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shallowseeker · 2 months ago

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I didn't want to mess up your beautiful post @farenmaddox, so I decided to throw all my initial thoughts in here.

Jack Kline, Euphoria, and the muddy line between manipulation and choice

(Alternatively: how Jack's recruitment tactics are very crunchy)

Jack in the womb

In true SPN style, the early story around Jack’s birth is intentionally muddy. The show leaves it ambiguous on purpose. It makes us ask: how much of Jack's influence is instinctual / innocent, and how much is active manipulation?

New life is inexperienced; it takes what it needs instinctually, not maliciously. Dumah will mention something similar later in 14x19: that Jack goes where he feels safe.

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I think you're right that brainwashing isn't quite the right term. Because when I think more deeply about it, and especially considering how he acts in The Bad Place, I favor manipulation.

It's ultimately a very complicated form of emotional manipulation—one that's deeply tied to Jack's own desperate need for connection and acceptance.

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Tapping into people's needs

When Jack first meets Castiel, he feels safe with him for a reason: Cas couldn’t pull the Colt’s trigger.

Jack imprinted on Cas the way an infant bonds with a parent. Up till that point, everyone had tried to kill him, even Kelly. Kelly, in fact, actively tried in the most horrifying way possible, killing herself AND Jack at the same time.

(SIDE NOTE: Dean will embody both of these Cas-and-Kelly elements later in 14x20 Moriah, with the Equalizer gun... and the idea of killing himself and Jack at the same time... for the good of the world.)

Kelly killed herself because she believed what the people around her told her, that her baby would destroy the world.

KELLY: (Groans, sniffles and sighs) I love you. (fills tub) But we won't ever be together. There is no happy ending for either of us. And if what she said is true if this is what you really are (voice breaking) what you'll do to the world, all that pain, all that death, I can't let that happen. (crying) I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Kelly NEEDED to believe that her baby would be good. Jack was able to do that by saving her life. She felt him and felt his relatable emotions, and she realized he was very human indeed.

This may have been the first time he ever talked to her—that she got to know him and saw his good intentions.

Dagon takes the most uncharitable view possible, but the bond between a parent and a child can be complex, as loving as it is parasitic and draining. (SEE: The symbol of Sam as "the vampire.")

KELLY: He's not. My baby's not evil. He saved me. DAGON: That's what you think happened? (Laughs) Uh, he saved himself. He doesn't care about you. Nothing's changed. He's born, you die. But don't worry. I'll be there, right by his side, to nurture him, love him, to help him to kill everything. You know, like a mother should. &

KELLY to CAS: His power his soul surged through me, and it was good. Pure. I feel I know he is good. CAS: Kelly, what your child did, that's a testament to his power, but it's not proof of some goodness. He needs you alive. KELLY: Maybe. Or maybe it was a miracle. Maybe—maybe everything that I've been through, everything that I still have to go through, is happening for a reason. Maybe it's part of some plan.

Pure is a Poughkeepsie word in SPN, but also... there's something very human about needing to believe in something bigger than yourself. (This gets echoed in 13x04, The Big Empty, when Mia asks Dean what he believes in, and it's implied that what he has faith in... is Cas. Like with the Cupid way back in 5x14 Bloody Valentine, Dean believes in love, not cupids. That's also why... SPNwin.)

But Jack is looking for a father figure to keep him safe, not a mother to nourish him with the blood of the world. He wants to be protected. He wants a dad.

And he will get sense that insanely fatherly-protectorship aspect of Cas when he feels Cas's hand:

(Cas puts his hand on Kelly's belly. Her eyes flash – she gets a vision, a flashback of when Castiel jumped in front of her to protect her) FUTURE CAS: You stay away from her.

I do think it's interesting that Jack didn't show Kelly visions of the future directly. Instead, Kelly will lean on CAS in 12x23, borrowing HIS vision and HIS hope for the future:

KELLY: Tell me again. Tell me again what you saw. CAS: Right, I saw– I saw... [Cas closes his eyes and recalls the events of 12.19, Kelly taking his hand and the golden glow taking over him, his eyes glowing gold] I saw the future. I saw a world without pain or hunger or want. I saw the world that this child... that your child... KELLY: Mm. CAS: ...will create. KELLY: Mm. CAS: And it is a world without fear and without suffering and without hate. KELLY: Mm. CAS: I saw paradise.

Charitably, Cas was dressing up his vision in the most palatable way possible, with excessive hope as a balm for Kelly’s impending death. (This can be very important for the terminally ill!)

But uncharitably, it's a hapless, positive, light-filled nihilism. Whereas the hunter is negatively nihilistic with the mantra: "It only ends one way," the angel-soldier can at times swing into the opposite parallel, "happily ever after."

MARY: I don't know. He's sweet, kind. Even after the war, after everything, he still believes in happily ever after, you know? He's everything a hunter isn't. (beat) No offense. 4x03

(But the true balance is of course... actually neither of those things.)

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The recruitment of Castiel

From Castiel’s side, it’s equally messy. Cas couldn't shoot Kelly or Jack, but he WAS prepared to take them to Heaven.

Like with Dean and the bomb for Amara and Jack in season 11 & 15, Cas can't do it himself, so he's finding a way for it to happen more passively.

Cas & Jack & Kelly:

DEAN: Your plan? KELLY: He's taking me to Heaven. DEAN: You – You're taking her to the sandbox? CAS: Yes. I'm ending this, once and for all. Kelly and her baby have to die. 12x19

Dean & Amara:

SAM: You want God to kill Amara because you don't want Amara to be killed? DEAN: Yeah, maybe there's a part of me that just can't hurt her. But if she's already dead— SAM: Then she's already dead. Right. LUCIFER: Well, that got weird. 11x23

Dean being unable to hurt Amara is in parallel with how Cas can't hurt Jack. It's no wonder Dean chafes. If he views Amara (and Cain-Crowley) as nonconsensual brainwashing, then of course he'll be wary of Jack on multiple levels. I think this speaks more to how he views both his time as Demon Dean and his connection to Amara than anything.

So, we're back to our original question. How much of Jack's influence is instinctual, and how much is active manipulation?

Most importantly, is it at least partially consensual? Is it all Cas, or all Jack, or a weird mix of both?

(If we lean on the Amara parallel... it isn't wholly. Jack and Amara tap into vulnerabilities to get the outcomes they want. Crowley also parallels this in season 9-10, manipulating an outcome in a way that's predatory and nonconsensual. Crowley/Cain is a huge Amara parallel, which makes them off-key to Jack as well, right down to how Rowena & Crowley used Amara, and how Asmodeus & Sam used Jack.)

CASTIEL: I’m sure Sam knows that whatever you said or what you did, it wasn’t really you. It certainly wasn’t all you. 10x03

So then, I think I fall somewhere in the mud, that it's Cas, but it's his deepest fears and vulnerabilities brought to light, and it's not completely consensual.

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Cas and the idyllic future

Cas is vulnerable and psychologically wounded this season.

He feels like a failure. He needs a win. The delayed grief of losing his human fam is hitting him in the biggest way. (SEE Ishim’s: "You're sad and pathetically weak.")

And like how Kelly NEEDED Jack to be a force for good, Cas NEEDED a win, so Jack shows him the win. (The win is ofc, is actually Cas living freely with his human family.) And much like how Dean operates when it comes to collecting allies, Cas quickly judges Jack as "good" because they seemed to want the same things.

Jack is the symbol of the djinn. Jack needed someone to believe in him, and Cas fell prey to Jack’s euphoria. A dream-like, djinn-style vision: a future where Cas's human family was alive, happy, and, more importantly, SAFE WITH HIM. It was everything Cas wanted.

And this, make no mistake, this is a visual taking of Cas, a possession. A "see what I see, feel what I feel" parallel to Crowley:

And then...

Cas and Jack burn "the bad woman" and Cas himself becomes an off-key parallel to Azazel and even the Father Shapeshifter, killing the "false parents" and living in the specter of, "I'm your real family."

This is a reverse Azazel, burning not the good mother, but the bad mother. Jack in so many ways WANTS to be the reverse Azazel.

Cas later tells Kelly, "I saw a world without pain or hunger," but crucially, that world wasn’t real. It's a balm. It even stands in direct contrast to Cas’s larger character arcs: embracing the reality of death, pain, and imperfection as essential parts of life. (See: The Rit Zien episode 9x06 Heaven Can't Wait: "You say you want to live. But you can't see what I see. By choosing a human life, you've already given up. You… chose… death.") To live is to die.

(Cas says this to Jack in Ouroboros, trying to be okay with his human family dying—but even in Season 14, he really isn’t. He flips almost immediately from "All humans die, even the best ones, even Sam and Dean," to "Dean WILL wake up.")

Cas and Mary mirror each other: both are horrified by the fragility of their human families and would do anything—right or wrong—to protect them.

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But is Jack truly at fault?

Not long after this, Jack’s powers are described like sneezing—a reflex, not a conscious choice. He wanders into the world in episode one carrying his deep emotional expectations to find Castiel, near-distraught as he looks for him:

JACK: My mother, she’s in heaven. My father, he was supposed to be here, but he’s not. I’m trying to find him. I have to find him.

But the tragedy is already written into him. His powers respond to need, not will. He saved his mother when she tried to end her life and his. He saved Castiel from Dagon's killing blow.

But at the moment of his own birth, when he needed them most, he could save neither.

I'm thinking. that... Perhaps instinctively, Jack wants his powers as much as he doesn't want them?

KELLY: I go with you, you take away the thing that makes him special. ... KELLY: Because he chose you, Castiel. When you put your hand on my stomach, I heard him. He spoke to me. He told me that even if it seems scary, if I just went to the gate, if I just followed your plan, that you would make sure he was born. Sam and Dean, they want to take away his powers because they're scared. ... CAS: I am. I've been so lost. I'm not lost anymore. And I know now that this child must be born with all of his power.

There's a great meta about this somewhere, that this could've been Chuck's interference at work with Kelly. It's definitely echoing what we'll see of Zachariah's manipulation in 13x14 Good Intentions:

ZACH!CASTIEL: Well, if only they’d accepted you, instead of teaching you to fear your powers.... Because they feared them. Now, if you’ll just do as I say—

To me, it definitely reads as manipulation, which is why it echoes Zachariah. Whether that's an outside god or the god inside Jack, who's to say? But he's preying on vulnerabilities, giving hurting people some direction.

That's why he steals BABY in 12x19. He's literally stealing the narrative.

On the other hand, we eventually see that Kelly's instincts are a little bit right too, especially about taking away Jack's powers—since, in Unhuman Nature, we learn that a Jack without his grace might die very quickly.

I think ultimately, once we learn more about Jack, we see he hates his powers almost as much as he likes having them.

Perhaps what Jack always subconsciously wanted—in true Dean fashion—to be responsible for saving everyone. To be powerful so he can be good for the world. (But it’s a burden he’ll never be able to live up to.)

Dean sacrificed himself for Sam in large part because he felt like his life had to mean something, that he had to justify his own existence:

DEAN: That's my point. Dad brought me back, Bobby. I'm not even supposed to be here. At least this way, something good could come out of it, you know? I—I—It's like my life could mean something. BOBBY: What? And it didn't before?! Have you got that low of an opinion of yourself? [...] I could throttle you! 2x22

Jack is on earth, because Kelly is not. Just like Dean was on earth, because John was not.

It's a savior complex. Which brings us to...

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His more active manipulation with Kaia

In 13x09 The Bad Place, like Cas, we find Jack desperate to "bring back a win" for The Winchesters. He wants to save Mary more than anything, and Jack and Dean become aligned in coercion and desperation.

JACK:

& DEAN:

Dean, showing his increasingly desperate and compromised state of mind, pulls a gun on Kaia to force her help.

Jack, by contrast, will later catch the fly with honey: he uses his power to influence Kaia emotionally, recruiting her with a vision.

And Jack is so often a bomb, a weapon of mass destruction, even… but he's also a drug, euphoria-inducing.

Like Kelly NEEDS to believe Jack would be good for the world, or Cas NEEDS to believe in a future where he can freely live with his human family (because despite the lip service otherwise, that's what paradise actually IS for Cas / if it's "destiny," then he doesn't have to feel guilty for wanting something so selfish despite all his crimes; destiny for Cas is also the PERMISSION to be happy)...

...Kaia NEEDS to believe her powers have meaning. Kaia NEEDS to believe that her horrible, painful powers can be a force for good—so Jack shows her they can be.

Jack subconsciously and consciously gives each of them exactly what they need to tip them into joining him. His influence on Kaia sparks a euphoric rush that convinces her to help... and it mirrors the manipulation tactics of angels like Gabriel and Zachariah, who show people visions to sway them.

BONUS: In 13x14 Good Intentions, we see the desperation mindset in Cas, too—that overriding someone else's free will can be for the greater good, maybe even mutually beneficial because it's for the good of the whole world. (It's also very much that Mary-esque response to losing loved ones!)

CAS: "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you or anyone hurt the people I love. Not again."

And of course, by Exodus 13x22, Dean and Cas are teamed-up horrifically, torturing people for information.

///

Lastly, brainwashing... it's a fun parenting metaphor!

On a broader level, this kind of "brainwashing" makes an excellent metaphor for parenting/caretaking. When you're responsible for a creature who needs your time and resources, it's unfortunately common to get weirdly attached to serving them—they're your new mission, your cause, and the thing you must now order your life around.

But it's also common... to project your own hopes and dreams onto them. Especially when you either don't feel allowed to have dreams of your own OR you're giving up your own to care for them.

This can be positive! It can also go too far.

Jack, even before he's properly born, becomes the projection point for both Kelly and Castiel—just as Dean, much later, will hang his burdens on Jack in 13x23, when he talks about retiring and Jack saving the world.

(Dean starts putting big savior expectations on Jack much earlier than season 15. In this way, Jack is a "purely son" character to Dean in a way almost no other character is.)

Here in 13x23... Dean is echoing EXACTLY what Cas got caught up in during 12x19 The Future!

This is the idea of paradise.

Jack’s presence is stoking Dean's idea of freedom: retirement, and lounging on a beach with Sam and Cas. (Aside// It's also notable how AU Michael allllmost mirrors this too, with Dean's retirement dreams in Nihilism with Rocky's Bar, but with bare-bones-contentment instead of happiness.)

It mirrors Cas's 12x19 script dreams in many ways: of Kelly on the beach, Sam running free, and Dean saying "thank you" in extreme closeup, while Cas himself preens with restored wings—big, strong and shirtless.

So paradise then... is worry-free time with loved ones.

And it's sadly, this is to Jack's detriment.

Which is why the scene directly following this?

It's Jack having nightmares. Dean's retirement is directly paired with Jack in pain. The burdens that are put on him because of the powers are just too heavy! You could even say that he... "doesn't deserve what they put on him."

There’s something about all of this, though, that can’t be separated from the idea of family. So often, we don’t choose family initially—we inherit it, or we stumble into it, or we find ourselves trapped WITH it against our will.

What matters is that we keep choosing them, over and over, even when it’s hard, even when it hurts. That’s why AU Michael’s attack on Jack in 15x09 ("burden no one asked for") hits so hard—because it taps into the same cruelty we saw from Zachariah’s figment of Mary in Dark Side of the Moon.

It weaponizes that fear that love is conditional, that you were never really wanted in the first place. Jack-Dean is directly paralleled here with Dean-Mary.

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Overall, this tendency for Jack to manipulate is crunchy, because it so often stems accidentally from his emotional needs

And even when it's on purpose, it either comes good intentions or from being backed into an impossible corner...

For Jack, it reflects a deep and uncomfortable truth: he feels he needs to save people to feel good about himself. (Hello, John in SPNwin, wanting to save ppl to paper over his own grief!)

Jack craves affirmation and meaning so intensely that he unconsciously and at times consciously uses his powers to create them—even as he struggles with how unfair it is to possess those very powers in the first place.

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blueberrybeomgyu · 5 months ago

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hihi berry !! I loved your taesan fic (ao3) so much I had to download tumblr and follow you on here 😭 I honestly have no idea how this app works but I'd do anything to see messy, crying, sub taesan 😋 I've read your other works too AND THEY'RE SO GOOD UGHHHHH I wanna kiss your mind >3< all that's been on my mind is cock stepping (I said this on ao3 too) like taesan sees you in heels or chunky shoes and suddenly feels this urge to have them squishing his cock until it hurts, the tip of the shoe pressing down on his balls and even if he's tell you to stop you know he likes the pain and just as he's about to cum you take your foot away :(( poor baby starts whimpering and begging for more </3

OMG HI I REMEMBER I LITERALLY JAVE THE SUGGESTIONS IN MY GOOGLE DOC but i never got to writing a fic about them im sorry 😞 but it's so nice to see you here on tumblr!! THANK YOU FOR READING NY WORKS IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE THEM 😣😣 i still wanna try your ideas abt the vibrating ring and ts subbing for the first time feel free to send an ask about either one of those 😚😚

putting on chunky shoes partially because you know they get taesan hot, he loves the way it feels when his cock twitches under the pressure of your shoe. he'd feel so humiliated if you were occupied with something else like working at your laptop, barely even paying him any mind yet he's here bucking his hips against your shoe. he'd beg for your attention so sweetly. he likes it the most with your eyes on him, he needs the reassurance that you find him and what's happening attractive

he loves feeling smaller than you, especially if he's bigger than you, loves how you push him around and make him feel pathetic. if you add little treats such as pulling his hair or tapping his cheek, he feels too good he might start tearing up a little

loves when you shove him to the floor, or when he's already on the floor and you take advantage of the situation, using your foot to force his legs apart and press your shoe to his cock, slowly increasing the pressure but pulling away when he starts to like it too much

edging him like this will get him to the point where he's holding onto your leg, partly because he's so far gone and needs some kind of anchor, and also to try to stop you from pulling away when he's on the edge. he's a body worshipper, but especially like this, he's kissing and nibbling on your leg, hiding his face against it to get away from your gaze, all the while still fucking up against you. it'd only make him feel more pathetic that he's at the point where he can't even look back at you despite wanting your attention. his skin would burn asking for more, voice all high and airy about it, his favorite part would be the feeling of his cock pulsing under the pressure as he cums, he'd feel so dizzy and fucked out

bonus is taesan has become a bit conditioned, he has his favorites among your collection of shoes and gets hot when you wear them out, he's tugging at his collar and his eyes keep falling to them, he'll do that thing where he thinks he's being discreet but he's really not, face warm as images of you stepping on him with those shoes flash across his mind

#fruit basket 𐙚🧺#basket 𐙚🧺: taesmj 🐈‍⬛#basket 𐙚🧺: taesan 🐈‍⬛#i'm so sorry it took me so long to answer your ask!!#i had to get Inspired #fuck i have so many tags #taesan hard thoughts #taesan hard hours #boynextdoor hard hours #boynextdoor hard thoughts

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wackywatchdotcom · 3 months ago

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something i genuinely adore about tadc is how painfully flawed everyone in the circus is. and not in a small way

everyone does SOMETHING that negatively impacts the others. but it makes the fact that you are supposed to sympathize with and really connect with them all the more potent. because its easy to want to put a bunch of characters in a bad situation together and to just have them all be nice to each other and everyone and never make mistakes because theres no reason to hurt each other, and most of them dont TRY to, but the way they cope is so, so realistic for each of their personalities, and it doesnt always mesh with the others, and sometimes it exceeds self destructive and Just Hurts Others, Too

they still generally care about each other and the mistakes they make and the ways they end up hurting each other dont lose their weight but like. it doesnt take away from their humanity and the fact that they are all trying so hard to manage in an awful situation

and the characters seem to have sooome sort of understanding of this too. not fully, because the characters dont tend to be 100% communicative, but when they hurt each other, it often makes EVERYONE uncomfortable. because these are the only people they have. these are their friends. and theyre all coping. but it doesnt change how much it affects them (best illustrated by ragathas lines at the start of ep 2 or gangles 'i love her, but after a while it gets kinda hard to tell how genuine shes actually being'). its not all like this, theres a good amnt of variety, but characters knowing this but not really knowing what to do about it is very painful in an effective way

(i think a subtle example of this is how zooble handles gangles situation in ep 4- they were so genuinely trying to help her because they care. but could tell as the day went on that oh, this is not working at all and its making things worse, and they leave gangle alone- something that very genuinely couldve been the moment she abstracted, because of the mask zooble gave her- and we dont get to have a super blatant explanation of zoobles thoughts on it, but they reach a fairly healthy conclusion about it that helps both of them, and i like that a lot, because on paper zooble could be placed at fault but the narrative doesnt dwell on it excessively, because thats not the point. i dont know if that tangent makes sense but i think about it sometimes. i think zooble wasnt 'to blame' but it was still a mistake, which is a hard balance to strike, and having them help at the end feels extremely effective at rounding it off!!!)

but like. in general its complicated balancing making characters in a bad situation act flawed because it can run the risk of seeming like the story is scolding them or blaming them for the situation theyre in, or like youre expected to not sympathize with them despite it (though the inverse also has complications- if characters in a bad situation never mess up, it feels unrealistic and hard to relate to, and can imply that their innocence is why whats happening to them is bad at all), but the show handles it so well

even the characters who are genuinely trying all try in different ways- some of them have similar outlooks or attitudes towards these thing but theres vital differences for ALL of them- sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. in fact some of the more painful mistakes characters have made in the show have come from them so genuinely trying (like the thing i mentioned w zooble, or basically Everything Ragatha Does, or pomnis first attempt at helping gangle, etc), which hits harder than if every mistake characters made had wholly selfish and cruel goals.

i mean, there is a selfishness to many of the characters' actions but imo not in a way thats not warranted. because all of them are in a horrible setting. its uncomfortable to watch characters be selfish. but it is a natural instinct to survive. its not the foundation of most of their actions, but when it is, its uncomfortable but hard to completely disparage them for in a way that makes you feel kinda conflicted

and like. it hurts to be doing your best and for that to make things worse, but its what happens often in the show. because no one in a bad situation is gonna handle it well. by the very nature of trying to survive something is gonna give, but it makes the themes of the show so much more powerful. that making sure the people around you dont feel unloved, cherishing them and finding meaning with others is no less important just because everyone is fucking up. it complicates things, for sure, but it doesnt make those characters exempt fromt this. theres a reason pomni tells gummigoo that she doesnt want "anyone" to feel like theyre nothing, and that kinger doesnt add ANY quallifiers to making sure people feel wanted and loved (not that i think either of them were thinking SUPER super hard, but it conveys smth from the perspective of the narrative

it gets complicated when you add in jax for sure, since i think on the surface he IS the exception to this concept- none of the characters like him, including pomni or kinger. but i think this is something thats gonna be examined further down the line, bc hes the main complicating factor in this reading of the show, but i feel like thats on purpose. hes universally disliked (and so is caine, in a different way) and his actions arent mistakes. they are him coping. the show has made it clear that he can be a complex person AND also a piece of shit. his actions dont detract from the fact that hes a person and the show reminds us of this. so it makes things so messy, but im genuinely super excited to see how the show examines that. where his character goes is, imo, going to be a massive piece of how this show fleshes out this concept

#tadc #it just makes me so... man #all of them are coping in a way that influences their mistakes #like. i think the best example i could name is ragatha. she highlights this aspect of the show so well #shes struggling so much. shes doing her best to stay optimistic and because the others dont feel as hopeful as she presents herself #it distances them from her #she wants people to like her SO bad which reads so hard as fawning. but this also puts people off and makes her harder to trust #even if her care for the others is genuine the issue is that how she copes tends to leave her a little isolated in some way shape or form #and thats *just* ragatha #i shoudl write smth properly breaking down how this is done w the whole cast #cus i cannot fit it in these tags so i gotta put a pin in it.... but. have this #also ive said it before but i very genuinely think jax SHOULD get the chance to heal #i mean. i wouldnt like him if i had to know him in person. but i dont think thats . actually relevant #so how the show dissects his character going forward intrigues me and i wanna keep an eye on it so much #it is a BOLD move writing wise to establish him as a piece of shit and then to set up these ideas #cus theyre going somewhere im sure. they keep bringing it up #anywayyyyy. thats the post #sorry if any of it got confusing i have a lot of thoughts abt this but they get a tad jumbled bc theres just. so many factors #i need to make an essay outline before i make these posts LMAOOOOOO #OH YEAH WAIT #bonus:#i think abt how pomni abandons ragatha TWICE in ep 1 and i think it could make someone dislike her #but genuinely. makes me like her more. sometimes people get extremely selfish when theyre scared #its bad! but it makes sense. and it makes her feel so much more real #smth smth theres that saying that how someone acts under pressure says more abt them #but like. its complicated. because an easy way to get someone to act mean is to make them scared #esp since the phrase is more attributed to a crisis. but in tadc this is just their forever #and looong drawn out trauma makes people behave very differently #gestures. i dont have the words to break down that phrase wrt this show but maybe ill try later too. put a pin in that one as well #circus discussion

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maudiemoods · 1 year ago

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Guys I'm sorry but I'm too lazy to crop these augrhh

Ok ok ok, so have you seen those paintings where the characters are coming off the canvas? Yeah yeah you see where I'm going with this right

#so many projects i want to do but so little time and energy and money AUGHGG!!!#if i want more money i must work more but if i work more less time to work on silly things #sorry beebs is poorly done im so sleepy right now but i felt like if i doodled shrioe i had to doodle beebs #also i was worried id forget the pose i wanted augg #ok i sleep now wootwoot #maudiemoods art tag #monkey wrench #also also i promise they'll look better if i ever make this project these are just thoughts so i font forget cause i be doing that #ok ok done explaining myself goodnight

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good-beanswrites · 12 days ago

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legally blonde mahiru... cause like. finding validation thruogh achievement and not from love ehe

also following her ex to a college is smth she'd do 100%

SO TRUE!! When I sat down to watch the musical with my sister last summer I got wicked emotional about Mappi during What You Want, so I wrote some snapshot scenes incorporating those lyrics here :3 (And I added some indulgent au headcanons for the overall story at the end hehe)

“Law school?” Mahiru’s coworker raised her eyebrows. She finished wrapping a bouquet and added it to the finished ones. Though she spoke politely, Mahiru wasn’t stupid. Doubt lurked just beneath the surface of the carefully-asked questions. “That’s a pretty big change, huh? And for some boy?”

“Not ‘for some boy’ – Love! I’m doing this for love.” There was a big difference. She didn’t know why so many people didn’t understand. The actual feeling was something much bigger than either of the individuals involved. “And love will see me through.”

They worked at a florist’s, after all; their whole livelihood relied on love. They’d seen its power firsthand, through the successful dates and reunions that blossom into marriages, funeral arrangements for spouses devoted past lifetimes, apology gifts after turning one’s life around, and promise arrangements with the desire to do so. The shop had taken countless requests from clients hoping to shape their bouquet into something perfectly suited to their lover. Why couldn’t she do that very same work of molding to perfection?

Yes, there was no more righteous reason to do anything. She smiled to herself. “Yes, with love on my side, Mahiru can't lose~ They can't refuse a love so pure and true.”

“Well, they can…” The other woman returned her smile with a nervous one. It was alright that she was a bit pessimistic. Most people were, but it only made the truly devoted couples stand out even brighter against the crowd.

Mahiru picked up her own finished bouquet, taking a deep inhale of the fragrance. She giggled. “Oh come on, don't lawyers feel love too?”

—

“Miss Shiina. This is a very flashy presentation, but I still don't see one reason to admit you.”

She thought there were plenty of good reasons on the resume in the man’s hands, each one framed on the shimmery, sunflower-bordered stationary. Her personal essay and video essay had just as much flair, but if he was still reluctant to accept those, she did have one last ace up her sleeve. Honesty was the best policy – that’s what all the relationship columns and wellness blogs she followed always said. She took a deep breath.

“How about love?”

“Ah.” His eyes flicked down at her personal essay, placing the resume down beside it. He must have been recalling her beautifully eloquent recounting of her relationship. She could still feel the thrill of writing it all down, of laying out the events and gestures, the fights and reunions, the hopes and dreams. It was all there, a perfect record of the meaning of life, and the meaning of her future. “The thing is –”

“You ever been in love?”

He paused, caught off-guard by the question. Mahiru recognized the look on his face. He had indeed.

She went on, “because if you have, you'll know that love never accepts a defeat.” She thought of the many times she and her boyfriend had fought, or cancelled on each other, or even tried to break up. She’d always been able to reach back out, take hold of him, and save both of them from losing each other. “There’s no challenge it can't meet, no place it cannot go.”

“I admit, that’s a very nice sentiment, but we’re all adults here. I can tell you –”

Mahiru reached across the table to take his hands. “Don't say no to a woman in love!”

“Miss Shiina.” He yanked his hands back, entirely unamused by her sudden bout of excitement.

Had she overdone it again? Why did people think she was so crazy for this? It was only natural – only admirable – to put your whole self into a relationship you’re passionate about. She bowed her head. Her voice returned to its most earnest, sounding hushed and hopeful.

“Don't laugh when I say love. Don't think that I'm naive.” She’d heard that enough in her lifetime. She hadn’t let it stop her before, and she sure as hell wouldn’t let it stop her now. “Even a person who's smart can listen to their heart. They can listen and believe.”

“I… I see.” And he did. His eyes moved over her submissions again – full of passion and character and joy. Didn’t the world need a little more of that? Didn’t it need a lot more of that?

Even before she spoke, she could see that something had changed. She’d won him over. “So believe in what love can achieve~”

—

Au thoughts! I wasn’t able to feature everyone but I got a few of the cast here :3

Mahiru is bubbly and girly and enjoys her hobbies of literature/cosmetology/flowers – the major difference between her and Elle is that even while her positivity can immediately charm people, she doesn’t have as many close friends/family to support her. She really clings to her boyfriend, always obsessing over and returning to the relationship no matter what.

They have a rocky relationship that he finally decides to end for good. He says he needs to meet someone serious, and find some fulfillment in his life instead of going in depressive circles with her – he’ll accomplish all this by attending the famous Milgram School of Law (lol)

She, of course, takes this as an invitation to join him. She throws everything else away, pouring herself into this new personality and lifestyle for love. As someone already committed to her studies and good with language (as a literature major) she succeeds in getting in. “What, like it’s hard~?”

Once there, she’s horrified to find her boyfriend associating with another law student – one Kotoko Yuzuriha who’s the very image of “someone serious” he was looking for. (I don’t know if either of them would want to get romantically involved, but they definitely get close enough to cause a lot of jealousy.) Kotoko looks down on Mahiru’s lighthearted attitude in the face of the weighty cases they dealt with in class, and constantly one-ups her with her strength and toughness.

She also meets law-prodigy Es, and the two become close friends and study buddies. Es takes the time to listen to Mahiru’s story and loving and losing her boyfriend, feeling responsible but not quite sure how. As they understand her situation more, they manage to get Mahiru to believe she doesn’t need to do all this for some guy – she can live for herself. She gets the legal internship, and starts working with the others.

Meanwhile, Mahiru is meeting with her hairdresser, Kazui. He had a rough breakup in the past (his own fault, but still), and fears he’ll never be able to find that same sort of romance again, even as he’s crushing on the cute delivery guy (Mikoto. Shidou?) Mahiru helps him return to Hinako’s house to make amends and get some closure, then imparts her bending and snapping wisdom upon him to get his man 👏

Which brings her to the big case. Their team is defending Yuno Kashiki on an impossible murder trial. She begs Mahiru not to tell her alibi – that she was with a client on her private job. She felt real warmth with him, and doesn’t want to implicate him in both her work and the trial. Mahiru agrees in the name of protecting their love, much to the rest of the lawyers’ dismay.

(If anyone would fit the Callahan role it would be Jackalope lol, but I feel like we don’t even need that plotline since her themes are a bit different than the dumb-blonde ones.)

Callahan plot or not, Mahiru gets discouraged about the whole thing as everyone loses faith in her for not revealing Yuno’s secret. Other students at the school are caught whispering about her, calling her crazy, clingy, too emotional, selfish, and some even saying she’s a stalker for still keeping tabs on her boyfriend. She’s ready to leave the whole university and career behind when Kotoko stops her. She tells Mahiru that she was wrong about her, and encourages her to stick to her guns. And so, (after a Muu-focused rendition of Lesbian or European,) Mahiru is able to use her “girly” interests to catch the real criminal.

She graduates at the top of her class, finding fulfillment through this job of helping others and confidence in herself and her own interests. She’s content not to get back with her boyfriend (though, maybe over the years of working together, she and Kotoko end up spending some extra time together…)

#milgram #mahiru shiina #featuring brief mentions of 02-05-07-09-10-00 #i tried to spread the lyrics out and alter a few things so you werent just singing along to rhyming dialogue #but if youre familiar with it that may still happen asdfasdf sorry #im still mad i couldnt smoothly include it but i loved ‘im doing this for love/ and thats how ill survive’#like i think she said that exact thing in milgram at some point lol #i couldve sworn i made a post about it when i was having what you want thoughts about her but #Would You Believe i cant find a post on my own blog with tumblrs search function 👍#i didnt want to make her bf as much of a jerk as the original lol #just that he still had mental health stuff and wasnt good for her in general #and yeah it can definitely still have the callahan stuff #i just figured it was more about elle thinking she wasnt smart enough to earn her place #while mahiru would accept that she earned it but not know why people still think her motivations are shallow or her #behaviors seem ‘over the top’#kotoko could also make a good emmet! given canon i liked the enemies to friends/lovers route hehe #thank you so much for the request!! i had so many emotions about this already and it was so fun to write it our in a little scene :3 #drabbles #i should get an au tag

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