#essay rant

[strange-ness-is-me]

New academic essay just dropped!!

Freedom is not eternal.

Freedom, unlike most perceptions of it, is a state of being. A temporary condition that is achieved through unshackling oneself from something, or someone detrimental to one’s existence. The only way to achieve freedom is to acknowledge that something isn’t good for you, it is hard to do, especially if that situation blinds you with pleasure, it is an addiction. However that isn't the entirety of how to achieve this state of freedom, sometimes the harm can be external coming from an outside source, but sometimes it can be something that you put on yourself. The harmful circumstance controls your life, restricting you from attaining what you need, such as food, self-determination, and economic freedom, among other things. Life will always send things to obstruct your freedom, it is up to you to claim it back.

Mary Wollstonecraft was a brilliant lady, she was the mother to Mary Shelley.  Not only did she mother one of the most revered authors of history, but she also was an activist for women's rights. For her and a lot of women their freedoms were being restricted by the patriarchy, a government ruled primarily by cishet white men. Wollstonecraft found this to be detrimental to her freedom and so she fought back against the patriarchy as much she could. Unfortunately, women especially those of higher class weren't allowed to fight physically, so Wollstonecraft decided to write letters to the legislature. She wrote letters to persuade the entirely male legislature to at least include women in the votes and to have a voice when making decisions about laws. Wollstonecraft says in the letter A Vindication of the Rights of Woman “But, if women are to be excluded, without having a voice, from a participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward off the charge of Injustice and inconsistency, that they want reason, -- else this flaw in your new constitution, the first constitution founded on reason, will ever shew that man must, in some shape, act like a tyrant, and tyranny, in whatever part of society it rears its raised in front, will ever undermine morality.” (Wollstonecraft). This quote shows that without the input of women, that reason isn't entirely reason.  Wollstonecraft is trying to make an argument that the oppressors, in this case, men, should take women's advice in the government because having someone else make decisions for you is taking away your freedoms. 

Thomas Jefferson one of the American founding fathers was the one who wrote the Declaration of Independence of the United States,  this is another prime example of the harmful outside situation. Britain's Parliament and King George III had colonies in what is now the United States of America, it held a tyrannical rule over the colonies, taxed the people unfairly, and made living there not preferred. After years of this tyrannical rule, the United States Congress had Thomas Jefferson write up the Declaration of Independence of the United States and sent it to the British Parliament.  this started a war between the British and the Americans, but because the Americans had an army of mostly trained soldiers, they were able to fight in that war and eventually won. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence of the United States that it is the duty of the people to alter the government or abolish it if it becomes detrimental to the quality of life of the citizens (Jefferson). This encourages the citizens to go forth and claim their own freedoms when something wants to take it away. A quote from the text is “But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future.” (Jefferson). Because freedom is temporary, one must put up walls to protect their freedoms and secure their future from any impending threats.

While Pirates have already broken free from their detrimental situations, they still have to Make sure that they can keep their freedoms by having basic structures and rules kept in place. unlike most other rules where there are a lot of them, the Pirates put bass rules and only rules that will ensure the crew's safety. Since pirates are free of their restrictions they have to protect themselves but making sure that they won't get caught by the oppressors, in this case, the government. On ships, it was common to find that there was a lights-out policy of 8:00 p.m. since the British, Spanish, Polish, etc. ships could find them in the sea if they had lights on that late and they didn't want to be found. There are also a bunch of rules to keep fighting on the crew to a minimum such as no cheating or stealing and no gambling since those could raise tensions. there is also oddly a rule where there were generally no women alone on the ship, this was usually due to a superstition that women were bad luck on ships. All of these rules are to ensure safety and to make sure that no one gets locked back up into their detrimental situation again, if one person gets caught then that could lead to many people getting caught. Even though Pirates can be brutal they still look out for other people in the way that it also benefits themselves, or so it seems. (Johnson and Roberts) They also made sure that everyone was able to get a say in the decisions due to a council with everybody on the crew on it usually they would make decisions about punishments for crew members who betrayed the wider crew.

Peril the SkyWing from the book series Wings of Fire is an excellent example of internal shaking, for most of her life she obeyed the rule of her queen, Queen Scarlet, since Queen Scarlet raised her since she hatched basically. Peril has this condition called fire scales, she hatched with too much fire so her scales emit a burning heat that could kill anyone she brushes by. Queen Scarlet raised Peril to believe that she would always be a monster and that she could never change from being a murderous dragon, so Queen Scarlett used Peril in her Gladiator Arena as her champion. That is how she lived for the majority of her life until she met a dragon named Clay. Clay is a MudWing who also happens to be a Dragonet of Destiny, the Dragonets of Destiny are a part of a prophecy to end a 20-year-long war. Clay and his friends were captured by Queen Scarlet and taken to her prisons where he was held. Peril started talking to Clay and it revealed that Queen Scarlet never liked it when PerilTalked to any other Dragon except for her. Queen Scarlet is the harmful person in this situation, she restricted Peril's access to food, she restricted Peril's access to self-determination, and Queen Scarlet didn't even let Peril leave the SkyWing palace. Clay talked to Peril as Peril snuck out of the initial Palace to talk to him, and because Clay also grew up with him believing he was a monster he was able to sympathize with Peril. One huge difference between Peril and Clay is that Peril never believed she could be anything but a murderous dragon, however, Clay never was able to bring himself to actually harm anyone. the only reason Clay was labeled as a monster was that when hatching he tried to help the other dragons he was hatching with break out of the shells and the caregivers didn't know that that was an instinctual thing for MudWings, especially the first hatched MudWings experienced. After learning that Peril was being lied to by Queen Scarlet her entire life, she started to change for the better, she started to escape the grip that Queen Scarlet had over her (Sutherland 81). Peril directly confronts Queen Scarlet in the book Escaping Peril, she says “You can't make me. you can't make me kill anyone else for you. I'm not that kind of dragon anymore"(Sutherland 22). That quote demonstrates how Peril is starting to take more control over her life, she is making an effort to change from the Dragon that Queen Scarlet wants her to be.

All of these sources allude to the firm belief that freedom is not something that you can just have, it is something that you have to work for, to believe that you deserve. Without acknowledgment of yourself or the detrimental situation, you cannot begin to fathom breaking away from the chains. There are however small steps to be able to make those connections, if you as much wonder if a specific person or situation isn't good for you take a moment, step back, and think about it. thinking is probably one of the best things you can do when faced with a situation like that. letting people take away your freedom is one of the most vile things I can think of. fighting for your freedom no matter how big or small the act is, will be worth it in the end regardless, because you made that decision for yourself. 

Works Cited

Jefferson, Thomas. Declaration of Independence of the United States. 1776.

Johnson, Charles, and Bartholomew Roberts. A General History of the Pyrates. 1724.

Sutherland, Tui T. Escaping Peril. Scholastic Incorporated, 2017.

Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. 1792.

[uisceb]

Endlessly baffled every time I see people water down Glinda’s actions in Defying Gravity to “oh she was too cowardly or too selfish to stand by Elphaba,” as if she didn’t spend that entire sequence from Chistery’s transformation onward doing everything in her very limited power to keep Elphaba safe.

Like the second things start going wrong, Glinda’s entire focus switches to “keep Elphaba safe at all costs.” This girl does not have any magic. She does not have any physical survival skills. She probably has no idea how to throw a punch. She can barely run in those heels. Her one power is her charm and her ability to work a crowd. She is desperately trying to get Elphaba to come back with her not because she agrees with what the Wizard and Morrible are doing, but because she thinks maybe if she can just smooth things over, Elphaba will be forgiven, and she’ll be safe. 

In that regard, there’s a very obvious selfishness to Glinda’s actions - she lacks perspective; she lacks scope; she prioritizes Elphaba over what we as the audience would understand as the “Greater Good” and over her own morals about what’s going on with the Wizard’s agenda; she’s visibly horrified by what happens to Chistery but her first instinct is to comfort Elphaba above all else, despite having no understanding of what's happening.

I am the last person who’s ever going to argue that Glinda isn’t selfish, because she very clearly is, it’s one of her defining characteristics, and it’s one of the main things she has to learn to overcome in order to actually become “Glinda the Good.” This is in no way me trying absolve my very selfish girl who very much made the wrong decision.

But it does kinda boggle my mind when I see the argument that Glinda betrayed Elphaba or is a “fake friend.” Especially because ultimately she comes to the conclusion that the best thing she can do for Elphaba in this moment is to let her go. She knows she would only hinder Elphaba if she were to go with her, she knows there’s no happy ending for them if she tries to run away with her (I think in that moment she might even suspect there’s no happy ending at all). Elphaba is going through her own personal revelation which is beautiful in its own right, but it’s also impulsive, and there’s a certain level of unsustainable grandiose fantasy to it. Glinda almost lets herself be swept up in it for a moment, but her rational side kicks in, because, of the main trio, Glinda really is the most grounded in reality.

I’ve seen a lot of weirdly smug people out there proudly saying if Fiyero was there he definitely would’ve gotten on the broom with Elphaba - and honestly, I think they’re probably right. But it’s not because he’s somehow morally superior to Glinda, or that his love for Elphaba is more pure. Our boy is depressed, he’s nihilistic, he’s lost, and truly doesn’t have any attachments to anyone.

He was genuinely moved by Elphaba’s fearless convictions and he fell hard and fast for her, so I agree he’d be on that broom in a heartbeat, he quite literally has nothing to lose, and everything to gain. He’s found himself wanting to believe in something for the first time because Elphaba brought that out in him, his whole world revolves around her. And that’s very romantic, but because of that, the stakes are much lower. For him, leaving everything behind wouldn’t be a sacrifice, it would be freedom.

Glinda’s gone through the world much differently, much more carefully. She doesn’t have Fiyero’s sense of nihilism or detachment, she’s lashed herself tight to the reality of the world around her. Where Fiyero has been regularly kicked out of schools and freely wandered from place to place experiencing new things and getting into trouble on purpose, Glinda has never stepped outside the predictable comfort and safety of her bubble until meeting Elphaba. She lives in constant fear of failure and being looked down on. She is forever clinging to this persona she’s created because she’s terrified of what will happen if she’s anything less than perfect.

She has constructed her entire existence around being an icon rather than a person - in the beginning, she literally doesn’t know how to be her own self, she’s just barely learning, because of Elphaba. And it scares the shit out of her. 

Fiyero would likely play action hero if he was there for Defying Gravity, and that’s great, but Glinda is weighing a million things in her head, not least of which is “holy shit the person I love most in the world is in imminent danger and I have no magic and no strength to keep her safe, so I will beg and plead and insult and fight her tooth and nail to keep her with me inside my privileged bubble because maybe I can smooth this over, maybe everything will be okay if I just do what I always do and use my privilege to get my way.” She understands the rules of her world, so she’s going to play by those rules because that’s how you win the game.

Elphaba, of course, refuses to play a corrupt game at all, and Glinda gets angry - she lashes out at Elphaba because Elphaba has just put herself in such a dangerous situation, and Glinda is completely powerless to change it. Every little bit of control Glinda is used to having is obliterated.

Her “Maybe you’re not as powerful as you think you are” when Elphaba doesn’t grow wings is so desperate - the words border on cruel, but her tone is both painfully apologetic and above all filled with RELIEF because while her heart hurts for Elphaba, she’s terrified that Elphaba would hurt herself the way Chistery was hurt, and she’s cleaving to the hope that maybe if Elphaba isn’t as powerful as she thinks she is, Glinda stands a chance at undoing the damage, and protecting her. 

Glinda’s selfishness is just so fascinating to me because it’s so rich and so contradictory - she loves Elphaba so deeply and destructively that she fully paralyzes herself when the chips are down and it breaks them both. She fails to be what Elphaba wants her to be, and she fails to be a good person, but there’s no “fake friend” about her actions - she is acting on pure desperation to keep this person she loves safe in literally the only way she knows how, at the cost of everything else, including what’s right, which is something Elphaba could never abide by. Elphaba would never compromise her own morals, but at this point in the story Glinda is willing to compromise everything as long as Elphaba is tucked away in her bubble with her, and that difference in values is irreconcilable to both of them. 

So, realizing this, Glinda does the one last thing she can think of to protect her at this point, and wraps a cloak around her shoulders to keep her warm. That’s all that’s left.

She’s selfish and she’s cowardly and she’s brave and she’s loving and she fails Elphaba and she fails herself and she regrets her decision for the rest of her life and yes I am writing all this with glass under my tongue and between my teeth, she makes me insane.

[drenched-in-sunlight]

one thing that i find interesting is that even though we never get to interact with Marika directly, only knowing her via obscure cutscenes and other characters' dialogue... she actually displays a wide range of emotions as much as any other NPCs.

her statues depict her as having a warm, gentle smile:

the Mimic veil description points to her playful, mischievous side:

(it's a popular theory in the JP/Asian side of the fandom that it's sth from her childhood - hence the "Marika's Mischief", not "Queen Marika's", and she used it to escape the grisly fate befalling her family.

additionally, its equivalence in Dark Souls is also something described as "the mischief of a young girl who sought relief from the solitude of the woods at dusk", aka Princess Dusk who hails from "Oolacile, land of ancient golden sorceries", but i digress)

her portrait, the story trailer's "Queen Marika was driven to the brink" and Gideon's dialogue after the player defeated Malenia pointed out her sorrow:

(back when i first played the base game, this is the portrait that drove my eyes most in Roundtable Hold. i kept gazing at her - the Queen with permanently lowered eyes, and thought "there is a girl in there")

The bat lady's song, Messmer's entire Crusade, all those conflicts to establish the Erdtree, shows her anger, and the cruelty she's capable of:

Then there's Shaman's village, the clinic underneath Shadow Keep, the golden braid, the Minor Erdtree, the sealing of Death - that points to grief, trauma, survivor guilt, kindness, and the ruinous drive for revenge that results in the above path down hell:

(there's also a theory for the Crusade's headless statue being a reminder for the Hornsent of what they put Marika's mother through, but it's not concrete canon so here is the link if you want to check it out)

The fact that all of Erdtree's incantations are heal and protection spells (with only one exception of Wrath of Gold spell which was found after the Elden Ring was shattered), the Capitol's Perfumers originally being blessed healers, and that all Erdtree blessings come in the shape of tears give the picture of Marika's gentle wish at the beginning: to heal everything and everyone.

(and to me personally, there's a kind of vulnerability and honesty in showing your tears to the world and let it be your power to heal at the same time.)

the eye she blessed Messmer with (i do think the Eng translation at some part lost the sentiment of the JP text - that the eye is always referred to as a blessing)

the blessing flask that - unlike its Dark Souls equivalent (which ranges from 6-13 flasks), only have 4 available to us player, heal all ailments and status effect, and specified as sth made for Messmer.

the Marika's soreseal in the Haligtree + the waterfall near Godwyn's final resting place

the Regal Omen Bairn (that was fashioned after the Jizo statue - sth made by grieving parents wishing for protection for their deceased child in the afterlife)

the blessing, gifts, equipment that Messmer and Godwyn's personal knights all get

the fact that Marika's bedchamber and the Impaler's Catacomb (which is the only catacomb in the base game to have the spike trap mechanic used in catacombs in the DLC) remain the proof of Messmer's existence in the base game

how Godwyn's ending is the only ending where the mending rune is placed on the position of Marika's womb (the lower arc or the Elden Ring - also referred to as the basin in which its blessings pool)

that's a whole barrage of motherhood. the love, the fear, the postpartum depression, the guilt and anxiety, (the occasional scheming for revenge with her son). and despite how flawed and tragic that love ends up being for all of them, it is there.

(there's a whole subplot about how Messmer is the only demigod to be called ugly in-game (Hornsent npc dialogue) while Boc's questline is about how his mother being the only one to always assure him he's beautiful, despite everyone else calling him ugly. and how each NPCs questline does reflect a wider theme seen in Marika and her children. but again, i digress)

every time i think of her, Marika is a constantly shifting kaleidoscope, holding everything from within (the beauty and the malign, light and dark, birth and death, she's warm and gentle, she's cruel and unjust, she's strong and kind, she's weak and resentful, she's sweet and she's bitterness made flesh)... and i could only stand there and admire it all.

[ironyscleverer]

Listening to Dan and Phil on Shut Up I’m Talking and man, I love how grown up they are. Like actually, literally, behaving like mature adults who talk about business and marketing and gatekeepers and long-term career choices. It feels good that they are real functioning adults and they make the content that they do, because it makes space for me/us to be real functioning adults and enjoy the content that they make.

Because they’re right; there IS a sense in society that “Dan and Phil” and “YouTube” and being “chronically online” and participating in fandom is juvenile. But guess what? Being fun and silly and weird and gay and hopeful aren’t juvenile qualities, they’re just things capitalism society doesn’t want grown-ups to express. Because being an adult is antithetical to joy, apparently.

But Dan and Phil have created a safe environment for being both grown-up and indulging in joy. Hearing them talk like mentors to younger internet folks like Tom and Jack, and hearing them speak so professionally about their careers really brings out the maturity of their content and I really appreciate that.

[helenofsparta2]

Having the whole plot between Nico and Percy be resolved simply with “You’re not my type” in Blood of Olympus was such a huge disservice to both characters

They are pivotal parts to each others journey. No person in PJO influenced Nico as much as Percy did, aside from Bianca, and no person represents Percy’s guilt and the responsibility he had to shoulder more than Nico does. The writing for both characters really suffers through this lack of a real satisfying resolution.

First to talk about what Percy represents for Nico:

Percy, first of all, represents Nico’s introduction to the mythological world

He is the first demigod Nico ever came in contact with

He saved him and Bianca from the manticore (somewhat)

Nico stated in Blood of Olympus than Percy had reminded of the heroes of his mythomagic game come to life

Nico wholeheartedly believed that Bianca would be safe, if Percy was with her and created this image of the perfect hero in his mind, putting Percy on a pedestal

2.

In Nico’s mind Percy is irrevocably intertwined with Bianca and everything that happened to her

Despite Nico naively believing, that Bianca would be safe if Percy were around, he was instead the last person to ever talk to her, and present when she died

Percy informed Nico of her death (Dead silence. I stared at Chiron. I couldn’t believe nobody had told him yet. Then I realized why. They’d been waiting for us to appear, to tell Nico in person, Titan’s curse)

Nico turned him into the scapegoat for her death, so that he could let all his grief and anger and bitterness out on him

Bianca sent Iris-messages to Percy, so that he would find and help Nico (“Percy has been worried about you, Nico. He can help. I let him see what you were up to, hoping he would find you.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Her ghost only appeared to Nico when Percy was with him

Percy is the only person Nico knows of, who also grieved for Bianca (“Bianca,” I said. My voice was thick. I’d felt guilty about her death for a long time but seeing her in front of me was five times as bad, like her death was fresh and new. I remembered searching through the wreckage of the giant bronze warrior she’d sacrificed her life to defeat, and not finding any sign of her. “I’m so sorry,” I said. Battle of the Labyrinth)

3.

Percy is the person who protected and cared for Nico more than anyone else in pjo

Tried to convince Bianca to think more deeply about her decision of joining the hunters, especially thinking of him (“Biance, this is crazy,” I said. “What about your brother? Nico can’t be a hunter.” (Titan’s curse)

Searched the woods in the dark for hours after he had disappeared (Annabeth and Grover helped me search the woods for hours, but there was no sign of Nico di Angelo.)

Didn’t tell Chiron about Nico’s parentage to protect him from the Gods. (I don't think Nico understands who he is. But we can't go telling anyone. Not even Chiron. If the Olympians find out—") Titan’s curse)

Decided to completely commit to the prophecy, solely so Nico didn’t have to bear that burden and go trough any more suffering(It was the last thing I wanted, but I didn't say that. I knew I had to step up and claim it. "I can't let Nico be in any more danger," I said. "I owe that much to his sister. I… let them both down. I'm not going to let that poor kid suffer any more." ) Titan’s curse)

Searched for Nico in the months after Titan’s Curse (Now, six months later, I hadn’t even come close to finding him. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. Battle of the labyrinth, chapter 3))

Saved his life on Geryon’s farm. (“Either way, you get my friends,” I said. “But, if I succeed, you’ve got to let all of us go, including Nico.”)

Always offered Nico a place at camp half-blood to the best of his abilities (“We missed you at dinner,” I said. “You could’ve sat with me.”“No.”“Nico, you can’t miss every meal. If you don’t want to stay with Hermes, maybe they can make an exception and put you in the big house. They’ve got plenty of room.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Invited him to join him on his birthday (“Is that… is that blue birthday cake?”He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful. I wondered if the poor kid had ever had a birthday party, or if he’d ever been invited to one. “Come inside for cake and ice cream,” I said. “It sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about.”, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Reminded him that he was still a child (I smiled. “Maybe it’s okay to still be a kid once in a while.” I tossed him the statue, Battle of the Labyrinth)

Helped him to get the sword of hades back to impress his father (Then I looked at Nico. Unfortunately, I recognised the expression on his face. I knew what it was like wanting to make your dad proud, even if your dad was hard to love., Sword of hades)

Acknowledged everything Nico did in The last Olympian and is one of the main reasons why Hades has a cabin at camp. ( “But your children should not be left out. They should have a cabin at camp. Nico has proven that.”)

4.

Percy was Nico’s first, and after Will, his biggest love

Nico had feelings for Percy, which didn’t leave him for around 2 1/2 years, and accompanied him throughout the most challenging parts of his life. 

Feelings, which were so deep, the god of love personally acknowledged them.

Favonius even called Percy, the person Nico cares about most in House of Hades.

This was more than just a mere crush

Percy is so completely intertwined with most aspects of Nico’s character arc, in both PJO and Hoo, be it his feeling of ostracism, his relationship to Bianca or him coming to term with his own sexuality, that them not having a final interaction, makes his writing feel shallow and unfinished. Especially Nico coming to terms with his crush on Percy opens up the opportunity for a really heartwarming conversation and a moment of character growth and maturity for both of them, instead of it being wasted on one throw-away line.

And it’s the same the other way around. Nico is also a huge part of Percy’s journey.

He especially represents Percy’s biggest failure.

The first five Percy Jackson books are characterized by Percy having to take up responsibility and him being afraid of not being able to fulfill them. Be it responsibility for camp, the world, Bianca’s death, the prophecy, his friends, teh unclaimed demigods, or everything else. Most of the time, Percy was able to make sure everything turned out fine. He saved camp, he saved Olympus, he finished his quests, made the right decision for the prophecy, and he made the gods swear upon teh styx. But there’s one exception. And that is Nico.

Percy did everything in his power to make sure Nico would be spared any more hardships. He took up the burden of the prophecy, explicitly, so that Nico doesn’t have to go through any more hardships

He searched for him after Titan’s curse, kept his identity a secret and even risked himself, Annabeth, Grover and Tyson dying if it meant saving Nico

Still, Nico is one of the characters, if not the character, who has suffered the most in PJO and Hoo, even partly because of Percy (though, of course, Nico having a crush on him was not Percy’s fault at all)

He lived alone at 11 years old on the streets and in the labyrinth, while getting manipulated by an ancient evil spirit

He was isolated and ostracized at camp half-blood

He experienced the horrors of Tartarus completely on his own

He got captured by the giants and slowly suffocated to death in a small jar

He had to deal with internalized homophobia and his complicated feelings regarding Percy

He has been a vital part of two wars at only 15 years old

Had to admit his crush involuntarily in front of Jason, etc.  

One of the things Percy battles with in Heroes of Olympus is this overwhelming sense of guilt. He blames himself for almost everything that went wrong over the last few years. Be it for Iapetus, Calypso, or especially Nico. Having Percy acknowledge this complicated relationship he has with him during House of Hades, but not allowing the two of them to talk it out is genuinely baffling to me, and one of the (albeit many) reasons why I really don’t like most of Percy’s writing during Heroes of Olympus, despite the fact that he is my favourite character by far. This could have led to a moment of character growth, where Nico helps Percy to aknowledge that he feels guilty for things he had little to no control over, while Nico himself realizes how important he actually is to Percy.

They are also so similar in terms of who they are and what they’ve been through, that even if you ignore their history with each other, it seems insane, that they didn’t interact in any meaningful way:  

Both were ostracized at camp half-blood because of their parentage, and so far are the only two half-bloods we know of with that experience

They are (together with Hazel) the most powerful demigods in the Riordan verse, and have feats which far surpass anyone else’s

Both are in some way afraid of their powers

Both went through Tartarus

Both have relatively similar relationships to their godly parents

Both have gone through immense trauma and loss

And if you read heroes of Olympus, it actually very much seems to build towards a final resolution of their relationship

Percy and Nico were, aside from Frank, the two people closest to Hazel; both saw her as a little sister, and Hazel treated them both like her brothers

Nico was the first person Percy met from his old life

Percy was the one, who received the visions of Nico being captured

From everyone present, Percy trusted Nico to lead the others to Greece in his moment of greatest desperation

They both had introspections about the other in house of Hades, Nico having to deal with his crush and Percy with his guilt in Tartarus

But, in the end, after they met again, nothing happened. The only scene we really got was the “You’re not my type” line and Percy being surprised by it for a couple seconds. That’s it.

We saw no meaningful conversation between the two of them, no acknowledgement of what they’ve been through together, no lasting feelings. Nothing.

In regards to their relationship, Percy acknowledging everything that Nico has been through led to nothing. Nico acknowledging his feelings for Percy and finally letting go of this pedestal he had placed him on led to nothing. You could argue that their entire relationship, which has been built up since Titan’s curse led to nothing. And considering that they are so important characters for each of their character arcs, their characterization very much suffers from this writing decision.

The two of them, together with Hazel, are my three favourite Riordan verse characters by a long shot, but some very important aspects of both of their characters fall so flat to me through this lack of a satisfying resolution.

 Both of them deserved so much better.  

They are the friendship with the most missed potential in the entirety of the Riordan verse and probably the most fleshed out and nuanced relationship Rick ever wrote.

R.I.P.  Nico di Angelo, and Percy Jackson, you will always be brothers in my mind.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[bugtoast]

in light of recent news regarding the elongated musk rat; i didn't think a man could get this stupid

[amphibianaday]

day 1421

[patchwork-crow-writes]

No, actually, you get the Kralsei "incest" rant now, I've decided.

The ship being considered incest or incest-adjacent is largely a result of several assumptions that are being made about Ralsei, and to a lesser extent about Kris as well. For this to work, you have to assume the following:

Ralsei is modeled primarily on Asriel

All Boss Monsters of a certain age look identical to one another and are related to one another

Kris had absolutely no hand in Ralsei's creation

Kris is heavily uncomfortable with Ralsei's existence

The entire implied romantic undertones of Ralsei's feelings towards Kris were designed to be incestuous from the start

In order, I shall deconstruct and debunk these. Very long post below the read more, you have been warned.

While it is true that Ralsei does share some superficial similarities with Asriel, he's actually much, MUCH more similar to Kris in many ways. All he shares with Asriel is an anagrammed name and a passing likeness. They're not similar in terms of personality, and that goes regardless of which Asriel we're even talking about. Many people associate Ralsei with Undertale's incarnation of Asriel, who doesn't even exist in the same universe. Any similarities between the two are inferred entirely by the player, aided and abetted by the game making these subtle hints that they're "connected" in some way. Yeah, about as connected as Undertale is to Deltarune. To take this a step further, consider Kris and Frisk. No-one is conflating these two, not in a million years. And yet look, they share an anagrammed name and a passing likeness, so they're basically the same person, aren't they? I mean, we both control them through the SOUL, and they're both protagonists of games made by Toby Fox, so if anything they're more similar to each other than Ralsei is to Asriel. But of course, that's utterly absurd, and we all know it. *

I refer you once again to the humans. And before you tell me "they all obviously look different to each other" - and of course I'm not saying they're not different when they obviously are - consider how a monster might look at these humans if you placed them side-by-side. Pale-ish skin, brown hair, no obvious gender markers, similar height profiles. Any monster who's not intimately familiar with any of the humans in question might perhaps confuse them. And so it is with us and Boss Monsters. Just because Ralsei and Asriel share certain characteristics common to ALL boss monsters does not make them the same, or even similar, to each other. You only have to look at the sprites for the two side-by-side to see that there are plenty of differences between them. And as for Deltarune's Asriel? We haven't even seen this guy, we have NO idea what he looks like. We're just making assumptions again based on incomplete information. And if we assume that all boss monsters are related in some way due to how similar they might appear, then what does that make Toriel and Asgore, two boss monsters who have canonically produced offspring in both continuities? I don't need to say it, do I? *

It should be clarified here that I don't just mean Kris consciously made Ralsei at any point, either as an imaginary friend or monster-sona or what-have-you, but that Ralsei's creation as a darkner is somehow linked to how Kris saw themself/wished to be seen in their childhood. The most obvious piece of evidence supporting this is the horned headband that Toriel mentions at the end of Chapter 1. It's heavily implied that Kris would wear it so that they could be the same as their adoptive family, before they supposedly lost it somewhere down the line. It's not too much of a leap in logic to infer from this that Ralsei was created from that headband, at least in part. That said, there are certain aspects of Ralsei that don't exactly fit this neat mold, and I am willing to concede this point if it turns out that the headband thing is a massive misdirect. Nonetheless, I would say that the evidence we currently have to hand points more resolutely towards Ralsei being an aspect of Kris than of him being an aspect of Asriel. *

So I'm just going to say it: WE DON'T KNOW. Because Kris is our protagonist and POV character, it's incredibly easy to forget that we know next-to-nothing about the inner workings of their mind. They have no dialogue except what we tell them to say, and anything we CAN say about them is inferred from how other characters respond to their tone of voice. Of course, we can infer that Kris doesn't fully consider Ralsei a good friend based on his tea healing 60HP, but that on its own doesn't really tell us anything of much substance because you can't exactly cross-reference those numbers against a handy chart or anything - it's all context-dependent. We do at least know that they are comfortable enough around Ralsei to play the odd prank on him, which we know is something they used to do a lot of with Noelle and Asriel, two people they were close to growing up. They will, of their own volition, interpret our instruction to "take a bite" of Ralsei's dummy's clothes to make it look like they're kissing it on the cheek. I don't think that's something you would do with somebody who freaked you out on an existential level, or somebody who reminded you of your brother. Again, I am willing to concede this point should it turn out my interpretation of these clues is incorrect. *

Ask yourself this: What would Kralsei being incest - or incest-adjacent, or pseudo-incest, or whatever - contribute to the characters of Kris and Ralsei, to our relationship to them as players, or to the narrative or wider themes of Deltarune as a whole? I'll tell you - nothing whatsoever. The most such an interpretation can EVER say is that we as players are so easily manipulated by window-dressing and flattery that we will, knowingly or otherwise, romantically pair two characters together who are related in some way, shape or form. And let's say that this IS the intent behind their dynamic - all it amounts to, all it can ever amount to, is a great bit gotcha from Toby Fox himself. Haha, I tricked you into shipping two characters who are secretly related, isn't that fucked up of you? Somehow, I don't think that was his intention with this, it seems such a petty and small-minded thing for somebody who we know is capable of creating moving, thought-provoking, horrifying and beautiful stories. He's better than that. It turns the entire thing into a glorified skill-check: are YOU smart enough to identify that you're being encouraged to engage in incest-shipping, or are you a dumbass who only sees what's presented to you and doesn't ask questions about it? Contrary to popular belief, we're not all 5-D chess grandmasters, and shockingly not everybody is going to interpret the clues in this way. All it does is make people who DO earnestly ship Kralsei feel bad for something the game WAS ENCOURAGING THEM TO DO. Which would be fine if we were playing, say, Spec Ops: The Line, which is very much built around that conceit. And hey, if you wanna feel shitty about shipping two characters together in an extremely unhealthy and harmful manner, Snowgrave is right there. The difference here is that the weird route is A) completely optional, B) difficult if not impossible to accidentally trigger, C) completely derails the game's story and emotional beats, and D) doesn't rely on the shock value of surprise incest to carry it. Snowgrave actually has something INTERESTING to say about the nature of former friends, forced romance, a player's control over a protagonist and how people can be manipulated to do horrendous things by proxy. All the incest interpretation of Kralsei has to offer is that... it's incest, and you're a bit yucky for partaking in it. I'll wrap up this point by saying: incest is a very emotive topic and produces visceral emotional reactions in a lot of people. It's very clever that people have looked critically at Kralsei and observed the possibility, the interpretation, that this could be what's happening, but if the aim in doing so was to promote debate and analysis on the topic, I'm afraid it's only succeeded in doing the exact opposite, causing people to disengage from it entirely. And I strongly believe that's going to severely harm the state of discourse going into Deltarune's future chapters, because how are you going to talk about the game and what it's trying to say if you keep dodging a major part of it for fear of being thought of as pro-incest? It sucks if you're invested in the ship because no-one wants to discuss it, it sucks if you're NOT invested in the ship because it's not likely going to just evaporate come chapter 3, it sucks for everybody.

Now, having said all of that, I am not here to convince you that Kralsei is the truth and the life and what-have-you - you can read any of my other essays on the topic if you want to be preached to in that manner. You're valid and based for not liking Kralsei for any reason, and I wholeheartedly respect your opinion. All I'm trying to say here is that, calling it incest because "Ralsei is/looks like Asriel" or "Kris hates Ralsei" or whatever doesn't do anything for anyone. There are plenty of valid reasons not to like the ship, I just don't think that this is one of them.

Rant over, have a lovely day :D

[jewelleria]

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be. 

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate. 

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified. 

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map. 

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle. 

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more. 

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop. 

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments. 

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on. 

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not. 

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways. 

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine. 

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war. 

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this: 

I am a Jew. 

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love. 

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners. 

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee! 

Then they sent me this: 

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die. 

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind. 

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake. 

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired. 

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people? 

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews. 

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like. 

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for. 

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war. 

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why. 

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be. 

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

[queen-lucy-the-valiant]

"Edmund, I've got a bad feeling" is such a funny line if you take it in context with the "the last time I didn't believe Lucy, I ended up looking pretty stupid" line from PC. Because Caspian and co are probably like... yeah bad feeling, it's Eustace, what good feelings could you have? but then Edmund's probably thinking something like... dear god, please don't let this be as dramatic as the last few times, we don't have enough men to fight another war rn.

[goosehadfood]

Hivewing sketch… may turn it into an adopt… *passes out*

[jivvie]

SO YEAH I LIKE MOONCOVEY

but what I really liked abt this season was that min ho still cares for kitty. yes, she rejected him on the plane and he probably spent winter break wondering why he confessed on the damn plane RIGHT AFTER DAE AND KITTY BROKE UP- but when kitty ends up talking to him, he understands the situation they both are in and they continue being friends with a side of teasing.

and yeah we didn’t get a lot of mooncovey screen time cus of stella and also they aren’t roommates anymore BUT WHEN THEY DO YOU CAN SEE HOW MUCH MIN HO CARES FOR KITTY

when kitty exposes stella to min ho and he believes she’s jealous, at the party, Min Ho listens to Q and asks Kitty for a dance. He pushes away the thought of Kitty being jealous and instead asks her as a friend. The first thing he says when Stella is threatening him is “if you dare touch kitty” (or smth like that). HE REALLY CARES FOR HER SO MUCH.

I saw @listentomerant’s post about xo kitty and they talked about how kitty falls in love through strong emotional bonds. I LOVE THIS POST SO MUCH ITS SO GOOD. Thats why Min ho being there for when Kitty needs someone or legit anyone makes this all the more worth it. He knows she’ll never think of him as more and he moves past that to become a better friend.

I’m glad that Kitty rejected him because this season gives more into their relationship. It isn’t just min ho having a “sex” dream about kitty and focusing on her more. We get to see kitty’s side (even if it was kind of short). We see her understand how reliable Min ho is even though she rejected him. He really does become the bigger person and although it might just be denial, this really shows how much better min ho is as a partner.

even with stella, min ho is just a good partner. stella wants to sing for the show, and because he sees how she stood up to his dad and how much she cares for him, he decides to ask. He was still rocky with his dad but because stella was a good person to him, he felt the need to give back to her.

If they had kitty accept min ho’s confession, it would really fall flat. Kitty just “fell out of love” with Yuri and broke up with Dae, and getting into a new relationship would honestly destroy their chemistry. Having a whole season to actually develop this relationship is more worth it instead.

sorry I went too into this. I know people are really upset about kittyuri and how they wrote yuri this season, but I really think that in the context of this season, min ho feels more reliable. I would love to see the writers next season pit yuri and min ho against each other (which would be super funny; imagine fighting against your older sister/younger brother to become the canon relationship) as it’d be very interesting, but I think we can tell mooncovey is most likely endgame.

[lukecastellanshandholder]

I think that the one thing that I will always absolutely loathe the movies for (other than single handedly screwing up the whole plot of the story) is for making up that bullshit rule about Zeus declaring that no god can have any kind of contact with their children. That’s completely not true but now a huge chunk of people in the fandom believe that rule as canon( because most like to pick and chose what is canon and what is not, and sell head canons as being canon to the books ).

The only rules that are stated in the books relating to demigods and their parents is that 1). Gods cannot blatantly and outwardly help their demigod children during a basic quest (such as help them fight monsters or help them travel somewhere for the quest). 2). That as of the time right after WW2 the big 3 gods are not to sire any demigod children as part of their oath that they made on the River Styx (which Zeus and Poseidon definitely didn’t break ). Gods are still able to spend time with their demigod children and mortal lovers on times out side of quests. However, it’s seen as taboo mainly because the other gods use them having to much to do, and too many demigod children as an excuse to just not do anything for them. Not send them a birthday card, not a visit, and not even being claimed in most cases.

That’s giving the gods too much slack! People like to say "well, they’re gods. They’re trying their best." No they’re not! And this is what Luke’s character blatantly points out!

Hermes not even bothering to visit every once and a while? Hermes not trying to help in even any little way with Luke and May's situation? It’s a main reason why Luke becomes so angry at the gods and even thinks about saying yes to Kronos’ proposal.

And who is the example of what could’ve happened if Hermes would’ve done literally anything? Anything at all? Percy.

Percy didn’t like the gods and Poseidon very much in the beginning ( he doesn’t really like them much now but, you know) but Poseidon at least helps Percy in little ways that can fly under the radar of Zeus and the others. The Pearls to help Percy escape from the underworld? Tyson? Poseidon even crashes Percy’s birthday party ffs! Sure Poseidon isn’t there every time Percy scrapes his knee or fights a monster, but he still shows Percy that he somewhat cares about him.

All Hermes does is tell others how much he cares for Luke and "really truly loves him", but does nothing to prove to Luke that he truly cares. But it’s not just Hermes who does this, almost all of the gods do this! Why? Because they know that they can just say "oh, well I was busy and I tried my best" and others will just believe them and carry on. Or worse, they’ll take what the gods say to heart and demonize anyone who would try to oppose the gods so that it’s seen as a bad thing to hold the Gods accountable for the way they act.

And this is a clear example of the overarching theme that the gods are actually just an oppressive establishment that won’t ever really change unless it’s destroyed or overthrown.

In this essay I will…

[erinwantstowrite]

Erin! Do you have rednote? Everyone has been moving there from tiktok and I was wondering if you plan to as well?

tbh i really haven't posted anything on tiktok in a few months and i want to give it a while before i try to find another platform. i'm cool chilling here with all of you, and maybe making a youtube instead of another tiktok version

[tonguetiedraven]

Rin was wrong about the Kyoto arc and most of you are too

But like Rin, you don't have to hold onto your assumptions.

With the slight resurgence in aoex popularity, I'm seeing a new rise in some fundamental misunderstandings about the characters and plot. I've been asked a lot of questions about a few certain characters over the years, and I've noticed that the base of the misunderstandings people tend to have with everyone originates in the Kyoto Arc.

What am I calling the Kyoto arc? Everything that happens in the second season of the anime and everything that happens after chapter 13 in the manga . (The point when the anime said let's go off and do our own wild thing and forget about the story and characters Kato is making! It'll be fun and totally not still be causing long lasting chaos over a decade later) and up to chapter 35. It's a 20 chapter arc, roughly. And honestly I think most of the manga exclusive Kraken arc should be included in the Kyoto arc because it is a direct continuation of Rin and Yukio's story line there, but I digress and we will get to that!

I am going to assume that you, the reader of this lengthy essay (I'm wordy and won't apologize for it, lol), are aware enough of the manga and Blue Exorcist to know that every episode in the first season of the anime after episode 16 is NOT CANON and does a poor job of depicting all the characters involved from Angel to Yukio. (There is no character with a Z, lol. So Yukio wins that role.) No one comes out looking correct in that. I know some people will argue that Rin is fine, but no. He is not similar to his canon hot headed, impulsive, loud, often violent/aggressive, and past avoiding self who would never have let his twin pull a gun on Kuro and would never have let Yukio leave after that without a fight. Sorry guys, they nuked him too. Just in a more pathetic victim way so people let it slide because he obviously needs to be protected from all the other meanies.

I am also going to assume you know character names. You can google them if you get confused  ദ്ദി ( ᵔ ᗜ ᵔ )

Anyway, back on topic. I'm going to go heavily into the start of this arc and more broad as it goes on. The initial area is where most of the misconceptions start and they kind of carry through from then on meaning the entire rest of the arc and arcs there are a few flaws in the understanding of character motivations and reasons and some just basic plot stuff.

In chapter 13 of the manga, we get this tremendous clip

Just before this moment the exwires have found out that their classmate is not a human and is powerful.

You'll notice Shima leaning against the railing there. That's because he has a cracked rib and probably a concussion. Konekomaru is now sporting a broken arm, and Ryuuji got strangled out enough to be choking on blood. Shiemi was hypnotized and controlled and carried around like a possession by a demon king who tried to eat her eyes and kept taunting about making her his bride all while she was unable to move or do anything. There is not enough written about the truly terrifying kind of assault that is for the youngest member of their group, and that's without the tangle of a relationship Amaimon and Shiemi have in it.

It is vital that everyone take a second to think about that. Izumo and Takara were not there. They stayed in the camp. They didn't pursue Amaimon, Shiemi, or Rin. They chose not to fight or try to help. The Kyoto Trio did (because Ryuuji/Bon is impulsive and ran after Rin and Shiemi to help and the others followed him) and it took all of thirty seconds for the Demon King Amaimon to knock them all out without even really putting any effort into his attack.

They manage to get out of the forest and back to the pictured bridge with Yukio leading them out while the forest catches dramatically on blue fire. (Remember that the Kyoto trio grew up hearing about how much the blue flames of Satan destroyed their home and killed their family members. Their entire life was irrevocably changed because of blue flames.) And Rin and Amaimon are wildly fucking shit up. They even yeeted Mephisto who is a much higher ranking king.

All that leads to the Paladin appearing, Arthur Angel, who orders the exwires to be interrogated and checked by medics. (Honestly a step up for True Cross. They almost never remember medics.)

The Paladin appears and then Mephisto appears, and he has Rin in tow. Rin who is entirely feral and tries to lunge for the exwires. The traumatized exwires see Rin try and attack them with an entirely demonic face. They do not know anything about his story or Shirou or even ow he got here, but they can easily see that he's tied to Satan because of the flames and now he clearly wants to hurt. Hurt them.

Now in Rin's defense, he's not in his right mind. Mephisto sheaths the sword and the demonic part is forced to retreat and Rin passes out until he's slapped awake. At that point he's the Rin we know again (the exwires still have no idea what the hell is going on) and Angel takes him into custody. Rin looks over and sees his friends bloodied and bruised and sees Ryuuji with blood on his mouth staring with an unreadable expression.

It leads to this shot:

Question for the group: Who is Ryuuji asking this to?

Not Rin, that's for sure. It's Mephisto, in my opinion. Ryuuji is asking, quite understandably, why the hell the child of Satan was put in a class of ordinary students and why none of them were told about it. They just had a Demon King attack their class of exwires all of which were struggling against a simple moth and had to reseal it instead of exorcising it. A Demon King that attacked them because he wanted to do something to the son of Satan and they had no extra protection against that. Enough so that four of them are injured or traumatized.

(Also, if you get strangled do not yell and IMMEDIATELY seek medical help. There are a lot of terrible conditions and long lasting effects that can occur with strangulation.)

So at this point everyone is made to split ways. The exwires will get a small update from Yukio, and Rin will get put on trial for his life. Neither party knows what the other is aware of, and as far as we can tell, Rin does not remember that he tried very hard to lunge at and attack the exwires.

That does not mean that Rin did not lunge for and try to attack them. Not remembering trauma you caused someone else does not erase that trauma.

There is also this moment, and you best believe I am also here to defend Shiemi because she deserves it.

Go girl. You're so right. There's nothing funny about any of this. Not your abduction, not how assaulting that entire thing was, and not the fact that he was feral and that you're feeling like a lot of this is your fault. (And it was not her fault.)

Rin's defense in most bad situations is laughter and ignoring whatever the uncomfortable thing is. This rubs everyone around him the wrong way almost every time. And that's their right. I also truly think he doesn't know what he just did and doesn't remember much past drawing the sword and he's scared, and he's able to tell the vibes are bad and he's in trouble, but doesn't really get why/how. He is a bit (a lot) of an idiot and we love him for that.

Another vital thing to understand about Rin is that he sees the demonic and violent parts of himself as someone else. He is not that demon. He is not the guy that tore apart the forest, everyone is wrong. He didn't lunge after his friends, someone else did that. He isn't out of control of his flames, that isn't him. That demon with the flames and frightening strength and burning anger isn't him. They've got it all wrong. He's just Rin.

That is a big part of Rin's story. Rin accepting that he is all those things. He is the human and he is the demon and he is all the things that comes with both of those things. He is right and wrong and kind and cruel and caring and callous and gentle and dangerous. He is Yuri and Satan and Shirou's son, and he is complicated and trying his best and slowly learning to accept what he is and isn't.

Anyway, they split ways for a shitty night. Rin's is unquestionably shittier, but again, the rest of the exwires don't get told what the hell happened.

Anime only fans will already be noticing differences, but wait, there's a lot more that was missed/ skipped over.

The Kyoto trio are all at the hospital for the next few days and get a call about the temple having been attacked. Shima's dad and Ryuuji's dad were said to have been hurt in it.

This is the second hint we get that Ryuuji is not on good terms with his dad, and the mere mention of Kyoto visibly upsets him. That'll be important a little later.

Rin goes back to class with the girls but is pulled out by Yukio for his own individual classes with Shura before anyone can say anything. The cram teacher then explains the following:

The entirety of their school is giving them instructions on what to do if Rin goes wild because the exorcist and teachers all think he will go feral again.

Rin does not know they're getting this instruction.

We then see what Yukio told them is basically: Yeah, my twin has flames. I don't because I was too weak. I get tested daily for it. The koma (a nickname for Kurikara because you can't exactly go around calling a stolen sword by its name or people will catch on) sword sealed him. I don't know why we were allowed to live when True Cross has a very loud 'no Satan or Satan offspring allowed' policy. Kay, thanks, byyyeeeeee.

So no one is happy and no one really knows anything. Just Yukio who has always known everything and had the biggest emotional, responsible, and mental burden of everything about his brother. He was left holding the bag again. Responsible for a class he's the same age as, mourning his father whose death he doesn't know the full story of, responsible for killing his own brother if he goes feral, now ostracized even more by a community of exorcist he already didn't blend in with, and now made to bear all this. Yukio is a king for holding out for so damn many arcs without showing how bad his mental health was getting with all that stress.

At this point we see Ryuuji is placing the guilt for Konekomaru and Shima being injured on his own shoulders (Konekomaru tells him it was his fault that they were injured) and Shiemi is realizing that Rin became her friend as he was revealed and that she was never as much of a support or friend to either of them as she thought.

Meanwhile Izumo who, and I cannot stress this enough, did NOTHING in the fight and was not part of most of this and has at this point made NO effort to be friends with anyone past cleaning a shirt Rin loaned her, is judging all of them visibly.

A brief interlude of Toudou being a creep and Rin showing he cannot follow orders from absolutely anyone and making Yukio and Shura frustrated at how unpredictable and manageable he is, and we're now given the mission to go to Kyoto and help there.

Ryuuji is just so blatantly shocked and not okay with the assignment to his home. Like I genuinely don't think we have a shot of Ryuuji looking more shook and shit gets wild in this manga.

Ryuuji does not want to go back to Kyoto. He left on terrible terms with his parents and swore he would not return until he had his meisters and rank. He defied his parents in even going to the cram school and now he's being forced to return a bit busted up and long before he was ready. If you do not have a bad family dynamic, you can't really get how devastating this is, but try and imagine it. It's a tremendous source of stress and frustration for Ryuuji, and the main thing he's dealing with through this arc. He has a lot of history with his father ignoring and denying him and trying to control him, and it is not a healthy dynamic. THAT is what drives Ryuuji in this arc. Kyoto, the temple, and his father. It is NOT Rin. Rin is at the bottom of his list of things to be thinking about right now.

This is essentially Ryuuji's arc, and it is, quite simply, not about Rin for him. Rin becomes a part of it, but not until later. At the moment, it is Kyoto and the shame and frustration and resentment about that which is driving him forward.

Shiemi is melting under her own self loathing at this point. She is hating herself and has never been confident and always been prone to thinking poorly of herself, and shown she is unaware of when relationships are abusive with how severely Izumo bullied her and continues to bully her.

(And I could write another essay on how fucking misogynistic it is that everyone flocks to team Izumo when she's slightly nice to Rin and blatantly ignores the Shiemi abuse because well Shiemi is annoying anyway. Check yourself and ask why you feel that way if you do. Why is violence and cruelty okay against Shiemi? Why is it forgivable in her case but not in others?)

We all board a train to Kyoto and see each other for the first time. Rin has zero ability to ever read a room (we love him for it even if he will occasionally kill us with second hand embarrassment) and is acting like he didn't try to kill them on their last interaction and like everything is normal and there isn't a big and awkward elephant in the room taking up most of the train space.

THIS GOES DOWN DIFFERENTLY IN THE MANGA THAN THE ANIME. The manga stretches this scene out to give three characters very important breathing room while the anime cuts this far shorter and mixes up the dialogue some, muddying the motives.

Rin, not reading the room, sees Shiemi and calls out happily to her. Shiemi utterly freezes and can't decide how she should respond or what she should say. She has, as far as we know, never had a friend outside of her family and the twins. She doesn't know how to interact with them and she is drowning in guilt of failing them as a friend. A lot of that is because Rin said she wasn't his friend to the Kyoto Trio and because Izumo is always telling her she's failing as a friend and saying she doesn't like her. Izumo is a bully at this point. I will not back down on that point and will continue to reiterate it. You do her incredible arc a disservice to pretend otherwise.

That leads us to the confrontation:

Ryuuji does not show any sign of anger until Rin talks about Kyoto. Then it's instant grouchy face Grouchy face and grouchy boy until one of the other two interject and then he swallows all that Kyoto frustration right back down and stomps off to sit behind Rin with Konekomaru -- who has been given a talk by their superiors on what to do if their classmates loses his shit and goes feral on them and who lost his entire temple and family to the Blue Night -- voicing his worry about Rin losing control of his flames on a tiny train where there is no where to go.

Rin visibly deflates and sinks back on his chair Izumo, the drama queen who would deny being one, enters and sees. Now Izumo has conflicting reasons for her next act. She has been ostracized and bully quite a lot in her younger life, and that is part of why she is now an ice queen. She sees Rin and wants to help him feel better and is no more in the know of what the others are actually dealing with than Rin, and I dare say that was her first and primary motive.

However Izumo cannot allow herself to do something solely out of kindness to help someone. That is a weakness she will not allow herself and dangerous. Kindness and helping gets you hurt or killed by stronger parties and she has sworn off that in all cases but Paku. (No one quite knows what magic Noriko Paku possesses, but man does she, lol.)

So Izumo sits next to Rin and waits until after the debriefing about why they're here (meaning Ryuuji is now even more upset because yep, it's absolutely his temple and their miasma and their secrets and their weaknesses being discusses and revealed and flaunted) and they chat a little about the fact that lots of people have demon blood (*cough* FORESHADOWING *cough*) and then, after getting flustered about Rin complementing her and thanking her and getting buddy-buddy enough to use a nickname, she goes cruel and decisive and makes a pointed jab at Ryuuji, who takes it in stride for a moment, and then Shiemi, who visibly deflates thinking even less of herself and that Ryuuji does not take in stride.

Izumo did a kind thing in sitting with Rin, however, the others did not do a cruel thing by not sitting with him. They simply chose to give themselves a little space from a situation they were still struggling with. The cruelest one in the moment before she spoke was probably Konekomaru, and even he wasn't talking to Rin. He was nervous and scared and talking to his friends about Rin. None of them owed Rin anything. They did not owe him their time or space or attention. They are allowed to recover from their trauma and physical injuries while not having him constantly shove his over-excited puppy-energy self in their faces constantly and make everything all the more difficult for them while they try and reconcile that guy with the feral monster that wanted to take a chunk out of them and who was not in control of the flames they've grown up terrified of.

We see the story mainly through Rin's perspective, all the more so if you're an anime only, but that does not mean Rin is always an honest and reliable narrator. He is unaware he tried to hurt them and unaware of their own trauma. He can't imagine any of their actions and reactions aren't centering around him at this moment because Rin too is going through a lot of trauma and stress of his own that they don't know about.

What I find over and over again in this story is that people excuse any poor or selfish or cruel act of Rin's because of trauma and not being perfect, but they will not excuse it in any one else. This makes for a frustrating unfairness in expectations, and frankly, turns the story boring. If no one but Rin can make mistakes, or you choose only to see other's mistakes and not Rin's, you are robbing the characters and Rin of their complexity and growth.

Izumo was kind in sitting next to Rin, and she was purposefully cruel at the exact same time. This is who Izumo is. Kind and cruel for quite a long time. Brave and selfish. Confident and self conscious. Guarded while slowly falling in love and denying it every step of the way.

So the train ride immediately goes to shit and they get loud with Ryuuji calling her out (reminder, she can call them coward all day long but she did not leave the circle and didn't fight and has not stepped forward once in any of their missions to work as a group or fight until she had to)

And Shure (in the manga) wakes up and makes them sit in a different car of the train with bariyons on their laps as punishment. Konekomaru continues to stress, Ryuuji tells him to chill, Shiemi continues to hate herself, and Izumo continues to be purposefully cruel.

The bariyons get aggressive and one pins Shiemi to the ground. Rin does Rin and burns it without warning, freaking everyone out because wow! Blue flames are just suddenly everywhere. Ryuuji interferes because again, his temple was devastated by Blue flames and he has no reason to think they can behave differently and he is nothing if not determined to protect and help his team at all times.

Shiemi realizes Rin still has control of them and tells everyone to relax, and they do.

The flames are put out and Rin immediately attacks Ryuuji.

Rin demands trust and honestly, I could understand if he was unaware that he'd caused mayhem in the forest and tried to lunge for them, but if he was aware then he has to be smoking those flames of his because there is no reason to trust him at this point. He's lied (he didn't have a choice but they don't know that and reasons do not negate that a lie happened and we are now in the lies arc) and he has shown he is dangerous and that Demon Kings kind of follow him and will attack indiscriminatingly. (It's not like they know Amaimon is not allowed to kill them.)

Rin knows he won't hurt them and thinks that should be enough. No one else knows that they can believe this at this point. Ryuuji explains that Blue Flames have killed a lot of his people and that he can't trust someone who endanger his family. It is once again Kyoto he is thinking about and Kyoto he is worried about. They are on a train to Kyoto where Blue Flames destroyed a lot and now they're bringing the one guy with Blue Flames there and he keeps flaming up so it seems like what little he still has there is going to be devoured by flames.

Rin says basically, sorry that happened but it has NOTHING to do with me. This is a naïve thing to say and while technically right, is missing the point of what Ryuuji said. I can't trust you because you haven't shown me I can trust those deadly flames with you and they have absolutely devastated my home before.

The fight amps up more -- and again, Rin was the aggressor. They're both hot headed but he's the one that grabbed Ryuuji, not the other way around, and in a fairly close way to how Amaimon had grabbed Ryuuji and that can't be helping things. The fight gets louder and Konekomaru bravely intervenes and grabs both of their arms and tells them to stop. A bariyon choses that moment to cause chaos and try to kill Ryuuji and Shura has had enough and kills it but kindly doesn't kill the exwires for interrupting her nap twice over and the conversation is left entirely unresolved.

And for the next long stretch, they will not have that conversation resolved. They get back, Ryuuji is immediately accosted by his powerhouse of a mom, Torako Suguro who is pissed, and finds out that his dad has been absent and that things are going south fast in Kyoto.

From this moment on, Ryuuji will have one goal and that is to find his dad and save what few temple members he can. He wants to reunite his temple--that has always been his goal--and his dad's failure to lead and potential at being the traitor in their midst is causing what few of his sect are left to fracture even more. He is around Rin a few times in the next chapter, but his mind is never on Rin or their drama. He is wholly focused on Kyoto and the drama here.

This is where a lot of people misunderstand him. He is not avoiding Rin, he simply has a much bigger priority, as he should. This is his family and this temple is everything to him. We find out that Tatsuma has thrown their reputation in the mud and that he has caused a lot of their sect to abandon the temple, and that he has fought Ryuuji's hopes and goals every step of the way, and that he was the first to laugh at Ryuuji (which we know is an immensely traumatic memory for him) and that Tatsuma is actively working to avoid Ryuuji, and that he was at the Keep during the break in, and that several members of the Sect absolutely think Tatsuma is the traitor.

And if he isn't the traitor, then he is still failing them and running away from his duties. What's worse, we see a few of the sect (Mamushi specifically) even place some of the blame of the failure on Ryuuji.

Rin is seen working with the Kyoto trio on some kind of chore after they arrive, and actively being ignored and mistreated by the teachers. They absolutely deserve ire for the way they treat Rin like he's already gone feral and refuse to let him help.

Rin is being ostracized and thinks everything happening here is about him. He thinks the others are ignoring him and that they're upset about him. They're largely just... Not. Izumo and Shiemi are put on helping the large volume of patients and from what we see, Izumo doesn't chat with Rin again after the bus.

Shiemi sees this as a way to not let people down (she thinks she let everyone down in the forest. That it was her fault and she isn't good enough or strong enough or just enough to be their friends. Probably partly because the one friend she thinks she has is a bully.) and dives hard into work. She still doesn't know what to say to Rin and freezes up a lot.

That leads to a fantastic scene in chapter 18 with Izumo and Shiemi in the garden and Shiemi positively sobbing about being a useless friend and not being strong enough to help like she wants and Izumo telling her she's really strong and able to talk about friends and her emotions without getting embarrassed and that she's stubborn and strong as a weed and Shiemi, who has clearly not gotten enough praise in her life just glows and determines to be as strong and stubborn as a weed.

It's a vitally important moment for both these girls. Izumo is kind and doesn't turn it cruel and sees how strong Shiemi is and helps Shiemi see herself as strong too. Izumo has done a lot to break Shiemi down but she is also, arguably, the one that did the most to build her back up too.

She dives back into her work to the point she inspires Rin to try harder on his own training because he is lazy and she isn't, and he admires that.

At this point Shima has decided that to keep going on his own path in the laziest way he can manage that ignoring Rin was too much work so they're just going back to before and acting like nothing ever happened. Rin is drunk and insults him in this with the list.

Rin confronts Konekomaru later and finds out what happened to Konekomaru's family and Konekomaru begs Rin to leave Ryuuji alone because he is dealing with a lot of stress. Rin (correctly for once) realizes that Konekomaru will absolutely be his friend if he can show that his flames aren't a danger. If he puts in the work to get control of those, he can be friends. Rin goes off determined to do that.

Ryuuji and Shiemi are now the only two who haven't had their Rin moment, and they firmly busy in their own stuff. Rin still thinks they're avoiding him because they're mad at him and blaming him for the Blue Night stuff and they're simply not. At no point does he ever really seem to get that he's assuming stuff incorrectly about all this either.

Ryuuji does some not at all stealthy spying and follows Juuzou to the Keep to find most of the staff unconscious and gets himself in the middle of the theft of the Impure King's last eye. Mamushi betrays them to Toudou and states that it is because of Tatsuma that she is. That he has failed them as a leader and conspired with Mephisto by giving away the sacred relic of their temple (Kurikara) and letting the son of Satan have it.

She is not entirely wrong, and she is not entirely right. She is very wrong about Toudou, but they both escape to cause more havoc elsewhere and leave Ryuuji to finally catch up to Tatsuma.

We have been building for several chapters at this point that Ryuuji and Tatsuma do not have a great relationship. There is a lot of frustration and confusion and hurt in it. A lot of history and pain and Ryuuji is trying to get his dad to tell him anything. To deny the allegations if they're not true and do something to help with the fact that one of their members just left.

Tatsuma refuses to. We later learn why and it sucks, but it doesn't lesson the hurt in this moment. Being unable to explain something does not mean that your actions, justified or not, did not and do not hurt someone.

Ryuuji, seeing his dad turn his back on him without even a hint of an explanation to all the terrible accusations and all the pain and trauma around them, pleading for some kind of explanation to anything, plays the only card he has left.

His father has already all but disowned him for the cram school, so he returns that. He warns that if Tatsuma leaves now and like this, he might as well not bother to come back because Ryuuji will no longer (can no longer) consider him his father.

Rin, who has kind of snuck into this dramatic meeting, overhears this and has a violent trauma induced reaction.

Now, Rin has trauma and it is entirely understandable why hearing those words would make him react dramatically. That does not excuse the violence he reacts with. You enduring trauma and having triggers and painful emotions does not give you the right to inflict violence on someone else.

And inflict violence Rin very much does. Once again flaming up some too, not at all in control.

This was not Rin's fight to get in the middle of. I will die on the hill that others do not get to determine what a child can and cannot do in their own parent and child relationship. Others can offer opinions and advice, but they do not get to order or dictate the relationship. They are not part of it and cannot possibly know what it is actually like. This is the same sort of mentality that tells people who have had to make the immensely difficult choice to go no contact with a parent that they should try and make up because it's hard to be a parent like it's easy to be a child and under the parent's control and guidance. Ryuuji has a lot of reasons to have made that ultimatum, and while we will learn a lot more about why Tatsuma has failed as a parent and leader, the reason does not absolve or eliminate the failures. He has failed Ryuuji multiple times and at this moment, tied by a cruel fate, he has to fail and hurt him again.

He did not have to choose to do it this way though, and do not forget that.

And Rin knows nothing about their relationship. He is putting his own reactions and motivations on Ryuuji who does not have them.

Rin is in the wrong in this moment. I will not back down from that either. Rin hurt his friend and revealed himself, and in the next panels defied Shura and continued to try and fight Ryuuji and make him understand that you can't disown your father because you can't take that back--

And it is in this fight that Ryuuji is first made aware that when Rin talks about his dad, he has not been talking about Satan. Rin was raised by someone else. They still don't learn the real story yet, we're not really told when or if they do get the full story about Shirou, but you can see him realize something happened to whoever raised the twins, and it was bad.

Rin gets knocked out and arrested and Ryuuji is sent to ice his swollen face and he will have the injuries Rin inflicted on him here through the entire rest of the arc.

And I am now over 5k words so I'll try and wrap this up some. I'm going to have to post the Yukio half on another post xD

Rin gets a letter that tells him that Tatsuma and Shirou were in cahoots about the sword (look, Mamushi was partially correct) but that the sword did not have Karura in it like it was supposed to. He also finds out that Tatsuma wants him to kill the Impure King. Mephisto then shows up and locks him away giving him a death sentence. Yukio has to leave with that knowledge to try and stop the rising Impure King before he infects and kills all of Japan.

Tatsuma goes and shows that he had made a pact with Karura and that the Suguro line has always guarded the secret that the Impure King was kept sealed under the temple by Karura. That were he to be reunited with his eyes, he would rise again. Toudou wants to get Karura so he did all of this to get Tatsuma to reveal Karura.

Tatsuma is stabbed through the back of the throat and Karura mostly devoured, and the Impure King is rising and reforming and going to poison everyone.

Shura gives the letter to Ryuuji and Kurikara and offers the camouflage ponchos to go break Rin out if they want, and Ryuuji and Shiemi are the only two who do not hesitate for even a moment to go and rescue him.

The jail freezes them and gives nonviolent Shiemi a moment to shine. She confronts her own self doubts and goes to find Rin and coaxes him back out, showing she knows he won't be a danger to her by embracing him and his flames. She realizes that her fears and self loathing caused her to only think about her own emotions, and not how he was feeling (something Rin could also very much stand to do) and she immediately switches to comforting and encouraging him.

Rin busts the prison with style, Konekomaru says he's ready to be friends, Shima and Izumo state they're only here on Shura's orders, and

Rin still doesn't get it. He still has no idea what Ryuuji is dealing with or why he's upset about any of it. He has spent this entire arc trying to find his dad and trying to help the sect, and failing every step of the way. He has tried to help everyone around him in any way he can and show that he can be depended upon and trusted.

Rin has never opened up to any of them. Rin demands that they lean on him and listen to his advice and accept him entirely, and gives them nothing in return for that vulnerability and openness. He doesn't talk about his own life or emotions or thoughts. He keeps conversations light and easy and doesn't even tell them that he was raised by a guy that's now dead. He shoves himself in conversations and dynamics that don't concern him all the while demanding trust, and then will not let them in in return.

Ryuuji is seeing that so clearly now and it is hurting. How can you trust a guy who won't trust you back? How can you trust someone you thought was one thing who never showed you who they really are and still won't be open and real with you? Who has enough power at every moment to level half the world and is emotional and stupid and impulsive and won't be real with you?

Rin has been under a death sentence and told he had to keep his heritage a secret, but even outside of that, he really doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't open up to his friends like he expects them to open up to him. Neither brother is good at expressing themselves (and a lot of that is because they weren't raised to be that way. Shirou did his best but had a lot of limitations too.)

He demands they trust him wholeheartedly but will not trust them in return. Or he hasn't shown in any way that he does trust them.

This arc, at its core, is about lies and how those and trauma can and do make relationships messy. How even ancestral drama can go down the line and get us caught in cycles of it. But it also shows that we can do the work to get past them, and that it's messy and painful and loud and not always easy to see what's right and wrong while we do it, but we can get past it and move on together. We can make terrible mistakes and seek forgiveness and understanding and sympathy or empathy and try to do better. We can laugh in a field of disease and trust entirely on someone because we know we can even if the world is falling down around us and it doesn't make sense.

Neither Rin nor any of the exwires or Yukio are a villain in this arc. Even Mamushi and her cruel words and betrayal are not a villain in this arc. Everyone acts kindly and selfishly or in fright or confusion or in motives that are entirely misunderstood. They're all dragging their own emotional baggage with them and they're all getting tangled up and not listening, but they still strive on and strive to understand and talk it out when they can, because they care about each other and getting it right.

To act like it's as simple as "The exwires bullied Rin!" is naïve and robs Kato's story of so much richness and deprives the later arcs of so much character value she built starting here. Kato does a beautiful job of building all of her characters and giving them rich personalities and motivations and flaws and she shows us them through Rin sometimes, but she also gives them a lot of time without him at the forefront. She gives him flaws too, and a lot of wrongs, and that's why he's such a powerful and alive protagonist for our series.

You're free to dislike who you like and love who you like, but I do so encourage anyone who thinks the exwires were villains in this arc to really dive into the manga. Read through all the scenes and ask yourself why did Kato show that? Why is this character thinking that? Why did the character react that way? Kato gives us so much richness to dive into and to see so many people not do that and to take such quick and often incorrect or fragmented interpretations of the events is heart breaking and honestly robbing those people of a really good story.

Rin was wrong in assuming that everyone hated him and assuming that it was as simple as trust. He was wrong to try and force things and to try and force his own interpretations on others. It was only once he started to listen and hear what they themselves were saying that things got better. Now some of this is just the mess of the anime between season one and the start of season two, but a lot is just misinterpretation by the fandom. It can happen to anyone, but that does not mean it suddenly becomes factual because of that.

It's been at least six thousand words and I don't know if this came across as clearly as I wanted it to, but I hope it encourages those who haven't to dive in deeper. It's a rich arc with so many fascinating moving parts in it. I've barely brushed on Tatsuma, Juuzou, Mamushi, and Mephisto in this and their plots are all entirely interesting and add so much! Expect a Yukio and Izumo and possibly Shiemi follow up at some point, lol. Probably just as long though I'll try to be more concise.

If you read this far, thank you! You deserve to crash with the rest of the exwires in Toraya on a nice futon.

As always, look up my tag '#raven rambles' for more of my aoex meta and analysis.