#and i sort of got it bc of interacting with her family like we have WAY more formal relationship with her parents than with my dads parents

[lux-astrorum]

goddamn I miss Detroiters

[brekwrites]

Wassup, I hear you like screaming about Solar from tSaMs, I am here to get my ear drums busted :D

I will gladly talk about Solar with you, I am somewhat new to tumblr (been here a while only started posting today) so I’m tryna engage with other artists and creators, and get my ass out of the corner.

I also really like your fan fictions! Keep up the good work :)

Hi!!!!

Yea I love Solar he's like. The guy ever. I could scream about a lot of Solar-related things, but at the current moment I'm thinking about how his relationships are with the other characters. This got long, so I'm sticking it under the cut.

Like, I wanna see more of him and Sun interacting and some sort of evidence that his feelings toward Sun are complicated by his grief surrounding his own Sun. I'd like to see some 'you're stuck in a body that's really similar to mine, I know how my own model works, let me help' solidarity between them as well.

I wanna see how his experiences with his own Moon affect his interactions with New Moon. I feel like he's remained calm in the face of quite a few of Moon's outbursts, which is interesting to me. Is he used to them? Is he freaking out a bit, but shutting down (bc that's totally a response he seems to have to stressful situations)? Is the time he spends with New Moon healing for him in a way that's similar to when Lunar spends time with him? I'd also love to see Moon provide some support and comfort for him, since it's been established he does the same for Moon. At the same time, there are times when he and Moon start to feed off of each other in a way that's not great, and I want to see more of that too.

I feel like it's been established that it was good for Lunar to spend time with Solar and that he sees him and Eclipse as definitively separate people now. Also, we know that Solar was lonely in his own universe and deeply hurt when he learned Lunar was gone. I wanna see a bit more of Solar's struggle with being one of the few good Eclipses, and I feel like that could be explored through his relationship with Lunar (if Lunar could focus on something other than his own issues for more than a few seconds). Does he feel like it's only a matter of time before he does something unforgivable? Is he constantly making an effort to prove that he's still good, still trustworthy, and it's still safe to keep him around? Is he ever afraid that if he slips up, even a little, they'll send him back to his dimension to be alone? We know a big part of Eclipse's issues stem from abandonment, and I feel like that definitely applies to Solar as well. I wanna see him sink his claws into his new family and refuse to let go because he feels like every good thing he has is taken from him eventually. I wanna see him be willing to fight to keep what he's worked so hard for.

It's really interesting for me to see Solar's interactions with Earth because she's such an open person, in contrast to the way he closes himself off. We know he was lonely in his old dimension, we know he's probably starved for approval and affection and kindness, but whenever Earth offers it he shies away. He admitted to feeling left out and wanting to spend more time with her and Lunar, but he was very blunt and matter-of-fact when he said it. Earth has tried to talk to him about his feelings, but he shut down and barely responded. But we know he wants to be more open and closer to her, because he agreed to learn to knit with her, agreed to make a new body for her, laughs and jokes with her, and hugged her back when she hugged him. He also looks up to her, which we saw in the recent ep where he tried to mediate between her and Lunar. It didn't go well, but that was his way of showing he cared about them both and wanted to help them work it out. Finally, I know they needed another person to play Frank in the Christmas episode, but Solar's hasty exit and comments about how he didn't know how to handle the interaction had me like GRRRRRR. YOU SHOULD EXPLORE THAT MORE DEEPLY MY GUY! And cry about it, maybe.

Also, with Eclipse coming back? I wanna see them talk more! I wanna see Solar be like, "I see right through you, actually. You're a sad, lonely, piece of shit. I know because that's how I feel, sometimes." I want Solar to see what he could have been and feel things about it. I want Eclipse to see what he could have been, what he could have had, and feel things about it.

Like idk it's just so fun to stick Solar together in a room with another character in literally any context. I like the canon concept of him joining the family, I like AUs where he gets together with Moon, and I also like AUs where he gets together with Sun. Fuck it, maybe I'll ship him with Eclipse too. Or Ruin. Or KC. I literally do not care as long as I get to put him in situations and see what he does. I want to study him like a little bug under a magnifying glass.

Anyways... I like Solar lmao. Thank you for sending me an ask! :)

[rrat-king]

walk with me bird,,, thinking about kristen's lack of self preservation especially in sophmore year- she does crazy shit again and again and it is funny but like. when you actually look at it, its like this elaborate performance. so much going on in kristen's brain, losing her family, (we know she's clearly still thinking about it with the start of sy being her returning to her brothers) losing her religion and then recreating it and still feeling lost.

all her life being full and told that this is the thing- that will protect you as long as you are good so kristen is good and then realizes oh. i was meant for something terrible actually, my church who vowed to protect me is actually trying to make me a hellmouth. like oh. great well i dont feel safe in that anymore, im always arguing with my parents because even they are still polluted with their religion but she lets it go she tries to find something else. and then she ends fy with her new religion and immediately doesnt like it, over the summer it still doesnt click and she changes it again, she puts her faith or even lack of it at the forefront as she does these insane choices, like a leap of faith. like oh someone has got to save me if i do this- surely someone will. (also pushing my agenda of kristen's faith eventually forming into believing in her friends bc they are the ones who always save her not the gods even though i do love cass)

like ally talking about chaos not being cute anymore really makes me think of all this- because it's like kristen being like oh well if it goes wrong than at least it's some sort of relief from this pressure of being something and at least im not plagued with thinking about not being good enough for my own parents. like her being so not aggressive but trying to counter sandralynn too- like not wanting to view her as a parental figure but as a person. kristen like almost tries to parent her in a way which sounds weird but its very like she can't turn it off in her head because she's been raised with expectation so she does feel on the same level as adults when in reality she is not but kristen believes like oh i can solve this here maybe u shouldnt be doing this thing in her relationship. i think part of it is kristen not wanting to see a parent become better and then have to wonder why her's didn't. like was she not enough for them to want to me better. it's so complex i adore kristen's character and it kinda surprises me how often she becomes very 2d in the fandom but alas, many thoughts about her

i am absolutely walking with you. i love what your talking about with her dynamic with sandra lynn (which. i will always be crazy about her and sandra lynn they are just both so intersting in thier relationships) but yeah it makes a lot of sense that she doesn't know how to properly interact with her if you think about the amount of pressure she has been given to be a spiritual leader through church or if you hc her as a parentified older sister to her little brothers (which i do personally) so she's not thinking about her interaction with sandra lynn as like, a regular adult cuz she hasn't really had those interactions before, especially when it comes to an adult not trusting her.

and i think that's why she just feels so insane in sophmore year, jsut like, she's going from something super rigid to something where it feels like she can do anything and that's fucking scary. like she has a place to stay but she doesn't really have any parents to answer to, she has a god but she has so much doubt it doesn't feel reliable, all she really has as stability is her friends and her girlfriend, and i feel like she is just incredibly reckless cuz like, she's doing better but its almost like she has nothing to lose? but she does. and she did, and i think that was what beardsley was saying about the chaos not being cute anymore, like kristen was acting like she was invinvible at times and that not only got her hurt, but also those around her, and im excited to see how she grows from that.

[untitledgoosegay]

re frieren it's radioactively dangerous territory in terms of narrative implications but i also think it's fascinating and i'm really hoping it gets developed well

bc i love the worldbuilding potential of another speaking, self-aware species ... that is fundamentally an asocial hypercarnivore, where individuals treat interactions with humans as a sort of elaborate Skinner box

"demons don't raise their young. you don't have a mother. so why do you cry out for one?" "what is a mother? ... when we say that word, you stop killing us"

"what is a 'father'?" "who knows? but we got what we wanted"

& yet they are not incapable of moral judgment or self-awareness ... it's just that their priorities are very, very different, because they're fundamentally not wired to understand social relationships. the story of a demon girl adopted by a human family, who went on to murder her adoptive father and take her adoptive sister 'hostage', is a tragedy on all sides -- the demon girl understood that the villagers were hostile to her, & the parents of another child she'd murdered had demanded that she 'give our daughter back!' ... & so she attempted to do that. this daughter was already attached to a parent, though, but that was a solvable problem. that's what you wanted, right? now you have a daughter again. i gave your daughter back.

... ah. oh no. i seem to have made a mistake.

but there is moral reasoning happening there -- this is an attempt at appeasement and reconciliation! it's sincerely meant! it's just coming from a being that doesn't understand that familial relationships are non-fungible, and nobody realized that she needed to be taught that, in part because she looks so human. it is the tragedy of thinking you can keep a tiger in your house, if a tiger looked almost exactly like a human child

so you see why this premise is, uh, fraught, & why i'm extremely nervous about how it will develop -- i think the setup with the story of the demon girl (our first introduction to demons as a concept) is promising, though, and i am always a sucker for 'no this entity is working on really, fundamentally different principles than you do, and if you don't understand that you will have a very bad time'

[poetriarchy]

IWTV THOUGHTS!!!!

someone else said this felt like less strong of an ep compared to others this season and i see that as far as it being more set-up for upcoming plot rather than plot itself. but i think it's still a really interesting ep with some really strong moments.... digs into the characters in a way the other eps so far haven't had as much time for.

louis giving up on photography, then later letting go of the ghost lestat. and getting this outside opinion from the art dealer guy that he's got an eye for others' work but his own photos aren't strong. i think it's him giving up on trying to fill the hole in his life that was left by (the things he liked about) lestat. i.e. giving up on trying to be someone he's not. and then acknowledging that ghost lestat's commentary is actually just his own words (the "say apple" dialogue). jacob mentions in the post-ep that louis kind of falls into a lestat role in his relationship with armand because he knows he can manipulate him and get away with a lot, because armand is so insecure. so i think the moment of lestat's ghost losing its illusion and disappearing is in part louis absorbing that part of himself back into himself. acknowledging that he too can be powerful, he too desires control. that's not lestat, that's always existed in him.

WHICH sets up louis saying to armand "i don't know much about art, but i know a lot about running things". louis clearly retains his insecurity about not being able to be an artist like the artists he admires—and this continues to the present day as we see with the photos—but here he's willing to fall back into the role that feels good, the role that he knows he's good at. there's also that funny sort of parallel set up here between louis as pimp and louis as art dealer/theatre business guy/whatever. you can kind of picture him pulling the strings behind the scenes at the theatre, and doing it well. that's unlikely to actually happen now that the coven has claudia's old journals (and also just because they dislike him so much lol) but it's fun to think about.

there's also an interesting connection there with armand's personal history—being sexually exploited, and also being an artist's muse (i didn't catch some of that part bc no subtitles, so idk if i'm fully correct on that). louis' own personal history as a pimp works as a crazy foil to that, even if it's just on a subtextual level. the two of them are not on as level of ground as we might have thought, and armand as the eldest may not have the power over louis that one might assume from their present-day interactions. armand's "yes maitre" is CRAZY

anyways CLAUDIA. i'm kind of wishing we got more inside her head in this ep, especially because she doesn't have that much time left... it's interesting because you can see her spiraling and she says to madeleine how she feels broken, that there's something inherently wrong with her, but even then we still don't get a full window into her mind. it makes sense given the limited perspective of louis and armand as narrators, but still kind of sucks because she's the central female character of the whole show lol.

engaging with the show on its own terms, though, it's interesting how it's set up that claudia is denied subjectivity on multiple levels in this episode.

she's always been denied subjectivity by virtue of being perceived as a child. she's further denied subjectivity by being told to "live" the role of lulu by the coven she calls her family, being told to fully embody this naive, reckless, neglected child. this makes it so that later, when she behaves recklessly (being w/ madeleine), when she calls out louis for again prioritizing his romantic relationships over her, the audience is invited to ask—how much of this is her, and how much is just the role she's literally been forced to embody? she IS naive, and reckless, and neglected, but that is her real life, and her real emotions. by making her play a theatrical part that's a flat, cruel synecdoche of her life, you make her feel as though her real life and justified emotions are nothing but the tantrum of a stupid child. then you invite that (mis?)reading of her by the audience. then maybe, after enough time, she becomes that caricature of herself and is finally lost in the manner that armand suggested (...and orchestrated) in the previous episode.

and THEN, once she's gone, you have the additional layer of lost subjectivity. because she's no longer there to tell her story.

seriously fucked up

i guess the ep is all about ROLES. louis, claudia, armand, everyone. kind of obvious but still a useful shorthand for understanding how louis' and claudia's story arcs here overlap. even in the place where louis says he felt more free (as a vampire, as a Black man, as a gay man) than he did in the states, even in the old country that claudia longed for, they're still both coming up against that double consciousness.

looking forward to rewatching on my usual subtitled piracy site instead of having to cycle thru vpn servers for mega lmao

[actualbird]

you probably already saw this in ur notifs but i have been OBSESSED with everything tot you've posted ever since my tot obsession came back. like. OH MAN I VIBE WITH YOU. YOUR IDEAS AND DISCUSSION OF CHARACTERS. CHEFS KISS. poly ot5 is my everything especially bcs it gets DEEP into every one of them :D

and i was thinking about mc's parents meeting nxx. in a scenario where maybe, they need researchers and for some reason or whatever they need someone personal, who they can fully trust including maybe some nxx stuff.

luke looks at mc. mc looks at luke.

well, if marius von hagen needed them. surely they'd be allowed to leave the program maybe temporarily.

and that's how vyn, artem, and marius have their internal parental issues brought out in full force at the sight of mc and luke with mc's parents. like they're just coddling them in the Parent way and they're both enjoying it as a Son and Daughter would. and those three are just like Oh. Wow. That Looks Nice.

artem has both parents but like based on how he's lonely as a kid i know these sorts of interactions were surely few and far between. he would Not be so emotionally repressed. marius has a loving dad but a dead mom who people blame him for and austin has said himself that he Represses. like marius. and vyn? Disastrous. yeah they would be having a Moment with that sort of scenario

and the Moments they will be having when the parenting goes to them too. because i think mc's parents are the type to parent their kid's friends too. they see these sad boys and think. Adopted.

SORRY THIS GOT SO LONG ASJJFKWKS it's just given me a lot of Thoughts.

hello hello, and HAHA YEAH i did see in my notifs a lot these past few days!! im so so glad you enjoy my tot stuff, i was particularly surprised that u even managed to get to me super early posts. it makes me rlly happy to see even those still enjoyable now ;w;

also pls this idea is lovely, has such fertile environment for BIG FEELS!!!!

i rlly wish we knew more about mc’s parents in canon. like i understand that theyve been yeeted into the void for narrative/player-insert-ambiguity purposes buT I HAVE A GREAT NEED!! TO SEE THEM COME BACK!!! ALL THE INTERACTIONS WLD BE LOVELY

and gosh yeah jkvkjHVJAHFKS 3 SAD BOIS R IN GREAT NEED FOR SOME FAMILIAL LOVE!! it makes me really emotional thinking about how artem, vyn, and marius have less than stellar parent-relationships for all the reasons u mention. it’s either absence, neglect, or something else altogether that just resulted in a childhood where their parents couldve been better. they werent the worst parents in the world, but they all couldve been better.

(sidenote: “and vyn? Disastrous” THATS SUCH A FUNNBY ONE-LINER FOR HIS PARENT SITUATION AKJFHVSOFAISLVALIUBA)

im So For mc’s parents vaguely becoming pseudo-parents to the other three. i mean, they already did that with luke, whats 3 more neurotic grown men?

(sidenote 2: i joke sometimes that luke is unintentionally very good at collecting father figures. aaron, that Bar L owner, a bunch of mentioned NSB seniors he worked under. people see luke and go “wow is anybody gonna son-ify that young man” and then they dont wait for an answer, they just go for it)

itd be sweet and also entertaining if mc’s parents invited them all to a dinner. i mean, the nxx boys are the people she hangs around The Most so it’s basically like meeting her friend group! her….really weird and varied friend group who REALLY want to make a good impression.

[outside of mc’s apartment, artem, marius, and vyn stall on ringing the door buzzer]

marius: ok so before we go in, i wanna ask…….what gifts did u get her parents?

vyn: this better not be a way for you to flaunt your gift

marius: it isnt! im genuinely curious!! and also hoping i’ll be less nervous if i know what you guys brought!!!

artem: i bought a kitchen knife set and sharpened them myself

vyn: i purchased the best bottle of wine i could

marius: …cool. cool cool cool cool those are lovely and reasonable gifts and now im realizing i should uh. tone mine down.

artem: huh?

vyn: what on earth did you get?

marius: it’s fine, dont worry about it, im getting vincent to drive it away right now

vyn: WHAT

luke, phasing into existence behind them without a sound: so are you three thinking of going inside any time this century?

artem, marius, vyn: AAHH

itll totally be a fun dinner all together HAHAHKJAVFKJHAS

[filmnoirsbian]

'her brother def killed her' PLEASE go on if you have the time bc i would LOVE to see you talk about this film

It's a wonderful little horror movie! If you haven't seen it but plan to, don't read this response!! This is a movie best watched blind and uninfluenced by outside opinion.

(🤚 Spoilers 🚩 Below ⬇️)

Regarding the brother specifically, I didn't initially find him suspicious until the series of video clips where we see him repeatedly filming Alice without her knowledge, which she clearly was uncomfortable with and upset about. I get that siblings squabble but it just struck me as odd that every interaction we see between the siblings shows one of them antagonizing the other--usually Matthew antagonizing Alice.

Matthew is the last one to see Alice. They're swimming together out in the lake, and then he decides to head back alone. He claims she wanted to stay out there. But then when he reaches the beach, he asks his parents "Where's Alice?" alerting them to the fact that she is missing. The dad mentions that the lake looked still, with no sign of her. If Alice could swim, isn't it unlikely that she would have just drowned in still water, without any external cause?

Then there's the dad's vision of Alice, in which she acts out the scene between her and Matthew, where she discovers him filming her and yells at him to get out of her room. Why would he see that moment specifically? What if Alice was trying to make him understand that Matthew was involved somehow?

Matthew's bruises were another oddity. At first I assumed it was just another symptom of the haunting, but Alice's ghost didn't otherwise seem capable of physicality. And the bruises developed very shortly after her death, before eventually healing. So I posit that Alice gave him those bruises during their struggle at the lake, when he drowned her.

Alice's corpse looks excessively damaged by the time it's found, though it's only been in the water a few hours (she was reported missing around 6pm, discovered sometime after 9pm). Obviously other things could have caused that, maybe she was fed on by fish, etc, but I think Matthew beating her/forcefully drowning her could have also caused the damage to her face especially.

Matthew manipulating footage to make it seem like Alice's ghost is haunting them is another thing which, divorced from all other context, wouldn't make me immediately suspicious of him. People grieve in different ways, and his reasoning that he wanted to give his mom some sort of comfort or closure would be good enough for me under other circumstances. But next to everything else, it's more disturbing, his manipulation of Alice's presence/image even after her death. And there's no understandable reason behind him donning her clothes and wandering around the site where she died. Again, people grieve in strange ways sometimes, but this behavior goes basically unaddressed.

Finally, the sex tape of Alice--a 16 year old--and her married adult neighbors the Tooheys. This one's a bit of a stretch I admit, but we already know Matthew has been video taping his sister without her knowledge or permission, and it's never really explained how Alice got the tape from the Tooheys if it was in fact taped by them. I don't remember any of them ever actually looking at the camera as though they knew it was there. What if it was actually Matthew's tape, and Alice found it? I think it'd be easier for her to get it from him, since they live together, and then tell the Tooheys about it.

If Matthew really did kill Alice, a lot of questions are answered, and Alice's story becomes even more tragic. In her dream, she feels drugged and scared and goes to her parents' bed, wanting to tell them. But she can't. She realizes they can't help her, so she just stands there crying. This could just be the heartwrenching experience of a girl who knows she is going to die and is struggling with that knowledge. But it could also be the experience of a child who is being abused by a family member and desperately wants to tell their parents, but can't.

In the end, we know that while the family moves on, assuming they've learned what Alice was trying to tell them, Alice's ghost is not at rest. She is stuck in that house, in the story of her pain, unseen when she was alive and unseen now in death. The images that capture Alice's ghost (excluding the lake mungo footage) are either taken by Matthew or feature him. The film is horrifying and depressing no matter what, but if this theory is correct, it means we, alongside Alice, have just watched her murderer get away with it.

[myfairkatiecat]

Directors Commentary on mirrored conflicts pls? 🥹

OOOOH ONE OF MY FAVORITE FICS THAT I AM WRITING!

The biggest challenge writing mirrored conflicts is that since it’s a Sokeefe AU, I have to set up the Sokeefe romance, which is only good if it’s in character—and these characters are SLOW. I can have Keefe immediately recognize how pretty Sophie looks, but that’s about IT as far as I can go given how long these idiots took when they started out as friends, and in the AU they start out as ENEMIES.

The plot is based significantly on the events of Lodestar, and everything up til then proceeded mostly the same as normal, just without Keefe existing. So when Sophie and Keefe interact, it’s within this context of the lodestar plotline with the symbol and the neverseen going after Sophie’s family and ultimately the peace summit. They’re also training at exillium to explode things with their minds, which definitely will make its way into this fic bc Shannon should use that more often. But at the same time Sophie is sort of investigating what’s going on with this “nemesis” character of hers who she kind of likes interacting with.

I try to get into the heads of the characters to move the romance along as fast as is actually realistic for these idiots, which is still PAINFULLY slow, but makes for a better fic! I was able to realistically get them over the “enemies” hurdle with their relatability with each other and the fact that both of them are suffocating under the expectations of their respective organizations and talking to someone who expects nothing of them is like a breath of fresh air, even if they ideologically disagree. Still, Sophie is SUPER careful—at least, until this most recent chapter—so getting her to even admit that they’re friends is terrifying for her, and I’m trying to portray that realistically! After all, they’re meeting in secret, and Sophie should theoretically be telling the black swan everything she finds out about her nemesis, but instead, she really likes him and doesn’t want to hurt him.

Getting the characters to a point where the romance can begin is DIFFICULT, because I’ve even gotten to the point where sophie admits that there’s no way she can stay away from him, but even then she’s only admitting that he draws her in. Keefe calls her a breath of fresh air in his narration. And they mean this all in a very friendly way, which again, getting them to admit that they’re FRIENDS is the first hurdle I have to get over, though I think we’re finally there!

Sophie throws caution to the wind in the latest chapter, deciding to fully trust Keefe—at least, outside of their organizational conflict. They sorts create their own world away from everything else where they can just exist, which BOTH OF THEM NEED, and sets up a very special and unique relationship between them that I think I achieved in a manner that realistic to their characters!

Keefe definitely falls first in every universe, and you can tell in the latest chapter that he’s closer to noticing her in that way, though he isn’t thinking about it like that. He’s drawn in by her and he knows there’s something about it that’s different than normal, though he isn’t sure what, and he has no trouble admitting that she’s “objectively beautiful” in his head because that doesn’t involve any of his own feelings (but what if it does?)

Sophie hasn’t noticed him romantically yet, but one of the most important aspects of Sokeefe is that it’s not Sophie’s internal narration that gives away how much she cares for Keefe, but her actions. Throughout all of canon, you can tell Sophie is in love with him even though she never once considers that she might have a crush on him until book 9, because her unconditional love was shown to the audience through her actions and then when she got to stellarlune she was like “oh… was that love? I think that’s love. I think I’m in love. “ which was like. FINALLY. But we already knew. She was the last to know, and I plan on making mirrored conflicts follow the same pattern! It’s clear to US that she’s in love, and at some point keefe does admit his own feelings to himself, but Sophie takes forever to realize how she really feels.

I adore writing this fic! Thank you for asking about it!

[the8thsphynx]

FELLOW YURI LOVER HELLO <3 I love your art and I wanted to pick your brain for any Lunatic theories or headcanons ya got, if you're up for it! I've always had this thought and wanted to ask other Tiger & Bunny fans about it, but how do you think the Petrov family was doing after Legend's death? How do you think Yuri got through law school to become a judge while taking care of his mom??

Ohhhhhh Anon we are sharing a braincell right now. Buckle up.

Yuri gifs sprinkled throughout to help make my points

(CW for the theories ahead, dealing with themes of trauma, domestic violence, child abuse, and alcoholism)

First off, I absolutely think Yuri and Olga were not wanting for money at all after Legend's death, even before Yuri became a judge. There were probably no financial worries whatsoever for Yuri getting through law school, either. Mr. Legend was the hero in Sternbild for the longest time, so there was likely a sizeable life insurance policy and inheritance for them.

Also for sure Maverick threw hush money their way because while the alcoholism was bad enough then that meant Hero TV ABSOLUTELY was not gonna let the news out that Legend's death was because he was about to kill his wife and child. Case in point for this one is that when Ben got the info for Kotetsu about NEXT powers fading, Ben only had info about the alcoholism; not that Legend was an abuser nor that Yuri was his son.

I could make an entirely separate post and go on for days about the fuckery I think was going on between Yuri and Maverick, but I wanna stay on-topic for your question. another day... maybe... if its asked...

So... onto the sadder part!

What Happened to the Petrovs?

So... disclaimer: I am NOT a mental health professional... however I am a childhood abuse survivor, so I'm really just pointing out patterns I recognize from my own experiences.

In Ep. 16 of Season 1 when we got Yuri's backstory reveal, I couldn't help but make mental note of his mom and how they interacted. When we first see her, she's not only elderly and disabled to where she needs mobile assistance, but she's also clearly having some sort of memory lapse into a time where the abuse wasn't happening, given her cheery way of talking when she does go into these episodes.

However... When Yuri reminds her that his father is dead, it shocks Olga and kind of snaps her out of it... and her instant response is to start verbally abusing Yuri and throwing things at him.

Yuri not flinching we could first think 'yeah his reflexes as Lunatic are probably making him aware he doesn't need to dodge' but like... what if it's that and that he's used to it...?

I think that the mental condition we see Olga with in the beginning hasn't been going on for too long. If we go off the first movie's timeline of things, Yuri implies that he came to Sternbild and was just appointed as a judge for the city.

Also there's this air in the way Yuri was walking around the house and talking to his mom in S1. Ep16 that makes it feel like this is one of the first times in a while he's been around her. he's also still learning the ropes of being a caretaker for an elderly person, bc as someone who used to work with CNAs and nurses in a retirement home the last thing you want to do when someone's having a memory lapse is forcefully pull them out of it, unless of course the writers for the show themselves just didn't know

All of this to me this feels like Yuri has only just recently come back to Sternbild and moved in with his mom in order to take care of her.

With Olga she obviously was very in love with her husband and adored her son before the downward spiral began. That much is apparent later on in Season 2 where we see Olga (albeit almost permanently in this memory-lapse state) being quite tender and affectionate towards Yuri and acting towards him like she did when he was a child (cue the heartbreaking flashback to how she really really wanted to make the cookies Yuri loved on the night she died).

However, in the moments where she's lucid again and acting negatively towards Yuri, I think this is the truth of their dynamic after Legend died.

Trauma from abuse can do... weird things to people.

Now any of us can sit back and say 'if my child went through the horrible agony of killing their own father to save the both of us I would simply cherish and care for them, RIP but I'm built dif', or 'if my husband started abusing me and my son I would simply divorce him' but... people and legality can be more complicated and messier than that.

I'm not going to get into the semantics on if Yuri's mom was a completely bad person or anything like that (bc the whole theme of the Petrovs is 'there are no only good or only bad people, there's just people), but I'll flat out say that I think a bit after Legend's death Olga was at the very least verbally abusing Yuri.

The complete disregulation of her brain from the abuse and violent death of her husband PLUS all the ways Hero TV was probably covering things up must have messed her up some type of way that she blamed Yuri for their life being turned upside down and was resentful towards him.

On the flipside, on Yuri's part, he absolutely has a deeply complicated relationship with his mother on TOP of how fucked up he is from his father. He doesn't regret stepping in as a child and saving her, but for sure there's a painful wound still stinging in his chest about how their relationship was damaged and never really recovered. With how bitter and toxic things with his mom probably got, Yuri might have left home at some point or was even kicked out.

As for Yuri's personal mental state, I mean the show highlights pretty clearly that he is NOT okay. Yuri has very intense PTSD to the point of constantly reliving when his powers activated and he killed his father to having hallucinations of his father mocking him.

His perception on morality has been pretty skewed to the point of being super vengeful to whoever he perceives as 'wicked', which comes through not just as Lunatic but in his dayjob as a judge where he's known for giving out heavy-handed sentences.

(i mean usually this vengefulness as Lunatic is directed to serial killers or violent criminals, so.... it could be worse, I guess...?).

Now... Back to Yuri and his mom... So for those of us who did survive a toxic family/parent, I'm sure we can look at anyone who asks and say 'lmao fuck my shitty family, I don't care what happens to them' but... let's get real, that shit hurts. Especially like in Yuri's case where the family member wasn't always abusive or at least wasn't in the beginning.

So when the times comes for whatever phone call that Yuri got to come take care of Olga in her old age, I think he was still bitter about how she treated him and was mentally prepared for everything to be nonstop difficult and depressing. And I mean from there we see in the series how things go; exactly that.. But as Olga's mental state deteriorates, in some fucked up bittersweet way her relationship with Yuri greatly improves. Like... to the point where in the very end Yuri was happy to talk to her on the phone and spend time with her. Which again, for those of us that have lived this IRL, is HUGE.

I'm not going to get into Season 2 endgame spoilers, but the ultimate fate of the Petrov family depresses me to no end. I DO like though in S2 Ep20 how Yuri was able to get a LITTLE bit of closure for himself.

I just still maintain a lot of things for him in the end of the series should have been handled differently.

This got long, but the brainworms are real.

WATCH TIGER & BUNNY. STAN YURI PETROV.

Thank you for the ask, Anon!

[mischas]

What do you think were the biggest missed opportunities when it came to the OC?

Lol my favorite topic (this is not at all exhaustive)

Not letting Marissa verbalize and process her trauma 1000% forever and ever amen. The show learns by the end of s1 that they can keep hurting her without much recompense. Oliver holds a gun to her head and bamboozles grown ass adults yet she shoulders all of the blame in the aftermath. Christ. Her father MOVES AWAY TO BE A BETTER PARENT BC HE CANT STOP SLEEPING WITH HIS EX? Please. How anyone came up with that and thought that was good writing I will never know. Marissa's SA'ed and nearly r**** by her boyfriend's brother and never says the words out loud or processes it because the shooting looms larger. Disgusting. Back in s1 Luke is more apologetic of his affair than Marissa's own mother is and HE'S the one who has to leave town? which leads me to

Getting rid of Luke made no sense. Instead of making Luke/Julie happen they should've had Luke/Marissa 2.0 happen. There was so much there to mine. Sometimes the show acts like they were a nothing relationship and other times like 109 we see they have deep-rooted love/fondness. Rushing RM (though they're my loves) after their 101-108 slow burn shot them in the foot since they were so uncreative later on. But then again TPTB were so reliant on the actors' mirrored personal lives that I'm convinced if they'd put RM off to s2 they would've butchered them thanks to the irl breakup. (This is still so insane)

Getting rid of Anna also made no sense. She was liked by the gen pop, she had good chemistry with everyone! What a damn waste

Seth/Marissa friendship!!!! It is so cute to think Seth is the one boy in Marissa's life that isn't falling all over her. They share the same music tastes, they have the same favorite book, they grew up privileged + depressed, they're neighbors, they're dating each other's besties, their families have a storied closeness, they've dated the same person, etc. It is SO insane how little they actually interact.

Not exploring the Jimmy/Kirsten dynamic more. I rewatched the pilot a few months ago and the hints to their history are so compelling. I remember thinking their tension was good enough to last several seasons. Cutting that out to uphold the sanctity of SK in s1 ended up being for nothing since s2 messed with SK even worse! So why!

Never utilizing Alan Dale well enough. Not only do they kill him for no reason, his death literally does nothing but give us an iconic coda and funeral scene. That's literally it. Having Caleb around while Kirsten goes to rehab is so much more compelling than having her go after he's died. And making us watch Caleb/Lindsay/Ryan for what seems like half a season is so unbelievably boring and ridiculous. Why are we supposed to care. This is taking away from Kirsten/Caleb material! which brings me to

Never giving Kelly Rowan much to do. What a goddamn waste. She absolutely kills her late s2 arc but then she leaves rehab two minutes into 301 and the Charlotte storyline mostly revolves around Julie. Jesus. People talk about the favoritism going on on that set with the younger actors (as they 1000% should and we should do it more), but there was some serious shit going on with elevating Melinda constantly and shafting Tate/Peter/Kelly forever. Especially Kelly. At least she was there and not essentially let go like Tate was (and Tate was a ~big name~ regular from the pilot!). But you can tell Kelly's got some feelings about how the show went for her and her screentime/importance.

Not cutting the Johnny storyline two minutes into filming 304. They had to know Mischa/Ryan D had no chemistry. We're supposed to believe Marissa's having some sort of emotional affair but there is absolutely nothing showing that to us. It's everyone telling Marissa she's got feelings for him, and Mischa doing her job well enough to convince us it's sketchy/complicated, but they have one (1) conversation in 306 that's mostly about Johnny's father or uncle that no one cares about. which brings me to

WE DONT CARE ABOUT GUEST STARS. stop spending so much valuable time on them. we just wanna see our s1 babes being cute and supporting one another that's literally it

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

One thing I never got about the TV show or comics is the vortex and while Dream says they are naturally reoccurring and have nothing to do with him in that regard I find that confusing since Unity didn't become the vortex due to the sole reason of Dream being trapped and Rose didn't become the vortex until Dream was free. It feels like a huge plothole to me and also another thing I don't understand is why wasn't Unity's and Desire's family line dream children like Daniel.

to answer the second question first, since that's the one i can give a concrete answer for! daniel was a very unique situation

the show and the comic have two different explanations for what made daniel half dream, i think the show was a lot simpler and easier to grasp, but both are explainable

in show canon, daniel is half dream because his father straight up was a dream - hector was already dead by the time daniel was conceived. lyta is the only physical parent here, the rest is dreamstuff

in comic canon, lyta was pregnant before hector died, but she then spent years and years in that dream, extending her pregnancy far beyond the nine months it should normally take, and that much exposure to the dreaming while being formed (in an unnatural way bc it was so drawn out) made daniel half dream

as far as unity and desire's daughter goes, that's more of a demigod situation? she was conceived in a dream because unity was asleep, but desire isn't just a regular parent, and conception when it concerns the endless is a weird topic altogether (desire doesn't really have dna this is canonically a thought baby sort of situation). given how the endless interact with each others' realms, i'd imagine just desire being part of the equation cancelled out any influence dream might have had here. and aside from that, it was a normal pregnancy that took place in the waking world, for a normal duration of time - the walkers aren't 100% human but they aren't really any % dream

and then we get to the next part of this - being half dream isn't the only thing that made daniel daniel. dream chose daniel for this, appointed him as successor when he visited lyta in season of mists

and daniel as a toddler trailed dream sand behind him and had the ability to walk into the dreaming, but he was still half human, and still not yet a perfect successor to dream of the endless

until kindly ones, when loki stole him and killed him. daniel-dream tells lyta in the wake that that fire burned away his human half, leaving only the immortal dream

and for a final piece, morpheus gave him the emerald. granted, this probably wasn't a necessary step, i think it was a gesture to help him control his powers a bit better when first ascending. but it was yet another thing that made the universe mark him as the person to ascend if the original incarnation of dream died

which are all things that set him apart from miranda walker (or her mother, in show canon)

as far as vortexes go, honestly that's something i wish either the show or the comics told us more about, there's so little lore or explanation on it

but if you want my educated guess - there's a difference between dream not making the vortexes and dream having nothing to do with them

vortexes are naturally occuring, yes, but in a healthy dreaming, a living dreamscape. they are an inevitable consequence of the way the dreaming works - an entire universe of minds, all forming a dimension together, with no knowledge that they are doing it together, the natural push and pull and chaos of such a place, somewhere you're going to find a place where it's the most concentrated, the eye of the storm that everything else is swirling around. part of dream's job is to keep that great ocean relatively level, so you don't end up with whirlpools - and since he doesn't make them and doesn't know how they're formed, sometimes that means you just need to manually get rid of them whenever they show up

but you also won't get whirlpools if you drain the ocean of water

which is what cutting dream off from the dreaming did. the endless and their realms aren't wholly separate entities, a part of dream is the dreaming and a part of the dreaming is dream. when you cut a being in half like that, by keeping dream magically shut out from the realm, they've both lost vital functions, and they'll both be weaker and hurting for it. and we see, in both the comics and the show, the effect that dream's imprisonment for that long had on the dreaming - it's broken and dead. and dream himself is equally lacking in power and life (show dream especially, he is visibly starving)

and the doll's house arc doesn't begin until dream breaks the ruby, and gets back all the power contained within it. even with dream physically back in the dreaming, they both needed time to recover fully before anything like a vortex could form

[h0n3yk1tt3n]

The origin story of my unhinged big bro Jake hc that exactly one person asked for like months ago

It spawned from an interaction with one of my friends during Pirates of Penzance rehearsals back in 2018. I made some sort of joke that prompted her to cover my mouth, which naturally I licked. She recoiled for a second before recovering my mouth and saying something to the effect of "Do it, I have younger sibling."

Blorbo brain activated and I thought "Huh, it'd be funny if this happened with the squip squad." The plan was for it to appear as a banter scene for a fic but that fell through, as did my mental health. I had decided that Jake would be the one covering Jeremy's mouth (projecting at its finest) and wanted to think of a surprising number of siblings for Jake to have that were spaced out in age in such a way that most kids wouldn’t necessarily connect them easily. So I landed on the line "Do it, I'm the oldest of five."

But Jake is all but canonically an only child! How does that make sense? THROUGH CONVOLUTED CONSPIRING AND WACKY CHARACTER ANALYSIS/PROBABLY MAKING UP SOME SELF INDULGENT BULLSHIT :D like i said, the origin was entirely ridiculous and was Not based in canon at the time, but I like to think Parts of it Could Make Sense Kinda based on certain aspects of his character.

The idea of Jake needing to grow up faster because he's on his own more often than not is solid on its own, but needing to take care of younger siblings too?? That's definitely gonna exacerbate the pressure to be good enough for others, especially kids that depend on you. We see that he can be serious and sweet when it matters ("I don't wanna do every extracurricular at school. I just wanna do yours.") but most of the time he doesn't take things seriously or responds to them in a childish way (big blowout parties to avoid being alone in a big empty house), both of which would demonstrate roles as caregiver and fun older brother to play with.

But wait, Jake says "the house is empty," during Upgrade. Where are four other kids gonna be? This is where it gets convoluted bc Nostalgia-Fueled Coping (aside from these kids having other friends.) So Jake is gonna have some other family that catches wind of what's going on, right? In the case of my fever dream, it's his grandparents. They see that this high school kid is Struggling™️ and just take the kids into their place because we can't have horses babysitting dogs right? So Jake should just move in with them and Be A Kid right?

Weeell now he's got a slight responsibility complex and has to look after their parents' empty house just to make sure nothing bad happens. And so that he can tell them whats up when they come home and only find 1/5 kids there. Featuring projected insertion of my friend's mastiff Alice that he also has to look after bc I based a lot of Jake's humor off of him + his sister ok I TOLD YOU IT WAS SELF-INDULGENT

But he's got a dog! He's not alone! Pets are great and all but they are Not a substitute for friends or parents.

So why does he get all reckless and start throwing giant ass parties if he's trying to be the responsible one? He's a teenager, he runs on hormones, poor coping mechanisms, and "fuck it."

Sooo where were the siblings on Halloween??? Out trick-or-treating :)

So they just came back to a burning house and a broken brother??? :)))

I know I'm tripping on EVERY DRUG with this but hey. I told you the origin. It didn't start out that deep. It just became a thought experiment that I got way too attached to.

[walkingaftermidnight07]

Chain of Thorns: all my main thoughts

yes hello, i wanna make a large post abt this bc i just need to list everything out since i have A LOT of thoughts

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING

SERIOUSLY

DONT READ FURTHER UNLESS YOUVE READ THE BOOK

Things I Liked:

basically every moment where we got to see Will. I was laughing at so many things that Will said and I missed having that, since I will never get enough of Will's humor.

Seeing Jesse interact with the Merry Thieves. It made me so happy and I love seeing Jesse's dry humor mixed in with the Merry Thieves; he fits in with them so well.

Just human Jesse in general. Everything about him made me so happy. He was so kind and brave and quite funny.

Getting to see more of Anna/Ari. During the first book we got almost nothing of them, partially because of Ari being poisoned but also because Anna was kind of not in the main circle yet.

Christopher visiting Grace and them getting to know each other. It made me so happy that there was someone who could see past what Grace had done and could give her a second chance, and their bond over science was so sweet.

Thomastair. That's it. No explanation needed.

Ghostwriter I thought was pretty well done, but the whole "them kissing would cause Lucie to see demon stuff" was kind of unnecessary.

Jem being there for Grace and talking to her to help her through

The Watchers were a really cool plot twist I wasn't expecting

honestly the james turning on the lamp on pg 127 caused a lot of pterodactyl screeching which was fun

the Herondaisy scene in chapter 23 hehe

Effie every time she opens her mouth

Also Bridget who is my queen. she is my love, my life, my star.

Eugenia Lightwood just existing was fabulous.

Esme being the most random plot thread ever which caused a lot of unexpected laughter

"Alastair why are you so stupid I brush my teeth dont tell anyone" LMAO

Alastair with the baby

Again, Thomastair.

Matthew's eventual acceptance of Alastair into the group

Cordelia outsmarting Lilith with her deal

Belial having a weird obsession with being crowned prince of London or whatever

Also Belial's weird bird demon friend made me CACKLE

Bridgestock blackmailing Charles. if i'm honest, i think it was a great part of the plot bc it did kind of give Charles a slight redemption (but also him being kind of outted is also really bad) but i think it was great in kind of allowing Flora be able to accept Ari without fear of Maurice

Lucie and Cordelia talking abt Cordelia's boobs lmaooo/The Wicked Queen Cordelia

Grace's entire arc through this book

the different meanings behind "cordelia ran"

Things that made me sobbbb:

Will becoming a sort of father figure to Jesse

The Merry Thieves helping Matthew with his drinking

Cordelia and James when they finally confessed for real

Matthew's entire arc with his drinking and telling the truth

Christopher's death

"you are my unfinished business" IM SOBBING STILL

Christopher's death

The scene where they see that Kit's dead

Kit being dead

Intermission: Grief

the fact that kit was in fact dead and not going to come back at the end (i was in denial for the entire second half)

Matthew and James while in Edom

Thomas coming out to his family

Alastair telling Cordelia that he's always afraid for her with her being the wielder of Cortana

Again. Kit's death. (i cried a lot ok its been an emotional couple of days)

Things I didn't like:

The whole love triangle. I still don't think that Matthew truly loved Cordelia and i never believed it would be an actual love triangle

the fact that the truth about the bracelet had to be kept secret for so long. it felt kind of unnecessary. there were other ways to draw out the plot than that.

the fact that tatiana exists

Kit's death. I feel like it's so unfair that of all people, he's the one to die. it didn't feel well written, it felt like it had to happen bc she couldn't kill the queer characters and Kit was the only main character left that she COULD kill.

Grace's entire plot being kind of left without an ending.

The lack of mourning/a funeral for kit. (since we didnt get enough mourning, i think im going to write it bc i want to suffer for the purpose of completing the loose ends)

the pacing. the entire plot felt so oddly paced, and it wasn't as much of a mystery like choi or chog.

again, why christopher? i feel like matthew would've been a better choice, or perhaps sona.

magnus kind of getting written out so early

though i love our gay couples and their accepting families, it is a little bit unrealistic. i get that the point is that this particular batch of the families are very kind people in comparison to what their families become a little farther down the road(ie Robert, maryse, etc), but it still feels a little bit unrealistic.

i felt like the whole lucie and cordelia struggling with their friendship thing was a little bit too much to add into this already very full book. (although i loved the wicked cordelia reveal that was fun)

i feel like we didn't fully get the wrap up at the end that we needed. we didn't see enough of them after the battle, as they came to terms with their losses and their wins and how they would continue their lives.

also we never really got to see jesse meeting his cousins/aunts and uncles and i wish we'd gotten that.

Questions I still have:

bridget? whats going on with her? theres a throwaway line in the coda mentioning something is odd abt her, but thats it??

grace. what is going to happen to grace? i wish we could perhaps see her and figure out if she's alright.

im still confused abt the lightwood line. i guess they're trying to say that alexander is going to continue it? (that actually kind of makes sense, genetics wise tho, cuz alexander looks like cecily and alec and izzy are supposed to inherit that)

will we ever get a revised family tree?

blackthorn line???

Rupert's ghost?

fairchild line? am i correct to assume that its going to tie into charlotte's pregnancy reveal at the end?

I'm sure I have more thoughts but I can't remember them at this present moment and I didn't write them down but these are all the ones I wrote down.

lmk what y'all think abt this book

[enbysiriusblack]

“severus fights james and his friends because he wants to control/be with lily and he thinks james is in the way of that, even though lily just doesn't like him in that way. and james fights severus because severus is picking a fight with him/severus is bigoted. “

Hey so I was scrolling through the tl ans saw you responding to an ask. I totally agree with you that Lily is more of an important character on most of ur points. But i saw this and was genuinely wondering how you got that from the books? This is genuinely not to attack you or be rude. But I saw the canon completely differently than how you have interpreted it, and I do wonder where you get that point from? Specifically that Severus is the one starting things while James is only fighting back? And that Severus wants to control Lily?

Once again this is not me trying to be rude, and I also do not hate James. But Jkr said that James went after Severus mostly because of his connection to Lily. And in the only scene we really see, its James and Sirius going after Severus first while he was sitting under a tree by himself. I wouldn’t call two vs one a rivalry. And I wouldn’t call that Severus going after James.

Once again genuinely curious bc it seems to be a popular notion and I truly dont know where ppl are getting it from.

the moment we see james and sirius going after severus is what i meant with james pocking on severus for sirius (i mentioned that in the post)

Sirius stared around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored...

...'This'll liven you up, Padfoot,' Said James quietly, 'Look who it is'

James is very happily playing with his snitch, he only approaches Severus because Sirius is bored and wants something fun to do (Sirius finds fights fun- i mean he's a british teenager with family issues. it'd be surprising if he didn't find fights fun, and everyone found fights fun at school)

i didn't mean this specific scene. but, for instance, severus invented the sectumsempra curse. which is like,, very dark and torture-y. i can imagine him using it on james or his friends (without knowing how bad the spell is, like harry does with draco). i do think he wouldn't have used it knowing how bad it was, but based on being a kid/teenager with people i hate and have ongoing drama with and having drawn their gravestones and dead bodies (i also have a neighbour kid that recently did that exact thing so i'm assuming imagining the classmates you hate dying as a kid/teen is a fairly common experience), i can very much imagine severus would have made the curse with james in mind. and i think he does use a version of it in this scene, where he gashes james' face so deeply his robes splatter with blood.

also, as i said in that post, i don't think when we see people's memories, it is a completely true viewing of the past. i think it's like how memories are- biased and wavering over time. and since this is severus' memory, i wouldn't take it wholly to heart (but that is more my hc, and i don't think jkr wrote legilimency to be how actual memories work)

continuing on this actual scene (i'm reading it rn and i'm trying to focus on answering your ask but i can't help giggling at the amount of times sirius is called handsome, every line is like "sirius handsomely turned to snape", "sirius head turned, handsomely" /j) i sorts get what you mean with james picking a fight with severus because of lily, but it seems to be more for sirius' entertainment in this scene. lily asks him what severus has done to him, and james just says it's the dact he exists- which does show james doesn't really have a reason for this particular interaction, and it was purely for sirius. but he does say he'll stop if lily goes out with him- making it seem as if he is fighting with severus for lily. but i honestly think that line was more james just trying to wind her up- he knows she'll say no. james acts, during this scene, like a standup comedy act. every sentence seems to intentionally said to receive a specific reaction from his audience (his classmates). the line gives me the same vibe as a heckler at a comedy act, and the comedian interacting back with them.

one of the spells james uses against severus (where he dangles him upside down) is in severus' book of spells that he invented. so for james to know that, it means severus must have used it in the past (not sure if it was canon or not about that spell being a trend at this time or not), but severus would have used it on james or his friends previously for james to know the spell.

then what i said about severus picking a fight with james for lily, and james picking a fight with severus because of severus being bigoted/already picking a fight with him. this comes from when harry goes to remus and sirius after seeing severus' memory.

"I think James was everything Snape wanted to be... And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to the eyes in the dark arts, and James- whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry- always hated the dark arts."

"Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect him to take that lying down, could you?"

sirius says severus picked a fight with james because james got what severus wanted (lily, but also academic validation, with james being naturally talented, which i should have mentioned in the previous post, but i was focusing on lily, not james and severus). sirius then says james picked a fight with severus because of severus' interest in dark magic (and we do see james getting furious when severus calls lily a 'mudblood', james was about to stop before severus said that). and then remus says james, in later years, only went after severus because severus was still going after him.

i didn't mean severus was starting things- more that severus was continuing things. i know they argued when they first met about houses, and i think lily then being put in gryffindor after that argument infuriated severus and caused him to see james as a threat, whilst james found it humorous and would likely mock severus for losing his best friend to gryffindor, which then their rivalry escalated from there and continued because severus was into lily and because james didn't like how severus was into dark arts/severus was already going after him and his friends.

about severus controlling lily. most of what we see of their friendship is very much severus trying to control lily. he tells her she better be in slytherin, he tells her not to listen to petunia because she's just a muggle (this could just be trying to comfort a friend, of course, but the insinuation that lily shouldn't listen to her because she's a muggle, not because she's just jealous and bitter is very weird), lily tries to get severus to stop hanging out with bigoted people that hurt her friends and severus just complains about james and remus, turning the subject to what 'she's doing wrong' instead of actually listening to her, he threatens to sleep outside gryffindor tower unless lily comes to see him, he asks for only lily's life to be spared (not caring if james or even harry, a 1 yr old, die). seems pretty controlling to me.

[deus-and-the-machina]

Ranking the Xenoblade Games based on how straight they are

this is a mix of legitimate grievances about the writing and just goofing around. starting at least straight to most. Also not including X sorry I havent played it.

1. Xenoblade 2

Most of the romance in this game is light due to it being a sort of cute puppy love. Nothing actually happens between the characters and it’s mostly contained to the main characters with most side characters being free from clumsy straight love plots. There’s a couple of blushy scenes between Pyra/Mythra and Rex but most of their serious/emotional interactions are genuine and honest and don’t really get into romance or some hidden feelings they need to confess to. Even Nia’s confession is more of something for herself and she never really changes bc she’s in love or focuses on it that much. 

Beyond the main characters, sheba exists, jin and lora can be considered one sided at least romantically (she’s the one to make flirty comments in Torna and he always responds along the lines of ???) and he’s explicitly not motivated by her death, while it did obviously impact him it’s something he’d accepted and used as fuel for his ultimate goal. and of course there’s Malos, who’s own voice actor was like “cmon he was in love with Jin”. Morag and Brighid also exist. There’s even some old man furry yaoi implications with gramps and azurda in that one scene??? ngl its kind of cute. 

2. Xenoblade 3

Got a lot of points in the heteronormative category here. The main characters are paired up in m/f duos, but while 2/3 of them are romantically coded, Sena and Lanz aren’t really and Sena’s most focused relationship is probably Mio. To the game’s credit, it also doesn’t restrict them to these pairs and lets the whole group interact and have friendships and dynamics outside of the shippy ones. 

An emphasis is put on the true nature of humanity being to fall in love and have kids, but considering the context of the scene only certain parts of it really make me go “mmmmmm”. these characters are test tube babies who have never seen a real human baby and so it’s wholesome and understandable, but Monica’s wording about specifically couples later does lean towards heteronormative “everyone must grow up and have a kid.” Considering she canonically had a teenage pregnancy though and her baby daddy clearly isn’t around I expect she’s very shaped by that experience though. 

After that scene we don’t see a ton of heteronormative sentiment from city members (Ghondor, Shania, and Masha dont have any romantic sentiments, grey and rozana dont have kids and have a rather atypical but trusting relationship in general) and the focus on legacy and family is shown to have its toxic sides with Shania’s mom (who is also just. no 1 messed up lesbian in my heart).

Mio and Noah do start to have their characters focus more on romance and have their whole doomed soulmates shtick but I feel like they’re still given focus as individual characters in the main story post that revelation so I kind of forgive it, and the unhealthiest possible manifestation of their relationship is one of the main villains so. Also ngl they’re just cute, so I’m a bit biased here. I get if you’re groaning at the game pushing the main straight couple hard but at least they don’t suddenly lose all their personality when it happened. 

3. Xenoblade 1

Hoo boy. There’s just a lot of it in this game. Ngl it took me a while to properly get into Xenoblade bc while I liked the first game overall, it also just had some things that rubbed me the wrong way and 2′s general reputation didn’t make it seem much better (then I played it and fell in love and retroactively appreciate 1 more but yeah) and one of those things was how the game very quickly fridged the only female character as a love interest. Yaaaaay. 

Like yes she comes back later but at the time I was just kinda like. oh. ok then :/ and even when Fiora comes back, she’s super Shulk focused. Girl, you’ve been kidnapped and forcibly made into a cyborg and house a god who was walking around in your body but ig you’re mostly thinking about how your bf would feel. seriously when she’s fucking DYING her main concern is that Shulk doesn’t find out. like ok. Even her interactions with melia have that whole love triangle hanging over them as subtext. I greatly appreciate they didn’t got he jealousy angle and had Fiora genuinely want to reach out and be friends, but it does definitely feel like shulk is a matter constantly lingering whenever they talk.

And poor Sharla man. Seconds into meeting reyn she’s comparing him to her missing fiancé, despite still feeling he’s alive and wanting to find him. The game gives every hint that Gadolt may still be alive and rescuable, Meyneth even says smth like “I can feel this Homs still there” but not only does he die, he basically says “take care of her” to reyn like BOY you don’t know this man??? why would you say your last words to him and not your fiancé like ok. It felt like they wanted to make it “ok” for them to get together by killing him off and having him say that, even though everything until then had hinted with a hopeful tone that he could still be saved.

Ngl Melia’s unrequited love isn’t that bad but it does feel unnecessary considering how much she already suffers. Like you just really gotta rub it in huh. The fandom is wayyy worse about it than the game though, because canonically she moves on and is still surrounded by her friends and subjects and whatnot and doesn’t become some bitter scorned lover, but the fandom constantly jokes about it/acts like she is.

also some of the alt outfits, esp Sharla and Fiora’s are just...very obnoxious sexy fantasy armor. esp for flora when most of her body is supposed to be replaced with mechon parts but ig her tits were miraculously intact. They both deserve better writing ngl.

[littlecactiguy]

@yellowmagicalgirl

Rather than add onto our post again, I decided to write out what's been simmering in my thoughts in a Harrow the Ninth-inspired study, with Penny in Gideon's position in Ruby's head.

Ruby, like Harrow, locked her Cavalier away in her head with help (I sort of imply the brain surgery, but don't actually describe it here).

ngl I'm not entirely sure how the end of HtN would go in this au. I do like Penny ending up in a position similar to Kiriona at some point, though that's also largely due to me really liking the idea of inserting Copper in as a Nona (which I can concede is partial bias toward my own oc for Reasons) and them perhaps interacting.

Except that begs the question of, if Ruby's not in her body, then where'd she go? (talk to Maria in the Tomb maybe...)

(I also really like your idea about Ruby being speedy, especially bc it also kind of reflects her semblance. Though I'm not as well-versed in tlt theories - I have never been more frustrated that I left my copies of the books back with my family some states away.)

Anyways, here's a short(ish) study in the 2nd Person from Penny's POV (also the first time I think I've tried 2nd person pov, so that was fun)

Ruby.

I love you. I have always loved you. I always will.

I will do anything for you. I did everything for you.

I would do it all again.

So, why did you lock me away?

I know I’m not…I was never as good as you, as good as the others. I tried my best, but I…

I thought…

Do you not love me back?

I don’t understand. It was enough. My soul. We did it. You became a Lyctor, and it was enough. You lived.

Cinder didn’t.

It was worth it.

Then you sought her out. The one who helped Cinder, who lied to our faces, pretended to be our friend, and—

I don’t understand, Ruby. I’ve been trying to. It’s all I can do, inside this tomb you’ve made for me. Emerald tried to—

She and Cinder almost succeeded in—

And yet you—

She could have killed you. I watched. I fought her. I fought you.

You looked in the mirror when it was done. After they found you where you lay unconscious in that cold, dark prison. After they interrogated Emerald on what she had done and she replied, only what she asked me to do. After they healed you. After they tried, and failed, to free me.

You looked in the mirror. My eyes looked back at you.

You didn’t remember me. You still don’t.

We were together almost our whole lives and you threw it all away.

I loved you.

I still do.

But I…

Everyday since they brought you here, you struggle. You may have been faster, but you never had my strength, and now you’ve rejected it. You lift the blade they gave you, but it’s not enough. Not to deflect the General’s attacks. Not to parry his sword away. Your speed has kept his blade from your heart so far, but it can’t forever.

I know you fear he will kill you. I can feel it. I could have protected you. I swore I’d always protect you. Even before the vow left my lips.

You were the first thing I ever saw on the Ninth. I was alone. My father put in me in that pod and sent it away. He didn’t even put in coordinates. He didn’t know of anywhere I’d be safe. He hoped.

And I arrived on the Ninth. Months and months later. I mapped the stars that passed outside the only window I had on the journey. I wondered if they’d be the last thing I ever saw before my body finally deteriorated enough that I would be lost.

Except I arrived on the Ninth. I remember seeing its form grow bigger and bigger in that little window. I remember being relieved I would crash, because the journey would finally be over then, and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore.

And I wasn’t, just not how I thought.

It was terrifying, seeing the entry panel of the pod be jostled, my father’s last work, his sealing of it, being broken. Then, you got it open, and our eyes met.

You commented on mine being so bright so quickly I didn’t have the chance to say the same about yours.

No one had ever said anything like that to me before then. No one besides my father had ever talked to me before then either. No one on the Ninth would talk to me, not like you did. Not even your Uncle Qrow, though he was a little better than most.

You meant the world to me, Ruby. You still do. You always will.

I was meant to protect you.

Why won’t you let me?

My strength could be yours. My resilience. Every sword I wielded, I did for you.

Your arms tremble as you try to hold one now. You look at the General across the training arena. We both see the cold calculation in his eyes. They’re green, like mine. They aren’t his. We’ve both wondered who they once belonged to.

I wonder if that soul is like me. I hope they aren’t.

You told me, once, my world would never be a the littlest of windows ever again.

You lied.