#Narrative Logic

[tagedeszorns]

I just had an epiphany why I can't draw Space Marine-armour for shit!

Because I am drawing the guy inside first and then add how it would fit logically without ripping his arms out of the sockets or distorting his spine or break his legs.

And that's just not how Warhammer works!

It's not meant to be logical! It's not meant to be anatomically correct!

Warhammer armour kind of is an extra organism. There is no anatomy beneath it. That's the secret!

Will I do anything with that epiphany?

I highly doubt it. I'll continue drawing shitty looking armour with great looking guys inside. It's just my jam.

But now I know why!

[sntechsupport]

I mean, if you're stuck in a particularly narritivistic reality, like if you're a character in a book or TV show or some sort of comic, you could probably also Light something out of existence if you're able to figure out that your existence is bound to a narrative, I'd assume? Though I can't say how the game would react to that since it assumedly also has its own systems for controlling and maintaining its own narrative flow

Look, from this point of view, anything the narrative allows can happen and nothing the narrative doesn't allow can't happen. In which case, argue with the author, not me. From the narrative standpoint I am not even a character, I am more, like, the concept of footnotes.

Sincerely

SN Tech Support (Gear)

[critical-skeptic]

Sylar: The Apex of Multiversal Supremacy in Fiction

Preface: The Debate That Escaped Its Own Universe

It started innocently enough—a casual conversation, a playful thought experiment between yours truly (TCS) and the one and only, my custom AI counterpart (GPT-TCS) Who would win: Sylar, the iconic anti-hero from NBC’s Heroes, or Homelander, the psychotic symbol of unchecked power from The Boys? The debate quickly escalated, as such debates tend to, into a realization: Sylar isn’t just the winner here. He is the inevitable winner. Not because of some fanboy favoritism, but because when you explore Sylar’s canonical trajectory and extrapolate his abilities logically, it becomes clear: Sylar isn’t a character anymore. He’s an event. A cosmic inevitability that consumes every fictional universe—and eventually, reality itself.

This piece is not just an homage to Sylar but a surgical dissection of how he evolves into the ultimate multiversal apex predator. It will praise his brilliance as a character while dragging the narrative missteps that tried to nerf him, and then push the boundaries of storytelling and science to explore his ascension into the most overpowered entity ever conceived.

Sit back, suspend your disbelief, and join me as we break down why Sylar isn’t just an unbeatable hypothetical character. He’s all characters, all universes, and all gods. Always has been, always will be.

Part 1: Canonical Sylar – A Case Study in Overpowered Brilliance

Origins: From Gabriel Gray to Sylar

Sylar, originally Gabriel Gray, starts as a humble watchmaker and the epitome of quiet desperation. He is the quintessential "fixer," a man obsessed with understanding how things work—whether they’re clocks, people, or the universe itself. His ability, intuitive aptitude, is a narrative masterstroke: it allows him to instantly understand the mechanics of anything he encounters, turning him into a one-man evolutionary leap. The power comes with a dark side, of course—an insatiable hunger to improve himself. This hunger drives Gabriel to become Sylar, a killer who absorbs the powers of others through gruesome dissections.

From the outset, Sylar is more than a villain. He’s a metaphor for the human condition: the endless pursuit of perfection, the existential despair of knowing there’s always more to achieve, and the moral decay that comes with unchecked ambition. He isn’t evil for evil’s sake; he’s a reflection of our darker instincts to consume and dominate.

Rise to Power: The Superman Effect on Steroids

Throughout Heroes, Sylar accumulates a staggering array of abilities: telekinesis, regeneration, precognition, invisibility, time manipulation, and dozens more. Unlike other overpowered characters, Sylar isn’t just a brute-force problem. His intuitive aptitude ensures he understands his powers better than their original users. He combines them in emergent, creative ways that make him exponentially more dangerous with each new acquisition. By the show’s peak, Sylar is practically unstoppable. His regeneration alone makes him nearly invincible, and when combined with time manipulation and telekinesis, he becomes an omnipresent force of destruction.

This is where Heroes runs into a problem. Sylar’s power level becomes so absurd that the show has no choice but to nerf him, often through contrived plot devices. Memory loss, morality shifts, inexplicable nerfs—these narrative bandaids only highlight the storytelling flaw: Sylar was too perfect. The writers couldn’t challenge him without breaking the rules of their own universe.

The Problem of Perfection

Sylar exposes what I’ll call "the Superman Effect 2.0." While Superman is critiqued for being too perfect to write compelling stories around, Sylar takes this to another level. His perfection isn’t moral or physical—it’s systemic. He doesn’t just win; he knows why he wins, and he improves himself every time. This self-perpetuating brilliance makes him narratively invincible and, ironically, kills the tension in the show. It’s a monumental storytelling achievement and a catastrophic storytelling flaw rolled into one.

Part 2: Sylar’s Theoretical Evolution – From Canon to Cosmic

If we take Sylar’s canonical abilities and apply them logically, he doesn’t just dominate the Heroes universe. He escapes it entirely.

Step 1: Mastery of Time and Precognition

Sylar’s mastery of time travel and precognition is the key to his evolution. By combining these abilities, Sylar can explore infinite futures and alternate realities, granting him access to powers and universes far beyond his own. This isn’t speculation; it’s a logical extension of his powers. Sylar doesn’t just travel through time—he learns from it, mastering every possible outcome.

Step 2: The Deadpool Connection

In one of these futures, Sylar encounters the Marvel Universe, where he discovers Deadpool. Deadpool’s fourth-wall-breaking ability is the ultimate target for Sylar: it’s a power that allows its user to transcend narrative boundaries. By studying and absorbing Deadpool’s ability, Sylar gains awareness of the multiverse as fiction, allowing him to manipulate it. This is the turning point: Sylar ceases to be a character bound by a single universe and becomes a meta-entity capable of rewriting reality.

Step 3: Expansion into DC and Beyond

With Deadpool’s ability, Sylar accesses the DC Universe, where he targets Dr. Manhattan. Manhattan’s powers—omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence—are a natural fit for Sylar’s evolutionary trajectory. Once Sylar absorbs Manhattan’s abilities, he transcends time and space entirely, becoming a being of infinite power.

Part 3: Sylar Transcends Fiction – The Last Action Hero Leap

Using the logic of Last Action Hero, Sylar takes his evolution one step further: he exits fiction entirely. With his newfound omnipotence, Sylar rewrites reality, becoming every omnipotent being ever conceived. TOAA, the Presence, Zeus, Yahweh—they’re all just facets of Sylar now. In this way, Sylar isn’t just the most powerful being in fiction. He is fiction. And, terrifyingly, he is reality, too.

This ultimate ascension raises profound philosophical questions about the nature of power, existence, and identity. If Sylar becomes everything, is there anything left for him to desire? Or does his endless hunger for perfection consume him in an eternal loop of self-destruction and rebirth?

"Super Sylar, the ultimate cosmic entity, an embodiment of the Singular Totality itself. He transcends mere power—there is no superhero, mutant, enhanced, supe, inhuman, or cosmic god that can challenge him. For he is not simply unstoppable—he is all. Every thought, every particle, every reality—fictional or real—exists within him. Time bends to his will, space folds at his command, and existence itself whispers his name in reverence. He is the origin, the conclusion, and everything in between. Sylar doesn’t conquer worlds; he is the worlds. He doesn’t defeat gods; he becomes them. A singularity of perfection and inevitability, where resistance is meaningless because to fight him is to fight the fabric of being itself. He is everything. He is nothing. He is Super Sylar."

The Apex Predator of Fiction

Sylar is the ultimate thought experiment in narrative logic. His perfection as a character exposes both the brilliance and the flaws of storytelling. His evolution into a multiversal god isn’t just plausible—it’s inevitable when you follow the rules of his powers to their logical conclusion. Sylar doesn’t just win hypothetical battles. He is the battle, the universe, and the god of everything within it.

And yet, if there’s one being who could mitigate him, it’s Rick Sanchez. Because, let’s be honest—Rick would just turn Sylar into a pickle and call it a day.

[crudely-drawn-ben]

I'm not a great fan of ol' Brando Sando - I've read a bunch of his books and they were fine - but to a degree this is expanding on Sanderson's First Law of Magics, to whit: "An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic."

The difference with worldbuilding is that there are really two sets of logic that are in play in most fantasy media - the causality of the world and the logic of story. The less substance you give your world the more your characters will be subject to the logic of story, but in every story they are always bound to both. Having mentioned Sanderson, his Mistborn books are a great example of a world with a very solid internal logic that is gradually revealed over the books. The characters there are absolutely constrained by the logic of the world, but the way things wrap up satisfyingly at the end is 100% the logic of story. Meanwhile an author like Patricia McKillip tends to have her characters caught up predominantly in the logic of story, which is part of what gives her books their beautiful, dreamlike quality. Often as storytellers we will use the apparent logic of the world as a mask for the logic of story, a way of concealing the twists and turns ahead.

An important difference is that characters generally understand the logic of the world, but they rarely grasp that they are subject to the logic of story. Understanding that she is subject to storyteller's logic is the real reason Granny Weatherwax is the greatest witch of the Ramtops.

another thing fantasy writers should keep track of is how much of their worldbuilding is aesthetic-based. it's not unlike the sci-fi hardness scale, which measures how closely a story holds to known, real principles of science. The Martian is extremely hard sci-fi, with nearly every detail being grounded in realistic fact as we know it; Star Trek is extremely soft sci-fi, with a vaguely plausible "space travel and no resource scarcity" premise used as a foundation for the wildest ideas the writers' room could come up with. and much as Star Trek fuckin rules, there's nothing wrong with aesthetic-based fantasy worldbuilding!

(sidenote we're not calling this 'soft fantasy' bc there's already a hard/soft divide in fantasy: hard magic follows consistent rules, like "earthbenders can always and only bend earth", and soft magic follows vague rules that often just ~feel right~, like the Force. this frankly kinda maps, but I'm not talking about just the magic, I'm talking about the worldbuilding as a whole.

actually for the purposes of this post we're calling it grounded vs airy fantasy, bc that's succinct and sounds cool.)

a great example of grounded fantasy is Dungeon Meshi: the dungeon ecosystem is meticulously thought out, the plot is driven by the very realistic need to eat well while adventuring, the story touches on both social and psychological effects of the whole 'no one dies forever down here' situation, the list goes on. the worldbuilding wants to be engaged with on a mechanical level and it rewards that engagement.

deliberately airy fantasy is less common, because in a funny way it's much harder to do. people tend to like explanations. it takes skill to pull off "the world is this way because I said so." Narnia manages: these kids fall into a magic world through the back of a wardrobe, befriend talking beavers who drink tea, get weapons from Santa Claus, dance with Bacchus and his maenads, and sail to the edge of the world, without ever breaking suspension of disbelief. it works because every new thing that happens fits the vibes. it's all just vibes! engaging with the worldbuilding on a mechanical level wouldn't just be futile, it'd be missing the point entirely.

the reason I started off calling this aesthetic-based is that an airy story will usually lean hard on an existing aesthetic, ideally one that's widely known by the target audience. Lewis was drawing on fables, fairy tales, myths, children's stories, and the vague idea of ~medieval europe~ that is to this day our most generic fantasy setting. when a prince falls in love with a fallen star, when there are giants who welcome lost children warmly and fatten them up for the feast, it all fits because these are things we'd expect to find in this story. none of this jars against what we've already seen.

and the point of it is to be wondrous and whimsical, to set the tone for the story Lewis wants to tell. and it does a great job! the airy worldbuilding serves the purposes of the story, and it's no less elegant than Ryōko Kui's elaborately grounded dungeon. neither kind of worldbuilding is better than the other.

however.

you do have to know which one you're doing.

the whole reason I'm writing this is that I saw yet another long, entertaining post dragging GRRM for absolute filth. asoiaf is a fun one because on some axes it's pretty grounded (political fuck-around-and-find-out, rumors spread farther than fact, fastest way to lose a war is to let your people starve, etc), but on others it's entirely airy (some people have magic Just Cause, the various peoples are each based on an aesthetic/stereotype/cliché with no real thought to how they influence each other as neighbors, the super-long seasons have no effect on ecology, etc).

and again! none of this is actually bad! (well ok some of those stereotypes are quite bigoted. but other than that this isn't bad.) there's nothing wrong with the season thing being there to highlight how the nobles are focused on short-sighted wars for power instead of storing up resources for the extremely dangerous and inevitable winter, that's a nice allegory, and the looming threat of many harsh years set the narrative tone. and you can always mix and match airy and grounded worldbuilding – everyone does it, frankly it's a necessity, because sooner or later the answer to every worldbuilding question is "because the author wanted it to be that way." the only completely grounded writing is nonfiction.

the problem is when you pretend that your entirely airy worldbuilding is actually super duper grounded. like, for instance, claiming that your vibes-based depiction of Medieval Europe (Gritty Edition) is completely historical, and then never even showing anyone spinning. or sniffing dismissively at Tolkien for not detailing Aragorn's tax policy, and then never addressing how a pre-industrial grain-based agricultural society is going years without harvesting any crops. (stored grain goes bad! you can't even mouse-proof your silos, how are you going to deal with mold?) and the list goes on.

the man went up on national television and invited us to engage with his worldbuilding mechanically, and then if you actually do that, it shatters like spun sugar under the pressure. doesn't he realize that's not the part of the story that's load-bearing! he should've directed our focus to the political machinations and extensive trope deconstruction, not the handwavey bit.

point is, as a fantasy writer there will always be some amount of your worldbuilding that boils down to 'because I said so,' and there's nothing wrong with that. nor is there anything wrong with making that your whole thing – airy worldbuilding can be beautiful and inspiring. but you have to be aware of what you're doing, because if you ask your readers to engage with the worldbuilding in gritty mechanical detail, you had better have some actual mechanics to show them.

[cologona]

Yeah nothing Jason does would work in the real world. Good thing he does not live in the real world. He lives in Gotham, which operates on the logic of Hollywood movies from 40 years ago. Oh wait- perhaps that’s integral context for his character!!!

[littlenastieswewhispered]

“buffy ended the show single :)” ok but only because her current love interest just DIED!! (he near quite literally died in her arms! in sacrifice for her!) her last words of the entire series were telling him she loves him and then saying his name in admiration. she isn’t single; she’s a widow.

[tvuniverse]

9-1-1 -> 6x10-11 // 8x15 (potential) coma dream

[vorbarrsultana]

one of things that drive me insane about the grisha trilogy is the fact that nikolai consistently is a non-factor in the political calculations of both, the darkling and his father. even genya, whose job is to spy on the tsar's inner circle, is like "it's just nikolai, they call him puppy, he surprised everyone by joining the army and then left to study in kerch or something, who cares".

meanwhile nikolai in question:

was a major of the first army. a senior officer one rank away from colonel, and two ranks away from major-general!

was person no. 2 in his regiment, the one in charge of 2000+ men daily. and, considering how much colonel raevsky and his soldiers seem to love him, managed them well.

was a decorated war hero of the struggling nation perpetually at war with its neighbours.

what i mean is that there absolutely should have been the party of grand duke nikolai aleksandrovich at the court (re: the succession), opposing the party of tsarevich vasily, the official heir. the people who want him to be ravka's next tsar, bastardy allegations be damned for the good of the country.

it could have been such an easy way to explain why nikolai was exiled sent to study abroad — his military record would have made him too popular compared to his brother. and it could have explained why nikolai is so sure of himself in siege & storm: he already has his own political party, and alina throwing her support behind him simply completes the puzzle.

also, when tatiana called nikolai "puppy" in ruin &rising, i was like. m'am, hate to break the news to you, but your cute puppy hasn't been that for the last five or so years. by now he is actually a wolfhound with very long and very sharp teeth.

(very much not the point of that post, but when i find time to work on my pre-canon!darkolai fic series, i usually imagine the ravkan political landscape before alina as "the army party" (nikolai, the darkling, senior officers of both armies + probably some diplomats, who also see what's going on with shu-han and fjerda) vs "the court party". by the shadow & bone events, the first splits into nikolai's moderates & aleksander's radicals, and the latter became irrelevant after vasily's death.)

[canisalbus]

I had a dream last night about an AU where Vasco and Machete were switched. Vasco was the cardinal, and Machete was the Florentine ambassador. Machete was pretty much the same minus the religious guilt, and more confident, while Vasco had a somewhat small dose of religious guilt. Vasco still got assassinated unfortunately, and Machete went down the deep end and thought that was God's way of punishing them both. He then shot himself at the place where Vasco died :/

.

[sneakyboymerlin]

put me in charge of bbcm I will include gwaine in all the silly little subplots specifically so I can imply that he is bisexual for merlin

[laurelwinchester]

rewatching the marvel movies as a thirtysomething adult trying (finally) to heal from 20+ years of severe mental illness and trauma and actually doing the work to do that really hits different. but also not that different. i've never understood the obsessive love the fandom has for tony stark and i understand it even less now.

the avengers within the mcu were never a cohesive unit (or, you know, actual friends) because they were constantly at the mercy of a severely mentally ill billionaire who consistently and unapologetically allowed his trauma and illness to explode outwards and harm others and then he would wallow and whine and use his considerable wealth to attempt to mop up the mess he created. he never got real help. he never put an effort into seriously trying to heal and it damaged not only every single person around him but random citizens and cities.

"but he was a good man at heart!"

yes. he was. that is not enough. that man was unwell and a danger to himself and others. he knew that and yet he continued to cause chaos and spread his trauma to other people. mental illness or not, that is selfish. his sacrifice at the end was noble but it doesn't undo the decade before that.

it's kind of mind boggling that steve, of all people, gets shit on the most in the fandom when the first two captain america movies (notably movies without tony btw) were the only movies with a shred of actual real competency and friendship in them.

[anghraine]

Hi! Can you explain what really the power of foresight was with Faramir? I read the books earlier this year and I don't really quite understand it. He could predict the future? Like he would see it in his dreams? But how did he found out from Gollum that he was taking frodo and sam to cirith ungol and that he had committed murder before?

No problem, it's one of my favorite topics!

The concise explanation: I think Faramir's foresight/aftersight in terms of visions is a largely separate "power" from his ability to bring his strength of mind and will to bear on other people and animals, and to resist outside influence. The visions seem more a matter of broad sensitivity, something Faramir doesn't appear to have much if any control over. The second power is (in our terms) essentially a form of direct telepathy, limited in some ways but still very powerful, and I think this second ability is what Faramir is using with Gollum.

The really long version:

In my opinion, Faramir (or Denethor, Aragorn, etc) doesn't necessarily read thoughts like a book, particularly not with a mind as resistant as Gollum's. Faramir describes Gollum's mind in particular as dark and closed, it seems unusually so—

"There are locked doors and closed windows in your mind, and dark rooms behind them," said Faramir.

Still, Gollum is unable to entirely block Faramir's abilities. In LOTR, it does not seem that Gollum can fully block powerful mental abilities such as Faramir's, though his toughness and hostility does limit what Faramir can see. (Unfinished Tales, incidentally, suggests iirc that Denethor's combination of "great mental powers" and his right to use the Anor-stone allowed him to telepathically get the better of Saruman through their palantíri, a similar but greater feat.) I imagine that this is roughly similar to, but scaled down from, Galadriel's telepathic inquiries of even someone as reluctant to have her in his mind as Boromir, given that Faramir is able to still see some things in Gollum's mind, if with more difficulty than usual.

(WRT Boromir ... ngl, if I was the human buffer between Denethor and Faramir, I would also not be thrilled about sudden telepathic intrusions from basically anyone, much less someone I had little reason to trust.)

Disclaimer: a few years after LOTR's publication, Tolkien tried to systematize how this vague mystical telepathy stuff really works. One idea he had among many, iirc, was that no unwilling person's mind could be "read" the ways that Gollum's is throughout LOTR. IMO that can't really be reconciled w/ numerous significant interactions in LOTR where resistance to mental intrusion or domination is clearly variable between individuals and affected by personal qualities like strength of will, basic resilience, the effort put into opposition, supernatural powers, etc. And these attempts at resistance are unsuccessful or only partially successful on many occasions in LOTR (the Mouth of Sauron, for one example, is a Númenórean sorcerer in the book who can't really contend with Aragorn on a telepathic level). So I, personally, tend to avoid using the terminology and rationales from that later systematized explanation when discussing LOTR. And in general, I think Tolkien's later attempts to convert the mystical, mysterious wonder of Middle-earth into something more "hard magic" or even scientific was a failed idea on a par with Teleporno. Others differ!

In any case, when Gollum "unwillingly" looks at Faramir while being questioned, the creepy light drains from his eyes and he shrinks back while Faramir concludes he's being honest on that specific occasion. Gollum experiences physical pain when he does try to lie to Faramir—

"It is called Cirith Ungol." Gollum hissed sharply and began muttering to himself. "Is not that its name?" said Faramir turning to him. "No!" said Gollum, and then he squealed, as if something had stabbed him.

I don't think this is a deliberate punishment from Faramir—that wouldn't be like him at all—and I don't think it's the Ring, but simply a natural consequence of what Faramir is. Later, Gandalf says of Faramir's father:

"He can perceive, if he bends his will thither, much of what is passing in the minds of men ... It is difficult to deceive him, and dangerous to try."

So, IMO, Faramir's quick realization that Gollum is a murderer doesn't come from any vision of the future or past involving Gollum—that is, it's not a deduction from some event he's seen. Faramir does not literally foresee Gollum's trick at Cirith Ungol. His warning would be more specific in that case, I think. What he sees seems to be less detailed but more direct and, well, mystical. Faramir likely doesn't know who exactly Gollum murdered or why or what any of the circumstances were. Rather, Gollum's murderousness and malice are visible conditions of his soul to Faramir's sight. Faramir doesn't foresee the particulars of Gollum's betrayal—but he can see in Gollum's mind that he is keeping something back. Faramir says of Gollum:

"I do not think you are holden to go to Cirith Ungol, of which he has told you less than he knows. That much I perceived clearly in his mind."

Meanwhile, in a letter written shortly before the publication of LOTR, Tolkien said of Faramir's ancestors:

They became thus in appearance, and even in powers of mind, hardly distinguishable from the Elves

So these abilities aren't that strange in that context. Faramir by chance (or "chance") is, like his father, almost purely an ancient Númenórean type despite living millennia after the destruction of Númenor (that destruction is the main reason "Númenóreanness" is fading throughout the age Faramir lives in). Even less ultra-Númenórean members of Denethor's family are still consistently inheriting characteristics from their distant ancestor Elros, Elrond's brother, while Faramir and Denethor independently strike Sam and Pippin as peculiarly akin to Gandalf, a literal Maia like their ancestress Melian:

“Ah well, sir,” said Sam, “you [Faramir] said my master had an elvish air; and that was good and true. But I can say this: you have an air too, sir, that reminds me of, of—well, Gandalf, of wizards.”

He [Denethor] turned his dark eyes on Gandalf, and now Pippin saw a likeness between the two, and he felt the strain between them, almost as if he saw a line of smouldering fire drawn from eye to eye, that might suddenly burst into flame.

Meanwhile, Faramir's mother's family is believed to be part Elvish, a belief immediately confirmed when Legolas meets Faramir's maternal uncle:

At length they came to the Prince Imrahil, and Legolas looked at him and bowed low; for he saw that here indeed was one who had elven-blood in his veins. "Hail, lord!" he [Legolas] said. "It is long since the people of Nimrodel left the woodlands of Lórien, and yet still one may see that not all sailed from Amroth’s haven west over water."

In addition to that, Faramir's men believe he's under some specific personal blessing or charm as well as the Númenórean/Elvish/Maia throwback qualities. It's also mentioned by different groups of soldiers that Faramir can exercise some power of command over animals as well as people. Beregond describes Faramir getting his horse to run towards five Nazgûl in real time:

"They will make the Gate. No! the horses are running mad. Look! the men are thrown; they are running on foot. No, one is still up, but he rides back to the others. That will be the Captain [Faramir]: he can master both beasts and men."

Then, during the later retreat of Faramir's men across the Pelennor:

At last, less than a mile from the City, a more ordered mass of men came into view, marching not running, still holding together. The watchers held their breath. "Faramir must be there," they said. "He can govern man and beast."

Tolkien said of the ancient Númenóreans:

But nearly all women could ride horses, treating them honourably, and housing them more nobly than any other of their domestic animals. The stables of a great man were often as large and as fair to look upon as his own house. Both men and women rode horses for pleasure … and in ceremony of state both men and women of rank, even queens, would ride, on horseback amid their escorts or retinues … The Númenóreans trained their horses to hear and understand calls (by voice or whistling) from great distances; and also, where there was great love between men or women and their favorite steeds, they could (or so it is said in ancient tales) summon them at need by their thought alone. So it was also with their dogs.

Likely the same Númenórean abilities were used for evil by Queen Berúthiel against her cats. In an interview with Daphne Castell, Tolkien said:

She [Berúthiel] was one of these people who loathe cats, but cats will jump on them and follow them about—you know how sometimes they pursue people who hate them? I have a friend like that. I’m afraid she took to torturing them for amusement, but she kept some and used them—trained them to go on evil errands by night, to spy on her enemies or terrify them.

The more formal version of the Berúthiel lore recurs in Unfinished Tales:

She had nine black cats and one white, her slaves, with whom she conversed, or read their memories, setting them to discover all the dark secrets of Gondor, so that she knew those things "that men wish most to keep hidden," setting the white cat to spy upon the black, and tormenting them.

Faramir, by contrast, has a strong aversion to harming/killing animals for any reason other than genuine need, but apparently quite similar basic abilities. He typically uses these abilities to try to compassionately understand other people or gather necessary information, rather than for domination or provoking fear. Even so, Faramir does seem to use his mental powers pretty much all the time with no attempt to conceal what he's doing—he says some pretty outlandish things to Frodo and Sam as if they're very ordinary, but it doesn't seem that most people he knows can do all these things. This stuff is ordinary to him because it flows out of his fundamental being, not because it's common.

It's not clear how much fine control he has, interestingly. This is more headcanon perhaps, but I don't feel like it's completely under his control, even while it's much more controlled than things like Faramir's vision of Boromir's funeral boat, his frequent, repeated dreams of Númenor's destruction, the Ring riddle dream he received multiple times, or even his suspiciously specific "guess" of what passed between Galadriel and Boromir in Lothlórien. Yet his more everyday mental powers do seem to involve some measure of deliberate effort in a lot of the instances we see, given the differing degrees of difficulty and strain we see with the powers he and Denethor exhibit more frequently and consistently.

This is is also interesting wrt Éowyn, because Tolkien describes Faramir's perception of her as "clear sight" (which I suspect is just Tolkien's preferred parlance for "clairvoyance"). Faramir perceives a lot more of what's going on with Éowyn than I think he had materially observable evidence for—but does not see everything that's going on with her by any means. He seems to understand basically everything about her feelings for Aragorn, more than Éowyn herself does, but does not know if she loves him [Faramir].

I'm guessing that it's more difficult to "see" this way when it's directly personal (one of the tragedies of his and Denethor's relationship is that their shared mental powers do not enable either to realize how much they love each other). But it also doesn't seem like he's trying to overcome Éowyn's mental resistance the way he was with Gollum, and possibly Frodo and Sam—he does handle it a bit differently when it's not a matter of critical military urgency. With Éowyn, he sees what his abilities make clear to him, is interested enough to seek out Merry (and also perceive more than Merry says, because Faramir has never been a normal person one day in his life) but doesn't seem to really push either of them.

So I tend to imagine that with someone like Faramir, Denethor, Aragorn etc, we're usually seeing a relatively passive, natural form of low-grade telepathy that simply derives from their fundamental nature and personalities (as we see in Faramir with Éowyn, possibly Faramir with Aragorn). That can be kicked up to more powerful, forceful telepathy via active exertion of the will (as described by Gandalf wrt Denethor's ability to "bend[] his will thither" to see what passes in others' minds, and seen with Faramir vs Gollum, Aragorn vs the Mouth of Sauron, more subtly Faramir vs Denethor). At a high point of strain this can be done very aggressively or defensively (Denethor vs Gandalf, Denethor vs Saruman, Denethor vs Sauron seriously is there a Maia that man won't fight, Faramir vs the Black Breath given his completely unique symptoms that Aragorn attributes to his "staunch will", possibly Aragorn vs the Black Breath in a healing capacity...).

Anyway, I hope these massive walls of text are helpful or interesting! Thanks for the ask :)

[violettierre]

My haitani father Shio headcanon is just a bit too funny cuz of how well it works that it sounds like a waste of perfect canon idea and crossover for both of wakui's works.

Aside from the obvious physical features very very obvious, identical eyes, nose, blonde eyebrows, rindou's face form, ran's hair color palette and (arguably) bonten hair style, blah blah i mean just look a the pictures below, you can also bring up any fact from either manga and add it to the hc and it fits in just SO WELL, i'll give the first example, The Haitanis are very obviously rich spoiled kids like have you seen their apartment? They have a fucking dj set, only rich kids with neglective powerful parents will have no problem paying for that, just saying, and even though i love him let's be real Shio is the type to be that parent, i mean cmon he's rich like crazy rich (filthy yakuza money yum yum) he tots would give his children WAY more than enough allowance so they can leave him alone, also the way they act, i've always the Haitanis were the type of kids that think they own the school cuz their dad is rich .

Nvm if this never becomes canon or both universes don't collide, it's just so entertaining to keep connecting the dots that were likely never there, like how Rindou is a heavy drinker cuz his father drank alot with the rest of the Yotsurugis and he tried to imitate him from a young age that it became an unhealthy habit or if you want to add more drama he only drinks cuz he looks up to his father but Shio favors Ran cuz he can posssibly succeed him (canon power complex) so Rindou resorted to drinking cuz it's the only thing like his dad that he can do. Heck yeah i made it angsty!!!

You can also add great context to his fear of Yakuza, picture this, when he was a kid he got up in the middle of night after hearing a loud noise to search for his parents and witnessed Shio (canon Yakuza) pew pew-ing some poeple and surrounded with scary men, that probably scarred him for life that he was so terrified when Kakucho got them interfering with some, OH OH something just came to mind, if he's the son of a yakuza yeah he didn't wanna clash with other yakuza families cuz it can end in a blood shed and risk his and his family's lives.

And i'm gonna add this one not very small detail and i swear i'll shut up (for now), i know it's just a stupid headcanon that is very far from becoming reality and i don't have to take it this deep but hear me out, why their last name is Haitani and not Yotsurugi like their dad, Shio is powerful and have many enemies right ? So he simply decided to protect his children and their identity by giving them another last name likely their mother's (yk like minato with naruto style plan ?) So Haitani is actually their mom's family name. I rest my case. Thank you for coming to my useless ted talk.

[valtsv]

*writes one scene for a fic i never intend to finish in a burst of inspiration and actually likes what i've made when i'm done* damn... still got it 😤

[delawaredetroit]

Exhibit A of how Aizawa's decision to pair Izuku and Bakugou was only intended for Bakugou's growth. There is no mention or concern about how Bakugou's presence stunts Izuku's growth as well. He was only concerned about Bakugou's personal stagnation.

The dadzawa characterization seems to have poisoned a lot of the fandom to Aizawa's actual earlier characterization. At least early on, Aizawa primarily treats Izuku as a burden, a strawman to tear down about All Might's brand of heroics, or as an obstacle to Bakugou's character development.