#How can i be so old yet so underdeveloped

[punishedmemelia]

why is being a member of society so difficult. get me outta here!

[discodeerdiary]

There's a good reason why I try not to argue publicly with anyone under 18, and it's not that I think they're inherently stupid, it's not that I think their brains are "underdeveloped", it's not that I think they can "do no wrong", it's that I never know how much freedom they actually have to think freely, or how many of their opinions are actually their own. Of course, under-18s *can be* capable of thinking for themselves and developing their own opinions, but (here in the US at least) law and culture put a lot of roadblocks on their ability to do so.

Of course parents and teachers cannot actually control the inner thoughts of the children they wield power over, but they can restrict the information that they have access to, can punish them for saying the wrong things, can cut them off from healthy diverse social groups, and can convince the child their thoughts are being monitored through religion, psychology, and other appeals to higher authority.

Thus if a random teenager says some headass shit in my mentions I have no way of knowing if these are opinions they arrived at on their own, or if they are dogmas forced on them by the people holding food and shelter over their head. If it's the latter, there's nothing to be gained from a public confrontation: people are generally unwilling to change their opinions in a direction that threatens their social support system, and they are especially unwilling to do so at the behest of an internet stranger who cannot offer alternative forms of support. If a teen is genuinely curious about my opinion (that is *if they consent* to a discussion of disagreements) and if I have the mental bandwidth for a potentially emotionally loaded conversation, yeah I'll have it, but I'm not gonna maintain any illusions about my ability to change their mind until they can find a way to live independently.

This is also why my leniency toward the not-yet-adult tends to also extend to the recently-adult. Coming up with a system of beliefs that you're actually willing to stand behind? Shit takes time, and I'm not necessarily gonna expect it of a 20-year-old who may, for all I know, have been living under conditions of near-absolute control up until their 18th birthday. Sure they may be opening their mind in college, or college may be their parents way of keeping them too occupied with busywork to develop new opinions, as they continue to hold financial support over their head. It's around their mid-twenties that I'm willing to go full gloves-off antagonistic with strangers, knowing that they've had a few years of legal and social adulthood under their belt, and that even if they're still financially dependent on their parents it's a different sort of dependence, one where they're given default legal permission to run away from home.

A lot of people are deeply uncomfortable with this line of thinking because if you look too far into the factors that influence young people's thoughts, you eventually have to start asking yourself which forces of dependency are influencing your own beliefs and opinions. Yeah, as an independent adult you may have the option to quit your job, divorce your spouse, ditch your friends, move to another country, but realistically how many of these can you accomplish at the same time? How many do you even want to? And how are all of these forces *in aggregate* setting the acceptable limits of what you're allowed to think and feel? It can be upsetting to think of yourself this way, it can be easier to think of yourself as a true free thinker and children as mindless automatons, but I urge you to think of mentally coercive environments as a continuum rather than a binary. The point is not to free yourself from all influence, but to gain the ability to see yourself as an influenced mind, and to have compassion for those dealing with all the bullshit you don't have to anymore.

[mspopstar]

Hey, Susie! May I ask what your opinion on Kirby and the gang are? (And perhaps Magolor?)

"Ooh! Interesting! They're great friends to have!"

"King Dedede's real cool! Not only is he the strongest organism on Popstar but, asides from Sir Meta Knight, he's real smart too. He's the only person whom can intellectually and ethically challenge me while still being fun! He even indulges me on my many pet projects and ideas! Surprisingly being from a underdeveloped hicktown of a planet the king is on the up and up of many modern things and technologies! He's a fellow engineer, building his own automatons, machinery, and more! We talk about our shared many hobbies and interests when I come to Popstar and he outsources his technology from my company frequently so we are mutually beneficial to each other! He's like a super-duper cool older brother that my father refused to give me."

"I owe my life to Pinky! He saved my ass and by proxy my company too! Kirby's always fun to hang around if I have nothing better to do! However, I can't expect him to conversate about anything more than surface level and yet he provides solid advice even if it may be a little too blunt. Kirby's probably the most reliable trustworthy friend I have!"

"Bandana Waddle Dee, or 'Bandee' is alright! His pessimism and servile nature can be annoying but I can look past it because of his associates. I am most certain he does not trust me."

"Meta Knight and I are on talking terms now! At first, he annoyed me with his pitying gazes after the event but I understand that the pity he feels for me is a natural response so I do not care anymore. I find Sir Meta Knight exceptional and very respectable as a fellow intellectual, in fact we share many intellectual pursuits and ideological ideals. In fact, the two of us are working to help reform and advance Dream Land's level of technology. In spite of this however, I do not respect how much he lets his personal, backwards traditional values interfere with his true potential. Ethics and all of that. This causes us to butt-heads many times. It does not help that he gets very angry easy too which becomes a problem if I do not choose my words correctly. He's fun to talk with about more serious and thought provoking topics, however that is all he is good for communication wise! If it's not about machinery, old boring books, weapons, Pop Star's interplanetary defense, Dream Land's politics, justice or anything in line with those things he doesn't really know how to respond and goes flat. He can't talk about fun things at all! He could use a class in idle chatter, I took one and it's very helpful! He's cute too!"

-Executive Secretary of HWC, Susana P. Haltmann

[docdudo]

I love your story abour Witches!AU. It’s refreshing to see a new side of witches AU where we can find familiars can force a bond on a yound witch. But I’m kinda curious on how familiars know who are witches or so? They can smell or feel? And do witches die? and when they die the bond between them and the familiars will be broken? Oh I have so many questions and looking forward for your next post soon.

Hi, thanks for liking the series!

So, yeah, witches and familiars can recognize each other (most of the time). Familiars have stronger instincts, so they find it easier to recognize who is a witch and who isn’t. However, it’s much harder to identify a witch who is still young and doesn’t have strong magic yet—it becomes more difficult to sense their magic core in that case.

The 141 only managed to sense your magic because they are ancient and powerful familiars. They are highly attuned to the magic around them and around others, which allowed them to identify you as a witchling pretty quickly, even though your magic core is still underdeveloped.

(Younger familiars and younger witches would probably struggle to recognize you as a witch.)

Familiars are usually easy to identify even without strong magical instincts, simply because they are so animalistic. The way they act and speak, especially with each other and with witches, makes it pretty clear that they are familiars. Except, of course, when they are purposefully trying to act human. Then, it becomes harder to tell if they’re familiars or not. More powerful witches would be able to recognize their magic, but younger witches would have a much harder time.

(But you don't have to worry about that, Familiars never bother to try and act anything other than what they are. Maybe just at their witch's orders).

For a more direct answer, Familiars who have been in this world for a long time can easily see, smell, and sense magic.

And yes, witches do die, but not of old age. That’s not something that happens to witches, as their bodies barely change after reaching maturity. However, they can die if someone kills them or if an accident occurs. Powerful witches from different Covens often kill each other for one reason or another. There are even Covens that become unbalanced, where members turn on each other.

There have also been cases of witches dying from heartbreak, losing their familiars, or losing other witches they were close to. It’s not unusual for witches to commit suicide if their witchlings dies.

Also, a bond is formed by linking compatible magic. By "compatible," this refers to the magic of a Witch and the magic of a Familiar. Familiars' bodies are made of magic since they are old nature spirits, so they bond directly with a witch’s magic core.

So yes, if the familiar somehow survives after their witch dies (in most cases, they die together in battle), the bond between them is broken and they turn into rogue familiars.

That's what the 141 were before they got you kkkkkkkkkk

This answer got long, but yeah, it's basically this kkkk

[help-itrappedmyself]

Dead On Main part 7

Masterpost

dedicated to @cervinebotanist and @leafyeyes417 for responding so quickly and with such enthusiasm to part 6. Thank you for the encouragement and support.

Danny takes a deep breath. He can hear scrambling from somewhere else in the car, but he can’t pay attention to what’s happening as he focuses inward. He closes his eyes, and reaches inside himself.

Jason has a tiny baby core! Danny almost coos at it, but it’s so underdeveloped that he’s sad instead. Danny can feel ectoplasm in himself, in Jason’s body. But it isn’t enough. This ectoplasm has been reused, reduced, recycled one too many times. It’s got barely enough to stay alive left in it. Jason is mostly being sustained by his human half right now. It feels like play-doh that turns to dust where it should stretch, dried-out and old. It makes him even more sad. And slightly ill. But the sadness makes the rioting ectoplasm calm back down inside him.

Danny opens his eyes. He’s slightly disoriented, but calm now, eyes no longer glowing. They had stopped the car. He looks at Tim, who is leaning against his door and braced against it and Dick’s chair, giving Danny as much space as possible. His hand is almost on the door handle and his tablet on the floor. Dick and Bruce are exchanging panicked looks in the front seat, both now unbuckled for some reason and completely turned to face the backseat.

“Hey, speaking of ectoplasm, this body really needs some.” Danny informs them. “If it doesn’t get some new ectoplasm soon his core is going to cease functioning, and that would be really bad, and possibly irreversible.” 

“Uhhh.” Dick’s panicked look is turning straight to confusion, as is everyone else’s. “What?” 

“I didn’t realize that Jason was, I mean he had mentioned he died, but he- well, I guess I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone either. Does make it easier to talk about since we’re the same, but of course we couldn’t have known yet. But his core needs some help, do you not have access to ectoplasm back home?” Danny is rambling, brain spinning at the thought of how much he and Jason have in common. This big thing that no one else would truly understand by each other. And Vlad, sort of, but nobody likes Vlad. “It’s amazing that we ended up soulmates. He’s only the third person in the world I’ve even heard about with this condition. How long has he been without ectoplasm? Is he having trouble finding any, or does he not know he needs it? Either way, I’m giving him some as soon as possible.” Danny doesn’t know whether he should freak out over that fact that his soulmate is as dead as he is, that he’s currently dying from lack of ecto, or that his soulmate’s entire family is probably going to end up learning about him and ghosts, or the fact that he is currently taking another body that the GIW is going to want to study straight to them. All of these things seem like great reasons to freak out on their own, so all together he is just panicking.

Danny doesn’t seem to be able to breathe. 

“Hey, come on, that’s fine, you can totally give Jason some… ectoplasm.” Dick says.

“Danny, you have to breathe, okay.” Tim is much calmer than Dick, so Danny focuses on him as Bruce and Dick whisper in the front. “Danny, match my breathing.” Danny stares at Tim, who is making very exaggerated breathing movements, and tries to time his breathing to match. “We’ll figure everything out, but we don’t need to do it right now.” Tim is still helping Danny, talking calmly, but he says this with enough force to distract the two in the front seat enough for them to shut up for a second. Danny appreciates the bit of silence.

“You need to start driving.” Danny, tells Bruce. “Right now, his human half is sustaining the rest of him almost entirely. If Jason doesn’t get more ecto soon, his other half will die, and I’m not sure what will happen to his human side if that happens. He may die again completely.”

There’s a beat of silence in the car. Bruce stares right into Danny’s eyes.

“You are saying there is an active threat to my son’s life, ” Bruce asks, voice hard. 

Danny nods. Then everyone is buckled back in and Bruce is pulling them back onto the road. 

“You know what’s happening and how to help him?” Bruce asks, voice steady but Danny can sense all the emotion underneath. Bruce is really worried right now, he looks around the car and realizes that Dick and Tim are as well. They both have phones out, but are tense, tuned into his conversation with Bruce.

“Yeah, It’s a simple enough fix, I’m just worried because he’s really…” Danny takes a moment to think of the right word. “Ecto deficient? His core is definitely malnourished, and his body and mind definitely need it. They are being sustained with human stuff for now, but eventually that won’t be enough.” 

“How urgent is this?”

Danny feels for Jason’s core, feeling like he’s invading his privacy, but without other options to check. It’s not cracked, but it’s not fully formed either. Half starved baby core, not even strong enough to present. Its link to an obsession is strong, but frayed enough that Danny can’t tell what it is. The core is not strong enough to produce it’s own ecto, even in response to the obsession being fulfilled. Everything is stable, but strained.

“I’m not an expert, but he’s sustained himself this long. And we’re already on the way. We should be fine, but I’ll keep an eye on it just in case.”

[black-rose-writings]

'darklina's toxicity is fake'??? did you forget the part where he was a grown ass man grooming a teenage girl? but yeah no clearly that never happens in real life /s

They talked like twice before she ran off from the Little Palace and they were enemies from then on.

There was no sexual grooming. You could argue he was grooming her to become a queen, a leader, his equal, ie, he was teaching, preparing her for those roles, but there's no manipulation. Sure, he lies to her about stuff that directly involves her, because it's sensitive information and she proves herself untrustworthy over and over again, and they're also practically strangers.

Yes, there is a power imbalance in the relationship on account of the age gap, but I would actually argue that in the space of "immortalXteenager" relationships (which is a pretty common trope in YA fantasy), Darklina actually handles it better than most - Aleksander is aware of the dynamic and he's constantly trying to raise Alina up to his level, speed up her development as much as he can, because he's aware that she's not his equal, yet.

Now, for Alina's age, because I guess I have to write this out again.

Firstly, Alina (and Mal) is old enough to join the army and get married. Under her world's rules, she's an adult. Now, is she immature, sheltered and naive? Yes. But Aleksander specifically goes out of his way to get her to grow past that, rather than using it to get close (like he would if he was actually grooming or manipulating her in any way).

Alina's age is never stated in TGT, in fact Alina admits in her first actual conversation with the Darkling that she isn't sure of her own precise age due to orphanage brainwashing (we'll get back to that in a minute). Alina's age is only explicitly stated as 17 by Inej in SoC. Book!Inej never met Alina. She only knows of her through her legend, which could easily have been framed by the church to make her seem younger, an innocent virginal saint. I'm not taking Inej's word on this one.

We know Alina and Mal came to Keramzin when they were about 8, or at least Ana Kuya thought they were (we'll get back to that). Now, there are two instances where Alina refers to her life in Keramzin as a decade and half her life respectively. If we take those literally, that would make her either 18 or 16 when she left Keramzin, so either 19 or 17 during the events of TGT, though both could be rounded up or down. All the children at Keramzin celebrate their birthdays at the same time (on the duke's birthday) which makes Alina's precise age inherently uncertain. She is meant to be a fresh adult in SaB and the books treat her as such in TGT. Unfortunately, later books in the series tend towards infantalizing its characters, especially the female ones, and also making them super young (I am much more mad about an explicitly 16yo seductress Nina than I am about age-ambiguous-young-adult Alina wanting to have a quickie with a hot guy at a party, which is pretty much what the extent of her physical intimacy with Aleksander is).

Again, Alina is an adult by her world's standarts. 17 is as low as her age can go, but there's some things that suggest she is older than that. First of those being that decade line.

But also, we're starting from the assumption that Ana Kuya is right about Alina's age at when she arrives to Keramzin. Being underweight and underheight are common side-effects of long term or chronic illness (which Alina does suffer from). Alina, before she realizes her powers, is supposed to be small, thin and sickly from supressing her powers. People have talked about how weird it is for Alina and Mal to seemingly not know their age when they arrive at Keramzin, but if they really don't, for some reason (or, say, they don't believe them, because Alina is, canonically, underdeveloped for her age), it's completely plausible that Alina is 20 or older in TGT.

Also, taking from history, while boys as young as 12 could be part of armies in some aspects in the 1800s (they would only really do support/servant work until they were 16-or-so), draft age has usually been either 18 or above. In fact, during the time period that the Grishaverse is supposedly based on, the draft age in Tsarist Russia was 20.

IDK, nonny, calm down, maybe?

And as for that specific line("Darklina is fake/fantasy toxic"), what I meant is that in terms of tropes and genre, it's not meant to be realistic. It's dark fantasy, it's gothic romance, it's a kind of fairytale. The Darkling as a character is a fantasy character. As far as I know, there are no immortal shadow wizards spending centuries fighting for minority rights (though if you do know of any, let me know). Any toxicity of Darklina will be inherently abstracted through that fantasy. Malina lacks that abstraction, that greater purpose to it all. Mal is just a fuckboy whose ego can't handle his girlfriend having a better job than him and friends other than him. Malina's toxicity is mundane.

And, what's worse, it's the two cardinal sins of a fictional relationship: Boring and a hinderance to character development and the story as a whole.

Darklina, even at its most toxic, is constructive to the characters. It pushes the characters involved forward. Darkling and Alina are foils, they're constantly pushing each other forward, for better and worse. Mal is a brick and Alina is slowly drowning because of him.

[atlaszxu]

𝐘𝐨𝐨 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐡’𝐬 𝐏𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐥 - 𝐌𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬

A/N: a non yjh related one yay!! i plan to do a small appreciation post for lee jihye next, and then either a yoohankim or dokja related analysis…

To be honest, when I first read about Yoo Sangah I didn’t expect much from her. She seemed like she was going to be the typical love interest for the mc and not have much going for her. Of course I’d still like her, I’m ride or die for underdeveloped female characters made to just be the mc’s love interest!

But she genuinely subverted my expectations a lot and was way more than I expected. The topics they approached with her was handled in such a beautiful way and throughout it all, I sympathized with Sangah a lot. She turned out to be a VERY good character, and one of the best side ones in my opinion!

The fact that she had faced misogyny in her work environment, being sexually harassed by coworkers as a result of being a woman in a male dominant environment, yet she trusted Dokja whole heartedly and even practiced spanish with him and was so comfortable talking to him on the subway.

In Dokja’s POV he viewed her as a sort of angel that was kind to everyone in their workplace, but that’s not true. Sangah is a kind person, but at work Dokja was the only one she was kind to, because why would she be kind to the coworkers who were total creeps to her?

The thing about Sangah is that all the members of Kimcom typically have issues that relate more to their personal views and such like Jihye’s survivor’s guilt or Heewon’s sort of black and white view, her problems have to do with societal constraints and what even her family expects of her.

Something we see is that unlike characters such as Kim Namwoon or Han Sooyoung, Sangah doesn’t rebel in a obvious, loud manner. She does it in small ways- stuff that will make people’s lives inconvenient like pouring pepper in the coffee breakroom, as a way to feel some sort of control.

Her family expected a lot out of her, but she refused to conform to that- She instead chooses a job in a low class industry and refuses to marry. All of these rebellions of her are small, but a sort of way she can get back at those who hurt her. It’s horrifying that she literally had to build an alcohol tolerance because she knew she’d most likely have been ASSAULTED.

Then, the apocalypse happens, and all of a sudden she’s thrust into a world of desire and suffering, where she could enact all of her feelings no longer having to fall in line with expectations, she could conform to the new societal cruelty, but instead she chooses to be KIND.

Most of all what gets me is her bond with Dokja. The utter trust she had for him starting from the day he silently supported her rebellion of messing with the coffee by not telling anyone, and they became friends. He was interested in nothing but his phone but she didn’t care.

The way she viewed him was genuinely so sweet. All he did was read web novels, yet she viewed him as a kind and inspiring guy. In the 1st scene we get of her she talks about how inspiring Dokja is and that she’ll adhere to “his advice,” and the way that rather than judging him for always reading that novel, she simply offered her own authors she liked.

Sangah was so content on simply being Dokja’s friend. She imagined a life with them old, both in a retirement home, simply being happy as friends. Sangah put so much faith and trust into Dokja as he extended her a kindness and respect no one else did. She didn’t want to be with Dokja, she just wanted stay with him.

Part of this is why I can’t bring myself to ship Dokja and Sangah. I understand the shippers, but I think the beauty of their relationship comes into the platonic part, how pure and beautiful their friendship is. She loves Dokja, and no matter how you interpret it, it’s genuinely amazing.

Anyways, I love Sangah SO MUCH! Her character was so well written in my opinion, and I love the way they handled her!

“I can kill all of them if I want. Therefore, I can save all of them if I want.” - Yoo Sangah.

[randomthefox]

the fact that you think any child asking for attention or crying out for favoritism of a Dead Child over them is somehow manipulative or “spoiled” behavior is just too much, man. please never raise children

Very clunkily written. Difficult to parse what the point you're trying to make even is because of how grammatically broken this sentence is. You are very clearly illiterate, which is why you aren't capable of reading this and understanding the obvious intended take away from it.

Eggman isn't "asking for attention" in this. And you're just as emotionally stunted and psychotic as Eggman is if you're interpreting his family speaking with reverence about a child who passed away due to tragedy as "favoritism."

Like dude I don't know what to tell you. If you're reading this and thinking we're supposed to feel any amount of sympathy for Eggman at all, then you're honestly just stupid and illiterate. The intention of what this memo is communicating about Eggmans character could NOT be more clear and straight forward. The game is practically spoon feeding the correct interpretation to us, fucking look at the way it's written. "All that love for someone who was gone when I was! Right! There!" You don't even need Mike Pollocks impeccable delivery to Get It and yet if you listened to it that'd make it even more overt.

Lil' Eggman heard his family members talking with deep sadness about how special Maria was while MOURNING the fact that she died so tragically young. His reaction to that was to think "Why do y'all care so much about her stupid dead ass? I'M right here, and I'M the best and the smartest and the coolest!"

Because he's FUCKING EVIL and ALWAYS WAS. That is EVIL SHIT. That goes BEYOND the typical behavior you can expect from a spoiled underdeveloped child whose capacity for empathy hasn't been fully developed yet. That is indicative of legitimately concerning issues. Imagine if this happened in real life. Imagine if a family was talking about a TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL tragically dying due to a government cover up an accident and in the same room a five to ten year old kid said out loud "why do you all care about her so much? She's dead! Pay attention to ME instead!" Would you assume that child was neglected? Or would you assume that child was FUCKING INSANE?

Even the way Eggman ends the memo by comparing Sage to Maria. It's like he's trying to "steal" the special reverence his family had for Maria and imbue Sage with it. It's like he's thinking "everyone loved Maria so much because she was like Sage!" Develop a capacity for literacy and pay attention to the specific way I wrote that sentence on purpose: Maria was like Sage. NOT "Sage is like Maria." Meditate on what I am implying this means about Eggmans mentality and outlook on these two other characters.

[deppiet]

About the yassification of GO2.

Warning: the following text is highly critical of the second season of Good Omens. If you enjoyed it, I am happy for you, and a non-negligible amount of jealous as well. Please scroll past before I inevitably rain on your fandom parade.

So, I did the thing. I binged the entire second season of what was, up to now, my favorite show ever, in one sitting. And I have a great deal of things to say, but hardly any of them is positive.

Let me start by saying that I don't mind the cliffhanger or the melancholy ending, like at all. In our era of Marvel apologists and the instant gratification culture, it is necessary for media to persevere and add nuance to romantic relationships. That said, what transpired during the six hours leading up to this sort of unearned climax hardly contains anything remotely close to nuance.

Who are these people? I don't mean the new characters, all of them written as cardboard-cut anthropomorphic personifications of stereotypes, yassified to the point of representation losing its purpose and getting in the way of, you know, actual writing. I mean the protagonists themselves, Aziraphale and Crowley, up to now my favorite characters in the entire world and -up to now- tangled in a love story so beautiful I had, for better or for worse, devoted a large part of my creative output on it, making art, songs, and metas on why what those two entities had was as close to perfect as anyone can hope to find for themselves.

These are not the characters I knew. The characters I knew spent hundreds of human lifetimes revolving around each other in a treacherous yet familiar dance- they both knew the love was there, it was comfortable like an armchair that has taken the shape of the body using it for years. They argued the way old couples do, and of course, like all fictional beings that are counterparts of one another, had differences to settle, but what stood in their way wasn't misunderstanding or miscommunication, in was their fear of Heaven and Hell, and their fundamentally different approaches on how to keep each other safe.

What is all this teen angst? This will-they-won't-they silliness that lacks any nuance, thematic coherence, or literally even trace amounts of understanding of the source material? Where is the dark humor, the quotability, the chaotic overarching plot, the self conscious camp? The season is so cynically written to cater specifically to a certain part of fandom, that I am losing respect for the original work- because if Neil Gaiman doesn't care for these fictional beings, and he evidently doesn't, why should I?

The thematic core of what made Good Omens what it was, had always been the "Love in unexpected places" trope Sir Terry Pratchett knew how to write so well. It had never been about the fantasy, because Sir Terry wrote satire wrapped up in a supernatural package, it had never been about the romance, because when the ship becomes the end instead of the means, the love rings hollow, like artificial light trying to pass as sunshine. The beating heart of GO lies in its philosophy, in the beautiful notion that the agents of two oppressive systems at war have more in common with one another than with their respective oppressors. That being a nobody, a mere cog in a larger machine, says more about said machine than it does about you, and that you can try to break free and build a life for yourself, where a happy ending looks like a dinner at the Ritz with the one you love most.

Shoehorning an underdeveloped "romance" between Beelzebub and Gabriel not only feels like bad fanfic (disclaimer: I like the ship and feel like it could have worked if developed in any capacity, and presented in a more humorous and character-appropriate way. I hate with passion how much they watered down Beelzebub in order to make them stereotypically romanceable, adding the Ineffable Bureaucracy to the ever-expanding list of characters I don't care about anymore.) but also, it muddles and grossly undermines the thematic raison d'être of Ineffable Husbands. If the ramifications for defecting and fucking off with the enemy were a slap on the wrist for the respective leaders of both sides, well surely the system can't be that oppressive after all. And if fear of the oppressive system wasn't, after all, what kept these beings apart, surely these two entities don't like each other as much as we thought. Or rather, one is reduced to a lovesick puppy and the other to a brainless husk of a character, a plot device, a means to go from place A to place B without spending much brainpower on the logistics.

And if these two new people got to kiss I care not, for they are not the same people I rooted for (props, though, to the actors, who gave, somehow, an almost Shakespearean gravitas to their love affair, underwritten and dumbed down as it was. They both love the characters, and it shows in the minuscule yet brilliant ways in which they added nuance where the script had none.)

What was that thing with the lesbians about? Though straight passing, I have always known myself to be attracted to women as well as men, and I am always highly suspicious when an "ally" writer (see: straight, no shade to straight people among which I live because they are, like, the majority) decides to make all characters queer, in the face of real-world statistics and despite NOT being queer themselves. When a person like Nate Stevenson does it they get a pass because writers self-insert and because, when done well, it can carry a message of equality. But when the ally writer does it, unless it is pitch-perfect, I am forced to examine the possibility of them being calculating about it and trying to score representation points, often because they need the rep as a fig leaf to cry homophobia behind when people start complaining about the atrocious plot.

Nina and Maggie were boring. They had no personalities, no cohesive backstories, nothing to make us understand what they are to one another and to the overarching plot ("plot" is used loosely here, for there was no plot: the series ended where it should have started, with six hours of -progressively more offensive to my intelligence- fanfic tropes in a trenchcoat serving as the, well, "plot"). I didn't care whether or not they'd end up together, because I have no idea who they are. The blandness of the dialogue had the actresses, both very talented as evidenced in the first season, grasping at straws with what little characterization they were left to work with, and the "ball" was so unbelievably bad a plot device no amount of suspension of disbelief was ever going to make it right.

The minisodes, though at parts clever and philosophical, felt out of place. This was another narrative choice I had to raise my eyebrows at, because it felt like a bunch of executives sat around a table and watched Neil Gaiman's powerpoint presentation of what made Season 1 financially successful. They were shoehorned in, largely irrelevant to the, eh, "plot", and most of them lasted far more than I personally deemed welcome, or necessary.

What else is there to say? The wink-winks and nudge-nudges to the Tumblr nation? The in-your-face Doctor Who reference? The narratively myopic choice to make Crowley a former archangel? The cheese dialogue, not one bit of which was quotable?

I am distraught. I am grieving an old friend, and a part of my fandom life I cannot, in good faith, return back to after this gross betrayal. I am happy for those who don't see it, because I wish I could love this season past its flaws. However, the writing isn't simply mediocre, it is irrevocably, immeasurably, undescribably bad, so bad I am shocked to my very core, so bad I find it offensive to Sir Terry's memory and everything his own creative output was lovingly filled with.

I am passing all five stages of grief and very much doubt I will return to this fandom. I loved the original story and the characters with all my heart- now the aforementioned heart is broken, not by the breakup or anything as pedestrian as cheap romantic tropes. But because my old friends, my family of fictional beings, are no longer the ones I loved and could relate to.

Deppie out.

[kairithemang0]

Disney is such an interesting company, the way it's evolved over time to what it is now. Apart of me is disappointed, another part of me feels as though the current drought of good Disney content was inevitable.

I think about right after Walt died, how the company struggled then. However, even then I think their movies were still good, Robin Hood, the Aristocats, Great Mouse Detective, they're still good movies.

That's the era my parents grew up in, sure looking back on it now you can see the flaws in some of the movies, how the animation wasn't as polished as it was before Walt's passing, but then I compare it to the movies now.

The 2020s haven't been a good decade for Disney, Raya, Strange World, Wish, they all flopped. Encanto only made waves on Disney+, which is a good thing but that's one movie out of 5 that have come out of Disney in the past 4 years

Then you have to look at the remakes, how much money they're getting from those. However, their recent ones are flopping. The public knows what they're doing now, just remaking their old movies isn't going to keep bringing in money. The Lion King, Aladdin, they made over 1 billion dollars, The Little Mermaid? Under 600 million. That's still a lot of money, but Disney is also putting in so much money into these movies just for them to fail. People are sick of the remakes, they're sick of the sequels, but their original products aren't causing any excitement.

I don't know if Disney is still dealing with lost time and profits from Covid, but it's sad to see other studios doing so well only for Disney, who reigned supreme last decade with Moana and Frozen and Wreck it Ralph, to fall behind again

Disney seems to do this a lot, actually. The 80s were bad, the 2000s weren't great, the 2020s are bad again. Maybe the 30s will bring us something good, if Disney gets their act together and figures out what people want again.

People ask for 2d, for that old disney feel to come back. An obviously evil villain. Villains don't need a tragic backstory, they don't need anything, but this twisted foulness, a catchy song, and to be memorably evil.

Scar, Ursula, Lady Tremaine. You look at them and you go "oh yeah, they're evil". Which not to say Disney can't do twist villains, but it fails more often than it succeeds. Turbo was a great twist villain, his motivation was there and he was fun. But Hans? And Yokai? It felt random, out of place, like they were lacking the motivation to be good villains.

Scar wants power, so does Ursula, and Tremaine more of enjoys torturing her adopted daughter. These three are so iconic because they're so unashamedly evil and cruel, they're these powerful figures that spark fear into people who get what they deserve in the end.

But Magnifico? He's so painfully boring, he's so underdeveloped. It's sad, disheartening the way he could've been so interesting and yet fell flat in such a pitiful way.

I sometimes think about once upon a studio, this gorgeous mix of all pieces of disney animated history, every movie in there. No pixar or marvel or star wars, just everyone who started this, who made disney disney. It's such a lovely short, and it just radiates this pure disney energy, vibrant and colorful and magical. That's what disney is missing now, maybe that's me growing up, maybe it's just not for me anymore.

but honestly, i don't think this generation is going to have that nostalgia for disney the way me or my parents did, it's lost that because it feels so manufactured, this charm that only disney could do gone.

a weird way to say this is the new intro that plays at the start of their movies, it just feels so manufactured, like all it wanted to do was slide references into it to remind you of better movies. that 2000s/2010s CGI intro? that's my shit. the basic 2d intro? it's a classic, it's memorable, but this new one just doesn't have that affect

this is one man's opinion on something he once loved, but i'd love to hear other thoughts on what disney has become

[gettingfrilly]

Let's talk about Eddy and empathy

Okay, so. Hand-me-down Ed.

Lotta people talk about this episode. Lotta them have the take that the boomerang unleashed Eddy's repressed nurturing side. This is a very valid interpretation when you consider the abuse Eddy has endured and all the reasons he has to repress any nurture-type feelings. But here is the thing that I think. Or don't think. I don't think Eddy represses a secret nurturing side. I think it got repressed by outside forces when he was young and squishy and moldable, and now there's not really a whole lot of nurturing in there left for him to repress himself. I truly believe the intent of the episode was to show the Eds being the opposite of who they truly are. And Eddy, truly, in my opinion, is an incredibly traumatized kid with some really unfortunate learned behaviors and underdeveloped empathy muscles that just aren't gonna fully recover.

There are two episodes I wanna talk about to back up my claim.

Ah, Dueling Eds. Who doesn't like Dueling Eds? I certainly consider it one of my favorite episodes. It's a surprisingly serious episode with a genuine look at how Eddy navigates the consequences of hurting someone. That long silence in the van with Double D? His continuing insistence that he didn't do anything? Continually asking throughout the whole episode what the hell is even going on? Mwah. Chef's kiss. I've seen a few different theories for what's going on with Eddy in this episode, but I've always felt that he genuinely has no idea what he did, why everyone's acting the way they are, and is incredibly fucking frustrated by how little sense the whole situation is makes. He knows it has to do with the fishball; he even brings it up himself when he's talking about the incident with Double D later. But he doesn't understand why that was wrong. He doesn't get how something so inconsequential in his own mind could be so hurtful to Rolf, and he is either incapable of, or refuses to acknowledge, that just because it wasn't a big deal to him, doesn't mean it can't be a big deal to someone else. (We call this ~theory of mind~ btw and it's a big component of empathy.)

Another favorite of mine, Little Ed Blue. I've talked about this scene before because I love it for a lot of reasons, and one of those reasons is the insight we get into how Eddy's emotions have probably been addressed by those around him in the past. I mean, jeez, this is Ed! He's one of Eddy's most important people! A true and dear friend he's had since he was a toddler and one of the few people in the world who outwardly likes him and gets along with him. And what does he do when Ed's having a bad day? Calls him a wuss, laughs at him, invalidates his feelings, and tells him to get over himself. This is some grade fucking A asshole behavior, even for Eddy. And yet he does it easily without a shred of guilt, convinced this is the correct way to address a friend who's in the throes of misery. I mean, just look at this face.

Has Ed ever made a face like that? His feelings got fucking hurt man. (also, as a sibling, I can say that this is categorically the most Sibling moment between Eddy and Ed in the entire show.)

IMO, someone with a repressed nurturing side wouldn't be that baffled by how Rolf is reacting or be that cruel to their own best friend. This looks more like someone who genuinely has a low amount of empathy. So what's actually going on? Do I think Eddy is just some cold, uncaring asshole? Of course not! He's a traumatized 12 year old kid who's endured intense physical abuse. Cruelty was normalized for Eddy at a very young age. Why should Rolf be so upset about a fishball? It's not like Eddy beat him or something. And what's Ed got to be so miserable about? Men shouldn't act like wusses. Men are supposed to just get over it. And how could Eddy be wrong for thinking these things? It's what he was taught, after all. He learned these behaviors from his hero, after all. This is all he knows. This is what makes sense to him. It's Rolf and Ed who are being ridiculous.

That kind of stunted growth to someone's empathy isn't something so easily fixed. This is why I don't headcanon or write a more grown up Eddy as someone who learns he doesn't have to repress his nurturing side anymore; I see him as someone who's learned that nurturing and empathy are part of the whole "having friends" deal. He's learned that nurturing and empathy are what's considered normal, learned that it's what's expected of any decent human being, man or not. He's also learned, a la BPS, that you have to be a good friend to have good friends. It doesn't come naturally to him. It's gonna take a lot of hard work and growth on his part. But even if Eddy doesn't always understand why he needs to be gentler, needs to just listen, needs to offer a shoulder to cry on, that doesn't mean he won't do it for the sake of his friends. Because even if empathy ain't his strong suit, even if being empathetic is hard fucking work, he still genuinely and wholeheartedly cares about his friends and cares about doing right by them.

[klm-zoflorr]

Fanon Lukas family tree!! Well, it's for my AU, but I'm sure we can make it work for canon as well ahah

& dark mode... it looks cool okay

I've been working on it for a month lowkey, ever since I started on that Evan/Naomi wip, just... Slowly building up lore and a story and characters and rough estimates of ages and tidbits of brainstorming and a timeline and daddy issues and coming up with names and in this case, well, superpowers too because that's what the AU is about. But anyways, I'm super excited to dig in further, because YES all of these characters pretty much have some amount of personality and interesting details about them so far. Woohoo!! It's also interesting for the same reasons Gerry is interesting; because powers pass down genetically!! Yeehaw!! I get to give them all slightly different versions of the same powers and see how it informs their relationships!

You can see here what was basically my very first version of it. How underdeveloped! It grew a lot, damn. Also some minor changes I made along the way, as for the reasons why... Well they're pretty interesting if I do say so myself, I'll talk about those later. Have fun spotting the differences if you'd like lol

Still, a few general notes so far:

I believe the only Lukases mentionned in canon are Peter, Mordechai (in the 1800's), Nathaniel (owner of their cargo company so presumably some sort of patriarch), Conrad (the guy who talked to the astronauts before shooting them into space) and Evan Lukas. To that I added Virginia, an OC but like come on we need some women represent around here. I've always interpreted Nathaniel as being Peter's uncle, so i put him there. Nathaniel should be the one in charge in my mind too, so I made him the grandfather of the main line/evan's line (because evan is sort of the main character here). I also wanted to keep peter away from the main branch because... Well i don't know. I just didn't want him to be Evan's dad I guess. Or else, you've got that specific branch of the family that gets all the spotlight and important canon characters, and everybody else kinda sucks. It's not ideal!

I originally planned on leaving Peter's branch of the family pretty blank to be honest just because I wasn't super invested into him. I thought he had a sibling and a few nephews and that was it. But then I relistened to mag159, realised he had 5 (wait, 4? Oh shit, did i fuck up. Uhhhhhh) A FEW siblings and that two of them were named, Judith and Aaron. So that was interesting!

Mostly the beginning of it was just figuring out the ages to get an idea of how they should behave and how it all fit in and how far down the line they should be, and then building around it.

Oh, yeah, and based on the few canon names we got, I tried to find names that fit in. The style was... Well. The lukases' names sound to me like they're very basic. Kinda trendy, kinda... What I thought about was "cute" actually. So i tried to keep the same vibe for the rest of my made up guys. Wee-woo. Annnnd ive been rambling again.

Oh, oh right, wait no don't leave yet there were still thing I had to talk about. Few important details I knew about at the beginning stages:

-Evan's mother is a Lukas, and she's very opinionated but kind

-I wanted Nathaniel's eldest son, the one who became Graham (no, not notebook eating graham) to have a son who resents him very much. So i did that

-Adeline! She's old as balls. And very nice. Iwant her to be my grandmawmaw

-oh, right, Mordechai 2!!! For him I thought of the power first, basically he can show you things that happened in the past without having witnessed them. It's a pretty great ability imo.

-Oh, yeah, uh, every Lukas passes down their family name no matter their gender lol.

[willnaib]

having a lot of thoughts about weeping scope and what the design means for levi’s character. more under the cut because it gets LONG. brief cw for a levi-typical drug reference in the second bullet point

two major things i’m focusing on here which are the fact that weeping scope is entirely nude and the obvious giant gun growth. which are kind of the only two things he has, so it’s the only two things to focus on. anyway.

naked

i wouldn’t really point this out since funger is funger but most of the other moonscorched forms do have some form of clothes. weeping scope is ass naked though. he’s completely exposed and has nowhere to hide.

- someone else pointed out in a fic that his jumpsuit covers everything except for what really matters (the track marks on his arms) and while obviously that’s not entirely relevant to weeping scope it’s still. that theme of exposure

- additionally the lack of genitalia/hardened over area where genitals would be — again considering how funger loves gratuitous nudity, big thing here that levi Doesn’t have anything there. (you could take this as trans coding but i feel like they would’ve been more obvious about it considering marina, but regardless) there’s a lot of conclusions to be drawn from that but i think the most noticeable is how the game does go out of its way to hammer in that he’s still a kid. he’s hit puberty (mostly) he’s 18 but he’s still a scared child. underdeveloped. etc

his head exploded and now there’s a gun

something i noticed when going through the enemy list (confession: i haven’t played funger yet because i do not have the right computer. sad.) is that it resembles the platoon enemy in structure and texture which is actually pretty interesting considering the platoon’s nature as a not-very-sentient weapon despite the fact that it is specifically described as a moonscorched human. that’s slightly off topic but i don’t think the texture resemblance between weeping scope’s gun and the platoon body is a coincidence

- what i’m literally thinking about irt the gun being Fucking Huge is the fact that it’s oversized and how that relates to being a child soldier. his main gun itself (rifle) is also very very long. too long for his tiny malnourished ass. it’s huge and unwieldy and

- takes over the entirety of where his head used to be. he literally has no way to think anymore. it’s just gun. no head. no thoughts. just gun and obviously fear and sobbing because even when less than human he’s reverted to extensions of both sides of himself: the terrified child and the mindless soldier. all he can do is cry and shoot. all he can do even as levi is cry and shoot (it’s all he’s good for, it’s all he’s meant for — while it’s a funny interaction, i do think about the segment in prhvl bop where he plays the piano and says it’s too late for his life to change trajectory [how old are you?] 18) — but it’s. so much more obvious and inescapable as weeping scope

[under-my-pillow]

how do you feel with all the people calling soo won aromantic because of his scene with lily when he said he doesnt really understand romance or love but he likes people?

Hello, @spriderlili,

It is a very interesting question. Thank you for asking, but keep in mind my response might be biased as I am personally not a fan of labels, and the fandom gives him plenty of silly ones, so most of the time I am - Even if he is dying, you don't have to be in a hurry to pick out a label for his gravestone quite yet, thank you. - kind of mood.

But I'll elaborate on this particular one.

The word 'aromantic' has a very vague meaning - little or no romantic attraction to others

Does it mean unable to have/devoid of romantic feelings? Or is it referring to people who have never had romantic feelings in their entire lifetime?

For the former, no, he is not devoid of/unable to have emotions - a sociopath or psychopath (I know they call him that, but he is neither) He feels, pain, anger, sympathy, joy, longing, etc., etc., as we have seen in multiple instances, so it doesn't make sense to just be unable/devoid of only romantic feelings.

If it is the latter, we are a little too early to say anything, because despite being "king" and wise beyond his years we often forget that Soo-won is only eighteen years old. Even if we go with the average lifetime of a person being 60 years old, he hasn't even completed half.

Now, is it referring to how he was unaware of Yona's feelings or how he doesn't understand the emotions of love or romance? Or how he seems to not really have attachments to people?

I do not believe the answer to these is - 'aromantic'

To make it a little clear, let's take Yona.

Why was she able to understand romantic love and why is Soo-won unable to?

Why was she able to love and adamantly insist on marrying Soo-won without considering anything else?

1. Because she had the freedom to be a child.

2. She had the freedom to be immature.

3. She had emotional freedom and creative freedom which were not restricted by adult burdens.

4. She was taken care of by a loving parent and allowed healthy emotional development.

For Soo-won, it is the opposite.

The privilege to be a child, the privilege to be immature, the privilege to rely on others, love immaturely, quit immaturely - he lost all that to the dream of making Kouka strong and secure.

Sure, that was his choice, but it was not his choice to lose a major source of parental affection & guidance while the remaining semblance of one was just a wreck.

Children are naturally emotionally reliant on their parents/guardian. So, what happens when a reliable source of emotional stability is just knocked out from right beneath their feet? Where do they put their feet?

For Soo-won, I believe it was in the memories of his father. This is sometimes seen in the way we see him clinging to the memories of his father for guidance.

So,

1. Heavy responsibilities, even the adults did not bother to do.

2. A limited social circle, predominantly made up of adults.

3. A fudging time limit.

It's like asking an athlete with a hundred miles left to the finish line and a 20 minute time limit if he could solve your algebra homework on the way.

I am not saying Soo-won is emotionally underdeveloped either. He is very excellent at controlling his emotions as we have seen. I'd say he is emotionally exhausted.

Romance is not in his priorities.

Romantic attraction is something generally experienced in leisure, when there is freedom to express the heart, when there is that subconscious freedom to trust your heart with another person.

Soo-won is not like Yona. She constantly has Hak or the four dragons whom she can be vulnerable with.

Who do we see Soo-won constantly be vulnerable with?

He has not had emotional freedom.

In the age to run, play, make mistakes, he had already become sensible, self- reliant, set in his beliefs — he's already run half the course before he even turned eighteen while the greatest worry for girls around his age was probably Geun-Tae getting married.

That's a major bandwidth problem.

I think we can all agree that based on what we have seen so far, Soo-won is not a love at first sight person. If he is going to fall in love with someone it is going to be a gradual process.

So, the person at least needs to be someone who can understand his views and talk to him on equal ground. Someone whom he can be emotionally free with. Someone whom he can eventually be vulnerable with.

Lili is a great example (Yes, I won't miss an opportunity to ship my top couple, but also seriously...)

Prior to the story's start Lili was probably just a love sick teen pining after Geun-Tae, but by the time Soo-won's coronation is over she is aware of the water tribe's major issues.

She wants to help, tries, fails miserably, tries again, gets help, slowly matures enough to be able to command the respect of the tribe in her own name.

Among all of Soo-won's female acquaintances introduced in the story so far which you can count on one hand she is the closest to have come to understanding the reality underlying Soo-won's decisions.

So, my point is, maturity wise, girls around his age circle are just catching up.

When there is someone (preferably Lili) whom he is comfortable with expressing his thoughts and emotions to, someone who actually understands him (Not like Hak), he'll eventually come to understand what it means to hold romantic affection for another person.

He just needs time and the right person.

[bibibbon]

MHA chapter 425

Iam not really sure how to feel about this chapter. Well I can definitely say that I still think that the entirety of the second war arc especially the last few chapters weren't my favourite and ruined the series for me but we have the power of rewrites on our side so not to worry

So we finally have a 1A member that left. It's surprising that it took a total of 425 chapters for someone to finally leave the hero course. This low-key makes me question if 1A just all has neglectful parents that don't care about them because I think any sane parent would of took their kids out of UA a long time ago and the first war arc should of been a wake up call. Now that yuuga has left it does make me wonder what he will do. I mean he has to continue his education somewhere 🤷‍♀️

Shinsou joins class 1A and Iam surprised his parents let him. I get that shinsou was due to join the hero course in their second year but like this series sometimes make me question if any of these characters have sane parents because why would you let your kid join in such a dangerous job?!?! Also I respectfully think that shinsou is heavily underdeveloped and didn't get any moment to shine in the war arc. Also there isn't much of a relationship between 1A and shinsou so it does feel a bit off I guess and maybe this is just me but I always thought that he fit in better with 1b

Pacing is hella fast! How are they going back to school already and throwing a graduation ceremony. It hasn't been a week and somehow everything is rebuilt like that, we get little to no information from what they plan to do in the future. We do get a tiny speech but we don't get them starting to do such things and personally I would of at least enjoyed a panel seeing some heroes help rebuild and clean the damage caused. Plus I think everyone can tell that the MHA society is flawed so saying that they want to go back to their old ways seems very iffy to me. I also would of liked an acknowledgement in what actually happen in the war arc but considering that not many people died they weren't gonna do any type of memorial thing or anything.

Is that shigaraki?!?! Or kurogiri?!?!?!? Who is it!!! Iam totally unsure of who it is but I don't think it would make sense if it was shigaraki because he literally died unless hori is actually going along with the plan of separating Tenko and shigaraki and thats not shigaraki but the innocent and crying Tenko type of bs (I absolutely hate this idea tbh) also what happend for tenko to come back as a child I suppose? Or is this someone completely new who has been effected by society and we're supposed to be like well evil is still brewing as society hasn't changed type thing? Maybe it's kurogiri idk I just want to see kurogiri again.

Enji is in a wheelchair (don't really care for him). This makes me question if endy is even a hero anymore and if he ain't who is the number one then? ( I still think they're going by that system because they said they wanna go back to the old ways)

Wait are we gonna see Dabi next chapter!!!!. Enji is facing somewhere with a ton of wires and all so maybe it could be where Dabi is being held at? I mean we don't know if Dabi is dead and we didn't get todoroki talking about it at all

I need Izuku's old hair back!! I miss the fluffy hair and I get that the convo was supposed to be lighthearted and all but I would of enjoyed the pages being used for something else like them actually checking up on eachother. Is tokoyami quirkless? How did they spend their time? Questions like that would of sufficed but I hated Izuku's hair at least he has some people telling him it's cool even if they might be lying

This chapter didn't give us much clarification on much to be honest. Yeah I was expecting this chapter to have huge focus on other villains and characters yet it didn't. I know I have to be patient blah blah but the last two panels of 424 did give us ochako and Todoroki but we got the least focus on them this chapter. I was hoping the villain situations might start to get addressed but I guess that will be next chapter with maybe Tenko making a comeback?

Also I love how we got Toruu's quirk glitching but no one acknowledges it or helps her with it (sarcasm if you couldn't realise)

I also hate whatever convo that was between Izuku and ochako, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth for some unknown reason

Why the hell is a third year In charge of something a teacher should be!!?!?!! Poor fuwa UA corruption and hypocrisy goes deep.

How are children still joining ua?!?! Like yep society moves on like nothing happend even though Japan was turned upside down in chaos

In conclusion, it was ok I didn't expect it to be amazing because it was a chapter that was gonna expand on stuff I didn't like 🤷‍♀️.

[kasunex]

While I haven't finished my own playthrough of Decay Pt 1, I've seen enough reactions and spoilers to feel as if I've gotten a handle on the pulse of the fandom. I'm left feeling quite unsatisfied by it.

To be honest, I was one of the people who originally voted to keep Part 1 unreleased. This isn't so much because I hate cliffhangers as much as it is because I see a story like this with various routes as parts of a bigger whole. To experience it incomplete as such is like trying to decipher a painting while only looking at roughly half of it.

The problem there, of course, is that people take away vastly underdeveloped interpretations that they have years to become entrenched in before any solid evidence to the contrary is released.

I've been smug in that I was proven correct in my insistence that Burial -Questionable- wasn't going to be the only incest route. Yet, my own take that Burial -Questionable- was going to be the most satisfying route has also come under heavy scrutiny given Nemlei's statements on the matter.

Indeed, even I am at a loss as to where exactly the story is going at this point. Previously, I predicted four potential resolutions:

1) Andrew and Ashley reconcile and become lovers.

2) Andrew and Ashley have a romanticized murder-suicide or double suicide.

3) Andrew tries to seperate from Ashley and succeeds, but it's emphasized how miserable both are because of this.

4) Andrew tries to seperate from Ashley, fails, and ultimately the two end up together in a much more drawn out fashion.

Thing is, we've seen all but #3 play out already to at least some extent - and we still have half of Decay and all of Burial to go.

My inclination is to say there's more than one way to skin a wolf and assume we're going to see variations on these same themes in upcoming endings. Nemlei has emphasized we won't be retreading old ground, but there's a lot of different ways one could come to these conclusions.

Sure, "Shots and Such" gave us a lovers ending, but it was not through reconcilation leading to mutual trust and growth, but rather Ashley and Andrew both sinking deeper into their respective insecurities. The only development they've had is to acknowledge their sexual and romantic tension, if only barely. This leaves the door open for an alternative where they do go through the prerequisite growth first.

But then, it's also completely possible I'm way off base with this and that Nemlei is actually going to completely subvert expectations - whether in a justified way I can't predict or in a forced way just because she can. Maybe any hope of a somewhat satisfying conclusion is purely in vain and every ending is going to be fucked up on six different levels.

That ambiguity is just sadly where this fandom will be at for the forseeable future. We're going to see a ton of takes that are going to jump the gun as bad if not worse than anything to this point. We've seen the absolute worst of Andrew and Ashley, and many are going to assume that's all there is to them. And maybe they will be proven correct - but I still think it more likely not.

That's only natural. Decay Pt 1 is an incomplete flip side meant to work in compliments to versions of the story we haven't seen, and won't see for some time.

Cliché as it is, only time will tell.