#(like genuinely she was the only explicitly mentally ill character I can think of where the whole point was SUPPOSED to be that she is

[musical-chick-13]

I hate Raúl/Sofía :)

[fuckmyskywalker]

Well, good morning.

To the anon who sent me three long and very passionate asks expressing how disgusting I am, how much of a freak I am, how little shame I have, that I don't have moral compass, a brain... too much insults to list.

Of course I deleted them, I don't have the time nor the energy to argue with people online. What I post on my blog is mine. Sorry if that upsets you but the best I can do for you is to tag the appropriate warnings because people don't like some stuff and sorry if you had to go through a traumatic experience but you should know that everyone reacts differently to trauma.

You said it yourself anon, you don't know the shit I've been through, you don't know what I experienced and what not, and you don't know even remotely close how much writing helps me cope with my personal issues. My obvious mental illness? That I should see a doctor? I have! And she is lovely! Honestly, people use traumatic and horrifying situations all the time not only for books, but movies, series... but when I do it in my blog it is wrong? Just because I chose to express it through words, I don't think that gives you the right to insult me. Many people write about so many things that are considered traumatic experiences such as SA, abusive relationships, even suicide, and you know why I don't go and tell them they are a fucking freak?

Because I don't care.

Because whatever they do with your life is their problem. The only thing I draw the line is when it is not 18+ stuff. In every fic I've had about the "incest writing", I explicitly mentioned it's not blood related. It is either an established relationship where it is merely a fantasy, or it is a «stepcest» situation. If I don't like something, I block it. I block the person and blog the tag. We are talking about a fictional character, someone who doesn't exist, someone who doesn't have a right in this. And that's the only thing I have to say to that matter.

You are choosing to wake up and send literal hate to someone who exists. Someone with feelings, with trauma, with personal issues, and without truly knowing how they can react to being criticized on their own personal space. To me a blog has to feel safe, and if you were trying to make me feel guilty or to feel ashamed... I'm sorry but it won't happen. Like I said before, I cannot take seriously anon hate. The whole concept is pretty obvious.

And I wasn't going to say anything, but I honestly won't let you talk bad about my friends. They don't deserve it. If you have a problem then let's keep it between you and me, alright? Cool. And I'm not going to insult you they way you did to me because despite the allegations I am genuinely a nice person 🩵.

— Asks.

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 1 Part 2 (5/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

AZULA

Azula explicitly considers herself a monster. She says needlessly cruel things to her brother and friends. She kills the show's twelve-year-old protagonist and masterminds the idea of burning down the entire Earth Kingdom to force them to submit to Fire Nation rule. I have absolutely seen people get called abuse apologists for thinking she's a cool character. But she's also a (canonically) mentally ill fourteen-year-old who was raised by her father to see her ability to be weaponized as her only value. Her mother, arguably the only adult in her life who could have had a positive impact, had a strained relationship with her because she was more difficult than her brother, and then disappeared when she was nine. Her uncle, who was her brother's main healthy role model, took absolutely no interest in her. She watched her father belittle her brother for years and eventually throw him away when he failed to meet his expectations, so that was a threat she was always facing. She really had no chance. And she also has moments that suggest she wants some sort of meaningful connection with another person. She lets her brother take credit for killing the Avatar so he can come back from exile, even though it means she'll be bumped back in the order of succession and offers him advice that seems genuine. Her spiral into a mental breakdown starts when her friends betray her. She's just a much more interesting and multifaceted than a lot of the fandom gives her credit for.

QUEEN SCARLET

She is such an awful awful person. She doesn’t care about her kids. She forced her prisoners to fight to the death in her arena for her entertainment. She stole one of her soldiers’ kids after convincing said soldier to kill the other one. Oh, speaking of that stolen kid (The kid’s name is Peril, by the way she has a condition where you can’t touch her because if you do she’ll burn you. It’s called firescales. That will be important later), Scarlet manipulated her into thinking no one could love her! She also forced Peril into eating some kind of special rocks, and if she didn’t eat them Scarlet would poison her food and make her think she needed them. And when Peril finally escaped after Scarlet was attacked and allegedly killed, Scarlet manipulated Peril AGAIN by getting Peril’s dad to change her firescales to normal scales (he had a magic bag that could change people like that), but the spell also made her loyal to Scarlet and made her forget about her friends. Speaking of Peril’s dad, he and Scarlet turned Scarlet’s daughter Tourmaline into a completely different person for almost her entire life. But oh my god is Scarlet a fun character to watch. She’s evil in the way an old Disney villain is, and it’s so fun. I’m not online a lot to post my opinions, but someone literally stopped being my friend because I told them that my favorite character was Scarlet, so yeah.

[stillness-in-green]

Why Deku's ultimatum to Overhaul is bad and he should feel bad

This is a bit outside my normal character wheelhouse, but I really need to get a rant about it off my chest, so here goes:

The Deku and Overhaul scene in Chapter 316 is terrible. It is fucking terrible.

I took a whirl around Overhaul's tag up through when the leaks first started dropping, but didn't immediately see anyone talking about why it's so fucking terrible, only concerns about letting Overhaul see Eri (understandable, but baseless, I think), some empathy towards Overhaul's current state (totally warranted!), some snark about Deku being So Done with Overhaul (haha because who cares about Deku's stated goal of trying to understand villains, right?), and, worst of all, some cooing about how Deku was being so compassionate and noble by offering Overhaul that olive branch.

Deku was not being compassionate and noble there. Deku was being arrogant, small-minded, and so shockingly cruel that it leaves me speechless that anyone could think his stunted and hard-hearted "offer" reflects well on him.

Deku's entire motivation in this arc has been wrestling with the realization that he might have been able to avoid some of the desperate battles of his past if he'd understood more about the villains he fought. He thought of three very specific people--Stain, Muscular, and Overhaul--as he reflected, "Maybe it wouldn't have had to go that way if I'd understood them better." He then thought of Gentle Criminal and La Brava, people who he’d come to some understanding of, who he’d been able to soften the conclusion of his battle with by going along with Gentle's fiction downplaying what had happened between them. The whole line of thought was intended to contextualize his newfound desire to save Shigaraki.

It soon became apparent that Stain, Muscular and Overhaul were, in fact, encounters that he would be revisiting, as a chance to see how he'd grown since he faced them, and as a dry-run on reaching out to villains that would give him a chance to practice ways he might reach out to Shigaraki when the time comes.

Well, based on his performance so far, the idea that Deku might be able to reach Shigaraki is laughable.

Firstly, his tentative questions to Muscular were ill-timed, all wrong for the middle of a battle. Muscular laughed him off, and I don’t think there’s any version of that scenario in which he would have done otherwise. Muscular was a huge threat, gleefully violent, disinterested in conversation about his history. Obviously, right in the middle of a fight was no kind of time to try to figure out what made the man tick! But Deku didn’t get the luxury of choosing the circumstances of that encounter, so yes, that battle probably was unavoidable, certainly if Deku wanted to stop him from doing further damage. But the idea that because Deku couldn't reach him right then and there, it's impossible for Deku--or, indeed, for anyone--to reach him at all is fallacious. Not every person has to be able to like or understand every other person. If Deku couldn't reach Muscular, so what? That doesn't mean it's impossible that someone might. And that means an obligation to treat Muscular like a human being, to afford him human rights, to not stop trying to find a way to rehabilitate him, even as you safeguard other people against him.

Deku's battle with Muscular being unavoidable was not some great triumph, for all that the narrative used it as an opportunity to let him show off how far he’d come in mastering One For All. In the way that matters, the way that Deku himself is currently trying to better, he hasn't advanced at all. Imasuji Goto represented his first test in the lead-up to saving Shigaraki, and Deku failed it.

His next trial was Overhaul.* Here, again, was someone who Deku was explicitly trying to understand. So what was the one thing that was most key to understanding Overhaul's current motivation? What was the one thing that Overhaul was ranting about out loud, incessantly? And what did Deku conspicuously fail to ask about? Overhaul's relationship with Pops.

This was so easy. So obvious. And Deku didn’t even try. All he could think about in the moment he was faced with that broken man was the little girl that man hurt--all thoughts of trying to understand where the man himself was coming from went right out the window, flown away in an instant. Instead of asking about why Overhaul feels the way he does, he demanded that Overhaul feel the way Deku wanted. He was essentially holding the only person Overhaul cared about hostage for the remorse he wanted Overhaul to feel.

I'm not going to try to armchair diagnose Overhaul with mental conditions. I don't have the educational background, and I'm positive Horikoshi doesn't. But it seems pretty clear that asking Overhaul to feel guilt about Eri was asking for something that he might not be capable of feeling, at least not without years of therapy that he was plainly not getting in Tartarus. And if Overhaul is not capable of feeling that guilt, then what does denying Overhaul his meeting actually solve? Who does it help? It doesn’t help Eri. Doesn’t help the old man. It certainly doesn’t help Overhaul himself. The only person who gets any satisfaction out of demanding remorse from Overhaul is Deku. And even Deku didn’t look like he found it very satisfying!

Another failure. A meaninglessly cruel, petty failure. A failure that served only to hurt a man who was already a live wire of agony, to sentence an old man to a coma he might never wake from without Overhaul's expertise, and to deprive Eri of the only actual family she had left.

And look, Pops might very well not be the ideal guardian for Eri, and I'm not saying he should get to "keep" her just because of the blood connection, but it's not like he cheerfully handed her over to Overhaul and walked out the door! He turned to Overhaul because he trusted Overhaul, because he wanted someone to help Eri and thought that maybe Overhaul could. And when Overhaul's thoughts about Eri took a very dark turn, Pops first denied his request about using her to further his research and then, when Overhaul kept pushing it, chose Eri over the kid he personally took in from the streets by telling Overhaul that he needed to leave the Shie Hassaikai if he couldn't muster any more respect for human life than that.

But, you know, Eri is so cute with Aizawa and stuff. And Pops was a criminal. Probably. Maybe? I mean, he was yakuza, anyway, so he obviously must have been a criminal even if the police never actually arrested him. Apparently, this means it's okay to just leave him in a coma forever! Even though Overhaul absolutely has enough medical expertise that letting him talk to a neurologist about what he did to Pops might enable them to figure out how to wake Pops up even without Overhaul being able to use his quirk to undo the damage. Hell, Overhaul is also the person alive who has the best handle on how Eri's quirk works. He might even know what her accumulation condition is. Maybe a better thing to ransom his access to Pops with would be Overhaul telling Aizawa everything he knows about Eri's quirk so Aizawa can use the knowledge to help her get a better handle on it.

But no. Obviously undoing some small part of the concrete harm Overhaul did was less important than how Deku felt about that harm.

And there's more! Oh, is there ever. I called Deku arrogant before; let me circle back to that.

Deku said that if Chisaki would feel the way Deku wanted him to feel, then Deku would uphold the promise to let Overhaul see Pops. But where in hell did Deku get off making that claim? Deku is a student. He's not a pro. He has no authority, medical, legal, carceral or otherwise. He has no say in where Overhaul goes or who he's allowed to see.

What the fuck? What the actual fuck? What kind of strings did Deku think he could pull that he could just casually make that claim without so much as going into a huddle with Hawks and Endeavor about it first? How inflated has this kid's sense of importance gotten that he made Overhaul that promise without even stopping to think about whether it was something he was in any position to ensure? It was such a bullshit ultimatum, not only because of how needlessly obstructive it was, but because it was so formless.

"If only you would feel a wish to apologize to Eri…" Okay, so what if Overhaul goes back to prison and, three days later, calls out to say, "Okay, I thought about it and I really feel like I want to apologize, now can I see Pops already?" Who gets to make that judgment call? Deku? Is he going to drop his faux-vigilante act and come visit Overhaul in prison just so he can squint at the man really hard to see if he's lying? Is Deku going to delegate the call to someone else? All Might? Hawks? A prison warden? A psychologist? Who? Who gets to be the one to say, "Okay, I think his remorse is genuine."

Then, once that call has been made, how many people have to arrange for Overhaul to be escorted out of prison and to whatever hospital Pops is in? Will Deku get to oversee that visit? Does he think he can overturn a warden declaring, "The scum doesn't deserve a visit, and the old man probably doesn't either," or a doctor protesting, "I'm not letting that man anywhere near my patient!"

The hell of it is, I think Deku could do all of that. He's got a close personal connection to All Might, who was basically a demi-god to this society for decades; he has the ear of the current top three heroes. Everyone is apparently convinced that the power to save this society rests solely in Deku's hands; I'm sure he could ask for anything he wanted. But the fact that that is the case suggests that this society is not even slightly turning away from its dependence on heroes dictating its morality. A hero having the sole right to dictate, out of hand, based on his personal feelings, the fate of people designated "villains" while the rest of society turns away is exactly what Shigaraki is angry about.

The only thing worse than Deku perpetuating the worst problems of hero society in an arc that's supposed to be about him finding a better way is that he didn’t even stop to think about it. It never even occurred to him that that was what he was doing. He thought that what he was asking of Chisaki was just and fair, and thus, he didn’t need to ask for any second opinions or permissions; he didn’t need to think about what would actually be feasible, about what was best for the people involved. He'd made his judgment call about a villain, and that's all there was to it. The villain could fall in line or--nothing. There isn't actually another choice. Hero's way or nothing

I hate it. I hate it. I don't care about whether Overhaul "deserves" to suffer; heroes making the cold decision that they will make him suffer is antithetical to everything a carceral system intended to rehabilitate prisoners stands for. And yes, Japan does at least claim on paper that the goal of incarceration in state hands is rehabilitation.

Restorative justice is superior to retributive justice. It's better for society and it's better for individuals. It is kinder, it is more compassionate. Retributive justice poisons people. It perpetuates suffering for no reason but moral grandstanding. Individuals are allowed to forgive or not forgive anyone they want, but a society should conduct itself with an eye to the long-term welfare of all of its people. That means that even the worst kinds of criminals still have human rights. It means not inflicting pain that serves no purpose.

I've gotten off-track here. Yes, I think that if Overhaul could feel regret about Eri, that would obviously be a positive development for his character. It'd hurt like hell, but it would be a hurt that indicated he was becoming a better person, a person who wanted to do more good, less ill, with his life and efforts. But you can't mandate that someone become a better person. No ultimatum handed down from on high is going to change Overhaul's heart. Telling someone, "I'll help you, but only if you only feel the way I want you to feel. Otherwise, you can just stay there and suffer," is not reaching out to help people who are suffering in the dark, which is, again, what Deku claimed he wanted to do, what he begged for Nagant's help in doing, the way he insisted to the vestiges that OFA should be used.

Deku writing people off because they don't conform to his expectations, because they can't be "good" the way he wants them to be, nor even "bad" in ways he can understand, is him failing to live up to his own expressed ideals. "I wish you'd feel bad about hurting people," wasn't enough to reach Muscular or Overhaul, and it damn well shouldn't be enough to reach Shigaraki.

Cruelty does not beget kindness. You cannot treat people with only callousness and severity, then condemn them for not taking the opportunity to grow. You have to give them opportunities to better themselves. For Overhaul, giving him an opportunity would be letting him help the man he wronged and then moving forward from there. Telling him to feel regret about Eri or else? That's doing nothing but sweeping his pain back under the rug.

---

*I have more or less exhausted my outrage over Lady Nagant in chats with friends, so I'll spare the rant on how disjointed, contradictory and ludicrous her turn was; the gist is "very, on all counts."

---

P.S. Anyone who says that Overhaul "has nothing left to live for" is being a level of ableist that defies description. Prosthetics exist. Assistive devices exist. Speech-to-text software exists. Overhaul is intelligent, driven and highly educated. Even if he never got prosthetics at all, there would still be things he could contribute to the world if he were motivated to do so. The better thing to do, though, would be to get the man some damn prosthetics, hook him up with the neurologist consulting on Pops' case, and let the two of them get on with the matter of waking up the old man.

P.P.S. Overhaul spent six months in solitary confinement. The United Nations considers solitary confinement exceeding 15 days to be a form of torture. Solitary confinement creates severe mental health issues and exacerbates existing ones. It frequently leads to a deadening of empathy, something Overhaul has in little enough amounts as it is. It is absurd to ask a man who's just come out of these conditions to "feel sorry for what you did to Eri," especially if you're planning to turn around and send him right back to solitary. Tartarus is inhuman, and the only reason more of the escapees aren't total wrecks like Overhaul is because Horikoshi clearly didn't bother to do the reading on the wide array of problems that those characters should be experiencing physically, mentally and socially.

[zazzander]

Why I believe Octavian could be on the autism spectrum

Looking for more? Here's my master list of Octavian analysis.

I don’t think Octavian was given these traits with autism in mind, but that doesn’t change how I see them.

One thing I do know is that Octavian is a sore point for a lot of people who struggle with mental and physical illness - much as he is for me. The way Riordan treats him in the text is extremely hurtful.

So, onto my arguments.

Social Cues and Facial Expressions

All in all, I believe Octavian is terrible at both “reading the room” and picking up social cues. His relationship with Reyna is all over the place and more often than not, it's Octavian who's trying to bridge them gap between them.

He doesn't seem to realise that she hates him now.

He also consistently fails to use the correct facial expression. He is often decribed as having a “cruel” look or having “madness” in his eyes. His smiles never come off as genuine.

He feels off to people, even when he is being completely honest. And the characters make a lot of assumptions about his intentions based on this.

A very notable example:

Frank scanned the crowd for Octavian. The centurion was watching with more interest than concern, as if he were examining one of his stupid gutted teddy bears.

As we can see, in a high-stress situation, Octavian fails to show the 'correct' expression. And for that, Frank accuses him of murder!

Special Interest

This is probably the most obviously autistic trait of Octavian. He is described as being “obsessed” with the Sibylline books and consistantly displays an active interest in them. Of the limited characterisation we get of Octavian, that is most consistent - and one of the only one’s we see directly, rather than something we hear by rumour.

It frustrates me to this day how people treat Octavian regarding the Sibylline books. Hazel mocks him for it. Percy assumes Octavian will literally hurt Ella because she has memorised them. The kid just wants to tell about this really cool thing, guys, stop hating on him.

Masking

There is argument that Octavian’s ability to speak is inconsistent, but I disagree. Octavian thrives in situations where he can effectively use a “script”. These can be as small as one liners “Possibly my namesake, Octavian - Augustus Caesar. Everyone says I bear a remarkable resemblance”.

Yet, outside of the Senate and other places were he could have predicated and practiced his words, he falls short. He gets lost in the conversation. He gets mocks and he has no recourse.

I also think this is why he upholds the “Roman” way so strictly. They have defined rules that he can follow, allowing him to mask as best he can.

Another, specific example, is when he tries to tell a joke. When we first meet him he says, “The message said: the greek has arrived. Or possibly: the goose has cried. I’m thinking the first interpretation is correct.” Like, if that’s not an attempt at self-depicating humour I don’t know what it. And neither Percy nor Hazel pick it up at all.

Basically with Octavian the words are there, but the delivery isn’t. Which is where he gets tangled.

Caring about fairness

Octavian hates that Percy becomes praetor in less than a week. This is presented as him hating Percy because he’s a Greek - but it could be argued that Octavian sees it as fundamentally unfair. Praetors, traditionally, earn their rank after years of self-sacrifice, training, and leadership. Percy has done none of that.

The same can be said about Frank’s promotion to centurion. Especially because Frank’s promotion is explicitly (divine) nepotism.

Coping Mechanisms

Octavian spends his time at the Temple of Jupiter, seemingly, so he can be away from people.

Red flashes of lightning washed the monuments in blood-coloured light. "Octavian is busy," Hazel said.

Basically - Octavian sets up a big signal for the world to let everyone know "I'm busy, don't bother me".

And the fact that everyone knows he’s going to be at the Temple and not his Cohort's barracks means he probably spends a lot of time there. Despite the fact he can perform auguries anywhere. It doesn’t need to be at the Temple of Jupiter.

These are the few hours each day he isn’t surrounded by other people - it’s his only time where he can unmask.

The Teddy Bears

I admit, it doesn’t seem like he cares for the toys on the outset. But…why not have your evil character kill actual animals? Why sanitise that when a few chapters later Frank tells Percy he could die in the training. They don’t even use training gear, they fight with Imperial gold! A girl dies in front of them!

Riordan made this choice, it seems, to add a comical element to Octavian's character. It makes him easy to mock. Why? Because teddy bears aren’t age appropriate. And several characters dismiss him or make jabs at him regarding this.

Of course, that's a meta answer to "why" Octavian has them. Why he doesn't use real animals.

But what about an in-universe reason.

One thing a lot of people have called out about the title "augur" is that it's a position that means someone who divines the future via the movement of birds. Octavian, instead, acts as a haruspex. This disconnect between titles isn't easily explained (in-universe) expect that perhaps Octavian has admitted the role of augur to suit himself and his experiences.

Perhaps it is a good reason to carrying around his comfort animals. Yes, he gets mocked for having them still, but it's justified in a way that it wouldn't be if they weren't "tools of the trade".

And we see Octavian using the bears for comfort in the story. Here are a few examples where I think Octavian is using his teddy bear to (try to) regulate this emotions.

Octavian shot to his feet. "You need to ask?" His face was red with rage. He was strangling his teddy bear.

and here:

Octavian gripped one of his teddy bears, strangling it with shaking hands. His eyes fixed on Ella. "What was that she said? It sounded like-”

[...]

“I, uh…” Octavian dropped his teddy bear. “No, but-”

We can see that Octavian often clings to his stuffed animals, especially when he's feeling emotional.

Octavian’s Empathy

Octavian cares deeply about New Rome and it’s people. That much is clear from his anger at seeing it attacked. I guarantee people were injured in that attack, too many bolts were fired.

Beyond that, he also refuses to let any Roman die on his watch.

(As I discuss in a different post)

But that's the expected stuff. Octavian is loyal to his friends and family. Not a surprise (I hope).

But his empathy doesn't end there. He is also one of the only demigods to consistently see monsters as people. He gives them positions of rank and respect, once he has the ability, and is horrified when Nico slays some in front of him.

(I also discuss this in more depth in another post)

Emotional Regulation

On thing about masking all the time is that your emotions get buried. Octavian has moments where he loses control - and that comes out in big emotions. Either he comes off as heartless or he's "losing" it. Much of the end sequence in Blood of Olympus involves Octavian have a huge mental breakdown. And it's what makes his death even more tragic.

One final note

We get told a lot about Octavian by Hazel and Frank, even Reyna, but a lot of what we are told misaligns with what we see. It’s the classic show-versus-tell.

We are told he pays his friends, but who? We don’t know.

We get told people hate/fear him, but who? We don’t know.

We get told that he has bought his votes, but did he? The fact of the matter is Octavian has no true rival until Percy. He simply didn't need to.

The people we hear this stuff from either have a vested interest in pushing Octavian down or they dislike him and are willingly to believe the worse about him.

So, basically, I think Octavian fits in the category of autism. Even his position within Camp Jupiter is a metaphor for an autistic experience. He is both one of the legion and completely seperated from that. He is the only augur at the camp. He's different, isolated, and ignored.

As a young reader

When I was younger, a part of me looked up to Octavian.

Despite all his weaknesses, Octavian had found success in his life. He has been recognised by his society (as shown by his medals and rank) - and that gave young me a lot of hope. I looked up to him (as weird as that sounds).

I refused to accept his death for a long time due to these feelings. Which is one of the reasons why I still think about this character all these years later.

Now, as an adult, I feel even more sympathy for him, because I’ve been through depression, anxiety, burnout, and betrayal. I just wish Octavian was given a better ending than he did.

[cayenne-twilight]

Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

[thebeautysurrounds]

THIS CONTAINS SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR NEVER HAVE I EVER S2 READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

This is quite long I had a lot to unpack.

Since watching the 2nd season of Never Have I Ever a few things have been bothering me about the way people are reacting to Devi, and the show overall but mostly Devi. First of all she’s what a sophomore in high school? and she’s doing this all while being the only brown girl (up until kinda the middle of S2) and still dealing with grief and having absolutely no idea who she is yet. To me outside of being an honor roll student she is not doing things FOR HER she is doing this to appease her mother. Who while she means well pushing Devi to succeed to certain extremes which if Devi shows the slightest behavior of fucking up her mother makes harsh comments instead of understanding Devi is a literal teenager and needs room for fucking up.

Is Devi hella unreasonable at times? YES does she often times act strictly on impulse without a second thought…YES. But as a girl who virtually has no one outside of her friends who also are staring to drift from her and get into their first relationships themselves and have their own activities she essentially is left to navigate the world and her teenage angst alone. While I will give Nalini credit for all the work and time she has put in to not only being a single mother and navigating her own grief but also being a working mother who is a doctor and quite possibly has her own struggles with being a brown women in that filed. My problem lies with her not being able to balance or even let go of a strong arm parenting style that mostly focuses on Devi’s fuck up more than her accomplishments and makes comments on how her fuck ups that haven’t even happened yet. I’m not sure Nalini even realizes Devi is at the very very top of her class because I truly believe (after S1) even though Nalini apologized to Devi Nalini has a ‘hoping for the best but expecting the worst’ attitude when it comes to Devi and that’s in the for front of her mind so much she doesn’t realize Devi goes above and beyond not only for herself but to make her mother proud of her all for her mother to just not acknowledge that.

Now with Devi’s characterization I get where some people are coming from on saying Devi shouldn’t have been “boy crazy” or that they “ruined her character development” but here’s my problem those critiques while valid and your allowed to have those opinions…It’s just not really realistic and let me tell you why like I stated Devi is what a sophomore in high school and she has made it a abundantly clear her parents forbid her to date cause it’s school and extra curriculars only. Which will lead to a good college which thus will turn into a good career. While that’s all well and good. I don’t think y’all realize the FOMO of being in high school and growing up with very strict parents, and wanting to have your first relationship. Wanting to be an actual teenager and not wanting to think about 3-4 years down the line which most teenagers don’t/can’t visualize cause it’s not the right now. Devi wants to have those experiences and there’s nothing wrong with that does she go about it the right way…not exactly but y’all act like YOU have never been a teenager and said and done awful things out of anger or just pure immature stupidity. For the boy crazy part Devi is literally having her first feelings and experiences with boys she has 0 clue what she is doing outside of probably books, tv, movies and what her friends assume they know (even though they mean well) the only person Devi would remotely trusts is gone, and she can’t ask her mother cause her mother would honestly probably shut her down and make her feel guilty for even wanting to start having her first experiences with boys. Y’all have such a warped view of not only real teenagers and high school aged kids but also fictional ones. Y’all are so use to shows having protagonist being awful or starting off kinda okay but then their character turns awful and remains that way. What some of you fail to realize is actual teenagers and “teenagers” in shows can/are VERY morally grey. 

Should Devi have been honest and possibly communicated to both Ben and Paxton that she has some sort of feelings for them both..possibly but Devi is a teenager do you think she is having a in depth analysis and talk with herself (outside of a pros and cons list) about what infatuation versus lust versus genuine connection versus romantic attraction looks like probably not. Let’s also analyze how she literally goes from being in her eyes forgettable to being noticed and even though it’s not talked about in the show explicitly she honestly probably struggles with self esteem/self image issues. To go from being a girl who to her no one cares about/notices to one who is getting the attention of two boys who are in Devi’s eyes attractive in their own right. She is so consumed with two guys ACTUALLY being interested in her that she fails to realize she is/and will hurt them both, Do I think Paxton is genuinely attracted to Devi…maybe. But I’m still on the fence about their relationship to me in the beginning I felt Paxton felt Devi is just another meaningless high school fling that he will forget about once he gets to college but to Devi here’s this guy who is “popular” very attractive and he pays attention to her is she looking at the semantics of the situation and how Paxton is more than likely just using her and is only engaging with Devi to get a passing grade and to basically give her the superficial experience of a “high school boyfriend” no she’s not she’s looking at it like here’s this guy who is attractive and he wants to be with someone like me. But do I also believe Devi in S1 was using Paxton and then fell for him DEFINITELY but I will give credit to Paxton for trying at a real relationship with Devi and I hope he will try to be more open and honest.

Do I think Ben likes Devi I honestly do, While the insensitive jokes (exchanged between both) should be discussed I think Ben over time started to see Devi as a girl who finally saw him not the rich, annoying, know it all. But in his view Devi and him are on equal playing fields because they are both overly driven smart individuals and when she said yes to going out with him it was probably the first time he felt like a girl saw the real him. While Ben too more than likely struggles with abandonment issues him dating Devi in a way made him feel like this was the first time he could actual be happy about something cause it was something he actually wanted and not something he just did to earn points in others books and impress people he genuinely got something on his own and that he was actually happy not a front he put on. To me Ben’s abandonment issues come out even more than in S1 when he tells Devi why he’s so hurt and it’s the night of the party when she runs after Paxton (who he sees has it all) and Devi doesn’t “choose him” Do I think Ben and Devi should date cause they share some form of the same trauma no. But again Devi is not use and doesn’t even know what to do with the attention of two people. Again is Devi looking at the semantics of her relationship with Ben…No. I don’t think Devi even realizes she’s quite literally hurting two people cause we could also discuss how Ben and Paxton probably have had other flings and relationships without a second thought while Devi having no relationship experiences and this is territory for her and she has no idea what she is doing or how to properly navigate this situation.

I’m almost done with this long ass rant I promise but it’s two more things I want to make light of/point out I don’t think anyone really gives Devi credit for still going to therapy, loosing a parent is unbearable especially loosing one as young as Devi did, especially when you feel the only parent that truly understood and supported you is gone. Devi doing things that are impulsive and unreasonable because she quite literally has no guidance her mother is only consumed with Devi not making the family “look bad” Devi’s grief is so heavy and she feels she’s going at it alone because her mother doesn’t take genuine time to talk to her. Now was Devi “stalking” her mother extremely inappropriate yes for sure but do Nalini and her need to communicate better for Devi to understand that her mother wasn’t dating sure even if Nalini was on a date their should have been communication there. Devi will probably never stop grieving her father hell he literally came to her in a dream to tell her she deserves better when it came to “dating” Paxton and Nalini will probably never stop grieving her husband but she deserves happiness too and I believe if Devi and Nalini were both honest with each other her slowly dating again wouldn’t have been a problem. Another point I wanna make connecting Devi, Paxton, and Ben is they all have this view that the grass is greener on the other side and that’s just not the case. Ben is jealous of Paxton cause he feels he has the “Perfect life” but in actuality Paxton is extremely flawed and honestly insecure his own family doesn’t believe in him and he knows people only like him because he is attractive, while Paxton looks at Ben like this, while annoying Ben is smart, rich, and no one ever questions Ben’s intelligence but in actuality Ben is very lonely and has spent most of his life alone or being raised by other people which has caused him to put on a huge front to people and often times overcompensate in his social life, and Devi looks at other girls like they have it all and have 0 struggles or problems (I.e her views on Anissa) but Devi fails to realize thy also struggle, are insecure, is struggling with mental illness, and don’t have themselves figured out, and Devi is looking at this man her mom is “dating” as if he’s taking something away but In actuality he is experiencing his own losses. All in all Never Have I Ever gets teenage angst and messy problematic morally grey teenagers right and the fact that y’all beg for more “flawed or problematic” characters and when you get them you don’t like that they are just that it’s odd to me it seems like y’all only want problematic characters if it’s how you see fit.

TL;DR: Y’all need to stop acting like y’all weren’t gross annoying and had fuck ups as teenagers y’all should really stop pretending like teenagers in real and some of us as teens didn’t have/engage in relationships that weren’t good but we learned from it while this show isn’t real it shows y’all will scream let people fuck up and let them grow but you don’t actually mean it. Devi is a teenager and requires room to grow she even admits she acts out and is impulsive but y’all act like she’s supposed to have the self awareness of a 60 year old.

[work-of-waking-up]

In Defense of the Psychopath

Alright, wanna venture into my crazy ass brain? I’m going to start by saying one thing that will set the tone for everything else that follows: Villanelle is not a psychopath in the way that we currently understand them. Why am I even bothering to write about a fictional character, you ask? Because representation is important. Media portrayal of various mental and behavioral health topics (including ones that people might not think need to be discussed) is important and this show has a big audience. I also just want to contribute to the conversations that are taking place because I am seeing A LOT of them and the reason for that I believe boils down to the fact that Jodie makes Villanelle so relatable and people want to know what that means and looks like for them. Even those who felt they could relate to Sandra’s Eve, or the relationship between the two, maybe questioned what that meant the further they went down the path with them. “It’s probably a bad thing I relate to a psychopath, right? But she can’t be a psychopath because she cries and she feels things! Psychopaths don’t cry, which means she isn’t realistic so therefore it’s okay that I relate to her! Right? Or are my assumptions about psychopaths and people with antisocial personality disorder wrong? I relate to Eve but look what she is underneath it all...so does that mean I relate to that part of her too?” Not only is villanelles character relatable, but people see the freedom inherent within her, the freedom that Eve sees, and they realize that, at least on some level, they want it too. The show has (unintentionally I think) created a massive dialogue which is super cool and you can tell everyone involved on the show is aware of that now, I mean they have a consulting psychiatrist so I think that speaks for itself. This is less of a commentary on the character herself and whether or not she is a genuine psychopath, and more so a commentary on the conversations she has inspired and why... For the record, this is literally just my opinion sprinkled with a few facts, nothing else.

So, the term psychopath gets thrown around in the show, more so in the beginning, MI6 explicitly labels Villanelle this way, even going so far as to use her in a presentation about psychopaths, although I think that was more so to gauge Eve’s response than anything else. The reality of Villanelle, which we come to learn, is that nobody has been able to get close enough to really know the truth. Anna and Konstantin both got close but we never hear either of them use that word (Konstantin says it once but he clearly doesn’t mean it, it was more of an attempted manipulation tactic). They make it clear that she has, and can, and WILL cause damage, but that’s as far as they go. Eve is getting close and she tells Villanelle when they first meet that she knows Villanelle is a psychopath but it’s obvious from Eve's behavior and things she says later on that she truly doesn’t believe Villanelle is what everyone says she is. It’s easier to label her as a psychopath because that alienates and isolates her and her behavior completely. She is an outlier with behavioral anomalies and therefore it isn’t necessary to look any closer. For MI6 and others (not talking about the shows creators) to label Villanelle as a psychopath is easy, it’s lazy, it’s reductive, it serves a single purpose... a means to an end. They (anyone other than Eve basically) simply do not care about Villanelle’s truth. But as an audience we are lucky enough to see more of her with each episode. The psychopath label begins to fade and Oksana is what’s left. We know based on what she has said that she is aware that people think she is a psychopath, a monster, a person built to kill. It’s not always easy to decide that who you are is different from who you’ve always been told you are, especially given her history. Villanelle hasn’t told us yet if she thinks (or knows) that she is a psychopath, but it’s clear towards the end of last season that she no longer wants to be the person that they (meaning the twelve, Dasha, Konstantin, etc.) created. We see moments where she clearly has no remorse and clearly enjoys what she does, but then we have little moments sprinkled in between where she very obviously struggles, even if its short lived. And those moments are important. We have the moment where she struggles with the choice to shoot Konstantin, saying he is a good person, she thinks. This comes shortly after a conversation she had where Irina tells Villanelle she thinks she is a good person because she is sad, so we know she is thinking about it, we know the awareness is there, and it becomes more and more there as times goes on. I like to think of it in terms of having moments that are pure Villanelle (ie the way she killed Inga in the Russian prison), and then we have moments that are Oksana, vulnerable and emotional. Villanelle is a creation and a mask whereas oksana is the truth. Those moments are starting to really mean something. I'm not even going to start with her trip to find her family, that’s its own thing, but it's a Really Big Thing.

So. Villanelle is not a psychopath in the way that we currently understand and perceive them. Yes, she displays psychopathic traits, and yes, she absolutely has antisocial personality disorder. I read an article where the psychiatric consultant for the show (makes it pretty obvious how hard they worked to make Villanelle as realistic as possible) said that the Villanelle in Luke Jenning’s books scored a 32 on Hare’s psychiatric checklist, but I like to think (and I think a lot of people would agree) that number is a bit high, at least for Jodie’s Villanelle, maybe not even hitting 30 at all (close though, let’s be real lol). The max score is 40 which would be a fully blown primary psychopath. For reference, Ted Bundy scored 39. This checklist is flawed though, mostly created and based off the prison population. Which is why it isn’t used as a proper diagnostic tool. 32 is apparently extraordinarily high for a female (think Aileen Wuornos), which brings me to my next point which is that because it’s hard to measure a lot of the classic traits objectively, there is not a ton of solid data surrounding psychopathy, and even less of it is on female psychopaths. Like most things in life, psychopathy exists on a spectrum, there are levels and layers. It’s not black and white, there’s no definitive test (psychopathy isn’t even in the DSM-5 because as I said earlier it’s extremely hard to measure objectively) and it's important to distinguish between someone who exhibits psychopathic traits and someone who is actually an identifiable psychopath. Chances are high that someone you know displays at least one characteristic shared with psychopaths and this doesn’t make them one.

I think what’s important about this is that mental disorders (mental illness/personality disorders/etc.) of any kind are much more nuanced than a lot of people tend to think they are. That they exist less in black and white and more in shades of grey. Jodie Comer is absolutely remarkable for showcasing that through portraying the different layers of Villanelle. Her performance is a literal gift. We cannot keep thinking and acting like we know everything about how a person thinks, feels, and behaves based strictly and entirely on one label. The thing that has stuck out to me the most, the reason I decided to even write this bullshit babble, is that one of the most searched topics about the show is whether or not it’s realistic that Villanelle cries, and honestly how sad is that? That makes me sad for V. Is it more realistic for her to develop connections and cognitive empathy if she was made into a psychopath vs if she was born that way? Is there a legitimate difference between the two? And how do we even decide which one is applicable for someone? It’s important to add that antisocial personality disorder is not the same thing as psychopathy or sociopathy. You can have aspd and not be a psychopath. Research has shown that about only a third of those diagnosed with aspd would meet criteria to be considered a psychopath. Society is not doing a great job at getting people to understand this. But to be fair, understanding personality disorders specifically has been somewhat problematic, a lot of diagnostic confusion and overlap between disorders. A LOT of work needs to be done. But as far as portrayals go, society has strictly chosen to go the route of giving us psychopathic characters and having them be inherently violent, incapable of remorse, feelings, or change. Poverty of all emotions. Subhuman. They are made out to be so abnormal and unrelatable to the point where the character of Villanelle has sparked so much debate and fascination simply because she exists in a way that actually IS relatable...and layered and beautiful and thrilling. We thought she would be the bad guy and yet we root for her at every turn, we cry for her, we want good things for her! We see her darkness and without question or hesitation we forgive it. She makes us question what we’ve previously been shown. Questioning whether or not it’s realistic that she acts the way she does is less important than questioning our own personal assumptions and beliefs and where those come from. I think that’s awesome. Villanelle is truly a gift. She is hands down one of the most well written fictional characters, which is saying a lot considering when you put something, or someone, in a box it doesn’t leave tons of room for expansion. and I honestly don’t even really need to say this, but.. Jodie Comer.

[cassyapper]

Apart from Jotaro and Kakyoin (unfortunately) what are your other favourite jojo ships? I’d love to know

OHHHH POST YOUVE OPENED A CAN OF FUCKING WORMS LET ME GO OFF

i have a disease that makes me invested in the joestars’ happiness to an absurd level so bc of that a lot of ships i enjoy involve,,,one joestar,,,but there r others i swear let me just start rantingi

jonaeriwagon is soooooo so so cute it involves the most wholesome and purehearted jojo characters and it makes me smile so wide. erina and jonathan r childhood sweethearts and erina helped jonathan back on his feet after he lost EVERYTHING in the first fight against dio at the mansion. jonathan and speedwagon are best FRIENDS OKAY!! SPEEDWAGON LITERALLY CHANGES HIS ENTIRE WALK OF LIFE BECAUSE OF JONATHAN AND THE KINDNESS HE SHOWED HIM. i know erina and speedwagon didn't interact a whole lot in part 1 but like they're BEST. FRIENDS. in part 2, so much so joseph thought something was going on between them. i bring this up bc then it’s proof that this ship is full of ppl who just care for each other so much. they just adore each other and love each other and I'm crying

caejoseq is my FAVVV OKAY they're so stupid and in love. i love love love love imagining caesar and suziq falling in love slowly when he’s first training as lisalisa’s student and like they never do anything about it cause they're both so shy (yes caesar is shy bc these feelings r more genuine romance rather than sexual, unlike his other flings) but it’s obvious enough they both understand to a degree the other knows they like them sjkd;dn cuties. but then JOSEPH BARGES IN with his stupid hamon-breathing mask and his stupid blue-green eyes and his stupid lax personality combined with the moments he takes thing seriously during which is works hard as fuck/smart as fuck. he just completely sweeps them off their feet they had no fuckin warning whatsoever. so after a bunch of messy and intense pining from the both of them they eventually sit down and are like okay. we should do smth about feelings actually. so they Do and it ends with the polycule and I'm (”: smiling so wide they loved each other do u understand

AVPOL!! DO NOT GET ME STARTED OKAY it’s the survivor’s guilt and cherishing and longing for me sis!!!!!! I'm just saying both have pasts (araki said avdol’s backstory was so sad he didn't wanna put it into sdc so that’s where I'm drawing this from) that leave them focused on things other than their direct happiness/their own futures but then they connect and even though they're so fucking different they are SOOO different they're still the same on this level and i think!!! that would be everything for them finally someone who understands...listen I'm ging to go insane do you hear me. avdol loves this stupid fucking Frenchman so much because said stupid fucking Frenchman just cares so much about everything. meanwhile polnareff is in love with this fuckin god of a man who’s patient and kind and funny and a skilled enough fighter it’s stated explicitly in canon “oh avdol’s the one we need to worry about most not jotaro” like fuck polnareff is ENAMOURED WITH HIM!! AND I DONT FUCKING BLAME HIM!! and just dude. when pol thinks avdol came back to life and he starts crying tears of joy and hugs him so tightly and avdol just laughs but hugs him back imfmfjfj help. help. help. help. help. POLNAREFF LITERALLY ASKS HIM OUT ON A DATE THIS IS FUCKIN!!! CANON!!! i cant do this stupid fuckign idiots i love them

JOSUYASU!!!!!! TWO GUYS BEIGN DUDES WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT??? like listen we have such a SLEW of wholesome moments between these two the opening to the tonio episode is literally just them going on a date OKUYASU WAS GONNA FEED JOSUKE AND JOSUKE DIDNT EVEN FUCKING QUESTION IT OKAY THAT’S KINDA GAY THAT HAS ROMANTIC FUCKING UNDERTONES!! and them fighting against shigechi idk man i just love their dynamic it’s such a pleasant bro relationship and i love them. but even beyond the wholesome moments when okuyasu fucking dies josuke loses his SHIT!!! DO YOU HEAR ME HE GOES FUCKIGN INSANE!!!!! HE’S SCREAMING AND CRYING AND BEGGING OKUYASU TO WAKE UP AT THE EXPENSE OF HIS LIFE FUCKIGN HAYATO HAD TO SHRIEK AT HIM TO MOVE HIS ASS OUT OF THE WAY OF KIRA’S BOMB LIKE!! listen the recklessness and furiousness of josuke’s tactics after okuyasu “”died”” haunts me. he didn't want to live in a world without him and meanwhile okuyaus LITERALLY TRIUMPHS OVER DEATH BECAUSE HE DOESNT WANT TO LEAVE JOSUKE’S SIDE HELP ME GIRL FJKF;NDJN FUCK. fuck. so yeah i lvoe them

fugionara... any combination of this ship makes me go nuts okay okay. the dynamics in the bucci gang will forever leave me in tatters but THE ONES BETWEEN THESE THREE IN PARTICULAR. FUCK ME UP. it’s the healing it’s the animosity it’s the regret it’s the trying to figure out your own mentally ill self while also the world ur in with these ppl u love so much and I'm going crazy okay okay okay. idk how to quite put my feelings for them in worlds i just have a lot of them and they are fuckin. overhwelming. just narancia for example meant EVERYTHING to fugo as evidence by purple haze feedback (literally every other paragraph is a flashback) and the only time giorno cries in the anime is when narancia dies. meanwhile fugo saved narancia’s life and giorno knew when to take narancia seriously as opposed to a joke. and then THE WHOLE DISCUSSION ABOUT GRIEF FUGO AND GIORNO HAVE IN PURPLE HAZE FEEDBACK? listen something about these three make me go insane and feral

foolymes like okay. okay. I'm shaking like a dog trying not to go overboard on this justification just listen to me. hermes and jolyne first find someone to trust in prison in each other. jolyne cares abt her enough that she first learns how to use stone free’s string-on-a-telephone ability bc she wanted to watch over hermes. hermes loves nd respects jolyne that after she wakes up from getting a stand shes like “hm. wonder where jolyne is” and goes to find her before all that bullshit happened just hey okay LISTEN TO ME!! and then they get foo they save her it’s just like fucking kakyoin they give her another chance and they show her what relationships are supposed to be like (fulfilling) they enjoy her company and make her laugh and she makes them laugh in return ohmy god EVERYTHING FOO FIGHTERS DID WAS FOR JOLYNE AND HERMES DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!!! the marilyn mansion debt collector arc. the kiss of love and revenge arc. foo fighter’s death. I'm going to eat rocks in an attempt to stop feeling oh my god JOLYNE DIDNT EVEN BELEIVE FOO FIGHTERS WAS DYING AND THEN SHE GOT HYSTERICAL LIKE “BUT WE CAN JUST REMAKE YOU RIGHT WE HAVE YOUR STAND DISC??” SHE DOESNT WANT HER TO GOOO HELP ME HELP ME. I'm in tatters these three girls loved each other so fucking much they just wanted each other safe and they DESERVED to be safe and happy together but araki is fucking evil

jotaweather I KNOW THIS IS A CRACK SHIP I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW DONT FUCKIGN LOOK AT ME JUST HEAR ME OUT. jotaro and weather r both of similar demeanor that is quiet soft-speaking intimidating strong big aura of sadness coming from them. both have powerful stands and both had real fucked up luck in the love department. i also hc both to be autistic so that’d be another similarity. i jus think them settling down together after everything went down in a stone ocean au would be very soft and sweet yknow? they wouldn't even necessarily start it off in a romantic sense but they just take the time to try and heal with each other and eventually it just kinda veers that way. yeah

gyjo for OBVIOUS reasons like are you serious? gyro changed johnny’s fucking lfie from the SECOND they first interact johnny begins to push himself and tries to reach further/go further. and in turn johnny shows gyro you cant always be a wet blanket you need to take a stand this both helps his resolve to save the kid AND helps him to take the measures necessary to get to his goal. like gyro would not have been able to find johnny in the “who shot johnny joestar?” arc if he hadn't gone through, say, the ring roadagain arc with johnny first. listen man their relationship is literally the catalyst for this whole part it’s the driving force i just. they love each other they love each other thank you goodnight I'm emo

yasugap is just so so so so sweet it makes me so happy,,like okay josuk8 literally has a daydream where all that happens is he gives yasuho some candy and she eats it and is like “aw josuke this is so good thanks!” and she smiles at him and that’s IT THAT’S THE DAYDREAM 😭 listen they just love each other so much and i am emo. they literally SAVED EACH OTHER OKAY LIKE yasuho pulls him from the dirt and like she mentioned during the flashback chapter with the hairpin and her dad, it was also the other way around....saving josuke also saved herself and just LISTEN TO ME. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER. it’s a very sweet and healthy relationship and i hope to god araki makes it canon please sir ill bite you

anyway yeah these are the main main ones ? that i ship ship. like you'll get me excited if u mention them. anyway this post has gone on long enough so I'm gonna end it here by saying i really do have a thing where the relationship focuses on healing/helping one or both parties to save/improve themselves

[ineedglasses]

VK Character Analysis: Shizuka Hiou

Once in high school, an old friend who also read VK asked me who my favorite character was, and when I said Shizuka, she was shocked. Now her favorite was Zero, and she thought I hated Zero since I liked Shizuka, his enemy.

That is not true, I don’t hate Zero. For some reason, some Zero fans seem to think anyone that likes Shizuka hates Zero. There is NO correlation between liking Shizuka and hating Zero. Some people love them both, while some people hate them both.

Anyway, my friend seemed appalled when I told her my fav character and she asked me why. At that age I wasn’t the most articulate or the most patient, so I simply told her, “just because.” So, now that I have free time and because her question had bothered me for a while, I decided I should write down my thoughts on why I love Shizuka.

                                                            XXX

First of all, Shizuka was NOT actually insane.

Medically speaking, “insanity” is associated with conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. There is no indication in the manga or anime that she exhibited any signs or symptoms of those diseases, such as hallucinations or delusions.

The regular definition of insane is to exhibit a severely disordered state of mind or to be affected with mental illness. Even by this definition, Shizuka was not insane.

She was aware of her actions and of what is right and what is wrong. The only time she can be considered “insane” is right after her lover was killed, when she was so overcome by grief and anger she could not think straight and focused on revenge without stopping to think who the real enemy was (cough, Rido). And in that state of severe emotional turmoil she went after the Kiryuus. But I do not think that can be considered true insanity, because it was a onetime occurrence.

Shizuka knows that she was wrong to kill the Kiryuus, because they were simply following orders and doing their job, and also because the real mastermind behind her lover’s death was Rido. She even acknowledges that her actions in regard to the Kiryuu parents and Zero were “sinful”, whereas a truly crazy person probably is unable or unwilling to admit that. If anyone were actually insane in VK, it would probably be Rido.

                                                           XXX

Secondly, she did NOT attack the Kiryuus out of a random whim or desire to do evil things.

All readers should already know this, since Hino explicitly states that Shizuka was motivated by revenge. Shizuka ONLY went after the Kiryuus because they wronged her first.

They killed her ex-human, the only person she ever loved. Hunters are only supposed to kill crazed level E’s and vampires that have harmed humans, but her lover was none of that. He should not have been killed by those standards.

But the Kiryuus were simply following orders without question, and killed someone they shouldn’t have, and thus they were killed in return.

For hunters, being killed by vampires seeking revenge is not a shocking end. Even Zero’s mom mentioned that, when they were packing, saying they should move soon so vampires do not find out where they lived. People who kill tend to get killed too, that’s just the reality of that sort of life. Zero’s parents were not normal, innocent civilians, they were people that killed vampires for a living. Thus, I don’t think Shizuka killing them is so shocking and unforgivable. I can understand why she attacked the Kiryuus, although it is still wrong (because hate breeds more hate, and the idea of an eye for an eye is not good).

What was truly unforgivable was that Shizuka turned Zero into a vampire, to hurt his parents as much as she can. This is where she went too far in her vengeance because children are innocent, it was only the parents that should be punished. And yes, I acknowledge that these actions are bad, even if I am her fan, I am not blind to her flaws.

Anyway, Shizuka would never have bothered crossing paths with the Kiryuus if they had never killed her lover.

                                                            XXX

Thirdly, although she was an antagonist in the story, she had her own moral code. She was not evil, and rather more of a neutral grey, and I appreciate characters like that.

She wasn’t like Rido, who used even his own son as a tool, and who did not care for anyone. Shizuka cared for Ichiru, despite the fact that he was her enemy’s son. She felt a sort of kinship with him because they were both alone and had nowhere to go. She gave him her own blood and flesh and refused to turn him the whole time they were together, even when she was dying, because she knew he would have been in more danger if he was a vampire instead.

Ichiru understood that she genuinely cared for him, because even when he was dying, he asked Zero to not hate her, even if Zero can’t forgive her.

Shizuka also kept her promise to Maria and gave the sickly girl her blood to make her better (in comparison, Rido just took over Senri’s body without asking for permission or giving him anything in return).

And thus Shizuka is a sympathetic villain, and Hino points that out in the interlude chapter where Ichiru comments how Shizuka was “beautiful even as she was dying”, in contrast to Rido, who Kaname once referred to as “the dregs of an ugly obsession.”

Even Kaname felt sympathy for her, because when he killed her, he didn’t just let her drop to the floor but caught her and laid her down carefully on the floor. He also assured her that he would not let her life be wasted, and that he would definitely end Rido.

                                                              XXX

And finally, she was a very tragic character, a victim of circumstances herself.

(This is her history, taken straight from her character profile in the official fan guide)

Shizuka was locked up in a cage as soon as she was born, because apparently some members of the Hio clan had also gone berserk before.

(On a side note, I doubt the Hious had a genetic defect leading to mental illness, it was probably a circumstantial thing, like how Rido most likely started off sane but life took directions that pushed him off the edge towards the end. After all, they are purebloods and their genes are supposed to be flawless. And Rido…I have so many thoughts about that dude, but I will save them for another post.)

Hino never stated how old Shizuka was, but since we know that Rido, Haruka, and Juri are “over 3000” according to the guidebook, she is probably around that age. If we treat the Fleeting Dreams novel as canon, then Shizuka is probably even younger than Juri, because Rido mentions that Shizuka was still “a tiny child” when his parents kept Juri away from him and engaged him to Shizuka instead. So, I assume that Shizuka spent almost 3000 years, her whole life, locked up in a cage with barely any company, except maybe the occasional visitor (like how child Kaname visited her once).

3000 years is a long, long time. To put it into perspective, the USA as a country is roughly 250 years old. So she was locked in a cage, all by herself for the timespan it would take 12 USAs to rise and fall. It is really a wonder how she did not actually go crazy and end up more damaged than she was!

Besides the tragedy of having her freedom taken away, no one loved or cared about her, something mentioned by both Maria and the guidebook. Shizuka herself commented that she was envious of Yuki, who had been cherished, unlike her.

(A bit of a tangent, but I am quite curious what happened to Shizuka’s parents. Why did they just let her be locked up? It is very irresponsible to bring a child into the world if you aren’t going to bother taking care of it. And it seemed she had family members because Kaname later on killed the head of the Hio clan. IDK what her familial relationship with that particular Hio man was, but she seemed to have been neglected by her own clan.)

Anyway, everyone probably treated her warily, like a bomb that might explode at any time. She was basically an outcast. Take for example how Aidou says it is unlucky to even mention her.

If there was someone besides her dead lover, Ichiru, and Maria, who did not treat her with suspicion or fear, it was probably Rido, and he certainly did not treat her well either. Ichiru mentions that Rido was the one who imprisoned her and changed the hunter list. Based on that, I assume Rido directly ordered her locked up, or used his influence with the Senate to have them lock her up. Either way, the dude had something to do with it.

Besides locking her up, Rido most likely treated her poorly, him being the way he is. His main issue with her is that she refused to become obedient like Senri’s mom. And IDK about the rest of you, but whenever a man says he wants to make a woman “obedient”, I get bad vibes. He probably did some shady and questionable things in his attempts to make her docile.

If Shizuka had been engaged to someone else other than Rido, someone more normal, like Isaya, her life would probably have been more bearable. Although Rido did not want her because he was unhealthily obsessed with Juri, he had to ruin Shizuka’s life and happiness instead of just letting her be. He did that out of some petty reasoning, basically “If I can’t be happy, you can’t be happy either”. His decision to put her lover on the execution list led to many tragedies. 

This man is really the root of all evil in VK, LOL.

                                                              XXX

Finally, after all those centuries of loneliness, Shizuka met someone who treated her well, for the first time. Thus, her attachment to her ex-human lover was extremely strong, and it made sense why she could not move on, why she was so consumed by revenge. Unlike normal people who can find solace being comforted by friends and family, she doesn’t have that kind of support. And furthermore, she is a pureblood, all of whom have been shown to form extremely strong attachments to the ones they love, and have trouble moving on.

And regarding her lover, we can’t even be sure if he loved her back. Shizuka said that he most likely never forgave her until the end for turning him, and that he never yielded to her, but went with her when she proposed running away together because remaining with her was his only option. Honestly, her lover didn’t seem too happy being with her, or if he did care for her, their relationship was still strained and angsty, not the simple, lovey-dovey relationship Haruka and Juri had.

Overall, her romance was ill-fated, they simply would have never worked out because they were supposed to be predator and prey. I have a feeling that even if the Kiryuus hadn’t been assigned to kill him, she and her ex-human would not have had a happy ending regardless.

Anyway, after Shizuka lost him, she also lost her will to live. She only hung on to life out of the desire to kill Rido, but she wasn’t even seriously trying. Her biggest desire was to die, and we can see that in how she didn’t bother resisting when Kaname killed her. When she laid on the floor dying, she looked the most peaceful she had ever been. Later on, Maria (mistakenly thinking it was Zero who killed her) also commented that Shizuka probably wanted Zero to kill her. Sara also said Shizuka lost her will to live and mentioned how she doesn’t want to become like her.

Finally, Shizuka was definitely tragic, because even Kaname who killed her pitied her, commenting: “It’s sad isn’t it? I wonder if anyone truly understood her.”

I love this character partly because I feel so bad for her. While Zero suffered early on, he eventually got to marry the girl he loved and had a daughter with her. Kaname also got to be with Yuki, had a daughter with her and got to meet both daughters and experience being with family when he was revived. But Shizuka…her whole life was a tragedy, and the only time she was happy was that brief period when she was with her lover. However, the time she spend with him was a tiny drop, almost nothing compared to how long her life was overall.

A lot of characters in VK had sadness in their lives, but her life struck me as the worst. If I had to pick someone to be in VK, it would definitely not be her.

IMO, her life was screwed the moment she got engaged to Rido. Even though she wasn’t crazy, she was still locked up and treated like she was. Her circumstances/fate pushed her to make the choices she did and end up a villain. If fate had been kinder to her, she would not have become a villain at all.

Other reasons I love her are because of how beautiful and elegant she is, how she has an air of mystery and sadness, and how her story just interested me the most.

And I get that other people still hate/dislike her regardless of everything I mentioned, and that is alright. This is not meant to convince people to like her, but to explain why I personally love her. So don’t come at me trying to tell me why she is evil and I should be ashamed for liking her okay? (ง'̀-'́)ง

So! If you ever read this long post, Hazel, now you know why she is my favorite character.ヽ(ಠ_ಠ)ノ

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Thoughts on Karin’s Magical Girl Story

Another collection of thoughts and reactions, plus analyzing some small changes the NA translation made (similar to the translation comparison I did for Alina’s MGS a while back).

Starting off with not a change, but an interesting note: Karin and Alina’s club situation is rather strange.  Alina is the “outsider” from the Art Club, while Karin is part of the Manga Club.  The classroom they share, though, doesn’t appear to be the main space for either club.  I’d initially assumed that it was the room originally used for the Manga Club, but once Arc 2 updates these backgrounds...

It turns out this actually is an art classroom!  I guess the school just has two?

First major change: Just like in Alina’s MGS, they removed direct references to Karin and Alina’s ages.  The reference to Karin’s age at the start of the Magical Halloween Theater event was also changed.

(In JP here, Alina was said to have won a lot of different awards “for a 16 year old,” while Karin stated her age as 14 in the MHT event.)

Again, unsure of why the change, but it could be in order to fix the continuity issues. Because good lord, that continuity is snarled...

I think the order that makes the most sense is Karin MGS > Alina MGS > Magius forms > one year passes > MHT > Main Story Ch5 > Holy Alina’s MGS.  In theory, then Karin should be 13 and Alina should be 15 in their Magical Girl Stories and then 14 and 16 in the present, but as mentioned that’s contradicted by the start of Karin’s MGS in the original Japanese.

There’s also the weirdness around when/how Karin learned Alina was a magical girl, since Karin seems aware of it in MHT, yet it’s unclear if she knows in Holy Alina’s MGS.

… Anyway, stuff like this is why I gave up on constructing a coherent timeline for Magia Record.  There’s just too many continuity tangles.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

References to Karin being in her second year in middle school and the third years leaving – also changed.  Probably because it’s both an uncommon way to refer to grades in English, and also, once again, another continuity issue.  (If the third years left, why is Alina still there in one years’ time if she’s at least one grade ahead of Karin?)

Another change: some specifics in why Karin and Alina are in the same classroom together.  In JP, it’s not specified who made the deal to let Alina use the room.  If anything it seems like Karin is the one making a deal directly with Alina.

Which actually makes far more sense all around – why does “the school” care that Alina is giving informal lessons to some random kid?

And it makes more sense from Alina’s perspective too, in that it explains why she tolerates Karin constantly bothering her – putting up with Karin is explicitly the price she’s paying to Karin for using the space.

Oh boy, this.  Karin having this mindset is why it took me so long to really ship AliKari.  Because the dark undertone to “if only I improve, then surely Alina will treat me better” is that Karin is blaming herself when Alina is cruel to her.  And that can very easily slide into an abusive relationship - if you don’t consider it one already.

Alina treating Karin decently should not be dependent on Karin’s art skill.  Or anything else, for that matter.  Full stop.

(Tangent time, including some Arc 2 spoilers)

What ultimately made me come around to AliKari is some of the early Arc 2 stuff, where Karin starts thinking the reason Alina disappeared is because Alina is mad at Karin for not improving.  Karin’s explanation is spectacularly wrong, so I’m now more trusting that the game is implying that Karin’s mindset is going to change. That she’ll stop believing she’s at fault for Alina’s actions - and hopefully stand up to Alina too while she’s at it.

The other half of the equation is Alina, who as far as I can tell, is genuinely not interested in bullying Karin.  She certainly has every opportunity to do so – especially given how her teacher punishes Karin for Alina’s behavior – but Alina never takes advantage of it.  So while she is overly harsh and blunt about expressing her opinions to Karin, I don’t get the sense there is any manipulation underlying it.  Indeed, very unusually for Alina, we also never see her enjoying or fantasizing about Karin’s pain or distress.  She really, truly, just wants Karin to get better at art already!

Obviously, for any kind of relationship between the two to work, they would both need to undergo significant character development.  But that’s the draw of AliKari – while other characters have stagnated (sigh, RikaRen), Alina and Karin are still some of the most dynamic characters in the game. And in general, the direction has been that despite starting out in a bad place (like Karin’s mindset above), they’re growing to become very positive influences on each other.

(End tangent)

Enjoying the extra cliches thrown in here and there, and in general how they translated Karin’s dramatics by adding additional cheesy and on-theme descriptions.  Stuff like “dark and dreary night” or “cauldron of trouble” aren’t in the original Japanese, but they’re wonderfully in-character – honestly probably an improvement over the original!

Not a change, but more reminding myself that I really need to read Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne.  I’m like 97% sure that’s what’s being referenced here – the plot description and even the comments Karin makes about “Phantom Thief Kirin” In her later Magic unlock quotes are all a very close match.

Interestingly enough, I’ve heard KKJ mentioned as an earlier dark magical girl series that Madoka Magica rips off.  So it’s quite interesting to see it referenced again back in a PMMM property – I wonder which part of the creative team was responsible for this detail?

Hm, so, the subject and detail of Karin and Alina’s conversation in the middle differs between translations.  In JP, the subject is vague, so the fan translation has Alina going off on an extended metaphor comparing the history of art to the protagonist of Karin’s manga.  Meanwhile, in NA she just makes vague comments comparing her own growth as an artist.  

I think I prefer the former - Alina usually doesn’t like talking about herself, but she sure loves to ramble about art history.

The translation I can find for the metaphor Karin’s grandmother uses here in JP renders it “barely able to keep a business going” - so did Karin’s grandmother possibly own a business herself?  That’s a bit more interesting than just “struggled to make ends meet.”

Speaking of Karin’s grandmother, I really like her as a character.  Her relationship with Karin is really sweet - I mean, how often do you see a teenage girl and an older woman being fans of something together?  It happens in real life plenty of times, but it’s so rare to see this kind of interaction represented in fiction.

And it’s nice to see an example of mental illness being treated as just that – an illness.  I especially like that there’s consent to the cure – Grandma outright says she wishes to be cured, rather than Karin deciding as such on her own.  (As Karin is often wont to do…)

This is a fun illustration of how Alina has a very strong internal logic to her, but she’s really terrible at communicating it to other people.

Karin, naturally, takes Alina’s comment here as an exceptionally mean thing to say – it sounds like Alina is callously implying the thing Karin worked so hard on was so bad it wasn’t even worth Alina’s time to destroy, so she’s making Karin suffer even more in having to destroy it herself.

And the way Alina elaborates makes it quite clear that yes, she did mean to call Karin’s work garbage.  This isn’t Alina having difficulty with Japanese or English.

But while Alina’s sense of taste can be quite sadistic, I don’t think that’s what she was aiming for here.  Remember that Alina believes that “only the artist themselves has the right to destroy their work.”  So this is actually Alina acknowledging Karin’s work as art, and therefore only Karin has the right to rip it up.

And why rip it up?  Because whenever Alina finds her own work unsatisfactory, she destroys it.  Hence Alina’s question at the end of this little back-and-forth:

If Karin doesn’t want to rip up her manga, then according to Alina’s logic, that means she must be happy and satisfied with it.  But even Alina can tell that Karin is still unsatisfied and lying to herself, hence Alina’s frustration and confusion at Karin not destroying her work.

Another timeline note: Alina doesn’t lie, and even if she did, she doesn’t have a ring here.  So I think it’s pretty settled that Karin’s MGS takes place before Alina learned about magical girls.

Oh huh. In NA, Alina thinks she’ll be the one in trouble if Karin isn’t ready.  In the fan translation I’m used to, it seems like Alina is saying she’d just be mad herself… but I think NA has it right here.  (In the original JP, Alina is using the passive form of “get angry” without a subject.)

Both work, but the impression NA gives with both this change and the earlier one is that someone at the school is basically putting Alina in charge of supervising Karin.  Which… what the hell, Sakae Academy?

Going back a bit, Alina’s advice and its effect on Karin is interesting.  One of Karin’s flaws really is that she makes excuses for herself and only half-commits, so Alina pushing her to think about what she truly wants and work hard to get it was genuinely what Karin needed to hear at the time.

However, Alina is also an obsessive perfectionist that tends to push herself to very clearly unhealthy levels…

So it’s rather fitting that on following Alina’s advice, Karin ends up pushing herself into doing something very dangerous: insisting on fighting a witch alone even though Kaede tries to get her to retreat.  Karin is so determined she’s risking her life to fulfill her goal – something Alina would no doubt approve of.  But also a great illustration of why Alina and her advice is flawed too.

Which, come to think of it, is part of why Karin and Alina’s MGS actually form a nice pair of complementary short stories.  If you read them in chronological(?) / original JP release order, you first get to see how Alina helps Karin to grow as a person, and if you think hard about it, you can kind of see foreshadowing for Alina’s own issues.  Then in Alina’s MGS, you get confirmation of that foreshadowing about Alina, and furthermore, the payoff to Karin’s development with her now being the one to give Alina some hard-hitting advice.

[cannibalisticapple]

Okay, so I have some thoughts on Kurikuri’s decision to delete a large number of her fan fics, and on fan fiction as a whole.

For those who don’t know, Kurikuri (@letaizawarest) is a popular fan fiction author with numerous popular Erasermic fics, along with other fandoms. Around the end of May/start of June she deleted a large number of her stories, specifically those that featured either police, or those set in the My Hero Academia universe where they work as Pro Heroes.

To quote her post:

as you may have noticed, roughly half of the fics on my ao3 have been deleted.

i’ve deleted all my fics about police officers. also, after some thought, i also deleted my non-AU bnha fics, because although they might not be “cops” in name, they are law enforcement. i do not want to be a part of the system that glorifies the police. 


at the moment i haven’t deleted other profession AUs and high school era fics, but i will continue to reflect on their relation to the source material. even if you enjoyed the deleted fics, please do not circulate them in other formats (PDFs, EPUBs, etc). 


i also encourage other writers to think about cop fic they’ve written. while it may be fun and escapist for you, it still encourages the idea that antiblack and killer cops are just “bad apples” and that good cops exist. let’s dismantle that system of thought.

I have some very, very mixed feelings on this.

To start: I respect her reasoning, but I don’t agree with it. I fully agree that it’s not just a bunch of “bad apples”, there’s a serious issue with the system and how the police operate in the United States. I’ve always been bothered by how the police let other officers get away with horrible BS, even as a kid, and that rage has only grown as I’ve grown older and found out more about how screwed up it is on every single level.

But the way that last paragraph is written rubs me the wrong way because you can’t paint every single person in an entire career field as unequivocally corrupt, bigoted and all around callous murderers. Good cops DO exist. Plenty of people go into the career hoping to fix things, or just genuinely want to help their community in whatever way they can. But the thing is, they’re fighting a losing battle because the system is working against them. When they DO speak up against the corruption, bigotry, violence and other issues, they tend to get fired and blacklisted from the field. Or sometimes, they get outright murdered and it’s treated as a “suicide.”

A shitty fact of life: sometimes, the people who are more willing to resort to underhanded tactics and willing to turn a blind eye to corruption are the ones who climb up the career ladder furthest. And in the case of the police, it’s deep-rooted enough that it can’t be fixed internally anymore. But that doesn’t make literally every police officer corrupt.

I’m not posting this to make some political point or argument though. I obviously disagree with Kurikuri’s opinion, but I respect it. I can even respect her decision to remove the stories featuring the police, or even the ones heavily focusing on the characters’ jobs as pro heroes. I can see how heroes are just another version of law enforcement, because honestly, they are.

As a writer and a reader, I fully respect that it’s ultimately her choice to delete her stories. It’s not my place to make demands. She’s the one who created it, and as a writer I know the hard work and time that goes into crafting stories, so I believe she has a right in how it’s used and shared. The fact she shared it in the first place was something she didn’t have to do.

But the thing is, she DID share it, which is why I have this conflict.

As a writer, I’ve always believed that fiction can be more powerful than fact.

Fiction can give readers a window into mindsets you’d never imagine before, because you can connect more easily with fictional characters than real people on the news. That’s why Uncle Tom’s Cabin was so critical in the battle against slavery: it didn’t just gave a face to slavery, it let readers experience the characters’ lives directly. People got to see the struggles and suffering firsthand, feel the rising crescendo of hope each time freedom is in reach, and the soul-crushing despair every time that hope gets dashed by outside forces.

Fiction may not always be “true” or even “accurate,” but it can help us understand other people, see them as fellow humans, in ways that nonfiction just can’t. It can evoke emotions, empathy and familiarity in a reader that a news story or biography can’t capture because it draws you directly into their world.

And it’s that part—the part where readers enter this fictional world to connect to characters they’ll never meet—that leads to the other power of fiction that many people overlook:

Fiction has the ability to help readers persevere.

How many people reading this have used books to get away from trouble in their lives? To take a breather from all their anxieties and stress, and dive head-first into this other world for just a moment, where nothing else matters? How many people reading this had their whole lives changed by reading a story where a character’s words resonated with them? Where it helped them come to an epiphany about how to do better, how to be better.

Sometimes, the world is too overwhelming and we need to escape it. That’s the beauty of fiction. It lets us go to a world where our problems just don’t matter. Even if the world in question is worse than our own, it can still be a relief and give us hope because hey, at least we’re not living in 1984 or the Hunger Games, right? Stories are what keeps many people going through the hardest time, what gives them hope that life isn’t utterly hopeless.

And even after a story is finished, whether it’s fan fiction, a book, a show, or any other medium, that story will have a special place in people’s hearts. Many people will go back to those stories years later when they’re faced with immense stress and need a break from the real world, so that they can dive into the world that helped them persevere the last time they felt so bad. Just having a copy of it on hand can be a source of comfort even if you never read it again.

I want to highlight one phrase Kurikuri used in her post to describe how people feel writing stories about police and heroes: "fun and escapist”. That’s honestly so accurate, those stories are escapist, and that is why I’m so conflicted.

Stories about superheroes, while technically revolving around themes of law enforcement, are a form of escapism FROM police corruption.

There’s a reason that superhero comics are so popular in America. Superheroes appeal to a natural desire for justice because as so aptly pointed out, the real world doesn’t always HAVE that justice. It gives an ideal for people to aspire to, a glimpse of what could be, what should be. (Come to think of it, that’s probably why I hate the DC cinematic universe so much, it’s skewed way too much to favor the villains/antagonists and maximize suffering for the good guys.)

Right now, the world is full of more injustice than ever before. I can’t turn on the news without feeling my rage and stress boil over. Every day it gets worse and worse somehow, and I (and many others) genuinely fear that the United States may be heading towards a civil war this November. Donald Trump’s voice alone is enough to make my blood boil at this point.

I, and many others, turn to fan fiction so I can break away from reality because that amount of rage and fear just isn’t healthy.

I don’t have depression, or anxiety, or an abusive family, or a chronic illness. I’m not at risk of being made homeless anytime soon, nor do I need to worry about bills right now or going hungry. I’m a privileged white girl who has barely anything to worry about. What I’m saying is I’m fucking lucky and I know it, but I STILL can’t stand thinking about the state of the world and need to get the fuck away from it to take a breather for my own mental health.

And I also know that many people don’t have that option because their situation is so bad, they NEED to be aware of it at all times.

In the past when writing for other fandoms, I’ve had people tell me my fan fiction was the reason they did not commit suicide.

In my early college years I fell into the creepypasta community and was pretty active in it, especially on deviantArt. I don’t know if that particular fandom’s subject and focus makes it more appealing to teenagers going through rough times or what, but I swear, more than half the people I spoke to suffered from some form of mental illness, abusive or broken family and home situations, bullying, and every other way the world can screw someone over through means beyond their control.

During that time, a few readers left comments that waiting for my stories to update were what kept them going. They didn’t explicitly say that it was the only reason they didn’t kill themselves. It was more just remarks like, “Your writing is the only thing keeping me going.”

I’m not vain enough to believe my stories are so good, it made people decide to continue living JUST to see what happens next. Suicidal thoughts and urges are much more complex than that. But it’s still not something you expect to hear on something you write for fun.

I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t because my stories were "just that good.” I think it was because they needed something to cling to in bleak times. That sometimes at the lowest point where all seems lost, people need just one little thought, just the smallest thing to push away those dark urges before they could fully overwhelm them. Something like, “If I die now, I won’t get to see how that story ends.” It’s such a small thing, but having something to look forward to can be so powerful in fighting off impulsive decisions.

It’s made me hyper-aware of just how powerful writing is.

To me, I see writing as a way of helping others. I give people that option for escape. It’s a large part of why I update on a regular, weekly schedule, and why I published extra chapters when the pandemic got announced and when the riots started. People need that comfort, that little break from reality to just sit and breathe so they can get through the rest of the day. I can’t do much to fix the world, but I can at least give people that.

Right now, people need that escape more than ever.

And deleting the stories is taking that escape away and causing MORE stress.

In times like this, people often turn to the stories they know will help most, and plenty of people in fandoms will first search up their favorite ships. They look for fluff, smut, angst... It helps people feel better to focus on these two people who are obviously in love as they work through their troubles.

Many times, readers will be more drawn to stories in the canon universe than radical AUs set in other universes. That’s how they were introduced to those characters. I myself can enjoy no-power and fantasy AUs sometimes, but what I really crave are how they interact in the canon world because that’s the world and versions of them I want to see the most. By deleting EVERY SINGLE STORY IN THE CANON UNIVERSE, that option was removed.

In many of the stories that were deleted, the characters’ careers were honestly a minor facet of the story. Some used it to establish the setting, such as treating injuries after a patrol. Some just simply used it to explain they work at UA, a school for teaching kids with superpowers. Some just had them work as heroes because it’s set in the canon universe, and never directly show ANTTHING about the work.

I’m not always looking for a story about how being a hero shapes and impacts their lives, and most of those stories that got deleted AREN’T about being a hero. That’s just one piece of their character, it’s far from the focal point. It could honestly be removed from several of them without changing the rest of the story.

I can get wanting to make a political point and I respect that, but by deleting those stories, you’ve taken away a key source of comfort from hundreds, thousands of people. By deleting the stories, you’re making the stress worse.

On Saturday night, I realized several of my favorite stories are suddenly gone. I knew Kurikuri had deleted a bunch of her stories, but I hadn’t realized just how many of them I liked. Some of them I’ve specifically sought out to reread multiple times in the past, never really paying attention to the author. Realizing they’re just gone caused me heavy stress because it made me paranoid about all these other stories I like to reread. I don’t expect those stories to be around forever, but I still didn’t expect them to vanish so suddenly. I never thought I’d need to download them to make sure I’d still be able to read them while the site is still up.

I spent hours searching out specific stories to see if they were written by her, and make sure they’re not gone forever. I have no way of knowing which ones she’d written and deleted because there’s not exactly a list out there anymore. My desperate search for those stories and one in particular (which I still haven’t found) contributed to the lack of sleep I got that night.

And I need to reiterate: I am mentally healthy and have no major stresses in my immediate life. And that’s why I’m hyper-aware of how this stress will affect people who AREN’T as lucky as I am.

If an author decides to delete their stories because they feel the stories themselves push harmful values or themes, fine. If they’re getting harassed, or it reminds them of a bad time in the lives, or they just don’t like that story anymore, okay. I can respect that and accept it.

But these stories were deleted for the EXACT reasons that people will be looking for them now more than ever, and that’s where I draw the line.

This applies to ALL fandoms.

If you as a fan fiction writer have more than, say, 100 kudos on a completed story or one-shot, there’s a good chance people will read and reread your story in stressful times. If you have a reasonably popular story that updates on a regular or even semi-regular basis, there is a chance that someone is using it as a lifeline to have something to look forward to while the rest of their lives go to hell. Maybe not because they specifically love it, but because it gives them something routine.

I want to make it clear that it’s not our job to care for other people’s mental health. Fan fiction writers don’t have an obligation to people, we’re doing it for fun first and foremost. We’re not some sort of saviors, and we shouldn’t think of ourselves that way or we can honestly screw people up worse. We’re not obligated to write these stories JUST for our fans.

At most, our stories are sources of support and comfort for readers. A little break from reality. If writing a story is causing you more stress than enjoyment, stop. Fan fiction, and all other fan media and stories in general, is ultimately created for the creator’s enjoyment more than anything.

Your own mental health comes first. Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm.

But with how utterly fucked and unfair the world is right now, people need those stories now more than ever. So if you’ve got a story out there that’s fairly popular, please, please, PLEASE be mindful of your readers before deciding to delete it. Now is the absolute last time people need more stress trying to find a single story. And if you’re going to delete it, maybe give readers a heads up so that those who need it or have some powerful attachment to it for all the reasons I’ve discussed here can download a copy for their own personal use.

Don’t hurt your readers to make a point.

[sparrowwritings]

The Ever “Delightful” Consequences of Friendship

Ao3 Link

"He could tolerate quite a lot from his more carefree friends, but stupidity--particularly stupidity that he'd done his best to prevent--was far more than enough to set him off."

Emet-Selch is more than happy to welcome his friend into the Convocation of Fourteen as Azem. It's a role well earned, despite lingering doubts and a disappointed twin.

Too bad said friend means to action on them, even though he explicitly advised against it.

This can only go well, clearly.

Co-credit for this idea (and one of the characters) goes to @thedovahcat

“Oh. Hey. What’re you doing here?”

“Offering both congratulations and condolences. I take it the news didn’t sit well with her?”

“With either of us, to be honest…”

“Then I suppose it’s good that I brought two well fermented bottles.”

“...Are you sure you’re not the concept of perfection in person form?”

“Please. Flattery will only get you so far, particularly now that you’re part of the Convocation.”

“Ah. Right. That. Guess we’ll see each other a lot more, huh?”

“Our roles have some overlap, yes, but even if they didn’t you’d find the time to annoy me regardless of your position. You just don’t get the benefit of team effort to do so.”

“Heh, that’s true...”

“...I’m not supposed to inform you about the selection process, but I can say that it was a close thing. Both of you were equally qualified, but there is only one seat. You being selected does not mean she is less talented. You might recall that when I was appointed, Hythlodaeus was also just as if not more qualified for the seat.”

“I know, I know...still, it just doesn’t sit well with me.”

“You’ll get over it once you’ve officially taken on your duties. You’ll be able to leave the city more often, help more people, etcetera. Everything you already enjoy doing. Feelings fade, duty doesn’t.”

“I’m this close to taking back your status as the concept of perfection.”

“I’m dreadfully devastated.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“I ought to get Hythlodaeus to come over. He’d help us find a way around this.”

“He would suggest highly illegal things when you ought to accept the situation given to you.”

“Hades! Have you lost your heart in your time as Emet-Selch?”

“I wouldn’t bother talking to you if I had. Or brought drinks."

"Hmph."

"...Look. You have been chosen for Azem, not Artemis. Wanting to change the past won’t fix anything. Besides which, the seat already suits you well, and time will only make your duties easier. Don’t try to do anything that you will regret just because of your guilt about something you couldn’t have influenced."

"Mmmm…"

"Unless you want to be known as the shortest tenure of Azem in history. I'd rather you not, but who am I to get in the way of what you desire?"

“...Oh fine, you haven’t lost your heart. Yet. I'm not going to quit."

"Good."

"She'd never speak to me again after all the hard work we both did for the seat."

"After giving you a hefty thump on the head, yes."

"But I do still want to help Artemis feel better, somehow."

"I must stress that I'm confident that she will be alright. Should that not be the case, however, I've devised a series of distractions to keep her mind off of the topic."

"...You were worried about us, huh?”

“Baseless accusations of my person aside, you and your twin both have a history of awful decision making whilst upset. My goal is to prevent the two of you from causing me more headaches, Apollo.”

“I think I can safely say that your goal isn’t a very attainable one.”

“Hmph. Think about what I’ve said.”

“I will.”

“Repeat what I’ve said, then.”

“‘Feelings fade, duty doesn’t.’ ‘Don’t focus on the past, look forward to the future.’ ‘I was slightly less qualified for my seat and I’m doing just fine.’ ‘I’m Hades and I’m always right about everything.’”

“Charming.”

“Thanks. I’ve been practicing my you-imitation.”

“I noticed.”

“You don’t have to glare so hard, I am listening to you, I swear!”

“I’ll believe that when I see the evidence for myself.”

“You wound me.”

“The drink will help with that.”

Emet-Selch felt his eye twitch in irritation at the scene before him. He could also feel the headache building at his temples already.

When he got his hands on them, he was going to let them have it. Both of them. Preferably with Hythlodaeus in the same room so that he could get the triple combination of annoying troublemakers. It didn’t matter if he'd had nothing to do with the situation that was unfolding. Blame could be given to him regardless. Hades' words would be hot enough to scald the three into submission if it was the last thing he ever--

“Are you feeling well, Emet-Selch?” 

The genuine concern in the young voice cut through his rage-fueled imaginings. Turning to face the speaker showed him none other than Elidibus, the youngest of the convocation. He had an anxious tension in his body language. An equally anxious expression surely was overtaking the face underneath the small red mask of his peer, though he was careful to be facing forward. 

It took Emet-Selch a moment to enforce a sense of calm in himself, if only to not snap at the youth for something he had no knowledge of. “I believe I may be a little under the weather,” He managed to say while his gaze moved from the youth to Azem, who was still happily chatting with another member of the convocation. “I could have sworn that Azem resembled someone else other than himself. But that couldn’t possibly be the case. There would be serious consequences if my imaginings had any basis on reality.” Venom crept into his voice as he spoke. So much for keeping calm.

He was well aware that he was far more perceptive than most. His attention to detail was one of the reasons why he had been considered for the seat of Emet-Selch in the first place. Noticing the subtle things about people was what his friends jokingly referred to as his "party trick" and they often roped him into their childish games by this ability.

This time the games had gone too far. Worse, he'd specifically warned against doing anything as foolhardy as what he was witnessing. 

Even more enraging, Emet-Selch hadn't even needed a moment to tell that Artemis was pretending to be Apollo to play the role of Azem.

It was so obvious to him! Yes it was difficult for most to tell the difference between the twins (especially when Artemis decided to pin up her hair to fit inside of the hood of her robe like she had done here), but to blatantly disregard any propriety and sense on a chance that no one would notice was just irresponsible, ill-conceived, and idiotic.

He could tolerate quite a lot from his more carefree friends, but stupidity--particularly stupidity that he'd done his best to prevent--was far more than enough to set him off.

Before he could stomp over and demand what she could be possibly thinking (and damn the consequences), Emet-Selch felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down to see the worried frown on the part of Elidibus' face that he could see. "Did Azem do something to vex you?" He couldn't see the young man's eyes, but it was plain as day that they were wide and round with concern under the mask. "It must have been a great offense to anger you so. You're so often unflappable."

Emet-Selch winced. His rage, which had been building up again, left him all at once at Elidibus' gentle chiding. He made a mental note to be certain that no one, especially not his friends, heard a word of this. Just because he was still debating on whether or not to still call two of them friends of his didn't mean they needed to hear about this embarrassment. Beside which, he had been showing unprofessional behavior and he'd hurt the Emissary's feelings by accident. He needed to clean his own mess before he could begin to address the real problem.

Thinking quickly gave him a believable (and even somewhat truthful) tale for the youth. "My sincerest apologies, Elidibus. Azem had consulted with me about a personal matter some time ago." He spared a glance towards "Azem." She gave no indication to have noticed anything unusual, for she continued to be engaged in conversation. "I was...concerned," It took an immense amount of effort to keep his voice from expressing his true feelings. "That something he had said in jest was what he ended up doing despite my quite stern disapproval." 

Elidibus tilted his head, the frown lessening into a more neutral expression as he mulled over what had been said. He still hadn't let go of the sleeve of Emet-Selch's robe. It wouldn't take much effort to extract the cloth from the youth's hand, but he'd done enough to tarnish the Emissary's usual enthusiasm so he merely stood there. After all, he knew where the twins normally congregated. And he even had some ideas about where they would hide if they were alerted to his wrath. He could afford to wait for a response.

Eventually the youth nodded at some conclusion he had reached. "I think I understand. Your anger is related to the censure that Azem received."

"I would describe my feelings as an extreme form of irritation, though I can see why you would assume that." Off base though Elidibus was, it would neither be the first nor last time that Emet-Selch had used the assumptions and words of others to technically tell the truth. Particularly when Hythlodaeus, Artemis and Apollo were involved. The fact that a topic of the day's meeting had indeed been a public reprimand for Azem's recent unsanctioned (yet heroic) actions made for a good cover. "Azem is incapable of ignoring those in need. Regardless of the warnings given by wiser fellows."  It was a true statement no matter which twin he was talking about. 

A grin settled on the Emissary's face. "How fortunate, then, that we are blessed to have the seat of Azem filled by one so willing to go above and beyond what is asked of them." The smile dimmed a smidge as Elidibus added, "Though it comes at the cost of the concern of their friends."

He looked away from the youth, carefully keeping his face neutral although the words struck a chord within him. "I don't recall mentioning being friends with Azem."

"You don't need to disown Azem just for not listening to you, Emet-Selch." He could have sworn that he heard a hint of an eye roll in that sentence. Not that he could confirm it even if he were searching for an expression. "Mayhap there is a reason behind their actions that you have yet to grasp? The only way to know for certain is to ask." 

A pause grew between the two until finally Emet-Selch gave a snort. "Truly you are the heart of the Convocation, Elidibus." A warm smirk tugged at his lips as he glanced back down at the youth. Sure he was practically lectured by one much younger than him, but his own worry over the well being of two of his fellows was endearing. "I will take what you've said into consideration."

A truly radiant smile greeted his gaze. The young man finally released Emet-Selch's sleeve. "I look forward to your reconciliation." 

It was his turn to roll his eyes with as much subtlety as possible. "We'll see about that." With that, he turned on a heel and made his way to Artemis.

Apparently she had just noticed him walking towards her, for she said her goodbyes and made to leave. Emet-Selch deftly wrapped a hand around his friend's arm before she could escape. "Azem, there you are. I've been meaning to talk with you about something. Let us away and chat."

Just because he was less angry did not mean he wouldn't have strong words for his friends.

"So, how did the meeting go...?"

"Fine enough. I made an upsetting discovery, but was discouraged from acting on it immediately."

"I see."

"And then I had a serious conversation with the twins."

"Ah."

"...You knew that Artemis and Apollo were impersonating each other while also taking on the role of Azem."

"Why that's preposterous. And illegal. And many other equally negative descriptors--"

"Hythlodaeus."

"--why would you accuse me, your dearest friend, of knowing such seditious information? I'm hurt, Hades. Very hurt."

"Hythlodaeus."

"I'm just as shocked as you are that such a thing is happening--"

"The twins didn't say a word about you knowing. Then again they didn't have to."

"Oh fine. Yes, I knew."

"And you didn't try to stop them?"

"How could I? You know as well as I do that once those two have something set in their minds, nothing will discourage them. Even you couldn't stop them if you'd known about it beforehand."

"I did try. I didn't know what the plan was going to be, but I attempted to discourage it anyway."

"And see how much that slowed them down."

"Hm."

"...If it helps, I had nothing to do with that particular decision. They came to me after they had already set themselves on it. I merely made a few suggestions about how to better impersonate each other."

"So the hair extension concept was your doing."

"Guilty as charged."

"Be thankful you're not being charged for anything. Nor are the twins, in case you hadn't heard."

"Good, good."

"...It's odd, though."

"What is?"

"I told Apollo 'feelings fade, duty doesn't.' And I still agree with that. Yet, here I am shirking my duty to report all of this for the sake of my friends' feelings."

"...Perhaps you just have the wrong phrasing."

"Oh really?"

"Don't look at me like that, you can be wrong sometimes, Hades."

"Then what, pray tell, is the correct phrasing?"

"I'm no wordsmith, but perhaps it should be something like, 'many things, including feelings, can and should slip from your grasp, but duty and friendship are what you should hold onto.'"

"...You are absolutely no wordsmith."

"My apologies for trying to sum up your own clunky speech." 

"How are we friends?"

"We just are."

"...She really was being obvious about not being Apollo, though. I told her to not get caught, but I'll need to make certain that no one else suspects. It'd be a nightmare if any other member of the Convocation knew."

"Oh, they didn't tell you?"

"......Tell me what."

"They've informed Elidibus already. It was one of the first things they decided on because, to quote them, 'It would be cruel to leave him confused about the situation.'"

"...Please tell me you have a well fermented bottle."

"Coming right up."

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

you’re not the poison; it’s me.

... um. titans 2.07 absolutely WRECKED me you guys, and i would like to tell you why in excruciating detail:

SPOILERS ahead

(and before i go ahead, i just want to say this: this episode deals with ptsd and psychosis and suicidal ideation explicitly, in ways that even i found difficult to watch. it’s very intense. please keep that in mind if you decide to watch it.)

1. usually genre tv shows like to pile on the trauma but deal with its fallout either rarely or in oblique ways--shots of the character brooding, a couple of ‘candid’ talks filled with frustrating euphemisms, then it’s on to tackling the next plot point. not titans tho--for this show, the trauma is very much the point. the plot is wafer-thin and takes a backseat as the show takes episode after episode to break down its central characters and hammer it in that there are no easy fix-its for complex trauma, and that Dealing with it is a continuous, sometimes lifelong process. it forces you to keep re-evaluating and re-contextualising the actions of these characters and challenges your assumptions.

1.5. for instance: let’s take donna troy. in s1 she was the put-together big sister to dick, content with living her life outside the superhero community while giving sound advice to dick about how he can get his own life back on track. now? she’s a stressed, paranoid wreck, plagued by horrible memories and taking her insecurities out on dick and jason and whoever else is available. deathstroke’s machinations aside, there’s something deeply dysfunctional about the way the original titans operated, the ways they brought both the best and the worst out of each other. it seems like none of them really understood the seriousness of what they were doing until they did something truly terrible that they couldn’t take back, and it was earth-shattering enough that donna completely abandoned her old life to live as a civilian. trigon’s vision for her in 2.01 reminded her that she was fooling herself; coming back to titans tower and actually having to face what made her run away in the first place has broken down the walls she’s spent five years putting up. it’s not pretty to watch, but... it tracks.

2. after having written post after post about dick cracking under relentless stress and the weight of his own guilt complex, it was startling to see him actually fall apart. halluci!bruce was absolutely brutal and really brought home the fact that Good Lord, Dick Grayson Is So Far From Okay That It’s Not Even Funny Anymore. 

because here’s the thing: dick is deeply unwell, and however the show proceeds with his character from here on out, this episode made absolutely no bones about that fact. his single-minded dash to find and kill slade is framed as both irrational and suicidal. he’s visibly on edge, bursting into bouts of uncontrollable rage. he’s shown to carry a guilt complex the size of mount everest, to the point where it actually seems delusional. he’s fucking terrified of abandonment, to the point where he’d rather cut off ties on his own rather than have others leave him. he’s constantly berating himself and this doesn’t give him a moment to sit down and think and try to form a rational plan. halluci!bruce even mentions meds and “uppers and downers” to cope, and i am genuinely concerned that that was what dick actually did to cope in the immediate aftermath of whatever the fuck went down with him and joey and deathstroke. maybe it’s ptsd with a secondary psychosis triggered by nearly losing jason the same way he lost his parents (and massive sleep deprivation, i imagine), or maybe there’s another underlying chronic mental illness. either way, he needs help. 

man but halluci!bruce was vicious. if this is what dick has running in his head at all times, no wonder he broods, and no wonder he takes others admonishing his choices with barely any protest! 

2.25. looking at this from a different perspective, tho, here’s another way in which bruce wayne functions as a symbol on this show. phantom!bruce is how dick normally externalises everything he hates about himself, and this dynamic plays out very literally in this episode. 

interestingly, and somewhat heartbreakingly, it took dick accepting and internalising his low opinion of himself and his veritable ocean of guilt for judgy!bruce wayne to turn into loving, concerned!bruce wayne, who would comfort dick and wipe his tears. (it is entirely heartbreaking that that’s what dick subconsciously craves from bruce.) dick must debase himself for love and acceptance. it’s fucking tragic. 

2.55. and what does it mean--for dick and for his friendships with the og titans--that he’s so convinced that they would leave him if he told them the truth about jericho? for one, even back then, it seemed like dick was doing a lot of the emotional labour for the team: as a leader he both funnelled and executed the team’s plans, with responsibility for the fallout falling unevenly and mostly on his shoulders; he acted as the go-between for the team and bruce, for donna and garth, probably for hank and dawn, given he was dawn’s rebound. later, hank and dawn are visibly concerned by how viciously he fights. after re-forming the titans, he continues to shoulder responsibility for the shit-show that deathstroke rains on them, although he didn’t know deathstroke was alive when he re-opened the tower. of course he thinks that the team will think that he’s beyond redemption if they find out the truth; of course he’d want to go and finish off deathstroke on his own--or die in the process--before any of them finds out. 

2.75. but guys, here’s the thing: in spite of all of this, dick grayson still went around to check on conner and jason and assure the latter that he didn’t blame him for running off on his own. he saw jason standing there on a precipice right at the end, and decided he was going to be opaque anymore, or fall back on what he learned from bruce. he sits down with jason and finally divulges the secret that he had been willing to die to protect--making himself vulnerable to save jason’s life. he’s trying so goddamn hard even though his brain is rioting against him right now and probably has been for years. it’s just--i can’t imagine a truer, more sensitive portrayal of dick grayson than this.

3. watching jason reach his breaking point was,,, Not Fun. it’s one thing to be seemingly passed on like unwanted baggage from guardian to guardian. to be viewed with contempt and impatience when he just wants to make sure his voice isn’t lost in the constant shuffle. to be looked at as an impostor by the very people he looks upto. to be assigned the role of hot-headed fuck-up despite all his attempts to be useful, to prove himself. but to have all of that fall on him all at once on top of (poorly) dealing with a near-death experience? yikes.

3.25. and the horrible, tragic, human part of it all is that donna and the others probably didn’t even know what they were doing to jason by piling on him like that? he’s a relative outsider to both rachel and the og titans. he’s an arrogant prick that’s easy to hate. without dick and gar to stand up for jason, he’s cornered by people who haven’t even gotten to the point of seeing him as a vulnerable kid that’s struggling, just like the rest of them.

3.5. and so the two robins perch on the ledge, each convinced that they are poison that will either kill or drive their friends away. it’s a fraught moment of connection that stops jason from jumping, but he doesn’t step away. both of them are on a precipice in more ways than one; i can only hope they help each other land on the right side.1

also, bruce wayne? send your sons to therapy MY GOD

4. kory and rachel using their awesome powers in concert to cure conner! kory using her cultural background to connect to and help conner! conner mumbling in kryptonian! krypto fucking shooting across the sky with eve on his back! in such a sad and intense episode, it’s important to remember that some fantastic things happened as well!

5. here’s the thing: i don’t think dick killed jericho in the way that he probably thinks he does. dick is a hugely unreliable narrator--that’s been his Thing since s1. part of me thinks jericho should be dead; whatever happened with him and the titans has been built up to be such an earth-shattering event that it would kinda be cheating if he survived anyway. the other bigger part of me says: fuck that noise. JOEY WILSON LIVES, and that’s that

6. gar was sleeping? are you kidding me??? i’m assuming deathstroke drugged him or something so that he wouldn’t be there to Talk Sense and stop these melodramatic fools from tearing into each other. i can only hope that there’s some Big Plans for him down the line. 

[mnogorgannik]

2 10 n 11 :)

this is basically an essay im so sorry. watch how hard i can infodump (ill put this under a cut hopefully it works bc sometimes tumblr decimates the keep reading things if theyre in asks)

2. Who’s your favorite of the Bound? What do you think of the different ideologies they have? Which of the factions are you most aligned with?

WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER I AM A PETER LOVER THROUGH AND THROUGH!!!!!! oh baby i love that morally questionable architect. pretty early on in getting into pathologic (it’s coming up on a year now...) i thought about peter stamatin too hard and now i’m here. but really i find him to be such a fascinating character!

the thing about pathologic that i love is how almost every character can be as complex as you want. pathologic does an excellent job of implying a lot of character traits while only exploring some in further detail, which in some games is frustrating but patho does it so well! it consistently hints at traits and lets you fill in the details yourself. peter’s character is extremely interesting to me... and maybe a little more relatable at times than i want to admit lol.

i think i’ll talk about both stamatins though! their dynamic hurts me a lot. i’ll start with andrey bc i’ve been thinking about him lately. although i’ll bounce back and forth between both stamatins.

i’ve said this before but i’ll say it again.... andrey’s role as a protector who inadvertently hurts the people he cares about really gets to me. he is not a shield but, in his own words, a battering ram. and the problem is that battering ram has a recoil.

i have to wonder how that mentality of his came about, anyways. the implication is that it’s always just been him and peter, so did he take on that role because there wasn’t anyone else to do it?

in his efforts to protect peter from... military, i believe, he kills four people. which leads to daniil getting mistaken for andrey, which leads to daniil getting shot. and almost dying. he protects peter but to a smothering extent, peter even says he’s been suffering for ten years bc of andrey which is a LOADED line. he protects on a physical level but he kinda fucks up on the emotional.

there’s a horrible irony in peter and eva being the people he cares about the most and both attempting suicide. with eva once she’s missing he immediately goes running off trying to look for her, and . ahh i can’t remember right off hand what exactly he thought happened. but ik he was probably expecting a fight. with peter he says that after that he’ll never let peter leave his side, at least “as far as his knife can fly”... it sounds cheesy but the one thing he can’t save anyone from is themself.

and god the way andrey bases his ENTIRE sense of self worth on peter fucking hurts. they’re not peter and andrey, the architects. they’re Peter And Andrey, The Architect. (thinking about “one architect, two brothers” here.) andrey thinks he’s larger than life and all but he’s constantly living in peter’s shadow. their theatre of death positions come to mind here, with peter standing up, looking down at andrey. but andrey is on his knees in front of peter, arms limp to his sides.... separated by a wooden beam...

peter’s side of this dynamic is fascinating too. his dependency on andrey is. ow. leaving all practical matters and decision making to him... there’s this resentment (That’s Fine I’ve Been Suffering For Ten Years Because Of Him) and lack of communication that especially shows through for him.

while in p2 andrey completely crumbles if peter dies, peter doesn’t seem to care...... at all....?? which hopefully is elaborated upon in p2. he’s willing to talk to aspity about worrying if andrey is angry with him but he can’t bring it up with andrey himself. when he asks how andrey is doing he stops and says andrey is a “tough man” and can handle anything. in general, while it’s definitely there for andrey, themes of dependency are really glaringly obvious for peter.

one of my favorite peter things i’ve talked about before is still his ego!!! peter has a gigantic ego!!! he really does think that even though he’s hit the ceiling and can’t go any further he is still “a true architect” and “the rock upon which is built the stairway to tomorrow”. he has a blunt edge to him and he doesn’t ever tell you more than he thinks he needs to which i love. if he doesn’t want to tell you something he isn’t gonna do it. this is a character trait i think ppl miss which is sad because it’s so good and adds another layer of depth to him!

it really does hurt me how he’s valued for his mind alone (AHEM AHEM AHEM. GEORGIY) but it’s the thing nobody understands about him. i’m nowhere near as smart as peter lol but i do know that pain of feeling like none of your ideas can be understood because you just can’t express them the way you’d like, and then feeling like you’ll never be able to make it happen.

also, here’s a little thing  i’ve picked up on. this connection probably doesn’t exist but i’m making it because the stamatins make me lose my mind and start becoming one of those people who looks for connections in everything i guess. peter standing in the theatre of death, andrey below him. peter’s loft being at a high point in the town, the broken heart being underground. peter’s loft is also higher north on the map but the broken heart is lower south. just smth interesting

i have more thoughts on them of course! but this is all getting awfully long. i feel like i’ve only just gotten to the tip of the iceberg  even though i’ve written so much skfjskfjs this just feels quite surface level or. at least what is surface level for me who thinks about the stamatins so hard.

anyways i’ll keep my answers to the other two parts of this question quick! peter and andrey’s more creative vs practical mindsets are rly neat. especially because i would actually argue peter is a little more grounded in reality in certain aspects. not all, but certain ones...... their take on the utopian ideology is interesting. hot take: peter’s version of utopianism leans a tad towards humility. and andrey /does/ feel “straightforward utopian” but i think in certain regards? this man has a bit of a termite streak..... (hi al if you’re reading this). but i won’t get into that right now i’ve already gone on so long. saving that for later.

i think all of the factions kinda suck in their own way sometimes, honestly? although all of them are well written and have their pros and cons. were i in pathologic and i had to choose one i’d probably be a termite but everyone around me seems to think i’m a utopian. is it bc i love peter so much

10. What would you be like as a Pathologic character?

this question is a hard one! i did make a self insert once, mile-a-minute, but they’ve become their own oc by now. i think i’d be very...... very afraid...... probably isolating myself why does every pathologic character break quarantine???? also you could trade beetles with me :) thats about all i’ve got sorry this is real short

11. What is something you would change, writing-wise, about either game?

UGH i’ve been gushing about pathologic because. obviously i love this game so much. but the way it handles racism & such (in both games!) leaves much to be desired :/

i see a lot of the points it’s trying to make but i think the way they’re handled can be very messy. there are moments that work very well but. a lot that don’t. (i am aware that dybowski writes partially from his own experiences)

all too often the game “validates” the kin’s oppression and... at times paints them as oddly antagonistic? i don’t like how often as artemy you’re able to be like “i’m not one of those beasts” and i think there are better ways to touch on his internalized racism. in general the constant comparisons to animals is weird. you get big vlad who is obviously explicitly racist comparing them to animals, but then sometimes it’s like “ACTUALLY calling them animals is fine :)”

i think the herb brides are kind of. Hm. in their portrayal. also using parts of the buryat alphabet to denote an accent is weird. making odongh and herb brides inhuman is weird. connecting the kin to Magic is weird.

and, listen, i’d really like to not be playing Artemy Burakh Experiences a Microaggression Simulator every time i’m playing the haruspex route. hate that you either can’t call ppl out on their shit or if you can it ends the conversation/bars you from getting necessary information. glad you at least get to drag the vlads, i guess?

i also was talking about this but wrt peter specifically, and this issue is present throughout the game but it’s especially visible with peter, i don’t like how often you can mock him for his addiction.

he’s obviously in an extremely rough patch! being able to be just so plain cruel to him about the dependency on alcohol (and iirc in p1 hallucinogens, bc aglaya mentions it) he’s formed to cope with his mental illness & trauma just feels bad. especially because yes it is not a healthy coping mechanism at all but... it still is a coping mechanism, if that makes sense?

the way you’re able to constantly rub it in his face feels awful. peter is fully aware that it isn’t good for him and shows a desire to quit. even if he didn’t it would still be awful to say because. it’s just insensitive. like you don’t just go up to someone and keep being like HEY YOU DRINK A LOT YOU SHOULD STOP DOING THAT DO YOU KNOW WHAT WATER IS? feels really bad to keep harping on something that causes him pain and that he struggles with every single day.

however peter does have moments where he tells you Not to say that, or if you pry into why he drinks he’ll outright say he doesn’t remember you being his friend, which is better than nothing.

in p1 moreso than p2 i hate how you can be like oh he’s craaaazy he’s off his rocker he’s delusional!!!! that “why, i never... an architect of schizophrenia!” comment sticks in my mind because it’s just... so genuinely mean. especially because if i remember correctly that line is from when he’s planning on LITERALLY FUCKING BURNING HIMSELF ALIVE

i think if they were going to have all of this they should have gone more in depth on how it’s really. not good that he’s treated so poorly. and i do believe that’s what they were going for, a la the art book w/ the whole “not to be made into a drunken clown, this is a tragic character”, etc. but it just doesn’t land. i’m holding out for the bachelor and changeling routes in p2 to see if they expand upon any of it but i highly doubt i’ll be satisfied in this regard.

i stand by the One time it was really fucking funny to clown on peter being the time you can tell him little girls eat raspberries and earthworms and he just believes you

[iron--spider]

Worried that Tony Stark is going to die in Avengers: Endgame? Do you want proof that he logically shouldn’t and the citations needed to die on that hill in the event that the powers that be do the unthinkable? Well step right up, fans and friends, because @whimsicalethnographies and I have compiled everything you might need, from canon quotes to future promotional appearances, that prove Tony Stark is not destined to die, and if they do kill him, they are ignoring the path that they laid out themselves and are thus causing his character arc to fail.

Here we go:

Canon evidence

“Don’t waste your life, Stark”

“A man with everything and nothing”

Both of these quotes are referencing family. Yinsen was referring to his own loving family, and Tony revealed that he didn’t have one (of course it’s hinted that this is Pepper—she’s supposedly his frantic text when they’re first attacked—but he doesn’t explicitly have it or her yet). Yinsen’s sacrifice was not for Tony to become Iron Man. It was for Tony to have a life, to have a family. What he didn’t have in the beginning and what he wanted to stay alive for. Tony ultimately fulfilling Yinsen’s true wish for him to stop isolating himself and make a family would be the most satisfying way for Tony’s story to end.

Yinsen is able to die peacefully because he has family that has already passed, and he wants to see them again. There is no way Marvel can properly parallel this because Tony’s family (the ones he genuinely loves anyway, other than his mother) are still alive, or still in the future (his children). If he dies he will leave everyone behind. The love of his life will still be here, and he’ll never be able to have children. If Pepper is pregnant, this is even worse. He will have a child, as he wanted to do, as he was looking forward to doing, but he will never meet it. This is especially cruel.

This would be a gross subversion of Yinsen, and ruin any meaning the character actually had in Tony’s life. He wanted him to be more, to have more, and to Yinsen, more was a family who was waiting for him.

In IM3, a little boy in a restaurant ominously whispers, “How did you get out of the wormhole?” It’s heavily implied that that line is entirely in Tony’s head as he’s descending into a panic attack and represents his fear of the unknown, and his fear of how he’ll handle the unknown, essentially finding the man behind the Mandarin mask who is coming after the people he loves AND fear of what he’ll do if he doesn’t have his armor to protect him. He obsessively spent a year(ish) building suits (of questionable quality) to keep that unknown away. By the end, he’s faced *that* fear, the fear of who he is without the suits. His anxiety/PTSD shifts from that point to Thanos himself, but he doesn’t yet have a face or an actual explanation until Infinity War, even though the magnitude of it is ramped up in Ultron by Scarlet Witch using the power of the Mind Stone. This is the start of facing an unknown, and if it follows the narrative comparison, coming out on the other side victorious, better, and stronger as a person.  Rising above and moving on, not dying in the process, continuing to carry the self-inflicted weight of the entire universe.

“A famous man once said, ‘we create our own demons.’”  Dying when he comes into contact with and defeats his true demon—“my only curse is you”—is not giving Tony his good ending.

An article on Iron Man 3, arguably the most important movie in Tony’s arc https://filmschoolrejects.com/finding-the-place-of-iron-man-3-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe/

“Tony is defined by his desire to set arms down and leave war behind; Steve is defined by his inability to do the same”

“If Marvel really wants to give Tony the ending he deserves, they’ll let him live. Fans will continue to push their predictions down the pipleline until they eventually come true, but the arc laid out for Tony, starting in Iron Man 3, is clear. He needs to let go, but he can’t. The conclusion of Tony Stark’s arc isn’t death; it’s learning to pass responsibility on not to an army of robots, but to the people he trusts. After ten years, Tony Stark deserves his time in the sun.”

Tony’s PTSD - it would be a punch in the face to those of us with anxiety/PTSD/OCD who identify with him. He's got one of the most realistic portrayals of mental illness in film, and the powers that be acknowledge that, and it would SUCK for a company like Marvel to rip it all away when he's almost to the point of letting go of the responsibility he's carried—rightly or wrongly, because Thanos would still be collecting those stones even if Tony had never been in that cave—since the beginning of his story. Dying? That's not letting go. That's saying "sorry you went through all this, it sucks and then you die, because it really was all YOUR responsibility and you have to suffer to fix it."

In Ultron, Helen Cho says Tony’s “bulky metal suits will be left in the dust”. Tony says that’s “exactly the plan”. He wants to retire. He wants to be able to stop being Iron Man so he can live his life.

“Isn’t that why we fight? So we can end the fight and go home?” Tony in Ultron. None of this has ever been continuous for Tony. He’s consistently been heading towards his future goals and fighting when he has to—he gets derailed because he feels it’s his duty to step back in. He does not seek out the fights, and he doesn’t necessarily want to be a part of them. He wants to make his life and that’s where his narrative is heading. If it doesn’t make it there, it fails. He fails.  

“Maybe I should take a page out of Barton’s book. Build Pepper a farm, hope nobody blows it up.”  “The simple life.”  “You’ll get there one day.  “I don’t know. Family, stability...the guy who wanted all that went into the ice 75 years ago. I think someone else came out.”  End of Ultron conversation with Steve. Tony wants to settle down, buy a farm for Pepper (representing retirement and the start of his family). He is the one, out of himself and Steve, that is actively seeking to “tap out” of the fighting life so he can be with Pepper, and start a family. Steve says “I’m home” when he hears the soldiers chanting.

Wedding conversations in Civil War, Homecoming and Infinity War. The amount of mentions this has is huge. It would be a major hanging thread if it never happens.

The original plan was for Pepper to be pregnant during CW, however this was changed to put Tony in a darker place. They are going for Dad-Tony eventually, and that wasn’t conducive with where he was in CW. Yet.

Happy has been carrying “that thing” since 2008. Would they really do that to Happy/Jon Favreau, perhaps the other father of the MCU as he directed Iron Man—have him carry the ring for 10 goddamn years just to cut that storyline off with no resolution? Happy deserves to see this man-child he’s chased around forever get married and settle down.

Specifically, “Wong, you’re invited to my wedding.” It would be a terrible subversion if instead he goes to his funeral.  

And per the writers (who also wrote the CA movies),

Markus: Things always shift in the writing, but I think we all knew where it was going and it was a matter of how best to get there so that it feels most satisfying or most earned.   What was that adjustment process like? How much did the script have to change from when you were breaking it in 2015 to when they went to film it? Were there big things that you had to account for that you just hadn't had any idea about? Markus: Because of the other movies? No. I don't think there was anything massive that we had to change gears for. There were things that became better because of the value that the other movie had acquired. https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477 That would be an absolutely collosal shift to wipe it away entirely

The baby conversation in Infinity War. Why set all this up so blatantly if they weren’t going to use it?  For a cheap emotional rug pull? Tony wants children, not just another set of his genes in the world.

And Pepper’s response; she doesn’t want children if he’s still Iron Man, for fear that he’ll be distracted, or something worse. If she’s going to have a kid with him, she wants him there. If the point was simply a baby, not a baby AND Tony, this is pointless exposition. Also, Pepper has thought Tony was dead at least four times: IM1, Avengers, IM3 and IW. Would they really make her watch it happen for real after that? Rob her of her family and make her worst fear come true, right in front of her eyes?

Tony as Odysseus - A lot of us—who've watched and identified with this character—realize that this is an Odyssey, not a Tragedy. Odysseus makes all kinds of mistakes while trying to get home, but he gets there, after 10 years. And then,

“As for yourself, death shall come to you from the sea, and your life shall ebb away very gently when you are full of years and peace of mind, and your people shall bless you. All that I have said will come true.” He makes it home. He got super lucky a lot of times, but he made it home, to his family. He found his everything.

“You’re a hard man, Odysseus. Your fighting spirit’s stronger than ours, your stamina never fails. You must be made if iron head to foot.”

Alternate translation- “You’re a hard man, Odysseus, stronger/ Than other men, and you never wear out, / A real iron-man.” (both quotes taken from starkravinghazelnuts, http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/181064173168/so-i-did-more-research-about-tony-steve-and-thor)

Promotional

https://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201812/6461/ Tony Stark is heading up a new rollout in Disneyland parks. Speaks for itself, they’re making Tony have a very strong presence in the parks. Disney is for kids, kids love Iron Man, and they will be aware of his death and reminded of it when they see him and Stark Industries everywhere on their family vacation. Longtime fans will also have to deal with this. If they were actually going to kill him, why would they make his presence in the future of these parks so big?

“In California and Paris, Tony Stark is retrofitting two of his father’s Stark Industries sites into new hubs for training and innovation. Through partnerships with S.H.I.E.L.D., Pym Technologies, Masters of the Mystic Arts and the new Worldwide Engineering Brigade, The Avengers and their allies will forge new global campuses to champion the next generation of heroes.” We know Hank Pym hates the Starks because he feels Howard betrayed him by trying to replicate the Pym Particle.  As Scott says, “Hank Pym always said you could never trust a Stark.”  How does this work, unless there is something forward that allows them to establish a better relationship? This can’t be retrofitted to anything before a potential Endgame end.

https://youtu.be/0tW77VFKQC0 https://youtu.be/EVIu43xSeYY In the Ant-Man and the Wasp ride, they collaborate with Tony/Iron Man in their ride mission. You see him, they speak to him, and it seems like a new storyline. It connects to the Iron Man Experience’s storyline, the ride they already had there in Hong Kong.

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/marvels-iron-man-vr-ps4/ upcoming Iron Man VR game. It would be very morbid playing this game, from Tony’s POV, if Tony is dead.

That giant Iron Man statue for Endgame in Hong Kong (https://www.timeout.com/hong-kong/news/a-giant-4-5m-iron-man-installation-and-life-sized-avengers-have-taken-over-hysan-place-041219). Imagine coming across that thing if you just saw him die. It’s staying up until May 13th. Do they want it looking like a place of mourning? A monument with flowers and notes? Shit, that’s a spoiler in itself that I don’t think they want. It would also be incredibly depressing.

https://www.tmz.com/2018/01/12/avengers-4-wrap-party-cake-drops-clues/ Endgame wrap party cake. If Tony died, he would be on this thing. It wouldn’t even be considered a spoiler because Iron Man is literally the face of the MCU, so people wouldn’t look twice at it. But his absence does say something—that they didn’t think they needed to pay tribute to him here, because he is still around to pay tribute to later, if need be. This cake is implying different characters are in peril, with certain hands shooting up out of the ground. But Iron Man is only represented with his logo on the bottom, as are all the rest of the heroes. If he died, he’d be the centerpiece. More on this theory by starkravinghazelnuts http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/180160474003/the-cake-theory-proposes-that-cap-nat-and-bruce

Cast quotes regarding Endgame

Gwyneth - (on a picture of her and RDJ) “you know I will be this guy’s Pepper any time he needs me” why would she say this if he’s dead? If he was dead and she didn’t want to spoil, she didn’t need to say anything at all.

And this wasn’t a one-off referring to playing opposite him, she was referring to Tony/Pepper, after an interview in which she said she was probably done, but would come back for a day if they wanted her.

Gwyneth again - https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477 “Pepper and Tony have had a real long journey together. She obviously starts as his dutiful assistant, and then the relationship evolves, and now this decade later they're married, and they have a child. Their relationship has evolved in all of the ways that great romances evolve.” Now, I always saw this as—Gwyneth was done filming when this quote was given. She was aware of the end of her character’s journey, so this is obviously something that happens at the END chronologically. Why would she reference something smack dab in the middle of the film, especially if it was just going to be erased by time travel/quantum realm shenanigans? She’s also wearing an engagement ring and a wedding band in some interview photos where she’s in costume. Plus, possible/probable spoilers…….Pepper is going to be suiting up as Rescue, which really knocks off the possibility of a mid-movie child for Pepper and Tony. It would be completely against her character to suit up and leave a kid behind, considering how much flack she gave Tony for his suits before, and how her hesitation to have a child hinged on Tony re-inserting his arc reactor. Plus, on a more emotional note, Gwyneth refers to Tony/Pepper as a great romance, and it is. But I feel like she and Robert combined would not be happy at all if the writers were to destroy this great romance by killing one of its members. That way it falls flat, it never finishes, it doesn’t get its rightful end. I feel like she and RDJ (who has significant sway over what happens to Tony) would argue against this happening. This is a great romance, and those end in happily ever afters. This isn’t West Side Story. This is a Disney movie.

Evans -  https://youtu.be/bH0frwdtmXM (when asked to describe the movie in one word on GMA) “Satisfying. It’s like TV shows, the final finale—how many times do they stick the landing? How many times do you walk away saying that went exactly how I wanted it to go? This movie—I think they deliver, I think they really do stick the landing in terms of, you know—addressing the arcs and really finding a completion.” I think this definitely speaks for itself. The arcs are important and we know what they are. One of our main concerns is them tossing out the true endings to these arcs for cheap, cruel emotional shocks. If Chris says specifically that the arcs are addressed, then we know what that SHOULD mean for each character. Plus, saying “that went exactly how I wanted it to go”? I don’t believe any genuine fans want deaths. Especially fans with children. People who genuinely care about these characters want to see them succeed and live to reap the rewards. So saying it went “exactly as I wanted it to go” and that they “stick the landing” bodes well for things ending up nicely for our heroes. Nothing in his speech here screams death.

Hemsworth - https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a27110673/avengers-endgame-chris-hemsworth-interview/ also uses the word cathartic. Nothing about Tony dying would be cathartic. It would be sickening and depressing and we wouldn’t get anything out of it.

Taika Waititi https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1082838/Avengers-Endgame-Korg-Taika-Waititi-Thor-Ragnarok-Avengers-Infinity-War-MCU-Marvel “They keep their cards so close to their chests, but from what I’ve heard, it wraps up everything in a really great way." “It feels like the fans are getting rewarded for hanging around for 10 years and watching all these films.” “Because the more you know about the characters and the stories and stuff, the more satisfying this film will be.” These feel particularly important. A reward would not be killing the biggest character in the MCU. And he mentions the fact that really knowing the characters makes everything more satisfying. We all know where Tony is heading, and what he wants. These quotes particularly point to Tony surviving, and maybe everyone surviving.

Scarlett - https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/scarlett-johansson-calls-avengers-endgame-beautiful-valentine-decade-madness/ “a beautiful valentine to a decade of madness” Not ‘my bloody valentine’. A gift full of love for the people that have been here for ten years watching these characters grow.

RDJ - https://twitter.com/our_rdj/status/1118891286763798528?s=21 https://twitter.com/caplovesfondue/status/1118764023397249024?s=21 https://twitter.com/MCU_Direct/status/1119043210553249792 “I guarantee you that this will pay off. This Avengers Endgame, I’ve said it before, is our finest hour.” “The last eight minutes of that movie are maybe the best eight minutes in the entire history of the whole run of them, in a way. Because everyone’s involved. So I was delighted.” Both of these quotes, from the man himself, the man who loves Tony Stark with his entire being, do not feel like a Tony death at all. Because if we know Tony, we know what a payoff for him is. It’s getting the life, the family he’s been fighting for since the beginning. And as for the second one, logically, eight minutes does not feel like enough time to send Tony off in an out-of-left-field death. And I think our final battle will be longer than eight minutes. So I personally believe he’s referring to the wedding. He loves Tony/Pepper enough to hold their wedding in extremely high regard. He’s always delighted with Tony’s happiness and Tony advancing in his journey, especially with Pepper by his side.

“Cathartic” - https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/herocomplex/la-et-hc-avengers-endgame-press-conference-20190407-story.html said by the Russos at the press conference

“Satisfying” - https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a27110673/avengers-endgame-chris-hemsworth-interview/ , https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477

“Earned” https://www.etonline.com/how-the-avengers-endgame-writers-arrived-at-the-most-satisfying-ending-possible-exclusive-123477 When you think about Tony, you do not think his death is earned at this stage, because so much is left hanging that his story has been calling for since moment one. What would be “earned” for Tony is him marrying Pepper. He has more than earned that. She has earned this wedding, too.

Misc (POTENTIAL SPOILERS)

Tony has sacrificed over and over and over again, in almost every movie we see him in. Doing it in Endgame would be a rehash of the same storyline, and sacrifice is not something Tony has to learn. He already knows how, he’s already willing. He needs to learn how to live. Bringing him to that realization at the end of it all would be the most appropriate route to take.

Iron Man 1 - he implores Pepper to hit the button, even though she tells him, “but you’ll die.”

Iron Man 2 - while it could be said he would be killed by the presence of the reactor itself, JARVIS explicitly says the use of the suit is accelerating the palladium poisoning that is killing him. Tony doesn’t stop. Part of this could be attributed to his reckless end-of-life attitude, but it’s clear from the Senate hearing—he wouldn’t have stopped

The new element is obviously something in itself. While the IM2 novel called it vibranium, this was retconned in CA, and then set up for more in Captain Marvel when it was revealed the project involving the Tesseract was called Project Pegasus, first called that when Fury dropped off Howard’s things at Tony’s mansion. Tony withstood the power of the Mind stone in A1 with the arc reactor, and then again in IW when Thanos unleashed the power of the Power stone on him and the suit merely blocked it. The suit is literally powered by the Space stone, much like Carol is, and for IM2-IM3, the Space stone literally powers Tony, which is more than you can say for a Mad Titan. Even Hulk doesn’t have the power of the Space stone behind him. You don’t hang a gun on the wall unless you plan on firing it later.

Also tied into IM2 - “if you could make a god bleed” … Tony is the only one to actually injure Thanos.  

Avengers - Tony lays down on the wire. The arc set up by Steve’s comment is fulfilled when he flies the nuke through the wormhole. He knew it would probably kill him, which is why he tried to call Pepper.

Iron Man 3 - he sends his suit to Pepper first, when the “Mandarin” comes for him. Then in a deleted scene, he removes his arc reactor to save Harley’s bully, and nearly dies before Harley puts it back

Age of Ultron - Tony, despite wishing to go home and buy Pepper her farm, is willing to stay with Thor on the flying rock, even though he knows he could die, it’s his responsibility to fix this.

Civil War - this is a bit of subversion, as Tony is in a dark place and never needs to sacrifice his life. But as we saw in IM3, Tony IS Iron Man. And he’s willing to turn over power of Iron Man, which he wasn’t in IM2, to a higher power. He’s willing to give up his autonomy to keep the rest of the team out of jail and assuage his guilt (he’s starting to see the repercussions of bearing it all on his own). We can have discussions about who was right about which part, but Tony was willing to sacrifice a big part of himself.

Infinity War - duh. He got on that spaceship. He was planning on it being a one way trip (which incidentally, is why Pepper wasn’t keen on a kid). And then he took Thanos on one-on-one. And then, the look of despair when Strange gave up the stone to save him? He was more than willing to die.

Endgame - eventually, he will be willing to try, even if it means his death, because he’s always been willing to sacrifice himself. Remove that burden from his shoulders.

(It is interesting to note that the one time Tony is not in the position to sacrifice his life is in Spider-Man: Homecoming. When he is in the overseeing/mentor position, which could be his role in the MCU after Endgame, and when he’s starting to take up the role of “father figure”, which he should also be after Endgame, but to his own biological children as well.  He is however, appalled and terrified at the thought of someone else, this crazy Spider-child who’s just a bit too much like him, being reckless and willing to sacrifice himself.  Maybe Tony needs to take a bit of his own advice.)

The endings of the Iron Man movies are all tonally upbeat and to end Tony’s story for good on a “downer” note does not go along with his storyline --from starkravinghazelnuts http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/181110494893/avengers-endgame-is-said-to-be-the-end-of-many-of

The Infinity Saga is Tony Stark’s arc. Every other character, including Cap, is ancillary. Every character is where they are because of a Stark. What happens to him will be the defining characteristic of the Saga, and it isn’t set up to be a Tragedy.  

RDJ says the last eight minutes of Endgame has “everybody” involved, which would obviously include Natasha, who is extremely important. Which contradicts the reddit “leaks.”

https://twitter.com/stevcrogvrs/status/1118853707280601088?s=21 Chris Evans says if Steve had a choice, he would go back in time to be with Peggy. Since he was able to say this, there’s no doubt that it doesn’t happen, as the Marvel spoiler snipers would have switched from Mark to Chris and put five holes in his head before he hit the ground. This contradicts the reddit “leaks.”

https://comicbook.com/marvel/2019/04/19/avengers-endgame-hawkeye-black-widow-relationship-jeremy-renner/ Jeremy Renner also says Clint and Natasha’s relationship will last “forever”, which seems to underline their closeness and how much they mean to each other. All of this contradicts the reddit “leaks”, which describe a horrible thing happening to the two of them that wouldn’t ever actually happen if they were to stay in character. Plus, Chris Evans apparently called these dudebros out and straight up denied their “leaks”, so these “leaks” have no veracity either way.

When asked to draw their favorite characters, Anthony Russo drew Iron Man and Joe drew Spider-Man. The Iron Dad relationship is obviously going to be important in the movie, and it would bode well for these characters to get a good ending in the movie if they’re the very favorites of both directors.

RDJ is screening Endgame at his house for family and friends on Easter Sunday. Would he really ruin a holiday with a movie in which his character dies an unwarranted death?

There has not been a wedding in the MCU yet. What would be a better way to end the MCU’s first romance than with the MCU’s first wedding? We’ve had a funeral already, for a side character, and that was bad enough. Imagine how horrible it would be to witness Tony Stark’s funeral as the ending for Endgame. That does not seem like the kind of feeling the Russos want to leave us with. The wedding seems far more appropriate for a movie of this scale and importance.

The chess theory (courtesy of starkravinghazelnuts) — “The last piece to discuss on the chess board is the King piece. This piece is the game winner. Once your king is check-mated, the game is over, and your opponent wins, regardless of the score. The king chess piece is the piece you must protect the most and the one you cannot live without. Many experienced players may find themselves utilizing the king in an attempt to gain an advantage over an opponent, something weaker chess players are leery of doing. No matter how you choose to use your king piece, he must stay alive at all costs.” Tony and Thanos are the Kings on opposing sides. The king must be kept alive in order to win, which is why Tony should make it to the end of the film intact. Thor also literally mentions someone “playing an intricate game” and says that person “has made pawns of us” at the end of Ultron when discussing the Infinity Stones. http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/181491397743/starkravinghazelnuts-quite-frankly-this-is-the

Two very important meta pieces by starkravinghazelnuts, who has essentially been funding my positive attitude for a while now http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/182086909963/looking-back-over-everything-i-still-feel-really http://starkravinghazelnuts.tumblr.com/post/182017989478/i-agree-with-you-the-rhodey-show-sounds-good-but-i

https://fanfest.com/2018/08/16/the-russos-reflect-on-iron-man-being-the-heart-and-soul-of-the-mcu/ “I think, in a lot of ways, he is the heart and soul of the Marvel universe,” Infinity War co-director Joe Russo said during a video interview with Wired. “He’s a fascinating character, a character that we love because he is imminently flawed and we like characters that are challenging and express their humanity and I think Tony Stark does that as well as any of the characters. He started off as a narcissistic alcoholic and grew into a hero which, I think, makes him imminently relatable and signifies what the Marvel universe stands for, which is character first and the heroes are defined through the choices that they make.” The Russos love Tony. And you cannot live without your soul, you cannot live without your heart. No matter what you say about Tony, losing him to death would leave a massive, gaping hole in the MCU. Keeping him available to return is the safer bet in almost every regard.

https://youtu.be/f0Ai05cUQoM “If there were no RDJ, there would be no MCU.” - Kevin Feige. RDJ started it all, and Tony shouldn’t die, his presence should remain. He should be able to pop in and out as he sees fit. They know his star power and how important Tony is to the MCU.

https://www.newsarama.com/39526-rdj-as-iron-man-irreplacable-but-will-eventually-leave-says-avengers-infinity-war-directors.html “One closeup from RDJ is worth another actor’s entire performance, he’s incredibly gifted and insanely talented” - Joe Russo. May be a weak reason, but would they really...make him permanently lost to them? They’ve expressed interest in coming back. Would they really banish their most talented and lucrative actor to the darkness of a character death for a cheap shock?

https://youtu.be/5ljluGA4dQU (around ten minutes in) In the Jimmy Kimmel interview, they show the clip they’ve been showing everywhere of Carol’s meeting with some of the Avengers. Jimmy points out that RDJ isn’t in the clip, and he asks if that means something bad for Tony. RDJ says “No, no, no. Not in the slightest.” He could and probably is referring to the fact that Tony is definitely alive at this point, sure, but his attitude and the way he says it points to an overall confidence about Tony that bleeds over to the viewer. In fact, Robert’s whole demeanor during this press tour has been one of pure joy. He is having the time of his life, dancing and laughing, moreso than we have seen before. It could be a man enjoying his last tour with a very special group, but, somehow, I don’t believe someone who loves Tony as much as RDJ does would be this happy if Tony died. Especially if Tony’s death was unwarranted and out-of-left-field, which it absolutely would be if it happened. And this is in contrast to Chris, who has been, while not sad, far more reserved.

Some on-point thoughts from some of the few sane people on reddit:

“After Infinity War went out of its way to establish Thanos as a physical embodiment of Tony’s PTSD (“he’s been in my head for 6 years,” “My only curse is you”, *author’s note:  see also above with coming to face an unknown fear like in IM3*), the idea of him ultimately defeating Thanos by killing himself is like... morally reprehensible as a message. I’d like to think Markus and McFeely would know better than that, but honestly, I’ve felt since Civil War that they don’t have the best grasp on his character. Edit: someone asked me in a PM to elaborate on this, so I’m just gonna go ahead and post what I wrote just in case anyone’s interested. Ok, this is gonna be kinda long, but I’ve been sitting on this for a while. so Iron Man 3 was the beginning of Tony’s new character arc that’s gone from phase 2 up till now. In phase 1, his whole journey was learning not to be selfish, and to be willing to put himself on the line to protect others. Avengers 1 completes that arc, and Iron Man 3 sets up a new conflict, where he’s driven entirely by his trauma from the events of The Avengers. He’s obsessed with protecting the world from threats beyond his control- we see it in Iron Man 3 with the house party suits being products of his anxiety, and in Age of Ultron with the Ultron program. He feels like it’s his responsibility to be everyone’s protector, and he’s desperately clinging to any sense of control he can still have in a world that he now realizes is much bigger than him. In Infinity War, he finds out that the event that left him traumatized was orchestrated by Thanos, and for the rest of the movie is driven by a single-minded need to confront Thanos directly and put an end to him, in order to finally be free of the PTSD that’s dominated his life for 6 years. By taking on that responsibility and ambushing him on Titan instead of reaching out to his support system (Steve + the other Avengers), Tony inadvertently puts everything he cares about at risk. In the context of Tony’s story, Thanos is his trauma- and Tony’s defeat on Titan is a direct result of his compulsive need to carry the burden of that trauma alone. So to then have him sacrifice himself to defeat Thanos in Endgame essentially sends the message that “yes, it is a good thing to bear that trauma on your own, and in fact, if you can’t see any other option, killing yourself is an acceptable solution.” It sends a horrible message in the context of the ongoing story, and it doesn’t tell us anything new about Tony as a character- we already know he’s self-sacrificing, it’s been his defining character flaw for four movies already. It’s just a really poor way to end his story.” — msg53

“This. Tony’s arc has been about letting go of his ego while learning to rely on others. His first step was handing Stark Ind. over to Pepper. He tried letting go with Ultron, but it failed cuz Ultron was just an extension of himself. Then he started seeing how being a mentor/father figure could help a kid in need of both (Peter) and the eventual next step should be family and real retirement while others defend/avenge Earth, once he’s done with his Thanos curse. Aside from Thor, His death would feel the most gratuitously out of sync with his journey of all the OG Avengers.” —VictorVonDoomBots

(special shoutout to cuddlebirb over there, consistently fighting for Tony rights)

The absolute nastiness to take out their main character, their cash cow, the one that started it all, when he’s got so much still hanging simply makes no sense. They would leave people with a sick feeling in their stomachs over this movie. People would not be happy with the turn of events, they would feel cheated out of a proper ending for the main character of the whole franchise. It would not be an event movie, it would be the movie that Killed Tony Stark. It would be tainted, and I don’t think the Russos want that. I know they say they think about their own reactions when writing these films, but they’ve gotta be smart enough to realize what a mistake this would be for the die-hard, longtime fans.

Plus, this is an ending to one generation and a lead-in to another. They don’t have Stan anymore to do their cameos, and some people will be on edge about whether to continue. Having RDJ hang around to do cameos and show up here and there to help the new heroes will put people in those seats for the upcoming films. His fifteen minute presence in Homecoming made many people go see the film that wouldn’t have otherwise. They need a hero that people know and love to remain a constant, even if he’s not in a starring role, and Tony Stark is the perfect person to do this. He always helped the younger heroes in the comics, and he’s already taken the mentor mantle with Peter. It’s a natural progression.

The amount of suffering that Tony has been through in the entirety of the MCU and in Endgame in particular, should lead to him finally getting something good in the end, a retirement where he gets to relax and let someone else carry the weight of the world instead of him, for once. Endgame will begin with Tony in extreme anguish, sick, hurt, sad and alone (save for Nebula). In the end, he should be healthy and happy, surrounded by the people who love him, with his future bright, full of possibility, and free of threats because Thanos is gone. That is simply good writing and good bookending. The writers shouldn’t be in the business of torturing Tony for torture’s sake. If he begins in such a dark place, he should end somewhere promising.

Happy’s behavior in FFH trailer. Tony is Happy’s best friend. Would the man be acting so chill, flirting with May, if his BFF just died? It is confirmed that FFH takes place minutes after Endgame. Plus, in a deleted Infinity War scene that featured Happy, Tony says that he and Pepper should set him up with someone. Would that someone be May?

Pepper is literally Tony’s endgame—he says it himself, “in the end, it’s always you.”