#< not wholly but just in case. definitely an interpretation that can be made here

[sisterdivinium]

If we are to take a deep dive, it is best to assure the place we're leaping from is stable, so let's do that by starting with the obvious.

The subject in both of these sentences is the same: the Halo. Both of these characters have borne it. Both sentences present the same grammatical structure and answer directly to one another despite the distance in time and space between one and the other's utterances. To Ava, the receiver of these conflicting messages, both claims prove themselves to be ultimately true, for the Halo acts as a gift, in granting her a second chance at a life she never had, and also as a burden, as it imposes on her responsibilities and demands of her sacrifices she would otherwise have never known.

But the show itself openly invites us to dig deeper, so we should not be contented with the obvious alone.

If there is always more, then we must peel back the surface and peek at what is underneath if we are to grasp at least a fraction of the functioning of Warrior Nun in different levels—be it in small scale, pertaining to the characters themselves, or be it in large scale, including how all of it relates to us as viewers in the end.

These two moments of season one are but a fragment of the show’s comprehensive universe, but we will examine them closely to see just how much meaning we can find in them, deceptively simple as they seem.

As mentioned above, the grammatical structure of both sentences is shared between them: “the [subject] is a [noun]”. This could lead to some sort of direct description we associate with the act of definition, of explaining what something is, as in “the pope is a man” or, to use the same reference as Mother Superion and Shannon do, “the Halo is an object”. In fact, had this been the case, we would have been closer to Ava’s own conclusion of the Halo being “a hunk of magic metal embedded in [her] back”, as this is a characteristic anyone could ascribe to it upon examination.

Yet the words used by both former warrior nuns are “gift” and “burden”. If they describe the Halo, then it is not in terms derived from objectively observable traits it possesses (such as it being made of metal), but in a wholly subjective manner. When Mother Superion and Shannon say the Halo is this or that, both imply that it is this or that as relates to themselves. In relaying what the Halo supposedly “is” to Ava, they pre-interpret it for her, infusing it with their own points of view—their beliefs. What they say of the Halo is much more a reflection of who they are than anything the Halo in itself could be.

A) The gift

A gift is, as we know, a present. It presupposes a giver and a receiver, as well as some degree of gratitude on the part of the latter, even if justified by politeness alone.

Mother Superion, embodying the authority of the Catholic church, framed by candles and an altar behind her while making use of short, straightforward affirmations, does not need to clearly state who occupies these positions: we can safely infer that the giver here is God and the beneficiary of this divine benevolence is Ava. A definiteness is patent in the sentences that follow—here is the power of the institution at work, for if Mother Superion starts out by “defining” the Halo, now she defines Ava through it. An inversion takes place, as the woman allows the object to define the woman (as “God’s champion” who “fights in His name”) rather than the other way around. The church, the Halo construct Ava as a subject, subjecting her to certain ideas of what she should be. She is the warrior nun despite having no say in it, not being a warrior and much less a nun.

At first sight, it wouldn’t make sense to interact with Ava in these terms, especially if, by this scene, Mother Superion has already read her file. It wouldn’t be difficult to deduce how expressions crafted with religious colours might impact an audience that does not show any religious proclivities. Furthermore, the tradition of rhetoric has always taught that speakers ought to adapt to their listeners if they wish to get their point across, so either Mother Superion is incompetent at communication, lacking sensibility and skills, or she is making a calculated move—one that is fully supported by her hierarchical position. After all, superiors seldom need to rationally convince their subordinates of doing something given how the latter are compelled instead by power dynamics to get in line—or else.

The strategy doesn’t really work on Ava.

In semiotic terms, we could even argue that there is something confusing happening in this scene—a narrative phase of manipulation (wherein someone tries to get someone else to accept and do something), we could say that it contains hints of both seduction (a positive commentary on the interlocutor—it’s not just about anyone who can be god’s champion, so this is a positive distinction) and intimidation (the threat of negative consequences if the interlocutor doesn’t comply—there is an implied order in the sequence, meaning Ava cannot refuse to be “God’s champion”). Ava might not share in this world-view, but it is what the church and its followers propose: a gift from God is a positive value. Being chosen by God to do something, even fighting and possibly dying in the process, is a positive value. Lilith is standing right there beside them and, at this point, she would surely agree and see nothing of this exchange in a negative light.

Yet Ava isn’t a nun and indeed she does not perceive any of these “honours” as being desirable. Mother Superion’s stance, the image she presents of herself as a strict nun herself when Ava has been mistreated by them all her life, equally gives her no reason to be persuaded, much on the contrary.

The manipulation fails. Ava is told God gave her the gift of life… And that now she is to endanger and potentially lose that very same life as some sort of gesture of gratitude. The logic is unimpressive at best and frankly absurd at worst.

Within the framework of the church, however, it makes perfect sense. Misattributed and misconstrued as it might be, the motto of credo quia absurdum is still pertinent: “I believe because it is absurd”. That a god should grant life only to claim it back through violence is perfectly acceptable if one believes in this god’s unquestionable authority rather than seeing this demand as something ridiculous or cruel.

The very concepts of God, service, battle, duty, blessings only make sense to the faithful, something Ava isn’t. She’s just a puny little individual resisting the pressures brought upon her by a powerful institution.

She and Mother Superion are only speaking over one another, not really having a conversation; Ava doesn’t care to listen to what the church has to say, she doesn’t take it seriously, and the church likewise does not take her individuality, her person into consideration.

However, we would do well to remember that Mother Superion is not simply a mouthpiece for the church—she is also Suzanne, lowly little individual with lowly individual desires and resentment just as Ava.

And, regardless of the effacement of self that monastic as well as military institutions enforce on their members, just as Ava’s subjectivity isn’t neatly negated by direct statements in line with reigning dogma, Suzanne’s own subjectivity also seeps through her words and attitudes. If not blatantly, at the very least there is a remarkable struggle taking place within her, suggested by her use of language as well as her demeanour.

The Halo, after all, defines her as well.

If bearing it is the greatest honour, a mark of God’s favour, if it defines a person, then losing it has an equal power of definition. The distinction it confers on someone is inescapable, for good or ill, and either one dies gloriously as “God’s champion” or one survives it, survives its removal, and is deemed rejected and unworthy by this so magnanimous God. The Halo soaks up all of the positive value ascribed to it—meaning those who lack it adopt a negative one in contrast, be it Suzanne who had it and lost it or even Lilith, who should’ve had it and didn’t.

Still it is considered “a gift”, something given by God… One could say it is a form of grace.

Suzanne’s noun and Vincent’s verb have the same origin, of course, the same stem. Despite the argument between them in this other scene, ultimately there is agreement between the two of them judging by their choice of vocabulary and Mother Superion’s reaction immediately afterwards. If this were not true in some degree, there would have been little need for Mother Superion to correct Ava in the first place, for Ava calls the Halo “a hunk of magic metal”, yes, but she also refers to it as “top prize”, as a reward—which, unlike “gifts”, are meant to be earned, to use Vincent’s comparison. There is a mixture of concepts here.

Without wanting to overcomplicate this text, let us say that ideology is a certain way of understanding the world and that it constructs and is constructed by our discourse, our use of language. One of the functions of ideology is that of attempting to smother contradiction, to smoothen the world’s complexities, simplify them, rationalise them away, however incapable it truly is at accomplishing that given how reality is too complex to be so tamed. Here, then, we see a notable sort of contradiction in Mother Superion’s discourse (in her ideology) that isn’t easily solved: a detail, a problem left out from the thought system. She agrees that grace, in the form of the Halo or not, is given, yet she treats it as if it were earned. This is a crack in the wall; it’s an idiosyncrasy, proof of a subject torn between the different voices that compose her subjectivity, the fragments, the different discourses that, put together, make her up as a whole.

What could be more contradictory than calling something which has scarred her physically, mentally and emotionally a “gift”?

If we create and are created in turn by means of discourse (“you are God’s champion”), if we can only understand and interact with the world when it is mediated by discourses and their correlated ideologies, what would it have meant if Suzanne had assigned another value to the Halo?

The inversion of values would certainly have ejected her from the church. If the Halo, to her, gained negative value, thus allowing her to retain some amount of positive value, her participation in the institution would be impracticable. She would be at odds with the dominant ideology, its structures, its rules… And she would face the resistance Ava faced by assuming such antagonism.

And sure, she might have regained some sort of “freedom”, but what would she have then lost? Resentment or not, there appears to be one central, recurrent positive value, one central desire to most characters in Warrior Nun and it would not be far-fetched to assume Suzanne shares in it herself and is unwilling to part with it.

B) The burden

Needless to say that if there is a generous deal of “burden” to Suzanne’s “gift”, there is also some “gift” in Shannon’s “burden”, judging by her mentioning the family she gained through bearing the Halo. Curiously enough, the dynamic of receiving something and paying for it with that very “gift”—Shannon getting a family and losing it by the very same means—is identical to the dynamics involved in getting Ava to accept her fate as warrior nun, by “paying” for the “gift” of life by risking that very same life in battle.

Shannon has received the “gift”—and fulfilled her role to perfection, allowed to thank God for it personally… If the Halo was taken from Suzanne, Shannon is the one “taken” because of it, alongside other ex-bearers.

Here there are no euphemisms. Shannon has lived the consequences of being “God’s champion” until the very end, so she has no need for distorted truths meant to keep things in order, to avoid questioning the principle of order itself which is the institutional view. There is still a struggle (there is always a struggle) as she admits to finding something positive (a family) through her loyalty to the cause even if the cause is what kills her and other women like her. The contrast between Mother Superion’s speech focused on individual responsibility and Shannon’s avowal of how it is “too great for one person to bear” tells us more than enough about how they each envision individuality, community, the possibility of action, who can make it come about—how life and death, different paths, different destinies, inform perception of the same thing.

Their values are inverted.

Mother Superion’s “gift” is Shannon’s “burden”; Mother Superion’s tendency, while alive, to value death (“You fight in His name”) is countered by a dead Shannon’s valorisation of life (“So much promise unfulfilled. So much life unlived. And for what?”) The scenes are in direct opposition to one another, they respond to one another as mirrored images.

So much so that the reply is not merely linguistic, hidden away in dialogue, but quite evidently displayed in visual terms as well. A mirror offers us reflections that are inverted—left in place of right, right as left—and so are these scenes inverted in relation to one another: in the moment of saying the sentences we’re concerned with, Mother Superion and Shannon stand in much the same place. If we do not notice, it is because the camera pans around in different angles—with the former, we watch the scene from a point at Ava's left, while the latter is shown from an angle at her right. We are literally treated to reflected images, seen from opposite points of view.

Colour, too, guides our reading of both scenes set side by side. With Mother Superion, we are in the realm of the church and its associated earthly tones as established throughout the first season, whereas Ava’s vision of Shannon paints the dream church in a shade of blue. Blue is, of course, the hue which had been mostly tied to Jillian Salvius, to ArqTech, to science. With science comes the concept of reason, as opposed to the sepia haze of faith.

Mary is also drawn against a backdrop of bright blue sky when she is investigating the docks and relying on her reason rather than her faith concerning Shannon’s death.

Shannon’s opinion on the Halo might be just as subjective as Mother Superion’s before her, but it is filtered through personal experience and observation, through reason rather than blind belief in a mission.

Yet we are forgetting something. Ava, having died already, claims there is nothing on the other side. If that is so, why is she meeting Shannon now? And why is this meeting taking place in circumstances that reflect previous events in an inverted manner?

As dreams often reuse what we have lived when awake, re-rendering our memories, transforming them, so it is possible that Ava is not having a vision but a dream—that she is talking not to Shannon, but to some facet of herself, Ava, manifesting as Shannon after connecting with her memory through the warrior nun book.

As Ava clings to it and the knowledge it affords her, it would make sense for her conscience to finally figure out a proper retort to what she heard of Mother Superion in that earlier moment, a retort fuelled by new information and by her own reasoning. At the very least, it would be more plausible to consider this hypothesis than to assume her vision of Shannon is a real communication with her spirit granted by the Halo, for, if we are witnessing a new phase of manipulation, then the message being transmitted this time concerns the Halo’s “lifecycle” itself—and how it must be brought to an end. If it is sentient as some characters believe, why would it let Ava meet Shannon and be exposed to the idea of working against the Halo’s own interests of perpetuation?

After all, the implications behind Shannon’s words are evident: again, if the Halo also defines the woman, then it defines sister Shannon, sister Melanie and all other warrior nuns going back to Areala with one word which will soon apply to Ava and whomever follows: that word is dead, crushed under the burden.

And this time, the message, a sort of compassionate provocation (“a burden too great to bear”—even for you), hits its mark, inspiring Ava to end the tradition and be the last warrior nun.

We are not in the semantic field of religion, even if it is there, in the background, being answered to; here we are not speaking of God or battles fought for this distant general in the sky, but of family, of women slaughtered in the name of a mission. This is no longer some ethereal question but an immediate concern. Whether this is Shannon or Ava herself subconsciously masquerading as Shannon to facilitate her own “awakening”, the point gets across now that it is transmitted in language that makes sense to Ava, now that there are common values between speaker and listener.

One could even hypothesise that, at this point, Shannon being a former warrior nun lends credibility to her words in Ava’s mind as she is a woman experienced in this role Ava is supposed to play.

If so, we can also understand the bridge of empathy that is built between Ava and Mother Superion later on when it is revealed that Suzanne, too, was a halo bearer and that she, too, has carried this “burden”. Both forge new understandings of one another through this common background and a personal exchange that is nothing like their first encounter—when the “gift” is said to have rejected the older nun, when its “burden” is divulged to Ava.

As Ava recognises Shannon, so do Ava and Mother Superion eventually recognise one another as well—so do they begin to comprehend how they did carry similar values, only obscured by their dissimilar ideologies and their resulting language use. If no other, then the value of family is what binds them together through Suzanne’s new disposition to embrace all of her sisters and Ava’s newfound conduct in considering them her sisters to begin with. They come closer in the catacombs and, at last, meet halfway by season two.

Yet we, the viewers, as touched by this miscommunication that ends well as we may be, after all of this talk of gifts and burdens, we remain none the wiser on what the Halo actually is.

C) The energy source

As previously exposed, we are kept in the dark because most sentences that speak of this iconic object in the series are subjective, focused on the characters’ own relationship to it or their ideas about it rather than any substantial data on what it might truly be apart from a “hunk of magic metal” currently in Ava’s back.

Perhaps because we spend so much time with the nuns, satisfied as they are with the logic of plain belief instead of concerned with tangible, provable things that can or should be explained. The most we get is the information on how the Halo is some kind of weapon, an amplifier attuned to the bearer’s body and soul.

Enter Jillian Salvius.

While her understanding of the Halo is admittedly insufficient, her research on it limited, her available vocabulary and scientific knowledge too slim (!) to encompass such an item, she does not say something like “the Halo is a mystery” or “a conundrum” as she says of Lilith later on. It would be true, just as it being a “gift” or “burden” is true considering those who called it thus, yet Jillian uses another sort of language instead.

Being a scientist, doctor Salvius opts for what we consider to be appropriate scientific modes of speaking, that is, by creating an impression of objectivity. It is not her personal reaction or opinion of the Halo that she offers, but whatever traits she can see or learn of in that moment: an energy source, an object that defies physics, a foreign body of undefined material. Ava “translates” this as being “an alien battery”, but the fact is that we are served a definition of the Halo unlike those we had before. It isn’t much, but for once we are not given a character’s personal interpretation of it…

Or so it seems. We none of us are capable of being fully objective, for none of us can rid ourselves of our selves—Jillian posits the Halo as an energy source, which seems innocent and impartial enough, but soon afterwards we understand what that means to her.

In themselves, the words “energy source” don’t carry many other connotations. Yet, for Jillian, these words that seem so neutral and “scientific”, so clear cut, do not sustain the facade of objectivity. She has spoken of energy before, it is an active component of her research, a common word in her lexicon; to Ava, “energy source” is “a battery”, but to Kristian and Jillian, who are part of ArqTech, who know what goes on within its walls, these words automatically acquire another meaning.

Yes, that of a battery, but one with a very specific purpose. Under the guise of neutral discourse, a very personal interpretation of the Halo, just as if it were a “gift” or “burden”, lies hidden. It is an energy source—one that doctor Salvius can potentially use to power her contraption. It is a “solution”, perhaps even a “gift”, of circumstance if not of god.

And it, too, defines Ava despite herself. When it fails, Jillian says she was wrong about Ava, not the Halo, thus conflating the two.

In the end, even she who might well be the smartest character, the one most closely connected with science and concrete knowledge, cannot guard herself from letting the unsaid (or “unsayable”) slip through her lips. She, too, in spite of her apparent objective language, exhibits a subjective kind of relationship with the world around her, influenced by the ideologies that cross her being.

D) Ending thoughts

Perhaps, when all is said and done, we are never truly able to follow that maxim we’ve seen more than once on Warrior Nun.

Perhaps we simply cannot think or act if we do not perceive things as at least partially related to ourselves.

It is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as long as different views can coexist, as long as they do not trample one another, as long as one person or group don’t elect themselves as the owners of truth, attempting to eliminate all who do not follow them as Adriel tried to do. In a democracy, in a place and a moment in history where there is freedom of thought and creed and speech, the phenomenon of various voices competing for the spotlight, taking turns under it is normal and healthy.

Warrior Nun gives us a fascinating insight on the multiplicity of voices that compose a society, even if there are elements of it which seek to suffocate those voices. It is a microcosm where different ideologies, through language, are confronted with one another, where they struggle to make sense of things—and where each of those points of view over a given subject might carry a morsel of truth. The Halo is a piece of metal and a gift and a burden and an energy source; none of these ideas or perceptions necessarily exclude the other, none is “more correct” than the other because, if so, then the question would be: as regards which character?

To Ava, at least, it is all these things and maybe more.

There are attempts to implant a hegemonic interpretation of facts. The very story of Areala, Adriel, the Halo’s trajectory along the centuries, how this is “the way it has been for one thousand years” is a strategy to cement a singular view. The repetition, the constant reworking of tradition, telling this story over and over with each warrior nun… That is the church at play, ideology trying to fill in any gaps, keep things as they are, conserve them and the structures that organise them, guaranteeing that things have one certain sort of sense and not another, one value, one meaning.

But life is not stagnant and people are not all swallowed whole by ideology even when they subscribe to it willingly, as a member of a church would. There are always things that cannot be explained, things that are beyond the scope of ideology—contradictions, pesky little details that escape the invisible goggles with which we look at reality. The truth is that it is far more complex than we can contain it with a few buzzwords, man-made or divine. There is always another side, always a reply, a constant dialogue between our different ways of seeing, understanding, being and, therefore, speaking.

A more visible example comes from those scenes in season two where Yasmine and Adriel are both telling the exact same story, only through their own perspectives, interpreting it in their own ways.

The show provides many opportunities to see how varied human voice can be, how the point of view of whoever is telling the story bears a mighty influence on the narrative, whether consciously or not, malicious or not. That, in turn, may inspire us to look around us, in the real world; to look at how we are representing things, others and even ourselves as well as how others represent us through the words we use.

This is not an exhaustive study, long as it is. As said before, it is but a glance at two scenes, two little lines of dialogue which are, however, intimately connected with others, with the stuff of the entire show—with the stuff of life. We could write more on how possessive pronouns and other sorts of phrases with the idea of the Halo “belonging” to someone or being “owned” by someone are used, just to remain in the area of discourse about the Halo alone.

But the present text has given all it had to give and its author does not wish to be a burden on her readers any more than she already has been.

[chickinscratch]

“Hey, Jimmy,”

“Mhm?”

“Not to overuse a metaphor, but, do you think the canary ever missed the sky?”

Tango could feel Jimmy’s gaze on him. “What do you mean?”

“You know. The canary in the coal mine. Did y... did it miss the sky? Does it remember it?”

Tango imagined Jimmy shifting his wings, head quirked staring at the sky. “Depends, I guess, like if it was born down there or not. Or hatched, or whatever.”

“Do birds have like an instinct or something for the sky?”

Jimmy made a sound as if shrugging, and then seemed to remember he couldn’t be seen. “I dunno. I don’t think it particularly matters, if it’s being taken care of, y’know?”

“Did they take care of the canaries in mines back then?”

“Yeah, they obviously had to feed ‘em and stuff. But when the birds passed out from the lack of air or the gas or whatever the miners would like, resuscitate them.”

Tango smirked at the empty air. “Birdie CPR?”

He could feel Jimmy smiling back. “Something like that, I guess. But they did care about the birds.”

“’Cause the birds were the warning.” Tango nodded. “If they were gone, the miners wouldn’t know they were gonna die.”

“I mean, I imagine the miners probably enjoyed the company. I hope they did, anyways. It sounds nice.”

Tango pursed his lip. “Yeah, it’s a lot nicer having a little birdie with ya when you’re down in some dark stinky deadly death cave.”

Jimmy’s gaze was back on him now.

“...Of death.”

“You asked if the canary ever misses the sky.” Jimmy’s voice was soft. “Maybe it likes the coal mine, sometimes? The sky can be cold and open and lonely. Sure the mine is dark, but the canary has company. A warm home and a hand that feeds it.”

“Making the best of a bad situation.”

He could feel Jimmy’s frown. ”And I mean, if there’s a mine there’s probably like, gemstones and stuff. You don’t find that on the surface.”

“Unless it’s emeralds.”

Jimmy huffed at him, and Tango watched the players scurrying around in front of them.

“I think they’re digging our graves over there.”

“Looks pretty lame.”

Tango pictured Jimmy sneering at the little cobblestone tombstone the other players stood before, face all scrunched up. He laughed at the image. “Yeah, I don’t think they’re even making me one.”

They watched in silence as others scurried around them and the ship in the distance. There was some saying, or song lyrics or something, about ships and anchors.

“...Did the canary ever love the coal mine?”

Jimmy hummed. “Well, I certainly tried.”

[darlington-v]

I know different interpretations of a work are generally enriching and cool... but c!dream villan interpretations is like how to tell me you only watch Tommy without saying you only watch tommy.... which would be fine but its not a great place to be making statements about the whole nature of the dsmp lol

Wild speculation, but sometimes I wonder if like, because the dsmp didn't really start as a narrative, and a lot of fans don't nessecarily enter it expecting a narrative, but then there is one and the fandom is really discourse heavy and everyone is sort of excpeted to have an opinion while maybe not expecting to form one from the begining or not having a ton of experience with narrative in a way that would "expect" them to have an opinion or not take things at face value??, I don't know if I explained that well at all... and I don't really even think thats right nessecarily... but like wow sometimes some of the takes about power and government and villany...

Honestly, it makes sense!!!

I think something interesting is like.... looking at how animatics have shaped the like tone and culture of the fandom essentially. Like, an interesting fact that I didn't really fully grasp until SUPER recently is like...

c!Wilbur out the gate admits he is manipulating c!Tommy. Like his first youtube video on the Dream SMP he admits his goal is to manipulate c!Tommy and people like c!Tommy into helping him achieve a potion ("drug") empire to monopolize on potions because there were a lot of people on the server who like to min-max, which is to put all of your effort into this one specific skill essentially. so like... i know minecraft doesnt have a skill tree but if it did, it would be putting all your points into that one specific branch of a skill tree. So he wanted to exploit the labor of all the TommyInnits to.... maintain a Potion Empire.

THIS IS A LONG POST BC I GOT CARRIED AWAY SO BUCKLE UP

And I don't think a lot of the fandom who joined later on knows this. I certainly didn't until like a week or so ago? Like... I knew c!Wilbur had been manipulative from the start because I'm a mod of (shameless self promo incoming) @dsmpanalysis and we have a lot of different POVs in that mod team and discord and we talk about it really frequently. I joined the fandom as someone who was really big on L'manburg ESPECIALLY crimeboys, and have turned into.... *gestures vaguely to my blog*

And ngl I owe a lot of it to @1-michibiki-1 in terms of c!Dream "Apologism" but all of the mods there have expanded my thoughts and views on the storylines of this narrative.

My application consisted of like largely essays about like... how I think Dream was the villain but he was meant to be the villain because you don't get any insight into his character WHICH.... IS A FAIR ASSUMPTION AT FIRST GLANCE. People are easily villainized when you cannot get a glimpse into their thought process. It's easy to dwindle someone down into this flat character and starting out I knew Dream didn't stream the SMP on purpose.

And I personally came to the conclusion of "Oh! So Dream is supposed to be the villain." However as the story continued and I learned more about what Dream went through I began to realize that... it's more than likely a form of a red herring. My opinions on this were immediately solidified when I watched Ranboo's 2 MIL stream because both Ranboo AND Dream agree on enjoying red herrings.

There have been MANY times were Dream has said that c!Dream is a complex character and he's not a wholly evil guy and there have been times where the narrative has honestly just proved that.

Anyways, what's important though was that... I learned most of this from other people who were more focused on c!Dream rather than myself. Eventually I shifted from c!Tommy to c!Ranboo and c!Techno after c!Tommy betrayed c!Techno and I began to realize.... everything I learned before hopping in wasn't exactly what it seemed.

Part of this is because I'm older, I heavily identify with c!Techno's sense of loyalty and philosophies on government, but I especially identify with the anguish c!Techno voiced in... a lot of lore but especially the lore around Doomsday.

I'm not 16 anymore. I don't always feel wronged by adults, or older people in my case, whenever they absolutely have done something wrong by me, but I do feel wronged by my close friends. I also felt like c!Tommy's sense of loyalty didn't line up with mine after what felt like him constantly flip-flopping and refusing to understand c!Techno's morals on government didn't line up with his.

In short, it was easier to identify with Tommy in these animatics versus in the actual stream content because c!Tommy is played by a 16 year old. I'm not a teenager and my line of thinking doesn't entirely line up with people that age anymore. It's harder to place myself in the same shoes of someone's OC who is played closer to their actual age, because I'm not that age.

Regardless, I was still on the c!Dream is a villain train. I wasn't ever like... c!Dream is repulsive I hate him, but I was like omg hot villain lad go brrr.

Even when the first like... mellohi, panic room, Ranboo lore stream popped up I thought "Oh! c!Ranboo corruption arc?"

And I was excited because I really wanted this shy, nervous character to turn into villain buddies with his good pal c!Dream. I'm a total sucker for villains and corruption arcs and all that good shit.

SO I STARTED GETTING REALLY INTERESTED IN ENDERSMILE. I'VE BEEN ON ENDERSMILE SQUAD OUT THE GATE. NOT THE SAME WAY I AM NOW, BUT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO TEAM UP.

So... upon not really keeping up with c!Dream and being relatively??? indifferent? I don't think I started arguments on c!Dream back then, but I might have. But I remember like... starting to participate more whenever c!Dream came up and looking more into Dream's character BUT ESPECIALLY TALKING WITH OUR SERVER'S C!DREAM SPECIALIST MICHI ABOUT DREAM A LOT MORE.

And because Michi has been a watcher since day one and was a DTeam fan rather than a SBI fan, she was able to provide me with more information on how the server worked pre-Tommy but especially pre-Wilbur.

Now, you could definitely argue well Michi probably has clear bias but it made sense to me when I looked back on how the storyline had been constructed and was going along, and everyone in the server talks a lot about our own biases and how we want people to maybe not lean so hard on them. Michi would also provide like anecdotes on what had happened and I'm sure links were probably provided at one point but the point was I felt like Michi had no reason to lie or manipulate how the story was told and if she did, eventually someone would have pointed it out because... Group of like... right now it's around 20 or more analysts but I don't remember how many at the time there were. POINT BEING, WE'VE ALL GOT POINTS TO PROVE AND IN MY EXPERIENCE NOT MANY OF US HAVE BEEN SHY TO PROVE THEM.

So if anyone ever had any differing opinions they would be talked about and we literally had and still have discussions.

REGARDLESS.... I DIDN'T FACT CHECK IN DEPTH BECAUSE I THOUGHT PEER REVIEW WAS ENOUGH WHEN YOU HAVE LIKE HOURS UPON HOURS OF STREAMS TO WATCH.

Anyways. Eventually I started paying closer attention and looking more into c!Dream lore but only recently have I started to triple check before speaking about c!Wilbur lore because I know everyone has biases and while I did trust everyone's thoughts and analysis in the discord, whenever I make essays I typically like it to be largely air tight and if theres a mistake, I want it to be because I forgot not because I just trusted what was said. Plus, I wanted to get down to the specifics of how Wilbur had always started with manipulation on the mind.

SO I WATCHED HIS FIRST VIDEO ON THE DREAM SMP.

AND WHAT I WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS EXPECTING WAS WILBUR TO SAY WORD FOR WORD, VERBATIM,

"SO WHY DON'T I START AN INDUSTRY WHERE I USE THE TOMMYINNITS OF THE WORLD TO WORK FOR ME, TO CREATE THINGS THAT THE MIN-MAXERS OF THE WORLD WILL WANT."

Like... this is in no way an attempt to like hardcore villainize c!Wilbur like everyone does Dream, it's just more so to like REALLY outline how far off a lot of fandom interpretation of c!Wilbur is....

Because of SBI focused animatics.

Now, when I joined I watched A LOT of animatics that really highlighted like... Wilbur being this self-loathing JD-esque, "I destroyed it because I had to because the world was against me because no one loved us, Tommy" type of character. At least... that's what it came across as.

And it definitely highlighted the fact that Tommy was a victim, which he is. He is undoubtedly a victim and no not even any dream apologist can change my mind otherwise. Tommy, despite being an instigator sometimes, didn't deserve the abuse he received.

But these animatics never shown the fact that c!Wilbur started L'manburg as a shady ploy to exploit people like c!Tommy and vilify c!Dream so he could have power.

And that was easy because Dream and Tommy had wars before. They had spars and pranks and here's the plan to take back my disks and here's the plan to out smart the thieving little child etc etc.

And all of the animatics I watched never mentioned this. Neither did the recaps though. The recaps gave the events flat out, there didn't sound like there was bias, and honestly I don't really know if there was rather than like... a lack of nuance. And it's hard to provide a recap with that much nuance in a short period of time for a youtube video, to be perfectly fair.

However, this creates a perfect formula for entirely rewriting the history of a server. c!Wilbur quite literally fucking succeeded TO A META LEVEL. He slandered and ran smear campaigns against Dream and like he even does that with Sapnap in the beginning. But what's crazy is that it transferred over into the meta! Most of this fandom understands Wilbur as a victim of mental illness, and yeah maybe? He definitely wasn't mentally well by the end of pogtopia, but he never started out with honorable intentions. L'manburg was never a victim, only its citizens. The TommyInnits of the world.

I just think it's like... such an interesting case study. Because this is like... an opinion like shared by at least half of the fandom, but the vilifying of c!Dream is shared by MOST of the fandom I would argue. Which is like even more crazy for me because that was c!Wilbur's goal!!!

LIKE I GO INSANE WHEN I THINK OF THIS BECAUSE HIS REACH IS JUST TOO POWERFUL. HE'S NOT EVEN ENTIRELY REAL, JUST A MANIPULATIVE PERSONA OF SOME BRITISH GUY.

And I mean... maybe people who have watched Wilbur's video on the SMP still maintain this idea that Wilbur wasn't always the bad guy, but honestly... I wouldn't be surprised if their introduction was still an animatic. Like bias is hard to check and I'm not going to lie I could have sworn I watched both Wilbur's AND Tommy's video on the SMP in the beginning and yet I STILL was a ride or die for tragic yet on some level still honorable Wilbur and a resilient Tommy.

Like... upon watching Wilbur's first video... possibly again I was surprised because I thought I did watch it like right before I even started watching the streams and yet I was still so invested in c!Wilbur as this tortured anti-hero.

It took 6 months of... not being in an echo chamber, full of multiple different people of different ages, different stream POVS, and people who joined the fandom at different points in time.

IDK IF THIS WAS EVEN ENTIRELY RELEVANT IT JUST FELT TANGENTIALLY RELEVANT AND THIS WAS SOMETHING I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR A HOT MINUTE AFTER LIKE WATCHING WILBUR'S FIRST VIDEO AGAIN.

TLDR;

SBI CENTRIC ANIMATICS HAD A LASTING AFFECT ON THIS FANDOM AS IT'S HARD TO GO BACK AND ACTUALLY CHECK THE NARRATIVE FOR SOLID FACTS FOR YOUR OWN INTERPRETATION BASED ON THE FACT THAT THIS NARRATIVE SPANS OVER HUNDREDS OF HOURS WORTH OF TWITCH STREAMS.

[curiosity-killed]

hua cheng, the accidental person

okay this is for @bodhimcbodeface because i can’t shut up and make this concise enough for discord. spoilers ahead yeehaw

this is...not comprehensive. i’ve written 11 tgcf fics and am generally a bit fixated on Hua Cheng as a character so. there’s definitely things missing but i tried to hit the main points that i thought of while writing? also obviously this is just my interpretation! i do not expect anyone else to be like “ah yes curio the sage is so correct i have changed my thinking on this” like go live your life with your own versions of hua cheng! this is just the hill upon which i have firmly planted myself and from which i refuse to be budged. as u do.

anyway, LONG explanation of my very niche and very uh self-indulgent, not-necessarily-support-by-canon hua cheng apologism LMAO

tl;dr: (this is really Too Long i’m sorry) I think Hua Cheng reluctantly becomes a person during his 800 years of searching, starting from a point where he views Xie Lian not as a person but as an immutable god and focus of devotion and developing into a person who doesn’t really acknowledge that he’s a person because realizing that you want to live and do things for yourself is scary and overwhelming at times, and he ultimately falls in love with Xie Lian during the novel itself as he recognizes and is in wonder of the humanity of Xie Lian instead of his divinity or absolute judgment.

POINT 1: Hua Cheng doesn’t actually fall in love with Xie Lian till the ox cart

but curio! you say, “my beloved!” he calls him his beloved! and the land of tender!!

shhh. IMO Hua Cheng is more Wuming than Hua Cheng for those 800 years. By which I mean, for most of that time he’s, at his heart, a nameless soldier trying to find and serve his crown prince/general/god. He still views Xie Lian as this perfect and immaculate figure—a sculpture, a painting, a work of art that is untouchable and immutable. And he’s utterly and wholly devoted to that figure but devotion is not the same as love

So Hua Cheng is searching and trying to serve Dianxia all these years and then His Royal Highness finally ascends and is a god again and Hua Cheng shows up in all his glory to give this power and strength and wealth to serve him and—

and he’s met not by a powerful and reckless martial god or an unstoppable calamity but by a young man dressed in bridal robes who lets Hua Cheng lead him up a darkened mountain, who doesn’t lash out with spiritual energy or a sword but instead, only eventually, with the cursed bandage he was carrying back in the darkest part of his life.

and i think that throws hua cheng. like he’s had this image of his god all these years, this divine painting made over and over and over again—and he carries that belief and devotion with him, but there’s a crack in the sculpture and the stone is starting to flake off to reveal a human underneath it

so he puts on an approachable, malleable, unassuming skin and finds xie lian collecting scraps and being a lil awkward, a lil bumbling, generous and kind — and i think hua cheng, after 800 years of knowing everything, having everything — I think he looks at this discovery with wonder

Bc tbc this does not mean Hua Cheng views them as equals. For him it’s like, dianxia has even more to him, is even more than I knew. He’s seen Xie Lian as the flower crowned martial god in all his glory and as the white-clothed calamity in all his horror — and now here he is, wonderful, multitudinous, and human

Meanwhile I don’t think Hua Cheng even views himself as a person really, much less a human.

also i mean. the internet & allo ppl prove time and time again that you don’t need love for horniness so. land of tender’s right out as proof on that

POINT 2: The Live For Me thing

so obviously and undeniably, using one person as a reason for living is....not healthy. Not going to argue that. but my take on it personally is that, when Hua Cheng’s a kid who really, actively wants to die and sees no reason for living, Xie Lian gives him a reason to keep going. he doesn’t have to live for himself—that’s too much, that’s too big of an ask—but he’s been given a command and purpose by the one person who’s been kind to him/whom he respects. it’s a little like... “My life has no meaning but my cat needs me to feed him and clean his litterbox and so I need to keep getting up and taking care of him even if I don’t see a larger intrinsic purpose to my life.”

and i think like...it’s easy to forget that for all of books 2 & 4, Hua Cheng is young. He doesn’t live past 18—he’s still like...a kid. And that’s not to say that teenagers/young adults can’t make moral and rational decisions but I’m going to be honest, when I was that age I contemplated joining the Air Force because of tuition assistance and the snazzy uniform despite the fact that I was a vocal pacifist and repeatedly got into arguments with teachers about school rules and conservative politics. It’s not like. The Most Rational and Mature Age, lbr. 

so Wuming is absolutely capable of looking at what Xie Lian is doing and being like “hey maybe war crimes aren’t a great idea” but he is young and traumatized and the one person he believes in, the one person who gave him a reason to keep going, is deadset on this task which tbh I don’t think either of them (or...necessarily...the society in which they live) views as war crimes in the modern sense (which isn’t to say that we as readers should view it any more lightly bc i think the narrative directly and firmly contradicts that idea) but as revenge, as an eye-for-an-eye. so, bad, but character-wise, I think it’s more nuanced than we sometimes consider

anyway back to the fixation on xie lian. i stand by the assertion that in those 800 years, hua cheng wasn’t exclusively focused on xie lian. like was finding and serving him his top priority? oh god yes. undeniably. there is no other version of this story. BUT eight hundred years is like....a lot of time. and i think in that time he started doing things for himself, even if under the guise of serving xie lian. hua cheng is curious and adventurous—he clearly likes to learn even if he plays it off as nbd—and i think he starts to realize that about himself in those centuries even if he doesn’t allow himself to acknowledge or consider it. 

POINT 3: Mt. Tong’lu in General

“okay, sure but what about the thousands of sculptures and murals of xie lian, curio. what the fuck about them.”

Yeah. FINE. okay we will DEAL with this. dealing with this is the entire reason i wrote “(like i do) in the tall grass.” 

disclaimer: this is probably not supported by canon! i also. Do Not care. My Ghost King Now.

so I have two general avenues I take with this:

going back to the devotion > love — when Hua Cheng reaches MTL, he’s seen xie lian beaten and cast down. what do gods need to survive? worship! we see throughout how important divine statues/portraits/etc. are throughout canon. in this interpretation, the cave is a concentration of all that worship in an effort to support and serve xie lian and hua cheng doesn’t view himself like...as part of it. the sculptures could have been carved by any hand so long as they are xie lian and the worship and devotion that goes into their making can support and bolster him.

my personal favorite version: amNESIA IN THE CAVES —okay i don’t have the text pulled up rn but y’know how Guoshi says Hua Cheng was almost dispersed, in terrible condition, etc., when he reached Mt. Tong’lu. so if baby boy is in terrible condition, barely hanging on, etc., then my immediate favorite option is that he doesn’t, at that time, have even the...uh threadbare sense of self he did in life/as Wuming and is running on only a vague and urgent sense of Something driving him—something he has to do, someone he has to serve—and in that case, the paintings and sculptures are part of his trying to piece together and process his memories as he can grasp them and figuring out who he is/what his purpose is. Is this canonical? PROBABLY NOT. and yet here i am. firmly planted on this hill

Also w/ MTL I think a thing that’s often skated over is the mortals, creation of E’ming, and his ascension. Which is important from a meta lens of Hua Cheng and Xie Lian vs Jun Wu but that’s not the point of this rambling monstrosity and i’m trying not to get too distracted. ANYWAY I think this is one of those times when Hua Cheng does something that he would probably excuse as like “well His Highness would’ve wanted me to” or “His Highness wouldn’t have been willing to sacrifice the mortals” because Xie Lian is still largely his moral compass—but it also is a peek at the complexity Hua Cheng doesn’t acknowledge within himself.

uh i got distracted anyway and no longer know what point i was making here. Hua Cheng Ascension Important....maybe i will remember this at some other point...

POINT 4: Live For Me (Revisited)

I sort of got distracted writing that point but anyway coming back to it now: I maintain that although Hua Cheng’s primary pursuit is protecting and serving Xie Lian he also does develop/realize his Accidental Personhood throughout his 800 years. this includes a lot of things, as previously stated, that are under the guise of serving Xie Lian (I’d put learning the Banyue tongue, finding out about the Gilded Banquet, collecting swords, beating the 33 officials etc., in this category) and things that maybe could be but...are not really (e.g., his friendship alliance with He Xuan, Paradise Manor* in general, the Gambling Den, learning the Wuyong tongue, bullying Qi Rong*, bullying FengQing*, playing with gold foil palaces, etc.)

(*these are ones that like...could be said to be for Xie Lian and I think he might say are for Xie Lian but also have a personal element that is just for him. 

Like yes Paradise Manor is a lavish and well-stocked residence fit for a god or crown prince...but it’s also a luxurious and extravagant collection of all the things he couldn’t have in life. it’s like giving a kid a credit card with no limit and letting them run wild through uh. Fuck. A Fancy Department Store. 

And sure Qi Rong was awful and turned on Xie Lian in pretty damning ways, but I also genuinely think part of Hua Cheng’s grudge with him is from the childhood abuse and from just...hatred that Qi Rong is around and looks like Xie Lian and gets to be there when Hua Cheng can’t find Xie Lian (which is about  Xie Lian but for Hua Cheng). 

Similarly with FengQing, sure a lot of his hate is for them abandoning Xie Lian—but he doesn’t even know till Book 3 when they abandoned him, and consider how much more he hates Mu Qing, the guy he blames for kicking him out of the army, etc. Some of it is totally “in service” to Xie Lian but some of it is because Hua Cheng carries a grudge like a goddamn pro and finds catharsis in beating the shit out of immortals who bounce back and can’t stop tripping over themselves and onto his blade.)

[bigskydreaming]

Interesting. Another week where I liked all the X-books that came out. Must’ve been cuz there was no Duggan in the mix.

New Mutants was one of the better issues since Ayala took over. I haven’t loved all of their issues, though enjoyed them for the most part, but this one I could really see everything start to come together that they’ve been seeding from their start. I wanna reread once next issue comes out and see whether it works better overall to read the full arc in one sitting. Also it might be that the Otherworld stuff was a forced detour they had to make and that threw off the pacing. We’ll see. 

But the kids with Gabby was such a sweet moment, and its so nice to see them all on the same side when it comes to Farouk......but Farouk’s motivations and the little interlude about the boy call back to Ayala’s first issue and it looks like the suspicions laid back then were true. Its almost certain that the Shadow King is actually an amalgamation or even just a full on puppet of an Amenthi demon who merged with or possessed Amahl Farouk as a child and using him as a host, has been all about trying to make this world match the one it came from, based on the same ideals Annihilation espoused. 

Basically, Amahl is not the same as the Shadow, the Shadow is trying to turn Krakoa into a new version of Arakko, and if I’m interpreting one panel of the art right, I think Xi’an (who seemed to have her suspicions back at the start of this arc too) just sensed another presence for the first time - and she’s the one who knows the Shadow King’s psyche best after all - and she’s figured out that there’s a separate Amahl Farouk consciousness hidden somewhere inside him. And given that second ‘demonstration’ interlude and the fact that the New Mutants are now nowhere to be found in the Shadow King’s mindscape, I’m guessing she managed to shunt them from the part the Shadow King controlled, into whatever part the original boy Amahl is hiding in.

Excalibur was one of its better issues. I’m far more interested in the politics of Otherworld than the political shit in X-Force, Mordred being a mutant is an actually interesting twist, and the idea that Arthur is making his son’s betrayal a self-fulfilling prophecy by attacking mutantkind because he believes Mordred will inevitably side with them as a mutant has some interesting possibilities. It was also unexpectedly....nice, to see like, the whole family Braddock fighting on the same side for probably the first time ever, lol, from Betsy to Brian to Meggan to Jamie.....Jim Jaspers remains a wildcard I’m wary of because like, lol I’ve read the original stories of him and it seems this writer has too, and I want someone to bring up that he’s keeping Redroot captive and make some kind of issue about that, especially now that Death has been brought back into the mix and Betsy’s offered to help him escape Sevalith. 

(Only to have him say no, he’s working - lol anyone else think Death’s trying to pull off a one-man coup and take over Sevalith for mutantkind and do his Daddy Dearest proud? Or given that he’s obviously still crushing on Ororo, even after - well I mean, probably BECAUSE she kicked his ass and left him for dead.....I could TOTALLY see them playing this as like, part of some weird courtship attempt of his. The only way he feels he can woo her as an equal is to come to her with a kingdom of his own or some shit like that. Idk, we’ll see. He’s definitely up to something though, but I do believe him when he says that ultimately he’s on the same side as the rest of them).

I liked that they haven’t forgotten about the other Rogue, Gambit and Rictor Captains, I liked Roma’s conversation with Jubilee about Shogo and the foreshadowing there, as well as Jubilee’s response and her clear conflict.....Merlyn can fucking die in a fire already, please and thank you, ugh, enough with this old shithead.....oh I LOVED that someone is FINALLY doing something with Bei, and it does make sense for it to be Excalibur though I figured it would’ve happened in New Mutants by now. But she and Shatterstar make a fun odd duo, and actually Star’s comment to Brian about being a new friend too like, lol, okay, I’m kinda here for a trio of Brian, Star and Bei to be like a Krakoan Warrior Three who are all united by their perspective as like, lifelong combatants and being outsiders among the rest of Krakoa even if Shatterstar and Bei are technically still mutants too. It makes sense.

Hmm, what else. Would love to see Bei’s thoughts on Death and Redroot, all things considered, and have something to do with those plotlines in the future. And really in general I’m here for this big all-kingdom smackdown with Sevalith, Hothive, Mercador, the Furies and Merlyn’s kingdom all arrayed against Krakoa and Avalon. Of course, these are still only the Foul Kingdoms. Roma and the rest of the Fair Kingdoms so far don’t seem to have any real problem with witchbreed....but this arc is still only getting started. Still waiting for Mordred’s inevitable entrance....curious to see what his power is, and especially if HE even knew he was a mutant before now.

Also: JULIO AND SHATTERSTAR CUDDLES. WE HAVE WAITED 84 YEARS FOR THIS.

And as for Hellions....

Okay, I didn’t actually love Hellions, its kinda on...layaway. I liked a lot of the fallout of last issue, I liked that the stakes are so apparent here, but I’m gonna be bothered by a lot of stuff unless there’s some kind of plot twist that reveals that Kwannon’s daughter is still alive somehow. Like maybe Sinister lied about not having another back-up JUST to ensure he still had one last card to bargain with up his sleeve since he lost the ‘in’ he had with the Hellions now, and with the Council now aware of his secret experiments with Arraki DNA (and bringing Tarn down on their heads in a way that COULD have started a full on war with them if Ororo hadn’t handled it for them)....like point is, all eyes are going to be on him for awhile now and he has very few cards left to play or people in his corner, so I’m HOPING that there’s another plot twist coming in the last couple issues there. 

Because if Kwannon’s daughter is ACTUALLY dead....it really doesn’t sit well with me that the first real mutant death in an age of literal immortality for the rest of them (since even Gorgon and Rockslide technically are still alive in SOME sense)....like for that to be Kwannon’s daughter, the only real innocent in all of this, and having been held hostage to this storyline the whole time, and only existing to force Kwannon’s hand in all of this....yeah. No. Thank you, do not like, that better not be all there is to this. I never trust anything Sinister says as a general rule, so I’m not gonna believe him about that having been the only back-up of her daughter until its wholly proven otherwise.

Other thoughts.....I like that Emma knows that she fucked up, I like that Emma DID have her own kinda failsafe in place because she didn’t trust Sinister for shit, I like that she was RIGHT not to trust Sinister for shit and that her fail-safe stopped even worse shit from happening....I DON’T like that her fail-safe literally just made Alex a weapon of mass destruction with no awareness he even was one and someone else’s hand (let alone fucking MANUEL’S on the trigger)....I DON’T like Emma looking all pained at how devastated Alex is when that was the inevitably outcome of this particular failsafe, like sorry Emma but if what it did to Alex was really that big a problem for you, you should have found a different failsafe.....and I REALLY REALLY don’t like Emma effectively just offering up Maddy’s resurrection as essentially a bribe to ‘fix’ what had happened to HIM, like....if you guys could have made the case for Maddy’s resurrection before now, it should have been for Maddy’s sake, not as like....a cheer-up tactic for fucking Alex, and DEFINITELY not to ‘fix’ a mess that still resulted in Kwannon’s daughter’s death (unless of course there’s a twist there).

Oh and I also meant to say there BETTER be fallout once Scott discovers Emma and Manuel’s role in all of this. I could definitely see Scott like, interceding on John’s behalf if he manages to pull of killing Empath, because like....he’d kinda want to do it himself. This is one of those times where I REALLY wish they’d spend more time developing where Gabe fits in with the Summers brothers now, relationship wise, because like, just show him giving any kind of shits for Alex as his older brother like, at all, and you can EASILY justify Gabe going full wrath-of-omega-mutant on Empath, and what’s the Council gonna do to one of their prized omega mutants, especially one who’s already been imprisoned on Krakoa for Xavier’s mistakes in decades past? 

Actually damn, now THERE’S a consequence-arc I’d love to see, because imagine Gabe helping John go after Empath, and then the Council really trying to throw HIM in the Hole for that, and then Scott being like uh no, remember the events of Deadly Genesis? The fuck I’m gonna stand by and allow that, Xavier you still owe him for that shit, especially since this resurrected version of him never did all the shit Emperor Vulcan did, at least as far as he knows. Or THEN ALSO I could see him getting Storm to back him up on this and she gets the Arraki to be like, well we owe this mutant a debt of gratitude for his role in making our new home, and actually his actions sound totally acceptable, we’re honestly not sure what the problem is, actually he sounds more like us than you so we’re happy to offer him sanctuary, and then the Council would shit their pants because they don’t want to lose an omega mutant to their war-like cousins since you KNOW more than a few of them are making contingencies in case they ever have to fight them again, and like, it’d split the loyalties of the entire Summers Clan in doubt and just...tons of story possibilities there. Lots to consider.

Eh, that’s not where they’re going with this at all though, so whatever. I’ll actually be really surprised if they do end up writing John as managing to successfully kill Empath.

Last thoughts.....this was weirdly the first time they EVER made me give a crap about Nanny? They managed to make me more interested in her in one issue than they have in her previous thirty-five years of existence, gave her more DEVELOPMENT in one issue than in all of that time, and when she was willing to sacrifice her just to save the orphanage from being destroyed I was like, holy shit. I....like...her?

And then they fucking ruined it all the very next page with how they had her react to Peter, and their ominous as fuck final epitaph. I’ll wait on deciding my full thoughts and feelings about that, and see just WHAT Peter ends up doing as a result....I have a feeling things are not going to end well for him and we might be close to seeing the last of him, especially with the inferences they’ve made about how destructive Peter’s true power is - whatever the hell it actually is. Like, Peter, at least, I can see the Council being more than willing to leave in the Hole, or just....put at the back of the resurrection queue for the rest of eternity. Which is shitty but would be perfectly in keeping with them and also I don’t actually know what he’s going to do yet.....like, is it going to be some bullshit like HE tries to destroy the Nursery or some shit because Nanny wanted to save it, or more likely is it gonna be something like he goes to the Right and betrays Krakoa or whatever and gives them valuable intel or something like that? Idk. 

Finally - YES MADDY’S COMING BACK. And she’s gonna be pisssssssed. Like, I don’t see how they’re planning to approach that, like....I’m expecting Xavier to try some serious editing on her back-up to maneuver WHICH point in time Maddy will come back remembering up to, because uh....that’s gonna matter a lot. But since this is all happening against his objections in the first place, and this seems more like Emma’s personal crusade to try and make up for her part in all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if Maddy comes back with full memories up to her most recent back-up.....which means she’s going to still be full on hating all of them, being like FUCK Krakoa AND your amnesty for all mutants I just want you all to burn, and oh yeah, on TOP of all that its inevitable she’s going to find out how much some of them FOUGHT to keep her from being resurrected, like....? Oh there is like only a 1 or 2% chance this ends any way other than TERRIBLY for everyone concerned.

(And yet I still hope they pull it off, because I don’t want her back just for one or two more issues, I want her back longterm. Ideally, I’d love her to take Jean’s place on the Council and pull it off with the support of like Mystique and Emma and Destiny and others as a giant fuck you to Xavier, but I’d also settle for her ditching Krakoa for Arakko and being like these are more my kinda people and also you can’t do shit to me here).

Oh and PS - lolololololol forever at Hank fucking McCoy trying to give Emma shit for her actions here. Like I mean, at least he’s AWARE he has literally no leg to stand on, whatsoever? I mean, I guess there’s that? But still. LMFAO OMG SHUT UP HANK YOU LITERALLY DON’T GET TO SAY SHIT ABOUT ANYONE ELSE BEING SHADY EVER.

Edit: Oh and also I forgot - I need to know how MUCH the Council found out about Sinister’s experiments, in particular if they found out he was ALREADY experimenting with making chimera mutants, like way ahead of schedule according to Moira’s LAST life in Powers of X, when like, the chimera mutants were a recent development as of a full hundred years in the future from now. Like, that changes a LOT and I would love to know what Xavier, Moira and Magneto think of that accelerated timetable and how it might change things.

[sebastianshaw]

I love Emma, but she is a narcissistic, self serving, diva of a woman. She will help others if it benefits herself in the long run, and while I do not find her pure evil. She is a villain due to her nature of self preservation at the expense of others.

Emma is complicated. I don't wholly disagree with your view, but I don't wholly agree with it either. I certainly don't think she's a villain, or rather, I think she's someone who is a villain but trying her best to be a hero and that's what MAKES her a hero. The way I read Emma is that she is someone who is, at her core, a "bad" person who has chosen to try her very best to be good, but because she doesn't have the right internal framework for that to come naturally, she struggles with it a lot and frequently ends up falling back on using villainous or at the least morally dubious means to achieve heroic ends. She's openly sadistic, and she's got a recurrent problem with sexually assaulting people using telepathy that no one but me seems to recognize (and that's after joining the X-Men) but she's absolutely got higher goals than self-preservation, or else she wouldn't be here. Hell, her entire motive for joining the X-Men was that her original students died and she couldn't stop it, and she thought that with the X-Men, maybe next time she could (yeah, did not work) I like Emma best when writers embrace her evil traits, and write her struggling with them, rather than erasing them or elevating them as actually being good because Girlboss (this in particular makes me GAG, abusive or shitty behaviors don't become laudable because a woman does them) and ultimately triumphing because she has made the CHOICE to be better than what she's wired for. She fights her nature, and she wins. But it's always a fight, and it always will be, and that's something I find really compelling. I definitely do not have the same issues she does, but my struggles with how I'm mentally wired are something that, as much as I get better at dealing with them, I will always be struggling with. Again, I'm nothing like Emma (I think) but I relate in terms of having to fight yourself. A sanitized Saint Emma takes that all away, and really does a disservice to her character

By the way, none of this is meant to put down you or your interpretation. This is just mine. Part of her being really complicated means there's a lot of ways to read her, especially depending who is writing. For instance, under some writers, I think Emma doesn't have any natural empathy or compassion, and is just simulating it via using her telepathy. Under other writers, I don't think that's the case. It depends. I think in any case, we can agree that Duggan's interpretation of Emma as having Always Been Good Actually and only ever evil and mean to BAD NASTY MEN like the Feminist Hero she is, is cow dung. There can be multiple "correct" interpretations of a character----but that doesn't mean there aren't incorrect ones too!

[edamamechips]

Idk if this is your thing, so feel free to ignore, but I must ask: if you had full creative control of the show, how would you run season 5? You can pick and choose whatever leaks you want to include.

Hi love! you are right and this is definitely not my thing but i would do anything for you! (not in a creepy way. i just really like you and am in awe of whatever you do) Thanks for sending this in <3 i am sorry if this is late, i kind of had to get over the initial shock of receiving one of these. Enough with the self loathing, moving on

For the resolution of whatever happened in 4x17, 4x18, i am going to go with the brilliant theory that @sullypants came up with because it ties up a lot of loose ends very well and gives us a cleaner canvas to work with post time jump.

However, i would like the time jump plot device and also to see the core four take different paths because that would help them grow and mature(yes i know they can grow together but i am not eloquent enough to explain why they need to go different directions kay? They just do.) for that to happen, the fact that charles has been hypnotizing betty comes into light post time jump after the whole fallout.

So post seven year time jump,

Jughead: i think there are two ways in which the fandom interprets jughead (one is the southside serpents jughead, the serpent king one, who lives in the moment and is more about the collective belonging thing and the other is s1/prep school jughead who is more ambition driven and less about fitting in). Subjectively speaking, i think jughead would go on to pay his full attention to finishing his novel after his breakup with betty as he is overcome with self doubt and long distance (very Dan Humphrey in s6 but def not as vindictive). The novel helps him sort out his emotions and is his attempt to move on from his “old life”.(his book is titled closure) He tries to find love and after a few failed attempts he meets jessica who is the complete opposite of betty. But jughead finds himself comparing her with betty almost constantly and old feelings resurface. *dun dun dun* also definitely defenestrating the alcoholic plotline until and unless we consider charles long distance hypnotizing jughead??

Betty: betty tries to sort out her feelings for archie and doesn’t wholly understand what made her kiss him. It's almost as if she blacked out(eyes emoji). Hence, bland musty flour barchie doesn't happen. betty excels academically and gets recruited by the FBI. she also returns home every thanksgiving (not christmas because she likes staying cooped up alone and eating chinese, don't ask me why. I am projecting) and everytime she returns, she hopes she’ll get to see jughead but she never really does. However betty makes amends with veronica after a lot of discussions and promises and one very emotional sleepover later. Betty is probably dating a fellow fed (who she meets while sneaking into the file cabinet to work on one of the “unsolved” cases and gets caught by him).

Veronica: veronica and archie breakup after prom and she heads out for college the next day to her ivy league college and excels at it. veronica is DEFINITELY not married. She has her own very successful business and is pretty stable and happy being single and having a few flings with some men (and women). She probably returns to riverdale on the occasion of thanksgiving when she stumbles across very successful business man Reggie and they bond over whatever people who run businesses bond over.

Archie: archie too doesnt understand what made him kiss betty but meets a therapist at pops who explains it was his PTSD etc etc. archie joins the army on accident instead of the naval academy. (again, idk why) and is “best friends” with another fellow veteran who saved him from getting shot during [insert something that army does and involves shooting]. They return home together for thanksgiving to surprise mary and her wife but discover that they are away. So archie asks his “friend” to live with him for the weekend. (WINK WINK) BI ARCHIE ENTER.

As for cheryl and toni, i think they will breakup when toni realises that she can do much better than cheryl and not get gaslighted by her girlfriend. Social worker Toni moves in with married kevin/fangs and agrees to be the surrogate for their baby. Cheer coach Cheryl (side gig tarot reader) has a fling with tabitha and learns the meaning of “no”

and for the mystery plot, they are all back home for thanksgiving when betty finds charles’ old FBI files while cleaning out and figures out the whole (charles-hypnotised-betty-and-messed-with-her-childhood-memories) and discovers that yoga instructor alice has not seen polly or her twins. Betty and jughead try to track down charles together(!) and gratuitous amounts of pining ensue (lots of lingering eye contact across pops, jealous milkshake sipping and oops! we touched and oops i fell on ur lips and now i can’t get back up). we discover that jughead’s girlfriend broke up with him before he came to riverdale and also betty’s fed boyfriend is actually her fed bestfriend and betty was a beard(everyone is gay here except bughead kay?) and wham! they do the devil’s tango because patience is for suckers.

Anyways, we learn charles has hypnotized the twins somehow and drives a haunted truck thing called the mothman because of it’s red headlights and someone finds polly’s body in the middle of the road but in a twist of plot that surprises no one that polly isn’t actually dead but is hiding out in the fuckbunker where bughead (obviously) find her. And the core four get involved somehow and they take down charles and maybe gets beaten down by jughead “knuckle brass” jones which are actually betty’s knuckle brasses. 

That’s about it. Short and sweet.

[grandhotelabyss]

A few extracts from the leftist thinker of the hour. In his latest piece, he inveighs against an unrelated group of philosophers, political actors, and cultural traditions, using mostly guilt-by-association and ad-hominem attacks, with some puerile schoolyard epithets (e.g., “man-childs [sic],” “Boomer Theory”)  thrown in, all in the name of what he calls “positive biopolitics,” defined, if the following vague jargon is a definition, as

inclusive, materialist, restorative, rationalist, based on a demystified image of the human species, anticipating a future different from the one prescribed by many cultural traditions. It accepts the evolutionary entanglement of mammals and viruses. It accepts death as part of life. It therefore accepts the responsibilities of medical knowledge to prevent and mitigate unjust deaths and misery as something quite different from the nativist immunization of one population of people from another. This includes not just rights to individual privacy but also social obligations to participate in an active, planetary biological commons.

Because “many cultural traditions” remain extant, it’s hard to see how we get from here to there, which makes this discourse little more than apologism for present arrangements: the corporate monopolies will, with the financial, legal, and coercive assistance of the state, manage us down to our atoms, and we will be obligated to participate whether we like it or not. Though our author makes a few faint-heartedly woke noises, his vision is, to repurpose his own argumentative tactics, fundamentally indistinguishable from neoreaction with its dream of hyperracist face tentacles—except that I suppose Land or Yarvin would allow for more dispersed authority centers, making their cyberpunk paradise, ironically, the less fascistic of the twinned accelerationisms. 

From this unseemly polemic, one concludes that Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault are essentially equivalent to Alex Jones and Marjorie Taylor Greene and that only a simplistic reactionary with a pathological attachment to “lost objects” could have any objection to “any artificial governing intervention in the biological condition of human society.” And I’m not Agamben: I don’t object a priori to any, but surely I may object a posteriori to some. See how his abstraction serves his case: he argues at the level of ideas and would probably dismiss any assessment of the actual forces in play (pharmaceutical giants, the U.S. security state, the CCP, Bezos, Gates, etc.) as “conspiracy theory.” (If the conservative’s attachment to “lost objects” is deluded, by the way, what should we call the radical’s investment in an imaginary and basically impossible future, that famous omelette they will never be able to prepare no matter how much albumen they spill?)

The personal slam against Illich is particularly grotesque. Leaving aside the expert class’s new conviction that only a Trumpist CHUD could possibly think medical interventions must be consensual, I know people who died of tumors they had treated in exactly the way doctors recommended—they died a few months later than they might have otherwise, in agonies they might have been spared, from costly and ineffectual treatments with severe side effects. There’s no cure, after all, for cancer, though I wonder how much cancer might be prevented if the biopolitical agents our author extols did not devote themselves to coating the entire planet in a shell of plastic. But I’m sure his endorsement elsewhere of “deep climate governance”—i.e., “You’ve used your heat ration for the winter, pleb!”—will solve this problem. 

Note, too, the contradictions, flagrant in so swaggering an author. First he bizarrely and scornfully attributes to the soixante-huitards a belief in “subjective moral intentionality,” as if a bunch of Nietzscheans talking about the death of the author believed in any such Kantian thing. Then he delivers a moralistic little sermon on masks—wholly ignoring the actual disputed science on the topic—that only makes any sense at all if we subjectively recognize ourselves as moral agents rather than merely biological organisms. These intellectual misanthropes who insist we’re exactly the same as spores and houseflies always run aground on the same problem: if you’re saying it, and especially if you’re saying it to change people’s minds, then it can’t be true. Human exceptionalism, at least on this planet, is not an article of faith but an empirical fact. Marx certainly thought so—see “Alienated Labour” (1844), but then I suppose he was still a Romantic when he wrote that.

As for the wholesale dismissal of Romanticism, I suspect our polemicist hasn’t done the reading. There is no total “disgust with rationality and technology” in Wordsworth or Shelley or Emerson or Melville or Whitman—yes, comp-lit kids, you have to read the English and Americans as well as the French and Germans—only a complaint about their inability to coexist with other dispositions. I have no problem with rationality or technology, but believe their proper role is to serve us, not to master us. I would recommend Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), but I imagine it comes pre-proscribed by our ardent technologist. And demystification? Please wake me if it’s ever anything other than a rival myth. “Humans are organic objects that should be managed by centralized power” is also a story, not a very good one. A better story, if our author will condescend to read a Romantic, is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818, 1831). Often interpreted as a warning about overweening science, it is also a caution—from a woman whose father, mother, husband, and friends were all left-wing radicals who made worse messes of their lives than Ivan Illich made of his—against what one critic memorably calls “Promethean Politics”:

By representing in her creature both the originating ideals and the brutal consequences of the French Revolution, Mary Shelley offered a powerful critique of the ideology of revolution. An abstract idea or cause (e.g. the perfecting of mankind), if not carefully developed within a supportive environment, can become an end that justifies any means, however cruel. As he worked to restore life where death had been, Victor Frankenstein never considered what suffering his freakish child might later endure. 

Mary Shelley’s middle-class gradualist liberal female politics—what Nancy Armstrong denounces as the domestic ideology of the English novel tout court—has its own dangers, and is nowadays complicit with the technocrats, as we hear “Think of the children!” used to justify every excess. Still, Frankenstein, with its gain-of-function experiment gone awry, remains a powerful vision of rampant radical technocracy, what may be unleashed on humanity when the quest to master what cannot be mastered meets its nemesis. Positive biopolitics, on the other hand, given its implicit endorsement of the powers that be and its emptily denunciatory rhetoric, is yet more evidence that we no longer have left-wing ideas in America but only “irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.”

[jjkpls]

crayons ‘set’ (PG)

> genre : fluffy fluff, light angst, comedy

> pairing : kim namjoon x reader

> words : 3.8k

> warnings : none (except a rusty quill)

>Y/N, a primary school teacher, is way too soft for the quiet, timid new child in her class. Little did she know, the adult version, who engendered this cutie, is even more charming.

> prior

> next

The principle of balance. 

It’s a curious concept. Like most of the things that turn people into different versions of themselves, just from an unconscious force brought to light by the sheer inner sense of competition that inhabits every single person. It’s quieter in some people. Feel non-existent sometimes. But it’s here, dormant, just waiting on the right trigger to awaken. 

You didn't think you would see it in Jimmy. The little boy lacks completely self-confidence and affirmation. But a voice and a stance, easily remarkable, end up fitting him.

It turns out that you witness it quite quickly after the Progress has started. And it manifests in the most adorable and comical of ways. 

It’s been a few weeks since you've met his dad. There wasn’t much to talk about with him yet. Every day, longer lingerings of the gaze, less tucking away in the far back of the rest of the group, more definite wordless participations during class -nodding and clapping along. The progress you've been wholly satisfied with but nothing so drastically different that you thought necessary to call his father in for. 

Nothing absolutely astonishing. Therefore you didn’t call and what a surprise this one Thursday afternoon turns out to be when he appears at your class’s doorway.

He’s wearing very casual clothes, a simple light linen shirt and some distended jeans to pair, sneakers and his hair -you've only seen neatly tucked to the side- is floating about his forehead, freshly washed and devoid of any wax. It’s a pleasant surprise, especially with the evident appearance of calm and quiet tranquillity he’s carrying. 

This man looks rather handsome when he’s on vacation, stressless and well-rested and seemingly content, you note.

“Mr Kim?”

He looks up from his son he is holding the hand of, eyes wide and bewildered as he stares a little. You chuckle, confused but amused. He’s the one paying you a surprise visit but he’s shocked when you do talk to him?

“Is it bad timing? I can come back another day...” From the look he’s giving you, or more accurately, barely sparing you, body already aiming for the corridor, you wonder if you should return the question. It'd be cruel though, to tease, therefore you choose to simply shake your head and insist on him walking in. And then it happens, the man can’t take a step inside, for some reason. He’s just paralysed, looking like a million contradicting thoughts are fighting inside his brain and he simply cannot make out the best option, if he would or not step in; and it’s Jimmy who takes the decision for him. Puffing his cheeks out in annoyance, he pushes against his father's leg, small hands pulling the bigger one towards him. It’s like watching a tiny mouse trying to drag along a giraffe. It has little to no physical effect until there’s an aggravated tiny whine of “appa”. He moves, at last, letting himself stood in front of me before Jimmy lets go of his hand. 

He gives you a look you're not sure you interpret well. Dark eyes all serious, attention loud, he seems to be intrusting his father to you. A gentle smile, hiding your teeth biting back a hilarious grin, sends him away towards the very back of the room. Taking a seat next to the bookshelf, it takes Jimmy a few minutes only after you've diverted your attention from him to grab an image book and start going through it patiently.

He's so comfortable. Almost too comfortable. He looks strange, like that. Strange because different from usual but still, oddly, it fits him well. It's like a projection, a little vision of a future little boy, easygoing, at peace with himself and his environment, that won't take too long to be born again.

And it's now the dad who's acting weird. He's standing on his two never-ending legs, the tip of his fingers toying nervously with the button of his vest, his mouth keeps teasing, opening slightly, as if about to spill a word, only to shut itself right up, a lightly aggravated sigh following soon after. It happens quite a couple of times until you get tired of waiting. Tired of the eyes avoiding you, the tension heavy for no particular reason that you could decipher, you ring him awake with an abrupt overexaggerated clearing of your throat.

"Mr Kim?" He's confounded again, caught off guard somehow. "Did you mean to discuss something with me?" It's hard to make an adult talk, you realise. Sometimes children can be difficult. Put aside Jimmy's case, sometimes children are like that. Making them want to share, especially when they are at that age where they can't express themselves and their ideas as well as they wish they could, frustration, laziness at times can get the better of them and having a fairly constructed conversation with them is like pulling teeth out of a very adamant, unwilling person. But you manage. Adults, on the other hand, have never been too much of your cup of tea. There's a reason why you chose to spend the better part of your weeks with children instead of adults. You're not that terrible at getting along with them, you do it pretty well, honestly. But the reason is probably the fact that you're not difficult. You're convenient as a person, always willing to help, always trying to be positive, you do not get in people's way and most of the times, it's enough to make it through.

You don't deal with adults the way you deal with children. With great pleasure and passion, you insert yourself into your pupils' existence, try to leave a mark and help them have the better, feel the better, be the better. Adults, you don't get too involved. They sound complicated, complexed, too many compromises, too many facets. You know because you are one too.

And Mr Kim, looking all nervous and troubled seem the very embodiment of this bias you have. He looks some sort of troubles. Probably nothing that terrible. He appears too childish for it to be that grave. But he's serious about it, about the anxiety, the struggle, the uneasiness he's feeling, you can tell, just from the way he hasn't been able to look at you in the eyes since he appeared in your class. Still, whatever it is, will cost some of your time, and with that, might clog up some very much needed space you require in this busy head of yours.

It's happened before. A new neighbour trying to get closer to you, maybe because they've just moved in the city, didn't know anyone, and you looked friendly enough and they needed someone to listen to the exhaustive list of all the things that made them leave their hometown -even though, you don't necessarily care for any of it. Or a colleague, trying to get you involved in their office dramas, simply because people need the attention, the feeling of importance and support.

Quite frankly, you've never been interested in any of them. Adults sound like too much work, especially given the fact that, as filled with flaws as they are, they are a pain, and often impossible, to fix. And they say things they don't mean. And they want things that they don't need. Their words and their acts hardly ever match. They're for the most part unrecoverable and unfixable, and you don't want any of it.

But Mr Kim and his dimples -invisible to the eye at the moment, but that you realise marked your brain so strongly you can picture them exactly where they should be winking- are piquing your interest. You're ninety-nine per cent sure it is not about Jimmy but you'd like to know. Never mind that curiosity killed the cat.

“Yes, uh-“ Clearing of the throat, scratching of the neck and more clearing of the throat. “about last time...”

You're lost. For a second, your body freezes to give your brain its full capacity to wreck through the whole place and retrieve a memory that seems to have been lost somehow, somewhere. You have no idea what time he is referring to. 

He seems so invested, so intensely experiencing his emotions you're left shocked and deeply embarrassed to not remember something that had that effect on him yet didn’t leave a single trace on you. 

He insists then, having to face your transparent confusion. The more you stand in pure oblivion, the more awkward he gets. Stuttering more, an accent, very deep, adding rough edges to his voice, colouring his words with new shades that you've never heard before.

“Mr Kim-“

“Namjoon.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“No, it’s me, I am, I’m-“ You will, later, feel terrible for it. It’s undeniable. But right now, facing this grown-ass man, usually so collected now decomposing in the most adorable red-cheeked boyish thing, you can only start laughing. It renders him speechless which in a way is almost an improvement and when you finally can restrain the giggles from bubbling straight from your belly, you start again,

“Maybe take a deep breath, take your time.” You bite your lip down to the blood, poorly concealing your grin when he actually does it. “What did you mean by ‘last time’?” You're mortified to ask, honestly, persuaded that you should know but at this point, it’s pretty mean but you don’t think you can embarrass yourself that much in front of him, not when he’s been such a mess himself. 

“When we met. When I came to talk about my son.” Calmly, diligently he answers. Like a good boy answering his teacher’s question, a shadow of worry covering his usually sharp gaze. 

“Oh, what about it?” Curiosity melts with confusion as you refrain yourself from pressing him further into elaborating faster, eager as you are to understand. You were sure he was not going to talk about him. 

“I’d been a bit much and I wanted to apologise personally to you.”

Been a bit much? 

“In what sense? I’m not sure I understand.”

“It’s just- I poured myself and our luggage on you when you’re- I know you care about my son but I shouldn’t have, I don’t know, I shouldn’t have-“

You hate cutting people off. It’s a terrible habit you are constantly trying to teach your students to drop. But here he is, struggling to express an idea that irks you strongly. Is he able to put the words he needs? Does he even know them in his own mother tongue or do they even exist? Maybe what he's trying to express are pure emotions. Unease coming from a heart shameful for having shown itself vulnerable to a stranger. You'd know about this feeling. You've experienced it plenty of times, throughout all your life. Even if it wasn’t in the form of you stripping your heart off to someone, like he did, simply showing that you cared gave you the same sense of vulnerability, of terrifying exposure you've always had a hard time dealing with. 

You hate the idea that he regrets it, especially with you. At that time, you could tell he had words to pour out. You were glad, you were even enchanted to be the one helping out no matter how small you just assumed your impact to have been. And now, he's trying to say that he regrets it?

“You said you were thankful to have someone to talk to.”

“I did say that.” He mumbles, pressing the pad of his fingers against his closed eyes. 

“Then don’t regret it. I don’t want you to be embarrassed about this, seriously. I had parents do way more, actually embarrassing, things in my career. Don’t even worry about it.” He’s thinking it over. You can tell your words have little to no impact on his bruised ego. “I’m not sure how appropriate it is for me to say that but if you need it, whenever in the future, don’t hesitate. I’m not a psychologist, but I’m just- I’m willing to listen if it can help. I mean me or anyone else, really, you should in general just share. It’s important. You don’t want Jimmy to mimic such bad habits like so, holding in and all.” You may be talking too much. The man just looks so eager to hear those words and it spurs you on. “You really shouldn’t feel embarrassed. I can understand the feeling, where it comes from, but it’s pointless with me.”

“You’re really kind.” You give a smile, only. It’s not much but you're pretty sure it’s the genuineness tinting it that renders it enough. Again, he seems surprised. As bewildered as last time but undoubtedly convinced. “I’m glad he has you as his teacher.”

Your cheeks burn intensely. You don’t know how conscious he is of his words. If he realises that he perfected the art of flattery and of slipping people in his pocket. He really did. Especially when he’s leaning slightly towards you, gaze intense and on you now that the embarrassment has vanished for the most part and he can bear looking at you, seemingly hanging out for any other words you may have in stock.

There’s nothing left for you to say though. It takes you quite a few attempts to skim over your brain, trying to formulate a sentence, any word, but you come out completely empty. You can’t even stutter a thank you from how utterly flustered you're feeling. 

Therefore you choose the easy way out. Waltzing on your heels to give him your back, your hands reaching to the barely messy top of your desk to pretend they’re busy. You believe yourself to have been sleek enough but apparently not so -maybe it’s the fact that you're just picking up stuff to put them exactly where they belong, at the exact same place. 

“Was I inappropriate? I’m really sorry, Mrs ___. Sometimes I just talk too much and I don’t realise that maybe I shouldn’t.”

“Please stop apologising. It’s fine, you’re fine. You’re just- You saying nice things that you mean,” You stumble upon the last words as if maybe you're getting over your own head to just assume and claim so loud that he must mean the sweet things he said to you but that bashful yet adorable expression he's wearing, with the eyes a bit wide and the bottom lip munched, fill you with a regain of confidence, “can’t be an issue. It’s just unexpected and- I mean you’re fine you can say whatever you want. I mean I’m not asking for more compliments, I’m just saying-“

It’s terribly unnerving. You don’t know what impression you're giving off as a teacher. Lacking so much elocution, scrambling to form sentences and turning into a messy, overwhelmed emotional mess. 

“I don’t mind giving you more compliments, Mrs ___.” Here comes that curious principle of balance again. You're half-dying of mortification and he seems to be having fun, smiling kindly, with a hint of something else -amusement, maybe even smudginess. 

Is he flirting with me? There’s no way he’s flirting. I think I’m losing my mind. 

“It’s Miss, actually.” You swear to yourself, silently, that you're not flirting back -assuming he is, in fact, doing just that- and you just mean to be called by an accurate name. 

“Oh.” He almost gasps. Looking shocked and you don’t understand what’s going on anymore. Was he really not flirting? Why does he look so shaken as if you misinterpreted his intentions and now he’s misinterpreting yours and think you're getting over your head -because you're not, you were not flirting!

“I’m not flirting with you, I’m just clarifying!” 

You hate this whole conversation. You hate yourself, your life and anything and everything that may or may not have led you to this tragic instant.

You're positive you screamed a little. You get confirmation of just that from the tiny mop of hair bouncing up in your peripheral vision, as Jimmy gives you two a slightly concerned, curious look. 

The tension is blatant. It's a mixture of irritation, of anxiety, of embarrassment. You couldn't have messed up any worse than you did and you positively want to simply die, right about now.

The mere thought that you'll have to live with this humiliation not only for the whole day ahead, blatantly hanging out at the back of your head, sometimes probably too close to your consciousness for any sense of comfort to ever inhabit you again, but for your entire life makes you want to throw yourself out the window. You decide not to indulge in the pressing pulsion only because you're on the ground floor, therefore, it would be pointless if not even more humiliating.

Mr Kim, somehow, helps a little. By not wearing a mask of pure revolt, revulsion or aggravation. He stares soundly, expression not giving off much to work with. Just enough to understand he is not mad, simply lost in his own thoughts he doesn't seem too keen on sharing.

A spark of sensibility blooms suddenly in your brain. You're so thankful for it, you jump right on it, grab it with your two hands and start again, as if nothing happened, as if you haven't just humiliated yourself in front of this man (and his son), "Jimmy has made a lot of progress, I've noted."

Mr Kim blinks a few times, unnaturally so. "Yeah? I mean, yes, I've noticed too, actually." He keeps staring with the same obnoxiously loud thoughts running in his mind. His brain is on full activity mode. It's obvious. And he doesn't care too much about talking about his son right this second (even though he doesn't seem to care much about sharing what's going through that private head of his either).

How disappointing. You sincerely thought the one subject that matters the most to him would successfully tear the attention away from you but you're a fool. Apparently, even the cute little bean of a son he has can't divert the attention from the humiliation you've just submitted yourself to.

"Anyway, I won't hold any more of your time, you must have work to attend to."

"Actually I'm not working today. I have the day off." Your lip now too sensitive, you attack the inner part of your cheek with your teeth -thankfully you've turned your back to him again, feigning observing with great attention something through the windows- to stop yourself from screeching. It takes him so long, so fucking long for him to decide, finally, that maybe he should leave. The longest dozens of seconds of your life. Staring outside, picturing him behind you, probably watching you wondering to himself how you can be so lame and how he could have thought you a good fit to be his precious son's teacher. "Ah, I should leave anyway. Your class is about to start?"

"Ah, yes. Well, thanks for passing by. I hope you rest well." It's the least genuine you've been with this man, and anyone for the matter, in so long. Your heart and mind are in such a shamble you don't actually remember the reason for his coming and if, really, anything positive came out of this conversation.

It's ridiculous how you feel, all bothered and nervous, aggravated with him for making you feel so flustered. You give him the most convincing fake smile you own, not taking the time to check if he buys it as you don't dare lingering your attention on him for any longer than the blink of the eye takes.

When he leaves, only after having scattered a bunch of smooches on Jimmy's face, you find yourself breathing again. It's like you've been holding in for so long, you're getting dizzy at the taste of oxygen again, heart beating furiously in your chest, sweating all over.

Fuck, that was painful.

You're such an idiot sometimes. Why do you have to be such a fucking idiot? It's not like you're asking much in this life, honestly. You're not aiming at any groundbreaking, universe shaking novelties. You're staying in your line, trying to be good and do good in your own little world. Not asking much, not taking without beforehand being offered. Is it really that much to ask to not be absolutely humiliated in front of one of your kids' parent, who happens to be a stupidly handsome man? (Yes, he is. You can admit that -to yourself. It's probably the reason why your brain stopped working properly, by the way.) You're cursed. I'm cursed, I'm cursed, I'm cur-

"Mish?" The quietest little call comes from the quietest little boy. Standing a secure meter away from you, his peculiar big black eyes staring with a silent demand in them, Jimmy waits patiently for your attention to be given to him. You offer it to him with great enthusiasm. Because between self-pitying your dumb ass and celebrating the first-ever-self-willingly-uttered word to you by this boy, the choice is not even to be pondered over.

"Yes, Jimmy?" He's holding in one hand your crayons he slowly tends your way, careful not to spill them all from his tiny fist. In the other one, there's a paper he's drawn on. Your eyes instinctively are driven to it, curious to see what he decided to draw when he felt comfortable enough to do it. He catches the line of your attention, evidently, and it takes him a second but then, finally, he decides you're allowed to see it. It's a too accurate copy of the ugly cat you made for him the other day. The colours are different, the traits a bit shakier yet, completely unbiasedly, you have to admit that he somehow made it look better. "That's a very pretty cat, Jimmy."

He looks at it, ruminates your words, trying to make sense of them, verify their accuracy. Suddenly he seems to decide that you're right and giving you another candid look, he returns to his table where he proceeds to carefully slip the drawing in his bag.

You realise your eyes are filled up with prickling tears while you sniff. You're not sure how much is due to this, how much the terrible, terrible encounter with his dad worked your emotions so intensely you're so sensitive now. In any case, it turns out for the better. It's this cute little cat that ends up making you and your day ahead feel better. You're so thankful for it.

Again, you know you're too involved but how are you supposed to do any different with them? Maybe it wasn't a punishment earlier. Maybe it was the storm before the ray of sunshine. It's probably the case. You're less aggravated, suddenly. Less vexed and probably more lenient on talking to this man again given, not the ray of sunshine, but actually rainbow that he may have helped cause to colour your day.

A/N: thanks for reading 💜

[boycottyashahime]

Not sure if it's wise to stan Lindsay Ellis or emulate her in any way, because she's pretty accepting of ships like Beetlejuice (an adult) x Lydia (a child). It seems likely that she'd be cool with Sessrin too and would chastise anyone criticizing that ship.

She also defended Stephanie Meyer's Twilight by omitting most core criticisms of the franchise like its glorification of child grooming, racism, and misogyny. Lindsay Ellis has some good takes, but she'd definitely be on friendly terms with Sessrin shippers and others of their ilk.

I don't really feel like what she's talking about in the screenshots and this situation are all that comparable, though. First of all, in the Inuyasha series, Sesshoumaru and Rin aren't coded as a couple, especially not in classic RT style. There's not really a concrete definition to the relationship at all, which enables a lot of different interpretations, as opposed to the coding leading one to a certain conclusion.

Second of all, the Beetlejuice cartoon and the Beetlejuice movie resemble each other little more than name and character design - in the screenshots, LE talks about how she was initially a little taken aback by how different the characters' relationship was in the movie vs. the cartoon, and how the cartoon fans would ship them in the context of the show because that's how it was presented to them within the context. There's a discrepancy there not because the relationship is coded ambiguously in canon, but because fans are dealing with two totally separate and distinct codings that have little to do with one another. The movie and cartoon are so incompatible in tone and context that it's impossible to reconcile the two into a cohesive canon, so the shippers and anti shippers may as well be talking about two entirely separate things (which they are). In Inuyasha/Yashahime's case, however, the latter follows from the former, they're supposed to represent one long contiguous timeline, and so the dynamic between Sesshoumaru and Rin in Yashahime would have to be based upon that of what it was in Inuyasha, which is where antis in THIS sphere have a problem. It's one thing to have two different fandoms of two different stories entirely where one is very loosely based on the other warring with each other over details that were wholly different from one another (Beetlejuice). It's another to have a direct continuation of a series that may or may not imply some pretty iffy dynamics based on a grown man getting with a girl he has authority over when she's older (Inuyasha/Yashahime).

Third, LE characterizes the shippers of the Beetlejuice fandom as largely peaceful, mostly keeping to themselves until an anti wanders into their midst. In my experience, it's been the opposite in this fandom. I keep on the anti tag, have only posted once in the ship tag (to boost a post that had both ship and anti arguments on it), and don't go looking for fights. I've been getting quite a few shippers demanding in various ways that I shut up and refrain from stating my opinion on my own blog multiple times now. I may be wrong, but given the circumstances, I think that LE might have a less-than-favorable view of the shippers in this fandom for having a similarly militant pattern of behavior to the antis in the Beetlejuice fandom. It's not necessarily the opinion that I see her criticizing in the screenshots (she even says she understands how the content can be upsetting), but the way one invades spaces that are not theirs to insist that someone isn't allowed to have the opposite opinion.

And, at the risk of repeating myself yet again, I actually DO NOT have a problem with the existence of the SessRin ship. I have ignored it for years, and will continue to ignore it for years to come, no matter what Sunrise wants to validate in their sequel. I just have my blog to express my opinion, help commiserate with other antis, and assert that it isn't unreasonable for anyone to read Sesshoumaru and Rin's relationship as platonic. So, actually, I mostly agree with LE in her dismissal of people "supporting" abuse by liking a ship. My issue is with Sunrise if they decide to put positive depictions of grooming in a show for children, but as far as the shippers in the fandom go, I really have no problem with them shipping. Theirs isn't an invalid interpretation either, given all of the surrounding material in the world promoting it. We can coexist, disagree, and still be fine. At the moment. Shippers don't seem to WANT a peaceful coexistence with me, but I think eventually they'll get bored of fighting over nothing.

As for LE's defense of Stephanie Meyer, it was specifically a defense against all the unfair, misogynistic attacks on her for writing something popular with girls and women. She didn't say there's weren't VALID criticisms of Twilight; she just said she was sorry for buying into the intense unwarranted hatred of Twilight and Stephanie Meyer for nothing more than our culture's general disdain for anything that girls like. I'd like to think she really didn't need to make the video where she listed and elaborated upon all the problematic aspects of the Twilight series, because quite frankly, that video already existed in multiple iterations long before she made her own.

Finally, I think it's important to note that I'm 32 years old and not really interested in "stanning" or "emulating" anyone at this point. A couple of anon messages stated they thought there were similarities between myself and LE, and while I am flattered because I think she has some valuable and insightful opinions on fiction, I'm far past the point of trying to be like her or thinking she's flawless. I do have some disagreements with some things she's said before; I don't have much interest in listing them out here, but suffice it to say you should have no worries whatsoever that I would blindly follow her example on every little point. Nor would I suggest anyone else do so. I just like watching her videos, think she has a cool perspective, and am flattered to be compared to someone who it looks like has been pretty successful in writing and publishing a novel, as that's kind of a goal of mine.

[greylunar]

I have a house lore question. Would you agree that Gryffindors and Ravenclaws tend to be more ideologically motivated and that Slytherins and Hufflepuffs tend to be more... personally motivated? Not sure I am phrasing this right but basically: Gryffindor/Ravenclaw: This is my cause, I believe in it. Slytherin/Hufflepuff: This is my person, I believe on them. Just as a general rule, not true in every case. (1/2)

Also, Gryffindors and Slytherins are more devoted to their cause/person whereas Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws are more likely to be able to be able to reevaluate their standing with the person or cause if they feel they are no longer totally aligned with it/them. Again, just as a rule of thumb. (2/2)

I wrote an insanely long answer to this so more under the break, warning there’s a LOT of like, psychoanalysis down here and a lot of its very personal and about core aspects so like please proceed with caution and PLEASE ask me to tag if I forget something

Super weird note to start this off with but did you have an icon of a dog like two days ago because if that was you it looked like my dog and made me really happy (I love the aesthetic of this one too, A+ design)

Anyways! I do have A Lot of thoughts on this topic in particular, and I’m glad you asked because I know that my interpretation of the houses verges more into “Casper has a specific idea of the sort of personality spectrums he would align into these broad JK-based categories” than “canon” haha c: My “rule of thumb” for causes/ideologies is this:

Hufflepuff: “This is my belief.” This is what is good, what is right, what I know I should fight for and stand up for when the time comes. I will stand by this belief, because a part of me wholly excepts it as fact and uncompromising. I may, however, not always be able to stand up for this belief, as there are situations where I have to evaluate what will be the safest for me and the people I love. But you will have a Hard Time changing a hufflepuff’s mind on something they believe unless you can prove to them that its hurting people and somehow in the wrong. In that case, a new belief is formed to account for this information. Now, here’s where people (in I guess my version of house lore) tend to misjudge hufflepuffs. If one of their People repeatedly acts against their fundamental beliefs, they will either A) fail to remain one of that hufflepuff’s People and get dropped from that sort of list or B) just,,, badger them with facts/reasoning/their opinion until either the hufflepuff changes their mind or they change the Hufflepuff. (Side note, but on how Puffs handle ending relationships of any kind with folks: Hufflepuffs tend to,,, ‘ghost’ toxic people because of their uncompromisable nature on these very core beliefs. A hufflepuff will often give someone a thousand and one second chances until they realize that person either refuses to or is completely unable to accommodate one of their core definitions of good/justice/kindness/personhood and then usually hufflepuffs just kinda bounce. They often struggle with conflict in an overarching sense and, to put it in a Puff’s terms for avoiding a person they couldn’t handle being around anymore “Damn, wish I could just like, disappear into the woods in Oregon somewhere and get a dog and not have to think about this and my friend Tim could make a true crime podcast about having known me.” This is normally a MOMENTOUSLY hard decision for a Puff (i mean yall get it its the house of loyalty) but its very key that Hufflepuffs don’t align themselves with people, they align themselves with beliefs or personal truths. When push comes to shove, the loyalty a Puff has is often to the concept of goodness and kindness and the Concept of People rather than clinging to a specific individual if they directly oppose those beliefs)

Slytherins: “This is my person/these are my people.” Slytherins are a house of change, and their belief systems are mostly fluid (often based on social rules, for example, “I know people don’t like it or get hurt when these types of things are said, so I will now no longer say things like this from now on” OR alternatively “I am Very Aware that acting like this makes people vaguely unnerved, and I Am Choosing To Act Like This Continuously because I am using it to separate myself from others/people deserve it/god wouldn’t that be hilarious”). Slytherins don’t have a lot of ‘fundamental beliefs’ in a way that at least they would refer to as fundamental beliefs, our lovely snake friends often struggle with knowing themselves and defining themselves rigidly enough to label them like that. In a,,, slightly depressing note some common ones are “I have to earn my worth” and “other people deserve more than me.” Hey Slytherins, I don’t remember where I heard this, but worth is a capitalist concept fed to you by corporations and you are inherently human and therefore loved and important and deserve the world. That all said, what Slytherins do not waiver from their people. Slytherin friends will text you three years after you last talked because you posted something vaguely sad on Instagram and they wanna make sure you’re good. Slytherin partners and friends will love you with all of them, the whole of their being. If someone is mean to me, my Slytherin friends will end them, and I have to be like “bro I’m not even mad, you’re being mad for me.” Slytherins don’t ghost their People, they will drag your ass through the mud until you are healthy or By God They Will Fist Fight Your Mental Illness Themselves. In this way, Slytherins are a lot like Hufflepuffs. The problem lies in when Slytherins find they don’t have any more belief or energy left in their stores to drag themselves up too. Perhaps now is the time to realize you should be one of the People you will fight for too.

Gryffindors: “This is my cause/this is a fact” I’m not going to touch too much on the “here is my ten-step plan to save the world, step one is I Do It” Gryffindors, because I think we’re all familiar with that concept of them. Again, Gryffindors will join the Peace Corps, hufflepuffs will give the person who needs cash twenty dollars if they see them, its a scope thing. What I want to dive into with Gryffindors is the Stubborn Bastard Energy that we know and love them for (I do legitimately mean that as a compliment). Gryffindors RARELY and I’m talking Borderline Never bend or leave behind a fundamental belief once they’ve established it. Gryffs often assume that these beliefs are inherent, they would not be themselves if they were not Certain about this, and therefore that certainty is essential to who they are. Therefore Gryffs deal in personal truths, or things they have decided are facts, pillars that do not change. You will want to punch your Gryffindor best friend sometimes because they put something in their head when they were six because of what someone on the playground said and now they live by that and sometimes physically struggle with processing contradictory information. This can be great, if a Gryff internalizes something like “I should do no harm” or “I will Fight A Bully” but has more frustrating consequences when its something like “If someone does something bad they are irredeemable, and I should never again respect them.” For Gryffs, sometimes the best thing to ask yourself is “wait, Why do I think that, and are there any cases that are exceptions to these rules.” But fundamentally, Gryffs often are the ones to save the world because they already believe it is a fact that they will, and that they should.

Ravenclaws: “This is complicated/This should be seen from all sides” and THEN “I’m about to end this mans whole career over this” Ravenclaws are such a fun house for this question. Ravenclaws often have a sort of information gathering stage before they even consider the idea of having an opinion in their head. Ravenclaws want to make sure they know everything they can about a cause/an issue/a person before they make that Final Call of verbalizing or standing by something, because a very serious fundamental fear for Ravenclaws is being embarrassed. I don’t mean to minimize that or invalidate it in anyway, a lot of Ravenclaws would rather be dropped in a pit of [insert distasteful creature here} than have the shame in their minds of being caught on the wrong side of an argument, without all the facts, or unprepared for a thorough discussion. Ravenclaws in this information gathering stage will often say things like “I’m not sure to be honest, I haven’t looked into it that much” or even “I don’t really like to have opinions on matters like that because I don’t think I could ever know enough to represent what I should correctly.” THAT SAID. That’s phase one. But y’all if a Ravenclaw Decides, even without acknowledging they have, a Raven Decides. From anything from “this 18th century poet was a lesbian and you simply will not convince me I’m wrong, here is a list of reasons why I’m right” to “So Determinism exists, and I fundamentally believe that, I am fascinated on what you think about Free Will though,” Ravenclaws are the probably the most complex on this subject inherently because of how much they want to make sure they know the truth. Ravenclaws will re-evaluate their beliefs, but if the information you’re bringing to the table isn’t valid enough to hold up against their previous evidence, there’s not a whole lot you’ll be able to do about it. Ravens will struggle if asked to take a stance before this phase though, so friends, please remember that no one is ever going to remember if you raised your hand and said something a little less intelligent in high school English than you would have liked other than you. It is more than okay for you to forget that too.

[elizabethvaughns]

so i've been mulling over this for quite a bit now, so i might as well articulate my thoughts and get them out onto this blog. so i was just thinking: subjectively or objectively, which one is better? the if/then dc preview or the broadway production? long post (1750+ words), so i'm putting a read more break <3

now, objectively at the very least, i know i have to say it's the broadway production. why wouldn't it be? it's a lot more polished, it's...the final draft, of sorts, of the production. we all know the final draft is usually better than the rough draft. but here's the thing. when it comes to an artwork that has several different versions, one tends to gravitate toward the version they saw first and have a certain bias against all the other versions. if you saw the bway version first or the dc version first, you probably like that one more. now i'm not saying this bias is conscious by any means. absolutely not. however, when one falls in love with some media, in my case at least, they take it in over and over and over again. and then they get so used to that one thing that all other versions seem weird. i can pinpoint two non-if/then instances in my life where such a thing happened.

in the summer of 2018, i watched the RENT movie on netflix. now i was fully intending to listen to the obc soundtrack before watching the movie, but i never really got to it. anyways, that movie was like love at first...watch to me. oh man, i loved it so, so much. so i downloaded the soundtrack on my phone and, you guessed it, listened to it over and over and over and over again. one fine day, (about a few weeks after, actually) i realized i never actually had listened to the obc soundtrack. so i did. and it sounded...odd to say the very least. i mean, some of the voices were different, sometimes the lines were changed, all in all, a confusing experience. to say the least, if you asked me back then which version i preferred, i would've readily said the movie version. but now, three years in retrospect, i'm not so sure. the obc version is a lot more...complete, i like the vocals more, and i'm now salty that "christmas bells" as a song was cut. evidently, i like the obc version more(but i still love the movie version hell it's still one of my comfort movies).

in the fall of 2019, i listened to falsettos. i actually listened to both the obc and the 2016 revival cast recordings. i guess that lessened the bias a bit because i was exposed to both versions at about the same time. on the fateful date of 2 october 2019, i watched the falsettos revival proshot. that's when i truly fell in love with this musical. but, even so, my initial exposure was to both recordings so even though i had a slight bias toward the 2016 version, i still loved both of them.

now, back to if/then. i actually find it difficult to pinpoint where exactly my exposure to if/then started. was it the very first time i heard about it in 2018 when i read a very meta RENT fanfic on ff.net where elizabeth made an appearance and i thought "what the fuck"(pun very much intended)"is if/then" (psst if you find the fic could you please drop the link in the replies meta fic isn't really my shit but i want to reread it for nostalgia's sake)? or was it the very first time i listened to the obc recording in 2020? or was it the boot of a broadway production that i first saw on 13 march 2021? whichever one i pick, they all lead to the same conclusion: i naturally gravitated(and sometimes still do) toward the broadway production because it was the first version of if/then that i was exposed to.

now sometime in early april 2021 over my spring break, i watched a recording of the dc production. i knew beforehand that this production is a preview, after which some changes had been made, resulting in the broadway show. since those changes were obviously made to better the production, it would be a logical conclusion that the very presence of those changes entailed a...worse production (not considering the fact that the interpretation and the very liking of art is entirely subjective). one could say i entered the watching experience with an unconscious bias, of sorts.

from the very first note, i was caught off-guard. i didn't know they changed this much. when i watched the bway production, i was just enjoying it for all it was worth. but when i was watching the dc preview, i was comparing it constantly to its broadway counterpart. oh, david's shirt colour is different here. oh, anne's wearing a pantsuit instead of a dress(cute). oh, time for hey kid! oh wait no they put "the moment explodes" right here. also, i was just humming along to the songs, just mouthing along the lyrics(because i have them all memorized), and every now and then and getting thrown way off-track when the tune remained the same but the lyrics changed. most notably, in "walking by a wedding" and "you learn to live without". all in all, i had what one could consider negative opinions about the dc production because of that bias.

but then i watched it second time. a third time. a fourth, fifth, sixth time. and over that time, i fell more and more in love with that production. as i've said before, the interpretation of art is wholly subjective–what one may consider a shortcoming of a particular piece, another may consider a strength. let me take the placement of "the moment explodes", for example. in the dc production, it's before "some other me". therefore, the line "every friend i ever knew or thought i did" doesn't hit as hard because we don't know her situation with lucas yet. even so, "some other me" hits twice as hard because lucas is an even bigger asshole now. in comparison, however, "the moment explodes" is after "some other me" in bway as you all know. so the aforementioned line holds a much greater significance when compared to its dc counterpart. however, one could also consider that line (in the dc production) as a sort of foreshadowing for the reveal in "some other me" of the new normal of beth and lucas's friendship (or the lack thereof).

obviously, some changes were most definitely welcome, "this day" to be more specific. of course, there was that little reprising of "what if?" near the end of "this day" in the dc production which i really loved, but all in all, the mood of "this day" was much more fun and enthusiastic in bway as opposed to dc, which in my opinion is an excellent way to start an act. in contrast, some changes were...not as welcome. i don't know about you, but personally, i really enjoyed two cut scenes from "the story of jane"("no more wasted time" dc version). first, the scene where kate brings her kindergarteners to beth. it was fun to see higgs squirm. second, the scene where elena and beth's interaction parallels beth and stephen's in "map of new york". narrative-wise, i think that it is an incredibly important scene as we get to see two sort of boss-employee relationships mirrored to each other, only beth does it well as a boss (if that makes any sense). we see beth as passionate but still sort of hesitant in mony but she grows to be more self-assured by nmwt, and i think the aforementioned scene only cements that notion as beth takes on the role of mentor for elena. also, "the story of jane" was a really fun song and, as much as i love "no more wasted time", i wish it still contained elements of "story of jane". and while i did enjoy the reshuffling of "the moment explodes" such that it became clear when beth and lucas made up in the bway production, they were ultimately still...not talking during "you learn to live without. as a result, we miss that one scene from the dc production where lucas and kate attend beth's awards ceremony and shoo stephen. and need i talk about the lucas/david duet verse("you get that we're connected, / i feel like you get me") in "ain't no man manhattan"? honestly, i feel like dc anmm was, all in all, better than bway anmm–especially that one verse where lucas sings to this other dude about how everyone is connected(no, not the one to stephen, the one after that. the one that ends with "[something something] / who you helped get elected").

also the situations with stephen and with kate/anne in both timelines were relatively clearer in the dc production. even so, the actual distinguishing of the timelines was better in the bway production.

in conclusion, the relative merit of each production(broadway vs. dc) is really up to the interpretation of each viewer. scenes that may seem weak to one may be considered narratively important to another. both productions have their own merits and flaws.

to me, both productions are equally good. my previous assertion/assumption that the final draft is always better than the first is not necessarily true. some things that you think were actually pretty good get lost in the editing process. some other things that should've been cut (ahem ahem, kate's referrals to lucas with "she", ahem ahem, liz's "i don't believe in independents like i don't believe in bisexuals. pick a side" line) get left in there. art is subjective. the editing process is subjective. in the end, though, the only thing that matters is that you enjoy what you're watching and find personal fulfillment in it. and i do! for both of these productions. for both of the productions, i'm smiling all the way up to "here i go". i'm slightly saddened during "you don't need to love me". i'm empowered by "the story of jane"/"no more wasted time". i'm grinning in liz-verse all the way up to "i hate you". i feel like sobbing during "some other me". my throat clogs up when "i hate you" starts. i'm actually sobbing by the time "you learn to live without" ends.

...you get the gist of it. all in all, both of these productions are phenomenal and i'm grateful for their existence and to have been able to watch them in the year of our lord 2021.

i love this show so much i swear.

i talk a bit more comparing broadway and dc here.

my other ramblings essays:

if/then appreciation

"what if?" vs. "what if?(reprise)"

character analysis of lucas

[lemongogo]

hey im the anon abt gyutaro/ume and i dont remember what happens to demons after they die ?? did i miss smth ? regardless i wanna ask what do you think their fate should be ? cause on one hand i think they're just victims of a cruel world who took the first way out they could find but on the other hand it doesnt rlly justify all the slaughter, and i also think abt the demon slayers who also suffered horrible fates and used it to fuel their determination to save other people from that pain

hi !! i don’t think kny ever explicitly mentions what happens to demons after they die (as in we never have concrete evidence of where they go or how their lives after are spent), but i think the general consensus is that the demons go to hell. 

in some cases, the family can decide to go with them (ex: rui and i think akaza? if i remember correctly?) but their fate is pretty much sealed from that point forward i believe. 

heres a pic of gyuutarou and ume, actually, in chapter 97 !!

but yeah !! thats something i think about a lot tbh. as you mentioned, many of the demons we’ve seen have either been groomed into demonhood (rui, ume, susamaru, etc.) or had their pain and suffering exploited (akaza, gyuutarou) for the sake of advancing other demons’ plans (muzan, douma, etc). so i agree ! a lot of these characters are unfortunate victims in themselves and its impossible to view their stories without incorporating the struggles they’ve had to face as both humans AND demons. especially considering that lots of these individuals experience muzan’s abuse regardless of their status relative to him (such as with the upper and lower moons). i think this is best explained through akaza’s relationship with muzan,

(ch. 67)

(ch.156)

and further explored though tanjiro’s observation of rui’s death. he notes that being a demon, for most, is an existence punctuated by extreme grief and despair, and that’s equally supported, i think, by the humanization of these demons following death. that their original conscious is restored (albeit with knowledge of everything they’ve done) and are oftentimes plagued by the guilt of what’s happened.

(ch.43)

what he says here is probably what sums it up for me. that while it’s important to condemn these demons and hold them accountable for the truly awful things they’ve done, it’s also important to consider the suffering they've experienced through existence alone. its so !! complex !! and thats what i love about kny. i love how .. you have some demons who are entirely despicable and bask in the carnage they create, but you also have some for whom demonhood was simply what appeared to be the only answer towards living a healthier life or righting the wrongs that’ve been done to them (usually with false promises and manipulation unbeknownst to them). and .. its so hard to figure out where to.. draw that line. or view these characters at least. because you sympathize with their pain, but you also realize that their actions have caused endless pain for many hundreds of people. tanjiro losing his entire family, giyuu losing his. shinobu watching her sister die before her very eyes, and kanao the same. the ubuyashiki family’s curse or the slaughter of himejima’s children. you look at characters like sanemi, shinobu, or giyuu and understand that you cannot invalidate their view of demons either. while kanae and tanjiro may find hope and humanity in demons, they exist as monsters who feast on pain to everyone else. its important not to discredit their perspective when making a personal choice to observe the demons’ hardships yknow. shinobu’s anger is just as warranted as tanjiro’s optimism and that neither are wrong for how they personally feel demons should be handled after death. 

im like. AAAAAAAA theres so much to it , its really hard for me to condense into a few sentences AHAHA im so sry for making u read this if u still are. but . i guess i’m not too sure. i think maybe, had i experienced the same pain as those above, it would be easy for me to say the demons deserve to go to the worst hell imaginable regardless of what they’ve gone through because that history isn’t accessible to everyone like it has been the audience (or that they’ve seemingly made the conscious decision to cause harm w/o understanding the ways in which demonhood obscures their original conscious/morality). but at the same time, you have those like tanjiro whose world view is shaped by positive encounters with demons like nezuko, tamayo, yushirou, etc. where it seems very evident that . theres more to it than what meets the eye. 

one of my friends ive talked to about this had a rly good perspective on it thats kinda stuck with me since !! she said she likes to view their conclusion as some . separation of identity?? if that makes sense?? that the demon side of them goes to hell while their human form goes to heaven (or division into whichever afterlife). and !! i think thats a really neat interpretation because there’s obvious descrepancy between demon personas and human personas. that the demon personas are like. exaggerations of their flaws, almost (akaza becoming hellbent on battle spirits and physical victories when hajuki’s fury & determination was fueled by love in a sense) while their human personas are the truest sense of self. and depending on which influence there is (muzan vs the appearance of loved ones), their identity changes accordingly. so ! idk ! thats one nice way of looking at it. holding their demon personas accountable while also recognizing that many of these characters deserve some form of healing after many hundreds of years of abuse. its hard because ofc i don’t want to negate the harms they’ve caused but its also? not cut and dry given the environment they were placed in and the fact that muzan’s blood essentially removes their humanity against their will you know. so in this way at least you have both forms of self receiving the proper conclusion. 

whwhwhw so im. !!!!!!!!!!!! ah !! i can’t say i have a definite answer but i think the one above is smth thats comforting to me. i think the story settles with sending them to hell once they’ve regained their past self but also .. “softens” it by providing them company by their loved ones who are willing to go w them?? so thats rly cool to look at too. because it holds them accountable for all that’s happened but also.. recognizes that they’re not wholly responsible for it either and that .. even in hell they’re able to keep their connections and human emotions/experiences . its tragic yet oddly. fitting, i think, of the kny narrative. while i like the aforementioned interpretation, i also really.. appreciate the way its set up in canon too. like yeah i want the best for them but also. it fits in with the tragic nature of demonhood and what it meant for them all. oddly enough. 

u make a good point too !! about demon slayers experiencing the same hardships but using their pain to help others. i think a lot of it is plainly chalked up to luck in terms of.. what they were exposed to following tragedy. how shinobu and kanae were saved by himejima, tanjiro saved by giyuu, kanao picked up by shinobu and kanae, sanemi given the guidance of kagaya while akaza was killed by muzan during his lowest moment, ume and gyuutarou were cornered by douma, rui misled by muzan, etc. i think circumstance is definitely a large factor in determining the paths that were taken. such as sanemi’s anger being validated and heard by ubuyashiki vs, say, akaza’s same anger being intentionally exploited for muzan’s gain.

aaa anyways. theres a lot 2 be said about this. like. SO much on my mind and obviously the extent of muzan’s abuse goes far deeper than what’s briefly mentioned here but.  i love talking about the complexities of kny . and how i view the demons vs the corps and how each of them have grown into their respective stories . AA but ill end it here THNK U >> also so sry for making u read thru all of this i get so excited i could talk abt kny all day long if i had the chance AAA 

[sleepymarmot]

Re-liveblog: eps. 22-23

[ep 22]

Ooh, Meng Yao as a spy makes more sense. I was thinking about Qing or Ning and wondering since when either of them counted as Xichen’s “old friend”.

I, of course, immediately accepted he was a spy, even before he was textually declared as such and only just appeared as WRH’s right-hand man. It wasn’t until very recently that my eyes were opened to the fact he did lure the army into a trap, a trap that he personally designed, and the battle was only won thanks to WWX and his secret weapon, which MY couldn’t have predicted, in the show at least. So what was his plan? Was it different in the book? Why would he put LXC in harm’s way, when MY|JGY defined their entire relationship by the avoidance of that? 

We’ll only see this in the flashback, but I find it very curious that he let NMJ see his true face and live. And in this episode, we see reaction shots of MY being concerned when NMJ is losing the fight -- and since nobody is looking at him, this reaction must be genuine. Which implies that he is not committed to the Wen cause, and is keeping in mind the consequences of their defeat. It would have been a very bad look for him if the allies won and discovered NMJ recently died in his custody. Too bad MY miscalculated how important the lives of those random Nie cultivators would be to NMJ. If only Meng Yao did anything but kill them, I suspect the course of his relationship with NMJ would run very different.

(It’s also funny that the battle plan includes Missiles That Make People Explode... That are used on a couple of redshirts and not, say, on anyone crucial to the allied war effort, and are never mentioned again. And then WWX stands around for about 10 more minutes before deciding to do something. The direction of this scene is... not the best.)

[ep 23]

It’s painful to watch the fear and reverence Meng Yao still holds for his father figure. The flinching, the hiding, the immediate supplication – when was the last time he felt safe and respected, before the bullying with the Nie and having to watch and even partake in atrocities with the Wen? I hope he can finally have some good things in his life now.

First of all, it’s very funny in retrospect to see myself constantly refer to NMJ as MY’s father figure. Well, it’s not my fault that I wasn’t shown the full scene where MY seductively strokes NMJ’s saber until much later! (Although to be completely fair, considering what JGY eventually did to his father, and what else he did in the tv show knowingly as opposed to accidentally in the novel, maybe these interpretations aren’t as incompatible.)

The interesting thing here is that I, once again, completely bought what MY was selling to NMJ with considerably less success... So my interpretation of this scene was completely off-base -- but on another level, I still agree with my initial assessment. 

I pitied MY when I thought the immediate overperformance of submission was his natural unfiltered reaction. Now I find it notable that this is the behavior he intentionally chooses -- both as the default survival mechanism over the course of his life, and in this specific scene. And in this scene, this behavior is targeted at and fine-tuned for LXC -- but not NMJ. 

The very first thing MY learned about LXC is his protective instinct over him. The best manipulation is not a lie but the truth with certain omissions; he is afraid for his life when a strong angry man he just wronged is brandishing a giant blade at him -- isn’t it nice to have another strong man whose protection you can guarantee by jumping behind his back and grasping at his clothes helplessly? I mean, it’s not much else he can do in this situation, and when I was watching for the first time, I of course didn’t know he had actually killed people in cold blood a few minutes ago, so in this context his apologetic attitude makes more sense, he should be acting like that. But LXC doesn’t know either, just like a first-time viewer! When MY triggers LXC’s protective instinct by crying for his help personally, presenting it as “us against them” (them as NMJ, in this case), LXC doesn’t see the manipulation. When MY shifts the blame on NMJ -- “It's as you can see. In the situation a moment ago, even if I explained, Clan Leader Nie wouldn’t believe me” -- NMJ sees through the bullshit and even laughs at it, but the spectacle isn’t for him, it's for LXC. And NMJ can see it -- he watches MY the damsel in distress tenderly touch the arm of his valiant defender, watches the tidy, polite, performative way MY kneels to apologize, and sighs -- he knows MY has won this round. At least over LXC. 

But in addition to what NMJ already knows and what MY has not repaired, MY makes another important mistake. This part of the scene will only be shown in the ep. 41 flashback, but MY still doesn’t understand NMJ’s worldview and apologizes only for insulting him personally. He not only fails to apologize for taking innocent lives, but tries to defend his decision. 

Does MY still care for NMJ? From his concern in the previous episode, it does seem so. Does MY still hope to regain NMJ’s favor? Maybe, but due to a combination of not understanding and not prioritizing NMJ, this is instead the scene where MY loses that favor forever. 

The above only applies to The Untamed. In the book (chapter 49) the dynamic is very different. When NMJ awakes, MY is carrying him and Baxia to safety alone. In the show, LXC is present from the beginning of the scene, and MY feels safe enough to play them against each other. In the book, he has no means to protect himself and is absolutely terrified. A very interesting paragraph:

He suddenly shouted, “ChiFeng-Zun!!! Don’t you understand that if I didn’t kill them, you’d be the one who died then?!!”

This was actually the same as saying, ‘I’m the one who saved your life so you can’t kill me or else it’d be immoral.’ However, Jin GuangYao was indeed worthy of his reputation. The same meaning but a different wording, and he was able to create a contained sense of frustration and a reserved sense of sorrow. As he had expected, Nie MingJue’s movement halted. Veins stood out under his forehead.

Having paused for a while, he clenched the hilt of his saber and shouted, “Very well! I’ll kill myself after I kill you!”

In the show, NMJ is already selfless and offended only on behalf of his murdered subordinates -- but the book takes it further, and he’s ready to sacrifice his own life if it means avenging them. Then the entire next paragraph is an almost comical chase where “one striked with madness and the other fled with madness”. When LXC finally showed up, “Meng Yao looked as if he had just seen a god from Heaven. He quickly scrambled over and hid behind the person’s back”. 

In other words, the full scene in the book reads almost exactly as the incomplete version of it in episode 23 looked to me on the first viewing. There’s no layer of manipulation -- Meng Yao simply is terrified of one man and seeks protection from another. And most of the dialogue is the same -- but just via the staging and acting choices, the scene gains a second, darker meaning. Which fits with the show’s tendency to villify Jin Guangyao. He can’t even beg for his life without it being a manipulation! What in the book was a wholly sympathetic moment of desperation for him, in the show is made calculated and two-faced.

Back to The Untamed!

LOVE how Xichen immediately calls him “A-Yao” while standing right between his shitty fathers

Lol, this was truly a moment for the ages! Too bad we only saw NMJ’s reaction (because he was in the frame with LXC) -- I really want a reaction shot from JGS to this!

The following private conversation between JGY and LXC caused me almost physical pain on rewatch... A note from this (third, I think?) viewing: the line “I’ve followed Clan Leader Nie for so long. I know his intentions. I have also never taken it to heart before” which is a perfect continuation of the previous scene: JGY paints NMJ as unreasonable, and himself as selfless and accommodating. Oh, and of course makes LXC say “No-no of course I didn’t mean you were evil!!” I also continue to feel like I’m the one stabbed in the heart by their sad smiles, when they both know something is ending but can’t or won’t talk about it -- but I’m preaching to the choir here.

What I do want to comment on is another thing missing from the written liveblog -- on my first viewing I apparently misunderstood the conclusion of the scene. What I thought was happening: JGY did proceed to enact the plan he described; the “old, weak, women, and children” he offers to send to Qiongqi Path were sent there, and were the same group of people later rescued by WWX and led to Burial Mounds; the small group of people JGY had with him under arrest are “those who really had a hand in the bloodshed” whom he openly proposes to execute, to which LXC agrees; and the twist at the end is that he relished in overseeing or even performing the execution himself, seemingly in a very brutal way. 

But according to this analysis, which I trust, JGY immediately broke his word and executed the innocent prisoners that he promised to only imprison. This would definitely make more sense for the drama of the scene and the meaningful look JGS gives him... But there were only few people under arrest in this scene, and none seemed too old or too young, and where in this case did the Wen remnants of the Qiongqi Path who latter committed the Burial Mounds exodus come from?

[Episodes 4&10]

[jeanandthedreamofhorses]

Eren the Free, Part 1: Response to linkspooky’s ‘Eren the Slave’

Thanks for asking for my response, anon, because it has allowed me to string together and articulate my own thoughts on Eren’s character at this stage of the story.

Needless to say, I have several interpretive, philosophical disagreements with @linkspooky‘s ‘Eren the Slave’ and these are expressed in my ‘Eren Jaeger – Who Freer than the Tyrant?’ meta, so please read that first. The purpose of this post will be to argue against specific claims made in linkspooky’s meta and tackle what I believe to be logical flaws in my opponent’s argument. This meta is in two parts not to flex but because my computer had an aneurysm trying to load the whole post.

Well, if the Defence in the trial of Eren Jaeger may take the floor, my opening statement is thus: Eren is no slave, and has pursued the path of freedom further than any other character.

Narrative and Personal Narrative

linkspooky draws a distinction between the Narrative of the manga and Eren’s Personal Narrative, the story he tells himself. They argue that people who have faith in Eren’s self-conception fall into his personal narrative.

But is his story not a Narrative? It is quite natural to expect character development from characters in a story - it could only rightly be called a mistake when it comes to real life. And do Eren’s detractors not themselves fall into the Personal Narratives of Armin, Mikasa and Zeke? They have repeatedly made the statement that Eren is not free, that he is being controlled by Zeke or Grisha, and every time he has proven them wrong.

There is indeed an authorial Narrative separate from the characters’ Personal Narratives which can be detected through symbolism and the course the story takes. I find that the course of the story thus far lines up far more with Eren’s Personal Narrative than it does with those of his detractors. We can tell this from how he has disproved Armin, Mikasa and Zeke’s accusations of manipulation and also how, in the last chapter, he symbolically rips free of his chains.

There is also the fact that we the readers are more in the dark about Eren’s thoughts and intentions than we are about any other character. How could we be seduced into a Personal Narrative we know next to nothing about? And why would the story deliberately hide from us the very perspective that is meant to deceive us? I think it is far more likely that the reason Eren’s intentions have been shielded from the reader is because they take the nature of a terrible truth that must be dug up with bloodied hands.

Whenever Eren opens up about his thoughts and feelings, the meta unfairly dismisses them as mere lip service despite Eren having no reason to lie to Reiner and Falco as two people he intends to kill.

Rather than our side of the fandom being deceived by Eren’s Personal Narrative, I find that the opposing side dismisses it out of hand because they have no intention of listening to Eren’s side of the story. Why is Eren’s perspective less valid than anyone else’s, especially when he knows more than every other character by virtue of his ability to literally see the future?

The only explanation I can find for this attitude, if I may be forgiven the presumption, is that people approach the topic with the automatic assumption that what Eren is doing has to be wrong instead of questioning their own morals - which is, after all, what Attack On Titan is all about.

Armin even says that he no longer understands Eren. I don’t think we should trust the perception of a character as being authorial Narrative when he explicitly makes a statement like this. linkspooky does have an explanation for this scene, however, which I shall address in the next part.

Armin and Mikasa’s Perceptions of Eren

linkspooky claims that the reason for Armin’s confusion is that his romanticised view of Eren is falling apart, which indeed it is, and the same is true of Mikasa. However, I don’t think it’s right to claim that their new perception of him is an accurate one, since they still haven’t heard anything from Eren himself apart from what both I and linkspooky agree are lies to distance himself from them.

While they both once focused excessively on the positive in Eren, now they focus excessively on the negative, not considering the reason for Eren’s actions that I believe we have received hints of in the last two chapters.

linkspooky and I both think that Eren wants to protect his friends - in my case I most definitely see it as his primary motivation. If Armin knew this about Eren, I do not think he would condone him, but I don’t think he’d so roundly condemn him as he does here either.

So I don’t think it is right to consider Armin’s words the straight truth here, given the lack of information he’s working with, and that indeed, the fandom is working with. Because Eren is doing the most morally questionable things, and because we are seeing things more often from Armin’s perspective than his these days, there is perhaps an impulse to put faith in Armin’s words over Eren’s. But in this series, nothing is ever so black and white.

In Mikasa’s case, her treasured memory of the scarf is now being being challenged by the memory of Eren murdering the kidnappers - but we know from 121 that Eren places special value on the scarf as well, instead of just the murder.

Rather than trying to paint Eren in a white or black light, they need to see Eren as he really is: like the freedom he represents, a force beyond good and evil. 

Enemy of the World

One of linkspooky’s arguments is that being the ‘Enemy of the World’ is just Eren’s fantasy as he frequently relies on others. However, linkspooky also mentions how Eren manipulates everyone close to him. I would argue that the person who manipulates you is, in fact, your enemy, and that Eren is the Enemy of the World not because he never relies on help but because he is entirely on his own side.

Indeed he knows that assistance from others is necessary even just to activate the Founder’s power, and he also refers to the Survey Corps as his friends, or even comrades, depending on your translation.

This is why he manipulates them - and the reason he manipulates rather than relying on them is because he feels that his Will contradicts the Wills of everyone around him. There is no-one who desires the outcome that Eren desires, not even Floch and the Eldian nationalists, I believe: I think even they will baulk at the scale of destruction Eren intends. Historia is the only character I think may be an exception to this rule as the other bearer of the ‘enemies of mankind’ moniker. 

This otherwise total isolation of intention is what makes Eren the Enemy of the World. Because he fights for his freedom, he rebels against peace.

I think this panel is another example of why the authorial Narrative itself supports the idea of Eren being an Enemy of the World. The positioning of the speech bubble and outside text was entirely the decision of Isayama and his editor, and is not a thought bubble from Eren’s head. He has never actually addressed himself as ‘the Enemy of the World’: Historia calls him the enemy of mankind and Willy says he rebels against peace, but while Eren has said he “might just destroy the world” and only in response to Willy’s words, he is still not ascribing himself a title or role.

Eren’s Individualism

linkspooky claims that the scene in the FT arc, where the Levi Squad is slaughtered because Eren didn’t rely on his power instead of theirs, is misinterpreted because Eren also lost the fight on his own. However, this is where I think this meta falls prey to one of its greatest weaknesses: the omission of the Uprising Arc from the analysis of Eren’s character, wherein his most pivotal transitions take place.

The event that caused Eren to trust in his own strength over the strength of others was not his fight against Annie, but when a similar situation repeats itself in the Crystal Cave.

In this circumstance, Eren is able to protect all of his friends by relying on his own strength, when they would have died had they attempted their risky manoeuvre. Eren has become strong enough to protect them on his own - this was the first inkling of that realisation.

I say ‘first inkling’ because Eren does say this afterwards, which seems to influence Armin towards his current ideology. Such an idea seems at odds with what I believe to be Eren’s current aim to genocide those different to him as a wholly antagonistic force, like the bullies in Armin’s memories who Armin now wants to make peace with.

I believe this is because Eren soon learns that those differences between people are simply too great and too much of a threat to his freedom. People are stronger together, but only if he can be confident that they will follow his Will, which is how he learned to manipulate his allies. The differences between him and Levi in the Serumbowl nearly caused the loss of his best friend, and then, when he receives Grisha’s memories and learns of Marley’s treatment of Eldians, he learns just how deeply divided humans are and loses faith in overcoming those differences.

Far from character stagnancy, this is the development I see in Eren that has led him to this individualistic conclusion.

I would also like to address what I think is a fallacy in linkspooky’s analysis of the fight Eren loses against Annie. Eren loses both with his comrades and without them - how does that make the former path any better than the latter? Eren was actually doing very well in his fight against Annie, and only lost when he realised her identity from her fighting stance.

What I think Eren really took away from that fight is the lesson he is applying now - he cannot show any mercy to his enemies.

Levi Parallelism

I find the parallels drawn between Eren and Levi quite interesting and am not necessarily opposed to it, but personally I find that Levi has more parallels with Mikasa than Eren as two Ackermans driven by their love for others (though of course this is a big part of Eren’s motivation as well). Mikasa realising she can’t protect Eren or always be by his side is more in line with Levi accepting that he can’t save everyone imo.

Those Who Push Themselves into that Hell

linkspooky draws attention to Eren’s use of language to indicate that he is not free, such as in the following scene: 

They argue that the ‘something’ pushing Eren along means he is not moving from his own will.

However, I find this claim to be contradicted by the distinction Eren makes within this very scene. He differentiates between those who are pushed into hell by their circumstances and those who “push themselves into hell”, clearly putting himself - at least as he is now - in the latter category. So I find that Eren is articulating that, because his whole past and future are manifestations of his own Will (as I argue in the attached meta), he is freely choosing to enter this arena rather than being forced to do so.

I Just Keep Moving Forward

linkspooky also argues that the reluctance in the line “I just keep moving forward’” suggests a lack of freedom. I would argue that continuing to fight for your goal even though you are frightened is a sign of strength of will rather than the reverse.

They also argue that, because those words are remembered as Reiner is about to kill himself, they are portrayed in a negative light. But this omits the crucial follow-up to that scene, where Reiner does not kill himself and finds a reason to live after hearing Falco express his desire to protect Gabi. Reiner is saved by that will to keep moving forward.

They further argue that Eren takes these words from Hange and twists them to suit himself.

But this is untrue. As they pointed out themself, Eren first heard these words in his training days from Reiner where it did mean what he thinks it means. Furthermore, there is no panel showing Eren having any special reaction to Hange’s words. He is shown with the other key Serumbowl players before Hange says them, but not afterwards, where the focus is solely on Mikasa.

I believe Isayama has Hange say Eren’s tagline because it is a key phrase in the themes of the story, and not because it has any special effect on Eren.

I Didn’t Have Any Other Choice

Lines such as “I didn’t have any other choice” and “Is there another way” are similarly argued to be indicative of Eren’s enslavement to a single course of action.

But this is just the conflict between long and short term gratification – enduring hardship to obtain your goal is an example of a strong will, not an enslaved one. Even if he is enslaved to circumstance, this is the case for everybody else as well, and it is an enslavement he seeks to permanently free himself from by crushing his enemies for good. After that, he and Eldia can do whatever they will.

Born This Way

The lines “I’ve always been that way, ever since I was born”, and “It’s probably been like this since the day we were born” are argued to be a form of enslavement to one’s sense of self. I cover this in my attached meta, where I argue that it is rather an affirmation of his own Will and right to exist.

One specific point I’d like to address is the claim that Eren saying those words after Reiner tries to take personal responsibility for his actions is evidence that Eren is running away from his guilt, and is therefore not at peace with his actions, and is therefore not free. But rather than in denial or frustrated, Eren appears to be in a state of sad serenity.

Eren does not say these words in immediate response to Reiner, but only after he hears Willy say “Because I was born into this world”. I think that here Eren is simply recognising that Reiner was simply following the unique nature of his Will - doing it because he wanted to, not because he had to, which is indeed what Eren is doing - and acknowledging that it is something he cannot criticise him for, but also something that he cannot spare him for. That is the command of Eren’s unique Will.

As for Eren not being at peace with his actions meaning he is not free, refer to the short/long term gratification point I made earlier.

Jealousy of Mikasa and the Need to be a One Man Army

linkspooky claims that Eren is still trying too hard to be as strong as Mikasa and Levi, but once again the meta suffers due to a lack of consideration for the Uprising Arc. In that arc, Eren got over his jealousy of Mikasa and Levi and explicitly stated as much.

This, I think, is also sufficient evidence against a persisting desire on Eren’s part to be a One Man Army (as opposed to freedom, which he does have a desire for). His words here make it clear that he wishes to fight alongside his friends if possible. He has simply learnt that, to achieve his goals, ruthless manipulation and rugged individualism is necessary.

Need to be Special

This is also something Eren overcame in the Uprising Arc. He thinks of himself as a normal person, the son of a special father, that he never needed to happen.

He is not doing all of this to be special. He has simply become special by pursuing his birthright: not a birthright of exceptionalism, but of the right to exist, something I shall explain further in the ‘Meaning of Carla’s Words’ section in the next part.

As with the One Man Army, it is a matter of necessity rather than desire. I cover this more in my attached Eren meta, but Eren’s character has developed in a perfect loop. Though his actions remain the same, his understanding of them has increased dramatically: that is to say, he has come to understand himself.

Indeed, people are not naturally special. But can one really argue that special people do not exist at all? To say such a thing would be to argue that there is no difference between Daz and Erwin. People become special -  Supermen, to reference Nietzsche - because they relentlessly pursue their Will to Power, their driving force to actualise their desires.

linkspooky also argues that the reason Eren’s change is the most dramatic after the time-skip is because in actuality he hasn’t changed. My argument is that it is simply the result of having the most explicit and tumultuous development in the story up to now, and crucially, the ability to see a future no-one else can.

Read the rest in Part 2 here!

[vvivacious101]

Here We Go Again!

This episode is amazing. I loved it, so so much. I think it might be my favourite so far. Hands down, loved it. For an episode which is definitely incomplete it is just amazing how much I loved it.

Spoilers ahead!

First off, this is definitely a two parter, we end on a cliffhanger and in Sam’s case that is quite literal. So the story will only get completed after we finally get to watch 15x09 which I am now incredibly hyped for. This episode set up so many interesting things that I can’t even get mad about the fact that I am facing down a mini-hellatus before we finally see how the events in this episode end. It was just so good. I’m in love.

I love Donatello, he made for some really funny times. I love him so much, I don’t even know why, but his reluctant participation really puts into perspective how dangerous the situations the Winchesters just go headlong into are.

That scene with the Sam, Dean and Cas just observing him was so funny. I mean all the scenes with him were so funny. I loved it.

Next up Michael and Adam. Okay, I definitely wanted closure for Adam. He was one of those nagging loose ends that just wouldn’t quit. From my perspective Adam was just always in a bad situation and I agree with his decision to choose his Mom over Sam & Dean, people he had barely met. I mean for someone on the outside it is hard to tell who to trust and it’s hard to think of angels as bad, what with all the publicity surrounding them. So, Adam has always been of interest to me and having him mentioned in 10x05 was good because I knew the writers would put that issue to bed before the show ended. I actually loved Adam in this one but what I wasn’t prepared was for Michael.

Michael blew me away. I’m Team Michael from now on. Michael has always been a Dean mirror but he just had to go through accelerated character development to get on the same footing. I actually sympathized with him, he believed in God, wholly and he didn’t loose faith with all his years in the Cage. I mean he comes out of 10 Hell years of imprisonment still believing that he was doing what God wanted. He still had faith in God, something that all the angels seem to have lost and now Michael has to face the fact that is Father has numerous versions of himself all geared up to kill their very own brother. He wasn’t anybody special, hell, he wasn’t even the only one. As Cas says he was just a small part of a story of which he wasn’t even the star.

Man, Michael and Adam really messed me up this episode. Jake Abel was so good in switching characters, like he would go from being Adam to Michael and back in consecutive sentences. It was amazing.

We have Eileen being a total badass and Sam being a helicopter parent which causes some tension between them. Dean has already given his stamp of approval to their relationship but I feel like Sam’s reluctant. Someone pointed it out that Sam seems to be gearing to putting Eileen down gently when Cas interrupts. Something I feel is a very valid interpretation because I feel like Sam is feeling a little too over-protective if Eileen to see her as a partner. He is so busy trying to make sure he doesn’t have to deal with another death, that he is literally holding his breath when it comes to Eilleen. And well, it definitely didn’t take long for things to go sideways as Sam and Eilleen now face down Chuck.

Dean and Cas were *whew*. There was just so much happening in this episode and I haven’t even gotten to Rowena yet. So we have Cas healing Dean after Dean bleeds out to complete a spell that will take them to Hell, even when Dean is still being outright rude to Cas, like what is it with Dean and sending Cas to Hell. Wait, I get it now, it’s a subliminal message. Then we have them both getting called out by Rowena, all hail the Queen of Hell, which is so epic because it means there is tension and other people are picking up on it. Sam does get a furrowed brow when Dean is basically telling Cas to go to hell but he doesn’t comment on it, so it was nice to have it brought out in the open.

We also have Dean confront Cas after he shows Micheal the truth and it is such a stilted conversation with nobody looking into anybody eyes that it’s almost hard to decipher who these two even are when they can’t look each other in the eye, but the ending. Oh God! The ending slayed me. Apparently Dean and Cas are going to Purgatory. Whch makes me want to scream with joy because if that isn’t a call back to the most Destiel-centric season ever than I don’t know what is. Dean and Cas find themselves back in Purgatory on a 12 hour mission with Sam facing down Chuck, God, is it weird that I’m so excited about Purgatory. I mean what is with Dean and Cas anyway, Hell is their meet-cute and Purgatory is their first dance, what is up with these locations?

And Rowena is back. Well, she is still dead but she is the Queen of Hell and in a weird turn of events seems to have succeeded her own son.

God, just knowing that Dean’s prayer to Cas is going to come at the end of tromp to Purgatory together is like a guaranteed squee-fest for me over the next four weeks. I literally can’t wait to watch 15x09.

Thoughts as I watched the episode:

1. Supernatural sure knows how to make a point. I can already tell Chuck is the monster.

2. Wow, Eileen is BADASS.

3. Cas making my day with his first appearance.

4. DONATELLO!! I'm so absurdly happy!

5. Sam and Cas are so funny keeping a watch on Donatello. I forgot he went crazy the last time he did this.

6.This animosity needs to end. I love Sam's furrowed brow, somebody's confused. How do they all not remember that Michael is not in Hell anymore? Every door in Hell was snapped open during the rupture, the event not the episode. Belphegor told you this, Dean.

7. We are back where Cas had to kill Belphegor in Jack's body.

8. Are any of us winning? Doesn't look like it Dean.

9. Oh my God! It's Rowena.

10. Hail the Queen of Hell!!

11. “Amazon doesn't deliver here... Yet.” Truer words have never been spoken.

12. Go Donatello! He has consistently been making my day!

13. Wings Whooshing! God, I have missed that sound.

14. Bad ass entrance by the Winchesters.

15. Castiel what have you done? Don't we all want to know.

16. Oh My God! SENDING Dean and Cas to Purgatory!! I don't know what's happening!!!!

This is, this is, what is happenin???

Dean and Cas are headed to Purgatory. I feel like jumping up and down with happiness. God this, this, this is it. It is so pointed. Urgh...

I can't even focus on God screwing with Sam again like I just can't.