#and if ppl knew that it was entirely intentional on his part and not a total accident

[chirpsythismorning]

While i do agree with u i have some weird feelings about us analyzing real ppl lol idk idk

Is this about Noah being the Tom Holland of ST??

I think if this was about Noah’s identity or something substantial related to him personally, and not just a basic thing that happens in promoting content as an actor, that would be one thing. But this is literally just speculation about a cast-member in relation to what they are/aren’t revealing about the show publicly.

If fans were coming across private footage of Noah, with like friends without his consent, or if fans were like hacking his shit without his consent trying to come up with evidence based on that, yes that would feel invasive. But I don’t see how just talking about how his behavior in terms of publicly promoting the show, out in the open, in relation to other actors doing similar things to promote their projects, is weird?

But to be entirely fair, I know some fans completely separate their experience in the fandom from the actors, where some don’t even follow the cast or pay any sort of attention to their actions in relation to promotion, bc they just feel uncomfy about having any sort of association with them outside of the show? Which is valid to a major extent, especially just knowing how private a lot of actors are and would prefer that their everyday life not be intermixed with their work in a way they aren’t at all wanting fans to do.

I would say that when it comes to Noah specifically and what he posts in regards to the show, that’s just literal public knowledge he is offering up on his own, to the point where he is literally talking to fans directly by acknowledging them, and doing it repeatedly.

I personally would stick to instances of him clearly out in the public eye interacting with fans, knowing he’s doing so and comfortable with it, before I would feel the need to make a point about what it could/couldn’t mean, based on him being an actor with a job which usually requires some instances of keeping your mouth shut, or saying something with the guise that oops I’m not supposed to because it makes people feel like they’re in on a big joke, even though it’s actually quite the opposite.

I’m not gonna sit on here and go into all of Noah’s micro expressions he has or every detail of what he’s doing and what he means at any given point, especially if it literally has nothing to do with the show.

But if dude is on TikTok live spoiling stuff, only to end it with im gonna get in trouble, followed by just repeating over and over again, I’m just gonna respectfully assume that he is a professional and knows what he’s doing, and he wouldn’t put the show and it’s success in jeopardy. If anything I’m giving Noah the benefit of the doubt here to be doing something that is fairly common, bc the alternative would be that he’s careless and doesn’t think the rules apply to him which… I just don’t think is the case here.

If you’re someone who feels uncomfortable making any sort of post about the cast in relation to how they promote the show bc it feels weird to analyze a real persons actions, fair enough!

My main point in bringing it up was to remind ppl that Noah, just like all of the cast, are actors. I think people take EVERYTHING they say about the show as gospel, which is exactly what they want, so I fully respect wanting to just go with that so we don’t make their job harder for them? After all going along with the joke that he spoils things, just like fans did with Tom, is only actually funny to those who willfully believe everything he does is by accident when he goes online and talks about the show. It wouldn’t exactly be good for everyone to know he’s faking bc then it sort of defeats the purpose.

So yes we should try to keep this our little secret and not put him on blast over it.

In the future, we’ll just have to wait and see what he or the others are willing to reveal publicly about what they did/didn’t know while promoting the show over the years, if they’re even willing to share that knowledge. If and until then, all we can do is wait and see.

[bunnwich]

Uh just a heads up, did you read/saw the Leona and you meeting in the novel? I kinda wanna talk about it

Leona and Yuu Meeting in the Novel

ANON ANON. YOU REALLY BROUGHT MY ATTENTION TO SOMETHING W I L D BC I HAD NEVER ACTUALLY READ THE NOVEL VERSION OF THE MC MEETING LEONA???? Also, I was gonna see if the EN translation had been released but it doesn’t in my area until 8/27 so RAAAAAAAAAAAA. OKAY SO LET'S BREAK IT DOWN. (Using @/yuurei20’s wonderful translation) So as we know, in the game and manga Leona comes off as very… aggressive?

He threatens to “rip out our tooth” which, sir???? Like from the first time, I could tell that this was just a “flex” and he absolutely was saying it in a facetious manner. Though in the manga they further escalate it, even going as far to have him going to kick Yuuken.

BUT, HERE???? IMO this interaction is much more indicative of his character as a whole. There is so much more nuance to his intentions here. Protecting his dorm, deescalating, being smart. All the stuff that I’ve been saying from when I started playing twst about him just keeps being proven to me. Also that perhaps Leona, actually doesn't like fighting. These are my main takeaways.

1.) Leona is a well-respected and liked dorm leader who is looking out for his dorm's best interests.

And his dorm mates follow his word like gospel for the most part. I feel like ppl tend to gloss over this bc he is lazy or w/e but the Savanaclaw students mostly love Leona and would do anything for him. 

It’s just nice to see so much of the stuff you get reading between the lines at the forefront here. He’s so much more calm and menacing here than cranky and aggressive and that feels so much more him? Leona’s intimidation IMO doesn’t come from his physical strength per se, it comes from the authority he commands, his demeanor, as well as his magic I’m sure.

-- He is wrapped in a strange atmosphere that attracts the stares of everyone around. Even hidden under his school uniform it is clear he is well-muscled, with a scar over his left eye that lends all the more power to his chiseled face. The fists of the older students froze in mid-air at the command, completely throwing off their momentum. Now, like small animals under the watchful eye of a predator, they shrink away, murmuring, 'Leona-san'. Ignoring the confused Deuce entirely, Leona raises an eyebrow at the formerly brawling group. 'Move up a grade and the first thing you do is start a fight in the street--are you all stupid?' 'But that brat is the one who started it first.' 'Huh. And? Don't like what I have to say, then?' 'Impossible! It's not like that at all.' Leona is dressed down, wearing neither the jacket nor the tie to his school uniform, but he does wear the same yellow vest as the three students who had come so close to exchanging blows with Deuce. All three have become properly obedient in front of their fellow dorm member, Leona. --

2.) HE DID WHAT???

SO in my head I always imagined Leona stepped a bit close and sniffed the air around Yuu/MC but in this version HE SNIFFS THE NECK?? LIKE FULL ON PUTS HIS NOSE TO THE BACK OF YUU’S NECK?? WHAT THE HELL???? THATS SO WILD SIR?? I’M CALLING THE POLICE??? YUUYA ,ARE YOU OKAY??

-- ‘Hey. You.''Y-yes?' Yuuya's response leaves him in a sound that is almost a yelp, because Leona has suddenly drawn close enough to place his beautifully-sculpted nose near to the base of Yuuya's neck.Yuuya breaks out in a cold sweat. Having his neck so exposed is frightening in a way he cannot put into words: he is frozen in fear of Leona tearing out his throat at any moment. --

3.) In this Ruggie CALLED Leona over to help Yuu and Deuce fight off the Savanaclaw goons.

That just gives such a layer to Savanaclaw as a whole, that neither one wanted to see Yuu and Deuce get beat up. Leona continues to show he has a soft spot for his underclassmen perhaps. I do think it mostly was about him protecting his dorm mates and not wanting them to get in trouble bc he knew Yuu was taken in by Crowley, the headmaster.

-- 'My name is Ruggie Bucchi.' Ruggie responds, with a deliberate shake of his whole body. 'And this scary personage is Savanaclaw Dorm Housewarden, Leona Kingscholar-san. We already know you're dumb enough to pick fights with upperclassmen, but even you know you won't be winning against our Housewarden, yeah? Times like this, you gotta side with whoever will benefit you the most.' 'Benefit? They're the ones who started this fight, and now they're trying to run away!' 'My my, aren't you a hot-blooded kitten--and here you should be thanking me. I called Leona over because I saw you were in danger, y'know?'Leona looks to Ruggie. 'Tch. Patronizing bastard. You just wanted to give me more to deal with.' 'Shi-shi-shi. That's our housewarden! Settle brawls in an instant like that, and people will start relying on you.' The three students who had been scuffling with Deuce and Yuuya look down at their feet, snickering; they seem to have cooled off after being chided by Leona. As his position in the dorm would lead one to assume, Leona seems to be well-liked.) (!!!) --

4.) Perhaps, Leona’s Lazy demeanor is just a front to something more.

-- Though he has a languid stare, his narrow pupils send a shiver down Yuuya's spine. Yuuya knows, instinctively, that challenging Leona on their own would be disastrously reckless. --

Anyways its just so funny that I never read this bc I assumed (wrongly) that it was just similar to the other version of this meeting and like…whoa. 

I know it doesn't seem like much of a difference now but when twst was newer and we got less depth to Leona, andhe came off as very one-dimensional guy who was aggressive for aggressive sake and most of my HCs were really were speculation for the most part, and at that time as not many bothered to read between the lines about him.

Yes, he is scary (stop sniffing ppl) but also a bit teasing, but lowkey a caring and good leader. I do think his intimidating persona is two-fold. Like…half is so he can command respect from his dorm mates and it’s needed to be the Savanaclaw dorm leader in the first place. And the other half is a front to hide the softer parts of his personality that he denies at every turn, like being idealistic and a good mentor.

5.)  Leona sort of defends Yuu when the 3 goons make a comment implying that Yuu needs to watch who they tangle with.

-- 'Nothing wrong with having guts, but prepare well enough to know who your opponent is.' 'Hahaha! Yeah, just like the Housewarden says!' 'I'm talking to you three, too.' --

IMO He’s clearly looking out for his Savanclaw member’s well being here but I think he does some inkling of respect for Yuu, whether that bc they are strange or simply bc they are affiliated with Crowley and he doesn't want trouble, either or both is interesting to me. 

(TBH I’m still NOT over the neck sniffing thing.)

I will be interested to see the official EN translation of this scene, so I’ll update ya’ll on that once I see it! I NEED to know if they change any of it. Sorry for the ramble but YES please anon, feel free to talk about it with me! I love to yap, thank you for bringing it to my attention!!

(Thanks again to @/yuurei20 for all the translations for this scene!! Your work is so so appreciated!!)

[aroacenezhaanddainsleif]

so i was rewatching the end of lmk s4 with some friends today, and i noticed that in 4x10 peng says smth to nezha like "let the demon child come out and play!" and like. if i knew more about nezha lore thatd probably be quite concerning to me as a lorehead. and you seem knowledgeable. so. any thoughts?

oh boy. (cracks knuckles) it's late and i should be sleeping but I'm also sad so Nezha interest go BRRRRR

i will say for any accurate/culturally referenced info, go check out @ruibaozha - i am simply summing up as much as i can and some stuff is missing/not elaborated on

let me break down the basic elements of the Nezha myths.

Nezha is born his mom and his military dad, Li Jing, and his older brothers Muzha (second) and Jinzha (first). but Nezha is like fucking. superpower baby for some reason? Apparently the heavens decided to bless Li Jing with a powerful son for his military prowess, and Nezha's mom, Lady Yin(?), was pregnant for 3+ years. Then Nezha popped out as a goddamn ball of flesh. His dad attacked him because hey! Flesh ball! But then Nezha's ball split open and he jumped out as an already formed young child (ages often unclear- ppl say he's 7, or 12, and in some cases he died after only 3 days(?) alive.) either way, Taiyi Zhenren swoops in to be Nezha's master, and everything is fine for some time.

at least til Nezha kills Ao Bing. this part of the myth is really what defines Nezha as a "demon child" or not. in Fengsheng Yanyi/Investiture of the Gods, ONE of the older/more well-known written versions of his story, Nezha washes his sash in the East Sea and causes the dragon palace to quake. Ao Guang understandably gets pissed and sends up his general to ask him to stop, who Nezha kills. then Ao Guang's 3rd son, Ao Bing, who Nezha also kills (and rips out his tendon to wear as a belt)! sometimes Nezha also kills a demon, apprentice of Lady Earth Flow, miles away on accident because he randomly fired a bow. yet in another cases, Nezha is the hero- a demon came up to eat children at the shore, and Nezha obviously killed the dude, then Ao Bing, same thing. but in other other versions, Nezha was friends with Bing and accidentally killed him while playing due to being ultra powerful...

and then Ao Guang threatens Nezha's town, because the kid killed his son. (sometimes Nezha goes and strangles Guang before he can talk to the Jade Emperor, so...) Guang demands an apology and/or Nezha's life or he'll flood the whole mountain pass. and Nezha decides to slit his own goddamn throat to apologize to his parents and "return his body to them". Aka: he commits suicide at like, seven(?)

From here on, stuff differs: Li Jing is a shitty dad (like he REALLY really hates Nezha. calls him a curse and beats him), Nezha gets a temple and Jing burns it down, Nezha gets reborn in a lotus body by his master and/or Buddha, goes on a murder rampage against his dad and Muzha (beats up Muzha w/ a golden brick), is forced to submit to his dad through a Golden Pagoda, making Li Jing the Golden Pagoda Bearing Li Jing, sometimes Jinzha gets to flog his brother, and Nezha's basically a bitter fire god (child) put into the literal armies of heaven. he's also got his 6/8-armed and 3-headed war form in the myths...

now, this is a very long yet still EXTREMELY short explanation of the myth(s), and the "message" really boils down to what version you tell- the boy who started stuff by (unintentionally) murdering people, or the hero. but a lot of the main point of nezha's myth was originally about filial piety, and can be told as a story to remind kids that the parents are always superior, but in more modern myths and stories, Nezha has ended up shifting more into a symbol of rebellion. He's the protection deity of children: the outcasts and the demon children, the kids who question things and are loud and outspoken and aren't what people (especially their parents) want them to be. Nezha's story entirely depends on region, context and intent, which makes him a very versatile figure.

Now, put that into LMK?

I have a lot of hcs abt why LMK Nezha is the way he is, but my main one comes down to that "demon child" line. I like to think that Nezha was basically an uncontrolled force of war power and killed Ao Bing (regardless of the situation).

But then he got put into heaven and 1. realized how he acted and had to deal with crushing guilt and self-hatred and 2. got groomed into a (then) child soldier 👍

He was still a general, but learned to channel all that destructive power into being a protector and how to defend instead (ex: his shields, sealing power, etc). He takes his current job very seriously bc he sees it as his only reason to still be worth existing. he also dislikes Wukong bc he sees far too much of a younger him in Wukong; doomed for destructiveness and chaos. this is also why i put parallels to Nezha and MK because. yeah. (and imo, although i know Nezha paid it back w/ his suicide, I'm a bit surprised Mei wasn't taught to hate him, due to how much family matters to dragons...)

so aka, my hc of: "dude was literally always seen as a demon child/symbol of destruction, and therefore after being used as a literal war weapon and then being made to guard a map for ages (probably because he didn't want to harm anyone else), DUDE'S GOT ISSUES!"

[actuallyfalin]

I dont interpret ruan mei as evil because she’s autistic, not because autistic ppl cant be evil and terrible but because she has a very aeon-like complex that is intrinsically tied to her autism and special interest in life and aeonhood.

MORE UNDER THE CUT

Aeons are neutral about their Paths, like how Lan doesnt give a fuck about if you feel blessed by their genocide or not or how Sunday almost reached aeonhood but couldnt because he wasnt completely neutral about his stance etc.

Ruan Mei's pursuit of aeonhood is, in a way, very selfish, in the sense that she’s willing to sacrifice a lot for it but it’s also neutral in a very scientific and detached way. She’s a very detached person in general, and doesnt really allow herself attachments, so she’s okay with sacrificing things because hey, it doesnt concern her.

It’s very much tied to her autism because she has very Specific things that she cares about, and even when she cares its not in a way that’s easily understood by others.

Her actions dont come with malicious intent but because she’s so tunnel visioned on her pursuit of aeonhood, she fails to recognise that her understanding of life is very much lacking and very much, hurtful in ways that are not computed through logic and science.

Like. She knows that her creations yearn for her affection but she is unable to give it back to them because 1) shes detached shes not particularly attached to them, whatever affection she forces herself to give would be fake 2) shes also super busy. So she entrusts them to the Trailblazer because she knows that TB would have the capacity and capability to care for them the way she couldn't. However, she fails to realise that her creations wants affection from HER, as their mother and creator. She knows she's hurting them but she doesn't entirely understand the root of the issue, so her solution, though a way of her showing her care, doesn't really solve the problem.

Another example is her cloning the emanator of propagation. Her attempt at bringing back the bug wasn't because she wanted to destroy the world but to test the limits of her understanding of life, destroying the world was simply a consequence that she didnt care about. That sounds bad, but it doesn't mean that she wanted to destroy the world, she just didn't care if getting results meant sacrificing everything else. However, she also knew it would have been a disaster, so she set a self destruct function AND assigned TB to take care of it. She doesn't realise that her attempt at cloning alone was extremely reckless and putting TB through it by deceiving them, even though she ultimately had "good" intentions, was hurtful at a personal level. In the process of trying to make her experiment more safe for the sake of others on the space station, she deceives TB and inevitably hurts their feelings and trust.

Ruan Mei wants to go further and further, but the part of her that has learned socialisation and does truly care about the welbeing of others, actually stops her from doing so, even if she may not necessarily realise it.

Ruan mei is someone who is not able to fully, properly CARE because she doesnt allow herself any forms of attachment, hence her apathy but she does SHOW care through her actions. However, because such care is not seen as natural, or even understandable by the vast majority, it goes under the radar. Most people don't understand her way of caring, and they don't try to. This is evident both in game and in real life by people who couldn't properly grasp her character in the quest.

Sorry that I digressed quite a bit but it ties in a lot with apathetic autistic people, and even just apathetic people in general who DO show care but it goes unnoticed and is scrutinised because it doesnt immediately come off as comprehensible and overtly caring to neurotypical people. It's common for people to think autistic behaviour is uncaring or dismissive, because they don't see us playing by their rules and don't make the effort to understand at all. Ruan Mei is a character who is extremely autistic coded, and her devotion to her research reads very much as an autistic person with a special interest. Special interests can cause the tunnel vision that Ruan Mei exhibits, and autistic people can and have neglected ourselves and others in the pursuit of our special interests. It doesn't mean that we don't care about other people anymore, we just prioritise our special interest above all else.

Ruan Mei isn't evil, shes just neutral and just doesnt have the same capacity to be emotional and attached as everyone else. The things that are important to her, aren't as important to others. The things that are natural to her, just aren't natural to others.

[zhouxiangs]

(2/2 - back to the bitchiness!)

Babe can cry all he wants about not feeling worthy of love, but he knew Way loved him (romantically or not), and it always looked like he had a good thing going with Alan too, and the team in general were pretty close - found family I thought?? He was by no means starved of affection until Charlie arrived on the scene. It might just be a personal thing, but I will, 9 times out of 10, always root for the shared history over the instalove, unless the latter is incredibly well-written and portrayed. And I'm sorry, but for me Charlie/Babe falls short on both counts. I genuinely don't like to criticise real ppl who've done nothing wrong, but I don't think I'm alone in feeling Charlie is a weak link in a fairly uniformly strong cast, and it becomes particularly glaring when playing next to actors like Pavel and Nut. Add to that the way they've styled him (with the stupid oversized glasses - as a glasses-wearer myself, this is a pet peeve!), and he looks to me like nothing more than a silly kid playing at being a grown-up (not sure what their ages are meant to be so maybe he is!). And then when it comes to being so amazing/special that he completely changes Babe's world...admittedly, I don't pay attention during his scenes so maybe I've missed something, but from what I can gather, he became obsessed with someone he'd never met, stalked him for a bit, deliberately infiltrated his personal and professional life, approached him with the intent of making him fall in love with him, and repeatedly lied to him about devastating truths? But it's okay, romantic in fact, because it was all just in service of saving his life? (Thank you btw for your own service in previously pointing out this correlation tween him and Way!) From what I see, all he does is slavishly worship Babe and be really good in bed? Personally, I don't think that makes for a particularly healthy and sustainable relationship! (And to be fair, this is again probably a flaw in the writing: because Babe is the main character, the way his relationships are portrayed disproportionately champion him, not the other person - it's about ppl doing things in service of him, supporting him, loving him - we see much less of what he actually gives back, of him supporting them, of why these ppl want him in their lives (besides having Pavel's face), and that can make these relationships seem very one-sided. Undoubtedly my bias showing through yet again, but I think those montages of Way and Babe's friendship, however brief, did a really good job of allowing the viewer to easily picture how that relationship came to be and why it meant so much to both of them.)

Sorry if I’ve been harsh – it’s all still meant in the spirit of constructive criticism (with maybe the teeniest hint of pettiness)! It’s just that, while everyone else is crying over Babe/Charlie, I’m still here obsessing over the idea of a young Way experiencing the devastating realisation that he can never ever tell the person he's fallen utterly in love with the truth about himself, because the second Babe knows he will never trust him again, never TOUCH him again. And, in a way, that realisation cements Way’s fate, because even if he wanted to thwart Tony’s plan, how could he do so without first revealing it, and thus revealing himself?

And somehow even worse is the fact that, if you think about it (don’t - it hurts), even if he’d escaped from Tony eons ago, Way was always doomed by his own power to be alone, because, let’s face it, would you ever completely trust someone who can do what he can? Wouldn’t a tiny part of you always be wondering if that brush of the hand, that easy arm over the shoulder, that comforting hug, was entirely innocent? If your thoughts were always entirely your own? And that just breaks my heart more than anything else in this show!

mm you're right, but i don't think it was love he was missing but romantic love. babe had friends and a family all rolled into one and they all seemed to have a great relationship, but as he said himself, he didn't want or need (romantic) love. it was meeting charlie and spending time with him (and being able to do so because of charlie's lack of stinky alpha pheromones) that made him realise that was something he wanted. yes he fell in love pretty quickly, but i think it's believable, specially considering it's his first love. people have been talking about this extensively so i don't really have anything to add, but it's so important to me how smitten babe is with charlie; there's the whole baddie aesthetic vs softie personality, screw toxic masculinity, Boys Can Be Soft Actually… i have 0 objectivity, he's perfect to me. i love romance and i love my car racing babygirl.

i know people are interpreting this differently and maybe i'm just wrong, or this may be a translation issue/something that's clearer in thai, but imo when babe said the line about sometimes feeling like he wasn't worthy of love bc of what way told him he was referring specifically to that one time we saw way manipulate him, and that it wasn't something that happened regularly. sorry i know i keep saying this, but i genuinely believe the focus on the escalating levels of manipulation wasn't only so we'd notice but because we were supposed to notice way's desperation and how he went from doing it occasionally to "help" babe (that first time in ep 2) to… everything that came later. not to drag way but he wasn't doing shit for those 10 years other than buying babe time by waiting for him to magically love him back. how tf did he convince tony lmao maybe tony just wasn't in any rush to get babe back yet since he knew he could do it whenever he needed him.

oh no you are fully right, pooh isn't the strongest actor (i used to think lee/dean was the weakest out of the cast because of some awkward moments during the first eps but then the garage scene happened and i cannot say that anymore, he was fecking amazing) which isn't surprising since it's his first role, but i also think it adds a certain charm to the character; charlie recently graduated so i believe he's around 22 (i was told a while back he's 20 in the novel, if that's relevant? and alan tells babe that jeff (20) and charlie are the same age but unlike koreans who ime usually mean born in the same year when they say that, i've seen things like a 27 yo being happy he's working with "people his age" talking about people aged 23 to 25, so…) and he is trying to save babe from their evil adoptive father and all his power basically by himself, so "a silly kid playing at being a grown-up" is an accurate description imo lol he really is a brave, naive, optimistic kid, and that's what will make him succeed ultimately. i super believe in you charlie pit babe. also please do not come for charlie's styling, he's wearing my glasses lmao (they're normal sized?? or we have the same temple to cheekbones ratio, so yes, they just look like that) (also people please prioritise field of view over glasses size) (this was funny btw, don't think i was offended!)

waynnie, i am in my way feels 24/7. i cannot stop thinking about his isolation even when he had the team and his best friend by his side because as much as they felt like a family to him, his secret was always (and was always going to be) between them like a persistent ghost. i cannot stop thinking about his anxiety meds (afaik triazolam is used in my country to treat transitory insomnia, btw, but i'm not a doctor and we're going with the subs) and about how if he'd wanted to tell babe about tony earlier he would have had to tell him everything which would make him lose the only good things he has in his life, so no wonder he needs those meds. and not to sound like a broken record, but again, it's a fact that both charlie and way approached babe under false pretenses and both fell in love with him, but because way did so under tony's orders and not of his own volition this is somehow unforgivable…? intent is important and charlie was lying for a good reason, he wouldn't have been able to get close to babe by telling him the truth, but ultimately both of them lied and if we're judging only that fact they're either both wrong or both right, pick one.

i also keep thinking about the parallel of touch and having feelings about (possible) pete powers that the show will probably invalidate in a few hours. and because i love pain and suffering, i keep thinking how people's reaction to knowing someone can manipulate them just by touching them would be worse to their already horrible reaction to knowing someone can see their future by touching them, so yeah. we love it here in the pit babe of despair.

[golbrocklovely]

everyone deals with traumatic events differently, maybe Colby chose to keep working for the purpose of keeping busy and to take his mind off this terrible thing that he was going through. It's a very human coping mechanism.

I say this because this is my escape mechanism for some medical things that I have gone through similar to Colbys, the doctors even encouraged me to keep busy and to try and continue doing things like work and tbh if I hadn't I think I would have given up or lost myself to the darkness.

So taking a break is all well and good but it might not have been what he needed at the time for his mental sanity (we already know in one moment of quiet where he was not keeping busy he messed around with the bald filter on his phone which is a hint that quiet doing nothing time allowed the thoughts to seep in, because they do seep in anytime your not finding some way to keep busy when going through that), so please don't be mad at him for not taking one when he was going through it all.

By the sounds of it from the podcast now the stressful thing has passed and he has the all clear they are planning some kind of holiday in November, hopefully it will be a long one because I do agree Colby especially needs a break. I also agree that he needs to talk to a professional now as well and maybe he does but we don't know about it, I mean it took ages for Sam to confess to seeing someone as it's a very private thing and not everyone feels comfortable saying they see a therapist especially if they are under the publics eye.

i'm not mad that he didn't take a break. if it's coming across like that, that's not my intention. if anything it's heartbreak for him, maybe frustration at the most. i agree with you that he probably had to work thru the diagnosis and chemo bc otherwise it would have gotten bad for him mentally. that's for sure. and i get why he did it, bc at the end of the day he's a work horse. both him and sam don't know how to take an actual break, with absolutely no working whatsoever. i mean even posting for us or anything. they don't know how to do that.

my issue is that it seemed like, to me, that he needed a break way before even finding out he had cancer. last year wasn't exactly a great time for him. he seemed really upset for a while, even talked about not really liking himself/his appearance. it seemed like, to me, his summer was kinda spent feeling this way. along with everything else that went on last year, i just think the last half of the year he seemed off.

then on xplrclub, they did a final podcast at the tail end of december and he talked about his vacation by himself for three days in hawaii - one of them being christmas itself - and that was the most enthused i've seen him in a while. he seemed so happy to take a break. he even joked about looking at real estate in hawaii. and sam…. talked about wanting to jump back into working, but knew nothing would happen until after new years since ppl don't start working until then. and colby, to me, did not seem happy to get back into things. he didn't seem upset, but you could just tell he probably wanted more time to chill out. they talked about how much work they had last year and how they weren't sure how to top that (as if any of us really needed them to do that, but that's besides the point). and colby has mentioned on more than one occasion about getting overwhelmed and stressed out over the workload they set for themselves.

all of this is to say, that while i get why he worked during the entire cancer process, chemo included, it clearly didn't help him in the long run. bc he never got to work thru what having cancer even truly meant. he literally lost a body part and went thru something traumatic and did not process any of it. i get preoccupying yourself, but that doesn't mean you force yourself to not realize what you're going thru. that's no better. i mean, he said it himself that he doesn't even think he's come to terms with the fact he had cancer and that he lost a part of himself. and that he's gonna have to deal with that for the rest of his life. he himself said that almost verbatim on xplrclub. again, i get not wanting to lose yourself to the darkness, but you can't ignore it either. it's still gonna be there whether you turn your back to it or not.

that's why i feel like after he knew he was cancer free, instead of headfirst diving into work again like nothing happened (after a week of binge drinking in japan), he should have took time to really heal or actually take a break. bc it seems like once he had an ounce of time to think about all he's been thru, it was too much for him. and forcing yourself to work instead of facing your problems is not the best strategy, i'm sorry. not only that, he pointed out (based on what he said in an extended version of the 'i have cancer' video he put on xplrclub) that one of the reasons he went back into work during chemo was bc he felt like so many ppl relied on him to get better and jump back into things like nothing changed. obviously he worked bc he wanted to, but i think he also thought he couldn't take a break or shouldn't, at the very least. and that's just not healthy. it was funny back in the day for snc to joke about not having a work/life balance, but that's not the case anymore. the fact they don't have personal lives as much as they should have is concerning, not cute.

and again none of this is meant to be me saying colby's dumb or stupid for his decisions. i'm not saying that at all and i don't feel that way either. i get why he chose what he did. i just wish he understood that taking a break is also a valid, and really necessary, choice that he should make. sam included. they both went thru hell and i don't think they've realized it bc they force a smile and keep pushing on. you can only say 'it is what it is' so many times.

and as for the therapy, i truly hope he is seeking something out. whether it's with a professional or even in a group setting. just something. and i get him not wanting to tell us if that is the case. totally understandable, i don't fault him if he is seeking treatment but isn't saying anything to us. i don't personally think he is just bc he hasn't even alluded to it and he has always talked so positively about mental health and seeking treatment when you need it, that i find it a bit strange for him to not mention it if he was. but again, it's his choice and if he wants to tell us, cool. and if not, also cool.

[pinkseas]

[parasocial bestie] am going thru hte ask and methinks everything's settled and now we can go bac to square one of our routine braining i think <333 ALSO I SAW THE POST ABT THE. DNI with me unless you are a perfect clone of me like REAL SO REAL altho we have diff interpretation on things icb i did manage to find someone out of pure coincidence who likes 98% of what i like abt xlmi and genshin in entirely i just <3333333 like EEEEEEEEEEEEEE i finally have a reason to take my mind off twitter. tumlr ur always hte man 4 me. anyway

"its just part of his life part of his duty nothing more and nothing less. but that doesnt stop the shame that comes with anything he perceives as failure" OH GOD YEAH THAT IS SUCH AN EXCEPTION he holds high standards of what he does to ppl but not what he does for himself. it just feels so fucking painful abt xiao's character never considering himself in everything Except when it comes to other ppl to the point he goes for self sacrifice is SO!!! and yet what he does hold such noble intentions of a selfless hero even by the means of thankless acts, that he'll never be a figure to be worshipped and known as much as other adepti do. "After living for so long... to die in the act of saving others would not have been a terrible thing." is always a line that gets me about his character in entirety that he really needs to see things in another perspective too.

"it may not be the Main focus but zhongli and xiao's relationship in this fic is basically the second biggest focus beyond xiao himself/the xiaolumi of it all tbh" even before The Brainrot Festivals GOD WE ARE SHARING THE BRAIN. ive always had this impression since the start i knew of xiao those years ago, how important zhongli is as that certain figure in his life; a master a mentor a guardian just someone who reflect on his life for experiencing the same thing. but xiao doesnt know that well about zhongli, about morax, and how much the guy's changed and felt the need itd be better for xiao himself to change too. it doesnt have to be the same, for what zhongli tries to teach him, it had to be something that makes his life at least, if not bearable, is simply for xiao to be comfortable and free of suffering bc the guy doesnt let himself to. and dkfksajhdas i explore this sm though brainrots and all the different scenarios like when i told u about them going fishing, and then there's the very Very important chain of events i had in mind how it is when xiao coped about rex lapis' death and what happened after knowing.

it's a little embarrassing to explain how but like yknow my tendency to just Hurt Xiao in ways not completely whump but in a form of vulnerability he truly needs that attention and care bc of his routines and duty are slowly eating him inside out. vulnerabilities of his emotional detachment affecting his body that makes him so human. i think abt how he supresses so much in the past pre-morax he genuinely doesnt know how to express anymore, and when he does, its a sensation so overwhelming that his body isnt used to it anymore with the catharsis all the fight and flight responses the adrenaline giving him the chest pain of just,.. having emotions yknow. and the death of the yakshas the disappearance of bosacius all had different magnitudes of emotion that the death of rex lapis affected him so much being the last straw of it all, how it all crashes down when exuvia fell and not rising back up again giving him that strong reaction then he Overworks To Cope.

then comes the time zhongli came to the balcony (in canon he reveals the truth in dreams,.. but i Like the two that they have a diff confrontation bc of how much zhongli knows xiao back then until the present) to tell everything, just for the revelation to hit xiao like a truck the pain the catharsis the exhaustion Everything hes been through the past few days where zhongli prolonged saying the truth now hit him that his body couldnt take it all and just shuts down. like boom he collapsed. and that's not a good reaction at all, and yet the yaksha recovers (as much as he managed, despite how weak it rendered him), assuring he's ok, trying to dismiss it with the same numbness that plagued him since morax saved him. back to square one. mf factory resetted himself, starting over. rex lapis is alive and thats good in all things thats it, all the unwilling attempts in processing it are now useless. and it brings a whole new story of how zhongli sees this all unfold altogether.

and i just,... shniffsniff....... think about what comes after, bc zhongli is not gonna let that slide even if he's pretending as a mortal even if he has to spend most of his time in the harbor since he wants to, but he also wants the best for xiao; the only one who hasnt let go of the past and accept change like the adepti does bc he doesnt know how. and its through the little things; giving the remedium, be it through posting or directly to the inn (id like to think verr goldet is the only one who knows by mere guess hes rex lapis, but respects his decision to step down no matter the reason, and zhongli trusts her immensely on the secret in exchange he becomes that special balcony visitor. an unspoken agreement o both of them.), the times xiao blacks out from karma and he wakes up on bed in his personal room in the inn with cold tea by the bedside. when he finishes his battle in the middle of heavy rain, drenched and cold, and he feels the bullets on his shoulder stop from the shield of an umbrella behind him; zhongli doesnt say anything more than to advise him of proper shelter nearby. when he finds xiao curled up, knees on his chest in his own needed respite, in pain but also in shame, zhongli takes the time to simply kneel and pat his head and keep him company until xiao can quietly teleport away. like god do you have any idea how much i love the thought of parental zhongli or at least a zhongli who Cares like can you tell

anyway icb thats enough for me to go on 4 paragraphs longer than i intended OK MOVING ON EVERYTHING YOU EXPLAIN ABOUT XIAOS WINGS,... GOD its the way it makes sense it makes so much sense he'd rather have any semblance of his past severed to build himself anew but its kinda funny too. that he intends as such and yet he also doesnt; still thinking himself as sinful as he was as the bloodhound who deserves all the punishment when the whole point of starting anew is Not Doing That and actually continue as a fresh warrior with new roles and new things to do without counting the past. like WHAT BRO

personally id go for the first one bc i still like the thought he keeps them for the mere sentimentality and i feel like he wouldnt bear to lose the only thing he wants to hold on about a childhood he lost before, even if he doesnt remember it. the mere thought of it existing providing him that sort of painful comfort its still there, even if seeing it hurts knowing he cant taste the joy of flight anymore. having flight being out of reach and he'd have constant reminders of it is just that little sign xiao never really moved forward even in the beginning o)-( he doesnt even summon it after it recovered, doesnt even pay attention while people tended it, only finding the solace of it existing at his back. and yknow for the Pain Points i actually thought that after it had been mangled so bad xiao never actually showed it to anyone its condition despite his human body recovered and he purposely Dismisses Its There than just Knowing, and its only when the pain of it being untreated becomes unbearable and at the right topic being brought up did he reveal them. guizhong had been so terrified of its condition, so pitied and devastated that they werent told and xiao was so small so young hes a child hes a child and he revealed them without an change in his expression to the moment he falls from the pain. the way he speaks of his wings as a mere fact it existed. and at some point in her grief to him she felt the need to just,.. restore his flight by making mechanical wings bc she just knew his real ones wont support him anymore even after treatment. and morax himself shared the exact sentiment, the two standing forlornly and the half-progress blueprints guizhong spent day and night in her tears to just give xiao back what he lost.

other bits im just AUUUUUUUUEUEUHUSHFVUFBKDSHFKJSDFKH SO TRUE SO TRUE UEEEEEEEEEEE CUS I RAN OUT OF BRAIN JUICE WRITING THE OTHERS. like i hope u get da message. i rlly spend everything on two things JDFHKSDJFHKSDJH ok but wait "learning to feel human learning to live as mortal people do learning the values of life itself learning how to love the little things" LIKE MAN....................................... also giggling wit u thats the problem on the theory when 500 yrs had passed then wats the use of scouting, hows the other world going bro? 500 yrs late and alrd destroyed? yeah

teehee

"i finally have a reason to take my mind off twitter" YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and in the end isnt that the most important thing of all… LMAO no but genuinely so so so glad bc ur right the sheer Coincidence of liking so many of the same aspects of this game i love it so bad we're so cool and epic for this fr

"never considering himself in everything Except when it comes to other ppl to the point he goes for self sacrifice" yeah o(-( THE NOBLE INTENTIONS THE THANKLESS ACTS… dies a little bit. AND YEAH THAT FUCKING LINE KILLS ME EVERY TIME ITS SO. IM SO. IM SO.

"a master a mentor a guardian" HE IS SO IMPORTANT TO XIAO AND THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT TO ME !!!!!!!!! and ohhh my god xiao not realizing how much has changed and that zhongli thinks itd be for the better if xiao changed too… trying to teach him how to be comfortable and how to suffer less………..

"my tendency to just Hurt Xiao in ways not completely whump but in a form of vulnerability he truly needs" NO BC UR SO BASED FOR THIS imo xiao is like. either a) you have to really Get In There and take his walls down brick by brick with so much patience and care, or b) something uncontrollable has to come in and smash those walls to pieces all at once, to the point where he needs the help from others where he has no choice but to let people in and be vulnerable around them. specific people cant really try to force it, i REALLY dont think that would work at all i think thatd make things so much worse, but either lots of patience and care or smth that isnt done Purposefully By Anyone Else for the sake of him opening up yknow??

"bc his routines and duty are slowly eating him inside out" NO BEACUSE YEAH. YEAH. GOD. his karma :handshake: his duty settling on his shoulders consuming his life eating away at him so slowly but surely. and what would he do without them? who would he be without them? he doesnt even know. he thinks there'd be nothing left but there'd be so much and then so much room for him to grow, too, and i just. i just. fmgnmdfngmfdg.

THE CHEST PAIN OF EMOTIONS repressing so much he literally just doesnt know what to do with it im so. Explodes. that last fucking straw after centuries of hardship is something that can be so. AND XIAO TRYING TO DISMISS IT WHEN HE FLAT OUT COLLAPSES being ashamed to have been so """weak""" as for that to have happened going back to square one with feeling numb im so. and the way that changes zhongli's perception of everything ohhhhh my god. xiao going from someone so strong and resilient, every bad thing seemingly rolling off without stopping him, only to realize that while he is strong and he is resilient everything that he seemed to have dealt with on his own has just. made its way into his chest and festered there, buried and ignored and rotting, eating him alive bit by bit.

"but he also wants the best for xiao, the only one who hasnt let go of the past and accepted change like the adepti do bc he doesnt know how" THISSSS he doesnt know how. god. GOD. xiao seemingly so detached from the past, he himself not realizing just how much he clings to it the fact that he's still living in it something something a house on fire something something being so used to something that you dont realize its not supposed to hurt this much, its not supposed to feel this way.

"(id like to think verr goldet is the only one who knows by mere guess hes rex lapis)" THIS FUCKS i support this wholeheartedly it makes a lot of sense and mmmmm the mutual respect and trust they have for one another even unspoken…. the care they have for xiao the gratitude that someone is looking after him in ways they themselves are unable to do…. explodes.

BLACKING OUT AND WAKING UP ON HIS BED ohhh my god. there is osmething So Personal about all of that about zhongli not always actively Doing Something or Saying Anything but just BEING there being around xiao showing that he cares that xiao isnt alone. fuck. I CAN TELL AND I LOVE IT SO BAD ITS SO GOOD idk i like. i rly liked the idea?? but it takes more of a push for me to really Think About and brainrot parental characters or guardian figures and everything youve ever said abt them has made me go from "yeah that fucks, nice" to "yeah that FUCKS let me think about every scenario ever on earth with them now" which i am so grateful for <3333

"still thinking of himself as sinful as he was as the bloodhound who deserves all punishment when the whole point of starting anew is Not Doing That" YEAHHHHH man said alright let me sever all ties let me cut myself loose. except for every awful thing i have ever done which will live with me in my heart forever amen. king PLEASE

and god yeah wanting to hold on even without remembering it, that painful comfort the constant reminder of what he once had and never will again and IT BEING A SIGN THAT HE NEVER TRULY MOVED FORWARD…. man. Man. guizhong being so horrified and sympathetic, mourning for him when he cannot mourn for himself, MECHANICAL WINGS……. thinks so hard about those blueprints gathering dust, not quite perfected, eternally unfinished. thinks so hard about the traveler someday stumbling across them, or zhongli after his retirement digging them up again, either way them going to each other with the knowledge and searching for someone who could help make them a reality, working with perhaps inventors from fontaine and getting venti's blessing similarly to how its his power that allows the wind gliders to work (i think??) and using the traveler's knowledge from other worlds and familiarity with flight and determination to help xiao regain what was lost.

i like to think that where lumine is awfully fond of nature aether excels with machinery, maybe she could use what she'd learned from him or maybe he himself In The Aftermath if things go well enough could help and just. god. polishing up those finishing touches making them work testing them out. xiao being able to fly again. xiao healing enough mentally to be able to bring himself to even try fly again.

[cosmicjoke]

Hello cosmic! I was just reading a post about Levi & Zeke elaborating on their differences and a few similarities (which regarding the latter imo they have none). Anyway, one of the similarities they mentioned is this "Levi and Zeke were both captain of their teams who sacrificed the lives of their comrades if needed so the ppl who say what Zeke did is horrible but call Levi a hero who also admitted they killed their comrades for their goals are hypocrites. Zeke felt bad too, only that his view in life was different"

I don't believe any of this of course but I really like to read ur analysis on this take. Thank u!

Hi there,

Well, this is one of the dumbest takes I think I've ever read, lol. Just on the most basic level, Levi was fighting for humanity's survival, and Zeke, despite what he told himself, was fighting for his own sense of self-importance, wanting to see himself as "special", feeding his narcissism and ego. But the major key difference between Levi "sacrificing lives" for the Survey Corps cause, and Zeke, is that Levi didn't use people as tools against their knowledge or will. Every single member of the SC KNEW what they'd signed up for, and what the risks were, and they agreed to it willingly. Levi never lied about what he, or what they, were fighting for. Zeke, on the other hand, purposefully and constantly kept his comrades in the dark as to his true intentions, manipulated them and used them as a means to an end which they never agreed to, or had any awareness of. He was a pathological liar who viewed the lives of his comrades, and everyone else, as nothing more than weapons for him to wield in order to accomplish a completely selfish and personal goal of making himself into the world's "savior", whereas Levi was always blunt and honest, and viewed the lives of his comrades and of people in general as the priority, only able to put aside his own desire to save and protect his fellow soldiers in the belief that it would lead humanity to having a future.

None of the people whom Zeke could count as friends or comrades ever agreed to anything he did. None of them ever volunteered for what he did. He routinely and intentionally placed them in mortal danger, forcing them into circumstances beyond their will or knowledge, saw them as disposable tools in a game only he was playing, or agreed to play. He betrayed all of them, and then had the gall to act as if the great burden was on him for having to make the "tough choice" of killing them, and then, richest of all, re-framing his murder of them as an act of mercy, rather than just admitting to what it was, a selfish, cruel act on his part in order to attain a personal dream. He's a complete narcissist, and how people constantly miss this about him is beyond me. Everything Zeke ever did was motivated purely by self-obsession. He saw his acts of murder as mercy because, being a narcissist, he couldn't separate other people from himself, saw them as simply an extension of himself, and so forcibly projected all of his feelings and viewpoints onto them. He never cared about anyone but himself, that's what these Zeke defenders don't get. Just because Zeke SAYS he cares doesn't mean jack squat. Actions speak louder than words, and every single one of his actions paints a picture clear as day of someone who was entirely motivated by his own, self-obsession and self-pity. Someone so self-absorbed, that he couldn't even see how what he were doing was using people against their will all in an attempt to reaffirm his own sense of self-righteousness. He decided, because he had a shitty childhood, that the lives of every single Eldian in existence was worthless. That's PURE selfishness. It drives me crazy that people are blind to this about Zeke.

Levi, in comparison, had a significantly WORSE childhood than Zeke, living in intense squalor, violence, deprivation and desperation all the way through to his adulthood, and yet, somehow, he has the exact opposite view, knowing that, DESPITE his childhood being horrible, and experiencing immense loss and suffering in his life, other people's lives are still worth living, still valuable, still precious. He understands that other people have the right to choose, that their will and agency means something. Zeke doesn't know that because Zeke only sees himself as having value. Everyone else is just a thing for him to use.

This is a completely invidious comparison, and to make it shows the person making these points completely missed the thematic contrast between Levi and Zeke, which is hugely important both to the themes of the story itself and to understanding their characters.  Levi represents the value of life, represents life having purpose and meaning.  Zeke represents nihilism, thinking life has no inherent value or meaning.  The contrast between them is intentional on Isayama’s part.  Levi values life about everything.  Zeke doesn’t value life at all.

[firelxdykatara]

ppl love to forget that katara: 1. has her own taste, 2. developed around aang, he needed her for his development and vice versa, 3. ZUTARA IS SHIP BETWEEN AN OPPRESOR X OPPRESSED!!! Ignoring all of the development they had with their respective partners and the trauma Zuko caused Katara!!

In the infamous words of one Luke Skywalker: amazing. every word of what you just said was wrong.

It’s actually kind of ironic that you bring up Katara’s taste, since, throughout the show, we have examples of the guys she likes, to greater or lesser extents in canon--Jet (explicit romantic feelings on her part, word of god that jet was her first kiss--a kiss that would have been consensual, incidentally, something you should keep in mind for later) and Haru (she denies the crush, but that could just as easily have been because of the abomination he’d been growing on his lip rather than denying those feelings ever existed), both of whom have much more in common (in terms of both emotional and physical maturity, and physical appearance) with Zuko than either of them has with Aang.

Zuko’s book 3 hairstyle is almost exactly reminiscent of Jet’s, even, if not quite as floofy.

(This is probably in part because of Jet’s function as a foil of Zuko within the narrative, particularly given their book 2 encounters, which I think just further solidifies my point that, were it not for extenuating circumstances [like the fact that Zuko was introduced as an enemy and they had significant obstacles to hurdle before they could be friends], Zuko would have been exactly Katara’s type. Had they met under different circumstances, she could have been the girl he went on a date with in Ba Sing Se. Just something to think about.)

So, yes, we’ve established that Katara has her own taste. Her tastes seem to be boys with great hair who are taller than her, the same age or older, and of a similar maturity level.

Aang falls short (heh, short) on all counts. So it isn’t Katara’s taste in boys that led her to be interested in him. Hm!

Next, you claim that Katara ‘developed around Aang’--that she was necessary for his development, and that he was necessary for hers.

Let’s take a moment to examine that, shall we?

I will absolutely grant you that Katara was necessary for Aang’s development--only to a point, of course, but we’ll get to that later--but was he really necessary for Katara‘s growth? I suppose I could grant you this on a generous technicality--he did, after all, provide her with the means to finally leave the South Pole and find a waterbending master to teach her (although she wound up largely self-taught anyway). But that had nothing to do with his relationship to Katara and everything to do with the structure of the plot--Katara and Sokka find Aang (and he never would have gotten out of that iceberg without Katara’s own righteous anger, so even that leads back to her own power), and then they go on a quest to find teachers for the Chosen One and save the world.

The story could not have begun without first finding Aang and then providing means for the other main characters to travel with him (or, in Zuko’s case, chase him), but this has nothing at all to do with Aang’s relationship to Katara. Aang was not a mover in Katara’s developmental arc--if anything, he acted as an obstacle more often than not, his actions ranging from innocent but obnoxious (playing and flirting with girls rather than helping with chores like picking up vital supplies, leaving Katara to do all of the quite literal heavy lifting and keeping her stuck in the role of caretaker that she’d been thrust into following the death of her mother), to deliberate and harmful (hiding the map to Katara and Sokka’s father, a truly selfish action, regardless of his lack of malicious intent, and one for which he never actually apologized), to somewhere in between (”she didn’t really mean that” he says to the man refusing to train Katara because she’s a girl, when yes, she very much did mean that, and Aang was no help in finally getting the old codger to eat his words--Katara had to shove them down his throat her own damn self).

While Katara’s overall arc wasn’t exactly big and dynamic (like Zuko’s redemption arc), or in-your-face (like Sokka getting force-fed Respect Women Juice and his eventual growth into a tactician and leader), it was very much present and woven into her character--and Aang had almost no part in it. He provided her with the means to get to the North Pole, but left Katara alone to fight the patriarchy herself. He messed around while Katara took it on herself to do the chores and keep the Gaang alive, but he did almost nothing to decrease that burden so she could grow out of the caretaker role. (Contrary to popular shipper claims, Aang didn’t actually teach Katara to have fun. She already knew how to have fun. But she couldn’t indulge, because she had a responsibility to her family and her tribe, and later to her brother and Aang and Toph, and Aang goofing off and trying to get her to do the same only added to her burdens rather than subtracting from them.) He provided Katara with the necessary motive to learn to heal herself, but he certainly didn’t seem to learn from the experience of accidentally burning her, preferring instead to claim he was never going to firebend again, despite already knowing, at that point, that he was going to need to master fire along with the other elements to become a fully realized Avatar and defeat the Firelord.

He didn’t help Katara keep them alive during The Desert. (In fact, he ran off, leaving her to desperately try to keep Sokka and Toph from succumbing to the heat while worrying for his safety.) In The Painted Lady, Katara makes the decision to stall the Gaang and do what she can to help the Fire Nation villagers on her own--Aang agrees to help her when he finds out, but he wasn’t actually instrumental in her making that choice. The Puppetmaster was, again, Katara finding a master of her own, and having to deal with the fallout from that. And in The Southern Raiders, Aang was--perhaps unknowingly, if I’m being generous, because he is a child and could not reasonably be expected to fully understand the implications of what he was asking her to do or why it was impossible--actively impeding Katara’s development! She desperately needed closure, something he could not understand and actively belittled and dismissed. The only reason he relented in the end (but not without a condescending ‘I forgive you! Does that give you any ideas???’ parting shot lmao) was because Katara was planning to take Appa anyway, and letting her go (and hoping she’d just magically wind up doing things his way) was easier than trying to fight her on it.

While Aang’s existence was necessary for Katara to start down her own path, she needed neither his guidance nor his approval to follow it--and absolutely nothing would change about Katara’s arc if you removed their romantic relationship entirely.

Possibly because the only changes needed to do so would be to remove the two times Aang kissed Katara without her consent (which, hopefully, no one would actually miss), and the epilogue kiss (which was awkward and unnecessary to begin with, since ending the entire show on a romantic kiss as the final shot kind of missed the point of the story to begin with, but that’s another discussion). None of these kisses (which are the only moments in which Katara’s feelings for Aang are so much as addressed; do note that addressing them, or hinting that they needed to be, is not the same as saying she exhibited any sign of reciprocating them) altered anything about Katara’s behavior, her personal arc, or (and perhaps most critically) her relationship with Aang.

It’s that last point that is really damning, as far as ‘Katara obviously had feelings for Aang, she kissed him in the finale!’ goes. Because she didn’t ‘obviously’ have feelings for him. And the fact that he kissed her before the invasion and then she forgot about it (she literally had no idea what he was talking about during the play’s intermission until he reminded her that he’d kissed her) is pretty clear evidence that she didn’t actually have feelings for him. Not the kind he had for her.

I’ve been a teenage girl. I know what it’s like to be surprise!kissed by your crush. And I absolutely for a full fact know that I had not completely forgotten about that kiss three months later and had, in fact, spent most of my waking hours thinking about it and remembering it and trying to talk to him about it. Now, granted, I was not in the middle of a war, but even if I had been, I doubt I would have needed reminding about the fact that the boy I’ve supposedly been developing feelings for had kissed me and showed clearly that he had those feelings for me too.

At the very least, if Katara was harboring feelings that she was worried about approaching until after the war, her relationship dynamic with Aang should have shifted. But it didn’t. She acted the exact same way with him after the Day of Black Sun as she did before it--that is, as a mother figure and a caretaker, responsible for his wellbeing. (And it’s clear she never took him down off the pedestal she needed him to occupy, either--let it not be said that the unhealthy aspects of their relationship only went one way.)

And book 3 is, incidentally, where Katara went from being vital to Aang’s development to being detrimental to it--or, rather, Aang’s refusal to let go of his attachment to her (despite ostensibly having done as much at the end of book 2) was. Because despite having been told by, perhaps, the greatest authority left in the world on Air Nomad culture (even more than Aang, who had left his temple with a child’s understanding of his culture that was never able to mature because he got stuck in the ice berg while his people were wiped out) that he had to let go of his possessive attachment to this girl who never even expressed the possibility that she might harbor romantic feelings for him to begin with, after Azula killed him and Katara brought him back, he went right back into the mindset of Katara is mine, it’s just a matter of time.

And the narrative validated him for it.

Notice how, during Ember Island Players, Aang says the following (emphasis mine):

“We kissed at the invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.”

First of all, if you go back and watch the scene, it’s clear it wasn’t a mutual kiss. Aang sprang a surprise kiss on Katara, which left her shocked and unhappy after he flew off. (The decision to have her looking away and frowning was a deliberate one on the part of Bryke, who wanted Katara’s feelings kept ambiguous. Heaven forbid you allow the animators to make it clear that this fourteen-year-old girl who was just kissed without her consent by someone she’d never once demonstrated romantic feelings toward might actually have some. Heaven forbid she have a little agency in her own romantic narrative. But whatever.)

Second, he says he thought they were gonna be together.

He thought.

He never once even asked Katara what she thought--or even how she felt. He just assumes. He assumes that if he kisses her, she’ll kiss him back and they’ll get together. He assumes that she must have feelings for him, even though her body language is closed off and she told him with her words that she did not want to talk or think about this right now, and kisses her regardless of those signals, upsetting her and leading her to storm off.

And the narrative rewards him, because despite the fact that they don’t have a single significant scene together after that second disastrous kiss, Katara just decides off-screen that she Does Love Him Really and walks onto the balcony to make out with him.

The upshot of all this being that, while Katara was indeed instrumental to a lot of Aang’s early growth and development, Aang was not necessary for her own arc, and their romantic relationship (such as it was) actively hampered Aang’s development in book 3, while removing it would change absolutely nothing for Katara (except saving her from some painfully embarrassing memories).

As far as your third point, I’m simply not going to get baited into explaining how reducing Zutara to an ‘oppressor/oppressed’ relationship is not only insulting to interracial couples irl (not to mention any other couple with a potentially unbalanced dynamic of societal power, since there are many more axis of oppression than just racial), but demeaning to Zuko and Katara, their personal arcs as well as their relationship development together.

However, I will point out that Zuko was not responsible for any of Katara’s trauma. She did not find violence and fighting in bending battles to be traumatic--in fact, she reveled in it. She enjoyed fighting against Zuko at multiple points (especially noticeable in their battle at the end of book 1), because she wanted to fight--she always had--and once she had the ability, she was ready to throw down with anyone who gave her the slightest reason. (Including, by the way, her own potential waterbending master.) Aang’s death at the end of book 2 was Azula’s doing, and while I think that contributed to Katara’s extreme reaction to Zuko joining the gaang, it was not something for which she actively blamed him, and it wasn’t something she believed would be repeated--she let him go off alone on a journey to find the original firebending masters with Aang well before she chose to forgive him. So she already trusted Zuko’s intentions and that Aang would be safe with him.

Finally, because this has gotten long enough already, I hope you now understand that Zuko and Katara getting together would not require ignoring any of their development with their canonical romantic partners. We’ve already established that Katara’s arc wouldn’t change in the slightest if all of Aang’s romantic advances were removed, and I haven’t even gotten into how Mai meant nothing in the grand scheme of Zuko’s development because I’m pretty sure that’s just self-evident. I mean, the video compilation put together by Nick showcasing Zuko’s journey throughout the series doesn’t include a single scene with Mai, though it does include several with Katara, and even Jin makes an appearance--because Katara, and even Jin, played key roles in Zuko’s personal journey, while his relationship with Mai happened entirely off-screen and her only real function was to showcase just how unhealthy trying to force himself back into the role of the Crown Prince was for him.

What development, exactly, is there between them to even ignore?

At any rate, I’ve gone on long enough--I hope you enjoy the fact that you activated my wordvomit trap card right when i was about to go to bed, anon, because I just spent two hours writing this instead. In case you’re interested in the TL;DR: at the end of the day, there was no meaningful, mutual development in Kataang’s romantic relationship, and those romantic feelings that did exist were largely one-sided and ultimately detrimental to Aang’s development in the final third of his overall arc. Meanwhile, Mai meant nothing to Zuko’s journey--rather like Aang’s romantic overtures, she could be removed from the show completely and nothing about his story would change--while Zuko and Katara were both vital to each other’s overall storylines, arcs and development. This, coupled with the fact that Zuko never actually traumatized Katara and, in fact, helped her achieve closure from the biggest source of her own trauma, means that Zuko and Katara have better and more believable build up that could potentially lead to a romantic relationship than either of them have with their canon romantic partners.

So no, anon, I didn’t forget anything--I think you may have, though. Perhaps a rewatch is in order? Make sure not to close your eyes for the back half of book 3 this time.

[ethernetchord]

lets talk: popular iwwv criticism

(disclaimer: i know criticism is subjective and thats why im doing this, i wanna look at some common points made against iwwv and dissect them just a little bit in the opposite direction. also none of this is directed at any individual- it’s all based on the general talking points i’ve seen surrounding the book.)

SPOILER WARNING !!

lack of exploration into james and oliver (+ gay characters feel performative)

i’ve seen loads of people say that oliver and james’ relationship felt very performative, a way of including the queer romnce which clearly is very important to the plot but not actually giving it any space in the novel, nor developing it to the same extent which meredith/oliver was.

oliver and meredith had a very strictly physical relationship and while he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with james. the juxtaposition in the way that oliver/james is delivered and the way meredith/oliver is delivered is, i believe, far too repetitive to not be intentional. i actually realised upon re-reading how much focus there really is on meredith’s sexuality, even in subtleties in the book. meredith and oliver get more blatant sex scenes, get more physical parts because oliver was (to an extent) using his attraction to meredith to distract himself from his infatuation with james.

we also have to remember that oliver and james didn’t get their real moment of honesty about their relationship till extremely late into the book. i’d honestly see it as more ‘performative’ to then after or in the middle of kind lear throwing in some wild sex scene between the two. it wouldn't have fit.

“why didn’t james and oliver get together earlier then >:(((“ because the slow burn between them, the subtext, the subtle-ness, the yearning, they were all crucial to the decision which oliver made at the end. the fact that they burned so bright for each other but (oliver particularly) were so desperately repressed, that was what made this such a tragic romance. yes its tiring to read stories about queer people being repressed, yes its tiring to see the bury your gays trope. but like oliver says, it goes beyond gender.

if oliver’s second love interest was a girl, and treated this way, we’d be a lot more on board with these tropes- but the fact that james is a man, and this therefor becomes a queer relationship, makes it feel performative. i can’t convince you of anything- but i like to believe that their relationship being treated like this not only makes it so much more “heart wrenching because why! why couldn’t it work out, why couldn’t it be better!” - not because its a queer relationship but because they were soulmates.

alexander wasn’t performative. not in the slightest, rio just didn’t make being gay his entire identity. same goes for colin. just because they’re queer doesn’t mean it needs to be the only thing about them. this isn’t a lgbt novel- characters dont have to be gay just for plot. they can just be gay.

i’ve also seen people complain about not just making oliver bisexual. guys. did you read the book? he was bisexual. he was emotionally and physically attracted to both meredith and james. guys that’s literally what bisexual means.

i'm totally on board with the coming out scenes! and realisation of feelings and all that stuff- but again, not an lgbt centric novel and also- these were things oliver probably did and realised far before this book. remember that its set in 4th year, at an art school. he knew he was fruity ok. not every queer character in every queer book have to have these grandious coming out scenes or realisations. the lack there of doesn’t equal performance.

the ending was rushed and bad

believe what you will, but i don’t think james is dead. there’s a little too much ambiguity in that ending, in the extract he leaves oliver, in the “his body was never found.” so if your main quarrel with the ending is that “bury your gays” situation- please know there’s a chance- and that giving it that chance opens up so much more discussion and reader response.

yes, the ending is sad. but it’s not rushed. “but that is how a tragedy like ours or king lears breaks your heart- by making you believe the ending might still be happy until the very last second.” doing king lear, doing macbeth, doing romeo and juliet, the plays are chosen not only for reader convenience (they’re plays readers will most likely be familiar with) but also because they all, so very deeply, foreshadow a “bad” ending. killing james, makes sense. as much as people don’t want to hear it, from an authorial perspective- from the reader’s perspective and as a human being it makes sense. why do keep arguing that he “should’ve stayed alive for oliver” or that “if he really loved oliver he wouldn’t have done it” - why are we limiting a character’s entire existence down to their love interest. yes, they were best friends, yes they were set up as lovers but that doesn’t mean that that would be enough to keep james around. james was a fragile character- he was always checking with oliver if he had upset him, he was always worried, overthinking, james wasn’t strong minded- and he was suffering. the only person he had left to depend on was in prison, he was plagued with the guilt of causing the death of a classmate and letting oliver take the blame, if he did kill himself, it sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to sound forced.

“its not nearly as good as the secret history!!!!”

to be honest here buds, why the fuck do we keep comparing them so insistently. they are not the same book. iwwv wasn’t trying to be tsh 2.0, yes there are similarities because hey! guess what! books in similar genres tend to do that! always comparing it tsh when they have different motives, different plots and vastly different execution makes no sense. the only reason that they are compared is because tumblrtm dark academics like to group the two together. and yea- makes sense, but stop trying to belittle iwwv because it isn't as grandiose as tsh, because it’s a little more literal, because it’s not as intertextual as tsh. half the people saying iwwv isn’t as good as tsh are practically just subtly going “shakespeare isn’t as complicated as ancient greek huehue” stop forcing the two together and let them be separately appreciated.

the characters were flat/archetypes/etc

sigh. okay.

these characters are actors. this book shows us their transition from themselves entirely into a conjunction of the roles they’ve played and the stereotypes they’ve portrayed.

“we were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.”

“for us, everything was a performance”

“imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. it can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

“far too many times i had asked myself whether art was imitating life or if it was the other way around”

“it’s easier now to be romeo, or macbeth, or brutus, or edmund. someone else.”

are you seeing it now? this focus on their archetypes, this focus on the character they are; the way they see themselves not merely as human but as a walking concoction of every character they have turned into and out of. they depend on their archetypes to give them meaning. rio uses these archetypes to remind us of the submersion of her characters. they weren’t flat, their intentional lack of dimension due to their pasts is what makes them so intricate. furthermore, there's an evident subversion- the tyrant becomes a victim, the hero becomes a villain (they all become villains really), the ingenue becomes corrupted. like mentioned before, i think we forget ourselves easily reading this book but there is a great deal of emphasis on this being their last year- which is so important. the damage has been done and a lot of the issues people have with the content (or lack thereof) in this book has to do with the fact that it’s all things that would have occurred in books focusing on previous years at delletcher.

“it didn't live up to expectation” (also leading on from read tsh to this and being ‘disappointed’)

i cant argue this because its entirely subjective. whatever expectation was created for you, i cannot know that and appropriately respond however- if you liked the secret history and understood the secret history then there's a good chance you also liked and understood this book- even if not to the same extent but you must be able to recognize the authorial approach and its significance. i think a lot of ppl read iwwv (and a lot of “dark academia” texts and films) and hope to be able to romanticize the aesthetic or the concepts and then are disappointed when they are presented with mildly unlikeable and overwhelmingly human characters who aren’t easy to romanticize.

a great majority of these books are criticisms of the very culture you’re trying to romanticize, and the only time you’re willing to admit that is when boasting about the ‘self-awareness’ of the people indulging in them, and then a moment later complain about those same qualities because they don’t serve this idealized expectation.

bad rep for arts/liberal arts/ humanities students as being pretentious/cultish

as a humanities student with a great love for eng lit- all of these things are indeed pretentious and cultish. not all the time and not always and not every person- but it is a common theme. academia is overwhelmingly obsessive and extremely white-washed. people become so fast to believe that they are indulging in finer arts and are therefore a higher standard of person. academia is problematic. and the recent influx of people interested in it is good, very good because hopefully, we’ll be more diverse, more open-minded, more accepting. that's what i hope at least. if you know, as an individual, that you’re not a pretentious academic who places themselves above non-academics then that's wonderful- but there are dangers and negative sides to academia that need to be understood so that we can see to not perpetuating them.

i cant refute all points, mostly because there's a lot of good and well-explained criticism because no book is perfect. and my intentions are not to belittle anyone's opinion. these are merely opposing arguments, food for thought and to be fair- a critical look into why not everything is always going to be what we expect of it and why every ‘problem’ can be assessed.

[oinkawa-bb]

first time dads!haikyuu pt.3

request: Hiii I just read everything you’ve posted and I. Am. In. Love with your writingggg! I was hope to request a part 3 for your first-time dad series for Tsukishima, Yamaguchi, Kenma, and Akaashi :) -@lollypop-lam

note: ahhhh!!!! helloo bb~~ thank you so much for your luv<3333 i was rly not expecting so many ppl to read this series!! but i enjoy writing it so here’s a part 3 for you (i tried to add more variety of scenarios for y/n so it’s not all the same!) hehe i hope you like it! thank you for ur request!<3 here is dad!tsukki, akaashi, yams, and kenma

mentions: pregnancy, domesticity, fluff, slight angst, timeskip, fem!reader

part one (daichi, kuroo, oikawa)

part two (iwaizumi, suna, atsumu, osamu)

☀︎—kei tsukishima

he already knew something was different since the day you took the test

kei could sense that you were tenser than usual 

Exhibit A was when you slightly jumped as he placed one hand gently on the small of your back,

it was really nothing out of the ordinary...

so he raises an eyebrow at you, not saying anything, but just questioning with his curious expression

you bite your lip,,,, 

this was unplanned and even though you’ve recently discussed having kids, you’re worried about how kei might feel because honestly you’re pretty anxious,

but when you break the news to him,

the corners of his mouth are upturned into a soft grin

and he quietly pulls you into a hug

you also could’ve sworn that there were tear stains that he left on your shirt after

but when ur in his arms while he’s whispering about how excited he is, you know that you’re ready to have a family with him<33

tsukki likes to express his care for you and his child through subtle affectionate gestures,,

like his favorite thing to do when he comes home from work is envelop you in a back hug,

and he likes to run his large hands gently over your bump, waiting for a kick

when he feels one, you bet your ass that this man is grinning bc he just can’t hide his excitement !!!

i feel like he’d be a super cautious dad-to-be,

like if you’re given prenatal vitamins or told not to eat certain foods,

he has scrutinized the labels and the internet to make sure everything in the house is safe for you and his bb<33

during your whole pregnancy, he’s more logical and clear-minded, but there’s a stark contrast on the day you actually go into labor owo

like i’m talking sweat beads running down the side of his forehead

and his hand clutching yours for dear life as he guides you to the hospital room

during the entire labor, tsukishima can’t be separated from you...

like when you get up to go to the bathroom and make him stand outside, he’s leaned against the door with his arms crossed

he’s acting like a bodyguard?? but like for what idk

he’s quite tense until his baby makes their appearance,

but when he does get to hold the baby, his body is wracked with silent sobs and he’s overcome with a wave of emotion

he’s silent on the outside, 

but his mind can’t even begin to process the monumental amount of love he feels for u and this little bb <333 🥺🥺🥺

dad tsukki has fallen in love all over again.

☀︎—keiji akaashi

akaashi slips into the bedroom when he hears ur sniffling,,

your back faces him, but he can tell that ur hunched over something in your hands...

when he approaches you and sees that your eyes are puffy n swollen,

his voice is filled with concern,

“what’s wrong?”

it takes a moment for you to choke out your words but you manage,

“keiji, i-i’m scared,”

then he catches sight of the white stick in your hands,

and he sees two faint lines sitting on its little screen

he takes a seat next to you, pulling your body against his and pressing a kiss to the temple of your forehead,,,

“what are you scared of when you have me?”

the two of you have a long conversation that night,, 

mostly with akaashi reassuring you that he’s prepared for whatever decision you make and that he’ll always be there to support you🥺

the next morning,

you’ve calmed down and thought clearly about this, realizing that many of your anxieties stemmed from how keiji would react,

but after realizing his willingness to support you,

you can’t help but smile and press a hand to your belly as you look in the mirror in the bathroom

and when akaashi sees this, his heart is so full and excited!!!🥺

throughout your pregnancy, akaashi is overwhelmingly supportive and emotionally reliable,,

he listens to your concerns both physically and mentally, helping you talk through your worries and find solutions,,

he’s also suuuper intimate with you,

bathing and pampering you,

staying up late to talk with you,

waking you up with kisses nd breakfast in bed,,

he’s just the most perfect partner to you. 

and every day you spend beside him reaffirms your excitement to have his child

when the day arrives, you’re beyond anxious,

he can just tell from little gestures you make that you’re more nervous than ever before,

so akaashi has one hand on you at all times during labor, so you can physically feel his support

the process couldn’t have gone more smoothly than it did, and akaashi’s so grateful 

and when he gets to hold the baby against his own chest, 

he’s smiling through the tears that are welling up bc

his eyes now lay upon the most beautiful replica of you.

fugg i luv keiji🥰🥰🥰

☀︎—tadashi yamaguchi

the day you tell yamaguchi you’re pregnant?

he’s probably crying.

no, he’s definitely crying.

he’s also definitely overexcited

so when he went in for a hug, he immediately lets go bc he’s worried that he hugged you too tightly🥺

he’s just a ball of emotions and kind of all over the place!!

but he gets it together asap and is already on dad duty the very next day

making doctor’s appointments, listing purchases to be made, planning for your baby shower, n anything he can do to be prepared

he makes many a few unnecessary purchases

something like a bougie hundred dollar memory foam pregnancy pillow for u 

and a temperature controlled collapsible baby stroller for his bb

his heart was in the right place but his money was not asdgfd

but he wants to treat you like the queen that you are,

so he’s always excited to come home to see you after work

and he likes to bring home things that will make you happy

food and baby clothes and flowers uwuwu

i also think tadashi came up with the idea to start scrapbooking the memories of your soon to be little family of three <33

so he takes cute little polaroids to keep them in a scrapbook

and he also definitely keeps a lil photo of the baby’s ultrasound in his wallet that he often takes peeks at while at work

and he can’t help but smile and tear up at the thought of starting a family w u 🥰

every morning, he just feels so blessed to wake up to the sight of you n your lil bump aka his future child ?!?!!?

and when that realization registers in his brain,

he just has to pull you close to him, plant a kiss to ur belly, and cuddle you for as long as he wants <333

the day you go into labor, yamaguchi lugs like 3 hospital bags frantically out of the house (he definitely stuffed them fully to the brim)

he’s overall pretty anxious but he’s mostly anxious about the pain you’re going thru🥺

with each hour that passes at the hospital, he’s pacing the room back and forth, always coming back to ur bedside to hold ur hand and kiss it many times

when the time finally comes, yamaguchi can’t believe that he’s actually seeing his child irl

like.... he’s in awe of the beauty of his child, just utterly speechless...

it registers a little bit later and he’s crying again

but back home, yamaguchi is always so eager to take care of his baby and he’ll do anything n everything to take care of his child and help u rest and recover

dad yamaguchi melts my heart

☀︎—kozume kenma

so u decide to plan a little surprise for kenma one morning

and he’s all groggy from just waking up, 

but he peeks his eyes open when he hears you shuffling back and forth right at his bedside,,

he sees that you’re only wearing a white oversized tee and he’s about to pull u back in bed for more sleep,

but then kenma’s eyes focus on the text that’s handwritten in sharpie in the center of the shirt over your stomach

“kenma jr.”

he’s never seen this shirt before, and then he’s realizing what it means and his eyes widen in anticipation !!!

so u crawl on top of him and lay your head on his chest while he’s processing,,

“you’re—?”

“yes, kozume. i am.”

he’s smiling with his eyes closed, 

and he lifts his head to kiss your hair before wrapping his arms around you and whispering in your ear that “he doesn’t know a kenma jr. but he can’t wait to meet them”

you swat at his chest jokingly, and he smiles even wider, 

but you don’t see the love that resonates deeply in his eyes when he looks down at you🥺 

bc you end up falling asleep on him lmaooo

but ever since that day, kenma is on high alert whether it looks like it or not...

he’s especially protective of u in public, 

observing those closest to you and gently shifting you out of the way when someone gets too close...

kenma is most affectionate though when he thinks you’re not aware,,

meaning he likes to run his hand over your stomach, admire your sleeping expression, nd gently kiss your hair

all while he thinks you’re asleep but you’re not tho and it makes ur heart explode

kenma also doesn’t struggle to sleep at night, but he ends up choosing to stay awake for as long as u are 

and he stays awake even after u fall asleep bc he likes to whisper some of the sweetest words to just kenma jr uwuwuwu

on the day when kenma accompanies you to the hospital, he’s listening intently to the patterns of your breathing,

so he knows when the pain is worst and he holds onto you tighter during those times,,

after hours of labor, kenma ends up super teary eyed at the sight of his baby,

he’s silently swaying the baby in his arms nd just thinking about how much his heart is overfilling with luv...

he knows kenma jr now... and he loves kenma jr with his whole heart<333

[isoldmysoultojonahclemence]

hello! I was wondering if u could make a summary of all the suitors' flaws n how Jonah would react to them

I would be more than happy to!

SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT

Ray: his main flaw is his willingness to trust others that are close to him. That doesn’t really sound like a flaw, but in Seth’s route, even though he knew that there was a spy, he still refused to believe that his one of his friends could’ve betrayed him. That’s super nice of him as a friend, but I feel like Jonah wouldn’t consider it as a good trait for a King.

Sirius: he has the physical inability to express his feelings properly. Like, in his own route, he barely ever said “I love you” to MC, and I feel like he’s trying really hard to fit into the “mature and stoic guy” category. Jonah kinda struggles with the same things (can’t talk about feelings + tries to be cool), but I don’t think he’d appreciate them in someone else. 

Luka: he’s unwilling to change his own perceptions. For example, in his own route, one of the big things he struggle with is feeling unimportant because ppl don’t need him. That’s not actually true, bc he’s the Jack of Spades now and an entire territory is depending on him, but he’s so stuck in his own idea of himself that he can’t even see it in another way until MC comes along. He also applies this to Jonah, and strongly believes that Jonah abandoned him when Jonah was training to become Queen. I don’t know if Jonah will understand why Luka acts likes this, but he’s always going to be sad when his beloved little brother detests him.

Fenrir: he’s way too obsessed with fights. Look, I know that his description is “a battle-crazy gun maniac” and he uses magically modified guns and he doesn’t mean any harm by liking to fight bc he’s a super active guy, it’s still kinda unsettling (also bc I can’t actually think of any other character flaws bc Fenrir is a good boi). Jonah would definitely find this behavior untasteful, especially since Fenrir also comes from a good family.

Seth: probably how manipulative he is. In his own route, his mission is to “seduce” MC into joining the Magic Tower (remind you of anyone else???), and he succeeds in making MC fall in love, like, 10 parts in. He also fell in love with MC along the way, but he lured her with his body XDD. Jonah probably disapproves of some of his methods, but he can’t complain too much because he kinda did the same thing.

Lancelot: he’s too self-sacrificing for his own good. I mean, when Amon became a threat, instead of telling everyone else about it, he chooses to shoulder the burden himself. I can understand that he’s trying to spare those that he cares about, but he should know that the others aren’t exactly weak and fragile. Jonah would be super frustrated by this (like in part 23 of his own route), and he’ll try to help his King in whatever way he can.

Edgar: his shadiness oof. Like, at first you think that he can be trusted, and then you think that he can’t, but in the end you find out you actually can. He’s like an inverted oreo: white on the outside, black on the inside, but actually still white deep down inside. Being the honest person he is, Jonah probably struggled with Edgar’s personality at first. But they’ve known each other since they were children so Jonah probably got used to it over time.

Zero: you know what? After mulling over this for ages, I can’t actually think of any of Zero’s flaws. He’s literally the goodest boi in Ikerev.  

Kyle: his insensitivity to others’ emotions. He cannot read the atmosphere most times and he’s also one of the most emotionally clumsy people in the game (afsdfdf he’s adorable). However, Jonah is the type of person who needs to be handled with care, since he’s not the most emotionally able person ever. It would’ve definitely rubbed Jonah the wrong way at first, but just like how it was with Edgar, Jonah probably got used to it over time.

Harr: his unfrienliness probably. He’s literally the nicest person once you get to know him, but the emphasis is on once you get to know him. Unfortunately, not a lot of people have that privilege, and this is even before he became the infamous Joker. He’s just naturally introverted and aloof. Actually, pre-Joker!Harr reminded me of Jonah, because they’re equally tsundere and bad with expressing their feelings. Apparently Harr and Jonah didn’t get along great tho, so maybe Jonah doesn’t like to see his own personality reflected in others.

Loki: he’s a bit too clingy and has a tiny bit of yandere-ish tendencies (though I wouldn’t consider him as a yandere). Jonah would understand the clinginess to those he cares about (he’s the cling of hearts for a reason guys), and he could probably understand Loki’s desire to hold on tightly to people that are important to him.

Blanc: he’s a jerk because he’s only giving us glimpses of his backstory without any clarification and it makes me want to tear my hair out. Jonah is gonna march up to Cybird HQ and demand a route for Blanc.

Oliver: in Ikerev TW, one of his descriptions was “毒舌” and it literally means “poisonous tongue,” which describes Oliver pretty well. I get that some people are pretty attracted by his quick wit, but generally speaking, insulting someone every other sentence isn’t exactly a good habit to have. But like, just imagine Oliver and Jonah getting into an argument. Idek who’s gonna win.

NOTE: I don't really know that much about the next three suitors (Mousse, Dean, and Dalim), so I'll have to make my best guess about their flaws. If their route comes out (goodness knows when that'll be), I'll come back and see if I've got anything wrong!

Mousse: definitely his sleepiness and tendency to fall asleep in places other than his bedroom. I totally understand the desire to sleep all day every day, but I can see why it’d be super annoying. At any rate, Jonah certainly seems to think so, since he abhors laziness and Mousse is pretty much the epitome of laziness (unless it comes down to the things that he like, and then he turns super energetic).

Dean: his cruel and unusual ways of punishment that’s referenced many times throughout the series??? I don’t know much about him tbh (sorry to all the Dean stans!!!). Jonah has never complained about it (or even mentioned Dean at all), but he must’ve been Jonah’s teacher during some point in the Ikerev universe, especially considering that Jonah and Harr were in the same grade and Dean makes an appearance in Harr’s Class Companions event route.

Dalim: probably that he’s overly-dedicated to those he’s loyal to. Dalim knows that Amon is not a good person and what he’s doing is very wrong, but he still does Amon’s bidding because he is a firm believer in Amon supremacy. However, he has tried to save Cradle on multiple occasions, so I guess that makes up for it. In fact, I think that Jonah would actually appreciate this flaw, because he’s just as dedicated to Lancelot as Dalim is to Amon, and they both tried to intervene when they believed that their King/Lord was up to something bad.

THIS FOLLOWING PART IS FROM @theboredhawk!!!

You could also say that one of Dean's more obvious flaws is that he's very blunt. While he's a smooth talker when it's convenient for him, more often than not he doesn't sugar coat his words when he's pointing out other people's flaws.He says it like it is. This might lead to Jonah being offended on more than one occasion. On the other hand, i don't think Jonah likes Dalim's debauchery. He might think that he fools around too much. He might've chastised him at some point, but gave up when he saw that he wasn't listening. Dalim is hard to tame. There were a few times when he didn't listen to Amon's orders and he also did that thing at the end of Ray's ttlg route which proved that he's not as loyal to his lord as he seems.

BONUS:

Jonah: Jonah literally stated himself that he knows how reckless and stubborn he is, but he doesn’t have any intentions of changing that. And I just. That’s actually such a strong thing to do??? He legit accepts himself as he is without trying to change anything about the way he is. Self-acceptance level 10/10.

[dracoria-azucar]

Hello and welcome to my one millionth dsmp!bedrock bros “neither of them betrayed one another or both of them did, no inbetweens” rant :)

But this time it’s about analyzing C!Tommy’s behavior during the “vengeance era” through the lens of him just coming out of an abusive relationship and struggling with his sense of self worth + mental health in general.

/rp 

Ppl who say that post-exile pre-doomsday C!Tommy had a choice to work with C!Techno, was safe + cared for, and could’ve left at any time make me so angry.

The kid just backed out of a suicide attempt and removed himself from an abusive relationship with an adult he was secluded with. As a 16 year old. With no help from ANY adults.

He went to Technos house with the intention of mooching off the guy until he was strong enough to protect himself again.

He got caught and was told that he had to leave. But ultimately was allowed to stay under the condition that they work together to get Tommy’s discs back and get “revenge” against L’Manburg.

Tommy made Techno promise that no permanent damage would be done to L’Manburg and that Tubbo would not be hurt. And Techno “agreed” to that condition!

Now I’ve seen multiple people say that if Tommy ever really believed Techno then it was his own fault for being so naive/stupid. Which is an incredibly fucked up thing to say! About a kid who just exited a seriously emotionally manipulative relationship with a caretaker figure!!

Tommy trusting Technos word about not doing those things, that he to any outsider was clearly going to be doing regardless of his “promises”, was when he was in the same mindset of being SINCERELY torn on whether or not Dream was actually his friend. His entire brain was fucking scrambled at that point. He didn’t know what the fuck to believe.

Dream was going to kill him, but Dream was his only friend, but Dream is the one who isolated him, but Dream-.

And Techno has always hated governments, but Techno promised he wouldn’t do it, but why would Techno suddenly change his mind, but Techno-.

Like??? Do you see what I’m getting at????

And then!

Tommy, on multiple occasions, attempted to verbalize his personal attachments to Techno, who is a very emotionally repressed character. Techno did care back but also repeatedly shut down and verbally refuted Tommy’s declarations regarding their bond, likely because he didn’t know how to handle the affection, but he still ended up coming across as very dismissive of Tommy’s feelings towards him.

Coupled with the thing about their agreement to work together, Techno on more than one occasion dismissed his relationship with the kid as a temporary alliance, a mutually beneficial deal, a business arrangement.

Tommy went so far as to go out to the greater SMP alone to get some “minor terrorism” done in order to prove to Techno that he could pull his own weight in regards to their deal. To make the guy proud because Tommy had shown initiative!

Then Dream dropped by, more than once, and made it explicitly clear he knew that Tommy was living there. He showed up to the house, practically unannounced, while Techno wasn’t home to rifle through the place to prove his own theory. Ended up saying that he would let the situation stay as is but that he’d be keeping an eye out and talking with Techno again to make sure Tommy didn’t break any rules.

Then when confronted by Dream after breaking the rules, Techno did offer protection as part of their deal. But he also proposed a better deal. One with Dream. Where Tommy was back at Dreams side without a fight. In exchange for that favor.

Clearly people have had their theories about whether or not Techno would’ve actually let it happen. If he somehow KNEW that Dream would turn him down. Or if he’d find some sort of loophole to keep it from actually happening or to get Tommy back just moments later. And we’ll never know! Because Dream didn’t accept that deal.

But the thing is that he could’ve. He could’ve accepted the deal and Tommy would’ve been back in the same situation he dragged HIMSELF out of, without any support, for however long that would’ve lasted. And when that reality was sinking in for the kid and he was sincerely panicking because his proclaimed ally was apparently throwing him back to his abuser, he asked what the hell Techno was doing. And Techno was nothing but condescending and dismissive about the interaction.

If Tommy didn’t want to help Techno anymore he very easily could’ve gotten kicked out. And if he was kicked out he would’ve been left with quite literally nowhere to go, with Dream supposedly right behind him to keep an eye out. He couldn’t go to L’Manburg. He couldn’t go anywhere another player had built upon. All he had was the remains of Logstedshire and a bunch of empty land for him to run though until he got too tired and eventually Dream caught up.

Realistically, that probably wouldn’t have happened. Because Techno isn’t an inherently bad person! But he also didn’t have the full context of the events that occurred at Logstedshire or Tommy and Dreams relationship.

Tommy had absolutely zero reason to feel safe with Techno. And I’m sick of people trying to paint Techno as some sort of savior to the boy. He definitely did more than some of the others probably would’ve but that doesn’t make him a saint.

The Arctic was NOT the right place for Tommy to be. Because he was working through some incredibly tough shit. And Techno was not at ALL equipped to help him handle that. To help him heal.

And that’s not entirely Technos fault! I’m sure he would’ve loved nothing more than for Tommy to feel safe and respected in that house. That’s probably why he made the terms of agreement for the Syndicate so clear about how people were ALWAYS given the choice to participate or back out depending on their comfort levels.

But it’s also not Tommy’s fault for interpreting the environment as unsafe. For feeling like Techno was an authority figure he had very little right to speak out against, even if he was uncomfortable. Because he was a suicidal abuse victim being stalked by his abuser, living in a house with a man who’d (unknowingly) reaffirmed his belief that he was a disposable asset.

[shoezuki]

Tommy's prison/revival arc isnt well written actually

Anyways ive been wanting to talk on it a while for a bit here but havent had the Time or like. The thought to. But im gonna go off now.

First off im gonna say im ASSUMING this stream and plot of tommy being in the prison with dream is written entirely by tommy and dream. Wilbur May be involved in the latest stream but im not sure.

Bringing tommy back to life after only three days of him being dead did practically nothing to progress plot, the characters, or audience's understanding. In fact i feel that it damaged Other characters' potential and plot and already established plotlines.

The 'development' aspect

A really, really easy way to see if anything has changed or developed through an arc or plotline is to straightup just compare the 'beginning' to the 'end' in terms of the barebones situation. So;

Beginning: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream, his own abuser who has hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. He's terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

End: tommy is trapped in an isolated prison cell with dream after being killed then revived by him, his own abuser whos hurt him in the past, for an unknown amount of time. Hes terrified of dream and being stuck there with him.

Okay. This is simplified obvious. But the point stands. ALTHOUGH the troupe of 'going back to the beginning' is common in the heroes journey its. It doesnt work here. Has tommy learned anything? Has he changed as a character? Is the severity of their situation any different? Have we, as the audience, learned anything new?

Im going to expand on that last point because i think it has the strongest potential argument. Technically for progression in literature and development of plot/characters, things can Change without them being Aware as characters. It can change just by the audience's perception changing or being challenge.

Slight example: i've been reading a webcomic called Your Throne. Its a fantasy/political drama about a noble lady who entered a competition with another noble lady to become the empress. The main lady lost despite her being a better fit, and the comic starts with the main lady trying to assassinate the empress. Its assumed and stated by the main lady that she 'ruined her life' and so thats all the readers know. However, later in the novel we see flashbacks to the competition itself and find that the two ladies were extremely close friends, neither wanting anything bad for the other, but it was the emperor himself who manipulated both of them for his own agenda. Those flashbacks gave us an entirely different idea of who the real antagonist is and completely changed the two main ladies' relationship. THAT is how the audience's understanding of the plot and novel can be used to change the entire story. We dont get such here though

Some things that were brought to light during tommy being dead/revived:

Dream is capable of reviving people infinitely

This was already implicated and assumed. The book dream has being a means of reviving people has been around Technically since schlatt's death. This just 'confirmed' what was known

Time works differently/feels longer in the afterlife

This doesnt really impact much beyond emotions and implications. If we had more insight into what the 'afterlife' is like beyond nothingness perhaps so. But really it just makes it so wilbur being dead for what feels like 9 years and tommy having been dead for 2 months appeal to emotions.

Wilbur is evil

This one fuckin sucks i cant lie HSKSHSISSGEGDV. Like i was gon go on bout it and i will but it jus sucks. We have nothing to go on besides tommy's word, no examlles of what Horrible things wilbur said could make tommy assume this, etcetc. Ill most likely make a seperate post on how this feels like we're just going to get 'wilbur is a horrible villain' type with him. But still. I feel wilbur Not Being Good isnt a new development.

Dream is going to revive wilbur

This doesnt feel new either, part because phil had wanted to revive wilbur before (ill get to that more later) and that tommy had kept dream alive/initially imprisoned him with the idea of him reviving wilbur.

Dream believes wilbur will break him out of prison

Okau this makes no sense to me actually. I cwnt understand How exactly wilbur would be able to do this? Or why dream believes he even Could? Mans been dead for like 9 years and all we Know of the afterlife is that its black... nothingness. How would 9 years of that make wilbur capable of busting the prison open?

So. Yeah. All in all this plotline hasnt done anything new, developed things, or altered people's perceptions. We just ended up back at square one. Back to tommy being traumatized, dream being 'evil' and horrible and doing villain monologues, and them being stuck together.

Other characters and plotlines

Im pretty damn sure tommy's revival fucked up a LOT of other characters' plotlines and potential development. Honestly i feel this has a lot to do with the writers not communicating with other ccs well enough. But Ill talk about specific characters from least to most fucked over in my opinion:

Sam

He's the best off. He hqd been there during tommy's death, had been close to tommy, had majorly blamed himself and his own mistakes for tommy's death. His grief and self hatred was actually really heartbreaking and well done. The attached character of Sam Nook being unaware of tommy's death and simply waiting for tommy to return was a really good parallel to sam's own grief and anger. like it really snapped sam the guy who cares for tommy and wants to do Right by him back together with him as the Warden of the prison. Mixed personal life with 'just business'.

I feel it wouldve been nice to have him like. Have more time to grieve properly and come to terms eith tommy's death and his own involvement/influence over the events. Him finding tommy alive again Could be a means of him like. Facing his own grief head on if done well.

Ranboo

Mostly in the context of him and sam's argument do i feel it got screwed over. The weight of them yelling at each other and trying to find who to blame and the implications that Maybe ranboo was the one who caused the security breach that closed down the prison on tommy just.... doesnt hit so hard anymore. Because how can there be blame and arguments and a 'who done it' mystery when tommy popped up all fine again?

Puffy

I dony know much of her involvement or how she found out tommy died (besides metagaming shhhhh) but i saw her monologuing of how they 'failed' tommy and like. Her whole 'he was so young we the Adults failed him' spiel is like........... inconsequential? Now??? Like no dont worry he died but hes alright now.

Philza

BET YOU DIDNY EXPECT TO SEE THIS FUCKER!!!!!! But actually though i want to talk bout how this ties into phil. A LOT. for Zalbr ❤. But also because i see ppl tying phil to tommy's death n like nah shutup u doin it wrong. Ill go off more in a Wilbur Post. But essentially: i dont like that dream is now going to revive wilbur. I feel they arent going to tie philza into this Despite phil having originally been trying to revive his son and studying on it and Attempting and Failing. But now suddenly dream can just. Say some magic words and Poof wilbur lives? So we're just going to Kill philza's revival attempts plotline and leave that hanging? This made his efforts seem pointless and Wack like oh why didnt you just Say The Magic Words phil????

Niki

I feel really bad for niki. She hasnt been able to do a lore stream during tommy's 'death' (she tweeted she wanted to but her computer wasnt working) and considering her entire character.... that shit is important. We seen it with Jack Manifold how tommy's death impacted Him considering he literally wanted tommy dead. And since niki is in a similar boat to jack of trying to kill tommy and it being her Only goal...... thats extremely important.

BUT. i feel there wasnt any communication. Did she or anyone even know tommy would be revived? Did no one consider they could At Least let her do a single stream on it? Like jack manifold????

We couldve gotten a Really good niki lore stream. I genuinely was so excited for it and i dont regularly watch her. But we seen it with jack manifold which is why i dont feel he got screwed because mans genuinely did So Good he could pop off with anything n i think it works in His favour. But now........ for niki. Canonically she never even knew tommy was Dead. So its like nothing even happened for her. Is she just supposed to continue on trying to kill tommy with no progression?

What i think would work

This is more me being like 'hey @ the dsmp writers let me in' type speculation sbosegussgs. But i was thinkin on a Really easy way to 'fix' this without rewriting lore and the streams.

Dream should kill tommy again now that he's been revived and Leave Him Dead.

More development for the characters who are affected by his death Especially niki. More time for grief and self reflection and development

A chance for the audience to figure out what the 'afterlife' really is.

Dream is supposed to be smart and a master manipulator or something right? Why doesnt he use being able to revive tommy as a bargaining chip with sam for his own freedom?

The audience would now Know dream's intentions with tommy better, that this death isnt 'final', but we could still see other characters' grief and reactions and coping without it feeling cheap. Ive seen some 'but people dont know tommy is alive so hes still dead in their mind' but that sucks imo.

We'd know more on dream's ability to revive people and that he can just Do It on a whim (which i think sucks but hey im trying) but no one else would know this canonically

Okay. Im done. If you read this. Thankyou. I love you. Hmu.

[zenosanalytic]

Growing Up is Hard; It’s Hard and Nobody Understands

So I noticed netflix has Neon Genesis Evangelion up last week and started watching it front to back for the first time ever(this happens to have coincided with me being in a down-mood for your edification, dear readers u_u), finished it today, REALLY liked it, and I wanted to try my hand at explaining what the hell is even going on in NGE cuz it actl seemed super-clear to me(a person who has been consuming NGE analysis and post-NGE media for literally 25 years) u_u

Surface Plot; Or NERV: What the Hell Is It?

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible: An organization of super-wealthy individuals calling itself Seele(looking this up, it means soul in german) wants to possess the power of God. The final third or so of the series is clear on this; it’s all about power. Ikari Yui, a geneticist, is recruited by this organization, and her husband Gendo(having taken her name which says a LOT given typical Japanese practice) comes with her. In seeking out this power, they discover a hollow sphere underneath Antarctica(”The White Moon”), send an expedition there under the guise of the UN, encounter an entity with this power which they label an “Angel”, and do SOMETHING which prompts it to explode the continent flooding the earth and killing half the population(that Gendo left beforehand implies this may have been intentional, or that a bad outcome to Seele’s approach was easy to predict, tho in typical Gendo fashion, his is the only ass he cared to save).

Afterwards Seele blame the scientists for this outcome and send Gendo on a salvage mission which recovers both remains of the Angel, now dubbed “Adam”, and a device they dub “the spear of Longinus”. Seele creates Gehirn to study these remains for practical use; they clone “Adam” and dub the result Evas(Eves). Having cloned them, they now need a way to use and control them as the Evas are non-responsive. They hit on the idea of injecting people into them via the Entry Plug system, presumably to act as a brain. The first person to try this, Ikari Yui, was absorbed by the Eva(Unit 01); the second(Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin; Asuka’s mother) was partially psychologically absorbed by Unit 02, psychologically and mentally injured by this, institutionalized, abandoned by her shit USian husband Langley who remarried to her LEAD DOCTOR, and eventual kills herself in a hanging which Asuka either is the first to discover or, given her memories of promising to die with her/begging her not to do it, was present for. An important thing to note about this: Shinji and Asuka’s ability to sync with their Evas comes from the fact that their mothers are PART of their Eva’s identity, and all of their classmates are potential pilot-candidates. The implication here is that Seele KNEW this happened when you put adults into an Angel, and they KEPT DOING IT ANYWAY to create more pilots, but there’s no confirmation of that in series.

After the attempt at human adult control fails, Gendo combines Yui’s DNA with Adam’s and creates Rei. At the same time he is doing this another team, under Akagi Naoko, is developing Magi, a biomechanical computer for simulating the human mind(again: certain implication to this re: Evas though the series never says anything). Naoko is romantically interested in Gendo, and they start getting together(Gendo’s too much of an asshole to be said to date, I think). After Rei, a toddler, tells her Gendo calls her an “old woman” in private, not realizing this is insulting, Naoko kills her, then kills herself out of shame over having MURDERED A CHILD, and Gehirn is folded into a new organization, NERV, which Gendo is put in charge of. Rei forms the basis of the second attempt at controlling the Evas; child-pilots.

How they use Rei for this I’m not exactly sure. It could be because Rei is cloned from Yui(she easily syncs with Unit 01 before Shinji bonds with it completely), or because she’s part Angel via her Adam element(Kaworu says Angels merge with one another easily and naturally), or it could be they did something with Rei I’s corpse and Unit 00(I dont see how as it seems to require a LIVE pilot). Regardless, she is raised to be the pilot for 00, the prototype. MUCH later, when the rest of the Angels finally decide to come looking for Adam, Shinji is called in, and after his success Asuka(who like Rei and unlike Shinji has been training to pilot her whole life) is called to Nerv headquarters(under Japan, in the “Black Moon”; a second spherical hollow where they found another Angel they call Lilith) too.

Regardless the child-pilots are only a step in Nerv and Seele’s plans, as Rei is ALSO the template for the Dummy Plug system, the final step in complete control of Eva units. To put it simply, the Dummy Plugs are Rei-clones without her personality or memories, and will just do whatever the heck they’re ordered to. At least once during the series(and I’d argue two, possibly three times) Rei dies and is replaced by one of these clones through some process, which involves what looks like a pre 00 Eva’s spine and probably a Magi-like backup, which transfers her personality and memories into the new body.

So what is Nerv? Well it’s hard to say EXACTLY because Gendo is in some sort of conflict with Seele(and I want to keep my watches of End of Evangelion out of this post; to focus entirely on JUST NGE itself) and Nerv IS Gendo, but as the series states repeatedly it’s an attempt to control the future of humanity by controlling what they call “the power of god” which, given that it’s what most distinguishes the “Angels”, is the AT, or “Absolute Terror”, Field. What is the AT Field? It’s a field that can make or unmake any kind of matter or energy from basically nothing, and it also seems to have a strong tie to what you could call the Ego; to desires and sense-of-self. An AT Field gets stronger when the person generating it is experiencing powerful emotions; Confidence, sure, but also Fear, Abandonment, the Will to Live, and Anger.

That last bit is very important. Why? Strong AT Field effects require a powerful emotional motivation in the pilot combined with high sync-rates with the Eva(basically a lobotomized Angel-clone) generating the Field. The three pilots we meet, the Strongest candidates, are all exceedingly traumatized people, and Gendo is the direct cause of the trauma of two of them. At no point in the series is Gendo ever a good father to Shinji, he is CONSTANTLY unreasonable, neglectful, and cruel to him; he’s kinder to Rei but at the same time her loneliness, the state of her “home”, and her lack of self worth shows that he rarely interacts with her outside of missions or explains what’s going on beyond bald facts; and he COMPLETELY ignores Asuka, a deeply lonely child with a history of abandonment and close brushes with death; he even delegates bumping her from the program. This point is important because it’s important to recognize that Gendo is a bad dad on PURPOSE; that he instrumentalizes his bad dadness to traumatize Shinji(and Rei and Asuka, though sadly the series doesn’t focus on them enough for us to see much) as much as he can, because he thinks that trauma, that emotional instability and anger, MAKES SHINJI A MORE USEFUL PILOT; ie lets him generate more powerful AT Fields. This is never said clearly, but it’s clearly what’s going on as forcing Unit 01(and thus Shinji) into awful, heartbreaking, life-threatening situations is vital to his plan. Gendo’s a piece of shit, and I want ppl to recognize just HOW BIG a piece of shit he is, because I feel this powerfully.

And for what? For Power. To be “God”. To get the highest numbers. To generate the MOST Invincible Invincibility Shield. For Ridiculous, Absurd, Childish reasons. For, you know, the same reasons rich and powerful people do all the fucked up shit they do in the real world where giant magic robots thankfully DONT exist.

And how do they plan to do this? Through “Human Instrumentation”, which will literally kill everyone by turning them all into goo.

Metaplot; Or “SHINJI! Don’t Get in that Robot!!”

So, maybe this is just because(as said previously) I’ve been reading NGE Analysis and consuming media which NGE heavily inspired for ~25 years, but I think it’s old hat at this point to note that Neon Genesis Evangelion is ALSO an allegory for becoming an adult, centered on Shinji. However, it’s just really SO on the nose in this, so PERFECT as such a narrative, that I want to run through it real quick. Also: A Cruel Angel’s Thesis is basically a thesis-statement for this series; please check out the lyrics.

So Shinji is living under the guardianship of a teacher(yup: this series even takes a swing at how our society uses schools to warehouse kids so their parents can waste their lives producing “Value” instead of raising them), when the shitty dad that abandoned him decides he has a use for him after all and calls him up.

On meeting with a child he has not seen SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM ON THE STREET WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED he immediately ambushes him with the command that he get in a huge body(that he grow up) to do what? Whatever Gendo tells him to, but specifically: commit acts of violence for Gendo and Seele’s profit. He tells him this will protect people; meanwhile doing it destroys those peoples’ literal homes. The rest of the series is a series of monotonous, incomprehensible “Tests” judging his, and his peers, worthiness for approval and affection on the basis of how well they can use those giant bodies to do what Gendo tells them(so: capitalist work), punctuated by unpredictable, brutal, traumatizing, and physically dangerous events(so: capitalist work). Every friend, and the one lover, he meets, he is placed in unnecessary, destructive competition with and, when they are male, forced to attack and(in the case of the one lover, Kaworu) kill them; this last comment on homophobia is so stark and obvs I don’t even feel like you can CALL it subtext, even IF it plays out over mostly a single episode(honestly this plotline should have been given more time). And all the time they’re doing this, they must ALSO continue going to school and maintaining the front that they’re happy smiley Heroes, completely normal and not traumatized at all, and Nerv and the government that lets them run this city is a great and wonderful organization. Is this not what becoming an adult, over your teens and 20s, feels like?

And then there’s Seele and Nerv. Able to move state governments as they wish, Seele CAUSED Second Impact(Global Warming). By not returning Adam’s remains, they’re CAUSING the Angel attacks on Nerv meant to retrieve them(the threat of Human extinction). The Angels eventually begin trying to communicate and Nerv’s response? Destroy them before they can; blow up the Evas(and their pilots) if they succeed. And to top it all off Seele and Nerv are actually trying to CAUSE the very extinction(Third Impact) they claim to be preventing! Seele and Nerv are just SUCH good metaphors for capitalism in our modern day.

The transwoman reading of Shinji also seems pretty dang strong to me, though I’ll only deal with it shallowly. Shinji is the only “male” of all the pilots. Outside of command and security, most Nerv staff are women. Being an Eva pilot, being Nerv staff, is marked as “feminine”, and Shinji is an Eva pilot; is a Nerv staffer. The body he gets into, Unit 01, acts as a metaphor for the large, imposing, masculine body he’s expected to have as an adult “man”, yet it’s also spiritually his mom -feminine- and his ability to use it is tied DIRECTLY with his ability to “Sync” with that spirit; with his ease and comfort being feminine. Even at the level of mere aesthetics, Shinji’s plugsuit makes him appear to have breasts! Going a bit deeper, he initially relates to the women around him by relating to their gender. He’s most at ease with Rei because of the personality traits she shares with him which, we know from his gender-policing of Misato from earlier in the series, are traits he considers feminine(ie: he doesn’t feel like Misato has them, so he thinks she’s being a woman “wrong” and gets oddly offended by this in a way that really feels more about him than her). Asuka is constantly expressing her frustration with him for not “being a man”, ie, for being “feminine” in her eyes, and he isn’t really bothered by it(her calling him an idiot seems to stick much more firmly). Misato and Shinji establish a modus vevendi when she accepts him as he is, allowing him to do the household chores and to cook; he’s comfortable and happy when accepted into roles his culture considers feminine, while most of the series is him bucking AGAINST the masculinity forced on him by Nerv, his father, and others. Again: this is a very surface-level engagement with the subject, but even at that shallow level I feel like the case for reading Shinji as a transwoman is pretty solid.

Dislikes

It’s not a perfect series by any means of course.

There’s allot of dialogue that’s pure 90s nonsense, though the series mostly includes it only to shoot it down.

Like I said above, I don’t think Rei and Asuka really get the time or attention they deserve. In general the series treatment of women is ...Weird... especially around the issue of sex. It’s really strange; in many ways it’s far better than most anime(spcl from that period) on this. Women are ACTUAL PEOPLE with psychology, opinions, and pasts; they’re allowed to have emotions of their own, and struggles, and to be damn competent; they are independent and their own selves rather than accessories or “prizes” to men. But on the issue of feminine sexuality it just gets suddenly so weird in this very particular old-school misogynist way. Like: it treats women’s attraction and reactions TO relationships as something devoid of and impenetrable to reason, without belittling the emotions(the desire and hurt) behind those reactions. That’s the only way I can describe it, and it’s so strange to see something that is both so insulting and sympathetic at once. Oh, and the Akagis in particular are done super-dirty for seemingly no reason I can see, tho I can guess, and Akagi Ritsuki is CLEARLY a lesbian(possibly bi lesbian) and also Rose Lalonde(srsl; her Deal should have been an unrequited, unspoken crush on Misato. They openly dealt with queerness re: Kaworu and Shinji they could have done it here too).

The Kaworu storyline should have been a series of episodes or even developed from the start with him as another pilot(maybe replace Toji with him), though they’d have to tone down his weirdness, at least at the start. A deeper dive on Shinji’s sexuality(honestly his attraction to Kaworu is SO much more immediate and believable than anything we see with him and Asuka, which there is basically nothing of beyond the ep where they had to do choreography for a fight, and that’s not developed on) would have really been appreciated, and having Kaworu be a bigger part of the series would have facilitated that.

Also honestly the whole series feels a bit rushed? Spcl the second half. Like I said: I haven’t done any followup reading lately, but I remember there being some budget problems or something, so maybe that’s the cause. Ironically it might actl also be why it’s as GOOD as it is; having to keep it short forces you to write concise and lean, and that’s probably why its themes and message are so clear. But, I’d have liked more rambling for character development, and more time spent on seeing Rei and Asuka react to the stresses we saw Shinji face(also they never really get moments to shine like he does; another negative common to the medium and genre). Asuka in particular, as a Japanese German with a USian temperament abandoned by her parents, already an outsider in SO many ways, coming to live in an entirely different culture where she’s even MORE of an outsider; forced to live with people(Misato and Shinji) she finds it impossible to relate to or connect with; who has literally NO ONE beside a single adult guardian who totally blows her off THE WHOLE SERIES after delivering her; PLUS her awful past: there’s just SO MUCH material I’d have loved to see explored more slowly and with greater depth, detail, and sympathy even if what IS there already is pretty powerful and effecting. She’s SUCH a good Vriska(so I’d also have loved to see her break more shit too >:>)

Conclusion

So Anyway: I really liked this series. It had its problems, there are things I’d have liked to see, but it absolutely deserves the reputation it has. I might write more about this, I might do a watch through INCLUDING End of Evangelion(which actl makes much more sense having watched the series, though having done so makes Shinji’s masturbation scene comPLETELY out of left-field like where the hell did THAT come from); we’ll see.

[nitroish]

red, blue and green can see the minish, while vio can't. if co-fronting with one of the others, he can, but if they shrink as a whole, he'll be kept from the front/consciousness [basically he'll just pass out], and he can't when he's the main one fronting. he doesn't know if he couldn't from the moment they drew the sword and split, or if he lost the ability somewhere along the way, but whatever it was he can't see them now. it makes him sad, yeah, but at least he can see them sometimes, with the others. green knows his time is limited, he knows he won't stay a child forever, he knows someday something's going to push that innocence over the edge and not even the magical connection they have with the minish will be able to stop it, and he'll look to the grass and an entire world will be lost to him, and that thought terrifies him. it hasn't really donned on blue. he doesn't consider himself to be childish or innocent anyway, if he was gonna lose the ability he would've already. maybe he's just special, and he'll just continue to have the ability for life! they are heroes to the minish, after all! it'd make sense! he teases vio about not being able to see them sometimes. it doesnt seem to bother him too much- for the most part. red is...purposefully ignoring that thought. for now he's going to just enjoy whatever time he has! no use fretting over something that hasn't happened yet! they've got plenty of time, and blue's right, they are kinda special after all! worrying about something that might not even happen won't do any good!

anonymous asked: oh a note i felt was necessary to add to one of my previous asks [the one about the minish] because i thought of this and it was bothering me, i realize that "he teases vio about not being able to see them sometimes. it doesnt seem to bother him too much- for the most part." could come off as blue being an asshole and purposefully making fun of stuff people are sensitive about, and that's not really what i was going for. it's more meant to be "blue tends to make fun of people as a way of joking around, but isn't aiming to upset anyone genuinely and will try to avoid doing so if he thinks it'll hurt anyone [though he sometimes doesn't realize something will be hurtful until it's too late, and when that happens, has a habit of being defensive rather than apologetic because it's sort of human instinct to make ourselves look good, and he tends to deflect anger outwards to avoid feeling guilty]", if that makes sense. he's not trying to make jokes at other people's expense.

hope u dont mind i put these two together like this!! im gonna answer under a readmore so it doesnt take up a ton of room and i dont annoy ppl KJFGJHFD

I TOTALLY GOT WHAT U MEANT THO i understand blue isnt rly Just A Fucking Dick kind of character! i totally get what u mean. op all these thoughts make me so so fuckin happy i . love these. i love four swords so fucking much.

im glad vio still gets to see the minish sometimes when hes co-con !! at least he has that, thts nice? "hes sad but at least he can see them when the others are fronting" Exactly is my thought on it sjghfdg hed just be kinda glad he was able to see them sometimes at all? its better than never kinda thing, ykno??

blue is straight up vibin and sometimes to take a hit you need to joke a bit ohh that rhymed KJFSHGKJDHFG. green has so many thoughts about everything i hope he takes a break soon jdsghdkjfhgd hes so busy in his head and i love him for it but i can hear the gears turning.

god i love blue. i 100% get blue and hes really valid and youre RIGHT. blue is just? hes not a straight up dick and people that depict him as such are ~ wrong ~. thats not what hes trying to go for? when hes talking and joking to people some of his jokes just land wrong/hit too hard or close to home but it isnt like he. purposely did it knowing it would hurt op. he doesnt plan on the other persons downfall when he says shit. and u r so right?? defensiveness comes from the fact its hard to just accept that it was hurtful when he had good intentions and meant for it to be a joke? "it was just a joke" but its genuine and not "i knew what i was saying was gonna hurt u and im gonna say it was just a joke to fuck w u"? KJFHGKJHFD IDK IF THAT MADE SENSE BUT I HOPE SO. he did not mean to and <3 guilt is a gross emotion (is angry instead)

the colours my beloveds. i fucking love them. four swords is one of my favourites,,,,