#And that could be the scene where everything gets resolved but I like the mental image of Tim locking himself into the bathroom

[lurkingshan]

Unknown Episode 10

I'm back just in time to dive into this exquisite final arc of my current favorite show, and the tension is delicious. I know after last week's near death experience many of us were hoping Qian was on the brink of accepting Yuan, but the thing about Qian is he is stubborn as a mule and terrified of change. We know this about him, so we can't be surprised that he's not quite done breaking down his mental walls.

I loved how much this episode was about Qian's struggle to accept what his heart is already telling him. He knows he has feelings for Yuan. He knows he feels differently about him than anyone else, especially in comparison to his truly brotherly feelings for Lili. Qian has finally accepted that Yuan loves him romantically and always will, but he still hasn't decided whether he can fully reciprocate. His conversation with Yuan at the end of the episode was the first time we heard him admit he has feelings for Yuan, but he is still caught up in whether they are truly romantic, and how he can know that. Qian has no romantic experience to speak of and his feelings for Yuan are so singular that I can't help but empathize with him here. He is not equipped to sort this out on his own, and he's too scared to give in to Yuan lest he hurt him or their relationship by trying to change something.

Which is why that talk with San Pang was so important. San Pang is the one who interfered in their relationship in the first place, tried to talk Yuan out of his feelings, and encouraged Qian when he decided to send Yuan away. He lived with Qian all those years Yuan was away and he saw the damage the separation caused. Qian's misery without Yuan was palpable, and now that Yuan is back and his feelings are only more intense, San Pang has the wisdom (and the distance Qian doesn't) to see that fighting it any further is pointless and only going to hurt them all. He wants them to be happy more than anything else, and perhaps through coming to terms with his own feelings for Lili and navigating the change in their relationship, he has also accepted that Qian and Yuan are happiest together.

San Pang has always been Qian's confidante, sounding board, and reality check, and you could see how shaken Qian was when he finally took away the last of Qian's rationalizations. When San Pang said "be honest, did you feel empty when Yuan was away?" you could practically see Qian fighting against the last of his resolve crumbling. The way his body started to tremble and his voice shook as he tried to make San Pang understand his fear was so moving, I didn't even feel frustrated with him. We can get swept up sometimes in romance narratives and forget how monumental this kind of shift in a relationship can feel, but with Qian we can't forget it, because his fear defines every moment. I love that the show is taking this change so seriously and not rushing us through these final moments of struggle (@wen-kexing-apologist I'm gonna need 1000 words minimum on Qian's mouth twitch, nervous body language, and tears in this scene, Chris killed it). And I felt a lot for Lili in this episode, who is once again witnessing her brothers in a deadlock with each other with no one talking to her about why (though at this point I think she knows).

We end this week standing on what feels like another precipice, as the brothers are once again in tension with each other. This new health wrinkle for Qian is not a set up for a big dramatic health scare (thank goodness) but rather a symbol of that last little bit that Qian is still holding back from Yuan. I loved the way the camera lingered on Yuan's bracelet in the scene where he grabbed Qian's hand and begged to be let in; Qian is the one who gave him that reminder of their connection even as he tries to keep this last small barrier between them. But they are facing each other with everything laid bare between them now. Qian looked like he was in physical pain in that last scene listening to Yuan go on about how all his desires are one-sided and his own problem, but the way Qian reached for him may indicate that he's finally ready to admit they are in this together.

A note about episodes 11 and 12: As expected, the final two episodes have leaked early. I will be sticking to the commitment I made with some others on here to wait for the weekly airdates to post about and interact with content about these episodes. I have filtered [#unknown the series spoilers] and kindly ask that you please tag anything you post early about these episodes. I will be unfollowing and blocking people as needed who can't do this basic courtesy. I have really loved discussing this show in depth with you all and hope we can continue for a couple more weeks!

[hismercytomyjustice]

HEAR ME OUT! IMHO (as someone who has it), Pacific Rim is a fantastic depiction of what it’s like living with OCD, specifically “Pure O” OCD.

It is exactly like “chasing the RABIT,” best depicted by the scene where Mako is trapped in her childhood memory.

SOME BACKGROUND ON OCD:

“Pure O” OCD is a term used to describe OCD where a person’s compulsions are mostly mental. Like getting stuck in thought loops as opposed to something like handwashing. You have a distressing/intrusive thought and your brain jumps through hoops to deal with the fear/anxiety/shame/etc that comes along with it.

From the ICBT (Inference-Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) model:

“A doubt is about a possibility - a thought about what 'could be' or 'might be'. Your symptoms of OCD begin with doubt. Consequences, distress and compulsions logically follow from the doubt. Without the doubt, you would remain firmly grounded in reality without any symptoms of OCD.”

Most folks get an intrusive thought and, while they might find it upsetting or out of character for them, they’re able to accept it as involuntary and more of a random brain blip. With OCD (and some other disorders), a person gets that same intrusive thought and fixates on it. They struggle to let it go, become emotionally tied to it, and experience shame and fear around it.

For example, say you have an intrusive thought of “I might have left the stove on.” Say you aren’t at home to check it. Someone without OCD might understandably worry about it, but maybe they can call a friend/family member to check or maybe they resolve to run by the house when they have a chance to make sure they turned it off.

Someone with OCD however, might spiral. They might go from “I might have left the stove on” to “What if there’s a towel on the stove?” to “the towel could catch on fire,” to “my kitchen could catch on fire,” to “my house could burn down,” to “I could lose everything in the fire,” to “and it would all be my fault.”

And with each mental leap, their anxiety/fear grows. They may not have even left the stove on, but they become convinced they did and now they’re panicking about the possible consequences of their theoretical actions. Their mind/body reacts like their house did burn down and it was all their fault.

Because this triggered such a strong emotional state, maybe next time they cook something they check the stove is off. But what if the knob wasn’t all the way in the off position? What if the burner was still hot and a towel was close by? What if they looked at the wrong knob and the one for the burner they used was actually on? So they check again. And again. And again. Because maybe if they check this time, they’ll finally have run through all the terrifying possibilities and their brain will accept that the stove is off and there’s no risk of a fire.

Meanwhile, by checking over and over again, they’re feeding into their fear and anxiety. It might make them feel better in the moment “oh good, the stove is off” but then they step away from the stove and the fear/doubt returns.

And then the cycle starts all over again the next time they use the stove.

HOW THIS PERTAINS TO PACIFIC RIM:

In Pacific Rim, Mako relives the worst moment of her entire life. She’s a child again and the kaiju is there, her parents are gone, and she’s terrified and running through the streets to try to save herself.

Raleigh realizes what’s happening. He’s a veteran jaeger pilot. He knows all about the RABIT (Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers). He knows what Mako is experiencing isn’t actually happening right now. He tries to pull her out of the spiral, but as she gets deeper into the memory, her emotions grow stronger. She KNOWS she’s not a child anymore. She KNOWS she’s in a jaeger. She KNOWS the kaiju of her past is dead and can’t hurt her anymore.

But none of that matters. She’s stuck in the spiral anyway.

In this case, the deeper she’s pulled down, the more evident her terror becomes because now her emotions are pouring into the jaeger. She doesn’t mean to, but she readies one of its weapons in her desperation to protect herself.

Pandemonium erupts. Everyone’s ordered to evacuate to minimize the inevitable damage the weapon will cause. No one can reach Mako. She’s too deep in the memory.

Even as others flee, Pentecost, Herc, Tendo, and Chuck struggle to manually shutdown power to the jaeger. They only manage it by the skin of their teeth because of how strong Mako’s connection to her memory is.

The memory is like an intrusive thought Mako can’t let go of, the anxiety and fear generated by it fueling her deeper descent into the memory. Everyone else knows it’s not real. Deep down, Mako knows it’s not real. But the emotions tied to the memory in that moment convince her otherwise. While Raleigh doesn’t get sucked into the memory too, we still see him reacting to it because it feels so real.

They finally manage to power down the jaeger and Mako escapes from the memory. In the aftermath she’s ashamed and embarrassed. Pentecost told her something like this might happen and it did.

Even worse, Mako’s always wanted the opportunity to avenge her family and put a stop to the destruction the kaiju have wrought on so many lives. She knew this could happen going in, but it happened anyway!

She relived the worst moment of her life, spectacularly failed in front of people she respects and cares about, nearly killed those same people, and she disappointed herself and Pentecost. She’s spent years trying to convince him to let her become a pilot and fuck, it turns out he was right all along, despite her training, her dedication, and her superior skills.

Now Raleigh is going to need a new partner. They don’t have time for this! The kaiju are coming! They’re humanity’s last hope! How can she face any of these people after almost accidentally killing them? Why couldn’t she stop chasing the RABIT? She knew it was just a memory! What is wrong with her that she couldn’t do this one thing she’s dreamed about and vied for her whole life? How can people like Chuck or Raleigh do this but she can’t?

Just because she’s no longer trapped in the memory, doesn’t mean it and the distress she experienced because of it haven’t had a ripple effect. Yeah, the ripples are less powerful now that she’s not in the epicenter of it all, but they’re still there.

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER:

The memory in Mako’s case is the trigger/intrusive thought. She has a visceral reaction to it in the moment, but even after she escapes from it she’s not automatically fine.

That’s what is so fucking frustrating about OCD. You can sit there all day and think “the stove isn’t on, this is just my OCD” but it doesn’t magically make your OCD go away. Learning to live with OCD is learning to identify these thoughts spirals and preventing lapses from becoming relapses.

A lapse could be “I might have left the stove on” and worrying briefly bit about it before realizing it’s an OCD thought and defusing it, but a relapse is the full blown anxiety trip detailed above that ends in “my house is going to burn down.”

Lapses are scary. It’s so easy to have one and immediately think “oh fuck, oh no, the OCD is back,” but it’s not necessarily true. You can get OCD into a state of remission, even if you can’t get rid of it completely. It’s also incredibly easy to beat yourself up over a lapse or a trigger. Yeah, in the moment you feel like you’re being chased by a kaiju, but then you snap out of the memory and you’re embarrassed and frustrated and scared.

“Why doesn’t anyone else struggle with this,” “what’s wrong with me,” “I didn’t even fucking leave the stove on,” “if anyone knew how upset I was about this, they’d think I was pathetic/stupid/overreacting/being ridiculous,” and so on.

OCD thrives on fear and doubt and shame. Avoiding intrusive thoughts makes it worse by increasing fear/anxiety around them and ruminating on intrusive thoughts makes it worse by further feeding into the obsession.

But the good news is your life doesn’t have to revolve around your OCD! There’s a lot out there that can help like support groups, therapy (specifically Exposure Therapy and Inference-Based CBT), and medications (like antidepressants).

Something that really stood out to me from the OCD Conference I attended this weekend was this quote from the Strategies for Sustained Recovery From OCD panel.

“OCD should not just be about symptom reduction, but about reclaiming your life and finding genuine joy and fulfillment. The primary reason to persevere through the hard work of treatment is to make your life more fun, meaningful, and worth living. Identify activities, hobbies, and relationships that you find deeply rewarding and that bring a sense of purpose beyond just managing your OCD.”

So, yeah, I just wanted to share what it’s like living with OCD and also wanted to give a little hope to others who might have it or have friends/loved ones who do. It fucking sucks, but if you equip yourself with the right tools it can make it a lot easier to live with. It can take most folks over a decade to get diagnosed with OCD and get proper treatment. There’s a lot of factors at play in that regard like recognizing OCD in the first place, access to care, costs for care, shame and embarrassment, etc.

Hell, it took me ~34 years to realize I had it and I was lucky enough to have three therapists tell me they saw the signs! I’m only just now starting to really learn about it, how it impacts my life, and how to live with it.

Just know you’re not alone and that it can get better! I’m definitely not in remission, but I’m working toward it! And I hope if you’ve read this far and resonate with all this, that you’re on your way to remission too!

[rilu-artblog]

How do you think Sheila would have reacted to Gerald if she actually got to see his internet history?

This is like my biggest What-If scenario that I can never think of a good answer for!!

I have inklings of ideas on how to answer this but they're not at all refined, so read below!

Assuming Sheila finds out while she's using TrollTrace and before Gerald and the other trolls knock it down, I think at that point it'd be too late in the narrative to resolve. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the finale of Season 20 is well structured in any way but it's clear that the Troll story was set up to be resolved in one season only. So if Sheila found out about the trolling at the end of the episode, she would either: Not care Slap Gerald silly Or...actually separate from Gerald. I'm gonna try and use as much show logic as I can for these, as well as what would make sense from a writing perspective.

Sheila finding out about Gerald's internet history and not caring anyways is, in my opinion, the most in-universe outcome for Gerald's trolling. He absolutely does not deserve it of course, but I think narratively, he already got his punishment by being sent to Denmark and kinda redeems himself by destroying Troll Trace. However...Sheila doesn't know that. So why would she forgive him or ignore what he's done? Easiest reason would be so that the status quo wouldn't be shaken up and to wrap up the story quickly. In-universe, we see that despite their tense moments,Sheila fully trusts and loves Gerald, and the two are some of the more openly loving couples in the show and definitely of the main 4. If she forgives him, it's because she realizes that she went overboard with how she treated Ike/Kyle and did not want to do the same to Gerald. Maybe she would've assumed that's why he never told her and tried to keep it a secret, showing that Gerald is even more of an idiot for going the lengths he did for keeping his trolling a secret. The reason I think it's the most in-universe is because I kinda think Sheila did find out or know a little about what Gerald was up to, and just didn't want to lose him because we all know Sheila has also done fucked up shit too, so the two of them are not so different. And we know this show has a problem writing women and straight married couples well, so I can totally see the show writing this after they got sick of their serialization experiment.

However, it would be kind of a cop out if Sheila didn't get angry at least once with Gerald. If not her typical anger, then maybe her "so angry she's so done" anger like in the cheesing ep. I don't think she'd physically throw down Gerald, maybe at most a "funny" slap or something, and Gerald would be like "dang it :/" and Kyle would remind him that he's lucky the whole town didn't find out. And it ends with Gerald sleeping on the couch or maybe Sheila pisses on him again. So Gerald would again be stupid for assuming Sheila would immediately divorce him or unleash pure fury on him, but also getting some consequences for his actions without breaking up the family like Kyle wanted. Everything would remain the same for the status quo and we can end this whole narrative.

This one is the least likely but I think could've been super interesting to pull off from a writing standpoint. Just like how the Heidi/Eric subplot carried onto the next season, maybe they could've ended season 20 with Sheila finding, getting angry and kicking Gerald out. So now everything Kyle did to keep his family together failed, and now that can be tied in with the Heidi arc because that's another relationship failing too. The first half of the season before Kyle realizes he likes Heidi could go on as normal, and as Kyle fails to help Heidi too we can see all this build up on him and lead him to blowing up Canada. And then maybe have a scene at the end of the season where after Ike runs away, Gerald realizes how shitty he's been and apologizes, juxtaposing how Heidi has to break out of her mentality and get away from Cartman. And then Gerald and Sheila get back together and Kyle gets at least one win from that season. So yeah that's basically fanfic, and I think that was basically the same time Rick and Morty did the same thing in season 3 (did they?? I cannot recall) so no way would they have done it in the show lol. Plus, apparently not everyone thinks the Broflovski's and Gerald/Sheila are the most important characters in the show, which is just ???

In conclusion, I don't think Gerald and Sheila would've divorced, or stayed separated for too long. Not only would that be a lot of continuity from a season that a lot of the fans disliked and was poorly planned out, if you've watched the entire show you can tell that there's something...weird that happens when divorce is brought up. If they couldn't even divorce Randy/Sharon then they would not care about divorcing Sheila/Gerald permanently. IMO, I don't think Gerald needs to be punished by Sheila for his crimes, because she's his wife not his mother. That's why I don't like Randy's dynamic with Sharon, it feels like she's the nagging wife that takes away his fun even when he's 100% wrong. With Sheila and Gerald, they're both super flawed and yet it's kind of interesting they even got together at all, in another show it would be tragic if Sheila ignored what he did just so that their family wouldn't have to suffer and she can keep that idealized version of her husband in her mind. But it's South Park, so whomst knows.

[deer0skullz]

Does anyone else feel like Umbrella Academy, What We Do in the Shadows and Our Flag Means Death went down very similar paths or is that just me?

To preface, this is mostly based on how I felt as I watched the shows but also on some of the opinions I picked up from the fandoms.

Also, I’m not going to go back and rewatch all of these shows for the sake of a Tumblr post so I’m working from memory and if you feel like I’ve misremembered any of the plot/ characters let me know.

1. Started as well-received and highly acclaimed live-action fantasy shows with ensemble casts.

Based on my own opinions and what I remember from other fans, UA seasons 1-2 were fairly well received, as were WWDITS seasons 1-3/4 and OFMD season 1.

They’re all definitely different genres of fantasy but I’d say they still all fit under the label. And they obviously all have ensemble casts, with the Hargreeves in UA, the vampires (and Guillermo) in WWDITS and the pirates in OFMD. Even though the plots and characters can be quite different they all have similar vibes.

2. Noted for having open queer representation.

Klaus and Viktor in UA, pretty much the entire main cast of WWDITS, and multiple main characters in OFMD.

3. Tied to already established and respected creators.

UA is based on the comics written by Gerard Way who, of course, is also well known for My Chemical Romance. WWDITS is based on the film by Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi, who are both executive producers of the show. Taika was also involved in OFMD as the actor for Blackbeard and as an executive producer. He has his name tied to many acclaimed films like Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Thor Ragnorok and Jojo Rabbit.

These are obviously not the only famous people tied to these projects but it’s just a sample of the talent involved in these shows. I feel like the fact that there was so much talent working on these shows makes my next point more interesting.

4. Experienced drops in quality and/ or introduced problematic elements that caused fans to lose interest or respect.

Again, this is opinion based and if you still liked the shows during these seasons then more power to you.

My overall feeling about all of these shows is that they lost a lot of the joy from their initial season(s) as they went on. Like, they just got significantly less fun to watch. But they also had more specific individual issues that I would like to get into.

I stopped watching UA during season 3 and don’t plan on watching season 4. I feel like a lot of people will already know what I might be referring to with this but yeah, the scene where Allison *did that* to Luther made me so sick. I feel like that season absolutely destroyed her character, and as I said, it just wasn’t anywhere near as fun as seasons 1 or 2.

WWDITS is probably the most successful of the three in my eyes but I could still apply the same argument about loss of enjoyment. The “Guillermo wants to be a vampire” plot line got very stale for me, especially with how they “resolved” (?) it. Saying “oh he’s a vampire now oh nevermind he doesn’t actually like being a vampire and also can’t be one anyway so everything’s back to normal” felt like such a waste of time for me. I know a lot of people also criticised the show for queerbaiting because of the Nandermo plot lines and teases. I wouldn’t necessarily call it queerbaiting but I would agree that the “will they, won’t they” is very played out at this point. Another big criticism I have of the later seasons is how Marwa was treated. The fact that she had no autonomy and was being forcibly changed mentally and physically to appeal to Nandor was treated as like, a running joke and I just found it kind of disturbing. Dark humour is pretty common throughout the show, but given how often her character appeared it felt a lot more, significant than throwaway jokes about drinking human blood. I feel like they could have done so much better with her character.

OFMD is probably the most egregious example of the 3. Season 2 was just not good. I’m not saying it was the worst thing I’ve ever watched but it was incredibly disappointing. The pacing was off, the characters were off, the dynamics were off. It was all just very off. The huge cliffhanger ending with Evil Blackbeard felt like it was resolved way too quickly and everything else in the season felt equally rushed. A lot of the character dynamics, but especially Ed and Stede, just felt wrong to me. From what I understand there were production issues or something so I’m not saying the writers just woke up one day and decided to be bad at their jobs but I can only really judge a show by what I saw on my screen, and what I saw was so far removed from the quality of season 1.

5. Finished on a sour note.

UA ended after 4 seasons, with the fourth being released on Netflix today. I haven’t seen anything that indicates whether this was the intended endpoint or whether it was cancelled. WWDITS will end after season 6 which comes out in October. Again, I can’t find anything indicating whether this was the intended endpoint. OFMD was cancelled just a few months after the release of season 2 in October 2023.

I can’t tell other fans how they should feel but for me I’m incredibly disappointed that 3 shows I really enjoyed saw a gradual (or not so gradual for OFMD) drop in quality that ultimately culminated in them just… ending.

Like I said, I have no interest in US season 4, but I am still somewhat hopeful for WWDITS. I would be really happy if they could bring it back to what it was.

Conclusion

I don’t know what the point of writing this was other than the fact that I’ve always associated these shows as having the same vibes and I feel like it’s interesting that they have a lot of similarities and went down similar paths. Also I just like yapping.

[pynkhues]

Am I the only person alive who would find it (darkly) hilarious if Armand did erase the rest of the 70s interview memory at Louis’ request? I think we can all agree Armand has taken a lot of liberties with the truth and he’s a pretty seasoned manipulator but I’m just so amused with the idea that that was one of the only times he was telling the truth (mostly because of how hard Daniel was rolling his eyes over it and because of how insane it sounds.) it’s got that same energy as that one co-worker who’s always causing trouble who you finally call out, only to find this was the one time they weren’t responsible.

On a similar note, because of how Louis is portrayed (ie with a spotty or unreliable memory at times) and how Armand is portrayed (lying, sometimes directly and sometimes by omission) how do you think about the bits of story we get from the two of them re authenticity? I see lots of takes that just…sweep anything complex or unsavory under the proverbial ‘blame Armand’ rug or the ‘Louis’ brain is Swiss-cheese’ blanket as opposed to examining each action and element of the story through the lens of where each character is coming from in that moment. (For example, I’ve seen plenty of folks question if Louis’ memories of lestat can be trusted at all or if it’s all just Armand’s tinkering to make him look bad and just…it’s a tv show. From a practical standpoint they literally cannot rip up everything they’ve shown you. Rehashing memories can only be done some of the time or the audience gets frustrated. And from a story perspective, can’t we take Louis at his word at least some of the time until shown otherwise?)

(Side note and ironic given my ask but I wish we had half as much discourse about Louis as a capitalist and his understanding of the commodification of experiential human things such as art as we do about whether all his memories are unreliable re his romantic relationships. Thank you so much for including the gallery scene in your fic.)

Hahah, I don't think you'd be alone in finding it darkly hilarious if Louis had asked Armand to take the memory away. Hell, the ambiguity of that scene works because it's believable that Louis would ask - Louis really pendulums between heavy handed repression and unrestrained self-indulgence, and it seems like a dam burst for him that night when it came to Lestat. His name had been unuttered in their home for 23 years! And given Armand can read his mind and could clearly sense thoughts of Lestat in Paris, I imagine he's not been deliberately not thought about too. And suddenly a night with Daniel and it's all he can say! All he can think about! The pressure he's placed on the box he keeps Lestat in has loosened just enough to let it all come out!

To know Armand tried to contact Lestat, to feel his own weakness, to know Lestat might know not just his mental state but his crumbling resolve in terms of the promise he made him in Magnus' tower - - it's not hard to see him asking for Armand's help in repressing it all again.

And in terms of their authenticity in the telling of their stories - - I think it varies! I think Armand definitely and deliberately finds the truth malleable, but that doesn't mean I think he lies about everything. Like you said, he tends to prefer to omit than outright lie - like omitting Gabrielle in his recounting of 1800s Paris or the truth about San Francisco, or, I'm sure we'll discover in s3, Lestat being in Paris in the 40s.

I actually don't think he would've tampered with Louis' memories of Lestat at all though - I don't think he would've needed to. Louis is a really punishing character and Lestat's a volatile one, I don't think it would be all that hard for Louis to focus on Lestat's worse behaviour, or to allow his memory to re-write certain events with the most bad faith interpretations of Lestat's actions, thoughts or words as a means to keep him at an emotional distance. Memories aren't facts, even when we want them to be, and I think for Louis they're as malleable when he needs them to be as the truth is for Armand.

The result is that they enable each other's untruths, I think, which goes to the facade of their relationship. Louis can try and mould his memories into something that justifies his choices, and Armand can mould the truth in a way that makes their love story something more than it is, but that doesn't mean that it's entirely lies or entirely inauthentic. It's a version of a story that they've enabled in one another to perform a happiness neither of them feels, but neither knows an alternative to because Louis' grief struck, traumatised and clinically depressed and Armand has been groomed by a monster, has undealt with trauma of his own and an incapacity to be alone.

So yeah, I think a lot of it is true, it's just not a whole truth.

[callsign-rogueone]

https://www.tumblr.com/callsign-rogueone/746157861837668352/if-anyone-wants-me-to-answer-some-or-all-of?source=share

2, 8 and 18 with Brennan and duchess if you want to? Don't feel pressured 😊 I hope you have a nice day

hihi! it took me a while but here they are! I got asks from a few different people so I'm combining them all here. words: 1.6k (I got a little carried away lol) 🏷: I don’t think there’s any spoilers for the books in here, just for Bren and Duchess’s chapters that I’ve already posted, and some hints about what’s to come for them. I tried this in second-person (you) this time, which was a little awkward (telling you how you feel about things?) but I think I made it work. 

2. What do they find attractive in each other now?

I have waxed poetic on multiple occasions about how much Brennan loves your hair. but also that gorgeous, dark accent of yours that comes out when you speak in Tyrrish with him and when you say certain words in the common language, and the way you smile, and your hands, the hands that contain magnitudes: capable of such tenderness, but that can also start fires (and that the left one bears a wedding ring…), and honestly literally everything about you. the man is obsessed.

you found him cute when you first met, but in those years you spent at Basgiath, he truly went from a boy to a man. he was already fit, but the muscle he gained, and the confidence… the confidence was everything. that, and the scruff. the scruff. you’ve hidden his razor on multiple occasions to keep him from shaving. and the hand thing goes both ways. they’re just so nice to hold, strong, and bigger than yours, and the things they’re capable of… (more than just mending 👀) and his eyes, that gorgeous light brown and the stars reflected in them when he looks at you.

your dedication -- to the marked ones, to your culture, to dragonkind, to everything you do. that regalness you possess, even in dirty flight leathers. your kindness, how good you are with children (and baby dragons)... he could go on. 

his respect and knowledge of tyrrish culture, him knowing the language, and it (mostly) being something only the two of you know, his commitment to the revolution, his strength -- not just the physical, but the emotional and mental and all the other kinds too. the man has been through more than anyone you know. how kindhearted he is -- he literally manifested a mending signet due to his need to care for his sister and to help others. 

3. What would they never want to change about the other one?

literally any of the above. 

4. What do they wish they could change about the other one?

I want to say nothing, but that’s not realistic and also not fun. definitely not anything physical, but maybe some of the other’s tiny habits that just grind your gears? maybe how stubborn both of you can be. little things.

5. What’s something that could make them break up?

y’all are never not ever getting divorced. I will not allow it. til death do you part, baby. you’re both stubborn but logical and rational people. any arguments are going to be resolved with a lengthy discussion and a set of terms you agree on going forward. however, comma, I do have an argument scene (or two) planned for one of the future chapters and it is going to hurt. I’m sorry in advance.

6. What’s keeping them together?

mutual admiration and adoration (see above), and all the shit you’ve been through together -- neither of you are ever letting go of the other, not after all that, after he literally died.

8. Do their families like each other?

I have yet to reveal mama sorrengail’s opinion of her daughter in law (and I'm not going to spoil that!), and you never met Brennan’s dad either.

I have a short scene written out where you bring him home for the first time shortly after the battle of Aretia, and your parents adore him 🥺 you told them all about him in letters home, and they’re so glad you’ve found someone who loves you this deeply. they immediately see that he’s an upstanding guy with a big heart and a natural leader, and they wouldn’t want anyone else to share the title with you.

Brennan is tied for #1 on my list of ‘best FW boys to bring home to mom and dad’. he’s going to make an excellent impression; eldest son, responsible military leader, gentleman, raised right, looks at you like you’re the center of the universe…

9. How does being around each other make them feel?

in a word, safe. you’ve endured so much together, and somehow always made it through. you’re leading a revolution, there’s dark magic on the loose, and you work with dragons; danger is ever-present, but you feel like nothing can hurt you if you’re together.

10. How does being separated make them feel? and 11. How long can they go without seeing each other before starting to miss the other one?

you both start getting nervous after a day or two, but you’re reassured by the tracking and protection runes that the other is wearing, and the wedding rings that tie you together. Your connection to Marbh and the rest of the riot also helps, though that only stretches so far -- if you’re more than a day’s flight away, it doesn’t work. 

Bren gets particularly irritable after a few days, but those closest to him know not to take his sharpness personally when the missus is out of town, especially if she’s in Poromiel on business; the revolution may be allied with the gryphon fliers, but that doesn’t mean he trusts them with his woman.

14. Has their relationship ever been long-distance?

this one is interesting. I’m gonna say no, but with some technicalities. you both went straight from Basgiath to the Lewellen outpost (closest to your home in Tyrrendor). you were a wingleader and were allowed to choose, and he was assigned to the same place (what are the odds?)

following your surrender to the revolution, you do a fair bit of traveling, mainly back and forth to Trivanne to see your parents and deal with the political obligations of being in line for the title, and regrettably, to Poromiel, to deal with the viscount, hence Drake Cordella being in love with you lol. (sorry, pal. you’re ten years too late). so I wouldn’t call it long distance, but you’re used to being apart for a week or so at a time every now and then. and when you return, you’d better believe he’s not letting you out of his sight for a full day hehe 🤭

15. Is one of them way more invested in the relationship than the other?

no. you’re pretty equally in love (see also: obsessed) with each other. 

16. How happy are they about their relationship?

over the moon. you can’t imagine life without the other, and you don’t want to. sometimes the both of you feel a little guilty for being so happy together when all this terrible stuff is happening around you, but you need this -- you need an escape, a safe place, and you’re that for each other.

17. How good are they at communicating their needs and preferences to the other?

I touched on this briefly in my “braids” headcanons, but I didn’t get too far into it: Brennan is the eldest son of the family, his parents worked demanding, high-stress jobs and they were constantly moving. to me, that means he was placed in charge of his sisters often, and made responsible for them like a third parent (something that happens very often in this kind of situation, unfortunately). he’s a caregiver through and through, and this manifested in his signet as well. I think he was unused to people caring for him at first, that it felt wrong or weird, but he got used to it quickly enough, and now he’s unafraid to walk into your room after a long day, pull off the flight jacket with the Lieutenant Colonel’s insignia, and ask for cuddles / attention / etc. he loves having his hair played with, btw. 

this was something you also had to work on; you recognized Brennan’s endlessly-giving personality and were scared to take advantage of that, to ask him to take on even more responsibility on top of his work as a mender and a revolution leader (see “this is me trying”.) but he’s made it abundantly clear that he wants to take care of you, and that he wants you to tell him when you need him; that’s what he’s here for. you and your safety and health are his first priority, always. 

18. How good are they at respecting each other’s boundaries?

there aren’t many boundaries that you’ve set between you, being a married couple who work closely together, but the few you do have are taken seriously, including when/where/how you argue. you can bicker all you want in the assembly room, or anywhere else in Riorson house, but not in your shared room. and you aren’t going to go to bed angry -- which has made for some late nights in his office, pacing back and forth and arguing until you don’t even know what you’re mad about anymore -- and then spending an hour making up, hehe. that post-fight sex hits different. and you can’t leave Aretia without resolving an argument. the one time you did, it nearly broke both of you; you were away longer than expected, and when you finally reunited, you both apologized profusely (some tears involved) and promised to never do that again. it’s already hard being away from the other, but it’s unbearable to be away from them knowing your last words to them were in anger.

I didn’t even answer the question lmao but yes, the boundaries are respected and strictly enforced unless it’s a matter of life and death -- and in that situation, or any situation where the other person’s safety is in question, boundaries be damned. you can apologize for overstepping later; right now, you’re focused on making sure your partner is okay.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Yukio Okumura (LONG PROPAGANDA)

(Does contain spoilers and suicide mentions) Ok so the main issue I see people having with him is because he has threatened his brother and has shot him before. (His brother, Rin, is also the fan favorite so you can probably imagine people's feelings towards those scenes.) A lot of times Yukio also comes off as mean because he's a pretty closed off person and people don't like that either.

Although what people love to ignore is the reasons as to *why* he acts this way. (Granted, harming your brother is not an ok thing to do and it doesn't excuse that but it explains why he did what he did.) For starters, Rin was the one who inherited Satan's demonic power, not Yukio, meaning that Rin could potentially become dangerous even though his powers were locked away until he was about 15. Because of this, the boys' adoptive father, Shiro, put the responsibility of protecting Rin onto Yukio from the age of 7. So while Yukio was training to become an exorcist at a very young age, Rin got to live without knowing anything about demons or exorcists. This did cause some envy from Yukio, who felt the crushing pressure of having to do everything for his brother while Rin had no idea. Later on, Rin's power awakens at 15 (the present time in the story) and after a series of events, Shiro ends up dying due to becoming possessed by Satan. With their legal guardian dead, Yukio is now the one who has to take care of Rin because if his demonic power gets discovered, Rin will be executed by the Vatican. So yeah. In the span of ONE DAY Yukio now has even more pressure put on him and he didn't even get to say goodbye to Shiro, let alone grieve for him because he had to be the calm and collected one in the situation. (Yukio is also 15 btw!!) Now, both boys are going to enroll in True Cross Academy, a school that also has a secret exorcist program. At this time, Rin has no knowledge that Yukio knows what's going on. It's only until he's at the exorcist cram school that Rin finds out that his teacher is Yukio. This leads to a confrontation between the brothers as Rin feels rightfully betrayed that everyone knew except him. This is also where Yukio reveals some of his concerns, leading to people not liking him. Essentially, Yukio says that Rin could be a danger to others because he can't control his powers yet and that Yukio will kill him if it's necessary (this is also where he threatens his brother with a gun). Eventually the conflict does get resolved and they go back to normal for the most part. So not only does Yukio have to keep his brother from getting into trouble (which he does. several times. Rin does eventually get discovered.) but he also has to be an exorcist AND a teacher. Yukio constantly has to act like an adult throughout the series, and HE'S ONLY 15!! He has so much pressure put on him by everyone and if he makes a mistake, either him or Rin could die. As the series continues, you can see Yukio's mental health rapidly worsening due to his self-hatred leading him to several suicide attempts (which he doesn't die because Satan is now residing in his body). Yukio also feels that Shiro never really cared about him and only kept him to be raised as a weapon. All this and the fact that he's being manipulated by another antagonist character leads him to join sides with the Illuminati (the evil organization). By doing this, he will be able to take down the Illuminati from the inside and hopes that he and Satan will die along with it. The entire time up to this point Rin does not realize just how bad Yukio's mental health has been (which to be fair, Yukio is pretty closed off and has lied to his brother several times). Yukio then tries to force Rin to kill him, and ultimately fails because Rin cares too much. Overall, Yukio had so many responsibilities and felt as though he had to take everything on alone. It's honestly very tiring seeing people villainize everything bad he's ever done while completely ignoring how much he actually cares for his brother + all his mental health issues. This is only a summary of the things he's gone through so there's definitely some other details that show the escalation of his depression that weren't included here. But yeah. Justice for Yukio. He does not deserved to be treated like Satan (pun intended).

Apple White

everyone shut up about her being evil and selfish she is a teenage girl who has been raised HER WHOLE LIFE with this ideology, she can’t unlearn her entire belief system overnight especially when it’s so deeply tied to her identity as a person. also she literally does let go of it eventually, because she’s not a static character, she has an arc. apple is my favorite because she’s complex, not in spite of it. on the flipside there’s the people who act like she didn’t do anything wrong. i’ve seen people call raven the selfish one? this show was made for 5 years olds. how do you have less media comprehension that a 5 year old. and also, you’re loving apple the wrong ways!! she makes mistakes. she fucks up so much, and it’s awesome. i get overcompensating because the haters are so loud or whatever, but saying she’s perfect is erasing what makes her interesting. this propaganda is not very good because I’m guessing a lot of propaganda looks identical (edelgard and vriska have similar issues in fandom spaces) so here is my final pitch. vote for apple because she’s a lesbian (her canon soulmate was a girl). vote for apple because she’s a protagonist in a kids cartoon who was a lesbian way back in jan 2016. vote for apple because mattel let the face of their new franchise be a girl who likes girls (still feels surreal) #gayrights #applesweep

[mangoshorthand]

Girl please, I saw that coffee video before and you did good with less than a minute, because I could only bear to watch 5 seconds as with anything TUA, and most likely S4 Five, triggers me instantly.

It was my comfort show, I can't count how many times I rewatched the wedding episode. Now I can't look at any content from the show without feeling like I saw a big spider I want to run away from screaming. I still try to heal from it and it's hard, but at least I eat more now.

I tried. I really tried to understand the plot to somehow come at ease with it and to understand "the other side". I read discussions about it, but decided to stay off from them now for my mental health. I read points that it wasn't cheating, that Lila wanted a break from her unhappy marriage, and they didn't know if they will ever return. That Five grew tired from saving the world and his ungrateful family and chose his own happiness, that the development was there since season 2 (yikes he was a child). But I can't, it's still too horrible. Nobody sees the things we could have had instead.

A friend from Aidan's fandom said that more scenes from Five and Lila got cut off (thanks god) when the episodes got cut, but even with more development, the decision was shit. I know Five grew more depressed, but he was so dead as boring, S1-S3 Five you will always be famous.

Please, you, ANYONE, give me all the good fix-it fics.

What would have been your favourite and fitting ending for Five?What would you have wanted to let him go through his last journey?

For the Five I know, dying making a noble sacrifice is too easy a way to end his story, (though that is by FAR not the worst thing about this season), I think the biggest challenge for him would be to learn to live and not just survive. Five's story is a love story, but not with Lila. It's about the love he has for his family. That love was at the centre of everything he did. He's spent his whole life enduring horror after horror, just to get to this point. He thinks that once he's achieved his goal, he might not be 'happy', but he will have what he needs. But when it finally happens, and he finds himself in a safe timeline, he still feels as lonely as he did in the apocalypse.

He needs to be loved, appreciated and understood by his family, and that's the journey I would have liked to see him go on emotionally. I can see this being catalysed by him being a little selfish, by him acting out and being resentful of the siblings who aren't giving him what he needs, even though he doesn't know how to ask for it.

By the end of the arc, I would want Five's siblings to truly see him and for him to feel seen by them. He just needs a hug. I've written about this before, in my fic Alias Number Five, which I think is my best work:

It centres around a Five after season 3 who finds himself in juvie. There he finds himself in mandated therapy where he reflects on his past and present. The story ends before his arc is completely resolved, but it leaves his siblings with the understanding of what he needs and the tools to help him.

[its-all-papaya]

hands on your keyboard cowboy i want to hear about the rest of your directors commentary pls !!! i LOVE the last landoscar convo in AN i absolutely need to hear more about it

likely place for you to be !!

(me, frothing at the mouth waiting for someone to ask me about this convo after I told you I was staying off tumblr for the rest of today)

ask me anything about my writing and read anybody, nowhere

OKAY. so. the LAST last scene of AN (fan stage) was like one of the very first things I wrote for that fic. I think the paragraph that starts "Lando's not online much these days" was first, followed by the Silverstone podium thing I used in the blurb, then it was fan stage. (Not to keep russian doll nesting asks, but the fan stage scene is a WHOLE other topic I could ramble about, I won't get into it too much here.) Anyway, other than those little anchors, I essentially just typed everything in chronological order and included what felt right when. So it was building in Lando's brain and building with Oscar and I KNEW I wanted it to end with the fan stage, so I KNEW I had to give some mental and emotional like... break? payoff? for Lando before then so that the fan stage would read like I wanted it to.

(break bc this got disguuuuusting long)

The other thing though is that I originally fucked up the Austria sprint finish order? So like 2/3 of the way through I realized I had to switch Lando and Oscar and that obviously like REALLY changed the entire tone of that passage and the bits right after, because the whole thing NOW is Lando getting beat by his teammate, but that super didn't exist until after I'd written all of Austria and started Silverstone. So I added the stuff about Lando battling Oscar and losing, and I loved it bc I think it gives the whole thing more depth, but then I was like... I need to write Lando out of this. I can't finish the fic without resolving the "Lando resents Oscar for beating him" plot-line. And I hadn't actually drafted anything for the last scene, but I had vague ideas of how it was gonna go that changed drastically when I started thinking about how to include some resolution for the on-track stuff.

SO. I'm done with the whole fic minus the conversation scene. We've had the Lewis Silverstone podium (probably my favorite part of the whole fic, and again, one of the original theses of it) and we're trying to get to the fan stage (probably my other favorite part) and I just like... sent Oscar to Lando's room with him? I didn't plan on all of their relationship development being in that one room, but I liked that it ended up that way because it felt really safe and contained for Lando, so I wanted them to get their payoff there, too. I don't really have anything to tell you about the first bit because it REALLY wrote itself. Like I was IN Lando's brain while writing this fic, all of his stuff was kind of me blind reacting to my own lead-up and then polishing it. Oscar was a bit harder to write, and this scene is the first time I felt like I had to actually make him like... do anything. Other than passively react to what Lando was doing. But even his dialogue just sat really right with me, and once I started the conversation it just felt really true to how they'd been all fic.

PAUSE for me to say I was so paranoid all fic too that I wasn't letting Oscar be enough of a real person with real emotions? I was like... some of these races sucked for Oscar too... ESPECIALLY silverstone... am I just going to make him Fix Lando anyway and not address his race? But THAT felt kind of true to Oscar too. Like he's not burdened the way Lando is and he at least seems to let things roll off easier, so I don't think it's OOC for him to not bring it up or be especially affected by it when Lando was a more pressing issue for him at the time.

Okay anyway. I really really loved the weird fight/not fight energy where Lando was fighting Oscar but Oscar just was not fighting back at all, like the one-sided argument was exactly what I wanted. I got through the part where Lando's like "I'm just not winning because I'm not" and then I got. So motherfucking stuck. Because at this point I'm like... okay. Lando has to give something back. We have to address Oscar's races. And I wrote the end of the convo no less than five times and it took probably three hours. I actually have a draft that I liked (I'll include it at the end) where they did address the Lando-hates-Oscar-beating-him thing, but then I had NO IDEA how to get them out of that. Like Lando admits that he hates losing to Oscar, but then wtf is Oscar supposed to say to that? Like... okay? Yeah? And I tried a bunch of stuff and hated it all, so I literally started a new word doc, dumped everything after "I'm just not winning because I'm not" in there, and started completely over from there in my actual WIP doc.

And from THERE I was like. You know what? We actually don't have to fix this for them? Like LANDO thinks this is a huge deal and makes him a horrible person, but does Oscar give a shit? Obviously they all hate losing to each other, that's like... the whole thing. Their whole goal is to beat everyone. So I was like "I'll indulge myself and just let them not deal with it right away" and I'd already written the "oscar's hand is out, palm up" paragraph for that original draft I liked, so I slotted her back in instead. And again, I am IN LANDO'S BRAIN, and I was like if EYE am thinking too much about how this conversation "should" go in a perfect world, Lando is DEFINITELY thinking about it. And I was like oh I need to stop thinking? Lando needs to stop thinking. And it sounds insane now because when I re-read the fic now, the through-line of Oscar calming Lando's thoughts is so so so obvious, but I promise that until writing "I need to stop thinking" it had never ever occurred to me that that's what Lando and Oscar's building relationship was doing for Lando the whole time.

Oh ALSO, in my original concept, they were never going to kiss because I felt like it would be forced bc I hadn't built to it enough. But once I hit on "I need to stop thinking" I was like OBVIOUSLY Oscar will kiss him to shut his silly brain up. Which, fun fact, is where "Lando isn’t even surprised. At any of it, really. It was always going to end up here" came from. It was just me, Soph, being like... oh. OBVIOUSLY THEY WERE ALWAYS GOING TO KISS.

So then I finished the kissing part and I was like... how will we get to fan stage for REAL. And I was still kind of worried about not resolving the on-track tension thing, so I was like... Lando is probably worried about that too! And the last "No, babe. That's your job." came to me straight from heaven or something, idk, but it was so perfect for ending the scene. Like I had spent HOURS AND HOURS worried about how to make them authentically address this and still stay soft and warm with each other and Lando's been panicking about it for eight straight days and we finally get the nerve to bring it up and Oscar is like "you silly silly goose, of course you hate losing to me!"

hahahahaha okay final notes then scene draft: as I said in the answered ask after I first decided to write AN2, I feel like I ended up with a version of this scene that was.... SO accidentally foreshadow-y of Hungary?? I was watching the team orders situation play out during that race and I felt like that dodgeball "the gift of prophecy" meme because I was like... holy fuck, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing that AN Lando was afraid of. The other note is that the line "we don't have to fix it right now, Lando" in the hollow hereafter is a direct result of my fight with this scene in AN and the topics of it. AN2 was destined, it's literally the only thing I can think of with the amount of weird pre-work I'd already done for a situation I didn't know was going to exist ever when I published AN????

oKAY THANKS FOR ASKING CLEARLY I HAD THOUGHTS!! Here are your demos/deleted drafts !!

this is how the austria sprint scene finished when I thought it was Lando P2, Oscar P3:

As he clasps Oscar’s gloved hand in parc fermé, he wishes for a blind second that it was a grand prix so he could remember how Oscar’s eyes looked squeezed against champagne spray up close. Then he remembers that place in the back of his mind and the ugly, twisted relief he felt passing his teammate for the final time, and he shoves the idea away. He doesn’t deserve that, either.

And this is how the final convo went when I was trying to make them discuss things (picks up after "It’s just me. I’m just not winning because I’m not.” and the rest of that paragraph didn't exist yet):

“We drive the same car,” Oscar says and Lando already knows he’s not going to like the rest, “and I’ve been qualifying like shit the whole month, too. It’s not just us out there. You know that. You’re being really hard on yourself.”

Lando remembers then that Oscar’d had his race ruined too. Worse, probably. Without a choice in the matter. And instead of wallowing he’s here comforting Lando, who should know better by now. Who should be better by now.

“I’ve been here three times as long as you,” he’s teetering on that precipice, deciding between anger and the other thing. “And I’m still making stupid mistakes. It’s worse because I should be better by now, and-” he stops. Considers.

“And?” Oscar prompts and Lando still can’t look at him.

“And you beat me. In Austria.” He says, quieter than anything since they’ve entered his room.

Oscar takes a breath so deep Lando can hear it. When he finally glances up, Oscar is already looking at him. His eyes still have that stupid warm, fond look in them and Lando’s afraid he’s going to do something dumb, like apologize, but instead what he says is “I beat you in Monaco.”

Lando scoffs, eyes back on his feet. “That wasn’t the same.”

“Why?” and he’s still asking like he doesn’t know the answers.

“Because it wasn’t, Oscar, people weren’t saying things in Monaco.” He’s losing the thread of the conversation a little bit, brain wrung dry from hours of thinking these things over, and it feels ten times harder to do it all out loud.

“Is this about what people are saying?” Oscar asks, then, and maybe they’ve both talked themselves in a bit of a knot.

“It’s not about anything.

“Lando,” Oscar says. “C’mere.”

His hand is out, palm up, and he’s taken his cap off at some point so his hair is messy and ruffled and he looks soft even though he’s got his damn polo neatly tucked in like always. He should be mad. Lando’s selfish, he’s so… he’s always taking what he shouldn’t from Oscar, but he goes anyway, puts his hand in Oscar’s and lets his teammate pull him down next to him on the bed.

“Are you upset about Austria?” he asks gently. He’d let go of Lando’s hand as soon as he was sitting, so his arm is free to curl around Lando’s waist, drag his palm up. Hip to ribs.

Lando sucks on the side of his thumb where it’s started to bleed. When he brings his hand to his face, it’s shaking a little. “Not…” he pauses, concedes, “Kind of. But not at you, I don’t think. I like when you do well.”

Oscar laughs a little and Lando’s eyebrows pull together, but it doesn’t feel mean. Lando’s not sure Oscar has a mean bone in his body when it comes to him, and that should be an issue, probably.

Oscar’s palm slides back down, ribs to hip.

“At what, then?”

And that’s the question, isn’t it.

And then I couldn't get them out of it so all that went to the graveyard! But I like the way it ended up, so I'm really really not mad about it.

KAY THX CHARLIE love u <3 if anybody else made it this far, ask about other scenes, I dare you >:)

[skania]

What’s ur opinion on aqua and kanas relationship? I genuinely feels like they are going to platonic route and kana will soon get over her little crush on aqua and be genuinely good friends until the end. I have never gotten romantic feelings vibes from aqua when he’s with her.. yeah kana has lots of romantic moments and panels with him but it feels one sided and innocent compared with aquas relationship with Akane? Idk but I’m curious to what you think

I feel like this is the question. Where exactly does Aka intend to take their relationship?

Because, on one hand, I feel like the manga is written in such a way that it wants you to think it is romantic. It uses the subtlety of a hammer, the most low-hanging fruit possible (like characters continuously commenting on Aqua's feelings for Kana even when they spend dozens of chapters without interacting), in order to get the reader to assume Aqua has romantic feelings for Kana.

And it's even easier because after reading a few manga/watching a few anime, you come to recognize that when a girl is essentially said to be the light to a boy's darkness, it's safe to expect romance from that trope.

But the thing is, this all kind of falls apart when you take a closer look at the manga, because why are all the big scenes with Aqua going to Akane? Why have Akane and Aqua received so much development while Aqua and Kana have barely developed beyond Chapter 40?

So either Aka is going the route where the intended love interest is left on the sidelines, doing nothing of value until the end is near, and ends up with the main character simply because that's the character's entire purpose.

Or we're not supposed to take their relationship at face value. Considering how good Kana's character is, I feel like this option is the better deal out of the two.

This leads me directly to your question, because I do think that Aqua's feelings actually being platonic is the most interesting route and the one that gives more depth to the story. After all, it would also resolve the hanging question of: What exactly did Aqua feel for Ai? Because it seems pretty clear to me that Kana is his Oshi in very much the same way Ai was.

Pretty much everything Aqua is said to like about Ai, you can apply to Kana.

How cute she is? Check.

Her adorable ego? Check.

How tough she is? Check.

Her frank personality? Check.

Standing out? Check.

And of course, the way she shines? Check.

They're both even compared to the sun!

Even when Aqua describes Ai as his ideal girl, you can apply everything he says to Kana. So his feelings for Kana are intrinsically tied to whatever it is that he feels for Ai. Needless to say, Aqua's feelings for Ai falling firmly in platonic territory would be the best outcome for more reasons than one lol

Even then, maybe Aka wants to show both feelings being very similar but different all at once? Like having a "romantic" Oshi and a "platonic" one?

Could be, but according to this interview, Aka seems to see "Oshi" in a strictly platonic sense. He says that "Oshi" is a mentality where the fan does not want to have romantic feelings or ulterior motives towards the one they support, and that they just want to genuinely support and root for the person.

This isn't the first time he explores that concept either, he did the same thing in Kaguya-Sama and even used the exact same word to describe the girls' romantically-coded yet very much platonic feelings for the boy: Oshi [推し]

This is how he explained it:

With this mind, it's interesting to look back at the Love Now arc and at the First Concert arc, because there seems to be a clear contrast between the two.

Aside from this moment in Chapter 1, the nature of Goro's/Aqua's feelings for Ai was never questioned. At the contrary, he was deeply troubled by how inappropriate it would be for him to see her naked, etc., thus supporting that the "emotions driving his fandom" were indeed as pure as he claimed them to be.

When Love Now happens though, we see Aqua questioning what Ai was to him, and also referring to her as his first love only to admit that he doesn't actually know if it was romantic love at all.

So in Love Now, the focus was on romantic love, and Aqua only starts to seriously give this some thought after Akane starts playing her "Ai" character.

He concludes that his feelings for Akane aren't the same he harbored for Ai, and this in turn allows him to make a very clear difference between Ai and Akane in his mind, so that everything he feels for her from there on out doesn't have Ai's lager than life shadow hanging over it. This is why he is shown giving his feelings for Akane so much thought afer he thinks his revenge is over: because he doesn't have anything to compare them to.

Meanwhile in the First Concert arc, despite the romance, the focus is actually on being a fan (thanks to @miko-ishi for bringing this up to me).

It's not a coincidence that while the climax of Love Now involves Aqua kissing Akane, the climax of the First Concert literally involves Kana saying she'll be Aqua's "Oshi".

That arc also showed that while Ai performed because she wanted somebody to love, Kana performs because she wants to be loved. This is why she only shines when Aqua acts as her motivation, because unbeknownst to her, he has become the fan she has always been looking for. Someone who looks at the actual her, someone she can give it her all on stage for.

Romance doesn't need to be involved there, and I think this would explain the reason why Aqua's relationship with Kana has hardly developed since then. I think Aqua's feelings for Ai are very ambiguous to him, to the point he may even misinterpret them; and if he has misinterpreted his feelings for Ai, it is very likely he has done the same regarding his feelings for Kana for all the reasons mentioned above.

The series hasn't reached the point where it can truly have an introspection about what Oshi means to the narrative, and I feel it's only then that it'll finally address the true nature of Aqua's feelings for Ai and thus of his feelings for Kana.

All this to say, it could go either way. Either we're supposed to take it at face value, or we're supposed to ask ourselves questions. In either case, I personally would love for them to go the platonic route, because I feel this is the route that provides a deeper reading of the manga and its themes lol

[i-sveikata]

Good evening author! I hope you are well! I am rereading your VegasPete fiction for the hundredth time and I had some questions:

you said that there were only 3 chapters missing but that seems to me to be few compared to everything that follows :

Pete accepting Vegas' feelings

Pete admitting his own feelings

their famous argument

Pete sleeping with someone else

Pete leaving Vegas top him again

the battle with the Italians

the battle with Korn's family

Them healing each other of their traumas too

Vegas and Pete getting their mafia throne back

is the number 3 sure or are you assuming as you assume the coming of the chapter that will finally come a week later? xD (I'm kidding!)

Also, I was surprised to see that Pete only very lightly confronted Vegas about his relationship with pain, his way of dealing with his grief (which is denial, let's be honest), I expected Vegas to be more defensive to protect himself because his father is the very core of his trauma. I would be curious to see if he will be confronted by Pete, his weak point, once and for all. And will Pete will confront him about his mental state too ? Like Vegas was ready to kill himself in front of Pete, it's should be something to be discussed once calmed down ? I have difficulty to not see them discussing about him or mention it during a fight where they say out loud what they kept silent because it wasn't the time. Which come to my third question --

Also, will they have an argument scene that I would call "the revealing argument scenes about themselves" like we had in the chapter where Vegas sucked him off in his office and Vegas said he could love him and the chapter where they talk/fight after Pete thought he had poisoned him? I noticed that these arguments were always extremely important scenes for the progress of their relationship and that they both had a tendency in these moments to say things that were unsaid about each other which highlights and words about what they themselves unconsciously deny and these are always very interesting psychoanalytical moments about the two of them and their dynamics because they are literally mirrors that confront each other while they know each other perfectly and better than themselves. Like when we see how Pete is genuinely afraid to hear Vegas or another one saying that he loves him, that's shows Pete needs hear Vegas doing to him an psychoanalysis intervention too, he need to hear things ! What do you think author ?

Can't wait to read the next chapter and a new masterpiece !

I hope to see Pete being whipped for Vegas and I can't wait to see him finally accepting hear Vegas saying he loves him and especially hear him say it too and finally admitting his feelings !

Hey there! I’m doing pretty good hope you are too! To be clear when I’ve answered any questions about the remaining expected chaps I’ve been very open about the fact that it’s all guesswork on my part and subject to change (this also goes the same for when i post).

But considering the last chap was 70k worth of words and how long the chaps usually are though it’s not entirely implausible that we might tie things up in that time. Tbh there's more things that need to happen then what you've listed (though the healing each other's trauma part is definitely out- they're defs helping each other understand their traumas better because they're obsessed with one another and that makes it easier to understand/view it from an outsiders perspective but yeah nope at this point only a therapist can help them with the confronting and healing of it all) but that doesnt mean some of them dont already tie into the main narrative and will be resolved as the story winds down.

But yeah just to reiterate it’s still 100% entirely guesswork at this stage which we’re all notoriously aware that I’m pretty bad at lmao.

So no they’re not assumptions I’m just guesstimating!! And I’m not good at it!! Hahaha but yeah there’s nothing set in stone and it’s not finished until I finish it so nothing is guaranteed. I’m just trying to answer peoples questions as best I can when they ask but being creative is part of this process and storytelling for me doesn’t always come in exactitudes. the discovery of ideas and scenes being interwoven into the story is part of the process and the art of making this means none of it is concrete. like to put it in perspective- i dont even have the ending planned yet- that final scene will be informed by what im writing now the closer we get to it. but honestly that flexibility is all of the fun in the process!! More than half of what you've already read wasn't planned in advance.

At the present moment in the fic Pete’s confrontations with Vegas have only been relatively light because he’s uncomfortably aware of how Vegas can’t censor himself and he doesn’t want to take advantage of that (which he’s made reference to a couple of times already). Also i dont think we've ever seen Vegas be defensive with Pete at any time during this fic- he doesnt seem to have that button with him, tbh Vegas is completely defenceless against Pete that's why he is Vegas' weakness. And Pete is also aware of that too!!! Which is why we've been seeing a more protective/ thoughtful side to him when it comes to facing Vegas' needs and emotions. When that changes he is going to talk to Vegas about his attempted suicide, the denial about his grief and there will be discussions about his pain tolerance because Pete might potentially be interested in bringing that into their sex life because Vegas is so obviously engaged by it. But all of these things are waiting on the following conditions which is a) Vegas being clear headed and not off his face on drugs b) he and Pete actually being alone so Vegas has no one to perform for and will find it easier (for both of them) to be more open and vulnerable with these heavy topics and c) some kind of parallel task to help distract them both whilst they’re in the middle of this high tension talk. tbh I’ve already got several of the scenes planned out so rest assured it is coming! They might not all be together at once, but it's Pete, all of these things are cooking in the back of his mind even if he isn't outright addressing them with Vegas yet.

I really like how you've described this!! Yes they are definitely mirrors that confront each other during these high tension scenes. So yes there will be more of these. Tbh I’ve already been alluding to this one but Pete and Vegas’ confrontation at the club/bar where Vegas interrupts Pete with a stranger is where they’re going to have a revealing argument scene about the status of their relationship, pete's hypocrisy with vegas and a lot more honesty from pete about what he wants and has been holding back. There's also likely to be another one after that which will culminates in Pete admitting his feelings too

thanks so much! yeah we will defs see some sides of pete being whipped for vegas but obviously not in the ways that vegas shows it- it will be much more subtle than that. yeah looking forward to writing that scene myself where they finally go for broke and pete is all in (and not just in for the sex) hopefully it will be a long awaited and satisfying moment for everyone!

[sophieinwonderland]

Hey Sophie. I prefer to talk about plural stuff anonymously at this stage of my life, but rainydaysystem has anons turned off (which is fair enough!) so maybe you could post this to share.

I no longer like the term MADD, I prefer the term neuronarration, since that's more grounded in mad pride and antipsychiatry approaches rather than shame and treating everything as a pathology. My daydreaming processes aren't inherently a bad thing, and it only becomes 'maladaptive' in specific contexts when the balance of my life has been thrown off by some type of event and my coping methods aren't up and running or aren't enough. But anyway, that's semantics, I used the term MADD from 2012-2023.

I'm using singular pronouns here but I'm plural & endo, and daydreaming has a major impact on my experience of plurality. I may end up making a neocities just to write about this stuff at some point.

The way I see it, daydreaming is a type of creative and theatrical process, right, like playing with dolls or dress-ups or creative writing. So that's why it can be so useful as a coping strategy, and also why it can be so emotionally engaging that it's hard to disengage from daydreaming - because we're social animals and theatrical play is something that's really good for our brains.

And different people daydream in different ways, but I have a very visual and sensory and spatial imagination, and so my daydreaming involves a lot of creative design of settings and characters and costumes and props and worldbuilding, and a lot of stories/scenes that I can replay and redevelop, and change what implications get drawn out, and change what emotional tone and themes get explored, like people do with fanfiction where the core cast/settings/themes are a jumping off point and you can process a lot of different things by engaging with them in different ways. So it's like my daydreaming is a medium that naturally has no finished endpoint because the fact that it's an open process is the whole nature of the beast.

I think a huge part of how it connects to plurality is that you're basically practicing really good internal coping techniques the whole time. Having a headspace/innerworld/wonderland, and designing it to have certain features, and having objects and behaviours internally that are supported by it, has a LOT in common with daydreaming. You've got a setting, and "characters", and when you need to have a conversation between people or process some emotions, you mentally go through the whole "scene". And there are obvious differences in terms of agency and volition, between an OC and a headmate, but you know, it's good for the social development of singlets to do some sort of narrative play because it's practice that helps them interact with other singlets, and I think that's what it's like with daydreaming and internal communication for plurals.

And there are resources out there trying to explain innerworld visualisation exercises so people can make use of coping techniques based on imagining resources inside the headspace and making use of them - I feel like I've got a lot of experience and a lot of confidence with visual and spatial and sensory imagination of settings and objects, so as soon as I discovered that type of coping advice, it was SO EASY to immediately deliberately integrate it as a plural coping technique. Because you basically practice the underlying skills all the time while daydreaming.

If you've practiced imagining settings and objects, you can easily use internal landscaping and headspace tools; and if you've practiced imagining narrative scenes involving multiple figures with different perspectives, and going deep into an emotional tone and then working towards resolving the narrative, you've practiced both emotional regulation and internal communication. And having that familiarity is good for your confidence and esteem and sense of efficacy and power and trust that you can turn to these tools whenever you need to.

That's the biggest impact of daydreaming on plurality for me, there are all these coping strategies that are notoriously especially useful for plurals who need to develop internal communication and collaboration between headmates in order to function, and not all plurals have headspaces/innerworlds, but it can really help using those techniques. And the daydreaming was like a 15-year intensive crash course on those exact ideal coping techniques, before I even knew about my plurality, so I could immediately put my daydreaming skills to work deliberately on plural stuff as soon as I knew about it. I think that was a profoundly important and good thing for me.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

[imminent-danger-came]

do you find mk's arc in s3 a tad repetitive? i saw this point brought up in a video essay on his series long arc

Naw man.

Progress isn't linear. MK more often than not makes progress in an area and then promptly regresses afterwards (like in ROTSQ MK learned that he was separate from SWK, and that he had to find "his own way to win", which he then completely abandons in the back half of s2. After Minor Scale it's all about becoming as powerful as Monkey King as quick as he can). I like to joke MK is "2 steps forward 4 steps back" the character. He'll say "We're stronger together" in 2x10, but by the time 4x08 rolls around he's wondering if he'll just end up hurting the people he cares about (and then he'll fail to apply this logic to why Wukong would choose to take similar actions, say during s2 or at the end of s3, being delightfully hypocritical).

Then there's where MK actually is development wise at the end of s2 vs s3. By the end of s2 he's lost all of his abilities and given LBD everything she needs to destroy the world, with the only good thing happening being Monkey King's return. Of course he's worried about facing the Lady Bone Demon like he is in s2—in fact, the threat got much worse. Not only is LBD more powerful, but both him and Monkey King are powerless. Their only hope is in an uncontrollable weapon they have to reforge.

In s1 MK is just trying to master his new role as the Monkey Kid (even then wanting to protect his friends and the city, thank you 1x01). In ROTSQ he believes he'll never be as good as Wukong, carrying this belief into s2. As the stakes keep growing, MK feels more and more pressure to live up to the legacy of Monkey King, and in that desperation becomes the perfect pawn in LBD's plans. He assumes he was the wrong choice, the wrong successor, and that Wukong knows that too. After he realizes Wukong left for him in s2, in s3 he then jumps to Wukong ditching him over being a "mere mortal" again. But, MK wants to help. He wants to save his friends. By the end of s3, we've still yet to acknowledge the core issue MK's had since the AHIB special: his self-confidence. His identity and his esteem. MK's never been happy with himself (except for that one time in ROTSQ):

But, after ROTSQ came Wukong leaving in 2x01, LBD's manipulation in 2x05, Macaque's manipulation in 2x07, his ultimate failure in 2x10, being powerless in 3x01, Wukong's lies throughout s3, Wukong and Mei both leaving at the end of 3x10, and then the "to pain scene" in 3x14.

And then in s4 we hammer the nail in the coffin further with 4x07 and 4x08 living up to LBD's words: doing what you think is right leads to pain.

I think the end of TEW will be another ROTSQ situation, where currently MK is okay leaving the world a little bit better than he found it, but it's a philosophy on a shaky foundation. All it'll take is one push to all come crumbling down (and we have SO many things at this point that could be that push—MK's origins/true identity, SWK and Macaque's true falling out, another world ending calamity [no 'ol half marathons here]). Because, at the end of the day, MK may leave the world better than he found it, but he still needs to be okay making mistakes and being MK. He needs to be okay with hurting the people he cares about, because that's what happens as a part of life. He's still so hung up on keeping everything the same. He wants a world where both him and his friends never have to struggle, which will just never happen.

Like, it's ridiculous to me how high of a note the s4 special ended on for everyone in the gang. It's like being on the final episode of a season and seeing that everything's resolved and great, but knowing there's 20 minutes left before the end. You just know it's all going to come crashing down. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

And you know what! I'll say this: being mentally ill is repetitive. And that's what MK is. He has anxiety. He has depression. I mean this seriously and sincerely. MK's running around in circles in his own mind trying to run away from himself (doing so quite literally in 4x07). But he can't man. None of us can.

[delyth88]

My thoughts on Loki - Season 2, Ep. 1

If the only Loki I’m going to get is Loki in the TVA, then this has to be the best way to do it.

--- Obviously there are going to be spoilers below. ---

He’s close enough to acting in character in the episode that I can make that mental leap and more or less ignore the bits that were a little off. (And by in character I mean a mix of what we saw in the early phases, and how I imagine he would react in such a situation.  Maybe he’s a little more panicked and open with Mobius than earlier Loki might have been, but I can put that down to him feeling like he can trust Mobius and that he doesn’t have to put up a front with him, and also feeling completely out of his depth (and in pain!) having just come from the end of time and immediately having to face this time slipping thing.)

And that is already more than I’d been steeling myself for in this season!  So yay!

Having said that, at this point I’m going to take this as an anomaly, because we haven’t yet seen him interacting with anyone at anything less than 100%, and it’s the downtime where he slips into cringe territory for me in season 1.  And we haven’t seen him really interacting with Sylvie again yet.  So I’m going to reserve my judgement until we get to see what happens after this immediate crisis has been averted.

Also, I am absolutely here for desperate!Loki trying to make people believe him. *chef’s kiss*

This episode had the drive and tension and mystery that I love in the best fics and films.  In a way Season 1 was the set up that allowed us to go straight to the best bits, so I guess I have to give it that at least. 😉

I loved that the reason that Mobius didn’t know Loki in the scene at the end of Season 1 was that it was an earlier version of the TVA!  That was brilliant!  I completely didn’t think about that as an option, and I love how it opens up all sort of nasty(ier!) possibilities about the past of the TVA. I’m keen to see where that goes. The way it was revealed through the cracked floor and how that highlighted that Mobius and Casey really should remember Loki was great.  And I love how it ties back to the question Loki ask Mobius in the first season “how long have you been here?”.

One thing I found interesting is that so much of the promo footage was taken from this first episode.  So I feel a little less certain about what the rest of the season is bringing now.  That of course is assuming that Loki’s time slipping problem was actually resolved as it appears to be. I know there were other shots in the promo scenes with the spaghettification happening, so I’m not 100% convinced that Loki is entirely safe. And if he is, it sure seems like someone else isn’t!

Or everybody….?

But then again I’m assuming OB is here partly as a way to get around the rules set down in season 1 about how the TVA works.  And the disintegration of the timeline could also mean things that weren’t possible before become possible now.  So perhaps even if Loki’s problem is fixed they’re able to create something that allows them to travel in time with in the TVA.  Lol I really should know how fruitless it is to speculate on what they’ll do, but I can’t help it!  XD

I also like the way the music, the slightly distorted images, and the slow motion contributed to the feeling of everything being off.  I definitely like the tone of this episode better than Season 1, and I hope they continue in this vein.  Even the bit where they could have played up his incompetence for laughs – when Loki struggles out of the back of the car in front of everyone – I felt was toned down, and while an amusing reaction, not particularly degrading or brainless. In fact I didn’t feel I needed to look away to avoid the second hand embarrassment at any point during the episode lol.

I actually found myself more engaged than I expected.  I had wondered if I’d only be mildly interested, but no. There were a couple of moments where I was on the edge of my seat, so I consider that a win.  I mean I understand that interested and not too cringey isn’t exactly a high bar, but it’s not one I was sure would be met.

So yeah, I’m about as happy as I can be about how this season is starting off, and I’m looking forward to seeing next week’s episode.   And all your thoughts too!

Tagging a few folk below:

@sparklegemstone @scintillatingshortgirl19 @iamanartichoke @pinkpondofasgard @projectprotectloki @ladyofthestayingpower

[meraki-yao]

This is gonna be really personal, and really venty and probably really selfish, and I’m most likely gonna delete it in the morning, but I feel like this is the only place I can talk about it, so I’m just gonna shout this into the void. If you’re not in a good space either, please stop reading and keep scrolling.

I’m not in a good place in my life right now. Truth be told my mental health has been shit since I was 7, but this is the worst I’ve ever been. Long story short, I was pressured into a college major that I didn’t want by family, and I thought I could pull through the four years of school, but it’s the first semester of the second year and I can’t handle it. I do not suit this major, nor do I find any purpose or joy in trying to deal with it. I hate it, I struggle with, yet it consumes all the time in my life. It’s been like this since the start of college, and it’s just getting worse. It doesn’t help that adults around me keep telling me how good this major is as a career and how I need to start looking for internships. It’s gotten to the point where I’m mentally and physically unhealthy, and I skipped school for the entirety of October without anyone but my sister knowing because classes gave me panic attacks. My parents aren’t people I can talk to about this because 1, they invalidate mental health issues as my fault for not trying hard enough because engineering and science came easy to them 2, they’re the ones who put me in this position in the first place. My sister listens but I help her more than she knows how to help me, and my friends are all busy with their own stuff.

I am seeking professional help on my own, I have bimonthly counselling which helps, and I recently started taking prescribed antidepressants. But for me to find a psychiatrist for a diagnosis on my life long issues and more meds, or for me to start looking into switching a major (which is a fucking arduous process where I am, fuck), I need to wait till I’m done with my exams which will be the last two weeks of December

So for the following month, I’m stuck, and fucked.

RWRB saved me in a way. I accidentally stumbled upon the trailer when it came out and suddenly I had a source of joy, a reason to keep going and keep looking forward to the next day. RWRB made me the happiest I’ve been since January of 2022. I can’t explain why, maybe it’s how I relate to Henry, maybe it’s how firstprince’s relationship is so beautiful, maybe it’s how it’s a rom com, I don’t know. But I have a couple of movies/shows that make a huge impact on my life, and RWRB is one of them. Waking up to something new, waking up happy with something to look forward to felt so good after so long of wanting time to just pass by me. I’ve haven’t watched a movie on repeat since I was 6 and repeating the original Lion King. I started this account because I had so many thoughts about the movie and I wanted to share them.

And I know it’s not the healthiest to hook all of my sanity onto a fandom/movie. But I’m not in a space where I can deal with my actual problems directly right now. And I do have other things in my real life that make me feel a bit better, but RWRB really has been the most effective/impactful one right now.

This is also the first time since Infinity War in 2019 were I followed a movie’s promo and release rather than discover it when all is said and done. And it happened to coincide with the strikes. Which again I’m supportive of and proud of the agreements they achieved, but the timing of everything just makes me so upset.

I thought that Prime would keep it going for a bit, especially after the strike resolved. And right now I’m not saying they’re definitively not doing anything. We don’t know that.

But I thought they would release a new deleted scene on 18th since that’s the date the last two deleted scenes were released, and it was the 100th day since release. When that didn’t happen, I thought they would release it on Thanksgiving. I lost sleep over waiting for it. But that didn’t happen either.

I got an anon ask who kindly but objectively explained the situation on the business side. And after reading and answering those asks…

I felt really fucking bad.

I kinda just lied down, panting and trembling.

It kinda felt like drug addiction withdrawal. Which is a morbid thing to compare it to, because if it weren’t for my myriad of problems this would just be a hyperfixation, but withdrawal is genuinely the only way I can explain my reaction (but to clarify I never actually did drugs)

And the following days I just had this ache and weight in my chest.

I think the reason my reaction is visceral is because RWRB is really my only, singular source of unbridled happiness right now. It’s literally the only thing I’m trying to hold on and stay afloat for, the reason I wake up in the morning. I thought Prime would keep going for a while with a relatively fixed monthly schedule of something new, but that broke off.

And that’s not to say that the fandom isn’t included in my RWRB happiness. I still fucking love the fanart and fanfics I come across.

But the jump from August and September to now, and my worsening issues because of school, it just hits harder.

I’m kind of at a lost right now. I’m getting worse in my own life with exams that I’ll definitely straight up fail (and I used to be a star student: I’ve needed academic validation my whole life) on the horizon, and I feel like I’m losing the only thing I held on to for the past couple of months.

I’m fucked and I don’t know what to do.  

[choki-the-rich-cactus]

Headcannon#2 Itoshi Rin unknowingly followed Nagireo’s relationship and didn’t know if he himself was rooting for them or not.

I wholeheartedly believed that, with how obsess with Isagi Rin had become over the course of the story, he definitely watched every single match Isagi was in from Bluelock’s footages, from the first selection to NEL.

That means anythings involving Reo and Nagi in the field with Isagi, he saw.

That also means he saw the ‘You are a hassle, Reo’ scene.

[In the Japanese manga, both Reo and Rin was told by Nagi and Sae that they were 面倒臭い (mendoukusai = a hassle/annoying)]

He saw Reo on the ground, watching Nagi walked away with pretty much the same last word his brother gave him.

Imagined Rin’s surprise when Nagi came back for Reo with ‘I never left’ speech and they literally made up in 3 minutes in the middle of a soccer match.

(Assuming he didn’t know anything else aside from what camera captured, he would be so confused and mad at how easily Reo folded. Hang in there, Rin, Ego will release an Episode Nagi special for BLTV subscribers soon.)

With Rin being Rin. I think he would be really conflicted.

On one hand, he was the Reo in this situation. Of course he wanted his ‘issues’ with his brother to be resolved. Reo and Nagi’s bond might not be exactly the same as his sibling bond, but the situation was similar enough for Rin to get his hopes up.

And if that polar bear sized sloth with social skill of a potato could learn to craw back to his ATM, there had to be hope for him to patch things up with Nii-chan, right?

On the other hand, how f**king dare he.

Why was Reo the one who got the happy ending?

Why were their issues so easily solved in matters of weeks, while his brother immediately got himself a cockroach that tried to assassinate Rin in broad day light as a house pet and basically adopted Isagi right in front of him?

What did Reo do that he didn’t?

If his brother came back to patch things up with him, would he react like Reo did with Nagi?

Would he even want to go back to where he once was? Considering everything he had gone through?

Like, I could see Rin be extremely conflicted and refused to say he was happy for Reo, but he would make a mental note to kick nagi’s ass if he ever leave Reo again.