#I'm happy to discuss any of this

[celluloidbroomcloset]

"The atmosphere on this ship is fucked. Everyone knows why."

"I don't. Enlighten me."

"Your feelings for Stede—"

This scene has been picked over a lot, but this is the first time I noted the speed with which it happens, including how clearly Ed himself knows what Izzy will say, and has from the moment he walks on deck. It's the culmination of an emotional violence that has been there since the start of Season 1 and that focuses on how and where Ed is allowed to express his feelings.

It's Ed who decides to make the discussion public, and Ed who challenges Izzy to say, out loud, in front of the crew, exactly why Izzy thinks the atmosphere is fucked.

Ed's acting unhinged a moment before, but as soon as Izzy speaks, he's very present—because he's been pushing for this to happen. The tone of voice he uses when he says, "Enlighten me," is similar to the sarcasm in his voice back in "Discomfort," when he says, "Sounds stressful, Izzy." He's not daring Izzy to say it's about his feelings; he's waiting for him to.

Izzy barely even gets Stede's name out before Ed is nodding and pulling the trigger. It's not at all what Izzy later says—"He took my leg because I dared to mention your fucking name." The exact words are "your feelings for Stede."

In Season 1, Izzy has insisted that his words to Ed about Stede be spoken in private. He never discusses it with anyone in the crew. The only time other people are present for those discussions is when Izzy insists that Ed send Stede to "doggy heaven," and then Fang has an emotional breakdown (and for a good bit of Season 1, Izzy treats Ivan and Fang as an extension of himself). The crew know that Ed is in love with Stede, but Izzy does not speak about that in front of them. Izzy's verbal violence about Stede, and his attacks on Ed about Ed's feelings for Stede, are always out of sight and hearing of the crew.

But he does speak to Stede's enemies about it, and Ed knows it. Izzy has told Calico Jack that Ed is "shacking up" with Stede. Spanish Jackie also knows, and so do the English, because that's how and why Izzy sold Stede out. Ed is aware, from the moment that Jack uses the term "shacking up," that Izzy has been speaking publicly about Ed's relationship with Stede.

Ed himself does not talk about his romantic or sexual relationships. Other people do—Calico Jack, Anne and Mary, Izzy—but Ed is not public with that information, even saying that “our private lives are our private lives” (echoing Stede’s statement to Jack: “Ed’s past is Ed’s business and I respect that.”). The times when Ed makes his feelings toward Stede known, even implicitly, are private—the “fine things” scene, the kiss on the beach, even the stabbing scene, all are between Ed and Stede. No one else is meant to witness those. After Stede has left him, Ed’s grief and the reasons behind it are clear, but he still conceals it with a song “about someone else.”

Ed keeps his softer emotions hidden and private, or tries to, because he’s been conditioned to believe that they’re dangerous to have. And they are—Jack makes them the subject of derision, and Ed is explicitly threatened when he makes his love for Stede too publicly visible. Izzy invades his private spaces (his cabin, his personal space) to berate and expose his emotions, mockingly calling Stede Ed’s boyfriend. The discussion of emotions that Ed tries to keep private are always initiated by Izzy, and the discussions are always violent and derisive.

The crew themselves do not know what has led to Ed shooting Izzy. They haven’t seen the escalation of violence and violation, going from emotional violence to physical—and the initial toe-cutting scene is very much Ed invading Izzy’s safe space to enact violence on him, just as Izzy did to him. They haven’t been witness to the threats and the danger that Ed has increasingly experienced and that in part led him to putting on Kraken in the first place.

The shift that happens in “Impossible Birds” is Izzy once again invading Ed’s space, where he’s caressing and then concealing the groom figurine, to prompt the discussion of emotions. What Izzy thinks is a result of him speaking Stede's name and ethos is actually a result of him invoking, again, Ed's emotions about Stede as a way of manipulating him. But this time, Ed is going to make him do it in front of the crew.

It is, in a sense, an expansion of "the love that dare not speak its name.” If “everyone knows why,” then Izzy is going to have to say it. So the moment on deck is Ed forcing Izzy to publicly expose the things that have been concealed: Ed's private emotions that Izzy has broadcast to his enemies but never to his friends, and the violence that has been attached to those emotions. They're going to "talk it through," but Izzy has made talking it through violent and unsafe. Now what had been private violence is going to be public.

[fairyroses]

He was about to kill you, Lex. Or divulge something you didn't want me to know.

— SMALLVILLE, "Forever" (4.21)

+ bonus from "Arctic" (7.20):

[soulfireblue]

i have so many thoughts about phil and sunny and tubbo and this is going under a read more because it got really long lol

disclaimer that i don't watch phil super often! i watch qsmp with a crow friend who keeps me updated on his streams, so he's probably one of the characters i'm most familiar with outside of tubbo, but that's obviously not quite the same as me directly watching his streams. also this is only my interpretation and understanding of the characters, of course!

Phil is a bit of a hermit and doesn't know the other eggs that well; Chayanne and Tallulah are actually more social than their dad is. There are very few people on this island that Phil is actually close to, and Tubbo is one of them. That's kind of a double-edged sword when it comes to Phil's relationship with Sunny.

Phil kind of tends to extrapolate his relationship with Tubbo onto Sunny, because he doesn't know her well enough to realize that what works for him and Tubbo is not going to work for him and Sunny. It becomes a cycle, because Phil unknowingly does or says something that hurts Sunny, and then Sunny avoids being alone with him, so he doesn't get to know her well enough to realize that the way he treats Tubbo is not how Sunny wants or needs to be treated.

This sets up a really interesting conflict and character dynamic here, especially because Tubbo is also extrapolating his own relationship with Phil onto Sunny. He doesn't really understand that Sunny has issues with Phil, because when he and Sunny are with Phil, he's usually focused more on his own interactions with Phil and the godkids' than Sunny's. Plus it's not like Tubbo and Sunny are often with Phil alone; usually Chayanne and Tallulah are there too, and there's not much reason for Sunny to be needing to interact with Phil one-on-one.

And while Sunny has told Tubbo a little bit about how they feel with Phil, he's also observed them having issues with Tallulah, Leo, and even Richas now, and he's also watched those issues clear up. There's no reason for Tubbo to assume that her issues with Phil are any different. The nature of Tubbo's role as a buffer between Sunny and Phil means that he hasn't been able to observe the interactions that caused the problem. If Tubbo's there, Tubbo's the one they're both interacting with more just due to the fact that he's more present in both of their lives.

But here's the thing with Phil being a hermit. The issue isn't just his relationship with Tubbo; it's also that his children always come first. We've seen that even before we met Sunny. He was completely convinced that he had to win Purgatory because no one would be looking out for his kids except himself, not realizing that the leader of Soulfire was trying to get back the exact same eggs. For Phil, it's extremely black and white.

And so when he's alone with Sunny, when he's looking at her as an egg rather than as Tubbo's daughter, he puts his kids first. He's happy to do whatever he can to help. He collected items for cookies for all of the eggs on the island for a reason! He cares a lot about the eggs, even from a distance. He's just not the type of person to wait to feed his kids until the other kids are fed too, because his first priority has to be Chayanne and Tallulah.

But his limit is anything that could put his own family at risk. Which is understandable! He has two kids to look out for. But Phil is extremely pragmatic, and so he tells Sunny exactly the truth. She can stay with him, but his kids come first. Tallulah has been hurt, so her feelings come first. He's very good at making sure his kids are taken care of, and he's very good at weighing the risks, and he's honest about it once he has.

Which would maybe be perfectly fine for some other eggs, but the thing is, Phil doesn't know Sunny. He's treating her the exact opposite of the way she needs to be treated, but he doesn't know her well enough to realize it. He's spent a lot of time around her without actually getting to know her, because there's always that Tubbo and Chayanne buffer. So he doesn't realize that they don't need to be treated the way he treats Tubbo. She needs to be treated the way he treats Tallulah. They need to be told that it's okay to feel scared and abandoned, and that they are loved, and that someone will always be there for them.

(Chayanne does realize that. He's a very good godbrother.)

I hope someday Phil will get to know Sunny better and realize better ways to communicate with her, though I do understand that there will always be the issue of his kids coming first, while Sunny desperately needs people who put her first. (And gosh, how awful must it have been for them to lose Creation, who called them rank one, and told them they were loved, and then left them just like everybody else.) They'll never have the relationship Tubbo has with Phil's kids, and that's okay. But I hope that Sunny can one day look at Phil and know that she is loved, even if it's not exactly the kind of love she's been searching for.

[wellfine]

wow...... MANY artists take requests randomly. this isn't the original anon, I just saw your post&was blown away by how rude it was. this anon wasn't even rude. artists are always putting out informationals with like guides on how to speak to them&it's the so egotistical&rude&controlling. I literally won't commission random artists anymore&only my close friends bc of these rules that change artist to artist&don't apply to everyone. anon asked you a simple question&was extremely nice about it&you chose to be an asshole in response. y'all act like you're training rabid dogs or something. just, say no, don't answer, or block the anon. like I can't figure out what ticked you off so much about that. talking to ppl like shit won't help them. it will just make people afraid to speak to you at all. anyways lol you're losing a follower&a fan. maybe let your anger out at the gym or something before you take it out on someone asking an innocent question. they truly probably thought "the worst they could say is no" &you proved them wrong. exactly the reason I no longer commission art from artists who aren't my close friends. my anxiety is too high to deal with the anger&your need to control how other people talk to you(even when it's not mean&they're just asking an innocent question).

Good lordt

Mate, I said "no hard feelings just letting you know this ask came across as rude" after we had a bit of a giggle about how funny it is that they hadn't stumbled upon the specific kind of fanart they wanted to see when IMO it's extremely common in the fandom, and then pointed them to another artist who had already drawn what they wanted to see.

"Don't ask/hint at artists to draw you things for free" is not being rude or demanding or egotistical, it's just a firm boundary. It's not a minefield to navigate, and artists who accept random requests usually say so somewhere in their bio/about. I also think blocking the poor anon would've been way more harsh and unnecessary than letting them know how their behaviour was perceived, cuz if they keep doing it, some other artist is going to be way meaner about it.

[elitadream]

You know that feeling when you're distinctly unwell but not quite sick? 🥲 Sore limbs, tired body, mild nausea, aching head, preoccupied mind, loud thoughts...

And here I hoped this week's sunny weather would help me feel better. 😞 If you guys have some fun or light observations and ideas that you want to share with me, please do feel free to send them my way, as I'm sure it would greatly help lift my spirits. 🙏🍀

[binah-beloved]

If we can ask gameplay questions im curious what's your fav strat to use with the floor of philosophy in ruina?

i bring Binah with me and the rest is up to god

[basket-of-radiants]

Proposal for Re-working the Kholins’ Character Arcs - a semi-coherent “essay” by me (feat. @akpaley​, thank you for your contributions and for your attempts at editing.)

Hey guys. Different kind of post this time around, compared to my usual brand. It’s time for some fix-it fanfiction masquerading as literary critique. I won’t be using a readmore, I dunno, probably to punish anyone still following this blog or something. So! In this post I’m going to solve the all the issues of racial theming associated with the Kholin family.

I’m often very harsh on the Kholins for benefitting so much from exploitative power structures while doing little to help those below them. But then I’ve also criticized them for actually addressing these very problems in-universe. How can I be upset at them for their inaction and then also be annoyed when Jasnah ends slavery? The short answer to all of this is just that the ways these topics are addressed all feel very inauthentic. For example, in real life history it took over a century of protests, slave revolts, political campaigning, and civil wars to legally end slavery in Europe and America, and abolitionists were met with fierce opposition at every turn. A fictional world need not follow our same historical trajectory, but it still seems a little disingenuous for a monarch to just decide to end it within her first year of power because it doesn’t mesh with her philosophical framework. It’s more like trying to wrap up a subplot than actually address the topic.

Ultimately however, there’s only so far this line of criticism can ever take me because the Kholins are the protagonists and you can’t get rid of them without turning the whole story into something else entirely. And Sanderson shouldn’t have to, these are characters that he created and he’s allowed to tell a story about them. And I actually like a lot of their personalities and arcs and outlooks quite a lot. I do think it’s...unfortunate...to have used slavery and racism as disposable props in a story that ultimately turned out to be about a bunch of royals learning to be better people and saving the world along the way. So I guess what I’m interested in is if there’s a way to keep the premise, keep the characters, keep the general story beats, keep the themes of honor and personal growth, keep the basic structure of everything, and still handle those themes with grace. You know, could this be a compassionate story about addressing racism told from the point of view of nobility? Is such a thing possible?

Well, I’m going to try my best. And I’m going to be imperfect about it, obviously, so if you actually care enough to read all this shit, I welcome discussion and disagreement. 

Jasnah is the most obvious example to point to as being indicative of the problem, but I also think she has the easiest character fixes. She’s already been established as an outspoken dissident on many of her society’s deeply ingrained values. Just add to her atheism and feminism that she’s also always been an outspoken abolitionist. Give her ties to an ongoing reformist movement. Have her lecture Shallan about it in Way of Kings. Make that a reason she’s butted heads with her family so much. I do think it’s poor writing to have a ruler end slavery on a whim, but I won’t deny that having the right person in power can make a huge difference. It’s not as cathartic as having Kaladin lead a slave revolt (or as having Moash destroy society <3) but that doesn’t make it inherently bad so long as the topic itself is still treated with weight. Have her moralistic ideology be firmly pre-established so that when she has to explain why she’s abolishing slavery, her reasoning can be purely pragmatic. The reason she’s moving so fast is because this is a historical point of heightened change, and so her reforms are more likely to work, but if she waits too long and things settle back into a new status quo, she may have missed her window. Not to mention, when her nephew comes of age, her own legitimacy as a ruler might be challenged, so she needs to do as much as she can in what may be end up being a short reign. As a character, Jasnah has always been able to girlboss her way past political realities through sheer force of personality, and that’s great and all, but I think it heightens her character’s competence if she does have to deal with real backlash, not just to her but to her policies as well. The narrative doesn’t even need to linger on her opposition, but acknowledging it and acknowledging that she’s simply a member of a preexisting and ongoing movement would have done wonders to portray slavery as a real and prescient issue. Then again, this is a topic which people have fought and continue to fight wars over, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have receive major backlash either; perhaps when the Kholins hear in Words of Radiance that she was assassinated, the news could come as tragic but not entirely unexpected so as to imply that her opposition has attempted such in the past. All this is to say, I don’t think it’s at all wrong for Jasnah to do what she did. I also don’t think her entire stance on abolitionism should have come down to a comment where she tells her uncle she’s trying to rule according to ethically consistent values. The fact that slavery was insultingly easy to end not only delegitimizes is as a topic worthy of discussion, but also is a really scathing indictment of literally everyone else in the ruling class who didn’t even think to try.

Jasnah done, easy, Dalinar next.

Dalinar is probably the most complicated character for me to discuss and form coherent statements on. He’s just so rife with contradictions down to his core. That’s probably why I continue to like him so much, why he’s still my favorite, even though I still consider him to be a Bad Person over all. I think deep down I’ll always lean a bit too pacifistic ideologically to ever consider a warlord/general to be a good person, no matter how honorable he may be or how much growth he may undergo. Don’t get me wrong, I still do love his growth. Dalinar is characterized by his constant change and forward momentum, even moreso than the rest of the cast. So for discussing him, at what point can I point to him and say “this is Dalinar, this is who he is, this is what he believes and what he cares about”? Of course, during any point in his arc, you’re going to have to grapple with the fact that all of his lofty rhetoric about honor and striving for personal betterment is ultimately going to be pretty useless to all the people whose lives he’s meaninglessly thrown away across his military career. For me personally, when I talk about his character I like to take the end-of-oathbringer approach, where I acknowledge everything he did in the past as Blackthorn, I agree that it was pretty fucked up, and I forgive him and grant him a clean slate. All this to say that even if I’m judging him purely by his behavior as the current Dalinar within the present day continuity of the books, he’s still a massive hypocrite with horrific amounts of blood on his hands which he’s never even bothered to consider. I dunno, when I first read Way of Kings and I first got to meet this general who’s leading an army in a literal genocide campaign, I sort of figured he’d get some kind of “wait am I the bad guy” moment at some point in the future. And he did get a moment in Oathbringer where he has to fully confront his guilt over past actions, it was great, I really really loved it! But it was also all about actions he took before the series even started, so I guess wiping out the listeners wasn’t a sin he thought needed any atonement. I’m not going to get into the narrative’s treatment of singers and listeners on this post (for no other reason than because I have waaaaaaay too much to say there) but the point I’m getting at is that however good Dalinar’s growth is and whatever direction it takes, it’s always going to have poisonous roots to me. And his treatment of class/racial issues is no different. 

Fixing Dalinar is going to take a lot of what Dalinar does best: introspection. In Way of Kings, Dalinar dislikes how Sadeas treats his bridgemen because he believes it to be dishonorable, because he believes Sadeas is forcing others into a situation that he himself would never put himself into. He also has various sympathetic reflections here and there about how sad it is when soldiers die, and about how without the benefit of the Thrill, violence is actually kind of bad. You know how it goes. But I don’t think he ever put himself at risk to actually help or protect any of the people who are dying. Whether he wants to end the war or not, he still continues to participate in it. And he’s still willing to set aside the lives of literally everyone beneath him so he can pursue his dream of unity. The book ends with Kaladin and the rest of bridge four saving him and Adolin, and in gratitude, he purchases their freedom and gives them honored positions in his household. You know, because he’s so honorable. Everyone loves this scene, so I’m going to make it the catalyst for Dalinar’s new and improved character development. The problem with saying Kaladin helped Dalinar so Dalinar helped Kaladin is that when I’m being reductive and uncharitable (like I’m being right now), I can argue that their relationship basically started as a quid pro quo. This scene is meant to prove that Dalinar really is the most honorable person in Alethkar, just as Syl thought, only it doesn’t actually do that. See I don’t actually want Dalinar to start treating Kaladin as an equal. I want Dalinar to, in that moment, realize that Kaladin is better than him. That for all of his pontificating about honor, he would have never even considered risking his own life and the lives of his own family to rescue a bunch of bridgemen. I want him to see Kaladin’s honor, and rather than be validated in his beliefs, I want him to be thoroughly humbled. Let him spend all next book reflecting on all the lives of darkeyes he’s destroyed. Let it shame him, as Evi’s death shamed him. He already flirts with these lines of thought, and he already has an arc about confronting his past actions. Let the racial injustices he’s participated in be a part of that. Let him abandon his books and traditions instead look to Kaladin to learn what honor truly means. I don’t know how any of this would translate to his actions, because if we’re being honest his ideals are already quite incongruous with his actions, but the fact that he manages to have such strong theming regardless makes me think maybe that’s okay. I guess ultimately it would be enough for me if his character, as someone who symbolizes the ideals of a nation, was able to look at a darkeyes publicly be a follower rather than always trying to lead by his own personal example.

That’s Dalinar. Elhokar next?

I actually don’t think there’s too much wrong with Elhokar’s writing, especially in the first two books where a much greater emphasis on these themes were placed. He’s not a protagonist and we the audience aren’t supposed to endorse his actions. Most of what I’d change about his story is more about Kaladin and Moash than it is about him. I definitely don’t love that he can throw away the lives of his own people by the thousands in the genocide campaign that was the vengeance war, and then have the narrative just ignore all that in favor of him being sad about his own incompetence. If Elhokar is meant to be a sympathetic character, then when he calls himself a bad king, that’s what he should be thinking about, the number of lives he’s wasted over these years. I actually like him a lot more as a less sympathetic character, and I think I would have preferred if in oathbringer the narrative and the other characters would have stopped making so many excuses for him. Back to Kaladin and Moash, those are the two characters defined by their experiences as members of the downtrodden caste, so I personally sort of judge the problematic-ness of the whole story by how they get treated. Everyone loves to talk about how those two are foils. So. In order to strengthen Kaladin and Moash’s characters, either Elhokar needs to be as much of a monster as Amaram, or Amaram needs to be just as sympathetic and conflicted and having-of-a-toddler as Elhokar. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love the trope of finding at the end of a revenge quest that the person you hated has changed and grown. But I hate how this means that Moash’s hatred is wrong and unjustified, whereas Kaladin’s is validated at every turn. I don’t actually dislike Elhokar. I mean I think he’s a bad person, but I like a lot of characters who are bad people. I just think that if this story really wants to grapple with class and race (because it sure brings them up a lot for a story that doesn't want to talk about them), then Moash is a much more important character than him, with a lot more to add to that kind of discussion, which is why I think Elhokar’s characterization would have to come second to Moash’s development. (Obviously if this series were being reworked to be better on this topic, Moash would have to be written with a lot more compassion in general, but this post isn’t about him.)

Intermission time. Gavilar.

Gavilar is already perfect, 10/10, great character all around, what a guy, no notes, no wonder he’s so universally beloved among all of the fans, social justice icon.

Okay onto Navani.

I may not be the best person to talk about Navani. She has never been a favorite character of mine, and so compared to the others I haven’t thought as much about her values or the way she thinks or the narrative impacts of her actions. Someone who has more love for her would probably write better criticisms of her. (I’m going to reject any premise that falls along the lines of “Navani isn’t racist because she feels X,” but I’m not wholly confident in my analysis here, and I welcome any good faith critiques both of my own thinking and of her character when come at from other angles.) It’s hard to say where she should have grown from how she starts out viewing darkeyes because I don’t actually know how she starts out viewing darkeyes. I know I’m probably meant to assume she just treats everyone equally because she’s a Good Person on Team Good Guys, but it’s hard to just accept that she had all around good values when she married a warlord and was in love with his more violent brother. I dunno, was her “good guy” status meant to have always been an element of her character, or did she get it secondhand from her association with the new and improved Dalinar? With someone like Adolin, we got to see what shitty values he held at the start of Way of Kings (I’m talking about the Alethi warmongering, not his interest in fashion) but we also got to see how his father gradually won him over throughout the course of the book, and then later on we get to see him develop further on his own. For someone like Navani, I find it strange how she’s always so proactively supportive of Dalinar in everything, even when his own goals and values are in flux. I assume her character is just meant to be super ride or die when it comes to her family, and I do like that in a character, but that also means that she’s been wholly willing to support or at the very least excuse her family’s oppression and exploitation of darkeyes without comment. (See, Lirin is a much better parent than Navani, he would never have let his son start a whole genocidal vengeance war for fun and profit (I say this as if I’m joking but I’m kinda not.)) Some people have reminded me that she was pretty much shut out of the political process by Gavilar and Elhokar, and I agree with that, but I don’t really have any evidence that she would have cared much about darkeyes even if she had been more involved. In general it just seems like the whole topic doesn’t matter much to her. So what I would wish for the narrative would be to lean further into this. Draw attention to her cognitive dissonance and try and make the readers feel conflicted about her as a person. Highlight the fact that she’s willing to overlook the suffering that befalls other families if it means success for her own. I think one of my issues with her is that to me, this is a major (and interesting!) character flaw, but the books never seem to treat it as such. Honestly I think if this were intentional, I’d probably find her character really interesting, but from my reading of the text, I feel that I’m supposed to think of Navani as a generally decent person who’s by and large on the right side of things. The thing is, with the caste system playing such an integral role in their culture, I think she needs to have some sort of feelings about it, or else the fact that she doesn’t should be an issue to overcome. Otherwise she becomes another factor delegitimizing racial oppression as a real and important problem. If she’s a good guy and she doesn’t care about racism, then that’s saying you don’t have to be antiracist to be a good person in this world. 

Probably could have done that one better. I dunno. Leave me angry and hateful comments if I’m totally misrepresenting your favorite character. Moving on.

Adolin already has some great character development across the books. And he already has kind of engaged with this stuff in his story. Unfortunately, that’s less used in the “this person was racist but is becoming better sense” and more used in the sense of “Kaladin learns that #NotAllLighteyes are bad” which is pretty unfortunate for a number of reasons. Especially since, if he actually was going to prove he’s different from other lighteyes, out of all the Kholins I think Adolin is the best candidate for being a full on class traitor. I’m serious, looking back over the events of his plotlines, it would suit him shockingly well while disturbing the overall narrative shockingly little.

Adolin’s current plot is loosely as follows: in Way of Kings he likes all the things someone of his station is supposed to like, clothes, violence, dueling, warfare, swords, hangtime with the guys, all the good stuff. At the beginning of the book he doesn’t understand why old, stuck-up Dalinar can’t just let loose and be a relelntless war-monger like everyone else, but by the end of the book he’s come to understand a certain value to honor and thus has begun to become a better person himself. Words of Radiance has him lose his popularity, fall out of favor with all of his friends, grow disillusioned with his society, perform a prison sit-in in solidarity with Kaladin, and murder Sadeas. Most of this is done again, because of his father, and how Adolin now wants to help and support him and his ideals. In Oathbringer he mostly isn’t involved in courtly politics, being away on a mission for much of it, but he does make a pretty big move by rejecting the throne. In Rhythm of War we see the schism that’s formed between him and his father until he leaves on another long-distance mission. Summary over. In general I reject the idea that making the Kholins be individually less racist makes for a better, or more nuanced and compassionate discussion of the topic, but if anyone is primed for a “lighteyes learns racism is wrong” character arc, I think it’s Adolin. Imagine him following a bit less in Dalinar’s footsteps and a bit more in Jasnah’s. You almost don’t even have to change any story beats: in getting to know Kaladin, something clicks in Adolin where he realizes that if he wants to treat Kaladin as his equal, he has to treat all darkeyes as equals, and so he realizes to his horror that he and his entire caste of friends and family are all monsters for treating them the way they do. (Actually, there is one plotline in WoR I’d probably scrap, and that’s his slowburn bromance with Kaladin. I mean I get what Sanderson was going for with the ribbing and then eventual friendship, but Kaladin was an absolute stranger who risked his own life to save Adolin and his father from certain death, and so I feel there should probably have been a bit more overt respect upfront there.) In pushing for his newfound belief in equality, he ends up burning through all of his intracaste goodwill and political capital, causing all of his friends to drop him. When he kills Sadeas, it doesn’t have to be about protecting Dalinar or about personal revenge, it could also be that he’s gotten to know Bridge 4 and learned firsthand about the atrocities they’d gone through, and so there’s no way he’d allow such a pioneer of human rights violations to stay in power. In the following books, maybe he’s become so politically toxic due to challenging the very foundations of his own power, his own family has to send him away on missions so he can’t rock the boat too much at home. Maybe refusing the throne was more of a political statement than a personal one, because he’s come to understand that being a ruler means oppressing thousands of others. Maybe this is another form of hypocrisy he criticizes Dalinar for, how Dalinar might claim to value darkeyes but how he still retains power bought with thousands of their corpses. None of this has to modify actual events very much, it just affects the reasons for them. And it would also meaningfully show why he gets to be a “good lighteyes” if he actually engaged with his status and rejected it, knowing it comes at the expense of others.

Okay, enough about that. Renarin maybe?

I won’t say too much about Renarin here, because I’d probably just end up repeating a lot of the same criticisms of how he’s used as a “good lighteyes.” From a narrative standpoint, all those criticisms hold for him as well. You know, he wants to join Bridge Four, and future-villain Moash doesn’t like the idea because he doesn’t trust lighteyes, but Kaladin reassures him that Renarin is a good boy, so don’t worry about it, and everything works out fine in the end, proving that lighteyes are good people just like you and me. This isn’t a problem with him as a person or character, it’s just more of that general theme of “the caste system is fine so long as nice people are at the top” which I clearly think should be interrogated. Thus far, in contrast to the rest of his family, Renarin is very young and has had much less of a political presence, not to mention fewer POV chapters anyway, so I think delving too much deeper here will feel a bit hollow to me.

Does Shallan count as a Kholin? I’d like to talk about her super briefly.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually think Shallan is one of the better characters on the topic of race insofar as how she’s written, especially compared to the other Kholins. But wait, I hear you say, what about all of her dozens of instances of casual racism? Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I like how Shallan demonstrates how ingrained these harmful ideologies are in their society. I like how every time she has a distasteful thought, we the audience are reminded that racism still exists and even good people will continue to promote it if they don’t view it critically. I like that Shallan is problematic, because their society has problems! At least with her it doesn’t feel like the story’s trying to sweep the fact under the rug. There are plenty of issues with her writing, plenty of jabs at Kaladin that probably shouldn’t have been treated as cute. She’s actually the main character whose racism and classism I see criticized the most. And I think that’s a good thing! My issue with the Kholins isn’t that I think they should all be less racist, my issue is that their positions are inherently oppressive, and it seems as though the narrative doesn’t think that matters so long as deep down they’re good people. When people critique Shallan in specific instances, I tend to see a fair amount of consensus and agreement there, but when I critique the Kholins people will argue with me by pointing out that Dalinar/Adolin/Navani/whoever actually treats darkeyes as equals, so my arguments are invalid. Purely my own anecdotal experience of course, but it tends to make me think that there’s something in Shallan’s writing that’s working right, something that isn’t working for the other lighteyed characters.

Now obviously with all of this, I’m not saying I want these books to have more racism in them. What I’m arguing is that if the books are going to explore the topic (which they do) then they should treat the topic with an appropriate amount of gravity rather than acting as if it can be solved by having aristocrats become nicer people.

If you’re still here with me, thank you for reading, I love you, I hope you enjoyed yourself through my descent further and further into rambly nonsense. If you just scrolled to the bottom, that’s fair enough, there won't be a tl;dr but you’re welcome for filling your dash with massive text blocks.

[chirpsythismorning]

Today is Day 185: What This Line Means for El's Letter to Mike at the Start of Season 4

I know a lot of fans are convinced that the Duffers are careless since they 'forgot' Will's birthday. But I assure you… they’re not.

There's zero doubt in my mind that the writers have a calendar which they refer to religiously, especially when making decisions about the timeline for the story. 

Literally every season starts with a date to establish the setting. Do we think they just settle on a date, without referring to any sort of notes?

There’s a basic responsibility there, at the very least, to be aware of what the characters would be doing at that moment in time, based on what generally happens during that time of year. This would require research beyond just picking a date and slapping it on the first episode of the season. 

Is it Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter? What events are likely to take place during that time of year and how do they plan the expectations of the setting around the characters and the story itself? That's all intentional and well thought out. There’s a reason every season is surrounding some sort of holiday/event at some point, and it’s because time is very very important in the world of Stranger Things.

Think about the various times they’ve had characters literally countdown events?

Mike with El in s2? El with Mike in s4? Suzie when referring to Dustin’s birthday in s4? They wouldn’t throw out lines like that if they didn’t do the math at least once themselves.

The ‘353 days’ line is one perfect example of the Duffer’s proving to us that they have access to calendars, calculators or even simply, google.

Look at that! It appears when Mike used the walkie to call El on Halloween of 1984 (October 31st) in s2, it had indeed been 353 days!

What makes this detail so so so so so fucking important, is that this might hold the answer to the murkiness of the s3 ending going into s4.

Because as of now, we don't really know when s3 ended exactly.

But the similarities of s3's ending to previous seasons, might help us figure out that answer...

Every season ends with a vague timestamp for the literal ending; the epilogue. They only offer up the date at the start of the season, but when it comes to the ending, they never do. It's always months or days if we're lucky.

For s1-2 we got a vague 'one month later', for s3 we got an even more vague 'three months later' and for s4 we surprisingly got something more specific, with 'two days later'.

I think the reasoning for this seems complicated, but it's fairly simple.

While it is quite commonplace to give exact dates at the start of stories, to set the scene and everything, there's this agreed upon understanding in film and even books arguably, that also providing an exact date for the epilogue feels a little cheap? Or maybe a bit too 'handholdy' is a better word? I could see that being something an amateur would do without realizing it looks tacky.

I also think it allows the writers to be more vague in what exactly the date is for the end, according to the audience at least. Because they 100% know what the date is on their end, but that doesn't mean they have to reveal it to us.

We don't know when s3 ends exactly. We know that the battle at Starcourt ended on July 4th-5th (respectively). Though we also know that based on s1's timeline, Mike's countdown considered El's death to be the morning of November 13th, and so we can presume perhaps that s3 technically ended on July 5th.

And so the s3 epilogue being 'three months later' would bring us to October 5th, 1985 right?

Well, not exactly.

You see, when the Duffers give us their vague epilogue scenes, they're not saying that it's exactly one month or three months later, to the exact day. They're being intentionally vague.

Season 1 ending says one month later, but it's actually been 25 days.

Season 2 ending says one month later, but it's actually been 40 days.

Season 3 ending says three months later, but it's actually been... well we don't fucking know!!!

BUT I don't think it really matters, because if the Duffer's made an effort to do the math correctly for their 353 days line in s2, then it's probably safe to assume they'd do math for their 185 days line in s4 as well? And to also give us the answer to that question somewhere in the show already, as opposed to throwing out some random date seasons later?

Otherwise why have countdowns like that at all? It literally makes no sense for them to give us an exact number, like 353 or 185, without checking that the days match up with the exact countdown they're giving us.

I'm just one fan, and it only took me maybe 3 google searches to figure this out in a matter of seconds. They are however literal experts in their profession, and for that reason I do feel comfortable giving them some credit here.

So now, let's try to apply this logic then to s3.

Perhaps it's safe to assume that El's countdown didn't start when the Byers moved to Cali in the s3 epilogue, just like Mike's countdown didn't start at the end of the s1 epilogue either.

It's believed that the Byers, but El specifically, had to go into hiding after the battle at Starcourt. And so, could this mean that El's countdown started on July 5th?

The day that Hopper died? The day she lost her powers? The day she had to go into hiding and probably couldn't properly communicate with Mike for about three months?

Honestly, I think it would make a lot more sense to have their countdown's (Mike's 353 vs. El's 185) parallel in how they started.

And it would be weird to restart that countdown simply because they reunited for one afternoon to move, again because there was obviously so much significance to everything that happened on July 5th, that it does make sense to me that El's countdown would have started there.

Also, I want to be thorough by mentioning that, the main reason we can easily rule out the Byers move date being the start of El's countdown, is that it doesn't add up whatsoever.

El saying it has been 185 days since the Byers moved, would mean she was writing the letter on April 7th, 1986, which is impossible. (Also Mike's birthday, which is hilariously ironic).

Even if we spread out that three month window, we still have to take into account that if it was closer to two months or four months, they would've just said that instead. So either the Byers moved on October 4th, or sometime between September 5th at the earliest and November 5th at the latest.

And so where do we go from here? 

Basically, from what we understand in canon on the show, there isn’t much to go off of besides that. And I think that’s the intention.

Over the seasons, the obscurity of the time jump between the epilogues has allowed for them to say obscure comments between seasons, such as, Yeah for like a month (Jonathan in s2) and It’s been a year, Mike (Will in s4) and so they obviously like this appeal of the audience not knowing for certain. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know for certain.

I would argue they have to know for certain, and have very likely done the math at least once or twice or ten times, especially because as I mentioned, there would be no reason to have characters countdown to the exact day, on multiple occasions, if the creators/writers or literally anyone involved with the show wasn't checking to make sure those numbers added up correctly.

And so, based on all of that, I think that El started counting down from the day they separated, just like the previous season, which would’ve been July 4th-5th (respectfully).

And so 185 days after July 4th-5th, 1985, would be January 5th-6th, 1986. 

Just work with me here. Because while there are several things that could work against this theory, I think those things could have intentionally been there to trick the audience into thinking this letter was written very close to spring break, even though the math for that doesn't add up. And so lets look at some of the details that might be telling us this letter isn't as recent as we're being lead to believe.

The main detail I want to mention, is that major projects like the one El describes in her letter, requiring a visual aid, is more likely to be assigned at the start of the trimester.

If you don’t live in the United States, or are unfamiliar, basically how it tends to work for most high schools is the school year get’s split into 3 trimesters. The 1st trimester goes from September-December, the second goes from January-March, and the third goes from March-June. It varies depending on the city/county/state. Though it may not seem very equal, it goes like this to accommodate the major holidays with extensive breaks. The first trimester has Thanksgiving then a brief return to school, followed by Christmas/New years. The 2nd trimester starts right after New Years, and ends with Spring break. Then once you return afterward Spring break, that’s the start of the 3rd trimester. It evens out to each trimester being about 3 months.

I think El would've mentioned this assignment to Mike closer to when it was assigned and not right before she was turning it in. And the reasoning for this is kind of obvious but understandably overlooked.

While most kids would probably not think about working on a project like this until the last minute, because most of us are expert procrastinators after almost a decade in school, El however is completely new to this experience. And so I imagine the moment she heard about this assignment, she was just like 'best get to it!!'! We even see her still working on it after the project was already graded because the significance of it was clearly important to her. And so if her and Mike were writing somewhat consistently as it appears, then this would have been mentioned a lot sooner than her most recent letter to him.

And when it comes to the rest of the letter, there are several clues that could also support this theory that it wasn't written as close to spring break as we're being lead to assume.

Like the mention of Joyce's new telemarketer job. It wouldn't really make sense for her job to have been like super new, within the last week from March 22nd, especially if it's intended to be this sort of deterrent for Mike getting ahold of Will on the Byers phone presumably since the move.

Also Jonathan's car, is looked like it had been deserted there for a long time, not a matter of days or weeks, but possibly months (since early winter)... And so Argyle driving them to school wasn't something that happened within the last week worth mentioning to Mike right before their reunion in her most recent letter, but most likely another detail she mentioned as an update, since Jonathan's car is being referred to as still broken.

Even separate from the letter, I wondered if there was evidence somewhere else that they could sneakily be trying to hint to us that this is actually being written early in the Winter trimester and not the very end. Then it hit me.

The lyrics in the background...

Although, there are some things that contradict this theory, again I think those details were put there for the sake of tricking us.

Like just think about it, if this was El's most recent letter, wouldn't it make more sense for her to mention both the countdown for when they last saw each other, and how many days until they'd be seeing each other if it was really that close? Unless of course that number of days until their reunion was still too high at the time for her to hype it up, assuming she was writing this letter, perhaps 1-2 months out?...

I also do think that it's likely Mike and El are quite active in their writing back and forth. After all, Will said El had like a book of letters from Mike, so they want us to think that they wrote a decent amount.

I'm guessing the conversation was casual and broad for this letter specifically, because El is still new at writing/reading obviously and because this letter was also being used to update the audience about the characters whereabouts since we last saw them.

This might not seem that groundbreaking, but what this theory boils down to, is that s4 opened with an old letter, not a recent one. It means Mike was reading a letter, possibly from as early as January, 2 months previous to present. This would mean Mike presumably had other, more recent letters available to him to look at, with countdowns like 20 days and 10 days or 5 days, with El gushing even more intensely over the fact that they're closer and closer to finally reuniting.

And yet Mike was fixating on this letter specifically the morning before their reunion, AN OLD LETTER!!

But why?

Let's again look at the vibe of El's letter. If you look really close, it comes off like a response to a questionnaire.

I've always said that although El's lied a lot in her entire letter to Mike, there's a reason they never let us see a letter from Mike to El, and it's because he probably wouldn't have faired much better.

I don't even think it's actually that Mike would've lied necessarily, as much as I think it was mostly a lie of omission situation.

He showed up in Cali as his inauthentic self, and so it wouldn't make sense for him to have given El updates on Hellfire in his letters, which was pretty much all he focused on back in Hawkins from what it looked like.

And so I think the letter he wrote, which El was responding to in that specific letter, was Mike focusing on asking her questions about how she was doing and how the Byers were doing. It's also probably the last time he asked about the others because of one specific detail he got that time, which he's been fixating on ever since... (you know the one...)

Regardless, Mike was reading an old letter, which makes the implications of this (and this)... astounding.

[stochastiz]

so we all know:

venus ♀ = woman mars ♂ = man

and there are lots of (both 'official' and unofficial) trans and nonbinary/ambiguous options out there:

⚧, ⚥, ⚨ , ☿, and many many others that don't have unicode representations

but i just came across an agender symbol that i really like:

null/empty set ∅ = agender

∅, called a null or empty set, is a mathematical symbol that denotes a set that contains no elements (∅ = { })

i do not contain the values of the gender binary

[pardonmydelays]

so from now on i am only here for my mutuals and my lovely anons, because i love talking to you guys and i don't want to leave you hanging, my ask box is always open for all of you if you want to share anything with me or ask me about stuff or talk about lin xx

[celluloidbroomcloset]

(Final part, I swear. Others are here, in order: Part I, Part II, Part III.)

Izzy only rarely interacts with Ed after the murder, and there's good reason for that. They ultimately cannot exist in the same space; there is too much underlying toxicity, too much co-dependence, and too much physical and emotional pain. But Izzy does interact with Stede, in ways that would have been impossible in Season 1.

Like the crew, Stede is the one to make overtures, and I do agree with other commenters that his attention to Izzy, while not condescending, is more about Izzy's needs than his own. Their first major interaction post-Ed's resurrection is when Stede tells him that "Blackbeard said you taught him everything he knows." We know that Stede doesn't call Ed "Blackbeard," but that Izzy has previously been adamant that he "serves Blackbeard." Just as he does with the rest of the crew, Stede wants to draw Izzy out by meeting where he needs to be met. Izzy isn't going to respond to Stede saying that he finds value in Izzy's skills, but he will respond to the idea that Blackbeard has said they're valuable.

Stede's entire ethos, as I remarked, is about supporting others for who they are and who they want to be, not about putting them into a category that he, or anyone else, defines. Izzy is going to be Izzy, and Stede shows that he values Izzy's abilities - all the things, in fact, that make him who he is, now that he has started to shed the toxic masculinity that shrouded him. Stede looks to Izzy for approval in firing a gun and using a sword, he proudly notes that he "did a punch!" These are of value to Stede too - they are enabling him to become more of the man that he wants to be, for himself and for Ed. (There's a lot to be said about Stede's morphing relationship to his own masculinity, but in Season 2 he's fully integrating elements of piracy with his own softness and gentleness, not remaining static but also not trying to become someone he isn't, at least until "Man on Fire.")

Stede's tacit acceptance of Izzy as a member of the crew, in a way that he was never a member in Season 1, is part of what helps Izzy open up more. He's able to spend time with Stede outside of Ed. He stops seeing Stede's fluid and softer masculinity as shameful and begins to see it as positive and even powerful, something that makes Ed happy and that Izzy himself could actually learn from.

Izzy has lived for Ed to the exclusion of all other people, including himself, and that kind of co-dependence is always going to become toxic. It should be noted that Stede himself is not living for Ed; his existence is not about reinforcing Ed's identity or Ed's desires, he does not define himself based on Ed (honestly, there's a whole developmental arc with that going on too, but I'm not going into that here). Izzy has done exactly that, and it has harmed them both - it is a toxic relationship because Izzy quite literally can't exist outside of Blackbeard, as he himself admits in his final scene.

Izzy's final and most meaningful externalization of his identity, independent of Ed, is Calypso's birthday. Again, it should be noted that a good bit of this arc involves "acceptable" external presentations of masculinity. If Stede's outward presentation was repellent to Izzy in Season 1, he's beginning to see its value in Season 2 - Stede has survived, he's crafted a family for himself out of love and acceptance, he's found love with a man he cares for. Ed himself, Izzy's admitted "other half," has found safety and healing in Stede and in the entire ethos of the Revenge, which has now twice saved his life. Toxic masculinity is a threat to health and survival.

Izzy admits to being curious about Wee John is doing when he's dressing as Calypso, prompting Wee John to go into his discussion of a "look." I do think it's important that this discussion has nothing to do with Ed or how Izzy wants to look to Ed himself. It's about Izzy slowly discovering the options he has for self-presentation, irrespective of his sexual identity, and asking for help in doing so from another queer man.

Izzy's drag look allows him to integrate his queerness, and the softer masculine ideal presented initially by Stede and embodied by the rest of the crew, with the rest of his persona. He still wears his regular outfit, with some accents including a flower, but Wee John has done his makeup, including eyeliner, blush, and lipstick. Izzy embraces this externalization of his masculinity and his queerness, and just as importantly, it is embraced by the crew. No one laughs at him or mocks him. His moment of discomfort at his entrance soon gives way to joy. Stede starts smiling, Fang applauds, and Ed raises his glass. The crew dances; Stede and Ed are even about to, as the song crescendos and Izzy lets go of his toxicity. It is a moment of release; Izzy smiles, he laughs, he becomes the center of attention not just of one man but of an entire group of people who have embraced him and helped him to become "the new unicorn." Izzy's masculinity is not in question; he can wear makeup if he wants to, he can dress as he wants to, he can sing if he wants to, and he will not be judged, shamed, or rejected. It does not make him less of a man.

It is important as well that this episode leads into Stede and Ed's first time having sex, and that this scene occurs in tandem with Izzy singing "La Vie en Rose." Izzy, who in "Art of Fuckery" is so horrified at the idea of Ed being penetrated by a foppish man, provides the soundtrack for their love. He'll later joke about it, both in the morning after and with Ed at the Republic of Pirates: "You know what I did this morning, bright and early?" "Made your boyfriend blush?" No longer are words like "boyfriend" to be spat out with venom, and no longer is penetration violent, denigrating, or shameful ("It's good to see that it's not only the ship that has been well and truly...docked."). He encourages Ed to let go of his leathers, if it makes him happy, much as Izzy himself let go of his toxicity. Izzy has also stops basing his existence on Ed's. He empathizes with Stede, admitting that he now understands why their relationship works and that it is worth fighting for.

In the end, it is a remarkable arc, treated with sensitivity and complexity, that neither excuses Izzy nor shames him. He does need someone to live for and die for, but it can't be a single person - it is really about piracy itself, for the crew to live on, for the spirit to survive against all odds. Izzy is still a pirate; it is still integral to his identity and it's the reason why his death, while not unavoidable, is a natural outcome for his character. His life has been about piracy, and he finds his acceptance in the love of the crew. Where Prince Ricky wants Izzy to turn on them, Izzy proclaims that he'll happily die for them. They might outlive Izzy's body, but he ensures that their - and his - spirit will "last throughout your entire fucking empire."

[boyfridged]

it's so interesting that the version of robin jay that actually argued with bruce about the nature of his work and was outspoken about it was pre-crisis jay. the fact that he openly challenged the no killing rule and subtly taunted bruce over the fact that he [bruce] once killed someone in self-defence... it might seem surprising to some given his background but i think it makes so much sense that he was so openly critical. a part of it was definitely that the authors liked to use him for the sake of certain moral lessons, but what's interesting, it wasn't always merely instrumental; the readers were supposed to consider what jase said a challenge to bruce's reasoning. and for it to come from jase also made sense – there was always that shadow of doubt that (pre-crisis) jason had regarding vigilantism; he was never very religious about it. and he was a character who, unlike post-crisis jay, was given (by both the narrative and in-universe, because of his upbringing and natural self-confidence) so much freedom in exploring the meaning of the world around him. he was the "fresh" eyes when it comes to the mythos and the legacy and because of that, his pov was actually valued. and this tendency to be contrarian wasn't ever written as an ominous sign of his dark fate either...

[anaalnathrakhs]

"i thought you said you'd make an effort" MOTHERFUCKER THIS IS ONLY COMPLAINT #1 OUT OF A VERY LONG LIST JUST BE GRATEFUL I CAN WAIT UNTIL THE GUESTS ARE GONE TO SNAP

[viewingthevoid]

Everyday I grow more and more upset at the lack of Shidou/Yuno parallels in any official Milgram content. Especially now that we have a clearer picture of how being voted innocent affected both of them differently, despite viewing their own murders in similar ways

[mouton-e]

quick n silly violinist!chuuya idea

so i lied and i think i actually do want to post some writing here because twitter honestly is a nightmare in so many ways... anyway, here's some skk au where chuuya is a violinist and dazai is just fucking around in college or something (idk not important). for anyone that doesn't know, it's not uncommon for violinists/violists to have a small bruise around the left jawline area as a result of playing for a long time. the funny thing is they can look like hickeys, so that's what people sometimes call them (violin/viola hickeys). i was just thinking about it after seeing some online (ray chen's 'play with ray' reel) and this scenario came to me -- this was only supposed to be like 200-300 words max but here we are with 1k LOL. will probably touch up and upload to ao3 a bit later but for now:

the first time dazai noticed the small bruise by chuuya's lower jaw, he thought oh. well. good for him and whoever got to give him that very visible mark. maybe it was just a one-night stand, in which case again, good for chuuya for getting some. did not upset dazai at all. no, he was not experiencing odd twinges in his gut each time he made accidental eye-contact with the hickey.

the next day chuuya was still sporting it, in the exact same spot and just as vivid as the previous day. dazai didn't want to say he was curious, but he couldn't help his mind going into overdrive trying to figure out the individual behind the hickeys. if chuuya noticed a layer of distraction lining dazai's usual childish comebacks, he didn't comment.

a week later chuuya still had that damn hickey, and at this point dazai was more scoffing at this evidently enthusiastic hickey-giver than anything else because yeah, we get it, you love to kiss and suck and bite on the incredibly attractive area below the stupid chibi's jawline and leave a mark for everyone to see, but honestly couldn't you be a little more creative on where you leave them each time? like he has a whole neck free for access, not to mention collarbones too, how could one possibly refrain from— and dazai had the horrible realisation that he was. very jealous. and possibly in love.

the only solution was to avoid chuuya, of course. the alternative would be dazai struggling not to blush and stumble over his words when he made eye contact with the redhead, so dazai would just simply not see him. yes, this was fine. this was great! no chuuya, no annoying feelings or unwanted physiological reactions.

(lie. not seeing chuuya did not stop the images of the hickey from haunting dazai, or causing his face to heat up.)

it came as a relief disappointment when chuuya finally confronted him, around two weeks later. dazai had burrowed himself into a nook in the university library, content to play a mindless game on his laptop while surrounded by piles of unopened books, realising too late the sound of familiar purposeful footsteps. he was seized by the arm and tugged out the library door, whines of "ow, oww chuuya," gone unheard.

chuuya let go of him once they were in a secluded corner, then whirled around with hands on his hips.

"why are you avoiding me?" he asked. his expression was expectant, mouth set to curl into a scowl.

dazai discreetly flicked his eyes towards the underside of chuuya's jaw. it was still fucking there. he turned his chin away in a display of haughtiness. "i have to get back to studying. i don't have time for chatting with slugs."

he made to leave, but chuuya grabbed his arm again.

"no, you dick, you are not slipping your way out of this. i bet you weren't even studying, anyway. why are you avoiding me?" then a slight pause. "did i do something?"

oh. no scowl, then. instead chuuya's lips were pursed, brows knitted in something like... worry?

dazai panicked. "no," he said quickly. "well, you didn't do anything, it's more like the doing of one such thing unto you that, you know, has rendered me-"

"what the fuck are you talking about?"

now chuuya was peering at him suspiciously and dazai just knew he had to look away, away from the piercing blue or else he would be an embarrassing red — yes, good, away from the eyes and past the chin and the jaw and oh fuck, there's the fucking hickey i need to stop looking at it oh god why can't i look away-

"why are you staring at-" chuuya looked down at himself in confusion. "what are you looking at?"

dazai snapped his eyes up, guilty as if he had just been caught stealing from the cookie jar. chuuya looked more concerned than ever.

"dazai," he said slowly, eyes narrowed, "are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

defeated, dazai sighed. he squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath through his nose. then, fixing chuuya with what he hoped was a look of nonchalance, dazai asked the million-dollar question: "who gave you that?"

"... gave me what?"

he gestured vaguely towards the chuuya's neck. "the... hickey," he finished sullenly.

chuuya looked bewildered. he blinked for a few seconds. then, like he was gradually reaching the solution to a puzzle, "are you asking about my violin hickey?"

dazai blinked back. "huh?"

he pointed at it directly. "this?"

"... yes?"

"ah." the redhead seemed to be biting back a grin. "i see now."

chuuya inched forward and laid a hand on dazai's shoulder. the latter tried to pretend he wasn't having trouble regulating his breathing. "dazai," chuuya said. "this is a bruise that resulted from practising violin. not from... somebody's mouth."

"oh," dazai said dumbly.

"you'll see that quite a few violinists and violists will have it."

"oh," he said again.

chuuya was definitely smiling now. and dazai's face was definitely red.

"is this why you've been avoiding me?" chuuya asked, voice wavering on a laugh.

dazai scowled. "fine, chibikko. yes, i was avoiding you because i couldn't stand seeing that bruise on full display every day, and— don't laugh, you're being mean!"

chuuya had tipped forward, head shaking against dazai's chest as he failed to contain his giggles. "you were so disturbed by a hickey that you couldn't even talk to me?"

"chuuuyaa, you don't understand! it was excruciating seeing the thing because my brain kept telling me i should be the one to administer it!"

the laughter died down. chuuya looked up, eyes widening with the realisation of dazai's words. his hand was still clutching the taller's shoulder, leaving their faces just a breadth apart. dazai watched in fascination (and maybe a little satisfaction at having the upper hand again) as a healthy blush began to spread across chuuya's cheeks. "o-oh," he echoed.

"yeah," dazai breathed. "so what does chuuya say?" he leaned down slightly, a hand straying by the other's waist. "can i have a taste?"

after a second, wherein chuuya's gaze shifted from brown eyes to lips to eyes again, he dipped his head back down to rest against dazai's chest with a huff. "not here, you idiot. i'm not having you kiss me for the first time in the middle of this damn building."

"gasp, chuuya, my kiss is that special to you?"

"shut up and get your things, shitty mackerel."

dazai beamed.

[gamebunny-advance]

Spite.

People that can only enjoy things through spite really baffle me.

For a while, I was following someone that ran a fanblog for something that I liked, but alongside reblogging fan art, every other original post they made was about how they would hate X, and that Y was better.

X and Y were any number of things relating to the subject of the blog, and the specifics of what they were aren't relevant to the discussion.

It wasn't that their criticisms were unfounded. They sometimes had legitimate gripes with a work, and I even agreed occasionally with some of the things they said. What bothered me is that conversely, they rarely talked about the things they did like unless it was in relation to the thing they didn't like.

It was never, "I like Y because ABC, and y'all should check it out too!" it was always, "X is horrible and bad, so I'm gonna consume Y instead!" or "At least Y is better than that trash X!"

It was just very tiring. I don't know what made them like that, but there was always a bitterness to their posts that always made me uncomfortable, especially in relation to what the blog was about. I would think a person running a blog like that would be more forward about positivity and love, but the impression I got was that they were purely motivated by spite.

But I tolerated it for a while because I liked seeing the reblogged posts and "X" was rarely something I was personally invested in. It was only recently that the "X" was actually something that I cared about that I finally decided to unfollow them. For the second time. I'd actually gotten sick and tired of this behavior long ago, but I decided to give them another shot, which they blew yet again.

I dunno. I know some people enjoy when others "spill the tea" or whatever (it seems like several of their followers enabled their behavior), and I'm not beyond hearing criticisms of a thing I like (I'm usually the first to make them). But I think I get the most enjoyment from people who also share the things they love because they love the thing, not because they hate something else.

It doesn't have to be an unconditional love, it just has to be earnest. I say all the time that being critical of the things you love is basically an essential part of truly appreciating anything in this world. But beyond the spite and criticism, I want to know that the person has something that they truly adore without it being tied to primarily negative feelings.

I just never got that from this person. There was never a post where they could gush about something without bringing something else down with it. I never sensed an earnest love from them.

But, maybe some people are just like that. Maybe their joy stems from venting their frustrations, and I can understand that. But their joy, is not my joy, and I just have a limit to how much spite I can take from one person before I just can't have them in my purview anymore.