thematic links between salem and the faunus, probably intentional, i.e. salem is quoting that myth to express her rejection of ozma's mandate (compare ozma's reliance on fairytales to communicate and make sense of his existence.)

lastly, there are several occasions when salem is talking (to her inner circle in 6.4, or to ironwood in 7.11, or oscar in 8.4) only to be interrupted with unexpected new information (ozpin is back; ruby used the lamp; oscar is fronting). in the first two examples, salem responds by either kicking everyone else out or leaving herself. see the linked post for a more thorough breakdown of her conversation with oscar, but suffice it to say that she responds in a very awkward and disjointed way before she's able to get herself back on track.

so we have a pattern of:

speaking vaguely or being cryptic, in a manner that other characters explicitly find to be confusing,

clarifying readily the one time she's asked for clarification,

paraphrasing the concluding lines of a myth about people embracing change and leaving their old selves behind to live their truth in a new world that is harsh but free, in order to articulate her rejection of "redemption" and the divine mandate,

and ending conversations very abruptly when interrupted mid-speech.

and this pattern exists in correlation with a pair of soliloquies whose language is markedly more eloquent, even poetic, and delivered with a clarity and emotional smoothness that is often lacking from her spoken dialogue.

what this suggests, to me, is that salem struggles to articulate her thoughts (the soliloquies) into words (her dialogue), and that she deals with it with preparation—by planning out what she intends to say and how she'll say it in advance. that she relies heavily on scripts and rehearses speeches and conversations in her head specifically to avoid having to speak off the cuff, in essence.

(and i think this is generally the basis for ozma's distrust and doubts: she told him the truth but in a really confusing and cryptic way that didn't always make sense. if she wasn't coherent—and how could she be after millions of years alone?—of course he wasn't sure whether he could believe what she said!)

basically, i think she's capable of being compellingly persuasive only under particular circumstances (planned speeches given to an audience primed to listen to what she says by violent, spectacular demonstrations of her immortality), and she flounders in ordinary conversation because a) she struggles to find the right words to express her meaning clearly, b) her natural affect is blunted and sometimes erratic (<- "well… :) perhaps you and i can have a better working relationship……… >:( oscar, was it? /:"), and c) she knows both of these things make her come across as an insincere liar.

<- there is a performative aspect to… nearly every scene in front of her inner circle or her enemies; that informs this reading too. as does the fact that there are many, many characters who are tangibly more charismatic than she is—ozpin, blake, oscar, cinder, robyn, ruby, yang—whereas the character whose manner of speech most resembles salem's is pyrrha, who speaks in an overly formal way and explicitly feels socially isolated and unable to form real connections with people.

[chryblossomjjk]

bts fic recommendations | 03.07.23

→ hi friends! this is a little segment i do every tuesday (reviewsday get it, aren’t i funny, pls tell me how funny i am) where i read and review two-three fics. as a content creator, i know how big of a role other creators play in your growth, therefore, i want to do my part in making sure everyone gets the recognition they deserve! so with that being said, please check out the amazing fics listed below. make sure to like, reblog, and leave feedback! ♡ #reviewsday #kikirecs

stardust - @euphoricfilter (jjk x reader | fluff, smut, f2l)

summary:  if jungkook would have known an unintentional orgasm would have led to this, then he would have begged you to work out with him sooner.

naur bby when i tell you i loved this from the first paragraph...

"If every living being’s foundation is made of stardust, scattered when born, then Jungkook thinks the two of you were made from the same star."

and the way you continued the analogy throughout was pure literature gold (or should i say diamond teehee). its stuff like this that i read and im like damn, the moots are really out here posting fics that could easily be published best sellers for fucking free!! how lucky are we!!!

OOF AND THE PILLOW PRINCESS COMMENT HAD ME LOOKING AROUND THE ROOM BLUSHING BC HOW DOES HE KNOW ME LIKE THAT I FELT CALLED OUT LMAO

and the whole workout scene hits even better after his workout live like i legit was able to visual everything... and sex in the mirror will never not be top tier :')

i love this jungkook dearly. this is how i imagine irl jk yk? just that hopeless romantic vibe, feeling that he has someone on this earth that is meant for him and he's meant for them. thats encapsulated so beautifully in this fic. such beautiful writing, thank you for blessing us with this fucking masterpiece!!

knee high socks - @minniesvenus (jjk x reader | smut, college au)

summary: after being obsessed with you and your knee high socks for forever, jungkook can't believe that you finally notice him.

okay so do you ever just hear a song or smell a smell that feels so incredibly nostalgic and fills your head with dreamy thoughts and stars and stuff... that's exactly how i felt while reading this! like i just kept thinking of the arctic monkeys song and the way you characterized jungkook's crush is just so authentic. its just that pure school crush feeling where you anticpate seeing this person and the more time you see them you pick up on little things and it makes you fall even deeper oof. there's just something so fimilair about the way you wrote this and it's probably one of the most realistic depictions i've seen of the natural progression of a crush like uGH THE FUCKING TALENT !!!

and it makes you root for him so much like i was internally cheering for him when she asked him to sit next to him. it was so fucking wholesome and sweet i screamed

and then shit got unwholesome real quick whew

her giving him praise actually made me so happy though! like you definitely inspired me to write more of that bc its so refreshing and cute!! and the smut was saur naughty but so sweet bc she was just guiding him through the motions and once again it just felt so natural which is no easy feet!! like you really hit the nail on the head with this one and it will be added to my comfort fic list asap!! so so so lovely!!

in the seom: love for dummies - @thvhoe (jjk x reader | smut, fluff, angst, fwb, college au, camping au)

summary: always the friend, never the girlfriend. jeon jungkook doesn't date. at least that's what he thought until he met you, a chemistry student who seemed to have it all—except for love. meeting at a mutual friends frat party, you hit it off right away. however, due to both of your stubbornness, it has never progressed beyond being friends with benefits. the annual camping trip with your friend group was supposed to be the turning point in your relationship with jungkook. but what happens when your best friend of 18 years unexpectedly comes back from busan and confesses to you, further complicating matters?

OoF WHAT A FUCKING OPENING SCENE LMAO!! i was horny from fucking JUMP!!! and kook juggling between pet names and not knowing what to call her made me giggle but always made me extremely soft like aw :') &lt;3

and y/n really whipped that fuckboy into shape we love to see it!! he better buy gifts n work for the coochie!!! >:(

"Pookie🩶: Can't sleep. Send me a pic of your boobies?"

this had me cackling bc this behavior is saur... annoyingly endearing like he legit is a big baby and i love him lmao even though unholy he is extremely cute.

^y/n and i both having immaculate taste and listening to ditto

and i am so thankful things turned out well for this pairing. i felt so sad for him like ugh the protectiveness and worry over her. he was generally just so wholesome throughout this entire fic. def a fav protrayal of jungkook. thank you so much for sharing this beautiful peice with us my love!

[not-goldy]

Hi!!

To me JK is queer. He would always be queer but to see him embody that so overtly by leaning into this queer for show practice in Kpop makes me uncomfortable 😅

He's always been the gender bending queer hailing captain of our little team here- but looking at him now it's like seeing your favorite song writer suddenly get in front of the mic. Not only are they writing, they singing too. That makes you wonder a lot.

And now I'm plagued with questions like was he always a singer? Did he always want to sing the songs he writes? Does he really love music or is he just looking to cash out?

I'm a bit confused on what you are trying to say here, and I don't want to rush to get upset over something I could be just reading wrong.

So if you could please expand on what you meant, that's be great!

Damn you slow😭😭😭😭😭😭

Here, keep up.

We talking about the way JK dresses in shoots these days right?

Notice anything different about those shoots?

Here's for context

And a myriad other moments like this I can't be care to put up here for illustration.

Question was whether or not he's copying Jimin or anyone else.

My response no.

Because A, there's a whole team behind his wardrobe and a whole visuals coordinating crew and brand sponsors and what not.

So we can't say well this is him copying anyone.

Besides, Jimin explained that their similar and complementary outfits are usually a deliberate choice by staff and he said "he knows the reason why" to suggest there was more to it.

Since JK is a SOLO ARTIST NOW, and is possibly working with a whole new crew, it's possible he's just doing WHATEVER SUITS HIM. Although these crew members may be picking out his outfit I'm pretty sure he wouldn't wear anything that didn't feel like him or that he wasn't comfortable with.

Now, my point is, it's a bit strange seeing him being so openly expressive seeing him express himself through fashion in a totally different way.

While in BTS he was assigned a role within the group and the out fit they often choose for him spoke to that identity they had carved out for him- which is to present him as the quintessential straight masculine dude( in my opinion.)

They did the opposite with Jimin, pushing this very queer very soft almost feminine image onto him. Jimin addressed it when he did a shoot some years ago and wore a simple jeans and tshirt with as less make up as possible and said it was a sharp contrast to his usual looks but he liked it because it showed his masculine side more.

With JK, every now and then he would go off script and show us a tip of his personal fashion choices iceberge.

Not saying they were coerced to look a certain way or that they didn't act all enjoy the process- please see the nuances here cos I can't explain this anymore further.

The singer writer analogy is saying as a writer- when producers put you in a box of writer that's all they expect from you. And sometimes you can sing and want to sing. And sometimes you do crave things outside the box they put you.

Thus, I think the Kook we are seeing is Kook. It's him expressing himself without regard to whatever expectations we have of him and his gender.

He could wear a heel if he wants to and that wouldn't be because he is queer, or copying anyone. It would be because he enjoys it.

METAPHOR PEOPLE.

MET TUH FOUR😩

Also, jx so you know, even if you were upset I wouldn't give a fuck😹😹😹😹😹😹

[joannerowling]

On the issue with James, I do think this is one area where the books aren’t ageless and have to be read in the context of an English school in the 70s written by an author in the 90s. Because by today’s standards, James is less of your garden variety ‘boys will be boys’ type bully and more of an actual sociopath well past the age of criminal responsibility who by 16 had committed one public sexual assault and was an accessory to attempted murder who backed out last second. But I don’t think that’s at all what Jo meant to convey.

Let me guess. Snape fan? :P

Look, my issue with this discourse has always been that only James seems to get so much flack for his most morally ambiguous actions. I mean, Hermione disfigured a girl her age with zits spelling "sneak" because she'd given the DA members out to Umbridge. Harry nearly gored Malfoy to death by using an unknown spell he knew was meant "for enemies". Yet, i've never seen anyone hating on James that would go as hard against these other characters.

On your first point: James wasn't an accessory to attempted murder who backed out last second. Sirius was the one who tricked Snape and nearly got him killed (which would have made Lupin an accessory to murder). James acted to stop it as soon as he realised what Sirius had done. His reasons for doing so remain obscure - Snape thinks he wanted to save his own skin because he would have been blamed alongside Sirius, but that's Snape's interpretation, not exactly the most unbiased source.

Next: i ressent people misusing the term "sexual assault" to describe what James does in Snape's worst memory (a take that, btw, i've only seen upheld as if it were common knowledge by Americans, or very "Americanised" fans). The definition of sexual assault is "unwanted sexual contact", and in the UK especially it pretty much means "rape without penetration". I do think Jo meant for it to be taken seriously (its parallel with the Muggles's treatment by Death Eaters in GoF is clear), only people didn't really at the time. Still. James humiliated Snape, i'd say what he did qualifies as sexual harrassment, and he's rightfully painted as the bad guy in that episode, but he didn't sexually assault Snape.

Also, because we only have that one scene to work with, everyone seems to forget the larger context, namely: Snape created that spell. Judging by the way Death Eaters were still using it 15+ years later, i imagine James wasn't the first nor the last in his generation to use it against another student. I always saw it as a bit analogous to those dangerous/humiliating games that suddenly become trendy with high schoolers until someone gets hurt enough for adults to intervene. I'm comforted in that interpretation by the fact that Snape implies James didn't even know HE was the one to invent the spell, suggesting it started as a thing Snape showed to other Slytherins to gain some social cred, which then spread to the whole school.

Anyways, if that makes James a sociopath, then Hogwarts must have been chock-full of them in the 70s, starting with Snape himself. Maybe the point isn't that Snape or James (or Sirius) are sociopaths, but that imminent war tends to turn people more prone to violence and less likely to abide by moral principles, or consider their designated enemies's humanity. I have no doubt that James morally justified himself and his actions by the fact that Snape belonged to the "bad crowd" of Voldemort's future recruits. Even though we readers know enough about Snape to be able to tell that he was never seriously convinced by Pure Blood superiority.

[marta-bee]

Rachel Maddow's recent piece on J.D. Vance reminded me of an intersting fact about him. I don't really buy her analysis for why Trump chose Vance for V.P., but I also don't want to do a deep dive into that. Rather, let's talk about the Tolkien element.

See, among other things Vance was a venture capitalist who was groomed by Peter Thiel, the ultra-rightwing even bigger venture capitalist investor who among other things provided some early funding for Facebook. His views on freedom and the common good aren't so far from Elon Musk's. He's also owned or invested in companies like Palantir, Anduril, and Mithril; Vance himself is part-owner in another investment firm, Narya.

Apparently the Tolkien schtick is a bit of a thing with the far right.

I'm not surprised; I've certainly heard of a certain kind of fan who ties Tolkien's good guys to a kind of northern-European heroic past. And I'm not blind to where that reading comes from, if you plot Middle-earth on a map you can draw some pretty racist one-to-one connections. Shire=Englad, Rohan=old Germanic highlands, Gondor=.... Italy I guess? or Greece? some sort of Mediterranean high-classic society? And the less said about Harad, Easterlings, Druedain and Orcs in this analogy, the better, obviously.

I do wish these tech-bros cosplaying as heroic white-saviors would read a bit of the Silmarillion. (When is that not the case?) Or even The Hobbit, because the idea that evil folk are centered in what we might think of as Arda-Africa and Arda-Near Asia just doesn't hold up. Smaug attacked Erebor from the North. Angmar, as in Witch King of? Also from the far North. Similarly for Angband, Morgoth's fortress in the First Age. And without looking it up, I'm pretty sure Ungoliant -- you know, the devourer of light, the giant spider allied with Morgoth when he destroyed the Two Trees -- was from the wastes to the far north of Valinor. So much for a fantasy of Nordic white power resisting the corruption of the hordes.

Which isn't to say Tolkien didn't have his problems with race, he clearly did. But this idea that the heroes of the Free Peoples of the West were all from fantasy-northern Europe is so very simplistic, it makes my teeth hurt. The closest I can get to this read of Tolkien is that all Middle-earth was meant to be northwest Europe, but that would include the free folk and the baddies alike. Minas Morgul is right there across the river from Minas Tirith. Ditto Dol Guldur and Thranduil's halls. Ditto again for Rohan and Isengard. The map just doesn't line up the way these idiots need it to, to make this fantasy work.

(Never mind anyone trying to put Tolkien on the side of historic-Nazism is just cuckoo bananas. Do I really need to dig out Jirt's admittedly hilarious response to his German publisher demanding he certify if he was of Aryan blood?)

But as fun as it is to bop the far right on the nose again and again, I think this focusing on literal racism misses the bigger point. I think a lot of the far-right drawn to Tolkien and other similar fantasy writers see the wolrd in rather apocalyptic terms: an existential threat to their civilization and everything they consider noble, a need for a hero to stand up against this age's Sauron. War must be, etc., etc.; and the stakes are so high, any niggling concerns we have about the proper way to obtain and exercise power must be overlooked. Our noble leader is the only one who can protect us against the encroaching darkness, and anyone who would stand against him might as well be an agent of Mordor.

The thing is, that doesn't sound like Gandalf, or Aragorn, or Frodo. If anything it reminds one of Denethor, who "saw in all the deeds of that time only a single combat between the lord of the White Tower and the Lord of Barad-dur; and mistrusted all others who resisted Sauron, unless they served himself alone."

Assume the Right is correct that we're facing an apocalyptic struggle against... entitled socialism-enabled laziness, or moral relativism, or multiculturalism, or wokeness, or whatever exactly it is. That people aren't doing noble and worthwhile things, they aren't working hard to build something that's worth preserving, that we are slipping into laziness and hedonism and whatever else and we're certainly not embracing virtue. If that was true, it's something I'd like to fight against. But the point of the far right, of Vance and Trump and all the rest, is it takes a singular hero to fight that fight for us. That we need to be marshalled and gathered under a single banner and commanded by a single voice.

There's no room for Smeagol to find the ring in the marshes of a certain riverbank, or for Bilbo's riddle-games, or for a decent Baggins of the Shire to stand up and say: I will take the Ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way. There's no room for chance meetings, or chance in any form; or for grace, or eucatastrophe, snatching joy from the jaws of despair.

And the thing is, Denethor was wrong. Not just because it wouldn't have worked, but his narrow vision came down to "mere politics," doing what must be done rather than what was truly right. That's kind of central to the narrative. It hurts me deeply to say that, because I'm usually so keen in my defense of him, and I truly do believe he's one of the most unfairly maligned characters in LOTR. But it's also true that the War and the necessity of Gondor's survival, the palantir and even his pride has really twisted his character, and he's just not capable of coming back from that. Gondor wouldn't have survived without him, I don't think, but precisely becuase of the way he had to shape himself to make that survival possible, there's very little place for him in the Gondor-to-Come. Moses didn't make it to the Promised Land, either.

J.D. Vance is no Moses, or even a Denethor. He's certainly not an Aragorn. And as for Frodo, if Vance would even deign to see himself as one of the Little Folk? Fuggedaboutit.

I'm rambling. This is my barely-edited, first-flush response to how wrong the idea that Tolkien's legendarium could be telling the same story as Vance & Co. I mean, I get it, I do, but also they're so very very wrong. The fact the wrongness is so blindingly obvious should probably tell us all something.

I would pay good money, though, to see him try to defend Elrond's letting Isildur walk away with the One Ring. Colbert should really get on that.

[moodooivy]

Analyzing Alastor

I've been wanting to analyze our favorite radio deer demon Alastor for awhile. I want to discuss what makes him such a great character! First things first, what makes a good character. To me, a good character has to be entertaining and fit into the story/world setting in an organic way. I judge everything based on the 3 Ds (Insert dick joke here); Design, dialogue, and demeanor. It's easy to know what that means for a character, it gets more difficult with songs and episodes, but the actual analogy is the hardest to dissect since a character is the most vast. I will not be bringing up songs or episodes entirely for this analysis unless it is important to the character. Let's get to it. (Plz note that everything here is my opinion)

Alastor's design

A character's design is important. It has to be pleasant to look at and fit the character in a way that matches their personality, purpose, and who they are. Good character design should tell us at least 50% of who they are.

Looking at Alastor. What would you say his defining features are? To me, it's the ears, antlers, monocle, suit, and that yellow smile (I'm sure there's more but as of writing this I just got home from my first day of school so I don't want to spend an hour writing, sorryyy). What does this tell us about him.

First thing's first. Alastor is very obviously based off of a Wendigo. A Wendigo is a mythological creature originating from Native American folklore. They're most usually described as a cannibalistic beast that eats humans or possesses humans into eating other people. A lot of the times, they're presented as a deer. Hmmm who does that sound like? Alastor. In fact sometimes we can hear a wendigo sound when he's transforming to his demonic form. Anyway, anybody who digs into the past of Viv's creations would know Alastor was Vivienne's first creation that ended up in Hazbin Hotel. He was always a red cannibalistic deer. Though I do believe this is significant to his character still and am very glad these traits remained.

Alastor's monocle and suit seem more of a stylized choice. They make him look more at his time. More gentlemanly. Which was a very nice touch. It matches him.

(Look at him. Look at him and tell me he has a soul (Technically he doesn't own his)) One of the most iconic details about Alastor is his smile. The only times you'll see him frown is in single lucky paused frames. Design choices to the mouth like this can be touchy because if you do it wrong your character can look stiff and unexpressive. But I think the artists did a great job fixing this. Alastor isn't that expressive of a character, but it works.. Because that's the point. He's meant to be hard to read but at the same time when the show wants you to know how he feels you know. You feel his distress in the Finale, you feel his annoyance listening to the Egg Bois, you feel his pompousness in Stayed Gone. It's hard to judge how he feels in Hell's Greatest Dad however. It's hard to judge if he's genuinely happy around Niffty or Rosie. It's hard to judge how he feels when Husk is confronting him. This is good character design.

So I've spoken quite positively about Alastor's design. But it's not perfect. Let me say that if I had a choice I'd change one thing... I want to put it out there that I personally hate the whole "There's too much red!" argument... But I can't bring myself to argue about it when it comes to Alastor. And there's one reason why. I believe there was a missed opportunity with Alastor and it bugs me. Due to Alastor's old fashioned natrue I feel there was a missed opportunity to give Alastor a greyscale. Like old timey TV. I know he's not a TV but you guys know what I mean right? Or a browner color palette instead of red at the very least. That's honestly the only thing I'd change.

In conclusion, Alastor's design is honestly one of the best in the series. You look at this man and you both know exactly what he's about and nothing at the same time. You know Alastor is a sly lil guy just by looking at that constant smile. It's not exactly perfect as I can see how people would say, find that hairstyle a little goofy however. I personally think it fits him but yeah.

I give Alastor's design an 8/10

Before I move on I will briefly say that I personally prefer Alastor's new design. It just looks smoother and better. But I appreciate that this old design feels older and more vintage.

Ok, so I was about to put my full analysis in this post but its been two weeks since I announced I'm reviewing the show and I haven't posted anything related to that. So, I'm just going to split each into 3 and post this while I work on the rest of my review. Part 2 coming out soon! Next I will analyze Alastor's dialogue.

I apologize for this being so long, I just love talking about this show, it's so good! :3

Hazbin Hotel: Vivziepop

[yunwooz]

anon who sent in the text about the translation! you don't have to reply to this if you're done talking on the matter, and i didn't think what i said could be taken in such a twisted way because you didn't point it out, but the notes proved me otherwise. i just want to clarify that i did NOT mean or ever intend to take away accountability from soobin on any aspect of the matter, and him making a statement as far back as 2022 doesn't mean that talking about it right now won't add to the fact that it is already wrong that he mentioned it in a positive light, no matter how long ago. i meant that on top of it being disturbing that he's watching/talking about mia, he's also mentioning it once more when there's literal genocide, most of which is taking away the lives of literal children. so gore subjecting kids to such torture itself is disgusting but to mention it shows the lack of emotional intelligence on top of consuming of questionable anime on his part and that is something he needs to fix, not me being 'oh no he's incapable of being emotionally intelligent enough to know that he shouldn't mention mia right now' and not me implying that him consuming that piece of media is fine but because of the current state of the world, it's wrong to mention. i should have thought my ask out more and written the it after reading it over and clarifying my stance instead of sending in such a vague statement, i apologize if it came off that way. i literally lost my 18 year old childhood friend when she was visiting her grandparents and passed away in the bombings on sunday, oct the 8th. i'm still mentally disturbed from it so i'm much more sensitive and felt even worse seeing soobin talk about that show because it made me think back to how it's all happening to literal kids and families i know. i'm not reaching for sympathy right now, just stating where that point came out of me from and also want to clear up that i condemn his actions and not trying to manipulate anyone into sympathizing with him or anyone else part of this. and i never mentioned taeyong or woozi or mingi and only wanted to add that in to clear up the facts surrounding the situation, so that people don't just base their judgement on words that have a negative connotation to them; and idk if this analogy gets my point across but like how a murderer should be put on trial for killing people but one can't simply add that he stabbed them twice if he did it once⏤that changes how the case is viewed.

also! i didn't say that you are emotionally unintelligent for speaking up about the matter, i said that soobin is lacking it because on top of him doing something talking about the manga with fans currently, which takes away any ounce of consideration one would have towards people who might get triggered (like i did) knowing that he's watching content that is disturbing to that extent while it is a reality some are living and is being documented live. please do not misinterpret and distort my words (not you, the person in the notes) because as vague as the statement was in my point of view too, one thing i did not say was that you are emotionally unintelligent for talking about the matter. rather, i appreciate all that you're doing when it is not your job to do so, but are doing anyway so that people following you/around you are informed.

i don't wanna add too much because i think your words stand for themselves and i don't wanna speak over that! thank you for clarifying that genuinely i did misunderstand some of what you meant, i too am trying to be as respectful as i can in my responses to all these asks, so while i misunderstood you to say that i'm lacking emotional intelligence, i didn't want to latch onto that which is why i didn't mention it initially. i truly don't believe that anyone intentionally tried to misinterpret or distort what you were saying!! and in the misunderstanding, we did perceive it to be a harsh and very nasty statement which is why i'm glad you clarified that that's not what you intented or meant in the slightest. yes it is especially more ignorant for him to be bringing up a show that contains such violence towards children - in addition to him speaking positively about it and why it's bad to begin with. i'll try not to say the same things over and over again as i have been doing but genuinely to endorse something that displays violence towards children is beyond questionable. i did not even think to view it from that perspective myself so i appreciate you bringing that view of the matter to the conversation. and truly truly i hope that you are able to find peace and comfort and that you can look after your own well-being as well with all that's happening

[koukouture]

thoughts abt darkstalker now that i am no longer ten years old

everyday i sit and think "oh yeah darkstalker went off the deep end it's his fault he's kinda racist" and then i remember that his father never seemed to love him despite being able to love his mother and sister and like did that not get to him???? no it doesn't justify shit but given that he knows abt how rigid the icewings are and his dad apparently doesn't have the capacity to love his own son (and i guess his daughter properly bc he did make the analogy that arctic sees whiteout as a necklace, you know an object) for no reason he probably thinks they're all heartless.

oh also did arctic reallllllly love foeslayer or was he just longing for an excuse to get out of his royal duties or whatever? because he's absolutely miserable in the night kingdom and makes no move to try and adjust and be happy. like i thought this is what you wanted buddy i thought you didn't want ur life being controlled. because suddenly he's soooo miserable he tries to bring whiteout back there. like god damn you are such an asshole idc if you loved your wife you sure as hell never acted like it.

oh and ALSO darkstalker wanting a redo of his family with clearsight so he can be happy? he views her as his only option to be happy and have a family with. on the one hand it's really cute how he's only willing to have her and that he literally could not cope with her death in like book ten??? (gimme a break I dropped wings of fire after they introduced the lost continent or whatever) he's literally sort of a yandere with the earrings and stuff, and listen i love my yandere men but i digress, he would have never hurt her. even in the cave he probably could have seen it coming but no he trusts her more than anything like god damn when is it my turn??? these two were so loving and healthy while it lasted, the fact that there were some futures where clearsight is his queen makes me believe that she would also do unspeakable things for him and that's what makes her decision so much more heartbreaking :( in the same way the fact that there were futures where they had their little teehee domestic life with their kids suggests darkstalker could let go of his racist ass conquest for her??? I KNOW DARKSTALKER DID WRONG BUT BY GOD HE LOVED HER. I want a love like theirs (the cute soulmate high school sweethearts part obvs)

can we also talk about how much he loved his sister and mother? like seriously i cannot believe this shit darkstalker LOVED AND RESPECTED the women in his life and i am here for it. ik wof universe is like a matriarchy but still i am so tired of dudes having these warped perceptions of their mother and sisters i just like that he actually loved them.

i will always say that darkstalker's story was not only a villain origin story but a tragedy because darkstalker really only wanted the best in the beginning and in later books he turned out like... that. initially i didn't think much about how he manipulated moon but uhhhhhh... now i do be thinking twice. seriously out of all the futures clearsight and darkstalker managed to get the worst one.

idk what prompted this i was just thinking about how much darkstalker and clearsight were tragic (yes darkstalker's choices were bad, i meant tragic in the "a thousand different futures, a thousand different ways we can be happy together but this one still happened" sense. damn clearsight had it rough) and then i just... thought. which is a dangerous think i should not be allowed to ponder under any circumstances.

anyways about my past with wings of fire, i think the series has kind of fallen off but this shit was my childhood like this was everything to me. i read book nine in ONE DAY and i made a fanfic with OCs with my friend i was dedicated. next to percy jackson, wof was my top dog until i got into anime and video games

[alephskoteinos]

I think the gods must be toying with me, or at least for lack of a better expression.

Less than two weeks ago I checked out a lecture about Gruppo di Nun's book Revolutionary Demonology, which I currently possess a copy of and will soon begin reading. The lecture was titled "Cultivating Darkness" and was hosted on Urbanomic's YouTube channel.

There I encountered a presentation of ideas about occultism in which I encountered a powerful statement about becoming.

How do you hold yourself in free fall where you don't know where you're going and you're not grounded anymore? But their point is that you always discover another world in that state, and there is always, in the world that we're in, another world hidden inside.

Amidst the bleakness of Gruppo Di Nun's overall philosophy, or perhaps more accurately the way it's carried, it makes the most sense. In fact, I would contend that that's just how an endless chain of becoming makes any sense. Even though we're counselled at the beginning of "Cultivating Darkness" that Gruppo Di Offers nothing in the way of hope, it seems intuitive to me at least from a Pagan standpoint that the infinite well of recombination is itself the eternal hope of life, even in the condition of entropy. How do we know that it isn't? That to me is how you make sense of a death drive: people the potential to become anything they want, to become divine, precisely by stepping into the darkness of the underworld and returning.

But in the week after that I also undertook a reading of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Joyous Science, whereupon I found him say something about Romanticism that oddly struck a chord with the same theme of becoming, of a "hope" couched in destruction and change.

The desire for destruction, for change, for becoming, can be the expression of a power overflowing and pregnant with hope (my terminus for this, as is well known, is 'Dionysian')

And then on Acid Horizon's Twitter account just today I stumbled on a quote from Henri Burgson, which goes as follows:

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.

Now I remember Burgson mostly for a different quote. I remember in college picking up him saying "The universe is a machine for the making of gods". Of course, I couldn't stand the clockwork analogy today, but it also sort of begs a question about existence broadly as a process of becoming in which "the making of gods" is tied to the emergence of beings who create themselves on their own terms. Perhaps that's an aspect I fear may be de-emphasized in Gruppo Di Nun's outlook, based on what I've seen so far from the way they talk about will.

But I'll be damned if there isn't some synchronicity in play these last few weeks. Or perhaps even the last month or so considering that I've started rambling about becoming in some Tumblr posts about the underworld and then an article about pagan chthonicism. It's like there's this big idea that I'm about to, almost meant to, arrive at, and Revolutionary Demonology is supposed to be a part of that whole process.