#yeah it's basically their private life but I just want to speculate

[orchidbreezefc]

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

[goldfades]

i need to be sidney crosbys controversially young gf… maybe something for that… heh

my new fav concept, hope you enjoy!

It started with whispers.

The kind that curled around the edges of locker rooms and crept into post-game interviews, barely concealed behind tight-lipped smirks and knowing glances. The kind that made headlines in tabloids next to blurry photos of a dinner reservation that should have been private. The kind that weren’t unexpected, not when a 37-year-old hockey legend started dating a 21-year-old who had no business being in his world.

Sidney Crosby was used to the noise. He’d spent two decades as the face of a franchise, his every move dissected and debated. But this? This was different. This was personal.

And you—well, you were the subject of speculation, fascination, and, in some corners, outright disapproval. The girl too young, too fresh, too much of a contrast to the quiet, calculated, carefully managed existence Sidney had built. The age gap was undeniable, a 16-year stretch that gave people ammunition, as if they hadn’t already decided what they thought about you.

It didn’t help that you weren’t some seasoned socialite or a familiar name in hockey circles. You weren’t a sports reporter or a PR darling, not a longtime fixture at games. No, you were something worse in the eyes of his critics—young, new, and entirely yours.

They didn’t know about the late-night conversations, the ones where Sidney’s usual reserve cracked open just enough for you to slip inside. They didn’t see the way he softened when you spoke, or how he looked at you like he was trying to memorize every version of you—the excited, the sleepy, the frustrated, the amused.

They didn’t know that you never sought him out, that he was the one who lingered after your first meeting, the one who texted first, the one who—despite all logic, despite knowing exactly what kind of reaction this would spark—had made it clear he wanted you.

But they knew enough to talk.

"She’s barely old enough to drink."

"What could they possibly have in common?"

"Sid’s having a mid-life crisis."

The comments should have been easy to ignore. Sidney wasn’t the type to entertain gossip, and you’d never cared about the opinions of people who didn’t know you. But still, the weight of it settled into your bones some days, making you wonder if you were an anomaly in his otherwise perfectly controlled life.

Because he was Sidney Crosby—captain, legend, a man whose legacy had been cemented long before you were even in high school. And you? You were just the girl people assumed was temporary.

And maybe that’s what made it all the more exhilarating.

The funniest part? You and Sidney actually found the whole thing hilarious.

The first time you showed him a comment under some sports gossip post—"She’s basically a child. This is so embarrassing for him."—he just blinked at you, unimpressed.

"Didn’t realize I should be embarrassed for enjoying my life," he said dryly, barely looking up from his coffee.

You snorted. "Yeah, well, you should probably start wearing knee braces to dinner so people know how frail you are."

From then on, it became a running joke.

Like when you posted a dimly lit photo of your hand wrapped around a wine glass at a fancy steakhouse, the edge of Sidney’s plate barely in frame, and captioned it: Dinner with my old man 🤍

Or when you caught a candid of him rubbing his temple after a long day and added it to your Instagram story with the text: He’s got a headache from all the whippersnappers in his life.

Or, your personal favorite, when you recorded him tying his skates before practice, zoomed in on his face as he focused, and added: D1 Grandpa Energy.

The chirps were constant, and he took them all in stride. In fact, he played along—leaned into it, even.

"Think I should start stretching before we go out?" he mused one evening as you got ready for dinner. "Maybe bring a heating pad?"

You grinned at him in the mirror. "I already put Icy Hot in your bag. Just in case you pull something walking to the table."

He rolled his eyes, but you caught the twitch of his lips.

Despite the internet losing its collective mind, the reality of your relationship was effortless. Sidney was steady, calm, and deeply private. You, on the other hand, were unbothered, playful, and just reckless enough to make things interesting. You balanced each other out in a way that worked, even if people didn’t understand it.

You loved how Sidney never treated you like you were some silly, naive kid. He respected you—your thoughts, your humor, your way of seeing the world. And you, in turn, loved teasing the hell out of him, keeping him on his toes in a way no one else really dared.

Like the time you went with him to a team dinner, and while everyone was talking hockey, you casually turned to him and went, "Tell me again what it was like growing up without color TV?"

The table went silent for a beat before someone—probably Letang—burst out laughing. Sid just gave you that look, equal parts unimpressed and amused, before shaking his head.

"She’s funny, huh?" he muttered, reaching for his drink.

"A regular comedian," you quipped, clinking your glass against his.

That was the thing—no matter how much outside noise tried to define your relationship, the two of you had already decided what it was.

It was simple. You liked each other.

Sidney didn’t buy you expensive things to impress you. Sure, he could, but he knew that wasn’t why you were here. Instead, he showed up in little ways—the way he always made sure to order your fries extra crispy because that’s how you liked them, or how he’d automatically pull you closer when cameras were around, just to make sure you didn’t get overwhelmed.

And you? You made sure he laughed. Really laughed. The kind of laugh that shook his shoulders and made his eyes crinkle, the kind of laugh he rarely let people see.

You were good together. You fit, even if people couldn’t wrap their heads around it.

And honestly? That just made it more fun.

It was nearly midnight, and the two of you were on the couch, deep in a heated argument over absolutely nothing.

"I'm just saying, people who don’t let the cereal sit in the milk for at least thirty seconds before eating it are a danger to society," you declared, pointing your spoon at him.

Sidney, reclined against the cushions in his sweatpants and a faded Team Canada hoodie, exhaled through his nose, unimpressed. "That’s ridiculous. You want it soggy?"

"Not soggy, perfectly saturated," you corrected, scooping another spoonful of Cinnamon Toast Crunch from your bowl. "It enhances the experience."

Sid shook his head, glancing down at his own bowl—practically dry because, of course, he barely let the milk touch his cereal before shoveling it into his mouth like some kind of barbarian. "There’s no way you actually believe this."

"I do," you said, dramatic as ever, settling further into your spot next to him. "This is a hill I will die on."

Sid sighed, took another bite, and then, without missing a beat, shot back, "Guess you’d better hope I go first then."

You gasped, shoving his shoulder. "Did you just—"

He fought back a smirk, chewing methodically like he didn’t just say something that made your jaw drop. "You’re too young to be making retirement home decisions, anyway," he added, extra casual.

"Wow," you scoffed, setting your bowl down. "Big words for someone whose lower back cracks every time he stands up."

He snorted, finally breaking into that slow, warm smile that made your stomach flip.

It was moments like this that made you realize why, despite the comments and the noise, this relationship worked.

You weren’t intimidated by him. Not by his reputation, not by the weight of who he was. You poked fun at the untouchable Sidney Crosby the way most people wouldn’t dare, but you never disrespected him. You met him as a person, not as a legacy.

And Sid—Sid liked that.

He liked how quick you were, how you made fun of him without ever making him feel small. How you never treated him like some god on skates but also never downplayed how much he meant to people. It was a balance no one had quite figured out before you.

He let out a deep breath, stretching his arm along the back of the couch, his fingers absentmindedly toying with the ends of your hair.

"You done bullying me for the night?" he asked, amused.

You hummed, considering. "Depends. You gonna admit my cereal method is better?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then no."

He chuckled, shaking his head before wrapping an arm around your shoulders and pulling you in. You melted into his side like it was second nature, warm and easy.

The whole world could talk. The whole world could speculate. But in here, in this quiet moment between bowls of cereal and bad jokes, you fit like you were always meant to.

[al-mayriti]

Noting that I went to a catholic high school in the midwestern US, I would say that between 30-40% of my classmates followed a life path similar to the following (so not even half, but still a significant amount):

1) Age 18-21: start dating someone in uni

2) Age 22/23: get a job shortly after graduation (or have one already organized, probably from a summer internship while in uni)

3) Age 22-24: get engaged to your uni bf/gf within a year of graduating, once you both have jobs basically

4) Age 23-26: wedding within a year or two of getting engaged, also buy a house if you have that kind of money lol

5) 9 months to 1 year after wedding (so 24-26 generally): baby!

I think it's important to note that this culture is able to continue because many college-educated young USAmericans are able to get a decent job very soon after graduating, which speeds up the rest of the process quite a bit. For people who are not able to get a job quickly, or who choose to do further studies, add on a few years. (And for people who don't go to uni, subtract a few!)

yeah i was gonna say, the only thing i envy of that is the getting a job so early and easy lol. i think that's also the main difference or why people aren't married so early here. in my experience (note that i went to a private upper class school so almost everyone went to university and pretty much everyone is employed right now except me lol)

1) 18-23. uni. a bunch of them were dating before uni, others during, some after, you know how it goes. and also a lot of them didn't date (like me).

2) 23-25. finishing uni, doing a master's degree, and or living abroad (usually to work).

3) 25-26. come back to spain and work here, or finished studying and got a job. they start dating seriously.

4) 26-28. if they've been dating for a while, engagement. if not, they continue the grind. if they live abroad especially which is honestly more than half of my circle rn they won't want to get engaged until they come back or decide to stay in the other country (normally their partner is from there).

5) 28-30. this is the future for me so i'm just speculating, but here is marriage + baby for those who can afford it. keep in mind most of us this age are still living with our parents so. that's another thing to have in mind.

more or less that's the idea here. you first want to have a stable job, then a stable house, and then you can start thinking about proposing and weddings and kids. and that doesn't happen soon.

[gayforminatozaki]

my guesses on who in twice is a homo!!!

note: these are literally just assumptions. I'm not insisting they ARE lesbian/bi/straight I'm just saying what I think based on things I've picked up on over the years. I'll add my reasoning for each guess after. once again these are ASSUMPTIONS and not fact I could be wrong for every single member. this is all just for fun please don't bet your life on this.

nayeon: imma be real I think she's bi, some of her mannerisms/actions seem not very straight to me. I get that being touchy is common there but there's a difference between being touchy and disguising interest as being touchy. pretty sure she also said gender doesnt matter but idk what context that was in so i won't consider it fully. I'm not 100% sure but yeah I wouldn't be surprised if it was revealed she was bi.

jeongyeon: she's def interested in guys. the lack of her being interested in women makes me assume she's straight. I think that ppl just started calling her gay bc she has a short hairstyle when debuting and bc a lot of women like her.

momo: straight/bi. I think it may be like jeongyeon where a lot of women like her so the homo-ness kinda translates over to momo herself, but also she seems to rlly be into certain actresses. I have other reasons but idk if they're true/too risky to decide rn + i can't think of anything rn. but ya I have a small hunch that she COULD be bi.

sana: I am a genuine believer that sana is, in fact, gay. during twice private life ep.7 from 2016 you can see sana's boredom. she barely talked at all which is very unusual. when she did it was usually very basic stereotypical stuff (e.g. saying her ideal date would be "going on a walk, riding a bike..." it seemed like she was just throwing out ideas from her tone. she also never brought up her hypothetical "boyfriend" during the activites while other members such as jeongyeon did). I wrote a lot so a few honourable mentions: fan of soljiwan, "when I watch tv I'm more attracted to the women", her old twitter account, "more female fans want to marry me" (projection), I can't think of anything else rn.

oh yea and the reason I don't think she's interested in/dating dex is bc if you actually watch the latest interview, it seems like dex hasn't gotten at all less nervous. they don't seem to be dating. dex just seems like a fanboy. he says so himself in the giselle interview that he thinks that if he contacted her he doesn't think she'll respond. I think sana in the dex interview was just taking the opportunity to flirt with a guy who was very clearly into her for entertainment purposes and my god I wrote a lot can you tell i made this whole post for sana ok next person

jihyo: straight. idrk what more to add just use your head

mina: her charming aura messes with my senses and may I just say I have no idea. she checks out girls a lot more than usual but?? idk that's too vague to determine. momo does the same. during the private life she was also quiet and didn't talk, but didn't seem bored out of her mind like sana. that could just be her quiet nature tho. idk if anyone has any reasons for anything lmk. but for now I'll say: undecided.

dahyun: straight.

chaeyoung: bi. she 100% likes girls let's not kid ourselves. the flirting/changing lyrics to female pronouns/singing born this way/etc- and honestly? take this with a grain of salt but I genuinely do think that she might've had a crush on mina a few years back- then it faded but the michaeng ship didn't. everything after a certain point in time is fanservice. idk this is all speculation, I'm basing it off when she did those "gay" things. but I also think she liked guys since she mentioned how timothee chalamet was her type ("guys who look sick") which we can uhh clearly see in zion.t. she was also really into the twice private life (keep in mind it was during 2016- less media training and before michaeng) and actively talked and participated during the choosing a bf game (idk what else to call it lol). anyways yeah that's why I knew she was a boyliker shoutout to me for calling it.

tzuyu: straight. she's had a crush on a guy before and shows no interest in women you know what that means!

[arcane-vagabond]

So, I don’t follow Sydney, so I’m a little confused about what happened yesterday? I’m just catching up on all the things and was reading some of your posts from yesterday. Also, I missed this fridge thing as well. Can you point me in the right direction to catch up?

Yeah, so a lot of the Sydney stuff was explained to me by friends in private chats. Basically, there was a rumor back in the spring that she and Glen were having an affair while filing “Anyone But You.” Both have come out and said it’s not true, Sydney admitting that she plays into it because she thinks it’s funny and because it’s “what people want to see.” It also got blown up because Glen and his girlfriend GiGi broke up around the same time (both have since said it was due to their careers and long distance).

Glen did an interview with Men’s Health the other week where he talked about how it negatively affected his life (mainly mentally) for a while, and that he didn’t like people playing into the rumors.

So like the literal next day, Sydney posted this video of her laying under him while he did some work out and people were up in arms about it on both sides. Some saying that he should have known better, hence the comment about people not thinking guys and gals can be just friends. Because if you’re friends with the opposite sex, OBVIOUSLY you can’t have any kind of intimacy whatsoever. Otherwise you’re cheating (this was sarcasm. People as a whole need to reevaluate what friendships look like and there was a lot of projecting going on in the fandom, which was discussed).

Anyway, I think you’re basically caught up. My posts are just speculating, really. I think the little things add up to point to Glen not liking Sydney, and I’m not sure they’ll ever work together again, let alone be friends. And there are some theories floating around about what exactly happened on set between the two, but that’s just it. They’re theories, and unless someone can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that that’s what happened, then that’s all they are.

And that’s what you missed on Glee…

[zaenaris]

How do you think that Koko and Inupi, in Final Timeline, deal with private life and public life?

Does Koko's employees knows that he's with a man or do they thik that the pretty blond man who come to take their boss after a party (for exemple) is just a good friend?

Because if Koko is a important businessman, rich and all, do he separe private and public life? Or he doesn't care about what people think?

But i also love the idea of the employées suddently notice a engagement ring at their boss hand and some chaos starts XD

@naehja

That’s a tough question, actually.

(I talked about it a little bit here as well)

Basically, realistically speaking, I’d say it’s either a secret and they keep public and private life very separated, or it's an open secret. 

In these scenarios, Koko never really came out to his business partners/employees, but it’s crystal clear to anyone that see them together that “Inupi” is more than a friend, literally anyone can see it. 

Also, I guess that his company, being lead by two young people, would try to implement -for real, not only on paper- more inclusive and less discriminatory policies.

Of course, most intimate friends and people more trusted, even at work, know the truth, but he probably wouldn’t be too open about it. Maybe not hiding, but not giving  any detail, i.e. being very vague when he gives interviews and some rude reporter asks more personal questions about any partner/spouse, he'd say he's happily engaged/married and would change topic.

 (I think, for example, how famous seyuu/voice actors in Japan announce they got married after the wedding itself, probably for privacy reasons and, if they merry someone else in the showbiz, they reveal who they’re married with of course, otherwise they tend to protect the identity of their spouse if they're not a public figure)

On the other hand, since they’ve been together their whole life, and they’re never subtle (in any TL, even if they think they are, or at least they try lol), probably in the final TL, having lived for whole their life facing the discrimination they probably faced at some point as a same sex couple, maybe once Koko has his own company, he tries to use his priviledge to do something for his company and the community.

For Inupi, working with Shin, I think there would be no problem at all, as we said before, all their friends from Toman/bosozoku days and their families know about them (they probably realized before Inupi and Koko themselves lol).

Idk, Inupi always gives me the vibe of someone that, in any TL, doesn't really care about other people's judgement, and at the same time, he doesn't feel he has to justify his life and what Koko is to him. He doesn't want to hide but at the same time he understands Koko's position, we know how protective Inupi is of Koko (and vice-versa), so I guess that, if they're not "out", they'd do their best anyway to be true to themselves and their relationship, knowing that not everyone outside their circle would be on their side.

In short , yeah, I have various headcanons and, depending on the mood, the mental story I imagine, I can see various scenarius happening

But yeah, employees in Koko’s company being super curious when they see the ring xD

If Koko never said anything, people start speculating but they never saw him with any woman, only his “friend” Inupi

If they know, they’re super excited because they can only imagine how beautiful their boss and Inui-san will look on their wedding day, two literal princes <3

Either way yeh, chaos ensues ahaha

[footytea]

Uuuuh there is a lot to unpack about Goretzka but he is extremely private with his personal life so it's all rumors without receipts and mainly based on speculation, basically like a "friend of a friend told me that", with that being said last thing I read was that he got his mistress pregnant and that his girlfriend accepted to continue the relationship with him, it's a very crazy thing to believe without proof, but I think he does cheat maybe not all the way but the liking pictures kinda gives you the idea that he likes seeing the other way from time to time? AND also people say he doesn't acknowledge his relationship publicly and that it's kinda disrespectful with the girl bc she's been a long time with him and all, but again it's all speculation and both of them may prefer being super private about their relationship or he may just want to give the idea that he is single idk, all rumors no proof.

oh wow, first of all, to anyone reading as anon said it's all speculation & no proof, so take it with a grain of salt

but getting his mistress pregnant is crazy, if that's true, i feel sorry for his girlfriend

cheating has become so normalised with footballers, i think it's more rare to find a footballer who doesn't cheat than finding one that does 😬 it's become the norm

but yeah i don't see keeping your relationship private as an issue tbh, but the combination of not showing you're in a relationship + liking pics of half naked girls that would drive me insane if i was the girlfriend 😂

[psychotrope777]

ughhhh where do i begin on this. first of all i more or less agree with everything adam says here. i already kinda mentioned this situation in passing; this is a really weird case and the public speculation is not helping. the thing that this really hinges on is i have no way of knowing whether or not the messages are even real. the idea that the origin of these messages is like some fucking 4chan thread and not the victim or someone close to them is first off incredibly dodgy to me. the fact that the victim in this case is also maintaining that the messages were taking out of context and that they don't want to be seen as a "victim" is also troubling.

i will say first and foremost if the messages ARE real, which neither party has denied that they are, then it's fucking wrong full stop like it's textbook grooming. at best it's still a wildly inappropriate interaction to have with a minor. like this is a crime. this is probably going to sound a little harsh but as someone who experienced very similar shit when i was around their age you really, genuinely don't realize how fucked up it is until you're your groomer's age and you realize that you would never have done shit like that yourself and what they were doing is objectively wrong. lots of teenagers conceptualize themselves as being at an adult level but looking back it's just not fucking true. you do not have the same cumulative knowledge and social awareness to consent to these kinds of interactions when you're 14 as you do when you're 21. i want to respect lavags' point of view but i also don't feel like it's... applicable do you know what i mean? to give some of my perspective, when i was a 12 - 14 year old girl i had an older "friend" who was like, somewhere between 17 and 20 i dont really remember. he would talk to me in private about his kinks and the hentai he liked to read and shit like that. in the moment you believe that you are peers, but the fact is that you are not. im 20 now i can barely comprehend even maintaining a serious friendship with someone who hasn't even graduated high school yet. in my honest opinion to have a sexual relationship with someone that much younger is completely unthinkable unless you're a pedophile. i said that i think that even a relationship between someone who's like 19 and someone who's 16 is inappropriate. and my reasoning for that is yeah a lot of people will make the argument that the chronological age difference isnt that much and yeah sure i guess but you're also in completely different stages of your life. one of you drives, has a job, and goes partying and one of you is in high school and, studying for their algebra final and still has to ask their mom permission to go to the grocery store. you're not even in the same space regularly. like what do you have in common? (ntm that only one of you is a legal adult) i've joked that people aged 18 - 21 are basically glorified teenagers but still what i said applies. i wouldnt have dated a 16 year old when i was 19 and i wouldnt have done whatever the fuck this is at ava's age. i'm still hesitant to call myself a grooming victim because i was never like pressured into sending nudes and i never got raped, it's definitely a heavy term with heavy connotations so i can understand why lavags doesn't want to be described that way but to be honest again if all of this is true then i really think it's a matter of time until he puts together how fucked up this is.

(there's rumors she was into like shadman and lolicon which even if that's true i think she should be separated from minors period. i could say something worse but i dont think now is the time)

in any case again if it's true i'm glad this has come out but still like adam mentions the anti-trans brigade is having a field day with this. i think back to like sunnyv2 and whoever the fuck speculating on how Dangerous ava was to have around on the basis of "trans bad". in the moment even though i really do not fuckinglike jimmy at all i was glad at least that he stood up for her in the face of at the time baseless transmisogynistic accusations. obviously now i'm kinda anticipating that that entire crowd feels vindicated now but still it's like. they care more about what ava is than what she did. a lot of these same people even are the ones who were quick to shit on tana mongeau when she accused cody ko, with ample evidence, of statutory rape. and especially like given that real minors have been hurt here it's beyond frustrating to see people brush past that to instead jump to "i was right about trans women". the space is obviously teeming with anti-trans vitriol rn which is not only the wrong fucking reaction to have it's also just like a wildly inappropriate response to have. a child was groomed. can we focus on that? how about the fact that this seems to be a recurring theme with youtubers? like i said i really cant help but feel frustrated and hopeless whenever someone who happens to be gay / transgender does something fucked up and then it's the rest of us who are normal fucking people who are caught in the crossfire and are placed in a position where we have to basically defend our honor from something that someone else did. and again just for the record you're not going to make any progress trying to convince someone who believes all transgender people are satanic pedophiles that you're a normal decent human being, trying to "debate" these "people" is a waste of time, it's just fucking exhausting seeing again and again i think i kind of hoped we'd be past this stage by now when i was a kid

sorry abt the fucking essay it's just. terrible fucking situation this is & i hope lavags is doing well.

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

an AU where the reader played drums for Harry during the first half of Love on Tour in 2021 and they ended up in a secret relationship but things went south after that leg of tour finished bc she wanted to pursue music on her own, while he has his own busy schedule to attend to, so they called it quits to avoid future complications.

Her solo career starts taking off and everything’s going well— she has performances coming up, an album that just dropped, interviews waiting— and she’s managed to keep their past relationship under wraps like they agreed they would, but things take a turn when Harry releases hs3 with songs she can tell are about her. She shrugs most of it off, but what tips the scale is that he ends up releasing a deluxe version with Baby Honey and Complicated Freak as bonus tracks (in this AU, he wrote them about her after they broke up instead of in 2017) and the trivial punches aimed at her in the songs are what make her act on her emotions.

She knows how petty he can be, which is one of their shared traits that would sometimes cause a clash when they were together, so in turn, she releases one of the songs she wrote about him as a single (which she had planned to keep private, but he threw the first punch so fair is fair) and basically the song is the female version of 5sos’s English Love Affair. And in the lyrics, there’s obvious digs that confirm they had a relationship together, so everything’s out in the open now.

Felt somebody looking at me

Playful condescension

Feeling the connection

///

Before I knew it, it was serious

Dragged me off the stage

Cold rings burned and left a trace

//

Drinking wine, forgetting our names

Honey’s getting naked

“Love how good you take it.”

///

Every single step had me begging for the next

Before I knew it, it was serious

Dragged me up the stairs, kissed me hard and made me swear

Aside from the revealing title, the lyrics about being on stage, his signature rings, and the line about making her swear to keep their relationship a secret being pretty telling to the public, the references she makes to some of the songs in his new album (the wine lyric related to Grapejuice, calling him “honey” as a nod to Baby Honey) just about confirms all the speculation that could rise up. This also causes her album to be analyzed from a completely new perspective, and listeners obviously begin digging through her music to find more connections between her and Harry, which only inflames the situation.

As a result, Harry ends up reaching out to her over the phone in a fit of disbelieving anger, which she obviously responds to with the same attitude since he was the one that started it all.

“How can you accuse me of making you swear to keep us a secret when you wanted our relationship to stay behind the scenes just as much as I did?!”

“You’re right, I did. But you’re conveniently leaving out the differences in our motives. I wanted us to be a secret so it wouldn’t cause any problems in our relationship and wouldn’t fall back on our friends and family. You wanted to keep us a secret so it wouldn’t interfere with your career. See the difference?”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“Is it? Because here you are, airing out our entire lives for a fucking Grammy.”

“Are you fucking serious? I don’t write music for the awards or the money and you know that! I write it for myself!”

“Yeah, because making childish comments about my post-breakup dating life must be so healing for you.”

After that unsuccessful (and frankly, pretty violent) phone call, their managers end up being the ones that strike up a compromise pertaining to the messy press situation at hand. They order both of them to get together privately and talk this out, because fighting will get them nowhere and fix nothing. After they resolve their differences, they should try to evade any questions about their relationship as much as possible in the media, and if they have no choice but to answer, they should regard each other with neutrality and respect. Y/N and Harry agree, and they settle to meet at his place in London since she’s traveling there the following week to do some promo.

The tension and feelings are running high from the second she sets foot in his house. They regard one another as calmly and cordially as they can, with Harry welcoming her in, offering her a drink, and telling her to get comfortable. However, it’s difficult for her to feel at ease in a place that holds so many heavy memories. After some awkward small talk and pained silences, she takes it upon herself to drop all formalities and steer the conversation towards what they’re both avoiding.

As they dive into all the rocky details of their relationship, both the unresolved issues and the heartfelt passionate moments neither of them can forget, things get heated once again. They’re all but yelling and screaming at one another, while also trying to hide how hurt both of them truly feel; despite whatever front they put up, they can’t deny that having to separate due to circumstance was more hurtful than either would care to admit. Both of them had dreams they wanted to fulfill, and being torn apart by those hopes caused a deep wound that neither had ever really healed from. Sacrificing love for ambition is a choice no one should ever have to make.

Y/N winds up crying, and seeing her in such a sad state drains any resentment Harry could ever possibly hold towards her. He comforts her and apologizes for the way he’s acted, both personally and within his career, and she returns the sentiment. And then in a moment of vulnerability and truceful clarity, they kiss.

They do more than kiss, actually. More than once. In different places and on various surfaces, with whispered love confessions strewn amidst dirty moans and desperate whines.

And after they’re done and they’re laying there sweaty, panting, and tangled in their emotions, there’s at least one thing they can both agree on with absolute certainty: they’re about to give their managers a run for their money all over again.

[3rddimension]

given that angela's in sm*sh & has brought st*rkid (further referred to as sk) into the fandom - i just want to point out some similarities as a fan of both

context: in sk, lauren & joey (L&J) were a couple of the original members who had insane chemistry - think c&s in early squad era content. in bts of shows/general sk media, they were always shipped and stood together, generally acted like how c&s are currently - closer friends than the rest of the ensemble, but not outright saying that they were dating.

iirc, there was a lot of speculation on why they were living together, bc they were posting a lot of content where it looked like they were a couple but also never confirmed anything. they were private about their dating life for years until J posted their engagement (https://www.instagram.com/p/CC37F8EnlJg/?hl=en) like 3 years ago. this is the engagement josh refers to in his bit during the sk/sm tntl crossover

L even adopted a dog and always talked about being the dog's mom, and over time posting posts abt her dog with captions like "Mom and Dad can’t afford those vet bills" as kind of a soft launch!

i find it cute that it seems like the whole r*chpez journey is happening again but with c&s! i'm hoping for more respect within the fandom (l&j had a lot of toxic shippers in the past - i wouldn't wish that on anybody, speculated dating or not) than what l&j had to go through though.

I’ve also been reading the background of L&J since anon last mentioned awhile ago and yeah it really is similar with Shourtney a lot!

There were a toxic shippers back around 2021/2022 but it has been taken care now. Basically there were a Discord server that created to discuss about them but it got toxic so much and gone into stalking territory too. It finally got reported and banned around mid 2022. Also definitely related to what Courtney mentioned on her Q&A when she got asked if Shourtney shipper annoy you or not. She answered that not really except when they cyberstalk you.

[hamliet]

Dabi’s Missing Heart

So I’ve been seeing two main responses to Dabi’s character as portrayed in BNHA 292, both of which I feel touch on a very surface understanding of his character and role in the story despite seeming like opposite takes.  

Take #1: 

Dabi is an unfeeling monster created to show the redeemability of Shigaraki and Enji in contrast with his true eeeevil villainy! He will never be redeemed! 

Take #2: 

Dabi is a sweet softy who did nothing wrong! He will never be redeemed because of this chapter which is so out-of-character! 

Note how they both have the same endpoint. I’m not actually gonna address the redemption question much because I can’t fathom what this panel foreshadows if not Touya’s salvation (alive): 

I’m not looking to debate this either; I’m just putting it here because I know it’ll come up if I don’t.

Instead, I wanna address Dabi’s character. He’s my favorite, and I’ve been asked a few different times whether I enjoy him as a villain or as an uwu poor baby, and my answer is always both. 

Dabi is a villain. This chapter’s rampage is, in my opinion, not remotely out of character for him. But neither is it the summation of his character, and he surely is not meant to make Enji look good by comparison. 

So, who is Dabi? 

Dabi is kind of a flaming jerk, and that’s why I like him. He’s an abuse victim who gets to be angry and crass and sharp. He pushes people away because he doesn’t want to open up to them and get burned (heh). He’s just like Shouto in that, except with a dose of murder. 

Believe it or not, this is a very realistic response to abuse, and very common too. It’s good to see that representation. If the writing was indeed just “he’s bad get rid of him,” well, that would of course be a terrible representation. But seeing a mean victim get redeemed? Now that’s some good sh*t I’m here for. 

If you want a sweethearted, misunderstood soft victim, there is one in MHA, and that’s Shigaraki. Dabi is not these things, but that does not mean he’s not a victim or that he’s somehow an unfeeling monster.

You see, Shigaraki is a heart character. Dabi’s the mind. (Heart and mind characters are a literary pattern that is utilized in literature across the globe; it’s not an eastern/western cultural thing. It has its roots in alchemy.) The problem is that you can’t have a heart without a mind nor a mind without a heart. If you lack one, you’re missing half the picture, and you won’t accomplish anything. 

We see this with Shigaraki in his quest to look for ideals, something to believe in, purpose to justify/enable acting on his feelings/emotions. 

Dabi, in contrast, has conviction and ideals, but eschews any kind of personal connection and care. 

So, both Shigaraki and Dabi struggle to unite heart and mind--but they need to do precisely this. 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki expressly envisions both Dabi and Himiko when musing on what his purpose is. 

Yet Shigaraki is able to unite more easily with Himiko as opposed to Dabi because Himiko is also a heart character. She claims to be motivated by extreme empathy that warps around to become a lack thereof (wanting to be who she loves).

Shigaraki’s motivations are basically revenge for hero society not saving him--which encompasses both a deep internal and external (societal) need for empathy and a need for better ideals. Shigaraki needs Himiko and Dabi. They’re a trio, and all of them need each other to grow. But Himiko, being similarly driven expressly by emotions, is easier for Shigaraki to understand and work with. 

The irony is that Dabi is actually a very, very emotional character as well. But what he does (as is typical for a mind character) is repress them, compartmentalize, dissociate. He constantly pushes people away, yet admits privately, to himself, that he’s primarily (and paradoxically) motivated by family. This is emotional, yet Dabi claims he “overthought” and, according to other translations, “snapped” can be actually be read as “went crazy” as a result over overthinking (note: both are mind allusions). 

Dabi repressing who he is--Todoroki Touya--is symbolic of him repressing his emotional side, because again, family and emotions are tied together for his character. Now his identity is acknowledged, and Dabi claims to be losing his mind (again), claims that he can’t feel, and yet is completely consumed by emotions. Like, does anyone think he’s being methodical and calculating this chapter? 

It’s not just negative emotions (rage, hate) that drive Dabi in response to his family. His seeking belonging and emotional connection is present even in a chapter where he tries to murder two members of his family and laughs off the risk to the life of another. 

See, Dabi first asked Shouto to validate his pain:

But like, given the circumstances, of course Shouto doesn’t really respond well. How Shouto responds is this: 

Shouto’s words are triggering. And keep in mind I am not blaming Shouto: he’s in shock and he’s a kid. I’m merely trying to explain how it likely comes across to Dabi. 

You’re crazy. Your feelings don’t matter. You don’t really care about Natsuo! You’re a villain and that’s ALL you are. Not a brother or abuse survivor. Just a villain. 

So, uh, yeah, Dabi then retreats back to being unable to feel, dissociating as has always been his coping mechanism. But that’s not all: Dabi’s been repressing for so long that of course he’s gonna go a little insane in response to the dismissal of everything he’s trying to point out. Why wouldn’t he? His family dismissed his pain back then and now again, and so, without that heart, without those emotions, principle is all Dabi has. This has been present since long before Stain’s ideology came into his life: 

Now, he answers this question of existence through Stain’s ideology.  Purpose is all he has, and to him, Shouto and Best Jeanist are dismissing that too. Why are they dismissing it? Best Jeanist dismisses him for an ideal: the overall good of hero society. Shouto has a mixture of this ideal and also like, genuine shock and pain. 

Back to Dabi. Dabi’s summation of himself and his purpose is incorrect and harmful to himself and others. I’m not excusing him or justifying, just explaining. It’s a tragic reflection of what Endeavor raised both Touya and Shouto to be (and thereby ironic that BJ uses an ideal to dismiss him): 

Instead of being raised to be the symbol of hero society--as Endeavor intended--he exists to destroy it. The root is the same: Dabi assumes he exists for hero society, as a tool. He dehumanizes himself, hence why his quirk physically harms him (which also fits his almost religious zeal for Stain’s ideology). But it is not all Dabi is. He’s not a tool, he’s a person, but to acknowledge he’s a person involves acknowledging his heart/emotional desires, and that gets to my next point.

Dabi’s not a reliable narrator about himself. At all. I’ve written about Dabi and dissociation before. So let’s look at Dabi’s devotion to his ideals, the ideals he puts above people and claims he only cares about... because there are moments where Dabi goes against those ideals. 

For one example, Dabi’s gone against those ideals when he’s allowed his personal need for revenge (an emotional/heart motivation) to overcome his longterm plan. Like, he was fully about to get himself killed here, even though that would likely mean no one would know the corruption of the Todoroki family and hero society, just for the chance to prove to his father that he hurt him. 

In addition, I’ve talked before about how Dabi’s the only character in the entire damn manga to comment that maybe using child soldiers is not okay. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s reasonable to conclude that Dabi considers the abuse of children in hero training a sin of hero society that ought to be purged (hence, part of his ideals). 

That said, I have also pointed out that Dabi has gone after children in the past when it benefits his mission (Bakugou would like a word). So let’s look at four examples of Dabi and his principles concerning kids--since, after all, he claims to be motivated by heroes who hurt kids. 

Firstly, Dabi’s “save the cat” when he spared Aoyama. 

Why did he spare Aoyama? We can only speculate, but it seems quite likely there are two reasons: 1) hurting Aoyama would not add anything to his overall goal of downing hero society, and 2) a terrified, cowering kid might just have been a teeny bit familiar to Dabi. Here, his ideals--destroying hero society--either take a backseat to a reflection of his personal pain (and)/or his ideal of not abusing kids directly contradicted his ideal of bringing down hero society. But the important part is that in this instance, Dabi chose mercy and the goal of bringing down hero society was jeopardized as a result. 

So then why did he attack Tokoyami, Nejire, and Shouto this arc? Well, Dabi does things he knows are wrong for the sake of accomplishing his overall purpose. He does things he knows hurt himself for this purpose. This isn’t new. If he can’t be acknowledged, can’t exist as a person with emotions, then he at least will ensure he still has a purpose.  

In addition, let’s look at what sets Dabi off in all of these instances. (Again, this isn’t me saying “well actually Dabi’s justified.” He’s not. I’m just pointing to what’s in the text to explain the machinations beyond “bad guy do bad.”)

Dabi tries to reason with Tokoyami, pointing out that Twice was doing essentially what Tokoyami is doing: trying to save his friend(s), but Tokoyami doesn’t listen (also again: not me saying Tokoyami should have listened--realistically, in this situation, it makes sense Tokoyami trusted his mentor!)

Only after his reasoning was rejected did Dabi go to flames mode. He could have just let Tokoyami save Hawks, but instead he really wanted to kill Hawks and that overrode his other principles. Was this just because of his furthering his goal--killing the #2 hero would help destroy hero society--or because of a sense of personal revenge for Twice? That’s open for interpretation (in my opinion, it’s likely a mixture, because again, it tends to intertwine more than Dabi likes to think it does). His principles and/or emotions are brushed aside, and Dabi Does Not Like That. 

Dabi does this again with Shouto this chapter, asking him where he stands on their family issues, and gets brushed aside, and then Shouto goes into his rage mode and Dabi responds. Again, not saying Shouto is rational here or that he should side with Dabi’s murderous plan, but like, his words really don’t come across well to Dabi. 

Dabi going after Shouto after explaining things, asking Shouto for help, and then having his pain dismissed is pretty much a repeat of Tokoyami. When Dabi’s pain is dismissed, he says fine, let’s aim for the highest principle possible: making Stain’s will a reality, and damn any emotional ties. 

Dabi’s obsession with ideals, you might say, is a smokescreen to cover his own pain. Far from feeling nothing, he feels very deeply. (I promise I’m getting to Nejire.) 

So what does this indicate? Well, that Dabi does have a heart and a conscience. But when he lets his heart act, when his heart reaches out, he gets burned. His heart jeopardizes his overall purpose, so he most often dissociates himself from it. But by pretending he doesn’t have a heart, he dehumanizes himself, and he projects that dehumanization onto others (see: seeing Shouto as an extension of Endeavor, when that’s actually the precise image Shouto is trying to shed). 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki has been unconscious during the entire confrontation with Endeavor, nor is it a coincidence that Himiko has been MIA. But, Shigaraki wakes up a bit this chapter not only when hearing Dabi spout about how hero society needs to burn, an ideal/the thing Shigaraki lacks, and through a less important but still-ideal-driven character in Spinner asking him to accomplish his supposed ideal of destruction, but when Dabi saves Shigaraki and Spinner. 

Dabi doesn’t burn Nejire for lols (not that this makes it better because it doesn’t) or even for ideals. He burns her to save Shigaraki and Spinner, because they are his links to full humanity right now. 

(Again, this is also dissociation and projection: Endeavor did this! No, Dabi, you did. You’re perpetuating violence against kids rather than stopping it.)

But anyways, when Dabi calls upon heart, Shigaraki wakes. He lends Gigantomachia and thereby Dabi and the league power. 

Dabi can only grow and actually accomplish anything related to his ideals (fixing hero society) through accepting a heart--even though that will likely mean some painful surgery to shift his ideals to accommodate said heart, because pure ideals don’t leave much room for humanity. He needs to feel to actually change anything, because right now he’s just making things worse (hence, the need for saving and redemption).

I know the League aren’t the protagonists of the serIes, but their complaints aren’t exactly incorrect either (if anything they’re almost a little too valid). But through growing together, Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko might actually be able to accomplish something, and get themselves in a place where they can be reached and saved by Shouto, Deku, and Ochaco. Because to be saved, the kids will have to acknowledge the villains’ pain and complaints, and do something about it. 

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 292: You Say Jeans

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “well anyway here’s that Touya reveal I foreshadowed like a million years ago, viva la 2020.” Dabi was all “hello world, I’ve killed 30 people and today I’m going to explain to you all why” before he proceeded to explain ABSOLUTELY NOTHING but everyone was so distracted by his tale of child abuse and hero conspiracies that they didn’t much seem to notice. Can’t Ya See-Kun’s Shark Friend was all “IS THIS THE END OF HERO SOCIETY AS WE KNOW IT”, and Horikoshi was all “STAY TUNED”, and then Dabi set himself on fire and leaped off of Machia’s back like the chaotic evil, I-just-bleached-all-my-brain-cells weird little fire man he is, ready to burn everyone to crispy bits before they could even react properly to his whole big revenge speech. Fortunately he did not succeed on account of THE RETURN OF THE JING, THE JOAT, BEST FUCKING JEANIST, back from the dead by popular demand in what critics are calling “the best fucking comeback since Jesus himself.”

Today on BnHA: Best Jeanist snatches up Machia and the rest of the League with his fiber steel cables before you can say “more like BEAST JEANIST amirite.” Dabi gets all worked up and lights Hadou on fire which is a real JERK MOVE, and is all “THIS RIGHT HERE IS ALSO ENDEAVOR’S FAULT”, which, NOT SUPER CONVINCED ON THAT, BUT OKAY. Anyway so then he burns up all the cables holding him which is crazeballs btw, and then he and Shouto start fighting, and so basically the whole thing is a literal hot mess and we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile Tomura wakes up and summons some Noumus, and poor Jeanist has to deal with those on top of the still-attempting-to-rampage Gigantomachia, and everyone else is all “we can’t help you on account of we’re all half dead”, and so it’s looking really bad. And then -- and I can’t stress enough how much I don’t even have the faintest idea how to segue into this next part -- the chapter ends with Mirio!?! just sort of POPPING UP OUT OF THE GROUND all, “SURPRISE, BITCH”, and it literally was so surprising that I am still just kind of speechless. WELL-PLAYED, I GUESS, lol wtf.

lol okay so the first page in the RHA scan is just the “three musketeers” movie promo image that we all already saw a few days ago. but it does confirm that (a) it is indeed a movie, and (b) that it’s set for a summer 2021 release! how exciting

okay so now back to our special Dabi edition of Making a Murderer

“ray of hope” oh hell yes. SAVE US MR. JEANIST

I guess he had a TV in his private hero jet or something?

gotta say, “dammit Dabi” does not even remotely sound like Authentic Best Jeanist Dialogue to me though. gonna need Caleb to see to this. well but what do you guys think? does Best Jeanist curse?? I personally feel like he’s one of those guys who NEVER EVER swears no matter what, except under the most hilariously trifling circumstances. like he’s eating an avocado one day and he accidentally stains the cuffs of his beloved jostume green and he’s all “FUCK”

btw how fucking rich is Best Jeanist though that he has his own fucking plane? the thought just suddenly occurred to me, you know? like even Endeavor, whose agency has its own on-site luxury apartment suites for all of his interns, still drives around in a dinky little car that Bakugou has declared to be too small. which, I guess we know why he felt that way now, seeing as the guy he previously interned with apparently gets around in Jeans Force One

anyway so back to the part where Jeanist shows up to save the day!! YEAH JEANIST WOOOOO

ILU JEANIST YOU REALLY ARE THE BEST!! HUGS AND KISSES!!!

lmao we just saw Gigantomachia take out like a hundred guys not ten chapters ago. and Best Jeanist shows up and takes him down in like two seconds. HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES LEAGUE OF VILLAINS. BET YOU’RE WISHING YOU’D TAKEN HIS QUIRK NOW, AFO. GET FUCKED YOU OLD SPUD

KACCHAN IS SO HAPPY TO SEE HIM AWW

SIDE NOTE, IIDA, YOU AND I ARE GONNA HAVE WORDS LATER ABOUT YOU ACTUALLY AGREEING TO PUT HIM BACK DOWN. YOU DO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CHILD IS STILL DRIPPING BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE FROM HIS MULTIPLE STAB WOUNDS, RIGHT? WAY TO ASSERT YOUR AUTHORITY THERE. I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE CLASS PRESIDENT NOT THE CLASS CLOWN, COME ON NOW

LMAO DABI IS FRANTICALLY TRYING TO DO THE PLOT MATH

SHOULDA CHECKED MORE CLOSELY MY GOOD MARK. LOOKS LIKE YOU MISSED THE “MADE IN CHINA” STICKER ON THE BOTTOM. YOU HAVE BEEN BAMBOOZLED. OR ACTUALLY, I GUESS THE MORE ACCURATE WORD HERE IS JAMBOOZLED, AHAHAHAHA. JEANS

HOLY SHIT DABI

I legit almost thought that was Tomura for a second. you two look so alike now with the white hair and the crazy eyes

meanwhile, Shouto is still crying and it’s a lot to take, you guys. lotta feels

ffff come on Jeanist you better do something awesome again here, the mood of the chapter is starting to slip now

YES, GOOD, THAT’LL WORK

WELL YOU TELL ME, SPINNER. I GUESS THAT MEANS BEST JEANIST IS OFFICIALLY THE STRONGEST CHARACTER IN THE SERIES NOW. SORRY I DON’T MAKE THE RULES

ffff now Spinner is trying to wake Tomura back up. nah, how’s about we not do that

OH MY GOD HADOU YESSSS

MY GIRL OUT HERE WITH THE “NO THANK YOU” BOUT TO CURBSTOMP THE BIG BAD WITH HER QUIRK KSFHLKLK WHO HERE HAD “HADOU SAVES THE DAY” ON YOUR WAR ARC BINGO CARDS, YOU LOVE TO SEE IT!!

HEY!!!!

fucking son of a... fffkfkff... someone please reassure me that fire isn’t Hadou’s weakness. someone. anyone. also could someone please dial an ambulance and send them to Horikoshi’s house. but not just yet. first I’m gonna need you to wait about fifteen minutes or so while I take care of some things

well all right then, Dabi. so you wanna go on then and explain to us all how this, too, is somehow Endeavor’s fault?

oh I see, you’ve decided that since he’s responsible for “creating” you, everyone you hurt and kill is in truth really being hurt and killed by him! well now, that sure is convenient as fuck I guess

(ETA: that’s a nice effect with the panel sides getting all warped by Dabi’s quirk though, just noticed that.)

amazing how quickly you used up that sympathy card my guy. Shouto please kick his ass, I’m fucking done lol, you can all sort out the rest in therapy later

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE DIAL BACK DEKU’S EMPATHY STATS JUST A LITTLE BIT, HOLY --

“TODOROKI-KUN IS HURT THE MOST”, HE SAYS, WITH HIS ARM BONES SHATTERED INTO LITTLE TOOTHPICK-SIZED PIECES. I MEAN, HE’S PROBABLY TALKING MORE ABOUT MENTAL ANGUISH GIVEN THE CONTEXT HERE, BUT STILL. THAT’S ENOUGH HEROICS FROM YOU ALREADY FOR ONE DAY

NOOO JEANIST

LOTS OF SMOKE IN THE AIR RIGHT ABOUT NOW AND MY BOY’S STILL DOWN A LUNG. GOD DAMMIT

“if the number one suffers a total loss here, this country will fall to pieces” well okay, real talk though, I think the “country falling to pieces” part is pretty much unavoidable at this juncture. you all are just gonna have to try your best to pick up those pieces after the fact and see what you can do with them. if I were you I’d be less worried about the number one’s reputation and more concerned with the half-dozen child soldier interns who are still on the field and very much at risk of being burned to death should you suffer that “total loss.” please try to keep it together here for them

OH FOR FUCK’S

I really thought RockLockRock was gonna come into play here. USE YOUR QUIRK TO LOCK THE ROPES IN PLACE YOU DIP!! if he seriously just sits there and does nothing when his quirk could be the deciding factor I am cancelling his useless ass cute kid or no cute kid shfkjdls

(ETA: is he even there?? did he and Manual just hightail it out of there?? “well good luck, children.”)

also, we’ll put this aside for now to perhaps speculate about later, but what’s with Tomura remembering his dad’s house yet again in that far right panel?? and being itchy again?? I still have yet to fully work out the psychological mechanisms at work as far as his itchiness goes, so I’ll admit this is intriguing to me. it seemed like it was connected to his decay quirk, but then why is it acting up again now. what is this lol

yuh oh

forgot about these guys. looks like these heroes aren’t having such a fun time

oh fucksticks

excuse me ma’am but I don’t like this. you do know that my kids are all there, right. all burnt and impaled and broken-boned and the like. well except for Iida. he’s fine still. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I FEEL LIKE WATCHING HIM GET TORN APART BY FOUR HIGH ENDS, WTF

HORIKOSHI YOU MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD

god fucking... okay look. Horikoshi. you win, okay!? congratulations, you win, this is your show and we’re all just sitting here at your mercy. fine. go ahead and just kill off everyone ever, then!! what am I even gonna do about it. stop reading?? fuck

this whole thing really went from zero to fucked before I could even blink huh. I really thought this was gonna be a turning point chapter for the heroes. shows what I know I guess??

meanwhile this motherfucker is just SCREAMING

ngl, if I wasn’t currently terrified on account of things suddenly taking such a drastic turn for the worse, this would be the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. Jeanist my man, I hype you up like it’s my job because you are the greatest fucking meme character in the history of time, but make no mistake, you are also highkey WORTH ALL THE HYPE AND THEN SOME

seriously, though. don’t fucking mind him you guys, he’s just standing here in the coolest pose of all time taking on Gigantomachia all alone with one fucking lung because the substance pumping through his veins is COLD-BLOODED LIQUID DENIM, and DENIM FEELS NO FEAR

Best Jeanist really needs to get his own theme song. -- oh my god I just finally thought of a title for this post. lmao and it’s the dumbest thing. omg

MEANWHILE THE TODOROKI BROS ARE OFF IN THEIR OWN DRAMATIC LITTLE FIRE WORLD

which one do you think is the Mario and which is the Luigi. well, but I mean, Dabi clearly thinks that he’s the Luigi though and that’s why he’s so mad. nobody wants to be Luigi. what a life

THAT’S IT, SHOUTO!! POINT OUT ALL OF HIS HYPOCRITICAL BULLSHIT, I WANT ANSWERS

JUST TO CLARIFY, IT’S THAT NATSU, NOT SOME OTHER NATSU!! SO WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF!!

OH, WELL IN THAT CASE

BUT OF COURSE. THAT WOULD MAKE IT ALL WORTHWHILE, holy shit. okay I’m just gonna go ahead and say it, Dabi is a piece of work. I really thought this arc would make him more sympathetic at long last, but it seems like it’s doing just the opposite?? this is like an anti-redemption arc. I don’t relish the thought of venturing into the fandom tags once I finish reading this lol

(ETA: well folks, I’ve done it. and actually it was pretty interesting because there are apparently like ten different things that people are mad about, and so it’s like. each post is a new adventure lmao.)

so Shouto is all “BRUH HAVE YOU COMPLETELY LOST IT” and Dabi is all “YES”, basically? like, he says he’s completely lost his feeling for anything. omg. but you were so sweet. how does that even happen

“finally I can kill you” okay for real what the heck is your damage bro?? can we not. I like Shouto just the way he is, un-killed

oh shit and now the Noumus are here

cue Bakugou diving in to save his mentor, STAB WOUNDS BE DAMNED!! actually it would make more sense for it to be Iida, but if Kacchan is really fixin’ to go full Shounen Dumbass here then he might as well go all out, y’know

-- unless of course, Deku decides to activate another quirk??

“last I checked, the main character of this series was still me” OH? WELL I SUPPOSE THAT IS TRUE, SO PRAY TELL, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT LEFT UP YOUR SLEEVE YOU SUICIDAL BRUSSELS SPROUT

fucking love how he’s all “HAHAHA WITH MY NEW QUIRKS I CAN STILL DO STUPID SHIT EVEN WITH MY ARMS AND LEGS GROUND TO A FINE POWDER” btw. what can I say. Deku gonna Deku

FMMFHDKUHK W H A T

HOLY SHIT. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. WHAT THE WHAT. QUE THE FUCK

(ETA: okay look, all the love in the world to the brave scanlators who take time out of their lives to translate the leaks every week just so we can read the chapter a couple of days early like the addicts we are. that said, translating Mirio’s signature “POWER!!” -- which was already written in English in the original scan -- to “POG-CHAMP” is just a whole new level of wtfuckery from them lmao. is the Lida person back at it again?? amazing.)

MIRIO!?!?! SHOWS UP TO SAVE THE DAY?!?! POGS HIMSELF UP OUT THE GROUND TO BEAT THE NOUMUS LIKE IT AIN’T NO THING. JUST LIKE WE ALL PREDICTED!? I’M SORRY, DID YOU NOT SEE THAT COMING?? YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOUR DAILY HOROSCOPE FROM ASTROLOGY DOT COM DIDN’T HAVE THAT ONE IN THE CARDS?? WAS IT NOT OBVIOUS?? TODOROKIS PLUS BEST JEANIST EQUALS MIRIO??

hot damn. Tintin really saw the writing on the wall with the impending Dabi Discourse and was all “NOT SO FAST” lmao. “HERE’S A BRAND NEW THING FOR YOU ALL TO DISCOURSE ABOUT” MIRIO YOU WILD CHILD. YOU GLORIOUS THUG

MEANWHILE LET’S NOT FORGET WHAT MIRIO HAVING HIS POWERS BACK ACTUALLY IMPLIES. HOLY SHIT. SUDDENLY WE CUT BACK TO ALL MIGHT’S OFFICE, ALL THE WAY BACK AT UA. ERI BRANDISHES HER TOKOYAMI-GIFTED BUSTER SWORD, A DETERMINED GLEAM IN HER EYE. “I HEARD YOU WERE TRYING TO HAVE A GIRL POWER ARC WITHOUT ME.” OH. MY. GOD

[sepublic]

Escaping Expulsion!

           LUMITY! LUMITY DEVELOPMENT! LUZ REALIZING HER CRUSH!!!!

           Amity calling her MY Luz… Amity and Luz back-to-back! Playing tricks together that’s so ADORABLE!

           There’s so much to this episode, I… I…!

           Gus! His growth spurt will take a lot getting used to, it’s like watching your favorite kids grow up… At this point he may as well go back to Augustus! And Perry, I love seeing more of him!

           WILLOW’S DADS! They’re GOOD parents I tell you, they talk a lot about grounding or whatever, but then IMMEDIATELY drop their jobs for Willow’s sake!? To home-school her, to have fun! GOOD PARENTS! And the Glasses Dad, he’s a really chill dude, sees Willow going behind the back and is like “I won’t tell!” Nice. VERY nice…!

           BUMP! Not only do we get confirmation that he’s in the Abomination Coven, BUT HE’S A SWEETIE! He’s an utter sweetheart! This really all adds to my headcanon that he felt bad about what happened with Eda, and I bet he was being reminded a LOT of that when he had to get rid of Luz, Willow, and Gus… At least with Eda she more or less left of her own volition, but these kids WANT to come back! I love this principal and his layers… Also Frewin’s tail moving?

           I agree with Alador, and I find it hilarious that he doesn’t seem to understand Frewin that much either… Or he does but he’s still curious! Al IS interesting like Odalia said… Not exactly a good parent, but he is a man of his word! Also WOW he looks like an utter mess, nothing like the prim and proper noble we all expected! I guess Alador from Amity’s flashback was in dress clothes for Amity’s birthday and all that… But yeah he IS fascinating as Dana said! I guess he is the inventor as some people suspected…

           His whole demeanor matches his brief depiction in YBOS pretty well; Looking like he’s mostly just kind of THERE, just kind of chilling for the ride. Has his head in the clouds and focuses on the inventions, on the technical know-how, on carrying out the orders and seeing them through, while Odalia is the leader who instructs things- Just as we suspected! I can already see the neurodivergent Alador headcanons… If Amity is autistic, does she get it from him?

           ODALIA… Ugh. I mean, she’s about as rancid as we all expected, but it’s interesting that she DOES listen to Alador, so there is still that respect there! But JEEZ, she’s an attempted child murderer?! Goes back on her word!? I have to wonder if Alador was the original Blight actually, and Odalia was the one who married in; That, or Alador just has actual integrity and acts as like… The second voice who helps rein in Odalia and remind her of things every now and then. Interesting… But yeah, I loathe her!

           Of course, back to Al- He may not necessarily be so great himself. He does seem to prefer the easy path, the path of least resistance; He adapts to Amity standing up to him and Odalia by instead considering how she could replace the current Abomination Head one day… Which makes sense, that’s HIS expertise, and daughter takes after father! And Odalia really is an Oracle as we thought… Oracle magic for spying, makes sense, but that necklace…

           UGH… Remember when we all liked that necklace! How we thought it was SO CUTE? How Amity wore it at first in Adventures in the Elements… But then she rarely wore her casual outfit? WELL NOW WE KNOW… Here’s hoping the intro changes to remove the necklace, but WOW I was genuinely feeling sick in my stomach when I saw that!

           And Odalia and Alador are even WORSE, because they’re literally arms-manufacturers! Do I even need to explain why that’s awful? But I’m really having a lot of fun with the idea of Abominations as robotics; I’d considered the idea of Abominations melding with Automatons, and the show just confirms and validates that! I love this show… I have to wonder if we’ll see Amity and the Abomination Head interact more? And I like how Abominations is basically shape-shifting and form-changing, but applied to a magical goop that Abomination Witches can control…

           Belos and the Golden Guard! More worldbuilding- Of course Belos is monopolizing and taking things into his own control, he’s expanding his influence! And of course, as Golden Guard pointed out- Not only does he want soldiers –glad we’ll see more of these Abomination things in practice- but also… He doesn’t want anyone raising a private army against him; Which again fits with how Belos operates! 

          But the way Odalia and Alador look at one another… WERE they intending to raise a private army? Or were they always open to selling out to the highest bidder- With their desire to install Amity as the new Abomination Head, we might see them ally with a rebellion, but for their OWN purposes… With how their audience and customer base was cloaked, they may have been unknowingly selling to people with a vested interest and stake in taking down Belos!

           EDA AND LILITH! This show once again confirms my read on glyphs; Not containing magic, but more commanding the magic around them! Lilith is SO smart, figuring out how it works… And YES, I love delving into the mechanics! How glyphs are about COMMUNICATION with the Isles, that calls back to Adventures in the Elements! I wonder then if Belos can communicate with the isles too, possibly through glyphs…

           But we get more insight into their dynamic! Eda was always that talented kid, so she could always breeze the basics and get right into experimentation! It was good for critical thinking, but as we see, she can be really hyperactive and impatient… And of course, this frustrates Lilith, who is very stoic and rule-bound! God she was adorable this episode, how she clearly wants validation… She really is the embodiment of “My child is fine!” “Your child was a pleasure to have in class.” Couldn’t get validation from Gwen, so Lilith went to teachers…

           AND JEEZ, no wonder Belos’ approval meant so much to her! Maybe like Marcy and Andrias from Amphibia, Lilith kind of latched onto Belos as a potential found family figure for her… But as we know, she still had her own desires and wants because she IS a person and not a mindless drone.

           BUT YES, I love the show delving into how Lilith and Eda work as different people! Lilith is by-the-book, and Eda recognizing that Lilith’s methods have value, because Eda is really out of her own element here. I love seeing Eda experiment with glyphs, just the way they experiment with glyphs- I’m glad it’s not just Luz! Also it’s interesting… The show seems to imply that there really are only four glyphs in existence; Light, Ice, Fire, and Plant! That’s a shame because I’d have liked to see more glyphs in the future, just a few more…

           BUT YEAH, this hearkens back to that shot of Luz combining Glyphs in the trailer, and I’ve always hoped that mashing Glyphs can unlock more complex spells! I love this kind of worldbuilding where basic elements are combined in certain ways to yield more specific things, it’s making my worldbuilding brain buzz happily! And I love Luz just freely giving out stars… Lilith is SUCH an Elsa, and her friendship with Hooty is adorable! And here’s hoping that Eda uses that messed-up spell anyway, against enemies…

           Overall this was an AMAZING EPISODE, so strong! Luz isn’t dense, like Alador she’s just distracted… Oh dang, maybe my Luz and Alador parallels idea wasn’t so far off? BUT YES this show promises and delivers through on these characters! I do wish we got to see more of Willow’s thought process about Odalia and Alador interrupting her life again, but with how the episode is already jam-packed with glyph lore AND Luz’s own thing, and I can see why they had to leave it out- 

          But give her some more spotlight, please! I wouldn’t be surprised if some things had to be cut out thanks to Disney downsizing the show… Also again, it’s interesting that based on what this episode implied; The Plant Coven is the ONLY Coven to have such a close basis in nature. If there are only four glyphs in nature, theoretically there should only be four main covens…

           Belos, your system is beginning to look even MORE sketchy now! And dang, the revelations, the lore, the reveals… Not much of Emira and Edric alas, but what we got was short and sweet, and I love how they felt the need to be nice but also sneak in a prank, but Amity just sees them! And also CAT ABOMINATION, the fanart came through! 

          And Amity just immediately recognizing her girlfriend’s work to figure out Luz was there, I love it so much! Overall, an AMAZING episode that blew my expectations out of the water! Now after this we have Echoes of the Past, which promises even MORE in regards to King! I love that these characters are getting a lot of focus now.

           Also it just occurred to me, but yeah- Edric’s occasional air-headed moments, Emira being a bit more bossy and strict… As we all speculated, they get it from their respective parents!

           (Also Hop Pop cameo I see you TOH crew.)

[matchbookarmy]

k, p, s, z for ur fandom related questions!! u dont have to answer all of them <3

Hey! Thanks for the ask! I would love to answer all of them because I love to talk about fandom, but I decided I really wanted to answer "p" and it was kinda long, so I'll just go with this one for now.

So, this is basically a pitch for a fic I want to write but have not even started yet, but it's rolling around in the back of my brain.

Very very loosely inspired by the song "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman and the song "Airplanes" by B.O.B.

~.~.~

p: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

First, backstory:

Tony and Steve grow up in, like, a really rural, pretty poor place somewhere in America. Like, one of those dying towns. So, both Tony and Steve are poor. Howard is a dick. Like, just a massive dick. Perhaps verging on abusive if not outright abusive.

Sarah Rogers is sick. Poor Sarah. Poor Steve. Destined to lose his mom at a young age in every one of my fics.

Tony and Steve are high school sweethearts, but, like, in secret. For whatever reason that I haven't totally figured out yet. Maybe because rural area or because Howard wouldn't approve or whatever.

Tony and Steve talk all the time about getting into Tony's fast car (see what I did there???) that Tony spent like every summer working and saving up to buy, and driving out to LA. Tony wants to be a musician. Maybe Steve wants to be an artist. They spend a lot of time day dreaming about this.

Maybe, like, right after graduation, Tony has a really bad experience with Howard, and decides enough is enough. He's out. He wants to go ahead and run off to LA with Steve.

But Steve can't. Because his mom is sick, and someone has to take care of her. Tony begs Steve to come with him (mom can come to, if need be) and Steve begs Tony not to leave. In the end, Tony leaves without Steve.

So Tony goes to LA, gets discovered and completely blows up. Huge star. Renowned for his love/breakup songs. He's very private. Never talks about his home life or where he grew up or anything. Never seems to date anyone. Speculation runs rampant about who did he write all these love songs about?? Maybe there was some girl he took to prom once, and everyone theorizes they're about her, but Tony never comments on it, and neither does she.

But Steve. Steve knows they're all about him. Because they reference things they shared.

But this is where the fic would begin, because I am incapable of writing a story in chronological order apparently.

Okay, so some mumbly years later, Tony is on like, a TV show, like on MTV or something (we'll pretend MTV still shows music videos) and he's being interviewed, and all the sudden the host announces that Tony is having a homecoming concert in his hometown (!) and people can win tickets to the show.

And Tony is like "Say what, now??" And then his manager, Pepper, is like, "Tony, I brought this up weeks ago, you never listen to me or read my emails/texts and I thought this would be a great promotion"

And Tony is thinking like, "Yeah...no great....super excited about going back to my crappy little hometown where my abusive father lives, and oh yeah, my ex who totally shattered my heart into a million pieces, and I never got over him, and I came to LA and became a huge music star and wrote a bunch of songs about how he broke my heart and I've never recovered, this is just really really amazing, yes."

And Steve. Steve is working at a diner now. He's a manager, or maybe he owns it? He's working a shift at the diner and all the customers are like "Oh, my god, did you hear? Tony Stark is coming back to our little hometown to perform a concert. Isn't that exciting??" Because of course crappy little hometown is super proud of their hometown superstar.

And Steve is like...."Say what now?" And then he's thinking, "This is...this is so great. Like, really great. I'm going to have to come face to face with my super star ex who totally shattered my heart into a million pieces, and I never got over him, and then he went to LA and became a huge music star and he wrote a bunch of songs about how he broke my heart, and this is just really really amazing, yes."

And maybe on the day of the concert (which is held at the local high school football field because small town) and Steve is like, "Well, you know, I totally can't go to the concert because who would run the diner? Someone has to run the diner, so I guess it might as well be me. I'll make the sacrifice and skip the show so all the other employees can go". And of course, the entire town is going to be at the show, like, literally no one will be going to the diner, and Steve knows he could just close it down, he knows he's totally full of shit, but no one can talk him out of keeping the diner open.

And his friends (Natasha, Bucky, Sam...) are just like ?????

And then maybe Tony shows up at the diner?? Idk...that's all I have.

[nct-lian]

lian’s dating rumours

LIHYUNG

year: 2019

duration: late march 2019 — late may 2019

parties involved: lianna bae, kim taehyung

status: resolved, still shipped by delulus

level of exposure: 10/10

situation: at this time, lian and hyoseop were actually still in a relationship, and they ended up getting caught by dispatch while on a walk with each other.

whoever must have been following them seemed to have mistaken hyoseop for taehyung, just because the sweater he was wearing looked a lot like one taehyung was seen in at one point.

“paul- i think there’s someone following us.” lian whipped her head back to look at whatever was behind her, wrapping her arm tightly around hyoseop’s bicep.

he made sure his mask, along with his bucket hat was protectively covering his face before picking up his speed, lian soon catching on and following after him.

they turned a corner and eventually lost whoever the hell decided to stalk people for a living, and they sighed a breath of relief. lian loosened her grip on his arm, now reaching down to loosely hold his hand instead.

“god, if that’s dispatch-” she shook her head as she adjusted her mask that began to fall past her nose and looked up at her boyfriend. “my first scandal? at least i’ll get some exposure!” he jokingly winked at her as she hit him.

“don’t act like it’s a good thing! i’ve been in too many of these already.” she pouted even though he couldn’t see her, and she let out a whine when he disagreed.

the two entered a convenience store so they could grab some snacks before heading back to hyoseop’s apartment complex; they wanted to get some time with each other before lian had to leave the next morning.

maybe a few days later, pictures of lian wearing the exact sweater that was seen the same night of their walk, had surfaced over twitter from a sasaeng’s account.

the beginning of the rumours + resolution: if the pictures that dispatch ended up posting of the two that night wasn’t enough to set fans off, this definitely was. people started putting their pictures side by side to compare the cardigans and the rumour of “lihyung being real” was beginning to look a little too suspicious.

sm wanted to make sure that lian wanted nothing about her current relationship to be revealed to the public, and shortly after, they made a statement regarding the whole thing.

it was in fact revealed that the cardigan she was wearing did belong to someone else, but it had just been a hand-me-down from a friend that was no longer interested in it. they concluded with the fact that lian wasn’t in any sort of romantic relationship, and she was just focusing on her career as of right now.

bighit took a while to respond to what was going on, but they basically just said the same thing; taehyung is focusing on his career at the moment, and isn’t involved in a relationship that wasn’t strictly platonic.

LIMARK

year: 2020

duration: mid january 2020 — late january 2020

parties involved: lianna bae, mark lee

status: immediately resolved, everyone in nct is shipped together in one way or another so uh

level of exposure: 12/10

situation: back in january when nct 127 had been playing truth or dare on a teen vogue interview, lian had ended up picking truth on her first round. the question she received was rather intrusive, having been asked when she had her first kiss.

she played it off and jokingly asked, “hey! are you allowed to ask me this?” with a small laugh as she looked back down to the tiny slip of paper that she was holding between her thumb and pointer finger.

“we got permission!” a lady shot back from behind the camera, and lian soon thought that she had no choice but to elaborate. she covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head, eyeing the staff with a disappointed look.

lian went on to explain that it happened when she was still a teenager — around 2015. she was sure that was the end of it, and she was silently praying that after she exposed such a meaningful part of her personal life, the producers would leave her alone.

“if you don’t mind us asking, who was it with?” she didn’t want to answer; she was given a choice! guilt began to eat away at her chest as she overthought every possible thing that could go wrong if she said no, buckling under the pressure of everyone’s eyes being directed right at her.

“this is so intrusive!” she laughed sarcastically, but masked it with fake happiness as she shook her head again, gasping for a small hint of breath. “uh, it was with mark-” she ran a hand through her hair to desperately distract herself from the utter embarrassment she was feeling.

mark, who was sitting right beside her, slapped a hand over his mouth and placed a hand on johnny’s shoulder as he looked at the wall. his main goal was to avoid all eye contact between himself and anyone else.

no one except haechan had known about mark and lian’s little secret from before they debuted, and it was their intention to keep it that way for as long as they could. “wait what?” jaehyun whipped his head towards the back row, as did the rest of the members.

“yah! don’t get the wrong idea!” she made sure to say it in korean, but continued in english, “nothing happened after that-” mark stepped in for her, noticing how she was getting more overwhelmed by the second.

“yeah, yeah, it was just a little thing. we were really young and wanted to get it over and done with with someone we were both comfortable around.” he nodded with a tight-lipped smile, surprisingly less awkward than he usually was.

lian saw the way a staff member from behind the set was getting ready to talk more about the situation, but she quickly shut them down, “moving on, yes? yuta’s turn!”

the beginning of the rumours + resolution: shortly after the interview was posted onto youtube, fans noticed how defensive lian was towards the question and began to speculate that “the kiss” the two members shared wasn’t just “a kiss.”

their conspiracy was that whatever was going on between them behind the scenes had still been thing now, and they started spreading rumours about how the two idols were dating.

keep in mind that actual fans of the group did their best to cover up all these things with loving messages for both of them, and tried SO hard to ensure that they wouldn’t have to see them.

fans knew how close of friends mark and lian were, and they weren’t gonna let some crazy, delusional “fans” get in the way of that, and potentially put a strain on their friendship.

some of these rumours ended up escalating into hate towards both of them, and lian was being called a slut over twitter for “sleeping” with a fellow member.

sm entertainment released a statement as soon as they could, confirming lian and mark were just friends and will remain that way; their private lives will stay their private lives, and whoever participated in this malicious train of newfound hate will be sued.

[gretchensinister]

Little Souls and Careless Gods: An Exploration of Worldbuilding in Toy Story

Sid did nothing wrong.

Or, let me clarify. The things Sid did wrong were: taking his sister’s toys and modifying them without her permission. That’s it.

Hi, my name is gretchensinister and I have a lot of thoughts about the worldbuilding in Toy Story.

I should admit at this point that I haven’t seen Toy Story 4, only talked about it with someone who has, so if some of my questions are answered by that movie or if it torpedoes some of my speculations, that’s just—that’s just an imperfection of this essay.

I barely know where to begin, but, I started with Sid, so I’ll keep going with Sid. Sid is a kid. Sid is a jerk to his younger sister, but she’s freely yelling across the house tattling on him, so it doesn’t seem like she’s suffering irreparable damage from this. Other things Sid does: wins a squeaky toy for his dog in a claw machine game, blows up toys with fireworks, takes toys apart and joins them to other toys to make new toys. Burns a toy with a magnifying glass.

None of these things is an immoral action, for a person who, through all lived experience (until the toy attack) understands that toys are objects. It’s not bad to give your dog an object to chew on. It’s not bad (morally) to blow up an object with a firework. It’s not bad to take objects (that are yours) and make them into new, different objects. It’s not bad to burn an object with a magnifying glass. From the toys’ perspective, Sid is a sadistic mad scientist type, but from everything he could possibly know, his “torture” of Woody is messing around with an object! His object! That he got from a claw machine! The pretend torture as a choice of play is worth questioning, but it’s not so uncommon as a media trope that an average kid would never have seen anything like that in an action-adventure context. And it doesn’t predict how Sid will treat actual living beings!

(As an aside, I’m firmly of the belief that if you own an object, you should feel free to do whatever you want with it. Set it on fire, take it apart to see how it works, use it as raw materials in a craft project, etc. And yeah I would make exceptions to this rule for like, privately owned culturally significant art or scientifically significant artifacts…but if they’re that significant…they shouldn’t be privately owned.)

So yeah. Sid gets traumatized because he treats objects like objects, and the objects don’t like that. Because they’re actually alive and have now promised to constantly surveil him.

And let’s be clear: Andy doesn’t know toys are alive, either. He never does. He just has a different play style than Sid, and more of an interest in keeping his toys intact. Andy has no empathy with Woody and Buzz, because he is not aware that they are beings that he could empathize with.

All right. Beyond Sid, what I really want to talk about is the nature of a toy’s mind/soul in the Toy Story universe. I will call this the toy’s animus. Much like with the soul and mind of a human being, the animus raises several questions. How is the animus created? Where does the animus reside? Is the animus a tabula rasa, or does it possess innate knowledge? Where does this innate knowledge come from, if so? Is the animus mortal or immortal?

The Toy Story universe offers various pieces of evidence to answer these questions, and they are all extremely worrying if toys and humans are both morally significant beings, though humans do not know this about toys.

Is a toy mortal or immortal?

In the Toy Story movies it is clear that toys believe they can die. Sufficient destruction of the body would cause a toy’s death. Sid’s plan to blow up Buzz Lightyear with a firework threatens his life. In Toy Story 3, the toys in the trash incinerator clearly believe that burning/melting will kill them. But, short of catastrophic destruction of the body, toys are immortal. Jessie suffers, but does not die, from withdrawal of her owner’s love. Stinky Pete was never played with by a child, and he’s alive as any other toy. Additionally, human-mimicking toys are not killed even when damaged in ways that would kill a human, though this does affect their ability to communicate. In the tea party scene in Toy Story, the headless dolls wave when they are referred to. (This raises more questions—how does a headless doll experience the world? They can still hear, but how? Also, why doesn’t the headless teddy bear move? Perhaps they simply don’t want to get involved in whatever’s going on with Woody and Buzz.)

I think, according to what we see in the movies, the animus is divisible, and each part of the divided animus contains only a portion of the cognitive ability of the whole. Moreover, the animus is not centered in the head, but rather dispersed throughout the body. I would further argue that splitting the body/splitting the animus, is traumatic, even when reversible. Consider that Buzz’s mental breakdown coincides with the detachment of his arm.

What does this mean for Sid’s creations? Well, it would explain why they don’t talk. The baby-doll head with the spiderlike erector-set body (aside: is this a reference to The Thing (1982)?) really has no reason to be mute, if a toy simply must have a mouth to speak. Its form is unconventional, but, I would say, still “complete.” But if the head only carries an incomplete animus, and the erector set parts carry no animus of their own (an assumption which will be questioned later) then the whole toy would not have enough animus for verbal communication.

Janie the doll and the pterodactyl, with their switched heads, suffer significant disruption of their animi. Would their fractured animi eventually merge to form a new animus for each new body, with a different personality than Janie or pterodactyl? What part of the “Barbie” personality lingers in the animus of the toy crane with Barbie legs?

There is an exception to the concept of the fractured animus, however, and that is Mr. Potato Head. Mr. Potato Head exists in several parts to begin with, and mere separation does not fracture the animus. Curiously, though, some parts of Mr. Potato Head do not appear to contain any part of his animus, such as his plastic potato body. He retains all of his personality and ability to communicate when he has to put his features on a tortilla (?—don’t remember this part well) even though he is from an era of Mr. Potato Heads where his features are only meant to be put in the plastic potato body, not random foodstuffs. (Another question here: what would happen if an even amount of Mrs. Potato Head and Mr. Potato Head features were put on one plastic potato body? Do both animi retain coherence?) It is impossible not to wonder how far apart the features of Mr. Potato Head could be spread and the animus remain whole. At least as far apart as different buildings, as shown in Toy Story 3, but how much farther?

Creation of the animus and innate knowledge.

We are now about to embark on the specific topic that fills my thoughts now when I think about the Toy Story universe. I believe I will first fix myself a vodka cranberry (note: not just vodka and cranberry juice. To make it properly you must also add a splash each of orange juice and lime juice) and read a synopsis of Toy Story 4. Forky’s creation is a deep source of trouble here, and I must fortify myself to face it.

Where do I even begin? Okay. Bonnie, a kindergartner, creates Forky from items salvaged from the trash and names him. He comes to life after being named. According to the synopsis Forky then suffers an existential crisis because he believes he his trash and not a toy. So in this case, the animus appears to arrive after naming, and the animus is not a tabula rasa. The history of the materials appears to have some effect on the animus? (What this might mean for Rex or the plastic army men is especially concerning here.) It doesn’t make sense for Bonnie to think of Forky as trash, so this conviction has entered Forky’s animus from somewhere other than his creator. Also Bonnie has created sentient life without being aware of doing so, probably before being able to write a full sentence.

That’s troubling enough, because, to the eyes of adults or even older children, Forky is garbage. I project Forky’s lifespan of play to be that of months. And he won’t get passed onto other children. Depending on how Bonnie’s community disposes of trash, he may linger with an intact animus, at a landfill, for longer than Bonnie’s own life. It boggles the mind. (And invites hoarding in the empathetic.) However, despite all this, I would be cool with it if this was the only way toys became animate: being owned/named/played with by a child. That could be a complete worldbuilding conceit.

But that’s NOT how animi are generally formed in the Toy Story universe. Let’s back up to Toy Story. Buzz Lightyear has a personality and memories of his history as a space ranger right out of his box. And as we see in Toy Story 2, every Buzz Lightyear comes with that same initial personality. A commercial in Toy Story shows aisles upon aisles of Buzz Lightyears. Something has enabled the creation of thousands, if not millions, of identical animi. There is no direction this can go that isn’t kind of batshit.

Buzz Lightyear and the story that forms his memories were designed and created by adults. It was someone’s (and probably a team’s) job to design a toy that would be popular for a specific demographic, with (if I remember correctly) a cartoon that elaborates on the story and can basically serve as a long-running commercial for the toy. There were probably team meetings, and focus groups, and brand analysis to come up with the name “Buzz Lightyear.” And in such an endeavor, while I would like to imagine that there were some truly creative people involved who cared about the design and story, the people involved would not be the ones playing with the toys as toys want to be played with. And this is where every Buzz Lightyear animus comes from? But how? A manager or director approves the name and then…what? Is there a wellspring of animus that forms? Is it tied to the prototype? The factory workers in Taiwan don’t care about Buzz Lightyear the way Bonnie cares about Forky, and yet their actions in completing Buzz Lightyears call the animi to the plastic bodies. (And the animi are there, without a child’s touch. Stinky Pete was aware in his unopened box. Other toys opened a new Buzz Lightyear and got a living Buzz Lightyear.) And even leaving aside how the animi get into the Buzz Lightyears, the fact is that with millions of Buzz Lightyears out there, we have to conclude that the process that created his animus/animi is orders of magnitude more powerful than what Bonnie did to make Forky. Even assuming some personal care held by Buzz’s designers towards their design, it gets weird. The imaginations of adult toy designers are that much more powerful than a little girl creating and naming her own toy? NOT the way I would expect such a story-world to be set up, but the evidence is there.

And what if the designers of Buzz Lightyear weren’t particularly passionate? What if their boss just said “space is popular now, make me a space toy” and that’s the only reason why they did? That could very well be the case for a different type of toy in the series: the claw machine aliens. Those toys were not designed as a soulful passion project. I’m trying to write this to not be mean to designers who work in not-so-great places, but seriously. We have all seen generic toys in claw machine games before. They were not made to be immortally loved. (And yet! This is what the animus of a toy inherently desires!) Now, the claw machine aliens do seem to have much less backstory than Buzz Lightyear, and have personalities (or maybe just personality)/culture based on the nature of the claw machine. That makes sense, since they wouldn’t have been given a backstory with creation. The point is, though, that they still have animi. In the process of creating these cheap, cheap toys, by the dozens and hundreds and thousands, somehow their bodies were invested with full, identical animi. Adult, corporate creation somehow gives more life to toys than individual, child-led creation.

There are more questions to ask. If adults still have the power (and MASSIVELY MORE power) to invest toys with animi that they also possessed as children, then what can be invested with an animus? What are the limits of toy-ness in the Toy Story universe? Is it the name? I don’t think it’s the face, because there’s Woody merchandise in Toy Story 2 with Woody’s face on it that doesn’t talk. And I think that some faceless toys are shown to move independently/have an animus (possibly including things like LEGO—are the bricks a hivemind? Do the minifigs live inside sentient structures? Can they communicate with these structures? Also, if so, the erector set legs on Sid’s spider baby toy should have added to its total animus. But that’s not the corporate intent, so they’re still voiceless.). Christine (1983) could fit into this universe if the name is of primary importance (movie backstory for Christine, not book). But this would also mean that literally every boat and ship was sentient, but secretly so.*

If the name isn’t the important thing, is it the intent that the object be played with as a toy? In this case, that would mean that Bo Peep’s animus was not mass-produced, as she was originally part of a lamp if I remember correctly. Child-created animi would therefore be more common among non-toy objects than manufactured toys. I also want to bring The Brave Little Toaster (1987) up at this point. In this movie a group of appliances behave similarly to Toy Story toys in some ways, including being played with by their owner and then missing his attention to a high degree when he goes to college. However in this film all appliances and cars have animi, and I personally do not want my vacuum cleaner to feel any kind of way about me, or ever think I have played with it, because I hate vacuuming and would neglect it to death if feasible. (That being said…roombas in the Toy Story universe can hardly avoid being invested with animi, I imagine, no matter the details of the worldbuilding structure.) I bring this up, though, because Wikipedia notes that the original members of Pixar worked on The Brave Little Toaster. Toy Story was released in 1995 and was Pixar’s first feature length film. There is a connection, is what I am trying to say.

I think I have to go with: intent of the object to be a toy and/or being played with as a toy invests a toy with an animus. If it was the naming, then many, many public statues would be as alive as Woody and Buzz, and the people of Denver I’m sure have enough to worry about without Blucifer (Jiménez, 2008) galloping around. Bizarre to say that the least troubling option places mass production on a higher level of investing power than a child’s imagination. And I mean what I say about the mass produced animi being somehow more powerful than child-created animi.

Let’s go back to Sid’s creations. What is wrong with them? Why aren’t they able to communicate like Forky? Possibility 1: Sid just doesn’t have the creative power that Bonnie does. I don’t like this because, as I said at the beginning, Sid is not doing anything wrong by making these chimera toys. He’s treating objects as objects, and the difference between Sid’s chimera toys and Forky is that Forky’s component parts were not originally part of mass-produced toys. So, (from a worldbuilding/Watsonian perspective), I have to go with possibility 2, which goes like this: mass-produced toys are imbued with animi because they are toys. Sid’s chimera toys suffer from their animi being fractured when he alters them. But these fractured, mass-produced animi retain enough coherence and power that Sid, a child, cannot replace the fractured animus with whatever he imagines for his new creations. He’s an imaginative kid! But the corporate animus cannot be expelled. The factory animus is the underlying animus and cannot be removed once the toy is a toy. It can develop with memory and experience, but it will always be the toy making corporation that brought the spark of life, not the child that actually plays with the toy.

And this actually corresponds to Sid’s toys’ decision to rebel and help Woody and Buzz. Their animi are more loyal to the corporate intent that first created them. Sid made them into something new, presumably plays with them, and yet they are not Sid’s. They are meant to be read as broken and tortured (Sid has changed them from their factory-created wholeness), not as new beings. A factory-created, owned object, is meant to be held with the same level of care and maintenance of coherence as a living being in the Toy Story universe. What a child imagines about their own toys has less creative power than a distant designer who’s been told to come up with something appealing to put in a claw machine. Children only have animating power for their toys when they make them out of raw materials.

On the one hand, it’s tempting to say that of course the toys aren’t Sid’s, they’re their own people—isn’t that what having an animus means? But Woody, for example, find it very important that he’s Andy’s toy—a possession—“a child’s plaything.” Andy writes his name on him and this is very important to Woody, enough a part of his identity that when Andy’s name is painted over by the restorer in Toy Story 2 the scene reads as an erasure of something important to him, not as a restoration of his autonomy. Time and again we see that toys want to be owned by children.

This is another place where things get weird. First, I raise the question: What do toys need to keep animus and body together? Not much—only a certain baseline of bodily coherency. They don’t need to take in anything from their environment. More interesting, though, is that they don’t need anything from the children they bond to. Shelved, boxed, and forgotten toys suffer, but they don’t die from these states. No toy will ever find a toy’s corpse the way a human could find a human corpse—whole in every way except for the absence of the animating spirit.

So: toys as entities need little. The next question is then, what do toys want? Toys want to be owned and played with by a child (I say child and not children, because the communal state of the daycare in Toy Story 3 is clearly not desirable to the toys). Woody relishes his place as favorite and most played with toy at the beginning of Toy Story. In Toy Story 2 Jessie grieves when her child outgrows her. Stinky Pete was ignored by children for years, causing him to develop the abnormal belief that it would be better for the Woody’s Roundup toys to be preserved in a museum.

(At this point, I spot another thread to follow. It seems that for a toy, the most important relationship in their existence is meant to be toy + owner. In Toy Story Woody is very invested in making Buzz understand that Buzz is a toy and not a space ranger—Buzz is supposed to stay with Andy. In Toy Story 2 the consequences of not being owned by a child are grief and violence. But at the end Woody tells Buzz he’s not worried about Andy outgrowing him, since they’ll always have each other. Now, Toy Story 3 builds up Buzz/Jessie and in Toy Story 4 Bo Peep returns and Woody leaves Buzz and the other group of Andy’s toys for a life with her, but Woody also leaves the toy + owner life to be with Bo. Toys aren’t made to have an independent existence, yet this is how they end up, also acting as matchmakers to help lost toys find new owners and enter into new toy + owner relationships? THERE IS A WHOLE OTHER ESSAY HERE.)

To stay within just one rabbit hole here, however, I must focus on this: Toys want to be owned and played with by a child. They bond with child owners who do not deliberately alter their bodies (I add this because again, Sid’s toys do not appear to be bonded with him). But within this framework, there must be essential pain within a toy’s existence. Toys are immortal unless destroyed. Toys will experience actual play with a child for, let’s say, ten years, maximum, and that’s if the toy is given to the child when the child is very young and the toy is more classic/versatile than most. That’s way shorter than the best human friendships and familial relationships, and at least human beings can often reasonably hope to have lifespans that are of comparable lengths. Oh yeah, and among human beings people are usually AWARE of the relationship that’s taking place. So toys want to form deep bonds with their children and want to have these relationships last. But the relationships can’t last. I’ll gladly state that play, in some form, is necessary for humans to thrive throughout their lives, but the kind of play that the toys in Toy Story find ideal is a childhood phase of play that that most people naturally outgrow. And even if a human did engage in play ideal for toys throughout their entire life, toys are immortal unless destroyed. All toys will lose their owners, and usually after a pretty short handful of years.

The aftermath of the owner + toy relationship is always painful for the toy. What are the options? To remain owned, but not played with: perhaps the “best” option, but it still leaves the toy with only a memory of a full life. Is a shelf life really a life? This is what was facing Woody, I believe, if Andy had taken him with him to college. Another option: to be outgrown and forgotten. This is what happens to Jessie, and it is a deeply, deeply painful experience for her. She develops claustrophobia from being stored in a box. To be donated or sold at a garage sale: also a source of trauma and panic for the toys, but still better than the worst fate, to be thrown out. But toys that have been separated from their previous owners are so often grieving and/or bitter in the Toy Story series.

This is troubling, to say the least, but it also loops back to questions about the animus and memory. Toys are not tabula rasa. Buzz has a strong personality and memory set from his unboxing. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head do not need to court each other. Tour Guide Barbie will act as a tour guide in the absence of children. But with time, and accumulation of true memories as a toy, the toys will develop their own personalities, even if the animus starting point can often remain a strong influence. In Toy Story 3, however, we learn that certain toys, such as Buzz Lightyear, can be returned to the original animus state through a factory reset. I hardly know what to do with this. It wasn’t a permanent reset; Buzz’s memories and the personality he’s developed do come back. (But now he also has access to a “Spanish mode” that is…sexier (can such a word apply?) to Jessie than his English mode. Also other toys can put him into his mode against his will. There are so many worms in this can. Sexualization of Latinx people, can a toy expect bodily autonomy from other toys, etc.?) But not every toy has a reset button. Woody doesn’t. Slinky Dog, Rex, Mr. Potato Head, etc. don’t. Does the threat of a reset only affect toys with bodily components that could be considered brain analogues, i.e., microchips? But the animus is not the “brain” and neither does the “brain” store memories/personality. I really, really don’t know what to do with this, except it seems once again to assert the ultimate strength of the adult/corporate-created animus.

The point is, toys can lose their memories, but when we see that in the movies, it leads the toy to go back to their earliest state.

Now: a mystery. In Toy Story, Woody has developed enough memory and personality that he is well aware of being a toy and is involved with the life of Andy’s room in ways that neither his sheriff role or Andy’s imagination reasonably encompasses. (Consider the “Plastic Corrosion Awareness Meeting.”) All right. This would be of no concern if Woody was a generic wild west doll, but he’s not. He was made to represent a character on the Woody’s Roundup TV show in the 1950s. He would have had an animus strongly imprinted with that backstory just like Buzz Lightyear had his strongly imprinted space ranger backstory. Well, then maybe this means that Woody just never lost his memory. That would be the best explanation. That’s why he has a personality mostly free from this imprinted backstory, having been Andy’s favorite toy for some time. But Woody has lost his memory. In Toy Story 2, Woody learns (learns!) that he’s a representation of a TV character. He meets Jessie and Bullseye and Stinky Pete without knowing who they are at all. Woody has somehow completely forgotten his origins. He experienced memory loss that brought him farther away from his animus starting point.

Okay, so there are multiple kinds of amnesia for toys; I was wrong in my earlier assertion that memory loss tends to the origin animus. But I want to keep poking at Woody’s memory issues because of something else that Woody’s timeline leads me to conclude: Andy is not Woody’s first owner, OR Woody was boxed up and forgotten for DECADES before Andy. Actually, he’s probably spent a significant amount of time in storage or on a shelf regardless of whether Andy is his first owner or not.

Toy Story was released in 1995. If the story is set in the present, then Andy is very close to my age. Now, Woody is “an old family toy” according to Toy Story 2, and Al, as a toy collector, was so thrilled and astonished to find a Woody at a garage sale that he stole him when he learned he wasn’t actually for sale. This leads me to the conclusion that Woody toys aren’t in continuous production. Woody was probably only manufactured during the height of Woody’s Roundup’s popularity, in the 1950s. So there’s two options for Woody’s ownership history. I’m also going to presume in both cases that Andy’s father was the parent that previously owned him, though there’s no reason why his mother couldn’t have been the owner.

So, option one: the young parents/young grandparents option. If Andy’s grandparents had his father when they were about twenty, and then Andy’s parents had Andy when they were about twenty, then Andy’s grandfather could have gotten Woody at ideal playing age and then later passed him down to Andy’s father and then Andy’s father would have passed him to Andy. I don’t think this is the case, though, because Woody still has his incredibly rare hat and a functional voice box. If Woody had been played with by a child at ideal playing age at the height of the popularity of his character’s show, I think it’s likely that he would have gotten played with so much (and taken to places so much) that he would have lost his hat and his voice box would have worn out. Woody didn’t start off life as a collectible, and play causes wear and tear on toys. And if Woody was originally the grandfather’s toy, then he would have gone through another round of play with Andy’s father. Woody’s condition is too good for that. Unless, that is, Andy’s whole family is made up of people who are unusually careful with their toys? That’s sort of an intriguing idea, since it means that Sid’s actions look even more horrifying by contrast, and generations of “ideal owners” for Woody obscure the bizarre nature of the life of a thinking, feeling toy. However, the Toy Story universe keeps raising questions in Toy Story 2-4 about what it means to be a toy, so there doesn’t seem to be a motivation in the series for such obscuring. This is despite the fact that Woody’s amnesia does obscure some things about the nature of a toy’s life, at least in the original Toy Story. (I know the Doylist perspective answers all this easily—this isn’t what the audience is meant to think about, Woody’s backstory as a toy from a 1950s TV show isn’t important in Toy Story, and in fact this backstory didn’t exist until Toy Story 2 was created.)

Regardless, I don’t think the young parents/young grandparents option is the right one. Instead, I choose option 2: the slightly older parents option. Woody’s Roundup is a TV show from the 1950s. It was popular enough to lead to a lot of merchandise, not just the dolls of the main characters. Brief research shows that in the 1950s television Westerns were incredibly popular, and there were Westerns made for kids and Westerns made for adults. The question I’m trying to get at here is trying to figure out how Andy’s grandparents would have known about a kid’s Western show. But, it’s really not that difficult. In this timeline I’m building now, Andy’s father would have been born in the 1950s, making him in his early-mid thirties when he became Andy’s father. Given this timeline, it’s overwhelmingly likely that Andy’s father has siblings, including older siblings, that might already watch Woody’s Roundup. Or, even if Andy’s father was the oldest child, it’s also overwhelmingly likely that Andy’s grandparents’ friends had plenty of kids of their own and probably talked among themselves about what kids liked. The significant thing in this timeline is that Woody would have been given to Andy’s father when Andy’s father was very young. Perhaps too young for a Woody doll, but perhaps also with the assumption that Andy’s father would grow into the doll. So Woody is unboxed and waits on a shelf for a couple years while Andy’s father grows a little. My theory is that Woody’s Roundup was no longer on television by the time Andy’s father was at the right age to start playing with a doll of Woody’s type. This would have two consequences. One: Andy’s father would have been unguided by the TV show in regard of how to play with Woody, meaning that Woody would have formed many memories unrelated to his original animus in this early stage of his life. Two: even though Woody was played with, he never was Andy’s father’s favorite toy, which is why he was able to be passed down to Andy in good condition (and still with his hat).

In this option 2, which I feel is more likely, Woody has probably spent at least 25 years on a shelf or in storage. So why is this important? I think it’s important because Woody doesn’t act like he’s been through the decades-in-storage experience, or the experience of having an owner outgrow him. He sympathizes with Jessie after learning her story, but he says nothing about having experienced anything like it himself. And as far as the movies are concerned, his worries about Andy outgrowing him are new worries. But they can’t be new! He’s already been outgrown at least once before! I mean, with Andy he’s a favorite toy, so that’s a unique owner + toy relationship status that he (probably) didn’t have before. Maybe that amplifies what he’s going through this time?

But there’s another aspect to Woody’s experiences that I want to touch on. All the other toys he would have known as Andy’s father’s toy are gone. There are no other “heirloom” toys in Andy’s room, or at least there is no evidence of this. All of Andy’s other toys seem to have been purchased just for Andy, and purchased new. There is no reference to garage sale trauma, previous owners, or anything like that. And as we’ve seen from other toys throughout the series, toys remember that kind of thing! But Woody doesn’t. His animus is one that shows years of experience building over his character backstory, but he never acts like he’s experienced being outgrown or losing all his toy friends.

Or at least he never says anything about such experiences.

I think it makes sense to read Woody’s amnesia as genuine. But I also think it would be reasonable to read his character as one that has undergone traumatic experiences and has responded by burying them so deep within his mind that he has no conscious access to them, even though they influence his current personality and life. (It’s impossible to know, but do toys in every household respond to birthdays and Christmas with such intense monitoring—with the desire for even the slightest early warning of replacement? Woody is the one who worries most about these celebrations, extremely anxious of his own status as favorite toy.) That the ending of Toy Story 4 removes him from the cycle of ownership and outgrowing can’t be ignored. Better to not have an owner than to experience losing an owner again, and again, and again?

But I do think there is one other possibility: Andy’s ownership of Woody caused him to lose all his memories of Andy’s father. A child may not be able to give a manufactured toy a new animus, but by possessing a toy in a play relationship (as opposed to a collector relationship) a child may be able to overwrite any memories of the toy’s previous owner. The process doesn’t happen instantaneously, as Andy’s toys don’t immediately forget him upon being transferred to Bonnie, but it would certainly explain why Woody makes no reference ever to a previous owner, even though he was most likely manufactured at least 35 years before coming into Andy’s possession. However, Jessie’s story argues against this. While she is happy among Andy’s toys, there’s nothing to show that she is forgetting her own past.

The possibility of a new child owner driving out all thoughts of the previous one is interesting, as it puts some degree of power over the toy’s animus back with the child. However, in the Toy Story universe, it’s clear that if this is the case, it’s not an instantaneous process. And if it’s not an instantaneous process, then it becomes overly complex. What memories would be driven out? For toys less adventurous than the main characters of the Toy Story movies, their whole lives are centered on their owners. They live in their child’s room/house. Anything that took place there would have to be forgotten to not bring up thoughts of the previous owner, including conversations with other toys that were friends of that first toy. At this point we approach a state of complete memory loss before the claim by a new owner. A gradual process would at least allow continuity of personality, since new memories under the new owner would be continually being made. But then, some new memories would have to fade, also. For wouldn’t a toy talk about their past while they could still remember it? And wouldn’t their new friends maybe bring up their past in conversation sometimes? They might even talk about the process of forgetting. That process would be noticed and known among toys. No, after thinking about it, I would say that there is no inherent forgetting process. Memories will mostly tend to stay, with whatever pain and joy they bring. And there will never be any transition process that is easy for the toy.

Woody’s amnesia remains his own, and remains his best defense against the trauma of being outgrown and shelved or stored for many years.

Toys have a strange and painful lot in life, semi-immortals being made to be silent companions to the briefest stage of a mortal lifespan. They live because they are made for children, but for most, in this world of mass production, children do not create them. Their animi are the spawn of creators who have no intent to create thinking, feeling beings. Escaping the stamp of such thoughtless creation means living long enough to know the deepest loss a toy can experience. Sometimes the only way to move forward from such loss is to forget. And yet, there is little will for most toys to move beyond this cycle. Toys overwhelmingly retain their roles as objects. I’d like to say that maybe this means that play is worth it, that temporary joy is worth it. But maybe it’s just the nature of being a toy. After all, if there’s any intent in their creation, there was the intent that they should be objects.

*I would never leave a dangling asterisk. My previous point was about ships and boats, but, if seagoing vehicles live because they are named, then there’s no reason why land vehicles would not do the same. It might be possible to argue that the Cars universe came about after some cataclysm wiped out humans and left only named vehicles behind.

Other avenues of investigation that were beyond the scope of this essay:

1) The situation between the Diamonds and every other gem in Steven Universe is highly analogous to the situation between humans and toys in the Toy Story universe, save for the crucial difference that the Diamonds have no excuse to not know that the other gems are complete feeling, thinking beings and to treat them as such. It was actually parallels I saw between Spinel + Pink Diamond and Jessie + her owner that got me thinking about aspects of the Toy Story universe in ways that I know are meant to be ignored. Also Pink Diamond bringing all those little pebble people to life just by crying on them. That’s a lot of responsibility coming from a solitary expression of emotion!

2) I’d be curious to know if a hugely popular series based on the agency of objects has had an effect on fan culture at all. Or it might at least be a way to examine actions taken on behalf of characters. Fictional characters, after all, don’t feel any kind of way about the situations and relationships people envision them in. They’re mental objects like toys are physical objects. In the real world is anyone going to argue that putting the faces of dolls or action figures together and making kissing noises is something to worry about? Is anything about putting a naked Barbie on top of a naked Ken a harmful act? In the real world I would say no. Also, with full awareness that this is a can of worms, what is the impact of such things in the Toy Story universe? Obviously this wouldn’t be addressed in any canon. But the Toy Story universe is supposed to be like reality with one big secret so there are kids that are definitely using their toys to play out love stories and stories including a vague understanding of sex. And another aspect to all this…if you’ve seen Booksmart, consider one of the characters’ uses of her childhood stuffed animal. I understand that this is not uncommon.

All right. I think I’m done now. And that I will probably go get another drink.

(I had a few baby dolls as a child that included their own toys as accessories. H—how would THAT work?)