#I DON'T KNOW WHO MY BIASES WOULD BE IF I HAD NO 'MENTOR' IN THIS KPOP WORLD

[zehina]

It is SO evil that my biases are basically the same as the ones this one friend of mine has. Very evil. Thousand years of jail for her actually.

[nerdofspades]

Bruce looked at the pop-up on the Batcomputer's screen.

"Explain," he growled, glancing down at Tim.

"Not much to explain," Tim answered, pulling up lines of code. "It showed up ten seconds ago."

"I'm starting a full diagnostic," Barbara said, voice filtering through the speakers. "So far, I'm not seeing anything."

"And yet..." Time trailed off glancing at the window again. It had a video queued up to play and the words "IMPORTANT: PLEASE WATCH. DO NOT DELETE" in large text at the top.

"There's a new folder labeled 'a gift for Batman,'" Tim said. "Not something any of us made."

"Clearly."

"I'm still not finding any viruses, corrupted files, or spyware," Oracle said. "The new folder was programmed to stay in a hidden partition for a few days after it was placed. Then, obviously, the pop-up to catch our attention."

"Folder also has a text file named 'security notes,'" Tim said. "Maybe our new hacker is friendly?"

"It's starting to look like it," Oracle agreed. "The video is clean. It should be safe to watch."

Bruce sighed. "Then let's see what they've got for us."

-

The video opened with a dark room. The background hidden in shadows, while the foreground was well lit, letting them clearly see the tired teen in the center of the frame as he took a heavy swig from his mug before putting it down.

"Pulling up facial recognition."

He ran a hand through his messy black hair and then down his face, pinching his nose and hiding the bags under his blues eyes for a moment before he dropped his hand and finally looked at the camera.

"I really don't want to do this," he said, "but you need it." He glanced longingly off screen in the direction of the mug he'd put down.

"First of all, I think I should apologize for hacking you. Or asking my friend to, technically. I just. You need to know about this and I didn't know of another way to get it to you that would be secure.

"I did at least make him promise to make a record of how he got in so you can patch that.

"That out of the way... to business? I'm Danny Fenton, for the last year or so I have also been the hero Phantom in Amity Park. My parents are Jack and Maddie Fenton. They are ectobiologists and ghost hunters. While extremely biased and not actually that good at catching ghosts, their tech is easily the best in the business."

"That's a positive match."

"Running a search on Phantom."

"I- fucking shit." Danny put his head in his hands again, running them back through his hair before leaning back, almost collapsing into the chair.

"This kid has... gotten into some shit."

"Everyone knows you're the League's strategist, Batman. And. I'm strong enough. I can handle my problems, that's not what I'm worried about.

"It's been about a year and I've already been mind controlled once." Danny laughed. A dry, broken, almost desperate laugh. "And that was just some lowlife that wanted to rob jewelry stores. I'm still not worried about. It's not why I'm sending you this. The magic relic he used is broken and gone now."

"Well that explains one of his problems."

"The others?"

"An attempted kidnapping and fairly standard property damage. I want to see some footage of those fights before passing judgement."

"Even more standard given he doesn't seem to have a mentor. Batman, he was fourteen."

"No. I. I've seen a version of the future. One where I go mad. Where I snap. And the Justice League can't stop me.

"I don't know if I- he kills everyone. I don't know who, if anyone, makes it out. But it's not anyone that could really do much. I... I saw ten years after he- I snapped. Earth was little more than rubble and ash. Only one city was left holding out and it was about to fall- was falling when I got there.

"I've managed to change the time line. What broke him didn't happen here. But. I can't guarantee nothing ever could.

"So. Yeah. Next best thing is making sure you're prepared. All my powers. All my weaknesses. Everything I know of that could possibly hurt me. Schematics and blue prints for anything you could need to fight me, track me, keep me out, keep me contained. All nice and giftwrapped for your convenience.

"Uh... that's everything. Why is it always so awkward to end a video? Hopefully we never see each other? I guess? Pretty sure us actually meeting is gonna be a bad sign.

"You know what. I'm gonna turn this thing off now before I say something stupid."

-

"Batman, who's 'Phantom'?" Superman asked, glancing up from the Watchtower computer he was working at. "Aren't we supposed to vote on new members?"

Batman grunted. "He's not a member, just someone who understands the need for contingencies."

"You know what, I'm not gonna even ask."

"Probably for the best."

[hyvksun]

Beauty and a Beat ~ Lee donghyuck

bf!hyuck # drabble ,,, 1 ﹕ fluff ﹕ library

warnings : vulgar words, term girlfriend used, not proofread (just pure brainrot).

🐻 author's note ﹕this is based on a true story. for my finals in pe we had to dance rumba and chachacha and i swear i was sweating out of my mind. it was a group project but i still had to perform with a partner and infront of my classmates. enjoy this little drabble (my first fic back) while i rewrite the hyuck fic that tumblr just erased 🫂

“What if I just faint right now, would it give me a free pass for PE?”

“You'll be fine, bub I promise, so just follow me.” Donghyuck started off by showing you the steps for Rumba.

For your midterms in Physical Education, you were required to create and perform your own Rumba choreography. Luckily enough it was a choose your own partner thing and obviously you got to partner up with your boyfriend who is the best dancer you know.

“Hyuck, I dont know if I can even move my hips like that.”

“Sure you can you're just being shy, here,” He stood behind you, facing the mirror of the PE room, he held your hips in his hands and controlled them to move with his, “Your knees will bend on their own, you have to move your hips in figure eights, like this.”

Donghyuck is a strict dance teacher, him being one of the school's dance club vice president and student mentor you were nervous as this is the first time you'll be working with him in this field.

But maybe because he was biased and as his girlfriend he is being gentle with teaching you the choreography.

He kept doing the movement before letting go, “Ok you try.”

So try you did and it was awful, “I'm doing figure 1s, bro.”

Donghyuck tried his best not to snicker.

“Don't laugh at me.”

“Am not!” He's trying hard to hold in that laugh now.

“Ok how about we try to do the choreography first then we'll try with the hips.”

He began playing the song through the speakers and Donghyuck guided you into position. Throughout the routine though you couldn't get a hang of the steps and you commended him for his patience as you kept stepping on your boyfriend's feet.

“This isn't working, I keep stepping on you.”

“That's ok, here is the part where you spin,” he holds your hand up as you spot turn in place but when you try to get back into the first position you stepped on Donghyuck's toes harder making him groan.

“Fuck, I'm so sorry.”

“It's ok, I'm ok let's just take a break.” He went to pause the music and sat down on the bench with a hiss as he tried moving his toes.

Feeling bad you knelt down to rub at the sore area on Donghyuck's toes.

Feeling embarrassed you almost felt like crying. “Hyuck, I don't think I can do this,,,”

“That's fine, really, let's do something different for that part.”

You shook your head, “No I mean, I just can't dance— if you wanna pass the class you can switch partners I really don't mind—”

“What are you saying? grades isn't what I'm after here.”

“This is just so frustrating, I blame the education system.”

“Look, I'm not gonna look for another partner, I made the choreography specifically for us to perform.”

You looked at him confused.

“I was gonna kiss you in the end for the highlight,” a smirk was planted on his face.

Your face instantly heat up and you slapped him on the knee, “Are you insane?! I'm not kissing you infront of our teacher.”

He laughs, “I'm kidding, but seriously I wouldn't want any other partner to do this dance with, Rumba is about intimacy and connection with your partner, would you want me to get intimate with someone else?” you shook your head no, “Then I'm doing this dance with you.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you love me.”

“I'm not kissing you for any highlight, hyuck, I'm serious.”

“What about a quick peck?”

“Lee donghyuck!”

© hyvksun 2024

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Different nonnie from the Tikki-Xuppu person, but what you said about Tikki’s personality fitting Order better than Creation made me think about how Pollen would’ve be a better fit for Creation symbolism-wise over Tikki given how much bees better fit that image over ladybugs with their beeswax, honey and hive-making, not to mention the intimate relationship humans of various cultures have had with bees for literal millennia. Even the restoration of Miraculous Ladybug fits bees better due to the connotations of pollination and how essential bees are for the world’s ecosystem. In a universe where Pollen was the kwami of Creation with Tikki’s canon powers (though with bee-theming of course) to Plagg’s Destruction, how do you think things would’ve gone with Marinette and Adrien while having their canon personalities? How do you think they would have played off of each other with their canon personalities?

(Post that spawned this ask)

Before we begin, I want to note that my answer is probably going to be at least a little biased by @zoe-oneesama Scarlet Lady comic because Pollen has a big role in that and Zoe's read on Pollen pretty closely matches mine. Do with that what you will.

This is the first Kwami swap that I could see working. Plagg's personality is so iconic that it's hard to imagine anyone being an improvement, but Tikki is pretty generic. While she has a clear personality, she has no real interests or hobbies that make her stand out. She's mostly just here to be cute and act as the writer's mouthpiece. While I hate that for her and think she deserves better, it does mean that booting her and replacing her with a different Kwami doesn't feel like you're breaking a core element of the show so long as her replacement plays off the other characters well.

We don't see much of Pollen in canon, so it's hard to get a great read on her, but she her love of calling Chloe "my Queen" and the fact that Pollen is a bee give me vibes of a loyal, devoted Kwami who thinks that her Chosen is the best thing ever no matter what. Compare that to Plagg who delights in tormenting his Chosen and there's major potential for some excellent banter and fun contrasting moments, which is what Tikki's replacement would need to be able to do. Tikki and Plagg's contrasting dynamic is a lot of fun and you wouldn't want to lose it. Pollen and Plagg's dynamic would be different, but in a similar enough vein that I think it could work. Which is actually a point in Pollen's favor. If she was just another Tikki, then there would be no point in making the switch.

While Tikki is often dishing out lectures, her most valuable role is building Marinette up in moments when Marinette is feeling down. Pollen should be able to do that no problem. If anything, Pollen may be a little too zealous in supporting Marinette, but since Marinette isn't often shown to listen to Tikki's advice, that's not really an issue. It could even be a new source of comedy where Marinette comes up with insane plans and Pollen hypes her up while the audience watches in fascinated horror. It could be a lot of fun and also give Alya a better chance to fill the voice-of-reason role that she's occasionally allowed to have. That's one of the many awkward things about Alya knowing now. Her and Tikki often fill the same role on the civilian side since Tikki isn't presented as a wise, ancient mentor who knows things that these kids don't.

I especially love the idea of a Kwami swap where Adrien is praised to death and then refuses to give Pollen back because he needs this right now, okay? His lady can have the cheese loving gremlin for a few days while Pollen floats after him, calling him a Queen and praising his every move. Maybe Pollen even starts sneaking into his backpack and leaving him whatever her favorite treats are as a little sign that he's appreciated, leading Plagg to get all territorial, which further validates Adrien. (I just really like comedy that has a sweet undertone, okay?)

Since we don't have a full understanding of Pollen's personality, I won't speculate further than that as I'm trying to avoid getting too far into the realms of headcanon, but I do really like this idea and think it could be a lot of fun. I even like the idea of Pollen as Creation because bees do make more sense than ladybugs from a theme perspective. Plus Ladybee was such an iconic look, one of the few good unifies, and a version of that without the red would still be fabulous!

[punishing-eden]

The Untruth Beneath the Crescent...

Not beta read

Jiyan x Reader (ft. Geshu Lin)

Summary:

Jiyan's involvement in the battle at Northfall Barrens has been retold many times, and has become a beloved hero to the people of Jinzhou. All, expect for you.

Tags: Canon Divergent, unrequited (Jiyan), tw: angst, (Mild) Kuudere! Reader, romantic or platonic is up to your interpretation, reader is NOT Rover, a bit of cultural references.

══════════════════

"Medicine can heal illnesses and broken bones, but never a broken heart..."

Jiyan looked down at the medicine carrier his mother gave him.

The offerings of wine and rice were placed neatly by the alter of the Knell Square. The tranquil sound of the waterfall acted as white noise that isolated the area from the rest of Jinzhou.

A fresh wisp of smoke from the incense burned, whipping up in the air. Normally, Jiyan would simply ring the bell, but for this occasion, the incense will be suffice to tell them, his fallen comrades, after many months he's home.

Jiyan stood in a respectful silence in front of the altar. The black marble plaques that bears all the names to those who had fallen.

Then he took a glance at you, who, was tending a certain black plaque. You wiped away at the accumulated dust with a piece of cloth, showing the engraved name painted in gold, Geshu Lin.

Jiyan slowly approached, he can already feel the tension building. You held, somewhat, a distained for him, for what, he doesn't truly understand.

It was after a few minutes, Jiyan decided to speak first, "... It's been quite a while, [Y/N], how is mentor doing? "

You snapped your head up when you heard your name.

Jiyan's gaze was soft. A contrast, to his usual scowl, and stern look at the battlefield. As least, that's how your father described Jiyan after he took over the Midnight rangers.

On that thought, your brows involuntarily furrowed.

"My father is fine," you simply said, and continued to clean the tombstone, "his rheumatism is getting better."

A look of relief plastered in Jiyan's face, "I am glad he has been doing well."

You simply nodded at Jiyan.

"... If I may, I would like to treat mentor to a meal sometime..." Jiyan asked, "and, I would like to catch up with you too."

You gave no immediate answer. You placed your offerings in front of the tombstone. Even though you often would get confused looks from other people, and that Geshu Lin's remains were not found, you still do it because you respect him so much.

"It's really not nesscary, General," you finally said, hiding the pain in your chest. The pain of losing someone you hold so close to your heart still hurts after three years. And, it hurts even more to know how the people of Jinzhou sees Geshu Lin as someone who is reckless and selfish, Havoc and demanding, even though the stories were told to keep biases at bay.

"I don't want to keep you away from your duties," You added with a hint of deattachment in your voice.

Jiyan pursed his lips. He knows that you are in pain. He can see it on your face, the way you would clutch at almost anything when you see him. The deattachment of your attitude pains him too.

"[Y/N], I..." he said but you cut him off.

"Don't-" you said, taking a step back to readjust yourself to keep your emotions at bay, "I don't need your sympathy."

Jiyan paused. Brows furrowed, out of frustration. He has tried many times to make you feel better, but nothing seems to be helping you move pass your grief.

He let out a sigh, with a subtle frustrated edge.

"I wasn't going to do that," Jiyan said.

He grabbed his medicine carrier and took out a small packet of herbal pills; wrapped in a yellowish textured paper and binded with a string to secure the opening.

"These are for you," he said and held it out.

"I know you still have difficulty in getting a good night's rest. I concocted these myself. My soldiers uses these to get better sleep at their camps, and I hope you could too."

Your skeptical facade fell, "How do you know that I have a hard time sleeping?" you were thoroughly surprised by Jiyan's gesture.

"Mentor mentioned it to me in a letter," he answered.

A sigh escaped your lips. Of course, your father was Jiyan's mentor back in the day. Pretty much, Jiyan would know a lot about your father's worries.

"Thanks," you said, your voice was still deattached, but it sounded a little less hostile, "I appreciate it."

Reaching out, you accepted the small packet from Jiyan's hand.

Jiyan's lips turned upwards, and his gaze softens. He was glad that, at least, you did not turn him down on everything.

There was a moment of awkward silence between the both of you.

"..." you stood there, feeling the awkwardness.

"I should get going. Goodnight, General," you said, keeping things polite.

Your body turned and began to walk back to the city centre. Watching you walk away, Jiyan looked at the tombstone with Geshu Lin's name on it. Then he looked up at starlit sky. The moon that was illumating the square was in full, and the memories of his interaction with the pervious general replayed in Jiyan's mind. His soft features harden on that thought.

He tried to brush off the memories, believing it could be muddled by his experience with retroactive rain clouding his judgment about General Geshu Lin.

All alone in the Knell Square, Jiyan place a hand on his chest to calm his beating heart. There is no use to ruminate on the past. What was done has been done.

A sign left his lips as he rubbed his temples, if only you can see the same way. If only you knew what had actually happened back then. But, at the same time, Jiyan knew if you were to know the truth, about what had happened on that day, your heart would break even more.

"There really is no way about this..." the general muttered to himself. He wish there could be a quick fix for this, like a pill that could take a fever away. Yet, the words of his mentor replayed in his mind, "Medicine can heal illnesses and broken bones, not broken hearts, Jiyan."

He remembered, back when he was a medic, he witness a lot of grief at camp base. Back then, he was naive enough to believe that a relief of physical symptoms of a heart break, it would subsequently heal the feelings of grief.

Now he understands, it doesn't work that way.

For now, he would play the bad person, for your sake. He knows you were hurting, but at least, him being the bad person would hurt you less.

To be continue... (?)

(C) Punishing Eden

══════════════════

Author's notes:

>:3

I want to spice up some drama in Jiyan's life, because i think there isn't enough of it. Lol.

I personally think, Jiyan's feud with Geshu Lin is an interesting one, and I wish the story quest could explore it more, because, I feel like they didn't really explain what exactly the feud between the Retroactive! Geshu Lin and Jiyan. I mean, I can write a whole paragraph about this, but I don't want to clutter the notes up.

Like, the story quest could be from Jiyan's subjective point of view about the beef. But, I guess they are saving this when Geshu Lin comes out.

-Punishing Eden

[icantthinkyandere]

What do you think abt two yanderes fighting eachother to get to their master? Like im having so many brain rotting ideas my brain has a cavity.

Who do you think would be best to fit these rolls??

{Arjuna alter vs Morgan Le Fay}

Hear me out.

I love Arjuna a lot after reading his interlude a long time ago, and I love Arjunalter even more. I also love Morgan a lot after reading Avalon. So, they're on my mind a lot and very biased.

They're both very desperate for love now that they're on Chaldea and able to relax. They can have it.

While they can still fall for a staff but it's more likely to get obsessed with the master since they've seen them at their worse but yet they are still kind to them now that they're in Chaldea.

They know full well they can't kill or fight each other. They 100% want to because they want to protector and devoted lover of their darling master. The only thing they can really do is throw catty insults at each other. The Fea Knights have offered to take care of him for her, but she doesn't want them to get in trouble or fade away. Morgan doesn't want that because she wants Baobhan to have an actually good step parent that doesn't lead to her death.

They're not very manipulative mainly because they think their relationship with their beloved is fine. Even if they're not (or something have stopped them from thinking they're in a relationship with you already) in a relationship, they think the relationship is perfectly. You've already accepted their flaws, and they're a wonderful partner for you.

Arjunalter can't get anyone on his side to support his relationship because he's not the most trusted servant, and the only people Morgan can get on her side are the Fae knights. They're all trying their best, even if it's not the best in reality.

Arjunalter and Morgan are trying their hardest not to go back to their violent ways because they want to prove that they've changed. But they hate each other so much since they believe they are either in a relationship with you or are on the edge of getting married.

The only thing they can do is throw insults at each other and pray that something happens to make the other disappear completely

{Merlin vs Lady Avalon}

I feel like anyone else would say Merlin and Lady Avalon would work together. But I just don't think they would. They both want what they want and won't let even themselves get in the way.

They already knew how similar they were, and then it really set in when they realized they had the same exact plan to isolate their love to make them dependent on them. They're getting in each other's way by interrupting personal time at any chance.

Da Vinci and Sherlock suggest maybe just working together? They declined, saying that even they know two of them is too much. The real reason being they'll just argue about what to do or it'll quickly show their darling that these aren't real lessons, just them trying to isolate you from other servants and staff

They're teachers, mentors, etc. They give a lot of themselves to other people, so now that they have such strong feelings for someone, they would like to be a little selfish for once. Which means not sharing even if that person is you with a different look.

Unlike Arjunalter and Morgan, who are trying to be on their best behavior despite wanting to rip each other's throats out. These two only look like they're on their best behavior. They are playing 20 D chess with each other, with them trying to manipulate anyone they can to their side into believing the other is evil and should die.

This goes with the person of their affection, too. Constantly trying to make the other look as bad as they can, from pointing obvious already known flaws, making things up, and finding the most obscure Merlin facts they can find.

Sometimes, the race to be the only one gets so intense that they forget they're even battling for someone's affection, allowing some other servant or staff member to get uncomfortably close. So, they have to derail their plans to ruin each other, to get this person away while trying to make sure the other isn't getting closer to their love in the process! It's a loop of desperately trying to stay one step ahead.

They don't really care about the other servants that they ruin the reputation of, unless it's Arthur and the Artorias. Even if they do think Merlin and Lady Avalon are weird, they still trust and love them. So, making them believe the Merlin/Lady Avalon is evil as well as other servants does hurt them. They can only hope they understand the end goal. Being happily together with their soulmate away from the world.

🎉BONUS ODDITY TIME!!!🎉

Yanderes who work together

{Okita Souji and Qin Shi Huang}

While they don't like it, they have a mutual understanding that this person is very important to them both, and they want to protect them more than anything in the world.

They are two sides of the same coin, with Okita being a more violent protector whole. Qin Shi Huang is a peace protector. Qin Shi Huang, while trying their best to be peaceful, knows that somethings can't be avoided anymore. Okita knows that her more aggressive behavior is off-putting and very intimidating. Working together allows them to cover different types of caretaking.

Qin Shi Huang can take care of more emotional needs, and if someone needs to die, Okita can kill them.

They take turns interacting with their shared beloved, learning new things, and cross-referencing what they've learned. They don't get very far most of the time with planning and strategies because they'll start talking about something cute you did or someone who is seems to be dangerous because they were over analyzing a situation.

[chairofchaos]

A Brief Commentary on Fandom History, Fandom Weeks, and How to Keep Moving Forward

Before you decide to read this, please go read this thing I wrote earlier. You need the context. Done reading? No? Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, and definitely don't engage with this post. Go read it. You're done? Excellent! Please remember that I said absolutely nothing in the aforementioned post about commenting on current events. Also, this contains some swearing, in case that bugs you. Any text written in this font I'm using below the break is liable to be sarcastic (if you want clarification about something like that let me know!). Word count is about 3.8k. Shoutout to @/olderthannetfic, who wrote back to that anon who was talking about the clergy-class of Big Name Fans and said,

"Nail your theses to the door."

I think that sentiment applies here.  Kudos to you, wise fandom elder. You rock.

About the Author

To reiterate how I began my last post (linked above and for the love of all fandom, go read it), I have been involved in fandom spaces for 12 years, almost to the day. I had wonderful mentors who knew that were I left unchecked, I would fumble my way through a lot of very bad ideas about what fandom should be like. They decided out of love that if I was going to be in fandom, they were going to make me into the best little fandom child I could be.

If you do the math, I was 11 when I started getting involved. What can I say? It was a different decade and I had unrestricted internet access. Nobody was keeping me from my Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fanfics. All of this to say: I was raised here, and I'm going to scream in the living room while this house burns down around me because I'd rather be a ghost in fandom than not be in fandom at all.

I am going to say a lot of things in this post. Am I perfect? NO! Will this post hold errors? Undoubtedly. Will this post be tarnished by the inaccuracies of the resources and the biases of events recorded in secondary sources? Who knows. I'm sure some of you lived through the events I am referencing here. Your context and commentary is more than welcome. Will this help give us, the ACOTAR fandom, some context for why we all care so much? I hope so.

No, I don't actually. I have no faith in anyone, not even myself.

Thanks for that, Editorial Chaos. You're one pessimistic bitch. Oh, you're going to keep showing up in this post to annoy me, aren't you...

Yep. Back to it, Chaos.

Alright, then. Anyways, I have opinions. You have opinions. There's a 100% chance that we disagree on something. That's cool with me. So let's get to it.

Why Are We Talking About This?

Elaingate. We are here because of Elaingate, and I will not lie to you about that. You will briefly hear my thoughts on that specific issue further down the line.

To those of you who would suggest that Elaingate is over? I must disagree. 

You see, this one instance may be over, but the underlying debate continues. What should fandom look like? Who can participate, and with what content? What is allowed, and who gets to decide?

These questions have not been addressed. I am not, by any means, going to pretend to be an authority on this. I do, however, wish to contribute my many thoughts, and present some events from the history of fandom.

My hope in sharing this brief summary of notable events which shaped broader fan culture will help people newer to fandom (of all kinds) understand why something like an event which bans certain types of content, or content involving specific characters, as something to be concerned, or even angry, about.

Please consider this, my contribution to the discussion, as a form of academic inquiry with an opinion thread throughout. This is something I am throwing to the fandom for consideration. Do I get preachy? Absolutely I do. Do I stand by my thoughts? Yes. 

If you want to respond and tell me I’m dead wrong, by all means, do so. I welcome a reblog or a post in response. Let’s go back and forth, citing our sources like two exhausted researchers from different university departments, fighting over faerie smut books. I’ll eat up every second of it.

No, you won’t. You’re exhausted.

Really? Please stop.

Noooooooooooooooooo.

Are these old issues, or is this a new problem?

Welcome to the party! It's both as old as fandom itself, and as new as yesterday. ("Chaos, those can't both be true, can they?" Yes, they can!)

You see, there have always been issues within fandoms. People have disagreed about whether character A should end up with character B or character C for longer than any of us have been alive. Seriously. The Ancient Greeks were arguing about this stuff thousands and thousands of years ago. 

Source: my Greek Tragedy professor. And if you want to argue that point, you can take it up with him. He’s an ornery old German man who looked at me and told me I needed to do better on my tests in front of the entire class. I had a 98 overall, and the only grades we got were the tests.

Moving on: Dare I say, we are not special?

The real difference now is that the previously separate communities of fandom are coming together on platforms where systems for separating those branches of fandom do not exist in automatically available formats.

We face new issues because the wonderful world-wide web continues to grow wider and wider. We have more people on the internet than ever before. You interact with more people by participating in online fandom than a person would have 5-10 years ago, let alone before the internet, and that comes with new challenges.

So what, Chaos?

I'm glad you asked! On LiveJournal, you could join Communities. You can envision them as a Discord server centered around a specific ship or character. You could be automatically entered into a group of like-minded people, and never really have to interact with people who shipped Character A with Character B, if you wanted.

Another form of fanfic from the pre-internet through the early internet years of fandom days were Zines (In depth "what's that?" from Purdue University). In fandom, zines were edited, curated fanworks. They were numerous. Some were public, some were private. Some Zine editors stood up to Lucasfilm. Regardless, there was content moderation, whether by community members or by corporations themselves. We'll come back to this.

Does that mean I would never have had to interact with those evil A/B shippers when I ship B/C?

Hahahahahhahaha.

No. It doesn't. You still encountered people who disagreed with you. 

And there were slurs and threats involved. It could get real ugly.

Yeah. Be thankful we have good community guideline things on Tumblr, and a reporting process on AO3. I don't think anyone is going to try to hack your computer to get your IP address and dox you for shipping the "wrong" characters (and good grief: if you care that much or truly think that is an appropriate action, please stay far, far away from me).

You looked for the community where you fit best, and that's where you started following, and finding, and interacting. It's not all that different to what you can do here once you curate your individual experience.

Chaos, why does any of this matter? Why aren't you talking about current events?

Well, in the grand scheme of things, does anything matter?

Yes, newly-nihilistic Editorial Chaos. It really does matter.

It matters because it's our history. It's how we got here. Be grateful. As for current events, I’m not really here to give you an in-depth analysis of those, as there are other posts which do that. 

I’m here to talk about the underlying issue. To do that, we need some background. I promise you need all of this context for my proposal at the end. Feel free to skip what you already know, but please take this opportunity to learn something new today!

Why did Archive of Our Own come into being?

For my sources on this, I direct you to the original livejournal post which started it all (thank you @/astolat! You can find her on tumblr and AO3. She’s responsible for so many great things and I thank her for all of them) and the more in-depth Fanlore page on the original proposal for AO3, where you can find links to relevant issues surrounding the proposal’s creation and the result of the proposal. See? Not a nihilist, Chaos. I'm helping. Like I'm "supposed to." Ugh.

The long and short of this is that internet fanfiction communities were facing censorship from the hosting sites. LiveJournal and Fanfiction.net were getting worried about the legality and perceived morality of different kinds of fanfiction, and a new site was being created specifically to profit off of fanfiction. 

For the sake of this discussion, we are going to use the word "curation". LJ, FF.net, and others were intentionally curating the kind of content they would allow and would allow users to see and interact with, partly out of fear of lawsuits, and partly out of a desire to police morality. The cleaning processes they used to get rid of things they did not like were referred to as "purges."

In the purges, many sexually explicit fics were lost. We aren’t talking about something the average 2020s romantasy reader (that’s you, ACOTAR fan!) would necessarily shy away from. We’re largely talking about a level of explicit nature that mirrors the general content of ACOTAR. There were of course fics that were less explicit, and fics that were considerably more explicit. By my understanding, the bulk were things we now see in published work.

Many fics with LGBT natures were lost, because the crackdown on “morality” I mentioned? Yeah. That had a lot to do with LGBT issues. Others have written a lot more extensively and a lot more eloquently than I can on this subject, so I am going to leave it at that. Just know it was a very large issue, and if you want more on this feel free to do some research of your own!

So the problems were numerous. The solution was created. Now we have Archive of Our Own (AO3). (Am I saying that AO3 is perfect? No. That, like most things, is a whole other post.)

AO3 is an archive. It is a hosting site, but it went about it differently than fanfiction.net or livejournal, or most of the niche, fandom-specific sites. Very few of those actually exist anymore, but they were cool.

As an archive, AO3's role was to be a place where the fics that could not be on the other sites because of curation would go to be. Notable fics that were posted in the early days of Archive of Our Own were fics with incest (wincest started here! And don’t tell me AO3 didn’t want it because, well, the creators were the ones writing it, and yes, I have sources for that), brutal violence, and explicit sexual content, among other, much more SFW G-rated type fics. 

They all had a home on AO3, because AO3 was designed primarily for authors (see sources linked above for more). It is notably not a social media, because it is intended to store works (regardless of their content*) and not share them. (*This is mostly true. There have been some problems because of this, often in the realm of Real Person Fics, or RPF. Again, it's a whole other post, but bears repeating.)

Chaos, what on earth does that have to do with fandom [Character/Ship] Week(s)?

I'm overjoyed that you would ask me such a question! It has everything to do with it.

Since the internet has taken over as the primary fandom connector, we have seen a democratization of fandom. We no longer have Zine editors telling us what we can and cannot write. We are protected by AO3's careful non-profit model, ensuring that no one is profiting off of characters owned by other people or franchises.

It has been said that "every rule and regulation you work to enforce has been written in the blood of others." 

That is... overly dramatic.

You do remember we’re called ‘Chaos’ here, right?

Fair. Why do you insist on being so damn cheerful when you’re talking about rules written in blood?

I’m trying to keep it light, Editorial Chaos. Please just… shut up.

Fine.

AO3 exists largely because certain types of fanfiction were being excluded from fandom. People were upset at the purges. People were upset that they weren't being allowed to write work with characters being in LGBT relationships. People were upset that an LGBT fic automatically got a more severe rating than its heterosexual counterpart, just on the basis of containing LGBT content. The little purges were numerous, and there were multiple large purges as platforms decided what they would be willing to accept and what they would leave by the wayside.

Archive of Our Own changed the model. Instead of platforms moderating what they would allow, AO3 implemented a tagging system which would allow readers looking for works in the archive to filter out content they did not want, or to filter for content they did want. Instead of the filter being run by the governing body, the archive was just there. It was up to the user to decide what they would read. The user moderated for their individual preferences, instead of the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW is the governing body of AO3) deciding for an entire, diverse body of fans what they would be allowed to consume. OTW’s creators saw the blood spilled. And they used it to write new rules.

This became the standard of fandom because of its equal opportunity approach. Fandoms have the ability to self-govern, and one of the easiest and safest ways to do that is through comprehensive tagging systems.

Tumblr has an incredible tagging system. Could it be better? Sure. But you can block tags for things you don't like. You, the individual. You, the solitary person, with your own lens through which you view the world. You, who are different to anybody who has ever been, and different from anyone who will be, because no one will ever share your exact set of thoughts, words, feelings, and actions. YOU.

Essentials so far:

Hosting sites began for all fanfiction

A few hosting sites became Curated sites

Curated sites led to the creation of One Hosting Site to Rule Them All (no matter what issues that may create) AO3

The one hosting site is now the primary archive for thousands of fandoms, open to all kinds of work as long as you tag correctly

The democratization of fandom gives space for all works, and allows users to consume what they will (and avoid what they wish) via comprehensive tagging systems

So... where does that leave us?

ACOTAR is a relatively new fandom. It's boomed in the last couple of years, and that's fine. That's good. It is driven on platforms like TikTok and tumblr.

Do not tell me that the TikTok fans are worse. The grass is not burning any more on the other side of the fence than it is under your feet. And yes, the grass under your feet is burning. Look around! And this is the hellsite, after all.

Tumblr and TikTok, paired with the insane (and awesome!) number of ACOTAR fans, largely keep us apart from previously existing general fandom spaces due to algorithms driving engagement. Many ACOTAR fans are new to fandom culture. I don’t think this is a bad thing. I do think it can create problems where fans with previous fandom experience who are a part of the ACOTAR fandom will clash with fans who are new to fandom.

I think this knowledge gives us a choice. There are two types of hosting sites. Why not create two types of events? This is already happening. If we can label events as one of the two types, then it will help people find their spaces where they are the most comfortable. If we create events that are labeled as either "curated" (large amounts of moderation, limits on ships allowed, etc) or "hosted" (anything goes), then we can ensure that everybody is happy. 

She means that, by the way. She works for "peace". Ha. Imagine that. But seriously, girl…

Okay, well…

My Perspective (And Why Do People Care So Much?)

Am I truly happy with this? No.

It actually really pisses her off, actually. She won’t admit it, but I will.

I think, Editorial Chaos, that fandom benefits from Archive of Our Own type approaches, where anything goes, but you must tag comprehensively. It encourages appropriate reporting of triggering material and content not safe for minors/work. This goes for fandom spaces, but most especially fandom events, which should accept things which under the umbrella of the theme they are celebrating, regardless of the perceived morality of their content.

Maybe we can't expect all spaces to be ready for anything. We don't expect that of all people. However, saying that you are hosting an event which is open to all fans that prevents people from considering a character in a new view, such as considering a morally gray character, who is presented in canon as a protagonist, as an antagonist during their character week, or issuing guidelines which would limit an author's interpretation of characters that fit within an archetype, is not truly hosting a fandom-wide event. That's a curated event. And calling it "curated" here is not a judgment.

She seriously means that, too. In case you actually care. The Suriel knows I don’t.

An event that does not allow for truly transformative fanworks within the bounds of its established purpose (a specific ship for a ship week, or including a certain character for a character week) is not an event that is open. It is curated.

An event that is curated is not open to all fans, and should not be presented as such. I’m not going to make a judgment call and say that it is wrong. Get together with your friends and host your own week. I don’t care if you do that! I encourage it! Call it a fic trade, call it something else, but it isn’t an “open” event. It is curated.

However, I want you to keep something in mind as you curate public-facing events: Stop policing for morality. That’s going to end very poorly for us. Keep in mind that the things you are reading in ACOTAR now would have been, and are, in some places, being pulled from library shelves (if they’re getting published at all!) because of the same kinds of arguments you are making about morality. 

If you truly want more ACOTAR books, consider that, were your thoughts and opinions transposed to the real-life debate about book censorship (which isn’t really different from curation/moderation except that its issued by a corporation or government, which is an added level of intensity) by people who thought explicit sexual content didn’t belong in published books, you wouldn’t have ACOTAR at all.

An event presented as open to all fans when it is not actually open to all fans is in fact censorship, defined in the New Oxford American Dictionary (accessed via Apple) as “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.” 

Despite that, if this move to identifying events as either “open” or “curated” is what we need to get through this, then so be it. So be it. I'll be disappointed, and I'll be frustrated. And, so help me, I'll be angry. I will. I will not lie to you about that, but I will deal with it.

I love the “don’t like, don’t read” aspect of fandom. I like extensive, comprehensive, and sometimes-even-silly tagging. I like exploring things that I may not like, and then deciding “this just isn’t for me.” I like blocking tags!

More than that, though? I am tired of the fighting. I am so damn tired of it, guys. We have to do better. We seriously do. 

(Under 18s, and frankly, even 18-25s like myself, I’m just going to say one thing to directly to you, in case you are here. If you only take one point away from this post: Please learn to be nice to each other when you disagree. You, me, and our generations are notoriously bad at that. These people can be some of your best friends. Read that post I linked at the top for more details on good old human decency on public facing platforms. Complain to each other in DMs here or on Discord. Go outside and scream when you are frustrated, if you must. You’ll thank yourself one day, I promise.)

We are not treating each other with basic human dignity. We are not treating people like people. We also are not doing a good job of simply moving away from things that upset us at an individual level. We cannot expect to only see things we agree with. What we can do is acknowledge that our emotions are our responsibility. 

Community spaces do not need to be moderated for your enjoyment. If you are a part of a community space intended to be enjoyed with moderation like Reddit or some Facebook groups, great! If you are a part of a large group of people on a public platform like Tumblr, or in some type of semi-open community space like an open Facebook group or Discord server with a ton of people and expect to only see things you agree with or never encounter criticism, tough. 

Learn to accept criticisms of ideas you agree with. You don’t have to accept the criticism itself. You do have to accept that people are going to have thoughts you may not agree with, and that you will see them from time to time no matter how well you think you have blocked and closed off your experience to fit your tastes. (There is a big difference between appropriate criticism in the general environment and direct vitriolic hatred, which I decried in the post you should have read before starting. Which is why Editorial Chaos insisted you started there, to be clear.)

It’s exhausting to pretend like things are fine.

The grass is burning, remember? We’re all on this hellsite together.

So take from this post what you will. Consider my proposal for two kinds of fandom events. Ask questions, if you wish. Send me your thoughts. 

Just remember I’ll be the one answering cruel ones. Keep it together, folks. I was raised well, but I’ve got Nesta’s tongue and years of therapy to prove it.

I wish you all well. I truly do. I hope you learned something, or were able to consider something in a new light. I hope you find it helpful. 

All my best,

Chaos

Hey. Can I go, too?

Yeah, dude. Go to bed. It’s like… 3 AM and you’ve been obsessively working on this for days. How many research papers on censorship in fan controlled spaces did you-

Shut up, Chaos. At least we’re done now. Finally. Peace, y’all. <3 (not really), Editorial Chaos

xxx

One final note from my last editing round of this piece: I truly did spend days researching these topics, and reading thoughts from various points of view here on tumblr. I hope having the back and forth from "Chaos" to "Editorial Chaos" was entertaining rather than distracting. I hope some part of you enjoyed reading this. I truly do.

The first draft of this post was written not long after the Elaingate hashtag was created. It was a lot shorter. It was a lot meaner. It was a lot more discombobulated. I hope, despite the length and the occasional rudeness, that you have been able to learn something new, or consider a new perspective.

This subject matters a lot to me. In my state, we are fighting book bans left and right, and have been for a few years now. I recognize a lot of the statements I have seen here on tumblr from that very fight, and it makes it incredibly personal to me.

Thank you for understanding that for me, and many others around the globe who face much stricter regulations than those proposed in my district, this is more than a debate about morality and censorship in fanfiction. It is about addressing a pattern of thought that has real world consequences in our neighborhoods.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for your kindness. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

And in case anyone is curious? Editorial Chaos is the bitch who edits all my fanfictions. Yes, really. She has her own brain (/kidding!). And she's so mean to me. All the time. (/true.)

[motherstone]

WAVERIDER THOUGHTS

This will be long, and nasty. I may be yapping nonsense myself, and ngl this was all written in a fit of emotion, so it may be biased as all fuck. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE. Read further at your own choice.

Kazu, the neglectful, crappy father of his characters

Yeah, no, it’s been a long-time issue of his. Every new book has a new character. Not much of a problem if you're establishing the world - it’s a big one if you’re ending a story. See, the point of a finale isn’t to get us invested in new characters, it’s about giving a satisfying conclusion to your old. And not necessarily purely conclusive either! Some characters still have some journey to walk, but what matters is that you could read what happened to them, be at peace with how they went.

Kazu wrote the finale as if he’s writing 16 more books.

Let’s see the line-up shall we?

Trellis - has been hyped up being the true king, has been trying to get people stop believing in the false king, would not shut the fuck up about the well-being of the elves for several books.

Ending: Changed his mind last minute and gave up the throne.

Vigo - a flawed mentor. Kinda useless. Tries to be a guiding force and emotional support.

Ending: Dies in the most pointless and jarring way possible.

Aly - has exhibited great leadership qualities, is a good friend to Navin.

Ending: she wasn’t even there.

Etc etc. and that’s THREE of them so far, and it’s disastrous. Their conclusions were poor and nonsensical, the narrative portrays them as foolish and ignorant, and basically just treated their entire journey of 8 books as worthless and with little to no growth. Which is just yonkers. The main players don’t play in the final part, and the supporting casts are pretty much not supporting.

Then there’s the NEW cast.

No, sorry, I can’t stand them. They’re not appealing to me, we barely know anything about them except they’re apparently competent and we’re supposed to accept that they’re gonna be the better, newer generation of the Guardian Council? Because the story says so?

Why put new characters to play a part where your established characters can fill in perfectly? At least those established characters already have something ESTABLISHED, thus the payoff is more impactful ,especially if you fit them properly into the role. I never even gave a crap about Cielis and there needing to be a new Guardian Council, I always got the impression in book 4 that it was supposed to be the waning era of stonekeepers, ESPECIALLY WHEN THE MOTHERSTONE WAS STOLEN, THERE’S LITTLE OF IT LEFT, THERE ISN’T A NEW MOTHERSTONE IN CANON, APPARENTLY ENDED UP FORGOTTEN BY EVERYONE ELSE DESPITE BEING A POWERFUL ARTIFACT, AND STONEKEEPERS ARE TOO DANGEROUS FOR THE WORLD OF ALLEDIA. IN GENERAL.

All in all, the book feels like it’s trying to shove and rub these new guys all over my face, trying to get me to love them.

Gabilan, or just make Gulfen a democracy at this point

I'm gonna be for real though, I don't think Gabilan is the best guy for the job. Just because he was "kinda" right about stonekeepers doesn't mean he's a leader, and I don't think someone who kills people for a living, profits off of war, violates people's minds and steals their memories and ruin their lives, and arrogantly believes he has the judgment and say on who gets to keep which memories would be anyone's first choice to rule the country at its most desperate either. He’s sharp, yes, but moral? He has the moral backbone of a fucking chocolate eclair. A guy like that would not treat the people under him with the right to choose, when so many of his actions involve violating other people. If that’s THEIR next best choice after Trellis, Gulfen is fucked.

It's also kinda frustrating. Gabilan gets ONE reference to how he intends to be King, while Trellis gets references that he's the true king for several books, people desiring he make a better people out of the elves, had enemies trying to kill him to prevent him from taking the throne like the VOICE himself, only for the narrative to never even follow through it? 

The story can't seem to make up its mind either. "Stonekeepers in power are bad because they keep seeking to control others and are bad at maintaining control, so you shouldn't be King. That's why you should get an even higher, greater authority so now you're the leader of the Guardian Council!" 😩 make it make sense? 

Ronin, or how to make supervillains

Kazu has a bad understanding of how people work by how he wrote Ronin. Iffy enough that Ronin is retconned to be alive, her method on raising these stonekeepers is to be heavily scrutinized. I’ll be controversial here, but Ronin sucks as a person.

That’s NOT how you treat people, especially when they’re asking for help, even if they wronged you. That’s prioritizing your pride over what’s needed to be done.

Keeping kids in an isolated area, even with their consent, scaring off locals from their livelihood so you could have THEIR resources instead, and then scaring them into not bothering are all shitty things to do. If I didn’t have context, I’d genuinely think she’s trying to make a cult.

She didn’t create a better generation of youth, she created an ECHO CHAMBER. Their interaction with other people who isn’t them are limited and only under her monitoring, they don’t get to have the support and interaction of a wider community, they have fights, she induces them to lose control on purpose (even for training, that’s basically like having someone HAVE breakdowns so they’d “handle breakdowns better”), the young stonekeepers only interact with HER beliefs and HER teachings.

She’s arrogant as all fuck. 

The worst part is that the narrative doesn’t treat this as bad, just flawed, which is anything but 💀

To use @/gofancyninjaworld analysis, which is semi-realistic ngl, what Ronin did was plant seeds for these kids to be supervillains.

A sense of isolation

It’s bad enough that having overwhelming power alienates stonekeepers from most people, Ronin’s method of training has them explicitly stay in an area where the range of people they could interact with are greatly limited to Ronin and their fellow students. Sure, they interact with some civilians, but in an unbalanced way, purely in a savior and rescuee way, nothing else. This gives them sparse experience in the give-and-take interactions in a society, because for all they know, water only flows downwards.

A sense of superiority. It's not good to be considered 'gifted' and to be set aside from others. 

A sense of entitlement to rule.

Which Ronin further reinforced by planting into their heads that they’re the new Guardian   Council eventually, despite having little experience in leading. What happened to “rejecting a seat on the Council because she felt the responsibility at her age was too great”? And that was when she was an older teen. These guys are younger than she was offered.

Access to the means to do so.

The quarry, their stones, and their inevitable ascension to be the new Council.

So basically all she did was groom overly powerful kids with induced breakdowns, with heads too big for their bodies, with very little connection to the wider world to ground them in their thinking and humanity, basically four bombs that could and would inevitably go off. Cool. Any one of 'em could wind up becoming a totalitarian menace. Y'know how spoiled entitled billionaire bastards exists? It's almost virtually the same process.

Interacting with regular people AS regular people, not just as savior or leader is important. It grounds you. It teaches you there’s a variety of people, who won’t always be the perfect victim, who are not necessarily evil but are bad, who are not intentionally malicious but just incompetent, among other things. Application is the real teacher here - the more exposed you are to other people, the better you’d be able to handle them.

Emily, the monster, the savior, the next Buddha

Can’t make up its mind whether to condemn Emily or if she’s the next best thing since sliced fucking bread. Apparently, self-confidence is her issue, not her arrogance or survivor's guilt.

Not to mention her powers came outta nowhere. It’s like she discovers enlightenment, and that was what allowed her to properly control her powers.

Defeats the entire theme of needing other people and that not every outcome is reliant on ONE person’s actions, BY DOING EVERYTHING BY HERSELF, AGAIN!

God, I wish I could say more, but I skipped some of Emily’s parts because reading it was as tedious and agonizing as threading on cold mud. I can’t help but cringe at every dialogue.

The Voice, or how to NOT make a supervillain

…. I don’t even know what to say. Poor Ikol, a victim of the most indecisive and sloppy writing of  a villain I’ve seen, I actually feel genuinely fucking bad. I don’t even know where to begin with this dude, he’s just one whole confusing set of contradicting depictions and motivations.

Riva, or how to get a restraining order in 2 fucking seconds

If I were Trellis and told me the same words Riva said, I’d bolt as far as quickly as I possibly can away from her. That’s creepy, full stop.

I think this was kazu's way to prevent fans from shipping Emily and Trellis by a.) aging up Trellis because that’s the only explanation I could think of (even though he said a few times on twitter that he's the elf equivalent of 16) and b.) to get him together with Riva.

The way Kazu went about it is too insane for me. "Hey, I had a vision of you and me having babies and you became a great leader, let's get together" 💀 that's no basis for any healthy relationship, or any relationship at all that isn't transactional 😵. What is this?

On the other hand, he doesn't respect Riva as a character at all. A character becoming a love interest and a parent isn't a bad thing in of itself, but he wrote Riva so impactfully and charismatically in book 6 - she's one of the few rare elf characters, and a girl elf character to boot, is an established leader, was the daughter of an immigrant and knows all the hardship that comes with it, not to mention hails from a city that Cielis outcasted and abandoned because of their fear and prejudice but she compassionately takes care of the people there anyway.

There's so many interesting and compelling storylines with the foundations he made Riva with, and he focuses on getting Riva to get Trellis to get together with her 😵 she gets reduced from a character with plenty of potential to a character that exists purely to uplift another. That's just depressing. Riva and Trellis deserve better.

Who? Navin. We all forgot about fucking Navin

Actually, I’m pretty sure Kazu forgot about Navin up until the last second. The fact I forgot until he came up on the page speaks for itself on how bad the writing problem was. He plays almost no parts at all. He doesn’t even GET to be a leader properly. He was there to get punched, didn’t even GET to help Emily or anybody else.

The Ending

……………………………………………………………………………………

If Older Emily could time travel with the Void, why didn’t she just eliminate Ikol herself instead of leaving it to our current Emily? Oh, and Vigo jarringly dies and sacrifices himself in the most pointless way possible.

All in all, Kazu - world’s most terrible chef

BAN HIM FROM THE KITCHEN 🔥🔥💯💯🔊🔊🗣️😩😩 HE CAN'T COOK.

Bad? I knew it was gonna be bad at the cover alone, ut no way I could've predicted it was THIS atrocious. It’s not the medium’s fault either, you can’t claim that the medium limited what Kazu had to say - Kazu created comics for a living. He has more than a decade of experience, made dozens of pages, by now, he knows YOU CAN’T WASTE A PAGE. Every panel is important. It’s not the medium's fault for being short, it’s Kazu’s for being sloppy. 

He has an editor. He has a studio, he has a team, he has several copies of his series, he has claimed he has reread them over and over. He has no excuse to be this inconsistent and directionless. So what the fuck are they doing? Do they just sit there and draw? No quality or consistency check? 

Honestly, if he says it was executive meddling, if he was just tired of Amulet and just wanted it over, if it was because of medical reasons - I could accept all those reasons. I could forgive why the series wound up as it is, they’re all reasons I could understand. A decline in quality on purpose I’d understand because that can be fixed. A better employer, a better work schedule, better accommodations.

What I will not accept, if he genuinely believes this. Is. GOOD. WRITING. BECAUSE IT’S NOT. That’s either a lie, an in-denial belief, or just plain ol’ ignorance. That’s just pure arrogance to me. You drop this slop on my feet, 300 pages of yapped nonsense and try to convince me it’s gold? Fuck no. I deserve better, we deserve better, the kids who read your books deserve better. There’s no fixing that kind of thinking.

Am I too harsh? Yes. But I need to let all of these out. Am I kinda biased and a lil incomprehensible? Yes, but I don't care. If you enjoyed it, good for you! But it’s not for me. For closure, I’m nursing whatever shit I try to fix with a rewrite. Kazu already nuked the playground - might as well take a page from his book and do whatever I want like he did.

[but-a-humble-goon]

for, https://www.tumblr.com/but-a-humble-goon/754670294342500352/name-a-character-from-one-of-my-fandoms-and-ill?source=share

Cassandra Cain, naturally.

If you already got Cassandra then I'll take a wild swing and go for Emerald Sustrai.

I ain't got Cassandra yet funnily enough. Cassandra Cain Three personal headcanon facts about them -Even after she learns to talk she's still trying to figure out what's going on via inference in 90% of social situations. Words are challenging and not the kind of challenging she likes. -Cass hates stakeouts more than anything in the world. She is a creature of pure motion, she must be free. It takes all of her considerable will and discipline to sit still for longer than an hour or so and it feels like actual torture. -She gets sincerely very emotional listening to Evanescence. She's got no idea about their pop culture context, she just feels very seen by their music. Like she senses a spiritual kinship. A reason they suck Basically everything about how she treated Stephanie in Batgirl 2000. Didn't trust her, didn't respect her, tried very hard to drive her away, completely took their friendship for granted, was generally insufferable and mean to her constantly, took Bruce's side against her and pushed her into getting herself killed. A reason they are great Cassandra Cain is genuinely the kindest soul in the entire DC universe. She is the very essence of empathy and compassion. She would take on the entire world to fight for the life of even the worst person who ever lived. I've said it before but no matter how much the universe tries to hammer the message into her that you can't save them all her response will always be "watch me." A reason I relate to them She's terrible with her emotions and even worse at social interaction and everybody around her misconstrues this as her being emotionless or just projects their own biases onto her. People talk about her like she isn't even there and even though she acts like it doesn't sting, it does. She feels like everybody around her got given a manual on how to be human properly except her. Top tier OTP I don't really ship Cass with anyone. If she's gonna end up with someone at this point it should definitely be Stephanie to give the middle finger to all of the queerbait between the two over the years. Five things that never happened to the character that I believe should have happened. -We should have actually gotten to see her seeing Steph alive again for the first time after War Games and gotten all the devastating emotional fallout of that. -they really should have done a Cass vs Jason storyline at this point, it's kinda ridiculous that they haven't. -Batgirl 2000 should have had a real ending and not just sort of fizzled out the way it did. -Bruce really does need to sort his fucking life out and admit he's basically been feeding her self-abuse, ruining her life and failing her as a father and mentor. -SHE NEEDS A GODDAMN SOLO BOOK AGAIN Five people that the character never fell in love with and why -Conner Kent, much as I think there's probably still some not entirely platonic feelings between them, I don't think anything could ever really come of it, that's why I like where they left off. -Tai'Darshan, because that whole plotline was stupid. -Rose Wilson. If you were to ask Cass she'd tell you it's because Rose is a punk ass bitch. -Zatanna. I know it's like the joke that every bat is at least a little bit in love with Z but Cass could never be with somebody cooler than she is. -Any of her brothers, no matter what people seem to think, because that's disgusting.

[alonelystargazer]

I started reading kagurabachi a couple of weeks ago and now I'm fully caught up with it and my general opinion so far is that it's actually pretty good!

the plot is perhaps a bit formulaic but still quite interesting (maybe I'm biased bc I love revenge stories) and it moves fairly quickly without leaving too much info behind, plus the action is so dynamic but easy to follow, and there are some legit super cool panels

SPOILER REVIEW BELOW

just a few of my favorite panels

(as you might be able to tell I love seeing the fishes teehee)

Quick summary of the plot: the MC is a young guy named Chihiro Rokuhira who's out for revenge after his father Kunishige, one of Japan's most famous swordsmiths, was killed 3 years before, and those same people, a group of evil sorcerers known as the ?, stole all 6 of his father's enchanted swords, but chihiro has a 7th special sword that his father kept secret from everyone but him.

Edit: this might be important for some people so I'll add that Chihiro is 18, since we saw him with his dad as a 14 going on 15 year old and the story fast forwards to more than 3 years later in the first chapter, which would make him 18

He's joined by his father's best friend, a sorcerer named Shiba who becomes his mentor and informant about the shady business going on in Tokyo, Azami who's another sorcerer and friend of his father's and Shiba, a little girl named Char who comes from a family that has the ability to regenerate their body parts and is being hunted for it, a young woman named Hinao who's a weapons dealer, and later on another young man named Hakuri who comes from a different sorcerer family but defected bc he's the only one who doesn't know sorcery (and was abused).

Personality wise, Chihiro is the more level-headed, serious, and reserved type but shows great care and sympathy for those who need help, for ex. when he helps out char from being hunted and experimented on, and when he traded his beloved sword for Hakuri. His father had a huge impact on his philosophy about life and weapons.

He does want revenge for his father's death, but his greatest motivation however is to prevent anyone from tarnishing his father's legacy which are his enchanted swords, bc kunishige made sure to let Chihiro know that his swords are weapons first and foremost, and when put in the wrong hands are destructive and lethal.

The power system is fairly simple, based in sorcery, which for Chihiro is channeled through his enchanted sword called Enten from which 3 different goldfish, each having their own ability, appear (and the goldfish are the same ones his father had before he died: a black goldfish, a red one, and a spotted one).

The enchanted swords that Kunishige made come from a rock (?) called datenseki, which we don't know much about yet.

And about the first antagonist we meet, Sojo. He's a weapons dealer in the black market and does other criminal activities. He also has one of the 6 enchanted swords that was stolen, this one called Cloud Gouger. To me, this fight is reminiscent to Yuji vs Mahito in the Shibuya arc of Jujutsu Kaisen, in the sense that Chihiro has to accept that despite what he personally believes about his father and his swords, Sojo also can have his own contradictory beliefs bc it's the person who wields the sword that gets to determine it's fate. Chapter 12: Tea I believe is pivotal in Chihiro's development and is one of the best chapters so far. I like the metaphor with Sojo offering Chihiro dango, which he refuses at the beginning (he says he doesn't like sweets) and by the end eats it, even if doesn't like it, because it reflects his acceptance with Sojo's philosophy about the blades.

The only thing I think might not to be everyone's taste is the art style, but if course art is subjective, although it does suffer a bit from same face syndrome at times.

But I think the art is unique with its use of shading and perspective, and there are some really cool character designs, plus something that stands out to me is that the fight choreography is made to be a spectacle.

As a long time shipper, I feel like I should address the shipping dynamics that I've seen, which there aren't too many yet, but I still wanna talk about. So the main ship I've seen is between Chihiro and Hakuri, which these panels I think are fueling the fire for it and I can totally see it and wanna see more from their budding friendship. What's the ship name btw? hakuhiro?

Besides that, I've also seen Shiba/Kunishige, and Sojo/Kunishige but that's definitely a one sided admiration on Sojo's part.

One criticism I've found is that there's a character named Daruma who is after Chihiro and Char and is originally depicted in a way, which to me, looks to be black characteristics, like the hair and facial features, but after Shiba convinced him to leave his life of crime behind, his look changes. For example, his hair becomes straight, so what's up with that? Now to be fair, since the manga is in grayscale, we don't know what his skin color is but he has no shading to skin which in my experience of reading manga means that a character is light skin.

Other than that, there's nothing else I can find fault in, so give it a read (there's 25 chapters so far!)

[andreal831]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOriginals/comments/10m4pgl/did_elijahs_speech_sound_cruel_to_anyone_else_or/

I know I can’t exactly call shit like this racist, but it just seems so… interesting to me how Elijah treats Marcel.

I've said it before but season 4 Elijah is definitely the down fall of his character cause you're right. He would never treat Hope the way he treated Marcel. Whether it's racism or just biological superiority, or a mix of the two, it's problematic. The fact that he literally says he thought Marcel would be Klaus' redemption but it's actually Hope is so wild. First of all, Klaus has not changed. Elijah at that point had only been around him for five seconds. Second, why is it everyone else's responsibility to be Klaus' redemption? The fact that the scene made it seem like Elijah only viewed the children as Klaus' redemption and if they ceased to be that, they were no longer necessary, is disgusting. Me in my biased view point, believe that is not in character of him. Otherwise he never would have tried to mentor Marcel. He also regretted putting that on Hope in season5. So some growth.

I also do think the tirade he went on at the end of season 3/season 4 didn't fit into the character we get in season 1 and 2. While we never see a warm Elijah with Marcel, to me season 2 and then 3 were building back their relationship. We see Elijah help Marcel gain control of the Strix. In my perspective, hat was the moment Elijah went from viewing Marcel as the child his family had taken in to the man who had taken over the city. I was so hopeful that they would give their relationship a shot, but alas it was tanked to prop up Klaus' relationship with Marcel. That was the point of this whole scene. To compare Elijah killing Marcel to Klaus sparing him. I've analyzed before that I felt Elijah's actions on that bridge were out of character for the character they had built up. But seriously Elijah, how was that Klaus being a better person? The whole scene made no sense. Why was Elijah threatening the one person that could kill his entire family? Did he not learn anything from his five year nap? I hated the writing in season 4 and 5.

Again, based on canon, I can't argue that his actions here aren't racist. And I'll definitely never say any of the Mikaelsons aren't racist. I don't mean to make this sound like I am trying to defend anything that was said or say it is not racism. Just explain my biased perspectives. As I just discussed, they were all white saviors that reflected the views of the writers. There was so much the writers could have done to even have the characters grow and unlearn their racism, but, unfortunately that would have required the writers to unlearn theirs first.

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Hello hey hey. How was your day? Btw can you do a character ask for Shinichiro Sano. Since, he is my favourite character due to his complexity

Hi, my day has been fine for now (it's still early here) although my body hurts (for normal anatomical reasons dw) but it is what it is. Hope yours is going better than mine

Gosh, what a mood anon. What an absolute mood.

My first impression

Good model/mentor figure that positively influenced everyone he was around of. Here to fit his archetype more than to be an actual character - he's dead anyway - but he's the type of character I rarely love to know more about and grow to be more complex even if it really happens because creators love to keep mentors mysterious—

My impression now

*inhale* BOI.

I love Wakui's capacity to write realistic characters SO MUCH.

Original timeline was such a gift, I hold it very dearly in my heart. My favorite timeline potential-speaking; there's so many things we don't know about and can speculate on! Marvelous.

Anyway, back to Shinichiro. He is so real. I was so happy when he turned out to be explored like the other characters and to be actually flawed (not excusable lovable flaws like being bad with girls and in fight). He's one of the most interesting character and should be put under several microscopes and observed by several scientists.

He's, he's just... AAAAAHH. He's so good, his character is so good. I need him to get darker but at the same time I just want him happy.

His childhood was taken away from him and the fact that he turned to delinquency to cope (later on, encouraging at least a dozen of kids to do the same) should be talk about more.

He - unconsciously, unintentionally - gave the responsibility of his mental well-being to Mikey. I know they didn't help in the original timeline, but I hope he did go to therapies in the final one

Favorite thing about that character

Same thing as you anon; the complexityyyyy

I love subversion of expectation. I love when seemingly perfect characters who are idolized by everyone turn out not to be that perfect. How I accurately came up with the hypotheses he was the other Time Leaper. How the story wouldn't exist if it wasn't for him not being able to grieve Mikey - not being able to withstand losing his entire family.

He lost his dad, he was the one taking care of his mom until she passed too, had had to raise his siblings when he wasn't yet an adult, he couldn't handle losing his brother he raised as a son, he didn't know how to handle the Izana-situation, he didn't have a proper reaction to Sanzu's scars. The way he first learnt to deal with grief was to become a delinquent and form a gang. Don't get me started on what Black Dragon is IRL.

He tried. He'd tried everything for his loved-ones but he was also a teen, then a young adult, and you can't expect him to be able to handle it.

Also, the fact that no character will tell you about that or talk about Shinichiro without being biased because they all respect and idolize him I- The narrative doesn't want you to know about how he really was, because the characters that talk about him didn't know about it. The only way to catch a glimpse of it, to know more about it is Original timeline. And I think that's very neat tbh

+GNC king, slays in heels

Least favorite thing

Objectively, I love it, but subjectively the way he dealt with some situations... argh. He's not that good at knowing and understanding social clues. Could've handle the whole situation with Sanzu better, out of everything else.

Favorite line/scene

*proceeds to stuff all of the Original Timeline* There 👍.

Favorite interaction that character has with another

That. That right here. (for Mikey those two scenes are about only two months apart. But *we* know, why Shinichiro changed his mind)

A character that I wish that character would interact with more

Actually, I'm rather pleased with his interactions with other characters.

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character

For some reasons, Maria from Maria no Danzai. I think. I think they'd get along. I think Shinichiro would've done the same - or similar stuffs - if he had lost Mikey in a similar way Maria lost her son. I think we should be very glad Shinichiro didn't actually have a villain arc (not one we saw at least) because he would've gone very far into the darkness me think. Me think the curse is just Mikey turning how Shinichiro would've turned had Mikey not been around so me think Shinichiro has problems

A headcanon about that character

If he ever has a gun in his hands, he'd be way too good at firing it.

Actually struggles with empathy and figuring out other ppl's emotions & feelings. But he has sympathy and compassion so he balances it out. A friend introduced me to autistic Mikey HC, so naturally, my mind went to autistic Shinichiro. Ranting about it will probably take too long here tho

His nickname for Takeomi is 'Omin' (Takeomi doesn't really like it bc it sounds more and more childish with the 'n' as they grow up. Excepted for final timeline where Takeomi has learnt not to care about other people's opinions)

A song that reminds of that character

I've got a 52 (for now) songs-playlist (found in my pinned post) but have Bury Me Low by 8 Graves

An unpopular opinion about that character

Mikey isn't the reason he turned dark; Mikey is the reason he didn't turn dark

Favorite picture

LIL BEETLE SHINICHIRO.

!!!

[frozenrose20]

This isn't one of my usual post so if you aren't a pjo fan who happens to watch X-men 97 you can ignore this post it probably wont make sense just wanted to say something on my mind.

I know most likely Bobby Drake won't be brought up in the show other than a small reference or flashback because A he wasn't that big of a character in the original and B they probably don't know how to address him being gay considering the one major role he had in the show all he cared about was his girlfriend (though it would be funny if they made the story that after she left him he went of a journey to find himself and found out that way). At the same time though whenever I'm watching I just get so annoyed that he isn't there. It just doesn't make much sense he from a story standpoint. he's an Omega mutant if anything you would think they would try to get him back when storm lost her powers for extra ice power ( get it?....yeah I cringed to). The reason he left the team in the OG show was because he didn't agree with Charles's way but Charles was presumed dead for a year. He didn't think to check up on his friends!? Like he may not have agreed with the guy but still he was his mentor for a good while. The entire thing that happened with genosha was he just watching from his couch!? Am I biased because Im a Bobby stan.....Probably but like it just feels like plot hole to have one of the most powerful X-men just never show up. especially if they make more seasons and he appears in a episode latter on. They mixed some modern thing in with the show like Emma's diamond form and magnetos helmet blocking telepaths so maybe there is hope who knows though.

[fluffypotatey]

Hello there! I hope the month is treating you alright. Speaking of impending breakdowns, with a full guarantee of MK having one coming soon, aside from him who else do you think will be getting one amongst the Monkie crew, from earliest to the latest? Macaque is shockingly doing well comparatively because he's been having one the entire show and only started to wind down and process it s4 while the other two monkeys are just piling them up. I am fully biased towards SWK so I'd like to know your thoughts on what an SWK breakdown would look like and what would trigger it, and if we might see it any time soon.

I think the reason on why an MK vs SWK fight makes me full of nervous dread is because i worry it might mean full rejection of MK towards SWK, after all the trials they have been through, and that SWK haven't had someone fully believing in him for so long so i worry he might interpret it as MK finally giving up on him, like the others did. But I'm holding on to the hope that it's not entirely the case, MK still believes in him, he just wants SWK to actually use his words and TALK to him, extreme force needed. But that might just be me.

Regarding the Samadhi Fire incident, do you think the other pilgrims ever find out about the fourth ring, or did Ao Lie and SWK kept it a secret between them only? I've read Dr. Chalk's comic on twitter, and one of their comics headcanon that Ao Lie didn't tell the rest of the pilgrims about the Samadhi fire in him because he's afraid they'll blame SWK for it. What do you think?

That's it for now. Sleep early, eat your meals regularly, and drink plenty of water!

ok 1) lmao true, Macky's spent most of s3 on the brink and s1&2 is just him projecting so yeah lmao (love him tho). and aside from MK, i think Mei is a huge contender for the breakdown category. Or Tang bc he was super anxious throughout s4. (imma go more in-depth about MK & SWK at the end of this post tho)

imma answer your Samadhi Fire question first: tbh i was originally inclined to believe that Ao Lie did try to keep the knowledge of the 4th ring underwraps for a long time (bc the angst is very fun). if he told SWK, he knew the monkey would blame himself. if he told the jttw crew, it would upset all of them. it's like how @lunar-wandering said in their post that Ao Lie is probably someone who would hide his injuries and troubles because if it is known, it is viewed as a weakness others can target.

then again, i doubt Ao Lie would withhold his physical injuries to the jttw gang because he trusts them, so it could be possible that he did tell them, but they all agreed to keep that secret between themselves. the AGAIN, i highly doubt Ao Lie would share his reasons for being exiled by his family, so he never told them until he felt he could no longer keep it together.

however, keep in mind that Wukong was aware of the 4th ring even in his amnesiac state. he was still with the jttw gang by this point, it was after the journey, and Wukong was aware. tbh, he sounded like he thought Pigsy was also aware, like he was reminding his companion that there are 4 rings not 3.

and, with that....imma have to go with Ao Lie did inform his friends but only his friends. was it immediately after the ritual? i doubt that. my opinion is that Ao Lie informed only after everyone in the group noticed a key change in their dragon-horse friend.

now, my beloved sunburst duo <3

i'm going to have to disagree with you, bestie. i don't think the MK vs SWK fight will to any full rejection. rather, i believe it will give both characters some form of understanding for the other. MK, as we have seen, has trouble separating Wukong from the hero pedestal he placed his mentor on. while he is more aware of the fact that Wukong has flaws and isn't perfect, he is still struggling with acknowledging the fact that his mentor did very bad things in his past, that he hurt people, that he is still hurting people (tho not intentionally). we see it with how he fought Ink!MK who unveiled those very dark and reclusive anxieties of his that he never wishes to acknowledge. we even saw it with how defensive MK can be over Wukong with Macaque and Azure.

on the flip side, SWK did not begin their mentorship with the intention of getting attached. he started this because he knew MK's potential and power, and it is very likely that he was aware that MK was a possible replacement for himself. Wukong keeps his distance in s1, only training the kid and taking his time to do so because he while he doesn't want to get close, he does want to ensure that MK will not fall into the same mistakes he did. unfortunately (for Wukong), the monkey grows attached.

Wukong sees MK's drive to train and be better and sees his own self reflected in it. but, again, he doesn't want MK to be like him. he wants MK to be a better version. a version that never thought to extend his life out of fear of losing his usefulness, a version that never tries to push his friends into situations they may not feel comfortable with, a version that does not feel the need to prove himself to Heaven.

honestly, my concept of their fight/breakdown will come to the fact that both MK and SWK fail to communicate their exact fears, anxieties, and intentions towards the other. MK feels like he can't even talk or vent to Wukong because that's his idol, and Wukong has brushed aside MK's anxieties in the past (MK's worries about Spider Queen for example. also i'm not saying Wukong does this with any malice intent; rather, it's his own way of trying to be optimistic. it just doesn't land well for MK unfortunately). Wukong feels like he can't open up because he sees the way MK looks up to him, he is very aware of his public image and reputation because...you know, he's immortal and has seen his and his friend's stories be told over centuries :)

and while Wukong has attempted to open up to MK post-s3, it's very slow and (more irritatingly) the plot isn't allowing them to have those private talks where they can hash out their shit.

(noooOOOOoooooOOO, swk had to be sucked into a cursed scroll and live through his worst memories, distorted or not, and MK had to be told by another old friend of his mentor that Wukong doesn't care enough about his friends to stay)

therefore, it looks like the only way both characters will even get a chance to air-out their issues will be shouting at each other, throwing physical blows, and maybe crying at each other (i hope so :3 i wanna see swk cry on screen please!)

HOWEVER: while this could lead to the 2 of them needing space with each other (which could lead to both or either of them spiraling about how the other person's rejected them and doesn't want them in their lives anymore), i highly doubt that this fight will be the end of their relationship. frankly, i think it will help give both characters some perspective on the other, work on themselves, and come back with new outlooks & healthier minds (maybe)

so yeah, those are my thoughts :)

[caitie-likes-talking]

Part 4 Critique: Everything I'd Change

I love DIU..however, I consider it one of the post flawed of the JJBA Parts. Honestly, I feel like Araki didn't fully know where he was going with it til halfway, which is why the plot can be so janky. No matter what, let's dive into it. First, characters.

(also quick disclaimer: this is all my opinion and i am biased for MANY things.)

if u diagree w me dont tell me i think it would crush me

Characters [Josuke, Jotaro, Okuyasu, Kira]

Josuke Higashikata

I LOVE Josuke. I think he's a lovely character concept and his design is really cool. My main problem with him is literally his LACK of screen time!! He is the Jojo of this part, yet his spotlight is constantly stolen by other side characters like Koichi, Rohan, and even Jotaro. This also happened a lot in Part 3, with it basically being the Polnareff show (idk why Araki did this sm in pts3-5...either let the mc have screen time or don't have them be the mc!!)

I think Josuke had some of the most missed opportunities in DIU. Especially with his relationships with other characters. I think this part could've been way more interesting if it chose a solid theme, and one that I think would've made sense is commentating on death & tragedy and how that can impact personal relationships. The reason I believe this is because there's already easy set ups for this in the story. Ryohei's death, The Nijimura Brother's family, Reimi, Shigechi, and Jotaro all have that theme in place, but not enough connecting points or real arcs related to this. What was the point of killing off Ryohei (who was the only father figure Josuke had growing up) if you're not going to show how this impacted Josuke, Tomoko, and how he acts with others besides one single page? Sure, it taught him that his powers have limits and that he can't save everyone, but that was a stupid thing to teach him because Okuyasu doesn't fucking die when he should've!! Like why did we make an arc saying 'hey stands aren't magic they can't bring ppl back to life' just for EXACTLY THAT to happen??

Moving on, I also have problems with his stand. I LOVE Crazy Diamond, I think it has a super cool design and power concept, but personally I wish it's powers were more grounded and had clear limits. I feel like a lot of stands suffer from this treatment of vague power limits (ex: Golden Wind..) but my problem with CD is that there were MANY opportunities to add one! For example: we know Josuke couldn't bring back Ryohei even after using his stand on him. So that bears the question: what can CD not fix? What is the real reason it can't bring a dead person back to life? Jotaro says "No stand has the power to bring back the dead" WHY?? am i missing something? Have I forgotten when it was officially established that stands cant do that? I mean, literally in part 3 there was a stand that could reanimate corpses. So does it have to do with the soul? No matter what, I would've used this moment to establish that CD can't bring back ANY living thing. I actually wrote a short fic abt this and included the fact that he also couldn't "fix" a dead leaf. I feel like overall his stand needed more grounding.

Also, I have beef with Josuke's backstory, but I'll get into that later.

Jotaro Kujo

Ok firstly, I have MAJOR beef with his design in part 4. Mainly the fact that he's drawn extremely pale in the anime. Like..obviously he COULD be pale as he is wasian (im not trying to say all wasian ppl look the same), but he is TAN in part 3. Why did they take that away?? Pisses me off to the extreme. At least they fixed it in p5+6. Anyways..

Character wise, I really enjoy Jotaro's personality in p4. I like how he's mellowed out in comparison to p3. However, I feel like he needed a more clear role in the story. He showed up to figure out grandpappy's shit, and then took the leader role when facing Kira. Why don't I like this? Because most of the time Jotaro was just..there. I think Araki wanted him and Josuke to have a mentor/student relationship (ex: rat episode) but just didn't focus enough on them or Josuke training with his stand for this to work.

Also, the fact that it took Jotaro so fucking long to figure out who Kira is WITH the help of all those other stand users is so goofy. Like him and the gang back in '89 found Dio's ass from a goddamn microscopic fly in a photo but couldn't find Kira's identity?? Like ugh he almost redeemed himself with the button thing but then he got blown up like gosh what happened king

When it comes to stands, I forever find it stupid that Jotaro didn't work with his stand to become more powerful. Araki just had to nerf him (which is something he does with most reoccurring characters, ex: Joseph). I don't like it and it pisses me off.

With the death of Ryohei, I feel like it would've made more sense for Jotaro to somewhat open up to Josuke and be a bit more sympathetic towards him about it (or maybe he stays closed off until Josuke explodes, causing Jotaro to reveal the truth about his past.) Either way, I think the two of them could've bonded over shared grief.

Okuyasu Nijimura

I absolutely ADORE Okuyasu. I think his dynamic with Josuke is really fun to watch and his personality is just overall super enjoyable.

Stand wise I do think Araki slightly nerfed him by making him dumb as fucking rocks, but I let this slide a little more just bc he's a side character..

I honestly think Okuyasu has the best character arc out of the whole part 4 cast. I think he definitely deserved more screen time, but what we got was really solid in my opinion. His relationship with his brother was well developed and it was really interesting to see how it still affected him even after his brother's death. The way he felt a need to get revenge for his brother and still felt like he wasn't enough really hit me in the gut. I love him.

When it comes to Okuyasu's "death" I have very mixed opinions. On the one hand, ofc the goat of part 4 survived. On the other hand, I feel like him surviving goes directly against the idea we've been given since the beginning. You can't save everyone. And on the one hand, I enjoy the subverting of expectations. On the other hand, I don't like how it's still just never fully explained. I guess in JJBA as long as your soul doesn't feel like dying yet, you won't. I wish we saw Okuyasu actually speaking to his brother when he "died" however. I find him and Keicho's relationship really gut-punching and that would've been a fire scene imo.

I have more to say on him, his dad, Keicho, and the arrow, but I'll save that for when I'm talking about the plot.

Yoshikage Kira

I find Kira to be a really interesting villain. I really enjoyed every moment we got going deeper into his psychology and it's something I really wish we got to see more of. I enjoy his sleek design and he's fine asf tbh.

Im not gonna give commentary on his stand rn bc honestly i dont fully remember how that shit worked by the time he was using the arrow

Character wise I just really wish he was established as the main villain sooner. The build up and hints dropped about him were so addictive, so it's disappointing that they're only there a little before his full introduction.

The psychology of Kira is something I really liked. The way he truly believes he's never really done anything wrong and only wanting to live a peaceful life is something I wish was even more looked into. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but from my memory, in the manga Kira's whole thing with his nails growing quicker when stressed/when his need to kill is getting too strong was only psychological. At least, I don't remember them growing the same way it's shown in the anime. I think this would've been something really interesting to deep dive into. The fact that he believes his nails grow when his need to kill is really high is really intriguing and the overall connection between hands and his killings are something I wanted to be fully developed more. I know it was kind of just a weird ass fetish but like..that's interesting!! this is interesting!!

I'll probably make an individual post to talk more abt him.

Plot

Where do I even begin. The plot of part 4 is all over the place. I loved many episodes, and I enjoyed when it leaned more into the slice of life style, but why the fuck where there like 3 seperate plots? Honestly, cut out Anjuro. His whole plot shit was annoying as hell. Didn't care for him.

Akira's entire plot pissed me off. I only like this arc because of Okuyasu. Overall I found there to be a lot of plot holes and just annoying parts. Everything til Kira was like this for me. Like get to the REAL plot please.

The arrow annoyed me. I've never wanted to rip my hair out more than when Kira's dad got a hold of it. He was SO GODDAMN ANNOYING. I like the concept of Kira using the arrow to get allies or ways to cover up his plot, but most of the stand users that came out of this were annoying and Kira's dad was insufferable in the worst way possible.

I think something I wish was more covered by the plot is the aftermath of Part 3 and Dio in general. This is something that CDDH (best jojo spinoff) covers really nicely, however. Go read it.

I also just in general think more should've been done w Okuyasu's dad, as he is a direct aftermath of Dio.

I feel like a lot of the women in Part 4 were set up to have strong, actually plot-influencing roles, but then were totally side-lined. I'm going to make a full post abt this tho.

Reimi being connected to Rohan never made sense to me. Just narratively speaking, why did you connect the main motivation for catching Kira to a side antagonist instead of the main character? This is slightly fueled by my hate for Rohan but like, c'mon! I think it would've made more sense to 1. just not include Rohan so fucking much and 2. connect Reimi to Josuke's past.

Speaking of Josuke's past, I feel like it just..needed more. Or at least, I think something needed to be done with the boy who saved him. I can appreciate the idea of it connecting to a theme of the general kindness of strangers, but you don't see that theme pop up as much in the rest of the plot. Also, I again would've connected Reimi to Josuke because WHY ISN’T SHE CONNECTED TO THE MAIN CHARACTER OH MY GOD

Overall tho I like the vibes of part 4, i really enjoyed different arcs and characters, and I just wish Araki got more time to flesh everything out and refocus on certain themes and characters.

[vro0m]

How do you think George would fit into your “Lewis breaks his teammates” essay? Do you reckon he still has the same power or do you think it is more likely that it would be the opposite this time? I am asking because we have seen many times how the young guy wears out the older one (Vettel-Leclerc dynamic for comparison) but I cannot quite my finger on Lewis yet in this situation (not necessarily race performance but mentally)

Anon, you're kinda throwing me in a minefield!

It's extremely difficult to make predictions, so many things can happen. The short answer is : I don't know. The long answer is under the cut.

I'm biased as fuck, because I want Lewis to win his 8th, finish on a high, and be able to retire with at least some level of peace of mind but I tried to be fair.

I know you said 'not necessarily race performance but mentally', but these two things go hand in hand. They're both good, although at very different points of their career, and they're both hungry. That's basically what I said about them in the Lewis breaks his teammates essay. That and the fact that it had obvious potential for drama. Their results are weirdly on par, excluding the rare mishaps they've each had these two seasons. When you look at the graph of their respective results, the curves are so similar! And that's admittedly throwing me a bit because despite knowing George is a good driver, I honestly didn't expect him to be able to keep up with Lewis that well, especially from the get-go. I know some people claim it's proof Lewis is past his prime but I think that's bullshit and also a bit insulting for George, tbh.

Ultimately, I think if one of them has to come out on top, it's gonna be the one who manages to not get devoured by his own hunger.

George needs to learn what Lewis has learnt in his own time, what all young drivers need to learn when they get into cars that allow them to at least somewhat race : self-control. Don't rush, wait for the gap. Don't get too greedy, remember the big picture. Don't overdo it, know when to push and when to lift. Don't let it get to your head, think before you talk. Where he can struggle if it comes down to it, is making too many mistakes in a row and losing confidence, on or off track. Especially if they manage to fix the stupid car, and he finds himself sparring with Lewis on the regular for good positions, he's gonna need to be able to stay calm and stand his ground without getting into trouble because Lewis has been doing it for a while, and he's not gonna spare him. I know we like to paint him as very kind — and he might be, off track — but on track he's ruthless. He is a mostly clean racer nowadays, I truly believe so, but that's because he's received so many penalties over the years that he knows exactly where the limit of what's allowed, or can be argued as allowed, is and he will drive right on that edge without even having to think about it. George is gonna have to figure out the rules of this game on his own, like they all do. Lewis is not gonna teach George the ropes. He's not gonna give him the answers. He's not gonna foster him. He might help the team but he's not gonna help him. He's not a mentor. He's a racer. And while George is figuring himself out, Lewis is gonna race.

Lewis has a lot of shit to prove, again. People have been saying he's too old, people have been claiming he's about to retire, people have been saying nobody's ever won a race after their 300th start, people don't want Schumacher's record to be beaten and especially not by him, and let me not get into AD21. On top of that, the car is bad. However hard it is for George, it's still an upgrade for him. It's a definite downgrade for Lewis. He needs to be patient but he's running out of time. He needs to adjust his expectations but he's barely ever known anything but the top. He needs to be a leader for the whole team but George is becoming a threat. He needs to stay calm, composed, and confident but he's always been a paranoid control-freak with a justified chip on his shoulder. As much as George might trip over himself, I believe Lewis' weakness is Mercedes. Just like George's struggle is currently showing here and there in his racecraft, Lewis' struggle is currently showing here and there in his relationship to the team. He's struggled with having to rely on other people doing their thing for him to do his thing forever. As long as it worked it worked, but now it's not working. First of all he has to grapple with the reality that his teammate is not a throwaway anymore. But I believe (tentatively) that as long as it's a fair fight, he won't get destabilised on track. However, if he feels like they keep fucking up the strategy or that they're favouring or being too lenient with George... As soon as he gets it into his head that they don't have his back, it's over for him. It might become a real test of his maturing and growth.

As for how it's gonna end, time will tell.