#but anyway do not flatten the analysis

[ariadne-mouse]

I imagine Essek had one or two record scratch moments in his youth

Such as, alternately,

[cleromancy]

ppl who are like "everyone is reading red robin wrong, there's no tension anymore between dick and tim, everything was completely resolved, look at these panels see they're completely fine :-)" im always like. Did dick tell you that

[hivemuthur]

Hi!!! Everything you write is so beautiful and so fun to read, and it never fails to make my day <3

I don’t know if you would want to do my request, maybe it’s a little bit too specific… Anyway, since I’m struggling with my PhD (it’s in literature, and I have no clue what I’m doing), I was thinking if Viktor, being an academic weapon and also the sweetest boyfriend ever, would be so kind as to give the reader some advice, or at least some consolation

Hiya! I never got to PhD so I admire you insanely. Here's some hype man Viktor for you to get you back on track!

Persistently Holding Dearest

viktorxgn!reader general - fluff! Viktor supports Reader through the PhD struggle by being a pookie.

word count: 0,6K

author’s note: art by @petitesieste of course!

—

Despair might be a touch overdramatic, but you are inching toward something adjacent. Lodged somewhere between exasperation and resignation, you feel like a complete fraud—staring at words you don’t even remember writing, with no idea what should come next.

The table is strewn with books: annotated margins, half-finished thoughts, too many tabs, too many highlighted lines that used to make sense. Your laptop hums beside a mug of tea long gone cold, a dark ring of residue clinging to the rim. The cursor blinks, maddeningly, on a sentence that refuses to finish itself.

You sigh, rubbing your temples. “I think I’m going to die before this chapter is done.” A soft shuffle behind you. Then a hand, warm and familiar, lands gently on your shoulder.

“Statistically unlikely,” Viktor says, tone far too calm for your unravelled nerves. He leans down to press a kiss to your temple, the corner of his mouth curving. “Though I suppose we could dramatize it for effect.”

“I’m serious,” you murmur. “I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. I read one sentence and immediately forget the previous one. What if I’ve lost the thread entirely? I’m losing my mind,” you whine, flattening your face in your palms.

His arms come around you from behind, folding you into the kind of embrace that steadies things without asking them to stop spinning. “Then we find it again.” A chuckle, then—“Both the thread and the mind,” he explains.

You laugh, quiet and bitter. “It’s not that easy.”

“No,” he agrees. “But it’s not impossible either.”

You turn slightly in his arms, meeting his eyes. “How do you do it? All the theory and analysis and structure—and not feel like a fraud every time you put something down?”

Viktor tilts his head, considering. “I do feel like a fraud. Often.” He brushes a knuckle over your cheek. “But then I remember—doubt is not a weakness, it’s proof that you care. That you’re thinking deeply. It’s the arrogant who stop questioning.”

You breathe out, slow. Something in your chest unknots. “You really believe that?”

“I believe in you,” he says, firm now, no softness in that conviction. “And that’s not blind faith. I’ve seen the way you work. How your mind builds connections no one else sees. It’s beautiful.”

Your eyes sting, and you lean into him fully. “I’m not sure what I’m doing.”

“That’s alright,” he murmurs. “Let’s figure it out together.”

He nudges the chair beside you with his cane. “Show me what’s giving you trouble. We’ll wrestle the sentence into submission. Like real academics.”

You huff a laugh and reach for your laptop. He settles beside you, eyes bright, posture relaxed, like he has all the time in the world just to help you find your words.

It gets better, then worse again. Then better for a while as you find your rhythm, empty cups mounting around the both of you. Then, inevitably, worse again as exhaustion sets in, and you slump against the chair, groaning.

“PhD,” you scoff. “More like perpetually heading downwards.”

Viktor hums, nudging your foot with his. “Perhaps, holding determination?”

You snort. “Perishing horribly, daily.”

A soft chuckle escapes him as he leans forward, wraps his arms around your waist, and rests his chin on your shoulder, breath fanning your cheek. “How about,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss just beneath your ear, “persistently holding dearest?”

“Persistently holding dearest, preventing perishing horribly, daily?” you offer, downright sold on his option.

Viktor hums a soft laugh and mutters somewhere into the space between your ear and mouth, “I can accept such compromise.”

[lesbianisamu]

Why Isamu Being Queer Could've Benefitted His Arc Of Courage: A Semi-Coherent Ramble (and Criticism)

Disclaimer: I have zero intent to attack any member of the development team, my criticisms are untargeted and will remain unnamed. I encourage discussion about this topic. I (OBVIOUSLY) do not want disagreement in the form of homophobia. Yes I'm queer my URL is literally lesbianisamu what did you think I was? Not a lesbian? I'll start writing now.

The Mimic has a fairly substantial and fairly egregious history with misrepresenting mental health issues. This is relevant. While TMO (The Mimic Origins) is no longer canon (thank god), its influences still remain. While it is no longer explicitly canon that Futaba, or Futao, has bipolar disorder/bpd (unclear), the stereotypes, mishandling and frankly ridiculous storytelling are still present in The Witch Trials. This point has been done to death, but I will reiterate anyway.

Making a character with a severe mental illness an evil, abusive, disgusting individual is not GOOD(edit) representation, believe it or not. At first it seems that Futaba is aware of her struggles and how it affects her daughter, though I still don't like this. By the end, she completely contradicts herself by doing a 180 and claiming that she is not at fault for any of her actions and instead blaming the demon inside of her. Woah. Sure. Also the split-into-two representations of being manic and depressive with the depressive constantly humming a melancholy tune and crying, while the manic, or the demon (Mote) is constantly cackling with inhuman laughter. It's odd. Left a terrible taste in my mouth.

Yasu is a character who is objectively non-abusive. Pretty non-problematic too. I don't have much to say on the character himself as I've never fixated enough to do a full analysis (sorry to my Yasoomfs), but I can say that his resulting mental health was also handled poorly. So thoroughly traumatised by the events of Control that he apparently? Has PTSD? DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS. Either way, I'm going to disregard that, I just had to bring up the hearsay. Regardless of whether he did end up with a trauma based mental health disorder or not, the way he was treated and left after Control by the writing is nothing short of bleak. All of his friends being turned into butterfly spirits and then him being forced to sacrifice them simply to move onto a new room of horror? His parents being caught with his mother hanging in front of him, only to find out when he saves them that they don't remember a thing? Being hunted down by nightmarish mutants that are his long-dead family members, forced to save them all and carry the burden of the curse on largely unsuspecting shoulders? You might think he was put in therapy, or had counselling, or maybe sought out other people who had gone through similar experiences so he could start to heal.

We don't know anything after the knowledge that his parents are amnesiacs about the event. Like I'm not kidding, zilch. Second edition of a character with obviously poor mental health being mistreated by the direction the writing either took or didn't take.

Senzai. Jesus fucking Christ. The next edition we have of mental health representation is a guy who canonically is a terrorist, murderer and conspirator who flattened, and aided to flatten the densest city in terms of population on Earth. I don't think I need to say much more on this topic. If I do, I'll get angry. I hate Senzai and I wish he was written about ten million times better than he is.

In the case of both Senzai and Futaba, they are victims of abuse/generational trauma, which led to or exacerbated their previously present mental health issues. Both wind up as. I don't want to be yelled at again for my wording. Abysmal people. That's 3/3 so far on mental health, all awful, all harmful, and all bleak which is not really the tone mental health representation should speak with.

I promise you it was relevant to the title. Now that we know The Mimic has an, at best, shaky representation with mental health issues and illnesses, we could probably hope that their queer representation would be bett-

They decanonised Enzukai being genderqueer (fluid? or agender? not certain) when JC4 came out. They did this, I think, in an effort to lift the possible implications of a genderqueer character being. Evil demon creature. I get it, like I do. There's also literally everything else. Like Senzai being implied to be queer.

A character who is queer being a bad person is not inherently a poor writing choice. Just because someone is queer, they are not exempt from being awful, they are not exempt from consequence, and they most certainly are not exempt from being criticised for their actions in media, or in real life. However. Senzai is a genocidal terrorist who, I'm not kidding, killed upwards of NINE MILLION PEOPLE. Yes while under the cults influence, and Yes gave himself up to the authorities after (another can of worms) but holy shit. nine fucking million. It's not the best message to give off and I hope I don't have to explain why. Edit: I should have stated that this is heavily implied rather than explicitly canon, but my main point still stands.

Yes, fucked up evil queer characters are sometimes fun, but its less fun when so far (and continuing) its the only gimmick that the queer characters get. Then it's weird.

My biggest gripe is honestly with the Nagemi character in Halloween Trials. OOOO god. It's agender. Win for agender's right? WRONG. WE LOSE. AGAIN. It is, if you haven't actually seen the character, half a body. It is a decaying freakish torso that crawls behind you and kills you like all other mimic monsters. In an old. Insane. Asylum. AN INSANE ASYLUM. What the actual fuck.

There are no queer characters who are happy with their queerness, no queer characters that actually even have an arc that remotely includes their queer aspect, and all of them are fucking oddball freaks. I'm not including Kibo Edouji as a queer character, even though he pretty much objectively is as much as I detest the Kizai propaganda that gets pushed, because he's essentially a brick with a jumper, with no actual character arc, and exists purely to be in love with Senzai. (HEAVY IMPLICATION)

Overall. Not a good look. Time for the main event.

Isamu is a character that hides. While it's obviously not intentional, Book 2 gameplay has an extreme increase in hiding spots compared to Book 1. He was neglected by his father and mother, and definitely is a victim of their abuse I genuinely will not take any of that "we didn't see him get hit" bullshit. Go read my other post about this if you want to argue. Neglected for the first 15 years of his life and probably beyond, hiding in plain sight from care, and this is also shown in the way the C3 teaser shows him deflecting blame from himself, trying to remain hidden, and being caught off-guard when involved in a conversation only to act as the deciding factor in the result of the event, the result being Senzai hit over the head with a glass bottle. His only method of reliable defence was to hide, and he continued to do so throughout the book, hiding or running from danger instead of fighting it.

Giving Isamu a queer identity, or more likely a genderqueer identity would've fitted his character if shown, even briefly, alongside the display of his upbringing. He knows how to hide, it has been instilled into him from the moment he was brought into the world. He was also neglected, meaning the attention was away from him and on his older brother anyway. He could've gotten away with existing as a queer person in his early teens, though it wouldn't necessarily have been readily accepted by his peers. When thrust into the spotlight after the incident, and focus placed on him, likely to "marry well and continue the family lineage", he would've struggled with the conversations.

The UK is currently a shitshow with protecting queer and trans people, but even in school when it wasn't so abhorrent as it is now, the bullying was horrific, and I was incredibly lucky to have firm friends alongside me. I cannot imagine how difficult and isolating it would be in a country such as Japan where gay marriage is still not legal.

This, however, would contribute to him being isolated as an early adult. Isamu has no friends or partners listed in his "relationships" tab on the wiki. In a country where there is an ongoing "loneliness" epidemic, being queer would only further isolate you.

I think him specifically being some form of trans (transfem/neutral) would've introduced yet another parallel to Enzukai. Youngest siblings vying for the attention of their family and going to extreme methods for it (destructive in Enzukai's case and semi-self-destructive in Isamu's). Informal and crass, making (and keeping) them both genderqueer would've introduced a neat parallel, showing us again that Senzai turned from his brother to a version that could give him power, instead of accepting the power that came from Isamu's encouragement. But they decanonised Enzukai being genderqueer. So whatever.

It also gives us an aspect to Isamu's character that's a personal struggle, even if it's in the background and barely touched upon, and derails the focus from being entirely on Senzai and the antagonists for THE ENTIRE BOOK. He wouldn't be a person going through shit in a queer way, it wouldn't be a central aspect of his character. He'd be a character going through shit who also happened to be queer but ultimately is busy focused on saving the world. It humanises him a little and shows how things operate in the real world. Being queer is important to me, undoubtedly, but I also have a job, I have responsibilities, I don't focus on being queer 110% of the time, because it's just one aspect of who I am. It would add another layer to his character that makes him more intriguing when his arc is all about COURAGE. and supposedly acceptance but the execution of that was dubious at best

Isamu's courage. Growing up, becoming stronger, saving his brother and saving the remaining people of Tokyo that he could at extreme risk to himself. I have points to make but they're not totally relevant. Stay Tuned Maybe.

Actually fighting the monsters, fighting a huge dragon with the weaponry equivalent of a very bright candle and barely breaking a sweat. But also having the courage finally to actually show his emotions, show his feelings to someone who isn't himself, and actually break down a little bit even if it was for five seconds, he had the courage to not be okay for a moment. If Isamu had gone through the journey of queer self-acceptance before all this had gone down, it would've GREATLY increased his ability to become courageous and stay courageous, as it is such a hard thing for many people to do, and would show his eternal strength and bravery to keep existing despite the world being against you for who you're attracted to or what you identify as.

We would also finally have a queer character who is genuinely a good person, who before the events had a stable job he enjoyed and got along with his coworkers, even if he wasn't the best at making friends. We would have a queer character who isn't a terrorist, who isn't just a creature or an insane asylum resident clump of flesh. We would have a queer character who is the HERO of the story instead of being a direct antagonist. We would have a complicated, naive and slightly flawed in his thinking queer person who felt the most like an actual, real human from this game.

I have contradicted myself and been aware of it the whole time, as it fuels my own point. Isamu is not a happy character. Even if he was queer he would not exist peacefully, but it isn't due to his queerness. This is less of a point about how queer people rarely end up happy in media - although it's also one I'm actively making - and more about how Isamu himself was treated anyway. A punching bag, a scapegoat for the writers and the fandom intentionally or not, abused, belittled, refused genuine peace at every turn, his one supportive figure snatched away from him at the very last moment, and the last thing he sees being his brother flinching away from him in fear, confirming to him that his self-hatred was correct, diminishing any and all character growth that they barely acknowledged before ripping it away. He died alone and unloved, and being queer wouldn't fix that, a complete rewrite would, and should be done.

To conclude: I'm always going to be angry about the mental health mishandling that happened and continues to happen in this game. Isamu's entire character focus should not have been on his brother. Your only queer characters should not be fucked up evil insane 100% of the time. I miss Isamu. He's a transfem lesbian to me always and forever.

Edit: I've received a little criticism on this post, and have made necessary edits and changes, particularly in my wording or indication as to whether something is implied or is canon, or whether something is representation or not.

[lucabyte]

thinking about the very specific reading of isat i had during act 3 for the most part

anyway yeah ill ramble here about this. since it actually explains my headcanons for what the disappearing island wish was

disclaimer: taken as a whole this is way too allegorical for what i'd consider a holistic reading of isat, but it was part of my running theories at the time.

anyway my guess for the real-world equivalent of the island ended up being French Polynesia by the end of the game. I had initially thrown a dart at siffrin being greek wrt europe, sisyphus allusion, enjoyment of plays and seafairing-- but the moment that little guy started getting real weird about stars and specified they were from an island i switched my guess to him being polynesian. And then that reading only really strengthened from there (and i was pretty close, tbf!)

but yeah during act 3, especially the king plotline, i started thinking about the themes of cultural erasure + lack of identity that the game has and how that plays wrt vaugarde's extremely welcoming and diverse nature.

reading far too much into it but it made me wonder if they are the results of a fallen empire of some kind. somewhere that gathered people from across the globe (as empires are known to do) before dissolving into what seems to be a localised theocracy of some kind?

like. vaugarde is basically the Good End for an empire. Fully demilitarised (they barely have use for police to the point where the defenders are surprised by burglaries, and almost CERTAINLY have zero army), extremely diverse, not caring where one comes from.

(either that or they've been a socialist utopia like, forever? and thus just aquired migrants perpetually... but ka bue is characterised as harsher by odile in a lot of respects so one can assume its not that the whole planet is Niceys All The Time.)

this lines up pretty well with the um. Whole France Thing. Boy do they own a lot of islands still that they maybe shouldn't. Also lines up with bonnie's word-of-god french creole dialect. So Vaugarde as the welcoming, ideal form of former-colonialiser-nation is like. one i vibe with if we're gonna read too hard into the worldbuilding as presented.

Anyway all this to say I did for a time wonder if the Northern Island wish was 'For The Island To Be Safe'. Assuming this world to have any level of inter-country conflict-- Wish craft is powerful stuff, and a singular island might not be able to defend itself against those seeking to take it by force. Hiding the island from the world would protect it.

... though that felt like an unusually cruel read. The implication that cloistering away like that is a 'valid' strategy for a culture to be safe (albeit with the splash damage of hurting any diaspora).

Plus, wish craft is superbly powerful, with evidently its use on the island only becoming more widespread after it was discovered how to make it work Consistently.

(i work here under the assumption that Siffrin's growing cloak is imbued with wish craft, assumedly the same as the king's armour? Since there's no way that was created at that scale...)

So it almost makes more sense, to me, for the wish to be to 'Protect The World (universe) From Us' or to 'Keep The Universe Safe'.

Wish craft being so second nature to the Islanders (See: Siffrin, favour tree), that a wish that breaks the universe is almost inevitable were the knowledge to become widespread and ingrained.

This too is an oddly cruel read, that a culture's rituals can be dangerous to that degree, but ... ? Dunno. Like I said, reading it as hard allegory makes it fall apart somewhat. Symbols can mean many different things at once until you flatten them for direct analysis like this. I don't think it's quite so 1-to-1, and it's honestly slightly too 'no story only lore' for my tastes, so I did push a lot of this stuff out of my analytical mind once I started getting to the back and of act 3 and into act 4.

Anyway. Not the most coherent explanation in the world, but still some thoughts I had mid-game that i figure i should put somewhere at least, even if I don't think they are really what the game is going for.

As a bonus, the discussions on what the island wish were in this context also lead my friend @samhainian to speculation on the colour wish that i really enjoy. Which is....

The wish that removed colour from humans perception of the world being something along the lines of:

"I wish the world was simpler"

ergo, removing colour as an invocation of Nuiance VS Black and White Morality. The world is simpler, easier to understand.

I think it's a fun headcanon! I like it.

Well anyway. A work is more than the sum of its parts and dissecting something so sloppily as this often does it a disservice. So don't take my theorising as anything more than a general rundown of where my head was at mid-game before i had all the pieces. The emotional core of the story is far more where it's at for ISAT sooooo. [Shrugs and scampers away]

[balrogballs]

hi! Reading some of your other asks, specifically the most recent one about Prayers to a Broken Stone and how you linked the Valar's authority and decisions to the Nehruvian nationalism, and in another i think that you talked about how both Elwing and Earendil have to renounce to their hybrid status of half-elven to properly fit into the established order ... I am curious, therefore you don't see the Valar as fully positive beings, or you think that their flaws are somewhat overshading their most positive qualities? I am valar-neutral (i don't think much about them) so im not interested in whatever Valar discourse is floating around, but i am interested in your vision on the matter because i can see how it's a theme that returns in your writing (Prayers, albeit the Valar here are translated as an idealized post colonial India, The Island Dwellers etc)

Thanks for the great question, this is sooo juicy!

Anyway, I’d describe myself as ‘Valar neutral’ too, I find them most interesting when viewed as entirely fallible, Greek pantheon style. What I do side-eye is the idea that everything the Valar do must be morally correct or at least “good aligned” simply because it's part of the world’s order, as if their decisions and punishments are the natural consequences of the Eldar’s mistakes. That is, my contention isn’t really with how the Valar are constructed in the legendarium at all, but with how some interpretations tend to sanctify them, treating the Valar as simply ‘god lite’ (referring to the Christian conception of god) rather than as powerful beings who can get things seriously wrong. 

That kind of reading, often shaped by an overreliance on Tolkien’s religious background (and sometimes its alignment with the reader’s), can lead to overly rigid moral interpretations. I’m not denying that Tolkien’s theology plays a foundational role in the legendarium, but focusing only on that can flatten the text and ignore the many other mythic influences that make it richer.

I’ve actually written some notes on this for another essay — including thoughts on Elwing and Eärendil’s fates, Celebrimbor, Pharazôn, and a little bit about how this figures into Prayers. I’m not arguing that “the Valar are colonial rulers” at all, absolutely not, nor even labeling them good or bad collectively, but rather that any analysis of individual instances of good and evil in The Silmarillion would be enriched by a consideration of the wider power structure and its role in creating the environment for these actions.

  Sorry if the tone is a bit dry/boring, the bulk of this comes from notes I wrote for myself 😅

— Setup of the Valar: Tolkien's metaphysics embrace "the tragic consequences of freedom exercised within a fallen world" (Virtue, Order and Tolkien). The Valar, in this schema, are free moral agents who participate in creation and ‘rule’ with mixed success and their decisions have tangible, sometimes devastating consequences. Akallabêth, the Doom of Mandos, the fate of the Peredhel: a theology in which divine figures can be both majestic and mistaken, capable of moral authority but also extreme misjudgment.

— When the Valar summon the Elves to Aman, disrupting the emergent cultural ecologies of Cuiviénen, they claim to be enacting Eru's will. But of course, there is no direct word from Eru endorsing this relocation and regardless of who ordered what, the migration of the Elves introduces "a new form of dislocation and alienation that reverberates across the history of Arda" (Splintered Light).

— The presumed moral authority becomes even more tenuous when thinking about the Doom upon the Noldor. Is the Doom an act of moral judgment or conditional warning? The equivocal nature of this sort of proclamation, as well as its malleability (the ability to pick and change and reverse it depending on what they decree individuals ‘deserve’ or otherwise depending on the palatability, not impact, but specifically palatability, of the lives they led in Middle Earth, see: Finrod) suggests that the Valar operate within a fallible interpretative space. Think Curry, Doom being “a tragic dimension of stewardship” rather than an omniscient deity’s absolute proclamation. 

— From an anticolonial studies standpoint, the summoning of the Elves to Aman, the sequestering of knowledge and light in Valinor, and disproportionate punishment (just in case someone wants to send me a ‘you’re only saying this because the Valar were mean to the blorbos’ I’m not actually talking about Feanor and his sons here, I’m referring mostly to the fate of Eärendil and Elwing), I read this as a governance structure that privileges distance + hierarchy + symbolic purity. 

— The fate of Elwing and Eärendil, and by extension Elrond and Elros as well as Elrond’s children = ambivalent Valarin attitude towards hybridity. Eärendil granted access to Valinor only due to pleading for both Men and Elves, rather than just the former. Elwing, likewise, is transformed into a sea-bird, untethered from her human lineage, before being restored and essentially confined to a tower. Neither are permitted to truly return regardless of them having performed a “good deed” that saves the Eldar’s asses as well as everyone else’s: their deeds are secondary to their blood. 

There’s a lot of vim against M&M for attacking what is essentially a refugee settlement aka Sirion, and absolutely fair enough and justified vim, because that is indeed what they do and they are accordingly punished for it by the narrative. However, this refugee lens is often not really applied to the treatment E&E get in Aman, which is a shame because I think it contributes to a richer and more “whole” reading of the post-Sirion sequence. To put it directly, E&E being admitted into Aman isn’t exactly a transcendent act of divine hospitality and reads more as a regulated border negotiation that to me parallels the conditional admittance of refugees into “sovereign” spaces, and the textual language here speaks to that as well, (eg: Valar “held their peace”).   

Them, their children, and theirs, are then forced to choose a "side": Elf or Man, a binary that erases their mixed heritage in favour of categorical legibility. And this is done in a rather uncomfortable ‘blood ratio’ way, with the third generation onwards not having to choose because by then, they are deemed to have less ‘mixed’ blood, something made even more unsettling because of the way ‘the Gift of Men’, a direct gift from Eru, is allowed to be administered by the Valar, but not able to be ‘taken away’. 

— This kind of sorting mechanism reflects a Valarin discomfort with the instability hybridity represents. Again, if we’re going back to postcolonial basics, ie Edward Said, "imperialism... is an act of geographic violence" but also of "epistemological purification". The Peredhel choice doesn’t actually “resolve” hybridity but dismembers it, demanding that half-elves must sever parts of their identity to remain intelligible within the divine order.

And I’m not even saying this in a “this is a reading that ignores the author’s beliefs”, because the embrace of hybridity is also a theological concept: Heaney (Postcolonial Theology) argues for an embrace of hybrid and contradictory subjectivities as central to spiritual truth, and even within that theological framework, the Valar’s discomfort with such subjects exposes the limits of their moral imagination. And keeping with Heaney, Valinor can be read as what he terms “the bordered sacred”, a sacralised, exclusionary zone whose permeability is contingent on moral performance and alignment with established hierarchies of purity. 

The admittance of E&E and later Elrond (and also Galadriel and other Noldor, if we’re not just talking about hybridity) does not abolish the frontier between Aman and Middle-earth; it reinforces the border’s authority through the trope of exceptionalism. And I think that’s much more interesting on a literary level, where the border to the divine realm is not dissolved by need or justice, but politically negotiated across millennia of feudalistic clusterfucking. 

— The decision to remove Aman from the circles of the world following the Akallabêth = another theologically unsettling example of such abstraction. Instead of rehabilitating or engaging with the “fallen” Númenóreans, the Valar retreat, despite the role of the moral regime’s rigidity in producing resentment and rebellion and thus, susceptibility to Sauron’s manipulation (has me thinking about Gondor + Haradrim in a way lol). What makes Celebrimbor’s fallibility so different to Pharazon’s? And I’m talking about believing Sauron’s deception, not equating them as rulers. Yes, the Numenoreans turn to Morgoth-worship whilst the Eldar of Eregion do not: however, the immortal Eldar have direct knowledge and experience of Morgoth’s cruelty, whilst the short-lived Numenoreans do not, Elros’ generation having passed on centuries ago. Who gets preserved, who is punished, and who is deemed redeemable? 

— The Fëanor Problem: sadly and amusingly, a pretty good example for the fallibility of the Valar-moral-apparatus is Fëanor and his little speech. Note this is in no way absolving Fëanor of his ethnonationalist, er, zeal, kinslaying, ship-burning or any of the other fuckeries brought about by the oath and its direct consequences. But I do think the Valar's earlier decisions create the structural preconditions for his “fall”. In that Fëanor’s fuckery is not born in a vacuum, but emerges in response to a very hierarchical + exclusionary cosmology that, for a lot of his generation, is all they know. The Valar's control over light, history, and narrative fuels Fëanor's persuasiveness by fostering a general sense of exclusion: he’s extremely skilled in speechcraft, yes, but the people who follow him aren’t exactly stupid and thanks to the events of the Fëanor/Fingolfin split and general Silmaril-centric chaos, many including Fingolfin himself are aware of Fëanor’s pride, possessiveness, and xenophobic insularity, and yet they—even after the ostensibly relieving F&F reconciliation comes at a feast thrown by Manwë—follow him. 

— The speech as presented in Morgoth’s Ring devolves into straight up ethnonationalism and calls for violence towards the end, but begins by positioning the Eldar as “cooped here in a narrow land between the jealous mountains and the harvestless Sea? Here once was light, that the Valar begrudged to Middle-earth, but now dark levels all. Shall we mourn here deedless for ever, a shadow-folk, mist-haunting, dropping vain tears in the salt thankless Sea?”  – hitting the subjecthood of the Eldar, and the fear+lack of control rampant in the moment. “Good at speechcraft” isn’t a fixed, measurable quality or simply referring to delivery style, it, like all ‘effective speeches’ in history, ‘good’ and ‘evil’ both, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum and utilises what may be legitimate grievance and discontent, turning it into, well, whatever the fuck he wants.

Feenie is a gold-star RETVRN-style ethnonationalist (this and the general colonial Noldor project perfectly outlined by tobermoriansass in that linked post), where the “manifest destiny” aspects of his speech definitely echoes the revolutionary logics of settler ideology: the casting of self-exile as liberation, the moral absolutism of possession, and the claim to an exceptionalist destiny… this kind of rhetoric doesn’t emerge only from individual pathology but is rooted in systemic failure, and the speech in itself, across all the versions presented (Lays of Beleriand, Morgoth’s Ring, Lost Tales) utilises the diction and speech/rhythmic patterns of both prayer and war-chant. 

— In this framework, one in which he is not only believed but also followed, Fëanor is not solely an anomalous madman and more a symptom of a wider structure that conflates authority = goodness = godliness = absolute truth. The speech works well because it’s both rebellion and parody: mimics the Valar’s own mythic absolutism + turns it against them, and as with historical movements like the example I compared it to, ie ‘manifest destiny’, it is not the rejection of the dominant ideology but its appropriation that renders it most dangerous.

– As in, his insistence that the Noldor must claim lands in Middle-earth to restore their greatness, cloaking personal vengeance in the language of civilisational renewal, etc, is exactly what makes Fëanor so potent + perilous: he doesn’t shatter the ideological apparatus of Valinor but inhabits + repurposes it, weaponising its core assumptions, ie chosenness, hierarchy, moral clarity, against its architects. And that really exemplifies the danger endemic to all rigid hierarchical systems of authority based on a light-vs-dark binary understanding of morality: the structures can very easily be inhabited by those who use the same principles to justify radically destructive ends. Fëanor’s appropriation destabilises the Valar’s moral legitimacy far more than an external enemy, say Morgoth or even Pharazōn, precisely because it reveals that the fault lines of violence already existed within the Eldar’s own worldview. 

And going back up again to Mike’s meta that I linked, he details how Finrod (and Galadriel) both are seen to absolutely buy into the colonial project. Note that these two are respectively rewarded and pardoned by the Valar for their role in the fight against Morgoth—their participation in the colonial aspects of the Noldor-in-ME project aren’t what led to their punishment, but rather their disobedience of the Valar themselves by following Fëanor. (And of course, they have the, er, correct racial makeup, let’s just say, to be pardoned and rewarded for their good deeds instead of needing to stand at the border forced to use their mortality as a negotiation tactic…)

— with the application of this to Prayers, I go into it way more here, but quoting from said post, “imperialism isn’t just doorstep-violence and military campaigns, it is also maintained through juridical, metaphysical, and symbolic orders enforced by supposedly benevolent “higher powers” — there is no imperial structure without that specific framework, be it settler-colonialism or core-periphery imperialism”

 + “The impermissibility of ‘transgression’ in a colonial/postcolonial regime is actually a massive theme in one of the texts this fic engages with, probably the biggest one: Roy’s GoST, in which the characters are ‘punished’ by the environment, both natural, familial and political, for their choice to transgress ‘the Love Laws, as in, who should be loved, and how, and how much’. E/E but also the other two Peredhel or elf/human couples (B/L, I/T) both have ‘big choices’ that directly correlate to transgression+elf/half-elf identity. Once again, the choices and outcomes are all different based on their justifications for said ‘transgressions’ impacting the Valar’s judgement upon them. I thought this was also interesting to explore, and is in my opinion one of the more overt imperial elements within the source text, yet one that is often flattened by reading the Silmarillion as an internecine Sindar/Noldor conflict with no other elements involved, let alone the ‘benevolent’ adjudicatory position of, quite literally, the divine powers that be, whose decisions can be reversed or amended, but only on their terms.”

— Just reiterating from the start, interrogating the moral infallibility of the Valar is not me casting them collectively as villains, but me disagreeing with the idea that their decrees are synonymous with the “good” or the “righteous” and that the Valar-arbitrated framework, well, “works”.  They’re not Christian apostles (as in, the way said apostles are rendered in scripture and received by believers) but personified archetypes of creation, judgment, wisdom, and healing, each flawed in their execution, their fallibility being written into the First Music itself, ie Marring/Melkor. 

As with the theological traditions Tolkien draws upon, primarily Catholic and Augustinian formulations of divine justice, there is room within the legendarium for contestation and ambiguity: imo the Valar’s narrative function reads close to what liberation theologians call "conflicted intermediaries" (A Theology of Liberation), ie agents who can both participate in divine will and misrecognise + misappropriate it. 

(Ulmo is one of the few who continues to intervene in Middle-earth after the ban, and I do enjoy reading him as a counterpoint to the retreat of the others = an implicit critique of their detachment… meddling king… and I also enjoy Celegorm/Oromë which blurs the Eldar/Valar line in some really fun, irreverent and sexy ways LMAOOO)

I realise a lot of this is a brain dump but hopefully this makes a little bit of sense in how I view them?

[mesopelagic-zone]

im so fucking tired!!!!

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live action Lilo & Stitch is capitalist, money hungry, ignorant, western direction at its peak. i am so. nauseous.

the plot was just. scrubbed and sanitized of everything that made the original movie so incredible. DISCLAIMER: not an avid disney fan, or even hater, just feeling angry and it's 1 am. rant incoming.

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edit [6/10/25]: hi! a post by @artist-issues is linked below the break which has a significantly more nuanced and thorough analysis of the movie's flaws than my post! my rant is vastly oversimplified by comparison, so I highly recommend you give it a read!

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criticism of the tourism industry? scrubbed. probably so that the movie could be better used to promote the disney resort in oahu!!!!! fuck that shit!!!!

rejection of a standard villain, just the complex evils of people following orders and doing what they think is right? replaced. injection of a flattened villain arc for a previously morally fluid character.

the very real threat of familial separation by the state through cps? deemed too upsetting for the audience and sanitized to the point of disfigurement.

the movie's main message, to never leave family behind? your chosen family and the family you have despite your differences and despite the tough conditions you're under? to offer forgiveness and understanding to those who have wronged you? to question obedience to authority when you know it hurts those you love? horrifically de-emphasized to the point of neglect.

nani leaves lilo, voluntarily, to the foster system to study marine biology in the mainland united states (ignoring the incredible marine biology opportunities present in hawaii). and? to remedy the studying overseas issue? a portal gun is introduced as the solution.

stitch never even repeats the 'ohana' line.

urghhh. anyways. incoherent rant over. fuck disney. good night.

[skiddlecat]

you know what? fuck it. the dynamic between taco and microphone is really interesting and dumbing it down to "evil terrible abuser and poor innocent victim" flattens both of their characters simultaneously.

they both hurt Each Other in ways that can't be undone!!! mic did her fair share of Fucking It Up Big Time as well and i think the way their fallout went down is the best example of times mic could have been better. and before anyone says it NO i'm NOT saying she didn't have a right to back out when she did but what i AM saying is that i think the way she handled cutting taco off showcases one of her biggest character flaws EXCELLENTLY:

when she's hurt by someone, she will hurt them back twice as hard. cheesy makes an insensitive joke? she calls him a monster. taco relapses in her bad habits? she weaponizes her past friendship with pickle. i'm pretty confident in saying both of these responses are Pretty Damn Disproportionate. and i think that's really interesting!!! we should talk more about this!!!!!!!!!

taco did a lot of bad things in their friendship and should absolutely be held accountable for it, but i also think simply calling her a heartless abuser is horribly undermining her character. like, imagine with me, if you will:

(post-writing note. HOLY SHIT this was way longer than i thought it'd be. putting the rest of this post under the cut because the previous paragraphs are pretty much all my thoughts but i kind of go into a full taco character analysis below. if you want to see that then keep reading i suppose LMAOOO)

you once accidentally formed a friendship with someone based off of a lie. you exposed the lie, sabotaged that relationship, and cut him off. that was the last conversation you had. a good while later you realize that, oh no, you actually DID care about this person, and you miss him! but he's GONE and it's YOUR FAULT!!! so you write. you write, you write, you write, hoping to get a response, but you never do.

and then. and then you find someone else. someone who's loud, chaotic, cast out. she reminds you a little too much of the lie you built for yourself. and so, you help her. for your own selfish reasons, sure, but you attempt to reign her in. she doesn't trust you at first, you don't trust her either, and you are... less than kind to her. it's not pretty, but at this point it doesn't really matter to you, because right now she's just a means to an end. she doesn't mean anything to you.

but slowly, over time, things start changing. she starts seeing past the brick walls you built around yourself. starts trying to break them down, little by little. you avoid, you resist, you do everything you can to prevent her from getting through, because vulnerability is frankly disgusting, and you don't want to talk about your problems anyway! but, this doesn't last. you actually apologize to her, for being so closed off, because you should be doing better, and she seems to appreciate it.

someone brings up that old friend to her. you get MAD. it's like rubbing salt in the wound, reminding you of every reason you're not happy, every reason you've been scared of getting too close. he suggests that you will leave her the same way you left him.

and. surprisingly. your ally does not side with him. she tells him you're changing. you're changing. she looks at you and all of your disgusting flaws, and she sees someone not beyond redemption. and you think that maybe. maybe you can trust her. maybe you CAN let your walls down. maybe you won't screw it up this time. and, and...

one mistake.

a pretty big one, granted, but a mistake nonetheless. you relapse into some bad habits, because the situation you entered was not the one you planned for. and she's mad. so mad, in fact, that she takes your old friendship, something she knows is a touchy subject, that hurts every time it's brought up, and she weaponizes it. she looks at you as if you mean nothing to her, and then she leaves. she leaves before you even have a chance to respond.

one. mistake.

one mistake is all it took for her to grow sick of you, for her to agree with all of the terrible things people say about you. and what hurts the most is that you TRUSTED her. you thought you could be open with her, you thought she was DIFFERENT. but no, she's not different. she's just like everyone else. and maybe, if the one person who believed you could be better gives up on you... maybe they're all right about you.

the walls are back up. they're thicker, stronger, and as far as you're concerned... it will take FAR more convincing to let anyone get through ever again.

...and then mepad comes along and says he doesn't even believe you're a bad person in the FIRST place, which is. astounding and very hard to believe but he's seeing you at your absolute worst being needlessly cruel to everyone and is STILL saying this with complete confidence so, fuck, kind of hard to keep THAT up for very long. then ii16 happens and you know the drill SHE'S DOING BAD.

hoo boy this went on for a lot longer than it was supposed to. anyway all this to say i think we should talk more about how they both hurt each other rather than push the narrative that one of them was "the abuser" and the other was "the victim" because frankly that's not even how it works in real life. thank you for coming to my ted talk i've been sitting on this for weeks afraid that i'd be told to kill myself over anons 👍

[hearthmistress]

Hi, could you elaborate on why do you think the 2020 Emma movie was not that good?

I also did not enjoy it very much as an adaptation of the novel, but I see it constantly being praised by people in the Austen fandom on Tumblr, so I would very much like to hear your opinions about it!

Hi, I can try, but I don't think I can offer a particularly deep analysis/explanation of my dislike because I watched Emma (twice) in 2020 and haven't thought much of it since! I'm also not a Janeite at all - I've read all of her completed novels (and Sanditon), but otherwise I don't have a particular strong interest in Austen. I also read Emma the book after seeing the movie, so a lot of my initial dislike towards it is mostly from a film/storytelling perspective, rather than what it fails to do as an adaptation. Though, I have since read Emma and found it VASTLY better, smarter, and funnier - it really makes the 2020 film feel like an off-brand version the book. So watered down, so superficial in its understanding.

Anyways, I think Emma is a bad film and a bad adaptation because, as I have mentioned in one of my tags, it misunderstands Emma as a text and is uninterested in engaging with it in any depth outside from the basic plot structure. Structurally it hits the beats it is supposed to, but there's no real understanding outside of the obvious - it simply doesn't feel like an Austen text. Perhaps a slightly hypocritical thing to say, since this ask is undoubtedly stems from my tags from this post, but I think adaptations (historical or not) work best when they fundamentally understand and interested in the text/source they working with and are deliberate on what aspects they take, change or disregard when adapting it. If you're viewing Emma as simply a rom-com or a regency romance (as many Janeites tend to view Austen's work), you miss the satire and the core themes, which is focused on class, wealth, and their impact on women, and all of this is approached superficially or not at all within the movie.

There are moments of levity in Emma (2020), but I didn't find it particularly funny - which is a shame because Emma (1817) is a very funny book, and stands out because it aims much of its humour at the titular heroine. I also think the Emma we see in the movie doesn't really convey the Emma we get in the novel, who while being vain, selfish, and lacking in self-awareness, does have this heart to her that is missing in the movie. I'm not a big Anya Taylor-Joy fan and while she's not bad as Emma, her portrayal is not particularly interesting to me either - the character feels flattened, and a lot of Emma's actions with the novel comes across as meaner than they're supposed to.

And while Austen should not be viewed solely through the lens of romance, I thought the romance in this movie was not good! I think this is partly just bad casting in terms of Mr. Knightley, but in the book I remember that character as being much less serious and their connection being far more playful. He is supposed to be the moral centre of the novel, but that doesn't really come across at all in the movie.

In short, I think this is a case of style versus substance. This movie is visually very pleasing and beautifully shot (hence its popularity on tumblr) - though there are some eye-roll inducing shots (the school girls in red capes come to mind). The costumes are indeed great and I like that they lean into how ugly regency clothing can be. There are some great performances from Josh O'Connor, Mia Goth, and Bill Nighly. But outside from being pretty - does this film offer much? Does it have anything memorable? Anything that makes it distinct from other adaptations? Not really.

Curious as to your thoughts as well, anon, on this movie!

[dimensionslip]

Translation + Analysis of Dimitri and Felix’s Paired Ending

Originally posted on Twitter as @slip_fe3h.

Honestly, I put off doing this for so long because despite the slight wording changes, the English version had the same energy as the Japanese version that anything I'm going to say is nitpicking in a sense.

But talks with friends reminded me that people were curious about the differences anyway. There are indeed some changes and lost nuances (though on the minor side) so here goes!

I think only the first sentence got a lot of stuff lost in translation, which is the bit where Dimitri only officially inherited the throne after his coronation. So anything before that is just informal talk.

Also the last bit of it was worded differently, JP specifically mentions 「フォドラの統治と改革」, which is both "rule and reform of Fodlan" and not just "ruling Fodlan", though I guess the "justly" bit gets it across somewhat.

The second sentence had the EN version flattening "sometimes right-hand, sometimes adviser" into "right-hand adviser" and changed the wording a bit, though they compensated for it by keeping the vibe of the whole statement with "at his side every step of the way."

My take on the next sentence and how it is in EN is essentially the same. There are a million ways to go about 「彼らは生涯固い友情で結ばれ」 and the EN interpretation is perfectly valid.

The gist is, to quote a friend, "they were like, the bestest of best buds through their entire lives, man." You know, the usual kind of vibe these end cards tend to give like "they were so into each other but I need to censor myself for the children" - some underpaid Fódlan historian, probably

For the last line, I think the most noticeable bit would be the whole missing "chivalric tales" thing, which isn't actually in the JP version, but was added for flavor in EN.

It's another example of how the localization goes for something that has the same vibe, but not quite the exact wording in JP.

I was batting ideas back and forth with a friend regarding this, and she ended up mentioning that the spirit of the entire Dimilix ending reads like the epilogue of a medieval romance, which, I, curse my shipper heart, agree with wholeheartedly.

But yes... the implications of that last sentence are interesting, to say the least of it. We know that there are books about Loog and Kyphon floating around, and it's very much possible that some of them are... of the colorful variety, to say the least of it.

What I'm saying that if someone wrote the equivalent of Kyphon and Loog fanfic back in those days, someone definitely did the same for Dimitri and Felix, going by the so-called legacy they left. And who knows, maybe there was also art and other derivative work to go with it...?

In conclusion, all Dimilix creators are essentially Fódlan citizens enraptured by the life of a certain king and his right-hand. You're all extremely valid especially in the context of this ending, thank you very much for keeping everyone fed!

[catboygirljoker]

fun writing tip: you can justify making your blorbos as good at sex as you want if you also make it depressing

i will try not to be too graphic or horny and keep it mostly to character study analysis themes core motivations plot conflicts etc type discussion. still, id really prefer that folks under 18 do not interact with me on this post or about this topic in general, thanks!

for obvious reasons this post is gonna have a cut

UNLIKE HIS DIIIIICK [EXTREMELY LOUD AIRHORNS]

. sorry i just feel like hed appreciate that joke. uh anyway

Brief discussions of: BDSM, including sadomasochism; edgeplay; derealization/dysphoria; self-destructive recklessness in a sexual context.

ok. so there's this fictional guy. and i kiiiiiiind of have a crush on him. and i'm a basic bitch, so, like, obviously, when i think about him hornystyle, i want to imagine him being good at sex.

the thing is, "good at sex" is not always a particularly interesting trait to give a character! it can often be an eyerolling power fantasy trait. like "this is my oc Chuck Dongburger he has a ten pound cock and can make a babe cum just by lookin at her" yknow. it's a trait that, handled incorrectly, is more likely to flatten conflict than create it—more likely to make stories more boring than to make them more interesting.

also, "being good at sex" isnt a magical blessing that descends upon someone by chance. it is a quality that stems from a set of experiences and traits. it is a skill that one develops, or fails to develop.

so the question is, how do i justify him being good at sex? how do i make it feel believable and interesting?

the answer is simple! make it depressing! (that is, relate it directly to the character's central themes and conflicts, and therefore make it a natural part of/inclusion in their story)

in canon, xigbar has had multiple bodies, lost his heart multiple times, allowed himself to be a vessel for darkness on multiple occasions. he has endured all of this to carry out the will of his masters. every social role we've ever seen him take has been subservient to someone else, even if it has usually also involved social power over others, too.

here are the sex/relationship headcanons i have that expand on this:

related to: gender/sexuality

bisexual. for starters. obviously. his transness i have Deep Headcanons about, but his bisexuality is just "idk im bi so hes bi hee hee"

luxu is a binary trans man who experienced severe dysphoria in his original body and never felt like that body really belonged to him in the first place. to the best of his ability he has only chosen cis male vessels, including braig. in those cases he feels extreme disconnect from his body but not [very noticeable] gender dysphoria. the only thing connecting him to his cis male bodies is his sexual characteristics. theres this great art piece that has never left my brain that conveys the idea im going for. his face his hair his bones none of those are his, none of thise feel real, none of those feel right. but what does feel right is his dick.

related to: him being Good at Sex™

he is Very Experienced. he's tried a lot of shit and had a lot of bodies and largely had nothing better to do than be a horndog and kill time suckin and fuckin. he is down for just about anything with just about anybody. he knows how bodies work and knows how to deal with the exceptions and roll with awkwardness and uncomfortableness.

he is pretty good at reading people—it's a skill he has had to develop over his lifetime. he is sometimes wrong, but usually right, and reading people, understanding them, lets him feel like he has some kind of control or power over them. this is relevant because this is part of what makes him Good at Sex. he is shockingly responsive and attentive; not completely unselfish as a lover, but he won't blindly exert his will onto the other person and expect them to respond just because he has a big dick or is going faster or harder or whatever.

related to: his backstory as luxu

sex for him is a means of exerting control over the world, proving his own competence and worth to himself and another person, gaining some simulacrum of human connection, distracting himself from his derealization, grounding himself in his body, expressing and claiming his masculinity. all things, i headcanon, he also achieves (or seeks/has sought to achieve) from keyblade mastery.

he views his bodies as disposable, and knowing that he can just jump ship if he totals a body means that he processes pain differently than most people. not in a "all pain makes him horny" way*—it's more that pain doesn't make his self-preservation kick in the same way it does for other people. in bdsm/kink settings he is a masochist [as well as a sadist] and more reckless with edgeplay (when it comes to himself) than he really ought to be.

obviously i have specific personal motivation for wanting to headcanon this (he and his body are both Significantly Older Than Me) but i don't think he's too bothered by an age gap. some people it makes sense to me to imagine that they'd really want to date within their age and maturity range, but i think xigbar's chill as long as the person he's dating is a self-posessed adult. considering how long he's been alive, he's gonna have a significant gap in experience with ANYBODY; there isn't that much of a difference between him dating a 25 year old vs a 45 or 85 year old.

he has told close romantic partners about his Whole Deal before. it has never gone well. ("what do you mean youve been moving into random people's bodies in order to stay alive long enough to bring back a guy who intentionally manipulated his students into killing all of their students via senseless war??") they never understand and he doesn't know why they don't understand (i also headcanon him having severe cognitive dissonance vis a vis the MoM but that's a different post). his instinct is to put up a wall and go "well theyre just naive and stupid and haven't seen what i've seen, theyre too sentimental to understand this". he still keeps trying (if with less frequency) because he is desperate for someone to understand.

*i want to make this crystal clear: i do not headcanon xigbar as being automatically turned on by receiving or causing pain in every context, because he is a boss in a video game franchise where he fights teenagers. i am not comfortable sexualizing those fights!

(i do however think there are contexts where he might indulge in some "battle sadomasochism" when fighting another adult—maybe he makes it weird for them on purpose to fuck with them, maybe they're both into it and it's all foreplay, etc)

related to: him being subservient

youd think that when i talked about him being subservient to others, i was building up to a headcanon about him being a sub. however it feels most correct [and fun] to me to imagine him being a dom-leaning switch vers (doesnt get dysphoria from bottoming because. prostate). social role and personal dynamics dont necessarily correspond to sexual dynamics!

the headcanon i was actually building up to was that he craves affirmation in specific ways from specific people. he is desperate for someone else to give him worth. he wants to do a good job serving an authority he deems worthy of respect. he wants to be useful, he wants to serve a purpose and have a role. he hates feeling like he needs something from someone else, and feels much more comfortable if they need something from him.

he doesn't have a praise kink in a traditional sense, but he does really get his rocks off from being Good At Sex and from his lovers clearly and obviously enjoying themselves. he doesn't wanna be told hes done a good job, he wants to know, to tell from experience that he's blown someone's mind.

furthermore, in romance, he becomes a massive simp. if he likes someone enough to fall for them then they hang the fucking moon for him. he is outside in the rain crying throwing up begging for a sniff. absolutely pathetic. its not a total transformation of personality, i think he'd really hide it and really want to hide it. but i think in most situations it'd be subtle but observable. every joke he makes is directed to them and checked against their reaction; he stands at a middle distance outside of conversation kinda watching them, observing every move, memorizing their gestures and tics and quirks. he feels i love you before the first date but won't say it until five years into the relationship.

related to: i couldnt put it in the other sections and i really only made these section headers so it wasnt just big walls of text oops

he's a low empathy emotionally constipated bitch at the best of times, so he substitutes emotional intimacy with physical intimacy. picking up people at bars or dances or what have you for one night stands, satisfying them thoroughly, and then immediately dropping out of their lives.

he actively avoids romance (and any emotional closeness, including the completely platonic kind). but he hasn't always been this way. i think Dark Road was the most recent in a long long string of experiences where he lost people he was close to. he's tired of hurting people and getting hurt.

. im not gonna get into it because im trying not to be like too too horny in this post but hes So fucking brat tamer coded to me. i think you will understand at least the surface level reasons for this. i guess if i wanted to relate it to Themes i'd say something like "there is a specific romantic and sexual fantasy in being an asshole and even hurting someone and them still wanting you and trusting you and loving you and even enjoying it" but. well we dont need to go there do we

these are just the Depressing / Character-Related / Themes-y headcanons. some of my headcanons are just like "i think this would be funny and/or in character and/or hot" but you see how long this list is anyway. if i started in on all of that then we'd be here forever.

also, these are just headcanons! they're informed by analysis but shaped heavily by what appeals to me personally, what i find hot, what i find compelling about his character. if your headcanons for him differ from mine in any way, i don't think you're Wrong, because we're talking about the sexuality of a guy who comes from a video game franchise where characters are barely allowed to hold hands. this is all just toys and playing

anyway thank you for reading this post lmao its so long

JUST LIKE HIS DIIIIIIIIIIII—

[spiderfreedom]

historical revisionism of second-wave feminism

I'm wondering where this idea that "second-wave feminism" didn't bring up race came from. It seems to be conflating liberal feminism, starting with Betty Friedan's "The Feminist Mystique", for the entire movement. But "second-wave feminism" refers to an entire era of feminist organizing, including lesbian feminism, socialist feminism, radical feminist, and numerous Black feminist works with multiple intersections. Why should Friedan and NOW's 'liberal feminism' be the representative of an entire era of feminist writing? What do we have to gain from pretending that there were no Black feminist writers during the second wave?

The US women's movement has always had ties to anti-racist movements like abolitionism and the civil rights movement, as well as the New Left and socialist/anti-war movements. White feminists tried to include racial analysis in their books - to mixed effect, e.g. Susan Brownmiller's book "Against Our Will" proved to be contentious for its treatment of interracial rape of Black men against white women (example).

It feels like there's been a wave of historical revisionism to make the second-wave seem more limited and single-issue focused than it really was, in order to make "third-wave" feminism seem novel, exciting, and necessary. It's resulted in a whole generation of feminist writers and cultural critics who don't read or quote or engage with the feminist works of the second wave. They are dismissed out of hand as irrelevant or limited. It feels like another way to say "stop paying attention to women's history, just believe me when I say the first and second waves were irrevocably damaged and that the third wave is the only way to go."

I think this article does a good job of capturing one of the reasons why an interracial feminism failed to form, which is that white women assumed Black women also wanted an interracial feminism, when many Black women, especially at the start of the movement, were not interested in solidarity with white women. The fantasy of a racially integrated society was often much more important to white organizers than to Black organizers, who may have instead wanted Black self-determination. I disagree with some of the points of the article (can elaborate if anyone is interested) but I recommend reading it anyway for a retrospective on why white attempts to reach out to Black women failed - white feminists did attempt to reach out, but failed to focus on issues that were relevant to Black women, failed or were offensive in their racial analysis, and failed to understand the importance of racial solidarity for Black women.

Correcting the record on the racism and failures of white feminists in the second-wave is necessary work to building a strong movement. But there's a difference between correcting the record and pretending that white feminists didn't try to talk about race at all. They did! They were participants of anti-racist movements! But they failed to understand their own racism. They failed to understand the complex dynamics between white men, white women, Black men, and Black women. They failed to focus on issues that resonated with Black women. They were failures of bad attempts, not that no attempt was ever made... and that's the part I find weird.

The idea that there was no racial analysis made during the second wave, by white women or Black women, flattens a complex history. Like fun fact - the Combahee River Collective Statement which is the foundation of intersectional feminism and third wave identity politics? Is a second wave text! It was published in 1977, in the late era of second wave activism in the US!

I have more to say later, but for the moment, I'd like to present you with some examples of second-wave feminist texts written by Black women. Read them, and avail yourself of another myth - that there is One Black Feminism. Black Feminists have always had internal disagreements, which frightens white feminists, because white feminists want to know The Correct Answer On Race. I highly recommend reading these (and modern Black feminist texts too!) to understand the situation Black feminists faced in the 60s and 70s. All of these texts were published between 1960 and 1980. They are all essays or excerpts - links provided where possible.

Black Women’s Liberation group of Mt. Vernon, New York - Statement on Birth Control

Mary Ann Weathers - An argument for Black Women’s Liberation as Revolutionary Force (https://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/mary-ann-weathers-an-argument-for-black-womens-liberation-as-a-revolutionary-force/)

Frances M. Beal - Double Jeopardy: to be Black and Female

Doris Wright - Angry Notes from a Black Feminist (https://yu.instructure.com/courses/49421/files/1918241/download?wrap=1)

Margaret Sloan: Black and Blacklesbian

Alice Walker - In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

Angela Davis: Joan Little: The Dialectics of Rape (https://overthrowpalacehome.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/ms.-magazine-from-the-archives.pdf)

Michele Wallace: A Black Feminist’s Search for Sisterhood (https://www.amistadresource.org/documents/document_09_03_010_wallace.pdf)

The Combahee River Collective (https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/)

Barbara Smith - Racism and Women’s Studies (https://hamtramckfreeschool.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/smith-barbara-racism-and-womens-studies.pdf)

[soft-pine]

totally agree with what the other two anons have said about how rude and unfair people are being to you about your spreadsheet, but i also just read your jack post and i fully fully fully agree.

my two cents about jack’s age: you talked mostly about how the writers presented him and how others treated him (again, all of which i agree with), but i also like to consider jack’s own actions and how alcal played him. jack clearly does not identify or act as a child. he may be naive about the world and need help understanding how to act within it, but imo he clearly has the cognitive abilities of thinking for himself and (more often than not) expressing what he thinks/wants, things toddlers just cannot do. treating him like a toddler with like no autonomy or individuality is such a disservice to how interesting of a character he is. it flattens him!!

like yes it’s a tragedy that he grows up too quickly and becomes god too quickly. but that doesn’t mean that jack himself has the mind of a baby or would prefer to be one. (it doesn’t mean he has absolutely no agency either.)

anyway, sorry for the little rant! just wanna say thanks for your continued hard work with the spreadsheet!! and all respect to you for how you handle it all! ☺️☺️

hi please never apologize for doing spn analysis in my askbox like i love it please please!!!

and thank you! i put a lot of thought and time into that post and i'm glad it resonated with you! and i wholeheartedly agree with your additions! jack just isn't a toddler and i want to talk about who he is as a whole!!!

also sorry i'm not gonna post ur other ask (just trying to steer a little clear of long posts about violence rn in case other anon is checking)!! but i do agree with you about how it feels like dean is somehow judged at a different standard than other characters!

[misterbitches]

it's worthwhile to ask ourselves why we are attracted to, or fed, certain things wrt art and media. what about "red flags" and what is peddled to us/seen as desirous. i think it's silly not to. particularly in more homogenous and overtly hierarchical (with regards to women) societies. the sociopolitical context cannot and should not be divorced from what we consume. so i don't just flatten it to "it's a tv show" otherwise we wouldn't critique shit. (and ha i have a critique on sae on's job and what's happening in south korea but this is not the place to put it or go into it so why bother)

because with that we can find the answers and spaces of how women defy.

and without an analysis of who sae on is, the context he is created in, and even the actor's approach we miss the beauty of hee joo. the reason why i am so drawn and enamored by hee joo, is because of who she has become despite the oppressive environment she's in. she bounces from one captor to the next—one father to the next (patrilineage! the family!) but through all that

she can't handle being imprisoned. she's a con woman and she's so fucking smart. literally she became another person overnight and is so determined. all that pain inside her and she hasn't ended her life, for love of her father really, and unfortunately love of her mother. we got to know her best through her freaking out when one too many people said she's disposable...when sae on did. a man almost killed her and instead of wilting she sprung into action. she knew no one else cared and that was it; this man wonders why she isn't dead yet and that was what made her have enough.

and the thing about wanting a divorce so badly, being willing to die for it, almost dying for it, how she just wants freedom, is she's falling in love while fighting for it. because marriage often is imprisonment under the strictures we live in (and shouldn't be mediated and sutured by/to the state but whatever) particularly, and even more so in south korea, for women (which is why it was funny when whatshisfacesorryforgothisname was like "she didnt steal from the emergency funds did she?")

anyway both characters make sense but if sae on's gender wasn't a big part of what this show is doing and trying to ameliorate the source material then there'd be no point. i know people balk at the idea that this has little bearing on life but what we are shown absolutely does and artists have peddled this lie that insults our own intelligence and our audience's so we don't have to own up to what we make. particularly when it comes to things that are overtly political or touch on "social issues" (politics) then it's myopic to curb people's concerns with well it's not real life and that's not why we watch. but we do tho we like mimesis or simulacra that's why visual art is so incredible and why artists do it

i'm in awe of who hee joo is. i don't really have words for it yet but

[rawliverandgoronspice]

hey! do you have any thoughts on demise as a looser/more fluid/symbolic/metaphorical figure in the context of the story of the series- like thoughts on what he represents, and stuff like what his curse could mean thematically rather than the more essentialistic absolutistic "literal satan" interpretation that most of the (at least western) audience seems to take?

i know he may be somewhat contentious as a choice introduced by the writers especially considering from an outside perspective what he kind of did to the majority of fandom analysis and discourse, but i've been thinking about how it's quite possible the writers had a more paganistic approach to what it means to be a deity and how demise doesn't even really have a NAME so much as he is supposed to be some sort of manifestation/personification of the concept of demise, and maybe also of hatred, and also i don't know, like, what the point of that hatred is or why there has to be demise/what implications there could be of this worldbuilding

hope that was coherent enough to make sense of anything i just said but yeah i was just curious if you do!

Heyy sorry never replied, replying now!! Thanks for the ask!

Yeah it's exactly how I'm taking Demise, and I think what you mention connects more to what little I know and understand of shintoism.

In French, Demise has an absurdly long name and is basically called "The Avatar of the Void", which I think is... interesting? It makes me extremely curious as to how Demise is called in original japanese --because to me, "Void" is about the absence of things more than their destruction. It's about the absence, not the inevitability of things crumbling down that comes with Demise. I don't know which of these concepts are the closest to the original vision (if it's Void rather than Demise I think it recontextualizes everything we thought we know about this world and characters, but in my opinion it feels too incoherent with the rest of the world, so my guess is that it was a poorly thought-out translation --but I might be wrong!), but to me it's all in the title: Demise. The curse is that every golden era must end with a reckoning.

I think the curse is extremely compelling in that mythological sense, the way Demeter and Persephone's tale is about the joy and pain of passing seasons; it's the given cause for this world's fate as it is condemned to rise and die continuously; and that their eternal, bright future will always be opposed. To be honest, I'm not even sure it's a *bad* thing. Conflict is not only inevitable, it needs to rise to the surface instead of being suppressed to ensure things do not remain stagnant and shortcomings are being acknowledged and addressed --which is also partially why the suggestion of TotK's golden forever after really doesn't sit right with me, especially since nothing was learned and nothing truly changed in the course of its runtime.

I think the curse sucks when people think it means that Ganondorf is a generic evil demon man without motive of his own. It especially grinds my nerves since I somehow never hear this argument being made for *any* other villain in the franchise. I know they look alike the most (and TotK didn't help matters here), but I never *ever* saw people arguing that Vaati doesn't have motive, for example. Or Majora. Or Zant. Or even literal nothing characters like Bellum, who by all means looks more like a primal demonic evil acting on instinct than anyone else. Somehow, we get to assume they have internal motives that, while obviously wicked and self-serving, are their own! But somehow, Ganondorf, the actual main antagonist of his series with the most amount of games hinting at his backstory and internal moral code, gets flattened as an evil puppet with no internal life whatsoever. It's genuinely bizarre.

Anyway sorry sorry! Thanks again for the ask!

[king-paimon]

I've read up on your blog through a lot of Houseki no Kuni's manga. I liked your analysis though I gotta say come the last chapters, specifically since chapter 95, I didn't always agree with them.

I didn't need the end to be happy sunshine and rainbows, or the opposite, for Phos to go all revenge monster on the gems either. But at the end there, I felt like we all just accepted everything Ichikawa threw at us with no criticism, all that torture flattening the narrative's nuance, and if I didn't like it, I was seeing it through the wrong angle.

I know you don't act like that, which I appreciate. Throught all your reviews, you expressed understanding on why so many people disliked the story. Thank you for that, thank you for not being judgemental. And I'm glad you enjoyed the ride.

I just couldn't help but feel like so many story threads were left lose, and so many complete 180°s were thrown that didn't match the story or it's characters. Some people described it as a self-sabotaged narrative, and I see it. It wasn't enough to give me catharsis - especially with the character set up as the villain getting everything he wanted.

I guess I just had higher standards, which the story didn't meet. That is not a bad thing, after all.

I think my biggest gripe is with how Cairngorm's character was handled, and I'd like to include this here. The ambiguity of their predatory relationship was in poor taste, and remained unaddressed. I can see why so many of my friends left the series when that plot point happened. They deserved better.

Hi @intoxtinction! Thank you for sending me this message and sorry that it took me so long to finally respond. Real life has been kicking my butt and free time to do anything on here is a rarity. But I still wanted to write a response to you because I really loved your response! And yes, I saw the comment you left on my last HnK meta post. You're good; don't worry about it!

Thank you again for your kind words. I'm glad that you like my posts, even if they sometimes become long, nonsensical rambles and especially if you don't agree with some of my points! I love that. Whenever I wrote my posts, I always try to keep an open mind and take into account that all fans are different and would have different views when it comes to works works like HnK. As far as I can see, HnK is one of those works that is supposed to draw up conversations because it's not a simple, straight forward story with clear distinction between black/white moral characters. Everyone who reads it is going to view the events in the story differently based on their own beliefs and even if everyone's views conflict with one another, I think it's fascinating and even wonderful. So even if I may not agree with some fans when it comes to certain aspects of HnK, I never hold it against them. I don't want to demonize anyone for how they interpret the story, at least not too harshly anyways. I know when I'm biased, but I don't let that stop me from at least trying to understand where other fans are coming from. HnK was such a fascinatingly complex and unconventional story, and the fact that it can spur many views and feelings from people is one of the reasons whyI liked the series.

With that being said, however, I also think it's important to be open to properly critique our favorite works. HnK is not immune from these critiques, because for as much as I enjoyed following the story over the past couple of years, there are many aspects in the overall story that were far from satisfying. So many loose ends, incomplete character arches, and questionable story decisions... After being away from the story for some time now, it's become more apparent that there were many aspects to the HnK that has me question Haruko Ichikawa's story telling abilities. Don't get me wrong, she's shown to be a very fascinating storyteller and I overall liked what she created. But when it comes to the incomplete story threads for all of the other characters besides Phos, I can't tell if some of Ms. Ichikawa's decisions were intentionally left up for interpretation or if their stories were just not important to complete since at the end of the day, HnK is about Phos's story. One of these decisions I question the most about is Cairngorm's story arch, so I couldn't agree more with you, @intoxtinction. Cairngorm was done dirty in so many ways and they deserved a more satisfying ending to their story.

I was planning on writing two last posts that would be focusing on these topics. But because life has been kicking my butt too much lately, I don't know when they will be out, if at all at this point. But if I'm able to complete them, I hope you'll get the chance to read them and share your own thought. And again, it's totally fine if you don't agree with my points; I'd still love to read them!