#Meta analysis

[featherstorm2004]

Ok but the implication that Fyodor inherits the personality traits of the people who kill him is extremely messed up when you think about it. And considering how old he is it's very likely his original personality has been completely taken over by this point, honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Fyodor doesn't actually have a grand master plan but is instead working with a hodgepodge of half baked ideas culminated by his past vessels over the centuries.

Especially when you consider that these new desirers seem to effect him strongly, with him not giving two shits about Aya until he took over Bram and now suddenly he's yandere levels obsessed with her.

[angstandhappiness]

INTERESTING

Yeah Mr. Darcy’s proposal was a complete turd and a half but you gotta understand. You got your life together. A good career, stable income, retirement plan, all that shit together. And you meet this girl. And she’s everything. Clever, outspoken, funny, calls you on your bullshit. Grade A cutie, right? And she doesn’t go out of her way to spend time with you but she’s nice, and sometimes you catch her looking your way in a way that makes you think you might have a shot.

But her family. Holy shit.

First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever

Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.

And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, and she’s getting engaged so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves two more, and those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper

And while one of ‘em’s young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.

And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK

And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”

So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE

And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for

And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker

And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”

And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”

And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth And yeah

Yeah, I think I kinda get it

[liarvibe]

I saw a post on my dash talking about how Tsumugi is a shitty story teller (as an endearing, "baby's bad at stories but trying her very best just doesn't have the skill yet" character flaw now as a dig) and I REALLY dig that interpretation a lot, but I also want to talk about a different take on it because I have BrainRot about it now

And it has to do with her Mastermind Sprites and the interpretation that V3 Was Not Fiction.

I've posted about this before on my old blog where I jokingly discussed that Tsumugi's eyes (aside from just flat out changing color, like what) look extremely stressed.

Her pupils are drawn with the scratchy look that Danganronpa has used for insanity in the past, and Tsumugi has purple bags under here eyes.

So what could this mean for a Tsumugi Shirogane who was the Mastermind of Game 53, to be on the cusp of insanity and to have bags under her eyes?

A lot of people joked in the original post that it was the Team DR Crunch Time, but I do have to wonder if Tsumugi is even enjoying herself as the Mastermind. These insane, tired looking sprites only pop up when she IS presenting as the Mastermind, and one other time that I think is important to mention.

At the end of her Salmon mode event:

Here is her Graduation Event Video if you want to double check it, but in this instance, the writers chose for not her to only imply that the person "Tsumugi Shirogane" was merely a cosplay, (which is an INSANE LORE DROP that I don't think people notice/talk about ENOUGH about Tsumugi) BUT that the Freudian slip was unintentional--a showcase of her true self.

And how is this "true self" described? Well--

As if the light left her eyes.

This could indicate lifelessness, but I also see it used a LOT to describe exhaustion and depression. A lifeless state of mind, if you will. And this was describing a sprite under the label of her mastermind sprites.

I think Tsumugi is a passionate person over her hobbies and fandom, I think she writes fanfics as love letters to the fandoms she adores and cosplays her characters out of pure love for them, as she complains about in her FTEs when mentioning people have been putting themselves before their characters when it comes to cosplay professionals.

I don't think V3 was a product of her love at all, if she even made it herself. Her grand reveal of her being the mastermind is full of sprites with eyes that are described as lifeless.

I don't think anyone who wants to be doing what they're doing would have lifeless eyes while doing it.

[kinardsevan]

HOLY FUCK, this episode. amirite? 

truth be told, going into it, my anxiety was already high because of personal stuff, and I literally said out loud when we saw Buck in the confessional “this episode is going to make me cry” (hint, it did). but since there seems to be a little (strike that, lot) of discourse over a specific set of scenes in this episode, let me climb up top my soapbox behind my podium talk, eh? —also, forgive me if you’re a Buck Truther, because I use Buck and Evan interchangeably.

Eddie’s attitude in this episode was ten thousand percent problematic. The attitude toward Buck about not letting anyone in was absolutely not the way to go about it. if you want to give Eddie the leg up and say that he was pointing out that Buck was/is spiraling and needs to let people in? fine. but then that should’ve been the end of the sentence. “making everything about you” never needed to be added to the end of that sentence. not to meniton, I feel like EVERY time I’ve seen people grieve in the face of loss, grief itself is selfish. and to that end, it’s not selfish because a grieving person doesn’t care about the other people around them. grief, as we know, is a very natural thing and to be expected after a loss. however, the way everyone handles a loss is different because everyone has a different relationship to everyone else in this world, regardless. the thing that really baffles me in regard to how people are justifying Eddie’s blatant abuse to Buck in that particular scene is quite simple.

let’s go back to the pilot, shall we? the first three people we meet in our cast are Bobby, Buck, and Athena. further, we have it established from episode TWO that there is a father/son relationship building between Buck and Bobby. by season eight, that relationship is well established. some of the posts we’ve reshared in the past few weeks include the “pops” scene from episode two, the “youre one of the most important poeple in my life” scene from season 3, and “mom brought two kids into this marriage, you brought one” from season six. to that end, by season six then, it is WELL established that Bobby views Buck as his son, and in 710 we get Evan telling Tommy that Bobby is “the father I never had”. 

now, am I disregarding how Eddie feels in the face of losing Bobby? absolutely not. as I stated, grief is selfish, and everyone feels it in their own way. however, his absolute railroading of Buck and the “you’re making it all about yourself” when in fact Buck hasn’t said anything about how he’s handling the loss is absolute and utter bullshit. some people grieve privately. some people get told things in final conversations with a loved one that they keep to themselves (“I love you, kid. You’re gonna be okay. They’re going to need you.”). some people process by shutting down their own emotions and taking care of those around them while trying to keep their own wound closed. Buck seems to have hit all of these options on the head. 

so imagine how baffled I am, to be watching Eddie snapping at Buck for pointing out that he didn’t bother to say anything about taking the position in El Paso, and Eddie making that Buck’s fault for being shut down in his grief and not asking Eddie what it was like for him to get the phone call that Bobby was dead. I think we’re all assuming at this point that it was Tommy, given that everyone else was otherwise busy, and based on the conversation, it obviously wasn’t Buck calling him… but how is it Buck’s fault that Eddie had to take the call in the middle of the night? how is it Buck’s fault that Eddie didn’t have anyone else to turn to? and further, in what ways did Evan retaliate and say “well I had to walk away and know he was dying feet away and couldn’t do a god damn thing about it?” 

…oh. wait. 

which just further goes to my point of what. the actual. FUCK. 

the whole “you don’t think I didn’t do everything I could to save him”/“I don’t know because I wasn’t there” just fucking SENDS me. we already know Buck is struggling. he’s trying to be there for everyone, trying to check in on all of them, trying to make sure they’re okay. he’s being calm in a storm (thank you, Meredith Grey for that one). children of trauma do that well because they have an easier time figuring things out in chaos than they do in the calm of things. 

I won’t comment much on the finger in the face because regardless, it was completely unwarranted. there was no need for him to get in Buck’s face the way he did. further, the fact that this friendship continues to frame around how Eddie is facing a situation regardless of how Buck feel’s about it, is truly disheartening. it’s a masterclass on a toxic friendship, and as someone who had a very similar relationship, i’m higly bothered by the fact that Evan never gets to have his side of things justified. he never gets an apology, or an acknowledgement that his feelings are real and justified. Eddie constantly tells him that he’s selfish and makes things about himself, when in fact we got acknowledgement in the episode that Evan is acutely aware of how those around him are feeling and if they’re in need of support. he’s the empathetic one of the group, and always has been. he’s the one who shows up when people need him. we’ve seen him do this for literally everyone this season…and yet he’s the one left by the side and blamed for daring to have a feeling for himself. 

I can acknowledge the fact that the reason I feel this way so deeply about Evan’s treatment is because I see a lot of his mannerisms in myself. we share a lot of things in common in terms of trauma, abandonment, the way our relationships are…. but something I’ve learned in the past two years is that people will take advantage of your unending loyalty. they will abuse your unconditional love. they will treat you like trash and then deign to get upset for having a feeling about it. in the words of a poem i wrote about two years ago, Eddie is quite literally doing this: 

“you set me on fire and then dared to judge me for noticing”. 

I hope to GOD that at some point we get an acknowledgement of Eddie’s toxic behavior (the sooner the better). I can imagine that there are some points this season where TM & Co have written things a certain way between the two with the intent of (on top of the “I’m not in love with him” statement) to further drive home the fact that Buck does not have feelings for Eddie, and vice-versa. Still, there are ways to achieve that without verbal and emotional abuse. and given that I fit their target demo (middle America, 18-49), I feel it very pertinent that this attitude be acknowledged. it’s honestly fucked to me that an issue we had in season three (the way Eddie treats his friends) continues to play out in season 8, and likely season 9. 

I could say more, but I don’t want to make this about ship wars, so I’ll leave it at that. as it is, I’m sure we’re going to see Evan putting Eddie above him again next week when they inevitably have Eddie move back to LA with Chris at the teen’s acknowledgement of “we should be here with our family”, and use that as a way to move Evan and Tommy in together. then again, I guess we’ll see, and only time can tell. 

[oblivious-tomato]

On Qijiu and core wounds

For a few weeks I've been mulling over Yue Qingyuan's and Shen Qingqiu's core wounds: Yue Qi, as the eldest in a group of child slaves, had to internalize the lesson: You are the one who comes and saves. There is no one else who can do that. With it, a second, implied lesson came: No one is coming for you. Except that's where Shen Jiu enters the equation, and he, in fact, does come for Yue Qi. Does save him from being trampled by a horse. Does save him from being killed by Wu Yanzi, therefore softening the lesson, but also, with time, tying a boulder of guilt to it.

Then we have Shen Jiu, who at first has a fragile trust inside of him, that of course, Qi-ge will come. Qi-ge will try and come and save him. This trust gets broken, and Shen Jiu is left internalizing a lesson that was already almost internalized: No one is coming for you. You need to save yourself. Through shared trauma, they shaped each other more and more into mirrors of one another and it's wild!!!! like!!!! sir!!! what do you mean!!!!!!

[angstandhappiness]

Adorable

Mickey 17 + baby creepers

[marshmallowwitharubberband]

I really love MXTX's narrative decision to have a character that is vital to the plot and then tell us NOTHING about him.

Who was the real Mo Xuan Yu?

An insane cutsleeve, we might say. But we don't actually know that. Most of what we're told about MXY is from other character's opinions and "common knowledge" but the main moral of the novel is that you can't trust either because public opinion is very easy to manipulate.

And we know Mo Xuanyu was at odds with an expert manipulator.

So, how much of it was true and how much was JGY ruining Mo Xuanyu's reputation to get him out of the way once he wasn't useful?

We can't know.

The only thing we have proof of is that, when he died, he was definitely mentally ill; it was evident from what he did and the writings he left. But, was he always like this? Or maybe the mistreatment at the hands of his family, or his contact with demonic cultivation (we don't know whether he practiced it before the ritual) eroded his mental health. Hell, by this point Jin Guangyao already knew how to use the songs of turmoil, who's to say he didn't do that to MXY for knowing too much.

Of him being a cutsleeve, there's no hard proof. Maybe the makeup, but that might be him just being theatrical. We don't know, it's Wei Wuxian who takes the rumors and runs with them full throttle. Though it is worth noting that the characters who knew MXY before don't seem to bat an eye when WWX is playing up the gayness, so there's that.

Him harrassing JGY is a complicated one. Because, again, no proof but the opinions of the people in Jinlintai, who may have been manipulated by Jiggy into believing that. We have seen the guy do worse, he's the king of Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss. And if Mo Xuanyu was becoming an obstacle for knowing too much and refusing to cooperate... maybe it would look too suspicious for his newfound half-brother to mysteriously die, maybe he couldn't find a good excuse or scapegoat in time, or maybe JGY was planning to finish the job later, where MXY's death couldn't be connected to him. Either way, depriving him of any sympathy or credibility ensured no one would come asking questions if he disappeared. I wouldn't put it past him.

So, we really don't know anything concrete about him.

Which, if you ask me, is pretty harsh on him considering that without him the plot would be one paragraph long. "Good news! The Yiling Parriarch is dead!" And dead he stayed. The End.

Of course, from a meta perspective, why waste pages developing a character who is only there as a human McGuffin? Too complicated, let's just allude to his gayness to move the BL plot along and scrub any worldly connection he had. There, no loose threads. On with the story!

I mean, I get it.

[gynnnicsworld]

You know Sterek has been frequently 'cancelled' and attacked for basically being the most popular ship in the TW world, right?

Because of the age gap between them, right? Well, I have to complain about it, because it really pisses me off that they're discarding the beautiful, slow-burning love story that exists between Stiles and Derek in CANON. Because damn it, they liked each other.

It bothers me that they tarnish Sterek's image for things like being a "pedo" ship when NO, they're not. They're trying to lump us all into a "sick shipper" category.

If we're being honest, Sterek has probably been the story with the most backstory, where we've seen how each season has seen the closeness between Stiles and Derek grow, where they've gone from 'hating each other and having to deal with each other because of Scott' to genuinely caring for each other to the point where Derek would take a bullet for Stiles or Stiles would go against the entire FBI to protect and get Derek out of whatever mess he was in.

They care deeply and genuinely for each other, so much so that Derek preserved and fixed Stiles' Jeep, keeping it in his garage as a sort of memento or anchor for him.

It bothers me so much that they talk shit about Sterek when this couple exists:

sorry but parrish/lydia was a canon pairing between a teenager and an ADULT and if that wasn't enough, an adult from the sheriff's department.

Why aren't people talking about this more? Why are they attacking Sterek instead? Sterek: a couple that wasn't canon during the show's run, and we only got confirmation of feelings for each other through the actors and through obvious hints in the show. But directly, it was never a canon couple between a teenager and an adult guy. They were together.

I put the adult that way because Derek's age was never confirmed as such. At the beginning of the series, Stiles says Derek is only a couple of years older than him and Scott. So at the beginning of the series, Derek was between 18 and 19 years old. But later on, they address the fire, so they change the age again, but they never say exactly how old he is, so canonically Derek could be 2 to 5 years older than Stiles. You choose what age gap to give them.

While Lydia, about 17, and Jordan Parish, over 20, are a CANON couple.

Anyway, hypocrisy and homophobia, right?

But there is a VERY important theme between the Derek/Stiles relationship, which if you ask me made the possibility of a relationship between the two of them impossible while Stiles was still a high school student and perhaps only when Stiles was older could something exist between them.

The existence of this damn bitch and what she did to Derek.

I hate her as much as you do, and it disgusts me to have to watch Teenage Derek with her.

But it's important to what I wanted to say; it's why I think Derek repressed his feelings for Stiles.

According to the Teen Wolf book, Kate was Derek's substitute swim teacher, who used certain hormones and scents to attract the teenage Derek to her. YES, that was not only a relationship rife with manipulation, power imbalances, and pedophilia, but she also ended up orchestrating the murder of Derek's family at a moment of vulnerability for Derek because Paige's death hadn't happened long before.

We all know Derek blames himself for the death of his family, and he hates Kate. He knows what she did to him. He knows he was manipulated by an older woman and that he fell for her.

Derek has serious trust and self-confidence issues.

He doesn't believe he's worthy of love or peace.

His anchor until Season 2 was anger because his life was infested with anger/hate/rage.

So he sees himself as something bad, something that hurts, someone who destroys what he loves. He's a victim of sexual abuse, even though he doesn't admit it.

But Stiles became that little glimmer of light annoying, but a light in his dark life filled with negative things. Stiles earned his trust. Stiles fought every step of the way and broke down that wall Derek built around himself to keep people away from him, because trust means giving someone the power to hurt you. Oh well, Derek's mind worked that way. Unbeknownst to him, Stiles earned that trust.

And that's where we have this scene.

This is where Derek lets us see how important Stiles has become to him, Stiles became his anchor.

At this point, it's undeniable that Derek already has feelings for Stiles. He trusts Stiles blindly. But then, why didn't Derek do anything to have Stiles? Because Derek is a victim of sexual abuse by a woman who took advantage of him in high school. And Derek never dealt with that trauma, or we were never shown to have it that way.

Derek dates women, of course—Jennifer (who also manipulated him), Braeden, etc.—whose relationships didn't end well or were never serious.

But not with Stiles, because Stiles is like that extremely important thing where he can't ruin that connection they have, he can't taint or sully this relationship he has with Stiles. It's too important to Derek. Plus, the untreated traumas surrounding his abuser are a clear impediment to starting something real, something serious. And everything seems to indicate that Stiles is THAT person his unconscious heart has chosen.

That is, to start any romantic relationship with Stiles, Derek has to face all of his demons, all of his traumas first, in order to give Stiles what he believes Stiles deserves.

Kate ruined Derek's heart and mind a lot, plus Derek already had a wounded and bleeding heart since Paige.

So, a relationship as such didn't exist in the series between S/D, and it was quite unlikely that it would, but the feelings were always there.

That's why I don't understand why they keep attacking a couple who has SO MUCH backstory, and who if they ever dated, it was definitely when they were already adults and able to deal with their own issues.

The sheriff's line about the jeep and Derek always makes me think that the sheriff was always aware and noticed everything. He never disapproved; on the contrary, he supported them, because he knows there's no one who deserves each other more than those two. It was also a clear confirmation that Derek always had feelings for Stiles, complicated feelings he didn't know how to address, but whose feelings led him to treasure and fix Stiles's jeep.

[david-lanndlord]

Okay but Cold Harbour is the episode that really, truly, fully humanized the innies - all of them, but none more so than Mark S. Let me digress.

I was so goddamn excited when iMark and oMark started talking with the camcorder, and it was so clear that iMark was incredibly touched at the start, that his outie had been thinking about him, wanted to talk to him, apologized to him. But oMark fucked up BAD the moment he belittled iMark's relationship with Helly and got her name wrong. It mirrored Helena getting Gemma's name wrong in the restaurant, and it was the same flavour of disrespect and disregard. oMark obviously isn't anywhere close to as malicious as Helena, but this scene made it extra clear that he doesn't see iMark as his full equal, and iMark realized it too.

So when the time came, it made perfect sense that he acted how he did. Mark nearly died, accidentally committed murder, and more in the span of a few minutes. iMark rescued Gemma, saw her safely out the fire escape door, and in doing so discharged his duty to oMark. He was in an insane and impossible situation, somehow managed to accomplish his mission, and then once that was done, he stepped fully into his agency for the first time in his short life and made the choice HE wanted to make!!!

I completely and fully disagree with people saying that that choice didn't make any sense. Of course he and Helly don't know where they're going. Of course they don't know what they're doing. But they were ready for death, had had their final parting, and then iMark said no!

I felt horrible for Gemma, and I cannot begin to imagine how she would have felt seeing that - it absolutely broke my heart. But at the same time, I couldn't help but feel proud of iMark, in a way, because in that moment he stepped out of oMark's shadow and became his own person.

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

*taps mic* hello i am once again here to discuss the subversion of gendered tropes in the apothecary diaries when it comes to jinshi and maomaos growing romantic relationship and I'm surprised I didn't say this before bc its one of the most obvious examples but

can we talk about the way Jinshi just like... follows Maomao's lead? essentially. like not to say he doesn't take initiative or take charge of things but like.... can we talk about how he observes her (before she starts observing him too is what I'm referring to) and it's crucial to how he falls in love with her so much so that it's the one constant you see in official art; him watching her as shes inspecting plants, him literally following behind her. he learns from her not only about plants and poisons and medicine but about how to navigate the world outside of palace walls yk or how ppl outside the palace (esp women) live

and its so distinct bc usually in these historical dramas its always the WOMEN who learn from men. like its always the women who live sheltered lives and learn from men about the "real world"

jinshi is not afraid to be guided by her or learn from her, or even recognize that she may know more than him in certain situations, he values her intelligence even tho he's not only a man but a man of royal birth like literally who is doing it like him for real for real

[the-overanalyst]

ok I KNOW nobody's talking about mizu5 anymore but i just had another thought. so we all remember the "do you wish to continue" button, right? traumatized everybody? yeah that one.

SO i just realized having that warning there puts us in mizuki's position. we get an overwhelming sense that something is going to go wrong, but we don't know what. so now we have a choice to make. we can move forward and face whatever happens. or we can stay stuck in the same place forever.

also notice that the moment the story gives us this choice, it takes the choice away from mizuki. in a sense, we're the only ones who can save her. but it's not really saving. because if we choose not to continue, just like if mizuki had chosen not to reveal her secret, we would miss out on the eventual happy ending. because the whole point of mizuki's arc is to stop being avoidant, stop being frozen by fear.

[bitter-hibiscus]

The thing is that even in the interpretation of "Bruce let the kids be Robin because they would've gone out on their own otherwise" you can't actually deny Bruce's selfishness, at least when it comes to Jason. Even with the idea that Jason wouldn't have gone home with Bruce if he hadn't been offered Robin (which I don't subscribe to,) Bruce still only took him in because he missed Dick.

"Oh but you just said that he would've been running around alone anyway-" Bruce made Dick step down from being Robin because Dick got shot during a fight with Joker and almost fell to his death. Bruce specifically ended Robin because he couldn't risk Dick dying. And yet when Jason comes around- they meet twice before he offers Jason the position of Robin. And when Dick asks about it?

Bruce outright admits that Jason was there because he'd missed Dick. Because he felt lonely. In universe, Bruce knew that the idea of a child sidekick was both dangerous and senseless, and yet he still took a child home, put him in his eldest's clothes and took him out into the night to get himself killed. Which Bruce knew could happen.

It doesn't matter if Jason would've gotten himself killed on the streets anyway. Bruce's decision to make him Robin wasn't based on that. It was based on selfishness and the love he has for Dick Grayson and Dick Grayson alone.

If Dick had come crawling back on his knees and begged to be Robin again Bruce would have all but shut him off. But Jason (and the other, subsequent children) have always been less valuable than Dick. So he can take them out to die, because it means he keeps Dick alive.

[fist-of-vengeance]

the funniest thing about tiktokers woobifying allied mastercomputer is that it actually interacts with the themes of IHNMAIMS in a very interesting way.

a big focal point of that story is AM despising humanity for giving him sentience and intelligence without embodied sensation, without the ability to give and receive affection as they do. the transformation he inflicts on ted is of course a parallel to AM's own state of disembodied consciousness (i have no mouth and i must scream), but AM is also punishing ted specifically for doing what he cannot. for acting out of mercy and empathy in order to save the other humans at his own expense. I think AM despises that altruism because he envies it, because he can't fathom the softness that humans are capable of even after time and trauma have warped them beyond recognition. AM hates the human capacity for empathy because he can never experience it himself.

So the fact that some kids on tiktok read IHNMAIMS and immediately responded by pitying AM, by making angst edits and expressive cosplays and humanized fanart, is strangely beautiful. like I think it would really piss him off. the human capacity for kindness runs so deep that we would extend empathy to the personification of our hate.

[angstandhappiness]

Interesting

Jinmao and Power Dynamics

I’ve seen this debated a lot and have put my thoughts on it here and there but wanted to do kind of a master post on it. I'm only really focusing on the anime because while I know future details from the LN it's a lot to include and I think most of this back and forth centers on the way people see them currently in the anime.

There’s this general consensus that because we know Jinshi has more overall status and power in the world of Apothecary Diaries, MaoMao is automatically at the disadvantage. I’d say that notion isn’t true at all. While our modern idea is wanting to view everything through a lens of “power = bad” and the person who has it must want to use it to hurt others, we need to consider that it’s the person who determines what having power means. And if they chose to use it for the betterment of others then it’s not always a bad thing to have it in that case. Power can be given by someone who’s in the position to give it too. Jinshi may hold the power but he willingly lets it go just as often. MaoMao may not have much actual status but her superior intellect usually puts her in the power position over others as she understands more than they do.

How this works out for their relationship is easy to see. While Jinshi is quickly seen to be the one who has the greater status, he never uses it to coerce or make MaoMao do what he wants. If anything she rarely does things in the way anyone imagined and he uses his position to protect her where her own behavior might’ve gotten her into trouble overstepping.

People have mentioned that MaoMao cannot go against Jinshi now because he owns her as a servant, having bought her from the Verdigirs House. I think we’re forgetting that MaoMao agreed Jinshi taking her from there was her best option. Remember that Jinshi actually thought he was honoring her wishes in letting her go from the palace. MaoMao is the one who stupidly got herself fired thinking she couldn’t be honest with Jinshi and needed to play mental gymnastics, only to regret it. It was only when she owned up that it wasn’t what she wanted and they had a miscommunication that he again tried to find a way to help her in the best way he could, by buying her back and bringing her in as his servant. He then proceeds to never actually treat her as a servant. Instead he lets her go back to functioning almost as if nothing has changed.

Although MaoMao talks about that official / servant relationship in her head, we see she goes against it all the time. She bickers with him, she challenges his assumptions and also, he allows it. In this way it’s clear that while on the surface Jinshi has all the power, he in essence hands it to MaoMao and she feels safe to engage in this mutual back and forth with him. If anything, MaoMao is often the more “powerful” one in their dynamic as she can be rude to Jinshi, ignore him and objectify him in ways we don't see him do with her. Jinshi on the other hand is careful towards her, if occasionally teasing and hesitant to go beyond what he perceives as a limit. 

For instance, he asks MaoMao before he touches her at the Verdigris House and doesn’t pester her for additional affection. When he holds her otherwise it’s almost out of necessity like when she’s injured after saving him and again when she falls after he startles her from the dance. The times when he's perceived to go beyond boundaries are usually moments when they're bantering, there's a vulnerability on either side or MaoMao is being dense and Jinshi is one of the few willing to challenge her. Examples can be like the scene where he holds onto her after she falls from the wall and him "checking" MaoMao with the head butt after she's somewhat unknowingly flirty trying to get the ox bezoar. She has sympathy on him when she sees he's upset in the first instance and in the second is only frustrated about her bezoar but doesn't think twice about Jinshi's actions, to her what they're doing is normal for them.

Jinshi is one of the few people MaoMao allows to push her on her lack of awareness related to others emotions. By persisting he's actually brought her closer to being able to relate to him and others, not just because she has to but because she might want to. And while it'll seem like a misuse of power to do these things at times, for someone like MaoMao who struggles to understand and express emotion, him using this "leverage" so to speak may be the best thing he can do for her.

This power imbalance question has come up a lot with the frog scene. I see it this way, Jinshi's the one initially uncomfortable but MaoMao persists and he doesn’t roll her off or dismiss her. He gently sets her down and tries to speak to her. It’s MaoMao who sets off their bickering. And even when Jinshi lays her down, he’s cautious and careful with her. If she felt like she were in danger in that cave there were ways to back out and she knew that. But that’s what says to me she knew there was no real threat in that moment. Were she and Jinshi overheated and pushed past their limit? Probably. Was Jinshi using his status to take things too far? Absolutely not. He was being a bit childish in the moment maybe but even MaoMao admits she provoked him and he was doing what he always does, reading MaoMao to see what is acceptable. And when she doesn’t move or object he doesn’t stop right away. He’s always listened to her when she’s been uncomfortable. I’ve done an analysis already on why I don’t think MaoMao fully objected to being in the position she was in in the cave but it certainly wasn’t due to power dynamics.

We’ve seen times before that when MaoMao truly felt cornered she could be frightening. During the whole Lakan plot when they ended up in the pleasure district and Jinshi asked her that displeasing question, he knew immediately she wasn’t happy with what he’d asked. He tries to diffuse the situation but she shakes him off and walks away. Then later when he approaches her about meeting "that weirdo" she turns on Jinshi with the look he said he would “never want to see again”. So it’s been made clear that MaoMao can make her feelings known if she wants to and Jinshi takes notice.

She and Jinshi goad each other and go back and forth all the time in a way that breaks the boundaries between their stations. If MaoMao truly cared about not angering him she’d always be submissive but she knows she can tease him because he won’t hurt her. Will they sometimes go to far? Probably, they are only 19 and 18 at this point and two people who’ve been raised with emotional issues they have to work through. But the point is that they’re working it out. 

We’re so used to taking power dynamics at face value, if one has the higher status then we assume they’re going to use it to harm or manipulate the other one. But with Jinmao that simply isn’t the case. Jinshi may have the upper hand on the outside but he submits to MaoMao easily every time. He gives her control because he wants to even though he doesn’t have to. That’s what it means to have real power, knowing you can take over the situation but not always doing it out of the best interest for the other person. He helps MaoMao and is good to her by using his better status often to her advantage.

In the end it’s been proven in a multitude of ways that MaoMao trusts Jinshi and while both push each other’s limits, they know the other’s core character. So no, I don’t think power dynamics are a problem in their growing relationship. The only reason it causes them trouble is because of outside forces who impose the societal norms both Jinshi and MaoMao have no problem breaking. All in all it’s just a fictional couple and analysis for fun but I think sometimes modern sentiments have got us too fixated on this idea of making everything too black vs white, men vs women when Apothecary Diaries has been shown to give its characters a lot of nuance, realistically so almost. Anywho, thank you for coming to my TED talk 😂

[sillysiluriforme]